Video conversion question .MOV to ?

[Trev]

My mate recently had a flight in a Spitfire (am I jealous? Not at all; much). The videos of his flight are in .MOV format that won't play on his Panasonic TXL4 2056B TV.
Please recommend a free video editor that will run on W10 that will convert the files. Not sure of the format required at the mo though.
Don't want bells and whistles, just the possibility of easily inter-splicing two videos (one looking forward and one aft). Videos are silent, which solves the problem of sound synch.
One off job so I don't want anything with a steep learning curve or really fancy editing, just 'point, click, save-as' would be ideal.

 

[Black Hole]

I suggest .mp4 as your go-to format of choice. What's wrong with Windows Live Movie Maker (for simple jobs, anyway)?

 

[Trev]

Thanks for your input BH.
I don't know....

What's wrong with Windows Live Movie Maker

I have never done any movie editing. What is WLMM anyway?
I feel a Google coming on. But results for video conversion are 'too many choices and not enough knowledge'

Google offers this.
Editors' Note: Windows Essentials 2012 suite (and Windows Live Movie Maker) reached end of support on January 10, 2017. It is no longer available for download. Download.com offers no downloadable file and presents data for informational purposes only.

 

[Black Hole]

Well, WLMM was a reasonably simple editor... but the fact is that any first venture into video editing has a learning curve, and you will have to put a little effort into figuring out what to do.

If all you want to do is tack two videos together, you could try the simple approach of (on the command line) COPY /B VIDEO1.MOV+VIDEO2.MOV OUTPUT.MOV and see if the result is what you want.

If your broadband is fast enough (and you have enough headroom on your cap), conversion can be done on-line. Alternatively, VLC can transcode. It wouldn't surprise me to find an on-line video editor as well!

I see that my personal preference, Serif Movie Plus, has now been dropped from their product line. That is a good reason for me to start looking at the open-source ShotCut (and I suggest you go that way too). On the other hand, if you like, I can dig out a free giveaway version of Movie Plus (it will still work and do what you want).

Using a video editor in a simple way isn't too bad, and the better packages use "proxy" files (low-res versions of the full data) for the user interface to manipulate so that a ZEN-like computer system is not needed for reasonable speed of response. The time is then invested when committing the output, which is a "set it off and go do something else" type job.

The work-flow is: import your files to the media palette, drag the items onto the video timeline in their required places (they should snap into place for contiguity, but if not zoom in to the splice and drag things to the right place - overlaps create a video merge, and there are usually tools to turn that into a cross-fade), then output to file (selecting the desired encoding options - container file, codecs, compression ratio, video format). Simples for a man of your calibre.

 

[Trev]

Thanks BH. I have VLC but didn't realise it could do editing as well as displaying. I'll have a looksee later

 

[Black Hole]

It doesn't edit, but it will transcode.

 

[M1CGP]

try Super its free i been using it for years.
does MOV to AVI,MP4,MP2,divx,3GP, AVI, DV, GXF, MKV, MP4, MOV, MXF, OGG, RM(VB), TS, M2TS, AAC, AC3, AMR, MP2, MP3, TTA
ok a lot,

try it
David
PS i have no affiliation to erightsoft.com it is what i use.

 

[Ezra Pound]

Handbreak is also free and converts *.MOV to *.MP4, link HERE