I guess the question is essentially in the subject line. I’m trying to take some video and simply mute the audio during specific portions of it. Google searches aren’t helping me, as they seem to be referring to a more sophisticated version of Windows Movie Maker than I have (people are referring to options I don’t have on my screen – are there free and pay versions?). I don’t seem to have any options other than adjusting the volume for the entire video.
My version is Movie Maker 2012 (Build 16.4.3505.0912), if that’s helpful. Please lead me away from the path of interminable ignorance.
Those options don’t appear to have an actual audio level edit among them - you can set the overall volume for a “music item” (which I assume is a single audio file drop-in), and tell it to fade in or fade out, which is at beginnings and ends. Having a line or graphic level control is a fairly sophisticated addition to low-end video tools.
Split the clip into multiple segments. Fade to mute in the first, have the second muted for the entire time, fade up to sound in the last. That’s the easiest way to accomplish it and it looks and sounds seamless on playback.
I appreciate the responses. The parties in charge behind this particular project are now willing to spend some money in order to make this as quick and easy a process as possible. The video itself is a roughly 440MB .avi and contains a little more than an hour of continuous footage.
Does anyone have a recommendation for a better editing program that can handle this task at least somewhat more easily that would cost under $250?
If it’s a simple video like continuous footage or the “final edit”, I’d…
load the video up in avidemux and then rip the entire audio track
Open the audio track in Audacity and then edit it there based on the timestamps.
Import the video back into avidemux and then re-encode the video.
All those programs are free and it’d take about 2 minutes to do this using them. It’s pretty easy to explain how to do each step, but it’s pretty straightforward.
If you want to spend the money though, Sony Vegas Movie Studio can do it easily.
Premiere Elements runs about $100 and will do pretty much anything the average video maker needs.
You might even be able to download a trial copy, or a trial of Premiere itself, and do the simple task you’re attempting.
If not, PE is probably the best value investment you can make in this range. There are simpler, there are cheaper, but PE is a real tool with a real feature set.
I agree. I do it as well. Splitting the video doesn’t create real noticeable splits in the playback, it just lets you work on segments instead of the whole thing.
Telemark has it. Split, fade out, mute, fade in. Movie Maker isn’t an extremely sophisticated program but it can handle a lot more than many people give it credit for.
I realize I’m viewing this from a professional level, but I don’t regard an app as sophisticated if, say, the technique for bolding just one paragraph is to split the document into sections and apply formatting to each individually, then reassemble.
If it works, especially in what seems to be a one-off case on a small budget, power to the solution. But in terms of “sophistication” it’s on the scissors-and-tape level.
My writing career goes back to the typewriter era in which I did indeed cut apart pages and tape them together for editing. I’ve learned to appreciate really good tools.
It takes all of 30 seconds, and in principle it’s not doing anything different than what the sophisticated program is doing, just doing it using different means. This is digital data - whether you split it into different segments and adjust the volume for those segments or you use a tool that allows you to adjust the volume over the whole range of clip; when you write out the final product you get the exact same bits.
There’s no problem using a more expensive and sophisticated tool, but this job doesn’t require it nor will the final product benefit from it.
As I said, if this use of a good, basic and free tool does the job - power to it and the OP.
OTOH, I often adjust volume throughout a short production, and the difference between doing it with one setting on each subclip and being able to actually adjust levels moment by moment is vast. For one thing, you rarely want to go to absolute silence/mute, but replace it with the faint ambience of silent periods in the audio, and gradually fade that “silence” up and down into and out of active audio.
If the OP only wants to “smash out” certain sequences of audio, fine, but the cut-and-adjust method is going to result in that variation of sound from dead silence to hiss to audio to hiss to dead again that many viewers will find kind of irritating.
If it’s a simple project with low audience demand, the segment-and-adjust method is fine. It’s free. It’s a bit of work but saves any need to spend money or time learning a different tool.
If the audience is going to be more critical - if the production is in any way trying to “sell” something, even an organization’s point of view or achievements - a raggedy audio track is going to work against it. A more sophisticated tool to smooth the video work and generate very smooth, clean audio would be a good investment - is it worth $100? No? Okay.
(Does “Hub of the Sports World” translate to Bristol? Then you should know what I mean here.)
Sorry Amateur Barbarian, I confused you with the OP.
Here’s what was in the request
Based on that, I see no reason to go any more sophisticated than with the tools he has on hand. They could spend money on a new program that will make it slightly easier, and save themselves perhaps 5 minutes of work, but I really don’t see the need in this case. If they have more complex needs and demanding audience, then of course it makes sense to invest in the right tools for the job. It just doesn’t seem that makes sense here.
The OP hasn’t really described the project or its purpose, only that it’s something group-related, they’re trying to do it as cheaply as possible, and that it’s essential to adjust the volume in a segment by segment manner. Maybe it’s a very low-bar project and simply smash-muting segments will work fine.
However, this is the kind of client I’ve dealt with for years, and many times if not some great majority, “We just need to [do some simple thing]” really has hidden ramifications. I sense a need for a group to do a video that has some importance to their mission, and I’m pointing out a subtle aspect of the “simple” solution that might work against their goals.
But the OP should have enough input to make a choice based on whatever the actual demands are.
Asimovian, PM me if the project is important enough to need a little help.
I’m not trying to be unnecessarily mysterious about it. We aren’t trying to sell anything. It’s for a focus group. We’re making a presentation to a number of people to get their feedback on the video, which is basically an hour-long interview of an individual.
The interview is real and involves discussion of real people. For the focus group, we want them to hear the description of events in the interview, but we want to eliminate any references to the names and addresses of people and events. There are quite a few such references strewn throughout the video. I need to have this done by Friday afternoon at the latest, and I have a lot of unrelated work and a holiday in between now and then. I plan to start work this afternoon.
So I was hoping there would be a product that would simply let me highlight a portion of the video and click a “mute” button (or some equivalent) for the portions where a name or address or something else irrelevant is being discussed by the parties in the interview.
In WMM you make a split at either end of the segment you want to mute, then just click mute for that segment. Once you do it once or twice it’ll go very quickly.
