I am fairly new to video editing and this site. I was wondering what everyone was using to edit their videos to upload to this site. I tried windows movie maker that is on my system and it won't even startup. I also downloaded windows media encoder twice and it just crashes. I did find a basic program called " Prism " to change my avi file to wmv so I could upload it to this site. So please reply back to give me some ideas of what software I should be looking for. I am not a professional, just someone who wants to film some of my hunts and especially since my 4 year old twins are wanting to come out with dad as well.

Thanks in advance

If you can't get Windows movie maker working and media encoder you have some system problems that need fixing. If these don't work you probably won't get some of the other software working either. You may have to increase your ram size, processor speed, clean up your registries or get rid of some programs.

As for programs look at Ulead, Pinnacle, Sony Vegas, Adobe, Roxio, etc. These are some of the more common ones and some of the higher end softwares. Do a search on yahoo or other search and see what you find.

Hopefully you're still around, I see that you posted this back in March, but thought I'd post anyways.

Very solid advice. All computers are NOT created equal. Processing video in this manner is one of the most difficult tasks you can ask a computer to do so be sure you have a system that is up to it.

Get lots of RAM. You want Minimum 1GB of RAM just to run WinXP efficiently. For video editing you want at least 2GB! Memory is still very cheap, and this is a great performance booster. While you can run with less, you will have a much more stable & better running system with more memory. Also, with the new chipsets, the new faster RAM is one of the biggest contributors to improved performance. By running less then 1GB on a new computer system, you are actually throttling down your overall system's performance.

Multiple Layers of Vdeo, Animation and Special FX need even more RAM.
If you plan on adding a lot, get at least 2GB , you won't regret it. If you plan on using a 3D effects plug-in or compositing your video with multiple layers, you'll find your system runs smoother and faster w/ 2 GBs of RAM!

Graphic cards
For good results get a dual head graphics card with an ATI or NVIDIA based chipset and at least 128 megs of RAM.
nVidia Quadro & GeForce based cards
ATI Radeon 1900 / 1950

Get the biggest system drive you can afford.
If the system comes with a 160GB drive, get it. You will use up the space. A big system drive is great for storing lower resolution/multimedia quality video clips.The last thing you want to do is have to open up a DTV system that's performing great just to add more storage for software.

Get a multi-format DVD burner!!
DVD Burners are now very affordable. They are great for backing up large files. If you plan on copying and ripping, get both a DVD Burner and a DVD-ROM drive.

Multimedia peripherals
Recommend a step up audio system. While most of our cards come with audio capture built on, most digital videographers eventually find themselves doing some soundtrack manipulation and basic audio editing. Having a step up sound card will let you do a better job and as an added bonus, many of these cards come with some kind of audio recording utility and even basic audio mixing/editing tools. If you plan on making DVDs, you'll want a sound card and speakers for surround sound. That way you can listen to your video and DVD in full audio quality while you work.

I use final cut pro. I like it very much.