video editing

Hi guys, I'm in a bit of a panic and need some advice. We had a World Environment Day special yesterday with work and some video was taken. I, being the IT bod, was nominated to edit the video down to a 5 minute clip showing the highlights. To which I duly said yes. Once I get the video off the device it is in MP4 format.
Now the advice...
What can I use that's free/cheap to edit the files.
Oh and I have till Wednesday to complete it.
Any ideas?
Thanks,
Steve

Windows movie maker... Free, it's crudeness is an advantage if you need to get to grips with it fast, should already be on your PC if you're on XP. Save your project often as it's a bit crashy

unless you got access to a mac... in which case you'd wanna try iMovie's trailer feature....
or even Aperture if you got it can lay out a slideshow using stills and movies off your d-slr and export it as a movie....

Windows Movie Maker is OK but very limiting in that you only get 1 stereo pair of audio tracks so lots of nasty jump cuts in the sound. Download the fully functional trial of Sony Vegas.Steep learning curve before Wednedsay I fear.

Absolutely. Transitions are fun Camtasia's Studio also works, but it's kind of crappy. Transitions are the problem.

If you have questions, ask.

Bret

I would say Movie Maker would probably be enough for a simple collection of clips with maybe a soundtrack. You can create dissolves by pushing the clips together on the timeline. Or fade to black between clips.

I use Corel Video Studio now which is more flexible, but a bit more complicated to use than ultra-simple WMM.

Another problem with MM is that you cant delete a shot and leave the space, it automatically joins the shots either side making it impossible to accurately cut a sequence to music - a recipe for going well and truly out of sync.

If you are editing a video where key moments in the video are synced to the music, yes, the sync will be lost. You just have to drag a clip to the same point on the timeline and trim it to the same length! This is probably acceptable for a quick work project where cutting to the sourndtrack is possibly unnecessary anyway. [Edited to remove waffle]...