Finally figured out how to save Avidemux

After messing with the application for a while, I finally realize how save my editing project with avidemux, and it's actually pretty easy.  In fact, avidemux supports 3 different kinds of projects, and they seemed to created the same effect.   All you need to do is RUN the correponding project file you saved, and you will see all your setting, editing and such showing up.  I was struggled because I keep trying the OPEN project file(s) and that didn't work and kept giving me some "demux" not exist error.  So now your know it: select RUN project from menu, then select the project file, and then you go from there.

Great video editing software that doesn't cost a dime

I haven't been video editing for a while, but recently I found myself looking for a good solution to edit some 1080p with as little quality lost as possible.  Those raw files are either in mp4 format or Flash video format, and right from the beginning I realized that, unlike MPEG1 and MPEG2, there's no real lostless trimming solution, so I started lower my expectation and merely trying to find a solution that can retain quality as much as possible.

At the end I found 2 tools, and both are free:

• Windows Movie Maker
• Avidemux

 I first tried Windows Movie Maker, and while the interface it's simple and easy to use, I found it a bit fragile and I had to constantly save the project in order to preserve my editing work.  But the biggest problem is that it output a video that has different screen size from the original, and that's, to me, unacceptable.

Then I tried Avidmux, and after a bit confused with interface, I managed to edit a video with good precision, and the result was pretty nice.  At first I was confused by the output video not playing properly on my iPad, but later I found out that it's because I didn't choose MP4 Muxer as the container.  So after I used the following setting:

• Video Output: MPEG4 AVC (x264)
• Audio Output: Copy
• Output format: MP4 Muxer

I got my edited video properly rendered and now it plays very well on my iPad.

I did experienced some crashing when I twisted the ending part of my video, but eventually I got things working as the application preserved a crashed project.  But here's my biggest, and properly the only, complain about the application: I have problem finding a way to SAVE the editing project.  I know it sounds crazy, but I did tried saving my project, but I couldn't open it later.  Maybe it's because I did something wrong.  So I will probably spend some time to figure it out.  But at the end, I am still very pleased with the result.

Synergy seemed to have problem with Windows 8

I was in vacation and yet still try to stay productive.  So I set up my EeeSlate as hoping to make it "linked" (at least from user experience perspective) to my work machine Dell 6600 using freeware Synergy.  It didn't however work as I expected as the client kept saying that it couldn't connect to the server.  After a while, I gave up.  :-<   Maybe I'll try it later when I have time.