What is Movica? Movica is a Graphical User
Interface (GUI) that uses two widely used
editing engines viz. asfbin and mpgtx.
These engines do not have GUIs for less
advanced users. Movica is aimed at
filling that gap. It can be used to
edit Windows Media
files (.wmv, .asf) and MPEG-1 /
MPEG-2 files (.mpg, .mpeg). This guide
discusses how to join movies using this
utility. Starting with version 0.6 you can
join .flv and .rm movies together without
requiring
recompression. You can also join some audio file formats (.wma, .mp3) |
Software requirements
You will need to have the following software with you.
- Movica
- .NET framework 2.0
- mpgtx - for editing MPEG movies (Installed as part of Movica)
- asfbin - for editing Windows Media movies (Installed as part of Movica) - You can only use this for non-commercial purposes
Installation
Movica is a open source software that can be
downloaded from either
There are a lot of other web sites that might
mirror the installers but the ones listed above are the
most current.
The installer should run without issues and
might prompt you to install .NET framework 2.0 if you do
not have it on your computer already. This will be very
rare since the Windows Update
utility would have installed it already.
You can now start Movica from the entry in your Start menu
Joining Movies
Joining movies is useful if you have saved individual pieces seperately. Quite often this is also needed when smaller chunks are sent out in e-mails.
1. Select the pieces you want to
join
The first step is to select the pieces we want. Switch to the
tab called 'Join'. As you mouse over the toolbar you will see a
description of what each of the button does. The diagram below
shows the description of the buttons.
You select files by clicking on the button with the folder icon. You can select multiple files on the window that shows up. By keeping the 'Auto detect parts' option selected, you can have Movica search for files with similar names selected automatically.
Tip:If you are comfortable with drag and drop, then
dragging a group of files on to Movica will automatically put
it in join mode. You will see the join tab activated as
above.
2. Change the order, if
needed
The files will be joined in the sequence in
which they are displayed. This may not always be the most
desirable. You can change the sequence at this
stage. By default, the files are not ordered when
they are added to the list. The order can be changed in
two ways
- Alphabetically - The button on the extreme
left will sort the list alphabetically
- Specific order - This can be achieved by
using the function keys. Highlight the files you want
to move, selecting multiple files if you want to. F11
will move these highlighted files up. F12 will move
them down. The next version of Movica will have a
button for these functions [the arrow buttons as
shown below]
3. Join the pieces
Now all that remains is to join the files together. This is
done by the Join button
In case you want to delete the part files after joining you can
leave the option 'Delete after joining' on. In case you find
that the combined file is not proper you can retrieve the
original piece files from the recycle bin.
Warning: Always make sure your join was
completed successfully. In some cases there might be
incompatibilities between the pieces related to size, audio bit
rate, encoding, etc. A success message on the results window is
an unreliable measure.
Movica a basic and simple editor. In case you would like to know more please use the SourceForge suggestion page. Or better still, feel free to contribute to the documentation on the SourceForge documentation page.