General purpose video/audio editor that's preferably free?

[Vitalius]

I need something that I can use to edit varying types

of video files (mp4, mkv, avi, etc) and audio files (mp3,

wav, aac, etc) and split/recombine them. As the title

says, preferably free.

I have Format Factory, but when trying to merge an

MP4 and MP3 file (which I had previously split to test

this feature) that are identical in length, it says it's not

supported. 

Any help finding such a thing is appreciated. I'd prefer

simple, but I'm fine with something I have to read to do

right as well.

[Builder]

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

[Vitalius]

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

I've used Audacity before, however I don't see where I can use

that to merge (or rather, splice) an audio file into a video file. I

can merge audio files though, but I could do that with Format

Factory (and video files as well). I just can't merge an audio

with video.

I've tried using VLC as well, but it doesn't seem to be able to

do this either.

Basically, I have an mp4 video with no audio, but I have the

audio as an mp3 file. I want to layer them, effectively. Format

Factory has a Mux option which says it does this, but it fails

when trying that scenario I mentioned. I know it should work

because the mp3 file is directly from the mp4, so compatibility

regarding length or codecs shouldn't matter since they were

together before (AFAIK).

I'm a bit new to this specific thing, but I figure it can't be that

hard to pull the audio portion of a video off of it, and, say, put

it on a different video (after adjusting for the different length).

Or edit that audio segment, then place it back on the video.

[Builder]

I'm a bit new to this specific thing, but I figure it can't be that

hard to pull the audio portion of a video off of it, and, say, put

it on a different video (after adjusting for the different length).

Or edit that audio segment, then place it back on the video.

I'm not quite sure what to say. I use iMovie for this kind of thing. There's not really a Windows equivalent as far as I can tell. 

[Vitalius]

I'm not quite sure what to say. I use iMovie for this kind of thing. There's not really a Windows equivalent as far as I can tell. 

After some Googling, I found some alternatives. 

Windows Movie Maker can do it, but who would honestly

use that?

Lightworks is pitched as a professional video editor for

Windows, but it requires Apple's Quicktime (Hue^3) as

well as you to create an account to activate the (free)

software. Eh. It's better than paying. ... Until you realize

it can't do anything unless it's the Pro (paid for) version

that's useful.

Avidemux is supposedly sort of between WMM &

Lightworks in terms of steep learning curve and is

available on Linux. However, I couldn't figure out how to

get a media file into the program to edit. And I could do

that on the fly with Lightworks, so yeah. Not using it. 

VSDC Free Video Editor was next, but you should be sure

to uncheck installing AVG's toolbar and .... Frostwire. 

Why, on Earth, a video editing program would try that, I'll

never know. That's absurd. Then there's TuneUp Utilities

2014. How about No. That, and it froze on me while

previewing the file before I'd done any editing at all.

 

At this point, I buckled and just installed WMM to try it out.

It's required that you install Photo Gallery alongside it.

Great.

 

I guess I have to eat my words at the top of this post. Oh

well. As long as it works.