What editing software does your office use? I have read the previous post about Sanction and iMovie for Macs. I don't think we need anything as comprehensive as Sanction and so far, out county hasn't bought us any Macs. Any suggestions?
Thanks.

It depends on what you want it to do. For editing Windows movie files, you can use VirtualDub or Windows Movie Maker. For working with JPEG or GIF files (photos) I like FastStone Image Viewer (it's freeware). If you want to display photos for trial, then PowerPoint can do the job, but you have to do more prepwork ahead of time.

We are mainly dealing with audio and video editing. Also, we need something that's user-friendly.

We are now receiving all of our DWI cases on DVD or CD. We use Windows Movie Maker to edit the video and audio portions of the tape. In the event that you have a true DVD--you will need something similar to Aimersoft DVD Ripper to turn the DVD format into a manageable format (i.e. AVI or WAV).

Audacity (free) or Sony Sound Forge for audio and Adobe Premiere Elements or Windows Movie Maker for video.

Our IT people have us evaluating Sony's Vegas Movie Studio Platinum, which includes Sound Forge and is under $100. We haven't gotten to play with it much yet, but it looks promising. I've never had much luck trying to edit longer videos with Movie Maker, but the biggest problem with that may have had to do with never having the right codecs for our agencies' videos. If you can get free software like Movie Maker and Audacity to do what you need, that's hard to beat. Audacity works so well for audio you almost feel guilty not paying for it.

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Apart from the spam ads above, what is the best software (i.e. simple) to redact or mute a section of audio from a dvd, when ordered to do so by a judge.

For Mac users, iMovie is just fine. Problem these days is that many police departments have purchased digital recording equipment that relies upon proprietary software to get the job done. That means the DA's office, if it wants to view the DVD, needs a password or a copy of the proprietary software. Often means that the DA's office can't alter the original without purchasing a license from the software company. There are some products out there that will overcome this issue, but it gets complicated. That's why we have one person in our office responsible for learning this stuff and keeping a record of what software you need for each department's digital recordings.