I use my digital camera to shoot small movies. I would like to be able edit them, nothing fancy, cutting the beginning or end of and most importantly, brightening. All of the movies that my camera makes seem far too dark.

I can't get ANYTHING to work. I tried when I was running Debian but there was always a problem I didn't understand, "I'm sorry you need libblahblah but it cannot be installed", "no default hatstand policy determined, please reconfigure your subteapotflange variable", grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. So I decided it must have been down to poor packaging by Debian so I have been trrying on my snazzy new Ubuntu machine but it seems no better.

I like to the look of kino, I can install it and run it but it falls over every time I actually try to open a file to edit and presents me with a load of jibberish. For example:

I start kino, go to File>Open, navigate to my avi movie file, and click open. I am am told I need a DV file. What the hell is a DV file? who has movies sitting on their computer that are DV files? Surely most people that want to edit a movie have either download an avi or mpeg from the internet or have shot a movie on their camera. I have never even come across a DV movie file, grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Does a program exist that is simple and user friendly that I can open my avi movie with, edit it and save it? And if not why not dammit? I realise that there are a number of complex command line tools available to do this but I don't have time to get a degree in computer science so I can brighten a 5 second movie clip!!!

Any help greatly appreciated.

Doc

Every multimedia file has some format for video, some for audio and both are packed into a container. Do you know what audio, video and container is your camera using?

Check the book for your camera to see what kind of movie it makes.
A DV is a movie from a digital camcorder.
There are a few types of mpeg.
There are several types of avi.

Try Avidemux:

http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/

It will open a good many formats.
It is a simple cut, resize, adjust color, kind of thing.

If that doesn't work (and assuming your vid is an avi), install
MPlayer, open a terminal, cd to the directory that has your vid,
and type:

Then try to open the new vid with Avidemux.

If that doesn't work, something else will.

Forgot to mention you can use mplayer to determine media formats.
When invoked in a terminal window mplayer will print interesting information. fourcc shows media type.
Avidemux recommended by previous poster is good indeed. You can get the latest version 2.2 with subversion.

Thanks a lot for the help. It's given me somewhere to get started. I have done plenty of searching on the internet but am struggling to find a beginners guide to using mencoder, the manual doesn't really explain how to use it. Can anyone recommend me a site or book help me better understand how to use it?

Mencoder is good for batch processing. I do not use Debian for desktop any more and I do not remember exactly, but there is an excellent non-official repository for video related deb files at ftp.nerim-net/debian-marillat. Do a google search for it. Once added to your sources.list you will always have the latest video stuff available.
I still suggest Avidemux because it is a GUI program and visual is preferred if you work with videos. It can do batch processing from CLI too if needed.