Editing videos on the PC

Thanks to a friendly offer from ALdi I am now the proud owner of a 360 GB recording box (Gericom), which after only a few hours of experimenting seems to work ok now (well, seems I had a contact problem with those crappy SCART connectors first). It seems (did not try this up to now) that I can transfer the recorded files via USB cable to my PC. My quewtion: are there some good, easy to use and hopefully free programs around to cut and edit these files, and convert them if necessary, to another video format. The files on the box are .avi. Many thanks to all the knowledgeable gurus here.

I wanted to try out the [hidden link - please register] couple of months ago, because one of my good friend recommended me. The program looks promising but unfortunately i have some technical limitations and i cannot use it . But maybe there is someone who might be interested this.
The program is a great Open Source project so it's free.

[hidden link - please register]
[hidden link - please register]
[hidden link - please register]

There is possibilities to [hidden link - please register]
- Windows ( requires OpenGL 2.0 or higher )
- Linux 32bit and 64bit ( Mint 12+, Ubuntu 12.04+, Debian 7+, Fedora 15+, openSUSE 12+, Arch/Manjaro )
- OS X 10.6+ 64bit versions.

The easiest converting tool that I have found is AutoGK.

There are free programs. The most common one is called Virtualdub.

I suggest that you take a look at [hidden link - please register] which has links to all the tools you will need.

It also has many tutorials on how to use them and it's own forum where you will pick up many tips.

Video editing/creation is a vast topic but good luck with your venture and I hope to see the fruits of your efforts on here real soon.