I've just bought a digital video camera which records up to 30 minutes of scenes on a mini DVD on .VRO format. This is fine to save to the computer except I can't make new file names so can't store it in my documents as it only keeps one file with the same name.

What I need to do is divide the scenes to usable files, especially the tiny clips Youtube accepts (about 90 seconds) but my Windows video editor won't accept .VRO to make short clips and although I've downloaded a free converter so far that's just creating unreadable clips at random I can play but can't get onto the editor whichever format I choose.

Given a few weeks I can probably work it out myself, but (preferably without spending money on an expensive editing program) what's the best way to easily create .mpg or .wmv files I can stick in Windows video and give new names and save into my videos?

I have read that renaming the file extension to mpg can work but if it doesn't, there's no shortage of vro converters around. I'm not sure if there are any free ones but there might be.

Did you get any software with the camera? If so, it might be worth looking through the disk to see if there is something included that would do the job.

Unfortunately being a Canon they don't include or make any video software as I rang them about it.
Currently I'm using the alternative VOB extension and it appears to randomly assign files that can be uploaded, one day it split three scenes into separate files but another it kept three as one file. But again Windows editor won't read VOB files either. If I could find a way to join together as many VOB files as I need per clip it'll do what I want but again there seems to be no way to do that.

To update I've had to totally ditch the on screen editing Canon offers, and only use the VOB version, which requires finalising to view on the computer, unfinalizing to reshoot, and finalising again when it labels the new video I've shot as a new file.

Therefore I can shoot a couple of minutes (all Youtube allows), upload it and then go through all that to do the next one. I expect simpler ways must exist but this does what I want now so will do it their way.

One serious defect is it only records in widescreen and squashes everything up for a normal screen which the net and most computers use. Let alone the TV which gets those awful black bars top and bottom. The options don't allow to change that, only to have them on the sides instead which is like the 'How do you choose to die' options. This never happened on VHS.

satguru - Here's what I would do:

1) Download video file to you computer. Let's say the filename is Video001.vro

2) Once the download is finish, immediately rename the file on your computer to something related to what you recorded. For example, BabysFirstSteps.vro

3) Now you have a unique filename and can record another 30 minute clip and save the new clip to your computer without worrying that it will conflict with a similar filename.

4) Download a free VRO converter. I don't know if you use Apple iTunes, but it will convert VRO video files to AVI files. Also, it is a free download.

Of course, your last post was December 19th and you may have already come up with a solution by now.

Thanks daboosh. My solution was different as I had a .vob option and am using that now, which automatically assigns a number to each section I record. Neither tolerate a manual name change as they say they are read only.

I also tried a converter which seems to do some but they aren't accepted once I try and use them. I didn't know Itunes worked though, it didn't seem to mention that but now I know that should be a lot easier if I need to do it again.