so i got back the raw footage from my wedding and all the files are in the .mxf file extension.  when i try to play the clips with VLC player it plays but the video seems to be skip frames. audio comes out fine though. 

what i would like to do is edit all the various clips and put them into one wedding video.  what is the best way or what software should i get to start playing around with that?  also, why wont they play in vlc player? how do i make the final video play normally?  thanks!

We'd really need more information to provide you with any sort of solid explanation, solution or advice.  That being said...

Are you on a PC or Mac?  What OS are you running?  What are the hardware specifications of your system?  This will help identify what software packages your system is capable of running as well as allow us to narrow suggestions for the best to use.

Regarding the .MXF files, .MXF is just a "container" file type and not an actual codec/format.  To attempt to deterine what's going on with the video, we've really got to know what the actual codec/format of the video and audio are.  To do this in VLC:  For Windows, click Tools then Media Information.  For OS X, click Window then Media Information.  In either case, after doing so you will most likely have to click the little arrow next to each stream displayed and read off the information displayed there.  You'll most likely see two streams, one for audio and one for video.

If your system is on the older side and the codec/format used to encode the video is newer/more compressed, that in and of itself could explain the skipping.  If that's the case, you won't need to do anything other than upgrade your system in some manner (possibly as simply as putting in more RAM but potentially involving upgrading the CPU+heatsink or replacing the system entirely) to get it going.  Question:  Have these files ever played on any other system or hardware without the skipping issue you've described?  If not (especially if they played back in that manner on the hardware that captured the video), the files themselves could be borked and only contain what you're seeing--lots and lots of dropped frames.

Let me/us know and we'll see what we can do to help more specifically.

windows 7 ultimate 64-bit
intel i7 2600k 3.4 ghz (8 cpus)
8 gb ram
GeForce GTX 560 TI





have not seen them played on any other device. i will say i just got adobe premiere 2015 and loaded them on there. when they are in the adobe premiere they play smoothly. im assuming im able to export from there into a video file that perhaps would play better? my goal is to edit/combine the clips into 1 file that will basically just be for watching on the computer. probably wont be making a dvd or anything if that affects how i export it.

thanks for this!

Your system specs are just fine for what you're trying to work on, so I'm not really sure why VLC is stuttering, as you've got plenty of horsepower. It's possible that it's an older version with imperfect/incomplete compatibility with the .MXF container or something, so you might consider updating it if you haven't already. Another thought is that where the file is full 1080p and most likely enormous, it could stutter a bit if you've got the file stored on a hard drive that's older and/or slower or are accessing it via a burned disc or flash drive.

If you know how to use Premiere, it's supposed to be pretty fantastic as far as non-linear video editing is concerned. It can be more than a little complicated to use, though, so if you're not familiar with it I'd recommend reading up a lot and watching a lot of "how to" videos online. Make backups of your original video(s) and work from those versus your original ones--it's really easy to make mistakes when learning video editing software and not always easy (or possible) to reverse them. There are lots of "do it yourself" and/or "all in one" video editing programs distributed online and in stores, but they pretty much all provide questionable results when compared to more serious tools (Premiere, Final Cut Pro, even iMovie), so I'd avoid those at all costs. Should you choose to make a DVD later on, as long as you haven't encoded the final product with any sort of weird/exotic codec, most DVD video software will automatically prep the video itself for you without you having to worry about the nitty gritty details. The same is true for exporting the finished product for viewing on a PC. If size isn't an issue, I'd stick with MPEG-2 as the video codec, otherwise I'd suggest encoding in either mpeg4 or h.264 for the final product.

Good luck!

You can always use handbrake to a lower bitrate. Also the audio can always be lowered. 48000 is a little much, it laws a big deal.

1080p on MPEG2 generates some really huge frames, disk space wise, so it might be struggling to keep the buffer going due to capping the I/O of your HDD.
Rendering it to H264 could help with that in this case