This is my life

Lots of fannish folk I know use Sony Vegas as the end product vidding software -- for PCs at least. At least a couple of years ago, they offered a basic software on a 30-day trial. And I bought my initial version right as the new one was coming out, so got a rebate on the previous rev and paid under %50. So far, bought Vegas has not had any problems ripping audio for the vids from commercial cds, but I don't think I've tried a Sony cd that had all the hyper encryption, so I don't know if that would screw everything up or not (since Sony is pretty draconic about "bootlegging"). I usually end up dl'ing the audio from a youtube vid anyway, even if I own the commercial cd music I want to use.

I second the recommendation on vdub for cutting clips; I'm not too neat in grabbing the clips here -- grabbing more than I think I'll need from a section, then trim in Vegas.

http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/

works for ripping from commercial dvds, but I've not yet found a stitch back together program for the ripping I'm happy with -- Auto Gordian Knot was recommended, but it's trashed my computer three times when I tried to install and, like dvddecrypter, it was C&D'd years ago so is frozen code that may not be compatible with newer systems. Mostly, I just vid from .avi versions of the shows or movies and if I don't find an .avi version, I move on to something else.

vidders.net is a site that AO3 recommends for hosting vids to then embed on AO3 -- nice people if a small time operation (for now?). They have a policy against very explicit vids, but slash in general is allowed. The biggest drawback is their limitations on how many vids they will host unless you buy an account.