Simple editor that can brighten .mpg movie files
 

I am looking for a simple preferably free editor for both mac & PC that can brighten my .mpg video files shot with a sony cybershot DSC-W7 digital still camera. They were shot at night at a nighttime parade.

It would be nice to not have to go through a complex video editor & complex rencoding just to get brighter movie files to burn to a DVD to play on a DVD player.

Family is eager to see them right away on the tube TV.

You have to re-encode the video, so it could lose quality, based on all the settings you choose for the new MPEG-2 compression. There also are not many freeware MPEG-2 encoders, because the MPEG-2 format is licensed. The few that exist are not the easiest to use, often requiring Avisynth input.

Have you considered simply adjusting the brightness on the TV set?

Also understand that "dark" and "underexposed" are not the same. You can't brighten underexposed videos and get anything other than muddy noise. And based on your description, you likely have underexposed video, coming from nighttime use of a cheap point-and-shoot. (Decent camera for stills, I'm thinking, if it's anything like my Sony P&S in low light, but not so hot for low-light video.)