To understand what video editing software is, one has to understand the meaning of video editing first. Video editing is the process of manipulating and re-arranging video shots to create new work. It’s one of the post-production processes. The other post-production processes include tilting, color correction, sound mixing, and many others. However, most people use the term ‘editing’ in video production to describe the entire steps involved in video editing.
There are many reasons as to why one needs to edit a video. However, the editing approach will depend on the editor’s desired outcome. This, therefore, means that as a video editor, you must clearly define your editing goals. These may include:
– The removal of unwanted video clips to create good flow in your new creation
– Making your production look good with special effects, music, transitions, and other marvelous imagery
– Giving your work a sense of meaning. This simply means tailoring your video to support a particular viewpoint or mood.
To achieve these goals, you’ll need a good video editing software. If you’re a beginner in the industry, a free video editing software can be a good pick for you, as they are quite easy to use and can meet almost all of your basic video demands. These include cutting, trimming, rotating, and the like. However, they offer limited features. You can try using Intro Maker to make your videos look more polished and professional.
Some of the features start-up editors need to look for in free video editing software include:
– 1. A user-friendly interface
– 2. Formats. The software should enable the user to export commonly used formats like MP4, MOV, AVI, MKV, and several others.
– 3. The software should at least provide the basic video editing features such as trimming, cropping, rotating, and transitions.
Some of the best free video editing software for Windows:
Windows Movie Maker
It’s comprised of the following:
Input formats: ASF, AVI, DVR-MS, M1V, MP2, MP2V, MPE, MPEG, MPG, MPV2, WM, WMV
Output formats: Windows Media Video (WMV) or DV AVI
Advantages: Free, meets your basic editing demands
Limitations: Service discontinued, no support for modern file formats, lacks color correction tools, visual effects, or any other advanced video editing options
Avidemux
This software is designed for simple cutting, filtering, and encoding tasks, and it has the following features:
Input formats: AVI, MPEG, MOV, MP4, etc.
Output formats: AVI, MPEG, DIVX, XVID, MP4, etc.
Advantages: Avidemux also has solid encoding options, and its interface is user-friendly.
Limitations: There are no video effects or transitions.
VideoPad Video Editor
This is cross-platform software for beginners. It, however, has quite limited formats.
Input formats: AVI, WMV, MPV, DivX, and many more.
Output formats: WMV, AVI
Advantages: Intuitive interface
Limitations: Certain features become unavailable when using the free version of the software over a more extended period of time.
OpenShot
This open-source video editor offers basic video editing features like trimming and slicing. The rest of the features include:
Input formats: QuickTime, AVI, WMV, MPEG, etc.
Output formats: MPEG, AVI, MP4, MOV, etc.
Advantages: Free and powerful
Limitations: Need to install add-ons if the OS you’re using doesn’t meet the software’s system requirements
You can as well use the GoPro CineForm Studio to edit your videos. Read more about the GoPro CineForm Studio here – https://softfamous.com/gopro-cineform-studio/.
