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Best free video editing tools?

Posted: Sun Nov 11, 2018 8:54 pm
by Holman
My son wants to play around with editing videos of gameplay and commentary, and I know nothing of the tools available.

Are there good free resources available for taking a gameplay vid and doing editing, voiceover, etc? My son is comfortable with computers but a beginner in this area as well.

Thanks!

Re: Best free video editing tools?

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2018 12:04 am
by gameoverman
I'm playing around with Shotcut lately, it seems alright if not exactly high end. I believe Da Vinci Resolve is free, if you create an account.

The downsides I've found with free video editors are thus:
Non standard/poor user interfaces are the norm
Rendering times can be loooonnnngggg
Limitations in which kind of files you can import
Limitation on which kind of export options you have
Not having all features, which means I bet the ONE feature you need is the one the otherwise great free editor doesn't have
Not as well optimized which means the program as a whole can run like a dog

Re: Best free video editing tools?

Posted: Mon Nov 12, 2018 11:54 pm
by Rumpy
There's a surprising lack of good free tools out there. Of the ones I've tried in the past, they were either too simplified to be of no real use, or too confusing a UI. In the past, I ended up using Lightworks as I understood exactly what it was doing and used standard terminology, but YMMV. To me, a good tool needs to flexible enough to do what I want with it without obfuscating anything. Sometimes dumbing down just leads to more frustration. But that's just me.

I don't think MS is still supporting there free tool, is it?

Re: Best free video editing tools?

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2018 3:43 pm
by Enough
I am green in this area personally but hear good things about DaVinci Resolve

Re: Best free video editing tools?

Posted: Fri Nov 16, 2018 3:45 pm
by Enough
Actually here's a rundown of a bunch of the free options and they also pick DaVinci overall. It looks like it may be a bit advanced, so maybe some of the other options on their list may also be of interest for your son.

Re: Best free video editing tools?

Posted: Sat Nov 17, 2018 2:35 am
by Rumpy
gameoverman wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 12:04 am Non standard/poor user interfaces are the norm

Yeah, so know what you mean when it comes to that. One of the programs I had tried ( can't remember what it was) looked like it was trying to do the standard timeline editing thing, but its behavior was very odd and when it came down to it, I couldn't figure out how to string together some edits. I'd try laying something down, but the internal logic was doing something completely different to what was expected.

Re: Best free video editing tools?

Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2018 9:08 pm
by gameoverman
I'm not asking much, I don't think I am, when I want sorta standard interfaces. I look at it this way, if the designer has an improved way of doing things, I'm all for it. If I fire up an editor and the timeline is not there on the bottom third of the screen, um, okay but there better be a darn good reason for that. It's frustrating when you realize the only reason is the designer was being different just to be different.

Re: Best free video editing tools?

Posted: Wed Nov 21, 2018 1:23 am
by Rumpy
No, you're not and in fact I completely agree with you. Give me the tools and I'm only limited by my knowledge and experience. Give me a non-standard interface and I waste more time fighting the program and looking for features that it might not have. Plus, if an editing tool follows a standard, you can pretty much follow your knowledge and experience with each new program. I spent a lot of time with iMovie (6&7 I think?) and got to a point where I could do a lot of thinks just by using keystrokes.

Re: Best free video editing tools?

Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 9:30 am
by GreenGoo
I've been using Openshot editor, which is open source and free, and looks like it should do basic stuff, but it has been hit or miss. Stability seems to be the biggest problem. Crashes, unreasonably and unusually long export times followed by completely reasonable and decent export times for videos that seem to be similar in complexity and size. Occasional long pauses and freezes while editing, things like that.

Honestly if it just worked as advertised it would be perfect for my needs.

In fact I was complaining about it this past Saturday in the PUBG thread.

I'll check out DaVinci. Thanks.