free video editor?

[Ian_Edwards]

I'm looking for a free video editor, to edit some video clips of our last sailing trip, to send to my daughter in Australia.

The video was taken with an Android phone, and I'm not looking to produce a "full length feature film", just edit out the bits where the camera is point at the deck or the sky and stitch together a few different sections of video.

I've looked on line and there seem to be many free editors available, but they all seem to want to make something or other my home page, or Norton Anti virus doesn't like them.

So I'm looking for something that's simple to use, doesn't mess up my PC and is virus free.

I'm running Windows 10 on a reasonably powerful laptop (Intel i7 2.80 GHz with 16 MBytes of RAM)

Any recommendations?

 

[johnalison]

Windows Movie Maker does what it says on the tin. It can also file in formats suitable for YouTube or Facebook.

I can use it, so it has to be simple.

 

[James Marinero]

I use Windows Movie Maker for assembling clips and sequencing the final product, but I use VSDC free video editor for special effects, conversions, stripping sound off clips etc. It's very versatile, has a couple of small bugs but no ads or inapp sales or email hassle. This fun promo video was done with it (including the ship moving backwards). I use Audacity (also free) for editing sound clips before the dub (in either VSDC or WMM). Have fun!

 

[JumbleDuck]

I use OpenShot (www.openshot.org) which is much more capable than I am.

 

[Ian_Edwards]

OK I tried Windows movie maker, and it doesn't support MP4 files, which is the format my Android phone saves movies in.

So I looked at some file converters, the convert to AVI and WMF, both of which are supported by Windows movie maker.

I've not been able to find a free converter package that works, I tried Aimersoft, which works, but the free version only converts the first 1/3 of the movie.
Perhaps I'll give )penShot

 

[JumbleDuck]

Perhaps I'll give )penShot

OpenShot is fine with MP4. It's not immediately clear what you do - well, it wasn't to me - but the online tutorials are very good.

 

[doug748]

OK I tried Windows movie maker, and it doesn't support MP4 files, which is the format my Android phone saves movies in.

So I looked at some file converters, the convert to AVI and WMF, both of which are supported by Windows movie maker.

I've not been able to find a free converter package that works, I tried Aimersoft, which works, but the free version only converts the first 1/3 of the movie.
Perhaps I'll give )penShot

I have Windows 8.1 and the bundled copy that came with it and find that Movie Maker works ok with the MP4 files that I give it. Free conversion software always seems to have some associated aggravation attached.

You might try downloading additional Codecs - whatever they are. I am sure I didn't but I might have done and if I needed to I would, so to speak.
I looked at a lot of video software and, for what you need to do, found MM to be fine.

This sort of idea:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...o/b3334e82-2823-4f38-871a-f5b2942509cc?auth=1

 

[Ian_Edwards]

Hi,

I tried downloading Codecs from both sites, but they didn't make any difference to Movie Maker, I still couldn't get it to read MP4 files.

I then loaded OpenShot, it worked first time, and although it's not the most intuitive program I've used, I managed to edit the video, add some still photographs in .jpg format, add some appropriate music in mp3 format, and fade both the video and sound at the beginning and the end. Not a professional job by a long way, but more than adequate for my family in Aus.

It didn't take long to do, I spent much, much longer, messing with Movie Maker trying and failing to get it work with the sources I had.

Thanks for all the help, I'll be using OpenShot again, I'm sure.

In addition to it being free, there are no adds and it didn't mess up my computer.

 

[doug748]

Well, you can't knock that. Thanks for reporting back.

PS

I have just remembered that my cheap, clone GoPro camera put out mp3 that MM will not read.
I got round the problem by changing it with Faasoft video converter. I was lucky that it was a large file and I only needed a small part of it, because Faasoft free version only converts a rather random half of the video.

 

[lampshuk]

Just for completeness: Windows Movie Maker is discontinued for Windows 10, to much weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth. I have started using Videopad, which has a free-for-personal-use mode which reads most formats I have thrown at it and gives you access to many useful features (multiple sound tracks, transitions etc) BUT only allows you to export the movie as AVI. This is fine for me, but it's not well documented. Most high-quality outputs are deemed "professional" which at first makes you think that you've been suckered in to using "free" software, only to find out that you have to pay to actually use the results of your labours - a massive fail on their part. But AVI/constant frame-rate apparently qualifies as "personal use". At least, I hope they don't plug that "loophole".

You can also use the YouTube online editor, but that does require you to upload all your raw video to Youtube. You don't have to share it, but unless you have really fast b-band you'll be waiting a while.

 

[doug748]

Well, you can't knock that. Thanks for reporting back.

PS

I have just remembered that my cheap, clone GoPro camera put out mp3 that MM will not read.
I got round the problem by changing it with Faasoft video converter. I was lucky that it was a large file and I only needed a small part of it, because Faasoft free version only converts a rather random half of the video.

I have further remembered that at 1920 * 1080 30fps the video from the Action Cam loaded fine. Only when I used it in anger and increased the frame rate to 60fps did it fail with Movie Maker.

No idea why this should be, must remember it in future.

 

[PhilLowe]

I think Windows Movie Maker will be what you need. However, it cannot clip the best video effects.

 

[LiftyK]

To convert video files use free, opensource and easy to use Handbrake. Available from handbrake.fr. I just started using it and am very impressed.

 

[Fiddlesticks]

I use Hitfilm express.

 

[JumbleDuck]

I think Windows Movie Maker will be what you need. However, it cannot clip the best video effects.

Perhaps he found a solution in the three years since he started the thread ...

 

[lustyd]

sometimes it's fun to revive old threads! I feel like I should mention the excellent DaVinci Resolve

 

[salar]

If anyone is still lookinging, here's a review by the pros of the three best free video editing packages they found. And they should know...

 

[john_morris_uk]

iMovie doesn’t make the cut because it’s only available for Mac’s. But if you’ve only got a Mac.... so what?
Similarly several editors condemned as only available for Windows.
But who runs both systems?

 

[doug748]

[Content removed]

I am still using Movie Maker Free Edition which has not been supported since 2012 but is working fine under Windows 10. If you root around you can still download it, and it really is free.
I have found nothing comes close in terms of ease of use but if you want loads of effects and multiple sound tracks you would have to look elsewhere.

.

 

[Martin_J]

I know it's an old thread - but Windows 10 really does still have it's own inbuilt free Video editor. It's within the Microsoft Photos application but your Windows 10 Photos App might just not have got the update that includes it.

If you only see the 'photos' section within the Windows Photos app, then you should be able to go to Microsoft Store (just type that in the Windows 10 search box) then either search for Microsoft Photos (and update that) or click on the three dots top right within Microsoft Store and update the application from the list of installed applications.

It's much the same as the older free video editor but seems to run well within Windows 10... Keeps it simple.