Video Editing Software

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JC724

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Jan 20, 2016
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I am looking to learn some video editing software to start video editing video games. Maybe get into some content creation.


Anyone know of some good free video editing software.


My Laptop is about 3-4 years old. I need to get a new one soon but don't have the money now.


SPECS:

ASUS G752VT

Windows 10 home 64-bit OS

Processor Intel i7 Core 2.6 GHz

RAM 24 gigs


Video Card is Geforce GTX 970M

924 MHz

RAM 6 gigs DDR5


I don't know if this is good enough to run some decent video editing software but if so can someone please recommend me a couple and why.
 
Sycraft said:
While editing isn't its primary purpose (color grading/post is its primary) Davanci Resolve is pretty good and they have a competent free version. Worth trying if you want something for $0 up front.
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The Free version is actually much better than most other paid software. There are a few limitations in it, but you probably won't notice those until you go hardcore. But it has a few quirks and it takes getting used to, you don't just sit down in front of it and use it like a pro.
 
As someone that works in the industry I would also recommend Resolve. It has a bit of a learning curve but far less than Premiere. And it’s significantly more powerful than Premiere.
The color grading in resolve is the industries best and it also has the equivalent of after effects built directly into the software. Meaning you don’t have to round trip your projects like you would have to using Adobe products.
It’s also much less expensive. Even the paid version is $300 for life. Not a monthly payment forever. Black magic has updated Resolve through 4 major versions and hasn’t required another payment. They’re serious about having the one time payment mean for life.

The only downside to Resolve is plugins. It’s not that they don’t work as well, it’s just that there are fewer plugins developed for Resolve. However Blackmagic has often times made their own substitutes for things in the absence of plugin devs so there is usually at least an alternative.
 
Something to note about youtube is you have to play their bitrate game.

They don't really give adequate bitrate for gaming videos under 2K. Anything under 1080p gets a really low quality compression codec. 1080p and up gets VP9 compressions, which is very similar to H.264. But the bitrate on their 1080p is still not great, particularly for high motion games.

So, if you are capping game footage at 720p or 1080p, you should upscale it to at least 2K, after you edit it. and any 30fps footage should be frame doubled to 60, as that will get you some extra bitrate, as well.

Here are some examples I made from around June 2019

*I used the free version of Bandicam (with the watermark) for these examples. Because I captured the footage on an old Ivy Bridge i5 laptop, with HD4000 graphics. And Bandicam's MJPG endcoder was super fast, allowing this machine to cap the video with no performance loss. Normally I would recommend OBS.

Dark Souls 2, captured at 720p/30

uploaded at 720p and frame doubled to 60


upscaled to 2K/60


upscaled to 4K/60


and here's Goldeneye Source

720p frame doubled to 60


upscaled to 4K/60
 
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Well I have never used it before but it is a professional video editor call HitFilm Pro and Humblebundle is selling it for $30 with a whole bunch of FX content included. Check it out here:
https://www.humblebundle.com/softwa..._c_professionalfilmmakingtools_softwarebundle

The program is perpetual w/ 1 year of updates included. So after the year (from date of purchase) you won't receive any more updates from them. It's a good deal considering how many professional programs are all going subscription where you lose the software if the subscription fee isn't paid.
 
Ok this is a great amount of info, Thanks, it definitely gives me guidance on where to start my research.
 
O just for clarification. If I want to stream or record, then I use software like OBS? If I want to do video editing, then I use software like Davanci Resolve? Does OBS allow for any type of Video editing, like placing text in the video?

What is good software to use for creating YouTube thumbnails? If possible good free software lol.
 
JC724 said:
O just for clarification. If I want to stream or record, then I use software like OBS? If I want to do video editing, then I use software like Davanci Resolve? Does OBS allow for any type of Video editing, like placing text in the video?

What is good software to use for creating YouTube thumbnails? If possible good free software lol.
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For thumbnails you can use anything from MS Paint to Photoshop. A decent free option is GIMP.

For video recording & editing, VSDC is what I use. http://www.videosoftdev.com/free-video-editor

You can record your desktop/gameplay:

Then edit it, upload it to youtube, then while it's uploading, use GIMP to make a thumbnail, then when it's uploaded, edit the thumbnail to what you just made.
 
I too am considering expanding my content creation, so I'll have to update and add to my knowledge base considerably. Your hardware will do fine for video editing/content creation.

With a handful of exceptions for very high levels of proficiency and necessity, I would suggest sticking to free/libre open source software (FLOSS) for media recording/editing when possible. Besides supporting and developing/improving worthy projects, the vast majority of FLOSS programs are not only suitable to the task but don't foster dependence on either piecemeal proprietary tools of dubious quality nor "big name" highly proprietary programs aimed at highest tiers of professional use and priced accordingly .

For video editing, there are quite a few options - https://itsfoss.com/open-source-video-editors/ , https://itsfoss.com/best-video-editing-software-linux/ - found during a quick search, this lists most of those that are still updated and relatively comprehensive; the latter says Linux, but most of the projects have a WIndows build too. Its likely you'll find something here that will suit your needs. I've used a few of them in the past, but so long ago I couldn't give a solid comparison today.

However I will say that instead of Adobe Premiere / FinalCutPro / Sony Vegas etc... I have to give a nod to DaVinci Resolve (Studio) for the pro-level software field. Despite it not being free/libre, the company behind it seems pretty neat making Hollywood pro-level production hardware/software while also keeping Linux compatibility! In addition, Resolve has a free version available and even its paid version is relatively cheap for software of its tier. I should caution you to try the libre/open source options, but since some people (and tutorials ) use pro software even when it is complete overkill and with a huge learning curve, I thought I'd mention that DaVinci Resolve is probably the best of its field - the sentiment seems to be echoed by those who know far more of the industry than I.

For making thumbnails, generally editing images and the like, try GIMP - it works very well for most "photoshop"-related tasks and is open source; there are also many tutorials focused upon it these days as it is sort of "the" open source photoshop alternative.

When it comes to recording and sharing, you have great options available. If you're looking for screenshots/screencasts (as opposed to recording gaming or other 3D applications etc), I suggest ShareX (if on Windows) and MagicCap (OSX / Linux), as they do a fantastic job. If you're going to record 3D applications, games, webcams, your desktop or a combination of the above then use the legendary "OBS Studio" . Much like with Mozilla's Firefox, OBS is an example of an open source application being the (or one of) top applications for a given task, used even by those who are not focused on its openness. It has a comprehensive API and there are plugins for everything under the sun. There are a handful of forks as well, but overall OBS has a ton of powerful features and built in compatibility for most popular livestreaming sites.

Hope this helps!
 
ok so I looked at some editing software but I am realizing I don't really understand some of the pros that some of the software is promoting. I looked up video editing basics on youtube and google but they are talking about jump cut scenes and even referencing what cameras to use.

So I figured I want to say what I would like to do as of right now with the software and ask for someone to explain some of these concepts to me.

The 4 free ones that seems interesting below:

Light works says it has high precision video trimming.

Shotcut says it has Native Timeline editing with 4K support

DaVinci Resolve Says it has advanced trimming and color correction

Hitfilm Express says it has video filtering with layers and masking.


I am realizing I don't really know what most of this stuff means. So if someone can explain some of these concepts and what some core video editing concepts are in general to me. And here is a list of what I want to be able to do right now. I might want more in the future.

So what I would like to do this point is create and modify thumbnails(don't know if this really counts in the video editing section).

I want to be able to release my videos with a good quality on youtube. I have heard that it can cause issues on youtube if you don't drop your videos with the proper resolution or the bitrate.

I want to be able to add text to the video while I am explaining things.

I want to be able to take multiple videos and pull certain scenes out and make one video that flows smoothly.

I want to be able to modify music and sound effects on the video

Lastly I want to be able to make a video of me watching someone else video, and pausing it and basically being able to use a marker or pen to write on the video sent to me to explain things and then resume it.
 
For the first part, I'm going to assume that all four apps are capable of doing all of the things that they list are their specialization. The only one that some of them may not support is video filtering with layers and masking, but Resolve supports all of those things (it quite literally is professional grade software). Most of those features that are describing the various NLE's are what I would consider "basic".

In terms of what you want to do in your wants or whatever, basically any NLE can do that.
Some things that some apps may not be able to do in app are the last two items on your list. Really basic NLE's may not have advanced audio editing tools. Frankly most NLE's don't. Adobe as an example has "Audition" as it's main audio editing app. Premiere can do some basic audio editing but relies on external software to do deep stuff. If all you want to do is cut two pieces of audio together you won't have any problems. But if you want to alter waveforms in complex ways or heck even have something that removes noise well, you'll likely need another app (although Resolve has quite a few audio editing tools built in, purpose built audio editors can do more).
And the final one requires you to have a webcam and then software that allows you to see your screen and then write on top of it or whatever. It's more than likely that what you want specifically for that is screen recording software. I don't spend a lot of time doing that very particular type of recording. The simple way to do it would be screen recording software that allows effects etc to happen on your screen such as screen drawing. A quick Google search netted info about screen recording/casting. You'll likely have to do a little Googling around to figure out options for drawing while screen casting.

Resolve can do all of this stuff except Screen Casting. That isn't really the job of an NLE. NLE's are there to take the footage you've already recorded and edit different parts of different things together into a cohesive whole. Outside of a few things like Titles (text) NLE's are "incapable" of creating a video on their own. As they don't contain any video files in and of themselves nor audio either, nor do they really generate them.
I say that to say that creating what you create via screen recording is your "source" and you can use the NLE to cut down what you've recorded while screen casting if perhaps you've blathered on too long or you've made an error or "a take" that you want to cut out. Or if you want to be able to not have to record something all the way through at once and then be able to cut together all the parts together later.
 
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Thanks for the input, that answers a lot of my qestions. I appreciate it.

ok so OBS is a good screen recording software but I still need a camera. My laptop came with a camera but do you guys think I need to buy a specific camera for my laptop?

One of my friends told me I would need a lot of free hard drive space just to edit a video. Something like the video software will auto cach gigs of memory?? Can someone explain to me how this works?

I found this website here https://www.oberlo.com/blog/best-free-video-editing-software

I noticed that the UI for lightworks and HitFilm Express seems to allow for having two videos up at a time. I am assuing it has the orginal and the one you are trying to edit/create. Is this a feature that Davinci Resolve allows?

Is Davinci Resolve something I can study(via youtube tutorials) for a couple of days and be able to start to do the main things that I want to do?

I have heard that Davinic Resolve and Hit Film Express are really hard to use. I don't know how true that is though.
 
OBS is great screen recording/casting software, especially if you're capturing and integrating multiple sources (webcam), 3D applications (ie gameplay), etc . However, I'd also take a look at ShareX (assuming you're on Windows. ) - which may be suitable for many other tasks, from grabbing a screenshot (or a particular piece of your screen at the moment) , to recording your desktop (including video ), to clipping out and exporting something as an animated gif or webm.

Regarding cameras, it really depends how much you wish to invest. Your laptop webcam (judging by its era) probably at least does 720p and hopefully 1080p capture. That may be sufficient for you to get started. A discrete camera or webcam of course will likely have better video and/or audio quality, but it all depends what you're looking to do and what kind of investment you want to make. Also, besides your laptop's webcam, I don't know what kind of phone you have, but if its relatively recent it may have better camera-related hardware than your laptop ; there are multiple ways to use it for video capture (and you can of course capture the audio from something else, if desired). If you decide to use your phone, you may want to pick up one of the inexpensive multiform hinged mounts/tripods , for stability and a wide variety of positions and uses (ie holding itup as

Hard drive space - depending on the length of your media assets, what resolution format you're capturing recording in, it can certainly take up lots of space. All of your assets that you'll be using to make your final product, your final product in the highest quality, any transcoded versions necessary to comply with bandwidth/size/resolution or other requirements on a given site etc.. it can be sizable. Now, the resources necessary to actually edit, etc... is a different story. When it comes to running heavier programs of course your CPU, RAM, and GPU (also your SSD to a point) will be involved, but in most cases better hardware means tasks like encoding take less time, as opposed to being c"unable" to do something. Regarding cache someone with more experience can likely go into greater depth, but certain creative applications are known for having "scratch/swap" essentially as cache for large operations - be it on a SSD or even something like a RAMdisk ; these are possible, but a dedicated device is not required in the vast majority of non-professional cases

All modern video editors can handle multiple sources (ie you have multiple videos/clips you want to edit into a single final product, or tons of other ways of interacting with them). Its also possible that "two videos at a time" could be the original and any edits done to it (ie original material and then a preview of what it would look like with the color corrections or other edits you'd be making). DaVinci Resolve can absolutely do this, but so can just about every other editor .

DaVinci Resolve certainly has tutorials, but you may want to consider other applications as well and/or "general" tutorials. Resolve may be a considerable overkill for what you're trying to do and the additional complexity may add to the difficulty and time to learn and do what you wish. Thankfully, there are plenty of resources online. You'll note that "big name" tools (particularly Adobe Premiere) will be namedropped and used in some, but the better ones teach the task at hand not exclu sively focus on the specific tool itself. There will be plenty of tutorials for Resolve and if you were going to spend the time learning a "big name" video editing tool, that's the one I'd choose, but especially when you're working with pro-grade software learning the tool is different than learning the task that you actually want to perform, at times.

I'd consider looking at OpenShot ( https://www.openshot.org/ ) , Shotcut ( https://www.shotcut.org ) , and possibly Kdenlive ( https://kdenlive.org/ ) , as they are comprehensive enough to do what you're asking and more (if I understand your requests above) but not quite as complex as something pro-grade like DaVinci Resolve. There are also tutorials and docs for their use, both officially from the dev team and by users making their own video tutorials (ShotCut has a handful of fairly comprehensive tutorial vids right on its page, including those beginner focused - https://www.shotcut.org/tutorials/ ). I should also mention that these are the "advanced" editors that have a pretty significant featureset, but there are also "simpler" tools like Avidemux and VidCutter that are easy to use for basic editing and processing, as well as the "professional" tools like DaVinci Resolve, Lightworks, and Blender (note: Blender is actually free/libre open source and is an incredibly powerful editor focused primarily on 3D "Pixar-level" media. It can be used for non-3D workflows and has solid video/audio editing tools built in, but its really made for the 3D set ). I'd say check out OpenShot and Shotcut first of all and then decide from there what will meet your needs ; don't be afraid to try things out!
 
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JC724 said:
Thanks for the input, that answers a lot of my qestions. I appreciate it.
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No problem.
JC724 said:
ok so OBS is a good screen recording software but I still need a camera. My laptop came with a camera but do you guys think I need to buy a specific camera for my laptop?
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You don't. Everything comes down to tools you want to use and at what quality level is acceptable. You don't need a $100k video camera (like an Arri Alexa) just to put up a video on the web. But you may want something of better quality than what you have. What is acceptable is up to you. So you don't need a "specific camera". Just one that gives you the quality you want at a price you can afford (more or less like any piece of computer equipment).
JC724 said:
One of my friends told me I would need a lot of free hard drive space just to edit a video. Something like the video software will auto cach gigs of memory?? Can someone explain to me how this works?
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Generally yes, video is the type of "data" that takes up the most amount of hard drive space out of any function that I know of that can be done on a computer. The "tough" part is that video editing is also one of the most strenuous things you can have a PC do, meaning that speed of individual components matter. Being able to edit 4k video smoothy as an example requires a fast cpu, fast gpu, and also fast storage. It also requires a lot of space to hold your media.
NLE's do some level of caching, yes. The short version is that while you're editing video inside the NLE, it will "render" the timeline. Which is a method by which what you're editing will playback smoothly as a form of optimization, merging together all your clips and any graphics or filters placed on top of your clips. It's essentially encoding temporary video files in order to do this. As you continue to edit it will continue to cache newer versions of your edit. The amount of caching can be limited, but a sufficient size is necessary to at least cover the length of your video.
JC724 said:
I found this website here https://www.oberlo.com/blog/best-free-video-editing-software

I noticed that the UI for lightworks and HitFilm Express seems to allow for having two videos up at a time. I am assuing it has the orginal and the one you are trying to edit/create. Is this a feature that Davinci Resolve allows?
Click to expand...
It doesn't quite work that way. Generally UI's that have two videos up will have one that is from your timeline (the video you're creating) and the other "playback head" is for clips you're scrubbing through. What that means is perhaps you're looking for another video or piece of a video you're looking through to add to your timeline. And you can see both so that if you'd like you can see where one section of the video would end or begin and where it's being placed visually.
In terms of how necessary that is, it's not necessary at all. Some NLE's choose this as a UI choice and others don't. Basically what it is is a tie over from the film days in which you would literally have two tapes or reels and that would help you cut those two things together visually. But now that it's all digital (and not physical) tools like the timeline (that shows the placement of all clips) have replaced the need for showing "two heads". Some people like that hold over and some don't.
JC724 said:
Is Davinci Resolve something I can study(via youtube tutorials) for a couple of days and be able to start to do the main things that I want to do?

I have heard that Davinic Resolve and Hit Film Express are really hard to use. I don't know how true that is though.
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Yes, like all major software there are a ton of tutorials on Youtube on Resolve. Some from Blackmagic design themselves as well as quite a bit of community generated content.
Editing is a serious skillset. There isn't much to say other than that. Basic editing (splicing clips together and cutting stuff out) probably won't take you a lot of time to learn. But Resolve has the depth of Photoshop. So there will be perhaps tools you use all the time and tools you perhaps will never need to ever learn depending on what you want to do. More basic NLE's might seem less complicated because their interface has less tools on it. But will of course be more feature limited. The basic aspects will be roughly the same in all editors though.
I would say the best way to learn this stuff though is simply by doing it. Just search for what you're trying to do one step at a time and add to your skillset. But if it isn't obvious before why people get paid money to edit videos it will become obvious as you start to dive into it. When you first start of course watch a basic overview tutorial. I found some really great ones at roughly an hour long that show in detail how to do all the basics step by step.
But basically in an intro to your chosen NLE you'll first want to learn file management, ingestion (importing), using the timeline and editing clips in the timeline, and exporting plus some tips and tricks along the way. Those are the things you'll need to get started in any NLE. Everything else you'll add on piece by piece on top of that skill set.
 
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Ok I love the support I am getting on here. I truly appreciate. I apologize if my next few questions are dumb.

I am trying to learn OpenShot so I can start doing some youtube content creation.
I watched the first 3 OpenShot video editor tutorials by Jonathan Thomas on youtube. So I looked through some free template video intros that I found on youtube. I downloaded one of the template intros I wanted to modify. It came in a zip file. So I guess I have a a few questions. Can someone explain to me what one of these extension.

When I opened it up, it had a .aep extension. and a audio file(which I understand). What is a .aep extension?
Then there is a Assets&Precomps folder. Here is where I thought I understood the videos but it is kinda clear I don't.
There are 4 sub-folders in this folder. Each has about 100 jpeg pictures. And in each folder One of the jpeg pictures seem to actually be a video picture(didn't even know there were jpg pics that could be mini videos lol).
So in one of his videos he selected every image in the project and added then to the timeline. So I thought that I needed to take all the pics from 1 folder and put them on 1 track independently(on the same timeline sequence). Then put the audio file on the lower track and hit play. Then the video should run like it does normally. Once that works, I would start trying to edit the video but I ran into 3 problems.
  1. Is there a way to add each folder of pics to the project but not have all the pics groups together. Once I get to the 2nd and 3rd folders I don't want to accidentally grab any sets of pics that are from another folder.
  2. I want to add the pictures in a sequential order. They are all numbered from 1 to n in each folder. I am pretty sure they need to be put on the timeline in that order. But when I try to do it, they are out of order and I can't see the entire name of each picture to get the proper number. Anybody know how to do this?
  3. When I played the template video it was only 12 seconds. When I click on the preview and go through a group of pics in order on the timeline, it takes way longer for the preview to finish. Like 1 to 2 minutes, not 12 seconds. Shouldn't it be the same length of time?
I apologize if some of these answers are in his last 4 tutorials. I just thought learned enough to test out what he did already. I am going to watch those tomorrow.
 
.aep is Adobe After Effects

I'm not sure about OpenShot (althought I think I did demo it once and declared it junk) but the image sequence thing typically there is an option to import a video file as an image sequence, and choose the frame per second. If you just drag a bunch of images into the editor, they may just be placed at 5 seconds per frame or some other default.
 
I just went through this exercise. I was looking for something simple that I could use like a sequencer and add different audio tracks over video I recorded. I tried OpenShot, HitFilmExpress and something else I can't remember. HitFilmExpress is by far the most intuitive for me.
 
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I am not sure if I need to start another thread for this but I will try here first.

Does anyone know how to add controller button notation from the PlayStation or x box to your videos. Using a video editing software?

So if I am explaining something to someone, I might want show the 4 buttons of the controller, where the buttons are grayed out except for the buttons I am telling them to press?
 
Crossout11 said:
Could anyone please suggest me a video editing software for MacOS?
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Final Cut Pro is always good, iMovie for lighter work, and if you want something cheaper and really easy to use while looking professional, Wondershare Filmora is extremely good.
 
Crossout11 said:
Could anyone please suggest me a video editing software for MacOS?
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I use movavi video editor. Have you ever heard of such a video editing program? I myself found out about it not a long time ago, about 2 years ago, although it has existed more than 5 years. A friend told me about it, he films videos for YouTube and edits them in movavi. I'll leave you the link, see it here.
 
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