Video editing software has become more and more popular nowadays. Editing video is not only the game of professionals but also amateurs to join. There are dozen of good free video editing software out there for you to try such as: Shotcut, Lightworks, Davinci Resolve, Hitfilm 4 Express, VSDC, VideoPad Video editor and many, many more. Not to mention other professional, low-cost video editing software like Movavi, Filmora, AVS, Blaze or Voilabits as well as many famous names like Adobe Premier Pro, PowerDirector or Sony Vegas.
The important thing is that those software have almost the same features, similar price tag or effects. You will be easily distracted by the offer from the makers. You can’t figure out the differences among them. How good are they? And what will you get in the license price? Therefore, the key to choose the best video editing software for your need is being able to know the most important things of editing software. Get out of your head things that are unessential to your needs.
In today post, I am going to guide your through how to choose the best video editing software based on my experiences.
How to choose the best video editing software?
1. Your needs
Get to know your needs is the most important things when choosing your best video editing software from my point of view. You’ll need to know that although most of the software have the similar features but there are some minor differences among them. Why do you need the software is the question you have to answer at first. Why?
- Each program is optimized for a specific purpose. For example, you can’t use Movavi, Filmora or Camtasia Studio to create Hollywood style films like Lightworks or Davinci Resolve can do. Via versa, you can only create instruction tutorial videos, product demos professionally by Camtasia Studio, not Davinci or Lightworks.
- If you are not involved in film making industry or professional video editing career. Your needs are limited to basic video editing requirements such as: cut, trim a video or join, merge a clip, adding some transitions, effects to the video, then you don’t exactly need professional software, a simple to use, free software like Shotcut, VSDC or ActivePresenter may suite all your needs. Go to this article and download the software you need.
- Want to create professional tutorial videos, how-to videos and share them online to earn money? You’ll need a good tutorial video maker like Camtasia Studio 9, ActivePresenter or VSDC video editor pro.
- If you want to join film editing industry in the future, you’ll need to consider to use some professional film editing software like Adobe Premier Pro, PowerDirector, Sony Vegas Pro, Davinci Resolve or Hitfilm. If not, just stay away from them. Believe me, these software are powerful but they are really complicated to use if you don’t spend time learning how to use it. This is an example of how to edit video in Adobe Premier Pro from Taran, a professional video editor I happen to see on YouTube.
2. Software features
Once you understand your needs, the second thing you need to consider is the features of the software. What are important features and what’s not? As mentioned above, nonlinear video editing software as now are very similar to each other. Most of them are simple to use, has basic editing tools like: cut, trim, crop, delete video, add transitions, effects and more. The differences are small but easy to recognize: they are advanced video editing features such as: Chroma key, edit 3600 video, render 4k video, annotation tools or built-in effect packages. Of course, the ease of use is also a feature that you need to consider when choosing the best video editing software.All the advanced video editing features can be found easily in the product description of the makers.
For example, if you want to edit 3600 video, then you absolutely need to look at PowerDirector 16. If you want to edit video quickly and render it to 4K format, then Filmora video editor will be the option you need. And if you need a 2-in-1 video editor with built-in powerful screen recorder, ActivePresenter or Camstasia Studio can suite your need. If you are beginners to video editing industry, take a look at below feature check list:
- Ease of use
- Input format
- Capture possibility
- Basic video editing tools
- Advanced video editing tools
- Transitions and special effects
- Export video /output format
- Help & Support
- Software updates and upgrades policy.
Make sure that you check all the above features before making your decision to try or buy a software.
3. Your budget and maker’s offer
Once you understand your needs, read the software feature description carefully, the last thing you need to consider is your budget. The price of the software will decide what you will get. However, it doesn’t mean that free or low-cost software are rubbish and expensive software is better than the cheaper one. I intend to list down here the price of some popular video editing software which are available on the market I’ve reviewed and give you a short description of the software as well as what is it best for. However, It is a little bit waste of time when I wrote some related articles before, just click the below title to get the information you need.
- Best free video editing software.
- Best professional video editing software.
- Best free video editor for YouTube.
Bottom line
I hope the above mentioned information is helpful for you in choosing the best video editing software. No matter which software you choose, try to read all the feature description as well as reading reliable review about that software. Remember to follow us to receive more valuable post notifications in the future.
Good luck with your choice!
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