Free video editor recommendations

UkingViking

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I spend a lot of time searching for a free video editing software that worked for me, so now I finally found one - I though I would share my experience.
Do hijack the thread with other software recommendations if you want to.

I use a Windows PC.

Windows movie maker
I started out with Windows Movie Maker, which is a fine little piece of software, but it has some annoying features or lack of the same.
There is only one video track, so if you want to put in a still and go back to video - you have to cut the track up and fit it back together.
Any cross-over between clips, of between clips and stills, will mess up the timeline - I still havent figures out where the fading time is taken from.
All this is pretty irrelevant for a lot of uses - but for ukulele videos, where you want to line up video footage of ukulele playing with an audio track recorded at the same time, it is very limiting.

Lightworks
This looked so difficult that I dared not even install it, but I am sure it is great if you learn it :)

Openshot
Openshot seems to have very nice features, with multiple video tracks. The problem is that it is made for Linux, and though they have made a Windows edition, but it sure didn't run on my Windows 10 PC. It constantly chrashed, and wasn't able to render even a small video without messing up sound and everything.
I assume it works well on Linux, and they might make a working windows version one day, but for now it is not a viable option.

Shortcut video editor
This is what I discovered a few weeks back, and have been using since. With multiple video tracks you can fade between videos and still keep the audio synchronised. It is not as simple as Movie maker, but still easy to approach - especially since there are a lot of youtube toturials.
I sometimes have to restart the software when it starts to misbehave, and but it doesn't chrash like Openshot, and it renders movies within reasonable time.
 
I've been using VSDC : http://www.videosoftdev.com
But it isn't the most user friendly piece of software I've used.

Lately I've been playing with LumaFusion on the iPad - fairly intuitive and a lot of power but still without one or two key features I'd like to see - in particular, some kind of lumakey or chromakey function.
 
Torrent an earlier version of Premiere Pro :)
 
Here is a list of free video editors for Windows reviewed: http://www.videosoftdev.com/news/windows-10-video-editor-programs-available-for-free
No need to go to torrents :) If you're really looking for something as powerful as Premiere, check out Davinci Resolve. It's free and practically on the same level in terms of feature-set.

Nice list!
Perhaps I should give VSDC a chance.
It annoys me that I can't see when the list was made, to figure out if OpenShot and ShortCut have been fixed since I tried them more than a year ago, since they made it to 2nd and 3rd place on the list.
As my first post said, Openshot didn't work at all a year ago, and ShortCut was unstable and didn't render smoothly.
For a while I have been back to Movie Maker, which is still on my PC. Not a ton of features, but it delivers.
 
I use Open Shot but I'm on Linux. Currently I'm using v1.something as my Linux OS is still 32 bit and the 2.x version needs 64 bit OS. I should update to 64 bit but my laptop is getting long in the tooth so I'm living with what I have just now.

When I first started using Open Shot it used to crash regularly but it's improved over time. It still crashes occasionally, especially if I'm 'working' it hard but it's not a common occurence these days.

Maybe you could give it another try. I do find the pan and zoom effects are not as smooth as they might be but otherwise it has a decent set of features and is pretty easy to get started with but there's a lot more there if you want to go deeper.

I'm happy with it because it works and is relatively easy to use. There are some extra features I would like and maybe v2.x has them but I'll live with it for now.
 
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Usually, it just imports & edits pre recorded sound & film clips. :)

If you want to record, usually best to use a video recorder, camera, or cellphone.

You can also normally import sound files & add pictures as well as video clips.
 
If you have an iOS device and iMovie doesn’t cut it for you (iMovie is free on Mac and iOS, and is surprisingly good on iOS), I have been using Luma Fusion to edit all of my videos and I would highly recommend it. If you see any of my videos, I need a way to have multiple video sources at one time, and Luma Fusion allows for 3 (for me: background, text, and a “follow the chord” cursor). It isn’t free, but it costs very little compared to PC/Mac paid video editing software. I know that is out of the thread...but someone might be reading and wondering what is out there and good (great) to use with their mobile device. I can’t speak to Android, but I can address iOS.
 
I agree Choriguy. LumaFusion has added features since my #2 post and it now does everything I need it to do and more. Sure, there are more powerful desktop packages costing hundreds more, but for my needs, I agree with you that I can't recommend it highly enough.
 
Usually, it just imports & edits pre recorded sound & film clips. :)

If you want to record, usually best to use a video recorder, camera, or cellphone.

You can also normally import sound files & add pictures as well as video clips.

Interesting! Most camcorders I've looked at don't take an external mic until you get to the high end models, and since a lot of video effects kinda detract from the music performance I think I'll stick with my current setup (recording on a laptop with external mic and camera). But I might look around for some better video creation software as windows movie maker is not liking my Win 10 machine at all!
 
I'm surprised Davinci Resolve hasn't been mentioned yet. It's an industry standard and fairly easy to use.
 
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