Is there a good free Video Editor for Windows ?

[St Devious]

Just as the title says. Something with a bit more functionality than movie maker.

[Corpsy]

I recently looked into this myself and wasn't terribly pleased with what I found. There's Pinnacle VideoSpin which is free, but essentially adware that will harass you to get you to buy a full version. Many say it's better than Movie Maker, but from what I can tell it's practically the same.

Of the freeware video editing programs out there, I found that most were just downright mystifying in how they functioned, and one or two had some functionality but were crippled in some very serious ways (random crashes, no audio preview). It looks like there are some good ones available for Linux if you want to try that route, but if you intend to stick with Windows, then all that leaves is Blender.

Blender is an open source program primarily designed for 3D modeling and animation, as well as making interactive 3D products, but also has a built-in video editor (referred to as the "sequence editor"). The initial learning curve is rather steep, especially if you're unfamiliar with the program, because the screen is cluttered with buttons and menus that all have nothing to do with editing videos. But if you can put in a few hours to learn how it works, I find that it edits very similarly to Adobe After Effects, with the huge advantage of being able to preview the video in real-time, with audio, at full speed, with a number of effects going on like fades, speed changes, etc... Also, unlike many free programs, it supports just about any video or audio codec you have installed on your system (though you'll need FFMPEG in order to output video files containing audio).

The one big exception here is that it won't read DV files from my camcorder unlike just about every other editor, unless I convert them to some other format installed on my system (like the lossless Cedocida DV format) using VirtualDub or similar software. Also, when you import video, the framerate needs to match the framerate of the final video output. Often this means you'll need to resample the framerate ahead of time. I think this applies to longer videos at the 29.97 framerate as well, as Blender's framerate has to be a whole integer.

Blender gives you a ton of multi-purpose tracks to work with (audio, video and effects can go in any track, and I'm not sure if there's even a limit to how many you can stack), so it goes without saying that you can transition between many tracks while a continuous audio track plays (something so simple, yet so impossible in movie maker). You're able to edit at the individual frame level, and have a lot of control over how effects and transition work.

The biggest thing the sequence editor is lacking compared to something like Movie Maker are all those gimmicky transitions and effects, like star-wipes, barn doors, sepia, etc... But of course you can always create video clips that have the effects you want to use in Move Maker and assemble them in Blender.

Here's the tutorial that got me started: http://eugenia.gnomefiles.org/2008/04/20/video-editing-with-blender/
And here's a video tutorial that looks pretty good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=caIg7sIX6d4

[Yobbo]

Thanks for the Blender links, Corpsy. I watched that youtube clip and now Blender video editing doesn't seem so daunting anymore.

It's weird there's no free dedicated NLE out there, although things like Saya and PiTiVi look very promising - but whether anything concrete becomes of them...? VirtualDub and Avidemux are both excellent for simple cutting, but there's no multitracking for layering audio or video etc.

Blender seems to be all that exists out there at this moment. Is this correct?

[rfmmars]

Just as the title says. Something with a bit more functionality than movie maker.

Not free, how about $0.78?

http://cgi.ebay.com/MOVIE-EDIT-PRO-10-by-MAGIX-BRAND-NEW_W0QQitemZ160341596363QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_software?hash=item25551a98cb&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72%3A1234|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A2|294%3A50

Most stable version......... 32 anything you want tracks, only NLE that can take 100 Vdub frame servers at once , does it all.

Richard
photorecall.net

[ricardo.santos]

SciLab:
http://scilab-aurora.sourceforge.net/

jahshaka
http://jahshaka.org/

[Yobbo]

Wow, SciLab! How interesting! Thanks for that link!

[Schrade]

Er.. how exactly are you supposed to start SciLab Aurora under Windows? There's no executable and there's only a bash script which of course won't work with Windows by default.

There's mention of a Windows installer on the website but the aurora_windows.zip package contains nothing like that.

[JohannesL]

AviSynth is a good free video editor for Windows.

[Blue_MiSfit]

Yeah, but AviSynth is not really useful as a video editor :)

It's fine for a simple trim here and there, but it's by no means a reasonable replacement for a good NLE like Premiere, Avid, or Final Cut.

~MiSfit

[Gavino]

While I agree that Avisynth cannot compete with the likes of Premiere, Avid, or Final Cut, neither of these is a "free video editor".

It can do much more than simple trims: think of overlays, audio dubs, frame rate conversion, filters of all kinds, etc, etc. The use of a scripting language makes it extremely flexible and powerful, to the extent that you can do virtually anything with a bit of thought and patience.

[Fizick]

VideoPad ?
http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/index.html

[St Devious]

VideoPad ?
http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/index.html

nice. never heard of it till now.

[fvisagie]

nice. never heard of it till now.

I haven't tried it yet, but it's now definitely on my list. I spoke with their tech support/development people, and it's using FFmpeg for media handling, which took it up quite a few notches in my book.

[trolltuning]

Not free, how about $0.78?

http://cgi.ebay.com/MOVIE-EDIT-PRO-10-by-MAGIX-BRAND-NEW_W0QQitemZ160341596363QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_software?hash=item25551a98cb&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=65%3A12|66%3A2|39%3A1|72%3A1234|240%3A1318|301%3A0|293%3A2|294%3A50

Most stable version......... 32 anything you want tracks, only NLE that can take 100 Vdub frame servers at once , does it all.

Richard
photorecall.netI just spoke with an editor that I shoot for. He said that the rendering time on this was very slow. That didn't make sense to me when you say you can open 24 instances? He was using a laptop however.

[Ghitulescu]

There is no good "free" versions of commercial software. Most of them are crippled, sometimes to such an extent that you're willing to buy the commercial version at any price :)
Also entry level editors (the 29.95$ range ;)) are to be avoided, in particular when the same company sells a more expensive editor, for more or less the same reason.

Either go with open source, real freeware, or pick up an editor of 100$ or more.

However, depending on your needs, you might be well served also with cheaper editors.
For instance, since I'm doing only DV AVIs, I've bought (sales :)) a stripped-down, adobe-premiere-look-alike suite from Mainconcept - it's fast, low HW requirements, unlimited tracks, smart-rendering, full audio processing, however with little templates, transitions and titling, but who needs them..., no MPEG encoder, no divx support (don't care)

[manolito]

VideoPad by NCH is a very good compromise IMO. The free version is only very slightly crippled, it blows away MS Movie Maker. See here on how to convert the trial version to the free version:
http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1535518#post1535518


Cheers
manolito

[Brammstein]

I was searching for the exact same thing a while ago, and found Lightworks by coincidence. I'm really liking it, although it has a bit of a learning curve. Even with a tiny (really tiny!) amount of experience in Final Cut Pro. But it seems to do at least a lot of the same stuff...