I’m planning on launching a YouTube channel for BPB, so I went on a lookout for freeware apps to handle the job of video editing. Anyway, it turned out that there are actually some really good freeware video editing tools out there, so here’s my selection of the best free video editing software tools for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Follow the links for screenshots & download info:
- Avid Free DV by Avid (Windows)
- Avidemux by Mean (Linux, Mac, Windows)
- Blender by Blender3D (Linux, Max, Windows)
- Lightworks by EditShare (Windows)
- Movie Maker by Microsoft (Windows)
trakAxPC by HighAndes (Windows)- VirtualDub by Phaeron (Windows)
- Vivia by Vivia (Linux, Windows)
- Wax by DebugMode (Linux, Windows)
- ZS4 by t@b (Linux, Mac, Windows)
Extended list: Free Video Converter, Expression Encoder 4, OpenShot, VideoPad.
Perhaps video editors are not what you’d usually expect to find on BPB, but a lot of musicians (including myself) like experimenting with video. Not to mention that having decent YouTube videos can attract more listeners to your music. So, I figured it would be pretty cool to add a bpb Freeware Studio article about free video editing software.
In terms of features and functionality, Lightworks is easily my #1 choice for free video editing software. It’s a professional non-linear video editing application which became open source in 2011. The project is still in beta, but the official release date is very close. Lightworks is not the easiest video editor to learn, but it’s definitely worth investing some time into. I mean, some of my favorite movies were edited on Lightworks (even some Oscar award-winning titles like Mission Impossible, The Departed, Pulp Fiction, and more)! To get started, check out the Lightworks QuickStart Guide and take a look at some of the available video tutorials (I’ve included one at the bottom of this article).
trakAxPC is somewhere between an audio sequencer and a video editor application. Much easier to use than Lightworks, but then again not as full-featured. The free version lacks some cool features included in the full version (which is priced at $24.95), but it’s still a great choice for a video editing tool, especially if you work with a lot of audio files. To get started with the program and learn about its features, check out the Support section on the trakAxPC website.
Another good free tool is Avid Free DV, which was a freeware version of the professional Avid video editor. After Avid bought Pinnacle, they dropped support for this great little non-linear video editor. However, it is still available for free download via digitalFAQ. The software is a bit dated, but it’s still a pretty decent video editor with good workflow and all the basic features you may need.
VirtualDub is a free video editor, as well as a free video capturing utility. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. Here’s a nice tutorial for using VirtualDub as a free screen capturing utility (very useful for creating video tutorials and such).
ZS4 Video Editor is an improved version of the Zwei-Stein Video Editor. It is an advanced video editing and composition software with over 150 built-in video effects. The workflow may seem a bit challenging in the beginning, but ZS4 is a very powerful free video editor worth learning.
Vivia is a simple video editing program for Linux and Windows. It provides extremely easy editing of clips and transitions in real-time, along with multi-camera support for editing scenes that were recorded by more than one camera simultaneously.
Finally, here’s the first part of a great series of video tutorials by dvstudiosproductions, which will help you get started with Lightworks:
And that’s all for today. If there’s a free video editor that isn’t yet included in the list, please let me know in the comments section below. Thanks for reading BPB and happy video editing!
Special thanks to Tesseract for suggesting Expression Encoder 4 and Scott Lavender for suggesting Blender and OpenShot!
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I doubt any of us will ever thank you enough for all the information you provide, Tomislav… But here you go, a little thank you from the US left coast!
Definitely wasn’t expecting this, but working on a little movie project with my daughters (they are 11 and 9), and this will come in handy when we start editing the bits and pieces.
I don’t really have a lot of places or people to share your blog with, but I’ll do my best… I may just post a Craigslist ad in my city about your blog. What do you think?
Cheers!
S4A
hi S4A, always nice to hear that BPB’s useful to someone. :]
hey, don’t worry about sharing – the little red “please share” box is just a reminder for people with FB, Twitter and similar networks to post a link to BPB every now and then and help me reach more readers.
i’ve actually removed all those other social network buttons in order to increase the loading speed – i hope BPB’s working much faster now. :]
edit: i’m currently experimenting with including share buttons while preserving the loading speed.
another great list by you, man
this is so cool.
and yes… as bedroom musician, its our typical to do almost everything in creative room on our own, including the video clip editing.
:D
and just in time i need to edit my first video music.
xD
cheers man, good luck editing your first video! :D
I love this blog!
It always has the grandest selection of Freeware, Donationware and some of the corporation ‘seasonal’ free/competition Items.
thanks man!
Interesting programs! Now I only need a list of the best free camcorders, too. Because without a cam the best freeware video editing programs don’t help me anything…
And until now I haven’t had the money to buy a good camcorder, unfortunately.
But I don’t think I’ll have the time to make (good) music videos since my time is even too limited to make more good music tracks.
the list of free camcorders is almost ready, i’ll probably publish it next week. there are too many links so i’m having trouble fitting everything on one page.
A good option for screen-capture is also Expression Encoder 4. The only limitation of the free version is that the length of the captured video is max 10 minutes. But that shouldn’t be a problem, multiple clips can be merged and edited later.
It has tons of options, nice and clean interface, comes with its codecs, easy to use and can record Full HD (1080p) videos both from screen and cam.
thanks, i’ll check it out. 10 minutes should be enough for a decent YouTube video.
Excellent listing, just what I needed for a little promotional video.
Thanks so much to this blog, it’s by far the greatest one-stop place for (in)valuable musician’s (free) resources!
Please do keep it up!
cheers, will do!
Several more for Linux: KDEnlive, Open Shot, and Blender
All have compositing functionalities along with the standard editing you would expect. Blender is typically thought of as a 3D modeler, however it is also a very powerful video editing, especially with node compositing.
Scott Lavender
Ubuntu Studio Project Lead
cool, i had no idea that Blender could be used as a video editor! thanks for the tips, i’ll check these out and update the list.
Excellent, just excellent…
virtualdub is a swiss knife… even though it is not non-linear, i would rate it together with final cut pro, premiere, vegas and media composer
I really appreciate people posting free video stuff like this! Enjoying video editing without spending much like adobe after effects is a big help.
thanks for the post. im definitely interested in getting into recording and editing video, i just don’t have the time or a anything to record with but when i do im definitely coming back here for editing options
Flowblade 4 Linux: http://code.google.com/p/flowblade/
cool, thanks fort the tip. i’ll add it to the list!
Just noticed that trakAxPC v4.0 is not free anymore. They have ended the free version at 3.01. Sad but one off the list.
ahh, that’s bad. thanks for reporting, though! i’ll add the info to the list.
how about Adobe Premiere 2?
havent looked at the legal situation but its downloadable at various locations such as ComputerBild and and and…