What Video Editing Software Do You Use?

[MaurysMusic]

Lumafusion - on iPad and M1 Macbook Pro.

[jim1960]

All the entries are in up until this point.
(I post this so I know where to pick this up again after more people chime in)

[RPadTV]

Final Cut whenever possible, Premiere if a client insists on Adobe

[Rick Shepherd]

I am using Davinci Resolve, since it handles Cinema 4k dng raw files.

[Horseflesh]

I use Vegas, just because it's the first editor I tried.

Having recently learned about Davinci Resolve, I am going to try and switch to that next time I have a project.

I also own LumaFusion from back when it briefly went free or cheap... It should be pretty capable on my iPad Pro, but honestly I find everything about doing "real work" in an iPad to be slow and irritating compared to a desktop OS.

I only need to do a video about once a year so I pretty much have to re-learn the editor every time. I kind of hate video editing, honestly.

[jim1960]

All the replies have been added to the list.

[phcorrigan]

Originally Posted by Sasquatchian

And not a single person has mentioned DaVinci Resolve, which not only is hugely popular in the video editing community but also has a highly evolved free version that is more than most people need, y'know, unless you're ingesting 4K Raw or want the auto tracking selections and magic masking, in which case you get the paid $300 Studio version. And it comes with a very robust audio section powered by Fairlight, and it has the ability to be fully color managed as well.

I'm pretty new to video editing, and I'm moving from ShotCut Pro to DaVinci Resolve. The major issue with DaVinci is that it requires a decent GPU. I just build a new system with an 8GB GPU, primarily for DaVinci. Apparently, however, it can use as much video RAM as you can through at it.

[djlettierimx]

I am using Movavi. It's very user-friendly, and I appreciate the easy-to-use interface it offers.

Things like motion tracking, green screen editing, and syncing Separately Recorded Audio and Video have really come in handy for my personal projects.

Overall, I've had a good experience with it. You can read more about Movavi movie maker features on their site.

[The Old Anglo]

Still works!!!

[difalkner]

DaVinci Resolve. And there are tons of good instructional videos to teach you the tough parts. I find it very powerful and intuitive; and it's free!!

[UKPhil]

Shortcut and nice and simple Windows Movie Maker which I used for my last video........

https://youtube.com/watch?v=l2cSSJuX4O0&feature=share8

[wood&wire]

I've been using Lightworks. Free but with upgrade you get extra effects and functionality. Tons of youtube video tutorials.

EDIT: Forgot to add, I've never tried mixing audio in Lightworks although I do record solo living room performances for youtube. I'm sure there is a way to do it and if not, one can probably export the audio to another software for mixing and import back into Lightworks. Just haven't needed to doctor any audio yet.

[FrankHudson]

People have different needs for video editing. My music related videos are fairly basic and yet specific. I'm not photogenic so I'm not looking for promotional videos that show off my good looks and stage presence. I spend a whole lot of time in reading, research, composing music, recording etc with my Parlando Project, so I don't take the time or focus to learn video editing software.

my youtube video channel: link here

My specific needs and areas of focus:

• My videos tend to be short, like my compositions, sub 5 minutes.
  
• I don't need multiple camera support so far, nor do I need picture in picture or most other special effects.
  
• Access to stock footage, pictures is nice to have.
  
• I don't create higher than regular full HD videos. Yes I know 4k is a thing, but I expect my videos to be seen on mobile devices not on large screen hires TVs etc.
  
• Since my work relates to literary poetry, text and subtitle handling is highly important.

At my YouTube channel, the earliest videos were done with Windows Movie Maker, which is now old, obsolete, and off the market. It was reliable for me and actually had fine text handllng. Slow to render, but with short pieces I tolerated that. Easy to learn even if short on features by modern standards.

Most of my lyric videos were done with Apple iMovie. It was free, does a great job with "Ken Burns effect" scrolling on pictures (something I do a lot) and was easy to learn. Decent rendering speed. Text handling is basic, worse than the ancient Windows Movie Maker, but as you can see, I worked around that. I had several, very annoying reliability issues including crashes with lost work and refusal to do final renders with my up to date 2019 I7 16 gig RAM Mac Mini. Older versions actually ran more reliably (if slower) on my ancient 2011 i5 Mac Mini.

After my iMovie adventure in 2022 when I did a lot of lyric videos, I got a subscription to Cyberlnk PowerDirector, but haven't had as many hours working with it. It's a constant PC Mag review winner, and it is full-featured, offers access to stock footage and graphics, has good text handling, and renders very fast. It will even do pretty darn good automatic subtitles "listening" to your audio. In my limited use however, I find it hard to learn (given my lack of focus on video). It should be able to do the "Ken Burns" but I haven't been able to get it to work the way I want, despite viewing some online tutorials.

I currently have no personal recommendation for video editing software as of yet. As you can see from the above, I use both MacOS and Windows. I may try something beyond PowerDirector next year, or just buckle down and try to learn what I need to do in PowerDirector.

[DupleMeter]

Originally Posted by DupleMeter

Final Cut Pro for most editing/assembling. DaVinci Resolve for color grading.

In the interest of full disclosure, I went & bought the full version of Resolve & gave up on Final Cut Pro. Resolve has impressed me a lot.