So I just read about DaVinci Resolve on their web site. I may just decide to shoot a sparrow with a cannon.
Shotcut is included in part of the roundup linked above on LifeHacker.
Cyberlink PowerDirector and Corel VideoStudio are also buy-once (<$100) solutions that others here prefer but lately Corel pushes next year’s edition Madden-style quite aggressively in-program every 9-12 months.
Yes, I tried it. It is lacking.
I used to be on Wikipedia a lot, but could never find a tool I liked that supported Wikipedia allowed formats.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Video#Video_formats
Wikimedia uses Ogg Theora and WebM for video because they are open and royalty-free, unlike other video formats such as Apple’s QuickTime (mov) and Microsoft’s WMV, which contain patents and require royalties.
IIRC I always needed to record in one format and then convert to OGG or WebM using a different program, which due to lossy compression made the videos look like crap.
After thinking about it, I decided against swatting flies with a sledgehammer and installed Shotcut. I think this editor is a very good fit for my simple needs.
I can drop in a bunch of clips. Transitions are simple to use. I can add in an audio track. Text can be overlayed. All of it is fairly straightforward to use.
I have been using PowerDirector from Cyberlink for quite a few years, after buying and trying Vegas and a lot of other video editing programs. So I tried Shotcut and Resolve from the comments here, and (probably due to my lack of knowledge in how to do things in them) can’t quite do what I need to do easily with them, so I suppose I’ll stick with PowerDirector.
Some things PD does that used to be really important aren’t as important these days. For example, back when I had a mix of flat screen wide screen TVs and regular tube TVs with their aspect angle, the “safe” space overlay that would show what will safely show on the chosen screen vs. be off the edge was important. Now everything is wide screen so that function is not needed.
What I need to do is really quite simple. I use a tiny portion of PowerDirector’s capabilities in the same way I use a tiny portion of Excel’s capabilities. Powerdirector can do green screen, particle “stuff”, you can pick something like a face and blur it and it will move the blur with the face, and much much more. I’ve got a friend in Austin who uses it for very professional jobs.
For me, I need to easily do the following, for primarily amateur projects: Import a folder of video clips (usually 1080p today,) audio (typically WAV or MP3,) and perhaps a couple of watermark type images. I need to be able to easily edit each clip (usually just precisely split at selected locations and remove pieces and create a transition at the split locations.) I need to be able to add additional clips and do the same. I need to be able to insert custom titles at the beginning and sometimes in between clips. I need to be able to sometimes replace the sound with my own WAV or MP3 or just add that as background music. Lastly, and this is where I often run into ease of use issues with some programs, I need to be able to take a simple image, a JPG, and place it on the track and visually resize and place it as an overlay on the clip so it is precisely overlaid where I need it to be, and that may be a different location within a clip and for each clip.
That last one is handled very easily in PD: you drag the image (say, a simple black box with XYZ in white text) onto a track below the current active one. You can see on the screen where it’s located in terms of overlay on the video. Double click the image and you get a modification screen where you can simply grab the corners of the image and shrink or expand it, with or without keeping the aspect ration, and simply move it where you want it to overlay. Then you can go to the track and expand the image to be on as little or much of the clip as you like. If you need it to be in a different location on the next clip in the video you just drag another copy of the image on the track below that clip and wash and repeat.
Again, very simple needs. Oh, and when done, the ability to export and render the project to a single video in whatever format and resolution (in detail) I want, and render quickly. PD uses any hardware acceleration your system will allow.
I tried both Resolve and Shotcut (that really makes me want to type Shortcut!) and while I know its likely because I know PD well and I don’t know these well, I struggled to do the image overlay and modify and place it in both programs.
The QT-based UI of Shotcut feel slow for anyone else?