For my RU-vid videos, I started off using Shotcut and then moved to DaVinci Resolve. I found Shotcut quite easy to use and it did everything I needed to start with, but moving to Resolve gave me much more functionality and didn’t have much of a learning curve after using Shotcut for a while. Both are great pieces of software, though!
Superb! Clear explanation (per usual), great comparison and good tips for starters and more experienced users alike. Thanks a lot Chris, as always informative and very useful.
I love when you share great free/opensource software. Great downloading advice at the end. Its a shame that you need to include that especially with something so trusted as a Google search. Thank you for your hard work in editing this video together:)
Another reason to use uBlock, because I don't see any of these spammy ad links on Google. Google fails to keep their search results clean? Well though luck duh
Hi, Chris, thanks for the update. I rarely have a need for a vid editor but when I do, Kdenlive is the one I turn to. To learn it, I watched a tutorial and found it was quite easy to use with just a bit of education. When I had a question about how does THIS (fill in with whatever) work, I googled it and found there are a lot of answers to Kdenlive questions, which is quite helpful.. Too often I start to use a product/library/app and find there is little knowledge on the web and the only thing you have to work with is the documentation which isn't always as complete as it should be. But I digress. Keep up the good work!
still loving my Linux mint , Mate . running it on a 2009 old iMac . It is 100 percent stable and fast . Its transformed old E waste into a new home PC , awesome
Wow--incredible video CB, top-notch! I can't imagine the work you put into this one video, having to review all those editors. I used to edit a lot of video using Sony Vegas Pro, but don't do it anymore...but I certainly know how challenging it can be to learn all the menu options and features. Strong work!
Christopher, you're a champ buddy. This video was released yesterday and today I was deciding on a free video editor to do up a couple of videos I've been meaning to do. I've found Kdenlive from your video and find this to be quite good after a few short youtube videos later on how to work a few things. Always appreciate your videos Christopher, keep up the great work and quality.
Great comparison, Chris ! I use daVinci myself and it is really important to know that daVinci has so many functions that this package is almost full production package for animation, editing and also audio produciton. Just for example in daVinci you have the fusion compositing software implemented that also allows you to use 3D Models in your productions. Thanks for the video, excellent as usual ....
Nice to see all the free & flossy options that have evolved for Linux. Because of extreme familiarity I most frequently fall back to Final Cut Pro 7, but support in newer Mac OSX versions is nonexistent. I'm in process of migrating away from Mac altogether and move to DaVinci Resolve on Linux for my pro work, but I will definitely be exploring a couple of these other free options as appropriate tools for simpler projects.
@@ScarletDeath1312 Thanks for the note, but I'm definitely aware of the distinction. I was employed by the company that invented the proprietary DaVinci color correction / editing tech around the early '90's and later licensed it to BlackMagic. My appreciations were for Chris's updates on the many true FLOSS editing options, as well as the fact that DaVinci is truly cross platform and runs fine on LINUX systems, regardless of being proprietary! 😁
Usual thorough exploration and high-standard commentary. Testing all of those must have taken a lot of work, even for someone who has practical experience with the genre.
For the geeks among us, DaVinci Resolve is (by far) the most powerful video editor. It can even utilize embedded Intel graphics (which has excellent encoder and decoder hardware called Quick Sync) and discrete graphics cards from Nvidia/AMD for effects processing at the same time. However, I think the free version is a bit limited in this regards.
The same for shoutcut (it has HW encoder/decoder). I also migrated from Shoutcut to DaVinci, but Shotcut is much more convenient. I use Davinci only for motion tracker and Neat Video.
It's worth mentioning that the paid version of DaVinci Resolve offers some extra features and in particular can export much faster if you have a suitable GPU. So for example a new RU-vid content creator can start with the free version, then if it all takes off, purchase the full and faster version later for about £306.
As always a fantastic video, I think Kdenlive and Davinci Resolve are definitely the best 2 choices but Olive looks like a very compelling third choice, can't wait to see where it goes. Have a fantastic day Chris, cheers.
Thanks Chris for an excellent & thorough review of all the video editors. I'll stick with kdenlive as it runs fine on my Linux machine. The current mint repository version is 19.12.3 which is a bit behind the latest one available! Another happy Sunday to you :)
I personally think that the 'BASICS' being free, but add on's are a *wonderful* compromise. It takes time and effort to produce software, and this polite "nudge" to getting upgrades are great! A nice bridge between the true meaning of Shareware and Pro Licensing. You get to try the software and see if it's what you need without having to pay a lot of money for something what won't do what you thought you need.
And still being able to use the premium features (with a watermark) is still a perfectly fine balance. They aren't locked out, so you don't have to pay to see if they meet your needs.
This video is great for those who really only need a star wipe to edit their sisters wedding but refuse to use anything else but DaVinci Resolve because that's what the pro's use.
Hey Christopher! Since you mention Kdenlive so much, I actually thought that it was the only free video editor available. It's good to see that there are other options. Thanks for explaining that.
I'm surprised Avidemux didn't make it on here, it's a very nice and simple open source editor able of keyframe cutting without re-encoding and nice fast workflow + basically a GUI frontend for FFmpeg for encoding tasks and filters. I use it for pre cutting even if i need to use more sophisticated software, it's so quick!
Before the Internet I was using Movie Maker came with windows XP and it was enough, It's weird how software resource requirements keep increasing. I don't edit videos so often but thanks to you I found Kdenlive works well enough on my 12 years old laptop Intel Core i3-2350M @2.30GHz 8GB DDR3 @667MHz Intel HD Graphics 3000 + NVidia GeForce GT 520MX Win10 on Kingston 250GB Thanks Chris
Look at that thumbnail! Clear and uncluttered - genuine descriptive text & even includes some examples. In the current youtube thumbnail hellscape you should be applauded for this alone 👏...and then a great video too! Bravo
I migrated from VSDC to DaVinci a couple of years ago. Persistent bugs drove me away. DaVinci is epically massive and complicated, I'll never use more than 10% of its features but it gets the job done. I do have a non-trivial number of annoyances with its user interface and I end up swearing at it during every editing session!
I used OpenShot to make a wedding anniversary video for my cousin. It was her 50th. I was able to import video and audio clips from all sorts of video and audio formats. Some from cameras, some from peoples phones. I made smooth transitions and added music and special effects with ease. I then produced a DVD for them and uploaded the finished product to Cloud services for everyone to see the video and what they had contributed. It was perfect!
Great video as usual - very interesting and full of information. Have Kdenlive on my Raspberry Pi 400 and it's fine for home videos and holiday stuff....
Ooo I clicked on this one straight away! I could really do with this one. I usually pay for Vegas Pro (the perpetual version, not month to month) but after their latest “update” which completely bricked access to the software for about 48 hours, it’s left a bitter taste in my mouth. Thanks for the video!
This is an extremely valuable video - thanks so much for creating it! One of my favorite RU-vidrs uses the free version of Davinci Resolve and I recently worked with iMovie and was wondering if I should start learning a better editor such as DaVinci Resolve ... The answer appears to be "YES".
DaVinci Resolve is actually a truly underrated piece of software. It's free, yet it offers features you'd usually expect in paid video editors, like Magix Vegas Pro or Adobe Premiere Pro.
Very good, but a few points of clarification. First off, used to run Hitfilm Express, great editor and fairly powerful, however, Artlist bought it in I think 2022 and did some changes, Express is now called Hitfilm Free, and as you say, it's now limited to 1080P, used to be able to output up to 4K for Express. Specifications do say, a Core i5, or Ryzen 5, from roughly 2016/17 (translation, the 6th gen i5, first gen Ryzen 5) or greater. Hitfilm used to be able to run on a Core i3, but no more. Back in early spring, the last of the original employees of FXHome left and the user forums were wiped out by Artlist and a subscription model is in place for the paid version, which does allow for full 4K. I agree that it was a great piece of kit, and have seen too many novices either not read the minimum specs, nor understand what is involved, and even if you explained, some still didn't get it. I have since switched to Davinci Resolve, mind you, an older version as I am running it on a 10 YO Dell Optiplex SFF that has a 4th gen Core i5, and 1G of VRAM, for now I am hoping to upgrade and it's been recommended that I run an i7 or Ryzen 7, or greater processor, 32G of system memory and have 12GB of VRAM on the graphics card for much smoother playback. Do be aware that this will be true for any editor that the minimum may get you to 1080P, but don't expect a great experience with anything higher res when it comes to scrubbing, especially when working with H.264/H.265 codecs. Best to transcode those to say ProRes, Cineform or DVnX instead. Nice thing about Resolve is once you pay $299 or so for it, it's paid and upgrades are perpetual, and as someone else pointed out, if you buy even the speed editor at roughly the same price, Resolve Studio is free.
Da Vinci Resolve is an excellent piece of software. You can edit simply on it but it allows an pretty unlimited improvement path without changing software. This software cost 1000's before Da Vinci bought it. My first choice. Cheers
big props to the folk who develop and offer widely available professional software without nickel-and-diming every user till the last drop. disappointed to see apple also continuing to head in that direction with ipad fcp. software for rent does not go well with the free spirit of artistry, culture and education. there are some things that no amount of money can ever buy. glad to see others understand that as well. thank you for the effort and hard work!
I started with Kdenlive and transitioned to Davinci Resolve. both are awesome, but probably the the best part is that there's a wealth of RU-vid tutorials for both packages
Such a useful video, glad you are getting back to your roots. I still hate the intro music that I have had to sit thru for hundreds of videos, and the hitflow diatribe was tiresome, but overall, great video, thank you.
Great video! I did some editing in KDEnlive on my ThinkPad T400 this last weekend, and I was surprised at how well it worked. I will try out the proxy clips tip for sure.
I'm surprised Pitivi hasn't been mentioned in this video. It's a very nice beginner-friendly video editor for Linux that works quite well on my laptop with 8GB RAM, and it's also free and open source. I definitely recommend you have a look at it one day. Other than that, thanks for another excellent video, Chris!
Olive has the potential to become a really great Free and Open Source video editor, made by a RU-vidr called "MattKC" (which does videos about computers and game consoles stuff) Although not much updates are happening with the project right now :((
Such a helpful video. It takes a lot of time to locate free video editing software that does not then turn out to have some restriction that makes it unusable for a persons use case. This is going to save so many people so much time that they would have spent trying to do this evaluation themselves.
It must have taken much effort and time to go through all the choices and prepare screenshots of them all. I appreciate your effort and the high quality videos you make. As always, another excellent video and keep up the good work 👏🏽 I like the consistency in your videos, such as the black shirt and white background. This consistency does not distract me from video to the next, and allows me to concentrate on what matters: the content being explained, because after all I am here to learn. Moreover, comparing software or hardware is the best service you do to your viewers, because it is what we need but do not have the resources (time and money), effort, nor expertise to perform. I wish I had come across this video in the past when I was searching for a video editor software to cut out commercials from movies I record from live TV. This was before streaming become mainstream, and probably before RU-vid became mainstream too. I had to search around and try different software until I settled for VideoReDo, which did the job and was good for the task and for that era. I was much younger then and had the patience and energy to do that, but now I don't anymore, so thank you.
Hello! It's hard to be more exhautive in a video presentation! Very interesting to see Kdenlive fall into two important categories... let's face it, this software can meet the basic needs (and a little more) of a large proportion of users. Thank you for this!
Hello, fellow Christopher! ...back again... Thank you for the quick rundown of this! I have just started messing around with OBS on my pi's and am still "learning the ropes" as far as programming goes but I have been branching out into somewhat new things like 3D printing so have been keeping busy but thanks for this run-down, again, fellow Christopher! Love your stuff. Keeps me on my toes.
After watching this video a week ago, I have switched to Shotcut from the dreaded 2012 Windows Movie Maker. Still getting used to its interface but I really enjoy for its functionality, the features and my slow build up to a workflow from a "person who does video editing as a hobby" mindset. Other free video editors (to me, my own perspective) that mandates for an account, includes a watermark, self-plug with its own "upgrade to pro," and have an artificial limited time use before the free software ceases to function is a disqualifier. Regardless, I won't argue for more because its software is what keeps the creators / developers / programmers afloat which is important for them in a financial standpoint. If I were to use anything else instead of Shotcut, I will re-evaluate myself when I come back to this video or an updated one for 2024 and later. P.S. Search engines are pretty wonky when they sponsor a websites, menacingly looking at Filmora/Wondershare for its terrible design.
Very good analysis and review, Christoper! ❤ As for kdenlive, i dont know what is it about editing in it, but it feels somewhat cumbersome on ui part for someone who did about 440 edits in Premiere and countless edits in Vegas beforehand... it works like charm, but the process just feels - i have no better word - cumbersome... Thank you for your outstanding job!
The best free video editor with an excellent balance between features and ease of use is iMovie in my opinion. It's rock solid, easy to learn and use, has sufficient features for most users, and has unmatched community support. The only downside is you need an Apple computer to run it on. Until fairly I was using a 2012 edition quad-core Mac Mini with 16GB RAM and an internal SSD, which is perfectly adequate (editing is fine, but final render is a bit slow - you need to find something else to do while that's happening).
Normally I watch your videos in the morning, but today I only just finished at 10pm EDT. Back in the XP (eXtra Problems) days, when files were smaller and rarely greater than 848x I used the built in Movie Maker windows software. I had been using ffmpeg for conversions of mp4 to avi, and when files started getting much larger, and data rates for my work station were really expensive, I started moving files over to my server from a GMAIL account via gdrive and using ffmpeg to assemble via CLI. Most of the time, they were single files that only needed putting the channel bug in the corner. Other times they were meant to be assembled and put a bug in the corner. The vagaries of concatenation were resolved easily.This worked just fine. Nowadays, fibre is very cheap so there are no longer issues of running out of bandwidth, and I'll usually get a couple of gigabyte sized clips for assembly prior to publicaton four or five times a week. Openshot used to work fine, but it started crashing on the last update. KDENLive, so often recommended here, was my choice to replace it. Much better than Openshot, it has a very short learning curve and faster at the render. If push came to shove, I could always go to CLI and ffmpeg. Remember kids, YMMV
An excellent review of video editors. Some of the packages were new to me so I am going to have a closer look at them. As a user of VSDC, I have always found the interface somewhat awkward to use. So I will likely change to on off the editors described in this video. Thanks Chris. 😃😃😃😃😃
An excellent review Chris. I tend to watch your videos based on the theme in which my current interests lie. As I'm now constructing a home office/studio to begin content creation...here I am. Four months late but thoroughly enjoying another well-put-together production. You said you use Kdenlive on your laptop, but what do you use on your main production machine? What is your personal favorite? Seeing that university professors are fabulously wealthy, I'm sure it's a top-shelf application. Yet this common man is still interested. 😅
Hello Cris, Thanks for the great review. You did mention NCH Video Pad at the begining. I use this and It is Free for personel use. You just have to confirm this on startup. I use it on an AMD Pheonom II 820 with 4Gb ram. (Old PC) You can also export the project as a portable project and if you want to use your main PC for other jobs. This can then be rendered on anthom netbook with 2 Gb ram and all is well as I have often done. Again Thanks. If I was starting again I probaly choose Keden Live. But I also have other NCH software and find them very good.
Thanks for this, which is very Interesting. I was aware that VideoPad says free for personal usel, and I did install and set up a test in the program. But after a couple of exports I was not able to continue to use the it. So maybe things have changed with the latest version? I will check, as I still have it installed.
@@ExplainingComputersPerhaps because I am I am using 7.11 (latest ver is 13.36) and do most of my exports at 1920 X 1080 24FPS Film. It is also available for IOS, Android and Kendal devices.
I been subscribed to this channel for a long time now and Chris has provided so many great recommendation for FOSS(Free open source software) that can rival most paid equivalents. Zorin OS is my favorite OS to use and this video really helped me decide on what video editing software works best for me. I have been trying Kdenlive as a recommendation from this channel but will explore the other options on this list.
I'm amazed that you are still using your Asus Zenbook you bought 5 years ago and still using in in 2023! It is also surprising that the processor in that thing was two years old when you got it, so I think you deserve a nice upgrade!
