To make a colorful family video, to make a beautifully formatted video for social networks, to create a tutorial for gambling at Woo Casino, to prepare material for a working or educational presentation… It seems you need a video editor for every situation. The most significant thing is to choose a program that gives you all the tools you need to make a great video, doesn’t require a long learning curve, and doesn’t force you to reach for your wallet.
Supported Formats
One of the key signs of an excellent video editor program is the ability to work with different formats of video, audio files and photos. And if we say correctly – file extensions, which are specified in the name after the dot. The more formats the program supports, the more different files you can feed it and the more devices will play the edited video. This greatly simplifies the life of beginners who have no time or desire to get into the technical intricacies, as well as of professionals who value every free second.
A striking example of the reverse situation is the Adobe Premiere, which for many years has been considered one of the most powerful video editors. But here’s the trouble: as of 2019, the developers stopped supporting video files with the popular .mkv extension for legal reasons. The predictable result was an exodus of users and constant complaints on forums. Of course, it’s possible to convert videos to a suitable format. There are plenty of third-party programs and services for this purpose. But no one wants to waste time on this.
The most popular video formats are .mp4, .avi, .mov and .wmv. It’s a great idea to find out in advance if the program you’ve chosen supports these common file extensions. But it’s even better to check what video formats you regularly use. Who knows, in case there are outdated flash-rollers with the extension .swf among them? And having already formed an idea of what formats you have to work with, choose a suitable program for this parameter.
Technical Requirements for Your PC or Smartphone
It’s also a good idea to check before installing: will your device be able to work with the program you choose? Quality video editing will turn into a torture if you have to be constantly distracted by freezes and freezes in the process. Utilities for video editing can be very ravenous regarding hardware resources, especially if it’s rendering a movie in high resolution.
The highest requirements for the creation of quality movies are the capacity of the CPU and the amount of RAM. Of course, you can also find programs with more democratic system requirements, which have no problem working even on grandma’s laptop. But don’t expect them to provide rich functionality and high video processing speed.
The list of system requirements for each video editor can be found on the manufacturer’s official website. But don’t grab the program if your device – be it PC, laptop, smartphone, or tablet – meets the minimum requirements “up to snuff”: the speed of the program in this case almost always leaves much to be desired. And if the manufacturer uploads updates, your device may not pull them. You will either have to update your configuration, or look for a new editor and learn the basics all over again. It will be much more practical to choose a program for which your gadget will have the strength to spare.
The Convenience of the Interface and the Ease of Learning
First, it is desirable that the most useful and frequently used editing functions are easy and fast. One or two mouse clicks should be enough to trim or merge videos.
Second, the interface should be at least somewhat customizable, so that the most important elements can be enlarged and unnecessary – to reduce or hide altogether. This way, they won’t take up unnecessary space in your workspace.
Third, customizable hotkeys will be a useful benefit. This will save you from a long search through the settings menu of the desired function.
