Video editing software suggestions

August 17, 2023 12:54 AM

I'm starting a YouTube channel. It's essentially discussion/commentary over unrelated gameplay footage. Even though that's pretty simple, I'd still need to add titles, intro & outro, etc. So there's some editing required. I've worked as a graphic designer & illustrator, so I'm comfortable with general graphics concepts. (I've also done a lot of programming, but I'm not sure if that applies.) However, I have zero experience with video.

My available platforms are Windows and Linux.

Which editing software would you recommend? It's easy enough to google "top 10 video editors 2023," but I've found the advice on this forum tends to be more humane and insightful than a Google result.

I'm looking for something reasonably intuitive & non-Byzantine, so I can focus on my content and not get bogged down by tools.

Money is kinda tight. I guess I'm looking for the Affinity Designer of video editing, if it exists. (The robust yet affordable alternative to the industry standard.)

Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

posted by trevor_case to Media & Arts (15 answers total)

You can design and intro and outro on Canva for free.

YouTube will auto-caption for you and you can correct those captions.

Editing: DaVinci actually is the Affinity of editing but there is a learning curve I found was way overkill just for editing for YT. Clipchamp is part of Windows and doesn't suck. It probably also works with the Windows gamebar.
posted by DarlingBri at 2:54 AM on August 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

Check out OBS
posted by pyro979 at 4:08 AM on August 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Best answer: Davinci Resolve is available in a very capable free version. It's fast, easy to use, includes excellent color correction and audio tools, and it's not even an alternative to the industry standard, it kind of is the industry standard. (Yes, Premiere and Final Cut are still quite popular, and Avid Media Composer is probably still the standard for TV shows, but tons of professionals use Davinci Resolve).
posted by jonathanhughes at 4:16 AM on August 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

If you've worked as a graphics designer and illustrator, do you have an Adobe Creative Cloud subscription? Premiere and After Effects are the industry standard and come with Creative Cloud. After Effects is the graphics component, Premiere is the video editing platform.

When I got my new Mac last spring, Final Cut was like $199 which is relatively cheap as far as editing platforms go.

As a new video editor playing with free tools, I found HitFilm to be very effective, although as mentioned above the free Davinci Resolve is also a well regarded cheap entry into editing software.
posted by AzraelBrown at 6:23 AM on August 17, 2023

I've heard a lot of Youtubers mention using OBS.
posted by bluesky78987 at 7:19 AM on August 17, 2023

Isn't OBS for capture and/or streaming? I don't believe it has editing or graphical composition tools in it, at least not in a video editing way (i.e. it lets you live switch between sources, more like a broadcast TV control booth, but not set specific frame-by-frame splices or transitions).
posted by AzraelBrown at 7:52 AM on August 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

To the people recommending OBS: OBS is not video editing software.
posted by jonathanhughes at 8:42 AM on August 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

Seconding the free version of Da Vinci Resolve. Everything jonathanhughes wrote about it is true.
posted by seasparrow at 9:13 AM on August 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

I think why OBS gets mentioned because it can overlay graphics and the like. And since it meant to simulate a control room for a tv broadcast, it can switch input and media along with graphics and send the output...somewhere...presumably even to a file. It would be a choice if you were attempting to do a live-to-tape event with minimal-to-no post processing. The original poster's requirements are not that.
posted by mmascolino at 10:20 AM on August 17, 2023 [2 favorites]

I'm a DaVinci user, but I've also been taught how to edit video, so I'm not intimidated by what looks like complex editing software.

Microsoft sent around a notice not so long ago that it has changed how its programs handle video editing. Apparently, now MS has something called ClipChamp that's supposed to be free and easy to use. I haven't tried it as I don't need it, but I'm wondering if that might be an easier place to start.
posted by sardonyx at 10:34 AM on August 17, 2023

I'm completely useless when it comes to anything graphic, or making things look pretty, or design...you get the idea.
For my very basic Youtube channel (which sometimes has views reaching double digits...):
I use Canva for making end cards and intro cards.
I use Davinci Resolve for editing the video - joining clips, adding title cards and music, adjusting sound levels, transitions....and that's about it. Once I learned to do those things, my work flow became pretty automated so I can basically do it with my eyes closed, and super quickly.
There's a ton of videos out there to show you how to use very specific parts of Resolve, it's got soooo many advanced tools that I do not understand at all, but the good thing is you can just ignore them if you don't need them.
And the price is fantastic!
posted by conifer at 2:38 PM on August 17, 2023 [1 favorite]

This might be overkill, in the sense of being a sufficiently powerful video editing suite that it probably isn't a quick/easy start (conversely it can do more than you'll ever need so you'll never outgrow it's abilities); a "robust yet affordable alternative to the industry standard" is Blender; better known for graphics modelling / animation / visual effects, but part of all that is its video editing suite. Blender is free, and there are lots of YouTube tutorials (and huge user community, books, etc) to help get stated
posted by Cusp at 4:47 PM on August 17, 2023

Just in case having more alternatives helps: there's also Shotcut, which is free, open source, and cross-platform and had a pretty shallow learning curve for me as a total beginner. I find the way it does some things kind of annoying, but I don't have much experience with other editing software so for all I know those things might be standard.
posted by trig at 3:33 AM on August 18, 2023

I would recommend you consider VSDC Free Video Editor for Windows - here is a demonstration of how editing works with this. The free version would probably be sufficient for your needs. A lot of video editing software evolved as quite expensive applications - I think now there are quite a lot of free applications which are specifically targeted at Youtube creators and which are getting pretty good. This one has fewer requirements on hardware than some competitors.
posted by rongorongo at 4:33 AM on August 18, 2023

Yikes - brain fart. I mentioned OBS, when what I meant was VSDC (so seconding rongorongo above me).
posted by pyro979 at 4:38 PM on August 23, 2023 [1 favorite]