Best free video editor?

Iron124

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Jun 1, 2014
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I'm writing this out of frustration because I cannot seem to find a video editor that is free on the Windows platform that is not:

A: Completely devoid of features.

or

B: Horribly complicated and counter-productive.

I currently use Lightworks to edit videos that I have recorded together, but the program is terrible. GUI is a joke, overly-complicated means of adding transitions and effects, and too many commands on the timeline, resulting in you screwing up the project so badly you have to delete it and start over via a simple mis-click or mis-drag.

I've tried Windows Movie Maker, but the options are too limited. I've tried others (seemingly made by people in their basement) such as Kate's Video Toolkit and EzVid, but all are just horrible. I grew up on iMovie HD. Loved it, could produce a decent-looking video in about 10 minutes. Now the process on the PC side of things takes about 2-3 hours for the same amount of work.

What I need:

1. The ability to add clips into a timeline in a logical fashion. Nothing crazy. Drag and drop would be best.
2. The ability to cut parts out of videos, such as the middle, or to cut out personal information or a bad shot. Windows Movie Maker only allows you to trim clips from the beginning and end. No good.
3. Add in transitions and title slides. Easily. I don't care if there's only 4 to choose from, give me something that doesn't require neural brain surgery level skills to complete to add in a fade effect.
4. Audio editing is preferred, although not absolutely necessary. The ability to add in the video's raw audio (looking at you EzVid) is absolutely required.

Thank you for the help. Please try to recommend programs that you have personal experience with if you can, I've tried everything under the sun via a Google search, and so far nothing has worked.

Thank you.
 
This is a very complicated question.

There are so many out there, it always comes down to personal preference. VLC is not only a media player, it is also a converter. Does it do it just like you like it? I don't know. Vegas Pro is another good one. Is it affordable and does it do everything you like? Once again, I don't know.

My advice is to continue looking and trying out different ones until you find one with the features/UI you like. Trial versions and/or download.com could be useful.

Best of luck to you