[HN Gopher] Ask HN: Which small video editor do you use?
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Ask HN: Which small video editor do you use?
When creating product videos, I'm looking for a very simple video
editor, preferably in the browser, that can work with layers:
- add video from a MP4 - add text - add stickers (a la
GIPHY) - render as MP4 I've tried this:
- TikTok video editor, perfect, but only works on mobile (not
available on PC), and anyway I can't export the finished video as
MP4 - TikTok Ad video editor, working on PC, but I can't
export as MP4 - Veed.io, kapwing.com, clipchamp, ... are ok,
but they all have expensive pricing: at least 12$/mo for no
watermark Are there open source solutions? Or paid software
with a one-time payment? (I don't like to spend 15$/mo for this:
it will be 540$ spent in 3 years! I prefer software with a one time
payement, 50 or 100$)
Author : sowhat1639
Score : 20 points
Date : 2022-04-27 13:35 UTC (9 hours ago)
| dusted wrote:
| I'm using kdenlive mostly.
|
| If I wanted to automate it, I'd use ffmpeg with its filters for
| it, it's not super easy to get into, but it's very rewarding if
| you're going to do a lot of similarish videos.
| adamredwoods wrote:
| Don't forget Blender! (non-browser, but very powerful!)
|
| https://www.blender.org/features/video-editing/
| AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
| I used Shotcut[0] once to execute on one of my worst ideas:
| editing an FMV game's video files into a movie. I recall that it
| was a little finicky, but worked well enough for the kind of
| thing I was doing. I've since used it a bunch of times for small
| things like you've described simply because I was familiar with
| it.
|
| [0]https://shotcut.org/
| p1peridine wrote:
| VSDC Video Editor
| p0nce wrote:
| ScreenFlow
| bberenberg wrote:
| If you're open to something more powerful, there is DaVinci
| Resolve [0]. It's free but proprietary.
|
| For fully open + browser based there is mebm [1]
|
| [0] https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/
|
| [1] https://github.com/bwasti/mebm
| sowhat1639 wrote:
| DaVinci_Resolve_17.4.6_Windows.zip is probably great but ...
| 2.5 GB! I was looking for something more lightweight, but still
| a good idea, I'll have a look.
|
| I also tried mebm months ago, but it's not really mature. (Is
| there a version hosted somewhere? the domain mebm.xyz is no
| longer available)
| eternityforest wrote:
| I use KDenLive. I don't really do small simple tools.
|
| Eventually you always wind up wanting one or two more advanced
| features. The simple tools don't prevent needing to learn more
| complex ones, nor are they significantly faster to use in most
| cases, so I tend to not really use lightweight apps.
|
| Plus, with some categories, the small simple tools are actually
| harder to use and slightly dangerous(See dd vs Etcher).
|
| A video editor won't overwrite a whole disk, but if you're
| concerned with malware, I would generally trust something I've
| already heard of rather than something obscure enough that you
| have to ask on HN to find it.
| f0e4c2f7 wrote:
| You're looking for kdenlive.
|
| Blender is alright. It's cool that it has a video editor but it
| feels a little bolted on.
|
| Davinci Resolve is not actually free for highest quality.
|
| Kdenlive is essentially just a front-end for ffmpeg. Highest
| quality render settings don't cost anything but like much open
| source software the interface leaves something to be desired.
| sowhat1639 wrote:
| I tried "kdenlive" for Windows, and it seems cool, but the UI
| is a bit old, not very handy in comparison to more modern tools
| in the browser.
|
| Idem for Blender, it is very powerful, but there are a few
| steps to make it usable in Video Sequence mode. Also it's a
| detail, but the filepicker (to import MP4 files) is not the
| Windows native filepicker, so it's not possible to copy/paste a
| path... All these little things make it less handy, in
| comparison to other tools.
|
| Would you have an idea for a in-browser tool? (Without the
| recurring payment thing; I'm ok for a one time payment)
| unicornporn wrote:
| > the UI is a bit old, not very handy in comparison to more
| modern tools in the browser.
|
| Old? It's a Qt app that looks best and most native in KDE.
| Why would one want a video editor in the browser? That does
| not make sense to me. :)
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| DaVinci Resolve is free-as-in-beer but not Free-as-in-Speech, and
| it's a pretty serious bit of software. In Linux, it lacks some of
| the codec support and "nice-to-haves" like automatically
| exporting to Youtube etc, but if you use Linux already you
| probably use ffmpeg already and you probably know what you're
| doing with it.
|
| You will need a fairly modern graphics card, but a low-end NVidia
| GT1030 will work perfectly well.
| stevenhubertron wrote:
| iMovie on Mac or iPad could do all of this. If you are against
| Apple the GoPro editor is also pretty good and allows for this
| functionality. You don't have to actually use GoPro videos and is
| completely free (but they try to push you hard on their cloud
| storage )
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| At what point is it worth it to splurge on Final Cut Pro?
| stevenhubertron wrote:
| I'd say it depends on how many videos you do a year. My use
| case is videos either of my family or my mountain biking.
| Either way I don't have the time to really polish a video up.
| msarrel wrote:
| I use camtasia from tech Smith. Really easy and still powerful.
| ratsforhorses wrote:
| No idea if this is on spec, but i use Youcut to make clips from
| films i watch, it works with Chrome, maybe others?
| webmobdev wrote:
| Checkout the free and opensource AviDemux - does everything you
| want and a little bit more, and it is simple and easy to use.
| sowhat1639 wrote:
| Thanks for the idea.
|
| I have tried Avidemux already, it surely is powerful, but the
| UI is rather "old", in the same way than Shotcut, etc.
|
| I was looking for someone more modern, a bit like the TikTok
| app editing feature which is really great (except you cannot
| export to MP4 at the end, save a project, for future
| modification...)
|
| The best for small videos would be a simple UI with Text,
| Media... (left column), timeline (bottom), and export button.
| Not much more. Here it's a screenshot from veed.io but the
| pricing is really too high (15$/mo is more than 500$ in 3
| years): https://veed-
| assets.b-cdn.net/images/Webflow/legacy/6026a6dc...
| rg111 wrote:
| KDEnlive, Blender, and Da Vinci Resolve(very rarely).
|
| Kapwing for quick demos, bug-reporting videos and such.
| nonsince wrote:
| I'm sure people will hate on this because it's Adobe but their
| Premier Rush is great for extremely simple editing purposes. It
| does constantly feel like you're being scammed though because
| there are some checkboxes labelled with a little star that
| require you to pay.
| factorialboy wrote:
| Kdenlive for Linux
| rg111 wrote:
| Da Vinci Resolve has nice experience on Linux as well.
| sc00ty wrote:
| I've dabbled with Kdenlive[0] and Shotcut[1]. They're cross
| platform desktop apps. I'm not sure how they would handle
| stickers/giphys, might be worth a try though.
|
| [0] https://kdenlive.org/
|
| [1] https://www.shotcut.org/
| xaxaxb wrote:
| I'd also add Olive[0] to the list.
|
| [0] https://www.olivevideoeditor.org
| vimy wrote:
| iMovie is perfect for your needs, it's free. (If you have a Mac
| or iPhone.)
| easrng wrote:
| Actually Clips is probably closer to what they want than
| iMovie.
| Epskampie wrote:
| I like Losslesscut for quick video editing, but not sure if it
| has text/sticker layers:
|
| https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut
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(page generated 2022-04-27 23:02 UTC)