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 (à la GIPHY)
- render as MP4
- 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$/mo for no watermark
(I don't like to spend 15$/mo for this: it will be 540$ spent in 3 years! I prefer software with a one time payement, 50 or 100$)
50 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 108 ms ] thread[0] https://kdenlive.org/
[1] https://www.shotcut.org/
[0] https://www.olivevideoeditor.org
For fully open + browser based there is mebm [1]
[0] https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve/
[1] https://github.com/bwasti/mebm
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)
I've been considering resuming work on it, and this comment certainly provides a ton of motivation. thanks!
Of course the main issue with that recommendation is that Davinci Resolve is geared towards professionals. That means the tool can do much more things than any amateur will ever need or understand. If you invest a little time to understand the basics and don't tend to click random things without knowing what they do, this should not be any issue at all. Resolve has a very clear workflow and you can always skip the parts you don't need (e.g. color correction, audio mixing).
The real advantage here is that if you learn it, there is no ceiling to how professional your results can get in terms of post production. But don't forget the golden rule:
Post production is great, but recording images and audio in a good way makes or breaks quality.What other software were you using aside from Blender?
https://www.blender.org/features/video-editing/
Kapwing for quick demos, bug-reporting videos and such.
https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut
You will need a fairly modern graphics card, but a low-end NVidia GT1030 will work perfectly well.
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.
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)
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. :)
What does this mean?
> there are a few steps to make it usable in Video Sequence mode.
What steps do you recommend?
> What steps do you recommend?
Here is a good video about it: https://vimeo.com/76661940 or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uy_nh0ysVk
You have to customize a lot of little things here and there in the UI to make it work "by default" as a video editor when you start the software.
It is a great tool though (free too) and yeah been using it for years.
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.
[0]https://shotcut.org/
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...
I dare say the Goldilocks approach may fail you here.
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.
And Garage Band on my iPhone if I need to fiddle with sound.
Otherwise kDen Live on the laptop and just live with the complexity by accepting it will take a few hours over a few days to understand what I need to do by watching YouTube and reading forum posts and a manual.
It is sometimes hard to accept that learning is going to take time. And picking a standard tool with a non-trivial learning curve is faster and easier in most timeframes longer than five hours or so.
Because the five hours pales compared to all the “shopping” and “research” looking for a silver bullet.
There are people with more than a decade of Garage Band experience and nobody with a decade of TikTok experience.
I don't know about layers and stickers, but it does text and fx and add music and so on. It's there already. Click on the magnifying glass and type Video Editor.
The Photos app sometimes crashes when I try to trim large video files but it usually works on the second attempt, it's good enough for me.