It's the first law of movie-making: no matter how expensive your camera, or how skilled you are at using it, your raw footage will always be rubbish. And so, if you're looking to add a little professional polish, then installing a video editor will be essential.
Commercial video editors can be very expensive, of course, but you may not have to go that far. Whether you want to trim your clips down to size, add a soundtrack or captions, apply transitions or special effects, there are some great free tools which can help - and these are the very best around.
1. Windows Movie Maker 2012
Windows Movie Maker is supremely easy to use. Just drag and drop a few clips onto the program (most formats are supported) and immediately they're assembled into order; transitions and special effects are just a click away.
It's just as simple to add a soundtrack, captions and credits, and you can save the results as a video file, or upload them directly to YouTube, Facebook and many other sites.
You can take a little more control when you need it, for instance trimming clips and applying a few other basic options. The program's main focus is on making it very simple to produce quality movies, though, and for the most part it's a great success.
2. Kate's Video Toolkit
While there's nothing too surprising in Kate's Video Toolkit, it does provide some b asic but useful editing features. So you can trim files or join them, link two videos with a transition, create a sequence of videos with a custom soundtrack, and there's a simple file format conversion tool as well.
There are plenty of limitations, too (you can't maximise the program window to use your full screen resolution, for instance), but Kate's Video Toolkit is extremely easy to use. If you don't want to read Help files and your editing needs are simple, it could be a great choice.
3. Avidemux
Avidemux is a small but capable open source video editor which can help you join clips, cut them (without re-encoding), and apply a lengthy list of useful filters (Add Logo, Crop, Flip, Rotate, Resize, Sharpen, Remove Noise, tweak brightness, contrast colours and more).
While this sounds basic, there are lots of options and fine controls to help make sure everything goes as you expect, and an excellent online wiki which documents everything. Overall, Avidemux is well worth a look, as long as you're happy to spend a little time learning how it all works.
4. VSDC Free Video Editor
Non-linear video editors can take some time to learn, and VSDC Free Video Editor is no exception (a lack of useful documentation doesn't help, either).
If you persevere, though, you'll find a capable editor with plenty of functionality: drawing and selection tools, plenty of colour and lighting corrections, some useful filters, transitions, audio effects and more.
When your project is complete, there are options to save it to file, optimise your movie for various mobile devices, or even burn it to DVD.
5. MPEG Streamclip 1.2.1b6
With a download size of only 327KB, you'd expect MPEG Streamclip to be, well, a little underpowered. And yet, the program opens multiple files, DVDs or URLs of video streams; can trim, cut, copy or paste parts of your footage; and has options to rotate your footage or export the soundtrack, while its Export dialog provides more control over your finished video than some commercial products.
It's not all good news - we had problems playing back some MP4 files - but if you're just looking for trimming and file conversion features then MPE G Streamclip is definitely worth a try.
6. VirtualDub
It looks a little dated now, and only works fully with AVI files, but if that's your format of choice then VirtualDub has plenty to offer.
A clean and clear interface helps you navigate through and trim your clips, there are plenty of filters - sharpen, blur, resize, rotate (at any angle, not just 90 degree increments), brightness, colour and contrast tweaks - and optional plugs add even more capabilities.
Learning how to use all these functions can take a little while, as you'll need to explore some very lengthy menus to find them. But if you need an AVI processor, though, VirtualDub is still worth the effort.
7. Free Video Dub
At first glance Free Video Dub looks like just another video trimming tool: step through the source movie, select the left and right points, cut that section from the video and save the results.
What's different here, though, is that the program doesn't re-encode your movie, so no matter how much trimming you do, no video quality will be lost. And if you have a lengthy clip which requires a lot of work then that could be very useful indeed.
8. Lightworks
If it's real editing power you need, then Lightworks is the best of the free package. Its feature-packed timeline, strong multicam support, realtime effects and smart trimming tools are so impressive, in fact, that the program has regularly been used to help produce top Hollywood movies such as Mission Impossible and Batman.
There is a price to pay for all this functionality, though: an extremely steep learning curve. This is not a tool for beginners, and you should expect to spend plenty of time reading the documentation before you can do anything useful at all.
9. Freemake Video Converter
As you'll probably guess from the name, Freemake Video Converter is primarily a video conversion tool (and a very good one, too) - but it can also double as a simple video editor.
Drag and drop your clips onto the program and you can arrange them into order, cut each one to suit your needs, flip or rotate individual clips and convert the m to your preferred format (or even upload the finished movie directly to YouTube). And all in a polished, professional and very easy-to-use interface.
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