Simple movie editor?

Software
1

Does anyone have recommendations for a simple movie editor that is not iMovie?

The user started out editing on videotape and wants something reasonably similar, without a lot of bells and whistles or an attempt to change the editing editing paradigm…

2

How simple? Really really basic, crude editing can be done with QuickTime Player,

1 Like
3

I think more than that. The person I’m asking for has used QuickTime pretty extensively so I guess it isn’t quite the ticket.

I’m told older versions of iMovie were “good”; so I don’t think it’s about features so much as the interface. I think there was some kind of iMovie interface/design change a few years ago? I don’t do much with video.

4

Maybe Camatsia?

I haven’t used it much - I do all my editing in Final Cut - but I remember it being simple yet powerful. All depends on what thier idea of Simple is and what they are editing the video for (and what kind of video they are starting out with)

5

Thanks! I used Camtasia years ago, I think it might work like they’re expecting. I had forgotten about it.

I realize “simple” isn’t a great description. Mostly I was hoping to get a variety of ideas in the hopes that one clicked.

7

I like Camtasia a lot - much better than iMovie. The only problem I have with it is that it seems to make any video with people in it ginourmous. As an example, if I record a Zoom meeting of about an hour in length it’s around 300 MB. If I then drop it into Camtasia to trim the front and end of it, the export from Camtasia ends up being 2 or 3 GB. It doesn’t do that with screen recordings and slide presentations though.

I’m not sure if the same holds true for other editors or not, but it may be worth considering, depending on the kind of videos your friend is editing.

8

Another option is ScreenFlow. I love it.

I’ve used both ScreenFlow and Camtasia … and finally settled on ScreenFlow. The primary reason (for me) is that SF is keyboard-centric … especially when it comes to identifying regions to select and cut. “i” for “in” and “o” for “out”, then command-return for ripple delete. Since I’m mainly editing out unwanted bits … this keyboard centric (“look ma, no mouse!”) approach is much quicker/simpler for me. However, if the user prefers using a mouse more … then there’s no real benefit to SF over Camtasia.

I believe SF is a bit cheaper. Camtasia has some special usage benefits (e.g. quizzes embedded in a video). But overall I like the design, usage, of SF over Camtasia.

9

Handbrake and Shotcut