Video Editing Software: Free Trial Versions
By Internet Video Gal in Video Editing
There are dozens of video editing software programs on the market. If you want to try before you buy, several offer a free trial run. Here is a list put together for Video Production Tips readers by Gary Comerford of some of the better offers.
Gary runs the free video editing web-site at www.free-video-editing.com. His site is a wealth of information on the subject of free video editing tools. Check out his site for reviews of free software, on-line software, and commercial software that you can get on a free trial basis.
Free software trial versions are a way of giving you a download of commercial software to entice you into purchasing the full version.
For video editing software, there are many tools out there which follow this approach. Free software trial versions usually fall into a couple of different types:
- Fully functioned software which will work for a short period of time, but generally adds a watermark or something similar to output.
- Hobbled versions which work without watermarks but have certain key functionality removed
The idea in both cases is to allow you enough freedom to use the software, see how it works and decide whether you wish to shell out your hard-earned coin on the complete version.
Below I’ve listed a selection of the top tools that can be purchased on a trial version. Some of these are well known, some of them are less so. All of them are worth checking out if completely free tools aren’t your thing.
(Incidentally, the Apple range of products do not come with free trials unfortunately.)
“The Big Guns”
Adobe Premier – It’s one of the best, it works on Mac and PC. It’s very expensive.
The download is full functioned and lasts 30 days with a watermark through output. It’s my tool of choice!
Click here to go to the Adobe Premier download page (requires registration)
Sony Vegas Pro
It ranks up there with Adobe and Apple, but isn’t quite as widespread. The full featured version costs around $550 but you can get a basic version for $75. I know people who swear by this particular product.
Click here to go to the Sony Vegas Pro download page
The “Smaller ones”
Nero – A market leader in audio and video management tools, Nero is admired as a comprehensive and versatile suite of tools for managing, burning, recoding and manipulating audio and video data. The latest version, Nero 8 Ultra, has recently been released and you can try it free for 15 days before purchase. The trial version is fully functional except that BDAV authoring and playback as well as AVCHD and MPEG-4 formats are not supported. The full version costs £49.99 as a download ($64)
Click here to download the Nero trial version (requires registration)
Corel- Well known for their picture editing tools, they also have great video tools. They own the Ulead range of products.
Ideal for video hobbyists and YouTube enthusiasts, VideoStudio 11 lets you easily produce professional-looking videos and slide shows right on your own PC. For beginners, it includes handy Wizards that help you automatically capture footage, polish videos in minutes and create DVDs, complete with menus, titles, transitions and music. For more video-editing power, VideoStudio 11.5 Plus features new creative tools and full high-definition support, including Blu-ray Disc, AVCHD and HD DVD. The full version costs £49 as a download ($64)
Click here to download Video Studio 11.5 (requires registration)
Avs4You – A complete suite of editing tools
The downloads are fully functional, non expiring but have a watermark. If you want to get rid of the watermark you can click to register and pay a 1 year or unlimited registration fee
Click here to go to download page (requires registration)
Blaze Media Pro – Conversion, editing and audio software
This is a real find of a software. For a mere $50 it will give you audio and video conversions, audio CD ripping, video construction, video decompiling, audio editor and recording, audio and data CD burning, video CD (VCD and SVCD) burner, video DVD burner, video editor and movie editor (AVI, MPEG, WMV, etc.), MPEG encoder and decoder, the ability to convert (record) MIDI to MP3, WAV, WMA, and OGG, convert DVD audio to MP3, WAV, WMA, and OGG, DVD ripping, batch video processing (over 30 supported processing operations), video capture, AVI MPEG WMV video joiner, video compressor, media management, audio and video playback (including full playlist support), and much more! Blaze Media Pro features a complete and powerful digital video editor as well for AVI, MPG (MPEG-1 and MPEG-2), WMV, and ASF formats. The video editor allows you to edit, delete frames, delete selection, add audio to video files or replace existing audio in video files, and trim any desired portion of your video and audio content. You can add movie editing effects and titles, make color adjustments, export frames or audio selections, crop the video, flip, mirror, rotate, resize, stamp, adjust audio volume, and much more. WAV, WMA, and MP3 audio files can be inserted into the video or extracted from the video; and BMP, GIF, JPG, PCX, PNG, RAS, PPM, TGA, and TIF are the supported image formats that can be inserted or extracted. The software’s video capture feature can even be used to record video from DVD, and save to AVI or WMV, which can then be edited also.
The trial lasts for 15 days and is Windows only.
Click here to go to the Blaze Media pro page.
Muvee Reveal -
Muvee Reveal is a simple automatic video editing tool from Muvee. It is pitched as a tool your grandmother could use, it’s so easy. The download from the site will install the basic package which needs a product key to function after the trial period. (Note this will also download Microsoft’s .Net framework to your PC if it doesn’t already exist)
The tool supports AVHCD and HDV High definition footage (which is fairly unique for a tool such as this) and allows you to save to a whole range of different formats (including High Def using the H.264 codec)
Basically there is no menu, and everything is done with a simple user interface that is numbered for ease of use.
1) Select your input files (video and still)
2) Select the style of output movie (With lots of presets to check out – and others that can be purchased separately)
3) Select your audio. That’s it!
Click “Share’ and your movie is done. That’s all you have to do. If you’re a little more adventurous you can change some of the deaults for things like transitions, audio mix (source audio vs music).
This isn’t a ‘professional’ editing package by any means. It is aimed squarely at novice users who want to quickly get their video off their camera and onto another medium. Frame level editing is not possible (although you can select ‘parts’ of your clip by delving into some of the settings for each clip).
The free trial lasts 15 days only, is almost fully functional (High Def export is disabled, for example), and does not leave a watermark in your output footage. The product costs $99.95.
Click here to go to the Muvee Reveal page
(Disclosure: I was provided with a full product key for this tool by Muvee prior to reviewing the application)
AVS DVD Copy -
This is one of the best DVD copy software packages available. Copy DVDs/CDs with home video, create DVD discs for home DVD Players and write data quickly and easily. Simple and intuitive interface, a variety of hot features and supported media types make AVS DVD Copy a most convenient and demanded software to make personal DVD copies, create DVD discs for home DVD Players and perform other burning tasks.
However it is only available for free as a trail. Functions include:
- 1:1 DVD COPY
- Free data burning feature
- Burn DVD-Video from hard drive on DVD disc and watch it in home DVD Player.
- New life of corrupted DVD discs: Reburn discs that were ‘garbage’
- Select table content: Don’t make a complete copy, select just what you want
- Fit to disc
- Audio CD backups
- ISO image support
Windows only. Click here to go to the download page.
So there you have it, a list of great video editing software prgrams available for a free trial.
Thanks for reading Video Production Tips
Lorraine Grula
Internet Video Gal
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6 Comment(s)
By Sue Massey on | Reply
I discovered your homepage by coincidence.
Very interesting posts and well written.
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By Jim O'Brien on | Reply
Hi
I have some 8mm film that I intend to have professionally transferred to DVD.
The films ore on 400 foot reels from original 50 foot reels and are in not in any order. One 50 foot reel may be followed by another that was made 5 years later.
The first thing I would like to do is arrange them in chronological order.
Like any old movies some are too dark, and some too light.
Some parts of some films should be discarded.
The films all have no sound.
My primary concern is to get a finished product that does not “dumb down” the quality of what I have.
I am an older geezer and get overwhelmed by the vocabulary of todays
Technology but am not unwilling to put in the time to learn how to do what I would like to do.
I would appreciate any advice you can give me about the best software you can recommend to accomplish my goals.
Any other advice would also be appreciated.
Jim O’Brien
By Lorraine Grula on | Reply
Hi Jim.
Thanks for stopping by video production tips and leaving a comment.
This task will be a whole lot easier than you think it is. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you might not be able to achieve fantastic results correcting your exposure problems.
First, if you get them professionally transferred to DVD, they will do 90% of the work for you. Find a good transfer house. Assuming you leave in a reasonably large city, you should be able to find one locally. You can start with a high quality film photography development services and places that do photo restoration. You can also look for a service that does video duplication. They often have machines to transfer from one format to the other. If you find a good service with good equipment, they will be able to compensate some for the under and over exposed portions while your film is being transferred to DVD. Honestly, you can not expect miracles in correcting any exposure problems. I use one of the best video editing software programs around, Final Cut Pro. And even with that, the exposure correction produces limited results that usually look pretty artificial. Sorry. A good transfer job might be able to give you the best results you can hope for. If it were me, I would just learn to love the look of over and under exposed film. Correcting for this requires a complex program and there are half a dozen variables to mess with. A good transfer house is probably your best bet to have this done well without lots of headaches.
After that, all you need to do is rearrange the films to be in order and maybe add music. Any video editing program can do those things. Those are your very most basic task in editing.
In short, wanting to correct the exposure is a very advanced task and wanting to rearrange the order is a very simple task.
If you did get a complex program in order to adjust the exposure settings, you would want one that adjusts things like the black level, the brightness and contrast, the color saturation, gamma level, and probably a few more I am not thinking of. (Just woke up) With video, it is not the same as with some still image editing programs where you can click one button for instant correction. Sorry. If there is something like that in a video editing program I have not heard about it.
I hope this helps you. Good luck! I have a bunch of old film I want transferred too. Plus I have old 3/4 inch tapes and beta tapes and a whole box full of tapes just begging to be transferred.
Let me know how it works out.
Lorraine
Lorraine Grulas last blog post..Online Video Marketing: What is Good Enough?
By Internet Video Gal on | Reply
Hey Jim.
Here is some more information for you.
I found an excellent resource for transferring your film to DVD. They can do all of the hard stuff for you. It’s http://www.azcopycats.com They have tons of experience and will do a great job.
Lorraine
By cheap digital photo frames on | Reply
The quality of the info is what keeps me on this site, thanks!
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