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If you are looking for an easy-to-use video editor, you must have heard of OpenShot. It is an open-source video editor that can trim videos, adjust the tracks, and add effects and transitions. Moreover, it supports multi-platform including Windows, Mac, and Linux.
In the old version, OpenShot always froze or crashed when adding files, editing videos, and even exporting files, which made users lose patience and get angry. After receiving so many complaints, OpenShot changed its library with self-developed code. So will it crash now? What about the processing speed? Do those features meet your requirement? Read this article and learn more about the functions, pros, cons, and alternative tools of OpenShot.
Table of contents
Following the OpenShot tutorial, even beginners can quickly master the way of editing videos. The rag and drop feature makes you add videos, audios, and pictures into OpenShot easily. And after you add all the needed materials in the project files, you can choose the desired video one by one to the track. Here are the basic editing features:
Clip videos and audios into many segments: Using the razor tool can clip the videos or audios into several parts according to your need. And you can pull them to different tracks and positions freely.
Make video collages: By overlapping the videos in the different tracks, you can put two videos on one screen. Then you can adjust the aspect ratio to make different collages.
Slow motion: You can simply pull the duration of each video segment to slow or accelerate the videos. However, you can't accurately control the speed rate.
Make slideshows: Because OpenShot supports adding images only, so you can put multiple pictures in a raw. After adding the transitions, you can export them as a slideshow.
To make your videos more natural and appealing, you can directly add transitions between video segments. Moreover, there are many preset effects for you to choose from, which will also change the color and brightness of your videos.
Right-click on the video segments, and you can set other effects to different video parts separately. Among them, the audio waveform is a special tool of OpenShot. You can see the waveform in the track, and you can also export videos with the waveform, which makes the single audio files more attractive.
Since OpenShot is an open-source video editor, it needs constant modification to improve the function. The first version of OpenShot used the library based on C++, but it worked not well. The program always crashed whenever your CPU was occupied too much. Because of this, OpenShot received many complaints and low scores. Then the developers create a unique library for OpenShot.
Although the second version with its own library crashes less than before, this problem also happens on Windows. And it needs computers with high configuration, otherwise, the processing speed, especially the exporting speed will be very slow. Thus the crashing issue still happens on some Windows system now, and it always occupies large CPU space, which makes OpenShot always lags.
Ease of use8.8
Processing speed7.4
Design8.2
Features8
Suggestion: If you are a beginner at video editing, OpenShot is very suitable for you to create some simple videos. But the lack of many powerful features makes it not very useful in professional areas. Thus, as a free video editor, OpenShot is worth trying for basic editing.
If you want a more professional editor for uploading videos on social media platforms, ShotCut is a better choice. It supports more functions including audio mixing, preset video filters, etc. And the import files can be GIF, TGA, and other uncommon formats. But you should note that it uses a large part of your CPU and causes much lag.
Lightworks is also a professional video editor with more functions for professional video makers. With a higher price than OpenShot, it provides some unique features like the time lapse. Thus, it is more suitable to edit videos for company ads, MV, and so on.
Windows users must be familiar with Windows Movie Maker, which is a good video editor and movie maker with an intuitive interface. It has multiple useful features but doesn't have enough preset effects for you to choose from.
1. Is OpenShot suitable to edit videos for YouTube?
Yes. If you only want to make simple videos without too many effects, you can have a try. But for professional videos, you can choose the mentioned alternatives rather than OpenShot Video Editor.
2. Can I export videos in MKV format through OpenShot?
No, you can't. Although OpenShot supports many video formats, even the AVCHD for Blu-ray, it can't export videos in MKV. You can choose the alternative formats including MP4, MOV, and AVI.
3. How to add a 3D animated title through OpenShot?
Since OpenShot supports many third-party tools, so you can download Blender, a 3D content creation tool to help you make 3D animated titles. Then you can use this function in the Title menu through OpenShot.
OpenShot Video Editor is a very easy-to-use video editor for everyone because of the intuitive UI. But the editing functions are not enough for professional video makers. And after the updating, OpenShot also has crashing problems on some Windows computers. Thus, if you are a beginner and use Mac or Linux system, you can give this free tool a chance.
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