

When you click through from our site to a retailer and buy a product or service, we may earn affiliate commissions. And we pore over customer reviews to find out what matters to real people who already own and use the products and services we’re assessing. We gather data from the best available sources, including vendor and retailer listings as well as other relevant and independent reviews sites. In these cases, the program has deliberately imposed limitations that make it inadequate for a lot of possible use cases.ZDNET's recommendations are based on many hours of testing, research, and comparison shopping. Is it a full-fledged program, or a very limited trial version?Ī lot of free video editing software is free because it’s essentially meant as a trial version for something much more expensive.

Make sure you have a clear vision for where your video will end up, and check to make sure that the program you’re going to use can actually export the video in the file format and resolution required for optimal viewing in that end point. What are the exporting options?Īre you making a video for YouTube, or a Blu-ray disc? Not every program supports every export platform or format. If professional development is one of your goals, it’s also important to consider how similar the program’s workflow is to the standards used in the industry.
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How easy is the program to learn?įree software often doesn’t have the same level of support and documentation that paid programs offer. Programs that offer robust tooltips, or that have user interfaces that are intuitive, have the edge here. To that point, here’s what users who really want to learn should consider. That’s why we’re not talking much about family movies or other very basic applications, here.
