This could work against you in future if you graduate to a different application, as they’re all very different, but using VideoPad to learn the basics will get you started in editing quickly. Thanks to the simplicity of its interface you can pick it up as you go along, and once you’ve got used to editing in VideoPad you can become extremely fluent, opening and closing windows and knowing precisely where everything is. A little tweaking afterwards may be necessary, but it’s faster than typing them all out by hand. There’s also voice recognition for subtitles, which while not 100 percent accurate does a decent job as long as your audio is clear. The timeline accepts both, enabling Ken Burns-type effects where the camera pans across a still. There are also features within the app to help speed up your workflow, such as the way it can sort your video footage and still images into bins, making sure you don’t try to use a still on the timeline when you meant to drag in a video clip.

Videopad: SpeedĪs it has low system requirements, VideoPad runs quickly on modern hardware. It doesn’t insist on putting a watermark on your footage when it exports it, however, which is a mark in its favor. It’s a built-in limitation designed to push you toward an upgrade, but annoying all the same. Note that the free version of the app cannot export video as an MP4 file - the most popular video format on the web.

There’s PhotoPad for still images too, although we removed that from our guide to photo editing software (opens in new tab). While you have the ability to fade, mix and adjust the volume of a video clip’s audio, if you want to go further you’ll need an external mixer or editor, such as MixPad and WavePad (opens in new tab) made by the same developer. Proper audio editing unfortunately isn’t a part of Videopad. You definitely don't need one of the best home computers (opens in new tab) to run it, and that's a big plus.

With its relatively low system requirements (at least for the current version) of just a 1.5GHz CPU and 4GB of RAM, VideoPad uses minimal resources on modern systems and should be perfect for running on laptops and Windows tablets in the field. With support for HEVC and 360-degree video, VideoPad should appeal to those making movies with iPhones as well as extreme sports fanatics and VR trailblazers.

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