When you are looking for a basic and free solution for video editing, free and open-source OpenShot may be a good compromise. It is easy enough to learn, although not as intuitive as some more complex (but less free) editors like Elements. The interface is familiar for those that have already seen a non-linear editor before but not too frightening for those on first acquaintances. The workflow is also common to other software: media assets like video recordings, images, sounds and music are imported in the project you work on. The clips are dropped in the timeline in the bottom of the screen and monitored in the large preview window top right. The properties of each asset or effect are accessed in a clear and accessible bar on the left of the screen, where properties like audio, size, duration etc. can be adjusted. Don ‘t expect too many or too fancy effects or transitions, this remains a basic editor and anyway who needs all these wild whirls and tumbles and filters anyway. Moreover. some processes like effects or filters may stall or crash the software, so it takes a little time to get used to what you can or better cannot do especially on your own hardware. Once finished you can easily export your project in a preset format for Blu-Ray, DVD, file or web, and a great number of format configurations is available: from AVI over mpeg 2 and 4 to H264 and H265.
OpenShot Video Editor is available for Linux, OS X, and Windows. Free download on https://www.openshot.org
