

VSDC has a YouTube channel that explains how to use each function in easy to follow one-minute videos. It’s OK if you don’t know how to use these advanced features. This program has most of the capabilities that are usually reserved for expensive professional software including: Free professional video editorThe clever developers at VSDC have produced an amazing new video editor program that you can download completely free. Unfortunately, more advanced software tools like Final-cut Pro can cost anywhere from $300 to over $1,000. With today’s download, you can edit videos like a pro.Most free video editing programs like iMovie and Windows Movie Maker are pretty good entry-level tools, but they are severely limited. Hopefully the developers will revisit these and make the interface more user-friendly in future versions.Ever want to clip together some of those old home videos? Remember when Uncle Rob stubbed his toe and shouted an expletive during the footage of your niece’s first steps? It would be nice to cut that part out.


The inclusion of screen capture functionality is welcome and the direct Youtube and Social sharing buttons are convenient. The tools work well, playback is smooth and there are an impressive range of output file formats. There are some excellent features on offer, but for the audience for which the software was arguably developed – amateur and enthusiast creators – these seem over-complicated in practice.

While VSDC Pro (opens in new tab) is a worthwhile investment (at this price point you really don’t have much to lose) it feels like there is still some way to go to make it a genuine option for advanced videographers. The Export window provides several direct options for video file output Conclusion While there may be a workaround we didn’t discover, this lack of interactivity highlights our overall impression of VSDC as an editor. In VSDC, should this be attempted, we found the remainder of the clip, past the point of splitting, is rendered an unplayable still image. One the great features of Adobe Photoshop and other basic video editors is that, once cut, this trimming point can be overridden via extending the clip length, providing fine adjustment. Splitting a clip using the Split Into Parts Tool is a more familiar operation, although this divides the video between two tracks, generating an increasingly complex timeline view.Īnother frustration is that clips don’t seem to be able to be extended by dragging the end handles. Cutting and trimming, which should be a simple case of splitting tracks at the point of the play head, was unexpectedly challenging to understand.Ĭutting a clip removes all of the content past the cursor location from the project, essentially seeming to delete the video beyond that point. We also found some of the basic functions frustrating to work with. Tracks can only be rearranged on the timeline using the Up and Down arrow buttons
