Alternatives to iMovie X

[RogerWilco6502]

I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for alternatives to iMovie X that were free. I like iMovie X, but I find that it's a little boggy for video editing. I use iMovie HD 6 for DV editing and I would use it for Non-DV editing as well, but the MP4 setting is a little slow to import and I believe it only supports 4:3 aspect ratio but I could be wrong.

So anyway, if anyone knows of any good quality, free video editors out there, I would love to hear about them.

Thanks!

 

[joema2]

...I like iMovie X, but I find that it's a little boggy for video editing. I use iMovie HD 6 for DV editing and I would use it for Non-DV editing as well, but the MP4 setting is a little slow to import and I believe it only supports 4:3 aspect ratio but I could be wrong...

I think iMovie X uses the same rendering and encoding engine as FCPX, although it does not support proxies or "in place" media. In my experience iMovie X is very fast.

Are you editing 4k H264 material? Depending on the exact codec, that can be sluggish on most any hardware using any video editor.

DV is 720x480, or 1/6th the pixels of 1080p, or 1/24th the pixels of UHD 4k, so almost any hardware/software can edit DV smoothly. Also DV uses an all-intraframe codec which is much easier for software to decode.

If you are on a Mac Pro, Hackintosh or an iMac before 2011, your machine does not have Quick Sync which can make editing 4k H264 quite sluggish.

You could try DaVinci Resolve 15, which has a fairly full-featured free version and (in the latest version) is very fast. But I don't think it's as smooth as iMovie X.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

Ok, thank you! I hardly ever edit 4k, I guess what I mean is that the interface feels really weighed down by unnecessary items. I'll check out DaVinci Resolve, thanks for the suggestion.

Edit: It requires 16GB of RAM and the older versions require at least 8GB and I'm running on 4GB, so I don't think it will work. Thanks for the suggestion!

 

[e1me5]

You can try HIT Film, which is free, but, based from your signature, if you are using that old white Macbook to edit HD video, you will have a bad time.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

You can try HIT Film, which is free, but, based from your signature, if you are using that old white Macbook to edit HD video, you will have a bad time.

Ok, thanks! I'll try it.