- What's the best video editing app on Android right now?
Well, since our last video, there's been some
awesome new updates and some big changes
to the leading Android video editors.
So here's our latest recommendations.
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Hey, it's Justin Brown here from Primal Video.
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So let's jump into it.
Every year, the video editing apps on Android and iPhone
seem to get more and more powerful.
We did a full overview of the video editing
landscape on both Android and iOS late last year,
but there's been some significant app updates
since then, so it's time for a fresh review.
In case you missed it, in the last round
we narrowed the choices down
to Cyberlink's PowerDirector and Kinemaster.
Both of these have had some significant updates
since then and there's also a number of newer apps
which are promising to do things even better.
After testing and re-testing all the best options,
in this video I'm gonna run through my latest picks
for best video editing apps on Android
and I'll also show you just how easy it is
to edit with our top pick.
And stick around to the end because after that,
I'll also be sharing three bonus tips that everyone
can use to speed up your editing and reduce rework,
no matter which editing app you choose.
And while you're watching, make sure to let us know
in the comments what your favorite video editing app
is right now and why.
Your recommendation may help someone else
figure out which app is right for their videos.
I'll be watching in the comments, too,
so I'll see you down there.
Okay, so after testing all the major apps
that are currently available,
things like WeVideo, Filmora Go,
Adobe Clip, PowerDirector, VivaVideo,
VideoShop, CuteCut, and Kinemaster,
we narrowed the short list down to,
once again, PowerDirector and Kinemaster.
Overall, we found most of the video editing apps
that we tested were very basic or template or theme-based
and didn't really give you advanced or full control
over your video editing process.
Apps like Adobe Premiere Clip, which seem
to have a heap of people using them
and a huge fan base really are limited in functionality
when it comes to editing on Android, especially
when you're comparing them to apps
like PowerDirector and Kinemaster.
CuteCut is another one that seems to be really popular
and it has come a long way and it is a decent option
for editing videos on Android, but in my opinion
it falls down with very limited color correction
and color control, and the interface definitely isn't
as easy to use or as intuitive when compared
to our top picks.
So, as I said, we've narrowed this list down to two
and these two are the closest mimicking video editing
on a desktop computer on an Android device.
These are really powerful applications and will
allow you to get really great results
with your video editing.
But this year is not the same as last year.
Last year, there were a whole lot
of differences between the two.
The strengths of one were balanced out
by the others' weaknesses.
So this time around, we've actually got a clear winner.
But let's run through the pros and cons of each of them
first, as well as some cool updates
that both of them have had since last year.
CyberLink PowerDirector has totally redone
its color correction or color control tools.
It is now, by far, the most advanced and easiest
to use and most powerful color correction tools
on any video editing application on Android.
They've also added in a heap of really decent title
templates as well, and they've also got the ability
for you to purchase more directly from inside the app.
They've also had major performance updates on the app
and it's now supported on a much larger range of devices
as well, with the full feature set.
Previously, there was a heap of devices that didn't
have access to the latest features that
were in PowerDirector, but now there's a heap more
that are supported.
The only main feature, I think, that PowerDirector
is still missing is the ability to add your color
corrections to an entire video layer,
meaning any clip that's on that video layer
can be corrected the same,
without needing to apply each of the effects or controls
to each of the clips on that timeline.
So, to be able to grade everything
and apply one effect to the lot, would be amazing.
Or at least have the ability to copy-and-paste
your presets or whatever you're applying to the effects,
your color controls, to multiple clips,
that would be a huge addition.
But it's not a deal-breaker the way it is,
it just means you've gotta change up your workflow
so that you're potentially color-grading
your clips up front.
Moving on to KineMaster, which has seen some
pretty decent updates as well.
The overall performance has improved.
The range of devices that now get the full feature set
of Kinemaster has improved, as well.
There's a lot more effects, for both video and audio,
and the speed control for slowing up or speeding down
your video clips has seen some improvement, as well.
They've also recently added in the support for color luts,
which is an amazing feature, but overall
the color correction on KineMaster is nothing
in comparison to CyberLink PowerDirector.
One other thing to be aware of with KineMaster
is that there is currently no way to purchase
it outright, so that you own the app and you are
able to get all the future updates.
It is currently a subscription-based model,
which means that you're either gonna be paying
around five dollars per month or around $42 per year
to have access to the watermark-free version,
so there's no watermark on your outputted video files.
So it's not a deal-breaker and, really, it's not
a lot of money considering how powerful this app is,
but it is definitely something to be aware of.
PowerDirector, on the other hand, you can purchase
outright for six dollars and that will give you access
to 4K, that will give you the watermark-free version
as well and that's something that's not six dollars
a month or so much per year, it's six dollars as a one-off.
So, overall, between KineMaster and PowerDirector,
my personal pick this year, right now, is PowerDirector.
It is an app that I use almost every week
on my Android device.
I think it is really, really powerful.
I love the interface.
It's so easy to use.
The built-in color correction tools are amazing.
The fact that you can easily switch your video
between a portrait and a landscape video,
if you want to quickly edit down something,
like an Instagram story, you have that ability
to do this really, really easily
and your output options are amazing.
The quality is kept all the way through.
So, overall, looking at these top two editing packages,
my preference, my pick as best Android editor
right now is CyberLink PowerDirector.
And what I'm gonna do quickly before we get
to those three bonus tips to help you edit faster
in any app, I just want to run through a quick walkthrough
to show you how easy it is to edit in PowerDirector
and how powerful it is.
So when you open up PowerDirector, the first thing
you want to do is to create a new project.
Give your project a name.
We'll call this one jb.
And then you can select if you want
portrait or landscape for your video and then hit OK.
So this is the PowerDirector interface.
You can see you've got your Play button
and your Settings button and your Export button
in the right-hand side.
On the left-hand side, you've got links to
your Effects, your Layers, and your Import Media
button there, as well.
So we'll start off by adding in some video footage.
We'll hit that Media button.
We'll come and find a video file in here.
So you can go through and add in as many video clips
as you like, select the ones that you want, hit the Plus,
and then drop down into the timeline.
To get back to the Interface, just hit the Back button
in the top left corner a couple of times and you're back
then in your editing interface.
Now, you can see that we've got
two clips in the timeline here.
As we just scrub left and right on the timeline,
you can see that we're moving our playback ahead.
We can see what's in these clips.
With these clips, what we can do is we can tap on them,
we can pick them up, we can move them around.
We can see that I've just swapped the position
of the two clips there, then.
We can tap on a clip and you see that we get these
two green handles on either side.
This is to adjust the start point and the end point
of that individual clip.
So, if we press and hold and drag, you can see
that we've just shortened the clip down and changed
the start point to start a little bit later.
So we can do exactly the same on the end.
Shorten that down there as well.
Now, you can easily split the clips as well,
if we come down a little bit further,
select this second clip, and you'll see then when
we've got the clip selected, we get a different set
of menu options on the left-hand side.
There is a Razor Blade there, so if we press the Blade,
then we've then cut our clip in two.
So now we've got three clips in the timeline.
And again, when you tap the clips, you get
the two little green handles that you can adjust
the start and the end point of each of those
individual clips.
So if you want to remove a chunk of the video footage,
we could come across here a bit further,
tap on the screen, go up to the Razor Blade,
add another cut, select that new little clip
that we've got in the middle there,
and then there's a Trash Can on the left.
If we press that, that would delete that clip.
And it's gone.
And it closes up the gap.
So you can see how easy it is to be able
to cut down your video footage in here,
but what we'll look at next is show you
how to import some B-roll or overlay footage.
So you can do that up here, under the two squares,
the Layers button here, and then choose Video.
Once again, we go through and pick out our video files
that we want to add, select the file, hit the Plus,
but you'll see that it's dropped
onto a separate video layer, which is really powerful.
And you can also see then, in the bottom here,
that we've actually got multiple
video layers that we can use.
Exactly the same with these clips.
We can select them, we can pick them up
and move them around, and when we select them,
we also get the handles, so that we can adjust
the start and the end point of these clips as well.
And with the clip selected, you can see up in the top,
in the playback area, we can also adjust the size
and rotation of these clips and move them around.
So we can stretch it up to full screen
or have it smaller and use it
as a picture-in-picture effect.
Now, one of the other really powerful features
in Power Director is the audio mixing.
So if you press up on the Settings wheel
and then choose Audio Mixing.
Now, in here, you can manually adjust the volume
levels for the different video and audio layers in there.
It's just a matter of using the sliders to adjust
how loud or quiet you want the audio
on each of the individual tracks.
So, that is really, really powerful.
So, now let's take a look at some
of the color correction tools that we get.
So, if we select one of these clips,
we'll go up to the Pencil, which is the edit button,
and in here, this is where you can edit things like volume.
We can flip the clip.
We can adjust the speed, so speed it up, slow it down.
We can duplicate it, crop it, adjust the color.
We can rotate it.
And we can play it backwards as well.
So, let's go into Color.
And, in here, we've got three main settings.
We've got White Balance down the bottom left,
we've got our Brightness, Contrast, and Saturation
in the middle, and then we've got
our Color Filters on the top.
So, the Color Filters are just like you'd find in Instagram.
These are preset filters that you can just drop
onto your clips to give it a certain look.
But where the color correction is really powerful
here in PowerDirector, is down under White Balance
and under the Brightness, Contrast, Saturation.
So the combination of these two is really powerful.
So you can see that just by adjusting the color temperature,
where I would add more blue or add more yellow,
or make the shot cooler or warmer, and we
can also adjust the tint, too.
So, we can add more green or add more pink to our shot
to really correct any mistakes that may
have happened while filming.
And then you can come over to your Brightness,
Saturation, and Contrast to tweak that further.
And then when you're finished editing down your video,
to export it, all you need to do is hit,
in the top right corner, the Export button
and choose Produce Video.
And that will give you a heap of different options
to save it to your gallery or SD card,
share on Facebook, share on YouTube.
You can even export the project direct to CyberLink Cloud.
So, if you're editing on the CyberLink desktop app
as well, PowerDirector, then you can transfer
your project from here and finish it on your PC.
So that's pretty cool.
But what I would suggest you do
here is select More Output Options.
And under here is where you'll get
your full range of settings.
As you can see, we've got the options for 4K,
Full HD, HD, and SD.
So if we leave it on 4K and hit Settings,
then we get to choose where we want to save it,
whether it's to internal storage or whether
it's to an additional memory card.
We can also adjust the bitrate,
which is the quality of the video,
so whether you want a better quality, standard,
or a smaller file size for your export,
and you can also adjust your frame rate here, as well.
You have the choice of 24 frames per second or 30.
We'll go OK and all you then have to do is hit Next,
and your file is then exported out and saved on your device.
So that's a really quick walkthrough to show you
just how powerful and simple editing in PowerDirector is.
All right, so three tips for editing videos faster,
no matter which app or software you are using.
The first one is to edit backwards.
So, normally what will happen when you're creating
your videos, is you're presenting to camera,
you're talking through, you might stumble
and do a couple of retakes, but if you make sure
that your last take is always the best take
and you only move on to the next section
once you're happy with the last one,
then the editing tip is to edit backwards.
So this is gonna save you a heap of time.
So, instead of editing left-to-right, edit right-to-left
and you'll always hit your best take,
or the one that you want to use, first.
So, then it's just a matter of scrubbing
through your timeline backwards, finding those
best takes and removing all the mistakes,
all the crap in the middle and you get your huge amount
of footage down to something smaller, manageable,
really, really quickly.
So, that's tip number one.
Tip number two is to make sure that, wherever possible,
your editing project matches the frame rate
and the resolution of the video footage you're editing.
So, if you're recording your videos at 1080p,
30 frames per second, then make sure that you're
editing them at 1080p, 30 frames per second as well,
and exporting your videos at 1080p,
30 frames per second as well.
This way, you're not gonna have any changing of frame rate,
which could give you jittery or stutter-y playback,
and you're also gonna keep the best quality
all the way through.
So, one thing that we see all the time is that people
are recording these videos that look really good,
but when they get into their editing and to their exporting,
they're losing a heap of quality and the motion's off.
This is all due to your editing settings
and your export settings.
So, pay a little bit of attention and check to make sure
that your editing project settings match your camera footage
and also match your export settings to be the same.
Tip number three is to focus on your editing first
and not get carried away and distracted
with all of the effects and transitions and color
and everything that most people jump to.
Most people want to jump straight in and make
their videos look good straight out,
so they'll put a heap of color corrections
and all these other effects and transitions
and things on their footage, which all that does
is slow down the process.
But if you don't go through and cut down
your footage first, then you might find later
after you've applied all these things
and slowed down your system or your Android device
for your editing, that the footage, there could
be something wrong with it.
You might have missed something.
Your video, you might not even be able
to progress further with it.
Yet, you've wasted a heap of time adding
all these effects and transitions and things.
So, focus on getting your content down first.
Make sure you're happy with your content
and then progress to color corrections
and effects and things to make it look good.
So these are just three tips from our video
editing process guide, the Primal Video Method.
Linked onscreen now is links to the Primal Video Method
video and also a direct link to where you can
download the PDF.
I'll see you soon.