If I use the Youtube video editor, either once or repeatedly, does it degrade the quality of the clips? Is there anything out there that’s free with a similar feel I could run locally on my PC?
I would imagine YouTube shrinks and/or compresses the videos when you upload them, so they’re ‘degraded’ whether you use the editor or not. The YouTube editor is awful, and I’d recommend avoiding it. I had a free avi editor I downloaded years ago that worked pretty well. Limited functionality, but unlike the YouTube editor it worked. No compression either. Can’t remember what it was called, which isn’t much help, but there’s definitely freeware out there that will probably do what you need.
Compression isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Newer cameras make really hi-res images and pictures that can be cumbersome to work with. It’s just that websites like Facebook and YouTube tend to be really aggressive in shrinking file size because they are paying for hosting for the whole world.
- The YouTube video editor keeps a copy of your original video and always applies whatever edits you’ve provided to the original source video. Meaning, if you make an edit and then go back and make a second edit, the quality won’t degrade. This is also how you’re able to “undo” bad changes and get the original video back.
That said, YouTube stores the videos in a differently-compressed version from your original upload, so you lose some quality merely by uploading the video in the first place.
- I’ve never come across a free video editor that actually worked. If your edits are very simple, you can try out Windows Movie Maker (which is still around.) If you’re serious about editing, pay $80 to get a copy of Sony Vegas Platinum.
If you have dvd burner, you may have received a program called powerdirector along with your disc burning software. It’s primarily for making DVD’s, but it also has a module for uploading completed videos to youtube (after transcoding them to a youtube compatible format)