Hello! to editing apps: VN video editor
This one works on almost every mobile device
Over the next 3 weeks, I’m covering my favorite phone video editors that I use. They are all free to download! I’ll cover the pros and cons of each one. They’re different enough that you could use all 3 together for different types of videos you make.
This week: VN Video Editor
App: VN Video Editor
Website: https://www.vlognow.me/
Link: VN Video Editor (Google Play)
VN Video Editor - iPhone/iPad iOS
This is probably the best entry-level video editor for your phone. It just works. If you have never edited any videos before and looking to start, this is the editing app to start with.
“Free” to be you
Yes, I know I said at the top that all the apps I’m covering are free. But this one actually feels free. There aren’t many bells and whistles that are locked when you click on them. There aren’t any sneaky prompts to create an account or start a trial when you go to export your final video.
You do sit through a 4 second ad when you first open it (which I assume to offset you not paying for it) and it goes by so quick I don’t even notice. The free version also lets you make up to 99 concurrent projects before making you upgrade to VN Pro, which is a high bar I can’t imagine getting near.
The key to this app is the lack of limitations. It doesn’t give you a 3 day trial and then make you pay to keep using it (looking at you, Splice). It doesn’t hold you down to just 5 exports before it shuts the door and makes you pay to keep using it (old version of Premiere Rush). It has a long leash with the occasional reminder to upgrade.
All this could change in the future, but right now, I appreciate it.
Simple layout with lots of features
To get started, you choose between “New Project”, “Stories”, “Templates”, “Photo” and “Overlay”.
I almost always start with “New Project”. After that, you get to cycle through any media you want to add, and it dumps it all into your project timeline.
Once you’re starting at the main editing timeline, you have your video clips left to right. Along the bottom of the screen are all the features, and there are a ton of them!
By selecting one clip, you could:
change its volume OR remove the audio from a video clip
Speed it up, reverse it, freeze it
Crop, mirror, flip, add a border
You can also tap on the video itself and make it larger, smaller or move around the screen. There really are a surprising amount of features packed into this app and I’m sure I’m missing a bunch. This is the part of the app that really holds up compared to more professional grade video editors.
Lots of exporting options!
Hitting the “Export” icon in the top-right corner opens up a new window where you can adjust your export settings or let VN Editor do it for you. The most important item on this screen is the Estimated File Size at the bottom. It’s personal preference, but I tend to tweak the Average Bitrate down a tiny bit to lower the file size, and it doesn’t affect the quality too much. This does help later when I’m moving files around or trying to convert it to GIFs or other platforms.
Once you hit the big “Export” button, it finalizes the video and allows you to add a caption, tags or pick where you want it to publish. I always “Save to Album” which dumps it into my phone’s photo roll so I can use it later.
BUT… No obvious multi-track editing
I’ve sung it’s praises for a while now, so it’s time to get to the stuff that’s clunky. Multi-track editing is a prominent feature of desktop editing apps like Final Cut Pro and Adobe Premiere, where you can have multiple videos stacked on top of each other and the one that is “showing” on top is what is visible. This makes it easier to edit because you can slide around clips and trim them without having to chop them up to fit into one single-file line.
If you make an edit and you don’t like it, you just slide the video clip around until it works. But if you have to shove everything into one line, then any adjustments you make affect all the other clips around it.
This almost exists in VN Editor with the “Forward” option. You can select a clip and hit “Forward” and it will move it up into the Photo row. Now you can tweak it slightly, but it is still somewhat tied to the clip below it. If the video clip underneath it gets deleted or trimmed, the above clip does as well.
It’s not a huge deal-breaker because I know I’m using this for minor / light editing. Editing something beefier or longer could test your patience.
Summary
This is, again, for editing videos on a mobile device. This isn’t for anything too crazy, so why should your editor be complicated? The fastest way to crank out some short videos, especially for social media, is to have a light, quick, uncomplicated editor, and VN Video Editor fits the bill.
I’m not making long videos right now, so I only need something quick and easy. If I was making longer Youtube videos, that would be a different story, but for now? I give it one of the most glowing reviews possible: It just works.
Now that being said, I’m sure I missed something about VN video editor. So: what questions do you have about it? Have you used it? Are there any other apps you’re using instead?
You've convinced me to try it out!