There are a number of video editing packages out there, from the simple Windows Media Maker to industry standards like Adobe Premiere or Final Cut. Sony’s contribution is Vegas Video and like most Sony products, it offers an original take on the editing genre.

Vegas actually began as an audio editing app and it shows – the entire feel of the program is more like an audio editing program than conventional video editing programs. On the plus side, Sony has emphasised giving users the greatest control over soundtracks and audio tracks to ensure that your film sounds great.

Sony Vegas Video 7.0 includes an entire suite of tools – Vegas itself as well as DVD Architect 4 to help you burn films and Dolby Digital AC3 coding software to enable you to offer broadcast quality sound in your productions. Vegas allows you to edit DV, HDV, SD/HD-SDI, and all XDCAM formats in real time and even give them surround sound. As HDV starts to become more popular, the ability to edit this particular format means that for some users, it’s their preferred editing package by default.

The video timeline works on a typical Windows drag-and-drop principle where you can add a myriad of effects to video and audio, cutting and splicing it with ease. However, as mentioned earlier, the interface is tailored more for audio than video editing. Unlike Windows Movie Maker or Adobe Premiere, the actual video preview window of what you’re working on is given little space, being tucked away in the corner. This is rather annoying when you’d rather see a decent preview of what you’re creating than have the timelines dominate the screen.

However, one nice feature of the layout is that the interface can be customised according to your preference. You can save these configurations so that for different projects, you can have different layouts. This is especially useful if you’re trying to concentrate on one particular aspect of your film such as special effects or rendering options. You can even create your own keyboard shortcuts, a handy option for those who are mouse-shy.

The audio features are first class though. Sony Vegas was one of the first to support 24 bit audio as well as 5.1 surround sound – usually the preserve of professional editing programs such as Avid. To add surround sound, you’ll need to use the Dolby Digital AC3 software. Another excellent Sony idea has been to add a network connection to other PCs during installation. So for example, if you’re working on a project with a friend, you can edit seamlessly in real-time together.

For creating really cool titles, Vegas now features the Sony ProType titler (available in the Media Generators tab) which allows you to make some really swanky looking graphics. There's also new digital signage support which allows you to create rotated projects for viewing on a vertical or inverted display. Encoding has also been improved with support for 10-bit video encoding when previewing or capturing from AJA SDI video cards.

Vegas is never going to compete with prosumer programs based on the traditional Avid way of editing. For those used to such programs, the interface could prove too awkward, limited and confusing to make editing video a pleasure. However, as regards sound, it can’t be touched. For many users, it makes the perfect package to polish the soundtrack on their film after editing it in another package. Be warned also that if you’re unfamiliar with video editing programs, it's going to take a while to get accustomed to Vegas, so the bundled tutorial is highly recommended.

Download Sony Vegas Video 8.0.217 b in Softonic

VirtualDub is a video capture and processing utility licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It is designed to be a general utility that can trim and clean up video before exporting to tape or processing with another program. It does not possess the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video.

It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files, which you can extend with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is best at processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and handle BMP image sets.

Download VirtualDub 1.8.5 Stable in Softonic

Make every frame count with Adobe® Premiere® Pro 2.0 software, the essential tool for professional video editing. Capture and edit virtually any format, from DV to uncompressed HD, and output to tape, DVD, and the web. Providing unparalleled integration with other Adobe applications, Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 sets new standards for efficient digital filmmaking.

Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 software revolutionizes nonlinear video editing. Powerful real-time video and audio editing tools give you precise control over virtually every aspect of your production. Built for the exceptional performance of Microsoft Windows XP systems, Adobe Premiere Pro 2.0 takes video production to an entirely new level.

View effects, transitions, motion paths, and more with real-time, full-resolution playback on NTSC, PAL, and VGA monitors. Experiment more freely and easily manage complex projects more efficiently using multiple, nestable timelines.

Quickly remove unused material from your project and consolidate the project's media into one location for easy archiving with the Project Manager. Use color correction tools to adjust hue, saturation, and lightness for highlights, midtones, and shadows; replace a color throughout a clip with a single selection; and more. Produce richer, more vibrant audio using sample-level editing, track-based effects, 5.1 surround sound, and support for VST filters. You’ll get a jump start with a library of included VST plug-ins.

Download Adobe Premiere 2.0 Pro in Softonic

particleIllusion lets you create any sort of particle effect easily. Whether you are looking for an explosion, flash, spray, drip or any other sort of effect, you should be able to find it in particleIllusion, which contains more than 1500 particle effects.

Even though the interface itself is a little counter-intuitive, adding an effect to an image or video is relatively easy. Load up your video or image in particleIllusion, select the effects you want and add them, play around with the settings until you have reached the desired result and render the file before exporting it.

The parameters give you a lot of flexibility, however I did find them a little difficult to work with, particularly the graph view.

Luckily particleIllusion comes with a full online tutorial to guide through every step and help you really become familiar with the program.

Although a little counter intuitive, particleIllusion is a great tool with over 1500 particle effects to add to your video or image.

Download particleIllusion 3.0.3 in Softonic

Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 software makes it easy to create home videos like a famous director. And it's brought to you by the makers of Adobe Photoshop, the #1 image-editing software in the world. Harness the power of a Hollywood studio with special effects, titles, credits, and Dolby Digital sound. Then show your personal masterpiece to family and friends.

Easily transfer DV footage by USB or FireWire directly to the timeline so you can start editing sooner. Use the new Media Downloader to import video, audio, and still images from virtually any device, including DV and DVD camcorders, unprotected DVDs, digital still cameras, MPEG-4 video recorders, and cell phones. Easily delete unwanted scenes and the timeline automatically adjusts for you.

Save time and eliminate guesswork by clicking thumbnails that let you preview effects and transitions before you apply them. Make your video more dynamic with moving text and graphics. Use preset TV-style effects, or customize effects to create your own look.

Be an art director! Design custom DVD menus from scratch, or choose from dozens of menu templates that you can personalize with your own images and audio. Add moving backgrounds, move and resize buttons, edit text, and more.

Download Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 in Softonic

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.

Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license. The program was written from scratch by Mean, but code from other people and projects has been used as well. Patches, translations and even bug reports are always welcome.

Download Avidemux 2.4.3 in Softonic

If you're looking for an easy-to-use video and photo editor, Pinnacle VideoSpin is definitely a good choice.

Don't be mistaken: this is no replacement for big shots like Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas. However Pinnacle VideoSpin works perfectly well for the average user who wants to create an easy video presentation including video clips, photos, sound effects and background music.

The program features support for the most popular file formats, plus a nicely designed interface that divides the working area into three main sections: the list of material you can add to your presentation, a preview window and a timeline that enables you to organize every element in terms of the position they occupy in the presentation, the amount of time they take and the transition effects between them, among other settings. There's also a special tool to create title screens.

Once your presentation is ready, Pinnacle VideoSpin allows you to save it into a variety of formats and support, including AVI, DivX, iPod compatible video or MPEG.

Pinnacle VideoSpin is an intuitive presentation tool with which average users can easily create their own photo and video shows.

Download Pinnacle VideoSpin 1.0.2.410 in Softonic

With DVD video recorders and video camera becoming increasingly popular, there's a growing demand for user friendly video editing software that can handle footage from a variety of sources. With MAGIX Movie Edit Pro you can import videos from DVDs that you have recorded directly with your DVD camcorder or TV recordings on your living room DVD recorder. This offers exciting new possibilities to create your own DVDs with your own menus and extras.

The program makes maximum use of your processor cutting and arranging DVD, MPEG, and even HDV recordings. Both the picture composition, and video compression ratios are calculated in the background whilst you get on with some seamless editing. Note however that you'll need a processor of at least 3 GHz or more to reap these benefits in HDV mode.

This program also makes soundtracks a priority with an integrated Soundtrack Maker that enables you to produce your own individual background music. You simply select a style, from classical to action and the music will intelligently follow the "tension curve" that you define. This is a massive bonus in that you don't have to search for suitable music to fit every mood represented in your film although that said, nothing can beat a human touch in that area.

This is an excellent video editor that can handle the demands of even HDV but in a way that makes it fairly simple for all.

Download MAGIX Movie Edit Pro 12 (US) in Softonic

SuperDVD Video Publisher brings together in a single program all the necessary tools to edit videos that do not require a professional touch.

The input window shows the various bars in which the program is structured. First you can extract capturing video from any camcorder, webcam, and so on. Secondly, the editor itself, to make cuts, adds multiple tracks of audio and video, including transitions, etc. Then you also have the screen effects and the editing stage in the DVD menu. Here you can customize the screen automatically when introducing a DVD in the drive. Finally, it remains only to save the movie with a simple click and set the format in the editor. In addition to all this you can also change the play speed and add a limited number of video effects as well as gain full control over the audio and the video streams. There's also options to directly burn into VCD DVD format for playback on external DVD players.

A basic but powerful DVD editing package that doesn't offer many advanced options but does the job quickly.

Download SuperDVD Video Editor 1.5.5 in Softonic

Foto2Avi is a freeware basic video and photo converter with support for AVI, MPEG and FLV video formats. It is an video editor too. The program features special effects such as:

• Transitions (Flippage, Swirl...)
• Basic Effects (Brightness/Noise/Fade in/Fade out)
• Advanced Effects (Distort, Ripple)
• Animations
• Subtitles
• Logos

Any of these effects is highly customizable. You have a wide range of effects available to edit and customize your video. The only limit is your imagination!

Foto2Avi supports external audio sounds (MP3/Ogg/WAV) and can trim audio video streams with milisecond precision, so you can edit your sounds synchronize them with your videos. You can save your work in *.f2a project files so you cannot lose your workand reload them later.

Foto2Avi is easy to use after a couple of minutes using it, you will understand it and you will be able to produce your films!

Download Foto2Avi 1.7 in Softonic

ArcSoft ShowBiz DVD is a simple yet powerful software application that has everything you need to edit home video and create professional looking DVDs. The software features a simple storyboard view for basic video sequencing and a more advanced timeline view giving you greater control over your movie clips, audio tracks and transitional effects.

What’s more, the program includes a powerful photo slideshow wizard and a full set of DVD authoring tools for turning your video productions into great-looking DVDs ready for enjoying on TV.

Download ArcSoft ShowBiz DVD 2.1.9.67 in Softonic

They say the best way to watch a movie is in its original version. The problem comes when you don't understand the original language and that makes it a bit harder. Well, this is why subtitles were invented for, and subtitle editors too.

Subtitle Processor is probably one of the most complete subtitle editors you can find nowadays. Not only does it enable you to edit subtitles by cutting and joining sentences, correcting typos, removing extra spaces and other tools, but also helps you synchronize the text and the video image with great precision thanks to its embedded player.

Besides edition, Subtitle Processor includes an interesting extra tool with which you can easily translate subtitles from one language to another, in a double-paneled interface that allows you to have both the source and target languages always at sight.

While being a blessing for all original version cinema lovers thanks to its excellent array of subtitle edition tooks, Subtitle Processor may feel a bit too complicated for the novice user.

Download Subtitle Processor 7.7.1.0 in Softonic

Director is the proven multimedia authoring tool for professionals. Director combines broad media support for media types, ease of use, high-performance, and an infinitely extendible development environment to deliver rich content and applications for CDs, DVDs, kiosks, and the Internet.

Director MX 2004 offers powerful new features, including two scripting languages, DVD-Video support, cross-platform publishing, and Flash MX 2004 integration.

Download Adobe Director MX 2004 10.1 in Softonic

VirtualDubMod is based on the famous video editing software VirtualDub by Avery Lee. Born as a unification of several existing modifications, a lot of new features have been added, including support for the matroska container format.

Download VirtualDubMod 1.5.10.2 in Softonic

The world of dance music has changed a fair bit in the last few years. Where DJs could once come on and just play a few records, many of today's ravers demand a more immersive multimedia experience when they're dancing the night away. Cell VJ gives you the chance to dazzle the crowd with stunning visual experiences to accompany the music.

The application is a companion to the VideoDJ software and contains everything you need to be able to mix video and music in real-time. With so many options to get your head around, it's a little tricky to use at first but gradually the interface becomes easier to understand and you should be creating decent mixes within a couple of hours. Handily, Cell VJ comes with 36 default clips which are great for trying out all the nice effects, transitions, speed controls and mixers in the program.

Download Cell VJ 1.0 in Softonic

Ever fancy making your own film but don't have the patience to learn the major editing packages such as Adobe Premiere and Final Cut?

Then Auto Movie Creator converts you into Steven Spielberg but without the hours spent learning how to cut and splice and render videos that most video editing packages require. In fact, the program does much of the work for you via the editing wizard which is effectively your Assistant Director. It takes you logically and slowly through every step holding your hand as you go from capturing video to outputting it in a format that's suitable for your needs. One of the most time-consuming parts of editing is going through the footage to see which parts you need to take out. Auto Movie Creator even does this for you simply by selecting "Detect Scenes" and the program automatically scans your footage for the best quality shots. It also allows you to add professional style effects such as dissolves and fades simply by dragging and dropping them into the timeline. You can also add photos and other images into your video to give them a more personal touch.

Auto Movie Creator feels more like a photo editing package than a video editor but this is the key behind it's appeal - it requires absolutely no prior editing knowledge and is simple enough for even the most amateur of video makers.

Download Auto Movie Creator 3.13 in Softonic

VideoMach is a powerful audio/video builder and converter. Use it to construct video clips from still images, enhance your recorded material or convert video, audio and image files between popular media formats.

VideoMach features:

• Suports popular video and image formats (mpeg, avi, divx, flc, jpeg, png, tif, gif, bmp and more)
• Reads and writes standard Linux and UN*X image formats (xpm, pnm, sgi, ras and more)
• Supports most popular audio formats (mp3, mp2, ogg, wav, ac3)
• Imports the output of high-speed imagers and time-lapse cameras (bayer, cine)
• World's fastest image sequence detection, more than 50,000 images per second
• Professional-quality MPEG, AVI and Bayer readers, video is decoded at highest quality unlike in most media players
• Fastest software MPEG encoder, more then 120 frames per second
• Can read or write very large MPEG files, up to million terabytes
• Creates industry standard VideoCD MPEGs by NTSC and PAL / SECAM video specs
• Connects to both Video For Windows (VFW) and DirectShow (DS) interfaces ensuring support for vaste number of AVI codecs / subformats
• Easy to navigate but powerful AVI output video / audio codecs selection dialog
• Integrated media player
• Fast, compact and reliable installer with built-in anti-virus check

Download VideoMach 4.0.4 in Softonic

Video Workshop is a digital video converter / editor for home video processing and for people who are just getting started with video editing. Video Workshop provides an easy-to-use interface and is designed for the everyday user. The main function of Video Workshop is to convert video files from one format to another, extract single frames to image files, cut a part of file into new video file, merge two or more files in one, rip audio tracks from video files to mp3 or wave files, and mix audio files (mp3 or wave) into a new video file.

More Features:

• Free video player
• Export video frames to separate image files.
• Video Converter, (support AVI, MPEG, WMV, ASF, RM, MOV, QT ...)
• Making MPEG Movies for VCD, SVCD and DVD
• Extract audio tracks from video files and save them to separate mp3 or wave.
• Video Cutter, split a part of video file into new video files by selecting the start time/frame and end time/frame.
• Video Joiner, merge selected video files into one video file
• Video / Audio Mixer: Mix mp3 or wave file into video file, and save to another new format video file.
• User Friendly & Specially Designed For Users.

Download Video Workshop 1.41 in Softonic

ArcSoft VideoImpression® 2 is your ticket to cool home movies and slide shows. You don't need to be a computer whiz to put together awesome videos anymore. If you know how to drag-and-drop with your mouse, you're all set! In no time you can combine still images, video clips, audio tracks, text, and special effects into you very own movie. Make a VCD and play your movie on your DVD player!

Download ArcSoft VideoImpression 2.0 in Softonic

The application supports not only the files containing audio streams but AVIs without any audio as well. For the time being the program uses only XviD codec to recompression process (versions: 1.0.3 or newer). The installation pack contains all required components (the newest versions of: VirtualDubMod, AviSynth and XviD). AVI ReComp can be very useful for users who want to clear their AVIs out of GMC or Qpel functions to prepare the clips for standalone DVD players. The program contains a feature of embedding subtitles into video. So if you want burnt in subtitles, you can use this software.

Download AVI ReComp 1.4.1 in Softonic