Edit Video on Your PC
15 useful Mac OS X text editors Written by ravindra + A text editor is a computer program that allow user to enter, change, store text files.Text editors are often provided with operating systems or software development packages, and can be used to change configuration files and programming language source code. The following applications are the best free HTML editors for Macintosh, both WYSIWYG and text editors, rated from best to worst. Each editor listed will have a score, percentage, and a link to more information.
Nothing makes an impression like moving pictures with sound. That's why digital video continues to grow in importance online. Couple that trend with the ever-increasing availability of devices capable of high-resolution video recording—phones, GoPros, DSLRs—and the case for ever-more powerful video editing software becomes clear. Further, the software must be usable by nonprofessionals, and it has to keep up with newer formats such as HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding) and 360-degree VR video, and it has to be able to handle 4K and higher resolution.
Increasingly, new capabilities trickle down from professional-level software to the consumer category. That's a good thing for nonprofessional movie editors, since the more consumer-oriented software tends to make easier procedures that can sometimes be pretty tricky in the pro-level software. Read on for a survey of the latest trends in video editing software along with our top picks in the field.
Multicam, Motion Tracking, and Yet More Motion
Advanced abilities continue to make their way into accessible, affordable, and consumer-friendly video editing software as each new generation of software is released. For example, multicam editing, which lets you switch among camera angles of the same scene shot with multiple video cameras, used to be a feature relegated to pro-level software. Now this and many other advanced effects are available in programs designed for use by nonprofessional enthusiasts.
Another impressive effect that has made its way into consumer-level video editing software is motion tracking, which lets you attach an object or effect to something moving in your video. You might use it to put a blur over the face of someone you don't want to show up in your video. You specify the target face, and the app takes care of the rest, tracking the face and moving the effect to follow it. This used to be the sole province of special effects software such as Adobe After Effects. Corel VideoStudio was the first of the consumer products to include motion tracking, and it still leads the pack in the depth and usability of its motion-tracking tool, though several others now include the capability.
The 4K Video Factor
Support for 4K video source content has become pretty standard in video editing software, but the support varies among the products. For example, some but not all of the applications can import Sony XAVC and XAVC-S formats, which are used by Sony's popular DSLRs, mirrorless cameras, camcorders, and professional video cameras. The same holds true for the H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard. Most of the applications here now can import and export HEVC, though there are still a few holdouts.
360-Degree VR Support
Several of the products here (Adobe Premiere Elements is a notable exception) still support 3D video editing if that's your thing, though the this has been replaced by 360-degree VR footage like that shot by the Samsung Gear 360 as the current home-theater fad. As is often the case, our Editors' Choice, CyberLink PowerDirector was the first product in this group to offer support for this new kind of video media.
Other programs have jumped on board with 360 VR support, including Adobe Premiere, Apple Final Cut Pro X, and Magix Movie Edit Pro. Support varies, with some apps including 360-compatible titles, stabilization, and motion tracking. PowerDirector is notable for including those last two. Final Cut offers a useful tool that removes the camera and tripod from the image, often an issue with 360-degree footage.
Video Editing 101
Of course, none of the extras matter if an app can't do the most basic editing tasks. At this point, however, all of the products included here do a good job of letting you join, trim, and split video clips. They also let you make use of special effects such as animated transitions, picture-in-picture (PiP), chroma-key (the technique that lets you place a subject against any background, often known as green screening), and filters that enhance colors or apply creative effects and distortions. With most of them you can add a multitude of timeline tracks that can accommodate video clips, effects, audio, and text overlays.
A tool coming to the latest versions of video editing applications is support for seamless transitions. Picture a scene showing people at a beach, and suddenly the sky zooms in and your in Rome or Paris, but it looks like you're in the same place because the transition glued the two scenes together using the sky. There are plenty of other examples of seamless transition; this magnificent video shows a good selection of them, and is partly responsible for starting the trend.
Color, LUTs and CLUTs
One of the capabilities that has been making its way into consumer-level video editing software is more-detailed color grading. Color wheels, curves, and histograms give editors control over the intensity of every shade. Related to this is support for LUTs (lookup tables), also known as CLUTs (color lookup tables). This staple of pro-level software lets you quickly change the look of a video to give it a specific mood. For example, think of the dark blue look of thriller movies like The Revenant. You can download LUTs for free from several sites or use those included with some video software to give your video a specific look. One well-known LUT type is the kind that can make a daytime scene look like it was shot at night.
Where the Action Is
Many video editing apps now include tools that cater to users of action cameras such as the GoPro Hero7 Black. For example, several offer automated freeze-frame along with speedup, slowdown, and reverse time effects. CyberLink PowerDirector's Action Camera Center pulls together freeze frame with stabilization, slo-mo, and fish-eye correction, and color correction for underwater footage. Magix Movie Edit Pro Premium includes the third-party NewBlue ActionCam Package of effects. And Wondershare Filmora lets you subscribe to new effect packs on an ongoing basis.
Titles That Zing
I've been seeing a lot of attention paid to creating title effects in the applications over the past year. Apple Final Cut Pro X has added 3D title creation, which is pretty spiffy, letting you extrude 2D titles and rotate them on three axes. Corel VideoStudio in its latest version also adds 3D Titling, though not as powerful as Apple's. PowerDirector's Title Designer offers transparency, gradient color, border, blur level, and reflection in titles; Magix has impressive title templates, complete with animations. Premiere Elements offers a nifty title effect in which your video fills the text characters, and Corel recently followed suit in VideoStudio 2019. Look for an application that lets you edit titles in WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) mode, so that you can type, format, and time it right over the video preview.
Gathering Speed
Video editing is one of the most computing-intensive activities around, so you'll want the best laptop or desktop you can afford if you're serious about cutting your own movies. Most applications help speed up the editing process by creating a proxy file of lower resolution, so that normal editing and previewing aren't slowed down by the huge full-resolution files.
Particularly intensive is the process of rendering your finished product into a standard video file that will by playable on the target device of choice, be that an HDTV, a laptop, or a smartphone. Most of the software can take advantage of your computer's graphics processor to speed this up. Be sure to check the performance section in each review linked here to see how speedy or slow the application is. In rendering speed testing, CyberLink and Pinnacle have been my perennial champs.
Other measures of performance include startup time and simple stability. Again, video editing is a taxing activity for any computer, involving many components. In the past, video editing programs took longer than most other apps to start up, and unexpected shutdowns were unfortunately common, even in top apps from top developers such as Adobe and Apple. The stability situation has greatly improved, but the complexity of the process, which increases as more powerful effects are added, means crashes will likely never be fully eliminated, and they often raise their ugly heads after a program update, as I found with the latest version of Pinnacle Studio.
Free Video Editing Software
If you don't want to invest a lot of money and effort into your video editing exploits, there are a few free options. Of course, if you use a Mac, the excellent iMovie comes with it. For PC users, Windows 10's Photos app (as of the Fall Creators Update) lets you join, trim, and even add background music, 3D animated effects, and titles to video.
There are also some free video apps on the Windows Store, including Movie Moments, PowerDirector Mobile, Movie Maker, and Magix Movie Edit Touch. Some of these are quite basic, but the Magix app is fairly capable, with clip joining, transitions, and effects, in a very touch-friendly interface.
Free video editing software often comes with legal and technical limitations, however. Some widely used codecs require licensing fees on the part of the software maker, meaning they can't offer free software that can handle these standard file formats. That said, the impressive open-source Shotcut does a lot of the same things that the paid applications in this roundup do, including things like chroma-keying and picture-in-picture. Shotcut is completely open-source and free, while another free option, Lightworks has paid options that remove a 720p output resolution limit. Note also that both Shotcut and Lightworks run on Linux as well as Windows and Mac.
What About Apple?
Though Mac users don't have the sheer number of software choices available for PCs, Apple fans interested in editing video are well served, by four products in particular. At the entry level, the surprisingly capable and enjoyable-to-use iMovie comes free with every Mac sold since at least 2011. iMovie only offers two video tracks, but does good job with chroma-keying, and its Trailers feature makes it easy to produce slick, Hollywood-style productions.
In the midrange, there's Adobe Premiere Elements, which is cross-platform between Macs and PCs, and offers a lot more features and lots of help with creating effects. Professionals and prosumers have powerful, though pricey options in Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro. Final Cut is a deceptively simple application that resembles iMovie in its interface and ease of use, but it offers massively deep capabilities, and many third-party apps integrate with it for even more power. It also makes excellent use of the Touch Bar on the latest MacBook Pro, as shown in photo above. Premiere Pro uses a more traditional timeline and adds a large ecosystem of companion apps and plug-ins. It also excels in collaboration features.
Audio Editing
We still live in the days of talkies, so you want to be able to edit the audio in your digital moves as well as the images. Most of the products included here offer canned background music, and many, such as Pinnacle Studio, can even tailor the soundtrack to the exact length of your movie. All of these programs can separate audio and video tracks, and most can clean up background noise and add environmental audio effects such as concert hall reverb. A couple of the products have an auto-ducking feature, which lowers background music during dialog—a definite pro-level plus.
What's Not Here
There are more video editing software applications than we can fit into this roundup of the best options, which includes only software rated three stars and higher. The best known among them is probably Vegas Movie Studio, which was recently acquired by Magix from Sony. Sony's product used a very cluttered interface that more resembled high-end professional video editing software from the early days of the craft. Magix has made some progress in simplifying it and bringing it up to par with the competition, but more work is needed for it to be included here.
Another program, VSDC Video Editor Pro, simply has too outdated an interface, making common tasks difficult. Longtime pro video editors will note the absence of Avid Media Composer, which is simply too unwieldy for PCMag's primarily consumer audience. There are a couple of more interesting applications—NCH VideoPad and AVS Video Editor among them—that we simply haven't tested yet.
The Finish Line
The video editing application you choose depends on your budget, the equipment you're using, and how serious you are. Fortunately, you're spoiled for choice with the products available. Peruse our in-depth reviews of enthusiast-level video editing software reviews linked below to see which is the right one for you.
Best Video Editor Mac
One final note about the features table at the top of this story: Check marks represent differentiating, above-the-call-of-duty features, rather than essential ones. So, just because Nero Video and Wondershare Filmora don't have any checks, it doesn't mean they're not good choices. In fact, both offer decent basic editing on a budget.
Best Video Editing Software Featured in This Roundup:
Adobe Premiere Pro CC Review
MSRP: $19.99Pros: Clear, flexible interface. Lots of organizational tools. Responsive speed. Ultimate power in video editing. Rich ecosystem of video production apps. Excellent stabilization. Unlimited multi-cam angles.
Cons: No keyword tagging for media. Some techniques require additional applications such as After Effects or SpeedGrade.
Bottom Line: An expansive professional-level digital video editing program, Premiere Pro CC has everything today's pro video editor needs, particularly when it comes to collaboration.
Read ReviewCyberLink PowerDirector Review
MSRP: $129.99Pros: Fast rendering. Clear interface. Loads of effects. The most 360-degree video capabilities of any video editor. Multicam editing. 3D and 4K capability. Motion tracking. Screen recording.
Cons: No trimming in source panel. Number of options can make interface overwhelming. Weak color matching.
Bottom Line: PowerDirector is one of the fastest and most capable consumer-level video editing apps for Windows around, and the first to support 360-degree VR footage.
Read ReviewCorel VideoStudio Ultimate Review
MSRP: $99.99Pros: Wide selection of fun video-creation tools. Clear, simple interface. Fast rendering. Support for 360-degree VR, 4K Ultra HD, and 3D media. Multipoint Motion tracking. Multicam editing. HTML5 video page creation. Stop-motion tool.
Cons: No keyword tagging for media.
Bottom Line: Corel VideoStudio remains one of the most feature-packed consumer video editing packages around. The 2019 update adds powerful color-grading tools, seamless transitions, and text masks.
Read ReviewPinnacle Studio Ultimate Review
MSRP: $129.95Pros: Clear interface. Edits 360-degree VR content. Fast rendering performance in testing. Tons of effects. Multicam editing. 4K and H.265 support. Tagging and star ratings for media. Good audio tools.
Cons: Motion tracking issues on one test PC. Occasional crashes in testing. Uneven 360-degree VR implementation.
Bottom Line: Pinnacle Studio is a fast, full-featured, near-professional-level video-editing application with support for 360-degree VR, 3D, and multicam edits. New color grading and four-point editing make it even more appealing, though our testing uncovered some instabilities.
Read ReviewMagix Movie Edit Pro Premium Review
MSRP: $129.99Pros: Lots of video effects. Multicam. Good titling tools. Trailer-like movie templates. Solid audio editing tools. Strong disc authoring. Fast rendering. Good stability. 360-degree media support.
Cons: Not much help with difficult procedures. Lacks import and organization tools. Extra costs and coded downloads for some video formats.
Bottom Line: Now with faster rendering, Movie Edit Pro offers solid stability, up-to-date support for 4K, 360-degree, and multicam editing, but it trails other video editing software in ease-of-use.
Read ReviewAdobe Premiere Elements Review
MSRP: $99.99Pros: Clear, simple interface. Guided Edits ease basic and advanced projects. Lots of video effects. Solid text tools. Powerful Audio editing. Good control over stabilization. 4K support.
Cons: No 360-degree VR or 3D editing. No multicam feature or screen recording capability. Slow rendering speeds. No HEVC support in Windows.
Bottom Line: Adobe's consumer video editing app adds a new start page, Auto Creations, a redesigned quick-editing interface, and faster performance.
Read ReviewWondershare Filmora Review
MSRP: $59.99Pros: Pleasing interface. Inexpensive. Lots of effects and overlays. Good title tool.
Cons: Action Cam and Cutter modes only allow one clip at a time. No search for effects or transitions. No motion tracking. No DVD menu or chapter authoring. Not a touch-friendly interface.
Bottom Line: Wondershare's Filmora video editing software may not have multicam or the hottest new VR tools, but it does have a pleasing interface and lots of effects.
Read ReviewApple Final Cut Pro X Review
MSRP: $299.99Pros: Magnetic, trackless timeline. Superior organization tools, including libraries, ratings, tagging, auto analysis for faces, scenes. Support for 360-degree footage and HDR. Multicam support. Fast performance. MacBook Touch Bar support.
Cons: Nontraditional timeline-editing may turn off longtime editors. Can't import projects from previous versions without a third-party plug-in. No stabilization or motion tracking for 360-degree video.
Bottom Line: Apple's professional-level video editing software, Final Cut Pro X, brings a wealth of power in an interface simple for pros and consumers alike. Recent highlights include rich support for 360-degree content and improved stability.
Read ReviewNero Video Review
MSRP: $49.99Pros: Inexpensive. Plenty of video effects. Good audio tools. Solid file format support, including H.265. Compatible with 4K content. Burns DVD, Blu-ray, and AVCHD.
Cons: Light on features. Outdated, unconventional interface. No 360 or 3D support. No motion tracking. No direct output to social networks.
Bottom Line: For less money than the competition, Nero offers a wide array of enthusiast-level video editing capabilities, but the interface is dated and it trails in support for new formats and techniques.
Read ReviewApple iMovie Review
MSRP: $0.00Pros: Beautifully simple interface. Color matching for consistent movie looks. Classy themes. Great chroma-keying tool. Lots of audio tools. Theater feature shares movies to all your Apple gear.
Cons: Not as flexible as some PC video editors. In the name of simplicity, some useful controls are missing. Does not support tagging. Lacks multicam or motion tracking capabilities. Limited to two video tracks.
Bottom Line: Apple's excellent entry-level desktop video editing application can turn your footage and photos into impressive productions.
Read Review
The Notepad++ is widely used in Windows operating systems, however, the programming software is not available to the Mac OS. There is no need to fret if you move from a Windows environment as the OS X has a native Unix environment that is compatible for html editors, and a simple text editor called TextEdit. There are other programming software for Mac that can best NotePad++ if you are in need of more functionality that is not present with TextEdit.
People who ask the question“What is the best source code editor for OS X?”, or continually look for the best notepad++ alternatives, either free or paid for Mac OS, look no further than to refer to this article. Here listed are the next best text editors and Notepad++ alternatives for Mac. In this article, we will certainly reveal you a few of the most effective code editors readily available for Mac and Windows customers.
1. Light Table (Free)
Table of Contents
An open-source text editor, it’s main feature is the real-time feedback allowing instant execution, access to documentation and debugging. This reduces the programming time by showing the results of the code as your write it. It has “watches” which can keep track of high priority values in your code, built-in plugin manager, and inline evaluation which does away with printing to the console to see the results of your code.
2. TextMate (Paid)
One of few exclusive code editors for Mac, it uses features both from Emacs and OS X into a single text editor, for designers and programmers alike that seek to replace the full IDE. With features such as auto-pairing of brackets, Regex and Grep support, visual bookmarks for jumping in between locations in a document make TextMate a viable alternative to Notepad++. It works well with the Xcode environment, you can take advantage of these features while still using the built-in OS X IDE.
TextMate is offered for $58. It is additionally available as a cost-free download.
3. Sublime Text (Paid)
An elegant design welcomes you with this text editor, with features such as GoTo Anything, which can open any files with only a few keystrokes, full screen mode, split editing, a command palette to automatically switch between specific parts without navigation to menus. It has a Python console which you can experiment with in real-time, and a customizing function to just customize key bindings, menus, macros, completions, basically anything with JSON files.
Superb Text is available on test as well as a single permit will cost you $70.
4. Atom (Free)
Best Coldfusion Editor For Mac
A code editor made by the GitHub developers, it’s main selling point (although it’s free), is that it was made to be customized by developers. Featuring packages, these add-ons can be made by other developers to add more functionality to your Atom code editor. The program can be used in conjunction with HTML and Javascript, so you don’t have to learn complicated languages.
5. TextWrangler (Free)
Free Coldfusion Editor
If the fee of $49 isn’t justifiable for purchasing a text editor like BBEdit, then it’s little brother TextWrange will be enough for you. It includes features like syntax highlighting, Unix scripting integration. It functions like other similar simple text editors, with features such as multi-file search, unicode viewing and spellcheck.
6. BBEdit ($49)
The big brother of TextWrangler it offers many more features in addition to what was included in TextWrangler such as HTML tools, Clippings system, GitHub integration, and adapting Automator. You can also develop your own language module using the BBEdit SDK to add syntax coloring and navigation without writing any code.
7. Chocolat (Free)
Chocolat is a native text editor for Mac, that means it utilizes the advantages of the latest features of the OS and strictly is not a port from Windows, so you should be able to comfortable right away as it focuses on the Mac experience. It works with every programming language such as Ruby on Rails, PHP, C++, and Haskell. Boasting user friendliness and no steep learning curve, projects are easy to start, and you can even view two files at once with their split editing feature.
8. Komodo-Edit
A light version of Komodo IDE, it’s integrated development environment (IDE) is used by those who don’t need an entrie IDE, but just the essentials. Core features include multi-language support, autocomplete, tracking, and Markdown viewing. It’s also integrated with Kopy.io, an alternative pastebin to Github. You can add more functionality by integrating extensions you can download from Github repositories.
9. Brackets (Free)
Adobe’s answer to a Notepad++ alternative, it is deemed as one of the most viable alternatives for Mac. The best feature it has is called Extract, which extracts the color, gradient, font and measurements from a PSD file automatically which can dramatically reduce the time to turn a PSD file into a website. There are extensions being released every 3 weeks, so Brackets is always improving.
10. Aquamacs (Free)
A user-friendly version of the famous Emacs text editor, it combines the Mac functionality with the ergonomics and extensibility of the features of Emac into one single editor. It boasts a range of proportional and mono-spaced fonts, and basically a standard Mac interface with the functionality of a text editor.