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Buying Guide: iPad Video Editing Apps
Talk about the "post-PC" age. Video editing is one of the most demanding tasks a desktop computer can take on, yet here we are talking about editing digital video on a tablet—the Apple iPad. Indeed, the iPad even has some built-in video editing capabilities: The built-in Camera app lets you trim the start and endpoints of your cinematic creation by dragging the edges of a single timeline view at the top.
But to really edit video in earnest—to add transitions and titles and join and split clips—you'll need one of the apps here. Comparing the apps' capabilities makes it clear that video editing on the iPad is still in its infancy. Each app seems to lack capabilities that another has. For example Apple's iMovie for iPad has no picture-in-picture capability, but Avid Studio, which does have that ability, lacks any themes to help design your movie.
All three video apps below surprised me in some ways, and yet none of the three were the full solution to creating fully customized, digital video productions. Performance also varied greatly among them, both in terms of stability and time needed to process your video edits.
You're not going to be able to produce a professional-quality TV spot with any of these apps. But if you just want to join clips and photos, add transitions and text, each of them can serve your needs. To find out which of the following iPad apps will best help you ditch your PC for basic video-editing tasks, check out the summaries below, and click through to the full reviews for in depth evaluations.
FEATURED IN THIS ROUNDUP:
Avid Studio (for iPad)
$4.99
The most powerful iPad digital movie editor of the bunch, Avid Studio is also one of the simplest to use. It's the only app here that can create composite video effects such as overlays and picture in picture. Its text options are the most customizable with lots of control over font, size and color. But Avid Studio also has its limitations: It only can output up to 720p resolution, lacks a voice-over feature, and offers no themes for prefab movies. Read the full review ››
iMovie (for iPad)
$4.99
Apple's own iPad video editor dazzles, but lacks some of Avid Studio's power and intuitiveness. Its flagship feature is Trailers, which lets you create a convincing Hollywood-style cinematic preview using your own video clips. The app makes extremely clever use of touch gestures, but sometimes at the expense of simplicity. Output at up to 1080p resolution is unmatched by the other apps. Read the full review ››
ReelDirector (for iPad)
$1.99
ReelDirector starts out looking incredibly bare bones—the start screen is completely blank and it only uses storyboard thumbnails with no timeline view—but surprises with some deep capabilities like zoom, crop, and the most transition choices of any of the three apps. It's also strong in text overlay choices, but the long time it takes to process and play your edits is a major drawback. There's no undo command, and you can't output to 1080p. Read the full review ››