Wax

Video editing is no easy task. You need some serious software and hardware in order to do this. If you don't meet these requirements, there's always Debug Mode's Wax video editor program. It let's you manipulate a video file without the need of serious hardware firepower.

Any user who knows a thing or two about video editing will say the same thing: "A full video editing software which you can simply download and install in a few seconds? Have you gone mad?". The package is only 2 and a half Mb which makes it easy to download. During installation, you can choose to add some plugins for similar software like Sony Vegas, Adobe Premiere and Pure Motion Edit Studio. After it's done it will also ask you for the path to Windows' Movie Maker and something else, but this isn't mandatory. Just hit "finish" and run the program.

Wax is designed to let any experience level user edit a video, but they still need some time to wrap their minds around the interface. Most video editing software's interfaces are organized more or less the same way. There's and area where you load your files, a preview screen, a progress bar which you can manipulate and, depending on the program, an area where you can make settings to the video or audio channels. This is how Wax is organized. If you're familiar with this layout, your only concern lies in the details. If you're not familiar, now you know how an editing software looks like.

Wax is not exactly complex but it is a bit complicated. The main problem is that you don't have a cutting tool. Ff you want to insert or extract some footage in a video you can't cut the "film". You have to do this by resizing the timeline and working on different video channels. It is as complicated as it sounds. Adding a transition effect will also give you something to think about so you'd better not be in a hurry to finish your project.

Once you get used to how Wax works, everything will fall into place nicely. You'll find that all the options and effects are well organized and you can get to them easy and quickly. The transition or effects collections are fairly large and you can add them to a video by clicking and dragging. The interesting thing is that you don't just click and drag an effect. Actually you do, but you won't see it in the timeline as "effect x". Adding an effect will add a series of modifications which you can tweak in more than one way.

pro:
It may be a bit difficult to familiarize yourself with the program, but once you do this, you'll be able to edit videos without a problem. While you can't create masterpieces with it, Wax is a good tool for basic video manipulation and you can get it for free.

con:
Besides lacking some important tools, the interface looks kind of old and out of date.

If you need to make a video look better, but advanced editing programs are not your thing, Wax is the tool you're looking for.