4Media Movie Editor

Every motion picture needs to undergo heavy post-processing before it reaches the public. This consists of applying effects, cropping, formatting or simply merging multiple clips into a single video. Although Windows puts a basic editor at your disposal applications like 4Media Movie Editor come with more features for an enhanced process and more flexibility.

Running the application directly takes you to the workspace. On the visual side of things, it's pretty polished and modern, with accommodation being the least of your worries thanks to the clever arrangement of timeline, preview area and objects browser. Drag and drop is supported, but you can also use the open dialog to select entire folders.

Supported file formats add a great deal of flexibility and you can work with formats like AVI, ASF, WMV, MKV, MP4, M4V, RMVB, MPG, MPV, MTS, RM, TS, FLV, 3GP and VOB. Different audio layers can be used, with options to add external sound from files like AAC, AIF, AC3, APE, FLAC, MPA, MP3, OGG and WMA. Sadly, the application lets you add images too, but they are not rendered and it's only a shame considering it would have come in handy for building slideshows or simple presentations.

There isn't much variety when it comes to editing, with all tools being narrowed down to cropping, adjusting screen layout, trimming and adding transitions. Truth be told, it's even less than you can find in Windows Movie Maker. In other words, the whole process means adding a few videos and applying different transitions. There isn't even an option to add a layer of text.

A little more variety is encountered when you attempt to export your work. The application supports an impressive array of formats and quality settings you can take the time and thoroughly configure, even the ones related to the codec itself. On the other hand, you can pick from the rich library of presets specially created for mobile devices, game consoles or HD videos.

On an ending note, 4Media Movie Editor leaves a little more to be desired, in spite of the modern looks and thorough quality settings. With a poor set of features, your effort is reduced to a minimum. Transitions are scarce, editing is straightforward and the result is a simple video made out of different clips stitched together, saved under a custom format.