YouTube Video Editor Makes Online Editing Simple

Note: The YouTube Video Editor was discontinued in September 2017. This information remains for archive purposes.

There's a certain beauty in the simplicity of the video editor provided by YouTube. It's a single track timeline with basic transitions and effects, and a simple soundtrack feature. It's easy to learn and use, and also pretty awesome.

Despite its simplicity, it has the potential to change the way millions of producers interact with the site.

• Easy to learn.
• Processes video quickly.
• The YouTube video editor is free.

• Only has the most basic features.

Originally part of the Test Tube program, the YouTube video editor makes it easy to edit and remix your videos. The editing is very basic, lacking any complex editing features, as it is still under development. You can only edit videos that you have uploaded to your YouTube account.

There is a basic range of effects and transitions you can use on use on your videos. Effects include black & white, image stabilization, brightness and contrast. Transitions include basics like crossfade and wipe, as well as cheesy ones like heart, star and jack-o-lantern.

The YouTube video editor is getting better and better. When it was originally introduced, all you could do was trim your clips, arrange them in a timeline, insert basic transitions and add a soundtrack.

Now, you can create multiple projects and add effects to change the look of your video. These improvements make the YouTube editor, which is already a great tool, even better.

Even with its recent additions, the YouTube editor remains a simple tool, and simplicity has its benefits. In this case it translates into speed. We all know how slow video editing can be on a desktop, and you'd expect editing online to be even slower.

That's not the case with the YouTube video editor, which processes your videos much more quickly than you'd expect from an online video application.

Obviously, such limited video editing software is not suitable for many projects. But we can imagine many instances where the YouTube video editor will come in incredibly handy. For instance, it's great for making mashups of your recent videos. Also, web series producers could use the YouTube video editor to add opening and closing credits onto their videos.

The YouTube video editor is nothing complex. It's just a simple tool that has the power to deeply impact the way we publish and interact with online video, much like YouTube itself.