If you’ve switched from Mac to the latest version of Windows, you might be looking for reliable software for enhancing your footage. While iMovie remains the go-to video editing software for Mac users, PC users can still enjoy the benefits of beginner-friendly video editing with some iMovie alternatives for Windows 11. There are lots of options available on the market, from advanced software for video montage to simple programs for quick adjustments.
In this post, we are going to talk about an easy and free solution – iMovie for Windows. We have tested the program and are ready to tell you about some of its key features. This review also covers the pros and cons of the video editor. So, let’s see if it’s a suitable option for you.
Table of Contents
Ease of Use
iMovie for Windows offers an incredibly intuitive interface that you can master in mere seconds, even if you have little experience in video editing. It has a preview panel where you can see all the changes you make and a clear timeline design where you can edit pictures and videos, their sound, captions, and audio recordings. The tools are neatly organized into tabs, so you can easily find the needed feature.
Besides, you will find plenty of automatic tools in this Windows 11 equivalent of iMovie. For example, it lets you stabilize a shaky video, enhance its quality, and change the speed in just one click.
In this software, you’ll also find a Video Wizard mode that lets you level up your footage in no time. All you need to do is import a few photos and video clips, select titles, and add a soundtrack and effects. This tool will automatically generate a movie out of your files.
Features
If you need a simple yet feature-rich video editor, then iMovie for Windows is the software you’ve been looking for. It offers an extensive set of tools for both quick enhancement and pro-level video editing. Now let’s take a closer look at its features.
Video Montage
With this iMovie for Windows 11, you can effortlessly overlay clips and pictures to create videos with the Picture-in-Picture effect. This will come in handy when making reaction videos or creating a video collage. If you often need background replacement in your videos, you can also do it with this program. Here, you can quickly change it using the Chroma Key tool. Another pro-grade feature you might like is color correction with RGB curves.
Moreover, the software allows you to give your footage a cinematic feel by applying Pan and Zoom effects. There are ready-to-use options such as moving down, zooming in, moving top left, and more. But you can also adjust the animation on your own.
Needless to say, there are many standard features that are available in most video editors: cropping, trimming, rotating, adjusting settings like contrast and brightness, changing the aspect ratio of the entire video or specific parts of it, and so on.
Other Benefits
Along with editing tools, you will find lots of other useful features. For example, iMovie for Windows comes with a huge music library offering over 200 royalty-free soundtracks. You might need them to avoid copyright issues when posting your videos on some websites and social media networks – there are platforms that can block content used without a license.
You will also find a collection of filters that can be applied to videos and photos. The effects are divided into several categories. For example, the collection offers vintage, black and white, landscape, artistic, and romantic filters. There are even cinematic filters that can help you stylize your footage as a popular movie: Forrest Gump, Alice in Wonderland, Amélie, etc.
The animating feature won’t leave you disappointed either. There are dozens of transition effects, including simple, gradient, and dynamic transitions. The program also lets you animate captions in many different ways – with or without fade-ins and fade-outs, popping up, moving left or right, and so on. By the way, captions are also available in 50+ text styles.
This iMovie alternative for PC also provides you with titles and greeting card templates pre-designed by professionals. Besides, there is a library of video clips that you can also add to your movies.
Export Options
After working on your videos on Windows 11, it is essential to export the result in high quality. You don’t have to worry about it as iMovie for Windows lets you save videos without quality loss. The program offers lots of export settings you can adjust: file size, quality, frame size, and more.
And best of all, you don’t need to memorize all the file formats to figure out the ones you need. Here, they are grouped into videos for mobile devices where you only have to select the desired smartphone, videos for the Internet to prepare your file for posting it on popular platforms like Instagram or Facebook, etc. You can also burn your videos to DVD if you are going to view them on a bigger screen.
Our Verdict
As you can see, iMovie for Windows is an easy-to-use video editor with a full suite of tools. With this software, you can perfect your footage like a seasoned professional without spending much time and effort sitting in front of your computer. It has a vast collection of effects, filters, and songs that you can use in your own projects. Now let’s see some pros and cons of this iMovie alternative:
Pros
+ free to use
+ intuitive interface
+ automatic editing tools
+ instant quality enhancement
+ more than 450 effects & titles
+ over 200 free music tracks
Cons
– no mobile version yet
Final Thoughts
Now you know a powerful video editor for tweaking your footage on your computer – iMovie for Windows. In this review, you’ve found a brief description of this free software, its pros and cons, and the key features that you might find useful. So, look through the article one more time and see if you like the beginner-friendly video editor to use it as iMovie for PC.
