Windows 11’s built-in video editor removes its biggest drawback
Clipchamp is in preview builds and now offers 1080p exports with its free version
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Windows 11recently got Clipchamp, or at least thefree video editing softwaregraced the latest preview build of the OS, and now one of the biggest complaints about the free version has been fixed.
Clipchamp – which was acquired byMicrosoftin September 2021, andturned up for Windows 11 testers earlier this month, had a major downside in that the basic free plan only allowed for videos to be exported at 480p resolution.
That’s pretty crummy, of course, but now the free version has been upped to include unlimited exporting to Full HD or 1080p resolution, which previously required you to subscribe to the Creator plan (at the price of $9 / £8 / AU$10 monthly).
There are still benefits for paying a Creator subscription, of course, namely access to stock audio clips and unlimitedcloud storagefor your projects. Meanwhile, business plans furnish you with extra goodies including stock video clips and the ability to fully brand your creations.
Analysis: A quick change following Windows 11 debut, and a necessary one
It’s good to see 1080p exports coming to the freebie incarnation of Clipchamp, though really, 480p was a very low bar to set, and so this was a move that needed to be made.
It’s obvious enough that Clipchamp being introduced as aWindows 11app in testing – presumably set to come to the OS later this year in thebig 2022 update– brought a lot more attention to the program. And with the spotlight shining more intensely on that export limitation, and perhaps given initial tester feedback, Microsoft decided that the 480p situation had to change (we can but guess).
Clipchamp is, in effect, the return of Windows Movie Maker, giving casual users a built-in and convenient option to quickly edit video clips within Windows 11. However, having to pay for a decent resolution with the end result would’ve severely limited Clipchamp’s usefulness in terms of that positioning.
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ViaWindows Central
For more content creation essentials, we reviewed all thebest video editing software,best video editing software for beginners, and thebest video editing appsfor mobile devices.
Darren is a freelancer writing news and features for TechRadar (and occasionally T3) across a broad range of computing topics including CPUs, GPUs, various other hardware, VPNs, antivirus and more. He has written about tech for the best part of three decades, and writes books in his spare time (his debut novel - ‘I Know What You Did Last Supper’ - was published by Hachette UK in 2013).
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