ACDSee Video Studio

Professional video editors are a bit overpowered for simple montages or video tutorials. There are various alternatives out there, which are easier and cheaper. A good example is ACDSee Video Studio. It gives you the flexibility you need to create a montage and it makes everything quite easy, thanks to its simple controls. The software can export your work in various formats and it can also upload it on the Internet.

A free trial for ACDSee Video Studio is available, during which you won't encounter any functionality restrictions or annoying nag screens with delays. Downloading and installing the software is not a challenge. The setup file is small and the installation procedure is straightforward and easy. The program works on Windows Vista, Win 7 and Win 8 and it doesn't have any special requirements, but it only works on 64-bit operating systems.

The main user interface is laid out like that of other video editors, such as Camtasia, but it is much cleaner. You can import one or more media files into a library, in the upper left part of the interface, where you can also customize captions, record your voice and browse through transition effects, on separate tabs. After importing one or more media files, you can drag them to video and audio channels, in the lower region of the window and arrange them into a montage. The results can be viewed on the program's built-in player, in the upper right area of the main window.

Besides using existing media files in your projects, you can also record your screen and use the footage in the montage. ACDSee Video Studio's built-in screen recorder is capable of capturing the entire screen or a user-defined area. Additionally, you can choose to record system sounds as well or to record yourself with a microphone.

The software places two main output options at your disposal. You can export your video and save it on the local disk or upload it to YouTube. If you decide to upload your video, you can export it in MP4 or MOV format, but if you choose to save it locally, you can export it to other popular formats, like AVI, WMV, MKV and others.