Hitfilm 3 Express Video Editor
Hitfilm 3 Express Video Editor
Hitfilm 3 Express Video Editor

Hitfilm 3 Express is a robust, free video editing program offered by FXHome. It provides powerful tools with which to do basic functions, such as editing, adding visual effects and compositing.

Apart from core editing, you get 3D compositing functionality as  well as 157 built-in effects & presets.
Although most of the features you might need are free, you can buy extension packs, ranging from about $.9.99 – $99.99 to get more out of it or simply get the full version Hitfilm 3 Pro at $299. See comparison => here.

Hitfilm 3 Express comes with a personal and commercial license, meaning you can use it, not only for doing your family videos at home, but for commercial projects as well, delivering professional grade results.

Supported formats include the following:

  • Video: Quicktime, AVI, MOV, MP4 (AVC/H264 & AAC), MPEG-1 (TS, PS, MPE, MPG, MPEG, M2V), MXF (DVCPro HD), DV, HDV, WMV
  • Audio: AAC, MP3, M4A, MPA, WAV, WMA
  • Images: BMP, GIF, JPG, PNG, TIFF, TGA
  • Export: Quicktime, MP4 (AVC/H264 & AAC), Bildsequenzen (PNG, JPG, BMP), AVI (uncompressed, PAL DV, NTSC DV), YouTube Upload

System requirements

Recommended minimum system requirements, according to the publisher:

  • Windows 7, Windows 8, OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion, OS X 10.9 Mavericks or OS X 10.10 Yosemite
  • 64-bit operating system
  • 650MB free hard disk space for installation
  • Internet connection required for activation and web services
  • Intel Core i3, Core i5, Core i7 or Intel Xeon (Nehalem) processor or AMD equivalent
  • 4GB RAM
  • OpenGL 2.0 graphics card with at least 512MB video memory (NVIDIA GeForce 9 series, AMD Radeon HD 5000 series, Intel HD 4000)

We can as well add Windows 10, which we are using for the test.

Download

Download page: http://hitfilm.com/express#download. You are practically forced to Share it on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or Reddit before getting to register and get the download link sent to your email, which should of course be valid.

The installation file is 235MB.

You need an internet connection after installation to activate & unlock the program.

Tutorials

The publisher helps you get started with a couple of video tutorials, such as …

Alternative software

Lightworks, a very powerful video editing program. This software however has a very high learning curve, but has lots of features, for free.

 

Hitfilm 3 Express