Things To Consider Before Buying Video Creation Software

A high-level guide to selecting the right video content creation tool for your needs.

Things To Consider Before Buying Video Creation Software

Today it’s easier than ever to create your own video content. Whether it’s with your mobile phone, a DSLR camera, or a pro rig — there is no excuse for not having video including in your marketing strategy. Hardware aside, there is a new category of software sweeping the video marketing landscape, Video Creation Software. Video Creation Software are cloud-based solutions that make it easy to upload and edit clips of video on an online canvas or studio — imagine iMovie in the cloud. This growing category of software now has many players in the space and a ton of features and options to choose from depending on your use case.

The two most common use cases for video creation software are: 1) Explainer Videos and 2) Social Ads. Animation tools make it simple to quickly put together basic yet polished explainer videos. Social Ads and short clips are a breeze as some of these solutions offer pre-populated templates and royalty free video clips and music.

With so many different video creation and editing software solutions to choose from, how do you know what’s best for your video strategy? Depending on budget, solutions can range in price from Free to a couple hundred dollars a month, all the way up to thousands a month, so it’s important to know what to look for. Also, not all video creation software is catered to the same use case, it’s crucial to learn which features are available and the features you need most to ensure success with your video production projects.

We can’t explain everything about video creation software in a single blog post (we’ll leave that for our future ebook). What we can do is give you some basic things to consider before you make a purchase. Below are a few things you should consider before buying video creation software.

What are the system requirements?
When evaluating video creation software one of the most important things to consider is the computer system you plan to run the application on. Does it meet the minimum requirements provided by the solution provider for memory, storage, and system performance, Internet connection?

Most high quality video files can consume a great deal of storage on your computer, so, if you are planning to work with super high resolution files you will want to use a more powerful machine. We recommend an iMac or MacBook Pro for video editing and content creation. Anything lighter than a MacBook Pro, such as an Air will be too minimal. Another important ingredient, mission critical, is Internet. Cloud-based video content creation software relies on the Internet to work. This means everytime you want to work on new footage, it needs to be uploaded to the cloud. If you have a slow connection this can take a long time. We recommend at least 100Mbs provided through cable or fiber — generally what most telecom providers offer.

It’s important to note that while the initial storage of your master videos files might take up a lot of space on your local machine and a strong Internet connection is needed to upload the files into the video creation software, most of the computing and rendering of the files happens in the cloud saving your computer from having to do all the hard work. Plus, you can access it from anywhere.

What should you pay for the software?
The biggest question is what should you pay for video content creation software? There are solutions available to match anyone’s budget. When evaluating solutions it’s good to consider what goes into cost.

Let’s look at the options:

Free-of-charge options for those just starting out in video production and editing provide all the necessary bells and whistles to get up and running creating video content online. Free video content creation tools are somewhat limited in functionality and may contain branding or watermarking. Although limitations exist, depending on your use for the content, a free solution may be the best starting place.

Video content creation software for individuals or a single seat licenses can range from $15 to $60 a month depending on how many videos you are producing and any royalty free video clips and sound files are needed to create your final videos. That’s right; royalty free audio and video are included in packages by some of the providers. Some of them have as far as creating marketplaces for purchasing various types of royalty free content.

Professionals and enterprises have many choices depending on their budget, the number of videos they need to create and the polished royalty free audio and video are available on multiple levels. Expect to pay anywhere from $100 to $1,000 a month.

Now that you have a few of the basic things to consider when evaluating video content creation software, next take a look at the solutions out there by browsing our solutions guide.

50Wheel is the world's leading website for video strategy and marketing technologies. Browse hundreds of software tools, guides and get strategy advice.

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