Samsung Studio is a solid video editor, but this open source Android alternative is better

One of my friends switched from the Samsung Galaxy ecosystem to the Google Pixel a few years ago, only to regret it later because of losing access to some of Samsung's excellent features.

Worse for him, some of the handy new features that Samsung users rate highly debuted after he switched to the Pixel. If I were him, I'd envy the Samsung Studio video editor app the most.

He isn't into video editing much, but I do it for my social media posts. The Samsung Studio video editor app is easy to get started with, even if you have no prior video editing experience.

The Studio app isn't an advanced video editor, but it isn't basic, either. Despite its strong performance, I rely on it less than I ever did. That's not because I make fewer videos nowadays, but because I've found a better tool.

The Studio is a solid video editor, but I've found an open source Android alternative that's even better: LosslessCut.

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Posts By  Parth Shah

What Samsung Studio does best

And who it is for

Samsung Studio made me fall in love with creating fun and creative videos. In my first few days with Studio, I merged multiple photos and turned them into a custom video.

After making a few clips, I was convinced Studio was the best video-making app for a beginner like me. I'm no longer a beginner, but I still use the app to make videos. This is the biggest testament to its strengths.

I used the app a lot during my vacation this year to make short videos containing text, stickers, and sometimes drawings. Even something as simple as sunrise or sunset photos can become a rich video with those elements.

Some of my friends call them cringeworthy, but I love making videos with text and stickers, especially when I want to post vacation updates on social media. However, Studio lets you do much more than this.

If you capture a short video, Studio lets you quickly speed up or slow down the clips. This is my favorite, and I use it often to highlight my partner's absurd facial expression and make fun of her. However, I wish Samsung had allowed going beyond 0.5x.

On top of this, you can choose your preferred aspect ratio, trim, rearrange clips, add brightness, contrast, smooth transitions, background music, and more. Overall, it's a solid choice for mobile-first video creation.

LosslessCut showed me what Samsung Studio was missing

LosslessCut showed me a different side of video editing

I consume a lot of short videos on social media every day, and one of its biggest downsides was that I started thinking about video editing in those terms. LosslessCut showed me there is more to it.

I tried LosslessCut because it was open source, but little did I know I would rank it higher than Studio for serious technical editing work.

LosslessCut can't add emojis to your clips, and it fails to match many of the things Studio excels at. However, it does something that all professional video editors will appreciate.

It prevents you from losing the original video quality after you export. Whether you merge, split, or edit frame-by-frame, you can keep the original quality.

I also love its silence detection feature. It can detect silence and remove those sections from the clips. It can also detect Black, Freeze, and Blur sections in a clip.

These features are handy when I'm doing a screen recording or recording a podcast. These are my use cases, but this detection capability can also help with recording lectures and interviews.

It also supports 20x timeline zoom, so you can make precise cuts.

After making these changes to several sections of the clips, you can either remove or keep those portions. After that, LosslessCut lets you export the sections you kept as separate videos or join them into one video.

Overall, LosslessCut is more advanced than Studio at easily manipulating your clips.

LosslessCut is more powerful, but I'm still keeping Studio

My habit of making funny videos of my partner and sharing them in our inner circle isn't going anywhere, so I still need the Studio app on my phone. Plus, merging multiple images into a video clip is a huge win for Samsung's app.

Its integration with the Samsung Gallery app also helps. So, I'm keeping Studio for posting on social media, but for other serious editing, LosslessCut is a stronger option.

LosslessCut isn't available on the Google Play Store, but you can download it from GitHub. Also, you must allow installation of apps outside the Play Store to install LosslessCut on your phone.