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A few months ago, Meta released Edits, a new video-editing app for creators. The app is designed to rival ByteDance’s CapCut, a popular short-form video-editing app used by many creators.
You should recall that Meta first shared that it worked on Edits in January after ByteDance-owned CapCut was removed from U.S. app stores. This moment also coincided with when the TikTok ban momentarily went into effect. Given the uncertainty of TikTok’s future in the U.S., Meta has positioned itself as a possible replacement even after its return. This could be linked to Meta’s readiness to capitalize on CapCut’s possible absence in the future with its new Edits app.
How To Get Started With Meta Edits App For Creators
The Meta Edits app is available to download on both iOS and Android.
You. After downloading the app and opening it, you will be asked to log in with your Instagram account.
Subsequently, five main tabs will pop up: Ideas, Inspiration, Projects, Record, and Insights. The Ideas tab of the Meta Edits app for creators provides a space to jot down ideas for new videos. This segment is also meant to save reels to a collection. Additionally, the Inspiration tab has a hub for discovering trending audio and other popular reels.
Moving forward, the Projects tab is where creators can store and revisit the videos they are currently working on. This tab allows creators to upload videos from their phone’s camera roll. Furthermore, the Record tab lets creators begin filming video content within Edits. Following that, the Insights tab gives creators an overview of how their content is performing. This section displays metrics like views, reach, and follower counts.
Tools and features available on Edits
Below is a compendium of tools, features, and other resources available on the Meta Edits app for creators.
- Green screen: You can replace and edit the background of your videos with one tap.
- Timeline: You can accurately arrange and adjust clips.
- Captions: This lets you add automatic captions to your videos in multiple languages.
- Audio library: Allows you to add music from Instagram’s library to your videos.
- Cutouts: This is useful for isolating specific objects with precision tracking.
- Animate: You can turn static images into videos using AI.
- Apply all: Apply filters, effects, transitions, and adjustments to all of your clips simultaneously.
- Timeline frame rate selector: Convert your video to the frame rate you want to enhance playback smoothness.
- Alignment guides: Ensure viewers can see the essential parts of your video when posted. It also accurately positions text, emoji, or other elements.
- Beat markers: This feature allows you to add auto-detected beat markers to help you align clips, text, and overlays with audio when editing.
- Filters: Choose from 30 filters to add a unique look to your videos.
- Transitions: Choose from 30 different transitions to connect various video clips seamlessly.
How Does Meta Edits App for Creators Differ from CapCut?
It’s important to note that the Meta Edits app for creators and CapCut are great options for editing short-form videos. However, there are specific differences between the two services.
To begin with, CapCut offers more robust editing options, including AI features, than Edits. However, this is expected since Edits is a lot newer than CapCut. Meta will likely continue to build out Edits over the following months and years. After all, Edits got more downloads than CapCut shortly after release. Therefore, users can hope to see more advanced functionality of the Meta Edits app for creators in the future. Additionally, it’s noteworthy that CapCut has a more extensive music library than Edits.
Furthermore, users can leverage another difference: they can use Edits for free. The Meta Edits app doesn’t offer a subscription, but CapCut does. It’s also noteworthy that CapCut provides a free version, while some of its advanced tools are behind a paid subscription. On the contrary, Meta Edits is free to use for now. Nevertheless, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri, this will likely change in the future when he said later versions of Edits may include paid features.
To top it all off, while CapCut is available on the web, Meta Edits is only available for the mobile option. However, this may not be the end of this option.