Extensive video editing and mobile devices don’t go hand-in-hand. Some tablets and smartphones come equipped with very basic video editing tools, but for the more advanced stuff you have to turn to other platforms. Clinch is a video editing application for Android smartphones and tablets that includes some unique tools and functions. Namely, you can take several videos and photos and stitch them together into a single media file.

What is it and what does it do

Main Functionality

Clinch is an Android application designed to allow you to combine photos and videos from several different sources in order to create a single media file. You can also add several effects and make edits to make it so much more interesting. Once compiled, you can share the resulting files on Facebook, Twitter or through Email. If you’d like to keep them private you can do that too, which is important these days. In addition, it comes with a unique social network of sorts where you can share content and follow others.

Pros

• Simple video editing tool for mobile devices and tablets
• Connected to a proprietary media sharing social network like Instagram or Vine
• You can keep all produced content private, delete it from the network easily, and you can store it locally (download)

Cons

• There actually aren’t too many layout options, visual effects or editing features; an individual with professional editing experience would certainly find this app too lacking, casual users would enjoy it however
• There’s no way to opt out of the social aspect, and you need to sign-up for a proprietary account or login using your Facebook account to use the app

Discussion

When you first start the application you will be presented with a quick tutorial of sorts that includes informative slides. They don’t really tell you how to use the application instead they talk more about what you can do with it. After viewing all the slides you will be brought to the login screen. You can login to Clinch using your Facebook account, or you can sign-up for a proprietary account using a personal  email address. For me, the option to use a proprietary account is always a positive because I dislike giving third party apps access to my Facebook profile and information.

When signing up for a new account you’ll be asked for your first and last name, a profile photo, your email address, a unique password and your phone number but the latter is optional.

After logging in, you’ll be brought directly to your social feed. Obviously, you won’t be following anyone the first time you run the app so the only thing you’ll see is content from the Clinch account. A recent tab allows you to see recently uploaded content from a wide range of users, and a popular tab works much like you’d expect.

Think Instagram, but with video instead. Speaking of that social service, you can pull content to use in your videos from your Instagram account, but more on that later.

Tapping the create button will bring you the media selection menu. You can use the device camera or camcorder to capture content right then and then, or you can import content from the gallery. If you do choose to import content from the gallery, there’s an option at the bottom of the related window which allows you to login to your Instagram account. If you do link your Instagram account with Clinch then you can import photos and content from that platform for use with the app.

After selecting clips or photos from your gallery you also have the option to add content from your Twitter, friends (email) and Instagram (again). If you don’t want to import any media from third party platforms you can skip this step.

Next you will be brought to the movie creation screen. On this screen you can designate the movie title, choose background music (or disable it completely), choose a video layout and more. When choosing background music you can select from a plethora of tracks already available or you can import one from your device. Most of the pre-determined tracks appear to be independently produced. When choosing a layout, you can add captions to photos and include your current geo location data if you so desire.

You can also make the movie private, which means only you will be able to see it.

After a movie has been created, you will receive a notification on your device from the app and an email at your registered address when it’s ready for viewing. At any time you can also like, share and comment on the video. If you want a local copy you can also download the media file to your device. You can easily delete any of the videos you’ve uploaded or created by visiting your personal profile and selecting the media file page. This also allows you to see any comments that were left by community members or followers.

The videos produced are certainly nice but they’re very amateur when it comes to style. I don’t mean that they look poor or are poorly produced, on the contrary. I just mean that anyone with professional video editing experience will find this app lacking when it comes to truly customizing a media output. For casual users it’s a great tool for producing personal video and photo clips, and it’s available on mobile devices no less.

Conclusion and download link

Clinch is a photo and video mash-up tool that allows you to combine media content into a single video. You can add background music, simple visual effects, and more. You can import media content from the local gallery, a linked Instagram account, email or Twitter. The compiled videos can be shared with the Clinch social community, or they can be kept private. You can also download the videos to your device at any time by visiting your personal profile. Keep in mind, there’s a very social aspect about this application to as it offers a proprietary social network to share your media content much like Instagram or Vine. While this isn’t exactly just a video editing tool, you can create some unique personalized videos with it.

Price: Free

Version reviewed: 1.1.1

Requires: 4.0 and up

Download size: 9.1MB

Clinch on Play Store