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Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

kdenlive.org

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Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#61

Post by scoutt »

noodlesUK wrote: post #2

One of the things the Linux desktop sorely needs is a good video editor. I’ve heard of kdenlive before but never tried it. How is it (both for experienced users doing complex editing and for newbies just wanting to trim some footage)? I’ve also seen that black magic’s editor is available for Linux, but it is an enormous package...

I tried to used Kdenlive to make some very simple videos (a couple of fade-in, fade-out, some overlays here and there). Even with the latest versions (and me being a very patient person) it suffered from stability problems: random crashes, file saving problems, file corruption, horrible preview mode.

I don't know on Linux, but for Windows I also had to search around and manually install some codecs because otherwise it wouldn't render to a given format (I believe it was mp4).

Then I've found OpenShot, that was enough for my requirements (https://www.openshot.org/). It has a Linux version. Source code here: https://github.com/OpenShot/openshot-qt

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#62

Post by Erlich_Bachman »

codetrotter wrote: post #57
nickjj wrote: post #15

Unfortunately for screencast videos where you record your desktop and maybe overlay a webcam kdenlive is really really bad compared to alternatives available on Windows and Mac such as Camtasia / Screenflow. It's one of the reasons why I continue to stick with Windows. Kdenlive feels like it's 10 years behind Camtasia in terms of UI polish and being able to accomplish simple tasks like put a little tooltip overlay on…

If you want to record your desktop in Linux with a live webcam overlay I strongly recommend Open Broadcaster Software, aka OBS. https://obsproject.com/ OBS lets you combine multiple sources easily including adding static and dynamic graphical overlays and is basically the what all of the streamers are using on all of the three platforms Linux, macOS and Windows these days, and aside from being able to stream live to…

OBS is stable, packed with options, reliable, has intuitive UI, usually sets up hardware quickly and painlessly definitely try it.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#63

Post by abaga129 »

bitbang wrote: post #54
fuball63 wrote: post #46

I'm a musician and Linux user, so I have to lean on open source for recording and production. I use Kdenlive to do basic video creation; background music to a picture. It works really well for my purposes, in fact, I've had much fewer problems with kdenlive than with Audacity or Inkscape. Inkscape locks up my entire machine (AMD card most likely to blame) and I can't get through a recording project without Audacity c…

If you're working on recording projects on linux, why the heck are you using Audacity? Seriously, save yourself a lot of headaches with Ardour.

Reaper is also available on Linux now! It's my go to. Not free, but has an unlimited trial. If you decide to buy it, the $60 license is practically a steal.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#64

Post by s3xham »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #59
s3xham wrote: post #56

Shotcut and openshot crash less for me in general under linux, maybe I should give kdenlive a chance again after reading about the GUI fuzzing progress. My experience has been that kdenlive is prone to crashing and saving your project often is a must

Also for any user thinking of switching to or starting with Kdenlive, they should know that in addition to crashing often (as reported by many users) it also does not support a relatively common video editing feature as multiple timelines. In Kdenlive, in one project/file, you are only given a single timeline to do all your editing in. You cannot nest them, combine them, there are no timelines to combine, there is on…

Very true and another advantage for shotcut. Layering and multiple timelines is the defining feature between "oh look it's Windows Movie Maker, except worse" and a quality non linear editor.

I've definitely grown cynical but I will try out kdenlive and see if it has matured. Shotcut has been my Linux go-to for several years now.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#66

Post by s3xham »

abaga129 wrote: post #63
bitbang wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're working on recording projects on linux, why the heck are you using Audacity? Seriously, save yourself a lot of headaches with Ardour.

Reaper is also available on Linux now! It's my go to. Not free, but has an unlimited trial. If you decide to buy it, the $60 license is practically a steal.

Reaper is amazing. Take your projects with on win/Mac/nix for $60

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#67

Post by hellcow »

bitbang wrote: post #54
fuball63 wrote: post #46

I'm a musician and Linux user, so I have to lean on open source for recording and production. I use Kdenlive to do basic video creation; background music to a picture. It works really well for my purposes, in fact, I've had much fewer problems with kdenlive than with Audacity or Inkscape. Inkscape locks up my entire machine (AMD card most likely to blame) and I can't get through a recording project without Audacity c…

If you're working on recording projects on linux, why the heck are you using Audacity? Seriously, save yourself a lot of headaches with Ardour.

I've tried using Ardour, but I've never been able to get it to work with my USB Snowball mic. It starts with audio out, but once I configure my mic, it's input only and I have to restart the program to hear anything I've done. No other program I've used has ever behaved like this. I'm sure it has terrific features, but it'd be great if they could nail the simple out-of-the-box configuration.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#68

Post by nickjj »

codetrotter wrote: post #57
nickjj wrote: post #15

Unfortunately for screencast videos where you record your desktop and maybe overlay a webcam kdenlive is really really bad compared to alternatives available on Windows and Mac such as Camtasia / Screenflow. It's one of the reasons why I continue to stick with Windows. Kdenlive feels like it's 10 years behind Camtasia in terms of UI polish and being able to accomplish simple tasks like put a little tooltip overlay on…

If you want to record your desktop in Linux with a live webcam overlay I strongly recommend Open Broadcaster Software, aka OBS. https://obsproject.com/ OBS lets you combine multiple sources easily including adding static and dynamic graphical overlays and is basically the what all of the streamers are using on all of the three platforms Linux, macOS and Windows these days, and aside from being able to stream live to…

Yeah I use OBS. It's the best thing ever for streaming and definitely is one of the best solutions for recording in general.

But Camtasia is both a recorder and editor and it seamlessly integrates the 2. The main pros of Camtasia is that it's super optimized for editing screencast style videos (tooltip overlays, text, zooms / pans, really REALLY nice animations on any objects by just dragging a few sliders, etc.). The editing part is where kdenlive is way behind IMO, but that's where you spend most of your time.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#69

Post by meruru »

jcelerier wrote: post #52
bibyte wrote: post #18

A really interesting thing is that unlike on other tasks (programming?) open source is not that visible in the graphics/animation space.

Krita ? OpenColor.io ? Blender ? MyPaint ?

Krita is awesome and getting traction, but most people are still on Photoshop.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#70

Post by ciaron »

akerro wrote: post #60
danilocesar wrote: post #51

kdenlive is horrible. Really. If you ever worked with professional video editing you know that for a fact. That said: Kdenlive is, by far, the best option OSS available on Linux. openshot is trying, but is pretty unstable and not reliable for big videos.

Wow, pears are horrible for making apple pie! kdenlive is replacement for windows movie maker, not professional video editing.

However, the homepage claims "Our software was designed to answer most needs, from basic video editing to professional work."
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