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Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

kdenlive.org

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Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#11

Post by ktpsns »

mikekchar wrote: post #6
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've used Kdenlive pretty extensively (as a hobbyist). It has an impressive collections of features. Different releases tend to vary greatly in terms of stability. I've had it eat my project (and even corrupt save files). Back up frequently if you use it. The last time I used it, it was pretty stable, so possibly they are improving in that area. My biggest complaint is that the workflow is tedious . There are absolut…

> Different releases tend to vary greatly in terms of stability.

Second that. Had great and worse times with Kdenlive.

My general feeling: KDE software tends to be more unstable (i.e. crash or freeze more frequently) then GNOME software. But they have in general more features. Just compare the KDE office suite, Calligra, against OpenOffice (which is however not related to GNOME). It is amazing at what speed KDE software moves, in general.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#12

Post by gbrown »

mikekchar wrote: post #6
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've used Kdenlive pretty extensively (as a hobbyist). It has an impressive collections of features. Different releases tend to vary greatly in terms of stability. I've had it eat my project (and even corrupt save files). Back up frequently if you use it. The last time I used it, it was pretty stable, so possibly they are improving in that area. My biggest complaint is that the workflow is tedious . There are absolut…

I can second the use of audacity for sound editing in Kdenlive. I found it pretty stable though (2018).

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#13

Post by [deleted] »

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...

[deleted]

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#14

Post by cjjl »

nkkollaw wrote: post #5
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...

It's the only non-commercial, non-toy video editor for Linux. I'm actually not aware of another one that uses proxy files on Linux, and with even cell phones shooting at 4K any video editor that doesn't is unusable in most cases. DaVinci Resolve is also extremely good (probably even better than Kdenlive), but it's a commercial software although they do have a free unlimited version.

> I'm actually not aware of another one that uses proxy files on Linux..

FYI, Blender can user proxy files, although I don't think there is an option to automatically create the proxies when you add a video clip.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#15

Post by nickjj »

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 the screen and make it look reasonable.

I think a lot of people who say kdenlive is good haven't tried Camtasia, or have created enough videos to really figure out kdenlive's shortcomings. I'm coming at this from the POV of creating 400 videos and have spent over 1,000 hours hardcore editing these videos.

I don't want to tear it down too much because it's one of the better screencast video editing tools on Linux but if your profession involves creating screencast videos, you're going to be majorly disappointed compared to Camtasia (or Screenflow). Enough to where you'll probably abort the idea of using Linux even if you're primarily a developer.

I wish I could throw money at the kdenlive devs and wake up tomorrow with a video editor that was as good as Camtasia.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#16

Post by bingerman »

phosphophyllite wrote: post #7
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...

Linux desktop needs consistency and freedom (yes, open source desktop needs freedom). Freedom of updating and installing newer versions of software without waiting for maintainer/distro half of year to build new package (outdated next week because it's STABLE package). This is main problem of any linux desktop initiative - linux users get newer gimp after windows users. Hope snaps/flatpack/appimage solve this problem…

I personally solved this by switching to antergos (which is based on arch, but fully usable out of the box). Been running the same installation without any problems for about 5 years now, completely updated irregularly.

Using "stable" distros makes little sense for other than complete newbies and enterprise-like critical usage and such imo. If you don't need bleeding edge stuff they are a good choice though, but for average users modern rolling releases are definitely stable enough.

The freedom is there.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#17

Post by lolpython »

mikekchar wrote: post #6
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've used Kdenlive pretty extensively (as a hobbyist). It has an impressive collections of features. Different releases tend to vary greatly in terms of stability. I've had it eat my project (and even corrupt save files). Back up frequently if you use it. The last time I used it, it was pretty stable, so possibly they are improving in that area. My biggest complaint is that the workflow is tedious . There are absolut…

I used kdenlive frequently as a hobbyist 5 years ago and it crashed quite often, without leaving an autosave of my progress. I got used to saving really often. Glad to hear that it has improved in this department, I should take a look again. Stability issues aside, I think it's one of the better pieces of open source software I have ever used.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#19

Post by maeln »

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 use it a bit for small things and more in-depth for a 30 minutes montage.

For a free (as in free beer) software, it is really good. It support a wide variety of feature that can be extended through plug-ins, has a decent UX (even though some stuff required me to look in the documentation) and has a decent documentation (although some of it is outdated).

Overall, if you are looking for a free video editor, my experience is that KDenLive is the best you will get (as of 2019). It has some obvious drawback (last time I used it, it was crashing fairly frequently, but a lot has been fixed), but if you are looking to do some amateur/semi-pro video-editing, KDenLive should do it for you.

Re: Kdenlive: an open-source video editor

#20

Post by snazz »

darkpuma wrote: post #8
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 prefer blender as an NLE (in fact I know jack shit about 3d modeling, so blender is just a video editor to me.)

So do I. You’ll need the manual or some YouTube videos, since it isn’t the traditional UI paradigm, but if you take the time to learn Blender you’ll find that it is a very capable video editor.
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