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Last year I spent a couple months trying out a variety of video editing software. I really wanted something I could run on Linux. TL;DR: I ended up running Da
by linsomniac 6y ago
Last year I spent a couple months trying out a variety of video editing software. I really wanted something I could run on Linux.
TL;DR: I ended up running DaVinci Resolve on Windows, and it is fantastic!
First: If you want to make a video for Youtube, you probably have to use Resolve. The average video there has pretty high production value, and if you care at all about having views, you probably need the capabilities that Resolve brings.
Technically, Resolve runs on Linux, but I could never get it working. I spent a couple solid days and trashed several installations attempting it. It basically just works under Windows. I did run into a problem with my video files sometimes skipping frames and giving me black frames in the output and performance problems when editing. Using ffmpeg to convert the files from my camera into ProRes format resolved all those problems.
The thing I really like about Resolve is that you won't outgrow it. If you just want to take a few videos and stitch them together? No problem. Want to throw a title sequence on it, or make the transitions fancy? No problem. Have someone walking in front of your camera when you're filming your son's play and want to cut to video from someone else's camera? No problem. That was an actual thing I did, BTW.
Oh, and it's free for all these uses, even with 4K video output.
Plus, there's TONS of resources on youtube teaching you how to do what you want to do. Not everything is easy, like adding a fancy object-tracking call-out took me an hour or two in this experiment, but I was basically just following a tutorial and other options I had looked at it wasn't even possible. https://youtu.be/3csMd-UUSIg https://youtu.be/3csMd-UUSIg
Lightworks was my second-favorite, worked great under Linux, but to output 4K video you had to pay a software subscription. I just couldn't bring myself to add a $25/mo payment that I knew I would go months without using sometimes. You can buy it outright, but it's $500.
I tried toy videos using a number of the other NLEs, IIRC: KDENlive, Olive, Pitivi, Shotcut. They were all pretty clunky but could do the job. If I just wanted to cut a couple simple videos with nothing fancy, and didn't have my Windows box available to run it, probably any of them would be fine.
- myself248 6y ago> I could never get it working. I spent a couple solid days and trashed several installations attempting it. That sucks, but at least I know I'm not alone. There are tutorials which make it look so easy, but I keep finding myself in problems which either they somehow avoided, or which they swept under the rug to keep the tut looking clean. I am so excited about the fact that Resolve runs under Linux, philosophically. But as a practical matter, I guess I'll keep trying, and trashing, and reinstalling, until something works.
- linsomniac 6y agoThe details are a little foggy at this point, but ISTR that I tried Ubuntu 18.04, tried installing the GUI drivers both from packages ("apt install") and from scripts ("tar xf; ./install.sh" or whatever), both for ATI and NVidia boards. I could always get to the point where the drivers were working under the normal test programs, but Resolve would never find them. Godspeed.