4 ms·

Ask HN: What is the best video editing tool for Linux?

4 points by pythops 5y ago

jrepinc 5y ago
Kdenlive: https://kdenlive.org/ https://kdenlive.org/
- marcodiego 5y ago
  Not considering professional solutions, yes kdenlive is the best option available. I'm from a time when whenever people asked about FLOSS video editor, it was: "stable, feature rich, easy to use; choose two". Many video editors appeared and died through the years for linux, but it is a good thing that the ones that survived matured well. I haven't tried many of them in years, but I really think the most popular ones - kdenlive, shotcut, pitivi, openshot... - can finally be considered stable, easy to use and with features that are good enough for most non-professional use. If effects are needed, there are some proprietary options or maybe Blender and Natron have finally reached the good enough level for these tasks.
phillipseamore 5y ago
Davinci Resolve
- pythops 5y ago
  Thanks, but I'm looking for something open source
elsjaako 5y ago
I hear a lot of good things about blender, but I use Kdenlive.
- pythops 5y ago
  Blender looks to be nice, but it seems that it's more oriented on content creation rather than video editing
gus_massa 5y ago
I'm using https://shotcut.org/ https://shotcut.org/ but I'm not sure it's the best. (I only make a short 10 minutes video every two months.)
- pythops 5y ago
  What would the things that you like and dislike about it ?
  - gus_massa 5y ago
    Not too many complains. It's just that I'm not a profesional video editor, so other people may have a more informed opinion. I just tried 2 or 3 editors, and this is the one I liked the best. Some minor complains: (I'm using an old version, some may be fixed.) * If you have multiple tracks, you can't reorder them vertically. So if one track is on top of other track and you change your mind, it's not posible to reverse the order. (You can edit the .mlt file that is just a xml file with any text editor. I did it a few times. Remember to make a backup just in case.) * The sound-only tracks must be at the bottom. Sometimes I´d like to organize the tracks in imaginary blocks, and some blocks have some video and some audio tracks. * For intervals smaller than one second, it shows the number of frames. So if you are editing a 15 FPS video, it goes ... -> 0:13 -> 0:14 -> 1:00 -> 1:01 -> ... I think it's common in video editors, but it surprised me. * The files with the original videos are linked with absolute path, so if you rename the folder of the project, you must select the "new" subfolders where the videos are. (I may be doing something wrong here.) * There is no option to continue with the last frame of a video until the next video in the track. In many of my videos there is a blackboard and sometimes it's necessary to add a long (20 seconds) audio explanation while the blackboard is frozen. This is really painful for me, but if you edit videos where there is always movement you may not need it. Just to be clear, in spite of a few minor complains I recommend it.
    - pythops 5y ago
      Thanks for those details :)

4 points by pythops 5y ago

jrepinc 5y ago

Kdenlive: https://kdenlive.org/ https://kdenlive.org/

marcodiego 5y ago
Not considering professional solutions, yes kdenlive is the best option available. I'm from a time when whenever people asked about FLOSS video editor, it was: "stable, feature rich, easy to use; choose two". Many video editors appeared and died through the years for linux, but it is a good thing that the ones that survived matured well. I haven't tried many of them in years, but I really think the most popular ones - kdenlive, shotcut, pitivi, openshot... - can finally be considered stable, easy to use and with features that are good enough for most non-professional use. If effects are needed, there are some proprietary options or maybe Blender and Natron have finally reached the good enough level for these tasks.

phillipseamore 5y ago

Davinci Resolve

pythops 5y ago
Thanks, but I'm looking for something open source

elsjaako 5y ago

I hear a lot of good things about blender, but I use Kdenlive.

pythops 5y ago
Blender looks to be nice, but it seems that it's more oriented on content creation rather than video editing

gus_massa 5y ago

I'm using https://shotcut.org/ https://shotcut.org/ but I'm not sure it's the best. (I only make a short 10 minutes video every two months.)

pythops 5y ago
What would the things that you like and dislike about it ?
- gus_massa 5y ago
  Not too many complains. It's just that I'm not a profesional video editor, so other people may have a more informed opinion. I just tried 2 or 3 editors, and this is the one I liked the best. Some minor complains: (I'm using an old version, some may be fixed.) * If you have multiple tracks, you can't reorder them vertically. So if one track is on top of other track and you change your mind, it's not posible to reverse the order. (You can edit the .mlt file that is just a xml file with any text editor. I did it a few times. Remember to make a backup just in case.) * The sound-only tracks must be at the bottom. Sometimes I´d like to organize the tracks in imaginary blocks, and some blocks have some video and some audio tracks. * For intervals smaller than one second, it shows the number of frames. So if you are editing a 15 FPS video, it goes ... -> 0:13 -> 0:14 -> 1:00 -> 1:01 -> ... I think it's common in video editors, but it surprised me. * The files with the original videos are linked with absolute path, so if you rename the folder of the project, you must select the "new" subfolders where the videos are. (I may be doing something wrong here.) * There is no option to continue with the last frame of a video until the next video in the track. In many of my videos there is a blackboard and sometimes it's necessary to add a long (20 seconds) audio explanation while the blackboard is frozen. This is really painful for me, but if you edit videos where there is always movement you may not need it. Just to be clear, in spite of a few minor complains I recommend it.
  - pythops 5y ago
    Thanks for those details :)