[neves]

As the other open source video editing software were so bad, and Blender had a so good reputation, I tried to use it to edit my family videos. But the interface were so weird for a casual user that I quit. This was one of the reasons that I came back to Windows after decades.

[nickrio]

There are NO good Open Source video editing software made for Linux, and I'm pretty confident about this.

I'm currently using shotcut, it's buggy and just work, not great. With it, you can crop the video, change color, do some easy compose it etc, but that's almost all.

If you have a good computer, you can try DaVinci Resolve. Though it's not an open source software, but it will give you After Effect+ level experience.

I had some experience with 3ds Max & After Effect, and I tried Blender few days ago (For Editing Video and 3D modeling). What I found is that the UI of Blender is a chaotic torment even for people like me. It even cause some hard time when all I want is just to "close" (Or Shrink) a panel.

I'm not saying Blender is a bad software, I just hoping Blender can have a more organized, focused and solid UI. Then it will be friendlier for greens who want to learn it.

[ZenoArrow]

> "There are NO good Open Source video editing software made for Linux"

What about PiTiVi? Is it one of the video editors you've tried?

http://www.pitivi.org/

http://www.pitivi.org/?go=tour

[neves]

Yes, I tried. But it was 5 years ago. And the excellent free (as beer) Hit Film Express got me.

[skykooler]

OpenShot is pretty good. Good enough that when they finally ported it to OSX I switched to it from iMovie.

[mkl]

I tried it the other day and couldn't find a way to make precise cuts. You can move frame by frame, but I didn't succeed in cutting at the current position. I switched to AviDemux. The video editing I've done in the past has been mostly with ffmpeg, i.e. command line and scripts.

[cschmittiey]

Wouldn't Resolve be closer to Premiere than After Effects? Having barely used resolve (my computer wasn't strong enough to mess with the 4k video I shot, and davinci didn't like the codec it was originally shot in) and with probably 25 hours in Premiere and After Effects, I could totally be wrong, but Premiere and Resolve felt more like editors, while AE was more for post effects and such.

[nickrio]

Well, I don't have any experience on Premiere, After Effects is only one I can use for this comparison. So.

[avhon1]

For those reading this post and wondering "what is it like to 'close (Or Shrink) a panel' in Blender?":

Here is a sketch of what Blender looks like by default:

  +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |
  +----------------------+--------+
  |                      |   B    |
  |                      +--------+
  |           C          |        |
  |                      |        |
  |                      |   D    |
  +----------------------+        |
  |           E          |        |
  +----------------------+--------+

A, B, C, D, and E are areas - rectangular subregions of the application window. There are three rules about the arrangement of areas in Blender:

  1. Areas are always rectangular
  2. Every pixel in the window belongs to exactly one area
  3. Every area is at least as tall as the height of a menu bar, and at least as wide as the height of a menu bar.

If you've used a tiling window manager before, then you're probably familiar with these rules and with the benefits of these rules. Areas always have a rectangular shape, so they are always laid out in a consistent way. Every pixel in the window belongs to an area, so no screen space is wasted. No part of the window has two areas, meaning that no area can ever be obscured by part of another area. And every area has a guaranteed minimum size, so you can never lose an area by accidentally shrinking its height or width to zero.

Because of these rules, some arrangements of areas are impossible. For example:

  +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |
  +----------------------+--------+
  | +---+                |   B    |
  | | F |                +--------+
  | +---+     C          |        |
  |                      |        |
  |                      |   D    |
  +----------------------+        |
  |           E          |        |
  +----------------------+--------+

This violates either the first or the second rule - area C must be rectangular (no holes!), and it cannot be covered by another area.

This is also not possible, because it would violate the same rules:

  +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |
  +-------------------+-----------+
  |                   |    B      |
  |                   +--+--------+
  |           C          |        |
  |                      |        |
  |                      |   D    |
  +----------------------+        |
  |           E          |        |
  +----------------------+--------+

This, however, is allowed:

  +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |
  +----------------+--------------+
  |                |      B       |
  |                +--------------+
  |       C        |              |
  |                |              |
  |                |      D       |
  +----------------+              |
  |       E        |              |
  +----------------+--------------+

You would accomplish this by placing you mouse cursor anywhere along the vertical line that separates C and E from B and D. The cursor would change to "<->". You would then hold down the left mouse button, drag to the left, and then release the left mouse button.

You could also do this:

  +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |
  +----------------------+--------+
  |                      |        |
  |                      |   B    |
  |           C          |        |
  |                      |        |
  |                      +--------+
  +----------------------+   D    |
  |           E          |        |
  +----------------------+--------+

...by placing your mouse cursor over the horizontal line that separates B from D, so that the cursor changes to the up-and-down arrows. Then, click the LMB, drag down, and release the LMB.

Besides changing the size of the currently-existing areas, you can also add new areas by dividing existing ones in two. For example:

  +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |
  +-----------+----------+--------+
  |           |          |   B    |
  |           |          +--------+
  |    C      |    F     |        |
  |           |          |        |
  |           |          |   D    |
  +-----------+----------+        |
  |           E          |        |
  +----------------------+--------+

This can be done by placing the mouse cursor over either the top or bottom edge of area C, so that the cursor changes to the up-and-down arrows. Then right-click. A menu will appear with two entries: "Split Area" and "Join Area". Select "split area", and a vertical line splitting area C will appear. As you move your cursor around, the line follows. If you move your cursor out of area C and into another area, the vertical line will follow into that area. When you click the LMB, area your cursor is over will be split into two, with the vertical border passing through where you clicked.

Horizontal divisions are, of course, also possible:

  +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |
  +----------------------+--------+
  |                      |   B    |
  |                      +--------+
  |           C          |   D    |
  |                      |        |
  |                      +--------+
  +----------------------+   F    |
  |           E          |        |
  +----------------------+--------+

Finally, you can reduce the number of areas by "joining" them. The only requirement for joining areas is that they must exactly share one edge. For example, this join is possible:

  +-------------------------------+     +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |     |              A                |
  +----------------------+--------+     +----------------------+--------+
  |                      |   B    |     |                      |        |
  |                      +--------+     |                      |        |
  |           C          |        | ->  |           C          |        |
  |                      |        |     |                      |   B    |
  |                      |   D    |     |                      |        |
  +----------------------+        |     +----------------------+        +
  |           E          |        |     |           E          |        |
  +----------------------+--------+     +----------------------+--------+

... because areas B and D exactly shared one edge. This join is done by placing your mouse cursor over the edge shared by areas B and D so that the cursor changes to the up-and-down arrows, right-clicking, and selecting "Join Area". Immediately, a gray overlay with an arrow in it will cover one of the two areas. If you move your cursor between areas B and D, the overlay will switch to the area your cursor is over.[0] This overlay makes it very clear which area will be enlarged to take over the other area. When the overlay covers area D, just click the left mouse button, and area D will be removed, and area B will be enlarged to fill its place.

One more note about joining areas. With the default layout, only area C can be joined to area E:

  +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |
  +----------------------+--------+
  |                      |   B    |
  |                      +--------+
  |           C          |        |
  |                      |        |
  |                      |   D    |
  +----------------------+        |
  |           E          |        |
  +----------------------+--------+

However, by moving the border between areas B, and D, we can get this layout:

  +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |
  +----------------------+--------+
  |                      |        |
  |                      |        |
  |           C          |   B    |
  |                      |        |
  |                      |        |
  +----------------------+--------+
  |           E          |   D    |
  +----------------------+--------+

In this layout, either area C or area D can be joined with area E.

  +-------------------------------+    +-------------------------------+    +-------------------------------+
  |              A                |    |              A                |    |              A                |
  +----------------------+--------+    +----------------------+--------+    +----------------------+--------+
  |                      |        |    |                      |        |    |                      |        |
  |                      |        |    |                      |        |    |                      |        |
  |           C          |   B    | -> |                      |   B    | or |           C          |   B    |
  |                      |        |    |           C          |        |    |                      |        |
  |                      |        |    |                      |        |    |                      |        |
  +----------------------+--------+    |                      +--------+    +----------------------+--------+
  |           E          |   D    |    |                      |   D    |    |              D                |
  +----------------------+--------+    +----------------------+--------+    +-------------------------------+

[amerine]

Wonderful and thorough explanation, thank you!

[ConfucianNardin]

I went through and evaluated all of the commonly mentioned open source video editors recently.

The only one that actually seemed usable was kdenlive.

Openshot, Shotcut etc. were all unusable for one reason or another.

[thrillgore]

I recently tried out Kdenlive and was very impressed.

[Mister_Snuggles]

I'm not sure what software you've tried, but I've found Kdenlive to be pretty good for video editing. It's best if you can use a recent version though, old versions that some LTS distributons picked up were not great.

https://kdenlive.org

[j_s]

The issue I ran into with Kdenlive was that I couldn't figure out how to cut within a clip without saving to a separate file.

I don't have much experience with Kdenlive or video editing in general but am looking for an Audacity-like tool that can slice out useless portions of longer videos (and also mute sections of audio). For now I use ffmpeg on the command line, but wrangling timestamps is cumbersome.

[Mister_Snuggles]

When I need to trim part of a clip in Kdenlive, I just use the Cut tool on the timeline and delete the portion I don't need. This doesn't create a separate file, it just tells it to only use a portion of the original file. It's been a while since I've used it though, so there might be an even easier way.

For muting you can apply the Mute audio effect for the required portion of the video.

[j_s]

I think I was expecting cutting to work with a selection (a click + drag to select a range) rather than clicking to cut at the start, then again at the desired end, and finally removing the newly segmented portion.

Appreciate the help as I learn how to properly use this tool!

[ConfucianNardin]

You can also just drag the edges of the clip in the timeline.

[Mister_Snuggles]

Nice - I forgot about that!

[ConfucianNardin]

Have a look at avidemux, which can even cut videos without re-encoding.

[Mister_Snuggles]

Avidemux is a great tool, but it would require creating a second file I believe.

My workflow is usually to use Avidemux to do a rough trim of a clip (e.g., to take a five minute clip and trim it down to about a minute with the interesting parts in it) and get it into the format I want, then I use Kdenlive for the finer work.

[bayesian_horse]

To use it as a video editor you really have to understand too much about computer graphics in general, and how Blender does things in particular.

[CuriousCosmic]

I find that lightworks does a great job