Video Editing

[mikewalsh]

@taersh :-

Mk I and Mk II (or Mk 2, if you don't know Roman numerals!) are not, repeat NOT official, "proper" designations for AppImages. They are how I, personally, think of them to myself when comparing early and modern AppImage builds.

Mk 1's are early AppImages from WAY back when the format was relatively new and the developer stuff had not yet been created in a "user-friendly" format.....in addition to which, "opening" an AppImage to see what was inside it required the use of a special binary tool to do so.

For "Mk 2's" - modern AppImages - it seems the build process is now greatly simplified, and many additional command-line "--switches", etc., have been added to make managing them even easier. Which is great for would-be devs and the community in general, but it's had one negative side-effect; lots of would-be 'devs' are simply re-packing .debs & .rpms WITHOUT including everything necessary for them to run in a totally 'self-contained' manner. Instead, they're still hunting around the system like any normal package, looking for dependencies. A properly-constructed AppImage should NOT be doing this, since it is supposed to contain absolutely everything that is needed for it to run......on whatever OS you choose to use it.

Mike.

[mikeslr]

MKII seems to have originated with the military as a designation for the 2nd generation or model of a mechanical device, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cruiser_Mk_II; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrol_Bo ... MarkII.jpg; https://www.libertytreecollectors.com/p ... roduct=939. But it has become idiomatic English as a result of vehicular advertisements. https://www.google.com/search?q=mk+ii+a ... 00&bih=688.

[8Geee]

Since I'm concerned with just the simpler stuff, I use the Slacko version of avidemux (2.5.5-s5) though there is also the 2.5.6 and 2.5.4 versions available in one'sparticular repo. The Slacko version is 32-bit.

Regards
8Geee

[mikewalsh]

The one I used to use a lot on most of my 32-bit Pups - up until the old Compaq 'croaked' around 15 months ago - was Patriot's 'all-in-one' Avidemux 2.5.2 package, from here:-

https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtopic.php?t=46221

Out of the three, 2.5.2 proved to be the most stable, and would run on ANY Pup I threw it at. Because it was self-contained, I used Fred's scripts to turn it into an AppImage. If anybody's interested, you can find it here:-

https://www.mediafire.com/file/mnsad8of ... Image/file

Just download it, and give it Exec permissions (rt-clk -> Properties, and tick the 'Exec' checkboxes down the bottom). Then click on it to run it). You get the choice of GTK+ 2 or Qt4 interfaces. Be aware, whichever one you choose, make sure the other checkbox is UNticked.....they don't self-cancel.

About the only format it didn't like was .webm.....and certain .mp4 files, I guess dependent on which codecs had been used during encoding. Apart from those, it was happy with pretty much anything.

Mike.

[mikewalsh]

Hi, @mikeslr / all :-

Re-reading Mike's musings about Olive on page 1 of this thread got me to take another look at it. I think he added the extra info about the AppImages since that post was originally published.

I still tend to use jrb's Quirky64-'lite' as my everyday Puppy, though I do seem to be spending more time in Fossapup64 these days. Partly because of Grey's copious offerings - some of which I really like! - but also because so many modern AppImages/portables and a lot of recent software that I'm curious about just seem to "work" with this one.

Especially after Phil's advice about definitely needing the official Nvidia driver for Nvidia cards panned out, given how much trouble he's had with Fossapup's compositor..... This totally transformed its "graphical" behaviour..!

--------------------------------------------------

So; I thought I'd try the Olive AppImage under Fossapup. Held my breath; amazingly (or, perhaps, not so much), it fired straight up. Now, perhaps, I can do some experimenting.....

First impressions are quite good. Shades of Adobe's Premiere 'Pro', here, methinks; especially the way Olive can simultaneously display not only individual media items, but also your composed media sequences, prior to rendering; 'dual' viewers..! Also similarities to Shotcut, in the way that 'timelines' don't display until they're actually wanted.....though this latter feature took me some getting used to, given how 'bare' the main workspace looks until you're getting stuck into a project.

I need to spend some time with this one before I can deliver summat like a 'verdict'.....but so far, it looks like it's OK.

Mike.

[gychang]

If your PC struggles with openshot editing and rendering because they take long time and intermittently locks up. Watch this.

I was considering upgrading my laptop with i5 and 8G of RAM running FP64, but now using the proxy technique, it saved my day.

[mikewalsh]

Hmm.... Interesting.

I used to use Openshot on the old Compaq tower - an elderly dual-core Athlon 64 X2 & 3 GB DDR1 - though I'm wishing I'd known about this technique back then. It would have made things run a bit smoother!

Nowadays, well; quad-core 9th-gen Pentium Gold, 32 GB DDR4, 5+ TB of storage, and an Nvidia GPU (Openshot will offload work to the GPU when it can).....I can work with full-res clips, and the machine barely even acknowledges anything is happening. Tech certainly has moved on a ways, I'll give it that.....

Mike.

[norgo]

Hello @mikewalsh
only for information
avidemux is supporting HW de/encoding too

between avidemux 2.5.2 and the current 2.7.8 laying worlds
https://www.videohelp.com/software/AviDemux/version-history

avidemux_278_hw_encoding.png (163.22 KiB) Viewed 5021 times

[mikewalsh]

Hallo, @RockMan57 .....and to the "kennels".

Video-editing is such a varied bag, it really boils down to personal choice, and what you actually intend to do with it/use it for.

Things like Avidemux, LosslessCut & VidCutter are good if all you want to do is cut/trim sections out of videos. If actual video-editing is your bag, it can range from OpenShot (which is super simple) all the way up to semi-pro stuff like Cinelerra 'GG', Lightworks or DaVinci Resolve......with stuff like KDEnlive, Shotcut, Lives! and Olive along the way.

Whatever your requirements/level of experience, Linux is not short of entries in this category, and has pretty much got you covered.

Mike.

[vtpup]

I used to use avidemux a lot back in Racy and Tahrpup days, but when I started making more complicated videos (like 100+ shots) I had problems problems with slightly off cut timing. The longer the video and more cuts, the more the timing was off when new shots were added near the end.

I switched to Openshot which worked well for awhile. But at times I started to get some problems with monitor playback juddering. It wasn't possible to review a video as it looked and sounded in a standalone player. So after some trials and searching for solutions I upgraded the processor in my laptop, and tried Kdenlive 17.x.x, from the ubuntu Bionic Universe repo, which ran well for me in Bionicpup 64. That worked perfectly, without issues, so I for a long time dual booted there for video work, but stuck with Tahrpup32 for everyday programs.

Eventually I had to give up Tahrpup32 for other reasons, so made switch to my already set up frugal installation of Bionic64. That became my go-to Puppy for everything.

Recently I also set up a new frugal version of Fossapup64 to test whether moving up even further would be an advantage. With some issues ironed out via help from fellow forum members Fossa64 looked good. However, today I installed Kdenlive 19.12.3 sfs from the puppy repo, and had monitor playback issues again, slowdowns and juddering when doing dissolves between shots.

Wondering if the problem was truly Fossapup vs Bionicpup, or whether it is Kdenlive 17.12.3 vs Kdenlive 19.12.3.?

Ideally I'd be able to try out Kdenlive 17.12.3 on Fossapup to see if the problem remains. If it does I'll stick with Bionic.

But if it was just that Kdenlive 17 runs better for my laptop then Kdenlive 19, I'd like to be able to run 17 on Fossa, and possibly make that my main Puppy distro.

Long explanation, but my main question is how I can install Kdenlive 17.12.3 on Fossapup? I was able to hand download kdenlive_17.12.3-0ubuntu1_amd64.deb from Ubuntu's Bionic Universe repo, but what about essential KDE (and any other) dependencies?

[rockedge]

@vtpup I would click on and install the .deb then track down the dependencies and install those when needed with the PPM, Pkg or finding the deb files for those and click and install.

Try to start the program in a terminal so error messages are easy to see.

I'll give a test later on to see if I can do it also.

[vtpup]

Thanks rockedge. I spent a couple hours tracking down deps, and finally got it running, but ran into error messages when using -- specifically missing filters in MLT. I could find no more available install pieces for MLT than I had already installed via PPM. The missing filters (mainly for fades) were critical for the video I was trying to edit, and which ran perfectly in Bionic/Kdenlive 17.x.x.

Errors in screenshot attached.

error2.jpg (140.3 KiB) Viewed 4660 times

[mikewalsh]

@vtpup :-

For quick testing-out - or for full-time use if you find a version that works perfectly AND consistently - you could try the KDEnlive AppImages. They're finicky in most Puppies, but for me they've always run OOTB under Fossapup:-

https://kdenlive.org/en/download

Download - make executable - click on it to run (might need "--no-sandbox"; can't remember.....it's not my favourite editor, and I don't look at it very often).

Just a thought, like. As you may know, all KDE apps are written to use the full capabilities of the Plasma desktop - standard in KDE.......and the Plasma desktop has about a million KDE-specific dependencies! This is why a properly-built KDE-based AppImage is always so large...

Mike.

[wiak]

As you may know, all KDE apps are written to use the full capabilities of the Plasma desktop - standard in KDE.......and the Plasma desktop has about a million KDE-specific dependencies! This is why a properly-built KDE-based AppImage is always so large...

Indeed Puppy used to shun both KDE and Qt more generally, but then came the likes of Simple Screen Recorder (Qt-based) and, for me, Okular (KDE), which I find irreplaceable for extracting spreadsheet tables out of pdf documents in business. Great thing is, however, once you have one KDE app installed it is often but a small download to install any additional KDE app or apps... but the overall disk storage is inevitably high (but no big deal unless trying to run everything from RAM, which is usually irrelevant for most of us nowadays - except when using virtual machines). Well, there is the disadvantage of portable apps like AppImages of course, they all contain the whole caboodle (rather than shared libs and so on) so are individually huge, but only a disk storage issue for the most part really and that is a cheap resource.

[mikeslr]

Without regard to which KDEnlive AppImage I use, under Bionicpup64 and Fossapup65 I get this message:

Problem.png (15.64 KiB) Viewed 4606 times

Any ideas?

I had one. Extract the AppImage, then start it by running the AppRun file via a terminal. Same message and the terminal read-out said nothing other than
"QPaintDevice: Cannot destroy paint device that is being painted" .

[vtpup]

Thanks mike walsh, mikeslr. I've first tried the latest KdenLive appimage (22.04.3-x86_x64) and got the same crash message that you did. After some searching on the web, it seems other users in other OS's report that the error is related to various fixes related to PulseAudio. I did try:

Code: Select all

root# apulse ./kdenlive-22.04.3-x86_x64.AppImage

but no joy.

I've also downloaded an archived AppImage of Kdenlive-17.12.0d-x86_64 which is the closest version I could find to the one that works well in BionicPup64. I'm about to test it out on Fossa64......

Later: Well no joy on that version either, though it didn't crash after the error message, and opened up. But as soon as I tried to edit an existing project, it crashed.

msg:

Code: Select all

root# apulse ./Kdenlive-17.12.0d-x86_64.AppImage
---
formats:
  - a64
  - ac3
  - adts
  - adx
  - aiff
  - amr
  - apng
  - asf
  - ass
  - ast
  - asf_stream
  - au
  - avi
  - avm2
  - bit
  - caf
  - cavsvideo
  - crc
  - dash
  - data
  - daud
  - dirac
  - dnxhd
  - dts
  - dv
  - eac3
  - f4v
  - ffm
  - ffmetadata
  - fifo
  - filmstrip
  - flac
  - flv
  - framecrc
  - framehash
  - framemd5
  - g722
  - g723_1
  - gif
  - gsm
  - gxf
  - h261
  - h263
  - h264
  - hash
  - hds
  - hevc
  - hls
  - ico
  - ilbc
  - image2
  - image2pipe
  - ipod
  - ircam
  - ismv
  - ivf
  - jacosub
  - latm
  - lrc
  - m4v
  - md5
  - matroska
  - matroska
  - microdvd
  - mjpeg
  - mlp
  - mmf
  - mov
  - mp2
  - mp3
  - mp4
  - mpeg
  - vcd
  - mpeg1video
  - dvd
  - svcd
  - mpeg2video
  - vob
  - mpegts
  - mpjpeg
  - mxf
  - mxf_d10
  - mxf_opatom
  - null
  - nut
  - oga
  - ogg
  - ogv
  - oma
  - opus
  - alaw
  - mulaw
  - f64be
  - f64le
  - f32be
  - f32le
  - s32be
  - s32le
  - s24be
  - s24le
  - s16be
  - s16le
  - s8
  - u32be
  - u32le
  - u24be
  - u24le
  - u16be
  - u16le
  - u8
  - psp
  - rawvideo
  - rm
  - roq
  - rso
  - rtp
  - rtp_mpegts
  - rtsp
  - sap
  - scc
  - segment
  - stream_segment,ssegment
  - singlejpeg
  - smjpeg
  - smoothstreaming
  - sox
  - spx
  - spdif
  - srt
  - swf
  - tee
  - 3g2
  - 3gp
  - mkvtimestamp_v2
  - truehd
  - tta
  - uncodedframecrc
  - vc1
  - vc1test
  - voc
  - w64
  - wav
  - webm
  - webm_dash_manifest
  - webm_chunk
  - webp
  - webvtt
  - wtv
  - wv
  - yuv4mpegpipe
  - alsa
  - fbdev
  - oss
  - sdl,sdl2
  - v4l2
...
---
audio_codecs:
  - comfortnoise
  - s302m
  - aac
  - ac3
  - ac3_fixed
  - alac
  - dca
  - eac3
  - flac
  - g723_1
  - mlp
  - mp2
  - mp2fixed
  - nellymoser
  - opus
  - real_144
  - sonic
  - sonicls
  - truehd
  - tta
  - vorbis
  - wavpack
  - wmav1
  - wmav2
  - pcm_alaw
  - pcm_f32be
  - pcm_f32le
  - pcm_f64be
  - pcm_f64le
  - pcm_mulaw
  - pcm_s8
  - pcm_s8_planar
  - pcm_s16be
  - pcm_s16be_planar
  - pcm_s16le
  - pcm_s16le_planar
  - pcm_s24be
  - pcm_s24daud
  - pcm_s24le
  - pcm_s24le_planar
  - pcm_s32be
  - pcm_s32le
  - pcm_s32le_planar
  - pcm_s64be
  - pcm_s64le
  - pcm_u8
  - pcm_u16be
  - pcm_u16le
  - pcm_u24be
  - pcm_u24le
  - pcm_u32be
  - pcm_u32le
  - roq_dpcm
  - adpcm_adx
  - g722
  - g726
  - adpcm_ima_qt
  - adpcm_ima_wav
  - adpcm_ms
  - adpcm_swf
  - adpcm_yamaha
...
---
video_codecs:
  - a64multi
  - a64multi5
  - alias_pix
  - amv
  - apng
  - asv1
  - asv2
  - avrp
  - avui
  - ayuv
  - bmp
  - cinepak
  - cljr
  - dnxhd
  - dpx
  - dvvideo
  - ffv1
  - ffvhuff
  - flashsv
  - flashsv2
  - flv
  - gif
  - h261
  - h263
  - h263p
  - huffyuv
  - jpeg2000
  - jpegls
  - ljpeg
  - mjpeg
  - mpeg1video
  - mpeg2video
  - mpeg4
  - msmpeg4v2
  - msmpeg4
  - msvideo1
  - pam
  - pbm
  - pcx
  - pgm
  - pgmyuv
  - png
  - ppm
  - prores
  - prores_aw
  - prores_ks
  - qtrle
  - r10k
  - r210
  - rawvideo
  - roqvideo
  - rv10
  - rv20
  - sgi
  - snow
  - sunrast
  - svq1
  - targa
  - tiff
  - utvideo
  - v210
  - v308
  - v408
  - v410
  - vc2
  - wrapped_avframe
  - wmv1
  - wmv2
  - xbm
  - xface
  - xwd
  - y41p
  - yuv4
  - zlib
  - zmbv
  - libvpx
  - libvpx-vp9
  - libx264
  - libx264rgb
  - libx265
  - h264_nvenc
  - nvenc
  - nvenc_h264
  - nvenc_hevc
  - hevc_nvenc
...
trying to load "/initrd/mnt/tmpfs/tmp/.mount_YywYIJ/usr/lib/qt5/plugins/kf5/kio/file.so" from "/initrd/mnt/tmpfs/tmp/.mount_YywYIJ/usr/lib/qt5/plugins/kf5/kio/file.so"
QXcbConnection: XCB error: 8 (BadMatch), sequence: 689, resource id: 37748761, major code: 152 (Unknown), minor code: 11
[consumer sdl_audio] Failed to initialize SDL: Failed loading libpulse-simple.so.0: /usr/lib/apulse/libpulse-simple.so.0: undefined symbol: pa_stream_writable_size
/tmp/.mount_YywYIJ/AppRun: line 55: 28198 Segmentation fault      kdenlive --config kdenlive-appimagerc $@

root

[vtpup]

I might have to stay with BionicPup64.

[mikewalsh]

@vtpup -

That's kinda like "Sod's Law" where KDE stuff is concerned.

I use a couple of other KDE-based items which run absolutely A-OK. The 'Skanlite' scanner app - which actually works better than the Epson scanner app that's specifically built FOR all Epson all-in-ones! And 'KSnip'.....the KDE Project's equivalent to Hotshots.....a combination screenshot tool-cum-editing app. Both are packed as AppImages, and both are totally fuss-free in operation in every Pup I've thrown 'em at.

But where KDEnlive is concerned, the only version I've ever found that just works off-the-bat, nearly everywhere, was a package battleshooter - one very clever lass! - produced for 32-bit Puppies several years ago. It was - wait for it! - v0.9.8. An extremely early version.....but it ran perfectly.

I wish I had further pearls of wisdom to impart, but I'm sorry to say I don't..!

(We had something of the same trouble when Openshot moved from series 1 to series 2. Not only did they move from Qt4 to Qt5, they simultaneously switched to producing AppImages ONLY. No other format is available. For a while, no-one could get the things to run in Puppy. Then I was messing around with it one day in jrb's 'lite' spin on Barry's old Quirky64 'April' 7.0.1.....and totally by accident (I forget how I did it) discovered that just one dependency was needed for it to function. One I'd never come across before; can't remember its name now. But installing that one item from the /ubuntu/pool/universe repos finally got the thing running for the first time ever!)

Mike.

[vtpup]

Mike I've got openshot 1.4.3 running in Bionic64 and Openshot 2.4.3 running in Fossapup. But rendering for the monitor in both just can't hack it on this computer if you're using more than a single track. I'm sure a higher powered machine with a high class graphics card can probably keep up. but this is an older laptop.

For some reason Kdenlive 17 can do the job on Bionic64 with 4 tracks and dissolves all over 50+ cuts. and play back the project without jumping or juddering. I guess that's the sweet spot for this challenging hardware.

Not sure what I'm going to do for the future -- I'm spoiled away from desktops onto this laptop, which has served me well for maybe a decade. along the way I have upgraded the processor, newer drives, and 8 gigs memory, and it still can crank out an impressively cut video up to about 1080P.

But the writing is on the wall for video. Money isn't plentiful -- I guess I could re-motherboard my old P4 desktop and get a graphics card for video work, but I'm leery of getting components that won't work with Puppy -- an increasing worry these days.

[mikewalsh]

@vtpup :-

Going 'off-topic' here, I know......but if you want my advice, I've always found that out of AMD or Intel, the latter have the upper hand where it comes to open-source support; their equipment is, more often than not, very "Linux-friendly".

Admittedly, the sheer age of my old rig meant that it was going to have more issues than most as things progressed over time; probably why I had so much fun with all those older Puppies! But this Intel-powered HP mid-tower desktop has been a real revelation, once I figured out a few of the differences and devised workarounds for them.....with help from this marvellous community. And maxing out the RAM to 32 GB, along with adding a discrete Nvidia GPU and, more recently, a 1TB Crucial MX500 SSD - and compiling the 'official' drivers for the GPU - has improved things even more.

It's the first brand-new 'puter I've treated myself to in just over two decades, and I'm very impressed with it as a purely Puppy-only box. I could run anything I wanted to on here, but as far as I'm concerned, I found "the one for me" a very long time ago. I've strayed from the path on occasion, but I always come back to the sanity of the "kennels"..!

Mike.

[don570]

avidemux-2.8.1 has been improved so that it does cuts and trimming of a video file very quickly.
I personally use shotcut.
______________________________________________________________

[vtpup]

I just successfully started the Kdenlive-17.12.0d-x86_64.AppImage downloaded from the Kdenlive site archives above on a stickpup instance of F96-CE, and it seems to be running flawlessly so far on my old alptop (in sig below). Getting very happy with F96 so far in tests.

[mikewalsh]

I just successfully started the Kdenlive-17.12.0d-x86_64.AppImage downloaded from the Kdenlive site archives above on a stickpup instance of F96-CE, and it seems to be running flawlessly so far on my old alptop (in sig below). Getting very happy with F96 so far in tests.

@vtpup :-

Probably related to the issue mikeslr reported earlier in the thread - it being discovered that certain "issues" with those newer builds were related, in a roundabout way, to PulseAudio (or the lack of it).

F96-CE_4, like all more recent Woof-CE built Pups, now uses PulseAudio as standard, OOTB. So that could be why this build is now working for you....

Mike.

[trawglodyte]

I use shotcut, but I haven't tried too many others. I thought it was pretty similar to kdenlive and olive-editor but I see it's considerably lighter. I may have to take another look at those two.

[mikewalsh]

@trawglodyte :-

Shotcut is far from my first choice, but I always keep a 'portable' copy of the current release for newer Pups. I also have an older 'portable' build for older Pups, where they can't satisfy the requirements of the newer build.

Most of my Pups have linked Menu entries for 'portable' builds of:-

• Avidemux
• Cinelerra GG
• FlowBlade
• OpenShot
• ShotCut, and the best video trimmer ever, mifi's utterly wonderful ffmpeg-based
• LosslessCut

You might be interested in my 'portable' build of Lightworks:-

https://lwks.com/

This will only work correctly under Fossapup64 or newer. With an Nvidia card, there's a pair of special dependencies required from the PPM, without which it refuses to run. I can't include these in the build, because they're compiled against stuff in the specific Puppy, so therefore are different for every one.

Lightworks is more of a semi-'pro' application, similar in vein to DaVinci Resolve. I actually managed to get a 'portable' build of this up-and-running a couple of years ago, but made the mistake of updating it in situ, rather than working on a copy as I usually do.......only to discover that BlackMagic Design had totally re-worked the thing in the interim, making it effectively a 'pro', studio-only tool (the current builds now expect to find themselves hooked-up to a small fortune in Blackmagic's unique, hyper-expensive and highly-specialized studio recording gear. If it can't detect any, it simply won't run).

Bastards!!!

(I even managed to get an older build of Adobe's Premiere Pro running under WINE some years ago.....but that's a tale for another day.)

Mike.

[trawglodyte]

With an Nvidia card, there's a pair of special dependencies required from the PPM, without which it refuses to run. I can't include these in the build, because they're compiled against stuff in the specific Puppy, so therefore are different for every one.

Getting NVIDIA to play nice with a video editors is a challenge on par with installing the NVIDIA driver. If you're lucky all you need is ffmpeg on your machine, But usually (on Debian/Ubuntu Linux distros) it takes getting the header files, installing the cuda toolkit (and some recommended/suggested packages too) and i think you have to recompile to get those header files included. You can get packages from the distro repository OR software from NVIDIA to do that.

The only thing I might be able to offer to help someone is if you decide to get the header files and toolkit from NVIDIA, you have to get the ones that match your NVIDIA driver. From here --> https://developer.nvidia.com/video-codec-sdk-archive and here --> https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-toolkit-archive. The requirements are as follows.

SDK 12.1.14 - nvidia 530.41.03 or higher
SDK 12.0.16 - nvidia 520.56.06 or higher
SDK 11.1.5 - nvidia 470.57.02 or higher
SDK 11.0.10 - nvidia 455.27 or higher
SDK 10.0.26 - nvidia 450.51 or higher
SDK 9.1.23 - nvidia 435.21 or higher
SDK 9.0.20 - nvidia 418.30 or higher
SDK 8.2.16 - nvidia 396.24 or higher
SDK 8.1 - nvidia 390.25 or higher
SDK 8.0 - nvidia 378.13 or higher.

IMO, if you don't do much video editing you might just want to use the software codec to render your vids. It does exactly the same job, it just takes longer and puts a heavy load on your cpu. Software codec libx264 does the same thing as h264_nvenc and libx265 does the same thing as hevc_nvenc.

On the other hand if you want your nvidia to rock'n'roll with your cpu beyond what just having an nvidia driver installed will do, it's cuda and getting that cuda toolkit and reading all about it on NVIDIA's site will, ummmm, mostly make you confused. But it's really interesting!

[trawglodyte]

I looked at kdenlive, openshot-qt, olive-editor, and shotcut side-by-side on Debian for the hell of it. kdenlive was the big winner, most full-featured, and exported a vid using nvidia hardware codec on first try. The only one I know of better is DaVinci Resolve, but that's in a whole nother league. I'm probably going to drop shotcut and start using kdenlive, but shotcut is quite good and full-featured too. Not sure if olive-editor is better/worse than shotcut. openshot I felt like I wanted to go from EZ-mode to Advanced. It just didn't have much to offer and couldn't get it to use a hardware codec or even show me my options for codecs or options for filters, effects and so forth that I expect video editors to display in drop-down menu or pop-up screen or something.

[mikewalsh]

@trawglodyte :-

If you're used to having lists of codecs and other stuff available to examine before you even start on a project, no; Openshot doesn't do that. But when you're ready to render a project in Openshot, THEN everything appears before you hit the final 'OK' button. That's when you get to make your selections & choices.......at the point when you actually need all this stuff.

Like I said, I'm used to it.....and Openshot does what I want, in an easy-to-use way, that works for me. I'm a dummy, mate. I need "simple"!

I don't want, OR need, a zillion choices before I even start doing anything. I get confused easily enough as it is.....

Thankfully, there's enough video-editors available for Linux users that most folks should be able to find something that satisfies them.

Mike.

[trawglodyte]

@mikewalsh Any one of them would have been the greatest thing on earth back around 2010. I can tell you that much. I gotta laugh thinking about the lengths we went to back then to make some POS 320x240 vid to put on YouTube, then wait hours for it to upload, and so forth. It sure was fun at the time though.

[vtpup]

Over the past dozen years or so I've used Avidemux, Cinelerra, Openshot, Kdenlive to make videos with the laptop in my sig. The first long and complex video I made for YT with 100+ cuts was done on Openshot. I ran into problems towards the end of that video because Openshot started doing weird things with audio sync. I had to cut out a whole sequence and redo it a couple times to get the sync back -- it was a real pain. That's when I discovered Kdenlive, and it has never caused problems like that for long complex videos.

Openshot is, to me not actually simpler than Kdenlive. Kdenlive and Openshot operate the same way for most common operations, and in tool selection and mouse moves. The only real difference Is the number of whiz bang gadgets you can put up on the editing screen in Kdenlive. I don't like all that stuff, and don't need it, so I keep the number tools and panes to a minimum. I use a fairly old version (12.x) and it was fairly simple and runs well on modest hardware.

For short and simple videos, like family or forum stuff needing some cuts, and no effects, I just use Avidemux and not Kdenlive. The reason is, Avidemux has the "Copy" feature for an edited video. What this means is, it will make the cuts you choose, but does not have to re-encode (render) them for a finished video. It just stitches the pieces together, and makes one file out of it. This elimination of rendering greatly reduces the time needed to produce a finished simple video. And it also preserves the original pixel and frame data intact and therefore has no degrading effect on the video quality.

Between an older version of Kdenlive and Avidemux, I feel like I get the best of best of both worlds; simple intuitive video editors which are efficient on older equipment, and which can do a range of work, from home movies to professional video production.