
Shotcut: Free, open source, cross-platform video editor - susi22
https://www.shotcutapp.com/
======
nkkollaw
Shotcut (on Linux at least) just doesn't work.

I've used pretty much all amateur video-making software for Windows and some
for Mac, Screenflow, FinalCut Pro, etc.

The best by far is FinalCut Pro (Mac-only), because it automatically creates
proxy files and allows you to edit everything in real time with no lag, even
when adding complicated effects.

The situation on Linux is dismal. The only good one is
[https://kdenlive.org/](https://kdenlive.org/). It's actually I'd say at par
to FinalCut in terms of performance, although the UI could use some clean up.
It's the one I use because the other ones would either keep crashing, or be
impossibly slow.

~~~
mattl
Blender is the best free software video editor across GNU/Linux, Windows and
Mac. I've used it to edit a feature length movie. It's not perfect at all, but
doesn't crash and doesn't crap out when you give it a slightly unusual
formatted file.

~~~
mrguyorama
Looking at the documentation, I was under the impression that all it could do
was basic cutting and simple things like cropping. Can it do simple effects,
like video overlays?

~~~
oregontechninja
Yea, there are lots of effects and tools hidden in there! I've been able to
implement every effect I've ever needed without much effort. I actually have
been using blender since I was a kid so I know my way around better than most.
I'll edit this comment later with some quick tips or examples.

~~~
oregontechninja
Sorry for the shortness of this, but I know everybody strapped for time and
might find this handy.

Things Blender capable of for video:

* Advanced graphical node based compositing

* "Effects Strips": Essentially generates a strip in the sequence editor that you can layer above the target media strip. Like using a Photoshop layer for one specific effect.

* Decent audio mixing capabilities

* Fantastic motion tracking (advantage of being built into your creation suite)

Pro Tip: Make sure your output frame rate is the same as the videos you are
going to import. Otherwise the audio gets out of sync.

------
papanoah
I used it recently to edit large video files around around 1h 1080p; Shotcut
is rather slow and freezes often when editing big files. But nonetheless its a
great project and I hope it will improve in the future.

~~~
djsumdog
As long as it doesn't crash constantly. Openshot, Pitivi, Cinelerra and many
of the others I've tried are totally unusable because they crash. All the
time. Constantly. (Granted I haven't tried any of these in over a year, so
hopefully they've gotten better).

The only tool in Linux that's really decent at editing video isn't even a
video editing tool. It's Blender.

For the past few years I've just used Resolve in Windows. I'd be excited to
try Shortcut and see if it handled better.

Video editing is a though medium though, even if you're just calling ffmpeg a
lot. It's worth watching the Vimeo talk and video encoding and how a lot of
cameras and cellphone encoders are so crappy they can change framerates on
every frame.

------
nickjj
How does it compare directly to Camtasia in a real world comparison?

For example with Camtasia, you can click 1 button and have your desktop +
audio + optional webcam all being recorded to your video project, and then you
can hop in and edit it with a bunch of great tools and presets. This includes
complex animations and tooltips with doing nothing more than dragging around a
few sliders.

Basically you can get up and going with an excellent work flow as 1 single
person who isn't a video editing god.

Where does Shotcut stand compared to that?

At this point price isn't an issue for people in a position to create videos.
It's all about how fast it is to go from an empty folder to a high production
quality video.

Camtasia is one of the only reasons why I run Windows so if your project can
solve all of those problems, that would be an incredible feat since Camtasia
seems to have no intent on supporting anything but Mac / Windows.

Also if it helps gauge the comparison I have tried kdenlive about 6 months ago
and compared to Camtasia I would rate kdenlive a 0.001 and Camtasia a 9.5 on
the sole task of "quickly create a nice looking screencast".

~~~
pjc50
> At this point price isn't an issue for people in a position to create videos

There's an awful lot of people who want to break into Youtube with no money.

There's also a small but well-represented on HN market of people who want to
have an OSS/Free Software only workflow.

~~~
nickjj
I'm all for OSS too but when it comes down to it, if you're serious about
video editing, this isn't really a tool you can make compromises on (and trust
me, I spent a lot of time trying before pulling the trigger on buying
Camtasia).

This is after having recorded about 50 hours of real-time video over a few
years. There's just so many things you absolutely need to be happy and
productive when recording -- especially if you plan to do this for a living.

Using a bad video editor (and I'm not saying Shotcut is bad because I haven't
installed it yet) is just a really draining and time wasting experience.

It takes me around 70 minutes of real life time to produce 10 minutes of video
after years of work flow optimizations and using what I think is one of the
best tools available to make screencasts. Almost all of that time is spent
editing in Camtasia (stopping and starting the recording, correcting mistakes,
adding post-production effects, etc.).

I would love to switch to an open source tool (for many reasons) but the
reality of the situation is, I wouldn't switch unless it was remarkable
because it's such an important tool if you're livelihood depends on making
videos.

------
ollybee
Does anyone know how this compares to Openshot? Which is also cross platform
and open source.

~~~
rhodysurf
Ive tried both and OpenShot was 100 times better for me. Shotcut was slower
for me and I didnt like the UI as much.

------
rwx------
For short video editing it is perfect. For large projects I prefer Blender.

~~~
alok-g
Interesting. I had not realized Blender could be used for video editing too.

~~~
Joeboy
For a decade or so the situation seemed to be that there were dozens of FOSS
editors, all of which claimed to work perfectly but none of which was usable
in reality. Blender was the first thing I found that actually worked properly.
Having found something that works I'm a bit reluctant to return to the
historically infuriating task of evaluating FOSS video editors, but maybe it's
time to check out some of the other options again.

~~~
bringtheaction
Same here, except I gave up on video editing all together because all of the
FOSS video editors I tried were trash (I don't use that word lightly but they
really were -- completely unusable). Never tried video editing with Blender,
have only used it for 3D modeling and rendering.

------
pjc50
I'll have to try this. There's a big gap for the "I just want to make a few
cuts to this 10 minute video and fix the audio levels" tool. Until now I've
been using avidemux which isn't really ideal.

------
pankajdoharey
Being a hobby blender user i have used many Video editing softwares but i keep
coming back to blender as my one stop shop for everything. Effects, Video
Editing, Sound sync.. Other editors i use are KDenlive, Pitivi, Openshot and
lesser known VLMC from the creators of VLC player.

~~~
snvzz
Did you ever try cinelerra[1]?

[1] [http://cinelerra.org/](http://cinelerra.org/)

~~~
pankajdoharey
Ohh yes cinelerra too long time back, it is very nice. But as i said Blender i
just the stuff for me. Shortcuts and everything.

------
tambourine_man
Making cross-platform video editor is no easy task, kudos. I'll definitively
check it out.

May I suggest working on your logo and loosing the AdSense ads on your page?
Unfortunately, AdSense ads are borderline malware these days. I got one for
MacKeeper and another for a fishy VPN.

------
otterpro
I've used Shotcut, and it was easy to use, and its simplicity reminded me of
iMovie, which I also recommend for beginners. KDENlive was also good enough
for most projects. As stated by others, the biggest weakness is that these
editors are based on MLT framework. But if you cut videos once in a while,
these are fine.

As for me, I edit a lot more videos, and I spend a quite of time on doing it.
I've tried to work with a lot of different FOSS video editors, except Blender,
and my conclusion was always the same -- it's usable, but a little rough on
the edge, and has just enough minor bugs or quirks to be irritating and
sometimes frustrating. I'm not talking about just crashes, since that happens
on all video editors even on Premiere Pro.

Video editing is somewhat similar to coding, as it requires a lot of
concentration, intensity, and creativity... There's nothing more frustrating
than having the software/tools that gets in your way and block your flow and
progress. Also time is money in video production house, often with tight
deadlines. Some wedding videographers are offering same-day edits, which
sounds insane to me, since video editing takes a lot of time. As for me, it
takes about 7 hours to edit 1 hour video.

Currently I'm using Davinci Resolve 14 (on both Mac and Windows but haven't
used on Linux yet). So far, it has worked surprisingly well. I really like the
built-in audio editing and coloring tools. All this is free, with exception of
some features for pro/studio version.

Some have complained the lack of h264/265 import on Linux version of Davinci
Resolve, but you can always transcode to "pseudo-lossless" codec such as
DNxHR/DNxHD (or ProRes if on Mac) using ffmpeg first. This step is usually
automated using script to convert raw footage. Most pro workflow also involves
this extra step, because editing on h264 source is really painfully slow and
inefficient.

As a side note, the last time I checked, in LA/Hollywood, Avid was still the
king of editor, but it may be changing. Anywhere except Hollywood, Premiere
Pro CC is definitely the most popular editor, especially when it's used in
conjunction with After Effects. However, I didn't need AE and I didn't like
subscription-based payment model. Avid Composer First is free version of Avid,
but it can't output 4k, and Avid UI is horrible.

~~~
Joeboy
> Some have complained the lack of h264/265 import on Linux version of

> Davinci Resolve, but you can always transcode to "pseudo-lossless"

> codec such as DNxHR/DNxHD (or ProRes if on Mac) using ffmpeg first. This

> step is usually automated using script to convert raw footage. Most pro

> workflow also involves this extra step, because editing on h264 source is

> really painfully slow and inefficient.

The preferred workflow would be import h264, edit using proxies, then render
the result from the original files. A pro workflow _shouldn 't_ involve a
gratuitous transcoding step. Mind you a _real_ pro workflow wouldn't involve
ingesting h264 files at all.

But it might be true that I should just get over myself and transcode the
files before editing.

------
tomcooks
Used to use this beautiful piece of sw, i only wished it worked on slower pc's
and that it was more easily scriptable. Had to drop it for a cli handmade
solution[0]

[0]
[https://github.com/tomcooks/giulioandreotti666](https://github.com/tomcooks/giulioandreotti666)

------
72deluxe
I've used this on the Mac and it is good enough for me - putting titles on
videos before uploading to YouTube (I sometimes do a video of playing an
instrument).

It is better than iMovie in this regard because it doesn't require copying the
giant file into some "project" directory like iMovie seems to.

~~~
babuskov
> It is better than iMovie in this regard because it doesn't require copying
> the giant file into some "project" directory like iMovie seems to.

This is my biggest gripe with iMovie. You need to have double the space just
to start editing.

I guess their idea was to allow users to move their video files around and
delete them at will without being able to mess up the iMovie project.

However, iMovie has great screen transitions. Is there any other free or open
source program that compares in that regard?

------
ColonialMakery
After evaluating various OSS video editors, I settled on Shotcut, and have
been using it to make daily videos.

Its simple, functional, and does exactly what I need to do: cut, arrange, and
splice clips and audio and export video.

I'm not going to say its the best, I'd really like to have the ability to dub
in app instead of running audacity in the background, and I find its ability
to put titles and text kinda wonky.

But its a simple tool that does exactly what I need to do and is Open Source.

------
Daviey
Please could you make the Linux version easier to consume? Either a deb/rpm
package and perhaps a docker image? :)

At the moment, it is pretty unclear of the exact install process!

~~~
fahadkhan
There is a snap package, does that not work for you?

~~~
Daviey
From the description, that is just the app.. not the dependencies... So the
snap doesn't really add anything (other than confinement) compared to the tar.

~~~
fahadkhan
Thanks, I see. Unfortunately I don't have my Linux machine with. I'll try it
later and report my experience.

------
Nelkins
GitHub repo:
[https://github.com/mltframework/shotcut](https://github.com/mltframework/shotcut)

------
unicornporn
Does this have proxy editing? This is an absolute must in the age of UHD
resolution and up. I believe Kdenlive has proxy editing.

~~~
ggambetta
Kdenlive definitely has proxy editing.

------
dotdi
I'm currently doing all my editing in iMovie and I'm not very happy with it
since it has a few glitches I frequently run into.

Anybody got a link to a comparison between this and iMovie? "Shortcut" seems
to be quite ungoogleable.

~~~
davefp
The name is 'shotcut' but I definitely read it as 'shortcut' the first time
too

------
rajaravivarma_r
It uses both GTK and Qt, someone knows why? And what different purpose they
solve?

~~~
zacharygrafton
I could be wrong, but it looks like it is an optional dependency that adds
additional image format support to MLT, which is a dependency of Shotcut.
Also, some Qt builds require at least glib for event loop integration and some
even require GTK as dependency to enable GTK styling in Qt apps. The build
script for Shotcut appears to have an option to disable this dependency.

------
disordinary
I wish this was good but it isn't, unfortunately I have to run a windows
partition just for vegas, seems like a complete waste when everything else
that I use runs in linux.

------
foi
How cut video and save it's fragment without full rencoding?

~~~
grx
You can use ffmpeg for this, using "copy" for audio and video, but setting
"-ss <hh:mm:ss.0>" for the start time and "-t <seconds>" for the length of
your cut beginning from the start timestamp given with -ss.

------
Klasiaster
I'm looking forward for the Pitivi 1.0 release because it feels quite natual
to work with (and uses GStreamer) and I expect some minor bugs to be solved
until 1.0

------
softawre
Interesting name. I worked on an app called "ShotPut Pro" as an intern years
ago that did the opposite (snatch video from big cameras).

------
bfors
The speaker configuration on the front page is not correct. Those are M-Audio
AV-40's and only one of them should have the volume knob, aux input, and
headphone output.

------
snvzz
Oh dear, another MLT-based video editor. MLT is seriously bad. They can't even
do scale properly.

------
Ciantic
I would like to have a simple free video editor that can cut and append files
together _without_ re-encoding. It's doable with avidemux, but it is just pain
to manage.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
I'm surprised that that's technically possible, actually. Does it just shove
the streams into a container format that allows both?

~~~
Aissen
If you cut at I-frames, you don't need to reencode:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_type...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_compression_picture_types#Intra-
coded_\(I\)_frames/slices_\(key_frames\))

If you need more resolution, you can apply more tricks, recompose i-frames
from the same data, etc.

------
blattimwind
On the free, closs-platform video editor side of things (-open source) Da
Vinci is worth a look or two as well.

Kdenlive is another foss editor based on MLT, like Shotcut.

~~~
mmjaa
Da Vinci just crashes for me, over and over. Its been one of the least stable
apps I've ever encountered .. so, ymmv.

~~~
alok-g
Most of the video editing programs I have used (Sony, Corel, Cyberlink,
Panasonic) crash often. On this HN, it looks the same for FOSS also. Is there
some specific reason behind this?

~~~
baldfat
I do some video editing contract work from time to time. I never know what I
will have to use so I have pretty much used all of them. They are unstable
because they require huge amount of resources, especially if your looking for
4k source material.

You must have a very powerful machine. I don't have many crashes when working
on high end custom built machines, but they do happen.

From most stable to least stable for me have been:

1) Lightworks (2010 announced they were moving to Open Sourcing the code,
still hasn't really happened) It has been used for decades now to make Oscar
winning films. If you understand the analog way of editing video this makes a
lot more sense. Its basically free but has a HUGE learning curve

2) DaVinci Resolve (Most people use it only for color correction but they have
added editing recently) My preferred and the one I recommend to everyone when
asked what to use.

3) Sony now Magix Vegas Pro - My previously recommended and preferred video
editor does a great job on keeping the work flow the work flow and not getting
in your way (Lightworks actually does this best but man it is hard to get
through the learning curve)

4) Adobe Premier - This thing is a BEAST but it is the defacto standard.
Moderate learning curve but it is cross compatible and has every tool
available. Great eco-system.

105) Final Cut Pro - I cringe when I have to use it. Only reason this thing
has such a following is it is so hard to learn another video editor. Premier
was the standard and somehow Final Cut Pro took over around 2008. Boy I really
never liked it, but I was always in the minority till the Final Cut X came
out. I have lost hours of work and I have also lost hours of work because case
sensitivity is optional on OS X and MacOS.

~~~
phillc73
> Adobe Premier - This thing is a BEAST but it is the defacto standard.

I must admit, I've not really heard of Adobe being used in professional
editing contexts. With a little research I've found some articles suggesting
the BBC was standardising on Adobe Premiere[1]. Article is from 2010, but I
can't confirm that happened though. I left that organisation in 2011 and at
that time, I was managing a number of Mac based editing suites with Final Cut
Pro (FCP).

I then ran a post-production company in London. We had suites full of Avid
Media Composer and one solitary FCP, because some people refused to use
anything else. (Also had a Baselight grading suite and Avid ProTools in the
audio suites). We never considered Adobe Premiere and I can't, off the top of
my head, recall any other post- house using it either.

[1] [http://www.tvtechnology.com/news/0002/bbc-adopts-adobe-
premi...](http://www.tvtechnology.com/news/0002/bbc-adopts-adobe-premiere-as-
nle-of-choice/206911)

~~~
soylentcola
Just one data point and my usage may not be "pro" the way broadcast or film
would be (I've done mainly in-house educational videos for a couple of
universities).

We went from Avid in the early/mid 2000's to Final Cut Pro on Mac Pros (in the
cheese grater days) to Premiere Pro on Windows workstations which I still use
today. First we switched away from FCP when Mac Pros languished and FCPX
tossed out a lot of the features we needed. I understand that a lot of those
were later replaced but at the time it was a dealbreaker.

With Premiere, we can edit on either MacOS or Windows workstations,
performance is good on a properly equipped machine, and it integrates well
with the other tools in the suite like Audition, After Effects, and their
still-image stuff like Photoshop and Illustrator when needed.

It's not going to work for everyone and I'm still not a fan of the
subscription model (much prefer the old way where I'd spend $600 or whatever
every few years and be done with it). That said, it doesn't surprise me to see
it getting professional use, just as it doesn't surprise me that other
production houses find FCPX to be a better fit for their equipment and
workflow.

------
pjmlp
Video editing is not my thing, but thumbs up for doing it as native app across
all three major desktop OSes.

------
no1youknowz
Not really on-topic. But the same folks who have an interest in the subject
might know.

I'm looking for a timeline editor in javascript which allows me to build an
object to pass to ffmpeg to inject content at certain intervals.

Much like what gifs.com [0] does.

I have found this [1]: but it's not really what I am looking for.

If anyone has come across something similar, let me know. Thanks

[0]: [https://i.imgur.com/G1MyBOG.png](https://i.imgur.com/G1MyBOG.png)

[1]: [http://marcinignac.com/blog/timeline-
js/](http://marcinignac.com/blog/timeline-js/)

------
philipov
When I saw their front page features a screenshot with only a sliver of the
screen devoted to the sequencer, I knew they aren't serious about video
editing.

