Recomendations: Open source or Free video editor.

[Bikerdude]

Making another set of tut vids reminded me that I need a reasonable video editor, I have a copy of Windows movie maker but thats a bit long in the tooth and is cpu bound.

 

So thought I'd ask if anyone uses or knows of an Open source and free video editor they can recommend?

 

I currently use the following OpenSource/Free tools -

• OBS Studio and classic for capturing and streaming video.
• Handbrake for reducing the sized of the above vids.
• Audacity for working on audio.

[peter_spy]

I started using OBS for tutorials I'm about to make, but I found it far from intuitive. But, I got all the info I needed in the Help section, so it's not that bad. As for editing, I've been using sony vegas for years, so I can't be much of help here, sorry. DaVinci resolve should be free, but I know it only as a color grading software, a very powerful one.

 

Edit: I started using Handbrake too, but I couldn't set it properly. I mean movies got compressed right, but YT couldn't recognize them.

Edited May 1, 2017 by Judith

[jaxa]

https://www.shotcut.org/

[RPGista]

Blender is also a pretty decent video editor as well, I've done a few experimental videos with it. The only problem is performance, it struggles quite easily, specially with certain video formats. But then again, my laptop is very weak.

Edited May 1, 2017 by RPGista

[Bikerdude]

https://www.shotcut.org/

Using it now, am working on a 1.6GB .MP4 file on a Core i7 4790k and its quite slow. Does Shortcut have support for Quick Sync or nVida cuda..?

Blender is also a pretty decent video editor as well, I've done a few experimental videos with it. The only problem is performance, it struggles quite easily, specially with certain video formats. But then again, my laptop is very weak.

Yeah I saw that, will guive it a look.

[jaxa]

Using it now, am working on a 1.6GB .MP4 file on a Core i7 4790k and its quite slow. Does Shortcut have support for Quick Sync or nVida cuda..?

 

I have no idea mate. All I know is that it worked for me when other FLOSS editors failed, and that it crashes sometimes but not too often.

 

I would guess it does not have CUDA support. Wikipedia page says:

 

• OpenGL GPU-based image processing with 16-bit floating point linear per color component
• multi-core parallel image processing (when not using GPU and frame-dropping is disabled)

[freyk]

I would advice openshot, but shortcut looks nice.

Other alternatives: http://alternativeto.net/software/openshot/

[chakkman]

If you don't mind shelling out a bit of money, Vegas Movie Studio is pretty good IMO. I only had "moderate" experiences with free editors like Virtual Dub, or Avidemux. They're either buggy, or can't handle certain file formats/codecs very well. You get pops at the cutting points in Avidemux too where you don't get any in Virtual Dub. I dunno, they always have the one or the other issue in my experience. Vegas Movie Studio not only is more stable, but, also, pretty easy to use, and straight forward, with built-in tutorials, and stuff. And you already get some presets to save to youtube as well, can also export 4k files in the newer Movie Studio versions.

Edited May 16, 2017 by chakkman

[datiswous]

I really started to like Kdenlive. It has a nice logical interface which doesn't look too complicated, but is pretty advanced. I currently only use it for one purpose and that is editting and previewing subtitle files as mentioned before.

 

[JackFarmer]

33 minutes ago, datiswous said:

I really started to like Kdenlive. It has a nice logical interface which doesn't look too complicated, but is pretty advanced. I currently only use it for one purpose and that is editting and previewing subtitle files as mentioned before.

 

Yeah, @Filizitasused Kdenlive for her project as and was very positive about it.

[KimVillegas]

A couple of popular options you might want to explore are Shotcut and DaVinci Resolve (the free version). They both offer a decent range of features without breaking the bank. Plus, they can handle more modern tasks compared to the older Windows Movie Maker.

It's great that you're already using OBS Studio, Handbrake, and Audacity for different aspects of your video creation. Those tools are pretty solid too.

Oh, and speaking of free video editing, I came across this link that you might find helpful https://www.movavi.com/learning-portal/free-video-cutter.html. It could come in handy if you ever need to trim down your videos.

Edited September 7, 2023 by KimVillegas

[thebigh]

I'll be using OpenShot to make the briefing for my current mission. So far it seems slick and intuitive, which is good. I kind of want the creation of the sound and movie elements to be the trickier part, not splicing them together at the end.

[thebigh]

Yeah, so this bug still isn't fixed and it's completely messing up my slide transitions. None of the suggested "fixes" work for me. I won't be bothering with it anymore.

[datiswous]

2 hours ago, thebigh said:

Yeah, so this bug still isn't fixed and it's completely messing up my slide transitions. None of the suggested "fixes" work for me. I won't be bothering with it anymore.

So you don't use Openshot anymore, or you don't do the slide transitions?

Btw. which version of Openshot are you using?

Edited September 6, 2023 by datiswous

[thebigh]

I had been using v3.1.1, but I've stopped using openshot altogether. Now I'm using the python PIL library to create each frame individually and then ffmpeg to stitch them together into a video. It's a lot more difficult and time-consuming, but it gives me better control and fewer bugs, and the mp4 that comes out is also much smaller.

[Xolvix]

I started with OpenShot but kinda abandoned it due to issues like @thebigh mentioned. Seems like every new version has some weird bug that causes problems or is just annoying and you wonder why it's there. Sometimes I tried using nightly builds in the hopes it would fix things but it wasn't sustainable.

Nowadays I'm a big fan of Shotcut. It's a more mature project and also has more regular releases. You do need to learn how to use it of course but even a dummy like me was able to edit videos with transitions and other effects.

[chakkman]

Just FYI: Humble Bundle has Sony Vegas Pro Edit 19 for very little money on offer: https://www.humblebundle.com/software/vegas-pro-creative-frontier-bundle-software?hmb_source=&hmb_medium=product_tile&hmb_campaign=mosaic_section_1_layout_index_1_layout_type_threes_tile_index_2_c_vegasprocreativefrontierbundle_softwarebundle