from Hacker News

Shotcut: Free, open source, cross-platform video editor

by susi22 on 2/1/18, 10:29 AM with 138 comments

  • by nkkollaw on 2/1/18, 1:41 PM

    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/. 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.

  • by papanoah on 2/1/18, 11:10 AM

    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.

  • by nickjj on 2/1/18, 12:58 PM

    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".

  • by ollybee on 2/1/18, 1:30 PM

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

  • by rwx------ on 2/1/18, 11:15 AM

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

  • by pjc50 on 2/1/18, 11:19 AM

    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.

  • by pankajdoharey on 2/1/18, 2:28 PM

    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.

  • by tambourine_man on 2/1/18, 12:30 PM

    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.

  • by otterpro on 2/1/18, 4:57 PM

    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.

  • by tomcooks on 2/1/18, 1:14 PM

    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

  • by 72deluxe on 2/1/18, 10:40 AM

    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.

  • by ColonialMakery on 2/1/18, 5:03 PM

    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.

  • by Daviey on 2/1/18, 10:42 AM

    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!

  • by Nelkins on 2/1/18, 1:00 PM

  • by unicornporn on 2/1/18, 11:33 AM

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

  • by dotdi on 2/1/18, 2:25 PM

    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.

  • by rajaravivarma_r on 2/1/18, 12:52 PM

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

  • by disordinary on 2/1/18, 8:26 PM

    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.

  • by foi on 2/1/18, 11:39 AM

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

  • by Klasiaster on 2/1/18, 3:33 PM

    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

  • by softawre on 2/1/18, 3:32 PM

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

  • by bfors on 2/1/18, 4:32 PM

    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.

  • by snvzz on 2/1/18, 2:12 PM

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

  • by Ciantic on 2/1/18, 12:13 PM

    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.

  • by blattimwind on 2/1/18, 10:49 AM

    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.

  • by pjmlp on 2/1/18, 12:00 PM

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

  • by no1youknowz on 2/1/18, 11:14 AM

    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

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

  • by philipov on 2/1/18, 11:14 AM

    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.