Rant, and best (MOST STABLE) linux free video editing software?

Hi.

I struggled with kdenlive for months because it was the easiest to learn, the best interface, the most intuitive overall. But my luck ran out quicker and quicker and since I work with projects of over a hundred clips now (mostly still pictures plus a few videos), each and every time I open the project it is corrupted.
So… as a compassionate Buddhist… I sincerely wish for the moronic authors to suffer in their life, for as many hours as I had with their ridiculous measly sham of a software that quite successfully p*sses on linux in the eyes of thoses aiming at a decent work. I’m just an amateur… not asking for davince resolve here. When I do a work I expect myself to perform decently, or I work at something else. I expect any programmer to do the same…

Anyway…Though that rant was delightful and I hope the authors read it,

I wanna ask you people, what program do you use ? Is shotcut stable, or will it corrupt my work ? Usually, the whole of project files amount to 10 to 14 Go and the resulting uncompressed video, from 9 to 10 Go. It can crashes some times, I don’t mind, this I learnt to cope with. But corruption is a no…
Any stable program would do but I need a few transitions and effects too, the equivalent of “dissolve” “slide” and “wipe”, with the likes of “compose” “transform”, rectangular transparent masks and trimming borders.

I hope it’s not asking too much from linux…

These programs are in the AUR but requires a license i assume.

Edit: What about Blender?

If there is corrupted projects on large scale there is probably other hardware related issues as well.
Did kdenlive crashed before you saved a project?
Used kdenlive for few medium sized projects, never had a problem. If i remember correctly kdenlive will ask when there is broken file and will try to use a latest created backup? Did that happen?

I tried the free version and had countless problems. When it’s up to video editing, I would always recommend openshot.

@ricklinux
davinci-resolve-studio requires a dongle or key. The one without studio (davinci-resolve) doesn’t need either.

Although I enjoy your flair “compassionate Buddhist”, :rofl:, I mean that was GOOD, I have to respond with the question, how much did you pay for it?

I get your frustration though, Kdenlive has always crashed on me in the middle of using it. It is not the most stable, and it is not just me, there are countless posts about it, just google.

Unfortunately, it is probably the most professional (FREE) open source alternative to Adobe’s money-pit. Here is a list of other alternatives, maybe one of those will suffice.

Okay… i really don’t know. I don’t know even how to use the programs. Just saw some are commercial and require a licence key.

If youre looking for video editors for linux 3 best i have used are

  1. Lightworks

  2. Davinci

  3. Flowblade

These days i use flowblade, its more similar to lightworks and has worked well for me

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Here is the feature list of openshot. I assume it meets your needs. Can easily be installed from Community Repository :

Cross-platform video editing software (Linux, Mac, and Windows)
Support for many video, audio, and image formats
Powerful curve-based Key frame animations
Desktop integration (drag and drop support)
Unlimited tracks / layers
Clip resizing, scaling, trimming, snapping, rotation, and cutting
Video transitions with real-time previews
Compositing, image overlays, watermarks
Title templates, title creation, sub-titles
3D animated titles (and effects)
Advanced Timeline (including Drag & drop, scrolling, panning, zooming, and snapping)
Frame accuracy (step through each frame of video)
Time-mapping and speed changes on clips (slow/fast, forward/backward, etc…)
Audio mixing and editing
Digital video effects, including brightness, gamma, hue, greyscale, chroma key (bluescreen / greenscreen) , and many more!

I understand the frustration - having used kdenlive myself.
But it is bad mojo - wishing suffering on open source developers.
Remember that they have contributed their time and skill.

Lack of skill in that case. If you can’t do stuff, you don’t do it for it won’t help at all. Making efforts isn’t worth anything if not in the good direction… and since these issues have been harrowing for a good ten years at least according to internet, I conclude they know them and don’t give a damn.

It’s weird shotcut is the most popular but I find this comment on https://www.saashub.com/compare-shotcut-vs-flowblade:
" Shotcut and Kdenlive are disgracefully unstable and can’t be used in any professional sense. I do wish I could get Resolve working on my system, but for now I’ll be trying out Lightworks. I’ve lost too much time trying to work with Kdenlive and Shotcut . If you work with video on your daily driver these applications really aren’t stable enough to even consider using"

This… sucks ? On youtube guys don’t corroborate that impression… I can’t know if it’s the review is outdated or not.

Kdenlive used to crash a lot before, now no, and it doesn’t signal corruption either. It just corrupts on its own every single time I open the project: clips’ and transitions’ order size and places are subverted to no end (though simpler parts stay clean for some reason).
At most my project has 120 clips, including about ten different videos sometimes stacked (composition) on each others, the rest being a few sound tracks, about 25 still pictures, and most clips are pieces of two or three big videos, edited for blanks etc. Few effects overall.

Does someone have an experience with that kind of project size ?

Davince doesn’t work.
I like flowblade’s interface, very clean but too simple and python, so bugs and lags quite a lot in the FIRST MINUTE of use, with merely 3 clips. In my opinion, garbage…
So it’s openshot vs shotcut vs… lightworks on playlinux ?

I used Openshot and it worked. But wasn’t any heavy editing task or alike.
Managed to get DaVinci to work, the software has a built-in troubleshooting CLI and points out what’s missing or needs to be reconfigured.

Why not using the version from the AUR? I always recommend avoiding wine, whenever possible.

yay -Ss lightworks
aur/lwks14 14.5.0-1 (+1 0.00) 
    Lightworks version 14
aur/lwks-beta 2022.1.131184-1 (+13 0.00) 
    Lightworks is a professional video editing suite
aur/lightworks 2021.2-1 (+135 0.11) (Installed)
    Lightworks is a professional video editing suite

The licence for the free version has to be renewed from time to time.

Yes, for giving you software for free, they deserve nothing but suffering.
:roll_eyes:

Since this is a topic about ranting, let me give my 2 cents, too:

With ungrateful, entitled ******** like you, who have contributed nothing of value, one might think that Free Software developers would be better off just sitting on their asses and watching anime, instead of creating something of value for everyone to use. Thankfully, they are not doing this work for the likes of you, but for themselves and for people who appreciate their hard work.

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Raté, more into comics now…

I get that it comes across as jarring and incredibly haughty, but hear me out.
I still am of the opinion responsability isn’t limited to paid jobs, and volunteering doesn’t exclude from criticism. They should do less and fix the mess, not stack up effects or whatnot for a egregious =, unusable result. It would not trouble the developpers to change their optics to adopt a better, more decent work ethos, one that professionals adopt: working not necessarily longer, but seriously.
Especially since they’re associated/part of KDE (I don’t know the details): it comes with a the immediate availability of a user base they probably haven’t quite earnt like independent developers like openshot had. In my mind that entails a certain responsibility.

Few people need humongus factories like Davince Resolve, so not having something on par in terms of functionalities is not an issue: I think there are more entry and intermediate level users and projects, that would strongly benefit from a slightly less complete but more robust tool, that doesn’t promise the world but would deliver soundly.
So yeah users are entitled to scold developpers continue poor choices that impact the community negatively… And I am as entitled as anyone, to tell apart choices I don’t like from objectively bad ones.

Simply adding new functionalities is not a morale imperative, put fixing recurring is.

there is no morale imperative at all. the software is delivered “as is” with no liability. they can publish broken software as much as they please, there is no accountability. just don’t use it. either way you get much more than you pay for and definitely more than you are entitled to (which is zero, you are entitled to absolutely nothing, without contributing). If you have a gripe, fork it, make it better yourself. that’s the philosophy.

google gives you gmail, a powerful email service for free. but is it free, or are you paying in some other way by allowing google to train their AI on all your juicy conversations? same as gmail there are a lot of “free” services which makes people believe this is how the world works: other people put in hundreds and thousands of work hours for free because you are entitled to have all things free.

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I think you you should go back to Windows and pay for your software and buy what you need that works the way you demand that it should and when it doesn’t then you can complain and ask for you money back! Good luck with that.

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I love the carry-over from the paid world, lording over software with demands and personal expectations. That doesn’t happen with open source. Either you eat the lump plopped down on your plate, or you don’t.

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This is a philosophical debate… fine.

If you have a gripe, fork it, make it better yourself. that’s the philosophy

It may be a carry-over so are you, in a way: this is the classical liberal argument. Private compagnies offer whatever products they want and you’re free to come on the market provide your own if you’re not satisfied !
In reality quite a lot of markets can not be approached without one heck of a capital and often not at all, because all sorts of conventions, some necessary some just “practical” some plain nonsensical. So to improve overall users experience we NEED to apply quality regulations… which in the programming world, comes from either/or financiary incentives or user rants and shunning of unreasonable coding teams.
The “just fork it” is just stupid: Most people have no and will never have even a clue about programming and certainly not in the specific area of interest. And can not afford to invest in such interest, because… they have a life.
So when the appeal of money can’t work, shunning can.
Besides, imagine I learnt Ada and everyone on the projects that I would like or need are in rust or C, I’m barred from contributing: people will probably not consider them in a language they “don’t like”, even with all the bindings ensuring it would work. I may think I have the best language out there (it may or may not be true) and people should or should not be of the same opinion but they just aren’t.
This is quite similar to the market analogy.

I said “morale” for it’s a matter of individual work ethos. I have it, seeing shotcut’s forum its authors have it, not so much for Kdenlive.
Lastly, seems like some here confuse open source mentality as a whole with the bazaar mentality… I lean closer to the pyramid model.
I do not spit on every single team behind an unstable program I would have liked… But some I deem quite unjustifiable, if I was in their shoes.

I ain’t starting a flame war, I stop here :wink: Peace !

Stop comparing open source to capitalistic markets…there are no markets. I think that is the flaw in your processing. There is no one competing, no exchange of monetary goods. It is just programmers working on projects they care about, offering it up to the public for free. No demands, no expectations. I can tell that idea must shake your core.

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There’s really no philosophical matter here. What I’ve been trying to get across (and others too) is that your attitude is divorced from common sense. You can’t wish someone bad things because he/she/it/they is not delivering for free on your expectations. It’s just a douche thing to do. This makes everything else in this conversation irrelevant. Or how the community recently likes to call it it’s all poppycock, balderdash and utter spam. Edit: and pure twaddle too.

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