[Discuss] Any decent video editors?
Stuart Conner
genuineaudio at gmail.com
Sun Apr 30 14:56:28 EDT 2023
There are many video editors out there.
Quite a lot of them are much more involved than you seem to need but to get
the precision you're looking for you may need it.
To get precise frame edits from .mp4 source material the software will need
to decompress the clips to a raw video format then when you're done editing
render the result into the format of your choosing.
Keep in mind this will introduce a generation loss of quality because .mp4
isn't a lossless codec.
Make sure you look for an "export" function (that outputs your video
result) rather than "save" (which saves the entire project including
sources, edits and all to a platform specific save format and a folder for
the source clips).
I've had luck with Kino in the past for basic cut edits.
Here's a recent list of serious editors from an article about editors
available on linux.
https://itsfoss.com/best-video-editing-software-linux/
Or open your software package manager and search video edit to see what's
in the repos you have in your config.
Maybe look at the project page for a few names to see if they suit your
purpose.
You could search a tutorial on youtube for linux video editing in general
or specifically how to get more out of one of the ones you tried already.
That's usually my first stop when wanting to learn something new or get in
more in depth.
It's amazing how many niche subjects are on there from people who still
just want to help rather than feed the algorithm to make money.
Hope this helps,
Stu
genuineaudio at gmail.com
Stuart Conner
Westfield, MA 01085
On Sun, Apr 30, 2023 at 1:33 PM <discuss-request at lists.blu.org> wrote:
> Send Discuss mailing list submissions to
> discuss at lists.blu.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> discuss-request at lists.blu.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> discuss-owner at lists.blu.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Discuss digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Any decent video editors? (Daniel Barrett)
> 2. Re: puzzle (Kent Borg)
> 3. Re: puzzle (dan moylan)
> 4. Re: Any decent video editors? (John Abreau)
> 5. Re: puzzle (John Abreau)
> 6. Re: Any decent video editors? (John Abreau)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2023 16:44:36 -0400
> From: Daniel Barrett <dbarrett at blazemonger.com>
> To: discuss at lists.blu.org
> Cc: Daniel Barrett <dbarrett at blazemonger.com>
> Subject: [Discuss] Any decent video editors?
> Message-ID: <25677.33204.882156.22396 at blazemonger.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> I've just tried 3 different Linux video editors to accomplish a simple
> task, removing a few segments from an MP4 file. All three programs
> failed spectacularly. Any recommendations for a reliable program?
>
> First I tried losslesscut. The UI let me create clips, but when they
> were rendered, they were mispositioned by several seconds. Apparently
> the program cuts only at "keyframes" and not where you actually
> request the cut.
>
> So then I tried vidcutter. The UI let me specify exactly the cuts I
> wanted. But I could not export the results to a video file. The save
> operation simply didn't do anything. It claimed "FILE SAVED" but no
> output file was present anywhere on disk. I tried quitting &
> restarting vidcutter, and then it refused to read the project file it
> had written, claiming the file had a syntax error.
>
> So then I tried kdenlive. The UI again let me specify exactly the cuts
> I wanted. Then kdenlive crashed. I restarted, reloaded the video,
> tested it, and exported the clips to an MP4 file. After waiting 23
> minutes for the export to complete, the process halted with 15 seconds
> left to render. No error. The resulting video file contained 46
> minutes of random pixels.
>
> Finally, I tried just plain ffmpeg to extract the clips I wanted:
>
> ffmpeg -i VIDEO.mp4 -ss $1 -to $2 -c:v copy -c:a copy clip.mp4
>
> Some of the resulting clips had the audio & video out of sync.
>
> Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you.
> Dan
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2023 14:17:17 -0700
> From: Kent Borg <kentborg at borg.org>
> To: discuss at lists.blu.org
> Subject: Re: [Discuss] puzzle
> Message-ID: <3166a794-84a3-6812-4c3b-dab4bbe7023d at borg.org>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>
> How about this: Simplify. I'm suspicious of the T-Mobile bits, maybe
> isolate them.
>
> Hook up your computers up to networking hardware you understand and
> trust. Get them working talking to each other. NAT all of that onto a
> single cable, in a way you understand and trust. (Maybe the box you used
> above.) Then connect a single cable to the T-Mobile network, for
> external connections.
>
> -kb
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 3
> Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2023 17:39:41 -0400
> From: dan moylan <jdm at moylan.us>
> To: "boston linux and unix (blu)" <discuss at blu.org>
> Subject: Re: [Discuss] puzzle
> Message-ID: <ZE2OnaoVD7PeefR6 at aldeberan>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
>
> kent borg writes:
> > How about this: Simplify. I'm suspicious of the T-Mobile
> > bits, maybe isolate them.
>
> > Hook up your computers up to networking hardware you
> > understand and trust. Get them working talking to each
> > other. NAT all of that onto a single cable, in a way you
> > understand and trust. (Maybe the box you used above.) Then
> > connect a single cable to the T-Mobile network, for external
> > connections.
>
> thanks, i'll try that.
>
> ole dan
>
> j. daniel moylan
> 84 harvard ave
> brookline, ma 02446-6202
> 617-777-0207 (cel)
> jdm at moylan.us
> www.moylan.us
> [BLM]
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 4
> Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2023 17:59:24 -0400
> From: John Abreau <jabr at blu.org>
> To: Daniel Barrett <dbarrett at blazemonger.com>
> Cc: discuss at lists.blu.org
> Subject: Re: [Discuss] Any decent video editors?
> Message-ID:
> <
> CA+h9Qs6HTJEjWPaG+ZOXP4y6AEHx78gewST3BRi7NFbecUj29w at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> When you have ffmpeg copy instead of transcode, while trying to cut out
> segments, it has trouble keeping the results in sync.
>
> I like pitivi for graphical video editing, but when I edit a 2-hour 1080p
> video from the raw youtube livestream of an online BLU meeting, it can
> overload my desktop machine, it can overload the cpu and tie up the machine
> for hours when rendering the entire video.
>
> The workflow I finally settled on was to
>
> 1. use ffmpeg to split the video into 2-minute segments;
> 2. use pitivo to edit just the segment where the first cutpoint is located
> in and the segment that the second cutpoint is located in;
> 3. discard all segments before the first edited segment and all segments
> after the second edited segment;
> 4. create a title card with Gimp and an audio clip of silence with
> audacity;
> 5. use ffmpeg to turn the image and silence into a 10-second video clip;
> 6. use pitive to combine the title clip and the first edited segment with a
> 2-second transition in between;
> 7. use mkvmerge to combine all segments between the two edited segments
> into one long segment;
> 8. use ffmpeg to transcode the three parts to the same settings;
> 9. use mkvmerge to combine the results into the final video file.
>
> I run pitivi on my desktop machine, and both ffmpeg and mkvmerge on a
> headless server with a better cpu than my desktop machine.
>
> More detail:
>
> 1. use ffmpeg to split the video into 2-minute segments;
>
> ffmpeg -i src.mkv -map 0 -c copy -f segment -segment_time 120 \
> -reset_timestamps 1 segment.%03d.mkv
>
> 2. use pitivo to edit just the segment where the first cutpoint is located
> in and the segment that the second cutpoint is located in;
>
> render as begin.mkv and end.mkv
>
> e.g., segment-007.mkv and segment-058.mkv
>
> 3. discard all segments before the first edited segment and all segments
> after the second edited segment;
>
> mkdir hold
> mv segment-00[0-6].mkv hold/
> mv segment-059.mkv segment-0[6-9][0-9].mkv hold/
>
> 4. create a title card with Gimp and an audio clip of silence with
> audacity;
>
> 5. use ffmpeg to turn the image and silence into a 10-second video clip;
>
> ffmpeg -loop 1 -i src.png -i silence.wav -c:v libx264 -c:a aac \
> -strict experimental -b:a 192k -shortest -pix_fmt yuv420p titlecard.mkv
>
> 6. use pitivi to combine the title clip and the first edited segment with a
> 2-second transition in between;
>
> render as begin-with-titlecard.mkv
>
> 7. use mkvmerge to combine all segments between the two edited segments
> into one long segment;
>
> mkvmerge -o middle.mkv segment-008.mkv +segment-009.mkv \
> +segment-0[1-4][0-9].mkv +segment-05[0-7].mkv
>
> 8. use ffmpeg to transcode the three parts to the same settings;
>
> begin-with-titlecard.mkv => begin-with-titlecard-edited.mkv
> middle.mkv => middle-edited.mkv
> end.mkv => end-edited.mkv
>
> ffmpeg -i <part>.mkv -acodec ac3 -vcodec libx264 -ab 256k
> <part>-edited.mkv
>
> 9. use mkvmerge to combine the results into the final video file.
>
> mkvmerge -o final.mkv begin-with-titlecard-edited.mkv \
> +middle-edited.mkv +end-edited.mkv
>
> The original source has audio at 44100 Hz, and pitivi by default renders
> audio at 48000 Hz. So I edit the project settings to have it do 44100 Hz.
>
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 29, 2023 at 4:45?PM Daniel Barrett <dbarrett at blazemonger.com>
> wrote:
>
> > I've just tried 3 different Linux video editors to accomplish a simple
> > task, removing a few segments from an MP4 file. All three programs
> > failed spectacularly. Any recommendations for a reliable program?
> >
> > First I tried losslesscut. The UI let me create clips, but when they
> > were rendered, they were mispositioned by several seconds. Apparently
> > the program cuts only at "keyframes" and not where you actually
> > request the cut.
> >
> > So then I tried vidcutter. The UI let me specify exactly the cuts I
> > wanted. But I could not export the results to a video file. The save
> > operation simply didn't do anything. It claimed "FILE SAVED" but no
> > output file was present anywhere on disk. I tried quitting &
> > restarting vidcutter, and then it refused to read the project file it
> > had written, claiming the file had a syntax error.
> >
> > So then I tried kdenlive. The UI again let me specify exactly the cuts
> > I wanted. Then kdenlive crashed. I restarted, reloaded the video,
> > tested it, and exported the clips to an MP4 file. After waiting 23
> > minutes for the export to complete, the process halted with 15 seconds
> > left to render. No error. The resulting video file contained 46
> > minutes of random pixels.
> >
> > Finally, I tried just plain ffmpeg to extract the clips I wanted:
> >
> > ffmpeg -i VIDEO.mp4 -ss $1 -to $2 -c:v copy -c:a copy clip.mp4
> >
> > Some of the resulting clips had the audio & video out of sync.
> >
> > Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you.
> > Dan
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.blu.org
> > http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
>
>
> --
> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
> Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
> PGP-Key-Fingerprint A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23 C2D0 E885 E17C 9200 63C6
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 5
> Date: Sat, 29 Apr 2023 18:10:58 -0400
> From: John Abreau <jabr at blu.org>
> To: dan moylan <jdm at moylan.us>
> Cc: "boston linux and unix \(blu\)" <discuss at blu.org>
> Subject: Re: [Discuss] puzzle
> Message-ID:
> <
> CA+h9Qs4QFhLjn3C_LmiPs0ZNh3-KoAbo-vxqE2PrqxJEe_ThfA at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> That's what I do, and it works well. I have a consumer wifi router, and I
> connect to the Internet through a 4/LTE wifi hotspot that I borrow from the
> public library for a week at a time. They have maybe a dozen different
> hotspots, so I randomly get a different one each week.
>
> I use a cheap wifi/ethernet bridge to connect my wifi router to the
> hotspot; I plug its ethernet jack into the wifi router's WAN port, then
> each week I reconfigure it for the new hotspot by pressing and holding its
> factory reset button for 20 seconds and then connecting to it with a laptop
> to get to its admin web page.
>
> The bridge I use is a VONETS VAP11G-300 WiFi Bridge that I found on amazon:
>
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014SK2H6W
>
>
> On Sat, Apr 29, 2023 at 5:40?PM dan moylan <jdm at moylan.us> wrote:
>
> >
> > kent borg writes:
> > > How about this: Simplify. I'm suspicious of the T-Mobile
> > > bits, maybe isolate them.
> >
> > > Hook up your computers up to networking hardware you
> > > understand and trust. Get them working talking to each
> > > other. NAT all of that onto a single cable, in a way you
> > > understand and trust. (Maybe the box you used above.) Then
> > > connect a single cable to the T-Mobile network, for external
> > > connections.
> >
> > thanks, i'll try that.
> >
> > ole dan
> >
> > j. daniel moylan
> > 84 harvard ave
> > brookline, ma 02446-6202
> > 617-777-0207 (cel)
> > jdm at moylan.us
> > www.moylan.us
> > [BLM]
> > _______________________________________________
> > Discuss mailing list
> > Discuss at lists.blu.org
> > http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >
>
>
> --
> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
> Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
> PGP-Key-Fingerprint A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23 C2D0 E885 E17C 9200 63C6
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 6
> Date: Sun, 30 Apr 2023 13:29:43 -0400
> From: John Abreau <jabr at blu.org>
> To: "Daniel C." <dcrookston at gmail.com>
> Cc: L-blu <discuss at blu.org>
> Subject: Re: [Discuss] Any decent video editors?
> Message-ID:
> <
> CA+h9Qs4mKok8FNqCHEDAhqqXZbzwk1L+Mz4L8S5T9dCV3Q-qGA at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> To get the performance of my backend server in a Mac or Windows machine,
> I'd have to spend a boatload of money. I have a Supermicro server with 4
> hexacore Xeon CPUs (24 cores), 64gb RM, and a pair of 8TB hard drives
> configured for RAID-1. I purchased the server on ebay for $150 a few years
> ago, and the pair of hard drives from Amazon. I don't recall offhand how
> much I had for the drive pair.
>
> I just priced out a Mac Pro on Apple's website, upgraded to those specs,
> and the quoted cost is $15,399.00. That's with a single 8TB SSD drive; the
> web page won't allow me to choose a second drive, or to choose spinning
> rust instead of SSD. The video editing software is also an extra cost.
>
>
> On Sun, Apr 30, 2023 at 4:31?AM Daniel C. <dcrookston at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > At some point wouldn't it be easier to just get a Mac or Windows machine
> > and use an Adobe product?
> >
> > On Sat, Apr 29, 2023 at 4:03?PM John Abreau <jabr at blu.org> wrote:
> >
> >> When you have ffmpeg copy instead of transcode, while trying to cut out
> >> segments, it has trouble keeping the results in sync.
> >>
> >> I like pitivi for graphical video editing, but when I edit a 2-hour
> 1080p
> >> video from the raw youtube livestream of an online BLU meeting, it can
> >> overload my desktop machine, it can overload the cpu and tie up the
> >> machine
> >> for hours when rendering the entire video.
> >>
> >> The workflow I finally settled on was to
> >>
> >> 1. use ffmpeg to split the video into 2-minute segments;
> >> 2. use pitivo to edit just the segment where the first cutpoint is
> located
> >> in and the segment that the second cutpoint is located in;
> >> 3. discard all segments before the first edited segment and all segments
> >> after the second edited segment;
> >> 4. create a title card with Gimp and an audio clip of silence with
> >> audacity;
> >> 5. use ffmpeg to turn the image and silence into a 10-second video clip;
> >> 6. use pitive to combine the title clip and the first edited segment
> with
> >> a
> >> 2-second transition in between;
> >> 7. use mkvmerge to combine all segments between the two edited segments
> >> into one long segment;
> >> 8. use ffmpeg to transcode the three parts to the same settings;
> >> 9. use mkvmerge to combine the results into the final video file.
> >>
> >> I run pitivi on my desktop machine, and both ffmpeg and mkvmerge on a
> >> headless server with a better cpu than my desktop machine.
> >>
> >> More detail:
> >>
> >> 1. use ffmpeg to split the video into 2-minute segments;
> >>
> >> ffmpeg -i src.mkv -map 0 -c copy -f segment -segment_time 120 \
> >> -reset_timestamps 1 segment.%03d.mkv
> >>
> >> 2. use pitivo to edit just the segment where the first cutpoint is
> located
> >> in and the segment that the second cutpoint is located in;
> >>
> >> render as begin.mkv and end.mkv
> >>
> >> e.g., segment-007.mkv and segment-058.mkv
> >>
> >> 3. discard all segments before the first edited segment and all segments
> >> after the second edited segment;
> >>
> >> mkdir hold
> >> mv segment-00[0-6].mkv hold/
> >> mv segment-059.mkv segment-0[6-9][0-9].mkv hold/
> >>
> >> 4. create a title card with Gimp and an audio clip of silence with
> >> audacity;
> >>
> >> 5. use ffmpeg to turn the image and silence into a 10-second video clip;
> >>
> >> ffmpeg -loop 1 -i src.png -i silence.wav -c:v libx264 -c:a aac \
> >> -strict experimental -b:a 192k -shortest -pix_fmt yuv420p
> >> titlecard.mkv
> >>
> >> 6. use pitivi to combine the title clip and the first edited segment
> with
> >> a
> >> 2-second transition in between;
> >>
> >> render as begin-with-titlecard.mkv
> >>
> >> 7. use mkvmerge to combine all segments between the two edited segments
> >> into one long segment;
> >>
> >> mkvmerge -o middle.mkv segment-008.mkv +segment-009.mkv \
> >> +segment-0[1-4][0-9].mkv +segment-05[0-7].mkv
> >>
> >> 8. use ffmpeg to transcode the three parts to the same settings;
> >>
> >> begin-with-titlecard.mkv => begin-with-titlecard-edited.mkv
> >> middle.mkv => middle-edited.mkv
> >> end.mkv => end-edited.mkv
> >>
> >> ffmpeg -i <part>.mkv -acodec ac3 -vcodec libx264 -ab 256k
> >> <part>-edited.mkv
> >>
> >> 9. use mkvmerge to combine the results into the final video file.
> >>
> >> mkvmerge -o final.mkv begin-with-titlecard-edited.mkv \
> >> +middle-edited.mkv +end-edited.mkv
> >>
> >> The original source has audio at 44100 Hz, and pitivi by default renders
> >> audio at 48000 Hz. So I edit the project settings to have it do 44100
> Hz.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sat, Apr 29, 2023 at 4:45?PM Daniel Barrett <
> dbarrett at blazemonger.com>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> > I've just tried 3 different Linux video editors to accomplish a simple
> >> > task, removing a few segments from an MP4 file. All three programs
> >> > failed spectacularly. Any recommendations for a reliable program?
> >> >
> >> > First I tried losslesscut. The UI let me create clips, but when they
> >> > were rendered, they were mispositioned by several seconds. Apparently
> >> > the program cuts only at "keyframes" and not where you actually
> >> > request the cut.
> >> >
> >> > So then I tried vidcutter. The UI let me specify exactly the cuts I
> >> > wanted. But I could not export the results to a video file. The save
> >> > operation simply didn't do anything. It claimed "FILE SAVED" but no
> >> > output file was present anywhere on disk. I tried quitting &
> >> > restarting vidcutter, and then it refused to read the project file it
> >> > had written, claiming the file had a syntax error.
> >> >
> >> > So then I tried kdenlive. The UI again let me specify exactly the cuts
> >> > I wanted. Then kdenlive crashed. I restarted, reloaded the video,
> >> > tested it, and exported the clips to an MP4 file. After waiting 23
> >> > minutes for the export to complete, the process halted with 15 seconds
> >> > left to render. No error. The resulting video file contained 46
> >> > minutes of random pixels.
> >> >
> >> > Finally, I tried just plain ffmpeg to extract the clips I wanted:
> >> >
> >> > ffmpeg -i VIDEO.mp4 -ss $1 -to $2 -c:v copy -c:a copy clip.mp4
> >> >
> >> > Some of the resulting clips had the audio & video out of sync.
> >> >
> >> > Any suggestions are welcome. Thank you.
> >> > Dan
> >> > _______________________________________________
> >> > Discuss mailing list
> >> > Discuss at lists.blu.org
> >> > http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >> >
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
> >> Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
> >> PGP-Key-Fingerprint A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23 C2D0 E885 E17C 9200 63C6
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Discuss mailing list
> >> Discuss at lists.blu.org
> >> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> >>
> >
>
> --
> John Abreau / Executive Director, Boston Linux & Unix
> Email jabr at blu.org / WWW http://www.abreau.net / PGP-Key-ID 0x920063C6
> PGP-Key-Fingerprint A5AD 6BE1 FEFE 8E4F 5C23 C2D0 E885 E17C 9200 63C6
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
> _______________________________________________
> Discuss mailing list
> Discuss at lists.blu.org
> http://lists.blu.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of Discuss Digest, Vol 143, Issue 5
> ***************************************
>
More information about the Discuss
mailing list