LINUX

Top 5 Linux Video Editor Software

by Vivek Gite on August 18, 2009 · 82 comments

I'm looking for a free video editor similar to - Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple iMovie, Final Cut Pro or Microsoft Movie Maker under Linux Desktop operating system. My tasks are pretty simple such as cutting, filtering, and encoding tasks etc. Can you provide me a list of FOSS software which can be used for video capture and video editing purposes under Fedora or Ubuntu Linux desktop systems?

A non-linear editing system (NLE) is a video editing (NLVE) or audio editing (NLAE) system which can provide editing method for video clips or frams. You will be able to access any frame in a video clip. Non-linear editing is done for film and television post-production. However, the cost of editing system gone down and non-linear editing tools (including software) are now within the reach of most home users.

MS-Windows PC included Windows Movie Maker and Apple computer comes with iMovie. Most Linux based editing software can now be downloaded free of charge from the Internet. You also need a video capture card and a FireWire connection to capture digital video from a DV camera.

Avidemux

Avidemux is a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities. Avidemux is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows under the GNU GPL license.

Fig.01: Avidemux in Action under Ubuntu (image credit: Wikipedia)

How Do I Install Avidemux Under Debian / Ubuntu Linux Desktop?

Type the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install avidemux

Embedding The Subtitles to AVI By Using Avidemux

=> Download Avidemux

Cinelerra

Cinelerra is the most advanced non-linear video editor and compositor for Linux. Cinelerra also includes a video compositing engine, allowing the user to perform common compositing operations such as keying and mattes. Cinelerra includes support for very high-fidelity audio and video: it processes audio using 64 bits of precision, and can work in both RGBA and YUVA color spaces, using floating-point and 16-bit integer representations, respectively. It is resolution and frame rate-independent, meaning that it can support video of any speed and size.

Fig.02: Cinelerra Rendering in Action (credit Cinelerra project)

Video editing in Ubuntu Using Cinelerra Part 1

Cinelerra Tutorial Capturing Desktop Screens

=> Download Cinelerra

Kdenlive

Kdenlive is an intuitive and powerful multi-track video editor, including most recent video technologies. Kdenlive supports all of the formats supported by FFmpeg (such as QuickTime, AVI, WMV, MPEG, and Flash Video), and also supports 4:3 and 16:9 aspect ratios for both PAL, NTSC and various HD standards, including HDV. Video can also be exported to DV devices, or written to a DVD with chapters and a simple menu. Kdenlive packages are freely available for GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X under the terms of GNU General Public License version 2 or any version later.

Fig.03: Kdenlive in Action (credit: Kdenlive project)

How Do I Install Kdenlive Under Debian / Ubuntu Linux Desktop?

Type the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install kdenlive

Video Effects & Stacking - Kdenlive 0.7 - Ubuntu 8.10

=> Download Kdenlive

Kino

Kino is a non-linear DV editor for GNU/Linux. It features excellent integration with IEEE-1394 for capture, VTR control, and recording back to the camera. It captures video to disk in Raw DV and AVI format, in both type-1 DV and type-2 DV (separate audio stream) encodings.

Fig.04: Kino Main Window (image credit - Kino porject)

How Do I Install Kino Under Debian / Ubuntu Linux Desktop?

Type the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install kino

LINUX video capture - KINO Tutorial

=> Download Kino

LiVES

LiVES (LiVES is a Video Editing System) is a free software video editing program and VJ tool. LiVES mixes realtime video performance and non-linear editing in one professional quality application. It will let you start editing and making video right away, without having to worry about formats, frame sizes, or framerates. It is a very flexible tool which is used by both professional VJ's and video editors - mix and switch clips from the keyboard, use dozens of realtime effects, trim and edit your clips in the clip editor, and bring them together using the multitrack timeline. You can even record your performance in real time, and then edit it further or render it straight away.

For the more technically minded, the application is frame and sample accurate, and it can be controlled remotely or scripted for use as a video server. And it supports all of the latest free standards.

Fig.05: Lives: Linux Video Editing System (Image: Lives project)

Demo made using LiVES Software

=> Download LiVES

Comparison Of Video Editing Software

Feature	Avidemux	Cinelerra	Kdenlive	Kino	LiVES
License	GPL	GPL	GPLv2	GPL	GPLv3+
Cost	Free	Free	Free	Free	Free
Paid Support	N	Y	N	N	N
RAM (min)	?	256M	256M	?	128M
Hard Disk (min)	?	?	1G	?	10G
CPU	?	500Mhz	600Mhz	?	800Mhz
High Definition Video Editing	?	Y	Y	?	Y
Non-destructive Editing	?	Y	Y	Y	Y
Full-screen Playback	?	Y	Y	Y	Y
Storyboard Mode	?	N	Y	Y	N
Video Tracks	Y	Y	Y	?	Y
Audio Tracks	Y	Y	Y	?	Y
Linear Timecode Display	?	Y	Y	?	Y
DVD Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
HD Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
Smart Phone Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
QuickTime Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
Windows Media Output	?	Y	Y	N	Y
MPEG-4 Output	?	Y	Y	Y	Y
Web Output	?	Y	Y	N	N

Our Recommendation

Use Cinelerra for professional work. It is very fast, and can handle a heavy load. You can also obtain paid support for this product.
For video encoding and conversion purpose use Avidemux.

Who Uses...?

Cinelerra - Recommended for Animator, Artist/Illustrator/Designer, video editor.
Kino - Recommended of home user, video editor, and videographer.
Avidemux (Non-Linear Editor) - Recommended videographer
Kdenlive - Recommended for home user.
LiVES - Recommend for home user and VJ.

What Software do you use for Digital Video Editing?

Featured Articles:

{ 82 comments… read them below or add one }

1 mhernandez August 18, 2009

Nice article! I’ve never had to do any serious video editing, but i’m sure this post will help me given the chance.

2 stu August 18, 2009

I have had very limited results with any of these… I want an “apples to apples” alternative to Windows Movie Maker, it’s super easy, and that’s what I need…

What is the “real” alternative?

3 bigfunkychiken October 12, 2010

OpenShot, from what I see.

4 Badri April 8, 2011: Yes, OpenShot is really easy to use – I find it much easier to learn than Kino and PiTiVi. Also, it can have transition effects, etc.

Reply

5 Ashwani August 18, 2009

Thanks for very nice article :-)
Can u pls tell me which one would be best for making video tutorial i mean screen video capture like camstia i dont hav any cam

6 raja March 3, 2011: cinelerra is the best you can try that

Reply

7 Failbot August 18, 2009

@Ashwani – use RecordMyDesktop
sudo apt-get install gtk-recordmydesktop

8 Ashwani August 18, 2009

@failbot Thanks bro i”ll try this out :-)

9 Ahmed August 18, 2009

Most of this softwares are buggy and you will have time to run it.
If you have good program you have tried please post it here.
I have tried GTK-Recordmydesktop. I think that was the name :D. It’s not bad, but it needs a lot of improvement to be able to edit/cut what you have done.

10 Paul August 18, 2009

stu, if you want your hand held through the process of learning how to use a new program, perhaps Linux isn’t for you. Microsoft and Apple will gladly do most of your work for you, for a price, and if that isn’t easy enough there’s always Fisher Price.

Cinelerra is as good as any professional tool, even Final Cut Pro, which is the premier video editor – the one the real pros use. Like Final Cut Pro, it requires some significant learning to be able to use well, but it is much more powerful than Windows Movie Maker. If all you are doing is YouTube videos, it’s not for you.

Any of the other tools will work fine.

Ashwani/Ahmed, GTK-Recordmydesktop is fine for, you guessed it, recording your desktop. Editing, on the other hand, is better done in any of the products reviewed in the article. I don’t know what versions you used, Ahmed, but I find none of these (excluding Avidemux which I don’t use) to be significantly more buggy than the commercial offerings.

11 stu August 18, 2009

Paul, I’ve been using Linux for the better part of 10 years, all the way back to
Mandrake 6. I didn’t say I needed someone to hold my hand, ( I have relooked at
my post…nope not there) I simply ask a question…and your response is the very reason I have never responded to anything before…and I guess my reason for not posting is now
confirmed. Thanks Paul

12 trey August 18, 2009

When we switched to Linux the kids wanted a program to download their picturese (nothing comes close to DigiKam) and to put their skateboarding videos on youtube and that was KDEnlive.

The MAJORITY of computer users are not making a full feature film (well Mac users like to think they are).
All they want is to DL a few videos from tehir cameras, put them together with some transitions, add a soundtrack and maybe add some text.
What you want is a iMovie, Windows Movie Maker competitor, NOT Premiere.

Dont get me wrong, Im happy there are high end video apps out there but for the overwhelming majority dumb wins every time.

As an aside, how hard would it be for these programs and others to have two interfaces? One full option and one that gives you just the basic stuff most people will use. It would make the learning curve easier for those that need more while those taht dont could just keep using the easy interface.

13 Dean Mapa August 18, 2009

Reading articles like this in the morning makes my coffee taste so much better. There are a couple of editors you mentioned that until now I haven’t heard of. Thanks for the valuable info!

14 sims August 19, 2009

Paul, none of the above hold a candle to the commercial offerings. Fisherprice or whatever. From what I’ve experienced, the more expensive packages, have easier to use interfaces. You could also make your own pencil and paper. Then write a letter to your grandmother and tell her how long it took. Pros have a job to do. We don’t like bullsh1t.

Then again, I build my own workstations/networks/NAS/etc. So perhaps there is that pro video editor that also writes his own software. Respect!

Cinelerra is the only multi-track NLE that is somewhat stable. However, it is ugly and difficult to use. I’ve used Finalcut, Premiere, Vegas, and plenty of hardware. All of those kick any of these apps in terms of features and stability.

Cinelerra *had* the most promise and it’s probably good if you want to run a TV station. However, it’s not creative at all. Simple edits are easy. However, anything else can become a stunt. IMO, Kdenlive has seen the quickest growth. Lives is also doing well. In the next few years we may see those apps grow into the free alternative of Finalcut – but not Cinelerra. It does what it does, and there is no need to change.

However, any pro would not waste their time on this software. A TV station or company that needs to do the same work over and over (weddings?) might do good to use this as they can save a substantial about of money if they have tens or hundreds of workstations. However, the work flow needs to be thoroughly tested and decided upon.

Here’s a good FOSS for Windows: Virtualdub. Kinda like Avidemux. Probably the only one on this list a pro would use. But then again, having to switch between OSes is not fun. So hence Virtualdub.

OK, that’s my 2 (pro) cents.

15 frodowiz October 20, 2010: wow, the next time i buy a tv station ill cherish these words. the fact that something is “ugly” wont stop me from using it effectively. it would seem to me someone so experienced as those few complainers ive seen so far, are just trolling.

Reply

16 Gen2ly August 19, 2009

cybercity did a Linux best 5 of?? Oh nos…

17 Dario Morgendorffer August 19, 2009

The REAL pro’s use AVID – extremely non-intuitive or maybe Grass Valley’s EDIUS (easier).

18 lothlaurien April 21, 2010

Just looked it up: AVID as in Pinnacle Studio?

That was the first video editing software package I bought for making home movies. It was easy to use, intuitive even, although some bits were a bit clunky. After making 20 or so coasters, it turned out to be near impossible to burn DVDs. Going online I discovered that burning DVDs was a common problem that upgrading wouldn’t help so I bought Vegas. Since my goal is primarily making home movies for distribution to a far flung computer illiterate family (and that isn’t even just the octegenarians) this is important.

I’m working up to switching to linux, and so am looking into video editing solutions.

19 Pierre September 5, 2010: So, did you ever find anything that worked on Linux.

My efforts so far have not turned up anything that comes even close to what’s available on those other two OSs.

Cheers

Reply

20 john August 21, 2009

Thx! This article change my point of view in Linux Video Editing software

21 Alex August 23, 2009

I’ve used LiVES and I love it ! They finally released the 1.0 version last month, and it is maturing very nicely.

22 salsaman August 23, 2009

The link to download LiVES is wrong, it should be:

http://lives.sourceforge.net/index.php?do=downloads

Hopefully the author can correct this in the article.

23 George August 24, 2009

You really need to check out Pitivi, it is improving in leaps and bounds. It’s straight forward to use and works extremely well. The latest version .13.2 is a joy to use. It is not feature complete yet but then what FLOSS project is. Check it out. I highly recommend it.

24 Gordon August 24, 2009

I have worked with several commercial offerings including Final Cut Pro, Premiere and Video Wave. I recently used Cinelera (on Ubuntu Hardy) on several projects and I like it very much. Cinelera is much more powerful than Video Wave and is more near the class of Final Cut Pro and Premiere. Sure, Cinelera has some stability issues from time to time but they are not major and it also recovers nicely since it saves your most recent changes anyway. To be fair, I have seen similar stability issues with the commercial products as well so I do not find this aspect of Cinelera any different.

As an FYI, here are a couple of videos that I produced with Cinelera:

http://www.dickens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=41&pos=0
http://www.dickens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=41&pos=2

25 John May 7, 2010: Gordon, thank you for posting these! My wife and I are really enjoying these…she’s a big dolphin fan, and was enthralled to see the “dolphin stampede”. People like you make the Web a great thing!

Reply
26 Gordon Dickens November 19, 2010: The links have changed for the Galapagos Islands videos that I produced with Cinelerra to:
http://www.dickens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=41&pid=1109#top_display_media
and;
http://www.dickens.com/gallery/displayimage.php?album=41&pid=1113#top_display_media

FYI….

Reply

27 Frank August 24, 2009

Kdenlive has worked for me since the 0.7 release.
It is a bit buggy and does have a few stability issues but it seems to be the most iMovie like that i have found. I don’t have much experience with Cinelerra but it seemed to have more options than I needed.

Trey has a good point, I don’t want to do much more than combine my video with a few transitions and a soundtrack. Kdenlive works fine for that. My biggest issue with Linux video editing is the lack of good transitions and simple drag and drop functionality. Also DVD menu creation is still really poor on Linux. But over the last four years it has gotten much better.

28 McIvor August 24, 2009

I’m a big fan of OpenShot. I can hardly wait for the first stable release of it. It shows a lot of promise as far as effects and ease of use.
I used Kdenlive for a school project once; it didn’t work out so well. For some reason, I had a heckuva lot of problems with encoding it. Thankfully my teacher had VLC, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to hand it in at all. It seemed pretty unstable too, but I had to use it because none of the other ones had effects (at least, not at the time).

29 George Fragos August 24, 2009

I’ve had good luck with Lives. I’ve been able to accomplish things with it that I couldn’t figure out how to do with the others. My main use of video is for web sites. I’ve even created a video sequence from a JPEG still which I then manipulated with Lives tools and output as an animated GIF. I further tune the size of the animation in GIMP which allowed me adjust the the frame rate on a per frame basis.

30 Aaron Newcomb August 24, 2009

You can also use my Cinelerra tutorials. You can find them on the CinelerraCV homepage (http://cvs.cinelerra.org/docs.php) or my video podcast website (http://www.thesourceshow.org/node/11).

31 Max August 24, 2009

I am amazed to see that OpenMovieEditor was not mentioned. OME is sort of like Kdenlive, but more stable. It also doesn’t carry the Qt dependency that Kdenlive does. OME is the video editor I use myself and recommend to people and use myself. While it look as daunting as Cinelerra to use at first sight, it is actually really easy to use.

32 Richard Steven Hack August 24, 2009

I don’t know who the users are above who think Cinelerra or ANY of the Linux video editors are even remotely close to Adobe Premiere CS4, let alone Final Cut, Express or Pro.

Most reviews of Linux editors have concluded that they all have MAJOR stability issues and lack of features for professional video editing. For home use they may be OK, since home users can afford to recover from crashes and the like. Those using video editors for commercial workflows will find none of these are adequate.

Not that Adobe Premiere doesn’t crash frequently – it does. And Adobe products are bloated, slow and expensive. I have a client that uses both PCs and Macs to do digital conversion of analog video, film and stills, and they are slowly shifting to Final Cut Pro on the Mac platform. It’s by far the best, short of the very expensive Avid products.

Linux still has a long way to go with its video editors – for professional use, at least. But the value of FOSS is choice – we do have several different editors, each progressing at their own pace. Sooner or later we’ll have one that can work in a professional environment – even if it never matches the full feature set of Premiere or Final Cut.

33 Andrew Z. August 24, 2009

A few months ago I tried Kdenlive for the second time (this time on Fedora 10), but I was disappointed by the constant crashing. Also there is no readily-avaialble installation package for Fedora.

I used to use Kino, but it’s not a NLE.

I use Cinelerra now. It’s powerful but
1. It’s very awkward to learn the GUI
2. I have to manually convert some input files from my camera
3. I have to perform some tricks to get the DVD output right
4. Because of a reported bug, some still images create a funny green image. I wasn’t able to use some still images.

34 Paul Van Allsburg August 25, 2009

Also – check out:
http://ubuntustudio.org/
http://www.artistx.org

You can download both and run as live dvd’s

Cheers!
Paul

35 BisDak August 25, 2009

I just started using LiVES. I found it easy to use without reading the manual.
This is after trying to configure, setup, and install Cinelerra and segfaults every now an then.

cheers,

36 Zyphos August 25, 2009

Gordon for your submarine videos, you should use a deshaker (stabilizer) like this one:
http://www.guthspot.se/video/deshaker.htm it is a plug-in for Virtual Dub (Windows program that run in Wine) http://www.virtualdub.org/

Using a stabilizer make your videos look very professional.

37 h-munster August 25, 2009

@RSHack

Two ultra high-end editors exist mainly in Linux:

Ant (Linux only) http://www.ifx.com/ant

and Piranha (started in Linux, ported to other platforms) http://www.ifx.com/products/piranha

It is doubtful that Avid or FCP can match the capabilities of Piranha, and possibly Ant.

38 Douglas September 12, 2009

I use Blender 3d for most of my video editing. You can do things with it that you would not beleave! Problem is that Blender3d is its own world and learning it takes time. It is something for a pro with some 3d modeling skills or a normal person that can read and is willing to learn the GUI. Wait for Blender 3D 2.5 to come out. It has an all new interface and new improved work flows! Should be out in a month or two…

The thing about Blender is that the programmers there work fast and this program is changing VERY quickly and improving VERY quickly. If you don’t like it now then check back in 12 months and you will see huge improvements!
This vid is very old and opsolite but gives you the idea of Blender’s power.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8702226098018361217#

39 sheroz November 4, 2009

what program can make kino best of all?what its name?

40 LewisDre4m December 16, 2009

I see this question was written a while ago but to my surprise not too much updated info is out there considering how much things have changed.

There are several different options for different things but If I can just write my personal preference and what I use it for I hope this helps someone.

For basic all the way through to advanced video editing “Pitivi” Is the best hands down. I also believe it is the future of video editing on Linux especially now it has good funding.

It is the nicest looking editor with a easy interface and I find the program very stable.

Hope this helps

LewisDre4m

41 Niavlys January 9, 2010

I make short films, the last one was 30 minutes long, and I used Premiere Pro for it. Premiere was very buggy for me, I don’t know if this is the case for everyone, probably not. I tried (well, let’s say I’ve installed them and looked at them) a few video editors, including Cinelerra, Kdenlive. I found Cinelerra’s interface really ugly (controls, icons…) while Kdenlive seems very clean and functional. I didn’t tried them with real projects, but I’ll try to. But I just can’t imagine Cinelerra is a good software, seeing his ugliness :)
I just installed OpenMovieEditor, Pitivi and LiVES.
Thanks for your article. Let’s hope for the future of video editing under Linux!

42 Charles Barnard February 4, 2010

Such vehement comments about tools!

In ALL fields, “real” pros use whatever tools they:
1) Have at hand
and/or
2) Are most comfortable with
and/or
3) They can afford

All complex tools require you to be able to think about things in the same way the interface designer thought of them–if you can’t do that, it will require rote training and never become “intuitive.”

Technology and civilization make things easier, but actual effort tends to remain the same, since you can offten do far more than without it.

Painters used to make their own paint. Photographers used to make their own glass plates.

The trade off is often money fortime, and the market reflects that. Tools aimed at “pros” tend to be expensive because they are based upon the money saved by their market. Few amatuers or casual users will fork out thousands of dollars for software in order to save a bit of time–even if it would be cost-effective for them, since many people never bother to do cost-benefit analysis.

It is a poor workmun who blames his tools.

43 Aidan R. Rooney February 9, 2010

After experiencing various crashes (on Ubuntu 9.04) with Avidemux, LiVES, and Kino, I switched to Cinelerracv. I had avoided switching becasue it was a bit intimidating at first. Then I discovered the tutorials atAkirad, and with some effort, have mastered its capabilities. Combined with FFMPEG (and a neat little GUIfor it called WinFF) and Audacity for specialized audio work, I have a suite that can do whatever I want and produce it in whatever format I desire. Thanks for the reviews. They provide a great path for investigation…

44 Aidan R. Rooney February 9, 2010

Just installed PiTiVi. Beautiful, intuitive interface. A fine piece of software development!

45 Mark B February 11, 2010

Kino always seems to be neglected when people are discussing Linux video editing. Perhaps it is considered too basic? I’ve found it superb for simple editing, adding titles, etc of youtube clips and home video. The interface is very intuitive and easy to grasp for the casual video editor. I am sure kdenlive would be a better program but it crashes every time I have ever tried it. I just downloaded latest version now Feb 2010 and crashed within 20 secs of using it. Tried latest pitivi just now also and locked up immediately. Kino is reliable, reasonably attractive, and does the basic job well.

46 Ubuntu User February 15, 2010

FYI: your “sudo” commands are misspelled “sudp”

47 rfd February 17, 2010

viable video exiting and linux just doesn’t exist yet for the masses. there are only 2 reasons for me to keep a pc dedicated to win 7 – editing videos and games.

48 Vamsi February 28, 2010

Avidemux is my fav :)

49 applefox March 1, 2010

To the auther of the aritcal which btw I really liked I think you mean sudo instead of sudp. Other then that I completely agree with your list. Keep uo with the good work :)

50 Hawk March 4, 2010

@rfg:
The only reason for windows is some closed source, non-wine supported, overprotected windows-only games.
Common, if gaming is so vital, just buy console!

51 vikram March 6, 2010

hi…

how i play the mp3 & video songs in red hat enterprise linux 5. plze telme about supported softwars.

thanking you

52 Joseph Schwenker March 13, 2010

You forgot the best one, OpenShot! ;)

53 gaby ital March 13, 2010

Very useful article, you saved me a big amount of time i have been fighting 3 days for this, i boookemarked you

54 donbalaan May 15, 2010

Thanks! I was just about to spend over a $100 bucks on Sony Vegas and decided to see what options are available on Linux. Will check out Cinelerra.

55 anon June 6, 2010

I’ve found OpenShot quite good. It provides most functions a home user might need. Though after reading this I’ll probably try kdenlive, as it seems more feature complete.

56 peterg.media July 29, 2010

Oh – my – goodness, is Cinerella potentially a nice program — but indeed, the interface *colors* alone, make the GUI the most ugly NLE I’ve ever seen.

Don’t the programmers have any sense of good aesthetics? The pale green in the timeline and windows is utterly depressing, if not nausea-inducing, and the multitude of colors, which have no relationship to each other is frightful.

Please, someone, get on the ball with the interface appearance, relative to colors employed alone — and you’d be well on your way to inviting more serious users.

Thanks so much for “listening”.
Peter

57 Niavlys July 29, 2010

I really much agree with you, I have never been able to keep Cinelerra open for more than 10 minutes. But fortunately for you and me exists Cinecutie, which is Cinelerra with an other GUI, much nicer. You should take a look at it.

Regards,
Sylvain

58 peterg.media July 29, 2010

Wonderful, Niavlys! Why on earth hadn’t anyone recommended Cinecutie at all, in the past, when objections to Cinerella’s utterly horrific color scheme was mentioned in this Comment thread?

The silence heretofore, on Cinecutie, in this space, until you chimed in, is shocking and strange relative to its wonderful good looks.

I am forthwith determined to both build a Linux box around a six-core AMD processor (my first time ever building a computer), then work my way at learning some introductory skills in the use of Ubuntu, then I’ll install Cinecutie and give her a whirl!

Thank you, thank you.
Peter

59 Anonymous July 29, 2010

Like you, I’ve never been able to keep Cinelerra open for more than 10 minutes but in my case, the reason wasn’t the ugly UI. The problem is rather that it is a total crashfest! I do not know a single piece of software under Linux that exhibits that many lockups, race conditions, segfaults etc etc. Heck, on my system, it can’t even load a project that it saved 2 minutes earlier without crashing and that sadly ruins the featurewise winner of the competition completely.

Oh well, Hopefully OpenShot, Open Movie Editor and PiTiVi will keep going and some day surpass it.

60 kris27 September 21, 2010: Cinelerra – GUI is ugly, you guys do not know that it is MOTIF if you know what MOTIF is. If you like the bloat GUIs use Microsoft. Who cares about all this 3D, processing power and memory waisting crap.
I am using Cinelerra for several years, the film studios using it- it is stuff for pros and it does things that even latest FCP can’t do. Yes – you can make stuff for TV studios, you make stuff in any format, in any aspect ratio in any fp/s you can think off. You can create amazing FX with it.
Cinelerra is not for amateurs,
if you have one of these consumer video cams and just cutting wedding video the KINO would be your bet, if you are VJay – use LIVES this stuff is made for this kind of game.
If you never made any of the films shown in cinemas – do not complain about Cinelerra – is not for you.
I am running it on 4 x 4core Xeon CPUs at 3.2 GHz (64bit system) Gentoo Linux and have no problems. In nutshell – you need at least 64bits Athlon with heaps of RAM and decent 10k or 15k SCSI or SATA hard drives.
My “farm” consists of HP-Ux 11 on 4xPA RISC and Solaris10 on SUN 10k with 32 CPUs running Cinelerra …. and can not remember when it did crushed. Rendering 90 min (1920×1152) YUV2 film takes under 2 min.

It was my 2cents. …..

Reply

61 david L August 6, 2010

I wonder if the author of this article actually used these software? They are either unnecessarily complicated or useless.
What a total waste of @#%^ time!!!!
Each and every one…

62 Matthew Marlowe September 8, 2010

After briefly testing all the various open-source video editors I could find easily available for fedora 13, I came to the conclusion that kdenlive was the best fit. By and large most of the editors were plain unusable for more than 5 minutes or just had too many limitations. kdenlive has its own faults, including that its documentation is not always clear and one must refer to it constantly when figuring out the UI (hint: video tutorials were so useful to understanding the docs). Essentially, I can now do almost anything I need to with kdenlive now, but I would greatly appreciate it if the devs could improve rendering time, update the dvd creation wizard to support blu-ray, and add more rendering options (for example, ogv output does not support quality levels, only bitrates). As for stability, I saw several crashes when I was first exploring features, but none since.

63 Kurt Schanaman September 23, 2010

I use Cinelerra on a cheap eMachines system from Wal-Mart and have never had it crash. The system has a 2.66 GHz processor, 4 Gigabytes of RAM, and… get this… I even use the horrific onboard video it came with. Not a problem at all.

The problem average people have with Cinelerra is that it is truly complicated and requires time spent learning about the real underpinnings of video production technology in order to use it to its full potential. But the learning is worth it. What a person learns by digging deep into the intricacies of video production will allow a deeper understanding of what is going on with even “hand-holding” software.

Using simple cut/copy/move video editors is like the average person who only wants to get into the car, turn the key, press the pedal and to then simply drive without any appreciation of what goes on under the hood of the car.

Using something like Cinelerra is like people who study how a car operates so they can fix something themselves rather than paying large sums of money to a mechanic to do even the simplest repair.

Lazy folks who don’t like to read and to experiment should stick with everything from iMovie (Apple) or Movie Maker (Windows) up to about Sony Vegas Pro. From there, those who want to dig deep into understanding video can then go with Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier, and yes, even Cinelerra.

That pretty much sums it up.

64 Banele Motha October 10, 2010

it is good to that linux is doing a great job like this please do keep it up.

65 meh@fee.net October 18, 2010

forgetting the most powerful one even though it has be run under wine: avisynth

66 marossity November 3, 2010

Kurt Schanaman, your overblown ego is showing. Get real, pal, nobody likes a wiseass.

67 David Giese March 3, 2011

I’m always open minded in tying new things especially free software.
I´m used to work with all the cutting programs from Premiere Pro over Final Cut, Avid, Pinnacle, Premiere Elements, iMovie to Moviemaker.
As an educated Movie editor / producer my favorite´s are Premiere and Final Cut because they are similar and easy to use. You don´t need to think around the corner. Everything is right there where it should be.
Because that i’m searching four a similar alternative in linux.
Cinelerra looks right from the beginning a little bit like that. And yes there are similarities between Cinelerra, Premiere Pro and Final Cut.
But the interface doesn’t look good. Ugly buttons and bars, the thing who show’s the sound volume is in every window like the play/stop/rew/ffd/… buttons in every single window. Com on guys less is more.
In that way i like Kdenlive better. Nicer interface, witch is easy to adjust like Premiere Pro. One thing i appreciate is the full screen possibility and that everything is still one program window not like Cinelerra many!
But why is not video and audio separated from each other. Feels like iMovie / Premiere Elements or so. Not nice to work with in a TV studio.
The rest of those fife programs i will not even go into because there have not enough functions to compare with. Four a hobby editor it should be enough like iMovie, Premiere Elements or Pinnacle but four a professional don’t.
most importent for a Professionell Movie Editor are following Effects and Transitions.
Transissons – Audio: Gain ;Video: Dissolve
FX – Audio: EQ, Noise filter, Compressor, Extender, Limiter, Gate, Rewerb ;
Video: Color corrector, Motion, Opacity, sharpen, blur, Croma key,…
I hope that Kdenlive and Cinelerra developing in the right direction and that they will
have more support four more video formats that today that even i some day can leave both Windows and MacOs behind myself and start editing in Linux.

68 Pierre March 4, 2011

David,
Nice, balanced post. Like you I do a lot of video editing. We frequently need to mix/ dub sound from another video source onto the main video file and eventually found a piece of software that does it exceedingly well. So we gravitate to what becomes our bench mark.

I am a long time ‘nix user, but let’s face it, when it comes to multimedia software, especially video cutting/editing/dubbing software, there is nothing that will do the job reliably, intuitively at a semi-professional or professional level. I think the main word is “intuitively”.

So Windows it is.

69 Laurel L. Russwurm March 4, 2011

Oh Pierre, you’re kidding, right? Windows?

I’ve used video editing software in Windows, and there is *nothing* intuitive about it. All of the software programs I’ve used are so loaded with DRM that trying to burn your home movies to DVD is a an adventure, often in futility. One of the commercial “home use” software package I bought was fairly intuitive, but the DRM made it incapable of burning DVDs. My prime reason for wanting to be able to video edit is so I can put together home movie compilations for all the computer illiterates and senior citizens in my family. They watch movies on TV and can just about handle popping a DVD in. I’m tired of having some of my homemade DVDs work in Dad’s machine, but then refusing to play in my sister’s.

Coming from a film editing background I *know* how to edit, it’s just the tools I need to master. It should not be that hard. What’s finally pushed me over the edge is that the windows codec is broken (I have the worst lemon version of XP you can imagine) so that I can’t even see the images for the thousands of hours of video I have recorded with my Canon camera in the premium video editing software available for Windows But I can’t replace the codec because Windows thinks it works, so it won’t reinstall. Which is too bad because I slaved to learn that bloody commercial editing software that cost a bomb and got quite good at it. But intuitive? No way, Pierre.

(BTW, I *know* my images are still intact because I can watch them on VLC.)

If I was willing to continue using commercial ransomeware, what I would be doing right about now would be switching to Apple, because apple video editing does everything you need and it works. Every time over the last few years I’ve asked anyone who has made their own professional looking video what software they used, the answer is ALWAYS Apple. I know somebody who mailed all of his original home movies (we’re talking film here) to Europe so a relative using Apple could make them into DVDs. But Apple’s too busy turning into big brother for my liking, so if I have to start over, I’m migrating to Linux. There is no point in struggling to learn something new and even get good at it only to have control of your work wrested from you by corporate controls.

I’ve twiddled around with a few of the programs mentioned here but they all seem horrifically counter-intuitive. That is to say, I could not figure them out. (and I have the strong motivation of a soccer team clamoring for their annual ‘best of’ movie.) Windows might be f#2%ed, but Apple is downright frightening these days. Free is more and more the only way to go.

Someone I know just suggested Pitivi, so that’s the next one I’ll try.

70 Pierre March 4, 2011: You’re missing the point; ‘nix has its place. Our servers run on it. My netbook runs it. My web development is done on it. Our databases run on it. But I don’t have time to “try” this bit of software or that software for video editing in the hope that it will provide the magic bullet. In any case, as I have stated elsewhere, every video editing program I have tried on linux has one or more severe failings in respect of the things I need to do. Attempts at creating robust video editing software on linux are, IMO, amateurish.

The point is, I make some of my income from editing video files. They are an important part of our business’s value adding strategies. So I don’t have time to experiment. I need something that works and is easy for our staff to master. Windows and Mac software does and, like most businesses, we’re happy to pay the price so that we can get on with the job. BTW, the package we’re using costs less than $100.00 per seat, has easy to understand configuration and user settings, is easy to master, makes editing, cutting, dubbing a doddle. It also batches files for rendering (from the GUI). it is reliable and robust, comes with excellent support and the authors have been quick to respond to requests for new features. It is also written to actually run in a multitasking environment so we can do other things when video files are being rendered. Linux authors, take note.

Also, to really get me going, why doesn’t linux to USB 2 speeds properly, It’s a real pain pulling video files off cameras at < 1MBps. If you don't believe me, google "Slow USB Linux".

'nix on the desktop has a way to go yet.

Nevertheless, when you find the elusive, easy to use video editing software that has the features I mention, that doesn't crash, or at least when it does crash recovers files the user was working on, that doesn't need constant tweaking using the shell, that has reasonable, non obfuscated documentation in understandable english, please let me know. I will buy you a beer and the software without hesitation.

Cheers

Reply

71 Douglas E Knapp March 6, 2011

Have you tried Blender 2.5? Yes, it too takes some learning and can be funky but I know of no other software with its power and ease of use once you get your head around the blender way.

72 Pierre March 9, 2011

Just as an example to show how badly we are served with creative multimedia software on linux:

I have 12 images and 2:30m audio (mp3). I want to create a simple slide show with cross fade transitions. The slide show duration must match the music duration. In windows or the mac, pick your software. I’m using MemoriesOnTV, but WIndows Movie Maker or NeroVision of MPEG video wizard will do.

16:9 aspect, PAL. mpg 720p
Drop the image files on the time line
Drop the music file on the audio time line.
There’ll be a menu option to sync the slides and music. Do it
Select transition, Apply to all.

Time taken, less than a minute,

Render!

Now, show me software on Linux that does that without going crazy trying to work out whether or not the required functions exist and, if they do, where has the programmer hidden them.

Good luck.

73 Joe March 11, 2011

>Just as an example to show how badly we are served with creative multimedia >software on linux:
>
>I have 12 images and 2:30m audio (mp3). I want to create a simple slide show >with cross fade transitions.

To turn your example upside down…

Yes, windows movie maker wizard will do what you are looking for. Just as MS Paint is the simplest, best program to open a picture and change 1 pixel.

But what happens when you want to change more than one pixel? You could do fantastic effects in MS Paint one pixel at a time, but Photoshop or Gimp are the right tools for complex jobs with pictures.

To go to your example, what happens when you want to do more than a simple powerpoint slide show? For example, if you want to pan over your images, zoom out, flip a newspaper page to the next image. Or you want to project your slides onto a cube, and rotate the cube for the next image. Or you want to do a professional title sequence.

You can’t do that with movie maker or even imovie. But you can with Blender.

74 Pierre March 11, 2011

Joe,
You’ve offered the classic Linux Defence;

The argument is that software on other OSs is easier to use, faster, more reliable, more productive.

Linux Defence: Ahh, yes, OK, if you only want to do simple stuff you need to use Windows of Macs, but for really complicated, sophisticated stuff that “puts you in charge”, use linux. “Puts you in charge” means, BTW, get ready for a long learning curve using google as your manual.

BTW, the software I use on Windows does all the stuff you mention easily and intuitively. AND it lets me compose that slideshow in under a minute.

Anyway, Linux for servers, Windows and Mac for desktop productivity. SImple.

Cheers

75 Joe March 11, 2011: This is not a Linux defence. This is classic user interface tradeoff on all platforms- its Photoshop vs MS Paint. MS Paint might look easy to use, but as soon as you want to do anything outside its scope, it is quickly extremely difficult and frustrating- it would take an expert to do anything complex with it. Photoshop looks like a huge learning curve for my mother, but it is the best app out there for photo editing. After some practice, novices can do powerful things with Photoshop.

Similarly, Maya, Avid, Piranha, Nuke, Softimage, Fusion, Smoke and an enormous host of other film editing systems are complicated, but they are the defacto industry standards. And they all run on Linux. In fact, almost everything a high end studio does for film will on Linux, and it is the platform of choice for many of them.

Your statements are simply misinformed and incorrect.

Reply

76 Ed March 13, 2011

I am with Stu.

and partly with Paul. The classic argument is always ‘yeah, if you want to do things easy, you should not be in Linux’

That actually is a big argument against Linux and it is undeserved. My 10 year old uses Linux and I am using both. Windows easier in one aspect and linux easier in another aspect. I guess it is mostly what one is used to.

The big plus of Linux is that if something goes awry in Windows I easily think: “and I had to pay xxx f@3king euro’s for that junk”, whereas if something goes bad in Linux, I think: “So what, it is free”

77 Mike Hunt April 4, 2011: “if something goes bad in Linux, I think: ‘So what, it is free’”

It’s not free, it costs in time. Unless of course you deem your time to be worthless. I sure don’t. I’d rather put the $$$ up front and buy software that I know will work.

Windows apps that work:
Adobe Premiere
Sony Vegas

Reply

78 Mike Hunt April 4, 2011

I use Adobe Premiere because none of these packages will work properly. They all have show stopping bugs – most don’t even compile or run properly.

79 Andrea Logan April 22, 2011

I’ve been looking for a replacement for Avidemux for a few weeks now as it won’t fire up on my pc.
Thanks for this list, you’re a godsend.

80 Terry May 15, 2011

I would not recommend Cinelerra, it can’t open any format with out errors, its very buggy
Does not do it for me

81 Saeed Firouzi May 16, 2011

An excellent guide and resources for anyone trying to start editing, and publishing videos. I have used few of these to achieve my video. I use Kino to capture, sometimes Kdenlive to slice( No I know how to do it in cinelerra), and finaly use the cinelerra for the rest of the editing, up to encoding. if they asked me what I wish for for my birthday, I would wish for the Kdenlive to be as powerfull as cinelerra, as it is so logical and easy to use. To me most are buggy, but at the end I managed to edit, and put my composition on Youtube. Check it out. Itś all been done with Linux.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClSdmJa9pL4

82 Saeed Firouzi May 16, 2011

For those who write -ve about all these free GNU software I give 2 solutions, and I hope this will help them.
1/ Become so good in programming, and then help the team.
or use it and report the bugs
or alternatively
2/ Purchase Adobe premier (Itś not that expensive!) if you are rich enough.
I have not used premier fully, but I can say that windows move maker is like a pre-school toy against any of these free software.
If people who use these software help a few pounds, once in a while when they can, I am sure more people can be employed to sort out the bugs. To those people who complain, I put one question forward. Have they donated 1 pence to any of the GNU software?? 10 thousand pence=100,000 pounds

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