Kdenlive 24.02 open source video editor released

• mlt

  6 1,417 8.7 C

  MLT Multimedia Framework

  

I've used Kdenlive, Shotcut, Blender and Olive [1]. They all have strenghts and weaknesses, so I choose which one to use depending on what I'm trying to do, or sometimes I use two of them through a single video project.

One thing to note is that Kdenlive and Shotcut both use the MLT video editing framework [2] under the hood, so their capabilities and constraints are very close to each other's. That said, their UIs are their own and some things may be easier to do in one over the other, may be a matter of personal preference. AFAIK Shotcut is developed by the same people who built MLT, but I don't think that gives it any particular advantage. Also both of these apps have the largest ready-made effects toolbox out of the four apps I mentioned at the top.

Blender's VSE (video sequence editor) is great if you need fine-tuned 2D animations of elements because you can use all the same awesome keyframing tools you'd use for 3D animation, but it's severely lacking in other aspects, especially in the effects dept (you can crop, blur, mask, but not much else). For some reason you can't use Blender's compositor node system with video, which would enable many more capabilities if possible. There's also a steeper learning curve if you've never used Blender before because its UI breaks many conventions.

Olive is a newcomer that doesn't get enough attention, but IMHO it was at one point the most promising OSS video editor out there. Sadly the developer works on it on his free time, and he's recently said that he's pausing development because he doesn't have the resources to work on it any more. I'm really hoping a miracle happens.

There's two versions of Olive, 0.1 and 0.2 which is a complete rewrite. Both versions are good, but they work pretty differently. What got me excited about 0.2 is that its effects are node-based (unlike MLT-based editors which are stack-based), which enables far more advanced editing, although you probably wouldn't need that unless you're working on something quite ambitious.

1: https://www.olivevideoeditor.org/

2: https://www.mltframework.org/

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