In the past decade, video has become the most ubiquitous method of communication on the Web. Video clips are used for pretty much anything, from short software tutorials to hours-long live online gaming streaming. In some cases, the use of “moving pictures” might not be the best communication medium, but there is no denying the popularity of the video in everyday life.
This makes video editing software quite practical, for techies and ordinary people alike. If you require functionality that goes beyond the built-in features in whatever application you may be using, then you will want dedicated video editing tools. Let’s have a look at some rather nifty software that can turn your raw footage into elegant cinematographic cuts.
We have already seen ShotCut in action – as part of the tutorial on how to make compelling videos. There, we went through the linear process of a movie creation, from capture to audio manipulation, cover art styling and subtitles, to the final cut rendering.
In the tutorial, we used ShotCut to assemble the different media clips and create the for-audiences version of our project. ShotCut has an impressive list of capabilities, including multiple tracks, transitions and effects, live preview, 4K resolution support, and can natively play a wide range of audio and video formats. You can also use screen, webcam and audio capture, as well as network stream playback. Lastly, ShotCut also has a simple interface, and it’s relatively easy to use.
The real-time kernel, first included with Ubuntu Studio 8.04, was modified for intensive audio, video or graphics work. The 8.10 Ubuntu Studio release lacks this real-time kernel. It has been reimplemented in the 9.04 Ubuntu Studio release and stabilized with the release of 9.10. 10.04 Ubuntu Studio, in contrast, does not include the real-time.
Blender is a full fledged 3D content creation suite. You can create 3D models and animate scenes. Blender also has its’ own game engine and is vastly expandable. The real-time kernel, first included with Ubuntu Studio 8.04, was modified for intensive audio, video or graphics work. The 8.10 Ubuntu Studio release lacks this real-time kernel. It has been reimplemented in the 9.04 Ubuntu Studio release and stabilized with the release of 9.10. 10.04 Ubuntu Studio, in contrast, does not include the real-time. Editor's note: Be sure to also check out this updated 2018 look at the state of video editing on Linux. I often ask myself what the current state of video editing is for free and open source software (FOSS). Here are my thoughts. If you looking for video editing software that has more features, this is the answer. Lightworks is a cross-platform professional video editor, available for Linux, macOS, and Windows. It isaward-winning, professional non-linear editing (NLE) software that supports resolutions up to 4K as well as video in SD and HD formats.
Another option for video editing is Kdenlive, developed by the KDE community. It’s a free, open-source editor, and offers native support for a large number of formats, multiple tracks, effects, transitions, title creator, audio and video scopes, and live preview. You can also download additional render profiles and title templates directly from the application’s interface, which make the user experience more streamlined.
Kdenlive also features hardware-accelerated playback – but not rendering with the default version of MLT available; however you can use multithreading to shorten the time it takes to create the final video cut. You can also live capture video from the webcam and the screen, as well as audio from detected devices.
OBS Studio is software designed for capturing, compositing, encoding, recording, and streaming video content. You can capture content from a range of audio-video sources, including peripherals like gaming platforms, webcam, screen or individual applications, and others. From version 23.0.0 onwards, the snap also comes with support for nvenc and VAAPI hardware accelerated GPU encoding – which can greatly help speed up any required processing or rendering.
The application comes with lots of useful features, including per-source filters and mixing, an unlimited number of scenes, scene transitions, scene preview, and multiview – the ability to see up to eight scenes at the same time. The usage is model slightly less intuitive than say ShotCut or Kdenlive, but OBS Studio serves a somewhat different purpose, primarily live capture and streaming.
We have briefly mentioned ffmpeg in the linked tutorial, but it is a powerful, versatile tool, and it is often used as the backend video and audio processing engine by many different applications. Sometimes, ffmpeg is embedded in other software. You can always use it in standalone fashion, with the only “downside” being the command-line nature.
You do need to be somewhat familiar with the basic concepts of media processing, and often, you will need to make changes without seeing a preview first. But if you’re comfortable with these pre-conditions, ffmpeg is a trusted, reliable workhorse. The command-line nature allows you to include ffmpeg commands in scripts or scheduled tasks, so you can process media files when you’re away from the keyboard, or even remotely.
Sample output from ffmpeg.
This application does as its name says – it can be used to cut longer video files into smaller clips, but then, it can also join smaller clips into as longer production. Quite handy if you have lengthy video recordings, and you only need small (relevant) portions. It does not do any transcoding, so the actual cut-and-join actions are fast.
Back in mid-2000s, Handbrake rose to prominence as a handy [sic], capable video transcoder, which could be used to convert DVD content, allowing users to keep (smaller) backups of their movie library. Since, it has grown and evolved, and works with a wide range of media formats.
Handbrake supports hardware acceleration, batch conversion, and by default, can use pretty much any DRM-free format. You can output your media to MP4 or MKV containers, encoded as H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9 for video, Flac, Vorbis, MP3, AC3 for audio, and then some.
If you require more-than-basic video processing available in this or that application, there’s a range of editors available for Linux, with some rather impressive, high-quality features. Sometimes, getting started can be intimidating, and often, there can be no shortcuts; if you want to create an impressive video production, you will have to roll up your sleeves. Luckily, the software listed here can help you achieve that goal. Open source 3d text software. Most of the applications do have a friendly interface and reasonably intuitive workflow, which are critical for the first few steps in your media journey.
We appreciate feedback, so if you have any comments or suggestions, please join the forum for a discussion.
Photo by Sam McGhee on Unsplash.
Ubuntu desktop
Learn how the Ubuntu desktop operating system powers millions of PCs and laptops around the world.
Newsletter signup
OpenShot is one of the most popular free video editing software. It has many useful features and is very easy to use. It supports multiple operating systems like Linux, Windows, MacOS etc. Any user can easily create any video from existing audio, video and image files by using this software. The video file can be exported in various formats after creating it. Many improvements have been done in the new release of OpenShot software. The quality of the image generated by this software is sharper and better now. This free video editing software makes the video creation and editing tasks easier than other editing software.
After importing one or more videos, a user can easily change the background sounds and any custom text or image anywhere on the video. Unwanted portions of the video can easily removed by applying the cut tool of the software. The user can apply different types of video profiles to make the video with superior quality. The drag and drop features of OpenShot make the video editing tasks simpler. The users can also apply some special effects in the video using this which will make the video more attractive and interesting. How anyone can install and use OpenShot on Ubuntu are shown in this tutorial.
You can install OpenShot in Ubuntu by using three approaches. All these approaches are described here shortly. If you want to omit the installation process for using this software then you can download the latest version of OpenShot AppImage file from OpenShot website and run the software after giving execution permissions. This is the easiest way to use these software but some problems arise when you will try to use this software. The required audio and video files may not import properly or the software may not respond after start up. If you want to try this approach then go the following URL location and download the file.
Secondly, you can install the OpenShot by using PPA. This approach is more time consuming than the previous approach because it needs some time to complete the installation process. Unfortunately, the same problems of AppImage exist in this type of installation also. So these two ways are not recommended as of now although they may be improved in the future. If you are interested to apply the PPA approach to install OpenShot then you have to run the following commands from the terminal.
$ sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa
$ sudoapt-get update
$ sudoapt-get install openshot-qt
$ sudoapt-get update
$ sudoapt-get install openshot-qt
Thirdly, you can install OpenShot from Ubuntu Software Center and this software works perfectly with most of the versions of Ubuntu. The installation steps of this approach are shown in this tutorial.
Installing OpenShot from Ubuntu Software Center
Steps:
1. Click on the Ubuntu Software icon to open it
2. Type OpenShot in the search box to find out the OpenShot software. Click on the first OpenShot Video Editor software and click on the install button.
3. You have to provide the root password to start the installation process.
The software will be ready to install when the installation will complete successfully. How you can edit existing media files and create a new video content by applying different types of transition effects are shown in the next part of this tutorial.
Using Openshot Video Editor
After completing the installation, search the software by typing OpenShot in the dash home. Click on the icon to open it.
The following window will appear to create the video. It has mainly three parts, project contents area, track list and video preview area.
Import the required files to create the new video by clicking import file buttons.
A video, a audio and an image files are selected here to create a sample video.
Add three tracks by clicking plus button. Drag and drop the audio file in track 1, video file in track 2 and image file in track 3.
You can use the resize tool to change the content length.
You can use the Arrow tool to change the position of the content.
You can use razor tool to cut the video.
After cutting the video, you can separate the portion of the video and move the position of the video.
Add another video file in the project. Drag and drop it in the middle of the previous video.
If you want you can also overlap the portion of the video.
To remove the original sound of the video, click on the sound icon.
Video Editing Studio Free
One of the important features of this software is transitions. There are many transition options are available for applying in the video. You can select and apply your preferred transition at any place of the video. Drag and drop the transition on the desired part of the video after selecting the transition. Transitions will look like the following image after applying in the video.
Another feature of OpenShot is effects. You can apply various types of effects in the different portion of the video. Suppose if you want to blur some part of the video then you can select the blur effect and click on the video part where you want to apply the effect.
There is zoom slider in the right side of the window. You can use this tool to zoom in or zoom out the track parts for editing purpose.
When the video editing task is complete then you can create the title of your video. Click on the New Title… option of the Title menu to create the title of the video. Select the theme of the title from the top and set the name of the title file.
After setting the title and sub title text, you can apply other formatting for font and color to change the looks of the title. There is another button for advance editing. You have to install the lnkspace to use this feature. Click on the apply button to show the effect of formatting.
The following file will create after creating title of the video.
Ubuntu Studio Video Editing Softwares
If you want you can also create the animated title of the video. You have to click on New Animated Title… option from the title menu to create animated title. But you have to install a free open source 3D content creation suite named Blender to use this feature.
Apple update mac os x 10 7. Some others special features exist in the OpenShot preferences dialog box. You can open this dialog box by clicking preferences from Edit menu. To change the default view of this software you can change the different setting of the general tab.
Before exporting the edited video you can change the default profile for the video from the profile drop down list. You can do some advance profile setting by clicking on manage profile button.
There is another tab to enable the autosave options of the project. You can enable auto save two ways. The project can be saved before playback or after a regular interval.
When all editing tasks are complete then you can save the project by clicking the save project button from the toolbar or pressing Ctrl+S.
The last and important feature of this software is exporting video. Export Video dialog box can be opened from File menu or by clicking Export Video button from the toolbar.
First of all, you have to set a name for the project. There are two options to export any video. The video can be exported to the local disk or into a YouTube channel. So this software is very useful for those YouTubers who want to export the video immediately after editing the video. Next, there are two tabs for export setting. These are simple and advanced. In the simple tab, select the profile type based on the video type. If you want to change the previously selected video profile then you can change the setting of simple tab. You can use advanced tab setting for advance level audio and video settings.
By following above steps, you can easily use this useful video editor to do your regular video editing tasks with efficiency and without any cost.