Do all video editors in Linux suck?

[PayPaul]

I've been trying VLMC, VideoLan Movie Creator. I can't seem to make the clipping work on this .mov file. If the filetype was wrong for this program why isn't there any documentation on that fact? It also doesn't have any visible way to see the project preview. VLMC has an effects menue but there's also no apparent method for using those effects. What sucks most of all is the lack of documentation on this and some other open source programs like Pitivi, which is pitiful. See screenshot below of VLMC.

[PayPaul]

There is a good video editor called "Cinelerra ( http://cinelerra.org/ )" which works fine, and has very advanced stuffs.

I do love it how this is only available through source code. Oh, and they say it may need some "tweaking". Here's what they admit about it:

"Downloads have no support or warranty and are not community approved. Linux derivatives have become so unstable, don't be surprised if your compiler is incompatible & the source code requires some tweeks."

Yuck!

I haven't had much luck with building from source code. My experience has been with programs that are either old, buggy or always have some dependencies that need to be searched for. Can someone provide me with a step by step instruction on installing this. I see also that it is a non-supported program so I anticipate some error message about it being harmful.

Update: Went through the instructions both provided by the README file and in the terminal. This is what occured:

paulw@ubuntu:~/Cinerella Video Editor/cinelerra-4.3$ ./cinelerra
bash: ./cinelerra: Is a directory
paulw@ubuntu:~/Cinerella Video Editor/cinelerra-4.3$ r ./cinelerra
The program 'r' is currently not installed.  You can install it by typing:
sudo apt-get install littler
paulw@ubuntu:~/Cinerella Video Editor/cinelerra-4.3$ sudo apt-get install littler[sudo] password for paulw: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following packages were automatically installed and are no longer required:
  libkresources4 libkldap4 kipi-plugins libksane0 kipi-plugins-common libkipi8
  libmarblewidget11 libakonadi-kmime4 libgps19 libakonadiprotocolinternals1 libkexiv2-9
  mysql-server-core-5.1 digikam-data marble-plugins libqjson0 akonadi-server libmicroblog4
  libkabc4 mysql-client-core-5.1 kdegraphics-libs-data libkcal4 libkimap4
  libmailtransport4 libkmime4 kdepimlibs-kio-plugins libakonadi-kabc4 libkpimutils4
  marble-data kdepim-runtime libakonadi-kcal4 libkdcraw9 libakonadi-kde4
Use 'apt-get autoremove' to remove them.
The following extra packages will be installed:
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ldconfig deferred processing now taking place
paulw@ubuntu:~/Cinerella Video Editor/cinelerra-4.3$

So far I don't see the program in Applications. I have no idea what it means when it says? "ldconfig deferred processing now taking place"

Maybe it will show up later today?

[WasMeHere]

TRY OPENSHOT. Someone suggested this already. Its developing fast, got lots of good reviews in the Software Center. I had one look at it and worked out how i could do really easy video. I think. There are'nt very many others that seem to have nasty surprises, they just haven't heard of it.

+1

For an amateur like me OpenShot can do what I need: editing and file conversion. I have no problems with it. And it is in the repos.

Have fun
Olle

[chriswere9]

The short answer is yes. I've found every video in Ubuntu to be really buggy. Basically video editing is a very advanced piece of software. Incidentally I have a very fast computer and all proprietary codecs installed and they're all really buggy.

It would be nice if you could buy video editing software for linux, but I don't think you can. And if you could the encoding codecs for Ubuntu are buggy themselves.

Unfortunately as much as I love Ubuntu, when it comes to video editing I spend more time working out bugs than I do video editing. Windows and MacOS trump Ubuntu on this one.

[gppixelworks]

I have been trying to do some fairly basic video editing and basically every different editor I try either does not work, or crashes. I have tried Open video editor, Kino, Kdelive, Pitivi, Blender, and a few others I have deleted and cant remember.

I had to chuckle upon reading the subject to this thread. I've asked myself the same for the last 3+ years.

Yes, there are some consumer style video editors available. I've been brought up using Avid Media Composer along with FCP and Vegas. Needless to say after cutting on several professional NLE packages, the (public) offerings in Linux don't cut it. (pun intended)

I've been using VirtualBox to run 'proper' editing software. Had been able to run an earlier version of Avid Media Composer OK on VirtualBox but after a year or so started having problems which I think may have been due to changes in Virtualbox (I never upgraded Avid during that time).

After that I've used Sony's Vegas which runs well under VirtualBox. Currently using v10. Don't know about v11 as I will not be upgrading due to the very soon to be released Lightworks.

The Linux (and Mac) version of Lightworks will be free. Lightworks is a true professional NLE system which has been around for a couple decades. Until the last year or so it's only been available with specific hardware.

Lightworks has had a many feature films cut with it. 'The Kings Speech' is one that I recall off hand.

In any event, I highly recommend Lightworks and it's well worth the wait until the Linux beta version is released. Check out the Lightworks website for more information on a true professional NLE for Linux. It's currently in alpha for Windows platforms (I didn't get it to run in VirtualBox).

Enjoy!

[RedRat]

I found this thread interesting and agree that virtually all the Linux editors suck big time. However, these are buggy because of the nature of people writing open source (OS) programs. Face the fact, big companies like Adobe and their video editors that are proprietary, have big programming staffs who are paid to write code. In order to sell their editors, those programs have to be very good for the average or intended user. If they ain't good, they don't sell and the company goes out of business.

Unfortunately, too many OS programs are first conceived and then written by maybe one or a handful of programmers who do it to solve an immediate problem. Then pass it along (bugs and all) out to the open source market where it is usually given away free. When bug reports do make it back to the authors, they try to fix them as best they can but they are operating on their own time, they ain't getting paid to resolve the bug. They do it as their time and interest provides.

Don't get me wrong, there are a lot of great OS programs out there in the Linux world. However, I have not seen too many video editing programs that are that easy to use. I ran into this when I wanted to edit some HD video I shot of my grandson. Same travails as reported here by most responders. Good Luck on finding a good program.

[tgerbert]

I'm surprised only one person thus far has made any mention of Lightworks...I'm gonna throw in my recommendation for Lightworks too.

I've played around with it a bit under Windows and am extremely impressed, and found it to be incredibly stable, though lacking support for more than a handful of codecs (some kind of legal issues there particular to the Windows alpha).

At any rate, I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of Lightworks on the Linux platform.

[sgtGarcia]

Most of the time I use KDEnLive ( Quite good for non-pro user like Me ) & Cinelerra/Cinecutie ( mostly for testing ).

As for Lightworks:

I'm surprised only one person thus far has made any mention of Lightworks...I'm gonna throw in my recommendation for Lightworks too.

As You see for yourself:

At any rate, I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of Lightworks on the Linux platform.

Lightworks IS NOT YET AVAILABLE for Linux. So to be precise it isn't Video Editor For Linux YET

At any rate, I'm eagerly awaiting the arrival of Lightworks on the Linux platform.

Well, I'm waiting for it too & We are not the only one

[SirWeazel]

I'm surprised it took 3 pages before the mention of lightworks, but sadly it's not released yet. I was/am hoping to read a post by some lucky person who has had the chance to preview the alpha/beta build that is still not publicly released yet

Anyways, I'll be watching this thread because I have a talented young brother inlaw at video editing, but who is also talented at getting the latest windows virus,malware,toolbar,ect. (despite all education and preeching on what to/not do)

[tgerbert]

...just for clarification's sake, it has been released, just not for Linux. I did try running it with Wine, no luck as of yet (I haven't put too much effort into making it work, but I expect it won't work too well if at all); I haven't bothered to try a VirtualBox yet, but I'm not too sure I see much point in that (at least for me, since I've still got a Windows partition I can boot to).

I'm surprised it took 3 pages before the mention of lightworks, but sadly it's not released yet. I was/am hoping to read a post by some lucky person who has had the chance to preview the alpha/beta build that is still not publicly released yet