March 25, 2024

Video - video editing

Whenever I think about video, my first thought is editing. Some people just put "as shot" video up online, but that is worse than mediocre. It is above all lazy -- either do it right or don't bother.

Youtube

I have yet to try it, but apparently Youtube provides some kind of browser based simple video editor. So don't rush out and spend money if your needs are simple.

linux

For any number of reasons, I would rather use my linux desktop as a video editing platform. It is too early to tell if this is a good, bad, or stupid decision.

OpenShot, Blender, and Vidcutter are recommended tools.

I am running Fedora 39. Openshot is available as a package, so "dnf install openshot" does the trick -- and pulls in Blender as a dependency.

Blender gets recommended for everything from 3D print design to video editing. I am wary of such a general purpose tool, expecting the "jack of all trades, master of none" to apply, in particular to video editing.

Vidcutter is a different story -- it is not available as a standard package, so rpmfusion or copr may be a possibility, or something else. This may be due to licensing and mpeg libraries. May there be a curse upon the people who license these libraries. We will ignore this package for now. There is a fedora package called "cutter", but it is a reverse engineering tool.

Other "FOSS" (free open source) tools are:

I have not yet taken time to look at any of the above.

DaVinci Resolve

Many recommendations are for DaVinci Resolve. An excellent free version is available. A significant downside is that it does not run on linux. If you decide you want DaVinci Resolve Studio, the price is $295, but many people say the free version is entirely adequate. The best option may be to buy the Speed Editor bundle for about $380 and you get their nice hardware controller, along with the Studio software. No watermark from the free version, but there will be a watermark if you use features that are only provided by the Studio version.

Adobe Premiere

I was excited about this, briefly. It is not included in my Creative Cloud subscription (what I have is limited to photograph). I hear reports that it is buggy, and nobody likes Adobes business practices. See the video on Hitfilm (below) to learn more about why you don't want to use it.

Adobe offers Premier Pro (any product must include "pro" in the name apparently, whether or not there is a "non-pro" version being offered). I had thought this might be included in my Creative Cloud subscription, but it ain't and there is no perpetual license available. A fellow I know who used to recommend it now says that he was irritated continually by bugs -- he now recommends DaVinci Resolve. To get this via the "cloud" would cost me $23 per month. That is $276 per year. For that money I could buy the more highly recommended DaVinci Studio and be done with it.

Other software --not linux or open source -- yet free to use (maybe)

You can investigate these: Watch the Hitfilm video and then avoid it. He says go with (guess what:) DaVinci Resolve or (to my surprise) Kdenlive.

VSDC is free, but only for Windows or Mac.

Another fellow I know (AJ) uses Vegas Pro, the main thing he said about it is that you can pay once and buy a perpetual license. There are several plans, at a price around $200.

Another fellow I know says he uses Filmora 9 (swest). I see that now Filmora is up to "13".

Their website is glitsy, tangled, and confusing. There may be a free download. There is also a $50 per year plan, or a perpetual license for $80. Maybe. The free download will put a watermark on the generated video.
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Tom's Digital Photography Info / tom@mmto.org