Advertisement

You're blocking ads, which pay for BlenderNation. Read about other ways to support us.

[non-Blender] Open source video editor: Shotcut

22

I just came across Shotcut, a cross-platform and open source video editor. Builds are available for Windows, OSX and Linux. It seems to have an strong list of features as well as an active users and developers community. Has anyone tried this before? What are your experiences?

About the Author

Avatar image for Bart Veldhuizen
Bart Veldhuizen

I have a LONG history with Blender - I wrote some of the earliest Blender tutorials, worked for Not a Number and helped run the crowdfunding campaign that open sourced Blender (the first one on the internet!). I founded BlenderNation in 2006 and have been editing it every single day since then ;-) I also run the Blender Artists forum and I'm Head of Community at Sketchfab.

22 Comments

  1. I first came across Shotcut in 2014. It has matured quite a bit since then; at that time, I was editing in animating in Blender, compositing in Natron (which was also new at the time), stitching the sequences together in Blender's VSE from which a final, big image sequence would be exported and use ShotCut to export the image sequence to ProRes. ShotCut was the first open source editor that I'd noticed that had an option for ProRes as well as several other formats. At the time, the final ProRes file would be moved to the Mac for audio track inclusion. Although, I haven't used ShotCut in a while for anything other than outputting image sequences to ProRes (or DNxHD 90), it's been on my list of must have downloads every time I recondition a computer. It might just be time to knock the dust off of it for more than transcoding.

    • I disagree. Not every open source project has visibility as Blender does. I've been looking for open source editors (because I just hate the Blender built in editor) and I didn't found ShotCut. Nice to see stuff like this here. Spreading the word about other open source softwares not only helps people in need of those but helps to make the FOSS community stronger. Thank you Bart.

    • It is good place for non-blender-content. Every related to 3d graphics news are helpful for artists. I didn't know about this software and i will test it this evening. Thanks Bart.

    • > blender has build in video editor which is better then shortcut

      "Better" is highly arguable. What isn't arguable is that VSE has no maintainer, unlike Shotcut.

      That said, VSE is still my NLE of choice. But hey, I'm a weirdo.

    • They are really different, for editing video shotcut is far better, blender's VSE looks more like a layered compositing application to me, it's better than shotcut at handling image sequences, grading, animating effects. As an NLE look at Shotcut or Kdenlive, they are way better for that.
      That said, I like VSE a lot, it's just a very different tool.

    • I'm pretty sure Bart, the creator of this website and long-time voice for Blender and its community, knows what *should* and *should not* be here, better than most of us here. lol

      Though, I personally disagree with your notion. This software Shotcut benefits Blender users. This isn't some detriment towards Blender's built-in video editor.

      It's just a point that no one software provides every solution with the same focus, and Blender users can benefit from this software's dedicated focus towards video-editing.

      This isn't a contest, after all. Open-source software complement one another. And, at the end of the day, Blender users are generally about productivity.

  2. I moved from using Adobe Premiere to using Blender for all my video editing and I'm very pleased with my decision. That being said options are nice to have. Thanks Bart.

  3. Thanks Bart, I've used Shotcut a couple of times, in Elementary OS literally flies. By now I'm using Kdenlive, wich is a multiplatform open source video editor that feels intuitive and powerfull at the same time. Furthermore, effects can be keyframed, supports waveform representation of color.. and the interface is even themable!!

    https://kdenlive.org/features/

      • well, I'm running Kdenlive on Elementary OS Loki, so no direct experience about different environments. Windows packages aren´t that delayed, since last binaries are from 17.08.1 version, and currently the last stable version is 17.08.3. At the OSX side the road is more challenging, as far as I know a friend of mine went through downloading dependencies and compilling.. eventually the thing ended up well, but it took a decent amount of time and work.

  4. Thanks for pointing this great software,
    One years ago I've tested various OSS for editing, I found that shotcut has a very clean and professional interface.
    OpenShot and FlowBlade are missing this a bit, even if they may have better functionalities.
    Kdenlive is professional and has many features, but I prefer shotcut for simple and quick editing.

    At that time shotcut was missing a few things , the big one is that you can't animate effects parameters, so it's very limiting if you want to do more advanced stuff.
    Color correction append in 8bit IIRC.
    I was looking at a software where I can do finishing of 3D animations , like grading, final edit , so it was not the perfect match, better sticking to blender for that matter. But for a quick editing it's really a great software to work with.

  5. Great input all the way around! Bravo, Bart! You've started a dialogue. The main editors I've used to some length are HitFilm Express, Kdenlive, and Blender's VSE. HitFilm is limited only because it only works on Windows and MacOS. Kdenlive works on Windows (now) and Linux, BUT the flavor of Linux I'm running doesn't support Kdenlive (CentOS--because it's the main OS that supports Blackmagic Design's Fusion). Blender's VSE is capable and is available for every platform without question but sometimes I'd like to work on a dedicated editor. Lightworks (Free version) is limited to 720p among other things. The only other FOSS option outside of OpenShot and Shotcut for every system is DaVinci Resolve, but it (and Fusion) doesn't work without a 2GB dedicated card. Pick your editor of choice, add Natron (with the G'MIC and Community Plug-ins on Windows, Mac or Linux; on Mac or Windows, install HitFilm's Ignite Express--you won't be sorry) and Blender, and get to work.

  6. I just started with videos this year. The low end action camera I received didn't come with any editing software so I went searching for something to use. I found Shotcut and have found it to be fairly easy to use. Anything that I can't figure out on my own is a simple search away with many results as videos on YouTube. My aging laptop (circa 2012 and mid-range then) does struggle with rendering but that isn't the fault of the software.

    I'm no professional (videos will attest to that) but Shotcut should meet any amateur's need and it's free. Can't complain about that...

  7. We use to use shotcut at Pagewood Studios but we have switched to

    Kdenlive

    Kfenlive is way more professional in our experience. It would be good if blender and Kdenlive talked to each other along with natron and opentoonz as well.

    I do wonder if Blender could adopt OpenToonz Audio record feature for note takeing to give to artist for reviews and feedback plus scrtach tracks and video capture for animation reference and stopmotion.

    Kdenlive link: https://kdenlive.org/

  8. The more options the better, awesome idea to post this!

    Shotcut is really progressing well, with rock solid playback and excellent export presets it's awesome!

  9. I've used ShotCut before. It's been a little while though. I do like it a lot. I've heard Kdenlive compared to Sony Vegas... You could probably compare ShotCut to Premiere. I personally use Lightworks myself however.

Leave A Reply

To add a profile picture to your message, register your email address with Gravatar.com. To protect your email address, create an account on BlenderNation and log in when posting a message.

Advertisement

×