this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2024
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Windows Movie Maker used to be good enough, but for a while now it won't load mp4's anymore and I can't be bothered to try and fix it, and I'm really hating the online editors I've tried, so it's time to download some software!

Seriously - nothing complicated, at most I'm snipping clips to size, or cutting something out, so I need an easy to navigate preview and simple cutting tools, I can't even name any other editing action beyond "mixing" which I don't even intend to do, so you get my level haha

TIA!

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

For your use case, I'd go with LosslessCut as opposed Shotcut, Openshot, etc.

The reason being that it is much simpler and faster to use, and generally results in smaller filesizes because you aren't having to re-encode from scratch.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago

Faster does appeal, I'll give it a look, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Nice. I should get that. I barely edit videos, but it's almost always just simple cutting. Not losing quality and increasing file size to reencoding would be great.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Always worth mentioning the free version of davinci resolve. It's feature complete for your described needs, doesn't hassle with things like watermarks, and the tools are great if you ever need to step up to something a little more robust.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I do like da Vinci but:

  1. It requires a GPU

  2. It's way more complicated than I need. I pretty much just want something to cut up a video and maybe add some nice graphics. Bonus if it has a way to align and replace external audio tracks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Kdenlive can auto-sync audio tracks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

You can set one audio track as a source and have a second similar one auto-align with it. Right-click the audio track in Kdenlive's timeline and you'll see these options.

The way I use it is:

  1. Record video on a phone
  2. At the same time, record superior audio on a microphone
  3. In Kdenlive, load both project files and align the mic's audio track to the phone's inferior audio (which you first designate as the source)
  4. Delete the phone audio and splice the remaining material

It's been incredibly helpful for me to the point of donating to the dev team.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yes I'm going to make good use of this. I use LosslessCut and KdenLive to produce my podcast.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The L is lowercase, FYI, or else you may as well go all out with "KDENliVE" (KDE Nonlinear Video Editor).

Anyway, what can LosslessCut do that Kdenlive can't?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 months ago
[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

OpenShot may be the closest equivalent I can think of to WMM. Either that or Kdenlive (which can be pretty complex).

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Kdenlive looks entirely too overwhelming for me lol, but openshot looks perfect! Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 8 months ago

This is what I use for clips that I need to upload to friends. The Windows Xbox DVR saves the last 3 mins of gameplay, but I only need 15-30s of it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

@[email protected] What was your final choice?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Avidemux is very basic, if a little unintuitive

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I remember having used Shotcut many years ago

[–] [email protected] 4 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Shotcut is amazing I still use it for work on a daily basis.