In our previous article we had started to comment uA small list of useful programs for those who want to get started in video production. Our approach is based on simplicity rather than performance. They are programs that have a very low learning curve.
In this case we will talk about some of the titles available for video editing.
Open and simple programs to produce video
The video editing software tIt has the basic functions of cutting, joining, combining and separating audio, video and image files. The most advanced include the ability to generate titles and incorporate effects.
All of these programs are non-linear video editors. This means that the original audio and video assets on which the new videos are built remain unchanged.
Each time modifications are displayed or the final rendering is performed, what is displayed is reconstructed from the original sources and editing instructions specified by the program.
The other term we need to explain is rendering.
Video rendering is the process by which a computer applies a series of pre-established instructions to multimedia files. using that information to produce and display a succession of images with a speed such that the eye perceives movement. The rendering process may result in a file that is similar in format and content, similar in format or content, or modified in both categories.
A video codec is software that compresses and decompresses digital video. In the context of video compression, codec is an acronym for encoder and decoder.
The compression used by a codec is usually lossy, what when compressing the vido some information of the original video is eliminated. The consequence of this is that if the process is reversed, the uncompressed video will be of lower quality than the original uncompressed video because there is no way to recover the deleted data.
In general, video editors are limited to offering a user interface for the same open source frameworks.. These frameworks are sets of libraries for working with images, audio and video.
Two of the best known are:
- GStreamer: Built on the work of the Oregon Graduate Institute, it is designed to make it easy to write applications that handle audio, video, or both. This framework includes components to build a media player that can support a wide variety of formats, including MP3, Ogg/Vorbis, MPEG-1/2, AVI, and Quicktime among many others.
- FFmpeg: It is a framework for working with multimedia files that can be used to decode, encode, transcode, mix, split, stream, filter and play virtually almost all media formats. It is compatible with the old and the most modern formats.
Avidemux
This program is a non-linear video editor, whiche allows you to apply visual effects to the video and convert them to various formats. Avidemux gives us the possibility to extract the sound from a video file and combine it with another.
The application works with a project system, powered by a JavaScript engine called Spider Monkey. This allows you to save entire projects with all options, settings, selections, and preferences in a single project file. It is possible to create a work queue with several projects.
Most popular formats are supported for subtitle processing.
The program is present in the repositories of the main Linux distributions in addition to having versions for Windows and Mac.
Pitivi
Designed to be the video editor for distributions based on the GNOME desktop, it can be used with other environments thanks to the Flatpak packet format. It is not available for other operating systems, but it is found in the repositories of the main Linux distributions.
It boasts of being suitable for both professionals and amateurs and It has a very intuitive interface. Unlike other applications, editing is not based on frames but on the position of the playback heads.
You can work with all formats supported by GStreamer.
The best free and open source video editor for linux is SHOTCUT. It's light, fast, doesn't crash when editing large files. I came to that conclusion after trying about 10 different editors, each one more orthopedic, slow or full of bugs.
Of the simple ones, the one you mention is the best, but if you want something a little more professional in GNU/Linux you have to go to Cinelerra GG, which is the only free, free and professional option that users of the aforementioned OS have.