A simple and powerful video editor built using Qt with numerous features and that uses FFmpeg
What’s new in Shotcut 21.08.29:
- NEW:
- Added support for WebP export with presets for still sequence and animation.
- Added Properties > Measure Video Quality… using VMAF.
- Added a new video filter GPS Text (contributed by Daniel F).
Shotcut is a video editor that has a lot of very useful functions and is able to handle a large number of video formats. It’s also capable of exporting video files with various extension and everything is made possible by using the FFmpeg media framework.
Installation
The developers provide a source package for whomever is interested in compiling the software, but it’s also available in binary form. Users can just extract the files from the provided archive and run the application. No installation is necessary and all the major dependencies are present in the folders.
Some more specific dependencies might be required, like SDL, libexif, and JACK, but it varies from one distribution to another and users will need to check this if the application refuses to start.
Usage
The Shotcut video editor works pretty much like any other, meaning that you drop the video file and you get some basic editing functions out of the box. The difference is made by the tools that are implemented by default and that let users to do more than just simple editing. It’s a steep learning curve, but the possibilities are there.
Shotcut has support for functions like multi-format timeline, screen capture, webcam capture, audio capture, support for frei0r video generator plugins, deinterlacing, audio scopes, volume control, transcoding, batch encoding, OpenGL GPU-based image processing, HTML5 video source, video zoom control, trimming, 3-point editing, and more. This is just scratching the surface of what’s possible.
Conclusion
Even if Shotcut hasn’t been around for very long it’s already shaping up to be a very powerful alternative to the applications that are already present on Linux. Good video editors are always welcome on the open source platform and all of them have their specific niche. In fact, users will notice that some quivalent apps that can be installed, even on Linux, cost a lot of money. With Shotcut you can get everything you want and more.
