Making videos is not exactly my strong suit but it doesn’t have to be to enjoy it. Lately, I have been dipping my toes into the world of video content creation. Yes, most of it is into making videos as I haven’t really had the need. Recently, a need popped up for doing some video editing and I decided to give Kdenlive a try. You have to start somewhere and since many of the independently created shows out there use it, it is part of the KDE project and there are a LOT of tutorials on YouTube.
Keep in mind, I have some very basic needs, simply, chaining clips together, title screen and a little background music. These are extremely minimal requirements. The nice thing about Kdenlive is, it is easy enough to get going with it, but brimming with features to keep you dinking around with it continually and even if you have come to learn every feature the Kdenlive Project will come along and bring you an update.
Installation
Kdenlive is available in the main repositories for both Leap and Tumbleweed. To install the latest version for Leap, you will have to add the Experimental KDE:Applications repository. 19.12 is available in the official Tumbleweed repository.
To install it with the graphical Direct Installation navigate here.
https://software.opensuse.org/package/kdenlive
For Tumbleweed, in terminal
sudo zypper install kdenlive
And that is all it takes.
Impressions
Right off the hitch, Kdenlive is a great looking application, it has a clean and pleasant interface that is incredibly functional. I use a modified version of Breeze Dark, what I call openSUSE Breeze Dark. The dark screen with the green tones make for a comfortably openSUSEy for extended hours of work.
I have been using Kdenlive for about a year or so and it has been great since day one. I must make the caveat that I don’t do anything terribly complex in Kdenlive. I mostly use fades and dissolves. In fact that is my primary usage of it.
For one video, I rotated the screen 180° because I purposely recorded it upside down so that I wouldn’t crash into the camera with by big stupid nose. In retrospect, this video of the hard drive caddy was probably a waste of time to do because it is so basic and elementary of a feature to highlight on the computer, but it was a good exercise in learning the some of the other various features in Kdenlive.
What was handy and very quick to do were my Christmas light musical sequence videos. I recorded the video and added the music as a post edit. Kdenlive made it easy to do. I just lined up the flashes with the appropriate spot in the music.
Kdenlive really has made all these little things easy to do and they made it possible without having to spend loads of cash for a nonsense hobby that fills the little voids and white-spaces in my life.
Other Use
Kdenlive is a very capable video editor but I have adapted it for another use. I also use it for non-destructive audio editing as well. Years ago, when I worked in radio, specifically in sales, I did some audio production work for commercials. I used this application call “SAW Pro” that would allow me to import audio and manipulate it in a non-destructive manner. Since I don’t have that application anymore I needed to find another way to do it and it hit me, Kdenlive can do these things. I can’t exactly build the library of reusable clips in the exact same way, but I can come very close to it. I have been using this for my under-performing podcast production.
What I Like
Kdenlive is incredibly stable and reliable. Crashing is incredibly rare. I have spent many hours at a time editing and not once has Kdenlive crashed. In all fairness, it’s been hours of editing because I am not very good at it. I have used and rendered video on both my Dell Latitude E6440 and my “new” AMD FX-9590 system with out any glitching or issues. I am impressed by the stability and smooth operation of Kdenlive on openSUSE Tumbleweed.
The user interface of Kdenlive makes sense. The shortcuts, the ease of defining the effects and transition as well as previewing the video makes for an easy and enjoyable video editing experience. Even the scrolling across the timeline or through the tracks, all just makes intuitive sense.
The options for rendering videos or even just audio has a straight forward interface that makes it quite clear what is happening when you start that render. Also, when you start the render, you can continue to use Kdenlive. It does not lock you out of the application.
What I Don’t Like
The text editor for title screens is a bit ropey. The cursor indicator isn’t always visible so I often have to make special effort to get to the right location which includes some delete and retype from time to time. The use of it is not as much fun as the rest of the application.
Not so much a fault of the application but doing video editing really needs more screen real-estate. One 1080p screen is not enough. Not the fault of the application but it is hard to see and read everything going on without excessive scrolling.
Final Thoughts
Kdenlive is a great application with a lot more features than I know how to even use. I don’t do any complex video editing. I don’t have good video equipment so I don’t have a real high level of motivation to create a lot of video content at this time. You can only polish a turd so much and I am often not happy with the video I shoot. I am happy, however, with what I can do with the video in Kdenlive. It does make turning the lack-luster video into barely acceptable video content. Editing with Kdenlive is easy to use and is enjoyable to turn the mess I start with into something more usable. I would like to make more excuses to do more video content because the great user experience Kdenlive provides.
I have heard of people complain that Kdenlive isn’t stable, well, that is a bunch of hooey. Kdenlive on openSUSE Tumbleweed works fantastically well without any crashing. I am very thankful for fantastic packaging and QA process from the openSUSE Project and I am very grateful for every programmer that has had a hand in every piece of this, from the Linux kernel to the Plasma desktop to the application itself. Thank you for all your time and efforts.
References
https://kdenlive.org/
Kdenlive 19.12 Release
openSUSE Tumbleweed Download
Kdenlive Download from software.openSUSE.org
Dell Latitude E6440
AMD FX-9590 Workstation
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