{As is so often the case, I went on vacation, thinking I would finish this page when I returned. But when I got back, I had better things to do. And in fact, the need (or desire) to select (and/or use) a Video Editor had completely disappeared.
Thus, it is now six months later. And I am simply editing the words that I wrote way back when, so as to push that all important content to the web, you know, because that's what I do.
Note: as of this writing, both Shotcut and OpenShot are installed on my machine, while I deleted kdenlive due to incompatibility issues. Further, my final note indicates I should start with OpenShot if a need to edit a video file re-emerges, as I liked that program the best.
And now, having completely eliminated any need to read further, please let me introduce (call it a segue into) an article I wrote (or at least, the start of one), a mere half year ago, when the world was young, our heart's were gay (Hubba! Hubba! Hubba! Big Guy!), and a Video Editor seemed like something I might want to use.}
{Um, as I recall, kdenlive is native to linux. Whereas, I run Win 10. So, this OS mismatch is the likely cause of the error. But I don't really care the cause. I care that there is an error on Win 10, which is what I run.}
Shotcut
Shotcut is portable (works stand alone) and that is a big plus for me. I, also, managed to shorten (edit down) a video rather easily. Unfortunately, the online help seems to suck... or at least, I could not find the answer I want. And I could not figure out how to crop a video, keeping in mind that my terminology might be off, ideas not transferring as directly (or as easily) from still photography to motion picture photography as I would like.
OpenShot
OpenShot requires an installer, which presumably adds OpenShot's name to the path. The previous two programs did not (being portable zip files), which is why I tried them first. I failed at cropping my video (resizing every frame). But I like the layout. And I believe I got conceptually farther (and faster) with OpenShot than with Shotcut. Of course, there is an inherent advantage in going last, as I (hopefully) learn a bit here and there; and as such, have a better idea of what's going on towards the end of any project.
I should mention that OpenShot tried to
Phone Home, something that is just not going to happen on my system. And if I were keeping score (putting together one of those numeric ratings), even just the attempt to
Phone Home would count as a mark against.
More importantly, I failed (once again, across the board) at my intended task.
In Summary
- kdenlive
- Shotcut
- Looked like the early winner.
- But I could not figure out a simple (it seems like it should be simple to me) crop.
- OpenShot
- I managed to reduced the image within the movie (so crop it) but not the overall size (Width x Height) of the movie itself.
- Instead of resizing the movie, I have a large black area of nothingness, surrounding the crop.
- I want a new movie resized around the crop without any extraneous space.
The Big Brush-Off
And now, I am out of time and will be pushing my analysis of the two remaining programs several weeks into the future. Hence, this indeterminate (place saving) write up.
I believe OpenShot will win. And as such, I will look for an answer there first. But the final victor will be whichever program I can (more reliably) get to shorten a video and crop down the size, focusing on the item of interest.
Yeah, sure. I could do both of these things in ffmpeg. And both Shotcut and OpenShot utilize ffmpeg. But this is not the sort of thing I want to do on the Command Line... even if the Command Line is ultimately what this project is all about. After all, understanding the downside and limitations of the Command Line is every bit as important as being able to capitalize on its upside.