Linux video editors frustrate me

So, I needed to make a quick screencast video over the last couple days. Since I’m running Ubuntu 9.04, I figured this would be a good chance to see the latest state of Linux video editors. Video editing is something I really never do, so I have no experience with these programs.

I did the actual screencast with recordmydesktop, which worked great. The only issue was that I had to record the sound separately, meaning I had to narrate my video after taking it. recordmydesktop did something strange with the sound it recorded, essentially speeding it up.

In preparation, I had already installed the latest version of Pitivi through the PPA’s, and after research I also installed Openshot through PPA’s. Pitivi is a nice little Windows-Movie-Maker-like program, but no clip transitions, effects, or title slides. So I headed over to Openshot, which does have those features, and I put together an intro slide, my screencast, and an “outro” slide with nice fade transitions. Of course, it wasn’t this easy, Openshot crashed every few minutes and even took my computer with it once. I learned to save even more frequently than normal.

Once I had a video, it was back to Pitivi to work with audio (I was tired of constant crashing). I finally got everything the way I wanted it, so I exported the video. Pitivi, by the way, was quite stable. After it was done exporting, I opened the video in my movie player and found that the sound was full of static. I tried exporting a couple different sound formats but couldn’t get rid of the static.

So, back to Openshot. I got everything the way I wanted it, and exported the video. I then found that the timeline in Openshot was wrong, so I had to go back, time things with a stopwatch, and rearrange my clips, transitions, and audio. This time, exporting worked fine and I had a video ready to upload to Youtube with good sound, etc. Of course, Openshot is still crash-o-matic.

Once I got it on Youtube, the sound went haywire. I have no idea why.

I’m going to retry with Evelyn’s computer and Windows Movie Maker. This should be a half-hour task and it took me the better part of a day.

I did download and try LiVES. It didn’t appear to have any problems but I was totally lost. I think maybe if I spent the time to learn it, it would work quite well for me. But I’m not sure that I want to spend time with it. Bah. I also couldn’t find a PPA for it, so I had to use a deb from GetDeb (this is fine, it just means that my system won’t keep it up-to-date).

Pitivi is just about what I want. They will be including transitions and effects soon, probably this fall, so I will be able to ditch Openshot unless it improves by leaps and bounds. But then, I still have a sound issue.

I know there are a million other options. There are more Linux video editors than you can shake a stick at. It would be nice if, instead of creating a new video editor, someone would contribute to one that already exists and make it better.

Quick update: I ended up going with my Pitivi video, the sound wasn’t that bad. I also lowered the audio gain a little, which may have helped slightly (but I think gain wasn’t really the problem).