Kdenlive Easy to use video editor for linux: Review [Install In Ubuntu, Fedora & Other Distros]

sohail -

If you regularly make videos for your Youtube channel or other video sites then you must try Kdenlive on Linux. Kdenlive is a free, open-source and easy to use video editor. It is available for Linux, Mac, and FreeBSD. If you’re a beginner to video editing then I’m sure Kdenlive will surely help you out. Let’s see how to install and use Kdenlive in Linux.

Kdenlive is an easy to use video editor. If you don’t know much about video editing then don’t worry you can do most of the professional-looking effects with Kdenlive in an easy way. I have used some other Video editors on Linux and some of them were really nice. I will be reviewing all of the nice video editors soon in my other tutorial. Well, after all of those nice video editors I found Kdenlive on top. There are few reasons why I found it better. Kdenlive is the easiest among all of the video editors I have used on Linux. Most of the main features are on the main editor screen that makes editors use most out of the app.

Bug Fixes

Comparing with other video editors I find Kdenlive is more stable. Where other Linux video editors may crash quite often, Kdenlive does not crash like others. The latest version has got great bug fixes. I used the last version which crashed when I started doing multiple tasks but the newer version is more stable. Honestly, there are still some tweaking to be done for crash fixes in Kdenlive too. 

Kdenlive: Features At A Glance

  • Kdenlive has multi-track editing with a timeline and supports an unlimited number of video and audio tracks.
  • Tools to create, move, crop and delete video clips, audio clips, text clips, and image clips. Configurable keyboard shortcuts and interface layouts.
  • A wide range of effects and transitions. Audio effects include normalization, phase and pitch shifting, limiting, volume adjustment, reverb and equalization filters as well as others. Video effects include options for masking, blue-screen, distortions, rotations, color tools, blurring, obscuring and others.
  • Ability to add custom effects and transitions.
  • Rendering is done using a separate non-blocking process so it can be stopped, paused and restarted.
  • Kdenlive also provides a script called the Kdenlive Builder Wizard (KBW) that compiles the latest developer version of the software and its main dependencies from source, to allow users to try to test new features and report problems on the bug tracker.

How To Use Kdenlive In Linux

Kdenlive is easy to use and I am sure that you will also find the same. You will not have to spend tons of time being familiar with Kdenlive. Let’s dive into this nice application in our Linux machine. First of all, start the application from a menu or dash in my case because I’m using Ubuntu for this tutorial. I’ve also used it on Linux mint 17.2 and no doubt it worked nice. Once you start the application, notice the familiar interface. Kdenlive interface is divided into many sections. Application is responsive, so you can move or remove the section(s) that you don’t want to work with.

Application Interface

The interface is divided into many sections. The menu is on top and then on the left you can make a note about the project. All loaded clips & videos are in the project tree, the second section. Third and my favorite section is the Effect list. I can apply many transaction effects on my video. You can always watch the project preview in the last section. You can create as many audio/video track as you need. This is impressive about Kdenlive. If you’re new to video editing then this is very useful. You can import multiple title clips inside video track.Remove/Adjust Sections

If you don’t want certain sections on the screen then you can simply delete them to make other sections wider. Just click the close button on that section and that section will be closed. As you can see below is my favorite layout. I have closed the project note section, removed unnecessary video/audio tracks and now I have enough space to preview my project and all other necessary sections are wider.

Create New Project

You can simply start a new project by clicking on New. You can set a project folder and project profile. There are several preset profiles. You can select what you want.

Cutting Video Track And Applying Transition Effects

Once you load a video clip into your project tree then drag and drop it into the video track. Remember this will not affect your original file, so you can make any changes.

The most important thing for a new video editor is that he often needs to cut some shots from the video.  Kdenlive makes that very easy. Click on tools from top menu and select Razor Tool or press ‘X‘ (ex) on the keyboard for Razor tool. Now move the pointer to the video track. The pointer will change to scissor and now cut the track wherever you want to cut it from.

Creating Title And Applying Transition Effects In Kdenlive

Most of the vidoes have titles, specially tutorials like below. Creating title in Kdenlive is also easy. From the project tree right click and Create Title Clip. This gives an editor. Write your title and format it with basic tools. You can also apply Blur effect and starting and ending animation to your title. Transition effects make your video more professional. There are many transition effects that you can apply to your video. Play the below video to know how to create title and apply transition effects.