Freeze Frame feature request

I mostly work with tutorials and online courses. One feature that I found is lacking in Kdenlive is the ability to easily add freeze frames. With other video editors, you can simply right-click or press an icon to create a freeze frame. With Kdenlive, however, you have to perform multiple steps, or even create a PNG file, every time you need a freeze frame. This feature is essential for making tutorial videos, since you have to create dozens, or even hundreds, of freeze frames.

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I use “Extract Frame To Project” and then drop that in and resize as required, which has the advantage that it’s easy to re-use it multiple times. Is that how you’re doing it?

Or you can use the time remapping if you need more complex stop and start.

Hi Gary, Thanks for the reply. I ended up with dozens to hundreds of images per project. I never need to reuse these images elsewhere. This is very inefficient compared to other video editors.

Hi, Ron. Thanks for the reply. I happily use this method one to three times in a single timeline, but if you have to do this dozens or hundreds of times, you will appreciate the one-step methods provided by the other video editors.

If you’re really doing it that often, you can add it to your effects favorites or to the timeline toolbar as a ‘one click icon’. There’s also change speed which you can use to arbitrarily extend a single frame to almost any duration. Or you can just clip a single frame and ctrl-drag its extents to any arbitrary duration. As usual, there are many ways to do this, and which to choose entirely depends on the other context of what you are doing.

None of these things involve “or even create a PNG” or more work than actually specifying what you want.

Hi Ron,

When I mentioned creating PNG files, I was referring to the “Extract Frame to Project” feature that Gary mentioned. Not the time remapping effect you suggested.

For context: When I produce online courses or tutorials, I record the video and audio in separate sessions and then combine them using video editors. As you can imagine, I have to cut and freeze-frame the video many times so that it aligns with the audio.

In Premiere and Shotcut, we can simply move the playhead, right-click, and choose the freeze frame command. In Blender, we simply press Shift+K, and in CapCut, there is a dedicated button to instantly generate a freeze frame.

Yes, Kdenlive can create freeze frames using either the time remap effect or Extract Frame to Project. However, the former takes too many steps, and the latter uses too much storage space. I hope Kdenlive has a one-click solution like the other editors. Perhaps this could be added in a future release.

And in kdenlive you can simply ctrl-drag. Or one click in the toolbar to add the freeze effect.

As I explained above.

Will that freeze the entire clip?

As far as I know, in Kdenlive, you have to:

1. Zoom in.

2. Create the first cut.

3. Move the playhead.

4. Create the second cut.

5. Drag the effect onto the clip.

That’s a total of five steps.

In other editors, it’s only 1 step.

If I’m mistaken, kindly provide a video tutorial. Maybe I don’t understand certain Kdenlive techniques.

Sorry, maybe I explained it incorrectly. I don’t want to freeze the entire clip. I need to convert the frame at the playhead location into a freeze-frame clip. Basically, a new clip is generated and inserted at the playhead location. Other video editors do this. I can make a video showing how it’s done in Shotcut or Blender if you’d like, so you can see what I mean.

I checked it in Shotcut and know exactly what you are trying to do and that it’s really a click of the mouse in Shotcut. Please open a wish list item in bugs.kde.org.

Hi Berndmj, thank you for replying.

I’m not familiar with how to request a feature. But I will try.

It is described here in the official documentation :wink:

Bug Report and Wish List are the same, just a different importance …