Kdenlive has become great

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I would like to say a big thank you to the makers of Kdenlive.
The program has been running excellently for many months now. I am still using 23.08.5-1 and have practically no crashes (on Linux). Most of the bugs have also been fixed for some time now. All important filters and functions work flawlessly. This is really a reason to celebrate.
I’m writing this because it happens so often that someone reports a bug or can’t get to grips with something. It’s good to report all the bugs, but the positive things are often forgotten.

But the good things need to be said out loud.
We can all count ourselves very lucky to be able to use this valuable software. All Linux users can be happy, because Kdenlive is certainly the very best video editor on this operating system.

Once again, many thanks to the makers.

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Completely agree!

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It’s also great on Windows!

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Linux here too. This newbie thinks Gimp + kdenlive is a pretty potent combination. If I ever learn Glaxnimate, I might shake up the online video industry. Hah!

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I totally agree too.
To the list of great image processing software, we should also add darktable, which, in its field, has nothing to envy the leaders of the commercial market.

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While we’re at it, let’s mention other important and very good open source software: My video work is enormously supported by digikam. It allows me to view my recordings and add any annotations I want, even with MP4! That is extremely helpful.

Kdenlive has all the functions I really need. I really hope that the makers stay true to the quality they have now achieved and don’t let themselves be tempted to add countless other effects that might jeopardize stability again.

I would also like to point out: If someone needs the super-professional functions for their work, they will use DaVinci Resolve anyway and not wait for Kdenlive to implement them. Of course, the color-correction tools of the professional software are very appealing - but everyone who works with Kdenlive currently gets by without these functions and enjoys what Kdenlive can actually do.

What use is a video editor that can theoretically do everything?

I prefer the one that works reliably in practice.

Kdenlive - stay true to yourself!!!

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I’ve just begun my use with Kdenlive and I am nowhere near using its full abilities, but I’m very happy with the power and precision it is giving me. I’m using 24.02 and what really has helped me is the tooltips with the “press SHIFT for more”. With that, I can get a sense of what things do pretty organically. Thank you, Kdenlive team!

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I used to love Kdenlive myself. Now for months it just freezes.

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Hello @josys36,
please give us more information. Your problem is somewhat unusual. Please note that Kdenlive has become very stable for many people.
Tell us which operating system you are using the program on. And which Kdenlive version? And, of course, it would be interesting to know how you use it.

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I gave up on it. I posed the question here back in March and no one seemed to know what is going on. I finally found OpenShot and have switched to it. It’s at least working. kdenlive has been uninstalled.

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As a very minor developer, I just want to second this. We really appreciate getting feedback - to at least know that someone is actually using our work (not an issue with something as large as Kdenlive). Even complaints are better than nothing!

It’s so easy to download and install programs these days that most people don’t think about the developers at all unless they need help or want a new feature.

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Your the only one who is having that problem, its got to be your system (either your hardware or your OS). Do you have your video drivers setup in Linux properly. Also stay away from Fedora because it does not ship with proprietary firmware and that is a problem because for some hardware you need that firmware, this can render Fedora useless for some folks because they need those proprietary firmware that Fedora refuses to provide. I use Ubuntu Studio for my Linux installation. If you are having trouble with any other software and not just Kdenlive, then perhaps you should think about erasing your hard drive and installing Ubuntu Studio, it provides all the necessary drivers and firmware for most hardware and it ships with a lot of multimedia software out of the box including Kdenlive.

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Absolutely agree.
For windows 10, R7-5800X, NV-RTX4070ti, 64GB RAM it just works perfectly.
For linux (I use Arch) works flawlessly with AMD-RX7800 not with RTX GPUs due to driver problem.

Very impressive! Thanks to the developers. Very much!

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It is a big and frequent mistake in these forums to think that the one who reports an error is the only one who has it. This is not the case. Considering the low percentage of Linux users, let alone desktop users, and that of these, only a percentage will use Plasma and even less KDEnlive, if we add to this that not everyone who gets to try KDEnlive will know how to report bugs, or have the knowledge and desire to do so, and also do not speak native English, can anyone really say “Your the only one who is having that problem”? This would make for a serious debate. Just a week ago, I reported in a forum a problem with an application that - after an update - had problems exporting when the path had certain characters (and it worked before). It was very clear that it was a new “bug”. However, despite all the information and examples I provided, the incident was finally closed because they were not able to reproduce it.

Two days later, another user - from the tiny percentage that will use that application as an AppImage version - reported the same problem. I won’t say more about it, but I have serious open bugs in KDE bugs site and they are not solved because of “priorities”…

So please, let’s be serious about what we say. It is one thing if the developer is not able to reproduce the issue, it is another if it really exists, even if no one else has confirmed it. You cannot expect users to be unsolicited “beta testers” and also not make it as easy as possible for non-English speaking users to report bugs. You can be sure that I know casual Linux users who are not going to make life difficult for themselves if a bug appears when launching an application. They will think they have done something wrong and they won’t even know where to start to report the problem.

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Hello @Rafael_Social_User

First of all, thank you very much for your contribution. It can help to overcome misunderstandings.
Of course, not every statement discussed here in the forum is absolutely true.
There are always mistakes in our own thinking, perception and judgment - just as there are in everything that people do. And of course in every operating system and every piece of software. Who would deny that?

But what exactly do you want to tell us with your thoughts?

If you want to tell us that Kdenlive could have a bug, even if only one person reports it - then I’m right there with you.

I have been working with Kdenlive regularly for almost four years now and have experienced many ups and downs. I’m downright dependent on this program because I make videos and switched from Windows to Linux.

Very often I had problems because I didn’t understand the program well. Operating errors are often the cause of frustration. Sometimes a wrong setting crept in and I often didn’t know how to fix it for a long time. Reinstalling the program rarely helped, but resetting the configuration did.

Of course, I also remember great innovations after which almost nothing worked - horrible.

But everyone is free to pay for a video editor and have an administrator set everything up perfectly. But you shouldn’t be surprised if even expensive software causes problems here and there.

Back to your topic: If someone has problems, it’s never nice, not for anyone. But if someone simply can’t get Kdenlive to work despite all efforts on both sides, that’s very unfortunate. It’s just as unfortunate if we can’t get to the bottom of the causes. But it must also be mentioned that thousands of people use Kdenlive productively without having serious problems with the software.

Three and a half years ago, I decided to leave Windows behind completely. That’s why Kdenlive is so important to me - because I want to edit videos. And Kdenlive is excellent for that. Yes, no ifs, ands or buts: it’s very excellent.

And because Kdenlive has become so extremely reliable recently, it was important to me to open this topic in which I and others can express their thanks to the creators.

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I am sorry if it was not clear that my message was in relation to Doug’s assertion. Unfortunately, I have already explained that I have seen such responses on more than one occasion and they do not seem to me to be correct at all.

That aside, of course, my compliments to the KDEnlive development team, a tool with which I have developed numerous professional videos for various clients. Of all the video editors I know, it’s the only one that allows you to nest projects, and that’s something that very few people know about. It’s amazing. Unfortunately, I also recognise that despite the years, it is far behind Olive (also free open source software) in terms of performance. KDEnlive’s progress is so slow that it is overtaken by Olive in a very short time (and with only one developer). In KDEnlive, effects and transitions often didn’t work as they should and many of them have finally been removed (they should never have been incorporated if they didn’t work properly). I have also had unpleasant surprises when I have used more than 15 keyframes in some effects, losing all the ones I had inserted in an effect after KDEnlive failed. I have reported several failures over the years. The most recent one was about applying a “frame” around it (it doesn’t work properly and still hasn’t been fixed).

And it is for all these reasons that my opinion is that KDEnlive is a great promise, with a lot of work behind it, but the slowness in its development and above all its low performance compared to Olive, make me recommend the latter for large projects. Of course, this is my opinion based on my experience. Try Olive yourself with several tracks and many effects, and you will be surprised by the difference in performance without configuring anything at all.

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Hello Rafael,
Unfortunately, your message is still ambiguous. On the one hand, you emphasize the quality of Kdenlive and thank the creators. On the other hand, you name things that you can’t deal with at all. You also have the impression that olive is much better developed and much more powerful.

Perhaps you could think about how you really feel about Kdenlive.

Of course, I also try out olive from time to time, but it lacks very basic functions: Do you know if olive has an equalizer for audio and a compressor? These are essential tools that I can’t do without.

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It is not ambiguity. I am acknowledging the facts as I have experienced them. KDEnlive is a great development and has many good features. But it still doesn’t improve on something fundamental: performance. To date, in KDEnlive it is still impossible to work smoothly with basic effects with many keyframes with several layers. However, in Olive doing the same, it is really smooth even on basic equipment. And considering that Olive is still a BETA version and that only one person is developing it, I wonder why KDEnlive still doesn’t prioritise performance over other functionalities. It reminds me a bit of GIMP development, very slow, and years ago surpassed by Krita in functionalities being a younger application. What’s more, Olive includes NODES editing, something that only professional tools like DaVinci Resolve (which has a fully functional version for free but with limitations) have.

To be clear, the reality is that KDEnlive has fallen behind. When I found Olive, I realised that the performance was not a problem of Linux, but of KDEnlive.

As for the audio section, it is true that Olive only allows two effects - it is still beta - and that I suggested to KDEnlive years ago to add the “Auto duck” effect (which Audacity has) but finally it was not carried out (they suggested mixing with other effects to achieve the effect I mentioned). Since then, since KDENlive didn’t have the effect I needed, I apply the effects with other tools to the audio track and finally incorporate it. The result is what I want, regardless of what KDENlive or Olive offer me.

In conclusion: It’s not a feeling, I’m just stating the reality.

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It seems Olive is not dependent on other libraries or dev teams. Kdenlive uses MLT for all effects, filters and compositions. And as long as MLT doesn’t support or use GPU HW, Kdenlive is bottlenecked in that department.

Of course, one could debate whether using external libraries is a good approach and hence the benefits of all-inhouse development versus utilizing existing work, but I think this is really another discussion and moot in this forum …

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Yes, we should come back to the original discussion.

I have no problems if Kdenlive is not the best or second best video editor in the world.

But, importantly, Kdenlive is my video editor. I voluntarily moved away from Microsoft and deliberately denied myself access to proprietary software.
That’s what I want!
Just like Linux is not much better than MS in principle - but it has become 100% my operating system.
I’ve put a lot of work into it, which is why I now say: It’s mine!

And I had paid for Vegas Pro - but I wanted to use Linux and therefore Kdenlive. For me, it’s the best video editor I can use.
And I’ve made about 100 videos with it. They are all very short, but I have absolutely professional requirements that I want to fulfill. And I can.

It may be that olive will one day be very good, even much better. But at the moment, the young olive doesn’t offer me the possibilities I need for my projects.

Of course, it’s also a question of feeling. Or to put it briefly: I can afford to work with Kdenlive, even if I know that maybe once a year there will be a problem that prevents me from finishing a video immediately because the software is not working perfectly. Once again, I’m glad that I can afford this luxury. I am self-determined and I like feeling very connected to Kdenlive. Wherever I can, I try to support the team, which makes me very happy.

Big thanks to the Kdenlive team for letting me cut and edit all my many videos.

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