Wishlist coming from VEGAS

Brainstorm
1

I’m trying to make the switch from VEGAS Pro to Kdenlive as I’m abandoning Windows in favor of Linux, but there are a number of small issues that are preventing me from doing the same kinds of edits. Hoping for some feedback on these to determine which should be made proper feature requests and how best to go about them.
Also let me know if I should’ve split this up into multiple topics. I wasn’t sure if spamming the forum with all of these individually was a bad idea.

1: An option to make the scroll wheel zoom the timeline by default.
There’s already an option to flip the Shift behavior for scrolling the timeline horizontally vs vertically. What I’d like is to flip the Control behavior so it zooms by default and holding Control makes it scroll. I zoom far more often than I scroll, especially because zoom can be used to navigate the timeline.

2: Some way to edit audio with sub-frame precision.
Ideally audio should be able to be positioned and trimmed at the millisecond level, as a single frame can be the difference between leaving something in that shouldn’t be audible, and cutting off what should be.
Something else that would help with this is the ability to zoom down to the level of one pixel per audio sample.

3: The ability to group and ungroup already grouped clips.
I’d really like to be able to select one or more grouped clips or tracks of a clip and either ungroup just those selected ones or put them into their own exclusive group with a single action. It’s inconvenient to have to ungroup the entire group and then manually shift-click every one I want to keep and re-group them.

4: A button to stop playback and return playhead to where it started.
When you’re trying to find exactly where you want to cut a clip, what do you do? Pick what seems like a good frame and play it from there to check, right? The problem is now you’ve lost that position. What would be nice is a button/shortcut to stop playback and return the playhead to its last position before playback started, so you can decide on the fly whether you want to pause where you are or watch that section again, without having to set up a zone ahead of time.

5: Some kind of raw clip view? I’m not sure how exactly this would work, but I’d like a way to see extra information outside the area a clip is cropped to, for timing reference. Perhaps an option so while a clip is selected on the timeline, the clip monitor could match the playback position of that clip?

6: Free audio playback from video performance.
Either independently thread the video and audio playback, or at least prioritize audio playback so it doesn’t crackle when the video can’t keep up. I can’t be constantly chasing crackles to determine if they’re actually in the clips or just coming from Kdenlive.

7: Automatically render to memory from the playhead while paused, so playback can begin instantly. I don’t know if Kdenlive has a full dynamic RAM preview system like VEGAS, but that might be too much to ask.

8: Add more title text outline modes.
Circular dilation and contour-matching outlines could be added alongside the current taxicab mode. The cut corners of the taxicab outlines are distracting at high widths.

9: Count the end of a clip as a “frame” for effects.
Currently the final position on an effect timeline is the start of the clip’s final frame. This means if you apply something like a fade out, it will be visually off by one frame from how it is represented on the timeline, and you need to extend the clip by a frame to get it to reach 0% opacity where you want it. Counting one extra frame at the end of a clip and allowing keyframes to be placed there for the purpose of interpolating to them would solve this.

2 Likes
2

Yes it’ll be nice to have them. :blush:

3

Hallo @Monody I also came from more than three years of Windows and Vegas Pro. It was a really hard time, everything was different, especially Linux. On Linux, Kdenlive was and is by far my best video editor. Vegas Pro can do 100 or 50 times more than Kdenlive, but it crashed at least as often. In the meantime, I’ve got very used to Kdenlive and I don’t miss anything anymore.

4: A button to stop playback and return playhead to where it started.Yes, I’ve always wondered why that doesn’t work. But with Vegas, I usually found it very annoying: I look at my project, let it run, find a spot that needs to be edited, click and I’ve already lost the spot. I like the way it is with Kdenlive much better.

But regarding your question: it would probably be better to address the issues individually. You’ll probably get clearer answers.

And my experience is: Take Kdenlive as it is, you can get on very well with it. If you want Linux the way Windows was, you’ll never be happy. It’s the same with the video editor.

And now a request to you: Stay with Kdenlive, people who have such precise requirements as you do the software a lot of good. You could make a big contribution to making Kdenlive even better.

4

Regarding your note on #4, VEGAS has both behaviors on different keys, which is incredibly useful. I regularly use both. That’s what I’d like in Kdenlive because as I mentioned it makes testing edits quick and easy.

Yeah I do plan to stick with Kdenlive. It’s just difficult at the moment because even ignoring the factor of having to learn a different workflow, there are some things( like #2 and #6) that are show-stoppers for me.

Thank you for the reply. <3

5

Thanks for giving Kdenlive a try and your perseverance :wink:

And thank you for the wishlist - there is good stuff in it. That said, may I bother you to create a wishlist item for each in the official bug (and wishlist) tracker bugs.kde.org? That’s the only way we are keeping tabs on this.

Let’s continue the discussion here about the pros and cons of the various features you are missing, or whether there are workarounds or simply a different implementation of them in Kdenlive (talking learning curve). As long as it stays cordial and healthy, that is :wink:

Cheers!

1 Like
6

I don’t think swapping the Control behaviour should be the default, as it would confuse and aggravate the hell out of new users - but I do agree that once a project gets past a certain size, zooming is a primary form of navigation around it …

I’m less inclined to agree that it can entirely replace scrolling - in which case navigation is still going to be a two handed exercise more often than perhaps it should be - so it would be nice to be able to mousewheel both in quick succession without the need for a modifier key.

That is one plus for the current Control behaviour - it puts you in ‘move around the timeline’ mode, where the wheel scrolls and dragging pans (as opposed to ‘move in the timeline mode’ where dragging scrubs the cursor and the wheel moves the space around it).

My usual pattern for big navigation jumps has been to flip between mousewheeling the zoom slider and the timeline - but that suffers from needing to move the timeline cursor to change the zoom focus point.

We do have those really nice zoomable sliders everywhere, so maybe a good answer to this would be to have mousewheeling on those zoom in and out too? Then timeline navigation (without moving the cursor) could also be a mix of mousewheeling on the slider and grabbing and sliding it - without having to choose between two things that can both be the primary mode you want most at different times in the same editing session.

7

Hello @Monody, hello @berndmj,
yes, I also missed this function very much at first, because I also came from Vegas Pro.
I had been looking for it for a while and couldn’t find anything. Is there really no function that can do this?

8

I’m afraid not at the moment. You can always press I to create an in-point, or use Shift+NumPad * to create a guide, start play, stop, and use Alt+left_arrow to go back to that in-point or guide (assuming there is no other snap point like a cut). But granted, that’s not as convenient as having one key to press.

Again, create a wish list item for that in the bug tracker …

9

If you create a timeline guide, then clicking on the guide flag does this with “one key to press”.

Using space or L to play and the mouse to ‘reset’ is a two handed operation, but chances are that’s where your hands are anyway and it’s pretty slick.

(not saying there’s nothing to improve, just what you can do today)

10

Hallo Bernd,
yes, so far I’ve used very similar tricks: I make an in-point with I and an outpoint with O, then I start playback with Ctrl+Space, or in continuous repetition with Ctrl+Shift+Space. This helps me to replace the desired function to some extent:
stop playback and return playhead

11

I don’t think swapping the Control behaviour should be the default, as it would confuse and aggravate the hell out of new users

When I said “by default”, I meant without holding any keys, still within the context of it being an option that would have to be changed in the settings. I respect that I seem to be in the minority of preferring this controls style. :stuck_out_tongue:

Using the mousewheel on the sliders defeats one of the main reasons to use timeline zooming for efficient navigation: cursor targeting. The behavior of zooming in centered on the mouse cursor’s current position on the timeline is what allows you to quickly find and jump to exactly what you want to focus on.

12

I think we’re agreeing with each other here, despite the word “default” doing its best “buffalo buffalo buffalo” impression in that way english is so good at :slight_smile:

My point was I’m not sure that you really are … Just that even if the majority of experienced users, and I’m including myself, think something like this would be great and fit well with how they often work, it would be too far from what new users expect UI knobs to do to not be an opt in thing.

I agree with this too - it was just the main problem I found experimenting with “zoom by default”, to see if I’d indeed switch it on and prefer it, is that the behaviour around the edges of the timeline can be awkward, and it doesn’t entirely replace scrolling. For getting around most efficiently, you still need both, which still makes it a two-handed operation whatever the default might be.

So I started trying to think of ways we might simply be able to have both without the need for modifier keys or large mouse movements to another target to select the other operation - and the slider seems like the most intuitive, even though it is a fairly small target.

This doesn’t have to be either/or though - we could do both without them being conflicting. Or someone might think of an even better way to provide this functionality.