MP4 Video editor

[GregM]

Looking for an MP4 video editor for 18.04.
Simple stuff.
Trimming length.
Fade in and out.
Simple Titles and credits.

Nothing fancy.

Thanks
G

[Fred47]

Kdenlive

[GregM]

Doesn't seem to want to take my MP4 file.

[oldgeek]

I've used Openshot and Shotcut this past year.

[claydoh]

Doesn't seem to want to take my MP4 file.

Can you elaborate on this a little?


if kdenlive is not liking the file, then may need to look at the file itself, or what created it. mp4 is a very standard video format, and kdenlive fully supports it.


Maybe try a different tool such as Openshot (a bit simpler interface, imo), but if you are having problems adding a video clip to the 'project bin', in kdenlive, openshot may not like it either.
Also, you can get video info from vlc, and probably other video players, that shouls show video file codec and format info. Maybe whatever produces the video is using an 'odball' codec, perhaps?

Also, as you are using 18.04, I'd recommend trying out appimages for both Kdenlive and Openshot, the versions in the 18.04 repos are going to be quite outdated. Both have seen good improvements since 2018, and the self-contained appimages should include most if not all codecs, or at least have a set of codecs and ffmpeg that work well together.

[GregM]

When I try to open the file I get...

[GregM]

Yesterday I shot about 22 minutes of video on my Panasonic video camera which came out as an MTS file. It was right at 4gb.
I could not find any software that would edit MTS files. I tried a couple of converters to change it to an MP4 file.
The one that worked was VLC Media Player.
That converted it down to about a 400 meg MP4 file. It looks great when I play it on VLC.
That's about as far as I have gotten.
I just need to trim it and do a fade in and out. Maybe add a title.

It never seemed like it was this hard before.

[claydoh]

When I try to open the file I get...
[ATTACH=CONFIG]9217[/ATTACH]

Well, yes, an MTS video file is not a kdenlive project file. In most video editors, you have a project that you add clips to. Clips being video files. The project file holds all the info about edits, transitions, etc.,to be performed and is not a video file itself.


Once you open the editor, you have to add clips to it.






Then you drag a clip to the timeline





Openshot, and most if not all video editors on Linux work in the same manner.

Openshot has a UI that is a bit simpler than kdenlive

Pitivi and Shotcut are simpler alternatives, but I believe these still use the project sort of focus.

Both kdenlive and Openshot have a decent number of tutorials on their basic usage,
I favor openshot myself. Even if their own how-to series is a little outdated in the UI, they still helped me using the latest version.

this is a good short summary of openshot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeKRsMO_6Rw

Here is a full series of them from openshot's creator
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...hSwvoyZgLp1Q0T

[claydoh]

Also, openshot may support native MTS video clips, and I\ll wager kdenlive does as well, it is supposedly better to work on hi-res files, then render to what you want them to bne, resolution and quality-wise.

[GregM]

I'll keep trying.
Thanks for the info and your time.

[sithlord48]

You can do most of that with AviDemux. Don't be fooled by the name it supports much more then the AVI container

[GregM]

I gave up and went with DaVinci Resolve on a Win7 machine.
Thanks though.

[claydoh]

I gave up and went with DaVinci Resolve on a Win7 machine.
Thanks though.

Resolve has a native Linux version.......

[GregM]

I tried that version first and it had a bunch of problems that you would probably understand and know how to fix.
I didn't want to bother everyone and I got to worrying that it had a virus since it is free software which seemed to good to be true.
I deleted it and tried to download the Win7 version but I guess the download software looks at what computer you are downloading with and gives it what it thinks you need.
It was an ordeal specially since the download file is 1.6gb which I had to do several times.
So I had to plug in the Win7 computer (my graphics computer with expensive software on it) which I really resist connecting to the internet because of all the awful people out there that get off on destroying other people's computers.
It seems to be working now, but I guess we will see.

The other good part of this software is that there are many many Youtube tutorials on how to make it work, which I need.