Introduction

OpenShot Video Editor is an award-winning, open-source video editor, available on Linux, Mac, and Windows. OpenShot can create stunning videos, films, and animations with an easy-to-use interface and rich feature-set. [image]

Features

Screenshot

[image]

System Requirements

Video editing benefits from modern, multi-core CPUs with fast clock speeds (GHz), large amounts of memory, and fast hard disk drives. Basically, you want the best computer you can afford when video editing. Here are the minimum system requirements:

TL;DR

Most computers manufactured after 2017 will run OpenShot

Minimum Specifications

License

OpenShot Video Editor is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

OpenShot Video Editor is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

Installation

The latest stable version of OpenShot Video Editor for Linux, Mac, Chrome OS, and Windows can be downloaded from the official download page at https://www.openshot.org/download/. You can find our latest unstable versions (i.e. daily builds) at https://www.openshot.org/download#daily (these versions are updated very frequently, and often contain many improvements not yet released in our stable build).

Windows (Installer)

Download the Windows installer from the official download page (the download page contains both 64-bit and 32-bit versions), double click it, and follow the directions on screen. Once completed, OpenShot will be installed and available in your Start menu. [image] [image]

Windows (Portable)

If you need to install OpenShot on Windows without Administrator permissions, we also support a portable installation process. Download the Windows installer from the official download page, open the command prompt, and type the following commands:

Install portable version of OpenShot (no administrator permissions required)

cd C:\Users\USER\Downloads\
OpenShot-v2.6.1-x86_64.exe /portable=1 /currentuser /noicons

Mac

Download the DMG file from the official download page, double click it, and then drag the OpenShot application icon into your Applications shortcut. This is very similar to how most Mac applications are installed. Now launch OpenShot from Launchpad or Applications in Finder. [image]

Linux (AppImage)

Most Linux distributions have a version of OpenShot in their software repositories, which can be installed using your package manager / software store. However, these packaged versions are often very outdated (be sure to check the version number: Help→About OpenShot). For this reason, we recommend installing an AppImage from the official download page.

Once downloaded, right click on the AppImage, choose Properties, and mark the file as Executable. Finally, double click the AppImage to launch OpenShot. If double clicking does not launch OpenShot, you can also right click on the AppImage, and choose Execute or Run. For a detailed guide on installing our AppImage and creating a launcher for it, see our AppImage Installation Guide. [image]

Linux (PPA)

For Debian-based Linux distributions (Ubuntu, Mint, etc…), we also have a PPA (Personal Package Archive), which adds our official OpenShot software repository to your package manager, making it possible to install our latest version, without relying on our AppImages.

Stable PPA (Contains only official releases)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa
sudo apt update
sudo apt install openshot-qt python3-openshot

Daily PPA (Highly experimental and unstable, for testers)

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/libopenshot-daily
sudo apt update
sudo apt install openshot-qt python3-openshot

Chrome OS (Chromebook)

Chrome OS supports Linux apps, but this feature is off by default. You can turn it on in Settings. Once Linux is enabled, you can install and run OpenShot Linux AppImages on any x86-based Chromebook. The command below will download our AppImage and configure your system to run OpenShot successfully.

Quick Tutorial

Using OpenShot is very easy, and this tutorial will take you through the basics in under 5 minutes. After this tutorial, you will be able to make a simple photo slide-show with music.

Basic Terminology

To help understand the steps below, here are some definitions of a few basic terms used in this tutorial.

Video Tutorials

If you prefer to learn by watching videos instead of reading, we have many official video tutorials that cover a wide range of beginner and introductory topics. These videos are a great next step on your way to master OpenShot Video Editor!

Step 1 – Import Photos & Music

Before we can begin making a video, we need to import media files into OpenShot. Most video, image and music file formats will work. Drag and drop a few videos or images and a music file from your Desktop to OpenShot. Be sure to drop the files where the arrow in the illustration is pointing to. [image]

Alternative methods to add files to your projects are described in the section Import Files. The “Show All”, “Video”, “Audio”, “Image” filters above the added files allows you to only see the file types you are interested in.

Step 2 – Add Photos to Timeline

Next, drag each video or photo onto a track in the timeline (as seen in the illustration). The timeline represents your final video, so arrange your photos (i.e. clips) in whatever sequence you want them to appear in your video. If you overlap two clips, OpenShot will automatically create a smooth fade between them, displayed by blue rounded rectangles between the clips. Remember, you can rearrange the clips as many times as needed by simply dragging and dropping them.

You can also shorten or lengthen each clip, by clicking the left or right edge and dragging your mouse. For example, if you want a photo to last longer than 10 seconds (the default duration), simply grab the right edge of the photo (on the timeline), and drag it to the right (to increase the clip’s duration on the timeline). [image]

Step 3 – Add Music to Timeline

To make our creation more interesting, we need to add some music. Click on the music file that you imported in step 1, and drag it onto the timeline. If the song is too long, grab the right edge of your music clip, and resize it smaller (that will make it end earlier). You could also insert the same file multiple times, if your music is too short. [image]

Step 4 – Preview your Project

To preview what our video looks & sounds like, click the Play button under the preview window. You can also pause, rewind, and fast-forward your video project by clicking the corresponding buttons. [image]

Step 5 – Export your Video

Once you have edited your photo slide-show video, the last step is to export the project. Exporting converts your OpenShot project into a single video output file. By using the default settings, the video works on most media players (such as VLC) or websites (such as YouTube, Vimeo, …).

Click on the Export Video icon at the top of the screen (or use the File→Export Video menu). The default values will work fine, so just click the Export Video button to render your new video. [image]

Conclusion

You should now have a basic understanding of how OpenShot works. Importing, Arranging, Previewing, and Exporting. Hopefully this tutorial took less than 5 minutes for you to complete. Please read the rest of this guide for a more detailed understanding of OpenShot and its advanced features.

If you have any questions after reading this User Guide, please consider joining our Reddit User Community to discuss topics, ask questions, and meet with other OpenShot users.

Video Editing Basics

You do not need to be a trained videographer to understand how to create videos well. Simple editing can keep your viewers engaged longer, and add a professional feel, even if you are not a professional video editor.

Basically, video editing is taking footage, cutting it up, removing the pieces you do not want, and keeping the bits you do. Back in the old days, editing was slicing reels of film and piecing it together. Thankfully software makes the whole process much more manageable.

There are three main jobs of video editing:

Use these three points as a checklist as you edit.

Computer

Video editing does not require an expensive machine, especially if you are a beginner. It would be best if you had a decent monitor and graphics card. If you have an older computer, check your system specifications against OpenShot’s System Requirements to make sure it works for video editing. Unfortunately, many older computers are not fast enough for video editing, and you should upgrade your whole system, if possible.

Accessories

Before beginning a video project, ensure there is enough storage space on your computer to save all the necessary clips. For example, one hour of 1080i video, such as from a mini-DV camcorder, takes up nearly 11 GB of storage. If your computer’s internal storage device cannot store all the clips, the solution is to buy an external drive.

It would help if you had several cables, usually Firewire or USB, to connect your computer, external hard drive, and a camera. Different computers and cameras accept other connectors, so check your manuals before buying anything.

Practical Tips

Becoming a great video editor isn’t effortless, but with practice and patience, you’ll be editing like a professional in no time. Here are a few of the essential tips and techniques you need to know to become a skilled video editor.

Exporting

People view most of their projects on phones, tablets, or computers, so it is essential to know how to export for the web. The goal when exporting a video for the web is to create the highest quality possible with the smallest file size. Four main factors determine the file size of your finished video:

Main Window

OpenShot Video Editor has one main window which contains most of the information, buttons, and menus needed to edit your video project.

Overview

[image]

For step-by-step instructions on the basic usage of OpenShot, be sure to read the Quick Tutorial.

Built-in Tutorial

When you first launch OpenShot, you will be presented with a friendly built-in tutorial. It will demonstrate and explain the basics. Clicking Next will jump to the next topic. You can always view this tutorial again from the Help→Tutorial menu. [image]

Tracks & Layers

OpenShot uses tracks to layer videos and images. The top most track is the top layer, and the bottom track is the bottom layer. If you are familiar with layers in a photo editing application, then you should be quite familiar with this concept. OpenShot will stack the layers and mix each one together, just like a photo editing application. You can have an unlimited number of tracks, but typically a simple video project will not need more than 5 tracks.

For example, imagine a 3 track video project [image]

Keyboard Shortcuts

Here is a list of the default keyboard shortcuts supported by OpenShot. You can configure these shortcuts in the Preferences window, which is opened by selecting Edit→Preferences from the OpenShot menu bar. (On macOS, choose OpenShot Video Editor→Preferences.) Learning a few of these shortcuts can save you a bunch of time!

Files

To create a video, we need to make media files available to our project by importing files into OpenShot. Most media file types are recognized, such as videos, images, and audio files. Files can be viewed and managed in the Project Files panel.

Note that imported files are not copied anywhere, they remain in the physical location they were before and are simply being made available to your video project. So, they must not be deleted, renamed, or moved after adding them to your project. The “Show All”, “Video”, “Audio”, “Image” filters above the files allows you to only see the file types you are interested in. You can also toggle the view between details and thumbnails view of your files.

Import Files

These are all possible methods to import media files into OpenShot: [image]

File Menu

To view the file menu, right click on a file (in the Project Files panel). Here are the actions you can use from the file menu. [image]

Split Clip

If you need to cut a file into many smaller clips before editing, the Split Clip dialog is built exactly for this purpose. Right click on a file, and choose Split Clip… from the file menu. This opens the Split Clip dialog. Use this dialog to quickly cut out as many small clips as you need. The dialog stays open after you create a clip, to allow you to repeat the steps for your next clip. When you are finished, simply close the dialog. [image]

Please refer to the section Trimming & Slicing for more ways to cut and slice clips directly in the timeline.

Export Clips

If you want your clips available outside of your OpenShot project, or want to copy all your video assets to one place, you can do this with the Export Clips dialog. Simply Ctrl+Click to select any clips or files you like, then Right Click and choose Export Clips. In the dialog that appears, choose a destination folder, and click Export.

NOTE: This will export each clip using it’s original video profile (width, height, framerate, aspect ratio, etc…). It also supports any Split Clip (described above). For example, if you have split a long video file into many different clips (and named them), you can now export all the clips as separate video files (using the original clip’s video profile). [image]

Add to Timeline

In certain cases, you might need to add many files to the timeline at the same time. For example, a photo slide show, or a large number of short video clips. The Add to Timeline dialog can automate this task for you. First, select all files you need to add, right click, and choose Add to Timeline. [image]

Properties

To view the properties of any imported file in your video project, right click on the file, and choose File Properties. This will launch the file properties dialog, which displays information about your media file. For certain types of images (i.e. image sequences), you can adjust the frame rate on this dialog also. [image]

Remove from Project

This will remove a file from the project. It will not delete the underlying physical file though, so removing a file from the project merely makes it unavailable for this video project.

Clips

Each media file you add to the OpenShot timeline is called a clip and is visualized by a dark, rounded rectangle (as seen in the screenshot below). A clip has many properties, which affect how and when the clip is rendered and composited, such as position, layer, scale, location, rotation, and alpha. OpenShot can animate these properties over time, and when combined, can create some amazing effects.

To display a clip’s properties, either right-click and choose Properties or double click on the clip. Clip properties appear in the properties dock, in alphabetical order. These properties can be filtered by typing a few letters in the filter box, at the top of the property panel.

To adjust a property, you can:

Clip properties are part of the Animation system. If you change a clip property, you create a keyframe at the current position of the playhead. If you want a property to apply throughout the clip, you must place the playhead at (or before) the start of the clip before making the change. An easy way to locate the start of a clip is to use ‘next/previous marker’ on the Timeline toolbar. [image]

Trimming & Slicing

OpenShot has many easy ways to adjust the start and end trim positions of a clip (otherwise known as trimming). The most common method is simply clicking and dragging the left (or right) edge of the clip. Here is a list of all methods for cutting or trimming clips in OpenShot:

Keep in mind that the above cutting methods also have Keyboard Shortcuts, to save even more time.

Preset Menu

OpenShot has tons of great preset animations and clip properties, such as fading, sliding, zooming, etc… These presets can be accessed by right clicking on a clip. [image]

Transform

To quickly adjust the location, scale, rotation, and shear of a clip, select a clip on the timeline. By default, the selected clip appears in the preview window with transform controls (blue lines and squares). Or if disabled, right click on a clip and choose Transform. Dragging the blue squares will adjust scale, and dragging the center will move the image. Dragging the mouse on the outside of the blue lines will rotate the image. Dragging along the blue lines will shear the image in that direction. Dragging the circle in the middle will move the origin point that controls where we rotate the image. Note: Pay close attention to the play-head position (red playback line). Key frames are automatically created at the current playback position, to help create animations. [image]

For more info on key frames and animation, see Animation.

Effects

In addition to the many clip properties which can be animated and adjusted, you can also drop an effect directly onto a clip. Each effect is represented by a small letter icon. Clicking the effect icon will populate the properties of that effect, and allow you to edit (and animate) them. For the full list of effects, see Effects. [image]

Properties

Below is a list of clip properties which can be edited, and in most cases, animated over time. To view a clip’s properties, right click and choose Properties. The property editor will appear, where you can change these properties. Note: Pay close attention to where the play-head (i.e. red playback line) is. Key frames are automatically created at the current playback position, to help create animations.

Details

Gravity:

Scale:

Volume Mixing:

More Information

For more info on key frames and animation, see Animation.

Transitions

A transition is used to gradually fade (or wipe) between two clips. In OpenShot, transitions are represented by blue, rounded rectangles on the timeline. They are automatically created when you overlap two clips, and can be added manually by dragging one onto the timeline from the Transitions panel. A transition must be placed on top of a clip (overlapping it), with the most common location being the beginning or end.

Overview

[image]

Direction

Transitions adjust the alpha/transparency of the clip below it, and can either fade from opaque to transparent, or transparent to opaque. Right click and choose Reverse Transition to change the direction of the fade. You can also manually adjust the Brightness curve, animating the fade in any way you wish. [image]

Cutting & Slicing

OpenShot has many easy ways to adjust the start and end positions of a transition (otherwise known as cutting). The most common method is simply grabbing the left (or right) edge of the transition and dragging. Here is a list of methods for cutting transitions in OpenShot:

Keep in mind that all of the above cutting methods also have Keyboard Shortcuts.

Mask

Like Clips, transitions also have properties which can be animated over time. The fade (or wipe) can be adjusted with the Brightness curve, or held at a constant value to create a transparency mask on top of a clip.

Custom Transition

Any greyscale image can be used as a transition (or mask), by adding it to your /.openshot_qt/transitions/ folder. Just be sure to name your file something that is easily recognizable, and restart OpenShot. Your custom transition/mask will now show up in the list of transitions.

Properties

Below is a list of transition properties which can be edited, and in most cases, animated over time. To view a transition’s properties, right click and choose Properties. The property editor will appear, where you can change these properties. NOTE: Pay close attention to where the play-head (i.e. red playback line) is. Key frames are automatically created at the current playback position, to help create animations.

Effects

Effects are used in OpenShot to enhance or modify the audio or video of a clip. They can modify pixels and audio data, and can generally enhance your video projects. Each effect has its own set of properties, most which can be animated over time.

Effects can be added to any clip by dragging and dropping them. Each effect is represented by a small colored icon and the first letter of the effect name. To view an effect’s properties, click on the effect icon. The property editor will appear, where you can edit these properties. Note: Pay close attention to where the play-head (i.e. red playback line) is. Key frames are automatically created at the current playback position, to help create animations. [image]

Video Effects

Effects are generally divided into two categories: video and audio effects. Video effects modify the image and pixel data of a clip. Below is a list of video effects, and their properties. Often it is best to experiment with an effect, entering different values into the properties, and observing the results.

Alpha Mask / Wipe Transition

Uses a grayscale mask image to gradually wipe / transition between 2 images.

Bars

Add colored bars around your video.

Blur

Adjust the blur of the frame’s image.

Brightness & Contrast

Adjust the brightness and contrast of the frame’s image.

Caption

Add text captions on top of your video.

Chroma Key (Greenscreen)

Replaces the color (or chroma) of the frame with transparency (i.e. keys out the color).

Color Saturation

Adjust the color saturation.

Color Shift

Shift the colors of an image up, down, left, and right (with infinite wrapping).

Each pixel has 4 color channels:

The Color Shift effect simply “moves” or “translates” a specific color channel on the X or Y axis. Not all video and image formats support an alpha channel, and in those cases, you will not see any changes when adjusting the color shift of the alpha channel.

Crop

Crop out any part of your video.

Deinterlace

Remove interlacing from a video (i.e. even or odd horizontal lines)

Hue

Adjust the hue / color of the frame’s image.

Negative

Negates the colors, producing a negative of the image.

Object Detector

Detect objects through the video.

Pixelate

Pixelate (increase or decrease) the number of visible pixels.

Shift

Shift the image up, down, left, and right (with infinite wrapping).

Stabilizer

Stabilize video clip to remove undesired shaking and jitter.

Tracker

Track the selected bounding box through the video. The tracked object can be selected as a parent on other clips.

Wave

Distort the frame’s image into a wave pattern.

Audio Effects

Audio effects modify the waveforms and audio sample data of a clip. Below is a list of audio effects, and their properties. Often it is best to experiment with an effect, entering different values into the properties, and observing the results.

Compressor

Reduce the volume of loud sounds or amplify quiet sounds.

Delay

Adjust the synchronism between the audio and video track.

Distortion

Alter the audio by clipping the signal.

Echo

Reflection of sound with a delay after the direct sound.

Expander

Louder parts of audio becomes relatively louder and quieter parts becomes quieter.

Noise

Random signal having equal intensity at different frequencies.

Parametric EQ

Filter that allows you to adjust the volume level of a frequency in the audio track.

Robotization

Transform the voice present in an audio track into a robotic voice effect.

Whisperization

Transform the voice present in an audio track into a whispering voice effect.

For more info on key frames and animation, see Animation.

Export

Exporting converts your OpenShot project (clips, effects, animations, titles) into a single video output file (using a process called video encoding). By using the default settings, the exported video will be compatible with most media players (such as VLC) and websites (such as YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook).

Click on the Export Video icon at the top of the screen (or use the File→Export Video menu). The default values will work fine, so just click the Export Video button to render your new video. You can also create your own custom export profiles, see Profiles.

Simple Mode

While video encoding is very complicated, with dozens of interrelated settings and options, OpenShot makes it easy, with sensible defaults, and most of this complexity hidden away behind our Simple tab, which is the default export view. [image]

Advanced Mode

Most users will never need to switch to the Advanced tab, but if you need to customize any of the video encoding settings, for example, custom bitrates, different codecs, or limiting the range of frames exported, this is the tab for you.

Advanced Options

[image]

Profile

[image]

Image Sequence Settings

[image]

Video Settings

[image]

Audio Settings

[image]

Animation

OpenShot has been designed specifically with animation in mind. The powerful curve-based animation framework can handle most jobs with ease, and is flexible enough to create just about any animation. Key frames specify values at certain points on a clip, and OpenShot does the hard work of interpolating the in-between values.

Overview

[image]

Key Frames

To create a key frame in OpenShot, simply position the play-head (i.e. playback position) at any point over a clip, and edit properties in the property dialog. If the property supports key frames, it will turn green, and a small icon (circle=Bézier, diamond=linear, square=constant) will appear on the bottom of your clip at that position. Move your play-head to another point over that clip, and adjust the properties again. All animations require at least 2 key frames, but can support an unlimited number of them.

To adjust the interpolation mode, right click on the small graph icon next to a property value.

For more info on creating key frames for location, rotation, scale, shear, and location, see Transform.
For more info on preset animations, see Preset Menu.
For more info on clip properties, see Properties.

Bézier Presets

When using a Bézier curve for animation, OpenShot includes more than 20 curve presets (which affect the shape of the curve). For example, Ease-In has a more gradual slope at the beginning, making an animation move slower at the beginning, and faster at the end. Ease-In/Out (Back) has a gradual beginning and ending, but actually goes past the expected value and then back (producing a bounce effect).

To choose a curve preset, right click on the small graph icon next to a key frame. [image]

Image Sequences

If you have a sequence of similarly named images (such as, cat001.png, cat002.png, cat003.png, etc…), you can simply drag and drop one of them into OpenShot, and you will be prompted to import the entire sequence. [image]

To adjust the frame rate of the animation, right click and choose File Properties in the Project Files panel, and adjust the frame rate. Once you have set the correct frame rate, drag the animation onto the timeline. [image]

Titles

Adding text and titles is an important aspect of video editing, and OpenShot comes with an easy to use Title Editor. Use the Title menu (located in the main menu of OpenShot) to launch the Title Editor. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+T.

Overview

[image]

Custom Titles

OpenShot can use any vector SVG image file as a title template. Just add an SVG image file to your .openshot_qt/title_templates/ folder, and it will appear the next time you open the Title Editor interface. You can also right click on any SVG files in your Project Files panel, and choose Edit Title or Duplicate Title.

3D Animated Titles

Adding a 3D animated title is just as easy, using our Animated Title dialog. Use the Title menu (located in the main menu of OpenShot) to launch the Animated Title editor. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+B. [image]

Installing Inkscape & Blender

These features require the latest version of Blender (https://www.blender.org/download/) and Inkscape (https://inkscape.org/release/) be installed, and the OpenShot Preferences updated with the correct paths to the Blender & Inkscape executable. See the General tab in Preferences.

For a detailed guide on how to install these dependencies, see Blender & Inkscape Guide.

Profiles

A video profile is a collection of common video settings (size, frame rate, aspect ratio). Profiles are used during editing, previewing, and exporting to provide a quick way to switch between common combinations of these settings.

If you often use the same profile, you can set a default profile: Edit→Preferences→Preview.

Project Profile

The project profile is used when previewing your project and editing. The default project profile is HD 720p 30fps. It is best practice to always switch to your target profile before you begin editing. For example, if you are targeting 1080p 30fps, switch to that profile before you begin editing your project. For a full list of included profiles see Profile List. [image]

Choose Profile Dialog

[image]

Export Profile

The export profile always defaults to your current project profile, but can be changed to target different profiles. [image]

Custom Profile

Although OpenShot has more than 400 profiles (Profile List) included by default, you can also create your own custom profiles. Create a new text file in the ~/.openshot_qt/profiles/ or C:\Users\USERNAME\.openshot_qt\profiles folder. Use the following text as your template (i.e. copy and paste this into the new file):

description=Custom Profile Name
frame_rate_num=30000
frame_rate_den=1001
width=1280
height=720
progressive=1
sample_aspect_num=1
sample_aspect_den=1
display_aspect_num=16
display_aspect_den=9

Once you restart OpenShot, you will see your custom profile appear in the list of Profiles.

Preset List

OpenShot includes a large list of common profiles and their associated video export settings (video codec, audio codec, audio channels, audio sample rate, etc…), which targets specific websites and devices.

All Formats

AVI (h.264)

AVI (mpeg2)

AVI (mpeg4)

GIF (animated)

MKV (h.264 dx)

MKV (h.264 nv)

MKV (h.264 qsv)

MKV (h.264 va)

MKV (h.264 videotoolbox)

MKV (h.264)

MKV (h.265)

MOV (h.264)

MOV (mpeg2)

MOV (mpeg4)

MP3 (audio only)

MP4 (AV1 rav1e)

MP4 (AV1 svt)

MP4 (HEVC va)

MP4 (Xvid)

MP4 (h.264 dx)

MP4 (h.264 nv)

MP4 (h.264 qsv)

MP4 (h.264 va)

MP4 (h.264 videotoolbox)

MP4 (h.264)

MP4 (h.265)

MP4 (mpeg4)

MPEG (mpeg2)

OGG (theora/flac)

OGG (theora/vorbis)

WEBM (vp9)

WEBM (vp9) lossless

WEBM (vpx)

WEBP (vp9 va)

Device

Apple TV

Chromebook

Nokia nHD

Xbox 360

Web

Flickr-HD

Instagram

Metacafe

Picasa

Twitter

Vimeo

Vimeo-HD

Wikipedia

YouTube HD

YouTube HD (2K)

YouTube HD (4K)

YouTube HD (8K)

YouTube Standard

DVD

DVD-NTSC

DVD-PAL

Blu-Ray/AVCHD

AVCHD Disks

Profile List

OpenShot includes a large list of common profiles.

Definitions

Import & Export

Video editing projects (including tracks, clips, and keyframes) can be imported and exported from OpenShot Video Editor in widely supported formats (EDL: Edit Decision Lists, and XML: Final Cut Pro format). For example, if you start editing a video in a different program (Adobe Premier, Final Cut Pro, etc…), but later need to move all your edits to OpenShot (or vice versa).

EDL (Edit Decision Lists)

The following features are supported when importing and exporting an EDL file with OpenShot.

Example EDL format supported by OpenShot:

 TITLE: Clips - TRACK 5
 FCM: NON-DROP FRAME
 001  BL       V     C        00:00:00:01 00:00:03:17 00:00:00:01 00:00:03:17
 001  AX       V     C        00:00:00:01 00:00:10:01 00:00:03:17 00:00:13:17
 * FROM CLIP NAME: Intro.png
 002  BL       V     C        00:00:00:01 00:00:05:09 00:00:13:17 00:00:18:25
 002  AX       V     C        00:00:00:01 00:00:10:01 00:00:18:25 00:00:28:25
 * FROM CLIP NAME: FileName.mp4
 * OPACITY LEVEL AT 00:00:00:01 IS 0.00%  (REEL AX)
 * OPACITY LEVEL AT 00:00:01:01 IS 100.00%  (REEL AX)
 * OPACITY LEVEL AT 00:00:09:01 IS 100.00%  (REEL AX)
 * OPACITY LEVEL AT 00:00:10:01 IS 0.00%  (REEL AX)
 003  BL       V     C        00:00:00:01 00:00:33:15 00:00:28:25 00:01:02:09
 003  AX       V     C        00:00:14:25 00:00:34:29 00:01:02:09 00:01:22:13
 003  AX       A     C        00:00:14:25 00:00:34:29 00:01:02:09 00:01:22:13
 * FROM CLIP NAME: FileName2.mp4
 004  BL       V     C        00:00:00:01 00:00:26:25 00:01:22:13 00:01:49:07
 004  AX       A     C        00:00:00:01 00:02:20:01 00:01:49:07 00:04:09:07
 * FROM CLIP NAME: Music.wav
 * AUDIO LEVEL AT 00:00:00:01 IS -99.00 DB  (REEL AX A1)
 * AUDIO LEVEL AT 00:00:03:01 IS 0.00 DB  (REEL AX A1)
 * AUDIO LEVEL AT 00:02:17:01 IS 0.00 DB  (REEL AX A1)
 * AUDIO LEVEL AT 00:02:20:01 IS -99.00 DB  (REEL AX A1)

XML (Final Cut Pro format)

The following features are supported when importing and exporting an XML file with OpenShot. This XML format is supported in many video editors (not just Final Cut Pro). In fact, most commercial video editors have some support for importing and exporting this same XML format.

Example XML Output (tree view)

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Preferences

The Preferences window contains many important settings and configuration options for OpenShot. They can be found in the top menu under Edit→Preferences. Many settings will require OpenShot to be restarted after your changes are applied.

NOTE: Some features such as Animated Titles and external SVG editing require setting the paths for Blender and Inkscape under the General tab. And if you notice audio playback issues, such as audio drift, you many need to adjust the audio settings under the Preview tab.

General

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The General tab of the Preferences window allows you to modify the settings that apply to OpenShot as a whole.

Preview

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The Preview tab of the Preferences window allows you to set a Default Video Profile for your project, if you have a preference for a specific editing profile. More about Profiles. Also, you can adjust the real-time preview audio settings, for example, which audio device and sample rate to use.

Autosave

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Autosave is a saving function in OpenShot which automatically saves the current changes to your project after a specific number of minutes, helping to reduce the risk or impact of data loss in case of a crash, freeze or user error.

Recovery

Before each save, a copy of the current project is created in a recovery folder, to further reduce the risk of data loss. The recovery folder is located at ~/.openshot_qt/recovery/ or C:\Users\USERNAME\.openshot_qt\recovery. If you need to recover a corrupt or broken *.osp project file, please find the most recent copy in the recovery folder, and copy/paste the file in your original project folder location (i.e. the folder that contains your broken project), and then open this recovered project file in OpenShot. Many versions of each project are stored in the recovery folder, and if you still have issues with the recovered *.osp file, you can repeat this process with older versions contained in the recovery folder.

Cache

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Cache settings can be adjusted to make real-time playback faster or less CPU intensive. The cache is used to store image and audio data for each frame of video requested. The more frames that are cached, the smoother the real-time playback will be. However, the more that needs to be cached requires more CPU to generate the cache. There is a balance, and the default settings provide a generally sane set of cache values, which should allow most computers to playback video and audio smoothly.

Debug

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Here you can modify how much data should be logged. Normally, Debug Mode (verbose) is off. The default port is 5556. If you want to help improve OpenShot you can enable Send Anonymous Metrics and Errors.

Performance

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Please keep in mind that hardware acceleration is experimental at the moment. OpenShot supports both decoding and encoding acceleration. For more information take a look at our Github HW-ACCEL Doc. NOTE: On systems with older graphics cards, hardware acceleration may not always be faster than CPU encoding.

Keyboard

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This is where hotkeys can be seen and re-assigned, as described under Keyboard Shortcuts.

Location

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Default file path locations for saving/opening projects, importing files, and exporting videos can be configured here. This can save you time by defaulting the open/save file dialogs to the most appropriate starting folder (options described below).

Developers

If you are a programmer (or want to become a programmer), and are interested in developing new features, fixing bugs, or improving the user interface for OpenShot, the following sections will explain how to get started and get involved!

The Big Picture

OpenShot Video Editor has 3 main components, a Python & PyQt user interface (openshot-qt), a C++ audio library (libopenshot-audio) and a C++ video library (libopenshot). If you are not familiar with Python, PyQt, or C++, those would be great topics to research and learn more about at this point.

However, many bugs can be fixed and new features added with only Python knowledge, since the C++ components are not involved in the user interface at all. Python is an amazing language, and is super fun to learn, and is the only prerequisite skill needed to become an OpenShot developer!

WARNING:

Getting the Latest Source Code

Before we can fix any bugs or add any features, we need to get the source code onto your computer.

Use git to clone our 3 repositories:

git clone https://github.com/OpenShot/libopenshot-audio.git
git clone https://github.com/OpenShot/libopenshot.git
git clone https://github.com/OpenShot/openshot-qt.git

Configuring your Development Environment

In order to actually compile or run OpenShot, we need to install some dependencies on your system. The easiest way to accomplish this is with our Daily PPA. A PPA is an unofficial Ubuntu repository, which has our software packages available to download and install.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/libopenshot-daily
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install openshot-qt \
                     cmake \
                     libx11-dev \
                     libasound2-dev \
                     libavcodec-dev \
                     libavdevice-dev \
                     libavfilter-dev \
                     libavformat-dev \
                     libavresample-dev \
                     libavutil-dev \
                     libfdk-aac-dev \
                     libfreetype6-dev \
                     libjsoncpp-dev \
                     libmagick++-dev \
                     libopenshot-audio-dev \
                     libprotobuf-dev \
                     libqt5svg5-dev \
                     libswscale-dev \
                     libunittest++-dev \
                     libxcursor-dev \
                     libxinerama-dev \
                     libxrandr-dev \
                     libzmq3-dev \
                     pkg-config \
                     python3-dev \
                     protobuf-compiler \
                     qtbase5-dev \
                     libqt5svg5-dev \
                     libxcb-xfixes0-dev \
                     qtmultimedia5-dev \
                     swig

At this point, you should have all 3 OpenShot components source code cloned into local folders, the OpenShot daily PPA installed, and all of the required development and runtime dependencies installed. This is a great start, and we are now ready to start compiling some code!

libopenshot-audio (Build Instructions)

This library is required for audio playback and audio effects. It is based on the JUCE audio framework. Here are the commands to build it:

cd libopenshot-audio
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=dist ..
make
make install

Essentially, we are switching to the libopenshot-audio/build folder, then running cmake .. on the parent folder. This finds dependencies and creates all the needed Makefiles used to compile this library. Then make uses those Makefiles to compile this library, and make install installs them in the location we specified. If CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX isn’t set, the files will install to /usr/local/ (by default) and make install will require administrative privileges to run.

libopenshot (Build Instructions)

This library is required for video decoding, encoding, animation, and just about everything else. It does all the heavy lifting of video editing and video playback. Here are the commands to build it:

cd libopenshot
mkdir build
cd build
cmake -DLIBOPENSHOT_AUDIO_DIR=../../libopenshot-audio/build/dist ..
make

Essentially, we are switching to the libopenshot/build folder, then running cmake .. on the parent folder. This finds dependencies and creates all the needed Makefiles used to compile this library. Then make uses those Makefiles to compile this library. Because we provided the location of our compiled libopenshot-audio installation, that version of the library will be used instead of the system version (if any).

We don’t install our libopenshot after building, because we don’t need to. For testing purposes, we can tell OpenShot to use libopenshot right from our build directory.

openshot-qt (Launch Instructions)

This is our main PyQt Python application. Because it is written in Python, it does not require any compiling to run. To launch OpenShot from the source code with our newly-built libopenshot-audio and libopenshot libraries, use the following commands:

cd openshot-qt
PYTHONPATH=../libopenshot/build/src/bindings/python
python3 src/launch.py

This should launch the OpenShot user interface. Any changes you have made to the source code files (*.py Python files, *.ui PyQt UI files, etc…) will be included. This requires the libopenshot-audio and libopenshot libraries, and if anything went wrong with the steps above, OpenShot will likely not launch.

If OpenShot launches at this point, congratulations! You now have a working local version of OpenShot, which is running off your local source code. Try making some changes to the source code and re-launch OpenShot… you should now see your changes!

GitHub Issues

Now that you have successfully compiled and launched OpenShot Video Editor from source code, be sure to check out our list of bug reports on GitHub: OpenShot Issues. Also, you are encouraged to fill out our quick contributor form and introduce yourself!

Share your Changes

Once you have fixed a bug or added an amazing new feature, be sure to share it with the OpenShot team. Ideally, we can merge this into our main source code branch. The easiest way to share your changes is by creating a fork of our repo, pushing your changes back to GitHub, and creating a Pull Request. A Pull Request lets the OpenShot team know you have changes ready to be merged. Then we can review things, give feedback, and hopefully merge your changes into the main branch.

Contributing

Want to help improve OpenShot (and make some friends in the process)? Please consider joining our open-source team by filling out this quick contributor form and introduce yourself! All volunteers are welcome, regardless of skills or skill level. Let’s build something amazing!

How to Contribute

There are many different ways to help and support OpenShot, including:

All of these areas are equally important, so we would love to know which ones appeal to you the most. Please take a moment and fill-out our quick contributor form.

Did you find a bug?

Please use our step-by-step bug reporting page: https://openshot.org/issues/new/ to troubleshoot a potential new bug. This guide will instruct you on how to delete you log files, test with the latest daily build, and search for duplicate bug reports (in case someone else has already reported this same issue). At the end of the guide, it will help you create a detailed and useful bug report for our development team and volunteers.

Software Developers

OpenShot uses GitHub to manage issues and source code: https://github.com/OpenShot. Please read our guide on Becoming a Developer for a step-by-step guide on compiling OpenShot and making your first pull request on GitHub.

Made with Love

OpenShot Video Editor is a volunteer effort and a labor of love. Please be patient with any issues you find, and feel free to get involved and help us fix them!

Thank you for your support!
– OpenShot Team

Learn More

We are working hard to expand this user guide and to improve OpenShot Video Editor, but if you are stuck and don’t know where to turn, OpenShot has several sources for additional information.

Glossary

There is much technical terminology in today’s fast-moving media-centric world. If you find yourself wondering what a video production term or an acronym means, you are certainly not alone. Like most industries, video production has a language all its own. Here is a list of terms commonly found in video editing. Becoming familiar with these terms only makes your job easier. [image]

Definitions

These definitions are a work-in-progress. Please let us know if you need a term defined by contacting support@openshot.org.

-A- -B- -C- -D- -E- -F- -G- -H- -I- -J- -K- -L- -M- -N- -O- -P- -Q- -R- -S- -T- -U- -V- -W- -X- -Y- -Z-

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