Best light and simple Video Editor for Ubuntu Mate?

Support & Help Requests
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1

Hello everyone,
first of all, I hope this is the correct forum.

I work as a Sysadmin and sometimes I need to get video footage from IP security cams and hand it to the people in charge. I need a free and simple (also simple to use) video editor that would allow me to get the normally 1-hour-long video archives and cut them to just the few minutes or clips of interest. If it could also compress it to make it more lightweight to send over network shares, that would be a plus.

So, could someone recommend me one?
Thanks in advance!

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I don't know if there's really a best/simple one.
People usually talk about kdenlive (sudo apt install -y kdenlive) and shotcut for small edits.

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3

OpenShot is another good one.

https://www.openshot.org/

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4

Thanks for the suggestions, I'll give shotcut a try :smiley:

I used OpenShot last time but it crashed when trying to export into lower quality formats and resolutions. Also it didn't quite feel intuitive. But maybe thats just me, after all I'm not into video editing.

5

Here is a article ( https://www.xp-pen.com/forum-1595.html ) of 18 free and Paid video editors for Linux OS.

From what you've described, Kdenlive, openShot ,and ShotCut may be right for you.

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My choice:

  • OpenShot for editing & making some video or just for changing a format;

  • Lossless Cut for cutting some parts from large video files with keeping the same format.

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Hello. Thank you for your question. There are a few different video editors that might work for your needs. I would recommend trying out a few and seeing which works best for you. Some of my favorites include: - Adobe Premiere Pro - Apple Final Cut Pro - Avid Media Composer These professional-grade video editors should have the features you're looking for.

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For reference only (please be aware that this thread is 3 years old)

For anyone that stumbles upon this thread in search of a simple video-cutting-tool and converter

The exact right tool for this job is Avidemux-qt (which I use on a professional basis).
It does exactly what the topicstarter asked for and nothing (at least not much) more.
It is reliable, light, simple, solid, Linux native, GPL and in the standard Ubuntu-MATE repository.
It can do lossless cuts (and joints) and can convert to other formats.

EDIT: I wrongfully declared that Avidemux is in the standard repository which it isn't since several years.
There is, however, an official PPA channel for Avidemux: xtradeb
This is how to add the PPA and install Avidemux:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:xtradeb/apps
sudo apt update
sudo apt install avidemux-qt
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However, they can be fairly complex to use, so if you're looking for something simpler, you might want to try one of the following: - Movavi (https://www.movavi.com/support/how-to/how-to-convert-mxf-video.html) - Apple iMovie - Windows Movie Maker These are fairly basic video editors, but they should be able to do what you need."

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Hi NeddieTone,

Adobe Premiere Pro is a Windows exe. It does not run on Linux
Apple Final Cut Pro is an Apple binary. It does not run on Linux
Avid Media Composer is a Windows exe. It does not run on Linux

Movavi is a Windows exe. It does not run on Linux
iMovie is an Apple binary. It does not run on Linux

I think it is time to inform you that this site is about Ubuntu-MATE, so it is about Linux.

Ubuntu-MATE is not Windows
Ubuntu-MATE is not Apple-OS
Ubuntu-MATE is a Linux OS

Therefore:

It does not run Windows software*
It does not run Apple software*
It does run Linux software

*Not without emulation and even then it is hit and miss.

So would you be so kind to stop advising software that is Apple-only or Microsoft-only and therefore doesn't run on Linux :slight_smile:

Promoting software that won't install on Ubuntu-MATE in the first place is not very helpful is it ?
So let's declare any Windows or Apple solution here off topic, shall we ?

TNX! :slight_smile:

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ich habe hier die falsche Rubrik gewählt. Sorry

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Welcome to the community!

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Have tried both Openshot and Shotcut. Yup-pretty straighforward for beginners.

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Welcome @zuodan to the community!

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It’s also capable of handling longer footage without being too heavy on system resources, which is helpful if you're working with hour-long archives from security cameras. You can easily cut out the sections you need and compress the video by adjusting the export settings, making it more efficient to send over the network. The interface is straightforward, so you won’t have to spend much time learning how to use it.

Also, if you ever need to do similar tasks on a Mac, such as capturing and working with internal audio alongside the video, this guide has some really useful tips on how to record system audio. This can be handy if you’re editing footage that requires audio to be extracted or synced. It's worth checking out, especially if you need to mac record internal audio for any future projects.

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Add to that he asked for one that is Free, and all those are proprietary and cost money.

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I've been using avidemux_2.8.0.appImage since 22.04 came out. Works great for me. What format are your security camera videos? I ran into a lot that are *.dav and these can be problematic. I use this simple shell script to convert the *.dav files to mp4:

for i in *.dav
do
    echo $i
    ffmpeg -y -i $i -vcodec copy "$i.mp4" 2>/dev/null
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I don't work with security video camera's
I use avidemux with other sources.

Good to see that you only have to remux the .dav files instead of transcoding.
That makes it fast and you don't lose quality.

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