As many of you may know by now, we are currently doing a code refactoring which will be taking a step forward in making our software more suitable for professional use. In the process, we are facing some critical design choices, and want to hear the opinion of the editors of the community.
Currently, a clip inserted in the timeline in Kdenlive can be one of three things: video only, audio only or both audio and video. While this approach gives flexibility to the user, it is quite non-standard amongst video editing software, and may cause troubles if we try to implement some more advanced features like an audio mixer. The alternative, implemented in other softwares, is to avoid hybrid clips altogether, and only allow video only and audio only clips. Of course, in such a situation, inserting a clip from the bin to the timeline would actually create two clips on the timeline: one for the audio and one for the video.
We will be asking at forums, websites, subreddits, etc… for people to voice their opinion for one of the approaches, or outline advantages/drawbacks that we may not have thought of. We are looking forward to hearing from you!
I’d go for as standard as possible.
Just joined group so apologies if too late, but loving Kdenlive and simply must beg of you a favor. IF you end up splitting audio and video tracks…please please please make it easy to resynchronise audio and video in the inevitable event that the get accidentally desynchronized unintentionally. Nothing more tedious than lip syncing manually…nor as error prone.
Editors I haved used before like Vegas make it fairly clear when editing audio and video together and when not (for example when intentionally staggering the audio and video cuts to smooth scene changes..one if my favorite techniques)
Make it slightly difficult to slide audio our of sync with video without explicit permission but not tedious, and please please please make it easy to resync again without losing in/out cuts.
Thanks so much for this good software. I hope the PPA versions for linux remain stable!
As long as it’s still easy to import a video and then have it split into two clips (audio and video) at import time, and as long as it’s still easy to drag those two clips to the timeline and move them around/edit them together, then I’m fine with them technically being separate tracks 🙂
I often use kdenlive for quick editing of screencasts and love how easy it is to edit audio/video together.
Though sometimes I actually split the video beforehand, to do noise reduction on the audio track with Audacity first.
I’m all for making kdenlive more suited to professionals though, so looking forward to the refactor!
One of the advantages of 16mm film with an optical sound track was, when you cut and pasted it back together, your sound still matched the pictures.
With 8mm, for example, the sound track was magnetic and several inches/centimetres from the picture. Once the film was cut and pasted the sound was usually dubbed on afterwards.
My choice would be to avoid hybrid clips and always represent audio and video in separate tracks (and keep them linked by default).
Ideally also allow for interleaving audio and video tracks at will (using e.g. differently colored lanes) so you don’t have too much of a gap between the audio and the video.
spliting into 2 clips one for video and another for audio seems sensible
I always thought it was a litte weird what kdenlive does
Maybe link those places here?
I vote for this change, thanks a lot for asking.
So long as the video and audio tracks are tied/grouped/linked together initially so that simple cutting and splicing isn’t tedious, I’m used to having a separate audio and video representation of the same “clip.” As long as there is a visual indicator in the timeline that they’re linked when I click on one or the other, that’s pretty typical. It would be great if you could relink them even after cutting and moving and you realize you don’t need the power of moving them independently.
Is this video and/or audio insertion “mode” the feature with the highest priority? If so, having a video file be split into video and audio is not a bad idea. At least it doesn’t mess with any workflow. Go for it.
Additionally, I would suggest two things:
1) Do a Kano Survey (http://www.kanosurvey.com/) just like the KDE project is doing regarding a new communications tools to be adopted.
2) Concentrate on the available help documentation and, if possible, illustrating effects and transitions on the software. Good old animations could be used to show the effect on A/B video transition, for instance.
3) Pay attention to what happens to the project when one changes it’s properties after much editing have been done. For instance: if you start a project with 29.97 FPS and later decide do use the real FPS from the original footage, such as 59FPS, Kdenlive just messes up almost every placement of clips, edits, transitions and effects.
4) The rendering options could get some love to be more clear on the intended effect of the choices. In Handbrake, you can choose the average bitrate for the encoding. This is way more informative than choosing a random “quality value” that may change among different codecs. IMHO, having at least a bitrate estimate for each value of quality would be a big bonus.
Other than that, I must say that I’m in awe for all the work you guys have put into kdenlive. I use it exclusively for all the video projects that I must tackle. Congratulations for the excellence!
I personally am fine with the idea of “split clips” rather than the hybrid model, and feel that I’ll have no problem adjusting. I can see the value in having the program work more in conformance with other industry standard programs. So far I’ve loved, and adapted to, every major new change or feature in KDEnlive, so keep up the good work!
I have never seen any advantage to having mixed clips to begin with; the first thing I do is separate them. So going that route would actually improve usability because I wouldn’t need to do that every time any more.
But speaking of which, I’d really like it if Kdenlive supported videos with several audio streams. Right now it just imports the first and ignores the second audio stream, so I have to use a script to separate the file into three and then import the streams individually.
Creating 2 clips (video and audio) is standard in Premiere. To have video and audio clips only has the advantage:
I can pull only the audio forward before the video starts. For me a good practice and make suspense to start with the audio before I see the related video.
Have better control on audio and video setting key frames.
I can edit video and audio separate. For instance by double click to edit audio or video.
I can desynchronize video and audio and move it apart from each other.
2 different kind of clips linked by default. (Premiere like?)
If it allows you to work better, work in a standard way and avoid problems and bugs, please remove that feature. Also it is a feature that does not remove a functionality, since it can be further edited in the same way. But the Clips are linked.
Thank you very much for telling us and becoming part of the process.
I vote for this change. A lot of the time I find it quite useful to have video on it’s own, and even though it’s relatively simple to remove audio from a video track, it’s an extra step that could be eliminated.
Suppose a dominant YES, some preliminary remarks:
1/ Splitting can be easily implemented with ffmpeg.
2/ What consequences does this new implementation has on video or audio filters?
3/ Will it introduce new bugs?
4/ In gross view of the amount of work it represent, what other desired feature could be implemented in the same amount of time.
5/ Does it bring implementation advantages?
Suppose a predominant NO:
Well, people who uses Kdenlive as is, will still use it as is.
Personaly, I rather see homothety pan&zoom or easier film creation from photos, than a design which I can myself, such as splitting video & audio with ffmpeg.
I like the function of adding a video clip and the editor splitting video and audio into two tracks. This gives the flexibility of working on either or both tracks and being able to split one off if not needed.
usu. the first thing I do whenever I install Kdenlive is to make sure in the settings that video and audio get automatically split in separate channels. Then I often “ungroup” them to perform different cuts and edits.
As far as I can tell I’ve never really used the hybrid variant. Since the times I worked with proprietary NLEs, Premiere and Avid, it is how I’ve been used to work in video production. Furthermore, both media materials, images and sounds, have been treated historically in different channels.
The hybrid option you mention here is perhaps more convenient for somebody editing simple videos perhaps nothing more sophisticated than putting one clip next to another. But once the project gains complexity, aesthetic or narrative, you need to split channels.
Perhaps something I’ve seen in FCP and that may be helpful is an indication in the timeline that once audio and video are ungrouped and then one is moved they are out-of-sync. .
Separate tracks for only video and only audio could be better for my workflow (I always split video-audio).
And if that allows to create a new audio mixer I will be very happy; I have always hoped for this
tool.
Thank you very much.
Generally I edit dual-system anyway, with audio and video coming in as separate files. But if I do have clips with embedded audio, I always split and ungroup my audio from video.
The reason why I believe it is usefull to have audio and video together is:
You’ve made an interview with someone. Now you just want to quickly cut out the boring parts and finish.
Having audio and video sticking together cuts them also togehter as you need.
Needing to cut audio and video seperatly would not be very handy.
But this can be also done like following:
files you upload containing video and audio are by default grouped togehter. Such as cutting effecting both. A little collored line between the audio and video file is also visible marking that they are grouped.
(and while you’re about wanting to make it for more professional use, what I’m missing are effects so that I can make videos in a simliar style then the one linked here:
https://social.tchncs.de/users/paulfree14/updates/109964
Make it standard so everyone coming from other editors would get quickly working!
I myself never used hybrid clips. The first thing i did after i installed kdenlive the first was activating the auto split feature 🙂
So i totally agree.
I’d go for separate but linked tracks. I usually manipulate audio track with audacity anyways so I usually don’t use the raw audiotrack of the video.
I’d vote for separate tracks if that makes things easier to code.
Hi, I usually repair the audio with audacity and then sync the new audio with the audio inside the video. If the audio is separate from the video but both are grouped, I think there is no problem with this.
For my point of view, I think the best option is to split a video file on 2 tracks : one for the image and one for the sound (perhaps with the possibility to convert directly AAC in uncompressed audio as temporary file – the size is not so big and it will make the preview of a cut more accurate). I can be also a good way to deal with an hypothetic export for audio mixing for future (audio mix in a video editing software is not accurate enough) like the possibility to import the audio mix in Ardour or Audacity (it’s seem to be complex to deal with OMF or AAF). Accurate audio mixing is very important for professional productions and it’s not a task for a video editing software. For moment there is no GNU editing software that give the possibility to export a project to an audio editing software. Another example is Edius : I work with a editors who never use the audio/video track in Edius because it’s confused.
For professional use, definitely video-only/audio-only because we treat video and audio separately, often using different programs.
Sound Editing and Sound Mixing are done separately to picture/video editing.
Apple have been doing some interesting things with how things are linked in Final Cut Pro X, though.
I like the simplicity of starting with the hybrid clips and having the ability to mute/separate them out when need be. However, I don’t see why I would be bothered by having audio and video split automatically in the future.
No hybrid clips is the preferred way, and if that makes the audio mixer safer to implement it seems like an obvious choice. Just make the seperated audio and video linked by default, and give the option to automatically split them in the preferences.
Hybrid. I love having the option to split or not split
I would like to see the tow clips separated from each other.
Not only because I like it this way, but also because it seems to simplify the implementation of an audio-mixer.
In my eyes simplifying is always a good idea and as far as I know Premiere and Final-cut are separating the clips as well.
As they still have users it doesn’t seem to be the worst idea.
1. Switch to use old, accurate audio envelope or the new, fast one
2. GPU
one thing i would like to consider for design changes that touches the hybrid clip / separate clip ideas:
when editing video clips for me the fasted method in the world is: I play through the video clip and set in- and out- points and hit Shift – I to make a subclip.. when i have generated all the subclips from a file i go to the next video file. after i made all the subclips i arrange them in the timeline. this safes me ram as i dont have all the clips in thetime line and it is easy to arrange them in this bottom up approach. this workflow also works in other NLE s such as lightworks and is highly efficient. the only moment where this doesnt work anymore is when you have audio recorded externally you need to sync to your video (which is in maybe 70% of video production the case) then you need to sync audio to video in the timeline and work and edit from there. Imagine you have 3 interviews of half hour and you need to edit one sentence from every interview: in the current workflow you would need to throw in 90 minutes of video into the timeline and work from there… if there would be a way to sync audio to video BEFORE the timeline, this would be fantastic! in other NLE s this is sometimes handled by making a synced sequence and make subclips from there…
so a practical idea: when locking a video file to an audio file in the timeline: marking the two clips and have an option saying “make subclip from selection” and this makes a “AV-sub”clip i find again in the project bin. from this AVsubclip i can create then all the subclips i need from my project..
sounds complicated in a description, but is the fastest way to edit imo…
good luck with everything 🙂
I use an external audio recorder which feeds the camera a stereo mix. A killer feature for me would to be able to snap the multi-track to the video’s audio track automatically. Especially if you are going to include more advanced audio editing. Please don’t tell me I can already do that 🙂