Kdenlive 24: Free & Open Source Video Editor

[@lesliedeana5142]

Reflecting for a second on the ability of everyone doing video production that wasn't even available on mainframes not that long ago, with the speed to make and change in real time... WOW!

[@ExplainingComputers]

A great reflection -- we take all this for granted far too easily these days.

[@tripplefives1402]

You still cant edit videos on mainframes. However video editing on PC was a thing even in the 90s.

[@lesliedeana5142]

@@tripplefives1402 i beg to differ... most of the early CGI was indeed crunched on mainframes, or even super minis as they progressed. I can think of a couple projects that were done on Perkin-Elmer 3240's and on Vax as well... I know because I had sine on the 1600 bpi tapes. And since the 3340 had an UBM 360 op board, in my book that does qualify a a mainframe.

[@Ziplock9000]

@@lesliedeana5142 This is not CGI rendering, it's video editing. They are completely different and always have been. No mainframe ever did none linear interactive video editing like this.

[@rano12321]

@@lesliedeana5142 most of the early cgi was developed and done on POSIX systems. Especially in the 90's the dominant high-end graphics system was IRIX (from the now-defunct Silicon Graphics) which is why after it died, the whole VFX/CGI industry switched to Linux and still majority of VFX studios run linux.

[@happy_apple]

it is great that there are open source versions of applications

[@balsalmalberto8086]

Yep. I always preferred open source, even when I was using Android and Windows. The bonus of opensource is we get software that doesn't usually have the explicit goal of extracting and selling our "non personal" data.

[@R_negativity]

Best part is some all of them is linux compatible

[@Nulley0]

Linux X OpenSource

[@AdmiralBison]

I think it's a necessity!!! - Open source and independent/public owned model. Considering nearly every corporation under the sun is trying to drown everyone in 'Software as a service' and subscriptions.

[@AdmiralBison]

P.s. I have been transitioning to Linux and migrating most of my applications to Open source. - Libre, Xournal, Open board, Thunderbird etc... I donate hundreds of dollars when ever I can to open source, because they are worth more than the thousands of dollars I've paid over the years for corporate offerings...which more and more I am not really owning.

[@thesidneychan]

There's also a project converter that can export Kdenlive projects to XML. It can be imported to Davinci resolve, which you can then convert that to another XML that can be opened in FCP or Premiere Pro. This means it's safe to use kdenlive as an offline editor that can be integrated to these other workflows. That's what I look for in open source. The potential for cross compatibility. If I ever lose access to Premiere, kdenlive is a potential replacement.

[@6yjjk]

THANK YOU. I've got a whole portable drive full of video from various kayaking trips, and I've been too scared of the video editing process even to begin playing with it. You've given me the confidence to at least start experimenting.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Good luck! :)

[@esra_erimez]

Ahh... after a week of work related deadline stress, Sunday morning, a good cup of coffee, ducks and ExplainingComputers to relax and enjoy,. Thank you for yet more excellent content.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings!

[@KingJellyfishII]

"It's always nice to be able to select lots of ducks" I wholeheartedly agree

[@jhvhest]

If there isn't a duck in the video of this channel there must be something wrong!!

[@PeteC62]

I had several moments of anxiety when I thought you were always going to stop the clip playback just before you finished saying _where_ in North Wales you were, but thankfully we got to hear you telling us it was Colwyn Bay. Phew! I hope you enjoyed your visit there!

[@ExplainingComputers]

I very much like Colwyn Bay! :) Very handy to have the beach and railway station so close.

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

​@@ExplainingComputersYou ought to do another channel update video there if possible!

[@antibrevity]

Thank you. I've been using Kdenlive more often recently and am often frustrated because I don't know how to do what I want. Even simple things can be difficult if you don't know a program's interface paradigm or procedure. Though I've worked with linear editors for many years, I still learned a few important things from this video that the Kdenlive manual did not help me with. With complex software, the user often doesn't know where to look for help to achieve their outcome or may not even know the terminology to search for. This effectively creates a 'language' barrier where even high-quality documentation might not be effective. Sometimes, it's as simple as finding a button dedicated to that task, but you might have searched for an hour and seen documentation saying only "click to open the Example menu and select Function A" while you have no idea where this menu is located as it does not exist in the main menu tree. The location is obvious to everyone that already knows where the button is, but not to those that don't. Intuitive GUI design is difficult, especially for complex software.

[@dfs-comedy]

The "Alt" trick to manipulate one clip in a group looks very useful! Thanks for pointing it out.

[@RarefiedError]

I just had a think about the ALT key slide , that would speedup workflow a good bit

[@pupi-pupi]

The maturity of this app is amazing. I did work in final cut and premiere back in a day and this looks very good

[@OksanaNagorna]

I am from Premier background, but I work on Davinci, but when I came across with Kdenlive, I liked its feature rich interface and feature. I am learning it as my secondary tool

[@dspmcmirror]

Thanks very much for making this video. Kdenlive is a godsend for those using lower-end computers, and it deserves some promotion like this.

[@brick6347]

How serendipitous. I downloaded it about 2 hours ago and was going to fiddle later! Hopefully I'll pick up a few tips!

[@mikefinn2101]

Peter great to see you again always something new to see and learn

[@RoboNuggie]

Kdenlive is my editor of choice. I couldn't manage without it to be honest, so this look at the new release is invaluable... will upgrade when it appears in the FreeBSD pkg tree. Thanks for the video & cheers Chris!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings my friend, and thanks for your support. :)

[@l0gic23]

Thanks for supporting this channel. Checked out yours... Looks like a cool place to learn about BSD. I think I added 5 videos to my Watch Later...

[@RoboNuggie]

@@l0gic23 Thank you!

[@shitbukkake]

damn... you guys are friends? that's like the best youtube crossover EVER. Absolutely love EC and RN

[@martinsmith5028]

Thanks Chris. I'll pass this on to my granddaughter and my friends daughter. Both are doing versions of a photography course

[@juanignacioaschura9437]

Been using Kdenlive 23.08 this past time on a humble AMD Zen APU with 8GB of RAM, and was able to produce some semipro-level content for clients. No stability or crashes in Debian, running it as an AppImage; colour me impressed, it's been a long way since the unstable performance I had on Windows. Aside from a few pain points, Kdenlive made me stray away from DaVinci Resolve. Really excited to try out the new version. Thanks, Chris!

[@namakudamono]

I also use Premiere, however I’m seriously impressed by the functionality of this tool. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

[@andrina118]

Great video and advice. The fact that you use kdenlive to produce your videos says it all Super that you champion open source software in a pragmatic way that won't put off Windows users from trying FOSS or even Linux Maybe it could finally be the Year of the Linux Desktop? :) I use xfce on a refurb laptop and I really think Windows users would love it, especially as these days almost everything is web-based.. The lack of cruft and "sponsored apps" is such a breath of fresh air. I have installed Debian stable on 2 people's older machines who had zero IT knowledge and they are totally happy with it.

[@robertdocherty6127]

An upgrade in Windows 10, has left me unable to launch Davinci Resolve 15, (The highest version my laptop can handle)and so I'll be trying this out to see if I can finish my project. It looks very useful, and the UI is similar to the software I have used in the past. Thanks for another great tutorial Chris.

[@TexpatOTG]

I have over 465 KZbin videos published. EVERY video was edited using Kdenlive and Audacity for audio editing. It has some annoying issues, but overall very good. I run Kdenlive on Linux Mint on a Lenovo i7 laptop.

[@MeinDeutschkurs]

Wow, that project got far within the last 6 years. Thx for bringing it back to me.

[@GretschProf]

Once again an excellent review. Kdenlive is one of my favorite video editors. This version appears to address several concerns I had with a previous version. Good job.

[@machinimaaquinix3178]

It's amazing this app is available and free. Just discovered it and blown away by the feature set and ease of use. (with the help of a couple of intro videos like this one.)

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

15:43 DUCKIES!!! 🦆💕 Anyway, it's always nice to see what's new with my favorite video editor. And that part where you downloaded it to a USB stick and ran the .exe from there was a genius idea. Here's a couple bucks for the tea fund. Love you, Chris!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings, and thanks for your support. :)

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

@@ExplainingComputers Hello, Chris! You're welcome. 😊

[@danlittle519]

So that’s how Baywatch was made, good to see the HOFF still getting to the beach , another great vid

[@GraphicalRanger]

Such a good intro/overview! Many thanks.

[@Zaryn10]

Wow, this is great. I haven't done a lot of video. However, my niece asked me to video her wedding, and I've been wondering what to use to make it much nicer. Thank you Chris. 😊

[@JeffsWay.]

I just switched from a Mac where I was using iMovie to a PC (for increased storage), and I've been trying all of the "free" video editing software programs. Most all have limitations without buying premium versions. Kdenlive seems very promising. I just need to figure out color correction, and I think I'll be going good with it. Thanks for such a informative video!

[@Gojirosan]

I set up a new laptop this week, and downloaded Kdenlive, so this video couldn't be better timed for me! Many thanks.

[@CCoburn3]

It's good to have software that can run on affordable hardware.

[@LoFiChillaxCat]

Helpful, thank you for the video.

[@VeryUsMumblings]

I prefer not-too-many ducks. I'll be coming back and watching this video again because I have some video editing to do after years of avoiding it. Thanks for a great video once again! 👍

[@ss-manoa4534]

Kdenlive also has a useful looking audio to text function for creating subtitles. I’ve only tested it a bit with clear sounding speech, but it seemed to work fairly well for English and Japanese.

[@happy_apple]

running a video editer from a usb is a cool feature

[@AffectionateLocomotive]

Also very reliable.

[@kensmith5694]

@@AffectionateLocomotive That part is really good to know. These days large memory sticks could hold the entire project.

[@Nulley0]

There are external SSDs small enough to be close to a USB stick

[@z3r0c00l2]

Like always an excellent video presentation... And kdenlive has nothing to be jealous from other more professional video editing apps .

[@ArcticTraveller-o7s]

Good day Christopher, thanks for the many excellent videos you have shown on your channel. As with this video on KdenLive 24 it definitely takes a lot of experimental guess work and test time out of the equation. KdenLive is now 24 is my video editor of choice on Linux as I transition away from privacy stealing MS Windows.

[@AnthonyElsom]

I've recently started playing around with AI related web based programs such as Invideo AI, and being on the free plan there's watermarks and stock material that doesn't look so great. So I thought of editing these with a dose of my in sim graphics created by various space sims.. And yes, my laptop is growing older by the year.. which means video editors take their toll on my humble yet beloved old Dell. Fancy seeing EC doing this timely review..Spot on as usual Chris, Downloading Kdenlive for Windows right now, and wouldn't you know, I've got KDE Neon with Wayland waiting on the other end. 😊

[@tkd4]

Every video i watch with this guy make me like him nore and more. Such useful information as I'm getting into linux. (Ubuntu)

[@SuperWolfkin]

I picked up KDenLive because of your recommendation on this channel and I've been pretty satisfied with it. I don't do anything professional and it does the trick. Speaking of tricks I didn't expect to learn much in this video but holy heck was I wrong. That timeline preview is going to change my game and when I start editing again I'm definitely going to look at whether proxy clips are worth it. Also great breakdown of the new features. I can't wait to play with some easing.

[@XSpImmaLion]

Amazing how far they came with it, and thanks Chris for the tutorial and sharing... I used Kdenlive several years ago, very much liked their simple and intuitive approach that got the standard workflow for most video editing software. It was great to see something that works somewhat close to Premiere and Final Cut which were the editing suites I was used to, but on open source software. Seems that they only improved on the whole thing and worked out the kinks and bugs. Not currently using editing software much these days, but I'll certainly keep Kdenlive installed for any odd job that comes out. At least for me personally it was a bit more intuitive to transition from Premiere to Kdenlive instead of daVinci Resolve, even though now I know the basics of both.

[@siskokidd]

Everything I needed to know about this software. (25 years of editing experience with Avid, Premier...)

[@Chris.Brisson]

What a brilliant overview. We can appreciate the time that went into making this video (even if you did so with Premiere Pro).

[@rickster2317]

A great introduction into Kdenlive 24 Chris. I have rarely done any video editing, but this video makes delving into doing some more appealing. It is amazing what can be done now days with an opensource program, that can run on less powerful hardware, and even multiple operating systems. Thanks for another great video.

[@alanthornton3530]

Thank you Chris for this latest video. I do enjoy using Kdenlive for when I'm making slide shows/videos, I'm impressed with this new version. Take care & kind regards Alan

[@ExplainingComputers]

Thanks for you support. :)

[@richiereyn]

I've been using KdenLive for quite a while now, though I am running Debian stable, so I won't get the latest features until the next release. Stability is everything to me. But it won me over for the tasks I needed to do. I don't need a fancy editor, so this fits my needs very well indeed. I think the guys at KDE make some excellent software, so it is no surprise that I run the KDE desktop as well.

[@shitbukkake]

You don't have to wait for the next release of Debian to run the latest Kdenlive. There is the appimage version, which can be run from any folder on your system just like the standalone Windows version. Last I tried it ran flawlessly on Debian stable. Only downside is the lack of automatic updates.

[@Kw1161]

Thanks Chris for enlightening me on the new KDEnlive software. Have a great day!

[@jpmyers6950]

Wonderfully comprehensive as usual Chris. I've never used an editor but would love to learn. I've always dreamed of making a film. Now I know what to use. I've been using KDE Neon, it's a great distro. Thank you.

[@lorderectus1849]

He’s in Colwyn bay , how fascinating 🧐 it would take me 1 day and 19 hours to get there!

[@brianwood5220]

I love Kdenlive, so thanks for telling us all some of the new features, It's very helpful, Chris. 😁

[@parrotraiser6541]

There are clearly a whole lot of concepts in video editing, to thr point of being overwhelming. To begin achieving fluency, it would help to have a tutorial text alongside the computer, starting with very simple jobs and slowly adding new ones.

[@durbledurb3992]

Live, and on location in North Wales, no less. This man does what has to be done. 👍

[@Reziac]

I'm impressed with how much STUFF it must be doing in the background, and also with the awesome size of the ideal monitor. :) That seems to be a thing across most KDE apps .... they're efficient enough to run on lesser hardware.

[@StephenSE9]

I use a different nightly build of Kdenlive per project. I spotted something in this video that was my handiwork. So I'm honoured.

[@kensmith5694]

I have edited video on a 1GB machine with a slow processor using kdenlive. It does work but there are some issues: -- Loading clips and processing clips is "go get a glass of water slow" -- Playback tends ------- to ----- stutter a lot but you can get an idea of what you are making -- Changes on the time line can take a second to do.

[@AC9BXEric]

The alt key thing to modify a clip in a group is awesome.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Yes, it will save a lot of time!

[@TheKuKontinuum]

IMHO Kdenlive is light years ahead of DaVinci Resolve in the proxy department. The proxy settings in Kdenlive is simple but intuitive. Kdenlive supports externally-generated proxy clips that reside in the same folder as the main video files. This is extremely useful. My DJI Osmo Action 4 generates a .lrf (low resolution file) for in-camera playback and this file can be used by Kdenlive as a proxy file. You simply select 'DJI LRF' from a drop-down menu and Bob's really your uncle. Low resolution files generated by GoPro (LRV), Sony (PXW) and Akaso (LRV) are also supported. I'm sure it's a matter of time before DaVinci copy this feature. DaVinci can also use externally-generated proxy files but the process is convoluted to say the least. First you have to copy your low res files to a sub-folder in your video folder then you have to change the file extensions (from whatever) to mp4. Finally you have to tell DaVinci in the Preferences that you want to use externally generated proxy files. Yuk.

[@Rustyjarz]

Great video, thank you! I'd like to see just host to pixelate / blur a section of a video as that area/selection moves about the frame. I'm mostly interesting in learning how to do this for privacy.

[@spongythecake]

Seriously, when I was a kid, I wish somebody showed me Blender and Kdenlive. But no, it was always Microsoft guff

[@perrymcclusky4695]

“It is always nice to select lots of ducks” in your Kdenlive 24 video. Looking forward to your next video!

[@dr.eldontyrell-rosen926]

I'm just getting started with editing on PC, I was doing it on iPhone with various apps but these apps are limited in functionality and not open source. Thanks for a great intro, I'll try Kdenlive first!

[@Argedis]

I personally like Shotcut for open source video editing but Kdenlive looks great. That preview render is awesome.

[@technoWZ5598]

I would love to see a series about free and open source music creation software and synthesizers. There's a lot of free software surrounding music creation, ranging from digital audio workstations to plug-ins and synthesizers. I'm just suggesting, not saying you have to make a series on this, but I definitely think it would make for a great series, or you could review software like LMMS, which is a free and open source digital audio workstation, and it's cross platform, so it works on just about anything. Your videos are amazing! Keep up the great work :)

[@ExplainingComputers]

Nice, idea -- and added to my list!

[@technoWZ5598]

@@ExplainingComputers Thanks! Hopefully this is a series others will enjoy too! I'm really hoping it gets you more subscribers

[@jamieamendolagine205]

Thanks again for another great video. Coincidentally I just finished using kdenlive to edit my total eclipse video that me and my kids made for the April 8th eclipse. I muddled through it on my own, but I wish that I had found your video first!

[@shuttlepodone1707]

Excellent video, perfect for me. I am setting up Mint on an older PC for a relative to have for the main purpose of starting to learn how to edit videos.

[@chriswalford4161]

Thanks - a very useful overview that reduces the intimidation factor

[@chfr]

Do kdenlive proxies use the same codec as the source file? Or does it pick more editing-appropriate formats? From my experience in resolve, the biggest performance gain from proxies is not only the resolution change, but also (and mainly) the conversion to a format that is not h264/5, at the expense of disk space.

[@ExplainingComputers]

You are right, proxies work in part because they do not use consumer video formats that were only ever intended for delivery, not editing! :) Kdenlive does not use the same codec as the source file for proxies -- I'm not aware of any video editor that does this.

[@dang48]

Thank you. This reminded me of Audacity (audio editing), and the possibilities are amazing.

[@mikemacdonald2094]

Thanks for the video. I normally use Shotcut for my personal work. It's nice to be introduced to the simple and most common tasks in Kdenlive. I'm sure to be giving it a go in the near future now.

[@GaryB007]

I've tried both and found Kdenlive to be more intuitive and generally better.

[@00REEEEE]

Personally have used it for professional editing. My Editor of choice these days.

[@kensmith5694]

Professionally, I have used it for personal editing. That is I made a video presentation with my picture in it for my work.

[@loginregional]

I'm glad I watched; my version is at 22.12

[@Praxibetel-Ix]

Good morning/afternoon, everyone! :)

[@MeinDeutschkurs]

Greeeeeeeeetings! ❤️ as always gorgeous video example footage!

[@johncundiff7075]

VERY COOL!! You explained some awesome software today!!!!

[@WalterW]

This is exactly what I need. Thanks, Chris!

[@CraigRodmellMusic]

Thanks for bringing this application to my notice!

[@jermesastudio]

Thank you for this tutorial. It has been very helpful for my commercial projects.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Great to hear!

[@michaelmcdonald3275]

Gday Mate, greetings from Central Coast NSW Australia. I am using a version 3 AppImage of Blender for video editing. Once you get to know it's features it is very flexible. But you already know this. It is slow to render, yes, but it never randomly shuts down on a memory issue at anytime. It will be interesting to see if that probelm was Kdenlive or in fact a problem in earlier versions of QT.

[@zacmitchell_1984]

Thumbs up now, but saved to watch later when i can watch uninterrupted!

[@DLiberator78]

Chris you must be a mind reader! Thank you so much for reviewing the latest version of Kdenlive. I have recently started to re-using Kdenlive on Windows and going to put a comment on one of your videos to ask if you could review the latest version of the product and here we are, you never disappoint. Great content as always.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Spooky! :)

[@brennenraines51]

not just here is software that is opensource but also how to use it, thank you !

[@PS_Tube]

Greetings Chris B. This Kdenlive review video is giving some deja vu vibes. Like the part where you were on a beach. If I'm not mistaken, there was another video where you were on the same beach. Noticed, you've been running KDE. That's interesting, unlike your preference for Mint.

[@Skydancer0665]

Just two day ago I used Kdenlive 24 standalone in office for remove audio tack from an institutional video of my company, I wondered how easy I did it!

[@rutkowskir]

Thanks Chris. I've been using kdeniive for a while. I took several still images of the Solar Eclipse here in the U.S. this month. The stills of the sun are all over the place. I'd like to make a time lapse of the eclipse. Is there any way kdenlive can stabilize the images of the sun into one point to make a smooth time lapse? Thanks Rich

[@My-Cozy-Games-Lofi]

Also follow up question. I'm running Kdenlive on windows 10 from an Intel laptop I've gone through all the settings to ensure it runs as specified but it doesn't seem to work as intended. It refuses to render my video it just keeps brining up a message that says: 'output file already exists would I like to overwrite existing file' The first time I rendered a small video it didn't create a video clip just a sound data wave clip or something like that was unplayable, was just a file with something like a static audio wave. I'm not able to create a edited video clip. I've gone through the manual and several other videos I can't find a resolution. If I can't use it I would like to uninstall it but I want to ensure I won't be damaging my hard drive doing it or still taking up space cause I haven't uninstalled it. Any suggestions would be appreciated. It seemed easy to use initially, seems like a buggy piece of software not being able to use it as its suppose to be.

[@ninline2000]

Thanks for the video. This is what i needed to see today.

[@chriholt]

Very impressive - now I'm torn between DaVinci Live and Kdenlive! What to do?

[@jaffarbh]

Great video as usual Chris. To be honest, it seems Kdenlive can actually replace more advanced editors for most users that just need to stitch up clips and add simple transitions. It's more intuitive than Resolve and PPro too.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Greetings, and very true.

[@UnCoolDad]

Fantastic. Was not aware of this software. Please do more FOSS reviews.

[@SchoolforHackers]

Once again Chris gently introduces us to technology from the future.

[@LarryKapp1]

I would like to give it a try because it looks like it might be less complicated than the other video editing programs.

[@JamesWilliams-rw6qc]

Great video, I am currently using the Adobe suite but using it less professionally these days so it's difficult to justify the monthly price and looking for alternatives, especially something that is multiplatform as my still fairly powerful laptop with a 7th Gen processor does not support Windows 11. I will probably transition with DaVinci Studio (unless the headache of using certain distros or distrobox is too difficult to make stable) but it's good to see how good the open-source NDVE's have become. I would love to see a video on transitioning from Windows 10 to Linux for all the millions of computers that suddenly will not be supported after the 14th of October 2025.

[@DevotedGamer1]

Excellent Editor, used it for a year, Please do a video series on Kdenlive Tutorials, would be helpful

[@muddyexport5639]

Thanks for the tour, Prof!

[@ExplainingComputers]

Most welcome.

[@temyraverdana6421]

Thanks a lot for editing software video explanation, very appreciated. You have an incredible 360 degree knowledge. See you next.

[@renobodyrenobody]

Thanks a lot. We need more FOSS and less unacceptable Microsoft things.

[@OwtDaftUK]

It's the software I use. It's very good. I only use it on a basic novice level. It's not easy to use. I always end up with black borders on the output and so i stick them in handbreak after because i know how to get rid of them with that.

[@tonykeltsflorida]

Kdenlive is what I use to edit and render videos. Longer videos also get ran through Handbrake. My Linux Mint PC renders videos very fast because of the I5 11500 CPU

[@SB-qm5wg]

Kdenlive is still my go-to for editing.

[@ROBLOXTHANOS]

Just downloaded Kdenlive for Apple silicon. Let’s see how useful it is to me.

[@ExplainingComputers]

Very interesting. Good luck with it!

[@Resolve4u]

How is your experience now with Kdenlive?

[@ROBLOXTHANOS]

@@Resolve4u It has a nice UI layout and very useful features. I think it is a great tool that is free. Definitely rivals professional programs and makes the choice to spend hundreds of dollars on a paid program seem like a bad one.