Pitivi issue / general video editing question

[marex]

Regarding the quality of output video - did you play with the quality value?
The default setting of 36 is giving really low quality. 17-18 is fair enough.

[WaltH]

If you're willing to give Shotcut another try, you might find this useful...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_qilTeu77oQ

There is a lot of help available online for Shotcut. You can easily run the latest version by downloading the AppImage from the website.

Shotcut looks like it might do what I want. I haven't tried the text function yet, but I do seem to have more control over how long each shot is up.

The application did crash on me once, but it has yet to freeze up on me. (I'm running the Flatpak available through the MX Package Installer. Don't know if it's the same version as the Appimage on the website.) There is more of a learning curve with Shotcut, but it does seem that there is also more help available.

EDIT: It is the same version as is on the website.

[WaltH]

Shotcut is looking more like the way to go. The website has a lot more help and tutorials that I saw with Pitivi. I do worry, though, that my 8gb of RAM is borderline for what I'm doing now and might want to do in the future. My options seem to be to get a new machine (the one in my price range also has 8gb RAM but has a dedicated video card with another 8gb RAM, which I currently do not have), buy and install a video card (which I've never done and it's been quite a while since I've installed anything on a computer), or add more RAM (which was the last thing I did on this machine built in 2014 when I doubled the RAM from 4 to 8gb). Money aside, which might be the better option? Thanks.

[Stevo]

The MystiQ app in our test repo makes it really easy to "burn" srt subtitle files into an existing video file, too. That way they become a permanent part of the video.

[wdscharff]

Regarding the quality of output video - did you play with the quality value?
The default setting of 36 is giving really low quality. 17-18 is fair enough.

Olive from the test repo has a. no working language selection and b. crashed while importing an .mp4.
The version that was switchable to German, it did not matter which CRF value I entered, the output always looked like the default value. Furthermore the choice and fine tuning of the decoder is very limited, e.g. there is only constant bitrate, I prefer VBR and so on

[TTwrs]

@WaltH : Even with all sorts of programs loaded, I've rarely used more that 4GB of RAM when running Shotcut or anything else. And I do all my work in RAM (with /tmp as a tmpfs) and only copy to my external drive once I've completed what I'm working on. So it might be that 8GB will be enough for you, though more RAM is almost always better. Of course, that would depend on what you're rendering.

I suggest downloading and trying the AppImage from the Shotcut website if you have another crash. Having all the program dependencies included in a single file might reduce the likelihood of that happening. Plus, the AppImage is always the latest version.

I think you'll find Shotcut quite nice to work with. I am not a seasoned video editor, but with the available help online am finding it rather easy to pick up. Here's the go-to list I use:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... cCGCuqRg_5 - Mr. Eko
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... jU92Nuewz- - James Woo
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... PKqr0GOTY6 - James Woo
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... gxIYqMAG1s - Tux Designer
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... -AIAAweDHh - Tj Free

Everything in only ten minutes (nevermind that he keeps calling it ShoRtcut):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9pzmzXj03A

[WaltH]

I suggest downloading and trying the AppImage from the Shotcut website if you have another crash. Having all the program dependencies included in a single file might reduce the likelihood of that happening. Plus, the AppImage is always the latest version.

The Flatpak available through the MX Package Installer is the same version, and don't those Flatpaks usually include all program dependencies, or am I missing something here?

[WaltH]

Thanks to everyone for their help and advice. I think I've settled on using Shotcut for the time being. So I will mark this as [SOLVED]. Thanks again!

[WaltH]

I spoke too soon in marking this solved. Shotcut also locked up on me in full screen mode when i tried to add some text to a video I'm working on. Nothing else was open. I'll try in regular mode (not full screen, that is) to see if it still freezes.

[WaltH]

Shotcut has now frozen up and crashed on me (it is the latest version). Pitivi repeatedly locked up on me. So I'm wondering what to do to maximize video processing performance on this machine. I thought I saw somewhere how some kernels are optimized for different tasks, including video processing. What installing a different kernel help in my case? I'm not running any other applications (knowingly - except Conky in the background).

I'm trying to produce 16:9 HD (1080p) lyric videos of our music (with images, music, and text) for uploading to our YouTube channel, which may be beyond the capabilities of this machine. At the moment, it at least seems to be beyond me.