MX Linux Forum

AVL-MX I’m looking for a video editor with lossless audio rendering capabilities.

Openshot has an OGG (theora/flac) export option but with MP4 and webM as a source it creates a video with sparkling white or black pixels that appear for about a second, a few times in a five minute video – about 30 – 50 white or black pixels, not white and black.
I’d gladly accept a resolve for this particular Openshot problem too.

I’d prefer a video editor that would render a video with flac lossless audio, but I suppose other lossless audio would be fine. I selected Openshot because of it’s simplicity as my first personal computer was a few years ago and I’m not experienced at video editing, so I’d prefer something simpler than Blender. Yet at the same time, I’d prefer more features than what Openshot provides – prefer.

My goal - to make videos with lossless audio that will preferably play on linux (say SMPlayer) and some preferably common Window’s video players.

I ask here because the most relevant info that I can find from searching ["lossless audio" video editor "linux" -losslesscut] is:
kdenlive> render> format> Lossless/HQ> H264: You can edit the profile and pass acoded=flac for lossless audio.

which I assume means that Kdenlive will output lossless flac audio – hopefully without video glitches.ugh

I thought the AVL-MX may be more appropriate.
I couldn’t find an AVL-MX section for posting, hope Respins is the correct place for posting.

Advice would be appreciated – thanks.

Tough question...
Talk to the dude at AV linux

If you use the @ sign and start typing a name you can tag folk. :)

@MXRobo

I understand what you are trying to achieve and you should be able to achieve what you want by exporting the Video in the '.mkv' file format instead of the more commonly known MP4 format. MKV allows for H.264 Video and WAV Audio which is the most 'lossless' format or you can also use FLAC Audio in MKV which is the next best thing to WAV..

Here's an article on MKV: https://www.matroska.org/what_is_matroska.html

Now... all of that said... If you for instance have a Video file where the Audio is already been compressed heavily to the .mp4 format (ie something pulled off Youtube with 'youtube-dl') then editing the video and exporting the already compressed .mp4 Audio to WAV or FLAC isn't 'wrong' but it's not going to do anything at all to improve the Audio quality. In cases like that I like to demux or separate the Audio from the Video with Avidemux and work on the Video separately and then put the streams back together (or 'mux') them with Avidemux..

Avidemux isn't in the MX Repos currently but it comes as part of AVL-MXE because it is an indispensible tool for taking Video apart and putting it back together and I use it all the time. Unfortunately it isn't immediately intuitive how to use Avidemux and takes a bit of working your way through the menus and understanding what Video and Audio codecs you are working with so if you're new to working with Video it may be a little overwhelming..

So to summarize, regardless of whether you are using Openshot, Kdenlive or Cinelerra they all should provide MKV export templates, I suggest trying to export your Video with WAV or FLAC Audio as an .mkv file and try it in SMPlayer, to be honest I don't know of any Linux Video player that doesn't play MKV so any and all should play MKV no problem..

As far as Openshot, I have never had tremendous luck with it and therefore I don't ship it in AVL-MXE if it has problems with the exported Video then I'm sure the developers would like to know about it.. Kdenlive seems to be the most popular Linux Video Editor but I personally use Cinelerra-GG and have great results with it, but all of them have a learning curve to get the best out of them..

@AVLinux
Thanks for the reply, I was hoping that you would see my post and reply.

With my limited audiophile knowledge I somewhat intuitively knew not to export garbage low quality compressed audio as FLAC or WAV and expect an improvement in sound quality. I usually use a video from Youtube, and then add a song. I previously used 320 kbps mp3s that don’t sound too bad, but I started using cd quality audio with the defaults of 32 bit-float, and 44100 Hz Project rate recorded with Audacity from cd quality source, exported as FLAC with Level 5 at 16 bit.

Unfortunately, I'm not as confident as you are that the developers would want to know about this issue,
but I may let then know as I've verified this with different sources.

I believe you, that the MKV container supports FLAC, and from your link:
“Designed to hold any type of codec. (Audio, Video, Subtitle, etc)”
but I don’t know that Openshot will - or won't.

OS seems to have predefined codecs for each type of 'Targeted' container, but they may just be defaults as opposed to predefined codecs.

See links to images: May be doings this incorrectly. Edit, I was doing it incorrectly.

Openshot_Export_Target_Mkv https://ibb.co/SmSthYc Notice, no predefined/default export target with wav, or in the audio codec box either.
Predefined/default audio codec - Openshot_Export_Target_Mkv_AudioDefaultcodec_libvorbis https://ibb.co/7CXVxnR
-------------Pair separation - between MKV and OGG---------------------
Openshot_Export_Target_OGG_AudioDefault_flac https://ibb.co/qjyyVk1
Predefined/default audio codec - Openshot_Export_Target_OGG-theora-flac https://ibb.co/6gJVKbj

For example, this link: https://github.com/OpenShot/openshot-qt/issues/283
mentions simply typing the codec into the Audio Codec box, as I do for the Bit Rate/Quality under Advanced>Audio Settings - a dropdown would be nice.

It also mentions adding libavcodec-extra for more codecs. Last night I saw Libavcodec58 or something in Synaptic, I don’t know if this would benefit me or not.

Anyway, if I simply typed “flac” into the Audio Codec box and it exported fine, which I will try, how could I verify that the audio did export as FLAC at the specified export quality? EDIT, entering "flac" in the Audio Codec box didn't work as it hung at 23:52:15 remaining; flac may just be displayed in the Audio Codec box and may not be the actual codec.

Search verify audio quality results: Invert both in audacity and visualize the difference.

And I’ve been thinking about this and you for a few weeks now, do you know of any way of delaying audio by more than two (2) seconds in linux?
Say for sports, when Gus Johnson, Beth Mowins and Gilbert Gottfried are announcing - preferably at 8 kbps.

I tried AV Linux a few years ago on a USB, it was just a little too much for me at the time, and still may be, but I do like tools and idea behind the distro for audio, particularly the bit-perfect aspect.

I'll report back either way as to whether OS exported the MKV file with flac audio and the quality if I can determine either.
EDIT, entering "flac" in the Audio Codec box didn't work as it hung at 23:52:15 remaining; flac may just be displayed in Openshot and may not be the actual codec.

Looks like I may be looking at Cinelerra-GG or something similar soon.

Thanks again AVLinux!

Hi Again,

Sorry, wish I could be more help with Openshot but I'm completely out of the loop with it now..

To shift Audio there are a few options, Most editors should let you separate the Audio and Video tracks on the timeline and then you should be able to drag the Audio track manually to where you want it. Cinelerra-GG has a 'nudge' feature on the Audio tracks and that will let you shift them and Avidemux (not in MX yet) has an Audio 'shift' feature..

Hi....I have pondered numerous years a similar issue. A few editors can make "keen delivering" for certain arrangements like mpg2 however it is clearly a troublesome errand for more intricate codecs. A few editors smarts delivering with AVCHD yet there are as yet odd outcomes.

You can enter your own terget bitrate in Sony MS when delivering (basically in some codecs). Pick somewhat higher than unique and the quality remaining parts quite well. On the off chance that you have recordings with more established codecs (like mpg2 or even mpg1) the AVCHD is undeniably more proficient and you can deliver with lower bitrate.