I use Shotcut since a year and a half, and despite being very outdated and unstable, I always felt comfortable using it. However, I have a problem I never understood how it was caused and how to fix it.
When I cut and allign the clips of my video, I can preview them in Shotcut to see how they will look in the video, so I adjust them frame by frame, but when I export the video, the clips start and ends two frames later. The thing I do to overcome this problem is to make the clip start and end two frames later depending on how I want them to look, but this is very tedius and it gives me much less control. I tried every export option, and nothing seems to change. I also tried Olive and it doesn’t give me this problem, with it’s default settings nontheless, wich makes me thinking there is something wrong with the program itself, or at least that’s how I view it. Like I said, I don’t know how it’s caused and how to fix it, that’s why I’m asking if there’s any solution for this.
Ok, I found out what caused the problem; it was just because I was using the damn proxy, so on the video preview I was seeing the clips with two frames of delay compered to the original video. So now take that in mind when you use proxy and udjust the clips of your videos to be frame perfect.
I also noticed that the final frame of the video gets duplicated, wich I don’t know if it’s normal or not.
I am using the latest version of Shotcut, and as far as I know, I always had this problem since I started using Shotcut a year and a half ago. I suppose people just never noticed this problem, but I did. Also I’m not making stuff up; I joined exactly to report the problem and to know what caused it and how to fix it, hoping it could be usefull for other ones that use this program. On a final note, I did a billion tests to be sure of what was happening, so I’m definetly not making this up.
Not saying you made this up of course, what I’m saying is this isn’t a bug with proxy, as many people use it and the devs would have fixed it in a jiffy had it been a widespread bug. There’s something with your system or your editing or your video files that causes this (for example lossy compression or variable framerate or something like that), but I’m not knowledgeable enough to suggest more ideas, we’ll see what others on this forum think.
I thought you didn’t have latest version because you said you’ve been using it for a year and a half and it’s “very outdated and unstable”, which it really isn’t.
I’m not very knoledgeable eather about this, so it’s hard to determinate what really caused the problem, but what I can say is that while using proxy I had this problem, and as soon as I turn it off I just see the clips how they will appear in the exported video instead of having some frame delay of some sort.
Also, I should be dumb to not update the softwere I use the most for a year and half, no one in the right mind would not do that.
About the “outdated and unstable” statment, Shotcut IS outdated and unstable compared to more modern video editros. I use a modern laptop with both a RTX 3050 and an AMD processor, yet it still runs like I’m using Windows XP. The video preview are all laggy, especially with many effects on the clips, and it takes seconds, sometimes even minutes to open a project or just change a clip from a video track to another, or even to undo, especially with larger projects with nmany clips, and more often than not, while it loads, it just crushes, over and over again; this is just ridiculus.
I haven’t tried many other video editors, but I tried Olive and that one runs as smooth as butter, without the need of using proxy or anything; it just works out of the box, allthough it is not very complete and intuitive as Shotcut, so that’s why I’m still more comfortable with Shotcut, but now it’s becoming almost unusable, and I can’t be the only one who has that kind of experience with it.
Variable framerate is very likely the cause, and frame inconsistency can occasionally occur when video has been recorded in this way. Did you use a phone to record your video per chance?? At any rate, in Shotcut click on a video in the timeline, then select the properties tab and look here:
You can then convert to an edit friendly format by simply clicking the convert button (the default settings should be fine) and test to see if it makes a difference.
No, I used the Xbox Game Bar for recording, and I even setted it to 60fps and best quality. Seems like the recordings I get from it are not actually stable 60fps, since I just checked the clips’ properties and they’re indeed at a variable frame rate. They’re never eve the same frame rate; some are like 59,048807fps, some are 60,00099, some others are 60,001049, and so on; they’re always inconsistent, so what you’re saying is probabaly right.
Totest if it is true, I tried converting one clip with the default settings to see if it chages anything, and it does indeed fix the problem. Not only I don’t have frame inconcistency between the preview and the output resoult, but also the clip that has a stable frame rate doesn’t look like crap, unlike the ones that have an unstable frame rate.
Here’s a comparasion to give an exemple (I can’t upload multiple images so I ended up stucking them in the same one)
The proxy by default is 540p, I don’t know if it can by modified to another resolution.
Also for these screenshots I didn’t used any preview scaling.
The only annoing thing is that when I convert a clip, it converts the whole video in wich the clip was trimed from. Is there any way to converting only the clip as it is? Eather way, will this process be worth doing for every single clip that I have on my video? There are tons of them and I already have very little space on my PC. Also I wouldn’t like to use clips that have worst quality compared to the unconverted ones, but a converted clip with lossless quality can take up to 2gb in some cases, so I don’t know if it’s worth doing this or just keeping the clips as they’re, since I don’t have a problem with that anymore, as long as I don’t get frame inconsistency between the preview and the output, wich doesn’t happen if I just don’t use proxy.
So what do I have to do to record on a stable framerate? Do I just use OBS and set thr frame rate to 60?
Also about my previus question, is it worth to converting all my clips so that they have a stable framerate? Because other than the fact it would take me time and space on my PC to do so, I also noticed that the frames on converted clips are more bulred than the unconverted ones (again, I didn’t used any preview scaling or proxy when I tested this), so I really don’t know if it’s worth it at this point.
While on topic, some frames of my recordings are crystal clear with perfectly scaled picels, but in othet ones they’re blured (I’m talking about the unconverted ones), is that because of the variabale frame rate? Can it be fixed? Eather way, converting the clips just makes things worst in this case, as I described earlier.
I think these tend not to be highly variable, but I don’t use it myself to answer definitively. I would try to use unconverted and with proxy, export, review, turn off proxy, and touch up any critical edits that are off by some frames. Probably not every edit point in your videos needs to be perfectly frame accurate - just a guess.
is that because of the variabale frame rate?
Unlikely, but converting using the MP4 option will degrade quality slightly (which is why there are better and best options).
already did that, and no, not necessarly I have to be frame perfect, but I’m a perfectionist maniacs so I still wanna do that because I can and because I want, and besides, adjusting the clips of your video and exporting them exactly how you see them in the preview should be a standard, so at least I hope this topic helped some other ones who had/have this problem other than me.
Yea right, I forgot about that, but as I said, converting a clip with lossless quality some time takes up almost 2gb, unless there is an option to convert only the trimed clip and not the full video of it, but I doubt since I haven’t found that option. So I think for this project I’m working on it’s already too late to convert everything; I do not have the time and free soace on my PC. The video runs smooth and there isn’t any inconsistency between the preview and the final output resoult, and that’s really all I need for now. Needless to say tho, Now that I know how all of this works I’ll be sure to prepare myself better for the next project I will work on using Shotcut.
