External Plugin Support (OpenFX, VST2, and LV2)

[shotcut]

External Plugin Support (OpenFX, VST2, and LV2)

With the release of version 26.6, Shotcut has introduced limited support for external audio and video plugins. This allows advanced users to expand their video and audio editing workflows with third-party visual effects and advanced audio processing tools.

Important Note: This feature is currently experimental. There is an increased risk of crashes, visual bugs, or non-functional parameters. Use this feature with caution on production projects.

Supported Formats & Directory Paths

Shotcut automatically searches for plugins in your operating system’s standard directories. Ensure your plugins are installed in the exact folders listed below for your platform:

1. OpenFX (Video Effects)

OpenFX (OFX) is an open standard for visual effects plugins.

• To try this today, install NTSC-rs. Shotcut includes a UI for this plugin so you do not need to run with --experimental.
• Current Limitations: Shotcut does not support custom UIs embedded inside OFX plugins (it generates its own UI), plugins that operate temporally (relying on previous or subsequent frames), transitions, generators, or plugins requiring multiple video/image inputs. Only multi-threaded CPU processing is supported (no GPU-only OFX plugins).

Operating System	Standard Installation Path
Windows	C:\Program Files\Common Files\OFX\Plugins
macOS	/Library/OFX/Plugins:~/Library/OFX/Plugins
Linux	/usr/OFX/Plugins:/usr/local/OFX/Plugins

2. VST2 & LV2 (Audio Effects)

Popular formats for equalizers, compressors, limiters, delays, and reverbs.

• To try this today, install Valhalla Supermassive. Shotcut includes a UI for this plugin so you do not need to run with --experimental.
• Current Limitations: Custom vendor-specific graphical interfaces are not supported. Only audio effects (no instruments, synthesizers, or samplers) are supported.

Operating System	Standard Installation Path
Windows	C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST2;C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST2;C:\Program Files (x86)\VSTPlugins
macOS	/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST:~/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/VST
Linux	/usr/local/lib/vst:/usr/lib/vst:/usr/lib64/vst

Experimental UI Generator

The UI generator is for external plugins as well effects included with the Shotcut engine but not shown in the Filters menu. To access it, you must launch Shotcut using the command-line flag --experimental.

1. Close Shotcut completely.
2. Open your system’s command-line interface (e.g., Command Prompt on Windows, Terminal on macOS or Linux).
3. Start Shotcut with the experimental parameter:

   • Windows:

     "C:\Program Files\Shotcut\shotcut.exe" --experimental
     

   • macOS:

     open -a shotcut --args --experimental
     

   • Linux:

     shotcut --experimental
     

4. Once Shotcut loads, go to Filters and click the button to open the Manage Add-on Filters dialog. From there, you can search for, register, and enable discovered plugins.
5. Enabled (checkbox) plugins will now appear in the Filters menu.

Safe Mode & Recovery

Third-party plugins can occasionally be unstable. To prevent rendering crashes or loading loops:

• If Shotcut crashes within 30 seconds of starting up, it will automatically reboot in Safe Mode.
• Safe Mode temporarily disables all external OpenFX, VST2, and LV2 plugins so you can troubleshoot, update, or remove the problematic plugin from your system folders.
• Once you have removed the offending plugin, you can exit this state by choosing Settings > Leave Safe Mode from the top menu.

Community/Custom Plugin UIs

Advanced users can bypass the --experimental startup command if they manually supply a custom, hand-crafted user interface script for an external plugin.

• Custom user interfaces can be placed directly in your App Data Directory inside extensions/filters.
• The system looks for QML UI templates that target a dummy or no-op backend filter via mlt_service: 'shape' inside the meta.qml file. This allows scripting features to load as local extensions until a formal scripting panel is introduced.