New User Exporting Question

Help/How To
1

Hello, I am a new Shotcut user and I have been having some issues exporting my files from the Timeline (after splitting it and removing the first section). The files render, but show up black with no audio. However, if I export multiple files from the playlist I do not have this issue.

Hopefully this is not a stupid question, but in order to export a video from the timeline, are you required to save it as a MLT new file before exporting?

I have not seen this requirement in any of the exporting tutorials, but apart from that, I am not seeing any other differences between what I am doing and what is being shown in the tutorials.

Initially, I just dragged and dropped files into Shotcut, and then dragging the files to the Timeline. Afterwards, I trimmed them (split and removed previous/next sections) and proceeded to export them using preset settings for “YouTube,” “H.264 High Profile,” etc… I gave each file a new unique name (though .mp4 was not showing up as an automatic extension in the text box for the filename, but they were still saving as .mp4 files). The Audio & Video were not disabled in the setting or muted in the timeline. (These were listed problems elsewhere in the forum).

The problem I have been having is that file is completely black with no audio after it gets rendered via exporting. The files are making it through exporting (to 100%) and create a new file with the correct length of time, but again, the file is black.

After trying everything else I could think of, I thought I would try uploading an edited file and asking if there were any thoughts on where I was going wrong…however, after saving it as a New File Project/MTL, it did allow me to export a file, without it becoming black without audio.

I was wondering why that would be the case? And if for simple edits, you need to save a new file project each time before exporting? (And does it need to be saved as a MTL ==> I’m not sure what that is tbh, just wondering if I would lose the project if it is saved as something else?) Or if there is a setting I am missing that would allow you to export it without creating a MTL?

How should I put this…if I just need to save the file as a new file/MTL before exporting that is not a big deal…
I am just wondering if I actually solved the problem (that most others don’t have I guess?) or if something else going on in terms of the actual problem/cause of the file becoming black? Like if I sidestepped it now by saving it as a MTL because my edits/trimming were really basic, but the problem will still occur somewhere along the line (even with saving it as a MTL), if my edits were more advanced?

I might be overthinking this to be honest, but I am curious, as I want to avoid other problems in the future…

Also, wondering if the solution really is as simple (& probably something most people don’t think about) as saving the file as a new file format, is there anything else I should be aware of/look out for that’s probably common sense working with Shotcut in the future?

I am new to video editing (the previous software I used for it was Movie Maker), so besides being a file extension, I am not entirely sure what it is, and why files are saved as MTL’s when you go to save your files in Shotcut (vs another movie file). I’ve noticed it is much smaller than the original .MOV file, so I’m guessing it is basically instructions or a base for something, like a mail merge, where if you move the original .MOV or MTL file (or the .MOV file is editted), then the link breaks and you have to start all over again? (At least when I do mail merges, if the source is altered, I usually have to start all over again T.T;. People who mail merge all the time and know what they are doing probably don’t…).

I’m a sorry if I’m asking something fairly common sense, but I could not find the answer when I searched online earlier (ie., I was getting stuff like make sure your video/audio is not disabled, timeline eye/audio is visible, and some stuff that I could not really understand…like corner of the timeline? and stuff related to coding?). Most of the tutorial videos were also showing how to do different things, when at this point, I just want to start out small doing basic things like uploading small couple minute clips (from 10-20 minute MOV videos I recorded) on Youtube…and have been having issues even with that :U…

2

No. I have no idea why it is only black silence. Never experienced that. Sounds like a problem with that project.

It is a project file - not a video file like MP4. Think .docx (mlt) versus .pdf (mp4). MP4 (or any other video file format can save all the information that is needed by Shotcut.

yes, but you do not need to start over if you break the link. Shotcut will show a dialog of missing file or broken links, and you can double-click each listed missing file to specify the new file location.

3

Okay, I think I finally know what was going on with the black clips…and it is probably something pretty stupid.

So, I think when I deleted the parts of the video that I did not want in while trimming the video to select clips, instead of deleting those sections of the video, I instead did some combination of “Lifted” them from the timeline…but because I was only doing a single video, there was not anything under them, when they were lifted, so they were black without audio. Because it was removed for that section of the timeline, and the entire timeline (not just the clip with the video & audio I wanted) was exported, it made it look like there was a problem rendering and nothing was there.

So, since my video was 9 minutes originally, and my clips were all 1 minute or less, it made it look like there was no sound or video, because there wasn’t any for the majority of the video, except for those parts. Except, I probably also accidentally “Moved” and some combination of “Removed” parts as well, since some of the clips were not 9 minutes (and I had not noticed that the clips were much longer and not the length I thought they would be).

Watching the entire movies, there are parts randomly in the middle where I DO have audio/sound and I did not realize it.

I think at some point, I realized that I just moved/lifted parts of the Timeline, when I was doing some test edits to try and figure out why my videos were black…and then switched to actually “Removing” previous & next sections, but I did not realize that it was not just that time that I had “lifted” sections, but rather every time prior. And that time must have been the time in which I started to save the files as MTLs.
(Strangely, at one point, looking back, I think I may have thought that the moving handles instead speed up or slowed down the video…that is made the same clip a length +1:00 longer, but with the same content stretched or contracted.)

This would also explain why rendering/exporting from the MTLs was going faster for me, than the timelines–because I was exporting a 1 minute clip then, instead of a total of 9 minutes (from 8 minutes of nothing and 1 minute of clip).

Thank you so much for your reply and input… I probably would have continued to believe you just needed to save it as a MTL, and never realize that Lifting it from the track was what caused the (actually secretly not completely) black video & no audio I experienced…Also, if I Lifted parts of the timeline by mistake again, I probably might have either thought that the video was black (via the preview & watching the beginning), or that part of the video I wanted was missing or there was a problem exporting, so some black stuff was added instead of being deleted. So, yes, this was very helpful. Thank you~