I basically had the exact same thought in my mind: “New user - very happy - 2 thing’s I’d ask for” but with different items.
I just only found out about Shotcut today, and it has been a shock (in a good way) that there is now such a tool for Linux!
I am literally mind-blown, and still can’t cool off, I will be on Shotcut hype all the weekend for sure!!!
I am using Ubuntu 14.04 and 16.04 and so far I tried many video editors. All but 2 failed miserably:
- BlackMagi Fusion8
- Lightworks
*except for very special cases like motion tracking and matchmoving when you can do just about anything you desire with Blender - also on Linux.
While Fusion8 is awesome, I consider it too complex for simple projects or vlogs.
Lightworks is pretty nice actually, and it was my main choice for Linux. I wished it could get a bit easier that that, because for example I would not consider lightworks as a recommendation for some of my friends for just quick edits for schol projects etc., I felt like there should be something a notch simpler, and Shotcut delivered!!
Now, I also use some editors on Windows, but I really only ever use Windows to run those video editors, and I really wish I could do my edits all in Linux. Lightworks is what I ended up with, but there are still 2 things that I am missing that keep me still going back to Windows for video editting. The 3rd thing is bideo stabilization, which the Shotcut already deliveres! so the 2 other things are:
- Optical Flow slow motion
- Timelapse
These 2 functions are all related to the fact that I am used to GoPro Studio which by the way is a trash experience on Windows (not sure about Mac), and doesn’t come for Linux. Trash experience as it is crashing very often leaving you with unrecoverable losses of your entire project unless you handle backups by yourself or 3rd party scripts.
Yet, GoPro studio provides an incredible feature for slow motion - optical flow. It creates hollywood-like super smooth slow motion looking like achieved by tremendously expensive super high speed cameras, by actually rendering additional frames to fill in the gaps after reducing the play speed below what the source video fps can still address at smooth rate. I read that GoPro actually uses some open source optic flow library, so I wish this could also arrive to Shotcut, because to be honest, currently the optical flow slow motion is the single most significant feature of GoPro Studio that keeps users like me use it frequently even though the software crashes more than what even seem comprehendable.
The second feature about timelapse, I am not sure if Shotcut actually is missing, but my current knowledge suggests so. It would be great if photo sequences could be imported as a video clip, ideally with control over the fps.
I skipped one opic - the color correcion - because while I wish the current one (already great to have and use) was a bit more sophisticated (some curves, levels, presets like GoPro Studio’s Protune preset), I just believe it will eventually get there, and for the moment being the other 2 functions above are my dream to have!
Btw, the HTML support as overlay is amazing! There is so much one can do with this to extend effects etc, I am really pleased with it!
I am setting up a new vlog project this year about Asia traveling, and I will commit myself to try to work my post production on Linux as much as possible - until I can do it exclusively on Linux (these 2 features mentioned will eventually determine this).
I will now spend a great amount of effort to learn Shotcut and include it in my workflow alongside Lightworks, and possibly contribute to it’s popularity by covering it on both my technical blog (http://kriscode.blogspot.tw/) and upcomming traveling channel (old clips at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bshK27nRlAM&list=PLWS4ViuN_yGhg5UloGP-H3mmI1Yu0214f).