Save Effect Stack

Is there a way in Shotcut to group multiple filters together and save them? In Kdenlive this function is called: Save Effect Stack.

The only way currently:

  1. uncheck the filters you do not want to include
  2. copy filters
  3. paste the MLT XML somewhere else such as another Shotcut, a different project, or a text editor
  4. save the pasted XML

Now, whenever you want to use it, you can open the text editor or other project in another instance of Shotcut. For example, you can run Shotcut twice. In one of these you can have color clips in the playlist that you change the clip name. Each of these color clips can have a set of filters that you pasted from an actual project. Now, you save this playlist as a project to be used as a library of filter sets.

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Thanks for the quick reply. It sounds feasible, but it seems rather complicated to combine 6 audio filters and 3 or 4 video filters. Maybe I can make it a little easier if I work with the favorite marker and insert the filters individually.
Or do you think it is possible to add these filters to an empty Shotcut project?

Super! I have tried it: Copied the filters from one project and pasted them into a new one - that works pirma.
Thank you.

Impossible in an empty project, but it can be a dummy project and you do not need to use the timeline - you can make clip-only or playlist-only projects too. The filters need to attach to something, and you can use color clip as a dummy clip. Technically, you can also make a timeline project with one empty track and put the filters on the track head. But I think you will find having a library-like playlist-only project more useful because then you can see a list of names. Also, this library or other library projects could hold other things like commonly used images, sounds, and text clips. You are simply copy and pasting between two simultaneously opened projects where you treat one project as a library. It is rather straightforward and convenient, actually, if you try it. Sure we might add some UI around this eventually, but I have more interesting things to do.

Can you tell me a secret?
What makes you so much different from the Kdenlive team?
The features at Shotcut are much less - but they work much better and they are better filters, especially for audio.
And, what makes the biggest difference for me: the forum. I don’t know anything like that, a dream!
What makes you so different? And, what interests me very much: What are the goals of Shotcut? Where do you want to go? Finally a professional video editing software for Linux? That would be more than great. It would be a big dream come true for me.

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Thank you for the kind words, but Kdenlive is a sister project of Shotcut. Brian and I are also the primary developers of the engine MLT that Kdenlive also uses. But Kdenlive got started a couple of years before MLT, and Shotcut was started when Kdenlive looked dead. I actually helped Kdenlive a lot in the second half of the 2000s. I cannot explain why some filters work better here except that Shotcut from the beginning was based on including very recent version of its most direct dependent libraries. I cannot really explain the reasons for other differences other than personality or approach. I doubt everyone would agree with you that Shotcut is better or professional grade. :wink: As for goals, well, it’s mainly an enjoyable hobby and much like any other craft. So, our choices of how much and what to work on are largely out of unplanned motivation, which varies and shifts. I am not joking! If it is not like this I doubt we would continue. Imagine that you have a custom bike in your garage that you do the work on yourself. You go into the garage some days and choose what to do and set about to do it. Then, you lend your bike to a friend who complains or suggests about something from his ride, and sometimes you agree and address it.

It’s all very interesting how and why you do all this.
I left Windwos and Vegas Pro (video editing) a year and a half ago. Since I’ve been on Linux, I’ve been using Kdenlive.
What is very disappointing is that the important filter: lift/gamma/gain (color grading) has serious bugs. With Shotcut it works perfectly. This is hard to understand. In the Kdenlive forum I don’t get anywhere with it.
Then some audio filters are much better at Shotcut: Compressor, and soon the Equalize: Parametirc. And Audio Loudness is not available at Kdenlive.
And then I experience the forum of Shotcut: All first quality!!! So that I falter badly, … even though I’m already deeply immersed in Kdenlive.
Yes, Kdenlive can do a lot, some even better, but the main fault of most video editors is that they can do too much, are too playful and lose sight of the essential tools.
It would be a fantastic if Shotcut took the path of less is more. I would love to help with that - even though I don’t know how to program at all.
Enough for today, but I want to tell you that I am already quite happy to be able to tell you, Dan Dennedy, my request.
Thank you

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Hello @shotcut,
would it be possible for you to help the people from Kdenlive to fix their lift/gamma/gain, (there lift is not working well, gamma and gain is ok)? Or you could give them the Color Correction from Shotcut, which is better anyway. And maybe the Compressor and the future EQ: Parametirc. That would be great for anyone who seriously wants to do video editing with Kdenlive.

Me too. I started to first use kdenlive, but when I saw so much complicated things, I left.

But the thing that I really don’t like is “The forum is hard to understand”, plus they’re not constant to make there community on one place. Half of the community is on telegram, and half on matrix, and strangely they have a bot to send matrix messages on telegram and vice versa. Which makes it worst to understand what’s happening.

There is a video here that demonstrates how to use a “template” mlt file to reuse filters:

I would add one comment to Dan’s response: For Shotcut, Dan made a strategic decision to support Windows, Mac and Linux from the start. Additional, he decided to publish an integrated Linux package rather than try to make Shotcut work in each distribution’s specific package management system. Distribution packagers complain about this, but it is a huge advantage for Shotcut because the developers to not have to spend all their time supporting every package management system, every distribution, and every combination of dependencies. This frees up a lot of time to work in improving the code itself.

As an analogy, imagine if your hobby is gardening, but the weeds are so prosperous that pulling weeds takes all your time and you never have time to plant anything new or enjoy the vegetables from your garden.

This is a great description. I can not explain why I decide to work on one thing and not another. And I can not explain why one user’s suggestion might motivate me to change something and another user’s suggestion might be uninteresting to me.

The Shotcut code is open source. Anyone is welcome to look at the code and adapt it to other applications.

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Maybe you’re right: You don’t have to poke your colleagues at Kdenlive in the nose with things that work better with you. They could know that on their own, or ask you. Besides, I have often complained about the lift/gamma/gain and said that this filter works perfectly with you (color Grading).

It’s sad, now I discovered the next construction site in Kdenlive: Normalise (2 pass) is broken.
But my joy about what I experience here in the forum and with the software Shtocut makes up amply for my frustration.

It could be that I will soon be editing all my videos with Shotcut and encounter fewer stumbling blocks. I started today and it works great.

And I would like to say that with the process it is quite possible to transfer my filter presets to other projects. Am satisfied.

Thank you
Micha

Hello @brian and @shotcut,
I just finished my first project in Shotcut. Can you only ask detailed questions in the forum? Or can you also present your project with the question whether the filters were applied correctly?
If that should be desired and also helpful for others: Where do I upload the data for the video of 1 minute length (one mp4 and one mlt)?

There is a “made with shotcut” category in the forum.
If the video is bellow 4.5 MB you can upload it in a post, same with the .mlt file.
If it is larger upload it as unlisted to youtube and share a link in the forum.

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