hi, im a user and primary school teacher who teach Video Editing for 10-13 y/o students, and i’ve been teaching Shotcut for more than 1 year (thanks for the Tutorial), and for last 5 years, im using MAGIX (formerly Sony Vegas Pro).
i have to say, im extremely happy to migrate from my previous video editor to Shotcut because the learning curve is not as steep as other opensource video editor. but somehow, my teaching process is limited by these questions from my students:
Why cant i drag and drop my file straight to Timeline (more than one video)?
(which they need to drop the 2nd video in center of the player, then drag it to the timeline, then drag it to make a longer timeline, then split 1st video into the same length with the 2nd video, then drag the 2nd video into the empty space in-between 1st video)
i think this one is a great feature to add, which make them easier to drag and drop anywhere in the timeline and Shotcut can split the 1st video where the 2nd video drop it automatically.
i cant split the videos!
(actually, what they mean is they want to split it straight from the video/audio track and not need to click the timeline metric, and anywhere they click on the video/audio track, that will be the line to cut)
this one is a feature from Sony Vegas that i, personally like it. i hope developer can implement this feature with their magic coding.
Everytime i drag it, the video wont follow my cursor…
(its the lag)
i know some of the topics in this forum already address this matter.
thank you very very much! your hardwork really meant for me and my students
You can open up several files at once in the Playlist.
The order in which the files are selected determines the initial order in the timeline.
Initially the top file in the playlist gets opened in the viewer.
Drag & Drop or “Open File” works in the same manner.
From here, you can rearrange the clips, and hit export, you have a video (with no timeline). To see how it will play, click “Project” just below the viewer.
*Selecting one clip in the playlist, you can apply filters (Timeline not needed)
*To add one at a time to the playlist by dragging them there, or use the + button on the timeline.
*
To add all to the timeline push the 3 line icon.
The Source Viewer
Open Source file.
At the bottom of the viewer observe the triagles and the time code box, where you can enter the extact time/frames.
Move the sliders to select the video you want (as you refer to as cut, this is terminology in Shotcut is trimming)
Apply 1 or more filters to this if you want to, but don’t have to. You can export this as a video.
You can drag this to the playlist, and/or timeline.
Essentially you can edit video multiple ways in Shotcut. You’re not just limited to the timeline. Personally, my work flow is on the timeline, but it doesn’t have to be for anyone else.
There is a workaround to issue #2. If you click in the timeline window in the empty space below the lowest track, the playhead will move to the cursor. Also, if you click in a track area that isn’t occupied by a clip, the playhead will move to the cursor. The only time the playhead won’t jump is if there is a clip under the cursor, in which case a click becomes a selection tool to set the current clip.
If there are so many tracks that the empty space at the bottom is not visible, then there’s the option of adding an empty video track on top for no other purpose than having a big empty space to click to move the playhead.
If the playhead doesn’t jump to your cursor when you try these techniques, it means you’re running an old version of Shotcut on Windows. I had that happen to me once where the playhead quit moving. I think it turned out to be a Qt UI issue. A total uninstall and a reinstall of a newer Shotcut version fixed it.
It is a technical issue that can probably be addressed at some time. When files come from the file system, they are not yet opened to see if they are supported, which audio and video tracks they have, and duration. Much information is needed by the timeline. This has a computational cost associated with it that is not good to have during UI interaction. One file might not be bad, but what happens when someone drags 100 files? Instead of trying to explain this students you should instead steer them toward better editing process. The timeline is not the best place for the initial shot trimming, and nearly all clips should be trimmed. It is better to do this in Source and then you have a number of edit operations to add the trimmed clip to the timeline (timeline toolbar buttons and keyboard shortcuts). Dragging everything to timeline and trying to do everything (trimming and positioning) on timeline is more cumbersome.
This would require that you choose split like a tool (think razor blade or scissors) it splits where you click as in some other editors. If the tool does not seek while you are moving the mouse then you cannot see what you are doing, which is very bad. However, Shotcut is tool-less in the timeline by design to facilitate keyboard operation. What good is a split keyboard shortcut if you must then use the mouse to choose the split point? Thus, split is based on the play head so you can control it and see where it will occur. Others mentioned some ways to seek in the Timeline. If you hold Shift key, then Shotcut skims: the play head follows your mouse. This works over Timeline or the player. So, just do that and press S or the Split button. This is effectively the same thing except your click is at the end (split button) instead of the beginning (choose split tool).
