OpenShot video editor is an open-source video editor for Linux but also available for Windows and Mac. It is free and released under GNU GPL 3 license. Using OpenShot video editor, you can take your videos, photos, and music files and create the film you have always dreamed of. You can easily add sub-titles, transitions, and effects, and then export your film to DVD, YouTube, Vimeo, Xbox 360, and many other common formats. OpenShot is written primarily in Python, with a GTK+ interface, and uses the MLT framework, FFmpeg, and Blender to power many of the advanced features. After it was launched in 2013, the first major release, i.e OpenShot 2.0 beta, of the non-linear video editing tool came earlier this year in January. Then, came OpenShot 2.1, a release which did a lot of improve the overall stability of the app. And now, three months after the release of OpenShot 2.1, the community has released OpenShot 2.2 that allows playback and editing of 4K video files. It provides you all the tools you need to produce slick home video that looks great on your big-screen TV. “Happy Holidays to all the OpenShot supporters around the world! I am very proud to announce the latest and greatest release of OpenShot (version 2.2) has just arrived, and is ready to edit all your holiday videos! It’s faster, more stable, and better than ever,” said Jonathan Thomas, the creator of OpenShot, at its official release note. Thomas acknowledges “things have taken way longer than I even imagined” but wants to focus on the positives, noting that with the release of OpenShot 2.2 “we’ve accomplished something that is exceedingly rare: a successful Kickstarter and a free, open-source, cross-platform video editor!” OpenShot 2.2 opens with key enhancements to its performance, and the video editor now supports optimised editing of HD videos, including 4K. More importantly, editing HD video all the way up to 5K has been massively improved. “A new caching engine was built from the ground up, and supports both memory and disk back-ends, depending on the user’s needs. This can be configured in the Preferences, under “Cache”. Also, opening huge projects (with hundreds of files / clips) has been optimized and is up to 10x faster,” says Thomas. This means it’s practical to add large images to the timeline due to optimization. Elsewhere there are ‘keyframe enhancements’, including a new set of title templates, a new pre-set options for applying common animated transitions and effects, including a familiar looking American cinema trailer rating design. Other features/changes/fixes:
Library (libopenshot) and Python UI (openshot-qt) have improved error handling, and can now detect stack-traces for crashes and exceptions Selection handles (in progress) Ability to disable unit tests (useful for distros that have a broken unittest++ library) Broken Ubuntu 16.10 PPA fixed Fixed bug when opening .OSP projects via command line Disabled SSL validation (not used anyway) Fixed bug when opening legacy 1.4.x project files that contain UTF-8 encoded characters Preferences now save settings on close of dialog (and persist even if a crash follows) Added FileVersion and custom icon to Windows installer (more polished) Ability to drop a file directly on the timeline (without dropping it in your Project Files first) Fixed bug where the tutorial does not find the correct widget New 2.5k and 4k profiles added Fixed margins on OS X and Windows around QDockWidgets Fixed bug when switching between Thumbnail and Detail views Alpha backgrounds have been fixed on all Blender animated titles Recently opened menu logic has been fixed Translations updated for 70+ languages Began work on a new help manual using sphinx (not quite ready yet)
The OpenShot project is funded with the help of a KickStarter campaign, which facilitated its movement from the Linux platform to run on Windows and MacOS too. OpenShot 2.2 is available now as a free, open-source download for Windows, Mac and Linux.
