Pitivi 2020.09 Video Editor Released With Better Stability, Many New Features

[Phineas Miller]

OpenShot also worked unstable for me. Are there any alternatives?

[omer666]

I remember years ago that Pittivi was the pre-installed video editor in Ubuntu, I highly doubt it was a version in development, otherwise they have a problem with development, since I speak of at least 10 years ago.

I remember years ago that pulseaudio was the pre-installed audio server in Ubuntu, and believe it or not, it couldn't be uninstalled without removing the desktop metapackage, leading to much hatred directed towards the project and its leader. They definitely have a problem with development.

[/On Topic] : To me, Pitivi is the most promising video editor on Linux. Yes, I have had crashes and stuff with it, but it's the only one with a UI I like, and the compositing functions I need for my work are easy to use. To me, it's a potential Final Cut competitor, no less. Now that it's in a stable state, there is hope that feature parity will come.

Great job Pitivi team, I'm delighted by this release!

[baka0815]

I'm very happy with Kdenlive, which itself was updated some weeks ago.

I'm using Kdenlive from time to time to edit and arrange some small videos. We're a local group of comedians and I edit our performances (about 2h HD video) with Kdenlive and create DVDs using DVDStyler. I can do everything I need using Kdenlive (and it's a lot easier than Cinelerra for me which I used previously).
But all I need is about 2 video lanes and 3 audio lanes to create transitions and add background noises or music.

I tried Pitivi some years ago, but somehow I stuck with Kdenlive - don't remember the exact reasons anymore.

However it's great that there are so many video editors in Linux. Pitivi, Kdenlive, Cinelerra etc. On Windows I wouldn't know of any free (not talking about open source) video editors which are as usable as any of the above tools.

[aleb]

Hi! I'm a Pitivi maintainer. Thank you all for the fine comments! Let me ignore the ones about Kdenlive and reply to what's left:

I'm really in doubt who is brave enough to be an early adopter of pitivi. When I was trying 0.995 It crashed everyday and may ruin my whole afternoon's effort.
Stability should be production applications' top priority, and unfortunately pitivi failed to meet this requirement.

Pitivi's first relese was on 1st of May 2004, 16 years ago, a bit late to be an early adopter now. Sorry for the lost afternoon―it would have helped to file an issue describing the steps to reproduce so we can fix the bug.

What are missing:
- Stabilizer for some shaking clips
- Text editor could include more typography effects (still unable to edit outlines, shadow)

Follow the development of these features by subscribing to https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pitivi/-/issues/2260 and https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pitivi/-/issues/1860

Teams either build quality software from the start, or they don't. A team that has repeatedly shown it thinks releasing garbage is an acceptable way of working will never change that mentality unless it gets new leaders who believe otherwise. Without that it's just lip service at best, and DIStrusting it is the only sensible approach until the actions have been shown to match the words for long enough for such teams to earn some credibility.
It CAN happen, but it's rare that it actually does: once you have a culture of "meh, it's good enough" in place, it's VERY hard for a team to break out of it.

Wise words. Let's also mention we're doing all we can with the resources at hand. We worked very hard to stabilize Pitivi and introduce features allowing for precise editing. We'd appreciate a lot if you file an issue with a list of steps describing how to reproduce the bug when you see one, or otherwise at least tell us about it in our Matrix room bridged to IRC.

Shotcut works best for my usecase. Pitivi and OpenShot were unstable and/or resulted in "crackling" audio. I'm still missing some Adobe-Premiere-Pro features, but I don't want to go back to dual-booting.

Good audio is a must for a quality product. Make sure you are using Optimized Media (high-quality proxy files) by right-clicking the asset and selecting "High-quality proxy". If it still happens, please file an issue with steps how we can reproduce, so we can fix the issue.

What are you missing from Adobe Premiere?

This is ridiculous. Why do we need so many opensource video editors that do the same? Openshot, Shotcut, Pitivi, Kdenlive, Olive, Flowblade, Something Something...

It's not you who needs them, it's the developers who work on them. I think new video editors appear like mushrooms after rain because each of the existing ones sucks to a degree. In my biased opinion, Pitivi/GES/GStreamer has a real chance to get traction due to GStreamer's reputation, the continuous investment into quality assurance for the GStreamer Editing Services library providing the video editing functionality, and the current approach with the Pitivi frontend. My famous last words.

One thing that bugged me about Linux video editors was that none of them seem to support lossless video editing. Most of the time, I just want to cut out one part of a video that I liked and found worth saving. Doing this causes the content to get re-encoded in all of these video editors though.

Yes, that would be super cool. You can subscribe to follow the development at https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/pitivi/-/issues/2475 or vote for the issue.

These editors are too complex and busy for me, all those buttons are scary. I use Avidemux for everything.

We strive to keep the UI as simple as possible. Please tell us if you find anything in particular too complex.

2 glaring errors / omissions I found when I tried the flatpak:

1) no way to set the default import duration of an image. This makes working with imported images extremely tedious
2) transitions only use linear time (no easing) and rounding errors in the compositing math. These lead to jarring transitions, which is very unpleasant. When your non-linear video editor can't perform a crossfade as smoothly as your web browser... ouch.

The preview also detached itself from the editor, and became a separate window which ends up behind the editor when you interact with it. Making that window always on top allows you to scrub, but each time you render the window is closed and re-opens, losing that property. That's a pretty big papercut.

1) Setting the default duration for the image clips can be set in the Preferences dialog, since many years ago.
2) Jarring transitions sounds bad. Will you please create a sample project to share with us so we can fix it?

The detached viewer - ouch! I've seen that before. Pretty please file an issue if you can reproduce.

I remember years ago that Pittivi was the pre-installed video editor in Ubuntu, I highly doubt it was a version in development, otherwise they have a problem with development, since I speak of at least 10 years ago.

I guess the Pitivi maintainers 10 years ago did not say it's stable?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitivi...of_Ubuntu_appl ications


Thanks all for the interest and curiosity!

[QwertyChouskie]

One thing that bugged me about Linux video editors was that none of them seem to support lossless video editing. Most of the time, I just want to cut out one part of a video that I liked and found worth saving. Doing this causes the content to get re-encoded in all of these video editors though. The result is a file that is not only inferior in quality from the original, since video compression is lossy, but also often turns out to be bigger than the full original video file! At that point, what's the point of editing the file in the first place?

When I searched around, I only came up with one lossless video editor, and it required electron or something. I passed on that.

Now I use ffmpeg command line options to cut my video files down losslessly. But ffmpeg from the command line is kind of mind numbing.

There's an app called literally "Video Trimmer" that does exactly what you want. (https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2020/07/...-app-for-linux, https://flathub.org/apps/details/org...R.VideoTrimmer for download) I've used it quite a bit and it does exactly what it says in the tin, no fuss, no crashes. (Also it adheres nicely to the Gnome HIG, so it fits in nicely with my desktop.)

[Calinou]

One thing that bugged me about Linux video editors was that none of them seem to support lossless video editing. Most of the time, I just want to cut out one part of a video that I liked and found worth saving. Doing this causes the content to get re-encoded in all of these video editors though. The result is a file that is not only inferior in quality from the original, since video compression is lossy, but also often turns out to be bigger than the full original video file! At that point, what's the point of editing the file in the first place?

When I searched around, I only came up with one lossless video editor, and it required electron or something. I passed on that.

Now I use ffmpeg command line options to cut my video files down losslessly. But ffmpeg from the command line is kind of mind numbing.

You can use lossless-cut for this purpose. It's available as a Flatpak as well

[xAlt7x]

One thing that bugged me about Linux video editors was that none of them seem to support lossless video editing. Most of the time, I just want to cut out one part of a video that I liked and found worth saving.
...
Now I use ffmpeg command line options to cut my video files down losslessly. But ffmpeg from the command line is kind of mind numbing.

Try Avidemux.
Most distros don't want to package (probably because some built-in codecs are considered "non-free") it but there's always official Appimage or 3rd-party repositories

[Charlie68]

So, you're saying that a unstable version of Pitivi was... unstable.

Yesterday's release is supposed to be the first stable release of Pitivi. Hence the news post.

I remember years ago that Pittivi was the pre-installed video editor in Ubuntu, I highly doubt it was a version in development, otherwise they have a problem with development, since I speak of at least 10 years ago.

[edwaleni]

For those looking for open source video editors, Olive is worth checking out as well: https://olivevideoeditor.org/

I was not aware of this, thanks I will give it a run.

[jntesteves]

I'm really in doubt who is brave enough to be an early adopter of pitivi. When I was trying 0.995 It crashed everyday and may ruin my whole afternoon's effort.
Stability should be production applications' top priority, and unfortunately pitivi failed to meet this requirement.

So, you're saying that a unstable version of Pitivi was... unstable.

Yesterday's release is supposed to be the first stable release of Pitivi. Hence the news post.