Lightworks 2020.1 Beta Video Editor Brings Linux Improvements

Lightworks 2020.1 is on the way as this professional-grade video editing system's first release of the year and a change in their versioning scheme. Out this week is the first public beta of the still-proprietary video editing system for Windows, macOS, and Linux.

Lightworks 2020.1 is still a binary blob: ten years after they announced their intention of open-sourcing it. As covered last year, there have been no signs of them actually working on the open-source version and it appears to be dead in the water.

While it's unfortunate their open-source announcement didn't pan out, Lightworks does remain one of the most capable Linux-native non-linear video editors. With Lightworks 2020.1 there is better H.265/HEVC video handling and MTS file editing on Linux that some performance issues should be resolved. Lightworks is also picking up decode support around HEVC/H.265 files for dealing with issues in the future.

Lightworks 2020.1 Beta also has various user-interface improvements, official support finally for Ubuntu 19.04, an HD overlay in the vectorscope, and a variety of other improvements. More details at LWKS.com.