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Flowblade?

futon88

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I noticed Flowblade wasn't mentioned on the Tools page, and now I'm wondering if made the wrong choice for NLE. I work exclusively in Linux and it seemed to be one of the few free options (Kdenlive seems to be the other one). Are there any other Linux users out there? If so, what do you use for editing? Is Flowblade up to the task for a modest fanedit, or am I making my life harder than necessary?

https://jliljebl.github.io/flowblade/
 

That One Guy

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There are numerous NLEs that support Linux, the most notable/famous of which is probably DaVinci Resolve. Others that come to mind are Shotcut & OpenShot.

I don't edit on Linux and have only dabbled with DaVinci of these, so can't offer informed feedback. One thing I would say is that while Flowblade looks like a very cool and interesting software project it seems to be dependent on a small team, and it looks like it's currently stagnant. So if you encounter a bug you can't fix yourself, you may not be able to get support from the developers...
 

futon88

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Sorry, I likely should have put this in Fanediting Software.

I tried installing DaVinci over the weekend, but my system doesn't have the resources for it. :/

I'm getting along okay with Flowblade, but it doesn't seem to have any commands or tools for resyncing all audio clips. Have to resync one at a time, which is a real pain...The more I do, the longer it takes to re-align the audio.
 

unfair

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I can't speak to that exact program, can't remember if I tried it, but I'll give you some general things to look for...

I was experimenting with all the open source NLEs I could find a while ago, and one major thing that many are missing is the ability to have multiple audio tracks. If you need to layer a second track to hide audio cuts better, it's a necessity. The other item that's important for smooth audio are the fade types the program supports, and the way they can be aligned.

It should have an exponential fade (fade to silence and then back out), and a constant-power fade (where the volume never gets quieter, it fades out the audio from the left track and fades in the audio from the right keeping the volume consistent throughout). Being able to shift fades to the left and right isn't utterly necessary but it makes L/J cuts a lot easier than having to recut the underlying audio an extra time or two and reapply the audio transition.

The quality options and size of the output are also crucial, if it doesn't give you granular controls you might get huge files, bad encoding, or formats you don't want, so do some tests ahead of time to make sure files will come out the size and quality you expect in the file type you want.

You also allude to realigning audio, you shouldn't have to do that - in Premiere for instance you have something called a ripple delete where if there's a gap you can "delete" that gap in the sequence and all the tracks shift together. If you have to do that manually for each track you're going to have a bad time. It's a feature most NLE should support, but if yours doesn't then definitely find an alternative.

Unfortunately most NLEs are not compatible with each other format wise, even export formats for the projects. There are a couple that export XML that's somewhat similar, but not identical, so once you pick an NLE don't expect to be able to move a project to a different one. I provide some tools for going from Premiere Pro to Davinci Resolve, but even that import isn't perfect, although it does give you a fairly decent recreation of the project. But for the most part the compatibility between NLEs is terrible, so take some time and choose a good quality one so you don't have to switch.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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Does blender work with Linux? You can use that as an NLE.
 

futon88

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It should have an exponential fade (fade to silence and then back out), and a constant-power fade (where the volume never gets quieter, it fades out the audio from the left track and fades in the audio from the right keeping the volume consistent throughout). Being able to shift fades to the left and right isn't utterly necessary but it makes L/J cuts a lot easier than having to recut the underlying audio an extra time or two and reapply the audio transition.
Honestly, I haven't really experimented with fades much. I need to dig in to that.

You also allude to realigning audio, you shouldn't have to do that - in Premiere for instance you have something called a ripple delete where if there's a gap you can "delete" that gap in the sequence and all the tracks shift together. If you have to do that manually for each track you're going to have a bad time. It's a feature most NLE should support, but if yours doesn't then definitely find an alternative.
Flowblade lets me sync any audio clip to a video clip on track #1, and it's invaluable, but it doesn't resync automatically.

Here's an example:
ibIrdFD.png


One of my insect files is out of alignment. Flowblade knows that, and highlights it with the red warning to tell me, but to resync, I need to click on that individual clip, then ALT+R. If I make a change to the timeline, I may need to do that for dozens of cilps. There's no single, "Resync All" option, that I can find. The order seems to matter too. If I resync the clips in the wrong direction, they can overlap, and then I can't access the clip underneath.

Honestly, I'm probably just going about this the wrong way. I should probably be working with multiple sequences, to limit the scope of my changes.
Does blender work with Linux? You can use that as an NLE.
Definitely works in Linux, but I haven't used it in years. Had no idea it could serve as an NLE. Figured I wouldn't need to dust it off unless I had to so some 3D rendering...
 

DigModiFicaTion

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What exactly does the resync do in flowblade? Do you set an initial grouping and then it returns to that? With audio editing, I'd find that somewhat cumbersome as I'm moving some things around. Can you simple pair/group your audio and video so they move together when you make edits? I think I take for granted what Vegas Pro does with the grouping and snapping functions.

Also, here's a video about blender as an NLE
 

futon88

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The resync just lines the audio clip up again. In the above screenshot, it would shift the insects.wav 552 frames to the right. It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't have to do it for each clip individually. You'd think "Select All" -> "Edit" -> "Resync" would do all clips that are out of sync, but nope.

Watching that video now...
 

That One Guy

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Returning to this thread as I'd forgotten it, based on the Flowblade documentation this appears to be a deliberate decision. Personally I would find that infuriating - if I'm understanding correctly, it the amount of IMO pointless extra busywork it introduces would prevent me from ever even bothering to try it out. Perhaps I am not understanding some design philosophy underpinning it, but tbh I am a big fan of the design philosophy of "Software should get out of the user's way to the greatest extent possible".
 

futon88

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It's the first editor I've spent any real time with, so basically I just don't know any better. :) I've discovered if I'm careful to do a ripple trim (not the default) instead of a regular trim, the sync is maintained, but I have yet to integrate that into my workflow. I've thought about using kdenlive or shotwell for my next project, but I've heard flowblade performance is better and it follows some different idioms that I'd have to unlearn. I don't have a GPU that can do DaVinci Resolve. I recently purchased Vegas, but don't have a Windows box yet. ~shrug~ Flowblade is built over MLT so it can do a lot, but it sounds like it's quirky.
 

DigModiFicaTion

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I'm just going to put this here ;)
 

futon88

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Already bought it (for $34 CAD!)...Now I just need to buy a proper Windows PC. :)
 

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Until you get a Windows PC, have you tried Lightworks? Shotcut also looks pretty nice...
 

futon88

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Was reading about Lightworks today...might give it a look. I'm not a FOSS purist.

Everyone says ditch Shotcut for Kdenlive, and then they say ditch Kdenlive for Flowblade. So...? :)

I've got Davinci Resolve installed, but don't have a GPU that supports it.
 
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