Shotcut is a free editor video, open source, for Windows, Linux and macOS operating systems. The application has remarkable features and deserves a tribute.
Video editors are usually heavy programs, with a high demand on memory and cpu, and are basically expensive. Shotcut is a free one alternative, which along with Openshot, available completely free. Supports Windows, Linux, MacOS, and 32-bit 64-bit architecture, installer and portable version.
By installing and running Shotcut the first screen may seem confusing, as it is essentially "empty" and needs to be built. But once you take the first steps, you will quickly realize that you are dealing with a user-friendly program. First of all, it supports Greek, that is, it has a Greek menu, which will help the most inexperienced in video editing.
From the start, select or create the project folder, name and video function (resolution) and click the Start button. There are some boxes on the left and right side of the screen, these are the filters, the sound counter and the recent files. You can close them if you do not need them, and they can be retrieved from the toolbar at the top. Closing them may make the screen look simpler.
Then use the “File” menu to add some videos for editing. The video will load in the preview window. If you have added more than one file, you will see in the Playlist window each video you have added, its duration and miniature of. Use the toolbar at the bottom of it window to add/remove items to the playlist or change the view.
Shotcut supports a large modern range of video and audio tracks (4K). It also supports images as long as they are JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, SVG, TGA, TIFF, WebP. You can also capture photos and videos from your webcam, as well as use your microphone as an audio source.
The “Filters” panel allows you to add effects to your video, such as Fade in/out, text, gain, brightness, contrast and more. The names of the effects, as far as the video is concerned, are in the English language, as it is quite difficult to render them in Greek and to be immediately understood.
The toolbar has options for undo and restore, as well as the ability to view or close individual windows on the program screen. The layout options of Shotcut are very nice and you can save the custom layout with only the frames you want.
The video player on the main screen is in the preview window. At the bottom of the preview are the play buttons and other interesting features, such as an optional grid view, zoom and search box to scroll to the specific time of the video.
You can also use the preview player to edit videos, something you do not see in many similar programs.
Unlike the competition, in Shotcut you will not see the selected video in the Timeline. So you need to manually transfer a video or audio track from the playlist to the timeline to edit it.
Projects can be saved as .MLT files, and you have many options for exporting the video. When you are finished with the project, click the Export button on the toolbar. Export defaults will be loaded on the left side of the screen. Shotcut supports video formats such as MP4, MKV, HEVC, H264, MP3, WAV, FLAC, FLV, AVI and many more. There is also support for ready-made YouTube video format. You can also select video resolution, aspect ratio, frames per second, codec, audio channels, samplerate, bit rate, etc.
An optional bright theme is available that you can change from the Settings menu if you do not like the dark original theme. Finally, there are videos on Youtube with examples of use as well as a forum with discussions about it and its functions.
In conclusion
Shotcut is a Qt-based application. Available at 32/64 bit versions and as an optional portable version. The program is very good and worth a try. It belongs to the rare combination "it is user friendly, but it is also powerful".
