Kdenlive overview and configuration

[ Object | Quick interface overview | Configuration ]

kdenlive overview and configuration

Last modified August 4, 2024

This site has been automatically translated with Google Translate from this original page written in french, there may be some translation errors

Object

This page is part of a tutorial to explain video editing with kdenlive and which includes the following topics:

Introduction

Overview and Configuration (this page)

Project preparation

Fix performance issues

The rough cut

Apply effects

Add transitions

Title and subtitle management

Keyframe Management

Video Calibration

Export your video

Quick overview of the interface

Just type kdenlive to launch the application, you can optionally change the theme from the Configuration->Color scheme menu. I chose a custom dark theme because I found that the icons lacked contrast.

The interface is fully configurable but we generally find these different areas

On the left is the Project Sources project files area ( Project Bin in English), where we will find all the raw multimedia files (audio, video, image) that will be the basis of the final video, we will also talk about rushes. At the bottom is the timeline where the video editing is done on a timeline (hence the term timeline), this is where we will chain pieces of clips one after the other in the time scale of our video. The timeline is often made up of several audio and video tracks, we will see their interest later. The project monitor allows you to view your work on the timeline ( Project Monitor tab ) or the rushes ( Clip Monitor tab ). The properties area lists the properties of the element selected in the Project Sources or in the timeline, but not only in this area different tabs are accessible to manage effects, transitions, subtitles.

It's not too visible with this dark theme but you can reduce or enlarge the vertical size of the timeline by playing on the double arrow below

Different predefined displays are accessible via the buttons at the top right,

each display corresponds to a particular stage of the assembly. To illustrate it all, here is what it can give with a loaded project.

First of all, Journalization allows you to work on the raw files (rushing) of the project Sources .

Edit view is the default mode for working on video editing at the timeline level.

The Audio view allows you to work on audio editing and mixing.

The Effects view for working on effects.

And finally the Color display allows you to work on the colorimetry of the project.

So of course all these display modes are fully configurable, for each of them you have the choice in the elements to display from the Display menu ,

Then each module of the interface can be moved by drag and drop and resized. When you are satisfied with the layout of the screen, there is a way to save the configuration from the menu View->Save Layout

then reload it from the View->Load Layout menu or from the buttons at the top right

To summarize and for a good understanding later, we speak of clip for the rushes that are in Sources of the project and for the audio and video elements that are in the timeline. Moreover, the context menu is the menu that appears when you click with the right mouse button on a particular element.

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Configuration

We will start with the software configuration in the Configuration->Configure Kdenlive menu , we can be satisfied with the default settings, I just point out the interesting parameters. In the Miscellaneous section, we will find in particular the default duration of titles and transitions and other more or less interesting parameters that we can discover in the screenshot below:

At the Project Default Settings level we will set the default video format for the videos. I set HD 1080p (i.e. 1920x1080) and 59.94 frames per second which correspond to the recording frequency of my GoPro

By clicking on

Manage Project Profiles you can edit the format of the projects

By clicking the button

to the right of Preview profile for timeline , one can edit the preview profiles of the montage in the timeline, below are the options with hardware acceleration

Also note the Intermediate Clips parameter ( Proxy clips in English) which can be used if you do not have a lightning-fast machine. Indeed in this case, editing can be laborious and quite a hassle when you work on HD clips. In this case you will have to check Intermediate Clips, the imported clips will then be automatically "degraded" to be able to be used and edited, once the editing is finished, the final video must be generated by disabling the proxy clip function. But at this stage I advise you not to check it, we will see later how to use it.

On the Mounting tab you have the mounting parameters, I left the default values

The Tools tab corresponds to options for the Razor cutting tool.

In the Environment tab, there is normally nothing to do, everything is entered automatically, this nevertheless allows you to check that kdenlive has ffmpeg, MLT, audacity or even Gimp.

In the Default Applications tab, note that you must indicate the path to glaxnimate to have access to 2D animations.

At the Colors and Guides level we choose the default colors for the guides and markers

For Voice Recognition which allows audio recognition and automatic transcription to text to create subtitles, we will see that later .

At the Reading level , you can check Processing with the graphics processor "GPU" , this allows you to use the processor of your graphics card, with modern video cards, it generally boosts the operation of kdenlive, the processing of sluggish HD video becomes really very fluid. On the other hand, it is subject to crashes for certain hardware configurations including mine :-( to try nevertheless. If you have performance problems there are however other solutions including the intermediate clips which are described there.

At the Acquisition level , you can configure a possible device, this is a feature that is less and less useful at a time when you can take videos on a mobile phone. It was especially useful at the time of miniDV firewire camcorders or even older S-VHS, this feature has now disappeared, I invite you to visit this page to digitize old VHS tapes which will give you alternatives.

At the same level, there is also the possibility of making screencasts, therefore recording what is happening on your work screen, this is interesting for those who make video tutorials.