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Free Non-Linear Editing Software

Published by Matthew Jeppsen April 9th, 2008 in Featured Content, NLE, News, Software

I was looking for some lightweight NLE/cutting software solutions recently. Obviously Windows users have Windows Movie Maker, and Mac users have iMovie. Neither are particularly lightweight, and both have a number of feature restrictions. So in the interests of sharing info, here are a few other NLE options. Note that I haven’t had time, resources, or the inclination to thoroughly test all these software packages. Please report back in the comments if a particular solution was helpful or if you experienced any issues.

SimpleMovieX
www.aeroquartet.com/SimpleMovieX/
Free “unlimited trial” for Mac. Simple editing, similar to Quicktime Pro’s interface. Has some unique features like batch processing, auto commercial detection in TV recordings, and long-GOP keyframe detection. Demo version is full-featured, but has “slower saving.” No trial time limitation.

ZS4
www.zs4.net
Free for Mac/Windows/Linux, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc. Video Editing/Compositing. HDV formats aren’t supported directly, but there are workarounds. Lightweight, and a Portable version is available here.

Jahshaka
jahshaka.org
Free for Mac/Windows. Editing, compositing, 3d. Looks like a very interesting option, seems quite modular and flexible.

Cinelerra
cv.cinelerra.org / heroinewarrior.com (multiple versions explanation here).
Free for Linux, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc. Mature, full-featured digital video editing software.

Kino DV
www.kinodv.org
Free for Linux, Ubuntu, Gentoo, etc. Mature standard-definition DV editing.

LiVES
lives.sourceforge.net
Free for Linux, BSD, Unix. Windows and XBOX support via bootable live CD. Mac/Darwin support if you care to compile your own.

KDENLIVE
kdenlive.sourceforge.net
Free Linux. Seems slightly limited in scope, DV editing.

Avid FreeDV
www.avid.com/products/freedv/
Free for Mac/Windows. Avid FreeDV is no longer available from Avid, but you can still find some mirrors here and there.

VirtualDub
www.virtualdub.org
Free for Windows. Not really an NLE, does capture, processing, encoding, and has extensive filter support. The Swiss Army knife of video processing.

Avidemux
fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/
Free for Mac/Windows/Linux, etc. Simple editing tools. Not really so much of a full-featured NLE as a suite of tools for working with streams and formats. A Mac alternative to VDub.

ffmpegX
homepage.mac.com/major4/
Free for Mac. Not an editor, does split, demux, crop, etc. Better at encoding, filters, handles subtitles, author DVD folders, etc. Good addition to any editor’s toolkit. Another VirtualDub-like option for Macintosh users.

Update:

DVJ Imaging
djv.sourceforge.net/index.html
Free for Mac/Windows/Linux, etc. Professional movie playback and image processing software for the film and computer animation industries.

Blender
www.blender.org
Free for Mac/Windows/Linux, etc. A mature OSS project that provides a complete suite for 3D content creation (and a great sequence editor, apparently).

4 Responses to “Free Non-Linear Editing Software”

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1 ian Apr 9th, 2008 at 3:51 pm

I’ve tried a few of these and I want to like Cinelerra because it seems the most robust, but the interface bugs me. Kdenlive feels clean and I like it. There are a few more linux options listed over at http://www.linuxvideography.com
2 Chris Apr 10th, 2008 at 8:32 am

My take on this:

Cinelerra is awesome. It is full featured, the CV version is stable, and I can do anything I want with it. Yes, it’s hard to learn, but the real problem with it is that its workflow and way of working is very rigid. If you can get your brain around that, it’s not limiting. For people who have used Avid or cut film, it’s not that big of a deal. The titler sucks, so I use Inkscape/Blender for those purposes. It’s successor, Lumiera, sounds like it’s on the right path so far.

Kino is a good iMovie type program. As an editing program, it’s too simple for me, so I use it mainly as a DV capture app. Its sister project, DVgrab, does support HDV. Be advised, though, this program is now “complete,” and most of the development focus has moved onto Kdenlive.

Kdenlive is a sensible median between Kino and Cinelerra. The interface is nice, sort of like Premiere Pro, and it integrates well with Gimp & Audacity. Great export defaults, and a great roadmap for the future. I’ve had great times with it in the past, although it doesn’t seem stable at all on 64-bits. Maybe this is taken care of with Ubuntu Hardy; I’m not sure.

Jahshaka promises a lot, and has a nice website, but I’ve never heard of anyone actually doing anything with it besides wasting their time.

Also, Blender’s video sequence editor should be on the list, because it’s better than everything else on that list, except Cinelerra. Big Buck Bunny premieres tonight in Amsterdam, you know.
3 Eugenia Apr 23rd, 2008 at 2:19 pm

Blender has a well-working multi-track video editing ability too. And it’s easier to use than the 3D part of the application. I wrote a tutorial here the other day.
4 Matthew Jeppsen Apr 24th, 2008 at 6:35 am

Thanks for the tips, all! The list has been updated.

-MJ