Links

Shotcut video editor website

Useful

Shortcut keys for the Shotcut video editor

C = copy

V = paste

A = duplicate

X = ripple delete

Ctrl + X = ripple delete but send to clipboard

S = split

Tip not covered in my

Podcast

Splits are not fixed and can be adjusted. Once you've split up clips

and put them in the right order on the timeline you can still adjust the

cut point even though you previously split the clip because the clip is

referenced to the original file in the playlist.

Introduction

Hello and welcome Hacker Public Radio audience my name is Mr X

welcome to this podcast. As per usual I'd like to start by thanking the

people at HPR for making this podcast possible. HPR is a Community led

podcast provided by the community for the community that means you can

contribute to. The HPR team have gone to great deal of effort to

simplify and streamline the process of providing podcasts. There are

many ways to record an episode these days using phones tablets PCs and

alike. The hardest barrier is sending in your first show. Don't get too

hung up about quality, it's more important just to send something in.

The sound quality of some of my early shows wasn't very good. If I can

do it anyone can and you might just get hooked in the process.

Well it's been almost a year since I've sent in a show. Looking at

the HPR site my last episode was back in November 2021. I suspect like

many others life has become more complicated and I find I have much less

spare time and because I have much less spare time I have much less time

to pursue my hobbies and because of this I have less to speak about and

because of this I have less time to record what I've been doing and it

all turns into to vicious circle. Fortunately I recently had some time

off work and had a lovely holiday. During the holiday I ended up

recording some video which I decided I wanted to edit. I've done some

video editing in the past using various video editing packages. The best

and most recent of which is shotcut.

Specific details and

equipment

Video resolution 1920 x 1080, Codec h264 mpeg-4, Frame rate 30 frames

per second.

Computer Dell Optiplex 780. Fitted with 4 GB of internal RAM and

onboard video graphics card.

Shotcut version 22.06.23 Shotcut is a free open-source cross-platform

video editor licenced under the GNU general public licence version

3.0

This episode will only cover basic shotcut video editing techniques.

Shotcut contains many advanced features and effects that will not be

covered in this episode. A lot of the workflow I’ll share with you today

is intended to get around limitations imposed by my low spec PC

I'll try my best to cover the video editing process in this podcast

using words alone; however I am conscious that an accompanying video

would make it easier to follow along.

Shotcut workflow

Start by creating a folder to hold all the required media files.

Audio tracks and sound effects can be added to this folder later. Make

sure all your video files are using the same frame rate in my case 30

frames per second.

Open each video file in VLC one at a time going through each video

file looking for the best portions of video. Make a note of where the

best portions of the video are by writing down the start and end points

in minutes and seconds.

I do this because the interface of VLC is more responsive than

shortcut and the resolution of displayed video is far greater than the

preview in shortcut. This makes it quicker and easier to find the best

portions of video.

Open shortcut and make sure the new project is set to the same frames

per second as the media files you're working with