According to Cisco, 80% of the world's internet traffic is expected to be on video content in 2020. This comes in as a blessing for everyone who is trying to learn the art of video editing for reaching out to customers or enhancing their online presence. And the best part is, with Shotcut or OpenShot, everyone can get a hang of the entire video editing drill without investing in any paid video editor.
Shotcut
Shotcut has excellent support for a wide variety of audio and video formats and codecs and supports resolutions up to 4k. You can import media from SDI, HDMI, webcam, JACK & Pulse audio, IP stream, X11 screen, and Windows DirectShow devices. The software also allows native editing of media files, has multi-format timelines and gives you. Shotcut is a multiplatform video editor that accepts a vast array of audio, video, and image formats for editing or conversion. This editor is really useful for mixing and matching the resolution and frame rates in a video file.
- Shotcut is an open-source, free video editing program that has been around for more than a decade. It’s not the most intuitive or professionally presented, but beneath its rough presentation.
- Shotcut is a simple and user-friendly video editor that offers a series of features and functions to help you adjust and retouch your favorite movies, in just a few clicks of your mouse.
These two open source video editing programs have many similarities. Both are free of charge, well-supported community, mild-learning curve, to name a few. But, both have many differences as well. So the big question on many beginners' minds is 'OpenShot vs. Shotcut, which is the best open source video editor?' Now, let's take a look at the pros and cons of each freeware, and then make a comparison to see which one will win the battle.
OpenShot
OpenShot is meant for Mac, Windows, and Linux users who are on the lookout for an easy and quick way of learning the art of video editing. You can bank on this beginner-oriented video editing tool to help you in scaling, resizing, rotating, and trimming clips apart from mixing audio for highly professional results.
Some of the standout features of this community-driven software are the basic 3D animation tools for adding flying text, lens flares, or snow to the captured frames as well as the chroma key function. The download pack of OpenShot comes is around 130MB which is twice that of Shotcut. However, this is not a biggie when considering so many effects and elements prepared by OpenShot, over 400 transition effects, and 40 vector title templates.
OpenShot is capable of saving your videos in all popular file formats including HEVC 4K, H.264, VP8, AVI, and DVD. However, it needs some enhancements on the stability as crashes happen too frequently when handling large projects. If you are trying to edit some basic videos for being uploaded on your social media channels such as YouTube or Instagram, then OpenShot can serve you pretty well with its sheer simplicity.
Pros
- 1. Features a wide range of transitions which can take your video editing game a notch higher.
- 2. Supports brilliant audio editing to enhance the overall appeal of your videos.
- 3. User friendly interface allowing users to access all video editing features and previewing their work from a common window.
- 4. Include more than 40 vector title templates.
Cons
- 1. Lagging and crashing problem seems to happen at any time on any engine.
- 2. You might not find ready-made solutions to your problem and shall have to wait for some time to get the issue resolved.
- 3. GPU acceleration still cannot be used well for video encoding/decoding.
- 4. No ready-made preset for social media or prevalent portable devices.
- 5. Lack of flexibility to apply more accurate adjustments to the footages.
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Shotcut
This is another free video editing software which can be used for creating 4K quality output. It is compatible with a wide array of formats that helps users in exercising complete flexibility while mixing and matching frame rates and resolutions within the same project.
The dozens of audio filters and a plethora of audio editing toolkits give you complete control over the audio stream. With the support of multiple video tracks and a pile of video effects, you can do just about anything to spice up your videos including making video composition, inserting creatively transitions, correcting picture colors, applying 360° filters, revamping playback speed, keyframing the object, and more.
The native timeline editing capability of this open-source software makes it redundant to proceed with video import. You can try out everything ranging from splicing and locking tracks to waveforms and multi-tracks using the sleek interface and intuitive actions of Shotcut.
Pros
- 1. Has a well-laid-out interface offering support to a plethora of formats.
- 2. Source code can be modified for adding to its security and integrity.
- 3. Comes with an impressive stock of audio and video filters that can be combined and layered as per preference using its simple slider and checkbox systems.
- 4. You can keyframe for the parameters of the host of video filters.
Shotcut Download
Cons
OpenShot vs Shotcut
Shotcut Video Editor
Particulars | OpenShot | ShotCut |
OS Support | Linux, Mac, Windows | Linux, Mac, Windows |
Hardware Acceleration | Experimental support [1] | OpenGL via Movit and WebGL via WebVfx |
Cut/Split/Merge/Rotate | Support | Support |
Keyframe Effects | Support | Support |
Many Preset Transitions | Yes | No |
Video Stablization | Not Support | Support |
Webcam/Audio Capture | Not Support | Support |
Tons of Audio Filters | Not Support | Support |
360° Video Filters/3D Effects | Not Support | Support |
Snapshot | Not Support | Support |
Instant Share Online | Not Support | Support |
Support HD/4K Resolution | Yes | No |
Bottom Line
In spite of being extremely easy to use, one of the biggest problem of both OpenShot and Shotcut was that they did not support GPU acceleration which often causes 4K video to undergo substantial quality loss. GPU acceleration like OpenGL is available in Shotcut now, but it is still in testing (experimental period) in OpenShot. Alternatively, you can opt for VideoProc processing software which is fully powered to the core by mainstream Intel®, AMD® and NVIDIA® GPUs.
You can also proceed with tonnes of other video editing activities like merging, cutting, cropping or rotating the video apart from adding effects and subtitle for a professional finish. It also becomes possible to carry out professional level editing in the form of removing background wind noise, stabilizing shaky footages of iPhone or GoPro, correcting fisheye lens distortion which is common amongst action cam videos, adding text, image or logo watermarks and many more using this intuitive software. However, at the end of the day it is imperative to remember that these video-editing software's are best suited for beginners. If you are a professional video editor, then you should need to proceed with paid versions such as Adobe Premiere Pro for best results.
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