Kdenlive (pronounced Kay-den-live) stands for KDE Non-Linear Video Editor, and it is, well, a non-linear video editing suite for the KDE desktop.

Kdenlive is Free-software. The project was initially started by Jason Wood in 2002, and is now maintained by a small team of developers. Kdenlive aims to become the most advanced non-linear video editor under GNU/Linux.

Most of this documentation is based on version 0.5 which is the version of Kdenlive for KDE3.

Kdenlive is currently under heavy development, based on KDE4. This version is called 0.7, and its interface differs in many subtle ways from Kdenlive 0.5. Kdenlive 0.5 is deprecated, and at this point (Oct. 2008) more or less unsupported.

This wiki is in a transitional state, moving from documenting the 0.5 version to the 0.7 version. It's therefore possible that some options or features are explained different here than in the version you are using. Some features from 0.5 are not yet supported in 0.7, but will be supported in future releases.

Supported Formats and Codecs

To make short, Kdenlive is the most versatile video editor available today:

• No need to import/convert footage prior to editing. Kdenlive knows how to handle any format smoothly.
• Support for Low resolution camera and camcorder files, including:
  • DV editing (Raw and AVI).
  • Mpeg2, mpeg4 and h264 AVCHD (small cameras and camcorders),
  • 4:3 and 16:9 screen sizes, PAL and NTSC systems,
• Support for high resolution camcorder files, including:
  • mpeg2 HDV.
  • h264 AVCHD HDV.
  • Native HDV editing, 720 and 1080, interlaced or full frames. Support for larger resolutions can added using the extensible MLT framework.
• Support for brand new codecs and formats:
  • SNOW lossless codec,
  • Ogg vorbis, etc ...
• Ability to mix different video sources in a single project. For example, you can edit a film using two sources : a small mpeg4 camera and an HDV mpeg2 camcorder.
  • Any resolution. Kdenlive will adapt resolution of source files to the resolution of the project.
  • Any frame rate (from 15fps to 30 fps). Kdenlive can duplicate/remove frames when needed.
• Export to most formats
  • Export to any format supported by ffmeg, including DV (PAL and NTSC), Mpeg2 (PAL, NTSC and HDV) and AVCHD (HDV).
  • Export to any DV devices,
  • Create a DVD with chapters and a simple menu (with k3b, xine, and dvdauthor)
• One format however that Kdenlive cannot handle is SWF which needs to be reformatted first.

Video editing features

• Multitrack edition with a timeline and virtually unlimited number of video and audio tracks, plus facilities for splitting audio and video from a clip in multiple tracks
• Non-blocking rendering. You can keep working on a project at the same time a project is being transformed into a video file
• Effects and transitions can be used with ease, and you can even create some wipe transitions of your own!
• Simple tools for easy creation of color clips, text clips and image clips
• Automatic slideshows creation from pictures directories, with crossfade transitions among the images
• Configurable keyboard shortcuts and interface layouts
• and much more!

Underlying frameworks

Choosing kdenlive is interesting, because it relies on two important and active free-software projects:

The MLT Framework

kdenlive is a graphical interface to the MLT framework, which is the core and soul of Kdenlive. Its name comes from "mutton, lettuce and tomato", but, instead of being a tasteful sandwich, it is an open-source framework for multimedia, specially directed to television broadcast.

ffmpeg

ffmpeg is a complete solution to record, convert and stream audio and video. It includes libavcodec, the leading audio/video codec library. FFmpeg is the most active Free-software project producing audio/video codecs. MLT relies on ffmpeg. When a codec is added in ffmpeg, you can be sure that Kdenlive can support it.

License

Kdenlive is released under the GPL (GNU Public License). Briefly, this means that Kdenlive is free in the meaning that you can copy it as much as you want, distribute it to anyone, and modify it as long as your modifications don´t change its freedom state.

And, well, it is free as in free beer as well :)

Kdenlive developers and contributors

Jean-Baptiste Mardelle - Current maintainter, lead developer. jb AT kdenlive.org

Jason Wood - the original founder of the Kdenlive project (not active anymore). jasonwood AT blueyonder.co.uk