Shotcut supports a wide range of formats and codecs thanks to FFmpeg. There's no import required meaning native timeline editing, Blackmagic Design support for input and preview monitoring, and resolution support up to 4k.

Other features include screen, webcam and audio capture. Network stream playback. Supports capture from SDI, HDMI, webcam, JACK & Pulse audio, IP stream, X11 screen and Windows DirectShow devices. Multiple dockable and undockable panels, including detailed media properties, recent files with search, playlist with thumbnail view, filter panel, history view, encoding panel, jobs queue, and melted server and playlist. Also supports drag-n-drop of assets from file manager.

Features

Wide Format Support

  • Support for the latest audio and video formats thanks to FFmpeg
  • Supports popular image formats such as BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, SVG, TIFF, WebP as well as image sequences
  • Lottie and rawr JSON animations
  • No import required - native timeline editing
  • Frame-accurate seeking for many formats
  • Multi-format timeline: mix and match resolutions and frame rates within a project
  • Webcam capture
  • Audio capture
  • Support for 4K resolutions
  • Network stream playback (HTTP, HLS, RTMP, RTSP, MMS, UDP)
  • Frei0r video generator plugins (e.g. color bars and plasma)
  • Color, text, noise, and counter generators
  • EDL (CMX3600 Edit Decision List) export
  • Export single frame as image or video as image sequence
  • Videos files with alpha channel - both reading and writing
  • Tone mapping HDR to SDR
  • Optional full range video input, processing, and export

Audio Features

  • Audio scopes: loudness, peak meter, waveform, spectrum analyzer
  • Volume control
  • Audio filters:
  • Balance, Band Pass, Compressor, Copy Channel, Delay, Downmix, Equalizer: 3-Band, Equalizer: 15-Band, Equalizer: Parametric, Expander, Gain, High Pass, Invert, Limiter, Low Pass, Noise Gate, Normalize: One Pass, Normalize: Two Pass, Notch, Pan, Pitch, Reverb, Stereo Enhancer, Swap Channels
  • Audio mixing across all tracks
  • Fade in and out audio and fade video from and to black with easy-to-use fader controls on timeline
  • Cross-fade audio and video dissolve transitions easily by overlapping shots on the same track of the timeline
  • JACK transport sync
  • Tone generator
  • Stereo, mono, and 5.1 surround
  • Pitch compensation for video speed changes
  • Record directly to timeline for voiceover, for example

Video Effects

  • Video compositing across video tracks
  • 3-way (shadows, mids, highlights) color wheels for color correction and grading
  • Eye dropper tool to pick neutral color for white balancing
  • Deinterlacing
  • Auto-rotate with manual override
  • Fade in/out audio and fade video with easy-to-use fader controls on timeline
  • Video wipe transitions:
  • bar, barn door, box, clock (radial), diagonal, iris, matrix, and custom gradient image
  • Track compositing/blending modes:
  • None, Over, Add, Saturate, Multiply, Screen, Overlay, Darken, Dodge, Burn, Hard Light, Soft Light, Difference, Exclusion, HSL Hue, HSL Saturation, HSL Color, HSL Luminosity.
  • Video Filters:
  • Alpha Channel: Adjust, Alpha Channel: View, Audio Dance Visualization, Audio Level Visualization, Audio Light Visualization, Audio Spectrum Visualization, Audio Waveform Visualization, Blend Mode, Blur: Box, Blur: Exponential, Blur: Gaussian, Blur: Low Pass, Blur: Pad, Brightness, Choppy, Chroma Hold, Chroma Key: Advanced, Chroma Key: Simple, Contrast, Color Grading, Corner Pin, Crop: Source, Crop: Circle, Crop: Rectangle, Deband, Distort, Dither, Elastic Scale, Flip, Glitch, Glow, GPS Text, Gradient, Grid, Halftone, Hue/Lightness/Saturation, Invert Colors, Key Spill: Advanced, Key Spill: Simple, Lens Correction, Levels, 3D LUT, Mask: Apply, Mask: Chroma Key, Mask: From File, Mask: Simple Shape, Mirror, Mosaic, Nervous, No Sync, Noise: Fast, Noise: Keyframes, Old Film: Dust, Old Film: Grain, Old Film: Projector, Old Film: Scratches, Old Film: Technocolor, Opacity, Posterize, Reduce Noise: HQ3DN, Reduce Noise: Quantization, Reduce Noise: Smart Blur, Reduce Noise: Wavelet, Reflect, RGB Shift, Rotate and Scale, Saturation, Scan Lines, Sepia Tone, Sharpen, Size and Position, Sketch, Spot Remover, Stabilize, Text: Rich, Text: Simple, Threshold, Time Remap, Timer, Trails, Vertigo, Vignette, Unpremultiply Alpha, Wave, White Balance
  • 360° Video Filters:
  • Equirectangular Mask, 360: Equirectangular to Rectilinear, 360: Equirectangular to Stereographic, 360: Hemispherical to Equirectangular, 360: Rectilinear to Equirectangular, 360: Stabilize, 360: Transform
  • Speed effect for audio/video clips
  • Reverse a clip
  • Video scopes: Histogram, RGB Parade, RGB Waveform, Waveform, Vectorscope and Zoom

Editing Features

  • Trimming on source clip player or timeline with ripple option
  • Easy-to-use cut, copy, and paste operations
  • Append, insert, overwrite, lift, and ripple delete editing on the timeline
  • 3-point editing
  • Hide, mute, and lock track controls
  • Multitrack timeline with thumbnails and waveforms
  • Unlimited undo and redo for playlist edits including a history view
  • Create, play, edit, save, load, and export (render) MLT XML projects (with auto-save)
  • Save and load trimmed clip as MLT XML file
  • Load and play complex MLT XML file as a clip
  • Drag-n-drop files from file manager
  • Scrubbing and transport control
  • Keyframes for filter parameters
  • Detach audio from video clip
  • Presets for most filters and Export - both supplied and user-created
  • Sort playlist by name or creation/recording date
  • Multi-select items in the playlist and timeline
  • Create custom name for clips and enter comments about it
  • Low resolution proxy editing to improve speed of seeking and eliminate or minimize scaling
  • Timeline markers and ranges, including export from a range and exporting as text chapters
  • A Notes panel to keep notes about your project or contain text to reaad for voiceover
  • Flexibly insert and reorder tracks
  • Edit Lottie and rawr JSON animations with [Glaxnimate](https://glaxnimate.mattbas.org/) vector animation tool (included in our Shotcut downloads)

Cross Platform & Codec Independent

  • Cross platform support: available on Windows, Linux, and macOS)
  • Codec independent so does not rely on system codecs
  • Can run as a portable app from external drive
  • UI translations: Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Gaelic, Galician, German, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Nepali, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, Occitan, Polish, Portugese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Taiwanese, Thai, Turkish, Ukranian (not all 100%, but you can help
  • Batch encoding with job control
  • Encode/transcode to a variety of formats and codecs thanks to FFmpeg
  • Stream (encode to IP) files and any capture source
  • Video quality measurement (PSNR and SSIM)
  • Perform integrity check of an audio/video file
  • View detailed information about an audio/video file

Display and Monitoring

  • External monitoring via Blackmagic Decklink card on NTSC monitor
  • External monitoring on an extra system display/monitor
  • UI themes/skins: native-OS look and custom dark and light
  • Control video zoom in the player: fit viewable area (default), 10%, 25%, 50%, original (100%), and 200%
  • Flexible UI through dock-able panels
  • Detailed media properties panel
  • Recent files panel with search
  • Thumbnail and waveform caching between sessions
  • Save and switch between multiple UI layouts.
  • On-screen grid and safe areas with snapping.
  • Low resolution preview (Preview Scaling) to improve speed of realtime effects.
  • Preview the Shotuct timeline as a background within Glaxnimate

Hardware Support

  • Blackmagic Design SDI and HDMI for input and preview monitoring
  • Leap Motion and Contour Design Shuttle PRO for jog/shuttle control
  • Webcam capture
  • Audio capture from system device (microphone, line in)
  • Capture (record) SDI, HDMI, webcam (V4L2), JACK audio, PulseAudio, IP stream, and Windows DirectShow devices
  • Multi-core parallel image processing (when not using GPU and frame-dropping is disabled)
  • OpenGL GPU-based image processing with 16-bit floating point linear per color component
  • AMD, Intel, and NVIDIA hardware encoding

Replace the Mask video filter with 3 new filters:

  • Mask: Simple Shape
  • Mask: From File
  • Mask: Apply

The new Mask: Apply filter makes it possible to mask filters without using multiple tracks! Use Mask: Simple Shape or Mask: From File to start the filter mask followed the video filters to be masked followed by Mask: Apply to apply the mask to the filters in between. Filters before or after the mask filters affect the entire video frame. One can still use Mask: Simple Shape or Mask: From File to affect the alpha channel for multitrack compositing as before. This makes them compatible with existing information and tutorials that suggest using multiple tracks as well as enabling collage/montage or transition effects when the tracks do not use the same clip.

The new Mask: From File is a powerful new video filter offering 3 modes:

  • Wipe transition (stock or custom)
  • Channel > Brightness from a video or image file (File > Custom...)
  • Channel > Alpha from a video or image file. Moreover, Threshold can be animated with simple or keyframes, which is especially nice when used with luma-wipe image files (stock or custom). Not only can you wipe on a masked filter but also you can use this as an alternative way to make a wipe transition using multiple tracks (instead of same track transition).

What's New

This release has reliability and performance improvements plus some nice new things such as a batch convert tool and keyframes for color parameters.

  • Android version updated to 1.57.0

New Bugs

  • Fixed crash when changing Properties > Rotation on interlaced video.
  • Fixed crash when changing Properties > Video > Track on video-only file.
  • Fixed memory leak in Load Keyframes from Motion Tracker in several video filters:
  • Crop: Rectangle
  • GPS Text
  • Size, Position & Rotate
  • Spot Remover
  • Text: Rich
  • Text: Simple
  • Timer
  • Fixed Keyframes panel not working properly when moved.
  • Fixed some memory leaks and random crashes due to memory management.
  • Improved the speed of loading projects and editing.
  • (Existing projects must be saved after opening to upgrade them to benefit loading speed.)
  • Fixed keyboard behavior of Help > Actions and Shortcuts on macOS.

Old Bugs

  • Fixed Undo after trimming an out point on Timeline with Ripple All Tracks enabled.
  • Fixed H.264 Export > Use hardware encoder with Codec > Rate control > Constant Quality on macOS/ARM.
  • Fixed Export or turning off Settings > Proxy > Use Proxy if the file starts with a data stream such as videos recorded on Google Pixel phones, for example.
  • Fixed reordering when there are many filters in Filters.
  • Fixed Add Selected to Slideshow with Timeline > Ripple All Tracks misbehaves and should be ignored.
  • Fixed some usability quirks with drag-n-drop and Ctrl multiple selection in the Playist > Icons view.
  • Fixed Filters > + > Time is sometimes empty when player tab is Source.
  • Fixed timeline marker may be incorrectly deleted when Timeline > Ripple Markers is on.
  • Fixed unable to save export job View XML with .mlt file name.

Improvements

  • Added audio Declick filter (appears in Time category due to technical reason).
  • Added Grade %, Grade degrees, Cadence, Temperature, Vertical Speed, 3D Speed to GPS Text video filter.
  • Added Timecode (non-drop frame), Creation date, File base name to Text: Simple video filter.
  • Added Blur alpha option to Blur: Box and Blur: Gaussian video filters.
  • Added View > Resources… to show all unique and sorted files in the Playlist and Timeline.
  • Added dialog to convert multiple files as-needed on import.
  • Added Preferences to the menu on macOS.
  • Added Mode > Reset to Alpha Channel: Adjust video filter.
  • Added keyframes to Band Pass and Notch audio filters.
  • Added simple keyframes to Speed: Forward & Reverse and Speed: Forward Only time filters.
  • Added keyframes for color parameters in several video filters:
  • Crop: Circle
  • Crop: Rectangle
  • GPS Text
  • Text: Rich (Background only)
  • Text: Simple
  • Timer
  • Added File > Backup and Save (Ctrl+Alt+S).
  • Added Settings > Timeline > Scrolling sub-menu with options:
  • Center the Playhead
  • No (new option)
  • Page (v23 default)
  • Smooth (old behavior)
  • Changed Export > Presets > audio > FLAC to (raw) flac format instead of Matroska.
  • Upgraded Glaxnimate to version 0.5.4 with limited support for After Effects projects (no plugins and no video or audio media - drawing and image animations only).
  • New and improved installer for Windows.
  • Improved the speed and memory of Timeline > Append, Insert, and Overwrite.
  • Changed Missing Files > Search to save the directory chosen.
  • Added --glaxnimate command line option to launch Glaxnimate instead (handy for Linux AppImage and Flatpak).
  • Improved the quality of Settings > Proxy > Use Hardware Encoder on macOS.
  • Improved the the color dialog on GNOME.