Hi, folks!

Glad to see that Kdenlive reached 0.5! It was in Debian Multimedia in the day following the release! Thanks to the great soul who packaged it!

However, I got some serious problems with exporting the timeline, even more strange than the ones I had in 0.4. Please notice that I made a test using big VOB files taken from a DVD recording (the Hungarian F-1 GP) as clips:

[*] In many of the formats I choose (AVI, XviD, MPEG, MPEG4) the exported video does not start where it should start, according to the timeline. Some initial seconds (30 or so) simply disappear.

[*] Actually, I have populated the timeline with little clips cut from those "big VOB clips". Those little pieces played perfectly in Kdenlive preview. But in the exported video, NONE of them played correctly. It looks like the export function takes the small clips from the big files with an "offset forward" -- each little clip starts far after it should, and also ends far after it should finish. That´s pretty bad!!

[*] In addition, the audio of those little clips also starts/ends where they were not supposed to --- and, worse even, they don´t seem to follow the same "offset forward" which happens in video! In other words: the clips are not cut in/out where they should, and their audio tracks are cut in another position (where they also should not be cut!)

[*] With video exported as Medium Quality MPEG 640x480, the sound was bad. Whenever the narrator started a word, the sound "jumps". Hard to explain, but maybe simply to reproduce, if anyone wants to know what I mean...

[*] More philosophically: why exactly do we set a video format when we start a new project (for example, SVCD NTSC), and we still have to choose another format when trying to export the timeline? The chosen format could be taken as a default option -- but it isn´t even available among the standard options!! For example: in the Medium Quality tab the screen sizes offered are not exactly those found in NTSC and PAL, and the exported video has a bad aspect ratio (in 640x480 we get the "tall heads" effect)...

[*] Also, a problem which remains from 0.4: the exported files are TOO big for what we expect from an XviD 320x240 file, for example. I tried to create a custom format with the command line setting the video bitrate to 400k or lower values, but this setting seems to be ignored. I could get much smaller files if I re-encode the exported video with Avidemux or with plain ffmpeg. If this is not a problem in Kdenlive/MLT themselves, it is clearly a sign that the Export interface must be improved...

Thanks and regards!

Fabricio Rocha

Brasilia, Brasil

I'm having very similar problems as well. It is very aggravating.