Whenever I open my project in Kdenlive, it takes over 30 minutes to load. Kdenlive opens quickly but loading the project takes a long time. I've done several projects in the past year and each one takes that long or longer to load. Is this typical?

Waynevid
Kdenlive 0.7.8 rev 4400
Mandriva 2010

Currently, yes, if you have a lot of files in it and especially so if any of them are AVCHD. Of course, "a lot" is subjective. Please share with us how many are in your Project Tree and roughly what percentage are AVCHD. The number of shots in your timeline is also a major factor, but I am not asking you count all of that.

MLT does now allow an app to skip the file validation part when instructed to do so, but Kdenlive does not yet take advantage of it.

I have over 600 files in my project tree, none of which are AVCHD files. I do have .avi, .jpg, mp3, wav, kdenlive.title, and flv files though. My video clips are avi files taken from a still digital camera in 640x480 movie mode. I also have a lot of title clips where I use still images in animation mode to achieve a sort of "Ken Burns" effects; zoom in, zoom out, pan across, pan down, etc.
I guess I should pare down the files in my project tree and get rid of those that are not being used.

Waynevid

Heh, well I do not think it is subjective to say 600 is a lot. :-) I agree it is worthy goal to make the load time with many files better, and that is why I added that MLT feature. Without Kdenlive yet using this feature, MLT must validate and gather basic info about each file such as formats, codecs, resolution, duration, framerate, etc. So, you can see why it takes long.

Meanwhile, you can do Project > Clean Project.

Thanks for the tip about "Clean Project." Whenever I go on trips, I take still images and video clips with my still digital camera. I then use Kdenlive to create a "movie" with titles, music, subtitles (if needed), still images, special effects, etc. I then design a DVD cover complete with movie reviews, bar code, "special features", etc. with clips from the trip, include the DVD, then give them away to friends as gifts. Depending on how long the trip is, that's how I end up with 600+ clips in my project tree. I'm in no way a pro at this, it's just a hobby.

Waynevid