Hi,

I just installed Kdenlive 0.7.2 on Ubuntu 8.10. I created a project and added a clip (.mts) from my Sony HDR-SR11 camcorder. The playback in the clip monitor is very erratic with the playback looking like a series of snapshots and also some occasional blockiness. The audio sounds fine. I believe my computer is powerful enough at an Intel Core 2 Duo and an ATI HD-4830 video card.

Any advice on what to do to fix this would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Steve

Kdenlive, despite what the homepage says, does not actually edit AVCHD at the moment, though the devs are working on it pretty hard. Check back in a month or two.

I see a number of comments like this, and I have to say, it's probably because the homepage makes a number of claims about Kdenlive's abilities that, well, are kind of wishful thinking at this point. It kind of looks like the "Powerful features" column was written in anticipation of Kdelive 0.9 or 1.0 or something, when in reality we're still pretty much here with good ol' 0.7.

If anyone is listening, I think it would be well to tone down these claims. Kdenlive is definitely not yet 'the most versatile video editor available today.' Kdenlive cannot handle AVCHD yet.  Kdenlive at this point  lacks a large number of features that are standard on $100 -ish proprietary video editors such as: voice over narration recording. Compositing a title over multiple tracks. Transitions between clips on the same track. Ken Burns-style still image animation. I could go on. LOTS of things.

I really don't mean to harsh out or anything. Kdenlive is a great promising project with dedicated people doing lots of good hard work. But let's face it, there's quite a bit of work to be done yet, and overselling the present state of things tends to make those involved look more than a little out of touch with reality. It just inflates people's expectations, and then go and try the app and actually expect it to be able to do the things it claims to do, and suprise! it just doesn't.

Disappointment and confusion are not the first things you want people to experience when they use this app. Are they?

|| it's probably because the homepage makes a number of claims about Kdenlive's abilities that,

|| well, are kind of wishful thinking at this point. It kind of looks like the "Powerful features" column

|| was written in anticipation of Kdelive 0.9 or 1.0 or something, when in reality we're still pretty

|| much here with good ol' 0.7.

What quote are you refering to on the home page?  Last I looked the kdenlive home page stated "experimental" AVCHD capabilties.

I'm just a simple kdenlive user who visits this forum only occasionally. But I am looking at purchasing an AVCHD camcorder in a month or two, and as a Linux user, I'll likely use kdenlive to edit the AVCHD raw files.  Accordingly, to investigate this, I have been downloading practically every AVCHD raw video format I can lay my hands on, and dragging them into a kdelive timeline to see what I can do with it.  I have been impressed, and compared to the horror stories I have read of (or been told of by MS-Windows and also MacIntosh users) wrt AVCHD, kdenlive is not doing so bad for basic handling of the format.

I will qualify that by saying comparing the videos that I have produced with kdenlive, to those of friends who have paid money for commercial non-linear video editors for Windows, or who are using Windows Movie maker, its true kdelive does not have the same features for transitions and such, ... but its also true kdenlive currenly (with the latest SVN versions and the latest ffmpeg) handles AVCHD better than many of those commercial non-linear video editors.

I believe that IS something worth stating.

As opposed to causing only disappointment and confusion, I believe the right enthusiastic page could attract more volunteer support.  Given the general wide spread dissatisfaction with Windows Non-Linear Video editors capability to handle AVCHD , I think now is a good time to push kdenlive to see if we can attract some enthusiasts who can contribute to kdelive.

I was drawn to Kdenlive for AVCHD support on Linux but I? confused on its support now. I don't have much experience with video editing with exception of using Studio10 a few years back and I did want to give Kdenlive a shot before dual-booting back to Windows and using some Windows-based video editing product. So to start, can this erratic playback be corrected or is this one of the current limitations that I?l need to wait to have fixed?

Thanks,

Steve

I think a lot depends on your camcorder, as some AVCHD .mts can be processed easier than others.  My Dell Studio 15 laptop as an Intel Core2 duo (P8400) with 4GB RAM and an ATI Radeon 3450 (much less capable than your PC with its HD4830) and I have been able to use it to edit a number of AVCHD files, although when I saved the edited version, I did not save in the same format as the input AVCHD.  The timeline played ok, but the clip monitor playing (for review prior to tragging to the timeline) still needs some work (I've read it is being worked on). 

I was able to do something similar with my Athlon-1100 with a raw AVCHD .mts (1920 x 1080 resolution) where that slow and old athlon had only 1GB RAM and an nVidia Mx400/440 graphic card. In this case the timeline did not play well, nor the clip monitor play well.  But the encoding end product was fine, albeith it was about 9x to 10x slower than my Intel Core2 PC to complete the rendering.

I note you have a Radeon HD 4830.  Much of the current ffmpeg (and hence kdenlive) work is being done in improving the nVidia VDPAU offloading of decoding to the graphic card's GPU.  VDPAU is more or less the Linux equivalent of using the nVidia card's Pure Video HD GPU capabilities.  I believe ATI does not provide a similar cability supported by Linux.