I'm new to Ubuntu/Linux and Kdenlive so please forgive me if I sound incompetent.

I have a Kodak Playsport ZX3 camcorder which records 1080p video in MOV format.

The properties of the videos are:
video codec: H.264/AVC 30fps bitrate=NA
audio codec: MPEG-4 AAC 48,000 Hz bitrate=128kbps

I can play the videos, unedited, from my camcorder to a HDTV and they look great. Same with YouTube, no problems.

I've tried rendering them in Kdenlive with different codecs with weird results (no video on some, poor image quality on others, bad audio on all). I've tried Apple Quicktime Player MPEG-4 1000k 2 pass, H.264 400k 2 pass, MPEG-4 25000k 2 pass, H.264 2000k, Apple Quicktime Player MPEG-4 2000k.

I don't a HD display on my computer so I use the proxy clips to be able to edit.

All I really want is to take my existing file, edit it, render it back to a MOV, put it back on my camcorder so I can play it on my TV. If that isn't possible I would at least like something I could upload to YouTube HD.

Do I need to download different codecs?

Hmmm. After reading up on this it seems that Kdenlive is not capable of this. It can render to MOV but not the H.264 AVC format. Oh well, it still works ... sort of. AVC has been around for a few years so why not incorporate it into Kdenlive?

400k and 2000k is ways too low for FullHD. Try something above 10?000k. Does H.264 not work at all? (It should.)

Which distribution, which kdenlive/MLT/ffmpeg version?