Friday, May 11, 2012

OpenShot won't display audio Waveforms

Let me start by saying I like the video editor OpenShot. It looks good, and it has a clean, well organized interface. The worst thing I can really complain about is the razor tool. You would never find a bizarre tool like that in a well made proprietary video editing program (it can be beneficial to have a look at your competition). But I'm extremely willing to compromise when it comes to OSS, so that is something I could honestly adapt to over time.

Though, there is one thing preventing me from using OpenShot Entirely- lack of visual audio waveform. I can't see a visual of my audio.

When I record screencasts, about half the audio is actual dialog, and the other half is "um, uh", or silence. These long periods of garbage need to be cut out, sometimes with little bursts of audio that I need to keep. Without visual audio, this is a form of torture that I cannot endure. I would actually have to play the whole video (which could be hours in length), and listen closely to it. Only stopping to edit whenever I hear a bit of audio.

Additionally when cutting, it's is incredibly imprecise when it comes to sound. Because I can't see the audio, I can't be sure if I'm cutting a few seconds before the audio begins, or a few seconds after the audio begins. Ideally, I need to know at exactly what frame the audio begins on. The only way I can find out is by wasting more time listening to the video audio, and repeatedly undoing/redoing mistakes.

With a visual waveform, I can scan several hours of audio, cutting out huge chucks of silence quickly and efficiently. With a visual waveform, I can tell exactly where audio begins and ends. I can realign audio to different locations in the video with ease.

Ultimately this situation really sucks, because I rarely use any transitions or special effects at all, so it's not like I'm in need of something flashy or superfluous. I just need some basic video editing functionality. I understand that being a developer on such a project can often be a thankless job, so I want to say thank you OpenShot developers for all your hard work. I hope in the near future that I too will be able to use your video software.


Comment or leave feedback sepero 111 @ gmx . com

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