Large source file issues in Open Shot

[Dweller_Benthos]

Anyone have issues editing videos in Open Shot when the source clips are fairly large? I recorded about 38 minutes of Generation Zero, with voice commentary, mind you! into one file since win 10 can now handle large files, where win 7 would chop them into pieces about 4GB. Well, Open Shot will load the file and preview it but once I set a clip point, it stops working for the most part. The preview plays at about 1 FPS and the CPU usage increases to 100%, essentially making the program unusable. Anyone else try to edit a really large video like that? The file is 13GB and like I said 38 minutes. I want to cut it down obviously, as there's a lot of walking around that can be trashed. It works fine on my old videos where they were never longer than 10-11 minutes and under 4GB so I guess I was lucky that win7 chopped them up like that even if it meant more files to w0#k with and keep track of.

I've posted the question on the reddit thread where the devs sometimes answer questions, but that happens rarely so I don't expect much satisfaction there. If other people have the same issue, it's the program, if not, it's my system.

[Art Blade]

I noticed a 30-minutes threshold when it comes to working with preview mode in order to cut snippets out of it. Anything smaller works, anything larger doesn't (in that preview thingy) so I restrict recordings to up to 30 minutes if I want to edit them.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Ah, good to know, I'll have to snip this one, save out two files and then w0#k with the two separate files. It's really the first major issue I've seen with this software, so not bad.

[Art Blade]

yeah.. you know if you pick a project (vid file) from the menu and right-click on it, you can choose a preview version that allows you to set a start and finish point in order to create a small clip (it doesn't touch the original file so you can use it without having to worry) in other words, dissecting a clip. That's when I noticed and tested the 30-min limit

[Dweller_Benthos]

So does the preview version also suffer the same problem? I would think so. But anyway, I opened the file in the standard windows 10 video editor which has decent enough features, but all I needed was to split the video into chunks. It's options for that were simple and easy to use, so I chopped the video into three segments and saved them out as three separate files. It's options for exporting are limited to "small" (or was it "mobile"?), "medium" and "large" so I picked large. The files saved seem to have the same video quality of the original, and the save process was fairly quick, so I imagine it just transferred the part of the file I picked to the new file. The only thing I could see that was different, looking in the file properties was that the original was at 60 fps and the saved version was at 30 fps. Since I export to youtube at 30 fps anyway, I wasn't worried about that.

So, it was mostly painless using the built in windows video editor. Because of that, I wonder if microsoft had anything to do with creating it? I mean, it was too easy to use. Strange.

Anyway, the three separate files worked fine in Open Shot and I've got a start on the video. I trimmed out what I didn't want and it's still over 20 minutes long. I'm wondering if in the places where I wanted to keep two pieces of video that had 30 or so seconds of otherwise nothing in between them if I should trim that out to shorten the video or leave it in and let it be a longer piece.

[PZ]

I was not aware of this video software - sounds like it is quite powerful. I have been using Movavi Studio, which is a paid product, but works very well.

I just tried to download the Open Shot installer, but their site keeps giving me errors 

[Art Blade]

PZ, just to make sure, use this: https://www.openshot.org/download/

***

Dweller, I just opened OpenShot to use the actual labels so you won't get confused by what I said earlier. Here's what I meant and what you could try:

Fire up OS.
From the menu bar, use the green "+" which, on hovering the mouse pointer over it, will read, "import files"
Choose any of your recordings to add to the project
Now you'll see a video file in the project section..
..right-click on it to open a context menu
Select the scissors symbol reading "Split Clip"

That's what I meant. What it does: It opens a preview window in which you can choose a start and end point in order to create a clip (you can create as many clips from that file as you want) and best name it, e.g. "massacre 1" and click "create" (or "clear," if you're not satisfied with the selection) which will now add a new clip in your project section called "massacre 1."

If you drag and drop that truncated clip you just created onto a track, you'll be able to extend that clip left and right which means OS doesn't actually cut the original file but rather creates a start and end marker and labels that selection, which is what we just discussed.

Well, that process of splitting clips, using a preview to do just that, is what I was referring to. That preview only works up to 30 minutes in, after that you won't be able to create new clips from the file. It simply can't access anything beyond the 30-minutes mark.

What you can still do, however, is dragging the long clip onto a track and just slice it down there. You'll have to use the regular play/view option to see what you're doing but it works with larger files.

The 1 fps issue, or the program completely freezing, is a temporary effect. Just be patient and let it do its job. If you watch a CPU meter, you'll see that it's quite busy. The program may appear to have crashed or frozen but in reality it is just too busy arranging stuff you just did and will recover eventually. May take several minutes. Just wait, perhaps observing a CPU meter.

[PZ]

Thanks AB - it just does not w0#k on my Surface Pro, but works fine on my gaming PC 

[Art Blade]

strange.. but alright, then..

[Dweller_Benthos]

Ah, OK, I get what you are saying now Art, and how it works. Probably from now on I'll remember to keep clips under 30 minutes just to make things easier. I finished the video and it turned out OK, look for it in the Gen Zero thread.

[Art Blade]

I too keep my vids under 30 minutes just for the sake of being able to edit them the way described in my last post. It would still function with longer recordings but editing would be a bit more crude since you'd essentially just be chopping up one clip on the fly.

And private videos on YouTube are for your eyes only.. to make them invisible for the public but accessible for us, you need to set them to "unlisted."

[Dweller_Benthos]

Unlisted! That's it, I forgot and picked private, ah well, I'll change it.

[Art Blade]

works I see the editing worked, too.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yep, not the best or most exciting, but it's a test that mostly succeeded.