Install OpenShot in Ubuntu

I was excited to see Openshot would be included in the Lucid repositories. I am no video editing expert, but this project looks amazing, maybe set to fill the gap on professional and easy to use video edition software many complain about in the Linux world.

I recently found that OpenShot 1.1 could easily be installed on current versions of Ubuntu, so I went ahead and gave it a try on my Karmic Koala installation. I want to share here how you can install it, as well as a few screenshots depicting how good it looks. Moreover, I found it very easy and intuitive, even for someone with no video editing experience like me.

INSTALL OPENSHOT 1.1

There are two ways you can install OpenShot 1.1 on Ubuntu Karmic, both are easy. Let's start with the "official" and recommended way:

Installing from the repositories

Open a virtual terminal and run the following command

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:jonoomph/openshot-edge

Then update...

sudo apt-get update

And finally, install...

sudo apt-get install openshot openshot-doc

You should then see OpenShot under Applications menu > Sound and Video > OpenShot 1.1.


Installing Openshot 1.1 on Ubuntu Karmic Koala

Installing from DEB packages

NOTE: This is the preferred installing option if you are running Ubuntu 8.04, 8.10 or 9.04.

Download the DEB package corresponding to your Ubuntu version and architecture from HERE. I think that in this case, the easiest is to just double click on the DEB file you just downloaded and complete the installation from the GUI. Should you want to do it from the command line, here's how:

sudo dpkg -i ????????

Where "????????" should include the path you saved the DEB file under, as well as the DEB file name. For example, I decided to save the OpenShot DEB file under my home folder, so in my case it would go like this:

sudo dpkg -i ~/openshot_1.1.0-1_all.deb

Just for your information, this method resulted in some dependencies missing when I tried, so once again, I recommend using the PPA. I reckon this could be related to my machine, as I have only tried once, but... For those of you not using Karmic, if you had this same problem, dependencies can be worked around easily. When Gdebi or dpkg complain about a dependency missing, just install that package on Synaptic or from the command line.

USING OPENSHOT

Once again, I have never done any video editing myself, but I found OpenShot to be very easy and intuitive on my brief playing around with it. I downloaded a brief video (One of Starcraft2's cinematic), and did some simple transitions, editing... It was a lot of fun!


Playing around with OpenShot 1.1

So there you have it, I completely recommend installing OpenShot if you want to get into video editing under Linux, or simply have some good fun playing around with it. There are other alternatives (I hear KDEnlive is probably the strongest now), but OpenShot is already showing lots of potential, and it is GTK oriented!

Have fun!