When I started video editing, I went through several different programs trying to find one that worked reasonably well – twice, actually, because I began on a Windows system before switching to Linux and having to do it all over again. All of them had issues of some kind, but Kdenlive had the fewest, and the rendering options (converting the edited clips into a finished video file) was by far the smoothest.
But one issue that I dealt with, from the moment I started using it, was that of blinking during the preview playback. Constantly, like a bad phone connection. This made it hard to do some precisely-timed edits, because the screen may be blank during the crucial moments – even though the blanks lasted less than a second, if something occurred then and only then, I had no idea that it even occurred. I muddled through, and searched for answers.
And searched. And tried countless options, both to the program and the computer itself. I even ordered a faster video card with more memory (that didn’t work.) It was very frustrating, and I spent several sessions of troubleshooting, every couple of weeks, in pursuit of this little problem.
And then, just now, someone on a forum (okay, credit where it’s due: someone named, ‘sergergravelle,’) said, “move the Project Monitor to a separate window.” Really, just click on the tab and drag it outside. You can see it here, the little floating box to the top right (with the two birds) that looks like it was added as an afterthought, normally anchored nice and neatly just behind it:
And just like that, the goddamn thing works like a charm.
Why? I don’t know – I’d think that the separate window would complicate things in the program and make it worse, but unlinking it from its ‘proper’ position fixed the issue entirely. Not a blip or cumberbatch. Perfectly smooth.
All this time. All these videos. For a trivial fix that doesn’t even make sense. I’m flabbergasted (as you can tell because I posted about it.) But nonetheless relieved and pleased.
Now back to normal useful entertaining typical content…