ZDNET’s key takeaways
- Linux finally has the equivalent of Adobe Premiere.
- FilmCraft is an amazing, free, and open-source NLE.
- You can color, edit, and even work with log footage.
I’ve been doing film work for a very long time. When I first started editing, I was using free Linux apps like OpenShot. It was fun, but the end results were far from professional. Truth be told, what I was creating wouldn’t even stand up to amateur status.
But you have to start somewhere, right?
Also: I tried the free PowerPoint clone on Linux – and it beats LibreOffice and Google Slides
After using half-baked tools for half a decade, I finally made the move to Final Cut Pro and thought I was going to become a professional film editor.
That obviously didn’t happen.
After five years with FCP, I realized my ability to color footage was hampered by the software I was using, so I leveled up to DaVinci Resolve, which I use to this day. DaVinci Resolve has color tools that make Final Cut Pro look like it’s a box of eight Crayola crayons.
DaVinci Resolve has served me quite well, but there’s always one little issue: It requires serious hardware to work as expected. I wound up purchasing a Mac Studio with an M3 Ultra processor just so DaVinci Resolve wouldn’t stutter and stop in the editing window.
I also attempted to run DaVinci Resolve on Linux, as Blackmagic Design (the creator of DaVinci Resolve) has a version native to the open-dia GPU to really work (my main system is all AMD). So much for that
But then, I recently heard that the developers at ArtCraft used AI and Rust to reverse-engineer Adobe Premiere to run on Linux, MacOS, and Windows.
Testing the Adobe Premiere clone
I must first confess that I’ve never used Adobe Premiere (even though I know it’s the standard for filmmakers everywhere). But I assumed that my knowledge of DaVinci Resolve would at least partially translate.
I didn’t exactly have high hopes for FilmCraft on Linux, simply because of the track record the open-, which took all of 30 seconds. Even though I knew the app was written in Rust, there was no way a nonlinear video editor could take that little time to install
To my surprise, that was exactly the case.
Also: I tried Adobe Premiere for Android, and it’s the best free video editing app I’ve used
My next doubt was how well a clip filmed in log would import into the app. I opened a test video clip I had created and, to my surprise, it imported immediately. OK, my assumptions were wrong again.
OK, the next test would finally prove me right. I dragged the clip into the edit window and hit play. Well, color me corrected, but the clip played just fine on my System76 Thelio with 32GB of RAM, an AMD Ryzen 9 7900X 12-core CPU, and an AMD Radeon RX 7600 GPU.
Fine. You got me there, FilmCraft. You’re a free, open- and play said footage just fine. But how well can you do color?
This would be the final test that would prove a free NLE was unable to keep pace with the de facto standards.
I enabled Lumetri Color for the clip and started making adjustments. It helped that I’d been using DaVinci Resolve for the past five years, so I knew what I was doing. In about two minutes, I had that log footage looking pretty good. Given this was the first time I’d even touched a Premiere-like app, I was sincerely impressed.
Also: I tried the free Adobe Acrobat clone – and finally have a pro PDF editor on Linux
I never thought I’d find a free video editor that could run well on Linux, color (almost as well as DaVinci Resolve), and do all of these things without taking down my computer or my bank account. On top of that, I had Firefox open with around 20 tabs, as well as GIMP, Spotify, Trillium Notes, Moose (AI), and Bitwarden running.
I then decided to keep going and add a video transition. To do that, I clicked Effects, expanded Video Transitions, located a transition I thought might seem interesting, and dragged it to the beginning of the clip.
Then I did the same thing, only this time dragging and dropping the transition to the end of the clip.
Both worked to perfection.
I added a vignette, softened the look, enabled face detection (skin tones), and even added a bit of camera motion.
Where things got tricky
Finally, I ran the export to see how well FilmCraft could handle that process. This is where things got a bit tricky.
The export looked as if it was going to take forever (over three hours for a roughly 10-minute clip). On my Mac Studio, this task would take maybe two minutes, so three hours is insane. I adjusted the export down to High Quality HD 1080p, and the time dramatically dropped to roughly 40 minutes. Still, that’s considerable.
I had to remind myself that FilmCraft (and all of ArtCraft’s applications) are still in the early stages of development, so hopefully the rendering process will shrink as the app reaches the general release stage.
Also: I tried the free Microsoft Word clone on Linux – and it’s my new default (on Mac too)
OK, FilmCraft, you keep proving me wrong. Other than the dreadful rendering times, the only thing you couldn’t do that I prefer was give me a real-time preview of effects. Also, I much prefer working with DaVinci Resolve’s node trees, which Premiere does not use. Nodes make it possible to separate each change into its own node, making it easy to back out of those changes in case they don’t work.
Seriously impressive
Even with the lack of nodes and the excessive rendering times, FilmCraft seriously impressed me … like on a level that no other open-itor would run on Linux with either Nvidia or AMD GPUs. And yet, here we are
Now I’m going to have to dig deeper into this Premiere-like editor and see how far it can be pushed.
Also: Someone made a free Photoshop clone – so I had to try it on Linux
If you’ve ever longed for a pro-quality video editor for Linux (and you don’t have an Nvidia GPU), you finally have the tool you’ve been looking for.
Bravo to the team at ArtCraft; you’ve done the seemingly impossible.
