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External Monitor with a System Display
Three years ago, when we upgraded our UI library to a major new version, we lost support for using an additional system display as an external monitor. Many people were disappointed to lose that feature. Now, after a major change to the video plumbing, it is back!
The
External Monitor submenu is moved from
Settings to the top of the
Player menu. It is incompatible with newly added
Settings > Player > Use Old Video Output (provided just in case the new plumbing does not work).
The new plumbing also provides a way to preview HDR video except, for technology reasons, it must be shown in a separate window…
HDR Video Preview and Export
As a quick reminder for those unfamiliar: “HDR” means high dynamic range, not high definition resolution. It is about expanded color and light. A lot of phones and cameras are recording with this today, and many people are not aware until they try to edit and run into problems. Also, HDR game captures on computers is increasingly common. A year ago, we added very limited, hidden support for editing HDR video because, basically, we had no way to display it without a device from Blackmagic Design. Now, there is a way.
- Added Player > External Monitor > Preview Window (HDR)that can be made fullscreen.
- It also works for SDR.
- HDR requires a display properly configured with HDR, Native 10-bit CPU or Linear 10-bit GPU/CPU processing modes, and HDR video sources.
- For HDR, only use filters tagged with #gpu or #10bit.
- It does not appear to work on Linux, at least I have not been able to get it working.
- Switching between PQ HDR (HDR10) and HLG HDR requires restarting the app.
- The default shortcut to open or raise the preview window is Ctrl+`. It does not toggle between open and close because raise is more convenient.
- You can move the window by clicking anywhere inside except the controls bar and dragging.
- F toggles fullscreen and Esc also leaves fullscreen.
- Incompatible with Use Old Video Output.
- Added Dynamic range to custom Video Mode and Timeline Properties.
This offers SDR, which follows the colorspace, HLG HDR, and PQ HDR.
- At this time, Shotcut only supports converting log profile video to HDR with GPU processing mode and HLG HDR video mode. And it cannot convert between HDR formats or combine multiple HDR formats within a project.
- Added support for PQ HDR (HDR10) to External Monitor > DeckLink.
- Added support for HDR to Export (based on Video Mode and 10-bit processing mode).
- Added HDR10 metadata dialogs for External Monitor > DeckLink and Export > Codec.
Export only embeds HDR10 metadata for the libx265 and libsvtav1 video codecs and no hardware encoders.
- TODO: Properties > Convert and View > Resources > Convert do not support 10-bit yet; that will be added in the next release.
External Plugins
We added limited support for external audio and video plugins.
“Limited” means it does not support a plugin’s included UI, and our UI generator is new and experimental. That means you can only try it if you are an advanced user who knows how to supply a command line option to reveal the new UI generator. There are many mysterious effects, and uncertainty if things are working correctly. As a result, the user experience is not yet good enough with an increased risk of crash.
“External” means both effects included with Shotcut but not yet available in the UI or plugins that you install yourself to the standard, expected location for your OS.
OpenFX Image Effect Plugins
- Added a UI (--experimental not required) for NTSC-rs.
- Limited compatibility: not available, seems to do nothing, or makes the video black.
- No support for plugins that operate temporally or require multiple image/video inputs.
- No support for generators, transitions, or retimers.
- No support for the UI embedded in the plugin.
- No support for GPU technologies but multi-threaded CPU does work.
- Very limited testing. There are many plugins we have not tested especially commercial ones, and we know there are some that do not work.
- None are included with Shotcut.
VST2 and LV2 Audio Plugins
- Added a UI for Valhalla Supermassive.
- No support for the UI embedded in the plugin.
- No support for instruments.
- Very limited testing.
- None are included with Shotcut.
Safe Mode and UI Generator
- Added menu item Settings > Leave Safe Mode.
This appears if Shotcut crashes within 30 seconds upon startup, which restarts in a safe mode without external (OpenFX, VST2, LV2) plugins.
- Added --experimental command line option to try out the filter UI generator. This provides a Manage Add-on Filters dialog to search for effects included with Shotcut or external plugins. After choosing some to add-on, they become available in the regular Filters menu in the current as well as future sessions.
Other New Features
- Added Reduce Noise: Audio (RNNoise) filter. More info about RNNoise
- Added Settings > Display Method > Vulkan on Linux.
- Added Settings > Timeline > Create Transitions on Overlap to disable that feature.
- Added support for the .lot filename extension for Lottie animation handled by Glaxnimate.
- Added support to load custom filter UIs installed to App Data Directory > extensions > filters. If someone shares a custom or generated UI for an external effect/plugin that seems useful and safe, you can install it here to use it in your Shotcut without needing to use the --experimental mode. This can also be a place to add custom general purpose scripts by making a dummy filter. Use mlt_service: 'shape' as the dummy/no-op backend filter in the meta.qml. Soon we will add a proper scripts panel.
- Documented a scripting interface.
Changes
- Changed Linux Snap to use a desktop environment file dialog if possible.
- Changed the new Log Event shortcut to Shift+D because one conflicted with Remove Subtitle Item.
- Moved Declick Audio from the Time category to Audio in the filter menu.
- Upgraded MLT to version 7.40.0
- Upgraded FFmpeg to version 8.1.2
- Upgraded libspatialaudio to 0.4.0
- Upgraded frei0r to version 3.2.2
Fixes
- Fixed the Font style from the font dialog is overwritten on filter UI reload on Windows (broke in v26.4).
- Fixed hardware scaler on Windows when using Settings > Preview Scaling > Use Hardware Decoder (broke in v26.4).
- Fixed mouse wheel and keyboard not incrementing/decrementing numeric fields in filter UIs (broke in version 26.4).
- Fixed moving clips may create a very long gap.
- Fixed Player > External Monitor > DeckLink (and related such as UltraStudio) HDMI/SDI may deadlock.
- Fixed export with libopus audio codec warns about frame_duration.
- Fixed incorrect current track after moving clip to another track.
- Fixed undo after changing Video Mode corrupts the timeline.
- Fixed double-clicking a project file in Finder with Shotcut already running on macOS.
- Fixed zooming in the player with non-square pixels.
- Fixed a possible crash when Text: Rich filter is first in the list and playhead is not over selected clip.
- Fixed File > Export EDL adds 1-frame clip before transitions.
- Fixed full-width spaces replaced by half-width spaces in Import Subtitles From File.
- Fixed Text: Typewriter not animating correctly after changing rate parameters.
- Fixed reordering Filters breaking selecting another filter.
- Fixed some actions disabled after deleting, moving, or updating an item in Subtitles.
- Fixed repeated prompts to convert a project to GPU processing mode if project was started before version 25.12.
- Fixed skim not working over Timeline clips.
- Fixed mouse wheel not scrolling a filter’s UI within Filters.
- Fixed 10-bit H.264 encoder fails with hardware encoding on.
No H.264 hardware encoders support 10-bit; this change simply makes it use software encoding with x264.
- Fixed Export > Ogg Vorbis with Cover Art fails (no longer fails but our Ogg integration does not support cover art).
- Fixed Export > From > Marker using the Reframe output video filter with keyframes.
- Fixed some toolbar icons’ tooltips not showing keyboard shortcut.
- Fixed Zoom Timeline to Fit may not scroll to start.
- Fixed a crash using some Markers actions with nothing open.
- Fixed using Windows UNC paths with filters, e.g. GPS Graphic.
- Fixed extended/special characters in metadata of custom Export preset.
- Fixed Rebuild Audio Waveform was not saving on Windows.
- Fixed tab focus did not allow editing numeric fields in filters.
- Fixed Export > Video > Aspect ratio can be incorrect if very close to a common ratio: 4:3, 16:9, or 9:16.
- Fixed changing many things in Properties enabled Filters that were disabled.
- Fixed crash in Text: Rich filter on some Linux/Wayland versions.
- Fixed toggling visibility of other tracks in Timeline could make an audio clip with an image appear on top.
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