OpenShot 2.1 crashing on export in Debian 8 Jessie | ShotCut 16.10 for the Win

edit: OpenShot 2.4.x works now, but i'm still a ShotCut fan using v18.x

EPIC FAIL | Story time…
 
OpenShot v2.1 is an opensource video editor that everyone is raving about. It was super easy to get a project going and i really liked the ease of use. But I’ll be damned if i could export any video without a crash.

All my research suggested i needed newer version of ffmpeg and mlt. However, every time i tried installing newer packages from jessie-backports, it just did not work with any useful explanation.

$ sudo aptitude -t jessie-backports install ffmpeg libmlt6
No packages will be installed, upgraded, or removed.
0 packages upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B of archives. After unpacking 0 B will be used.

It turns out there are commands that could help. Essentially you need to find package dependencies. Enter aptitude why <package-name> or alternatively apt-cache --installed rdepends <package-name> .

aptitude why ffmpeg ; aptitude why libmlt6 reported their dependencies. After a few runs and a few un-installs (sudo aptitude remove flowblade openshot kdelive) I was able to install newer ffmpeg and libmlt6 from jessie-backports. Afterward I was able to re-install the above-mentioned removed packages.

It was s good learning session, but as it turned out OpenShot still crashed for exports – each and every time. I’ve also installed every possible codec to no avail.

So I was back to re-testing alternatives:
- Lightworks was too confusing; I really wanted this to work, but i don’t have that kind of time for the learning-curve right now, although I hope to graduate to it.
- Blender was far beyond overkill. This is primarily for animation, but also does simpler video edits. I want something normal people can use. (Not that I’m claiming to be normal)
- I didn’t get very far with Kdenlive either. I think I didnt give it a real good go, but none-the-less I moved on.
- Avidemux was way too simple for this project, but is super good for quick chops.
- FlowBlade v1.8 almost did it, so close, but i never had enough frames for successful crossfades (disolves).
- ShotCut v16.10 won! It just worked, every time! – Crossfade and export worked for my first project without complaints nor crashes. Thank you ShotCut Team!

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