Avidemux is a
free and open-source software application for
non-linear video editing and
transcoding
Transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another, such as for video data files, audio files (e.g., MP3, WAV), or character encoding (e.g., UTF-8, ISO/IEC 8859). This is usually done in cases where a target ...
multimedia files. The developers intend it as "a simple tool for simple video processing tasks" and to allow users "to do elementary things in a very straightforward way".
It is written in
C++ and uses
Qt for its
graphical user interface
The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows User (computing), users to Human–computer interaction, interact with electronic devices through graphical icon (comp ...
, and
FFmpeg
FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing of ...
for its multimedia functions. Starting with version 2.4, Avidemux also offers a
command-line interface, and since version 2.6, the original
GTK port has not been maintained and is now discontinued.
Avidemux is developed for
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which i ...
,
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...
, and
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...
. Unofficial builds are also available for
FreeBSD,
NetBSD
NetBSD is a free and open-source Unix operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). It was the first open-source BSD descendant officially released after 386BSD was forked. It continues to be actively developed and is a ...
, and
OpenBSD
OpenBSD is a security-focused operating system, security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking N ...
.
Features
Avidemux is capable of
non-linear video editing, applying
visual effects (called "Filters" by Avidemux) to video, and
transcoding
Transcoding is the direct digital-to-digital conversion of one encoding to another, such as for video data files, audio files (e.g., MP3, WAV), or character encoding (e.g., UTF-8, ISO/IEC 8859). This is usually done in cases where a target ...
video into various formats. Some of the filters were
ported from
MPlayer
MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for ...
and
Avisynth
AviSynth is a frameserver program for Microsoft Windows, Linux and macOS initially developed by Ben Rudiak-Gould, Edwin van Eggelen, Klaus Post, Richard Berg and Ian Brabham in May 2000 and later picked up and maintained by the open source commu ...
. Avidemux can also insert audio streams into a video file (an action known as
multiplexing
In telecommunications and computer networking, multiplexing (sometimes contracted to muxing) is a method by which multiple analog or digital signals are combined into one signal over a shared medium. The aim is to share a scarce resource - a ...
or "muxing") or extract audio streams from video files (an action known as "demuxing").
An integral and important part of the design of the program is its project system, which uses the
SpiderMonkey JavaScript engine. Whole projects with all options, configurations, selections, and preferences can be saved into a project file. Like
VirtualDub's VCF scripting capabilities, Avidemux has advanced scripting available for it both in its
GUI and command line modes. It also supports a non-project system just like VirtualDub, where users can simply create all of their configurations and save the video directly without making a project file. A project queue system is also available.
Avidemux has built-in subtitle processing, both for
optical character recognition
Optical character recognition or optical character reader (OCR) is the electronic or mechanical conversion of images of typed, handwritten or printed text into machine-encoded text, whether from a scanned document, a photo of a document, a sc ...
of DVD subtitles and for rendering hard subtitles. Avidemux supports various subtitle formats, including
MicroDVD (.SUB),
SubStation Alpha (.SSA),
Advanced SubStation Alpha (.ASS) and
SubRip (.SRT).
Components
Avidemux was written from scratch, but additional code from
FFmpeg
FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing of ...
,
MPlayer
MPlayer is a free and open-source media player software application. It is available for Linux, OS X and Microsoft Windows. Versions for OS/2, Syllable, AmigaOS, MorphOS and AROS Research Operating System are also available. A port for ...
,
Transcode and
Avisynth
AviSynth is a frameserver program for Microsoft Windows, Linux and macOS initially developed by Ben Rudiak-Gould, Edwin van Eggelen, Klaus Post, Richard Berg and Ian Brabham in May 2000 and later picked up and maintained by the open source commu ...
has been used on occasion as well. Nonetheless, it is a completely standalone program that does not require any other programs to read, decode, or encode other than itself. The built-in libavcodec library from the FFmpeg project is used for decoding and encoding of various audio and video formats such as MPEG-4 ASP. The primary (though not the only) Avidemux programmer uses the nickname 'Mean' on the Avidemux forum.
Multithreading
Multithreading has been implemented in the following areas of Avidemux (some partially through libavcodec):
* Encoding
**
MPEG-1
MPEG-1 is a standard for lossy compression of video and audio. It is designed to compress VHS-quality raw digital video and CD audio down to about 1.5 Mbit/s (26:1 and 6:1 compression ratios respectively) without excessive quality loss, mak ...
and
MPEG-2
MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, w ...
(using
libavcodec
libavcodec is a free and open-source library of codecs for encoding and decoding video and audio data.
libavcodec is an integral part of many open-source multimedia applications and frameworks. The popular MPV, xine and VLC media players u ...
)
**
MPEG-4 Part 2
MPEG-4 Part 2, MPEG-4 Visual (formally ISO/ IEC 14496-2) is a video compression format developed by the Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG). It belongs to the MPEG-4 ISO/IEC standards. It uses block-wise motion compensation and a discrete cosi ...
SP/ASP (using libavcodec or
Xvid
Xvid (formerly "XviD") is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 video coding standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi ma ...
)
*** Earlier versions of Xvid are not compatible with this feature.
**
H.264/MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC (using
x264)
**
H.265/HEVC (using
x265)
* Decoding
** MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 (using libavcodec)
** MPEG-4 Part 2 SP/ASP (using libavcodec)
Supported formats
Avidemux supports following file formats:
See also
*
List of video editing software
*
Comparison of video editing software
*
Comparison of video converters
Notes
References
Further reading
*
*
External links
*
{{Video editors
Cross-platform free software
Free software programmed in C++
Free video software
Free video conversion software
Software that uses FFmpeg
Video editing software
Video editing software for macOS
Video editing software for Linux
Video editing software for Windows
Video software that uses Qt
Software that was ported from GTK to Qt
Video editing software that uses GTK