Clip Monitor
The Clip Monitor displays the unedited[1] clip that is currently selected in the Project Bin. It has the same functions and options as the Project Monitor except for the kdenlive-add-clip icon which adds the clip zone to the Project Bin where it will appear as child clip underneath the clip. See Creating Zones for more details.
1:
Video Stream indicator. Grab the icon to only put the video part of the video into the timeline.
2:
Audio Stream indicator. Grab the icon to only put the audio part of the video into the timeline.
3:
Clip Zone indicator. See Creating Zones for more details.
4:
List of last opened clips. Hover with the mouse to the top and a list of last opened clips appears. You can select a clip which then show up in the clip monitor.
5:
Minimap for zooming the audio stream
The action differs if the mouse is on the main view (upper part with the video) or on the audio/minimap view.
| Action | Audio / Minimap | Main view |
|---|---|---|
Single click | Scroll | Seek |
Double click | Switch to full screen | Switch to full screen |
Drag | Scroll | Seek |
Wheel | Scroll | Seek |
Ctrl + Wheel | Zoom | Zoom |
For more details about the icons in the monitor toolbar refer to this section of the manual.
Hamburger Menu
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Volume - Set the Clip Monitor playback volume. This does not affect the master volume setting.
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Go to Marker - If markers are defined for the clip the list of markers is displayed and selecting one positions the playhead at the marker’s timecode.
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Force Monitor Size - You can force the Clip Monitor to display the video at 100% (original size), 50% or adjust it to the Clip Monitor widget’s size (Free Resize).
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Background Color - Set the background color for the Clip Monitor
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Extract Zone - Saves the current zone as a
.mltfile and adds it to the project bin if Add clip to project is selected. See also Extract Zone in the Right-Click Menu section below. -
Set Current Image as Thumbnail - Takes the a snapshot of the current frame and uses that as the thumbnail for the clip.
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Always show audio thumbnails -
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Audio Scrubbing - If enabled plays the audio track while scrubbing through the timeline. You may want to turn this off to improve scrubbing performance or if the noise is distracting.
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Show Audio Levels - If enabled shows the frequency curve of the master audio in the Project Monitor.
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Show Source Timecode -
Creating Zones
Zones are defined regions of clips that are indicated by a colored section in the clip monitor’s timeline - see item 3 above. The beginning of a zone is set by clicking zone-in or pressing I. The end of a zone is set by clicking zone-out or pressing O.
Right-Click Menu
These are the menu items that are available when you right-click in the Clip Monitor. These actions affect the clip that is currently selected in the project bin. Similar menu items are available from a right-click menu in the Project Monitor. However, the project monitor menu items affect the currently selected clip on the Timeline.
| Item | Shortcut | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Play | Space or click into the monitor | Plays the clip currently selected in the project bin. (Disable play on click in the settings) |
| Play Zone | Ctrl+Space | Plays the current zone and stops |
| Play Zone From Cursor | Plays the current zone from cursor to the end of the zone | |
| Loop Zone | Ctrl+Shift+Space | Plays the current zone in a continuous loop |
| Go to Project Start | Ctrl+Home | Goes to the beginning of the clip |
| Go to Previous Guide | Ctrl+Left | Goes to the previous marker or Timeline Marker (former Guide) |
| Go to Previous Snap Point | Alt+Left | Moves the playhead to the previous snap point |
| Go to Zone Start | Shift+I | Goes to the start of the zone |
| Go to Clip Start | Home | Moves the clip playhead to the beginning of the clip |
| Go to Clip End | End | Moves the clip playhead to the end of the clip |
| Go to Zone End | Shift+O | Goes to the end of the zone |
| Go to Next Snap Point | Alt+Right | Moves the playhead to the next snap point |
| Go to Next Guide | Ctrl+Right | Goes to the next marker or Timeline Marker (former Guide) |
| Go to Project End | Ctrl+End | Goes the end of the clip |
| Add Marker | Opens the Edit Marker dialog window for adding a new marker into the clip at the current time point. | |
 |
| Add Marker quickly | Num+* | Adds a new marker at the current time point |
|---|---|---|
| Edit Marker | Brings up a dialog where you can edit the marker that is at the current time point. Use Go to marker to put the monitor at the marker you want to edit. | |
| Delete Marker | Deletes the marker that is at the current time point. Use Go to marker to put the monitor at the marker you want to delete. | |
| Delete All Markers | Deletes all the markers from the current clip. | |
| Go to Marker… | The menu item pops out a list of existing marker to select from. When one is selected the playhead moves to that marker. | |
| Extract Zone | This brings up the Cut Clip dialog. | |
 |
The current zone can be saved as a .mov file in your file system. If the Add clip to project is checked the zone will be added as a separate clip to the project bin.
| Insert Zone in Project bin | Ctrl+I | Inserts the current zone into the project bin as a sub-clip of the original clip |
|---|---|---|
| Extract Frame | Opens the Save Image dialog window to save the current frame as an image file (default is .png) to your file system | |
| Extract Frame to Project | Same as Extract Frame but in addition the image file is brought into the project bin | |
 |
| Add Project Note | Opens the Project Notes widget and adds a hyperlink to the current frame in the clip. You can enter more text to describe the scene. | |
|---|---|---|
| Set Zone In | I | Sets the in-point for the zone |
| Set Zone Out | O | Sets the out-point for the zone |
| Set current image as thumbnail | Uses the current frame as the thumbnail for the clip in the project bin | |
| Always show audio thumbnails | Switches the permanent display of the audio waveform on or off. If unchecked (i.e. off) the audio graph is only displayed when the mouse is near the bottom of the monitor area and the Monitor Overlay Audio Waveform option is selected. | |
| Current Monitor Overlay | Opens a fly-out for the various available monitor overlays | |
| Monitor Info Overlay | Switches all monitor overlays on or off | |
| Monitor Overlay Timecode | Switches the display of the timecode on or off | |
| Monitor Overlay Playback FPS | Switches the display of the frame-per-seconds (fps) on or off | |
| Monitor Overlay Markers | Switches the display of the marker lines and thumbnails on or off | |
| Monitor Overlay Audio Waveform | Switches the display of the audio waveform on or off | |
| Monitor Overlay Clip Jobs | Switches the display of running clip jobs on or off |
Seeking
Inside the clip monitor: hold down Shift and move the mouse left/right.
Drag Audio or Video Only to Timeline
It is possible to drag only the video or audio stream of a clip from the project bin or clip monitor to the timeline
Move with the mouse to the lower left-hand corner of the clip monitor to access the video (1) and audio (2) icons. Left click on the respective icon to drag either the video or audio stream into the timeline.
This is very useful if you only need one of the streams as it avoids the un-grouping and subsequent deletion of one of the streams of the clip in the timeline.
[[1]]
“Unedited” means without any cuts. Please note that clips in the Project Bin can have effects and hence people may consider them “edited”. *[RGB]: Red Green Blue *[VFX]: Visual Effects *[feathering]: Smoothing or blurring the edges of a feature *[LFO]: Low-Frequency Oscillation *[dB]: decibel *[LUFS]: Loudness Units Full Scale *[AI]: Artificial Intelligence *[LLM]: Large Language Model *[HSV]: Hue, Saturation, Value *[SOP/Sat]: S(lope), O(ffset), P(ower) / SATuration *[CDL]: Color Decision List *[HSL]: Hue, Saturation, Lightness - Using HSL color space is useful for subtle color changes *[px]: pixel *[hh:mm:ss:ff]: hours:minutes:seconds:frames *[Hz]: Hertz *[CIE]: Commission internationale de l'éclairage, French for International Commission on Illumination *[DCI]: Digital Cinema Initiative *[nadir]: direction pointing directly below a particular location *[OS]: Operating System *[decibel]: Unit of measurement (dB) for sound levels *[clipping]: A form of distortion that limits a signal once it exceeds a threshold *[Spectrogram]: Visual representation of the spectrum of frequencies of a signal as it varies with time *[prevent clipping]: Dynamic range compression (DRC)is an audio signal processing operation that reduces the volume of loud sounds or amplifies quiet sounds, thus reducing or compressing an audio signal's dynamic range. *[SNR]: Signal-to-Noise Ratio *[dbFS]: Decibels relative to full scale *[QHD]: Quad-HD *[UHD]: Ultra High Definition *[XML]: Extensible Markup Language *[fps]: frames per second *[NTSC]: National Television Standard Committee - defined the TV system used in the United States, Japan and many other countries *[PAL]: Phase Alternating Line - a colour encoding system for analogue television *[LFE]: Low Frequency Effects *[RAW]: The RAW file format is digital photography's equivalent of a negative in film photography: it contains untouched, raw pixel information straight from the digital camera's sensor *[DSLR]: Digital Single Lens Reflex *[DOF]: Depth of Field *[NDF]: Neutral Density Filter *[AVI]: Audio Video Interleave *[BT.601]: A standard from 1982 defining how RGB color primaries get turned into the YCbCr channels used by modern codecs *[BT.709]: A standard from 1990 which does the same at BT.601 but the transfer coefficients are slightly different *[grep]: A Unix command-line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines that match a regular expression *[MLT]: Media Lovin' Toolkit - An open source software multimedia framework designed and developed for tv broadcasting *[SD]: Secure Digital - a proprietary, non-volatile, flash memory card format developed by the SD Association *[SFX]: Special Effects *[VBR]: Variable Bit Rate *[HD]: High Definition *[GUI]: Graphical User Interface