Project Monitor
The Project Monitor displays your project’s timeline - i.e. the edited version of your video. It has the same functions and options as the Clip Monitor except for the edit-mode icon which switches Edit Mode on or off.
For more details about the icons in the monitor toolbar refer to this section of the manual.
Project Monitor Controls
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The position caret. Shows the current location in the project relative to the whole project. You can click and drag this to move the position in the project.
-
The timecode control. You can type a timecode here and press
Enterto bring the playhead to an exact location. -
Timecode control arrows. You can move the Project Monitor one frame at a time with these. Alternatively, you can use
leftandright(keyboard arrow keys).
Hamburger Menu
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Volume - Set the Project Monitor playback volume. This does not affect the master volume setting.
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Go to Timeine Marker - If timeline markers are defined the list of timeline markers is displayed and selecting one positions the playhead at the guide’s timecode.
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Force Monitor Size - You can force the Project Monitor to display the video at 100% (original size), 50% or adjust it to the Project Monitor widget’s size.
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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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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.
Creating Zones
You can use the I and O keys or the zone-in and zone-out icons to create a zone in the Project Monitor the same way you make zones in the Clip Monitor with the notable exception that the zone defined in the Project Monitor also sets the zone in the Timeline. The zone will be indicated by a colored bar both on the timeline and underneath the Project Monitor.
You can have Kdenlive only render the selected zone - see Selected Zone.
Right-click Menu
These are the menu items that are available when you right-click in the Project Monitor. These actions affect the clip that is currently selected in the Timeline. Similar menu items are available from a right-click menu in the Clip Monitor. However, the clip monitor menu items affect the currently selected clip in the project bin.
| 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 |
| Loop Zone | Ctrl+Shift+Space | Plays the current zone in a continuous loop |
| Play Zone From Cursor | Plays the current zone from cursor to the end of the zone | |
| Loop Selected Clip | Plays the currently selected clip 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 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 Timeline Marker (former Guide) |
| Go to Project End | Ctrl+End | Goes the end of the clip |
| Go to Guide… | The menu item pops out a list of existing Timeline Marker to select from. When one is selected the playhead moves to that guide. | |
| 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 | |
| Multitrack View | F12 | Switches the project monitor area to the Multitrack View. All active tracks will be displayed. For more details about how to use this in Editing refer to the Multicam Tool chapter. |
| 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 |
Multitrack View
Selecting this allows you to view all the video tracks at once in a split screen in the project monitor. Kdenlive starts with video track #1 in the top left corner and displays the other tracks sequentially. Hidden tracks are not displayed.
For more details about how to use this in Editing refer to the Multicam Tool chapter. *[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