Linux editor for selecting and saving short clips

I have found a new favorite for this task. It is called AviDemux. However if you just import a video file with incomplete frames with key frames in between, you cannot scrub properly, since AviDemux does not convert the film to have only key frames. Having incomplete frames that are re-created on playback is a common technique to save storage space. Scrubbing will jump between the key frames, at least for the file formats I have tried.

You can solve that by using ffmpeg to add key frames so every frame becomes a key frame, before you open the video in AviDemux.

For e.g. an flv file you can do it like this:

ffmpeg -keyint_min 0 -i video.flv video_all_keyframes.flv

Before finding AviDeMux. the LIVES video editor was the best one I had found for extracting short video clips from a video.

My use case was extracting individual moves from salsa dance performances. I have now tried four Linux based video editors for this. The other two I have tested are cinelerra and PiTiVi.

My needs were very well defined. I want to watch through a video and extract short sequences that illustrate different dance moves.

Scrubbing

Moving back and forth through a video by dragging the pointer sideways, turning a wheel or something similar is called scrubbing.