The classic VLC media player got a new release after more than half a year of development. Here’s the changes and how to install guide.

VLC 3.0.18 is probably the last release of the 3.0.x series, as VLC 4.0 is under developing now. It features:

• Support RISC-V CPU architecture
• Add support DVBSub subtitle in MKV video.
• Y16 chroma support
• Improve SMBv1/SMBv2 behavior and FTP compatibility.
• Fix AVI muxing for Windows Media Player compatibility
• Fix seeking speed on macOS
• Various other fixes and improvements.

How to Install VLC 3.0.18 in Ubuntu:

Option 1: Official Snap package

Though it’s not announced at the moment of writing, the official Snap package has been made into Ubuntu Software for Ubuntu 20.04 and higher users. Which however is an universal package format that runs in sandbox.

Install VLC 3.0.18 as Snap in Ubuntu Software

Option 2: Third-party PPA

For those prefer the native .deb package format, there’s an unofficial PPA contains the package for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 18.04, and Ubuntu 16.04.

NOTE: The PPAs below also install updated FFmpeg and other libraries, that might cause annoying dependency issues. Use it at your own risk!

1. First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, run command to add the PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/vlc3

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

2. Then, add another PPA for the dependency packages by running command:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4

3. Old Ubuntu and Linux Mint user need to refresh the package cache by running the command below:

sudo apt update

4. Finally, install or update VLC package via:

sudo apt install vlc

Uninstall VLC 3.0.18

For the official snap package, you can simply click uninstall button in Ubuntu Software.

For the PPA package, it’s HIGHLY recommended to purge the PPA which also downgrade all installed libraries, so to avoid dependency issue. To do so, run the commands below one by one:

sudo apt install ppa-purge

sudo ppa-purge ppa:savoury1/ffmpeg4

sudo ppa-purge ppa:savoury1/vlc3

After purging the PPAs, clean up useless libraries via command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove vlc-data vlc-bin

That’s all. Enjoy!

For those looking for the native .deb package of OpenShot 3.1.0, here’s how to install it from PPA in Ubuntu 18.04, Ubuntu 20.04, Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 22.10, and Ubuntu 23.04.

The official openshot PPA is back with the latest packages for all current Ubuntu releases and their derivatives, such as Linux Mint. User can now easily install the latest video editor package by following the steps below one by one.

Just found that the official openshot PPA seems not being updated for quite a period of time, when I was trying to get the latest package of this video editor today. Though, the software is still being developed.

So I tried building myself and uploaded into this unofficial PPA for those who prefer native .deb package to AppImage or Flatpak.

NOTE this unofficial PPA contains the packages for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and Ubuntu 18.04, though has only minor tests in Ubuntu 22.04.

1. Add the PPA

First, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal. When it opens, paste the command below into terminal and hit Enter to add PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa

Type user password when it asks (no asterisk feedback) and hit Enter to continue.

2. Refresh package cache

Ubuntu 20.04 and higher will automatically refresh system package cache while adding PPA. Though old Ubuntu 18.04 and Linux Mint do not.

To manually update the cache, run command:

sudo apt update

3. Install/Update OpenShot

Finally, either install the video editor by running command in terminal:

sudo apt install openshot-qt python3-openshot

Or use ‘Software Updater’ to update it from an old version.

Uninstall:

To remove the Ubuntu PPA, either open “Software & Updates” and delete the source from ‘Other Software’ tab:

or run the command below in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:openshot.developers/ppa

And remove the editor for choice by running command:

sudo apt remove --autoremove openshot-qt python3-openshot

Kdenlive video editor released version 22.08 with exciting new features. Here’s how to install it in Ubuntu via PPA.

Kdenlive 22.08 introduced initial support for styling subtitles, allows to modify the font, font size, font and outline colors, add shadows, set position and background color of subtitles.

The release also adds many new effects, including Shear, Scroll, Photosensitivity, Monochrome, Median, Kirsch, Exposure, EPX Scaler, Color Temperature, Color Overlay, Color Correct, Color Contrast, Chroma Noise Reduction, Contrast Adaptive Sharpen, Bilateral and VR360 Equirectangular to Stereo.

Styling subtitles

The audio recording interface has been overhauled. User can either use the record button in the track head or press Space-bar on keyboard to start recording. Space-bar can be also used to pause and resume recording, while Esc key is for exiting recording mode.

Other changes in Kdenlive 22.08 include:

• Fix for NVENC and VAAPI proxy clip encoding support.
• Faster render speeds with experimental Parallel Processing feature
• Support AVIF, HEIF, HEIC and JPEG XL image formats, LOTTIE and RAWR animations, as well as VTT (Web Video Text Tracks) and SBV (YouTube) subtitle files.
• Export guides as chapters for YouTube/PeerTube/Vimeo
• Integration with Glaxnimate vector graphics animation program
• Luma composition now supports video matte files.
• Main effects tab now displays all audio and video effects
• Improved clip-tagging system to easily add, edit and reorder tags in the project bin.
• Added the ability to change the subtitle framerate.

How to Install Kdenlive 22.08 in Ubuntu:

The video editor has an official PPA contains the updated software packages for Ubuntu 22.04, Ubuntu 20.04, and their based systems, such as Linux Mint 20/21, Pop! OS 22.04, Zorin OS 16.

Add the PPA

To add the Ubuntu PPA, either press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard or search for and open terminal (konsole) from start menu.

When terminal opens, run command to add PPA:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable

Type user password (no asterisk feedback) when it asks and hit Enter to continue.

Install / Update Kdenlive

After adding PPA, user can either open Software Updater (or Update Manager) to update the software package from an installed version:

Or run the command below to install or update the video editor:

sudo apt install kdenlive

NOTE: Linux Mint user has to run sudo apt update first to manually refresh package cache

And, if you got overwriting files issue due to the old dependencies: libmlt-data and melt, run command to remove them and then re-run the apt command above:

sudo dpkg -r melt libmlt-data

Once installed, press Super (Windows logo key) to open ‘Activities’ overview or start menu, and search for and open Kdenlive.

Uninstall Kdenlive

To remove Kdenlive, either use your system package manager or run the command below in a terminal window:

sudo apt remove --autoremove kdenlive

And remove the Ubuntu PPA either by running command in terminal:

sudo add-apt-repository --remove ppa:kdenlive/kdenlive-stable

Or use “Software & Updates” utility to remove the source line under “Other Software” tab.

A new point release for VLC media player 3.0 branch, VLC 3.0.17 is out.

Without any tweak, VLC now support for playing .DAV video files, created via a DVR365 or Dahua Technology digital video recorder (DVR).

The release also features better notch support for new macbooks, adaptive streaming stack overhaul, and major codec updates.

Other changes include:

• Add Webp image support.
• Allow brackets in path part of URLs
• Fix support for screen capture on macOS with avcapture
• Improve HTTP2 memory usage, AVCapture module, AudioCD support and SMB compatibility
• Add support for DTS LBR
• Add support for new Fourcc for E-AC3, AV1, GeoVision
• Fix playback of live AV1 streams
• Support Uncompressed audio in mp4 (ISO/IEC 23003-5)
• Third-party libraries updates and various fixes.

How to Install VLC 3.0.17 in Ubuntu:

Option 1: the official Snap package:

VLC provides official Linux package via Snap, though v3.0.17 is now in beta channel at the moment.

Ubuntu user may simply search for and install it from Ubuntu Software. It’ll update to the latest version automatically.

Option 2: Flatpak package

VLC is also available to install via the universal Flatpak package, which is now updated to v3.0.17.

Firstly, press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal, then run command to install Flatpak daemon:

sudo apt install flatpak

For old Ubuntu 18.04 and ubuntu 16.04 need to add this PPA first.

Next, install VLC as Flatpak via command:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/org.videolan.VLC.flatpakref

How to Remove VLC:

For VLC installed via Snap, either remove it from Ubuntu Software or run command in terminal:

sudo snap remove vlc

For the Flatpak package, run the command below in a terminal window:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data org.videolan.VLC

And remove unused libraries via flatpak uninstall --unused.

The popular free open-source Handbrake video transcoder released version 1.5.0 a day ago and then 1.5.1 with quick fix. Here’s what’s new and how to install it in Ubuntu / Linux Mint.

Handbrake 1.5 contains mainly bug-fixes, libraries and video engine updates. Changes in the release include:

• Update video engine to preserve chroma sample location information.
• Update Intel Quick Sync to use the Intel oneAPI Video Processing Library (oneVPL)
• Update FFmpeg 4.4.1, FreeType 2.11.1, libass 0.15.2, libdav1d 0.9.2, and third-party libraries.
• Update Intel QSV Flatpak plugin to use Intel MediaSDK 21.3.5
• Build with GNOME 41 and Freedesktop Platform 21.08
• Requires macOS 10.13+, Windows 10+ with .NET 6.0
• Add “Move to top/bottom” to the queue context menu for Windows, and MacOS.
• Translations updates, and more.

How to Install Handbrake 1.5.1 in Ubuntu & other Linux:

The video transcoder now provides Linux package through the universal Flatpak. For those sticking to the native .deb package, keep an eye on this third-party Ubuntu PPA.

1. Install Flatpak daemon

The Flatpak daemon is pre-installed in some Linux systems, such as Fedora Workstation, CentOS, Linux Mint, and Pop! OS.

For Ubuntu 20.04+, simply press Ctrl+Alt+T on keyboard to open terminal and run the command below to install it:

sudo apt install flatpak

Ubuntu 18.04 and Ubuntu 16.04 user may install the daemon using the stable PPA.

2. Install Handbrake as Flatpak

After setup the daemon, most Linux user may install Handbrake as Flatpak using command:

flatpak install https://dl.flathub.org/repo/appstream/fr.handbrake.ghb.flatpakref

As mentioned, the packages requires GNOME 41 and Freedesktop Platforms that takes hundreds of MB disk space.

Once installed, search for and open Handbrake from ‘Activities’ overview screen and enjoy!

Uninstall Handbrake Flatpak package:

To remove the app package, also open terminal and run command:

flatpak uninstall --delete-data fr.handbrake.ghb

And remove the useless dependency runtimes via: flatpak uninstall --unused.

For choice, you may also remove the Flatpak daemon if no other app packages installed:

sudo apt remove --autoremove flatpak

That’s all. Enjoy!