Editing cellphone videos in Ubuntu Linux

If you have a slightly older android cell phone, chances are it records videos using the “3gp” format. When editing 3gp videos in OpenShot on Ubuntu, the audio and video can become unsynced. I have found that using the WinFF application you can convert the 3gp video into “DV – Raw DV for NTSC full screen” format, which will allow OpenShot to edit it correctly without having audio sync problems.

As a side note, sometimes when shooting videos with a cell phone, you may forget to rotate the phone to “landscape” orientation and be left with a vertical video that is rotated 90 degrees when shown on a computer. OpenShot can be used to rotate videos as follows:

1. right click on the clip
2. click Properties
3. Choose the Effect tab (far right)
4. Hit the “+” sign and then scroll down to “R” for Rotate.
5. In the effects settings:
   • set the Rotate X, Y and Z to 0.00
   • set the Fixed Rotate X variable to 90.0.
6. Hit apply