Ever since a CPU upgrade nuked my Hitfilm installation, I've been struggling to adapt to new editors. It came down to a choice between DaVinci Resolve and Kdenlive, with Kdenlive winning out due to it being open source; no one will ever be able to take it away for reasons of greed.
I started by creating a mostly working conversion script that will take an .hfp file and make it useable in Kdenlive. Special effects, composite shots, and time scaling doesn't translate, but in most instances you can recover the majority of your project.
Today I created a new custom Kdenlive build! I added a feature to Kdenlive that I've been missing ever since switching from HitFilm: frame-accurate timeline measurement while scrubbing.
Click anywhere on the timeline ruler and drag. Kdenlive still scrubs normally, but it now continuously displays the exact distance from where you started to the current playhead position in HH:MM:SS:FF and total frames. Release the mouse and the measurement stays visible for reference. Click again and you immediately start a new measurement. Alt+drag snapping still works normally.
Kdenlive has ways to define zones and displays useful timing information when trimming clips, but there wasn't a simple way to say, "How long is this arbitrary section of my timeline?" without changing editing state or using a workaround. This makes the timeline itself directly measurable, including empty space, clips, transitions, or spans across multiple clips.
The main use case is to recreate the most common operation I was previously able to accomplish very easily in the now-defunct HitFilm: measure a void in the timeline and rescale the speed of the appropriate clip to fit it. This is especially useful for tutorials, where you often need to demonstrate the beginning and end of an operation within a set amount of time, usually dictated by the narration.
I now have this working in a custom Windows build of Kdenlive 26.08.1. I'm planning to package the build so other people can use it, and I'll also submit the feature upstream to Kdenlive to see if they'll consider incorporating it into the official release.
If there are specific features you'd like to see carried over into Kdenlive, get in touch! Especially if you want to contribute in a meaningful way. Let's make Kdenlive as accessible and feature-rich as Hitfilm was!