CZEditor

a scene-based video/audio timeline editor made with PyQT6

note

some parts of this editor (mostly the compositor) are ai-asssisted, so umm yeah

features

• scene-based compositing - build scenes out of image, video, sound, and shape placements on a multi-track timeline, with position, rotation, cropping/masking, and size all adjustable per placement
• reusable symbols - group placements into named, nested symbols that can be dropped back into any scene, with optional recursive nesting
• timeline editing - cut, copy, paste, split at the playhead, undo/redo, and snap-to-playhead, with frame and second-stepped playback scrubbing
• live preview - a real-time preview panel with dedicated pan, crop, and mask interaction modes alongside normal editing
• placement animations - built-in fade, pop, aero, and slide u/d/l/f in/out animations with adjustable duration
• video & audio export - render the timeline to video using multiple worker processes in parallel, with an offline audio mixdown of every sound/video placement muxed in via ffmpeg. png frame export is also supported
• sample-accurate audio engine - a numpy/sounddevice-based mixer for realtime playback, automatically falling back to a qtmultimedia-based engine if those packages or a usable output device aren't available
• asset library - drag and drop images, video, and audio into scenes directly from a library panel, with thumbnail previews and waveform display for audio
• project management - new/open/save/save-as, per-project settings, autosave, and a configurable default project folder
• customizable keybinds - every major action's shortcut can be rebound from preferences
• localization - ui strings are loaded from json locale files, with english included and more installable by dropping in a new locale file
• cross-platform - runs anywhere PyQT6 does (linux, macos, windows)

running from source

pip install -r requirements.txt
python run.py

the numpy / sounddevice / soundfile / opencv-python-headless packages in requirements.txt are optional (see the comment there) but recommended for the sample-accurate audio engine and video preview. exporting video also needs ffmpeg on your PATH.

downloads

every push to main builds standalone binaries for Linux, macOS, and Windows and publishes them as a GitHub Release - see the releases page for the latest build:

platform	format
linux	.AppImage and .tar.gz
macOS	.app (zipped)
windows	.exe

these are unsigned builds, so macOS Gatekeeper and Windows SmartScreen will get pissed af on first launch

building locally

binaries are built with PyInstaller, using assets/icon.svg as the app icon (rasterized to .ico/.icns/.png by scripts/generate_icons.py, which also sets the in-app window icon at runtime). see .github/workflows/build-release.yml for the exact commands used in CI; roughly:

pip install -r requirements.txt pyinstaller
python scripts/generate_icons.py
pyinstaller --onefile --name CZEditor \
  --icon build_assets/icon.ico \
  --add-data "assets:assets" --add-data "locale:locale" \
  run.py

(use ; instead of : in --add-data on Windows, drop --icon on Linux, and drop --onefile in favor of --windowed on macOS to get a proper .app bundle)