A few weeks ago I wrote about the audio description feature in Ultra Video Editor. Since then the editor has grown up. Version 2.0 is out, and it is the biggest release so far: the jump from "an editor that works with a screen reader" to "a professional editor that works with a screen reader".

You can use the whole program with the keyboard only, and every action is spoken back to you. Sighted users can work with it like any other app, using the mouse and a normal visual interface.

Tracks, layers and live playback

  • Up to 60 video and 60 audio tracks, each with a name, a lock and an on/off switch.
  • Live playback of the whole timeline, without rendering first: layers, colour, titles, subtitles, transitions and the full sound mix, in picture sizes up to 1920×1080.
  • J, K and L work the way editors expect: L plays faster with every press, J plays backwards at 1×, 2× and 4×.
  • F4, "Where am I", tells you what is under the playhead on every track.

Editing

Ripple delete, slip, roll and slide edits, J and L cuts, speed ramps with smooth slow motion, keyframe animation with ease-in, ease-out and hold curves, compound clips, and multicam: up to nine cameras, lined up automatically by their sound. You cut between them live with the keys 1 to 9.

Colour, described in words

Curves, colour balance for shadows, mid-tones and highlights, changing a single colour, and power windows that correct only an oval, a rectangle or a graduated part of the picture, such as the sky. Instead of scopes there is a spoken colour analysis: brightness, contrast, lost blacks and whites, colour cast and the main colours. It can also match one shot's colour to another.

Masks and object tracking

Masks of any shape, including your own points, that can move or follow an object. Describe an object in words ("the man in the red jacket") and the picture AI finds it and follows it through the clip, so you can blur it, pixelate it, light it up or attach a label to it.

Sound

A track mixer with EQ, compressor, pan, noise reduction, de-esser, echo and limiter on every track, plus volume automation from the keyboard.

Formats and exchange

H.264, H.265 and H.265 10-bit, ProRes, DNxHR and lossless FFV1. Timelines go to other editors and come back as OpenTimelineIO, EDL or Final Cut 7 XML, in both directions.

Help you can actually read

The keyboard shortcuts (F1) and the manual (Ctrl+F1) are now web pages with headings and tables, so any screen reader reads them completely. The shortcut page is built from the program's own menus, so it never goes out of date. Every menu command is read together with its shortcut, as in other Windows programs.

Three languages, all the way through

English, Serbian and German. The whole interface follows your choice: dialogs, spoken messages, key names and the manual.

Try it

Ultra Video Editor is free and open source, part of the Ultra Creative Suite:
https://github.com/demirajvazi10-max/Ultra-Creative-suite/releases

Feedback is very welcome, especially from people who edit video with JAWS or NVDA, and from sighted editors who want to try a keyboard-first workflow.