Re: [tlug] Video Editing Soft & Formats

["Dave Gutteridge" <ebisudave@example.com>]

Josh,

Sorry, but I don't think my posting was "FUD".

I'm obviously not against Linux in any way, as I use it 100% of the time now, and I don't find it to be in any way limiting for a wide variety of tasks from simple to complex. So the first order of business is to keep this discussion constrained entirely to the issue of video editing.

Within that scope, I entirely abide by these positions:

1. Video editing software on Linux is still in very early stages of development. They are buggy, crash often, and don't support a lot of features, formats and codecs. Not to mention the interfaces are by and large clunky and obscure.

2. Command line interface may be fine for Pietro, and you, and others. But since all the interfaces for video editing that Pietro first mentioned were GUI, I felt it was reasonable to point out that not all functionality, mainly for format conversion, is equally available in a GUI. The fact that I would prefer not to use command lines in any situation that requires as many parameter settings as video format conversion is my own opinion, take it or leave it as needed.

3. That there is documentation for something, command line or otherwise, doesn't automatically mean it is any good. It is just as likely as not to be pages and pages of terminology that makes sense to the person who coded it, but not to the people who may want to use it. The existence of documentation is not evidence of its usefulness.

As for my comment that if I really needed to do video editing, I would use Mac and recommend others do so is because Mac is still far more reliable and easier to use than Linux for that task. You will spend far less time searching for software and setting it up and more time actually editing video on Mac. For a price, of course, but nonetheless a lot easier.

However, that doesn't mean I'm advocating Mac. I believe that within three to five years time, hopefully sooner, there will be open source video editing software available for Linux that is just as good or better than anything proprietary. And I'm looking forward to that.

But in the meantime, I don't think it is at all "FUD" or unreasonable to point out when Linux has not yet achieved functionality that is equal to other well established software packages and platforms.

If you disagree that Linux can do anything as well as any other OS and software in the area of video editing, please show me some actual video content, such as a documentary or fictional work, created entirely in a Linux environment, and (this is important) with no step done by the original developers of the software used. I would love to see that.

-- 
Dave M G