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Re: [tlug] Video Editing Soft & Formats



Dave M G wrote:
TLUG,

I had to step away from this thread because I was a little disappointed that after I had established that I do have experience with graphics and video editing, the pendulum swung from assuming I knew too little, to assuming I expected too much. It seemed that the goal is to hold Linux in constant, and to compensate for my perspective regardless of the direction I was coming from. That doesn't strike me as very objective, which is where I'd hope for this discussion to go.
I think every one here expects allot from their Linux system, I know I do, and when it does not work, I try to find away to make it better. I can think of 4 or 5 people here who have helped to contribute to your understanding (and mine) of Linux. Why not return the favor and help some else understand what would make a better system for Video Editing On Linux?


I said Linux is about 3 to 5 years away from being on a level of ease of use equal to commercial video editing based on two things. One is having observed the time it took commercial suites like Discreet and Premiere to go from rudimentary systems that had a lot of the problems open source video applications are having now, to being something useful. What those commercial applications have become is by no means a perfect standard by which any up and coming application should emulate. But it's a yardstick to start with in order to guesstimate how long it took them to meet the needs of users. The other reason I picked that time range is optimism. I hope video editing on Linux becomes really good that fast. Maybe it will be faster, but I don't want to get my hopes up.
Help us then.

To try and be more helpful, I took a look the list of software and articles that Pietro had assembled, and tried to see if I could say anything useful about it.
First, in consideration of Mencoder and ffmpeg. I am not an enemy of the command line just on principle. I do feel command lines have their place. However, I don't think video or graphics is one of them. Graphics are, by definition, a visual medium. Using pure text to manipulate images is like talking over the phone to tell someone how to paint a picture.
YEP,
Unlike others I agree with you here, but the difference being I understand that you are talking about EDITING video. Not merely copying it from one format to another. The question of formats and encoding comes second to the actual ability to edit the video. Yes Kino can import video in a number of formats and on a single time line you can edit out and in points. But it is severely limited after that. It reminds me of Ulead Videostudio Version 1.7 cira 1999.


Cinerella Lives and Main Actor all can edit video if you want to restart it every 5 minutes after it crashes and products like ffmpeg and mplayer can encode it. But right now there is nothing that does it all and does it well on Linux.


When you want to create something you need the power and flexibility offered by a Vegas or Premier Pro or Final Cut. And while editing a video you want to concentrate on one thing THE VIDEO. This Dave is where I could not agree more that Linux needs help. I said before that I am working on a artical about open source video editors. My goal is not to talk about how much they suck but to point out flaws as well as good points in hopes of advancing the state of Video Editing On Linux!

This applies even if you're doing something as seemingly simple as converting video files from one format to another. Because of aspect ratios, frame rates, audio and video codecs, file formats, and other issues, the output can be different from what you expected. And different video content will compress differently, meaning there is no easy way to assume results. Especially if you want to manipulate it in the way that Pietro is talking about, where file size and quality is going to be adjusted by tweaking the image size and compression settings.
I am with Josh on this though-----Josh I would love to have a lookie at that script. There are a million formats but as soon as you have the known elements down pat you can simply script it.

It is pretty standard in a lot of video editors to be able to see preview, or better, a side by side comparison, of the input and output before you commit the CPU time to actually rendering it. No command line tool I know can do that, which means you have to keep rendering tests. And that means that no matter how much of a guru at the command line you are, you will spend more time than someone who has access to sliders and see their results manifest immediately.


Using a command line to accomplish even that kind of simple task eats up time with trial and error that no one should need to spend. So there is just no way that I could ever agree with anyone that command line operations are on an equal level as GUI tools for tasks that are definitively about visual content. And that applies to everyone from the guy who has never saved a movie file before to a seasoned pro.
Yes and here again is where we need to draw the line between editing something or simply encoding it.

For GUI editors available on Linux, I agreed with a lot of the comments in the provided Linux.com articles, at least as far as Cinellera and LIVES goes. Clunky and unstable.
Yep so lets do something about that. BTW have you seen this http://diva-project.org/wiki it has a fresher face to it than the klunk you reffered to and I couldn't agree with more.



However, I had not tried Jahshaka yet. So yesterday I downloaded and gave it a whirl. It does have a superior interface, though I'm not sure if it has video tracks (graphical timelines that show the start and end of video clips so that you can place them in relation to each other). It seems to use layers instead, which strikes me as unintuitive. But, even though video tracks may be in there somewhere, I don't know because I could not complete the tutorial on their web site. Every time I would move an image into the animation interface, as per instructions, the program would die, with the error "Segmentation fault (core dumped)" at the command prompt.
On that there is a edit window and a animation window .... the animation is a little bit finicky.... sorry it has been about 6 months since I used it. I was able to edit video but my biggest complaint was it would destroy your original clips. That is a No NO.


Because of this thread, I've given video editing on Linux another look, and it is still, in my opinion very early alpha stage. I will continue to play with it because I have high hopes for it. But in the meantime, for anything I was going to do that I really wanted to get done, and not just do for experimentation's sake, I would use commercially available applications.

Of course but we all do not need pro apps, I would be happy with a interface that makes sense and transitions and titling that works. Thats it. So I will continue to do what I have been doing, not complain about it, try to make it better by offering suggestions on UI design submitting bugs donating time and money if applicable.



E./








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