Re: [tlug] Video Editing Soft & Formats

[Erin Hughes <eredicatorx@example.com>]

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./