Video editing
Posted: Wed Aug 08, 2007 4:11 pmHey guys,
I have a friend who I have been slowly converting to Linux. Starting with his server, he has moved almost everything over to Linux except for 2 systems. I asked him about it and he said one was a Game system and while several of the games had Linux counterparts (like Unreal Tournament) several were Windows only. A topic that is gaining ground in the Linux world, but not quite there yet. OK fair enough. The second box is his Movie system. This is the reason for the post. As a hobby he films for independent groups and personal with a VERY nice High Def camara, copies the film to his system, edits, processes, and renders everything to give the director a watchable movie. He would love to convert that box to Linux but he doesn't know where to start.
To be honest, I am not certain either. I kinda stumbled around with MythTV having a lot of good tools for editing but I have no idea how well that would work for High Def (or movie editing at all). I know Blender is a really good Open Source project for video rendering, but know nothing about it other then it exists. I have heard good things about Cinelerra ( http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 ) but again do not know much about it because I have no experiance in that field.
When I asked him what his reasons for wanting to switch to Linux are he gave three points that I thought I would mention.
1) The price on this software is high and companies are always dropping some features and fixing bugs only to charge more to the customer. He would much rather put money into an Open Source project that he can work with, know whats going on in the code, and keep updated without draining his bank account every update.
2) The software he uses does not allow for him to spawn multiple copies. If he wants to apply the same 5 filters to 10 different scenes he has to do them one by one on the same machine which may take hours per filter and scene. He constently thinks "If I had a shell I could script this to distribute and farm out to many machines. I could keep working on something else while my other beefy and powerful computers process."
3) The software he has only outputs to two file types that they all can read. A raw format that can be up to 20GB per half hour with the filters (current project is something like 2hrs of captured film to be processed for 10 minutes final film...in other words LOTS of harddrive space he doesn't have) or WMV which he has been burned before because of licensing on another computer (couldn't play his own film...sheesh). He has expressed interest in moving all of his files to a Open Source standard format like Ogg/Theora but in the Windows world software, that is not an option. Plus neither one of us knows how well Theora handles High Def. I believe that x264 is Open Source High Def but again I know little about the codec itself. Any input on those codecs would be good.
Anyone have ideas? Anyone know someone who deals with High Def video editing/rendering/processing that has some good utilities? Anyone use Blender or Cinelerra and can comment?
There has to be some good tools. Pixar and Dreamworks both do a ton of work with Linux (I do not expect everything they do to be Open Source but there has to be something out there). Any comments/suggestions welcome.
I am going to do more GIS'ing but I would much rather have some input from someone who has some actual knowledge.
Thanks Guys.
[quick edit] I was just able to confirm that x264 is Open Source. Also someone pointed me to http://www.linuxmovies.org/software.html so I have a starting point. Again If anyone has used anything here and can help steer me away from the bad stuff and towards the better programs, please comment. Thanks
I have a friend who I have been slowly converting to Linux. Starting with his server, he has moved almost everything over to Linux except for 2 systems. I asked him about it and he said one was a Game system and while several of the games had Linux counterparts (like Unreal Tournament) several were Windows only. A topic that is gaining ground in the Linux world, but not quite there yet. OK fair enough. The second box is his Movie system. This is the reason for the post. As a hobby he films for independent groups and personal with a VERY nice High Def camara, copies the film to his system, edits, processes, and renders everything to give the director a watchable movie. He would love to convert that box to Linux but he doesn't know where to start.
To be honest, I am not certain either. I kinda stumbled around with MythTV having a lot of good tools for editing but I have no idea how well that would work for High Def (or movie editing at all). I know Blender is a really good Open Source project for video rendering, but know nothing about it other then it exists. I have heard good things about Cinelerra ( http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 ) but again do not know much about it because I have no experiance in that field.
When I asked him what his reasons for wanting to switch to Linux are he gave three points that I thought I would mention.
1) The price on this software is high and companies are always dropping some features and fixing bugs only to charge more to the customer. He would much rather put money into an Open Source project that he can work with, know whats going on in the code, and keep updated without draining his bank account every update.
2) The software he uses does not allow for him to spawn multiple copies. If he wants to apply the same 5 filters to 10 different scenes he has to do them one by one on the same machine which may take hours per filter and scene. He constently thinks "If I had a shell I could script this to distribute and farm out to many machines. I could keep working on something else while my other beefy and powerful computers process."
3) The software he has only outputs to two file types that they all can read. A raw format that can be up to 20GB per half hour with the filters (current project is something like 2hrs of captured film to be processed for 10 minutes final film...in other words LOTS of harddrive space he doesn't have) or WMV which he has been burned before because of licensing on another computer (couldn't play his own film...sheesh). He has expressed interest in moving all of his files to a Open Source standard format like Ogg/Theora but in the Windows world software, that is not an option. Plus neither one of us knows how well Theora handles High Def. I believe that x264 is Open Source High Def but again I know little about the codec itself. Any input on those codecs would be good.
Anyone have ideas? Anyone know someone who deals with High Def video editing/rendering/processing that has some good utilities? Anyone use Blender or Cinelerra and can comment?
There has to be some good tools. Pixar and Dreamworks both do a ton of work with Linux (I do not expect everything they do to be Open Source but there has to be something out there). Any comments/suggestions welcome.
I am going to do more GIS'ing but I would much rather have some input from someone who has some actual knowledge.
Thanks Guys.
[quick edit] I was just able to confirm that x264 is Open Source. Also someone pointed me to http://www.linuxmovies.org/software.html so I have a starting point. Again If anyone has used anything here and can help steer me away from the bad stuff and towards the better programs, please comment. Thanks