Linux video editing: I'm trying, but it ain't working
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| Steven_Rosenber May 27, 2010 4:23 PM EDT |
Here's the deal: My hardware is old: 1.2. GHz Celeron, 1 GB RAM. But is it so old that I can't edit video. I can understand long render times. But here's what's happening: I tried PiTiVi. I'm importing .avi clips. When I drag them into the timeline and then click the play button, the video doesn't move. It kind of jerks from one scene to the next. I can sort of tell where I am because the audio is clear. I make my edits and render the video. However, the resulting output is blurry and pretty much a series of stills - it doesn't "move." I tried Blender for rudimentary editing but couldn't get it to work. Is this platform just not suitable for video editing and rendering? I figure that even if it renders slowly, it should be able to produce quality video output from existing clips. Any ideas/suggestions? |
| vect May 27, 2010 5:38 PM EDT |
Steven, I edit video in linux and I have looked very closely at all of the video editing software for linux. All of the current video editors for linux are a waste of time. Cinelerra would be the best editor but most of it is broken or intolerably buggy. There are a couple of things you can do to minimize your exposure to the problems in these software. Always work with image sequences. Most programs can _at least_ import an image sequence without a problem and most programs can output an image sequence without a problem. Render your image sequences out with ffmpeg and merge them with a separate audio file. Use mp4box to combine separate video sequences into one video. Also, I'll be candid about the fact that I use Apple Shake. I've called Apple to ask them how I would pay for a shake license and they won't sell licenses for it anymore. I asked the phone representative if it would be ok for me to download and use shake without a license and he said he couldn't answer that, but he added that Apple wants creative people who need tools to have them. Apple Shake is one of the top programs I have used of all time. It is incredibly easy to use, intuitive and powerful. I have no idea why Apple discontinued it. It is one of the best programs ever created -right up there with photoshop, word '97 and Flash (yes Flash is awesome). |
| vect May 27, 2010 5:52 PM EDT |
And don't get sucked into the hype surrounding cinelerra. A long time ago there was a really cool description of cinelerra on heroine virtual's website with really cool buzz phrases like 'the power of a 50,000 watt flamethrower for your unix machine' and 'have some Alsa with your taco'. I think the hype did a great job of making people believe that cinelerra was better then it really was. Reviewers and forum posters usually give a default description of cinelerra, that it is a pro-grade software, that is quirky and that it is powerful if you spend time learning to use it. It's not true. I have actually used cinelerra quite heavily and I have shown video at festivals that has been partly made with cinelerra. Anyone who has used cinelerra in anger will tell you that cinelerra is a total waste of time. |
| caitlyn May 27, 2010 6:00 PM EDT |
Steve, yes, your hardware is too old and limited. vect: A waste of time for you seems to work really well for my admittedly limited needs. It's been a while since I've seen you bashing away on here. I didn't miss it. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 27, 2010 6:12 PM EDT |
I'll always have audio editing (and Paris). |
| dinotrac May 27, 2010 7:01 PM EDT |
caitlyn -- Agreed. I did quite a bit with Cinelerra when I was making videos for my Sunday school and church. A little bit of overkill, but worked fairly well for me, including the chroma key, which let me do a lot of things to surprise the kids. Definitely quirky. Definitely save your work. Definitely resource-hungry. But --- worked. |
| herzeleid May 27, 2010 9:29 PM EDT |
Has anybody tried openshot? That's supposed to be the new up and coming linux video editing program that just works. |
| DarrenR114 May 28, 2010 2:34 PM EDT |
I'll give LiVES and Kino a go (I've worked with avidemux and it gives me a bit of trouble with the audio tracks), but I'm gonna leave PiTiVi, Openshot, Kdenlive to those of you who don't mind dealing with the brokenness that is Python and/or KDE. |
| dinotrac May 28, 2010 3:34 PM EDT |
Darren - Kino is a very basic editor -- but it always worked pretty well for me. Doesn't have all the effects -- or, ummm, compositing -- that a serious editor does, but it's low-tech editing is pretty approachable once you start working with it. It used to tout itself as the vi of video editing. |
| DarrenR114 May 28, 2010 5:33 PM EDT |
@Dino, thanks for the heads up on Kino... sounds like Kino is to video editing what sox is audio editing. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 28, 2010 6:09 PM EDT |
It's a funny thing, but Kino is starting to look better and better. |
| herzeleid May 28, 2010 7:54 PM EDT |
I apt-get installed openshot and fired it up to have a look. Definitely not a kde app, no qt dependencies - just your usual mainstream gtk+python stuff. Looks pretty sharp, and seems straightforward. I'm leaving for a party, so I won't edit a movie right now, but I like it already. Joe |
| Sander_Marechal May 29, 2010 7:40 PM EDT |
Quoting:Doesn't have all the effects -- or, ummm, compositing -- that a serious editor does, but it's low-tech editing is pretty approachable once you start working with it. It used to tout itself as the vi of video editing. That doesn't sound right. The vi of video editors would be very complex but extremely powerful when you manage to learn it. Low-tech without many effects sounds more like the Nano of video editors. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 29, 2010 11:00 PM EDT |
Kino only works with DV files. No go. OpenShot crashed when playing a clip. |
| dinotrac May 31, 2010 6:19 AM EDT |
Steven -- Sorry, I forgot about that. Kino was my first cut editor for video downloaded from my video camera. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 31, 2010 2:36 PM EDT |
If I can edit video in iMovie on a Mac G4 with 1 GHz CPU and 1 GB RAM, I should be able to do it in Linux with 1.2 GHz CPU and 1 GB RAM. I can accept slow rendering, but not being able to do it at all? |
| Sander_Marechal May 31, 2010 6:40 PM EDT |
@Steven: My guess is that Apple's software is specifically built to take advantage of the G4's AltiVec instructions to do video fast. x86 did not have anything comparable (yes there was MMX, but that's much slower). |
| Steven_Rosenber May 31, 2010 11:02 PM EDT |
I did try Blender. I did have audio issues (my USB-connected audio isn't always picked up by some applications), but I didn't do my test editing with one of the "edit video with Blender" tutorials, so I barely knew what I was doing. If it works, I'll suffer with the Blender interface, which resembles what I can only imagine an air-traffic controller's screen crossed with a nuclear-missile-launcher's desktop looks like. |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 01, 2010 3:55 AM EDT |
@Steven: Blender's UI is very powerful and user-friendly once you get to know it. But it's a bit like vim. Targeted at power users and with a steep learning curve. I do urge you to really learn it though. It's worth it. Blender is a fantastic application that can do wonderful things. I have never regretted the time I spent learning to work with it, even though I don't need to use it much. |
| dinotrac Jun 01, 2010 8:25 AM EDT |
Sander -- Yes, Blender is amazing and it makes a really nice frozen Margarita, too. |
| Steven_Rosenber Jun 01, 2010 1:27 PM EDT |
I like the idea of Blender, especially its cross-platform development model ... but I wouldn't call that UI "user-friendly." It's almost "user-hostile," from what I can see. |
| Sander_Marechal Jun 01, 2010 4:22 PM EDT |
@Steven, that was my first impression too, but once I climbed the rather steep learning curve I love it. It's like Gimp and Vim. Hard to learn but powerful. Of course, I can't speak too much for the compositing parts of Blender because I haven't used it that much. I mainly work with the modeling and rendering parts of Blender. |
| Bob_Robertson Jun 01, 2010 5:04 PM EDT |
> It's almost "user-hostile," from what I can see. Sounds like the rumors about Linux, to me. |
| azerthoth Jun 01, 2010 5:52 PM EDT |
I had no real issues with Pitivi, other than it being a resource hog, but any video editor is going to be. My system though was easily outperformed yours though. amd64x2 4200 (2.4 Ghz ea) and 2 gig mem and another 3 gig for swap. From playing with pretty much any video editor I could get my hands on, memory memory memory, then a decent CPU. |
| gus3 Jun 01, 2010 7:36 PM EDT |
Linux is user-friendly. It's just choosy about its friends. |
Posting in this forum is limited to members of the group: [ForumMods, SITEADMINS, MEMBERS.]
Becoming a member of LXer is easy and free. Join Us!