video editor reviews from a Linux novice
 

I have just spend the last three days trying to get ANY! video editor to edit video from my flip ultra camcorder, with no luck.

I really like Linux and Slackware but when it comes to video editors linux falls flat on its face!!

Here is the list that I have found and tried to install:

Cinelerra
LiVES
KDEnlive
ZS4
Open Movie Editor

I have used src2pkg to come up with the numerous packages that I am missing for all of these editors. as far as I could tell the all compiled and installed with installpkg. but it is hard to tell because none of the programs listed above would either install or run correctly. (with the exception of LiVES.)

Cinelerra had too many packages to attempt and needed a too complex src2pkg build file for me to attempt (even with the great help!) I also tried the community version with no luck.

LiVES did install but as far as I could see could only pull video from DVD's or from a firewire port (of which I dont have the port or a camera that has one). One thing I did not try was trying to convert the video myself with ffmpeg because I couldn't find a file format that it would accept, only DVD's.

KDEnlive also installed (and found all the packages I needed) but crashed with a SIGSEV bug. (of which was listed but there was no fix for. I will have to revisit this one later)

Open Movie Editor also did not install because of package dependences that were failing which installed. they were being read from a .spec file.

I have been trying to move to using a Linux box exclusively for years (as least 10 that I can remember, of and on.) but I always run into a wall. There are usually a driver or two, or a program or two that does not have a Linux equivalent that I am missing.

I have even installed wine. It is a great program. I have had success running some applications through it, a great program.

Some of the problem may be my skill level. I am not a developer, just a user. I only have some programming experience (mostly with microcontrollers and assembly and basic).

maybe some day I will be able to get rid of that awful windows box.

(just wanted to get that off my chest, thanks for letting me vent!)

Is it possible the packages you are making are not good? I've made many bad ones and still do not think I can make good ones. I've had minor, and I do mean minor, luck with modifying a few scripts to get a few packages to install.

Lack of other info suggests you should spend more time on the packages. And after you make good build scripts, please post them so others can share in your accomplishment.

But if this doesn't work, I have had some success in making programs using the ./configure --prefix=/usr/local, make, make install. This should put stuff in /usr/local so if you don't like you should be able to delete without digging through /usr area except for /usr/local. Hope this somewhat useful to you.

You might want to have a look at Kino. Apart from Lives, it's the only one I've had any success with.

Good luck

Kino and Lives are the best ones I've found, try them before you put down an entire operating system for the programs that have not been made for it.

schroder300,

I installed kino this weekend and captured about four hours of video from a Panasonic PV-GS320. I resolved the missing library dependencies using SlackBuilds from slackbuilds.org.

If you run into trouble, let me know, and I'll post what I did here. But for the most part, the choices were obvious.

Jelai

thanks for the replies. I will try kino. although I might not be able to get to it for two weeks.

And I will replace windows eventually. I am looking into wine a little harder. I really like Slackware. I buy the new release every time it comes out. I recently upgraded to 12.1. it was the first time I upgraded like that. I didn't have any problems (except for re-installing my video driver)

I will pose my findings when I am able.

thanks.

Hey, TeXMex. Can you record your own custom background music with Lives? Thanks. I don't know the correct wording for this, because I'm new to video editing, and have had a bear of a time getting video editing software to install. It's been very difficult, and I've tried Kino and Cinerella.

You mean replace the music of a video with your own, if so, I think you can although I've never tried it. If you want to record your own music I would use audacity.

I see you've tried the ZS4 from t@b, a really useful utility they have is the t@b media converter.I use it to grab video from analog mediums or for cameras with no firewire.

http://www.thugsatbay.com/tab/?q=software

I just got Kino 1.1.1 to install from slackbuilds, and Lives installed from their site. Yes, replacing a video's music with music from mp3 and dubbing over all video sound with my own mp3 are both things I'm interested in. Lives is so hardcore with a lot of options. I'm excited to read the docs. Kino is also very functional, and just by messing around I put my mp3 music over an existing video. Only thing I noticed is that when I try exporting the project to save it the quality is terrible and the exported file is huge. Turned a 3mb file to a 371mb one.

Thanks for getting back to me, man.

thank you.

I got kino to work. I was able to import a small video. I couldn't get it to automatically import a file though. so I used ffmpeg and converted it myself to a "ntsc-dv" format:

ffmpeg -i file.avi -target ntsc-dv file.dv

kino then didn't have to import it. I don't see any titles though. I believe there is an add-in for it though. I will have to play around with it.

Yes, Video editing on Linux with free software is pathetic. However, if you have $$$ to burn, the commercial editors work beautifully.

Robin Rowe has been tracking developments in Linux software for the movie (and television) industry for years now, so his website is fairly informative:

http://www.linuxmovies.org/software.html

Under "free editors" you don't have much of a choice and the reviews of the editors are usually pretty scathing. Maybe someone would care to put in a few $M to get a team to write good editing software?

I am new to video editing. I just got a flip ultra. Its good for the price. Kino will do fine until I get the hang of everything.

I then might get a better program running under wine. I think that pinnacle works under wine. but that is for later. I will definetly check out that web site though.

I mostly disagree. Using command-line tools you can edit videos plenty if you know what you're doing. Sure, if you buy a commercial product you'll have a nice GUI to make you think you know what you're doing or that you can do more, not really. You can do about the same things with both, it's just that many people think GUI is easier. The GUI frontends on Linux are not really pathetic, they are actually quite useful as well.

Another program to try is avidemux, it's not so much an editing program as it is a movie converter if you don't like using ffmpeg from the command-line.

I think the "GUI effect" is true of many things - there are definitely too many people out there who think they know something about computers because they can switch on a computer and winduhs boots.

However, having worked with splicing mono and stereo tape and with multitrack tapes and having had to manually edit audio and video and lighting controls all syncing with SMPTE timecode, I can say I'm glad those days are over - give me a GUI editor! (But for sound mixing it's nice to have a giant mixing console driving the GUI controls - there's no way you'd move a mouse fast enough or type in cryptic key sequences to get things done.) I can't see how using a command line can possibly be as quick as editing with a good GUI, simply because there are so many operations to perform and you actually have to see some of the video you're working with. Sure, for doing very simple editing of home videos (cut out this bit that no one wants etc) maybe a command line editor is fine. I'm not a professional video editor (my months spent working on that thing were just for training people to use some custom-built equipment), but let's say you're editing the TV news. You will have several video streams (different camera angles, sub-pictures which enlarge to fill the screen) and to add to that you want to do things like crop a stream and track an object to reduce camera jitter or track a moving object so that it appears in the middle of the picture frame. If you were to attempt that sort of thing on the free video editors, the nightly news might be a week late all the time.