http://www.osnews.com/story/7852/Video_Production_with_Linux_Part_2 Exploring the Future of Computing en-us Copyright 2001-2012, David Adams adam+nospam@osnews.com Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:07:37 GMT http://www.osnews.com/images/osnews.gif http://www.osnews.com http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I am glad I jumped on the wagon some years ago, bye bye Bill Gates, must your billions be put to better use Thu, 29 Jul 2004 18:50:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? What I am really looking forward to is when Linux video apps start supporting Jack and Jack Transport. This will mean sample accurate sync with Ardour, and the ability to have your audio appear on channels in Ardour's mixer.

At the moment, I think the only video app with Jack support is mplayer, and that is just audio out.

This is vital for dubbing to picture (which I do mainly rather than much video editing). I find the audio side of apps like Cinerella or Main Actor very hard to use and restrictive compared to Ardour. Thu, 29 Jul 2004 19:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I'm an independent myself, and have often entertained the thought of linux plus a low cost nle. I'd never heard of Main Actor before. Interesting read. Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Not that I've used it, but Kino seems to be a valid option for Linux video production. Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:20:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I tried the new MainActor version, 2 weeks ago. It crashed on load while loading the fonts. Apparently, it could not read correctly my two 18 MBs-each unicode fonts that the EIOffice office suite installs, and so it crashes. Removing the fonts temporarily makes MainActor to work correctly.
I have been in contact with the MainActor people regarding their bug and they were very receptive and helpful. Hopefully, they will release a fixed version soon. Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I tried Mainactor under PCLinuxOS and it didn't want to install, saying that it needed libdraw1394. ok...checked the list of installed packages and lookie here: libdraw1394! Hmmmmmmm......well hope they make it work better than this... Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? It might be needing a newer version. I had installed all that months ago because Kino needed them too, so I was ok regarding dependencies. Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Try mainactor 5 for linux mandrake taste:-)
It works here
regs
hgm Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Perhaps I've been living under a rock, but MainActor looks very interesting. I tried Kino and avidemux2 (which are great for tiny clips), but not good for editing. I'll have to give this one a shot! Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:42:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? The first screenshot I looked at was taken in windows, hehe!

Way too go! Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I'm not a video guru by any means, but lately i've had to play with Cinerella. It's alright from what I can see, dunno how it'd compared to these though as I haven't use either for long enough to judge. Just thought I'd mention it. Thu, 29 Jul 2004 20:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? links Thu, 29 Jul 2004 21:35:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? theres no links to the programs mentioned in the review.. i know to just google for them, but you would figure.. Thu, 29 Jul 2004 21:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Cinepaint is a fork of the Gimp used in the motion picture industry:
http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/
(the windows version doesn't work very well but the Linux version is apparently quite functional). Thu, 29 Jul 2004 22:22:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Avidemux, is a nice little program for editing video.

http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:46:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? looking forward to that next article!

I've played around with Audacity for linux and windows but it's really way more basic than the most basic consumer audio apps. I still haven't quite figured out how to use the various plugin architectures on linux either - that would be cool to cover in an article. (hint, hint). Thu, 29 Jul 2004 23:52:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Figures! I should have scrolled down a liiiitle bit more and seen that Mandrake flavored version! Fri, 30 Jul 2004 00:13:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? 3D animation software:
Alias Maya http://www.alias.com/eng/index_flash.shtml
Softimage XSI http://www.softimage.com/home/
SideFX Houdini http://www.sidefx.com/
Blender3D (OSS) http://www.blender3d.com/

2D animation software:
MOHO (OSS) http://www.lostmarble.com/

2D Compositors/Image Tracking:
Apple Shake http://www.apple.com/shake/
2D3 Boujou 2 http://www.2d3.com/
Discreet Flint

Rendering:
Mental Images Mental Ray http://www.mentalimages.com/
Pixar Renderman https://renderman.pixar.com/
NVIDIA Gelato Film Renderer http://www.nvidia.com/

Paint:
Cinepaint (OSS) http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/
IFX Amazon Paint http://www.ifx.com/amazon/
GIMP 2.0 (OSS) http://gimp.org/
Adobe Photoshop 7 (works on Wine)

Video Editing:
IFX Piranha HD http://www.ifx.com/piranha/
Discreet Smoke http://www.discreet.com/
Jahshaka (OSS) http://www.jahshaka.org/index.php
Cinelerra (OSS) http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 & http://www.lmahd.com/cinelerra.html
Main Concept MainActor 5 http://www.mainconcept.com/index_flash.shtml
KDEnLive (OSS)

Audio Editing:
Lmuse http://lmuse.sourceforge.net/
Ardour http://www.ardour.org/
Hydrogen http://hydrogen.sourceforge.net/

Web Design:
Macromedia FlashMX (Works on Wine)
Macromedia DreamweaverMX (Works on Wine)
NVU (OSS) http://nvu.com/index.html
Quanta (OSS) http://quanta.sourceforge.net/

Asset Management:
NXN Alienbrain http://www.alienbrain.com/

Linux Movie pics: http://linuxmovies.sourceforge.net/linux.movies.gallery.html

A brief example of studios using Linux in production: Digital Domain, Disney, Double Negative, Dreamworks, Flash Film Works, Hammerhead, Industrial Light & Magic, Pixar, Rhythm & Hues, Tippett Studio, Sony Pictures, Weta Digital. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 00:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.xs4all.nl/~salsaman/lives/ Fri, 30 Jul 2004 00:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Moho is not OSS. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 01:21:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I agree, and thats just the tip of the iceberg. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 02:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Piranha HD look so cool. I wish it was free like the OS. For now I will stick with Final Cut Pro HD and Premiere Pro for my systems. I'm also amazed what Desreet Smoke can do, alittle out of my league right now.

What is a good linux to start with? Fri, 30 Jul 2004 03:32:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I love how he complains about not seeing where the program was being installed, only to find after looking that it was in the user binaries directory where ALL user installed programs go. Nothing like not knowing how Linux works. Granted, it's not called something a novice might recognize like "Program Files" but it's not THAT obscure. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 03:51:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? hardware support and dependency problem would be able to solve one day... Fri, 30 Jul 2004 05:02:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? a u on crack?

didnt u see mainactor run on suse?

if so then expect incompatibility.

u need to get used to linux.get a life... Fri, 30 Jul 2004 05:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Im working with audio-creation software. Well Ive interested and put on Suse 9.0 and 9.1 to see what they have. HA HA HA. Somuch fun. 10 years after PROJECT 5, CUBASE or even FRUITY LOOPS...Keep on servers and dont get exposed! Fri, 30 Jul 2004 06:10:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I'm currently on a mission to make my computer world Microsoft free.

Go get a Mac - SCNR! Fri, 30 Jul 2004 06:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? No Photogenics? Fri, 30 Jul 2004 07:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? I still haven't quite figured out how to use the various plugin architectures on linux either - that would be cool to cover in an article.

Whats the problem? I had problems once with getting ladpsa-plugins to work, and they work excellent in audacity. Just install them, and they should work, TAP's or Steve Harris' plugin-packs are great. The plugins should go in /usr/lib/ladspa, but this should be taken care of by the suitable installer of audacity and plugins. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 11:57:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Yeah if you buy a Mac right now Apple will give you Final Cut Express for only $99. That's $200 off regular price. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 13:24:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Sorry if I forgot some software. The list is huge and I'm sure Eugenia wouldn't like me filling up an entire page. I do try to periodically update the list here http://www.linuxforum.com/forums/ in the "Software" forum (see sticky post). There are other applications such as Nuke for compositing, Rush and GRender for network render distribution, etc. Eyeon has recently stated they will soon port their products such as Digital Fusion to Linux. Even rumors are spreading the Maxon may offer Cinema4D and their 3D paint program to Linux. There really is no need to limit yourself with a Mac when you can use Linux on your current hardware with a wider range of selections to choose from. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 17:00:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? There really is no need to limit yourself with a Mac when you can use Linux on your current hardware with a wider range of selections to choose from.

Why not go for a mac and use Final Cut pro HD, instead of paying out the nose for Linux app's like Piranha HD or even Shake, when i can get it on the mac cheaper and better support from Apple that Lunix vendors. Fri, 30 Jul 2004 20:30:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Everyone knows macs are for fags... remember the rainbow logo? ... Fri, 30 Jul 2004 23:36:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "Everyone knows macs are for fags... remember the rainbow logo? ..."

......no i just remember you. Sat, 31 Jul 2004 00:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Re:"Why not go for a Mac and use Final Cut pro HD, instead of paying out the nose for Linux app's like Piranha HD or even Shake, when i can get it on the mac cheaper and better support from Apple that Linix vendors."

Please don't compare FCP Pro to Discreet's Smoke or even Cinelerra which offer more than what Apple is offering this industry. Cinelerra can be purchased as a turnkey system or obtained for free since it's OSS where as FCP Pro HD cost $1299.00 Canadian. By the time Jahshaka 3.0 is released I'm sure that will be another OSS that will blow away Apple's offerings since it will support major film formats including open source ones such as ILM OpenEXR and the Foundry's OpenFX. It will also be offered free for all platforms (Linux, Irix, Windows and OSX).

As for Apple's Shake for Linux I have already stated on this site in other threads that Shake for Linux can be purchased from authorized resellers that equal Shake for OSX. Not to mention Shake is not the only comp solution for Linux studios. There are others such as Nuke, Discreet Flint and soon to be ported Eyeon's Digital Fusion with network rendering.

What kind of hardware would a Linux artist run such highend software on? Well isn't it nice to know studios have several competitors to choose from such as the new dual 64-bit Xeon workstations that support Hyperthreading or having AMD 64-bit. Apple is at least 6 months away from releasing their new IBM PPC dual core 64-bit workstations and no word again as to when or if they will even offer DCC cards for studios that purchase their systems. Hmmm..why wait when studios can get that now? Looks like Apple is playing catch up once again Sat, 31 Jul 2004 02:15:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Well, MainActor definately is easier to use than Cinelerra. (shoot, I can't even figure out how to load a clip using CInelerra in order *to* edit it) I'd like to see more solutions, commercial and OSS. I find it reassuring and like to try out my options, to use the best one, no matter who makes it. One less reason to boot up Mac OS X is good with me. Sat, 31 Jul 2004 02:56:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Yes Cinelerra is a little difficult to grasp but then again it's intended for professionals who are already trained on other highend editing software. Try this link I found with Google ( http://cvs.cinelerra.org/docs.html ). One thing I like about the other open source editor Jahshaka is it's intended to assist with workflow in production. The tool set will be similar to Smoke but also have a way of doing things similar to what's found in Shake, Fusion, XSI and Maya. See version 3.0 concept screen shots here ( http://www.jahshaka.com/features/interface.html ). Once the final product is released I'll be dumping Cinelerra for Jahshaka. Sat, 31 Jul 2004 03:37:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Thanks for your contributions.

I have some things to add on the forum over there. You say: privmsg me. I just post it here and hope thats ok too.

"Apps not tested on Wine:
Newtek Lightwave (3D) http://www.newtek.com/"

Works on WINE. There are even screenshots of this on winehq.org. This is of version 7.5c. I don't know regarding 8.0. I haven't run it myself anyway as i don't have a license.

VIPS: An imaging tool great for editing large photos: http://www.vips.ecs.soton.ac.uk (What i'm gonna use when i got my digicam tomorow .

LIVES: video editor: http://www.xs4all.nl/~salsaman/lives

There is no mention of Discreet Smoke, Flame. Effect, Inferno.

There are no CAD/CAE related applications or links.

There are no vector drawing mentions. Illustrator could be added in the "not sure to known WINE list" although it just doesn't work from what i've read. It should be portable given it runs on IRIX and MacOSX. Anyway, Sodipodi and Inkscape could be added (http://www.inkscape.org and http://www.sodipodi.org).

You could add POVRay, a raytracer http://www.povray.org

Hmm and generative art is not included (this is a subject i'm highly interested in). See for example http://www.generative.net there are some FLOSS applications like Kandid and Evolvotron but i haven't used them yet. Browsing art on a late friday night is just so much fun

And finally some offsite links to other websites like http://www.linuxartist.com may be cool.

Good luck with your efforts.

PS: Is the list you provide copyrighted, or am i free to (partly) use it? Frankly, i think there should be a Wiki related to Linux and visual creativity. Sat, 31 Jul 2004 03:49:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://linuxmovies.sourceforge.net/software/index.html Sat, 31 Jul 2004 04:33:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Thanks for the links. I'll try and take time this weekend out of my already busy schedule to look over them and add to the list. Discreet products Smoke was already listed in the editing section and so is Discreet Flint in the compositing section. Discreet's Flame and Inferno as far as I know are only supported on Irix systems. Also, regarding the missing CAD/CAE applications that is not my field so I'm not familiar with those applications. If you know of any that are ported to Linux or run on Wine and are used extensively in the workforce then please let me know.

I try to filter the garbage applications from what is really useful. Example applications such as Poser and Wing3D may sound cool to someone new to art but really the applications are laughed at by professionals. Also I cannot add every single plug-in available to applications. That's why you see in my signature the link to Pluginz.com which is a good portal for all plug-ins used by studios. Sat, 31 Jul 2004 14:59:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? "Re:"Why not go for a Mac and use Final Cut pro HD, instead of paying out the nose for Linux app's like Piranha HD or even Shake, when i can get it on the mac cheaper and better support from Apple that Linix vendors."

Please don't compare FCP Pro to Discreet's Smoke or even Cinelerra which offer more than what Apple is offering this industry."

Who was comparing FCP to Discreet, I thought the post read Piranha boner... Even Discreet has reconized it's customers use FCP and are offering compatibility with FCP through XML.

"What kind of hardware would a Linux artist run such highend software on? Well isn't it nice to know studios have several competitors to choose from such as the new dual 64-bit Xeon workstations that support Hyperthreading or having AMD 64-bit. Apple is at least 6 months away from releasing their new IBM PPC dual core 64-bit workstations and no word again as to when or if they will even offer DCC cards for studios that purchase their systems. Hmmm..why wait when studios can get that now? Looks like Apple is playing catch up once again "

Do you know what your even saying! Apple already offers a dual processor system. Hyperthreading doesn't mean MP, Intels a year away. Xeons a marvelous chip, I'm getting one. Sat, 31 Jul 2004 17:23:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Re: "Who was comparing FCP to Discreet, I thought the post read Piranha boner"

Are you trying to impress us with your linguistic skills by using language like "boner" and misspelling "recognized" in a post? Take time to actually read before you post a comment. Crackerjack, commented on the price difference between highend Linux applications and Apple's FCP for OSX. He referred to Linux applications "like" Piranha HD and Shake which in reference covers a broad range of software.

Re: "Even Discreet has reconized it's customers use FCP and are offering compatibility with FCP through XML"

FCP is not the only software to use XML so please don't try to make me believe Discreet implemented this in their products just for FCP users.

Re: "Do you know what your even saying! Apple already offers a dual processor system. Hyperthreading doesn't mean MP, Intels a year away. Xeons a marvelous chip, I'm getting one"

Now this made me laugh. You first set out to bash what I said regarding Intel being ahead of Apple with their new Intel Xeon 64-bit Hyperthreaded processors then say you want to get one too. I suggest you read up on what the new processors offer compared to Apple's product line. Apple has already stated to the media they are disappointed that IBM is behind on releasing their new dual core processor. I would be too if I was Jobs realizing the competition beat you by 6 months. Some companies such as Liebermann http://www.go-l.com/ will be offering what they class as super workstations that offer four 64-bit processors. Even their laptops geared towards professionals like other distributors blows away anything Apple is offering. Liebermann and several other distributors already offer 64-bit laptops where as Apple has already commented this is highly unlikely for them since IBM has expressed cooling issues with the G5 processors. Sat, 31 Jul 2004 20:40:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Apple stated that they weren't pleased with the slow turn around on processors, but compared to Intel the 970fx is a great chip, even if it's only at 2.5. Apple has systems priced right, when compared to Xeons.

"FCP is not the only software to use XML so please don't try to make me believe Discreet implemented this in their products just for FCP users."

Actually that's right, because made the announcement at NAB this year about FCPHD. Sat, 31 Jul 2004 21:54:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? DarkKnight, Discreet made the announcement at NAB that they were supporting FCP XML-based interchange format. Marc Petit at Discreet, I believe, even referred to FCP as the editorial tool of choice. (I can't remember his exact words but you can look it up) DK you really dislike FCP and Apple a lot? Mon, 02 Aug 2004 05:05:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Linux Video editing is in a sucky state. Main Actor for linux is really old and not updated (Why has 6 been promised for over 3 years now and not released yet it has for the windows platform??)

It will NOT capture reliably from a DV source, so you have to use OSS tools for capture. many of the OSS tools will not capture to decent DV formats (DV AVI type 2 . a native no conversion format) so you need to convert formats and LOSE resolution by going to quicktime.

Sorry, but I demand my final edited footage to look as good as what was shot. Mainactor CAN NOT DO THAT. Cinerella cant stay running long enough to even show me that it cant. kdenlive is promising if it did not keep crashing when I try a DV capture.

These projects are busy adding "features" and ignoring stability.

Mainactor is not an option... no updates for over 3 years means it is dead.

Cinerella is not an option, these prima-donnas know nothing about video editing and are busy adding eyecandy instead of making somthing workable let alone the fact they are busy screaming "RTFM" to everyone that ask's them a question.

Our only hop is to get some real programmers working on a real solution or hope that Avid decid to port AvidExpress DV to linux (HA! fat chance)

The origional article states he is a pro editing company... thet can not be as you will lose money dinking with linux for video editing.

I am not happy that is the current reality as I love linux, but vido editing on it sucks bad. Mon, 02 Aug 2004 10:45:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? Use Cinelerra. it is full feature video, audio editor with realtime effects, multitracks, firewire. etc.. the BEST for linux. and free. http://www.heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 Mon, 02 Aug 2004 13:03:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments http://www.osnews.com/thread? http://www.osnews.com/thread? While not the easiest to use, but pretty well documented. Cinelerra is a very flexible editor.
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 Mon, 02 Aug 2004 13:09:00 GMT donotreply@osnews.com (Anonymous) Comments