Free Software for Movie Production? 37
A user asks: " Like some folks, I like to take my mini-dv camera to make films. First, I was using Premiere, then Avid Xpress on Windows. But now I want to make [a movie] on my Debian box.
Everybody says that video under Linux is not possible but I want to do it! I want to write the scenario on Linux (maybe with a set of Latex commands or SGML?). When all is in the box, I want to put it on my computer. Dvgrab does a perfect job! Now I'm looking for a video editor. Cinelerra
is nice but it doesn't read files from dvgrab. When it's time to have fun with FX, I was using Adobe After Effect, but [are there similar programs for Linux]? Film Gimp? Jahshaka?"
What I found... (Score:4, Interesting)
Kino is a program designed to work with dvgrab and also aims to be easier to use than Cinerella. [schirmacher.de]
It's difficult enough (Score:1, Flamebait)
but considering how difficult it is to do a good job with
good tools, is it worth your time concentrating on the
mechanics of filmmaking instead of the film itself?
What's your time worth? Just getting the audio right
would be a pain using D.I.Y. Linux tools.
Just get a Mac, even something cheap like an eMac.
Use iMovie, outgrow it, then invest in Final Cut Express
for $500. Spend that saved time working on your film
instead of your tools.
Re:It's difficult enough (Score:2)
Final Cut Express is only $299 [apple.com]. Pretty much the only important difference between FCE and FCP is that FCE only works with DV25 media, which is fine if you're using a DV camcorder to lens your footage and FireWire to import it.
Except for Kino, you are out of luck (Score:4, Informative)
You can try Kino [schirmacher.de] which is all DV and is making great strides to change this (even better, if you can program, help them): Only a few features so far, but those are rock solid and well done.
Avoid Cinelerra -- it crashes like it was written by Microsoft. At first, I thought it was my system, but after asking around a bit, I found out that this is a problem so common as to be a feature. Also, the documentation is a joke; the people writing it obviously are too full of themselves (as in: this is only for professionals, kids, if you don't understand it, you're stupid and should go away) to stoop down to our level.
Again, this is an area where Apple and even Microsoft wipe the floor with Linux.
Re:Except for Kino, you are out of luck (Score:2, Interesting)
But it was their ball, so they can sure take it home if they want. That doesn't mean I have to like it, though.
Re:Except for Kino, you are out of luck (Score:1)
Sure. (Score:2)
Let's try something helpful (Score:5, Informative)
Second -- This is definately an area where Linux does not have the software. I've spent years in video. I d/l'ed Adobe Premiere (the 30 day demo version) and found it extremely easy to use for someone who is used to "real" video editing. I've tried Cinelerra several times, in test installs, and I've found it to be anything BUT easy to comprehend. This stuff about it being "advanced" or for "advanced users" doesn't wash with me. I have the experience and it's just a pain in the but to find your way around the program. The interface is anything BUT intuitive. (As someone pointed out earlier, in editing, this is a time when you need to focus on the work, not on getting your tools to work.)
Now, after those comments, here's what, to me, seems a useful suggestion and what I am currently planning. The company Main Concept [mainconcept.com] is a German company. The last version of their editing program, Main Actor (V. 3.65) cost US $100 and worked on Linux and Windows. It's not Premiere, but for $100, I found it a good comparison. Currently the program is unavailable because they are preparing for the release of version 5.0. If you go to their site, you can download a Windows version of their V 5.0 beta 3 and test it out. This version is roughly comprable with Premiere 6.0. Some features aren't as good, but some are better (for instance, there was no smart gain for audio, but there are more sound adjustment abilities in MA than in Premiere). When I last corresponded with the people at Main Concept (when the beta 2 was out), they were still integrating some features into the betas and final version.
It will probably cost more than the US $100 price of their last version, but I wouldn't expect it to be any more than $150 or so. While it's not open source, and it's not free, it is a good solid program and will do what a video editor needs. They are also working on porting their effects program over to Linux as well.
I don't expect to see much more in the way of video editing in the open source field for a while. It involves too much GUI programming and the kind of intuitive feel that programmers seem to hate to deal with unless they have to.
Re:Let's try something helpful (Score:1)
He says he was using Avid Xpress. It retails for $1700. A low-end PowerMac also retails for $1700. As much as I like Linux, you're correct when you say it doesn't have the software for this. In any case, I guarentee you Final Cut Pro/Express will beat the crap out of Main Actor. If this guy can afford Avid Xpress, he can afford a Mac.
Re:Let's try something helpful (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Let's try something helpful (Score:1)
Macs are still the way to go when looking for av-setups...
And when he bores of MacOSX or the maturity of a/v-software for linux improves; slap Linux PPC on the mac and hes good to go!
(Disclaimer: This comment was posted from a OSX/PPC)
Re:Let's try something helpful (Score:1)
It's a longshot, but Possible (Score:4, Informative)
Sure, you might be able to do basic stuff in Cinelerra, FilmGimp, etc, but for your movie to look absolutely flawless you need some high-end filters and effects. Jahshaka is in it's early beta and extremely buggy. They are emulating the feel of Discreet Fire [discreet.com] (Post Production). I'm not too familiar with it's featureset. Don't count on it to be the Editing solution.
The secret is not the software itself, but the camerawork. If you put a lot of effort into shooting it, you'll make up for the editing shortcomings. It's definately possible. Hope you made a bet with the naysayers, because they'll lose. Funny thing is, it'll be a piece of cake to make a movie like Pi [imdb.com] in linux with open source applications.
Good luck on your project.
Re:It's a longshot, but Possible (Score:2)
Fire is an editor. Flame is for effects. Jashaka was originally intended to be a Flame clone. Whether it stuck to that goal or whether they went the editor route is a question best left for somebody who gives a rats ass about Jahshaka.
And in case you're wondering, the reason why we still have separate tools for editing (like Fire, or Media/Film Composer, or Final Cut Pro) and effects (like Flame, or Shake, or Combustion, or After Effects) is because the field of battle is littered with the bodies of programs that tried to do both and failed. Anybody remember Cyborg?
Re:It's a longshot, but Possible (Score:2)
Well, you get the idea. Most of Discreet's titles have the exact same interface look and feel. Uniformity is the word I'm looking for. That's what Jashaka was trying to do.
Petition SoundForge (Score:1)
Kdenlive (Score:3, Informative)
http://freshmeat.net/redir/kdenlive/36293/url_h
And for those of you saying Cinelerra is too hard, I have to agree. It's too slow too. I had to remux my DV files into Quicktime wrappers to load them, and then it took me a really long time to figure out how the timeline works (it's not even close to Premiere), and then playing the video was choppy, on my Athlon XP 1800+ with half a gig of RAM. It's a cool idea, but it really needs a new UI. It's not as revolutionary over Broadcast2k as they said it would be.
The timeline works kind of like Acid's tracks. Each track is a single file, instead of each track being a video layer that can contain any number of events from any number of files. Right now I think that Cinelerra would be capable of producing a half way decent wedding slideshow, but not a whole lot more, at least not without a dedicated rendering farm and months to learn the ins and outs of the UI.
Re:Kdenlive (Score:1)
lyx & script writing (Score:3, Interesting)
Good.But why bother with typing latex commands, when you have Lyx.
Lyx [lyx.org], according to lyx.org, is a
Lyx comes with templates for movie & broadway scripts & is a powerful WYSIWYM editor that lets you concentrate on writing rather than formatting. It also has an in-built & easy to use versioning system and you can output to ps/pdf/html/ascii/dvi & misc other formats right from the menu. Read this [mail-archive.com] for more info on what lyx is.
The reason this post is more abt lyx rather than writing scripts is, it is not a specialised software but never the less it is highly versatile & has some great features to aid you in script-writing.
Linux Video Usefull Links. (Score:1)
Why not use Kino (Score:2)
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