Video Editor / Movie Maker Development Contributions

[Dubstar_04]

This isn't another thread to ask whats the best movie editing software, I have tried all the options and unfortunately there are no really good consumer level video editing applications available.

I have used Ubuntu for about 4 years now and there has never been a decent movie maker application and i honestly believe it really lets linux down.

-------------------------------------------------

What I would like to do:

Work with canonical and the gnome project and encourage linux users make financial contributions to fund the development of a consumer grade video editing software along the lines of windows movie maker and imovie.

What I would like to hear:

Peoples ideas for starting such a project
Is there is a need for such a project?
How it would work? (new project, develop current application)
Would people be willing to donate?
Ideas how to generate lots of interest and publicity

Please try and post positive comments even if your against the idea.

-------------------------------------------------

Email to Canonical:

I am attempting to set up a community funded development project based around Ubuntu and Gnome.

The project: Open Source Video Editing / Movie Making.

Modern computing is all about multimedia whether it be capturing the special moments, editing your favourite photos and videos, or sharing them with friends. Unfortunately this is one area where linux really misses the mark and there has been many topics and discussions on the ubuntu forums regarding the lack of a solid, stable and intuitive video editing application for linux, see links.

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/5330/promote/

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/10333/

http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/131/


Project Goal:

The aim of the project is as a community raise the funds to enable the desired software to be developed by professional developers.

Where Canonical come in:

I am hoping that Canonical will be able to provide some assistance to the project by providing guidance and maybe some ubuntu supported marketing assistance and some links to the correct bodies within the Gnome project.

In an ideal world a backing from Mark and a post about it on his blog would be fantastic, however, I would be grateful of all the support I can get.

Do you think Mark would be interested in the project and be able to support us?

I look forward to your response.

kind regards,

Daniel Wood

-------------------------------------------------

Email response:

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for your e-mail asking for Canonical's help with your project.
Unfortunately Mark will not have the opportunity to support this in a personal capacity but I have forwarded your e-mail to my colleague in the marketing department and they will be in touch regarding the possibility of Canonical being able to help or not.

Thank you for your support.

Kind regards,
Claire

-------------------------------------------------

Please don't post:

Have you tried kdenlive, pitivi, kino, cinelerra because I have and they all fall short of the mark.

Regards,

Dubstar_04

Linux forums Thread: http://www.linuxforums.org/forum/gaming-games-multimedia-entertainment/151508-video-editor-movie-maker-development-contributions.html#post720883

[ruthc]

Hi I'm not a developer but work with a grass roots arts organisation very supportive of the FLOSS ethos. I made the move over from Mac to Linux about 18 months ago and the lack of an intuitive video editing software for making simple edits such as cuts and fades (as allowed by quicktime pro for £15) is really frustrating and makes it a very hard sell for our community. I've made some attempt to get fluent with Cinelera and will persevere with it a bit because its the software I have already invested time and energy but I don't really need anything as sophisticated as this.
So YES- this is important if Linux is going to get taken up by non-geeks especially people working in visual culture.

Can't offer any significant coding skills, or lots of cash. But can offer unbounded enthusiasm and feedback on stuff as it evolves.

cheers
Ruth

[Dubstar_04]

Hi Ruth,

Thanks for your feedback. I completely understand your position and completely agree that its a shame people struggle with video editing on linux or look to other operating systems.

I am not asking for coding skills or lots of money, just lots of enthusiasm and support, spread the word, lets get the whole community involved, if we all make small contributions it will make a huge difference to everyone who uses linux.

Tell everyone you know about this Idea, Blog about it, lets get peoples attention and make a difference.

regards,

Dan

[qwerty800]

Well, Openshot is getting quite promising!

www.openshotvideo.com

You should take a look at it!

[Dubstar_04]

qwerty800,

Thanks for the info and link. I did ask for people not to post links and suggest different projects, however, Openshot looks good, but the fact of the matter is it will be years until something is up to the standard of windows movie maker or iMovie and that is if continued development occurs., which it rarely does in opensource community projects.

I am fully aware that there are lots of good projects currently under way and in development, what we need to do is find the one that suits the criteria best (simple, intuitive, powerful) and provide all the resources that the project needs to progress in to a mature project.

Thanks again for your post and I hope you can help support the project.

[cotcot]

First of all : it is nice to take initiatives.

My personal opinion : No need for another video editor. I am happy with Blender and Cinelerra also for more advanced video editing. However I understand that some people are asking for more. I do not understand people telling that video editing in linux is crap. Are you aware that many eyes are focused on Lumiera (an editor in development based on cinelerra) ? I hope that the effort will be concentrated on an existing initiative with enough value rather than a new one. If the effort for the about 8 video editors would be condensed to 2 or 3 editors that would be a good step.

Anyway if you want to undertake something I am willing to support even when it is not fully in line with my personal opinion.

Editing AVCHD directly would be a big plus.

[lisati]

Hmmmm..... sighs........

My $0.02 worth:

Having used Windows Movie Maker in both XP and Vista, I find that they're ok for basic stuff, but don't they make the grade for the editing tasks I do. The XP version can't even import videos from one of my cameras, which adds to the inconvenience value. My niece, who has worked on productions that have been aired on TV, doesn't have a high opinion of movie maker either.

I looked at the Windows version of blender a year or two back, with a view to making custom animated titles. I'm surprised that people suggest it as a video editor. For one thing, unless things have changed since I last looked, the user interface isn't exactly intuitive.

There are one or two offerings available for Linux that show some promise, but the ones I've looked at don't meet my needs.

[cotcot]

I looked at the Windows version of blender a year or two back, with a view to making custom animated titles. I'm surprised that people suggest it as a video editor. For one thing, unless things have changed since I last looked, the user interface isn't exactly intuitive.

Sure you were in the video sequence editor (VSE (http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/Doc:Manual/Sequencer/Usage)) mode of blender ? Blender had a tough evolution last couple of years. The user interface will change a lot in the upcoming version (2.5).

[joey-elijah]

Perhaps it'd be worth lending help/hands to PiTiVi? It's aim is purely to be usable for everyday people - like iMovie.

It's currently stable enough - akin to movie maker atm.

The next release will bring all the transitions, effects and such and i can't wait! I love the fact it's a Gnome app, too. I can really envision it being included as default with Gnome at some point soon.

http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/7118/imagecapturepitiviv0130.jpg

http://www.pitivi.org/wiki/Main_Page

[wkulecz]

If the effort for the about 8 video editors would be condensed to 2 or 3 editors that would be a good step.

Bingo!


The real issue is the underlying media processing pipeline. Compare the progress and current state of gstreamer/gnonlin based pitivi (on-going project with some paid developers) vs. MLT based OpenShot (One guy, less than a year of work after he dumped gstreamer).

KDEnlive is also built on MLT but it is so crash-o-matic I'm not sure if it can ever really be fixed. The problem would seem to be with KDE/QT on Gnome (meaning I've only been able to use KDEnlive at all on Kubuntu, where I was actually quite impressed by it!) instead of being an MLT issue since OpenShot seems remarkly stable. But OpenShot is still too easy to break your system with when using its non-repository installation proceedure, so IMHO its a bit too early to be recommending it widely.

Gstreamer seems overly complex, but people seem commited to it as the underlying Linux sub-system for multimedia (like directshow is for Windows). I don't know if having gstreamer also build on Win32 is a feature or a bug at this point, but its in theory attractive to anyone who thinks cross-platform. I think even a Mac OS X version is in the works. PiTiVi may end up being the best eventually if the commitment to gstreamer as Linux's multimedia framework is a solid as it appears, but the complexity of gstreamer/gnonlin seems to be holding it back.

In theory as new media formats are added to gstreamer, editors and players based on it can just use them automagically. The reality ain't quite that nice, I frequently encounter video clips that gstreamer based Totem chokes on (Can't find or initialize pipeline) but all-in-one packages like Mplayer handle.

I don't know how deep MLT is in media format support, that may be a problem for OpenShot. OpenShot is also a Gnome application by virtue of it using PyGTK for its user interface.


IMHO all you really need to do is pick one of the current contenders and get a Canonical commitment to keep it current in the repositories so bug fixes & enhancements flow back to the users automatically.

--wally.

[Dubstar_04]

@joey-elijah / wkulecz

Thanks for your feedback guys, I Really like pitivi too, it seems stable and solid. I have made a few videos on it over the past week but with no transitions or effects at present its pretty limited, but holds bags of potential for the future and seems to already be moving a quite a pace.

I would really like to support Pitivi too and would like to make a move to make it happen.

I will try and get in touch with the devs and see what they think.

Does anyone have any ideas how to convince the communities to get involved and make a donation?

Maybe we could build a website with donation tabs and try and get it featured in podcasts and such like tekzilla and such?

What do you think?

[Dubstar_04]

Update:

No reply from the canonical email

Pitivi:

I have spoken with the Pitivi Devs and they are in need of testers with are willing to file bug reports.

They are flattered that people would like to support their project and are currently building a new website: http://pitivi.ecchi.ca/

We discussed adding a donation button to the site for people to donate funds, and we also talked about setting up some competitions once transitions are in (possibly hosted on you tube) and all videos muct include a "made using Pitivi" type advertisement.

Once their new site is up and running and we have more details I am hoping to get the project featured on a few podcasts, eg tekzilla.

If anyone has anymore ideas please get involved as the more people who get onboard with this project the quicker we will have a decent video editor in Ubuntu.

Spread The Word,

Dubstar_04

[paulmerchant]

I haven't used Pitivi, but have always been impressed by the the project's overall design and goals. Now that development seems to be moving forward more quickly (I think the project even has some funding), I could definitely see it becoming the main Ubuntu video editor with a couple of years.

[Dubstar_04]

I could definitely see it becoming the main Ubuntu video editor with a couple of years.

I think i read that it should make it in to 9.10, i'm not sure though!!

[Stochastic]

I think i read that it should make it in to 9.10, i'm not sure though!!

Can you clarify where you heard this about PiTiVi and what exactly you mean?

PiTiVi is already packaged in Ubuntu (has been for years) and a fairly new release will be in the repositories for 9.10 (Karmic). I am not aware of any plans just yet to have it installed by default in any particular version of Ubuntu.

[Dubstar_04]

Can you clarify where you heard this about PiTiVi and what exactly you mean?

PiTiVi is already packaged in Ubuntu (has been for years) and a fairly new release will be in the repositories for 9.10 (Karmic). I am not aware of any plans just yet to have it installed by default in any particular version of Ubuntu.

I thought I had read that an up to date version will be in gnome as default, I may well be wrong and may of just read that an up to date version will be included in the repos.

Either way its still good that pitivi is getting some love as its the most promising basic video editor going and getting better by the day.

[Keyper7]

Pitivi seems indeed the most adequate choice for this thread's proposal. Both the Gnome and Ubuntu communities tend to sympatize with GStreamer-based projects and because of that those projects tend to improve at breakneck speed. Jokosher, Pitivi and the more recent Mistelix are good examples.

However, those projects also had the problem of being excessively advertised at early, almost-unusable stages of development. Therefore, they now have somewhat of a unfair bad reputation ("I tried Jokosher, crashed all the time", "I tried Pitivi, it doesn't even a timeline").

New advertisements, emphasizing how much those projects have evolved in a short time, can be good step.

[wildnfree]

The real issue is the underlying media processing pipeline. Compare the progress and current state of gstreamer/gnonlin based pitivi (on-going project with some paid developers) vs. MLT based OpenShot (One guy, less than a year of work after he dumped gstreamer).

Jonathan made very rapid progress on his own using MLT. Now we have built a development team over this summer. Jonathan and Andy concentrate on most of the coding. Myself (Helen) and Olivier concentrate on documentation and testing. Myself and Jonathan do the bug and question management. Jonathan and TJ are developing the debian packaging for Openshot and all the cutting-edge dependencies. And we have close support from Dan Dennedy on MLT to iron out any problems.

With this team we are making even more rapid progress. OpenShot is still in alpha development, but I can already produce very professional movies in full High Definition using OpenShot.



KDEnlive is also built on MLT but it is so crash-o-matic I'm not sure if it can ever really be fixed. The problem would seem to be with KDE/QT on Gnome (meaning I've only been able to use KDEnlive at all on Kubuntu, where I was actually quite impressed by it!) instead of being an MLT issue since OpenShot seems remarkly stable. But OpenShot is still too easy to break your system with when using its non-repository installation proceedure, so IMHO its a bit too early to be recommending it widely.

The packaging of OpenShot and its dependencies is progressing nicely, and we will shortly be releasing the first Beta for Ubuntu 9.04 and 9.10 using the PPA which has been set up by TJ.



I don't know how deep MLT is in media format support, that may be a problem for OpenShot. OpenShot is also a Gnome application by virtue of it using PyGTK for its user interface.
--wally.

MLT provides very extensive media format support using ffmpeg. The main problem we have had is that we require the very latest versions of ffmpeg and MLT to provide the functionality, and those versions are not even in Karmic. This is why we are having to package the dependencies as well, and try not to conflict with the dependencies of programs like kdenlive.

Soon there should be two great video editors for Ubuntu; OpenShot for Gnome, and kdenlive for KDE. :P

Best wishes, Helen McCall (OpenShot Development Team)

[Keyper7]

From the progress so far, it seems there is a solid chance that a 1.x OpenShot release ends up in the Karmic+1 repositories. I hope that happens.

[Stochastic]

From the progress so far, it seems there is a solid chance that a 1.x OpenShot release ends up in the Karmic+1 repositories. I hope that happens.

First they'd need to allow a release to be downloaded in source code form. Currently, you can only get source code by checking out their git.

[Keyper7]

First they'd need to allow a release to be downloaded in source code form. Currently, you can only get source code by checking out their git.

Well, it's not like this makes it unpackageable. FFmpeg does the same.

[Stochastic]

The main problem we have had is that we require the very latest versions of ffmpeg and MLT to provide the functionality, and those versions are not even in Karmic.

Best wishes, Helen McCall (OpenShot Development Team)

Would you mind specifying which versions are required, anywhere on your site or, better yet, in the README file that tells you which packages to install? I attempted to run OpenShot from bzr on Karmic and ran into this issue (good thing I had read this thread to be aware of the problem).

For now I'm going to consider OpenShot to be "In Development" as it's not runnable on the library versions that are bug tracked in Ubuntu. Furthermore, your install.py script doesn't politely work around Ubuntu libraries, it deletes them and installs the latest development snapshot (READ: VERY DANGEROUS BEHAVIOUR) on the user's machine. This snapshot will be slightly different for each one of your users depending on which day they installed the software, and thus you have no way of evaluating bugs effectively. I can't in good conscience recommend this software to any user based on this.

Anyways this is now officially off topic from this thread.

[cotcot]

Soon there should be two great video editors for Ubuntu; OpenShot for Gnome, and kdenlive for KDE. :P


At this moment Openshot and Kdenlive do not have the level of Cinelerra and Blender (VSE). Have a look at the keyframing possibilities for instance. Do you plan these for your project as well (I mean a comparable level of keyframing as with Blender and Cinelerra) ? Hopefully.
Let us not forget your colleagues from Lumiera (grown from cinelerra). Maybe it is useful to talk to them as well ?
Ken Burns effect (making video by panning on a photo) is also on my wish list. (only possible with Cinelerra for the moment).
Please know that Blender is multiplatform and also have paid devs.
As mentioned in a previous post direct AVCHD editing would be a plus (I explored Kdenlive on that but crashing keeps me off). Slideshows with photos of mixed aspect ratio is another nice feature. Now I prepare my photos with ImageMagick to 1920x1080.
Anyway success with your team. I will follow your project and help with testing.

[Dubstar_04]

Great News!!

I have had a response from Canonical which suggests they maybe able to help with raising awareness, which is fantastic news.

-------------------------------------------------

Dear Daniel,

Thank you for your e-mail asking for Canonical's help with your project.
Unfortunately Mark will not have the opportunity to support this in a personal capacity but I have forwarded your e-mail to my colleague in the marketing department and they will be in touch regarding the possibility of Canonical being able to help.

Thank you for your support.

Kind regards,
Claire

-------------------------------------------------

I really need people to get onboard with this project now and take the project community-wide through other distros, and such.

Where to go from here:

1. Raise awareness:
- digg this thread
- contact other distros
- maybe set up a website (any web devs willing to help?)

2. Draw up a specification list
- people post what features they really want & need

3. Select a project to support

4. Raise funding
- Conferences
- Hosting
- Development
- Testing

5. Support the project
- bug reports
- patches
- feature requests (see point 2)

If someone would be willing create a website I would be willing to help finance a domain name and hosting (maybe canonical or gnome could help with this)

If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

Please don't read this thread and think to yourself:

"I hope this happens, I would really like a decent video editor"

then sit back and do nothing.

GET INVOLVED - LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN!!

Regards,

Dubstar_04

[kiddo]

I'm in regular contact with the PiTiVi devs, and I know for sure that they would love for Canonical to provide them with more ressources; manpower, visibility, or funding to get additional developers to work on PiTiVi (on top of the current 3 paid developers from Collabora).

I can't wait for effects and transitions to be implemented, because it seems that, for some reason, it's pretty much all that users look at when evaluating video editing software ("it doesn't have effects/transitions? Then surely it can't do anything!"). Once that's done, it will be much easier to defeat the bad impression left by the slow development in the past (which is just not true anymore; I counted roughly 1200 commits in the main branch in the past few months).

[cotcot]

As far as I am informed Pitivi was once launched as the default video editing app in ubuntu, unfortunatily at a moment that pitivi development stalled a little bit. Glad to hear that this has changed.
I feel in this thread that OpenShot is pushed as default gnome app.
Therefore I think at this moment that communication is more important than the speed of development. Maybe the previous poster can organise some debate with the OpenShot dev team mmember poster in this thread . If the overlap is big than collaboration might be better than competition.

People kick on transitions and effects. Be careful with that. A video plenty of different effects and transitions might be a show room to demonstrate the possibilities of an application or the knowledge of the person making the video but at the end is not relaxing for an audience.

[Aphorism]

Ken Burns effect (making video by panning on a photo) is also on my wish list. (only possible with Cinelerra for the moment).

Ooops... Ken Burns... hrm... do you mean like this (http://s3.amazonaws.com/GZips/rfqtest0001_0414.avi)?

;)

And yes, Blender. That is without even touching the compositor or the 3D elements - of which the former is infinitely more powerful than the default effect strips baked into the Sequencer.

Original video snapped up from Richard Querin's blog as a proof of principle for an effect sequence based off of his original work (http://blog.rfquerin.org/2009/08/22/blender-editing-project-park-visit/).

[cotcot]

Ooops... Ken Burns... hrm... do you mean like this (http://s3.amazonaws.com/GZips/rfqtest0001_0414.avi)?

Can you please check your link ?
I mean this (http://makefx.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/how-to-pan-in-an-image-ken-burns-effect/).

[Dubstar_04]

I think at this moment that communication is more important than the speed of development. Maybe the previous poster can organise some debate with the OpenShot dev team member poster in this thread . If the overlap is big than collaboration might be better than competition.

I couldn't agree more. collaboration would be much better than working on two separate projects, however I feel that the OpenShot devs may feel they have gone too far to merge their work into another project.

Bearing in mind that this project is aimed at a consumer level; What is it that people want with a video editor?

My biggest wishes would be:

1. Simple layout
2. simple to use - intuitive.
3. accepts videos and photos
4. Nice simple drag and drop transitions on one timeline (as MS Movie maker)

What is it you want?

[cotcot]

What is it you want?

My list with wishes is somewhat more extended. Have a look at the Blender VSE and Cinelerra features and you have what I want. Only AVCHD editing is missing. But I understand very well that these editors require a lot of time to be understood and learned (but once you get the hang ...). Because of this I am following Lumiera. This editor claims to become Cinelerra feature like app but with a user friendly GUI.

The list you mention is typical. It is a fair and fully logic list. A lot of people want this. I see appear these requisitions for Openshot, Pitivi, Kdenlive and some others. A lot of common goals. I hoped that the devs would talk to each other. Talking often changes minds more than only thinking or feeling. I was happy to read posters in this thread close to pitivi and to openshot.

It would be nice to see an open source conference on video editing to share ideas, discover overlapping efforts and conclude on effectivity of development.

[kiddo]

It would be nice to see an open source conference on video editing to share ideas, discover overlapping efforts and conclude on effectivity of development.

You basically described the Open Video Alliance, and its associated event during this summer, the Open Video Conference (http://openvideoalliance.org/open-video-conference/speakers/). Edward Hervey (lead PiTiVi dev), the Cinelerra+Lumiera folks, and folks from Blender, among others, attended this year.

Also, while not specifically at a video-related conference, I gave a talk on PiTiVi at Libre Graphics Meeting 2009 (http://river-valley.tv/pitivi-an-overview-of-a-foss-video-editors-history-and-design/).

[Aphorism]

Can you please check your link ?
I mean this (http://makefx.wordpress.com/2008/10/13/how-to-pan-in-an-image-ken-burns-effect/).

Seems to work here. Is the link not working for you?

[Stochastic]

Once again this is off topic from the thread, but for a Ken Burns effect, you can always use http://www.deniscarl.com/stills2dv/ then finish with whichever editor you prefer.

[af20001]

Would you mind specifying which versions are required, anywhere on your site or, better yet, in the README file that tells you which packages to install? I attempted to run OpenShot from bzr on Karmic and ran into this issue (good thing I had read this thread to be aware of the problem).

For now I'm going to consider OpenShot to be "In Development" as it's not runnable on the library versions that are bug tracked in Ubuntu. Furthermore, your install.py script doesn't politely work around Ubuntu libraries, it deletes them and installs the latest development snapshot (READ: VERY DANGEROUS BEHAVIOUR) on the user's machine. This snapshot will be slightly different for each one of your users depending on which day they installed the software, and thus you have no way of evaluating bugs effectively. I can't in good conscience recommend this software to any user based on this.

Anyways this is now officially off topic from this thread.

Hi,

I'm a member of the OpenShot dev team.

Openshot should still be regarded as "In development" - we haven't reached beta yet. The builds that have been made available so far have been intended for interested developers/contributors - they are not intended for general consumption. A lot of work has gone on recently regarding proper packaging, we will soon have a ppa available.

@cotcot
The ken Burns effect should be doable in OpenShot (I haven't actually tried it myself, but zooming/panning is possible).

Regarding collobaration, Pitivi & OpenShot use diffrent underlying libraries (GStreamer for Pitivi & MLT for OpenShot), so there's not much scope for colloboration there.

Cheers,
Andy.

[Dubstar_04]

af20001,

First off i installed the recent .deb packages last night and i must admit that I was very impressed with the application and I even made a couple of quick videos.

I asked this same question to the Pitivi devs so here goes:

What support does OpenShot video require and what would extra financial help mean to you?

[af20001]

Like any other project, Openshot requires the kind of support you have already outlined: rasing awareness, feature requests, specifications, testers, patches etc. As awareness is raised, the rest hopefully follow as more users come onboard. Awareness has started to grow recently (as can be seen from the number of questions submitted on our Launchpad page), which in turn has led to some extra contributors. But we are all doing this in our spare time, so it's easy for other things to get in the way.

As for financial help, web sites/domains have to be paid for. Our downloads have so far been hosted on Launchpad, but you can imagine the bandwidth requirements if they were hosted on the main website - again this has to come out of someones pocket.

But lets also not forget the libraries our editors are built on. We use MLT (which in turn uses ffmpeg), so the same applies to them. If the underlying library has problems, you have no hope of making a successful editor. I'm not sure how much support MLT has or needs, but we can't do a thing without it. So as much effort needs to be directed that way as well.

[cotcot]

Seems to work here. Is the link not working for you?
Is OK now.

[cotcot]

Once again this is off topic from the thread, but for a Ken Burns effect, you can always use http://www.deniscarl.com/stills2dv/ then finish with whichever editor you prefer.

Thanks for this tip. I have tried it. It is much faster than with cinelerra. I am currently tuning panning speed to get the video smoother. (it is still somewhat stuttering; same for cinelerra).

[Dubstar_04]

Guys,

Openshot video editor has added an option to donate on their page.

I have made a donation already, one of many I hope.

check out the site and digg them...

http://www.openshotvideo.com/


Note: I know people are divided on which project to choose, I spoke to the pitivi devs about adding a 'donate' button to their site and they said they will but they don't have the site up yet while openshot is streaming ahead.

If you're truly interested in opensource video editing and you can't make a financial contribution, download the software, try it out, make recommendations, file bug reports, post patches. GET INVOLVED!!