Gnome or KDE for video editing?

[jtsmith]

Hi all,
I am obviously a total newbie at Linux, but have always flirted with it from time to time. I am now in a position to dedicate a box solely to Ubuntu to learn Linux for good.

My main hobby for this box will be learning Linux and doing video editing on it. Is either Gnome or KDE a better choice for this? Also, is there a web page or book somewhere that discusses video editing on a Linux box in good detail for me to learn?
(I used to do some real basic editing in Pinnacle on an XP box a few years ago, and I am an avid still photographer with quite a bit of Photoshop CS3 experience in Windows, so that is my starting point.)

Thanks for the help and consideration for a noob.
Sincerely,
JT

[denver]

Its not a question of Desktop environment, but of what application is best suited for the job. You cand run GNOME apps in KDE and vice versa. You just need to find an app that best suits your needs.

You might have better luck with:

http://ubuntustudio.org/

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The current state of video editors in Linux isn't that great and there's heaps of threads around about video editing. The best option at the moment in my opinion is Kdenlive. Blender has a video editor which is a lot more advanced but with a lot steeper learning curve (I haven't tried it myself though, that's just what I've heard).

Kdenlive is a KDE4 application, but it will run fine in Gnome.

[bumanie]

The video editor , "Lives" works very well on gnome. I think it can be obtained from getdeb.

[bit mad]

http://www.openshotvideo.com/
is the up and coming new contender, worth a look

[jtsmith]

Thanks for the tips! I didn't realize that some thought the video editing scene in Linux was sub-par these days. A few years back when I was looking into it, seemed like some people were raving about how studios were looking at Linux as viable alternatives and one of the major movies (I think an animation one) had just been made / rendered completely on Linux boxes...
Maybe things have changed? I've been out of everything for a while. Well, I will certainly take a look at the suggestions, though.
Thanks for the help,
JT

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My impression is that a lot of professional level stuff is done on Linux. I know Pixar and Weta workshop use Linux a lot, but the professional level software is very expensive. For home users the video editing software on Linux still has quite a way to go.

[jtsmith]

Ah, that makes sense, then. Thanks for the disussion - after looking at a lot of open-source Linux video software in Google searches, I see what you mean. There are a couple programs that look killer - but how long would it take me to learn them? :cool:

Well, I still think I should get Ubunut installed on this box and see what happens. Never know...least I can do is learn new stuff!

Thanks,
JT

[CatKiller]

A few years back when I was looking into it, seemed like some people were raving about how studios were looking at Linux as viable alternatives and one of the major movies (I think an animation one) had just been made / rendered completely on Linux boxes...

Major production houses will use custom software, whatever platform they're using (it's a large part of what distinguishes one company from another). If you're writing your own software anyway, you might as well use the best platform for the task. For a lot of companies, that's Linux.

I suspect you were thinking of Kung Fu Panda, btw.

For your original question, I wouldn't use either. Gnome and KDE are great for the new user and when you're just playing around and exploring, but when I want to actually get something done I switch to LXDE. When you're working you generally just want a handful of applications to run as fast as they can; you don't need the overhead of a full-featured desktop environment. You can install any number of desktop environments side-by-side, and you just pick whichever one you want to use for a session from the login screen. You can run applications from one in another without any hassle.

[wildnfree]

Thanks for the tips! I didn't realize that some thought the video editing scene in Linux was sub-par these days. A few years back when I was looking into it, seemed like some people were raving about how studios were looking at Linux as viable alternatives and one of the major movies (I think an animation one) had just been made / rendered completely on Linux boxes...
Maybe things have changed? I've been out of everything for a while. Well, I will certainly take a look at the suggestions, though.
Thanks for the help,
JT

Hello JT,

The very powerful video processing, effects, compositing, editing suites on Linux are extremely expensive commercial packages. They usually run on massively parallel Linux clusters of several hundred nodes.

There are a number of video editors available as OpenSource free software. If you are looking for a very good editor to use on High Definition videos, I can only recommend two:

kdenlive is a very good editor based on the KDE desktop.

OpenShot (http://www.openshotvideo.com) is a very fast developing editor on the Gnome desktop.:P


Helen McCall (OpenShot Development Team)

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And OpenShot and Kdenlive are both based on MLT, which is developed by the same people as Kdenlive.

It didn't take me very long to learn Kdenlive and I have no previous experience with a NLE (maybe that helped), but I found it quite buggy.

[Stochastic]

If you're serious about video editing, most people will point you toward using Blender's video editor. Some may also say Cinelerra.

Pitivi, Kino, Kdenlive, and OpenShot are all aimed at the home user.

I can't recommend enough these Blender video editor tutorials:
Part 1: http://screencasters.heathenx.org/_misc/bve/bve_01.html
Part 2: http://screencasters.heathenx.org/_misc/bve/bve_02.html
Part 3: http://screencasters.heathenx.org/_misc/bve/bve_03.html


It's also quite possible that some large motion pictures use Blender in their 3-D work as that's the main goal of that software.

[jtsmith]

Thanks for the new replies and info for me. I am busy checking out all those links now to see which looks the best for my purposes.
To be honest, I don't know how "serious" I will get into it as far as video effects; I was mainly thinking of doing a web blog and have some technique videos available for other doctors, and that sort of thing from my website.
I sure appreciate the help from everyone!
Sincerely,
JT