Linux video editor woes pushing me back to Windows

[Killtown]

After the nightmare of getting my printer and 19" LCD widescreen monitor to work (along with just the fact of having to learn a new operating system), this is VERY distressing. I'm finding out that all the video editors under Linux, for a lack of a better word, stink. I find Window's Movie Maker far superior for making basic movies if your system is fast enough with enough memory.



This is what I'm observing so far with the popular Linux video editors:

Kino - Just like iMovie, has to convert every file to DV before being able to edit. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz. Is it done coverting yet?

Cinelerra - crashes/freezes before I can even . . . damn, crashed again.

Pitivi - does it do anything besides combine clips and renders them in really bad quality? (Actually I don't think it renders, but actually records the final project like recording off an audio tape to another audio tape.)

Kdenlive - Had the most potential until I tried to combine clips and the audio was delayed where the 2nd clip started in every format I tried to render it in (actually, most formats didn't even render the audio!). Also, the text add-on feature blows. It has no auto-alignment feature (center, right, justified) other than left so you have to eye-ball it to align the text any other way.

Avidemux - The best BY FAR, but not really a movie maker and has audio problems when importing certain files. Otherwise I liked it better than VirtualDub.


About the not-so-well-known video editors:

Diva (http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Diva-11010.shtml)
LVE (http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Linux-Video-Editor-4120.shtml) (Linux Video Editor)
OpenMovie (http://linux.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Open-Movie-Editor-8371.shtml)

I would love to be able to give you my opinion about these if I could FIGURE OUT HOW TO INSTALL THEM!!!




Here is a 12min video (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7549168477622277702)* I made with Movie Maker and I'd like to be able to make something like that under Linux (*Warning, conspiracy video.)


Also, I'm really bumbed to see there is not a decent Gif Animator. I used to use EasyGifAnimator (http://www.blumentals.net/egifan/) on Windows that could make large gifs (30+ pics) fast and as it's name says; easy. "Well what about Gimp"? I said an EASY one that could make large gifs FAST.


Sorry if the above sounded harsh, but I WOULD REALLY LIKE TO NOT GO BACK TO WINDOWS!!!

But if there is not a descent video editor that can make movies, I'll be forced to go back to the dark side. Lack of a decent gif animator is almost enough for me to switch back.

[loserboy]

you gotta do what you gotta do.....

[GFC2]

My fellow noob,

There is no moral defeat in doing what works best for you. In my evaluation of Ubuntu vs Vista so far, Ubuntu wins on style, security, menu structure, and accessibility. Vista wins on detail, graphics rendering, multimedia, support, documentation, and interoperability. I've gained appreciation for some Windows features in the process. Dual boot and get the best of what each has to offer. And don't kick yourself for it.

Check the bug reports and see if there's anything you can contribute based on your experience. Might as well turn your experience into something that can help.

[Killtown]

It's just distressing that the lack of TWO software programs out of the THOUSANDS of free Linux programs is forcing me back to Windows. Read that last sentence again to really understand my frustration. I would STAY with Linux if ONE of those multiple Linux movie makers would be able to do what I did on Window's MovieMaker.

I mentioned that I was unable to install those "rare" video editors, so I AM willing to give those a shot because once I got all my basic programs install and hardware configured (monitor, printer) I LIKE Linux a lot better than Winbloz.


Does anybody have any experience with the "rare" editors:

Diva
LVE (Linux Video Editor)
OpenMovie


And can someone help me install them? I'd actually like to try OpenMovie.

[loserboy]

if I were you I would try to track down why cinelerra is crashing so much, cinelerra and kino are probably the most used and loved programs. Theres also a program called LIVES that I know nothing about

[uuwatti]

diva, open video editor etc. have the same problems as the ones you have tried. only usable video editors are blender and closed source mainactor. cinelerra works great if you save very often. and kino is great if you only work with a few clips. oh btw kdenlive is developing fast, so keep your eyes on that one

[Killtown]

if I were you I would try to track down why cinelerra is crashing so much
I'm too much of a noob to now how to do that! Also, Cinelerra is UGLY! But I'd put up with that if it worked.

[Killtown]

diva, open video editor etc. have the same problems as the ones you have tried. only usable video editors are blender and closed source mainactor. cinelerra works great if you save very often. and kino is great if you only work with a few clips. oh btw kdenlive is developing fast, so keep your eyes on that one
I had to save often with MovieMaker (I think based on used having slow CPU w/ only 512 ram). I have 3x faster system and memory now and Cinelerra keeps crashing.

I was going to mention that I'd be willing to pay for a working Linux movie maker, but $200 for MainActor seems a little steep. I'll download the demo version and try it out of curiosity.

[Gremlinzzz]

Dual boot then you can use both .I do i use vista as a game emulator.

[Killtown]

Dual boot then you can use both .I do i use vista as a game emulator.
That's sort of the problem, my motherboard and harddrive died so my restore copy of XP won't work cause it needs to read the original motherboard to work, so I'd have to buy a new copy of XP.

[ddennedy]

I hear Autodesk Smoke is great for video editing on Linux:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=5561833

[Killtown]

I hear Autodesk Smoke is great for video editing on Linux:
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=5561833
Although that looks sweet, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that program is out of most people's budget here.

[loserboy]

so what you're asking for is a free program that works perfectly and just the way you want at a professional quality level?

[Manasia]

If you complied Cinelerra for your system I think it would work better, I would never do package installations of Video Editing software. Each system is different so you need to compile one that fits your box.

I am having no problems with Cinelerra, I am running it on an AMD Duron with 768megs of RAM and a limited supported video card (ATI Radeon 9250) and I am doing it big.

But for what your looking for, I would have thought Kino would have been suitable.

Best of luck migrating back to Windows.

[Killtown]

so what you're asking for is a free program that works perfectly and just the way you want at a professional quality level?
No, I'd be willing to pay for a working video editor for amateurs that was reasonably priced, but Linux builds itself on "free software" but if it doesn't work, what good is Linux?

[Killtown]

If you complied Cinelerra for your system I think it would work better, I would never do package installations of Video Editing software. Each system is different so you need to compile one that fits your box.

I am having no problems with Cinelerra, I am running it on an AMD Duron with 768megs of RAM and a limited supported video card (ATI Radeon 9250) and I am doing it big.

But for what your looking for, I would have thought Kino would have been suitable.

Best of luck migrating back to Windows.
How do I compile Cinelerra for my system? I'd be interested in trying this before being forced to go back to Windows.

Kino is why I didn't like iMovie, has to convert every video clip before editing. Kdenlive was what I was looking for until I found out it delays the audio when combining clips. Can Kdenlive be compiled for my system too like you suggested my to do with Cinelerra?

[xubu_caapn]

to compile from source:
http://monkeyblog.org/ubuntu/installing/#installing_a_package_manually

it can be problematic, however.

[kelvin spratt]

I use Cinelerra on a daily basis its comparable to Sony Vegas, the industry standard in windows, Movie maker
is mediocre by comparison in my opinion. Cinelerra is very powerful and stable but you need to learn to use it as you do Linux

[Killtown]

Cinelerra is very powerful and stable but you need to learn to use it as you do Linux
But it just freezes or crashes for me. I'll try to install it by compiling soon as I get a hold of my Linux guru buddy.

[Shay Stephens]

No, I'd be willing to pay for a working video editor for amateurs that was reasonably priced, but Linux builds itself on "free software" but if it doesn't work, what good is Linux?

The free stands for freedom, not zero cost.

[zipperback]

No, I'd be willing to pay for a working video editor for amateurs that was reasonably priced, but Linux builds itself on "free software" but if it doesn't work, what good is Linux?


"FREE" as in FREEDOM, NOT "FREE" as in without price.

Please note that Linux isn't the individual applications which you might be running. Linux is the kernel. Everything else is just a bunch of packaged software which runs on top of it and are released as distributions such as Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Debian, and others.

Check out distrowatch.com for a good look at how many distributions of Linux and other open source operating systems there are.

As far as what your needs are in regard to being able to generate animated gifs and video editing look at http://www.sourceforge.net and search for: animated gif

Look at them and pick one that will do what you want. Select an open source one and you can of course always change it to do something more specific to your needs. (That's part of the FREE AS IN FREEDOM that I mentioned earlier, and a great thing about Open Source in general.)

if you want to run a specific windows application, you can always use something like WINE to run it. There are NUMEROUS windows applications which run on Linux using WINE just fine. Or if you need an actual install of Windows, you could look at possibly using one of the virtualization systems such as VMWare, QEMU, or one of several others as well.

There simply isn't anything that I need to do in my computing environment, that would possibly require my going back to being a Windows user., All of my needs are met within an acceptable comfort level.

For my personal needs, Linux fits and does a good solid job of meeting them.

For my business needs. Linux fits and does a good solid job of meeting them too.

- Jack
- zipperback

[Martin]

I agree, there is no good, stable, easy video-editing package yet. I'd be willing to pay for an iLife style package of av software. It must be really hard to do video editing software. Cinelerra is good but a nightmare to use and install and is also more than I need. The others are just not yet up to scratch and will take a while to get there considering how small the teams appear to be - which is not surprising given the rewards. It appears that there are just too many competing projects and teams all trying to do roughly the same thing.

[Killtown]

I'd like to try Open Movie Editor (http://openmovieeditor.sourceforge.net/HomePage), but have no clue how to install it.

I tried to search for install help. Here's only things I could find:

http://packages.ubuntu.com/gutsy/graphics/openmovieeditor
http://linuxappfinder.com/package/openmovieeditor
http://qa.debian.org/debcheck.php?dist=sid&package=openmovieeditor

Anybody willing to help me install it? I currently running Ustudio.

[Killtown]

Some good news, the audio delay problem with Kdenlive was fix when following install instructions here:

http://doc.ubuntu-fr.org/applications/kdenlive

[dabl]

Killtown, it looks like you are the resident expert on KDEnlive -- how is it working? I followed your trail of crumbs, but I don't read French, svp excusez-moi. Would you consider writing a "how-to", assuming you feel KDEnlive is good enough for a noob to use to play with his video files? I just want to turn the .mpg I captured from VHS tape into a DVD for the family -- "amateur" is the operational term here.

Thank you! :)

[bribaetz]

:):popcorn: i like feisty fawn just got my free copy today thank you Ubuntu
but i want a video editor that is easy to install an ok working anyone know of one
(even if so i wont switch back to windows:guitar::guitar:

[Killtown]

Kdenlive 0.5svn just came out which looks promising. Does better with the text aligning in text clip and doesn't stretch images when importing.

Uninstall these three, then install in this order:

mlt: http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org/pool/feisty/3v1n0/mlt_0.2.3+svn20070720~3v1ubuntu0_i386.deb

mlt++: http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org/pool/feisty/3v1n0/mlt++_0.2.2+svn20070612~3v1ubuntu0_i386.deb

Kdenlive version 0.5svn: http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org/pool/feisty/3v1n0/kdenlive_0.5~svn20070714+3v1ubuntu2_i386.deb


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

All packages found here: http://3v1n0.tuxfamily.org/dists/feisty/3v1n0/index.html

[Sjovan]

I was reading this thread and Cinelerra sounded like a interesting prog, but what's up with this?

root@analplugg:/home/sjovan/installs and updates/Sound & Video/cinelerra-2.1# ./configure
[: 24: ==: unexpected operator
[: 31: ==: unexpected operator
./configure: 47: Syntax error: Bad fd number
root@analplugg:/home/sjovan/installs and updates/Sound & Video/cinelerra-2.1# make
make -f build/Makefile.cinelerra
sh: Syntax error: end of file unexpected (expecting "then")
make[1]: Entering directory `/home/sjovan/installs and updates/Sound & Video/cinelerra-2.1'
gcc -c -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -falign-loops=2 -falign-jumps=2 -falign-functions=2 -D_LARGEFILE_SOURCE -D_LARGEFILE64_SOURCE -D_FILE_OFFSET_BITS=64 -I../../freetype-2.1.4/include -I../../ -DHAVE_OSS -DHAVE_FIREWIRE soundtest.c -o i686/soundtest.o
Assembler messages:
Fatal error: can't create i686/soundtest.o: No such file or directory
make[1]: *** [i686/soundtest.o] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/sjovan/installs and updates/Sound & Video/cinelerra-2.1'
make: *** [all] Error 2
root@analplugg:/home/sjovan/installs and updates/Sound & Video/cinelerra-2.1#


Edit:
nwm... after reading another thread on this site I don't need any help :)

[jimbo8086]

I really understand Killtown's frustration about video editing in Linux. My case is a bit different though:

I bought a 64-bit processor more than one year ago and it is useless for that!

-I use Adobe Premiere Pro 2 on Windows XP, which cannot be compared to movie maker.
-From what I hear about Vista 64-bit, I wouldn't even crack it...
-I find no good video editing app on Linux 32-bit, and ...
-...there is NO video editing app on Linux 64-bit (or it's hidden in the 1'654'000th google page and nobody wants to unveal the secret)

Therefore, I have to forget about leaving my good old XP, which came with my computer when I bought it, long ago before my computer upgrade. The few frustrations it gives me are worth the price I paid (nothing).

What good is 64-bit Linux is all we got is Firefox, OpenOffice, and other things like that?
Scientific calculation? Let's find out Pi's 200G first digits then...

Well, I should have never listen to the friend who told me to by that S939 64-bit CPU ...

Good luck, Killtown!

[scorp001]

hmmmm seems a common problem for people switching from Windoz to Linux.

Try following this and you shud be getting better faster results than when u used windows.

1. install wine
2. Use VirtualDub [it is free] visit http://www.virtualdub.org/index.html
3. Install your fav codecs in wine - i recommend XviD visit http://www.xvidmovies.com/codec/

I do use another step when editing video - I decompress it fully - I have created a script file which is here:

#!/bin/bash
#

movie=$1

do_file ()
{
/usr/bin/mencoder "$movie" -vf scale=352:240,format=i420 -ovc raw -oac pcm -ofps 25 -o "$mpg_file"

}

movie=$1
mpg_file_1=`echo "$movie" | sed 's/\.\w*$/.raw.avi/'`
mpg_file_2=/home/ur_name/tempvideo/$mpg_file_1

mpg_file=${mpg_file_2//\ /\_}

do_file



OK if you do decide to use this script - u will need to change the path to a folder of your choosing - change "/home/ur_name/tempvideo/"

The file created will have an extension ".raw.avi"

also install the i420 codec in wine.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Helix_YUV_Codecs.htm

the script uses mencoder to make 352:240 ration raw video - u will need a few gb of free space tho.

results are spectacular and encoding time about half that when u run virtualdub in windows.

u can also copy this script to /.gnome2/nautilus-scripts folder and right click on anyfile to convert and it will be decompressed 4 u .

cheers

[MONODA]

Did you try to openmovie from snaptic package manager (not add.remove programs). I did and it works great for me. Anyway if you want to use windows software, try using WINE its a windows software emulator. Also if you wan to go back to windows anyway, make three partitions, one large one for your data, and two relativley small ones for you data and OSs. this is what I do and it runs great.

[Toadmund]

Video framerates other than 25 are not supported.
(Mine are 15 fps.)

I was happy to see that openmovie was in synaptic, but why, why, why do I have to run into problems I shouldn't have to deal with! :mad:

All I want to do is make a video with acompanying music without the video/audio unsynchronising because for some reason one times out faster in time length.

I am being held back on my project here because I can't find a usable video editor.

[MONODA]

try kdenlive its in the repositories as well. its pretty good it has everything u aksed for.

[Toadmund]

Kdenlive gives me the sync problems.

[pietro_spina]

Has anyone attempted to use Blender to edit video... I hear it's not just a modeling tool anymore...

-p

[Toadmund]

At this point I'll try anything that works.
Downloading now from Synaptic.

Now to bust my brains with another one.


OK, seems with blender I have no sound, seems to be a known issue, or maybe I just can't turn up the volume?
I turned the gain up all the way, but I think there is something else...

I need to get this stuff (my video project) on the go!

[Toadmund]

OK, for one thing (and to bump this thread a bit)
In Kdenlive
I have extracted the sound from the video file (.mov)

My video file is 00:07:53:27 in duration.
The audio file is 00:06:48:13 in duration.

(remember, from the SAME .mov file)

That is where the sync problem comes in, when I right click on the file it has an option to 'edit clip properties' where you can apparently adjust the timing of an audio or video clip, but alas, it does not work.

Does anyone else have this problem, how can I remedy this?

I feel like a racehorse with a broken leg here, I'd prefer a splint over a shotgun!

Thanks.

PS, how may I adjust the FPS in Kdenlive?

[Toadmund]

I was really starting to like Blender, despite me having no sound, so I try to figure out how to get sound.
Then I read this at the bottom from here:
http://blender.instinctive.de/downloads/release/docs/audiosequencer.html
* Poor soundcards will give poor results. Don't expect your on-board AC97 chip to work at all.



JUST FREAKIN' GREAT! ](*,)

Blender even has the ability to sync the sound with the video, of which out of sync-ness is my major issue.

Can't I ever win with this?!

[Toadmund]

My Kdenlive problem with synchronization has been solved. (NTSE is problematic)

Go to (Kdenlive) Settings->configure Kdenlive->default project->DV PAL for video format, press OK.

Everything is now in sync for me now!
Do this before you start your project, you may have to restart Kdenlive.

Hope this helps.