Using Ubuntu for media students

[hate_camel]

Hi, I work as a technician for a University and was wondering if anyone could give me some advice regarding using Ubuntu for multimedia work.

For some time we have been looking for a stable, simple way to allow our students to edit video, sound and images. I work for a school of creative arts, film and media and our students are not very technologically savvy. For video editing they are currently using Avid media composer installed on a suite of XP based PC's. This is fine for the students who want to be editors when they leave but for the others (the majority) the Avid software is just overkill and they really struggle to use it.

My plan was to install Ubuntu on some spare machines we have lying around and try and find some simple programs to allow basic multimedia production.

As I've never used a linux distribution before I'm not sure if there are any suitable programs that we could use, and I'm not sure how difficult Ubuntu would be for the students to use.

Any advice on this would be very much appreciated, thanks

[Quicky]

Hi Camel. While it’s certainly possible, Linux isn’t really the spiritual home for video editing. Software such as Kino allows (very) basic editing and capture, while Cinelerra provides more advanced editing but with an interface that is borderline insane, and would likely prove far more daunting to a novice than Avid would.

There are other Linux alternatives, but nothing is particularly standout – my advice, although potentially expensive, would be a Mac with iMovie. In general I’ve found beginners to be more accepting of a transition from Windows to a Mac than Windows to Linux, and in terms of ease of use and user-friendliness, Mac systems and software are difficult to top.

That said, since Ubuntu, Kino, Cinelerra and its open-source counterparts are all free, there’s nothing to stop you trying it out yourself first and judging their suitability.

[hate_camel]

Thanks for the reply Quickly. I think I'll just have to jump in at the deep end myself and install Ubuntu and see how I get along with it. I agree with you on the ease of use of Macs, I was just prompted to look at the Linux idea because of the number of old PC's we are about to inherit in our building. Thanks again.

[lledurt]

I am now to video editing and I like cinelerra, but it is very advanced(powerful) I have also installed kdenlive it is as easy to ues as microsoft movie maker, but more powerful. It is stable and a good jumping off point. Although I have not used it yet, Blender is easy to install and does both video editing, and animation. I think you can also try it on windows.
P.J.