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View Full Version : can blender's video editor ever match popular mainstream editors?



Ascenti0n
July 2nd, 2009, 11:34 AM
Let's face it, whilst there are many NLE (Non Linear Editor) video editors, that are open source and available on the Linux platform, none of them can compete with other popular video editors, as found on Windows and Mac platforms, at least not at the semi-pro (prosumer) and professional levels. One of the main reasons is that building a video editor at this level, is a hugely complicated and time consuming task.

Blender 3D, is a well know, open source and multi-platform, capable, 3D animation, compositing and modeling application, that also happens to have a working video editor inbuilt.

Blender is a project that is alive and well, and it is improving all the time, but can it ever compete with the likes of Sony Vegas or Adobe Premiere, given these are dedicated video editors, with dozens of full-time developers working on them?

If you often use a video editor, I'd like to hear your 'take' on this.

SunnyRabbiera
July 2nd, 2009, 11:39 AM
Actually there a few video editors that are very promising, Pitivi and Kdenlive both seem to be very viable once they hit more stability.
As for Blender, its very promising too...
Right now OSX and windows have the advantage on video editing but once demands are made there will be plenty to choose from.

Swagman
July 2nd, 2009, 11:41 AM
MainActor was actually VERY good.

No-one bought it for Linux though.

Screengrab (http://img03.picoodle.com/img/img03/3/10/19/f_MainActor00m_ad4bf2b.png)

Swagman
July 2nd, 2009, 11:46 AM
In fact... Here's a screengrab taken this minute of MainActor running through Wine on my system

Screeny (http://www.upload3r.com/serve/020709/1246531483.jpeg)

It bombs out when loading vid into it though and as I don't video weddings & stuff any more I can't be arsed to try and sort it out.

Grant A.
July 2nd, 2009, 03:30 PM
I think the quality of Big Buck Bunny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Buck_Bunny) really shows Blender's promise.

Ascenti0n
July 2nd, 2009, 04:19 PM
I think the quality of Big Buck Bunny (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Buck_Bunny) really shows Blender's promise.

I agree about Big_Buck_Bunny, but I'm more interested in the video editor part of Blender, comparing it to others as in my OP.

MaxIBoy
July 2nd, 2009, 08:38 PM
I've never used Blender for video editing.

I have used KDEnlive, though. KDEnlive is pretty good, actually. Unfortunately, it has a tendency to crash every twenty to thirty minutes (or at least, it did the last time I tried it, which was months ago.) I was able to use it for school projects, but it was kind of annoying. Especially since it takes so long to start up. Luckily, it automatically saved my work every time it had to shut down.

I should try it out again, maybe it has gotten more stable since then.

Ubuntiac
July 3rd, 2009, 12:56 AM
Kdenlive and Pitivi have promise.

For the moment though, I use Blender's VSE. It's not the fastest, nor the most intuitive, but it's stable, flexible and it works. As a bonus there's also some very nice compositing built in (although you can't output directly from the VSE to the compositor). Regarding intuitiveness, while a bunch of things aren't obvious without a tutorial, it *is* simple enough to learn quickly. Just have a good tutorial on hand would be my advice and you'll be fine in no time... oh and make sure you avoid the most common mistake... not having render output set to FFMPEG and not having the Audio Demux button on. (The symptoms of which are no audio in your video)

Mr. Picklesworth
July 3rd, 2009, 02:01 AM
Here's a nice bit of video editing done with Blender:
http://troy-sobotka.blogspot.com/2009/02/right-where-it-belongs.html

Blender 2.5 (which I can't stop reminding people of. Sorry, I just love it to bits!) is coming together great, too. While video editing isn't a main focus there, I'm sure the interface changes will play out well for that component. You can get a nice sampling here:
http://montagestudio.org/blog/blender/blender-2-5-overview-video/

Blender's real strength as a video editor comes from the way everything integrates. It's a graphics package (http://troy-sobotka.blogspot.com/2009/02/start-countdown.html) that leverages 3D graphics technology at its core. The connections aren't very obvious pre 2.5, but this means with a few strokes of genius it would become something better than Vegas. It would be a complete, all in one platform for video editing and effects that rivals Premier, After Effects and 3DS Max simultaneously. All without flinching, with a half second load time and an astounding lightness to boot.
Vegas will look like Windows Movie Maker -- no, worse: Pinnacle -- by comparison.

Sealbhach
July 3rd, 2009, 03:45 AM
And there's Yo Frankie made with the Blender Game engine which has got really nice graphics.