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I'm telling you, software makers NEED liability. It's the only way we will ever have responsible programs released. Right now, software makers can get away with selling products that have defects in them on the order of ones that if they were in cars, would send Ford or GM into receivership.

I'm concerned that attaching liability to software will send a chill through the software development community, especially the free/open source software projects. Large corporations might have the resources to insure against and pay liability claims. Individuals developing software in their free time certainly do not.

In my opinion, writing software is an exercise in freedom of speech, and deserves the same protections afforded to other forms of speech. If I make my speech available to others, under the condition that they accept responsibility for all damage that may occur as a result of its use, I believe that is reasonable.

A few thoughts...

1. Perhaps the burden of non-EULA-immune liability should only be attached when a piece of software is designed to transport, support or safeguard human life, and has failed to meet specific safety standards. Otherwise, I believe you're opening up a huge can of worms, in the already litigious American culture.

2. Software developers and vendors should have the right to dictate any other terms for licensing their software, including limitation of liability, waiver of warrantee, and "as is" delivery. Users and consumers are free to decline to use any software whose licenses are not acceptable to them.

3. Some free software developers have already stopped releasing their software, citing concerns over liability. Broadcast 2000 is one example I am aware of. This is a concrete example of the chilling effects liability can have on software development.

4. People are free to choose software platforms that are more stable, reliable and less prone to being exploited by viruses and worms. If they persist in using unsecure platforms, and take no steps to protect themselves (e.g. antivirus software), they shouldn't be particularly surprised by the outcome.

5. Those who purposely unleash viruses and worms on the Internet with the intent to do damage should be answering for their actions.

</rant>

VirtualDub runs quite well under (recent?) incarnations of Wine. As do many other video-related tools. Oh, and of course there's also Broadcast2000 (originally found here, but now also to be found here), and (for the more adventurous) its successor Cinelerra, which is not on their main site but lives on the Sourceforge project site. Beware, compiling Cinelerra is not for the faint of heart.

VirtualDub runs quite well under (recent?) incarnations of Wine. As do many other video-related tools. Oh, and of course there's also Broadcast2000 (originally found here, but now also to be found here), and (for the more adventurous) its successor Cinelerra, which is not on their main site but lives on the Sourceforge project site. Beware, compiling Cinelerra is not for the faint of heart.

Heroinware? That sounds like something related to Heroine Virtual's software...

After a long period of deliberation on the matter, Broadcast 2000 has been removed from public access due to excessive liability. In recent months the line between warranty exemption and liability has become increasingly blurred as more companies have liquidated and more individuals have begun to seek compensation. We've already seen several organizations win lawsuits against GPL/warranty free software writers because of damage that software caused to the organization. Several involved the RIAA vs mp3/p2p software writers. Several involved the MPAA vs media player authors. You might say that warranty exemption has become quite meaningless in today's economy. While not related to either of these cases the distribution of Broadcast 2000 enhanced to unacceptable levels the risk of an individual experiencing significant financial damage due to the extremely expensive nature of high end video production and the high risk inherent in professional video business marketing. This has forced us to reconsider our liability protection at this time. We still plan to continue offering minor works for download and in the coming years, as the liability issues surrounding open source software are resolved, we expect to issue newer major works.

from Broadcast 2000 message

Where's my heroine warrior when I need him? sob. :-(

Have there really been lawsuits agains GPL/warranty free software beacuse of damage that software caused to such and such corporation? This sounds like a farce to me. And what does this mean, "While not related to either of these cases the distribution of Broadcast 2000 enhanced to unacceptable levels the risk of an individual experiencing significant financial damage due to the extremely expensive nature of high end video production and the high risk inherent in professional video business marketing"

I think someone like Richard Stallman or one of those hardcore open source/freesoftware guys should talk to these guys and knock some sense into them. Hey, I just thought of something...if they made their software GPL at one time in the past, then their source code must be floating around somewhere...unless they didn't distribute the source, which would mean they never were GPL, or were just violating GPL.

Hmm, they did cross-link to Heroine Warrior, whose site says:

After a long period of deliberation on the matter, Broadcast 2000 has been removed from public access due to excessive liability.

We've already seen several organizations win lawsuits against GPL/warranty free software writers because of damage that software caused to the organization. Several involved the RIAA vs mp3/p2p software writers. Several involved the MPAA vs media player authors. You might say that warranty exemption has become quite meaningless in today's economy.

While not related to either of these cases the distribution of Broadcast 2000 enhanced to unacceptable levels the risk of an individual experiencing significant financial damage due to the extremely expensive nature of high end video production and the high risk inherent in professional video business marketing.

This has forced us to reconsider our liability protection at this time. We still plan to continue offering minor works for download and in the coming years, as the liability issues surrounding open source software are resolved, we expect to issue newer major works.



Hmm.

--LP

After a long period of deliberation on the matter, Broadcast 2000 has been removed from public access due to excessive liability.

We've already seen several organizations win lawsuits against GPL/ warranty free software writers because of damage that software caused to the organization. Several involved the RIAA vs mp3/p2p software writers. Several involved the MPAA vs media player authors. You might say that warranty exemption has become quite meaningless in today's economy.

Fucking dmca....

Ok, label me as naive here, but how does the inclusion of MPEG-4 video have anything to do with Quicktime being available for Linux? (Which it already is by the way, in a manner of speaking.)

It isn't like the Sorenson codec couldn't run under Linux. It runs just find under BSD/Darwin with Quartz (read as OS X). Apple just has absolutely no interest in making a streaming video client for Linux.

The standard and original Quicktime libraries have been available on Linux for a while, check out http://www.heroinewarrior.com/quicktime.php3 but all of the "cool movie trailers" available on Apple's website are in Sorenson, and it's Sorenson that isn't available under Linux. Chances are, if they *do* embrace MPEG-4 it will probably be an Apple / Quicktime specific version so that we still won't see it under Linux.

However, I've read that their streaming video server runs just fine.

Just my 2 cents worth of nothing

t.

What I want is open source non-linear video editing software like Broadcast 2000... Shame it's no longer available.

I performed a search on google and found:

http://www.appwatch.com/Linux/App/1170/data.html
http://heroinewarrior.com/quicktime.php3

These appear to be libraries, not an actual player. I'll search around later, but I suspect if folks are looking for a QuickTime player they may be disappointed.

Look for a program called 'xanim' for starters. Another app which _might_ have quicktime support is 'xmms'.

According to http://www.heroinewarrior.com/bcast2000.php3, Broadcast 2000 is no longer available from the publishers. But you can still get it at Tucows.

A few people have complained that the process outlined is going to give horrible results. They'd probably be good enough for me, as I have a tin ear. Then again, it is the Backstreet Boys, so the resulting MP3s would still be painful.

source code

RPM/Binary

source code

RPM/Binary

Actually, it is not so much about Quicktime (which is just a wrapper, like avi) but about the codec used.
You can already get QT for Linux here or here. But you can't get the Sorenson codec used by most QT movies found on the net.
Sorenson has got an exclusiv deal with apple.

For nonlinear, nondestructive audio and video editing, check out Broadcast 2000, which is stable and has a good reputation. It's included in this distro, too.

Are these multitracking / hard disk recording packages new? And for this distro only?

Are there user reviews of any of these packages?

I'm still using a Mac and Deck or ProTools for multitracking / hard disk recording and would love a stabler, though just-as-able alternative ...

BeOS looked real good for awhile - especially Pebbles - but things have way slacked off. Any additional, personal usage info would be great.

I believe that both are included in this distribution (check the package list if you're not sure).

---

I think No Starch Press does a good job of making Linux applications accessible to non-technical/creative users. Yes, there's no substitute for experience, but Linux Music and Sound opened my eyes to applications on Linux that I had no idea existed, and I found The Blender Book to be very accessible. Now, I wish they would write a book on using Broadcast 2000, which was treated briefly in Linux Music and Sound. I think the press might evangelize a few users simply by having their book available at Barnes & Noble or whatever, reminding users there are free alternatives to Photoshop or Media 100, which can be out of the reach of many starving artists.
In additon, the instructions in the book are written for the layman, unlike much of the documentation included in RPMs or on websites, which seem to focus on revisions or technical feature discussions. Its about how to use the program, not how the program works or was made.
Finally, although the CDs No Starch includes with the books may not be the most up-to-date versions of the software, they are very useful for users who do not have broadband connections and may not be able to easily download large applications. Since they are all on one CD, it is trivial for a user to try many applications, finding which ones best suit his or her needs.

Or, were you looking for the ability to mix/create video or record video in one of many ways.

or did you just want to play those MPEG-1 (there are several others) or MPEG-2 or or

Basically the point I'm trying to make is that the multimedia stuff is there already. just use it.

The one piece I know of thats missing is Sorenson (sp?) codec quicktime player. anyone doing this, or know of a project that is?

It's really exciting to see several different groups independantly and together...

See, SmartTags(tm) aren't so bad after all.

However, QuickTime is just a way of storing digital audio and video, the same as AVI. There is Quicktime 4 Linux, and it supports several codecs, including DV and MotionJPEG. So, if you can find a QT clip not encoded with SorensonVision, you can watch it just fine on Linux. Also, I would imagine that it's only a matter of time before someone manages to hack the Windows SV codec into a Linux player, just like you can use Windows codecs with avifile.

come off crisp and play up to the cynic
clean and schooled right down to the minute

Sure... It rocks till you try to play back a large mpeg (which MediaPlayer will take forever to open and then stutter on).

It rocks till you try to record and export video using any of the codecs built into the MediaKit. Then you end up with clips that have audio/video sync problems and, using some combinations of codecs, clips that don't play back under any OS but BeOS.

If that's your definition of "rocks on multimedia," fine. I have higher standards.

Now Broadcast 2000 Rocks.

Ranessin

I mean, maybe they don't want the help or something, but the source code is available, and I think it's an opensource license. And it's being bundled with professional systems too. But you hardly hear anybody ever talking about Linux as a serious semi-professional or indy-film alternative to expensive alternatives like Adobe Acrobat.

Kudos to the Broadcast 2000 developers, they deserve way more recognition than they recieve. Linux can do not just 3D and animation, it's already a decent system for non-linear video editting too.

This article sounds like oms brought DVD video to linux.

From a user's perspective, this is simply wrong: I've tried to compile oms for several months now, and I have only had partial success. All the people I asked about OMS had the same problems. Most of the time, the CVS snapshot didn't compile because some sub-parts of OMS were incompatible with others. On good days, it compiled, but had dozens of bugs...

At the same time, other Linux DVD players appeared: xmovie played the .vob files, but with quite poor quality. VideoLAN presented a more useful DVD player, but it's user interface seemed a bit poor to me.

In November 2000, I had my first glimpse on xine. In those days, it was a tiny new project, not even designed to play DVDs "for legal reasons", as the xine people always say. But it had one remarkable feature: It simply worked! I Just had to configure; make; make install and it even played (unencrypted) DVDs. After a few days of searching, I even found the CSS Plugin, which enabled xine to play encrypted DVDs. Again, it was trivial to install...

In the Meantime, there has been a rush of new xine versions. The player has become much more mature, and it supports most features I need for DVD playing, even subtitles. The developer team has been very helpful. They really try to satify user needs. There are precompiled RPM, Slackware and Debian packages. The source is extremely portable, there are people running xine on FreeBSD, or even PowerPC machines.

To make it short: Xine simply works. I never had a reason to switch again...

It seems we have gone from none to too many movie solutions for the free unices. I am amazed at the sheer amount of duplication, but I guess that is the way we do things in the free software world.

GPL Movie systems listed from most mature to least, imo:

• Xine:
  • http://gape.ist.utl.pt/ment00/linuxdvd.html
  • http://xine.sourceforge.net/
• OMS/LiViD:
  • http://www.linuxvideo.org/
• XMovie:
  • http://heroinewarrior.com/xmovie.php3
• XTheater:
  • http://xtheater.sourceforge.net/

http://www.heroinewarrior.com/bcast2000.php3

blessings,

---

The guy claims quality/bandwith similar to DivX, but the codec is GPL, and is SMP-ready.

I don't have any personal experience with it, but if I were designing a Tivo-like system that's what I'd look at first -- especially if I was trying to do real-time high-compression video stuff and was willing to get some hefty CPU power it will pay off...

Of course you want one that can decode Quicktime 4 with the Sorenson codec. Well, this can't, but take a look and see what it can decode...

Broadcast 2000

LoB

Is right here Enjoy.


--
man sig