Linux Video Editor Cinelerra 1.0 Released

Ogerman writes "At long last, Heroine Virtual's Cinelerra 1.0 has been released. This successor to the discontinued Broadcast 2000 project is absolutely amazing and should give Adobe Premiere and others a run for their money as it continues to mature. So, fire up those digital camcorders, get to work on all your latent indie-film ideas, and help put ol' Jack V. out of a job. Here's the 1.0 Press Release." For those unfamiliar with Cinelerra, check out the screen shots.

Comments

When will programmers learn?

[stubear]

Have these guys never heard of The Interface Hall of Shame? You should NEVER EVER utilize color in an interface where color correction is required. The UI hinders the user's ability to faithfully adjust colors.

I also wouldn't go as far as saying this application will give Premiere a run for its money because Premiere benefits GREATLY from its relationship with other Adobe applications. I can edit my work in Premiere then import the entire project, tracks, effects and all, into After Effects for post production work and final rendering. Not to mention the ability to import native Photoshop and Illustrator files without any special work arounds.

I also didn't see anything in the feature list which suggested this application is capable of editing web enabled video (QT, Real and/or WMV)

Re:When will programmers learn?

[gwernol]

ave these guys never heard of The Interface Hall of Shame [iarchitect.com]? You should NEVER EVER utilize color in an interface where color correction is required. The UI hinders the user's ability to faithfully adjust colors.

Exactly my reaction, except digging a little deeper I found the application is skinnable, meaning it could be muted to an acceptable level. However if they really want to go head-to-head in the professional market they should change their web site and default skin to something more appropriate.

If they can't get even this most obvious and important UI issue right it is hard to trust them on the rest of the product. It looks very unprofessional. The product names do not help here either.

I also didn't see anything in the feature list which suggested this application is capable of editing web enabled video (QT, Real and/or WMV)

They support QuickTime, and Ogg Vorbis audio support is nice. I assume they support all the QT audio formats as well.

Re:When will programmers learn?

[beens]

To my knowledge, no one is capable of editing web-enabled video like Real, or WMV. Most applications edit in an uncompressed format like avi or uncompressed quicktime (depending on if you're on a Wintel machine or a Mac) and then allow you the option to export the completed cut as a Real or compressed Quicktime file. If not, there are plenty of third party apps that will do it for you. There's good reason for this, in that users who have encoded video for the web probably don't want people to be able to pull it down and edit it, not to mention the processing overhead that would come with having to decompress codecs like real or sorrenson. Plus, you'd run into quality issues when trying to composite visual effects or transitions (wipes, fades, etc). Final Cut Pro can't do it, and neither can Premiere. I certainly don't think this should be a strike against this fine looking application.

Yet another video app that ignores audio...

[Theaetetus]

First, let's start with the non-flamebait part: it's great to see another relatively cheap video editor out, as it puts filmmaking ability into the hands of the masses rather than just those able to afford $20k+ Avids.
iMovie and iDVD don't count, 'cause those are really just toys for making home movies or submissions to iFilm, but Final Cut Pro is/was a great competetor to Primere, with all of the features at less than half the price.

However, I'm an audio professional, and will happily and uniformly disparage all of these 'tools' for neglecting to have any real ability to edit audio. As just about anyone in the industry will tell you, audio is the bastard stepchild of video/film, with less than a tenth of any movie's budget spent on sound... and yet all of those same people will agree that sound is just as important as visuals, if not more - consider the Blair Witch Project, with cheap, shoddy visuals, but eerie and compelling audio to create the mood... Now imagine a rock-steady camera in a high-budget film, with sound that sounds like cheap vinyl... or even AM radio... It's just not acceptable, and nothing will alienate your audience sooner.

As an example of the downplay of audio, Digital Video Magazine has an ad in the last issue offering a turnkey video editing system... Dual 1 GHz G4, Final Cut Pro2, 80 GB Firewire drive, Superdrive, Firewire Media Converter, Sony's $5000 prosumer digital camera, 23-inch Apple LCD cinema screen, Sony 19" NTSC reference monitor (>$1000!), and... Harmon Kardon SoundSticks!

$20,000 USD for this system, and you're getting a $150 pair of speakers... which, frankly, suck (I just wrote an article to be published in December about those speakers, after running them through tests of frequency response, distortion, noise level, etc., and you'd do better with a $150 pair of headphones... but they aren't as pretty).

Additionally, none of these programs have the ability to scrub audio, a MUST as any real audio editor will tell you, very few of them will let you edit on a resolution smaller than a frame (30 fps means that 1 frame = 33 ms... However, a 5 ms delay is audible as phasing, and as low as a 25 ms delay can be audible as a distinct echo), most of them have linear VU meters (rather than logarhythmic, like our hearing... consider, with 0 dB FS as the top of the scale, -3 dB FS is half the power, and on a linear meter, half the distance down... However, -3 dB is a difference in level that is really only noticed by trained ears... Additionally, the SMPTE standard for digital audio is to have normal level (0 VU) at -18 dB FS... Or almost off the scale on any program with linear meters... That's freakin' insane. As a comparison, try using Photoshop with the brightness on your monitor turned down to almost 0. You're trying to work reasonably at the threshhold of noise of the system you're working on.

Also, the EQs in most of these programs have their frequency range set linearly, too... Human hearing goes from roughly 20 Hz to 20 kHz (roughly - young women and children can frequently hear higher frequencies, usually topping out by 23-26 kHz), but our interpretation of frequency is logarythmic: the top octave goes from 10 kHz to 20 kHz (or, the top HALF of a linear scale). The next octave (or, the next lowest quarter on a linear scale) is from 5 kHz to 10 kHz...
You don't start getting into useful ranges until you're in the bottom 32nd of the scale, from 500 Hz to 1 kHz - the fundamental of the human voice goes from about 125 Hz to about 500 Hz, most of the vowels and formants are from about 500 Hz to about 1.5 kHz, and the consonants are from about 1.5 kHz up to about 4 kHz (for the sibilants). There's very little energy in the human voice above 5 kHz... So have fun setting your EQs properly when you're looking at a linear scale that emphasizes the top two octaves... ABOVE what you're dealing with.

Then again, the two major audio editing software programs on the market, ProTools and CoolEditPro also miss some of these, so I guess I shouldn't complain too much. When you deal with sub-standard tools everywhere, you have to give up some expectations

By comparison, look at the Orban Audicy (used in most radio stations for production), and the Fairlight Merlin and D.R.E.A.M. Stations, used for most film/television production.

Sorry. :)

-T

Re:Yet another video app that ignores audio...

[foobar104]

Friend, everything you said is perfectly valid, but... video finishing is not audio finishing. Fire, DS, EditBox, et cetera are not audio finishing equipment. They have audio input and output capabilities, of course, and you can mix tracks and whatnot. But that's just for scratch audio. The real audio will get mixed and laid down by an audio professional in a ProTools (or similar) suite after the editor finishes the video.

Basically, the reason why nobody cares about audio in video editing software is because the guy doing the video work is never the same person as the guy doing the audio work. Instead, it's two different people, both highly trained professionals, with totally different areas of expertise.

Now, if you want to complain about how a particular audio finishing program is inadequate, be my guest. But complaining about how video editing software is a bad audio editing tool is kind of like complaining about what a poor job your screwdriver does of carving your Christmas goose.

Re:Yet another video app that ignores audio...

[VValdo]

Why should you have to export your audio tracks into an external program in order to do scrubbing or effects editing? That is like Photoshop requiring you to export your alpha channels into an external program in order to edit them separately from your RGB channels. Audio is an integral part of the video experience yet is treated like a redheaded stepchild when it comes to NLE editors.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. My analogy is exactly correct. If you want to insert an image into your word processed document you do not create that image in Word. You use a program that is designed to create that document, specifically. If it's a graph, you might generate it with Excel. If it's a bitmapped image, you might touch it up in Photoshop. In fact, you might take your images from one graphics program to another, layering it and adding 3d-generated images, and compositing and in short getting it all nice and ready before you plop it in your word processor.

Now, why does audio work demand its own program(s)? Why is it not like alpha channels in photoshop? Because you're not giving audio post enough credit. It's not as simple as "throw in some effects and some scrubbing" and we're done.

WHY AN AUDIO PROGRAM IS A STANDALONE APP

1. Combining audio and video into one master editing app wastes system resources An audio editing program frequently requires significant processing power to manipulate and add effects to multiple tracks. If your NLE is tapping your CPU w/displaying and uncompressing video, that's quite a bit taken from the audio.

2. You are not editing the final recorded sounds When editing movies, you are generally editing with a "scratch track" taken from the field, which is frequently unusable. It's not the job of the editor to deal with sound issues. It's just not. In many productions, the sound track must be built from the ground up through ADR ("looping"), through peices of alternate takes, etc.

3. Editing and Post-Audio are different professions, different fields. In real life, each is a speciality with its own tools. Expecting an editor to have to deal with audio crap in a NLE, or an audio tech to deal with picture is ridiculous. Even if it's a small one-man production-- when you're editing, you don't need to obsess over sound-- you don't want to have to deal with 50 layers of sound. It's only when you've got picture lock that you move on to the next phase-- the audio, which logically deserves its own program. You can go back and forth anyway, so why not do what makes sense?

4. There is rarely one final audio mix When you mix a film, you will typically create several mixes-- 35mm and 16mm have different frequency ranges-- video sound can be encoded in a number of different ways using a variable number of audio sources. You may want to have many, many mixes of your film (keeping sound effects seperate from dialogue so that you can put alternate language tracks, music tracks may be mixed in different ways, etc.). To try to do all this from a NLE is insanity.

5. Non-linear editors and audio editors are physically different things With an Avid, you got two monitors, maybe a third for video. You've got the keyboard, and you've got the computer. Maybe you have some extra drives, a camera, and a deck of some sort. The only funky gizmo you might have for Avid is one of those shuttle things. Protools looks different. No multiple monitors-- just one big one for viewing one of many many many audio tracks you might be using. No shuttle. No decks. Add in a rack of DSPs, maybe some MIDI devices. A keyboard or two. A DAT, a TASCAM. And of course, any good audio editor will have amixing board-- it's hard to nudge the volume for seven tracks on the fly with one mouse to get just that right dialogue mix with three equalized microphone positions, and some ambiance...

6. Video apps use video plugins, audio apps use audio plugins -- if you wanna compare to photoshop plugins, look at this simple fact-- video apps usually allow for plugins to allow you to do funky effects, video filters, and transitions like wipes, dissolves, morphs -- video stuff. Audio apps usually have plugins like phlange, reverb, pitch shifting, MIDI stuff, effects filters, compressors, and other frequency manipulation stuff. They're different types of effects for different types of programs.

7. Moving between applications is precisely what the OMFI (Open Media Framework Interchange Format) and similar formats are designed to do. You are SUPPOSED to export your audio information and take it into a program that is specific for audio.

So, ok--- could you have some kind of "super-program" that lets you edit picture and do fine audio tuning in the same app? Yes. Would it be unweildy? YES. Would it suck to have to rely on a single vender for all you want in a single program? YES. Would it be a pain in the ass? YES.

Why not just throw in some 3d modeling/rendering software, a compositing progrram, and the script-writing software in there too? And an email program so it can invite your friends to the premiere of your project?

In short-- It is not the role of an non-linear editor to do a significant amount audio effects. As they are different professional fields, they are and should be different programs.

W

RECOMMENDED FRONT END SYSTEM:

[FyRE666]

From their page:

Dual 1.6Ghz Athlon.
512MB RAM for standard definition.
1GB RAM for high definition.
200 GB storage for movie files.
Gigabit ethernet

So this is the recommended system? If this software outfit are anything like games companies and the recommended systems you see on the side of the box, it looks like you'll need twin Cray 6's with 16TB of RAM to do anything useful ;-)

BSD & Avids

[Nessak]

I'm a video engineer who works out of a network Broadcast center in NYC on a syndicated news program. The company justed invested a huge sum of money into a newish Avid system call "Unity for News". No, this isn't for home or anyone who is not professional broadcast. But it is a fiber system with 7tb storage and a number of other cool features.

One of the more interesting (and stable) peices of this system is a box called an Avid Airspace. It's a box with some very fast RAID drives, a few fiber/GigE cards, and three NTSC/PAL video I/O cards. Each one of these cards can take in a 601 digital feed (this is better then D1 digital found on minidv/firewire cameras.) Each one can output a 601 feed too. In fact, the show I work on broadcast live from this box. (Lifetime network also baught a simalar system, I've been told. Aslo a few local news stations are switching over to this system.)

Now the interesting part - these boxes run FreeBSD and a custom WM on X. All the other peices of the new Unity system (all win2k) are flakly, but these BSD boxes not only run great, but they output live broadcast quality video to millions of people daily.

So, will Cinelerra support these cards? I don't think so. (I don't think you can buy one of these cards without the system and I don't think the drivers are Free/Open.) But know that FreeBSD is used in more then just the CGI for big budget films.

Re:video capture

[dcstimm]

I use the Wintv GO Hauppuage card and I can record tv shows with mplayer, xawtv, and vcr,

I like vcr the best because it has timed recording.

Here is a example:

vcr -g /dev/video0 -c 'divx ;-) low-motion' -v -p 38 -F 30 -q 100 -m mono -b 64 -t 32m tv-show.avi

-g is to set the device (my wintv card is /dev/video0)

-c 'divx ;-) low-motion' is the video setting

-v is for verbose

-p 38 is the channel to record

-F 30 is the frame rate

-q 100 is quality and its set to 100 which is best

-m is to set mono or stereo

-b 64 is the bitrate for the mp3 audio (64 is perfect for mono audio and 128 and higher is good for stereo)

-t 32 is the timmer, I have it set for 32min

and last is the file I am saving it to, which is tv-show.avi

Hope this shows you how easy it is.

Plus you can stick vcr in your cron tab to record tv while you are away.

vcr comes with most distros.

Lossless MPEG-2 editing?

[koreth]

Didn't see this addressed in the documentation, so maybe someone here knows: Will Cinelerra edit MPEG-2 program streams without reencoding the audio and video? It'd be swell to be able to take the MPEG-2 encoded video from a ReplayTV or TiVo, clip out commercials, and burn to a DVD, but the trick is to do it without reencoding (which would cause quality loss.) Obviously the software would have to generate new keyframes in a few places depending on where the edit points were, but it ought to be able to copy most of the stream without modification.

The only software I've found that does this is M2-Edit by MediaWare Solutions, but its UI is awful and it's Windows-only.