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Film Gimp
gosand writes "DesktopLinux.com is running this story about Film Gimp. It is a movie editor based on The Gimp that movie studios have been developing for their own use for a while now. The article is an interview with Robin Rowe about Film Gimp's use, and includes some interesting info about the film industry's use of GNU/Linux desktops. One quote worth noting: 'Studios have become the leading desktop users of Linux. Three hundred Linux desktops at Dreamworks. That's amazing! While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source. Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues.'"
I initially read the tite as "Film Gump" and thought that Jon Katz was back writing his inane drivel once again.
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
Editing films is like a box of chocolates....
- Forrest Gimp.
...because it helped to generate that atrocious looking dog in the scooby-doo movie. ;)
"Quoting famous computer scientists out of context is the root of all evil (or at least most of it) in programming." - K
the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source
It seems to be implying that the studios are doing it out of love, but methinks that they are finding that it's cheaper, and more flexable (their programmers can get their hands on all the code)...
Not that this is a bad thing, just that it's not because they hate MSFT...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues
Not likely. They're in the movie business to make money, anything their customers use for free is a threat, anything they use for free is more money.
Sig is on vacation
FilmGimp? Can they not change the name to something more politically correct? ie:
- FilmChallenged
- FilmSpecial
- FilmJerrysKids
- FilmTheres"Abilitity"In"Disability"
- FilmDroolingTard
Hmm.. no, on second thought "FilmDroolingTard" is out.
Trolling is a art,
Of course, Scooby Doo would have been overpriced at "free", but that's completely beside the point.
John
Is it strictly correct to call this a movie editor, or should it be called a frame editor or something, since it's not for true editing or compositing (like Avid), but for frame-by-frame clean-up?
I'm really glad to see that Film Gimp work (which seemed dead or at least very sleepy for a while) is actually continuing. Thanks, Robin Rowe!
... I just hope that any new menu approaches are offered as options rather than The New Way.
:)
As I understand it (can anyone improve my understanding?) a lot of the work done for Film Gimp will likely end up rolled back into Gimp. This sounds great. I hope though that the "right click" menus are not completely replaced; I rather like the way they work. I understand that a lot of people don't like them, though
CMYK is the constant complaint I hear wrt to Gimp vs Photoshop, even from people who aren't sure what CMYK is or why they should want one for the kitchen. So I do hope that film gimp work results in CMYK support.
So after "that awful interface" (not my opinion, but hey) and CMYK support, what's the *next*-biggest complaint people have about the GIMP?
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
Film gimp adds lots of support for superior playback. However, the biggest and most importanted different is that it uses 16 bits per channel instead of only 8 like the regular gimp. That means that instead of roughly 16 million colors, you get 16 million squared colors. This adds much less chance of rounding errors on compositing, and gives you more room to play with when adjusting brightness and color balance over 8 bit images.
The downside is that film gimp is based on an old version of the gimp, and it doesn't really look like that is going to change soon. But at least they are talking about syncing up a bit before 2.0 whereas before they seemed to be planning on waiting for the Gimp 2.0.
I'm a loser baby, so why don't you kill me.
Content Restrictions Issue != Linux/Open Source Issues.
This article has nothing to do with the MPAA campaigning for content restrictions. It's all well and good that the movie studios have discovered Linux and have built FilmGimp, but again, what does this have to do with Open Source? Not a damn thing.
Why? Because the various Open Source licenses don't cover content created with their software, unlike the stuff the Evil Empire could pull if it wanted to.
blog |
from working two years trying to sell a piece of technology to the members of the entertainment industry, I have come to realize that there is no group more interested in getting something for nothing than the entertainment industry.
as a result, I'm not at all surprised to find OSS in the major studios, being used to create stuff.
places like ILM exist successfully largely because people give them hardware for the joy of being known as the hardware that ILM chooses. then people ignore the fact that the reason they choose that hardware is largely based on it being free.
-- it's ridiculous how many people misspell ridiculous... (damn, damn, damn...)
There's a difference between movie production studios and other companies/corporations. Studios are extremely "tool-driven" in that the timeliness and quality of their production is extremely dependent upon the quality and flexibility of their tools.
The average corporation, on the other hand, is not as dependent on an extremely flexible desktop computer. All you need is a compter that runs an office suite, and they've already got that in Microsoft.
So the thought that studios might be setting an example for other corporations is a longshot indeed.
Does anybody know if this uses anything from GNU's Free Film Project?
I haven't really heard much about the project myself and so I haven't looked, but from what I read on GNU's info page about it it seems pretty interesting. Also the GNU Octal stuff seems interesting, what about that, every decent film editor has at least rudimentary sound manipulation utilities.
If they're not, can anybody give reasons why? Projects like those and GYVE (GNU Yellow Vector Editor) are things that confirm my faith in GNU and RMS in my times of doubt.
I wonder what the studio workers position is on MPAA/Palladium/TCPA et al.
They hate the TCPA Initiative just as much as you and I.
I have a friend who works for a major studio in Burbank, CA. Once I asked him about TCPA and Palladium in general, and he said the company execs sent out few bulletins in the past regarding secure computing, which was ironically a study done by Microsoft. What's notable here is that the wording described in the bulletin hinted how TCPA would stop the major studio motion picture leaks that hit the scene, hence preventing piracy.
So employees are being lied to also, just to answer your question.
Not to say that it's all bad for the studios or open source. The place I work for shelled out money for an open source developer to finish some of his development work on a program they wanted to use. Cheaper than buying a commercial package, and everyone benefitted.
But the biggest reasons the studios go for Linux is the cheaper/faster hardware (despite all sorts of compatibility headaches -- getting reliable 24 frame per second playback for 1k images is a little touchy) plus reduced porting costs for their legacy IRIX software and avoiding the whole Microsoft headache. The sysadmins really don't want to go there, and the studio doesn't really want to start springing for license packs for a few hundred users and a few hundred renderfarm machines.
According to the page, the rumor is that the committee saw the Film Gimp effort as the prototype, "the one you throw away" and decided to put their efforts into gegl.
Some good years ago I read an interview from some M$ developer in one serious journal (PC Magazine? Byte? I don't remember) where is showed pride that Windows95 had some piece of code that was taken from some free source. It seems it was something related to those irritating "lemedoitfoyou" wizards that populated Windows since then. Moreover, Windows has some features that were directly taken from X interface.
That's one example taken out of the *NIX world. On *NIX world we have tons of examples on how certain "purities" dissolve in the mass of needs and wishes of its users.
The fact that Warner Bros uses GPL is nothing extraordinary. And, frankly, it has nothing to do with their stances for protecting ownership. The problem of content, information sharing going beyond software is something to be dealt with extreme care. A film, book or other media content is not a product of software exclusively. And the means to share it should be completely different. In our software world, we still may play a barter between programs and things related to them. In the other spheres of activity, like films and books, the author is usually offering something that cannot be retributed in the same way. I am not a writer and I cannot offer a book for every book someone offers me.
Anyway, the restrictive politics that MPAA and its cousins play, surely hurt everyone. They are creating a feud out of certain media and they are seriously hindering the chances for people to have a right for information (entertainment is also a form of information) in these environments. Considering this highly restrictive stance and their use of free software tools is surely a paradox. But it does not mean they should free something. Anyway, their money helps a little our world, right? But they should be more democratic and flexible in what relates to the media they work with. Because if they will keep this stance, the consequences will backfire at them. For example, they may produce new fresh laws that will hinder developers from making cheap software they highly depend on...
While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source.
This is highly suggestive. AFAIK Open Source does not equate to being against anti-piracy measures. I am not trying to defend the MPAA here. I am only saying that these are two different things, and mixing them up is bad polics.
Being well balanced is overrated. -- John Carmack
Having Linux on the desktop of three hundred users at a film studio is a nice little step in the right direction. But, it is still a long shot from having Linux on the desktop of large corportions. Large corporations make industries move. If GE says to Micorsoft "we need a feature" then Microsoft delivers. When Boeing says to Dell give this or give me that, Dell delivers. When GE's tens of thousands of desktops, -or CocaCola's, or Procter & Gamble's or any other Dow thirty bell weather company - uses Linux, then there will be parades in the street proclaiming Linux has arrived on the desktop.
I HIGHLY doubt they switched to Linux desktops to save money. That may have been a benefit, but it couldn't have been the only reason. They switched because it worked better for their needs (and SGI was out). The article states that they do a lot of work to improve the software, and to customize it to do what they want. I have a feeling that is the real driving force - it is the solution they need.
Just because it's a large company and they chose to use open source software isn't anything special in my book. It's the logical choice for those in the know. But then again I guess it's nice to hear about Linux's ever-increasing acceptance.
I think that it is important becuase it is big movie studios. Companies? Big deal. Big companies who can get to the point where they rely on it for their business, and those same companies are fighting for DRM? Hmm, a little more interesting. Not that having Linux in house will prevent them from supporting DRM, but if they do it, they will feel the effects. The more people that use it, the better.
My using it doesn't give it credibility, but Dreamworks using it sure as hell does.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
depends on if they're distributing the program or not. IIRC one of the reasons people bitch about some of the corporate opensource licences (like Apple's) was because they made it a requirement that you released the source code. Correct me if I'm wrong here, but that's the impression I got.
T Money
World Domination with a plastic spoon since 1984
Maybe not on the desktops, but on the render farms, some studios have more linux cpu power than most research institutes.
At a fairly small studio, we had 500 dual proc systems clustered. I know that the larger, California based studios have at least twice as many. And some places make a big deal about ordering 200 boxes...
-Tim
-I just work here... how am I supposed to know?
It's about the tool. Whatever tool will get them the biggest bang for the buck. If a $5k/seat tool would do it better than a free one (and return a better product/movie at the end), then they'd use that instead.
How many studios are using Blender instead of Maya/3DSMax/Lightwave for real production work? Very, very few, if any. Even though Blender has the potential to save serious $$, it's just not good enough.
It appears FreeGimp is good enough, so that's why they use it.
"If a conventional monitor can't display the colors at that depth then how does the film editor know exactly what will end up on film after printing?"
I think you're looking at it the wrong way. It's not about what's displayed on the screen, it's about having enough color information to prevent color banding when doing things like brightness and contrast adjustments. The color banding is a result of rounding errors that stair-step the color values when adjusted too heavily. 16-bit images have a greater degree of accuracy, so rounding errors are reduced, as is the resulting color banding.
The end result is dithered down to 24-bits, but anything can look good at 24-bits. It's not a problem until you need to tighten in on information. It's kind of like resizing an image from 320 by 240 to 640 by 480. The image looks great at 320, but there are artifcacts to blowing it up to 640. If there was subpixel information in the original image, then the expansion to 640 would go a lot smoother. Try to imagine that in the color space.
*hoping I expressed that in a way that makes sense*
> If a conventional monitor can't display the colors
:)
> at that depth then how does the film editor know
> exactly what will end up on film after printing?
Not a dumb question at all -- unless by dumb question you mean one that will start hour-long religious arguments that have no resolution
Seriously, one typically sets up one's monitor or display software to show a 'window' into the film's dynamic range. You can choose where you want to clip the bright values based on what part of the scene you're working on.
In the end you can get a good enough idea of what will show up on film that you are rarely too surprised -- and if you are surprised, you make changes based on your experience, and film it out again.
thad
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
"We use Film Gimp on all talking animal jobs"...
Reason enough to pull the plug on this baby right here and now.
**>>BELCH
Question: What are the implications of Film Gimp?
Film Gimp is the most successful open source tool in feature motion picture work today. Programmers at many studios are helping development, including Rhythm & Hues, Sony Pictures Imageworks, and ILM. This is great cooperation in an industry that historically has been rather secretive.
Studios have become the leading desktop users of Linux. Three hundred Linux desktops at Dreamworks. That's amazing! While the MPAA is campaigning for new restrictions on content, the artists at the studios are using and helping create open source. Having Linux and open source as a crucial part of studio operations may help executives rethink their corporate position on open source and Linux issues.
Movie studios migt be giving back to the community by helping develop the tools but this is completely different from the studios giving away the IP created with these tools. Because the studios benefit from OSS is not enough reason for the studio execs to allow their IP to be freely distributed. Don't expect this to happen anytime soon, if ever.
Perhaps RMS should add a line to the GPL which requires any work created with GPL based tools must be given to the community under the same terms as source code.
Of course, this is true, but it's also important to remember that anti-piracy legislation (which is really what the {RI,MP}AA is shooting for) has and probably will continue to have negative effects for free software and open source, and not just a link by way of Slashdot.
For example, the DMCA has created a crime out of creating a "circumvention device" (i.e. CSS). So, to play DVDs on my Linux laptop, an entirely legitimate use, I must download a CSS decryptor from a country that doesn't have the DMCA (yet).
Attempts to legislate a DRM requirement will also have a very chilling effect on free software, as it would really be impossible for free software to meet any DRM requirements, as its source is open.
First let's go over what DRM is going to be:
- X86 CPU manufacturers are (in the most likely senario) going to add instruction opcodes, or more likely, additional BIOS interupts, which are used for isolating a segment of memory from all but a "trusted" source, a process of some sort, be it a driver, application, whatever. It will be authenticated by a key, yadda yadda. The point is, the HARDWARE will lock-out access to this memory block by all other processes on the machine. Therefore, program A cannot read, write, touch, smell, send a love letter too, or call program B's protected memory block on the phone to say hello. To the rest of the machine, sans program A, this block does not and never did exist.
- Microsoft is implementing "Palladium" as the software end to this scheme. It will be a system in Windows which does the work of authenticating the use of these features as an abstraction layer in the Windows API. Windows Media Player, for example, might download encyrpted content from the 'net into a protected memory zone, so other programs would be unable to rip it for saving & possible later re-distrobution. It could also be used to completely isolate processes from each other in hardware, which would also prevent many types of viral activity (but not all, imagine a process is taken over by some network exploit and code is saved to the disk, it woudl work in any isolated segement it is loaded into...), and improve general security of sensitive e-mail, documents, data in general.
The way I see it, this scheme offers ADVANTAGES for Linux. For one, Linux won't impose the pay-for-use services I can envision Microsoft and MPAA/RIAA types pushing for (i.e. imagine the MPAA strikes a deal with MS, and each time you watch a DVD in your computer, you are charged a $0.05 fee, with no way around it, in addition to not being able to rip the DVD [well, using the standard driver, anywaysThen there is always the "YEAH RIGHT" crowd, those who insist this is root of all evil and I should remove my head from my ass and smell the reality. Most would also claim the smell before I took my head out of my ass would match this particular reality, but I'm not quite so sure (heh). Think about it, if DRM is going to cripple hardware to the point where it will destroy the open source community, a community which has proven time and again its methods work and its craftsmanship is that of quality - a community which the government (of both the US and foreign nations) has begun to take notice of and actually embrace - a community which competes directly with Microsoft; do you really think they'd get away with it? The NSA has their own Linux distro. Suddenly Microsoft and Intel create a system which only allows Windows to run on previously open hardware?
The DOJ would flush them both down the toilet for extreme monopolistic practices before it would even be reported on Slashdot. The recent court desision also left a somewhat open end for amendments to the settlement, I'm sure that would "get in on the action too".
I really wasn't a big fan of the whole DRM idea when I first heard it, but the Slashdot crowd tends to get a little over-excited at times. Between seeing what this whole DRM project has evolved into, and given the current state of the technology world (and for that matter, the world as a whole), I dont' see how it wouldn't be complete suicide for DRM-supporting companies to lock out potential 3rd-party developers of any kind. The system is meant to protect content, not monopolies.
Unless it's a monopoly on content. But that is a different discussion...
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?