Slashdot Mirror
Free Software for Movie Production?
Ploum asks: " Like some folks, I like to take my mini-dv camera to make films. First, I was using Premiere, then Avid Xpress on Windows. But now I want to make [a movie] on my Debian box.
Everybody says that video under Linux is not possible but I want to do it! I want to write the scenario on Linux (maybe with a set of Latex commands or SGML?). When all is in the box, I want to put it on my computer. Dvgrab does a perfect job! Now I'm looking for a video editor. Cinelerra
is nice but it doesn't read files from dvgrab. When it's time to have fun with FX, I was using Adobe After Effect, but [are there similar programs for Linux]? Film Gimp? Jahshaka?"
First -- This person has asked a perfectly valid question. He wants to use Linux for video/digital film production. Comments that tell him/her to get illegal copies of software or to switch to a Mac (which just assumes he has the extra money to run out and buy one) are not only not helpful, but are basically a rude way of saying, "I don't have an answer for you, but I want to act like I do, so I'll just suggest something that doesn't really answer your question."
Second -- This is definately an area where Linux does not have the software. I've spent years in video. I d/l'ed Adobe Premiere (the 30 day demo version) and found it extremely easy to use for someone who is used to "real" video editing. I've tried Cinelerra several times, in test installs, and I've found it to be anything BUT easy to comprehend. This stuff about it being "advanced" or for "advanced users" doesn't wash with me. I have the experience and it's just a pain in the but to find your way around the program. The interface is anything BUT intuitive. (As someone pointed out earlier, in editing, this is a time when you need to focus on the work, not on getting your tools to work.)
Now, after those comments, here's what, to me, seems a useful suggestion and what I am currently planning. The company Main Concept is a German company. The last version of their editing program, Main Actor (V. 3.65) cost US $100 and worked on Linux and Windows. It's not Premiere, but for $100, I found it a good comparison. Currently the program is unavailable because they are preparing for the release of version 5.0. If you go to their site, you can download a Windows version of their V 5.0 beta 3 and test it out. This version is roughly comprable with Premiere 6.0. Some features aren't as good, but some are better (for instance, there was no smart gain for audio, but there are more sound adjustment abilities in MA than in Premiere). When I last corresponded with the people at Main Concept (when the beta 2 was out), they were still integrating some features into the betas and final version.
It will probably cost more than the US $100 price of their last version, but I wouldn't expect it to be any more than $150 or so. While it's not open source, and it's not free, it is a good solid program and will do what a video editor needs. They are also working on porting their effects program over to Linux as well.
I don't expect to see much more in the way of video editing in the open source field for a while. It involves too much GUI programming and the kind of intuitive feel that programmers seem to hate to deal with unless they have to.