Cinelerra 2.0 Released

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Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday September 13, 2005 @03:06AM from the everybody-likes-video-right dept.

Eugenia writes "The best open source A/V production environment for Linux today, Cinelerra, has reached version 2.0. It sports H.264 video encoding/decoding & MPEG-4 audio encoding through Quicktime4Linux, the ability to load any MPEG or IFO file directly, the ability to import raw digital camera files through dcraw, gamma correction for raw digital camera files, better chroma key support and much more. On a similar note, the promising DIVA home video editor (written in GStreamer and Mono/GTK#) is progressing fast as well."

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Good by suso · 2005-09-13 03:09 · Score: 1, Interesting

This is good because people have started to notice (and say on the message boards) that some of the recent versions of Kino have started to become more buggy.
Is this an accurate statement? by coop0030 · 2005-09-13 03:14 · Score: 4, Interesting

The best open source A/V production environment for Linux today

Is someone tooting their own horn? Or is this really the best software for A/V production?
1. Re:Is this an accurate statement? by jd · 2005-09-13 03:42 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  There aren't many video editing suites for Linux, so it is debatable as to the worth of such a statement, even if accurate. Anything can be the best, if it is the only one out there.
  
  Having said that, A/V production is not a one-step operation, these days. There is a lot Cinelerra doesn't do that you might want to, which means that for those operations, you'll need to use something else. In turn, that means that if you use something Cinelerra won't work well with, for some reason, then you can't use Cinelerra for the rest.
  
  Although still pretty meaningless overall, it would still be more useful to have some stats - what percent is it feature-complete, relative to some industry standard? How many industry-standard codecs does it support for both audio and video and how well? (Not all software will support 11.1 audio streams, even if the codec itself is there.)
  
  It uses FFMPEG, if I recall correctly, but I've not seen an FFMPEG release in some time and the website links seem to be a mess of redirection. That's not good.
  
  Having said all of that, though, I've never had any personal problems with Cinelerra - it's always done what I've wanted. But I've never given it anything demanding to do, so I can't use that experience as anything meaningful.
  
  --
  It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Re:Is this good for VHS = DVD by WWWWolf · 2005-09-13 03:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

Actually, the best thing is probably using mencoder (part of mplayer) to capture the video through TV card, then using... something... to encode the video. (I've usually used virtualdub to capture and tmpegenc to encode in Windows. Nowadays I use mencoder and capture directly to xvid video; I suppose there's mpeg encoders like.. um... transcode? to do the thing.)

I'm not sure if it pays to encode the video at DVD quality though, it's not really worth all of the effort. I've personally used VideoCDs, which most DVD players can play. Besides, CD-Rs are cheaper than DVD-Rs.
Editing? What about capturing video? by Anonymous Coward · 2005-09-13 03:22 · Score: 1, Interesting

Because you know, some of us who do video editing actually shoot the footage ourselves, as opposed to just ripping DVD's and adding "RIPPD BY L33T" on the title screen.
What sort of level is video capture in Linux? imho it's no good to be able to edit on linux if I have to capture on windows or my mac.
Usability? by gilesjuk · 2005-09-13 03:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

Have you ever tried any of the previous releases?

The interface is so appalingly bad as to make it fairly unusable. I hope this version seriously improves on previous versions.

People really need to choose either GTK or QT when designing complex Linux software. Both these libraries have good widgets and look fairly professional.
1. Re:Usability? by eno2001 · 2005-09-13 04:33 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  I have to echo this sentiment. I come from a background where I've worked with Avid/Digedesign products, Adobe Premiere and a few low budget Windows apps (Avid had one a few years back, but I currently use Sony Vegas on Windows XP) and I can say that Cinelerra has a lot of great features but an unusable UI. The fact that to work with two video sources, you need to run two instances of Cinelerra is preposterous. This is a perfect situation where the use of MDI is called for. Trust me, I've been able to make the move from say, Photoshop to GIMP with little trouble. Cinelerra (in it's last version) was a bear to work with. And the UI widgets aren't to helpful either. Bevelled buttons might look neat, but without proper graphics to tell when things are engaged or not, Cinelerra adds that much more work for the user.
  
  I'm not trying to assail the project itself. I think the concepts behind it are wonderful, but the UI needs to be rethought. If the developer would do what the Xine folks did, and build a base library of all the power in Cinelerra, then build a separate UI to put over the libs while allowing others to write their own UIs, I think we could have a killer app here...
  
  --
  -"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
How do they manage MPEG4 audio? by danigiri · 2005-09-13 03:57 · Score: 3, Interesting

Mmmmm... I really wonder how do they manage MPEG4 audio encoding via QT4Linux...
According to Apple, non-MacOSX OS's are not licensed to export AAC audio using QuickTime due to licensing concerns. According to the developer note, once a suitable license is acquired the interested party then could happily encode to AAC using QuickTime.
I'm dowloading the source code... I'm really curious.
Support for DV format? by Skapare · 2005-09-13 04:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

I cannot find any mention of support for the DV format on the web site. There is mention that Quicktime4Linux has a front-end for libdv. But there is no indication whether that works at the editing level, or at the capture/playback level. I will be storing A/V files in DV format, captured and played back on an ADVC-110 or the like. I would like to know if Cinelerra would be an editor option for this project without having to make any file format conversions along the way.

--
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Can it handle creating divx movies by bugnuts · 2005-09-13 04:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

I've found that the divx codec encodes excellent compressed movies of games (things with lots of explosions combined with text and lots of motion) which is my primary usage of movie software.

Is divx export available in this? I know about Xvid project and would love to know if it works with Cinelerra.
2 videos made with Cinelerra... by Conti · 2005-09-13 05:48 · Score: 3, Interesting

Cinelerra is for sure the BEST video editor on Linux. The UI is a bit hard to learn, but when you're used to it, it's fast and efficient.
Here are 2 videos I made with Cinelerra:

http://www.europephoto.com/studios_conti/stunt_13_ mars_2005.avi

http://www.europephoto.com/studios_conti/2005/Cont i-Stunt_30_Avril_2005.avi

They were downloaded thousands of times, and it's about motorbikes.
Those 2 videos were made entirely with Linux (mono-boot machine, with no windows OS installed on it! ;-))
The list of software used is written in the end scrolldown. The computer, which runs Debian SID has a XP2400 processor, 1Go RAM and around 500Go of diskspace.
Re:Independent Films by Lumpy · 2005-09-13 06:15 · Score: 2, Interesting

I have used main actor and it's worse off than cinerella. first it has not been updated for over 5 years. Version 5 cam out back when Adobe released version 5 of Premiere. the have "promsied" a version 5.5 upgrade for main actor but have not released even alphas for anyone for over 4 years now. it crashes alot, it's dv capture does not work and they warn you to not use it but to use kino instead, which only captures in DV1 avi or another uneditable or lossy format.

Yes, 480i is what 99% of the world is still editing in. and most people do not care about realtime. Hell even a $65,000.00 AVID we recently purchased here for the production department is not "real time" as these companies try to convince you exists. Nobody needs realtime except for live and you would be nuts to use a NLE for live. That is what a Sony DME9000 suite is for.

Video editing on linux is a non starter. that is why I am waiting for the price of a dual G5 to drop a bit more and make the jump to final Cut/OSX + shake for video and finally exorcize MS products from my home and personal business by the end of next year.

The fun part is that video editing does not need the latest and greatest. I know of friends making world class stuff on a dual P-III with 512 meg of ram using 8 year old AVID software and hardware. Stayting about 5 steps behind the rest of the crowd gives you value and the ability to do what the bleeding edge people do for much less.

--
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Linux video badness is one reason I switched by Nice2Cats · 2005-09-13 06:32 · Score: 3, Interesting

One reason I dropped Linux in favor of Mac OS X -- apart from the fact that I needed a laptop that would let me just slam the lid to put it to sleep -- for my main computer was that video editing is such a pain. Cin I never got to work, the documentation was useless (it was basically "if you don't know how professional editing works, go away"), and trying to recompile it was disaster. Kino was okay, but simply not advanced enough. At least the people working on it were polite.
I don't want much out of video editing -- short clips of the kids for the grandparents, mostly -- and the combination of iMovie and iDVD is simply awesome. Maybe it isn't enough for pros or even semi-pros, but this is one area where Apple kicks Linux ass. I did one DVD using Linux, and that was enough for a lifetime, or at least until somebody gets a good clone of iDVD working.