Slashdot Mirror
HD Video Editing with Blender
Posthis writes "While the VSE sequence module has been part of Blender for a while, the upcoming version v2.46 comes with some new powerful video editing features, like Proxy editing, optimized FFmpeg support, and more. Not many use Blender strictly as a video editor because it's not very straight-forward, but given the fact that it now deals with HDV and 24p footage much more comfortably compared to other OSS video editors, it makes it a sound contender. This new tutorial shows the basics of how to use it as a video editor and put your masterpiece together."
S-Video isn't really component. It uses a luma and a chroma signal, while what people typically refer to as component video uses luma and a pair of chroma channels, or just map to straight RGB.
I agree with your point about just going digital, though. For capture, sure, there might be some analog sources you might want to grab from, but there's no point in going to analog output these days. Professionals still dream about keeping everything in their pipelines digital; at the end of the day, they still have to print out to film, at least until digital cinema has taken over the market.
Kino does not do HD, but dvGrab, the utility that Kino uses does HDV capture. You simply need to use the dvgrab 3.x version (not earlier) and use it from the command line. It captures HDV fine, in .m2t format, that Blender supports.
... a video input/output card for Linux that supports component (YPbPr) video.
There are lots of products from several manufacturers to choose from:Deltacast
AJA
Bluefish444
They are high quality professional grade cards and the price range is also high.
--Saval
For the 3D part? Probably. But the video editing was (surprisingly) a snap. Just follow Eugenia's instructions and you'll be up and running in no time flat!
If you don't believe me, check this out. After seeing this story, I downloaded the latest Blender and got cracking. A short time later I had this video uploaded to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUzVi_f5kyE
All the source videos were fairly large clips that Blender handled without issue. With only a smidge of practice, I was able to clip them to size and add transitions. So I'm pretty happy with the result. Especially since I have absolutely NO video editing experience. If I had a bit more time with this tool, I imagine I could whip up a pretty good promotional video.
I didn't bother with the audio tracks on my first run-through, but it doesn't appear to be too difficult to include them. The one issue I'm concerned about is if there is support for a decent mixer. (e.g. Could I play background music, then at some point fade it to a less audible level, play the original speech/effects, then adjust the BG music back to full volume?) Worst case, that's probably something I could work out in an audio editing program, but it would be a major pain.
I can't complain, though, given what I paid for Blender. (i.e. Nothing!) It's possibly the best FREE video editing tool I have ever seen. Which probably says more about the lack of such tools than about the brilliance of Blender, but I'm still happy.
Feel free to give it a go yourself. If you need some footage to mess around with, the stuff I used can be found here: http://blog.wiicade.com/?p=177
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
For bg music in addition to another audio track, use the "ADD" plugin between the two audio tracks and then use the iPO curve editor to make one of the two tracks louder or less loud.
As for other audio options, go to the panel at the bottom and click the last toolbar icon, the one that reads "Sound block buttons".
Erm. That's bollocks. There are more countries and standards in the world than America you know.
AJA has linux support, drivers and SDK for (at least) their OEM boards: http://www.aja.com/html/products_oem.html
and Bluefish444 has Linux SDK available to registered OEM customers: bluefish444 OEM
We are about to try those for use in our product in Q4/08 (hopefully)... If anyone knows other possibilities we would like to know!
--Saval