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Video Editor OpenShot Wants To Kickstart Windows, OS X Versions
There have been video editing apps available for Linux for years, from ones meant to be friendly enough to compete on the UI front with iMovie (like the moribund Kino, last released in 2009, and the actively developed PiTiVi and Kdenlive) to editors that can apparently do nearly anything, provided the user is a thick-skinned genius — I'm thinking of Broadcast 2000/Cinelerra. Then there's VJ-tool-cum-non-linear editor LiVES, which balances a dense interface with real-time effects for using video as a performance tool, and can run on various flavors of UNIX, including Mac OS X. Dallas-based developer Jonathan Thomas has been working for the last few years on a Free (GPL3 or later), open-source editor called OpenShot, which aims for a happy medium of both usability and power. OpenShot is Linux-only, though, and Thomas is now trying to kickstart (as in, using a Kickstarter project) a cross-platform release for OS X and Windows, too. I've been tempted by dozens of KickStarter projects before, but this is the first one that I've actually pledged to support, and for what may sound like a backwards reason: I like the interface, and am impressed by the feature set, but OpenShot crashes on me a lot. (To be fair, this is mostly to blame on my hardware, none of which is really high-end enough by video-editing standards, or even middle-of-the-road. One day!) So while I like the idea of having a cross-platform, open-source video editor, I have no plans to migrate to Windows; I'm mostly interested in the promised features and stability improvements.
Good, but why not pay for more development of the GNU/Linux version.
The Windows world has an awful lot of video editors you can get your hands on of all ranges. Personally, I'd spend a bit more and get Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 12, which runs you a bit under $40 from Amazon. It has a better interface, more features, and is quite stable in my experience.
I like the Kickstarter concept and I've Kickstarted a number of games but you either have to offer something that isn't available, or something that is in some way better. Having tried OpenShot as one of many I tried in a failed attempt to find a good video editor for Linux, I am not interested. Windows has better products.
I'm mostly interested in the promised features and stability improvements.
Indeed. I tried OpenShot once, and it was a complete waste of my time.
Let's put it this way: If it were anything but crap, they wouldn't need a Kickstarter project to port it to other operating systems.
I'm tired of people just cobbling things together. Please, start thinking first.
I saw his presentation at SCALE and he owned up to many stability problems in the old code. That was the reason for the ground up rewrite. The old code depended on third party libraries, and many of the bugs were not accessible to him, so he's written his own engine. And he says it's much more stable--his demos at SCALE seemed to demonstrate that.
Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
I'm not really interested in helping a proprietary commercial platform become a more attractive choice.
I genuflect to neither Cupertino nor Redmond.
He would be better off at smashing bugs and developing with Posix compliancy in mind. THEN tackle multi-platform issues.
I mean, unless he thinks it is *done*, as in no code on the original project is going to change significantly from this point forward. Wait, that would be Cinelerra. Why doesn't he just make a dumbed down interface for Cinelerra? This way, he doesn't need to code for a bunch of codecs and transforms that have already been coded for? I mean, he could take his existing interface, slap it on Cinelerra with a bunch of Easy Bake presets, and then help out optimizing Cinelerra's code so it could run across all Linux platforms, much less anything else. Which would be nice, because Cinelerra has solved a lot of issues this guy wants to introduce on a cross-platform basis.
You see, this guy is basically making the same mistakes of thinking that all Linuxes are alike. They aren't. There are big differences between various distributions now, and even getting something as dependent upon multiple sources trees with different compile time options to work seamlessly is going to be a major pain in the ass over the long haul. And the guy who has been working on Cinelerra is even saying this after almost 30 years of hacking on video and audio editors.
Cool story brah. When did this become timothy's blog page?
I've been editing video on Adobe Premiere since the 6.1 days, on a 733MHz PIII with 256MB of RAM, 80GBytes of storage on a SCSI Raid-5 array with an offboard Adaptec controller, and a dedicated Matrox effects/MPEG-2 render card. You can stay on my lawn, but avoid the gnomes...
(Note: I edit on Windows; the following will skew in that direction, iMovie and Final Cut are both good, yadda yadda, platform wars aren't the point here)
Adobe, Sony, Corel, and Cyberlink basically own the market here, and the reason is fairly straightforward: if Windows Movie Maker doesn't work for you, $100 or less will buy you software that does. If $100 software doesn't cut it for you, you need the $600 versions of Premiere or Vegas.
I remember trying Jahshakah with its promises of being the best-of-both-worlds between Premiere and After Effects...and while pretty, trying to get clips to reliably appear and be manipulated on the timeline is an uphill battle, and there I'm being kind. The last time I used it, NOTHING was labeled; it was a 'hieroglyphics interface'. That may have changed as of late, admittedly it's been some time.
Kdenlive is about the best NLE I've seen on Linux, and seems to be largely stable. If I found myself on a Linux box and forced to edit a video, it would indeed be my weapon of choice. It does, however, suffer from many of the same problems as the rest of the FOSS video programs; more on that in a bit.
Cinelerra seemed to have LOTS of potential; I really liked its ability to network render things. However, it was clear that whoever designed the UI was likely a programmer, not as much a video editor. I found it incredibly complicated and once again, couldn't get my feet off the ground when attempting its use.
All of that being said, the common thing all these titles had that kept them miles behind their for-profit counterparts on Windows: effects. Now yes, many, MANY people use effects poorly. I hate overly effect-heavy clips as much as the next guy, especially the cartoonish transitions that Pinnacle Studio nickels and dimes you for. However, even things like color correction, EQing, reverb, split-screen, and DVE transitions were all sorely lacking as opposed to what came bone stock with all the rest of the editors. Partial dissolves, alpha channels, and any number of subtle-yet-effective things were all but nonexistent. Additionally, Adobe and Sony have excellent plug-in ecosystems. If you don't like what comes in the box, Pixelan, NewBlue, BorisFX, Panopticum, Magic Bullet, and a swath of others will be all too happy to sell you their solutions. Linux doesn't have this at all. DVD Flick will burn a DVD and add a menu to it, but even its functionality is limited in comparison to the ten-year-old Ulead DVD Workshop.
On top of that, format support has traditionally been inconsistent (AVCHD, I'm looking at you). You're guaranteed to run into some real hurdles if you're planning on spitting out MPEG-4 and keeping your source GPL'd.
Now...the UI of OpenShot looks like they solved many of these problems, which is awesome. However, OpenShot will end up with yet another hurdle in its path: Crash Acceptance. Premiere Pro CS2 crashed. a LOT. I can't begin to count the number of hours I lost to having lapsed memory of hitting Ctrl+S. Vegas was somewhat more stable, but it wasn't using the Matrox hardware. But after a $2,000 investment between hardware and software, we accepted that it was a fact of life. I fear that OpenShot will run into significant hurdles in this regard. If a company the size of Adobe or Sony can't get their software stable, supporting one platform (Yes, Premiere used to support MacOS, then it didn't, then it did again; Vegas never did, PowerDirector never did, and Video Studio was also Windows-only), I have my questions regarding the stability of such a title on Windows. Don't get me wrong, I'd LOVE to see Adobe and Sony quake in their boots over it, but this too raises the question as to whether either company will simply let a largely-successful OpenShot li
So while I like the idea of having a cross-platform, open-source video editor, I have no plans to migrate to Windows; I'm mostly interested in the promised features and stability improvements.
So do you notice an increase in stability in programs if they're designed with running on OS X and Windows in mind? Is it your experience that cross platform programs are inherently more stable?
I use both Kdenlive and OpenShot and what I miss in both is the ability to play a segment reverse. e.g. play for 20 seconds, play reverse 10 seconds and then start playing again from that point on.
As long as that is not implemented, I am sure most people will still be using applications where this is possible.
My guess is that OpenShot will be the first to have it.
Great thing about OpenShot is the integration with Blender. I am sure there will be a lot more things coming from the Blender part as plugins once Windows people start using it and perhaps not only for the Animated Title part.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Why not kickstart a campaign to prove yourself on one platform first, instead of trying to take your shitty buggy software to Windows and Mac?
Not a comment on the feasibility of this particular kickstarter, but....
I remember when open source software was about "scratching an itch." Now with kickstarter, it's about "fuck you, pay me." The other day, I saw a project that boiled down to "I'll work 1 month for $15,000". The point isn't the money (I'm not donating so I don't give a shit) but I don't believe it can be done one month. Then what?
I don't know if I've ever seen a successful open source project from kickstarter. But I have seen many (from people with the credentials to do it) where the project is late (or even abandoned) and the code is buggy and incomplete. But the code is on github so you can be a chump and work on it for free.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
If you're using Linux, it already works there (albeit not terribly stably, from what you've said), and I would doubt that the OSX/Windows version would have much effect on that as that'll only add UI layers and probably not change the core much.
If you're using OSX or Windows already, there are decent editors available for low cost. Open source is fine, but sometimes a commercial product is finer, if it does the job and isn't overly expensive.
"There have been video editing apps available for Linux for years, from ones meant to be friendly enough to compete on the UI front with iMovie " none of them are useable.
I would pay for one that was like Sony Vegas, Final Cut or even Adobe Premiere from 5 years ago... NOTHING on linux is useable. I try and re-try every year and they all are either toys for editing short videos of your cat, or are buggy garbage that just do not work.
Nothing allows 6-8 video tracks and 10+ audio tracks all with frame accurate sync and cutting.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Good, but why not pay for more development of the GNU/Linux version.
The port to OSX and Windows has the potential to draw in 10 to 100 times as many contributors.
Lightworks is coming soon to Linux, nuff said
A few weeks ago my family business was contacted by Pilgrim Studios in Los Angeles about them doing a show on us. Since I used pretty much use Linux exclusively and they wanted lots of video of our interactions, interviews, and lots of other other stuff I knew I'd be in trouble on the editing side.
Actually however it wasn't bad at all! I was using an older Handycam and would rip the mini DVD's via HandBrake then feed them into OpenShot. It did crash a few times at first, but I always backed it up as a project file and after a few days of trail and error seemed to have a processing system that worked.
I don't know if we got the gig yet, but Openshot handled what I threw at it fairly well. I can't wait to donate to them. At the least we have a 1.5 hour movie now that one day we might cherish as a piece of our history.
I work in the Video industry for a Distributor, We use everything from FFMPEG to AVISYNTH to FCP to Premier and a host of Mac and Windows Software tools. None of them do (all) the things that we need to do. The one killer app in a video editing App that we have always dreamt of is the ability to load subtitle files onto a timeline. Just normal SRT, STL ASS whatever plain text subtitles that we can process with the video from stage one. Bring me an editor in linux using FFMPEG and AVI Synth with a comprehensible GUI and the ability to work with Uncompressed footage with Sync Subtitles you can have my money.
Wow, Hobbies was right - eventually language will be an impediment to understanding. "VJ-tool-cum-non-linear editor" indeed!