OpenShot Close To Funding Final Stretch Goal: Video Editing Server

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

OpenShot Close To Funding Final Stretch Goal: Video Editing Server

Posted by timothy on Tuesday April 16, 2013 @04:05AM from the now-that-would-be-cool dept.

The Kickstarter project we mentioned late last month to bring open source video editor OpenShot to Mac and Windows as well as its native base of Linux has surpassed its initial funding goal, and now is just shy (just under a thousand dollars shy, at this writing) of reaching all of the items on a revamped list of stretch goals. The only goal on that list not yet funded is a tantalizing one. JonOomph writes "The lead developer has proposed a revolutionary new feature, which would allow users to offload CPU, memory, and disk cache to a local server (or multiple local servers), dramatically increasing the speed of previewing and rendering. The more servers added to the pool, the faster the video editing engine becomes (with the primary limitation being network bandwidth). If the final goal of $40k is reached in the remaining hours, this feature will be added to the next version of OpenShot." Like all Kickstarter projects, though, there's no actual guarantee that things will come to pass as hoped; ya pays yer money, and ya takes yer chances. Update: 04/16 16:53 GMT by T : Some hours remain, but they've crossed the $40,000 line. I hope the funding is adequate to support the outlined plans.

32 comments

Min score:

Reason:

Sort:

Stretch Goal #4: FREE! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 04:20 · Score: 0

Yeah, that feature is now free. Do chip in if you want to, but it's already "funded".
1. Re:Stretch Goal #4: FREE! by Jonah+Hex · 2013-04-16 04:31 · Score: 1
  
  Actually the funded #4 is for a Video Render Queue and is free, but #5 is for the Video Editing Server and is still at the $40K mark.
  
  Stretch Goal #4: FREE!
  As a thank you, I have decided to make some BIG CHANGES to the remaining stretch goals, starting with including Stretch Goal #4: Video Render Queue (queue up multiple renders) for FREE! This is a great feature, and will improve the work-flow for rendering multiple versions of your timeline.
  
  Stretch Goal #5: REDUCED!
  As a final thank you, I am reducing the price for Stretch Goal #5: Video Editing Server, in hopes to meet everyone halfway. This is a highly complex system, for offloading CPU, Memory, and Disk Cache to a local server (or server farm), dramatically improving the speed of previews and renders. I have already created successful small scale experiments with this technology, but as you can imagine, it will have far reaching implications in the design of OpenShot, which is why I originally set the goal so high. However, I really want to see this feature get implemented, and I'm crossing my fingers that we'll hit this goal before we run out of time.
  
  --
  Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
2. Re:Stretch Goal #4: FREE! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 04:47 · Score: -1
  
  I pledged regardless. I'll probably never use OpenShot but I support Kickstarter and the better way of funding projects it offers (over 200 projects backed and that Death Star thing). I remember when I was trying to work with software like 3DStudio & Adobe Premiere and wishing they had better support for networked rendering.
3. Re:Stretch Goal #4: FREE! by Spiridios · 2013-04-16 04:48 · Score: 1
  
  Actually the funded #4 is for a Video Render Queue and is free, but #5 is for the Video Editing Server and is still at the $40K mark.
  As of this writing, $40k has been surpassed.
nice slashvertisement! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 04:23 · Score: -1

thanks guys, can i make a BEOWULF of these? raspberry pi?
1. Re:nice slashvertisement! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 04:29 · Score: 1
  
  Actually ... it sounds like the cluster part at least is a likely possibility. Hopefully it wouldn't actually require Beowulf design specifically ...
  wrt rPi, guess that depends how far all this cross-platformocity stretches. Would be cool to click a "All machines in the house, including extra cycles on my phone" button.
2. Re:nice slashvertisement! by larry+bagina · 2013-04-16 04:54 · Score: 2
  
  It's open source. You could add the button. Of course, it might not do anything, but you can add the button.
  
  --
  Do you even lift?
  These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
3. Re:nice slashvertisement! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 05:14 · Score: -1
  
  Only if you've got enough bitcoins, and are willing to completely sacrifice any shred of human rights your government has allowed you to have, you silly libertarian 'Murrican!
  I miss the days when idiotic Slashdot memes centered mostly around Natalie Portman and hot grits, Soviet Russia, and insensitive clods. I wish Slashdot had never become a collection of humorless fucktard religious zealots, relentlessly flogging their preferred corporate masters.
  You used to be fun, Slashdot.
4. Re: nice slashvertisement! by forkazoo · 2013-04-16 05:33 · Score: 2
  
  Almost nobody does real 'Beowulf' style clusters anymore, if you use a very precise definition, but in the broader sense this would be a compute cluster. I haven't studied the details of the proposal, but I'm not sure why this would ne revolutionary. Using a cluster for rendering video is pretty common. Burn clusters are used with Autodesk Smoke. Smoke used to be quite obscure but now that it exists on Mac it is seeing pretty wide use. From what I understand, Vegas has network rendering as well. Outside of strict 'editing' and into video comp and color, tons of people use things like Nuke and After Effects on a farm and Baselight uses a cluster. So, the idea isn't really revolutionary. It all boils down to whether or not the implementation is good or not, how it gets used, and wether or not it actually makes my life better.
  Distributed processing for video editing is quite tricky. Unless you are doing a lot of fancy effects (which tends to happen in something like Smoke, but as far as I know Openshot has less in the way of professional finishing effects. Some of this would include cheesy stuff like lens flares. Most o it would be stuff like tracked stabilisation and degraining which can be quite slow) actually coming up with a video frame isn't that CPU intensive. When doing ordinary cuts only editing, you just have to seek to the frame in a video file, and decide the frame. For a proper editing format like ProRes, this is about as CPU intensive as decoding a JPEG. For interactive editing, that's pretty much it. Schlepping video frames across the network for that is a huge waste. If the remote system doesn't have the right codec installed, you are sunk. As your timeline gets more CPU intensive, you get more of a payoff for having Extra CPUs to throw at the problem over a relatively high latency and low bandwidth link. Figuring out exactly what to farm out and when is a nontrivial task and it won't be possible to come up with a system that works well for all possible use cases.
  Anyhow, I wish them luck. Hopefully they come up with a feature set that matches their users needs. I may have to check out a current version. Last time I played with it, OpenShot wasn't really my cup of tea, but it is always good to see somebody getting support from the community to scratch an itch.
5. Re:nice slashvertisement! by TWiTfan · 2013-04-16 07:14 · Score: 1
  
  My mother was a humorless fucktard religious zealot, you insensitive clod!
  
  --
  The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by Jonah+Hex · 2013-04-16 04:28 · Score: 3, Interesting

How do they handle AVCHD, can it encode? I ended up going with the paid version of Lightworks some time ago to get the ability to stick with what my camera outputs natively, and I hazily recall that part of my payment went for licensing the extra codecs including AVCHD encode licensing. Their features page says it handles AVCHD, but usually that just means decode support. I'd really love more open source video editor choices on Windows, especially since the decent paid ones are expensive. - HEX

--
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
1. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 04:45 · Score: 1
  
  Oh yeah... Lightworks. That software that announced it was going open source for Linux and never did. Or at least, still hadn't years later.
2. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by wormo · 2013-04-16 05:24 · Score: 2
  
  Do you really have your heart set on keeping the same container format, or would you be satisfied with an editing process that imports the audio and video without an extra re-encoding step (to preserve data quality)? I ask because AVCHD is *not* an extra codec, but merely a different container for H.264 video and ac3 (or rarely, uncompressed pcm) audio. You would be able to import and edit it in free video editors such as OpenShot, since ffmpeg can demux AVCHD files. After editing you'd need to export to some other format since ffmpeg doesn't create AVCHD files, but then again exporting videos to a format that more things than camcorders and expensive proprietary editors can play seems like a good idea in general ;)
3. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 05:25 · Score: 0
  
  As long as licensing remains an issue, pirating remains the best solution. We have the right to use any and all publicly disclosed technologies, including those that were disclosed without 'authorization'. Fuck them all.
4. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by Buzer · 2013-04-16 05:25 · Score: 1
  
  I don't think there is really any problem with including encoding support. But if you want to use it, you may (depending on use, country etc.) need to get license for AVC from MPEGLA (or directly from patent holders if your volumes are big/important enough to give you some negotiation power).
5. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 05:59 · Score: 0
  
  they've kept people in the loop about the linux version of lightworks and just demoed both linux and mac versions. Just because you're not keeping up doesn't mean things aren't happening.
6. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by westlake · 2013-04-16 06:53 · Score: 1
  
  I'd really love more open source video editor choices on Windows, especially since the decent paid ones are expensive.
  The royalties on the AVC. H.264 codec are trivial and come into play only with sales of more than 100,000 units a year.
  
  For [AVC] encoder and decoder products sold both to End Users and on an OEM basis for incorporation into personal computers but not part of a personal computer operating system (a decoder, encoder, or product consisting of one decoder and one encoder = ''unit''), royalties (beginning January 1, 2005) per Legal Entity are 0 - 100,000 units per year = no royalty (this threshold is available to one Legal Entity in an affiliated group); US $0.20 per unit after first 100,000 units each year; above 5 million units per year, royalty = US $0.10 per unit. The maximum annual royalty (''cap'') for an Enterprise (commonly controlled Legal Entities) is $3.5 million per year 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year 2007-08, $5 million per year 2009-10, and $6.5 million per year in 2011-15.8.
  SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS
7. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 07:04 · Score: 0
  
  I'm sorry, but "happening" ends after 1-2 years without a real release.
  It's only a damn port for fuck's sake! Where's the hold-up??
  If it was properly designed, it would have been written for POSIX in the first place anyway.
8. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 07:48 · Score: 0
  
  they've kept people in the loop about the linux version of lightworks and just demoed both linux and mac versions. Just because you're not keeping up doesn't mean things aren't happening.
  What, exactly, what your point here? You've just confirmed that, years later, there's nothing. Years later, they supposedly demo a linux version? That's what everyone else calls a total failure.
  A bullshit marketing scam from a bullshit company that doesn't follow through deserves a harsh chastising of the very public variety.
9. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by dwywit · 2013-04-16 11:19 · Score: 1
  
  Is it really worth the fuss to pirate/crack, when you can get the entire Adobe Suite on education/academic pricing for less than AUD$500?
  
  I've saved more than $500 in delayed deadlines just by having access to the support community.
  
  --
  They sentenced me to twenty years of boredom
10. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by bill_mcgonigle · 2013-04-16 15:27 · Score: 1
  
  From the very first link on their webpage:
  
  We have had a very successful Linux Alpha program and although we will narrowly miss the targeted release date at the end of Q1 we will be making the Linux Public Beta, which includes a much improved licensing scheme, available on 30th April 2013. We have been listening to users and the current licensing scheme has not been up to their expectations.
  It looks like licenses are 40 pounds? Sign me up - I'm sick of not having a linux video editor that doesn't crash reliably during any project.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
11. Re:AVCHD and other licensed codec support? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-17 10:28 · Score: 0
  
  you can try kdenlive. It works very fluid on a core i5 with avchd directly. kdenlive is based on mlt like openshot
Could be Better by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 04:39 · Score: 0

Still waiting for the OpenShit goatse editor!
1. Re:Could be Better by larry+bagina · 2013-04-16 04:57 · Score: 1
  
  Have you tried GIMP? It's open, it's shit, you can edit goatse with it.
  
  --
  Do you even lift?
  These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Isnt there already a similar project? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 05:47 · Score: 0

Awhile back I heard the BBC was going to develop some open source video (running on linux) editing tools for their own use internally and for publishing to the web. They said they were going to release them for everyone under the gpl or something similar. IIRC they were going to support HD video and the more recent codecs too. It sounded like it was going to be a very good catch all video converter/trimmer/editor program that I could replace vdub with. ...what ever came of that?
1. Re:Isnt there already a similar project? by wormo · 2013-04-16 05:55 · Score: 1
  
  I don't see anything like that listed at the BBC open source website, so maybe they decided to contribute to an existing project instead
  http://www.bbc.co.uk/opensource/
2. Re:Isnt there already a similar project? by ssam · 2013-04-16 09:06 · Score: 1
  
  are you thinking of the dirac video codec?
3. Re:Isnt there already a similar project? by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-19 08:22 · Score: 0
  
  there was a splash, and some thought it might be better than x264... however, it was close but not better. i also thought some cool stuff would result, but little has. i think its usable... but... i'm not aware of much.
Backers have been hearing it constantly by phorm · 2013-04-16 05:48 · Score: 1

While I like my kickstarter projects, I'm getting a bit overwhelmed with the constant emails with "our funding is now at $XX".
Seriously, I can view the webpage. I don't need an update every few hours.
Worse, is the "Hey, while you've pledge to give us money, how about you also give money to X, Y, and Z"
Yeah, it's nice to help out these projects - and sometimes to know about related projects - but sometimes it feels like I've heard more about "get that little bit of extra funding" or "fund my friends" that I have about the actual projects themselves. Also haven't yet had a software-based project come to fruition.
1. Re:Backers have been hearing it constantly by Isaac+Remuant · 2013-04-16 05:54 · Score: 1
  
  While it's fine to comment it here, you're probably going to have more impact by also voicing your concerns to kickstarter and/or the involved projects.
  
  --
  "Science can amuse and fascinate us all, but it is engineering that changes the world. " - Asimov.
2. Re:Backers have been hearing it constantly by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 07:11 · Score: 0
  
  You don't understand the social contract:
  You're expected to also spam them with e-mails saying "Hey, while you've pledged to give us that feature, how about you also give us the features X, Y and Z?”, “get that little bit of extra functionality" and "add functionality for my friends",,, while staying completely quiet about if you will even pay them anything at all. ;)
  Bonus points, for using the Xzibit meme ("Sup dawg, to add features, while you add features .")
If only OpenShot wasn't such a damn joke... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-04-16 06:59 · Score: 0

... in terms of professionality...
It's made for amateurs... at best. Hell, I'm a noob, and only have brothers who are pros, and even I find it shocking how ridiculously lacking OpenShot is compared to, say, Premiere, Avid, etc.
It's closer to Windows Movie Maker than any of those.
Seriously, the software community as a whole should stop acting as if their users are complete retards. Because that's the damn *reason* they became the morons they are already by now *in the first place*!