Ask Slashdot: Video Production on Linux?

Izaak asks: "I would like to build an amateur video production studio around a Linux system, but need some advice. I need recommendations for a professional quality video camera, digital VCR, video capture card, sound equipment, software... does non-linear video editing software even exist for Linux? If not, I'm not adverse to writing it. Any pointers will be appreciated. " Well, I don't know about the other categories, but MainConcept has a product called MainActor which is a video editor for Linux. According to their home page, they are bundling it with the new Linux LML33 Video Capture Card. So it looks like a few pieces of the Video Production Puzzle are coming to gether but what about the other pieces? Any thoughts?

Comments

DV system prices are dropping!

[daviddennis]

I think this system would be quite a bit cheaper than you think. Something like this (prices from memory)

Cheapest blue and white G3: $ 1,600
Free upgrade to 128mb RAM
Radius EditDV without hardware 400
17" Monitor 500
Total 2,500

Canon XL1 MiniDV Camcorder 4,000

Total $ 6,500

If you need to save a few bucks, get a GL1 or TRV900 instead of the XL1 - you should be able to find one for about $2,000-$2,500, thus reducing the price to around $4,500-5,000.

Not bad, especially since I paid about $ 9,000 for my equivalent setup (with the XL1).

One thing you do need that's not on that list is a small TV or video monitor - you'll want it to play back the video while you're editing. Video playback on the computer is hopeless; video playback through the firewire using your camera is great. That adds between $200 and $500 to the price.

If you haven't seen it already, my DV FAQ is at http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html .

D

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Video Production, Period

[daviddennis]

The answer to the question of what hardware and software you need for video production depends largely on your needs. A high-end prosumer setup, such as what I have, dedicates a computer to video editing, uses a fancy three-chip camera, and costs about $ 10,000. In the process of putting this together, I wrote the DV FAQ, which you can find at http://www.amazing.com/dv/dv-faq.html .

If you want the highest quality video possible, you need to use FireWire, which is the direct digital to digital system. Unfortunately, Linux support for FireWire still does not exist. The capture card mentioned in the article is an analogue unit and won't give you the level of quality possible via FireWire.

Remember that video production takes up enormous amounts of system resources. When I put together my production system, I decided to dedicate a machine to the function. Because of that, I decided on a Macintosh G3, which is probably still the best machine for low-end video editing. (High-end is an Avid; you're talking mid-five figures before their salespeople will even talk to you).

I definitely don't recommend using a Windows machine for video editing. That is the way to madness. I'd like to recommend BeOS, since it's a great operating system and its multi-threaded nature is going to give you superior performance; unfortunately, they don't have FireWire support yet either.

So the Mac is the only platform left standing in the end. I really wish I could recommend a Be-based solution, because I love the BeOS, but the time isn't ripe yet. (If you are doing one, though, send it to me and I'll incorporate it in my FAQ -- I really want to see one).

In terms of cameras, get a three-chip model if you can possibly afford it. Colours are much richer and more vivid. I have the $4,000 Canon XL1 and swear by it; fortunately, the Sony TRV900 and upcoming Canon GL1 provide three-chip functionality for about $2,000.

More details are in the DV FAQ - see the URL above.

D

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Re:Video Production, Period

[Anonymous Shepherd]

Read your faq, and agreed with most of it.

Some more input on the Sony Digital8 format; I use it in an amateur setup--it may suit the querent's needs, depending on how 'amateur' he wants to be.

The cheapest Digital8 Sony camera runs about $700, w/o LCD, and about $760 with. It's the standard Sony camera, with autofeatures and nightshoot, auto-stabilization, etc. It's one of the more expensive cameras, with analogue cameras reaching into the $300 range-but it's still cheaper than the other digital cameras I saw, still for about $1,100.

I can use it's s-video and RCA inputs to read data from many non-digital sources, and also to output back from digital masters.

The tapes are much cheaper and easier to find, though I can't compare qualities.

I'd advocate Mac as well, but am using a PC system quite successfully. It's an NT setup, with a Pinnacle Micro DV200 firewire board-it's selling point is that it guarantees 100% frame capture, by taking multiple passes if necessary. Most of the time it only takes one pass, but it's really nice in preventing the odd frame skip.

Setup:
Firewire Card ~$300
Sony Camera ~$750
PC w/scsi ~$1200
WinNT ~$100(educational discount!)
Adobe Premiere ~$400
Adobe Aftereffects ~$300

Total ~$3500

There may be better solutions/choices/combinations, but I use this one satisfactorily.


-AS

Re:Video Production, Period

[daviddennis]

You're lucky you got all those educational discounts - I believe Premiere is something like $695 and After Effects is $ 1,000. So a non-student would have to pay about $ 5,000 for your system. The cheapest G3 nowadays is somewhere in the $1,600 range including a FireWire card as compared to your $1,200 for the system plus $300 for the FireWire card, so Apple's definitely competitive even with the bare bones system you mention. If you're not wedded to Wintel for other reasons (bearing in mind, of course, that you can always get PPC Linux), I'd definitely recommend that system. Then you can get EditDV Unplugged for $ 99 and be good to go.

But I think you forgot disks - you need at least one additional disk besides your system drive, and it should be an enormous one - 20GB would not be excessive. I have an 11GB disk and it mysteriously keeps filling up :-(.

Isn't the capture card you're referring to the DV300? I don't remember hearing about a DV200. From trolling the newsgroups, I've heard a lot of bad stories about the DV300 and Pinnacle support in general. Your system probably is the best low-cost PC-based solution, but I'd be wary of recommending it to others. How difficult was it for you to set up?

My FAQ is definitely biased strongly against low-end equipment like Sony Digital8, simply because I don't like the quality and ergonomic design of the cameras themselves. I would certainly recommend Digital8 over a standard analogue camcorder - raw picture quality out of the camera is no better, but quality of the recordings is likely to be far superior.

Glad you liked the FAQ.

D

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What about Audio?

[BadlandZ]

Does anyone out there know of a UNIX (linux, irix, tru64, solaris, freebsd...) alternitive to CakeWalk? Video is nice, but audio alone would be something more interesting to me.

If there isn't a project to produce something like CakeWalk, would anyone be interested in trying to get CakeWalk itself ported to Linux? I for one would buy it ;-)

More Details....

[BadlandZ]

I have checked freshmeat and linuxapps.com, I didn't find anything that was near the level of something like cakewalk. I can't find anything called Freetracker, if you could give me a URL that would be great.

I was wondering about the possability of building a "Digital Recording Studio" that was capable of making some reasonable quality recordings. Something that would take seperate tracks at seperate times, so you could lay down a drum beat, then come back and add in the instruments, then the vocals, etc.. I would prefer to do it in Linux or FreeBSD, and with open source software (for financial reasons), but unfortunately I think I will end up with something commercial. (I am not going to pop for a $10,000+ system and software).

I was checking out GreenBox and Studio but don't really know anything about them yet, it's just all I found for Linux, and would like to hear from some people that can speak from experiance about thier functionality, ease of use, etc... And, I wouldn't mind hearing about some hardware requirements, would it take gobs and gobs of RAM and SCSI drives and massive CPU power to do playback of a track while recording another track to sync to it?

I would really appreciate learning more about how possable this is, and how expnsive it might be... Maybe an old 4-track unit that allows you to do this with normal cassette tapes would be something to consider for me to play around with, but it would really be a lot more fun if I could get digital quality, and have a little more precise control, and be able to do it on a computer, create MP3's etc...

Re:more linux multimedia capabilities would be coo

[daviddennis]

As I said in another post on this topic, I'd love to recommend Be, but there's no FireWire support. I believe Adamation has a video editing program for Be, but their "professional" software is delayed until we see Be FireWire support.

I'm going to take a look at it, but I don't expect to use it seriously until I see FireWire.

D

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Re:Use existing software for videoediting !

[daviddennis]

So what happened to the Buz?

I'd heard it was a pretty neat low-end solution.

Was it discontinued due to Iomega's other problems?

D

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