Open Source edit

[DaveT]

I've been wondering if anyone has considered starting an Open Source NLE project?

Most of the code bits would be out there in Open Source land.
The user interface would be the biggest issue I reckon. I'm really impressed with what Blender has done, but the user interface is it's biggest hurdle that it throws up to users.

[jwheeler]

There is now an off-shoot of the "Cinellera" project called Lumierra (I think that is how it is spelled.) There aim is to make an open source NLE that is on par with the big guys: Avid, FCP, etc. It is still in development, but an exciting project to me.

http://lumiera.org/

And once they get it working, it shouldn't be that hard to get them to have compatibility with Red raw files, but that seems like it will be a ways off.

[shaocaholica]

An NLE isn't all the complex of an application if you exclude all the fancy stuff that doesn't have to do with editing. I'd love to see an open source compositor and editor especially if a big studio picks it up and develops for it for free like how IBM has full time programmers developing for linux and all their work is published for free.

[DaveT]

There is now an off-shoot of the "Cinellera" project called Lumierra (I think that is how it is spelled.) There aim is to make an open source NLE that is on par with the big guys: Avid, FCP, etc. It is still in development, but an exciting project to me.


That's brilliant. Thanks for the link.
I was looking at prices for Adobes production pack, and it's going to cost me as much as a scarlet.

Nice time to join these guys too as they haven't locked down a lot of the feature set.

Thanks for that :thumbsup:

[brh]

I'm really impressed with what Blender has done, but the user interface is it's biggest hurdle that it throws up to users.

Have you ever used Maya? Honestly, after using some of the big 3d software, Blender's interface seems to fit right in, in terms of usability. As far as NLE goes, the UI in Avid Xpress often feels like open-source to me... Mostly in that it's built to be the same cross-platform so that you only need to know Avid, not OS X or Windows. But the trade-off is that it feels like neither OS X nor Windows, and has a bit of a learning curve no matter how proficient you are in either... This often seems to be the UI failing of open source... They compile it for a variety of systems, but never really make it "fit in."

PS, been lurking here for a while, thought maybe I should actually register. Hello!

[DaveT]

Hello.

It's my admiration for what Blender (and cinepaint, Gimp, Firefox, and others) have achieved that inspired me to write a post about a possible Open source NLE.
I don't think it's ever the coding or the brillence of the particpants that lets Open Source down. I think it's mainly the GUI.
In alot of ways, the GUI is the hardest thing to impliment. It's the control interface to the software, and it's really important to not 'get in the way' of the users experience.

This also goes for hardware. The Ipod is just an MP3 player, but it has a great interface.
I'm hoping that the Scarlet will tread some new ground in camera controls :-)

[Lawrence Bansbach]

I wish these things were also available for Windows. I understand the complexities of developing for that OS, but we Windows users need open-source tools, too.

[Jared Caldwell]

All you have to do is dual boot! Unlike Windows, UNIX and UNIX-like operating systems can be found for free! (Ubuntu for Linux i.e. "UNIX-like", Solaris i.e. UNIX) :thumbsup:

[jwheeler]

From what I've read, (I haven't tried anything in depth,) but Blender does have an edit function that seems fairly full featured, and you can edit DPX sequences, etc. Have any of you used Blender for editing?

[Stephen Gentle]

From what I've read, (I haven't tried anything in depth,) but Blender does have an edit function that seems fairly full featured, and you can edit DPX sequences, etc. Have any of you used Blender for editing?

Yes, I've tried it. The interface is pretty cool (it feels great if you already know blender - selecting, moving things, navigating and zooming the timeline etc. are all the same), but it is still in its quire early stages.

For one thing, it doesn't have an asset management system - you just add a video and its straight on the timeline. Hopefully soon they'll have a more traditional way of doing this - having it in a bin, and then letting you trim it if you want before it goes on the timeline.

Another problem I was having was that with DV at least, it didn't seem to keep sound sync well. Also, it struggled with even DV on my computer if you changed the resoluton - make sure it's exactly the same as the footage, or it tries to scale on the fly and cannot play back in real time.

Lastly, Blender has a cool nodal compositor, but it is hardly integrated at all with the sequence editor... This has great potential, and I hope it's fixed soon.

Blender looks like it could be a great NLE, but it still has some way to go. Remember that development versions are quite a bit better than the release usually - as bugs are constantly being fixed and features added.

[Phildikian]

...I don't think it's ever the coding or the brillence of the particpants that lets Open Source down. I think it's mainly the GUI...

I think you're absolutely right. I just read a blog post recently from daringfireball.net that dealt with exactly that. I never put my finger on it, but it's completely true - the UI is what kills most open source software. When you're coding in a community too many UI decisions are not established - there need to be very precise and exacting "rules" for the interface before starting a project and from the software I've used before, I don't think thats been practiced too often.

[DaveT]

From Slashdot...

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/03/1847220&from=rss