Digital Video editing

Kenetixx · 2007-01-02 10:04:31

Who here uses there linux box for digital editing or direct streaming form there DV Cam? This issue is the one thing stopping me from ditchin windows all together, i cant get my DV cam to work on linux, it wont even recognize it is there. SO who has had success doing all this in linux? My cam is a Samsung

smoon · 2007-01-02 11:48:21

I never had a problem getting my JVC MiniDV camcorder working in linux. It's just a matter of inserting the correct kernel modules (should happen automatically these days). Copying stuff from the camcorder over isn't much of a hassle either, you can use dvgrab on the command line or Kino if you prefer a GUI app which can control (play, pause, rewind, etc...) your camcorder as well.

What is a hassle though, is editing the videos. Kino can do some cutting and has some effects you can add IIRC, but only works with raw DV video material. There's also avidemux for cutting/converting to other formats but it does not do all that much else. Cinelerra aims to be "an advanced content creation system for Linux". It looks quite professional and if you read its webpages it sounds like that as well, but for me it never worked right. It was damn slow and crashed even on the simplest operations. Blender should also be mentioned. Even though being a 3d modeller/renderer it's compositing features are fairly advanced. Finally there's stuff like Pitivi or Diva which sound quite good but are not yet ready for usage.

So, basically the tools are there but one of the main problems is formats. You can cut your stuff using Kino and add effects and the like with Blender, but while Kino only accepts DV, Blender can only handle some other formats. So you'll find yourself converting your videos back and forth from one format to the other after a while just to be able to make use of every tools strengths.

JGC · 2007-01-02 12:20:25

For editing, you might try to checkout http://pitivi.sourceforge.net/

I have no experience with it, but it looks like a wonderful piece of software, based on the capabilities GStreamer has to offer.

baze · 2007-01-02 16:26:30

i just tried pitivi some days ago (last stable release and current svn) and unfortunately it's still pretty slow and buggy.
but it definately looks promising. i kinda like pygtk+gstreamer :>
hopefully pitivi will become for video editing, what jokosher is currently becoming for audio editing.

Kenetixx · 2007-01-03 09:04:19

Thanks for the suggestions ppl
I will give them a try tonight when i get home.

Bogart · 2007-02-04 17:31:24

I don't have a video cam now, but when I tried one I couldn't get it to work under Linux because I was using an USB cable. At that time Linux couldn't handle video through USB (I'm not sure if this has changed, so if you can choose, try firewire instead of USB).

Also you might want to try Kdenlive for editing (if you use KDE). There are PKGBUILDs in AUR.

Arch Linux

#1 2007-01-02 10:04:31

Digital Video editing

#2 2007-01-02 11:48:21

Re: Digital Video editing

#3 2007-01-02 12:20:25

Re: Digital Video editing

#4 2007-01-02 16:26:30

Re: Digital Video editing

#5 2007-01-03 09:04:19

Re: Digital Video editing

#6 2007-02-04 17:31:24

Re: Digital Video editing

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