Linux Editing Solutions

Last night, while I was resting in bed, I thought about the possibility of exploring Linux movie editing solutions. So I went off today in search of such a video editor.

First off was Cinerella. Once I figured out and installed the dependencies (NASM, YASM) – it still wouldn’t install properly. But apparently I’m not the only one with such troubles – Ubuntu & Cinerella don’t play too well as I found out through the support forums.

Next up was Kino. I threw that one out the Window – the way it operates is very much similar to “Windows Movie Maker” in that it uses a filmstrip concept. No multiple layers of video/audio crossing over each other. Useless for anyone that wishes to do… anything… with their video.

Then there’s Pitvi. That did install on Ubuntu quite well. Only once running, it couldn’t properly handle even DV files in an AVI container. Somewhat useless; plus its questionable as to whether it could handle multiple video tracks.

Finally I tried Diva. Diva can’t open any video format but RAW DV files (can’t even handle DV in AVI container). That alone makes it absolutely useless.

The last solution was using Blender to do the video manipulation. Some tout it as the only stable video editor for Linux. Coercing a 3D package into manipulating video, however, is hardly an ideal means to approach this problem.

Update: I finally got Cinelerra to work. I installed alien, and used it translate the Cinerella RPM they had out for Debian. This time Cinerella installed correctly, and I’m now trying it out. There’s a bit of a learning curve, but that’s fine.

What I’m more worried about is the overly visible interlacing in the real-time rendering of the video output. If that makes itself to the final renders, I’m dropping Cinerella. If it cannot manage multiple clips spread out throughout a single video track, I’m dropping Cinerella. But if it can pull it off – I just might have myself a Linux solution.