DVD-Software.info

[Daniel Kelly (AKA Jack)]

Will any of the video editing packages currently available on Windows / OS X
be ported to Linux? E.g. Adobe Premiere, Vagus, Final Cut Pro, Avid, Media
100 etc? Please speculate / share rumours / give links to suggestive press
releases etc...

Here are some reasons why I think that this may (/ should) happen...

1) OS X is Unix based and so a Linux port would be pretty easy for packages
like FCP and Avid XPress.
2) Avid have already released a version of iNews for Linux
3) All the large animation houses use Linux for their 3D design and
rendering so it would make sense to do the editing in Linux as well
4) The onslaught of high definition video and digital intermediates needs an
OS with a bit more ooompf that Windows
5) Linux has several advantages for video: better file system, more stable,
generally faster, runs in 64-bit mode on the G5 / AMD64
6) Apple have released a version of Shake for Linux
7) Discreet love Linux to bits.
8) Most digital intermediate jobs are done on Linux
9) Linux is free!
10) Linux now has good support for FireWire, graphics cards, sound etc
11) The use of networked render farms easier to Linux than to Windows
because there's a long history of using Linux for clusters
12) It would make a lot of sense for guys who sell whole editing systems
(like Avid / Media 100) to use Linux because they could talor-make their OS
for the exact hardware setup to squeeze every last drop of power from it.

This post is a follow on from my previous post about video editing in Linux.
One major conclusion from that thread was something like: Linux is a poor
choice for a digital video editing environment because it doesn't have any
mainstream editing tools so you'll be left out in the cold if things go
wrong and you'll be unemployable. This problem would be solved instantly if
there was a mainstream editing package for Linux.

(also, I must again say a big THANKS to all those who contributed to my last
post - it was one of the most productive and interesting newsgroup
discussions I've seen in a long while)

Thanks in advance,
Jack

[Tony Morgan]

In message <clnvh2$iha$1@uns-a.ucl.ac.uk>, "Daniel Kelly (AKA Jack)"
<d.kellyNOSPAM@NOSPAM.ucl.ac.uk> writes

[Peter Hayes]

Daniel Kelly (AKA Jack) <d.kellyNOSPAM@NOSPAM.ucl.ac.uk> wrote:

[Simon Waters]

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Peter Hayes wrote:
|
|>9) Linux is free!
|
|
| The OS costs in a professional post production environment are
peanuts.
| There are other more valuable reasons for using Linux or OS X.

Perhaps he meant free as in Freedom?

I think the OS, and licensing costs may be significant in some places.

Rendering was mentioned, but in the case studies I've read GNU/Linux
was preferred for clustering not because of history of clustering,
but because it was easier to customise to the studios requirements.

The rendering farms are not traditional clusters because rendering
work is usually easily divided up between networked computers (well
more easily than so fluid dynamics problems) so traditional
clustering features are largely irrelevant - they were more "Just a
bunch of {identical/fast/headless} computers".

There are ample distributed queuing systems for GNU/Linux and Unix
systems, and for most rendering tasks all you need is some sort of
batching and queuing, effective network filesystems, and the ability
to easily automate administration of LOTS of identical machines.

In one case they used Alpha processors, so they had a choice of OS;
GNU/Linux, or proprietary Unix, BSD, or OpenVMS (presumably also
they could have chosen Microsoft Windows on Alpha, not that it ever
performed well on Alphas, probably a good job they didn't go Windows
on Alpha, otherwise they would have found out what a safe bet buying
Microsoft is). At the time GNU/Linux for Alpha was the "maverick"
choice, but I guess it is now looking like a stroke of genius, they
even now have vendor support available should they need it.

Some of the software costs in render farms could be exorbitant, you
only need to discover you need one piece of software everywhere with
a moderate per CPU fee and you are looking at another million or two
on the budget.

Whilst I am keen on free (as in freedom) software, if someone has no
experience with GNU/Linux, or Unix, it is a big leap to go straight
there.

The big studios can easily hire GNU/Linux expertise, or "retrain"
their staff, as many had Silicon Graphics boxes in before so have
lots of Unix expertise inhouse already.

Do it in little steps, try out bootable CD distro's like Dynebolic,
which will let you try out a variety of appropriate applications
quickly. Although I find the Dynebolic desktop a tad spartan
compared to my usual Debian Desktop, it has some applications you
might like to look at. Although be aware often the CD distros can be
a little behind with releases unless it is really hot of the presses
- - this is easily fixed once you decide to install on your hard disk.
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[Daniel Kelly (AKA Jack)]

Great, thanks a lot for your replies.

Jack

"Simon Waters" <simon@wretched.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:clpbsc$jjd$1$8302bc10@news.demon.co.uk...

[Johan Stäck]

http://www.mainconcept.com/products.shtml

Mainactor V5 is reportedly ported to Linux...

/JS

[Tony Morgan]

In message <2upnqqF2cs7k4U1@uni-berlin.de>, Johan Stäck <johan@stack.se>
writes

[Chris Cole]

On Wed, 27 Oct 2004 12:05:36 +0100, Daniel Kelly (AKA Jack) wrote: