[KLUG Members] Digital Video for Linux release

[Rusty Yonkers]

Well here is some information from Rusty's "for what its worth
department".  

I am currently working on starting a business making training
(primarily computer training) videos.  I initially looked at the
offerings on Linux.  What I found was very sparce and the stuff that
was out there was VERY raw.  The best choice of the bunch is a
commercial product that is available for both Windows and Linux
called Main Actor.  This is a non-liner (higher end more professional
approach) editor.  The interface is really not all that bad.  It is
fairly nice to work with in comparison to other non-liner editors and
looks fairly similar to Adobe Premier.  It is geared to working with
digital video and you can setup the output to work for vcd, svcd, or
dvd, or dv.  I had mixed luck with the product being stable and
working reliably.  Most of the work I did with it was in Windows
though so that may be better in Linux.  I also looked at Kino.  It
deserves the 0. numbers because it is really rough!!!  And that is
about it for editing that I found on Linux (except for Cinelerra but
that is a horror story in itself!).  

My Mac is only a 233 Mhz G3 and so very underpowered for doing video
editing.  So next I thought well I will just do it in Windows.  I
downloaded the trial of Premier Pro.  It is a very nice program but
it does tend to take a fair amount of horsepower.  It will do a lot. 
It is a true professional grade non-liner editor.  It also has a
price tag of $700.00, and that is only for video editing.  Well I
have been trying out some lesser editors on Windows.  In the mean
time I got a DVD burner.  I have started to look at the burning
software.  Basically the stuff that I have tried demos of cost around
$100 and it is very limited.  To get a more full featured product
will be $200-$300.  Hmmm... now I am up to almost $1000 in software
plus the $100 for the burner.... (no I did not buy the software yet I
was using demos).  Oh and of course I will want music in the
videos... and that needs to be royalty free .... Well I downloaded a
free copy of Acid.  Hmmmm the demo looked pretty cool but once I
started to try to make songs myself I was in the middle of the lake
struggling yet again! What a bummer!!!!  Oh and the version of Acid
that gives you what you need to make it easy is like $600.  Now we
are like $1600.00 and a huge learning curve.  Oh by the way Adobe
does have a dvd authoring package .... for like $400 or something
like that.... 

Well one day I was feeling totally frustrated and decided to, just
for grins, look at the newer Macs.  WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have used the Mac in the past for video editing back in the old
iMovie 1.x days.  It was very nice back then.  Now ...... all I can
say is WOW!!!!!  And you also get iTunes, iDVD, iPhoto, and .... drum
roll please....... GarageBand!  Now granted iTunes is a liner editor
and not the level of Premier Pro .... but I have been able to do a
lot with it in the past.  There are also tons of great plugins to
extend it out.  Oh and when you are ready to move to a non-liner
editor there is Final Cut Express for $299 or Final Cut Pro (the same
program used by many Hollywood elites) for $999.  Yes, there have
been major motion pictures that have been fully edited on the Mac
with Final Cut Pro.  Now for the big kicker.  You can get an eMac G4
with the Superdrive to burn DVDs for $1099.00 and it comes with all
the stuff needed (well not the tv tuner but that is just like another
$70) to do video editing.  Any one of you would have a functional dvd
within one to two hours of using the machine.  Not just functional
but cool looking professional looking functional!  Trust me I do not
lie on this fact.  Oh and for another big kicker, yesterday Apple
just increased the eMac to a 1.25GHz G4 (the same as in the iMac and
dropped the price of the one with the Superdrive to $999.00. And the
USB was upgraded to 2.0 (of course it already had teh firewire port).
 You could get the iMac with the cool flat panel or the G4 tower but
they are more and the eMac will do it really well for the beginner. 
(Don't look at the G5 or you will really start drooling)  

When I was in the store I was able to create a 30 sec. music intro in
GarageBand without anyone telling me how to use the program in 5
minutes!  Yes 5 minutes from start to finish.  How is that for a
learning curve!  And it sounded really cool.  The whole iLife series
is all linked together really nicely too so that you can move from
iMovie to GarageBand to iTunes to iPhoto back to iMovie to iDVD to
completed project easily.  The programs have buttons to take you to
the other programs when appropriate.  Of course you can do it other
ways too.  iMovie does bring up your entire library of audio from
iTunes when looking for music for projects.  You also have the
chaptering button for iDVD right in iMovie too.  

So the long and the short of it is that I have ditched the idea of
using anything other than the Mac for video work.  I will still have
my Linux box for many things but video (and audio) will be on the
Mac.  I cannot afford the Windows alternative at much higher costs
and I will not have a useable video for like 6 months to a year with
Linux with the learning curve and the poor software.  I know that
most of the list want to do everything on Linux but this is one place
where doing the work on Linux is kinda like using a hammer to screw
in a screw.  

I am going to start with an eMac and get me a nice inexpensive dv
camcorder to start with and then down the road (assuming
profitability) move up to Final Cut Express and a $1000 dv camcorder
etc etc etc.  My initial investment for the computer and camcorder
will probably be less than $1500.00 and will get me going for quite a
long time.  I may buy some plugins for cool features and oh there is
a really cool special effects package (Only Mac or Windows) that will
do light sabers and explosions and ghost busters guns and Matrix like
slow bullets and much more for another $70 that I may get for funsys
down the road but hey.... for $1500 I will be able to do soooooo
much.  And I do not have to use WinBlows either!!!!!! 


=====
Russell C. Yonkers Jr. 
CNE, MCP, A+, CCNA, Linux+, Server+, Network+ certified
-----------------------------------------
Currently using SuSE 9, Mac OS X, Windows 2000, and WinXP 
And yes I run a network at home with Linux and Windows servers


	
		
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