[GLLUG] Video Editing on Linux

[Marr]

On Thursday 13 December 2007 10:45am, Marr wrote:
> On Tuesday 04 December 2007 2:10pm, Clay Dowling wrote:
> > I bought my wife a digital video camera for Christmas this year, and I'm
> > expecting that one of her very first requests is going to be learning how
> > get it off the camera and edited down so that we can share video with
> > friends and family.  Unfortunately most of the Linux resources I'm
> > finding on that are three to five years old.  In the Linux world, that's
> > like trying to fix my Honda Accord with the service manual from 1977.
> >
> > Anybody have any good pointers for where to look on that?  If I can learn
> > how to do it I'm perfectly happy to give a presentation on the subject so
> > that I can share what I learn.  For that matter, it might make a good
> > panel for Penguicon.
> >
> > Clay
>
> This week's edition of LWN has a front-page article about video camera use:
>
>   http://lwn.net/Articles/261820/
>
>    The Grumpy Editor's video journey, part 1
>    [LWN subscriber-only content]
>    By Jonathan Corbet
>
> Eventually (after 1 or 2 weeks, IIRC), the article will be available to
> non-subscribers.
>
> However, as a subscriber, I'm allowed to create a limited number of "Free
> Links" to LWN stories that I want to share. Here's a free link to the above
> story, for those who are interested in video camera use under Linux:
>
>    http://lwn.net/SubscriberLink/261820/4c0b2da7ed8cb13e/
>
> Here's a quote: "This article is the first of (probably) three which
> describe your editor's odyssey through the hazards of video processing on
> Linux."
>
> I haven't fully read the article yet, but Part 1 does not cover Kdenlive.
> It does discuss 'dvgrab', Kino, Cinelerra, 'transcode', and 'mencoder',
> though.
>
> And, lastly, for anyone interested in supporting LWN through a
> subscription:
>
>    https://lwn.net/op/Subscriptions.lwn
>
> Bill Marr

Hey guys,

A follow-up to my earlier post....

For anyone interested in making DVDs from their video content (whether 
captured via a camcorder or gotten via other means), LWN has posted the 3rd 
part of this 3-part series. (Note that part 2, covering the actual video 
editing process, was postponed and will appear, chronologically, in 3rd 
place.)

The Grumpy Editor's video journey part 3: DVD authoring
By Jonathan Corbet
January 2, 2008 
Part of the LWN Grumpy Editor series

Here's the link:

   http://lwn.net/Articles/263387/

As you can see, I'm a bit behind on my weekly LWN reading, so this article is 
conveniently now available to everyone, without the need for a 
subscriber's "Free Link" like before.

Author Jon Corbet covers 2 GUI-based DVD authoring applications: 'DVDStyler' 
and 'Q DVD-Author', both of which use the 'dvdauthor' (command-line) utility. 
I haven't yet experimented with either of these GUI apps, but I've 
used 'dvdauthor' many times with great success.

Of course, as I stated in my 1st post in this thread, you can also make DVDs 
with a "roll-your-own" approach, using text files and scripts. It's not 
trivial but not really that hard either; however, the GUI methods seem like a 
welcome idea and they're maturing a bit too, it seems.

Please note that the example XML file for the command-line 'dvdauthor' tool 
(given in a link within the story) is ridiculously, needlessly complex. I've 
made several DVDs, including a few with multi-menu, multi-chapter, 
multi-title capability, including an audio background, and I've never needed 
an XML file anywhere near as complex as the author's example. I think that 
author Jon Corbet's usual sense of humor is at work here, just to make an 
exaggerated point. So don't be scared off by that XML file. Once you get the 
hang of it, the hardest part of making an XML file for the 'dvdauthor' tool 
(assuming you're using the "roll your own" approach and not a GUI utility) is 
getting the chapter breaks but any decent editor (e.g. Kino) should generate 
those automatically in the preliminary XML output file.

Anyway, I hope some of you find this information useful.

P.S. Part 2 of the series (video editors) is supposed to cover these 
applications: Kdenlive, Cinelerra CV, Kino, PiTiVi, LiVES, and Avidemux.

Regards,
Bill Marr