[Techtalk] video editing on Linux

[Maria Blackmore]

On Fri, 27 Dec 2002, Michelle Murrain wrote:

> I'm starting a new creative project, which is looking like it's 
> evolving into a video project.

cool, it's fun :)

> Here are some details, and questions. I'd really appreciate feedback 
> from folks who've done a fair bit of video editing, on any platform.

uhm .. sony low band u-matic :)

old clanky things, but a joy to service

not so good on the editing, having a +/- 1 frame accuracy ... hum :)

> 1) Basic project: converting an old VHS tape to digital,

your wintv card should be fine for this

> converting 8mm film to digital,

You're probably going to want to do this telecine, which is basically
projecting the film onto something and making a video recording of this,
or filming the film.
you can usually get attachments for a video camera to make this easy, so
that you don't have to actually project the damn thing onto a screen

> Basic specs of the box: Mobo with 8x AGP, AMD XP2200, new high speed
> bus, 512 M RAM, 120 G ATA 133 HD with 8M cache, IEEE 1394, WinTV card
> from Happauge, nvidia m440 with TV out.  Good specs?

you're well supplied with CPU power, certainly.

More RAM would never hurt though of course :)
buffering is good

The drive should be fine, it should be able to sustain a good throughput
for capturing video, though it's certainly true that you can never have
enough disk space or throughput, one of my friends who edits video for a
job has 210 GB of drive array, and a DLT library (for offline storage)

The nvidia card is decent enough if you follow the instructions for TV
out, I believe that with the newer drivers it's possible to get a seperate
head running on the second video output if you have a dual head card, so
with the right type of card you can have normal X on one monitor, and
something to capture to VHS on the second output

> 2) Camera: Any suggestions? I'm also assuming (incorrectly???) that I 
> will be able to get any digital camcorder with an IEEE 1394 
> (firewire) connection to work.

I don't know, sorry

> 3) Video editing software. I've found (thanks to helpful chix) 
> Cinelerra. It seems pretty darned good. Any other suggestions? I'm 
> more interested in power than in ease of use.

no other suggestions, sorry

> 4) Conversion from film to video: I understand that you have to 
> interleave new frames into a video that comes from a film because of 
> the different frequency of the film. I couldn't find on the Cinelerra 
> site whether or not it could do that. Does anyone know of Linux 
> software that can do that?

If you're using telecine this will happen by itself, since you're filming
the film.  The video camera will be running at the "correct" speed, and
simply take a picture of whatever is in front of it, so you'll get the
right number of frames per second out, no matter what the film is doing

> 5) The complete idiot question: I have a Mac, and possibly access to 
> some very good software (Final Cut Pro, Cleaner, Adobe After 
> Affects). I do want to try my hand at doing this on Linux, but I also 
> do want the project to work. Am I being a total idiot for trying to 
> do this on Linux?

no, I don't think so.  If you have a look, I believe the guy behind
cinelerra is doing this as a job, for the express purpose of bringing
video editing to linux.

good luck, and remember to have fun :)

Maria