Re: Re: Open Movie Editor

On Sat, 24 Dec 2005, Ramona Howard wrote:
> You comment:
>
> Is there any open source movie editor capable of supporting modern film
> digital intermediates with stand-alone frames in 10-bit log or 14+ bits
> linear at 2K resolution, and which supports edit definition lists (EDLs), and
> LUTs for display, as well as handles the conform responsibilities?  To me,
> these are the bare essentials to support editing a movie.
>
> ---
>
> Creating a product such as this around a professional arena of users entirely
> open source is a difficult one.  First off how many open source developers
> have access to the tools to make the project feasible.  This is not a cheap
> field to be in as you probably know.  We have tried to offer the next best
> thing by giving the customers the source code to RaveHD, which by the way
> does most of what you ask for.  We have talked about eventually opening up
> this project but for now we can only offer a low-cost, open-code product.

I totally agree.  The biggest problem to surmount is not the technical 
challenges.  The biggest problem is that while there are some common 
conventions, each studio has its own programmers who put a system 
together which matches their desired workflow and existing equipment. 
Studios have little desire to give away the fruits of their labours to 
competing studios.  Even if the work was given away "as is" it would 
likely not be usable anywhere else since the design would be brittle 
and work only for that one studio.

Open source programmers who are allowed to give their work away are 
unlikely to have access to volumes of source material to work with. 
They are also unlikely to have the opportunity to sustain the "trial 
by fire" necessary to prove-out the design.

Regardless, the benefit to the studios from using an open-source DI 
suite would be tremendous.  Instead of wasting time reinventing the 
wheel, they could re-focus their energy on their specialties. 
Studios already have the ability to hire people who have experience in 
proprietary software packages, but most of these packages satisfy 
limited requirements and none of them provide the whole end to end 
solution.  By using a common framework, the amount of time spent 
training new employees would decrease.

> Just wanted to let you know there are those of us out there working to offer
> high-end tools on this platform.

Absolutely.  Rave/SpectSoft are a shining example of what is possible 
in the Linux environment.

Bob
======================================
Bob Friesenhahn
[email protected], http://www.simplesystems.org/users/bfriesen/
GraphicsMagick Maintainer,    http://www.GraphicsMagick.org/