RexDart asks: "I'm building a new AMD64/939 box and would like to build into the system: capabilities to capture video from analog and digital sources; edit; add text and overlays; and maybe do the occasional DVE. This is for home movies, wedding videos and occasional project for work. This will be a dual boot Linux (Red Hat or Ubuntu most likely) / WinXP system. Open source, free, software would be ideal (Audacity will definitely be installed), but commercial solutions are not out of the picture. I'd like to keep the media production on the Linux side of the system and reserve WinXP for gaming, but is Linux up to the task?"Ads_xl=0;Ads_yl=0;Ads_xp='';Ads_yp='';Ads_xp1='';Ads_yp1='';Ads_par='';Ads_cnturl='';Ads_prf='page=article';Ads_channels='RON_P6_IMU';Ads_wrd='movies';Ads_kid=0;Ads_bid=0;Ads_sec=0; "Given the above considerations, the questions:1) What's a good recommendation for video capture hardware?2) What's a good recommendation for software? I don't expect a definitive answer, but would like to narrow the starting points of my research.Thanks!" This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted. Building a Video Editing Box? Log in/Create an Account | Top | 143 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 143 comments 0: 142 comments 1: 116 comments 2: 84 comments 3: 15 comments 4: 6 comments 5: 5 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. Get a Mac instead. (Score:5, Insightful) by LordNimon (85072) <1tkipwqmo001@sRA ... .com minus berry> on Friday January 21, @01:46PM (#11433538) is Linux up to the task?No, it's not. Get a Mac, and you'll have all the tools you need, the ability to play a few games, and a Unix OS to satisfy your geek side.Re:Get a Mac instead. by Sentry21 (Score:2)Friday January 21, @01:51PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ash-Fox (Score:1)Friday January 21, @01:53PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ash-Fox (Score:1)Friday January 21, @05:37PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by TheWanderingHermit (Score:2)Friday January 21, @06:07PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ash-Fox (Score:1)Saturday January 22, @09:47AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by TheWanderingHermit (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @10:35AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ash-Fox (Score:1)Saturday January 22, @09:28PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by TheWanderingHermit (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @10:20PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @01:55AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ash-Fox (Score:1)Monday January 24, @06:25AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by voidstin (Score:1)Friday January 21, @09:26PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ash-Fox (Score:1)Saturday January 22, @09:52AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @02:53AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ash-Fox (Score:1)Monday January 24, @06:28AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @02:56AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @03:12AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Get a Mac instead. by Lussarn (Score:2)Friday January 21, @02:24PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by daviddennis (Score:2)Friday January 21, @05:54PM Re:Get a Mac instead. (Score:5, Interesting) by swillden (191260) * on Friday January 21, @02:34PM (#11434081) No, it's not. Get a Mac, and you'll have all the tools you need, the ability to play a few games, and a Unix OS to satisfy your geek side.I disagree with this, after having done the comparison.I got a mini DV camera for Christmas, and bought my wife an iBook. Although I didn't want to hog her new computer, I did think for a while that maybe I should use it for video editing. After trying for a while, I'm using Kino on Linux.The problem with iLife tools is that although they're very polished and slick, they're also somewhat limited. Some of the problems I found are:iMovie can't handle the anamorphic "widescreen" format that my camera optionally produces. I looked to see if there's some filter I can use to stretch the video out to its correct aspect ratio, but there isn't one. Kino just does it.iMovie won't output any formats other than its own, DV or Quicktime. That's fine if you are going to use iDVD (see below), but that doesn't work for me.I couldn't find a way to make iDVD produce a DVD without a menu, and it wasn't obvious how to make my own menu themes since I didn't like the ones Apple provided.iDVD will not output the DVD image in any format at all, as far as I can tell. You can only burn the DVD but, of course, the iBook doesn't have a burner.There were some others as well that I'm forgetting, because I gave up on using the iLife tools for video editing a couple of weeks ago.Now, my situation is a little different than that of the questioner, because I'm not really willing to spend much money on buying video editing software. If there were something in the range of a hundred bucks, I'd consider it it, but certainly no more... I spent all my money on the iBook and the camera!IMO, for typical home movie stuff, making DVD slide shows for weddings (which I've done), Linux is perfectly adequate, and depending on what you want to do, may actually be a better choice than a Mac.Gimp runs much better on Linux than on OSX, too, which is valuable when building slide shows. [ Parent Re:Get a Mac instead. (Score:4, Informative) by CompVisGuy (587118) on Friday January 21, @03:06PM (#11434493) The recent MacWorld Keynote said that Final Cut Express HD will cope with the widescreen format, and I believe this is true for the new iMovie, too.Advice: Buy a Mac with a version of Final Cut HD. [ ParentRe:Get a Mac instead. by notsoclever (Score:2)Friday January 21, @04:00PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by CompVisGuy (Score:1)Friday January 21, @04:36PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by notsoclever (Score:2)Friday January 21, @07:45PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Get a Mac instead. (Score:5, Informative) by Dragonmaster Lou (34532) on Friday January 21, @03:29PM (#11434742) (http://www.techhouse.org/lou) The new iMovie supports HD camcorders and 16:9 widescreen formats. It's available January 22nd either bought separately or with any new macs bought after that.No reason why you can't output to QuickTime or DV and then use a program to change the DV to something else (I often use D-Vision to create Xvid AVIs). What formats did you have in mind?I believe the new iDVD lets you create menuless DVDs as well. Comes in the same box as the version of iMovie I mentioned above.The new iDVD does let you output the DVD to a disk imageLooks to me like your gripes have all been answered. If you have any other questions, you can feel free to ask me -- I'm pretty handy at Mac video editing for an amateur. [ ParentRe:Get a Mac instead. by swillden (Score:2)Friday January 21, @07:40PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Dragonmaster Lou (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @01:46AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by jefflinwood (Score:2)Friday January 21, @03:43PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by daviddennis (Score:2)Friday January 21, @06:02PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by swillden (Score:2)Friday January 21, @08:05PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by RustNeverSleeps (Score:1)Saturday January 22, @02:02AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @03:22AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by TheWanderingHermit (Score:2)Friday January 21, @06:16PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @03:26AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Yaztromo (Score:2)Friday January 21, @09:46PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by swillden (Score:2)Friday January 21, @10:43PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Yaztromo (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @12:14AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by kalidasa (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @11:15AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by swillden (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @11:52AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by kalidasa (Score:2)Sunday January 23, @09:43AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by swillden (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @03:00AMRe:Get a Mac instead. by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @03:32AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Get a Mac instead. by jjshoe (Score:2)Friday January 21, @02:35PMRe:Get a Mac instead. by norkakn (Score:2)Friday January 21, @07:09PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. AMD 939 (Score:3, Interesting) by mabu (178417) on Friday January 21, @01:49PM (#11433566) As I type this, I'm looking over at my new Athlon 64 3500+ system I've been building. Unfortunately, the darn thing was shipped without a CPU heatsink so while I've got the new system put together, I am waiting for the heatsink to be delivered before I can try it out. It seems 939 parts are pretty scarce around here. I'll be very interested in responses here because I don't have a video capture card installed and am looking into it. My system is an MSI K8N Neo2, 1GB DDR400, GEForce 6800GT 256MB, 2x300GB Seagate SATA Barricuda drives, 1 Sony DVD drive, 1 Sony dual-layer DVD+/- burner. I too would like to run dual boot. The last time I set up a PC this way, I installed Windows second and it wiped out my partitioning that Unix set up. If I want to do dual boot with XP and Linux (or better yet FreeBSD), what should I install first?Re:AMD 939 by XeresRazor (Score:1)Friday January 21, @01:57PMRe:AMD 939 by martin (Score:2)Friday January 21, @01:58PMRe:AMD 939 by Computerguy5 (Score:2)Friday January 21, @02:33PMRe:AMD 939 by ZephyrXero (Score:2)Friday January 21, @03:21PMRe:AMD 939 by MaynardJanKeymeulen (Score:1)Saturday January 22, @09:09AMRe:AMD 939 by big daddy kane (Score:1)Saturday January 22, @11:37AMForget dual boot: VMWARE by hoggoth (Score:2)Friday January 21, @05:38PMRe:Forget dual boot: VMWARE by RevAaron (Score:2)Friday January 21, @06:48PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Video capture for AMD 939 by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @03:38AM some decent software (Score:1) by supersuckers (841107) on Friday January 21, @01:53PM (#11433598) (http://www.supersuckers.com/) kino http://kino.schirmacher.de/ [schirmacher.de] avidemux http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/ [fixounet.free.fr] cinelerra http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3 [heroinewarrior.com]1 reply beneath your current threshold. Capture hardware (Score:5, Informative) by ip_vjl (410654) on Friday January 21, @02:00PM (#11433676) For capture hardware you can save yourself some hassle by looking at the analog firewire converters like the Canopus ADVC line. This way, you never need to worry about drivers, just plug the thing into a firewire port and it makes any analog device look like a firewire camera. I have the older ADVC100, and it makes capture easy. I can move the thing from computer to computer and platform to platform with no problems. Re:Capture hardware - addition by ip_vjl (Score:2)Friday January 21, @02:03PMRe:Capture hardware by log0n (Score:3)Friday January 21, @02:12PMTV through the DV bridge??? by mosel-saar-ruwer (Score:2)Friday January 21, @03:26PMRe:TV through the DV bridge??? by BRTB (Score:2)Friday January 21, @03:55PMRe:TV through the DV bridge??? by log0n (Score:3)Friday January 21, @04:03PMRe:TV through the DV bridge??? by UberLame (Score:2)Monday January 24, @03:28PMRe:TV through the DV bridge??? by Hangman Jim 99 (Score:1)Friday January 21, @04:07PMRe:Capture hardware by MrResistor (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @05:25AMRe:Capture hardware by dghcasp (Score:3)Saturday January 22, @07:13PMRe:Capture hardware by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @04:04AMRe:Capture hardware by delus10n0 (Score:2)Friday January 21, @02:25PMRe: Hidden feature of the ADVC-100 by Anonymous Coward (Score:1)Friday January 21, @02:30PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Capture hardware by Andy_R (Score:2)Friday January 21, @02:45PMRe:Capture hardware by kbielefe (Score:2)Friday January 21, @04:22PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Video Capture with LabVIEW drivers??? by mosel-saar-ruwer (Score:2)Friday January 21, @03:04PMRe:Capture hardware by lilo_booter (Score:1)Friday January 21, @03:58PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. dvdrhelp (Score:2) by TheGratefulNet (143330) on Friday January 21, @02:13PM (#11433828) (http://www...grateful...net../) if you bothered to even google it, you'd find this site. /not even worthy of wasting /. time... hw/sw (Score:3, Interesting) by farnsworth (558449) on Friday January 21, @02:25PM (#11433958) For software, Cinelerra [heroinewarrior.com] is the best editing suite out there. I haven't used Final Cut Pro, but Cinelerra is much more useful than iMovie. I haven't used Premiere is years, and Cinelerra is on par with what I remember of Premiere. Cinelerra should be able to do everything that you need.I've only done DV over firewire capture, and for that I would guess that any old firewire card would be fine. For analog capture, I'd look into using a Hauppauge 250 for capture. Just `cat /dev/video0 > /home/me/projects/bills-wedding/capture.mpeg`. You could also get the 350 which does hardware mpeg decoding (and you could hook a crt up to the tv out, too.)The only thing that absolutely stinks about video on linux is the choice of mpeg codecs. I can do everything I need to create a decent looking movie, but once I mpegify it to burn it to dvd, the picture quality looks terrible (to my eyes, anyway. some people say it looks fine). I just got a Hauppauge 250 so I could do all my editing/compositing in DV, write that back to the camera via firewire, then capture the final cut with a dedicated hardware mpeg card over analog connections.I actually looked into getting an old mac that I could stick in my garage and remotely mpegify my final cuts and burn them. At the time it was too much money for what I was doing (and I never did figure out how to script iMovie anyway), but it may be worth it to you.Re:hw/sw by kbielefe (Score:2)Friday January 21, @04:44PMRe:hw/sw by farnsworth (Score:2)Friday January 21, @05:06PMRe:hw/sw by kbielefe (Score:2)Friday January 21, @06:28PMRe:hw/sw by farnsworth (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @01:28AMRe:hw/sw by lachlan76 (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @05:13AMRe:hw/sw by tf23 (Score:2)Tuesday January 25, @08:35AMRe:hw/sw by Germany (Score:1)Sunday January 30, @02:38AM Think of a Mac Mini as a pehipheral (Score:3, Informative) by Andy_R (114137) on Friday January 21, @02:59PM (#11434405) (http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Friday October 01, @08:19AM) The slower MacMini configured with the larger hard drive and the DVD writer costs $649, and includes iMove and iDVD. Compare this to the price of:a DVD writera firewire cardan 80Gb drivemovie editing softwareDVD authoring software Use your exisiting mouse, keyboard and screen (consider the belkin KVM switch if you'll be giving it heavy use). Once you factor in the knowledge that you'll have a tried and tested set-up, good software, no driver issues, a shallow learning curve, and just 1 small desirable multi-purpose box on your desk rather than 3 or 4 specialist ones, then it makes a lot of sense to think of the MacMini as a video editing box in addition to your Linux machine, the fact that it has it's own CPU and OS rather than inhabiting the same beige shell isn't really that relevant.Re:Think of a Mac Mini as a pehipheral by Em Ellel (Score:2)Monday January 24, @06:29PMRe:Think of a Mac Mini as a pehipheral by tf23 (Score:2)Tuesday January 25, @08:43AM If you're going to have Windows on there anyway... (Score:3, Insightful) by Sancho (17056) on Friday January 21, @03:23PM (#11434688) (http://127.0.0.1/) ...you really might as well go Windows all the way. Periodically I look at the Linux tools for video capture/video editing. As far as I'm concerned, they're not there yet, which is a large part of the reason that I still have Windows on my desktop. There are some really advanced filtering tools on Windows so you can really make your final product shine. Check out AVISynth and its related documentation, as well as VirtualDUB (if you're going the mpeg-4 route) our QuENC (if you're going the mpeg-1 or mpeg-2 route). Also, if you ever intend on doing analog captures, you should consider using a striped raid array for a scratch drive for capturing. This way you can capture losslessly compressed AVI (with HuffYUV) and have as much data to work with. Be wary though that you should try to capture in a multiple of your final resolution--the less pixel interpolation you do when resizing, the better. The quick answer is, "no." (Score:3, Insightful) by RandomCoil (88441) on Friday January 21, @03:41PM (#11434856) Linux is not up to the task. There are a number of perfectly competent consumer-level Windows applications in the $100 range that will satisfy your needs. Adobe Premiere Elements, Sony Vegas Studio, and Ulead's video application come to mind*. As for hardware, the easiest approach is to simply make sure you have firewire. I'm assuming that if you're editting videos, you're also shooting them, probably on a digital video camera. Most such cameras have an analog video input. Digitizing an analog source using a DV camera is probably the easiest way to import the analog video into a computer. It avoids the cost of the capture card, the hassle of installing it, and any possible driver issues, and it completely negates problems with your computer dropping frames because, say, the anti-virus software fired up mid-capture. The only downside is the additional time required to dub and then import the analog video, but since neither process requires baby sitting, it may not be a big deal. *Pinnacle Studio is another possibility, but I had a video project that, after spending many hours working on, decided it would not render until I had removed and re-inserted the various video transitions. Quite obnoxious.Re:The quick answer is, "no." by jsupreston (Score:1)Friday January 21, @05:53PMRe:The quick answer is, "no." by kbielefe (Score:2)Friday January 21, @06:12PMRe:The quick answer is, "no." by sakusha (Score:2)Friday January 21, @09:37PMlinux in post production by voidstin (Score:1)Sunday January 23, @02:44PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:The quick answer is, "no." by Germany (Score:1)Sunday January 30, @04:07AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. what about a laptop? usb HD? (Score:2) by rjnagle (122374) on Friday January 21, @04:47PM (#11435632) (http://www.imaginary...programmer/index.php) I'm also thinking of buying a machine for videoediting. I'm committed to doing it on linux with open source tools. The question is: could an HP/IBM laptop handle the load for nonlinear editing and input/output? Also, is it silly to think that the bus speed for USB2 would exclude the possibility of using USB2 hard drives? If I'm editing straight video (next to no graphics/animation, etc), is there a point at which extra RAM adds little value? rjRe:what about a laptop? usb HD? by mbstone (Score:2)Friday January 21, @05:07PMRe:what about a laptop? usb HD? by daviddennis (Score:2)Friday January 21, @06:14PMRe:what about a laptop? usb HD? by rjnagle (Score:2)Friday January 21, @07:26PMRe:what about a laptop? usb HD? by daviddennis (Score:2)Friday January 21, @08:09PMRe:Multiple drives! by daviddennis (Score:2)Friday January 21, @08:17PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:what about a laptop? usb HD? by Germany (Score:1)Sunday January 30, @04:36AM Yes, Linux can (Score:2) by Chilltowner (647305) on Friday January 21, @07:40PM (#11437419) (http://antholog.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday January 29, @11:01AM) I'm not sure what all the "no" answers are based on, but, my rather simple Gateway PC with RedHat 9 dropped on it has been doing great things for me for years in the video-editing department. The combination of Cinelerra and Blender is absolutely killer. I can render a bunch of animation frames in Blender with an alpha channel, and then easily composite them on DV footage from my firewire-enabled camera in Cinelerra.I've made actual movies with this and have received some small acclaim for my efforts. It's cheap, it uses stock hardware, and it works. I wouldn't keep using it if it didn't.Sorry if I sound a little annoyed. Power to you if you're editing movies on a Mac--they're great machines and lots of folks in the industry swear by them. But I'm sick to death of people saying, "Nope! Get a Mac!" It just ain't so.Re:Yes, Linux can by voidstin (Score:1)Sunday January 23, @02:56PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Yes, Linux can by Germany (Score:1)Sunday January 30, @04:38AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. video box (Score:1) by krizu (852190) on Friday January 21, @09:06PM (#11437981) get a mac??? hell no. only if youd need the design and got lots of money to spend.check out http://www.linuxartist.org/video-anim.html to get a small overview of mostly uptodate gpled apps and tools needed for video editing/animation.e.g.cinerellea - already mentioned.kino - already mentionedmainactor - nle video editing app - free for noncommercial i thinkblender - 3d modelling/animation/compositing toolhttp://www.jahshaka.com/ - realtime editing - looks VERY promising but still way to go... ...just found another cool link I forgot in the past with the most used free and professional(expensive) tools used for film generation:http://linuxmovies.sourceforge.net/software/nonfree:toonz - highend 2d animation/compositing appmaya - highend 3d animation/modelling appsoftimage XSI - highend 3d animation/modelling appshake - highend compositing apphope this helpscheers Analog capture not needed (Score:2) by jeffkjo1 (663413) on Friday January 21, @10:39PM (#11438501) (http://www.astroreverb.com/) I am building a new AMD64/939 box and would like to build into the system: capabilities to capture video from analog and digital sources; edit; add text and overlays; and maybe do the occasional DVE. I currently have an analog+digital capture board, and am in the market for a new capture board. I still need to capture analog, but I will simply be purchasing a firewire card.Analog capture boards are overpriced, and you can acheive the same results with a digital video camera and a firewire (or usb) card.It's called Analog Passthrough, and most digital video cameras made today support it. Basically, you plug your VCR into the IN jacks on your video camera (with sony's, that analog dongle cable goes both ways), and then you plug your firewire cable into your camera at one end, and the other into your computer.Make sure there isn't a tape in your camcorder, or this wont work. When you play your VHS tape, it should simply pass through your digital video camera (make sure the camera is on), and into the computer through the firewire cable. I captured 4 hours worth of material in this method two weeks ago, and it works great.Re:Analog capture not needed-Pinnacle. by jeffkjo1 (Score:2)Saturday January 22, @02:36AM1 reply beneath your current threshold. How about a bootable media studio? for free? (Score:1) by mowa (14016) on Saturday January 22, @02:33AM (#11439522) "You don't need to install anything, you don't even need an harddisk to run a whole free software operating system running out of the box on your PC! Download the ISO-image, burn your own CD, reboot your machine and you'll get back true love ;^)dyne:bolic is shaped on the needs of media activists, artists and creatives as a practical tool for multimedia production: you can manipulate and broadcast both sound and video with tools to record, edit, encode and stream, having automatically recognized most device and peripherals: audio, video, TV, network cards, firewire, usb and more; all using only free software! ...Some interesting features: * user friendly, intuitive and funky desktop interface * full of creative tools for audio/video multimedia production * no need to install, partition or change data on harddisk * it will work even if you have Micro$oft Winblows * automatic hardware recognition and configuration: network cards, sound cards, BTTV video cards, firewire, USB devices and more... * all harddisks are mounted and fully accessible * works on old pentium1 as well on XBOX game console * can save your data and settings in one encrypted file on your harddisk or usb storage device (nesting) * does automatic clustering with other dyne:bolic on the net, to join the CPU power of multiple computers * handcrafted by experienced software artisans making their own applications since years: dyne:bolic is not based on any other distribution, is unique!Applications includedThe graphical environment is XFree86 with WindowMaker which offers a fresh level of interaction which distincts dyne:bolic from other common graphical environments.Dyne:bolic includes lots of software, result of the great work being done by the GNU/Linux free software community thru the past 15 years. To mention just a few of them:Mp4Live, lets you stream mpeg4 audio and video on darwin server | FreeJ, to perform on video livesets as a freejay | MuSE, to mix and stream your voice and sound files live on the net HasciiCam, to have a cool (h)ascii webcam, also on low bandwidth | TerminatorX, GDam, SoundTracker and PD, to perform with live audio | Kino, Cinelerra and LiVES, to edit video and publish clips | Audacity and ReZound, to edit audio and add effects on it | Gimp, the GNU image manipulation software to edit your pictures | Blender, one of the most powerful 3d modeling and rendering tools | AbiWord and Ted, to read edit and save any kind of word files | Bluefish, to generate and edit your html webpages | Sylpheed and Gpa, to send and receive mails, with full encryption | Lopster, which lets you do filesharing over winmx and gnutella | Samba, to easily exchange data over shared directories in LANs | XChat, linphone and other messaging softwares for fast comunication | VNC and RDesktop to remotely access any Win or Unix desktop | Lots of network tools, for analysis and poweruser access to the net | Xfe, an intuitive local file browser recognizing all file types | GCombust, to easily burn data on CDs on machines with a cd-burner | XRmap, to easily browse the world geography and the CIA factbook | And, last but not least, lots of great games also to be played in multiplayer mode, online with your friends running dyne:bolic!" source [dyne.org]...or maybe just a sound studio? by mowa (Score:1)Saturday January 22, @02:43AMSome thoughts on windows as a choice... by mowa (Score:1)Saturday January 22, @05:18PMRe:Some thoughts on windows as a choice... by Ohreally_factor (Score:2)Monday January 24, @04:47AM How about an Amiga? (Score:3, Interesting) by tonsofpcs (687961) <slashback&tonsofpcs,com> on Saturday January 22, @02:00PM (#11442102) (http://www.tonsofpcs.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday September 11, @10:07PM) How about an Amiga?Many network stations in non-major [not NYC/LA/etc] markets still use NewTek's [newtek.com] Amiga-based Video Toaster and Toaster/Flyer [computerroom.com] systems (The Toaster is a 4-input digital switcher/SEG, the Flyer is the NLE addition) for editing and effects. The Toaster comes with Lightwave (it is a bit slow on the Amiga systems, but it is still a great 3D package). You can pick up full Toaster/Flyer systems on ebay [ebay.com] for cheap, and they do wonders. Then, you can transfer flyclips (the Flyer's video clip format) to your PC or Mac and do compositing/rotoscoping/insertion work on it using Mirage [bauhaussoftware.com] and/or Lightwave 3D [newtek.com] if you need to. --The Amiga may well outlive us all. Suggestions... (Score:2) by dghcasp (459766) on Saturday January 22, @07:09PM (#11444304) If you haven't already bought the board and can afford it, get an Intel system instead. They're faster for doing video encoding.Unless you're overly political about software, I'd say forget doing it under Linux and do it under Windows. Windows editing software works out of the box, saving you having to do lots of tweakage.Software-wise, if you have a few beans, Sony Vegas [sonypictures.com] is a really good balance between phenominally easy to use and high power. Buy the DVD-Architect bundle, because then you get an AC-3 encoder basically for free. Just one comment (Score:2) by Andy Dodd (701) <atd7@@@cornell...edu> on Saturday January 22, @09:01PM (#11444860) (http://www.people.cornell.edu/pages/atd7/) FAT32 + Firewire = HORRIBLE performance Overall I've been pretty unhappy with Linux support for external drives. Througput and performance are nowhere close to the performance of the same drive under Windows, especially if the drive is FAT32. (In general, the Linux FAT32 drivers suck performance-wise. Combine them with 1394 and it gets REALLY bad.)1 reply beneath your current threshold. Kino! (Score:1) by Uncle Jimmy (253443) on Sunday January 23, @07:10PM (#11450670) I haven't seen it mentioned, but Kino [schirmacher.de] is a great DV editing program for Linux. It does capture/export back to the camera, has export options for converting to DVD/(S)VCD with the click of a button, has a lot of filters built in (especially good are the EffecTV [sourceforge.net] filters). I've been using it on my Duron 800 with a generic Firewire card for capture and it goes ok, although rendering effects is a bit slow. It also can't quite keep up exporting back to the camera when jumping around lots of scenes in different files. You won't have any trouble with a newer machine. No association with the above projects, just a satisfied user. Linux for the capture, Windows for the editing (Score:1) by WestonP (59166) on Monday January 24, @05:16PM (#11460721) (http://slashdot.org/) Sounds like I'll have to try the latest version of Kino... it was a pain to use the last time I tried it, but that was over a year ago. Most of the video that I edit is in-car or on-car footage from my race car, so I just need a simple solution that can do basic editing and doesn't take a lot of my time, but quality is important. Had the MacMini come out a couple of years ago, I would have bought one. What I've been doing is to do the firewire video capture in Linux using dvgrab and ffmpeg to encode it, then reboot to Windows XP (I know, I know) and use Windows Movie Maker 2, which is surprisingly nice for simple video editing. I have also tried the ULead video editing software, but it's slow and is a pain to use. I do the capture in Linux because 1) it works better and more reliably, 2) ffmpeg makes deinterlacing easy, and 3) it's higher quality so I can keep the original unedited footage without saving the tapes. no way in hell (Score:1) by michaelbuddy (751237) on Monday January 24, @05:46PM (#11461203) (http://www.smick.net/) There is no way in hell I'm going to use a Mac until they allow in the interface to resize windows from all directions. The interface is pretty, I'm sure it's strong, but I've never seen something so lame as to constrict a user from only resizing a window from the small stainless steel right side corner. Even if final cut pro is the best software for it. It's not even a money issue, it's only this windowing problem. For starters... (Score:1) by Germany (854517) <germany@piscesiscariot.net> on Sunday January 30, @04:01AM (#11518647) (http://www.piscesiscariot.net/ | Last Journal: Sunday January 30, @01:16AM) Is Linux up to the task? It depends on how much video work you do. I do video processing work nearly everyday. Regarding Macs, they are great, but there isn't as broad a range of tuners and capture cards available for the Mac as there are for Windows. For the Mac I recommend the Elgato products, namely the upcoming EyeTV Wonder (done in partnership with ATI). Generally speaking, you will pay a premium for going with Mac video equipment. Of course you will also minimize many of the problems videographers face providing you are working with clean video. Despite how many people feel about Windows, Windows makes a great video processing platform. Some of the best video processing software out there such as AviSynth, DScaler, VirtualDub, and VirtualDub MPEG exists as open-source Windows apps. TMPGEnc and Womble are world-class applications for working with MPEG. MPEG2 can be a real expensive pain to edit properly. Linux really adds to the power of PC-based video work.Moving on, video capturing on Linux itself isn't very mature. There are a lot of older Brooktree BT8x8 chipset based tuners supported, but most of the newer (and better quality tuners) chipsets, namely the Philips SAA* based tuners are supported only under Windows using WDM drivers. Linux support is growing though. There are a couple of projects in Linux to bring video capturing over (thank God), but the greatest successes to date have been in getting digital tuners to work.In any case, don't just accept any product recommendation. As someone who has a garage full of video equipment, I suggest you consider your needs and interests before settling on any specific product. There is a list of things I always ask people to consider:What broadcast standards will you be working with, PAL, SECAM, NTSC? Will you be capturing TV feeds using your computer? Do you need to be able to schedule recordings using your computer as a PVR? Will you be mastering DVDs for commercial use? Do you have the time (and the desire) to post-edit your capture files before converting them, or would you rather get it all done in one shot? Do you prefer hardware-based MPEG encoding, or do you have a need to capture at full resolution uncompressed AVI format (AVI is not really a format)? Will you need to be mobile with your gear?There are some caveats you will need to consider. There are many video capture devices out there that are designed specifically for video conversion. They lack tuners so you cannot use these devices to turn your TV into an effective timeshifting PVR. USB tuners are very attractive, but if you buy one, you will generally be limited to using the vendor-supplied capture software. DV capture devices using FireWire are few and far between in the Windows world, and those that exist, such as Pinnacle's MovieBox DV sometimes have problems with analog sources, making them ill-suited to all-around capturing. Hardware MPEG encoders free up your CPU cycles and memory by doing much of the work for you. Capturing raw AVI can really strain your system, but MPEG2 is a poor editing format that often requires you to purchase pricey MPEG tools. Also, the MPEG2 encoders in most consumer grade capture devices are not the same quality of those used in mastering commercially sold DVD, so it's best to get an MPEG2 encoder that can handle at least 12 Mbps bitrates.In your case, I'd recommend a PCI based tuner, preferably with a Philips chipset, but a newer Brooktree-based tuner will give you a stronger guarantee of cross-platform support. I'd recommend using a tuner that doesn't use hardware MPEG encoding since you'll likely be editing your captures anyway whether it is to remove commercials or to add special effects or titles. You'll probably want to stay away from USB-based tuners for the time being until we see more support in Linux for Philips-based products. Depending on your location, you'll want a tuner that can capture at full frame, 720x420 NTSC or 720x576 PAL/SECAM.In any case, there are two real good communitiesRead the rest of this comment... Re:cinepaint