Kdenlive 0.8 Adds Advanced Features for NLV Editing 182
dmbkiwi writes "For a long time I've been a big fan of Kdenlive. I've written two articles about it. One is a general overview of video editing on Linux and the other is more specific to Kdenlive. For a number of years, video editing on Linux – at least at a consumer level — has been patchy at best. This is somewhat ironic given the heavy use of Linux in major Hollywood blockbuster film production. However, with the advent of Kdenlive, things are looking pretty good and with the release of version 0.8, there have been some great features added for the more advanced users, while still retaining a simple and easy to use UI."
Official Website (Score:2)
Ediiting (Score:3, Funny)
What's this "Ediiting" (with double-i) mentioned in the title ?
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(To be fair, there's an NLE package called "Pyxis NLV", but that's pretty much the only intentional usage on the entire internet.)
Linux editing? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Linux editing? (Score:5, Funny)
Nah, a real linux user would create a FUSE filesystem that mounts an avi as a directory tree full of still images.
They'd pipe those stills through aalib so that the actual edits could be performed using sed.
Emacs! (Score:3)
No, the proper way to edit video is to do it in Emacs [youtube.com].
How about making it stable first (Score:3, Informative)
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Maybe it's specific to your distro. Works great for me on Arch. But I switched from Mandriva a couple months ago, and have noticed a couple programs that I used to think were somewhat buggy suddenly run flawlessly...
Not really (Score:2)
"Heavy use" is a huge overstatement. Yes, there have been some notable films in which special Linux applications played a part, but I don't think there's been a single "blockbuster" that was produced on Linux gear start-to-finish. I would be surprised if there was a single big-budget film that used Linux for the audio work.
I'm not saying the day will never come, but it's not there yet.
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Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks:
http://linux.slashdot.org/story/05/07/27/1551250/Disney-DreamWorks-Pixar-Go-Linux [slashdot.org]
1500 desktops and 3500 servers at Dreamworks alone running Linux. Sure, they probably don't do _EVERYTHING_ on Linux, but it's certainly a huge part of their operations. They obviously don't do _EVERYTHING_ on Windows or Mac either. With those numbers, it seems fair to say that there is heavy use of Linux in production...
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I've been doing sound effects in Los Angeles for 10 years now, worked on two of the Spider-Mans, Battle: Los Angles and The Hurt Locker among 60 or so other films, at Sony, Fox, Disney and Paramount, and I've never heard of a Midas xl8, and I've never seen a Linux platform on any video or sound editing system, ever -- Final Cut is quite happy to handle 2k and 4k files, all the RED tools are Mac and PC only, and write QuickTime files. Everybody uses Macs, and occasionally you meet a Windows user who wants t
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Video editing is one thing -- I agree that's mostly owned by Final Cut and Avid which run on Mac (and Windows in the latter case). But for compositing and effects work Linux is used heavily. Flame (which used to be the gold standard for compositing before Autodesk bought it and started running it into the ground) runs only on Linux, and Nuke supports Linux as well.
If you go into a place like ILM or Sony Pictures Imageworks you'll see a lot of linux client machines. And their render farms are typically all
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I dunno, a friend of mine is a compositor team lead for Imageworks in LA here, working on Green Lantern at the moment, and his rig is Windows 7. Do you have a lot of interaction with the artists?
Interesting sort of coincidence that the applicability of Linux software to your job seems to correlate with the propensity for your job to be offshored, huh?
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I've seen demos of linux client software developed in-house at Imageworks, so they're definitely using it so some extent. But it probably varies depending on the team and job. Some of the high-end shops are almost entirely linux, others have more of a mix.
I get out on customer visits once or twice a year, and have some phone/email interactions from time to time, too.
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Disclaimer - I work for FilmLight.
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LoB
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its just in the areas of editing and the audio where there is a massive hole
Except in the high end - i.e Smoke. And for anything beyond commercials, that's normally as a conforming tool, rather than an editing app.
Somewhat ironic? (Score:5, Insightful)
From the above article:
No, it isn't - he is confusing a render farm with an editing deck - a film could easily have a thousand machines in it's render farm, but it is a rare film that uses more than a handful of editing decks. Typically you can count them on one hand, and have enough fingers left to go bowling with...
That throw-away line in his post above prevents me from thinking his "overview" of consumer-level editing of video on Linux will be anything worth spending time on.
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No kidding. The big NLEs that I'm aware of are Avid Media Composer (Windows and OS-X), Adobe Premiere (Windows and OS-X), Final Cut Pro (OS-X), and Sony Vegas (Windows). As noted, none of them run in Linux.
Also just because you find Linux behind something in a pro field, it does not mean it is "ironic" that you don't see it in a similar consumer field. Where Linux excels is embedded applications. Basically if you have a specialized setup with specialized hardware that is dedicated to a purpose, Linux is a g
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There is some confusion here, because Linux's use in this area is mainly for visual effects, which is different from editing. Of course Linux is used on renderfarms mostly, but it is also used on the desktop for things like compositing and 3D work. In fact, work on Avatar was mostly done on Ubuntu [dustinkirkland.com] (the article mostly talks about their render farm, but also mentions desktops).
That said, I think some high-end editing systems do run Linux, like Flame which has been mentioned here.
arstechnica reviewed kdenlive / PiTiVi a year ago (Score:3)
http://arstechnica.com/open-source/guides/2010/01/video-editing-in-linux-a-look-at-pitivi-and-kdenlive.ars [arstechnica.com]
Conclusion
Demand for video editing tools is only going to increase. This is an area where Linux desperately needs to be competitive if there's hope for the Linux desktop going mainstream anytime soon.
PiViTi and Kdenlive show promise, but neither application is fully "there" just yet. PiTiVi is stable and intuitive, but lacks features. Kdenlive is very feature-rich, but needs to be stabilized just a bit; and some work could be done to make it more user-friendly. My first recommendation for doing video editing on Linux is definitely Kdenlive at this stage, though. It may not be as capable as a tool like, say, Final Cut Pro, but it does have most if not all of what many users need from a video editing application.
Progress is being made, but some work is needed to take these applications the "last mile" to be entirely suitable for mainstream use.
Re:arstechnica reviewed kdenlive / PiTiVi a year a (Score:5, Insightful)
This is an area where Linux desperately needs to be competitive if there's hope for the Linux desktop going mainstream anytime soon.
Okay, look, I know we all believe that we know what's best for the market and what's in demand - but I am so sick of hearing this line pulled out. "What Linux really needs is ***** if it's to become acceptable in the mainstream". The reality is that there's no single app that will propel Linux into the mainstream magically, the best we can do is just continue to improve where we can and as we do we pick up more and more converts. We are long past a position where a single application will suddenly make Linux mainstream. For every application/area you knock off that list there will always be another one that raises its head.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be doing our best to deliver great new apps of good stability and functionality (like Inkscape, Scribus etc), I'm saying that the sky isn't falling if we don't deliver X Y or Z.
Paul.
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The reality is that there's no single app that will propel Linux into the mainstream magically,
A single up won't make Linux mainstream, but not having that single app can very certainly hold it back from ever getting there, as people want an OS that can serve all their needs, not just 90%. The second you give people a reason to boot back into Windows, Linux will become that toy OS again with which they might play around once in a while, but which they won't actually ever use for their daily use.
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Maybe it's the developer in me. One becomes proficient with eye-rolling every time someone vouches for their wanted feature "because without it your software will not become mainstream". It's a self-serving tactic, trying to get what you want by pushing the fear of obscurity, which likely just takes time away from more needed work. We all have different ways of trying to coax the world to our bidding, that one tends to make me put it into the last position in the consideration queue. It happens in all a
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'm not saying we shouldn't be doing our best to deliver great new apps of good stability and functionality (like Inkscape, Scribus etc), I'm saying that the sky isn't falling if we don't deliver X Y or Z.
The problem here is that Inkscape, Scribus, and the rest, are routinely ported to Windows or begin as a native Windows app. There is no compelling reason to migrate to Linux.
"PiTiVi" hurts my eyes - and "Pitiful Video" is an all too plausible mnemonic. I have never understood why the FOSS dveloper insists on shooting himself in the foot.
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Okay, look, I know we all believe that we know what's best for the market and what's in demand - but I am so sick of hearing this line pulled out. "What Linux really needs is ***** if it's to become acceptable in the mainstream". (...) We are long past a position where a single application will suddenly make Linux mainstream.
Not one application, but one application suite - the problem is that one is a steep mountain to climb. Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook = Microsoft Office Pro (plus a bit more junk, but they're not that relevant). Taking down one won't be enough because they sell as a package, if you try buying them individually forget all deals. The only deal you get is if you take the whole Office package.
If you could topple that then many, many office PCs would switch to Linux, together with web based apps most would not
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Video editors are a must. I don't miss anything else.
For you, yes - but that's not mainstream in a global user sense. You want it to be, but it isn't. Yes a lot of people would love a good NLVE, myself included (I even bought a copy of MainActor for Linux before the bastards took it away - still it crashed more frequently than even Kdenlive!) but it's not something that'll stop everyone migrating to Linux (just like the lack of 100% VBA script compatibility in LibreOffice doesn't stop people migrating), hell most people have no idea what a NLVE is, let alon
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Good thing you didn't go with MA... the demo seemed to work okay... but the production version was like trying to stop a jello mould from wobbling. It wasn't the first or last Linux package I've ever purchased (Closed and Open) but it was certainly the worst purchase.
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> Video editors are a must. I don't miss anything else.
That said. Any video editor should take the user's stuff in whatever form it come in and not give them any grief. It should "just work".
This is one of those areas where Macs intentionally make themselves more limited/difficult than Windows or even Linux.
Don't just focus on what might be a bad product with too much hype behind it. Also see what could use improvement.
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Well most of us just consume gay donkey porn, not produce it.
When I say "of us" I really mean "people". It was, ummm, a typo. No, a palindrome. A pun, that's it.
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There's also OpenShot and, at some point, Lombard. I initially used PiTiVi but I found OpenShot to be superior in most ways, though PiTiVi's UI is a bit more polished (but then, it just does a lot less). Just installed Kdenlive, and it looks fantastic, I'll try that the next time around. For instance, it apparently supports freezing a frame out-of-the-box, something neither PiTiVi nor OpenShot can do AFAIK. Hmm... actually, I guess you can set the speed to 0x in OpenShot, that'd should accomplish the same t
Kdenlive is great (Score:2)
I've been using Kdenlive ever since it's port to Qt4, and it works very, very well. It has tons of options and effects, so even the most novice users can make something nice with a little effort. It has a bit of a leaning curve, but any "pro" software usually does. It fits in well with my desktop and Pulseaudio, even though I use GNOME and not KDE. If you've given up on video editing for Linux and haven't tried Kdenlive, you really should try it. It's not the most feature-filled editor, but it's great for c
HD editing (Score:2)
I like Kdenlive, but I can't edit most over-the-air HD content. Most of the time when I import the video clip, the video is white (effectively no video), but there is audio.
Video plays in Xine (but audio messes up) and VLC after a brief stutter at the start plays the audio and video perfectly.
Despite posting samples from videos, nobody has come up as to why Kdenlive does this. I can only guess that the software starts recording in the wrong part of a GOP, and that's what is screwing up the playback / editin
Openshot (Score:3)
I don't do much video editing, but another one I've read is supposed to be decent is openshot.
http://www.openshotvideo.com/ [openshotvideo.com]
They are at version 1.3 and have nice documentation.
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I've tried it. It's still about as far from usable as Kdenlive, Cinellera, and the others.
In fact the only video editor I've used on linux that remotely works is blender. It still has a few issues but it is *much* closer to a proper solution than any of the others.
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Hey, I've used openshot, lives, cinnelerra, kino.. and KdenLive is by far the most versatile with the exception of blender which is far beyond the scope of most normal users. To be honest with you this thread seems a bit like a hack job, and in some ways really insulting to the creators of KdenLive, and to anyone who's actually used it.
Try it out though, if you've used openshot, you'll feel right at home.
What about Linear Editing? (Score:2)
NLV editing? (Score:2)
What the fuck? What is "NLV" editing? I've got years of broadcast and editing work under my belt and I've never once heard that term. Maybe it should be "NLE"? or just "video editing"?
This is a toy compared to the competition (Score:2)
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Actually, right now, Final Cut is behind Adobe Premiere in turns of features and speed - even on Apple hardware.
I came to the conclusion that Final Cut was behind Adobe Premiere. That situation may change when the new version of Final Cut is released, as it will finally be a 64-bit application. But right now, it seems a number of professional video editors have jumped ship to Adobe running on high-end PC hardware with NVidia graphics running Adobe's Mercury Playback Engine on their CUDA cores which speeds u
Not Even Close (Score:2)
Sorry, but there are no Linux video editing suites that don't suck compared to Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro. The ones that have the most features - and most don't even have enough for real consumer home video editing, let alone professional video editing - are ridiculously unstable - even compared to Adobe products which are notorious crap.
There is only ONE former commercial product which has been recently open sourced which seems adequate - LightWorks:
http://www.lightworksbeta.com/ [lightworksbeta.com]
Check out these featu
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I know you're being funny, but a 'home user' probably won't know why they need to do that (or even if they do need to do that), let alone go looking for it.
A name that has some connection to what it does is useful, but since you're never going to guess it from nowhere (I need a video editing application, let's google for 'videdit'? no...) it's not required.
That said, a dumb-sounding name won't help you - until you're already popular, then it doesn't matter any more. Think about Linux, it's just a weak pun o
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Same with GIMP, how you can name a free 'clone' of photoshop after what Wikipedia calls "a type of sexual submissive in BDSM who may wear a bondage suit" and expect to be taken seriously I don't know (although I used the early versions and it did feel like I was being treated like one). But it's big enough now that people don't care.
No, I think GIMP is still one of the stupidest of these naming blunders. Maybe you're used to it, but I don't think it's so ubiquitous no one notices.
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Actually, no. IT people and nerds in general know what it is, but go to your neighborhood bar and ask people if they've ever heard of Linux. People I talk to are amazed that there's a free and superior replacement for Windows that doesn't get viruses and costs nothing to use. Not only have they never heard of it, they don't believe it even exists until they bring me a "broken" computer that's been rendered useless by viruses or a corrupted registry, have no install CDs,
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OOPS, hit submit too soon.
A gimp is someone with a bad, or "gimpy", leg. The word and that definition is way older than I am; I've heard it all of my 59 years. Look up GIMP you find the Gnu Image Manipulation Program with a link to "disambuigation" that lists your BSOM; and I'd bet money that the sex term is newer than the Gnu IMP. Also, I notice that wikipedia doesn't mention the now-politically incorrect original meaning of "gimp".
Gimp [reference.com]
You don't watch Monty Python? They used the slang dictionary useage
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hmm I think if was looking for a pfs gui, that the name "Qtpfsgui" would have immediately told me what it was, a gui for pfs in QT. granted that's not a good marking name, but oh well.
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What's pfs, to a casual user?
You can see why it's not "year of Linux on the desktop".
"Yes maam, just load that kernel module dynamically using the following easy command, making sure you have root on your box...."
There's a reason Android has been so successful in the mobile space: abstraction. Sure, have the esoteric stuff down in the core that advanced users can mess with directly, but goodness me, if your GUI level stuff is just as impenetrable then newbies will have a learning curve similar to famous Eve
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You can see why it's not "year of Linux on the desktop".
"Yes maam, just load that kernel module dynamically using the following easy command, making sure you have root on your box...."
Are you trolling, ignorant little Windows user? Installing Linux is far easier than installing Windows, and not once does one have to go to a shell prompt. The whole process is inside a GUI, and unlike Windows there's only a single reboot.
I've been using Linux for almost ten years and I almost never see a shell prompt. Actuall
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Hilarious. I post on slashdot all the time, and have been called "one of the most disgusting mac fanbois ever to exist".
I haven't used Windows in... well, some time. At least a decade. It depends if you count tech support for relatives.
Your post is *exactly* what my post is all about, and in fact with the other troll reply we are so for 2 for 0 on "douchebag replies" to a post that is critical of the Linux experience, from someone who has personally experienced it.
If you read carefully you'll note that my i
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On the one side there's the evangelists "Linux is so ready for the desktop, almost any hardware is supported, it has replacements for all your software, it's so easy your grandma could do it, there's lot of people in the forums that'll help you." Then it turns out reality isn't so great, a lot of the things you expect on the desktop is broken or missing. And when you ask for help, and it's all "fix it yourself", "its free, you got what you paid for" and "go back to windows if you're so unhappy".
It's like if
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For further context, my other post in this article, re: Linux issues from personal experience.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2117310&cid=35991006 [slashdot.org]
Of course, if you want me to get back under my *Cupertino* Bridge, then by all means.
Windows user! Ha! The most hilarious assumptions in the course of a "someone dared criticise Linux!" butthurt reply ever.
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Hey - at least blender (rendering program) is among top pages, along with normal blenders.
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I just did a search for 'PCB linux' and it's the top hit on Google... If I search for 'PCB program' I get a few others first, but it's still on the front page. Obviously if you just search for an acronym you'll get results relevant to that first...
If I look for 'video editing linux' however, the top hit is a list of 5 apps from 2009 (which does mention kdenlive 0.7 to be fair), and the second dates back to 2007, so I suspect neither is that useful if you're looking for advice on the best one today. (Searchi
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Why is it that people these days are so inclined to attribute names they don't like to arrogance? Haven't you considered that the global namespace is running out of good names so developers start using bad ones or non-English ones? Come on, VideoEdit can only be used once and it's probably trademarked too.
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I fail to see the link where you point to the research that proves that names in the open source world are worse than in the proprietary world.
Look, naming is hard, and of course some names suck and could be replaced by something better. But you are nuts if you think that the naming that (for example) Apple does makes any sense to a non-English speaker. Even with the huge popularity of iTunes I've heard this name said in a lot of different ways (how is read in Spanish, and how is read in English, but with v
Re:Open source names (Score:5, Insightful)
Your complaints are somewhat silly:
* Kdenlive is as good a name as Vegas when it comes to making sense for video editing. I suppose Apache (and Cherokee) was a horrible, politically incorrect name for a web server. Unfortunately trademark law prevents using names like "Non-Linear Video Editor", "Photograph Manipulation Editor", "Text Editor", or "Word Processor" because they are common descriptive names.
* Some names have roots in foreign languages and make perfect sense there but sound horrible here (Choquok - an amazing twitter client - is a perfect example)
* Unix itself is a play on Multics, which predates Stallman's great crusade.
* Things aren't designed to confuse people. They are usually designed by one person, who may not be as good as UI design as a six person UX team at a large development shop. In some cases, I've discovered that the graphical interface is wonky, but the keyboard interfaces is amazingly smooth. Unfortunately, doing UI redesigns is a huge to-do for end users who have in many cases become very adept at the original UI of a software package.
I guess its cooler to be the smart kid using different software than the ordinary people.
No, for me it costs a lot less, I can get things done, and if I want to customize, I can and do. In some cases the software is incredibly good at what it does. In other cases, the commercial alternatives are really a lot better, but I don't want to spend $, so you live with it. It's really not about being cool. It's about freedom as in having no encumbered rights and having the economic means to exercise them.
Re:Open source names (Score:4, Insightful)
* Kdenlive is as good a name as Vegas when it comes to making sense for video editing.
No, it isn't. It's part of the stupidity to name everything for KDE with a "K" or KD or even KDE at the beginning. A cheap and failed attempt to copy the "i" meme from Apple, but for various reasons it doesn't work half as good. Copying good marketing badly does not give you good marketing, and the "K" thing is just dumb.
Names for products need to be pronouncable, easy to remember and difficult to confuse. "Kdenlive" falls on all three counts. For starters, it helps if they're actually, you know, names, not random gobbled-together parts of words.
* Things aren't designed to confuse people. They are usually designed by one person, who may not be as good as UI design as a six person UX team at a large development shop. In some cases, I've discovered that the graphical interface is wonky, but the keyboard interfaces is amazingly smooth. Unfortunately, doing UI redesigns is a huge to-do for end users who have in many cases become very adept at the original UI of a software package.
UI design is one of the most important parts of creating a good application, and the part most often ignored in the Free Software community. That's perfectly good if you are scratching your own itch, because in that case it must mostly be useful to and useable by you. And if you give it for free to the world, they can adapt to your style or die for all you care, because in the end you're writing the thing for your own need.
What too few people have realized is that Free Software (or open source, whatever term works for you) is a horrible development model for software you write exclusively for other people. People need motivation to work on stuff. Creating something for yourself has its own intrinsic motivation, creating something for others doesn't.
And designing something specifically different from how you like it best takes a lot of motivation, because you go against yourself, in a way. That's why good UIs are not designed by coders, but by UI experts - people who may not have a personal interest in this particular product, but who enjoy the general topic of UI design enough to have made it a job. That (plus the money) gives them the motivation required.
Look around yourself and you'll notice how most Free Software is seriously lacking in UI design. It is quite often comparable or superior to commercial programs when it comes to functionality and features, but the UI commonly rates somewhere between "horrible" and "acceptable" and very rarely above that.
And that's one of the main reasons that the "year of the Linux desktop" has never come. Mainstream people don't want to put up with that shit, they don't use their computer in order to gloat about technology, they use to get stuff done.
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Re:Open source names (Score:5, Insightful)
Random gobbled-together words or terms, eh? Like for example ColdFusion, RoboHelp, Alcohol 120% etc.?
You may have noticed that all of these are easy to pronounce and remember, and there are no "near-misses" that make as much sense. That's what a good name needs to be like. Kdenlive does not link to any known terms, which makes it hard to remember without additional mnemonic aids. "ColdFusion", just to pick one of the examples, does not make sense as a product name (which has nothing to do either with temperature or nuclear power), but it's two well-known, easily recalled terms. It is unique enough to be remembered, it is pronouncable without effort.
Those are important things. That's how word-of-mouth works. "I found this great video editing tool. If only I could remember what it was called, Kenl-something or so." just doesn't cut it.
Yes, there are stupid names in the commercial space. I must have missed the memo about it being a good idea to copy the failures.
Yes, even if they are successful. You can be successful despite a stupid name. But why make it more difficult then it has to be?
And there are good examples. Broadcast and Cinerella were great examples for naming. Cinerella especially works so well that I still remembered it without looking it up 7 or 8 years after I've last checked on it. I doubt anyone who doesn't use Kdenlive will remember "that video editing software" name even three weeks from now.
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It's Cinelerra, not Cinerella.
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(Of course the sibling pointed out that the name is actually different from what you remembered, which does put a different kind of damper on your argument regarding that name,)
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Both true.
And still - the similarity to a well-known name (movie or fairy tale, doesn't matter) is what makes it so easy to recall.
And that I was wrong about the exact name - yes I was and still the #1 Google hit on my wrong term is the correct website.
Does that tell you something about this name working?
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It's certainly a better name than "Kdenlive", though, although I find Kdenlive to be rather pronouncable if you say "k-den-live". Sounds horrible
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I'd still stay away from Disney names. ;)
Maybe everyone else thought of the 1977 movie [wikipedia.org]. ;-) (to be honest, I had to look that up, but like most Disney stuff, there are a lot of other works on the same subject.
"k-den-live". Sounds horrible but is fairly easy to say and to write correctly after having heard it.
I'm sure almost everyone who only hears it would write down "Kaden live".
The real problem is that product naming is really hard given that you don't want your product to be buried under millions of Google results for the same word in a different context, the namespace of easily-remembered names is limited and you ideally want a name that describes your product, as well.
Absolutely. There's a reason there are marketing agencies specialized on just product names.
Open source developers have long just looked for unique names that describe the program and are comfortable to type in a shell. Which is perfectly fine if you don't intend on competing with commercial software as it sidesteps a lot of issues you don't need to optimize for. Once you do compete on the market, however, you should consider a rebranding.
Exactly what I keep saying in this thread: Make up your mind. If you write stuff for yourself and only publish it because others may find it useful, by all means use whatever name
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What is your problem dude? The program is for free and you can use it or not. Nobody is forcing you to use it.
If you really have a problem with the name or the UI than create a bug report (http://www.kdenlive.org/mantis/my_view_page.php) and let see if the developers like your change. If you still insist of a new name than by all means, just fork the project and release it under a new name. You can even sell it with a new name and if you redesign the UI you can sell it with a new UI.
"And that's one of the m
Re:Open source names (Score:5, Insightful)
What is your problem dude? The program is for free and you can use it or not. Nobody is forcing you to use it.
My problem is that it pains me to see so much talent wasted because the Free Software stuff is so often excellent quality with a crappy exterior. There's these V10 engines that can go 100 km on 3 litres with making hardly any noise - and they put them into Yugos.
People rarely buy cars just for the engine. They want to sit comfortably in them and they want to drive them without a Ph.D.
just fork the project and release it under a new name. You can even sell it with a new name and if you redesign the UI you can sell it with a new UI.
I stopped contributing to Free Software development years ago when I realized that it's a net negative for me - I spent more time working on software than I spent actually using it. I did contribute quite a bit back then, but I also learnt that lots of Free Software people are too much in love with their projects to take a good advise - or patch. Which, again, is a perfectly ok attitude if you run the project to scratch your own itch. But then don't be surprised if the mainstream doesn't share your personal style.
That's my main point. Make up your mind and decide what you want to be - scratching your own itches or making a mainstream product. You can't do both. And no, you can't do both no matter how much you try to argue that you can.
Interesting, because that's the reason why I don't bother to use Windows anymore.
*nod* yes, once you've been outside of the windows mindset for a while, you start to wonder how anyone can get any work done on that abomination of user masochism. I just found that Linux is better but not by enough, and especially that it copies way too much from windos, probably in an attempt to "win over" windos users, so I moved on to OS X and I've not looked back.
I still love Linux to death - everywhere that doesn't have a GUI. All my servers run Debian, which means my company runs on Linux - but my development happens on OS X.
And I love Free Software, I couldn't do without it. Firefox beats Safari any day. It's UI is still crap. It's ok because there aren't any better alternatives right now, apparently nobody has yet figured out how to do a really great browser UI. But ever since I've done some actual research and work on HCI, ironically started by an overlap of Gnome and my other professional interest, computer security (which suffers massively from the same "the user is stupid" hybris), I've become very sensitive to failures in UI design, many of whom most users probably don't notice consciously.
But if you've ever used Keynote vs. Impress you know just how much of a difference some effort into UI design can make. And Keynote is far from perfect - but compared to Impress, you spend a considerable amount of time less on fighting with the interface. And don't even get me started on PowerPoint - if there's one piece of software that Dr. Who should throw into one of those gaps that eradicate it from all of history so nobody even remembers it, this is it. :-)
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You really should learn that taste is different. There are a lot of Gnome users but for me I can't use anything else but KDE. I try Gnome, Xfce, and other, but I can't use them and go every time back to KDE. At least for me KDE improves my productivity big time. If anything else, KDE would be the only reason I would stay with Linux.
For me MacOS looks like eye candy with no functionality. You complain about bad UI but MacOS have the split-view in their file manager, the top menu bar and the dock down below.
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You really should learn that taste is different.
What makes you think that I don't know that?
Taste certainly is different. Good design vs. bad design - not half as much a matter of taste as most people think. Design isn't the question of "which colour", but stuff like putting the light switch near the door instead of into the middle of the corridor.
For me MacOS looks like eye candy with no functionality.
I'm certain if you only look, then the eye candy is the most obvious thing. Use it for a while if you want to talk about usability ;-)
MacOS [...] has only one mouse button and the horrible keyboard.
Are you mistaking the user interface for the hardware that comes with the co
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I know I'll get modded down, but I feel like I'm the only person who's actually used this software extensively. I have no idea how anyone could claim that KdenLive's interface is difficult to use. It is as simple or even easier to use than a lot of commercial NLE's out there. I was able to figure it out within minutes without looking at a single tutorial.
1:add a clip
2:add another clip
3:drag and drop them onto the editor portion as needed.
4:right click on the clip in the editor to add or subtract
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Dude, these people aren't GUI experts. Designing a GUI takes a different skill-set than that of creating quality code.
Skill sets can be acquired. If you have the motivation and desire. Which is why I'm saying make up your mind. If you want to scratch your own itches, fine with me, just stop whining about Linux not making it into the mainstream. If you want to hit the mainstream, get the skills necessary for making that happen.
The devs are not your bitches. Your not paying them. You don't have them under contract.
You are not saying anything that's news in this thread. Again, I'm not saying "make stuff for me". I'm saying that if you want to go mainstream, then by definition you are making stuff for other peopl
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Not a surprise, if that's the approach they're taking. Usability needs to be designed in from the start, it's not some kind of paint you apply as the last stage.
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I'd love to just move over to linux, but all of my component suppliers only support windows(some not even vista/7 only XP). Also there isn't anything like autocad (btw like autocad in this case means 100% compatibility with autocad. All macros, blocks, everything needs to work), inventor, revit, on linux.
So while I would love to use linux for work, and have a useful scripting language, and programs that understand that the data that comes out may not be in the form I need it to be in... but I'm stuck with w
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The point is that everyone bemoans the lack of penetration of Linux on the desktop, yet when you dare criticise it for some of the reason that this might be the case you get hit with the biggest barrier to adoption: the "butthurt Linux Defender" who tells you to shove your suggestions up your ass and if you don;t like it you can get lost because it's been given to you for free dammit!
No one is forcing me to use Linux, and with the attitude I have come across in some circles there really is no compelling rea
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> The point is that everyone bemoans the lack of penetration of Linux on the desktop,
Try saying something productive.
We aren't here to stroke your ego. If you say something stupid or offensive, we will tell you.
Of course whining about stupid minutia that aren't even restricted to Linux will get you slapped down.
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So in what way is that stupid or offensive (also note that this is my second post in the thread), or looking for my ego to be stroked?
I am simply offering a point of view based on my experiences on slashdot over the years.
If you think that the issues concerning the ease of use of Linux, or using descriptive names that only really help power users is "stupid minutia", then congratulations, you are proving my point for me - the one I made initially. Now, I have a thick skin and things just roll off me, but co
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Apple? What do they have to do with this? KDE's K-obsession and Gnome's similar G-naming predates the Apple hype by quite a bit. When KDE got started in 1996 Apple was still selling beige boxes with a crashy OS which lacked memory protection and only did 'cooperative multitasking'. It was not until 2001 that Apple finally launched its own Unix-based desktop operating system. Should I say that Apple copied KDE and Gnome...? and CDE... and Solaris...
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And designing something specifically different from how you like it best takes a lot of motivation, because you go against yourself, in a way. That's why good UIs are not designed by coders, but by UI experts - people who may not have a personal interest in this particular product, but who enjoy the general topic of UI design enough to have made it a job. That (plus the money) gives them the motivation required.
No, the primary reason UI design shouldn't be done by the coder is that to the coder it's clear box testing, he knows the architecture, the design and exactly what strings he's pulling in the code so to him it makes perfect sense. To the user this is a big black box, he doesn't know anything about the inner workings of it and has to rely on only what the UI tells him. You can't shed that extra information and pretend to know no more than a user, no matter how hard you try.
Sure UI experts would be great, but I think most UI designs would be a lot better if they were designed by someone who didn't know the code, who deliberately didn't take too many lectures from the coders on the inner workings, who wouldn't know much written in mailing lists and forums except basic tutorials. Here's the application, here's the documentation, does the UI make sense on its own? Coders could be decent UI designers, just not on their own projects because you know too much. There should be an exchange program of some kind, you try making sense of my UI and I'll try making sense of yours. Then you'll see how much harder it gets without the invisible dotted lines you have in your head.
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No, the primary reason UI design shouldn't be done by the coder is that to the coder it's clear box testing, he knows the architecture, the design and exactly what strings he's pulling in the code so to him it makes perfect sense. To the user this is a big black box, he doesn't know anything about the inner workings of it and has to rely on only what the UI tells him. You can't shed that extra information and pretend to know no more than a user, no matter how hard you try.
Yes, that's another reason, though you can do end user testing to reach that goal if you don't have access to someone unfamiliar with the code.
Sure UI experts would be great, but I think most UI designs would be a lot better if they were designed by someone who didn't know the code, who deliberately didn't take too many lectures from the coders on the inner workings, who wouldn't know much written in mailing lists and forums except basic tutorials. Here's the application, here's the documentation, does the UI make sense on its own?
Actually, I think the problem is the development direction. Free Software is usually designed from functionality to interface, because you want to get something done, and when it's working you slap on an interface.
Good software is designed from interface to code - the software needs to do something for the user, figure out how the process looks to the user first, the
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Where the hell do they get the resources to do user testing?
Friends and family.
Sure, it won't reach the quality of a lab with testers selected to represent the target audience and paid to have patience and go through it all again and again - but it's a lot better than nothing, and still much better than testing only on yourself.
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* Kdenlive is as good a name as Vegas when it comes to making sense for video editing.
Sony Vegas is the version aimed at professionals though, the version aimed at customers is called "Sony Vegas Movie Studio". Apple calls theirs "Final Cut Express", Microsoft has "Windows Live Movie Maker".
Granted, Kdenlive might not be too bad in a menu if it says Kdenlive (Video Editor) but by itself it's quite non-descript. Even knowing what it is hard to work out the abbreviation as KDE Non-LInear Video Editor. It's not a particularly bad name, but no more than a passing grade.
My experience with it was
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Avid
Smoke
Flame
DS Nitris
Lightworks
Premiere
Etc
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Don't forget Shake and Nuke.
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There is a well named product for movies called kino.
Kdenlive in very short time dwarfed it in terms of features without being much more difficult to use for simple stuff.
Names might be important but features/price, documentation and stability count more, especially when softpedia and countless others will tag software product by function whatever their name is.
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The zealots who want everyone to use Linux are rarely the people who contribute code. The people who code are usually not particularly concerned with whether or not 605dave likes the name. Besides, there are always some people who will complain about the name no matter what it is. Also, there is no "marketing dept" to sit around all day makin
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Actually, I've started to think maybe Linux isn't ready for the normal user without having a nerd friend to help him. Hell, most people can't even run Windows without screwing it up.
The fact is, almost all Linux users ARE more computer literate and savvy than almost all Windows users. No need to try to look superior when you actually ARE superior.
The awful names aren't a Linux thing, they're a geek thing (Asperger's?). How is wifi in any way descriptive? Bluetooth? TWAIN? The difference between free and pai
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Slightly off topic, but does anything actually support MKV? I've looked around and while the codec is probably fine, in practice that's pointless as nobody is bothering to produce software to use it. I've seen a half dozen open source and free products included it, none of which are currently being worked on and none of which are actually useful without a ton of knowledge about the program.
There's a fair number of packages which can read the files, but unlike the MKAs which are pretty easy to do, the video
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Right, but what I'm saying is that aren't any decent authoring programs, the ones referenced on their site are mostly out of date and no longer being worked on. Sure you can play them, but good luck actually making them as the tutorials and software to do so aren't particularly user friendly. I ended up giving up on that for backing up my DVDs and just store them as ISOs, at least with VLC and a few others I can just read those directly rather than have to screw around with a container format that I can't f
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Oh, and the fact that everyone keeps trying to reinvent the wheel.
Ugh yes. Every time I go to look for NLE for Linux I try everything I can find. Every time there's more tools than there were before. Every time they are all crashy or inscrutable and undocumented, or both. I sure wish we'd had more training in cooperation in school and less in competition. I know I'm not the only one around these parts who found that taking over groups was the only way to get shit done and there was always tons of dead weight that refused to get on board no matter who was leading. But havi
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And by all reviews I've ever seen, massively unstable - even compared to Adobe crap. And still doesn't support anywhere near the features of Adobe Premiere or Final Cut Pro.
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