Hi everyone,
I follow this mailing list roughly over on the cinelerra.org archives and was
extremely excited to see discussion of further development and decided to join
the list in order to give my thoughts. The first issue is that I am not a
developer – in fact I’m a relative Linux newbie and don’t even have that much
experience with simple tasks such as compiling from source. So I’m keenly
aware that we have a lot of non-developers with a lot of ideas for the few
developers still active here – I don’t want to come across as demanding or
unhelpful, but I figured, if I don’t share my thoughts now I will lose the
chance to do so. I am an amateur video-editor and hobbyist, and would be happy
to help with any testing, documentation or tutorial work that would need to be
done. I have a postgrad degree in Creative Writing but little practical
experience with technical writing of the sort needed for documentation, just to
be up front about that. While I’m sure they’re not the best or most concise, I
do have a number of Cinelerra CV tutorials up on YouTube (with a few more
planned) on my channel – cybridproductions, if anyone is curious. They
currently focus on achieving effects or transitions for which there is no
single default effect in Cinelerra.
To move on to my thoughts. I am very pleased to see continuing development on
Cinelerra because while I support Lumiera in principle, it’s a very long way
from anything usable and I feel the problem with Linux at the moment in terms
of video editing is that there are numerous viable, impressive options for
beginners and middle-level home movie editing but Cinelerra stands alone as a
workable prosumer level editing suite. It’s the only solution, for instance,
that I’ve found that will import 5.1 audio and allow editing of each stream.
Lumiera is a long way from release and if Cinelerra falls into disrepair, or
even if it still has active development but on a greatly reduced level, it
risks being perceived as obsolete or unsupported. This would be a great shame
as it is an absolutely fantastic program, despite having some quirks and a
conventionally unattractive interface.
In terms of things I think Cinelerra needs to improve on –
Interface
I don’t actually think this is a really big deal. Sure a more attractive
interface would be a bonus, but honestly I think a reskin on the level of what
Cinecutie did is adequate.
Transitions
I come down firmly on the side of not transitioning between tracks by default –
I like the way transitions are displayed now. It would be nice if they could
be “dragged” to increase or decrease length rather than right-clicking and
manually assigning a length, but I do not feel this is a critical issue or
something in desperate need of being addressed.
I do think that some more transitions could be added. It’s possible to achieve
some 3D transitions through use of the perspective effects, but it might be
nice to have a few simple 3D transitions pre-made, as it were?
Also other simple transitions that come as standard in other NLEs but must be
“created” in Cinelerra such as the dissolves that include an increase in
brightness, such as those often used for “flashback” effects, blurring
transitions, etc.
These aren’t critical either as they can be achieved through alternate means,
but including them would certainly help many novice users and save others time.
2D Effects
Again, there are many effects for which Cinelerra has no preset effect which
can be achieved through use of multiple effects, and perhaps this is something
to look at, but I’d rather concentrate on effects not available at all or only
available through very complex workarounds. Shaky camera, an adjustable,
keyframeable aged-film effect, are two that spring immediately to mind, and are
also two that are not easily achievable by layering two effects, etc. A “dream
glow” effect might also be useful as the only way I know of to achieve that
currently is layered tracks and overlay modes with a blur effect added on. I
also like the lens effect available in 4.2.
That said, I do think that Cinelerra has strong representation in the 2D
effects department already.
3D Effects
Here is something I’d like to see. I want to be careful of suggesting that
Cinelerra attempt to become a fully fledged effects compositor like the (sadly
closed) RamenFX project, and I also understand that often “magic wand” style
effects are considered something that is more often used for home movie
projects rather than more professional ones. However, I have seen some
interesting stuff in recent development for OpenShot where they’re using
Blender, I believe, to add some nice looking stuff. In particular, I think a
lensflare effect would be absolutely awesome to have. 3D titles would be nice
too.
However, it obviously goes without saying that I have no idea about the code,
and it may well be that Cinelerra’s code does not allow the use of Blender in
the way OpenShot’s does.
Functionality
Finally, but probably most importantly, some words on general functionality. I
am actually pretty happy overall with Cinelerra and its capabilities. I think
the most glaring absence is the nested sequences feature – the fact that 4.2
has this gives me hope that it might be possible to port it to CV? I know I
would make a lot of use of it in longer projects that require tricky multitrack
segments where currently I’m always between about rendering the clip for
simplicity but then losing quality, or appending the xml file into the current
project, but then having to add and lock off an inordinate amount of tracks and
hoping I don’t accidentally mess up. If I had ONE thing I could wish for CV
right now, it would be nested sequences. The ability to edit scenes and then
edit the whole movie would be stellar.
I also understand and support the desire to feel free to fork further from the
upstream release from HV, but I do also like the idea of bezier curves
(particularly in the histogram? I’m not sure if that’s even a feature in HV?)
and amending all keyframes in a highlighted area to a particular set of
parameters.
Summary
I would be most excited by new features – things such as nested sequences,
bezier curves, and effects we cannot achieve through workarounds - such as
lensflares, 3D particle effects, etc. This will help Cinelerra stand as a
genuine equal and alternative to programs like Vegas or even Premiere (sans
After Effects).
Additional to that, I would love to see a slightly prettified interface (a la
Cinecutie) and for effects and transitions that are achievable with workarounds
to be presented as one-effect/transition options, such as glow/blur
transitions, 3D transitions, shaky camera, glow and old film effects, etc.
This will help Cinelerra combat its, in my opinion undeserved, reputation for
being user unfriendly and impractical.
Obviously I also want to applaud the efforts of all the Cinelerra developers in
continuing to maintain this project and keep it stable and viable as Linux’s
highest level and in my opinion, best video editor. It’s got almost everything
it needs already, it just need a little boost in terms of ease of use and a
little boost in terms of what it can offer, editing-wise.
