Linux based non-linear video application, Open Movie Editor, has released a new version. Originally new sourced were rolled out on May 21st, with a small bug fix update now available from May 23rd.
I've compiled and installed the new version from source and generally it works well, with a few minor quirks that are sure to be ironed out shortly - for example the audio and video codec rendering options are woefully short of all the libraries I have installed on my machine. Never mind, I always render out a project in the highest quality anyway and then transcode directly with FFmpeg. This might not be optimal for everyone.
As usual, existing Project files are recognised (these are saved in your /home/username directory usually anyway), so work can easily continue on earlier timelines.
Features of this release include:
- Zoom buttons in timeline
- Preview in separate Window
- Images in node graphs
- Lift, gamma, gain 3-Way color-tool
The Zoom buttons are probably more intuitive for new users, although I've already become quite used to the old drag-the-slider zoom method. Time will tell whether this new functionality will be better.
Preview in a separate window works, but I can't quite figure out yet how I would use it. It only previews the timeline, and not clips yet to be added to the project. Previewing clips before they're added to the timeline would be a really useful feature.
I've not yet tried node based editing or the new colour correction tools.
Full release note details can be found here:
http://sourceforge.net/project/shownotes.php?groupid=142766&releaseid=600862
Source code download here:
http://www.openmovieeditor.org/download.html
Open Movie Editor: May 2008 Archives
Recently, and it's hard to say exactly which SVN snapshot this occured in, the FFMpeg project changed the location of a number of its header files. This has caused soem havoc with other applications that use FFmpeg for video decoding or encoding.
Amongst other things, Open Movie Editor complained that certain libraries were not installed, which they plainly were. This could be seen from running a simple "ffmpeg -i" command to see what which libraries FFmpeg had been configured again.
Trying to re-compile Open Movie Editor from source struck some problems, in that OME was looking for FFmpeg headers in the wrong place. To overcome this issue, so that OME would compile and then install correctly, I made the following changes.
The first crash will be with regards to avformat.h in the file nle_main.cxx
nle_main.cxx and the other two files you need to make some small edits to can be found in the "src" directory created when OME is unpacked.
There are three files you'll need to edit in the text editor of your choice:
nle_main.cxx
VideoFileFfmpeg.H
AudioFileFfmepg.H
Open each of those files and near the beginning (around line 35) will be references that look something like this:
#include <ffmpeg/avformat.h>
You'll need to find where avformat.h, avcodec.h and swscale.h are residing on your machine.
You can do this by using the following command:
>sudo find / avformat.h
On my machine, a build of Debian Lenny, these files can all be found in /usr/local/include
I edited the files so the code looks like this (example from VideoFileFfmpeg.H):
#include </usr/local/include/libavcodec/avcodec.h>
#include </usr/local/include/libavformat/avformat.h>
#ifdef SWSCALE
#include </usr/local/include/libswscale/swscale.h>
Once you've saved those files, OME should now be able to find the FFmpeg header files and build correctly.
Hopefully a new version of Open Movie Editor will soon be available where these issues have been rectified in the source.
Amongst other things, Open Movie Editor complained that certain libraries were not installed, which they plainly were. This could be seen from running a simple "ffmpeg -i" command to see what which libraries FFmpeg had been configured again.
Trying to re-compile Open Movie Editor from source struck some problems, in that OME was looking for FFmpeg headers in the wrong place. To overcome this issue, so that OME would compile and then install correctly, I made the following changes.
The first crash will be with regards to avformat.h in the file nle_main.cxx
nle_main.cxx and the other two files you need to make some small edits to can be found in the "src" directory created when OME is unpacked.
There are three files you'll need to edit in the text editor of your choice:
nle_main.cxx
VideoFileFfmpeg.H
AudioFileFfmepg.H
Open each of those files and near the beginning (around line 35) will be references that look something like this:
#include <ffmpeg/avformat.h>
You'll need to find where avformat.h, avcodec.h and swscale.h are residing on your machine.
You can do this by using the following command:
>sudo find / avformat.h
On my machine, a build of Debian Lenny, these files can all be found in /usr/local/include
I edited the files so the code looks like this (example from VideoFileFfmpeg.H):
#include </usr/local/include/libavcodec/avcodec.h>
#include </usr/local/include/libavformat/avformat.h>
#ifdef SWSCALE
#include </usr/local/include/libswscale/swscale.h>
Once you've saved those files, OME should now be able to find the FFmpeg header files and build correctly.
Hopefully a new version of Open Movie Editor will soon be available where these issues have been rectified in the source.
