Video Editing

[mikeslr]

This is just an introduction, primarily for those new to Linux in general, Puppy in particular. Following up a couple of recent posts revealed that there have been discussions scattered about the forum, but no specific thread from which newbies can get their bearings.

Feel free to flesh out this thread, adding recommendations and links.

The simplest tool --for the simplest projects-- is probably avidemux. There are likely versions which will run under any Puppy and Windows programs which will run under Wine. If all you want to do is cut and trim then combine the results, avidemux will do the job. It can also manage simple clip rotations, and codec conversions. If you're familiar with VirtualDub under Windows, avidemux offers comparable capabilities. [Absent 1/2 : Under Windows there was a companion program to VirtualDub named Cut-Assistant. Calling VirtualDub via Cut-Assistant enabled you to create a 'play-list' of 'cut-clips' to be combined into one output file; or, alternatively, the output file would consist of everything EXCEPT what you 'cut-out'. Although VirtualDub can be run under Wine, Cut-Assistant can't].
Similar to avidemux --but only for 64-bit operating systems-- are Lossless-Cut and VidCutter.

At the other extreme is Cinelerra. There is likely some version which will run under any Puppy. And AFAIK there isn't anything Linux Video-Editors can do which Cinelerra can't. But it's down-side is that it's GUI isn't very intuitive. You may face a significant learning curve. On the other hand, if you aren't already accustomed to some 'full-fledged' Video-Editor, you won't have much to 'unlearn'.

What prompted this post was don570's recent report of the utility of the Shotcut AppImage on the FatDog64 SubForum. Shotcut was first introduced to us as a builtin under FatDog64, I believe FatDog64-630. Now only published as 64-bit programs and applications, there are older 32-bit versions. I can't tell you anything about how functional those are. Windows version 15.05.02 will run under Wine. (Haven't tried newer versions).
Shotcut appears to be a solid, all-purpose video-editor with an easy to understand GUI. But for a near professional quality video-editor [other than Cinelerra] you'll probably want either Openshot or KDEnlive.
There were some 32-bit KDEnlive versions for Slackos & Saluki/Carolinas. But until Bionicpup Openshot 1.4.x was generally the 'go-to' full-fledged video-editor. Openshot 1.4.3 ran well under Xenialpup, both 64 and 32 bit versions. But with the qt5 and/or python changes which went into the versions published for Ubuntu Bionic Beaver, KDEnlive resulted in a better application for Bionicpup. As far as I can tell, their GUIs are almost identical. But, if you are a confirmed Openshot user, or have projects which would be difficult to work with under KDEnlive, I suggest you look for Mike Walsh's Openshot 1.4.3.sfs. [The designation "2" indicates the start of the series using Qt5].
Caution: Openshot and KDEnlive conflict with each other. If you want both, it is recommended that they be run as SFSes --with only one loaded at a time-- or as self-contained AppImages.
IIRC, you can simultaneously run avidemux, shotcut and KDEnlive.

[mikewalsh]

Hello, Mike.

As you're doubtless aware - along with many others - my own personal favourite has, for long enough, been Openshot.

All video editors look formidable, to the untrained eye. But once you start to explore them, you come to realise that they're nowhere near as forbidding as they appear.....and "Johnno" Thomas, or simply "JT" (as the Linux multimedia community know him), has added tons of neat little features all over the place.

Using it has never been an issue. The problem has always been getting the thing to run in the first place; as you know yourself, you can't easily troubleshoot Python, because you can't run

Code: Select all

ldd

.....on what is essentially a bunch of scripts!

The older 1-series at least had the advantage of (usually) being installable, without issues, from the PPM. I just want to briefly detail my experiences thus far with the 2-series Openshots, which have only ever been packaged as an AppImage for Linux.....and restricted to 64-bit only into the bargain.

--------------------------------------------

Fossapup64 - Here, as you might expect, the AppImages fire up without a murmur. Using Openshot is as simple as downloading the AppImage, setting "Exec" permissions, and clicking on it.....

--------------------------------------------

Bionicpup64 - The issue here is that the dBus daemon doesn't auto-run in Puppy. The AppImages will run, but you need to start 'em with a wee wrapper that calls dBus first, thus:-

Code: Select all

#!/bin/sh
#
# Launch Openshot AppImage
#
export $(dbus-launch)
/path/to/your/AppImage

.....which appears to do the trick.

-------------------------------------------

Xenialpup64 - Despite being one of the most stable 64-bit Pups out there, this one appears to be limited to the older 1-series Openshot (which runs flawlessly, BTW). I have tried every trick in the the book (and then some) to get the AppImage to run here; for me, at least, whenever I try this in Xenialpup64 it invariably results in "X" crashing.....from which the only recourse is a "hard" power-down & re-boot.

This MAY be related to the Nvidia driver; I can't say for definite.

------------------------------------------

Quirky64 "April" 7.0.1 - I mention this one because I've run jrb's 'lite' spin on it for well over a year now as my go-to daily driver. Since it's Tahrpup-era, a lot of newer stuff will not run natively on it.....and it appears to have "issues" with Nvidia cards & OpenGLX/EGL, anyway. So I run stuff in this from a Xenialpup64 chroot.....including, to my amazement, the 2-series Openshot AppImage! It runs happily from the chroot, but point-blank refuses on "bare metal".....

(Interestingly, I found out just last night that by 'borrowing' a single dependency from Xenialpup64 - libkeyutils - the 2-series AppImage will now run "natively" in Quirky. I'm pleased with that..!!)

----------------------------------------

And there you have it. A bit of a "mixed" bag, I'm afraid.....but perhaps some of this info will help others out with this excellent video editor under Puppy.

Mike.

[bark-woof-fetch]

I asked around about a year ago (https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtop ... 2&t=118794) but have since then only used
Olive
https://www.appimagehub.com/p/1283543
and
LosslessCut
https://www.appimagehub.com/p/1384494
for basic trims, cuts and conversion.

And kdenlive on Windows....

The Cinelerra-GG developer unfortunately passed away recently, AV Linux Glen wrote a heartfelt obituary http://www.bandshed.net/2020/11/26/reme ... -good-guy/

[mikewalsh]

@bark-woof-fetch :-

That's sad news indeed about Bill Morrow. As the "obituary" you linked to says, how often would you get a retired, married couple BOTH enthusiastic about, and determined to "resurrect from the grave", an open-source project.....especially one with as chequered a history as Cinelerra? You couldn't make it up, could you?

Which begs the question, of course; what happens to it now? It's never been a favourite of mine, but I've always been keen to see the community software cupboard well-stocked with goodies, so have always included it in any mentions of/links to multimedia packages that work for us. I have experimented with it, but it's a very different beast to most of the competition; it does, however, have its adherents.....one guy on the old Murga-Linux was a production editor at the BBC, and when they allowed their staff to start bringing in their own hardware/software, he took in a laptop, running his own re-master of Puppy which was basically built around Cinelerra-CV as the 'centerpiece'. He reckoned he got on far better with it than anything else, since it was closest in concept to what "Auntie" had previously been providing as their 'in-house' video editing suite.....

Just goes to show, doesn't it? Puppy gets everywhere..!!

Mike.

[mikeslr]

Thanks, bark-woof-fetch, for calling Olive Video Editor to our attention.
Both 64-and-32 bit AppImages can be obtained here, https://olivevideoeditor.org/
Here's what someone wrote about it on the slant forum. [I wish people would date their posts if the software doesn't do it automatically]. "The official website clearly states 'Still in alpha / No stable release yet' which is why this piece of software should not be used for important projects. Then again it is so damn good that Olive editor is right now my primary editor for most projects. The fact that there is NO stable version of this software does bother a bit as it's ability to handle complex projects is almost unpredictable. But all said and done, it's still not crashed on me even once. Even though an alpha, the best damn alpha release ever." https://www.slant.co/options/32129/~oli ... tor-review
A quick search reveals that it employs an intuitive --or familiar-- GUI while also offering a 'Blazing fast preview' and some unique features. See, https://www.debugpoint.com/2020/12/oliv ... or-review/ "Hard to Believe that It’s Free!"

Edit: Downloaded both the 32 & 64 bit versions. Under Bionicpup64, the 64-bit version segfaulted. But, having the 32-bit compatibility SFS loaded, the 32-bit version opened. That's as far as I got.
Edit2: 64 bit version opened w/o incident in Fossapup64. I think bark-woof-fetch has been using it under Busterdog. So it should work under Busterpup64, perhaps other OSes have newer 'infra-structure'.

[mikewalsh]

@mikeslr :-

Just realised, Mike; your reference to "MY" 1.4.3 SFS is wrong.

IIRC, I published a 'workaround' for getting Xenialpup64's version to run in Bionicpup64. I believe you then took my instructions and, using taersh's PaDS, tracked everything down and built an SFS out of it all.....which you then made available.

Sound about right? I won't take credit for somebody else's work.....because I know, for a fact, that I've never produced an Openshot SFS. But I'm certain I remember you doing so....

Ha! Yep; here we are.....

https://oldforum.puppylinux.com/viewtop ... 4#p1005644

T'other Mike.

[mikeslr]

Hi Mike,
Your post above appears to refer to the discussion on this thread, viewtopic.php?f=4&t=684. And you may be right about the Openshot SFS for Bionicpup64 being my publication. It's available here, https://www.mediafire.com/folder/yct9r87kog5ll/openshot along with Battleshooter's Openshot 1.4.2 (32 bit) which I uploaded to mediafire in order to preserve it.

After you and taersh did all the hard work, my packaging the openshot_bionic64-1.4.3.sfs took so little effort that it was easily forgotten. And, of course, I have a copy on my hard-drive so have never since had to look for it.

[bark-woof-fetch]

@bark-woof-fetch :-

That's sad news indeed about Bill Morrow. As the "obituary" you linked to says, how often would you get a retired, married couple BOTH enthusiastic about, and determined to "resurrect from the grave", an open-source project.....especially one with as chequered a history as Cinelerra? You couldn't make it up, could you?

nope.
I hope the widow and community manage to push on or accomodate new devs somehow. Not that many FLOSS video editor devs around one would think.

[mikeslr]

Hi All,
Edit: Well, after a little bit of testing, Cut-Assistant still doesn't appear to function under Wine. Maybe someone can figure out why as it would be a great addition.
I complained above about Cut-Assistant not working under Wine. It's been a while since I tried, or even looked into this. In the past, trying to start Cut-Assistant always errored-out. But the Cut Assistant 0.9.12.2 version from here, https://www.videohelp.com/software/Cut-Assistant, although complaining about not being able to check for a new version at least opens. As you can see from the GUI while working you create a 'play list' of those sections of a vid you want to keep-combine or cut out-of the rendered video.

Cut Assistant GUI.png (35.65 KiB) Viewed 2890 times

Muggins also reported, viewtopic.php?p=23071#p23071 a 'new' version of virtualdub, virtualdub2. Following the clues will eventually bring you here, https://sourceforge.net/projects/vdfiltermod/files/. Along the way you'll also find links to many plugins extending Virtualdub's utility. Cut-Assistant functions as a front-end for either VirtualDub or asfbin. You have to go into Menu>Options>Settings and select the 'back-end's' executable. Doing so just now reveals that it can also work as a front end to Avidemux.
I have yet to test to find out whether it actually works, at all and with which versions of any 'back-end'.
Perhaps the apparent functionality of Cut-Assistant results from improvements under Wine. I'm now using portable-wine version 3.3.
But there being literally scores of Virtualdub plugins. So the combination virtualdub + cut-Assistant is well worth taking the time to explore.

[taersh]

@mikeslr
Where did you get the 32bit version?
When I'm entering the site I can download only the 64bit AppImage...

[mikewalsh]

@mikeslr
Where did you get the 32bit version?
When I'm entering the site I can download only the 64bit AppImage...

@taersh :-

It's a bit convoluted..!

Rainer, if you follow the link to the Olive website, up the top, hit the 'Download' button, then from the 'Download' screen, hit the 'Github' button. Scroll down to the 0.1.0 release (considered to be the most stable), and open the 'Assets' (there's 11 of them).

You'll find the i386 AppImage there. I seem to recall I, too, looked at this a year or so back, and had absolutely NO joy with it at all..... 'Twas MrDuckGuy over at the Murga forum who got ME looking at it, IIRC....

Mike.

[taersh]

@mikewalsh
Thanks.
Website is a bit different from your description, though I managed downloading the 32bit AppImage.
32bit Olive, no fun in Bionic64.

error while loading shared libraries: libz.so.1: wrong ELF class: ELFCLASS64

Also 64bit Olive, no fun.

/tmp/.mount_Olive6k8utA6/usr/bin/olive-editor: /usr/lib/libQt5Core.so.5: version `Qt_5.15' not found (required by /tmp/.mount_Olive6k8utA6/usr/bin/olive-editor)
/tmp/.mount_Olive6k8utA6/usr/bin/olive-editor: /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62: version `LIBJPEGTURBO_6.2' not found (required by /initrd/mnt/tmpfs/tmp/.mount_Olive6k8utA6/usr/bin/../lib/libOpenImageIO.so.2.2)
/tmp/.mount_Olive6k8utA6/usr/bin/olive-editor: /usr/lib/libjpeg.so.62: version `LIBJPEGTURBO_6.2' not found (required by /initrd/mnt/tmpfs/tmp/.mount_Olive6k8utA6/usr/bin/../lib/libraw_r.so.19)

[mikewalsh]

@taersh :-

Sorry; my bad. The Github button is at the top of the main page, and then you need to click on 'Releases' over on the right-hand side before you access the downloads.

Yeah; this isn't a "proper" AppImage, y'see.

A "proper" AppImage has everything it needs to run. This is a re-packaged .deb, or something similar, because it's still hunting around the system for dependencies.....which a correctly-assembled AppImage doesn't NEED to do.

That's MY assessment, anyway.

Mike.

[mikeslr]

Mike's instructions for obtaining the 32-bit version of Olive wasn't what I did. I guess I was lucky.

From https://olivevideoeditor.org/ I clicked "Get Olive" which took me here, https://olivevideoeditor.org/download.php where I clicked "Linux various distros". Then clicked the "AppImage (32-bit)" Button. The version I got is Olive-1e3cf53-i386.AppImage. I did mention that I have Bionicpup64's compatibility SFS loaded. Starting from the terminal, the only thing Olive fails is pulse-audio.
You can decompress it with UExtract. It will think it's a 'rox-app', Right-click and select 'look inside'. You can then run ldd on /usr/bin/olive-editor.

[mikewalsh]

@mikeslr :-

I didn't really have time to look at this in any depth. Weather's nice outside, everything is growing.....I need to be getting stuck into some gardening!

Mike.

[mikeslr]

The weather is getting nice here, too. I need a labradoodle to walk on the beach. I also need the beach.

[unoo]

Why don't you try other video editor like tuneskit acemovi, i have use it for a long time for the reson that its simple and efficient operation.
https://www.tuneskit.com/video-editor/

[Grey]

How monotonous advertisements and promises of video editors have become in our time. "Simple, convenient, intuitive, no one else has such a thing, blah blah blah." In my opinion, only Cinelerra (real, not GG/CV) honestly stated - we don't care about your convenience, learn to use it.

[mikewalsh]

Why don't you try other video editor like tuneskit acemovi, i have use it for a long time for the reson that its simple and efficient operation.
https://www.tuneskit.com/video-editor/

.....which is no good to Linux users, because it's for Windows/MacOS ONLY. Helps to do some research before you post.....

Mike.

[mikeslr]

unoo, Mike may have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. We do appreciate reports about programs which run under Wine. Mike, himself, has posted about some.
But do make sure that they do run under Wine; report what limitations they have and, especially, if you're expected to pay for them. Or if --as I did about cut-assistant-- they offer some feature not available under Linux applications even if it turns out that they aren't functional when you hope that someone can figure out how to make them so.

[mikewalsh]

unoo, Mike may have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. We do appreciate reports about programs which run under Wine. Mike, himself, has posted about some.
But do make sure that they do run under Wine; report what limitations they have and, especially, if you're expected to pay for them. Or if --as I did about cut-assistant-- they offer some feature not available under Linux applications even if it turns out that they aren't functional when you hope that someone can figure out how to make them so.

^^^ Lololol!!

I think in all honesty, Mike, that whatever video-editing software you DO "settle down with" and become proficient at, it all boils down to one thing, really. That of familiarity, and getting so you know your software inside out.....to the point where you're comfortable with it, you enjoy using it, and you're 100% happy with the results you get.

That's why there will always be choices, and, as I'm sure you know, my personal motto where Puppy's concerned has always been "choice in all things". And is why I always try to make available to the community as many software packages that work with Puppy as I can.

Not everyone wants to do things the same way, after all.....

T'other Mike.

[Grey]

There is also DaVinci Resolve Studio (Linux version). A program that combines editing, color correction, visual effects, motion graphics and audio post production.
It is paid, but the largest russian torrent tracker has a version with a "medicine"(simple Perl script that replaces one sequence of bytes with another). It works in Fossapup, I haven't tested all the features, but it works(I had to install a few libraries, but these are trifles).

[mikeslr]

Well, the discussion got me thinking again. Always a bad idea.
Mike, of course, you're right. "..it all boils down to one thing, really...Getting so you know your software inside out".
The one thing I missed with avidemux that Cut-Assistant provided was the how easy Cut-Assistant made merging cuts by generating a 'play-list' as you made the cuts.
With avidemux, after you've made your cuts you have to manually select each to add it to what is to be the finished product. The thing is that as you are working you give names to the cuts and will generally have a good idea of where each cut will be in the finished product: most often just chronologically following the previous cut you made. As you're not changing codecs or resizing, it occurred to me that if you named each cut alpha-numerically as you went along, it is likely that a simple bash-script could be used to concat the individual clips. Haven't tried it. Because it then occurred to me that maybe either VidCutter or LosslessCut might already have that function.

I couldn't test VidCutter. As is currently usual, I'm running Bionicpup64 and the both versions 6.0 and 5.0.5 segfault. Will try under other Puppys. And there being a 32-bit version, a couple 32-bit Puppys.
But LosslessCut seems to run well. And the latest versions seem to have --if not as simple as Cut-Assistant-- a very useful method for working with cut-clips. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPQymOSei_Q. I'll have to familiarize myself with it.

[williams2]

I find that cutting with avidemux is very easy.

First, i run avidemux.
Then I drag a file or files to the avidemux window.

I usually have the out video codex and audio codex set to Copy.

If I want to save it, I click File, Save

I often want the video to begin and end on an intra frame, so I usually set the A marker to the first intra frame:
(press Home, Up, then Dn, then ctrl+PgUP)
Then I set the end to the last intra frame
(press End, then Dn, then Up, then ctrl+PgDn)
Then File Save.

If I want to save a piece in the middle, I move to the begining (clicking the slider or dragging the slider and/or holding the up-arrow and down-arrow keys)
I press the Up and Dn keys to be sure It's at an intra frame then mark A by pressing ctrl+PgUp.
I mark the end of the piece the same way (Up and Dn then ctrl+PgDn)
File, Save saves only the piece starting at A and ending at B.

If I want to cut out a piece, I mark the beginning and end of the piece as A and B then press Del.
If there are more pieces to cut, I mark each piece, one at a time, with A and B markers and press Del to delete that piece.
When all the pieces are deleted, click File, Save.

[mikeslr]

Hi williams2,

About avidemux. I forgot about 'delete'. It works as easy as Cut-Assistant's remove list does. But adding a bunch of saved-clips is still more demanding than it needs to be. Following up on my previous post that "a simple bash-script could be used to concat the individual clips" something like this should work:

for i in *.mkv;do cat $i >> output.mkv;done

The operative word being should; and the limitations previously noted + all clips having been saved in mkv containers having been honored. But, I still haven't tried it.

Update on VidCutter: Both the latest and the previous AppImages work fine under Xenialpup64. Don't know why they segfault under Bionicpup64.

[williams2]

About avidemux

I usually just run Avidemux and drag the files one by one to the avidemux window, in the order I want, then edit if necessary. It's good if the files each start and end with a intra frame (key frame).

I don't know if you can run avidemux with multiple filenames, like this:

avidemux file1.mkv file2.mkv file3.mkv etc
or
avidemux file*.mkv

There are command line options https://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/doku.p ... line_usage

Basically, to save a clip as a video file, mark the beginning and end of the clip as A and B then File, Save.
Save more clips of the same file if you want, the same way, mark A and B then File, Save

To delete a clip. mark A and B and press Del.
After you've deleted all the clips you want, File, Save saves what remains.

You can set the defaults by editing/saving the edl files, I think.

[muggins]

I converted the latest LosslessCut AppImage to sfs format, and I've uploaded it to mediafire. See:

https://download1589.mediafire.com/vhuj ... 3.36.0.sfs

[mikewalsh]

I converted the latest LosslessCut AppImage to sfs format, and I've uploaded it to mediafire. See:

https://download1589.mediafire.com/vhuj ... 3.36.0.sfs

This IS the nice thing with AppImages. With modern ones - anytime in the last 2-3 years, certainly - they're all what I think of as "Mk IIs". Earlier AppImages, built using the older packaging system, needed a specific tool to view the contents; with "Mk IIs", open a terminal, point it to your AppImage, append the

Code: Select all

--appimage-extract

.....argument, and what you end up with is very similar to a RoxApp (it's actually named "squashfs-root"). Rt-clk->Look Inside, and there's the contents. Having done that, you can then of course repack 'em anyway you like.

Very neat.

Mike.

[amethyst]

I converted the latest LosslessCut AppImage to sfs format, and I've uploaded it to mediafire. See:

https://download1589.mediafire.com/vhuj ... 3.36.0.sfs

This IS the nice thing with AppImages. With modern ones - anytime in the last 2-3 years, certainly - they're all what I think of as "Mk IIs". Earlier AppImages, built using the older packaging system, needed a specific tool to view the contents; with "Mk IIs", open a terminal, point it to your AppImage, append the

Code: Select all

--appimage-extract

.....argument, and what you end up with is very similar to a RoxApp (it's actually named "squashfs-root"). Rt-clk->Look Inside, and there's the contents. Having done that, you can then of course repack 'em anyway you like.

Very neat.

Mike.

Are all the applications in your app images compressed as sfs's? If I recall correctly, the one time I did download one of your apps (I think it was a browser), I just extracted the sfs from the app image.

[taersh]

What's that?

with "Mk IIs"

???