[geeks] for vi lovers

[Joshua D Boyd]

On Tue, Jan 08, 2002 at 10:30:52AM -0500, James Sharp wrote:
>>Anyway, I thought some people might be interested in seeing that the onlyopen
>>source video editor that appears to work (everything else is vaporware
>>at the moment) is a vi friend.
> 
> Actually, I've used Broadcast2000 with pretty good luck.  Unfortunately,
> its written with a bunch of Intel MMX & AMD 3dNOW! instructions as well
> as Linux threads, so you can guess what it only runs on.
> 
> http://www.heroinewarrior.com/

And if you look at that URL, you will find that they have done there best to
pull B2k from the net.

My opinion of B2k is that it sucked.  It was fast, but it didn't understand how
people want to work.

I'm not sure kino entirely gets it either, but it looks to be more on track.  
Other things that jump out is that it uses hardware acceleration for yuv<->rgb,
and has a clean interface that doesn't try to do too much.

The video editing program that I will someday write (I'm laying ground work for
it among other things now) will be significantly different.  First, I want to
attempt to make it color space neutral as much as possible (RGB, YUV, 
whatever).  Second all processing will be done with 32bit floats.  Initially
the program will be linear only, but someday I want to also add logrithmic
color also.  Third, it will be resolution independent (but the initial versions
will probably target video resolution output more than anything).  Forth, most
processing will be done in realtime.

These are features that seem to me to be easy enough to implement, but they 
also seem to be features mainly found in highend editing systems only.  The 
real trick, and this is why the video editor is a distant project, is I still
haven't figured out the best UI in anyway shape or form.  

I really wish I had access to high end editors to experiment with.  My editing
experience is  strictly with Premiere (I really dislike it), B2k (I dislike it
even more), the Video Flyer (loved it, great for simple work, not so great for 
very complex work, love that it was nearly realtime when realtime was a $100k 
to $1mil option),and Windows Movie Maker (for it's target market, quite 
passable).  I'm thinking that what I should try along the way is Apples iMovie
and Final Cut Pro, Media 100, Avid, Softimage DS, and in particular, I want to
try the Discreet systems particularly Edit (midrange Win2K system with a Win2k 
GUI), and especially a Smoke or Fire (high end SGI, completely custom GUI, uses
GL extensively, realtime for Fire at least, not sure about smoke) station.

-- 
Joshua D. Boyd