[gentoo-user] mainactor - which build is likely to work best?

[gentoo-user] mainactor - which build is likely to work best?

[Robert Persson]

I am currently experimenting with mainactor as a video editor.  There are 
three builds to choose from - debian, suse and mandriva.  Which would be 
likely to be most stable on a gentoo system built with gcc-3.4.4?  I am 
currently trying the suse demo.  It's not too bad, but it has crashed a few 
more times than I'd like.

For those who are wondering, kino is fine and stable, but not designed for 
complex jobs, while cinelerra is unspeakably uncooperative IMO.  Couldn't get 
it to capture dv for the life of me, and it locked up all the time. 

I'm going to give lives a shot as well.  I'll let you know how I get on.

Best
Robert
-- 
Robert Persson

"Don't use nuclear weapons to troubleshoot faults."
(US Air Force Instruction 91-111, 1 Oct 1997)

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] mainactor - which build is likely to work best?

[Nick Rout]

The suse build works fine here.

emerge rpm

make sure the following dependencies are installed:

libavc1394
libraw1394
SDL

then

rpm --nodeps MainActor(whatever the full file name is)

the binary to run is mactor


On Sun, 6 Nov 2005 17:28:40 -0800
Robert Persson <ireneshusband@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> I am currently experimenting with mainactor as a video editor.  There are 
> three builds to choose from - debian, suse and mandriva.  Which would be 
> likely to be most stable on a gentoo system built with gcc-3.4.4?  I am 
> currently trying the suse demo.  It's not too bad, but it has crashed a few 
> more times than I'd like.
> 
> For those who are wondering, kino is fine and stable, but not designed for 
> complex jobs, while cinelerra is unspeakably uncooperative IMO.  Couldn't get 
> it to capture dv for the life of me, and it locked up all the time. 
> 
> I'm going to give lives a shot as well.  I'll let you know how I get on.
> 
> Best
> Robert
> -- 
> Robert Persson
> 
> "Don't use nuclear weapons to troubleshoot faults."
> (US Air Force Instruction 91-111, 1 Oct 1997)
> 
> -- 
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] mainactor - which build is likely to work best?

[Robert Persson]

On November 11, 2005 01:57 am Nick Rout was like:
> OK well mu comments below:
>
> On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 06:20:34 -0800
>
> Robert Persson <ireneshusband@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> > On November 9, 2005 02:17 pm Nick Rout was like:
> > > what are you looking to do that main actor cannot do?
> >
> > 1.  Import and edit quicktime movies from my camera.
>
> I would be reluctant to buy a camera that wasn't DV. However as you
> have one, it should be possible to transcode to something mainactor can
> deal with.
>
> Just to confirm I have a quicktime movie which tcprobe tells me is:
>
> audio codec=QDM2
> video codec=SVQ3
>
> and mainactor deosn't want to know it. However it was easily transcoded
> to mpeg2 which mainactor is fine with.

The trouble with this is that the transcoded movies will have to be a lot 
bigger than the originals.  When I can afford some nice big disks that won't 
be a problem, but it is at the moment.

I read a review of one of the canopus products that said it could handle many 
different codecs and formats in the same timeline.  Waiting for transcoding 
jobs to render would be a pain and shouldn't be necessary.  All that should 
need to be rendered is what you find on the timeline when you come to print 
the movie.

>
> > 2.  That thing you can do in Media 100 and Avid where you you hae little
> > arrows pointing from 1 video clip in the timeline to the other and back
> > again so that you can do lots of fast cuts without getting confused by
> > lots of tiny clips.
>
> I am not familiar with avid or media 100, but I am always interested in
> new interfaces to movie editing. I might even install windows to take a
> look :)

I'm not sure if media 100 is even produced any more.  I used it on a mac os 
7.5 system and it needed a lot of proprietary hardware.  Same goes for older 
versions of avid, but that's not true any more.

>
> > 3.  Be able to do  lot more with sound (e.g. mixing).
>
> Ahhh but there are plenty of sound mixing programs for linux. And if I
> understand correctly you can do a certain amount of sound mixing with
> main actor by using multiple audio tracks and mixing them. Perhaps this
> is not what you mean?

I haven't done much with mainactor yet and I may have missed some of the sound 
capabilities.  I'll need to take another look.  Exporting and reimporting 
bits of the movie can be a pain, if you're not careful, when you want to 
maintain audio-video sync.

Robert
-- 
Robert Persson

"Don't use nuclear weapons to troubleshoot faults."
(US Air Force Instruction 91-111, 1 Oct 1997)

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] mainactor - which build is likely to work best?

[Robert Persson]

On November 6, 2005 10:07 pm Nick Rout was like:
> The suse build works fine here.

Thanks Nick.

SuSE was the one I decided to try out first and it has been running without 
any problem for me too.

I'm still looking for something that will do quite a bit more than this, so 
I'm trying out various windows apps under wine.  I'll post if I get something 
to work reasonably well.  

Robert
-- 
Robert Persson

"Don't use nuclear weapons to troubleshoot faults."
(US Air Force Instruction 91-111, 1 Oct 1997)

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] mainactor - which build is likely to work best?

[Nick Rout]

On Wed, 9 Nov 2005 13:43:35 -0800
Robert Persson wrote:

> On November 6, 2005 10:07 pm Nick Rout was like:
> > The suse build works fine here.
> 
> Thanks Nick.
> 
> SuSE was the one I decided to try out first and it has been running without 
> any problem for me too.
> 
> I'm still looking for something that will do quite a bit more than this, so 
> I'm trying out various windows apps under wine.  I'll post if I get something 
> to work reasonably well.  

what are you looking to do that main actor cannot do?

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gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] mainactor - which build is likely to work best?

[Robert Persson]

On November 9, 2005 02:17 pm Nick Rout was like:
> what are you looking to do that main actor cannot do?

1.  Import and edit quicktime movies from my camera.

2.  That thing you can do in Media 100 and Avid where you you hae little 
arrows pointing from 1 video clip in the timeline to the other and back again 
so that you can do lots of fast cuts without getting confused by lots of tiny 
clips.

3.  Be able to do  lot more with sound (e.g. mixing).
-- 
Robert Persson

"Don't use nuclear weapons to troubleshoot faults."
(US Air Force Instruction 91-111, 1 Oct 1997)

-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] mainactor - which build is likely to work best?

[Nick Rout]

OK well mu comments below:

On Thu, 10 Nov 2005 06:20:34 -0800
Robert Persson <ireneshusband@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

> On November 9, 2005 02:17 pm Nick Rout was like:
> > what are you looking to do that main actor cannot do?
> 
> 1.  Import and edit quicktime movies from my camera.

I would be reluctant to buy a camera that wasn't DV. However as you
have one, it should be possible to transcode to something mainactor can
deal with.

Just to confirm I have a quicktime movie which tcprobe tells me is:

audio codec=QDM2
video codec=SVQ3

and mainactor deosn't want to know it. However it was easily transcoded
to mpeg2 which mainactor is fine with.

> 
> 2.  That thing you can do in Media 100 and Avid where you you hae little 
> arrows pointing from 1 video clip in the timeline to the other and back again 
> so that you can do lots of fast cuts without getting confused by lots of tiny 
> clips.

I am not familiar with avid or media 100, but I am always interested in
new interfaces to movie editing. I might even install windows to take a
look :)

> 
> 3.  Be able to do  lot more with sound (e.g. mixing).

Ahhh but there are plenty of sound mixing programs for linux. And if I
understand correctly you can do a certain amount of sound mixing with
main actor by using multiple audio tracks and mixing them. Perhaps this
is not what you mean?


> -- 
> Robert Persson
> 
> "Don't use nuclear weapons to troubleshoot faults."
> (US Air Force Instruction 91-111, 1 Oct 1997)
> 
> -- 
> gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
> 
-- 
gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list

Re: [gentoo-user] mainactor - which build is likely to work best?

[Eric Bliss]

On Monday 07 November 2005 03:38 pm, Robert Persson wrote:
> >
> > > 2.  That thing you can do in Media 100 and Avid where you you hae little
> > > arrows pointing from 1 video clip in the timeline to the other and back
> > > again so that you can do lots of fast cuts without getting confused by
> > > lots of tiny clips.
> >
> > I am not familiar with avid or media 100, but I am always interested in
> > new interfaces to movie editing. I might even install windows to take a
> > look :)
> 
> I'm not sure if media 100 is even produced any more.  I used it on a mac os 
> 7.5 system and it needed a lot of proprietary hardware.  Same goes for older 
> versions of avid, but that's not true any more.
> 
> >

(exit lurk mode)  :-)

Media 100 is still around, although it is sort of dying off.  It's changed 
hands a few times in recent years, but it does still have some work done on 
it.  They've also recently released a software only version of the system, 
with no special hardware boards needed.

Not to hype my own site or anything, but Media 100 is one of the systems 
(Along with Avid, Apple's Final Cut, and others) that gets good coverage at 
Creative Cow (http://forums.creativecow.net).  You might want to take a look 
there before making any purchasing decisions.

(return to lurk mode)  

-- 
Eric Bliss
systems design and integration,
CreativeCow.Net
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