Fri 20 Nov 2009
Having followed its development for a long time now and used other video editing software I can say that PiTiVi is an awesome app that is only going to get better. Sure it isn’t perfect yet but that is software development for you. It takes time to get all the features in and make them solid.
One of the great parts of Open Source Software is you get to see it develop and grow. It is also one of the biggest misunderstood aspects of such software. In a world where people are gripped by the next best thing – a collective psychosis of product ADD – where patience is no longer a virtue but an outdated notion of an age long gone, evolution is about as exciting as watching paint dry. Just a reminder that even products that seem to just appear overnight, in reality had long periods of closed development to receive polish (and even then they aren’t always great but for some reason people tend to forgive shortcomings in something they bought as opposed to something they got for free).
Knowing the drive behind the developers working on PiTiVi I am confident that in time PiTiVi will become one of the prime examples of FOSS development. For now it is useful enough for some my basic editing needs and every time I try a new version it just gets that much more useful. Keep up the hard work!!!
November 20th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
If you like PiTiVi (as I do) you should check out OpenShot. Its a few useful steps ahead of PiTiVi in terms of features and completeness.
Its great, developed by one guy as well: http://www.openshotvideo.com
I have been using it for a few weeks for projects from small to medium size and it has taken everything I have thrown at it in stride. Plus it supports transitions and titles and effects and whatnot.
Love PiTiVi, but you gotta try OpenShot.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
Ok, OpenShot does look amazing. Not a native gnome app though, looks like KDE, so I’ll probably use PiTiVi anyways.
Always glad to hear of progress and competition
November 20th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
@ethana2: OpenShot is a GTK application.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
OpenShot looks pretty cool and looks like it is a GTK app. Biggest issue is it is based on FFMPEG instead of gStreamer. One of my interests in PiTiVi is it is pushing editing functionality directly into gStreamer which means all gStreamer apps will benefit. e.g. the people working on PiTiVi are working on the entire multimedia stack. One thing I would recommend is for OpenShot and PiTiVi developers to get together to see if they can share and collaborate on some code. In any case keep up the good work also
November 20th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Not saying PiTiVi isn’t great. It’s just not that great to be included on default Ubuntu install.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:59 pm
@J5: Didn’t realize OpenShot is based on FFMPEG. That would definitely be a big reason why it was able to be developed so quickly. I’m very greatful that the PiTiVi guys are pushing the gstreamer envolope…I’ve watched as that backend has matured, and its getting really great.
I was only trying to spread the word. And as I said before, the more amazing video editors available to users, the better. I could only hope they’d share some code, although I believe its Python vs. C/C++ if memory serves correctly.
November 20th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Not to spam, but I was wrong again, both projects are Python, so you’re right J5. They should most definitely try to collaborate if possible. Great news for everyone!
November 20th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Although both projects are Python, the underlying multimedia framework is completely different. OpenShot uses MLT and PiTiVi uses Gnonlin. I don’t think there’s much room for direct collaboration.
November 21st, 2009 at 2:13 am
@Tony
Well that is a defeatist attitude
They could collaborate on UI elements, usability designs and backend interchange formats to name a few. Simply talking to each other is always a good thing.
November 21st, 2009 at 11:21 am
Frankly, I don’t get the point either. There’s a reason they are two different projects, and it’s up to the developers to do what’s best for them.
November 22nd, 2009 at 6:52 pm
to be honest, i find openshot very slow at dealing with videos if compared to pitivi
on a dual amd core
November 23rd, 2009 at 4:34 am
It take time, but PiTiVi is in development for over 5 years and it still lacks some basics. Video editing is one of the weakest areas of a Linux desktop, I find myself still using a lot mencoder from the command line and that is “not cool”.
November 23rd, 2009 at 12:17 pm
@nicu: It has only been in full force development for the last year and a half. Before that Edward, the creator and maintainer, was busy hacking gStreamer for his job. I had worked with him to try to get it to the point where I could use it for basic editing and then I lost out with my own job taking up too much time, but at that point we had managed to kick start enthusiasm and a couple of other developers started working on it. Mozilla then started to support open codecs so Edwards employer thought it was a good use of his time so they gave him some leeway to work on it and hired one of the other developers to work on it full time. If you look at the history of GIMP development or Inkscape (which is a fork of the now defunct SodiPodi) you will see parallels. If you look at the development of GEGL (the next generation backend for GIMP) you will see that only recently has it been added to the default build (and only in a limited capacity) yet it has been in development for longer than PiTiVi.
Development take time and effort and the right conditions. Please do not discount the efforts of people who put their time and effort into developing for Linux. Being constructive, lending a hand or a little bit of encouragement is a much more productive use of energy than constantly asking “are we there yet?” and being disappointed when we there is still a long road in front of us.
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:21 am
The parallel with GIMP and Inkscape is not good: even if the interface was horrible, GIMP was able to get the job done for as long as I remember… around RHL 9 when I switched to Linux as my main desktop after learning its (horrible at the time) interface (1.x) I could do useful stuff with it (and it was in that state already for some time). With Inkscape is the same, I started it back when it was called Sodipodi, the interface was very bad, but it was able to get the stuff done: it had all the basic tools I use today in Inkscape and they worked well (note: I experience with it is however not that deep, I have not used GNOME Illustrator, from which Sodipodi was forked).
So as a conclusion, both of those tools were able to get your job done, even if with pains and extra-steps, which is unfortunately not the case with PiTiVi – it does not have even feature parity with Microsoft Movie Maker from Windows Me.
I watch the development of GEGL: it was introduced in the current 2.6 for some alternative and experimental features, in the soon-to-be-released 2.8 will get used for more stuff, even some default features, and probably in the next milestone (3.0?) will get *the default*. But GEGL is just a backed, it will minimally affect the GUI (enabling a few new features), with or without GEGL I can do my job with GIMP.
But if I want to record a couple of screencasts, join them together with a simple transition, add a title screen at the start and some credits at the end, I can’t do that with PiTiVi.
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:07 pm
@nicu
You fail to see the point that features take time. The gimp and other apps were in development well before you started using it. At some point they weren’t very good and then got better. What you are arguing is that people shouldn’t release software until it is ready but that isn’t how Open Source works. PiTiVi works well for some of my workflows and the PiTiVi team is working to getting it to work for other workflows. Transition are in the next release.
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:37 am
I understand the features take time, but from this point of view I am a mere user, for so many years I wanted to create some simple videos but wasn’t able due to lack of applications.
BTW, maybe you have read about Mo’s struggles in this area: https://www.redhat.com/archives/fedora-marketing-list/2009-November/msg00238.html
Is unacceptable to have to work 12 hours for a 15 minutes video.
December 3rd, 2009 at 11:44 am
@nicu,
But what use is it to just complain? It demotivates the developers. Reporting bugs is the only way it is going to get fixed. I’m guessing those issues Mo experienced had to do more with the codecs than PiTiVi itself. PiTiVi was fine for editing the video. Look how Mo felt when someone questioned her about not providing Ogg files and uploading to YouTube.
December 4th, 2009 at 6:31 am
I ordered a camera similar with her (the image quality for the price seems right), next week will have the opportunity to record some live stuff. It seems to me like the easy path (despite ugly interfaces) is to work with mecoder or avidemux (the initial video is in closed formats anyway) and when the work is done convert to Theora. But first the toy must arrive, hopefully today.