Comments on: I would just like to say PiTiVi rocks

By: nicu

nicu — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:31:43 +0000

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.

By: J5

J5 — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 15:44:05 +0000

@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.

By: nicu

nicu — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 07:37:16 +0000

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.

By: J5

J5 — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 20:07:53 +0000

@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.

By: nicu

nicu — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 08:21:52 +0000

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.

By: J5

J5 — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 16:17:21 +0000

@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.

By: nicu

nicu — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:34:08 +0000

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”.

By: gabriele vidali

gabriele vidali — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 22:52:09 +0000

to be honest, i find openshot very slow at dealing with videos if compared to pitivi
on a dual amd core

By: Vadim P.

Vadim P. — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 15:21:08 +0000

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.

By: J5

J5 — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 06:13:45 +0000

@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.