On 2012-09-01 07:54, Ralf Mardorf wrote:
On Sat, 2012-09-01 at 15:50 +1000, Patrick Shirkey wrote:
The movie industry
Linux isn't use by the movie industry for everything
They all love Linux. "They" in this case are Hollywood based WB, Technicolor and LA Center Studios. Probably others too. Their Datacenters runs almost exclusively on it. While it's true that actual editing work happens predominantly on Win/AVID, there is some customized HW/SW around (e.g. for color-correction) that is Linux-based and the amount of it is rising quickly due to fact that it can be customized, adapted and maintained much more easily than Win or OSX. None of it is free-software, though.
best,
robin
I want to point out and repeat what Robin actually said here, as this is on two lists and it is hard for me to follow what post is on what list as I read them all as one thread...
The Movie Industry DOES use Linux, HOWEVER it is primarily on render farms, and backend support. The majority of the editing, mixing, etc. does not happen on Linux yet, sorry.
A short time ago I went looking for, and demo'd the available options for, a decent video editor on Linux that could do a simple task. Allow me to easily, and quickly, green screen out a source clip, and overlay it on top of a background and layer in additional generated content (Titles, images, etc.) in between them and on top of them(While obviously maintaining a high level of quality). The end result? I purchased Final Cut Pro X (Already had Final Cut Studio) and do the work on my mac laptop. I hope to see something like Lightworks change this, but honestly I wasn't able to work nearly as quickly in the tools that could do this basic workflow(And I am on a timeline where I would have an afternoon or less to get the work done before I have to do other projects, and that includes editing the audio), and many tools I expected to be able to do this (The Blender NLE for instance) couldn't in a way that was close to acceptable for the timeline I needed to work in(And I specifically went asking several people that are fairly knowledgeable in using the NLE and all aspects of Blender as well when I found I couldn't do it myself).
Even with this, I have now hired on a couple of people to pick up the video work so that I can concentrate on audio. Sadly right now there are severe limitations on this even. My primary workstation is Linux for the record, I accept audio stems and work on them and render out new audio for them to remux to the video. If they haven't got something cut I can use, I either have to manually pull in the original audio, find the section they used, and recut it, and manually pull it into sync, or I have to get them to redit and rexport the audio. Why? Because I am dealing with people on at least two different platforms and currently there isn't a good solution for AAF or OMF that works with ArdourXChange out of FInal Cut Pro (Either Studio, which I tested with John without Automatic Duck that no longer exists, or X as Automatic Duck went no longer exists and I can't even their previously released plugin for X anymore, and am now hearing the laternatives dont' work well either and there is no option to write to it from FCPX).
Or I can go into Windows and possibly use AATranslator, which by all accounts I have heard is great software and would do what I want, but I don't have a Windows machine and we are discussing native solutions on Linux.
So what I have right now is a substandard solution, that thankfully I am typically either just doing basic edits on long pieces or working on short (approx 5 min) clips so that I can deal with it. But doing a full length feature having to work with dozens if not hundreds of others on such a workflow? Talk about painful. This doesn't include mixing in a so called 'standard' destination format like 5.1 etc. that is also still fairly painful on Linux, even with the revamped VBAP panner in A3.
Now don't get me wrong, this doesn't mean I don't enjoy working in Linux. Most of my stuff is primarily stereo destined, I thoroughly enjoy working in Ardour and Mixbus in Linux with Jadeo for doing sound for video, or editing down music, etc. But it works for me because I know how to work in it, and don't need to relearn the 'quirks' of the workflow etc. I can work faster in Linux than I can on OS X using the same tools. But many tools just don't exist that would enable a true workflow as is needed for it to become popular for a majority of uses that many people are using the other OSes for. I didn't submit bug reports to each of those pieces of software I tried above.. I probably should have, but was under a very tight timeline, especially then as I was doing at least two people's jobs. And this is true of most 'professionals' in the industry. If it can't be fixed quick then it is broken and you have to move on to get other work done and bills payed.
In particular Blender with 3D is doing amazing work, but it is only one piece of the puzzle. I am looking forward to reading up on their success with their new open movie, where they started incorporating blender into a live workflow, and seeing how they did, I hope it addresses some of the reasons I couldn't use it above, honestly. I enjoy using Blender for the little 3D work I do, and would have enjoyed using it for the video work as well quite likely.
Remember, most of the 'professional' users of software in the industry aren't the really big houses(Unless talking about very specialized software). They are the smaller commercial studios, project studios, independant companies, etc that outnumber the larger studios tremendously and typically do a lot of the commercial work(Commercials, but also industrials like training videos for companies, corporations, release videos, etc.)
Seablade