I’m a documentary film maker and have just started looking into making the switch from a windows xp environment with mostly avid dv, nuendo and an old audiomedia III pro tools set up to a gnu linux free software set up. Normally my post work flow goes like this.
- review footage and import assembly cut. Kino does a great job of this in the gnu linux environment.
- do picture cut keeping only the location audio. cinelerra does a pretty good job of this as far I have been able to tell with the limited time I spent on it.
- I export a low res either Avi (if using nuendo) or Quicktime movie (for pro tools) with a stereo audio track.
- I edit the audio, normally in nuendo but occasionally in pro tools play around with it until I’m happy then mix and export it. This is the only step missing in the gnu linux environment. I love the design of ardour and the stability of the operating system, the smpte support is also a blessing, (the price of the DV toolkit is one the reasons my hatred of digidesign is so strong,) but it is missing the video window, or I just can’t figure out how to make it sync up with an external application. It would be very useful to be able to open video in the pool and watch it while editing the sound effects, in fact it would complete the video production cycle for gnu linux allowing users to complete the post production cycle from rushes to a DV master without resorting to proprietary software,
- import the finished audio back into the video editor and master to DV.
Does anyone know if there are plans to add a video window function to ardour? I know there are a lot of independent film makers and audio editors like myself who are either dealing with the decreased functionality of pro tools or doing all their audio editing in final cut pro, dealing with the usb issues with the only semi affordable pro tools system, the mbox. Or just being driven insane by the sheer lunacy of working with two post production programs, avid and pro tools, both owned by the same company that fight with each other when they’re installed on the same xp system. I won’t even get into the codec and OMF fun and games that crop up when moving from one studio to another.
I love the design of ardour, coming from both a steenberg and digidesign background it suits me perfectly, the smaller amount of audio effects is a non issue in documentary production so I’ll be making the switch as soon as the video window is added so if anyone wants to add this feature and start depriving digidesign of poor saps like me’s hard earned cash I’d very much appreciate it.