Video Penguins

Hollywood loves Linux, but is the world of video production readyto start adopting the open-source OS?

Film Gimp, here in a Mac OS X version (Windows version to followshortly), started as a Linux alternative to Photoshop. Since then,it’s been used in many feature films and commericals.

Linux is the future, we hear. While Microsoft, Apple, and Sun sellever more complex and expensive versions of their products, rumblingsof discontent grow against what some see as OS tyranny.

Today, the Linux programmer community — once made up primarilyof Jolt Cola-swigging hackers creating web server apps — nowgrows at a snappy pace as computer industry heavyweights IBM and HPthrow vast resources toward prepping this open-source OS. (Open-sourcesoftware makes the underlying computer code available to everyone totweak and change as they like.)

Linux derives further support from countries around the world, asIndia, China, and the European Union embark on R&D to increase itsuse.

But what's that mean to those of us involved in creating movingimages?

Over the past three years, as Intel-based workstations caught upwith and surpassed SGI's storied machines, the Hollywood community hasmoved from employing Linux solely to operate massive renderfarms toincorporating Linux ports of top graphics, animation, compositing, andeffects packages such as Alias|Wavefront Maya, Side Effects Houdini,Softimage|XSI, Kaydara Motionbuilder (formerly Filmbox), Pixar'sRenderman, Silicon Grail's Rayz, and Nothing Real's Shake. (Of thelatter two compositing packages, both acquired by Apple in 2002, AppleShake continues in a Linux version.)

PDI/DreamWorks, ILM, Digital Domain, and others also codeconsiderable amounts of in-house Linux software to generate uniquelooks and solve specific production problems.

Linux software often turns up as a free open-source program. Forexample, another top graphics package, Film Gimp, started out as aLinux and SGI Irix-based paint and touch-up program for the filmindustry. Film Gimp became an important industry tool in 1998 whenSilicon Grail, along with Los Angeles-based effects house Rhythm &Hues, donated coding talent and hired additional staff to create apowerful Photoshop alternative. Now a community of filmindustry-related coders, aided by Sam Richards and others at SonyPictures Imageworks, continues to improve the software. A Mac versionis out now and Windows is soon to release. Recent film projectsemploying Film Gimp include Scooby-Doo and Stuart Little2. (See filmgimp.sourceforge.net.)

All right, so governments and Hollywood are sold on penguin power.But can Linux deliver similar top-quality products for videoproduction? Can free software ever replace packages like Final Cut Pro,Premiere, or Xpress DV?

The short answer at this point: don't lose any sleep, Adobe, Apple,and Avid.

“Linux is the future, and it has had a big win in the motionpicture industry,” says Film Gimp release manager Robin Rowe.“But video is much more immature in Linux. There is nothingcomparable to Final Cut Pro, for instance.” A partner at MovieEditor.com, Rowedevelops software for motion picture and Internet applications at thisRichmond, Calif.-based technology development company.

While the top graphics tools used in commercials and feature filmsare available in Linux, Rowe notes, Adobe, Apple, and Avid don't makeLinux versions of their video apps at this point.

To understand why, it helps to think from the manufacturer's pointof view: faced with thin profit margins in the highly competitive NLEmarket, there's no compelling reason to devote critical staff resourcesto developing complex software aimed at a relatively small, diffusegroup of hacker enthusiasts who also happen to work in videoproduction.

“Avid supports Linux in areas where we have had significantcustomer demand,” says Matt Allard, product-marketing manager forAvid. “It's really a matter of customer demand and the creativeenvironment in which our customers work.”

While the situation may change in time, the small Linux market can'tbegin to compare to the many thousands who buy NLE software for Mac andWindows-based systems. Besides, since Apple and Microsoft handle allthe many aspects of today's complex operating systems, manufacturerscan concentrate on application-related development.

As for open-source Linux editing programs, the two more establishedpackages, Kino and Cinelerra (formerly Broadcast 2000), providebare-bones toolsets, with promises to add more capabilities as soon astheir creators find the time.

Available in a .60 version at press time, Kino (kino.schirmacher.de/article/static/2article/archive/0)offers basic cuts-only editing with a non-timeline windows environment.Edit control, however, comes only via keystrokes, not with mouseclicks. The Kino website also relates that the crucial 1394 (FireWire)code is still a work in progress. Be prepared to hack: Setting up Linuxlibraries and downloading other necessary code remains part of theprogram's setup procedure.

Heroine Virtual Ltd.'s Cinelerra (www.heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3) is notactually a single program, but five different tools to be usedtogether. Described as allowing “free-form” editing,Cinelerra's stated capabilities include unlimited tracks, 16-bit YUVcompositing, SMP (symmetrical multi-processor) optimizations, networkrendering (i.e. renderfarm) support, video capture support, realtimeeffects, layer masking, and camera/projector panning.

But according to Robin Rowe, once a technical director at an NBCstation, many users find the program difficult to use since it lacksdocumentation, and the GUI requires non-standard,“counterintuitive” actions. That complexity is acknowledgedup front, as Heroine Virtual (actually a one-person project) presentsCinelerra as designed for Linux gurus. As the website advises,“If ease of use, simplicity, and convenience are yourthing,” you had better go elsewhere.)

Cinelerra is split into five separate tools for video editing. TheLinux-based editor is capable of 16-bit YUV compositing, realtimeeffects, and background rendering.

Drew Perttula, frustrated by the DV editing programs available forLinux, decided to roll his own solution in the true do-it-yourselfpenguin spirit. Perttula, based in Berkeley, Calif., started writinghis Cuisine nonlinear editing program last September to edit sevenhours of footage into an 8-minute documentary.

The design of a basic footage-capturing and logging capability camefirst, with the timeline editor completed soon after. For mixing audio,Perttula first created an effects plug-in architecture. The actualmixing would be handled by a plug-in. This approach is fairly typicalof Linux development. In designing programs that need to accomplishmany different tasks — such as editing, graphics, audio, andcompositing — Linux programmers often create a framework tohandle the basic chores and then leave it up to other hackers to writeplug-ins to take care of other tasks.

“The plan is to let the users, which will still include me,add their own features as they are needed,” says Perttula, whohas begun editing another documentary. For that one, he'll need tocreate a method of working with up to five simultaneous cameras andwild (unsynched) sound.

As with a great many independent Linux coders, Perttula makesCuisine available to anyone who cares to download the files (cuisine.bigasterisk.com). A more or less complete,tidied-up version of the nonlinear editor should be ready this month.Then it's up to the Linux community to write additional plug-ins and,just as Perttula has done, share its best coding with the world.

Adobe, Apple, and Avid will not lose their market share with therelease of Cuisine. But it's folks like Drew Perttula and the quicklygrowing Linux community that one day could offer the next NLE programyou reach for.

To comment on this article, email the Video Systems editorialstaff at vsfeedback@primediabusiness.com.