kdenlive 0/5 released with HDV support

[jmpoure]

After 8 months of hard work, we are glad to announce the release of Kdenlive 0.5 free software.
Kdenlive was successfully tested with HV20 mpeg2 raw files.

Kdenlive is a non linear video editor for Kde environment. It is a free software released under the GPL. Kdenlive is part of several Linux distributions including Debian SID, Ubuntu, Fedora, Mandriva, SuSE, Gento, Ark Linux and other Linux distributions.

Being based on the the MLT video framework and the FFMPEG project, Kdenlive can work with image, audio and video files of various formats. All these formats can be mixed in your project on an unlimited number of audio and video tracks. Thanks to the MLT framework, Kdenlive 0.5 now supports HDV editing as well as DV and more.

New features include:

* New image formats: Added support for gimp xcf and exr. Other supported formats are: png, jpeg, gif (non animated), xcf, exr, tiff, svg, mp3, vorbis, wav, flash, mpeg, avi, dv, wmv,... You can even insert another Kdenlive project in the timeline!

* Effects and Transitions: Many fixes, and effects and transitions can now be copied from a clip to another.

* Export formats: Theora export is now available if FFMPEG was compiled with theora support.

* Timeline: Improved markers, allow insertion of of several clips in one operation, added "remove empty space" feature, multi clip selection tool

* Metadata: Kdenlive can now read and write metadata in video and audio files

* Video preview: Overlay project timecode on the video preview. Click in monitor to play / pause, mouse wheel to seek, multi track view (monitor is split in 4 zones, each one showing a different track)

* Project management: User can define a frame that will be used as thumbnail for each video clip in the project

* General: Many fixes to the undo / redo system, lots of ui fixes and enhancements

For more information: Kdenlive web site: http://kdenlive.org

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

Nice, but you can't edit or export as HDV directly right? The MLT framework does not support that yet, although DVGrab 3.x now it should support the Canon HV20 (the MLT/Kino/dvgrab developer was at my home a few weeks ago testing it).

[jmpoure]

Nice, but you can't edit or export as HDV directly right? The MLT framework does not support that yet, although DVGrab 3.x now it should support the Canon HV20 (the MLT/Kino/dvgrab developer was at my home a few weeks ago testing it).

Kdenlive 0.5 now supports native HDV editing.
These are the big news!
You can import, play, edit and export HDV 720p and 1080p.

The next evolution (for September I guess) is non-destructive rendering, which means that MLT (the underlying framework) should be able to preserve the original mpeg2 encoding whenever possible, and reencode only the frames that were modified (i.e. a title, a transition or a colour modification).

I will try to look for a demo CD, that can show you Linux and Kdenlive 0.5 without the need to install. For example, the Ubuntu desktop 7.04 allows to boot Linux without the need to install. This is quite slow, but it enables you to try Linux. I will get back to you as soon as Kdenlive 0.5 is bundled with a demo CD.

If you are eager to try, I would recommend a Debian SID installation, with Marrillat packages.
This gives you access to updated ffmpeg, MLT and Kdenlive 0.5 packages, upgraded on regular basis.

Kind regards,
Jean-Michel

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

Jean-Michel, I am a news editor at www.OSNews.com and I know many people in the tech and especially in the OSS industry. I am using Linux since 1999, so there is no reason to "show me" anything. I have Ubuntu and Arch Linux installed too and the CVS version of KdenLive installed, plus as I wrote above, I actually personally know the author of MLT/dvgrab/Kino. ;-)

As for ffmpeg under Ubuntu (and I think under Debian too) I am disappointed with it because it is build without FAAC. Which means that I can't create with that ffmpeg version h.264 versions that work on the PS3/xbox/appletv. I had to recompile it manually a few months ago, and I wasn't all too happy about it. I filed a bug report at ubuntu to ask them to also offer a version of ffmpeg with AAC support included under their "unsupported/binary" packages, but they refused.

[jmpoure]

Dear Eugenia,

Bravo, Linux is a good choice.
I loved your videos and downloaded them.

Marillat ffmpeg packages have x264 / faac support:

ffmpeg -h
FFmpeg version SVN-rUNKNOWN, Copyright (c) 2000-2007 Fabrice Bellard, et al.
configuration: --prefix=/usr --libdir=${prefix}/lib --shlibdir=${prefix}/lib --incdir=${prefix}/include/ffmpeg --enable-shared --enable-libmp3lame --enable-gpl --enable-libfaad --mandir=${prefix}/share/man --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-libfaac --enable-libxvid --enable-pp --enable-libamr-nb --enable-libamr-wb --enable-x11grab --enable-libogg --enable-libgsm --enable-libx264 --enable-liba52 --enable-libtheora --extra-cflags=-Wall -g -fPIC -DPIC --cc=ccache cc --enable-swscaler
libavutil version: 49.4.1
libavcodec version: 51.40.4
libavformat version: 51.12.1
built on Aug 11 2007 14:16:22, gcc: 4.1.3 20070718 (prerelease) (Debian 4.1.2-14)
usage: ffmpeg [[infile options] -i infile]... {[outfile options] outfile}...
Hyper fast Audio and Video encoder

Kind regards,
Jean-Michel

[Eugenia Loli-Queru]

ok, I searched for it and found it. Unfortunately, it conflicts with existing ubuntu applications that require the ubuntu ffmpeg version. For example DVD::RIP. If Marilat was to create an ubuntu-compatible package (that uses the same deb signature as ubuntu's ffmpeg package), that would be ideal...

I guess I will have to recompile it myself again...