As a professional video editor I know what I desire/need from an NLE but I would like to know what features other professional video editors want/need from their NLE and what NLEs professionals are using.

I would also like to know how many professional video editors there are on here. Anyone who gets paid to edit video or anyone who holds one or more certifications/degrees in video editing please post something here, even if you have nothing to say in regard to the conversation, so that I can get a “head count”.

Professionals have a different set of want/needs then amateurs so, no offense to amateurs but, if you are an amateur video editor please don't post here.

I hope there are enough professionals on here to create an interesting conversation.

I am glad to see a professional editor here ...

I'm sure your contribution to the project will be "high level" ..

I'm not employed as an editor but as one of the guys who solve editor problems, Avid, FCP, premier (learning bones and flint/flame at the moment). I do do some editing. so i'll throw out my 2 cents.

DV - is not a standard worth using for pro work. as far as i understand (still testing though) it not truely constraining us to DV any way. for home use its awesome pros shouldn't touch it.
Color - keeping the color space is essential, but not just in the image but in in the blacks and whites as well. we also need color correction, cause if you on the sounds stage and move your camera, tones change, and its worse every were else.
flx/ale - if you plan on taking your footage through something like IQ, flame, flint, bones, telecine, these will make your life much(!) simpler. especially if you plan on finishing in 2k/4k etc.
color bars - essential if you plan on sending to tv, most station still require them and if you balance the color, it will make any colorist job easer to just balance from the color bars
color safe filter - to block excess luma in whites, as well as a test to warn you if frames fail.
Time code - i haven't had a chance to test this. but original time code needs to be maintainable be able to burn this in easily is essential. something directors/studios ask for all the time.
- exporting and maintaining time codes from time line - again i have not tested this
chroma green - I look but haven't tested chroma green, i only saw chromakey blue....
Track clean - often more amateurish editors use a large amount of track for an edit. more than three is seldom needed and can give us headaches in post, especially going back to film or what ever. auto clean would be nice.
sub tracks - i haven't tried this but a function from FCP i like is to create complex scenes on a separate track and join them to the main track.
PAL 16:9 - 1024x576... haven't tested but just put it on the list.
blue ray - need to test the blue ray support... basicly handles 35mb/s mpeg


Extra's - explanation on how to use red (red cine / r3d) in your work flow, XD Cams as well. as this is possible.

well thats my 2 cents for now ...

Today's my last day at my second 5 month internship as editor so I should be on my way to being a professional.
Haven't had or taken the time to play with Kdenlive recently.


Biggest feature requests I can think of right now would be...


Stability.
Professional editing doesn't mix with audio stuttering and other performance issues. Compatibility with some sort of MXF standard would be nice (GPLed of course).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_Exchange_Format

Audio meter.
Being able to level decibels by sight, not only by hearing.

Color Mode.
Tool to effectively and easily color correct clips with luma/RGB/hue/etc. settings and Y waveform. And not having to select each effect for each clip on the timeline before setting it's value for one. Maybe this is an interface issue.. can we start a professional interface thread? :D


Anyway I know there's activity from developers in exploring and pushing standards & code used by other FLOSS software/communities and this is important. It should lead to a better future for a more widely developed Kdenlive/Kdenlive components. Or so I hope and that's my 2 eurocents.

I'm a professional editor who has used nearly every editing software available, from Premiere, to Final Cut, Media 100, AVID, Edit, Dvision, Speed Edit, Video Flyer, Pinnacle, Vegas, etc. I now try to use Kdenlive whenever possible. For me, it's getting really close to being a fully usable system. My main two issues are stability and being able to run an effect and a transition at the same time (although for this I may just be missing something). Also, I would love it if Kdenlive was able to recognize an Alpha channel embedded in a Quicktime, or AVI.

(This is LONG, but I have tried to make it easy to read.)

I have suggested elsewhere on the forum that I would like to see the formation of an open source studio/suite, I would like to get your opinion on my concept.

These are needed applications:

- Script Writing – Equal to Final Draft

- Video Editing – Equal to Final Cut

- Image Editing – Equal to Photoshop

- 2D and 3D Tracking – Equal to Mocha, Boujou

- 3D Image Creation – Equal to Maya

- Compositing – Equal to Shake, Nuke, After Effects etc.

- Sound Editing – Equal to Soundtrack, Protools etc.

- Music Creation – Equal to Finale

- Color Correction – Equal to (Apple) Color

- Final Output Compression – Equal to (Apple) Compressor, (Adobe) Media Encoder

- Disk Creation – Equal to Encore, DVD Studio

- Cross Platform Video Player, Codec, and Container – What Quicktime tries to be, but only comes close to.

I would like to separate functions of production into many different components that work together in an open source workflow, where many different GUIs are made (one for each program) to focus on many different tasks. However all programs use the same base set of APIs/frameworks.

For example:
A color correction API/framework (I don't know the correct terms) can be developed that would be shared between the Video Editor, the Compositor and the Color Corrector. The Color Correctors GUI would be far more advanced then the Video Editors Color Correction GUI so as to provide the maximum amount of interaction with the API/framework. It should not be the Video Editing programs task to Color Correct a shot, although the ability should be there. There is no need to complicate a GUI if we don't need to.

Another Example:
The framework used to display video in the Video Editor can be reused in the compositor. However the Compositors GUI would not give access to the editing tools, just as the Video Editors GUI would not give access to high end compositing.

This is already taking place. The FFMPEG library is shared between VLC and KDENLIVE (as well as many other programs). And while FFMPEG is its own project, it was integrated very well into KDENLIVE.

I would like to know if these are the features we professional video creators collectively want.

hi

You take the best of all the existing products, ans you say i wan't to see the same or better in open source ... yes it's very a good idea ... thanks a lot ...

nyme

my reply AlanJames1987 wish list.
defiantly will be useful, but i would like to see collaboration between kdenlive and existing products. all the progs you list are awesome but inmany ways need to be separate.

- Script Writing – Equal to Final Draft

- Video Editing – Equal to Final Cut
we hoping for Kdenlive to become this

- Image Editing – Equal to Photoshop
my moneys on gimp at the moment and it is a very effective tool and very pro integration with other packages so long as it doesn't hinder it functionality or development.

- 2D and 3D Tracking – Equal to Mocha, Boujou

- 3D Image Creation – Equal to Maya
Blender 3d defiantly the leading package here. though, like maya, cut first then import videos the best way to go.

- Compositing – Equal to Shake, Nuke, After Effects etc.
blender, cinepaint depending on your needs

- Sound Editing – Equal to Soundtrack, Protools etc.
some good ones but nothing that blows me away. audacitys in the lead i think.

- Music Creation – Equal to Finale

- Color Correction – Equal to (Apple) Color

- Final Output Compression – Equal to (Apple) Compressor, (Adobe) Media Encoder
ffmpeg, but none of the interface I'm blown a way with... (?avi synth?)

- Disk Creation – Equal to Encore, DVD Studio
qdvdauthor, best so far

- Cross Platform Video Player, Codec, and Container – What Quicktime tries to be, but only comes close to.
Matroska, though improved editing and menu support is still in the pipe-line. Codec wise, snow seems to be on track. beating h264 is going to be hard as most of the top people in that field will copyright but oggs looking good.

got no idea what the future holds but if you take packages like blender, there's a lot of power in the community. but i would love to see integration between them and the rest of the visual pipe line.

i would be interested to hear what other people are using.

Hi,

I'm a professional editor. I started off in the days of 2" Quadruplex tape, and have edited on just about every format known to man! I've worked for major broadcasters here in the UK since 1969.

Nowadays I mainly use Q-edit or Editbox, though I have a passing familiarity with Avid and Final Cut Pro.

Until now, I've always used Premiere Pro for domestic editing work, which is a fine piece of software. Indeed, it is the ONLY reason I still have a windoze partition on my computer!

I'm hoping that Kdenlive will enable me to finally ditch windoze altogether!

However, I'm a relatively new user to Kdenlive, and am still feeling my way round it. Once I've got a grip over its featyres and operations, I'll feel ready to comment on what else it needs!

Cheers,

--
Pete

MillionMonkeys 3 way color correction in Final Cut always seemed a little clunky to me. I like the ability to input numbers, similar to levels, but I agree that 3 way color correction is a feature that should be in KDENLIVE.

However if advanced color correction were removed from the goal of KDENLIVE and a side project were to be created with the soul purpose of color correction I imagine it would be a much easier to use workflow. For example think of how Final Cut Pro and Apple Color work together. You can do color correction in FCP but there is no comparison between the results you can get from FCP and the results you can get from Color.

I feel that this philosophy of separation of features yet integration of programs could and should be brought up when discussing the future of open source video production. Possibly use EDLs to bridge the programs, like MillionMonkeys suggested.

Alabandit I think you and I have the same idea of what should happen in Linux video production. I am not a programmer and would not be able to start a large project like this. I most likely would not even be able to help aside from trying to spread the word and suggesting changes.

I would like to know what everyone else thinks. I want to also find out what we can do to unite production project, create new projects where there are holes in the pipeline and possibly bring about a change to a Linux based workflow.

aleckt wrote: I would love it if Kdenlive was able to recognize an Alpha channel embedded in a Quicktime, or AVI.

MLT 0.4.4 and Kdenlive 0.7.5 should support Quicktime Animation with an alpha channel. I believe it should work for other formats where FFmpeg supports the alpha channel. See this for my demo of that feature:
http://www.kdenlive.org/tutorial/alpha-compositing-quicktime-animation

I am not concerned with codecs either. The only reason I put it there would be to maintain a complete open workflow. I honestly don't mind close source components, I just know the community will not embrace or integrate as well.

For example Nuke and Shake both work on Linux and are great compositors, however I doubt open source developers would want to structure their software around these products on the principal that they are closed source and I don't blame them.

I suggested a unified interface for all applications and suggested Celtx to be the script writing software elsewhere on this forum. Here is what user “jmpour” told me “It is a Java application. There are probably better solutions around, even if it means redeveloping.” Several projects may need to be redeveloped to facilitate a suite like this which may be hard to coordinate. The unified interface will be nearly impossible at first.

That brings me to my last point. Now that we know we agree on what we want how do we make this a reality? Who do we contact? What kind of proposal do we put together and who do we give it to?

hi

it's really a good post ... you imagine the perfect open source video suite that professionnal want ...

ok ok, but where are the thousand of developpers needed to do that ?

Nyme

Nyme there is no reason to be sarcastic or negative. You seem like the type of person that if Richard Stallman came up to you and told you his idea of an entirely open source computer system you would laugh in his face and say “ok ok, but where are the thousand of developpers needed to do that ? “ But that is just my assessment based off of your last two comments.

Wonderful people are out there that want to make great software as we have seen from projects like KDENLIVE. If it weren't for those thousands of mostly unknown developers working very hard every day we would not have half of the great software we have.

As with all projects people need a reason to get involved and to help create. I don't know what motivates a software developer because I am not one. My area of expertise is video production and advertising. Because that is my area of expertise I can inform a developer of what would get me and other professionals like me interested in using their software. That is mostly all that I can provide.

We have stated above what we need and what we want. Until we professionals can get those things we will be forced to continue to use proprietary software from corporations like Adobe, Apple, and Avid, while listening to hard core open source fans making remarks like “why doesn't the movie industry support Linux” and “when will they give Linux a chance”. Both of those came from YouTube comments and there are plenty more like them. I have even heard that the Blender short film “Elephants Dream” is all about Hollywoods rejection of open source tools.

The misconception though is that we have rejected something. There is nothing yet to reject. There is no pipeline or workflow made around open source software; and while projects like KDENLIVE, CELTX and VLC are very useful they won't be used professionally until an entire workflow is developed.

I am putting my best foot forward and asking how do we get what we want/need created? If a polite and positive developer could please educate me and others I'm sure we would get involved as much as we can with the creation of the software we need.

MillionMonkeys I just took a look at the video you posted showing Red Giants color correction software. It looks to be very nice software, but does it support multiple shots? I like that Apple Color can import an entire sequence and keep each shot separate in the timeline.

Check out a demo of the interface.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Cw1_h3YjWw

I will need confirmation of this but could MLT be made to support more advance color correction? If so could a new program with a new interface be made to take full advantage of all the new color correction features built into MLT, basically KDENLIVE without any editing controls and a lot of GUI modifications. If this is possible it seems to be the best way to get a good integrated color correction software for Linux.