I am continuing my (agressive) discussion (it started because of my Linux video editor rant) with a particular Linux video editor developer who doesn’t want to face the truth that his application sucks in both usability, features and looks. Of course, I told him so point blank — I never hid my opinions and I won’t start doing so now. When he asked how it should look like, I sat down for 4 hours and made a mockup for him. Here’s the result:

This mockup borrows ideas from both iMovie and Sony Vegas, and it includes features that are easily accessible: e.g. tape capturing/recording, direct editing of DV/HDV/AVCHD and any other format that ffmpeg/mencoder can support, a two-sized timeline (normal and mini), support for any frame rate, track rotation/placing, clip rotation/pan/cropping, plugins, transitions, fade in-out right from the timeline, slow/fast-motion up to 16x (both by CNTRL+resizing a clip’s edges and by editing properties), group/ungroup elements, transparency/overlay support, enough plugins for color correction and more, snapping on/off, automatic fade transitions when two clips overlap, a 3 quality preview window for speed reasons, preview sizes that are only at 1:1, 1:2 or 1:4 so quality is preserved for easier editing, reversing, full screen and secondary monitor support, on-the-fly de-interlaced preview, exporting dialogs like this one, a fork of the Lagarith lossless codec to make it faster/smaller, and other things that I won’t mention here. My design is even SVGA friendly as long as your footage is non-widescreen DV (it will preview at 1:1 size).

Now, you are probably thinking that this is way too much, and it just copies Vegas’ abilities, an application that’s been in development for years and has reached some maturity. Well, not really. Believe it or not, I have left out a lot of features that exist in the consumer version of Vegas: compositing and compositing children, masking, audio recording for narration while video plays back, custom timeline size, velocity engine, keyframing for the plugins and the timeline, a proper audio mixer, markers, regions, pre-rendering of regions, “takes”, trimmer window, image sequence import/export, DVD authoring companion application, different time formats and timecodes, and more. Also, consider that the Pro version of Vegas has a lot more features, like 32bit editing, inverse/telecine, Pro text editing, DVCPRO-HD and lots of plugins.

So, no, I am not being an asshole trying to force “out of this world” difficult features for an OSS video editor. The features I left in are must-have in this time and age, end of story. If you can’t deliver them, then you might as well stop developing your application (as long as you develop it in order to be useful to users instead of just your programming hobby, of course). Another thing I would suggest is to not cut off yourself from Windows and Mac. Download the trial versions of video editors that exist for these platforms and by all means, copy their best ideas from each.

But as I wrote the other day, this is not a one-man job, neither a buddy-created application. It requires at least 10 engineers who know what the hell they are doing, and they are sitting next to each other. Which is why this can only be delivered in any user-friendly fashion by Red Hat/Novell/Ubuntu (or Google, if they want to be more helpful to Linux users). It will take 2 years to get there, $100,000x10x2=2 million USD. That’s the minimum you need to develop such an app (without counting any license fees, we would assume we just use these codecs the way we use them now on Linux: for free). In a more practical, real-life scenario, you need more engineers and at least $5 mil.

A few months ago I was a bit unsatisfied with my life. I felt angry and sad most of the time. I thought I was just in mid-life crisis. But things are good now. For the last 2 months things are improving from good to best.

And then it hit me why: JBQ used to be unhappy and overworked while at Openwave, while this is not so anymore over at Google. He just has more time for me now, he is less aggravated, and more loving. I feel that JBQ is happier than ever at Google, less stressed, more optimistic. And this has had a very positive impact in our relationship.

Update: JBQ blogged about it too.

You probably remember my recent rant about Linux’s sorry state in the video editing department (where at least two Linux video editor developers agreed). I’ve cried out loud about it since 2003. Nothing has fundamentally changed since then. A few days ago I added a message at Gnomefiles.org to let developers know that there is a need for a good, iMovie-style, video editor on Linux. I got a semi-angry reply from another video editor developer who said that his app is better than I think, but when I laid out to him basic video editing abilities (e.g. writing back to the tape), his reply was the lame “well, no one requested these features”. Give me a break. This guy has obviously not used a consumer Windows or Mac video editor the past 5 years. He’s completely disconnected from the market, and what this market’s needs are (open source or not).

Usually I come out as an ass for my opinions (even when I don’t mean to), and many people hate me for that. However, there are some people who can see past through these first impressions and understand why I do the things I do, or write the things I write, the way I write them. I am passionate about things I care about. And I am a perfectionist too.

Today, Ubuntu’s Jono Bacon blogged about video editing too. He also agrees that video editing sucks balls on Linux. To me, this is the last frontier for Linux. The last application that the community hasn’t manage to create in a way that actually works without crashing every 2 minutes. It’s a very difficult task, more difficult than writing an application like Firefox, which is why it’s my belief that this is a job that Red Hat or Novell or Ubuntu must employ engineers to write, and not a disorganized developer’s community. Video editing requires so many different libraries and frameworks and support from the rest of the system, that you simply need full time engineers working next to each other, and not via the internet. It took Sony Vegas 5 years to get to a stage where things worked well. Premiere got through that stage too (back in 2001 Premiere would crash a lot too for example, ask the “Primer” director). It ain’t easy, but it’s something that’s needed, especially with HD cameras out there these days dropping in price so much.

Personally, I am not optimistic that something usable will eventually be released with target the average user. I don’t give a chance for something as complex and broad as a video editor for the community to develop properly. There’s also little in return for a commercial company to invest in it, so I just don’t see it happening.

I watched “Primer” late last night, the 2004 77″ movie that cost just $7000 to make and was written/directed/starred by Shane Carruth (who’s pretty hot for a real life mathematician btw). If this sentence above is too complex to understand, then you probably are not the right customer for this movie anyway. The movie is very complex and confusing. Well, I woke up with a huge migraine this morning which is still here.

I still don’t understand the movie completely, but if you are a geek, then you ought to watch it. “Just” Sci-fi fans might not appreciate it, but if you are an engineer you probably will. And when you watch it, do explain it to me too. It involves time travel, body doubles, alternative universes, and paradoxes that can overheat your brain. Only for engineers — or puzzle solvers!

Update: JBQ just watched the film and he liked it, and “got” most of it too.

Update 2: Good review article and explanation.

You probably remember the fans who sent tons of nuts to CBS last year in order to reverse their decision of canceling “Jericho“. They made it, the show returns next month with 7 new episodes. Unfortunately, the first 3 episodes of the new season were leaked, and this is a bit unfortunate for the show which might struggles to stay afloat for yet another year. Some said that CBS itself leaked the episodes, but I don’ think this is the case.

Anyways, if you missed last year the “Jericho” first season, have a look here and watch all episodes right from the beginning. “Jericho” is not the best show on TV, but it’s not bad either. It can definitely worth your time.

A bit late for the season, but really nice to watch. HD version here.

Apple failed me today. The AppleTV upgrade is not what it should have been. I am not saying that having movie rentals is bad — the more features the merrier. But movie rentals on this device is like you are one step from having a stroke, and all you want to do is put a lipstick on, so you look good to the ambulance driver. What kind of shit is that?

The AppleTV needed the following updates to be relevant:

* 1080/30p support. Because this would require a hardware upgrade, I guess I would be happy with 720/30p support (it currently only does 720/24p). My camera shoots in 1080/60i (and most newer cameras do so in 1080/30p), so 720/30p is a must-have option. To achieve that on the same AppleTV 1.6Ghz Celeron hardware, the Apple engineers would need to sit their ass down and optimize, optimize, optimize. But they obviously didn’t do that. When mpeg2 DVD playback was optimized to playback in 450Mhz Mac/PCs back in the day, there’s no reason why 720/30p wouldn’t work on a modern 1.6 Ghz PC. And yet, no implementation today, closed or open source, is as well optimized. I guess all these kids coming out of college these days only know how to develop in Java. Well then, outsource in Ukraine. I don’t fucking care.

* And while we are talking about h.264 and 720/30p support: Main Profile at 4.1 level with CABAC is a must-have.

* WMV and DivX/XViD support. Here’s my argument: while it’s not a big deal having iTunes re-encoding your movies/footage for your iPod at the QVGA resolution, it IS A BIG deal re-encoding in HD. It takes much, much longer re-encoding in HD than to re-encode in QVGA. So even if Apple has their own strategy about h.264 and .mov, the reality is, that practical uses will require users to re-encode these formats to Apple’s blessed ones. And these re-encodings take so long, that will aggravate people. I know it would piss me off. Apple should get over the “we don’t support competition’s formats” and give people what they need. These are popular formats we are talking about!

Update: So I get replies over at Engadget that “it’s ok to have DivX/XViD support, but I don’t see why we need WMV“. How much more single-minded people can get? They write that just because WMV was created by Microsoft! Well, here’s why: Windows video editors mostly EXPORT in the fucking WMV format, so that’s why you need it. Ulead, Movie Maker and Vegas Movie Studio only support WMV for “delivery”-grade user format (not counting intermediate formats). That’s why! Why do people only think of PIRATED MOVIES (that usually come in XViD format) when it comes to their format preferences?!? Am I the only person on the net who wants to view LEGAL user-created content? Or is this just a case of “video format racism”?

* While they are at it, they should also try some DV .avi, HDV .m2t and AVCHD .m2ts/mts support. Mpeg2 at 1080/60i is easier to decode than h.264 in HD btw. I am a videographer, I need support for these formats too, although I would be kinda ok if they are missed.

Until these features are built into AppleTV, the deal is OFF for me. The Sony PS3 is a MUCH more convenient device for video-watching because it does not force me to re-encode everything (even if itself needs to fix some compatibility issues with some formats like .mov, and h.264 that comes out of Adobe Premiere). No, the PS3 is not as nice to use as the AppleTV with its well-targeted UI, but heck, it plays lots and lots of video formats, and it can go up to 1080/30p. So why would I shell out for the AppleTV when the PS3 does it better? Sure, it costs a few bucks more, but it’s also a gaming machine, so it it’s worth these extra bucks.

“The folks at BMC (Black Mustang Club) automotive forum wanted to put together a calendar featuring members’ cars, and print it through CafePress. Photos were submitted, the layout was set, and… CafePress notifies the site admin that pictures of Ford cars cannot be printed. Not just Ford logos, not just Mustang logos, the car -as a whole- is a Ford trademark and its image can’t be reproduced without permission,” writes BoingBoing.

Good job Ford.

Amazing work by Jeremy Saville! Very funny, very well executed — Jeremy is a professional in the entertainment business. Not to be missed!

Two more short movies of Jeremy’s here.

And so here’s my new office setup, one 22″ Viewsonic 1680×1050 monitor, and the new 28″ HannsG 1920×1200 monitor. I can now use the new one as my “secondary video display” on Vegas and edit my HD content in 1:1 size, which gives me a much better perspective of the overall quality of each clip, color grading etc. In fact, now I can see how noisy the HV20 really is at full resolution! Apple’s 1080p movie trailers look great though.

I will miss my old Samsung vertical 1200×1600 21″ monitor that served me well as my document/web reader monitor for the past 3 years. I also have a 32″ 1080i HDTV that I can connect to the PC, I guess I could just stick a second graphics card to my PC and have all 4 monitors connected at the same time. Oh, yeah…