OpenShot Close To Funding Final Stretch Goal: Video Editing Server

The Kickstarter project we mentioned late last month to bring open source video editor OpenShot to Mac and Windows as well as its native base of Linux has surpassed its initial funding goal, and now is just shy (just under a thousand dollars shy, at this writing) of reaching all of the items on a revamped list of stretch goals. The only goal on that list not yet funded is a tantalizing one. JonOomph writes "The lead developer has proposed a revolutionary new feature, which would allow users to offload CPU, memory, and disk cache to a local server (or multiple local servers), dramatically increasing the speed of previewing and rendering. The more servers added to the pool, the faster the video editing engine becomes (with the primary limitation being network bandwidth). If the final goal of $40k is reached in the remaining hours, this feature will be added to the next version of OpenShot." Like all Kickstarter projects, though, there's no actual guarantee that things will come to pass as hoped; ya pays yer money, and ya takes yer chances. Update: 04/16 16:53 GMT by T : Some hours remain, but they've crossed the $40,000 line. I hope the funding is adequate to support the outlined plans.

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[Jonah Hex]

Actually the funded #4 is for a Video Render Queue and is free, but #5 is for the Video Editing Server and is still at the $40K mark.

Stretch Goal #4: FREE!
As a thank you, I have decided to make some BIG CHANGES to the remaining stretch goals, starting with including Stretch Goal #4: Video Render Queue (queue up multiple renders) for FREE! This is a great feature, and will improve the work-flow for rendering multiple versions of your timeline.

Stretch Goal #5: REDUCED!
As a final thank you, I am reducing t

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[Spiridios]

Actually the funded #4 is for a Video Render Queue and is free, but #5 is for the Video Editing Server and is still at the $40K mark.

As of this writing, $40k has been surpassed.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Actually ... it sounds like the cluster part at least is a likely possibility. Hopefully it wouldn't actually require Beowulf design specifically ...

wrt rPi, guess that depends how far all this cross-platformocity stretches. Would be cool to click a "All machines in the house, including extra cycles on my phone" button.

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[larry bagina]

It's open source. You could add the button. Of course, it might not do anything, but you can add the button.

Re: nice slashvertisement!

[forkazoo]

Almost nobody does real 'Beowulf' style clusters anymore, if you use a very precise definition, but in the broader sense this would be a compute cluster. I haven't studied the details of the proposal, but I'm not sure why this would ne revolutionary. Using a cluster for rendering video is pretty common. Burn clusters are used with Autodesk Smoke. Smoke used to be quite obscure but now that it exists on Mac it is seeing pretty wide use. From what I understand, Vegas has network rendering as well. Outsi

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[TWiTfan]

My mother was a humorless fucktard religious zealot, you insensitive clod!

AVCHD and other licensed codec support?

[Jonah Hex]

How do they handle AVCHD, can it encode? I ended up going with the paid version of Lightworks some time ago to get the ability to stick with what my camera outputs natively, and I hazily recall that part of my payment went for licensing the extra codecs including AVCHD encode licensing. Their features page says it handles AVCHD, but usually that just means decode support. I'd really love more open source video editor choices on Windows, especially since the decent paid ones are expensive. - HEX

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[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah... Lightworks. That software that announced it was going open source for Linux and never did. Or at least, still hadn't years later.

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[bill_mcgonigle]

From the very first link on their webpage:

We have had a very successful Linux Alpha program and although we will narrowly miss the targeted release date at the end of Q1 we will be making the Linux Public Beta, which includes a much improved licensing scheme, available on 30th April 2013. We have been listening to users and the current licensing scheme has not been up to their expectations.

It looks like licenses are 40 pounds? Sign me up - I'm sick of not having a linux video editor that doesn't crash rel

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[wormo]

Do you really have your heart set on keeping the same container format, or would you be satisfied with an editing process that imports the audio and video without an extra re-encoding step (to preserve data quality)? I ask because AVCHD is *not* an extra codec, but merely a different container for H.264 video and ac3 (or rarely, uncompressed pcm) audio. You would be able to import and edit it in free video editors such as OpenShot, since ffmpeg can demux AVCHD files. After editing you'd need to export to s

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[dwywit]

Is it really worth the fuss to pirate/crack, when you can get the entire Adobe Suite on education/academic pricing for less than AUD$500?
 
I've saved more than $500 in delayed deadlines just by having access to the support community.

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[Buzer]

I don't think there is really any problem with including encoding support. But if you want to use it, you may (depending on use, country etc.) need to get license for AVC from MPEGLA (or directly from patent holders if your volumes are big/important enough to give you some negotiation power).

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[westlake]

I'd really love more open source video editor choices on Windows, especially since the decent paid ones are expensive.

The royalties on the AVC. H.264 codec are trivial and come into play only with sales of more than 100,000 units a year.

For [AVC] encoder and decoder products sold both to End Users and on an OEM basis for incorporation into personal computers but not part of a personal computer operating system (a decoder, encoder, or product consisting of one decoder and one encoder = ''unit''), royalties (beginning January 1, 2005) per Legal Entity are 0 - 100,000 units per year = no royalty (this threshold is available to one Legal Entity in an affiliated group); US $0.20 per unit after first 100,000 units each year; above 5 million units per year, royalty = US $0.10 per unit. The maximum annual royalty (''cap'') for an Enterprise (commonly controlled Legal Entities) is $3.5 million per year 2005-2006, $4.25 million per year 2007-08, $5 million per year 2009-10, and $6.5 million per year in 2011-15.8.

SUMMARY OF AVC/H.264 LICENSE TERMS [mpegla.com]

Re:

[larry bagina]

Have you tried GIMP? It's open, it's shit, you can edit goatse with it.

Re:

[wormo]

I don't see anything like that listed at the BBC open source website, so maybe they decided to contribute to an existing project instead
http://www.bbc.co.uk/opensource/ [bbc.co.uk]

Re:

[ssam]

are you thinking of the dirac video codec?

Backers have been hearing it constantly

[phorm]

While I like my kickstarter projects, I'm getting a bit overwhelmed with the constant emails with "our funding is now at $XX".

Seriously, I can view the webpage. I don't need an update every few hours.

Worse, is the "Hey, while you've pledge to give us money, how about you also give money to X, Y, and Z"

Yeah, it's nice to help out these projects - and sometimes to know about related projects - but sometimes it feels like I've heard more about "get that little bit of extra funding" or "fund my friends" that I

Re:

[Isaac Remuant]

While it's fine to comment it here, you're probably going to have more impact by also voicing your concerns to kickstarter and/or the involved projects.