Uncomprimising - Open Source - Video Editing

"I'm not ashamed to follow Jesus". Well, that's an all fine and good sounding phrase until you are forced to face a group of your peers in a professional environment, a work environment, or a school environment. This is the challenge that every true follower of Christ eventually has to come to terms with. I've had to face this in the job market and I'm not the first; I'm certainly not going to be the last.

Software and music piracy is one of those things that I write about from time to time and today I grapple with another aspect of that once again. I'm not going to deal with the "heart of the matter" too much today. I do that quite often, and all you have to do is peruse a few of my previous entries on my other blog to get a taste of that. Or better yet, hit your knees and read a few scriptures. God is there to tackle these things with each and every one of us one on one. The basics are this; if we understand the sacrifice that was given for us and how each decision impacts eternity, then there is nothing, not even death that will have us dancing any other dance than one that the father of life appreciates. Ok so on to the tackle.

Video editing. I used to be quite a software thief and it wasn't until I was backed into a corner by my own convictions that I was forced to find answers. I've found answers for word processing, spreadsheets, power point presentations, multi-track audio editing, and now I'm on the pursuit of digital video editing. Here is a short list and summary of what I've found. Keep in mind that I haven't dug into any of these myself. I'm a bit ashamed that I have too many projects going on right now to do so. However I'm hoping to find a few minions to give me their feed back and test these things. The minions however will have to be ones that are just a "hell bent" to make these things work as I am. In this sense of "hell bent" I mean someone that would rather give their life and gamble with anything eternal. Anyone that knows me has got to know that I'm serious.

Lightworks ... This is a wonderful review which touts a product that won both Academy and Emmy awards. it runs on Windows and you can download it here. ... and oh, this looks like another good article on it.

I usually spent several days on a project like this. But unfortunately as I mentioned earlier I just don't have the time. And as such the previous mention of Lightworks seems to be the best one that I've found for Windows (after poking around for about three hours).

As far as Linux goes here are several other resources for professional grade results in DVD, mpg, avi, and many other formats.

Ubuntu Studio ... If you are strongly enough motivated (all true followers of Christ are 'very' motivated), you can take a stab at installing Ubuntu in parallel to your Windows installation. If you are willing to take this step I will help you. But since this is 'your' system I expect you to put into two hours of work for every one hour of work that I give you. ... I betcha you can't find a deal out there like that anywhere.

Avidemux has gotten a lot of feedback all over the net. If you decide to do some searching for this or other Open Source projects be sure to look at the date of the feedback. Many of the negative comments are dated 2008 and before. Anyone that has spent any time in technology knows that one month is like a year in the computing world. So many of the video editing programs have "come a long way baby".

And lastly here is another link worth checking out resources on. You check it out, hit me with comments, tell me what you think 'especially' if you've had a chance to test any of these.

And if you don't think you can do professional video editing with OpenSource products than think again. There have been many independent films released after being edited in OpenSource. Oh, and here is the actually trailer for this movie just to show you a living breathing demonstration of what you can do with OpenSource.