I’m going to write a series of posts comparing MainActor to Cinelerra. Along the way I’ll provide howtos on various common tasks. I’ve used Premiere and IMovie on and off, so where applicable I’ll draw parallels to those systems. By the end of the series you’ll be set to edit video on your Linux desktop.
This first post I will devote to background. MainActor and Cinelerra are both Non Linear Editing programs which run on Linux. Cinelerra is free, and open source. MainActor costs $200, but is available for free as a trial version.
Let me declare biases upfront: I am not associated with either MainConcept or the Cinelerra development team. I currently use MainActor, because Cinelerra frustrated me when I evaluated it a year or so ago. Having played with it recently, it seems to be much more stable that it was, and I’m curious as to how they stack up against each other. So, this series will be as much for my benefit as for yours.
Cinelerra
The first thing you need to know about Cinelerra is that there are two versions:
Heroine Virtual Ltd. presents an advanced content creation system for Linux. Cinelerra takes what normally is a boring server - studied in computer science classrooms, hidden in back offices - and turns it into a 50,000 watt flamethrower of multimedia editing.
That’s right kids. Unlike most of the Linux solutions out there, Cinelerra requires no emulation of proprietary operating systems, no commercial add-ons, no banner advertizements, no corporate dependancies, no terrorists, just a boring old Linux box.
Cinelerra does primarily 3 main things: capturing, compositing, and editing audio and video with sample level accuracy. It’s a seamless integration of audio, video, and still photos rarely experienced on a web server.
There are two branches of Cinelerra - one can be found at heroine.com and the other here.
This website is primarily focussed on the cinelerra-CV (i.e. the community version of cinelerra) that is downloaded via svn.
Cinelerra is developed “upstream” by an entity (guy/girl/group) we’ll call HV that is a sharing but not a community sort of entity. HV likes to work on its own copy of cinelerra on its own, releasing code on a periodical basis (every 6 months or so).
Some developers decided that it would be nice to develop in a community fashion, (public svn access) but did not really want to fork (which is seen as being nasty).
Basically we maintain a copy that is fairly similar to the official release, (i.e. we don’t do code-tidying patches). But apply our bug fixes, compiler compliance fixes, and enhancements to the svn. We do try to send the patches upstream, (but it sucks having to apply a patch to two systems, but that’s life!) Thus the CV has a number of features that the official version does not have.
MainActor
MainActor is developed by a German company called MainConcept, who also develop various other video related software. Here’s their blurb on MainActor:
MainActor v5’s numerous features include the track-based interface and the customizable workspaces, multi-user support as well as working on multiple timelines simultaneously. Furthermore, MainActor v5 offers easy access to all important features. The new capture module enables the user to record digital videos via FireWire.
MainActor 5 for Linux offers professional features almost identical to the features you already know from the Windows version, including DV capture and MPEG-1/2 import and export in a new interface. Now you can test the powerful features of our video editing software under Linux, too. And the serial number for unlocking the application is valid for the Windows as well as the Linux version. Using MainActor 5, video editing is no longer a problem in Linux.
Alternatives and Resources
There are other video editing alternatives available on Linux. Jahshaka and Kino are two of the more interesting projects, but don’t (yet) have the scope of either Cinelerra or MainActor. AviDemux is a great utility, and ToVid also fills a unique niche.
Next - How To Install
The next post in the series will walk through installation on Ubuntu Dapper, and will provide resources for users of other distros.
All In Series
- MainActor vs Cinelerra -- Background
- MainActor vs Cinelerra -- Installing
- MainActor vs Cinelerra -- UI, First Impressions
- MainActor vs Cinelerra -- Simple Editing, Part 1
- MainActor vs Cinelerra -- Simple Editing, Part 2
Cinelerra sucks. I for one am tired of wading through tons of software hit and miss on whether it works in Linux or not. It doesn’t cut it if it works great on a few isolated computers. If it doesn’t work on the majority, its lame and cinerella fits this bill. I don’t care if works great on someones computer in ebonia. On my computer it stalls, it crashes, its features are that of an inept computer programmer that has no ability to simplify in code. Its a piece of shit - it will only clog up your hard drive.
[...] Open Source based editor. If you would like to know more about MainActor there is a review at Flavor 8 where they compare it in functionality to Cinelerra. I listen to the Linux Action Show podcast and [...]