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Looking for video editor, preferably free (it exists on Linux, I just want it on Mac)

D

DaedalusYoung

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 10, 2009
7
0
Hi,
I know this is somewhat an impossible question. I'm looking for a good, free, extensive video editor for my Mac. iMovie just doesn't cut it (ha!). I could really use virtually unlimited tracks, not tied to any video conventions. So if I'd want to have a 16.35 fps, 834x152 px video, I should be able to get it.
Now I've been searching and I think I found exactly what I need, but there's one problem... Can't run it on Mac.
This is what I'd like: LiVES. It is made for Linux, but is advertised as now running on more Operating Systems.
Unfortunately though, there is no such thing as a Mac version. But the source is out there, so I figured, surely there must be someone who can compile it?

That, or maybe Kdenlive? Also runs on Linux, is said to run on Mac, but again, nobody ever attempted or succeeded to compile it or so I think.

And there are several more.

It's just terribly frustrating seeing a million powerful video editors there just out of reach and no way of getting it on Mac. LiVES says I can run it using dyne:bolic, but that doesn't work with Mac formatted harddisks (so what's the point of getting it). I tried creating a Guest PC with Ubuntu on Q (kju or whatever), to get it or Kdenlive or Cinelerra or Kino or whichever but a) it's slow and b) doesn't seem to have support for Apple Generic Keyboards.

Anybody have any ideas? Maybe someone willing to compile a Mac port of something (and also willing to donate it back to the software creators, so they have finally a true Mac version)?
 
I know nothing about video editing on Linux, or much of anything about Linux for that matter. But why not just install one of the distros on your Mac?

Either that or cough up the dough for Final Cut Express.
 
Use VirtualBox, add more RAM. Either that or install Linux with bootcamp and put up with rebooting to switch OSes.
 
Thanks for your replies!

spice weasel said:
But why not just install one of the distros on your Mac?
Click to expand...
How would that work? With Bootcamp? Does that not mean it will empty my harddisk when creating partitions?

iPhone 62S said:
Use VirtualBox, add more RAM. Either that or install Linux with bootcamp and put up with rebooting to switch OSes.
Click to expand...
Bootcamp I think is not an option, I can't repartition anymore. I will try VirtualBox, but I have a feeling it's not going to work very well. I have terrible experiences with these kind of things.
 
Yeah, that's definitely possible. If you virtualize, you'll want to actually pay for Parallels or VMWare, but I'd tend to agree that I'd be shocked if a movie editor was terribly usable in virtualization. Just create a Bootcamp partition and put a Linux distribution of your liking on it, and boot up in Linux when you need it.
 
Virtualizing an editorial app will be horrible. It will be so slow and then comes the file system limitations and such. Just pony up the cash and get Final Cut Express.
 
As others have said, partitioning won't damage your data unless something goes wrong, I've done it a few times on my MacBook just fine.

I cannot stress enough how much you should not buy Parallels though. It's very buggy and unreliable, plus it has has actually caused numorous kernal panics on my iMac.
 
Boot Camp was designed to install Windows. It won't be much help with Linux.

Your safest option is to use a second hard disk and install Ubuntu on it and let it use the entire hard disk. When booting, just press the Option key and select the "Windows" disk (Macs are ignorant to other operating systems than Windows or OS X), it'll boot into Ubuntu then.

One thing you should be careful with: When installing, do NOT allow Ubuntu or any other Linux to install Grub on the master boot record. This can cause some very annoying issues. In the installer of Ubuntu 9.10, you can change this in the very last page on the "Advanced" tab.

All virtualizers (Parallels, VMWare, VirtualBox, Q) can handle certain Linux distributions pretty well - mostly Novell, Red Hat and Ubuntu/Debian. Your safest bet here is to choose a version that is officially supported. There's always a chance that the latest and the greatest show incompatibilities.

However, I've tried 64-Bit Ubuntu 9.10 Beta in VMWare Fusion 2 and as a native installation on my Mac Pro, and both setups worked. The native installation was a bit more difficult because of Apple's wireless adapter (but I got it running).
 
The website says Lives will compile and run under OSX/Darwin although it hasn't been extensively tested. I didn't try it myself since there is a long list of dependencies that I don't have on my system. Why don't you install MacPorts, download and install the dependencies, and compile and use Lives on your Mac?
 
Thanks everyone!
I managed to get Ubuntu running in Virtualbox. I also got LiVES and several other editors installed on it, but either I'm doing something terribly wrong or they're not really delivering what they're promising. So I guess I'm stuck with the commercial products anyway. And none of them offer just what I'd want in an editor.

Final Cut doesn't allow exotic framerates and video sizes (and why not? if you open Photoshop and create a 824x412 px image, nobody's tapping you on the shoulder saying: "that's not a normal format, you are only allowed to use 800x600 and 3 or 4 other supported resolutions").

I know After Effects does give me that freedom, but it's not really an editor, I can't put more than one clip on one layer. And it does not playback realtime, nor does it play video and audio at the same time. Not to mention the price.

A combination of these two (which I figured LiVES would more or less be, according to their specs) would be great. I don't know if Adobe Premiere supports my wishes (according to Wikipedia, it can work with resolutions up to 4k x 4k), but even if it does, that really is way over my budget, I don't expect to buy that in the next 43 years.

An alternatives is I suppose Jahshaka/CineFX. Unfortunately that never ran too well for me and there hasn't been much development since 2006. Though nowadays with the name change it is said to be alive again, well we'll see then.
Also Blender has video editing capabilities (Video Sequence Editor/VSE). I've never really looked into that, I don't know what it's capable of.
 
I might be wrong but I believe you can choose which sequence setting you want (that's the "custom" setting). You can tell what the dimensions should be and which pixelaspect ratio. But if you want to edit natively in FCE, the clips will have to be the same, or else you would have to render while you're editing.
 
Ok I see, thanks. Well, specs says "Mix DV (NTSC and PAL) and HD formats in the same Timeline".
Anyway, for now I'm looking into editing with Blender and keep FCE in mind if I find it doesn't work for me.
 
Final Cut Pro

Just get Final Cut Studio....the best editing system in my opinion. Final Cut Pro + Motion 4 are great and very user friendly compared to some PC Programs I have seen. There are ways to get it free.
 
Yeah, I really don't want to get anything illegally. If I really need commercial software, I would buy it. Or if I want it for free, put it on my Christmas wishlist. :)
 
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