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Cinelerra CV Manual
Non-linear video editor for GNU/Linux
Community Version 2.3
Edition 1.63.EN
Heroine Virtual Ltd
Cinelerra CV Team
Copyright c
2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 Adam Williams - Heroine Virtual Ltd.
Copyright c
2003 - 2016 Cinelerra-CV Team.
This manual is free; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General
Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This document is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WAR-
RANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program;
if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA
02110, USA.
i
Table of Contents
1 Introduction ................................................... 1
1.1 About Cinelerra ................................................................... 1
1.2 The two versions of Cinelerra ...................................................... 1
1.3 About this manual ................................................................ 2
1.4 Getting help....................................................................... 2
1.5 Tutorials .......................................................................... 3
1.6 HOWTOs ......................................................................... 3
1.7 Miscellaneous links ................................................................ 4
2 Installation ..................................................... 5
2.1 Hardware requirements ............................................................ 5
2.2 Software requirements ............................................................. 6
2.3 Compiling Cinelerra CV ........................................................... 6
2.3.1 Usual compilation process .................................................... 6
2.3.2 Compiling with debugging symbols............................................ 8
2.4 Running Cinelerra ................................................................. 8
2.5 Live CDs .......................................................................... 9
2.6 Arch Linux ........................................................................ 9
2.7 Debian ............................................................................ 9
2.7.1 Debian binaries ............................................................... 9
2.7.2 Debian prerequisites .......................................................... 9
2.8 Ubuntu .......................................................................... 10
2.8.1 Instructions for Ubuntu packages installation................................. 10
2.9 Gentoo ........................................................................... 11
2.10 Fedora .......................................................................... 11
2.11 Mandriva ....................................................................... 11
2.12 Slackware ....................................................................... 12
2.13 OpenSUSE...................................................................... 12
2.14 Manjaro ........................................................................ 12
2.15 ROSA Linux .................................................................... 12
3 Configuration ................................................. 13
3.1 Environment variables ............................................................ 13
3.2 Audio drivers .................................................................... 14
3.2.1 Sound driver attributes ...................................................... 14
3.2.2 OSS ......................................................................... 14
3.2.3 OSS Envy24................................................................. 14
3.2.4 Alsa......................................................................... 14
3.2.5 Esound ...................................................................... 15
3.2.6 Raw 1394 ................................................................... 15
3.2.7 DV 1394 .................................................................... 15
3.2.8 IEC 61883................................................................... 15
3.3 Video drivers ..................................................................... 15
3.3.1 Video driver attributes ...................................................... 15
3.3.2 X11 ......................................................................... 15
3.3.3 X11-XV ..................................................................... 16
3.3.4 X11-OpenGL ................................................................ 16
ii
3.3.5 Buz ......................................................................... 16
3.3.6 Raw 1394 video playback .................................................... 17
3.3.7 DV 1394 video playback ..................................................... 17
3.3.8 IEC 61883 video playback ................................................... 17
3.4 Playback ......................................................................... 17
3.4.1 Audio out ................................................................... 17
3.4.2 Video out ................................................................... 18
3.5 Recording ........................................................................ 19
3.5.1 File format .................................................................. 19
3.5.2 Audio in .................................................................... 20
3.5.3 Video in ..................................................................... 20
3.6 Performance...................................................................... 21
3.6.1 Background rendering ....................................................... 21
3.6.2 Renderfarm ................................................................. 22
3.7 Interface ......................................................................... 23
3.8 About window ................................................................... 23
4 Project attributes ............................................ 25
4.1 Set format window ............................................................... 25
4.2 Presets ........................................................................... 25
4.3 Audio attributes.................................................................. 25
4.4 Video attributes .................................................................. 26
5 Loading and saving files ..................................... 29
5.1 Supported file formats ............................................................ 29
5.1.1 Quicktime ................................................................... 29
5.1.2 MPEG-4 audio .............................................................. 29
5.1.3 Still images.................................................................. 29
5.1.3.1 Loading still images .................................................... 29
5.1.3.2 Still images size......................................................... 30
5.1.3.3 Open EXR images ...................................................... 30
5.1.3.4 Raw digital camera images .............................................. 31
5.1.4 Images sequence ............................................................. 31
5.1.5 AVI ......................................................................... 31
5.1.6 MPEG files containing video ................................................. 32
5.1.7 DVD movies................................................................. 32
5.1.8 MPEG 1 audio .............................................................. 32
5.1.9 Ogg Theora/Vorbis .......................................................... 32
5.1.10 Edit decision list ........................................................... 33
5.1.11 WAV ....................................................................... 33
5.1.12 PCM....................................................................... 33
5.1.13 AIFF ...................................................................... 33
5.1.14 AC3 audio ................................................................. 33
5.2 Loading files ..................................................................... 33
5.2.1 Insertion strategy............................................................ 33
5.2.2 Loading multiple files ........................................................ 34
5.2.3 Loading files from the command prompt ..................................... 34
5.2.4 Filtering files by extension ................................................... 34
5.2.5 Loading other formats ....................................................... 35
5.3 Loading the backup .............................................................. 35
5.4 Saving project files ............................................................... 35
5.5 Merging projects ................................................................. 36
iii
6 Program window ............................................. 37
6.1 Navigating the program window .................................................. 37
6.1.1 Video and audio tracks ...................................................... 37
6.1.2 Track navigation ............................................................ 38
6.1.3 The zoom panel ............................................................. 38
6.1.4 The track popup menu ...................................................... 39
6.1.5 The insertion point .......................................................... 39
6.1.6 Editing modes ............................................................... 39
6.1.7 The in/out points ........................................................... 40
6.1.8 Using labels in the program window ......................................... 41
7 Editing ........................................................ 43
7.1 The patchbay .................................................................... 43
7.2 Nudging tracks ................................................................... 45
7.3 Panning audio tracks ............................................................. 46
7.4 Automatic audio track panning ................................................... 46
7.5 Standard audio mappings......................................................... 46
7.6 Manipulating tracks .............................................................. 46
7.7 Two screen editing ............................................................... 47
7.8 Drag and drop editing ............................................................ 48
7.9 Cut and paste editing ............................................................ 51
7.10 Trimming ....................................................................... 52
8 Compositor window .......................................... 55
8.1 Compositor controls .............................................................. 55
8.1.1 Protect video ................................................................ 55
8.1.2 Magnifying glass............................................................. 55
8.1.3 Masks tool .................................................................. 55
8.1.4 Camera ..................................................................... 55
8.1.5 Projector .................................................................... 56
8.1.6 Crop tool.................................................................... 56
8.1.7 Eyedropper.................................................................. 56
8.1.8 Tool info .................................................................... 56
8.1.9 Safe regions tool ............................................................. 56
8.2 Compositing ..................................................................... 56
8.2.1 The camera and projector ................................................... 56
8.2.1.1 The temporary ......................................................... 56
8.2.1.2 Compositing projector controls.......................................... 58
8.2.1.3 Compositing camera controls............................................ 58
8.2.1.4 Popup menu of options ................................................. 60
8.2.1.5 The camera and projector tool window.................................. 60
8.2.2 Masks ....................................................................... 61
8.2.3 Cropping .................................................................... 65
8.2.4 Safe regions ................................................................. 65
8.2.5 Overlay modes .............................................................. 66
8.2.6 Track and output sizes....................................................... 66
8.2.6.1 Track size .............................................................. 66
8.2.6.2 Output size............................................................. 68
9 Viewer window ............................................... 71
iv
10 Resources window........................................... 73
10.1 Navigating the resources ........................................................ 73
11 Sound level meters window ................................ 75
12 Transport controls .......................................... 77
13 Timebar ..................................................... 79
14 Realtime effects ............................................. 81
14.1 Realtime effect types ............................................................ 81
14.2 Editing realtime effects .......................................................... 82
14.3 Realtime audio effects ........................................................... 83
14.3.1 Compressor ................................................................ 83
14.3.2 Delay audio ................................................................ 84
14.3.3 Denoise .................................................................... 84
14.3.4 DenoiseFFT ................................................................ 84
14.3.5 Despike .................................................................... 85
14.3.6 EQ Parametric ............................................................. 85
14.3.7 Freeverb ................................................................... 85
14.3.8 Gain ....................................................................... 85
14.3.9 Heroine College ............................................................ 85
14.3.10 Interpolate ................................................................ 85
14.3.11 Invert Audio .............................................................. 85
14.3.12 Live audio ................................................................ 86
14.3.13 Loop audio................................................................ 86
14.3.14 Overlay ................................................................... 86
14.3.15 Pitch shift ................................................................ 86
14.3.16 Reverse audio ............................................................. 87
14.3.17 SoundLevel ............................................................... 87
14.3.18 Spectrogram .............................................................. 87
14.3.19 Synthesizer................................................................ 87
14.3.20 Time stretch .............................................................. 87
14.4 Realtime video effects ........................................................... 88
14.4.1 1080 to 480................................................................. 88
14.4.2 Aging TV .................................................................. 88
14.4.3 Blur........................................................................ 88
14.4.4 Brightness/contrast ........................................................ 89
14.4.5 Burning TV ................................................................ 89
14.4.6 Chroma key ................................................................ 89
14.4.7 Chroma key (HSV) ......................................................... 90
14.4.8 Color balance .............................................................. 91
14.4.9 Decimate................................................................... 91
14.4.10 Deinterlace ................................................................ 91
14.4.11 Delay video ............................................................... 92
14.4.12 Denoise video ............................................................. 92
14.4.13 Denoise video2 ............................................................ 92
14.4.14 Difference key ............................................................. 92
14.4.15 DotTV .................................................................... 93
14.4.16 Downsample .............................................................. 93
14.4.17 Fields to frames ........................................................... 93
14.4.18 Flip ....................................................................... 93
v
14.4.19 Frames to fields ........................................................... 94
14.4.20 Freeze frame .............................................................. 94
14.4.21 Gamma ................................................................... 95
14.4.22 Gradient .................................................................. 95
14.4.23 GreyCStoration ........................................................... 96
14.4.24 Histogram................................................................. 96
14.4.25 HolographicTV............................................................ 97
14.4.26 Hue saturation ............................................................ 97
14.4.27 Interpolate video .......................................................... 97
14.4.28 Interpolate pixels.......................................................... 97
14.4.29 Inverse telecine ............................................................ 98
14.4.30 Invert video ............................................................... 98
14.4.31 Lens ...................................................................... 98
14.4.32 Linear blur ................................................................ 99
14.4.33 Live video................................................................. 99
14.4.34 Loop video ............................................................... 100
14.4.35 Motion................................................................... 100
14.4.35.1 Secrets of motion tracking ........................................... 102
14.4.35.2 2 pass motion tracking .............................................. 103
14.4.35.3 Using blur to improve motion tracking ............................... 103
14.4.35.4 Using histogram to improve motion tracking ......................... 103
14.4.35.5 Motion tracking in action............................................ 103
14.4.35.6 Tracking stabilization in action ...................................... 107
14.4.36 Motion blur .............................................................. 107
14.4.37 Oil painting .............................................................. 108
14.4.38 Overlay video ............................................................ 108
14.4.39 Perspective .............................................................. 108
14.4.40 Polar .................................................................... 108
14.4.41 RGB-601................................................................. 109
14.4.42 Radial blur .............................................................. 109
14.4.43 ReframeRT .............................................................. 109
14.4.44 Reroute .................................................................. 110
14.4.45 Reverse video ............................................................ 110
14.4.46 Rotate ................................................................... 110
14.4.47 SVG via Inkscape ........................................................ 111
14.4.48 Scale..................................................................... 111
14.4.49 Selective temporal averaging ............................................. 111
14.4.50 Sharpen.................................................................. 112
14.4.51 ShiftInterlace ............................................................ 112
14.4.52 Swap channels ........................................................... 112
14.4.53 Threshold ................................................................ 112
14.4.54 Time average ............................................................ 112
14.4.55 TimeFront ............................................................... 113
14.4.56 Title ..................................................................... 113
14.4.56.1 Adding fonts to the titler ............................................ 115
14.4.56.2 The title-safe region ................................................. 115
14.4.57 Translate ................................................................ 115
14.4.58 Unsharp ................................................................. 115
14.4.59 Videoscope............................................................... 116
14.4.59.1 The waveform scope ................................................. 116
14.4.59.2 The vectorscope ..................................................... 117
14.4.60 Wave .................................................................... 118
14.4.61 Whirl .................................................................... 119
14.4.62 YUV..................................................................... 119
vi
14.4.63 Zoom blur ............................................................... 119
15 Rendered effects ........................................... 121
15.1 Rendered audio effects ......................................................... 121
15.1.1 Resample ................................................................. 121
15.2 Rendered video effects.......................................................... 122
15.2.1 Reframe................................................................... 122
15.2.2 GreyCStoration ........................................................... 122
16 Ladspa effects .............................................. 125
17 Transitions ................................................. 127
17.1 Using transitions ............................................................... 127
17.2 Dissolve video transition ....................................................... 129
18 Keyframing................................................. 131
18.1 Curve keyframes ............................................................... 131
18.1.1 Navigating curve keyframes................................................ 132
18.2 Toggle keyframes............................................................... 132
18.3 Automatic keyframes........................................................... 132
18.4 Compositor keyframes.......................................................... 133
18.5 Editing keyframes .............................................................. 133
19 Capturing media ........................................... 135
19.1 Capturing using Cinelerra ...................................................... 135
19.1.1 Cinelerra recording functions .............................................. 135
19.1.2 Batch recording ........................................................... 136
19.1.3 Editing tuner information ................................................. 137
19.2 Capturing using dvgrab ........................................................ 138
20 Rendering files ............................................. 139
20.1 Single file rendering ............................................................ 139
20.2 Separate files rendering......................................................... 139
20.3 Insertion strategy of rendered files .............................................. 140
20.4 Batch rendering ................................................................ 140
20.5 The render farm ............................................................... 142
20.6 Command line rendering ....................................................... 143
20.7 Rendering videos for the internet ............................................... 143
20.7.1 Encoding a video in MPEG4 format for the internet ....................... 143
20.7.2 Encoding a video in FLV format for the internet ........................... 144
20.8 Quicktime for GNU/Linux compatibility chart .................................. 145
20.9 Making a DVD................................................................. 145
20.9.1 Rendering to mpeg2 ....................................................... 145
20.9.1.1 yuv4mpeg pipe through mpeg2enc .................................... 145
20.9.1.2 yuv4mpeg pipe through ffmpeg ....................................... 146
20.9.2 Making a DVD menu...................................................... 147
20.9.3 Authoring a DVD ......................................................... 149
20.9.4 Burning a DVD ........................................................... 151
20.10 Using background rendering ................................................... 151
vii
21 Tips ......................................................... 153
21.1 Encoding into Dolby Pro Logic ................................................. 153
21.2 Cleaning analog TV ............................................................ 153
21.3 Defeating interlacing ........................................................... 154
21.4 Making video look like film ..................................................... 155
21.5 Clearing out haze .............................................................. 155
21.6 Making a ringtone ............................................................. 156
21.7 Time stretching audio .......................................................... 156
21.8 Video screen captures .......................................................... 157
21.9 Improving performance......................................................... 157
21.9.1 Disabling swap space ...................................................... 158
21.9.2 Enlarging sound buffers ................................................... 158
21.9.3 Freeing more shared memory .............................................. 159
21.9.4 Speeding up the hard drive ................................................ 159
21.9.5 Disabling cron............................................................. 159
21.9.6 Reducing USB mouse sensitivity ........................................... 159
21.9.7 Assorted X tweaks ........................................................ 160
21.9.8 Speeding up the file system ................................................ 161
21.9.9 Improving Zoran video .................................................... 161
21.10 Translating Cinelerra ......................................................... 162
21.10.1 Available localizations .................................................... 162
21.10.2 Updating an existing translation.......................................... 162
21.10.3 Creating a new translation ............................................... 163
21.11 Panning and zooming still images ............................................. 163
21.12 HDV 1080i editing using proxy files ........................................... 163
21.12.1 Overview ................................................................ 163
21.12.2 Grabbing HDV from camcorder .......................................... 163
21.12.3 Using TOC and WAV files ............................................... 164
21.12.4 Making the proxy files.................................................... 164
21.12.5 Converting HDV and proxy files .......................................... 164
21.12.6 Rendering the HDV project .............................................. 164
21.12.7 Other issues.............................................................. 164
21.13 Adding subtitles .............................................................. 164
21.14 Creating DVD video from Lower Quality Footage.............................. 166
22 Troubleshooting............................................ 169
22.1 Reporting bugs ................................................................ 169
22.2 Playback does not stop ......................................................... 169
22.3 Buz driver crashes ............................................................. 169
22.4 Dragging edit boundaries does not work ........................................ 169
22.5 Locking up when loading files .................................................. 170
22.6 Synchronization lost while recording ............................................ 170
22.7 Applying gamma followed by blur does not work................................ 170
22.8 Copy/Paste of track selections does not work in the timeline .................... 170
22.9 Cinelerra often crashes ......................................................... 170
22.10 Theme Blond not found error ................................................. 170
viii
23 Plugin authoring ........................................... 171
23.1 Introducing the pull method.................................................... 171
23.2 Common plugin functions ...................................................... 171
23.2.1 The processing object ..................................................... 172
23.2.2 The configuration object .................................................. 174
23.2.3 The user interface object .................................................. 176
23.3 Realtime plugins ............................................................... 176
23.4 Non-realtime plugins ........................................................... 178
23.5 Audio plugins .................................................................. 179
23.6 Video plugins .................................................................. 180
23.7 Transition plugins .............................................................. 180
23.8 Plugin GUI’s which update during playback .................................... 181
23.9 Plugin queries.................................................................. 182
23.9.1 System queries ............................................................ 182
23.9.2 Timing queries ............................................................ 182
23.10 Using OpenGL................................................................ 183
23.10.1 Getting OpenGL data .................................................... 183
23.10.2 Drawing using OpenGL .................................................. 184
23.10.3 Using shaders ............................................................ 185
23.10.4 Aggregating plugins ...................................................... 185
24 Keyboard shortcuts........................................ 187
24.1 Program window shortcuts ..................................................... 187
24.1.1 Editing Media shortcuts ................................................... 187
24.1.2 Editing Labels and In/Out Points shortcuts ............................... 187
24.1.3 Navigation shortcuts ...................................................... 187
24.1.4 File operations shortcuts .................................................. 188
24.1.5 Key frame editing shortcuts ............................................... 188
24.1.6 Track Manipulation shortcuts ............................................. 188
24.1.7 What is drawn on the timeline shortcuts ................................... 188
24.2 Viewer and compositor windows shortcuts ...................................... 189
24.3 Playback transport shortcuts ................................................... 189
24.4 Record window shortcuts ....................................................... 189
GNU General Public License .................................. 191
Index............................................................. 197
Chapter 1: Introduction 1
1 Introduction
1.1 About Cinelerra
For years, some people have wanted a way to edit their audio and video in one place as fluidly
as writing text. Cinelerra tries to be a single location for all your audio and video editing needs.
All the recording, editing, and playback are handled here. It can be used as an audio player. It
can be used to record audio or video. It can even be used as a photo retoucher.
There are two types of moviegoers: producers who create new content and revisit it for
further refinement, and consumers who want to acquire the content and watch it. Cinelerra is
not intended for consumers. Cinelerra has many features for uncompressed content, high res-
olution processing, and compositing. Producers need these features in order to retouch many
generations of footage, which makes Cinelerra very complex. Consumers should consider other
tools such as Avidemux (http://www.avidemux.org/), Kino (http://kinodv.org/) or Kden-
live (http://kdenlive.org/).
Quote from Miro’s Wiki (http://www.mitvwiki.org/Cinelerra):
"The key difference between Cinelerra and many of the commercial editors is that Cinelerra
hides much less from the user, exposing much of the inner workings to direct interaction. This
can be harder to use, but does make it tremendously powerful, and for some operations blistering
fast."
1.2 The two versions of Cinelerra
There are two branches of Cinelerra. One can be found at http://www.heroinewarrior.com
and the other at http://cinelerra-cv.org. This documentation is focused on Cinelerra-CV
(Community Version).
The official Cinelerra source code is developed "upstream"by Heroine Virtual, Ltd (HV).
HV shares its code base with a community version of Cinelerra (Cinelerra-CV), but does not
actively participate with the community of developers responsible for Cinelerra-CV. HV likes to
work on its own copy of Cinelerra, releasing code on a periodic basis every 6 months or so.
Cinelerra-CV was founded by developers who wanted to extend the functionality and fix bugs
inherent in the HV code base. They decided to develop Cinelerra in a community fashion and not
create a separate fork of the original HV code. So, the Cinelerra CV code is very similar to the
official release. CV coders apply bug fixes (http://bugs.cinelerra-cv.org), enhancements to
the SVN and compliance fixes. Programmers occasionally send patches upstream. In this way,
Cinelerra CV has a number of features that the official version does not.
Unlike other programs, the HV release can not be described as "stable". After HV’s Cinelerra
is released, there are often bugs or unusable new features. When there is a new release, a CV
member (j6t) merges HV’s code with Cinelerra CV code, taking the enhancements from HV and
reformatting the CV code (white spaces, function naming, directory naming) to be more similar
to HV’s with slight changes to implementations. After the merge, the latest Cinelerra CV release
is a little unstable as users find bugs. Time permitting, the CV programmers will address as
many of these bugs as possible. In this way, Cinelerra CV can be seen as the community’s
attempt to stabilize HV’s release.
As mentioned, the community adds new enhancements to the HV source. Members will
comment on each other’s implementations in order to create a more fully functional and stable
product. Occasionally, HV will give feedback on implementations that the members of the CV
submit to it. However, not all of the enhancements that the community create make it upstream;
for example, YUV pipe rendering.
Given the above discussion, obtaining the SVN just before a merge will generally be more
stable than a post-merge CV version. Be aware that existing project description files, or Edit
2 Chapter 1: Introduction
Decision Lists (discussed below), may not be compatible with the newly merged CV version.
With any version of Cinelerra, the task of finding bugs is relatively easy. However, clearly and
concisely documenting these bugs for the community that fixes them is a task that we ask of
all users of the software. The community is very responsive. Please help them by creating
well-formed bug reports. You may join our mailing list at http://cinelerra-cv.org.
1.3 About this manual
This manual edition is 1.63.EN, for Cinelerra CV version 2.3. You may redistribute it and/or
modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License, as published by the Free Software
Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This manual originates from "Secrets of Cinelerra", an excellent primer written by
Adam Williams from Heroine Virtual Ltd. In 2003 Alex Ferrer created a Wiki based
on that manual and added many screenshots and topic descriptions. At that time, Cinelerra
CV still did not have its own manual and information regarding the Community Version of
Cinelerra was scattered across the Internet (mailing-list, IRC, websites, wiki, etc). In 2006,
Nicolas Maufrais combined the original "Secrets of Cinelerra"with the contents from Alex
Ferrer’s Wiki into a unified document.
Cinelerra-CV documentation maintainers:
English: Nicolas Maufrais (coordinator), Raffaella Traniello (apprentice sorcerer)
Manual translators: French: Jean-Luc Coulon
Brazilian Portuguese: Flavio Soares (maintainer), Willie Marcel
Spanish: Alberto Ramallo, Gustavo I~niguez Goya (chapter 17 - Keyframes)
Basque: I~naki Larra~naga Murgoitio "Dooteo".
Other contributors: Alexandre Bourget, Kevin Brosius, Carlos Davila, Cillian de
Roiste, Rafael Diniz, Pierre Dumuid, Mike Edwards, Martin Ellison, Graham Evans, Alex
Ferrer, Scott Frase, Joe Friedrichsen, gour, Gus Gus, Terje Hanssen, Mikko Huhtala,
Ben Jorden, Nathan Kidd, Marcin Kostur, Joseph L., David McNab, Valentina Messeri,
Sean Pappalardo, Paolo Rampino, Herman Robak, Dana Rogers, Jim Scott, Andraz
Tori, Raffaella Traniello, Hermann Vosseler, Norval Watson.
Thanks to the GNU project team, and particularly to Karl Berry, maintainer of GNU
Texinfo, for the precious help he gave us during the elaboration of this manual.
The sources of the manuals are Texinfo files. They are in the same SVN repository as
Cinelerra’s source code (hvirtual/doc folder). They can be converted in many formats. The
doc/README en file contains instructions for building the manual in PDF, HTML (single
page) HTML (one page per chapter, in a folder), plain TXT, TXT in DokuWiki syntax (one file
per chapter, in a folder), Docbook.
A version of this manual for Cinelerra-CV is available online
http://cinelerra-cv.org/docs.php
If you would like to translate this manual in your language, see the doc/TRANSLATIONS
file and contact the Cinelerra-CV Community through the mailing list.
Note: This manual is intended to be duplex-printed. Therefore, it is normal in the PDF
manual for some even pages to be left blank.
1.4 Getting help
Help can be found at:
•IRC channel: #cinelerra on Freenode
•Mailing list: https://init.linpro.no/mailman/skolelinux.no/listinfo/cinelerra
•Cinelerra-CV website: http://cinelerra-cv.org
Chapter 1: Introduction 3
1.5 Tutorials
Some Cinelerra tutorials are available on the internet:
•Cinelerra Tutorial - Getting Started, by Rob Fisher
http://www.robfisher.net/video/cinelerra1.html
•Cinelerra video tutorials, by The Source - tutorials (talk and screencast) inside The Source
Show
http://www.thesourceshow.org/node/11
#1 is in Episode 6 "The Return Of The Pixel"from min 45 to min 60 (Introduction to
Cinelerra and non linear editing, the 4 windows interface, project attributes, loading files).
#2 is in Episode 1 "The Filesystem Menace"from min 32 to min 54 (Arming tracks, sample
zoom, selection boxes, two screen editing, cut and paste editing, adding and moving tracks,
drag and drop editing, trimming, transitions).
#3 is in Episode 2 "Attack Of The Elephants (Dream)"from min 45 to 1:12 (Keyframes,
camera and projector, masks, titles, effects).
•Edicion de video bajo GNU/Linux (Cinelerra), in Spanish, by Gustavo I~niguez Goya
http://kutxa.homeunix.org/cinelerra
•Guide d’utilisation de Cinelerra, in French
http://www.funix.org/fr/linux/cinelerra.htm
•Faire un montage video French tutorial for beginners on Cinelerra HV, by Laurent
Bellegarde
http://laurent.bellegarde.free.fr/lprod/tutoriels/tutoriel_cinelerra_niv1_
debutant.pdf
•Capturando e editando video usando Software Livre, in Portuguese, by Rafael Diniz
https://docs.indymedia.org/view/Sysadmin/Cinelerra
•Tutorial Cinelerra, in Portuguese, by Leo Germani
http://www.estudiolivre.org/tiki-index.php?page=Cinelerra
•Cinelerra is very easy, Introduction to Cinelerra, for beginners, by Paolo Rampino
http://project.akirad.net/node/12
1.6 HOWTOs
Some HOWTOs for specific needs are available on the internet:
•Beginner’s Guide to Exporting Video from Cinelerra, by Scott Frase
http://content.serveftp.net/video/renderTest/guideToCinExport.html
•Capturing desktop screens in Cinelerra, screencast by Scott Frase
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhaOgNQ0Bbc
•HOWTO use the Chromakey (HSV) plugin, by Jerome Cornet
http://jcornet.free.fr/linux/chromakey.html
•HOWTO make professional looking Scrolled Credits in Cinelerra, by David McNab
http://www.freenet.org.nz/misc/cintitles/
•Crear t ~
Atulos diferentes con Cinelerra in Spanish, by Gustavo I~niguez Goya - how to add
effects to titles. With downloadable sample projects.
http://kutxa.homeunix.org/bloga/2007/08/13/crear-titulos-diferentes-con-cinelerra/#more-246
•SimAV’s HOWTOs, by Simeon Volkel - How to create a picture in picture effect, How to
create overlays, How to change theme.
http://g-raffa.eu/SimAV/
•Tips for Transcoding Cinelerra Compatible Video with FFmpeg, MEncoder, by Alexander
Grundner
http://www.alexandergrundner.com/2007/07/19/tips-for-transcoding-cinelerra-compatible-video-with-ffmpeg-mencoder
4 Chapter 1: Introduction
•FFMPEG compatibility - HOWTO produce videos that can be played in common propri-
etary multimedia players
http://ffmpeg.mplayerhq.hu/compat.html
1.7 Miscellaneous links
Miscellaneous links:
•Interlacing
http://neuron2.net/LVG/interlacing.html
•What is Deinterlacing? Facts, solutions, examples
http://www.100fps.com
•MPEG-2 FAQ
http://bmrc.berkeley.edu/frame/research/mpeg/mpeg2faq.html
•"Exporting edited HD content back to the camcorder"(HDV related)
http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.php?t=76674
•A Quick Guide to Digital Video Resolution and Aspect Ratio Conversions
http://lipas.uwasa.fi/~f76998/video/conversion
•Colour specification and image coding
http://www.poynton.com/notes/colour_and_gamma/ColorFAQ.html
•DVD Video - about DVD structure
http://wlug.org.nz/DVDVideo
•Creating DVD videos on Linux and Unix - an excellent high level overview of DVD authoring
in general on Linux
http://womble.decadent.org.uk/talks/dvd-ukuug06/dvd-talk-ukuug06-paper.html
•lprod - Libre Production a French Wiki full of resources for Open Source video editing,
especially for Cinelerra HV (among them an Ubuntu package)
http://fr.lprod.org/wiki/doku.php
•Cinelerra CV Glossary for newbies
http://g-raffa.eu/Cinelerra/cin_glossary.html
Chapter 2: Installation 5
2 Installation
This is the general contents of all Cinelerra packages.
•Foreign language translations - These go into ‘/usr/share/locale’
•Cinelerra executable - This goes into ‘/usr/bin’
•Cinelerra plugins - These go into ‘/usr/lib/cinelerra’ in 32 bit systems and
‘/usr/lib64/cinelerra’ in 64 bit systems.
•soundtest - Utility for determining sound card buffer size.
•mplexlo - Multiplexing of MPEG elementary streams without standards conformance but
more efficiently.
•mpeg3cat - Utility for reading an MPEG file from a certain standard and outputting it to
stdout.
•mpeg3toc, mpeg3cat, mpeg3dump - Utilities for indexing and reading MPEG files.
•mpeg3peek - Utility for displaying the byte offset of a frame in an MPEG file.
2.1 Hardware requirements
Cinelerra is demanding on all PC subsystems, as reading, decoding and playing video can be
quite taxing. Thus, performance and usability of Cinelerra are directly proportional to the
video format (SVCD/DV/HDV/HD/etc) used and the CPU and I/O bus speeds and video and
memory bus architecture of your hardware. Therefore, it stands to reason that a less powerful
system will be sufficient for users working with audio only or lower resolution video formats.
However, that same system may slow down considerably when playing back a higher resolution
format, such as DV video. Effects and several tracks of audio will compound these problems.
Given these constraints, here are some suggestions for running Cinelerra:
•CPU speed
At least 500 MHz CPU speed, anything less would be useless. Dual-core and SMP processors
greatly improve Cinelerra speed.
•Memory
When working with video, a large amount of free memory available can help speed up
operations by avoiding unnecessary disk swaps and keeping material ready accessible. Have
at least 256 Megabytes of memory. To really use Cinelerra for higher resolution video
formats and larger projects, greater than 1 Gb memory space is suggested.
•Storage
Video editing can be quite I/O intensive. Storage requirements are based on your particular
video editing needs. If you expect to produce long pieces in uncompressed or larger resolu-
tion formats, you should have large (>200 Gb) and fast (<10ms) disk drives. For example,
DV uses about 3.5 Megs per second, or 12 Gigs per hour. For smaller projects you might
get away with 1 Gb. RAID0 (stripe set), RAID1+0 (striped/mirrored) or RAID5 (stripe
set with parity) will also speed playback
•Video adapters
Since version 2.1, Cinelerra benefits from OpenGL hardware acceleration. Make sure the
video card you use supports OpenGL 2.0 in order to benefit from that acceleration. Nvidia
series 7 (ie. 7600GS) are known to work well. Unfortunately, ATI’s Linux drivers do not
support a complete implementation of OpenGL 2.0. If you are going to send a composite
signal directly to a TV or video recorder, make sure your video card supports it.
•Multiple monitors
You can use XFree86’s Xinerama features to work on multiple monitor heads. This feature
can be a very effective way of increasing productivity.
6 Chapter 2: Installation
•TV-Out
If your Adapter supports a TV-Out option, connecting a TV or S-Video monitor to it is a
great way to view your material as it will be seen on TV screen.
•Video grabbers
If you have an analog video camera, or want to grab video from a trusty old VCR, you
need some sort of video grabber. Video grabbers are supported through Video4Linux in
Cinelerra.
•Firewire
Firewire is the fastest way to download material into your system. Unless you will be
importing your media from a CD, any other pre-captured format or use an analog video
grabber, you will need firewire on your system.
•DV cameras
There is an large variety of DV cameras that can be used with Cinelerra. Almost any camera
that can connect using firewire will work. Be sure to set the appropriate parameters on the
video grabbing system to match your particular camera. http://www.linux1394.org has
a complete listing of supported cameras.
2.2 Software requirements
To install Cinelerra you should have a current version of GNU/Linux with the X Window System
(e.g., X.org) and some audio management software properly running. You should also have the
following libraries installed (partial list):
•a52dec
•dv
•faac
•ffmpeg
•fftw
•lame
•libavc1394
•libfaad2
•libraw1394
•mjpegtools
•OpenEXR
•theora
•x264
You will also need the headers for all required libraries. For many distributions, this means
that you will need to install the "-dev"or "devel"packages that correspond to your installed
library packages. In addition to the libraries listed here, be sure you have the X library headers.
Missing headers will usually result in compilation failing with cryptic error messages.
2.3 Compiling Cinelerra CV
2.3.1 Usual compilation process
You can install Cinelerra CV by fetching the source code and compiling it. That is the method
to use if you want to compile the most up-to-date version of Cinelerra CV.
The source code of Cinelerra-CV is available from GIT repository. GIT is available for
download at https://git-scm.com/, but most likely your distribution has prebuilt packages.
Complete documentation of subversion is available at https://git-scm.com/doc.
Chapter 2: Installation 7
1. First you have to fetch Cinelerra CV’s sources from the GIT repository (approximately
120Mb for a read-only checkout). Run the following command:
git clone git://git.cinelerra-cv.org/CinelerraCV.git cinelerra-cv
The git command above will create in your current working directory a directory cinelerra-cv
that contains the sources.
2. Go to the cinelerra-cv directory:
cd cinelerra-cv
3. Create the ‘./configure’ file by running:
autoreconf -i --force
4. Then run the ‘.configure’ file:
./configure
This option makes the revision number to be shown in the About tab of the Preferences
window. You can have a look at all the other options available by running:
./configure --help
Most of the missing dependencies should be listed after running.
5. And run make:
make
If you wish to log the make output in order to search for errors, this command can be used:
make 2>&1 | tee logfile
6. Install Cinelerra CV:
sudo make install
7. Finally run as root (for first time compilation only):
ldconfig
Notes:
•SMP machine:
If you compile Cinelerra CV on a multiprocessor machine (SMP), we recommend you to
add the ‘-j 3’ option to make in order to benefit from the available CPUs.
•For x86 CPUs only:
You probably want to enable MMX support. To do that, run ./configure with the
‘--enable-mmx32’ option. If you do that, you may have to use the ‘--without-pic’ option
too, otherwise, compilation may fail.
•For Pentium-M:
Here are some useful compiler flags:
./configure --prefix=/usr --enable-x86 --enable-mmx32 --enable-freetype2
--with-buildinfo=svn/recompile CFLAGS=’-O3 -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer
-funroll-all-loops -falign-loops=2 -falign-jumps=2 -falign-functions=2
-ffast-math -march=pentium-m -mfpmath=sse,387 -mmmx -msse’
•For 64bits:
As root, run:
./autogen.sh
./configure
Replace ‘-prefer-non-pic’ with ‘-fPIC \’ in your
‘quicktime/ffmpeg/libavcodec/i386/Makefile.am’ file.
make
make install
•Updating the source code:
If you already fetched the sources of an out of date revision, you can update to the latest
revision by running:
8 Chapter 2: Installation
git checkout master
•Installing old revisions:
If you wish to fetch an old revision, run:
git checkout <revision>
•Installing several revisions:
If you wish to install several revisions of Cinelerra CV on your computer, create a
‘/usr/local_cinelerra’ folder, and use the following options with ./configure (replace
‘xxx’ by the number of the revision you are compiling):
‘--prefix=/usr/local_cinelerra/rxxx --exec-prefix=/usr/local_cinelerra/rxxx
--program-suffix=_rxxx’
You will have to run Cinelerra CV from the directory in which it is installed:
cd /usr/local_cinelerra/rxxx
./cinelerra_rxxx
If you install Cinelerra using this method, the translated ‘.po’ files do not get installed
correctly. If you want to run Cinelerra in another language, See Section 3.1 [Environment
variables], page 13, for specific instructions.
•Automake version:
You need automake version 1.7 to build. 1.4 will not work. Autoconf 2.57 is also required
to build.
2.3.2 Compiling with debugging symbols
When Cinelerra CV crashes, one can compile it with debugging symbols and run it inside gdb.
The information displayed by gdb is far more detailed and will help CV developers find bugs
faster.
First, fetch the GIT sources as usual. Then, run the following commands:
cd cinelerra-cv
nice -19 autoreconf -i --force
mkdir ../cvdbg
cd ../cvdbg
nice -19 ../cinelerra-cv/configure CXXFLAGS=’-O0 -g’ CFLAGS=’-O0 -g’
cd quicktime/ffmpeg
nice -19 make CFLAGS=’-O3’
cd ../..
nice -19 make
nice -19 make install
See Section 22.1 [Reporting bugs], page 169, for information about running Cinelerra inside
gdb.
2.4 Running Cinelerra
The simplest way to run Cinelerra is by running /usr/bin/cinelerra
Command line options are also available by typing cinelerra -h These options are described in
several sections below. For rendering from the command line See Chapter 20 [Rendering files],
page 139.
If you get this error message when running Cinelerra for the first time:
WARNING:/proc/sys/kernel/shmmax is 0x2000000, which is too low
See Section 21.9.3 [Freeing more shared memory], page 159, for details.
Chapter 2: Installation 9
2.5 Live CDs
You can try and use Cinelerra on a computer without having to install it on your system. This is
possible by using Live CDs, that are GNU/Linux distributions which boot from a CD, without
installation on a hard drive. Here are some of the Live CD’s known to contain Cinelerra:
•Apodio - Based on Xubuntu 14.04. A GNU/Linux operating system containing audio,
text-friendly, graphic and video tools - http://www.apodio.org
•ArtistX - Debian based live CD, Gnome or KDE. For multimedia productions -
http://sourceforge.net/projects/archiveos/files/artistx/
•AVLinux - 32bit+PAE OS, designed to turn a regular old PC or Intel Mac into an Au-
dio/Graphics/Video workstation - http://www.bandshed.net/avlinux/
•Elive - Debian based live CD using Enlightenment window manager: This uses the upstream
version HV, not CV - http://www.elivecd.org
•Musix - Knoppix based live CD for audio production, graphic design and video editing:
This uses the upstream version HV, not CV - http://musix.org.ar
2.6 Arch Linux
Cinelerra CV is included in the Arch Linux community repository.
To install the cinelerra package enable the community repository first (See
http://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/AUR_User_Guidelines for more info).
Then run the following command from the command line:
pacman -Sy cinelerra-cv
2.7 Debian
2.7.1 Debian binaries
Debian packages are available through Deb Multimedia: https://www.deb-multimedia.org/
Stable (Jessie) comes with Cinelerra-CV 2.2, Testing (Stretch) and Unstable (Sid) already
have the latest version 2.3.
2.7.2 Debian prerequisites
Standard development packages
These are packages which might be considered "standard"development pacakges. The
chances are, though, that you wouldn’t have them installed by default, so you will probably
need them:
•libtool
•nasm
•x11proto-xf86vidmode-dev - needed if you get error: X11/extensions/xf86vmode.h: No
such file or directory
•libxv-dev - needed if you get error: X11/extensions/Xvlib.h: No such file or
directory
•libxxf86vm-dev - needed if you get /usr/bin/ld: cannot find -lXxf86vm
Extra Debian packages
These are development packages which are "non-standard", and you’ll almost certainly have
to install them if you want to compile Cinelerra:
•libogg-dev
•libvorbis-dev
10 Chapter 2: Installation
•libtheora-dev
•libopenexr-dev
•libdv-dev
•libpng-dev
•libjpeg62-dev
•libtiff4-dev
•libfreetype6-dev
•libfaad-dev
•libsndfile1-dev
•uuid-dev
Some packages which may or may not be required:
•libavutil-dev
•libmpeg3-dev
•libavcodec-dev
External packages
You need some prerequisites which are not found in Debian’s official repositories. You should
add in your ‘/etc/apt/sources.list’ the following line, which is Christian Marillat’s reposi-
tory:
deb http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ sid main
You will need to apt-get install the following packages:
•libx264-dev
•libfaac-dev
2.8 Ubuntu
2.8.1 Instructions for Ubuntu packages installation
Chose a repository from the ones above according to your release and CPU type and install the
package. Here are 3 ways of doing that:
With Synaptic Package Manager (recommended):
Open the Software Sources Window. You can do it in two ways:
•Go to System ->Administraton ->Software Sources
•Inside Synaptic Package Manager: Go to Settings ->Repositories.
Make sure you have universe, multiverse and restricted sources checked in the first tab.
Click on tab Third Party. Click on the Add button and enter:
ppa:cinelerra-ppa/ppa
Clicking Add Source will display the new repository enabled in the Software Sources window.
You should now see Cinelerra in the list of packages available in Synaptic.
Follow Synaptic instructions for installation.
With the command line:
Edit directly your ‘/etc/apt/sources.list’ file.
Make sure you have universe, multiverse and restricted sources enabled by checking you have
Chapter 2: Installation 11
the following line uncommented:
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/cinelerra-ppa/ppa/ubuntu <RELEASE> main
where <RELEASE>is your installed version of Ubuntu (precise, trusty, xenial, etc).
Add the complete APT line of your chosen repository.
Install Cinelerra by typing in your terminal:
apt-get update
and then
apt-get install cinelerra
HOWTOs for package installation or compilation from source code
Compilation from source code on Ubuntu (for beginners):
http://www.g-raffa.eu/Cinelerra/HOWTO/compilation.html
2.9 Gentoo
Installation for Gentoo GNU/Linux is very straight forward. Simply type:
emerge cinelerra
as root and it should install and run without any problems. Note that you may need to put
cinelerra in your ‘/etc/portage/package.keywords’ file in order to unmask it:
echo "=media-video/cinelerra ~x86" >> /etc/portage/package.keywords
See https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/Handbook:X86/Working/Portage for details. If you are
running on an architecture other than x86 e.g. amd64, you will need to replace ~x86 with the
relevant architecture e.g. ~amd64.
You may also want to adjust the USE flags. First run:
emerge -av cinelerra
to see what flags are available and then add the relevant ones to
‘/etc/portage/package.use’:
echo "media-video/cinelerra ieee1394" >> /etc/portage/package.use
This would enable support for firewire devices.
2.10 Fedora
Cinelerra-CV is not available in Fedora by default. It’s also not in the RPM Fu-
sion repository. The ATrpms repository offers the old version 2.1 for Fedora 20:
http://packages.atrpms.net/name/cinelerra/
If you want to compile CinelerraCV from source you can find detailed instructions here:
•Build Cinelerra-CV for Fedora 22 under Docker: http://blog.rabin.io/447/building-cinelerracv-for-fedora-22-under-docker
•Build Cinelerra-CV for Fedora 15, x86-64: http://crazedmuleproductions.blogspot.com/2011/05/fedora-15-cinelerra-install-works.html
2.11 Mandriva
CinelerraCV 2.2 is officially available in OpenMandriva 2014.2. Make sure restricted packages
are activated in the control center. Note: cinelerra doesn’t appear in the "programs with GUI"
list. You have to show the complete list to install it.
12 Chapter 2: Installation
2.12 Slackware
You can find prebuilt Cinelerra-CV packages at the following locations:
•Slackonly packages (recommended, because it uses SBo SlackBuilds):
http://packages.slackonly.com/pub/packages/
•Ponce’s repository: http://ponce.cc/slackware/sources/repo/
•Studioware packages: http://studioware.org/packages
•If you want to build CinelerraCV from scratch, SlackBuilds are available at the usual place:
http://slackbuilds.org/repository/14.1/multimedia/cinelerra/
2.13 OpenSUSE
RPMs for openSUSE are in the Packman repositories: http://packman.links2linux.org/package/cinelerra-cv
You can install directly with Yast if you have Packman configured as a Yast install source.
2.14 Manjaro
Cinelerra-CV can be installed through the Octopi package manager. Install the following pack-
ages:
•libquicktime
•mjpegtools
•cinelerra-cv
2.15 ROSA Linux
Packages for Cinelerra-CV are available in the Restricted Updates Repository:
•i586:http://mirror.rosalab.ru/rosa/red/repository/i586/restricted/updates/
•x86 64:http://mirror.rosalab.ru/rosa/red/repository/x86_
64/restricted/updates/
To install Cinelerra-CV in ROSA Linux, enable ROSA Restricted Updates repository on
"Install and Remove Software".
Update packages list:
urpmi.update -a
Install cinelerra-cv rpm package:
urpmi cinelerra-cv
Chapter 3: Configuration 13
3 Configuration
Because of its flexibility, Cinelerra cannot be optimized without special configuration for your
specific needs. Unfortunately, very few parameters are adjustable at compile time. Therefore,
runtime configuration is the only option for most users because of the multitude of parameters
available.
Below are configuration options as well as the supported API’s in GNU/Linux.
In Cinelerra, go to settings->preferences to see the options.
3.1 Environment variables
In UNIX derivatives, environment variables are global variables in the shell which all applications
can read. They are set with a command like set VARIABLE=value. All the environment vari-
ables can be viewed with a command like env. Cinelerra recognizes the following environment
variables:
•LADSPA PATH
If you want to use LADSPA plugins, this must be defined: a colon separated list of directories
to search for LADSPA plugins. These are not native Cinelerra plugins. See Chapter 16
[Ladspa effects], page 125.
•GLOBAL PLUGIN DIR
The directory in which Cinelerra should look for native plugins. The default is
‘/usr/lib/cinelerra’ but you may need an alternate directory if you share the same
executable directory among many machines via NFS. Plugins of different binary formats
need to be in different directories.
•LANG and LANGUAGE
Cinelerra can be localized to display menus and messages in many languages. Cinelerra lan-
guage settings are normally read from your GNU/Linux language settings. To run Cinelerra
on a language different than the one selected on your system just change the LANG and
LANGUAGE environment variables.
For example, open a shell and type: export LANG=es_ES LANGUAGE=es_ES, then run
cinelerra from the same shell. It will open set on the Spanish language.
Available languages are:
•en EN - English
•es ES - Espanol
•sl SI - Slovenian
•fr FR - Francais
•eu ES - Euskera
•de DE - German
•pt BR - Brazilian Portuguese
•it IT - Italian
If your distribution has only UTF-8 support (like Ubuntu), first you must create the
language charset with this command:
localedef -c -i (language_prefix) -f (your ISO-8859 variant) (language_
prefix).(your ISO-8859 variant)
This is an example for Italian language:
localedef -c -i it_IT -f ISO-8859-15 it_IT.ISO-8859-15
Then you can run cinelerra with this command:
env LANG=$(echo $LANG | sed -e s/UTF-8/(your ISO-8859 variant)/g) cinelerra
This is an example for Italian language:
env LANG=$(echo $LANG | sed -e s/UTF-8/ISO-8859-15/g) cinelerra
14 Chapter 3: Configuration
In some cases (e.g. if you compiled Cinelerra specifying a ‘--prefix=’ option different
from ‘/usr/local’) the translated .po files are not installed. If you can’t run Cinelerra in
your chosen language, try running the following commands before changing the LANG and
LANGUAGE environment variables:
cd hvirtual
./configure prefix=/usr
cd po
sudo make install
3.2 Audio drivers
The audio drivers are used for both recording and playback. Their functionality is described
below:
3.2.1 Sound driver attributes
•Device path
Usually a file in the ‘/dev/’ directory which controls the device.
•Bits
The number of bits of precision Cinelerra should set the device for. This sometimes has a
figurative meaning. Some sound drivers need to be set to 32 bits to perform 24 bit playback
and will not play anything when set to 24 bits. Some sound drivers need to be set to 24
bits for 24 bit playback.
•Port
The IEEE1394 standard specifies something known as the port. This is probably the firewire
card number.
•Channel
The IEEE1394 standard specifies something known as the channel. For DV cameras it is
always 63.
•Device
The chosen device.
•Stop playback locks up
This ALSA only checkbox is needed if stopping playback causes the software to lock up.
3.2.2 OSS
This was the first GNU/Linux sound driver. It had an open source implementation and a
commercial implementation with more sound cards supported. It was the standard sound driver
up to GNU/Linux 2.4. It still is the only sound driver which an i386 binary can use when
running on an x86 64 system.
3.2.3 OSS Envy24
The commercial version of OSS had a variant for 24 bit 96 KHz soundcards. This variant
required significant changes to the way the sound drivers were used, hence the need for the new
driver.
3.2.4 Alsa
ALSA is the most common sound driver in GNU/Linux 2.6. It supports most of soundcards now.
It takes advantage of low latency features in GNU/Linux 2.6 to get better performance than
OSS had in 2.4, but roughly the same performance that OSS had in 2.0. Unfortunately ALSA
is constantly changing. A program which works with it one day may not the next day. New
wrappers are being developed on top of ALSA. We plan to support them at regular intervals,
Chapter 3: Configuration 15
though not at every new release of a new wrapper.
ALSA is no longer portable between i386 and x86 64. If an i386 binary tries to play back on an
x86 64 kernel, it will crash. For this scenario, use OSS.
3.2.5 Esound
ESOUND was a sound server that sat on top of OSS. It was written for a window manager
called Enlightenment. It supports a limited number of bits and has high latency compared to
more modern drivers, but it does have the ability to multiplex multiple audio sources. It is
unknown whether it still works.
3.2.6 Raw 1394
The was the first interface between GNU/Linux software and firewire camcorders. It is the
least reliable way to play audio to a camcorder and consists of a library on top of the kernel
commands.
3.2.7 DV 1394
This is the second rewrite of DV camcorder support in GNU/Linux. This is the most reliable
way to play audio to a camcorder and consists of direct kernel commands.
3.2.8 IEC 61883
The third rewrite of DV camcorder support in GNU/Linux. This is a library on top of RAW
1394 which is a library on top of the kernel commands. It is less reliable than DV 1394 but more
reliable than RAW 1394. The next rewrite ought to fix that. Visit http://www.linux1394.org
for more information and the latest drivers.
3.3 Video drivers
The video drivers are used for video playback in the compositor and the viewer.
3.3.1 Video driver attributes
•Display
The interface is intended for dual monitor displays. Depending on the value of Display, the
Compositor window will appear on a different monitor from the rest of the windows.
•Device path
Usually a file in the ‘/dev/’ directory which controls the device.
•Swap fields
Make the even lines odd and the odd lines even when sending to the device. On an NTSC
or 1080i monitor the fields may need to be swapped to prevent jittery motion.
•Output channel
You may need a specific connector to send video out to devices with multiple outputs.
•Port
The IEEE1394 standard specifies something known as the port. This is probably the firewire
card number.
•Channel
The IEEE1394 standard specifies something known as the channel. For DV cameras it is
always 63.
3.3.2 X11
This was the first method of graphical display on any UNIX system. It just writes the RGB
triplet for each pixel directly to the window. It is the slowest playback method. It is still useful
as a fallback when graphics hardware can not handle very large frames.
16 Chapter 3: Configuration
3.3.3 X11-XV
This was an enhancement to X11 in 1999. It converts YUV to RGB in hardware with scaling.
It is the preferred playback method but can not handle large frame sizes. The maximum video
size for XV is usually 1920x1080.
3.3.4 X11-OpenGL
The most powerful video playback method is OpenGL. With this driver, most effects are done
in hardware. OpenGL allows video sizes up to the maximum texture size, which is usually larger
than what XV supports, depending on the graphics driver. To enable it you will need a binary
built with OpenGL support. The configure option to enable OpenGL is ‘--enable-opengl’.
You need a video card which supports OpenGL 2.0. Recent Nvidia video cards should work.
You also need to use a video driver supporting OpenGL 2.0, such as Nvidia’s binary driver. To
know if your video driver supports OpenGL 2.0, type the following command: glxinfo | grep
"OpenGL version"
•Video driver supporting hardware OpenGL 2.0 rendering:
OpenGL version string: 2.0.2 NVIDIA 87.74
•Video driver not supporting hardware OpenGL 2.0 rendering:
OpenGL version string: 1.4 (2.0.2 NVIDIA 87.74)
OpenGL relies on PBuffers and shaders to do video rendering. The graphics driver must
support OpenGL 2.0 and Cinelerra needs to be explicitly compiled with OpenGL 2.0 support.
This requires compiling it on a system with the OpenGL 2.0 headers. PBuffers are known to
be fickle. If the graphics card does not have enough memory or does not have the right visuals,
PBuffers will not work. If OpenGL does not work, try seeking several frames or restarting
Cinelerra.
Limitations:
•OpenGL does not affect rendering. It just accelerates playback.
•X11-OpenGL processes everything in 8 bit color models, although the difference between
YUV and RGB is retained.
•OpenGL does not work with frames whose size is larger than 4096x4096.
Here is what is written in the console when working with large frames:
BC_Texture::create_texture frame size <frame_width>x<frame_height> bigger
than maximum texture 4096x4096.
•The scaling equation set in the preferences window is ignored by OpenGL. OpenGL always
uses linear scaling.
•Project and track sizes need to be multiples of four for OpenGL to work.
•To get the most acceleration, OpenGL-enabled effects must be placed after software-only
effects. All rendering before the last software-only effect is done in software. The core
Cinelerra operations like camera and projector are OpenGL.
•Not all of the effects support OpenGL acceleration. The following effects support OpenGL:
Brightness, Chromakey, Chromakeyhsv, Color balance, Deinterlace, Diffkey, Dissolve, Flip,
Frames to fields, Freeze frame, Gamma, Gradient, Histogram, Hue saturation, Interpolate
Pixels, Invert video, Linear blur, Overlay, Perspective, Radial blur, RGB601, Rotate, Scale,
Threshold, Zoomblur.
3.3.5 Buz
This is a method for playing motion JPEG-A files directly to a composite analog signal. It uses
a popular hack of the Video4Linux 1 driver from 2000 to decompress JPEG in hardware. Even
though analog output is largely obsolete, newer drivers have replaced BUZ.
Chapter 3: Configuration 17
3.3.6 Raw 1394 video playback
This was the first interface between GNU/Linux software and firewire camcorders. It is the
least reliable way to play video to a camcorder and it consists of a library on top of the kernel
commands.
3.3.7 DV 1394 video playback
The second rewrite of DV camcorder support in GNU/Linux. This was the most reliable way
to play video to a camcorder and consists of direct kernel commands.
3.3.8 IEC 61883 video playback
The third rewrite of DV camcorder support in GNU/Linux. This is a library on top of RAW
1394 and is less reliable than DV 1394 but more reliable than RAW 1394. The next rewrite
ought to fix that. Visit http://www.linux1394.org for more information and the latest drivers.
3.4 Playback
3.4.1 Audio out
These determine what happens when you play sound from the timeline.
•Playback buffer size
For playing audio, small fragments of sound are read from disk and processed sequentially
in a virtual console. A larger value here causes more latency when you change mixing
parameters but yields more reliable playback.
Some sound drivers do not allow changing of the console fragment, so latency is unchanged
no matter what the value.
Previously, a good way of ensuring high quality playback was to read bigger fragments from
the disk and break them into smaller fragments for the soundcard. That changed when
the virtual console moved from the push model to the pull model. Since different stages
of the rendering pipeline can change the rate of the incoming data, it would be difficult to
disconnect the size of the console fragments from the size of the fragments read from disk.
•Audio offset
The ability to tell the exact playback position on GNU/Linux sound drivers is poor, if it
is provided at all. Since this information is required for proper video synchronization, it
has to be accurate. The audio offset allows users to adjust the position returned by the
sound driver in order to reflect reality. The audio offset does not affect the audio playback
or rendering at all. It merely changes the synchronization of video playback.
The easiest way to set the audio offset is to create a timeline with one video track and one
audio track. Expand the audio track and center the audio pan. The frame rate should be
larger than 24 fps and the sampling rate should be greater than 32000. The frame size
should be small enough for your computer to render it at the full frame rate. Highlight a
region of the timeline starting at 10 seconds and ending at 20 seconds. Drop a gradient
effect on the video track and configure it to be clearly visible. Drop a synthesizer effect on
the audio and configure it to be clearly audible.
Play the timeline from 0 and watch to see if the gradient effect starts exactly when the
audio starts. If it does not, expand the audio track and adjust the nudge. If the audio
starts ahead of the video, decrease the nudge value. If the audio starts after the video,
increase the nudge value. Once the tracks play back synchronized, copy the nudge value to
the audio offset value in preferences.
Note: if you change sound drivers or you change the value of Use software for positioning
information, you will need to change the audio offset because different sound drivers are
unequally inaccurate.
18 Chapter 3: Configuration
•View follows playback
This causes the timeline window to scroll when the playback cursor moves. This can bog
down the X Server or cause the timeline window to lock up for long periods of time while
drawing the assets.
•Use software for positioning information
Most soundcards and sound drivers do not give reliable information on the number of
samples the card has played. You need this information for synchronization when playing
back video. This option causes the sound driver to be ignored and a software timer to be
used for synchronization.
•Audio playback in realtime
Back in the days when 150 MHz was the maximum speed for a personal computer, this
setting allowed uninterrupted playback during periods of heavy load. It forces the audio
playback to the highest priority in the kernel. Today, it is most useful for achieving very low
latency between console tweaks and soundcard output. You must be root to get real-time
priority.
•Audio driver
There are many sound drivers for GNU/Linux. This allows selecting one sound driver and
setting parameters specific to it. The sound drivers and their parameters are described in
the sound driver section. See Section 3.2 [Audio drivers], page 14.
3.4.2 Video out
These determine how video gets from the timeline to your eyes.
•Play every frame
This causes every frame of video to be displayed even if it means that the playback of
the video track(s) will fall behind. This option should always be enabled unless you use
uncompressed codecs. As of 1/2007, most compressed codecs do not support frame dropping
anymore.
•Framerate achieved
The number of frames per second being displayed during playback. This is updated during
playback only.
•Decode frames asynchronously
If you have lots of memory and more than one CPU, this option can improve playback
performance by decoding video on one CPU as fast as possible while dedicating the other
CPU to playing back video. It assumes all playback operations are forward and no frames are
dropped. Operations involving reverse playback or frame dropping are negatively impacted.
Since this option requires enormous amounts of memory, Cinelerra may crash if the input
frames are very large.
•Scaling equation
This algorithm is used when video playback involves any kind of scaling or translation in
the virtual console. This does not affect 1:1 playback.
•Nearest neighbor enlarge and reduce
Low quality output with fast playback. Produces jagged edges and uneven motion.
•Bicubic enlarge and bilinear reduce
High quality output with slow playback. Bicubic interpolation is used for enlarging,
which blurs slightly but does not show stair step artifacts. A bilinear interpolation is
used for reduction, which produces very sharp images and reduces noise. Bilinearly
reduced images can be sharpened with a sharpen effect with less noise side effects than
a normal sized image.
Chapter 3: Configuration 19
•Bilinear enlarge and bilinear reduce
When slight enlargement is needed, a bilinear enlargement looks better than a bicubic
enlargement.
•Preload buffer for Quicktime
The Quicktime/AVI decoder can handle DVD sources better when this is set to around
10000000. This reduces the amount of seeking required. When reading high bitrate sources
from a hard drive, this tends to impair performance by slowing down decoding. For normal
use this should be 0.
•DVD subtitle to display
DVD IFO files usually contain subtitle tracks. These must be decoded with the MPEG
decoder. Select Enable subtitles to enable subtitle decoding. There are usually multiple
subtitle tracks indexed by number and starting from 0. Enter the index number of the
subtitle track to be decoded in the "DVD Subtitle to display"text box or use the tumbler
to increase the index value. Go to the asset corresponding to the MPEG file in the Resources
window and right click. Click on Info. The number of subtitle tracks is shown at the bottom.
•Interpolate CR2 images
Enables interpolation of CR2 images. Interpolation is required since the raw image in a
CR2 file is a Bayer pattern. The interpolation uses dcraw’s built-in interpolation and is
very slow. This operation can be disabled and the Interpolate Pixels effect used instead for
faster previewing.
•White balance CR2 images
This enables white balancing for CR2 images if interpolation is also enabled. This is because
proper white balancing needs a blending of all 3 primary colors. White balance uses the
camera’s matrix which is contained in the CR2 file.
Disabling white balancing is useful for operations involving dark frame subtraction. The
dark frame and the long exposure need to have the same color matrix.
If you disable Interpolate CR2 Images and use the Interpolate Pixels effect, be aware
the Interpolate Pixels effect always does both interpolation and white balancing using the
camera’s matrix, regardless of the settings in Preferences. Dark frame subtraction needs to
be performed before Interpolate Pixels.
•Video driver
Normally video on the timeline goes to the compositor window during both continuous
playback and when the insertion point is repositioned. Instead of sending video to the
Compositor window, the video driver can be set to send video to another output device
during continuous playback. However, this does not affect where video is routed when the
insertion point is repositioned.
The video drivers and their parameters are described in the video drivers section. See
Section 3.3 [Video drivers], page 15.
3.5 Recording
The parameters here expedite the File->Record... function by allowing the user to pre-configure
the file format. The file format is applied to all recordings. Also set here is the hardware for
recording, since the hardware determines the supported file format (in most cases).
3.5.1 File format
This determines the output file format for recordings. It depends heavily on the type of driver
used. The menu selections are the same as the rendering interface. See See Chapter 20 [Ren-
dering files], page 139. The Record audio tracks toggle must be enabled to record audio. The
Record video tracks toggle must be enabled to record video. The wrench button left of each
toggle opens a configuration dialog in order to set the compression scheme (codec) for each audio
20 Chapter 3: Configuration
and video output stream. The audio and video is wrapped in a container format defined by the
File Format menu. Different wrappers may record audio only, video only, or both.
Some video drivers can only record to a certain container. DV, for example, can only record
to Quicktime with DV as the video compression scheme. If the video driver is changed, the
file format may be updated to give the supported output. If you change the file format to an
unsupported format, it may not work with the video driver.
3.5.2 Audio in
These determine what happens when you record audio.
•Record driver
This is used for recording audio in the Record window. It may be configured the same
as the Record Driver for video if the audio and video are wrapped in the same stream.
Available parameters vary depending on the driver. Note that the drivers are the same as
those available in Preferences->Playback. See Section 3.2 [Audio drivers], page 14.
•Samples to write to disk at a time
First, audio is read in small fragments from the device. Then, many small fragments are
combined into a large fragment before writing to disk. The disk writing process is done in
a different thread. The value here determines how large the combination of fragments is for
each disk write.
•Sample rate for recording
Regardless of what the project settings are, the value set here will be the sample rate used
for recording. The sample rate should be set to the highest value the audio device supports.
3.5.3 Video in
These determine what happens when you record video.
•Record driver
This is used for recording video in the Record window. It may be configured the same
as the Record Driver for video if the audio and video are wrapped in the same container.
Available parameters vary depending on the driver. Note that the drivers available are the
as those available in Preferences->Playback. See Section 3.3 [Video drivers], page 15.
•Frames to record to disk at a time
Frames are recorded in a pipeline. First, frames are buffered in the device. Then, they are
read into a larger buffer for writing to disk. The disk writing is done in a separate thread
from the device reading. For certain codecs the disk writing uses multiple processors. The
value set here determines how many frames are written to disk at a time.
•Frames to buffer in device
This is the number of frames to store in the device before reading and determines how much
latency there can be in the system before frames are dropped.
•Use software for positioning information
Video uses audio for synchronization, but most soundcards do not give accurate position
information. Selecting this options makes Cinelerra calculate an estimation of audio position
in software instead of hardware for synchronization.
•Sync drives automatically
For high bitrate recording, the disk drives you use may be fast enough to store the data
but your operating system may wait several minutes and stall as it writes several minutes
of data at a time. This forces the operating system to flush its buffers every second instead
of every few minutes to produce slightly better real-time behavior.
•Size of captured frame
This is the size of the recorded frames in pixels. It is independent of the project frame size
Chapter 3: Configuration 21
because most video devices only record a fixed frame size. If the frame size given here is
not supported by the device, Cinelerra may crash.
•Frame rate for recording
The frame rate recorded is different from the project settings. This sets the recorded frame
rate.
3.6 Performance
You will spend most of your time configuring this section. The main focus of the performance
section is rendering parameters not available in the rendering dialog.
•Cache items
To speed up rendering, several assets are kept open simultaneously. This determines how
many are kept open. A number too large may exhaust your memory pretty fast and result
in a crash. A number too small may result in slow playback as assets need to be reopened
more frequently.
•Seconds to preroll renders
Some effects need a certain amount of time to settle in. Checking this option sets a number of
seconds to render without writing to disk before the selected region is rendered. When using
the renderfarm, you will sometimes need to preroll to get seemless transitions between the
jobs. Every job in a renderfarm is prerolled by this value. This does not affect background
rendering, however. Background rendering uses a different preroll value.
•Force single processor use
Cinelerra tries to use all processors on the system by default, but sometimes you will only
want to use one processor, like in a renderfarm client. This forces only one processor to be
used. In addition, the operating system usually uses the second processor for disk access.
So this option is really a 1.25 processor mode. The value of this parameter is used in
renderfarm clients.
3.6.1 Background rendering
Background rendering was originally conceived to allow HDTV effects to be displayed in real-
time. Background rendering causes temporary output to be rendered constantly while the time-
line is being modified. The temporary output is displayed during playback whenever possible.
This is useful for transitions and previewing effects that are too slow to display in real time. If
a renderfarm is enabled, the renderfarm is used for background rendering. This gives you the
potential for real-time effects if enough network bandwidth and CPU nodes exist.
Background rendering is enabled in the Performance tab of the Preferences window. It has
one interactive function Settings menu ->Set background render. This sets the point where
background rendering starts up to the position of the insertion point. If any video exists, a red
bar appears in the time ruler showing what has been background rendered.
It is often useful to insert an effect or a transition and then select Settings menu ->Set
background render right before the effect to preview it in real time and full frame rates.
•Frames per background rendering job
This only works if a renderfarm is being used; otherwise, background rendering creates a
single job for the entire timeline. The number of frames specified here is scaled to the
relative CPU speed of rendering nodes and used in a single renderfarm job. The optimum
number is 10 - 30 since network bandwidth is used to initialize each job.
•Frames to preroll background
This is the number of frames to render ahead of each background rendering job. Background
rendering is degraded when preroll is used since the jobs are small. When using background
rendering, this number is ideally 0. Some effects may require 3 frames of preroll.
22 Chapter 3: Configuration
•Output for background rendering
Background rendering generates a sequence of image files in a certain directory. This pa-
rameter determines the filename prefix of the image files. It should be on a fast disk,
accessible to every node in the renderfarm by the same path. Since hundreds of thousands
of image files are usually created, ls commands will not work in the background rendering
directory. The browse button for this option normally will not work either, but the
configuration button for this option works.
•File format
The file format for background rendering has to be a sequence of images. The format of
the image sequences determines the quality and speed of playback. JPEG is good most of
the time.
3.6.2 Renderfarm
To use the renderfarm, set these options. Ignore them for a standalone system
•Use render farm for rendering
When selected, all the file->render operations use the renderfarm.
•Nodes
Displays all the nodes on the renderfarm and shows which ones are active. Nodes are
added by entering the host name of the node, verifying the value of port and selecting
add node. If you have hundreds of nodes, experienced users may be better off editing the
‘~/.bcast/.Cinelerra_rc’ file rather than using configuration dialog. Remember that
‘.Cinelerra_rc’ is overwritten whenever a copy of Cinelerra exits.
Once nodes are created, select the ON column to activate and deactivate nodes. Nodes may
be edited by highlighting a row and hitting apply changes.
•Hostname
Edit the hostname of an existing node or enter the hostname of a new node here.
•Port
Edit the port number of an existing node or enter the port number of a new node here.
•Apply changes
When editing an existing node, select this to commit the changes to hostname and port.
The changes will not be committed if you do not click this button.
•Add node
Create a new node with the hostname and port settings.
•Delete node
Deletes whatever node is highlighted in the nodes list.
•Sort nodes
Sorts the nodes list based on the hostname.
•Reset rates
This sets the framerate for all the nodes to 0. Frame rates are used to scale job sizes based
on CPU speed of the node. Frame rates are calculated only when renderfarm is enabled.
•Total jobs to create
Determines the number of jobs to dispatch to the renderfarm. The more jobs you create,
the more finely balanced the renderfarm becomes.
You can determine the total jobs to create by multiplying the number of nodes including
the master node by some number. Multiply them by 1 to have one job dispatched for every
node. Multiply them by 3 to have 3 jobs dispatched for every node. If you have 10 slave
nodes and one master node, specify 33 to have a well balanced renderfarm.
Chapter 3: Configuration 23
3.7 Interface
These parameters affect purely how the user interface works.
•Time format
Various representations of time are given. Select the most convenient one. The time repre-
sentation can also be changed by CTRL clicking on the timebar.
•Index files go here
Back in the days when 4 MB/sec was extremely fast for a hard drive, index files were
introduced to speed up drawing the audio tracks. This option determines where index files
are placed on the hard drive.
•Size of index file
This determines the size of an index file. Larger index sizes allow smaller files to be drawn
faster, while slowing down the drawing of large files. Smaller index sizes allow large files to
be drawn faster, while slowing down small files.
•Number of index files to keep
To keep the index directory from becoming unruly, old index files are deleted. This deter-
mines the maximum number of index files to keep in the directory.
•Delete existing indexes
When you change the index size or you want to clean out excess index files, this deletes all
the index files.
•Use thumbnails
The Resource Window displays thumbnails of assets by default. Drawing asset thumbnails
can take a while. This option disables thumbnail drawing.
•Dragging edit boundaries does what
Cinelerra not only allows you to perform editing by dragging edit boundaries, but also
defines three separate operations that occur when you drag an edit boundary. Here you can
select the behavior of each mouse button. The usage of each editing mode is described in
the editing chapter. See Section 7.10 [Trimming], page 52.
•Min dB for meter
Some sound sources have a lower noise threshold than others. Everything below the noise
threshold is meaningless. This option sets the meters to clip below a certain level. Consumer
soundcards usually bottom out at -65. Professional soundcards bottom out at -90. See
Chapter 11 [Sound level meters window], page 75.
•Max dB for meter
This sets the maximum sound level represented by the sound meters. No matter what
this value is, no soundcard can play sound over 0 dB. This value is presented merely to
show how far over the limit a sound wave is. See Chapter 11 [Sound level meters window],
page 75.
•Theme
Cinelerra supports variable themes. Select one here and restart Cinelerra to see it.
3.8 About window
This section gives you information about the copyright, the time of the current build, the lack
of a warranty, and the versions of some of the libraries. Be sure to agree to the terms of the lack
of the warranty.
Chapter 4: Project attributes 25
4 Project attributes
4.1 Set format window
When you play media files in Cinelerra, the media files have a certain number of tracks, a certain
frame size, a certain sample size, and so on and so forth. No matter what attributes the media
file has, it is played back according to the project attributes. So, if an audio file’s sample rate is
different than the project attributes, it is resampled. In like fashion, if a video file’s frame size
is different than the project attributes, the video is composited on a black frame, either cropped
or bordered with black.
The project attributes are adjusted in Settings->Set Format and to a lesser extent in File-
>New. When you adjust project settings in File->New, a new, empty timeline is created. Every
timeline created from this point on uses the same settings. When you adjust settings in Settings-
>Format, media on the timeline is left unchanged. Also, every timeline created from this point
uses the same settings.
Set Format window
In addition to the traditional settings for sample rate, frame rate, frame size, Cinelerra uses
some unusual settings like channel positions, color model, and aspect ratio.
4.2 Presets
Select an option from this menu to have all the project settings set to one of the known standards.
4.3 Audio attributes
•Tracks
Sets the number of audio tracks for the new project. Tracks can be added or deleted later,
but options are provided here for convenience.
•Samplerate
Sets the samplerate of the audio. The project samplerate does not have to be the same as
the media sample rate that you load. Media is resampled to match the project sample rate.
•Channels
Sets the number of audio channels for the new project. The number of audio channels does
not have to be the same as the number of tracks.
26 Chapter 4: Project attributes
•Channels positions
The currently enabled audio channels and their positions in the audio panning boxes in the
track patchbay are displayed in the channel position widget.
The channel position widget
The channels are numbered. When rendered, the output from channel 1 is rendered to the
first output track in the file or the first soundcard channel of the soundcard. Later channels are
rendered to output tracks numbered consecutively.
The audio channel positions correspond to where in the panning widgets each of the audio
outputs is located. The closer the panning position is to one of the audio outputs, the more
signal that speaker gets. Click on a speaker icon and drag to change the audio channel location.
The speakers can be in any orientation. A different speaker arrangement is stored for every
number of audio channels since normally you do not want the same speaker arrangement for
different numbers of channels.
Channel positions is the only setting that does not affect the output necessarily. It is merely
a convenience, so that when more than two channels are used, the pan controls on the timeline
can distinguish between them. It has nothing to do with the actual arrangement of speakers.
Different channels can be positioned very close together to make them have the same output.
See Section 7.3 [Panning audio tracks], page 46.
4.4 Video attributes
•Tracks
Sets the number of video tracks the new project is assigned. Tracks can be added or deleted
later, but options are provided here for convenience.
•Framerate
Sets the framerate of the video. The project framerate does not have to be the same as
an individual media file frame rate that you load. Media is reframed to match the project
framerate.
•Canvas size
Sets the size of the video output. In addition, each track also has its own frame size. Initially,
the New Project dialog creates video tracks whose size match the video output. The video
track sizes can be changed later without changing the video output. See Section 6.1.4 [The
track popup menu], page 39.
•Aspect ratio
Sets the aspect ratio. The aspect ratio is applied to the video output. The aspect ratio can
be different than the ratio that results from the formula: h / v (the number of horizontal
pixels divided into the number of vertical pixels). If the aspect ratio differs from the results
of the formula above, your output will be in non-square pixels.
•Auto aspect ratio
If this option is checked, the New Project dialog always recalculates the Aspect ratio setting
based upon the given Canvas size. This ensures pixels are always square.
Chapter 4: Project attributes 27
•Color model
The project will be stored in the color model video intermediates selected in the dropdown.
Color model is very important for video playback because video has the disadvantage of
being very slow. Although it is not noticeable, audio intermediates contain much more
information than the audio on disk and the audio which is played. Audio always uses the
highest bandwidth intermediate because it is fast.
Video intermediates must use the least amount of data for the required quality because it
is slow, but video intermediates still use a higher bandwidth color model than video which
is stored and video which is played. This allows more processing to be done with less
destruction of the original data.
The video is stored on disk in one colormodel, usually a YUV derivative. When played
back, Cinelerra decompresses it from the file format directly into the format of the output
device. If effects are processed, Cinelerra decompresses the video into an intermediate
colormodel first and then converts it to the format of the output device. The selection of
an intermediate colormodel determines how fast and accurate the effects are.
Cinelerra colormodels are described using a certain packing order of components and a
certain number of bits for each component. The packing order is printed on the left and
the bit allocation is printed on the right.
•RGB-888
This allocates 8 bits for the R, G, and B channels and no alpha. This is normally used
for uncompressed media with low dynamic range.
•RGBA-8888
This allocates an alpha channel to the 8 bit RGB colormodel. It is used for overlaying
multiple tracks.
•YUV-888
This allocates 8 bits for Y, U, and V. This is used for low dynamic range operations
in which the media is compressed in the YUV color space. Most compressed media
is in YUV and this derivate allows video to be processed fast with the least color
degradation.
•YUVA-8888
This allocates an alpha channel to the 8 bit YUV colormodel for transparency.
•RGB-Float
This allocates a 32 bit float for the R, G, and B channels and no alpha. This is used
for high dynamic range processing with no transparency.
•RGBA-Float
This adds a 32 bit float for alpha to RGB-Float. This is used for high dynamic range
processing with transparency.
In order to do effects which involve alpha channels, a colormodel with an alpha channel
must be selected. These are RGBA8888, YUVA8888, and RGBA Float. The 4 channel
colormodels are slower than 3 channel colormodels, with the slowest being RGBA Float.
Some effects, like fade, work around the need for alpha channels while other effects, like
chromakey, require an alpha channel to do anything, so it is a good idea to try the effect
without alpha channels to see if it works before settling on an alpha channel and slowing it
down.
When using compressed footage, YUV colormodels are usually faster than RGB colormod-
els. They also destroy fewer colors than RGB colormodels. If footage stored as JPEG or
MPEG is processed many times in RGB, the colors will fade whereas they will not fade if
processed in YUV.
Years of working with high dynamic range footage have shown floating point RGB to be
the best format for high dynamic range. 16 bit integers were used in the past and were too
28 Chapter 4: Project attributes
lossy and slow for the amount of improvement.
RGB float does not destroy information when used with YUV source footage and also sup-
ports brightness above 100%. Be aware that some effects, like Histogram, still clip above
100% when in floating point.
Chapter 5: Loading and saving files 29
5 Loading and saving files
5.1 Supported file formats
Here are most of the supported file formats that can be loaded and rendered to, with notes
regarding their compression. You may be able to load other formats not described here.
The format of the file affects what Cinelerra does with it. Edit decision lists stored in XML save
the project settings. Formats which contain media but no edit decisions just add data to the
tracks. If your project sample rate is 48 kHz and you load a sound file with 96khz, you will still
be playing it at 48 kHz. If you load an EDL file at 96khz and the current project sample rate
is 48 kHz, you will change it to 96 kHz.
Some file formats are very slow to display on the timeline. These usually have video which is
highly compressed. Drawing highly compressed video thumbnails on the timeline (picons) can
be very slow. Disable picon drawing for these files with the draw media toggle in the patchbay
to speed up operations.
Supported file formats that Cinelerra can import and export are currently:
5.1.1 Quicktime
Quicktime is not the standard for UNIX but we use it because it is well documented. All
of the Quicktime movies on the internet are compressed. Cinelerra supports some compressed
Quicktime movies. If Cinelerra crashes when loading a Quicktime movie, it is most likely because
the format was not supported.
Quicktime is a container for two streams, a video stream and an audio stream. These streams
are compressed using separate encoding schemes. The preferred encoding for Quicktime output
is MPEG-4 Video and MPEG-4 Audio. This format is compatible in the commercial players for
Windows, has good compression quality and good output quality. For better compression, use
H-264 video. Unfortunately H-264 decoding is so slow it can not play very large frame sizes.
Cinelerra supports two non-standard codecs: Dual MPEG-4 video and Dual H.264 video. These
will not play in anything but Cinelerra and XMovie. They are designed for movies where
the frames have been divided into two fields, each field displayed sequentially. The dual codecs
interleave two video streams to improve efficiency without requiring major changes to the player.
5.1.2 MPEG-4 audio
This is the same as Quicktime with MPEG-4 Audio as the audio codec.
5.1.3 Still images
5.1.3.1 Loading still images
You can load still images on video tracks just like you do for any video file.
Supported file formats are mainly: PNG, TIF, TGA or JPG, EXR, raw digital camera images.
When loaded on the timeline, by default the image takes up one frame in length. To view
the image, zoom in time (DOWN ARROW) on the timeline so you can see the single frame.
To extend the length of the image, drag its boundaries just as you would do with regular video
media.
You can drag the boundaries of a still image as much as you want. Images in Cinelerra have the
ability to be dragged to an infinite length.
Cinelerra lets you define the initial duration of the loaded images. The parameter is set in the
Images section of the Settings->Preferences->Recording window.
Unless your original material comes from a digital source (like a digital photo camera), the
first thing you have to do before you can use it is to somehow capture the assets into a usable
30 Chapter 5: Loading and saving files
digital medium.
For old photos, paper maps, drawings or diagrams, you might have to scan them into a file
format like PNG, TIF, TGA or JPG files by using a digital scanner. You might want to use
Gimp to post-process the images, clean damaged areas or color correct the assets.
If your assets come from a digital source like a digital camera or a screen capture, be sure to
capture the material using the best resolution possible. This will allow you to get the best
quality output from your Cinelerra project.
Rendering a video to a single image causes the final image file to be overwritten for every
timeline position. The rendered file is a single still image of the last frame of the video. No
table of contents is created. See Section 5.1.4 [Images sequence], page 31.
5.1.3.2 Still images size
Imported images always stay at their original size. Therefore, you may need to scale your
pictures before importing them in Cinelerra.
For resizing your picture to fit the project size you can use Imagemagick
(http://www.imagemagick.org/script/index.php)
Example:
convert inputfile.jpg -resize 720x576 outputfile.jpg
You have to take into account the aspect ratio of your video. For example, PAL images
aspect ratio is 4/3, but 720x576 is 5/4. For your imported images to be displayed correctly, you
have to rescale their horizontal size:
new horizontal size=(5/4)/(4/3) x original horizontal size
For PAL videos, you have to multiply the horizontal size of the pictures you want to import by
a factor of 0.9375.
Here is a small shell script which, when ran from a folder containing jpg images, resize those
images and put the new images in a ‘resized’ folder:
Note: Make sure you have installed Imagemagick which provides the functions ’identify’ and
’convert’ used in the script.
#/bin/sh
mkdir resized
for element in ‘ls . | grep -i ’\.jpe*g$\’‘;
do
size=‘identify ${element}‘
width=‘echo ${size} | sed ’+s+.*JPEG ++’ | sed ’+s+x.*++’‘
height=‘echo ${size} | sed ’+s+.*JPEG [0-9]*x++’ | sed ’+s+DirectClass.*++’‘
let new_width=${width}*9375/10000
convert -resize "${new_width}x${height}!" -quality 100 ${element} resized/${element}
done
When the size of your image is different from the size of your project, but the ratio is the
same, you might want to keep the image at its original size, to load it on a dedicated track and
adjust the display of it with the camera zoom. See Section 8.2.1 [The camera and projector],
page 56.
5.1.3.3 Open EXR images
You may not know about Open EXR. This format stores floating point RGB images. It also
supports a small amount of compression.
Projects which render to EXR should be in a floating point color model to take advantage
of the benefits of EXR. See Chapter 4 [Project attributes], page 25.
Chapter 5: Loading and saving files 31
Several compression options are available for EXR.
•PIZ: Lossless wavelet compression. This is the best compression.
•ZIP: Lossless gzip algorithm.
•RLE: Lossless run length encoding. This is the fastest, but worst compression.
•PXR24: Lossy compression where the floating point numbers are converted to 24 bits and
compressed with gzip.
Select Use Alpha if the project colormodel has an alpha channel and you want to retain it
in the file. Otherwise the primary colors are multiplied by the alpha channel.
5.1.3.4 Raw digital camera images
RAW digital camera images are a special kind of image file that Cinelerra only imports.
Once they are on the timeline, these must be processed in a floating point color space. Raw
images from Canon cameras are the only ones tested. They need to have the Gamma effect
applied to correct gamma. Because raw images take a long time to interpolate, they are usually
viewed first in a proxy file and then touched up.
First apply the Gamma effect to a track of raw images and set it to automatic with 0.6
gamma. Then render the timeline to a Quicktime JPEG file. Append the Quicktime JPEG file
in a new track and disable playback of the old track. Now the gamma corrected copy of each
raw image can be previewed relatively fast in the same timeline position as the original image.
5.1.4 Images sequence
An images sequence is a series of ordered still pictures (e.g. the frames of an animated scene).
They can be loaded as multiple files.
An image sequence can be represented in Cinelerra also by an image list file, called also Table
Of Contents file (TOC). A TOC is a text file with a specific format containing absolute paths
to every frame in the sequence plus additional information like image resolution, file format and
sequence frame rate. To get better performance, the table of contents can be loaded as a single
asset instead of the individual images. A TOC is not a media file but it behaves like a video
clip.
Cinelerra creates TOC files by rendering to "Images sequence".
When rendering a video to an images sequence Cinelerra creates a different image file for every
timeline position and generates a TOC for this images sequence. This is useful to split video
into frames as single stills.
When rendering a series of stills to an images sequence Cinelerra generates a TOC for the images
sequence but also creates a different image file for every still. The source files are copied and
renamed. The TOC file contains the paths to the new files. This is useful only when you want
to create a list and change the format of your source files.
For creating a TOC file without creating new image files you can use external list generators like
IMG2LIST 0.1.5. (by Claudio "malefico"Andaur) or Seven Gnomes (by Peter Semiletov).
See http://cinelerra-cv.org/user-tips.php.
Cinelerra can create TOCs with the following formats: JPEG, PNG, EXR, TIFF, TGA.
Images lists can be edited manually.
5.1.5 AVI
Because AVI (Audio-Video Interleave) is so fragmented with varied audio and video codecs, you
may not be able to play all AVI formatted files.
32 Chapter 5: Loading and saving files
5.1.6 MPEG files containing video
MPEG files containing video can be loaded directly into Cinelerra. If the file is supported, a
table of contents is built. If the file is unsupported, it usually crashes or shows very short tracks.
Unfortunately, this method of loading MPEG files is not good enough if you intend to use the
files in a renderfarm.
To use MPEG files in a renderfarm, you need to run mpeg3toc in order to generate a table of
contents for the file and then load the table of contents. mpeg3toc needs the absolute path of
the MPEG file. If you do not use an absolute path, it assumes that the MPEG file is in the
same directory that Cinelerra is run from.
MPEG streams are structured into multiple tracks. Each track can be video or audio. Each
audio track can have 1-6 channels. Cinelerra converts each channel of audio into a track.
Notes on mpeg video encoding:
MPEG video encoding is done separately from MPEG audio encoding. In MPEG video there
are two colormodels. The YUV 4:2:0 colormodel is encoded by a highly optimized version of
mpeg2enc with presets for standard consumer electronics. In the process of optimizing mpeg2enc,
they got rid of YUV 4:2:2 encoding. The YUV 4:2:2 colormodel is encoded by a less optimized
version of mpeg2enc.
YUV 4:2:2 encoding was kept around because the NTSC version of DV video loses too much
quality when transferred to YUV 4:2:0. This DV video must be transferred to YUV 4:2:2.
When encoding YUV 4:2:0, the bitrate parameter changes meaning depending on whether the
bitrate or quantization is fixed. If the bitrate is fixed, it is the target bitrate. If the quantization
is fixed, it is the maximum bitrate allowed. This is a quirk of the mpeg2enc version.
5.1.7 DVD movies
DVD are split into a number of programs, each identified by a unique ‘IFO’ file. If you want
to load a DVD, find the corresponding ‘IFO’ file for the program of interest. Load the IFO file
directly and a table of contents will be built. Alternatively for renderfarm usage, a table of
contents can be created separately.
Run: mpeg3toc -v /cdrom/video_ts/vts_01_0.ifo dvd.toc
or something similar. Then load ‘dvd.toc’.
5.1.8 MPEG 1 audio
MPEG 1 audio files have .mp2 and .mp3 extension. If the files are encoded using a fixed bitrate,
they can be loaded directly on Cinelerra. Otherwise a table of contents (TOC) needs to be
created and loaded as resources in place of the audio file. If you know your audio stream has
variable bitrate or if you see Cinelerra can’t seek and playback your file properly, you must
create the TOC using mpeg3toc.
Here is an example of command:
mpeg3toc -v /path/to/myfile.mp3 myfile.toc
‘myfile.toc’ is the Table of Contents that can be loaded as resource.
The path should be absolute unless you plan to always keep your .xml in the same directory as
the filename. For renderfarms the filesystem prefix should be / and the movie directory mounted
under the same directory on each node.
5.1.9 Ogg Theora/Vorbis
The OGG format is an antiquated but supposedly patent-free way of compressing audio and
video. The quality is not as good as H.264 or MPEG-4 Audio. In reality, anyone with enough
money and desire can find a patent violation so the justification for OGG is questionable.
Chapter 5: Loading and saving files 33
5.1.10 Edit decision list
Edit decision lists are generated by Cinelerra for storing projects. EDL files end in .xml. When
loaded, they change the attributes of the current project. Because edit decision lists consist of
text, they can be edited in a text editor.
5.1.11 WAV
FIXME
5.1.12 PCM
FIXME
5.1.13 AIFF
FIXME
5.1.14 AC3 audio
FIXME
5.2 Loading files
All data that you work with in Cinelerra is acquired either by recording from a device or by
loading from disk. This section describes loading.
The loading and playing of files is just as you would expect. Just go to file->Load Files, select a
file for loading, and click ok. Depending on the setting of the Insertion Strategy list box, your
file will be either loaded on the Resources Media window or directly on the Program window.
In this last case, click the forward play button and it should start playing, regardless of whether
a progress bar has appeared.
The Load window
If the file is a still image, the project’s attributes are not changed and the first frame of the
track becomes the image. If the file has audio, Cinelerra may build an index file in order to
speed up drawing. You can edit and play the file while the index file is being built.
5.2.1 Insertion strategy
Usually, three things happen when you load a file:
1. the existing project is cleared from the screen
2. the project’s attributes are changed to match the file’s attributes
3. the new file’s tracks are created in the timeline
However, Cinelerra lets you change what happens when you load a file.
In the Load dialog window go to the Insertion strategy box and select one of the options of the
drop down menu. Each of these options loads the file a different way.
34 Chapter 5: Loading and saving files
•Replace current project
All tracks in the current project are deleted and a set of new tracks are created to match
the source file. Project attributes are only changed when loading XML. If multiple files
are selected for loading, Cinelerra adds a set of new tracks for each file. New resources are
created in the Resources Window, replacing the current ones.
•Replace current project and concatenate tracks
Same as replace current project, except that if multiple files are selected, Cinelerra will
concatenate the tracks of each file, inserting different source files in the same set of tracks,
one after another, in alphanumeric order, starting at 0. New resources are created in the
Resources Window, replacing the current ones.
•Append in new tracks
The current project is not deleted and new tracks are created for the source, one set of
tracks for each file. New resources are created in the Resources Window
•Concatenate to existing tracks
The current project is not deleted and new files are concatenated to the existing armed
tracks, inserted in the same set of tracks of the current project, one after another, in
alphanumeric order, starting at the end of the tracks. If the current project has more
tracks than the source, the source file will be inserted in the first set of armed tracks. If
no tracks are armed, no files will be inserted. New resources are created in the Resources
Window
•Paste at insertion point
The file is pasted into the timeline at the insertion point, on the first set of armed tracks.
If multiple files are selected for loading, they will be inserted on the same set of tracks, one
after the other. New resources are created in the Resources Window
•Create new resources only
The timeline is unchanged and new resources are created in the Resources Window only.
Using these options, you can almost do all your editing by loading files.
The insertion strategy is a recurring option in many of Cinelerra’s functions. In each place the
options do the same thing.
If you load files by passing command line arguments to Cinelerra, the files are loaded with
Replace current project rules.
5.2.2 Loading multiple files
In the Load dialog go to the list of files. Select a file. Go to another file and select it while
holding down CTRL. This selects one additional file. Go to another file and select it while
holding down SHIFT. This selects every intervening file. This behavior is available in most list
box.
Use this method and the Concatenate to existing tracks insertion strategy to create an images
slideshow or a song playlist.
5.2.3 Loading files from the command prompt
Another way to load files is to pass the filenames as arguments on the command line.
cinelerra myvideo.mov myothervideo.mov
This starts the program with all the arguments loaded and creates new tracks for every file.
5.2.4 Filtering files by extension
If there are too many files in your media directory, it can be difficult to find the file you want.
For this purpose, the Load window allows you to filter which files are displayed in the list box
by extension name.
Click the dropdown box (right below the file name text box) and select the file extension of
Chapter 5: Loading and saving files 35
your media (i.e. mpg, mov, mp3, avi, etc). The file list now shows only files with the selected
extension.
5.2.5 Loading other formats
If you can not load a particular kind of video clip and do not have the original source file, you
will have to convert it to a format supported by Cinelerra. To convert your file to mpeg2 is a
good solution, since Cinelerra load that format without any problem. In that case, you should
use ffmpeg to do the convertion. However, the mpeg2 formats requires the video to have specific
image size and framerates:
•PAL is 720x576 at 25 fps
•NTSC is 720x480 at 29.97 (=30000/1001) fps
For input files which do not have those properties, you should use mencoder to convert to
MPEG4. You can identify the codecs and container of any video by running the following
command:
mplayer -identify <your_video_file.xyz>
•Converting with ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -sameq -i original_video.xyz converted_video.mpeg
The ‘-sameq’ option maintains the original quality.
•Converting with mencoder:
mencoder original_video.xyz -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:\
vhq:vbitrate=6000 -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=256:vol=1 \
-ffourcc DIVX -o converted_video.avi
5.3 Loading the backup
There is one special XML file on disk at all times. After every editing operation, Cinelerra saves
the current project to a backup in ‘$HOME/.bcast/backup.xml’. In the event of a crash, the
first thing you should do after restarting Cinelerra is select File->Load backup in order to load
the backup. This will start Cinelerra at the point in your editing operations directly before the
program crashed.
It is important after a crash to restart Cinelerra without performing any editing operations as
you will overwrite the backup.
Note that the backup.xml file is always an only file, also when you are working with two instances
of Cinelerra open at the same time. In this case, the last operation made in whatever instance
will overwrite the backup.
5.4 Saving project files
Cinelerra saves projects as XML files. Go to File->Save. Select a file to overwrite or enter a new
file. Cinelerra automatically concatenates ‘.xml’ to the filename if no ‘.xml’ extension is given.
When Cinelerra saves a file, it saves an edit decision list (EDL) of the current project but
does not save any media. The saved file consists of text. It contains all the project settings and
locations of every edit. Instead of media, the file contains pointers to the original media files
on disk. For each media file, the XML file stores either an absolute path or just the relative
path. If the media is in the same directory as the XML file, a relative path is saved. If it is in
a different directory, an absolute path is saved.
You have to be careful when moving files around: you risk to break the media linkages.
You can keep the media and the XML file in the same directory forever and freely move the
whole directory, since relative paths are saved. Alternatively you can save the XML file in a
different directory than the media but you can’t move the media ever again. In this case you
can freely move your XML file around, since absolute paths are saved.
36 Chapter 5: Loading and saving files
If you saved your XML file in the same directory of your media but you would like to move
your project to another location, you can change the paths from relative to absolute by going
to File->Save as... and entering the new location.
Similarly if you saved your project outside your media directory but you would like to move
your media to another location, you can change the paths from absolute to relative by going to
File->Save as... and saving your XML file in the same directory of the media.
If you want to create an audio playlist and burn it on a CD-ROM, save the XML file in the same
directory as the audio files and burn the entire directory. This keeps the media paths relative.
It must be said that since an XML file is a text file, you can always repair broken media
linkage by editing the XML file in a text editor. For every media you moved, search for the old
path and replace it with the new one. Don’t forget to make a backup copy of your XML file
before doing any editing!
You can replace the path of every asset whose source file you moved also within the program,
by entering the new location in the Asset info window. To open this window, right click on the
asset in the Resources window and choose Info... in the popup menu. Directly type the path in
the first field of the dialog or click on the magnifier on the right to browse your files. Operating
from the GUI is convenient only when a very small number of changes is needed.
XML files are useful in saving the current state of Cinelerra before retiring from an editing
session.
XML files are specific to Cinelerra only. You can not play XML files in a dedicated movie
player.
Real-time effects in an XML file have to be re-synthesized every time you play it back.
The XML file also requires you to maintain copies of all the source assets on hard disk, which
can take up space and cost a lot of electricity to spin. Render your projects to a final format
for more persistent storage of the output.
5.5 Merging projects
To merge several separate projects into one big one :
1. Open Cinelerra
2. Load project A
3. Open a second copy of Cinelerra
4. Load project B
5. Cut and paste from A to B
Chapter 6: Program window 37
6 Program window
This window contains the timeline and the entry point for all menu driven operations. The
timeline consists of a vertical stack of tracks with a horizontal representation of time. This
defines the output of rendering operations and what is saved when you save files. To the left of
the timeline is the patchbay which contains options affecting each track.
The timeline
Under the Window menu, you will find options that affect the main windows. Default posi-
tions repositions all the windows to a 4 screen editing configuration. On dual headed displays,
the Default positions operation fills only one monitor with windows.
6.1 Navigating the program window
The program window contains many features for navigation and displays the timeline as it is
structured in memory: tracks stacked vertically and extending across time horizontally. The
horizontal scroll bar allows you to scan across time. The vertical scroll bar allows you to scan
across tracks.
6.1.1 Video and audio tracks
A video track
Video tracks represent the duration of your videos and clips, just as if you placed real photo-
graphic film stock end-to-end on a table. The individual images you see on the track are samples
of what is located at that particular instant on the timeline.
An audio track
Audio tracks represent your sound media as an audio waveform. Following the film analogy,
it would be as if you "viewed"magnetic tape horizontally on your table.
You can adjust the horizontal and vertical magnification of the tracks and the magnification
of the audio "waveform"display using the zoom panel bar controls.
Every track on the timeline has a set of attributes on the left, called the patch bay. It is used
to control the behavior of the tracks. The most important attribute is arm track.
38 Chapter 6: Program window
6.1.2 Track navigation
Track Navigation involves both selecting a specific audio or video track and moving to a certain
time in the track. The program window contains many features for navigation and displays the
timeline as it is structured in memory.
The vertical scroll bar allows you to scan across tracks. For vertical scrolling you can use
also the mouse wheel.
The horizontal scroll bar allows you to scan across time. For horizontal scrolling you can use
also the mouse wheel with the CTRL key.
In addition to the graphical tools, you may also use the keyboard to navigate. As a general
rule, keyboard navigation is faster than navigation with a mouse. Use PAGE UP and PAGE
DOWN to scroll up and down the tracks.
You will often need to scroll beyond the end of the timeline, but the scrollbars will not let
you do it. Instead, use the RIGHT arrow to scroll past the end of timeline.
Use the HOME and END keys to instantly go to the beginning or end of the timeline. In
I-beam mode, hold down SHIFT while pressing HOME or END in order to select the region of
the timeline between the insertion point and the key pressed.
6.1.3 The zoom panel
Below the timeline, you will find the zoom panel. The zoom panel contains values for sample
zoom (duration visible on the timeline), amplitude (audio waveform scale), track zoom (height
of tracks in the timeline), and curve zoom(automation range). In addition to the scrollbars,
these zooms are the main tools for positioning the timeline.
Changing the sample zoom causes the unit of time displayed in the timeline to change size.
It allows you to view your media all the way from individual frames to the entire length of your
project. The higher the setting, the more frames you can see per screen. The sample zoom value
is not an absolute reference for the unit of time since it refers to the duration visible on the
timeline and thus changes also as you modify the length of the program window horizontally.
Use the UP and DOWN arrows to change the sample zoom by a power of two.
If your mouse has a wheel and it works in X11, mouse over the tumblers and use the wheel to
zoom in and out.
The amplitude only affects audio. It determines how large the waveform appears.
CTRL-UP and CTRL-DOWN cause the amplitude zoom to change.
The track zoom affects all tracks. It determines the height of each track. If you change the
track zoom, the amplitude zoom compensates so that the audio waveforms look proportional.
CTRL-PGUP and CTRL-PGDOWN cause the track zoom to change.
The curve zoom affects the curves in all the tracks of the same type. It determines the value
range for curves. First select the automation type (audio fade, video fade, zoom, X,Y) then
use the left tumblers for the minimum value and the right tumblers for the maximum value or
manually enter the values in the text box. Normally you will use -40.0 to 6.0 for audio fade and
0.0 to 100.0 for video fade. See Section 7.1 [The patchbay], page 43.
The tumblers changes curve amplitude, but the only way to curve offset is to use the fit curves
button .
ALT-UP and ALT-DOWN cause the curve amplitude to change.
Chapter 6: Program window 39
6.1.4 The track popup menu
Each Track has a popup menu. To activate the track popup menu, RIGHT-click on the track.
The popup menu affects the track whether the track is armed on the patch bay or not. The
Track Menu contains a number of options:
•Attach Effect - opens a dialog box of effects applicable to the type of track (audio/video)
•Move up - moves the selected track one step up in the stack.
•Move down - moves the selected track one step down in the stack.
•Delete track - removes the track from the timeline
•Add Track - adds a track of the same media type (audio/video) as the one selected.
•Resize Track - resizes the track
•Match Output Size - resizes the track to match the current output size
6.1.5 The insertion point
The insertion point is the flashing hairline mark that vertically spans the timeline in the program
window. Analogous to the cursor on your word processor, the insertion point marks the place
on the timeline where the next activity will begin. It’s the point where a paste operation takes
place. When rendering, it defines the beginning of the region of the timeline to be rendered. It
is also the starting point of all playback operations.
The insertion point on the main window,
represented as a vertical hair-line at the 00:00.500 point
Normally, the insertion point is moved by clicking inside the main timebar. Any region of the
timebar not obscured by labels and in or out points is a hotspot for repositioning the insertion
point. In cut and paste editing mode only, the insertion point can be moved also by clicking in
the timeline itself.
The main timebar
When moving the insertion point the position is either aligned to frames or aligned to samples.
When editing video, you will want to align to frames. When editing audio you will want to align
to samples. Select your preference by using Settings->Align cursor on frames.
6.1.6 Editing modes
Editing modes are two different methods of operation that affect the insertion point and the
editing on the timeline.
They are:
•drag and drop mode
•cut and paste mode
40 Chapter 6: Program window
The editing mode is determined by selecting the arrow or the i-beam in the buttonbar.
Alternatively you can use E as a keyboard shortcut to toggle between modes.
The editing mode buttons
If the arrow is highlighted, it enables drag and drop mode.
In drag and drop mode, clicking in the timeline does not reposition the insertion point.
Double-clicking in the timeline selects the entire edit the mouse pointer is over.
Dragging in the timeline repositions the edit the mouse pointer is over. This is useful for
reordering audio playlists, sorting movie scenes, moving effects around.
To cut and paste in drag and drop mode you need to set in/out points to define an affected
region. See Section 6.1.7 [The in/out points], page 40.
See Section 7.8 [Drag and drop editing], page 48.
If the i-beam is highlighted it enables cut and paste mode.
In cut and paste mode, clicking in the timeline repositions the insertion point.
Double-clicking in the timeline selects the entire edit the cursor is over.
Dragging in the timeline highlights a region. The highlighted region becomes the region affected
by cut and paste operations and the playback range during the next playback operation. SHIFT-
clicking in the timeline extends the highlighted region.
Tracks with highlighted area, shown inside the green outline
When highlighting a region, the start and end points are either aligned to frames or aligned
to samples. When editing video, you will want to align to frames. When editing audio you will
want to align to samples. Select your preference by using settings->align cursor on frames.
See Section 7.9 [Cut and paste editing], page 51.
Note: Cinelerra CV revisions 943 and 944 (SVN checkouts from 19 to 21 October 2006) had
no editing modes buttons. "Copy and paste"and "Drag and drop"editing modes were merged
into one, shift key being differentiation between them. This is the case of the Gentoo ebuild
media-video/cinelerra-cvs-20061020.
6.1.7 The in/out points
In both editing modes, you can set one in point and one out point. The in/out points define
the affected region. In drag and drop mode, they are the only way to define an affected region.
In both cut and paste mode and drag and drop mode, the highlighted area overrides the in/out
points. If a highlighted area and in/out points are set, the highlighted area is affected by editing
operations and the in/out points are ignored. If no region is highlighted, the in/out points are
Chapter 6: Program window 41
used. To avoid confusion, it is better to use either highlighting or in/out points but not both
simultaneously.
Normally, in/out points do not affect the playback region. The in/out points determine the
playback region only if you hold down CTRL while issuing a playback command.
To set in/out points, go to the timebar and position the insertion point somewhere. Select
the in point button. Move the insertion point to a position after the in point and click the
out point button. Instead of using the button bar, you can use the [ and ] keys to toggle
in/out points.
Timebar with in/out points set.
If you set the insertion point somewhere else while in/out points already exist, when you
click the in/out buttons the existing points will be repositioned.
If you click on in/out points while a region is highlighted, the insertion point will be ignored
and in/out points will be set at the beginning and at the end of the highlighted area.
If you select either the in point or the out point, the insertion point will jump to that location.
After selecting an in point, if you click the in point button the in point will be deleted. After
selecting an out point, if you click the out point button the out point will be deleted.
Tip: To quickly get rid of in/out points, without caring about where they are or if they are
set or not, just double click on [ and ] buttons. The first click will set a new point or reposition
an old one at the insertion point; the second click will delete it. Obviously this trick does not
work if the in point or the out point is already set at insertion point.
SHIFT-clicking on an in/out point highlights the region between the insertion point and that
in/out point. If a region is already highlighted, it extends the highlighted region up to that
in/out point.
The insertion point and the in/out points allow you to define an affected region, but they do
not let you jump to exact points on the timeline very easily. For this purpose there are labels.
6.1.8 Using labels in the program window
Labels are an easy way to set exact locations on the timeline that you want to jump to. When
you position the insertion point somewhere and click the label button, a new label appears
on the timeline.
Timebar with a label on it
No matter what the zoom settings are, clicking on the label highlights it and positions the
insertion point exactly where you set the label. Hitting the L key has the same effect as the
label button.
Labels can reposition the insertion point when they are selected but they can also be traversed
with the label traversal buttons. When a label is out of view, the label traversal buttons
reposition the timeline so the label is visible. There are keyboard shortcuts for label traversal,
too.
CTRL-LEFT repositions the insertion point on the previous label.
CTRL-RIGHT repositions the insertion point on the next label.
With label traversal you can quickly seek back and forth on the timeline.
The Label tab of the resources window lists the timestamp of every label. You can edit the
label list and add a title for every item using the popup menu. To open the Label info dialog
42 Chapter 6: Program window
right click on the label icon in the Resources window or directly on the label symbol on the
timebar.
With labels you can also select regions.
SHIFT-CTRL-LEFT highlights the region between the insertion point and the previous label.
SHIFT-CTRL-RIGHT highlights the region between the insertion point and the next label.
Double-clicking on the timebar between two labels highlights the region between the labels.
SHIFT-clicking on a label highlights the region between that label and the insertion point.
If a region is already highlighted, it extends the highlighted region up to that label.
If you hit the label button when a region is highlighted, labels are created at each end of the
highlighted region. However, if one end already has a label, then the existing label is deleted.
Hitting the label button again when a label is selected deletes it. Manually hitting the label
button or L key over and over again to delete a series of labels can get tedious. To delete a set
of labels, first highlight a region. Second, use the Edit->Clear labels function. If in/out points
exist, the labels between the in/out points are cleared and the highlighted region is ignored.
In Cut and Paste editing mode only, by enabling Edit labels in the settings menu, or by
disabling the Lock labels from moving button on the program toolbar labels will be cut,
copied or pasted along with the selected region of the first armed track.
Similarly, if a selected area of a resource is spliced from the viewer to the timeline in a position
before labels, these labels will be pushed to the right on the timebar for the length of the selected
area.
To prevent labels from moving on the timebar, just disable the Edit labels option or enable the
Lock labels from moving button.
In Drag and Drop editing mode labels will be always locked to the timebar, even with the Edit
labels option enabled.
Chapter 7: Editing 43
7 Editing
Editing comprises both the time domain and the track domain. Since the timeline consists of a
stack of tracks, you need to worry about how to create and sort tracks in addition to what time
certain media appears on a track.
In the time domain, Cinelerra offers many ways to approach the editing process. The three
main methods are two screen editing, drag and drop editing, and cut and paste editing.
There are several concepts Cinelerra uses when editing which apply to all the methods.
The timeline is where all editing decisions are represented. This is a stack of tracks in the
center of the main window. It can be scrolled up, down, left and right with the scrollbars on
the right and bottom of it. It can also be scrolled up and down with a mouse wheel, left and
right with a mouse wheel and the CTRL key.
The active region is the range of time which is affected by editing commands on the timeline.
The active region is determined first by the presence of in/out points in the timeline. If those
do not exist the highlighted region is used. If no highlighted region exists the insertion point is
used as the start of the active region. Some commands treat all the space to the right of the
insertion point as active while others treat the active length as 0 if no end point for the active
region is defined.
Finally, editing decisions never affect source material. This is non destructive editing and it
became popular with audio because it was much faster than if you had to copy all the media
affected by an edit. Editing only affects pointers to source material, so if you want to have a
media file at the end of your editing session which represents the editing decisions, you need
to render it. See Chapter 20 [Rendering files], page 139. See Section 5.4 [Saving project files],
page 35.
See Section 24.1.1 [Editing Media shortcuts], page 187, for information about the editing
controls keyboard shortcuts.
7.1 The patchbay
On the left of the timeline is a region affectionately known as the patchbay. The patchbay
enables features specific to each track.
All tracks have a text area for naming the track.
All tracks have an expander for viewing more options on the patchbay and for viewing
the effects represented on the track. Click on the expander to expand or collapse the patchbay
and the track. If it is pointing sideways, the track is collapsed. If it is pointing down, the track
is expanded. Existing effects appear below the media for the track.
All tracks have the following row of toggles for several features.
Track attributes
If the toggle is colored, the feature is enabled. If the toggle is the background color of most of
the windows, it is disabled. Click on the toggle to enable or disable the feature. Several mouse
operations speed up the configuration of several tracks at a time.
44 Chapter 7: Editing
Click on an attribute and drag the cursor across adjacent tracks to copy the same attribute
to those tracks.
Hold down SHIFT while clicking a track’s attribute to enable the attribute in the current
track and toggle the attribute in all the other tracks.
Hold down SHIFT while clicking an attribute. Click until all the tracks except the selected
one are disabled. Then drag the cursor over the adjacent track to enable the attribute in the
adjacent track.
The attributes affect the output of the track:
•Play track
Determines whether the track is rendered or not. If it is off, the track is not rendered. For
example if you turn it off in all the video tracks, the rendered media file will have only
audio tracks. However, if the track is chained to any other tracks by a shared track effect,
the other tracks perform all the effects in this shared track, regardless of play status of the
shared track that in this particular case affects the media output but not fade and effects.
See Section 14.1 [Realtime effect types], page 81.
•Arm track
Determines whether the track is armed or not. Only the armed tracks are affected by editing
operations. Make sure you have enough armed destination tracks when you paste or splice
material or some tracks in the material will get left out.
In addition to restricting editing operations, the armed tracks in combination with the
active region determine where material is inserted when loading files. If the files are loaded
with one of the insertion strategies which do not delete the existing project, the armed
tracks will be used as destination tracks.
Press TAB while the cursor is anywhere over a track to toggle the track arming status.
Press SHIFT-TAB while the cursor is over a track to toggle the arming status of every other
track.
•Gang fader
Causes the fader to track the movement of whatever other fader you are adjusting by
dragging either the fader or the curve on the track. It doesn’t affect the editing made with
menu controls. A fader is only ganged if the arm track is also on. This is normally used to
adjust audio levels on all the tracks simultaneously. Gang also causes Nudge parameters to
synchronize across all the ganged tracks.
•Draw media
Determines if picons or waveforms are drawn on the asset in the track. By default, some file
formats load with this off while other file formats load with it on. This depends on whether
the file format takes a long time to draw on the timeline. Merely set it to on if you want to
see picons for any file format.
•Mute track
Causes the output to be thrown away once the track is completely rendered. This happens
whether or not play track is on. For example if you mute all the video tracks, the rendered
media file will have a blank video track.
Mute track is represented on the timeline with a blue line. Go to View ->Mute to make
it show. It is a keyframable attribute, but Mute track keyframing is a toggle and it has,
unlike curves, only two values: on or off.
If a track is part of a shared track effect, the output of the track with the shared track effect
is overlaid on the final output even though it is routed back to another track (the shared
track). Mute track is used to keep the track with the shared track effect from overlapping
the output of the source track (the shared track) where the shared track effect is not present.
See Section 14.1 [Realtime effect types], page 81.
Chapter 7: Editing 45
•Fader
Fade values are represented on the timeline with a white curve that is keyframable. All
tracks have a fader, but the units of each fader depend on whether it is audio or video.
Audio fade values are in dB. They represent relative levels, where 0 is the unaltered original
sound level, -40 is silence, -80 the minimum value set by default. You can move fader and
keyframes down to -80 but the parameter’s curve won’t go below -40. For your convenience
you can set a different fade range with the curve zoom. See Section 6.1.3 [The zoom panel],
page 38. Audio faders’ main purpose is to "fade out"sound or to lower the sound level
smoothly to silence, or "fade in"to make sounds appear gradually instead of suddenly.
Video fade values are the percentage of opacity of the image in normal overlay mode, the
percentage of the layer that is mixed into the render pipeline in the other overlay modes.
See Section 8.2.5 [Overlay modes], page 66.
Click and drag the fader to fade the track in and out. If it is ganged to other tracks of the
same media type, with the arm option enabled, the other faders should follow. Hold down
SHIFT and drag a fader to center it on the original source value (0 for audio, 100 for video).
7.2 Nudging tracks
Each track has a nudge textbox in its patchbay. You may have to expand the track to see it.
These are views of the patchbays when expanded.
Pan and nudge for an audio track
Overlay mode and nudge for a video track
The nudge value is the amount the track is shifted left or right during playback. The track is
not displayed shifted on the timeline, but it is shifted when it is played back. This is useful for
synchronizing audio with video, creating fake stereo, or compensating for an effect which shifts
time, all without tampering with any edits.
Merely enter the amount of time to shift to instantly shift the track. Negative numbers make
the track play later. Positive numbers make the track play sooner. The nudge units are either
seconds or the native units for the track (frames or samples). Select the units by right clicking
on the nudge textbox and using the context sensitive menu.
Nudge settings are ganged with the Gang faders toggle and the Arm track toggle.
Use the mouse wheel over the nudge textbox to increment and decrement it.
46 Chapter 7: Editing
7.3 Panning audio tracks
Audio tracks have a panning box in their patchbays. A patchbay may have to be expanded to
see the panning box. The panning box is shown here.
Pan and nudge for an audio track
Position the pointer in the panning box and click/drag to reposition the audio output among
the speaker arrangement. The loudness of each speaker is printed on the relative icon during the
dragging operation. The panning box uses a special algorithm to try to allow audio to be focused
through one speaker or branched between the nearest speakers when more than 2 speakers are
used.
7.4 Automatic audio track panning
Several convenience functions are provided for automatically setting the panning to several
common standards. They are listed in the Audio menu. These functions only affect armed
audio tracks. They are:
•Audio->Map 1:1
This maps every track to its own channel and wraps around when all the channels are
allocated. It is most useful for making 2 tracks with 2 channels map to stereo and for
making 6 tracks with 6 channels map to a 6 channel soundcard.
•Audio->Map 5.1:2
This maps 6 tracks to 2 channels. The project should have 2 channels when using this
function. Go to Settings->format to set the output channels to 2. This is most useful for
down-mixing 5.1 audio to stereo.
See Section 4.3 [Audio attributes], page 25.
7.5 Standard audio mappings
Although Cinelerra lets you map any audio track to any speaker, there are standard mappings
you should use to ensure the media can be played back elsewhere. Also, most audio encoders
require the audio tracks to be mapped to standard speaker numbers or they will not work.
In the channel position widget See Section 4.3 [Audio attributes], page 25, the channels are
numbered to correspond to the output tracks they are rendered to. For stereo, the source of
channel 1 needs to be the left track and the source of channel 2 needs to be the right track.
For 5.1 surround sound, the sources of the 6 channels need to be in the order of center, front
left, front right, back left, back right, low frequency effects. If the right tracks are not mapped
to the right speakers, most audio encoders will not encode the right information if they encode
anything at all. The low frequency effects track specifically can not store high frequencies in
most cases.
7.6 Manipulating tracks
Tracks in Cinelerra either contain audio or video. There is no special designation for tracks
other than the type of media they contain. When you create a new project, it contains three
Chapter 7: Editing 47
default tracks: one video track and two audio tracks. You can still add and delete tracks from
the menus. The Tracks menu contains a number of options for dealing with multiple tracks
simultaneously. Each track itself has a popup menu which affects one track. See Section 6.1.4
[The track popup menu], page 39.
Operations in the Tracks menu affect only tracks which are armed.
•Move tracks up and Move tracks down shift all the armed tracks up or down the stack.
•Delete tracks deletes the armed tracks.
•Delete last track deletes the last track, whether it is armed or not. Holding down the D
key quickly deletes all the tracks.
•Concatenate tracks is more complicated. This operation copies all the assets of every
disarmed but playable track and concatenates it by pasting those assets at the end of the
first set of armed tracks. They are pasted one after the other, keeping the same order they
have on the stack. If there are two armed tracks followed by two disarmed tracks, the
concatenate operation copies the assets of the two disarmed tracks and pastes them after
the assets of the two armed tracks. If there are three disarmed tracks instead, the assets of
two tracks are pasted after the assets of the armed tracks and the assets of the third track
are pasted at the end of the first armed track. The destination track wraps around until
all the disarmed tracks are concatenated. Disarmed tracks that are not playable are not
concatenated.
Finally, you will want to create new tracks. The Audio and Video menus each contain an
option to add a track of their specific type. In the case of audio, the new track is put on the
bottom of the timeline and the output channel of the audio track is incremented by one. In the
case of video, the new track is put on the top of the timeline. This way, video has a natural
compositing order. New video tracks are overlaid on top of old tracks.
7.7 Two screen editing
This is the fastest way to construct a program out of movie files. The idea consists of viewing a
movie file in one window and viewing the program in another window. Subsections of the movie
file are defined in the viewer window and transferred to the end of the program in the program
window.
The way to begin a two screen editing session is to load some resources. In File->Load files...
load some movies with the insertion mode Create new resources only. You want the timeline to
stay unchanged while new resources are brought in. Go to the Resource Window and select the
Media folder. The newly loaded resources should appear. Double click on a resource or drag it
from the media side of the window over the Viewer window.
There should be enough armed tracks on the timeline to put the subsections of source material
that you want (usually one video track and two audio tracks). If there are not, create new tracks
or arm more tracks.
In the viewer window, define a clip out of your movie file:
•Set the starting point with the in point button.
•Seek to the ending point of the clip you want to use.
•Set the ending point with the out point button.
The two points should now appear on the timebar and define a clip.
There are several things you can do with the clip now:
•Splice
Inserts the selected area in the timeline after the insertion point.
48 Chapter 7: Editing
After the splice has taken effect, the insertion point moves to the end of the edit ready to
be used as the next splice location. This way you can continuously build up the program
by splicing.
If an in point or an out point exists on the timeline the clip is inserted after the in point or
after the out point.
If both in and out points are set on the timeline, the clip is inserted after the in point.
If there are edits after your chosen splice location on the timeline, they will be pushed to
the right.
•Overwrite
Overwrites the region of the timeline after the insertion point with the clip.
If an in point or an out point exists on the timeline the clip is overwritten after the in point
or after the out point.
If both in and out points are set on the timeline, the clip is inserted after the in point.
If a region is highlighted or both in and out points exist they limit the region of the
overwriting and the clip may therefore be shortened. This is so clever that it is worth the
following detailed description.
TIP: To overwrite exactly on a precise region of the timeline:
- Arm only tracks to change.
- Define the destination region on the timeline with [ and ].
- Define the clip you want to use in the viewer with [ and ].
- Overwrite from Viewer to the timeline.
If the destination region is shorter than the clip defined in the viewer, the portion of the
clip longer than the destination region won’t be inserted. On the timeline the following
edits won’t move.
Beware: If the destination region is longer than the clip defined in the viewer, the destination
region will shrink. On the timeline the following edits will move to the left.
•Create a clip
Generates a new clip for the resource window containing the affected region but does
not change the timeline. Every clip has a title and a description. These are optional.
•Copy
See Section 7.9 [Cut and paste editing], page 51, it behaves the same.
Two screen editing can be done purely by keyboard shortcuts. When you move the mouse
pointer over any button a tooltip should appear, showing what key is bound to that button.
In the Viewer window, the number pad keys control the transport and the [ ] V keys perform
in/out points and splicing.
7.8 Drag and drop editing
Drag and drop editing is a quick and simple way of working in Cinelerra, using only the mouse.
The basic idea is to create a bunch of clips, then drag them in order into the timeline building a
prototype film that you can watch on the compositor. If after watching it, you wish to re-arrange
your clips, set effects, add transition or insert/delete material, just drag and drop them on the
timeline.
1. Load some files using File->Load files....
2. Set the insertion mode to Create new resources only. This loads the files into the Resource
Window.
3. Create some video and audio tracks on the timeline using the Video and Audio menus.
4. Open the Media folder in the resource window.
Chapter 7: Editing 49
5. Make sure the necessary tracks are armed and drag a media file from the resource window
to the timeline. If the media has video, drag it onto a video track. If the media is pure
audio, drag it onto an audio track. If the media is a still image, drag it onto a video track.
Cinelerra fills out the audio and video tracks below the dragging cursor with data from the
file. This affects what tracks you should create initially and which track to drag the media onto.
To drag and drop a file on the Program window, you need to create on the timeline the same
set of tracks of your media file.
A common camcorder file has a set of one video track and two audio tracks. In this case you
will need one video track and two audio tracks and the media should be dragged over the first
video track.
If the media has audio only you will need one audio track on the timeline for every audio track
in the media and the media should be dragged over the first audio track.
If the media is a still image, you will need a video track only.
When you drag your chosen media from the media folder to the timeline, your mouse pointer
will drag a thumbnail and, once over the timeline, the outline of a white rectangle, as big as the
edit you are going to have.
Drag the media to the desired position of an empty track of the timeline and drop it.
If there are other edits on that track, when you move the white outline over an edit, you will see
a bow tie symbol >< appearing at edit boundaries. If you drop the media there, the new edit
will start from the edit boundary indicated by the center of the bow tie ><.
Since the mouse pointer is in the middle of the white outline, when this rectangle is bigger
than the visible part of the timeline, it is quite cumbersome to precisely insert it. (This will
likely happen for long media). Lengthening the duration visible in the timeline by changing the
sample zoom in the zoom panel will reduce the size of the white rectangle, making a precise
insertion possible.
You can also drag multiple files from the resource window. When dropped in the timeline
they are concatenated.
The way of selecting multiple files to drag changes depending on if the resources are displayed
as text or as icons. To change the display mode right click inside the media list and select either
Display icons or Display text.
When displaying text in the resource window CTRL-CLICKING on media files selects addi-
tional files one at a time; SHIFT-CLICKING on media files extends the number of highlighted
50 Chapter 7: Editing
selections.
When displaying icons in the resource window SHIFT-CLICKING or CTRL-CLICKING selects
media files one at a time; drawing a box around the files selects contiguous files.
In addition to dragging media files, if you create clips and open the clip folder you can drag
clips on the timeline.
In the timeline there is further dragging functionality. Dragging edits around the timeline
allows you to sort music playlists, sort movie scenes, and give better NAB demos but not much
else. To enable the dragging functionality of the timeline, select the arrow toggle on the
control bar.
Arm a track with various scenes.
Original track with three scenes.
Go to scene #3, click and drag it to the middle.
When you drop scene #3
scene #2 shifts to the right
This is how the finished sequence looks.
If more than one track is armed, Cinelerra will drag any edits which start on the same position
as the edit the mouse pointer is currently over. In other words, you can drag and drop a group
of edits. Cinelerra recognises as a group the edits of different armed tracks that have aligned
beginnings, regardless of whether they have the same source or aligned ends.
When you drag and drop edits within the timeline:
If you drop an edit when bow ties >< are shown, that edit will be cut and pasted starting at the
edit boundary indicated by the centre of the bow tie ><. Following edits on the same track will
move.
If you drop an edit when there are no bow ties >< shown, the original edit will be muted and
pasted where you dropped it. No edits will move. A silence will appear in place of the original
edit.
If you have more armed tracks on the timeline than in the asset you are dragging, only the
Chapter 7: Editing 51
following edits of the tracks affected by the drag and drop operation will move to the right. This
will cause loss of synchronization. To restore it, disarm the tracks affected by the drag and drop
operation, highlight the just dropped edit and paste silence over it (Edit ->Paste Silence).
In Drag and Drop editing mode you can’t drag and drop labels. They will be always locked
to the timebar, even with the Edit labels option enabled. Still, with the Edit labels option
enabled, if a selected area of a resource is spliced from the Viewer to the timeline in a position
before labels, these labels will be pushed to the right for the length of the selected area.
With in/out points you can perform Cut and Paste operations in Drag and Drop mode as
well as in Cut and Paste mode. Go to the Edit Menu to view the list and the keyboard shortcuts.
7.9 Cut and paste editing
This is the traditional method of editing in audio editors.
In the case of Cinelerra, you can copy edits in the same track, copy from different tracks in the
same instance, start a second instance of Cinelerra and copy from one instance to the other or
load a media file into the Viewer and copy from there.
Load some files onto the timeline. To perform cut and paste editing select the i-beam
toggle. Select a region of the timeline by click dragging on it and select the cut button to
cut it. Move the insertion point to another point in the timeline and select the paste button.
Assuming no in/out points are defined on the timeline this performs a cut and paste operation.
If in/out points are defined, the insertion point and highlighted region are overridden by the
in/out points for clipboard operations. Thus, with in/out points you can perform cut and paste
in drag and drop mode as well as cut and paste mode.
Most editing operations are listed in the Edit Menu. Some of them have a button on the
program control toolbar and a keyboard shortcut.
•Cut x - Delete the selected area and hold it on the clipboard for future pasting.
•Copy c - Copy the selected area and hold it on the clipboard for future pasting.
•Paste v - Paste the material held in the clipboard
•Clear Del - Clear the selected area. If the insertion point is over an edit boundary and the
edits on each side of the edit boundary are the same resource, the edits are combined into
one edit comprised by the resource. The start of this one edit is the start of the first edit
and the end of this one edit is the end of the second edit. This either results in the edit
expanding or shrinking.
•Paste Silence Shift+Space - Paste blank audio/video for the length of the selected area.
Following edits will be pushed to the right.
•Mute Region m - Overwrite blank audio/video on the selected area. Following edits don’t
move.
•Trim Selection - Delete everything but the selected region
•Select All a - Select the whole timeline
Other editing operations:
•Copy&Mute cm - Mute the selected area and hold it on the clipboard for future pasting.
•Overwrite - To perform overwriting within the timeline paste on a selected region (high-
lighted or between in/out points). The selected region will be overwritten. If the clip
pasted from the clipboard is shorter than the selected region, the selected region will be
shrunk. Following edits will move. If the clip pasted from the clipboard is longer than the
selected region, the selected region will be overwritten with the first part of the clip and the
remaining part of the clip will be written after the overwriting. Following edits will move.
Alternatively, overwrite from the Viewer. See Section 7.7 [Two screen editing], page 47.
52 Chapter 7: Editing
•Concatenate - Go to Tracks ->Concatenate tracks. This operation copies all the assets of
every disarmed but playable track and concatenates it by pasting those assets at the end of
the first set of armed tracks. They are pasted one after the other, keeping the same order
they have on the stack. See Section 7.6 [Manipulating tracks], page 46.
•Split - Cinelerra can’t spit an edit in two. To insert a transition in the middle of an edit
delete a single frame. To insert a clip in the middle of an edit splice from the Viewer. See
Section 7.7 [Two screen editing], page 47.
In Cut and Paste editing mode you can edit labels as well. By enabling Edit labels in the
Settings Menu, or by disabling the Lock labels from moving button on the Program Control
Tool Bar labels will be cut, copied or pasted along with the selected regions of the armed tracks.
When editing audio, it is customary to cut from one part of a waveform into the same part
of another waveform. The start and stop points of the cut are identical in each waveform and
might be offset slightly, while the wave data is different. It would be very hard to highlight one
waveform to cut it and highlight the second waveform to paste it without changing the relative
start and stop positions.
One option for simplifying this is to open a second copy of Cinelerra, cutting and pasting to
transport media between the two copies. This way two highlighted regions can exist simultane-
ously.
Another option is to set in/out points for the source region of the source waveform and set labels
for the destination region of the destination waveform. Perform a cut, clear the in/out points,
select the region between the labels, and perform a paste.
7.10 Trimming
With some edits on the timeline it is possible to do trimming. By trimming you shrink or grow
the edit boundaries by dragging them. In drag and drop mode or cut and paste mode, move the
cursor over an edit boundary until it changes shape. The cursor will either be an expand left or
an expand right. If the cursor is an expand left, the dragging operation affects the beginning of
the edit. If the cursor is an expand right, the dragging operation affects the end of the edit.
When you click on an edit boundary to start dragging, the mouse button number determines
which dragging behavior is going to be followed. 3 possible behaviors are bound to mouse
buttons in the interface preferences. See Section 3.7 [Interface], page 23.
The effect of each drag operation not only depends on the behavior button but whether the
beginning or end of the edit is being dragged. When you release the mouse button, the trimming
operation is performed.
In a Drag all following edits operation, the beginning of the edit either cuts data from the
edit if you move it forward or pastes new data from before the edit if you move it backward.
The end of the edit pastes data into the edit if you move it forward or cuts data from the end
of the edit if you move it backward. All the edits thereafter shift. Finally, if you drag the end
of the edit past the start of the edit, the edit is deleted.
In a Drag only one edit operation, the behavior is the same when you drag the beginning or
end of an edit. The only difference is none of the other edits in the track shift. Instead, anything
adjacent to the current edit expands or shrinks to fill gaps left by the drag operation.
In a Drag source only operation, nothing is cut or pasted. If you move the beginning or end
of the edit forward, the source reference in the edit shifts forward. If you move the beginning or
end of the edit backward, the source reference shifts backward. The edit remains in the same
spot in the timeline but the source shifts.
For all file formats besides still images, the extent of the trimming operation is clamped to
the source file length. Attempting to drag the start of the edit beyond the start of the source
clamps it to the source start.
Chapter 7: Editing 53
In all trimming operations, all edits which start on the same position as the cursor when the
drag operation begins are affected. Unarm tracks to prevent edits from being affected.
Most effects in Cinelerra can be figured out just by using them and tweaking. Here are brief
descriptions of effects which you might not utilize fully by mere experimentation.
Chapter 8: Compositor window 55
8 Compositor window
This window displays the output of the timeline. It is the interface for most compositing
operations or operations that affect the appearance of the timeline output. Operations done
in the Compositor affect the timeline but do not affect clips.
8.1 Compositor controls
The video output has several navigation functions. The video output size is either locked to the
window size or unlocked with scrollbars for navigation. The video output can be zoomed in and
out and panned. Navigating the video output this way does not affect the rendered output; it
just changes the point of view in the compositor window.
If it is unlocked from the window size, middle clicking and dragging anywhere in the video
pans the point of view.
Hitting the +and -keys zooms in and out of the video output.
Underneath the video output are copies of many of the functions available in the main
window. In addition there is a zoom menu and a tally light.
The zoom menu jumps to all the possible zoom settings and, through the Auto option, locks
the video to the window size. The zoom menu does not affect the window size.
The tally light turns red when rendering is happening. This is useful for knowing if the
output is current.
Right clicking anywhere in the video output brings up a menu with all the zoom levels and
some other options. In this particular case the zoom levels resize the entire window and not just
the video.
The reset camera and reset projector options center the camera and projector See Section 8.2
[Compositing], page 56.
The Hide controls option hides everything except the video.
On the left of the video output is a toolbar specific to the compositor window. Here are the
functions in the toolbar:
8.1.1 Protect video
This disables changes to the compositor output from clicks in it. It is an extra layer on top of
the track arming toggle to prevent unwanted changes.
8.1.2 Magnifying glass
This tool zooms in and out of the compositor output without resizing the window. If the
video output is currently locked to the size of the window, clicking in it with the magnifying
glass unlocks it and creates scrollbars for navigation.
Left clicking in the video zooms in.
Ctrl clicking in the video zooms out.
Rotating the wheel on a wheel mouse zooms in and out.
8.1.3 Masks tool
This tool brings up the mask editing tool See Section 8.2.2 [Masks], page 61. Enable the
tool window to see options for this tool.
8.1.4 Camera
This tool brings up the camera editing tool See Section 8.2.1 [The camera and projector],
page 56. Enable the tool window to see options for this tool.
56 Chapter 8: Compositor window
8.1.5 Projector
This tool brings up the projector editing tool See Section 8.2.1 [The camera and projector],
page 56. Enable the tool window to see options for this tool.
8.1.6 Crop tool
This tool brings up the cropping tool See Section 8.2.3 [Cropping], page 65. The tool
window must be enabled to use this tool.
8.1.7 Eyedropper
This brings up the eyedropper. The eyedropper detects whatever color is under it and stores it
in a temporary area. Enabling the tool info shows the currently selected color. Click anywhere
in the video output to select the color at that point.
The eyedropper not only lets you see areas which are clipped, but its value can be applied to
many effects. Different effects handle the eyedropper differently.
8.1.8 Tool info
This tool button works only in conjunction with the other controls on the compositor. Based
on what compositing control is active the toggle button will activate/deactivate the appropriate
control dialog box.
Controls with dialog boxes are:
•Edit mask
•Camera automation
•Projector automation
•Crop control
8.1.9 Safe regions tool
This tool draws the safe regions in the video output. This does not affect the rendered output
See Section 8.2.4 [Safe regions], page 65.
8.2 Compositing
A large amount of Cinelerra’s binary size is directed towards compositing. When you remove the
letterboxing from a widescreen show, you are compositing. Changing the resolution of a show,
making a split screen, and fading in and out among other things are all compositing operations
in Cinelerra. Cinelerra detects when it is in a compositing operation and plays back through the
compositing engine only then. Otherwise, it uses the fastest decoder available in the hardware.
Compositing operations are done on the timeline and in the Compositor window. Shortcuts
exist in the Resource window for changing some compositing attributes. Once some video files
are on the timeline, the compositor window is a good place to try compositing.
8.2.1 The camera and projector
8.2.1.1 The temporary
In the compositor window, the most important functions are the camera button and the
projector button. These control operation of the camera and projector. Cinelerra’s compositing
routines use a "temporary", a frame of video in memory where all graphics processing is per-
formed. Inside Cinelerra’s compositing pipeline, the camera determines where in the source video
the "temporary"is copied from. The projector determines where in the output the "temporary"
is copied to.
Chapter 8: Compositor window 57
The process is pretty much as if we scanned in a roll of film one frame at a time, then (using
Gimp, for example) digitally altered the scanned image with various filters. Once the image
has been transformed by the filters (color correction, for example) we then project the finished
image back into a new roll of film, thus creating a new "modified"version of the original.
Each track has a different "temporary"which is defined by the track size. By resizing the
tracks you can create split screens, pans, and zooms.
Visual representation of the compositing pipeline
When editing the camera and projector in the compositing window, the first track with
record enabled is the track affected. Even if the track is completely transparent, it is still the
affected track. If multiple video tracks exist, the easiest way to select one track for editing is to
SHIFT-click on the record icon of the track. This solos the track.
58 Chapter 8: Compositor window
The purpose of the projector is to place the contents of the "temporary"into the project’s
output. The intent of the projector is to composite several sources from the various tracks into
one final output track.
The projector alignment frame is identical to the camera’s viewport, except that it guides
where on the output canvas to put the contents of each temporary.
8.2.1.2 Compositing projector controls
When the projector button is enabled in the compositor window, you are in projector editing
mode. A guide box appears in the video window. Dragging anywhere in the video window
causes the guide box to move, hopefully along with the video. SHIFT-dragging anywhere in the
video window causes the guide box to shrink and grow along with the video. Once you have
positioned the video with the projector, you are ready to master the camera.
8.2.1.3 Compositing camera controls
Select the camera button to enable camera editing mode. In this mode, the guide box shows
where the camera position is in relation to past and future camera positions but not where it
is in relation to the source video. Dragging the camera box in the compositor window does not
move the box but instead moves the location of the video inside the box.
Chapter 8: Compositor window 59
The viewport is a window on the camera that frames the area of source video to be scanned.
The viewport is represented as a red frame with diagonal cross bars.
The viewport
Viewport sizes
The size of the viewport is defined by the size of the current track. A smaller viewport
(640x400) captures a smaller area. A larger viewport (800x200) captures an area larger than
the source video and fills the empty spaces with blanks.
Once we have our viewport defined, we still need to place the camera right above the area of
source video we are interested on. To control the location of the camera:
1. Open the compositor window with a track selected.
2. Select the camera button to enable camera editing mode.
3. Drag over the display window.
When we drag over the viewport in the compositor window (although initially counter-
intuitive), the viewport does not moves but the area of video that sits under the camera’s
location does, like when watching the output of a moving camera.
60 Chapter 8: Compositor window
In the compositor window, the viewport is always
shown centered, what moves is the video under it
For example, when you drag the camera down, the viewport in effect is moving downwards
on the video, showing its path towards the bottom of the video, but from our perspective on
the compositor screen, we see the video moving up. When you drag the camera right, the video
seems to move left, and so on.
Note: The guide box shows where the camera position is in relation to past and future camera
positions, not where it is in relation to the source video.
8.2.1.4 Popup menu of options
In the compositing window, there is a popup menu of options for the camera and projector.
Right click over the video portion of the compositing window to bring up the menu.
•Reset Camera causes the camera to return to the center position.
•Reset Projector causes the projector to return to the center.
8.2.1.5 The camera and projector tool window
The camera and projector have shortcut operations that do not appear in the popup menu and
are not represented in video overlays. These are accessed in the Tool window. Most operations
in the Compositor window have a tool window which is enabled by activating the question
mark.
The camera and projector tool window
In the case of the camera and projector, the tool window shows x, y, and z coordinates. By
either tumbling or entering text directly, the camera and projector can be precisely positioned.
9 justification types are also defined for easy access. A popular justification operation is upper
left projection after image reduction. This is used when reducing the size of video with aspect
ratio adjustment.
•Left
Chapter 8: Compositor window 61
•Center Horizontal
•Right
•Top
•Center Vertical
•Bottom
The translation effect allows simultaneous aspect ratio conversion and reduction but is easier
to use if the reduced video is put in the upper left of the temporary instead of in the center.
The track size is set to the original size of the video and the camera is centered. The output
size is set to the reduced size of the video. Without any effects, this produces just the cropped
center portion of the video in the output.
The translation effect is dropped onto the video track. The input dimensions of the translation
effect are set to the original size and the output dimensions are set to the reduced size. To put
the reduced video in the center subsection that the projector shows would require offsetting out
x and out y by a complicated calculation. Instead, we leave out x and out y at 0 and use the
projector’s tool window.
Merely by selecting left justify and top justify, the projector displays the reduced
image from the top left corner of the temporary in the center of the output.
8.2.2 Masks
Masks select a region of the video for either displaying or hiding. Masks are also used in
conjunction with another effect to isolate the effect to a certain region of the frame. A copy
of one video track may be delayed slightly and unmasked in locations where the one copy has
interference but the other copy does not. Color correction may be needed in one subsection of a
frame but not another. A mask can be applied to just a subsection of the color corrected track
while the vanilla track shows through. Removal of boom microphones, airplanes, and housewives
are other mask uses.
The order of the compositing pipeline affects what can be done with masks. Mainly, masks
are performed on the temporary after effects and before the projector. This means multiple
tracks can be bounced to a masked track and projected with the same mask.
Our compositing pipeline graph now has a masking stage. There are 8 possible masks per
track. Each mask is defined separately, although they each perform the same operation, whether
it is multiplication or subtraction.
62 Chapter 8: Compositor window
Compositing pipeline with masks
To define a mask, go into the Compositor window and enable the mask toggle. Now go
over the video and click-drag.
IMPORTANT: You have to select automatic keyframes (See Section 18.3 [Automatic
keyframes], page 132,) if you wish to move a mask over time. If you do not select automatic
keyframes, the mask position will be the same even if you edit at different places on the timeline.
Click-drag again in another part of the image to create each new point of the mask. While it
is not the conventional Bezier curve behavior, this masking interface performs in realtime what
the effect of the mask is going to be. Creating each point of the mask expands a rubber band
curve.
Once points are defined, they can be moved by CTRL-dragging in the vicinity of the corner.
CTRL-drag allows you to move existing points to
Chapter 8: Compositor window 63
new locations, thus altering the shape of the mask
This, however, does not smooth out the curve. The in-out points of the Bezier curve are
accessed by SHIFT-dragging in the vicinity of the corner. Then SHIFT-dragging near the in or
out point causes the point to move.
SHIFT-drag activates belzier handles
to create curves between mask points
Finally, once you have a mask, the mask can be translated in one piece by CTRL-ALT-
dragging the mask. Mask editing in Cinelerra is identical to how The Gimp edits masks except
in this case the effect of the mask is always on.
CTRL-ALT-drag translates an entire mask
to a new location on the screen
The masks have many more parameters which could not be represented with video overlays.
These are represented in the tool window for masks. Selecting the question mark when the
mask toggle is highlighted brings up the mask options.
64 Chapter 8: Compositor window
Mask options window
The mode of the mask determines if the mask removes data or makes data visible. In
subtraction mode, the mask causes video to disappear. In multiplication mode, the mask causes
video to appear and everything outside the mask to disappear.
Mask mode
The value of the mask determines how extreme the multiplication or subtraction is. In
subtraction mode, higher values subtract more alpha. In multiplication mode, higher values
make the region in the mask brighter while the region outside the mask is always hidden.
Mask value
The mask number determines which one of the 8 possible masks we are editing. Each track
has 8 possible masks. When you click-drag in the compositor window, you are only editing
one of the masks. Change the value of mask number to cause another mask to be edited. The
previous mask is still active but only the curve overlay for the currently selected mask is visible.
When multiple masks are used, their effects are ORed together. Every mask in a single track
uses the same value and mode.
The edges of a mask are hard by default but this rarely is desired. The feather parameter
determines how many pixels to feather the mask. This creates softer edges but takes longer to
render.
Feather parameter
Note: The OpenGL mask renderer is of low quality and only suitable as a preview for initial
work. For fine-tuning of masks (with large feather values) OpenGL should be switched off and
the software renderer be used.
Finally, there are parameters which affect one point on the current mask instead of the
whole mask. These are Delete, x, y. The active point is defined as the last point dragged in
Chapter 8: Compositor window 65
the compositor window. Any point can be activated merely by CTRL-clicking near it without
moving the pointer. Once a point is activated, Delete deletes it and x, y allow repositioning by
numeric entry.
8.2.3 Cropping
Cropping reduces the visible picture area of the whole project.
It changes the values of the output dimensions (width and height in pixels) and the X Y values
of the projector in a single operation.
Since it changes project settings it affects all the tracks for their entire duration and it is not
keyframable.
Enable the crop toggle and the tool window in the compositor window to display the
Crop control dialog box.
Crop control dialog box
Click-drag anywhere in the video to define the crop area. This draws a rectangle over the
video.
Crop area defined
Click-drag anywhere in the video to start a new rectangle.
Click-drag over any corner of the rectangle to reposition the corner.
ALT-click in the cropping rectangle to translate the rectangle to any position without resizing
it.
The crop control dialog allows also text entry of the top left coordinates (X1,Y1) and bottom
right coordinates (X2,Y2) that define the crop rectangle.
When the rectangle is positioned, hit the Do it button in the crop control dialog to execute
the cropping operation: the portion of the image outside the rectangle will be cut off and the
projector will make the output fit the canvas.
The Set Format window will show the new project Width and Height values.
The projector tool window will show the new X Y values.
Track size will remain unchanged.
To undo the cropping enter the original project dimensions in the Set Format window and click
on Reset projector in the popup menu of the compositor.
8.2.4 Safe regions
On consumer displays the borders of the image are cut off and within the cut-off point is a region
which is not always square like it is in the compositor window. The borders are intended for
66 Chapter 8: Compositor window
scratch room and vertical blanking data. You can show where these borders are by enabling the
safe regions toggle. Keep titles inside the inner rectangle and keep action inside the outer
rectangle.
8.2.5 Overlay modes
Every video track has an overlay mode, accessible by expanding the track. The overlay mode is
a pull-down menu on the left under the fader. When collapsed, it displays an icon representing
the current overlay mode.
Select the expand track toggle to view all the options for a video track if you can not see
the overlay mode. The overlay mode of video tracks is normal by default. Select other modes
by clicking the overlay button and selecting an item from the popup menu.
Overlay modes are processed inside the projector stage of compositing. The different modes
are summarized below.
•Normal
This mode uses a traditional Porter-Diff equation to blend tracks with alpha. When no
alpha exists in the project color model, the new track always replaces the output.
•Addition
In this mode, whatever is in the output is added to the current track. The result is blended
based on the current track’s alpha onto the output.
•Subtraction
In this mode, the current track is subtracted from the output and the result is alpha blended
onto the output.
•Multiply
This is the most useful operation. The current track is multiplied by the output and the
result blended onto the output. Usually a black and white image with no alpha channel or
a white title on a black image is used as the current track. With the multiply operation,
only the output portions under the white area show.
•Divide
This mode divides the current track by the output and the result is blended into the output.
It usually results in overloaded levels.
•Replace
This mode does no blending and overwrites the output with the current track.
8.2.6 Track and output sizes
The size of the temporary and the size of the output in our compositing pipeline are independent
and variable. This fits into everything covered so far. The camera’s viewport is the temporary
size. Effects are processed in the temporary and are affected by the temporary size. Projectors
are rendered to the output and are affected by the output size. If the temporary is smaller than
the output, the temporary is bordered by blank regions in the output. If the temporary is bigger
than the output, the temporary is cropped.
8.2.6.1 Track size
The temporary size is defined as the track size. Each track has a different size. Right click on a
track to bring up the track’s menu. Select Resize Track to resize the track to any arbitrary size.
Alternatively you can select Match output size to make the track the same size as the output.
Chapter 8: Compositor window 67
The resize track window
For example, the next image shows how a video track and a project output of equal sizes
look when displayed on the compositor.
Project output size and video
track with equal dimensions (720x480)
If you resize a track, then its appearance on the compositor changes accordingly.
Reducing the track (to 640 x 400) and leaving the project’s output size untouched makes the
track show on the compositor smaller and framed by a blank area.
New track (640x400), smaller
than the project’s output (720x480)
Enlarging the track (to 800 x 560) and leaving the project’s output size untouched makes the
track show on the compositor larger and cropped to the output’s dimension.
68 Chapter 8: Compositor window
New track (800x560), cropped to
the project’s output size (720x480)
Using this relationship between the track and the project’s output size you can effectively
reduce or magnify the size of a particular track with regards to the final output and therefore
create visual "effects"like split screens, pans, and zooms on the compositor.
8.2.6.2 Output size
The output size is set in either New when creating a new project or Settings->Format. In the
Resource window there is another way to change the output size. Right click on a video asset
and select Match project size to conform the output to the asset. When new tracks are created,
the track size always conforms to the output size specified by these methods.
When rendering, the project’s output size is the final video track size where the temporary
pipeline is rendered into.
If the output size is larger than the temporary then the image transferred from the temporary
will fit inside the Output Track. Any space left on the Output is left blank.
Output size (shown in green) larger than the temporary
If the output size is smaller than the temporary then some of the temporary video will be
cropped out.
Chapter 8: Compositor window 69
Output size too small for the temporary
Chapter 9: Viewer window 71
9 Viewer window
The viewer window is a place to load and preview your source media and clips. Here you can
quickly browse through an asset using the slider control, focus on an area of work with the
preview region or you use editing controls to cut & paste segments into the project or create a
clip for later use.
The viewer window
To open the viewer window, go to Window->Show Viewer
The display is the area on the viewer where you actually see media playing. Before you can
play any media, you first must load it on the viewer.
To load media into the viewer:
1. Open the resources manager window and select the asset manager or the clip manager
folder.
2. Drag a file from the asset manager or the clip manager to the viewer
You can also load media onto the viewer by right clicking on a file in the asset manager and
selecting View from the popup menu or by double clicking on the icon.
Once your media loads you will see it appear on the display. To play, rewind or forward
through it use the slider control or the transport controls.
You can change the media display size by right clicking on the screen to activate the display
zoom menu. Select zoom levels of 50%, 100% or 200% of the original media size.
When displaying media, the viewer uses the project’s defined output size format settings,
not the original assets format. You can change the project’s output to match the asset’s format
using the match project size menu option in the asset manager.
72 Chapter 9: Viewer window
In here you will scrub around source media and clips, selecting regions to paste into the
project. Operations done in the viewer affect a temporary EDL or a clip but not the timeline.
Chapter 10: Resources window 73
10 Resources window
Effects, transitions, clips, and assets are accessed here. Most of the resources are inserted into
the project by dragging them out of the resource window. Management of resource allocation
is also performed here.
10.1 Navigating the resources
The resource window is divided into two areas. One area lists folders and another area lists
folder contents. Going into the folder list and clicking on a folder updates the contents area
with the contents of that folder.
The resources window
The folder and contents can be displayed as icons or text.
Right clicking in the folder or contents area brings up a menu containing formatting options.
Select Display text to display a text listing. Select Sort items to sort the contents of the folder
alphabetically.
The asset info window displays detailed information about the selected media file. To access
it, go to the asset manager folder and right click on the label or icon of the file you are interested
on. An asset menu will appear, then click on Info.
The asset info window
Chapter 11: Sound level meters window 75
11 Sound level meters window
An additional window, the levels window can be brought up from the Window menu. The levels
window displays the output audio levels after all mixing is done.
The sound level meters window
Sound level meters appear in many locations. They can be toggled in the viewer and com-
positor windows with the level toggle. They appear in the patchbay when a track is expanded
(See Section 7.1 [The patchbay], page 43.) They appear in the recording monitor when audio is
being recorded.
The sound levels in the levels window, compositor, and viewer correspond to the final output
levels before they are clipped to the soundcard range. In the record monitor they are the input
values from the sound card. In the patchbay they are the sound levels for each track after all
effects are processed and before down-mixing for the output.
Most of the time, audio levels have numerical markings in dB but in the patchbay there is
not enough room.
The sound level is color coded as an extra means of determining the sound level. Even
without numerical markings, the sound level color can distinguish between several ranges and
overload. Look at the color codings in a meter with numerical markings to see what colors
correspond to what sound level. Then for meters in the patchbay in expanded audio tracks, use
the color codings to see if it is overloading.
Be aware that sound levels in Cinelerra can go above 0 dB. This allows not only seeing if
a track is overloading but how much information is being lost by the overloading. Overloading
by less than 3 dB is usually acceptable. While overloading is treated as positive numbers in
Cinelerra, it is clipped to 0 when sent to a sound card or file.
The visible range of the sound level meters is configurable in settings->preferences->interface
(See Section 3.7 [Interface], page 23.)
Chapter 12: Transport controls 77
12 Transport controls
Transport controls are just as useful in navigation as they are in playing back footage, hence
they are described here in the navigation section. Each of the Viewer, Compositor, and Program
windows has a transport panel.
The transport panel.
The transport panel is controlled by the keyboard as well as the graphical interface. For each
of the operations it performs, the starting position is the position of the insertion point in the
Program window and the slider in the Compositor window. The ending position is either the
end or start of the timeline or the end or start of the selected region if there is one.
The orientation of the end or start depends on the direction of playback. If it is forward the
end position is the end of the selected region. If it is backward the end position is the start of
the selected region.
The insertion point moves to track playback. When playback stops, the insertion point stays
where playback stopped. Thus, by playing back you change the position of the insertion point.
The keyboard interface is usually the fastest and has more speeds. The transport keys are
arranged in a sideways Ton the number pad.
4Frame back 5Reverse Slow 6Reverse +Reverse Fast
1Frame
Forward
2Forward Slow 3Play Enter Fast Forward
0Stop
Hitting any key on the keyboard twice pauses it.
When using frame advance functions the behavior may seem odd. If you frame advance
forward and then frame advance backward, the displayed frame does not change. This is because
the playback position is not the frame but the time between two frames. The rendered frame is
the area that the playback position crosses. When you increment the time between two frames
by one and decrement it by one, you cross the same frame both times and so the same frame is
displayed.
The transport behavior changes if you hold down CTRL when issuing any of the transport
commands. This causes the starting point to be the in point if playing forward and the out
point if playing backward. If playing forward, the out point becomes the ending point and if
playing backward, the in point becomes the ending point. If no in/out points are specified, the
behavior falls back to using the insertion point and track boundaries as the starting and ending
points.
It is possible to use a hardware JogShuttle1
1Refer to David Arendt’s message posted on the Cinelerra CV mailing-list on the 2003-11-11 for more
information
Chapter 13: Timebar 79
13 Timebar
The navigation features of the Viewer and Compositor behave very similarly. Each has a timebar
and slider below the video output. The timebar and slider are critical for navigation.
The timebar represents the entire time covered by the program. When you define labels and
in/out points it defines those, too. Finally the timebar defines a region known as the preview
region.
The preview region is the region of the timeline which the slider affects. The slider only
covers the time covered by the preview region. By using a preview region inside the entire
program and using the slider inside the preview region you can quickly and precisely seek in the
compositor and viewer.
When you replace the current project with a file the preview region automatically resizes
to cover the entire file. When you append data or change the size of the current project, the
preview region stays the same size and shrinks. Therefore, you need to resize the preview region.
Load a file and then slide around it using the compositor slider. The insertion point in the
main window follows the compositor. Move the pointer over the compositor’s timebar until
it turns into a left resize pointer. The click and drag right. The preview region should have
changed and the slider resized proportionally.
Go to the right of the timebar until a right resize pointer appears. Drag left so the preview
region shrinks.
Go to the center of the preview region in the timebar and drag it around to convince yourself
if can be moved.
Note: When you append data or change the size of the current project, the preview region
stays the same size and shrinks. Therefore, you need to resize the preview region.
Preview region in compositor
If you go to the slider and slide it around with the preview region shrunk, you will see the
slider only affects the preview region. The timebar and slider in the viewer window work exactly
the same.
Labels and in/out points are fully supported in the viewer and compositor. The only dif-
ference between the viewer and compositor is the compositor reflects the state of the program
while the viewer reflects the state of a clip but not the program.
When you hit the label button in the compositor, the label appears both in the compositor
timebar and the program timebar.
When you select a label or in/out point in the compositor, the insertion point in the program
window jumps to that position. To scroll your video and thus move the insertion point into the
visible part of the timeline, use the manual go to button of the compositor.
Labels and in/out points in the viewer.
In the viewer and compositor, labels and in/out points are displayed in the timebar. Instead
of displaying just a region of the program, the timebar displays the entire program here.
Like the program window, the compositor has a zoom capability. First, the pull-down menu
on the bottom of the compositor window has a number of zoom options. When set to Auto the
video is zoomed to match the compositor window size as closely as possible. When set to any
80 Chapter 13: Timebar
other percentage, the video is zoomed a power of 2 and scrollbars can be used to scroll around
the output. When the video is zoomed bigger than the window size, not only do scrollbars scan
around it but middle mouse button dragging in the video output scans around it. This is exactly
when The Gimp does.
Furthermore, the zoom toggle causes the Compositor window to enter zoom mode. In
zoom mode, clicking in the video output zooms in while ctrl-clicking in the video output zooms
out. If you have a wheel mouse, rotating the wheel zooms in or out too.
Zooming in or out with the zoom tool does not change the rendered output, mind you. It is
merely for scrutinizing video or fitting it in the desktop.
Playing video on the compositor when zoomed to any size other that 100%, the original size,
requires Cinelerra to do extra processing steps. This could affect performance on slower systems.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 81
14 Realtime effects
These are layered under the track they apply to. They process the track when the track is
played back, with no permanent storage of the output except when the project is rendered.
All the realtime effects are listed in the resource window, divided into two groups: audio
effects and video effects. Audio effects should be dragged from the resource window onto audio
tracks. Video effects should be dragged onto video tracks.
If there is data on the destination track, the effect is applied to the entire track. If there is
no data on the track the effect is deleted. Finally, if a region of the track is selected the effect
is pasted into the region, regardless of whether there is data.
Some of the effects do not process data but synthesize data. In the case of a synthesis effect,
you will want to select a region of the track so the dragging operation pastes it without deleting
it.
When dragging more than one effect onto a track, you will see the effects layering from top
to bottom, on the bottom of the track. When the track is played back, effects are processed
from top to bottom. The output of the top effect becomes the input of the bottom effect and
so on and so forth.
In addition to dragging from the resource window, effects may be applied to a track by a
popup menu. Right click on a track and select Attach effect from the popup. The attach effect
dialog gives you more control than pure dragging and dropping. For one thing, the attach effect
dialog lets you attach two more types of effects: shared effects and shared tracks. Select a plugin
from the Plugins column and hit Attach under the plugins column to attach it. The effect is
the same as if the effect was dragged from the resource window.
When an effect exists under a track, it often needs to be configured. Go to the effect and right
click on it to bring up the effect popup. In the effect popup is a show option. The show option
causes the GUI for the effect to appear under the cursor. Most effects have GUI’s but some do
not. If the effect does not have a GUI, nothing pops up when the show option is selected. When
you tweak parameters in the effect GUI, the parameters normally affect the entire duration of
the effect.
14.1 Realtime effect types
The two other effect types supported by the Attach Effect dialog are recycled effects. In order
to use a recycled effect, three requirements must be met:
•There must be other effects in the timeline.
•The other effects must be of the same type as the track you are attaching an effect to. If
the track is an audio track, the effects must be audio effects. If the track is a video track,
the effects must be video effects.
•The insertion point or selected region must start inside the other effects.
In the case of a shared effect, these conditions must be true. In the case of a shared track,
there merely must be another track on the timeline of the same type as the track you are applying
an effect to. If you right clicked on a video track to attach an effect, there will not be anything
in the shared tracks column if no other video track exists. If you right clicked on an audio track
there will not be anything in the shared track column if no other audio track exists.
If shared effects or shared tracks are available, they appear in the shared effects and shared
tracks columns. The attach button under each column causes anything highlighted in the column
to be attached under the current track.
Shared effects and shared tracks allow very unique things to be done. In the case of a shared
effect, the shared effect is treated like a copy of the original effect except in the shared effect the
82 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
GUI can not be brought up. All configuration of the shared effect is determined by the GUI of
the original effect and only the GUI of the original effect can be brought up.
When a shared effect is played back, it is processed just like a normal effect except the
configuration is copied from the original effect. Some effects detect when they are being shared,
like the reverb effects and the compressor. These effects determine what tracks are sharing them
and either mix the two tracks together or use one track to stage some value. The reverb mixes
tracks together to simulate ambience. The compressor uses one of the sharing tracks as the
trigger.
When an original track has a shared track as one of its effects, the shared track itself is used
as a realtime effect. This is more commonly known as bouncing tracks but Cinelerra achieves
the same operation by attaching shared tracks. The fade and any effects in the shared track are
applied to the original track. Once the shared track has processed the data, the original track
performs any effects which come below the shared track and then composites it on the output.
In addition, once the shared track has processed the output of the original track like a
realtime effect, the shared track mixes itself into the output with it is settings for pan, mode,
and projector. Thus, two tracks are mixing the same data on the output. Most of the times you
do not want the shared track to mix the same data as the original track on the output. You
want it to stop right before the mixing stage and give the data back to the original track. Do
this by enabling the mute toggle next to each track for whom you do not want to mix on
the output.
Suppose you were making video and you did want the shared track to composite the original
track’s data on the output a second time. In the case of video, the video from the shared
track would always appear under the video from the original track, regardless of whether it was
on top of the original track. This is because shared tracks are composited in order of their
attachment. Since it is part of the original track it has to be composited before the original
track is composited.
14.2 Editing realtime effects
Many operations exist for manipulating effects once they are in the timeline. Because mixing
effects and media is such complex business, the methods used in editing effects are not as concise
as cutting and pasting. Some of the editing happens by dragging in/out points, some of the
editing happens through popup menus, and some of it happens by dragging effects.
Normally when you edit tracks, the effects follow the editing decisions. If you cut from a
track, the effect shrinks. If you drag edit in/out points, the effect changes length. This behavior
can be disabled by selecting Settings->edit effects in the project window. This decouples effects
from editing operations, but what if you just want to edit the effects?
Move the timeline cursor over the effect borders until it changes to a resize left or resize right
icon. In this state, if you drag the end of the effect, it performs an edit just like dragging the
end of a track does.
The three editing behaviors of track trimming apply to effect trimming and they are bound
to the mouse buttons that you set in interface preferences. See Section 3.7 [Interface], page 23.
When you perform a trim edit on an effect, the effect boundary is moved by dragging on it.
Unlike track editing, the effect has no source length. You can extend the end of an effect as
much as desired without being limited.
Also unlike track editing, the starting position of the drag operation does not bind the edit
decision to media. The media the effect is bound to does not follow effect edits. Other effects,
however, do follow editing decisions made on an effect. If you drag the end of an effect which is
lined up to effects on other tracks, the effects on the other tracks will be edited while the media
stays the same.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 83
What happens if you trim the end of an effect in, leaving a lot of unaffected time near the end
of the track? When you drag an effect in from the Resource Window you can insert the effect
in the portion of the row unoccupied by the trimming operation. Realtime effects are organized
into rows under the track. Each row can have multiple effects.
In some cases you will want a trimming operation to change only one row of effects. This
can be achieved by first positioning the insertion point on the start or end of the effect. Then
press SHIFT while beginning the trimming operation. This causes the operation to change only
one row of effects.
In addition to trimming, you can move effects up or down. Every track can have a stack
of effects under it. By moving an effect up or down you change the order in which effects are
processed in the stack. Go to an effect and right click to bring up the effect menu. The Move
up and Move down options move the effect up or down.
When you are moving effects up or down, be aware that if they are shared as shared effects,
any references will be pointing to a different effect after the move operation.
Finally, there is dragging of effects. Dragging effects works just like dragging edits. You must
select the arrow to enter drag and drop mode before dragging effects. The effects snap to
media boundaries, effect boundaries, and tracks. Be aware if you drag a reference to a shared
effect, the reference will usually point to the wrong effect afterwards.
Right click on an effect to bring up a menu for the effect. Select attach... to change the effect
or change the reference if it is a shared effect.
14.3 Realtime audio effects
14.3.1 Compressor
Contrary to computer science experience, the audio compressor does not reduce the amount of
data required to store the audio. The audio compressor reduces the dynamic range of the audio.
In Cinelerra the compressor actually performs the function of an expander and compressor.
The compressor works by calculating the maximum sound level within a certain time period
of the current position. The maximum sound level is taken as the input sound level. For every
input sound level there is an output sound level specified by the user. The gain at the current
position is adjusted so the maximum sound level in the time range is the user specified value.
The compressor has a graph which correlates every input sound level to an output level. The
horizontal direction is the input sound level in dB. The vertical direction is the output sound
level in dB. The user specifies output sound levels by creating points on the graph. Click in the
graph to create a point. If 2 points exist, drag one point across another point to delete it. The
most recent point selected has its vales displayed in textboxes for more precise adjustment.
To make the compressor reduce the dynamic range of the audio, make all the output values
greater than the input values except 0 dB. To make the compressor expand the dynamic range
of the audio, make all the output values except 0 dB less than the input values. The algorithm
currently limits all sound levels above 0 dB to 0 dB so to get an overloaded effect put a gain
effect before the compressor to reduce all the levels and follow it with another gain effect to
amplify all the levels back over 0 dB.
Reaction secs: This determines where in relation to the current position the maximum sound
level is taken and how fast the gain is adjusted to reach that peak. It is notated in seconds. If it
84 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
is negative the compressor reads ahead of the current position to get the future peak. The gain
is ramped to that peak over one reaction time. This allows it to hit the desired output level
exactly when the input peak occurs at the current position.
If the reaction time is positive the compressor scans only the current position for the gain
and ramps gain over one reaction time to hit the desired output level. It hits the output level
exactly one reaction time after detecting the input peak.
Decay secs: If the peak is higher than the current level, the compressor ramps the gain up
to the peak value. Then if a future peak is less than the current peak it ramps the gain down.
The time taken to ramp the gain down can be greater than the time taken to ramp the gain up.
This ramping down time is the decay seconds.
Trigger type: The compressor is a multi-channel effect. Several tracks can share one com-
pressor. How the signal from many tracks is interpreted is determined by the trigger type.
The Trigger type uses the value supplied in the Trigger textbox as the number of the track
to use as input for the compressor. This allows a track which is not even heard to determine
the loudness of the other tracks.
The Maximum trigger takes the loudest track and uses it as the input for the compressor.
The Total trigger type adds the signals from all the tracks and uses the total as the input
for the compressor. This is the most natural sounding compression and is ideal when multiple
tracks are averaged into single speakers.
Trigger: The compressor is a multichannel effect. Several tracks can share one compressor.
Normally only one track is scanned for the input peak. This track is specified by the Trigger.
By sharing several tracks and playing with the trigger value, you can make a sine wave on one
track follow the amplitude of a drum on another track for example.
Smooth only: For visualizing what the compressor is doing to the sound-level, this option
causes it to replace the sound wave with just the current peak value. It makes it very easy to
see how reaction secs affects the detected peak values.
14.3.2 Delay audio
Just tell how much seconds you want to delay the video track.
14.3.3 Denoise
FIXME
14.3.4 DenoiseFFT
FIXME
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 85
14.3.5 Despike
FIXME
14.3.6 EQ Parametric
FIXME
14.3.7 Freeverb
FIXME
14.3.8 Gain
FIXME
14.3.9 Heroine College
FIXME
14.3.10 Interpolate
FIXME
14.3.11 Invert Audio
FIXME
86 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
14.3.12 Live audio
This effect reads audio directly from the soundcard input. It replaces any audio on the track so
it is normally applied to an empty track.
To use Live Audio, highlight a horizontal region of an audio track or define in and out points.
Then drop the Live Audio effect into it. Create extra tracks and attach shared copies of the
first Live Audio effect to the other tracks to have extra channels recorded.
Live Audio uses the sound driver selected in Settings->Preferences->Playback->Audio Out
for recording, but unlike recording it uses the playback buffer size as the recording buffer size
and it uses the project sample rate as the sampling rate.
These settings are critical since some sound drivers can not record in the same sized buffer
they play back in. Live audio has been most reliable when ALSA is the recording driver and
the playback fragment size is 2048.
Drop other effects after Live Audio to process soundcard input in realtime.
Now the bad news. With live audio there is no read-ahead, so effects like compressor will
either delay if they have read-ahead enabled or playback will under-run.
Another problem is sometimes the recording clock on the soundcard is slightly slower than
the playback clock. The recording eventually falls behind and playback sounds choppy.
Finally, live audio does not work in reverse.
14.3.13 Loop audio
FIXME
14.3.14 Overlay
FIXME
14.3.15 Pitch shift
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 87
Like the time stretching methods, there are three pitch shifting methods: Pitch shift,Resample,
and Asset info dialog. Pitch shift is a realtime effect which can be dragged and dropped onto
recordable audio tracks. Pitch shift uses a fast Fourier transform to try to change the pitch
without changing the duration, but this introduces windowing artifacts.
Because the windowing artifacts are less obtrusive in audio which is obviously pitch shifted,
Pitch shift is mainly useful for extreme pitch changes. For mild pitch changes, use Resample
from the Audio->Render Effect interface. Resample can change the pitch within 5% without a
noticeable change in duration.
Another way to change pitch slightly is to go to the Resources window, highlight the media
folder, right click on an audio file, click on Info. Adjust the sample rate in the Info dialog to
adjust the pitch. This method also requires left clicking on the right boundary of the audio
tracks and dragging left or right to correspond to the length changes.
14.3.16 Reverse audio
Apply reverse audio to an audio track and play it backwards. The sound plays forward.
Be aware when reversing audio that the waveform on the timeline does not reflect the actual
reversed output.
14.3.17 SoundLevel
FIXME
14.3.18 Spectrogram
FIXME
14.3.19 Synthesizer
FIXME
14.3.20 Time stretch
FIXME
88 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
14.4 Realtime video effects
14.4.1 1080 to 480
Most TV broadcasts are received with a 1920x1080 resolution but originate from a 720x480
source at the studio. It is a waste of space to compress the entire 1920x1080 if the only resolvable
details are 720x480. Unfortunately resizing 1920x1080 video to 720x480 is not as simple as
shrinking it.
At the TV station the original 720x480 footage was first converted to fields of 720x240.
Each field was then scaled up to 1920x540. The two 1920x540 fields were finally combined with
interlacing to form the 1920x1080 image. This technique allows a consumer TV to display the
re-sampled image without extra circuitry to handle 720x480 interlacing in a 1920x1080 image.
If you merely deinterlace the 1920x1080 images, you would end up with resolution of 720x240.
The 1080 to 480 effect properly extracts two 1920x540 size fields from the image, resizes them
separately, and combines them again to restore a 1920x480 interlaced image. The scale effect
must then be applied to reduce the horizontal size to 960 or 720 depending on the original aspect
ratio.
The tracks to which 1080 to 480 is applied need to be at 1920x1080 resolution. The project
settings in settings->format should be at least 720x480 resolution.
The effect does not know if the first row in the 1920x1080 image belongs to the first row of
the 720x480 original. You have to specify what the first row is in the effect configuration.
The output of this effect is a small image in the middle of the original 1920x1080 frame. Use
the projector to center the output image in the playback.
Finally, once you have 720x480 interlaced video you can either apply frames to fields of
inverse telecine to further recover original progressive frames.
14.4.2 Aging TV
This effect is the one to use if you want to achieve an "old movie"or TV show look. It will
put moving lines up and down the movie as well as putting "snow"on the video. Use is along
with Brightness/Contrast and Color Balance to make your movie look like a really old black
and white movie.
14.4.3 Blur
This effect blurs a video track. The parameters are:
•Horizontal and vertical
Those parameters are used to tell which one of field blurring affects. It can be be both
fields.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 89
•Radius
Use this slider to define the amount of blur to apply.
•Blur alpha, red, green, blue
Specifies which color channels has to be blurred.
14.4.4 Brightness/contrast
If you want to brighten a dark shot, or add light, this is the tool to use. Do not overuse the effect
or you risk degrading your video quality. Use the effect along with Keyframing to brighten a
long shot that is dark at the beginning but bright at the end. Generally you will want to change
the brightness and contrast about the same amount (eg darkness 28 contrast 26) so that your
original colors are kept intact.
14.4.5 Burning TV
The video burning effect makes your video "burn"where there are small light colored patches
of video, on the edge of a white T-shirt for example. It can be a great asset to a music video
and just a great outlet to help free your imagination in your video.
14.4.6 Chroma key
This effect erases pixels which match the selected color. They are replaced to black if there is
no alpha channel and transparency if there is an alpha channel. The selection of color model is
important to determine the behavior.
Chroma key uses either the lightness or the hue to determine what is erased. Use value
singles out only the lightness to determine transparency. Select a center color to erase using the
Color button. Alternatively a color can be picked directly from the output frame by first using
the color picker in the compositor window and then selecting the Use color picker button. This
sets the chroma key color to the current color picker color.
Be aware that the output of the chroma key is fed back to the compositor, so selecting a
color again from the compositor will use the output of the chroma key effect. The chroma key
should be disabled when selecting colors with the color picker.
If the lightness or hue is within a certain threshold it is erased. Increasing the threshold
determines the range of colors to be erased. It is not a simple on/off switch, however. As
the color approaches the edge of the threshold, it gradually gets erased if the slope is high or
is rapidly erased if the slope is low. The slope as defined here is the number of extra values
flanking the threshold required to go from opaque to transparent.
Normally threshold is very low when using a high slope. The two parameters tend to be
exclusive because slope fills in extra threshold.
90 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
The slope tries to soften the edges of the chroma key but it does not work well for compressed
sources. A popular softening technique is to use a maximum slope and chain a blur effect below
the chroma key effect to blur just the alpha.
14.4.7 Chroma key (HSV)
Plugin by Jerome Cornet http://jcornet.free.fr/linux/chromakey.html This plugin is
used to remove a color from a video to composite with another image. People refer to is as
green screen or blue screen process (because of the color that is keyed out). More information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromakey
Requirements
The subject in the movie should have a good background. The lighting is crucial and good
lighting during production will save your hide with much less effort than in post-production.
Here we assume that we have a good video, filmed on green (or blue) screen that we want to
use. Important: Make sure you are using an color model that has an alpha channel, such as
RGBA8, RGBAFloat, YUVA8. To change color model, go to Settings->Format->Color Model.
Usage
As any other effect, add it to the timeline in the main window. You can tweak each parameter
in order to improve the keying.
Start with Hue Tolerance at 10%, Min Brightness at 0, Max brightness at 100%, Saturation
offset at 0, Min Saturation at 0, In Slope at 0, Out Slope at 0, Alpha Offset at 0 (that’s mid-way
through), Spill Threshold at 0, Spill Compensation at 100%. At any time, you can check what
the Mask looks like by clicking on Show Mask. This will output a black and white image of the
mask.
•Select the Key color Select the key color (green, blue, etc) using the color wheel or the color
picker. Remember, only the Hue matters, not Saturation or Value. To use the color picker,
click on the color picker icon in the Compositor window, then click on the color you want
in the Compositor window. Then in the Chromakey (HSV) parameters window, click on
"Use Color Picker".
•Adjust the Hue Tolerance Because there are slight variations in lighting, the background
will not be in a uniform key color hue. Increase or decrease the Hue tolerance to mask out
the background. If there are dark spots that are keyed out that shouldn’t be, it can be
corrected later.
•Adjust the Brightness Increase Min Brightness so that only the background is masked out,
and not parts of the foreground. You can also reduce Max Brightness if some clear areas
are keyed out (useful for very dark backgrounds).
•Adjust the Saturation Increase Min Saturation so that only the background is masked out,
and not parts of the foreground. Saturation Offset can be used to change this, but for now
leave it to 0.
•Check what it looks like At this stage, your mask should be pretty clean. Toggle Show
Mask to check what it looks like, it should be OK. If not, repeat steps 1 to 4 to get a better
key. The rest of the controls are useful to smear the mask to help compositing later on.
They will help you to make your key look much cleaner.
•Adjust the slope For now, the mask is a full on/ full off mask that can be really harsh and
not necessarily what you are looking for. In Slope and Out Slope will help you to smooth
that key. In Slope leaves more colors in the mask, Out Slope takes more colors out of the
mask. The colors that are borderline in the mask will see their alpha channel reduced by
half instead of being completely on or off.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 91
•Adjust the alpha channel This control offsets the whole alpha channel by some amount.
You probably know what you are doing if you change it from 0 (the default value)
•Remove spill light This steps helps you removing the green (or blue) halo around the edges
of the mask. It does so by removing the saturation of pixels that have a similar hue to the
key color (turning them into grey instead of green or blue). Spill Compensation controls
the amount of de-saturation. If you start with Spill Compensation at 100%, slowly increase
the Spill Threshold until the remaining green or blue areas turn grey. Then reduce Spill
Compensation until the image looks good.
•Blur the alpha channel Now the mask is probably still very harsh, so just below the Chro-
makey (HSV) plugin, add a Blur effect, and select only the Alpha channel, with a radius of
2 or 3 (more if you really want to soften the edges). This will significantly help the keying.
14.4.8 Color balance
Video Color Balance is a great effect to use along with Brightness/contrast and Hue/Saturation
to try and compensate for possible errors in filming (low lighting, etc). It can only do so much
without greatly lowering the quality of the video, however. It is just like the color balance effect
on a picture editing program, such as GIMP. With it you can change the colors being sent to
output CMY (Cyan, Magenta, Yellow) or RGB (Red, Green, Blue).
14.4.9 Decimate
This effect drops frames from a track which are most similar in order to reduce the frame rate.
This is usually applied to a DVD to convert the 29.97 fps video to the 23.97 fps film rate but
this decimate effect can take any input rate and convert it to any lower output rate.
The output rate of decimate is the project frame rate. The input rate is set in the decimate
user interface. To convert 29.97 fps progressive video to 23.97 fps film, apply a decimate effect
to the track. Set the decimate input rate to 29.97 and the project rate to 23.97.
Be aware every effect layered before decimate processes video at the decimate input rate and
every effect layered after decimate processes video at the project frame rate. Computationally
intensive effects should come below decimate.
14.4.10 Deinterlace
The deinterlace effect has evolved over the years to deinterlacing and a whole lot more. In fact
two of the deinterlacing methods, Inverse Telecine and Frames to Fields, are separate effects.
The deinterlace effect offers several variations of line replication to eliminate comb artifacts in
interlaced video. It also has some line swapping tools to fix improperly captured video or make
the result of a reverse effect display fields in the right order.
92 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
14.4.11 Delay video
FIXME
14.4.12 Denoise video
FIXME
14.4.13 Denoise video2
FIXME
14.4.14 Difference key
The difference key creates transparency in areas which are similar between 2 frames. The
Difference key effect must be applied to 2 tracks. One track contains the action in front of a
constant background and another track contains the background with nothing in front of it.
Apply the difference key to the track with the action and apply a shared copy of it to the track
with the background. The track with the background should be muted and underneath the
track with the action and the colormodel should have an alpha channel.
Pixels which are different between the background and action track are treated as opaque.
Pixels which are similar are treated as transparent. Change threshold in the difference key
window to make more pixels which are not the same color transparent. Change slope to change
the rate at which the transparency tapers off as pixels get more different.
The slope as defined here is the number of extra values flanking the threshold required to go
from opaque to transparent. A high slope is more useful with a low threshold because slope fills
in extra threshold.
Use value causes the intensity of pixels to be compared instead of the color.
Applying a blur to the top track with just the alpha channel blurred can soften the trans-
parency border.
Note: Currently this effect is known to crash when using YUV modes.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 93
14.4.15 DotTV
DotTV converts gray scale images to set of dots. It is hard to recognize what is shown when your
eyes are close to the monitor. This is is part of EffectTV: http://effectv.sourceforge.net
14.4.16 Downsample
Downsampling is the process of reducing the size of an image by throwing out data, reducing
sampling rate.
Parameters refers to:
Horizontal
Horizontal offset
Vertical
Vertical offset
Channels
14.4.17 Fields to frames
This effect reads frames at twice the project framerate, combining 2 input frames into a single
interlaced output frame. Effects preceding fields to frames process frames at twice the project
frame rate. Each input frame is called a field.
Fields to frames needs to know what field corresponds to what lines in the output frame.
The easiest way to figure it out is to try both options in the window. If the input fields are
the result of a line doubling process like frames to fields, the wrong setting results in blurrier
output. If the input fields are the result of a standards conversion process like 1080 to 480, the
wrong setting will not make any difference.
The debobber which converts 720x480 interlaced into 1920x1080 interlaced or 1280x720 pro-
gressive seems to degrade the vertical resolution to the point that it can not be recovered.
14.4.18 Flip
This effect permits to flip a video track (or a portion of) from left to right, right to left, up to
down, down to up.
The dialog window is simple, since only the vertical and horizontal parameters are needed.
94 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
14.4.19 Frames to fields
This plugin applies the operation reverse to the "Fields to Frames"plugin: it extracts the two
interlaced fields stored in alternating lines of interlaced source footage and outputs them as
separate full frames. The alternating lines missing on each output frame are interpolated. (The
naming of this pair of plugins is obviously misleading with respect to the common usage of the
terms "field"and "frame"; normally, "fields"denotes the interlaced half images and "frame"
denotes the full image).
This plugin is only useful if its output is pulled with doubled framerate with respect to
the source footage. One typical usage scenario is to do masking, scaling and translating on
interlaced footage without the need to destroy the additional temporal information contained
in such source material. This is helpful if your intended target format is interlaced. If on the
other hand, you just want to target a progressive display (e.g. you create video for display on
computer monitor solely) then it is much more convenient to de-interlace the source material
prior to any further processing.
Processing interlaced footage without deinterlacing
1. Create a new project with doubled frame rate. I.e make it 50fps if your source footage is
25i
2. Insert your source footage onto a video track in the timeline. Now, Cinelerra will playback
each frame of your footage twice.
3. Apply the "Frames to Fields"effect. Be sure to choose the correct field order. Typical
values being "bottom field first"for DV and "top field first"for HDV.
4. Then apply any further effects afterwards, including translations, scaling, slow motion,
precise frame-wise masking or use of the motion tracker plugin.
5. Render your project to a intermediate clip. Be sure to choose a rather lossless video codec,
e.g. Motion-JPEG-A or even uncompressed yuv if you have plenty of storage.
6. Insert the intermediate clip into your original project. Make sure the doubled framerate
has been detected correctly by Cinelerra (by looking in the clip’s media info in the media
resources folder)
7. Apply the "Fields to frames"effect to the intermediate clip. This will combine two adjacent
fields into one interlaced field with the original frame rate.
8. Do the final render on your original project
14.4.20 Freeze frame
In its simplest form, highlight a region of the track to freeze, drop the freeze frame effect on the
highlighted region, and the lowest numbered frame in the affected area will play throughout the
entire region.
Freezeframe has an enabled option which can be keyframed. Regions of a freeze frame effect
which are enabled repeat the lowest numbered frame since the last keyframe. This has unique
possibilities.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 95
•If a freeze frame effect has a keyframe in the middle of it set to enabled, the frame in the
middle is repeated in the entire effect.
•If a freeze frame effect has several keyframes, each set to enabled, every time a keyframe is
encountered the frame under it becomes the frozen one.
•If a freeze frame effect alternates between enabled and disabled, each time an enabled
keyframe is encountered the frame under it is replicated until the next disabled keyframe.
The disabled regions play through.
14.4.21 Gamma
Raw camera images store colors in a logarithmic scale. The blacks in these images are nearly
0 and the whites are supposed to be infinity. The graphics card and most video codecs store
colors in a linear scale but Cinelerra keeps raw camera images in their original logarithmic scale
when it renders them. This is necessary because the raw image parser can not always decode
the proper gamma values for the images. It also does its processing in 16 bit integers, which
takes away a lot of information.
The gamma effect converts the logarithmic colors to linear colors through a gamma value
and a maximum value. The gamma value determines how steep the output curve is and the
maximum value is where 1.0 in the output corresponds to maximum brightness in the input.
The gamma effect has 2 more parameters to simplify gamma correction. The automatic
option causes it to calculate max from the histogram of the image. Use this when making a
preview of a long list of images since it changes for every image.
The use color picker option uses the value currently in the color picker to set the max value.
Note that every time you pick a color from the compositor window, you need to hit use color
picker to apply the new value.
14.4.22 Gradient
The gradient effect overlays a smooth color gradient on top of every video frame. It is useful for
all sorts of background fills, for partially filtering or for adding moving highlights. The Gradient
effect can generate linear or circular color fills. For linear fills, you can choose the angle, for
circular fills the center of the created gradient pattern. Moreover, you can control the slope
of the color transition by selecting a transition function (linear, logarithmic, squared) and by
changing the "start"and "stop"radius. Note that both colors used in this color transition
can contain an arbitrary Alpha value (transparency). All parameters can be keyed and will be
interpolated between keyframes.
Note the following well known problems:
•When using limited color models in your project, the Gradient fill can create color bands
or steps.
•When using a project format with anamorphic storage, Cinelerra won’t do any internal
corrections for this. This can result in a circular fill showing up elliptical. A common
example is the HDV 1080i format, which is stored as 1440x1080 pixels, but displayed as
1920x1080 (16:9 aspect ratio). As Cinelerra does its calculations on a 1440x1080 pixel
bitmap, any circular fill will be stretched out horizontally when displaying the final output.
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14.4.23 GreyCStoration
Although GREYCstoration is a rendered plugin, it can be optionally used as a realtime effect.
It is important to note, however, that as a realtime effect, GreyCStoration is very slow. More
details on the GreyCStoration plugin can be found in the rendered video effects chapter of this
guide.
14.4.24 Histogram
This shows the number of occurrences of each color on a histogram plot.
It is always performed in floating point RGB regardless of the project color-space. The
histogram has two sets of transfer parameters: the input transfer and the output transfer.
4 histograms are possible in the histogram viewer. The red, green, blue histograms show
the input histograms for red, green, blue and multiply them by an input transfer to get the
output red, green, blue. Then the output red, green, blue is scaled by an output transfer. The
scaled red, green, blue is converted into a value and plotted on the value histogram. The value
histogram thus changes depending on the settings for red, green, blue. The value transfers are
applied uniformly to R, G, B after their color transfers are applied.
Select which transfer to view by selecting one of the channels on the top of the histogram.
The input transfer is defined by a graph overlaid on the histogram. The horizontal direction
corresponds to every possible input color. The vertical direction corresponds to the output color
for every input color. Video entering the histogram is first plotted on the histogram plot, then
it is translated so output values now equal the output values for each input value on the input
graph.
The input graph is edited by adding and removing any number of points. Click and drag
anywhere in the input graph to create a point and move it. Click on an existing point to make
it active and move it. The active point is always indicated by being filled in. The active point’s
input and output color are given in text boxes on top of the window. The input and output
color of the point can be changed through these text boxes.
Points can be deleted by first selecting a point and then dragging it to the other side of an
adjacent point. They can also be deleted by selecting them and hitting delete.
After the input transfer, the image is processed by the output transfer. The output transfer
is simply a minimum and maximum to scale the input colors to. Input values of 100% are scaled
down to the output’s maximum. Input values of 0% are scaled up to the output minimum.
Input values below 0 are always clamped to 0 and input values above 100% are always
clamped to 100%. Click and drag on the output gradient’s triangles to change it. It also has
textboxes to enter values into.
Enable the automatic toggle to have the histogram calculate an automatic input transfer for
the red, green, blue but not the value. It does this by scaling the middle 99% of the pixels to
take 100% of the histogram width. The number of pixels permitted to pass through is set by
the Threshold textbox. A threshold of 0.99 scales the input so 99% of the pixels pass through.
Smaller thresholds permit fewer pixels to pass through and make the output look more contrasty.
Automatic input transfer is calculated for the R, G, and B channels but not the value.
Plot histogram
Split output
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 97
14.4.25 HolographicTV
Incoming objects are projected like holovision seen in the movie "STAR WARS"(remember
R2-D2’s video message projector). To use, push space key and a picture is taken as a back-
ground image. Differences between current picture and the background image are recognized
as the incoming objects. Use black clothing for best results. This is is part of EffectTV:
http://effectv.sourceforge.net
14.4.26 Hue saturation
With that effect you can change hue, saturation and value. The parameters are modified using
3 simple sliders.
•The hue control shifts the colors circularly in the color plane, normally resulting in "false"
colors.
•The saturation control can be used to reduce color footage to black and white.
•The value control makes any given colors more bright or more subdued.
14.4.27 Interpolate video
The interpolate effect tries to create the illusion of a higher frame rate from source footage of
very low framerates by averaging frames over time. It averages two input frames for each output
frame. The input frames are at different times, resulting in a dissolve for all output frames
between the input frames. There are two ways of specifying the input frames. You can specify
an input frame rate which is lower than the project frame rate. This causes input frames to be
taken at even intervals.
You can also specify keyframe locations as the positions of the input frames. In this mode the
output frame rate is used as the input frame rate and you just create keyframes wherever you
want to specify an input frame.
14.4.28 Interpolate pixels
Note: this effect works only for float color models.
FIXME
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14.4.29 Inverse telecine
This is the most effective deinterlacing tool when the footage is a video transfer of a film. Here
the film was converted from 24 fps to 60 fps. Then the 60 fps was down-sampled to 30 fps by
extracting odd and even lines and interlacing the lines. The IVTC effect is primarily a way to
convert interlaced video to progressive video. It undoes three patterns of interlacing.
A AB BC CD D
AB CD CD DE EF
Automatic
The first two options are fixed patterns and affected by the pattern offset and odd field first
parameters. The last option creates several combinations of lines for each frame and picks the
most progressive combination. It is a brute force algorithm.
This technique does not rely on a pattern like other techniques and is less destructive but the
timing is going to be jittery because of the lack of a frame rate reduction. In order to smooth
out the timing, you need to follow inverse telecine with a decimate effect.
14.4.30 Invert video
Also called invert video, it is a method of reversing the colors of a video track.
The three parameters refer to channels (Red, Blue, Green, Alpha)
14.4.31 Lens
The lens affect stretches or shrinks to convert lens distorted images to rectilinear images. The
most common use is converting fish eye lenses to rectilinear lenses. It is also useful for star
tracking.
R, G, B, A Field of view: These determine how much the image is stretched in each channel.
Lock: This causes changes to 1 channel to affect all the channels. This is normally the desired
behavior.
Aspect Ratio: This changes the amount of stretching done in the X axis vs the Y axis. To
crop less data from stretched images, this allows more stretching to be done on 1 axis without
creating black borders in the other axis.
Radius: This determines the size of the stretched region. While adjusting the field of view,
black borders may appear. Adjust the radius to shrink or expand the output so black borders
are out of frame.
Center X, Y: The center of the stretched region. This is only useful if the image was previously
translated by the software so the center of the lens is now off center.
Draw center: This is a visual aid when adjusting the Center X, Y but doesn’t affect the
results.
Mode: The type of stretching algorithm.
Parameters refer to:
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 99
•Sphere shrink
This is for making an image look like it’s mapped to a sphere.
•Sphere expand
This is for unmapping an image mapped to a sphere and flattening it.
•Rectilinear stretch
This is for flattening a fish eye lens.
•Rectilinear shrink
This is for making something flat look like it was taken by a fish eye lens.
14.4.32 Linear blur
Blur has three styles: Linear, Radial, and Zoom
Parameters refer to:
•Length
Distance between original image and final blur step
•Angle
Angle of motion, for linear blur
•Steps
Number of blur steps
•Channels
Which channel(s) to blur.
14.4.33 Live video
This effect reads video directly from the capture card input. It replaces any video on the track
so it is normally applied to an empty track. The configuration for the capture card is taken from
the recording preferences. Go to Settings->Preferences->Recording to set up the capture card.
Go to the Video In section where it says Record driver. It must be set to either Video4Linux2
or IEC 61883. Other video drivers have not been tested with Live Video and probably will not
work.
For live video, the selection for File Format and Video needs to be set to a format the timeline
can use. The file format must be Quicktime for Linux and video recording must be enabled for
it. Click on the wrench to set the video compression.
The video compression depends on the recording driver. For the Video4Linux2 recording
driver, the compression must be Motion JPEG A. For the IEC 61883 driver, the compression
must be DV. This gets the driver to generate output in a colormodel that the timeline can use.
Some cards provide color and channel settings. Live video takes the color settings from the
values set in the Video In window. Go to File->Record to bring up the recording interface and
the Video In window. Values set in the Video in window are used by Live Video. Any channels
the capture card supports need to be configured in the Video in interface since the same channels
are used by the Live Video effect.
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With the video recording configured, highlight a horizontal region of a video track or define
in and out points. Then drop the Live Video effect into it. Drop other effects after Live Video
to process the live video in realtime. For best results, you should use OpenGL and a video card
which supports GL shading language. Go to Settings->Preferences->Playback->Video Out to
enable the OpenGL driver.
Only one Live Video effect can exist at any time on the timeline. It can not be shared by
more than one track.
14.4.34 Loop video
Sections of video can be looped by dropping a loop effect on them. Contrary to the settings-
>loop playback option, the loop effects can be rendered where the settings->loop playback option
can not be. The loop effects are also convenient for short regions.
The loop effects have one option: the number of frames or samples to loop. This specifies
the length of the region to loop starting from either the beginning of the effect or the latest
keyframe. The region is replicated for the entire effect.
Every time a keyframe is set in a loop effect, the keyframe becomes the beginning of the
region to loop. Setting several keyframes in succession causes several regions to loop. Setting
a single keyframe causes the region after the keyframe to be looped throughout the effect, no
matter where the keyframe is. The end of an effect can be looped from the beginning by setting
the keyframe near the end.
14.4.35 Motion
The motion tracker is almost a complete application in itself. The motion tracker tracks two
types of motion: translation and rotation. It can track both simultaneously or one only. It can
do 1/4 pixel tracking or single pixel tracking. It can stabilize motion or cause one track to follow
the motion of another track.
Although the motion tracker is applied as a realtime effect, it usually must be rendered to
see useful results. The effect takes a long time to precisely detect motion.
The motion tracker works by using one region of the frame as the region to track. It compares
this region between 2 frames to calculate the motion. This region can be defined anywhere on
the screen. Once the motion between 2 frames has been calculated, a number of things can be
done with that motion vector. It can be scaled by a user value and clamped to a maximum
range. It can be thrown away or accumulated with all the motion vectors leading up to the
current position.
To save time the motion result can be saved for later reuse, recalled from a previous calcu-
lation, or discarded.
The motion tracker has a notion of 2 tracks, the master layer and the target layer. The
master layer is where the comparison between 2 frames takes place. The target layer is where
motion is applied either to track or compensate for the motion in the master layer.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 101
The intricacies of motion tracking are enough to sustain entire companies and build careers
around. The motion tracker in Cinelerra is not as sophisticated as some world class motion
trackers but it is enough to sweeten some camcorder footage.
Here is a brief description of the motion tracking parameters:
•Track translation
Enables translation operations. The motion tracker tracks X and Y motion in the master
layer and adjusts X and Y motion in the target layer.
•Translation block size
For the translation operations, a block is compared to a number of neighboring blocks to
find the one with the least difference. The size of the block to search for is given by this
parameter.
•Translation search radius
The size of the area to scan for the translation block.
•Translation search steps
Ideally the search operation would compare the translation block with every other pixel in
the translation search radius. To speed this operation up, a subset of the total positions is
searched. Then the search area is narrowed and rescanned by the same number of search
steps until the motion is known to 1/4 pixel accuracy.
•Block X, Y
These coordinates determine the center of the translation block based on percentages of the
width and height of the image. The center of the block should be part of the image which
is visible at all times.
•Maximum absolute offset
The amount of motion detected by the motion tracker is unlimited if this is 100. If it is
under 100 the amount of motion is limited by that percentage of the image size.
•Settling speed
The motion detected between every frame can be accumulated to form an absolute motion
vector. If the settling speed is 100 the absolute vector is added to the next frame. If the
settling speed is less than 100 the absolute vector is downscaled by the settling amount
before being added to the next frame.
•Track rotation
Enables rotation operations. The motion tracker tracks rotation in the master layer and
adjusts rotation in the target layer.
•Rotation block size
For rotation operations a single block is compared to equally sized blocks, each rotated by
a different amount. This is the size of the rotation block.
•Rotation search radius
This is the maximum angle of rotation from the starting frame the rotation scanner can
detect. The rotation scan is from this angle counterclockwise to this angle clockwise. Thus
the rotation search radius is half the total range scanned.
•Rotation search steps
Ideally every possible angle would be tested to get the rotation. To speed up the rotation
search, the rotation search radius is divided into a finite number of angles and only those
angles compared to the starting frame. Then the search radius is narrowed and an equal
number of angles is compared in the smaller radius until the highest possible accuracy is
achieved.
Normally you need one search step for every degree scanned. Since the rotation scanner
scans the rotation search radius in two directions, you need two steps for every degree in
the search radius to search the complete range.
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•Draw vectors
When translation is enabled, 2 boxes are drawn on the frame. One box represents the
translation block. Another box outside the translation block represents the extent of the
translation search radius. In the center of these boxes is an arrow showing the translation
between the 2 master frames.
When rotation is enabled a single box the size of the rotation block is drawn rotated by the
amount of rotation detected.
•Track single frame
When this option is used the motion between a single starting frame and the frame currently
under the insertion point is calculated. The starting frame is specified in the Frame number
blank. The motion calculated this way is taken as the absolute motion vector. The absolute
motion vector for each frame replaces the absolute motion vector for the previous frame.
Settling speed has no effect on it since it does not contain any previous motion vectors.
Playback can start anywhere on the timeline since there is no dependence on previous
results.
•Track previous frame
Causes only the motion between the previous frame and the current frame to be calculated.
This is added to an absolute motion vector to get the new motion from the start of the
sequence to the current position. After every frame processed this way, the block position
is shifted to always cover the same region of the image. Playback must be started from the
start of the motion effect in order to accumulate all the necessary motion vectors.
•Previous frame same block
This is useful for stabilizing jerky camcorder footage. In this mode the motion between the
previous frame and the current frame is calculated. Instead of adjusting the block position
to reflect the new location of the image, like Track Previous Frame does, the block position
is unchanged between each frame. Thus a new region is compared for each frame.
•Master layer
This determines the track which supplies the starting frame and ending frame for the motion
calculation. If it is Bottom the bottom track of all the tracks sharing this effect is the master
layer. The top track of all the tracks is the target layer.
•Calculation
This determines whether to calculate the motion at all and whether to save it to disk. If it is
Don’t Calculate the motion calculation is skipped. If it is Recalculate the motion calculation
is performed every time each frame is rendered. If it is Save the motion calculation is always
performed but a copy is also saved. If it is Load, the motion calculation is loaded from a
previous save calculation. If there is no previous save calculation on disk, a new motion
calculation is performed.
•Action
Once the motion vector is known this determines whether to move the target layer opposing
the motion vector or following the motion vector. If it is Do Nothing the target layer is
untouched. If it is Track... the target layer is moved by the same amount as the master
layer. This is useful for matching titles to objects in the frame. If it is Stabilize... the target
layer is moved opposite to the motion vector. This is useful for stabilizing an object in the
frame. The motion operations can be accurate to single pixels or subpixels by changing the
action setting.
14.4.35.1 Secrets of motion tracking
Since it is a very slow effect, there is a method to applying the motion tracker to get the most
out of it. First disable playback for the track to do motion tracking on. Then drop the effect on
a region of video with some motion to track. Then rewind the insertion point to the start of the
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 103
region. Set Action ->Do Nothing. Set Calculation ->Don’t calculate. Enable Draw vectors.
Then enable playback of the track to see the motion tracking areas.
Enable which of translation motion or rotation motion vectors you want to track. By watching
the compositor window and adjusting the Block x,y settings, center the block on the part of
the image you want to track. Then set search radius, block size, and block coordinates for
translation and rotation.
Once this is configured, set the calculation to Save coords and do test runs through the
sequence to see if the motion tracker works and to save the motion vectors. Once this is done,
disable playback for the track, disable Draw vectors, set the motion action to perform on the
target layer and change the calculation to Load coords. Finally enable playback for the track.
When using a single starting frame to calculate the motion of a sequence, the starting frame
should be a single frame with the least motion to any of the other frames. This is rarely frame
0. Usually it is a frame near the middle of the sequence. This way the search radius need only
reach halfway to the full extent of the motion in the sequence.
If the motion tracker is used on a render farm, Save coords and previous frame mode will not
work. The results of the save coords operation are saved to the hard drives on the render nodes,
not the master node. Future rendering operations on these nodes will process different frames
and read the wrong coordinates from the node filesystems. The fact that render nodes only
visualize a portion of the timeline also prevents previous frame from working since it depends
on calculating an absolute motion vector starting on frame 0.
14.4.35.2 2 pass motion tracking
The method described above is 2 pass motion tracking. One pass is used just to calculate the
motion vectors. A second pass is used to apply the motion vectors to the footage. This is faster
than a single pass because errors in the motion vector calculation can be discovered quickly.
This also allows the motion tracking to use a less demanding colormodel like RGB888 in
the scanning step and a more demanding colormodel like RGB Float in the action step. The
scanning step takes much longer than action.
This suffers the disadvantage of not being practical for extremely long sequences where some
error is acceptable and the picture quality is lousy to begin with, like stabilizing camcorder
footage.
The slower method is to calculate the motion vectors and apply them simultaneously. This
method can use one track as the motion vector calculation track and another track as the target
track for motion vector actions. This is useful for long sequences where some error is acceptable.
14.4.35.3 Using blur to improve motion tracking
With extremely noisy or interlaced footage, applying a blur effect before the motion tracking
can improve accuracy. Either save the motion vectors in a tracking pass and disable the blur
for the action pass or apply the blur just to the master layer.
14.4.35.4 Using histogram to improve motion tracking
A histogram is almost always applied before motion tracking to clamp out noise in the darker
pixels. Either save the motion vectors in a tracking pass and disable the histogram for the action
pass or apply the histogram just to the master layer.
14.4.35.5 Motion tracking in action
First, add a motion effect to the track. Drag it from the resource window and drop it directly
over the video in Cinelerra’s main window. You should see something similar to this:
104 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
Then right-click on the motion effect marker in the timeline and select show to see the motion
tracker dialog:
Start by looking at your Compositor. You will see some new boxes overlaid on the video.
These are important to control the motion tracker. Here is a quick shot of what it will look like
when working:
The image above shows the motion tracker losing track of the object because of a search
window that is too small. We will talk about this more later, but quickly:
•The middle small box is the target of the tracker.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 105
•The middle larger box is the search range for the tracker. It should contain the full range
of motion for the tracking target.
•In this example, we are trying to track the hanging handle. We have failed in this video
frame, because the handle is far right of the center of frame.
•The left pointing vector indicates the motion tracker attempting to find the target. More
on this later.
Move to the beginning of your video clip
Make sure the motion tracker dialog is open
Look at the Compositor
Start adjusting these four knobs:
Make sure you check Track Translation
Uncheck Track Rotation
Start with knob two - Translation block size - and spin it to get an idea for what is changing.
Notice that both boxes resize. Look at the small inside box. Adjust it to the size of the target
(the object you want to track). Do not worry if it does not cover the object yet.
Go on to knobs three and four - Block X and Block Y. Use these to put the target designator
over the target itself.
Finally, use the top knob - Translation search radius. Expand it to include the full range of
travel you expect for the target. If you look back at my original action shot, the search radius
was to small and the target moved outside the range. You can test this by playing the timeline
and viewing the results (if your machine is fast enough for realtime) or by rendering and viewing
the stabilized handle in the output.
Make the first video frame look similar to:
106 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
This image shows a lot of detail. Notice that the small frame is centered over the handle and
sized to just include it. Those settings are control by knobs two through four. Finally, the outer
frame is larger than the back and forth movement of the handle in the entire video clip.
Finally, here are other settings needed to see the effect:
•Draw vectors Uncheck this to prevent rendering of the target boxes and motion vectors in
your rendered video. If checked, the vectors and boxes are rendered in output video.
•Track Single Frame For this example it is set with a Frame number of 0 (first frame)
•Master Layer If the effect is shared between two tracks it specifies which of those tracks
will be the one where motion is tracked (Master Layer) and which layer will be affected by
the resulting translation vectors (Target Layer). If there is no second track sharing motion
tracker then the Master=Target.
•Action Select the stabilize options to have the rendered video follow the motion of the
target. Select a Track option to run motion tracking without adjusting the video.
•Calculation
•Don’t Calculate select this option to turn off adjustment of video.
•Recalculate Perform motion tracking and update video per Action setting.
•Save and Load Saves/Loads the translation/rotation vectors (absolute or relative)
to/from files. Each frame gets an separate file in /tmp directory which contains its
vector.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 107
14.4.35.6 Tracking stabilization in action
In this section, we will explain how to stabilize a video. Such a need can arise when the video
was taken from a vehicle for example.
First select on the timeline the part of the footage you want to stabilize, using the in and
out points. Then apply the motion effect on that part of the video.
Select the "Previous frame same block"option. That option is recommended for stabilizing
jerky camcorder footage. Its goal is not to "follow"an object. The block stays exactly at the
same place during all the effect length.
Enlarge the block and select almost half the size of the video. Select the "Stabilize subpixel"
option: it will give a finer stabilization. Reduce the "Maximum absolute offset"value to limit
the stabilization amplitude. You probably prefer to get a non-perfect stabilization on some
places on the video, than having a very large black border on one side of the picture during big
shakes. Set the "Translation search steps"value to 128. Increasing that value will not give a
better result, but will considerably increase the rendering time. Make sure the "Draw vectors"
option is selected, and render the part of the video where the motion effect is applied.
If the result is good, deselect the "Draw vectors"option. The block and vectors were not
drawn anymore on the video. Then, render your video to a ‘.dv’ file, and import it into your
project.
You will notice the video is stabilized but there are black borders which appear on sides of
the frame. You have to zoom in and define projector keyframes to move the projector around
the screen, in order to remove those black borders. The more your footage is jerky, the more
you have to zoom in to discard the black borders. That is why the result is better with HDV
footage than with DV footage.
14.4.36 Motion blur
This real-time effect takes the X/Y camera automation vectors as input and applies a linear blur
trailing the direction of the camera automation to fool the eye into thinking it is seeing a more
natural motion. It is mainly designed to remove choppy motion in overlying graphics/SVG.
This plugin is not designed for rendering in non real-time applications, for example to add
motion blur frame-by-frame inside an existing live-action video. For the plugin to work, camera
automation is required.
Parameters:
•Length: sets the distance between the duplicate images
•Steps: number of duplicate images (steps) that are offset from the input image to the end
of the blur. This lets you set the smoothness of the resulting blur.
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14.4.37 Oil painting
This effect makes video tracks appears as a painting. It can be controlled by Radius slider.
Intensity of colors can be chosen as option.
14.4.38 Overlay video
This effect can combine several tracks by using the so called Overlayer. This is a basic internal
device normally used by Cinelerra to create the (dissolve) transitions and for compositing the
final output of every track onto the output bitmap. The Overlayer has the ability to combine
one or several image layers on top of a "bottom layer". It can do this combining of images
in several different (and switchable) output modes: Normal, Additive, Subtractive, Multiply
(Filter), Divide, Max and Replace. For a detailed explanation of the several overlay modes See
Section 8.2 [Compositing], page 56.
Now, the overlay plugin enables the use of this Overlayer device in the middle of any plugin
stack, opening endless filtering and processing possibilities. It is only useful as a shared plugin
(i.e. a multitrack plugin). So, to use the overlay plugin
1. Add the effect to Track A.
2. Choose "attach effect"from the context menu of another track (Track B).
3. Choose "Track A:Overlay"as a shared plugin.
4. Manipulate the plugin parameters in Track A.
In the Overlay Plugin’s parameter window you can choose the overlay order, i.e. which track
plays the role of the "bottom layer"and which plays the role of the "top layer". For some
overlay modes, this can make quite a difference, e.g. the top layer is subtracted from the bottom
layer for "Subtractive"mode. Further on, you can choose on which of the tracks to overlay the
combined output. (Hint: in most cases, you will want to mute the other track and only retain
this combined output).
14.4.39 Perspective
The perspective effect allows you to change the perspective of an object, and is perfect for
making objects appear as if they are fading into the distance.
14.4.40 Polar
The Polar effect bends and warps your video in weird ways. Mathematically, it converts your
video from either polar coordinates to rectangular coordinates, or the reverse.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 109
14.4.41 RGB-601
For analog video or MPEG (including DVD) output, the maximum range for R,G,B is [16,
235] (8-bit). For YUV, the maximum range for intensity (Y) is [16, 235] (8-bit). This range
corresponds to gray levels from 6% to 92%. When rendering, values outside of these ranges will
be clipped to these limits.
To render to MPEG, add the RGB-601 effect to all video tracks where material uses the full
intensity scale (0-100%), and enable RGB ->601 compression. Consider adding the Videoscope
effect after RGB-601 to see how RGB-601 affects your dynamic range. See Section 14.4.59
[Videoscope], page 116.
(To preview how your rendered MPEG would look without RGB-to-601 compression, instead
enable 601 ->RGB expansion – you will observe a noticeable contrast increase.)
Although RGB-601 will reduce contrast in your video tracks, the contrast will be restored
during MPEG playback.
14.4.42 Radial blur
It creates a whirlpool blur that simulates a swirling camera. You can vary the location, type,
and quality of the blur.
14.4.43 ReframeRT
ReframeRT changes number of frames in a sequence of video directly from the timeline. It has
2 modes, selected by the 2 toggles in the GUI.
Stretch mode multiplies the current frame number of its output by the scale factor to arrive
at the frame to read from its input. If its current output frame is #55 and the scale factor is
2, frame #110 is read from its input. The stretch mode has the effect of changing the length of
output video by the inverse of the scale factor. If the scale factor is greater than 1, the output
will end before the end of the sequence on the timeline. If it is less than 1, the output will end
after the end of the sequence on the timeline. The ReframeRT effect must be lengthened to the
necessary length to accommodate the scale factor. Change the length of the effect by clicking
on the endpoint of the effect and dragging.
Although stretch mode changes the number of the frame read from its input, it does not
change the frame rate of the input. Effects before ReframeRT assume the same frame rate as
ReframeRT.
The ReframeRT in stretch mode can be use to create a fast play effect. Select Stretch mode
and enter a value greater than 1 to get accelerated playback.
For slow motion effect, use a ReframeRT effect in stretch mode with a value less than 1.
Example: you have a clip that you want to put in slow motion. The clip starts at 33.792 seconds
110 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
and ends at 39.765. The clip is 5.973 seconds long. You want to play it at 4/10ths normal speed.
You divide the clip length by the playback speed (5.973/.4) to get a final clip length of 14.9325
seconds. You create an in point at the start of your clip: 33.792 seconds. You put an out point
14.9325 seconds later, at 48.7245 seconds (33.792 +14.9325). You attach a ReframeRT effect,
set it to .4 and stretch. You change the out point at 48.7245 to an in point. You start your next
clip after the slow motion effect at the 48.7245 out point.
You can also change the frame rate of the clip if you right click on it in the media viewer
and go to Info. If you do not hit the drop down first, you can type in a desired frame rate as
well. Cinelerra will pick the right frames out for the project frame rate, effectively doing the
time-lapsing as well
Downsample mode does not change the length of the output sequence. It multiplies the frame
rate of the output by the scale factor to arrive at a frame rate to read the input. This has the
effect of replicating the input frames so that they only change at the scaled frame rate when
sent to the output. It does not change the length of the sequence. If the scale factor is 0.5 and
the output frame rate is 30 fps, only 15 frames will be shown per second and the input will be
read at 15 fps. Downsample is only useful for scalefactors below 1, hence the name downsample.
Downsample mode changes the frame rate of the input as well as the number of the frame
to read, so effects before ReframeRT see the frame rate * the scale factor as their frame rate.
If the scale factor is 2 and the output frame rate is 30, the input frame rate will be 60 and the
input frame number will by doubled. This will not normally do anything but some input effects
may behave differently at the higher frame rate.
14.4.44 Reroute
FIXME
It enables to selectively transfer the Alpha channel or the Components (RGB or YUV) or
both from a source track to a target track, partially overwriting the target’s contents. It works
as a shared plugin. The typical usage scenario is to build up a possibly animated Mask in one
track and then to transfer the Alpha channel to another content track.
14.4.45 Reverse video
Media can be reversed on the timeline in realtime. This is not to be confused with using the
reverse playback on the transport. The reverse effects reverse the region covered by the effect
regardless of the transport direction.
The region to be reversed is first determined by what part of the track the effect is under and
second by the locations of keyframes in the effect. The reverse effects have an enabled option
which allows you to set keyframes. This allows may possibilities.
Every enabled keyframe is treated as the start of a new reversed region and the end of a
previous reversed region. Several enabled keyframes in succession yield several regions reversed
independent of each other. An enabled keyframe followed by a disabled keyframe yields one
reversed region followed by a forward region.
14.4.46 Rotate
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 111
The Rotate filter can rotate the video in 90 degree increments, reverse and flip the video.
14.4.47 SVG via Inkscape
FIXME
14.4.48 Scale
FIXME
14.4.49 Selective temporal averaging
This plugin is designed to smooth out non-moving areas of a video clip. The smoothing is
performed by averaging the color component for each pixel across a number of frames. The
smoothed value is used if both the standard deviation and the difference between the current
component value and the average component value are below a threshold.
The average and standard deviation are calculated for each of the components of the video.
The type of components averaged is determined by the color model of the entire project. The
average and standard deviation of the frames can be examined by selecting the specific radio
button in the plugin options window.
The region over which the frames are averaged is determined by either a fixed offset or a
restart marker system. In a restart marker system, certain keyframes are marked as beginning
of sections. Then for each section, the frames surrounding the current frame are used as the
frames to average over, except when approaching the beginning and end of a section, whereby
the averaging is performed over the Nbeginning or ending frames respectively.
Common usage:
If you have to select the number of frames you wish to average.
1. Enter a reasonable number of frames to average (e.g. 10).
2. Select the Selective Temporal Averaging method and enter 1 and 10 for all the Av. Thres.
and S.D. Thres. respectively. This basically causes all pixels to use the average value.
3. Turn the mask for a the first component on. This should make the whole frame have a solid
color of that specific component.
4. Slowly reduce the S.D. Thres. value. As you do so, you will notice that the regions vastly
different from the average will have a flipped mask state. Continue to reduce the threshold
until you reach the point at which non-moving regions of the video have a flipped masked
state. This value is known as the noise-floor and is the level of natural noise generated by
the CCD in the camera.
5. Repeat the same procedure for the Av. Thres.
6. Turn off the mask
7. Repeat this for all channels
112 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
14.4.50 Sharpen
FIXME
14.4.51 ShiftInterlace
FIXME
14.4.52 Swap channels
FIXME
14.4.53 Threshold
Threshold converts the image to pure luminance, and replaces pixels with one of three colors
based on the luminance. Pixels with luminance values in the low range are replaced with black,
pixels in the middle range are replaced with white, and pixels in the high range are replaced with
black. Color and alpha for each range are configurable and interpolate according to keyframes.
The threshold window shows a histogram of luminance values for the current frame. Click
dragging inside the histogram creates a range to convert to white. SHIFT-clicking extends one
border of this range. Values for the threshold range can also be specified in the text boxes.
This effect is basically a primitive luminance key. A second track above the track with the
threshold effect can be multiplied, resulting in only the parts of the second track within the
threshold being displayed.
14.4.54 Time average
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 113
Time average is one effect which has many uses besides creating nifty trail patterns of moving
objects. It is main use is reducing noise in still images. Merely point a video camera at a
stationary subject for 30 frames, capture the frames, and average them using time average and
you will have a super high quality print. In floating point colormodels, time average can increase
the dynamic range of lousy cameras.
Inside the time average effect is an accumulation buffer and a divisor. A number of frames
are accumulated in the accumulation buffer and divided by the divisor to get the average.
Because the time average can consume enormous amounts of memory, it is best applied by
first disabling playback for the track, dropping the time average in it, configuring time average
for the desired number of frames, and re-enabling playback for the track.
•Frames to average
This determines the number of frames to be accumulated in the accumulation buffer. For
extremely large integrations it is easier to edit the EDL in a text editor and put in the
number of frames.
•Accumulate
This outputs the accumulation buffer without dividing it.
•Average
This causes the accumulation buffer to be divided before being output. This results in the
average of all the frames.
•Inclusive Or
This causes the accumulation buffer to be replaced by any pixels which are not transparent.
In combination with motion tracking it allows entire sequences to be combined to form
panoramas.
•Reprocess frame again
If an effect before the time average is adjusted the time average normally does not reread
the accumulation buffer to get the change. This forces it to reread the accumulation buffer
when other effects change.
•Disable subtraction
In order to represent the accumulation of only the specified number of frames, the time
average retains all the previous frames in memory and subtracts them out as it plays
forward. It would run out of memory if it had to accumulate thousands of frames. By
disabling subtraction the previous frames are not stored in memory and only the average
function is affected by the frame count.
14.4.55 TimeFront
This is a warping framework plugin based on this article:
http://www.vision.huji.ac.il/videowarping/HUJI-CSE-LTR-2005-10_etf-tr.pdf
14.4.56 Title
114 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
While it is possible to add text to movies by importing still images from The Gimp and com-
positing them, the Titler allows you to add text from within Cinelerra.
The titler has standard options for font, size, and style. The best font is a generic, normal
font like Arial in a large size.
The titler also has options you will only find in moving pictures. The Justify operation justifies
the text relative to the entire frame. Once justified, the X and Y offset is applied. This allows
text to be justified while at the same time letting you push it within the title safe region.
The motion type scrolls the text in any of the four directions. When using this, the text may
disappear. Make sure the speed is set to a reasonably high value (try 150) and move the insertion
point along the timeline until the text is far enough along the animation to reappear. The text
scrolls on and scrolls off.
Setting loop causes the text to scroll completely off and repeat. Without loop the text scrolls
off and never reappears.
The speed of the animation is determined by speed, in pixels per second. Set it higher to speed
up the animation.
Drop shadow draws a black copy of the text to the bottom right of the original text. This is
useful when drawing text over changing video to keep the border always visible.
In addition to the scrolling, Fade in/Fade out are a second type of animation. If the fade seconds
are 0, no fading is done.
Color picks the color to draw the text in. Usually white is the only practical color.
Stamp timecode replaces the text with the current position on the timeline in seconds and
frames.
Text options can only be applied to all the text as a whole. If you want your title text
formatted with a mixture of fonts, sizes, styles, alignments etc. you need to use multiple tile
effects.
The title effect supports keyframes only for Justify and Text, with no interpolation.
To add subtitles to your movie can set a single title effect and then define keyframes. If you
enable the automatic keyframes toggle , a new keyframe is created each time you edit the
text. Check View ->Plugin autos to make them visible on the timeline. In the text input box
you will see the subtitle displayed under the insertion point.
To correct an existing subtitle, the automatic keyframes toggle must be off. To adjust the timing
of subtitles simply drag the keyframes.
Note: For adding subtitles on a separate stream, you need an external subtitle editor. See
Section 21.13 [Adding subtitles], page 164, for more information.
To create special effects for your title you can place it on a dedicated track and insert other
realtime video effects just under the title effect or/and use camera and projector. Thanks to
keyframing you can animate your title and make it change position, size, colour, transparency,
texture, shape over time.
For improving playback performances of titles with effects, you can reduce the size of the
dedicated track. Right click on the track and select Resize track.... Enter the smallest resolution
that still keeps the title visible. For moving your title use the compositor projector.
To included graphical elements like logos, you may want to import your title as a PNG image
(alpha channel transparency is possible), move it with camera and projector or add effects.
The titler input is limited to 1023 characters. Titles longer than 1023 char-
acters will be accepted by the software, but they will likely cause lock-ups. See
http://bugs.cinelerra.org/show_bug.cgi?id=155|bug 155 to know more.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 115
14.4.56.1 Adding fonts to the titler
The X Window system originally did not have a suitable font renderer for video. It also is
restricted to the current bit depth. It does not have a convenient way to know which fonts
work with the suitable font renderer in the desired bit depth. The easiest way we have found to
support fonts in the titler is to have a directory for them at ‘/usr/lib/cinelerra/fonts’.
The titler supports mainly TTF, true type fonts. It supports others but TTF are the most
reliable. To add true type fonts, copy the ‘.TTF’ files to the ‘/usr/lib/cinelerra/fonts’
directory. In that directory run ttmkfdir && mv fonts.scale fonts.dir and restart Cinelerra.
The new fonts should appear. The usage of ttmkfdir changes frequently so this technique might
not work.
14.4.56.2 The title-safe region
If the video is displayed on a consumer TV, the outer border is going to be cropped by 5% on
each side. Moreover, text which is too close to the edge looks sloppy. Make sure when adding
titles to have the title-safe tool active in the compositor window. The text should not cross
the inner rectangle.
14.4.57 Translate
This effect allows displacing, cropping, and/or scaling the source video horizontally and/or
vertically. The In and Out parameters operate similar to the camera and projector functions in
the Compositor:
•In X/Y specifies how many pixels from the left/top of the source you want to start (camera)
while Out X/Y defines where on the screen you want the output to start (projector)
•In W/H defines how many pixels of the source you want to include in each direction while
Out W/H defines how many pixels on the screen you want that source to take up. Identical
values for both In and Out that are less than the source dimension will simply crop the
source. Different values will stretch (or compress if Out >In) the source in that direction
(and crop if In is less than the source dimension.)
This effect supports keyframes so these parameters can change smoothly over time.
You can use this effect for many things such as having a cropped inset clip move across
the screen, or have it change size or stretch while doing so. Be forewarned though, that for
interlaced footage horizontal displacements are likely to destroy the field order, resulting in all
sort of flickering and jumping movements.
14.4.58 Unsharp
This effect applies a traditional darkroom technique, the so called unsharp mask to every video
frame. With different parameter values, this can be used to soften or to sharpen the image. Its
parameters are:
•Amount
Moving the slider to the right makes dark areas get darker and light areas get lighter.
116 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
•Radius
This slider controls how much blurring is used in the edge-finding stage. The practical effect
of this is to specify how large a region is darkened or lightened.
•Threshold
This slider permits to control how big is a difference between a pixel in the blurred copy
and the original copy is needed before any darkening or lightening will be applied.
14.4.59 Videoscope
The Videoscope summarizes intensity and color on a calibrated display. The Videoscope can be
used in conjunction with other Cinelerra plugins such as YUV, HUE, Brightness, Color Balance
or Histogram to accurately correct video for contrast, clarity, conformance (to normalize various
videos shot under different light settings), or for cinematic purposes. The human eye is not
specialized to match precise level of light and color, but Videoscope is.
Some thought is being given to having a video scope for recording. Unfortunately, this would
require a lot of variations of the video scope for all the different video drivers.
The Videoscope contains two displays: the waveform scope and the vectorscope
14.4.59.1 The waveform scope
The Waveform Scope displays image intensity (luminance) versus image X position. The Wave-
form Scope appears on the left side of the Videoscope window.
The display is calibrated vertically from 0% intensity (black) at the bottom up to 100%
intensity at the top. Each column of pixels in the image corresponds to one column of pixels in
the Waveform Scope.
The color bar test image is plotted in the waveform display as a stair step set of lines. In
this example, the waveform display and the test image are aligned to show that each stair step
corresponds with one color bar.
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 117
The waveform display shows the white bar at the 75% level because the colors in the test
image are 75% values. The white bar has the highest luminance because it contains all color
components. In more complex images, multiple levels in the same column are represented with
multiple pixels on the scope.
The Waveform scope helps correct image light levels for contrast range or for conforming
light levels on various scenes originally shot on different light settings.
Adjusting light levels (adjusting luminance):
1. Insert the Brightness/Contrast, YUV, or another video adjustment effect on your track.
2. Insert the Videoscope effect on the track below. Make sure that it is placed below so it can
see the adjustment effect’s results. If it is not, right-click and move it down.
3. Show both the effect and Videoscope.
4. Adjust the effect while observing the waveform to match the desired light level.
If you are looking for maximum contrast range, adjust the Brightness/Contrast levels to align
the darkest point on the scope with the 0% level and the brightest portion with 100%. Anything
above 100% is over saturated. Limits which may be highlighted with checkbox controls:
•HDTV or sRGB (ITU-R BT.709)
The maximum pixel range for HDTV or sRGB is [0, 255]. This range corresponds with
levels 0% and 100%.
•MPEG or Analog video (ITU-R BT.601)
For analog video or MPEG (including DVD), the maximum range for RGB is [16, 235]
(8-bit). For YUV, the maximum range for intensity (Y) is [16, 235] (8-bit). This range
corresponds to gray levels from 6% to 92%. See Section 14.4.41 [RGB-601], page 109.
•NTSC Television broadcast
If you are producing a video for NTSC television broadcast, keep the intensity between
7.5% and 100%. The minimum black value which can be broadcast is IRE 7.5% (indicated
by the “7.5” level), and values below this level are no darker.
14.4.59.2 The vectorscope
The Vectorscope displays color and color saturation. Each pixel in the source image is drawn
as a point on the color wheel. The distance from the center is the color saturation. Gray values
are close to the center, and high saturation values are near the perimeter.
The Vectorscope is used with other plugins to correct color, adjust image tint, and apply
other effects for cinematic effects, image correction, or to conform images to look the same.
118 Chapter 14: Realtime effects
In this example, the top image is white balanced. Vectorscope shows many pixels in the yellow
region and few in the white region. To remove the yellow tint, the Color Balance effect is used
to first shift the vectorscope plot towards magenta (Mg), and then towards blue (B) until the
region previously near the center surrounds the center. In the bottom image, yellow highlights
have become white highlights (arrows). Note that the corresponding features in waveform also
appear whiter (arrows).
The Vectorscope can also be used to verify that the video output will display properly on
various monitors. Any points along the inner radius will be displayed as pure white and any
points above the 100% radius, will probably not be correctly displayed on the screen.
14.4.60 Wave
The wave effect adds waves on the image.
You can adjust the following parameters:
Chapter 14: Realtime effects 119
14.4.61 Whirl
FIXME
14.4.62 YUV
FIXME
14.4.63 Zoom blur
FIXME
Chapter 15: Rendered effects 121
15 Rendered effects
Another type of effect is performed on a section of the track and the result stored somewhere
before it is played back. The result is usually pasted into the track to replace the original data.
The rendered effects are not listed in the resource window but instead are accessed through
the Audio->Render effect and Video->Render effect menu options. Each of these menu options
brings up a dialog for the rendered effect. Rendered effects apply to only one type of track,
either audio or video. If no tracks of the type exist, an error pops up.
A region of the timeline to apply the effect to must be defined before selecting Render
effect.... If no in/out points and no highlighted region exist, the entire region after the insertion
point is treated as the affected region. Otherwise, the region between the in/out points or the
highlighted region is the affected region.
Secondly, the tracks to apply the rendered affect to need to be armed. All other tracks are
ignored.
Finally, the rendered affect processes certain track attributes when it reads its input data
but not others. Transitions in the affected track are applied. Nudge is not and effects are not.
This allows the new data to be pasted into the existing position without changing the nudge
value.
In the render effect dialog is a list of all the realtime and all the rendered effects. The
difference here is that the realtime effects are rendered to disk and not applied under the track.
Highlight an effect in the list to designate it as the one being performed.
Define a file to render the effect to in the Select a file to render to box. The magnifying
glass allows file selection from a list.
Select a file format which can handle the track type. The wrench allows configuration
specific to the file format.
There is also an option for creating a new file at each label. If you have a CD rip on the
timeline which you want to divide into different files, the labels would become dividing points
between the files if this option were selected. When the timeline is divided by labels, the effect
is re-initialized at every label. Normalize operations take the peak in the current file and not in
the entire timeline.
Finally there is an insertion strategy just like in the render dialog. It should be noted that
even though the effect applies only to audio or video, the insertion strategy applies to all tracks
just like a clipboard operation.
When you click OK in the effect dialog, it calls the GUI of the effect. If the effect is also
a realtime effect, a second GUI appears to prompt for acceptance or rejection of the current
settings. After accepting the settings, the effect is processed.
15.1 Rendered audio effects
15.1.1 Resample
This multiplies the number of each output sample by a scale factor to arrive at the number of
the input sample. The output file’s sample rate is set to the project sample rate but its length
is changed to reflect the scaled number of samples. It also filters the resampled audio to remove
aliasing.
If the scale factor is 2, every 2 input samples will be reduced to 1 output sample and the
output file will have half as many samples as the input sequence. If it is 0.5, every 0.5 input
samples will be stretched to 1 output sample and the output file will have twice as many samples
as the input sequence.
122 Chapter 15: Rendered effects
15.2 Rendered video effects
15.2.1 Reframe
This does exactly the same thing as ReframeRT in Stretch mode. It multiplies the output frame
number by the scale factor to arrive at the input frame number and changes the length of the
sequence. Unlike ReframeRT, this must run from the Video menu and render its output.
Be aware Reframe does not write the scaled frame rate as the frame rate of the rendered file.
It produces a file of scaled length and equal frame rate as the project. The new length is 1/scale
factor as big as the original sequence.
To create a slow-motion of fast moving video:
1. Select the video clip you wish to re-frame and put it on a video track
2. Select the area you wish to reframe
3. From the Video menu, select the Render Effect option
4. From the effect list, select Reframe
5. Enter the output format and insertion strategy for the new clip to be created
6. Press ok
7. At the popup menu, enter the scale factor 2 to run twice as fast, and .5 to run at half speed
15.2.2 GreyCStoration
GREYCstoration is an image regularization algorithm which is able to process a color image
by locally removing small variations of pixel intensities while preserving significant global image
features, such as edges and corners. The most direct application of image regularization is image
denoising.
GREYCstoration is based on state-of-the-art image processing methods using nonlinear
multi-valued diffusion PDE (Partial Differential Equations). This kind of method generally
outperforms basic image filtering techniques (such as convolution, median filtering, etc.), classi-
cally encountered in image painting programs.
GREYCstoration is a rendered plugin, but it can be optionally used as a realtime effect. It
is important to note, however, that as a realtime effect, GreyCStoration is very slow.
Parameters:
1. Amplitude (dt): This parameter represents the average amount of smoothing that is per-
formed. GREYCstoration performs a spatial averaging of pixel values, and Amplitude
represents a kind of dimension of the area where the smoothing is computed. It is related
to the PDE time step. Default value is 40. Prefer using a larger value than using multiple
iterations when possible (at least until undesirable artifacts appear), it will speed up the
whole process.
2. Sharpness (p): This parameter tells GREYCstoration about structure preservation. Once
the local structures of the image have been detected, GREYCstoration has to decide how
much he will smooth image pixels. Basically, it decreases the smoothing when the local
structure is contrasted. The Sharpness parameter simply tells how this decreasing must be
considered. When Sharpness is high, even low-contrasted structures will be preserved. Do
not set Sharpness too high or the noise may be preserved. On the contrary, when Sharpness
is low, the structures have to be very contrasted to avoid local smoothing. Do not set
p too low or existing image structures will be over-smoothed. As you can see, there is a
(sometimes difficult) trade-off to find when setting this parameter. Default value is 0.8 and
typical values range from 0 to 5.
3. Anisotropy (a): This parameters set the anisotropy level of the considered smoothing. It
ranges from 0 (which means ’purely isotropic’) to 1 (which means ’purely anisotropic’).
Chapter 15: Rendered effects 123
The anisotropy notion relates to the way the performed smoothing orientation will extend
locally in space : a purely isotropic smoothing (0) will be performed in all possible directions,
while a purely anisotropic smoothing (1) will be performed only along the directions of the
structures. Values of anisotropy between 0 and 1 tell GREYCstoration to smooth the image
mainly along the structure directions, but with a certain percentage of tolerance. Default
value for a if 0.8 (which is already very anisotropic).
4. Noise scale (alpha): This parameter is mathematically defined as the standard deviation of
a blurring gaussian kernel applied to the original image before estimating its geometry. In
other words, it defines a kind of scale under which details won’t be considered as structures
but much more as noise. This parameter highly depends on the level of noise present on
your image. Remember that increasing too much this parameter will tell GREYCstoration
to smooth more structures. It can be useful for special visual effects though. Default value
of alpha is 0.8, which is relatively low (many details should be preserved). Note how the
details are ignored for high values of alpha.
More details on the GreyCStoration functionality can be found here:
http://cimg.sourceforge.net/greycstoration/guide.shtml
Chapter 16: Ladspa effects 125
16 Ladspa effects
LADSPA effects are supported in realtime and rendered mode for audio. The LADSPA plugins
you get from the internet vary in quality. Most can not be tweaked in realtime very easily and
work better when rendered. Some crash and some can only be applied to one track due to a lack
of re-entrancy. Although Cinelerra implements the LADSPA interface as accurately as possible,
multiple tracks of realtime, simultaneous processing go beyond the majority of LADSPA users.
LADSPA effects appear in the audio folder as the hammer and screwdriver, to signify that they
are Plugins for GNU/Linux Audio Developers.
Ladspa audio effects in the audio folder
LADSPA Effects are enabled merely by setting the LADSPA_PATH environment variable to the
location of your LADSPA plugins:
export LADSPA_PATH=/usr/lib/ladspa
or putting them in the ‘/usr/lib/cinelerra’ directory.
If you use Debian, you can get a lot of plugins using apt:
apt-cache search ladspa
apt-get install jack-rack cmt blop swh-plugins
Chapter 17: Transitions 127
17 Transitions
17.1 Using transitions
When one edit ends and another edit begins, the default behavior is to have the first edit’s
output immediately become the output of the second edit when played back. Transitions are a
way for the first edit is output to become the second edit is output with different variations.
Cinelerra supports audio and video transitions, all of which are listed in the resource window.
Video transitions in the resources window
Transitions may only apply to the matching track type. Transitions under audio transitions
can only apply to audio tracks. Transitions under video transitions can only apply to video
tracks.
Load two video files. Alternatively load a single video file and cut away a section from the
center so that you make two edits out of a single file. Make sure the edit boundary between the
two edits is visible on the timeline.
Go to the Resource window and click on the Video transitions folder. Drag a transition from
the transition list onto the second video edit on the timeline. A box highlights over where the
transition will appear. Releasing it over the second edit applies the transition between the first
and second edit.
128 Chapter 17: Transitions
Dragging a dissolve transition to the timeline
You can now scrub over the transition with the transport controls and watch the output in
the Compositor window.
Once the transition is in place, it can be edited similarly to an effect. Move the pointer over
the transition and right click to bring up the transition menu.
The show option brings up specific parameters for the transition in question if any.
The length option adjusts the length of the transition in seconds.
Once these two parameters are set, they are applied to future transitions until they are changed
again. Finally, the detach option removes the transition from the timeline.
Dragging and dropping transitions from the Resource window to the Program window can
be really slow and tiring. Fortunately, once you drag a transition from the Resource window,
the Uand ukeys will paste the same transition. The Ukey pastes the last video transition and
the ukey pastes the last audio transition on all the recordable tracks. If the insertion point or
the in point is over an edit, the beginning of the edit is covered by the transition.
Transitions make two edits overlap for a certain amount of time. Some consumer single track
applications literally move backward the second edit to make it partially overlay the first edit.
This behavior is not possible on multitrack editors where the synchrony among track is vital.
Cinelerra don’t move edits during transitions. Instead it uses spare frames from the source file
to lengthen the first edit enough to make it overlap the second edit for the duration of the
transition.
The exact point in time when the transition takes effect is the beginning of the second edit. The
transition lasts a set amount of time into the second edit. For example, if you set a duration
of 1 second for a dissolve transition, it will not start at the last 0.5 second of the first edit and
continue 0.5 second into the second edit. In fact, it will start exactly at the beginning of the
second edit and last for 1 second into that second edit.
On the timeline a brown bar over the transition symbol visually represents the position and the
duration of the transition.
The most important consequence of this behavior is that the first asset needs to have enough
spare data after the end boundary to fill the transition into the second edit. Spare data duration
should be equal or greater than the length of the transition effect set in the Length parameter
of the transition popup menu.
If the last frame shown on the timeline is the last frame of the source file Cinelerra will lengthen
the first edit using the last frame only, with the unpleasant result of having the first edit freezing
into the transition.
Chapter 17: Transitions 129
It should be noted that when playing transitions from the timeline to hardware accelerated
video device, the hardware acceleration will usually be turned off momentarily during the tran-
sition and on after the transition in order to render the transition. Using an un-accelerated
video device for the entire timeline normally removes the disturbance.
17.2 Dissolve video transition
This is a soft dissolve transition between two video segments, which we call in and out segments.
The in segment turns increasingly transparent while the out segment materializes into its place.
The length of time for the full effect to take place can be controlled by the "Transition Length"
control.
Available controls:
By right-clicking on the transition icon in the timeline, a menu will pop-up with the following
controls
•Show: Pop up the transition specific menu (not available on this transition)
•On: Toggle on/off the transition effect
•Transition length: Set the span in seconds for the transition to complete
•Detach: Remove the transition from the timeline
Chapter 18: Keyframing 131
18 Keyframing
The term "keyframe"is borrowed from the world of animation where it refers to an essential
(key) drawing in a sequence. Typically this would be a starting or an ending point of a smooth
transition in a series of frames. The keyframes would be drawn by the more senior artists and
their assistants would draw the "inbetweens". The word keyframe has since been used to suggest
similar concepts in other fields.
In non-linear digital video editing and video compositing software a keyframe represents a
certain value set by the user at a certain point in the timeline. For example you could use
keyframes to fade in a clip by setting the transparency to 100% at the first keyframe and adding
another keyframe 5 seconds later in the timeline with a transparency of 0%. A keyframe is used
to manipulate changes made to the signal over time, essentially acting as a control point for the
user to set parameters e.g. of effects. Cinelerra interpolates the intermediate values making the
change happen smoothly and gradually over time.
When you change the fade, camera, projector, or other parameters for a track, they stay
by default the same for the entire duration of the project. Their value is stored in a keyframe.
The keyframe it is stored in by default is known as the default keyframe. The default keyframe
applies to the entire duration only if no other keyframes are present and it is not drawn on the
timeline.
The only way change occurs over time is if additional keyframes are created.
Setting static parameters with the default keyframe is only useful if you don’t want to change
anything over time. Normally you need to move the camera around or change mask positions
e.g. if a mask needs to follow an object. Defining additional keyframes to the default one is a
very convenient technique for creating dynamic changes.
In Cinelerra, there are keyframes for almost every compositing parameter and effect param-
eter.
Parameters can be graphically represented in many forms: curves, toggles, modes, and so on.
The relative keyframe can be represented on the timeline as a little square on a curve (e.g. fade)
or as a symbol (e.g. mask).
In Cinelerra the term keyframe can be misleading: it doesn’t refer to a frame, but to a point
between two frames.
To display the graphical representation of parameters and the relative keyframes use the
View menu.
A faster way to toggle multiple parameters types is to bring up Window ->Show Overlays. This
window allows toggling of every parameter in the view menu. When parameters are selected,
they are drawn on the timeline over the tracks they apply to.
How to handle the different types of keyframes is described here.
18.1 Curve keyframes
Many parameters are stored in Bezier curves. Go to view->fade or view->...zoom to show curves
on the timeline for those parameters. In either arrow editing mode or i-beam editing mode,
move the cursor over the curves in the timeline until it changes shape. Then merely by clicking
and dragging on the curve you can create a keyframe at the position.
After the keyframe is created, click drag on it again to reposition it. When you click-drag a
second keyframe on the curve, it creates a smooth ramp. CTRL-dragging on a keyframe changes
the value of either the input control or the output control. This affects the sharpness of the
curve. While the input control and the output control can be moved horizontally as well as
vertically, the horizontal movement is purely for legibility and is not used in the curve value.
132 Chapter 18: Keyframing
You may remember that The Gimp and the Compositing masks all use SHIFT to select
control points so why does the timeline use CTRL? When you SHIFT-drag on a timeline curve,
the keyframe snaps to the value of either the next or previous keyframe, depending on which
exists. This lets you set a constant curve value without having to copy the next or previous
keyframe.
18.1.1 Navigating curve keyframes
There is not much room on the timeline for a wide range of curve values. You need to zoom the
curves in and out vertically to have any variability. This is done by 2 tools: the automation fit
button and automation zoom menu .
The automation fit button scales and offsets the vertical range so the selected curve area
appears in the timeline. If a region of the timeline is highlighted by the cursor, only that region
is scaled. In/out points do not affect the zoomed region. ALT-f also performs automation fitting.
The automation zoom menu manually changes the vertical scaling of the curves in multiples
of 2. Click on its tumbler to change the zoom. ALT-UP and ALT-DOWN change the automation
zoom from the keyboard.
18.2 Toggle keyframes
Mute is the only toggle keyframe. Mute keyframes determine where the track is processed but
not rendered to the output. Click-drag on these curves to create a keyframe. Unlike curves,
the toggle keyframe has only two values: on or off. CTRL and SHIFT do nothing on toggle
keyframes.
18.3 Automatic keyframes
You may have noticed when a few fade curves are set up, moving the insertion point around the
curves causes the faders to reflect the curve value under the insertion point. This is not just to
look cool. The faders themselves can set keyframes in automatic keyframe mode. Automatic
keyframe mode is usually more useful than dragging curves.
Enable automatic keyframe mode by enabling the automatic keyframe toggle . In auto-
matic keyframe mode, every time you tweak a key-framable parameter it creates a keyframe on
the timeline. Since automatic keyframes affect many parameters, it is best enabled just before
you need a keyframe and disabled immediately thereafter.
It is useful to go into the View menu and make the desired parameter visible before performing
a change. The location where the automatic keyframe is generated is under the insertion point.
If the timeline is playing back during a tweak, several automatic keyframes will be generated as
you change the parameter.
When automatic keyframe mode is disabled, a similarly strange thing happens. Adjusting a
parameter adjusts the keyframe immediately preceding the insertion point. If two fade keyframes
exist and the insertion point is between them, changing the fader changes the first keyframe.
There are many parameters which can only be keyframed in automatic keyframe mode. These
are parameters for which curves would take up too much space on the track or which can not
be represented easily by a curve.
Effects are only key-framable in automatic mode because of the number of parameters in
each individual effect.
Camera and projector translation can only be keyframed in automatic keyframe mode while
camera and projector zoom can be keyframed with curves. It is here that we conclude the
discussion of compositing, since compositing is highly dependant on the ability to change over
time.
Chapter 18: Keyframing 133
18.4 Compositor keyframes
Camera and projector translation is represented by two parameters: x and y. Therefore it
is cumbersome to adjust with curves. Cinelerra solves this problem by relying on automatic
keyframes. With a video track loaded, move the insertion point to the beginning of the track
and enable automatic keyframe mode.
Move the projector slightly in the compositor window to create a keyframe. Then go forward
several seconds. Move the projector a long distance to create another keyframe and emphasize
motion. This creates a second projector box in the compositor, with a line joining the two boxes.
The joining line is the motion path. If you create more keyframes, more boxes are created. Once
all the desired keyframes are created, disable automatic keyframe mode.
Now when scrubbing around with the compositor window’s slider, the video projection moves
over time. At any point between two keyframes, the motion path is red for all time before the
insertion point and green for all time after the insertion point. It is debatable if this is a very
useful feature but it makes you feel good to know what keyframe is going to be affected by the
next projector tweak.
Click-drag when automatic keyframes are off to adjust the preceding keyframe. If you are
halfway between two keyframes, the first projector box is adjusted while the second one stays
the same. Furthermore, the video does not appear to move in step with the first keyframe. This
is because halfway between two keyframes the projector translation is interpolated. In order to
set the second keyframe you will need to scrub after the second keyframe.
By default the motion path is a straight line, but it can be curved with control points. CTRL-
drag to set either the in or out control point of the preceding keyframe. Once again, we depart
from The Gimp because SHIFT is already used for zoom. After the in or out control points
are extrapolated from the keyframe, CTRL-dragging anywhere in the video adjusts the nearest
control point. A control point can be out of view entirely yet still controllable.
When editing the camera translation, the behavior of the camera boxes is slightly different.
Camera automation is normally used for still photo panning. The current camera box does
not move during a drag, but if multiple keyframes are set, every camera box except the current
keyframe appears to move. This is because the camera display shows every other camera position
relative to the current one.
The situation becomes more intuitive if you bend the motion path between two keyframes
and scrub between the two keyframes. The division between red and green, the current position
between the keyframes, is always centered while the camera boxes move.
18.5 Editing keyframes
IMPORTANT: when copying and pasting keyframes, make sure there is no IN or OUT point
defined on the timeline.
Keyframes can be shifted around and moved between tracks on the timeline using similar
cut and paste operations to editing media. Only the keyframes selected in the view menu are
affected by keyframe editing operations, however.
The most popular keyframe editing operation is replication of some curve from one track to
the other, to make a stereo pair. The first step is to solo the source track’s record patch by
SHIFT-clicking on it. Then either set in/out points or highlight the desired region of keyframes.
Go to keyframes->copy keyframes to copy them to the clipboard. Solo the destination track’s
record patch by SHIFT-clicking on it and go to keyframes->paste keyframes to paste the
clipboard.
The media editing commands are mapped to the keyframe editing commands by using the
SHIFT key instead of just the keyboard shortcut.
134 Chapter 18: Keyframing
This leads to the most complicated part of keyframe editing, the default keyframe. Remem-
ber that when no keyframes are set at all, there is still a default keyframe which stores a global
parameter for the entire duration. The default keyframe is not drawn because it always ex-
ists. What if the default keyframe is a good value which you want to transpose between other
non-default keyframes? The keyframes->copy default keyframe and keyframes->paste default
keyframe allow conversion of the default keyframe to a non-default keyframe.
Keyframes->copy default keyframe copies the default keyframe to the clipboard, no matter
what region of the timeline is selected. The keyframes->paste keyframes function may then be
used to paste the clipboard as a non-default keyframe.
If you have copied a non-default keyframe, it can be stored as the default keyframe by calling
keyframes->paste default keyframe. After using paste default keyframe to convert a non-default
keyframe into a default keyframe, you will not see the value of the default keyframe reflected
until all the non-default keyframes are removed.
Finally, there is a convenient way to delete keyframes besides selecting a region and calling
keyframes->clear keyframes. Merely click-drag a keyframe before its preceding keyframe or after
its following keyframe on the track.This is the only way you can simultaneously delete keyframes
on ganged tracks.
Chapter 19: Capturing media 135
19 Capturing media
19.1 Capturing using Cinelerra
19.1.1 Cinelerra recording functions
Ideally, all media would be stored on hard drives, CD-ROM, flash, or DVD and loading it into
Cinelerra would be a matter of loading a file. In reality, very few sources of media can be accessed
like a filesystem but instead rely on tape transport mechanisms and dumb I/O mechanisms to
transfer the data to computers. These media types are imported into Cinelerra through the
Record dialog.
The first step in recording is to configure the input device. In Settings->preferences are a
number of recording parameters described in configuration See Section 3.5 [Recording], page 19.
These parameters apply to recording no matter what the project settings are, because the record-
ing parameters are usually the maximum capability of the recording hardware while project
settings come and go.
Go to File->record to record a dumb I/O source. This prompts for an output format much
like rendering does. Once that is done, the record window and the record monitor pop up.
The record window has discrete sections. While many parameters change depending on if
the file has audio or video, the discrete sections are always the same.
•The output format area describes the format of the output file and the current position
within it.
•The edit batch area lets you change parameters in the current batch.
•The transport controls start and stop recording different ways.
•The batch list displays all the defined batches.
•The confirmation area lets you determine how the output files are imported into the timeline
and quit.
136 Chapter 19: Capturing media
Recording window areas
Recording in Cinelerra is organized around batches. A batch essentially defines a distinct
output file for the recording. For now you can ignore the batch concept entirely and record
merely by hitting the record button .
The record button opens the current output file if it is not opened and writes captured data
to it. Use the stop button to stop the recording. Recording can be resumed with the record
button without erasing the file at this point. In the case of a video file, there is a single frame
record button which records a single frame.
When enough media is recorded, choose an insertion method from the Insertion Strategy
menu and hit close.
19.1.2 Batch recording
Now we come to the concept of batches. Batches try to make the dumb I/O look more like a
filesystem. Batches are traditionally used to divide tape into different programs and save the
different programs as different files instead of recording straight through an entire tape. Because
of the high cost of developing frame-accurate deck control mechanisms, the only use of batches
now is recording different programs during different times of day. This is still useful for recording
TV shows or time lapse movies as anyone who can not afford proper appliances knows.
The record window supports a list of batches and two recording modes: interactive and
batch recording. Interactive recording happens when the record button is pressed. Interactive
recording starts immediately and uses the current batch to determine everything except start
time. By default, the current batch is configured to behave like tape.
Batch recording happens when the start button is pressed. In batch recording, the start time
is the time the batch starts recording.
First, you will want to create some batches. Each batch has certain parameters and methods
of adjustment.
•On
Determines whether the batch is included in batch recording operations. Click the list row
under On to enable or disable batches.
•Path
It is the file the batch is going to be recorded to. The filename specified in the record dialog
is the name of the first batch, to simplify interactive recording, but the filename may be
changed in the record window for any batch in the edit batch area.
•News
Shows whether the file exists or not. This is a very important attribute since there is no
confirmation dialog if the file exists. The first time you hit record, the file is opened. If the
file exists at this point it is erased. News says File exists if it exists and OK if it does not.
Every time you resume recording in the same batch, the news should say Open, indicating
the file is already opened and will not be erased in the next record button press.
If you change out of the current batch after recording, the file is closed. Next time you
change into the batch, the file will be erased.
•Start time
It is the 24 hour time of day the batch will start recording if in batch mode. The start time
may become a time of tape and reel number if deck control is implemented but for now it
is a time of day.
•Duration
This is the length of the batch. It only has meaning if the Mode of the batch is Timed.
Once the recording length reaches duration the recording stops, whether in interactive or
batch mode.
Chapter 19: Capturing media 137
•Source
This has meaning only when the capturing hardware has multiple sources. Usually the
source is a tuner channel or input. When the current batch finishes and the next batch
begins recording, the source is changed to what the next batch is set to. This way multiple
TV stations can be recorded at different times.
The record window has a notion of the current batch. The current batch is not the same as
the batch which is highlighted in the batch list. The current batch text is colored red in the
batch list. The highlighted batch is merely displayed in the edit batch section for editing.
By coloring the current batch red, any batch can be edited by highlighting it, without chang-
ing the batch to be recorded.
All recording operations take place in the current batch. If there are multiple batches,
highlight the desired batch and hit activate to make it the current batch. If the start button is
pressed, the current batch flashes to indicate it is waiting for the start time in batch mode. If
the record button is pressed, the current batch is recorded immediately in interactive mode.
In batch and interactive recording modes, when the current batch finishes recording the next
batch is activated and performed. All future recording is done in batch mode. When the first
batch finishes, the next batch flashes until its start time is reached.
Interrupt either the batch or the interactive operation by hitting the stop button.
Finally there is the rewind button. In either interactive or batch recording, the rewind
button causes the current batch to close its file. The next recording operation in the current
batch deletes the file.
19.1.3 Editing tuner information
Sometimes in the recording process and the configuration process, you will need to define and
select tuner channels to either record or play back to. In the case of the Video4Linux and
Buz recording drivers, tuner channels define the source. When the Buz driver is also used for
playback, tuner channels define the destination.
Defining tuner channels is accomplished by pushing the channel button. This brings up
the channel editing window. In this window you add, edit, and sort channels. Also, for certain
video drivers, you can adjust the picture quality.
The add operation brings up a channel editing box. The title of the channel appears in
the channel list. The source of the channel is the entry in the physical tuner’s frequency table
corresponding to the title.
Fine tuning in the channel edit dialog adjusts the physical frequency slightly if the driver
supports it. The norm and frequency table together define which frequency table is selected for
defining sources. If the device supports multiple inputs, the input menu selects these.
To sort channels, highlight the channel in the list and push move up or move down to move
it.
Once channels are defined, the source item in the record window can be used to select channels
for recording. The same channel selecting ability also exists in the record monitor window. Be
aware channel selections in the record monitor window and the record window are stored in the
current batch.
For some drivers an option to swap fields may be visible. These drivers do not get the field
order right every time without human intervention. Toggle this to get the odd and even lines to
record in the right order.
138 Chapter 19: Capturing media
19.2 Capturing using dvgrab
dvgrab is great and simple to use a command line tool to capture videos from a DV camcorder.
When invoked it will automatically put your camera in play mode, and start storing the videos
on your hard disk. Video files will be labeled sequentially, as: ‘001.avi’, ‘002.avi’ and so on.
To install dvgrab, use your distribution preferred installation mechanism (apt, rpm, deb, etc)
or refer to the dvgrab webpage.
Capturing videos in four easy steps:
1. Create a directory where you want the capture videos to be stored
2. cd to that directory
3. Type: dvgrab --buffers 500 and RETURN
4. Press CTRL-C to stop capturing video
The ‘--autosplit’ option is very useful. It splits scenes according to the timecode. However,
that only works when grabbing from a DV camcorder. It will not work when grabbing from a
analog/digital converter such as a Canopus ADVC110.
Read the dvgrab manual to get more information about dvgrab features.
Chapter 20: Rendering files 139
20 Rendering files
Rendering takes a section of the timeline, performs all the editing, effects and compositing, and
stores it in a pure movie file. You can then delete all the source assets, play the rendered file in
a movie player, or bring it back into Cinelerra for more editing. It is very difficult to retouch
any editing decisions in the pure movie file, however, so keep the original assets and XML file
around several days after you render it.
All rendering operations are based on a region of the timeline to be rendered. You need to
define this region on the timeline. The navigation section describes methods of defining regions.
See Chapter 13 [Timebar], page 79. The rendering functions define the region based on a set
of rules. When a region is highlighted or in/out points are set, the affected region is rendered.
When no region is highlighted, everything after the insertion point is rendered. Merely by
positioning the insertion point at the beginning of a track and unsetting all in/out points, the
entire track is rendered.
20.1 Single file rendering
The fastest way to get media to disk is to use the single file rendering function.
Go to File->render or press SHIFT-R to bring up the render dialog. Select the magnifying
glass to bring up a file selection dialog. This determines the filename to write the rendered
file to and the encoding parameters.
The render window
In the render dialog select a format from the File Format menu. The format of the file
determines whether you can render audio or video or both. Select the Render audio tracks
toggle to generate audio tracks and Render video tracks to generate video tracks.
Select the wrench next to each toggle to set compression parameters. If the file format
can not store audio or video the compression parameters will be blank. If Render audio tracks
or Render video tracks is selected and the file format does not support it, trying to render will
pop up an error.
20.2 Separate files rendering
The Create new file at each label option causes a new file to be created when every label in
the timeline is encountered. This is useful for dividing long audio recordings into individual
140 Chapter 20: Rendering files
tracks. When using the renderfarm, Create new file at each label causes one renderfarm job to
be created at every label instead of using the internal load balancing algorithm to space jobs.
When Create new file at each label is selected, a new filename is created for every output
file. If the filename given in the render dialog has a 2 digit number in it, the 2 digit number is
overwritten with a different incremental number for every output file. If no 2 digit number is
given, Cinelerra automatically concatenates a number to the end of the given filename for every
output file.
In the filename ‘/hmov/track01.wav’ the ‘01’ would be overwritten for every output file. The
filename ‘/hmov/track.wav’; however, would become ‘/hmov/track.wav001’ and so on and so
forth. Filename regeneration is only used when either renderfarm mode is active or creating
new files for every label is active.
20.3 Insertion strategy of rendered files
Finally the render dialog lets you select an insertion mode. The insertion modes are the same
as with loading files. In this case if you select insert nothing the file will be written out to
disk without changing the current project. For other insertion strategies be sure to prepare
the timeline to have the output inserted at the right position before the rendering operation is
finished. See Chapter 7 [Editing], page 43. Editing describes how to cause output to be inserted
at the right position.
It should be noted that even if you only have audio or only have video rendered, a paste
insertion strategy will behave like a normal paste operation, erasing any selected region of the
timeline and pasting just the data that was rendered. If you render only audio and have some
video tracks armed, the video tracks will get truncated while the audio output is pasted into the
audio tracks.
20.4 Batch rendering
Batch Rendering is one of Cinelerra’s great but lesser-known strengths. It allows you to eliminate
manual repetitive keystrokes and mouse clicks, and automate the rendering of audio-video files.
It even allows for Cinelerra to be completely driven by external programs, with no need for the
user to manually interact with the Cinelerra user interface.
If you want to render many projects to media files without having to repeatedly attend to
the Render dialog, batch rendering is the function to use. In this function, you specify one or
more Cinelerra project XML files (EDL) to render and the unique output files for each. Then
Cinelerra loads each project file and renders it automatically, without any user intervention.
Each Cinelerra project XML file, combined with the settings for rendering an output file, are
called a batch. This allows a huge amount of media to be processed and greatly increases the
value of an expensive computer.
The first thing to do when preparing to do batch rendering is to create one or more
Cinelerra projects (EDL) to be rendered and save them as normal Cinelerra project
(‘myproject.cin.xml’) files. The batch renderer requires a separate Cinelerra project file for
every batch to be rendered. You can use the same Cinelerra project file if you are rendering to
different output files, for example, creating the same output video in different file formats.
To create a Cinelerra project file which can be used in batch render, set up a Cinelerra
project and define the region to be rendered either by highlighting it, setting in/out points
around it, or positioning the insertion point before it. Then save the project in the normal way
to a ‘myproject.cin.xml’ file (EDL). Define as many projects as needed this way. The batch
renderer takes the active region from the EDL file for rendering.
With all the Cinelerra project files (EDL) prepared with active regions, go to File->batch
render. This brings up the batch rendering dialog. The interface for batch rendering is a bit
more complex than for single file rendering.
Chapter 20: Rendering files 141
A list of batches must be defined before starting a batch rendering operation. The table of
batches appears on the bottom of the batch render dialog and is called batches to render. Above
this are the configuration parameters for a single batch.
A batch is simply a pairing of a Cinelerra project file with a choice of output file and render
settings.
Set the output path,file format,Audio,Video, and Create new file at each label parameters as
if you were rendering a single file. These parameters apply to only one batch. In addition to the
standard rendering parameters, you must select the Cinelerra project file (‘myproject.cin.xml’)
to be used in the batch. Do this by setting the EDL path. Use the magnifier to bring a drop
down menu with your files or write manually the path to your regular Cinelerra project file
(‘myproject.cin.xml’). In this case, EDL path has nothing to do with EDL files as created by
File/Export EDL.
Cinelerra in batch render mode will not overwrite an existing output file. The batch render will
simply fail. Make sure that no files with the same name as the output files exist before starting
the render.
If the batches to render list is empty or nothing is highlighted, click New to create a new
batch. The new batch will contain all the parameters you just set.
Repeatedly press the New button to create more batches with the same parameters. Highlight
any batch and edit the configuration on the top of the batch render window. The highlighted
batch is always synchronized to the information displayed.
Click and drag batches to change the order in which they are rendered. Hit delete to permanently
remove the highlighted batch.
In the list box is a column which enables or disables the batch. This way batches can be skipped
without being deleted. Click on the Enabled column in the list box to enable or disable a batch.
If it is checked, the batch is rendered. If it is blank, the batch is skipped.
The other columns in the batch list are informative.
•Output The output path of the batch.
•EDL The source EDL of the batch.
•Elapsed The amount of time taken to render the batch if it is finished.
To start rendering from the first enabled batch, hit Start.
Once rendering, the main window shows the progress of the batch. Once the batch finishes, the
elapsed column in the batch list is updated and the next batch is rendered until all the enabled
batches are finished. The currently rendering batch is always highlighted red.
To stop rendering before the batches are finished without closing the batch render dialog, hit
Stop.
To stop rendering before the batches are finished and close the batch render dialog, hit Cancel.
To exit the batch render dialog whether or not anything is being rendered, hit Cancel.
You can automate Cinelerra batch renders from other programs. In the Cinelerra batch
render dialog, once you have created your list of batch render jobs, you can click the button
Save List and choose a file to save your batch render list to. We suggest you use a filename
like ‘myrenderlist.batchrender.cin.xml’. Once you have created this file, you can start up a
batch render without needing to interact with the Cinelerra user interface. From a shell prompt
(or from a script, or other program), execute:
cinelerra -r myrenderlist.batchrender.cin.xml
(changing ‘myrenderlist.batchrender.cin.xml’ to whatever filename you chose for saving
your batch render list).
When invoked with these parameters, Cinelerra will start up and perform the rendering jobs in
that list, without creating its usual windows.
142 Chapter 20: Rendering files
Programmers, please note: this is a powerful feature indeed. It means that if you can create
valid Cinelerra project xml files and Cinelerra render list files from other programs (which
requires just a small amount of skill with your favourite XML library), then you can gain full
automated access to all of Cinelerra’s functionality without needing to interact with the Cinelerra
user interface. The possibilities for this are endless. You can leverage the power of Cinelerra
and incorporate it into your own programs. It’s a good idea if you can create simple Cinelerra
project files and batch render files and study the XML format. By trial and error, you’ll be able
to generate valid Cinelerra xml files for projects and batch render lists, and thus create your
own Cinelerra automation library in your favourite programming language.
20.5 The render farm
When bicubic interpolation and HDTV was first done on Cinelerra, the time needed to produce
the simplest output became unbearable even on the fastest dual 1.7 GHz Xeon of the time.
Renderfarm support even in the simplest form brings HDTV times back in line with SD while
making SD faster than real-time.
While the renderfarm interface is not spectacular, it is simple enough to use inside an editing
suite with less than a dozen nodes without going through the same amount of hassle you would
with a several hundred node farm. Renderfarm is invoked transparently for all file->render
operations when it is enabled in the preferences.
Cinelerra divides the selected region of the timeline into a certain number of jobs which
are then dispatched to the different nodes depending on the load balance. The nodes process
the jobs and write their output to individual files on the filesystem. The output files are not
concatenated. It is important for all the nodes to have access to the same filesystem on the same
mount point for assets.
If a node can not access an input asset it will display error messages to its console but
probably not die. If it can not access an output asset it will cause the rendering to abort.
It should be noted that in the render dialog, the Create new file at each label option causes
a new renderfarm job to be created at each label instead of by the load balancer. If this option
is selected when no labels exist, only one job will be created.
A Cinelerra renderfarm is organized into a master node and any number of slave nodes. The
master node is the computer which is running the GUI. The slave nodes are anywhere else on
the network and are run from the command line. Run a slave node from the command line with
cinelerra -d
That is the simplest configuration. Type cinelerra -h to see more options. The default
port number may be overridden by passing a port number after the ‘-d’.
Most of the time you will want to bring in the rendered output and fine tune the timing on
the timeline. Also some file formats like MPEG can not be direct copied. Because of this, the
jobs are left in individual files.
You can load these by creating a new track and specifying concatenate to existing tracks
in the load dialog. Files which support direct copy can be concatenated into a single file by
rendering to the same file format with renderfarm disabled. Also to get direct copy, the track
dimensions, output dimensions, and asset dimensions must be equal.
MPEG files or files which do not support direct copy have to be concatenated with a command
line utility. MPEG files can be concatenated with cat.
Configuration of the renderfarm is described in the configuration chapter See Section 3.6.2
[Renderfarm], page 22. The slave nodes traditionally read and write data to a common filesystem
over a network, thus they do not need hard drives.
Ideally all the nodes on the renderfarm have similar CPU performance. Cinelerra load bal-
ances on a first come first serve basis. If the last segment is dispatched to the slowest node, all
Chapter 20: Rendering files 143
the fastest nodes may end up waiting for the slowest node to finish while they themselves could
have rendered it faster.
20.6 Command line rendering
The command line rendering facility consists of a way to load the current set of batch rendering
jobs and process them without a GUI. This is useful if you are planning on crashing X repeatedly
or want to do rendering on the other side of a low bandwidth network. You might have access
to a supercomputer in India but still be stuck in America, exiled you might say. A command
line interface is ideal for this.
To perform rendering from the command line, first run Cinelerra in graphical mode. Go to
file->batch render. Create the batches you intend to render in the batch window and close the
window. This saves the batches in a file. Set up the desired renderfarm attributes in settings-
>preferences and exit Cinelerra. These settings are used the next time command line rendering
is used.
On the command line run: cinelerra -r
to processes the current batch jobs without a GUI. Setting up all the parameters for this
operation is hard. That is why the command line aborts if any output files already exist.
Other parameters exist for specifying alternative files for the preferences and the batches.
Attempting to use anything but the defaults is very involved so it has not been tested.
20.7 Rendering videos for the internet
If you want to encode a video in order to put it on the internet, we recommend to render it as a
Quicktime4linux file, and then encode that file in MPEG4 of FLV formats. The Quicktime4linux
file rendered from Cinelerra must have the following properties:
•Audio option Two Complements 16bits (PCM)
•Video option DV
20.7.1 Encoding a video in MPEG4 format for the internet
To get the best quality, you should encode your Quicktime4linux file with mencoder in two
passes.
First pass:
mencoder input.mov -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=600:pass=1 \
-vf scale=320:240 -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=64 -o output.avi
Second pass:
mencoder input.mov -ovc xvid -xvidencopts bitrate=600:pass=2 \
-vf scale=320:240 -oac mp3lame -lameopts abr:br=64 -o output.avi
Do not forget to change the output size of the video, set with the ‘-vf scale=’ option.
Here are some other command lines. They give output video files whose weight is around 13
Mb for 3 minutes.
First pass:
mencoder -oac pcm -sws 2 -vf scale=${width}:${height},hqdn3d=2:1:2 \
-ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=${video_bitrate}:vlelim=-4:\
vcelim=7:lumi_mask=0.05:dark_mask=0.01:scplx_mask=0.3:naq:v4mv:mbd=2:\
trell:cmp=3:subcmp=3:mbcmp=3:aspect=4/3:sc_threshold=1000000000:\
vmax_b_frames=2:vb_strategy=1:dia=3:predia=3:cbp:mv0:preme=2:\
last_pred=3:vpass=1:cgop -ofps 25 -of avi movie.mov -o /dev/null\
-ffourcc DIVX
144 Chapter 20: Rendering files
Second pass:
mencoder -srate 32000 -oac mp3lame -lameopts cbr:br=${audio_bitrate}:\
aq=0 -sws 2 -vf scale=${width}:${height},hqdn3d=2:1:2 -ovc lavc\
-lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=${video_bitrate}:vlelim=-4:vcelim=7:\
lumi_mask=0.05:dark_mask=0.01:scplx_mask=0.3:naq:v4mv:mbd=2:trell:\
cmp=3:subcmp=3:mbcmp=3:aspect=4/3:sc_threshold=1000000000:\
vmax_b_frames=2:dia=3:predia=3:cbp:mv0:preme=2:last_pred=3:vpass=3:\
cgop -ofps 25 -of avi movie.mov -o movie.avi -ffourcc DIVX
You probably have to adapt those command lines if your material is noisy; have a look at
mencoder’s pre-processing filters. The * mask parameters are really important when encoding
at low bitrate.
If you want your video file to be displayed properly on a well know media player which runs
on Windows you should be aware that:
•the aspect ratio information contained in the AVI header will not be taken into account
by that player. That is why you must scale the image to the right aspect ratio. Width
and height must be multiples of 16. Those are the recommended resolutions for 4/3 PAL
material: 384:288, 448:336, 512:384 or 704:528.
•the media player running on Windows will loose A/V sync if a VBR audio bitrate is used
instead of CBR.
•the ‘-ffourcc’ parameter is needed for the video codec to be recognized as Divx.
20.7.2 Encoding a video in FLV format for the internet
FLV files (FLash Video) weight is very small and the only thing needed to play those files is
an internet browser with flash plugin version 7 or higher installed. That format is really useful
when one wants to share a video with a wide audience over the internet.
First pass:
ffmpeg -i movie.mov -b 430k -s 320x240 -aspect 4:3 -pass 1 -ar 22050 movie.flv
Second pass:
ffmpeg -i movie.mov -b 430k -s 320x240 -aspect 4:3 -pass 2 -ar 22050 movie.flv
Pay attention to the output file extension. Ffmpeg uses it to determine the output format.
The audio sampling frequency to use is 22050 and the ‘-ar’ parameter must be used for the
video to be properly encoded. Ffmpeg does not write metadata information in the flv file. The
duration has to be written in the metadata information in order for some flash players to display
a progress bar. FLVTool2 (http://www.inlet-media.de/flvtool2) can be used to insert that
information:
cat input_file.flv | flvtool2 -U stdin output_file.flv
There are a number of options for embedding the flv file in a web page. You can use ming
or flv2swf to create an swf file.
http://klaus.geekserver.net/flash/streaming.html has detailed instructions for ming and
http://search.cpan.org/~clotho/FLV-Info-0.17/bin/flv2swf can be installed with cpan>
install FLV::ToSWF. Or you can use the Creative Commons Non-Commercial licensed JW
FLV Player http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=JW_FLV_Player, or the Apache licensed
FlowPlayer http://flowplayer.org. Both of these allow you to use the flv as created above,
and have controls for stopping and playing the movie etc.
Chapter 20: Rendering files 145
20.8 Quicktime for GNU/Linux compatibility chart
Scott Frase wrote a Quicktime for GNU/Linux compatibility chart. It contains an exhaustive
list of all the Quicktime compression schemes available and their compatibility in Cinelerra,
Mplayer and some other media players. That document has two main sections, one based on an
HDV resolution-formatted project and another based on a DV resolution-format project.
It is available here:
http://content.serveftp.net/video/qtcompatibility.ods
Some interesting notes:
•Mplayer does behave better with smaller, DV resolution video
•Cinelerra compatibility with files rendered from a DV project is not much different than its
compatibility with files rendered from an HDV project.
•Comparison chart of DV/HDV mplayer/cinelerra compatibility included
20.9 Making a DVD
20.9.1 Rendering to mpeg2
Here is a method to export mpeg2 video for DVD. This method allows you to precisely set the
encoding option you want and produces an mpeg2 file which is 100% compatible with all DVD
standalone players. For how to make a DVD from the output See Section 20.9.3 [Authoring a
DVD], page 149.
Audio and video are rendered separately and combined later in a procedure external to
Cinelerra.
Audio is rendered into .ac3, and video is rendered into a yuv4mpeg stream which is piped
through either mpeg2enc or ffmpeg into a .m2v file. Both variants are described in detail below.
(Apparently depending on footage and player engine, one or the other variant may produce
better results. Check out which one works best for you by rendering a short test edit of a
few seconds length, authoring to DVD according to the sections below, and playing it in your
cheapest standalone player to really see wether it is foolproof or displays errors.)
In both cases, make sure you properly defined your Cinelerra project format before rendering
your video (menu Settings->Format...), preferably even before loading any raw footage.
TV standards:
PAL is 720x576 at 25 frames per second,
NTSC is 720x480 at 29.97 frames per second.
20.9.1.1 yuv4mpeg pipe through mpeg2enc
The mplex program from mjpegtools must be installed. The mjpegtools package is built in the
hvirtual distribution and the mplex utility may be extracted from there.
1. Create a script ‘~/cine_render.sh’
2. Copy in ‘~/cine_render.sh file’ the following lines:
#/bin/bash
mpeg2enc -v 0 -K tmpgenc -r 16 -4 1 -2 1 -D 10 -E 10 -g 15 -G 15 -q 6 -b 8600 -f 8
-o $1
3. Put the execute permissions on that file: chmod 777 ~/cine_render.sh
4. Within Cinelerra, and select the part of the project you want to render with the [ and ]
points
5. Press SHIFT-R
6. Select the YUV4MPEG Stream file format
7. Deselect Render audio tracks and select Render video tracks
146 Chapter 20: Rendering files
8. Click on the wrench
9. In the newly opened window, indicate the name of the ‘m2v’ file you want to create. That
file will contain video only.
10. Click on Use pipe and write this command: /home/<your_user>/cine_render.sh %
11. Click OK to close the second window, and OK again to render your ‘m2v’ file
12. When the m2v file is rendered, open the rendering window again, and render an AC3 file
at 224kbits
13. Finally, combine video and audio with this command:
mplex -f 8 your_video_file.m2v your_audio_file.ac3 -o video_audio_file.mpeg
If you obtain errors while using mplex, increase the quantizer (‘-q’ option, see below).
You can modify the mpeg2enc parameters if you want to. Look at the mpeg2enc manpage.
Some details about the settings:
•‘-b 8600’ : This is the maximum bitrate of your ‘m2v’ file (it does not include the audio
bitrate). We recommend you to do not increase that value or you could get errors when
mplexing the video and the audio.
•‘-q 6’ : This is the quantizer setting. If you reduce it (do not go below 3), the quality
increases. But the bitrate will increase. It’s recommended to keep the medium bitrate
achieved (that’s displayed when mplexing the audio and video files) around 10% lower than
the bitrate defined with the ‘-b’ setting.
•‘-K tmpgenc’ : invokes the TMPGEnc matrices. It reduces the average bitrate by about
10% compared to the default tables. For very-high quality material, you can try removing
this option.
If your material is noisy (Hi8 analog material for example), you can add some mjpegtools in
the command line written in ‘~/cine_render.sh’:
•y4mshift and y4mscaler can be used to remove the noisy borders around the video. For
example, those commands added at the beginning of the command line in ‘cine_render.sh’
remove the black borders around a Hi8 video:
yuvscaler -v 0 -I ACTIVE_700x560+8+8 | y4mshift -n 2 |
•yuvdenoise and yuvmedianfilter can help removing noise. Example:
yuvdenoise -F | yuvmedianfilter -T 3 |
Denoising is a complex task, and the options given above are just an example. Please read
the mjpegtools’manual and subscribe to its mailing-list for more information.
20.9.1.2 yuv4mpeg pipe through ffmpeg
1. Select File->Render... or press SHIFT-R. The render dialog pops up.
2. In the render dialog, you have the choice to render 1. the entire project, or 2. the highlighted
selection, or 3. from In-point "["to Out-point "]".
3. Make sure the Insertion strategy is "Create new resources only".
4. Select the AC3 audio output file format.
5. Specify the audio output file name and path (example: your-movie.ac3).
6. Select Render audio tracks and deselect Render video tracks.
7. Click on the wrench next to "Audio:". A new dialog "Cinelerra: Audio Compression"pops
up.
8. Set the bitrate to 128 kbps (or leave it there).
9. Click OK, the compression dialog disappears.
10. In the render dialog, click OK, the dialogu disappears. Audio is rendered. Rendering audio
is much faster than rendering video but might still take some seconds. Watch the progress
bar in the main window’s lower right corner.
Chapter 20: Rendering files 147
11. Again, press SHIFT-R. The render dialog pops up again.
12. Select the YUV4MPEG Stream file format.
13. Specify the video output file name and path (example: your-movie.m2v).
14. Deselect Render audio tracks and select Render video tracks.
15. Click on the wrench next to "Video:". A new dialog window "Cinelerra: YUV4MPEG
stream"pops up. The first textbox should already contain the output filename and path
you had specified in the render dialog.
16. Select "Use Pipe:".
17. Fill the following command line into the second textbox:
ffmpeg -f yuv4mpegpipe -i - -y -target dvd -flags +ilme+ildct %
18. Click OK in the yuv4mpeg dialog and in the render dialog to render video output.
19. The resulting .m2v can be further processed together with the .ac3 audio with the
following shell command, producing a dvd-compatible mpeg stream:
ffmpeg -i your-movie.ac3 -i your-movie.m2v -target dvd -flags +ilme+ildct
your-movie.mpg (Yes, the stream is sent through ffmpeg a second time.)
Note on ffmpeg command line options:
-i tells ffmpeg to read from standard input (in our pipe, this means from Cinelerra’s render
stream).
The -y option allows to overwrite existing target files (of course, it is safer to omit this, but
then you must make sure to rename or delete previous results each time you want to render a
new version).
The +ilme+ildct flags are for proper interlacing, bottom fields first, tested with PAL footage.
Some Cinelerra versions suggest a similar command line in the ffmpeg pipe presets for DVD,
however with erroneous syntax of the interlacing flags or without the flags.
Before proceeding to put your rendered mpeg2 data on DVD, you might want to watch and
check your-movie.mpg in mplayer or xine/kaffeine.
20.9.2 Making a DVD menu
A DVD menu is composed of:
•a background (still image or video)
•buttons
•sound/music
You can build a menu with a GUI such as qdvdauthor, dvdstyler, dvdwizard or tovid. How-
ever, using those GUI is not perfect for the moment, since they are bugged or limited for the
moment.
If you prefer to use a GUI, we recommend you to try tovid:
http://tovid.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
QDVDAuthor contained a lot of bugs sometime ago, but its author fixed some of them recently,
which makes QDVDAuthor more usable.
The method we explain below is more complicated than using a GUI, however it:
•produces DVD playable on all standalone players
•is not subject to bugs
•will save you a lot of time since all you have to do to author a new DVD is to modify text
files
Here are the steps needed to create your DVD menu:
•create the menu background with cinelerra
148 Chapter 20: Rendering files
•add the buttons by creating PNG images
•combine the menu and the buttons with spumux
We suppose that you want to create a menu with an animated background. Launch Cinelerra
and create a project containing what you want to be the background of the menu. You can add
a music if you wish to. Pay attention to the fact that this menu will play in loop.
To draw the buttons, you have two possibilities:
•display them in Cinelerra. That way, you will be able to make animated buttons, such as
a video thumbnail for each part of your video.
•do not draw the buttons in Cinelerra. You will add them later on, from PNG images
"added"to the mpeg2 menu file. This is the simplest method, but you won’t be able to
display animated buttons.
Render that video into m2v and ac3 using the cine_render.sh method explain above. Com-
bine the audio and video with mplex as you would do with any "normal"video.
You obtain a mpeg2 file containing the menu background, and some buttons displayed above
it if you added them in Cinelerra.
We have to use spumux to define each button position in that mpeg2 file. If you did not
draw the buttons in Cinelerra, you will be able to put them in with spumux.
Spumux is a command line utility which takes 2 arguments:
•an XML file explaining where the buttons are
•the mpeg2 file name (the one you rendered for the menu)
Here is a spumux example XML file:
<subpictures>
<stream>
<spu start="00:00:00.0" image="buttons_normal.png" highlight=
"buttons_highlight.png" select="buttons_select.png">
<button name="1" x0="94 " y0="234 " x1="253 " y1="278"
down="2" right="4" />
<button name="2" x0="63 " y0="287 " x1="379 " y1="331" up="1"
down="3" right="5" />
</spu>
</stream>
</subpictures>
•image="buttons normal.png"This png image contains the buttons as they should appear
when they are not selected nor highlighted.
•highlight="buttons highlight.png"This png image contains the buttons in their highlighted
state.
•select="buttons select.png This png image contains the buttons in their selected state.
If you already made the buttons in Cinelerra, you have to specify empty (100% transparent)
PNG images here.
The PNG images used in spumux must:
•contain an alpha channel (ie support transparency)
•be in 4 indexed colors. You can easily convert an image to 4 indexed colors using Gimp.
There is one line per button. Each line contains the button coordinates, a button having a
rectangular shape:
•x0, y0: upper left corner
•x1, y1: bottom right corner
Chapter 20: Rendering files 149
You also have to set which button to move to when using the up, down, left and right buttons
of the DVD remote. Here is an example:
<button name="3" ...coordinates... up="1" down="5" left="2" right="4" />
When button 3 is selected, if the "Up"key is pressed on the remote then the button 1 will
be highlighted. If the "Right"key is pressed on the remote, then button 4 will be highlighted.
When you have finished editing your spumux XML file, you have to type this command:
spumux menu.xml < menu.mpeg > menu_with_buttons.mpeg
That will make a ‘menu_with_buttons.mpeg’. It is an mpeg2 files with buttons.
20.9.3 Authoring a DVD
After having rendered to mpeg2 your video files, and having prepared a menu with spumux, you
need to "author"the DVD with dvdauthor, that is another command line application.
dvdauthor uses XML files to describe the DVD structure. You need to create an
XML file in a text editor and save it as ‘simple_example.xml’ in the same folder of your
‘/the/mpeg/file.mpeg’ mpeg2 video file. You should really pay a lot of attention to the .xml
file syntax since it is very rigorous. The risk is the DVD to be readable on some standalone
players, but not on all of them.
To help you start using dvdauthor, here are some example XML files you can copy and paste
into your ‘simple_example.xml’ file. Replace example filenames and paths with the ones right
for your project.
<dvdauthor dest="/path/to/the/folder/which/will/contain/the/dvd">
<vmgm />
<titleset>
<titles>
<pgc>
<vob file="/the/mpeg/file.mpeg" />
<post>
jump chapter 1;
</post>
</pgc>
</titles>
</titleset>
</dvdauthor>
This is a very simple dvdauthor XML file. There are no menus, so the video file
‘/the/mpeg/file.mpeg’ will be played as soon as you insert the DVD in the player.
The command in <post>tag means the video should be played in a loop. When the DVD
player reaches the end of the video, it will jump to the first chapter of the video (which dvdautor
assumes to be the beginning of the video since chapters haven’t been defined). To make the
video play only once without jumping from the end to the beginning, remove the following lines
from your XML file.
<post>
jump chapter 1;
</post>
To author the DVD, go to the folder that contains the video and the XML file and type the
following command:
dvdauthor -x simple_example.xml
Now, let’s have a look at a more complex example. When the DVD is inserted, a menu is
displayed and you can choose to play any of 4 videos.
150 Chapter 20: Rendering files
<dvdauthor dest="/path/to/the/folder/which/will/contain/the/dvd" jumppad="yes" >
<vmgm>
<fpc> jump menu 1; </fpc>
<menus>
<video format="pal" aspect="4:3" resolution="720x576" />
<pgc entry="title" >
<vob file="menu.mpeg" pause="0" />
<button name="1" > { g3=1; jump titleset 1 menu entry root; } </button>
<button name="2" > { g3=2; jump titleset 1 menu entry root; } </button>
<button name="3" > { g3=3; jump titleset 1 menu entry root; } </button>
<button name="4" > { g3=4; jump titleset 1 menu entry root; } </button>
<post> { jump cell 1; } </post>
</pgc>
</menus>
</vmgm>
<titleset>
<menus>
<pgc entry="root" >
<pre> { if ( g3 gt 0 ) {
if ( g3 eq 1 ) { g3=0; jump title 1 chapter 1; }
if ( g3 eq 2 ) { g3=0; jump title 1 chapter 3; }
if ( g3 eq 3 ) { g3=0; jump title 1 chapter 5; }
if ( g3 eq 4 ) { g3=0; jump title 1 chapter 7; }
jump vmgm menu entry title;
}
} </pre>
<post> { jump vmgm menu entry title; } </post>
</pgc>
</menus>
<titles>
<video format="pal" aspect="4:3" resolution="720x576" />
<pgc pause="0" >
<vob file="video_1.mpeg" pause="0" />
<vob file="blackvideo.mpg" pause="0" />
<vob file="video_2.mpeg" pause="0" />
<vob file="blackvideo.mpg" pause="0" />
<vob file="video_3.mpeg" pause="0" />
<vob file="blackvideo.mpg" pause="0" />
<vob file="video_4.mpeg" pause="0" />
<post> { call vmgm menu entry title; } </post>
</pgc>
</titles>
</titleset>
</dvdauthor>
The file ‘blackvideo.mpg’ is used to add a 2 second black screen between each video. Here
is how to create it:
convert -size 720x576 xc:black -depth 8 blackframe.ppm
dd if=/dev/zero bs=4 count=960000 | toolame -b 128 -s 48 /dev/stdin emptyaudio.mpa
ppmtoy4m -S 420mpeg2 -n 50 -F 25:1 -r blackframe.ppm | mpeg2enc -a 2 -n p -f 8 -o
blackvideo.mpv
mplex -f 8 -o blackvideo.mpg blackvideo.mpv emptyaudio.mpa
Chapter 20: Rendering files 151
20.9.4 Burning a DVD
When you have finished authoring the DVD, you will find in the destination folder the following
directories: ‘AUDIO_TS’ and ‘VIDEO_TS’. To test your DVD before burning it, cd into this folder,
and type:
xine dvd:‘pwd‘
If your DVD plays fine on your computer, it is time to burn it. When you are in the folder
containing ‘AUDIO_TS’ and ‘VIDEO_TS’, type this command (adjusting for your dvd burner
device, eg /dev/dvdrw):
nice -n -20 growisofs -dvd-compat -speed=2 -Z /dev/dvd -dvd-video -V VIDEO ./ &&
eject /dev/dvd
If you have a lot of copies to do, you can first make an .iso master in the parent folder using
this command:
nice -n -20 mkisofs -dvd-video -V VIDEO -o ../dvd.iso .
This ‘../dvd.iso’ file can be burnt using this command:
nice -n -20 growisofs -dvd-compat -speed=2 -Z /dev/dvd=../dvd.iso && eject
/dev/cdrom
We recommend you do not burn at a speed higher than 4x. Use good quality DVD-R only.
To test your DVD on a standalone player without wasting several DVD-R, you can burn on
DVD-RW. First, format your DVD-RW using this command:
dvd+rw-format -lead-out /dev/dvd
Then, burn the DVD-RW using the commands above.
20.10 Using background rendering
Background rendering allows impossibly slow effects to play back in real-time shortly after the
effect is pasted in the timeline. It continuously renders temporary output. When renderfarm is
enabled, background rendering uses the renderfarm continuously. This way, any size video can
be seen in real-time merely by creating a fast enough network with enough nodes.
Background rendering is enabled in settings->preferences->performance. It has one interactive
function: settings->set background render. This sets the point where background rendering
begins to where the in point is. If any video exists, a red bar appears in the timeline showing
what has been background rendered.
It is often useful to insert an effect or a transition and then select settings->set background
render right before the effect to preview it at full framerates.
Chapter 21: Tips 153
21 Tips
In this section, you will find ways to solve common problems using Cinelerra. This section is
arranged in order of the problems and what tools are used to solve them. Following sections are
arranged in order of the tools and their uses.
21.1 Encoding into Dolby Pro Logic
Dolby pro logic is an easy way to output 6 channel audio from a 2-channel soundcard with
degraded but useful results. Rudimentary Dolby pro logic encoding can be achieved with clever
usage of the effects.
First, create the front left and right channels. Create 2 audio tracks, each carrying either
the left or right channel. Pan the left channel to the left and the right channel to the right with
pan.
Next, create the rear left and right channels. Create another 2 audio tracks as above: the
left channel panned left and the right channel panned right. Then apply invert audio to both
new channels and the signals will come out of the rear speakers.
Next, create the center channel by creating a single audio track with monaural audio from
a different source. Center it with the pan control and the signal will come out of the center
speaker.
If a copy of the signal in the back speakers is desired in any single front speaker, the signal
in the back speakers must be delayed by at least 0.05 seconds and a single new track should be
created. Pan the new track to orient the signal in the front speakers.
If the same signal is desired in all the speakers except the center speaker, delay the back
speakers by 0.5 seconds and delay either the front left or front right by 0.2 seconds.
If you want to hear something from the subwoofer, create a new track, select a range, drop
a synthesizer effect, and set the frequency below 60 Hz. The subwoofer merely plays anything
below 60Hz or so.
Other tricks you can perform to separate the speakers are parametric equalization to play
only selected ranges of frequencies through different speakers and lowpass filtering to play signals
through the subwoofer.
21.2 Cleaning analog TV
Unless you live in a rich nation like China or are a terrorist, you probably record analog TV
more than you record digital TV. The picture quality on analog TV is horrible but you can do
things in Cinelerra to make it look more like it did in the studio.
First, when capturing the video, capture it in the highest resolution possible. For Europeans
it is 720x576 and for North Americans it is 720x480. Do not bother adjusting the brightness
or contrast in the recording monitor, although maxing out the color is useful. Capture it using
MJPEG or uncompressed Component Video if possible. If those are too demanding, then capture
it using JPEG. RGB should be a last resort.
Now on the timeline use Settings->Format to set a YUV colorspace. Drop a Downsample
effect on the footage. Set it for
Horizontal: 2
Horizontal offset: 0
Vertical: 2
Vertical offset: 0
red
x green
154 Chapter 21: Tips
x blue
alpha
Use the camera tool to shift the picture up or down a line to remove the most color interference
from the image. This is the difference we are looking for:
If you have vertical blanking information or crawls which constantly change in each frame,
block them out with the Mask tool. This improves compression ratios.
This is about all you can do without destroying more data than you would naturally lose in
compression. The more invasive cleaning techniques involve deinterlacing.
21.3 Defeating interlacing
Interlacing is done on most video sources because it costs too much to build progressive scanning
cameras and progressive scanning CRT’s. Many a consumer has been disappointed to spend 5
paychecks on a camcorder and discover what horrible jagged images it produces on a computer
monitor.
As for progressive scanning camcorders, forget it. Cost factors are probably going to keep
progressive scanning cameras from ever equaling the spatial resolution of interlaced cameras.
Interlacing is here to stay. That is why they made deinterlacing effects in Cinelerra.
We do not believe there has ever been a perfect deinterlacing effect. They are either irre-
versible or do not work. Cinelerra cuts down the middle by providing deinterlacing tools that
are irreversible sometimes and do not work sometimes but are neither one or the other.
•Line Doubling This one is done by the Deinterlace effect when set to Odd lines or Even lines.
When applied to a track it reduces the vertical resolution by 1/2 and gives you progressive
frames with stairstepping. This is only useful when followed by a scale effect which reduces
the image to half its size.
•Line averaging The Deinterlace effect when set to Average even lines or Average odd lines
does exactly what line doubling does except instead of making straight copies of the lines
it makes averages of the lines. This is actually useful for all scaling.
There is an option for adaptive line averaging which selects which lines to line average and
which lines to leave interlaced based on the difference between the lines. It does not work.
•Inverse Telecine This is the most effective deinterlacing tool when the footage is an NTSC
TV broadcast of a film. See Section 14.4.29 [Inverse telecine], page 98.
•Time base correction The first three tools either destroy footage irreversibly or do not work
at times. Time base correction is last because it is the perfect deinterlacing tool. It leaves
the footage intact. It does not reduce resolution, perceptually at least. It does not cause
jittery timing.
•The Frames to Fields effect converts each frame to two frames, so it must be used on a
timeline whose project frame rate is twice the footage’s frame rate. In the first frame it
puts a line-averaged copy of the even lines. In the second frame it puts a line-averaged copy
of the odd lines. When played back at full framerates it gives the illusion of progressive
Chapter 21: Tips 155
video with no loss of detail.
Best of all, this effect can be reversed with the Fields to frames effect. That one combines
two frames of footage back into the one original interlaced frame of half the framerate.
Be aware that frames to fields inputs frames at half the framerate as the project. Effects
before frames to fields process at the reduced framerate.
Unfortunately, the output of Frames to Fields can not be compressed as efficiently as the
original because it introduces vertical twitter and a super high framerate.
Interlaced 29.97 fps footage can be made to look like film by applying Frames to Fields and
then reducing the project frame rate of the resulting 59.94 fps footage to 23.97 fps. This
produces no timing jitter and the occasional odd field gives the illusion of more detail than
there would be if you just line averaged the original.
HDTV exceptions
1920x1080 HDTV is encoded a special way. If it is a broadcast of original HDTV film, an inverse
telecine works fine. If it is a rebroadcast of a 720x480 source, you need to use a time base and
line doubling algorithm to deinterlace it, See Section 14.4.1 [1080 to 480], page 88.
21.4 Making video look like film
Video sweetening is constantly getting better. Lately the best thing you can do for dirt cheap
consumer camcorder video is to turn it into progressive 24 fps output. While you can not really
do that, you can get pretty close for the money. Mind you, since this procedure can degrade
high quality video just as easily as it improves low quality video, it should only be used for low
quality video.
1. Set project framerate to twice the video framerate.
2. Apply a Sharpen effect. Set it to sharpness: 25, no interlacing, and horizontal only.
3. Drop a Frame to Fields effect on the same track. Set Average Empty Rows to on and play
through the video a few times to figure out which field is first. If the wrong field is first,
the motion is shaky. Secondly, any editing in the doubled frame rate may now screw up the
field order. We are still figuring out the easiest way to support warnings for field glitches
but for now you need to go back to the normal framerate to do editing or play test to make
sure the fields are right.
4. Render just the video to the highest quality file possible.
5. Import the video back to a new track. Set the project framerate to 24. The new track
should now display more film-ish and sharper images than the original footage.
This entire procedure could be implemented in one non-realtime effect, but the biggest prob-
lem with that is you will most often want to keep the field based output and the 24 fps output
for posterity. A non-realtime effect would require all that processing just for the 24 fps copy.
Still debating that one.
21.5 Clearing out haze
You probably photograph a lot of haze and never see blue sky. Even if you can afford to briefly
go somewhere where there is blue sky, horizon shots usually can stand for more depth. This is
what the gradient effect is for.
Drop the gradient effect on hazy tracks. Set the following parameters:
•Angle: 0
•Inner radius: 0
•Outer radius: 40
•Inner color: blue 100% alpha
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•Outer color: blue 0% alpha
It is important to set the 0% alpha color to blue even though it is 0% alpha. The color of
the outer alpha is still interpolated with the inner color. This is a generally applicable setting
for the gradient. Some scenes may work better with orange or brown for an evening feel.
21.6 Making a ringtone
This is how we made ringtones for the low end Motorola V180’s and it will probably work with
any new phone. Go to File->Load files... and load a sound file with Insertion strategy: Replace
current project. Go to Settings->Format change Channels to 1 and Samplerate to 16000 or
22050.
Either highlight a region of the timeline or set in/out points to use for the ringtone. To
improve sound quality on the cell phone, you need the maximum amplitude in as many parts
of the sound as possible. Right click on track Audio 1 and select Attach effect... Highlight the
Compressor effect and hit Attach in the attachment popup.
Make sure the insertion point or highlighted area is in the region with the Compressor effect.
Right click on track Audio 2 and select Attach effect... Highlight Audio 1: Compressor and hit
Attach. Click the Audio1 Compressor’s magnifying glass to bring up the compressor GUI.
Set the following parameters:
•Reaction secs: -0.1
•Decay secs: 0.1
•Trigger Type: Total
•Trigger: 0
•Smooth only: No
Click Clear to clear the graph. Click anywhere in the grid area and drag a new point to 0
Output and -50 Input. The graph should look like this.
Go to File->Render. Specify the name of an mp3 file to output to. Set the file format to
MPEG Audio. Click the wrench for Audio and set Layer to III and Kbits per second to 24
or 32. Check Render audio tracks and uncheck Render video tracks. Hit OK to render the file.
The resulting ‘.mp3’ file must be uploaded to a web server. Then, the phone’s web browser
must download the ‘.mp3’ file directly from the URL. There also may be a size limit on the file.
21.7 Time stretching audio
It may appear that time stretching audio is a matter of selecting a region of the audio tracks,
enabling recording for the desired tracks, going to Audio->Render Effect, and applying Time
Chapter 21: Tips 157
Stretch. In actuality there are 3 audio effects for time stretching: Time Stretch,Resample, and
Asset info dialog.
Time Stretch applies a fast Fourier transform to try to change the duration without changing
the pitch, but this introduces windowing artifacts to the audio. It is only useful for large changes
in time because obvious changes in duration make windowing artifacts less obtrusive.
For smaller changes in duration, in the range of 5%, Resample should be used. This changes
the pitch of the audio but small enough changes are not noticeable. Resample does not introduce
any windowing artifacts, so this is most useful for slight duration changes where the listener is
not supposed to know what is going on.
Another way to change duration slightly is to go to the Resources window, highlight the
media folder, right click on an audio file, click on Info. Adjust the sample rate in the Info dialog
to adjust the duration. This method also requires left clicking on the right boundary of the
audio tracks and dragging left or right to correspond to the length changes.
21.8 Video screen captures
We explain here how to record video screen captures and edit them in Cinelerra.
First, you have to record the video with xvidcap. You can find that utility in most distribu-
tions’ repositories, or download it here:
http://xvidcap.sourceforge.net
First, capture the screen:
xvidcap --fps 10 --cap_geometry 1280x1024+0+0 --file "file1.mpeg" --gui no --audio
no
Do not forget to change the geometry option according to your screen size. Then, convert
the ‘file1.mpeg’ file you obtained into an mpeg file suitable for Cinelerra:
ffmpeg -r 10 -i file1.mpeg -s 1280x1024 -b 3000 -aspect 1.33 -r 25 file2.mpeg
You can now load that file into Cinelerra. Make sure you properly set the video format of
your project (size, frame-rate, aspect-ratio)
When you have finished editing your video, you have to render it. Render it as a jpeg-
sequence. It is recommended to write the jpeg files in a new folder, since there probably will
have a lot of files created.
Then, open a shell window, and cd into that folder. Encode the jpeg files using those
commands:
First pass:
mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=25 -oac pcm -sws 2 -vf scale=\
1280:1024,hqdn3d=2:1:2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:\
vbitrate=800:aspect=4/3:vpass=1 -ofps 10 -of avi -o /dev/null \
-ffourcc DIVX
Second pass:
mencoder "mf://*.jpg" -mf fps=25 -oac pcm -sws 2 -vf \
scale=1280:1024,hqdn3d=2:1:2 -ovc lavc -lavcopts \
vcodec=mpeg4:vbitrate=800:aspect=4/3:vpass=2 -ofps 10 -of avi \
-o ../rendered_file.avi -ffourcc DIVX
You can also render the video to mpeg4 directly from Cinelerra if you wish to.
21.9 Improving performance
For the moment GNU/Linux is not an excellent desktop. It is more of a server. Most of what you
will find on modern GNU/Linux distributions are faceless, network-only programs strategically
designed to counteract one Microsoft server feature or another and not to perform very well at
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user interaction. There are a number of parameters on GNU/Linux, which ordinary people can
adjust to make it behave more like a thoroughbred in desktop usage.
21.9.1 Disabling swap space
On systems with lots of memory, Cinelerra sometimes runs better without a swap space. If you
have 4 GB of RAM, you are probably better off without a swap space. If you have 512MB of
RAM, you should keep the swap. If you want to do recording, you should probably disable swap
space in any case. There is a reason for this. GNU/Linux only allows half the available memory
to be used. Beyond that, it starts searching for free pages to swap, in order to cache more disk
access. In a 4 GB system, you start waiting for page swaps after using only 2 GB.
The question then is how to make GNU/Linux run without a swap space. Theoretically it
should be a matter of running
swapoff -a
Unfortunately, without a swap space the kswapd tasklet normally spins at 100%. To eliminate
this problem, edit ‘linux/mm/vmscan.c’. In this file, put a line saying return 0; before it says
/*
* Kswapd main loop.
*/
Then recompile the kernel.
21.9.2 Enlarging sound buffers
In order to improve realtime performance, the audio buffers for all the GNU/Linux sound drivers
were limited from 128k to 64k. For recording audio and video simultaneously and for most audio
recording this causes dropouts. Application of low latency and preemptible kernel patches make
it possible to record more audio recordings but it does not improve recording video with audio.
This is where you need to hack the kernel.
To see if your sound buffers are suitable, run the included soundtest program with nothing
playing or recording. This allocates the largest possible buffers and displays them. If the Total
bytes available is under 131072, you need to see about getting the buffers enlarged in the driver.
While many drivers differ, we have a hack for at least one driver.
This only applies to the OSS version of the Soundblaster Live driver. Since every sound
card and every sound driver derivative has a different implementation you will need to do some
searching for other sound cards. Edit ‘linux/drivers/sound/emu10k1/audio.c’
Where it says
if (bufsize >= 0x10000)
change it to:
if (bufsize > 0x40000)
Where it says
for (i = 0; i < 8; i++)
for (j = 0; j < 4; j++)
change it to:
for (i = 0; i < 16; i++)
for (j = 0; j < 4; j++)
In ‘linux/drivers/sound/emu10k1/hwaccess.h’, change
#define MAXBUFSIZE 65536
to
#define MAXBUFSIZE 262144
Finally, in ‘linux/drivers/sound/emu10k1/cardwi.h’, change
Chapter 21: Tips 159
#define WAVEIN_MAXBUFSIZE 65536
to
#define WAVEIN_MAXBUFSIZE 262144
Then recompile the kernel modules.
21.9.3 Freeing more shared memory
The GNU/Linux kernel only allows 32MB of shared memory to be allocated by default. This
needs to be increased to do anything useful. When launched, Cinelerra may remind you that
with the following error message:
The following errors occurred:
void MWindow::init_shm0: WARNING:/proc/sys/kernel/shmmax is 0x2000000, which is too low.
Before running Cinelerra do the following as root:
echo "0x7ffffff">/proc/sys/kernel/shmmax
For a permanent change, add to the ‘/etc/sysctl.conf’ file the following line:
kernel/shmmax=0x7fffffff
or if you prefer:
kernel.shmmax = 2147483647
For the first time, to avoid restarting your computer, use the following command as root:
sysctl -p
21.9.4 Speeding up the hard drive
This is a very popular command sequence among GNU/Linux gurus, which is not done by
default on GNU/Linux distributions.
hdparm -c3 -d1 -u1 -k1 /dev/hda
•‘-c3’ puts the hard drive into 32 bit I/O with sync. This normally does not work due to
inept kernel support for most IDE controllers. If you get lost interrupt or SeekComplete
errors, quickly use ‘-c0’ instead of ‘-c3’ in your command.
•‘-d1’ enables DMA of course. This frees up the CPU partially during data transfers.
•‘-u1’ allows multiple interrupts to be handled during hard drive transactions. This frees up
even more CPU time.
•‘-k1’ prevents GNU/Linux from resetting your settings in case of a glitch.
21.9.5 Disabling cron
GNU/Linux runs some daily operations like compressing man pages. These may be acceptable
background tasks while compiling or word processing but not while playing video. Disable these
operations by editing ‘/etc/rc.d/init.d/anacron’.
Put exit before the first line not beginning in #.
In ‘/etc/rc.d/init.d/crond’ put exit before the first line not beginning in #. Then reboot.
You can not use the at command anymore, but who uses that command anyways?
21.9.6 Reducing USB mouse sensitivity
Gamers like high resolution mice, but this can be painful for precisely positioning the mouse on
a timeline or video screen. XFree86 once allowed you to reduce PS/2 mouse sensitivity using
commands like xset m 1 1 but you are out of luck with USB mice or KVM’s.
We have a way to reduce USB mouse sensitivity but it requires editing the kernel source
code. Even though USB mice have been supported for years, the kernel source code for
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USB mice is constantly being rewritten. These instructions were relevant for 2.6.12.3. Edit
‘/usr/src/linux/drivers/input/mousedev.c’.
After the line saying
struct mousedev_hw_data {
put
#define DOWNSAMPLE_N 100
#define DOWNSAMPLE_D 350
int x_accum, y_accum;}
Next, the section which says something like:
switch (code) {
case REL_X: mousedev->packet.dx += value; break;
case REL_Y: mousedev->packet.dy -= value; break;
case REL_WHEEL: mousedev->packet.dz -= value; break;
}
must be replaced by
switch (code) {
case REL_X:
mousedev->packet.x_accum += value * DOWNSAMPLE_N;
mousedev->packet.dx += (int)mousedev->packet.x_accum
/ (int)DOWNSAMPLE_D;
mousedev->packet.x_accum -=
((int)mousedev->packet.x_accum / (int)DOWNSAMPLE_D)
* (int)DOWNSAMPLE_D;
break;
case REL_Y:
mousedev->packet.y_accum += value * DOWNSAMPLE_N;
mousedev->packet.dy -= (int)mousedev->packet.y_accum
/ (int)DOWNSAMPLE_D;
mousedev->packet.y_accum -=
((int)mousedev->packet.y_accum
/ (int)DOWNSAMPLE_D) * (int)DOWNSAMPLE_D;
break;
case REL_WHEEL: mousedev->packet.dz -= value; break;
}
Change the value of DOWNSAMPLE N to change the mouse sensitivity.
21.9.7 Assorted X tweaks
XFree86 by default can not display Cinelerra’s advanced pixmap rendering very fast. The X
server stalls during list box drawing. Fix this by adding a line to your XF86Config* files.
In the Section "Device"area, add a line saying:
Option "XaaNoOffscreenPixmaps"
and restart the X server.
Screen blanking is really annoying, unless you are fabulously rich and can afford to leave your
monitor on 24 hours a day without power saving mode. In ‘/etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc’ put
xset s off
xset s noblank
before the first if statement.
Chapter 21: Tips 161
How about those windows keys which no GNU/Linux distribution even thinks to use. You
can make the window keys provide ALT functionality by editing ‘/etc/X11/Xmodmap’. Append
the following to it.
keycode 115 = Hyper_L
keycode 116 = Hyper_R
add mod4 = Hyper_L
add mod5 = Hyper_R
The actual changes to a window manager to make it recognize window keys for ALT are
complex. In FVWM at least, you can edit ‘/etc/X11/fvwm/system.fvwm2rc’ and put
Mouse 0 T A move-and-raise-or-raiselower
#Mouse 0 W M move
Mouse 0 W 4 move
Mouse 0 W 5 move
Mouse 0 F A resize-or-raiselower
Mouse 0 S A resize-or-raiselower
in place of the default section for moving and resizing. Your best performance is going to be
on FVWM. Other window managers seem to slow down video with extra event trapping and
are not as efficient in layout.
21.9.8 Speeding up the file system
You will often store video on an expensive, gigantic disk array separate from your boot disk.
You will thus have to manually install an EXT filesystem on this disk array, using the mke2fs
command. By far the fastest file system is
mke2fs -i 65536 -b 4096 my_device
tune2fs -r0 -c10000 my_device
This has no journaling, reserves as few blocks as possible for filenames, and accesses the
largest amount of data per block possible. A slightly slower file system, which is easier to
recover after power failures is
mke2fs -j -i 65536 -b 4096 my_device
tune2fs -r0 -c10000 my_device
This adds a journal which slows down the writes but makes filesystem checks faster.
21.9.9 Improving Zoran video
Video recorded from the ZORAN inputs is normally unaligned or not completely encoded on
the right. This can be slightly compensated by adjusting parameters in the driver sourcecode.
In ‘/usr/src/linux/drivers/media/video/zr36067.c’ the structures defined near line 623
affect alignment. At least for NTSC, the 2.4.20 version of the driver could be improved by
changing
static struct tvnorm f60ccir601 = { 858, 720, 57, 788, 525, 480, 16 };
to
static struct tvnorm f60ccir601 = { 858, 720, 57, 788, 525, 480, 17 };
In ‘/usr/src/linux/drivers/media/video/bt819.c’ more structures near line 76 affect
alignment and encoding.
For NTSC
{858 - 24, 2, 523, 1, 0x00f8, 0x0000},
could be changed to
{868 - 24, 2, 523, 1, 0x00f8, 0x0000},
Adjusting these parameters may or may not move your picture closer to the center. More of
the time, they will cause the driver to lock up before capturing the first frame.
162 Chapter 21: Tips
New in 2.6.5:
In the 2.6 kernels, the video subsystem was rewritten again from scratch. To adjust the Zoran
parameters go to ‘drivers/media/video/zoran_card.c’ and look for a group of lines like
static struct tvnorm f50sqpixel = { 944, 768, 83, 880, 625, 576, 16 };
static struct tvnorm f60sqpixel = { 780, 640, 51, 716, 525, 480, 12 };
static struct tvnorm f50ccir601 = { 864, 720, 75, 804, 625, 576, 18 };
static struct tvnorm f60ccir601 = { 858, 720, 57, 788, 525, 480, 16 };
static struct tvnorm f50ccir601_lml33 = { 864, 720, 75+34, 804, 625, 576, 18 };
static struct tvnorm f60ccir601_lml33 = { 858, 720, 57+34, 788, 525, 480, 16 };
/* The DC10 (57/16/50) uses VActive as HSync, so HStart must be 0 */
static struct tvnorm f50sqpixel_dc10 = { 944, 768, 0, 880, 625, 576, 0 };
static struct tvnorm f60sqpixel_dc10 = { 780, 640, 0, 716, 525, 480, 12 };
/* FIXME: I cannot swap U and V in saa7114, so i do one
* pixel left shift in zoran (75 -> 74)
* (Maxim Yevtyushkin <max@linuxmedialabs.com>) */
static struct tvnorm f50ccir601_lm33r10 = { 864, 720, 74+54, 804, 625, 576, 18 };
static struct tvnorm f60ccir601_lm33r10 = { 858, 720, 56+54, 788, 525, 480, 16 };
These seem to control the image position. At least for the LML33 the following definition
for f60ccir601 lml33 does the trick.
static struct tvnorm f60ccir601_lml33 = { 858, 720, 67+34, 788, 525, 480, 13 };
21.10 Translating Cinelerra
This information is needed if you wish to partipate in translating Cinelerra. See Section 3.1
[Environment variables], page 13, for running Cinelerra in your own language.
21.10.1 Available localizations
There are some existing localizations for cinelerra:
•DE - German
•ES - Spanish
•EU - Basque
•FR - French
•IT - Italian
•PT BR - Brazilian Portuguese
•SL - Slovenian
If your distribution has only UTF-8 support (like Ubuntu), you must create the language
charset first. See Section 3.1 [Environment variables], page 13.
21.10.2 Updating an existing translation
To generate an updated ‘*.po’ file with the newer strings of Cinelerra source code not yet present
in the ‘.po’ file, run after ./configure:
cd po && make
Then, edit the ‘.po’ file located in ‘po/’ directory of your target language and submit the
diff file to the Cinelerra-CV team.
Chapter 21: Tips 163
21.10.3 Creating a new translation
To create a new translation, run after ./configure:
cd po && make
Then, edit the ‘cinelerra.pot’ file located in ‘po/’ and add the appropriate translated
strings. Rename the file to ‘(lang_prefix).po’ and add the language prefix to ‘po/LINGUAS’.
Finally, submit the diff file to the cinelerra-CV team.
21.11 Panning and zooming still images
Cinelerra’s powerful keyframe features allow you to use pan and zoom effects on still pictures.
1. Load and create a clip from a still image as described above. Make the clip 10 seconds long.
2. Activate the automatic generation of keyframes
3. Using the transport controls, go to the beginning of the clip
4. Using the compositing camera control set the clip’s initial position
5. Using the transport controls, move forward a couple of seconds on the clip
6. Dragging on the compositing camera move the camera center to a new position further
7. Now, rewind to the beginning of the clip and play it.
You can see that the camera smoothly flows from keyframe point to next keyframe point, as
Cinelerra automatically adjusts the camera movement in straight lines from point to point.
21.12 HDV 1080i editing using proxy files
Working with high definition video, which typically comes from HDV camcorders, requires a
lot of processing power. Even if the system is able to play a single track at full framerate, it is
usually not able to play several tracks simultaneously. Thus simple dissolve transition is slowed
down to unacceptable level. Moreover, HDV is in GOP based format, and simple cut requires
decoding the whole GOP in less then 1/25s. Thus, one of the possibilities is to perform all
edits on low resolution files, and use HDV material only for the final rendering. The workflow
presented below was first proposed by Hermann Vosseler.
21.12.1 Overview
•For each HDV file a proxy is created with a scale of 0.5.
•The project is created with HDV resolution e.g. 1440x1080 and 16/9 aspect.
•New resources are created with both proxies as well as HDV files.
•Each video track must have Camera Automation set to 2.0.
•Editing is performed with the proxy files.
•For HDV rendering, exit Cinelerra and convert the project file with proxychange.py and
reopen the project.
•After rendering, if further editing is required, the project file can be back-transformed into
a proxy version.
21.12.2 Grabbing HDV from camcorder
There is no perfect solution so far. One possibility is to run the test-mpeg2 command available
with the sources of libiec61883. Use this syntax:
test-mpeg2 > hdv_tape.mpeg
and press Play on the camcorder. You should not run any heavy resources consuming task on
your computer since the lack of caching in test-mpeg2 causes frame drops.
New version of dvgrab seems to support HDV. Minimal example:
Syntax:
dvgrab -format mpeg2 myclip
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21.12.3 Using TOC and WAV files
Try using WAV files for sound, and load HDV MPEG-2 files via their generated toc. To create
toc files, use the following command:
for i in *.mpeg; do mpeg3toc $i ‘basename $i mpeg‘toc; done
21.12.4 Making the proxy files
Proxy files can be converted in many ways and can use any format. However, Cinelerra works
better when editing non-GOP based formats. To convert your HDV files into I-frame based
mjpeg files with 50% scaling, use the following command:
for i in *.mpeg;do mencoder -mc 0 -noskip $i -ovc lavc -lavcopts vcodec=mjpeg -vf
scale=720:540 -oac pcm -o ‘basename $i mpeg‘avi; done
21.12.5 Converting HDV and proxy files
The proxychange.py python script converts HDV to/from proxies. You can download that script
here:
http://cinelerra-cv.org/docs/proxychange.py
It overwrites the existing project files, and creates copy of the original in
‘projectfile.xml.bak’.
•Proxy ->HDV (e.g. for rendering):
./proxychange.py projectfile.xml -from ‘proxyfiles/(\w+)\.avi‘ -to
‘hdv/\1.toc‘ -scale 0.5
•HDV ->Proxy (e.g. after rendering if you want go back to editing):
./proxychange.py projectfile.xml -from ‘hdv/(\w+)\.toc‘ -to
‘proxyfiles/\1.avi‘ -scale 2.0
The project XML file is not a perfectly valid XML file. Thus after each Cinelerra "Save",
some problem can occur. Sometimes the tags are not closed, <TAG>is not followed by </TAG>.
This must be corrected manually.
ACODEC contains some \001 characters. Edit the file manually or use the following com-
mand:
cat temp001.xml| tr -d ‘\001‘ > /tmp/1 ; mv /tmp/1 temp001.xml
Update: Recent version of Cinelerra seems to produce valid XML.
21.12.6 Rendering the HDV project
HDV files can be rendered to an YUV4MPEG stream and then encoded to MPEG2 using
a modified Mjpegtools binary. mpeg2enc -verbose 0 -aspect 3 -format 3 -frame-rate
3 -video-bitrate 25000 -nonvideo-bitrate 384 -force-b-b-p -video-buffer 448
-video-norm n -keep-hf -no-constraints -sequence-header-every-gop -min-gop-size 6
-max-gop-size 6 -o %
Render the sound as an AC3 file, and multiplex both the video and the audio with mplex.
21.12.7 Other issues
When playing MJPEG files, the dissolve transition does not work properly in RGBA or YUVA
modes but it works fine in RGB or YUV.
21.13 Adding subtitles
There are two methods available for adding subtitles in a video:
•Use Cinelerra’s Titler effect. That task is long and fastidious. Moreover, the subtitles are
actually incrusted into the image. It is not be possible to display the rendered video without
Chapter 21: Tips 165
subtitles. If you want your video to be available with subtitles in several languages, you
have to render it several times. See Section 14.4.56 [Title], page 113, for information about
Cinelerra’s titler.
•Add the subtitles with a subtitles editor after having rendered the video.
The second method is the one to use if you want your video to be available with subtitles
in multiple languages. If you want to produce a DVD, that method is also the only one which
is compatible with dvdauthor subtitles feature. If you plan to distribute your video over the
internet, one video file and several subtitles files is smaller than several video files, one for each
language.
Subtitles text files can be displayed by any decent video player. With mplayer one can use
the following syntax:
mplayer -sub <the_subtitles_text_file> <the_video_file>
A subtitle file is a simple plain text file, which contains the text and the time or frame number
where each subtitle should be displayed on the screen.
There are a lot of subtitles editor available on Linux. However, most of them are fine for
easing translation of subtitles, but are not appropriate to actually add and synchronize new
subtitles on a video. Since video creation is what most of us focus on, the task we are mostly
interested in is creating subtitles for a video.
We highly recommend you Subtitleeditor, which is available here:
http://kitone.free.fr/subtitleeditor
Subtitleeditor
Subtitleeditor has the huge advantage of displaying the audio waveform. This feature is really
important to precisely synchronize subtitles and talks. Keep in mind the synchronization would
be lost if you edit your video after having added the subtitles. Adding subtitles should be done
after the video edition is finished.
Once the subtitle text file is created, you can:
•Distribute it with your video. People will have to load the appropriate subtitle file in their
video player to actually see the subtitles.
•Use it with dvdauthor, to add the subtitles in a DVD. Read dvdauthor’s documentation
for more information.
•Incrust the subtitles into the video using mencoder. This command line is an example.
Adapt the options to your needs:
166 Chapter 21: Tips
mencoder -sub <your_subtitle_file> <video_file_without_subtitles> -ovc lavc
-lavcopts vcodec=mpeg4:vhq:vbitrate=1000 -oac mp3lame -lameopts br=256:vol=1
-ffourcc DIVX -o <converted_video.avi>
21.14 Creating DVD video from Lower Quality Footage
This section is for those who want to create PAL or NTSC DVD-format videos, using lower
quality source footage such as that sourced on the net, or from cheap cameras such as SD-cams.
Typically, SD cameras produce progressive footage at framerates of 10-30fps at frame sizes
like 640x480. Footage sourced online can have framerates as slow as 8fps and frame sizes as
small as 320x240.
This section outlines a recipe for making the most of this limited quality footage, and mini-
mizing any further quality losses.
The steps we will follow are:
1. Up-sample the frame size
2. Convert to yuv4mpeg format
3. Up-sample the framerate with motion interpolation
4. Import into Cinelerra without loss
5. Interlace appropriately before DVD export
This technique requires that you have ffmpeg, mjpegtools and yuvmotionfps installed. You
will likely already have ffmpeg and mjpegtools installed on your system. If not, you can get
them from your distro feeds. But will need to get yourself a copy of yuvmotionfps from:
http://jcornet.free.fr/linux/yuvmotionfps.html. yuvmotionfps is a great "poor man’s"
free/opensource equivalent of the ’Twixtor’ plugin on Adobe Premiere.
We will perform steps 1-3 with 2 shell commands, and create temporary .yuv and .wav files
ready to import into Cinelerra. Note too that we’re assuming you want to create a PAL-DVD
project, which is 25fps interlaced, 720x576 frame size. Convert these figures below to the NTSC
frame rate and frame size if you are creating an NTSC-DVD project.
Assume you have your source footage in the file ‘myfootage.avi’
The shell command to separate out the audio is:
ffmpeg -i myfootage.avi -f wav myfootage.wav
The shell command to separate out the video, upsample the frame size and frame rate is:
ffmpeg -i myfootage.avi -s 720x576 -f yuv4mpegpipe -vcodec pgmyuv - | yuvmotionfps
-r 50:1 > myfootage.yuv
After executing both these commands, you should have separated audio and video files ready
for Cinelerra.
Now, make sure that in your Cinelerra project options, you have set the frame rate to 50fps.
This is crucial, otherwise you will get a quality loss and jerky motion after rendering. (The sad
thing is that this quality loss may not even show until you have mastered your DVD and are
playing it to others - embarrassing). But with your project frame rate at 50fps, you should be
able to avoid this.
Now, import your new separated and converted video and audio files into Cinelerra. Apply
effects as needed, such as colour corrections, zooms etc. Step through the frames, and verify
that you see motion change with every frame. If you’ve got this, then you’re on track.
Now, when you’re ready to render, add one last effect to your video, and make sure this effect
sits at the bottom of your effect stack. Select the entire duration of your video, and add the
Fields to frames effect. Your footage is sitting within Cinelerra as 50fps progressive, and this
Chapter 21: Tips 167
effect will correctly convert it to 25fps interlaced. I’d suggest setting Bottom fields first initially,
and changing this later if it doesn’t play properly on your DVD player.
To render, I’d suggest you use the recipe on the Crazed Mule Productions website:
http://crazedmuleproductions.blogspot.com/2007/06/beginners-guide-to-exporting-video-from.html#dvd
But, contrary to this recipe, leave in the -ilme -ildct options. Depending on your ffmpeg
version, you may need to change this to -flags +ilme+ildct
After this, you should end up with video that plays on a wide variety of consumer DVD
players with good, flicker-free motion.
Tweaking
Here are some ideas for tweaks, in case you’re getting less than perfect results:
•When initially separating audio/video with the ffmpeg command, cut out the frame size
upsampling - remove the -s 720x576 option - perform the size upsampling within Cinelerra
using the camera/projector settings.
•In the final Fields to frames effect, switch between Top fields first and Bottom fields first
•Disable the Fields to frames effect in Cinelerra, and delay the reinterlac-
ing to the render stage. Get the alternative version of yuvdeinterlace from
http://silicontrip.net/~mark/lavtools/, and when rendering, put: yuvdeinterlace
-i -t | before the ffmpeg... part of the yuv4mpegpipe shell command
•If the motion looks weird, try different settings in the yuvmotionfps command - do
yuvmotionfps -h and look at the various options.
Warning
Before you release your DVD to anyone important, make sure to try it on as many consumer
DVD appliances and TVs as possible. You don’t want to release a DVD into the wild - for sale
etc - and have it look like crap on your customer’s TV. Even if it looks good on your DVD
player and TV, and those of your friends, there could be some appliances out there that handle
it badly.
Conclusion
With a small amount of experimentation, you should be able to import lower-quality video
into Cinelerra, process it and render out to DVD-quality video and end up with the best overall
quality that will look as good as possible on the greatest possible range of DVD players and
TVs. Good luck!
Chapter 22: Troubleshooting 169
22 Troubleshooting
22.1 Reporting bugs
When you notice a bug, you can file a bug report by sending an email to the cinelerra-cv
mailing list (http://lists.cinelerra-cv.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/cinelerra) in-
cluding the following information:
•GIT revision number of Cinelerra CV. Example: r959e
•Distribution name and version. Example: Debian SID
•Steps to replicate the bug. That is very important since it really helps people trying to fix
bugs. Example:
1. launch cinelerra
2. open the recording window
3. click on OK
4. Cinelerra crashes
•When Cinelerra CV crashes, a debugger output is welcome. Run:
gdb cinelerra
run
(You trigger the bug and Cinelerra CV crashes)
thread apply all bt
Then copy all of the information displayed into your bug report.
Do not hesitate to attach any file which you think could be useful, such as a screenshot for
example. The gdb output is more useful when Cinelerra is compiled with debugging symbols.
See Section 2.3.2 [Compiling with debugging symbols], page 8, for compilation instructions.
Moreover, if the bug you noticed concerns a problem loading a specific file into Cinelerra-CV,
uploading a small sample of such a file on the internet is appreciated. That would allow people
fixing bugs to load that file themselves in Cinelerra and look at what happens.
22.2 Playback does not stop
If playback of audio tracks doesn’t stop on the timeline and keeps going after the end of the video,
go to Settings ->Preferences ->Playback and click on the Stop playback locks up checkbox.
This checkbox is shown only if you set ALSA as audio driver.
22.3 Buz driver crashes
First, Zoran capture boards must be accessed using the Buz video driver in Preferences-
>Recording and Preferences->Playback. Some performance tweaks are available in another
section. See Section 21.9 [Improving performance], page 157.
Once tweaked, the Buz driver seems to crash if the number of recording buffers is too high.
Make sure Preferences->Recording->Frames to buffer in device is below 10.
22.4 Dragging edit boundaries does not work
Sometimes there will be two edits really close together. The edit boundary selected for dragging
may be next to the intended edit if those edits are too small to see at the current zoom level.
Zoom in horizontally.
If you think you can’t drag all the edits starting at the same point on armed tracks, zoom in
horizontally to check if they really start at the same point. Sometime vertical synchronization
of edits can be lost just because you did not set properly project attributes (e.g. PAL/NTSC).
Check Settings ->Format.
170 Chapter 22: Troubleshooting
22.5 Locking up when loading files
The most common reason loading files locks up Cinelerra is because the codec is not supported.
Another reason is because Cinelerra is building picons for the Resources window. If you load
a large number of images, it needs to decompress every single image to build a picon. Go into
settings->preferences->interface and disable Use thumbnails in resource window to skip this
process.
22.6 Synchronization lost while recording
If the rate at which frames are captured during recording is much lower than the frame rate
of the source, the video will accumulate in the recording buffers over time and the audio and
video will become well out of sync. Decrease the number of frames to buffer in the device in
preferences->recording so the excess frames are dropped instead of buffered.
22.7 Applying gamma followed by blur does not work
The gamma effect uses the pow function while the blur effect uses a number of exp functions in
the math library. For some reason, using the pow function breaks later calls to the exp functions
in the math library. You need to apply gamma after blur to get it to work.
22.8 Copy/Paste of track selections does not work in the
timeline
If you are running the KDE Klipper application, either disable it, or right-click its taskbar icon,
select Configure Klipper and ensure Prevent empty clipboard is not selected.
22.9 Cinelerra often crashes
Do a clean install. Be sure that you do not have libraries from previous installations. Delete
your ‘$HOME/.bcast/’ directory too.
rm -f /usr/local/lib/libguicast*
rm -f /usr/lib/libguicast*
rm -f /usr/local/lib/libquicktimehv*
rm -f /usr/lib/libquicktimehv*
rm -f /usr/local/lib/libmpeg3hv*
rm -f /usr/lib/libmpeg3hv*
22.10 Theme Blond not found error
If the following error message appears: Aborted, MWindow::init_theme: Theme Blond not
found, then:
•You should check for the file ‘defaulttheme.*’ in ‘/usr/lib/cinelerra’ or
‘/usr/local/lib/cinelerra’. If it does not exist, you need to install the plugins again.
•Try to delete the ‘$HOME/.bcast/’ directory
•Look into ‘$HOME/.bcast/Cinelerra_rc’ and find THEME, it should be =>THEME Blond
Chapter 23: Plugin authoring 171
23 Plugin authoring
The plugin API in Cinelerra dates back to 1997, before the LADSPA and before VST became
popular. It is fundamentally the same as it was in 1997, with minor modifications to handle
keyframes and GUI feedback. The GUI is not abstracted from the programmer. This allows the
programmer to use whatever toolkit they want and allows more flexibility in appearance but it
costs more.
There are several types of plugins, each with a common procedure of implementation and
specific changes for that particular type. The easiest way to implement a plugin is to take the
simplest existing one out of the group and rename the symbols.
23.1 Introducing the pull method
Originally plugins were designed with the push method. The push method is intuitive and
simple. A source pushes data to a plugin, the plugin does math operations on it, and the plugin
pushes it to a destination. For 6 years this was the way all realtime plugins were driven internally
but it did not allow you to reduce the rate of playback in realtime. While plugins can still be
designed as if they are pushing data, this is not the way they are processed internally anymore.
The latest evolution in Cinelerra’s plugin design is the pull method. The rendering pipeline
starts at the final output and the final steps in the rendering pipeline are reading the data from
disk. Every step in the rendering chain involves requesting data from the previous step. When
the rendering pipeline eventually requests data from a plugin chain, each plugin requests data
from the plugin before it.
This is less intuitive than the push method but is much more powerful. Realtime plugins
written using the pull method can not only change the rate data is presented to the viewer but
also the direction of playback. The pull method also allows plugins to take in data at a higher
rate than they send it out.
To get the power of rate independence, the pull method requires plugins to know more about
the data than they needed to under the push method. Plugins need to know what rate the
project is at, what rate their output is supposed to be at and what rate their input is supposed
to be at. These different data rates have to be correlated for a plugin to configure itself properly.
Keyframes for a plugin are stored relative to the project frame rate. Queries from a plugin
for the current playback position are given relative to the project frame rate. If the plugin’s
output was requested to be at twice the project frame rate, the positions need to be converted
to the project rate for keyframes to match up. Two classes of data rates were created to handle
this problem.
Rate conversions are done in terms of the project rate and the requested rate. The project
rate is identical for all plugins. It is determined by the settings->format window. The requested
rate is determined by the downstream plugin requesting data from the current plugin. The
requested rate is arbitrary. Exactly how to use these rates is described below.
23.2 Common plugin functions
All plugins inherit from a derivative of PluginClient. This PluginClient derivative implements
most of the required methods in PluginClient, but users must still define methods for Plugin-
Client. The most commonly used methods are predefined in macros to reduce the typing yet
still allow flexibility.
The files they include depend on the plugin type. Audio plugins include ‘pluginaclient.h’
and video plugins include ‘pluginvclient.h’. They inherit PluginAClient and PluginVClient
respectively.
172 Chapter 23: Plugin authoring
Cinelerra instantiates all plugins at least twice when they are used in a movie. One instance
is the GUI. The other instance is the signal processor. User input, through a complicated
sequence, is propagated from the GUI instance to the signal processor instance. If the signal
processor wants to alter the GUI, it propagates data back to the GUI instance. There are utility
functions for doing all this.
All plugins define at least three objects:
•Processing object
Contains pointers to all the other objects and performs the signal processing. This object
contains a number of queries to identify itself and is the object you register to register the
plugin.
•User interface object
This is defined according to the programmer’s discretion. It can either use Cinelerra’s
toolkit or another toolkit. It shows data on the screen and collects parameters from the
user.
Using Cinelerra’s toolkit, the only user interface object a developer needs to worry about is
the Window. The window has pointers to a number of widgets, a few initialization methods,
and a back pointer to the plugin’s processing object. The documentation refers to the usage
of Cinelerra’s toolkit.
Depending on the user interface toolkit, a user interface thread may be created to run the
user interface asynchronous of everything else. Synchronizing the user interface to changes
in the plugin’s configuration is the most complicated aspect of the plugin, so the user
interface thread and object are heavily supported by macros if you use Cinelerra’s toolkit.
•Configuration object
This stores the user parameters and always needs interpolation, copying, and comparison
functions. Macros for the plugin client automatically call configuration methods to inter-
polate keyframes.
23.2.1 The processing object
Load up a simple plugin like gain to see what this object looks like. The processing object should
inherit from the intended PluginClient derivative. Its constructor should take a PluginServer
argument.
MyPlugin(PluginServer *server);
In the implementation, the plugin must contain a registration line with the name of the
processing object like
REGISTER_PLUGIN(MyPlugin)
The constructor should contain
PLUGIN_CONSTRUCTOR_MACRO
to initialize the most common variables.
The processing object should have a destructor containing
PLUGIN_DESTRUCTOR_MACRO
to delete the most common variables.
Another function which is useful but not mandatory is
int is_multichannel();
It should return 1 if one instance of the plugin handles multiple tracks simultaneously or 0 if
one instance of the plugin only handles one track. The default is 0 if it is omitted.
Multichannel plugins in their processing function should refer to a function called Plugin-
Client::get total buffers() to determine the number of channels.
Chapter 23: Plugin authoring 173
To simplify the implementation of realtime plugins, a macro for commonly used members
has been created for the class header, taking the configuration object and user interface thread
object as arguments. The macro definitions apply mainly to realtime plugins and are not useful
in non-realtime plugins. Fortunately, non-realtime plugins are simpler.
PLUGIN_CLASS_MEMBERS(config_name, thread_name)
The commonly used members in PLUGIN CLASS MEMBERS are described below.
int load configuration();
Loads the configuration based on surrounding keyframes and current position.
The class definition for load configuration should contain
LOAD_CONFIGURATION_MACRO(plugin_class, config_class)
to implement the default behavior for load configuration. This stores whatever the current
configuration is inside the plugin’s configuration object and returns 1 if the new configuration
differs from the previous configuration. The return value of load configuration is used by another
commonly used function, update gui to determine if the GUI really needs to be updated.
The plugin’s configuration object is always called config inside PLUGIN CLASS MEMBERS.
VFrame* new picon();
Creates a picon for display in the resource window. Use
#include "picon_png.h"
NEW_PICON_MACRO(plugin_class)
to implement new picon. In addition, the user should create a ‘picon_png.h’ header file
from a PNG image using pngtoh.pngtoh is compiled in the ‘guicast/ARCH’ directory.
The source PNG image should be called ‘picon.png’ and can be any format supported by PNG.
char* plugin title();
Returns a text string identifying the plugin in the resource window. The string has to be unique.
void update gui();
Should first load the configuration, test for a return of 1, and then redraw the GUI with the
new parameters. All the plugins using GuiCast have a format like
void MyPlugin::update_gui()
{
if(thread)
{
if(load_configuration())
{
thread->window->lock_window();
// update widgets here
thread->window->unlock_window();
}
}
}
to handle concurrency and conditions of no GUI.
int show gui();
Instantiate the GUI and switch the plugin to GUI mode. This is implemented with
SHOW_GUI_MACRO(plugin_class, thread_class)
int set string();
Changes the title of the GUI window to a certain string. This is implemented with
SET_STRING_MACRO(plugin_class)
void raise window();
Raises the GUI window to the top of the stack. This is implemented with
174 Chapter 23: Plugin authoring
RAISE_WINDOW_MACRO(plugin_class)
Important functions that the processing object must define are the functions which load and
save configuration data from keyframes. These functions are called by the macros so all you
need to worry about is accessing the keyframe data.
void save_data(KeyFrame *keyframe);
void read_data(KeyFrame *keyframe);
The read data functions are only used in realtime plugins. The read data functions translate
the plugin configuration between the KeyFrame argument and the configuration object for the
plugin. The keyframes are stored on the timeline and can change for every project.
Use an object called FileXML to do the translation and some specific commands to get the
data out of the KeyFrame argument. See any existing plugin to see the usage of KeyFrame and
FileXML.
int load_defaults();
int save_defaults();
The load defaults functions are used in realtime and non-realtime plugins. The load defaults
functions translate the plugin configuration between a BC Hash object and the plugin’s config-
uration. The BC Hash object stores configurations in a discrete file on disk for each plugin but
does not isolate different configurations for different projects.
The function overriding load defaults also needs to create the BC Hash object. See any
existing plugin to see the usage of BC Hash.
Other standard members may be defined in the processing object, depending on the plugin
type.
23.2.2 The configuration object
The configuration object is critical for GUI updates, signal processing, and default settings in
realtime plugins. Be aware it is not used in non-realtime plugins. The configuration object
inherits from nothing and has no dependancies. It is merely a class containing three functions
and variables specific to the plugin’s parameters.
Usually the configuration object starts with the name of the plugin followed by Config.
class MyPluginConfig
{
public:
MyPluginConfig();
Following the name of the configuration class, we put in three required functions and the
configuration variables.
int equivalent(MyPluginConfig &that);
void copy_from(MyPluginConfig &that);
void interpolate(MyPluginConfig &prev,
MyPluginConfig &next,
int64_t prev_position,
int64_t next_position,
int64_t current_position);
float parameter1;
float parameter2;
int parameter3;
};
Now you must define the three functions. Equivalent is called by
LOAD CONFIGURATION MACRO to determine if the local configuration parame-
ters are identical to the configuration parameters in the argument. If equivalent returns 0, the
Chapter 23: Plugin authoring 175
LOAD CONFIGURATION MACRO causes the GUI to redraw. If equivalent returns 1, the
LOAD CONFIGURATION MACRO does not redraw the GUI.
Then there is copy from which transfers the configuration values from the argument to the
local variables. This is once again used in LOAD CONFIGURATION MACRO to store con-
figurations in temporaries. Once LOAD CONFIGURATION MACRO has replicated the con-
figuration, it loads a second configuration. Then it interpolates the two configurations to get
the current configuration. The interpolation function performs the interpolation and stores the
result in the local variables.
Normally the interpolate function calculates a previous and next fraction, using the argu-
ments.
void MyPluginConfig::interpolate(MyPluginConfig &prev,
MyPluginConfig &next,
int64_t prev_position,
int64_t next_position,
int64_t current_position
{
double next_scale =
(double)(current_position - prev_position)
/ (next_position - prev_position);
double prev_scale =
(double)(next_position - current_position) /
(next_position - prev_position);
Then the fractions are applied to the previous and next configuration variables to yield the
current values.
this->parameter1 =
(float)(prev.parameter1 * prev_scale
+ next.parameter1 * next_scale);
this->parameter2 =
(float)(prev.parameter2 * prev_scale
+ next.parameter2 * next_scale);
this->parameter3 =
(int)(prev.parameter3 * prev_scale
+ next.parameter3 * next_scale);
}
Alternatively you can copy the values from the previous configuration argument if no inter-
polation is desired.
This usage of the configuration object is the same in audio and video plugins. In video
playback, the interpolation function is called for every frame, yielding smooth interpolation. In
audio playback, the interpolation function is called only once for every console fragment and
once every time the insertion point moves. This is good enough for updating the GUI while
selecting regions on the timeline but it may not be accurate enough for really smooth rendering
of the effect.
For really smooth rendering of audio, you can still use load configuration when updating the
GUI. For process buffer; however, ignore load configuration and write your own interpolation
routine which loads all the keyframes in a console fragment and interpolates every sample. This
would be really slow and hard to debug, yielding improvement which may not be audible. Then
of course, every country has its own weirdos.
An easier way to get smoother interpolation is to reduce the console fragment to 1 sample.
This would have to be rendered and played back with the console fragment back over 2048 of
course. The GNU/Linux sound drivers can not play fragments of 1 sample.
176 Chapter 23: Plugin authoring
23.2.3 The user interface object
The user interface object at the very least consists of a pointer to a window and pointers to all
the widgets in the window. Using Cinelerra’s toolkit, it consists of a BCWindow derivative and
aThread derivative. The Thread derivative is declared in the plugin header using
PLUGIN_THREAD_HEADER(plugin_class, thread_class, window_class)
Then it is defined using
PLUGIN_THREAD_OBJECT(plugin_class, thread_class, window_class)
This, in combination with the SHOW GUI macro does all the work in instantiating the
Window. This two-class system is used in realtime plugins but not in non-realtime plugins.
Non-realtime plugins create and destroy their GUI in their get parameters function and there
is no need for a Thread.
Now the window class must be declared in the plugin header. It is easiest to implement the
window by copying an existing plugin and renaming the symbols. The following is an outline of
what happens. The plugin header must declare the window’s constructor using the appropriate
arguments.
#include "guicast.h"
class MyPluginWindow : public BC_Window
{
public:
MyPluginWindow(MyPluginMain *plugin, int x, int y);
This becomes a window on the screen, positioned at x and y.
It needs two methods
int create_objects();
int close_event();
and a back pointer to the plugin
MyPlugin *plugin;
The constructor’s definition should contain extents and flags causing the window to be hid-
den when first created. The create objects member puts widgets in the window according to
GuiCast’s syntax. A pointer to each widget which you want to synchronize to a configuration
parameter is stored in the window class. These are updated in the update gui function you
earlier defined for the plugin. The widgets are usually derivatives of a GuiCast widget and they
override functions in GuiCast to handle events. Finally create objects calls
show_window();
flush();
to make the window appear all at once.
The close event member should be implemented using
WINDOW_CLOSE_EVENT(window_class)
Every widget in the GUI needs to detect when its value changes. In GuiCast the handle event
method is called whenever the value changes. In handle event, the widget then needs to call
plugin->send configure change() to propagate the change to any copies of the plugin which are
processing data.
23.3 Realtime plugins
Realtime plugins should use PLUGIN CLASS MEMBERS to define the basic set of members
in their headers. All realtime plugins must define an int is realtime()
member returning 1. This causes a number of methods to be called during live playback and
the plugin to be usable on the timeline.
Chapter 23: Plugin authoring 177
Realtime plugins must override a member called process buffer
This function takes different arguments depending on if the plugin handles video or audio.
See an existing plugin to find out which usage applies.
The main features of the process buffer function are a buffer to store the output, the starting
position of the output, and the requested output rate. For audio, there is also a size argument
for the number of samples.
The starting position of the output buffer is the lowest numbered sample on the timeline if
playback is forward and the highest numbered sample on the timeline if playback is reverse. The
direction of playback is determined by one of the plugin queries described below.
The position and size arguments are all relative to the frame rate and sample rate passed to
process buffer. This is the requested data rate and may not be the same as the project data
rate.
The process realtime function should start by calling load configuration. The
LOAD CONFIGURATION MACRO returns 1 if the configuration changed.
After determining the plugin’s configuration, input media has to be loaded for processing.
Call:
read_frame(VFrame *buffer,
int channel,
int64_t start_position,
double frame_rate)
or
read_samples(double *buffer,
int channel,
int sample_rate,
int64_t start_position,
int64_t len)
to request input data from the object which comes before this plugin. The read function
needs a buffer to store the input data in. This can either be a temporary you create in the
plugin or the output buffer supplied to process buffer if you do not need a temporary.
It also needs a set of position arguments to determine when you want to read the data from.
The start position, rate, and len passed to a read function need not be the same as the values
received by the process buffer function. This way plugins can read data at a different rate than
they output data.
The channel argument is only meaningful if this is a multichannel plugin. They need to read
data for each track in the get total buffers() value and process all the tracks. Single channel
plugins should pass 0 for channel.
Additional members are implemented to maintain configuration in realtime plugins. Some
of these are also needed in non-realtime plugins.
•void read data(KeyFrame *keyframe);
Loads data from a keyframe into the plugin’s configuration. Inside the keyframe is an XML
string. It is most easily parsed by creating a FileXML object. See an existing plugin to see
how the read data function is implemented.
Read data loads data out of the XML object and stores values in the plugin’s configuration
object. Since configuration objects vary from plugin to plugin, these functions can not be
automated.
•void save data(KeyFrame *keyframe);
Saves data from the plugin’s configuration to a keyframe. Inside the keyframe you will put
an XML string which is normally created by a FileXML object. See an existing plugin to
178 Chapter 23: Plugin authoring
see how the save data function is implemented.
Save data saves data from the plugin’s configuration object into the XML object.
•int load defaults();
Another way the plugin gets parameters is from a defaults file. The load and save defaults
routines use a BC Hash object to parse the defaults file. The defaults object is created in
load defaults and destroyed in the plugin’s destructor. See an existing plugin to see how
the BC Hash object is used.
•int save defaults();
Saves the configuration in the defaults object.
23.4 Non-realtime plugins
Some references for non-realtime plugins are Normalize for audio and Reframe for video.
Like realtime plugins, load defaults and save defaults must be implemented. In non-realtime
plugins, these are not just used for default parameters but to transfer values from the user
interface to the signal processor. There does not need to be a configuration class in non-realtime
plugins.
Unlike realtime plugins, the LOAD CONFIGURATION MACRO can not be used in the
plugin header. Instead, the following methods must be defined.
The non-realtime plugin should contain a pointer to a defaults object.
BC_Hash *defaults;
It should also have a pointer to a MainProgressBar.
MainProgressBar *progress;
The progress pointer allows non-realtime plugins to display their progress in Cinelerra’s main
window.
The constructor for a non-realtime plugin cannot use PLUGIN CONSTRUCTOR MACRO
but must call load defaults directly.
The destructor, likewise, must call save defaults and delete defaults directly instead of PLU-
GIN DESTRUCTOR MACRO.
•VFrame* new picon();
char* plugin title();
The usage of these is the same as realtime plugins.
•int is realtime();
This function must return 0 to indicate a non-realtime plugin.
•int get parameters();
Here, the user should create a GUI, wait for the user to hit an OK button or a cancel
button, and store the parameters in plugin variables. This routine must return 0 for success
and 1 for failure. This way the user can cancel the effect from the GUI.
Unlike the realtime plugin, this GUI need not run asynchronously of the plugin. It should
block the get parameters function until the user selects OK or Cancel.
•int load defaults();
This should create a defaults object and load parameters from the defaults object into
plugin variables.
•int save defaults();
This should save plugin variables to the defaults object.
•int start loop();
If get parameters returned 0 for success, this is called once to give the plugin a chance to
initialize processing. The plugin should instantiate the progress object with a line like
Chapter 23: Plugin authoring 179
progress = start_progress("MyPlugin progress...",
PluginClient::get_total_len());
The usage of start progress depends on whether the plugin is multichannel or single channel.
If it is multichannel you always call start progress. If it is single channel, you first need to
know whether the progress bar has already started in another instance of the plugin.
If PluginClient::interactive is 1, you need to start the progress bar. If it is 0, the progress
bar has already been started.
The PluginClient defines get total len() and get source start() to describe the timeline
range to be processed. The units are either samples or frames and in the project rate.
•int process loop
This is called repeatedly until the timeline range is processed. It has either a samples or
frames buffer for output and a reference to write length to store the number of samples
processed. If this is an audio plugin, the user needs to call get buffer size() to know how
many samples the output buffer can hold.
The plugin must use read samples or read frame to read the input. These functions are a
bit different for a non realtime plugin than they are for a realtime plugin.
They take a buffer and a position relative to the start of the timeline, in the timeline’s
rate. Then you must process it and put the output in the buffer argument to process loop.
write length should contain the number of samples generated if it is audio.
Finally, process loop must test PluginClient::interactive and update the progress bar if it
is 1.
progress->update(total_written);
returns 1 or 0 if the progress bar was cancelled. If it is 1, process loop should return 1 to
indicate a cancellation. In addition to progress bar cancellation, process loop should return
1 when the entire timeline range is processed.
•int stop loop();
This is called after process loop processes its last buffer.
If PluginClient::is interactive is 1, this should call stop progress in the progress bar pointer
and delete the pointer. Then it should delete any objects it created for processing in
start loop.
23.5 Audio plugins
The simplest audio plugin is Gain. The processing object should include ‘pluginaclient.h’
and inherit from PluginAClient. Realtime audio plugins need to define
int process_buffer(int64_t size,
double **buffer,
int64_t start_position,
int sample_rate);
if it is multichannel or
int process_buffer(int64_t size,
double *buffer,
int64_t start_position,
int sample_rate);
if it is single channel. These should return 0 on success and 1 on failure. In the future, the
return value may abort failed rendering.
The processing function needs to request input samples with
int read_samples(double *buffer,
int channel,
int sample_rate,
int64_t start_position,
180 Chapter 23: Plugin authoring
int64_t len);
It always returns 0. The user may specify any desired sample rate and start position.
Non-realtime audio plugins need to define
int process_loop(double *buffer, int64_t &write_length);
for single channel or
int process_loop(double **buffers, int64_t &write_length);
for multi channel. Non realtime plugins use a different set of read samples functions to
request input data. These are fixed to the project sample rate.
23.6 Video plugins
The simplest video plugin is Flip. The processing object should include ‘pluginvclient.h’ and
inherit from PluginVClient. Realtime video plugins need to define
int process_buffer(VFrame **frame,
int64_t start_position,
double frame_rate);
if it is multichannel or
int process_buffer(VFrame *frame,
int64_t start_position,
double frame_rate);
if it is single channel.
The non-realtime video plugins need to define
int process_loop(VFrame *buffer);
for single channel or
int process_loop(VFrame **buffers);
for multi channel. The amount of frames generated in a single process loop is always assumed
to be 1, hence the lack of a write length argument. Returning 0 causes the rendering to continue.
Returning 1 causes the rendering to abort.
A set of read frame functions exist for requesting input frames in non-realtime video plugins.
These are fixed to the project frame rate.
23.7 Transition plugins
The simplest video transition is wipe and the simplest audio transition is crossfade. These
use a subset of the default class members of realtime plugins, but so far no analogue to PLU-
GIN CLASS MEMBERS has been done for transitions.
The processing object for audio transitions still inherits from PluginAClient and for video
transitions it still inherits from PluginVClient.
Transitions may or may not have a GUI. If they have a GUI, they must also manage a
thread like realtime plugins. Do this with the same PLUGIN THREAD OBJECT and PLU-
GIN THREAD HEADER macros as realtime plugins. Since there is only one keyframe in a
transition, you do not need to worry about updating the GUI from the processing object like
you do in a realtime plugin.
If the transition has a GUI, you can use PLUGIN CONSTRUCTOR MACRO and PLU-
GIN DESTRUCTOR MACRO to initialize the processing object. You will also need a BC Hash
object and a Thread object for these macros.
Since the GUI is optional, overwrite a function called uses gui() to signifiy whether or not
the transition has a GUI. Return 1 if it does and 0 if it does not.
Chapter 23: Plugin authoring 181
Transitions need a load defaults and save defaults function so the first time they are dropped
on the timeline they will have useful settings.
Aread data and save data function takes over after insertion to access data specific to each
instance of the transition.
The most important difference between transitions and realtime plugins is the addition of an
is transition method to the processing object. is transition should return 1 to signify the plugin
is a transition.
Transitions process data in a process realtime function.
int process_realtime(VFrame *input,
VFrame *output);
int process_realtime(int64_t size,
double *input_ptr,
double *output_ptr);
The input argument to process realtime is the data for the next edit. The output argument
to process realtime is the data for the previous edit.
Routines exist for determining where you are relative to the transition’s start and end.
•PluginClient::get source position() - returns the current position since the start of the tran-
sition of the lowest sample in the buffers.
•PluginClient::get total len() - returns the integer length of the transition. The units are
either samples or frames, in the data rate requested by the first plugin.
Users should divide the source position by total length to get the fraction of the transition
the current process realtime function is at.
Transitions run in the data rate requested by the first plugin in the track. This may be differ-
ent than the project data rate. Since process realtime lacks a rate argument, use get framerate()
or get samplerate to get the requested rate.
23.8 Plugin GUI’s which update during playback
Effects like Histogram and VideoScope need to update the GUI during playback to display in-
formation about the signal. This is achieved with the send render gui and render gui methods.
Normally in process buffer, when the processing object wants to update the GUI it should call
send render gui. This should only be called in process buffer. Send render gui goes through a
search and eventually calls render gui in the GUI instance of the plugin.
Render gui should have a sequence like
void MyPlugin::render_gui(void *data)
{
if(thread)
{
thread->window->lock_window();
// update GUI here
thread->window->unlock_window();
}
}
Send render gui and render gui use one argument, a void pointer to transfer information
from the processing object to the GUI. The user should typecast this pointer into something
useful.
182 Chapter 23: Plugin authoring
23.9 Plugin queries
There are several useful queries in PluginClient which can be accessed from the processing
object. Some of them have different meaning in realtime and non-realtime mode. They all give
information about the operating system or the project which can be used to improve the quality
of the processing.
23.9.1 System queries
•get interpolation type()
Returns the type of interpolation the user wants for all scaling operations. This is a macro
from overlayframe.inc. It can be applied to any call to the OverlayFrame object.
•get project smp()
Gives the number of CPU’s on the system minus 1. If it is a uniprocessor it is 0. If it is a
dual processor, it is 1. This number should be used to gain parallelism.
•get total buffers()
Gives the number of tracks a multichannel plugin needs to process.
23.9.2 Timing queries
There are two rates for media a realtime plugin has to be aware of: the project rate and the
requested rate. Functions are provided for getting the project and requested rate. In addition,
doing time dependent effects requires using several functions which tell where you are in the
effect.
•get project framerate()
Gives the frames per second of the video as defined by the project settings.
•get project samplerate()
Gives the samples per second of the audio as defined by the project settings.
•get framerate()
Gives the frames per second requested by the plugin after this one. This is the requested
frame rate and is the same as the frame rate argument to process buffer.
•get samplerate()
Gives the samples per second requested by the plugin after this one. This is the requested
sample rate and is the same as the sample rate argument to process buffer.
•get total len()
Gives the number of samples or frames in the range covered by the effect, relative to the
requested data rate.
•get source start()
For realtime plugins it gives the lowest sample or frame in the effect range in the requested
data rate. For non-realtime plugins it is the start of the range of the timeline to process.
•get source position()
For realtime plugins it is the lowest numbered sample in the requested region to process if
playing forward and the highest numbered sample in the region if playing backward. For
video it is the start of the frame if playing forward and the end of the frame if playing in
reverse. The position is relative to the start of the EDL and in the requested data rate.
For transitions this is always the lowest numbered sample of the region to process relative
to the start of the transition.
•get direction()
Gives the direction of the current playback operation. This is a macro defined in trans-
portque.inc. This is useful for calling read functions since the read functions position them-
selves at the start or end of the region to read, depending on the playback operation.
Chapter 23: Plugin authoring 183
•local to edl()
edl to local()
These convert between the requested data rate and the project data rate. They are used to
convert keyframe positions into numbers which can be interpolated at the requested data
rate. The conversion is automatically based on frame rate or sample rate depending on the
type of plugin.
•get prev keyframe(int64 t position, int is local)
get next keyframe(int64 t position, int is local)
These give the nearest keyframe before or after the position given. The macro defined
version of load configuration automatically retrieves the right keyframes but you may want
to do this on your own.
The position argument can be either in the project rate or the requested rate. Set is local
to 1 if it is in the requested rate and 0 if it is in the project rate.
In each keyframe, another position value tells the keyframe’s position relative to the start
of the timeline and in the project rate.
The only way to get smooth interpolation between keyframes is to convert the positions in
the keyframe objects to the requested rate. Do this by using edl to local on the keyframe
positions.
23.10 Using OpenGL
Realtime video plugins support OpenGL. Using OpenGL to do plugin routines can speed up
playback greatly since it does most of the work in hardware. Unfortunately, every OpenGL
routine needs a software counterpart for rendering, doubling the amount of software to maintain.
Fortunately, having an OpenGL routine means the software version does not need to be as
optimized as it did when software was the only way.
As always, the best way to design a first OpenGL plugin is to copy an existing one and
alter it. The Brightness plugin is a simple OpenGL plugin to copy. There are 3 main points in
OpenGL rendering and 1 point for optimizing OpenGL rendering.
23.10.1 Getting OpenGL data
The first problem is getting OpenGL-enabled plugins to interact with software-only plugins. To
solve this, all the information required to do OpenGL playback is stored in the VFrame object
which is passed to process buffer. To support 3D, the VFrame contains a PBuffer and a texture,
in addition to VFrame’s original rows.
In OpenGL mode, VFrame has 3 states corresponding to the location of its video data. The
opengl state is recovered by calling get opengl state and is set by calling set opengl state. The
states are:
•VFrame::RAM
This means the video data is stored in the traditional row pointers. It must be loaded into
a texture before being drawn using OpenGL routines.
•VFrame::TEXTURE
The video data is stored in texture memory. It is ready to be drawn using OpenGL routines.
•VFrame::SCREEN
The video data is stored in a frame buffer in the graphics card. For plugins, the frame buffer
is always a PBuffer. The image on the frame buffer can not be replicated again unless it is
read back into the texture and the opengl state is reset to TEXTURE. The frame buffer
is limited to 8 bits per channel. If an OpenGL effect is used in a floating point project, it
only retains 8 bits.
In the plugin’s process buffer routine, there is normally a call to read frame to get data from
the previous plugin in the chain. read frame takes a new parameter called use opengl.
184 Chapter 23: Plugin authoring
The plugin passes 1 to use opengl if it intends to handle the data using OpenGL. It passes
0 to use opengl if it can only handle the data using software. The value of use opengl is passed
up the chain to ensure a plugin which only does software only gets the data in the row pointers.
If use opengl is 0, the opengl state in VFrame is RAM.
The plugin must not only know if it is software-only but if its output must be software only.
Call get use opengl to determine if the output can be handled by OpenGL. If get use opengl
returns 0, the plugin must pass 0 for use opengl in read frame and do its processing in software.
If get use opengl is 1, the plugin can decide based on its implementation whether to use OpenGL.
The main problem with OpenGL is that all the gl... calls need to be run from the same thread.
To work around this, the plugin interface has routines for running OpenGL in a common thread.
run opengl transfers control to the common OpenGL thread. This is normally called by the
plugin in process buffer after it calls read frame and only if get use opengl is 1.
Through a series of indirections, run opengl eventually transfers control to a virtual function
called handle opengl.handle opengl must be overridden with a function to perform all the
OpenGL routines. The contents of handle opengl must be enclosed in #ifdef HAVE GL ...
#endif to allow it to be compiled on systems with no graphics support, like render nodes. The
return value of handle opengl is passed back from run opengl.
read frame can not be called from inside handle opengl. This would create a recursive lockup
because it would cause other objects to call run opengl.
Once inside handle opengl, the plugin has full usage of all the OpenGL features. VFrame
provides some functions to automate common OpenGL sequences.
The VFrame argument to process buffer is always available through the get output(int layer)
function. If the plugin is multichannel, the layer argument retrieves a specific layer of the output
buffers. The PBuffer of the output buffer is where the OpenGL output must go if any processing
is done.
23.10.2 Drawing using OpenGL
The sequence of commands to draw on the output PBuffer stars with getting the video in a
memory area where it can be recalled for drawing:
get_output()->to_texture();
get_output()->enable_opengl();
•to texture transfers the OpenGL data from wherever it is to the output’s texture memory
and sets the output state to TEXTURE.
•enable opengl makes the OpenGL context relative to the output’s PBuffer.
The next step is to draw the texture with some processing on the PBuffer. The normal
sequence of commands to draw a texture is:
get_output()->init_screen();
get_output()->bind_texture(0);
get_output()->draw_texture();
•VFrame::init screen sets the OpenGL frustum and parameters to known values.
•VFrame::bind texture(int texture unit) binds the texture to the given texture unit and
enables it.
•VFrame::draw texture() calls the vertex functions to draw the texture normalized to the
size of the PBuffer. Copy this if you want custom vertices.
The last step in the handle opengl routine, after the texture has been drawn on the PBuffer,
is to set the output’s opengl state to SCREEN with a call to VFrame::set opengl state. The
plugin should not read back the frame buffer into a texture or row pointers if it has no further
Chapter 23: Plugin authoring 185
processing. Plugins should only leave the output in the texture or RAM if its location results
from normal processing. They should set the opengl state to RAM or TEXTURE if they do.
Colormodels in OpenGL:
The colormodel exposed to OpenGL routines is always floating point since that is what OpenGL
uses, but it may be YUV or RGB depending on the project settings. If it is YUV, it is offset
by 0.5 just like in software. Passing YUV colormodels to plugins was necessary for speed. The
other option was to convert YUV to RGB in the first step that needed OpenGL. Every effect
and rendering step would have needed a YUV to RGB routine. With the YUV retained, only
the final compositing step needs a YUV to RGB routine.
23.10.3 Using shaders
Very few effects can do anything useful with just a straight drawing of the texture on the PBuffer.
They normally define a shader. The shader is a C program which runs on the graphics card.
Since the graphics card is optimized for graphics, it can be much faster than running it on the
CPU.
Shaders are written in OpenGL Shading Language. The shader source code is contained in
a string. The normal sequence for using a shader comes after a call to enable opengl.
char *shader_source = "...";
unsigned char shader_id = VFrame::make_shader(0, shader_source, 0);
glUseProgram(shader_id);
// Set uniform variables using glUniform commands
The compilation and linking step for shaders is encapsulated by the VFrame::make shader
command. It returns a shader id which can be passed to OpenGL functions. The first and
last arguments must always by 0. And arbitrary number of source strings may be put between
the 0’s. The source strings are concatenated by make shader into one huge shader source. If
multiple main functions are in the sources, the main functions are renamed and run in order.
There are a number of useful macros for shaders in ‘playback3d.h’. All the shaders so far
have been fragment shaders. After the shader is initialized, draw the texture starting from
init screen. The shader program must be disabled with another call to glUseProgram(0) and 0
as the argument.
The shader id and source code is stored in memory as long as Cinelerra runs. Future calls
to make shader with the same source code run much faster.
23.10.4 Aggregating plugins
Further speed improvements may be obtained by combining OpenGL routines from two plugins
into a single handle opengl function. This is done when Frame to Fields and RGB to 601 are
attached in order. Aggregations of more than two plugins are possible but very hard to get
working. Aggregation is useful for OpenGL because each plugin must copy the video from a
texture to a PBuffer. In software there was no copy operation.
In aggregation, one plugin processes everything from the other plugins and the other plugins
fall through. The fall through plugins must copy their parameters to the output buffer so they
can be detected by the processing plugin.
The VFrame used as the output buffer contains a parameter table for parameter passing
between plugins and it is accessed with get output()->get params(). Parameters are set and
retrieved in the table with calls to update and get just like with defaults.
The fall through plugins must determine if the processor plugin is attached with calls to
next effect is and prev effect is. These take the name of the processor plugin as a string argu-
ment and return 1 if the next or previous plugin is the processor plugin. If either returns 1, the
fall through plugin must still call read frame to propagate the data but return after that.
186 Chapter 23: Plugin authoring
The processor plugin must call next effect is and prev effect is to determine if it is aggre-
gated with a fall through plugin. If it is, it must perform the operations of the fall through plugin
in its OpenGL routine. The parameters for the the fall through plugin should be available by
get output()->get params() if the fall through plugin set them.
Chapter 24: Keyboard shortcuts 187
24 Keyboard shortcuts
Alex Ferrer started summarizing most of the keyboard shortcuts. Most of the keys work without
any modifier like SHIFT or CTRL. Most windows can be closed with a CTRL-w. Most operations
can be cancelled with ESC and accepted with RET.
24.1 Program window shortcuts
24.1.1 Editing Media shortcuts
zUndo
SHIFT Z Re-Do
xCut
cCopy
vPaste
Del Clear
SHIFT Space Paste Silence
mMute region
aSelect all
SHIFT +click When done over an edit causes the highlighted selection to extend to the
cursor position. When done over the boundary of an effect causes the trim
operation to apply to one effect.
eToggle between Drag-and-Drop and Cut-and-Paste editing modes
24.1.2 Editing Labels and In/Out Points shortcuts
[Toggle In point
]Toggle Out point
lToggle label at current position
CTRL <-Go to Previous Label
CTRL ->Go to Next Label
24.1.3 Navigation shortcuts
Right arrow Move the timeline right (not the insertion point) *
Left arrow Move the timeline left (not the insertion point) *
Up arrow Zoom time out *
Down arrow Zoom time in *
CTRL Up Expand current curve amplitude
CTRL Dn Shrink current curve amplitude
CTRL Alt Up Expand all curve amplitude
Ctrl Alt Dn Shrink all curve amplitude
Alt Up Expand curve amplitude
Alt Dn Shrink curve amplitude
fFit time displayed to selection
Alt f Make the range of all the automation types. Fit the maximum and mini-
mum range of the current highlighted selection
Ctrl Alt f Make the range of the currently selected automation type fit the maximum
and minimum range of the current highlighted selection
Alt Left Move the insertion point left one edit
Alt Right Move the insertion point right one edit
Page Up Move the timeline up *
Page Dn Move the timeline down *
Ctrl Page Up Expand track height
188 Chapter 24: Keyboard shortcuts
Ctrl Page Dn Shrink track height
Home Move insertion point to beginning of timeline *
End Move insertion point to end of timeline *
* You may have to click on the timeline to deactivate any text boxes or tumblers before these
work.
24.1.4 File operations shortcuts
nNew project
oLoad Files
sSave Project
rRecord
SHIFT R Render
qQuit
SHIFT P Preferences
SHIFT B Batch Render
SHIFT F Set Format
24.1.5 Key frame editing shortcuts
SHIFT X Cut keyframes
SHIFT C Copy keyframes
SHIFT V Paste keyframes
SHIFT Del Clear keyframes
Alt c Copy default keyframe
Alt v Paste default keyframe
24.1.6 Track Manipulation shortcuts
tAdd Audio Track
uInsert default Audio Transition
SHIFT T Add Video Track
SHIFT U Insert Default Video Transition
dDelete last Track
SHIFT L Loop playback
TAB Toggle single track arming status
SHIFT-TAB Toggle every other track’s arming status
24.1.7 What is drawn on the timeline shortcuts
1Show titles
2Show transitions
3Fade keyframes
4Mute keyframes
5Mode keyframes
6Pan keyframes
7Camera keyframes
8Projector keyframes
9Plugin keyframes
0Mask keyframes
-Camera Zoom
=Projector Zoom
Chapter 24: Keyboard shortcuts 189
24.2 Viewer and compositor windows shortcuts
xCut
cCopy
vPaste
vSplice
bOverwrite
[Toggle In point
]Toggle Out point
lToggle label at current position
Ctrl <-Go to Previous Label
Ctrl ->Go to Next Label
Home Go to beginning
End Go to end
zUndo
SHIFT Z Re-Do
+Zoom in
-Zoom out
24.3 Playback transport shortcuts
Transport controls work in any window which has a playback transport. They are accessed
through the number pad with num lock disabled.
4Frame back 5Reverse Slow 6Reverse +Reverse Fast
1Frame
Forward
2Forward Slow 3Play Enter Fast Forward
0Stop
SPACE is normal Play, Hitting any key twice is Pause.
Hitting any transport control with CTRL down causes only the region between the in/out
points to be played, if in/out points are defined.
24.4 Record window shortcuts
Space Start and pause recording of the current batch
lToggle label at current position
GNU General Public License 191
GNU General Public License
Version 2, June 1991
Copyright c
1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
Preamble
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By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share
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License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation’s software and to any other program
whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered
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When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public
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To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these
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license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.
Also, for each author’s protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone under-
stands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone
else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so
that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors’ reputations.
Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the
danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect
making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must
be licensed for everyone’s free use or not licensed at all.
The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING,
DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by
the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public
License. The “Program”, below, refers to any such program or work, and a “work based
on the Program” means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law:
that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with
modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included
without limitation in the term “modification”.) Each licensee is addressed as “you”.
192 GNU General Public License
Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License;
they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output
from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program
(independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends
on what the Program does.
1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program’s source code as you receive
it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy
an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that
refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of
the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.
You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option
offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.
2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a
work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the
terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
a. You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed
the files and the date of any change.
b. You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part
contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole
at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
c. If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must
cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to
print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a
notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that
users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to
view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does
not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not
required to print an announcement.)
These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that
work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent
and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those
sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same
sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the
whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to
the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.
Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work
written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution
of derivative or collective works based on the Program.
In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program
(or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium
does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object
code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also
do one of the following:
a. Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which
must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily
used for software interchange; or,
b. Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third
party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution,
GNU General Public License 193
a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed
under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software
interchange; or,
c. Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corre-
sponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution
and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an
offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)
The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications
to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all
modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to
control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the
source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either
source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies
the executable.
If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a
designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same
place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled
to copy the source along with the object code.
4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly pro-
vided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute
the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. How-
ever, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have
their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing
else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works.
These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modi-
fying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your
acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing
or modifying the Program or works based on it.
6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient
automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the
Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions
on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing
compliance by third parties to this License.
7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any
other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by
court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do
not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy
simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations,
then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent
license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive
copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and
this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.
If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circum-
stance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended
to apply in other circumstances.
It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property
right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of
protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which is implemented by
194 GNU General Public License
public license practices. Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range
of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that
system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software
through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.
This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of
the rest of this License.
8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by
patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program
under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those
countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In
such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General
Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present
version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version
number of this License which applies to it and “any later version”, you have the option of
following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published
by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this
License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution
conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which
is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation;
we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of
preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing
and reuse of software generally.
NO WARRANTY
11. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WAR-
RANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICA-
BLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT
HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM “AS IS” WITH-
OUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY
AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE
QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE
PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY
SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
12. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN
WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY
MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCI-
DENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR IN-
ABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF
DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY
YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH
ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN
ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
GNU General Public License 195
Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs
If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public,
the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and
change under these terms.
To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start
of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have
at least the “copyright” line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.
one line to give the program’s name and a brief idea of what it does.
Copyright (C) yyyy name of author
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA.
Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.
If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an
interactive mode:
Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) year name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type ‘show w’.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type ‘show c’ for details.
The hypothetical commands ‘show w’ and ‘show c’ should show the appropriate parts of the
General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other than
‘show w’ and ‘show c’; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items—whatever suits your
program.
You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to
sign a “copyright disclaimer” for the program, if necessary. Here is a sample; alter the names:
Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
‘Gnomovision’ (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.
signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice
This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary
programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit
linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU
Lesser General Public License instead of this License.
Index 197
Index
.
.mp2 ............................................. 32
.mp3 ............................................. 32
1
1080 to 480 effect ................................ 88
2
2 pass motion tracking .......................... 103
A
About Cinelerra ................................... 1
AC3 audio ....................................... 33
Addition overlay mode ........................... 66
Aggregating plugins ............................. 185
Aging TV ........................................ 88
AIFF ............................................ 33
Alsa ............................................. 14
Amplitude ....................................... 38
Arch Linux........................................ 9
Arm track ....................................... 44
Attributes of project ............................. 25
Audio attributes ................................. 25
Audio driver ..................................... 18
Audio drivers .................................... 14
Audio in ......................................... 20
Audio mappings, standard ....................... 46
Audio offset ...................................... 17
Audio out........................................ 17
Audio playback in realtime ....................... 18
Audio plugins ................................... 179
Audio samples ................................... 17
Audio track panning, automatic .................. 46
Audio tracks ..................................... 37
Audio tracks, panning ............................ 46
Audio, pitch shift ................................ 86
Audio, time stretching .......................... 156
Authoring a DVD ............................... 149
Automatic keyframes ........................... 132
AVI.............................................. 31
B
Background rendering ....................... 21,151
Backup, loading the .............................. 35
Balance, color .................................... 91
Batch recording ................................. 136
Batch rendering ................................. 140
Binaries, Debian .................................. 9
Bits.............................................. 20
Blur ............................................. 88
Blur, motion tracking ........................... 103
Bouncing tracks .................................. 82
Brightness/contrast .............................. 89
Buffer size, Playback ............................. 17
Bugs, reporting ................................. 169
Burning a DVD ................................. 151
Burning TV...................................... 89
Buz .............................................. 16
Buz, driver crashes .............................. 169
C
Cache items...................................... 21
Camera ...................................... 55,56
Camera controls, compositing .................... 58
Camera images, raw digital....................... 31
Captured frame, size of........................... 20
Capturing media ................................ 135
Changes, apply .................................. 22
Channel position ................................. 46
Chroma key effect ................................ 89
Chroma key effect (HSV)......................... 90
Cinelerra recording functions .................... 135
Cinelerra, about................................... 1
Cinelerra, compiling ............................... 6
Cinelerra, running ................................. 8
Cinelerra, the two versions of ...................... 1
Cleaning analog TV............................. 153
Clearing out haze ............................... 155
Color balance .................................... 91
Color picker ...................................... 89
Command line rendering ........................ 143
Command prompt, loading files from the ......... 34
Common plugin functions ....................... 171
Compiling Cinelerra CV ........................... 6
Compiling with debugging symbols ................ 8
Compositing ..................................... 56
Compositing camera controls ..................... 58
Compositing projector controls ................... 58
Compositor controls.............................. 55
Compositor keyframes .......................... 133
Compositor window .............................. 55
Compression ..................................... 31
Compressor ...................................... 83
Concatenate tracks ............................... 47
Configuration .................................... 13
Configuration object ............................ 174
Contrast ......................................... 89
Controls, hide .................................... 55
Copy/Paste of track selections does not work in the
timeline .................................... 170
CR2 images ...................................... 19
Crashes ......................................... 170
Creating a new translation ...................... 163
Creating DVD video from Lower Quality Footage
............................................ 166
Cron, disabling ................................. 159
Crop tool ........................................ 56
Cropping ........................................ 65
Curve keyframes ................................ 131
Curve zoom ...................................... 38
Cut and paste editing ............................ 51
Cut and paste mode ............................. 40
D
Debian ............................................ 9
198 Index
Debugging symbols, compiling with................ 8
Decimate effect .................................. 91
Decode frames asynchronously ................... 18
Default keyframe................................ 131
Deinterlace effect................................. 91
Delay audio ...................................... 84
Delay video ...................................... 92
Delete tracks ..................................... 47
Denoise .......................................... 84
Denoise video .................................... 92
DenoiseFFT ..................................... 84
Despike .......................................... 85
Detach Transitions .............................. 128
Device path ...................................... 20
Difference key effect .............................. 92
Disabling cron .................................. 159
Disabling swap space............................ 158
Dissolve video transition ........................ 129
Divide overlay mode ............................. 66
Dolby Pro Logic, encoding into.................. 153
DotTV........................................... 93
Downsample ..................................... 93
Drag and drop editing............................ 48
Drag and drop mode ............................. 40
Dragging edit boundaries does not work ......... 169
Draw media ...................................... 44
Drawing using OpenGL ......................... 184
Driver, record .................................... 20
Drivers, audio .................................... 14
Drivers, video .................................... 15
Dual monitor displays ............................ 15
DV 1394 ..................................... 15,17
DVD movies ..................................... 32
DVD subtitles ................................... 19
DVD, making a ................................. 145
Dvgrab, capturing using......................... 138
E
Edit boundaries, dragging does not work ........ 169
Edit Transitions ................................ 128
Editing .......................................... 43
Editing keyframes............................... 133
Editing labels and in/out points shortcuts ....... 187
Editing modes ................................... 39
Editing tuner information ....................... 137
Editing, cut and paste............................ 51
Editing, drag and drop ........................... 48
EDL ........................................ 33,141
Edt boundaries, dragging does what .............. 23
Effects, realtime.................................. 81
Effects, rendered ................................ 121
Effects, shared ................................... 83
Encoding a video in FLV format for the internet
............................................ 144
Encoding a video in MPEG4 format for the internet
............................................ 143
Environment variables............................ 13
Envy24 .......................................... 14
EQ Parametric ................................... 85
Equation, scaling................................. 18
Esound .......................................... 15
EXR images ..................................... 30
Extension, filtering files by ....................... 34
Eyedropper ...................................... 56
F
Fader ............................................ 44
Fader, gang ...................................... 44
Fast play effect ................................. 109
Feather mask .................................... 64
Fedora ........................................... 11
Fields to frames effect ............................ 93
File format ............................... 19,22,29
File operations shortcuts ........................ 188
File system, speeding up the .................... 161
Files, extension .................................. 34
Files, loading .................................... 33
Files, loading and saving ......................... 29
Files, loading multiple............................ 34
Files, locking up when loading................... 170
Files, rendering ................................. 139
Files, saving ..................................... 35
Files, XML ...................................... 35
Film look ....................................... 155
Filtering files by extension........................ 34
Flip.............................................. 93
Fonts, adding to the titler ....................... 115
Force single processor use ........................ 21
Format, file ...................................... 19
Format, window.................................. 25
Frame rate for recording ......................... 21
Frame, play every ................................ 18
Framerate achieved .............................. 18
Frames per background rendering job............. 21
Frames to buffer in device ........................ 20
Frames to fields .................................. 94
Frames to preroll background..................... 21
Frames to record to disk at a time ................ 20
Freeing more shared memory .................... 159
Freeverb ......................................... 85
Freeze frame effect ............................... 94
G
Gain ............................................. 85
Gamma effect .................................... 95
Gang fader....................................... 44
Gentoo .......................................... 11
Getting help ...................................... 2
Gimp ........................................... 113
GPL, GNU General Public License .............. 191
Gradient ......................................... 95
Gradient effect .................................. 155
GreyCStoration effect ............................ 96
GreyCStoration video effect ..................... 122
H
Hard drive, speeding up the ..................... 159
Hardware requirements ............................ 5
Haze, clearing out............................... 155
hdparm ......................................... 159
HDTV interlacing ............................... 155
HDV 1080i editing using proxy files ............. 163
HDV 1080i editing, converting HDV and proxy files
............................................ 164
Index 199
HDV 1080i editing, grabbing HDV from camcorder
............................................ 163
HDV 1080i editing, making the proxy files ....... 164
HDV 1080i editing, other issues ................. 164
HDV 1080i editing, overview .................... 163
HDV 1080i editing, rendering the project ........ 164
HDV 1080i editing, using TOC and WAV files ... 164
Help, getting ...................................... 2
Heroine College .................................. 85
Hide controls..................................... 55
Histogram effect ................................. 96
HolographicTV .................................. 97
Hostname, renderfarm............................ 22
HOWTOs ......................................... 3
Hue saturation ................................... 97
I
IEC 61883.................................... 15,17
IFO file .......................................... 32
Images list ....................................... 31
Images sequence ................................. 31
Images, CR2 ..................................... 19
Images, EXR .................................... 30
Images, still ...................................... 29
In/out points .................................... 40
Index file, size of ................................. 23
Index files........................................ 23
Index files, delete all ............................. 23
Index files, location .............................. 23
Index files, number to keep ....................... 23
Insertion point ................................... 39
Insertion strategy ................................ 33
Insertion strategy of rendered files ............... 140
Installation ....................................... 5
Interface ......................................... 23
Interlacing, defeating............................ 154
Interlacing, frames to fields...................... 154
Interlacing, HDTV exceptions ................... 155
Interlacing, inverse telecine ...................... 154
Interlacing, line averaging ....................... 154
Interlacing, line doubling ........................ 154
Interlacing, time base correction ................. 154
Interpolate ....................................... 85
Interpolate pixels ................................ 97
Interpolate video ................................. 97
Introduction ...................................... 1
Inverse telecine effect............................. 98
Invert Audio ..................................... 85
Invert video ...................................... 98
J
Jobs, total number to create...................... 22
K
Keyboard shortcuts ............................. 187
Keyframe, default ............................... 131
Keyframes, automatic ........................... 132
Keyframes, compositor .......................... 133
Keyframes, curve ............................... 131
Keyframes, editing .............................. 133
Keyframes, editing shortcuts .................... 188
Keyframes, toggle ............................... 132
Keyframing ..................................... 131
L
Labels, using in the program window ............. 41
Ladspa effects................................... 125
Ladspa, path..................................... 13
Lens ............................................. 98
Linear blur....................................... 99
Live audio effect ................................. 86
Live CDs.......................................... 9
Live video effect.................................. 99
Loading and saving files .......................... 29
Loading files ..................................... 33
Loading files from the command prompt .......... 34
Loading multiple files ............................ 34
Loading other formats............................ 35
Loading still images .............................. 29
Loading the backup .............................. 35
Localizations, available .......................... 162
Locking up when loading files ................... 170
Loop audio ...................................... 86
Loop video effect................................ 100
Luminance...................................... 112
M
Magnifying glass ................................. 55
Making a DVD ................................. 145
Making a DVD menu ........................... 147
Making video look like film...................... 155
Mandriva ........................................ 11
Manipulating tracks .............................. 46
Manjaro ......................................... 12
Manual, about this ................................ 2
Mask, feather .................................... 64
Masks ........................................... 61
Masks tool ....................................... 55
Media, capturing................................ 135
Media, draw ..................................... 44
Memory, freeing................................. 159
Merging projects ................................. 36
Meter, Max dB .................................. 23
Meter, Min dB ................................... 23
Miscellaneous links ................................ 4
mke2fs .......................................... 161
Mode, cut and paste ............................. 40
Mode, drag and drop............................. 40
Modes, editing ................................... 39
Motion blur..................................... 107
Motion effect, translation block ................. 101
Motion tracking in action ....................... 103
Motion tracking, 2 pass ......................... 103
Motion tracking, improving using blur........... 103
Motion tracking, secrets of ...................... 102
Motion tracking, using histogram................ 103
Motion video effect.............................. 100
Mouse, reducing sensitivity...................... 159
MPEG 1 audio ................................... 32
MPEG files containing video ..................... 32
MPEG-4 audio ................................... 29
Mpeg2, rendering to ............................ 145
mpeg2enc ........................................ 32
200 Index
mpeg2enc, yuv4mpeg pipe ...................... 145
mpeg3cat ......................................... 5
mpeg3dump....................................... 5
mpeg3peek ........................................ 5
mpeg3toc...................................... 5,32
mplexlo ........................................... 5
Multiply overlay mode ........................... 66
Mute track....................................... 44
N
Navigating curve keyframes ..................... 132
Navigating the program window .................. 37
Navigating the resources ......................... 73
Navigation shortcuts ............................ 187
Navigation, track................................. 38
Node, add a...................................... 22
Node, delete a ................................... 22
Nodes............................................ 22
Nodes, sort ...................................... 22
Non-realtime plugins ............................ 178
Normal overlay mode ............................ 66
Nudging tracks................................... 45
O
Offset, audio ..................................... 17
Ogg Theora/Vorbis .............................. 32
Oil painting..................................... 108
OpenGL ......................................... 16
OpenGL, getting data........................... 183
OpenGL, using ................................. 183
OpenGL, using shaders ......................... 185
OpenSUSE....................................... 12
Options, popup menu of.......................... 60
OSS ............................................. 14
OSS Envy24 ..................................... 14
Other formats, loading ........................... 35
Output for background rendering ................. 21
Output size ...................................... 68
Overlay .......................................... 86
Overlay modes ................................... 66
Overlay video ................................... 108
P
Painting, oil .................................... 108
Panning and zooming still images ............... 163
Panning audio tracks ............................. 46
Patchbay ........................................ 43
Paths ............................................ 35
PCM ............................................ 33
Performance ..................................... 21
Performance, improving ......................... 157
Perspective ..................................... 108
Picker, color ..................................... 89
Pitch shift ....................................... 86
PIZ compression ................................. 31
Play every frame ................................. 18
Play track ....................................... 44
Playback......................................... 17
Playback buffer size .............................. 17
Playback does not stop.......................... 169
Playback transport shortcuts .................... 189
Playback, view follows ........................... 17
Plugin authoring ................................ 171
Plugin GUI’s which update during playback ..... 181
Plugin queries .................................. 182
Polar ........................................... 108
Popup menu of options........................... 60
Port, renderfarm ................................. 22
Position, channel ................................. 46
Positioning information, use software for .......... 18
Preload buffer for Quicktime ..................... 19
Prerequisites, Debian .............................. 9
Presets........................................... 25
Preview region ................................... 79
Program window ................................. 37
Program window shortcuts ...................... 187
Program window, navigating the ................. 37
Project attributes ................................ 25
Project files, saving .............................. 35
Projector ........................................ 56
Projector controls, compositing ................... 58
Projects, merging ................................ 36
Protect video .................................... 55
Pull method, introducing the .................... 171
PXR24 compression .............................. 31
Q
Quicktime ....................................... 29
Quicktime for GNU/Linux compatibility chart... 145
Quicktime, preload buffer for ..................... 19
R
Radial blur ..................................... 109
Rates, reset ...................................... 22
Raw 1394 .................................... 15,17
Raw camera images .............................. 95
Raw digital camera images ....................... 31
Realtime audio effects ............................ 83
Realtime effect types ............................. 81
Realtime effects .................................. 81
Realtime effects, editing .......................... 82
Realtime plugins ................................ 176
Realtime video effects ............................ 88
Realtime, audio playback in ...................... 18
Record driver .................................... 20
Record window shortcuts........................ 189
Recording........................................ 19
Recording, frame rate for......................... 21
Recording, sample rate for ....................... 20
Recording, synchronization ...................... 170
Reducing USB mouse sensitivity ................ 159
Reframe video effect ............................ 122
ReframeRT video effect ......................... 109
Regions, safe ..................................... 65
Render farm .................................... 142
Rendered audio effects .......................... 121
Rendered effects ................................ 121
Rendered video effects .......................... 122
Renderfarm ...................................... 22
Rendering files .................................. 139
Rendering to mpeg2 ............................ 145
Rendering videos for the internet ................ 143
Rendering, background ...................... 21,151
Index 201
Rendering, command line ....................... 143
Replace overlay mode ............................ 66
Reporting bugs ................................. 169
Requirements, hardware ........................... 5
Requirements, software ............................ 6
Reroute video effect ............................. 110
Resample effect ................................. 121
Resources window ................................ 73
Resources, navigating the ........................ 73
Reverse audio effect .............................. 87
Reverse video effect ............................. 110
RGB-601 ....................................... 109
RGB-888 ........................................ 27
RGB-Float ....................................... 27
RGBA-8888 ...................................... 27
RGBA-Float ..................................... 27
Ringtone, making a ............................. 156
RLE compression ................................ 31
ROSA Linux ..................................... 12
Rotate .......................................... 110
S
Safe regions ...................................... 65
Safe regions tool ................................. 56
Sample rate for recording ........................ 20
Sample zoom..................................... 38
Samples to write to disk at a time ................ 20
Saturation ....................................... 97
Saving project files ............................... 35
Scale ........................................... 111
Scaling equation ................................. 18
Seconds to preroll renders ........................ 21
Secrets of motion tracking....................... 102
Selective temporal averaging .................... 111
Separate files rendering ......................... 139
Set format window ............................... 25
Shared effects .................................... 83
Shared memory, freeing ......................... 159
Shared track ..................................... 82
Sharpen ........................................ 112
ShiftInterlace ................................... 112
Shortcuts ....................................... 187
Shortcuts, editing media ........................ 187
Single file rendering ............................. 139
Size of captured frame ........................... 20
Size, output ...................................... 68
Size, track ....................................... 66
Sizes, track and output ........................... 66
Slackware ........................................ 12
Slow motion effect .............................. 109
SMP, force single processor use ................... 21
Software requirements ............................. 6
Sort nodes ....................................... 22
Sound buffers, enlarging......................... 158
Sound card buffer size ............................. 5
Sound driver attributes........................... 14
Sound level meters window ....................... 75
SoundLevel ...................................... 87
Soundtest ......................................... 5
Spectrogram ..................................... 87
Speeding up the file system ..................... 161
Speeding up the hard drive...................... 159
Standard audio mappings ........................ 46
Still images ...................................... 29
Still images size .................................. 30
Still images, loading .............................. 29
Still images, panning and zooming .............. 163
Strategy, insertion................................ 33
Subtitles, adding ................................ 164
Subtitles, DVD .................................. 19
Subtraction overlay mode ........................ 66
Supported file formats............................ 29
SVG via Inkscape ............................... 111
Swap channels .................................. 112
Swap space, disabling ........................... 158
Sync drives automatically ........................ 20
Synchronization lost while recording ............. 170
Synthesizer ...................................... 87
System queries .................................. 182
T
Temporary ....................................... 56
The camera and projector tool window ........... 60
The processing object ........................... 172
The track popup menu ........................... 39
Theme ........................................... 23
Theme Blond not found error ................... 170
Three points editing.............................. 47
Threshold video effect ........................... 112
Thumbnails ...................................... 23
Time average video effect ....................... 112
Time representation .............................. 23
Time stretch ..................................... 87
Time stretching audio ........................... 156
Timebar ......................................... 79
TimeFront ...................................... 113
Timeline, what is drawn on the shortcuts ........ 188
Timing queries .................................. 182
Tips ............................................ 153
Title ............................................ 113
Title-safe region ................................ 115
TOC............................................. 31
Toggle keyframes ............................... 132
Tool info ......................................... 56
Total jobs to create .............................. 22
Track and output sizes ........................... 66
Track manipulation shortcuts ................... 188
Track navigation ................................. 38
Track panning, automatic ........................ 46
Track size ........................................ 66
Track zoom ...................................... 38
Track, arm ....................................... 44
Track, mute ...................................... 44
Track, play....................................... 44
Tracking stabilization in action .................. 107
Tracks menu ..................................... 47
Tracks, bouncing ................................. 82
Tracks, concatenate .............................. 47
Tracks, delete .................................... 47
Tracks, manipulating ............................. 46
Tracks, nudging .................................. 45
Tracks, panning .................................. 46
Tracks, video and audio .......................... 37
Transition plugins ............................... 180
Transitions ..................................... 127
Translate ....................................... 115
Translating Cinelerra ........................... 162
202 Index
Translation block ............................... 101
Transport controls ............................... 77
Trimming ........................................ 52
Troubleshooting................................. 169
TTF fonts ...................................... 115
tune2fs ......................................... 161
Tuner, editing information ...................... 137
Tutorials .......................................... 3
TV display ..................................... 115
TV, cleaning analog............................. 153
Two screen editing ............................... 47
U
Ubuntu .......................................... 10
Ubuntu packages installation ..................... 10
Unsharp ........................................ 115
Updating an existing translation ................ 162
USB mouse, reducing sensitivity................. 159
Use render farm for rendering .................... 22
Use software for positioning information ...... 18,20
User interface object ............................ 176
Using transitions ................................ 127
Usual compilation process ......................... 6
V
Variables, environment ........................... 13
Vectorscope ..................................... 117
Video attributes ................................. 26
Video burning.................................... 89
Video device driver............................... 19
Video driver attributes ........................... 15
Video drivers .................................... 15
Video in ......................................... 20
Video out ........................................ 18
Video plugins ................................... 180
Video screen captures ........................... 157
Video tracks ..................................... 37
Video, protect ................................... 55
Video4Linux ..................................... 16
Videoscope ..................................... 116
View follows playback ............................ 17
Viewer and compositor windows shortcuts ....... 189
Viewer window................................... 71
Viewport ........................................ 58
W
WAV ............................................ 33
Wave ........................................... 118
Waveform scope ................................ 116
Whirl ........................................... 119
White balance, CR2 images ...................... 19
X
X, assorted tweaks .............................. 160
X11.............................................. 15
X11-OpenGL .................................... 16
X11-XV.......................................... 16
XML files ........................................ 35
Y
YUV ........................................... 119
YUV-888 ........................................ 27
yuv4mpeg pipe through ffmpeg.................. 146
yuv4mpeg pipe through mpeg2enc .............. 145
YUVA-8888 ...................................... 27
Z
ZIP compression ................................. 31
Zoom blur ...................................... 119
Zoom panel ...................................... 38
Zoran video, improving ......................... 161

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