flowblade Video Editor for "Ubuntu" Puppies

[mikeslr]

Edit June 2, 2015: To make your life easier, if you run Carolina, precise or raring, follow this link: http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 943#788360 and see my post further down regarding installing both flowblade and openshot. My recollection is that version 0.16 did run under raring. But if I've mis-recalled, I am certain that version 0.14 did. You can find it here: http://puppylinuxstuff.meownplanet.net/ ... Flowblade/

Edited to delete material no longer pertinent in the light of 666philb's post and SFS link, and my following posts.

Edit May 26, 2015: For Tahr and Vivid, skip down to here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 772#847772

Why flowblade when we have a couple of simple video tools and a couple of complex video editor?. Well, if you worked with video in XP you'll remember Movie Maker and how easy it was to use multiple source videos, select portions of each, arrange those cuts in any manner and generate a new video. Well, flowblade is like that, only better. The videos used as source material for Movie Maker are limited: permitting only a couple of video and audio codecs and containers; and it only renders the finish product as a wmv. To create a new vid with flowblade, source material having different codecs and containers can be used; and you can choose the format for your finished video.

Watch the vid: http://vimeo.com/40929685

“Features
Editing
2 move tools
3 trim tools
4 methods to insert/overwrite/append a clip on the timeline
Drag'n'Drop clips on the timeline (--including from preview window)
Clip and Compositor parenting with other clips
Max 9 combined video and audio tracks available
Image compositing
7 compositors. Mix, zoom, move and rotate source video with keyframed animation tools
19 blends. Standard image blend modes like Add, Hardlight and Overlay are available
41 pattern wipes.
Image and audio filtering
50+ image filters. Color correction, image effects, distorts, alpha manipulation, blur, edge detection, motion effects, freeze frame
30+ audio filters. Keyframed volume mixing. Echo, reverb, distort and many other audio effects
Supported editable media types
Most common video and audio formats
JPEG and PNG image file types
SVG vector graphics
Numbered frame sequences
Output encoding
depending on installed MLT/FFMPEG support videos can be rendered with mpeg2, mp4, h264, Theora video codecs and Mp2, mp3, ac3 audio codecs into many container formats
User can define rendering by setting FFMpeg args

Edit: Thanks to 666philb's SFS, I have it running under upup precise 3.8.x, albeit some (all?) of the frei0r filters may not work, and it apparently can't be used to directly render DVDs. See following posts. Like any "full-featured" application, there's an appreciable learning curve to figuring out how to make the most of the GUI. Suggest googling for tutorials/manuals: (there are three vids) and a wiki worth downloading as a pdf.

flowblade home page: http://code.google.com/p/flowblade/

mikesLr

P.S. There's also a ubuntu 32-bit version of Shotcut, the really nice video editor kirk and James Bond included in FatDog64-630. I haven't examined at all the potential for creating a version for 32-bit Puppies. Note, however, Shotcut doesn't enable cutting or trimming clips, recommending avidemus or virtualDub for that function.

[666philb]

hi mikeslr

i remember getting this to fire up a while ago when it was in the requests section.... and whilst it loaded ..... i couldn't figure out how to import any clips into it.

tried it again just now and still can't !

anyway here it is for precise puppy https://copy.com/2ymh7KngsK07

you'll also need the devx loaded ...... and QT from quickpet (in my sig below)
there could well be lots of dependencies missing (python-gnome2 for one ... it's in the PPM)

anyway ... see if you have more luck than me at getting it to do something

[mikeslr]

Hi 666philb,

Actually, you've almost got it.
Last night I downloaded your SFS but it was to late to start playing with it. It's my habit to boot up a Pup and see what's new in Puppyland to clear my head before embarking on breakfast. That's a survival mechanism as I'm insulin dependent and before eating breakfast I have to inject 4 units of novolog (short-term insulin to handle the immediate influx of sugar) and 28 units of levemir (long term to handle sugar from the slow break-down of starch) and if, fuzzy headed, I inject 28 units of novolog there's a good chance it could kill me.
At any rate, I booted into Upup-precise 3.8.3, opened opera to your response and re-read your instructions. Figuring that after breakfast I'd start with a virgin upup, I was interested in examining the problem you mentioned of not being able to load vids. As openshot-1.4.3.sfs –which contains a version of python-- was already loaded on this Pup, I decided it might not be necessary to load devx.sfs. And, as I had qt-4.8.2.sfs sitting in /mnt/home, I decided not to take the time to download the version you suggested. So I loaded qt-4.8.2, and then your flowblade.
Although flowblade loaded, there was no menu entry. [I later opened it's desktop file in /usr/share/applications, and moved the declaration “AudioVideo

[mikeslr]

Ok. I think I figured out the difference between my initial success in loading a clip, and my subsequent failure. I must have done the following before I was entirely awake, and forgot about it by the time I wrote the abov post. What has to be done is either or all of the following before trying to load a clip. It’s been several hours since I first did them, and I didn’t try to load a clip until two or all had been done on my next go-round. Best guess is that only the first may actually be necessary. If not, try the 1st and 3rd steps. I don’t think my original exploration included the second.

Edit: 16 Feb 2014:
Step "0" may be required. Start flowblade by typing "flowblade" --without the quotes-- in a terminal, and note which codec/modules are not found. From the Edit Menu, select preferences and choose something other than the Dv/DVD PAL default or NTSC choices as these modules were not found. Then,

1. Select Profiles Manager from the Edit Submenu. From the Right Side of the window which opens, select one or more of the profiles under the caption “Create User Profile

[mikeslr]

Hi 666philb and all,

As I had 666philb's flowblade working in upup precise, I was curious as to whether it would also work in upup raring 3.9.9.2. So I unpacked another copy of upup raring to a new folder, added it to grub4dos's menu, booted into it, ran FirstRun, created a SaveFile and rebooted into upup raring.
Following 666philb's instructions, flowblade ran, but I was unable to successfully load media clips, even though they were not grayed-out. See my edit to the set-up procedure in my last post. Apparently, as I noted there as "Step 0" the first thing you have to do is change the profile preferences to something other than the Dv/DVD PAL default or NTSC choices as flowblade is unable to find these modules. IIRC, 666philb believes this is a ffmpeg problem.
At any rate, after some experimentation I was able to load media clips. I unloaded raring_devx.sfs and instead loaded openshot-1.4.3.sfs. This version is named "precise", distinguishing it from slacko and carolina sfs versions on the same partition. While I'm certain I downloaded it for use with precise, I'm uncertain whether I renamed it. The purpose of either openshot or devx SFS is to obtain python, its modules and libraries. Apparently, the python modules included in openshot (for precise) are configured somewhat differently than those in the devx.SFS.

I do suggest using 666philb's recommended qt.sfs. It appears to "see" more valid clips than the qt-stripped.sfs I tried.

A couple other notes while I'm here. Running under jwm --rather than openbox-- flowblade shows up in the multimedia submenu as soon as loaded.

Still haven't figured out all the editing bells and whistles. But apparently, once a clip is loaded and selected for editing (make sure the "down-arrow" is on the correct video track) before you can do any cutting you have to use the "razor" blade to divide a clip. Look under the preview monitor. A clip is initially seen as one long stream. After one cut, you can trim-off or move the beginning or end; after two cuts, you can trim-out, or move, the part between the cuts.

mikeslr

[mikeslr]

Hi all,

From the foregoing posts, you know that in order to load clips for editing I had to change the default codec under preferences. It had been my guess that flowblade would not render vids in a format which appeared to be missing when flowblade was started via a terminal. Editing went as smoothly as editing can. I then clicked render timeline from the top menu and obtained a vid having all and only the edited clips. I opened it in gnome-player, and could scroll thru it, but it wouldin't run. Tried selecting different codec which "had been found" and received the same result. So, in desperation, I applied a variation of the adage "when things aren't found where you expect them, look for them where you don't." I clicked Render on Menu in the middle of window (above the time lines) and changed
Render Type from “User defined

[mikeslr]

Either things went incredibly smoothly or I've done something wrong.

Please test this application. Of course, at your own risk. But before complaining about problems or limitations regarding codecs and conversions, please read the earlier posts on this thread and any other documentation you might find.

Having failed about 6 months ago, I anticipated problems cobbling together a functional flowblade for Tahrpup. There weren't any. Googling revealed that a new version had recently been published in the form of a .deb which supposedly would run under Ubuntu Trusty Tahr. Documentation for flowblade at its github site identified its dependencies. With two exceptions, debs fulfilling those dependencies were obtained merely by typing their names into PPM (Puppy Package Manager) after selecting “download only.

[rufwoof]

SFS for flowblade 0.18 for 32 bit pae Tahr (might work in other versions also) http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 040#880040

[Pelo]

# flowblade
FLOWBLADE MOVIE EDITOR 0.16
---------------------------
Launch script dir: /usr/bin
Running from installation...
modules path: /usr/share/flowblade/Flowblade
MLT not found, exiting...
ERROR: No module named mlt

It was just a quick test. Openshot is enough, when needed. Video edition, cut and stick i use Avidemux. I never make videos to be shown They are personnal tutorials, to remember how-to do things. I put them in You Tube, but they have to be seen as they are. So there is not nice transitions, titles and so on...

[kiramm]

i cant open this 2 pets on my xslacko 4

what to do?

[mikeslr]

Hi kiramm,

A while back Battleshooter build a version (.16 -- note the "."), I think, for Carolina. The originators of Flowblade are currently up to "18" -- with out the ".". Battleshooter's version appeared to run fine under Slackware even though the originators have never build Flowblade for Slackware. I don't know how Battleshooter did it. And unfortunately all Battleshooter's pets and sfses formerly downloadable from smokey's repo are now missing.

I have not been able to hobble together a functioning application since .18, and that was built to run under Tahrpup.

Unfortunately, flowblade runs under python. I don't understand python, So I don't know what libraries Slackware lacks in order to obtain them, nor where to find them on Slackware repos if I did know.

Sorry. But this is illustrative of my general complaint that knowledgeable Devs dis-serve Puppy by devoting their efforts creating Puppy variations rather than fleshing out the repos with functional applications. Have you tried running Tahrpup on your computer?

You should be able to run versions of Openshot and Kdenlive under Slacko; probably obtainable via Puppy Package Manager. Worst case scenario, early versions of Shotcut --there's no R-- will run under Wine.

I'll see if I can figure out why you're having a problem with Cinelerra and reply to your other post.


mikesLr

[battleshooter]

A while back Battleshooter build a version (.16 -- note the "."), I think, for Carolina. The originators of Flowblade are currently up to "18" -- with out the ".". Battleshooter's version appeared to run fine under Slackware even though the originators have never build Flowblade for Slackware. I don't know how Battleshooter did it. And unfortunately all Battleshooter's pets and sfses formerly downloadable from smokey's repo are now missing.

My stuff used to be hosted on Russoodle's site more than Smokey's, but I was told that went down some time ago. Thanks to Ally though, she backed up everything at archive.org (Thanks Ally, you're amazing!)

https://archive.org/download/Russoodles ... 0.16.0.sfs

Flowblade moved to GTK3 sadly though...seems everyone is these days

[Semme]

This can be cleared up with "mlt-python-bindings" or "python-mlt" dependent on naming convention.

"ERROR: No module named mlt"

Under Tahr605_noPAE, I have yet to figure this BS..

Code: Select all

FLOWBLADE MOVIE EDITOR 0.16
---------------------------
Launch script dir: /usr/bin
Running from installation...
modules path: /usr/share/flowblade/Flowblade
MLT found, version: 0.9.0
Failed to import module app.py to launch Flowblade!
ERROR: No module named _glib
Installation was assumed to be at: /usr/share/flowblade/Flowblade

BUMMER! I lack the resolution.

Anyone got a Halfblade I could try?

[mikeslr]

Hi all,

See my post here: http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 988#934988

Edit 12/17/16: I spent the last couple of days attempting to build a version which would run under Xenialpup 64-bit. Although I finally was able to get both flowblade 1.8 and 1.10 to open, to do so required many re-builds by adding, as the need for each became evident, the files from extracted debs not on the "dependencies" list: build a pet (dir2pet) of the work directory; install the pet, run via terminal, cut/paste the terminal printout to a file, hunt for files not found, extract the relevant deb, copy the files to the work directory, build and test a new pet. The end result was still several complaints regarding "MLT" too old --@ 6 but should be @ 7.6+, with a warnings of possible crashes-- and the need for several lib at versions 5 when all that is available for Xenial is 4. And it also seems to need QT5 to be fully functional. If the missing libs are installed from Ubuntu Zesty repo with appropriate symlinks, flowblade fails to open complaining about other parts of its system.

In short, it seems that the 64-bit versions of flowblade 1.8 and 1.10 were built against Zesty.

mikesLr

[Pelo]

UPUP precise, carolina, Vivid bêta,
flowblade-0.12.0_precise.sfs: 24 M lost in pendrive saluki (Xenialpup Saluki Obprecise) Fails with OBprecise. I reboot to Saluki just to see.
I dont'need really Flowblade, unless flowblade is so nice that it makes me change my hobbies I come back soon.
NO, installed in the menu, just to decorate. Does not execute anything..

[Mike Walsh]

Mike, I've got a question for ya.

I've tried installing Flowblade in some of my Pups. It installs without any problems, BUT.....it won't actually run. It pops up a message telling me my monitor's too small! Flowblade wants (oh, I forget exactly) something like 1132x768, or summat like that; mine's an old Dell pNp monitor, 1024x768. It still works extremely well for everything else.

Now; a question:-

Was it my imagination, or did I see, somewhere on the forum, a means of making your monitor seem larger to certain applications.....kind of a 'virtual monitor', if you like? Have you come across this at all.....and if so, d'you remember where it was?

I'd love to give FlowBlade a try, but I'm going to need to pull a 'fast one' somewhere along the line..! No way am I going out to buy a bigger monitor, purely for a single application.....


Mike.