IPTV suite

Assemble an Open Source IPTV Production Suite

The ‘Open Source IPTV Production Suite’ is an ensemble of high-level animation, 3D, compositing and editing tools that are available as free, open source GPL applications. However, this is not a direct attempt to duplicate the production tools found in Apple’s Final Cut Studio. It’s an attempt to create a fully functional, professional software suite that is capable of generating high end VFX and 3D animation like those found in Shake and Motion and Maya. Don’t be fooled, just because the software is open source doesn’t mean that it isn’t of professional grade.

Open source audio editing pro-app Ardour.

PRODUCTION TOOLS
GIMPshop
You will need an image editing application for the creation of trailers and still graphics. GIMPshop is a modification of the open source GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), modified to duplicate the feel of Adobe Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP. It shares all GIMP’s advantages, including the long feature list and customisability, while addressing some common criticisms regarding the program’s interface: GIMPshop modifies the menu structure and terminology to match Photoshop’s.

While GIMPshop does not support Photoshop plugins, all GIMP’s own plugins, filters, brushes, etc. remain available. It is available for Mac OS X (via X11), Windows and Linux.
(Cost: Free)

Blender 3D
The best kept secret in the world of 3D Animation is Blender. Blender, while primarily a 3D modeling and rendering program, may also be used to perform video compositing in 3D space. Much like what you will be able to do in Apple’s upcoming release of Shake 4 or Autodesk’s Combustion 4.

Blender is experiencing a faster development cycle than those of most commercial applications. It’s feature rich, having functionality found in software applications like Maya and 3DS Max.

The most recent release of Blender, version 2.37a, introduces new transformation modeling tools and “Soft Body” effects. Once applied, the soft body system allows vertices to move based on the laws of physics that govern soft materials–like jello or cloth.

Additionally, Blender features a rich in-program game engine that allows for the development of 3D games. Blender is undoubtedly the “hottest” open source computer application for digital artists at the moment.
(Cost: Free)

POST PRODUCTION TOOLS
CinePaint
CinePaint is a digital painting and retouching application primarily used for motion picture frame-by-frame retouching and restoration. But it goes beyond restoration, its frame-by-frame editing power has been used on many feature films, including THE LAST SAMURAI where it was used to add flying arrows. CinePaint is different from other painting tools because it supports deep color depth image formats up to 32-bit per channel deep. For comparison, GIMP is limited to 8-bit, and Photoshop to 16-bit.

CinePaint was birthed in 1998 by motion picture technology company Silicon Grail (later acquired by Apple for Shake) and motion picture studio Rhythm & Hues, with a goal of creating an alternative to the recently discontinued SGI IRIX version of Adobe Photoshop that would support the emerging Linux platform. Initially conceived as Film Gimp, studios began using it internally for feature film production. Some thought Film Gimp would become GIMP 2.0, but that was not to be. In 2000 GIMP chose to pursue a different direction, and the the film community continued development independently. On July 4, 2002, the project went public as CinePaint on SourceForge and three weeks later had its first release.
(Cost: Free)

Jahshaka
Jahshaka is an open source, video editing and post-production application that features seven modules: The desktop; an animation module, with built in support for key-framable objects (clips and shape objects), 3d text, and particles; an editing module, which is a timeline based, multi-layer editing environment with support for realtime video/audio playback and realtime mixing clips of different resolutions, formats and colorspaces; an effects module, expandable by plugins based on the OpenApi to create anything from blurs, glows, optical effects, lens effects and edge filters; a paint module, a OpenGL based 3d paint environment with support for anti-aliased brushes which allow you to paint on video clips; a text module, which is a complete OpenGL based character generator with support for multiple fonts, and upcoming support for rolls, crawls and all your CG needs; and finally a library module, which allows you to organize all your media with local and peer-to-peer networking so you can share files and projects with other computers/users.

The desktop is the main module which ties all the modules and features together. On the desktop you can load, save, import, export grab video or view still and clips that have been loaded into the system. The desktop also has a integrated player can scrub files on disk or load clips into ram for realtime playback of uncompressed footage.

Jahshaka, while useable, is still under development. The ultimate goal of the Jahshaka project is to produce a industrial strength editing, effects, and compositing system that works on uncompressed video and audio at any resolution in any colorspace. Jahshaka is still in its alpha stages, currently at Version 2.0 and the features are changing monthly. We took version 2.0 for a test drive on a G4 1.67 Powerbook and found that it was more stable than its previous incarnations.
(Cost: Free)

AUDIO EDITING TOOLS
Audacity
Audacity is a free digital audio editor that runs on the Linux/UNIX, Mac OS 9/Mac OS X, and Microsoft Windows operating systems. The source code for Audacity is released under the GNU General Public License. The graphical user interface for the editor has been produced using the wxWidgets library.

Some of Audacity’s features include: Importing and exporting WAV, MP3 (via the LAME MP3 Encoder), Ogg Vorbis, and other file formats; Recording and playing sounds; Editing via Cut, Copy, Paste (with unlimited Undo); Multi-track mixing; Digital effects and effect plug-ins; and Noise removal

Audacity has support for multichannel modes with sampling rates up to 96 kHz with 24 bits per sample with the ability to make precise adjustments to the audio’s speed, in order to synch it with video, and run for the right length of time.
(Cost: Free)

Ardour
Ardour is a professional hard disk recorder and digital audio editor application released under the GNU General Public License as Free Software. It currently runs on GNU / Linux, Solaris, and Mac OS X (via X11), however it currently lacks a Windows port which prevented us from making it the first pick for professional audio editing.
(Cost: Free)

VIDEO EDITING TOOLS
iLife (Macintosh)
Here is where things become tricky. Being realistic, if you have purchased a Macintosh anytime during the last three years, it came with a mini production suite of its own called iLife, giving you access to iMovie, Garageband and iDVD. The applications in iLife are not only powerful and versatile enough for creating your home movies, but also to create your IPTV shows. Thanks to Quicktime 7, you can also encode your videos in H.264 for playback on the new video capable iPods. Technically, iLife is not an open source product, but why duplicate something that is already done well and comes free with your new Macintosh.
(Cost: Free with new Macintosh)

VirtualDubMod (Windows)
VirtualDubMod is an open source video capture and linear processing tool for Microsoft Windows. It is based on VirtualDub, and is licensed under the GPL. VirtualDubMod boasts many additional features as it is the merging of several specialized versions of VirtualDub that were written for various tasks. In addition to the features found in VirtualDub, it adds Matroska support, MPEG-2 support, Ogg Theora support and many other added features.
(Cost: Free)

Cinelerra (Linux)
Cinelerra is a free non-linear video editing system for the GNU/Linux operating system. It is produced by Heroine Virtual, and is distributed under the GNU General Public License. Cinelerra also includes a video compositing engine, allowing the user to perform common compositing operations such as keying and mattes.

Cinelerra includes support for very high-fidelity audio and video: it processes audio using 64 bits of precision, and can work in both RGBA and YUVA color spaces, using floating-point and 16-bit integer representations, respectively. (The “A” in both color space notations stands for alpha channel.) It is resolution and frame rate-independent, meaning that it can support video of any speed and size. Cinelerra can also encode and decode video in H.264 with playback on Win and Mac commercial players and your favorite Linux players. This is one of the highest quality video codecs around, making HDTV distribution over the internet almost practical.
(Cost: Free)

From an economical standpoint you’re getting professional grade software for free. But there is a hidden cost. If you have never used software of this type the learning curve can be daunting. Your best bet is to work with someone familiar with the software to familiarize yourself with the interface so you can learn and explore on your own. Each application benefits from an active development community centered around resolving bug issues, improving features and usability. You would be hard pressed to find the production power found in the combination of these IPTV production tools for less than $1,000 in commercial products.