Update

I lost a couple days due to a stomach bug of some kind (too much street food in Istanbul?) I've been using some of this down time to do research. GUADEC is next week, and I expect that Edward and I will get some serious hacking done during that time.

I've been meaning to interview some of my video professional friends to see how they use existing video editors, and find out what they like and don't like about them. In preparation for that, I have been reading on-line tutorials for existing video editors to get an idea of what expert usage looks like. I like the user submitted tutorials better than official documentation, because it helps me get into the frame of mind of a user, rather than a designer. Tutorial explanations hilight the how users conceive of the problems they are trying to solve much differently than designers. Often they use tools originally intended for a different purpose to achieve their ends. The downside, of course, is that tutorials are mainly written by expert, tech-saavy users. Right now, the main thrust of PiTiVi's development has been targeted at novice users, or at least users unfamiliar with the domain of video editing.

Part of me wonders whether or not this is a mistake: since PiTiVi is a linux video editor, relatively few novice users have access to the application. And we already have Kino, which is more mature than PiTiVi. If I were a novice user trying to get video editing done with Linux, Kino would be my only real choice. On the other end, we have Cinelerra, which seems to offer more high end features (though I've never gotten it to work). Maybe PiTiVi should aim for the middle-of-the road, intermediate crowd. Instead of dumbing down for 5 year olds, or making some ridiculous attempt to out-maneuver FCP (not going to happen), we shoot for an even balance of features: more precision and control than Kino, but don't plaster the screen with controls and widgets. At the same time, we should provide an environment that will be familiar to anyone who has used Premiere, or FCP, or even iMovie, so that their skills transfer. This will fit well with features that gstreamer already provides: an open format timeline, and real time processing of transitions and filters.

PiTiVi could fill a real niche in the amature filmmaking crowd: we can support the odd-ball movie formats that modern digital "still" cameras, like Canon PowerShots, spit out. If PiTiVi makes using these cameras as simple to use as other editors make DV, it will be an attractive tool for people making movies on a shoestring budget.

The existing simple timeline code might be re-imagined as something similar to FCP's media browser: useful for setting rough edit points on clips not yet imported to the timeline, and we needn't worry about providing support for effects or transitions.

Relevant Tasks:

1. clip logging and renaming in the library
2. import movies from "still" cameras
   
3. "off-line" (low-res) editing and recapturing (high-res)
   
4. synchronizing audio and video from different sources
5. animation and timelapse from sequences of stills

For next week, I want to take advantage of the time I have with Edward. He has much more in-depth knowledge of gstreamer and pitivi core, so I'll be taking a break from the UI work to solve some of the back-end problems preventing things like still images from working.

ToDo List:

1. fix the freeze plugin, or write a replacement, so it works with gnonlin
   
2. implement transition and effect objects in PiTiVi core
3. implement still image sources in PiTiVi core
4. discuss the complex UI design (please bring your notes, Edward)
5. (optional) make other mixing modes in videomixer available through property
6. (optional) tinker with gst-editor a bit, see if it can be made more stable