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Lightworks
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[Herb Sevush] “The Pro version, at least on windows, has been around for over a year.”
I think the Free version had everything but codec support, and then you paid for certain codec support.
Now, it’s a blanket license at a monthly, yearly, or perpetual. Monthly and yearly entitles you to major version upgrades, the buyout locks you in to wherever you bought it + any maintenance updates. To go to the next version, you pay an upgrade.
The free version is now limited to 720p@h264 exports. I think that’s new, but could be wrong.
At any rate, here’s the new checklist: https://www.lwks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=102&Itemid=213
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[Jeremy Garchow] ” I know you haven’t really played with many NLEs software yet, but I wouldn’t consider Pr, by itself, an all in one, or Avid, or even Smoke. FCP7 certainly isn’t (the quality of fcp7 effects have always been pretty dismal) and FCPX isn’t either. But, as you say, there does have to be certain fairly finished amount of really high quality temp capability, and sometime that temp quality can be pretty damn great.”
I don’t expect an NLE to have all the capabilities I want, but I do expect there to be some integration with plug-ins to be able to get me there.
Between Motion, Colorista, Mercalli, Plural Eyes, and Twixtor, the FCP7 eco-system gives me all the video tools I need. Same would be true, with different combinations of plug-ins, for PPro, Avid, FCPX, Edius and Vegas — but not with Lightworks, at least not yet. And that is a big difference. Which is why I wish they had spent their time figuring out how to work with something like Boris FX or Colorista, as opposed to trying to port it to OSX.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] “One of the most counter intuitive aspects of our industry is that high-end feature editors are sometimes the least technologically advanced editors you can find. Feature editors were the last hold-outs for the upright moviola when the flatbeds came out and they were very late to accepting the digital NLE.”
This is especially important to note in the context of Lightworks: its original adoption was HUGELY tied to its hardware interface. Some people say COMPLETELY tied. I don’t know that that’s fair…but I used to work with one of its former product managers, and he thought it was pretty dang close to the latter. He joked about developing software for people who have a fundamental distrust of software.
It’s a pretty slick piece of hardware, though. Thinking about it in terms of a color correction or audio control surface, its $3000-ish price tag actually sounds quite good.
They also have a color-coded keyboard that I think would be essential, especially for anyone opting out of the controller, because that’s the thing. This is a system whose sweet spot is people who don’t just edit features — but who also used to work with, and MISS working with, actual film.
This isn’t meant to be the loosey goosey, hippity hoppity “Yipee ki ya motherchunker!” “I’m takin it to the MAN, man!” guerilla software that some people are making it out to be. I’m not saying that about the folks on this thread, but as you walk around the internet, it’s hard to miss the cries of “Woo-hoo! Open source! Take THAT, all you A-company-holes!”
I dunno. I haven’t touched it in 8 or 9 years. I have no idea how it compares to the current state of the art. I’m just observing that, every time it comes up, I ask myself, “Will ‘available for Mac’ include the hardware controller?,” followed by, “Is it all that compelling except philosophically?” By which I mean — sure, fun to have in the bag of tricks, but really? Change horses?
Hey, I’m all for chatting about anything that looks interesting for its own sake, and this certainly does, but I’d like to hear more about what you guys think of it it “for realz.” As a wise man once said, “I will forever be the idiot in the room, but perhaps I am misconstruing the details.”
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[Walter Soyka] “Don’t you expect at least a basic audio mix from your NLE, or at least rudimentary compositing, even though there are dedicated DAWs and compositors?”
The operative terms are “basic” and “rudimentary”. I would say yes, but my level of acceptability isn’t the same as others. For example, I’m not happy with mixes in X, while others are. You can do very nice lens flare effects in X using some of the third party filters, which are largely presets. Yet, these don’t come close to what you can do in Smoke, if you want very tiny control over each element of the flare, as in Smoke.
I really like the color correction in X, but for something involved, I would definitely jump over to Color or Resolve. Ironically, as much as Avid Media Composer is so NOT a finishing tool or compositor, I’ve done far more complex and successful composites in MC/Symphony than I have in many other tools. Go figure!
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Jeremy Garchow] “Now, it’s a blanket license at a monthly, yearly, or perpetual. Monthly and yearly entitles you to major version upgrades, the buyout locks you in to wherever you bought it + any maintenance updates. To go to the next version, you pay an upgrade.”
They’re doomed. Don’t they know Sarbanes–Oxley rules make this business model completely impossible?
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David Lawrence
art~media~design~research
propaganda.com
publicmattersgroup.com
facebook.com/dlawrence
twitter.com/dhl
vimeo.com/dlawrence/albums -
[Tim Wilson] “This isn’t meant to be the loosey goosey, hippity hoppity “Yipee ki ya motherchunker!” “I’m takin it to the MAN, man!” guerilla software that some people are making it out to be.”
Hells no. Lightworks is a potential editing front end to a vast eco system in EditShare.
I truly think it is Avid’s only true Unity contender, even though Adobe Anywhere will probably get there one day, but only if you have an IT wing and a rack full o’CUDA.
Tugging on the age old adage, lightworks is meant to sell some hardware
Jeremy
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[David Lawrence] “They’re doomed. Don’t they know Sarbanes–Oxley rules make this business model completely impossible?”
Please see us in the “Lightworks, No Question About It” Forum that Bob Woodhead is leading.
In all seriousness, Lightworks won’t be Editshare’s money maker, but they do make it nice and easy for the user.
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[Tim Wilson] “Is it all that compelling except philosophically?” By which I mean — sure, fun to have in the bag of tricks, but really? Change horses?”
As someone who remembers Lightworks (and later Heavyworks)when it first appeared, the original appeal was that you could physically operate it like a flatbed film editor. It was designed specifically for feature editors who were being pushed towards digital but didn’t want to touch a mouse or keyboard.
The appeal now is for other things. Linux, for those so inclined. An alternative to the 3As, and their 3 issues – Subscription, Stodginess, and WTF. For someone looking for a modern, perpetually licensed, traditionally tracked editor, whose parent company isn’t falling apart and that is ostensibly designed for high-end broadcast and features Lightworks seems intriguing.
In my case not enough so that I would switch to it. If Editshare ever decides they want to get in on the NLE market seriously, I would think it could carve out it’s own niche. At the moment it still seems like a hobby for them. Or maybe I underestimate the cost of development and overestimate Editshare’s pockets.
Herb Sevush
Zebra Productions
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nothin’ attached to nothin’
“Deciding the spine is the process of editing” F. Bieberkopf -
[Herb Sevush] ” I would think it could carve out it’s own niche. At the moment it still seems like a hobby for them. Or maybe I underestimate the cost of development and overestimate Editshare’s pockets.”
It’s certainly not a hobby, but EditShare doesn’t even come close in anyone’s wildest imagination to the depth of Avid’s pockets – questionable as their financial status might be at this point. Maybe closer to BorisFX with Media 100. Cost can be kept low if you have a handful of talented engineers/programmers, but that also means the development path is slow.
– Oliver
Oliver Peters Post Production Services, LLC
Orlando, FL
http://www.oliverpeters.com -
[Oliver Peters] ” Maybe closer to BorisFX with Media 100.”
That’s what I’m thinking. Both companies saw low hanging fruit that was affordable, and potentially fun, to pick up and develop, rather than what they thought would be a game changer.
EditShare doesn’t need a new cheap NLE to seek storage, though. At this point, they’re ALL cheap, even Smoke, relative to the market as a whole when ES first came on the scene. ES already offers a strong alternative to Unity, and afaik works as well worth other NLEs as you could hope. Their market is always going to be (oversimplifying) “everyone with more than one seat of anything,” so it seems unlikely to me that Lightworks moves the needle on a single work group’s worth of shared storage.
And to repeat Herb’s observation, the original LW pitch was “ours has a wheel.” I guess this is all doing a fine job keeping Editshare name out there, and a viable Lightworks is a laudable goal. .. but I don’t see any aspect of it that will save ES’ s business if it needs saving… or making the lives or livelihoods of editors at large appreciably better. Unless the lack of a wheel interface had been bringing them down, or they’ve been feeling the lack of a science project in their lives. That’s cool. I’m on board with that. I also like talking about it.
But this is why I’m left asking, as an actual thing for the rhetorical ME, are we talking about this for any reason besides that it’s fun to talk about?
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