Well, since Haiku shoud be THE multimedia OS, i think that a killer application is needed (that may bring many users/manufacturers), so here’s my port suggestions:
HyperEngine-AV, Arboretum Systems’ award winning video editing software is now free, complete with full source code. Users can capture, arrange, edit and process video, audio and text in a free-form, trackless document, to create movies and slide shows.OSX, GPL
Cinelerra, a non-linear video editor that does primarily 3 main things: capturing, compositing, and editing audio and video with sample level accuracy.(Linux, GPL)
Traverso, a free, cross platform multitrack audio recording and editing suite, with an innovative and easy to master User Interface. It’s suited for both the professional and home user, who needs a robust and solid DAW.multiplatform (Qt based), GPL)
It would be great if someone interested join one of these projects and make an Haiku port or, better, i hope to have a platform indipendent AV suite in the future…
EDIT: well, the FireWire support is a feature that clearly asks for an A/V editor…
Adamation is gone, I wonder where the sources are, gathering dust…and who has them…maybe a bounty to lure this person out of his/her hiding place and hand over the neglected software ?
Thus no need for any porting: ideal?
I’ve looked somewhat into it, and the big problem with porting Traverso to Haiku is that Haiku uses a completely different concept of creating applications!
It uses it’s own modules which can be used to build the application. But Traverso is allready an application, build on/with the Qt toolkit.
I’m afraid a port to Haiku is not feasible, primarily due the different approaches to make an OS/application.
If true, someone interested in building this kind of application should start from scratch… any suggestions ?
If true, someone interested in building this kind of application should start from scratch… any suggestions ?
In time perhaps someone people can be found. Perhaps it might be useful to just work on ideas/features that such an app would need (without just copying another app, of course). Then, when it comes time to do work on a Haiku native one, there would be some ideas to consider already.
Personally, I think we should add a little innovation to the mix, like the BeOS had; in the BeOS, you could manipulate several audio tracks in 3d space in real-time. That kind of stuff really shows off the uniqueness of the OS.
Several notes on the previous apps:
They look interesting from an application standpoint
Still, it would always be neat to have a Haiku specific app designed from scratch to take advantage of Haiku’s ability.
The GPL license is not friendly to “hacker” and “tinker” types who like to mess around with code.
Perhaps this is our chance to start dreaming about what we really want and not limit ourselves to porting an app that is just a copy of another app that is just a copy of another app, etc… if Haiku actually could turn out an innovative new app, that would be great.
BTW, my comments are made in all seriousness – I do see the need for Haiku to have an audio app to show off its capabilities in the media arena. However, right now, I am pretty much focusing my attention on some low level areas like a new compiler and browser. I have been actively seeking out just the right projects (according to my criteria) for Haiku. I wasn’t planning to seek out any audio apps for Haiku at the moment, but who knows…
Sorry Marco… Some of my comments weren’t to friendly.
So… do you have an interest in audio? Are there specific apps that you are looking to get on Haiku? Are there any particular audio concepts that you think would really “sell” people on using Haiku?
It would be very great (for me and emerging artists I support) to have an open source “Windows+Vegas” alternative !!!
One of the reason to switch could be the localization feature: Sony, for example (but almost all audio software producers), don’t release the italian version for Vegas.
Hey Marco… I wonder if you could find out some things about the project when you get in touch with them?
What license?
Will it be an all new, native Haiku app?
Do they have any “unique” features for the app that might set it apart (like the special 3d audio program the BeOS had)?
Are they still committed to this project, and if so, what kind of help do they need?
I wouldn’t get your hopes up. VirtualBeLive! is years old, and was someone’s university project originally. It got opensourced and I played with it at the time (and would describe it as far from finished (ie a bit disappointing)). IIRC there was a small amount of activity after the initial open-sourcing but since then I didn’t hear anything about it for years.
Anyhow, I think the whole media-OS thing is a bit outdated. It held when the competition (Mac OS 8 or so and Win 98) were horrible OSes which only supported multitasking in a very simple manner. Be was better at doing different things at once, like playing a preview video whilst rendering - which the company latched on to as making the OS good for media. Nowadays all OSes are reasonable in that respect, so the differences really come down to general philosophy and available applications. Haiku definitely loses on available apps but for me it wins on philosophy. If we build some nice apps the “Haiku way” it will win on apps too, and not just for media. Simply porting an existing app from another platform (because Be Inc based their marketing on the buzzword “media”) will not really help much IMHO.
Haiku’s superior performance might have a chance to shine in some really innovative stuff later on – voice recognition, multi-touch screens, new UI design concepts, etc… all requiring real-time load on the system while needing to be highly responsive.
Multitouch is great for demos, and for things like navigating menu-driven software (iPhone). Heck, I’ve even made one: http://www.simon-t.me.uk/project/ - and that even tracks finger positions in 3 dimensions using a couple of webcams, the table is just a normal table.
But stuff like word processing I just cannot see working in a multi-touch environment. Maybe I’m just being short-sighted but I’d always prefer a proper keyboard (OK, maybe voice recognition would work, but would lead to some very noisy offices). Perhaps the mouse could be replaced by touch, but fingers are pretty fat so to get decent accuracy you either need to make the work area bigger (like my projected surface) or make the finger smaller (ie use a stylus to point). Neither sound particularly natural to me.
Talk about off topic…
(ps: I think the reason for that BeLive! page having a date of March is that all the BeUnited hosted projects were moved to OsDrawer. I don’t think that means there has been any activity on the project at all recently)
As Haiku don’t need a lot of processor power and memory a little ITX box with some sort of media center application like Be Media Center would bee cool. http://blog.petterhj.net/entry.php?id=30
apparently the project has halted
I agree that native apps are better than porting (that’s whay I’m a big fan off Themis (http://themis.sourceforge.net/))
I’m the guy with pro audio recording background, and I think Haiku has great promise to be everyone’s favorite platform for Audio-Video workstation. My suggestions would be:
use Haiku media server for mixing tracks. It has great capabilities. This makes possible to share audio/video streams and route them to different programs…Effects could be just individual programs that has audio input and output node. Routing can be done with Cortex for example. It would be cool to have an “advanced” system mixer (something like Cubase SX or Pro Tools has, with eq-s and routing controls)
Minimalistic, BeOS style UI, all controls paced in right places. Again look at Cubase or ProTools as quality apps.
Audio pitch manipulation tool would be also great to have. Today there’s one good app that is used at almost every studio - Melodyne. It allows to detect musical articulation and to alter every note-s pitch and duration. This could be integrated to program so, that when you double-click recorded part, pitch-editor opens instead of standard wave editor.
Well, i’m a Windows user and sincerly I don’t agree: these softwares don’t have a simple and clear UIs.
According to my - 10 years - multitrack recording&editing experiences, actually the simplest/powerful A/V editor under Windows is <a href=http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/products/product.asp?pid=457>Sony Vegas Pro.
The open alternatives that i posted (HyperEngine, particularry) seems to be simple as well…
I can agree with you about features, but no, not CuBase nor ProTools haven’t a BeOS style UI, IMO.
Sony Vegas has a bit “amateur” reputation on pro audio engineering scenes, it has some nice features, but some things are questionable - like, it uses only DirectX plugins and also placing all automation envelopes in the same region makes it pretty unusable - if you want to change one envelope, you have to get rid of others. Also there’s no midi/arranging part. This is actually very important, because lot’s of music production is done with midi.
IMHO Cubase/Nuendo has currently best midi part.
Cubase is COMPLEX, but not badly designed. It just has so many possibilities, it’s a powerful tool And once it’s “in the hand” it’s VERY comfortable to get the work done.
edit: OK I just had a quick look at Vegas, seems to have some evolution. Last I used it, it was version 5 or 6…
But still no MIDI
