6 ms·

VIX: A New Kind of Video Editor

67 points by jawngee 13y ago

Nanzikambe 13y ago
The important bit for the rest of us: Mac OS 10.9 or later LMK when it runs on something open source.
mappum 13y ago
The title made me think it was going to somehow be a vi-based editor (and that sounds like a good idea).
- protomyth 13y ago
  Try Avid, those folks are scary fast on the keyboard.
zyang 13y ago
Not a replacement for final cut pro, but definitely handy for making quick music driven videos. Definitely will give it a try.
- jawngee 13y ago
  Definitely not intended to replace Final Cut Pro. Let me know how it goes!
philmcc 13y ago
This is a clever solution to this problem, and there are instances where this could be helpful. However, if you happen to be attached to FCP, and have basic rhythm, you can perform a more controlled version of this process in either FCP7 or FCPX using MultiClip/Multicam Editing. http://youtu.be/kmFmyXWaQHM?t=3m27s http://youtu.be/kmFmyXWaQHM?t=3m27s Using keyboard commands, in real time you can cut between up to 16 different video clips. I basically play my keyboard like a drumset, and the result is video that is synced to the audio, and allows more artistic choice over the content selection.
demallien 13y ago
Ahhh, very cool! If you want to sell about 10 times more though, make it capable of exporting to iMovie...
jacobolus 13y ago
This is a cool idea, but I must admit, I find the example video basically unwatchable, with the way it cuts back and forth so much. They might take longer, but I would expect “a moderately skilled person in the use of Final Cut or Adobe Premiere” to create a dramatically better final output.
- aagd 13y ago
  thought so, too.
- l33tbro 13y ago
  Yup. You should change that.
- taude 13y ago
  I thought the pacing of the start of the video with the super slow titling and effects was enough to keep me from wanting to watch the rest of the video. Internet ADD, gotta get to the point quicker. Having edited some documentary films, though, I could see this as a useful tool for a preliminary cut facilitator of some types of montage scenes...
quadrangle 13y ago
This stupid site can't even show plain text without JavaScript.
cjensen 13y ago
Watching on my Mac Mini, some of the Video cuts are late. Your mind is used to light being received in your eyes prior to sound hitting your ears. When cutting, you should emulate that by cutting the video slightly early.
- Synaesthesia 13y ago
  Yeah, maybe bring the video just 1 frame earlier, before that drumbeat.
madlag 13y ago
There's an iPhone app, Replay, that does something similar: automatic music/video tagging to build a video "counterpoint". Of course it's more limited, as it's intended for general public, but the Epic theme is quite convincing. Disclaimer: I am CTO @ Stupeflix.
errantspark 13y ago
"For a moderately skilled person in the use of Final Cut or Adobe Premiere, this might have taken anywhere from a day to three days. In VIX, it took about an hour" I'm not sure where you got your definition of moderately skilled from, because the very first video I ever made in Final Cut (or maybe it was AE) was pretty similar to this (dubstep, cuts to music) and it took me about 3 hours to edit together. I would consider myself a total noob, I didn't know a single keyboard shortcut. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK--TtQtVk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK--TtQtVk8 Considering the difference of work speed between a program where I know the hotkeys for everything and a program that I'm unfamiliar with I can't help but extrapolate that this sort of editing would take at most ~30m with a reasonably optimized workflow using existing software. Anyone care to disillusion me?
- jawngee 13y ago
  I've been editing video for 15+ years now, sometimes professionally, sometimes not. I mean Ridley Scott is not going to be hiring me to cut Prometheus 2 or anything like that but ... I have cut stuff that was in two AMA award shows, a cannibal corpse video that aired on MTV, a lot of previz for larger raves in the late 90's, a lot of the videos I do for experience retail installs now and a couple of years writing custom plug-ins (mostly for AE) for a post shop. This is also my second video editor, the first one being Shave (http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/shave_video_review http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/shave_video_review) - which, unfortunately, got obsoleted with Mavericks (thanks Apple!). Each of these videos I was cutting, which lead me to write VIX in the first place, are composed of anywhere from 25 to 60+ individual shots, sequenced into anywhere from 120-423 individual edits, depending on the effect we were going for. There is no way you are going to do that in 3 hours and end up with something near finished. You would be making, taking the average of 151 edits, 0.8 edits per minute for 180 minutes straight. The video you linked to had ~20 edits, discounting the time ramping/remapping you were doing. So I would expect that would take you 3 hours. The video linked to in the blog post consists of 30 shots and 292 edits. Now on the other end of the spectrum, this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs9ut-gbYUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs9ut-gbYUU consists of 8 or 9 edits. I started it in VIX, built the structure in about 5 minutes and then finished in FCP and AE. So the edit itself took maybe 10 minutes, but an additional day of post work because the camera man who shot it had no idea what he was doing (it was our first shoot, so I wasn't as hands on as I should have been and was far too trusting than I should have been). I mean motion tracking to stabilize footage, they shot it at 30fps, so I had to optical flow it down to slow mo and then paint out distortions from that in photoshop, etc. The color wash and light leaks isn't there for aesthetics, it's there to distract you from the crappy camera work. It was a major pita. I posted the beta to /r/editors on Reddit last week I think and got a ton of feedback from the pro's that hang out there, plus got a lot of input from people I've worked with who do post professionally/commercially, so it wasn't entirely developed in a void. I don't think it's the panacea of video editors though, but it is is a pretty cool creative tool that supplants FCP or AE. You won't edit a movie with it, but a music video, club video, behind the scenes video, skateboarding video, one guy from reddit was using it for wedding videos even. For that type of work, and of course I am totally biased, I can't see myself starting it in FCP. Finishing in FCP? Yes, for sure. But not starting, VIX is too fast to get to a good rough point. Also, it's free. :) Well exporting to AE and FCP might be in app purchases for $5-$10, I haven't decided yet. The magazine and the publishing platform are my main biz, but I thought people would find this useful and/or fun. Do give it a spin though and let me know what you think!
moonlighter 13y ago
I’d be interested in how it’s built. What app frameworks did you use? Is it written in Objective C? Etc. Thanks!
- jawngee 13y ago
  Mostly Objective-C. Media via CoreVideo and AVFoundation. Document persistence through ModelKit (http://github.com/jawngee/ModelKit http://github.com/jawngee/ModelKit). UI mostly custom. Beat detection and BPM detection is C++. Interestingly, everything but UI should compile and work on iOS without much modification. Doubt I will ever take it there, but you never know.
  - anewcolor 13y ago
    is the bpm / beat detection home grown code?
    - jawngee 13y ago
      Yup.
  - thinkersilver 13y ago
    This is such a brilliant idea! It'd be also interesting to extract other features from videos such as colour profiles , face detection and movements of objects in the frame and camera movements. They don't need to be accurate but hints; then use the profile to control the mood of the video. An example may be,to start of with cool edits at the beginning then gradually progress to the warmer clips.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mcphilip 13y ago
FYI, when I see VIX, I think of the volatility index. A quick google search shows this is overwhelmingly the case. A name change to something more distinct could help with exposure. Good luck!
- mitchellh 13y ago
  And when I see VIX, I think the VMware VIX API: https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vix-api/ https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vix-api/ But, I don't think it actually matters. Finance vs. Virtualization vs. Video editing are all pretty separate areas of interest, and I imagine anyone in any of those areas would know what they're looking for.
wavesum 13y ago
Whoa. I've had similar ideas on my own, and now it seems they weren't so unique after all. I'm founder of Wavesum which is focused on music analysis algorithms and their applications. Would be cool to compare our beat tracking algos. Lots of love and ramen was put into ours.

67 points by jawngee 13y ago

Nanzikambe 13y ago

The important bit for the rest of us: Mac OS 10.9 or later LMK when it runs on something open source.

mappum 13y ago

The title made me think it was going to somehow be a vi-based editor (and that sounds like a good idea).

protomyth 13y ago
Try Avid, those folks are scary fast on the keyboard.

zyang 13y ago

Not a replacement for final cut pro, but definitely handy for making quick music driven videos. Definitely will give it a try.

jawngee 13y ago
Definitely not intended to replace Final Cut Pro. Let me know how it goes!

philmcc 13y ago

This is a clever solution to this problem, and there are instances where this could be helpful. However, if you happen to be attached to FCP, and have basic rhythm, you can perform a more controlled version of this process in either FCP7 or FCPX using MultiClip/Multicam Editing. http://youtu.be/kmFmyXWaQHM?t=3m27s http://youtu.be/kmFmyXWaQHM?t=3m27s Using keyboard commands, in real time you can cut between up to 16 different video clips. I basically play my keyboard like a drumset, and the result is video that is synced to the audio, and allows more artistic choice over the content selection.

demallien 13y ago

Ahhh, very cool! If you want to sell about 10 times more though, make it capable of exporting to iMovie...

jacobolus 13y ago

This is a cool idea, but I must admit, I find the example video basically unwatchable, with the way it cuts back and forth so much. They might take longer, but I would expect “a moderately skilled person in the use of Final Cut or Adobe Premiere” to create a dramatically better final output.

aagd 13y ago
thought so, too.
l33tbro 13y ago
Yup. You should change that.
taude 13y ago
I thought the pacing of the start of the video with the super slow titling and effects was enough to keep me from wanting to watch the rest of the video. Internet ADD, gotta get to the point quicker. Having edited some documentary films, though, I could see this as a useful tool for a preliminary cut facilitator of some types of montage scenes...

quadrangle 13y ago

This stupid site can't even show plain text without JavaScript.

cjensen 13y ago

Watching on my Mac Mini, some of the Video cuts are late. Your mind is used to light being received in your eyes prior to sound hitting your ears. When cutting, you should emulate that by cutting the video slightly early.

Synaesthesia 13y ago
Yeah, maybe bring the video just 1 frame earlier, before that drumbeat.

madlag 13y ago

There's an iPhone app, Replay, that does something similar: automatic music/video tagging to build a video "counterpoint". Of course it's more limited, as it's intended for general public, but the Epic theme is quite convincing. Disclaimer: I am CTO @ Stupeflix.

errantspark 13y ago

"For a moderately skilled person in the use of Final Cut or Adobe Premiere, this might have taken anywhere from a day to three days. In VIX, it took about an hour" I'm not sure where you got your definition of moderately skilled from, because the very first video I ever made in Final Cut (or maybe it was AE) was pretty similar to this (dubstep, cuts to music) and it took me about 3 hours to edit together. I would consider myself a total noob, I didn't know a single keyboard shortcut. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK--TtQtVk8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK--TtQtVk8 Considering the difference of work speed between a program where I know the hotkeys for everything and a program that I'm unfamiliar with I can't help but extrapolate that this sort of editing would take at most ~30m with a reasonably optimized workflow using existing software. Anyone care to disillusion me?

jawngee 13y ago
I've been editing video for 15+ years now, sometimes professionally, sometimes not. I mean Ridley Scott is not going to be hiring me to cut Prometheus 2 or anything like that but ... I have cut stuff that was in two AMA award shows, a cannibal corpse video that aired on MTV, a lot of previz for larger raves in the late 90's, a lot of the videos I do for experience retail installs now and a couple of years writing custom plug-ins (mostly for AE) for a post shop. This is also my second video editor, the first one being Shave (http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/shave_video_review http://www.maclife.com/article/reviews/shave_video_review) - which, unfortunately, got obsoleted with Mavericks (thanks Apple!). Each of these videos I was cutting, which lead me to write VIX in the first place, are composed of anywhere from 25 to 60+ individual shots, sequenced into anywhere from 120-423 individual edits, depending on the effect we were going for. There is no way you are going to do that in 3 hours and end up with something near finished. You would be making, taking the average of 151 edits, 0.8 edits per minute for 180 minutes straight. The video you linked to had ~20 edits, discounting the time ramping/remapping you were doing. So I would expect that would take you 3 hours. The video linked to in the blog post consists of 30 shots and 292 edits. Now on the other end of the spectrum, this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs9ut-gbYUU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hs9ut-gbYUU consists of 8 or 9 edits. I started it in VIX, built the structure in about 5 minutes and then finished in FCP and AE. So the edit itself took maybe 10 minutes, but an additional day of post work because the camera man who shot it had no idea what he was doing (it was our first shoot, so I wasn't as hands on as I should have been and was far too trusting than I should have been). I mean motion tracking to stabilize footage, they shot it at 30fps, so I had to optical flow it down to slow mo and then paint out distortions from that in photoshop, etc. The color wash and light leaks isn't there for aesthetics, it's there to distract you from the crappy camera work. It was a major pita. I posted the beta to /r/editors on Reddit last week I think and got a ton of feedback from the pro's that hang out there, plus got a lot of input from people I've worked with who do post professionally/commercially, so it wasn't entirely developed in a void. I don't think it's the panacea of video editors though, but it is is a pretty cool creative tool that supplants FCP or AE. You won't edit a movie with it, but a music video, club video, behind the scenes video, skateboarding video, one guy from reddit was using it for wedding videos even. For that type of work, and of course I am totally biased, I can't see myself starting it in FCP. Finishing in FCP? Yes, for sure. But not starting, VIX is too fast to get to a good rough point. Also, it's free. :) Well exporting to AE and FCP might be in app purchases for $5-$10, I haven't decided yet. The magazine and the publishing platform are my main biz, but I thought people would find this useful and/or fun. Do give it a spin though and let me know what you think!

moonlighter 13y ago

I’d be interested in how it’s built. What app frameworks did you use? Is it written in Objective C? Etc. Thanks!

jawngee 13y ago
Mostly Objective-C. Media via CoreVideo and AVFoundation. Document persistence through ModelKit (http://github.com/jawngee/ModelKit http://github.com/jawngee/ModelKit). UI mostly custom. Beat detection and BPM detection is C++. Interestingly, everything but UI should compile and work on iOS without much modification. Doubt I will ever take it there, but you never know.
- anewcolor 13y ago
  is the bpm / beat detection home grown code?
  - jawngee 13y ago
    Yup.
- thinkersilver 13y ago
  This is such a brilliant idea! It'd be also interesting to extract other features from videos such as colour profiles , face detection and movements of objects in the frame and camera movements. They don't need to be accurate but hints; then use the profile to control the mood of the video. An example may be,to start of with cool edits at the beginning then gradually progress to the warmer clips.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

mcphilip 13y ago

FYI, when I see VIX, I think of the volatility index. A quick google search shows this is overwhelmingly the case. A name change to something more distinct could help with exposure. Good luck!

mitchellh 13y ago
And when I see VIX, I think the VMware VIX API: https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vix-api/ https://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vix-api/ But, I don't think it actually matters. Finance vs. Virtualization vs. Video editing are all pretty separate areas of interest, and I imagine anyone in any of those areas would know what they're looking for.

wavesum 13y ago

Whoa. I've had similar ideas on my own, and now it seems they weren't so unique after all. I'm founder of Wavesum which is focused on music analysis algorithms and their applications. Would be cool to compare our beat tracking algos. Lots of love and ramen was put into ours.