How To Install the PiTiVi Video Editor in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (stable PPA)?

Video Editing in GNU/Linux has never been easy. Although not just me but anyone who's got a decent knowledge (like me) would agree to this, I think :). I don't know if the reason for this is because there are less "business" opportunities (is it?, really?) in the GNU world but this could well easily be due to the fact that almost all the widely used audio/video codecs these days are proprietary.

Since most of the GNU/Linux developers aren't that forgiving when it comes to dealing with proprietary software in general (I'm also a bit like that, but I love my movies too :P) because they're fighting to eliminate the "mindsets/believe system" behind software proprietary, or at least that's what we're told... so by creating a magnificent Video editor, can easily end up being a "helping hand" for the expansion of the proprietary codecs.

Anyhow, these days we're seeing a lot of new projects + the totally "free" multimedia codecs seems to be gaining some momentum such as Vorbis or Theora, etc, GNU/Linux will most definitely have a bright future concerning multimedia "without a doubt" :/.

In that sense, if you're searching for an excellent video editor for your PC/Laptop then PiTiVi is a pretty good one. Although in comparison with some other apps such as Openshot, etc PiTiVi does not have a lot of options yet it looks promising.

Main features...

*. Import/Export files.

*. Trim/Crop/Cut/Ripple, etc your video files with ease.

*. It uses the Gstreamer multimedia framework.

*. With PiTiVi you can also separately edit the audio file within the container format as well (Again, cut/paste/trim, volume settings, etc).

*. Zooming/Change playback speeds.

*. Mouse wheel integration for ease of control.

*. Generate video thumbnails (well it should!).

*. Although it's written in non vicious Python :P, but integrates with GTK written apps as well.

*. Well written user manual.

*. Save files in predefined settings (resolution/codec, etc).

*. Easy to use GUI... are just a few to mention.

As said this uses the Gstreamer, so any file that Gstreamer support you can import into PiTiVi. I'm not quite sure about other distributions but with Ubuntu you actually get the PiTiVi installed by default.

But whenever the developers release new features (lets say, while they're at "stable/beta" stages) then by installing it using the stable PPA you can get a taste of those features which is impossible with the official versions.

If interested, you can install PiTiVi 0.14.0 (the latest stable release) in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal by using the below command.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:pitivi/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pitivi

For 10.10 and 10.04 users, please use the below command instead.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gstreamer-developers/ppa
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pitivi