Install LiVES in Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (a Video Editing System for GNU/Linux)

LiVES is an advanced video editing system written in GTK+ toolkit designed to be used with GNU/Linux operating system (aimed at Gnome desktop, actually). From loading different types of video files to its GUI to editing them using a lot of effects, it is a small (needs about 23-24MB of downloading size) yet a powerful video editing application nonetheless.

It's a very flexible utility and can be controlled directly (other than in your PC of course) through a video sever as well. It uses the MPlayer (my favorite :D) as the multimedia decoding engine, although not always but I think as a result it must help to speed up things a bit since MPlayer rely on the FFMPEG libraries which are well known for their performance when comparing with other multimedia frameworks such as Gstreamer and Phonon (may not always be true, anyway). 

Lets have a look at few of the main features of LiVES Video Editor...

*. Any video format supported by MPlayer, you can use in LiVES (means a LOT :D).

*. Also supports editing Ogg-Vorbis and Theora (GNU licensed competing multimedia codecs).

*. Forward/Reverse playback.

It comes with a lots of features that can be a bit confusing if you aren't much of a video editing expert, like me :)...

*. Edit/Cut/Paste/Copy clips.

*. Record and save individual clips or frames.

*. Backup files in losseless formats.

*. Remotely stored file editing support.

*. It's very flexible and by using the the plugins API (written using C/C++), you can expand its features as well.

*. According to the LiVES features page, it now supports over 50 multimedia file types such as - mjpeg, mpeg4, mpeg1/2, h264, VCD, SVCD, DVD, ogg/mp4 ogm, Matroska mkv, dv, swf, Ogg Theora, Dirac, MNG, Snow, xvid, and even animated GIF and even PDF!.

*. Rotating/changing bit-rate, cropping, resizing and trimming videos with ease.

*. De-interlacing (using MPlayer's built in powerful features) and subtitle extracting/embedding.

*. Supports audio formats such as mp3, vorbis, mod, it, xm and wav files.

*. Extracting audio file from a video.

*. Automatic adjusting of audio speed when rendering.

*. Drag and drop support.

*. Live previews.

*. Lots of built in video effects such as - zooming, color cycling, panning, fade-in/fade-out frames and lots of real-time effects... are just a very few of its main features to mention.

If you use Ubuntu 11.04 Natty Narwhal (should work in 10.04 or 10.10) you can install LiVES Video Editor by entering the below command in your Terminal.

sudo apt-get install lives

That should do it. Enjoy!.