LiVES, an old and less known video editor for those who are still looking for alternatives

Lives

When we think about editing a video, as long as we don't already have a favorite option, the first step is to think about which editor we are going to use. This can be quite a nightmare, and the nightmare is even more severe when we use a Linux in which we have Kdenlive, Openshot, Cinelerra, Olivia available ... I choose Kdenlive because it never fails me and because there are tutorials to do practically anything, but it doesn't hurt to try other alternatives like Lives.

Many of you will probably read about this video editor for the first time, but it's not new. Its first version was released more than 17 years ago and this week version 3.0.1 of the software has been released, the first maintenance update for series 3. LiVES has everything we need to make our videos just as we expect, but it is true that it could be more intuitive. Perhaps that is why he is not as famous as some of his "colleagues."

LiVES, an old rocker capable of everything ... if you get used to using it

LiVES is available in package form for many Linux distributions, among which are Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora, Suse, Gentoo, Slackware, Arch Linux, Mandriva and Mageia. In some distributions, such as Ubuntu and its derivatives, it is available in the official repositories, so its installation is as simple as going to the software center, searching for "lives" and installing the editor or opening a terminal and typing "sudo apt install lives »without the quotes. If we do it like this, we will install LiVES version 2.10.x, but we can use the UbuntuHandbook repository to install LiVES 3.0.1:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/lives
sudo apt update
sudo apt install lives lives-plugins

Once installed, we can run LiVES like any other application, from the app launcher of our distribution (or by typing "lives" without the quotes in the terminal). The first time we run it, from an icon that shows that it is very old and could be improved, the configuration wizard starts:

  1. We indicate a path where the projects will be saved. It is recommended to leave the default path.
  2. It does some tests to see if we can run the program (Next).
  3. We indicate which audio server we are going to use.
  4. And we choose the interface between multitrack and Clip Edit Mode.

If we want to make sure that what we add to the project does not fail us, we must add it from the File / Open file or directory menu. If we drag them to the window, at least in my case, it fails. LiVES has all kinds of tools and effects and version 3.0 came with these new features:

  • Render a silence at the end of the video if necessary during rendering.
  • Improvements to the openGL Playback Plugin, including much smoother playback.
  • Re-enable Advanced Options for the openGL Playback Plugin.
  • Allows "Enough" in VJ / Pre-decode all frames.
  • Refactoring code for timebase calculations during playback (better a / v sync).
  • Review external audio and audio recording to improve accuracy and use fewer CPU cycles.
  • Automatic switching to internal audio when entering multitack mode.
  • Displays the correct status of the effects (on / off) by redisplaying the effect mapper window.
  • Eliminates some race conditions between audio and video threads.
  • Online video downloader improvements, clip size and format can now be selected by adding an upgrade option.
  • Reference counting has been implemented for real-time effect instances.
  • The main interface has been extensively rewritten, cleaning up the code and making many visual improvements.
  • Optimized recording when video generators are running.
  • Improvements to the projectM filter wrapper, including SDL2 support.
  • Added an option to reverse Z order in multitrack composer (back layers can now overlap front ones).
  • Added support for musl libc.
  • Updated translations for Ukrainian

Available at the end of the year for Windows

Like Kdenlive and other open-source editors for Linux, LiVES will make the leap to Windows later this year. Personally, I am a person who does not like changes, I prefer to become a software and use it until it fails, so I will continue with Kdenlive on Linux and Windows (iMovie on macOS), but this is an option whose trajectory, at least in terms of seniority, supports him. What do you think of LiVES?


Be the first to comment

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked with *

*

*

  1. Responsible for the data: AB Internet Networks 2008 SL
  2. Purpose of the data: Control SPAM, comment management.
  3. Legitimation: Your consent
  4. Communication of the data: The data will not be communicated to third parties except by legal obligation.
  5. Data storage: Database hosted by Occentus Networks (EU)
  6. Rights: At any time you can limit, recover and delete your information.