getting started with Cinelerra

A couple of friends asked me about how to get started with Cinelerra. Here are a few techniques that have helped me:

Download and install the CV version of Cinelerra
As it is actively updated, the community version of Cinelerra is a good starting point:
http://cvs.cinelerra.org/getting_cinelerra.php

Run Cinelerra from a Terminal
Once you install it, run Cinelerra in a terminal, so you can see the error output. It will look like this:
[mule@ogre ~]# cinelerra
Cinelerra 2.1CV (C) 2006 Heroine Virtual Ltd.
Compiled on Mon Oct 8 23:47:21 EDT 2007

Cinelerra is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License,
and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under
certain conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for Cinelerra.
Render::run 1
Render::run 2
Render::run 3
Render::run 4
Render::run 5
Render::run 6
Render::run 7
Render::run 8
Render::run 8.1
Render::run 8.2
Render::run 8.3
Render::run 9
Render::run 10
x264 [info]: using cpu capabilities MMX MMXEXT SSE SSE2
x264 [info]: slice I:71 Avg QP: 2.00 size:199495 PSNR Mean Y:64.88 U:65.58 V:65.60 Avg:65.10 Global:65.06
x264 [info]: slice P:17600 Avg QP: 5.00 size: 3153 PSNR Mean Y:62.18 U:62.58 V:62.57 Avg:62.30 Global:62.12
x264 [info]: mb I I16..4: 41.8% 0.0% 58.2%
x264 [info]: mb P I16..4: 1.0% 0.0% 0.2% P16..4: 9.6% 0.2% 0.1% 0.0% 0.0% skip:89.0%
x264 [info]: SSIM Mean Y:0.9999576
x264 [info]: PSNR Mean Y:62.192 U:62.595 V:62.579 Avg:62.308 Global:62.131 kb/s:945.04

Read the Doc!
The most important step! As Cinelerra is a very powerful program, its functionality is very deep. Therefore, there is a lot to know about it. Read the documentation! If you don't read documentation, this program is not for you.
http://cvs.cinelerra.org/docs.php

A very nice beginner's guide written by Raffaella Traniello:
Cinelerra for Grandma

If Cinelerra Crashes
1) restart and select File -> Load from Backup
- This allows you to start where you left off
2) Check the buglist:
http://bugs.cinelerra.org/

Try Alternatives
If something doesn't work in the expected fashion:
1) Read the documentation (as above)
2) Try alternatives
For instance, if a file does not import in Cinelerra, convert it to a format that will! You can use ffmpeg to convert from any format to almost any format. Here is a sample ffmpeg command line to do this:
ffmpeg -i inputFile.containerFormat outputFile.containerFormat

For example
ffmpeg -i inputDvd.mpg outputQuicktime.mov

FFMPEG References
Nice howto: http://howto-pages.org/ffmpeg/
FFMPEG documentation: http://http//ffmpeg.sourceforge.net/documentation.php

Don't forget to read my Beginner's Guide to Exporting Video from Cinelerra!
/2007/06/beginners-guide-to-exporting-video-from.html

I hope this helps,
the mule

Quicktime for Linux compatibility chart

I spent Sunday afternoon and evening creating this compatibility chart for QT for Linux formatted files exported from Cinelerra. There are many compression schemes that can be used within this file format and I did not have a list to tell me what scheme works and what doesn't in Cinelerra and some default media players like Mplayer, Quicktime for Win and Windows Media Player 10. Hence the guide.

Enjoy!
html format
open office calc format

Beginner's Guide to Exporting Video from Cinelerra

Alright! I've just created a Beginner's Guide to Exporting Video from Cinelerra! In Cinelerra speak, "rendering" means exporting. I hope all you Cinelerra fans out there appreciate it! Please let me know how you like the doc.

:)
enjoy