Kino 1.0.0 "Stick a fork in it" Released
What is in a release name?
This is the first time Kino has named a release. For those not familiar with the expression, see what Urban Dictionary has to say.
Well now, you ask, "what is that supposed to mean for Kino?" Basically, it means that I am done working on it. Well, mostly. I am done working on the functionality. To some, a 1.0 release is the dawn of a new era--where work towards the next major release begins that often involves re-design, re-engineering, and re-factoring. I am not saying that work towards another major release will not ever happen with myself as the lead developer and maintainer. However, I do not plan to for at least a year.
To some, a 1.0 software release implies a level of interface stability, mainly in the context of a library. This is more of the situation. Kino 1.0 is something to build upon in terms of documentation, language translations, and screencast tutorials. Also, I will still work on critical bug fixes or try to keep it current with dependencies. I have setup a nice online, collaborative docbook-editing site for those willing to help. It supports different Latin1 languages for those wanting to translate the user guide.
So, the tongue-in-cheek release name also means if you want to see Kino forge ahead or in a different direction, then you must fork it. Yes, that's right, I invite you to fork this code! But, I don't recommend it; it's not the most beautiful code or architecture. You see, I get feedback that Kino is not good enough or needs a multitrack timeline with editable effects. Well, I agree those things are desirable, but Kino was never designed to do that. In fact, there was very little thought put into design and architecture, which limited its capacity. All I have tried to do over the past couple of years was to turn it into a good basic-level editor. I am confident a useful intermediate-level Free Software editor is just around the corner.
Am I defeated, as the Urban Dictionary definition #2 describes? Well, yes and no. I am still happy to work on Kino in its current form, but I want to be a part of the effort for an intermediate-level editor. I do feel defeated trying to tackle that alone. There is no good reason Kino has to raise to that level when there are plenty of other efforts already in progress.
In 2004, Kino co-developer, Charlie Yates, and I created the MLT and Miracle projects under contract. We were excited with the results in only 6 short months, and we believed it could be the subsystem for a Kino 2. Charlie went on to develop two editing GUIs atop it that, at least, proved the concept. In 2006, kdenlive abandoned the piave engine and adopted MLT. I am returning to work on MLT to support kdenlive since its latest version shows much promise. This is not a conscious move away GTK+/GNOME; my emphasis is on MLT (and a possible gstreamer integration).
Yours truly, Dan Dennedy, lead developer of Kino
Download the source tarball (5.2MB).
Visit the website for more info and forums.
Release Notes
- New http://blip.tv/ uploading feature for movies and still frames! See http://kino.blip.tv/ for more information.
- Fixed audio handling on big endian CPU architectures (thanks, Pavel Fedin)
- Improved generic video import script when using mencoder: faster, no bulky intermediate file, less compatibility problem between mencoder and ffmpeg, and retains interlacing in ITU-R 601 sources
- Added support for X-Keys Editor USB Jog/Shuttle (thanks, Shawn Rutledge)
- Added support for Jog/Shuttle to FX (jog wheel and button actions that scrub only--no shuttle ring support)
- The USB Jog/Shuttle hotplug integration was changed to use udev
- Added private copy of ffmpeg source code for static linking with new configure options: --enable-local-ffmpeg(=yes by default), or --disable-local-ffmpeg
- Updated Italian translation
- bugfixes, of course