Everybody loves donkeys

I scraped myself along to the last regional Linux Users Group TechFest, suffering the effects of what felt like a hangover but without the beer.

I'm glad I did, as Dan Ellis gave a storming demonstration of the OpenShot video editor. This is exactly what I've been looking for: a simple iMoviesque interface without the learning-curve+complexity of an editor like Cinelerra.

The demo was excellent, showing all the key features of OpenShot (polished interface, easily applied effects & transitions, SVG titles which can be edited in Inkscape etc.). For the record OpenShot is written using Python on top of the MLT framework. There was even footage of a donkey, and as we all know, everybody loves donkeys.

A while back I did try Avidemux and KDEnlive but I fell out with both of them after they fell over. Apparently Ubuntu Linux Lucid Lynx 10.04 will be shipping with Pitivi, which elicited groans from the assembled throng though I've never dabbled personally.

I believe there's a process by which Ubuntu users can vote for packages to be included in the next release (Ubuntu brainstorming?), and with a vibrant user community, OpenShot's future looks promising. Who would have thought there'd be such competition in the land of Free Software?