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Thursday, September 08, 2011

Phase Two of the Lightworks Open Source Project

EditShare, developers of the Lightworks Open Source video editor, have announced the "next phase" of the project. While users will continue to be able to download the free version, phase two will add new features that will only be available for an annual "membership fee." This fee is $30 (£20, €25) for "educational" members, and $60 (£40, €50) for "professional" members. This fee is not unexpected since one of the new features is additional codec support, and licensing of these codecs from other organizations costs money.


The new features and capabilities will be available to Education and Professional Lightworks Members on 29th November 2011 and include:

Native support for professional codecs and other formats
  • ProRes
  • Red R3D
  • DPX
  • AVC-Intra
  • XDCAM HD and XDCAM EX
  • AVCHD / H.264
  • IMX
  • AVID DNxHD *
* Due to licensing restrictions, Avid DNxHD will be sold separately and available from the web store for $55 (£36, €45,). This is a one-off cost and not an annual subscription.

Interoperability
  • AAF (with presets for Avid and Pro Tools)
  • OMF
  • EDL
Lightworks Shared Projects
Multiple users can work simultaneously on the same Lightworks Project, collaborating on edits with fast, intuitive user permission controls.

Lightworks Titling
A new native Lightworks Titling tool with powerful, GPU-based rendering acceleration and real-time preview offers keyframing with animation and effects capabilities including; gradients, shadows, fade in and out, typewriter effect, rolls and crawls.

Stereoscopic Support
Lightworks has an unmatched stereoscopic workflow, with powerful, yet easy to use real-time adjustment tools and codec independent Import / Export options. You can also output Stereoscopic edits through your secondary display or HDMI port. Features include:
  • Import
  • Editing
  • Adjustment/correction
  • Export
Export to a wider range of formats including DVD and BluRay.

Integration with EditShare Flow (Asset Management) and Ark (Archiving):
Users can drag and drop clips, subclips and sequences directly from Flow into Lightworks. Through Flow Projects, assistants or archivists can also create Lightworks Projects directly in Flow and prepare media and bins for Lightworks Editors.

Hardware I/O Support
  • Matrox XMIO2, DSXLE2 and MXO2
  • Blackmagic Design
  • AJA *
  • DVS *
* Available early 2012

Tangent TUBE Support
Support for the new TUBE protocol gives editors full access to Tangent’s new line of Element control panels.

Lightworks - New Hardware
Also announced is a Lightworks Keyboard, available in English UK, English US, French, Spanish, German, Japanese and more, offers dedicated keys for just about every Lightworks function, as well as other useful shortcuts. The new Lightworks Keyboard, along with the existing Lightworks Console, will be available to purchase from the Lightworks web store on 29th November 2011. The new Lightworks Keyboard will retail for $140 (£95, €115), and the Lightworks Console for $2,800 (£1,850, €2,330).


Phase Three
The company plans to launch Phase Three at the end of 2011, offering the Lightworks editor for all three platforms; Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. They say that the first beta release is planned for 19th December 2011.

Phase Four, the rollout of the open source code to the entire community, is scheduled for completion in Q3 2012.

“Our original goal was to complete the roll out of Lightworks Open Source this year, but we had an overwhelming number of requests to support Mac OSX and Linux… so much so, that we re-organized our development efforts to ensure we deliver Lightworks Open Source for all three platforms,” says James Richings, Managing Director, EditShare EMEA. “While we are expanding the road map, we are already working with 3rd party manufacturers so we can support a wide-range of hardware devices and software plug-ins when Phase Four is complete.”

LightworksBeta: Lightworks Announcement
EditShare Posterous: EditShare reveals phase two of the #Lightworks Open Source initiative at #IBC 2011

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