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We shut down at lunchtime next Friday and return on the 2nd
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Obscurum per obscurius.
Ad astra per alas porci.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur .
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Worked at a auto part manufacturer that shut down between Christmas and New Years but did maintenance so IT may or may not have to go in.
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I voted this article a 2 originally as i did not think the implementation was well done: RS Focus Component[^]. I also provided detailed reasons for this.
After further investigation I noticed that the project relied on a closed source dll, which is against the CodeProject Contributors Agreement[^] to post closed-source libraries:
Note: As a consequence of the frequent virus infections across the internet, CodeProject will no longer accept binary submissions that do not contain full source code, unless the submission is from a recognised company or institution. Shareware or time-limited submissions will not be accepted.
Also after downgrading my vote to one and explaining this, Rameez Raja then proceeded to down vote other articles of mine with comments such as "..."
Kris
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Some people think of ratings as a game that you are trying to maximise your score in, so they get very offended when you downvote them. Just ignore or use 'report abuse' on abusive retaliatory downvotes on your own articles.
He'll find that annoying you enough to get you to post in the Lounge attracts a few more downvoters though. I don't understand how that article could be rated over 4.5 (as it was before I voted), even not counting the issue you raise here it is poorly written and shallow in content. It must be his mates voting, perhaps ratings on articles shouldn't show until they have (say) 20 ratings.
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I know what you mean by the game, but I think that this retaliation behaviour goes against what CodeProject stands for, people attacking others for down voting just discourages down voting in the first place!
I think people should vote how they want to vote (down or up), as long as the person provides reasoning, and gives an open chance of discussion, and, also, the opportunity to change their vote based on the authors response (either reasoning or changing the article).
Unfortunately, not all think this way.
Kris
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I had no idea the article relied on a closed-source component. I'm going to investigate further and change my vote if necessary.
/ravi
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i00 wrote: I think that this retaliation behaviour goes against what CodeProject stands for
While I can certainly understand your frustration, it seems as though this thread is a bit of retaliation.
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Yes ... it does get to me, but only because the author has not
provid[ed] reasoning, and gives an open chance of discussion, and, also, the opportunity to change their vote based on the authors response (either reasoning or changing the article).
I posted several informative posts on his article, and provided code examples of how the project could have been improved.
Kris
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I'm sorry you are having this problem !
I do think the place to report, and discuss, this kind of problem is the "Spam and Abuse Watch Forum" [^].
"What Turing gave us for the first time (and without Turing you just couldn't do any of this) is he gave us a way of thinking about and taking seriously and thinking in a disciplined way about phenomena that have, as I like to say, trillions of moving parts.
Until the late 20th century, nobody knew how to take seriously a machine with a trillion moving parts. It's just mind-boggling." Daniel C. Dennett
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Thanks for pointing this out to me, I don't use the forums bit much (basically use it to comment on articles).
I did look for something like this, but only under the drop-down menus @ the top... didn't realise the item on the left menu, I think that it should also be under the "Help" menu.
Kris
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The article is now deleted. Thanks to my Gold Author Rep he lost a lot of his *oh-so-precious* points.
Something has backfired, I guess.
Veni, vidi, caecus
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Looks like the user has been vanished...
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Snoda, appropriate is.
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I can't wait until it snows!
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Obscurum per obscurius.
Ad astra per alas porci.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur .
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Just don't stand outside or it could be a picture of you!
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Most of us work a regular job to pay the bills but typically have a few side projects going on as well. Usually, they're fun. Rarely, if ever, do they translate into serious, buy-a-beach-house-and-a-new-Corvette money.
As you know, the past couple of years I've started getting into video production. There are three major players for software. Apple, with Final Cut Pro (FCP), Avid, with Media Composer (MC) and Adobe, with Premiere Pro (PP), not to mention After Effects, etc. All are pro level products. None are inexpensive. But these are your choices.
With FCP X, Apple alienated its pro user base by revamping the product to be more consumer oriented. There was a major uproar over this. Adobe recently ended perpetual licensing and switched to pure subscription, with an unusual twist. Unlike MSDN, if you stop paying at the end of the year, you can no longer use the software. You have to pay them monthly for the rest of your life, or you lose your software.
Avid's MC is twice the price of PP (and I've heard even buggier, which stretches the imagination given how unstable PP is). They're the only company that hasn't actively screwed their customer base, but Avid is a company who's not doing so well. I would be nervous (and have a big dent in my bank account) if I converted to them.
If you want to produce professional grade video for movies, TV, or even the web, these are your choices. All of them are bad. I got screwed by Adobe to the point that I might have even considered buying a Mac but for the FCP X debacle. Avid isn't terribly appealing, but if I want to move into the future (and own my software license), they're all that's left.
Hence my question. It's very rare that a window opens up in the software world where there's an actual business opportunity with a proven ability to make money that isn't locked up by major players. At the moment, there's a huge opportunity for software to serve the pro video market, and nobody's filling it. We're talking buy-a-dozen-beach-houses-and-a-herd-of-new-Corvettes money here.
This isn't an easy project. To support all the audio and video formats, offer support for existing third party plugins, implement both video editing and motion graphics (AE) programs, etc. is a lot of work. There's also the reality that upon release, many will pirate your work instead of paying you for it. However, Apple, Adobe and Avid have made a ton of money even with the cracked versions floating around.
This isn't a program you could write overnight, but there's a huge market out there. Furthermore, if you build something good, we'll not only happily give you our money and tell our friends about you, we'll likely erect a statue in your honor while we're doing it. This market desperately needs a new solution at this price point.
Could I write this myself? Absolutely. However, I have two new books on the street, speaking gigs to promote, a new show band I'm putting together and a couple of other longstanding weekly commitments. I simply don't have the bandwidth.
And so, as a video guy who has access to an extremely powerful collection of pro software developers, I ask - is anyone interested in going after this pile of money, and helping the video guys out in the process?
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Am I (like any other developer) interested in making a pile of money? Hell yes.
Is what you are talking about, being able to compete with the likes of Adobe or pro-grade video software, within the reach of the lone developer. I highly doubt it.
So where does that leave somebody wanting to take on this venture? Start a company, hire developers, and get coding. I'm guessing the first release would be 2 years off, and in this time the company is burning cash without income. They have to buy standards, they have to buy codec licenses, they have to pay overhead, etc. The only chance here is an angel investor or somebody with deep pockets and a lot of patience. Video editing software isn't like a new CRM, its a lot more complicated.
Then, even after 2 years of hard development, you release a "no-name" product to the world. You're price point will have to be low enough to capture interest while at the same time not pricing so low that you're seen as "cheap". This puts your ROI years off while still having to start immediately on Version 2.
I just don't see this kind of thing making anybody piles of money for somebody who doesn't have a name behind it...
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I spent 8 months writing a media projection app for a company in MediaCityUK
Doing video rendering well (with associated transforms, filtering, etc) is **hard**.
So that's probably the reason why there are so few players, and their products are expensive and slightly buggy.
Or, maybe I'm just not that good. :p
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I would be up for it but I can't work with anyone in a Show Band, sorry.
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I hate to be the pessimist (no, actually I don't mind), but I don't think a one-man team could pull it off. Oh they could probably make video editing software, but it would take too long. So long that the entire video editing landscape will have changed by then, making the product obsolete at launch.
Or they could cut corners and not take so long, but then the result will be a low-quality turd.
By the way, if anyone's going to do this, I'll be available to do asm optimizations. For free, unless it takes too much time.
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How much money do you have to finance this endeavor? (this is no small task if you build it from the ground up...)
You forgot to factor in all the licensing costs you will have to pay for the use of various formats also. Licensing costs for this type of product are a major factor in this.
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Christopher Duncan wrote: Could I write this myself? Absolutely. Not.
"What Turing gave us for the first time (and without Turing you just couldn't do any of this) is he gave us a way of thinking about and taking seriously and thinking in a disciplined way about phenomena that have, as I like to say, trillions of moving parts.
Until the late 20th century, nobody knew how to take seriously a machine with a trillion moving parts. It's just mind-boggling." Daniel C. Dennett
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Christopher Duncan wrote: Why aren't you writing pro video editing software?
'Cos all the pr0n I watch is already nicely edited.
Move along there, nothing to see here.
(Friday afternoon syndrome)
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There are some alternatives...
LightWorks is a major player with pro editors. A few motion pictures have been done on it and it continues to pick up penetration each year. It isn't poised to knock off any of the ones you mentioned but then again Google didn't start out with 100% market share either.
The regular version (which is fairly capable and will teach you the basics) is free while there is a pro version that will set you back a massive $60 USD/yr.
LightWorks uses a different paradigm than the standard timeline-based editors and it definitely takes some getting used to. However, I think it is a good setup and once I learned it I think it has some advantages in the way the workflow is setup. I suggest giving it a look if you are tired of getting screwed by the big 3.
As for my rant...
As a developer, I think we sometimes walk around feeling like we are holding the hammer and every problem is a nail. In our limited exposure to any market, we think that there is a glaring gap that hasn't yet been filled or a major business opportunity that we can quickly write a script for and head for the sand. But any serious business venture starts out with lots and lots of research to understand the need, the opportunity, and to validate our ideas and assumptions before we even start a line of code. I'm not suggesting what you propose can't be done... quite the opposite. But I'm not sure that an enthusiastic posting on a coding site is the best start to a massive software project. (Unless you are looking for people to shoot you down... )
Many, many great software projects start with someone that sees a need and writes something that fills a void. I certainly think what you propose is possible and I hope you really can get something going, get some momentum, and release something useful and timely. But having been involved with some of this startup kind of stuff for a few years, I suggest making sure you know everything there is to know about the NLE segment... who the players are, what the advantages and disadvantages are of each, and get an idea of what your solution will do and what it will offer.
I also suggest starting SMALL and getting something out the door quick and into people's hands. Yes... they may blast it as useless for their needs but they will provide useful feedback. Your best ideas will come from your users who approach the problem without preconceived notions about what your software should or shouldn't do. Maybe write something that will let you import clips, set trim points, and render an output. Ensure you get over that minimum level of functionality before you take on the big boys.
Good luck!
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