finite9 said:
Best bet if you do not need/film in widescreen is to try Main Actor. It's not free but it's better designed than Cinelerra.
I tried Main actor, and then was considering purchasing it... And then they decided to stop releasing it or supporting it. See this post http://www.mainconcept.com/site/index.php?id=15
I did try it out, and it was fair, but not premiere by any stretch.
I have been playing with cinelerra and Kdenlive mostly, and can do basic editing with them, but not the advanced stuff I would like to do. Kdenlive is growing pretty well, but the titler has no centering ability which drives me nuts when titling. Cinelerra doesn't allow filters to only cover part of the clips (such as blurring to get rid of text, etc), and while kdenlive can do blurring on a small area, it has very few effects overall. I haven't been able to do a proper picture in picture effect in either of them.
If anyone out there wants to start up a petition or something to get main actor released open source, I'd be happy to help out. I don't think it is likely to succeed, based on the creators post, but if anyone wants to try, I'm in.
As for the other programs:
Kino - Great for importing the video. Too basic besides that (comparable to imovie and windows movie maker) Lives: tried it a little, but couldn't really find the tools I needed. Jashaka: Once again, tried it a little, but the concepts didn't click for me, and I hate not being able to razor in the timeline itself (which I can't seem to do in Cinelerra also - so if anyone knows how, I'd love to find out, as well as drag and dropping the clips to move them in the timline). The layers concept is interesting, but I don't think it is all that great. Main Actor - As I mentioned, it's discontinued. Kdenlive - from the ashes of diva comes the next big hope. Supposedly .5 will be out soon. It seems to show major promise, and razors in the timeline, etc.
Due to my experience with premiere, I figured out cinelerra pretty easily, but I also don't like the way you make media clips, and then they have no thumbnail.
I need to sit down one of these days, learn to program, and help out the projects. It's just that real life commitments always get in the way. In the long run, I think kdenlive shows the most promise, as cinelerra doesn't seem to get updated much, and now that main actor is no more.
Just my thoughts, I wish you the best of luck. It seems that a lot of people are having the same problem. These programs are great, but take a lot of hard work. Unless someone knows of a good corporate sponsor with money to throw around, I think we'll just have to be patient... and dual boot for those really tricky jobs.