Novacut is a new Free/Open Source project that aims to create a new type of video editor, one that embodies the ideals of the FLOSS community and makes collaboration easier. Basically, it will enable a team to collaboratively edit a video from where ever they are while working on the same version of the source files. It will be able to do this by using a combination of couchdb, Amazon S3 (and EC2 for rendering), GStreamer.
Why am I excited about this and telling you about it (and aside from them seeking donations via Kickstarter)? Because in their video (embedded below) they sold me with the promise that not only will artists be able to share their final product, but Novacut will also allow others to see the process that the creator took to make that product. In effect, the source files of the video. We have this for code, most definitely. We also are starting to have this more often for music with people uploading the individual tracks to community sites like ccmixter.org. But aside from really awesome projects like the Blender Foundation, there isn’t much of this for the video world.
Also, this is of special interest for those of you in the Ubuntu community because the developers for this project will be at the next UDS for Natty.
So, if you have the ability and the inclination, helping with this project is probably a worthy endeavor. Check out their Launchpad project and join the mailing list.
PS: Check out this great note from the lead developer about the response from the FLOSS community.
