New in Ardour 3

Video

Ardour 3 video support consists of two components. The little Harvid server imports video files and transcodes them using Ffmpeg into an optimized format for the player monitor. Harvid also provides thumbnails that appear in the video timeline and that are zoom-dependent: The higher the zoom, the more video frames appear.

The Xjadeo [6] player shows the transcoded video in sync with Ardour's timeline in a window (Figure 7) that you can find under Window | Video monitor . The player and the other aspects of the video functions were largely developed by Robin Gareus for the Ardour project.

Figure 7: The thumbnails in the timeline help provide guidance. The monitor at the lower right shows the video synced with Ardour's timeline.

Because the timeline renders the video down to single frames depending on the zoom level, you can build in sound events very nicely. Short videos can have sound added without needing a script. The software also allows setting marks for placing sound directly during playback, but in many cases the thumbnail reference is enough to find the proper place.

Filmmakers currently demand more than two stereo tracks in the soundtrack. All Ardour channels can be extended to up to 12 tracks. The master channel can then be set up for surround audio, whereby Ardour pops up a tool for spatial arrangement of sound.

Video editing or loading multiple videos aren't a possibility, however. The video function is primarily suited for dubbing previously edited videos.

However, you no longer need to integrate the soundtrack with the video using a program such as Kdenlive. Aside from the well-known export function for the audio mix, the project menu includes an entry that starts a video export function. Unfortunately, setting up the video function is not trivial. The "Getting the Video Function to Work" box explains how to do it.

Getting the Video Function to Work

Especially bumpy in our test was integrating the video system in Ardour. You need to add two symbolic links for an existing Ffmpeg installation (Listing 1). The Harvid app used by Ardour for its video thumbnails is available in most major distribution repositories, but not all. Fortunately, it is in Ubuntu.

To have a video player work in Ardour alongside the thumbnails, you need the Xjadeo player and its Xjremote controller installed at least as version 0.7. Ubuntu supplies version 0.7.7, so you should be okay. Detailed instructions for video processing are online in the Ardour manual [7].

Listing 1

Integrating Video

$ cd /usr/bin
$ sudo su
# ln -s ffprobe ffmpeg_harvid
# ln -s ffprobe ffprobe_harvid

Conclusion

Ardour 3 combines state-of-the-art functionality as well as stability, although it could do with a bit more of the latter. The program provides functionality for an absolutely professional approach to music production that can leave non-free software such as Bitwig Studio behind – at least for classical production of music played by hand.

No other Linux software lets you work as nicely and precisely on music recording. Ardour is a tool for users ranging from audiophiles recording albums on their hard drives, to bands who want to cut and mix their recordings precisely and without problems, to filmmakers who need a tool for perfect soundtracks.

Infos