Lightworks Hopes To Ship In November

Lightworks, the professional non-linear video editor (NLE) that was announced in April of 2010 it would be going open-source, is prepping for its next major milestone. The developers behind this award-winning video editor are getting their Mac OS X and Linux ports in order and hope to provide the next Lightworks release in late November.

Last November they released a Windows beta and the developers have been very busy since that point. "With input from Lightworks beta users, progress has been positive and rapid. Almost uniquely in the development of this type of application, there has been a constant dialogue between users and developers. In the nine months since we released the first beta version, there have been over 500 fixes and features implemented, not to mention the port to Linux and OSX and a major re-write of some core elements. Meanwhile, users have benefited from the focus, effectiveness and depth of Lightworks, all of which have grown during the beta program."

Among the films being edited on Lightworks are Hugo and The King's Speech. EditShare, the company behind this video editing software, is aiming for the official Lightworks open-source release on the 29th of November. When they do that, there will be a tiered membership. There will be a free membership option with some limitations, a $30 per year educational membership level, or a $60 per year professional membership. The two paid levels allow unrestricted access to all of what Lightworks has to offer.

The paid levels make it possible to take use of professional codecs and other formats, some of which where EditShare is responsible for royalties to the vendor. The paid levels also provide support for shared projects, titling, Stereoscopic support, DVD and BluRay exporting, integration with EditShare Flow and Ark, and Tangent TUBE Support.

EditShare is also working on a dedicated controller device for the video editor and a specialized Lightworks keyboard.

While the official Lightworks release is expected on 29 November, the Mac OS X and Linux beta releases will be coming a few weeks after that. EditShare has the planned Linux / Mac OS X release set for 19 December 2011. Also targeted for the last quarter of the year is XDCAM HD / EX support, native titling, interoperability improvements, and AVC-Intra support. In H1'2012, EditShare is aiming for full 64-bit support, AJA I/O support, new effects, audio plug-ins, remote editing, and other enhancements.

EditShare hasn't yet released the code to Lightworks but have pledged to push out this new code soon.

Read more in this company post.