It was announced in April that Lightworks, the high-end editing application favored by Oscar-winning editor Thelma Schoonmaker, was going open source. They've now delivered on their promise, with a free open source beta now available. At the same time, The Foundry, best known for their high-end compositing application Nuke, have released a free public beta of their forthcoming RED post-production solution Storm.
In the case of Storm, the program is currently in public beta and will cost $375 when it ships around March 2011. In the case of Lightworks (which has been used to edit features like Pulp Fiction and The Departed), it is free now and for the forseeable future. For more on Storm, see Scott Simmons' post at ProVideo Coalition. For more on Lightworks, here's the word from the company:
From here forward, you will always be able to download and use the latest version of Lightworks for free. Some time in the middle of 2011, we hope to reach our next milestone -- releasing the source code to any developer who wants to build upon what we started. We wish we were ready to do that now. However, before we can release any source, we have several hundred thousand lines of code to review to make sure it's all cleared for opening up. We are making progress but we are not there yet.
In the meantime, we invite you to get familiar with Lightworks, an Academy and Emmy award winning professional-grade editor with over 20 years of history in the film and broadcast industry. Having cut hundreds of films such as Pulp Fiction, The Departed, Centurion and Shutter Island, it includes a full feature set of editorial tools -- from advanced trimming and media management, to stereoscopic support and realtime effects including multiple secondary colour correctors. Lightworks has an advanced effects pipeline, utilizing the power of your GPU. And with support for up to 2K workflows with realtime effects, it is the most advanced editing application available.
Here's a look at Storm's Magic Bullet-like looks presets:
Lightworks is Windows-only and Storm is Mac-only.
Link: Lightworks
Link: Storm
[Thanks, Alban]
