Frei0r - a minimalistic plugin API for video effects
Frei0r is a minimalistic plugin API for video sources and filters. The behaviour of the effects can be controlled from the host by simple parameters. The intent is to solve the recurring reimplementation or adaptation issue of standard effects.
Frei0r is not meant as a generic API for all kinds of video applications.
There is no support for the requirements of special application areas like non linear editors, hardware accelerated shader effects, and high precision video processing. These advanced issues are not even solved satisfactory for non cross application plugin apis and are still an evolving field.
The frei0r API is not meant to be a competing standard to more ambitious efforts.
Get involved
There is a mailing list for frei0r issues.
A searchable list archive is hosted at Gmane.
Specification
The current frei0r api specification is located here.
The spec for the old 1.0 version is still available.
Plugins
Here is the main collection of frei0r plugins from several developers:
http://git.dyne.org/index.cgi?url=frei0r/log/.
You can fetch the repository using git:
git clone git://code.dyne.org/frei0r.git
A daily snapshot of the repository is generated here :
http://www.piksel.no/frei0r/snapshot/frei0r-latest.tar.gz
Also check FreshMeat.net
for updates and info on the latest releases.
Please use the frei0r Bug Tracker to search for or report bugs.
Binaries:
Binary packages for Ubuntu are now kindly provided by the
Akirad repository.
Here's how to install the plugins on Ubuntu Hardy:
sudo wget http://akirad.cinelerra.org/dists/hardy.list -O /etc/apt/sources.list.d/akirad.list
wget -q http://akirad.cinelerra.org/dists/akirad.key -O- | sudo apt-key add - && sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install frei0r-plugins
Hosts
The following video applications support loading frei0r effects.
Drone is an open source software for digital and
interactive arts. It allows design of realtime signal processing machines for video and audio
through a generic data flow interface.
GePhex is an interactive effect system for video jockeys.
The effects can be controlled with external devices like joysticks, web-cams, or midi-devices.
New effects can be designed in a GUI by composing basic effects into more complex ones.
MøB is an environment for installations and realtime
multimedia manipulation in GNU/Linux-based networks.
LiVES is a Video Editing System. LiVES is aimed at the digital video artist who wants to
create their own content, the video editor who wants to produce professional looking video, and the VJ who wants to captivate with spectacular images.
Veejay is a visual instrument and realtime video sampler It allows you to "play" the video like you would play
a piano. While playing, you can record the resulting video directly to disk (video sampling).
Open Movie Editor is designed to be a simple tool, that provides basic movie making capabilities.
It aims to be powerful enough for the amateur movie artist, yet easy to use.
FreeJ is a vision mixer: an instrument for realtime video manipulation used in the fields
of dance teather, veejaying, medical visualisation and TV.
The pdvjtools is a bunch of externals meant to be helpful for the visual work in puredata (PD).
DVEdit leverages the power of Python to enable rapid
production of video media via Python script files.
MLT is an open source multimedia framework, designed and developed for television broadcasting.
It provides a toolkit for broadcasters, video editors, media players, transcoders,
web streamers and many more types of applications.
The functionality of the system is provided via an assortment of ready to use tools,
xml authoring components, and an extendible plug-in based API.
Kdenlive is a free open-source video editor for GNU/Linux and FreeBSD, which supports DV,
AVCHD (experimental support) and HDV editing. Kdenlive relies on several other open source projects,
such as FFmpeg and MLT video framework. Our software was designed to answer all needs,
from basic video editing to semi-professionnal work
License
Frei0r is released under the terms of the GPL - GNU General Public Licence v.2 and later.
Some of the plugins in the distribution package are released under the LGPL license, but we encourage the use of GPL also for plugins.
Credits
The frei0r api was designed by Georg Seidel,
Phillip Promesberger and Martin Bayer at the Piksel meeting
in Bergen. The design ideas were influenced by the experience with our own internal api
and the cross application efforts like livido and
freeframe.
Carlo Prelz contributed many refinements during his
implementation of the frei0r loader for the MøB Application.
Gisle Frøysland from BEK
organised the Piksel meeting in Bergen and is now sponsoring
the virtual home of the frei0r project.
