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Ask HN: Lisp Based Video Editing?

9 points by emaro ↗ HN
Hi HN,

I've an assignment to make a instruction video in my class. I'd like to try out creating the video with a programming language. I remember that one I saw a lisp based video creation/editing/animation software here on HN.

My internet searches in the last hour only yielded https://lang.video. What I search is pretty similar. However it had a very beautiful UI and could be used/tested directly in the browser.

I loved that software and I remember that the creator(s) also made a small game, a text editor for macOS and some other stuff. Each application was minimalistic and themeable with the same theme-specification, also created by them.

Sadly I don't remember the name and can't find it in my notes or with my internet search engines.

Does anyone know the one I seek or other video editing programming languages or DSLs?

12 comments

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CinematicStudio
I'm curious why you'd actually want to go through the pain of using a programming language to do this. I think there's a reason why this isn't popular -- video editing is insanely hard if you want something non trivial, and basically doing this in a programming language is sort of doing Assembly compared to doing C#.
emaro
Yeah, I'm aware, that this is probably not the most effective way. I'm mainly curious and now I've an opportunity to try it.

Chances are, that I return to classic graphical video editing if it doesn't work. I think an instruction video could be possible to 'code', because you can build it with basic shapes, animations and text--if you want to explain something, you need to keep it simple anyway.

brudgers
There’s ffmpeg. It’s scriptable, mature and robust. I think KdenLive generates scripts and then renders from them.

Most programming language support for video editing is a wrapper around it.

CinematicStudio
I agree you need to keep it simple, for sure. But if you don't have a WhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet editor, you'll need to regenerate your video countless times until you get it right. That's the only issue I have with it - but clearly, if you wanna do it like this, suit yourself :D

As a side note, I'm working on a video editor, and what I'm working on now, is the ability to add shapes (amongst other things :D) and have an insanely easy way to animate them.

psyklic
Many creative coding libraries directly support (or have extensions for) exporting your animation to a video. For example you may want to look at Processing, Nannou (Rust), openFrameworks (C++), and Cinder (C++). Many of these also support audio and playing back other videos in your animation.