====== Ardour3 + VideoTimeline -- Live System ======
Work in progress.. feel free to edit this wiki-page if you can improve it.
===== About =====
{{ :wiki:a3vtl3.png?300}}
//a3vtl.img// is a live-system to evaluate the [[wiki:a3vtl|Ardour3 video-timeline]]. Live-system - you run it from a [[wp>USB_flash_drive|USB flash drive]]. It won't touch your hard-disk and does not require installation.
It comes with a whole bunch of audio-software and can be used as //studio to go//, but you're better off to rely on a dedicated distribution for the latter (e.g. AVLinux, kxStudio, Ubuntu-Studio,...).
===== Prerequisites =====
* x86 compatible PC
* ≥ 1GB RAM
* USB-flash-drive ≥ 2GB
===== Installation =====
You need to write the disk-image to a raw-device (USB-stick, CF-CARD,..) that your computer can boot from.
**Doing that destroys all data that is on the USB-drive!**
- Download the disk-image [[http://rg42.org/d/a3vtl_20120805-1.img]] mirrored at [[http://robin.linuxaudio.org/a3vtl_20120805-1.img|linuxaudio.org]] (preferably download from the linuxaudio.org mirror - it offers better bandwidth and more simultaneous downloads).
- and write it to a USB-drive -- _not_ save it as file _on_ the USB-stick, but write it as disk-image
- boot from the USB-device
Regarding (**2.**):
on GNU/Linux this can be accomplished by various ways. The easiest is probably to use [[https://launchpad.net/usb-creator|usb-creator]] (usb-creator-gtk on Ubuntu or Arch-Linux).
The canonical way is to use ''dd'' on the commandline e.g. if your USB-device is ''/dev/sdb''
dd if=/path/to/downloads/a3vtl_VERSION.img of=/dev/sdb
This also works on OSX, disk-devices are called ''/dev/disk1'', ''/dev/disk2'', etc instead of ''/dev/sdb'', ''/dev/sdc'',.. although you may prefer to use the //Disk Utility// GUI.
On windows: http://www.pendrivelinux.com/ is the probably the easiest way to write a disk-image onto a USB-key.
===== Persistence =====
The disk-image is a read-only live-system. Every time you boot you will have a pristine system. None of your modifications are saved.
In order to retain customizations, you can create a partition with the label 'live-rw' which will automatically be //overlaid//. The 'live-rw' partition can be on any medium, although it is convenient to keep it on the same disk as the OS. Say, if your USB-drive is 8 GB, you can use the remaining space of 6.5 GB (the live-system is ~1.5 GB) for storage and customizations.
Note: the live-rw partition only saves //modifications// done to the pristine system. It uses a rather smart technique called [[http://aufs.sourceforge.net/|AUFS]] to do so. It is not a data-partition per se and can only be used with a live-system of the same version. If you plan to do serious A/V work, store it on an external hard-disk.
===== Getting Started =====
Ardour3 is not [yet] documented. There are [[http://ardour.org/a3_features_midi|bits]] and [[http://ardour.org/a3_features_midi_editing|pieces]] of [[http://ardour.org/files/manual/index.html|floating around]]. If in doubt, ask for help via [[http://webchat.freenode.net/?channels=ardour|IRC chat]].
In the ''$HOME'' folder, resides an example video for testing timecode25-test.mov, that can be loaded as video into Ardour3:
Launch Ardour3, create a new session and choose File → Open Video from Ardour's menu...
The [[a3vtl|video-timeline]] should be pretty much self-explanatory:
* Menu->Session->Open Video
* Menu->Session->Export->Video
* Menu->View->Rulers->Video (or right-click the ruler/marker bar -> Video)
* Menu->View->Video Monitor (xjadeo)
* Menu->Edit->Preferences->Video
* Menu->Session->Video maintenance-> ... (manual video server interaction)
===== Advanced -- Shell script to create USB drive =====
#!/bin/bash
# the disk-device to use:
DEVICE=/dev/sdb # or /dev/mmcblk0 or /dev/hdb ,...
URL=http://robin.linuxaudio.org/a3vtl_latest.img
URL=http://rg42.org/d/a3vtl_latest.img
# Download the image and write it to the disk:
curl http://rg42.org/d/a3vtl_latest.img | dd of=$DEVICE bs=64k
### OPTIONAL: ###
# re-read the partition-table after the image has been written
partprobe $DEVICE
# create a 2nd partition using the rest of the space on the device..
echo -e "n\np\n2\n\n\np\nw\n" | fdisk $DEVICE
# ..and create an ext4 filesystem on it, labeled live-rw'
mkfs.ext4 -L live-rw ${DEVICE}2
Now boot from the prepared device..
{{tag>floss audio video}}