No configuration is required if you intend to run everything on a single machine, and if you acquired Ardour from http://www.ardour.org. Everything is pre-configured and included with the download/install.

Single Machine

If you compile Ardour from source, or have installed it from a 3rd party repository, three additional tools will need to be installed manually, which are used by Ardour to provide video features:

• xjadeo (the video monitor application): http://xjadeo.sf.net
• harvid (a video decoder used for the thumbnail timeline): http://x42.github.com/harvid/
• ffmpeg, ffprobe (used to import/export video, extract soundtracks and query video information): http://ffmpeg.org

Ardour requires xjadeo ≥ version 0.6.4, harvid ≥ version 0.7.0 and ffmpeg (known to work versions: 1.2, 2.8.2)

The Ardour development team is in control of the first two applications. ffmpeg however can be a bit of a problem. To avoid conflicts with distribution packages, Ardour looks for ffmpeg_harvid and ffprobe_harvid.

All four applications need to be found in $PATH (e.g. $HOME/bin or /usr/local/bin). For convenience the binary releases of harvid include ffmpeg_harvid and ffprobe_harvid, but if your distribution provides suitable ffmpeg commands you can also just create symbolic links:

Binary releases are available from ardour.org as well as an installer script: install_video_tools.sh.

The easiest way to install the video-utilities is by running the following line in a terminal:

Studio Setup

Please read the info in the previous section to familiarize yourself with the tools involved first. Setting up a proper A/V post-production studio can be a complicated task. As much as we streamline and simplify the single machine setup, the studio setup is focused on modularity.

• TODO:
• Synchronization ardour → video-display-box should be accomplished by external means jack-transport(netjack), MTC, LTC (OSC and/or ssh-pipe work but introduce additional latency + jitter)
• Ardour launches XJREMOTE (environment variable, default 'xjremote' which comes with xjadeo).
• Either use a custom shell script that ssh'es into the remote box and launches/controls xjadeo there, selects the sync-source and passes though communication between ardour ⇔ xjadeo via ssh (xjadeo is launched stopped with the session).
• ..or override xjremote's behavior—instead of IPC with a local running xjadeo-process, using OSC for example. xjadeo would run permanently and Ardour will just tell it to load files and set offsets via OSC. see xjremote-osc example script.
• If the video server runs remotely, Ardour needs to be configured in Ardour > Preference > Video (hostname of the video-server).
• Ideally the machines have a common shared folder (NFS or similar). Ardour's import (audio-extract) and export (mux) functionality depends on having access to the video file. Also Ardour's video-import transcodes the file into a suitable proxy-format that allows reliable seeking to any frame…