Dev talk:Ref/Requests/Sequencer/NLEs

Other Non-Linear-Editors

Final Cut Pro | ULEAD Media Pro | Sony Vegas | Adobe Premiere | Cinelerra | Microsoft MovieMaker | iMovie | Lives | Kino

ULEAD Media Studio Pro

• Audio cross fade shortcut. In ULEAD, you can press 'F' to enter audio cross fade mode. Once in this mode, you can click on the one audio strip, then the next and it will automatically cross between the two strips if they are overlapping. The cross goes across the portion of the overlap. Currently to cross fade audio is painful, you have to add an IPO to each strip then try guess the overlap area. (javawocky)

• Ideally, the IPO's should be directly on/inside the Audio strip. It should appear as a lite which you can click on to fiddle with the nodes. This way you can edit the audio at a specific point easily without having to judge based on a percentage where the audio will appear. (javawocky)

• A preview range would be valuable. Above the time line in ULEAD you can drag the mouse over a section to highlight a start and end point easily. Currently the only way I know how to do this is to manually put a start and end frame into the time line tool. (javawocky)

• Moving paths are a vital part of editing and should be implemented somehow. Movie paths allow a strip to be placed within a frame at a certain point, so you could easily get picture in picture effects, or add a channel water mark. I think the only way to do this now is to create a scene with a plane containing the video you wish to have overlaid then make the scene into a strip. Correct me if I am wrong. (javawocky)

• Fade to black is another thing that seams to be missing from Blender. The Cross tool could probably just be modified to work with only one strip. A color property should also be set, cause sometimes people like fading to white ;) (javawocky)

Adobe Premiere

• My favorite thing about Premiere is the toolbar which provides so many different way to tweak a a single strip, connected strips, or all the strips in the sequence. A secondary feature to these tools is an accompanying preview that shows either (1)the frame of the edge you're pulling (2)the ending frame of one, the beginning of another next to each other while sliding touching edges. (3)the beginning and ending frame of a clip while you slide around the frames without changing the clip's length. The list goes on and on. (Bmud)

• Imported media is not distorted in any way to fit the aspect ratio of the project. There are a few other slight things as well, for instance..

- scaling or moving "numeric inputs" can be locked together( to translate something ).

(Raschko)

Cinelerra

• Cinelerra renders once. One builds up an Edit Decision List (EDL) and then this is rendered at the end.
  • The EDL consists of a sequence of segements, frames n₁ to n₂ from clip #1, then frames n₃ to n₄ from clip #2, then frames n₅ to n₆ from clip #1, etc.
  • the EDL editor facilitates operations such as selecting a sequence of frames from a clip and inserting them into the EDL timeline, splitting a segment, adjusting a segment, automatically moving subsequent segments along when a segment is created/inserted/deleted/resized.
  • Cinelerra supports many video formats and tries to minimise conversions. If a clip is directly placed into the output, then only one conversion is required for those frames. Other frames that have an effect applied may require multiple conversions, but only for those frames.
  • Cinelerra uses its own EDL format, but there is an industry-standard free format out there (I think) to permit interchange between tools.
  • Cinelerra makes it easy to view both clips and the EDL. There are several viewing windows so the user can scud through a clip and select in- and out-points for pasting into the EDL.
  • Segments can be video, audio or both. When the video is moved (eg when another segment is inserted earlier) the audio is moved in synchronisation (well, unless Cinelerra is having a bad day).
• Cinelerra has a compositor, so it can do split screens, picture in picture, video zoom, etc, in the EDL.

M.e 11:43, 18 May 2007 (CEST)

Sony Vegas

previously Sonic Foundry

• very intuitive interface-especially making crossfades by only dragging files over each other,no question on cutting a strip,...

iMovie

Something akin to iMovie's clip view. Basically, instead of a long timeline, each clip is a single square with a thumbnail; the time is still put above the clip, but all the squares are the same size. There are pictures here: http://www.peachpit.com/articles/article.asp?p=412366&seqNum=3&rl=1 (It's under "Choose a Timeline View". I would have just put a link to the picture, but I wasn't sure if that would be okay with you guys and the writers of the other site.) jtuttle (jpt9 on IRC)

• Should be optional for speed reasons. (I still can't get the sense here, since I simply haven't found any use for such a preview. Really. I'm still happy with using instructive names for my clips...) Peter Schlaile
• I always thought that that was a really interesting feature too, but I'm not sure how it would work in a real professional video editing system that has MULTIPLE LAYERS of video. Seeing as iMovie is, well, the worst video editing software ever, something tells me that this cool feature will be left out of any other video package by association. Bmud
• Yeah... it would be difficult. iMovie isn't crap, though; I used it to edit a French movie project in 10th grade. It obviously isn't high-end, or even mid-range, but it's still a pretty good program, especially for just putting footage from a camera together with transitions and titles (which is what ~90% of most random camcorder owners need to do (I think.)) Just an idea, though...
• Thumbnails on the strips would be useful to, even without the clip view. jtuttle

Microsoft MovieMaker

I am not sure if this is the correct place to post this, so please move it if it is not.
I would like to see a player in one of the windows for the video you are working on. Similar to microsofts editor. It seems very simple to use.
In one window you have the video, in another the player and in the bottom you have the tracks. Choosing to edit sound or video. In the player you may play the video and stop and cut it. In the video window the cutting shows as an added video, one up to the point of cutting, and one after that point.
They show as just a graphic of the first frame in that section.
The player controls the frames, where you are, how fast you zoom through, etc. So you cut to your hearts content, then grab a cut and drag it into the first 'box' of the video track.
You can insert other options, blending text etc between the boxes. Ok so it progresses in that order, then you do the same with the sound. Having the first frame show in each 'cut' graphic helps you know where you are.
You can make as many cuts as needed, even single frames.
This is really easy to use as a UI. Everything is so obvious. Just an idea. I think it would be great in blender. anonymous

Final Cut Pro

Feedback and suggestions from an FCP editor's P.O.V.

(This article was written with regard to blender 2.44.)

Introduction

This is the attempt to analyse the blender NLE from a Final Cut Pro editor's/film maker's point of view and to make some simple suggestions that maybe can help to improve the blender NLE further in terms of ease of use/workflow.

Please note that I am still relatively new to blender (I started about a year ago) and I am also not a programmer... The feedback I give you is the one from a user's/creator's perspective. I'll try to write down those points because I've come to the conclusion that one key thing that is missing in many open-source software projects is usability/ease of use testing.

Now this is a delicate area because it involves personal taste and preferences for doing things in a certain way. But maybe it is possible to make the blender NLE just a bit more userfriendly without giving up the original clean and minimalist approach that is of course consistent with the rest of the blender UI.

Some of these points may have been made above already, if I list something again then it's because I feel it is important (it is also just easier this way). Should one or the other suggestion on my list actually already have been implemented then just take it as a sign that it's maybe not easy enough at this point to figure out how-to use a particular feature - which would mean that either a better documentation is needed or that the feature might need some attention in terms of its ease of use.

Main points/suggestions for improving the NLE

What I miss most in the blender NLE are "real" tracks and a clear visual representation/navigation for the timeline cursor/playhead in context with single frames in the timeline.

Tracks

a) Visual representation

Tracks are of course there, but at first they might appear not to be numbered (they are, but it's hard to see) and it is also kind of hard at first to figure out where e.g. track 1 starts or ends. The background graphics are not 100% helpful here: intuitively I would try to place a new clip at the bottom line of one of the brighter/darker horizontal stripes and expect the clip to fit exactly into that area. This would let me know that it is in the right track and would make things much easier on the eye once there are many stripes on a multitude of different layers.

The current solution makes clips appear to "float" and the brighter/darker areas between the tracks almost tend to create some kind of dizzy making shutter effect if you happen to be very sensitive to light and contrast - stripes and checkboard like background graphics are useful e.g. for visualising the alpha channel in the Gimp, but might be too hard to look at as the default working background in an NLE.

The concept that Final Cut Pro uses is one where a clip fits perfectly into a track - placing a new clip at the beginning of the timeline can be done without having to look at frame numbers etc. and there is no way that you could add it before 0 on the timeline. (What is the reason for that option...?)

Maybe there are good reasons for the blender approach to tracks that I have not found out about yet, just at this point I don't see the need for this flexibility - it can make working in the timeline a bit confusing at times. E.g. there is a peculiar problem when importing soundfiles: I add them but they are nowhere to be seen. Most of the time they end up being somewhere high up in track 50 or so and need to be pulled down. (Worst case: you don't notice one lost soundfile in track 50 or so and wonder why the final render suddenly has those strange soundeffects.) This kind of thing is what makes the non obvious presence of tracks a bit hard to work in the blender NLE for me at this moment.

b) Functionality

The logic behind "layer 1 first" etc.

It seems that the track with the lowest number is the one that gets played back/rendered (first), another track on top of it only when the right filter is added. This concept - if I understood this correctly - is quite different from to the one I know from other NLEs where you basically look down from the top (e.g. layer 3) and all other layers are played back according to how track 3 is set to blend into track 2 etc. So if track 3 in FCP is in blend mode "normal" and opacity is set to the standard 100% then you would not see track 2 and 1 underneath.

Again, there might well be good reasons for doing it differently in blender, as of now I just don't see/understand them. The current approach makes it a bit difficult when you add a new clip to the timeline or when you move it around: you just can't view the clip if there is a clip underneath - at least that's how it seemed to work on my last project, the first one where I really used the blender NLE for more than just putting a couple of clips together.

no, there wasn't a good reason besides confusing the user :) is fixed in SVN. The layer order is that of The Gimp, meaning: the uppermost tracks get played down to the first track, that is in "replace" mode. --Peter Schlaile 15:06, 1 January 2008 (CET)

Turning tracks on and off

In any case it seems to me that a key functionality missing at the moment is the ability to turn tracks on and off. Such a feature would also make it easier to view a new clip in the timeline even if there is another clip underneath - you just turn off track 1.

is in SVN now on a per strip basis. --Peter Schlaile 15:06, 1 January 2008 (CET)

Frames

Single frames and the cursor/playhead

Just like I would like to see "real" empty tracks for the clips I would like to be able to see a clear relationship of single frames and the cursor/playhead when zooming in - meaning a clear graphical indication of where the playhead really is/where a single frames starts/ends in relation to the playhead. So while I can see a single frame I find it hard to figure out at what point in time exactly the cursor/playhead is placed. Of course you can look at the frame indicator/counter, this works. But doing it only by focusing on your work in the timeline is much harder.

A possible solution: in FCP the playhead has the shape of a flag. This means that the flag part is the one that covers the frame that the editors sees in the viewer. The flag's mast is where a cut is made should the editor press the equivalent of blenders "k".

This whole business of first/last frame can become very important in certain editing situations and a better visual representation for the timeline cursor/playhead is needed I think.

Next/previous cut, JKL, space = play/stop

I might not be seeing the obvious, but so far I can't figure out how-to navigate from one cut to the next. 10 frames +/- is good to have, but I also need next/previous cut and would prefer that if I needed to make a choice between the two.

JKL is the classic NLE navigation: backwards (J) - stop (K) - forward (L), and when you hit J and L multiple times the speed increases. Maybe there are better ways of doing this, but without a next/previous cut option and without JKL navigating the blender NLE feels a bit limited to me at this point.

Another one that I miss is the space key for start/stop. I am aware that blender is a 3D application and that the space key has a special meaning in blender, yet I really would prefer to have space = start/stop when I am editing. Alt-A is just not the same.

is in SVN now. Works only in the preview window though --Peter Schlaile 15:06, 1 January 2008 (CET)

Also ergonomically there is probably a reason why space and JKL are being used in FCP and (at least JKL) in other NLEs: with one hand you can control almost anything you need for navigating the timeline. Note also in this context the use of the I and O key in FCP for setting the In and Out point (I and O being right over JKL on the keyboard!) and you get the standard FCP editor's (right) hand position when editing.

Maybe blender should do things differently in terms of navigating the timeline, at the moment I just don't see it being as efficient as in e.g. FCP.

Effects (fade in/out), basic editing workflow

I find it astonishingly hard and complicated to add a simple fade-in to a clip. While it's great to have IPOs I feel that the current implementation is a total overkill for an editing environment. At least for basic editing. You don't want to spend time thinking about Alpha Over/Under/Over Drop and x, y and IPO curves when you just need a simple 25 frames long fade-in.... Maybe there are technical reasons and a more userfriendly implementation would mean a considerable coding effort - I understand this and won't complain about it then. But the current solution is not as simple as e.g. an FCP editor would expect it to be.

should be better with latest SVN now. (You can add simple fade in/out's directly on every input strip in replace-mode) --Peter Schlaile 15:06, 1 January 2008 (CET)

Another example is the new "Speed Control" feature. I really needed and wanted to use this one for my last project, but after reading the Wikipages that explain its use and after having tried for an hour or two to get the effect to work the way I needed it, I just had to give up and created some manual slomo/shutter effect by duplicating single frames on the finder - at least I was able to make it work.

I think the problem here is that for a coder the implementation of e.g. "Speed Control" probably seems simple and like a concept that others can easily grasp. But for me it appears like one of those math problems in school that I always had a hard time to solve... When you are editing and maybe have worked for 12 hours and there is a deadline you don't want to spend time with solving a logic/math problem, but just tell the NLE that the clip that is highlighted should be copied with "Fit to fill" (or give it another, similar name) to the area that you previously marked with an In and Out point. This kind of concept is so much simpler to understand and execute. At least for visual (not math-based visual) thinkers like me.

Uhm, that works. Add a speed control, just ignore the IPOs and extend the right handle to fill the gap. The video will play exactly the time of the gap. The manual only mentions the more advanced usages though, sorry... Updated the manual. Hope that helps. --Peter Schlaile 20:50, 24 July 2007 (CEST)

In and out, bins, media management

Implementation of in and out points have been mentioned by others, I agree that this is very important.

Does the blender NLE need bins? Do users want them? (I think I do.) Probably to ask in this context: what is the blender NLE's main purpose? What does it (not) want to be?

If it is just for putting together a couple of clips then bins are probably not needed. But editing a longer project in blender without a bin system seems not a good idea to me.

Again, maybe I am missing something here, but I could not figure out how to reconnect media. Like when you've edited in a low resolution and then want to replace the clips with the higher resolution ones (without having to rename/replace files on the finder...). Or when you've moved stuff around on the finder level for whatever reason. Or when working on a group project recently we had such a problem I think, and I ended up rebuilding a whole sequence since I could not tell blender to use different paths for certain clips that now had different names on someone else's computer or were coming from other (sub)folders etc.

Summary

My first impression of the blender NLE is that it could still be improved substantially in terms of its ease of use and workflow by looking closer at those 4 points made above. Maybe an implementation that satisfies both the experienced 3D animator/coder as well as the director/editor turned animator can be found...?

There is a lot of potential in the minimalist NLE blender UI the way it is, my impression is that it's about 2/3 there in terms of feature richness vs. simplicity/usability. I think it needs to be more accessible for users who are not coders and rely on simple visual clues instead of (IPO) calculations when it comes to basic editing tasks like adding/moving clips and adding basic effects like a simple fade-in.

One more point: a simple, userfriendly and powerful blender NLE is very important since there can be all sorts of problems with square and non-square pixels when working with blender rendered clips in other NLEs (incl. FCP) - being able to edit/finish everything inside blender can make things a lot easier. -- indiworks.