[Ardour-Dev] ardour video tracks

[Robin Gareus]

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CC: ardour-dev.
Dana Simmons wrote:
> Is this different from using xjadeo synced  with ardour?  What are the
> advantages  of a static video time line. I hope you can excuse my
> ignorance.

Hey Dana, I'm not sure where to start about this. Technically or from a
user's POV? it depends on what for and how you use ardour and xjadeo.

As opposed to xjadeo the timeline is available even if JACK-transport
sync is disabled, otherwise there are few actual advantages [when making
Sound-tracks]: /Sometimes/ it's just more practical to navigate using a
video-timeline rather than using a full-screen video-monitor. A timeline
also comes in handy for multi-screen video projects (of course you could
also just start a bunch of xjadeo's). Besides, without a 2nd screen,
xjadeo uses too much screen estate on top of Ardour on a small laptop.
A previous prototype looks like this:
http://gjvidtimeline.sourceforge.net/animated.html

A static(?!) timeline would not allow the user to edit or re-align the
video track(s). It reacts on zoom and scroll of the Ardour canvas.
The advantage is that the user can not mess up A/V sync him/herself ;)
In the classical work-flow where video-editing is completed before the
audio, a single fixed sync point is all one needs for doing Soundtracks.

I am considering a "read-only" implementation that displays multiple
video-timelines, scene-objects and chunks based on an EDL playlist (a
devel version of xjadeo uses the same backend). - The motivation here is
as follows: after the shooting I have access to the uncut video on disk
(original soundtack in ardour) and as editing progresses, receive
incremental updates from the Editor (EDL via Email). This bypasses the
render or write-to-DVD steps but the concept is not limited to that.

Ardour's GUI supports moving video regions and chunks around (just like
audio regions) and is actually not that far away from a NLE front-end,
suitable for offline-editing or animation:
http://animix.sourceforge.net/anicomp/images/anicomp_preview_2.png

While it's feasible to write a video-session layer that supports simple
edit operations (or more), I do not see Ardour becoming a video editing
system any time soon. There's more dedicated software for that. I just
happened to pick up the call for interoperability.

robin
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