Subtitles

My version of FCP X is still in download state (day 8).
So I only played with a version from a friend sometimes.

Today I got a question from one those people who always ask me about subtitles and whether they can do those in FCP X.
So simple answer is yes. But what's about 7 languages with about 1200 subtitles per language.
They can do them in another app, render them out as a 4444 Prores as movie (if the app allows). But if they need to do changes they have to do it again. Also those files can be quite big.
As said I'm not that familiar with FCP X, but there might be somebody here who has a better idea how to do. I don't see any option to import any of the standard (timed) file format used for subtitles.

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

There is no way to specify a file path in an effect control yet, so there isn't a way of telling a generator where the subtitle file is.

Hopefully one day subtitles will be stored as clip metadata, so that effects will be to render whatever data is associated with the clip in the main storyline.

Effects also cannot yet write clip metadata, so it'll be a while until you'll be able to create a subtitle editing plugin.

I hope the python/database rumours turn out to be true, then experts like you will be able to create a subtitle editing and designing app that will be able to manipulate Final Cut Pro X databases.


Alex

___________________________________________________
Alexandre Gollner,
Editor, Zone 2-North West, London

alex4d on twitter, facebook, .wordpress.com + .com

Many thanks for the answer - even though it was/is frustrating

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Quote
My version of FCP X is still in download state (day 8).

Please explain what you mean by this. Are you not able to download FCPX? I had an issue where it downloaded from the App Store but the store didn't recognize that I had downloaded it. It worked fine on the original computer but I couldn't install it on my other workstations without being asked to buy it again. I fixed it by trashing FCPX and downloading it again (after days of this issue).

Hi Craig it's just because of very slow internet connection (I'm happy to connect to and to answer)
Problem was because of speed the AppStore kicked me out several times with 'Access denied' and not always allowed to resume the download, so I had to start over again several times but an hour ago it finished. I will start a 'new adventure' with Motion now.

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Andreas Kiel Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Craig it's just because of very slow internet
> connection (I'm happy to connect to and to
> answer)
> Problem was because of speed the AppStore kicked
> me out several times with 'Access denied' and not
> always allowed to resume the download, so I had to
> start over again several times but an hour ago it
> finished. I will start a 'new adventure' with
> Motion now.
>
> Andreas

Slow internet connection is certainly plaguing some people. I wonder if being able to go to a local Apple Store or VAR to do the download and burn to a disc (assuming they have the speed of course) would be a solution. It would allow a "point of purchase" solution for some people since Apple doesn't offer the ability to get physical media.

hi Andreas.

could you use Motion templates for subtitles?
i think you were suggesting this as an "FCP classic" approach.

Subs stored directly in the metadata sounds like the ultimate solution,
especially for editing w foreign language rushes.


nick

At the moment there is no way in Motion of parsing text to use tags to control subtitle timing. But Apple and others are working in filling that gap.

There is a 'display text line by line from a file' effect in Motion, but that can't help here.

Given that Motion files are XML, maybe Andreas will build an external app to construct a subtitles generator...

<parameter name="Object" id="2" flags="8589938704">
    <parameter name="Text" id="369" flags="8606777344">
        <text>Subtitle 1</text>
    </parameter>
    <parameter name="Render Text" id="360" flags="8590000146" default="0" value="0"/>
    <parameter name="Face Camera" id="352" flags="8589934610" default="0" value="0"/>
    <parameter name="Layout Method" id="314" flags="8606777360" default="0" value="1"/>
    <parameter name="Alignment" id="373" flags="8589938704">
        <foldFlags>15</foldFlags>
        <parameter name="Vertical Alignment" id="2" flags="8606777360" default="0" value="2"/>
     </parameter>

___________________________________________________
Alexandre Gollner,
Editor, Zone 2-North West, London

alex4d on twitter, facebook, .wordpress.com + .com

craig seeman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Slow internet connection is certainly plaguing
> some people. I wonder if being able to go to a
> local Apple Store or VAR to do the download and
> burn to a disc (assuming they have the speed of
> course) would be a solution. It would allow a
> "point of purchase" solution for some people since
> Apple doesn't offer the ability to get physical
> media.

Craig,

I know it's an option to make a external boot drive, go to your local (Apple) dealer and do the install from there. I should have done that.

There was an another option - which I didn't use as well. Buying two cable drums (to get 100 meters of cable). Buying a tent in case it starts raining. Then connect the cable to the power, putting my computer onto a sack barrow together with the tent. Go to the market place where I can find a relatively fast hot spot. Set up the tent, the computer and install

Anyway I don't like that you can only install this stuff from the AppStore

Andreas

Quote
Nick
Subs stored directly in the metadata sounds like the ultimate solution,
especially for editing w foreign language rushes.

You remember? I suggested this years ago

Motion templates are somehow fine. In a certain way even better than any text generator we did know from FCP 7 as you can address each range of characters and apply font, size, color, style etc using the XML of Motion (at least with Motion 4).

But there are some essential disadvantages as far as I see.

Motion only allows to render text from 'Top to Bottom' within a text box while subtitles normally require 'Bottom to Top'. I could solve that by creating templates with multiple text boxes for each line. That would also have advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is that you can change 1000's of titles easily with font, color, style, leading. The pain is: line breaks, and this can be a real pain.

I could also use the basic FxPug generator with the text or RTF option, but then I have to write an app which allows to create outlines with 'inner fills' for the typo - that's beyond my horizon.
I even can use my own psTitles app to create PhotoShop files, in a certain way PS is very nice scriptable.

Regardless of all of that the main problem is how to get the subtitles into FCP X with timing. Okay I can create 10 to 10,000 or more Motion/RTF/PSD/TIFF files, import them and then insert/assign them at the time they should occur.

Again thanks for all of your input.

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Quote
Anyway I don't like that you can only install this stuff from the AppStore

It certainly can be a problem for a lot of people . . . but Software Update can be as well.

It seems that Apple doesn't want to be involved in replicating discs and shipping them to people even on an "as needed" basis.

Of course anyone who has successfully downloaded it can give you the file and you'd just login to the App Store and buy it after you copied the file to your applications folder.

This is apparently what the App Store "thought" when I got the popup telling me it detected FCPX but it was not purchased in the App Store. Of course I had and this is another reason why the App Store is unreliable. The situation has since been fixed but that required my trashing the app and downloading it again . . . which would only compound the problem for someone with a slow download.

Apple is being very rigid about all this.

This belongs in imaginary Motion 5 forum, but here goes...

Andreas,

If you set the Layout Method of your text to 'Paragraph'...


You end up with text boxes that you can set vertical text alignment in (as well as margins):


Resulting in this sort of layout:


Knowing that you like your text to be 'aligned bottom' within a text box, the sample XML above that shows 'parameter name="Vertical Alignment"' with 'value="2"'

As regards typographic controls, you can have any outline and shadowing effects you want defined in Motion project XML, or define a separate Motion text style XML file (with a .molo suffix)

Here are a few of the built-in text styles:


You could create an XML-based Motion Title effect stored in ~Movies/Motion Templates/Titles/Spherico that the user would see in the Titles Browser. They would then apply the title to the first clip in the project and extend the duration to match the full length of the timeline.

You could even make many of the text and style settings of the whole generated subtitle track editable within FCP X.

Looks like it is possible...

...no pressure!

Alex

___________________________________________________
Alexandre Gollner,
Editor, Zone 2-North West, London

alex4d on twitter, facebook, .wordpress.com + .com

Wow Alex!

Thanks for that info!!!
That's good and promising for everybody involved in subtitles.
Also Nick will like it as he was the one who convinced me to write TextUp Pro.

As I don't have Motion 5 yet, I have spoken about Motion 4 above where there hadn't be the option to do.
Darrin Cardani made a good 'How to ...' but as said I didn't had the chance to try or reproduce yet.

I think I'm ready to play tomorrow. To get a taste of a workflow will take me some time, but when done I will let you know.

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Quote
Craig
... but Software Update can be as well.

That's true!!

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Software update takes me about 1-2 days to download. It's usually an overnight process, and a 2nd night when Apple kicks me out the first night due to an unforeseen truncation in web connection which can happen when you are trying to download gigs of stuff across half the globe.



www.strypesinpost.com

So finally I got FCPX and Motion 5 running. AND I'M BACK TO NORMAL INTERNET SPEED

So as Alex said it's pretty easy to create a subtitle Motion template to publish for FCPX. I haven't succeeded to work with Rigs - as said it's day 1.

I also searched the code of a FCP project because of the timing issues I mentioned earlier. There is another new XML code in there named ozml version="5.0" maybe related to the "Wizard of OZ"
So it is possible to retrieve subtitles from a project with timing, but will take some time of trial and error to find a reliable way.
Currently I've no idea how to write an FCPX project since there is no documentation.

Thanks for all of your help.

Andreas

Some workflow tools for FCP [www.spherico.com]
TitleExchange -- juggle titles within FCS, FCPX and many other apps.
[www.spherico.com]

Andreas,

OZML is the flavour of XML used to store Motion projects.

Final Cut Pro Projects and Events are stored in SQLite databases. This hasn't been officially documented yet.

If you're lucky, Apple might document the format, allowing direct access by third parties to the information managed by Final Cut Pro X. That might mean a tool created by you could duplicate an existing project to which you could then add Motion OZML-based title subtitle generators to any clips with subtitle metadata. The editor could then turn on or off specific subtitles. Alternatively you could also add a single generator for the whole project, which the editor could blade to associate sections of the generator specific sections of the project.

The Apple-specific flavour of XML that Final Cut Pro X will use is AXEL.

PS: In the coming months, someone could come up with a Final Cut Pro X project viewer that displays the information in nodes...

___________________________________________________
Alexandre Gollner,
Editor, Zone 2-North West, London

alex4d on twitter, facebook, .wordpress.com + .com

If you want to have a look inside .fcpproject and .fcpevent files, MesaSQLite might be a place to start.

1. Start MesaSQLite

2. Open up the CurrentVersion.fcpproject file inside a project folder

3. Choose ZCOLLECTION from the Table Name pop-up menu

4. Click the Show All button on the right to show all the entries in the table


This will only begin to make sense if you have experience in relational database programming.

Good luck!

___________________________________________________
Alexandre Gollner,
Editor, Zone 2-North West, London

alex4d on twitter, facebook, .wordpress.com + .com

Thanks again Alex.

I will have a look at that next weekend and let you know what I figured out.

Regards
Andreas

P.S. as I'm back to normal internet speed I can reply within minutes not hours