About FCPXML ...

...and how much sense FCPXML it does make for subtitles.

Gerard aka Strypes mentioned in another thread that I'm obviously think about subtitles.
If I do and look at the options with FCPXML this stuff is really garbage. I can't imagine why Apple didn't put a little more brain into the development.

Some prelude:
With a movie there might be several languages, both spoken and subtitled. With tracks this was easy to handle even though you couldn't name a track. With trackless you can assign a role to each subtitle - finally you have to assign a role to figure out which title belongs to what language as there are no tracks.
But roles do have a bad side effect with the current UI of FCPX. The display of the clip where a role is assigned grows vertical and with a few video clips or gaps and maybe with secondary story lines for subtitles it's a kind of visual nightmare
Now in our digital world you probably don't want to create the final cut with burnt in subtitles for every language - this is what you can do using roles. It would make more sense to have the 'plain' movie and the option to switch on or off subtitles for the language you need (in different environments i.e. DCP, HDTV, YouTube, BluRay or whatever)

Here comes XML.
The nature of good subtitles is that you at least need to have plain and italic style addressed to distinguish between persons within one subtitle.
Within FCPX you can do it, but as soon as you export to XML ALL your formatting is lost. This includes font, size, alignment, style etc. You just got plain text with a kind of time. Okay you get a reference to a Motion Title which you could parse, if you find it on your machine. Unfortunately the Motion 5 XML is not documented. But some stuff could be figured out by trial and error.

To transport your subtitles out of FCPX you need a third party app which can read the FCPXML, can sort into several files when roles are applied and/or allows colliding timecodes to be sorted out with the option to create language tracks. Additionally font, size and style must be editable. If there is time remap with the source clips it gets even more complicated - maybe impossible.
One of the former usages of the legacy FCP XML had been that you were able to retrieve all basic settings of a subtitle on any machine even with no FCP installed or the generator missing - so this new version of FCP is really awesome in a special way as you can't do. What you can do is to apply a Motion subtitle for each subtitle you need or have, means saving the subtitles as discreet files. That also means it's no fun and it's time consuming. Without doing that even an exported XML from X can't be read by FPX correctly (even without doing any changes to the XML).

I did a little app which allows to extract subtitles in a VERY, VERY basic way. Not yet implemented is: timecode collision. Roles are supported but with the same leaks as mentioned before. But finally it's better than nothing. I hope to be a part of that 'Salvation Army' of programmers which do help people to get out of the trouble with this simple thing.

The app can be downloaded for free at:
[www.spherico.com]

Regards
Andreas

You could have a go with AXEL , Andreas, the undocumented/unsupported internal XML format that (apparently) Foolcut and Automatic Duck use(d).

Unfortunately I don't know anything about AXEL, or better how to get access to it.

Regards
Andreas

AXEL is risky because Apple could remove or modify the format without notice.

My software:
Pro Maintenance Tools - Tools to keep Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Pro X, Avid Media Composer and Adobe Premiere Pro running smoothly and fix problems when they arise
Pro Media Tools - Edit QuickTime chapters and metadata, detect gamma shifts, edit markers, watch renders and more
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