sequenceLiner for Final Cut Pro

I'm re-working this old time app and would like to have your "shameless" comments in this early state.

Here what the app should do:
The application is thought to work with professional timecode, where all recording devices record the same (TOD) timecode. This TOD timecode may vary by device, so can can setup a constant offset - not a drift.
You can distribute a lot of clips to a timeline at a place where they belong to - regarding the source (or Aux) TC.
This will help to sync stuff whether it's multiclip or external audio or whatever.
It's about having a bunch of bins with audio or video or both of it. And having a sequence with the correct settings where everything should go. Sounds simple - but isn't, as soooo many things can happen.

So the current approach is to select those bins which include the clips you want to line up and one target sequence in Final Cut Pro and export as XML - if you the daring one, you can export a complete project or whatever as XML as long as it includes at least one sequence and one bin containing clips.

With sequenceLiner open this XML. The application does check your bins and sequences. If you were lazy, sequenceLiner will show you all available sequences and you can select one of those - all tracks of the choosen sequence will be removed.
From there it will check all bins available in this XML and will list all of those which include any kind of basic clips - already merged clips will be unlinked, multiclips will be ignored.
Bins are distributed to tracks (both video and audio) based upon their order within the Final Cut Pro XML. To get your personal track order, you can drag the "bin rows" in the application's bin table. For the matter of speed all the "Track" items in the bin table won't be updated with the current version when you drag around bins. This may change in a future version.



There are two ways to create the target sequence - "Fast Line Up" or "not Fast Line Up".

The "Fast Line Up" option just will put all clips into the target sequence and doesn't care about time code overlaps and unlinked multiple mono BWAVs.
External audio (BWAV) might come in with two flavours regarding track handling: polyphonic (means several tracks in one file) or as a bunch of mono files which belong to a "family".
Final Cut doesn't provide an automatic way to merge "family mono files" so they show up as independent - you can to do it the Avid way and use polyphonic files. In case you don't, sequenceLiner currently ignores any other than the first track of a "multi-mono" BWAV when using the "Fast Line Up" . The workaround would be to distribute the mono files to different bins so each bin would only include one channel. Then name the bins like "Channel_1" etc. To avoid that, don't use the "Fast Line Up" option .
Another issue currently with audio: all actual audio HDRs buffer back to full seconds when saving a file. So if stop and record are pressed within 1 second there will be an overlap. This is not handled with this "Fast Line Up" option as well.

Not using the "Fast Line Up" option will do a lot of sorting and figure out what kind of stuff belongs together. This takes quite a time longer. But it will give you a perfect result. Though all audio and clips will be unlinked in the current version - audio can keep the links or can be forced to be linked if timecodes do match by in and out.

About Audio in general:
Formats like AIFF will have no timecode metadata, the TC will always start at 0, many other audio formats behave the same.
So these kind of formats won't make sense with this application.
BWAV and SDII do/can have timecode but only the BWAV timestamp will be acknowledged by Final Cut Pro versions after 5.1 - this doesn't mean this timecode is correct as it depends on the current project settings which may not match the BWAV file settings. We will add SDII support at a later state. QuickTime "audio only" may have a timecode or not.

The app will give you some feedback on how stuff will be arranged in the new sequence. Does still sound simple up to now.

Final Cut Pro does have a limitation on the length of sequences (currently 12 hours with audio sampling rates up to 48 kHz, 6 hours with audio sampling rates above 48 kHz). That means that you have to create the bins in First Final Cut Pro very carefully (all clip media starts and ends must be within this limit). In some cases you may select/deselect the "offending" bins in the sequenceLiner to create several sequences. sequenceLiner will automatically apply a new sequence name in this case.


Another nice feature for those who have installed the "mxf4mac" component:
Those who got it do know that they just can drag the audio and video folders from a P2 card into the browser of Final Cut Pro. You then can rename the bins and within sequenceLiner you can re-arrange and link camera audio and external audio in the timeline. This only works because of the mxf4mac unique way of handling audio.

Versions:
1.01b first release
1.02b Allows to shift "bins" in time during laydown, for too long sequences a warning is displayed, allows TC source selection.
1.07b Allows "bin dragging" for custom track order. New sequence creation options. Sequences can be inserted directly into a project.
1.09b Allows to map audio source file names to Final Cut Pro metadata. It also allows to distribute BWAV files to their respective channel.
1.10b Allows to link audio channels - video still will be unlinked.
1.11b Some interface changes. Workaround for "bad" XML imports where the clip duration is < 0: those clips will be ignored.

Known issues:
If no audio or video track is available, the sequence will still have 1 empty track for each of those.
As always there might be other issues.

So with all that at the back of your mind and assuming you are a daring mind: download the app from the link below and keep in mind this is a beta and as always strange things may happen and I'm not responsible for those things or any damage that may happen.

Download sequenceLiner for OS 10.4-10.5

Download sequenceLiner for OS 10.6

And send all these "shameless" comments to kiel at spherico.com !
System Requirements:
  • Apple PPC/Intel (the faster the better).
  • 1024 MB RAM (more = better), enough space for virtual memory
  • MacOS X 10.x
  • Final Cut Pro V 4.1 or higher
For further information contact:

Andreas Kiel
Spherico
Nelkenstr. 25, D-76135 Karlsruhe
eMail: kiel at spherico.com