EDL Support in Blender

recently I wrote an importer for EDL (Edit decision list) files into blenders sequencer.
The EDL I used was from Final Cut Pro, but Id like to test with more EDL files (maybe from avid?).
Basically EDL is a list of edits, cuts, fades, wipes, audio, time speedup/slowdown. its been around since the 70’s but its still used today.

The problem is that getting video and EDL’s isnt that easy since I dont know many people who do video editing.
All I need is an EDL and the videos can be resized to 160x120 - so the download would not be that big.

If anyones able to test and provide examples the script is here


youll need a verson rev 18896 or later - a few days old

*Edit, pics added with example EDL from final cut pro *
http://www.graphicall.org/ftp/ideasman42/edl_in_blender_px.png

http://www.graphicall.org/ftp/ideasman42/edl_import_ui.png
Not sure if anyone out there is really interested or not, so… umm… let me know if you are :slight_smile:

this is a great thing, ill give it a go on my mac later, but a really good thing for blender to have - often I exchange xml files with post houses for edits in final cut, dont know if that would be an easier route to take at some point?

Sounds very useful, if you’re on Linux i think Kino DV can export EDL’s or maybe just import, haven’t got it in front of me to be sure. :frowning: kdenlive also may be able to generate EDL’s?

This is a great Idea! Sounds like “Automatic Duck” for Blender. Would be really cool to cut up a sequence and Round Trip it to Blender for Colour Correction. I will try to get you a PC Avid EDL and consolidate out some low res pics. Should I PM them direct to you?

@krupa, EDL is a relatively simple format but if your going from FCP -> FCP then a native format makes more sense.

I have only tried Cinelerra and its EDL support is primitive - can export only 1 track at a time. not sure about Kdenlive, bummer arch-linux has no packages for it.

@David Mcsween, avid EDL would be great to test with, PM me or post a link on the thread pls.

should also add that I intend to work on other Sequencer features beside EDL, see what comes of this :slight_smile:

@ideasman - it does sometimes, but we have had problems with fcp’s native format with even point version differences and have found xml to be more reliable and portable, I just thought that it might be an easily parsed and more flexible format for blender as EDLs are a little old skool in some circles… though any format support is great!

Thanks ideasman! I will add this to my book!

just tried script with an EDL from FCP but got this error on console…

Compiled with Python version 2.3.5.
Checking for installed Python… got it!
Ignoring: FCM: NON-DROP FRAME
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “import_edl.py”, line 849, in edl_draw
File “import_edl.py”, line 791, in edl_set_path
File “import_edl.py”, line 767, in edl_reload
File “import_edl.py”, line 380, in parse
File “import_edl.py”, line 243, in init
File “import_edl.py”, line 283, in read
KeyError: ‘k’

not sure if its my installation or a problem with the EDL, anybody make sense of it ?

cheers

Christian

I haven’t got any useful test data right now but just wanted to say, I’m very interested in the prospect of this.

Like David said, an equivilent to ‘Automatic Duck’ for Blender would be awesome.

I use an old version of Adobe Premiere for editing (5.1). I’ll see if I can get an EDL out of that.

@krupa, this is another transition type “key”, its not as well documented as other types and not even included in most EDL specs I found. But here’s a reference.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=vIgN0vFsI4cC&pg=PA99&lpg=PA99&dq=EDL+cut+dissolve+wipe+key+out&source=web&ots=BOtWqFa3ml&sig=rtob-sNHbQsVnBvA2JLZPm7ozPU&hl=en&ei=Yi6TSe_uOJmktQPK1umtCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=3&ct=result#PPA101,M1
I cant see any settings for this though, would it assume a blue screen?

Could you upload the EDL you used for this please?

EDIT, updated the EDL importer to parse the key setting, though its not loaded into blender yet.

Kdenlive doesn’t export EDL’s at the moment.

I’ve got a copy of Sony Vegas Pro. I’ll see if I can get an EDL from that for you. This is a very, very cool step forward. Thanks for working on it Ideasman!

It might be worth posting this request on the “DV Rebel’s Guide” forum. This sort of thing could be right up their street.

Also as an aside the book’s well worth reading if you’re into no-budget filmmaking.

Wouldn’t it be cool to have a way of clipping the in/out point of a clip before putting it on the sequencer timeline? Shame you cant load them up in one sequencer window, clip em up then drag them to your master timeline.

Still organising the EDL, I can off course do many flavours CMX Sony etc, do you want to look at AVID’s OMF export too? It’s a QT wrapper with edl metadata embeded.

@David, recently a few of us talked about asset listing/management and how it could be done by adding an outliner view type.

Peter is also looking into adding this kind of editing to the sequencer…
http://www.geniusdv.com/weblog/archives/three_point_editing_with_final_cut_pro.php

As for other formats besides EDL, This is the first importer for the sequencer, to make it work I needed to extend the python api. Now this is done other video formats can be added more easily.

But I’d rather wait until 2.5 is usable, since it has a new automatically generated python api, which shares functions with the user interface.
Some of this working now! - http://www.graphicall.org/ftp/ideasman42/html/bpyoperator-module.html#SEQUENCER_OT_add_duplicate

ideasman42 your pm is full! Here is the site with edls

I have saved a short seq (with screen grab) in various EDL formats Sony CMX and Avid OMF too. Along with the files shrunk down. But they don’t have the right association, you will have to relink.

That FCP page for editing really is the way to go for efficient editing, It is soooo flexible, if anyone cares a Match-frame function is really critical. And it seems that with an OOPS type asset manager it could be a great move forward. I really want to drop my Avid and FCP packages and start cutting on Blender.

EDL Support in Blender - fantastic!

Thank you so much for adressing this! Please keep on dev. this we - urgently need timeline im/export functionality.

Today it’s all about interoperability and Blender comes into the game if he can play with the other kids…

I had a look at Blender as a frame player for reviewing and editing large 1080p uncompressed frame list’s.
Blender missed the aproval only by some smaller issues. For example there was’t a large good readable SMPTE timecode display and the playback wasn’t fluid and in full frame rate… (the raid is fast enough for full playback)

-> One thing as mentioned above: Wouldn’t it make less hasse to chose the newer XML approach for timeline import? The editing guys are going mad for XLST style sheets to transcode between the diffrerent XML formats of editing and compositing applications…

-> via XML it would be alos possible to decide how much of all the meta data would be needed… (only conforming with cuts & transsitions or importing more like filters and so on…)

ok - now I have to test the script - will post my results…

great work - please keep going on with this…

nw42

I’ve wanted to reply to this sooner, but since I’m not the editor where I work (small vfx studio in a larger post-house), only know EDL by definition, and time flying, I have to dig this thread up to say: Thank you for working on this, ideasman!

I asked my colleague about what he thinks is the most important in EDL’s (of any format), and he promptly named a bunch of stuff that I scribled down. Since I don’t know how much you researched on this, you may already know most of it, and I won’t echo it here when I don’t fully understand 50% of it myself, yet (the note is at work anyway). I do have some thoughts on this, though. I of course wish that Blender will rival commercial editors, as it does with 3D (considering the lack of “pro” level video editors on Linux - not counting the ultra highend). As it is now, I think that Blender would fit better doing offline editing, exporting an EDL, than importing one for online editing - depending on project and budget, of course. Is an exporter something you will work on?

Again I’m very happy that you work on the sequencer, which I think is a very exciting aspect of Blender. I lack extensive editing knowledge, unfortunately, so can’t be very specific, but I work and talk to a lot of editors daily, so maybe I can pass their opinions along? (Though I know they don’t take Blender seriously :no: until 2.5 that is!)

Nice one Cam! I found this thread late, but…
Do you still want an Avid EDL?
I can fix you up with one, as well as one for Premiere Pro.

San, you don’t have to do offline anymore. At least it’s more of a near line experience using proxies to cut against in real time on the desktop, then have the software “Conform” the (lo-res) proxies to the hi-res original footage. Then send to a tape machine or compress to DVD for distribution.

Even Blender does this sort of with proxies now.