Ardour3 - VideoTimeline

Robin Gareus

linuxaudio.org
CiTu, Université Paris

• Introduction to Ardour
• JACK-Transport & video-sync
• News in A3
• Video-timeline & Monitor
• A3 video-integration & icsd
• Video file import & A/V export
• Advanced settings
• Demonstration & examples

http://ardour.org

Digital Audio Workstation

• record
• edit
• mix / master
• collaborate

Ardour is available for OS X, Linux, (Win32 planned) and there are also commercial spinoffs:

• Mixbus® : Ardour + Harrison
• SAE customized version

• Unlimited audio tracks and buses
• Non-destructive, non-linear editing with unlimited undo
• Anything-to-anywhere signal routing
• Unlimited pre- and post-fader plugins
• MIDI CC control with 1 click
• MIDI Timecode (MTC) Master or Slave
• Released under the GPL
• Open XML session file format
• No copy-protection

Q: What is JACK-Transport?

A: JACK-Transport provides a mechanism for starting, stopping and repositioning a set of clients.

IOW. Inter-Application synchronization.

IYOW: The Play/Pause/Skip Buttons in QJackCTL. :)

JACK-transport provides:

• sample-level accuracy
• SMPTE timecode
• Timebase Master: count bar, beats, frames, etc.

But it does not support:

• variable speed
• reverse play
• looping

Netjack supports JACK-transport and can be used to sync remote machines over a network.

Jack-transport SMPTE can be used to sync video.

• xjadeo
• blender
• open-movie-editor
• lives
• …

Note: Ardour3 is not yet released!

• MIDI Tracks & JACK MIDI
• new Export Dialog (multichannel, presets)
• overhauled Mixer (new panning, solo/mute, plugin GUI)
• Route groups
• …
• video integration (3.1 ?)

VTL: Easily accessible video-track and video-monitor.

• video import
  • save file with session, optionally: extract & import audio from video, scale or transcode video.
• frame-accurate video-timeline
  • display continuous timeline of video-frames according to current zoom-level
  • read-only: no video editing
  • currently: one video-track only
  • customizable timeline-height
• video-monitor window
  • full-screen or windowed mode, letterbox, timecode OSD

• video-export dialog
  • allow to master movies directly muxing A/V from ardour.
• session-management
  • remember monitor window settings, retain timeline preferences, etc.
• verified video-frame accuracy
  • tested with 23.976, 24, 24.976, 25, 29.97df, 30, 59.94 and 60 fps video-files.

• execute xjadeo
  • external video monitor window
  • remote controlled settings (seek, win size/pos,..)
• connect to icsd
  • request video-frames for timeline
  • request video-file info (fps, duration, geometry, etc)
• invoke ffmpeg/ffprobe
  • import/export transcoding & muxing

Instructions are currently at http://rg42.org/wiki/a3vtl (will move to ardour.org).

icsd, xjadeo and ffmpeg binaries are available for OSX, GNU/Linux (and Win32).

Ardour3 is not yet officially available as binary (it will be once it's in beta).

All functions are available from the menu:

• Menu→Session→Open Video
• Menu→Session→Export→Video

• Menu→View→Rulers→Video (or right-click the ruler/marker bar → Video)
• Menu→View→Video Monitor (xjadeo)
• Menu→Edit→Preferences→Video
• Menu→Session→Properties→Sync
• Menu→Session→Video maintenance→ … (manual video server interaction)

• remote icsd, docroot: Menu→Edit→Preferences→Video
• Video-monitor restore settings: enable in Menu→Edit→Preferences→Video
• Pull-up/down, FPS: Menu→Session→Properties
• …

…Demonstration…