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Commentary: A Plea for Better Metadata Support
This article was first published in the March,
2010, issue of
Larry's Final Cut Pro Newsletter. Click here to subscribe.
As I was writing this issue of the newsletter, I got an email from
John Bertram in
Toronto that included two different missives on why metadata support
is crucial to
the next generation of Final Cut Pro.
One is a tongue-in-cheek monolog,
which
can be seen here.
But the second was more serious, and more thought-provoking. So, I asked
John to edit his second, wider-ranging essay into something shorter that
focuses on metadata, because I wanted to share his commentary with you here.
Here's what John wrote:
As recently as mid-2008, if you'd asked me to write down my personal "wish
list" for Final Cut Pro (you know, that pesky list we all have bouncing
around in our brains), I doubt the following paragraph would have even
occurred to me. But today, in early 2010, I know this one wish would
certainly rank at or near the very top:
Final Cut Pro urgently needs a vastly improved Metadata capability. Ideally
this would be something very much akin to Aperture's ability to import, create,
customize, display, and intuitively manipulate a wide range of metadata --
both camera-created and user-defined.
And here's how my Conversion on the Road to Metadata came to pass...
By the time of Final Cut Studio 3's release in the early Fall of 2009,
it happened that I'd actually spent more of the preceding year working
with Aperture than I had with FInal Cut -- and had become so accustomed
to Aperture's powerful Metadata & Keyword-based sorting, searching,
and organizational capabilities, that I began taking much of it for
granted.
So much for granted, in fact, that I probably unconsciously just assumed
that any new version of Final Cut was bound to have incorporated
the same functionality. How could it not? Especially since both of these
Apple applications typically involve importing visual media from a host
of different cameras, and both frequently require accessing, arranging,
and referencing hundreds -- if not thousands -- of distinct "creative units" at
any given time. (In Aperture, those units are of course individual
image files, represented by Versions; and in Final Cut, individual media
files, represented as Clips.)
Most of my previous work in Final Cut had been on shorter, script-oriented
projects, where all my meticulously-logged Scene, Shot and Take numbers (I've
always had to be my own assistant editor) made Bin organization and Clip sorting
relatively straightforward.
But it also happens that my first major project using version 7 of FCP
(really "6.5" --
but that's for another rant -- I mean, "article") is a long-form,
no-budget indie doc, with absolutely no pre-determined scene order, and
certainly no script or slates to use as a numbering or naming guide.
It's just a few thousand clips worth of interviews and B-roll shot over
several months (in both single and two-camera shoots; acquired on AVCHD
but also HDV) -- all of which is creatively open to being intercut in
a thousand different ways.
No problem (I thought)! I'll just organize this project the way I do
my images in Aperture: I'll use all that good metadata the cameras record
(like the Date & Time info for each shot, which will make displaying any group of
Clips in simple chronological order a breeze), and I'll create new sets
of custom Keywords (for location, interview subject, weather & light
conditions, eyeline direction, which cameraperson, which interviewer,
needs release form -- and dozens more), which I can then apply to my
Clips either as I'm logging them, or at any point along the way as I'm
editing.
Oh, and in the Browser -- just like with Aperture's Smart Albums --
I'll simply create some Smart Bins, which will automatically include
any Clips whose metadata and Keyword tags match the criteria I've set.
Plus I'll be able to do precise searches, simply by checking off the
Keyword combination I want -- with whatever "AND", "OR", "BUT NOT" qualifiers
I choose (plus any further metadata filters such as date range, clip
length, rating level, camera model, etc.) -- and in a second or two see
just the 7 or 8 clips out of my project's 2-3 thousand whose attributes
exactly match the search terms I've set. And all with just a few mouse
clicks in what I'm sure will be the search window's new, easy-to-navigate
HUD -- no typing required.
Yeah -- it'll be great...
Now, even before bringing my FCS 3 Upgrade box home from the Apple Store,
I knew that many a "wouldn't it be nice" Final Cut feature
gets pulled over at the Carbon/Cocoa roadblock of Old Code vs. New Code,
and that our dear old FCP is apparently still burdened by enormous and
impenetrable sedimentary layers of the former, BUT...
I'd also been hearing about this glorious age of the "Tapeless Workflow" we've
apparently entered -- a brave new world where METADATA is king, and where
we're all supposed to be taking full advantage of it to organize our
projects so much faster and with such greater ease. So you can imagine
my disappointment that Final Cut Pro -- even at version 7 -- doesn't
appear to have gotten that particular memo.
In fact, compared to a now well-established program like Aperture, Final
Cut's abilities to ingest and retain, to augment and automate, to customize
and configure, to easily access, selectively display and effectively utilize
most kinds of Metadata -- whether directly from the camera; added, edited,
or inserted during the Logging process; or created, defined and applied within
its own Browser -- range from frustratingly limited to embarrassingly nonexistent.
But wouldn't the kind of flexible, intuitive and infinitely customizable
sort-ability & search-ability described above be a temptingly powerful
option for just about any editor on any large project? Of course like
any feature, no matter how elegant or appropriate, it would not get used
by every editor, or on every project. Still, if all of Aperture's metadata-based
organizational power can be applied to individual image files (and has
been for years now), why can't it also be applied to individual movie
files (aka clips) in Final Cut Pro?
Recent insights and musings from technology insider Philip Hodgetts
have helped me better understand some of the technical, business, and
design factors at play here. But even though some of this NewCode-requiring
functionality may still be as much as two long years away for Final Cut,
that won't stop me beating the drum for the kind of metadata functionality
I honestly think (however naively) any professional NLE should be able
to do right now -- even in the confines of a more rigid, "OS-9 Lives!" interface
like Final Cut's. Things like...
1) See, Retain, and MAKE ACCESSIBLE TO THE USER (in easy-to-customize
Views) all camera metadata from ALL ingestible formats, whether SD
or HD, tape-based or to-the-file born. For example, this would include
the camera record Date & Time
information from even Non-TimeCoded formats like HDV and AVCHD. No longer
would we have the bizarre split-code personality disorder of Final Cut's Log & Transfer
window being able to see and display the Date created information for
each about-to-be-ingested-and-transcoded AVCHD clip, only to have that
same -- and potentially quite valuable -- information be invisible
and completely inaccessible to the Final Cut Browser -- the Browser
of the very same application!
2) Let the USER assign and configure any number of custom-named Logging fields
(with lots of preset templates to get started) -- with more options for auto-repeating
text fields, customized combinations of selected camera metadata merging with
user-generated information, and a direct transfer of all that data into corresponding,
easily searchable Columns in the Browser.
3) Let the USER create unlimited numbers of custom and always searchable
Keywords. Keywords in families. Sets of keywords for different kinds of projects.
Keywords visible in a floating Heads-Up Display, in a separate pane, or as
buttons in their own visible-whenever-and-wherever-you-choose Control Bar.
Keywords you can easily assign to a single clip (whether in the Browser or
the Timeline; before ingesting or months into the editing); or to a non-contiguous
group of selected clips; or to an entire Bin's worth of clips -- whatever's
highlighted, and all in a single mouse click.
Apple's Aperture app (--and how much fun is that to say!--) does all
this, and more, with relative ease. And it doesn't ask you to purchase,
learn, and then constantly have to work with a whole 'nother, multi-user,
high-end business program called "ApertureServer" to do so.
So if progress in software development is to be measured in terms of giving
the USER more choice, more flexibility, and easier access to more information
(so those choices can be made more intelligently) -- which is exactly how
I think it should always be measured -- then surely bringing this kind of
already-overdue Metadata muscle to Final Cut ASAP would be a huge step forward.
It's all about giving power to the User, not just to the Program.
Oh dear -- I think I'm getting a little "verklempt".
Best to end with the paraphrased words of Coffee Talk's Linda Richman
(aka Mike Myers' classic SNL character): "Talk amongst yourselves.
I'll give you a topic: When it comes to Metadata, Final Cut Pro is neither
final, nor cutting... (nor particularly pro). Discuss."
JOHN BERTRAM is
a Toronto-based writer/director/editor who is currently busy resenting
having to learn anything at all about Codecs and Conversions, Renders and
Resolutions, Formats and Frame Sizes, Gradients and Gamma Curves. He began
Non-Linear Editing with Final Cut 4, and since then has been struggling
to understand anything he can about, well... (see list). The preceding
article, together with his new blog you can
read here,
will illustrate the futility of that struggle.
John also sent his original article to Philip Hodgetts who added
the following comments:
[First, Philip wrote, I need to state that I have no insider information,
nor am I passing on rumors. This is just my understanding from looking
at the software with the eyes of a developer and connecting the dots.]
I guess you do know that FCP does retain all the metadata from non-tape
workflows ingested via Log and Transfer. But the [Browser] bin code,
as it currently is, is not flexible. Each column has to be added
by Apple (and they have added a lot over the years). Needless to
say I expect that is "non-trivial" to
change.
But every indication is that Apple have been working on a foundation
for metadata management in QT Media (as of FCP 5.1.2) and that is exposed
in the XML export. See our miniME app- in demo mode you can export
to an Excel spreadsheet. http://assistedediting.com/miniME
These things are, I think, on the road map for FCP but will require
large sections of the code to not only be ported to Cocoa but also
completely rewritten. When you rewrite one component it often has
unforeseen (or non-obvious to those outside the dev team) consequences
and implications on other code. Fortunately a lot of FCP was written
in modular form from the start, Browser included. Check inside the
FCP package > MacOS > Plugins > Browser.bundle.
.bundles usually indicate complied C code i.e. Carbon. In fact there
were earlier versions of these in all versions of FCP. The .bundle
version dates from around FCP 4.5 (or perhaps FCP 4.0) when they
recompiled the Carbon code from CFM (Code Fragment Manager) to MachO
(and thereby losing OS 9 compatibility).
All these bundles need to be rewritten. Most can probably just be
ported as-is without significant change to functionality. (Really what
improvements to the Transition Editor do we need?) In the earlier versions
of FCP I experimented with removing specific plug-ins and found FCP
still ran but the functionality disappeared.
Anything in the Frameworks folder is Cocoa.
Also, the new code is found in Resources > English.lproj. A .nib
file indicates Cocoa, so I'm informed: at least created in Xcode's
interface builder.
Overall, I'd say John is pretty much spot on as to what I'd like to
see in the future version of FCP as far as metadata management, but
it can't be shoveled into this code. It has to be new. I also *hope*
that Apple takes this opportunity to rework Media Management but I
have no data points to suggest whether or not they will, particularly
now that media management is very much improved from the early days.
Remember too, that the FCP dev team believed up until July 2007 that
there would be 64 bit Carbon (only because Apple said so at the WWDC
in 2006 only to reverse it a year later). it was only then that the
need to rewrite became essential. Ultimately I think this is a great
thing although it will take time because I'm of the (optimistic) belief
that Apple will be rewriting things like the browser to give exposure
to the metadata they're already retaining and tracking. If they could
have gone to 64 bit Carbon they may not have felt the need.
Which is why I think we'll not see a new version until 2012 as I
said in my recent blog post.
The reality of code development is that it does not scale. 10 engineers
won't be twice as fast as five. In fact evidence suggests that it
would take longer with 10 than 5 (whatever the [actual] numbers are).
There's an article floating about the "myth of the man month" related
to software dev scaling. Software development takes the time it takes.
Even so, I'd say it's probably a very expensive rewrite, which FCP
can definitely afford as the Pro Apps Suite (i.e. FCP really) is highly
profitable based on my back-of-the-envelope calculations.
Good stuff, though, John. Keep the agitation going.
OTOH, Premiere Pro has awesome metadata tracking and handling and
yet the users seem to not care about it one iota! If you're at NAB
catch my presentation on Wednesday at 1 PM in the PostPit at NAB
on "The
Mundane and Magic Future of Metadata".
The issue of how you find media files when there are tens of thousands
to search from becomes increasingly important as we move into all tapeless
workflows. Adobe has staked out a strong position in this area for
all their media applications.
It is my hope that Apple is working to bring the metadata power of
Final Cut Server down into all of its applications, then make it easy
enough for mere mortals to use.
[ Go to Top. ]
EMBEDDING METADATA IN H.264 VIDEO
William Aleman writes:
Artists and producers are starting to ask for the display of their
information (artist's name, project details as extended description, "i" short
for information, credits among others fields) in iTunes and Apple's
devices. The problem is that the information locally entered in iTunes'
tab is not embedded in the files, it's user's iTunes library display
only. Moving the files to a different server or location will cause
the lose of all metadata - information about the information- as
described by some specialists in this field.
I haven't found yet a way to add metadata from FCP 6.0 or Apple Compressor
for iTunes and Apple's devices while exporting the files, except chapter
markers. In addition, all locally created music videos automatically
get placed by iTunes under Movies category. That was until I found
the solution through some dedicated software, which does just that:
to embed this type of metadata in the files wherever they go.
I found three applications dedicated to embed metadata in video and
audio file with the purpose of being displayed in applications that
support the display of this type of data, including chapter markers,
as iTunes, QuickTime, among others do.
This applications are MetaX, Lostify, (shareware) and SimpleMovieX
(buy). After several tries of all three, the best that worked for me
is MetaX.
A good feature of MetaX is that you can update the metadata in the
files already in iTunes (music video, movie or audio) without re-importing
them. In addition, we can change and embed a poster frame. To update
the metadata, we just have to hold down 'Control' key in any iTunes'
tab, at the bottom of the list of the open window where we will find
a text line that says "Edit Tag in MetaX" That will load
the file from iTunes into the MetaX and will update it without leaving
iTunes. I haven't tried that feature in the other two applications.
By the way, any QuickTime movie can be metadata embedded with this
application, not just the H.264 Codec.
Shareware
Trial & Buy
Larry replies: Thanks, William, for sharing this information.
Larry Jordan is a post-production consultant and an Apple-Certified Trainer in Digital Media with over 25 years experience as producer, director and editor with network, local and corporate credits. Based in Los Angeles, he's a member of both the Directors Guild of America and the Producers Guild of America.
The information in this article is believed to be accurate at the time of publication. However, the author assumes no liability in case things go wrong. Please use your best judgment in applying these suggestions.
The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author. This newsletter has not been reviewed or sanctioned by Apple or any other third party. All trademarks are the property of their respective owners and are mentioned here for editorial purposes only.
Links to my website home page or this article are welcome and don't require prior permission.
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