inigo(1)

NAME

inigo - multitrack command line oriented video editor

SYNOPSIS

inigo [options] [producer [name=value]*]+

DESCRIPTION

inigo was developed as a test tool for the MLT framework. It can be
thought of as a powerful, if somewhat obscure, multitrack command line oriented video editor.

The following details the usage of the tool and as a result, provides a lot of insight into the workings of the MLT framework.

OPTIONS

-attach filter[:arg] [name=value]*

Attach a filter to the output

-attach-cut filter[:arg] [name=value]*

Attach a filter to a cut

-attach-track filter[:arg] [name=value]*

Attach a filter to a track

-attach-clip filter[:arg] [name=value]*

Attach a filter to a producer

-audio-track | -hide-video

Add an audio-only track

-blank frames

Add blank silence to a track

-consumer id[:arg] [name=value]*

Set the consumer (sink)

-debug

Set the logging level to debug

-filter filter[:arg] [name=value]*

Add a filter to the current track

-group [name=value]*

Apply properties repeatedly

-help

Show this message

-join clips

Join multiple clips into one cut

-mix length

Add a mix between the last two cuts

-mixer transition

Add a transition to the mix

-null-track | -hide-track

Add a hidden track

-profile name

Set the processing settings

-progress

Display progress along with the position

-remove

Remove the most recent cut

-repeat times

Repeat the last cut

-query

List all of the registered services

-query consumers | consumer=id

List consumers or show info about one

-query filters | filter=id

List filters or show info about one

-query producers | producer=id

List producers or show info about one

-query transitions | transition=id

List transitions or show info about one

-serialise [filename]

Write the commands to a text file

-silent

Do not display position/transport help

-split relative-frame

Split the last cut into two cuts

-swap

Rearrange the last two cuts

-track

Add a track

-transition id[:arg] [name=value]*

Add a transition

-verbose

Set the logging level to verbose

-version

Show the version and copyright message

-video-track | -hide-audio

Add a video-only track

GENERAL RULES

1. Order is incredibly important;

2. Error checking on command line parsing is weak;

3. Please refer to services.txt for details on services available;

4. The MLT framework, from which inigo has inherited its naming

convention, is very mlt-centric. Producers produce MLT frame
objects and consumers consume MLT frame objects. The distinction is important - a DV producer does not produce DV, it produces MLT
frames from a DV source, and similarly a DV consumer does not
consume DV, it consumes MLT frames and produces DV frames.

TERMINOLOGY

Producers typically refer to files but may also indicate devices (such as dv1394 input or video4linux). Hence, the more generic term is used
[the more generic usage is out of scope for now...].

Filters are frame modifiers - they always guarantee that for every frame they receive, they output precisely one frame. Never more, never less, ever. Nothing says that a filter cannot generate frames though

Transitions collect frames from two tracks (a and b) and output 1 modified frame on their 'a track', and 1 unmodified frame on their 'b
track'. Never more, never less, ever.

Consumers collect frames from a producer, do something with them and destroy them.

Collectively, these are known as services.

All services have properties associated to them. These are typically defaulted or evaluated and may be overriden on a case by case basis.

All services except consumers obey in and out properties.

Consumers have no say in the flow of frames [though they may give the
illusion that they do]. They get frames from a connected producer, use them, destroy them and get more.

BASICS

To play a file with the default SDL PAL consumer, usage is:

$ inigo file

Note that file can be anything that inigo has a known producer mapping for (so this can be anything from .dv to .txt).

You can also specify the producer directly, for example:

$ inigo avformat:file.mpeg

Would force the direct use of avformat for loading the file.

PROPERTIES

Properties can be assigned to the producer by adding additional
name=value pairs after the producer\:

$ inigo file in=50 out=100 something="something else"

Note that while some properties have meaning to all producers (for
example: in, out and length are guaranteed to be valid for all, though typically, length is determined automatically), the validity of others are dependent on the producer - however, properties will always be
assigned and silently ignored if they won't be used.

MULTIPLE FILES

Multiple files of different types can be used:

$ inigo a.dv b.mpg c.png

Properties can be assigned to each file:

$ inigo a.dv in=50 out=100 b.mpg out=500 c.png out=500

MLT will take care of normalising the output of a producer to ensure that the consumer gets what it needs. So, in the case above, the mlt
framework will ensure that images are rescaled and audio resampled to
meet the requirements of your configuration (which, by default, will be PAL). See Appendix A: Normalisation Rules below.

FILTERS

Filters are frame modifiers - they can change the contents of the audio or the images associated to a frame.

$ inigo a.dv -filter greyscale

As with producers, properties may be specified on filters too.

Again, in and out properties are common to all, so to apply a filter to a range of frames, you would use something like:

$ inigo a.dv -filter greyscale in=0 out=50

Again, filters have their own set of rules about properties and will
silently ignore properties that do not apply.

GROUPS

The -group switch is provided to force default properties on the
following services. For example:

$ inigo -group in=0 out=49 clip*

would play the first 50 frames of all clips that match the wild card
pattern.

Note that the last -group settings also apply to the following filters, transitions and consumers, so:

$ inigo -group in=0 out=49 clip* -filter greyscale

is probably not what you want (ie: the greyscale filter would only be applied to the first 50 frames).

To shed the group properties, you can use any empty group:

$ inigo -group in=0 out=49 clip* -group -filter greyscale

ATTACHED FILTERS

As described above, the -filter switch applies filters to an entire
track. To localise filters to a specific clip on a track, you have to
know information about the lengths of the clip and all clips leading up to it. In practise, this is horrifically impractical, especially at a
command line level (and not even that practical from a programing point of view...).

The -attach family of switches simplify things enormously. By default, -attach will attach a filter to the last service created, so:

$ inigo clip1.dv clip2.dv -attach greyscale clip3.dv

would only apply the filter to clip2.dv. You can further narrow down
the area of the effect by specifying in/out points on the attached
filter.

This might seem simple so far, but there is a catch... consider the
following:

$ ingo clip1.dv -attach watermark:+hello.txt -attach invert

The second attached filter is actually attached to the watermark. You
might think, yay, nice (and it is :-)), but, it might not be what you
want. For example you might want to attach both to clip1.dv. To do
that, you can use:

$ ingo clip1.dv -attach-cut watermark:+hello.txt -attach-cut invert

As you shall see below, there are still another couple of gotchas
associated to -attach, and even another variant :-).

Mixes:

The -mix switch provides the simplest means to introducer transitions
between adjacent clips.

For example:

$ inigo clip1.dv clip2.dv -mix 25 -mixer luma -mixer mix:-1

would provide both an audio and video transition between clip1 and
clip2.

This functionality supercedes the enforced use of the -track and
-transtition switches from earlier versions of inigo and makes life a
lot easier :-).

These can be used in combination, so you can for example do a fade from black and to black using the following:

$ inigo colour:black out=24 clip1.dv -mix 25 -mixer luma \
colour:black out=24 -mix 25 -mixer luma

while this may not be immediately obvious, consider what's happening as the command line is being parsed from left to right:

Input: Track
----------------------- ---------------------------------------colour:black out=24 [black]
clip1.dv [black][clip1.dv]
-mix 25 [black+clip1.dv][clip1.dv]
-mixer luma [luma:black+clip1.dv][clip1.dv]
colour:black out=24 [luma:black+clip1.dv][clip1.dv][black]
-mix 25 [luma:black+clip1.dv][clip1.dv][clip1.dv+black] -mixer luma [luma:black+clip1.dv][clip1.dv][luma:clip1.dv+black]

Obviously, the clip1.dv instances refer to different parts of the clip, but hopefully that will demonstrate what happens as we construct the
track.

You will find more details on the mix in the framework.txt.

MIX AND ATTACH

As noted, -attach normally applies to the last created service - so,
you can attach a filter to the transition region using:

$ inigo clip1.dv clip2.dv -mix 25 -mixer luma -attach watermark:+Transition.txt

Again, nice, but take care - if you want the attached filter to be
associated to the region following the transition, use -attach-cut
instead.

SPLITS, JOINS, REMOVES AND SWAPS

COMPLEX - needs simplification....

INTRODUCING TRACKS AND BLANKS

So far, all of the examples have shown the definition of a single
playlist, or more accurately, track.

When multiple tracks exist, the consumer will receive a frame from the highest numbered track that is generating a non-blank frame.

It is best to visualise a track arrangement, so we'll start with an
example:

$ inigo a.dv -track b.dv in=0 out=49

This can be visualised as follows:

+------------------+
|a |
+-------+----------+
|b |
+-------+

Playout will show the first 50 frames of b and the 51st frame shown
will be the 51st frame of a.

This rule also applies to audio only producers on the second track, for example, the following would show the video from the a track, but the
audio would come from the second track:

$ inigo a.dv -track b.mp3 in=0 out=49

To have the 51st frame be the first frame of b, we can use the -blank
switch:

$ inigo a.dv out=49 -track -blank 49 b.dv

Which we can visualise as:

+-------+
|a |
+-------+-------------------+
|b |
+-------------------+

Now playout will continue as though a and b clips are on the same track (which on its own, is about as useful as reversing the process of
slicing bread).

TRANSITIONS

Where tracks become useful is in the placing of transitions.

Here we need tracks to overlap, so a useful multitrack definition could be given as:

$ inigo a.dv out=49 \
-track \
-blank 24 b.dv \
-transition luma in=25 out=49 a_track=0 b_track=1

Now we're cooking - our visualisation would be something like:

+-------+
|a |
+---+---+--------------+
|b |
+------------------+

Playout will now show the first 25 frames of a and then a fade
transition for 25 frames between a and b, and will finally playout the remainder of b.

REVERSING A TRANSITION

When we visualise a track definition, we also see situtations like:

+-------+ +----------+
|a1 | |a2 |
+---+---+--------------+----+-----+
|b |
+-----------------------+

In this case, we have two transitions, a1 to b and b to a2.

In this scenario, we define a command line as follows:

$ inigo a.dv out=49 -blank 49 a2.dv \
-track \
-blank 24 b.dv out=99 \
-transition luma in=25 out=49 a_track=0 b_track=1 \
-transition luma in=100 out=124 reverse=1 a_track=0 b_track=1

SERIALISATION

Inigo has a built in serialisation mechanism - you can build up your
command, test it via any consumer and then add a -serialise file.inigo switch to save it.

The saved file can be subsequently used as a clip by either miracle or inigo. Take care though - paths to files are saved as provided on the
command line....

A more expressive serialisation can be obtained with the westley
consumer - this will provide an xml document which can be used freely
in inigo and miracle.

See westley.txt for more information.

MISSING FEATURES

Some filters/transitions should be applied on the output frame
regardless of which track it comes from - for example, you might have a 3rd text track or a watermark which you want composited on every frame, and of course, there's the obscure filter....

inigo only supports this in two invocations - as a simple example:

$ inigo a.dv -track -blank 100 b.dv -consumer westley:basic.westley $ inigo basic.westley -filter watermark:watermark.png

AUTHOR

Charles Yates <charles.yates@pandora.be>

COPYING

Copyright (C) 2004 Ushodaya Enterprised Limited

03/30/2009 INIGO(1)