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Propose a video/media storage location list feature

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Sat, 10/09/2010 - 12:07
#1
oldcpu
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Propose a video/media storage location list feature

I propose that KDEnlive have a menu selection, where upon selecting, KDEnive produces a text or rtf (rich text format) output of a Video's contents, listing all of the files (still-images, movies, audio) and the precise directories in which those images, videos, and audio tracks were located, when the KDEnlive video was last saved.

The idea here, is if one decides a year later to restore a kdenlive video (and say edit the video) one might still have the name.kdenlive file, but the images, videos and audio tracks may be no longer on one's hard drive, but may be backed up elsewhere.

Hence the kdenlive software code that I propose, could use that menu function to take the XML (?) formatted kdenlive file, and clean it up to a user readable list as to where all the multimedia content files used in the kdenlive file creation, were located AT THE TIME of the kdenlive videos last stored update.

That way one can:
(1) use the list to find the names original files (and then separately search for the files) and
(2) either restore the previous file structure, or simply put the files somewhere that kdenlive will be able to find, and use the existing already created KDEnlive capability to point to the new file location.

I currently do this file location via a painfully created "readme.videoname.txt" file for each kdenlive video I create, but it would be nice to have this semi-automated. :)

(Note I have over 2 Terrabytes of home videos off line, and I have no choice but to have to restore videos when I want to make a change a year later).

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Sat, 10/16/2010 - 10:04
#2
oldcpu
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Re: Propose a video/media storage location list feature

I think maybe I should explain better the simple output I had in mind. In essence, if one has a file "sep2006vacation.kdenlive", I seen one would either run a binary that comes with kdenlive (say its called kcheckvideo.bin) by "kcheckvideo sep2006vacation.kdenlive" or click on a menu item in kdenlive that lets run the check on the file, which in both cases turn creates a text file. The text file would be called "sep2006vacation.txt" and the output would be something like this:

File: sep2006vacation.kdenlive

Videos
/home/username/videos/2006_09_10/video004.avi
/home/username/videos/2006_09_10/video007.avi
/home/username/videos/2006_09_10/video008.avi
/home/username/videos/2006_09_10/video015.avi
/home/username/videos/2006_09_10/video022.avi
/home/username/videos/2006_09_11/video312.avi
/home/username/videos/2006_09_11/video315.avi
/home/username/videos/2006_09_11/video316.avi
/home/username/videos/2006_09_11/video317.avi
/home/username/videos/2006_09_11/video318.avi

Still Pictures
/home/username/Pictures/2006_09_09/IMG_5020
/home/username/Pictures/2006_09_09/IMG_5023
/home/username/Pictures/2006_09_09/IMG_5042
/home/username/Pictures/2006_09_09/IMG_5044
/home/username/Pictures/2006_09_09/IMG_5101

Audio
/home/username/Music/song1.mp3
/home/username/Music/song4.wav

With that information, one could copy the appropriate files off of one's external hard drive, and again recreate the /home/username/video, Pictures, and Music directories with the appropriate files.

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Mon, 10/18/2010 - 20:38
#3
rylleman
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Re: Propose a video/media storage location list feature

Very interesting suggestion!

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Fri, 10/22/2010 - 18:38
#4
oldcpu
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Re: Propose a video/media storage location list feature

I hope the idea catches on. Its not always possible to keep one's videos 'online' ..... and its also not always practical to load them direct from an external hard drive when editing a video. Many of us tend to move things around in our external hard drives as we reorganize, and hence yesterdays hard drive file directory order may not be the same as todays.

KDEnlive has a great feature in loading, to let one search for a replacement video/image for one that can not be found, but when one has dozens of such images/videos in a .kdenlive project it is very time consuming to hunt for each.

IMHO its much better to have a printed list of applications, that one can use as a checklist, and also as a guide for bringing off line videos, on line BEFORE one goes back in to redo an old video with kdenlive.

As noted in my 1st 2 posts on this thread, I think what would be very helpful, is a program that goes through the .kdenlive file, and creates a nice simple output list (that can be stored in an ascii text file).

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Sat, 10/23/2010 - 16:12
#5
ubuntuaddicted
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Re: Propose a video/media storage location list feature

very great idea but not sure how hard it would be to complete this task for the devs. im all for it and if I knew how to code I'd right it into kdenlive.

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Sat, 10/23/2010 - 20:05
#6
j-b-m
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Re: Propose a video/media storage location list feature

I just implemented this in latest development version. I added an "Export" button to the project settings dialog allowing to export in plain text, see screenshot below. Does that seem ok to you?

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Sun, 10/24/2010 - 00:10
#7
oldcpu
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Re: Propose a video/media storage location list feature

Wow! That looks good.

It will potentially save me a lot of time where I am currently doing something along these lines by hand (or not doing it at all and risking I may never be able to go back and re-edit an old video).

If I understand the implementation correctly, when one has a loaded project, one can then do a "plain text export", putting the file information into a text file (which is illustrated in your example as being open in kwrite).

And then with the text file properly saved (together with the projects.kdenlive file) one then has the information needed (in an easy to read text format) to help restore back on to one's hard drive, a project that was previously moved off one's hard drive.

Excellent! Thanks.

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Tue, 10/26/2010 - 06:54
#8
ddennedy
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Re: Propose a video/media storage location list feature

Yes, also, the kdenlive project file is xml if you ever need to edit file path information.

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