🪩 Finally A Public Release! 🪩
Thanks to everyone for their patience while we have toiled away on a lot of important front and back of house feature and stability work.
The next traunch of work has begun: Filter Formula Functions. Our initial goal is to create simple arithmetic operations and percentages using filter formulas. A function's output will be able to be displayed on a markup button, table cell and in a movie collection overlay. These objects will also be double clickable to play clips.
This update requires us that the minimum supported macOS is now 13.5. And Apple has released some new features related to movie exports that can only be used when running macOS 15.5 or greater. So, please update when you can.
🎨 Telestration Integration
The bulk of our work through this quiet public release period has been related to integrating with third party telestration software. The bulk of the work has been done in cooperation with RT Software. We want to thank them for sharing licences of Tactic and work done on their side to make the integration as seamless as possible.
The critical development in this work is that we cracked the Apple code to allows us to set the frame rate and limit the bitrate for movie imports and exports! This is something we have wanted to implement for a long time. Telestration software tends to be rather rigid and requires exact FPS, so now you can send clips to telestration software that will load without errors.
To show the telestration dialog, right click on the composer export button in it's toolbar and select ‘Telestrate Clips'.
The floating dialog is an interactive dialog that shows various details about clip status in the composer and clips that have been exported to the telestration software.
To send clip movies for telestration, select clips in the composer, then click the ’Export Clips' button. This will send the clips to the Path that has been configured in the Telestrate plist settings. Please see below and ask us for help with these settings.
Currently, if you run RT Software's Tactic software, Angles will detect their watch and layoff folders, then sets everything up with zero configuration. The settings are loaded from Tactic's ini configuration files.
In the case for Tactic, a movie for each angle in selected clips is exported to the RTSW ‘Clips’ folder. These movies have a specific naming convention, ensure the original file name details in the square brackets are unchanged. Also, be sure to use the same name when you render the clips out, otherwise Angles will not be able to import them back into the composer.
To import the telestrated movies, make sure the destination composer has been selected and its name is showing in the first line in the Telestrate dialog, then click ‘Import Rendered Clips’.
Importing the rendered clips, creates a new movie collection, so be sure you include this when sharing the composer. This might be unexpected behaviour, but has many advantages, the biggest one being that you can link a timeline to it! Also, this approach is very straightforward from a development point of view as it just another movie collection that clips are pointing to.
To switch between the telestrated video and the original clip video for selected clips, click ‘Hide’ and ‘Show’ in the Telestrate dialog.
Clear Rendered Clips will delete all rendered movies in the Tactic layoff folder.
When exporting clips and transcoding, be sure to match your source framerate, there is no reason to choose 50FPS if your movies are 25FPS. We recommend using 6Mbit/s, but increase this if the quality is not optimal. Again, there is no reason to increase the bitrate above what your source movie bitrate.
An angle is not exported for telestration if the angle arrangements for the clip are locked, and the angle is completely covered by another angle. Only the flicked in and locked angle will be exported.
The Clip Margin Seconds adds a little padding to the beginning and end of the clip when it is exported. This give a little extra movie to work with in the telestration software.
Alternate paths to the SOURCE and RENDERED folders can be specified in ‘Preferences < Telestrate < alternate SOURCE and RENDERED paths.plist’. If this file does not exist, it is created as the ’Telestrate Clips’ dialog is opened. Edit this plist to specify the required paths. The next time the ‘Telestrate Clips’ dialog is opened, if the paths in this plist are valid, then they are used.
The default CLIPS folder is set to '~/Movies/Angles/Telestration/Source Clips’.
The default RENDERED folder is set to '~/Movies/Angles/Telestration/Rendered Clips’.
If these default folders do not exist, they are created when the Telestration dialog is opened, or when ‘Export Clips’ is clicked.
If the extra movie collections are not desired, create a standalone composer archive to compile all the movies into one movie collection.
🎞️ External Movie Composer Clips
The work we did for telestration required us to add a second type of movie collection when importing image files. In order to support adding notes, etc. to clips created by images or dropped in movies into the composer, we now create a clips collection. The main reason we did this was to make downstream workflows work more smoothly.
When a movie file is dragged to a composer, the movie can be transcoded as it is imported. The clip inserted in the composer for this file can be created as a conventional composer clip movie resource, or as a normal clip movie. A clip collection is created for clip movies.
When a picture file is dragged to a composer, the pictured can be encoded into a movie as it is imported. The duration of the movie can be set. A clip collection is created for the picture movies if one does not already exist.
When editing the length of a composer clip, If the end of the clip is dragged beyond the end of the longest collection angle linked to that clip, as editing finishes, the end time of this clip is set to the longest collection angle.
A menu item, ‘Convert Movie And Picture Resources To Clips’ has been added to the Export button menu in the composer toolbar. This menu item converts picture and movie resource clips to normal composer clips which are linked to the composer clips collection. This helps convert images and movies using the new transcoding routines. This is ultimately the features that will help push content to Amplify!
'Do Not Show Until Relaunch’ checkbox is at the bottom of the import dialog. If this checkbox is selected, after relaunch, this dialog is shown the first time a picture or movie is dragged to a composer, otherwise it is normally not shown. The dialog will reappear after the next relaunch, or if the command key is held down and a picture or movie is dragged to the composer.
When this dialog is shown, it is positioned below the clip destination topic, if there is available screen space.
Pressing the ESC key cancels the current import process.
When importing images, we still allow the image to be imported as a picture, the way this process worked in previous builds. However, we don't really recommend this moving forward.
🛬 Transcode Movie During Import
From the work we did to transcode movies for telestration, we added options to transcode movies when dropped into a movie collection. This is critical to do if you are using downloaded content from likes of Wyscout. The nice thing about transcoding on the way into Angles is that you don't need to do it later like when exporting for telestration purposes or using cut clips. We strongly recommend using this feature!
🚀 Standalone Clip Movie Exports 🚀
Compeletely revamped the standalone timeline and composer movie export. It now supports features similar to Cut Clips.
Added the following options to the export dialog:
- Separate Angles
- Sequence Angles
- Qualifiers In File Name
- Note In File Name
- Show In Finder
When qualifier names are added to file names for cut clips and standalone movies, the qualifier names are added sorted by the time of the qualifier in the clip.
The timeline menus ’Single Angle Export With Notes’ and ’Single Angle Export With Notes Settings’ have been hidden, but they can be shown by holding down the Option key while clicking on the timeline progress icon.
We recommend 6Mbps for 1920x1080 and 4Mbps for 1280x720. These will be the defaults in a future build. Be sure to check your frame rate when importing. If your movie is 25fps don't choose 50fps and vice versa.
📼 Standalone Composer Archive Update 📼
We re-worked the standalone composer archive routines when adding additional clips after the archive creation. Padding movies for angles use the default image ‘empty angle image.png’ in the Preferences folder.
🛠️ Matrix and Composer Updates
Copy clips to composer menu added to matrix. Right click on a cell or selected cells to copy clips to a composer.
Double clicking on a matrix cell selects the linked timeline or composer, selects the linked clips and begins playback of these clips.
Changes have been made to composer clip selection to handle playing composer clips from a matrix, and to enhance composer usability.
Composer tabbing updated to better handle tabbing with unselected clips.
When a composer topic is deleted, the playhead is moved or removed if required.
If the composer playhead exists, then clicking on a clip in the composer does not move the playhead.
If the composer playhead does not exist, then clicking on a clip in the composer, shows the playhead and positions it at the click point.
If a single clip is selected, the tab key moves the playhead to the next clip in the composer, selects this clip and deselects the previous clip.
If more than a single clip is selected, the tab key moves the playhead to the next selected clip.
🛠️ Filter Formula Updates
When a timeline or composer tab bar is clicked with the Option key held down, the formulas in the last selected Formulas table are executed.
Formulas that search for attribute categories paired with attribute names, check all attributes in the qualifier. Previously, only the first attribute matching the attribute name searched for was checked.
Added clip count to the Filter menu icon in the Timeline and Composer main toolbars. When filter formulas are applied, the count is updated. Left clicking on the count will clear the filter. Right click will expose the Filter menu.
‘Insert A Row’ menu item added to tables. This makes it easier to add filter formula rows.
Tables remember the vertical offset between sessions.
Formulas that search for qualifier categories paired with qualifier names, check all qualifiers in the clip. Previously, only the first qualifier matching the qualifier name searched for was checked.
When cells are copied in a table, the contents are also copied to the pasteboard as plain text. This assists copying the table contents to other applications.
When a timeline tab bar is clicked, the formulas in the last selected ‘Formulas’ table are executed.
Thanks to Brentford for sharing data to help with fix issues due to their extensive usage of Formula tables.
🛠️ Filter Formula Table Updates
Double click on a row title in a formula table to select linked clips and play movies.
Editing table row names and column names is similar to editing timeline row names.
Three menu items have been added to the right click menu for Formula Tables row titles:
- Copy Selected Rows ...
- Paste Copied Rows ... Above ...
- Paste Copied Rows ... Below ...
Terms and operators in formulas in the colour token view can be replaced by right clicking on these terms or operators.
When double clicking on a row title in a formula table, the timeline or composer selected for playback becomes the focus.
To execute all formulas in a formula’s table, select the menu item ‘Execute All Formulas’ from the table row’s menu.
🛠️ New Show and Hide Features
The capacity to hide timeline rows and composer topics without any filtered in clips can be set for each timeline or composer independently. Previously this state was global and could only be turned on or off for all timeline or composer views simultaneously.
A rows information strip has been added to timelines and composers. Click on the ‘Hide On’ or “Hide Off’ text in this strip to turn row or topic hiding off or on. More information and functionality will be added to this strip in the future.
Row and topic hiding responds to clicks in the row name of formula tables.
🛠️ Don't Save Live Clips While Marking
We added an option called 'Don't Save Live Clips'. When this feature is on, by default, clips that are actively marking the timeline are not saved or exported. We recommend turning this on when exporting JSON timeline to Piston. This feature can be found in the Timeline Export menu.
🛠️ Legacy XML Import LIVE
Added support for importing Legacy XML files using the Set Data Import Folder feature in the Options menu of the timeline. This is the same feature used to import our JSON timelines from Piston, Angles and other sources live.
🛠️ Minor Updates
When creating a standalone composer archive in a new vault, an existing vault with the same name can be replaced if it contains a single composer and collection or less data. If the vault contains more data than a single composer and collection, it cannot be replaced using the standalone composer archive procedure, and a message is displayed to indicate this. This is intended to help protect additional data that may have been added to the vault from accidentally being deleted. The vault can be deleted using the Finder if required. If an attempt is made to replace the source vault archive with itself, the message ‘Unable to replace the source vault with itself.’ is displayed.
The timeline playhead no longer jumps back to the start time of the clip being copied from the timeline to the composer for the workflow ‘Clip > Composer, Up’. Thanks Fozzie Bear!
Updated clip details drawing so qualifiers with deleted categories draw in the correct position.
Updated row selection and moving rows in the Timeline and Composer. It now works like Finder.
Updated drag timeline clip copying with option key. Works like Finder now.
A new button ‘Create A New Angle For Each File’ has been added to the collection movie import dialog. This button is displayed when multiple movies are dragged to a collection. This button creates a new angle for each movie file dragged to the collection.
Stars are not added to or removed from clips if the command, option, shift or control keys are pressed while ‘-‘ or ‘=‘ is pressed.
Updated shift click for composer topics.
Added an icon at the top of the content side bar that shows or hides unavailable vaults. This is something that will help keep your windows a bit tidier when vaults are not available.
‘Keyboard Controls.plist’ updated to include modifier keys options. The default keys for Jump Forward are now Shift + ‘>’. The default keys for Jump Backward are Shift + ‘<‘.
Added some warnings to help indicate low disk space.
The free disk space warning for a vault is now triggered when the free space is less than 10 percent. This default value can be changed by editing ‘Preferences > Vault preferences > minimum free space for vault for warning.plist’.
🛠️ Maintenance
Improved composer clip playback when some clips had start times which exceeded the duration of the movie.
Reduced composer clip jumping and skipping for small clips.
Added better HLS movie loading procedures and rewrote the Reload movie feature.
Added copying tab delimited text from TextEdit and pasting into Angles Tables.
Added copying text from Numbers and pasting into Angles Tables.
🛠️ Better Full Screen Movie Sync
Improved double clicking on composer clips.
Improved video synchronising when clicking between composer clips for full screen videos.
Reduced clip skipping during composer playback.
Improved full screen and small collection synchronisation when the same collection is open in more than one pane.
🐞 BUG FIXES
Fixed a problem where the edge of normal collection angles could show if the composer playhead was dragged from a clip with normal angles to a clip showing an external resource movie, and these clips were in different composer topics.
Fixed Down>Up action adding duplicate qualifiers.
Fixed Shift Arrow clip editing in composers and timelines.
Angle flicking required Shift in order to flick using keyboard shortcuts.
Fixed registration issue when calendar was not set to Gregorian.
Fixed issue when presenting full screen where the initial frame of the movie would be displayed, then when play was initiated the movie would jump to the correct position. This have been fixed against the examples we were provided.
We refactored and optimised full screen movie synchronisation when starting full screen and when using arrow keys. If there are any issues, please let us know as soon as you see something not working correctly.
Fixed a problem that stopped composer playhead dragging for large composers when a clip was selected.