Blackmagic Forum

How can I import clip markers? Or export them?

I used to do this in FinalCut, but it seems that Davinci Resolve only allows Timeline import/export of the XML, not for the whole project. And even if it did, the marker data in the timeline isn't exported to the XML.

Exporting EDL with markers is also timeline-only, and I don't think it includes the marker notes.

What I'm trying to do is come up with a way to associate pre-existing data about the clips with the clips. I've even gone so far as to look at the underlying database to figure out where markers are stored. Alas, they are stored in a fieldBlob associated with the clip:

Code: Select all

INSERT INTO Sm2MpMedia VALUES('89b0000d-6ebc-46f0-9a3d-2d1dac188190','Sm2MpVideoClip','deborah04.mov','0b8063f7-80d0-440c-bf98-80764a18cb3d','-2147483648','-2147483648','1184','AUDIO_SOURCE_EMBEDDED',NULL,'06a415a8-586e-4281-a999-409da4621957','393fb486-3719-4d52-8e83-81c7c94454b4',0,'-360001.000000',NULL,NULL,'0b8063f7-80d0-440c-bf98-80764a18cb3d','b1fa03be-f502-4a08-af2d-a9be0e12e11a',NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,'cc1be571-0687-4b5b-ab31-5d269f86176d',NULL,NULL,NULL,NULL,0,0,0,'-2147483648','-2147483648',X'000000000000000100000000000004a00000000000000001000000000000000100000000000000105265736f6c7665436f6c6f724379616e00000000000000030000000000000030787a79206e6f74652c207468697320697320696e2074686520636c69702c206e6f74207468652074696d656c696e652e000000000000000131000000000000001120636c6970206d61726b65722c2078797a',NULL,NULL,'-2147483648','-2147483648','',NULL,NULL,NULL);


I'd even be okay with extracting from the blob if I could figure out the format of that string. (Might need to post that separately).

Thanks!

Tac

Yes, you can extract them that way, but it's very hackish. Also, writing back to the DB is risky. It's been a while for me, but I believe the first 8 bytes of the record contain the marker count and the rest are unicode values for the user entered content.

Instead you may want to look up marker operations available through scripting in V15.

if I understand this correctly:

...associate pre-existing data about the clips with the clips.

you may want to look into metadata scripting options. The advantage of using metadata is that you'd be able to filter clips in the bin based on metadata values.

Just finished watching your video, thanks, Igor, clearly scripting is a much better approach.

Alas, I'm having a really hard time finding the documentation for it. Is it available online somewhere? I'm assuming that scripting is only available in Studio (I'm still on the free "Lite" version), but would like to see the scripting documentation to confirm that you can indeed add clip markers with duration from a script.

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

Tac

Actually, updating to 15.1 helped, the link to developer documentation now works, so I can see that adding markers is indeed supported. And that scripting is a Studio-only feature.

Again, thanks for pointing me in the right direction. Now I have to learn some Python!

Tac