Nesting MLT’s is useful for projects that are done repetitively. There has been numerous requests and advice for copying specific tracks or just one clip’s filters from one project to another. This doesn’t solve the issue of existing projects that have already been built. This tutorial just gives insight to possibly a better workflow with Shotcut.
Useful cases of nesting could be:
Meetings: Names & titles, building names, locations, dates
Real Estate: Addresses, cost, size, zoning
Religious: Clergy, Bible verses, Hymns
Games: Titles, version, other player’s names
Sports: Teams, locations, scores
In the video below you can see how the Shotcut with version number appears on the screen. For future videos all I have to is just change that text filter of the version number of that specific mlt and use it in other videos. No rebuilding the keyframes or applying any other filter.
To bring in a MLT file into your current project, click on File then
For nesting to work correctly:
All MLT’s built must be of the same Video Mode, which is the same Resolution & FPS.
Within the main project file:
MLT’s with more than one track in them, you need to apply Chroma Key: Simple Color:Black.
MLT’s with just one track, no Chroma Key filter is needed.
If the camera original is 4k, and I build an MLT at say 1080/30p and then open it as a clip in a 1080/30p project,
will filters read the original 4k footage or only the 1080 version?
for the example in this tutorial, we want the nested sequence in the new timeline to have all the filters and settings applied, but is it possible to use the imported MLT to edit the original source footage to the timeline?
I would like to log the footage putting markers, then import that timeline as a clip to edit from for the new sequence, not insert a pre-rendered or nested timeline.
Incidentally, every time I try to import an MLT as a clip Shotcut crashes…
Some filters such as Size, Position & Rotate or Crop: Source inside the nested project will use the source resolution. Most do not because they do not benefit from that.
is it possible to use the imported MLT to edit the original source footage to the timeline?
Yes, but it is not efficient because every time a new clip is made by split or copy-paste, for example, Shotcut must read all of the objects of the nested project into memory. Repeat for each sub-clip of a nested clip. However, an object does not mean the entire media file is read into memory or even that all of them will be decoded; only the ones accessed, of course. Even when your nested sub-project has a single video, there are still other objects involved. View a MLT XML file. There is an object for each tag, more or less, except <property>.
putting markers, then import that timeline as a clip
The markers in a nested project do not appear in the parent project.
Sorry, deleted the comment accidentally and trying to repost:
That all makes sense. In the xml file I do see “properties name=“shotcut:markers”” with all of my markers. It would be great to have those properties passed to the new project clip when the xml is imported.
Final Cut Pro has a lot of tools dealing with metadata, basically creating a searchable media library but of course completely proprietary so not accessible from any other program or platform (though I guess there are some third party applications that do try to export that data).
FFMPEG appears to have a robust set of tools for dealing with metadata, it would be great to have access to those in ShotCut as a plugin or something.
