Which clips are actually being used?

Help/How To
#1

Is there an easy way, within Shotcut for me to quickly see which clips from the playlist are actually being used on the timeline?

I’ve tried viewing the playlist in “details” mode, but I don’t see anything there to indicate when a clip is not currently being used. I thought maybe the “start” column would be empty or set to 0 for an unused clip but I don’t currently understand what the “start” column is actually showing. It isn’t showing the time when a clip starts on the time line, nor could it because the same clip can appear at multiple start points.

#2

Good question - not sure.
I delete all items on the playlist when i have moved them into the timeline to make things clear for the next bunch of clips imported to the playlist. But i am not sure if you could tell from the playlist if a clip is used or not. You still could set a track to be visually locked if you draw clips there - so this would probably not say anything about the clip being active in the final export.

#3

No, Timeline and Playlist are unrelated as far as Shotcut is concerned. It is not necessary to have every timeline clip in playlist, and a playlist is not required. Neither is a timeline required, and you can make a clip-only or playlist-only project. To understand the start time, think of the playlist as a playlist and not as a media library.

#4

I think I understand the start time now. Thanks. It’s really obvious now that you explained it.

Also, I realized a simple way to check to see if a clip from the playlist is used on the timeline is to open up the .mlt file, do a quick text search and see if the filename appears more than once. If it only appears once, it only exists in the playlist. At least in my case because for me, everything in the timeline appears in the playlist but it might be true that something in the playlist does not appear in the timeline in which case I want to delete it from the playlist when I’m finished making the video.