-Inigo Documentation
+Melt Documentation
Copyright (C) 2004-2009 Ushodaya Enterprised Limited
Author: Charles Yates <charles.yates@pandora.be>
-Last Revision: 2009-01-21
+Last Revision: 2009-05-08
-INIGO
+MELT
-----
Preamble:
- inigo was developed as a test tool for the MLT framework. It can be thought
+ Melt was developed as a test tool for the MLT framework. It can be thought
of as a powerful, if somewhat obscure, multitrack command line oriented
video editor.
Usage:
- inigo [options] [producer [name=value]* ]+
+ melt [options] [producer [name=value]* ]+
Options:
-attach filter[:arg] [name=value]* Attach a filter to the output
-attach-cut filter[:arg] [name=value]* Attach a filter to a cut
3. Please refer to services.txt for details on services available;
- 4. The MLT framework, from which inigo has inherited its naming convention,
+ 4. The MLT framework, from which melt has inherited its naming convention,
is very mlt-centric. Producers produce MLT frame objects and consumers
consume MLT frame objects. The distinction is important - a DV producer
does not produce DV, it produces MLT frames from a DV source, and similarly
To play a file with the default SDL PAL consumer, usage is:
- $ inigo file
+ $ melt file
- Note that 'file' can be anything that inigo has a known 'producer' mapping
+ Note that 'file' can be anything that melt has a known 'producer' mapping
for (so this can be anything from .dv to .txt).
You can also specify the producer directly, for example:
- $ inigo avformat:file.mpeg
+ $ melt avformat:file.mpeg
Would force the direct use of avformat for loading the file.
Properties can be assigned to the producer by adding additional name=value
pairs after the producer:
- $ inigo file in=50 out=100 something="something else"
+ $ melt file in=50 out=100 something="something else"
Note that while some properties have meaning to all producers (for example:
in, out and length are guaranteed to be valid for all, though typically,
Multiple files of different types can be used:
- $ inigo a.dv b.mpg c.png
+ $ melt a.dv b.mpg c.png
Properties can be assigned to each file:
- $ inigo a.dv in=50 out=100 b.mpg out=500 c.png out=500
+ $ melt a.dv in=50 out=100 b.mpg out=500 c.png out=500
MLT will take care of 'normalising' the output of a producer to ensure
that the consumer gets what it needs. So, in the case above, the mlt
Filters are frame modifiers - they can change the contents of the audio or
the images associated to a frame.
- $ inigo a.dv -filter greyscale
+ $ melt a.dv -filter greyscale
As with producers, properties may be specified on filters too.
Again, in and out properties are common to all, so to apply a filter to a
range of frames, you would use something like:
- $ inigo a.dv -filter greyscale in=0 out=50
+ $ melt a.dv -filter greyscale in=0 out=50
Again, filters have their own set of rules about properties and will
silently ignore properties that do not apply.
The -group switch is provided to force default properties on the following
'services'. For example:
- $ inigo -group in=0 out=49 clip*
+ $ melt -group in=0 out=49 clip*
would play the first 50 frames of all clips that match the wild card
pattern.
Note that the last -group settings also apply to the following filters,
transitions and consumers, so:
- $ inigo -group in=0 out=49 clip* -filter greyscale
+ $ melt -group in=0 out=49 clip* -filter greyscale
is *probably not* what you want (ie: the greyscale filter would only be
applied to the first 50 frames).
To shed the group properties, you can use any empty group:
- $ inigo -group in=0 out=49 clip* -group -filter greyscale
+ $ melt -group in=0 out=49 clip* -group -filter greyscale
Attached Filters:
The -attach family of switches simplify things enormously. By default, -attach
will attach a filter to the last service created, so:
- $ inigo clip1.dv clip2.dv -attach greyscale clip3.dv
+ $ melt clip1.dv clip2.dv -attach greyscale clip3.dv
would only apply the filter to clip2.dv. You can further narrow down the area of
the effect by specifying in/out points on the attached filter.
This might seem simple so far, but there is a catch... consider the following:
- $ ingo clip1.dv -attach watermark:+hello.txt -attach invert
+ $ melt clip1.dv -attach watermark:+hello.txt -attach invert
The second attached filter is actually attached to the watermark. You might
think, yay, nice (and it is :-)), but, it might not be what you want. For example
you might want to attach both to clip1.dv. To do that, you can use:
- $ ingo clip1.dv -attach-cut watermark:+hello.txt -attach-cut invert
+ $ melt clip1.dv -attach-cut watermark:+hello.txt -attach-cut invert
As you shall see below, there are still another couple of gotchas associated to
-attach, and even another variant :-).
For example:
- $ inigo clip1.dv clip2.dv -mix 25 -mixer luma -mixer mix:-1
+ $ melt clip1.dv clip2.dv -mix 25 -mixer luma -mixer mix:-1
would provide both an audio and video transition between clip1 and clip2.
This functionality supercedes the enforced use of the -track and -transition
- switches from earlier versions of inigo and makes life a lot easier :-).
+ switches from earlier versions of melt and makes life a lot easier :-).
These can be used in combination, so you can for example do a fade from black
and to black using the following:
- $ inigo colour:black out=24 clip1.dv -mix 25 -mixer luma \
+ $ melt colour:black out=24 clip1.dv -mix 25 -mixer luma \
colour:black out=24 -mix 25 -mixer luma
while this may not be immediately obvious, consider what's happening as the
As noted, -attach normally applies to the last created service - so, you can
attach a filter to the transition region using:
- $ inigo clip1.dv clip2.dv -mix 25 -mixer luma -attach watermark:+Transition.txt
+ $ melt clip1.dv clip2.dv -mix 25 -mixer luma -attach watermark:+Transition.txt
Again, nice, but take care - if you want the attached filter to be associated
to the region following the transition, use -attach-cut instead.
It is best to visualise a track arrangement, so we'll start with
an example:
- $ inigo a.dv -track b.dv in=0 out=49
+ $ melt a.dv -track b.dv in=0 out=49
This can be visualised as follows:
example, the following would show the video from the a track, but the audio
would come from the second track:
- $ inigo a.dv -track b.mp3 in=0 out=49
+ $ melt a.dv -track b.mp3 in=0 out=49
To have the 51st frame be the first frame of b, we can use the -blank switch:
- $ inigo a.dv out=49 -track -blank 49 b.dv
+ $ melt a.dv out=49 -track -blank 49 b.dv
Which we can visualise as:
Here we need tracks to overlap, so a useful multitrack
definition could be given as:
- $ inigo a.dv out=49 \
+ $ melt a.dv out=49 \
-track \
-blank 24 b.dv \
-transition luma in=25 out=49 a_track=0 b_track=1
In this scenario, we define a command line as follows:
- $ inigo a.dv out=49 -blank 49 a2.dv \
+ $ melt a.dv out=49 -blank 49 a2.dv \
-track \
-blank 24 b.dv out=99 \
-transition luma in=25 out=49 a_track=0 b_track=1 \
Serialisation:
- Inigo has a built in serialisation mechanism - you can build up
+ Melt has a built in serialisation mechanism - you can build up
your command, test it via any consumer and then add a -serialise
- file.inigo switch to save it.
+ file.melt switch to save it.
- The saved file can be subsequently used as a clip by either
- miracle or inigo. Take care though - paths to files are saved as
+ The saved file can be subsequently used as a clip by melt or other
+ MLT applications. Take care though - paths to files are saved as
provided on the command line....
- A more expressive serialisation can be obtained with the westley consumer
- - this will provide an xml document which can be used freely in inigo and
- miracle.
+ A more expressive serialisation can be obtained with the xml consumer
+ - this will provide an xml document which can be used freely in melt and
+ other MLT applications.
- See westley.txt for more information.
+ See mlt-xml.txt for more information.
Missing Features:
track or a watermark which you want composited on every frame, and of
course, there's the obscure filter....
- inigo only supports this in two invocations - as a simple example:
+ melt only supports this in two invocations - as a simple example:
- $ inigo a.dv -track -blank 100 b.dv -consumer westley:basic.westley
- $ inigo basic.westley -filter watermark:watermark.png
+ $ melt a.dv -track -blank 100 b.dv -consumer xml:basic.mlt
+ $ melt basic.mlt -filter watermark:watermark.png
projects / mlt / blobdiff