For the most part XMiL Placer should be relatively self-explanatory. This page offers a look at some of the less obvious features.

XMil Placer main window

A short video demonstration of XMiL Placer is available here.

 

General

• XMiL Placer works on all sequences contained in the XML file from Final Cut Pro. It considers all clips in an XML for placement in the sequence(s). It is up to the user to make sensible selections of sequences and shots that go into the XML export.
• The new clips that need to be placed into the sequence(s) can either be contained in the same XML file as the sequence(s), or in a separate XML file.
• The video track selection affects both placing new shots as well as the enabling/disabling of VFXINFO filters.
• Press Command/Apple-2 to invoke or hide the separate Placement Report window.

Place new shots

• Shots are matched by comparing the Shot ID in the VFX INFO filter with the name of the new clips. XMiL Placer can look for the entire Shot ID to match ("all characters"), or a set number of characters at the start of the Shot ID. Choose for the match to occur either at the start of the clip name, or anywhere in the clip name.
• The choices for alignment of the new shot with the shot in the sequence are Head, Center, Tail and Proportional. When Proportional is selected XMiL Placer looks at the length of the unused portions of the clip originally used in the sequence. It then places the new clip so that the unused portions at the head and tail of itself are proportional to those of the original clip in the sequence. This may be most useful for placing further iterations of an effects shot with an VFXINFO effect.
• Slate Frames, if checked, is the number of frames at the head of new clips that will be ignored in the placement calculation.
• The Scale and Aspect Ratio values should be entered so that they will work in the Motion tab of a clip opened in Final Cut Pro. These values are set absolutely, without further calculations, regardless of the clip's actual dimensions. It is up to the user to enter sensible values. Even if checked these options will be ignored for clips that have had adjustments made to them prior to the XML export.
• The information reported in a bin column of any re-imported clips is identical to the info in the saved report and in the Placement Report window of XMiL Placer.
• The choices for the format of counts are Frames, Time Code, Film Footage for 35mm 4 perf, or 16mm, 20 or 40 frames per foot. This choice affects all reported information, regardless of where it is presented.

Enable / Disable all VFXINFO filters

• This option can be used independently from Placing clips and from the Review Sequence option.

Review Sequences

• Review Sequences are all new clips strung out in alphabetical order of their names. Slates for each clip are optional.

Output

• XMiL Placer generates a new set of XML data that can be sent to Final Cut Pro directly, without saving a file to disk. For this to work Final Cut Pro version 5.0.4 or later needs to be installed on the same computer.
• Saving a text file of the new XML is optional.
• For test purposes both sending to Final Cut Pro and saving to disk can be turned off. The Placement Report window and the optional saved Report will show the potential matches.

 

Questions, Comments, Need help?

Your feedback and your questions are always welcome. Send an email to info@xmil.biz.