GStreamer Editing Services

TODO

FUNDAMENTAL GOALS:

 1) API must be easy to use for simple use-cases. Use and abuse
 convenience methods.
 2) API must allow as many use-cases as possible, not just the simple
 ones.

* Project file load/save support (GESFormatter)

  Problems:
   Timelines can be stored in many different formats, we need to
   ensure it is as easy/trivial as possible for users to load/save
   those timelines.
   Some timeline formats might have format-specific
   sources/objects/effects which need to be handled in certain ways
   and therefore provide their own classes.

  The object that can save/load GESTimeline are Formatters.

  Formatters can offer support for load-only/save-only formats.

  There must be a list of well-known GES classes that all formatters
  must be able to cope with. If a subclass of one of those classes is
  present in a timeline, the formatter will do its best to store a
  compatible information.

  A Formatter can ask a pre-render of classes that it doesn't
  understand (See Proxy section).

  Formatters can provide subclasses of well-known GES classes when
  filling in the timeline to offer format-specific features.


* Grouping/Linking of Multiple TrackObjects

  Problems:
   In order to make the usage of timelines at the Layer level as easy
   as possible, we must be able to group any TrackObject together as
   one TimelineObject.
   

 ** Selection support

* Effects support
  * in the Layers
  * as TrackObjects

* Source Material object

  Problems:
   Several TimelineSource for a same uri actually share a lot
   in common. That information will mostly come from GstDiscoverer,
   but could also contain extra information provided by 3rd party
   modules.

  Definition:
   Material: n, The substance or substances out of which a thing is or
   can be made.

  In order to avoid duplicating that information in every single
  TimelineSource, a 'Material' object needs to be made available.

  A Material object contains all the information which is independent
  of the usage of that material in a timeline.

  A Material object can specify the TimelineSource class to use in a
  Layer.


* Proxy support

  Problems:
   A certain content might be impossible to edit on a certain setup
   due to many reasons (too complex to decode in realtime, not in
   digital format, not available locally, ...).

   In order to be able to store/export timelines to some formats, one
   might need to have to create a pre-render of some items of the
   timeline, while retaining as much information as possible.

   Content here is not limited to single materials, it could very well
   be a complex combination of materials/effects like a timeline or a
   collection of images.

  To solve this problem, we need a notion of ProxyMaterial.

  It is a subclass of Material and as such provides all the same
  features as Material.

  It should be made easy to create one from an existing TimelineSource
  (and it's associated Material(s)), with specifiable rendering
  settings and output location.

  The user should have the possibility to switch from Proxy materials
  to original (in order to use the lower
  resolution/quality/... version for the editing phase and the
  original material for final rendering phase).