In this tutorial, you'll learn how XMP metadata is created, how it flows through Adobe Creative Suite 4 Production Premium, and how it can enhance your workflow. To show how you can use XMP metadata in general, this tutorial focuses on one specific method for using Speech Search metadata to create a user experience in which a viewer can search for, and navigate to, specific spoken words in a video.

Beyond the simple workflow described in this tutorial, XMP metadata features in Creative Suite 4 Production Premium applications make many common editing, asset tracking, animating, and compositing tasks easier. After you've completed the simple steps in this tutorial and seen how much information is readily available to you at each stage of your work, you should realize how easy it is to use these features in each application to streamline your workflow and expand the possibilities of your creative work.

In this tutorial, you'll complete the following tasks:

• (Optional) Create and view metadata with Adobe OnLocation CS4.
• Transcribe and edit speech with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4.
• View metadata with Adobe Bridge CS4.
• Use expressions in Adobe After Effects CS4 to display speech metadata.
• Use scripting in After Effects to convert speech metadata to cue points.
• Use ActionScript in Adobe Flash CS4 Professional to create a movie with speech navigation controls in Adobe Flash Player.

Throughout this tutorial, you'll see references to documentation on the Adobe website. These documents provide additional information about each feature used in this tutorial.

Note: The term context-click means right-click (Windows) or Control-click (Mac OS).

Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:

Creative Suite 4 Production Premium

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or Creative Suite 4 Master Collection

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Apple QuickTime

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Sample files:

• metadata_workflow_cs4.zip (ZIP, 58 MB)

A note of caution before you begin

As you work through the tutorial, you should try to avoid clicking things that are not specifically mentioned in the step-by-step instructions. Many clicks can change an application's context, possibly causing the next step in the tutorial not to work as expected. The tutorial is designed to minimize such opportunities for unexpected results, but it's a good idea to stay on the path.

What is XMP metadata?

Metadata, by definition, is simply data about data. An example from the physical world is a library's card catalog entry for a book. Such an entry contains data about the book, including the title, author, and publisher. In the electronic world, digital cameras add metadata to image files. This metadata can include the camera model, film speed, exposure settings, date and time the image was taken, and so forth.

The Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP) is the metadata standard used by Adobe applications. Metadata that is stored in other formats—such as the Exif standard used for digital photographs—is synchronized and described with XMP so that it can be more easily viewed and managed together with other metadata.

In the context of Creative Suite Production Premium, metadata is descriptive information about a file. The files in this case are the assets used in your projects and even the project files themselves. In most cases, XMP metadata is embedded as text within the file and remains with the file, even if it's converted to another format. In some cases in which the file format does not support the embedding of XMP metadata, it can be stored in a sidecar file with the same name but with the filename extension .xmp. In either case, Creative Suite Production Premium applications can read the data and present it for viewing or editing.

For additional information about XMP metadata, see About XMP metadata and Project Intelligence and the XMP metadata website.

Some basic metadata is generated automatically when you create or capture a file, including information about the camera and its settings. You can add other metadata such as your name, copyright information, and much more. Creative Suite Production Premium provides an integrated set of tools for the creation, viewing, and editing of metadata. Metadata is broken into categories in systems known as schemas. You can add new data fields to a schema, or even create your own schema (see Create schemas and properties).

Metadata is also divided into project, file, and clip metadata. Project metadata in After Effects is associated with an entire project; file metadata is associated with an individual asset, such as a video or audio source file. Both project and file metadata are embedded in the asset files, so this metadata is available to other applications, either directly through the graphical user interface or through scripting. Clip metadata in Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Soundbooth is stored in the project file, not in the asset file (see About file, clip, and project metadata).

Metadata can be static or temporal. Static metadata applies to the entire asset. This includes data like author, copyright, and creation date. Temporal metadata is metadata that is associated with a particular time within an audio or video file. The metadata generated from Speech Search is an example of temporal metadata.

The Speech Search feature in Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe Soundbooth CS4 provides the ability to convert speech in a video or audio file to text metadata. Each word is stored as a temporal metadata element at the corresponding time in the timeline. When a file with Speech Search metadata is imported into After Effects and used as the source for a layer, each word appears in a layer marker at the corresponding time. The duration of the layer marker represents the duration of the spoken word (see Convert speech to text metadata).

After Effects scripts and expressions can read and use the metadata stored in markers. You can use an expression in After Effects to display the transcript stored in layer markers. You can use a script to convert the layer markers to Flash cue points and render the file to F4V or FLV format with the temporal metadata embedded in the file. Then, in Flash, you can use ActionScript to search for specific words of dialog, allowing the user to begin playback at a specific word (see XMP metadata in After Effects).

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