What do I need for Noir lightning? I'm new to film making as I have just purchased Canon 600D.  I also have a tripod. What else do I need to get the low-key lightning often found in Noir films?

From the film Whisperer in Darkness : http://aleatoriclove.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/whisperer_in_darkness.jpg

http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img42/8990/whisper3.png

How do I achieve this look?

The big thing is to use harsh direct lighting.  Normally in lighting, you are trying to diffuse light to soften shadows, but in this kind of look, hard and dark shadows is actually what you want.  On a budget, place a couple of unshaded lamp bulbs out to light the scene.  The brighter the lamps, the darker you can get the shadow.  Note that you will also want a room with fairly dark walls so that light isn't reflected in to the shadows or you may need to use guides to keep the light directed towards your scene.

If you want a slightly less dark look like the second link, you may also want a base of dim diffused soft light.  If you are using something to direct the direct lights towards the scene and away from the ceiling, you can accomplish the diffused lighting by pointing a light at the ceiling and blocking it from hitting the scene directly.  This gives you a large surface area for the light being reflected in to the scene which makes it very soft and should fill in the shadows just enough to keep detail in the darker parts of the image.

I also highly recommend checking out the link Scott Walter posted in the comments on the main question as it is a fantastic tutorial that shows what you are getting from each light.


Equipment for documenting an adventure journey I will be traveling to India in a few weeks and I want to document the journey. Now I'm looking for the right equipment.

There are two constraints: First, the amount of work I want to put into shooting should be just short of dominating the journey. In other words, I want to take my camera everywhere but it should be small enough to not be in the way when I want to enjoy the moment and put it away (I guess everyone has this problem). We will be backpacking and moving around a lot, so I'm not looking for studio equipment or anything too heavy.

EDIT: I would like to make three kinds of shots: 1) some well-thought-out tripod shots of scenery 2) to take my camera into town on some occasions to get relatively stable footage of everyday life and of my travel partner 3) shots on the go, which can be of the Go Pro cam sort. Instead of making the filming itself less elaborate, I just cut down on the times I pick up my camera. Are these 3 kinds of shots going to give me footage for a travel documentary which isn't just interesting to watch because there's me in it?

At this moment I have a Canon 650D with a 28-105mm L and a 50mm 1.4 lens, plus a good fluid tripod. I would like to improve my footage as much as possible within the space constraint outlined above.

The second constraint is that I don't want to spend more than 500€ (absolute limit 800€).

I have already considered buying a Rode Videomic shotgun mic to improve audio. What are your thoughts?

If you have been in the same situation before, you can probably help me best. What's your experience?

Best,
Appletree

PS: Help me improve my question. I don't know what information you need to give me a good answer.
PS2: I have already read "What equipment should I get for starting out making professional quality films?" which helped me somewhat but was too unspecific for my situation.

I hate to burst your bubble, but if you are expecting video to be a similar level of intrusiveness to photography, you are almost certainly mistaken.  Video is a much more work intensive process as it requires constant attention to make sure you are getting smooth usable shots instead of the occasional random thought that "I'd like a photo of this."  It is going to take significantly more work and effort to get usable video footage that is stable and well composed.

That said, the amount of effort required varies greatly on what you are hoping to accomplish.  If a "reality cam" style video shot from a GoPro mounted to your pack or helmet and stabilized in post (will still be jumpy and move a lot) is sufficient, then buy a GoPro, a mount, some extra batteries and go to town.

If you want something that more captures the feel of where you are with documentary like footage to make something that isn't a pure "action shots" montage, you will need considerably more effort to setup tripods, capture proper shots, more planning of the shots, plus the longer time it takes to get the shots.

Audio quality is also something to be mindful of in that situation, as shooting outdoors you are likely to have wind noise and will need to carefully monitor your audio while recording as well and getting decent quality footage might require multiple attempts at the shot.

If you can update your question with a bit more detail as to what you are trying to accomplish, we can probably refine the answer a bit more for your specific situation, but the key thing to know is that it sounds like your expectations of the effort required for a particular type of product may not be grounded in reality at the moment.


How to make image move with video in FCPX Let's say I have a video and I want to put an explosion over it. I know how to do that, but how would I make the explosion move with the original video?

The original video does have natural camera shake.

In FCPX, moving an image up-down or left-right is called "Transform".  Here's the page of documentation you need, along with instructions on how to access the Transform parameters.  Chances are you will need to keyframe every frame to keep the two consistent.  Chances are also that explosions don't last that long, so dropping 24-48 keyframes won't kill you.

Programs such as DaVinci Resolve have a motion tracker that can generate the stabilization keyframes.  These keyframes can then be used either to suppress camera shake (probably not your intention--you want the intensity conveyed by a shaky camera) or impart the same shake to other frames, as "Trackers".


Why Camtasia always produce video with a low quality, even if I record in 1280p, for example? I spent some time learning this tool, but I'm disappointed because I cannot produce video enough quality. Look for that, firt I have a screen snippet of the video still inside the Canvas on Camtasia, it have a nice quality, and below that I have the same snippet of the video yet produced by Camtasia, in MP4 format - low quality.

I'm not referring to the size of the screen, you can see the difference in the quality of the video, it have blurry and a bad color... If I'm not wrong, I've recorded and produced in 1280p or 720p at least.

Someone can help? Or at least, say to me that "it is just a problem with my PC and Camtasia are not that bad guy, Camtasia CAN PRODUCE IN HIGH QUALITY!". I spent most of my time learning it.

The quality of the images you posted look completely normal to me for what you are doing. You're taking a screenshot and scaling it down. That means that anything drawn as a single pixel in the user interface is going to become less than a pixel wide in the final video, making it seem soft.

You have a few options to deal with this. You can set your screen size to the final video size, or set it so the area you're recording is the final video size. Or you can leave the screen at full size and pan it around as the user moves the mouse. You'll still get some softness due to the compression, but it should be considerably less if you aren't scaling the video.


ffmpeg - Zoompan IN and Out alternately I'd like to apply a Zoompan effect but instead of zoom in or zoom out, I'd like to mix both of them: the zoom will start with zoom in, and, after some period of time, the zoom continue with zoom out, and so on, alternatively.

While I'm thinking how to archieve this, has someone some tips?

Thanks !

You need to use state e.g.

ffmpeg -i src.png
 -vf zoompan=d=300:z='if(gte(zoom,2)+eq(ld(1),1)*gt(zoom,1),zoom-0.04*st(1,1),zoom+0.04+0*st(1,0))'
o.mp4

This expression zooms from zoom=1 to zoom=2 in steps of 0.04. Remember, zoom is initialized to 1. The above will create 6 loops.

In st(store) and ld(load) functions, the first argument is variable id (0 to 9), and the second is the value.


Can you link an audio track to a video track in iMovie? I am editing a video in iMovie. The video file is independent of the audio file; the video file's audio is what the camera picked up, and the audio file is what our lav mic picked up. After carefully listening/watching to the two tracks, I now have them synced in iMovie. Is there a way to link the two together so they act as one audio/video file in the timeline? Right now I'm exporting it as a movie file to re-import in as one file, but I hope there's a simpler way.

Nope! There's no simpler way. I'm running into the same problem right now, and it's very annoying! That's why I'm considering getting Premiere Pro or Final Cut X. It's silly to try to do any major editing in iMovie.


AE Adjustment Layer Separate Effects on It & Its inverse I have a square adjustment layer which I have to animate to follow a screen around during a video. I want to apply some Color Correction filters to only that square, and a separate set of photo filters to the rest of the video. This way the filters do not overlap.

I tried to make the negative of that layer by duplicating and using "Invert Selection" but that didn't seem to invert the selection. I also do not know how to link the animation on the two layers (position, size, rotation, etc.)

The easiest way is to use Track Mattes. This will let you use one layer to automatically 'mask' another layer without the need for manual masking.

Take your square adjustment layer and make any effect changes you want, then create a new adjustment layer (make sure its comp size to fit fully over the video). Place this new layer (background adjustment layer) below your screen adjustment layer.

Select the background adjustment layer and set the Track Matte to Alpha Inverted. This action will turn automatically turn off the visibility of the top layer which is normally the desired effect, but in this case we want to turn it back on. You should end up with a layer panel looking something like this:

What this has done is the background adjustment layer is using the screen adjustment layer as a window. So wherever the screen layer is, the background layer wont be visible.


No experience with AE, I want to create a Kinetic Typographic video. Am I being too ambitious? Ok so I have this presentation thing for next week, and I have to make a explainer video. I'm super torn between whiteboard animation (I can do this) and kinetic typographic video. I really want to try out the latter, but have no experience with AE. My school has almost any imaginable A/V tool.

Am I being ambitious? What are some good resources to learn to generate the video (like a 3-minute video) using AE? Are there any "shortcuts"?

This is pretty funny, literally the first thing I ever did in After Effects...Was this

I was able to achieve it pretty easily and if I remember correctly I did it after watching a few of the VideoCoPilot.net beginner tutorials from Andrew Kramer.  And as you get more advanced do some of his harder tutorials, I found it probably to be the number one source in terms of learning the basis to After Effects


Producing DVDs that play everywhere I produced a DVD a couple months ago and found out that people in the States had trouble viewing it.

I am not totally sure what the problem is (could be PAL vs NTSC - I thought every modern US player would play both as is the norm in Europe and elsewhere).

What needs to be done to ensure that a DVD will play uniformly well on all players?

You can't make a DVD that plays on all players.

Unfortunately for your distribution, @Flimzy was correct with his explanation of most compatibility problems, and only left out the PAL/NTSC issue, which simply put, means that even if you don't have region encodings, or if you get them correct, then many (if not most) DVD players won't play the opposite type.

The best you may be able to do, is focus on media types.  Replicated (pressed) DVDs (not burned) are going to play back on the most devices without trouble.  After replicated disks, in a distant second place for compatibility, comes re-writable disks.  Least likely to play are single-write disks.  But, when you use writable and rewritable media, your disk is either more or less likely to play on any single DVD player, depending on the make and model.


Which is better quality, a larger 480p video or a smaller 1080p video? On the Internet, I sometimes see lower resolution videos that have a larger file size than a higher resolution version.

Which of these should have a better apparent quality when displayed on a 50'' FHD TV?
A 4GB 480p or a 2GB 1080p ???

There is no concrete answer to this. It depends entirely on the content of the video. Video compression effectively looks for patterns in video. If lots of patterns can be found, then high compression can be achieved with high resolution and low but rate.   If the video is hard to find patterns though, then high compression results in altering the video to make patterns and this produces artifacts that distort the video.

Reducing the resolution of the file in these cases allows for fewer artifacts since less alterations need to be made to the video to find a pattern.

I'm over simplifying here with some technical inaccuracies to make it more accessible, but that is the general idea for compression. If the hd video doesn't have artifacts then the hd video is better, but the sd file is far less likely to have artifacts if similar codecs were used for both.


How to improve quality of .3gp video I have a short (~1:13) clip in .3gp format that is effectively useless for my purposes as is, as it is 176x144, and my final output will be 1280x720.

My first try was After Effects' Distort>Detail Preserving Upscale but at 700% upscaled (to closely match target render size), the footage is still terribly pixelated.

This video contains footage for, and is intended to be used as one of several assets for an upcoming promo video for my church.
I will be working in AE 2020, and Premiere 2020, to produce the final promo.

The question: Is there an effective way within either AE or Premiere to make a .3gp or very low resolution video useful at 720p?

Also helpful contextually perhaps, as this is for church production, this is baptism footage, so quality is paramount.

The problem is you don't have resolution for 700% upscale. ~~And aren't likely to find it in those tools~~ (strike that).

You can or may have already tried Video Enhancer. They claim to use Super Resolution to get the upscale possible. It doesn't suit all video sources. They have an AE plugin too.

If none of your searches for auto upscaling work then my recommendation is scale & interpolate as high as you can accept the results, then apply a blurred background of the footage (like you see when online portrait orientation videos are broadcast on TV. Centre your footage so you have the video playing with the blurred background around 4 sides. see How to Edit Vertical Video Footage YouTube video for the effect.

Alternatively if the church still looks the same, create a sort of picture-in-picture. Shoot a wide 1280x720 video of the empty space matching the original footage camera moves as closely as possible. Drop your upscaled original footage in the middle. You may need to blur this background plate a bit. So if the original video upscales to only 352x288 that's the middle 40% of your frame (vertically).

If you have enough pans and tilts that show larger parts of the baptism space, I've seen reconstructed and enhanced super-8 footage that turned the footage into panorama-like canvases by stitching together individual frames and then assuming those backgrounds did not change. I have no idea how to do that. But it uses software like Hugin to find common parts of a frame to stitch photos together. Then a morph is applied to the outer parts of the frame when the camera moves. The morph is less jarring if you split the 1280x720 frame into 12 or 16 subframes and just morph each of those sections. Note it doesn't look realistic, it takes a bit of time to work out why the moving images look "wrong", but it gives an illusion of movement.

A final suggestion is to build a virtual interior of the church, so skin the walls, (and statues and stained glass) and run your upscaled old footage in the middle of this virtual space. Render the output. This is a VFX plate shot that AE can do.


Footage with different aspect ratio During a Summer trip, I took various footage with my JVC100 camera and some with my Galexy note 5. Now, I am thinking of using the footage in one movie project. The cell phone footage obviously has a different quality and sometimes I have held the phone vertically. My project is rather experimental and I don't need a very smooth overall look, yet, I was wondering if there are smooth or sleek ways of combining the footage with different aspect ratios and qualities. I would appreciate examples in experimental movies and technical advice.
Thanks a million!

One way to deal with different aspect ratios is to take footage that is not as wide as your output format and duplicate it in another layer. Increase the scale on this other layer and blur the image, then put the original over it. This produces a nice coherent effect where the area outside the original footage is filled with colors that are from the original footage, but are not distracting.

If you're working in FCPX, there's a built-in filter called "Photo Recall" that does this sort of effect. It shrinks the original image, but you can have it fill the frame instead. Other apps probably have a similar filter or make it fair easy to reproduce.


Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 - Looping a clip I'm trying to get a clip to loop on my video for its entirety. (The clip is the water mark.)

I can't really copy paste it everywhere, it would take hours (the clip is 10 seconds, on an hour long vid.)

So is there some way to do it? To loop a video so it will play for the entirety of the video?

Is the watermark a video or a still image? If it's a still you can usually just increase its duration.

Otherwise, copying and pasting is the best way to go about it. Copy and paste it 10 times, then select the 10 clips, copy and paste that 10 times, then select the 100 clips, copy and paste that etc. until you get the desired duration.


Which DSLR to buy for best Video capture? I would like to upgrade from a point and shoot camera to a DSLR. I would be capturing nature and wildlife with the new camera, still photos and videos. Which camera should I buy? My list includes D5300 / D5500 / D7200 / D750. Which one is the most suitable of the above considering the auto focus capability while shooting videos? Any recommendation is welcome!

Thanks in advance!

Highly recommend taking a look at the Sony lineup, particularly the A7S mk II and the just released A7R mk II (S would be better for video).

The A7S is amazing in terms of low light capability. And the A7R is unmatched in resolving power.

If all your glass is Nikon, you can get a Metabones adapter for roughly $700 which would do the job giving you a Sony to Nikon mount thats tack sharp.

While not reflex, the OLED viewfinder is superb, you really have to see it to believe how sharp it is. And the swing out monitor on the back which rotates up and down, is fantastic for doing handheld video work above head or down low.

All of the new glass that is coming out, 70-200s, L-Series, Zeiss, they are all making their lenses for Sony... the new beast in the low cost camera lineup. (Body under $5000)

A final note, most people think Reflex (SLR/DSLR) is superior to non-reflex, but in fact the opposite is usually true. Compromises must be made for the reflex mirror system and curtains, which mean the engineers must make concessions when dealing with the optics and the plane of view.

In truth, the sharpest cameras ever made, are non-reflex. The Hasselblad SuperWide is considered the sharpest lens ever designed to date (I love mine and still use it to date).  The lack of a reflex finder isnt really an issue as it's wide. With todays digital backs, and a led viewing system- it's really the way to go.


Large avi not playing to the end I have recorded a 20 minutes game session from Minecraft using Kazam and saved the result as a 80 gig avi. When I try to open the file though only the first 8-9 minutes are played.
Selecting it as a source in Handbrake shows the correct length at 19 min 49 sec but converting it to mkv for instance only results in a file that is 8 min 33 sec.
Adding the file as a source in OpenShot it is playable up until 8 min mark but after that gets dark.
Adding it in a track in the project and playing it produces a video with only the gui and the rest black.
Are there anyway to save this file or should I just be happy that I at least got 9 minutes?

It is hard to say without seeing the file itself, but my best guess is that an issue occurred causing the data stream to die but the meta data was still set "properly".  Generally, the actual video data itself is not looked at for the length of the video.  Instead, there is header meta data in the file that holds the video stream which indicates how long the video is and how it is encoded.  It is possible that the video stream either had an error at around 9 minutes or perhaps it simply stopped recording around that time, however the timer kept going and the meta data for the length wasn't written until the end.

This would also explain why it goes dark, because the video stream player would try to play it, but the content isn't there, so it has nothing to play.

If the file just has a corruption for a short while and then works again, you might be able to get around it by splitting the video stream in to multiple parts, but my guess is that the data was probably not encoded in the first place and your stream itself is probably truncated.


Scaling "Stroke" Effect "Brush Size" while scaling composition? I've got a 100x100px composition with a Mask containing a Stroke effect used to animate the drawing of a vector. The problem I'm having is when I drop this composition into a larger one and attempt to scale it up, the Brush Size in Stroke remains the same (e.g. the graphic is drawn with thin lines, instead of the thicker looking ones in the smaller comp).

I'm thinking some sort of expression magic might be the fix to this, but any input on how to maintain line thickness at any resolution/scale would be much appreciated. Thanks!

EDIT: I've attached a small demo project showing the issue I'm running into below:
http://hellocld.com/stuff/stroke-issue.aep

Easy fix, you see the small sun icon on the imported comp layer? Disable that, that basically means that the comp should act like the layers within it should act like they are in the parent comp. It negates the transformation your are applying to it and the effect will just keep its pixel value its supposed to have, you are not "blowing it up" like you would expect.
If you disable it the imported comp will act like a rendered video.

If you have huge pixelation going on just go to full resolution in the preview and it will be fine, though the layer will not act like a vector, you will have a rasterized image so keep in mind to have a big enough resolution if you want to scale it up.
Better to have it bigger and scale it down than having not enough.


Subtitles do not match spoken dialogue. Why? I have been watching a lot of shows on Netflix lately in French, (please note the original language is English, so it is dubbed) with French subtitles. I find that the subtitles rarely match what is actually being spoken!

Why is this?

For example someone will say 'bien sûr' orally, but the subtitles will say 'd'accord'.

That is one of many examples, long sentences will usually be completely different.

This is an educated guess as I'm not sure anyone can give a concrete answer as to this particular show's specific reason, but since it was dubbed, there's a solid possibility that the subtitles are a translation of the English subtitles while the voice over may have been translated by the dubbing team and potentially altered by what the voice over actors could deliver with a decent dub.

In my experience, not all shows are run with a strict adherence to the script.  Changes sometimes need to be made for actors to deliver naturally and there is often some flexibility in exact lines.  If the same flexibility was extended to the dub team, then it seems quite likely that they would deviate from the exact script translation.

If they are using the same subtitle timing for multiple languages, then it might not have been worth having someone sit through it and dictate the subtitles and try to align them to the proper markers vs simply directly translating the existing English subtitles.


How can I play a file created in OBS? I downloaded OBS based on an answer here.

I tested it by selecting "Start Recording" saying a few words, and then "Stop Recording"

I then selected File > Show Recordings, and it opened the This PC > Videos folder in Explorer; the file just created was there, named "2016-08-15 06-11-54.flv"

However, 2-clicking it does not run it in OBS; it wants me to choose an app from the list to use, which, in my case, is "IrfanView" and "Look for an App in the Store"

I tried Irfanview, but the .flv file won't run because Irfanview is apparently lacking a needed Flash .DLL; Flash kind of gives me the fantods, so I let that slide.

Won't OBS play the videos it creates? If so, why doesn't it show up in the list of apps to execute the .flv file? How can I (if possible) get it to run the file?

OBS is a video streaming and recording software, not a video player. You will need either find a video player that will play an .flv file, or switch your settings in OBS to record to a different format, like .mp4, which most video players will be able to playback.


Which filter and what parameters should I use to deinterlace this video? I want to use a small part of this video:

             .
It has very bad interlacing that I need to get rid of.

I downloaded the mp4 file, which is 1920x1080, 29.971 fps. I don't know much about video processing, and the only thing I can use is avidemux. So I followed this tutorial: http://www.avidemux.org/admWiki/doku.php?id=tutorial:deinterlacing_video .
I tried the Decomb Telecide filter as the tutorial says, selecting "No strategy" and leaving the other options as default. But it didn't get rid of the interlacing. Then I tried the Yadif filter, and then both filters together, and none of these gave any improvement to the video. The interlacing is still very bad, and I don't know why. I've used Yadif filter on other Youtube videos before, and it works every time except this one.

Which filter and what options should I choose to deinterlace this video properly?

It has nothing to do with filters. The only way to deinterlace this video correctly, is by having the original footage. Right now you are using a .mp4 footage, it was already encoded by Youtube (this encoding process includes a deinterlacing too). So, technically you already are using a deinterlaced video.

If you deinterlace it again, it is like you were trying to put an egg white and yolk inside the eggshell, sure you can do it, but you won't get correct results.


Sony Vegas: Make timeline "line" follow event trimming? It would be a huge time saver to make the time "line" actively chase the end point dragging of events, so you can tell precisely where the event is compared to other tracks above and below.

Is this possible?

Thank you

I don't think it's possible in Vegas to move the "timeline" line (cursor) along with your edit.

You can, however, set the cursor directly to where you want your event to end by just clicking to that position. Then drag your event to the cursor and let it snap magnetically to it.

This way you dont have to manually set and delete any markers.


Can I use ffmpeg to encode a video for Camtasia import? I'm using ffmpeg to create screencasts.  The command looks like this:
ffmpeg -f x11grab -framerate 30 \
    $(xwininfo | gawk 'match($0, /-geometry ([0-9]+x[0-9]+).([0-9]+).([0-9]+)/, a)\
      { print "-video_size " a[1] " -i +" a[2] "," a[3] }') \
    screencast$(date +%H%M%S).mp4

When I import those into Camtasia for editing, I get a video of the correct dimensions, but it shows only blackness.  I've found that I can make the import work if I re-encode the screencasts with handbrake.
HandBrakeCLI -i screencast101253.mp4 -o screencast101253.m4v

This is what ffprobe says this about the videos that handbrake creates:
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'screencast101253.m4v':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp42
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    creation_time   : 2020-12-04T17:54:49.000000Z
    title           : screencast102753
    encoder         : HandBrake 1.2.2 2019022400
  Duration: 00:01:43.93, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 81 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1256x1080 [SAR 270:347 DAR 314:347], 77 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 90k tbn, 180k tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2020-12-04T17:54:49.000000Z
      handler_name    : VideoHandler

My question is: how can I change the ffmpeg command so that it produces a Camtasia-compatible video in the first place--so that I don't have to wait on handbrake?

@Gyan is correct. add
-pix_fmt yuv420p
I was in the exact situation @MatrixManAtYrService described and the video imported into Camtasia Studio correctly after converting with -pix_fmt yuv420p


Are there any PaaS where I can run AE? I have an app where we allow users to create videos by choosing an After Effects template and modifying the text, images, etc.
We run AE on a windows server which renders the final video.

For other scenarios where we do not use AE, we use AWS Lambda of which we can spin off 100 instances simultaneously and they all use their own resources. Whereas for AE we use a Windows server and all parallel rendering use the same resources and hence are very slow.

Are there any PaaS where I can run AE and spin up multiple instances?

There are no true PaaS providers for After Effects. However, there are several online render farms (SaaS).

Note that you cannot run After Effects on a public cloud in your own render farm.


Identifying unused files in Premiere Pro I have some Premiere Pro project that have a lot of big files, some which are in the bin, some which are not, many that are not used and could be deleted. Is there a way to identify these files to delete them?

Thanks

Head into your Project Panel and check the columns you have available. You may need to scroll right, but look for one titled "Video Usage."

If it isn't there, right click on the columns and click "Metadata Display..." Drop down the Premiere Pro Project Metadata menu and check "Video Usage."

Now, using the "Video Usage" column, you can see how many times each clip is referenced in a sequence. Anything without a number next to it is not used.  A quick tip, if you have any audio-only files or used just the audio of any clip, you may want to also include the "Audio Usage" column and cross reference the two of them together when making your decision. Either way, if any clip is referenced in a sequence, Premiere should warn you before allowing you to delete it.


What is the significance of this "RED, Digital, and Film Format Size Chart"? Little context is offered when this chart:

is linked. What does it mean?

Based on this illustration, you are able to compare the sensor sizes of red cameras with film formats like 16mm, 35mm or 70mm imax and so on.


Re-encode corrupt videos (that still play) and drop bad frames FFMPEG or other app? I have about 300GB of assets that have been deemed "corrupt" by FFprobe but most all of them still have playable portions of the video.
What I've been trying to determine how to do is either one at a time or in batch, use FFMPEG or another app/tool to re-encode the assets dropping all the bad frames leaving me with an albeit, still not 100% complete, but at least usable assets.
Can anyone shed any light on this? Offer any ideas or suggestions? I can run on either Windows, MacOS or Linux OS and am competent with basic scripting and terminal command usage.
Thank you!
Jason

I would try TMPG Smart Renderer, https://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tmsr6.html. It should just "pass-through" any non-corrupted video, and will re-encode the portions of the file the need to be. Or you can manually cut those pieces out. It will depend how corrupt the input is as to what you'll need to do. It is a commercial product, but for a one-off project you can likely do everything you need in trial mode.


Is there a tool that lets me cut video with frame precision? I'm able to use Avidemux with enough ease and it's mostly enough for my video need. I can also choose codecs to recompress the video.

Unfortunately, it doesn't let me cut video outside the scope of keyframes, even when I recompress. I'm not really willing to pay for an expensive software, and I'm not sure I need DaVinci Resolve to do just this.

I know VirtualDub is not developed anymore. Are there other tools that would do frame by frame selection?

I guess I'm able to use FFmpeg too, I guess I could do with a script, but it's not really easy either.

You may use free open source AviSynth+ — it's a scripting language with the very good documentation.

Example:

clip   = AviSource("MyVideo.avi")    # Reading clip from disk
clip   = clip.ShowFrameNumber        # Showing frame numbers of individual frames

part1  = clip.Trim(   0,  1000)      # Selecting frames with numbers 0 to 1000
part2  = clip.Trim(8000, 12000)      # --- similar ---

result = part1 + part2               # Joining two parts
return result                        # This will be the resulting clip

Note:

The second command

clip   = clip.ShowFrameNumber

is used only in working process to see frame numbers, in the final result you have to remove it.


Seeking Boroscope capable of focal lengths from 24 to 48 inches Most boroscopes (tiny mobile cameras) are designed for short focal lengths, like a few inches (think: drain pipe inspection).  The boroscopes that claim long focal lengths cite up 16 inches.  That's still too short.  I need 24-48".  That would let me use a boroscope as my webcam for Skype, Zoom, MS-Teams, & GoToMeeting, ... so that the other persons sees me making eye contact with them.
To explain: my monitor is large, and my webcam sits atop it.  So my video call partner sees me staring at their chest for the whole call.  Not great for social connecting!  And if I put my webcam on a stand centered in front of my monitor, the webcam is too large/distracting.  But a little boroscope, I could learn to ignore.
Bonus points if the boroscope does not also bundle in a phone-sized video screen (since I have no use for that).  But I'd live with paying for that, so long as I get the longer focal length.
If anyone has a suggestion of a better place to post this sort of question, or where to continue the search in general, that would be a big help too.
Thanks!

Hmm.  Perhaps I asked for help too soon?
After more online searching, I found an Oiiwak Endoscope (https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B08L65982N/ref=ask_ql_qh_dp_hza) that claims 5cm to infinity for focal distance.  We'll see if that's a legit capability or just a marketing claim.  Anyway, I'm going to try it out.
(The product info also states that it can feed video live to a PC via USB, so I should be able to point Skype etc. to it as my video source for video calls.)
If anyone has any advice, or comments, though they would be welcome/appreciated.


Canonical Way to Specify Readable text for TV feeds: Pixels? I was reading an advertizing code which specifies:

  ""For TV Advertisements the size of the “Supers” shall be of minimum
  12 pixel height....."

This got me thinking: If readability / legibility is the goal, does it make sense to specify a pixel size? i.e. Won't the same font display as varying numbers of pixels depending on what kind of TV it is shown on?

If ensuring readability was the concern what would be the best way to specify the font size? A fraction of the total frame? Or something like

  "....to show up as at least 12 pixel on a 1080 pixel display"

Specifying text in terms of pixel size is the most independent way of specifying size. Where you know the vertical resolution (like 720 lines or 1080 lines) then specifying pixels is exactly like saying "a fraction of the total frame".

And in practical terms, 12 pixels is pretty much the minimum recognizable height for common western characters, especially if some viewers are watching on screens of lower resolution.


Why are some of my videos I just uploaded to Youtube in HD and some aren't? I recorded two tutorial videos using Hypercam, and then edited them with Windows Live Movie Maker, both of which exported "For High Definition Display"(or something like that), but when I uploaded them to YouTube, for some reason, one of them has HD up to 1080p, but one of them has no HD and only goes up to 360p, why is that?

NOTE: The video file itself, the one I uploaded to youtube, is in HD, so why isn't in HD on YouTube?

Apparently Youtube took some extra time to process the HD. Both are showing in HD now.


Lossless cutting video (MPEG-4) Is it possible to lossless clip out the video file (MPEG-4/H.264) that result chunks will be equivalent to the same of raw footage? I want to reduce size of the source (raw) material by cutting off the unnecessary, but desire to have remaining clips in the same quality as initial video.

This is possible with the FFmpeg command ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 0 -c copy -t 60 output.mp4. This would cut the video from the beginning -ss 0 to second 60 -t 60.

Be aware that -ss is and offset which -t is based upon. So -ss 10 and -t 60 would result in cutting to second 70 and removing the first 10. You can use the -to option to cut at a fixed time unrelated to -ss.

I'm not exactly sure how ffmpeg will handle GOPs but I think it will cut at the nearest GOP at the specified time.

Relevant question on SU: https://superuser.com/questions/138331/using-ffmpeg-to-cut-up-video


What are the most mergeable codecs? What is the best codecs for intermediate videos? I want to compose many videos from frames and mp3 files then join them together using FFMPEG.

[frames+mp3] -> [Intermediate videos] -> [Joined intermediate videos]

Using mp4 with aac introduces noticeable audio gaps between videos when I use the concat protocol.

What are the best audio and video codes to be used for the intermediate videos? can this be done in a better way?

I'm a beginner in multimedia. Thanks a lot.

Mp4 with aac audio and h.264 video (mp4 isn't a codec as such, it's a container) isn't a good intermediate format. It is lossy, and the video is generally not all I-frame (meaning that to display a frame it references previous and following frames). h.264/aac/mp4 are great for delivery because they efficiently pack a lot of perceptual quality into a small file.

You're better off using an all-i-frame codec. Notable examples are Apple ProRes, Avid DNxHD and Cineform. These are all lossy, but minimally so. You can also use a lossless codec, like FFV1, but the speed and storage this requires might make it unworkable. Similarly you're best off using PCM (uncompressed) for your audio.

I'm not sure if that is going to affect the problem of the gaps. That might be an artefact of the way the video and audio are multiplexed.


Rotate only a certain part of a frame I tried to solve this for quite some time now and could not find the solution. I would like to select a certain "subarea" of a video and rotate/flip only that "subarea". Like a combination of these two one liners:

ffmpeg -i IN.mov -filter:v "hflip,vflip" -c:a copy out.mov
ffmpeg -i IN.MOV -filter:v "crop=out_w:out_h:x:y" out.mp4

Thank you for any help.

Use

 ffmpeg -i IN.MOV
        -filter_complex "[0]split=2[full][crop];
                         [crop]crop=W:H:X:Y,transpose=cclock[crop];
                         [full][crop]overlay='X+h/2-w/2':'Y+w/2-h/2'"   out.mp4

The video is split with one copy getting cropped and rotated. The other full copy remains full-sized. Then the edited portion is overlaid on the full portion.

The variables in capital letters should be replaced with your numerical values.


How to figure out video format by video sample? I have a video file (30Mb) in some unknown format, hex dump of its header looks like this:

0000000    78  55  52  30  09  10  02  0a  00  00  09  09  22  93  00  39
0000020    00  00  00  00  bd  09  a4  00  a4  00  a4  00  a4  00  1c  00
0000040    24  00  00  00  00  00  8d  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  a3  00
0000060    00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00
*
0002560    00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  24  24  24  24  24  24  0f  23

I have a first frame of that video in BMP format, so I can compare encoded and decoded bytes. The only thing I came up to is that one pixel (RBGA) is encoded to one byte. So some kind if YUV encoding is used (?).

Also there are misterios 6 same bytes before each line and 7 after =) and header is 100 bytes long.

For example first line of pixels in video

0002560    00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  24  24  24  24  24  24  0f  23
0002600    10  22  0f  20  0f  20  0d  21  0e  21  0e  21  0e  1f  0e  1f
0002620    0d  1e  0e  1f  0c  1d  0d  1c  0c  1c  0c  0c  0c  0c  0c  0c
0002640    0c  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00

Corresponds to first line in BMP.

3960   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0e 48 43 0e 48 43 0e 48 43 00 45
3980   42 00 45 42 00 40 43 00 3c 40 00 3d 3d 00 3e 3d 00 3f 3d 00
4000   42 40 00 42 40 00 41 43 00 42 40 00 40 43 00 3e 3d 00 3a 3a
4020   00 3a 3a 00 3a 3a 00 37 35 00 37 35 00 37 35 00 3a 3a 00 36
4040   39 00 32 36 00 30 35 00 31 35 00 30 30 02 30 31 02 30 31 00
4060   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

I thought maybe my video's format is not custom and I could detect it with file or ffmpeg but both knew nothing about it.

So me questions are:

Maybe you know what format that video has?
Maybe there are tools to find it out?

If you want to identify video / audio file i recommend you to download K-Lite codec pack. It always works for me.

http://www.codecguide.com/changelogs_full.htm
"•Updated MediaInfo Lite to version 0.7.53"

MediaInfo - that's the one you can use, after installing it's just right clicking on the file or opening it and it should be recognized, via the tray icons (if not disabled) you can change various layout and information settings.


FFmpeg pan filter and clipping I have a file that has one video stream and one audio stream with 8 channels. I want to create a new file that will only contain the first 2 channels of the audio stream (no video). I can do this using the pan filter. I also want to clip the file. I can do this using the -ss and -t options. However, when I try to do both together, I get an error.

So, if I run:

ffmpeg -i a.mov -filter_complex "[0:1]pan=2c|c0=c0|c1=c1[stereo]" -map "[stereo]" "a.audio.mov"

It works fine - I get the audio file with the correct channels.

But when I run:

ffmpeg -i a.mov -filter_complex "[0:1]pan=2c|c0=c0|c1=c1[stereo]" -map "[stereo]" -ss 00:00:01 "a.audio.mov"

I get the following error

  [trim for output stream 0:0 @ 0000000002145720] Cannot select channel
  layout for the link between filters trim for output stream 0:0 and
  output stream 0:0.
  [trim for output stream 0:0 @ 0000000002145720]
  Unknown channel layouts not supported, try specifying a channel layout
  using 'aformat=channel_layouts=something'.

Anyone have any ideas what I'm doing wrong and how to fix it?

This was bug in atrim filter, not supporting unknown channel layouts, it should be fixed in latest ffmpeg.


Green screen Issue shooting with dslr (background green changes) I don't have a real green screen, just a piece of canvas painted green and not even the "best" color of screen. I've taken some short videos with a dslr (Nikon D7100) of me using a mobile phone and some work (I can key out the green) and other don't.  I'm trying to understand the reason the key operations aren't working.

I think it is because the light from the mobile is affecting the way the camera sees the green background.  When the phone's screen is a light color the green darkens; when the phone screen is black the green lightens.  How do I prevent this, as I can't key out such a wide range of greens?

Camera is on auto, but have tried Manual also.  Lighting is sub par but I think it is good enough.

It doesnt really matter what type of lighting instruments you use, tungsten, hmi, led, flo, so long as you use the same color temperature lights to light the screen as you do to gauge the lighting of your scene and subjects.

I do a lot of greenscreen work, and my best "short" advice:

1.) Get as big a screen as you can afford. And get your subjects as far from it as possible. This will reduce back and side spill.

2.) Use 1/4 magenta CTM rosco gel for hair/cut lights, behind your subjects. The subtle magenta is complementary to green, and will give you a better key and better edges in post.

3.) Avoid stray hairs.

4.) Use best codec possible. 444, 442, 422 being the worst. I shoot RED 3:1 and still have issues sometimes.

5.) Test shoot, and do your key in post, before you shoot. If you have fast moving action, you will want to shoot at a higher shutter speed. Motion Blur can be a problem.

6.) It's easier to shoot at a higher f-stop, and get a sharper tack, and add back in blur/dof effects in post, than it is to shoot wide open with a long piece of glass. Blur causes masking issues.

7.) Get Keylight for AE.

8.) Have a dedicated waveform monitor if possible. You want your luma to be a straight line at 75 IRE. You will not be able to light your screen evenly by eye, you really need a waveform to get a spot on straight line, with no dips or falloff on the edges.

9.) Dont let your subjects wear green.

Cheers.


Where can I find good free quality VFX effects stock library? I'm having fun with HitFilm software and playing with my kids to make movies. I'd like to add some VFX to our creations. Where can I find a good bunch of stock video and audio effects?

Usually our movies are Full HD resolution.

I've just found this nice Video & Filmmaker Magazine list of free stuff.
Some of them:

Chroma Key Backgrounds
Cute Stock Footage
LightLeakLove


Minimum equipment for shooting an event in a dimly lit environment I have a potential shooting gig where I would be shooting a promotional/documentary video at a marketing event (i.e. there are no staged scenes, I'd just be shooting during the event and try to get some good shots that can be used for a promotional video). I don't know the details yet, but this event will probably take place indoors in the evening with not much light, comparable to a club I guess. The catch is I'd have to use my own equipment and I'm not sure my current gear is up to the task.

I have a Canon EOS 80D (APS-C, 1.6x CF). For lenses I have my trusted Sigma 30mm f/1.4 ART (48mm FF equivalent) and a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 (27-80mm FF equivalent). I also have a Pentax-F 50mm f/1.7, but since I can only use manual focus with that one I guess it's out of the question (though given the poor light situation, I will probably have to focus manually anyway? In this case, the additional 1.5 stops of light might give this lens an edge over the Tamron). By the time of the event I will probably also have a Sigma 10-20mm f/3.5 (16-32mm FF equivalent), but I'm not sure that focal length range will be very appropriate here (also it's rather slow, so probably a bad choice for this situation).

So I have a couple of questions about this, I'd be very grateful if someone with experience with this kind of shooting could give their opinion.

Are those lenses appropriate for the job in terms of speed and focal lengths? Maybe a combination of the two Sigma lenses?
At what apertures should I be shooting? Obviously for the best low-light performance the largest aperture (f/1.4 for the Sigma 30mm) would be best, but I'm worried that the autofocus won't be accurate under those conditions and that I won't hit the manual focus if the DoF is so small.
If I could rent/borrow a lens (not sure if I have a budget/source for this yet), can you recommend one?
What do I need in terms of stabilization? I could bring a tripod, but I don't think that's flexible enough. I don't have a dolly/gimbal or anything like that, and I'm not sure if I can procure one. Of course I can stabilize in post, but my Sigma 30mm for example doesn't have any image stabilization, so if I shoot at lower framerates the frames themselves could become too blurry … is it too bold to try and shoot completely handheld?

I guess my overarching question is if this kind of shooting gig is at all possible given the gear I have (or with cheap additions) or if I should turn it down because I simply won't get any usable material this way.

A tough one. Certainly might be worth wording the client up that it's going to be dark. I'd try and do a test if possible to see exactly how dark it's going to be.

I don't think you're going to get a much faster lens than ƒ/1.4 without dropping a truckload of money. There's a Canon 24-70 ƒ/2.8, it's AU$1750 so it's not small change, but would probably be reasonable to rent if you want fast + zoom + autofocus.

I'd definitely look at a good monitor, if you're having to judge focus off the camera's screen you're going to struggle.

You could look at hiring a Sony α7, they have better low-light performance. You'd need Sony glass to go with it.

Would an on-camera light be possible? A bit more obtrusive, but you can at least do vox-pops or whatever and see what you're looking at.


How do I create a lower third for a music video in After Effects? How can I create a song information lower third title like those displayed on mtv videos?
I want to present the singer,album etc with a nice background and animation.

Are there presets of it available? How do I create them in After Effects?

This is really just a typical title.  You can prepare it either in Photoshop, Illustrator or After Effects directly.  It can also be created in Premiere with a little work.

At their most basic, an MTV style song information could just be text that you put in a layer that you fade in and fade out of the video.  Alternately, if you want a more complex one, you can use vector objects and animate them using keyframes in After Effects.

You would want to start with a vector graphic from Illustrator or a raster image with a transparent background from Photoshop.  Each keyframe will store the position and rotation of the image you want and the underlying video will be visible wherever it is transparent.

The exact way to animate it depends on what kind of animation you want it to have, however there are a number of keyframe animation questions relating to After Effects that you can take a look at for some general ideas.


Does the HDMI output of a Nikon D750 use HDCP? I need to capture live video (1280x720-60 fps) from a Nikon D750, with a capture card that does not support HDCP signal. The capture card is equipped with a classic HDMI input, while the Nikon comes with a mini-HDMI output. To capture the video, with the capture card, using the classic HDMI cable, I have to use a mini HDMI-HDMI adapter.

Does the Nikon D750 use HDCP on its outputs (mini-HDMI)? If Nikon does not use HDCP, using the adapter, can it create HDCP?

A mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter will not impact the presence of HDCP on the signal, it merely changes the connector passively.  As to whether your Nikon uses HDCP or not, I'm unsure.  My Canon 5D Mark iii also uses a mini-HDMI output and the first couple cables and adapters I got didn't connect very reliably, so I had signal issues until I found a cable that worked well.

You may be having a similar problem to this or it could be HDCP causing issues.  I'd recommend two things you can try in order to troubleshoot this issue.  First, try connecting a known HDCP signal, such as a bluray player to your capture card and see what happens.  It may simply give no signal or it may give an error.  If it gives an error, then you will know that your camera is simply not connecting (unless you get the same error about HDCP being present).

If this is inconclusive, you could also try connecting the camera to a TV that supports HDCP or connecting another mini-HDMI device to the capture device and see if either of those situations work.

It is possible that Nikon may have actually included HDCP in an anti-consumer move intended to prevent use of DSLRs for high end video production, but this seems like an odd choice for them as they have no product in that market segment.  (HDCP would allow connecting to TVs, but prevent use in recording and most video mixers for event production.)


Premiere Pro CC: How to reset control panel group settings I accidentally clicked on "loose panel group" in the mirror for creating a new title, but there is no button to fix them together again. I tried resetting the setting, but it doesn't work.

Is 'loose panel group' a free translation of whatever the option is labeled in whatever language you're using Premiere Pro in? Because I can't find an option or button that says exactly this ...

Anyway, you can change workspaces in the menu, click Window → Workspaces and select a workspace preset. If you want the default workspace back, make sure to select the Assembly preset (in Premiere Pro CC). If you want to revert any changes you made to the saved layout, select Reset to Saved Layout from the same submenu or press ALT + SHIFT + 0.


Looking for a specific transition for Adobe Premiere Is it possible (and if yes, how) to create a transition using either Adobe Premiere or After Effects (and maybe import to Premiere then?) which zooms out of the first video displaying multiple videos next to each other (both vertical and horizontal) - like many tiles - and then it should zoom in to the next video. So I am looking for a transition where e.g. 30 videos are displayed (like a gallery) and it's zooming in to the next video until it's size is 100%. I've seen this transition a couple of times already (don't exactly know where) but I just don't know how it's called so I didn't find anything on the internet :/

Edit: not all videos have to be different every time, it's okay if all videos are fixed and only two are dynamic.

Thanks for any help!

This may get down-votes since it's so manual and doesn't have perfect video quality, but I'll offer it anyway.

CREATING THE GENERIC TRANSITION

Bring 30 clips into a project.
Shrink the scale of all of them.
Drag them onto the timeline so they're all playing at the same time.
Position them in a grid.
Export that project in the best possible quality you can.

CREATING THE SPECIFIC TRANSITION

Open the generic transition video in a new project. Place it on the timeline.
Bring in the 2 videos you want to transition between.
Shrink their scales, put them on the timeline, and position them over 2 of the existing videos.
Export that project in the best possibly quality (matching the generic clip).

USING THE SPECIFIC TRANSITION

Import that specific transition into your project.
At the end of the first clip, place the specific transition on the timeline.
Animate the motion of the transition: Start with the scale zoomed in on the "starting" video. Scale back to 100% while moving the clip to center the "ending" video. Scale up (zoom in) on the "ending" video.
When the "ending" video fills the screen, cut the specific transition.
Add the actual "ending" video to the timeline. Trim the left end of the clip to match the right end (last frames) of the clip in the specific transition.

I haven't tried this but in my mind it should work really well.  The video quality will be a bit lower during the transition, but it may not be noticeable - especially in lower-quality environments (like web video) or if the transition is brief (1-2 seconds).


How should I go about doing this same exact effect for an upcoming project? A client has tasked me to create a How-to-video for Hotel/Flight booking app. They sent me this video and told me to that they would like the same video. The problem is I have no idea what kind of effect/plugins were used to achieving the effect.

Was it an actual video recording of the booking website or were those just image graphics? I'm primarily interested in the 3D effect. Is it possible to mimic the effect using Adobe Premiere alone or do I need a post production program such as After Effects? I would greatly appreciate helpful inputs.

In some parts it is still pictures, in some — probably video. It is better practice to make motion-design with After Effects, but you can accomplish this in Premiere.

To rotate footage in 3D in Premiere you need to add "Basic 3D" effect:

Effects > Video Effects > Perspective > Basic 3D

There you will find everything you need to rotate in x,y,x dimensions. But full video will be easier to create in After Effects. Premiere is better for video montage.

Good Luck!


what is the best software that can crop and trim video? it needs to work with mkv files

has to have a gui because the crops are different for each video

should be lightweight, I don't want to install premier just for this

For anyone wondering, Adobe Media Encoder is great for trimming and cropping large amounts of video at once. Drag video files into the window, choose a preset, and hit the play button. You can create your own presets to reuse.
However .mkv is NOT SUPPORTED.


Make the object stay at the centre of the video I have a video with person moving around. But I need to make it so that the camera focuses on the person and ultimately the person stays in the center of the shot.

You can make it with tracking. Find static point on person, and track from it. Better to use chest (not face), because it is more stable, when person moving.

But you need to understand, that you will have some empty space on the edges of the screen after that. If it is not recorded on green/blue screen, you may need to zoom your video. Because of that you will lose some quality.


Reliable way to burn VIDEO_TS folder on a DVD? I'm building a video dvd for a wedding. I have rendered the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders using an authoring software.
I have burned them into a DVD using Windows, but the DVD is unreadable on 3 different dvd players, so I can suppose I have made something wrong.

What else do I need to have a working DVD?

You must use the proper formatting for it to be read by a DVD player that only reads standards compliant disks.  Specifically, DVD Video disks use the UDF 1.02 format.


Changing the fps of playback in ffplay If I have a video, say an mkv with h.264 codec @ 25 fps. Can I play it in ffplay with a different fps, say 30fps?

I know if the video was in still images, ffplay lets you assign a -framerate 30. But the -framerate and -r commands don't seem to function given my input is a video to begin with. I tried finding more information in the documentation and online, but I only found references to changing the fps when I have still image formats.

Is the solution to use ffplay -vf "setpts=0.5*PTS" -i inputto simply modify the speed of playback? I was curious about the PTS value and how to confirm what that is and how it changed my command if I have a weird framerate like 24.4444534634. Cause the generic is listed as 0.5 equating to 2x faster, and 2.0 equating to 0.5x slower. I find this doesn't addup though, especially when you get to higher values like 60x speed, etc. i.e. ffplay -vf "setpts=1/60*PTS" -i input This is outputting a speed the exact the same as 1/100000000000 and etc for many values. Is this a case of my pc not being able to generate the output within the presets of the system fast enough? Or just the weird fps of my footage is doing something? Or I need to confirm the PTS value and do the calculation properly for the specific video in question?

At the very least, you are limited by the speed of the video decoder. But ffplay does seem to have some barrier to speed increase.

For now, a workaround is to pipe from ffmpeg

ffmpeg -i in -an -vf setpts=PTS/60 -f yuv4mpegpipe - | ffplay -


How can I squeeze video of certain length into smaller length For example how to turn 1:03 video into 1:00 without cutting anything. Can I do it on any mobile video editor?

This is generally done by retiming the video. Usually, if you're retiming by anything other than double or half, you need to use a professional application such as Final Cut Pro X or Premiere. They will have options for doing the speeding up in a number of different ways such as "Frame Blending" or using "Optical Flow".

For mobile, a quick search with these terms "app to speed up video iPhone" shows a number of results.


Color leakage effects with ffmpeg blend=all_expr I generate two test videos (the first a test pattern, the second solid red) with

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i testsrc=duration=5:size=1280x720:rate=30 pattern.mp4
ffmpeg -f lavfi -i color=c=red@0.2:duration=5:size=1280x720:r=10 red.mp4

If I blend these together with the solid red as background, I see the expected output: left half test pattern, right half solid red.

ffmpeg -i pattern.mp4 -i red.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v]blend=all_expr=if(lt(X\,600)\,A\,B)" output.mp4

However, when blending in the opposite order, the output is not as expected, with the solid red "bleeding" over the entire image.

ffmpeg -i red.mp4 -i pattern.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v]blend=all_expr=if(lt(X\,600)\,A\,B)" output.mp4

Why is the "A" video leaking into the "B" zone?

The default pixel format for testsrc filter is rgb24, which gets converted to yuv444p for encoding to H264. The default pixel format for color is yuv420p, which is kept as-is.

The blend filter requires both inputs to have the same pixel format, and will, where possible, convert the pixel format of the 2nd input to match that of the first. When red.mp4 is the first input, the frames from pattern.mp4 are converted to yuv420p. In yuv420p. the chroma planes are half the width (and height) of the luma plane, so in this case, 640x360.

Your blend expression, which is applied to all planes is, if(lt(X\,600)\,A\,B). For the chroma planes of a 1280x720 frame in yuv420p format, X = 600 is at ~6% from the right edge, hence the result you're seeing. You can modify the expr to if(lt(X\,SW*600)\,A\,B) to get the expected result. SW is the scale factor for the processed plane and represents the ratio of the current plane to the luma plane.


Miro does not convert the entire file when converting to webm I am trying to convert files from .mov to .webm with Miro on a Mac for publishing to the web with HTML5. The conversions go fine for about 75% of the file but then Miro does not convert the rest of the file. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue and what they did to get around it. Thanks!

I tried using Miro as well to transcode H.264 MP4 into VP-8 WebM so that Firefox would play using HTML5 rather than a Flash fallback.

But at least when the mp4 source was exported from Premiere then the Miro conversion did not work properly
it finished in my case, but the webm file would always start to play from the last second of the video for some reason (try it with VLC, for instance).

FireFogg Worked
My solution was to use FireFogg, which can encode into webm as well
http://firefogg.org/
Instructions here, just choose webmsd or webhd instead of ogg: Video - Dive Into HTML5


iPhone 5 video: continuous shooting without creating independent clips I'm shooting some doco footage using the iPhone 5. I'm looking for a way to shoot "tape" style. I don't want independant clips when I stop recording. Just want to append clips back to back continuously like pausing and recording does on any video camera.

I'd rather not combine clips at the end. If there's a way to avoid this that would be perfect.

Any suggestions?

At this time the iPhone 5 does NOT have that feature. The only thing you can do is download an application such as Qik or other recording in the appstore which they have a feature such pause or zoom.


Grading Colour To Black And White In Davinci Resolve I use Photoshop / ACR a lot and I'm well used to they way they handle conversion from black and white. I have control over reds, greens, blues, yellows, cyan and magentas, which allows a huge flexibility in conversion.

I'm trying to transfer this knowledge to Resolve, but I'm struggling to find a comparable workflow. The Saturation setting in the Primary settings doesn't give any such control, so I'm assuming I need to break the footage in it's RGB components and work on each separately, however I can't find a way to split and recombine them so that I end up with a monochrome image.

I can find almost nothing relating to grading colour footage to black and white in resolve, so what is the most flexible approach?

There is actually a specific option for this in Resolve.

In your primaries pane (bottom left of the color tab) navigate to the "rgb mixer" tab.
In the top right of the tab, click the options menu (3 dots)
Check the 'make monochrome' command.

Now you'll see 6 from the 9 rgb mixer bars turn gray and you'll be able to use the other 3 to mix you black and white the way you want to.

Good luck!


How to get this transition using ffmpeg? I have bee experimenting with ffmpeg on video transitions , Now am stuck in this transition , I have no where to go ,

I have two videos like this,

at the end of first video i have to split the first video into two from center and reveal the second video like the following,

any help would be appreciated

Some variant of:

ffmpeg -i FIRST -i SECOND -lavfi "blend=all_expr='if(lte((W/2-sqrt((X-W/2)*(X-W/2)))+N*SW,W/2),A,B)'" OUTPUT


Why is the alignment setting disabled on my Constant Power audio transition? Can anyone tell me what would be causing me to not be able to set the Alignment property on a Constant Power audio transition?

I'm not sure what other information is relevant for this question as I am quite new to Adobe Premiere Pro CC.

I am using Adobe Premiere Pro CC 7.2.2

I had the same issue. For me, there was a very small gap between the 2 clips, which was not visible until I expanded the time sequence to a greater extent. Once I remove the gap between clips, alignment got enabled for me


What are the pros and cons of using a 4k to HD digital extender zoom On some of Sony's new 4K cams they claim the following:

  The new model incorporates a 25x optical zoom lens to cover a wide focal range for multiple shooting requirements, with three independent lens rings to support intuitive operation. Using optical zoom lens with Digital Extender in an HD mode, a 50x zoom equivalent image without any picture degradation can be captured thanks to its 4K resolution sensor.
  Sony Z190

Basically, Sony claims that this "digital extender" feature can digitally double your zoom, but still send full HD resolution.

I'm skeptical there's no significant difference. I would think that using only a portion of the sensor with the extender means less light and color information goes into making the image compared to down scaling the 4K image. Also, I'm not a physicist, but my understanding is that it's physically not the same as more optical zoom with more exposure.

Am I right? What are the differences I should notice? I actually do own this cam and personally think there is a loss in clarity, but can't explain why that would be. Exposure and color look the same to me.

I've shot 4k footage since 2014, and when mastering in 1080p, I often use digital zoom in post. There are multiple factors I would look at.

Cameras that use a single sensor will display debeyering artefacts when examining the direct pixel readout (mushier detail and reduced colour information). This issue is nicely improved when downsampling 4k to 1080p, but is revealed when digitally zooming. The Z190, however, uses a 3-chip design. If each chip is full 4k (which the marketing copy certainly implies), the quality difference between downsampled and a direct pixel crop should be significantly less noticeable than on single-chip competitors.
Lens resolution can be a contributing factor as well. If the lens barely keeps up with the 4k resolution of the sensors, or the three-chip design introduces optical issues, then downsampling will likely hide minor softness. Digital zoom will reveal these optical shortcomings simply by magnifying what's being projected onto the sensor. On the upside, lens performance is typically best near the centre, so a centre crop is at least likely to be optically stronger than the edges.
While exposure and colour should look identical because nothing is changing (aperture, shutter speed, gain, pixel pitch), you're right that the exposure performance will change, as measured by the amount or type of visible grain. From user reports I've read, this is best demonstrated in the Sony A7 series of cameras where similar light sensitivity (based on the amount of visual noise) can be seen in direct pixel readouts from the A7s (giant pixels, lower resolution) and downsampled readouts from the A7r (smaller pixels, higher resolution, but the subsequent higher noise is reduced during downsampling). Digital zoom will reveal the per-pixel noise that downsampling would have averaged out, which can impact perceptual sharpness.
If you decide to record in 4k and downsample to 1080p afterward, zooming as needed in post, compression may come into play as well. While the Z190 records 4:2:2 10-bit, digital zoom can reveal minor compression softness in colour detail that would have been reduced during downsampling. However, I would expect this to apply only to downsampling/zooming 4k footage in post. If the camera is recording a 1080p 4:2:2 image directly, switching between a downsampled full sensor readout and a crop of the centre pixels should have little to no impact on compression results.
Some cameras may simply process things slightly differently when performing downsampling versus direct pixel readout.

When tracking down the source of the softness, I'd recommend starting by recording 4k footage and cropping it in post, then comparing it to footage shot using the 1080p zoom mode. Though highly unlikely, if poor camera processing of 1080p footage is to blame you'll see the difference here.

It's more likely a combination of lens resolution, optical performance of the three-chip design, and perceptual sharpness improvements from reduced noise when downsampling. But by all means, try some locked down resolution tests first! After tracking down the source(s) of the softness, then it's a question of how to combat it.

My approach has always been to shoot in 4k and rely on "digital zoom" in post while never reaching a full 2x zoom (direct pixel crop). This ensures the footage is always downsampled to some extent, maintaining the higher relative quality we're used to seeing now.


Old VCR Scanline Spash Screen effect (Bladerunner Ladd Company logo) So I was wondering whether anyone has any idea whatsoever how to achieve this particular effect? I'm knowledgable primarily in Photoshop and Illustrator but there must be an easier way to achieve this 'building out of lines' - effect as I would name it?

Related material:

Actual effect - "Scanline Splashscreen"

welcome to video.stackexchange

Try something like this:

Make the tree and line as a black image with a white background.

Pre comp your tree and line to make a single comp.

Make a green solid layer and put it beneath your tree comp.
Make the tree comp invisible for now.
Apply a Venetian Blind (or Grid Wipe) effect to the green solid layer, in order to get the small horizontal scan lines.  Don't keyframe it - the objective is just a tree made of thin lines.

Use a Track Matte on the green solid layer to reveal the shape of the tree layer above. Set it to Luma Inverted Matte.

Now you need to make the big blocks step in across the tree shape.
Make a new comp, and put a copy of your tree shape in here as a guide layer.
Set its opacity to 30% so you can still see it, but you can see everything else you're going to add.

Now we add some blocks:
To do this, I would use text squares in the correct shape around the tree, then animated using the Typewriter effect.
Do one set of these for the left to right blocks only, leaving a space for the right to left blocks.
Duplicate your "left to right" blocks layer, and scale its x-axis by -100
Make the two sets of blocks different colours so you can see what's going on.
Adjust the keyframes on the typewriter effect until they come in at the right rate.

Put your comp into your main comp (I called it "line draw ins") and make it invisible.
Go to the layer with your green scanline tree in it, and apply a Set Matte effect to it.
In the Set Matte effect, in the "Take Matte from Layer" setting choose your "line draw ins" layer.  This is using your typewriter blocks as a matte (like the track matte we did earlier but can be anywhere in your comp).

Add in your text layer in the right colour
set some opacity key frames on it
then add an adjustment layer to make it look glowy and noisy, in whatever what your want to... (there are many tutorials on how to make things look like VHS videos).  I put a glow and a channel blur on the adjustment layer.

Video example below:

https://vimeo.com/332475491


How to compensate for red oversaturation and contrast increase? When uploading a video to Vimeo the video is transcoded by Vimeo and in the process red gets a bit more saturation and the contrast is increased a little.
As I chose Vimeo as my platform I have to live with that and hence compensate for it during my video production.
How would I determine the exact amount of red desaturation and contrast decrease? Can I overlay the screenshots somehow and calculate a difference? Is there maybe a plug-in for Premiere Pro that compares two videos and outputs a suggested colour correction?

I know I can do this by trial and error, but I'd rather have an automatic solution.
Here's an image showing the effect:

Note the difference of skin tone between Safari and Vimeo HD file. The latter is the intended colour.

Unfortunately, even if you could get an exact amount of the difference, it is highly unlikely that adjusting by that amount will fix your problem.  Since a lossy compression is being used, the codec is deciding to alter the color to something that is more easily stored in a small space.  You will likely get a different color artifact if you try to correct for this one.  Your best bet would probably be to look in to the formats that Vimeo uses and try to encode it yourself such that Vimeo won't have to transcode it.  This would give you control over the compression itself and you might be able to use a better encoder that would maintain color more accurately.


Generate thumbnail images with alpha channel from a video which has an alpha channel using ffmpeg I'm working with ffmpeg and processing MOVs with alpha channels. I want to generate a sequence of images and preserve the alpha channel in the images generated.

Any guidance or help would be appreciated.

I found this solution on StackOverFlow.com: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7742506/convert-flv-video-with-alpha-channel-to-pngs-with-transparency
./ffmpeg -i ../videos/video.mov -r 25 -vcodec png -pix_fmt rgb32 %d.png


How can I make solid colored particles? Particles always seem to have some opacity or blending applied. Is there a way to make them all a single solid color all of the time?

Oh duh, add a color overlay layer style.


Removing frames from a video - how to make playback not pause during removed frames (i.e. assign new timestamps) I am working off this answer here. I have calibrated my video such that the following code perfectly exports the frames I want to keep
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "blackframe=amount=0:threshold=92, metadata=select:key='lavfi.blackframe.pblack':value=45:function=less" -vsync 0  img%d.jpg

I modified the code slightly to export to a video
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "blackframe=amount=0:threshold=92, metadata=select:key='lavfi.blackframe.pblack':value=45:function=less" -vsync 0  outz.mp4

The problem that I face is the output video is the same length as the input. The correct frames are being dropped but I am guessing the timestamp is not being adjusted because the video appears to pause (shows last non dropped frame) during a playback of removed frames.
I guess I could output the image files to another video editor and recompile into a video but I'd like to do this all within ffmpeg if possible.
Thanks!

The easiest way is to retime remaining frames using setpts.
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "blackframe=amount=0:threshold=92, metadata=select:key='lavfi.blackframe.pblack':value=45:function=less,setpts=N/FR/TB" -vsync 0  outz.mp4


Audio goes a frame or two out of sync after export premier pro i've finished my film and i'm trying to export my film in 1080p 23.976 fps , using h.264 audio acc 44.100 khz and 192 bit rate .

when i export my full film my audio is slightly out of sync/time with video. when i only export small portion of the film with exact same settings the audio is back in time and everything seems in sync again ?  please help me you wonderful people yes ?  ;-)  my film is 45 minutes long

the portion i exported was about 1.30 mins , i have tried many different settings including higher fps 29.976 etc but still the same thing happens out of sync on full film, and ok in small portion export !

and i'm exporting the same portion and referencing that one segment !

last attempt i'm currently making is from another forums advice is deleting render files before export ? i'm still don't know if this has worked as i'm waiting for export to finish !  anyone can help me out , thanks alot , Dave >

This may be due to framerate problems.There are two types of 24 fps.
"True" 24 fps and 23.98 FPS.
This mostly doesn't make any issues, but stretched over a longer time, this can change the video duration. For a 45min video, this makes 64800 frames, instead of 64746.
This gives a difference if about 2.25 seconds.

After trying to delete the pre-rendered files as you said before, try to change the sequenze settings.
Before you do this, MAKE A COPY!

If this doesn't help, another way would be to try another codec and or container. So try h.265 or HDx or avi... It may be that those codecs don't have these problem


how can I smoothly move a camera without a dolly? I have a small camera and this is the first time I'm filming anything that is serious. I'm wonder if there is a cheap way I can smoothly shoot footage in a room while moving without a camera dolly.

You want something like a Steadicam.

The idea is to add weight to the camera assembly so that it is stabilized by an increase of moment of inertia. For larger rigs, the entire thing might be supported by the cameraperson's body on a harness.

For smaller applications, the mount point of the camera is right above where you grip the assembly, and the pivot point is at the top of this grip. Then, a rigid strut extends from the mount point to below the grip, and weight is added at the bottom of this strut so that the center of gravity of the entire assembly (camera included) is at the pivot point.

This is an example of something like this that you can purchase, but if you're on a tight budget you might even be able to make something yourself.


Premiere Pro 2021 Refusing to Load My Project On Premiere Pro 2021 whenever I try to work on a project that has multiple layers, it refuses to load it and instead I am met with “project is pending” and it refused to load it and then crashes.
I tried importing the project into a new project and the same thing happened.

Have you tried resetting preferences and/or plugin cache?
From here:

Press Alt (Windows) or Option (Mac OS) while launching Premiere Pro.
You can release the Alt key or Option key when the splash screen
appears.
To reset preferences and plug-in cache at the same time, hold down
Shift-Alt (Windows) or Shift-Option (Mac OS) while the application is
starting. Release the Shift-Alt keys or Shift-Option keys when the
splash screen appears.


How do I add a crosshair guide to a FCPX angle editor viewer window? I need to keyframe the Y position transform of a moving subject to keep her in the center of the frame and would like a set of crosshairs to help me do it.  I've seen solutions which employ Motion titles, but I can't get this to work because the clip I'm translating is inside a multicam clip. I've looked, but cannot find, plugins to add this functionality. Thanks

It is indeed impossible to put a title over a clip inside a multi cam clip... Unless you turn that clip into a compound clip. Then you can add whatever overlay you want to it.

So you will have:

keyframed clip with crosshair overlay
inside a compound clip
inside a multicam clip

Just right click your the clip inside your multicam clip and choose New Compound Clip ( ⌥  + G )


settings for editing in cs4 What initial setting should I be using in Premiere CS4 if I shot video on a Samsung HMX-q10 camera but shot in standard definition? When I tried DV NTSC the video looks very bad, like it's somewhat pixellated. When I view it on Windows media player the video looks good.
The properties on the clips are: 720x480 59 fps.

Try applying a de-interlace and make sure that the preview window is at full quality.  If you play back interlaced footage as progressive without deinterlacing, then every other frame only has half the normal information which would look pretty bad.  You should be able to adjust it under Interpret Footage from the footage properties.


Converting GIMP curves files to Photoshop (.acv) for ffmpeg I've seen a number of scripts for converting Photoshop .asv .acv files to a GIMP friendly format. Does anyone know if such a tool exists to do the opposite, i.e. converting a GIMP curve file to .asv .acv? I'm interested in this for use in the ffmpeg curves filter. Thanks.

EDIT: It seems like the ffmpeg documentation is wrong: http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#curves. The curve files produced by Photoshop (at least on OSX) are not .asv but .acv.

I ran into the same issue, so I threw together a Python script (posted and linked at the bottom). It doesn't convert the GIMP curves present into a .acv. But it does convert it directly into an argument for an ffmpeg curves video filter. I had hardcoded the files into the script, but to make it a bit more user friendly I added some instructinos and commandline inputs for the file-in and file-out.

NB: If you are doing a simple -vf you can copy and paste it directly. If you are using a complex filter graph you still need to put the [in] and [out] arguements on either side.

Here's a usage example: I've bolded the parts that you would need to add and ellipsed the very long filter statement.

simple vf: ffmpeg -i videoin.mp4 -vf curves=master="0....1.000" videoout.mp4

part of complex filter that concatenates two videos, color corrects the product, and adds a separate audio track:

ffmpeg `
-i vid1.mp4 `
-ss 0:0:03.04 -i .\vid2.mp4 `
-i .\audio.m4a `
-filter_complex `
"[0:v][1:v] concat=n=2:v=1:a=0 [stitched]; `
[stitched] curves=master='0.0/0.000000 0.01171875/0.008608 `
....0.99609375/1.000000' [stitchedcorrected]" `
-map '[stitchedcorrected]' -map 2:a:0 `
-vcodec libx264 -preset slow `
out.mp4

Hope this is helpful! Let me know if you need any help.

http://pythonfiddle.com/gimp-curves-to-ffmpeg-curves-arg/

import re

#make generator
lower=0
upper=1
length=256
zerotoonestepped256gen = [lower + x*(upper-lower)/length for x in range(length)]

def formatForFFMPEG(values):
    serializedValues = values.split(' ')
    list = []
    for i in range (len(serializedValues)):
        if not list or zerotoonestepped256gen[i] - float(re.match(r"^[^////]*",list[-1]).group(0)) > 0.01:
            list.append('%s/%s' % (zerotoonestepped256gen[i], serializedValues[i]))
    return list

#print instructions
print('This is a tool to convert a color curves map from GIMP to a curves filter that can be inserted into the -complex_filter. Note that you still need to append the input and output streams onto either side of the command.')
#get filename
file = input('Please input the absolute path to the GIMP Color Curve Preset File: ')
out = input('Please enter the output file (file will be overwritten if it exists): ')

#Open the curves file
curvesfile = open(file,"r")
curvesString = curvesfile.read()
foundValues = re.findall(r'(?<=samples 256) [\d. ]*',curvesString)

masterValues = formatForFFMPEG(foundValues[0][1:])
redValues = formatForFFMPEG(foundValues[1][1:])
greenValues = formatForFFMPEG(foundValues[2][1:])
blueValues = formatForFFMPEG(foundValues[3][1:])
alphaValues = formatForFFMPEG(foundValues[4][1:])

commandPrelim = 'curves=master="'

command = commandPrelim + ' '.join(masterValues) + '":red="' + ' '.join(redValues) +'":green="' + ' '.join(greenValues) + '":blue="' + ' '.join(blueValues) + '"'

with open(out, 'w') as out:
    out.write("Final Command\n\n" + command + '\n\n')
    out.write("master\n\n" + ' '.join(masterValues) + '\n\n')
    out.write("red\n\n" + ' '.join(redValues) + '\n\n')
    out.write("green\n\n" + ' '.join(greenValues) + '\n\n')
    out.write("blue\n\n" + ' '.join(blueValues) + '\n\n')
    out.write("alpha\n\n" + ' '.join(alphaValues) + '\n\n')


Problems opening 3GP files in Sony Vegas 12 64bit My system crashed and i reinstalled windows, including Vegas.  Projects that included 3GP files (GSpot says that the codec is MP4V), now cant link the 3GP files.  Vegas says files are offline, i search and relink, but in the end it gives an error and files stay offline.

I have reinstalled (and rebooted) Cole2k, VLC, XVid and still no results.

VLC opens the files, no problem.

Any suggestions?

PS:  yes, 3GP did open up before - the generated sfk files are right alongside the 3GP files.

I finally got back in working order by also installing AviDemux and Quicktime.

CONCLUSION: Vegas is capable of opening 3GP files AS LONG it has the right codecs, which Quicktime seems to supply when installed alongside other codec packs.


How to add "two" transitions between clips in Premiere? I am very new to this video editing, so sorry,...

I actually want a transition that takes longer to undip from black than to dip to black.

I wanted to add two transitions, one at the end of the first clip and have the transition stop at 50% and then another one at the beginning of the next and have it start at 50% and then adjust the time the transitions take.

It turns out one can only have one transition between clips. Which makes sense, but does not explain how I should proceed.

I am unclear on what you are asking. So you have 2 clips on your timeline and you want to have clip 1 dissolve but only halfway? That's your opacity. So just click on your clip in the timeline (next to the clip name I believe there's a twirly) and you should be able to select motion, or opacity. Click opacity. Then adjust it with keyframes.

Then go to your second clip and start your first keyframe at 50% and then further along the timeline take it back to 100% with another keyframe?

I hope that helps.


How to set up Trapcode Particular as a bounded text object, then disperse it Can anyone point me in the direction of how to set up Particular to generate this text effect?

In particular (pun absolutely intended) how to contain particles within the boundaries of the text before dispersing them.
I'm using Trapcode Particular v16.

You can use the layer-emitter for that. Particular will look for the alpha and spawn more particles where areas are more opaque. Just make sure that your text-layer is precomped and set as a 3D-layer. Then, from the drop-down menu of particular, choose the layer-emitter, open the tab of the layer-emitter further down and select your text-precomp. You might wanna up the particle count as thin text may not cause a single one to spawn, and you will think you did something wrong. Alternatively, use the layer-grid-emitter to significantly up the particle-count. Just make sure to disperse the particles using wind or Spin-Amplitude down in the physics->Air tab.
I hope I was able to help you, have a great day!


Want to learn the new iMovie Can you recommend a good site with some online training for the latest iMovie on OS X? I have tried to play with iMovie over the years and I never seem to 'get' how it is meant to be used.

Right now I have about 1.5 hours of raw video taken with my iPhone 5s of a set of student presentation and I (naively) wanted to make a short 'highlight real' of it. But once I import the video into iMovie I am not sure how to use its features.

(Note that I am very proficient on my mac in every other respect, software development, html, photoshop, illustrator, all those I manage just fine, but iMovie is so confusing. I feel like I just need a 20 minute leg up in a tutorial or something like that.)

I'm generally a fan of Lynda.com. If you are a student (especially in a college environment), you may have free access to Lynda at your library. It looks like there are a series of tutorials for iMovie on their site:

http://www.lynda.com/iMovie-training-tutorials/229-0.html

Alternatively, if you search Youtube for iMovie training, you'll likely some good stuff as well (even reposted Lynda.com videos). I suspect that after about an hour of video tutorials you'd have a good sense of the key features of iMovie.


Vertically shifted Image through RCA/Chinc connector I am experiencing the oddest thing about a RCA-transmitted audio/video signal. The sound is transmitted correctly and so is the image. However the image itself is vertically shifted by roughly one third of the picture. That means the bottom third of the screen is undefined static and the upper third of the actual picture is cut off.
Some context: As I do not have a TV at the moment but want to play some Wii games, I use my trusty but quite old VCR (which works perfectly for watching VHS cassettes) which is plugged in via television cable to the TV-card of my computer. This VCR has only a mono sound input regarding the RCA signal (yellow + white) so I left the red cable coming from the Wii unplugged and connected the other (yellow and white) cables to the VCR input.
Do you have any clue what is going on? Is there any chance whatsoever I could fix this?
EDIT
I can rule out the VCR, as I plugged the Wii directly to my TV-card (I just found out it supports chinch input) and have the exact same result.

I solved the problem now. The Wii was configured to send out a 60 Hz signal, but my TV card could only process 50 Hz. By changing this in the Wii menu (which you could see a bit) the setup works now.


Adobe After Effects: Keying layers based on other layers I have 4 video streams:

a color stream A1
a black and white stream A2, representing the distance of objects in the color stream A1
a color stream B1
a black and white stream B2, representing the distance of objects in B1.

Now I want to key between either stream A1 or B1 depending on which is closer to the camera. Being a programmer myself I thought of solving this by running an operation on every individual pixel of the separate streams in order to generate the output video:

if luminosity of A2 is smaller than luminosity of B2, use the color of A1, otherwise use the color of B1

Is it possible to do this kind of operation in After Effects, or is it possible to write expressions like these that run on every pixel?

There is a way of doing per-pixel logic such as what you want, by using Blending Modes. Basically the different transfer modes in AE can be though of as Boolean logic operations that go on at the pixel level. The different transfer modes are spelled out here.

So I think I've worked out how you'd do it.

Here are the images I'm using: two depth maps and two colour maps:

Picture 1 and depth matte

Picture 2 and depth matte

As you can see, no expense was spared with the render.

OK so in AE I make a comp with just the depth mattes in it. I set the blending mode of the top layer to Darker Color.

The darker color blending mode does this logic on each pixel:

(luminosity of this layer < luma of layer(s) below)? This layer: lower layer

This means the darker object will appear wherever two objects overlap That gives me this result:

Now we have to turn this into a matte for picture 1, where the black will be opaque and white transparent. To get rid of the parts of the comp that aren't relevant to picture 1 I put this comp into a new comp, along with another copy of depth matte 1, which I put on top.

I set the blending mode of the top one to Difference which can be though of as:

(this layer == lower layer)? 0: abs(this layer - lower layer)

and this is the result:

OK, now I put this comp in a new comp with my colour images. This comp goes above image 1.

In this final comp I set the depth map comp as a Luma inverted matte for picture 1. Note that when you do that it turns off the visibility for that layer (see the eye icon is disabled on the top layer). This is the result:

Obviously there's a bit of a problem in that there are semi-opaque areas. So I need some sort of threshold. I could do this a few ways, but the way I like is with the curves effect. I apply curves to the top layer (the depth matte layer) like so:

I originally set this to be a hard step at 50%, but that makes the edges of the matte super sharp, so I made it slope a bit around the mid-point. You can play with this to get it right. That's the advantage of using Curves instead of say the Threshold effect.

Finally I got this result, with the figures correctly sorted on the "z" axis:

I hope this all makes sense, and that it works in real life. Thanks for the question, it was an interesting exercise.


Sony Movie Studio Platinum 13 - Rendering output movie freezes, or has glitches in rendered file Using Sony Movie Studio Platinum 13 on Windows 10, the output movie freezes at random points or has glitches/artifacts within the rendered movie file. Does anyone have any suggestions as to how to get a reliable output movie?

I have found the following to work:

Restart the PC
Reset Movie Studio settings to default by:

Hold down Ctrl and Shift when starting program
When the software starts to load, a window asks, Do you want to reset all program preferences to default? Select Yes.
Make sure to tick the checkbox, Delete all cached application data.

Deleting all .sfk files can also help with problem projects
The default MP4 and AVCHD files seem to be pretty reasonable quality, and less error-prone.

Extracted tips from: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/208/883399


How to add closed captioning to MPEG-2, QuickTime MOV, or AVI/DV for cable broadcast? I need to add closed captioning to a short video that will be broadcast on our cable TV system.  The cable system will accept MPEG-2, QuickTime MOV, or AVI/DV formats.  This is in the United States, and I'm guessing that we will need both EIA-608 and CEA-708 formats.  Because I am not actually producing the video itself, and I don't have it yet, I don't know whether it will be in a standard-definition or high-definition format.  I am presuming the latter, but information on either could be helpful.

What software (preferably free and/or open-source) can help with this task?  I have tried Google, and I have tried skimming the documentation of some of the packages out there (e.g., Kdenlive) to no avail.  I can use Linux or Windows software for sure, and I can probably find someone with OS X if needed.

You could check out these links to see if they provide what you need:

http://www.theneitherworld.com/mcpoodle/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML

Caption Maker Pro:

http://www.cpcweb.com/

And of course Scenarist and Encore, although both are DVD oriented you should be able to produce at least MPEG-2 with closed captions embedded:

http://www.rovicorp.com/products/distribution/content-production-tools/scenarist-bd.htm
http://www.adobe.com/products/encore.html

  Closed-captioning support

  Import line 21 files to add closed captions to your DVDs (NTSC titles
  only).


As happens, the act of asking a questions leads me to the answer faster.  I can do this with a combination of two shortcuts:

Down Arrow (Go to Next Edit Point)
Shift + Q (Extend Previous Edit To Playhead)

(Still be interested if there's a way to do this with a single shortcut)


How do you keep the silent part of a video? How can I keep the funny silent part of a video (sniffs, breathing,...)?
I found a solution here, but is there another solution?
I mean: Can I do the same in a video editor?

Welcome to video Stack Exchange. This is an interesting question, and one that I have asked myself in the past!

If you are willing to spend money, check out the third-party Adobe plugin Awkward Pause (click here for demo video).
For a quick and dirty solution, you can try using this command-line tool I made last semester for a class. It is different from carykh's in the practical sense that it does not need to store png sequences of the images. (Therefore it requires less space.)

For your purposes: keep the first_speed = 1.0 and change the second_speed to a very high number, then compile in XCode.