Trying to add text to a video file and save it as an mpeg to be played in a slide show I have been asked to create a slide for a viewsonic slideshow player that has a rotating diamond at the bottom, and "Your Diamond Store" above.
I am having a hard time figuring out how to do this with what I have and this is way out of my normal scope.
I have adobe cs4 suite and standard apple software.  Can anyone please help?
Thanks!!

Either After Effects or Premiere will do this for you no problem.  I'd probably use After Effects for simplicity since it is easier to understand the layers there.  Either use a text effect or use Illustrator to make the text a bit nicer and import it in as a layer in After Effects.  Position the video that it is playing over as the bottom layer then import the text layer and position it over the background as necessary.

For the rotating diamond, you would need a rotating diamond that has a transparent background to the layer.  This is easiest to do with 3d graphics software, though you could also do it by rotating an actual diamond and keying out the background from around it.

On the other hand, the best looking approach (since a diamond refracts the surroundings) would be to bring it in to a professional 3d package and use the video as an environment map for the refraction to be correct and then export it as a series of images with alpha that can be composited back in as a source in After Effects.  Since the diamond will look like it is refracting the image it is over, it will be far more believable as a diamond in the scene.

I'm not sure if Blender (the most popular free 3d software) can support environment maps or not, but if it can, that would be your best bet for approaching that.  (Sadly, I use commercial 3D software so I've never learned Blender which is much more limited, someone else might be able to provide more insight on that though.)


How do you load gopro footage into Blackmagic Fusion? I'm trying to get started with Fusion. I have h.264 encoded video in a mp4 container. When creating a loader I get an unhelpful error of 'Loader1 failed at time 0'. Googling around I found some mention of not having the codec installed, so I pulled the CCCP and still had no dice.

ffmpeg also seems to be able to work with the files fine. I see some mention of Direct Show in the file format selector, but there is no option in ffmpeg to encode to that.

If I just try and mash a h.264 encoded stream into a container that appears to be supported, like avi, using:

ffmpeg -c:v h264_cuvid -i preaudio.mp4 -c:a copy -c:v h264_nvenc preaudio.avi

I get errors that look like:

Loader1 failed at time 0
Loader1 failed at time 0
Loader1 failed to load file "<pwd>\preaudio0000.avi" (clip "<pwd>\preaudio.avi" at frame 0)
Loader1 failed at time 0
Loader1 failed to load file "<pwd>\preaudio0000.avi" (clip "<pwd>\preaudio.avi" at frame 0)
Loader1 failed at time 0
Loader1 failed to load file "<pwd>\preaudio0000.avi" (clip "<pwd>\preaudio.avi" at frame 0)
Loader1 failed at time 0

Googling Loader failed at time 0 yields nothing.

TLDR; I know nothing and want to get from a file like this:

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '.\GOPR0047.MP4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp41
    minor_version   : 538120216
    compatible_brands: mp41
    creation_time   : 2017-02-20T21:24:36.000000Z
    firmware        : HD4.01.05.00.00
  Duration: 00:11:49.72, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 45115 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuvj420p(pc, bt709), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 44960 kb/s, 59.94 fps, 59.94 tbr, 60k tbn, 119.88 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2017-02-20T21:24:36.000000Z
      handler_name    :         GoPro AVC
      encoder         : GoPro AVC encoder
      timecode        : 21:45:04:55
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 127 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2017-02-20T21:24:36.000000Z
      handler_name    :         GoPro AAC
      timecode        : 21:45:04:55
    Stream #0:2(eng): Data: none (tmcd / 0x64636D74) (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2017-02-20T21:24:36.000000Z
      handler_name    :         GoPro TCD
      timecode        : 21:45:04:55
    Stream #0:3(eng): Data: none (fdsc / 0x63736466), 13 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2017-02-20T21:24:36.000000Z
      handler_name    :         GoPro SOS

To something that Fusion will let me work with.

End answer was dnxhd/mov. Use something like:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v dnxhd -b 440M -c:a copy out.mov

The -b argument should be adjusted based on your input resolution. 440M is the correct choice for 1080p @ 59.94 fps.


Calculate after effects composition un-stretched time How can I get or calculate the original current composition time of a time-remapped or stretched layer?
My composition has both stretched and non stretched layers and I want to display the current playback time (relative to the composition) as it would be if non of the layers were stretched.

The source time of a layer is found with the expression

thisComp.layer("some layer").sourceTime()

More about it can be found by reading the manual.


SDI loop through with LTC embedder I was wondering if there’s a converter out there that would take a HD-SDI in, as well as a LTC in, and an SDI out.

We currently have video feeds with no timecode embedded and was trying to loop through a feed of timecode which we can feed from a BNC.

I’m also seeing if it’s possible to make too! I know it is a thing that can happen considering Atomos Shoguns can feed in and LTC. I just need that without the screen.

If i fed to BNCs (a T Bar) into one out would that work? Is video and timecode able to be merged or would it be read as two feed signals?

It is quite possible to make, but think FPGA with 3 Gig SERDES (so probably a modest Kintex 7 or something similar) with a couple of SDI line IO parts (TI) and maybe a PLL from SI Labs, add some power conversion and a mess of VHDL, job done.

Maybe a few months work.

Obviously if you have LTC you can stripe that onto an audio track just using any old audio embedder, but I am guessing that does not really do it for you?

I would be a little surprised if YellowBrix or maybe Decimator Designs do not have a box that does this.

Regards, Dan.


Which tools are most likely used to create animated video (i.e. corporate commercials)? Animated video is sometimes very well done and extremely attractive and captivating. I would like to know what tools are typically used to create this kind of video. I specifically have in mind the kind of animation typically used in corporate training or commercials. Here's an example:

I can't be really sure, but most of that can be done using After Effects and a simple screen recording. You record the screen of a phone, put that into after effects, get a picture of a hand and put that into after effects, and just move it around with the frames.

The whole of screen recording could also be made using Adobe Flash or After Effects instead of actually taking it, but it would take a while... This way you could create a minimal and simple version of your app or something, which might be more eye-pleasing and less complicated to the audience.


After effects rendering I have a small problem with rendering.When i render with default setting my video size is more than 1 GB and i was using only 10 pics, some solids and 1 null object.Can you please tell me what setting is best for rendering so that the size is reasonable and the quality is good enough.Thanks in advance.

As @Oliver-G said above, your final use of the footage will dictate your render settings. But I'm going to explain HOW rendering works, because it's essential knowledge.

Rendering is the process of taking your After Effects comp - a series of instructions of how to process files - and writing every pixel's value to a file (See footnote 1).

The way AE does this is to work from each layer from the bottom-most upwards, calculating expressions, effects on each later, motion etc. Then it computes the next bottom-most layer, laying it over the previously computer layer(s). The final size is not dependant on the complexity of the comp, so a still image will be the same file size (footnote 2) as a full composite with particles, effects, 3D elements etc.

Once this is done, AE then runs the resultant file through a compressor, which is where you choose your codec(s) and compression.

Codec: Every file has three (footnote 3), one for Audio, Video and Container. Think of a codec like the format for that stream in the file - so you can mix and match codecs. This is why .mov files can be unplayable on some systems: Quicktime is a Container format, and can have any of a huge number of video codecs in it.

Compression: Set how much data is "thrown away" to achieve a smaller file size. Similarly (footnote 4) to how a .zip file has a smaller size than the files it contains - fewer bits to be stored - compression can reduce the file size of a video, at the expense of quality. This is why web video - YouTube especially - looks atrocious, because it is reduced to such a small file size.

These settings are accessed through the Output Module button under each file in the Render Queue.

What you did when exporting is leave everything Uncompressed, so you had a huge file size.

Footnotes

For those with a deeper understanding of encoding, yes, I realise that keyframes, I/B frames make this statement untrue. But it's simplified for this explanation.
Not true, depending on how the codec's compression chooses to handle movement - a still image will be smaller because the codec doesn't have to record every frame of new data.
At least three, for a normal Audio+Video+Container. Multiple audio/video tracks, 3D etc. all add more codecs to the one file.
Not at all, but hey, cut me some slack :)


Is there an inexpensive way to decompose a video into frames and apply a snapchat-like filter to each frame? I have a friend who has been taking stop-motion pictures, applying a snapchat "art" filter to each picture, then composing them into video (with pretty awesome results). He is interested in mechanically applying filters like that to video. I assume this is relatively trivial in high end (meaning expensive) video or photo editing software. Is there an inexpensive way to do this, say using the Gimp or a similar free/cheap editing software?

Most motion graphics applications can import most video types and apply filters to them. I believe that Adobe After Effects is available for a subscription (so cheap if you use it only for a month), and Apple's Motion is available for $49 from the Mac App Store.

Or if that's too much, I believe that iMovie is only $15 and has a number of simple snapchat-like filters available.


can we use "GoPro Hero 4" camera to shoot video tutorials or elearning courses or moocs? Hello video stackexchange experts.

I need your help to know that is it good idea to use GoPro Hero 4 to shoot MOOCs or video tutorials?

I have listed out few of the sample videos here.

Clay Animation Set Design

Lecture 1 | Programming Methodology (Stanford)

Justice: What's The Right Thing To Do? Episode 01 "THE MORAL SIDE OF MURDER"

Learn Malayalam quick to read,write and speak in 7 days Part 1

BALL IN AIR

Oyster Mushroom cultivation Jeevika Bihar

Azure Backup for Windows Client

Mould making,casting & firing casting mould-Ceramics

Thanks

A GoPro may not be your best tool for this - it has a very wide angle lens, and is targeted at action and sports, mostly.

That said, you can still use them effectively if your scenes can cope with the distortion a wide angle camera brings. They are cheap and convenient. They cope well with various light levels, but the sound quality is possibly not as good as you'd like for interviews, for example.


ffmpeg + libfdk_aac + vbr => wrong "BitRate_Mode" I'm trying to encode sample video clip or audio track with ffmpeg and libfdk_aac with variable bitrate mode-vbr 3:
ffmpeg -i sample.mp4 -crf 21 -vcodec h264 -acodec libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -ac 2 out.mp4
ffmpeg -i sample.mp3 -acodec libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -ac 2 out.m4a

mediainfo always shows
Bit rate mode                            : Constant

It sounds like a bug, isn't it?
Also, Mp4info looks like
File:
  major brand:      M4A
  minor version:    200
  compatible brand: M4A
  compatible brand: isom
  compatible brand: iso2
  fast start:       no

Movie:
  duration:   229042 ms
  time scale: 1000
  fragments:  no

Found 1 Tracks
Track 1:
  flags:        3 ENABLED IN-MOVIE
  id:           1
  type:         Audio
  duration: 229042 ms
  language: und
  media:
    sample count: 9864
    timescale:    44100
    duration:     10100736 (media timescale units)
    duration:     229042 (ms)
    bitrate (computed): 88.674 Kbps
  Sample Description 0
    Coding:      mp4a (MPEG-4 Audio)
    Stream Type: Audio
    Object Type: MPEG-4 Audio
    Max Bitrate: 88674
    Avg Bitrate: 88674
    Buffer Size: 0
    Codecs String: mp4a.40.2
    MPEG-4 Audio Object Type: 2 (AAC Low Complexity)
    MPEG-4 Audio Decoder Config:
      Sampling Frequency: 44100
      Channels: 2
    Sample Rate: 44100
    Sample Size: 16
    Channels:    2

How mediainfo recognizes Bit rate mode for mp4 \ m4a ? And is there any way to correct it to Variable ?

P.S.:
Bitrate's plot show that libfdk_aac works fine, but output metadata is incorrect - it can't be CBR. Here's example for CBR below (with option -vbr 0):

UPDATE:
After an hour of digging this issue I noticed that issue could be solved by editing ESDescriptor.
Here's sample's ESDescriptor that ffmpeg produces:
[ESDescriptor] size=5+34
  es_id = 2
  stream_priority = 0
  [DecoderConfig] size=5+20
    stream_type = 5
    object_type = 64
    up_stream = 0
    buffer_size = 0
    max_bitrate = 151870
    avg_bitrate = 151870
    DecoderSpecificInfo = 11 90
  [Descriptor:06] size=5+1

Well, if you set max_bitrate and avg_bitrate to 0 - Bit rate mode magically switches to correct value VBR as it is.
So the problem could be solved by using mp4edit or by patching ffmpeg (libavformat/movenc.c::mov_write_esds_tag)
Out of curiosity, I checked youtube's videos' ESDescriptor, they also has max_bitrate and avg_bitrate set to 0.

The issue was caused by ffmpeg/libavformat/movenc.c::mov_write_esds_tag, it can't find max_bitrate. To solve it you should specify audio bitrate -b:a 128k along with -vbr 4. Then mp4's ESDescriptor would have info about max_bitrate and mediainfo and decoders would know that audio stream has variable bitrate mode.


Is there a way of removing grain from a cgi animation in after effects? (not the video kind.) I have a blender animation fully rendered and imported into after effects and I want to try to remove as much noise and grain as much as possible.
However the type of noise that will be presented may be much different Than what you were expecting.
Here's an image of my blender animation:
As you can see, The type of grain/noise is much more of pixels being mixed together rather than colorful blocky chunks of pixels.
I have already tried to use the Removal Grain effect from the effects at the top, but that proved to be ineffective.

As an alternative to the denoising method suggested by @CoinRocket, you could try to export the scene from Blender with less noise. If you have enough computation capacity, this will be a superior solution since post-denoising will always introduce some amount of blurriness into your video.

The noise in your example image looks like fireflies, i.e. artifacts that stem from the nature of the Cycles Engine in Blender which is based on ray-tracing. There are several ways to reduce fireflies, however depending on your settings and available hardware render times will become extremely long. A while ago, I exported a 15-second sequence at 1000 samples and 24 frames per second rendered for three days straight on my laptop. So be warned.

The easiest way to reduce fireflies is to increase the number of samples the program runs during export. This will correlate directly with rendering times.

There are several other settings that can affect the occurance of fireflies, but some of them are well-hidden. Here's an explanation of some of them. There are also some tricks and workarounds that can help with that, here's an article detailing some of them. You might find some more on the Blender.SE or through other sources. A while ago, I assorted some Tutorials on several techniques in Blender, you can find it here. The titles are in German, but the links in the first tile on the left side might still be helpful to you.


How can I mix a video in Full HD (1920 x 1080) with a vid in HD (1280 x 720) I'm trying to export a video of Premiere CS6 and I am having some problems... My two cameras record in different size, and when I'm working with the clips on the program, everything looks great and works well, but when I export them, the clips that were for the Full HD camera doesn't looks like in the programe, they are kind of ampliated.

If someone understands what I'm saying and can help me, I would be grateful!
Thanks!!

At Premier Pro, see Effect control tab on the top left, select scale. Then you adjust the percentage of size of video match your sequences setting.
If your sequence setting are HD 1280×720 then you 0r FHD 1920×1080p videos all need to scale smaller. Final of your video will be 1280×720. Same to if your sequence setting in FHD then your HD video need to be scale up enlargement, it will blurer the videos, need to add smart sharpen at Effect tab below left to an adjustment layer .


What does exactly nesting a clip in one layer do in relation to another clip in a different layer? I'm trying to follow along a Premiere tutorial on creating a Tilt Shift Effect. In it, I would create a color matte with a mask as the below:
Then I would use the "Compound Blur" effect to my footage, which is sitting on layer V3. In the "Effect Controls" of the Compound Blur, I would select "Video 2" for the Blur Layer option. On layer V2, the color matte that I had created earlier needs to be nested for the Tilt Shift Effect to show properly. If I didn't nest it, then my footage would be completely blurred (see the comparison below). So my question is, what does exactly nesting the color matte do, in relation to the footage in the layer above it?

Without seeing the tutorial, it's difficult to say exactly, but I think what is happening is that the colour matte nest that you've created, is being used to control the blur on your other layer, probably by being set to being used as an "alpha matte".  If your colour matte layer wasn't nested, I think Premiere wouldn't be able to see the alpha changes on that layer, due to the order in which processes are rendered in its pipeline.
Effectively, by nesting the matte clip, the compound blur "sees" the effect and the matte as a single piece of video to process. Without it, it would only "see" a solid colour block.
Un-nested version (mona is fully blurred)

Nested version - only blurred in the middle

Matte layer:


ffmpeg converting Nikon .mov file to a format for Da Vinci Resolve Linux Hi folks I've spent 2 days on this now and I'm no closer to finding the perfect ffmpeg command line to do an exact conversion of a Nikon D850 .mov file to a format that Da Vinci Resolve on Linux can import.
I've tried PRORES ffmpeg -i input.MOV -c:v prores_ks -profile:v 3 -qscale:v 9 -vendor ap10 -pix_fmt yuv422p10le output.mov but this takes a 2.3 Gb original file and creates one that is 16GB
I've tried mjpeg ffmpeg -i input.MOV -vcodec mjpeg -q:v 1 -f mov output.mov this creates a file that to my eyes doesn't seem to differ in quality but is half the size of the original.
I've tried various other things some which produce a file Da Vinci can read but all result in a file size half the original. Space is an issue for me so the ProRes is not an option, a smaller file size is of course welcome as long as I know the original quality has not been lost.
Is this reduction in file size something to be concerned about?
Can anyone recommend a way to simply do a direct conversion without modifying bitrates or quality. My eyes are a bit doddery at the moment due to some new meds I am on so while I cannot see quality differences between the originals and the converted files I would hate to convert 4 years worth of timelapse footage and discover later they lost quality.
Thanks in Advance.

I purchased Da Vinci resolve Studio Pro which imports all my files in their existing format so this can be marked as solved.


ffmpeg concat with or without audio I'm splitting and merging a single video clip using this ffmpeg command:

-ss 0 -t 1 -i C:\source.mp4
-ss 3 -t 1 -i C:\source.mp4
-ss 6 -t 1 -i C:\source.mp4
-ss 9 -t 1 -i C:\source.mp4
-filter_complex "[0:v][1:v][2:v][3:v]concat=n=4[outv];
[0:a][1:a][2:a][3:a]concat=n=4:=v=0:a=1[outa]" -map [outv] -map [outa]
-vcodec h264 -acodec aac -pix_fmt yuv420p -strict -2 C:\output.mp4

But if source file doesn't have audio track, this command fails. if I remove
    ;[0:a][1:a][2:a][3:a]concat=n=4:=v=0:a=1[outa]
part it fixes the problem but I need to analyse file before using the command.

is there any parameter that will automaticly remove this part or ignores audio track if source doesnt have any audio track at all.

Use the concat demuxer instead:

Create a text file of the following format

file 'C:\source.mp4'
inpoint 0
duration 1
file 'C:\source.mp4'
inpoint 3
duration 1
file 'C:\source.mp4'
inpoint 6
duration 1
file 'C:\source.mp4'
inpoint 9
duration 1

Then run

ffmpeg -f concat -i file.txt -map 0:v -map 0:a? -vcodec h264 -acodec aac -pix_fmt yuv420p -strict -2 -fflags +genpts C:\output.mp4


Screenshot - what is this on my layer? I followed a similar process of precomposing a number of layers but the last time it gave me something I hadn't seen yet and I'm trying to understand what happened.

In the image you see a green bar about 5 cm wide. To the right you see a further extending semi-transparent bar that extends off the screen. What is this?

That means there's extra media after the end of the clip.  If you hover the mouse over the intersection of the semi-transparent part and the opaque part, it will turn into a double arrow <-->.  If you then click and drag to the right and play back the file, you'll notice extra media appear as part of your composition.  I.e. something more will happen in the video.  Drag it to the left, and the clip will disappear when the playhead hits that part of the timeline.  The transparency just lets you know that whatever recorded the media file (a camera, for example) recorded something more than what you're seeing play back in the viewer.  In other words, you could potentially extend the edit.


How can I film my two hands? In filming a video diary, I am often trying fruitlessly to put my two hands in the frame (as I stand, walk, etc) to show in the video when I am doing certain things with my hands.

It is difficult to achieve, as I have tried with iPhone and with DSLR/mirrorless cameras as well as with camcorders, and holding the device, as well as seeing the screen to frame and focussing were all very difficult.

Has anyone achieved this? I would love an answer that explains solutions on how to do this with an iPhone as well as with a DSLR/mirrorless camera. A tripod cannot be an answer, unless if it fits on my head or shoulders.

Go Pro offers both headbands and helmet mounts for their cameras.  Once you learn how to position and aim your head-mounted camera based on what you want it to see, you then only need a mechanism to start/stop the camera.  WiFi support and an appropriate app can be helpful.


How to Setup Resolution and Frame Rate Between Two Cameras for Premiere Editting and YouTube I have a Canon Vixia HF G10 and a Canon 70D. I need to do an interview requiring two camera angles. I need to figure out what the best way to ensure both cameras record video at the highest frame rate, resolution etc but match so that I don't have a post production nightmare on my hands.

Canon Vixia HF G10 does 60i, PF30 and PF24 (recorded as 60i) and 24P. It appears the resolution is determined by video quality (either 1920x1080 or 1440x1080). I have been using MXP mode (1920x1080 - 24MBits) on PF30 for the past year with decent results.

Canon 70D does either 1920x1080 @ 30 or 24 or 1280x720 @ 60 (I am guessing progressive, but the manual does not confirm this). I will of course record in their better compression method ALL-I. I currently am testing the 70D @ 1920x1080 24 ALL-I and it appears to be ok.

All post is preferred to rely on stock Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 if possible and the final result will be published on YouTube for sure and may be played off a Windows PC inside the client's office. I am not really picky about 30p or 24p.

I would appreciate an expert's opinion on the best way to set this up so I don't end up with two different frame rates, crappy results or wasting time in post editing because I screwed it up.

1080P/24 seems to be the way to go in this case.  It's generally considered to have a more cinematic look and both cameras appear to support that resolution and framerate.  Youtube has a 24 fps setting and should handle 1080P video fine.  As you already said, use All I on your 70D to ensure highest quality.


How to add images to video at specific timestamps for a short time? I would like to create a blank video and add images (occupying the entire screen) throughout the video for a very short amount of time (a frame or a second).

I found a command to create the blank video:

  ffmpeg -t 7200 -s 640x480 -f rawvideo -pix_fmt rgb24 -r 25 -i /dev/zero empty.mpeg

Now let's say I have an image. I want to insert the image into the video at the 8th second (or some other arbitrary second), and I want it to remain there only briefly.

How can I do this?

Use the color, scale2ref, and overlay filters. Include the enable option with an expression.

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i color=c=black:s=640x480:d=7200 -i iamge.png -filter_complex "[1][0]scale2ref=oh*mdar:ih[fg][bg];[bg][fg]overlay=(W-w)/2:(H-h)/2:enable='eq(t,8)'[v]" -map "[v]" output


Footprint or breadcrumb animation I'm after a very specific effect and I haven't found an effective way to accomplish it.  Basically, I want dots to appear along a path and disappear over time.  The dots should not move after they're born, only fade out via alpha channel.  It's important that this is an actual alpha transformation, not just a color blend, because I plan to overlay this graphic on different source videos.  The paths also need to be easily editable and there will be hundreds of dots, so individual layers for each dot is out of the question.

The best way I can describe the effect I'm after is: Imagine a person walking through the snow, the footprints appear instantly, and fade out over time.  I've seen plenty of tutorials on creating a series of elements which follow each other, as if you're dragging a string of pearls, but this is not what I'm after.

I've tried After Effects, and it's easy enough to make a dotted line with a shape layer, but a gradient stroke doesn't follow the path, or give me control over start position, end position, or offset.  (here's an illustration of the problem)

I've also tried using Cinema 4D and mograph, but keep running into similar problems.  I basically can't get a graduated shader effector to follow a spline.

Any solutions which use C4D or AE are preferred.  All are welcome.  Thanks.

A simple way in blender or any other 3d package would be to use a boolean modifier, if you want to subtract real geometry:

use a array modifier to duplicate your shape
create a path and aligning the objects on it
animate the object count of the array modifier
create a simple geometry for subtracting the path objects at the beginning
add a boolean modifier to your base object
animate the position of the boolean object to subtract the shape objects
make the boolean object invisible to the camera (e.g. with a transparent material)

.blend file

Edit: To get a soft transition you can render the bool object seperatly, blur the alpha channel and subract it from the another alpha. Or simply use a roto mask.

.blend


How to get fisheye lens border in shot? I'm about to buy a camcorder with a 62mm diameter lens, and I'd like to get a fisheye with it.

I would like my shots to end up like shown here, with a little bit of lens border in shot.

I can't seem to find an answer to this question online, does the lens diameter have to me smaller than my camera to achieve this or is it some kind of special lens?

Thanks!!

I can't answer your question about the lenses, but any good editing software should let you apply a fisheye effect after the fact. Just find the effects menu in whatever software you are using, and such an effect should be in there. For example, if you are using Final Cut Pro, the effects menu should be in the top right hand corner (here's the Apple help page about adding effect in Final Cut).


Overlaying Images on top of each other so they both show I would like to show an animation of an transparent image being overlaid on top of another image, But have both images show on the screen at the same time.
The first image would be on the screen then the second image would come from the top of the screen and fit like a hand and a glove on top of the existing image.

At the moment the top image just covers up the bottom image, is there a way to overlay the top image on the bottom image so the to graph is transparent and they seamlessly fit together? PS: the image isn't to scale but hopefully you get the idea.

Image 1 is already on screen

Image 2 comes down from top and is transparent and overlays on top of image 1

Image 3 example of image 2 coming down from top of screen and overlaying on top of image 1

PS: I'm using kdenlive and using Ubuntu,  However I can use any opensource app and I'm willing to learn it.

Is this the right group for this question?  If not which one should I post it to?
Thanks

It sounds like the image isn't actually transparent.  I am not familiar with kdenlive, but any decent NLE should allow for transparent layers.  As long as the images actually have transparent backgrounds, it should just work to animate one layer coming in on the other.  I would try using GIMP to make sure to remove everything but the line itself from the second image and place the line in a transparency supporting image format (such as 32 bit TGA), then try again.  If it still doesn't work, maybe kdenlive doesn't work and you could try one of the other editors on the open-source video editors question.


How to get MiniDV video from old JVC camcorder I have a bunch of old MiniDV tapes taken with a long-dead camcorder. I recently bought a used JVC GR-D200U on eBay, but I can't figure out how to transfer videos from the camcorder to my PC. The instructions to connect to a PC are on page 66 of the user manual, but these seem to be outdated because a direct USB link just doesn't seem to work and I'm not sure how to make the "DV" link. Here is a picture of the two ports available on my camcorder. Can someone tell me what wires/connectors/software I would need to make the connection and start capturing videos. For the record, my PC is new -- Windows 10, I7/6700, 16GB memory -- but does not have any ports beyond the basic HDMI/USB3/Network. Many thanks!

I've had to transfer many older formats to a PC.

I've found the best way is to get a TV tuner card for the PC and connect through that. (if the camera has a video out RCA type connector)  The card will usually come with some sort of software for capturing a signal.  The signal can usually come in via normal RCA type video/audio connectors and if not, you can always hook the camera up to an older VCR and then hook the output RF cable to the tuner card. (Sort of a cluster, but it works)

In your case, you could find an 8 pin to 4 pin firewire cable.  (The 4 pin is what the 'DV' output on the camera is)  The computer would then need the larger 8 pin firewire input on it.  This would allow the input of both the video and audio of the tape.

Example card you could use:  (this card has 8 pin and 4 pin inputs so you could go with either 8pin to 4pin cable or 4pin to 4pin cable)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815283029&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC--pla--Add-On+Cards-_-N82E16815283029&gclid=CjwKEAiA48fDBRDJ24_imejhwUkSJAAr0M5kmWujjnw3dRZE1dYFEfOInwW4d-IpZqXnue0az7FZsRoCcRDw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

The USB connector on those cameras were more for transferring the still pictures that the camera would take.  Even then the USB on those cameras was a crap shoot about if it would actually work.


Why doesn't the Play button Play in Premiere CS6? I am editing a video in Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 on a 2012 MacBook Pro with the Intel HD Graphics 4000. Sometimes the play button does not play the footage anymore, I can press the button but nothing happens. Do you have any suggestions for a solution?

EDIT

I have figured something out.

Last time I moved my PC, I had to re-plug-in all my stuff. Mic, USB for the external sound hard drive and so on.

Then I started up CS5.5 Premiere Pro and, with all preferences as usual, nothing worked. I pressed the "Play" button and nothing happened.

After a while, I found out that the Default Settings for the Sound in- and output works only but my UX24 Asio driver wasn't accepted anymore in a way that I wasn't able to use the Play button.

Well, I closed CS5.5 and then re-re-pluged-in all my Stuff.  Then I opened CS5.5 and selected Asio Ux24 (my soundcard) and everything worked again. Don't ask me why it accepted it this time. Maybe you have to plug in everything in a certain order. Please let me know if that is the case.

My problem now:

I moved my PC again and I face the same problem.  So I did everything I did as described before, but it didn't work.

The last point, and I quote here "Go to Preferences -> Audio Hardware and change Default Device to Built-in Output. Do the same in Preferences -> Audio Output mapping.", was all set. Everything right, as usual. Re-Pluging in the hardware didn't work and re-selecting, restarting didn't work either.

I need support and help, because there are people waiting for me to make videos.
Thanks for any answers.

Okay, this worked for me:

Re-Plug-in ALL your External Sound-Hardware.
Open your Sound Menu from Windows and set your Microphone to your current one. (For me it was the external Soundcard)
Now Open up Premiere Pro and set everything on your Preferences as previously stated.
Save your Current Sequenz/Project. Close premiere.
Reboot your PC.
Check your Sound Options in Windows, if everything is set right.
Open Premiere and check again, if your Prefences are still in (everything should be in order)
Now hit play.
If the Re-plugin doesnt work, use different USB slots :)

Hope I could help you.


How can I export 1920X1080 to 320X240 without losing quality? I have created a mo graph video using After Effects and Premier in HD 1920X1080. The client wants a much smaller version in 320x240 but every time I render out the smaller version pixilates.

Is there a way I can fix this

No matter what you try, you will lose quality as you are reducing the resolution significantly. So you are creating each new pixel from an aggregate of 36 - and depending on how you do that it can look okay or terrible, but it will not look anywhere near as good as the original. There is no way to avoid this.

Experiment with the settings for down sizing - for your video some may work better than others.


Natron - automatically adjust render frame range How do I set the frame range to automatically adjust to current video input?

Explanation:

I did some color correcting in Natron and I wanted to reuse the project for other video files so I changed the reader input destination. However, the second video was rendered with the frame range of the previous video. This resulted in, in this case, wastefully long render process as the original video was longer, flow of errors and practically useless output.

Go to the writer properties and change the "Frame Range" value from "Project frame range" (or less probably "Manual") to "Union of input ranges".

This, as the name indicates, determines the frame range as the union of inputs you pass to the writer.


Draggable effect split screen I want to know that draggable split-screen effect is used in the next video? j-query?

Draggable interact split screen video

Regards

You can accomplish that with simple masks. The main thing you need to do, it is to make several shots from same angels and same positions of the camera.


What VFX and video production softwares are used in movies like "Captain America: Civil War" and "Doctor Strange"? I was thinking that for VFX, they used Maya or some other animation software (especially for Dr.Strange) and for the video production, they used Sony Vegas or After Affects. And of course, they might have also made some of the movie visual effects directly from the video production software itself (for example, in AfterEffects you can make VFX in the software itself).

Those were just my guesses, but if you guys have any ideas or links to what VFX and video production softwares were used in Dr.Strange and Civil War, please state them.

Thanks!

This depends from Company to company, there are multiple companies working on multiple shots, or sometime even on the same shots. Because this (sometimes) differs a lot from eachother, it's really hard to give you an answer to this question.

As mentioned, this heavily depends on effects you want to acchieve and the company you work with.

These are some commonly used programms:

Cinema 4D
BodyPaint
AutoCAD
3DS Max
InfraWorks
Maya
Mudbox
Flame
Smoke
Softimage
Mental Ray
Combustion
FLIX
MODO
MARI
NUKE
OCULA
HIERO
Katana
keylight
Massive Prime
Massive Jet
Massiv for Maya
Ready to run Agents
Matchmover
Z-Brush
Adobe CS6
Illustrator
Photoshop
Flash
After effects
Lightroom
v-Ray for 3DS Max
Rendermann
Avid Media Composer
Avid effects
davinciresolve
Houdini
3D coat
topgun
shotgun Studio
PF Track
NURBS
Filemaker Pro
vue
Plant factory
Ozone
Carbon scatter
Lumen RT
Primatte
ultimate
Final Cut Pro
Qube
Synth-Eyes
boujou
Fusion
3D equalizer
Mantra
Real Flow
Fume FX
BlueArc

I can narrow them down, if you can tell on which effect you are specifically interessted.


The color in my Final Cut PX Viewer is way off So I have a bunch of clips that I shot at 1080/24p/neutral with my T2i that all look pretty good which I'm trying to import into FCPx to assemble into a short film. When I first got FCPx last week, I was playing around with the color correction on a dummy video clip. Now, for whatever reason, it seems that every clip I import has the same settings applied to it. (I'm pretty sure clips looked normal before doing this, but I'm not 100% sure).

I have tried un-/re-installing FCPx, creating a new project, checking the effects applied, etc. but nothing seems to work. I have checked the original media in the Finder and the color looks perfectly fine, as well as in Quicktime, and on my camera.

What am I doing wrong here? The thumbnails in the Events tab look correct, but when I preview them in the viewer or add them to the timeline, then the color of the clip changes. It's almost as if the viewer is just showing the video incorrectly. I don't quite understand what's going on here. I did a Google search and it sounds like it might have something to do with the Quicktime Player gamma, or the color profiles in Apple Snow Leopard. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks for the help!

I discovered that it is an issue with my graphics card. I am running FCX on a late 2008 Macbook, which does not have a graphics card that supports the application.

Check HERE to see if yours is supported.


"Canon RGB" color space *shift* to broadcast range with FFMPEG for a noprofit project I do shoot with (up to 5x) Canon HF100 camera(s) but, as stated in this interesting artile, it genetates a "custom RGB range" (16-255) files.

Thanks to this cool repository I've generated this GIF of 10s of source video:

http://www.forart.it/_priv/cultura/HF100_measurement.gif (33 Mb, so can't post. Click to watch)

It graphically shows how recorded video exceed the broadcast range.

The question is: how to "shift down" everything (and constrain inside broadcast range, of course) in order to preserve the maximum possible color quality ?

(note: someone already suggested me to use " Levels(0, 16, 255, 16, 235, coring=false) " in AviSynth but, if possible, I want to do it only with FFMPEG)

Thanks in advance to anyone that can/will help.

Marco

You can use the geq filter to remap the pixel value ranges.

ffmpeg
 -i input
 -vf "geq=lum='(p(X,Y)-16)/(255-16)*(235-16)+16':cb='(p(X,Y)-16)/(255-16)*(240-16)+16'"
 -c:v libx264 -c:a copy out.mp4

The geq filter rescales the input luma from 16-255 to 16-235, and both the input chroma from 16-255 to 16-240, which is  the legal range for broadcast 8-bit signals.


Premiere Pro doesn't play AC3 audio stream from .MTS file I have video clips from two cameras. They were recorded in AVCHD, which I've imported as .MTS in Adobe Premiere Pro.

The clips taken from one camera works fine. The others don't play audio.

I've investigated into the complimenting .xmp files, and realized the following string was missing from those without audio:

 xmpDM:audioSampleType="Compressed"

When I open these AVCHD videos in Quicktime, they work perfectly fine with audio.

How do I fix this and make audios from the video clips play in Premiere Pro?

Edit: Here's what I got from MediaInfo.

From the video clip that plays audio:

General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : /Volumes/LACIE 3TB/Film Projects/Anime Salon/001_clannadas/footage/front/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/00000.MTS
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 73.4 MiB
Duration : 25s 491ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 24.1 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 24.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=2, N=15
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 25s 459ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 21.6 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 22.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.348
Stream size : 65.5 MiB (89%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PCM
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Format settings, Sign : Signed
Muxing mode : Blu-ray
Codec ID : 128
Duration : 25s 525ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 1 536 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Stream size : 4.67 MiB (6%)

Text
ID : 4608 (0x1200)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : 144
Duration : 24s 960ms

From the video clip that doesn’t play audio:

General
ID : 0 (0x0)
Complete name : /Volumes/LACIE 3TB/Film Projects/Anime Salon/001_clannadas/footage/closeup/AVCHD/BDMV/STREAM/00001.MTS
Format : BDAV
Format/Info : Blu-ray Video
File size : 131 MiB
Duration : 48s 967ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 22.5 Mbps
Maximum Overall bit rate : 24.0 Mbps

Video
ID : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AVC
Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile : High@L4.0
Format settings, CABAC : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP : M=2, N=15
Codec ID : 27
Duration : 48s 982ms
Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 21.3 Mbps
Maximum bit rate : 22.0 Mbps
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate : 29.970 fps
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Scan type : Interlaced
Scan order : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.343
Stream size : 124 MiB (95%)

Audio
ID : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : AC-3
Format/Info : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness : Big
Codec ID : 129
Duration : 49s 56ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 256 Kbps
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel positions : Front: L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 KHz
Bit depth : 16 bits
Compression mode : Lossy
Stream size : 1.50 MiB (1%)

Text
ID : 4608 (0x1200)
Menu ID : 1 (0x1)
Format : PGS
Codec ID : 144
Duration : 48s 483ms

It appears that recording format is different, PCM (playing) vs AC-3 (not playing).

It sounds like there is a problem with your Dolby Decoder for the AC3 audio stream.  If you are on a trial or pirated copy then you may not have been able to activate the AC3 decoder that normally comes with Premiere. (Adobe has to pay Dolby for each copy used.)  If you are on a legit copy, something may have become corrupt with the Dolby decoder.  Try doing a deactivation of Premiere (Help...Deactivate) on your system and reactivate and see if it manages to activate the Dolby Decoder.


mp4 to wmv AND file compression I have a mp4 from a video created in iMovie 10.
  The original output is about 1.5 GB.
I uploaded it to youtube to use their compression and re-downloaded.
I now have an mp4 at 236mb.

I need to upload this video for a submission but it needs to be under 100mb and a wmv format. At this point I don't know if I can get it lower than 236mb without sacrificing quality (with my limited knowledge of video production). I also do not currently have a way to convert the mp4 to a wmv.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
Best,
-Josh

YouTube automatically transcodes all files uploaded to it's server into it's own streaming codecs, and also creates down-converted files which are lower in resoultion and bit-rate to allow for different streaming options based on the viewers connection speed.

How long is your original video? If YouTube transcoded your native resolution video file from 1.5GB to 250 ish MB, (hypothetically assuming this 1080p we're talking about), then your file is bloated as far as YouTube is concerned.

100 MB isn't a lot of space to work with. And you are not going to find any highly adjustable tools to hit that 100MB mark online. Your options will  be limited to either something like Adobe Media Encoder (pay per month), or FFMPEG, command line/learning curve, or VLC, which is robust but not very good with encoding.

If you want to PM me a dropbox link with the 1.5 GB file, I can run it through AME and hit your 100mb mark. It's just a drag and drop, and I'll simply re-encode it back to your shared dropbox folder. Or you can simply subscribe to a 1 month rental of Adobe Premiere which comes with AME, and adjust/play with the settings.


Loop count in video clip settings, how to apply changes to composition? I created a grid of about 50 videos. I want them all to loop so I changed the loop count of the videos via Interpret Footage > Main... > Loop. The changes show up in the timeline, but they are not applied. When I let it preview it, the videos only run once.

I don't want to add those 50 clips again to the composition and apply the transforms.

I'm guessing your videos are of different durations. If no, just precompose the grid layers and loop that composition. If yes, worst case scenario is to precompose each video layer and loop those.


Cropping the video and removing the black portion I know that the below command will crop 25 from top and bottom

ffplay -i input.mp4 -vf "crop=in_w:in_h-50"

However I just want to crop 25 from bottom(not top).
Also How can i remove the black portion in the output so that the output video appears as full screen?

EDIT

Here is the screenshot of the black portion after crop

Before crop

Use

ffplay -i input.mp4 -vf "crop=in_w:in_h-25:0:0"

If you're watching this full screen, then the display will show black bars if the resized video is not the same aspect ratio as your monitor. To achieve that, you'll have to crop horizontally as well. If your crop X pixels vertically, you'll have to crop (16/9)*X pixels horizontally.

To do this, use

(left and right)

ffplay -i input.mp4 -vf "crop=in_w-25*16/9:in_h-25:(ow-iw)/2:0"

(right only)

ffplay -i input.mp4 -vf "crop=in_w-25*16/9:in_h-25:0:0"


Overlay an Image onto a resized video. FFMPEG I have an image which is a frame of 1024×1024 resolution which is half empty or transparent... I have various number of videos of different resolutions and I want to scale them to the empty space width and height(might be 1024×512) by keeping the aspect ratio of the video unchanged and I want to add padding for the empty space.

Whenever I'm trying to overlay the image over the video, the output video is in the resolution same as the input video's because of which half of the frame (input image) is getting cut in the output video.

I need help... I want the output video to have the resolution of the input image not of the input video's. It should more or less look like PIP. Can I do that on FFmpeg??

I'll assume the window area is 1004x512. You can adjust the command below after getting the exact values.

ffmpeg -i video -i frame -filter_complex
       "[0]scale=1004x512:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,
           pad=1024:1024:10+(1004-iw)/2:10+(512-ih)/2[vid];
        [vid][1]overlay"  output

The 10 in the pad expressions represent the border thickness.


Multiple TV out from single Macbook Pro I would like to present a digital art show using audio and video.
For this I was thinking of using 10 TV sets.

Is there a way that I could use my MacBook Pro to show either:

a) 10 separate videos (1 per TV screen)
or
b) a single video to all 10 screens

My MacBook Pro is less than a year old and has a single HDMI output.
Is there any software out there that could handle this?

Apologies if this sounds ludicrous. I am a complete novice!
Grateful for any advice / pointers.

Mark

a) You can't output 10 different video signals on your single HDMI output. Besides limitation of the graphic card of your computer, that would also require generating/reading 10 different video streams from your computer. One possible option, depending on your project aim and structure, is to produce 1 hi definition video stream from your computer and use an external tool to tile/scale it in 10 different screens (something like http://www.ambery.com/2x2hdvgaviwa.html)

b) sending same video to all 10 screens only requires that you have a one input/ten outputs HDMI splitter (assuming your ten screens have a HDMI input).


Encoding DNxHD using ffmbc I have decided to re-encode my footage as DNxHD for editing. I am using ffmbc (downloaded here) to do the encoding. My source footage is HDV 1080i50.

Therefore I think the best format to trancode into would be DNxHD 1080i50. According to this document ffmpeg (which ffmbc is derived from) has a limited selection of formats of which 1080i50 is one.

Here is the command I am using (%1 and %2 are the in and out filenames):

ffmbc -i %1 -s 1920x1080 -vcodec dnxhd -b 185M -mbd rd -tff -acodec copy -threads 0 %2

Questions:

To encode interlaced media I need to specify -tff or -bff. I don't really understand the difference. Which would be the best to choose? Currently I have chosen tff as that is how the source is encoded.
Is there any benefit to doing a two pass encode? My understanding of a two pass encode is that it helps keep the bit-rate constant. Is that helpful for editing. I can do a two pass encode with the following command, but it's so slow I'm wondering if it's necessary?

ffmbc -i %1 -s 1920x1080 -vcodec dnxhd -b 185M -mbd rd -tff -an -f rawvideo -an -threads 0 -y NUL
ffmbc -i %1 -s 1920x1080 -vcodec dnxhd -b 185M -mbd rd -tff -acodec copy -threads 0 %2
My source is actually encoded as 1440x1080i. Can any one comment on the drop in quality when converting to 1920x1080i. (I believe that the image will still be the same size but the source has wider pixels)

1) If you're not going to deinterlace it then stick to the source's field order.

2) I wouldn't bother with the two pass encoding (if indeed it even does anything) - dnxhd will only encode at certain specific fixed bit rates anyway so you're actually pretty constrained for options.

3) You'll see some softening, but it's unavoidable.  ffmbc's filtering is ok though.

What software are you editing in?

And the 185M bitrate might be overkill if your source is HDV.  Try 120M and save yourself a bit of space.


Which video editing software should I use for youtube videos? I'm interested in making YouTube videos. I’m new to the whole video editing process.

I would like to know which video editing software provides:

music
cloning
animations
special effects
transitions
text editing
and others

For filming, I have intentions to use a digital camera, my iphone 5 and a webcam.

I want to ensure that my video quality is decent and not fuzzy or pixilated. As far as my computer operating system, I have two laptops (Windows 7 & 8). Basically, I need video editing software that provides excellent video quality and contains the features above.

My question is: What affordable video editing software provides excellent video quality? I would like to sing, dance, make music videos and do all sorts of silly skits on my youtube channel.

I've been making YouTube videos for 8 years.  At first I was using iMovie, which came free with my Mac laptop.  It's a solid piece of basic editing software.  I did very precise editing, added music, transitions, and some special effects on about 300 videos with it.  (They're on YouTube.com/CreatedByBrett if you want to see the quality.)

But you're using PC's.  Six months ago I switched to a PC laptop and Adobe Premiere + Adobe After Effects.  The system requirements for After Effects are pretty steep, so if you decide to use Adobe software, see if you can do what you need to with Premiere itself.  Premiere lets you do some animation, maintains great video quality, includes tons of special effects and transitions, and has a built-in title creator.  It also has a decent chromakey (green screen) feature.  I like the pricing plan, which is just $20 a month for a "subscription", which allows you to get any upgrades they put out.  It's better than hundreds of dollars up front!

Windows comes with free video editing software. It's called Windows Movie Maker.  I haven't used it, but from what I've heard it isn't very "feature rich".  (For example, doing a picture-in-picture effect isn't possible without a plugin.)

YouTube also has its own free editing software online.  That has even fewer features than Windows Movie Maker.

You mentioned that the video quality is important to you. If you have an HD camera with a decent lens, you'll be in good shape for YouTube videos.  I've shot several on my iPhone, though I usually use a Sony Handycam HD.  (It lets you set exposure, focus, and white balance manually, which is why I bought it!)  The next thing to be aware of is your lighting.  I use "daylight" colored bulbs for my shoots.  I also use a 2-point light setup:  one key light mostly in front of me, and an extra-bright fill light to one side of me, to make my face appear more rounded on camera.

I didn't spend much on my lights either.  They're just fluorescent tubes, so the light is more diffuse.  Single-point lights can cause harsh shadows.


How to exit fullscreen monitor playback in Premiere? In Premiere Pro 2017 (Windows 10) in Preferences -> Playback I can set one of my monitors as the playback device

Now when I playback video it will appear full screen in one of my monitors.  When I hit stop (spacebar) the video is still full screen.  How can I exit or quit this full screen playback mode?

I tried the obvious of hitting Esc but this does nothing.  Is the only option to go back to preferences and uncheck it? (Also how do I know which monitor is which?  Not knowing how to exit the fullscreen mode I'm a little paranoid that I will choose the same monitor that the Adobe UI is on and then be stuck.)

As far as I am aware, there isn't a way to disable Mercury Transmit if the viewer covers the UI, unless you set up a key binding. You can assign a keyboard shortcut to the "Enable Transmit" function in the keyboard preferences (I use ctrl+shift+' as it's similar to the maximise window shortcut). You can then use this key combination to toggle the full screen display on and off.


AE Keyframe Control through checkboxes I have a position animation with four keyframes, two for a intro, two for a outro. Also I have a Master where you have two checkboxes "Intro" and "Outro".
The idea is to override the keyframe values so that there won't be any intro animation when the checkbox for it isn't checked (same for outro).
Sadly I only can override all values, so when I uncheck one of the checkboxes, there is no animation anymore. How can I change only the value inbetween the keyframes I need?

var x=thisProperty[0];
var y=thisProperty[1];
var headIntro=thisComp.layer("MASTER").effect("HEADLINE | Intro")(1);
var headOutro=thisComp.layer("MASTER").effect("HEADLINE | Outro")(1);

if (numKeys > 3){

    var t1 = key(1).time;
    var t2 = key(2).time;
    var t3 = key(3).time;
    var t4 = key(4).time;

    var v1 = key(1).value[1];
    var v2 = key(2).value[1];
    var v3 = key(3).value[1];
    var v4 = key(4).value[1];

    if (headIntro==false){
        y =linear(time,t1,t2,v2,v2);
    }

    if (headOutro==false){
        y =linear(time,t3,t4,v3,v3);
    }
}
[x,y]

Thanks for the help

If you look at the part where you have

if (headIntro==false){
    y =linear(time,t1,t2,v2,v2); //this is calculated first
}

if (headOutro==false){
    y =linear(time,t3,t4,v3,v3); //this is calculated next, overwriting previous value
}

when headOutro == false is true, the value for y will be calculated using the value returned by the second linear expression, so no matter what it was previously calculated to be it will always return y = linear(time, t3,t4,v3,v3);.

change it to

if (headIntro==false && time < t2){
    y =linear(time,t1,t2,v2,v2);
}

if (headOutro==false && time > t3){
    y =linear(time,t3,t4,v3,v3);
}

so now the linear expressions will only be calculated when the time is in the intro or outro sections respectively.


Framerate wagon wheel effect In this video a bouncing water droplet is filmed at what appears to be a very high framerate. However at 1:43 the narrator explains that he used the "wagon wheel effect" to achieve an apparent high framerate with a regular DSLR.

The filmed droplet vibrated at 40Hz while he filmed it at 40.06Hz. How does this result in a super slow motion video?

This requires a repetitive motion and good lighting.  You expose the position of the droplet on successive oscillation, but capture it at a slightly different spot on each.

Thinking about it from the perspective of a ball bouncing.  On the first photo, I take a quick photo of the ball on the ground.  The ball bounces up and then back down.  I then take a photo on the second bounce of the ball just a bit off the ground.  The ball goes up and down again.  I then take a photo on the third bounce of the ball just a little further off the ground.  That's why it is key that the oscillation of the object and the framerate be so close.  Each photo is only .06 hz worth of movement away from the previous at the time the photo is actually taken.

When I finish, I end up with a slideshow that shows a ball bouncing very slowly, but in reality, it was well timed photos of many bounces.

This is referred to as the wagon wheel effect because the gaps in the wheels could make it so that things would seem to move slower or even backwards because of the interruptions in vision and where things were positioned when vision was restored.  Our brains then would fill in the in-between bits in the wrong direction or assume it was the shortest distance instead of seeing what actually happened.


Is it possible to change shortcuts related to playback speed? Increasing playback speed by 10% increments is achieved by pressing SHIFT + L. Can this shortcut be customized? (I want to make it simpler - pressing a single key as opposed to a combo)

Sure you can do that. Go to the Edit menu -> Keyboard Shortcuts... and search for the action you want to change (alternatively search for the keyboard shortcut itself).
Click the little x on the existing shortcut to remove it. Then click the field and type in the new shortcut. If it doesn't work, click once more, and type again.
The only problem is that many shortcuts are already in use and Premiere is immediately removing the shortcut elsewhere when it was in use, so you might want to click undo after accidentally removing a shortcut. You could use the search bar to see if the key is still free or change several shortcuts to free a key.
At the top you can change the keyboard layout profile. So you can always go back to the defaults at any time, if needed.


I want to add video noise/grain based on an audio track? Does anyone know of a plugin that would allow me to add video noise that is based on an audio track ?

Anything at all that would let me do this would be fantastic.

You can convert audio to keyframes. Right-click the footage with the audio, and choose Animation>Keyframe Assistant>Convert Audio to Keyframes, or with the audio layer selected go to the Animation menu in the menu bar.

This will create a new layer with keyframes for the intensity of the audio. You can copy those keyframes on to any property that you want to animate and adjust them in the graph editor, or you can use an expression on the property and select the keyframes with the expressions pickwhip. This means that the audio levels can control any animatable property including parameters for your favourite noise effect.

A useful trick is that you can apply EQ to the audio before you convert it to keyframes and have different sets of keyframes for the bassline and the melody sounds.


FFmpeg read, ignoring remaining -vf options: Use ',' to separate filters Getting error

"read, ignoring remaining -vf options: Use ',' to separate filters"

My code:

ffmpeg -i "/root/nisar/a.mp4" \
-map 0:0 -map 0:0 -map 0:0 -map 0:0 -map 0:0 -map 0:1 \
-c:v:0 libx264 -b:v:0 3000k -filter:v:0 "scale=1920:1080" -preset fast -profile:v high -level 4.0 -tune film \
-c:v:0 libx264 -b:v:1 2000k -filter:v:1 "scale=1280:720" -preset fast -profile:v main, -level 3.1 -tune film \
-c:v:1 libx264 -b:v:2 1200k -filter:v:2 "scale=960:540" -preset fast -profile:v baseline -level 3.1 -tune film \
-c:v:2 libx264 -b:v:3 800k -filter:v:3 "scale=640:360" -preset fast -profile:v baseline -level 3.1 -tune film \
-c:v:3 libx264 -b:v:4 500k -filter:v:4 "scale=480:270" -preset fast -profile:v baseline -level 3.0 -tune film \
-c:a:0 aac -b:a 128k -ac 2 -ar 48000 -af "aresample=async=1:min_hard_comp=0.100000:first_pts=0" \
-async 1 -vsync 1 \
"/root/nisar/output.mp4"

Error:

Only '-vf scale=1920:1080' read, ignoring remaining -vf options: Use ',' to separate filters
Only '-vf scale=1280:720' read, ignoring remaining -vf options: Use ',' to separate filters
Only '-vf scale=960:540' read, ignoring remaining -vf options: Use ',' to separate filters
Only '-vf scale=640:360' read, ignoring remaining -vf options: Use ',' to separate filters
Only '-vf scale=480:270' read, ignoring remaining -vf options: Use ',' to separate filters
Only '-af aresample=async=1:min_hard_comp=0.100000:first_pts=0' read, ignoring remaining -af options: Use ',' to separate filters

Please find the attached screenshot

 and advise me.

It's a false positive in this case. You can ignore it. The check is supposed to catch duplicate filter invocations for the same output stream, e.g. -filter:v:0 scale=hd1080 -filter:v:0 hue=s=0 where only the hue would get applied. The correct way is -filter:v:0 "scale=hd1080,hue=s=0". But the check is buggy.

There's an open ticket for it.


How to make a multi-audio video into several video files with one audio track each? Suppose that we have one video file in.mkv, which has two audio tracks, what is the most direct way to remux it into two separate mkv files with just one audio track?

Two streams is an example, the technique should work with 100 audio streams.

There are several ways to do that. The simplest, but not the best would be to run some sort of remuxing twice, each time taking just a single audio track. But since there is no re-encoding the speed will go down since the computer is forced to read the whole file twice (or more times if you have more audio tracks).

To accomplish the task with a single read using libav (ffmpeg will probably be the same):

avconv -i in.mkv -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -c:a copy -c:v copy out1.mkv -map 0:0 -map 0:2 -c:a copy -c:v copy out2.mkv

It is probably also possible to do that with gstreamer.


How to correct tbn for files with ffmpeg? I have the following files (all .mp4). Whenever I want to concatenate them, the timestamps apparently get broken. Is there a way to correct those files with transcoding?

No need to transcode, it can be done via remuxing.

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -map 0 -c copy -video_track_timescale 30 out.mp4

where 30 is the new tbn value.


Can I use any audio recorder for filming? I've been trying to find an affordable mic for 600d DSLR. There's Rode VideoMic Go and Zoom H1 . But I still find these a little above my budget.

My question is: Can I use something like this

http://gadgetgrocery.com/image/data/Sony%20Recorders/Sony%20Digital%20Voice%20Recorder%20PX333%205.jpg

or a better one ( or even use ipad) to record audio then sync with video?

Do I absolutely need to plug a proffesional mic into the camera?

Edit: I will be using the camera for short film sequences. Some car interior scenes. I need an okay audio quality.

I guess it really depends on your production and how high of quality you want. You will hear countless times, if you stick with this hobby, that audio far outweighs video when it comes to importance. This is somewhat counter intuitive because the video is much more obvious an impact than the audio. For this reason, however, purchasing the best audio solutions one can afford is usually the best solution (depending on your scenario, of course).

Recording inside a car is a whole new can of worms. They're incredibly noisy, especially while operating. For this reason, sound engineers will often entirely reconstruct car scenes specifically by recording sfx, foley and performing ADR with the actors. Hopefully you can think of some creative ways to use your car while it's not operating because it's incredibly difficult to capture usable audio.

Essentially you're asking the question that every beginner videographer asks: "what's the cheapest, all-around best audio solution I can get without having to think too much." It's a fair question, but one that doesn't have the best answer. I don't think a small palm recorder/ipad is a good idea. What I might recommend is a combo solution. I would pick up a wired lavalier mic (atr-3350) for $20 dollars and plug that directly into your camera for portrait shots, and then I might pick up a camera mounted shot gun mic (Azden SMX-10) for $80 for wider shots and you'd have a good universal, cheap solution.

It's worth noting that plugging microphones directly into Canon cameras is often not the best audio solution because of the low quality preamps and AGC found on the camera which results in adding a "hiss" to your audio. You can clean this up in post but it does degrade the audio slightly. Something to look out for, and something that you can kind of fix with Magic Lantern software you asked about earlier.

When you say "exterior sounds" I assume you mean dialogue (correct me if I'm wrong). For outside characters tend to be on the move, so having them attached to your camera (a la wired lavalier) is a bad idea. You never want to leash your actors to your camera for obvious reasons. Additionally, clothing will rub against the mic and create unusable audio. If you're not in motion, the only thing you need to worry about is wind. A few little dead cats for your lavs should solve that problem (while making them more noticeable). However, the ultimate solution to outdoor dialogue is a shotgun microphone on a boom pole. But, that is probably out of your budget, so a cam mounted VideoPro mic will do "well" as long as you get it close to your subject.


How do I match the audio and video streams in my video file with the audio I recorded separately? I record audio separately using an audio recorder and video separately and they usually sync up later in the NLE painlessly.

But there's one particular old digital camera I have that always seems to play back (both its audio and video) a bit slower than the audio I record with my audio recorder.

I must underline the fact that the audio and video streams of the digital camera themselves are always in sync. It's just that the audio (and video which is in sync with the camera's video) from the digital camera is never in sync with the audio I record with my digital recorder.

Even when I sync them up manually, for a good first few minutes, the streams from both the media playback in sync, but as time passes, the digitam camera playback starts to lag behind in both audio and video. The audio from the H1 Zoom outraces it.

How do I sync up sound (and video) from my video file from this digital camera with that of my audio file from the H1 Zoom?

I am listing the codecs of both the audio and video streams in both the media.

Properties of video recorded with my old digital camera
*Video Stream*
Codec: Motion JPEG Video (MJPG)
Frame rate: 29.970029
Decoded format: Planar 4:2:2 YUV full scale

*Audio Stream*
Codec: PCM MU-LAW (mlaw)
Sample rate: 11025 Hz
Bits per sample: 8

Properties of audio recorded using my H1 Zoom
File Format: WAV
Codec: PCM S24 LE (araw)
Sample rate: 48000 Hz
Bits per sample: 24

I am guessing it has to do with the higher bit rate of the latter. But how do I fix this?

You could try processing the audio first to get it to the same speed as the video playback. Using (for example) Audacity you can apply a speed change of -0.1% (1000/1001) which is very likely the amount you're drifting by. You can change the rate without changing pitch, but if you can tolerate the very slight pitch shift you'll get slightly better results by just changing speed.

If that isn't the correct rate, then you need to determine the change needed by measuring the exact length of the audio tracks between two points near the beginning and end. Once you know them you can compute the ratio and apply that.


How to capture / digitise a live satellite stream I have coordinates, descrambling codes, et al for a live satellite broadcast.  I'm looking to capture that feed into a digital stream that I can feed into AWS's Video services.

My experience is software side - once the stream is digital I'm good. I'm wondering what kind of equipment / hardware is needed to tune to and capture that satellite feed? Are there companies that offer this as a service? Is this a dumb question?

Thanks!

Adding Some more context based on questions in the comments

Is the feed on a LEO, MEO, or GEO satellite? If it is GEO, which satellite and transponder?

It is GEO. Azerspace-1 / Azercosmos 46degrees East.  Not exactly sure what transponder but I think its C-band. Does that make sense? I have frequency ranges for Bandwidth,  U/L and D/L.

What is your budget?

TBD - Part of this exercise is determining costs to capture the feed.

When you say "once the stream is digital" what exactly do you mean? Once you have an MPEG TS or something else?

Exactly that - I'm looking to get an MPEG TS that I can plug into AWS services like https://www.elemental.com/products/aws-elemental-live

It looks like most of the content on Azerspace-1 is "in the clear", or not encrypted, which makes things easier. But there is still a lot of "it depends" for exactly what equipment you need. Aside from all of the earth station equipment (dish, LNA, down converter, etc.), you will need a DVB-S2 or MPEG-4 receiver. That could be a vanilla receiver with an external encapsulator or gateway.

There are definitely companies that provide teleport and satellite media services. I'm not familiar with Azerspace-1's footprint to give concrete recommendations. However, two examples of companies that might be appropriate are Intelsat (Fuchsstadt teleport) and Encompass.


Why does all timecode start at 1 hour? (01:00:00:00) Is there a reason timecode in Final Cut 7 and timecode in Pro Tools starts at the 1 hour mark? eg. 01:00:00:00? As opposed to all zeros? Some old broadcast standard that I don't know about?

It's to leave room before first picture, for slates, countdowns, test signals etc, while still preserving an easy count of running time for the video. Yes, it traces historically to broadcast and in particular videotape.

Many tape-based editing systems couldn't deal with 24-hour wraparound, so the next even hour became traditional 'time zero'. I suspect that most non-linear systems are the same.


Create a DIY Green Screen / Chroma Key What are some good resources for people attempting to setup their own green/blue screen, light, record and pull a quality key from it? Particularly on a low budget, or with materials that aren't specifically designed for that purpose. Such as,

What sorts of fabric/material give good results? Both general tips and specific examples/links are helpful.
Is it possible to light it adequately without a full lighting kit?
What sort of encoding is recommended when filming it? (i.e. is it possible to use a DSLR with h.264?)
What software would you recommend for post processing the key? Does some work better with homebrewed screens than others?
If you have one, post an example of the results you were able to achieve with your suggestions.

What sorts of fabric/material give good results? Both general tips and specific examples/links are helpful.

Great Resources for tips on lighting and materials:
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/alindsay/story/greenscreen_primer_part_1/
http://rebelsguide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2432

Underexposure (not lighting enough) is your biggest enemy, followed closely by uneven falloff across the screen.  Always keep your talent/target a good distance from the screen.

  Is it possible to light it adequately without a full lighting kit?

Not easily, but don't dismay, it always takes a skilled hand to get greenscreen lit well, so in many cases, even with a full lighting kit, results will be sub-par.  It's a tough thing to get right, because lighting needs vary a lot depending on your shooting situation.  Your best bet for getting good, even light, is to have an on-set monitor setup (such as a computer with OnLocation), and test, test, test, before you start shooting.

  What sort of encoding is recommended when filming it? (i.e. is it possible to use a DSLR with h.264?)

Great question.  This is showing that you've done enough research already to be aware of the issues.  "Possible" isn't the word I'd use to describe your capture options, because it's more of a spectrum from good idea, to difficult to work with, almost entirely because of chroma subsampling

Difficult: DSLR on-camera recording, consumer capture codecs (AVCHD, HDV, all of which probably will be 4:2:0)

Better: Output to an HDMI recorder at 4:2:2

Good idea: Uncompressed S-Log 4:4:4 (from something like an F3)

  What software would you recommend for post processing the key? Does some work better with homebrewed screens than others?

Some ordinary options are KeyLight (in Premiere and After Effects) and Primatte (which is a real pleasure to use).  Keying tools won't care how you created the screen, just how well it was exposed, and how much color separation there is between subject and background.

Finally, a more-radical-than-it-should-be thing to consider is using a neutral gray background instead of green or blue, and relying on a combination of luma keying and roto.  One bad example I've always remembered was about the keying in Forrest Gump. Stu Maschwitz once explained the effects artists had to roto every single frame to take care of green spill and edges.  Their lives would've been easier if they'd just gone with a neutral gray.

Green does not equal magic movie effects, it's just one of many options.


How to implement fast forwards or skips in video editing I have made a couple of diy and hobby videos in youtube, but without any eye catchy effects.
I would like to implement the effect of fast forwarding with the idea below:
Suppose I am making a paper plane. First a plain paper is shown, then the paper rotates automatically, and bends in half, fold itself vertically,and so on.
I have seen a similar effect in the following video in youtube between times 00:01:20 to 00:01:55.

The method used in your example is called "stop motion" and is pretty much the way people create their lego-videos, clay-animations, etc. To do this, you will need to take a picture of the paper, then rotate it very slightly, take another picture, rotate some more, and so on and so forth.
When you took all the pictures, you can import them as an image sequence in After-Effects or premiere and adjust the speed by setting the framerate, something between 10 and 25 should work for these purposes. But behold, this method is very time-expensive - just as a heads up.


Is HandBrake tune -still image applicable to videos with minimal movement? I have some educational videos that are mostly PowerPoint slides and a teacher sitting in a chair talking.

Is the -still image tune applicable for videos like that? I would like to make them as small as possible.

My experience with handbrake mirrors Mulvya`s comment

I also get smaller file sizes with X264 Tune set to None on the Video Tab.


Align multiple videos with the same static background I've got 20 videos with the same static background. Unfortunately during filming the camera was nudged so the background doesn't line up exactly across all the videos. Is there a way I can automatically crop, rotate and move the videos so the videos lineup precisely?

20 videos is not very many videos, and if the nudge happened between takes rather than during takes, the best approach is to align them manually, either by using the difference mode of a compositor or setting the opacity of each video to 50% and nudging them until all the backgrounds line up.

If you had 20,000 videos, I would suggest starting with Hugin, a tool for processing HDR and panoramic photos.  The HDR problem concerns aligning multiple images so that a tone-mapping can be applied.  The alignment heuristics for HDR would also align your videos (especially if you only compute the alignment parameters for the portion of your videos that are reliably background).  You could play around with parsing the output of the Hugin control point finder.


Premiere pro cc 2014 Rendered out video not matching sequence, as well as sequence constantly changing I have an issue to where the sequence preview resolution sometimes changes when certain objects are in play. My settings are all correct and match, but for some odd reason, it still comes out wrong. Here are some examples of that:

Does anyone have an answer to my issue?

I'd say you may need to do nested compositions; and pre-renders with that many layers.

The honest truth is there are bugs in premiere... in terms of if you have a lot of layers; with specific opacity settings, or filters applied to them; in particular 3rd party filters; they simply don't always play well together.

Thats why AfterEffects tends to be a more useful platform for projects using lots of layers.

They are idiosynchosies... they don't make sense... in terms of what causes them. They might preview correct within premiere, but output with issues.

The fix is typically to either move to AE, or pre-comp grouped layers to reduce the total layers/effects. Render pre-comps of layers with effects applied, then use the new file as the source with no filter.

Lastly, as stated above, make sure you are interpolating your footage to the same standard, progressive or interlaced.


Get location (X,Y) of motion tracking object? I just learnt motion tracking in Adobe After Effects and I find it great. I need to track the (X,Y) location of the object that I am tracking. For Example, lets say there's a video of a black dot moving from the top left corner of a screen to the bottom right on a white board. I would like to know it's new location every time it moves. Like a list of (0,100) (1,99) (2,98)..... One Idea is taking a screenshot of the video every second, locating the dot and getting it's location from there. I'm sure that this is tracked in the background of motion tracking. Is anything like this possible?

This is definitely possible! Because you say you're new I'll write this out in detail, you might know some of this already but here goes:

Make a new composition with just your footage, and add a new Null Object (Layer>New>Null Object). Make sure this is just above your footage in the layer stack. It doesn't actually have to be, but if it is then it will simplify a few things.

Motion track your footage and in the motion tracking panel click "Apply" and then just hit "OK" on the dialog that opens up.

Now what happens is your tracking data gets applied to the Null Object (it automatically takes the layer above the footage layer - you can change this of course but no need to in this example).

Select your null object and hit "u" which is the shortcut to show all keyframes. You'll see that there are now position keys on the null object, and those are the coordinates you want already given in X and Y, with the top right corner of the screen at (0,0).

What do you want to do with them from there?

EDIT: Just realized an even simpler method... just motion track your dot, select your footage layer and hit "u". Now you will see a keyframed property called "Feature Center" and this is what you want. Everything in AE has (0,0) in the top left corner.


Video in Sony Vegas flickers and is full of black frames I'm trying to import some clips into a Vegas 13 project, but they "flicker": some frames are all black (even in the preview), even though the files play perfectly in mplayer and VLC.

The clips are recorded from a videogame using fraps, and then reencoded in H.264 with mencoder with the settings: -x264encopts preset=slow:keyint=200:crf=19:level_idc=31:colormatrix=bt709 (I don't have the originals anymore, I deleted them to gain disk space. Stupid mistake, I know).

Gspot tells me this about the files:

I have tried a lot of different options:

disabling using the GPU for rendering
setting the switch to "smart resample", "force resample", and "no resample"
changing the frame rate
using constant and variable bitrates
using the "deinterlace" settings "blend" and "interpolate" (pretty sure this does nothing in my case ^^)
checking/unchecking "adjust source media"

While I wasn't able to fix the problem, I was able to go around it, by converting my input file into xvid.

I don't have any black frames anymore, but the video freezes for a few seconds at some point.

Since I was recording and playing the game on the same PC, I'm guessing that there's been a problem at some point and fraps had to drop the framerate.

In any case, I suspect some other bug in my video editing setup, since Vegas was adding black frames in other parts of the video, that play fine once converted to xvid.


My 50 FPS footage automatically converted to 24FPS by DaVinci Resolve I have imported my Camera Footage of the Sony Alpha 68 and it is a 50 FPS footage as it shows in the metadata in the below image but when importing into timeline it gets converted to 50 FPS.

Earlier also I have used this type of footage in DaVinci and it played well.
With the recent projects I am getting this problem.
Why is this problem occurring. I am in the middle of my edit.

Any help would be appreciated.

This is related to your default Project timeline framerate.

As soon as you add your first timeline to the Project the Project timeline framerate gets locked, and when you add subsequent imported media it will inherit the same playback framerate as the timeline.

If you start a new Project and first add a New Timeline - it will lock to the Project default timeline framerate.

If you start a new Project and first import Video media with a different framerate to the Project timeline default - it will ask you if you wish to change framerate to match the media, and then lock the timeline framerate.

So probably best to set your framerate on a new Project before you start editing in: Project Settings > Master Settings > Timeline frame rate

You can also create default/loadable settings in: Project Settings > Presets


Best software tool to process image/video and obtain greatest level of zoom? I would like to get advice on what is the best software to obtain the best level of zoom possible for a video.

Do I need to resample the video? Are there tools that can do this live? (maybe selecting just the small part of the screen I am interested in?)

Please note I am not asking about a quick zoom, which I can get with any media player, but I need an actual "processing" which will allow me to perceive more detail.

What's the market top solution, and what's the open source top solution?

You need to scale and/or crop with the best video solution. None of them do it live.

Top market solution:

  any Autodesk Video Solution (Smoke,Flint,Flame,Fire,Inferno). The number of options for the resample alghoritm is amazing... More than eight(8)!

Top open-source solution:

  Blender, used as a video-editor.

I'm sure you can easily find live solutions too, but not with the same level of quality, without going to a hardware-based solution like Blackmagic.


Arbitrary angles or slices for split screens Is there a software or plugin for video software that allows for arbitrary numbers and angles of split screens, and if so, what is it called?

I.e. For a particular effect I wanted to split a screen in to 6 pieces the same way you would cut a pie.

OR

I.e a non rectangular grid of split screens.

This kind of assumes there is a some kind of masking feature built in to allow non rectangular non 4:3 or non 16:9 screens.

I am targeting Windows 7 and 8 mostly, but if there is specific linux based video editor that fits the bill, don't hesitate to recommend it.

I don't know of any software that makes this trivial to do, however After Effects can certainly accomplish it.  You would need to make multiple masks that would show portions of the same video and then position them however you want.  You could even derive the masks from a shape imported from Adobe Illustrator that you could slice up however you wanted to ensure that you get full coverage.

This technique is still non-trivial and would take some time to do manually, but you could then manipulate each of the shape layers however you wanted using motion keyframes in After Effects.


Getting gray instead of white when recording screen activity I am recording from screen

however, the video when recording with a recording program, (screen around cursor mode) gets grayish

why?

Video settings are H264 - NVENC (VBR)
30 fps, 100q

Wow, this was a VLC problem. Its the playback of the video recording that has got darkened!

The left program is "Film & TV" provided by windows.

If I in VLC was unchecking the option "use hardware conversions YUV -> RGB", the playback was not washed out anymore. Describe in https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:Video:Color_washed_out/.


What's the best setup to transfer a digital or analog video over 100 ft? I'm looking for the best (price/quality) solution to send a digital or analog video signal to an lcd tv or beamer over 80 - 100 ft. The input can be hdmi, vga or dvi (all must be possible). The output (80 - 100 ft. away) doesn't need HD quality.

tv has hdmi, vga, dvi, s-video, composite and coax.

So far i've got this setup in mind for relative low cost and acceptable quality:

80-100 ft. vga cable connected to tv (should cover inputs with vga or dvi)
vga switch 1-4 for switching between inputs
hdmi --> vga converter (to cover hdmi inputs)

Does anyone know a better setup ?
is vga the best option in this case to bridge the 80-100 ft. ?

A long VGA cable with a proper amp/spliter on the TX side, would be the simplest option. You can get good VGA cables up to 150' at modest prices from http://www.pccables.com .

Another good option is a CAT5 extender kit.
http://milestek.com/p-16209-vga-over-cat5ecat6-decora-wall-plate-set.aspx

Without a more detailed description of what you are trying to accomplish, it's hard to give a better answer than that.


Lighting for shooting a presentation I need to record a presentation at a conference.

I did it last year and the lighting was so low it was unusable.

i want to come prepared this year, so i need advice on proper lighting.

The subject is more or less static and elaborating on their powerpoint.

I can get them in front of a wall or screen for better background.

Can you recommend and lighting products that would be suitable for this scenario?

Also if anyone knows any good products so i can get good audio, it would be appreciated.

Just to clarify, it's a video.

While I can't recommend any particular products and generally stack exchange communities are hesitant about product recommendations, what I can recommend is that at a minimum you should use two light sources offset to the left and right of the camera and if budget allows, put an additional light behind them facing up.  Ideally, one of the lights behind the camera should be slightly less intense and/or further away than the other.

This is the concept of three point lighting.  The lights in front are called the key and fill light.  The purpose is that with only a key light, you will get unacceptably dark shadows where the camera may have a hard time getting a good image.  The fill light fills in the shadows without making them completely washed out so that the shot still looks natural.

The light behind and below them is called the backlight and will illuminate their edges to make them stand out from the backdrop a bit more, but it isn't strictly necessary if you can't afford three good lights.  The image will just seem flatter.

My recommendation for finding suitable lights is to visit the site for a popular online A/V retailer and look at the reviews of specific lighting products.  I personally use B&H for a lot of my needs and I know lots of people also like Adorama.

It is also worth noting that in a jamb, you could use just about any lights that have the same color temperature (the tint of the light) but in general, the made for the purpose lights you would get from an A/V store will be the most durable, easiest to set up, and likely give a better result if you aren't experienced with lighting for video.


What properties of After Effects project can be edited without opening the application itself I found myself in position where I need to render 6(or more) layers in different order. For example in 1,2,3,4,5,6 then 4,2,1,3,5,6 and so on. Some of the layers blend with the former or later one. It would be great If I could predetermine the order without actually doing it manually every time.

Basically move the layers up and down in the timeline panel and set their starting point.

Can I do that using some programming tools? If so, what do I need to learn? And in general, what properties of After Effects project can be edited without opening the application itself and edit project manually?

To my knowledge there is no tool available for editing After Effects project files other than After Effects itself.

However you can script After Effect using Adobe's Extendscript language, so that it will work without user interaction, and even without showing the GUI. Extendscript is based on ECMAscript (basically it's Javascript) and allows you to do programatically anything you can do with the GUI app. It not only works in After Effects , but can be used to control most of the other Adobe CC apps.

The extendscript documentation for After Effects is here, and the docs for the more general Javascript tools including GUI elements available across the other Adobe applications is here.


Will Canon 600D be able to do these? A few days ago I watched Chris Nolan's Following and thought to myself "I can do something like this".

I have found out that Nolan used Bolex for the film. He still uses film cameras and is against digital cameras.

I would like to create shots that are reminiscent of La Haine , Following and the older films like Death on the Nile etc.

I found Canon 600D for about 550-600 dollars ( and various versions with different lenses) .

Is it good for a filmmaking beginner? I want to create old-film style setups. Maybe some car interior shots. Timelapses. 4:3 videos.

Which lens should I use for old film looks? Do you recommend cheap tripod and external mics? I'm open to any help.

Also: Whats the difference between IS and DC lens. DS is much cheaper.

The question reads like: how I get the best quality out of a given setup/financial scale. just keep in mind, that you get what you pay for - so don't expect fancy 4K-movies out of this ;)

The first two things I would suggest to buy are microphone and tripod. Why? If you want to do a silent film, you can use the internal mic - otherwise I would strongly suggest to use an external one, because the internal one might catch too much noise during quality and characteristics.

holding the camera with your bare hands can always cause movements within the movie, so a cheap tripod is better than none. if you buy one, just keep in mind that you might move it during the shot, so it should be moved smoothly.
also don't forget that Autofocus (as used in a DSLR) might not work during filming, so you've to pull the focus.

I would strongly oppose to use a certain lens for a certain style of picture - just try to get the best quality out of the setup and add the "style" in post processing. if you have motivation, passion or the faith not to change something of the style in post processing, than you might buy a lens/filter to archive this.

if you consider buying a Canon EOS, you might have a look at magic lantern for an alternative firmware with an movie making aspect.


How to mask everything except eyes? I have a video containing a single person facing the camera. I would like to black-out everything in this video except for a small rectangular box around the person's eyes. I'm sure there are many approaches that might work for this, but I'm having trouble figuring out where to even begin. Preferably it can be done using free software for OS X.

Edit: To clarify, the person's head moves around significantly and unpredictably, so I'm asking how to do this with some sort of motion tracking.

Davinci Resolve lite is free, and it contains an excellent motion tracker.  By combining the motion tracker with a power window, and adding a color correction (to darken everything outside of the power window), you should be able to achieve the results you're after very quickly.  For tutorials on Davinci Resolve, search youtube for Alexis Van Hurkman.  He literally wrote the book on it (the instruction manual), and provides a generous amount of tutorials online for free.  Of course, he also has a complete course for sale through ripple training.  You can download Resolve lite here.


After Effects Radio Waves FX Initial Size My business partner and I are working on our company's portfolio, we decided to add some animations in order to make it more fun. We are really new to After Effects but we both learn quickly and we have a big Flash background knowledge from the good old days.

As we started with our first element to animate we already encountered an obstacle, when adding the radio wave effect we cant make it start from a desired size, we've seen many videos using masks to achieve it but we failed to make them work. Have in mind that the mouse shape has no background at all, just a border, and we'd like to keep it transparent if possible.

Is there a simple way of achieving it?

Generate radio waves on a solid, adjust settings so they're looking appropriate.

Drag the time cursor forward until the waves have expanded to the point where you want them to start.

Cut your layer using the alt + left square bracket ( alt + [ )
Drag your layer left until it is at the beginning of your comp.

Make a solid layer that goes between your radio waves layer and your mouse image.
Mask the solid to the same size as your mouse image.
Set the Track Matte on your radio waves layer to "Alpha Inverted"


ffv1 realtime capture throws out a lot of frame dropped messages! Can you help me to figure out what's going on here?

I'm trying to capture in realtime my screen and save it losslessy via ffv1 codec.

CPU usage while recording is not so much, as comparison h264 in ultrafast profile takes lot more cpu than ffv1.

Here's the command I'm using:

ffmpeg -f dshow -y -i video="screen-capture-recorder" -framerate 30 -c:v ffv1 -pix_fmt bgra -t 5 capture.mkv

I tried also adding the tuning and rtbufsize but nothing changes :\

ffmpeg -f dshow -y -i video="screen-capture-recorder" -framerate 30 -c:v ffv1 -pix_fmt bgra -t 5 -tune zerolatency -rtbufsize 2100M capture.mkv

Any suggestions? :)

I get the same result with your commands, however if I skip the pixel format conversion and use the input pixel format 'bgr0', then except for an initial frame drop, I get no further drops. Note that tune is a x264 parameter - it has no relevance for FFV1.

And if I use gdigrab (my preferred grabbing device), I get no frame drops at all, even with bgra:-

ffmpeg -y -f gdigrab -i desktop -framerate 30 -c:v ffv1 -pix_fmt bgra -t 5 capture.mkv