Can a DSLR be used to host a webinar? Can a DSLR be used to stream a web conference / webinar? In my exact case I have a Canon 70D available.

Is this possible and how would I get started setting it up?

FYI the Canon 70D can't record for more than 29 minutes, 59 seconds at a time. If you're just streaming, look into the BlackMagic Web Presenter. It can trick your computer into thinking that any HDMI or SDI source is a webcam.


How is this Doom Eternal still-picture-to-stretching motion video produced? I came across a music video on YouTube for Doom Eternal where an image appeared to have been transformed into a video under some sort of stretching transformation.

What is this stretching transformation? How is it performed?

The overall steps are:
I. On a photo editor (Ps, Gimp, Photowhatever)

Duplicate the image several times, One per element of your final composition, for example. Background, player, monster 1, monster 2, ax.

Mask each element, normally with the lasso tool or similar, so you isolate the element on that layer.

For the background, you need to expand it a bit it to erase the element, You probably do not need to erase all the ax, just enough so when you move it you do not reveal the same ax behind the moving one.

Do the same on a monster if you need to delete some other monster part over it.

Export each layer as a single PNG file.

II. On a composition software
You could use Davinci Resolve, Hit Film or Blender which are great programs and free. Try with Davinci Resolve for this one.

Drag them into the timeline. Background on one layer, and monsters on another layer.

On the inspector Add keyframes on the scaling, making a loop.

For more specific information look for tutorials on how to mask, how to export and import files on the program you choose, and about the inspector on Davinci Resolve.
If you are paying Adobe, use Ps to mask and AE to composite. I prefer Davinci because you can see the waveform of the music, and playback in realtime to sync the animation.


Wedding Footage from beach - fixing over-exposure and colour balance? Ok, so I just got married, and I had a friend video-tape the ceremony and reception for me.

The camera was a Sony PMW-EX3, and I've imported the footage into Final Cut Pro X.

The wedding was outdoors on a beach, and the footage appears quite burnt out. Also, the colours don't quite look right to me.

I'm used to shooting RAW for digital photos, and being able to adjust exposure and colour balance easily - however, I have no idea how to do the equivalent for video, so I'm sort of fumbling along.

The footage currently looks like this:

I had a look at this tutorial (

            ), and I've tried

So I dragged the exposure sliders around a bit, and I got this:

The exposure is still not create, and the colour balance is off though? Anyhow, I did choose to analyse colour balance when I imported the video, so I thought I'd click on "Balance: Analyzed" in the inspector. Then I end up with this:

The above seems quite over-saturated. I thought there might be some equivalent of clicking on a neutral gray for setting white balance, but I can't find it.

What steps would you guys recommend to fix this footage? I'm hoping something can be done...

Cheers,
Victor

What you are trying to do is impossible given how bad the original footage is.  I'm honestly pretty amazed at the result in the third shot given the original state.  Unfortunately, video frames are the equivalent of a series of JPEG images.  It is possible to shoot RAW video on ultra high end cameras, but the data rates are completely off the charts (around 90 to 100MB per second or worse).  The information is simply gone and there is no way to recover it if it was clipped out.

It sucks, but that's the long and short of it.  That's why I always do a pre-roll test prior to filming at weddings, but that's what experience of doing professional wedding videography for 3 to 4 years gets you.


How to clean Lightboard after recording marked with Neon markers Reaching out to this community as I believe maybe some of the users may using LightBoard for their video recording.
We are using Lightboard for our video production, results seem okey however cleaning is a mess. The provided image is the result after 15 minutes of cleaning efforts of one-time use.
Any help/pointers on the same are appreciated.

Recommended cleaning is to only use glass cleaner, and this should work in a matter of seconds (assuming you have used the correct markers)
You will want a glass cleaner which contains both a solvent and a surfactant. Most big name ones do.


Macro Videography: Lenses, Camera Options I do some video of miniatures and I'm looking to upgrade my Canon T2i. A lot of the functionality for good macro videography has to do with the lens, but higher resolution helps as well so one can digitally punch in in post.

It seems for the $1-2k range, there are three cameras dominating the video market:

Panasonic GH4 - Lower price, records 4k internally
Sony A7S - Superior low light
BMCC 2.5k - Records RAW internally

Considering my use case (miniature videography + talking head), it would seem that the GH4 is the best option simply for the higher resolution and cost. Does anyone else find this to be the case? Also, anyone have any favorite macro lens for photography or videography?

Thanks!

You are absolutely correct that a good macro lens is crucial for a specialty such as shooting miniatures.  You are also correct that cropping into a 4K source to get an HD frame will still give you good video quality.  And it's also true that a RAW image format like BMCC is somewhat forgiving of not only cropping in, but zooming in to some extent.  But I would also caution that once you actually start zooming into consumer-grade digital video, it falls apart way, way faster than when you zoom into typical stills photos.  Since the SONY cannot record 4K natively, but only with an expensive external recorder, and you've set a budget ceiling of $2K, that means no zooming with the SONY.

I have three Canon macro lenses that are each great at what they do: the 100mm f2.8L, which is the simplest to use, the 180mm f3.5L, which is better for shooting nature (more working distance), and the 65mm f2.8 Macro Explorer, which shoots between 1:1 and 5:1 magnifications (great for bugs and other tiny, tiny details).  I don't use my Canon lenses on my GH4 (I also have a RED WEAPON with a Canon mount), but to answer your question, I'd pick the 100mm macro with a speed booster (not for f2.0 performance, but for field of view) and a GH4.  And I'd make great use of my K*FLect light reflector system to light my tabletop scenes.


Best and easiest way to remove tracking markers from green screen video I have this video :

From which I want to remove all tracking markers (black and blue tracking markers). I tried to use After Effects through Mocha and Content-aware-fill using these youtube tutorials :

But it doesn't work properly.
Please can you recommend some good tutorials or techniques to flawlessly and easily remove all those tracking markers from my video ?
Many thanks in advance

You can do this quite easily without content-aware fill or anything like it. I'd tackle this by doing the following:

create a rough shape for each tracking-point (the color doesn't matter)
track each point using the native after-effects tracker and apply the track to the corresponding shape.
All the shapes should now stick to their tracked point. Precompose all the shapes.
Under "track-mattes" you can now select your shape-precomp as "invered alpha-matte". This cuts out the opaque areas of the shapes, effectively removing the tracking-points.
Key your footage.

I hope this helped you, have a nice day!


Batch add audio to video - Adobe? I'm looking for a method to add an audio file (a short blip) to many short video files. Is there a method on any popular video software to create a batch process that will add the same audio file to many video files, so that the 'blip' plays at the start of each video?

Thanks!

Using FFMPEG the command would look something like this:

ffmpeg -i <sourceVideoFile> -i <sourceAudioFile1> -i <sourceAudioFile2> -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -map 1:0 -map 2:0 -c:v copy -c:a copy <outputVideoFile>

Basically you're taking the source video file and multiple audio inputs, then mapping multiple audio files to the output's audio stream 0. Using -c:v copy and -c:a copy, you arent doing any encoding, so your file will keep its original quality.

That command was taken from the link below, which has more instructions:

http://zoid.cc/ffmpeg-audio-video/

Edit: Forgot to mention the point about wanting to do it in batch. Use the link below to create a bat file in Windows that would target all the specific types like *.avi (or all types using .). You'd want to replace the ffmpeg portion of their bat file with the above. Since you have one audio file, try something like:

for %%a in ("*.avi") do ffmpeg -i "%%a" -i  -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -map 1:0 -c:v copy -c:a copy "%%a"

You might want to back up your files and make a copy elsewhere before you process them, because the above will overwrite them I believe.

Link to that below:
http://forum.videohelp.com/threads/356314-How-to-batch-convert-multiplex-any-files-with-ffmpeg


Does ffmpeg always produce the same YUV file when decode a video file? With the same computer, same OS, and same version of ffmpeg and decoder, does ffmpeg always produce the same YUV file when decode a video file? By same I mean the YUV value is exactly the same.

A search didn't produce any indication of non-deterministic video decoding for a digital --> digital signal flow.

In any case, you can first run :

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -flags +bitexact out1.y4m

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -flags +bitexact out2.y4m

And then run

ffmpeg -i out1.y4m -v 0 -f md5 -

ffmpeg -i out2.y4m -v 0 -f md5 -

Compare the MD5 values. Same here for H.264 input.


Does my Macbook display port support video input? I have been reading through all these resources here and here . But, I don't have my answer.

My question is simply, can the display port on a Mac take video input source?

More Details:  I have

Macbook Pro Model 6,2 (Mid 2010) that has a Display Port
A camcorder that has HDMI output and NO firewire outputs.
A HDMI to Display port adapter.

I want to know if it's possible to use my camcorder like a webcam i.e capture live video for the purpose of streaming. As a primary test, I should be able to connect the camcorder and do a capture using iMovie.

Would this be possible? I am pretty sure input through USB won't work. And from what I have seen there is no easy way to convert the HDMI video stream into firewire. So, any suggestions?

No, the display port on your macbook pro is output only.

You may be able to use your camcorder as a webcam if it is capable of streaming video over USB or Firewire, though.


Why does premiere perform so badly when it shouldn't? In this screenshot you can see it using 20 gigs of ram, without using any gpu or cpu, while the render window being open for 5 minutes without any progress. Gpu cuda setting is enabled, 3 gigs are allowed for the rest of the computer. There are 27 free gigs that premiere could be using but refuses to use, the cpu is mostly idling. It's frozen. for no reason at all. It just freezes and sits on its ass.
I managed to edit the first half of my footage, but when working with the second half, I can't even play the preview playback thing. I press play and nothing even happens.

Right now I am trying to export what I have edited and maybe use a different program to finish editing, or maybe export it into a file and import it back as a single file, however when I try yo export it just sits at encoding sequence 01 at 0% doing absolutely nothing.

Not sure if this was meant as rhetorical or not, but ..

I think your problem is the WMV. Premiere never works well with it. I don't know if its the way its encoded or what. Can you not capture in something more universal?

It looks like you're making minecraft videos, try using fraps or something that captures in avi or mp4. Those would probably give you better performance also if youre greenscreening, its better to used an uncompressed format.

Your video card could be an expensive, awesome gaming card but still not adobe-certified for gpu acceleration. Using one that is can help with this issue.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/system-requirements.html

Alex


Prime or Zoom for Video (Micro Four Thirds) I am looking to get a Blackmagic Pocket 4K. I know that you can do the EF conversion, and use Canon EF lenses, but I want to keep the cost down on my initial purchase.

I am looking at either getting a Zoom Lens (14-42mm) F3.5/F5.6

or

Two (or possibly just one), prime.

17mm Prime(F1.8)
45mm Prime(F1.8)

I suppose the right idea is to prefer using a prime? But the convenience of a zoom is something that I have gotten used to. I don't really do zoom shots, but it's convenient setting up a shot and using the zoom instead of moving the camera around where you sometimes won't have adequate space to do so. It is also convenient to not have to change lenses on a rig for different shots.

I am an amateur (hobbyist) videographer, hoping to get better and later offer more professional videography.

Is the prime's really THAT much better? In photography, I feel a prime has more worth when you do some pixel peeping, but does it make a huge quality difference for video? (I don't own and have never used a prime).

I currently shoot on a Fuji x-T20 (aps-c / 18-55), making use of a gimbal and tripod. The Blackmagic will be on a rig.

Thanks in advance.

I have that camera.  Here are a few things to consider:

The camera doesn't have any in-body stabilization, so the footage can be very shaky unless you're prepared.  In my situation, I knew I wanted to use a gimbal to stabilize.  This works great, but it will affect your lens choice.  If you plan to use the BMPCC on a gimball ever, remember that you won't be able to touch the lens to focus it, change iris, or zoom without disturbing the gimbal operation, so if that's in your playbook, you'll either need a remote follow focus setup (for a prime lens), or a lens that can be controlled remotely through the camera's bluetooth interface (for an autofocusing and/or stabilizing photo lens).  Keep in mind the autofocus on this camera is very slow, and not very "auto."  You have to tap the screen to re-focus unless you use bluetooth or remote follow focus.
When you say that you plan to use the BMPCC on a "Rig" I assume you mean shoulder rig.  Consider how you are going to monitor the footage and control the camera with it on your shoulder; if you're planning to use the camera's built-in screen, the camera's center of gravity will be VERY (entirely) forward.  Without proper counterbalance, you're better off not using a rig at all.  With a properly balanced shoulder rig, you can just about let go of the thing with both hands, and it should stay balanced on your shoulder.  There's no way to do that with this camera without an EVF or, like I said, some serious counterbalancing, which will more than double the total weight of what you're carrying.  With a shoulder rig, it's possible to grab the focus/iris/or zoom ring, and you won't shake the image as much as you would on a gimbal, BUT it can be very awkward to reach, and it's better to have a follow focus setup with remote hand grip controls in this situation as well.
The crop factor on this camera is 2x.  So, if you buy a 50mm lens, it's going to look like a 100mm lens on the BMPCC.  So, you'll want to get something wider than you think you'll need; a 35mm prime would be good for portraits/interviews.  If you want to do landscapes, you'll want at most a 12, and if you want to show real-estate interiors, you'll want an 8.  If you film in 4K, but deliver in 2K, you can use the extra pixels to digitally zoom (or stabilize), so again, it's better to err on the side of wider rather than telephoto.  Using a wider lens also has the added benefits of requiring less stabilization and having a larger focal plane, which translates to touching the lens less.
The price you pay for using a zoom lens is speed.  Zoom lenses have more moving parts, and more elements than prime lenses, which translates into less efficient light transmission and a higher minimum f-number than you'd find in a prime lens at the same price-point.  Yes, they are convenient.  The cost of that convenience is image quality.

For my starter kit, I went with three ultra cheap manual lenses.  I got a SLR MAGIC 8mm f4.0 for about a hundred bucks.  It was designed for drone use, so it works perfectly on a gimbal, and even handheld, the footage doesn't look shaky.  I wouldn't use anything higher than that without stabilization, though.

I also got a Meike 25mm f1.8, which translates into a 50mm equivalent, and is a good general-purpose lens.  At 1.8, it works in low light situations, although it is not at its sharpest.  It was also around a hundred bucks, so at that price, I'm not complaining.

Then to round out the kit, I found a m.zukio 40-100 olympus 5.6.  I use this one the least because the crop factor makes it a 80-200 equivalent.  It does have autofocus, though, and it was also VERY cheap.  It's an OK lens for sports, in the daytime.  At night, I had a hard time finding enough light with it at a local dirtbike track for HFR footage, and could just eek out a decent exposure at normal speed.  I suspect a football or baseball field would have more light, though.

TO BE CLEAR, I don't use my personal lenses for paid work.  These lenses are basically toys for practicing.  For paid jobs, I rent good glass, and what I get depends on the shoot.  If the shoot calls for a remote follow focus, I'll rent that, too.


Can i do audio monitoring with wireless headphones with a field recorder? I am new to audio. I was wondering if I can plug in a wireless headphone system, like a cheap bluetooth audio transmiter, to the audio-out jack of a field recorder such as Tascam DR-05 or Zoom H1 when used with a lavalier mic on the subject.

I don´t need high quality sound monitoring just to make sure that the lavalier is turned on and recording.

(I am planning on leaving the recorder and lapel mic for hours on a moving subject, "run & gun" style, and I am afraid the subject will accidentaly unplug the cable, damage the mic or foul-up the recorder. I know there are wireless recorders but they are out of my price range, and I am working under the assumption that this way will yield better sound quality than a shotgun mic on camera. In case it´s relevant, my total audio budget is $200: either just a Rode Videomic Pro on camera or a Tascam DR-05+ ATR-3350 lav + cheap wireless headphones, buying either audio "solution" for now and adding the other later for more versatility)

I see no reason why not. You'd just have to make sure you find a transmitter that's battery powered, and small enough so you can bundle it with the micro-recorder.

The question is; is it necessary. Would you be able to do anything, such as stop the event/filming, if there was a problem? Secondly; the feed you're monitoring is only going to tell you it's listening, not recording.

We use the micro Tascams with Lav Mics for some events. My recomendation is:

Double Up:  Two Micro Tascam Units
Double Lav Mic Clip
Test Test Test your settings; input levels, auto gain vs manual, bit rate, etc, and get them both setup so you wont overmodulate.
Run one slightly cold. Lower the gain / input on 1 mic by 5 db. So if the speaker gets really loud, you have a lower gain recording.
Record in PCM 24 Bit if possible. You can then use compression in post to get super even audio.
Use black gaff tape to tape OVER the hold button after starting the unit. This will prevent the units from having both a button pressed, as well as the guy turning off the hold button - it's happened to me.
When you start the recorders in the field, at the very start; talk right into the mics, and say; DATE, TIME, EVENT, PERSON THE MIC IS GOING ON, ETC.
Then tape HOLD and LAV them up.

I'd do double mics over monitor, but not sure if that's what you want monitoring for.


Why does FFmpeg's stream_loop option add a pause? I have tested several files with the added option

-fflags +genpts -stream_loop -1

to make them loop, but all have a slight pause just before they loop (250 ms or so). The loop filter does not have this issue, but it has other issues.

This is a known bug with stream_loop. See https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/5719

Wrapping to MKV or TS and then looping may work. Re-encoding your video as intraframe is the safest option.


Proper way to play 50 fps video as 25 fps in FCPX I just started using Final Cut Pro X and I have footage in 50 fps. I want to play this back in 50% speed in a project that outputs 25 fps. What is the proper way do achieve this? I can start a project with 50fps, import the media an choose "50%" speed reduction, but will this really intepret the media as 25 fps and output 25fps from the project? I suspect that it won't that it infact just will "make up" frames and ouput 50fps, and I don't want that. Any clue on how to fix this would be appreciated.

Your project's frame rate should be the playback frame rate.  So if you want to output 25fps, make it a 25 fps project.  When you import other frame rates, many NLEs will attempt to automatically adapt the frame rate to your project rate.  If FCPX does not do this for you automatically, then you can manually set the timing of the clip to play back at 50%.

But when you make a 50fps project, you are basically making it impossible for FCPX to do the right thing.  Setting a clip to play back at 25fps in a 50fps project is meaningless.


Sony UWP-D Audio Issues I have a Sony UWP-D Wireless Lav Mic set and I'm experiencing difficulties with audio in my office building. I can film any exterior shots with no issue. I also have no audio issues with audio within an enclosed staircase in a parking garage.

But when I use the UWP-D Mics when filming in my office building, the sound drops out every two or three seconds. Due to this only being observed in my office building (so far), I'm inclined to believe it's in the building and not the devices - but I'm more than willing to try any suggestions if anyone else has experienced the same issues with these or other wireless lav setups.

After searching forums and YouTube videos, I believe I've found the culprit:

My building's ultrasonic motion detectors.

They emit an ultrasonic chirp every few seconds that the mics 'hear' and turn the volume down (attenuate?) for that portion.

I've contacted Sony Professional Equipment support and I've been issued a Beta Firmware upgrade for the transmitters (that's where the issue is, apparently) that's worked on one of my UTX-BO3's and my UTX-PO3.

The other BO3 got the firmware but has developed an issue where it can't stay on for more than 2 seconds on battery power. So it looks like I'll have to send it in. I'll update once I hear more.


Stitching 2 videos into one (like panoramic photos) I would like to record the indoor soccer games without having to do post-editing if possible.
One camera cannot capture the entire field and goals on each side are cropped as you can see above.

If I use two cameras (each one recording half of the field), would it be possible to stitch those videos into one that covers the entire field?

Also, any other ideas that would allow recording the entire field with one camera and without a cameraperson would be appreciated.

Thanks...

If you are looking to NOT do any post editing.
And be able to see the whole field with one camera.

I would suggest the gopro.
A bit of a fishbowl effect, but it can work

You can see how it would look like, here is a school baseball game:


Changing playback speed by changing frame rate My camera does simple time-lapse but it makes the videos in a 20fps format. I just want to change it to 30fps and yes I want to make the video play faster as a result. I do not want to only change the frames per second, I actually want all the frames to play faster! So it seems like this would be extremely simple, yet I can't find any help on google. I just want a cheap way of changing the frame rate. Thanks

So you want an output video with the same frames in the same order, but with just the timing changed.  No problem.

ffmpeg can't do it without transcoding, unfortunately.  So you'll need a program that can muck around with the timing info in the container.  mkvmerge can do it, and so can MP4Box.

I knew I'd seen an answer to this when I googled on it before:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/370692/how-to-change-the-framerate-of-a-video-without-reencoding

From there: the guy eventually found the right MP4Box command line (since he was working with MP4.)

MP4Box -add test_track1.h264:fps=30 -new dest.mp4

(where test_track1.h264 is the raw h.264 stream he demuxed from his source.mp4)

If a Matroska container works for you, there's also the option of:

mkvmerge -o out.mkv  --default-duration 0:30fps --fix-bitstream-timing-information 0 in.mp4


Panasonic DMC Gf6 w/HDMI output: can I connect directly to Mac Mini w/o converter? Trying to figure out whether I can live stream a music performance at StageIt, Ustream, Livestream, etc. without buying any new hardware. Here's what I've got:

Panasonic DMC GF6 camera w/HDMI and Mini USB out (http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/digital-cameras/compact-system-cameras/52987/panasonic-lumix-dmc-gf6-review)
2012 Mac Mini w/HDMI, Thunderbolt, and 4xUSB connections

Is it absolutely necessary to have a hardware converter in the chain, or is there software (ManyCam, FMLE) that will handle that for me?

Very confused by conflicting info elsewhere on the net, so hoping someone here has an answer. Thx!

Mac Mini does not have HDMI input.

GF6 has no video output through USB.


How do I move (rearrange) the orientation of a video? Using ffmpeg I want to crop the video at some position and move the part next to the part that wasn't cropped. (See image, it explains better)

This should do it:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 \
-filter_complex "[0:v] crop=iw/3:ih:0:0,pad=iw:2*ih [left]; \
 [0:v] crop=iw/3:ih:(iw/3)+1:0 [middle]; \
 [0:v] crop=iw/3:ih:(2*iw/3)+1:0 [right]; \
 [left][middle] overlay=0:main_h/2,pad=iw:(3*ih/2) [out1]; \
 [out1][right] overlay=0:(2*main_h/3) [fout] " \
  -c:v libx264 -an -map "[fout]" trisected-vertical-overlay.mp4

I haven't supplied any specific video or audio encoding parameters. This just shows the overlay filter to use. You'll have to encode and map the audio, as needed.


Making a simple animated template for frequent slight changes I've made an example version of a news video in After Effects that we will be altering weekly. The template might be used by less skilled people and I'd like to know what (if there are) ways to make it easier to customize it later and how could I do that.

Now the shape has its position and scale keyframed and the clips have their position keyframed. Maybe putting them in a "film reel" and just moving their parent would be more convenient (the idea came while writing here). Weekly we will need to change the number and duration of clips and title size and position. I not afraid to get into coding expressions or something else - maybe it's possible to simplify the process that way somehow?

The project is pretty simple:

Clips with push transition (like the one you can easily do in
Premiere)
Blurred area with varying size titles for each clip
A white shape indicating current title (text overlaping with the shape turns black)

The shape moves down as the clips change.
Here are 3 screenshots transitioning from a smaller title to a big one:

I would take a learning from templates on videohive. Pre-comp all the text layers and put them in a separate organized folder in the project. This way if they have to edit the after effects file its just a matter of changing the text in the precomped layers. With that being said, I guarantee that you will never have on a week to week basis the same size text layer as there are always more or less characters per word .etc. So you might have to implement some expressions to make boxes increase in height with regards to the text layer.

If you put your text layers in a bounding box this fixes the horizontal width issue, but the height length will have to be figured out.

That being said, once its setup, I know that AE CC 2015 when imported into PP CC 2015 allows for users to edit the text from AE inside of PP which is quite useful in your situation where the users may not have that much AE knowledge.


Premiere Pro: reducing/eliminating whiteboard specular glare What are the most efficient and high-quality methods you would recommend for reducing/eliminating the three areas of whiteboard specular glare in this video? The spot near my head might be particularly challenging since my head moves into and out of that area during the video.

Video:

Add a lumetri colour effect to it. Then go to the curves. Click on the line quite near the top. Then click in the middle Then go right to the top and drag it down to reduce the brightness of the highlight. Then just experiment with the curves. This should help remove the glare because it makes it less bright.

Something like this


Reverse Darkening Face Out Sometimes in documentaries, they have the face darkened out. Is their an effective way to undo this anoynmous effect? Obviously, the curves levels doesn't work as it just shows a bunch of square like patches of dark pixels and no detail as seen. Is their an algorithm that can guess as to how the darkening effect was done?

Below are examples from a documentary film ( It was the only one I could immediately think of as I couldn't find one on gangs / prisoners / murders out of the blue )

If it is done properly, it should be impossible.  If there is some amount of information there, then it might be possible to get a result by cranking up gamma or luminance, but done correctly, the information is set to black pixels for the entire area and there is no difference between pixels over that area to work from.

It is sometimes possible to reverse images that have been pixelated, blurred or distorted (or at least determine if it is the same person) but there is no way to make up information that isn't there.


Is is possible to trim portions of clips in FCPX to save disk space? I know that it's possible to selectively ingest in the import dialogue, but is it possible to delete "rejected" portions of clips once they've been imported, without deleting the whole clip?  If not, what are viable workarounds?

It depends on your method of encoding, but with many formats, you can not simply cut a clip at a point of your choice without running in to other issues related to how the file is stored.  It might be possible to do it within a few seconds of the desired point, but it's not frequently done in an editing application itself since that isn't the point of an editing application.

What you want to look for is an application that is capable of splitting the file format you are working with.  Quicktime itself can do this for at least some MOV formats.  Once you have split the file in two, you can delete the unnecessary portion and import the part you want to use.


Does increasing the framerate while not changing the content affects compression quality? This question has no practical importance for a regular video production pipeline, but nonetheless it's something I find fascinating because it would imply video codecs use temporal sub-sampling methods in order to reduce bitrate, and those methods are controlled by the frame rate at encode time. So, here it goes:

Suppose I have a set of lossless images (like scanned frames on a film strip) I want to encode with a certain video compression algorithm, such as H.264. Assuming that the frames inside the newly compressed video stream will be later decompressed and played back at their correct speed by means of extracting the raw frames and not playing them back over a regular player, the specified framerate in which I encode those images shouldn't matter at all to overall quality of every individual frame, given a constant quality setting. Or, is it?

It makes sense to think that modern codecs would use some form of coarser temporal estimation when frame rates are higher, due to the fact that the jitter effect of the motion compensation could be smoothed out over several frames, as opposed to a low framerate video where motion and quantization artifacts would become much more noticeable.

Were this false, this would also imply that, if I wanted to convey more data / higher quality over a bitrate-constrained medium, such as YouTube, I could simply re-encode my video with half the framerate and ask users to play it back at twice the speed, since the bitrate limit would then be doubled over the regular speed video (minus any audio issues).

I haven't done any scientific tests yet, but before digging into the data analysis (and trying to find a lossless video corpus to do so), I'd like to ask the community if any experiments have been made about this.

This depends on the specific encoder, and the compression standard, by itself, may not have anything to say about it.

x264, which encodes to H.264, takes frame duration, into account, in its ratecontrol algorithm.

From the source code (my emphasis):

  Ratecontrol lowers relative quality at higher
  framerates and the reverse at lower framerates; this serves as
  the center of the curve.

where this refers to the frame duration for the default fps of 25.

This is further compounded by the setting of buffer sizes, important for network streaming or hardware players, and which are defined in terms of media duration, not frame count.


Premiere Custom Dip To Black Transition I would like to use a simple transition throughout a project in a large number of places.

The default Dip to Black transition gets me almost there, with one missing feature - there appears to be no way alter the duration of the out and in phases - I can set the duration of the transition, but what I need to do is to control the speeds individually. What I need is:

Clip 1 fades to black in 8 frames.
Clip 2 fades up from black in 16 frames.

So given that the included Dip To Black doesn't offer this kind of control, what are my options?

Obviously I could individually set opacity with keyframes for every single clip, but given the number of places I need this transition, this seems like a great deal more work than using a transition (that i could copy/paste) would be.

As an added complication, I will be round tripping to Resolve for grading, so anything too non-standard will no doubt cause issues.

This is a surprisingly tricky question, as Premiere doesn't let you edit transitions like, say FCP does.

One way of doing it is to use presets:

First create a preset for your fade in. Set two opacity keyframes for your fade-in then in the Effect Control panel right click on the Opacity effect and choose Save Preset:

call it fade-in or whatever and choose Anchor to In Point, so that it will apply it to the start of the clip.

Then on a fresh clip with no keyframes do the same for your fade out, choosing Anchor to Out Point in the dialog.

Now you can apply both your presets to your clips to create your fade out / in, and the good thing is that the presets will add new keyframes without deleting the existing ones, so the fade in won't overwrite the keyframes of the fade out. Tip: you can select both presets in the Presets folder in your effects window by holding down Command / Control, then you can drag them both to a clip at the same time.


Are there only a few standard video frame rates? In modern digital video, can a video file be marked with any arbitrary frame rate? Or are only a few specific frame rates widely supported? By "modern" I mean software players like Quicktime, VLC, Roku, game consoles, etc. I'm curious both what the video standards themselves say are allowed frame rates and then what actually works in practice.

I understand that 24 fps, 25 fps, 30 fps, 50 fps, and 60 fps are widely supported standards. HandBrake also offers 5, 10, and 15; are those standard options? Could I use any FPS number I want?  And what about the non-integer rates like 23.976 and 29.97; are they actually treated differently by software than 24 and 30? Also I see references to "variable frame rate" in H.264 streams; does that actually work and if so, what uses it?

My specific question is what the best way is to encode some 8mm film scans. The source is 16 fps, the 8mm film standard. Right now I'm doubling every other frame to bring it up to 24 fps which works OK, but I'm wondering why I can't just mark the video as 16 fps. FWIW I've produced H.264 mp4 files with Handbrake at 15 fps and found they only played back correctly in VLC. Mac Quicktime played them too fast, probably 24 fps.

There are several "standard" frame rates, but there are getting to be so many that supporting arbitrary framerates is easier than specifically supporting many specific ones.  This is especially true for software players, like VLC.

More and more support exists for VARIABLE fps.  (VFR, variable frame rate).  This is where the interval between frames within the same video isn't a constant.  Many video container file formats (like Matroska (.mkv) or MPEG-4 (.mp4, closely related to Apple's .mov)) don't even store a FPS number, but rather a time base (e.g. 1/30th of a second), and then each frame has a timestamp as a multiple of that time base.  It just so happens that the interval between each frame is one or a small integer number of units of the time base in a CFR (constant frame rate) video.

Security-camera footage with near-duplicate frames dropped would be an obvious use-case for VFR.  Even moreso if it's being compressed with a simplistic video codec that doesn't take good advantage of temporal redundancy (with inter (p and b) frames).  (play around with ffmpeg -vf mpdecimate to drop near-dup frames.  Use -vsync 2 if outputting to mp4, because for some reason it isn't the default for that muxer, but it is for mkv.)

Another case is modern smartphones.  For example, my brother's Moto G (2nd gen) records VFR videos.  It lowers the frame rate when the sensor needs more light.  Some of the output from running mediainfo on an mp4 created by the phone's software, recorded indoors:

Bit rate                                 : 9 999 Kbps
Width                                    : 1 280 pixels
Height                                   : 720 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Rotation                                 : 90°
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 16.587 fps
Minimum frame rate                       : 14.985 fps
Maximum frame rate                       : 30.030 fps

Playback of a single VFR video stream is not hard.  The software just gets the next frame ready to display, sleeps until it should be displayed, then wakes up and displays it.

Things get a bit more complicated when you take into account the fact that humans can only see video frames when a monitor displays them.  VFR monitors exist, but are still rare.  (google for g-sync freesync).

Changing the displayed image while it's being scanned out to the monitor results in ugly tearing of the video (commonly seen when playing a game with vsync off).  This limits a player to changing the displayed image at 50 or 60Hz.  (CRTs support arbitrary vrefresh rates, within a range, but it's complicated to cook up modes with all the timings correct, so most people just used a few fixed refresh rates.  And now people have LCDs which only support a fixed refresh rate anyway.  Until freesync monitors are more widespread anyway.  I'm really looking forward to that. :)

So with video frame rates that aren't a multiple or a factor of the monitor refresh rate, some frames will be displayed for 3 monitor refreshes, and some for 2, for example, even if the video is meant to be at a constant 25FPS (on a 60Hz monitor).

Things get more complicated when you want to work with multiple clips and fade between them, or picture-in-picture, or various other effects.  It's a LOT easier to write video editting software if you can assume that all the clips have a new frame at the same time.  (They force clip alignment to snap to whole frames).

This is why NLEs (like kdenlive or pitivi, to pick random Free software examples), are more likely to force you to a fixed FPS, and drop/duplicate frames from your clips to make them match that frame rate.  The CFR you choose can be arbitrary, but it typically has to be constant for the whole "project".

(Do any NLEs fully work with VFR clips, and produce VFR output in that case?)

So in summary, once we have variable-sync monitors and OSes, the only thing holding us back will be video editting, I guess.  And broadcasting, since apparently CFR is a big deal for that, too?

In case you're wondering, the 29.970 (actually 30000/1001) and 23.976 (actually 24000/1001, from telecining) annoying non-integer frame rates are the fault of color NTSC.  search for 1.001.  If only they'd been willing to risk a few B&W sets not being able to handle an extra 0.1% frequency for the audio subcarrier, the world would have been spared this nonsense.  (I think I saw another article somewhere that made it sound more like many sets would have been fine, but they weren't sure about perfect compat.  Wikipedia makes it sound like no sets would have handle a 0.1% higher audio subcarrier.  IDK the facts.)

Annoying frame rates are one of the lesser sins of broadcasting, though.  It's really interlacing that's been the bane of video quality on modern (all pixels lit at once) screens, and that wouldn't have changed.  I still don't get why interlacing was kept around for HDTV.  Why was 1080i60 was ever defined, instead of using 720p60 to get the same temporal resolution for sports and stuff?  It's similar to 1920x540p60, but with a stupid vertical offset between odd and even fields that requires a lot of computation on the receiving end to make it not look horrible.

edit:

For your use-case, I'd absolutely suggest archiving at the native FPS.  Don't throw away any information by dropping frames.  Don't dup frames and make your files bigger (or make your h.264 encoder spend more time noticing the duplicates and outputting a frame full of skip macroblocks that only takes 20 bytes for the whole frame).

In the future when we hopefully all have freesync displays that can play any framerate, you'll want to undo your pullup to 24fps so your video plays more smoothly!  Or if freesync somehow doesn't catch on, or the display that comes after LCDs is CFR, then rate conversion is probably best done at playback time anyway.  It's not like 24fps even plays perfectly on a 60Hz monitor.  (I don't visually notice the fact that some frames are displayed for 3 * 1/60th while some are displayed for 2 * 1/60th, but it's true).

If you're having problems with Quicktime, then IDK.  Maybe make sure Handbrake is making files with the right framerate set in the h.264 bitstream, as well as the container.  (Yes, h.264 headers can apparently store a frame rate, separate from what the container says.  See the docs for mkvmerge --fix-bitstream-timing-information.  And try using it with --default-duration 16fps to make an mkv file.  Then mux that back to mp4 and see if that fixes quicktime?)  Or maybe there's a way to do it with mp4 tools in the first place.  See for example: https://askubuntu.com/questions/370692/how-to-change-the-framerate-of-a-video-without-reencoding

I can guarantee that arbitrary frame rate mp4 is valid, and even variable framerate mp4 is valid.  If Quicktime plays it wrong, it could well be Quicktime's fault.  Or maybe Handbrake's fault for making the file wrong.  I usually just use ffmpeg directly, because I'm a command line ninja.


How to combine ffmpeg vf commands for resizing and color correction? I'm currently using the following batch script to run an ffmpeg command:

@echo off
title Convert videos to Mp4 h.264 with FFMPEG.
echo This script will find all video files of a given extension then make an mp4 h.264 file out of them.
set /p folder="Enter the folder path (cannot contain spaces; must have trailing slash \): "
set /p ft="Enter file type extension: "
set /p abitrate="Enter the audio bitrate in kbps (usually 48): "
set /p size="Enter video width and height (w:h) (usually 852:480): "
set /p vcrf="Enter the video crf value (usually 24): "
for %%f in (%folder%*.%ft%) do ffmpeg -i "%%f" -vf "scale=%size%,setsar=1" -crf %vcrf% -c:a aac -b:a %abitrate%k -ac 1 -movflags +faststart "%folder%%%~nf.mp4"
pause

The script says what it does in the description at the top. I built it to convert HDV .m2t files to web-ready mp4 files. If I extract the ffmpeg command from the script loop, it looks like this:

 ffmpeg -i input.m2t -vf "scale=852:480,setsar=1" -crf 24 -c:a aac -b:a 48k -ac 1 -movflags +faststart output.mp4

I have some videos that need color correction, so I just want to toss a filter on them before I encode. I've fiddled with ffplay and determined that the look I want will require the following command, which has been modified from this answer:

 -vf eq=brightness=0.1:saturation=1.5

The issue I'm having is integrating this new -vf line into the main command. If I put it separately, ffmpeg ignores the first one for the second one. If it put them together in the quotes, it throws errors. I assume this is a syntax issue, but maybe not. The main command seems to be using commas for separators, but this new command uses colons.

Filter complex isn't needed. When a series of filters are to be applied to a single input in sequence, they are to be separated with a comma and passed along as a single filterchain (-vf, -af). You already did that with the setsar. So,

 ffmpeg -i input.m2t -vf "scale=852:480,setsar=1,eq=brightness=0.1:saturation=1.5" -crf 24 -c:a aac -b:a 48k -ac 1 -movflags +faststart output.mp4


ffmpeg - live stream into a browser video tag (localhost only) I'm building an application, that is basically a video chat, where a user connects using WebRTC with another users (operator) browser, and should be able to talk to a third person. The WebRTC part is already done, and works properly.
The other part - the problematic one - is that the third person, will be recorded by some video equipment, and a stream will be handled to me using ffmpeg. So I need to, somehow stream this into a browser (and then stream it using WebRTC - that part I've got covered).

Since the stream will be handled to me using ffmpeg, it would be best to use ffmpeg, to stream into a browser, but this is the part where it gets tricky. From what I understand, the only protocol I can use is HTTP (as browsers don't support udp or pretty much anything and using flash player is not an option), but it is not clear how.

One way was to use ffserver, but it got deprecated earlier this year, and I'd rather avoid using obsolete software. Another option is to use some other media streaming server, but I'd rather avoid installing anything.

From what I've read ffmpeg should support what I need out of the box, but I'm not sure how to configure it. For now I've got this:

ffmpeg -f video4linux2 -s 640x480 -r 30 -i /dev/video0 -thread_queue_size 512 -ac 1 -f alsa -i pulse -f webm -listen 1 -seekable 0 -multiple_requests 1 http://localhost:8090

...and a HTML video tag to display this.

<video src="http://localhost:8090"></video>

... which almost works with ffmpeg version 2.8.15-0ubuntu0.16.04.1. I get the browser to play my video, but only after recording stops. It seems, that the browser sees my ffmpeg output as a file and tries to download it, before it starts playing.

This same command, run with ffmpeg version 4.1 gives me errors:

[vp8_v4l2m2m @ 0x3dede80] driver 'uvcvideo' on card 'ASUS USB2.0 WebCam'
[vp8_v4l2m2m @ 0x3dede80] Could not find a valid device
[vp8_v4l2m2m @ 0x3dede80] can't configure encoder
Error initializing output stream 0:0 -- Error while opening encoder for output stream #0:0 - maybe incorrect parameters such as bit_rate, rate, width or height

How do I live stream from ffmpeg to a browser using http? If I need some sort of segment muxer, then how do I use it?

Notes:

I use my webcam as an input, as this seems to be close to what I can
expect to get on production.
this is a Linux (Ubuntu) enviorment
this whole setup will be installed on our clients hardware and after
that I will no longer have access to it. Therefore I want to avoid
using anything other then ffmpeg (which they already use), as I'm not
sure if they will be able to manage this long term.

I think that the issue is the video tag.  The video tag does not support live streaming directly, see this question on SO.  Specifically:

A. This answer for a technical description of what you want to implement

B. This answer for a code sample


Best way to increase the display size of a web video I have a H.264 (ex-MOV, ex-Flash) video of 550px x 250 px. In the HTML player (videojs), I can easily set its size to 640px x 290px and it still looks OK (only a 16.363636% increase in display size).

Or should I increase it's size in "real pixels" by exporting it as H.264 from, say, Avanti or Handbrake at a bigger size? In Avanti, under "Frame size" I specified 640 x 290 and the file size increased by 8% and data rate from 200 kbps to 215.

What are the trade-offs - would enlarging via HTML be stressful for low-end CPUs? Is the 8% increase in file size and kbps worth it for the extra quality, if any?

If it is a flash source, then there is a good chance it has vector elements.  You should export at a higher resolution from the source rather than trying to upscale the mov file.

Working from the original will ensure accurate pixel data for any vector elements and produce a much higher quality upscale.  (This is actually one of the major reasons for Flash's early popularity.)  If that isn't an option or it was a raster format asset in Flash, then it is really a toss up between the two options depending on the quality of the original encoding.

Encoding to a new size can do slower and more accurate upscaling that will produce fewer artifacts, but if the original source you are upscaling from is already pretty low quality, a second generation of encoding loss may very well exceed the amount of quality improvement you get from the rendered out upscale.

So in summary, the best option is to export from Flash at a higher resolution.  If you can't do that, re-encode if you can do it without another generation of loss or have a high enough quality source (200kbps is not high enough for a re-encode most likely).  Finally, if you don't have that, then stick with the re-size in the player on the fly.


How to convert encrypted mpeg dash created with Bento4 mp4-dash.py to MP4 I have MPEG dash video files created with Bento4 mp4-dash.py.
The files have encription, but I have the MPD and the audio and video segments.
I am trying to get my original MP4 file back from those segments without success.

My tentatives:
1) Convert directly from the MPD file:

ffmpeg -i stream.mpd  -c copy output.mp4

2) Concatenate audio and video and use ffmpeg to merge them:

cat videos/init.mp4 $(ls -1v videos/seg*.m4s) > video.mp4
cat audios/init.mp4 $(ls -1v audios/seg*.m4s) > audio.m4a
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i audio.m4a -c copy output.mp4

The error:

ffmpeg version 4.2.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 8.3.0 (Alpine 8.3.0)
  configuration: --pkg-config-flags=--static --extra-cflags=-fopenmp --extra-ldflags='-static -fopenmp' --toolchain=hardened --disable-debug --disable-shared --disable-ffplay --enable-static --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-openssl --enable-iconv --enable-libxml2 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libvorbis --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libwebp --enable-libwavpack --enable-libspeex --enable-libaom --enable-libvidstab --enable-libkvazaar --enable-libfreetype --enable-fontconfig --enable-libfribidi --enable-libass --enable-libzimg --enable-libsoxr --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libdav1d
  libavutil      56. 31.100 / 56. 31.100
  libavcodec     58. 54.100 / 58. 54.100
  libavformat    58. 29.100 / 58. 29.100
  libavdevice    58.  8.100 / 58.  8.100
  libavfilter     7. 57.100 /  7. 57.100
  libswscale      5.  5.100 /  5.  5.100
  libswresample   3.  5.100 /  3.  5.100
  libpostproc    55.  5.100 / 55.  5.100
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x5555564ad840] Failed to seek for auxiliary info, will only parse senc atoms for encryption info
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x5555564c4100] could not find corresponding trex (id 2)
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x5555564c4100] could not find corresponding track id 0
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x5555564c4100] trun track id unknown, no tfhd was found
[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 0x5555564c4100] error reading header
stream.mpd: Invalid data found when processing input

I tried a few other options I do not remember, but the error persists and I do not know what could be the causes. I believe the concatenation step will not work due to the encryption, but I do not know how to get the key information from the MPD file neither how to decrypt before.

The following link says it should be easy, but something is not working (probably missing a decryption step):
How to download and encode a video from a MPD manifest?

Could you help me to solve such issue?

After you have made concat with your method 2:
You need the decryption key value (not the KID) for each track (I will not explain how to find the key value;) and then from your video and audio files use mp4decrypt from bento4 (just google it if you don't have it yet):
mp4decrypt --key KID:00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF audio.m4a audio_decrypted.mp4
mp4decrypt --key 1:00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF video.mp4 video_decrypted.mp4
you will have to replace KID with your 16 bytes hex key ID and 00112233445566778899AABBCCDDEEFF with your real key value
then ffmpeg will work (as expected) with your decrypted tracks :
fmpeg -i video_decrypted.mp4 -i audio_decrypted.m4a -c copy output.mp4


Cool Edit Pro alternative for Mac? I just can't find a program similar to Cool Edit Pro for the Mac. Any idea?

Cool Edit Pro is now Adobe Audition. They have started a beta, so you're in luck.

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/audition/


h.264 Audio Out of Sync in Premiere I shot some video at an event last night with an ATEM TV Studio and recorded it via USB to my computer.

The files themselves play fine with VLC or Windows Media, but when I import them into Premiere the audio is out of sync with the video.

These files were captured with Media Express on 1080i5994. Capture format says AVI 8bitYUV.

Any thoughts or suggestions?

If the audio differs by the video at a constant offset, you can just unlink them in Premiere and then move the audio in the correct segment.

If the audio differs at a variable offset, then process the audio with adobe audition or something similar and make it match the video.


Adobe Premiere Elements 10: File > Export is greyed out I have a new install of APE 10 on a Windows 7 64-bit machine.

I am a new user of APE.

I have edited a .MOV file, and now I want to save it in a format compatible with YouTube.

When I go to the File menu, Export is greyed out.

What are the requirements before being able to export in Adobe Premiere Elements 10?

Thanks.

The Export function was removed a couple of generations ago but it is still in the file menu as its used for a couple of things such as tiles.

All video is output using the "Share" button.

If you want some extra information on this matter here is an answer from Adobe:
http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-elements/kb/export-option-unavailable-premiere-elements.html

Hope that helps!


Best Program for combining Images and Videos onto a DVD with menu I thought there would be 100 and 1 good solutions for this but so far I have not found something that could all of the following:

Create a DVD-player DVD
Have a menu with options
Have images & Video
prefrably handle .mod

Basically I am trying to put a bunch of photos and videos from our wedding & honeymoon on and older-relative friendly DVD. So it must be able to be playable in a normal dvd player so therefore it must be able to show a menu with categories.

Anyone got good recommendations for this? Everything I come across is either a completely generic menu or frankly broken!

Adobe Encore can do what you are looking for.  It is included with Adobe Premiere.  You can either buy a copy of CS6 or if you only need it for the one project, you can use Creative Cloud to obtain it for just a month or two.

In general, you will find most DVD authoring software comes in fairly expensive packages.  It's not as easy as you would think to do and not a lot of software does it.  The options now are cheap in comparison to how much it used to cost.  When I first did DVD authoring, it cost $2500 to get DVD authoring software that crashed every 15 minutes or so.


How to change the transition point between two clips? (I.e. how to perform a rolling edit) Imagine I have a single clip, [clipA]. I now want to transition from normal colors to black and white. So I split the clip, and I add the black and white filter to the second clip [clipA1][clipA2]. Imagine the transition point is at time 1:20. Everything is great, and I continue editing. The clip transitions gracefully at 1:20 from normal color to black and white. [clipA1 0:00-1:20][clipA2 1:20-2:00]

Now imagine I want to change when the two clips transition point so that instead of doing a smooth transition at 1:20, it does it at 1:30. Naively, I may attempt to drag the transition point:

Problem is it only edits one clip when you drag the transition point and so I now have [clipA1 0:00-1:20][clipA2 1:30-2:00]. So there's a very drastic jump in the video from 1:20 to 1:30.

I could attempt to manually tweak clipA1, but I was hoping there is a GUI way to do this, similar to how in Final Cut Pro, I can tweak the transition point in multi-cam clips:

Update: In Premiere, they call this the "rolling edit" tool. As you drag one clip to the increase it's duration, it'll decrease the other the exact same amount.

There doesn't seem to be an easy way to do this either in iMovie nor in Final Cut Pro (except for Multicam clips).

Even these two methods will sometimes fail when they should have succeeded because the two clips might have gotten so out of sync that iMovie no longer recognizes them as two versions of the same clip.

Method 1 - rejoin clips

One way you can do this is to:

Select both clips
Join the clips
Re-split them somewhere else
Re-apply all the filters you had

Notably, this seems to be the only way to do it in Final Cut Pro as the following method only seems to work in iMovie...

Method 2 - dragging clips

Another way to do this is to drag the clip as you did normally. Notice how there is now a "break" between the two clips:

Drag the other clip until this "break" disappears:

This functionality does not seem to be available in Final Cut Pro, so this appears to be one instance where iMovie actually helps you more than Final Cut Pro.


Identify paid Features in Davinci-16_ Free I would like to switch to latest Davinci-16_ Free(Version 16.2.7.010)  but on trying some essential ResovleFx effects like film grain,analog grain etc , Davinci shows a switch to paid version message prompt and when rejected it simply shows the Davinci logo overlay than the actual effect.
However unlike other softwares,Davinci doesn't provide any indication in the software itself (other than having to go through their forum to understand the differences here).
It doesn't give much confidence if one were to make a switch from a paid software to simply find that essential parts of the freeware are locked.
How does one identify which effects and other features are paid and can these paid effects be recreated in Fusion?

This an older document (v15), but I believe that most of the Free v/s Paid feature list is still valid: https://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/SupportNotes/DaVinci_Resolve_15_Feature_Comparison.pdf


How do you organise your timeline clips in Premier Pro I would like your opinion or the way you organize your clips for this situation:
A few days ago I got raw footage around 6h in length, 1 camera. It was recording all the time without cutting files on angles or scene changes...
So my workflow for this situation is to drag all to the timeline (Premiere Pro) and watch it all on fast forward, clean up trash and leave what could go in the final video.
At this stage, I have around 30m of footage left, around 900 clips and the final video should be 8m.
Those 900 clips contain around 30 different topics (people, objects, details etc.)
So I have 30 groups on the timeline, each group around 30 clips, and blank space between them.
I would like to have some kind of folders with group names that I can easily access.
If I drag a group of edited clips to a new folder in Project it will contain full unedited clips.
So my usual way is to have all on one timeline, including the final video that I am creating and going back and forth looking for next A or B clip on this same timeline.
I am 100% sure there must be a smarter way to do this, where I have all clips group under same name (I do not use labels/color as they do not mean much If i need 30 different colors) so please advise.

In this scenario, I start out with a single long sequence.
I make cuts wherever the good stuff is, and move it up one layer to identify it.
I duplicate the sequence, then label the old sequence as unedited, and the new sequence as "edits".
I delete all the unnecessary stuff on the lower layer, then duplicate again, and make a sequence with all the good stuff in a single sequence with all the gaps removed.
If I need to split things up thematically, I would duplicate and rename sequences down to whatever granularity makes sense.
Then I would start labelling, colouring and adding markers as appropriate.
Would be interested to hear how others do it.


Calculating loss when converting from MTS to AVI using FFMPEG I am using the following script to convert my MTS video to an AVI video:

  for %%a in ("*.mts") do ffmpeg.exe -i "%%a" -vcodec libxvid -s 848x480 -maxrate 4800k -b 4000k -qmin 3 -qmax 5 -bufsize 4096 -acodec libmp3lame -ac 2 -ab 160k -y "%%~na_xvid.avi"

I have very little background in image editing - I found the above script through some google / forum searching, and it served my purposes quite well.

However, for the paper which I am writing, I have been asked to mention what degree of loss there was from the conversion, and whether that had any impact on my results. I know from the end result that there was no impact, however, I would still like to be able to mention in the paper a more accurate response as to what the percentage of loss was from the conversion.

Can anyone help me out with this? Thanks in advance!

Your paper is asking for an impossible data point unless you have some method of evaluation specified.  By definition, lossy compression results in a loss of data.  Modern lossy compression is very good at discarding data that is not visually meaningful to people, but it is still discarding data.

The amount of data loss when related to a human viewer is thus very subjective and can't be measured.  There are specific methods for comparing the source and output videos for differences and determining loss mathematically, but you need a particular choice of method to apply and you simply apply it.


720p 60fps playing in slow motion need real time speed? I just got a kodak playsport zx5 and shot some video of a volleyball game at 720p 60fps. I figured since the ball was moving so fast i'd need the 60fps to capture the games clearly. I just downloaded the videos and playing them in KMPlayer and they are in slow motion. How can I get them to play in real time?

Thanks

The reason it plays back in slow-motion is because you recorded it in slow-motion mode. From Kodak's web page (my emphasis):

  720p at 60 fps—for fast action and super slow motion playback

Your computer have no problem playing back the video if CPU usage is just 30% and have a full frame rate of 60 fps.

What you need to change this is to re-time your video.

You can do is in many ways - I would suggest a video editor such as Adobe Premier Pro (try their 30 days free trial if you don't have it already), select a project that fits the format (HD720P) but with 30 fps.

Then drop your video on the time line, right-click and select change playback speed (or something in those words). Set 200% or what will suit your video. Render out to final video and the problem will be gone.


How should I mic dance instructors when video recording? I will be filming dance 1-3 instructors who will be teaching to the camera, without other people in the room. They will be moving, sometimes quickly while talking (but in a confined area 5x5feet-ish). They will also sometimes be facing to the side or with their backs turned toward the camera while talking.

I will be flying to different locations to film. So mobility as well as price and effectiveness are all factors.

I guess my options are:

Wireless Lav
Shotgun(s)
Boom mic

I'm a novice at this and really don't know. My current thinking is:

Wireless Lav Mic

pros:

consistent audio in all directions

cons:

costly
fragile
annoying for dancers moving
require batteries
need one for every instructor

Shotgun mics

pros:

not in dancers way
no batteries

cons:

need multiple mics?
even possible to get quality audio in all directions?
need stands, heavy, not mobile friendly?

Boom (overhead) mics

pros:

not in dancers way
no batteries
maybe only need one cardioid?

cons:

need multiple mics?
as good quality as with Lav?
even possible to get quality audio in all directions?
need stands, heavy, not mobile friendly?

So I could be way off on my understanding. What recommendations do you have for me?

There is another option that is good to know about, the Crown PCC-160 boundary mic. This is a standard mic to put at the edge of a stage to get good quality sound from actors in plays.

"Supercardioid pattern with PCC boundary technology assures phase coherence throughout the audible spectrum" means that it is rejecting sound from behind, and the phase coherence means that voices are more clear than with normal mics, as long as you place them at a boundary like the floor or on a wall. Physics stuff.

Lavs will get you the most clear sound, but the Crown PCC will do better than a shotgun (unless you have the shotgun close with a boom pole). Rent a pair to try them out as backup, I think you will want to buy them after you see how effective they are.

Edit: Rereading your question, if the dancers are confined to a 5x5' area and they might be speaking with their back to the camera, lav is the best, but next best is probably a boom mic on a stand, with the mic positioned directly over the center of the area, pointed straight down. That should pick up a pretty balanced voice recording. A second shotgun positioned in line with the camera to get the front 'viewpoint' audio would capture a more natural-sounding voice when the speaker is speaking toward the camera. The Crown PCCs would have to be positioned all around the area, and they would pick up more of the dancer's feet sounds than the boom mic.


Quality Full HD Camcorder - DSLR or dedicated one? I am a passionate photographer and currently own a nikon d80 with a handful of lenses, all Nikon Nikkor ones.
Unfortunately, that camera has no video recording capabilities.
I have missed so many professional and family occasions in which a movie would be key.
my main doubt is whether to go with a new dslr or buy a camcorder. I am not a professional video editor but occasionally work on Premiere.
Here are my ideal requirements:

possibility to capture various light and shoot conditions (I.e. sunsets, wide angles, decent zoom)
a good support for long recordings. A meeting may take 1.15hours. I won't like to swap the cards.
good builtin microphone with support for external ones, better if wireless
1080p HD recording with quality and vivid colors

I found good camcorders from 150$ but wouldn't mind spending more if most of my ideal requirements are met.

What would you do if you were in my shoes?

Thanks a bunch!!

The Canon 5D mark 2 opened the world to the abilities of DSLR shooting video. But if you read the real world discussion, you will find that taking amazing video with it is a serious challenge. And it takes only about 15 minutes of video at a time, so your 1 hour++ is simply not feasible.

The 5D mark 3, just announced and $3500, doubles the video time to about 28 minutes.

Things like auto focus are a ton easier with a camcorder.


What was technically wrong with this unseekable wmv? I recently had an unseekable WMV file. ASFTools fixed it using the "Lost Chunks" feature which was suggested in the selected answer.

What does the "Lost Chunks" function do? What did it fix? What are "chunks"? I originally tried the "Make Seekable" function, but that did not work, so what is the difference between the two?

I'm very much interested in the technicalities so don't be afraid to get detailed if the answer requires it.

WMV is really just another name for ASF. That format, like many multimedia formats, contains its data in pieces of various types. Some formats call these packets, some call them segments. ASF, like RIFF before it, calls them chunks. There are several types of chunks, the main one being the data chunk, which holds the encoded streams. There may be several data chunks in the file, mixed in with other chunk types.

The other chunks can contain metadata, DRM info, text data and so on. WMV includes one called (I believe) the index chunk which holds information about where the data chunks are located in the file.

If the index chunk is corrupted or missing the file can usually be played but perhaps not seeked, or may seek randomly into the middle of GOPs. Programs like ASFTools and Steeper attempt to re-index the file by locating the data chunks and building a new index chunk if they can't locate a misplaced one.

Chunks of various types begin with unique identifying headers -- byte sequences called tags -- that can be found by scanning the file. This allows a repair program to potentially reconstruct a minimally playable file from a partially corrupt one by examining the full set of chunks.


How can I ensure that DaVinci Resolve will detect and/or load my .mp4 / .avi files? New user of DaVinci Resolve, explain-like-I'm-five. =)

Have installed and followed instructions for setting up Resolve 12 on my Windows 7 16gb ram computers with GeForce 760 gpu.

Initially, Resolve would not recognise my .mp4 / .avi files, only finding single image files. The .mp4 and .avi files will load and run in VLC and / or Blender.

I restarted the program, at which point it could find the files - but the thumbnails for the files were red with an exclamation mark and would not load. There were a couple which displayed correct thumbnails, but on clicking on the files the thumbnails turned to red with exclamation mark - and would not load.

Restarting my computer and reloading Resolve returned me to my initial condition: Resolve would not recognise my .mp4 / .avi files, only finding single image files.

These are files of mostly less than 100mb each, some only lasting for a couple of minutes.

Does anybody know why Resolve can't detect or load my files?

--Rev

From your post I am not sure why Resolve wont recognize your files...but you should transcode your footage anyways before ingesting into Resolve.

Even if you start with highly compressed source media, you should transcode to something less compressed, and that will put you in 4:2:2 at least vs working with 4:0:0. ProRes or DNxHD codec will give you files that are much less compressed, and will yield the best possible results in color correction.


Improving speed for aerender.exe (Adobe After effects CC 2017) I'm working on a project that should render as many videos as possible.
Only 3 images in the project change after every render.
The output length is 12 seconds and it takes about 90 seconds to render the video.

After Effects is running on a Windows 10 device with 64gb ram, a GTX 1060 videocard, a i7 processor and a Samsung 960 EVO 500GB SSD.

When rendering a video the SSD and CPU usages go to 100%.

Are there ways to speed up this small renders even more?

I would try using a seperate ssd for your project files and assets. You'd have one for your os and software and one for the project.


What equipment do I need to be able to produce 'HD quality' videos? For starters, please forgive me if this question is very amateurish - if they sound that way, that's because I am an amateur.

I would like to start shooting some webisodes in my garage and want to know what equipment I will need.

The quality would be the equivalent to that of any of Revision3's shows - or more specifically TRS. So nothing TOO high quality, but decent-ish quality.

I have a Canon 7D, and would like another camera for a 2nd shot. My budget is about $4Kish for everything. The 2nd camera, lighting, audio, etc.

Someone suggested a t3i, or t4i for my second camera - what do you guys think about that?

Also, about 60% of the shots I do will be in this garage, but I also want to be mobile and be able to setup shots elsewhere - so keep that in mind.

Can you recommend lighting (both individual pieces and entire kits) and audio solutions that I might want to look at?

I was thinking of getting stuff on B&H, but the choices just seem overwhelming and I know it's easy to spend a ton of money on stuff that I don't "need".

So I would love any feedback on how I can get a "decent-ish" studio setup for a few $K.

With your budget, I would suggest investing in a few basic lights and decent audio recording equipment.

While a second camera is nice to have, creating production value with the non-picture parts of your films will make them a lot better. If you need to get second or third angle, just move the camera for a closeup and re-run the scene. Sure, it may take longer to shoot, but from my experience, you'll have better selection in the edit suite than if you're just cutting a bunch of suimultaneously rolling cameras together.

There's also the issue of matching. The 7D is so spectacular, that I'd fear mixing in something that's not comparable (and likely over your budget) will be very visible to the viewer.

Lighting: Learn basic three point lighting. Rather than buying a kit new, check eBay for Lowel lights. They're relatively well made (using metal!) and still very economical. The ProLight, VLight and Rifa lights are good to start a digital video lighting package with. I've put together kits designed to my specs buying individual pieces off of eBay, and spent half the cost of a comparable kit new. I would say a good place to start is 2-3 ProLights and a Rifa Light, maybe a vLight. The latter is good for just makign something bright, but isn't terribly good at adding modeling to a scene. It may not be appropriate for your garage shoot. I usually use it to uplight a tree in night shots jsut to add some texture.

Accessories for lighting: stands, dimmer switches and a roll of blackwrap. Gels are useful once you start shooting outside...you'll need to balance the lights to match the sun. Read about Color Balance and Color temperature if you're unfamiliar with the concept.

Audio: Invest in a good shotgun mic and a boom pole. I cannot stress enough the importance of good audio. If your picture is mediocre, awesome sound can save it, but no matter how awesome your picture is, bad sound makes it unwatchable. Play around with the mic to learn how its pickup pattern works and to find the sweet spot for placement. If you need to record sounds effects, ambient sounds, or record dual system, pick of an H4N. It's one of the best investments I made into my audio kit, and I use it on every shoot.

A solid, economical mic is the Audio Technica AT-435B. Sennheiser is also a good brand, but more expensive. I forget my model numbers off the top of my head; perhaps someone can fill in?

In short, a second camera is not as necessary as lighting and audio. The production value that you can add with those things far outweighs the convenience of adding a second camera. If you do insist on a second camera, look at the GoPro. I work on a lot of network shows that just place one of these to get b-roll...for cooking shows, it'll just monitor the cooktop while the rest of the crew runs around the restaurant. Quality is good enough to cut ionto broadcast shows, but the size of the chip limits its contrast and color reproduction...so there is a marked quality difference between that and the 7D. That being said, perhaps killer audio and lighting will compensate. Good luck!


Film a 3D video using Genlock cameras or LANC? I am doing some research in 3D stereo, particularly in 3D videos. I was successful creating 3D photos (using ordinary webcams) and viewing on a 3D laptop and 3D TV, but I've been reading that video recording is not so straightforward.

What would be the cheapest way to build a 3D video camera set-up (Rigs, controllers, etc)? I live in India, so buying an expensive rig from abroad may not be possible at the moment. I'm also confused about using genlock cameras or a LANC controller for the video cameras. I currently don't have any video cameras, so which brands would be best to buy to have them in sync? My ultimate goal would be to film a scene 'live' in 3D (under 20 min).

Any help here would be very much appreciated.

Genlock would allow the capture of frames to be synchronized to a common external timecode.  It is only a feature on pretty high end cameras, so if you are trying to keep costs down, it really isn't an option.  The other question I linked to in the comment goes over a few possible ways to try to get usable sync for multiple cameras, but sadly, there aren't particularly good options for most cases.

There is a 3d kit for certain model GoPros that may be worth considering, but otherwise, you are probably best looking for a camera that supports lens splitting for 3d capture or purpose built consumer targeted cameras if you want things to remain fairly cheap.


overlap silent video with video and audio I am new to video editing so excuse me if I am using wrong words to describe my question.
I am trying to make a video clip in adobe premier pro with two videos. First one  has no audio attached. Second video has. SO what I wanted to do is to make a small second video playing with background of first video(like 2 videos on the one screen but 1st on the background). But when I am doing:

place 1st video on V1
place 2nd video on V2 -- it places without audio

But when I am doing

place 2nd video on V1 -- it places with audio
move it to V2
place 1st video on V1.

Audio from 2nd video doesnt disappear....

And I can not understand how to avoid 2nd way of doing it and still keep audio from 2nd video.
I mean I can use this 2nd way but it is so uncomfortable if I will want to add more video in addition to 2nd one.

What you want to use to control where clips are placed is Source Patching and Track Targeting. Those are two of the small indicators to the left of the timeline tracks. Track Targeting has a couple of functions, in general it controls which tracks varied editing operations can affect. For example, if you paste clips from the clipboard, the pasted video and audio will be placed on the lowest active (targeted) audio and video track respectively.

If you want to control where the clips from your Project Panel go, you can use Source Patching instead. Only one audio and video track respectively can be the activated at a time in the Source Patching column, and those will be the tracks that new material is placed into by default.

You can find more info on that on the Adobe support pages.


Premier Pro CS5 makes AVCHD footage jagged and bad I'm shooting on an FS700RH, the quality is fantastic when I preview it after putting it on my computer, but when I import it into Premiere, the quality just drops every time. I've tried multiple solutions, importing it different ways other than the Media Browser, changing the project settings and so on but I have no luck. The results are always the same. Horrible Jagged edges.

Footage before importing to Premiere:

Footage after importing to Premiere:

This is also how it looks after exporting as well so it's not just a problem with the Source Monitor. Like importing I've tried many different export settings, all with the same result. I have no idea what to do in order to preserve the quality.

I've spent the past 3 hours trying to find a solution online but have had no luck.

Incase anyone comes across the same problem, here's the solution I used.

Once you've imported the footage, right click on the clip, go to 'Modify' then 'Interpret Footage':

A window should pop up. Down the bottom, under 'Field Order' change the setting from 'Upper Field First' to 'Conform to: No Fields (Progressive Scan)'.

Your footage should then adjust to it's original quality.

Upper Field First:

No Fields (Progressive Scan):


How to make black text accept light in After Effects I'm trying to add a light to a scene that has black text on a white background. My goal is to keep the light in position and slide in the text. As the text slides, part of the text will be less black because of the light.

I've added a light and positioned it correctly. I've also made sure my text is 3D-enabled and has "accepts lights" on.

The problem I'm having is that no matter how I position the light or tweak the material options, I can't figure out what to do so that the surface of the text changes intensity with the light that's being cast. The text will cast shadows (when turned on), but the surface won't change.

What do I need to do to get the surface of the text to change color (to grey or white) based on the light source?

Here's what it looks like:

Adjust Metal to 0% and Specular Shininess to taste in the material options of the text layer.


Turbulence cpu video effect I used to use the Turbulence CPU video effect in Pinnacle Studio 16.
Now I use FinalCutPro X and, till now, I was unable to find an equivalent effect.

To have an idea of the effect you may look to this video:

Is there anyone who can give me a suggestion?
Thank you!

You might be able to achieve such a look with the Clouds generator from Apple Motion. (This is different from the one that ships with FCPX.) But you can create a Final Cut Pro Generator from it using the settings below.

If you set the 1st, 2nd and 3rd layer strength to 0 and the 4th layer strength to 1.0 you'll get the right sort of frequencies. You'll then need to choose or create a gradient with different color bands in it.

It also looks like they're mixing several layers of it with similar settings. You could try different blend modes and opacity levels for different effects.


HitFilm 2017: What's the difference between project video settings and export video settings? I am using HitFilm 2017 Express to put together a few clips recorded by an iPhone (1920 x 1080 @ 29.97fps).

I see some video settings in my project tab:

When I export my video, I see even more settings - some of which are duplicated across both:

I understand that my export settings are what I actually get in the rendered file. What confuses me is the project's video settings (first picture). Why do I even have them? How do they relate to and/or affect the final production?

Project settings determine the way your source media will be interpreted (played/processed/pre-rendered) by your NLE application.

Export settings determine the format of the file that you are going to output once the edit is finished.

For example:

  You shoot video on a Panasonic HVX camera in Apple ProRes 422 codec
  (HQ). Then you import the clips into your project. The project codec
  will be Apple ProRes 422 (HQ).

  You plan to publish the video on youtube. There is no practical sense
  in keeping the quality as high as Apple ProRes for web delivery, so
  you choose to compress the resulting video into H.264 codec inside an
  MP4 container (listed as Youtube 1080pHD) to make it easier to upload,
  without significantly sacrificing its quality.


How to animate? Dripping/melting shape I wish to animate this logo. As first the rectangles appear (already figure out with shape masks and track matte) But then I want to make the "paint" drip off it and I can't figure out what method I should use. Im a newb at after effects and I mostly learn from tutorials but I can't find anything specific enough to help me. Please give me advice I witch direction should I look.

Animated shape layer would be my first choice. Draw the final shape of the dripping paint, turn on animation for that shape at the end, wind back to the beginning and edit the shape until it looks like how you want it to start, then preview the animation and tweak any intermediate frames as necessary.

TL;DR: animate it.


How to setup indirect lighting for video For doing blog style youtube videos, I get a headache if the soft boxes are pointing at me from next to the camera. I'm thinking that I could solve the problem by flooding the room with indirect lighting bouncing off the walls and ceiling. Is this practical? What kind of equipment would be best without spending a fortune?

A bounce card might save your eyes some, e.g.

Depending on your "studio" you could also just turn the lights away from the talent and towards a wall or the ceiling to bounce and diffuse the light off the surface.


How to control animated gif speed when exporting from Premier Pro I have got a sequence of 25 frames from a series of photos that I shot. I have imported the images into Premiere Pro and changed the speed/duration to 00.00.02.

When I preview the sequence in the preview window, it runs at the exact speed I want it. However, when I export it as an animated gif the file runs at about 1 frame per second which is too slow.

How do I control the speed when I export the .gif file?

when you are exporting you should be able to change the frame rate in the basic video setting. If you "un-check" the box of the preset option, you can select the rate between different values.


Can I reduce the delay between video frames? I have a variable frame rate video file. There is a delay of over 30 seconds between some frames. Can I transcode the video and reduce all delays between frames over a certain value, say 1 second, to that value? This would mean the maximum gap or delay between any 2 consecutive frames would be 1 second.

It can be done with ffmpeg. I ended up using following:

ffmpeg -i input-file -vf "setpts=ifnot(isnan(PREV_OUTPTS)\,PREV_OUTPTS) + min(1000\,PTS - PREV_INPTS)" -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -crf 0 output.mkv

You can print expressions like this, which is useful for testing:

ffmpeg -i input-file -vf "setpts=print(PREV_INPTS)\;print(PTS - PREV_INPTS)\;print(ifnot(isnan(PREV_OUTPTS)\,PREV_OUTPTS) + min(1000\,PTS - PREV_INPTS))" -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -crf 0 output.mkv

Following documentation may be helpful:

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html#Expression-Evaluation

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html#setpts


extract parts of images from a video and save it to a file I have a video of 2000 x 200 pixels in resolution
I need to grab two parts inside that video (cut into the image, not trimming).

I need to grab a piece of 500 x 200 pixels from coordinates (0,0) and another 500 x 200 pixels from coordinates (1000,0), then merge them side by side into a new 1000 x pixels video file.

is that possible ?

Sure. Command template is

ffmpeg -i video.mov -filter_complex "[0]crop=500:200:0:0[l];[0]crop=500:200:1000:0[r]; \
                                     [l][r]hstack" final.mov


What is the opposite of 360 video? I would like to make a video out of N cameras all focusing a central area from different points of view.

In order to do it, I first need to know how is that kind of video called; I would like to obtain something like a 360 video, but at the same time it is the exact opposite of a 360 video, because 360 video allow the user to see all around an object, I want instead to allow user to see an object from all around.

(for example, something similar to the rotation you can do on a 3D object on 3D modeling softwares)

That said

How is that kind of video called?
Is it possible to make something like that with FFMPEG? (I accept a yes/no answer :) )

Thanks all!

I think what you're looking for is called "photogrammetry" and is produced by taking several images (or an image sequence from a video) and comparing the perspective, scale, and overall shape of the captured image and how it changes.

Using this method, you can both create quite realistic 3D-models of things you just filmed and furthermore, you can thus create animations using these models. Alternatively, you could just use an image-sequence, in which the object is captured from all sides or just rotated and let the viewer go back and forth between frames and / or perspectives.

Photogrammetry

only really works on stills, meaning that your subject won't move
gives you the opportunity to really zoom in and out, create parallaxe (moving the subject seperately from the background)

Skipping between different sequences

is comparable to how the famous bullet-dodge effect in the matrix works, only that the viewer can direct the movement of the camera himself (which is pretty cool indeed).
Needs a lot of cameras however, set up in a ring around the subject. So you need to erase the cameras filming themselves in post, which is quite tedious. (a setup of such rig can be seen here and here. This brings with it a big spike in production-cost.
also, if your subject is moving and you want your camera to follow it, you need to move the entire rig which, if you've seen the pictures of it, is quite a pain in the rear.

So while capturing a sequence with dozens of cameras to allow different perspectives of a subject in motion can be a very very cool and impressive effect, there is a reason why not a lot of movies use it. It's expensive, difficult to work with on set and takes a lot of time to stitch together the sequences in post.

Photogrammetry on the other hand side offers a completely free perspective for the viewer, enabling him/her to look at the subject from any angle imaginable (which the multi-cam setup doesn't offer - you can only view from the perspectives that the cameras were set up on, especially concerning the y-axis)
The downside however is, that the subject won't be moving, unless you use stop motion in which case you can "photogrammetice" the subject in different states of momentum (which again, is very tedious).

I hope you found out what is what you want and my answer was helpful to your question :)


add text overlay and image background to a video I have a video that is composed of 3 parts: intro, outro and middle. in the outro and intro I need to add some text as an overlay and on the middle part, I need to change the background (which is one color) to an image I'll provide plus add a text overlay.
All the texts will appear at certain times, be displayed for few seconds in different parts of the video and disappear. The background image too needs to be displayed only for few seconds in the middle of the video.
Can you point me to something that can help me or give me few pointers that can help me accomplish this task? Thank you.

The comments all suggest using an NLE (I agree), but given that your question is tagged with ffmpeg, here are a few pointers to documentation:

You can accomplish text overlay with the drawtext filter.

  Draw a text string or text from a specified file on top of a video, using the libfreetype library.

For changing the background, you should look into the colorkey filter. From the docs, here's an example to "make every green pixel in the input image transparent":

ffmpeg -i input.png -vf colorkey=green out.png

As for timing, you should cross-reference if they support timeline editing.

  Some filters support a generic enable option. For the filters supporting timeline editing, this option can be set to an expression which is evaluated before sending a frame to the filter. If the evaluation is non-zero, the filter will be enabled, otherwise the frame will be sent unchanged to the next filter in the filtergraph.

Again, this is probably better suited for an NLE, but it's certainly possible with ffmpeg, and will likely render significantly faster (at the tradeoff of likely taking much longer to craft the ffmpeg invocation vs. using an NLE). Good luck!


ffmpeg intermediate transcode for 1920 x 1080 8-bit YUV 4:2:0 @ 25fps source I have a bunch of footage shot on a Canon 7d I'd like to transcode for editing in Davinci Resolve (I'm exploring alternatives to using Resolve's proxies).
The source footage is 1920x1080 8-bit YUV 4:2:0 @ 25fps.
I'd like to use ffmpeg and either the DNxHD or DNxHR encoders but DNxHD doesn't appear to have a matching profile and errors our and DNxHR outputs 4:2:2 video (which is arguably unecessary in this case) and doubles the original file size.
DNxHR
ffmpeg -i "input.mov" -c:v dnxhd  -profile:v dnxhr_sq -pix_fmt yuv422p -c:a pcm_s16le "output.mxf"

DNxHD (errors "maybe incorrect parameters")
ffmpeg.exe  -i "input.mov" -vcodec dnxhd "input.mxf"

My questions are as follows:

Are either DNxHD or DNxHR capable of outputing to 4:2:0? Would doing so keep file sizes down?
Can DNxHD transcode my source? If yes, how should I ammend the above ffmpeg parameters?

Are either DNxHD or DNxHR capable of outputing to 4:2:0?

No. Running ffmpeg -h encoder=dnxhd will list encoder properties, including
Supported pixel formats: yuv422p yuv422p10le yuv444p10le gbrp10le

Can DNxHD transcode my source? If yes, how should I ammend the above ffmpeg parameters?

The DNxHD encoder only supports a limited number of preset profiles. Each profile is specified of a frame size, interlacing mode, bitrate and pixel format (which also includes chroma sampling scheme).
FFmpeg will automatically convert the input to a matching pixel format, but the rest has to be manually set.
So, for a 1920x1080 8-bit YUV 4:2:0 @ 25fps source,
ffmpeg.exe  -i "input.mov" -c:v dnxhd -b:v 115M "input.mxf"

Try to encode with a non-matching to prompt an error message with the list of supported profiles.


How can I add video effects like these to my video I want to add a beginning like in this video

Which software should I use?
I am completely clueless. Help

Everyone's clueless when they start. Dive in :)
I reckon this was made with Adobe After Effects.
It's a combination of shapes, masks, and text animating on, with lots of easing and bouncing on the movement.
This is a great but old free tutorial on the basics of after effects:
https://www.videocopilot.net/basic/
The easing and bouncing might have been done manually, but more likely using something like the Mt MoGraph Motion plugin.


Changing the aspect ratio of a video I have a video (.mpg) and currently it has the wrong aspect ratio (16:9).  I now want to change it to the correct aspect ratio (5:4).  How can I do this?

I know that on VLC player I can change the aspect ratio while the video is playing.  However, I am wondering if there is a permanent way of changing the aspect ratio, such that each time this video is played, it is in the correct aspect ratio?

Thank you.

It's easy to do this with FFmpeg which is run from the command line.

Method 1 – this will size the video appropriately and encode the result in H.264 MP4 format:

ffmpeg.exe -i inputfile.mpg -vcodec h264 -s 720x576 -aspect 5:4 outputfile.mp4

Method 2 – this will set a hint in the file as to the size it should be displayed at (with no recompressing or quality loss). VLC should respect this although not all players/editors will:

ffmpeg.exe -i inputfile.mpg -vcodec copy -aspect 5:4 -acodec copy outputfile.mpg

Method 3 – if you detect a decrease in the quality of the MPEG you can compress it at a high-bitrate MPEG-2:

ffmpeg.exe -i inputfile.mpg -vcodec mpeg2video -aspect 5:4 -acodec pcm_s16le -b 30000k outputfile.mpg

Good luck!


How much storage does video editing take? I'm brand new to video so I don't even yet have a favorite software package.

In general, on popular software like FCPX or Premiere, how many MB per minute of 1080p will I need?

I realize there are a hundred different ways to compress the video, but I'm just asking about the rough storage requirements for a typical editing workflow.

Original video material

It depends on the protocol and color formats as well as the mentioned compression, but if you're starting in video I assume you're using HDV. A rough estimate based on the HDV format (the one you transfer over the FireWire cable) will give you around 19.2 Mbps (ironically less than the DV format), or 138 Mb per minute.

If in the higher end you can end up with f.ex. HDCAM at 440 mbps (the double with SR1 docking).

But if we use the former as a basis you can store about:

10 minutes with 1.35 GB
30 minutes with 4.04 GB
60 minutes with 8.09 GB

However, this is for compressed video and audio. In practice the files tend to be around 50-60% larger due to various factors such as the audio being converted to uncompressed audio at 16-bit (optional 24-bit on some cameras), 48 kHz.

So conclusively, if you calculate using 12-13 GB per hour you should be fairly safe for 1080i using HDV original video.

Editing

Editing involves referencing the original video in most cases and when you convert it a final product you will probably use a different compression format such as H.264 (mp4, mov etc.).

However, if the editor need to conform the video (f.ex. for use of complex effects) and audio, these files tend to take a noticeable amount of storage.

But this depends entirely on your pipe-line. If you involve 3D graphics/animation in it, then you grow the project considerably more. If you plan to add voice-over, music and so forth you will use even more space.

Give yourselves comfortable space on the disc, say (holding finger in the air to find wind direction) 3-4x the project's length for a good start.