How to stretch an image in vegas? Tips? (Reference image in body) That's as far as I had gone, I am trying to fit the image in the box but I just can't figure it out. no matter how much I stretch it or rotate it,  it just doesn't work

Here's another image so you guys know my pan/crop settings

and if you need to try it yourself, here's a green screen. if you at least get a still frame I guess I can animate it from there (Though, actually tell me how did you get it to work)

I also wonder, if I already have the mask, and it's already animated and stuff, could that help me?

Edit:Wait, do you guys need a green screen lol? I am going to leave it there just in case but I don't think you guys need it (Note:The green screen was made by me, by using the mask. I got the mask with the keyframes, I really hope that's useful)

I believe most of this effect can be achieved using Deform FX.

For true perspective, you need 3D track motion.

I have not used either but here are some links:

Perspective

How do I skew a video clip?


Keeping metadata (time/date) when extracting frames from video Circumstances

I recently started to extract frames from videos (GoPro) for underwater photography. I'm currently using Adobe Premiere Pro to do so, which works, but when I imported these new photos into Lightroom, I realized that the date/time metadata of the pictures don't match with the video's metadata (they have the date and time of when I extracted them, for obvious reasons).

This is really not convenient, since I need to manually re-adjust the time for each of these new pictures (I want all of my pictures to have accurate date/time metadata, since I often look back and want to know when I took these pictures).

Question

How can I extract a frame from a movie file and store the date/time metadata from the video to the frame? If this is possible, how can I store the time difference between the location of the frame and the start of the video?

Thank you very much.

If you are saving frames from PP using the snapshot tool, then by default it's saving a file that's of the form SEQUENCENAME_TIMECODE.  If you know the date/time of the start of the sequence, you can compute frame-accurate metadata by adding the timecode of the image to the adjusted datetime of the sequence start.  (By adjusted datetime, I mean that if your sequence starts at 01:00:00:00 and your actual clip was 16:20:25:15 on Apr 1, 2014, then you need to subtract one hour from the clip time to account for the SMPTE offset).

As for programming languages that will do what you want, look at bash (the Bourne Again Shell), Python, and/or Perl.  Perl is wicked cool in how it can slice and dice strings, do math, and put the strings back together.  But it is also wicked hard to learn idiomatically.  Python may be the best starting point.

EXIFtool is a great way to embed correct metadata into image files: http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/

And it's a way to learn some Perl while you are at it.


How to add captions file to video podcast? I'm starting a tutorial video podcast and have recorded a couple of episodes.

I've captioned them, and have the captions file in .srt format. However I haven't yet found a way to embed that file in the .mp4 video file that makes the captions optional for podcast viewers.

How can the captions be included with the podcast, so that viewers can turn them on only if they want them, but they will be off by default? I'm most interested in getting this working in the iTunes podcast section and the iOS Podcast app to start with (although a universal solution that works with all podcast clients would be great).

UPDATE 3rd April 2014:

No luck yet I'm afraid with solving this. Until something better comes along, in the podcast feed, for each <item>, I set the <link> element to a URL that hosts a version of the video with optional captions (captions are off by default), and towards the end of the body of the <description> element I repeat the same URL mentioning alongside it that subtitles are available there. See http://a.webdevbreak.com/episodes if you'd like to see an example.

Ordinarily, I'd create an Adobe AIR or AIR-for-iOS app to solve this problem. You'd just sychronize your captions to cue points in the video and make 'em visible or invisible with a programmed-in button. You could easily have multiple languages in this way.

Are iTunes podcasts just flat-out mp4 movies?


Video production at higher quality - alternatives and solutions My question here is a redirection per suggestion of my original question over here

I have an i5 4th gen CPU which can support 2k displays and output 2k signal. And I have an AMD Radeon R7 graphics card. I have an old monitor whose native resolution is 1366x768

My problem is that with the hardware configuration I have, when I record my screen on OBS Studio with settings as chosen by the OBS Auto Configuration Wizard, I get a totally disappointing output. The text is not clear and nothing looks sharp when viewed on any other monitor than my own.

I wish to do some screen records of some coding sessions, and with the quality of output I have, it's not an option. People advice me to get a Mac which can give me 4k recordings hassle free, but Mac is out of my budget.

Xrandr seems to be of no help either.

I want to explore all software based solutions before I buy anything. In particular, I am looking at the possibility to "trick" the CPU into thinking there is a another1080p/2k monitor connected and make it output a higher resolution signal and then capture it in some sort of a screen record. Is such a thing possible? If yes, how?

I want to utilize my CPU and GPU capacity to the fullest and produce 1080p/2k quality videos. What are my options?

I am on an Ubuntu 19.10 machine

Any leads are appreciated. Thank you in advance.

First variant:
You can try to set resloution of your display to 1920x1080, but I think that you will have scroll on your screen.
I know that with digital connect via DVI port on Windows PC with XP it was real. In the last time I didn't take any experiments.

Second variant:
You can buy FullHD monitor and don't have any problems with this. They are won't cost a lot of money, especially which sell as used.

Third variant:
I don't see what image see your viewers, but I can think, that problem can be in bitrate of image which won't allow to stream quality image. If your viewers view your stream in original quality and they are have problems with reading text, I think that you need to do bigger scale of your desktop or bigger scale of text in your coding software.

Can you show me the settings of OBS stream, screenshot from your PC and screenshot from your viewer?
Also it can be helpful if you will do recording of your screen for your viewers instead of streaming.


After Effects: controlling slider in ExtendScript I'm newbie in After Effects. I've learned how to control slider from expressions. Now I need to get value of slider in script (jsx/extendscript). How can I achieve that?

I've tried (in *.jsx): var a = comp.layer("Slider 1").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")[0];

Result:

  After Effects error: Unable to call "setValue" because of parameter 1.
  Value "NaN" of element 0 in the array is not a valid float.

It means that value of slider is not set yet?

Thanks

EDIT:

Here is a example:

var slider = comp.layers.addNull();
slider.name = "Slider";
slider.effect.addProperty("ADBE Slider Control")("Slider");
slider.effect("Slider Control").property("Slider").setValue(100);

var a = slider.effect("Slider Control").property("Slider");
var titleTriangle = comp.layers.addShape();
titleTriangle.name = ("Title Triangle");
var titleTriangleGroup = titleTriangle.property("Contents").addProperty("ADBE Vector Group");
var titleTriangleFill= titleTriangleGroup.property("Contents").addProperty("ADBE Vector Graphic - Fill");
titleTriangleFill.property("Color").setValue([0.68,0.29,0.29,1]);

// using 'a' here
titleTriangle.property("Position").setValue([a,188]);

I found out - .value after slider.effect("Slider Control").property("Slider") and it works.

var a = slider.effect("Slider Control").property("Slider").value


Davinci Resolve 17 Omitting Clips from within Fusion Clips in Render I am trying to render out a music video in Davinci Resolve. I have a green screen in the shot and my band playing in front of the green screen. I duplicated the clip and put one clip on top of the other one. The top clip I keyed out the green screen, the bottom clip I made into a fusion clip where the green screen is corner pinned with animation to follow the green screen. The only thing appearing in the final fusion clip is the replaced green screen. The bottom layer is just a screen and the top layer is the rest of the clip with an empty spot for the green screen. It works perfectly in the view port, but when I render the video the screen is completely black. I can fix this by deleting the clip, dragging in the same clip from the media collection, and moving it into the fusion area as a new node and reattaching it exactly where the old version of the clip was. The only problem is as I keep editing Davinci "forgets" about it in the final render. What am I doing wrong?
This is the view port:

This is the fusion background clip:

This is a failed video render screenshot:

The best way to control the order-of-operations is to do all of your compositing in a single Fusion clip; all of your keying and corner-pinning happens in a single Fusion clip, ideally. To set this up, lasso both of the clips on V1 and V2, right-click, and choose "create Fusion clip" from the contextual menu (do this to new, ordinary video clips, not ones you’ve already made into Fusion clips).
But in case you are trying to preserve some amount of edit flexibility, or have another reason to keep the Fusion clips distinct on the Edit timeline, I suspect that the issue is an order-of-operations problem related to the Color page.
I think that when Resolve sees two Fusion clips stacked on top of each other, it processes the
bottommost clip’s Fusion effects first, passes the V1 Fusion to the Color page, then calculates V2 Fusion and V2 Color.  I could be wrong about bottom-first processing, but it definitely does send to the Color page before returning to Fusion to handle the second clip, whichever one that actually is.
So, it’s likely the Color page that’s messing up the alpha channel. You could try opening the topmost clip on the Color page, right-clicking anywhere in the node tree background, and choosing "add alpha output” from the dropdown menu. In previous versions of Resolve, it was necessary to inform the Color page that it should output an alpha. Since your alpha is coming from Fusion, you'll also probably need to right-click in the background select "add source," and wire the new green triangle on the left to the blue alpha output on the right.  This is the manual way to tell the Color page to "pass through" an alpha channel.
Resolve’s image pipeline undergoes frequent modification, especially with respect to alpha channels, and the way different Edit page containers prioritize and calculate (including premultiplication).  For the most part, it has improved greatly over the years, but you'll still run into situations where it doesn't do what you'd expect. The developers are great about incorporating user feedback, but on the other hand, that's why the image pipeline is in a constant state of flux.  And since the codebase changes more frequently than the documentation, sometimes the order of operations isn't clearly defined…
Which is why it's still best to contain all of your Fusion compositing in a single clip.
One last thing that might help, and I always forget to recommend, because it's a new feature; Render In Place.  You can render either (or both) clips to disk, which will both speed up playback and help you troubleshoot, and depending on your requirements may be a sufficient solution itself.  Right-click on either clip in the timeline and select the option from the dropdown, but be sure to select a codec which supports alpha channels, such as ProRes 4444.


Audio playing at a lower pitch than original file with clicking noise I've imported an audio file into Lightworks.  The same problems happen whether the input file is in MP3 or WAV format.  Both original media files play correctly in mplayer.

The audio in the file plays slightly lower than it should.  The first tone in the tune is E5; in LightWorks the tone emitted is between D5 and D#5.  This is a frequency ratio of between 1:1.0595 and 1:1.225.  The audio also runs slightly longer, but only by about a second for the entire 6m10s file.  This is a significantly smaller ratio of 1:1.0027.

While the audio is playing, there are frequent and regular mid-pitched clicking sounds audible, at a rate of roughly 10-20 per second.  They are louder when the audio is louder.  These clicking sounds are also audible during playback of video files which have associated audio track; again, the sounds are not audible during playback of the same file under mplayer.

I'm running LightWorks on a non-Retina MacBook Pro (2012).

Restarted LightWorks and both problems seem to have disappeared.


Keep the current position in the center of the timeline in Adobe Premiere In Adobe Premiere, the current position in the Timeline panel often moves to the right end (while playing) so I can't see what is going to play next.

Is there any hotkey to fast forward the timeline (not the current position) so the current position will be at the center. Or maybe there is an option to keep the current position always in the middle of the timeline?

Hold the Shift-Key pressed and move your mouse wheel to scroll the timeline horizontally. This works when not playing as well as when playing but only if the timeline is not auto-scrolling.
If you want to keep the playhead centered, go to Edit-Menu -> Preferences -> Timeline and select "Smooth Scroll" where it says "Timeline Playback Auto-Scrolling", see also the screenshot:
One more tip: the thin blue line marking the current position is called the playhead.


Transparent parts of image show up as black Sometimes I insert an image (PNG) and the background remains transparent, as intended.

Some other times I insert an image and the transparent background becomes black. This happens seemingly at random, but probably has some explanation.

How do I make sure the transparent background of an image remains transparent?

EXAMPLE

This PNG image (below) appears in Premiere with the transparent background in black.

I then used Paint.net to resize it (to 75%). It was again saved as PNG (below). The transparent background showed up correctly when I inserted this new, smaller image into Premiere.

It would seem that the only difference between the two PNG images is the size.

This is what these two images show up as in Premiere (with a white-ish snowflakes background).

The most likely thing would be that you are choosing different settings for the way the alpha channel is interpreted.  There are multiple options and some will not interpret it as transparent.  I believe there are 3 different choices if memory serves.  If it is actually defaulting to different settings, then I'm not sure what would result in that though.


Automatically speed up video portions with no voice I have recorded some video tutorials for our programming team. These consist of "live coding" exercises; basically, videos of me coding stuff. Thus, the video track is a screencast, and the audio track is consists of either my voice, or long periods of silence and/or clacking keys.

What I would like to do is to automatically speed up the silent and key-clacky portions of the video, while leaving the parts with voice intact. Unfortunately, I am a video editing novice. So, is there some well-known way to do that ? If not, is there some Python library (or C#/Java library even, I'm not married to Python) that can get me at least part of the way there ?

It might be possible through scene detection if your editor of choice allows for scene detection based on sound.  Alternately, since you are obviously handy with code, you could use a video editing library to write a program that would look for a threshold audio level to be exceeded and look for any long periods of time with no such peaks.  You could then apply speed changes between those timestamps.

The actual coding of something like that is really more of a programing question than a video production question, but it should be technically possible using that kind of a technique.  I'd recommend looking at libav or one of the similar types of windows libraries for manipulating AV files.


How to Achieve This Timelapse Effect I can't really explain it so I'm finding it hard to Google for tutorials. I was wondering how to get this effect:

Instagram Video

By using something like Photoshop CS6 or a freeware program. I'm familiar with using the timeline to create normal timelapses, just not ones where the previous images linger on. Am I right in guessing a lighten blending mode is used?

That is something called Starlapse. In short it is a form of time-lapse, as you use the same techniques to shoot it but you use a different method to produce the final video. there are many ways in doing this using different programs and plugins. All you need to do is do a search (in a very popular web search program that rhymes with "poodle" and there are hundreds of posts, tutorials, and videos on how to do this.

I do it myself and use https://www.markus-enzweiler.de/software/software.html simple and easy to use but you are limited to editing the images outside of the app. There are other options of using plugins in LightRoom, PhotoShop etc

Hope that answers your question


ASS subtitle - Different alignment at block and inner level I am trying to achieve an ASS subtitle that aligns the rectangular bounding block at the horizontal center of the window, while maintaining left-justification inside that block for multiline subtitle entries. Below is an ASCII art illustration,
+---------------------------------+
|           This is               |
|           what I want           |
+---------------------------------+

However, either specify Alignment in Style definition or using \a switch inside a piece of subtitle results in either entirely left-justified or centered line in the container.
+---------------------------------+
|Entirely left-justified          |
|        Entirely centered        |
+---------------------------------+

My apologies if I missed something obvious in the specification. I am also open to other text-based subtitle format that is capable of this and supported by ffmpeg.

If you're familiar with an ass file, you can position your text by using \pos(150,250).
Example:
Dialogue: 0,0:01:00.00,0:01:15.00,Default,,0,0,0,,{\fad(500,500)\pos(150,250)}{\i1}{\b1}Your Text

The first number is from the left, and the second one is from the top of the video.
An easier solution, rather than write each line yourself, is to download Aegisub to make the ass files for you.
Using Aegisub, you can drag the text lines to the position you need.


H.264 produced by ffmpeg from images has no duration I have a sequence of PNG files (3D renders) that I want to encode as an H.264 video @ 30fps.

I'm using the following command (I happen to be compositing a background under the renders):

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i bg.jpg -r 30 -i renders/frame_%04d.png -c:v libx264 -preset veryfast \
       -profile:v main -filter_complex overlay -shortest -r 30 -pix_fmt yuv420p -t 16 \
       video.h264

The resulting video plays in VLC, but I can't seek properly (always corrupts like no keyframes), it shows no duration, and it shows no elapsed time as it plays.

If I use ffprobe to analyze the result, I see this:

$ ffprobe video.h264
ffprobe version N-81995-gd790e48 Copyright (c) 2007-2016 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.3)
  configuration: --extra-libs=-ldl --prefix=/opt/ffmpeg --mandir=/usr/share/man --enable-avresample --disable-debug --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --disable-decoder=amrnb --disable-decoder=amrwb --enable-libpulse --enable-libfreetype --enable-gnutls --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libvorbis --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvpx --enable-libspeex --enable-libass --enable-avisynth --enable-libsoxr --enable-libxvid --enable-libvidstab --enable-libwavpack --enable-nvenc
  libavutil      55. 32.100 / 55. 32.100
  libavcodec     57. 61.103 / 57. 61.103
  libavformat    57. 52.100 / 57. 52.100
  libavdevice    57.  0.102 / 57.  0.102
  libavfilter     6. 64.100 /  6. 64.100
  libavresample   3.  0.  0 /  3.  0.  0
  libswscale      4.  1.100 /  4.  1.100
  libswresample   2.  2.100 /  2.  2.100
  libpostproc    54.  0.100 / 54.  0.100
Input #0, h264, from 'surround-view_front.h264':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (Main), yuv420p, 1920x1208, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 1200k tbn, 60 tbc

Why does that show Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A, and how do I fix it?

You're outputting to a raw bitstream. Usually, you want to output to a container like .mp4, .mov or .mkv.

H.264 raw bitstreams have no index and individual frames have no timestamps (PTS/DTS). The definitive way to estimate the duration is by counting the frames and dividing by the frame rate. Of course, this only holds for streams to be shown at a constant framerate.


What benefits can a pen tablet or control surface provide in video editing? I've been considering different directions to go to move away from a traditional mouse and keyboard setup while editing. I was initially looking at the Contour ShuttleXpress as a fairly inexpensive way to try out a control surface, but now having a Wacom Intuos looks attractive. It's my understanding that a tablet replaces your mouse, so would pairing a tablet with a control surface work well? Also, how does a tablet improve over a mouse? How important is size for the tablet, will the Intuos Small (6.2X3.9") be large enough? I've never used a control surface or a tablet while editing, so I'm just generally curious what the experience is like.

I am a filmmaker/photographer; I have the shuttlepro 2 and a wacom intuos5 pro small...The shuttlepro2 is twice as much as the express but I have found it to be incredibly useful - more buttons = more customizable keystrokes. And the larger size is more ergonomic which will help with the transition and gaining the 'muscle memory' so that its the natural and fastest thing to do. Aside from needing to click shift, option, or command, I can edit (adobe pr/ae) without using the keyboard at all. This will increase your efficiency like crazy.

I do not find myself using the wacom tablet for video editing, although I did try it...The cool thing is that you can set up the radial menu with like 8 commands/keystrokes etc - being able to 'right click' on the pen and have all of your most common commands in a floating menu is awesome...however I found myself not really liking the pen for editing purposes. I have a kensington trackballpro - is had a scroll wheel and four bottons, making it excellent for use in a timeline, and its also really ergonomic.

I had the intuos5 pro medium and swapped it for the small - unless you are artist that plans on using this for sketching, you do not need that much real estate. You can map the tablet to the whole screen or map portions of the tablet for the entire screen; similar to a mouse, its most natural to have it set so that without having to move more than your wrist you can roughly reach all corners of screen, again youll only end up using a small amount of the tablet unless you plan on doing things like digital art, hand lettering etc.

The tablet really shines with photo editing. it has taken my work and workflow speed to the next level. Applying local adjustments in Lr or Ps is natural and much faster. And the ability to feather effects with the weight of your stroke can make edits more natural much faster.


FFmpeg overlaying and blending videos I am trying to use FFmpeg to overlay one video on top of the other using an additive blend. One video is the actual video I want to transcode, the other is a ~10 second long video I want to put into one corner, sort of an animated watermark. The watermark video is some white animated stuff with a black background.

So far, I have tried something along these lines:

$ /d/ffmpeg/ffmpeg.exe -i actualvideo.mkv -i myoverlay.mp4 \
-filter_complex "[1:0] setsar=sar=1 [1sared]; [0:0][1sared] blend=all_mode='addition':repeatlast=1" \
test.mkv

The setsar seemed necessary as otherwise it would complain:

[Parsed_blend_0 @ 00000000043e0e40] First input link top parameters (size 1280x720, SAR 1:1) do not match the corresponding second input link bottom parameters (1280x720, SAR 0:1)

With the setsar there's no complaint, but the output video looks.. mostly pink. Both videos look fine when viewed on their own before I feed them into FFmpeg.

Any ideas? Am I doing something wrong?

I found a helpful post on stackoverflow that addresses this issue: https://stackoverflow.com/a/21400416/377875

Apparently, it's a problem with color space. Something like this works:

ffmpeg -i "$1" -i "$2" \
-filter_complex "[1:0] setsar=sar=1,format=rgba [1sared]; [0:0]format=rgba [0rgbd]; [0rgbd][1sared]blend=all_mode='addition':repeatlast=1:all_opacity=1,format=yuva422p10le" \
-c:v libx264 -preset slow -tune film -crf 19 \
-c:a aac -strict -2 -ac 2 -b:a 256k \
-pix_fmt yuv420p "$3"

(substitute $1 with your actual video, $2 with your overlay, and $3 with the output file name)


Is there something like nvenc for free codecs (VP8/9)? I'm new to video encoding. And I was looking at h264/265 and VP8/9.
I'd like to use VP8/9. But it seems like nobody except Google is pushing it.
I just want to know does someone else support VP8/9? Specefically is there a hardware acceleration for encoding.
And decoding VP9 on my Linux box looks very slow (when navigating in video it lags for 2sec, while vp8 is instant).

There is a hardware-accelerated VP8 encoder recently released by the University of Milan. Source and standalone binary for 64-bit Linux and  compute 3.5, 5.0 and 5.2 capable NVidia GPU cards available at https://github.com/Italtel-Unimi/libvpx

They say they have integrated the code into libav libs i.e. FFmpeg, but this hasn't been pushed into the FFmpeg master branch.


Can I use the videos marked as "youtube standard license" for a non profit video? I'm creating a video for my institution.

It's a scientific institution, so I suppose that the video can be considered no-profit (we don't make it to sell our products but to show our scientific project).

I already searched around for explanations about the youtube standard license, but it seems there is not much clear information on that: only vague posts ( google groups or yahoo answers ) in which there is not a clear reference to the term of use (which I'm not able to read as I'm not a lawyer), while there is much documentation on the CC BY license.

So my questions are:

can I use the videos marked as "youtube standard license" for this video, of course citing the source?
In case I can't, do you know any other place where I can take video I can use for this non commercial purpose of makning a scientific video to show the project?

I know you probably already found this link, but according to Yahoo, you will want to contact the Uploader before you try to use it. Thats what I would try. I don't think I would want my youtube videos just used by anyone who wanted to. Seems this person ran into that problem.

If a video is only using the Creative Commons License you may use it, but otherwise contact the YouTube user before you use it.

Good luck.


Is it possible to ripple edit Adobe Premier? Prior to using Adobe Premier, I used Sony Vegas as my primary video editing software. While using it, I have gotten accustomed to using a feature called ripple editing. When enabled, it allowed you to make changes to the video timeline such as deleting clips and it would snap the remaining video forward. The ripple effected all of the tracks to ensure the remaining part of the video is not out of sync. Is there an easy way to achieve this with Adobe Premier?

Thank You!

Yes, you can use the Ripple Edit Tool. See here (Tools panel and Options panel section)


Good technique to superimpose face into moving character in AfterEffects? I'm going to direct a music video for my band (I have experience in film production, direction and some video post-production) and I want to achieve the following effect:

Film the singer at a high FPS (with a phantom hd gold) and then slow it down substantially. Then, at the same location, film the singer actually singing the song, and then in post production superimposing his face (without it being slowed down) on his own body from the previous shot.
Final effect: his body and background will be moving in super slow motion but he will be singing the song at normal speed.

I'd prefer to do it in after effects since it's the software I have most experience with.

I know sometimes a similar effect is achieved by speeding up the song and the singer lip syncing to that, but in this case it would be impossible because I want film at around 1000fps and slow that down, so it would be too fast.

I wont move the camera and I know I have to take in account shadows and lighting in both takes so they match.

Any suggestions?

There is some substantial work that would go in an effect like that.

You'd have to first track the face of the slowed-down singer in 3D-space and apply a mesh to it, which sticks perfectly to his features.
Then, you'd want to rotoscope the normal-speed singer's face (which is going to take a lot of time alone) to then apply that pass with your tracked transform to the slowed-down background. You'd also have to match the change in shape of the head, such as when opening the jaw. This is not only applying to the face, but the whole head really.

(If I understand your vision correctly,) this is a high-end job that would take a few weeks for a professional compositor.

I would recommend you film the entire background in slow-motion, then shoot the singer in front of a green-screen so you don't have to rotoscope him out of the background. You can then simply key your singer in normal speed, track your slowed-down background (if there's movement in the camera) and place your singer on your background, applying the motion of the camera.
This method is not a walk in the park, but significantly easier than the approach above.

Hope I could help, have a great day :)


What are some things to know and learn about the Canon 550D (T2i) when shooting movies? I am working on using our 550D for shooting movies. What are some things I need to know and learn about the 550D before shooting with it?

Some things to be aware of when shooting video (this applies to most DSLRs):

Rolling Shutter

Because of the way the 550d records each frame you can end up with slanted video when combined with fast motion. This is because the camera recordes each frame line by line, so each line is recorded at a slightly different time causing a warped effect. Its not a problem for normal motion, but if you are doing moves like panning the camera quickly you will see the effect.

Recording Sound

The Canon 550d (and again most other DSLRs) dont have the best quality audio recording. This leads to two methods you can use to record audio for film work

1. External Recording

Most commonly, people will shoot using an external recorder like a Zoom H4n and then sync the audio to the video in post using software like Plural Eyes. The important thing to remember if you choose this method is to make sure you still have internal recording enabled on the 550d because you will need it as reference audio (there is never really any good reason to NOT record the internal audio, its always useful as a reference even if you dont intend on using the audio)

2.  Built-in Recording

The camera has a compressor built in so anything you plug into the line in jack will be running through the cameras compressor. The issue that can come from this is clipped audio if your audio suddenly jumps up in volume. Here is a good article going over recording sound specifically with a 550d and ways to avoid having your audio clipped.

Memory & Recording Time

A common problem with almost all the Canon DSLRs (not sure about the new ones coming out) is that they can only record around 12 minutes at a time. In my experience the amount is never exact. Its not a problem for any fictional work because its rare you would be shooting for longer than a few minutes at a time, but for documentary work (eg interviews) this can be a problem!

Its worth testing your memory cards before you shoot with them, I've had many experiences where some cards will record fine and others will stop recording after 5-15 seconds. Its always worth getting higher class memory cards which allow for faster transfer rates. Class 6 or Class 10 is often the standard choice for video recording (though the higher the class, the higher the price!)

Batteries

Shooting video chews through the battery life. For a single days shoot you would be very lucky if you didn't use more 3-4 batteries. Its always a good idea to have at least two batteries (ideally 3). That way when your battery dies you can use the spare battery while the other charges. But I wouldnt rely on this, sometime it takes longer for the battery to charge and you may not always have access to power depending on your location.

Good Resources

A good resource for DSLR film making is Phillip Bloom's website and also Vimeo's DSLR video school.

Good luck!


What can cause poor quality video in Canon point&shoot camera? I recorded some videos from my superzoom compact camera Canon Powershot SX150 IS. When I run these videos on camera itself, they run fine. But when I move them on PC and run it, I can see it being pixelate and gray framing many times.

I have tried it with Auto mode as well as M mode (where I can do all settings myself).

Am I missing some setting?
Or if I can repair these videos...

Are you dragging the videos and watching them in an editing program such as Final Cut or Premiere Pro? If so, it is probably because you need to log and capture and run them through 'Compressor' to convert the files to a suitable format (say ProRes(LT)..)... I am guessing you are just viewing them in a default viewer, which in that case, as mentioned above it may be due to expectation from watching them on a smaller, lower resolution lcd screen on the camera..Though, the camera you mentioned should output fairly decent video... Hope this helps.


What is the text commonly found at the end of documentaries called? In documentaries / semi-documentaries and even fake documentaries there's often text that comes on at the end showing some facts fading in and out, or where the people are now (depending on subject).

Is there a term for this element of a video? I tried searching for "end text in documentary" but couldn't really find anything except actual credits.

This might even be more on-topic at English.SE, but as far as I'm concerned that's definitely called an epilogue.

From Wikipedia:

  In many documentaries and biopics, the epilogue is text-based, explaining what happened to the subjects after the events covered in the film.


How to create super smooth slow motion clips in After Effects that will be edited in Premiere Pro I would like to make one of those 600fps slow motion clips that can are on YouTube. such as this

            . I know it can be done in AE but I cannot figure it out.

As 50ndr33 says, you need to shoot/capture at as high an FPS as possible. The more FPS the better the slow motion effect afterwards.

Kronos is also a great plugin, but as he also states - it has some problems when footage isn't linear. If that's the case, you should have look at Twixtor. It's a bit more advanced (and more expensive) but it's better at handling advanced remaps, and gives you pin-point control.


Davinci Resolve Fusion draw tail by track points I hope someone will understand my question.
This is my fusion clip right now

I want to draw a tail of this purple circle.
Can't understand which tool will help me.

Nodes:

I want something like this:

You can get that result with the trails node.  It echoes previous frames to make light streaks, smoke whips, and similar effects.  You could use a scale value of less than one to get the tail of the object to shrink toward the end.  Playing with the gain would make it fade out with age.  For a sharp tail, like the ones in your example, leave the blur size at zero.

Be careful though, trails is a resource-hungry node which isn't optimized well.  It's an easy, direct way to get the result you're after, and the first one that comes to my mind, but it's probably not the most efficient.  Also, it requires the playhead to be moving, and skipping around on the timeline will give you weird results, which is what the "reset" button is for.  Play around with it a little, and you'll see what I mean.

One final tip: use small value increments.  Hold the alt/option key when you're adjusting parameters with trails to do fine adjustment, because the results stack exponentially.


What setup do I need to record and render at the same time? I need help figuring out how to record while my computer is rendering.

I am very new to video editing, so this is my current workflow.  First, I record footage using Fraps (30 fps, 1080p, .avi). I usually get several hours worth.  Then I use Adobe Premiere CC and Media Encoder to cut the video into 20 minutes chunks. I queue all the videos up in Media Encoder (h.264, mp4, 1080p, 30fps).

Each video takes about 30 minutes to render (intel 2600k. dual amd 6950s, 16 gb ram). My source video is on a 2 TB HDD and the destination is a separate 1 TB HDD.

Here is my problem.  While rendering, the computer can't be used for much else since my CPU usage is capped.  My GPU doesn't seem to be used at all (as I understand, h.264 encoding is almost all CPU based).

How can I change my setup so that I can record more video while the machine is rendering away? In addition to my PC, I have a NAS available, a Macbook Retina Pro (2012, 16gb ram), and two external HDD cages. I think I need to come up with a setup where I can record on one machine and render with the other, but I don't know if this is viable or which HDD to record video to in that situation (is recording to NAS common? or do I make the other computer's HDD a share drive? record to external drive and move it around?)

There are a lot of unknowns for me here and I would just like to know what a "normal" setup is for using one computer to record and another to render.  I am on a gigabit LAN with my NAS and laptop, but the laptop only has wireless connectivity.

I would just render my videos over-night, but that is when I upload to Youtube, as that takes many hours.

I assume you record video game footage?
Recording and rendering on one machine is something I wouldn't recommend with a regular PC if you play modern games that take a lot of your CPU and GPU resources.

I usually recommend getting an SSD but in this case it seems you are heavily CPU limited.
You could theoretically encode on the GPU but I'm not sure if that will ease the workload all that much to be able to play games as you need your GPU to play games aswell and usually GPU encoding produces worse results than CPU encoding because of the way the codec is implemented for GPU encoding.

What I would do in your case is either render on your MacBook, rendering over the network shouldn't be too bad in this case as your MacBook will be CPU limited aswell.
Or you don't do the final encode of your videos with Premiere/AME but use a different h264 encoder called x264 which is a LOT easier on the CPU and with the right settings could potentially used while you play games. x264 is by far the fastest and most efficient h264 encoder today.

You would first render your cut videos in a lossless codec that doesn't takes very little CPU usage but be sure to not render to the disk that your game runs on, as a lossless codec will be very I/O heavy.

Alternatively if all you do is cut your videos in to 20 min pieces without any other creative decisions other than splitting up your videos at every 20min interval you could automate everything and ditch Premiere all together and just use FFmpeg which also integrates x264 so you can cut your videos automatically there and encode to h264 all at the same time.

You could theoretically also upload automatically after rendering if you are bit into programming and do all at night without supervising anything. That would free your pc up for recording during day. That can of course only work if you don't already need all night to upload the encoded videos.

There might be more viable solutions to your problems but that would need a bit more info from you. What do you record? What are you doing in Premiere exactly to the videos other than cutting? What are the specs of your computer?


What does the `-context` parameter mean when using FFV1 in ffmpeg In the docs for FFV1 there's a parameter -context, which can be set to 'small' or 'large'. That's all the documentation I can find.

While I'm at it, what are the relative benefits of the different encoders: Golomb Rice vs Range Coder?

The coder here refers to the process used for entropy coding the error residuals. The context size sets how many neighbouring residuals are considered in this process.

As to the relative benefits, have no particular experience here, but since this is a lossless process, the tradeoff will be between time, size and resource use. This latter question is better suited for https://dsp.stackexchange.com/


How to speed up/slow down audio along with video? I just finished watching this nice little YouTube tutorial that gives one a bit more control on speeding up or slowing down PARTS of video (as opposed to just slowing down the whole thing) using time remapping, markers (splitting markers), etc. All really quite handy and gives more control. Caveat is that I can't figure out how to make it apply the slow-down/speed-up to the audio as well. If I don't use markers and time remapping and just do the right-click and select speed/duration that will apply it to the whole video... and audio. But that is not what I want.

I have a Subclip in my Timeline Monitor. It comes with Video Track and Audio Track:

When I speed up a SEGMENT of my video using "add/remove keyframe" in "Time Remapping>Speed" Effect Controls, it changes the duration of the video but not audio. So I end up with this:

I need to change video speed three times.

From the very beginning the speed is 400%.
In the middle the speed decreases to 200% for some seconds.
After that speed decreases to 100% till the end of the video.

And I want the audio changes its speed along with the video. I speed up/speed down video, so the audio do the same. The best example of how an audio should fit with a video is to run a video in MPC-HC (Media Player Classic) and speed it up or down by Ctrl + arrow-up/ Ctrl + arrow-down. I want to achieve the same effect in Adobe PP CC.

Is there a way that I can use time remapping on video and have the audio remapped in sync with the video? Or is there some other way to do it? Any pointers would be appreciated.

Unfortunately, kazanaki's answer is your only choice.

There are multiple ways to change the speed of a clip in premiere, namely:

The Speed/Duration panel that can be access via the context menu of a clip (right-click).
The Rate Stretch Tool (Shortcut R)
Time remapping using keyframes.

The first two do the same thing, that is change the speed of an entire clip by a constant amount. They are also intertwined, so if you change the speed and duration of a clip using the Rate Stretch Tool, the new values will also appear in the Speed/Duration panel.

Time remapping works differently from those tools, as it allows for speed changes over time. That is, you can set keyframes for 400%, 200% and 100% speed (as in your example) and Premiere will interpolate between those keyframes, creating a smooth speed transition. However, this has no effect on the audio stream of the clip. From the documentation:

  When you vary the speed of a clip with linked audio and video, the
  audio remains linked to the video, but remains at 100% speed. The
  audio does not remain synchronized with the video.

Source

I don't know if there is a reason why Adobe has designed it this way (I assume there are technical reasons for this), but at the moment there is no way to adjust audio speed alongside a video using time remapping.

If this behaviour bothers you, you can always write up a Feature Request for Adobe to consider for future releases of the software.

An alternative would be to cut your audio in Adobe Audition and use a Dynamic Link to import it back into your Premiere Pro projekt. If I recall correctly, adjusting the audio alongside the video as described above is also possible in After Effects, but don't quote me on that ...


Images to video using FFMPEG I am writing as follows for a sequence of images like image1.png, image2.png, image3.png … image1234.png. My code for that is:

ffmpeg -framerate5 -start number 1 -i ".\Image%4d.png" -pix_fmt yuv420p text.mp4

But what pattern is needed for 0001.png, 0004.png, 0007.png, 0010.png, 0013.png, 0016.png, 0019.png?

Sequential series

1.png

%d.png

01.png

%02d.png

001.png

%03d.png

0001.png

%04d.png

image0001.png

image%04d.png

Non sequential series

If they image inputs are not sequential then use the glob wildcard:

ffmpeg -framerate 5 -pattern_type glob -i "*.png" output.mp4

The glob pattern may not be supported by Windows. In that case rename your images or use cat:

cat *.png | ffmpeg -framerate 5 -i - output.mp4

See the image demuxer documentation for more info.


How do I make something sound "cloudy" as though my ears are plugged using Ableton Live? I'm working on a song that I'd like to have drums similar to Radiohead's "Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors." I love the way the bass kick sounds like it's cloudy, as though I were hearing it through plugged ears. The contrast it has with the snare-like clicks is perfect.

What effects or equalizer settings in Ableton Live would create a similar sound? I spent some time messing with combinations of EQ, compression and other things that might destruct or squash the sound the right way, but to no avail.

Granted, I could just sample the song, but I'd much rather have my own version so I can tweak it to my heart's content.

Do you have your kick on a separate track? If so, there is this cool plugin that will trigger a midi note depending on the sound input. You could use that to trigger a synth, or your own sample as Robert Harvey says.

As for transforming this sound:

First thing you notice is that there is a delay in the left channel. This reduces the impact as the sound is not heard simultaeously in both ears.

Second, the lows are cut. I'm guessing under 100hz things are not really happening. It's probably boosted a bit at 120Hz. Youtube is also having an affect on this. You should test this yourself with a high quality copy of this song in an analyser. AL (8?) has a pretty good one.

Third is there are not many highs. If your kick is a real drum kick, you'll need to eq the sound of the drum skin.

Fourth is some kind of FX: Maybe bit reduction and possibly some chorus. There are many ways to acheive this. If you want something warmer, you could also use some distortion.

However, all of this should really be applied reverse. At least the delay in the left ear should be added last so that the chorus (used to smooth out the harshness of bit reduction) does not sound like a "CHORUS".

They are using a constant delay on the drum kit. It sounds like a right-left-right delay. No center. AL has some FX for this. There is ping pong delay and simple delay. I'm not sure which one allows for panning (I'm not in the studio). But you'd want to delay back and forth between right and left channels with just enough feedback to only have three repetitions. Also the falloff (rate the sound volume diminishes) should be rather low, so that you continue to hear each successive delay clearly, rather that it getting quieter.

The beginning of the track, they've mutted the drum track on and off. It sounds like the kick and snare are being hit at the same time. You can automate this with envelopes in AL. This gives the impression that there is no delay and that the kick is sort of a double hit or has some kind of a reverse reverb on it.

If you want to make something sound like your ears are plugged, you'd need to cut out a lot of the mid-range and high-end, as that is what is blocked. Considerable low-end still gets though. Though, I don't think that is exactly the sound you want judging from your example.


Import Sony FS5 MXF into CS5.5? Long story short, I've been given some footage from a Sony FS5 which is in MXF. Like anything Sony working with this stuff is a nightmare. Nothing I've tried can open these files. People keep saying to just use Content Browser in PPro to import but even with file structure straight off the card I get a "generic error".

Sony's own Raw Viewer doesn't work either, it detects the MXF files but won't play any of them much less transcode. They have a RAW plugin on their site but it's only for CS6 and up.

Can anyone help please??

You've hit the very unfortunate planned obsolescence issue.  Adobe only updates their software for a limited amount of time, so when working in RAW formats, you eventually hit a point where the old software simply will not work with the footage from new cameras anymore.

Your options are unfortunately a bit limited.  You can either update to a newer version of your editing software or use a different software for transcoding.  I'm not particularly familiar with Sony's workflow as I use an Ursa Mini (which uses CinemaDNG), but I'd suspect there to be at least a few options available for ingesting and transcoding MXF as Sony is a significant enough player in the space.

Looking at the documentation for Black Magic's DaVinci Resolve, it looks like you might be able to use that.  I can see from their documentation that MXF is a container format, so it's going to largely depend on what the video format within the MXF is, but DaVinci Resolve has a pretty long list of supported MXF codecs.  If it does support it, Resolve has a free version that could likely be used to do your transcode for you.  In the beta of Resolve 14, you can simply add the files to a project, go to Media Management (under the File menu) and it will let you transcode all videos in the project to another format of your choice.


HDMI Compressed vs Uncompressed mode What is the difference between HDMI compressed and uncompressed modes? My understanding is that in compressed mode the TV handles the decoding. Is this right?

The TV still has to translate the color information and format, so there is, in effect, still some decoding on the TV.  The difference is that it is uncompressed.  The output from the device matches whatever the source captured, in whatever image format the source uses, but there is no loss of detail from applying compression.

Compressed requires vastly lower data rates and is easier to transfer to the TV, but the quality is substantially lower.  Uncompressed requires a high quality source and a very fast data connection, but also provides the highest possible quality as the signal is not compressed with lossy compression schemes.


Tips to make professional looking hand-held videos using smart phones? Phone Model I have: Nokia 808 PureView
fps available: 15, 24, 25 30
720p & 1080p videos can be recorded using this phone.

I am trying to make videos using hand-held techniques. But whatever I shoot has an amateur feel attached to it. Any tips/techniques to shoot good professional looking videos.

Don't shoot handheld and don't use a phone.

Baring that, use stabilization such as a steadicam or steadicam jr (if using a tripod really isn't an option), use lots of well controlled lighting (phone cameras suck at low light) and plan your shots out very carefully.  Use external audio recording rather than the phone's built in mic and do a lot of grading of the color in post.  By the time all is said and done, getting a better camera is likely a cheaper option for the most bang for your buck, though any camera would benefit from the other mentioned options.

It is exceptionally hard to get a professional quality result out of using a phone camera.  There is a very valid reason that most decent video camera costs more than your average smartphone, and the camera in a smart phone is a very small portion of the actual cost of the phone.

There have been projects where smartphones were used to produce professional results, but these have more been marketing gimmicks done by experienced professionals and it made their lives more challenging rather than easier.  Trying to get similar results without a lot of experience is going to be quite challenging.


Why my Zapcode is with low resolution? I developed a Zapcode and follow the tactics to have a video with good resolution, I've done a video in MP4 and FLV, both rendered in the After Effects, but remains at low resolution. Here is my Zapcode. What can I do to fix this?

The Zapcode Creator compresses the video further in order to reduce download size of the video and so that it will run in an AR camera view on lower end devices. This means that it will be lower resolution than what you have uploaded.

If you like you can email us at support@zappar.com and we can take a look at your Zapcode and video to see if there's any specific suggestions we can give.

Hope that helps!


Budget Mandalorian backgrounds If I have a projector, an iphone with (basic) motion tracking, and a fast-ish computer running Unreal or something similar, has anyone figured out a way to make Mandalorian-style responsive backdrops on a tiny budget, by using the iPhone’s motion tracking, or something similar? Seems like it might be possible soon?

Update - this is the closest thing I've found, but you need to use Unreal and have a fast graphics card:


Help with FFmpeg keyframe command I just discover FFmpeg, and I was using it to find keyframes.

I lost the command line due to the power outage.
I'm searching for a command line that produce the following output.
Can you help me with a command line that would generate this test.txt file?

frame|key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=1.441711|pict_type=I
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.483411|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.525122|pict_type=P
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.566833|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.608544|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.650244|pict_type=P
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.691956|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.733667|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.775378|pict_type=P
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.817078|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.858789|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.900500|pict_type=P
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.942211|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=1.983911|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=2.025622|pict_type=P
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=2.067333|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=2.109044|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=2.150744|pict_type=P
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=2.192456|pict_type=B
frame|key_frame=0|pkt_pts_time=2.234167|pict_type=B

I have some of the command line, but it is not complete, so if anyone can help me to complete it, it would be much appreciated.

ffmpeg -i input_file.m2ts frame=key_frame,pkt_pts_time,pict_type (missing option directive ?) > file_output.txt

I believe you are referring to ffprobe:

ffprobe -of compact -show_entries frame=key_frame,pkt_pts_time,pict_type INPUT_FILE > OUT

You can use -sections to get an overview of what information is available:

ffprobe -sections INPUT_FILE


How to add automatically a video ending? Long story short, for internal trading videos updates i need to add a predone video cut to a lot of old videos. I need a way to not having to pass everyone one by one by premiere. Any software that could do that?

Quicktime in Apple has a trim and drop edit function built into the player app.
You just copy your footage in the time line and drop it into the old footage in the right place. Pretty useful for a light edit.


How do I recreate this bouncy effect? I was wondering how this 'bouncy' effect is done when the computer comes up. Is it with keyframes or an expression? Has it a specific name? I have searched for bouncy effect tutorials but couldn't find one that explains this effect.

bouncy effect video example

This is called "Inertial Bounce" and has a handy expression to do all the work!

https://gist.github.com/animoplex/aafd6a157282351c8dfeea385d969ef2

amp = 5.0; freq = 2.0; decay = 4.0;

n = 0;
if (numKeys > 0) {
  n = nearestKey(time).index;
  if (key(n).time > time) { n--; }
}
if (n == 0) { t = 0; }
else { t = time - key(n).time; }
if (n > 0 && t < 1) {
  v = velocityAtTime(key(n).time - thisComp.frameDuration/10);
  value + v*(amp/100)*Math.sin(freq*t*2*Math.PI)/Math.exp(decay*t);
}
else { value; }

Here's a quick video tutorial as well:

Hope this helps you out!


Reduce render file size in After Effects CC 2017 I'm using Adobe After Effects CC 2017 and I want to reduce the render file size. However, I Googled all day and I cannot find any for CC 2017. All of them says that change the format to H.264 but we cannot do that in CC 2017. Please help me.

To render H.264 it's actually very easy.

From your Project window, select the sequence you wish to render.
Right click->Export Media (or File->Export Media)
In the Video tab, select H.264 for format

Then, in the basic video settings below, you can change to smaller-than-original resolution, low bit rates, etc.

If you are trying to export a Quicktime file that uses H.264, that's much more challenging.  When you select Quicktime, Premiere Pro gives you a useless menu of Presets that were relevant for about six months during the early 1990s.  Ignore all of them, as they are stupid.  Instead, look down to where there's a Video Codec selector.  Click on that and you'll see tons of options, including H.264.


Problem with colors of camstudio recorded video I am using windows 7 and try to capture a video of my screen using camstudio 2.7. I am using camstudio lossless codec v1.5. The problem is that colors in my recorded video are inverted somehow. For example blue color is red. How I can repair this. I want just normal screen video.

You might want to check the recording setting, maybe a non-standard color space is being used or the video is simply being interpreted falsely by your video player.
Try to play it with a different player.

If thats not the issue you should double check the record setting you are using for this codec or maybe change the codec you are recording with.


Simple video animation for teaching purpose I am teacher , I am teaching web technologies and programming languages ,sometimes i need explain some technologies by some animation .
here is an example https://vimeo.com/113530912

i wants know what techniques used in this like video and what best way to start.

In the example given, motion graphics techniques are used. Motion graphics consists of Graphic Design and Animation, of course. In order to create something like that, you need a tool which includes typography, color and animation features, but actually it's key to handle and process all of your design assets, like flow charts, icons, images or backdrops, which created in other applications with animation in mind.

In general you can do this in many 2D animation tools, but In terms of flexibility and speed, I suggest you to use Adobe After Effects in combination with Illustrator or Photoshop. Almost every image and vector format is supported, so in this you don't have to deal with technical limitations. Also It's layer based and for this reason easy to learn for this kind of animation work.


Why not filming computer or TV screens? I see this all the time: a character is doing something on a computer or watching TV. Instead of filming the actual content of the screen, they film the scene with a fixed camera and add a layer with the content they want to show during post production.

Here is an example (from a TV series named Underemployed, Season 1 episode 1 at 18:42).

In this case, you can see that the perpective correction is wrong (the bottom right corner doesn't match the actual corner of the screen), and I'm really wondering what I'm looking at. It looks like a deformed iPad application displayed on a cheap PC, I really don't know.

What kind of problems occur when you film an LCD ? Is it a technical issue, or is there another problem I'm not thinking of ? Maybe a logistic problem (like.. the actor doesn't know how to use a computer, or they should synchronize the actors play with the content played on the TV..).

There are several factors that comes to play with recording computer screens.

As filzilla already mentions, sync is a major factor. In the old days CRT monitors was very challenging to film even with sync-locking. Depending on if you filmed on silver or on video you did get different results. With the exception of LED screens, LCDs also offer sync problems.
The other factor is light conditions. For movie scene you usually have a large amount of light which a computer screen is unable to produce - so the screen turns very dark. You also get problems with color-correction/white-balance as the monitor typically have a different color temperature than the lights used to lit the scene.
The third factor is of more recent nature and has to do with the nature of LCD screen and it's polarization, referring to the limited angle they are visible within. You will get "gradient" effects and on more poor screens also have limited visibility from the sides, top and bottom.
Moiré can be a problem. For video this isn't such a big problem because the light coming from the screen will blend the pixels. Unless you have a high resolution camera filming in low(er) light conditions, or are filming close-up (but not so close that you can actually see the screen pixels), the camera won't be able to separate the individual pixels. For movie cameras this is more present though due the higher resolutions and the requirement to light conditions.
Then there is content synchronization with the actor's interactions or the scene in general, the potential of typos, wrong clicks, having to reset for each take and so forth.

It's more easy to put in a video in post which you can color correct and adjust, synchronize and so forth to the movie.

The process isn't very complicated. The computer screen is often recorded with a green or blue backdrop to eliminate the need for mask/matte rotoscoping. You just track the corners of the inner part of the screen and drop in a keyed replacement for the screen.

There are plugins too that do a pretty decent job automating this process (or instance the Mocha AE and its planar tracking).


Why does 8K have 16 times the pixels compared to 1080p? Considering 2K = 1440p, has twice the pixels compared to 1080p, 4k has four times as many, why does 8k not follow this trend?

First off, 2K is not 1440p, it is 2048 x 1080p.  4K is 4096 x 2160p.  (Note that UHD = 3840 x 2160p...4K and UHD are like US and Canadian dollars--they are both dollars, but they have different values.)

It's simple math: when you have a straight line and you make it twice as long, the new length is 2x the original length.  When you have a rectangular area and you double both the length and the width in order to keep the same aspect ratio, the new area = (2L) * (2W) = 4 * (L*W)

When you double something twice, you do it again:

2*(2L) * 2*(2W) = 4 * 4 * (L*W) = 16 * (L * W)


Changing QuickTime Conversion Default Settings for export We recently just switched our production to anamorphic (SD) widescreen (720x486) and we're running into some issues getting our videos to export from Final Cut Pro (version 6) at the right size.

To get things looking correctly, our current workflow is to

Go to Export->Using QuickTime Conversion.
Then from there, leaving the "Use" dropdown on "Default Settings", we click [Options], then the [Size] button from the Movie Settings box and finally,
Change the Dimensions dropdown from the current Compressor native (apparently the default setting, which has dimensions of 854x480) to NTSC 720 x 486 16:9.

See screenshot below:

This is obviously a very tedious process to repeat for every video we want to export. Is there some way we can change the default settings (or something to that effect) so that it exports at that size as the default? While the Export Using QuickTime Conversion works well after you change that, if there's another simpler workaround, I'd likely be open to considering it!

Why not set your sequence settings in final cut to the desired resolution and aspect ratio before beginning a project? Then you will just have to select "export to QuickTime" without having to select all the options each time.


Which settings • preferences • preset to use in Adobe Premiere when exporting in QuickTime (.mov) format to avoid lines? My workflow:

Record footage on iPhone
Copy to Mac
Add to Adobe Premiere
When dragging iPhone clips "change sequence settings"
Edit / Cut / Transitions / all that fancy stuff
Nest clips
Speed / Duration to something "instagram-able" (say 25 seconds)
Speed keyframes so initially and on exit it's in real-life speed
Add some music
Export media as QuickTime (.mov) so that later I can synchronise with iPhone
Set maximum bitrate to something really big (30Mbps) so that quality is preserved
Post to Instagram (1 hour of effort for each post)

Now...

What am I doing wrong?

What switch / option / settings / preferences would allow me to avoid... (see image above for a still frame)

Looks like you have interlaced turned on. Try a different method of frame blending


What ffmpeg/avconv format and container will Adobe Premiere Pro accept, out-of-box? All of these converted, but Premiere Pro only loads the audio.  I use Ctrl-I to import the videos, and they come up as waveforms, and can only be placed on audio tracks.

These examples use avconv, but I also have ffmpeg, and don't really care which as long as it works  :-)

avconv -i v1raw.AVI  -c:a copy -c:v mpeg2video  v1conv.mpeg
avconv -i v1raw.AVI  -c:a copy -c:v mpeg2video  v1conv.avi
avconv -i v1raw.AVI  -c:a copy -c:v mpeg4  v1conv.m4v
avconv -i v1conv.avi  -c:a copy -c:v copy  v1conv_copy.mpeg

Here's the data for my input file (incase it helps).

Input #0, avi, from 'v1raw.AVI':
  Duration: 00:05:28.53, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 9592 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: h264 (Main), yuv420p, 1920x1080, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 30 tbn, 60 tbc
    Stream #0.1: Audio: adpcm_ms, 44100 Hz, 1 channels, s16, 176 kb/s

And my available video encoding formats from avconv.

a64multi, a64multi5, asv1, asv2, bmp, cljr, dnxhd, dpx,
dvvideo, ffv1, ffvhuff, flashsv, flv, gif, h261, h263, h263p,
huffyuv, jpegls, libdirac, libschroedinger, libtheora, libvpx,
libx264, libxvid, ljpeg, mjpeg, mpeg1video, mpeg2video,
mpeg4, msmpeg4, msmpeg4v2, pam, pbm, pcx, pgm, pgmyuv, png,
ppm, qtrle, rawvideo, roqvideo, rv10, rv20, sgi, snow, svq1

see full codec info

I'd be happy to post anything else that has the slightest chance of helping.

Premiere Pro CS5 should be able to import H.264 video, IIRC, however it may be having trouble with the audio and/or container format. With ffmpeg try re-muxing the video stream without the audio:

ffmpeg -i input -an -codec:v copy output.mp4 -an -codec:v copy output.avi

If both output.mp4 and output.avi work then we know that the issue lies with the audio (although H.264 with b-frames in AVI probably isn't a great idea). You can re-encode the audio and keep the video:

ffmpeg -i input -codec:v copy -codec:a pcm_s16le output.avi

If the first command does not work with Premiere, then you may need to re-encode. This is a good use case for an editor friendly, lossless intermediate file:

ffmpeg -i input -codec:v utvideo -codec:a pcm_s16le output.avi

Close Premiere, install Ut Video (scroll to the bottom of the page), open Premiere, and import your video. You can do your editing, and then export to your final format using the crappy Adobe Media Encoder, or export to another lossless file, and then use ffmpeg to provide whatever you need. Alternatively, if you're using Windows you can use Debugmode FrameServer and encode directly with ffmpeg from Premiere. See How to encode with ffmpeg from Adobe Premiere Pro for instructions.

If you need a recent ffmpeg for Windows see Zeranoe FFmpeg builds.


Convert video to 10 bit images I have a video with these info:

Format : MKV
Codec : HEVC (h.265)
Bit depth : 10 bits

How can I get 10-bit frame grabs from it using ffmpeg?

To preserve as much detail as possible, convert it to a 16-bit TIFF, eg:
ffmpeg -i "DF HDR Sampler.mp4" -pix_fmt rgb48 _Frames/out%05d.tiff

Example from Digital Foundry's GT Sport HEVC 10-bit H.265 video at https://www.digitalfoundry.net/2017-10-17-free-download-gran-turismo-sport-hdr-sampler

Before (16-bit TIFF framedump, untouched, to 8-bit ProPhoto RGB)

After (16-bit TIFF framedump, HDR to SDR in Photoshop(eg. Curves and Vibrance adjustments), 8-bit ProPhoto RGB)


Is there standard protocol or way for frameserving? The intended worklflow is following:

my program produces 1080p frames (possibly not constantly if picture isn't
changing) 30 or 60 fps
some external program captures them locally
overlays on some other video
saves locally (infinite playable video) or sends to youtube-like service real-time

I've tried to find some ways for the 1st step to save video real-time in small chunks like in web DASH protocol, but now I think just frameserving is better for exchanging between 2 programs on one computer.

I'm thinking of using ffmpeg's libav api in my program. Seems real after trying.

Some standard way for saving encoded infinite video stream (so that one could simultaneously play or transmit it) is still needed in the 4th step, though. See this question.

2nd and 3rd steps are likely solvable with ffmpeg.

So for the 1st step is there any standard/widely supported (by recieving processing software) format for frameserving?
Thanks for any help!

Have you looked at OBS Studio?  It sounds like it can do all four of your steps for you, and it's free and open-source too.  If not, then it could also just do step 1, depending on what your original video source is.  OBS can use these sources:

Webpages
Displays/monitors
Video games
Local files

Text files

Webcams & video capture devices
Windows on your computer
A few others, like audio, plain colors, images, and slide shows


Two videos on image background I am sort of new to this. I am trying to create an output video using two videos and a background image.

 With a bit of gap around the videos and Video A having a larger scale than Video B. And, it should end at Video A's duration. Therefore, Video B should be cropped to Video A's duration.

This is what I have managed to do so far:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i Image.jpg -i Test1.mp4 -filter_complex "overlay=(W-w)/2:shortest=1" Output.mp4

ffmpeg -i Test1.mp4 -i Test1.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v]xstack=inputs=2:layout=0_0|w0_h0[v]" -map "[v]" -map 1:a Output.mp4

I managed to solve this after some pondering.

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i Image.jpg -i Test1.mp4 -i Test2.mp4 -filter_complex "[2:v]tpad=stop=-1:stop_mode=clone[v2]; [1:v]scale=640-20:360-20[a]; [v2]scale=320-20:180-20[b]; [0:v][a]overlay=10:(main_h/2)-(overlay_h/2):shortest=1[c]; [c][b]overlay=main_w-overlay_w-10:(main_h/2)-(overlay_h/2)[video]" -shortest -map "[video]" -map 1:a -vsync 2 Output.mp4


Extract key frame from video with ffmpeg I have a need to generate a thumbnail for videos for a web application and I am currently doing that with this command:

ffmpeg -ss <seconds> -i <input file> -vframes 1 -y <output file>

Pretty basic, and does the job. But, of course, sometimes the frames aren't very "interesting".

For example, sometimes the video has faded to black as the scene changes, or it could be something which is somewhat boring like credits rolling or similar.

I need some sort of algorithmic way to extract something interesting from the video and essentially filter out the boring bits.

Is there anything in FFmpeg that might be able to make this easier?

If not, then I will need to collect a number of frames and process them outside of FFmpeg; likely using PHP. As a side note, if anyone has any existing code that does this, it would be super helpful!

Many thanks

No ffmpeg code can identify interesting frames. At most, there are filters which detect representative frames and filters which identify frames with a scene change. So, at best, there's a thumbnail filter for this, sort of. It can't detect "interesting" frames but it detects representative frames. So, frames from the middle of fades should be out.

Syntax is

ffmpeg -ss 50 -i in.avi -vf thumbnail=300 -vsync 0 thumbs%d.png

This will pick one representative frame from each batch of 300 consecutive frames.


How do I create this effect of instantaneous typing in a video? I have seen in many videos where I see a cursor blinking and then something(maybe the name of a person) is typed out in the video producing an effect of the thing being instantaneously typed out.How do I create this effect?I use Videopad Video Editor and MS PowerPoint.Is it possible to do this using these softwares?If not,please suggest some alternatives.

See this video at 2:18 sec for example-

            .

Thanks a lot in advance.

Sony Vegas Pro comes bundled with NewBlue Titler plugin which has a 'Type On' transition preset which does this automatically. After Effects can do this as well: see this tutorial.

Basically, this can be done manually in any program in which one can animate masks. In short, in one frame the mask shape extends till the edge of the currently revealed letters. It is keyframed to hold that shape till one frame before you are ready to reveal the next letter. On that next frame, you expand the mask to uncover the new character.


Best way to capture audio at an event I am getting starting with video and I have a question about audio. I am going to be doing my first event (wedding) where audio is going to be critical. I have done other shoots, where the audio was not as important.
I have a Zoom H1 Recorder. There is going to be someone at the event taking care of sound, mics, etc.

Should I see if the sound guy will give me a 3.5mm output? I could then use that as an input to the Zoom H1 and record based on that.

Disadvantage: If one of the mics is off/disconnected, I wouldn't
get any audio?

Should I place the Zoom H1 in the room somewhere or attach it to the camera?

Disadvantage: Not as good audio quality as what you could get from the mics?

What is the best way to get good quality, reliable audio?

You'll get the best audio by connecting directly to the board the sound guy is using. As you mentioned, the risk involved there is that you lean heavily on the sound guy and hope he doesn't screw up.

If it's an option (depending on what kind of setup he has), sometimes he can record all the audio to a CD for you. This would almost certainly be possible if the wedding is being held in a church or similar venue with a permanent sound booth setup. If that's possible, have him record his audio to a CD (which he can give to you at the end of the day) and use the H1 elsewhere in the room.

Slight side note on this: you might also be able to get a smartphone app that lets you record in through the 3.5mm headphone jack of the phone, freeing up your H1 to use the external mics.

If you do want to keep the H1 separate from the sound board (and recording to a CD isn't an option), I'd try and find a good place in the venue to stick it. Putting it directly on your camera is an option but can be risky as it could pick up whatever noise you/your camera makes throughout the event. I usually try to keep my audio recorder/mics a slight distance from myself/camera so that I don't influence the recording at all. Sometimes it's possible to stick it very close to the bride/groom - tape it under a podium, hide it behind a bouquet, etc. It all really depends on what the actual stage setup looks like.


Syncing Audio and Video I have am doing a video recording podcast.

I am recording the audio with Audacity with my 4 Shure mics hooked up into my Clarett 4pre USB.

I am recording the video with OBS Studio a Cannon Vixia GF 40.

I plan on editing the audio and video in Premiere Pro. But I am worried about having it synced up and staying synced.  Any ideas?

What hz should I use for audio?

I do not fully understand if you intend to transmit live or not. Because you are using OBS which sounds like you want to go live, but at the same time you say you want to use Premiere to edit, which sounds like you want to edit and then publish.

If you want to record, edit and then publish, probably the best option is letting the Vixia camera record live audio and use it as a reference for Premiere to detect some of it and automatically sync with the new audio track.

If you are recording live, OBS has one feature to synk the delayed audio or video. Search "OBS Audio delay"

Regarding the question of the frequency... it depends on several factors. The main factor is output format+platform.

For example, Youtube recommends 44.1 kHz 24 bits for music videos. But accept 48 and 96 kHz.

There is some debate if 96kHz is even perceptible for humans or not.


How to automatically fix lighting conditions in different shots in a timelapse? I'm taking a timelapse with 30 minutes between each picture. Around 55 pictures, that all need to match their lighting conditions. Around 40 or so are already the same, but is there an automatic  way to match the last 15?

There are plugins that adjust exposure over time to reduce flickering in timelapses - GBDeflicker works well. (But it won't change night to day or anything like that).
See also:
Correcting exposure flickering in time-lapse footage "in post"


random copied and being truly random I have a comp...
one null with an expression slider
and the rest are image layers.
the null with this expression, controls a random animation of the images beneath the null:

Math.abs(Math.round(wiggle(4, thisComp.numLayers-2)))+2

each image layer has this expression attached to the opacity:

if (thisComp.layer("Control").effect("Slider Control")(1) == index) 100 else 0

it all works great BUT...

say I duplicate that random comp 20 times... but matte each duplication with a separate puzzle shape. thus giving me a puzzle comprised of the 20 shapes all spiting out a random frame from that comp.
How do I make the twenty duplications behave random of each other?
at the moment, they are all random in unison.

cheers

r

The random number generator in AE seems to be linked to the layer index, but generates the same results for every composition. To demonstrate here's a comp with a shape layer where the vertices of the shape are generated by the wiggle() function:

Here's the expression:

var newPath = [];
for (var i=0; i<=160; i++){
    x = i*thisComp.width/160;
    y = transform.position.wiggle(1, 100, octaves = 1, amp_mult = .5, t = i)[1];
    newPath[i] = [x,y];
}
createPath(points = newPath, inTangents = [], outTangents = [], isClosed = false)

if I duplicate that layer in the same comp I get two different paths (I've given each a different colour, but the expression is the same):

If I add layers to the comp before the shape layer, so that the shape layer's index changes this also changes the shape of the path. You can also explicitly set the index of the layer generating the wiggle, e.g.:

var i = math.floor(effect("Slider Control")("Slider"));
var w = thisComp.layer(i).transform.position.wiggle(1,2);

So the index of the layer is used to generate random values for the wiggle() function. Quod erat demonstrandum.

This means that if I duplicate my comp, each duplicate comp produces the same result. Here I've duplicated the original comp three times and brought them into another comp. I've offset each layer a little on the Y axis so you can see them all:

So you can see that the wiggle() function is deterministic, and produces the same results for the same layer index across different comps. This is the problem you're experiencing.

Fortunately there is a way of overriding the seed for the random number generator. That's the seedRandom() function. It's more commonly used for the random() and gaussRandom() functions, but it works for wiggle() and noise() too. The seedRandom() function takes two arguments, the first being a number, which seeds the random number generator, and the second a boolean which set whether the random number generator changes with time or if it stays the same. If you use the same seed the generator will always produce the same results, so usually on a layer you use the layer's index to set the seed. Since that won't work we can seed it with a unique number, derived from the comp's name.

Here's the same comp with the three subcomps, only this time I've added the line

seedRandom(thisComp.name[thisComp.name.length -1], timeless =true);

before the wiggle() function. The term thisComp.name[thisComp.name.length -1] returns the last character of the comp name. And since my comps are called comp 1, comp 2 and comp 3 it returns the characters "1", "2", and "3". Since javascript is loosely typed, these characters get cast to ints for the seedRandom() first parameter, meaning that when I duplicate the comp I automatically get a unique random seed (I'd have to use regex or get the Ascii values of the letters or something if there were more than one digit, and it would break if I renamed the comps). Here's the final comp now

Interestingly adding the seedRandom() for the first layer also effected any other layers in that comp. So if the first layer has a random seed based on the comp name, other layers using wiggle() will now get identical results. So overriding the random number generator is global within the scope of each composition (I just learned this). Here's the second comp, but with seedRandom() on the first layer (red), but not on the second layer(green) offset 1 pixel for visibility:

to avoid this gotcha, you can add back the index to the random seed:

seedRandom(index + thisComp.name[thisComp.name.length-1],timeless = true);

TL;DR

if your comps are named comp 1, comp 2, comp 3, etc., adding this line to any layers with a wiggle expression will generate unique wiggles:

seedRandom(index + thisComp.name[thisComp.name.length-1],timeless = true);


How to encode a video for the iPhone with Handbrake I've been trying to encode a video trailer for mobile Safari playback (iPhone). Using Handbrake for Windows, I selected the source .mov file and chose the iPhone 4 preset. I then checked off the Web optimized option and started the process.

The resulting video did not play on my iPhone's Safari browser, however.

http://mobilevideo.jt.citeeze.com/static/trailer.mp4

For reference, here is the original file:

http://mobilevideo.jt.citeeze.com/static/53159_high.mov

Thanks!

Based on the link given in this answer on stackoverflow I will try to explain how to encode a video in an iPhone friendly format.

The steps below are carried out on a Mac, but the windows version of Handbrake should be similar.

Open Handbrake.
Go to File -> Open Source and browse to your video.
Choose MP4 File as container.
Input the settings shown below for the respective tabs:

  Picture tab:

  Keep aspect ratio - check
  Width - 480 (set to 960 if encoding for the iPhone 4)
  Anamorphic - None
  Cropping - Automatic

  Video tab:

  Codec - H.264
  Video quality - RF = 21
  Constant framerate - 30

  Audio tab:

  Codec - AAC
  Bitrate - 128
  Sample rate - 44.1

  Advanced tab:

  Add the following text in the textbox labeled Current x264 Advanced Options String: if you're encoding for a pre iPhone 4 device:

  cabac=0:ref=2:me=umh:bframes=0:weightp=0:subq=6:trellis=0:8x8dct=0:level=3

  If it's an iPhone 4 or higher the text should be:

  level=4.1

The Advanced tab should look like this (for the iPhone 3 encode):

Here's a MediaFire link to the converted video for iPhones before the 4:

http://www.mediafire.com/?tlyzcg1hyygq8zf


How to record the movement of an image with the mouse? So, I'm not really into video editing, but I wanted to know, is there a way for example, when you hold and drag an image on an image editor, but record that movement that you do, but I can't record an image software since there's a lot of stuffs going on, I just wanted to get a video from the image with that. Hope made sense, I want to do this to do some animation things

Edit: Something like this, but recorded to a video editor, in real time:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OfOGT0EGxNq-23CAmEkmGqGFAq4qSEKL

This is a brilliant demonstration of yours I must say :D
This is possible in after effects using the "sketch movement". Just set the image as the target and record the movement.


Blocky video artifact problem on Canon 600D When shooting video with my Canon 600D I get artefacts like the following in the pictures: (not throughout the whole video but only for a second and then its gone again, but comes back after a few seconds)

They are always in the bottom part of the image. (Although not visible on the LiveView Screen when viewed in camera)

I tried to view the video on several devices and its always the same.

I use a Class 10 SD Card, so this should not be an issue.

Searching on google for the problem had no success.

This is dropped data.  It may be a problem with either your memory card or your camera itself.  h.264 data, which is the format your video is recorded in, works off of a concept known as Group of Pictures.  Basically, many of the frames of video don't store information about what they look like, but rather what they look like related to previous or future frames.  The entire group of pictures is then decoded together.  A group of pictures typically covers somewhere around half a second to 3/4 of a second of video.

Additionally, image data is encoded in blocks within each frame.  When the data is encoded properly with sufficient bandwidth, these blocks blend seamlessly and you can't tell they are there.  If the data rate is too low or something gets corrupted, then they become obvious though.

This is what has occurred in your video.  During the recording, some data was dropped, resulting in the remaining data being shifted over and thus when the video is decoded, the image blocks are given information that doesn't line up correctly, resulting in the blocky look you are seeing.

Since full frames are only stored every 15 frames or so, the video can't recover from the error until the next full frame (I frame) is reached.  This is because the decoder only knows what changed from the neighboring frame for B (based on former and next frame) and P (based on previous frame) frames.  Thus, it works from the corrupt frame and produces further corrupt frames.

It is possible that the camera is trying to record proper data, but the SD card is not bothering to write it down correctly.  It is also possible that the encoder within the camera is corrupting the data and that the SD card is writing the data it is given faithfully.  The best bet to troubleshoot is to try a different SD card and see if the problem continues in the same manner.

If the SD card does not fix the problem, I would suggest contacting Canon's customer support for further assistance with getting your camera fixed.


What is the technical advantage of celluloid film over digital? I know that digital is used more than celluloid now. Still, I would like to know why celluloid film is still favored by some film makers. Only a few years ago celluloid was the standard.

What was/is the technical advantage of celluloid film over digital that kept this technique to be the standard for so long?

Film may have better long-term archival stability.
For theatrical exhibition, 35mm film still has a more uniform distribution and exhibition system outside the US and Europe.
People like Chris Nolan prefer to use film because there aren't any widely-available digital processess that can do an IMAX-style presentation, with a huge negative area and screen.  Digital solutions for these exist, but the exhibition systems for these are ad hoc; IMAX on the other hand is a really well-established brand and IMAX screens are everywhere and are a reliable, known quantity.
Digital cinema cameras still have some funny motion artifacts (ahem, Alexa and Panavision) and funny black levels (ahem, RED) that some filmmakers don't like.
Film still has a different look.
Once you're at the highest levels of production, and making studio features, the price difference is really a wash, particularly if you're shooting 3-perf 35mm and doing a DI.


Y-adapter to record different levels and phantom power I know that its not uncommon to split an XLR using a Y-adapter when going in to an external audio recorder and setting the levels lower on one input (about -10db lower) so that if the main input peaks you have the lower level to get the audio from. My question is, how is this accomplished with phantom power?

I have a Roland R-26 and it does not have the ability to shut of phantom for one of the analog inputs, and I don't want to 'double up' the phantom on the mic. I suppose since my Rode NTG2 supports battery power that I could just use that and turn off phantom completely, but I was wondering how this is handled in the recorder? Does anyone have experience with this?

As explained on another board (https://www.gearslutz.com/board/10509494-post13.html):

There are two reasons why phantom power mic inputs should never be connected directly together with a "Y" cable or adapter. (Such adapters or "Y" cables are fine for use with unpowered dynamic mic inputs, but not for phantom powered inputs. That includes inputs on the same device like (2) side by side channels on a mixer.)

Potential mic damage:

Modern phantom powered microphones use the phantom power to power the impedance converter and the output line driver stages, and to supply the capsule bias (on non-electret mics). By placing two powered inputs in parallel the source impedance of the phantom power source is halved. On a P-48 circuit, instead of have a single 6810 ohm resistor on each input line feeding the mic you now have an effective power source impedance of 3405 ohms on each line. The P-48 circuit can now supply twice the current. The lowered P-48 resistance changes the operating voltage at the mic. That can change the operating point of the output stage drivers and the intended impedance converter operating point, and possibly the capsule bias.

Some mics (not the majority), use a voltage regulator (usually a single Zener diode) to keep the mic active-electronics operating at a constant voltage. On those mics, using paralleled powered inputs will greatly increase the power dissipation in the Zener regulator. The Zener current can more than double.

A modern phantom powered mic is designed to work with a known source impedance for the phantom power current. Halving that impedance is risky. Additionally paralleling the inputs drops the load impedance the mic "sees" to half of a single input. That's not a mic safety issue like lower the P-48 current source impedance, but may affect the sound of some mics.

Incidentally, cutting the pin-1 return for one of the inputs may not change the current supplied from the input. There will be a good chance that there will be another ground path like a power line common connection or another audio cable between the two pieces of gear which will still provide a return path for the phantom power current.

Input circuit damage (not relevant to your case, but potentially interesting nonetheless):

If phantom powered inputs on different pieces of gear have their inputs paralleled using a simple direct "Y" cable it's possible to damage the mic input stage of one when it's operating power (not phantom Power) is off and the phantom power on the other input is switched on or off. Most modern op amp input can be damaged if either of the differential input terminals is allowed to reach a voltage that exceeds the power supply rail voltage. When one input amp is powered down, it's rails are at or very near "0" voltage. Even the application of a few volts coupled in from an external power source (the PP on the "other" mic input) may produce a input voltage transient that exceeds the (now "0" ) power rail voltage. Some input's have voltage "clamps" to prevent that but many do not. Remember, the designers did not design the inputs to withstand [externally-applied] phantom power when the device was switched "off".

That is not an issue if you are running (2) mixer inputs in parallel (same power supplies), but can be if you are using separately powered devices.

Bottom line: If you care about protecting your powered mics and your mic pre inputs, don't ever use a directly coupled parallel "Y" cable on a phantom powered input no matter what anyone tells you. An isolated transformer splitter, or capacitively-coupled "splitter" is the only wise solution.

Or, in your case, use the internal battery power and split the mic signals as if it were a self-powered dynamic mic.


How can I record video clips on intervals automatically? Does anyone know of a way to record video clips of a set duration on a set interval? I am wanting to record a 1 minute video every 15 minutes automatically. I am using a Sony HDR-HC9 camcorder.

So far I have figured that I can connect the camcorder to my computer with a FireWire cable and get a live view. Then I hope I can program the computer to record the screen on my set duration and interval. The only downside with this is that I'll be losing the HD quality video from the camcorder for the resolution of the screen I'm recording on (13" laptop)...

Is there software to do this for me already?
Is there a way to capture the full quality of the camcorder's recording on my computer?

Thanks.

Ultimately if you want to keep HD quality then interval record at the camera. Hardware option is to use something like a Sony HVR-A1E that has this function built in. These are on eBay for 3-400 quid. Expensive solution!


How to lower number of parameters passed to ffmpeg I am processing video with FFmpeg. I am trying to add image overlays at certain times. I have command something like this:

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i img_a.png -i img_xx.png -i some_third_image.png -i yy_img.png
-filter_complex overlay=185:H-h-85:enable=between(t\\,0.1\\,0.3),overlay=285:H-h-415:enable=between(t\\,0.3\\,0.7),overlay=185:H-h-35:enable=between(t\\,0.7\\,1.0),overlay=45:H-h-515:enable=between(t\\,1.1\\,1.6)
-c:v libx264 -crf 20 -preset veryfast vid0.mp4

As I am forming/passing parameters to FFmpeg dynamically (programmatically), there can be really very very long parameters list. So large, that I can even receive a message about too long parameter list (based on operating system).

I would like to avoid this. I would like to know how to write code with FFmpeg so there would be fewer parameters passed to FFmpeg? For example, instead of:

-i img_a.png -i img_xx.png -i some_third_image.png -i yy_img.png

can it be something like:

-i "img_a.png,img_xx.png,some_third_image.png,yy_img.png"

And if it can, how can those images be processed by FFmpeg (suppose also by filter_complex overlay)? Please provide an example, if you can.

You can not give fewer parameters, and expect the same functionality.

Instead make use of options -filter_script and -filter_complex_script.
And write all parameters in script file.


Adobe Premiere Pro CC(2015): Cache edited clips I was wondering if there is any way to cache clips that have been edited in Adobe Premiere Pro CC. I have my main computer and then I have my laptop. I take the laptop out of my house often, and as you can guess, any footage I need to edit is stored on my main computer. Now, I don't want to make low-resolution copies because I don't have very much space on my hard drive (120GB) but caching would be great because when I come home I can just delete the cached files. If there isn't a way I can just make low-res copies, but I thought I would ask first.

Thanks in advanced!

maybe if you used the Adobe Creative Cloud you could upload your footage to it ... if you have an account with them and if you a fast-enough internet connection. otherwise, make lo-res proxies and edit from a USB-3 external drive (since it sounds like you have limited space)


Rendering performacne of Vegas MovieStudio 14 Issue Summary

I am testing MovieStudio 14
I have a Dell M4500, i7, 8-core, 8Gb RAM, NVIDIA quadro
Editing has good performance, no complaints.
9 minute video w/4 transitions and oldtime movie effect takes 12 hours to render HD quicktime.
My machine does not grind to a halt while rendering.
Per post I read,  I downgraded NVIDIA  driver, now it takes 5-6 hours to render.
For comparison, I own Adobe premiere elements 12 on the same machine and that takes about 3-4 hours.

Question
I am asking how to improve the performace of MovieStudio 14?  Or any of these editing tools.

What I don't want to do is buy all new software and/or upgrades (or even a new laptop) if these tools need certain settings, drivers, optical drives or new hardware.

thanks

UPDATE

Thanks to everyones input I bought Vegas MovieStudio platinum 15, diabled all services not needed and installed my SSD.
I was able to render a 7 minute video in Quicktime HD in 70 minutes!  Acceptable to me.

It is normal, that different software outputs different results in different time ranges. Maybe the effect you use in AP Elements is much simpler than the one in MovieStudio. Or Movie Studio uses more ressources to run. Or the settings were not exactly equal.

In general you improve rendering perfomance with the following steps:

Close internet connection
Remove all media from the computer that is not needed for the rendering
Deactivate temporarily all programs in background (e.g. anti virus) that are not needed ( ATTENTION: Don't take any risks. "Maybe" always means "Leave it!")
Only open data that is directly related to the media you render. ( No other projects in background )
Leave the system alone during work
For Windows: Defrag Harddisk before rendering