Why are Bink compressed videos striped? If you've ever seen a Bink compressed color video, chances are it was striped and each second stripe was much brighter than the first. They went like this: bright-dim-bright-dim. Was it some kind of compression trick aimed at CRT displays that would blend the rows of pixels into evenly bright picture?

I don't have an example picture, but you can probably find an old PC game CD with a Bink-compressed video on it that has this striped pattern.

It sounds to me like you're describing interlaced video.  Which is, yes, "some kind of compression trick aimed at CRT displays," but has more to do with the perception of smooth motion, and less to do with brightness.  Basically, every other line comes from the next video frame, which may have the effect of making the lines brighter or darker.


Append part of the audio at the end of another audio With audio files A and B:

A : |--- Some content ---|--- Extra content --- |

B : |--- Some content ---|

Assume the end of B is where the start of the extra content in A.

I want to append that extra content at the end of B.

Can I achieve this with some command line programs, such as ffmpeg?

Assuming the duration of B is X (in seconds), you would use

ffmpeg -i A -i B -filter_complex "[0]volume=0:enable='lt(t,X)'[a];[a][1]amix=duration=first:dropout_transition=0,volume=2" out


Using ffmpeg, how do I trim and overlay two different time periods from the same input? I have one input file, and I want to extract the first minute and the second minute, and then recombine them so the first minute is on the top, and the second minute is on the bottom, playing simultaneously.

I cobbled this together, but for some reason, the upper clip freezes after a few seconds, while the bottom clip continues as expected. The input file has the resolution 640x352.

ffmpeg -i input.avi -filter_complex "
    nullsrc=size=640x704:duration=60 [base];
    [0:v] trim=0:60, setpts=PTS-STARTPTS [v0];
    [0:v] trim=60:120, setpts=PTS-STARTPTS [v1];
    [base][v0] overlay=x=0:y=0 [t1];
    [t1][v1] overlay=x=0:y=352 [out]" \
-map "[out]" output.mkv

I suspect this is a problem internally in ffmpeg, and I have to first extract the two clips into separate input files.

The parallel processing is happening slow enough that FFmpeg is flushing frames in buffer for the first trimmed clip. You can use the fifo filter to avoid that. Also, you can use vstack and skip the nullsrc/overlay route.

ffmpeg -i input.avi -filter_complex "
    [0:v] trim=0:60, setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, fifo [v0];
    [0:v] trim=60:120, setpts=PTS-STARTPTS [v1];
    [v0][v1] vstack [out]" \
-map "[out]" output.mkv


How blockbusters movie producers deal with 8K videos editing Rendering 45 seconds of 8K video on latest iMac Pro using Adobe Premiere takes about 24 hours.
How blockbusters producers deal with such a high-res format to edit and transform a large amount of scenes and render them without spending a year?

Idea 1:

They use clusters of "general public computers" (eg. iMac Pro) to dispatch rendering and increase CPU performance (and therefore rendering duration)? If so, how many of them in average?

Idea 2:

They deal with a lower resolution format, then all modifications applied are saved as an "history", and this history is then applied to the higher resolution format, on a distant high-scaled server cluster which only replicates transformations recorded?

Disclaimer: I'm totally noob in this field but my i7 MacBook Pro almost die when playing a compressed 4K video, so I'm pretty curious of various techniques used by professionals to seamlessly deal with 8K videos on such a volume of data.

Thanks a lot!

The answers are easily discovered by reading trade publications and reviewing videos posted by industry insiders.  Industry professionals don't keep secret things as simple as how they deal with 8K workflows.
 Indeed, they talk about it so as to signal to prospective employees and customers that they are 8K-ready.

That said, your question is impossible to answer because it relies on false assumptions: I have an iMac Pro, and I can render 8K video in realtime or near-realtime (I don't have the most powerful model).

Your question is also vague, because 8K video can mean many things: it can describe the acquisition format, the exhibition format, or both.  Again, it is straightforward (with the right CPU/GPU/IO subsystems, costing less than $10,000) to render 8K source material to a variety of exhibition formats.  With the recently released "consumer" 8K displays (costing ~ $4000), Linus Tech Tips [showed how to hook up not one, but two 8K displays to a single GPU],1 further demonstrating that while it's not cheap, it's neither esoteric nor prohibitively expensive for anybody who can afford to spend sports car money on their computers.

Finally, and this may be the most helpful aspect of the answer to your question: proxy files remain the preferred way to scale video assets to gigabit network bandwidths and laptop levels of performance.  It is also preferred by VFX houses which may have hundreds or thousands of layers of textures, plates, effects, etc.  Compositing thousands of layers is not a real-time process, and there an 8K rendering pipeline can really gum up the works.  Again, the trade publications have many articles explaining the process for creating the proxies, applying the effects, and then rescaling to exhibition format.

As tools, techniques, and technologies are rapidly advancing, the best way to get the latest answer to such a question would be to search for "8k workflow".  Add "youtube" if you want to see a video that answers your question.  Add "vfx" if you care about that.  Add your favorite movie title and maybe that will hit as well.  For example: searching for "8k workflow vfx guardians of the galaxy" led to this article about Guardians of the Galaxy2, which covers in detail your question.


How to set baseline sound volume level before video editing & sound mixing It is clear from the various sound volume levels of videos out there that the sound volume that the creator perceives may not match most other viewers' volume settings since everyone is listening to sound with different computer hardware and settings.  Some videos are too loud while others are too low.  To complicate matters, there can be a few different volume adjustments: sound driver settings, speaker/headphone volume adjustments, maybe more.

Is there some baseline volume level that I should set my volume at before I start video/sound editing?

This article - How to Set Audio Levels for Video - offers some good advice. To summarize:

  Overall Mix Level: -10db to -14db

  Dialogue: -12db to -15db

  Music: -18db to -22db

  Sound Effects: -10db to -20db with occasional spikes up to -8db.

I usually set the voice a bit louder (-8 to -10 dB), but take these as a rough guide.


Recording of Lectures: Tips for compressing video with mostly still images I have several recordings of lectures, some with powerpoint slides, some with writing on a blackboard. They are several GBytes each. However most of the time the video is a still image (besides maybe some movements of people, occasional shaking/adjustment of the camera).

How can I compress the video effectively without loosing sharpness and the audio? I thought about making the frame rate super low (say 1fps, or even less). Even better would of course be something that analyzes the change in the image and only updates if the image changed by a certain amount.

The output format doesn't necessarily need to be a video, something like a html format or a ppt/libreoffice presentation would be fine too. However the Audio should be in sync with the images, and it should not require an exotic software to play it back.

I think I could program something that does the job, but I would really prefer to just use an existing software, dump my video file into it and get the result out. Who has suggestions? Did anybody try something similar?
Cross-platform or Linux solutions are preferred :)

H264 is actually a pretty good codec for such content. Its based on motion vectors and you can define in which intervals the codec should encode a full frame, everything in between will be based on the last and next keyframe (simplifying here).

x264 is probably the best h264 encoder out there and luckily open source. Probably the best way to use it is through ffmpeg (open source, cross-plattform).
Here is a good general guide for x264 and ffmpeg:
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264
Especially take a look at the -tune option, it has a preset for still images, so perfect for you.

And this guide shows some of the advanced options like keyframes/GOPs.
https://sites.google.com/site/linuxencoding/x264-ffmpeg-mapping


How does the “AUTO TAKE” feature on the Panasonic WJ-MX12 work? How does the “AUTO TAKE” feature on the Panasonic WJ-MX12 work?
Also, what is the purpose?

According to the Instruction Manual for the WJ-MX12 from Panasonic, the "AUTO TAKE" feature allows "A WIPE MIX EFFECT mode" to be "operated automatically without changing the MIX/WIPE lever."

This is from pp. 2 of the manual that you can read here:

http://tda.panasonic-europe-service.com/docs/2z4fd648faz3z1f340z656ez706466z35z6265ac2843a7c8785ba2cc5185b68bc80d0f9dea/ttips/Visual/Mixers_Edit_Controllers/WJ/MX12/727808/BMX12.pdf

On pp. 16 item 4 of the same manual there are more details


Trying to help a west coast fan in an east coast world So my friend wants to hear the west coast announcers during the playoffs - while watching the game on tv. Problem is that the tv broadcast is delayed a few seconds. Does anyone know of a work around? I have computers, recorders, att u-verse and an am radio.

I could run the am broadcast through something and delay it to match the game somehow. Ideas?

"I have computers, recorders, att u-verse and an am radio"

Then there's nothing you can't accomplish! (-:

Google shows plenty of examples. This was the first hit for "audio delay software free": http://www.fountainware.com/Products/AudioDelay/index.htm


Water on movie camera lens? At the end of "Gravity" movie main character splashes water towards camera, it looks like this:

             (2:30)

From that moment camera view has water drops visible. It the movie gear waterproof or there was some glass mounted in front of the lenses? Or was it CGI?

This is pure speculation with respect to the movie Gravity, but when people use expensive cameras around water, they usually protect them from the water.  It's not very hard to do.  If you search BNH for "Camera Rain Cover," you'll see that you get results for under $10.  To protect the front end of the lens, often people will use a UV filter.

Also, when you imagine a typical movie camera, do you picture a black box at the front end? Ever wonder what that was all about?  It's called a Matte Box, and the black petals that stick out the front are flags, which keep stray light from hitting the front of the lens and causing unwanted lens flares.  But the other thing matte boxes do is hold sheets of glass in front of the lens for various reasons, most typically ND (neutral density) filters, but also polarizers, UV filters, IR, etc.  Just like the screw-on UV filters, these flat, square ones will protect the lens from water or debris.  As long as the rest of the camera is safe, you're good to go.

To me, this shot looks like the water droplet isn't that close to the front of the lens, so it's probably not hitting a filter that screws directly on the front.  Since there are underwater shots in the film, and since there are shots where the camera swims alongside the actress, my guess is that the camera is housed within an underwater camera enclosure.  These are usually relatively expensive, bespoke pieces of equipment, which can cost as much as the camera they're designed to house.

If you're on an indie budget, it's an item you would rent.  But if Sandra Bullock is your lead, and you've got the VFX budget for a movie like this, your studio probably already owns one, and they'd probably rather just let you use it than A) risk losing their expensive camera or B) spend VFX money on water drops instead of space action sequences.

Anecdotally, in the movie Children of Men, there's a fantastic long take, where some fake blood hit the front of the lens.  The director chose to leave the blood because he felt it added to the immediacy of the scene.


How to create screen capture video without losing it's quality? I want to create screen capture tutorials such as https://laracasts.com/series/php7-up-and-running/episodes/1 (with the HD option) for YouTube. On laracasts' videos, words are excellently readable, however words on my captured video are spreads.

How can I fix it (I'm using Movavi Screen Capture Studio)?
What program is the best solution for creating tutorials (like laracasts) on MacOS?

QuickTime is included with macOS. This app has a built in screen capture tool. You can create a new screen recording by pressing Command-N to create a new screen recording after opening QuickTime, then set settings to Maximum Quality by clicking the drop down beside the record button. The video will save after recording to any location on your machine. See more Here on Apple's Webiste.

After this, you can ingest the footage onto your video editor and send it to someone.

Hope this helps.


Generating thumbnail from only the first megabytes of a video file I want to create one thumbnail consisting of the first frame of a video for arbitrary video files. I do it like this:
ffmpeg -i video.mkv -vf scale=w=300:h=300:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease -frames:v 1 thumbnail.png

For performance considerations I was experimenting with only loading the first megabytes of a video instead of whole video files for this task.
In my experiments this works fine with some formats like mkv and mts and only sometimes with mp4 (I get errors - and no thumbnail, when the moov atom is not at the beginning of a file)
With what video file formats is it possible to generate thumbnails only from the first megabytes of a file, and with what formats is it not possible? Does it only depend on the container type or also on the codec? Can there be a reliable answer?

Can there be a reliable answer?

No.
As with almost everything is video. The real answer is: It depends.
With mp4, the moov must be at the beginning, AND the mdat must properly interleave tracks. For example, If the there more than one megabyte of audio before the video, Then it won't work even with the moov at the start.
For TS, there must be a SPS, a PPS and and IDR in the first megabyte. That is probable, but not guaranteed.
For Mkv Interleaving matters.
The codec, codec configuration, and even bitrate will also matter.
If the first keyframe is over 1Mb, no container will work.
If the codec is using periodic inter fresh, it would probably take more that 1Mb, unless the video bitrate is very low.
Writing all the permutations would take a book.


What is the name of the transition where the new image slides left to right over the old? Whats the name of transition where the new image slides left to right over the old?


Concatenate clips with as little code as possible in AviSynth+ I am new to AviSynth+. I am concatenating 9 clips, trimming the first and last, fading in the first and fading out the last, and cross-dissolving between clips. This code works:

audio=ffaudiosource("F:\_DSC001.MOV")
video=FFMS2("F:\_DSC001.MOV")
start=AudioDub(audio, video)
clip1=Trim(start, 3600, 30000)

audio=ffaudiosource("F:\_DSC002.MOV")
video=FFMS2("F:\_DSC002.MOV")
clip2=AudioDub(audio, video)

... same for clips 3-8 ...

audio=ffaudiosource("F:\_DSC009.MOV")
video=FFMS2("F:\_DSC009.MOV")
clip9=Trim(AudioDub(audio, video), 0, 22575)

FadeIn(clip1, 100)
Dissolve(last, clip2, 50)
Dissolve(last, clip3, 50)
Dissolve(last, clip4, 50)
Dissolve(last, clip5, 50)
Dissolve(last, clip6, 50)
Dissolve(last, clip7, 50)
Dissolve(last, clip8, 50)
Dissolve(last, clip9, 50)
FadeOut(last, 100)

It's quite verbose and repetitive. I wonder if some pre-processor script can take some of these parameters and arguments and produce the above AviSynth+ script.

Does such a pre-processor exist, or could the AviSynth+ script be optimized or improved?

function SegmentedDissolve(string base, int first_val, int last_val, string format, int dissolve_length ){
    filename = base + string(first_val, format) + ".MOV"
    result = FFMS2(filename)
    return (first_val < last_val) \
        ? Dissolve(result, SegmentedDissolve(base, first_val+1, last_val, format, dissolve_length), dissolve_length) \
        : result
}

SegmentedDissolve("F:\_DSC", 1, 9, "%03.0f", 50).Trim(3600, yyy).FadeIn(100).FadeOut(100)

You would need to figure out what value yyy needs to be for the concatenated clip. If the first clip needs to be trimmed on both sides, then the first clip should not be included in the function (start first_val at 2), and instead get loaded, processed, and concatenated manually.
As a note, the FFMS2 function also loads up any audio found in the specified clip, so you do not need to dub it unless you are doing processing on it first.


Does FFMPEG benefit from SLI when using h264_nvenc? I need to pass a very large amount of video through ffmpeg to be encoded to h264.
I've figured out my processing workflow and am happy with the results.
The machine is currently sporting one GTX1070.
I'm wondering if I'll benefit from adding a second card in SLI configuration?
Will it double the performance?
Is there considerable overhead?

Thanks for any input.

There is not necessary to add a card in SLI. Is enough to buy another card to double the performance. By default NVIDIA supports only 2 encoding streams in parallel for consumer level cards. For your goals it should be enough.
You may buy another one GTX 1070, but it's not necessary as you need to transcode a vary large amount of video files in 2 parallel streams.
Will be better to buy another video card on the Pascal architecture. In this case you will safe some money and get very similar result as on GTX 1070. GTX 1050 should be enough, because the NVENC SIP which uses for encoding the same as on GTX 1070, as on GTX 1050.

In FFmpeg you can specify the gpu for encoding via -gpu key like follow:

ffmpeg -i video_for_gtx1070.mpg -vcodec h264_nvenc \
       -gpu 0 -acodec copy -f mpegts transcoded_on_gtx1070.mpg

ffmpeg -i video_for_other_card.mpg -vcodec h264_nvenc \
       -gpu 1 -acodec copy -f mpegts transcoded_on_other_card.mpg

We can use the nvidia-smi tool to find an index for each video card. Also we can check it via other tools like GPU-Z or any afterburner, but nvidia-smi is installing together with the video driver.

About overhead: you will get CPU load by decoding video as the video files be decode on CPU and encode on GPU, but you can keep CPU almost clean if you'll also decode the video on GPU. The same examples with decoding h264 on different GPUs:

ffmpeg hwaccel cuvid -c:v h264_cuvid -gpu 0 \
       -i video_for_gtx1070.mpg -vcodec h264_nvenc \
       -gpu 0 -acodec copy -f mpegts transcoded_on_gtx1070.mpg

ffmpeg hwaccel cuvid -c:v h264_cuvid -gpu 1 \
       -i video_for_other_card.mpg -vcodec h264_nvenc \
       -gpu 1 -acodec copy -f mpegts transcoded_on_other_card.mpg

If we need to decode other codecs then we can choose the appropriate one from the following list:

ffmpeg -decoders | grep cuvid
 V..... h264_cuvid           Nvidia CUVID H264 decoder (codec h264)
 V..... hevc_cuvid           Nvidia CUVID HEVC decoder (codec hevc)
 V..... mjpeg_cuvid          Nvidia CUVID MJPEG decoder (codec mjpeg)
 V..... mpeg1_cuvid          Nvidia CUVID MPEG1VIDEO decoder (codec mpeg1video)
 V..... mpeg2_cuvid          Nvidia CUVID MPEG2VIDEO decoder (codec mpeg2video)
 V..... mpeg4_cuvid          Nvidia CUVID MPEG4 decoder (codec mpeg4)
 V..... vc1_cuvid            Nvidia CUVID VC1 decoder (codec vc1)
 V..... vp8_cuvid            Nvidia CUVID VP8 decoder (codec vp8)
 V..... vp9_cuvid            Nvidia CUVID VP9 decoder (codec vp9)

Please make sure that FFmpeg configured correctly with support nvenc and cuvid. You can find correct configuration parameters on the
NVIDIA site (scroll down)

If you need to transcode a lot of streams|files in parallel then need to buy the video card(s) with unrestricted amount of encoding sessions. You can find the information there.
OR you can go by the hack way and remove the sessions limitation for the consumer level video cards. It's possible as this limitation managed on the video driver level. In this case I recommend you to buy GTX 1060 6GB or GTX 1070 as in this situation the amount of video memory is also very important. You can find more useful info about multiple streams transcoding in
this old answer.


Why is my video alternating between blurry and sharp? I notice this on a regular basis while watching videos I've downloaded. The image will alternate pretty quickly between blurry and sharp and sometimes the effect is quite drastic. Below is an example image of a tree and the difference between two frames.

What is this effect called and why does it happen? I'm fairly certain it has to do with compression but what is going on?

If you receive a video like this and there's nothing you can do with how it was rendered or processed, is there anything you can do after the fact to minimize the effect? Settings in your video player maybe?

This particular screen shot was taken in Windows Media Player on Windows 7 playing an AVI file. The effect is still visible in VLC and I first noticed this while playing video through my PS3 off a harddrive. I can't say for sure, but I'm fairly certain that it's happened on multiple file types as well.

The effect that you've seen is a side effect of the compression algorithm that was used to encode the video.

The most common compression algorithms (MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 among them) compress different frames with different methods, and that is why two very close and relatively similar frames may look so different.

The frame that looks pretty good is likely a keyframe. This is a frame that has all its pixels represented in the encoded stream. The compression introduces some loss of quality, but since the whole image is encoded the result typically looks good.

The image that looks bad is a frame that is not fully represented in the encoded stream. To make videos smaller, for certain parts of the picture the encoder references parts of previous frames that the player/decoder keeps stored in memory, so only the parts that are different are stored for the frame. Because of this these frames end up being a sort of collage. If the bitrate is too low, then you end up with really washed up images like the one you show. But increasing the bitrate enough helps dissimulate this effect, to the point that it is barely or not noticeable. Consider that all the TV that you watch (digital over the air, satellite, FIOS, cable, etc.) is encoded in this way.

For MPEG-2 it is common practice to insert a keyframe in the stream every half a second (15 frames for 29.97fps video, 12 frames for 25fps). For H.264 sometimes they go even longer than half a second.

In general, the image quality of a compressed video is at its highest at the keyframe points, and then slowly starts to degrade, going up again with the next keyframe.

For a more detailed explanation of frame types used in compression algorithms see the Wikipedia article Video compression picture types.

Unfortunately a player cannot improve the quality of the video, since the problem is that the information to reproduce the frame with better quality isn't there. The only ways to address this is by increasing the bitrate when encoding and/or increase the number of keyframes.

On the player side I think the only thing you can do is play the video in a smaller window, so then these artifacts will be less visible.


How to avoid Premiere to YouTube upload errors? When I try to publish videos from Premiere to YouTube, I get this error:

02/24/2016 01:20:41 PM : YouTube({
 "error": {
  "errors": [
   {
    "domain": "youtube.video",
    "reason": "invalidDescription",
    "message": "The request metadata specifies an invalid video description.",
    "locationType": "other",
    "location": "body.snippet.description"
   }
  ],
  "code": 400,
  "message": "The request metadata specifies an invalid video description."
 }
}
) - {
 "error": {
  "errors": [
   {
    "domain": "youtube.video",
    "reason": "invalidDescription",
    "message": "The request metadata specifies an invalid video description.",
    "locationType": "other",
    "location": "body.snippet.description"
   }
  ],
  "code": 400,
  "message": "The request metadata specifies an invalid video description."
 }
}

I've encountered a similar error from both FCPX and Premiere when my title is too long (over 70 characters).  I'm wondering what the rules are for a YouTube description.  I've read that the max character length is 5000, but I didn't find that on an official YouTube page, so I'm not sure.  Plus, my description text is way less than 5000 characters, so It must be something else.  I've tried eliminating most special characters (everything but spaces, periods, minus signs, and capital letters), but I'm still getting this error.

Can anyone point me to an official list of requirements for the title text and description text of YouTube videos?

This is an especially frustrating problem because neither Premiere nor FCPX will warn against these errors before rendering out video.  They'll happily churn away for an hour or more, try to upload, then poop themselves.

edit

A few people have recommended that I export from premiere to my local machine, then upload to youtube through the web interface.  The trouble is, I don't have my company's YouTube password.  I'm on a company workstation which knows the password and should be able to upload, but I don't know it myself.

Just export as a .mp4, and then upload it to Youtube! Simple as that! Also, I think the "directly uploading" features just make it more confusing. Hope this helps!


What is the best arrangement of lights to create a warm atmosphere in a small room? This is a scheme of my room for a Soreal short movie:

I'm wonder about lights. The atmosphere is warm, soft, without shadows. So what do you advice me to use as my light source and where to put them?

To get a soft look, you can use:

lights pointed at the walls and ceiling, to reflect and diffuse the light
lights with a large surface area, like fluorescent tubes (which I use) or standard movie lights with big diffusers in front of them
lots of little lights, though these may create lots of little shadows

You'll still want at least a key light and a fill light -- that is, one light source that is the primary light source for your subjects, and another light source to one side that emphasizes that side of each actor (or object).

You can also add "warmth" in post production by color-correcting towards red or orange.


How to remove transitions from title motion adjustments in Premiere Pro? I am using some motion adjustments (Effect Controls) on title clips placed on top of my video layer in Premiere Pro CC 2015. I change the position of the clips (names) and also change the scaling per 5 frames. But I want a jump effect from one keyframe (of position and scale) to another (after the 5 frames). I don't need a smooth transition.

In other words, I don't need animation but something like different title clips without the need to make them. Can this be done with the motion adjustments or will they always animate between the keyframes?

Set temporal interpolation to Hold as seen below:


How to link the start and pause of an animation to a specific height from a null object? I'll try to explain a little bit more in-depth, I'm making a set of animations for a website and the client essentially wants a preview of how each element reacts to each other as you're scrolling down the page. I have no experience with website development and that is fine for this job, as all im doing is setting up an interactive preview for the developer.

So far I've parented all the elements to a Null object and the Y position value of that null to slider controls and so far so good.

Now where I'm lost or in fact, confused if it's even possible within AE is to set up each animation element to start its sequence once I scroll the slider to a specific value? I'm not too familiar with expressions so any help will be appreciated.

If you need me to explain in more detail please do ask, hopefully I've tried to make it clear for what I'm asking

You need to provide a bit more detail, but if you want an expression to happen only when a slider is above a certain value you can use if(something > somethingElse){do stuff here}.

To time an animation so that it starts at that point is more tricky. Expressions can't store variables; they just evaluate each frame. So to find how far through the action the animation should be you'd have to calculate the first frame at which the property went above the threshold. You can do this with a loop:

var propertyToWatch = thisComp.layer("someLayer").someProperty;
var threshold = 12345;
if (propertyToWatch > threshold){ // above the threshold, time to do stuff
    var t = 0;
    // now search for the time when the property went above the threshold
    while (t <= thisComp.duration && propertyToWatch.valueAtTime(t) < threshold){
        t += thisComp.frameDuration; //add one frame
    }
    // t now equals the time when the property went above the threshold.
    // so the animation's relative age is time - t
    var animationAge = time - t;
    //do the animation stuff here, using animationAge as the time constant
}

This expression will get progressively slower to calculate as the sequence gets older, because the inner while loop has to be evaluated for each preceding frame. But usually only a problem if you have lots and lots of layers with this kind of expression, or your comp is half an hour long.


How to use magicyuv & utvideo codec with ffmpeg I would like to know how to use magicyuv & utvideo codec with ffmpeg

The following Linux command searches all codecs than can Encode anything containing ut.

  ffmpeg -codecs | grep --regexp="^ .E" | grep --ignore-case ut

and its output is:

 DEVI.S utvideo              Ut Video

so you can use:

ffmpeg -i ~/Videos/WebCam/me.mp4 -c:v utvideo -r 30 -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 512K /tmp/test.mkv

However:

ffmpeg -codecs | grep --regexp="^ .E" | grep --ignore-case magic

has no output at all on my version of ffmpeg, but if your version supports it, you will see an output and then you just use whatever is in the second column as per the example above for utvideo.


Is it possible to shift a video track a fraction of a second in Sony Vegas Pro 10? I've got 2 video sources and they don't line up perfectly to the second.  One is a fraction of a second behind the other.  When I click-and-drag one of the video tracks, it automatically snaps to the nearest full second mark.  I've tried unchecking the "Snap To Grid" option but it still snaps to the full second.

Shift+dragging ignores grid, markers, fade-in/fade-out marks, and all other time points that otherwise would cause "sticking".

The same applies to dragging the Event entirely and its start/stop borders.


How to make particle systems look more natural and realistic in Fusion? I have recently downloaded Fusion and have seen some preloaded uses of fire and smoke in reference to particle systems. However, no matter how much I try recreating something like that, it always looks fake as either the particles is too thick or it simply doesn't flow or doesn't look realistic. This applies to other concepts as well such as snow, fireworks, etc. What makes the particle systems look so natural in those cases? How can I achieve a natural more realistic look from them?

Fusion doesn't have fluid dynamics simulation built in.  To get a realistic particle flow of a natural system, you'll need to use software specifically built for that task, import the results into Fusion, then use Fusion for compositing the smoke by adjusting the way each particle appears on screen and how they blend with the other scene elements.  SideFX Houdini with pyro, or Cinema 4D with X-particles are two pieces of software which might be better suited to fluid particle simulation.

Most people don't think of fire or smoke as fluid because they're gaseous and aren't wet.  However, in the context of particle VFX, fire and smoke are fluids and require decent fluid dynamic simulation to appear natural.


Moving clip with green screen I'm working on a project that is using an old "film roll" as a base for it:  I want to have different clips for each color, and I plan on moving the film to the left, but I want to somehow scale the clips down to fit in their respected color, and move with it.

Edit: I know I accidently still have a green in the corner, I fixed that but not re-uploading

Leave the color out and make a png out of it.
Then, create a sequenz which has the length of the bar you want.
Insert as many filmframes as you like.
Now simply draw masks around one frame each.

Put the sequenz in your final sequenze where you can animate it.

(Keep in mind that the holes (little squares) normally don't contain images, as they are holes.)


Blur a face using only one video layer with Premiere CS6? so with the new built-in masking option of the gaussian blur and similar effects in the CC version of Premiere Pro it's pretty easy to limit effect to a specific area of the video in order to e.g. blur a face. However, I'm searching for an easy and easily comprehensible way to achieve this effect in CS6 without duplicating the clip to a second video layer (video lane?) and using the gaussian blur in combination with a track matte key (which is what I used to do in Premiere Pro CS6).
So, is there a way to blur a face without duplicating the clip to a second video layer in the CS6 version?
(Unfortunately, I only have the current CC version at my disposal right now, so I can't try it out myself at the moment.)
Thanks a lot!

Yes and no, you can do it without duplicating the clip, but not without a second layer.  Instead of using a second copy of the clip, you can use an adjustment layer.  You make a new adjustment layer by creating a New Item in the Project window.  You add that adjustment layer over top of the video you want to adjust and then you apply your masking to the adjustment layer and apply your effects to the adjustment layer.

The effects applied to the adjustment layer are then applied to the sum total of all the layers below the adjustment layer.  Effectively, the adjustment layer is a layer that is composed of a sub-render of everything below it and then has the set of effects applied to it applied to that sub-render.

It technically isn't adding two copies of the sequence, but practically it is still doing the same thing.  I'm not personally aware of any more straightforward technique than that for doing what you describe in CS6 though.  That doesn't necessarily mean much though as I normally do this kind of thing in AE anyway, so my experience doing it in Premiere is limited at best (bordering on non-existent.)


Adobe Premiere Pro / After Effects Hard Drive Scratch Disk and Cache set up in temporary situation. I've exhausted all options before asking for opinions in trying to figure this out, and I'm running out of time by doing all possible combinations and running benchmarks, or setting up projects to see which hard drive set up is working best as I have a job that needs to finished today, with what I have available.

So my usual hard drive set up for Premiere Pro and After Effects is not possible right now, as my main SSD is not working, so I'm left with the hard drives I have left to try and put together a system that will get me through the day as pain free as possible.

I'm making a short introduction to an interview using Premiere Pro and After Effects (not necessarily at the same time for this project), and working with Raw footage converted to ProRes proxies to save me some precious space and speed while editing. I'm running on Mac (El Capitan) and using CC 2015 if that matters to anyone.

Currently for available hard drives at my disposal I have-

My internal 2 TB SSD. (System drive for OS, programs, etc.)
A RAID 0 configured set of 7200 RPM 1 TB (combined size) Seagate's connected through USB 3. I'm getting speed test results of around 147MB/s Write and 148MB/s Read.
A cheap 1TB Western Digital My Passport through USB 3 that is getting speed test results of around 60MB/s Write and 75MB/s Read, although I've seen the write speed jump all the way up to 75, and all the way down to 35, so I've never sure.

So thats what I'm working with for at least the rest of the day. How would you configure your Scratch Disks in this situation?

I was thinking having my Project files on the RAID 0 HD, along with the Source Video, while the Cache ran off the internal SSD. That leaves the Video and Audio previews. Will the My Passport be fast enough to handle them or should I use either the internal or RAID 0 for them as well?

Should I move the cache to the RAID 0 and have the Source Video files and Previews run off of the Internal SSD?

I can't decide so some input would be amazing. Basically the question is, what needs the most and least speed- the Cache, the Previews, or the Source Video files?

Thanks for your help!
-P.J.

Personally, I would ditch the usb3 drive for editing. Assuming you can't buy a third drive I would do your setup like this.

Do a two drive setup.
C: OS and media cache
d: (raid) Media, projects, previews and exports.

I've always followed the advice here and its worked great for me.

https://forums.adobe.com/servlet/JiveServlet/showImage/2-2906955-31395/Guideline+Disks.jpg


What new piece of hardware to get to increase video rendering performance? So, I've got the opportunity to buy some new piece of hardware for my PC. I do video rendering quite often, so, my question is - what piece of hardware should I replace to get a guaranteed rendering perfomance raise?
I render using my GPU.
Should I buy a better GPU (got GTX650Ti with 1 GB memory), or a better CPU (got Core i3 running at 3.3 Ghz), or may be more RAM (got 8 GB)?

Mostly I use Adobe Premier.

A GPU will give you the best performance boost, but your rendering software has to be optimized to use the GPU; most is.  Upgrading the CPU is the best option if your software doesn't support GPU rendering.  Upgrading RAM won't give you a noticeable performance if you have 8 or more gigabytes.  You might see some slight increase in performance if you have less than 4 gigabytes.

Some notes on upgrading components.  With a CPU, higher clock speed isn't necessarily better.  Unlike gaming, rendering can make use of as many cores as are available, so get a quad-core at least.  Put your money in more cores rather than higher clocks (unless you game on the side).  An Intel Core i7 or Intel Xeon is ideal.  With a GPU, Nvidia is best.  Most rendering software takes advantage of CUDA which is specific to Nvidia GPUs.  There is immense amounts of information about 3D rendering times on different GPUs available online, use that to make your decision.  I recommend the GTX 660 or 760.  Quadro isn't worth the money unless you need weeks of nonstop uptime from your GPU.


What are the negative effects (if any) for leaving a prosumer comcorder powered 24hrs a day? I have a use case where I need to leave a pro-sumer camcorder, (Let's say a Canon XA10) powered 24 hours a day indefinitely. The HDMI out of the camera would be used for monitoring 24 hours a day, but no recording would be done, and the LCD and viewfinder can stay turned off.  Additionally, other mechanical functions like auto focus can be disabled.

Are there any negative effects on the camera to leaving it on and powered for extended periods of time?

There could be some consequences to using the Canon XA10 24/7, although I don't think they are very likely to happen.

I can think of two things that might go wrong:

Even tough the LCD is off, the CMOS sensor inside is still working. This can generate significant heat and cause an overheat. However, most cameras have a built in protection that shuts them down in case of overheating, so it's not a real risk.
Depending on what you will be shooting it is possible that the sun will shine directly through the lens on the sensor for a long time. There's some debate on this on the Photo.SE site, but some think this can damage your sensor.


Where do you charge your batteries? I'm travelling to shoot a documentary in a remote pacific island without any electricity.

How do you charge your batteries in such conditions ? I have never used a generator and I'm afraid of the noise level. So I was wondering if there is a better solutions for such shooting conditions.

Thanks

If there's no electricity and you're not keen on using a generator, this is your solution: a DIY battery solar charger


Can i use my laptop as an external recorder Can i record 4k video from a canon mirrorless (r6) directly to my laptop hard drive just like one would do with an Atomos Ninja? I record a lot of singing events where the camera is standing in one spot, recording, most often, choir singing.
using a laptop would give me several terabytes of recording space, and the option, hopefully, to simultaneously broadcast to youtube, without spending another $1k, which i'd rather spend on a gimbal.
I've dug around high and low, and there is very limited information on this topic. Figured I'd be able to acquire the 5 cents worth of some seasoned vets here. Thanks in advance.
Jared

Not really. Not unless your laptop happens to contain a 4K capture card.  Most laptops don’t have video signal inputs.  You can do HD with a Blackmagic Ultrastudio Mini Recorder for a little over a hundred dollars, as long as you can find capture+encode software, but putting the encoding onus on your laptop isn’t very reliable.
If recording space is your major concern, many cameras are now capable of writing directly to externally attached SSDs, presuming the data rate generated by the codec you’re recording is lower than the write speed of the SSD.  I’m not sure about the R6, but if it doesn’t, you might consider trading it for one that does, depending on your priorities.


How to keep audio and video in sync? I have a few videos I have to convert for a website. They are PowerPoint slides with a narration track over top. The originals I have to work with are in m4v format. I have converted them to mp4 and webm, but it seems like the video in the converted files plays too quickly. The audio doesn't match up. I used ffmpeg to convert to mp4 format. Is there an option I could pass in to keep the audio and video together?

It sounds like the video frame rate probably got messed up.  You need to make sure you compress the video to the same framerate in webm as the source is.  Also, m4v and mp4 are synonyms, you don't need to alter the file, you can just change the extension.


How to make rendering loop selections work in Movie Studio Platinum 13? I want to render just 10 seconds of my 1920x1080 movie to create the best quality preview for a demo. But rendering process takes the same time as rendering the entire movie (35 minutes).

Why is it taking so long?

A guess - is Movie Studio rendering the entire file and then just cropping away the unselected part? How do I render the selection only?

Here is what I do:

select a 10 seconds region in the timeline
go to menu -> Project -> Make movie
pick option Save it to my hard drive
pick format mp4
enable the checkbox "Render loop region only"
click Advanced options and pick Sony AVC/MVC encoder
pick my preset of choice (1440x1080@30p, 1.333 pixel ratio for anamorphic aspect ratio, 25 FPS, 26 Mbps bitrate)
render

Oh, I found it myself and leaving the answer here in case someone else will get confused by this because the solution is not obvious.

I was setting the checkbox here:

but if I use "Advanced options", Movie Studio ignores this setting!

I have to select it deeper in a hidden dropdown in the "Advanced options" window like this:

And later when rendering the full video, it is important to remember to open that dropdwon again and turn off the region rendering.

Oh, Sony, this is so confusing - two things doing the same, but effective only under specific circumstances.


Similar to "levels adjustment" brightness improvement with ffmpeg I'm composing a video from set of 16bit tiff pictures. The pictures are very dark, and needs to be brightened. Currently I'm applying -vf "mp=eq2=1.0:1.0:0.3:1.0:1.0:1.0:1.0:1.0"
filter to make pictures brighter, as said here, but they becomes too "faded".

I used to rescale their histogram with "levels adjustment" operation in image editor to make them brighter, but now I need to make a video, not a single image file. Also, preffered way of applying such operations to image - is to applying it to each color band separatly, because they have different brightness attributes initialy.

Can I do something similar with ffmpeg?

You could possibly use the curves filter. It has a lighter preset:

ffmpeg -i input -vf curves=preset=lighter -c:a copy output

The red, green, and blue components can be adjusted separately. The following is the same as what the lighter preset uses:

curves=r='0.4/0.5':g='0.4/0.5':b='0.4/0.5'

Additionally you can make your own curves preset in Photoshop, export it as an .acv file, and then the curves filter can utilize it:

curves=psfile=/path/to/ps_curves_file.acv


What is the normal rendering time? I have i3-7100 CPU and 16 gigabytes of DDR4 RAM. I know it's not much, but why Adobe Media Encoder 2020 is rendering my simple 720p video with subtitles so slow?!

It takes 20 minutes to render my 5 minute 720p video with default H264 settings. What is going on here?

And there are no scaling or other effects. Just the video and hardcoded subtitles.

Check your GPU settings in AME prefs should be targeting your particular GPU. Choice of GPU can effect render time significantly. A GPU with a high CUDA processor count is best for these renders on a PC. On a MAC it should be metal with an appropriate card. Try and get a view of your system performance and buy a better card. https://www.cgdirector.com/best-cpu-gpu-render-benchmarks/


How to display subtitles as default in an MKV file I have an MKV file with multiple subtitles.  I would like to mark one set of those subtitles as default, so that it is turned on by default when the video starts playing.  NOTE: I do not want to "burn" this subtitles set into the video (I want to be able to turn these subtitles off at any point in time if I so choose).

Is there an MKV editing tool that would allow me to do this?

There are two aspects to your query - 1)setting one of the subtitle streams as the default and 2)automatically displaying it during playback.I'm not aware of a method to force a player to display subtitles if that facility has been turned off in its settings.

For the first facility, try mkvpropedit from MKVToolNix to set the default flag for a subtitle stream. See 2nd example.


How can I know my if footage is rec.709 or not right out of the camera? I just recorded a video (a talking head) using my Canon EOS 4000D (known as Canon EOS Rebel T100 in the U.S.) at 1920x1080p24.
(Maybe informative/Important, that I want to color edit/grade it in Adobe Premiere Pro etc.)
The main question is, how do I know if my footage color space right out of the camera is Rec.709 or not?
Is it 8 bit? 10 bit? 14 bit? 444? 422? 420? RGB444? YCC422? what more?
All I know is my file type is MOV (Video: H.264 inter frame - IPB).
P.S. I used the built-in Portrait Picture Style.

Knowing the details about what format your camera recorded is often as simple as consulting the manual.  However, some cameras shoot multiple formats, and often, editors are given footage from unknown or unreliable sources.  One of the best tools for discovering the full details of an A/V file is the command line utility, mediainfo.
Depending on whether or not your computer comes pre-installed with mediainfo, obtaining your answer may be as simple as opening the command line interface, and typing:
mediainfo /PATH/TO/YOUR/FIlE

If this returns a "command not found" error, then you will need to install mediainfo according to your operating system requirements.  On MacOs, the easiest way to install is through https://brew.sh
If the command line isn't your thing, there are GUI-wrapped versions available in both the Microstoft Store, and Apple App Store, caveat emptor.
The default output is the total information known to the operating system about the media file, which may be overwhelming.  Theres a good explanation of how you can return only relevant information here.
For example, to return only the colorspace, you would type:
mediainfo --Output="Video;%ColorSpace%" /PATH/TO/YOUR/FILE

It's important to mention though, that not all metadata is created equally.  Different camera manufacturers will include different details, and when video files get transcoded, the metadata is often altered.
However, mediainfo is one of the most comprehensive tools available for discovering these sorts of details about a media file.


Projecting image from computer that is a distance away For our schools theatrical production class, we need to project an image using a projector, however the only way to use the projector is to hang it on a lighting bar (Not a problem)  The problem is that we do not have a long enough VGA cord to hook that projector up to a laptop/desktop.  I have called around and asked about a 200ft VGA cable, but at that length that would loose signal.  So I thought I would ask this form what would be the best solution to my problem.  I have thought about getting a 200 coax cable with VGA ends, but is that even possible?

Thanks in advance.

It's possible to amplify VGA for long runs, but since that's an analog signal it's usually not the best option. VGA over coax is probably more trouble than it's worth (you'd have to merge the many VGA channels somehow to use the single coax pin, and then reverse it).

VGA over Cat5e is fairly common. You still aren't running an analog signal over 200ft, but there's hardware to convert from VGA to a digital signal and then convert back at the other end with minimal latency. For example, this product, which also has a monitor port at the source end.

A less reliable option, but possibly less pricey if your projector supports it, is wireless projection over wi-fi. But like I said, this may be not reliable enough for theater application.


After Effects: Generate floating effects (smoke, particles, plasma, light, etc) how can I creat a effect wich can be seen in this video at 0:19 seconds?

Is it generated in after effects with native effects or AE can't do this without external plugins?

I already know how to make it follow a path, I just want to generate the floating energy, light, etc effect.

maybe it is a pre rendered effect and the company just make it follow a path?

sorry, my english isn't good. btw, Thanks!

This effect can be achieved by using different particle systems.

I've almost done the same thing for TV-show intro. It was done with Red Giant Trapcode Particular plugin, see the result here.

You should move your emitter in 3D space with different particle settings for different effects. Also see this tutorial on how to work with Trapcode Particular.

However Trapcode Particular is pretty expensive. After Effects is shipped with the following built-in particle system effects:

CC Particle Systems II
CC Particle World
Particle Playground

You can try to reach same result with them. But they have poor set of settings.


presenter (speaker) change detection from a video clip? I was wondering if there is an easy way to detect presenter (speaker) changes from a video clip. I have some presentation / panel / seminar type videos, and want to add markers whenever the speaker changes in the stream. It can be when someone from the audience asks a question, or when another panel starts talking.

You can use the speech recognition function within Adobe Premiere to (kind of) do this.  It will analyze a long piece of video, and attempt to create a text script of the speech within the video.  If you tick "identify speakers" before it begins, it will write "[speaker 1], [speaker 2]" etc each time it identifies a change in speaker.

However, the success rate is not massively high.  Adobe claim about 75%, with high-quality audio, which seems about right, but is too low to make it a generally useful feature for most people.

There's a step by step guide on how to use it here:
http://layersmagazine.com/powering-search-with-audio-metadata-using-premiere-pro.html


FCPX 10.3 Audio multicam angles names to appear in main timeline? Is there a way to have the names I give audio multicam angles, appear in the main timeline?

When I expand audio components it just has the name of the whole multicam clip.

Try and make sure Angles is checked:

This solution worked for me and I found it here towards the bottom of the post:
https://larryjordan.com/articles/apple-final-cut-pro-x-multicam-naming-weirdness/


How to do overlays/masking like in this video? (Pasting clouds/rainbow/fireworks over sky while camera moves around) From 0:20 to 0:35.

I want to do something like this video where I paste clouds/rainbows/fireworks/etc. over the background while the camera is moving around, zooming in/out etc. Also keep in mind, people are obstructing the pasted elements as they move around.

For example, from 0:32 - 0:35. The camera zooms in and the pasted elements like the rainbow go right behind the girls. Also, the pasted elements (clouds and rainbow) move cleanly together with the zoom in, making the video look as if the rainbow and clouds were actually there when this shot was initially filmed.

I'm assuming I have to mask around the girls each frame? But if there are other methods to do this, please let me know.

For reference, here is the same music video minus the pasted clouds/rainbows/etc.

It's tricky but it looks like it was shot in a Studio (Green Screen) and that they had a bit of red straw and tiny piles of red sand on the floor.

That's why most of it looks like one Shot, because it is - they neither sang and danced then teleported nor did they dance twice and get that many people in perfect sync and switch from one to the other - they sang and danced the whole thing in a Studio and occasionally a foot would shift the red straw or sand.

The result of the Take in the Studio (with green everywhere, except the aforementioned straw and sand) is them singing and dancing with a floor and background that can be electronically (digitally) removed.

A separate Take is done both at the Beach and the Grass Field without any people present.

Proof is sometimes they kick up the Grass (move the straw underfoot) and sometimes they don't when you'd think that they might have had more occasion to do so - but the straw in the Studio is infrequent and you really need to kick to launch it - plus it's difficult to see.

Final proof is that they don't leave footprints on the sand - that's the clincher that 'wrecks' it.

So you have the Clips of them dancing in the Studio, the Clips of the Beach and Field. Draw Rainbows over the 'Field Clips' and drop the girls on top of that.

Masking is only on the bottom of the Frame, to have Sand or Grass to kick, appear in their respective backgrounds, combined with different takes where the 'kicking up the ground' is more or less pronounced (another thing that 'wrecks' it but harder to notice).

It was neither done cheaply (simply) nor did they spend a fortune (make it complicated). If you knew a dozen chicks you could do this on your Home Computer (assuming reasonable CPU power) using a handheld Video Camera and a bucket of Green Paint (plus some red for the ground effect, or double the number of Takes).

I think they used red as well as green because they don't kick up the ground correctly, much like the background doesn't move properly in relation to them. It was better than moderately well done, but not expertly executed.


replacing audio of a clip after editing on a timeline in Premier Pro CC 2017 I have a clip which I have edited on a timeline, I want to go back to merging a new audio file into the original file. I try merging the audio file into the original file but this creates a new merged clip which does not have the edits.

Your best bet is probably to replace the source of the clip in question with the timeline that has the changed audio.  There should be a "Replace Footage" option or something like that.  I'm only familiar with CS6 though, so I'm a bit out of date on exact specifics in the latest version of CC.


Transcoding 100+ files from H.264 to H.265 I am in a process of transcoding 100+ High Quality Bitrate 720p MKVs containing H.264 (x264) to H.265 (x265 / HEVC).

I do this with HandBrake software under Linux Debian 9 on Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.2GHz 4-core.

Various versions follow.

Kernel:

4.8.0-1-amd64

HandBrake:

0.10.5 (x86_64)

x265:

2.1-2
using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX AVX2 FMA3 LZCNT BMI2

I have these settings applied, according to mediainfo:

Encoding settings: wpp / ctu=64 / min-cu-size=8 / max-tu-size=32 / tu-intra-depth=3 / tu-inter-depth=3 / me=3 / subme=4 / merange=57 / rect / amp / max-merge=4 / temporal-mvp / no-early-skip / rskip / rdpenalty=0 / no-tskip / no-tskip-fast / strong-intra-smoothing / no-lossless / no-cu-lossless / no-constrained-intra / no-fast-intra / open-gop / no-temporal-layers / interlace=0 / keyint=240 / min-keyint=24 / scenecut=40 / rc-lookahead=40 / lookahead-slices=0 / bframes=8 / bframe-bias=0 / b-adapt=2 / ref=5 / limit-refs=1 / limit-modes / weightp / weightb / aq-mode=1 / qg-size=32 / aq-strength=1.00 / cbqpoffs=0 / crqpoffs=0 / rd=6 / psy-rd=2.00 / rdoq-level=2 / psy-rdoq=1.00 / log2-max-poc-lsb=8 / no-rd-refine / signhide / deblock=0:0 / sao / no-sao-non-deblock / b-pyramid / cutree / no-intra-refresh / rc=crf / crf=21.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ipratio=1.40 / pbratio=1.30

In short I have applied Constant Quality RF21 and at veryslow preset.

Originals are all at fixed 2 GiB size. The sizes my encodes differ (you can deduce how much time it took too from the file list):

494M Dec  7 07:02 S05E16.mp4
551M Dec  7 00:14 S05E17.mp4
654M Dec  6 16:11 S05E18.mp4
668M Dec  6 08:10 S05E19.mp4

The original files have these settings applied:

Encoding settings: cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=5670 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

The question is, is the CPU time well spent? I mean, can I do any obvious optimizations to speed things up without having lower quality and / or larger files as a result?

EDIT1:

Citation from the official source:

  x265 has ten predefined --preset options that optimize the trade-off between encoding speed (encoded frames per second) and compression efficiency (quality per bit in the bitstream). The default preset is medium. It does a reasonably good job of finding the best possible quality without spending excessive CPU cycles looking for the absolute most efficient way to achieve that quality. When you use faster presets, the encoder takes shortcuts to improve performance at the expense of quality and compression efficiency. When you use slower presets, x265 tests more encoding options, using more computations to achieve the best quality at your selected bit rate (or in the case of –crf rate control, the lowest bit rate at the selected quality).

EDIT2:

Hardware configuration

Type: Dedicated server of mine. Currently used only to transcode videos.

CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.2GHz 4-core

GPU: No dedicated card, only integrated

RAM: 32GB ECC 1600MHz

Disks:

SSD; used for system
HDDs in RAID6; used for writing the output videos
RAMDisk 20GB; used for reading the source videos

EDIT3:

With regard to the comment about swapping the memory, I have had set vm.swappiness = 1.

The whole one day I dedicated to testing various scenarios. The following applies to this particular series in this particular quality, so I don't say it applies generally. So in this case the following applies:

file sizes at the very same settings with only medium and veryslow preset changed vary negligibly: ~ -10 MiB on average in favor of veryslow preset
visual quality at a very close look is rather the same in either medium or veryslow preset

One thing solved. I have changed the preset to medium.

at a very close look, the source videos are not in such a high quality as I thought, that explains why x265 compresses to almost 1/4 of the original size

Another mystery solved.

Provided I now transcode at 25 fps, I have raised the RF to 20.

RAMDisk does not provide benefit in this case, both for medium and veryslow preset; I ended up with RAID6 as the source and SSD as the output drive

The inconvenience of moving files to RAMDisk solved.

To answer the question, the CPU time was not spent well at all.


After Effects preview with decreased image quality I have some 3-4 year old AE projects which use bigger png textures. When I created, them they looked amazing in the preview. The quality was render quality. The images were displayed as they look like when I open the source png files.

So the problem is that when I open them now (with the exact same computer, with a newer AE version), the images look terrible with the preview. The quality of the textures has been lowered a lot. Changing the preview resolution to "Full" doesn't help. I am unable to preview my composition with normal quality while I can render it in almost real time, so it's not because the file ate all of my RAMs.

I would really appreciate if somebody could give me some tips about how could I try to solve the issue.

You're probably using "Fast Draft" as your preview. This is a new preview mode which uses the GPU to provide "fast"* rendering for previews. This mode will generally look pretty bad, with less or no antialising, lower resolution textures, and less accurate colour.

You can go back to the old adaptive resolution rendering for previews, or use final quality (it actually works faster sometimes, go figure) using the little widget at the bottom of the comp window:

*Adobe's words, not mine, IMHO the latest versions of AE are the slowest yet


What is the "state of the art" professional software for storyboards and animatics? What is the "state of the art" professional software used by major Hollywood productions for storyboards and animatics?

I assume that maya would be the way the go when doing full 3D (pre-viz), right?

Technically most of the state of the art products of animatics are made from not only 1 but many software. It all starts from visualization to animation and rendering. But no matter how excellent the tools you use if the person who's operating it does not have the skills and talent, it will be a waste of time.


Remove unwanted person from background of a shot? I am working on a project for someone's video series about pain relief during child birth. During the whole scene, every shot takes place from this perspective. There's a couple people walking through the stairs on the right and behind the window there. I understand that by use of 'rotoscoping' and 'masks' I should be able to cover up the background with a still image and allow the blonde woman in the foreground to walk over the still images, but I don't know where I'd start that.

I've already made this background layer in Photoshop.

I'd really appreciate your help! :)

If the camera's static, then it's totally doable. Start by making a clean plate image of the whole area, as I think you have done.

Put that on a layer above (on top of) your original footage. Whenever the problem people wander in to shot, cover them up by putting a masked area of your clean plate over them.

As you mentioned, sometimes this means the desirable foreground subjects get covered up by the clean plate. But there is a solution to this, (even though it is time consuming):

Duplicate your original footage, and put the duplicated track on top of your clean plate, so it's the uppermost layer. Whenever you have some "desirable foreground" subject overlapping your clean plate, animate a masked area of it on top of the plate. Use lots of feathering and careful key framing, and you should be able to get an acceptable result.

Here's a (non-video) tutorial showing how to remove an unwanted object:
http://www.surfacedstudio.com/blog/after-effects-how-to-remove-an-object

Here's the excellent video copilot series, showing how to animate a mask:
http://www.videocopilot.net/basic/tutorials/04.Keying/

Neither show the idea of putting another foreground track over the top, but should get you along the way...


ffmpeg: final video too big I have one image ~1MB (jpg) and a ~30 mins audio file ~7MB (m4a).

What I am trying to get is a final video that lasts like the audio file (30 mins) with the same image displayed. I get that with the following ffmpeg usage:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i image.jpg -i audio.m4a -c:v copy -c:a copy -shortest -y video.mp4

The final result is correct but the size of the file is way far too big ~41GB as we consider the original size of the 2 files (image+audio ~8MB).

Is there a way to get a smaller size for the final video? I have used -r 1, -vf fps=1 etc but it didn't change.

EDIT

Following your suggestions I have changed the command into this:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -r 1 -i image.jpg -i audio.m4a -c:a copy -vf fps=1 -shortest -y video.mp4

and now the  final video size is dropped from 41GB to only 22MB and it built all in 2 mins.

Anyway it comes out a new issue: The image appears after 3/4 seconds that video is started. How can I fix that to have the image displayed from the beginning?

I think the solution for the delay is using fps=3.

Just remove -c:v copy. So it should look like this:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i image.jpg -i audio.m4a -c:a copy -shortest -y video.mp4

ffmpeg will select H.264 encoder to encode your image. You could also try -c:v libx264 -tune stillimage option. But probably the result will be similar.


Is there any way to avoid losing a generation of quality when re-exporting an .mp4 after making changes to it? I have previously made an .mp4 video file in Adobe Premiere Pro. I don't have any of the original files (or the project file) still. I've now noticed a very small mistake that really bothers me, but if I were to import the .mp4 file into Premiere, cut out the split-second mistake (it's an unwanted sound that I for some reason didn't catch when I made it) and then re-export/encode it, it would "lose a generation" of picture (and sound?) quality.

This is unacceptable to me.

I want to export the exact same video minus the split-second mistake. Zero changes in video/audio quality. Note that I cannot export it losslessly, because then it's no longer an .mp4 and will take a HUGE amount of storage space.

Is there really no way to accomplish this? It's so annoying that I will have to suffer serious loss of quality unless I keep all the lossless source files around forever for everything. It's just not practical, and I frankly see no reason why it couldn't allow us to do this.

@user2248 is on the money. The only software I know of that can do this sort of thing is ffmpeg. I'll expand on his answer:

Import mymovie.mp4 into Premiere Pro, or audition or whatever.
Do your sound edit, and export just the audio to myfixedaudio.wav (or .aiff).
Now comes the scary command line stuff:

ffmpeg -i mymovie.mp4 -i myfixedaudio.wav -c:v copy -map 0:v -map 1:a myfixedmp4.mp4

Wow, a whole line of typing, that's going to take forever. Seriously, it might seem that it's mysterious and difficult, but it's actually less work than doing it with the GUI. let's break down that command so you can see what it's doing:

-i mymovie.mp4 -i myfixedaudio.wav import the movie, and the audio. FFMPEG numbers from 0, so mymovie.mp4 is source 0 and myfixedaudio.wav is source 1
-c:v copy set the codec for video to copy, aka completely lossless copy of the original encoded video, copied bit for bit. We don't need to set the codec for audio because it sets the appropriate audio codec for mp4 by default (aac).
-map 0:v -map 1:a map the video from the first source and the audio from the second source to the first and second streams of the output. I.e. the output now has an identical video stream to the original movie, and a re-encoded audio stream from the fixed version in the wav file.
myfixedmp4.mp4 ffmpeg uses the first thing it sees as a filename without a -option in front of it as the output.
if you wanted to preserve more audio quality, you could muck around with the audio settings, you'd do that before the output name.

Compare that to what you'd do in Premiere:

import the movie and the audio
create a new timeline
add the just video to the timeline by deactivating the audio and then dragging the video into the timeline, or by selecting the original audio track from the movie and deleting it
add the new audio
export the movie, after adjusting the export settings

Same same, only you do it with a lot more clicking and dragging and keystrokes. Not to mention that it can't actually do what ffmpeg can.

This will not preserve your audio losslessly, but nothing will. It will however avoid a generation loss with your video, and it is the only way I know of that will.


Is there a method (or tool) to convert video from a SWF container to another more portable format (e.g., H.264) I have a client who has misplaced the original source video, only has an SWF, and would like to use it in a non-flash environment.

Is there any way to do this?

So far, I've tried ffmpeg but it's failed, complaining about the compressed SWF.

[swf @ 0x101807c00] Compressed SWF format not supported

Any help would be appreciated.

You should get a SWF decompiler (perhaps one of the trails for: Sothink SWF Decompiler   or Decompiler SWF) and use that to find the nested movie file, and extract that.


Using 60 fps footage on 23.976 sequence without slowing down or dropping frames I just recorded a 4k 60 fps clip from my GoPro and dropped it with some other clips on a timeline which is 23.976 fps, and the 60 fps clip looks really weird and glittery.

Is there a way to play this real time without dropping frames? I'm using Adobe Premiere Pro.

You can not. You have contradicting parameters.

You need to make some decisions. Either:

Leave your project at 29.97 and drop 1 every 2 frames of your 60fps clip.
Leave your project at 29.97 and use all the frames of the 60 fps clip making it slow-motion 2x.
Change the project speed to 60fps and render twice every frame of the other footage.
Change the project speed to 60fps and make a timewarp filter on the 29.97 footage, what it does is inventing new pixels to the new frames, making it look smoother if the program used is a good one.
Preparing separated projects and making a strange arrangement of projectors projecting two framerates at some cinema screen... Nop, let us discard this idea and just keep the other 4 in mind.


Stock footage creative commons license I'm making a travel documentary, and I'm missing a couple of shots of places which are quite touristy. E.g. Bikaner in India where there is a large red fort, the Nagour fort and Jodphur in the streets. Also the Delwari temple at Mount Abu.
I visited these places but they don't play a major part to my film, however, I would like to have a couple of shots of them if I can. Does anyone know of places to get stock open source footage, or contact people in those places who may be able to film for me - e.g. Couchsurfers?

I think you should try CC-Search, however use this wisely as some sites that are linked, do not always upload non-copyright footage, though you should be good for the most part.


Simple Transition Effects for Short Video or GIF I'm pretty new to creating GIFs and video effects so please excuse my ignorance. I searched for 2-3 hours for a simple tutorial on this but it is difficult to find.

Would anyone know how I can do this simple task: I have an image divided into 4 sections. I want each section to "fly in" from outside the screen into view, one right after the other until all 4 pieces are there. Sort of like when you make graphics "fly in" in Microsoft Word or Powerpoint.

I have the entire Adobe suite so I can use anything they have. I started creating it in Photoshop as a GIF and I assumed I could probably add the "Fly in" effect to each section of the image but it seems Photoshop doesn't have such capabilities for GIFs.

Simply go to the end of the video, set a keyframe how it should look in the end.
Then go to the beginning and move the images out of view. Add some movement speed curves if you want


Getting extra blank minutes at the end of the video My editing area looks like this:

For some reason when I export I get about 2 minutes of extra black screen at the end of my movie. I tried adding in and out markers but I haven't been able to fix the problem.

There are three things you have to get right:

You have to have the right length of video in your sequence (which can be helped by having explicitly set in and out markers at the right place).
You have to export the correct sequence.  If you don't have the correct sequence selected when you render, your export might, by coincidence, render the same content you are looking at, but from from a differently defined perspective--one that has a different concept of the in and out points you have defined for the sequence you should be rendering.
In the rendering window, there are several options, including whether to render the whole clip (irrespective of in and out points), render just between in and out, or some other options.

Try setting the correct in and out points, rendering the correct sequence, and then ensuring that your rendering actually honors the sequence's in and out points.


Is it possible to remove a border from a Webm video losslessly? I know that Matroska does have a way to remove the border by editing its metadata, and i also know that Webm is a cheaper version of Matroska. I have tried using MKVtools to edit Webm and it appears to work, but then when i play the file nothing changes.
So does Webm support metadata removal of border from the video? If it does what tool can i use to perform this task?

See here https://www.webmproject.org/docs/container/ under section Track. There you find PixelCropBottom, PixelCropTop, PixelCropLeft and PixelCropRight - all of which are supported. These parameters should do what you want. They also exist for Matroska.
Look for a tool that can manipulate those parameters.


Encoding low bitrate video source file to a higher bitrate I need to know if there will be any difference in the quality of the encoded video if the bitrate of the source file is, let's say 2000kbps and I encode it to 4000kbps.

Any help will be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

Yes, the quality will be worse. But probably not perceptually. Encoding ALWAYS loses a little information, that’s why it is called lossy compression. Increasing the bitrate will only reduce the information loss. The best you can do is lossless compression, and it will look exactly like the source


Is it worth it to buy a 50mm 1.8 lens if my camera has a 1.6 crop factor? I was looking to buy a Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Lens.

But my Canon 7D has a crop factor of 1.6, that would make the 50mm lens look like 80mm. I am a filmmaker, not a photographer, so keeping that in mind, should I still buy it?
Thanks!

No one besides you can answer this question.
A Cinema Prime Set pften constists out of a 18mm, 25mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm Primes (On Aps-C). It now depends on what you want to shoot. If you mainly shoot interior wides, the lens won't be of much use.

But a 50mm f1.8 is often a great - cheap option to get into blurrier shoots.


Old 8mm video recording tapes and standards I want to transfer a set of old home video tapes recorded on a Sanyo VM-D66P. I do not have access to the camcorder anymore need to buy a camcorder that will play them so I can capture it via USB. The manual unfortunately does not make it clear precisely the type of tapes that it used.

The instruction manual gives the following hints:

Television System: PAL, CCIR
Video recording system: Rotating 2-head helical-scan FM, color under system
Audio recording system: Rotating head FM system
Cassette type: 8mm video tape cassette
Tape speed: SP: 20.051 mm/sec
Tape speed: LP: 10.025 mm/sec
Recording/playback time: 180 minutes (P5-90 cassette)

After looking through the 8mm video format wikipedia page, I have come to the weary conclusion that the VM-D66P used the standard "original Video8 (analog recording) format". Does this sound correct? And does this mean I can use any Video8-compatible camcorder to play back the VM-D66P tapes?

Thanks!

The logo on the manual I could find indicates that it was standard 8mm, not Hi8 or Digital8.  If you are in a PAL region, then most likely it is the PAL version of 8mm.  You should be able to use any PAL based 8mm playback deck or camcorder to play the tape back.  You then be able to use a standard video capture device to digitize the video that you playback.


What is the best format for archiving digital movies? I work at a movie production company and we have a lot of film post production and release happening. All types of formats are handed to us by filmmakers and other studios. Now we want to archive all the files to a storage device and start moving them to LTO devices. What do you think is the best file format for storing the films? Note that the files are supposed to be ready to be accessed later for the purpose of preparing for screening and subtitling.

If you're looking for an open source codec that is finding favour in archives and museums as an archival format, you might want to look at FFV1 from the FFMPEG project.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FFV1

It is reasonably fast, reasonably efficient, cross-platform (including linux), free, and supports up to 16-bit per channel colour. Storage size is similar to ProRes.

However the main advantage is that it is 100% open source and non-proprietary, so it's not going to suddenly disappear come the Patent Apocalypse. It comes with ffmpeg, which is hands-down the best tool for doing these kind of conversions anyway.


Program to convert videos by interpolating 30fps video to 60 fps similar to Splash Pro video player If you have tried Splash Pro video player, you will see that it will play 30fps videos in 60 fps by using some kind of motion interpolation technology.

I want to somehow use that technology to process my 30fps videos to 60 or higher fps.

I tried Smooth Video Project(SVP) and I don't know what to do with it. It seems to only convert only Youtube videos.

How do I get this technology and apply it to my videos? Can I do it in Sony Vegas?

If you're exporting your finished project to a 60 fps format, your editing or compressing software will generally do some sort of conversion for you. It's not usually necessary to conform all your clips before editing.

If you have different options for how to handle the conversion, using "Optical Flow" or "Motion Estimation" options will interpolate frames. Depending on how good the interpolation is and the nature of the footage, this may look perfectly acceptable or horrible. As mentioned, you can try frame blending, too.

If your software doesn't do the conform automatically, you could try 3rd party tools. I know many people who have had good success with Twixtor from RE:Vision Effects. But there are others you can try as well depending on which application you're using.


Can you mask a parent null object in Adobe After effects? Is it possible to create one mask or track matte mask on a parent null layer that applies to all child layers? Only way I've figured out is to apply a track matte to every layer I want masked which seems very inefficient.

Cheers.

Well, there a lot of ways to get result quicker, but each one depends on desirable result. =)

Here's one way:

Make desired null's mask
Make any mask for it's child (it doesn't matter what there)
Alt+click on child's mask path 'clock' icon (it'll open script settings)
Clear edit field or select all the contents
Drag 'link' icon (spiral) of mask path expression over Null's mask Path (it should add some kind of "thisComp.layer("Null 1").mask("Mask 1").maskPath" to expression field)
Copy this new mask to all childs

p.s.: this way is just a start, since it's not includes shifts of child and parent layers, but if pivots aligned it'll work


How can i crop a frame sequence with ffmpeg? I want to crop a video frame sequence by frame number. For example for 10000 frames  sequence, i want to crop it 750 frame from beginning.

FFmpeg's image sequence demuxer has a start_number option, so if you want to skip img_0749.jpg and start from img_0750.jpg, you would start your command as follows,

ffmpeg -start_number 750 -i img_%04d.jpg ...

See the docs for the image2 demuxer at http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-formats.html#image2-1


Health issues concerning video lights For a small home studio lighting setup, I have concluded that softboxes with clf bulbs or LED panels would be adequate.
But clf bulbs contain mercury, and even though it is a small amount, accidents tent to happen.
On the other hand, I have read that LED lights are bad for eyes. I don't conclude related links because I think that you all have heard of that. If so, does the quality of the bulb has to do something with that? That is because I intend to buy some Chinese ones, I can't afford anything else.
Are all these issues real or myth? Any thoughts or alternative suggestions would be appreciated.
P.S. I am interested in 5600K bulbs.

Mercury is enclosed within the bulb, and does not pose any threat to the user, unless the bulb breaks. In such case the amount of mercury released is still rather small, though it certainly makes sure to clean it properly. More important is safe disposal of the bulbs. See e.g. this article: https://earth911.com/home-garden/broken-cfl-clean-up/
LEDs can be tiring for eyes due to flickering. LEDs for photography should not flicker much, otherwise they will produce visible artifacts.


Quickest way to rate takes in Premiere? How do you rate a series of takes in Premiere?
I'd like to be able to look at a series of takes, and quickly mark each one out of 5 or 10, using the keyboard more than the mouse... Is there a good way to do this?
Thanks..

First, you need to adjust the metadata display. In the panel menu of the project panel, select the option Metadata display. In the Metadata Display window, activate the Rating display under Basic. This way, you get your five-star rating system right in the project panel (you can change the position of the rating column using drag-and-drop). Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to assign shortcuts to this star rating system.

Another option, if you are dead set on primarily working with the keyboard, are label colors. You can change the available label colors in the program preferences. You could, for example, use a color code as your rating system (e.g. green → blue → yellow → orange → red). Then, you can assign shortcuts to these colors: Press CTRL+ALT+K to bring up the Keyboard Shortcuts window. The color shortcuts can be found under Edit → Label.


How do I correctly use an ACES workflow with CinemaDNG footage in Davinci Resolve? I'm just now discovering ACES with Resolve version 11. I can get Sony S-Log2 footage to look good, but I'm having trouble with CinemaDNG from my 2.5kBMCC. I've seen this tutorial on how to do it, but when I get to the step where you select an IDT, CinemaDNG is not available. Any thoughts on why this might be so? Is there something different I have to do in version 11 than what this guy's doing in 9.x? Here's the IDTs from which I have to choose, in case I'm just crazy.

You should use BMD Film (Black Magic Design) This is the colorspace used by the Black Magic Cameras.


Video Live Embed from external websites I want to make a website where visitors can view webcams from the world. I want to make categories per countries, a map etc. The problem is that 90% of webcams i find on internet are .mjpg or .cgi. So, i've made a code that make this mjpg working in IE 8,9 etc. I can't put links to these websites that contains these webcams because on their sites, these streams doesn't work in IE. So I need to load the image in HTML:  from their website.

Is legally to load the stream form these external sites? Must I put a link above the picture to their website? What can I do to be legally? I want to make this site without external links for viewing of the stream.

If this question is not appropriate for asking here, please leave a comment, and I will delete it (please tell me where can I ask this question).

Thank you in advance!

What you are referring to is called hot linking, and while it may or may not technically be a violation of their copyright or terms of use (check their website for details) it is still generally considered a poor practice since you are effectively utilizing their bandwidth without mentioning that it is their bandwidth.

Your best bet is to contact the operators of those cameras and ask them what they think.


Difference between 4K Edition and 4K Cineform On this page I found this here:

http://www.timescapes.org/products/

And I don't get it, because 4k Ediition is only 25gb and 4k cinema is 330gb.

What is the difference if both are 4K (4096 x 2304) ?

Could 12-bit (color resolution) make that huge difference in size?

It's the compression!

The color resolution is a factor, but not such a big one. In this case the compression is the biggest factor. If you assume that both the 4K Edition and the 4K Cineform contain the same material, 4K Cineform contains more than 13x the information (as stated on the timescapes.org products page).

But is more really better? Cineform states here that for 4K their codec produces a stream between 30 MByte/s up to 90 MByte/s, depending on the color space. This is far more than an average computer can display without interruptions.

So, if you just plan to play back the movie smoothly, choose a smaller format, as timescapes.org offers for 30" or retina displays.


Hardware/software to project video wirelessly? Anyone have any recommendations for ways to do screensharing of video on a Mac wirelessly over WiFi to a projector? In a solution that doesn't require plugging in some kind of USB dongle.

Wi-Fi enabled projectors have been around for several years, at least.

A cursory Google search for "wifi enabled projector" turns up that and several other articles, plus reviews and some product listings. The primary complaint seems to be bandwidth; however I did not find any reviews including more recent Wi-Fi standards like 802.11g/n.

That said, it was a cursory search. I saw lots of other results that I didn't have time to click on. Some of them looked a lot more current, and I did find something that looks like a present-day product listing of wireless projectors.

My advice would be to shop around, read reviews, and get a good return/exchange policy if you decide to buy one (so you can test it with relatively low risk).


AfterEffects: How to make audio sine waves like this? Alright, there are many tutorials on audio spectrums in AE, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_-aycDYsJM
I want to make a visualizer like this, however, where the waves more mimic sine waves: https://dribbble.com/shots/3364622-Sound-Waves
Ive tried flipping this switch in AE, but this doesnt give me the desired result, especially w the secondary waves of less opacity next to the main wave-

How can I accomplish this and have it be reactive to audio?

Try using the analog lines, but turn up the number of frequency bands, a LOT. Like to a thousand or so. To get single lines use side a or side b in the side options. You can also change the upper and lower frequencies to focus more on parts of the audio that are interesting. Then repeat with different settings to achieve multiple lines.


Choosing the right format/codec for export I have a few recordings from my Canon IXUS 90 IS that I have combined into one sequence. I am using this small project as a way to get to know Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.

The pieces of video from the camera are obviously already compressed, and I would like to export the finished product in an equally compressed format to reduce the file size. Which format/codec is best suited for this task? Am I fine with the ones that are already available to me in Premiere, or should I download another somewhere?

I've already tried the Windows Media codec, but I get the error "The source and output audio channels are not compatible or a conversion does not exist" and I have no idea what to do about this.

Video details:

File type: AVI
Video: 640x480, 30 fps
Audio: 44100 Hz, 16-bit, Mono

I am fine with having to fiddle with the parameters in order to get the quality just right. I just need a pointer in the right direction.

Please let me know if further details are needed.

I use these guidelines when uploading to the internet. I know that's not what you're trying to do but it's a starting point. I find there is very little loss of quality and massively reduced file size.


Color grading ; Anybody familiar working with Da-Vinci Resolve? I've heard of this tool, Blackmagic's Da vinci resolve, as its available for free from the site but the Package including its consoles and all costs much. Is there anybody here familiar with this Da-vinci resolve.

Question is , is it feasible to work with the free version (without the consoles) for a small scale video project ?

Is there any courses or online training available for this ?

Expecting feedbacks.. and affordable alternatives for color grading..

Got it.. ... I am sharing what i found here for everyone.May be someone needy finds it useful someday ;-)

Q1 was : Can  DaVinci Resolve be used without a panel?

Ans: Yes.

DaVinci Resolve has been designed to be used with the DaVinci Resolve control panel but can also be used with a mouse or a pen and tablet. There are third party control panels that can also be used with Resolve.

However, there is a significant advantage in terms of speed and ease of grading by using the DaVinci Resolve control panel as it has been specifically designed for Resolve and has the fullest implementation of the feature set. Grading with the DaVinci Resolve control panels will allow you more time to finesse your grades and make and compare different grades for each shot.

Q2: Any training or tutorials available ?

Ans : Plenty, but as said earlier without the console , things will gt tricky.

Here is the link for the official manual.

Additional Notes:

This , from what i understand is a truly dedicated color grading system, not for editors but colorists and the color specialists of the industry.

What i still don't know is how is the product available for purchase.. Checked out the Official site, but only 2 dealers found in my country. :-(

Well that's it, i am downloading.
Will update after using...
Cheerio..


LifeSize DVI Input from multiple devices with in-line scaler We have a number of meeting rooms that were equipped with an AV cabinet and projector each. There's a local PC and input for mobile devces at the meeting table.  All of the cable runs are HDMI (those longer than ~10m are supported by active Kramer Cat6 Baluns). We've standardised on 1080p for our displays. Locally, everything works well.

We've upgraded two of these rooms for conferencing. This includes: A second, wall mounted TV and a LifeSize Express 220. Input are handled by a Kramer VS-84 (or VS-44) matrix switcher, such that the image to the Projector is mirrored to the DVI-I Input of the LifeSize unit, making it possible to present to remote participants from any of the input devices with ease.

Now, the LifeSize 220 series doesn't support 1080p input for presentations. This wasn't regarded as a significant issue, since a compressed, downscaled input was judged sufficient for passive observers.

To rectify this, we installed a Kramer VP-424 scaler in-line between the switch and the LifeSize. (HDMI in and out). This would give us a clean 720p feed to the LifeSize while all the local displays stay at 1080p.

Here's where the problems come in: At both sites, output from the scaler was being corrupted or not displayed. The pattern of this varied depending on the input device and the scaler used:

Kramer VP-424: Macbooks and iOS devices Display, but are subject to very regular (1/s) single-frame flashes of noise with audible popping sound. Windows laptops display cleanly
CYP SY298H: Similar to the Kramer, with audible poppping, but the image would drop to flat blue and 'No Input', or appear squashed up into the top 1/6 of the screen.
Extron DCS 301: A clean display from Windows laptops, but a no output whatsoever from any Apple devices.

We've also tried:

Many (many) cables.
Direct device input to the Lifesize (Everything works, as the device will downscale to 720p on connection, but it requires manual connection wrangling prior to meetings, which isn't sustainable)
Discussing with our installer. (They're being brilliant about this, but they're as stumped as we are)
Discussing with LifeSize support (Also very helpful, but there are too many variables and 3rd party products for them to suggest anything concrete)
Not having the scaler: All inputs are corrupted as the switch tries to feed 1080p into the LifeSize.

We can't enforce input device type, as support for everything is required in our environment. We can't really mandate 720p across the board as, although it's sufficient for passive viewing, the presenter still needs 1080p (lots of small text and Wireframe 3D in some cases).

I'd love a one-shot solution to this, but if anyone can give me some pointers in how to further debug the problem, I'll be in their debt. (I can provide diagrams of the setup, if it'll help)

EDIT 1

At AJ's Suggestion, I removed the switch from the equation. (Mackbook 1080p@60 -> Scaler-> Lifesize). To start with, the issue was just as apparent. Then I tried something we'd eliminated previously, and switched off the HDCP on Input option.  Suddenly I'm looking at a clean, scaled 720p image!

So I put the switch back in line and now all I see is what we saw with earlier tests: A blank screen. Still, this means that without the switch in place, HDCP isn't needed. If I can disable it in the entire chain, then we might be sorted. I'll report back when I've done some further testing.

EDIT 2

Something I didn't point out previously: If I take the codec out of the equation (Mac -> Scaler -> TV), then I don’t see any problems at all, regardless of the HDCP setting.

So we have HDCP being agreed from device to switch to (if it's enabled) scaler. It looks like the scaler -> Lifesize negotiation is where it's failing. Both agree on HDCP support, but then something goes wrong that causes this regular popping.

I've found an answer to my specific problem that's a little ugly, but might be of some use.

The basic premise is to ensure that the first device in the chain does not support (or is capable of disabling support for) HDCP. Macs and iOS devices are opportunistic when it comes to HDCP; they'll always attempt to negotiate it, but will fall back to unencrypted when there's no protected content playing.

The Kramer VP-424 scaler has a setting "HDCP on input" that will, when disabled, prevent that negotiation. By putting one of these inline between the input and the switch, HDCP never starts and the whole chain is unencrypted:

Mac -> VP-424 (HDCP Disabled, 1080p output) ->VS-84H Switch -> VP-424 (HDCP Disabled, 720 Output) -> LifeSize Codec.

The scaling doesn't have any noticeable effect on image quality or unduly effect sync times, which is a bonus. I still get 1080p out to the local projector and downscaled 720p to the codec.

As I say, it's neither pretty, nor cheap; but it works.


Little skip in webm videos joined with mkvmerge I've donwloaded some youtube videos that I want to join. I joined them with mkvmerge, but in the joined video, there are ~5 seconds skips (in VLC the second counter stops and then jumps 5 seconds) at the start of each video I joined (even at the start). Is there another way to join them so I won't have this problem?

Try a video editor like Lightworks to join them into one video, there you can cut any black frames and won't have to deal with possible glitches introduced by muxing different videos into one stream.

If your videos are indeed webm and not h264 you might need transcode them into another codec (f.e. with ffmpeg), a production codec like MJPEG or any lossless codec might be suitable as an intermediate codec so you don't loose much visual quality after exporting your finished video.


Is there a way to stretch only a portion of the video? I want to stretch the right hand 50% of the video only.  So that the left 50% of the video looks normal and the right 50% looks bizzarrely stretched.   Think of someones face smiling and laughing, where the

Yes, you need to work with two video tracks, use the crop and scale effect.

Create a sequence from your clip.
Apply the crop effect and set it to left: 50%
Locate the scale settings under the always present motion effect
Disable uniform scaling and set scale width to whatever you like
Add the clip again as a new track on top
Apply the crop effect on this track too and set it to right: 50%

And that's it.


Wrapping AVI with RGBA channels in a MOV file? I'm very new to this honestly

I'm trying take a rendered sequence with an alpha channel that I exported from HitFilm 4, and import it into Davinci Resolve. Resolve doesn't support AVI (I didn't know that AVI was an archaic format) but HitFilm cannot export to any other format with an alpha channel EXCEPT AVI.

I'm not even sure if any of this is realistically possible but I don't want to give up. Mainly, I'm trying to wrap the AVI file into a MOV container, or something of the sort, while keeping the alpha channel intact.

Is there anything I can do?

You can use ffmpeg, a free command-line tool to do this.

The command is

ffmpeg.exe -i in.avi -c:v copy out.mov

This will copy the video stream over without transcoding or dropping the alpha. The caveat here is that if MOV doesn't support the codec of the AVI video stream, then ffmpeg will fail. But, then you can simply run

ffmpeg.exe -i in.avi -c:v qtrle out.mov

This will losslessly transcode the video, keeping the alpha. The size may increase.