how accurate frequency does a PC speaker produce I was wondering how accurate frequencies do PC speakers produce. I'm talking about the old small things in computer that usually beep.

I used the beep linux command to generate some frequencies. But I noticed something interesting. When I use the hardware PC speaker I stop hearing anything on 1700Hz. Actually I barely hear up to 16850Hz and I feel it more like a pain in the back part of my head.

Emulating PC speaker with the integrated sound card and listening through the laptop speaker I hear up to 20KHz and it is nothing like a pain.

So I am wondering if any of these two can be trusted for producing frequencies above 8Khz? I'm more inclined to trust the old PC speaker because I expect to hardly be able to hear such high frequencies. Not having experience with known correct equipment it is hard to judge though.

P.S. I don't think there is any spec I can read about frequency response.

The classic PC Speaker is a very simple system that was designed to be inexpensive and use off-the-shelf parts of the early 1980s.

The core problem is that the PC speaker system consists of a cheap speaker, a timer, and digital pulses. Using this system, you can get quite a lot of interesting sounds out that weren't originally intended. But you are limited to square waves and the harmonic content that comes with them.

  I don't think there is any spec I can read about frequency response.

The best you can find is specs for the timer and then run experiments with the actual hardware. The early IBM PCs had discrete timers, but at some point that functionality got rolled into the VLSI chipsets that PC makers used to build motherboards.

If you have an actual audio chip built into the motherboard (fairly common, these days, much less common even in the late 1990s), then it is likely that the PC speaker functionality is emulated there. So the behavior will be different from the original hardware.

Your integrated sound card should produce the most accurate sound. But at the upper end of the sound range, you may be limited by the physical capabilities of your laptop speakers. If you drive the speaker faster than it can move, then you won't get the sound you expect.


How can I make the particular trail longer in After Effects CS4? How can I make the particular trail longer?

Why when I animate the particular do I only have a trail when I parent it to an Object or Emitter?

You need to change lifespan of the particle and move the emitter around.  The longer the lifespan of the particle the longer the trail will be because the trail is composed of ageing particles.


What video codecs can provide "adaptive quality"? Background:

I am trying to compress lossless bluray tracks to a more storage friendly size without a huge loss in quality.

What I've been doing thus far:

Exploring compression options with ffmpeg. Mainly around h264 with the -crf argument.

Restrictions:

Linux and open source tools. Please don't suggest anything Apple/Microsoft specific.

Question:

Most of the options I see around compression involved bit rates or fixed output sizes. I am looking for a video codec that has more of a "quality threshold". I don't mind if more complex portions of the track require more bytes to deliver the same level of visual quality. Does anything like this exist?

Edit:

I am having good luck with the -qscale argument and libxvid. If I don't get any other suggestions, I'll just go with that.

You're on the right track with -crf and x264 (the best H.264 encoder), and it should provide the "quality threshold" that you're looking for. CRF is recommended if you want a certain output quality and output file size is of less importance. Conversely, performing a two-pass encode with -b:v is recommend if you are targeting a specific output file size and quality is of less importance.

Encoding HEVC/H.265 with x265 should follow the same basic guidelines. You'll generally get better compression in exchange for a longer encoding time.

1. Choose a preset

A preset is a collection of options that will provide a certain encoding speed:compression ratio. A slower preset will provide better compression (compression is quality per filesize). General usage is to use the slowest preset that you have patience for. Current presets in descending order of speed are: ultrafast, superfast, veryfast, faster, fast, medium, slow, slower, veryslow, placebo. Ignore placebo as it is a joke and a waste of time (it helps at most ~1%). If it's encoding too slowly then use a faster preset.

2. Choose a CRF value

The range for x264 is 0-51 where 0 is lossless, 23 is default, and 51 is worst possible. A lower value is a higher quality. A subjectively sane range is 18-28. Consider ~18 to be visually lossless: it should look the same as the input but it isn't technically lossless. Increasing the CRF value +6 is roughly half the bitrate while -6 is roughly twice the bitrate.

General usage is to choose the highest -crf value that still provides an acceptable quality. That is if the output looks good then try a higher value and if it looks bad then choose a lower value.

3. Encode

Use these settings for the rest of your videos. They should all end up with the same quality.

Example

ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 22 -c:a copy output.mkv

Also see

FFmpeg Wiki: H.264
FFmpeg Wiki: H.265


Make a video ONLY 2 colors? (Not grayscale) Unfortunately I do not have an example because I do not know the name of the technique.

I have seen in films at a local film festival an "effect" that makes the video black and white. I don't mean grayscale; anyone can make a black and white movie. What I mean is only black and white.

I know how to do this in programming with individual pictures. Get pixel color, and if its average RGB value is above 128, its white, and vice versa.

How would I do this in video? I personally have Sony Vegas Pro 13, and a friend has Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 that he can let me use.

I can add more info if needed, and I'll try to find an example.

Thanks!

You could use the Posterize effect in Adobe After Effects, and set it to 2 colours.  Or the Threshold RGB effect and set it to 127 (if it's an 8 bit colour video). You may have to greyscale the video first.


Join videos through concatenation Which video format allows concatenation simply by joining files?

cat out1.mp4 ou2.mp4 >out.mp4

These videos are created from images using ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -f image2 -i image.png -s 640x480 -vcodec libx264 -t 30 -y out.mp4

If you can give me a running example it'd be great.

From FFmpeg FAQ:

  A few multimedia containers (MPEG-1, MPEG-2 PS, DV) allow to
  concatenate video by merely concatenating the files containing them.

Hence you may concatenate your multimedia files by first transcoding them to these privileged formats, then using cat command (or copy under Windows), and finally transcoding back to your format of choice.

ffmpeg -i input1.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate1.mpg
ffmpeg -i input2.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate2.mpg
cat intermediate1.mpg intermediate2.mpg > intermediate_all.mpg
ffmpeg -i intermediate_all.mpg -qscale:v 2 output.avi


Which measurements can I take using which programs to exploit the already low quality and save as much space as possible? This is the best my actioncam can create.

My goal is to take advantage of this low quality and save as much harddrive space as possible so visible quality remains.

Which measurements can I take using which windows programs to exploit the already low quality and save as much space as possible?

There are a few video quality metrics available for you to use, primarily SSIM and also PSNR. You can use ffmpeg to convert the video and then compare the output.

Step 1 Convert the video

ffmpeg -i actioncamfile -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -c:a copy -map 0 compressed.mp4

The CRF value modulates the quality. Lower values produce better quality but larger file sizes. Typical values range from 18 to 28, but absolute range is 0 to 51, but 0 being lossless, which will produce an exact looking file but will be bloated.

If you want to test with only a small section, say 20 seconds of the source starting from 15 seconds into the file, you can use

ffmpeg -ss 15 -i actioncamfile -t 20 -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -c:a copy -map 0 compressed.mp4

Step 2 Measure the quality of the conversion

Run

ffmpeg -i compressed.mp4 -i actioncamfile -lavfi "ssim;[0:v][1:v]psnr" -f null -

This command output, at its end, will display lines like this

[Parsed_ssim_0 @ 000000000039ad80] SSIM Y:0.984483 U:0.980458 V:0.980921 All:0.983219 (17.751712)
[Parsed_psnr_1 @ 0000000000398320] PSNR y:42.63 u:43.19 v:44.09 average:42.90 min:42.07 max:46.16

You can aim for a SSIM All value to be at least 0.99, or set your own benchmark, based on what's acceptable.


After effects cc render time issues I recently made a video 3 minutes long with trapcode particular, 2 light layers and some simple expressions for particular (wiggle and time).
Rendering in quicktime h264, 1080p 30fps.

I started to render the video and on first it showed 28 minutes remaining. I was extremely happy with that. Came back 30 minutes later and now it was estimating 1h 20 minutes. Came back hour later and now it was at 1h 54min.
Although the rendering was now going for more than hour. The time kept increasing.

I decided to stop and use adobe encoder, with h264 and matching video settings high bitrate. Encoder at the start gave me 1hour and later increased that again.

So few hours later I am using after effects built in rendering and time remaining is 1hour 30 min and elapsed is at 3hr 44min and more than half way through rendering.

How could it be increasing all the time? I am using after effects for about a month now so I don't know all the hacks. I am using intel i5-6400 2.7ghz with 8gb of ram and 4gb of ddr5 gpu geforce gtx 750 ti.

Would it help if I would render particles separate with alpha channel and then add it to full composition? Would that reduce time?

Sorry for such bad explanation. English is not native for me.

I usually export as a ProRes Quicktime movie from After Effects directly, then convert my ProRes file to h264.  I keep the ProRes as a master file, and compress the h264 as needed.  Also sometimes restarting AE before rendering fixes any slowdowns.  If the particles are using large (greater than 200x200 pixel) layers for their textures, this will make things render very slowly.


.mov file is not playing video in After Effects I've recorded 7 videos yesterday. All recorded on a Canon 5D Mark III. The files are playing fine from Finder and Quicktime. But when I import them to After Effects, only one of them is not playing any video but just sound. After Effects imports the file as audio file, as it looks to me, still, it says, it is a file of the type "Quicktime".

Does anyone have an idea, what I could look into or what I could try?

Finder's file info says:

Dimensions: 1920x1080
Codecs: H.264, Linear PCM, Timecode Color
Profile: HD (1-1-1)
Duration: 11:49

Adobe Premiere CC 2018 does also play the video as it should. I'm quite a bit confused and have no idea, where to look or what to try.

Any help is much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Can you give us the codec informations from your video file using mediainfo or FFMPEG ?

As Premiere Pro plays well the video, you can export it to a lossless format such as Apple ProRes and then re-open it in After Effect.


How to handle credit How do you organise and remember all the people that helped in the project?
Do you simply have an excel sheet with the names and what the person did?

Thanks!

Paperwork is important.  Beyond a simple Excel spreadsheet, you should have appropriate releases from everyone involved in your project.  Depending on your jurisdiction, it is likely that you can't make commercial use of someone's likeness without their consent, and if they decide they don't like your project for some reason they could force it to be taken down until you can edit them out of it without a release.

Similarly, for crew, by default, copyright sits with the person producing the work in most jurisdictions, unless there is an agreement otherwise or there is an employee relationship.  You need agreements with everyone from the project and you need to keep these organized so you can present them if necessary.

Yes, having a master list somewhere like Excel or in a text file is helpful for being able to more quickly add them to the credits, but you need far more than just a simple list of names to properly document a project.


Which decoder allows for fast seeking or how to configure k-lite codec pack? I am using mostly Haaly Media Splitter for input and ffdshow for decoding (libavcodec).
Actually I am ok with the default profile 7 installation of k-lite codec pack.

At the moment I have the default options in the ffdshow decoder configuration and in the Haali media splitter filter.

What I want is to make seeking as fast as possible. Any suggestions on how to detect the bottleneck or how to reduce seeking time?

Let me describe what the bottleneck in seeking is.

You didn't say what format are your videos encoded in, but I'm guessing you are using H.264 or maybe MPEG-2. Am I correct?

To maximize quality, these codecs have different compression formats, and each frame gets encoded differently. This is a brief summary of the compression types:

I-frames (I stands for intracoded) are frames that can be decoded easily, as they don't depend on any other frames.
P-frames (P stands for predictive) are frames that encode only the differences from one or more previous I or P-frames. To decode a P-frame you need to first decode all the I and P-frames that this frame depends on.
B-frames (B stands for bi-directional) are frames that encode differences like P-frames, but unlike P-frames, these differences can refer to previous or future I or P-frames. As with P-frames, To decode a B-frame you first need to decode all the past and future frames that are dependencies.

So now I hope the performance problem with seeking is clear. You jump to the middle of the movie clip, and chances are, you are going to land on a B or a P-frame. So the decoder now needs to find all the references required by that frame, decode them in the correct order and only then it can finally decode the target frame.

To achieve better compression and higher quality, encoders create a lot less I-frames than P or B-frames. The idea is that the compressed stream starts with a really high quality I-frame, and then for a number of frames that follow, smaller P and B frames encode just the differences. Of course if you go for a long time like this quality starts to degrade, so at some point the movie will include another big and nice I-frame and the cycle starts again.

When a movie clip is played from start to end, the different frame types appear sorted in the file so that when playback reaches a given frame, all its references have already been seen by the decoder. This allows for very efficient playback at 1x speed. Unfortunately when you play at other rates or when you seek the amount of work the decoder needs to do to find referenced frames is much larger because frames are read out of sequence.

So going back to your question, the problem isn't really in the decoder. If you need to improve seek time you need to use videos that are encoded to minimize seek time. In essence this means videos that have more frequent I-frames, also called keyframes sometimes. The more I-frames you have, the less references will be required to decode P and B-frames so the decoder will have less work to seek.

I hope this helped understand the problem.


DaVinci Resolve 16 shows black screen on imported media This is my first time using this software cause I am trying to learn. but when I import my media, it shows all black screen and all I can hear was audio.

File imported are .mp4

I suspect you are using an unsupported codec.  Are you using the Linux for windows version?  What is the video you are trying to import encoded as?


How do I specify baseline H264 profile using FFmbc? I am using FFmbc (a FFmpeg derivative) to transcode some video files to H264 (in a mov wrapper).

I want to specify baseline profile (to reduce CPU usage) but can't figure out how.
There doesn't seem to be a simple option to specify this - I understand the profile is derived from whatever options I have specified.

However most examples are for FFmpeg and FFmbc rejects them.

The suggestion to use "-flags2 +bpyramid+wpred+mixed_refs-dct8x8" gives the errors:

[NULL @ 0x101093600] [Eval @ 0x7fff5fbfce20] Undefined constant or missing '(' in 'bpyramid'
[NULL @ 0x101093600] Unable to parse option value "bpyramid+wpred+mixed_refs-dct8x8"
[NULL @ 0x101093600] Error setting option flags2 to value +bpyramid+wpred+mixed_refs-dct8x8.

What am I missing here?

Note: This is for recent FFmpeg, not FFmbc, which doesn't use the same option syntax (yet)

You need to use the -profile:v option, which has been introduced in FFmpeg 0.9 (afaik) and is now standard in 1.0.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -preset fast -profile:v baseline out.mov

Why? -profile was used (and prioritized) for AAC encoding. It's simply ambiguous, therefore you need the stream specfier :v.


FFMPEG - Creating script to convert a video into audio file (or anything related really) + diverses questions Good day everyone. Im making my babysteps into ffmpeg, and so far this tool has been really helpfull. Anyway.
Im currently using this line as a convertion basis :

ffmpeg -i name.mov -c:v libx264 name.wav

But while searching through the question here i've seen that :

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vn -ar 44100 -ac 1 -b:a 32k -f mp3 audio.mp3

Or even this (a script) :

%%f in (*.mp4) do ffmpeg -i "%%f" -vn -ar 44100 -ac 1 -b:a 32k -f mp3 "%%~nf.mp3"

So now let's dive into it. Im wondering if i can merge the two first ones like that :

ffmpeg -i name.mov -vn -ar 48000 -ac 2 -b:a 32k libx264 -f wav name.wav

And how i can modify it by making it scripted.
Also im wondering if the ffmpeg i got is good because i don't have a command prompt that directly open cmd into cd bin. As im forced to write everytime the entire path.

Thanks in advance. S'Aarum.

-vn + -c:v libx264 Does not make any sense.
This is saying "Don't encode video, but use libx264 to encode no video."

You also can not set a bitrate for wav because it's a noncompressed format.

So your command becomes:

ffmpeg -i name.mov -vn -ar 48000 -ac 2 name.wav


Stack images with "hstack"-filter from video or image sequence in ffmpeg Is it possible to input a video and extract images every second while simultaneously stack them horizontally or vertically with the "hstack" filter to create one jpg image?

The only way I can figure out how to do it is by extractning the still-frames with this command:

ffmpeg -i INPUT.mov -vf fps=1 -s 192x108 thumbnails%03d.jpg

And then inputting them one by one and then specifying then number of inputs like this.

ffmpeg -y -i thumbnails001.jpg -i thumbnails002.jpg -i thumbnails003.jpg... filter_complex vstack=inputs=3 output.jpg

It would be nice if it was possible to do in one more dynamic chunk from the original video or at least from one inputted Video-Sequence and not manually inserting the number of INPUTS needed to create the Stack.

You're better off using the tile filter for this:

ffmpeg -i INPUT.mov -vf fps=1,scale=192:108,tile=54x1 output.jpg

The tile argument is the size of a rectangle. So for a 54 second video, 54x1 produces a horizontal stack of 54 frames. Use 1x54 for a vertical stack.


What softwares are used to produce this video? https://www.facebook.com/video.php?v=732070063514894&set=vb.410157642372806&type=3&theater

I have no experience with any video production softwares but I need to do something similar to that video. are there any specific softwares that can produce something like this?

You will need some kind of 2D animation program to do this. After Effects is one possibilty.

However, these are advanced animations. Without any experience, it will take quite some time to learn how to do this and achieve similar effects. If you're not willing to put some time in it, you don't even have to start ...


after effects how to Zoom-in but keep same size (zooming and cropping) I am using After Effects, i am zooming an image using two keyframes and the scale setting, but as i zoom in, the image gets bigger.

I want the image to have the zoom-in but keep its assigned size. So i want something like "crop" on top of the zoom.

How to do this?

There are a couple of ways to achieve this:

Use a track matte. Create a layer with the desired size / shape and put it above the zooming layer. You can use masks to create any shape you want, or use an image that has an alpha channel, or even just a copy of the original layer without the animated scale. On the zooming layer go to the Tack matte / mode panel (you may have to hit f4 to toggle between switches and modes), and choose Alpha Matte "layer name". This will turn off visibility for the top layer, and apply its transparency to the layer below.

Use a layer with the stencil alpha transfer mode above your original layer. This does a similar thing to a track matte, but it's not just for one layer, it's for every layer below the matte layer. And the visibility for the matte layer has to be on for it to work.
Use a preComp. Pre-comping replaces the original layer (or layers) with a composition containing just that layer(s). So you want to pre-comp the layer with the animated Scale property – select it and hit shift-cmd/ctrl-c or choose Layer>Pre-Compose from the menu. In the dialogue that appears choose move all attributes into the new composition. Now you can add a mask to the pre-comp to crop off the scaled edges of the layer. A pre-comp is similar to what you'd get if you rendered the layer as a movie and then brought that back into your comp (but with a few advantages). As the pre-comp is not zooming, just its contents, the mask will crop the edges as the contents get bigger.


ffmpeg: map 4 stereo pairs into 7.1 audio in FLV/RTMP I am trying to get this ffmpeg command right, and think I am close but not quite there.  I have a source that has 4 stereo pairs in it (RTSP), so the source looks like this in ffmpeg:

Input #0, sdp, from '/tmp/sdp':
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (Main), yuv420p(progressive), 1280x720, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 90k tbn, 60 tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: aac (LC), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp
    Stream #0:2: Audio: aac (LC), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp
    Stream #0:3: Audio: aac (LC), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp
    Stream #0:4: Audio: aac (LC), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp

And what I want to do is output a single RTMP stream with 7.1 audio.  This is what I have so far (just a command fragment to leave off the output url):

ffmpeg -protocol_whitelist file,udp,rtp -threads 4 -loglevel info -i /tmp/sdp -filter_complex '[0:1][0:2][0:3][0:4]join=inputs=8:channel_layout=7.1[a]' -map 0:0 -map '[a]:1' -c:v copy  -c:a aac -b:a 384k -ac 8 -ar 44100 -f flv

In the output it throws:
Cannot find a matching stream for unlabeled input pad 4 on filter Parsed_join_0

What am I missing?

The inputs option in ffmpeg filters refers to number of streams, not channels.

ffmpeg -protocol_whitelist file,udp,rtp -threads 4 -loglevel info -i /tmp/sdp -filter_complex '[0:1][0:2][0:3][0:4]join=inputs=4:channel_layout=7.1[a]' -map 0:0 -map '[a]' -c:v copy  -c:a aac -b:a 384k -ac 8 -ar 44100 -f flv URL


How to automate sync of 80-120 audio clips recorded at home on mobile phones? I want to produce a virtual choir recording of an amateur choir. I want to give 80-120 members of the choir an accompaniment/click track of some kind. They will record themselves, on their mobile phones, singing along to the accompaniment track. The accompaniment track will play on a second device (say, a laptop), via headphones or ear buds. The send their recordings to me, and I merge them.

How can I synchronise the resulting 80-120 amateur-captured recordings, in an automated way that scales to 120 recordings, with a low budget? What sync aid do I put in the accompaniment track? What do the members need to do as they record themselves? What do I need to do in post-production to accomplish the sync and merge the audio?

I am quite comfortable scripting a tool like ffmpeg or Audacity to align and merge the recordings. I can even write a Python program to read through the samples of an audio recording to detect the audio peak of a clapper, or DTMF tones. What I want to avoid is any task that I have to do manually for each of the contributed recordings. I fear that I won't be able to get through manual tasks 120 times.

I suspect that a challenge for this synchronisation task is that the contributed recordings will be done with a variety of devices, at a variety of resolutions and sample rates. The choir members need to record themselves. They are not sound engineers. They will make some mistakes in production. I am looking for a sync method which is robust in the face of this variation.

I want to focus on audio merge at first. I expect that the contributed recordings will have video as well. Composing all those videos into a grid, maybe with attractive panning or video effects, is nice to have but not essential.

Let's assume for the sake of argument that the contributed videos will be 3-10 minutes long. It would be nice to stretch to 45 minutes, eventually, but not at first.

I don't know how precise the sync needs to be. As a guess, I imagine a variability of at most 0.1 seconds might be enough. 1 second probably is not good enough. 0.001 seconds is probably more precise than we need.

At the start of the accompaniment track, about 15 seconds before the music starts, record a clap, or other loud but brief sound. Have your choir members record this clap sound from the accompaniment track onto their contributed recording, but not record the rest of the accompaniment.

You can do this by having the singers put on their headphones, but unplug the jack from the playback computer.  They start recording on their phone, then start playing back the accompaniment track. The sound of the clap will be played out loud, and captured on their recording, because the headphones are unplugged. Immediate after the clap, the singer plugs in their headphones. This stops any more of the accompaniment from being audible on the recording. (Important detail: experiment with how much time you need to leave between the clap and the start of the accompaniment, so that singers can plug in their headphones and get ready to sing.)

When the singers finish the piece, they stop recording, and send you their recordings. You need some system for naming the audio files, and tracking the identity and vocal part of each singer. (The details of this tracking are not germane to the sync question.)

Make a copy of the first few seconds of each contributed recording in .WAV format. Write a Python program to detect when the clap occurs relative to the start of a recording. Do this by reading the value of each audio sample of the .WAV file, and identifying the sample with the largest value. This is the moment of loudest sound. Convert the position of this largest value into an offset of seconds from the start of that recording.

Now, merge the recordings, applying an offset to each so that the clap occurs at the same moment for all all recordings. The recordings should now be in sync. Mix the recordings to taste, and save the mixed recording.

[Note: this is a speculative answer, based on reading Virtual Choir by Jed Scott, and CB Multitrack Editing 101 by Christopher Bill. Most of the virtual choir instructions I found on the web did not ask the contributors to record any sync moment at all. I guess they just have a human align all the parts by ear.]


Stop children from scaling by parent scale So I have a composition with a single image that has this expression attached to its position:

[thisComp.width - 100, thisComp.height - 100]

All this expression does is makes my image to be located in the right bottom corner. That's it.

But when I try to use this composition in other composition, my children image is scaled together with the parent scale:

How do I make the image be located in right bottom corner, but do not scale with the parent?

try parenting the position values only, not the whole layer.  So pull the pick whip from the child's position values to the parent's position values.


Tools for exploring .mov containers As a novice what tools do experts suggest I use to get a technical understanding of .mov container files?

I'd like to know whats inside the container and how I can get the data out safely without reducing the quality. Ideally splitting it into the various media formats detected

If you just want to look inside a video file, check its individual streams and all metadata, you can use MediaInfo, which will show you everything there is to know about your file and the streams it contains.

If you want to extract, remux or reencode the video file's streams, you can use FFmpeg. If you are not comfortable using a command-line tool, there are several GUI-based programs out there (most of which are built around FFmpeg), such as XMedia Recode.


How can I accomplish smooth video playback with QLab 2? My setup is the following:

BlackMagic Television Studio
MacBook Pro for controlling the BlackMagic TVS
A video camera connected via SDI (stands in front of a blue screen)
MacBook Pro with QLab 2.0 for back- / foreground connected to the TVS

QLab's rendering:

1x Video background @ 720p (QuickTime - JPEG codec)
3x Video footage    @ 720p with alpha (QuickTime - HAP codec)

These four video layers needs to play at one time all together. But unfortunately the images stutters already when playing the video background alone. Image what happens when playing these four layers together. ;)

The MacBook is pretty new and filled with 16 GB of RAM, so I can't imagine thats is the biggest bottleneck.
Is there a possibility to load the video's in the RAM before playing it? Or are there other things I can do to make the playback smooth? Maybe other cue-able programs?

Thanks in advantage!

PS - No audio is needed.

Sounds like a job for either re-compression, solid state drives or both.  It appears that the BlackMagic Television Studio does has the media server that the other Black Magic ATEMs have, so you might also be able to load them in to that depending on their length.

Your bottle neck is almost certainly data rates, and the main options are to increase the rate your system can move data at (solid state drives), reduce the amount of data that needs to be moved (re-compression) or place the data somewhere that it can be accessed more easily (in the media server of the ATEM).


FFMPEG shows error message I am pretty new to ffmpeg, sorry. I am trying to compose a video from individual images. The images have size 2667 x 1500.
The following command gives me an error:
"/usr/bin/ffmpeg" -y -f concat -safe 0 -i "/home/abc/def/data/tmp/gVQO7wUc.txt" -vf "pad=ih*16/9:ih:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2,scale=1920:1080:flags=lanczos" -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset veryslow -pix_fmt yuv420p -movflags +faststart "/home/abc/def/data/tmp/964MX26P.mp4"

ffmpeg version 2.8.15 Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.8.5 (GCC) 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-36)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --datadir=/usr/share/ffmpeg --incdir=/usr/include/ffmpeg --libdir=/usr/lib64 --mandir=/usr/share/man --arch=x86_64 --optflags='-O2 -g -pipe -Wall -Wp,-D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fexceptions -fstack-protector-strong --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -grecord-gcc-switches -m64 -mtune=generic' --extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro ' --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-version3 --enable-bzlib --disable-crystalhd --enable-gnutls --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libcdio --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-nonfree --disable-indev=jack --enable-libfreetype --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-openal --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libv4l2 --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-x11grab --enable-avfilter --enable-avresample --enable-postproc --enable-pthreads --disable-static --enable-shared --enable-gpl --disable-debug --disable-stripping --shlibdir=/usr/lib64 --enable-runtime-cpudetect
  libavutil      54. 31.100 / 54. 31.100
  libavcodec     56. 60.100 / 56. 60.100
  libavformat    56. 40.101 / 56. 40.101
  libavdevice    56.  4.100 / 56.  4.100
  libavfilter     5. 40.101 /  5. 40.101
  libavresample   2.  1.  0 /  2.  1.  0
  libswscale      3.  1.101 /  3.  1.101
  libswresample   1.  2.101 /  1.  2.101
  libpostproc    53.  3.100 / 53.  3.100
Input #0, concat, from '/home/showroom/companyshowroom/data/tmp/gVQO7wUc.txt':
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: png, rgb24(pc), 2667x1500 [SAR 7874:7874 DAR 889:500], 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc
[Parsed_pad_0 @ 0x14466c0] Input area 0:0:2667:1500 not within the padded area 0:0:2666:1500 or zero-sized
[Parsed_pad_0 @ 0x14466c0] Failed to configure input pad on Parsed_pad_0
Error opening filters!

The input file looks as follows:
ffconcat version 1.0
file '/home/abc/def/uploads/slides/5fca45f5ad365/slide_001.png'
duration 9
file '/home/abc/def/uploads/slides/5fca45f5ad365/slide_005.png'
duration 2
file '/home/abc/def/uploads/slides/5fca45f5ad365/slide_006.png'
duration 2
file '/home/abc/def/uploads/slides/5fca45f5ad365/slide_011.png'
duration 18
file '/home/abc/def/uploads/slides/5fca45f5ad365/slide_021.png'

I assume the issue is that the images are have "odd" sizes - should be even only? Is there a way to scale them down within FFMPEG? Thanks!

You can only pad frames to a size as large as or larger than the source size. In your case, 16/9 multiplier of 1500 is 2666.66 which is rounded down to 2666 and hence smaller than source width. Since your source aspect is so close, just skip the pad.
"/usr/bin/ffmpeg" -y -f concat -safe 0 -i "/home/abc/def/data/tmp/gVQO7wUc.txt" -vf "scale=1920:1080:flags=lanczos,setsar=1" -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset veryslow -pix_fmt yuv420p -movflags +faststart "/home/abc/def/data/tmp/964MX26P.mp4"


How to re-transcode sequence Encore CS4? A short while ago I made an Encore project from my Premiere CS4 project and spent some time sorting out the menus, credits and timelines, etc. I then told Encore to build the project, which of course caused the rendering of the original Premiere video.

Unfortunately I found some errors in the original project, so went back to Premiere and fixed them. However if I just re-build the video it rebuilds from the original render. I did find the option to set the status of the Premiere Sequence back to Original, but when I build from that, I get a large video full of 'media offline' images... not quite what I meant!

So, how can I build my final video?

In case it matters:

Original footage: Full HD/50p, destination to "DVD Folder", using the default Encore settings.
Encore project has a DVD main menu and per-Chapter shortcuts appropriately
linked up.

I really don't want to have to rebuild the Encore project :(

It sounds like your Premiere project is missing assets.  When you embed a Premiere project in to Encore, it will actually run a render in Premiere when you go to encode it in Encore.  If the Premiere project can not find assets that are used in the Sequence that you have embedded, you get a "media offline" image.

I would suggest opening the Premiere project and verifying that it has proper access to all the source files it needs.  I'd also verify that the Premiere project link itself is still intact.


Position the anchor point in the exact center of the smaller circle What is the best way to position the anchor point in the exact center of the smaller circle of this PNG figure?

My methods were all manual and in this way I did not have good results.

You can create a different file by filling in the desired region in red.

Go to website: WOLFRAM DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM

And enter the code below:

image=Import["C:\\Users\\Image.png"]
value={ImageDimensions[image]}-{Mean[ImageValuePositions[image,Red][[All,#]]]&/@{1,2}}

Enter the values offered for the anchor point. In this case: 386.995 and 173.982


Free Royalty Free Stock Footage So I came across this website http://www.dissolve.com/ and they provide 3 free Royalty free stock footage every month.

I was wondering if there are any other websites where I can get Free Royalty free stock footage?

There are several websites that do that. For example, this one accumulates free stock photos and there's also a video section. However, your best bet is to use a designated search engine like the creative commons search site, which will allow you to find material distributed under creative commons licenses. Before you use any of the found material, make sure to check which license it's using - some of them only allow non-commercial usage or require you to share any derivatives under the same license.


Show cams of the multicam sequence simultaneously in Adobe Premiere I’ve got a multicam sequence and I spent a lot of time on it cutting out lots of material.
Now I decided to show two cams simultaneously for a while.
But how to do this? Can anybody help?

You don't say what video editing software you are using, but assuming it's either Adobe's Premiere Pro, Davinci Resolve, or FinalCut Pro X, the general answer is the same.  Multicam is a convenience for you as an editor to use a special viewer in your NLE to view (and cut) multiple camera angles at the same time.  To output two cameras simultaneously, you need to have two video layers visible at the same time, one for each angle.  If you zoom and pan one video layer so that it occupies the left side of your output and you zoom and pan the other video layer so that it occupies the right side of your output, you can show two cameras at the same time.

Another way to show two video camera views at the same time is picture-in-picture.  In this case, one layer can be full-sized and a second layer, placed on top, can be zoomed and panned to wherever you want the picture-in-picture image to be (usually lower right).

It doesn't really matter whether the video layer source is an active mulicam or a flattened multicam (which resolves to a simple video layer).  What matters a lot is that you have scaled and located the video footage so that both layers are visible at the same time.


How do I create a library in FCPX 10.5 with Final Cut Projects and Final Cut Events folders? There're some online tutorials that have materials organised into 2 folders: Final Cut Projects and Final Cut Events, if they're in 'Movies'.

Their videos show that older version of FCP seems to recognise these folders by default, and can browse projects and events in these folders directly.

I'm using FCPX 10.5, and I can't find out how to import those projects and events into a new library.

If you click the dropdown in your library, you will see a folder named "Smart Collections" under that, you'll see Projects. Any and all Events will be under your Library hierarchy, these folders will be created automatically.


How to use match group in Python to take a values and ignore comma mark I have a function working very well by getting the frames from the filename.
But it takes only the last number (frame) from the file name.

An example:

Filename:
1200,4500.avi

The code made to get the last number (frames), and it can import multiple avi files from specific folder.

Here's the code:

def insert_types(out, dir):
    for root, dirs, files in walk(dir):
        for f in files:
            match = search(r"(\d*)\.avi$", f)
            if match:
                startframe = match.group(1)
                out = InsertSign(out, join(root, f), int(startframe))
    return out

out = jpop.mkv
out = insert_types(out, r"D:\path\avi_folder")
return out

InsertSign() function have an option to put the start & end frame of the file (if I'm doing it manually).

An example:

video = jpop.mkv
sign = 1200,4500.avi
startframe = 1200
endframe = 4500
final = InsertSign(video,sign, startframe,endframe)
return final

I tried many times and to find out how to change the insert_types function to take the first & last number (1200, 4500) from the file name (1200,4500.avi) at the same time ignoring the comma mark (,) which is in the file name.

I tried to do it by myself but its beyond my means ^^"

Hope someone can help me with that

Regards.

Instead of

            match = search(r"(\d*)\.avi$", f)
            if match:
                startframe = match.group(1)
                out = InsertSign(out, join(root, f), int(startframe))

use

            match = search(r"(\d+),(\d+)\.avi$", f)
            if match:
                startframe = match.group(1)
                endframe = match.group(2)
                out = InsertSign(out, join(root, f), int(startframe), int(endframe))


Merge .ass-subtitles into movie I produced a video which will include subtitles. The movie is edited in Premiere Pro and (currently) rendered to a .mov file. I've created subtitles with Aegisub which creates a .ass file in order to keep the existing font- and position settings.

Is there anyway in which I can merge the .mov and the subtitles together? I've tried many different programs but none of them seems working. The only one that worked a bit was SubMerge but that ignored the font-settings and positions of the subtitles.

Sorry this is a bit late but I just found your question while doing research on this topic.

If you have access to After Effects, I've developed a script that can import .srt subtitle files (I think you can export .srt from Aegisub). You can download a trial at http://aescripts.com/pt_importsubtitles/

It preserves the timings but not the font or position, although these are easy enough to set in AE. Once imported you can drag the composition straight into Premiere Pro using Dynamic Link for compositing onto your movie.

I've also developed a script that can import .ass files into AE. It's primarily meant for subtitles with karaoke timings, but it should be able to import plain subtitles too.
http://aescripts.com/pt_ssakaraokeanimator/


DJI Osmo X3 vs Canon 5D Mk III for easier chroma green screen keying Everything I've read indicates I'll get better green screen footage using a 4K camera rather than an HD camera as the increased resolution helps. But what about other factors such as the noise on a cheap 4K camera like the DJI Osmo 3, sensor side, cheaper lens etc vs the better noise, bigger sensor and changeable lenses on the Canon 5D Mk III.

I'm trying to work out which camera I should use for the easiest green screen keying experience, assuming I can control the lighting for best ISO setting.

The key to pulling a good key is a clean separation between key and subject.  All things being equal, higher resolution will give a sharper edge between key and subject, which is good.  But that's just one consideration.  Chroma subsampling is another.  Chroma recorded at full bandwidth (at least 10-bits and 4:4:4) will give a cleaner key than chroma recorded at reduced bandwidth, such as 4:2:2, or worse, 4:2:0.  Chroma recorded at 4:2:0 is 1/4 the total resolution of chroma recorded at 4:4:4.  This not only fattens up the key's edge, but averaging of four chroma samples creates mystery colors that never existed in the original image, further confusing the key.  The EOS 5D Mk III can be rooted and rebooted with Magic Lantern software to create truly great RAW video, but the stock camera's video uses 8-bit 4:2:0 Chroma subsampling.  It is possible to use HDMI out to record 8-bit 4:2:2, but you have to record audio separately in that case.

The thing to remember about green screen is that unless you have a major sound stage with 60' ceilings and 100'+ wide scrims, you will probably be doing all your work against a small background in a small room, which means very little flexibility in terms of both working distance and focal length.  Which also means that a fixed-lens camera like the DJI Osmo 3 will either qualify for that environment or be radically unqualified.  But the 5D Mk III is a very expensive camera not terribly well-suited for green screen work.  You can go much cheaper with a GH4 (which can record 10-bit 4:2:2 1080p internally).


After Effects stroke effect doesn't play In After Effects I am trying to apply the Stroke effects to characters as described in this video:

My Screen:

Although as you can see even just going at the middle of the effect with the two start and end keyframes it seems to not be doing / applying anything, my logo/characters are entirely shown. They should show up "progressively" like in the Youtube tutorial.

Any idea what is happening here?

Also asked at graphicdesign.stackexchange.com: https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/56737/after-effects-stroke-effect-doesnt-play/56738#56738

UPDATE

As it turns out I went so insane that I removed AE and re installed the CS Cloud latest version as a trial, and now it works.

I guess my old AE version wasn't playing well with Windows 10 or whatever.

It looks like you're changing both the Start and End of the Stroke effect. If you want the text to write on completely, you need to use just one or the other. Which one you use will determine the direction the Stroke is animated in.

The effect will have to be activated and set to "Reveal Original Image" in order to see the animation demonstrated in the YouTube video (which, by the way, is a horrible masking example. I recommend watching some tutorials on using the Pen tool in order to create better masks).


Video hosting platform with tags I need a video hosting online service like Youtube or Vimeo who lets me organize in a useful way videos I upload (which need to stay private) with tags/labels and filter them with a search function. Is there something like this on the net? Thank you in advance.

I need a video hosting online service like Youtube or Vimeo who lets me organize in a useful way videos I upload (which need to stay private) with tags/labels and filter them with a search function. Is there something like this on the net?

YouTube lets you do it for free.

Create a new Channel.
Upload videos as "Private".
Create a new Playlist as "Private".
Tag your videos.
Use the  "Auto-add" with Tags to place the videos automatically into one or more Playlists.


How to import youtube video into premiere cs4 I installed adobe premiere cs4 and was really astonished by the fact that it's not possible to import a video downloaded from YouTube, but it is needed to convert it firstly. This application is weight about 3GB on my hard disk and now I must search for a plugin to import a video from YT.

It would be perfectly if i could download a video directly into premiere, and also upload finished file up to youtube.

The only result of my search is a paid plugin named moyea-importer - USD 70
Is there any free plugin for this task. Or any similar solution.
If not - in which format should I download youtube video, in which format should I convert it (what is the best converter for that) to make it editable in premiere.
Working on win xp sp3.
Thanks.

It's not really all that astonishing.  Youtube is a streaming media service and Premiere is a video editing suite designed to work with files on your local computer.  It isn't part of the function of Premiere to deal with streaming media or convert from a stream to a file or to stream content (though it can produce stream ready files).

To use a video from Youtube, you would first need to use a Youtube stream ripper that will save it out as an actual video file which Premiere should then have no problem opening.  When you finish your project, you would then export to a Youtube compatible format and upload the file to Youtube.  Adobe Media Encoder (which can be used for doing the rendering out of Premiere) actually has presets specifically for Youtube.


Upon export in Premiere Pro, colors lose saturation when previewing in QuickTime I working on a project that I originally began in Premiere Pro CS6 on Windows, converted to CC, and am not editing in CC on Mac. I was making some minor tweaks to the video and getting ready to export, when I noticed some major differences in the color between the source monitor and the export preview (the actual exported file resembles or matches what you see in the export preview).

The export seems to lose a lot of color, and even shade a bit purple.

I'm on a 2013 retina MacBook Pro with a NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M. I'm also working with a 30" Dell external monitor via Thunderbolt. [Edit: Actually, I wonder if it's the external monitor that's throwing off my coloring. Here's a screenshot from the MBP screen:

And a screenshot of the rendered video in QuickTime (bottom) compared to the export preview (top). notice the QuickTime video is slightly washed out.

]

Some of the Googling I've done seems to suggest this is a problem with a gamma shift in Premiere (though I don't know how to fix that on export) or even a problem with the nVidia card (though I don't know of a way to look at that on a Mac).

Are there any suggestions for how I can get the export to match what I see in the source monitor?

UPDATE: After playing around with this some more, it seems like the problem might actually have to do with QuickTime, though I'm not sure where it fits into the various pieces in the puzzle. Here's a screenshot of the same video with QuickTime on top and VLC on the bottom:

Thankfully, the video that I uploaded to Wistia preserves the color: http://fogcreek.wistia.com/medias/p4eqf8u3vr.

At this point, it seems to just be a QuickTime problem, so maybe just using VLC as my default video player is the way to go. Anyone with a Mac know any more about what might be going on? I'd still like to understand more.

This is a well-known bug when exporting to H.264. Unfortunately, I'm not clever enough to understand why this happens, but it's a side effect of using the codec. I'll keep looking for an explanation I understand, however I wanted to get this answer out there.
As a workaround for now, I suggest making a quick little eyeball adjustment to the comp's colour correction to compensate. DO NOT DO THIS - SEE BELOW

Update 1:
I did some more digging, and found this on Pro Video Coalition:

QuickTime movies re-exported from applications such has QuickTime Player Pro using the H.264 codec (a common format for web content) appear brighter than the original in some contexts - such as inside QuickTime Player on the Mac, or on a web page viewed by Safari - but not in other contexts such as QuickTime Player on Windows, or the stripped-down QT Player inside After Effects.
Many attribute this to a bug introduced by use of a hidden, optional "gamma" tag (which is different than a full-blown color profile tag) inside QuickTime movies that is supposed to aid in cross-platform compatibility. Unfortunately, this tag is not exposed for the user to edit, and may be interpreted differently by different programs. It has been the cause of much grief among After Effects users employing color management, and has spread into the realm of web video.
- Brightness Issues with H.264 QuickTime Movies, Pro Video Coalition

(Bolding is my doing)
The article also lists a couple of suggestions:

Installing a semi-custom H.264 codec, that allows control of the gamma tag
Do not compensate by darking the image. For players that ignore the gamma tag, suddenly your video is far too dark.

Update 2:
Fuel VFX, an Australian company (whoo!), provided a tool called  QT Gamma Stripper. When they were bought out by Animal Logic, that tool all but disappeared, but it's still able to be found on the web. Here's one site that reputedly is hosting a copy of this free tool.


can I do parent other object to other object masked by mask tracker? can I put information of mask tracker to another object's position??

or

can I do parent other object to other object masked by mask tracker??

So that's two questions.

1: You sure can _put information of mask tracker to another object's position.

what information are you talking about?

2: Yes.


video or photo filter suggestion How to edit a photo to look like this clip. link On the video  you can see a pic with a background moving left to right and at the same time the light changing(bright/dark). I am not sure if its filter or something else. Any suggestion accepted?

That was possibly achieved by taking a picture from several different angles simultaneously with multiple cameras. You can then flip through the images like a flip book.

You can simulate this by taking a single still image and separating out the foreground (the people in this case) from the background. For example, in Photoshop you could use any selection method you want - lasso, pen tool, quick mask, etc. - to select the people. Cut them out and put them on another layer. Next, turn them off and fill in the area where they used to be with something believable. This is a case where content-aware fill comes in handy. Turn the layer with the people back on. Import the photo into any motion graphics application, but be sure to import it as separate layers and not a composite. Once in the app, move the people towards the camera and/or move the background away from the camera. Once there's some separation you can orbit the 3D camera around the image a little bit. If you go too far, it will become obvious that the people are a 2D cut-out, so be careful with how far you take it.

You can also apply lights to the image in the motion graphics application. That should help you get a look similar to what you saw in the link.


Is there a Youtube-supported subtitle format that does positioning + Unicode? I am trying to add Asian language subtitles that are positioned at the top of the screen, not the bottom, to a YouTube video.

There is a list of subtitle formats that YouTube supports.

Using the program Subtitle Edit, I imported the .sbv file that was automatically generated from my YouTube video, edited it, saved it, and then imported it back into YouTube.  The subtitles show up fine, but they are positioned at the bottom of the screen by default.

So, I next attempted to use the Subtitle Edit software to convert the subtitles to a format that supports positioning.

In Subtitle Edit, I have everything set to UTF-8.  Then I tried:

EBU STL (Asian fonts get turned into question marks)
SCC (Asian text is stripped completely from the file)

I also tried making a WebVTT file and adding code like this: 00:00.000 --> 00:33.000 line:13 position:50% align:end size:100%, but I have been having trouble getting it to work even though the YouTube docs say that positioning is supported.

EDIT:

To experiment with WebVTT, I was using the code generator here, but as far as I can tell the line option is not supported by YouTube.

So how can I change the position of subtitles on YouTube when using a language that requires Unicode formatting?

Based on this Medium post by Michael Lockrey, I have been able to get positioning to work like this:

TIMECODE align:left size:25% position:0% line:50%

Make sure there are NO spaces around the colon: align: left will NOT work.  I lost an hour of my life because I didn't realize this.


Youtube Video Resolution Problem I also posted this question in stack exchange for web applications (https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/52579/youtube-video-resolution-problem)

I recently uploaded three ~30 second .mp4 files to youtube. The first five seconds of them are displayed in 244p and then at five seconds, youtube switches them to 360p. I would like youtube to display them at 360p from zero seconds. This problem is happening in chrome browser with the html5 player.

It's important because I need to use these videos as advertisements for my company.

What am I doing wrong?

Here are the videos:

For some reason, when embedded the videos do not have this problem, but when watched on youtube and as you can see from the above photos, there is a resolution issue.

For best results on any Youtube upload it is always best to follow the recommended video encoding settings.
Listed here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en

If you have followed those settings exactly and you are still having a problem it is a localized problem that will not affect everyone.

Youtube videos do not play the exact same way on every computer nor every playback.

I watched the videos and as predicted I had no problem with resolution, it was a constant 480p throughout.


What does codec stand for? Does codec stand for compression or decompression?

I have also heard it stands for encoder/decoder.

Which is it?  Maybe something entirely different.

I'm looking for a source better then Wikipedia.

One of the earliest articles in the IEEE database that uses the term, defines it as "coders and decoders."

However, newer material does not seem to be consistent. One of the Wikipedia page's sources (at the time a page author retrieved it) alludes to both encoder-decoder and compression-decompression. This book defines it as compression/decompression.


Recreating this animated mockup effect I'm trying to recreate this effect in Ae using a box mock-up.
I'm only interested in the animated background covering the box.
Iv structured my Comp so that the design is below the box mock-up and I'm using the box as a track matte.
the main issue I'm running with is maintaining the details of the box and eliminating the fact that the effect resembles a clipping mask in Photoshop more than a mock-up.

would love to hear different approaches or tips, cheers.

mock-up used

my result

Go back to your reference and look closely. Although the pattern moves across the paper continuously around the edges, it still respects the 3D geometry of the scene. So the paper on top is on a different plane to the paper at the sides and the front. In fact that reference is totally possible to do with stop motion.

With that in mind you have to use AE's 3d capabilities. make a subcomp with your paper pattern. Now in the containing comp make a rectangle mask on the subcomp with the same proportions as the side of the box. Click the 3D icon on that layer, and angle it so that it matches the perspective of your reference. Now using another copy of the precomp add a mask that matches the proportions of the top of the box (use the width of the first mask so that the two edges match). Make this layer 3d and make the first layer its parent. Set its orientation to 90, 0, 0 (don't have AE on this machine so I'm guessing, it could be 270, 0, 0). It should now be at right angles to the side and horizontal. You have to move it so that it meets the side at the top of the box (use 0 as the x coordinate, half the height of the side as it's y coordinate and half the width of the top as the z coordinate). I'll let you work out how to add the end (hint, do the same thing but change the orientation to rotate around the y axis, not the x axis). Imagine you were making the box out of cardboard and think about how you'd rotate and move each piece to make the box.

This will achieve a stylised box, but you won't get too much in the way of realism without a bit more of work in AE. Things like the slightly rounded corners that catch specular highlights (circled in green), which you could use soft edged shape layers to do,  and an additional triangular mask for the folded over flaps at the side (rotate the layer 180 degrees so it doesn't match, and angle it out just a fraction so that it casts a shadow). Most importantly add lights to give some 3D shading.


How can you convert a WebM with transparency to MP4 with a background color using ffmpeg? I'm trying to convert a webm file that has a transparent background to an mp4 file. Mp4 doesn't have transparency so I'm trying to using this color: #D9DADB. How can I make this conversion happen with a single command in ffmpeg?

I've tried the following command and I seem to get a black background instead of a gray one:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i color=c=0xD9DADB -i 123.webm 123.mp4

The native VP8/9 decoders don't support transparency, so a) you'll have to force a decoder, b) the way to change transparent pixels is to overlay the video onto the color.

ffmpeg -c:v libvpx -i 123.webm -f lavfi -i color=c=0xD9DADB,format=rgb24
       -filter_complex "[1][0]scale2ref[bg][vid];[bg][vid]overlay=format=rgb:shortest=1,setsar=1"
       -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy 123.mp4


Want to try green screen with my elementary students. What do we need. Using Mac OS 10.5.8 I am looking to put together an affordable portable studio to use with elementary school students.  Doesn't have to be fancy just affordable.  Budget around $200.

I have seen some green screen kits with lights, stands and screen for around $130 - $200 or less. Could I get a decent screen kit for this cost? Space in the classroom is limited but would 6x9 be too small?

Would we need software?  If so, are there any free or inexpensive programs that work with Apple Mac?  Would Photo Booth be sufficient?  We do have a video camera.

Examples of how we might use it is to have background photos or pictures behind students while they do a weather forecast report.  Can we take our own photos and videos and use them also in the background?

Thank you in advance for trying to address this questions.

Summary:
Green screen work is not trivial, the quality largely depends on technique and good lighting, and at least enough space for doing the work you suggested. It does require software although iMovie bundled in most MACs has a chroma key effect (the software that allows you to composite your subject with whatever background you want including maps, other videos, pictures etc).

Things you will need to purchase:

A pro screen.

Enough lights (with stands and diffusers) with the correct color temperature to fill the screen evenly as well as light the subject appropriately.

For your situation I think you might get there on $200, assuming you have iMovie on your MAC, spend under $100 on a screen, and another $100 on enough lights do do the job.

Details:

Here is a good tutorial on how to shoot with a green screen:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tubetape?v=q3PZO_lCBkw

Here are some tutorials showing you how to composite your green screen with iMovie:

Things to remember:

1) The green screen has to cover the entire area of the frame you are shooting. That is you can't have the green screen half way in the shot or showing any edges.

2) The green screen has to be flat, no wrinkles, no reflections, no hot spots, and no shadows.

3) The green screen has to be lit evenly and bright enough to register light in the frame.

4) The green screen should be at least 5 feet behind the subject and appear diffused not in focus. (The subject should be in tight focus, and the background green screen out of focus to optimize how it blends in the chroma keyer in your editing software).

5) Your subject can not wear anything green and should not have anything reflective on them, e.g. jewelery, watches, glasses.

As you can see from the tutorials a 6 x 9 room may be too small. Alternately if you purchase a portable screen, you can clear the classroom, move your lights in, set up the screen and you are good to go. Tearing down the set should take even less time. Better to have plenty of space to do this right then jam this into a space that doesn't allow for the minimum screen to subject distance.

Alternately, if you shoot outside with indirect sunlight or on a cloudy day, you won't have to buy lights.

Suggestion 1: Take it in two steps. Get a screen first, shoot outside when the light is flat and diffused to get the hang of it, then spend the money for lights and go for the studio thing.

Suggestion 2: Should you use the portable set it up as you go method, once you achieve optimum results document the studio set up, where the lights are placed and aimed, where the subject is, and so on so you can repeat this next time.


Export video for Broadcast TV Just wondering, if now, as we broadcast free-to-air commercial television digitally, whether to still apply 'Broadcast Safe filters/effects'?

Depends on who you ask. Old traditional people who grew up back in the bad old analog days have the Safe Action Area and Safe Title Area embedded in their brains.  But even as old analog TV receivers evolved, there was less and less danger of losing the periphery of the frame to overscan.

With modern LCD, LED, plasma, whatever, TV screens, there is ZERO danger of overscan. It simply doesn't exist anymore. I now use a rule of thumb to keep any text or significant graphics at least 2 or 3% away from the edge, mostly as an aesthetic design rule.


Can anyone recommend any good guides to ffmpeg outside of the official manual? I have a hard time reading and understanding the official ffmpeg manual due to the lack of full command line examples per sections. Sections are completely hit and miss for me based on whether they provide these examples. For example I can understand the wiki ffmpeg pages on certain things cause they generally go into alot of detail and give alot of examples I can do on my own and just tinker with the values.

Are there any third party guides people can recommend that are very example heavy? As I said I need to see all the commands in a full command line example, or at least an explicit example and then just the separate callup parts in full....like -vf "filter1withfulldetails_onsetting_up_eachsetting". Many I find seem to be outdated or limited...both video and text, cause the commands just don't work right even when I copypaste....or the settings seem to have been changed cause on the ffmpeg guide they are different setting names entirely in some cases. I need to see the modern commands that work alongside the explanations to understand things better.

I found this site by coincidence yesterday! It explains things in a bit more human readable format, perhaps.

https://amiaopensource.github.io/ffmprovisr/


Save frame with current camera angle I'm an absolute noob to After Effects. I'm not using it for video. I just want to use the 3D ray tracing to get a single image. I've created the 3D image, set the lighting I want and have a camera angle that I like. If I try to save the frame using Composition -> Save Frame As, I lose the camera angle - it saves just a front-on view.

How do I save the image as it looks in the composition?

The following steps work for me for an arbitrary camera.

Create the desired composition.
Create a camera by going to Layer -> New -> Camera. For now just accept the default settings..
Position the camera as you desire by changing the Transform parameters or by dragging it to the desired position. Here below an image of the Transform parameters:

Make sure that all the layers are 3D layers.
In the bar between your composition and the timeline there is a camera dropdown menu:

Make sure that you choose the camera angle you wish to export. In this case it is Camera 1:

Go to Composition -> Save Frame As...


Glitch effect won't work I'm learning After Effects from scratch so sorry if this is obvious but whenever I try to make one part of an image 'glitch' I create a section of the image and place it in the middle but when I press play my desired glitch (JPG noise) does appear but black pixels appear outside the selected area of the image, anyone got any idea how I can stop this??

Thank you

I think you should use the "Bad TV" plugin to achieve this effect.  It has a setting to glitch images, and make them look as though the encoding has broken:

http://aescripts.com/bad-tv/

An example:


Parent a Position X from Particular World to it's own transform xPosition I have a layer called Blue.

I applied CC Particular World to a ShapeLayer with an animated separated X Position (with 3 keyframes).

The thing is that the effect doesn't move along with the shape.
So either I animate the Producer features "Position X" with keyframes or I would parent this feature to xPosition.

I just don't know if this is possible and if so how?

I invented this script...

    thisComp.layer("Blue").effect("CC Particle World")("Position X").transform("xPosition")

it results in error!

Thank you for your help.

H.

There's no property called xPosition, and transform is a property of a layer, not a method, but you're on the right track. The expression has to return an array of two values [x, y], and the components of the position are stored in an array like that too. The expression you want — if you're applying it to the layer position property — is this:

xpos=thisComp.layer("Blue").effect("CC Particle World")("Position X");
ypos=transform.position[1];
[xpos, ypos]

That will apply the value of the Position X property of the effect to the X position of the layer, and the current Y value of the layer to the Y.

If you're trying to use the layer's X position on the effect's Position X property then you need to use:

thisComp.layer("Blue").transform.position[0]

you only need one value for this property.

  Pro Tip a great way to learn how properties are accessed in expressions, as well as being a super quick and typo-free way of
  creating them is to use the pickwhip. Next to the expression box
  you'll see a curly icon. Click that and drag it to the property you
  want to reference in your expression. So in the second case you could
  drag it to the number for the X value of the layer's position and it
  would give you the correct syntax for accessing it.

A good place to learn more about expressions is Dan Ebbert's page: http://motionscript.com/


What is this strange second camera? I don't know is this is the correct place to ask this but ...

I've watched several "making of" of current movies and noticed a thing i cannot explain.

What is this strange "secondary" camera you can see near the main camera?

Image:

Reference:  (5:52 and 6:50)

That is a specially built enclosure called a Sound Blimp, for a still camera, which renders it completely silent, so they can shoot stills without clicks and beeps disturbing the filming.


Looking for suggestions on workflow/equipment: daily production of short presentation videos i am looking for any and all sort of suggestions on workflow and equipment, specifically camcorder choice.

Case details:

  We are producing short videos every day. A person is standing in front
  of a big LCD TV and talking to computer pre-generated graphics. The
  recordings are generally one minute long. This is shot in a really tiny
  room, with two tungsten video lights that we already have in place.

  After recording, the material needs to be taken to a room 200 meters
  away, and slightly edited in Sony Vegas on a Win 7 PC, before being
  rendered to some sort of delivery format for our customers. typically
  "mp4". We are shooting and/or delivering in either 1280x720 or
  1920x1080.

I will be needing a camcorder, and some sort of lavallier mic, and a means to connect them. I am thinking of a lower end prosumer HD camcorder, maybe like Sony HDR-PJ810 or Canon Legria HF G25.

A DLSR could maybe be slightly cheaper, but are there any benefits? The "film-like" ideal that is prevalent with DLSRs today really isn't a goal here - we'd rather want long DOF, than shallow.

How would you go on and set this up, considering it needs to be done on a daily basis, and preferably by one sole person? (the
presenter is doing the recording)
Is there something that can be done to avoid having to take an SD
card out of the camera, and run away with that each day? Any
practical network solutions that won't be twice the price of my
camcorder?

Cheers

There are camcorders that enable full-res uploads of their memory cards via WiFi.  Thus, if your room has connectivity to your intranet, you can leave the card in the camcorder, hit upload when you are done, turn the camera off when the upload is done, do your customer edits and uploads, then wipe the card for the next day's work, all without walking 200 meters away.

This $330 camera might do all you need: Canon VIXIA HF R60.

But any camera with WiFi upload capabilities will do--it's just a question of features, color matrix preferences, and cost.


How to convert video to ogv and webm versions with a high quality result? What is the best software for mac to convert video to ogv and webm versions with a high quality result?

I have adobe media encoder, is there is a setting or plugin available to do so in there? or another software that lets me control the quality of the final video to get the best quality possible. Many of the conversion programs I have tried are not providing a good quality output. The video is mp4 or mov H.264 1920 x 1080 and over 10 mins in length. Thank you.

I have Premiere/Media Encoder plugins for WebM and Theora (OGV) on GitHub. Check the ReadMe for download links. They're currently in beta.

Brendan


How to encode for YouTube with ffmpeg? I just read Recommended upload encoding settings article from official google support. I think this is the best settings for encoding my youtube videos.

Can you help me find out how to encode that settings in ffmpeg for 720p or 1080p videos?

Here's the settings

Thanks in advance.

Use

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf yadif,format=yuv420p -force_key_frames expr:gte(t\,n_forced/2) -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -bf 2 -c:a aac -q:a 1 -ac 2 -ar 48000 -use_editlist 0 -movflags +faststart out.mp4

-vf specifies video filters

yadif will deinterlace videos if they're interlaced.

format=yuv420p will produce pixel format with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling.

-force_key_frames expr:gte(t\,n_forced/2) will place keyframes every half-second, so that will be the GOP size.

-c:v libx264 will use the x264 encoder to produce a H264 video stream.

-crf 18 will produce a visually lossless file. Better than setting  a bitrate manually.

-bf 2 will limit consecutive B-frames to 2

-c:a aac will use the native encoder to produce an AAC audio stream.

-q:a 1 sets the highest quality for the audio. Better than setting  a bitrate manually.

-ac 2 rematrixes audio to stereo.

-ar 48000 resamples audio to 48000 Hz.

-use_editlist 0 avoids writing edit lists.

-movflags +faststart places moov atom/box at front of the output file.


How would I develop AGFA Moviechrome 40 film? I recently was crawling through old boxes and came across my grandfather's old Canon Zoom 518-2 Super 8 video camera. Inside was a cartridge of AGFA Moviechrome 40 film. I'm wondering where/how I'd go about getting this developed and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions?

You could try giving Film Rescue International a go. Their FAQ predicts the results of Moviechrome to be on "poor" quality level, and  people seem to agree.

There's also Rocky Mountain in US; Process C-22 and FotoStation in UK.


How does the agate filter in FFmpeg work? The Audio Gate filter (agate) is a new filter for ffmpeg included since 2015-09-22.

I have read the documentation, but since there are no examples included, I'm trying to figure out what settings to use to reduce unwanted parts that are under a certain dB in the audio signal.

Does anyone have a command example and explanation for the settings?

I am the author of the original Calf plugin, I had no idea it was being used in FFmpeg, great!  The original plugin used to have a sidechain input to use as the level detection, but I am assuming the ported version just uses the input signal as this level.

The main parameter is the threshold, it sets the level below which gating begins to occur.  Having 0 knee makes it a very sharp transition from signal to no signal, as well as the attack and release times.  I have not actually used the FFmpeg ported version of this plugin before, but I assume it would be similar.  It has quite a number of controls which probably makes it unsuitable to use without the usual GUI that shows the current level and the gating curve.  One way to test it would be to install calf-plugins and play with the Calf Gate until you get a feel for the parameters, and then apply the same to FFmpeg.  Sorry I cannot be more helpful because I did not write this port and I don't really understand the FFmpeg code.

PS: Thanks for alerting me about my malicious javascript, I think my blog was attacked recently, I have been cleaning it up.


ffmpeg re-encode libx264 without quailty loss? According to the documentation for libx264 (h264) encoding, we can use a preset of veryfast, faster, fast, medium, slow, etc.
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264

  ...for constant quality encoding, you will simply save bitrate by
  choosing a slower preset.

So while using constant quality, a slower preset doesn't have any affect on video quality, but it can compress the file size smaller.

This theoretically means it should be possible to take a video compressed with preset "veryfast", and recompress it with "slow"- resulting in a smaller file with no loss of video quality.

Has anyone ever done this or know how it can be done?

You have a misunderstanding of how compression works.  In all but a few specialized types of lossy compression, when you compress something a second time, even in a much higher quality level than previous encodings, you still lose additional quality.

Using a slower encoding from the same original source with constant quality will often produce a smaller file of similar quality, but if you encode the already compressed version over again, you will still always end up with a lower quality video due to second generation quality losses from compressing twice.


Vegas pro file size explosion - having to use Handbrake currently I am currently screen recording with OBS and then editing the resulting mp4 in vegas pro

Here is what happened last time i screen recorded as an example

35min screen record at 1920*1080 resulted in 260MB
After importing into Vegas and adding intro/outtro and editing mistakes then rendering as the sony mp4 using standard settings, the file came out to be 2.4GB
I then passed it through Handbrake which compressed it back to 375MB

Im obviously doing something wrong but I have no idea where to start my research. Is there settings in vegas that can render better to get it down to what Handbrake can do?

The easy answer is to analyze the resulting files in order to determine what's happening. mediainfo is a multi-platform open source tool that will help you do exactly that. Handbrake is likely using a much lower bitrate by default than Sony Vegas Pro. If I'm not mistaken, the standard settings for SVP are pretty high. You can prove this to yourself with the aforementioned mediainfo tool, and then solve it by adjusting the SVP bitrate settings accordingly.


Loop and mix audio on video I want to mix audio on a video.
The video already has audio stream in it. I'm adding another one.

The new audio I'm adding is shorter than the video. So, I want to loop it as long as the video lasts.

So far, I'm doing this:

ffmpeg -y -i test.mp4 -stream_loop -1 -i bg_sound.mp3 -filter_complex "[0:a][1:a]amix=inputs=2:duration=longest[out]" -map 0:v -map [out] output.mp4

This adds the audio on the video, but does not loop it. I've also tried stream_loop with other integer options with no luck. The audio I'm adding ends and the rest of the video continues.

I need to loop my audio.

Here is the ffprobe result of my video:

   ffprobe version N-76452-ga97f1e7 Copyright (c) 2007-2015 the FFmpeg developers
   built with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04)
   configuration: --prefix=/home/alfanso/ffmpeg_build --pkg-config-flags=--static --extra-cflags=-I/home/alfanso/ffmpeg_build/include --extra-ldflags=-L/home/alfanso/ffmpeg_build/lib --bindir=/home/alfanso/bin --enable-gpl --enable-libass --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-nonfree
   libavutil      55.  5.100 / 55.  5.100
   libavcodec     57. 14.100 / 57. 14.100
   libavformat    57. 14.100 / 57. 14.100
   libavdevice    57.  0.100 / 57.  0.100
   libavfilter     6. 14.101 /  6. 14.101
   libswscale      4.  0.100 /  4.  0.100
   libswresample   2.  0.100 /  2.  0.100
   libpostproc    54.  0.100 / 54.  0.100
   Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'localtest.mp4':
   Metadata:
       major_brand     : isom
       minor_version   : 512
       compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
       encoder         : Lavf56.40.101
       Duration: 00:06:53.97, start: 0.033333, bitrate: 179 kb/s
       Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High 4:4:4 Predictive) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv444p, 1280x720, 45 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 12800 tbn, 50 tbc (default)
   Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
      Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, mono, fltp, 128 kb/s (default)
   Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler

I've also tried using different video and audio sources with the same result.

It works if you mix audio separately.

ffmpeg -y -i test.mp4 \
-f lavfi -i amovie=bg_sound.mp3:loop=55555 \
-filter_complex "[0:a][1:a]amerge, \
                 pan=stereo|c0=0.5*c0+0.5*c2|c1=0.5*c1+0.5*c3" \
output.flac


Is there a platform where I can automate creating multiple versions of an explainer video? I work for a company that connects various software to each other. We want to create an explainer video for each software we connect to. The videos will be almost identical with the only difference being different logos shown in the video (corresponding to the software for that video).
The problem is we connect to dozens of different software, and down the line no doubt we'll want to make changes to the video e.g. when we build a new feature. We don't want to have to manually create dozens of videos, never lone go through editing each one every time we add a new feature.
So ideally we want to find a platform that easily produces multiple versions of the same video with small variations. Is this possible?
Many thanks,
Bryce

Most video editing programs will allow you to duplicate a project. Then you can just swap out the old logo image for the new logo image in the timeline, check/fix the scaling, and export it. You can keep all the projects so that if you need to make other changes, you can keep those changes in the project as well.


Using brush tool for alpha channels/rotoscoping in after-effects I'm trying to rotobrush/rotoscope a bunch of footage, see image below for what I mean.

Currently I'm using the rotobrush, but it is too time-consuming and slow - it keeps trying to guess the paths, which aren't accurate enough. I also don't want to draw pen masks, as it is too slow to do frame by frame and the hands are too complex.

Ideally, I just was to brush paint each frame and have that as a alpha mask. I'm sure this can be done, I just don't know the way to do it!

Any help would be awesome, thanks!

The thing about masks is that you don't have to do them on every frame. To quickly do rotoscoping you let the computer do as much of the work as it can, by interpolating wherever possible.

To mask out the hands with the pen tool, draw the mask for the first frame and then move as far along the timeline as you can until the point where the motion dramatically changes, e.g. if the hand is moving up, continue until it stops or starts moving down. Adjust the mask points, trying to keep the points close to the part of the hand they were near when you first drew them. It's good to give yourself enough points to work with when you first draw the mask.

Now go back between the two keyframes and find the point at which the maksk is the furthest from matching. Re-adjust, thus making a third keyframe. Now
rinse, repeat: between each of your keyframes, pick the point where the mask is the worst and refine.

As you work you'll find that the mask needs less and less tweaking and eventually starts following the hand well. If your motion is really crazy this might not be until you've done every frame, but the adjustments you'll need to make will be smaller and smaller each time.

You'll find this will be tedious, but way less tedious than rendering as an image sequence and photoshoping each frame, or just opening the movie in photoshop (which is the answer to your question BTW). The difficulty in getting smooth motion that way would be immense. Think about the way hand drawn animation looks - the lines constantly 'boil' because each frame is painted from scratch. Painting the matte frame by frame will give you a result like that, which might be nice, but it doesn't seem like the look you're going for.

Put on a podcast or some music, make a coffee, get comfortable and get busy with the béziers.


Keyboard shortcut for cut video AND sound at current position in premiere cs5.5 I know about Ctrl+K which cuts video at current position, but which shortcut will allow to cut video AND sound?

the keyboard shortcut is Ctrl+Shift+K,

Ctrl+K didnt work for me for some reason.


Fast blur is marked as Legacy in CC 2018. What's the best (and/or fastest) equivalent to use now? Fast blur is marked as Legacy in CC 2018. What's the best (and/or fastest) equivalent to use now?

Gaussian Blur is now GPU accelerated, and it's the one that they suggest as the successor to fast blur. They've even included a script to update old projects to use the new blur, look for it in file>Scripts>UpgradeLegacyBlurs.

If you want one that uses the same maths as fast blur, i.e. is the most visually similar, then I think Box Blur is the one.

The official announcement is here.


Changing aperture within a single video clip Is it considered bad practice to change the aperture while shooting a video clip?

What is the best practice for shooting two different lighting conditions in the same shot? For example, when panning 180 degrees during sunset? Or is this simply to be avoided?

Any relevant newbie resources would be much appreciated.

In video terms, aperture is often called iris as well and particularly in live video, it is fairly common to adjust the aperture to adjust light sensitivity.

For both live and post produced video, it is also relatively common to use lenses with smoother apertures.  Most photo lenses have apertures that click in to set values, but video lenses will sometimes have aperture rings that will move smoothly through the aperture range to allow for very smooth transitions in aperture.

Aperture is the preferred means of adjusting sensitivity to light if needed as changes in shutter speed have a more pronounced impact and until recently, smooth changes in ISO were not easily possible in most cases.  (Certainly not smooth as a smooth aperture ring.)

Adjusting aperture live with a click-in aperture is probably non-ideal, but if you have a smooth one, it should be fine and in a pinch you can still do click-in adjustment, it will just be rather obvious when it changes, but that's still better than whited out or blacked out video.


Lightworks detects aspect ratio incorrectly and clips video from ShadowPlay I'm using Nvidia's ShadowPlay to record some game footage, and I am trying to edit it in Lightworks. When I import it, it clips off the edges of the content. I have the project set at 1080p 30fps (I presume 16:9), exporting at 720p 30fps Youtube/MP4, and am importing 1366x768 (16:9?) footage. I'm using Lightworks 12.0.1 on 32bit Windows 7 (2/3GB ram but rest is restricted by 32bit). The variable framerate seems to play ok, I just set it to run at 60/30fps instead of 59.9/29.9fps. It exports fine but the edges are clipped. I tried to change the aspect ratio on one of the other clips using the filecard, but I can't get to it now, as the filecard in the bin says that it is 1366x768 PC display, and when I try to get the filecard up in the edit (e.g. right-clicking on the track), nothing happens.

You can see how it's clipped off here, and it's the same in the export:

You can see it in the player name tag at the right of the footage.
My recordings are at several different framerates, the first at 30fps and the last two at 60fps, but I think Lightworks makes them run at 30fps.

Is there any way I could get it to work? Do I need to transcode it in Handbrake or something? If not, I'll just have to use Windows Movie Maker...

No clue about Lightworks, but two possible (and possibly related) issues are that 1366x768 is not exactly 16:9, and 1366 is not evenly divisible by 8. Either or both could cause any editing software to use a different internal representation, and require an adjustment to its display.

1368x768 would be byte-aligned, but still not 16:9.


Adobe Media Encoder CC do not work/start/load on Win8 x64 So pretty much it. Simply clicking the .exe nothing happens, no errors, no nothing. It just simply do not work. Premiere works and when exporting video and clicking Queue simply nothing happens, AME doesn't get loaded neither, I just get back to Premiere window.

I also applied latest 7.0.1 update and nothing.

With CS6 everything worked.

Solution #2 (as Eric Vinyard suggested):
1. Locate file: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\SLCache\X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw==.slc
2. Open it with a text editor (may need to open it as an admin as this is in Program Files directory)
3. Delete everything the file contains
4. Save and close
5. Set the 'Read Only' attribute for the file: Right Mouse - Preferences. On the first page that opens for you, look for Attributes at the bottom of this page and check 'Read Only'. Close with OK.


FFMPEG standard transcoding settings I am working on a project that provides video streaming to the users over the internet on web-browsers as well as mobile devices.

I am using following sample FFMPEG command to transcode the video:

ffmpeg -y -i inputvideo.mp4 -async 1 -metadata:s:v:0 start_time=0
-s 1280x720 -vcodec libx264 -strict experimental -pix_fmt yuv420p
-profile:v baseline -movflags +faststart -acodec aac -profile:a aac_low
-b:v 2000k -refs 6 -coder 1 -sc_threshold 40 -flags +loop -me_range 16
-subq 7 -i_qfactor 0.71 -qcomp 0.6 -qdiff 4 -trellis 1 -b:a 128k outputvideo.mp4

The command is generated dynamically using programming language after getting the video details once uploaded. What am I doing is, just reset bit-rate, height and width of the video using following settings:

If height >= 720 then set it to 720, width will be automatically set according to height and bit-rate will be 5000k,

If height >= 480 then set it to 480, width will be automatically set according to height and bit-rate will be 2500k,

If height >= 360 then set it to 360, width will be automatically set according to height and bit-rate will be 1000k

I got this logic from this link.

However, I want to downgrade the quality of video by 25-30% more as still videos are of greater size than I suppose to get after transcoding and it will cost the data charges more.

While searching for it, I found another link and it have different bit rate than the one I am using. I am not sure which one is better.

Can anyone suggest me how to downsizing the videos more by 25-30% more than current setting without more affecting the quality of video?

Rather than using constant bitrate, have a go using constant quality (AKA constant rate factor, or crf).

So instead of -b:v 2000 use -crf 23 (adjust the number to change the quality, higher is smaller / lower quality and lower is larger / better quality).

Constant quality usually gives you more bang for your bits, as it skimps on bitrate where it's not really needed. It also removes the need for extra scripting for diferent sizes, as it will automatically lower the bitrate for smaller frame sizes.

You could also use the x264 presets, like -preset slower or -preset veryslow to get x264 to spend more time optimising. It also removes the need to add all the extra encoding flags — the presets are basically some ready-rolled encoding flags (presumably made by people who know what they're doing). More on x264 encoding here

So your command could look like:

ffmpeg -y -i inputvideo.mp4 -async 1 -metadata:s:v:0 start_time=0 -s 1280x720 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -profile:v baseline -movflags faststart -profile:a aac_low -preset slower -crf 23 -b:a 128k outputvideo.mp4

I don't think you need the -strict-experimental flag, unless you've got an old version of ffmpeg.


How to make scenes look continuous? So I shoot scenes with my cellphone (whether FHD or UHD). But other scenes I take them from clips I find online in a subscription service. If I try to make the video of contiguous scenes combining from phone and the other clips it is easily observed they are different, there is no continuity on light/color. Which filters or steps do I need to make so it appears to have continuity?

For future videos, you better have a defined reference in all videos. For example a clapperboard or a standardized grey card. Then you can match all videos during colour grading both regarding the white balance and exposure. Usually editors let you set the black and white point or midtone with a colour picking tool that you use on the clapperboard or greycard. Or you mask out a grey area and using diagrams to adjust colours until the red/green/blue values are equal.
For existing videos without such reference and especially for videos from external sources you need more guess work but you should get there close enough.
Anyway, you need a video editor that helps with colour grading. The steps depend on your editor. Some of them offer graphs or diagrams which help for comparison between clips. Usually there's also a copy&paste function, so that you can use the same colour settings for multiple clips. Some even have automatic functions, that may or may not be useful. For example Adobe's Premiere Pro (and here is mini-tutorial on the topic). Adobe offers a free trial, so you can check if this works for you or not. DaVinci Resolve is a great alternative, it's famous for it's excellent colour grading abilities, but since I don't really use it, I don't know much about it.
Once all clips are matched, you can of course choose to artistically change colours for all or some scenes. Like in the The Matrix where they have used a green tint for all scenes that play in the Matrix.


Premiere Pro audio muffled and distorted on export I have a strange problem where my audio is very low, muffled and distored after exporting it from premiere pro. I tried a huge amount of export settings with different bitrates and and sample rates but nothing fixes it.
(Always H.264 for video and AAC for the audio)

I have to note that the problem appears not to everyone. On my mac and smartphone it sounds fine, when others play it on their devices over social media it sounds horrible. How can that be?

Filming and audio recording was done with the Sony a6300 and boom mic. Recorded audio has 2 channels at a sample rate of 48000khz.

Has someone a suggestion for this problem?

Might be because you are exporting a stereo audio file which has one channel phase reversed, and then it is being played back in mono.
If you have an identical signal going to the left and right channels, but one of them is phase reversed, it means the waveform is inverted (upside down). When you listen to either channel on its own, it will sound normal.  When you listen to them both in stereo (Left channel to left speaker, right channel to right speaker) you may notice it sounding odd. Some people describe it sounding like the location of the sound is "inside their head".
But when you play back a stereo recording like this in mono (left channel and right channel both mixed togther to a single mono output) the signal will completely cancel itself out.
If the two channels are almost identical, but have tiny differences, only the differences will be audible.  This often happens with lossy file formats (like mp3/mp4 files), where the mono version of the phase reversed playback sounds tinny and lacking in all bass.
To test it out, try adding a channel mixer effect to the master output of you mix, and inverting one channel. Then export again and see if it fixes it.


Does Adobe Premiere CC support export via network? From this question I know that Premiere does not support distributed rendering, but from what I understand distributed rendering is spreading the render onto multiple computers to speed it up. My workflow is a little bit different.

I have a pretty powerful desktop computer which I'd like to use to edit video and then a less powerful notebook which I'd like to use to do the actual export, so that my primary PC does not slow down during that.

Is it possible to do the editing on one PC and then, without manually copying the project and the files, do the export on a different computer in Adobe Premiere CC?

I believe this is not possible natively. However, Deadline, a third-party render management system, does support Premiere Pro projects via Adobe Media Encoder jobs. Even distributed rendering may be possible.


How to normalize 360-degree videos so that certain object / person remains in the middle? I have multiple 360-degree clips recorded with Ricoh Theta S.

When recording I didn't think too much about orientation - where is back, where is front - it is 360-degree after all.

When editing and merging clips I realized that sometimes I'm located in in the front, in the back, on the side - it is very confusing experience.

I need to "normalize" multiple clips - so that I'm in the middle.

A proposed workflow (Premiere Pro):

drag the clip to the timeline twice
align them side by side so that I'm in the middle

It feels achievable, I'm just wondering if there is a better, recommended, default, sure-fire way?

EDIT: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/VRSupport.html - I'm not sure if my version of Premiere Pro supports these workflows.

PS: This is a super-comprehensive link: http://jonnyelwyn.co.uk/film-and-video-editing/editing-360-and-vr-video/ (very advanced, I just need basic stuff)

You may have sorted this out by now, but I saw the open question, so I thought I'd answer it.

If you have a subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud, you can now do this reorientation in Premiere.  In June, Adobe bought out the Skybox plugin from Mettle.  Essentially, that plugin allows you to re-orient your 360 video in AE or PR among other things.

There's now an effect in Premiere called 'VR Projection' and it allows you to adjust the pan, tilt, and roll of your projection.