How to align a shape to stick to another in AE? I'm new to After Effects but I did some work with Photoshop in the past.

I'm trying to create a diamond with AE (and make a gif later so it rotates).
To be super clear - I'm trying to convert the image below into 3D:

I'm sitting here for 12 hours and trying to perform some basic operations in 3D and I'm totally stuck. For now I have two shapes in my composition, a simple rectangle and a polygon (polygon to make things easier):

I'm trying to align the triangle to the polygon somehow in a 'smart' way, not by moving the x/y/z position by 1/10 of the pixel each time, rotating the camera and checking if it fits.

Is there any tool in Adobe AE which will help me do this?
I just need to fit the triangle's basis to one of the polygon's edges so it matches perfectly like this:

Thanks for any help! :)

The tool you need is Maths (or Math, if you like), specifically that most beautiful of mathematickal arts: trigonometry.

First set the width of the base of your triangle to be the same as the sides of your polygon. Since you know the radius of the polygon, and it's a hexagon, that's easy - a hexagon is basically six equilateral triangles so the sides are the same as the radius.

So once you've made your hexagon, make a triangle with it's base the same as the radius of your polygon. Hmm, that's a bit more tricky. The measurement for polygons is always the outer radius, and the base of a triangle is not the same as the radius. We're going to need Pythagoras, and his Persian mates.

Since we know the base (labeled b) and we know the angles (it should be obvious that the acute angle is half of the outer angle of the equilateral triangle - 30˚), we can use the law of sines to work out the base. Wikipedia states as did Abu Mahmud Hamid ibn Khidr Khojandi (but in Persian):

where a, b, and c are the lengths of the sides of a triangle, and A, B, and C are the opposite angles (see the figure to the right), while d is the diameter of the triangle's circumcircle.

We're in luck. The circumcircle of an equilateral triangle is its radius, so we can use d as our radius, and since we know b = half the radius of the polygon–lets call it p–and the angle B we can write:

(p/2)/sin(B) = d

filling in the numbers for B

d = (p/2)/sin(60) = p/1.73205080756888

where p is the radius of the hexagon. Now you can work this all out with a calculator, but if you change your hexagon you'll have to do it all again. Machines will do the work: use expressions to do the heavy lifting. alt/opt-click the stopwatch next to the outer radius property of the triangle and we put in this expression:

var p = thisComp.layer("Shape Layer 1").content("Polystar 1").content("Polystar Path 1").outerRadius;
0.5 * p/Math.sin(Math.PI/3)

Hopefully you can see that this is the same operation as above, but since expressions use radians instead of degrees we're using π/3 instead of 60˚. Now no matter what size you make your polygon the side of the triangle will always match it.

Onwards and upwards. Now we need to attach the triangle to the edge of the hexagon. First, we'll make the hexagon the parent of the triangle, so that if we want to transform the hexagon all the triangles will follow. It also means that we can calculate the position of the triangle relative to the hexagon, avoiding having to do a lot of unnecessary transforms.

So for the right side of the hexagon, we can work out how far along the x axis the triangle has to be to be lined up with the edge exactly. Once again trigonometry is the key. There's a right angle triangle who's hypotenuse is the outer radius of he hexagon and whose base is the distance we need to offset the edge of the triangle.

b/sin(60) = r/sin(90) = r

because sine 90˚ is 1, so

b=r*sin(60)

So in the position property of the triangle we put

r=thisComp.layer("Shape Layer 1").content("Polystar 1").content("Polystar Path 1").outerRadius;
[r * Math.sin(Math.PI/3), 0]

Now you can see that the anchor point of the triangle aligns perfectly with the edge of the hexagon.

Problem is, we want the base of the triangle to be the part that is aligned. So we'll offset the anchor point from the centre to the base. How do we work out how far that is. Yes, you already know, some more trig.

We know r, we worked it out before. and we knwo the angles so we can just give the Law of Sines another thrashing.

a/sin(30) = r/sin(90) = r
a = r*sin(30)

Look familiar yet? So to get r for the triangle into this equation we just grab the radius value (or you could put in the formula, that's probably more precise, but it's unlikely to make a difference). The easy way of plugging in the correctly worded value of the triangle's radius is to use the pick-whip:

With the expression editor for the anchor point active, delete the contents, then type [0, to open some square brackets and provide 0 as the X value, don't forget the comma, then to provide the Y value drag the pick-whip to the radius value, then type in * Math.sin(Math.PI/6)], don't forget to close the square brackets. The expression should be something like:

[0, content("Polystar 1").content("Polystar Path 1").outerRadius*Math.sin(Math.PI/6)]

Now we just need to rotate the triangle 90˚ to line it up.

Ok, now it's time to enter three dee land. Turn both layers into 3D layers. Everything should stay as it is, but now we can fold the triangle up.

If you activate the rotate tool you'll see the rotation handles for the triangle coming out of its anchor point. As you can see the one we need to rotate is around the x axis. Give it a try with the rotate tool and you'll notice that is actually affecting the Y rotation. This is because we've rotated the triangle 90˚ on the Z axis already. The reason I used the rotate tool is that trying to work out rotation transforms like that makes my head hurt too much. Now I know what property I need to add our next expression to, I just have to work a couple of things out.

Firstly, the triangle can't stay as an equilateral triangle, because it won't make a diamond shape that way, it will just fold perfectly flat on to the hexagon. we need to increase its scale, then we have to do some more trig.

Let's scale it an arbitrary amount. Whatever looks good for you. Imma just grab the drag handles with the move tool and stretch.

Now we have to work out what angle we need to rotate to get the tip of the triangle above the centre of the hexagon. Here's a screen shot from custom view, where I've approximated it by eye, and drawn the triangle we need to solve to work out our angle.

We know b, we don't know a, and we have to work out h. h will be the height of the triangle once it has been scaled up.

The height of the triangle can be worked out with the Law of Sines, or if you're bored of that you can also use the fact that we know the distance from the center to the base - it's the amount we offset the anchor point - and we know the distance from the centre to the tip - that's the outer radius. Multiply it by the scale/100 to get the final, scaled height. In expression form:

h = (transform.scale[1]/100)*(transform.anchorPoint[1] + content("Polystar 1").content("Polystar Path 1").outerRadius);

So, again with the Law-o-Sines, and the previous diagram. We know b, that's the distance from the centre of the hexagon to the base of the triangle, and we know that the angle A that we want to find out will be 90-B (the sum of the angles in a triangle being 180˚). So:

B/sin(B) = h/sin(90)  = h
sin(B) = b/h

so B is arc-cosine(b/h) arc-cosine being the inverse of sine, AKA asin.

in expression form:

h = transform.scale[1]*content("Polystar 1").content("Polystar Path 1").outerRadius/(100*Math.sin(Math.PI/6));
b = transform.position[0];
90+radiansToDegrees(Math.asin(b/h))

The 90+ in the last line is because it was 90˚ out when I tried it, there's probably a sound mathematical reason, like I should have used acos instead of asin, but whatevs, it works.

So now our triangle will always have the tip in line with the midpoint of the hexagon, no matter what you scale it. Here's how it looks from side on:

A thing of beauty. Now to avoid doing a whole lot more thinkination for the other sides, let's use a hack. Make a new null, make it a 3D layer and set its parent to the hexagon, placing its centre at the centre of the hexagon (hold the shift key while you drag the parenting pick-whip).

Now change the parent of the triangle to the null. Select the null and the triangle and duplicate them. Rotate the newly created null 60˚ on the Z-axis, and voila, your second facet. Rinse, repeat four more times. I'll leave you to work out how to get the bottom half of the diamond. Ok, all right, hint: rotate the seventh null 180˚ on the x or y axis.

Oh, WAIT Stop, before you do this, just one thing you might want to do. Link the scale of the new triangle you made when you duplicated the original one to the scale of the original triangle. That way you can scale them all easily. Do that by alt/option-clicking the scale stopwatch on the second triangle and dragging the pick-whip to the scale property of the first. Use this second layer as the source of all succesive clones and they will follow the scale of the first layer, meanign you could easily animate that.

Add some lights and fiddle around with the material options of the layers until it looks super special, and you're gold. Maths: it works, suckers.

TL;DR

Download the project file here.

Also, yeah, do this in a proper 3D program like C4D (since you've already got it with AE) or Blender (since free), unless you're nuts like me.


Still Photo Rendering in Premiere Pro CC 2015 is Yellowy After Export So I start with a perfectly good JPG still set in the timeline 4 second long duration cross dissolve to another photo.  Not all photos change color after rendering.  And this only just stated happening.  Now I can't get it to go away.  Have tried several different export types (H264, Wide DVD, MP4, etc.) but they all look the same.  Does anyone have any suggestions.

Try re-saving the image to different formats. Often this will do the trick.


How can you get clips from different YouTube videos to have the same resolution or frame size in Adobe Premier Pro CS6 2017? I'm new, so pardon my incorrect terminology.

Let's say that I download different YouTube clips using an online converter. When I put them into a sequence in Adobe Premier Pro, the clips from the different videos tend to have different frame sizes. I could scale to frame size or set to frame size, but this has lead to black bars on the side or top of the video. So that isn't what I'm looking for. In the end, when I upload to YouTube, I want all of the videos to be the same size so that there are not any black bars in the final product.

The second step was to create a new sequence first and have that start off the frame size I'm looking for. So, for example, I want to upload to YouTube, so I use 23.976 frames, 1920x1080, and other basic settings for the sequence. However, when I upload my clips after that to the sequence, the clip is tiny compared to the program monitor's preview display, and when I add different clips from different vids, I still have the same issue that they are not the same frame size. Is there a way to fix that?

So, I hope I was clear enough. If anyone needs any further clarification, please let me know and I'll try to answer it. I'm new to this stuff, but I'll do my best.

There is no ideal solution to your problem, if you don't want the black bars.

Pick your main timeline frame size and aspect ratio, and make all the clips fit that timeline. This, of course will reduce the resolution of your smaller clips.

If most of your clips have a frame size of 1280x720 and therefore a 16x9 aspect ratio, then create a timeline that has that frame size and aspect ratio. If most your clips have a frame size of 640x480, then that's your frame size, etc.

Then simply fit the clips that don't have your chosen frame size and aspect ratio to your main timeline by adjusting their scale in a way that any black area is pushed off-frame.


How to view my project elements while working in a composition? Is there a way to see other project elements when working in a composition to be able to align and synchronized the elements of the animation one with the others? When I open up a composition to adjust my elements I don't see all my elements in others composition and main project.

Short answer: yes.

Say you have a subcomp which you want to work on and you want to see how this affects the composition in which it is nested. This is easily done; you just need to open up a new viewer. You can have as many viewers open as you like (until your graphics card catches fire), this will let you see any number of linked compositions at once.

To do it from the menu go to View>New Viewer or hit Ctrl/CmdaltshiftN or right-click in your comp window and choose New>Viewer from the contextual menu.

By default (?) this viewer will show the current composition (this is useful when working in 3D because you can set it to a different perspective), and it will switch when you change comps, so we have to lock it. That's what that little padlock icon is at the top of the comp window.

(I just noticed when taking this screen shot that the icon was already locked. Adobe may have changed the default behaviour of new viewers).

With this padlock locked the viewer will stay on whatever comp you set it to, so you can hop over to a child comp, make changes and see it update in the parent. You can drag your timeline to a new frame by dragging the tab, meaning you can see both timelines and compositions concurrently. Below is an example where you can see both a pre-comp and the composition it is used in, to allow for editing and live updating without switching tabs.


Rotating the 3d object with the blueprint background I have some 3d objects that I want to show using After Effects.

With these objects I can create various types of extensions, like: IGS, SAT, OBJ, STL, ...

I would just like to rotate them on the screen with a blueprint background, as in the figure below:

With blue background and with grids.

The object need not be solid, just highlight the outline as in the image...

I searched for something on the internet, but found nothing.

I do not need an explanation. If someboby find any link where I can learn the technique would be very interesting.

In this video does not appear as create showing only the outline, but it is already possible to have an idea of how to import the 3d object.

How To Import 3D Model In After Effects CS5


What are some ways to simulate an explosion? I'm beginning production on a film in the next few weeks, and I need an explosion in one of the scenes. It's not super complicated, just one shot a few seconds long with an explosion coming off the top of a building. The shot is from below on the ground, so no building damage will be visible.

I've looked into a lot of ways to do this, but I can't find one that fits my needs. I want to simulate the explosion, not use stock footage so I can adjust it to get the look I want.

When it comes to software, it doesn't really matter. I have access to Maya, Nuke, After Effects, Fusion, Blender, and I'm familiar with all of them. I'm just looking for a fairly easy way to simulate a mid-scale building explosion.

If you're looking for a fireball explosion, you could download a visual effect of an explosion that's already green screened for you, and just composite that on top of your footage. (That could also be "borrowed" from an existing film and each frame masked by hand. But you didn't hear it from me.)

The building and anything nearby will need to be lit up temporarily by the brightness of the explosion, especially since the front of the building will be in shadow (with the sun behind the building, as you described in the comments to your answer).  I would recommend doing that as a practical effect with actual lights covered by actual orange gels at the actual location.

To help sell the effect, there should also be a blast wave (wind) that blows trees, bushes, people's clothing & hair, nearby litter, etc.  You might show that with insert shots. The camera could also shake for an instant (even in post production) to show that the impact of the explosion even affected the camera.

I'd also include some bits of debris landing near the camera or in the scene to underscore that the explosion is happening in the same environment as the camera (and possibly characters).

For the explosion noise, lots of sound libraries have explosions and destruction sounds you can layer together. I like using a clean, fiery "boom" along with breaking glass and splintering wood, followed by staccato showering debris.


ffmpeg overlay x expression with logical condition I am trying to create a simple overlay graphic where the overlay moves and screen and changes speed according to time. So I tried a simple

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vcodec qtrle -i overlay.mov -filter_complex '[0:0][1:0]overlay=x=if(t<2\,t*3\,t*5)[out]' -map '[out]' -y output.mp4

and got an error code of :

[Parsed_overlay_0 @ 0000003f4e1e2ea0] [Eval @ 0000003f4c0fe5b0] Missing ')' or too many args in 'if(t<2,t*3,t*5)'

[Parsed_overlay_0 @ 0000003f4e1e2ea0] Error when evaluating the expression 'if(t<2,t*3,t*5)' for x

[Parsed_overlay_0 @ 0000003f4e1e2ea0] Failed to configure input pad on Parsed_overlay_0

Error configuring complex filters.

Invalid argument

if I remove the "if" part and just leave a formula it works :

-filter_complex '[0:0][1:0]overlay=x=12+t*3[out]'

I tried playing with escaping of the different characters but it doesn't look like its a parsing error. Any ideas of how to use this correctly? The ffmpeg documentation has a sample for doing font color expression with a logical value here , but any attempt at

overlay=x_expr

doesn't really work as well

please help

Thanks in advance

FFmpeg uses functions, rather than operators, for conditional execution and comparisons, so t<2 is not a valid syntax.

The syntax for your given command would be

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i overlay.mov -filter_complex \
       "[0][1]overlay=x=if(lt(t\,2)\,t*3\,t*5)[out]" \
       -map '[out]' -c:v qtrle -y output.mp4

where lt(var,value) is the less than function.


Best way to cover a long video with music I would like to edit a long (~10 min) video made out of drone footage. I intended to cover the whole video with background music but I would also like it to mantain the same "feel" all the way through. My question is, what is the best way to cover a long video with music such that the viewer doesn't give too much attention that the music has changed?
Or is it a better idea to use the same song and extend it or loop over and over?
Or maybe incorporate multiple tracks with different intensities and interleave them based on the current scene? (not even sure how that would be possible, it just popped into my mind :)

For the most part this is a stylistic choice. While I won't say it's impossible to maintain the viewers attention throughout a 10 minute Video with no narration - it's not an easy task either. I would highly recommend cutting in some B-roll and talking over it maybe, if only for a few seconds to break up the flow a bit.

However, for finding coherent music that fits the feel, I'd recommend you check out Artlist. You can filter by mood, theme, instruments, genre, etc. to find similar yet high quality music.


How can I edit out the flicker from a projector from existing video footage? I recently filmed some content of a thin line of a projected image. The video footage is flickering a little and I am wondering if there's any solution to fix the footage once it's been filmed. I have tried to speed up and slow down the footage and it doesn't seem to change it. Is there any way of editing it out on imovie? Thanks!

tomh's advice to double stack the video layer, reduce opacity by 50% and advance a frame is a great starting point and certainly works well on fluorescent light flicker.

I've just had the same problem with a single chip DLP projector image in shot with the banding looping over about 5 frames. Working in Premiere Pro, I layered the video 3 times, cropped each layer to the projection screen area, reduced each layer to 25% opacity and advanced each layer 1 frame on from the last. I also reduced the brightness on the base layer by 100% (referring to Lumetri Scopes and using my eye to avoid blowing out the slide image). It's a very satisfactory result.

Caveat: If anything crosses the projected image is will look like it has a strobe effect and any animations, video or transitions will have this also, however for a set of static slides you should be fine.

I got a bit carried away and made an example video...

Hope this helps you or anyone else using a search engine to love their quirky issues like i did to find the original post.


Final Cut Pro Picture in Picture template I want to try and create a video with one main camera angle that will be used throughout, but on occasions I want to bring up a second camera angle or picture inside the first.

This is all fairly easy to achieve in itself, but I want to make sure that, assuming the dimensions are the same for the secondary picture/video, that it's always in the same place on the screen.  Is there a way to implement a template/anchor point that I can just put these extra pictures/videos into whenever I want?

if you have Apple Motion you could make a template which would be easy enough and just drop it on when you need it in the video and then drop the additional image onto the motion template.

OR

(I am going to assume you know how to place 2 layers of video (top one being the PiP one))
the first time you want your PiP get it placed where you want it with all the sizing, placement etc. Then when you want to do it again in the next section just copy and paste the attributes from the first one onto the second one and it should place it in exactly the same place.


How to configure OBS studio to have only one recording window? Since I reinstalled OBS my display has changed from having one scene recording window to having 2.
I have tried modifying every possible setting I thought off but I don't manage to get rid of the second window.
The problem is this window seems to define the screen capture area and I can't modify it. This seems only possible in the left scene frame, but doesn't have any effect on the recording.
Any clues?

When you open up the properties of the screen-capture, you should be able to select the screen you're trying to record. If else, please post a screenshot of it.


Find a video and sounds I am looking for a video which start at the top of ocean surface for few seconds and then beginning to go under the surface. There should be no people on the video. But fish and other sea creatures can be there.

Also I am looking for interesting sounds which I can add to the video like dolphin sounds, whale sounds and specially a Submarine like sound which gives the user a good feeling that they are going underwater little by little.

It would also help if I can find a place where I can get few lines of text spoken out in a nice voice which would match the video

Checkout videoblocks. They are a subscription based stock footage site.
Here is a clip I found that is similar to what you are looking for.
Consider using my referal link to sign up for videoblocks.

For sound effects, check out audioblocks (a sister sight to videoblocks).
They have sound effects for dolphins, whales, and lots of different water sounds.
Consider using my referral link to sign up for audioblocks.

P.S. I am not affiliated with videoblocks or audioblocks in any way.


Which part of a computer is critic to work on 4k footage I'm working in a compagny that starts working on 4k video footages. The person responsible for the video editing is complaining that working on those footage is really a pain.
So I'm wondering which part of its hardware configuration should be changed to make his life easier.
He's mainly working on Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effect.

Thanks for any shared experiences

The hard drive is usually the biggest factor when working with big footage files.
Upgrade his workstation with a reasonably sized SSD, I recommend atleast 500GB to ensure you can work on multiple projects without moving files around.
The SSD speed of course is the important factor that would speed up the workflow, so be sure to not buy a cheap but big SSD but one that has fast read and write speeds. Read speed being  more important than write speed.

When working with Adobe Products, a mid-range GPU can help a lot aswell when doing a lot of color correction and other "effects" work. Many effects and plugins nowadays are GPU accelerated and will be even more in the future.
I recommend buying a mid-range consumer or "gamer" GPU instead of a so called workstation GPU. They are incredibly overpriced with nearly no additional stability and usually worse performance. You only benefit from them if you have very special needs (like 10bit displays or frame locking) and need certain warranties or support from the Manufacturer.

Also as AJ Henderson mentioned, you should have around 16GB RAM or 12GB on 3 channel CPUs. 8GB or less will perform horribly with modern Adobe Products, they use a lot more RAM to increase performance since they switched to 64bit.


Tips for making multiple video shoots appear Continuous in color? I'm brand new to video production, but I'm finding that when splicing some clips together in the NLE captured with my GH1 camera, there can often be very jarring jumps in the color, white balance, brightness, and things like that.

How do amateur videographers keep the image looking consistent from one shot to the next?  Is it a matter of using the same manual settings on the camera for every shot, or a matter of using some NLE editing features?

Consistent camera settings are a good beginning for continuous looking footage. Here below I will try to explain how to achieve consistent brightness and colour of footage.

Consistent brightness

Assuming that the lighting of the scene stays the same, you can pick a shutter speed, aperture and ISO that gives you a desired exposure. If in the next recording you will use the same settings on the same scene the brightness of the image will stay the same.

It gets trickier when the light changes. By using your exposure meter you can get close to consistent footage. If for example in scene 1 your exposure meter shows -2/3 with the desired settings, try to get an exposure of -2/3 in scene 2 with the same metering mode.
This will only work when the scenes are lighted similar to each other. Night/day shots or inside/outside shots are not going to get consistent brightness ever.

Later in post-processing you can of course alter the brightness of two different clips, but you don't have much working space getting it right in camera is the best starting point.

Constant colour

Again assuming that the scene lighting stays the same, you can pick the white balance. On a GH1 this can be done in several different ways, it even allows you to set the colour temperature in Kelvin. Pick a method of your liking, but to avoid Automatic White-Balance (AWB). AWB is a big cause for changing colours across different clips because it can get thrown off easily by changing objects in the scene.

Baseline: for the same scene, set the white-balance manually and don't let AWB decide for you.

Again, in post-processing you will probably need to do some colour grading and this gives you the chance to colour correct your footage.
But, get it right in camera and you will save yourself some work.


Audio/video sync puzzle I filmed an event with two cameras and I need to sync the second camera footage with the audio of the first. This was a live event and I couldn't record sync aids like a clapper.
I name my video files after the timestamp from the camera, and I figured I could use this to do the sync. So for instance, I have one clip with name VID-2017-04-22-11-09-26.mov and another with name VID-2017-04-22-11-16-22.mov, so I can work out that the second clip ended 6 minutes and 56 seconds after the first. (The camera only knows when you finished filming and created the file, and the naming convention puts hh-mm-ss as the last three pairs of numbers.)
So I figured that I could just note the spot on the timeline where clip 1 ends and place clip 2 so that it ends at that time plus 6:56.
But when I did this, it was totally wrong, and I can't figure out why. The only variable I can think of it that the frame rate of this footage is 59.94 while the sequence is 23.976fps. But I'm not sure if that's relevant, and if so, I still can't figure out how to place these clips.
Meanwhile, I'm stuck syncing the very hard way, by watching the clip and manually trying to find the matching footage from camera 1, and this is painfully tedious.
Update
From comments posted, I realize I wasn't clear. Both clips are from the same camera, which is camera 2. I have synced the first of these clips from camera 2 manually with camera 1, and now I need to sync the remaining clips from camera 2 with each other.
Update
The workflow was this: I set camera 1 on a tripod to film the speaker continuously (but rather boringly). I walked around with camera 2 for more dynamic angles, sometimes pausing between shots. So camera 2 has about 25 different clips, which I want to line up with camera 1, and then cut between them to make a more interesting video.

I record conferences all the time, so I end up getting 10's of hours of footage at a time. I have a few tricks that help with syncing:

Run all cams all the time. If a full day shoot gets only 3 files per cam, that's a lot less work to sync than 25 files from each cam.
Stop and start all cams within the same few seconds.
Learn to notice key waveforms. Things like applause, audience chatter, and music have unique shapes. You can also watch for "um" and long pauses.
There's sync tools available, like PluralEyes, that analyze the sound from each clip, then syncs them on the timeline.
There's time code methods that many pros use, but I've never had any success with them.

I depend on 1 through 3 almost exclusively. I've gotten very good at reading waveforms and I only stop cams for breaks longer than 10 minutes. All my clips are 30 seconds out of sync at most. It's pretty easy to sync a whole day in 15 minutes. I've used PluralEyes, but found it took too long to process the material, and it was off by about a half second most of the time, so I had to go though and move all the clips anyway. I only use it if I have tons of clips to sync (more than 15), instead of my typical four or five. PluralEyes will get you close, then you have to adjust manually.


Some H.264 videos that I have seem to have excessive bitrate, is there a way to determine/find their recommended bitrate? So I have some videos that are Full HD, h264 but they have over 30M bitrate at 30 FPS, they are SDR and their quality is not very impressive so it seems excessive and unnatural for such unimpressive quality - I have seen much better looking h.264 content with 60 fps with even half of this bitrate. So what I did try to do is use -crf 17 (yes, without encoding), to see how much this will reduce them and it usually does do a good job for example it made the file to about 12M, I also tried -fs with even a higher number of size than the original, and it brought the file down to 5M bitrate, I don't know what actually happens behind the scenes with this, but I think the video looks a bit worse, not much though compared to the 30M that it was.

So how, if even possible, do I correctly determine the bitrate of a video if it seems excessive?

So how, if even possible, do I correctly determine the bitrate of a
  video if it seems excessive?

There's not a "correct" way.  That's why every encoder you come across presents bitrate as an option to the user.  The visual complexity of every video is different, and visual tolerance levels of artifacting is subjective in every case.  File size vs image quality will always be a tradeoff, and it takes an informed human being to decide where that tradeoff is most acceptable.

But to focus more on the "how" one best makes this decision, there's not much to say other than: trail and error.

You can bifurcate.  That is, pick a high number, try it, pick a low number, try it, then pick a number between whichever direction was more suitable, rinse and repeat.  It's still a subjective process.  If you search the internet, it's not hard to find ballpark ranges to get you started, given the specifics of your output requirements (resolution, framerate, etc).  When you do this, you should use a representative subset of your total output to test, so that you can iterate more quickly.

Also, be sure to consider your destination platform.  You don't mention it in the question, but it will affect your decision.  If you're delivering to bluray, for example, you have a hard limit on total file size, and you'll probably want to optimize quality for that specific target.  On the other hand, if you're delivering to an online streaming service, you might want to go for maximum quality because YouTube, Vimeo and the like will automatically generate lower-quality versions to serve to people with slower connections.  Conversely, you might value high-speed upload for quick turnaround times.  Only you can decide.


Merge two videos in ffmpeg with audio from one How can I merge two videos v1 and v2, but the audio coming from v2?
Say v1 is 1 second, and v2 is 2 second. Basically I want to merge v1 and half of v2, but the whole audio be from v2.

Please make it general about the timing.

Probably the most simple solution is to use this command:

ffmpeg -i v1.avi -i v2.avi \
    -lavfi [1:v]trim=0.5:1.5,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[part1];[0:v][part1]concat[video] \
    -map [video] -map 1:a output.avi

Notes:

This command is sufficient only in an ideal case, when there are not needed another filters for conversions of incompatible video streams (e. g. because of different frame sizes).
It is appropriate to use option -c:1:a copy (somewhere between specifying input files and -map options) to avoid transcoding the audio (of the second input file).
Tested with files v1.avi, v2.avi synthetically created with the command

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i testsrc2=d=1  -f lavfi -i anoisesrc=d=1 -f lavfi -i testsrc=d=2 -f lavfi -i sine=d=2 -map 0:0 -map 1 v1.avi -map 2 -map 3 v2.avi

The detailed explanation:

ffmpeg -i v1.avi -i v2.avi

Input files are introduced with -i options, and are enumerated from 0, so

v1.avi has the number 0,
v2.avi has the number 1.

After the semicolon (:) may be the stream specifier - supposing that you have only one video and one audio streams in your input files, you may simply use v for the video stream, and a for the audio stream. We will use them later — see the picture near the end.

-lavfi

introduces a complex filtergraph. You may use the synonym -filter_complex instead.

[1:v]trim=0.5:1.5,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[part1];

This is the first linear chain of filters (i.e. the part up to the semicolon) of the filtergraph.
It consists of 2 filters: trim (up to the comma), and setpts (after it).

trim=0.5:1.5 gives only half of the video (particularly, from 0.5 s to 1.5 s).
setpts=PTS-STARTPTS set timestamps of the trimmed part from 0 s (to 1 s).

Note the input pad [1:v] — it is the only video stream (v) from the input file 1 (which is the second input file — v2.avi, because input files are numbered from 0).
Note the output pad, for which I chose the label [part1].

[0:v][part1]concat[video]

This is the second linear chain of filters (after the semicolon) of the filtergraph. It consists of only 1 filter: concat.
concat - the original stream 0:v and the intermediate stream [part1] are concatenated.
I chose the label [video] for this other intermediate result.

-map [video] -map 1:a output.avi

The -map options map selected streams from the input files and / or output pads from the complex filter into the output file output.avi in the specified order:

the output pad [video] from the complex filter maps to the output stream 0,
the audio stream (a) from the input file v2.avi (numbered as 1) maps to the output stream 1.

In more complicated cases with more video or audio streams, e. g. if the second input file contains 2 video and 3 audio streams:

You need specify individual streams with their ordinal numbers - they are again numbered from 0.

For example -map 1:a:2 will select and map the third audio stream (numbered as 2) from your second input file (numbered as 1) into the output file.

As you can see from the picture, you may use -map 1:4 instead.


Not able to play 13Mb video file I have developed a video which approximates to 13 Mb.I try opening it with Windows media player or Nero.It tries to open but then the player automatically closes.

Format is .avi

What could be the possible reason.Is size the issue?

Not enough info. Try getting a copy of the GSpot Codec Information program (google it) and report back here what it says about the file.

Size is almost certainly not the problem.


BMPCC + rafcamera arri b to mft + optar 1.2/12mm = vignetting BMPCC does not support super16 lens?

Example 1.3T - 16T
video test

I'm not familiar with the setup you described, but does that adapter have some sort of iris control built into it?  I have the adapter pictured below and it doesn't allow the BMPCC to adjust the aperture of the lens, which means I need to use the iris control to adjust the amount of light getting let into the camera.

The vignetting is caused by how the iris inside the adapter functions. When you close the iris, to restrict the light entering the camera, it also has the side-effect of creating a vignette.  This is the main reason I stopped using the BMPCC and went back to using the regular BMCC, because I don't have any MFT lenses.


How do I animate an image based on relative position in after effects? When I add text to an after effects project there's an "animate" triangle I can click which lets me animate the position of the text from 0.0, 0.0. This is great because if I duplicate that layer and move it around the text animates relatively from its new position no problem.

I'd like to do this with an image but I can't work out how to do it. Animating the position of the image based on key frames is fine but when I try to duplicate and move the animated image around it animates from it's original position.

Is there any easy way to do this?

You can move the anchor point of a layer, but this may upset scale, rotation or masking. There is a much simpler and very intuitive way to do it.

Click on the position property to select all keyframes. Park the playhead on one of these keyframes (use j or k keys to do this). Now if you move one of the keyframes they all move. If you don't park the playhead on an existing keyframe then you will just create a new keyframe at the current time and leave the others unchanged.

  Tip: If you need to have the playhead at a particular time to see the
  relative position and there is no keyframe there, just create a
  temporary one at the current time.


In Adobe Priemiere Pro CC, export media window does not appear In Adobe Priemiere Pro CC 2018, when I use the File > Export > Media menu item, the export media window does not appear!

I've confirmed that it's not merely hidden behind other windows or on another monitor.

I have up-to-date software (currently version 12.0.0 and I'm running Adobe Media Encoder CC 2018.

Called Adobe support, and they quickly solved the problem.

The export media window apparently only appears if the currently selected/highlighted workspace panel is either the video timeline panel or the playback panel. If any other panels are currently selected instead, the window will fail to appear.


Burn a MP4 file with SRT subtitles I have a movie and I want to burn it on a DVD, but I don't know how I do it and what the best options are. I want the DVD be able to play on PlayStation 4.
I have a movie in MP4 format and the subtitles are in SRT format. Are you able to tell me what the best programs are? I have installed Nero 2015, but I can't figure out how to work with it.

I think most HW players that can play mp4/avi/mkv/etc files-in-a-directory will load external-file subtitles if you just put them in the same directory as the video.  Burn it to a data DVD, or put it on a USB stick, and you're done.


ffmpeg compress video in fast motion in high quality I would like to compress a video and in the same time to be in fast motion, and this must have as a result a high quality fast motion video.

I tried to run this ffmpeg command which compress video in high quality and in fast motion (~four times faster):

ffmpeg -i video_to_encode.avi  -r 16 -crf 18  -vcodec libx264  -filter:v "setpts=0.25*PTS" -vb 10M -vf scale=1280:720 video_output.avi

However, while video is compressed in high quality, the command for fast motion  -filter:v "setpts=0.25*PTS" is not executed. I have an idea that "-filter:v" may must be removed. Is that right?

UPDATE 1:
This command do what I would like to do, however, it creates a negative timestamp. This means that if I have a video of 21 seconds, and it is compressed in fast motion four times faster, then it will be resulted a video of 5 seconds and not of 21. However, this command generates a video of incorrent timestamp of 21 seconds where only the first 5 seconds are running as a proper video, and then it is frozen until 21th second.

ffmpeg -i video_to_encode.avi  -r 16 -crf 18  -vcodec libx264 -vb 10M -vf "scale=1280:720,setpts=0.25*PTS" video_output.avi

I, finally, found the answer!

The problem was created from the mismatch of Video frames duration, and audio duration. So the video seems to be frozen after some moment, and it seems it continues to play frozen to last video frame. However, audio continued to play. It continue to paly until audio duration finish. Therefore, I decided to remove the audio track entirely while compressing the file. This resulted a video-only file with correct playing time using "-an" ffmpeg option.

ffmpeg -i video_out.avi  -r 16 -crf 18  -vcodec libx264 -vb 10M -vf "scale=1280:720,setpts=0.25*PTS"  -an  gp.avi


After Effects - Green Screen - Subject Was Filmed Using Different Lens Than Background Image My subject was filmed in front of a green screen using a different lens than was used for the fake background image.
When she moves away from the camera, she looks like a giant against the background image.
Is there any trick in After Effects I can use to fake her distance from the camera so it looks more believable?
Cheers.

You can use CC_lense to change the appearance of your background so the focal length matches your plate more accurately.
If you have more time (and money) to spare, you can use software like PFtrack to follow the visual lines in both images to estimate the focal length. This would give you the opportunity to accurately distort the image so the focal-lenghts match on a more accurate scale.


Is H264 an actual file format? Is there an actual H.264 file or is it just the codec that renders the video into an .mp4 or .mov file?

For an application, I have to hand in a portfolio with videos. Their website says that, "Videos have to be H264 format and pictures JPEG." Now, JPEG is a file format as well as a compression codec. But I've never heard of H.264 as a file format before. Is it possible to render video into an "H.264 file" or should I encode my videos as H.264 into an MP4 container?

I'd bet cash money they don't know what they're talking about when they say h264 format. There is a raw h.264 bitstream format, with the file suffix .264, but it's pretty obscure (I can't duckduckgo any actual documentation on what it's for, possibly when dealing with live streams from cameras).

Give them an mp4 encoded with h.264 codec - it's a format you can be pretty certain anyone with software that's not completely obsolete can play. Conversely a .264 stream is fairly well guaranteed to be unplayable in all but rather specialist settings.

But if you have any doubts you could ask them if h.264 encoded mp4 is what they mean.


What should I do to improve the quality of the screen capture? I'm creating videos to post to YouTube.

My videos are about some jobs I do on the computer.

I watched some of my videos posted and that the quality of the video capture was not very good and clear.

What should I do to improve the quality of the screen capture?

To use better software?

I'm using Windows Media Encoder

Windows Media Encoder creates files in wmv format (I guess), which is highly compressed. Make sure you follow the YouTube recommendations


Text titles like in tv shows, After Effects or another software? I was wondering how is possible prepare some professional grade titles and graphics for broadcasts media (like the ones that you see in actual tv shows).

For example when a person is presented with an animated text like:

James 43
Lawyer of This Corp LTD.

A rich graphic text with alpha transparency that animates and disappear after some seconds.

I'm pretty sure that After Effects is a software to build them. Doing it manually however will be difficult to handle on the long period and lead to errors and discrepancies so I wonder also if it's possible to create sequences with scripts, functions and configurable variables.

Example:

function show_my_custom_animation_text() { ... }

And trigger it at a specific timecode:

00:02:21 - show_my_custom_animation_text("James", "43", "Lawyer");
00:03:16 - show_my_custom_animation_text("Bob", "35", "Barman");
00:04:51 - show_my_custom_animation_text2("Eric", "Bob", "Martin", "Philip");
...

Adobe Flash with it's frames and actionscript functions can allow something similar.

In short:

AE: It is possible to achieve professional grade titles with AE and maybe it's plugins ? Scripting and functions do exists? It's definitively AE raccomended to do this repetitive job?
Software/Tools: What software do professionals use aside AE? Given that this results will be reviewed and sent to actual big tv broadcasting to be actually aired on tv I can also consider learning other programs.
Workflow: Can you suggest a workflow for titling a show?
Resources: If you have some articles or links useful to learn more on the topic it will be a nice bonus!

After Effects is professional software for creating motion graphics, and can do what you are asking. There are a plethora of plugins, scripts and presets available to make it even easier, but out of the box it is very powerful software.

AE can also be scripted using Adobe's Extendscript scripting API. Within compositions (the name for the sequences created in AE) individual elements can be controlled by expressions. Both Extendscript and expressions are javascript-based.

For titling a show the workflow would depend on the content. For say a regular show the best approach would be to create templates. Adobe Premiere works very well with After effects, so that templates can be re-purposed within Premiere - e.g. the text content of a lower third title can be changed for different people's names.


ND filters. Why variable? I am a beginner to nd filters. Im still debating if i need a variable filter or not.  If i buy a 6 stop filter nonvariable or a 10 stop filter couldn't i just turn the iso up if its too dark. Why would i get a 6 stop or 3 stop. Could a single 3 stop be emulated by a 10 stop with a higher iso? What woild be the difference.

Also if they would be the same why would one need a variable nd filter. If he could buy a 10 stop and control the iso to move up to a 6 stop or 3 stop

Sorry for the beginner question.

ISO isn't magic. When you turn up the iso you're increasing the gain on an amplifier that is amplifying an analogue signal – the light hitting the sensor – and when you amplify a signal you amplify the noise. Remember that opening up a stop is a doubling the light intensity. To get ten stops of gain on a camera with native iso of, say 200, you'd have to go to iso 204800. So whacking a 10 stop ND (also known as a 'Black Filter' because you could literally use it as welding goggles) on the front would mean that all you'd get is noise soup.

A 10 stop ND is really only useful for the harshest sunlight with a fast lens with a wide open aperture, or for still and time-lapse photography if you want extremely long exposures. It's certainly not the first filter I would buy as a beginner.

A Variable ND filter allows you to change the exposure in bright conditions without affecting other picture characteristics. Increasing the f-stop increases your depth of field, which may be undesirable, and increasing the shutter speed (i.e. reducing the exposure time) reduces motion blur, which may mean more strob-y motion (as you often see in sports coverage), again, this may not be desirable.

So a variable ND changes the exposure without changing the feel of the shot as the other ways of reducing exposure do. One thing to be aware of is that some variable ND filters do cause colour shifts across their range. So if you go for a bargain basement one off ebay buy a Macbeth card at the same time because you will have to compensate in post.


x265 encoding test: 12bit results a bigger file size than 8bit of the same config? Just got curious of this x265 HEVC format, and tried it on a 1920x1080i BDMV stream video, one encoded with 8bit depth and then another encoded with 12bit depth. The results are, the 8bit output was smaller. Both outputs are 1280x720.

I wonder why is this so.

Here are the MediaInfo:

8bit:

Frame rate                     : 23.976 fps

Color space                    : YUV

Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0

Bit depth                      : 8 bits

Writing library                : x265 1.9+54-291beccb6760:[Windows][GCC 5.3.0][64 bit] 8bit+10bit+12bit

Encoding settings              : wpp / ctu=64 / min-cu-size=8 / max-tu-size=32 / tu-intra-depth=2 / tu-inter-depth=2 / me=3 / subme=3 / merange=57 / rect / amp / max-merge=3 / temporal-mvp / no-early-skip / rdpenalty=0 / no-tskip / no-tskip-fast / strong-intra-smoothing / no-lossless / no-cu-lossless / no-constrained-intra / no-fast-intra / open-gop / no-temporal-layers / interlace=0 / keyint=250 / min-keyint=23 / scenecut=40 / rc-lookahead=30 / lookahead-slices=4 / bframes=8 / bframe-bias=0 / b-adapt=2 / ref=4 / limit-refs=2 / limit-modes / weightp / weightb / aq-mode=1 / qg-size=32 / aq-strength=1.00 / cbqpoffs=0 / crqpoffs=0 / rd=6 / psy-rd=2.00 / rdoq-level=2 / psy-rdoq=1.00 / no-rd-refine / signhide / deblock / sao / no-sao-non-deblock / b-pyramid / cutree / no-intra-refresh / rc=crf / crf=18.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ipratio=1.40 / pbratio=1.30

12bit:
Frame rate                     : 23.976 fps

Color space                    : YUV

Chroma subsampling             : 4:2:0

Bit depth                      : 12 bits

Writing library                : x265 1.9+194-6d3849d648f0be5a:[Windows][GCC 5.3.0][64 bit] 12bit: KG7x [x265.ru]

Encoding settings              : wpp / ctu=64 / min-cu-size=8 / max-tu-size=32 / tu-intra-depth=2 / tu-inter-depth=2 / me=3 / subme=3 / merange=57 / rect / amp / max-merge=3 / temporal-mvp / no-early-skip / recursion-skip / rdpenalty=0 / no-tskip / no-tskip-fast / strong-intra-smoothing / no-lossless / no-cu-lossless / no-constrained-intra / no-fast-intra / open-gop / no-temporal-layers / interlace=0 / keyint=250 / min-keyint=23 / scenecut=40 / rc-lookahead=30 / lookahead-slices=4 / bframes=8 / bframe-bias=0 / b-adapt=2 / ref=4 / limit-refs=2 / limit-modes / weightp / weightb / aq-mode=1 / qg-size=32 / aq-strength=1.00 / cbqpoffs=0 / crqpoffs=0 / rd=6 / psy-rd=2.00 / rdoq-level=2 / psy-rdoq=1.00 / no-rd-refine / signhide / deblock=0:0 / sao / no-sao-non-deblock / b-pyramid / cutree / no-intra-refresh / rc=crf / crf=18.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=51 / qpstep=4 / ipratio=1.40 / pbratio=1.30

crf=18 rate-control produces bigger files in 12-bit mode.  If you're trying to find some encode settings that work well for some content, you shouldn't assume that the same CRF at different bit depths is going to be the same.  (Either the same SSIM or the same perceptual visual quality).

You haven't said anything about quality, or quality-per-filesize.  Presumably the bigger files also look a bit better, since 12-bit x265 has about the same quality per bitrate as 8-bit x265.  (I've tested with 10 vs. 8, but not with 12).

CRF is not an exact target-quality setting.  So if you want to compare settings, use 2pass with the same bitrate for both and look at quality.  Use either SSIM or preferably human visual inspection.  (Some people like to pause/zoom, but don't just do that.  Some kinds of artifacts / distortion are noticeable when the video is playing, but many are a lot less noticeable.  Pause/zoom helps when checking your visual impression of "sharpness" / "more detail", so figure out what was giving you that impression, and maybe also other things to look for to see if you can still notice them while playing the video.)

For actual encodes once you find settings that you like, CRF is great, but it's no good for comparing the quality-per-bitrate of different encode settings.

8-bit vs. 10/12-bit

There may still be some gains in compression efficiency for x265, but they're definitely smaller if they exist at all.  10 or 12-bit might even look a tiny bit worse.  See discussion on doom9, linked by Michael in a comment.  I haven't followed the latest discussions, so I'm not sure what the current consensus is on 10-bit x265 for 8-bit video.  Even if there is a small gain, it may not be worth the speed penalty.

It's definitely nowhere near a factor of 12/8 like some commenters are suggesting based on "simple math".  A lossy video codec like h.265 isn't very similar to simple lossless compression like ZIP.

x264 does benefit in general from running in 10-bit mode even when the original source is 8-bit, and so is the final display (but again, you shouldn't expect the same CRF to give the same bitrate or the same quality at different depths).  8-bit h.265 has higher-precision motion vectors than 8-bit h.264, so that part of the reasoning doesn't apply to x265.

Remember that both h.264 and h.265 store the information in the video as quantized frequency-domain coefficients.  With trellis / rdoq, it even tweaks the quantization to compress well with the final entropy-coder (e.g. CABAC in h.264), so the same number of bits can represent the same amount of information, whether the entropy-coder had 8-bit or 12-bit input.  8-bit is in some ways just a speed-hack.

More bits means that you can get closer (smaller error) while still having some error.  So the encoder has more choice when trading off distortion vs. bitrate.  This may be partly why 10-bit x264 suffers less from "banding" artifacts in gradients: it has more choice in representing the DC coefficient, or in having small values in the AC coefficients.

The higher the input bit-depth (for a given output bitrate), the more bits the encoder has to throw away.  A lot of those extra bits are zeros if your original video was 8-bit.  (Lossy encoding already throws away a lot of bits, like from 12 bpp per frame (for YUV 4:2:0 chroma-sub-sampling with 8-bit components) down to 0.15 bits/pixel/frame and still look pretty close to visually transparent, especially at high resolutions where typical video has its information content distributed over more pixels.)

If you're going to rescale, presumably going to 10 or 12-bit before rescaling will let the rescale blend pixels with less loss of information.  (e.g. a 10-bit value can exactly store the average of four 8-bit values.)


no such filter, when using filter complex with pre-scale the desired output is combining 3 vids, and using scale or pad (do some processing on the input).
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -i in2.mkv -i in3.mkv \
-filter_complex "[0:v][v0];[1:v]scale=-1:1440[v1];[2:v][v2],[v0][v1][v2]hstack=inputs=3"
 -map "[v]" -map 1:a output.mp4

give:

[AVFilterGraph @ 0xec0a80] No such filter: ''
Error initializing complex filters.
Invalid argument

[0:v][v0] and [2:v][v2] don't contain any filter declaration, and thus ffmpeg complains. Insert whichever filter is desired in between the input and output pads.
I suppose you meant to scale the heights of the 3 inputs to match. In which case,
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -i in2.mkv -i in3.mkv \ -filter_complex "[0:v]scale=-1:1440[v0];[1:v]scale=-1:1440[v1];[2:v]scale=-1:1440[v2];[v0][v1][v2]hstack=inputs=3" -map "[v]" -map 1:a output.mp4
on input processing with -filter_complex, you use this pattern:
[input_number:v]operation[tmp_output_name]


Overlaying transparent video onto base video with custom positioning I'm trying to add a video intro to my main video. I have the following:

ffmpeg \
    -i main-video.mp4 -i intro.avi \
    -filter_complex " \
        [0:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, scale=2550x1080[top]; \
        [1:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, scale=1920x1080, \
             format=yuva420p,colorchannelmixer=aa=1[bottom]; \
        [top][bottom]overlay=shortest=1" \
    -acodec libvo_aacenc -vcodec libx264 out.mp4

main-video.mp4 -> 2250 x 1080

intro.avi -> 1920x1080

I have 2 problems with the above;

After the intro overlay has finished the main video pauses, however the main video audio continues for the correct duration of the main video (with a paused video frame the entire time)
The intro video overlay is left aligned, ideally I'd like it to be centered, either through auto calculations based on the 2 resolutions, or by nudging the x/y manually

The overlay filter is set to end with the shortest input, which here is the intro. So, the video output stops generating after that, so a typical video player holds the visual on the last frame.

Also, if your intro already has transparency, you can skip the format and ccm filters. In the command you took them from, the inputs did not have transparency in the source.

(Unless you are resizing the videos, you can skip the scale as well.)

Use

ffmpeg \
    -i main-video.mp4 -i intro.avi \
    -filter_complex " \
        [0:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS,scale=2550x1080[top]; \
        [1:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS,scale=1920x1080[bottom]; \
        [top][bottom]overlay=x=(W-w)/2:eof_action=pass" \
    -acodec aac -vcodec libx264 out.mp4


Why would an ENG camera need 422 Chroma? I can't believe it! 3CCD camcorders without the rolling shutter inferiority of the CMOS ones still exist and their sensors are even bigger!

But why does that particular camera have 422 chroma? How a field news-gathering camera designed for gathering news on the field would benefit from 422? Doesn't the consumers watch TV in 420 anyway?

I thought 4 44/22 was good for green screen applications and movie making. Why would some news van people need it?

As far as I understand, before broadcasting, your signal will be converted and changed which leads to further loss. So by providing 422, the broadcasting company has more leeway to convert/compress.

See Why is the “broadcast standard” 422 and should we be concerned about shooting 8 bit 420?


My colors look awful, I can't tell why I'm an amateur that recently made a video clip using the DJI Mavic Pro drone.
The footage itself turned out great, but the coloring is off.

The problem is, I can't tell what exactly is off, it just looks awful.
I tried to do some color correction in my video software, but I couldn't get it right.

Here is a single frame of the video, with no color correction:

I came here to ask what parameters I have to consider to make it look more natural, or if that isn't enough, what I should change when recording the video. (exposure, filters?)

'Awful' is pretty extreme - I don't actually think it looks that bad.

Perhaps it's a little bit over exposed (the car is almost glowing, it's that white) so you might want to consider an ND filter if you're filming outdoors (and you can get one of those for your drone).

Colour-wise, it does look like it's tipping towards the blue-end of the spectrum. Maybe try throwing a little more yellow/orange into the mix. However, that could just be my monitor. Do, please, check your monitor settings, too, they may be throwing off your perception.

This guy seems to know his stuff in regards to Mavic colour grading:

Maybe give that a watch and see if it helps :)


What settings should I use when recording my child's play in a dark theater? I am not sure whether this is a good question to ask in this forum or even if it is answerable. I'll let the community decide.

I am a complete newcomer to video recording having purchased my first video camera this week--a Panasonic HDC-TM900. In reading many various reviews I settled on this due to its supposedly great low light performance. I will be using this primarily to record family events the first of which is my child's play.

The stage of the play is fairly well lit though I do not know the lux. The rest of the theater, naturally, is quite dark. How do I go about recording the best possible video of the play with the the equipment that I have?

Being a newcomer should I just leave everything at auto? Does 1080P vs. 1080i really make a difference in video quality? Should I try recording in 24 FPS (Digital Cinema Mode) to get a more movie like experience?

I do have two shots at this as there are two showings so I can experiment with one and adjust for the other; however, I am not sure where to begin.

I think if you leave the settings on auto it should do the job just fine. Especially if the reviews say it performs well in low-light, I don't think you'll have a problem with exposure. Personally, I've never used that camera, so I guess I can't say for sure.

1080P vs. 1080i is just progressive scan and interlaced scan. I won't try to explain the differences fully – if you want to read up on it, have a look at this site. There are pros and cons for using both, but for your purposes I would suggest going 1080P, that way you won't have to worry about de-interlacing your footage.

Not sure what they mean by Digital Cinema Mode, but don't shoot 24fps. That's mainly for shooting film. Shoot 25fps (I'm assuming you live in PAL world?) if you're in NTSC land, shoot 29.97fps (or 30fps).


How to filter out overlapping audio? Given a mixed track and one stem track, what's the best way to "subtract" the stem from the mix? Given two audio streams, I'd like to remove the audio in one stream that also exists in another.  In this particular case the 1st stream contains everything mixed, and the 2nd stream contains just the background noise which also exists in the 1st stream.  Is there a reasonable way to go about "subtracting" this background audio track from the 1st audio track?
Ideally using ffmpeg, but open to anything.  I've naively tried inverting the background channel and mixing it with the first channel with this ffmpeg filter: aeval=val(0)|-val(1) but that doesn't work.  I assume that's because the background is mixed at a different level. (I'm also assuming they're exactly in phase)
Any other ideas?

For reference, here's ffmpeg showcqt filter on each channel side by side.  You can see how the 2nd column seems to "contain" all of the audio in the first column, plus some more.  (and mixed at different levels)

Inverting the background should work, that's exactly how a balanced audio connection works to eliminate noise, but how exact a match is your isolated background track compared to the mixed track? It's only going to fully work if it is recorded at the exact same quality, volume, etc, and the timing is precisely the same. What was the recording source for each track? How confident are you that the two sets of background audio that were recorded are identical to each other?


What type of tripod head should I get? I recently got a tripod, and I need a head for it. I would like to try a variety of video, so looking for something that allows moving the camera smoothly.

There are a variety of types of tripod heads available. eg ballhead, pan and tilt, geared heads, or fluid heads. What are the differences between these, and which is most useful for video?

I will also be using the tripod for some still photography, so would be good if the tripod head is also suitable for that.

What other features are worth looking for in a tripod head?

There's really two main types of film heads; pan/tilt heads and ball heads. There are a lot of other features you can get in tripods, for example, fluid heads. A fluid head is definitely something you'll want for video if you can afford one. They provide much smoother panning and tilting motion while operating the tripod. Geared heads allow for much more precise adjustments, but aren't that popular due to their weight and cost.

A pan/tilt head is the most common. They allow for smooth and controlled camera motion, but are limited by constraints of the different pieces, making them harder to adjust perfectly.

Ball heads have a much wider range of motion than pan/tilt heads, but their design makes smooth and controlled camera motions much more difficult.


Who should buy a Weighted Gimbal Stabilizer Who can make the best use of a weighted gimbal stabilizer such as a Glidecam HD2000? What are the pros and cons of using one?

The Glidecam HD2000 is a weighted gimbal stabilizer.  It uses inertia of a counter weight and a balanced gimbal to prevent rapid changes in orientation and to an extent position of a camera.  They are used for stabilizing footage when you need more stabilization than optical image stabilization can provide but less than a steadicam or gyroscope rig provides (or the cost or size of a steadicam or gyroscope unit is prohibitive).

Unlike optical image stabilization, a weighted gimbal rig requires a fair bit of practice to master the use of as well as careful configuration and balancing to prevent the system from drifting.  A handle is attached to a near frictionless gimbal at the center of gravity so that the handle can move without the camera moving significantly.  It requires careful handling and manipulation to control the camera's angle while also requiring quite a bit of strength to hold the handle at the appropriate angle.

The main pro is that it provides far more stabilization than optical image stabilization, is relatively compact, light (roughly 50% heavier, though if you use monitors and such that can be used as counterweight ) and low cost (compared to more advanced stabilization systems.)

The main con is that it still adds quite a bit of weight to the camera rig.  They are difficult to use well and require careful movement and handling to get good results.  They also require far more physical exertion because of how you have to hold them (hard on your wrists.)  They also do not provide nearly the stabilization of more advanced systems such as a steadicam rig (chest support plus weighted gimbal) or a gyro-stabilized system (with high speed gyroscopes actually actively countering changes in orientation).


Convert & Burn M2TS files into DVD format WITHOUT LOSS I have my marriage film (Resolution: 1080p /Format: .m2ts / File size: 7 GB) on a bluray disc which I ripped in my HDD with this software that I found on forums.

The thing is that I want to make some copies for the family who still have DVD players. So I came up with the idea to burn the BDR disc into DVD to be played in any DVD player but without any loss at all. Is there any hack to do this? I have blank DVDs of 8.5GB enough to burn my video.

I know that DVD format is at 420p resolution in NTSC but I wonder if there is a procedure to convert/simulate/hack this in order to play my BDR video in a DVD at full high quality? I don't want to compress the video, just transform the format to be recognized in DVD players because as I said my BDR file is 7GB enough to fit in a 8.5GB DVD disc.

Also I need to rebuild the menu and the scenes with a video editor. Can you suggests also a good video editor? I heard about Corel video editor and Pineapple.

Thanks

Whatever else you may be facing, one big obstacle is the DVD players themselves. They're not designed to output 1080p. Even if you could get the image onto them in Bluray format, they couldn't output it. (If they're really Bluray players, then you don't need any hacks, just a dupe of the image.)

If the content is something they want to see, people will be pleased to get standard DVDs regardless of the quality.


Can I use FFmpeg in a commercial product? Not sure if I am correct posting my question here and I will of course delete this question if appropriate.

I have a C# desktop app using FFmpeg.
I have a web service using FFmpeg.

I sell both products.

I want to know — can I distribute my desktop app with FFmpeg without paying a fee to FFmpeg people and without releasing my source code?

I also want to know whether I can use FFmpeg on my server for users to convert images to a video file to be emailed them.  This service is also a payable product.

I have read the links to the FFmpeg licensing info and I read many questions here on these boards.

The closet I have got to an answer is that I can use it on my web server because I am not distributing it to client PCs and I can use FFmpeg on my desktop app if I only use certain features of FFmpeg — whatever they are.

However, this is not definitive enough for me and I cannot afford a lawyer and you would think this question/dilemma would have been resolved somewhere by someone considered how popular FFmpeg is.

Thanks.

Yes, you can use FFmpeg in a commercial product

FFmpeg is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 or later.

Some features, such as support for some external libraries (libx264 and libx265 for example) and various filters, are covered by the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later (see commercial x264 license exception below). If those parts get used the GPL applies to all of FFmpeg. See LICENSE.md in the source to see a list of GPL parts of FFmpeg and which external libraries require GPL.

So, yes, you can definitely use FFmpeg in commercial products, and both licenses allow commercial usage, distribution, and modification. FFmpeg is free but is not available under any other licensing terms.

Which license you use is up to you, and depends on what your needs are and how your FFmpeg build is configured, but you must comply with whatever license you end up using. FFmpeg does not care if you use it for a commercial purpose or not: only that you properly follow the license.

What do I need to do to comply?

If you're just using FFmpeg for private or in-house use, or you are not actually distributing anything from FFmpeg at all then you don't need to do anything. Otherwise, for a very verbose list see the FFmpeg License Compliance Checklist. To summarize you need to:

GPL 2.0+

Make available the exact FFmpeg source code that you used.
Provide a copy of the appropriate FFmpeg license with your distributed software (see COPYING.GPLv2 or COPYING.GPLv3).
State changes. If you modify the FFmpeg source code you must document what was changed.
Use same license. If you modify the FFmpeg source code it must remain under the same license.

LGPL 2.1+

Make available the exact FFmpeg source code that you used.
Provide a copy of the appropriate FFmpeg license with your distributed software (see COPYING.LGPLv2.1 or COPYING.LGPLv3).
State changes. If you modify the FFmpeg source code you must document what was changed.
Use same license. If you modify the FFmpeg source code it must remain under the same license. This does not apply if you are just using linked FFmpeg libraries.

What license is my FFmpeg using?

The ffmpeg -L command will output a paragraph indicating your license. Example for LGPL v2.1+:

  ffmpeg is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
  under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published
  by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or
  (at your option) any later version.

What about the x264 commercial license?

The x264 commercial license is LGPL compatible, but FFmpeg does not have an option that disables the GPL requirement for commerical licensed x264 so you have to do that manually. Therefore, if you purchase a commercial license from x264 licensing then you are permitted to:

Compile x264 with --disable-gpl.
Modify the configure file in the FFmpeg source code to move libx264 from EXTERNAL_LIBRARY_GPL_LIST to EXTERNAL_LIBRARY_LIST.
Compile ffmpeg without --enable-gpl and link to your x264 that has been compiled with --disable-gpl.

The LGPL still applies in this case, so don't forget to make available the exact FFmpeg source code you used and state what changes you made.

Do I need a commercial license from x264?

You do if your application is not GPL-compatible and is being distributed with linked x264. See [x264-devel] Announcing commercial licensing for x264 for additional details.

Also see

FFmpeg License and Legal Considerations
GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1
GNU General Public License, version 2
Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses


Project Organization, searchable keywords and tags in Adobe Premiere In Final Cut Pro X you are able to add "tags" or "keywords" as a form of labeling clips. This way when you are editing you can search to bring up all the clips relating to those tags or keywords.

//////////////////////////////////////////
Example:
Name --- Tags
Clip1: profile, interview
Clip2: audio, interview
Clip3: B-roll
Clip4: B-roll

Search = "interview"
Results = Clip1, Clip2
//////////////////////////////////////////

Adobe Premiere uses "bins" "metadata" and "labels" to organize media. Labels however are limited to about 6 I believe. Sure you can create a bunch of bins and copy and paste clips to use bins like keywords in a sense, however one of the great features of editing software is that clips show which parts of them are used in a sequence, when you copy and paste clips in the project panel you now have two separate entities, so if you where to use one and not the other, even though they are the same clip premiere will only show the one you used was used in a sequence. (Which kinda defeats the purpose).

How do you use keywords and or tags just like you can in Final Cut Pro X?

Keywords are an optional field of the project panel. In order to view or add keywords, you need to set the project panel to List View (you can switch between List View and Icon View with the buttons in the lower left corner).

In the flyout menu of the project panel, select Metadata Display… to customize the columns of the list view to show whatever information you want it to. You will find the keywords in the category Dublin Core. Check keywords and click ok. You might have to resize the project panel (or remove the columns you don't need from the Metadata Display menu) in order to see the keyword column. You can rearrange the columns using drag-and-drop. Once you have added some tags to your clips, you can search for clips with specific tags using the search function of the project panel.

There's also some more useful metadata columns hidden in that menu that are not shown by default that you might find useful. For example, the category Premiere Pro Project Metadata has the entries Video Usage and Audio Usage that show you how many instances of a clip exist in your sequences in your current project. There are also fields for Comment, Description, Scene, Shot and much more. Using the Metadata Display menu, you can customize the metadata columns to only show those that you need for your workflow.


SJCAM SJ4000 How can I pause video recording? When my SJ4000 is in video mode, I press OK to begin recording. Then, pressing the same button during recording stops recording and closes the output file.

Is there a way to momentarily pause the recording and then resume without starting a new output file?

I have searched the SJCAM forum and couldn't find a definite answer.

Nope this is not possible. just a limitation of the camera, all cameras work in pretty much the same way


Color is being processed strangely after uploading to YouTube After uploading to YouTube, the green in my video is being processed with a weird tint (like a sea foam green). In the image below, I'm hoping for the blueish/green color on the left, but that color only shows in Safari (and sometimes Chrome) - otherwise it's mostly showing the color incorrectly.

Even more strange is when I use Quicktime on my Mac to screen record the video when the color is displaying incorrectly on YouTube, the end result when I play it back in quicktime shows the correct color. For example, watch my YouTube video:

            , then see the screen capture here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7-2T7XJFKEKdklRQUpDaTdUYVU/view.

This is only happening with the green color, all the other colors are correct. I'm exporting from Final Cut Pro on a Mac, I've tried my color display on my Mac at Color LCD and Color LCD Calibrated. Any idea why the color is being processed incorrectly once it's playing in YouTube?

I see the correct color on Youtube. via Flash player on Windows 7.

Sounds like either a gamma issue with the errant players, not Youtube. Try VLC.

--or--

Your FCP output isn't properly tagged. Its colorspace is Rec 709 but it's tagged as Rec 601 (or something else).


How to change the aspect ratio during the film So I want to start the film with a 2.35:1, and I want it to change to 16x9 during one take.

How can I do that?

Do I put black bars on it and remove them at the right moment?
Any help is much appreciated.

(my camera records at 16x9)

Thanks!

Putting black bars on the top and the bottom of your frame looks like you changed your aspect-ratio, but really you didn't. All you did was put black bars on top of a 16x9 video. One way of doing this is to record in 2.35:1 and slowly zoom into your footage until the left and right part is cut out. Alternatively, you can just put black bars on your footage but let me tell you from personal experience: any half-way trained eye will look at it and say yuck.


Adobe Media Encoder rendering issue I am quite new to the video editing world. I am trying to follow some of tutorial online on how to render a sequence of timelapse photos with Adobe After Effects and export using Media Encoder Queue. Once I add my sequence to the queue and I click on my .H264 link, I am presented with the following screen:

Respectively my video is exported with the same content as the one visible on the screenshot.

Weirdly enough, when I export the video using the Render Queue from After Effects, the file looks perfectly fine. After this, I try to re-export the video using again the Media Encoder Queue, and the preview is rendered correctly as well as the final file.

Now when I close, re-open After Effect, make minor change (like aspect ration for example) and attempt to export the video using the Media Encoder Queue. I am given the following screen(where no preview is available):

A few seconds after I try to export the video, I am getting the following error:

------------------------------------------------------------
 - Encoding Time: 00:00:17
05/12/2020 07:52:17 PM : Encoding Failed
------------------------------------------------------------
Export Error
Error compiling movie.

Render Error

Render returned error.

Writing with exporter: H.264
Writing to file: \\?\C:\Users\<user>\Desktop\Timelapse_taranaki\Taranaki_AME\Timelapse_taranaki 2_rendering.mp4
Writing file type: H264
Around timecode: 00:00:00:09
Rendering at offset: 0.000 seconds
Component: H.264 of type Exporter
Selector: 9
Error code: -1609629695

When I Purge All Memory & Disk Cache and clean the Common folder inside AppData, I am back to the position of screenshot 1.

I am using After Effects 2018 Version 15.01(build 73) and Media Encoder 2018 Version 12.01(Build 64) on Windows 10.

My configuration is:
Intel(R) i7-4810MQ 2.80GHz
32GB RAM
GPU NVIDIA Quadro K2100M 2GB

Anyone has any ideas on what might be the issue here?

I actually was able to find the answer to my question in point 2. here

Simple add the sequence to the After Effects Render Queue:

And from there open it in AME, where the preview will work perfectly fine.


Where to input a log expression in FFMPEG Im trying to use a expression from NUKE (to convert an exr sequence from its native format into AlexaLogC. Now ive got an expression from nuke which is the following

x > 0.14996582 ? (pow(10,0, (x - 0.385537) / 0.2471896) - 0.0522720) / 5.5555556 : (x - 0.092809) / 5.367655

been trying to find a spot to place this inside a FFMPEG filter to allow it to bring my footage to the right starting point so i can apply the lut from on set on it.

Was wondering if anybody here had advice on how to correctly filter this into ffmpeg.

This is the original expression to be implemented.

x > 0.14996582 ? (pow(10,0, (x - 0.385537) / 0.2471896) - 0.0522720) / 5.5555556 : (x - 0.092809) / 5.367655

where x is the pixel intensity normalized to [0,1]. x is linear, so gamma returns identity.

I'm going to assume the 0 in the pow expression is an extraneous arg since the linked reference at http://strattoncamera.com/pdf/11-06-30_Alexa_LogC_Curve.pdf depicts pow() as having only two arguments. I'm also assuming that the input is 16-bit full-range integer RGB.

ffmpeg -apply_trc linear -i in%d.exr
       -vf "lutrgb=r='if(gt(val/maxval,0.14996582),maxval*((pow(10, (val/maxval-0.385537)/0.2471896)-0.0522720)/5.5555556),maxval*((val/maxval-0.092809)/5.367655))':
                   g='if(gt(val/maxval,0.14996582),maxval*((pow(10, (val/maxval-0.385537)/0.2471896)-0.0522720)/5.5555556),maxval*((val/maxval-0.092809)/5.367655))':
                   b='if(gt(val/maxval,0.14996582),maxval*((pow(10, (val/maxval-0.385537)/0.2471896)-0.0522720)/5.5555556),maxval*((val/maxval-0.092809)/5.367655))'"
        out%d.tiff


There are several blending modes in Adobe Pr. Is there a way to "ease into" a mode without having it abruptly change? I have a clip of around 10 seconds. I want the first half to be in normal blend mode, but the second half to be in "Lighter Color" blend mode. (I am inserting that clip inside another clip and want it to blend with it in a non obstructive way in case you need to know why I'm asking).
The problem is that I can't seem to find a way to make it slowly change blend modes (like a fade) over the course of that 10 second clip. Is there a workaround for this?
If there is a solution with Ae as well I'd still like to know.
Thank you in advance.

I don't think you can keyframe this.
I would duplicate my clip, and set one with the first blend mode, the other with the second.  Then crossfade between the two.


What are some good resources for learning Motion 4? I am trying to learn Apple's Motion 4, which is pretty complex. I'm looking for some free online tutorials to learn the ins and outs of Motion. Where can I start?

I found rippletraining to be very helpful. Larry Jordan is also a good starting point.

Alex4D puts out some really cool, easy to learn from, Motion templates. Sight-Creations is another great resource to find Motion templates.

You're also going to find lots of good starting material on YouTube.

TimesaverTutorials
DoApproductionss
Dan Allen

If you didn't know, you can also save YouTube search queries and subscribe to them in Google Reader. I find a lot of good stuff there too.

Lastly, I want to mention Vimeo. The quality of videos you're going to find there is really astonishing. Check out the group Motion tips & tricks

Cheers,
Andreas


video overlay on another video with rounded corner, transparency, opacity, scaling, and border all together with FFMPEG in PHP I am trying to change a video with Rotation, rounded corner,  transparent, scaling, and border all with together and overlay on a video;
I am trying to do this with FFMPEG in PHP but getting issue in transparent background; I am getting green background please help;

ffmpeg -i empt_vid_5891581054410.mp4 -i merged-571580302534.mp4 -filter_complex "[1:v] rotate=-    30*PI/180:ow=rotw(iw):oh=roth(ih):c=none [rotate];[0:v][rotate] overlay=40:10:enable='between(t,2,7)', colorchannelmixer=aa=0.5" -auto-alt-ref 0 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy overlayavatar.mp4

Add format=yuva444p, before 'rotate'.

ffmpeg -i empt_vid_5891581054410.mp4\
-i merged-571580302534.mp4 \
-filter_complex "[1:v]format=yuva444p,rotate=-30*PI/180:ow=rotw(iw):oh=roth(ih):c=none [rotate];[0:v][rotate] overlay=40:10:enable='between(t,2,7)', colorchannelmixer=aa=0.5" -auto-alt-ref 0 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy overlayavatar.mp4


Scroll text left to right and back I am using this line which works fine for showing text in 3 lines starting at 0.3sec, ending at 0.6 sec. in bottom left corner.

I would like to add scroll in and scroll out effect in ffmpeg.

Both in and out should be fast, lets say .05sec.

Scroll in should end in position like its written in code, remaining there for those 3 sec, then scrolling out.

ffmpeg -i scrollin.mp4 -vf "[in]drawtext=enable='between(t,3,6)':fontsize=50:fontcolor=Green:fontfile='ariblk.ttf':text='textline1':x=10:y=h-th-130, drawtext=enable='between(t,3,6)':fontsize=50:fontcolor=White:fontfile='ariblk.ttf':text='textline2':x=10:y=h-th-75, drawtext=enable='between(t,3,6)':fontsize=50:fontcolor=White:fontfile='ariblk.ttf':text='textline3':x=10:y=h-th-20[out]" -codec:a copy scrollout.mp4

Use this filter expression:

"drawtext=enable='between(t,2.5,6.5)':fontsize=50:fontcolor=Green:fontfile='ariblk.ttf': \
text='textline1':x=min(4*(tw\+10)-(abs(4-2*(t-2.5)))*(tw+10)-tw\,10):y=h-th-130"

The above is for the first line. I've changed the values/expression for the enable and xparameters. The movement starts at 2.5 seconds, settles at 3s, stays till 6s and then disappears by 6.5


Many boxes/atoms never used? I'm studying mpeg4 file format according to ISO/IEC 14496 Part 10.But I'm confused that there are many boxes (at least 40) NEVER (in my personal conclusion) be really used,e.g.MPEG-2 transport hint track,ALC/LCT and FLUTE hint track and so on.Could somebody tells me why they aren't be used or how and when to use them?Thanks!

Be careful ISO/IEC 14496 Part 10 is a video coding standard also called AVC or H.264. The associated file format is ISO/IEC 14496-15 which is based on ISO/IEC 14496-12 (aka ISOBMFF).
A standard is the result of a compromise between different people, different companies, different application domains and different scenarios. Indeed the ISOBMFF is very wide and many boxes defined in standard may not be used in all scenarios. RTP Hint track related boxes are used only when one goal is to generate RTP packets from an MP4 file. DASH related boxes are meaningful only when you use DASH. Of course a single file may have multiple purposes and so some boxes may not be processed by some tools.


How to get FFMPEG output the same quality as Vimeo? I like Vimeo, but I rather host a player and video myself. So I was wondering if someone knows how to get the closest result to Vimeo quality, but from FFMPEG?

It seems that Vimeo uses 1280 pixels width for it's HD videos, but I'm wondering if there are presets or settings out in the wild that can specify bitrate, quality etc for FFMPEG?

ffmpeg example
tl;dr: The important options are -preset slow and -crf 20:
ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 20 -vf format=yuv420p -c:a aac -ac 2 -movflags +faststart output.mp4

The other options are to ensure compatibility.

How to find out what Vimeo uses
1. Download video using youtube-dl:
youtube-dl https://vimeo.com/123456789

2. Get encoding info
Assuming x264 is used to encode, and the encoding settings weren't stripped out, you can see what version was used and view the encoding settings.
Using mediainfo
Refer to the "Encoding settings" line.
mediainfo input.mp4

Using strings (Linux or macOS)
strings input.mp4 | grep x264

Example output
x264 - core 157 r10 d4099dd - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2019 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=5 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=8 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=2 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=34 lookahead_threads=5 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 stitchable=1 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=2 b_bias=0 direct=3 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=infinite keyint_min=23 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=50 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=20.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=5 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 vbv_maxrate=5500 vbv_bufsize=15000 crf_max=0.0 nal_hrd=none filler=0 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00

This shows that -preset slow and -crf 20 were used. The options are set by -preset, so there is no need to manually attempt to set each option.

VBV is enabled for streaming. In ffmpeg this is set with -maxrate 5500k and -bufsize 15000k. I just used the values shown in the encoding settings above.

Thanks to Vimeo for not stripping the SEI (they certainly could have like YouTube) and allowing us to see what they used. Perhaps they wanted to show that they appreciate the open source tools they use.

Also see

FFmpeg Wiki: H.264 Video Encoding Guide
FFmpeg Wiki: AAC Audio Encoding Guide


Does rackmount hardware attach only on the faceplate? I've just purchased a few simple hardware rackmount devices, and a rack case.  I've never set anything like this up before.  I've been told that the devices' faceplates are screwed to the rack, and no other support is required.

Is this true?  Are rack devices only attached by the faceplates, and there's no other support?  Some of these devices are kind of heavy and it doesn't seem like enough support to handle the weight, particularly during transport where they bump around.

I want to make sure I'm not missing something.

Yes, almost all rackmount devices are designed to bear their loads on the front plate. Only in very rare circumstances have I seen a piece of rack gear that has not remained rigid while mounted in a rack, and that was only after years of being in one. There are also some rack pieces that have a second set of mounts in the back, but I haven't seen that in a long time.

My Crown power amp, which has got to be 50+ pounds, is only front mounted, as is my Akai S5000, which is about as unwieldy as it gets. You should be fine. Make sure you use four rack screws, and be careful not to overtighten them. You may also want to use rubber or nylon washers, but that's a whole other topic in itself.


How to remove green lines from adobe premiere pro 2020? Please help. I been using premiere pro 2020 for three years and this is the first issue I ever got. I have green lines showing up on my video clips on both sides and surely weren't filmed that way in the first place. They show up in premiere but when I export them, they come out completely fine and run smoothly. Please let me know if you have any tips or answer to get rid of this green lines.

It's basically related to your graphics driver, if you were not getting those lines in previous versions then better you to Roll back your graphics driver to old one, or update/wait for newer version to get released, I was having the same issue I tried many things didn't work and I just left hope but after somedays I opened Adobe premier and saw there were no green lines.


Software to edit .mov files from a Canon 7D I have some video files I recorded using a Canon 7D (.mov encased H.264). The recording is full HD resolution at 30fps. I need to...

Adjust the white balance and saturation
Combine several short clips into one longer clip, and
Export to a format that will allow smaller file sizes.

Anything that would be ready to upload to Vimeo would be a plus. Due to budget constraints I need to do this as inexpensively as possible. Is there an open source, free, or inexpensive program out there that can do what I need?

I use a Windows 7 (64) system.

VirtualDub is a very powerful video editor. However, it's not very intuitive to use it and it has a steep learning curve. On the plus side, there's a large internet community that supports it, so lots of online resources are available.

For your specific problem I've made a short tutorial below. I've done all steps in Windows XP with two .mov files from a Canon 550D. Unfortunately I failed to find an easy way of adjusting white balance with VirtualDub.
I've used various on-line resources to compile this tutorial. There might be a more optimal way of doing this, but I found this the most straight forward.

Installing VirtualDub + plugins

Download the VirtualDub 1.10.3.
Download ffinputdriver to enable loading .mov files.
Drag the VirtualDub folder to a convenient location. You don't need to install the program, it's click and run.
Place the contents of the plugin folder of ffinputdriver in the plugin folder found in the VirtualDub folder.
Start VirtualDub
First you'll need to convert your video to AVI. That's what VirtualDub works with natively. A warning: my 1280x720 .mov file of 25MB became a 600MB .avi file.
The transcoding speed is dependent on your machine.

Transcoding .mov to .avi

File -> Open video file
File -> Save segmented AVI
Repeat for all your files.

Adjust Saturation

File -> Open video file. Choose one of the AVI files you generated in the previous step.
The video file opens in two screens. The left is the original, the right one is the processed video. At first they should be identical. You can scale the video views by right-clicking on them and choosing an appropriate zoom percentage.
Go to Video and check if Full processing mode is on.
Go to Video -> Filters -> Add -> HSV Adjust.
Adjust the saturation to your liking and hit OK. Hit OK again in the filter window.
Click File -> Save segmented AVI... and save the edited file somewhere.
Repeat the process for all your videos in need of saturation adjustments.

Combine clips into one longer clip

File -> Open video file. Choose the first file of your sequence.
File -> Append AVI segment. The selected video file will be appended to the end of the open file.
Repeat this with all the video files.

Export to smaller file

Follow the steps outlined here.
From a 25MB .mov file I got a 600MB .avi file, which got transformed to a 2.7MB .mp4 file with the steps given in the linked tutorial.


What can I use to build a live video recording, streaming, marking application / platform? I'd like to set up a platform such that I can record 2-4 video inputs into storage while also uploading it into a streaming cloud so that it can be viewed in near-live / real-time.  Further, I'd like the ability to mark the videos at specific times (or marked time = user input time less 5 seconds) so that they can be highlighted to the viewers (usually a memorable moment).

This would be used to capture and stream live events such as kids soccer games and things like that.

Check out Wowza - it should do what you want. The basic premise of Wowza is video in, video out. It can take multiple video streams into it's encoding engine, and spit them out in various formats, live.

If you've got 4 inputs (let's assume they're cameras with HDMI output), you need a computer with 4x HDMI input cards (or 2x computers with 2x cards, whatever), that then sends the 4x streams to a Wowza server, then the Wowza server can either be directly accessed by viewers, or pushed out to a cloud service (like Amazon S3 or EC2 for example) for viewing without bandwidth constraints.

Using Wowza will get you a live stream of your event without using a service like Livestream/UStream.

I'm not 100% sure on marking clips though. Using Wowza gives you the flexibility to use your own player, so if you wanted to add markers within the video timeline, that users can click on and see that specific moment in the video (even during a live broadcast), that would be how you'd do it. But how you'd get the player to read some sort of file for the markers, and how you'd publish the marker information to the player, is beyond me. It might just be easier to create a "highlights package" for people to view later, that's just a YouTube video of clips you've edited together from the live footage.


How to copy markers and regions between projects in Vegas Pro If I have one or more Vegas Pro projects, sometimes I want to combine them, but just copy and paste on the timeline, even with auto ripple selected, doesn't copy the markers and regions. How can I copy all the clips, markers, and regions from one Vegas Pro project to another?

It's a little counter-intuitive that Vegas Pro will not copy/paste markers and regions, but this is doable and it's not too difficult.

Here are the following steps to merge project A with project B into a new project C, copying all clips, markers, and regions:

Copy all the clips from project A timeline.
Turn on auto ripple on project B. Make sure to select "All Tracks, Markers, and Regions" in the drop down.

Paste the clips from project A (copied in step 1) at the beginning of project B. All project B clips, markers, and regions should have been shifted to the right. All project A clips are at the beginning of the timeline on project B, but the markers and regions have not been copied.

Save project B as a new file, project C.
In project A go to View > Window > Edit Details or type ALT+6.

In the Edit Details, select Markers or Regions, whichever you want to copy, in the "Show" drop down.

Select all the items by clicking the empty space on the header row in the first column.

Type CTRL+C to copy the items.
In project C go to View > Window > Edit Details or type ALT+6.
Select Markers or Regions, whichever you copied from project A in steps 6-8.
Select the first empty row, then type CTRL+V.

Repeat steps 6-11 as needed, to copy all markers and regions, whichever you haven't done yet.
project C now contains all clips, markers, and regions from project A and project B. Don't forget to save your work.

Optionally, you can re-order all the markers and regions in project C. Simply select all the rows by clicking the empty space on the header row in the first column, then type CTRL+X then CTRL+V.