Does YouTube allow multiple soundtracks Is it possible to upload one video on YouTube, and have multiple soundtracks for it? Much like one can choose the subtitles, can one make several language-specific voice-overs for the same, say, screen-cast?

If that feature is not present on YouTube, are there calls or plans for it? What other services may have this implemented?

When uploading to YouTube: no (for now...)
Your audio needs to be premixed into one stereo (or mono) channel.

When using YouTube's online video editor: yes, but you are limited to voice-over and music tracks

For more info:
http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=183851
(see point 4. adding audio)


How to convert video to NTSC (so it can be burned to a DVD) without losing quality? I have a 1080p mp4 video, and I want to burn a DVD from it. It must be 'mastered' as a DVD, so it can be played back on an older DVD player (i.e. it can't be a data DVD). For the tool that I'm using to make the DVD, I need to convert the video to the correct format with the correct codec before burning. I am in America, so I know that standard is NTSC. I tried converting my video with:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -target ntsc-dvd output.mpg

but the result was quite fuzzy and low-res. I did some research and it seems like NTSC only supports up to 720p, but as I understand it, NTSC is still the standard today, and there are HD DVDs. So is there a a way to convert my video to NTSC so that I can burn a DVD without losing resolution?
Please forgive me if this is an ignorant question, and correct me about any false assumptions.

DVD does not support 720p. It’s only supports 480p/i.
HD DVD was a failed competitor to Blu-ray. Standard DVD players are not forward compatible.


How to get the mobile screen effect in videos? I am new to video editing and publishing and have recently started creating some content for my company. I am using Camtasia for the same which I have self learnt so high chances I may not know a lot of things about it.
Currently I am trying to make some video which I want to show as if they are in a mobile screen. An example of my requirement can be found at:

             . I am planning to show some app features instead of whats shown in the video however, that mobile screen effect is something very close to what I need.
I would like to know how to achieve this? Can this be done in Camtasia or will I need some other tool for the same?

You will most likely need dedicated compositing software unless your NLE has some basic functionality built-in that allows you to do this. Here are some free or low-cost examples of compositing software:

After Effects
Fusion
HitFilm
Natron (GPL Open Source)


What is the most compatible compression/Codec to in Handbrake use for video that will be played in Chrome and Safari browsers? I am going to re-sample a bunch of videos to be played through web browsers.
(Current video is large, 3 MB for a 4s clip. Hoping to compress by 90%).

Use:  These videos will be played in a web-based eduational app. They'll be up to about 5 seconds and be played in the latest Chrome or (on iOS/Mac) Safari browser.

I'm using Handbrake (.9.9.5530, latest) . These must be playable in Chrome and Safari (latest versions) browsers without any pluggins (and would be nice to be playable in the latest FireFox and IE).
(I'm also open to using another free or cheap encoding software that will let me do batch processing.

What are the recommended settings (Video Codec, Quality (and constant or avg bit rate, etc.)
My top priority is compatibility.

If compatibility is your top priority, then you should include two alternative versions of your video on your website, like in this HTML example.

As for the exact formats I would suggest:

H.264 and AAC in MP4: Chrome, Firefox 22+ on Windows, IE9, Safari 3.1
VP8 and Vorbis in WebM: Firefox fallback for Mac and older versions on Windows.
(If you need support for even older browsers (IE6-8), and mobile (Android, WP7), you could add mediaelement.js to your website.)

Make sure to put them in that order to make the fallback work. H.264 or MPEG-4 are recommended because they are the only formats to have hardware acceleration on newer devices.

Compression settings: start by using constant quality with default settings for video and 128 Kbps VBR audio. For H.264 make sure to not exceed Main Profile and Level 4.0. And since Handbrake doesn't do the WebM format, you could try Miro Video Converter.


Looking for free program that allows PiP, and cutting/splicing I'm looking for a free program with no watermarks, that allows PiP, and cutting/splicing. Before you recommend VSDC, I don't like that because there's only sound on the preview, so to know when to add a PiP you would have to go back and forth between the preview and timeline. Also, you can't cut and splice from the timeline, you have to have another window opened to cut/splice. Oh, yeah, I tried Filelab, and it doesn't work, either.

So is there such a program that follows these rules? I hope there is. Thanks for reading.

Every Mac comes with iMovie. Every PC comes with Windows Movie Maker.  Both of them do cutting & splicing. iMovie does one PIP at a time; you can't have more than one PIP onscreen simultaneously unless you do a workaround. I used iMovie for hundreds of short YouTube videos with LOTS of editing (and PIPs). I don't know whether Windows Movie Maker does PIP but I wouldn't be surprised if it did.

(edit)

Just Googled "Windows Movie Maker PIP" and found out there are free add-ins that do PIP. (At least there were for the Windows Vista version. I bet the current O.S. has add-ins as well!)


Exam Question - end-to-end delay from video capture to video playout Hi I'm preparing for my exam tomorrow and I've come across a 17 Mark question which seems trivially easy, so I think I'm missing a key point giving the rest of this exam is fairly difficult. The question is below and my attempt is below that.

My attempt:

I looked up video capture on wikipedia and it defined it as the process of converting an analog signal to digital - so I took the point at which frames were captured as being after they were digitised. We are told to ignore the time taken for compression and decompression, so the next part is just to send the data. The total amount of data in the frame sequence is 54KB (I'm not sure why the frame sequence starts and ends with an I-frame to be honest - doesn't seem to make sense). So to transfer 1s of video will take 0.27s.

To be play a second of frames smoothly the the playout buffer must contain 25 frames minimum. The sequence of frames is IBBPBBI which has a total size of 54 KB. In one second the playout is 54 x 25 = 0.432 MB/s.

I'm pretty sure that we would need to make some estimations to solve the rest of this.

As always I'm open to any suggestions! Thanks for reading :D

There are a few mistakes in your math.

First, you are multiplying an entire group of pictures (7 frames) by 25, that would be 7 seconds of video, not one.

Second, you are not considering that the first I frame of one set is the last of the next, so it should be assumed that the sequence that would be used is IBBPBBIBBPBBIBBPBBIBBPBB...  It would make no sense at all to put two I frames together in a row, but sometimes the I is listed as an end.

Third, you are not considering the fact that a B frame is bi-directional and can not be processed until the next I or P frame is reached.

These three things significantly complicate the problem from the simple state you initially thought it was, though as this is an academic problem, I will leave the actual solving as an exercise for you.


Remove flickering due to artificial light with ffmpeg I have video footage shot at shutter speeds of 1/30s under artificial light here in Europe where the AC is 50Hz. Flicker occurs -- obviously I should have used 1/25s or 1/50s but I didn't, and want to save the footage.

I have tried different ffmpeg filters but none did work: deflicker for example is made specifically to remove frame-by-frame luminance changes (e.g., what happens in timelapse videos) but not to fix the banding that I see due to using a shutter speed not in sync with the frequency of the AC feeding the light bulb.

I have found some obscure reference to other ffmpeg filters like hqdn3d but the defaults did not work and I don't really understand how to play with the parameters and how to relate them to my specific case.

I'm looking for a command-line/open source solution (hence, ffmpeg) because my video editor is pretty basic (iMovie) and will not allow me to do tricks like shifting and blending footage.

UPDATE

I have found a 'quick tip' on Philip Bloom's blog that says:

  [...] my quick trick fix [...] is simply duplicating layers, shifting top layer over by a frame and adding 50% opacity to it.

So I have spent an hour figuring out the arcane syntax of ffmpeg and tried to replicate the above steps:

$ ffmpeg -i FLICKER.mov -itsoffset 0.1 -i FLICKER.mov \
-filter_complex "[1:v]format=yuva420p,colorchannelmixer=aa=0.5[b]; \
[0:v][b]overlay" -map 0:1 NOFLICKER.mov

With this command I input twice the same input file, the second one is shifted by 0.1 second (-itsoffset 0.1), a 0.5 transparency is applied in the -filter_complex argument ([1:v] means the video stream of the second file) and then overlaid on top of the video stream of the first file ([0:v]). The audio track is simply copied from the first file (-map 0:1).

The good news is that this works as expected, no more flickering. The problem is that I had to offset the second copy too much (0.1 seconds) so I have a very clear and evident shadow effect on my final output, not a faint and what would be acceptable motion blur if only I had it shifted by a single frame like in the Bloom's recipe above.

I think that is due to the fact that my original footage is not high-fps but only 24 fps. A shift of a single frame would have meant -itsoffset 0.0416 (1/24 s = 0.0416 s) and that shift doesn't really do anything. I've also tried to understand why a 0.1 second shift is so effective, but could not come up with any reasonable explanation (I thought that could have been related to the AC frequency is 1/50 Hz but that would've meant that a shift of 0.02 seconds would do something...).

Anyway, the problem remains. I could think of a possible solution where perhaps I could instruct ffmpeg to leave a user-selected portion of the footage free from the overlay and simply copy the original stream (that's because it's a footage of my daughter talking under artificial lights, and the flickering is very disturbing on the borders of the frame where it's all dark, but her face is relatively free from the flicker), or again, like I asked before, find one of the many filters in ffmpeg to work its charm.

The following worked well for me, based on the same ideas

http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/quick-trick-for-de-flickering-your-video-shots/

https://superuser.com/questions/1025794/merge-two-videos-with-transparency-in-ffmpeg

It's more than a year, so I don't remember exactly how I arrived at this. The VOB was a video shot from a projected screen with serious projector pulldown flicker, alternating lighter and darker frames. The VOB was interlaced at 29.970 fps, where 1 frame would be 0.033 sec. The result was amazingly good, way beyond what I could get with various other deflicker filters.

ffmpeg -fflags +genpts -i FLICKER.VOB -fflags +genpts -i FLICKER.VOB -filter_complex "[0:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[top]; [1:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS+.033/TB, format=yuva420p, colorchannelmixer=aa=0.5[bottom]; [top][bottom]overlay=shortest=1" -c:v libx264 -crf 26 -an NOFLICKER.mp4


Sony Vegas - render allowing source to adjust frame rate? I have a bunch of mobile phone videos (different phones), that I want to render to one single video using sony vegas.

Should I check allow source to adjust frame rate when rendering? Or should I rather use a fixed framerate like NTFS? What would give better results?

Would allowing adjustment mean that each videos gets rendered in its original framerate? Means, the resulting one video would change the framerate during playback? And in case, would this be an advantage or disadvantage?

I just wrote a nice detailed answer but somehow I deleted the draft. To save time, the simple explanation (EDIT: I haven't gotten this from experience; I'm just going off what people have told me in the past):

Changing your frame rate to a fixed one produces exactly the same quality as using VFR (allowing the adjust of frame rate).

Checking the allow source to adjust frame rate button varies the frame rate in the rendered video for each source file. That means that if one of your source videos is 30fps and the next one 60, the frame rate will change when the next source video plays (from 30 to 60 in this example). I cannot think of a disadvantage of this, although re-editing the rendered video may be a bit weird (as shown in OSFirstTimer's YouTube video). Also shown in OSFirstTimer's video is that most phones record VFR videos but VEGAS Pro usually corrects that.

If you want to enable solid frame rate (Constant frame rate or CFR) follow this simple 2-step procedure:

Find the source video with the highest frame rate
Set your project to that frame rate

I'm new to Stack Exchange, so hope this helps!

Edit:

@Gyan in the comments says that this is not the case because "outputting a 30 or 60 fps project timeline consisting of a 30 and 60 fps media clip with 30 or 60 fps output frame rate all result in CFR output."

We all learn something new every day! :)

Also I haven't had a dilemma between CFR and VFR before, I'm just going off what I've seen happen to other people!


after effects - motion graphics/kinetic text Attempting to replicate this graphic. How can I replicate and be sure to have the squeezing effect as well as the subtle motion blur

I plan for the graphic I'm working on have text that remains static to the left with additional text to the right compresses to the right and changes.

Text in after effects can have animators applied at the character, word or line level. The animators work kinda differently to normal animated properties in that the property that gets animated usually doesn't have keyframes, but is instead controlled by a selector which is comprised of a group of controls that determine what part of the text is to have the modification applied. Normally you animate the selector to add animation to the individual parts of the text.

Select your text layer and choose Animation>Animate Text>Position from the top menu or from the Add menu for the animator group in the Timeline panel. If you add some X offset to the position property that appears in the new animator group, and play with the selector beginning, end, and offset values you'll get a bit of an idea.

Now once you've fiddled with it for a bit, and probably got confused, head on over to the manual and give it a read.

As far as Motion Blur goes, if you turn on motion blur for the layer, and make sure it is on in your render settings you'll be golden. If you want to see it while you're working (at the price of much slower previews) turn on motion blur in the timeline window. How you do all that is also (surprise!) in the manual.


How to split video in small clip? I'm trying to split a video (50-100Mo) into several small clips of a few seconds each. I don't need re-encoding, hence my use of codec copy.

However some of the resulting clips don't have any video.

Fast but no video in some files

ffmpeg \
  -y \
  -i ./data/partie-1:-Apprendre-300-mots-du-quotidien-en-LSF.jauvert-laura.hd.mkv \
  -ss 0:00:07.00 \
  -codec copy \
  -loglevel error \
  -to 0:00:10.36 \
  'raw/0:00:07.00.au revoir.mkv'

I also tried -map 0 -c copy, -acodec copy -map 0:a -vcodec copy -map 0:v or no option related to codec.

Slow but complete

No argument related to audio/video encoding, it's working but pretty slow.

ffmpeg -y \
  -i "$SOURCE_VIDEO_FILE" \
  -ss 0:05:37.69 \
  -to 0:05:40.64 \
  -loglevel error
  'raw/0:05:37.69.pas la peine.mkv'

Question

How do I split a video into small chunk ~2-4s when I have no need for re-encoding?

General speaking, you can not split already encoded video into some chunks with arbitrary length without re-encoding.

The simplest way to make a cut is to get content between IDR frames. You could split your video sequence into segments that contain arbitrary number of GOPs (sequence of frames starting with IDR frame with length to next IDR) each. In this case, you could just copy the content without re-encoding.

So, you goal is to find out appropriate IDR frames, that satisfy you clip duration, and make a cut with copy. You lucky ffmpeg use -noaccurate_seek for copy. You could point start position by -ss and duration with -to near IDR.

You could face some challenges here:

original video sequence has a variable GOP length - clip duration
won't be the same;
original video sequence has an infinite GOP
length (only first frame is IDR) - impossible to split it without re-encoding;

In your example you should move -ss and -to options before -i, because you want to seek start position in the input video.


How do I change frame size, preserving width (using ffmpeg)? I'm new to this StackExchange site, and to using the FFmpeg encoder. I have a video that is 720x480 (3:2) that I would like to change to 720x406 (16:9) to match the other videos I have for a site. I have tried various command combinations, including:

ffmpeg -i myfile.mv4 -s 720x406 outfile.mp4
ffmpeg -i myfile.m4v -c copy -aspect 16:9 outfile.mp4

What I end up with is a video that scaled down to the specified height, but didn't preserve the width.  It ends up at 608x406 or thereabouts. I've been playing with various GUI versions of FFmpeg today, and they seem to do the same thing.

What would be the proper options/parameters to pass in (assuming I'll have more control via the command line) to achieve the desired frame size?

using the scale filter will do it, but there is a bit more to it.

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vf scale=720x406 output.mov

will create a movie with the required pixel dimensions, but if you look at the output you'll find that it adds information into the metadata so that it will play back at the same aspect ratio as the original, by using non-square pixels. So if you want to stretch the movie anamorphically to a new aspect ratio you need to manually set the pixel aspect ratio, called the SAR for "Sample Aspect Ratio", thus for square pixels use:

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vf scale=720x406,setsar=1:1 output.mp4

Alternatively you can set the display aspect ratio to whatever you want, thus:

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vf scale=720x406,setdar=16:9 output.mp4

What I'm doing with the -vf command and the x=y,z=a expressions that follow is creating a chain of filters. Filters can be quite complex, but in the most simple usage they take the form effect=parameter,nexteffect=anotherparameter, and they get processed in the order you write them.

You may want to put additional commands for the codec and so on, eg -c:v libx264 to use the x264 mp4 encoder, and something like -crf 20 to set the constant rate factor to 20 (usually a pretty good compromise between size and quality). So, a reasonably complete command would look like:

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vf scale=720x406,setdar=16:9 -preset slow -profile:v main -crf 20 output.mov

Main profile is good for device compatibility, the slow preset for the libx264 encoder is a pretty good balance of speed and quality, so this is a good general web-encoding workhorse. You can make it faster by using fast or veryfast or slower with veryslow and placebo will make it ever so slightly better than veryslow at the expense of a lot more processing time (hence the name).

BTW Don't use -c copy, that means just copy the video and audio streams without doing anything to them at all, so nothing you do in terms of scale, codec, bitrate etc will have any effect.


How to force ffmpeg to insert keyframe at first frame when downsampling a framerate of a video with x264 vcodec I have a mpeg4 video at 25fps. This video contains just one static frame. I'm trying to downsample the frame rate to 1fps and convert the video to x246 (mp4).

I ran the following ffmpeg command:

ffmpeg -i vid.avi -acodec aac -ar 32000 -ab 64k -ac 2 \
-vcodec libx264 -strict -2 -y -r 1 -force_key_frames 0 vid.mp4

FFmpeg then drops a lot of frames until it inserts the first keyframe. Sometimes image appears only after 16 or 20 seconds.

I gather ffmpeg doesn't insert a keyframe at very beginning.

Does anyone know how could I take the first frame of vid.avi and use it as the key frame for vid.mp4?

To force a keyframe at the 00:00:00.000 time code, you should try using the following flag:

-force_key_frames 00:00:00.000


Decreasing levels of other channels when voice channel comes in I'm recording commentary over a video, and when I'm talking in the commentary I'd like the other channel's audio to get quieter to compensate for my voice. If anyone is familiar with discord, I know that when talking to people in a group chat it makes other programs quieter, if that helps make sense of what I'm trying to do.

I'm really inexperienced with video editing, but I have access to audacity, Adobe audition, and premiere. I'm also open to other programs (free or cheap) if they can do this easier.

"Ducking" is the canonical term for what you want, usually done with a compressor in the main program chain with the sidechain taken from your mic channel.

Audition 2018 has a auto ducking feature that may be of use, but really anything that lets you drop an audio compressor across the program bus and sidechain it to the mic input will work.


Getting hdmi signal of a camera to TCP/IP network and read on computer I would like to know if such application can be made with this type of devices and what would I require to actually read the signal on my computer?
here is a small figure I made

i plan on putting DSLRs and cine cam like this
I know that 6D MII have network capabilities but they use wireless communication which is not really stable. The 6D mII Has a mini hdmi port.
I would like to mount on network multiple cameras to make concert recording, studio session recording, game live streaming etc.
I could not find any answers on that topic since every searches return to amazon and eBay.
I'll be highly thankful for any help,
best regards;
the Link of the device I plan on using:
https://www.amazon.fr/Mirabox-Extendeur-Ethernet-Switch-extension/dp/B06WD82BPG/ref=sr_1_8?dchild=1&keywords=Adaptateur+Rj45+Hdmi&qid=1598867556&s=computers&sr=1-8

I think that the best way to go is to use a mixer like the BlackMagic ATEM-series. I am working in a film-studio and have worked mainly with the ATEM Television Studio HD Mixer, which has all the capabilities you would want.
Mixers like these have SDI/BNC and HDMI inputs and are capable of mixing and converting each signal, using lower-thirds, live-keying (if you want to use a webcam with greenscreen) and much more. Yes, they are expensive, but if you're serious about this I would highly recommend it. You will have a better signal than through Wifi streaming or wireless transmissions...


What is a good lossy format for storing DV I have 60Gb of DV footage that I need to store, but 60Gb is WAY too big. I need to transcode it to a lossy format, but I need the resulting video to be robust such that it can be easily edited with a NLV editor later on.

By robust I mean: able to chop it up easily without losing sync. I suppose this has something to do with the regularity of keyframes.

I am on Ubuntu, so tools at my disposal are ffmpeg/avconv, Handbrake, and various other NLVEs.

For DV footage, anything below 4.7 minutes per gigabyte is going to start being sub-standard for editing.  That's the standard data rate for lossy compressed DV footage.  Each generation of compression and the lower quality you make the compression, the less suitable for video editing it becomes.

If you use a highly lossy format to store the video, after you edit it and try to encode your final video, you will have a sloppy mess because the source video is too low quality.  It will make you have to increase the settings on your final output to preserve any kind of quality and will mean you have a larger final product than you could have otherwise gotten away with.

By modern standards, 60GB is about $4 of HDD storage or $5 of optical.  Just buy the extra storage if you need it.

If you still want to compress it more (or if you aren't yet at 4.7 minutes per gigabyte) then any standard DV format would work well.  It isn't quite as ideal for editing, but a high quality (high data rate) h.264 high profile VBR 2-pass could be used as well.  Using 3500 KBPS (I'd probably also try all I frame and see how it goes) should give you a good high quality compression.  It is worth noting that h.264 is more demanding for editing with though.  That's still not going to give you any lower than the 4.7 minutes per gigabyte though, so if you have around 5 hours of footage, 60GB really is as small as you want to go.


ffmpeg - Building video with audio in loop I'm building a video from 3 ( or more ) images, with some effects and with an mp3 in background; my issue  is that the mp3 can be shorter than the final video ( whose length dependes from the number of images ) ; is there a way to send audio background in loop, so that when it finish, it restarts and I have no silence during video?

Thanks in advance!

This is the code:

#/bin/bash
ffmpeg -y \
-loop 1 -t 10 -i     img001.jpg  \
-loop 1 -t 10 -i     img002.jpg  \
-loop 1 -t 10 -i     img003.jpg  \
-i 1.mp3  \
-filter_complex \
"\
[0:v]\
format=yuv420p,\
scale=iw*10:ih*10,\
zoompan=z='min(pzoom+0.0015,1.5)':d=1:x='iw/2-(iw/zoom/2)':y='ih/2-(ih/    zoom/2)':s=640x480,\
drawtext=fontfile='IndieFlower.ttf':enable='between(    t,0,5)':\
text='Caption 1 Scena 1':\
fontsize=60:fontcolor=whit    e:\
x=t*300*lte(t*300\,(w-text_w)/2)+(w-text_w)/2*gt(t*300\,(w-t    ext_w)/2):y=h-line_h-10:\
shadowx=3:shadowy=3:shadow    color=black:\
boxborderw=10:box=1:boxcol    or=red@0.8,\
drawtext=fontfile='IndieFlower.ttf':enable='between(    t,5,10)':\
text='Caption 2 Scena 1':\
fontsize=60:fontcolor=whit    e:\
x=(w-(t-5)*500)*gt(w-(t-5)*500\,(w-text_w)/2)+(w-text_w)/2*lte(w-(t-5)*500\,(w-text_w)/2):y=    h-line_h-10:\
shadowx=3:shadowy=3:shadow    color=black:\
boxborderw=10:box=1:boxcol    or=red@0.8,\
fifo\
[final1];\
[1:v]\
format=yuv420p,\
scale=iw*10:ih*10,\
zoompan=z='min(pzoom+0.0015,1.5)':d=1:x='iw/2-(iw/zoom/2)':y='ih/2-(ih/    zoom/2)':s=640x480,\
fade=t=in:st=0:d=1,\
drawtext=fontfile='IndieFlower.ttf':enable='between(    t,0,5)':\
text='Caption 1 Scena 2':\
fontsize=60:fontcolor=red:    \
x=t*300*lte(t*300\,(w-text_w)/2)+(w-text_w)/2*gt(t*300\,(w-t    ext_w)/2):y=h-line_h-10:\
shadowx=3:shadowy=3:shadow    color=white:\
boxborderw=10:box=1:boxcol    or=black@0.8,\
drawtext=fontfile='IndieFlower.ttf':enable='between(    t,5,10)':\
text='Caption 2 Scena 2':\
fontsize=60:fontcolor=red:    \
x=(w-(t-5)*500)*gt(w-(t-5)*500\,(w-text_w)/2)+(w-text_w)/2*lte(w-(t-5)*500\,(w-text_w)/2):y=    h-line_h-10:\
shadowx=3:shadowy=3:shadow    color=white:\
boxborderw=10:box=1:boxcol    or=black@0.8,\
fifo\
[final2];\
[2:v]\
format=yuv420p,\
scale=iw*10:ih*10,\
zoompan=z='min(pzoom+0.0015,1.5)':d=1:x='iw/2-(iw/zoom/2)':y='ih/2-(ih/    zoom/2)':s=640x480,\
fade=t=in:st=0:d=1,\
drawtext=fontfile='IndieFlower.ttf':enable='between(    t,0,5)':\
text='Caption 1 Scena 3':\
fontsize=60:fontcolor=red:    \
x=t*300*lte(t*300\,(w-text_w)/2)+(w-text_w)/2*gt(t*300\,(w-t    ext_w)/2):y=h-line_h-10:\
shadowx=3:shadowy=3:shadow    color=white:\
boxborderw=10:box=1:boxcol    or=black@0.8,\
drawtext=fontfile='IndieFlower.ttf':enable='between(    t,5,10)':\
text='Caption 2 Scena 3':\
fontsize=60:fontcolor=red:    \
x=(w-(t-5)*500)*gt(w-(t-5)*500\,(w-text_w)/2)+(w-text_w)/2*lte(w-(t-5)*500\,(w-text_w)/2):y=    h-line_h-10:\
shadowx=3:shadowy=3:shadow    color=white:\
boxborderw=10:box=1:boxcol    or=black@0.8,\
fifo\
[final3];\
[final1][final2][final3]    concat=n=3:v=1:a=0\
" \
-c:v libx264 \
-r 25 \
-pix_fmt yuv420p \
-t 30 \
o.mp4

Set the audio to loop,

-stream_loop -1 -i 1.mp3  \

If you don't set a duration limit like -t 30 \, add

-fflags +shortest -max_interleave_delta 50000


Simple software program for converting H264 video in to flashvideo flv for website? my question is:

Which simple, lightweight, straightforward, easy to use software for Win7 can do the following:

A) import/convert on the fly MP4 (H264) movie into FLV (Flashvideo) and apply following:

B) Downscale FullHD footage from 1920x1080 into exactly half 960x540 pixels.

C) Simple color toning or sharpess effects will be great

The MP4 movies are recorded in Full HD and come from an Android 4.0 device that captures footages in great detail. I tried Premiere but thats too heavy/expensive/too much)

Use Mpeg Streamclip, its an industry used conversion software that is reliable and fast, and free


How can I set up video files so that, if a film is foreign, the subtitles automatically play? How can I set up video files so that, if a film is foreign, the subtitles automatically play, whereas the subtitles remain dormant if a film isn't foreign?

The reason I ask is because I'm in the process of learning a language, and might want to learn other languages in the future, so I'll keep certain subtitles for films of my native language. However, I don't want to have to disable subtitles every time I watch a film in my native language, and I don't want to have to enable subtitles every time I watch a foreign film.

I read somewhere else that I could insert an empty subtitle file as the default track, which is a great idea, yet I can't find any information anywhere explaining how to do this.vi I've tried creating an empty .txt file and then changing its format to .srt, but this doesn't fly on MKVToolNix.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Finally, I found a video on YT.

Open notepad
Type "0" on the first line
Type "00:00:00.00 --> 00:00:00.00" on the second line
Save as .srt file type

Now you have an empty .SRT file that MKVToolNix accepts.

You can also edit the file order and the default audio/video files in the program itself.


Premiere Pro issue with preview? I'm not a pro when it comes to Premiere Pro and just wanted to cut a training video for my job (without bigger animations or something like this).

The finished video is displayed correctly in the preview. But as soon as I export it, or create a new partial sequence from the whole video, the following happens:

The individual clips move in their cutting, or in other words — at some points a few frames are removed at the front, and at the back a few additional frames are shown (the length etc. remains the same). This of course shifts the whole sound and I can see frames in the video that should not be visible.

I don't use Premiere Pro, so I don't provide the step-by-step instruction, but I know the basis of your problem.

In your original (compressed) video they are so-called intra-frames (aka keyframes), which contains the full info about the particular frame, and other frames (inter-frames) which contain — simply said — only differences from the previous intra-frames.

In other words:

every intra-frame is independent of others frames, while
non-intra-frames are dependent on the nearest previous intra-frame
(and — maybe — from other frames, too).

Let suppose there is 1 intra-frame every 10 seconds (i.e. at time stamps 0 s, 10 s, 20 s, etc.),
and the “other” frames are between them.

Now, you want to cut the 20 s video from the time 13 s (i.e. the range 13 s – 33 s).

The frame at the position 13 s is not an intra-frame — it needs the previous intra-frame (at position 10 s) to obtain the full picture.

So your software simply adds the 3 s part from 10 s in front of your request, and cuts-off the last 3 seconds. The result will be a clip in the range 10 s — 30 s.

But the situation is not so desperate. You have to force Adobe Premiere Pro to re-encode the 13 – 33 s part of original video, i.e. to first compute the frame at position 13 s, then mark it as intra-frame, and make subsequent frames dependent of this new intra-frame.

How?

As I told, I don't know the exact answer. But you have to avoid enabling properties as “Direct Copy”, “Fast Copy”, “Without Re-encoding”, etc.


OBS RTMP to Web player Good morning, I'm biiiiig newbie and I struggle to understand one thing

I want to stream video with e.g OBS, it supports RTMP, so I'm setting up RTMP server. It works fine, I'm able to watch it via VLC, but "web" doesn't accept this format, so I have to convert it on fly to WebRTC?

and stream it somehow again?

Perhaps you've already discovered a solution, but you need a server that accepts the RTMP stream, and outputs an HLS video stream.  You can then use one of many JavaScript players (like video.js) to show your video on the web.
Companies like api.video will transcode the video, and give you a "web ready" player that you can just drop onto your webpage.


Why to music producers not bother with CD-TEXT I still like CDs, buy one from a shop and slip it into my car, easy - no encoding, file transfers etc etc...

CD-TEXT has been around for a LONG time, but I have only ever come across 1 or 2 albums / singles where the producer bothers to put the CD-TEXT data on the disk.
Given that it is a simple, open and free thing to do, and nearly all CD players (home and car) support displaying of CD-TEXT data, why is it not more widely used?

The only answers I could quickly find are that they either don't think about it, don't want to have to deal with clients that supplied incorrect track information, have a duplication house who's software can't support it (apparently there are some errors in one of the major pieces of software used by duplication companies) or think that the CD-TEXT data can result in a slightly slower cue time on the CD.


Can I get Handbrake to apply additional filters such as brightness/contrast? I have some scripts which pass video into Handbrake to transcode it for the web.
What's the easiest way to apply additional filters for things like brightness/contrast?  (ie. things not covered by the 5-6 built-in filters.) I'd prefer to avoid creating an intermediate file if possible.

So... should I look at:

Frameserving from VirtualDub or something?
AviSynth scripts, which apparently are a little tricky to get working with Handbrake
Replacing Handbrake with other tools - perhaps FFmpeg or AviDemux or something?

Like you suggested yourself you might want to use FFmpeg instead. It can utilize x264 as well which is the library that Handbrake is using for encoding. While x264 itself can do some very limited color correction via color space conversion (which can be used in the Handbrake CLI) I wouldn't recommend it if you want advanced manipulation of the video look.

FFmpeg isn't hard to use and not all too different from the Handbrake CLI.
The advantage you have with FFmpeg is a lot more formats you can output to and read from and you have the option to use many advanced filters on your video aswell as audio:
http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#Video-Filters

It's a very powerful tool for automated video editing and conversion.
The downside to FFmpeg is that you don't have all that many excellent presets but you should be able to use the x264 presets from Handbrake aswell.
https://sites.google.com/site/linuxencoding/x264-ffmpeg-mapping


Unintended change in AdWords Flash to HTML5 conversion my company wants to run some advertisements on Google AdWords. We made some animated Flash ads, however AdWords automatically converts the ads from Flash to HTML5 with some unintended changes. See below the difference between the two. It seems that when moving an image it's a lower quality than when it's finished moving.

Flash:

HTML5: (pay attention to when the images stop moving)

Anyone have an idea how to prevent that from happening? Made the individual vector images in Illustrator and imported them in Flash to make the animation. Only used a simple motion tween to move the image inside the screen.

I would recommend to export as HTML5 from Flash directly instead of relying on Googles conversion.
This has to do with how the Google conversion is animating this. It's probably based on an HTML5 canvas which can have Anti Aliasing disabled in certain events to improve performance.
Google maybe also enforce this to have a pleasant web performance for users. Flash has generally very poor performance because of things like that.

You might want to ask this on Stackoverflow instead, this is more a web programming question.


Landscape video to show on iPhone 5/6 portrait mode? How? I have the following issue to solve: a video was captured in 1131x693px resolution (landscape mode). Now this video should be able to play on a mobile screen in portrait mode. I have researched the internet for solution that are able to change the ratio of videos - e.g. Handbrake, Video converter ultimate, Quicktime Pro. However, I cannot figure out how to change the video dimensions properly so that it can play fine on an iPhone 5/6 screen without either extending the picture too much or leaving black fields on top and bottom.

Do you have any ideas how a maximum area of the picture is shown in portrait mode with minimizing loss?

Thank you so much for your great help in advance!

p.s. I have researched as much as possible and found only this topic as similar: iPhone Background Video

Maybe you can identify a vertical section of the video in the shape you need, that you can crop out of the horizontal image, perhaps panning the 'window' to follow the central action. If you can't then you're stuck with severe letterboxing (blank portions top and bottom). There's no magic that can preserve aspect ratio while changing aspect ratio. Physics... dammit.


ffmpeg clear video cache I am running a compression script to compress my large AVI files to small mp4 files. The script look like this

#!/bin/bash
FILEPATH="$1"
COMPRESSIONPATH="$2"
ffmpeg -i $FILEPATH -vcodec h264 -acodec mp2 $COMPRESSIONPATH
sudo rm $FILEPATH
curl -H "Content-Type:application/json" -X GET
http://localhost:3000/clovis/api/led

Whenever I save a compressed video with a filename of compressedVideo#0.mp4 and open it; the newly compressed mp4 file contains footage of a very old video that I recorded and deleted about a week ago. Its almost as ffmpeg is cache that delete video and compressioning any filename with compressVideo#0.mp4 with the cached video. What might be the case here? How do i clear ffmpeg cache? Changing the filename fixes this issue but I wanted to use the filename compressedVideo#0.mp4. There are a few filenames that wont work actually; compressedVideo#0-4.mp4 all wont work. Depending on the filename used it loads the corresponding video that was created and delete long ago.

Oh gosh; days of my life wasted because I needed to empty browser cache. I was loading the videos through my browser which is why the deleted videos were still being loaded. Eww cache !!!!!!!!!!!


How Important is the 180 Degree Shutter Angle Rule? I do notice that the 180 degree shutter angle look better, and I try to achieve it whenever I could. However, when shooting in bright conditions, I could not achieve it without a variable ND filter, which is too expensive for me. Even the cheap ones are expensive, but they are pretty bad.

I am also occasionally forced to use 90 degree shutter angle as I’m always shooting at 60p (not knowing whether I’ll slow it down, which means I shoot at 1/120 instead of 1/60) and display at 30p, this means that even with a VND, I’ll still shoot between 180 and 90 shutter angle.

I’ve did some videos and no one ever notices what shutter angle I use (neither did I until I started learning more, and even now, I wouldn’t be able to tell without direct comparisons). I also shoot majority of my videos during the golden hour, which means half of my videos achieves the 180 shutter angle.

Is it still necessary for me to get a variable ND filter?

The "180 shutter speed rule" you mention is only about setting your shutter speed at about double your camera's frame rate. It is not about actually shooting with a 180 shutter speed no matter what.
So, if I shoot at 25 fps, I'll set my shutter speed at 50 (because I like my footage to look more natural -- without the strobe-like effect that comes with high shutter speeds). If I were to shoot slow motion though, I would opt to shoot at, say, 50fps and set my shutter speed at 100 (to get crisper slow motion footage), and so on and so forth.
There is not relation between the "golden hour" and shutter speed. You can shoot during that time of day, or any time of day, with whatever shutter speed you pick, provided there is enough light.
ND filters are really used to control depth of field when using a wide iris/aperture on your lens in bright conditions (like an f2.8 or wider in the middle of the day).
This is a good, clear break down of shutter speed use in video:


is there a way to fix this through video editting? I recorded a video on my phone using a different camera app and it ended like this:

It feels like the video got split in to two if you can understand what i'm trying to say. Is there a way to remedy this using software?

I can't tell for sure from the single frame there and not knowing what the source was, but it appears that you were using an HDR video application.  The result of such an application is that you get frames with two different exposure settings that are designed to be combined to form video with frames that have a higher dynamic range.

If that conclusion is correct, then yes, you should be able to split the video in half, merge the two parts of the frame back together and produce an HDR video from that data.  You will need to control how you merge them back together using a typical HDR technique, which you can find many details about how to do online from photo resources.  The process for video is the same, it just gets bulk applied to all the pairs of frames.

It is worth noting that the overall resolution of the video may have suffered as a result of splitting the frame like that and there won't be any way to get back any lost resolution, but you should at least be able to get it reduced to a single video.

If I'm wrong in those assumptions though and the video frames are not individually correct, then there may be more complex blending that needs to be done and it may be specific to that application.  Does the application have an option to export the video after processing?  Whatever the application was, that seems like a very odd final output unless it is either expecting only basic processing to need to be done or it is expecting that that file is only an intermediate stage.


Removing ["Bounding box"] in Sony Vegas I'm not exactly sure what it is called, which is why I can't find answers anywhere. It is the grey box that envelopes the text, I think it is called a "Bounding Box". It is not needed at all in anything that I do. I have presets that I have saved and use them for everything, no reason to tweak them at all, and all they do is obstruct the text I am editing. How do I disable these ["Bounding boxes"]?

I tried to replicate the issue last night with using Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0, version 9.0 (b) build 92.

I engaged various text options under the Sony Media Generator: Simple Text, Rolling Text, and some legacy defaults. The only time I saw a Bounding Box was within the text pop up window where one has the option of placing text by dragging the box to where you want it to appear in the video. In no cases did I see the Bounding Box appear in the preview window nor were there any artifacts such as the persistent "42" that you demonstrated.

Due to the timing of the upgrade from v 8 to v 11 that you mention in the comments,  I am thinking something went awry. The best thing I can recommend is to use the question form available at:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/support/technicalsupport.asp

You will need to register with the site to access this service, and once you engage the form it will look something like this. You will need to give them the needed technical info like the version number and your machine info too. Here is a snip of the form to assist in that preparation. I have used this service many times in the past, and they generally offer very kind attention. However, you may have to wait a few days before they process your question depending on their current load.


After Effects - Green Screen - Non keyed, overlapping areas make final result look bad I'm working on a fitness video that was filmed in front of a full body green screen.
Most of the subject's body is in front of the green but some of her body overlaps the gym mat.
When I key out the screen and shrink the edges, only the area in front of the screen is being affected (as you would expect).
The only problem is, the area of the legs in front of the screen become slightly narrower than the area of the legs in front of the gym mat - quite noticeable in the final result.
Is there a trick to help prevent this?
Here is a (zoomed in) image of what I'm dealing with. The arrows indicate narrower vs. wider areas of the legs:

I'm following this YouTube tutorial:

Try using the advanced spill suppressor preset technique instead. I’ve found it to work better but take longer to render:


What exactly is a "sample" in audio/video context? I'm studying on video processing/encoding and doing so I started looking source code of some popular related tools. And all of them has some reference to "Sample"
For example an arbitrary code has the following lines
processor::readSample() peocessor::sampleRate()
Now when I Google search I get fully irrelevant results.
Can you explain what exactly  "Sample" means? (It certainly is not a demo/test video file type thing)

If you are working in a video editing app like Premiere or Final Cut, when you specify a sample rate, you are specifying the audio sampling rate.  This is how many times per second the audio is going to be converted into a numeric value and stored.  So typically with video, it is 48,000 times per second (a frequency of 48kHz), or 44,100 = 44.1kHz. You need two samples to correctly measure a frequency. This means that the maximum frequency you can record in an uncompressed audio recording is usually just under half the sample rate.  This is called the Nyquist frequency.  So at a sample rate of 48kHz, you cannot correctly record any frequencies about 24kHz without hearing alias frequencies (incorrectly recorded lower frequencies appearing in error in your recording).
Pixels are not commonly referred to as samples, and a frame (whether defined as an audio frame in a file format, or as a frame of video) is different to a sample.
It would improve your question to say which program your code snippet comes from - someone might be able to help directly.
Also - bit depth is not the same as sampling - sampling is how often you measure something. Bit depth is how many numbers you use to record the measurement.  So most audio is recorded at 16, 24, or 32 bits.  So each sample in a 16 bit recording could be measured between zero and 65,536 amplitude levels.


Audio Sync Issues on playback via thumb drive I've got an audio sync issue with a .mov file during playback via thumb drive on a samsung tv. I exported the clip using QuickTime Conversion, H.264 compression with 48 KHz for the sample rate.

I am currently using the same settings on multiple clips on the same playback devices (Samsung tv) all other clips are working fine.

Anyone know if there is a different compression type I should use? I'm not sure if that is the problem since all other clips are working fine. The sync issue has just started today.

The original video sources are being ripped from YouTube.

TIA!
Mike

The answer stems from the combination of the speed of the flash drive and the data rate of the video. The video and audio in most codec are decoded separately once streamed to the computer from the flash drive. Now when the flash drive can't keep up with the speed the video is supposed to be playing then the audio or the video get ahead because the flash drive cannot serve both at the same time. Time for a faster flash drive.


Expression for inverse parenting on Y axis in after effects I have a composition in After Effects (CS6) that contains 2 objects that are usually a set distance apart. I am looking for an expression or other method to automatically move one layer by the same amount as its parent, but in the opposite direction (as in if the parent goes up 5 px the child should go down 5 px). So far I haven't been able to figure this out, but I am very new to expressions.

Thanks!

By having the layer parented you make it a bit harder. If you want the second layer to follow the x coord of the first layer, but mirror the y coord this will do it (without the second layer being parented)

var centerY = thisComp.height/2;
var p = thisComp.layer("the name of the controlling layer").transform.position;
[p[0], centerY - p[1]]

If do you need the second layer to be parented the following should work. Because the distance from the parent to the centre point is the same as the distance from the center point to the child, we can just multiply it by two to get the y distance in the layer space of the parent:

var centreY = thisComp.height/2;
[value[0], 2*(centreY - parent.position[1])];

Both of these expressions will mirror around the centre of the comp vertically. You could mirror around an arbitrary y point by specifying it on the first line instead of thisComp.height/2, e.g.: var centerY = 1234.

You could also use another layer as the control of the mirror point by using this instead of that expression: var centerY = thisComp.layer("name of center control layer").transform.position[1]


Which graphic card to buy I have decided to buy a new pc for short videos rendering in after effects. I dont have a big budget, it's around 1000$.

This is the thing i thought to buy, but i'm not really sure about graphic card.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 PRO3
Memory: Kingston HyperX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB, GAINWARD 3361-BLISS GTX970 4GB GDDR5 or GTX970 G1 Gaming Gigabyte

Which graphics card is more suitable for After Effects?

Those are all very similar in terms of performance. I'd take the EVGA GeForce GTX 970, but other people will tell you something else.

One recommendation: Samsung SSDs are severely overpriced. People still buy them because Samsung has a good reputation (basically it's the same as buying a Mac for no other reason than 'all the graphics people have one'), but you won't notice any difference in any aspect between a Samsung and, say, a Crucial SSD. I recently bought the Crucial BX100 and I'm very content with it. Same price, but twice as much storage capacity.

Also, if you're getting a good GPU anyway, I would consider something like the lntel XEON E3-1231V3 over the i7 CPU, since you don't really need the inbuilt graphics unit of the latter.


Can I add markers in After Effects without stopping the playback? Is there a way to add a marker without stopping the playback? I need to mark some specific times while the sequence is playing.

Use the keyboard shortcut to add a marker

  Windows: * (multiply) on numeric keypad
  Mac OS: * (multiply) on numeric keypad or Control+8 on main keyboard

This works during preview and audio-only preview


Can video frame size be increased? I have two videos that need to fit these specs:

"The minimum frame size is 1280w X 720h pixels (either progressive or interlaced is acceptable)."

Video A is: 480 × 640 [.mov]

&

Video B is: 476 × 360 [.mp4]

Is this possible? & If so what program do I need to do it? Can this be done in Handbrake? (I use an iMac but have access to a PC at work)

full specs required:

RECOMMENDED QUALITY:
We recommend uploading HD quality video so it is easy for us to review. The preferred bit rate for your videos is 3000-5000kbps at a frame rate of 24 or 30 frames per second depending on how the material was shot. The minimum frame size is 1280w X 720h pixels (either progressive or interlaced is acceptable).
WHAT ENCODING MODE SHOULD I USE WHEN I SAVE AND UPLOAD MY VIDEOS?
We recommend you use the Best/Multi-pass/2-pass encoding mode optimized for "download."
RECOMMENDED FILE SIZE:
Both videos should be under 3GB in size.
RECOMMENDED AUDIO FORMAT:
We would recommend encoding audio in the AAC format with a bit rate of between 128-256kbps. Alternatively, you can use 256kbps Video A and 96kbps for Video B.

-
FURTHER INFORMATION: [Mistakenly first added in a reply rather than an edit]

These videos are for a tv show idea submission.

'video B' is my example of previous work so i cant just recreate it. it was originally shot on tape & i only have is this digital version. i was hoping to find a way to work with it.

'video A' is the show pitch & was shot recently w/an ipad & can be reshot. In the comments, AJ pointed out how it is 'portrait orientation' -oops.

Also to AJ's point, it does say 'RECOMMENDED QUALITY' but it also says 'minimum frame size' & I read 'minimum' as a requirement vs a recommendation. It should be ok to submit 'Video B' w/out being HD, but i dont think i can submit it with less than the minimum frame size.

If the frame size cant be increased, is it possible to add some black filler to the sides somehow to force 'Video B' to fit the specs like you can with a jpeg in photoshop?

Also, I will have access to Sony Vegas Pro next week, can I use that?

There are a few problems here that need to be addressed.

First, the pitch shot is vertically oriented or "portrait" (vs landscape).  This is considered very, very bad practice.  This is a huge and constant amateur mistake because many amateurs now shoot video with their tablets and smartphones and hold the device the way they normally do, vertically, but this doesn't match up with the target format, which is generally either TV or even web video, which is generally displayed horizontally to make the most use of the space.

You should always shoot your video "landscape" or horizontal, just like you would see it on a TV so that it makes full use of the screen when being played back.  This orientation stems from the fact that we have a wider field of vision than we have tall, so a wide angle shot fill more of field of view and is more immersive.  A vertical or portrait shot does the opposite and doesn't fill well on a TV and barely scratches our field of view making it feel much less immersive.

The second major issue is that of video quality.  You can technically increase the number of pixels stored in the video by a process called upsampling or upscaling, but that doesn't increase the quality of your video (in fact, it generally decreases it further).  The easiest way to think about it is think about if you had 4 pixel image that had black square a white square and then on the next line a white square and a black square.

XO
OX

You can increase the number of pixels by duplicating what is there, but it doesn't invent more resolution (actual meaningful detail).  Say we scale it up to 9 by 9, you end up with this.

XXXXYOOOO
XXXXYOOOO
XXXXYOOOO
XXXXYOOOO
YYYYYYYYY
OOOOYXXXX
OOOOYXXXX
OOOOYXXXX
OOOOYXXXX

Note that there isn't any more detail than there was before, and we actually lost some detail because the new image had to invent pixels to fill where there are Ys because the original didn't evenly break up in to the new size, so it had to average the pixels that should have been there and made new grey Y pixels.  This means the image is now even less clear than it was before, when we had sharply defined squares because now we have fuzzy ones.

You could technically upscale to an exact multiple of your original to avoid interpolating, such as scaling up to 1428 by 1080 which will make the format meet the file format requirement technically, but it still won't meet it in spirit because the image will still be a 360p image (substantially lower than SD), rather than the requested 720P HD image requested.  Additionally, it would still be another encoding and thus another generation of compression loss to re-encode to the upscaled video, which would further sacrifice quality on your already abysmally low resolution video.

Third issue, though this one less major is that your aspect ratio is wrong.  This isn't necessarily a problem, but the formats they are recommending are widescreen formats.  Your current file is 4:3 rather than 16:9.  This may or may not be a problem for them.  Normally, if you have sufficient resolution and shot planning to do 16:9 it's pretty easy to crop down the video to a 16:9 form factor, but if you made full use of the vertical space in a way that you can't crop the top and/or bottom, then you are pretty much stuck at 4:3.  You also don't have enough resolution to start with to be able to sacrifice anything, which makes this a bigger concern.

Overall, my recommendation would be to re-shoot the pitch/interview portion using high resolution and proper orientation and aspect ratio.  For the existing video sample that you can't reshoot.  Submit it as is and hope for the best.  You can't meaningfully enhance it in a way that they are not going to see right through and probably dock you for trying to sneak around it.  Just explain the situation and why a higher quality version isn't available.  Either they'll go for it or they won't.  Nothing you artificially do is going to change that.


How to emphasize a faint white line among a yellow background? I'm a total beginner at video editing and I filmed a video of a particle detector that I made. The particle made a very faint white line in the yellow background. I would like to post the screenshot, but it would be very hard to see in this state.

How would I emphasize the faint white line in a yellow background?

I'm borrowing my friend's Steam account to use his Sony Vegas Pro.

A screenshot is a still image, so you would need to use image-editing software like Photoshop to enhance the image. I recommend messing around in the "Edit > Adjust" menu.  You may be able to show off your effect by increasing the Contrast of the image, or by changing the Hue of the image.  You could probably also replace the yellow color with a different color (though Hue would produce a similar effect).


OBS studio capture webcam only? When I use webcam as an input device, obs studio puts the webcam in the upper left corner of a big black area.  How to have only the webcam exported to file?
Update: this is what I see when using OBS.  I cannot see the webcam input unless looking at the properties.  The background is black.

You can grab the corners of the webcam object on the screen and expand it to fit the canvas.  Make sure the webcam source is the correct resolution (in the Sources column, right-click on Video Capture and click Properties, then check the Preset drop down).
Also check the Base (canvas) resolution is the size you want in the Preferences - Video settings.
Animated gif showing the process:


How to record a live video of yourself with a transparent background? I always watch and wonder how some youtubers have a little window on a corner of a gameplay or something...

My doubt isn't on how they get the image, my doubt is on how some youtubers get the video of themselves with a transparent background on top of the gameplay.

I know this requires a green screen, but I really want to know how this gets automatically edited. I have seen some live gameplay with the transparent effect.

How do the youtubers get a transparent background on a live feed?

What I am trying to achieve is, recording myself on a live feed, but with a transparent background... If you see what I mean...

Answers much appreciated,

Sid

I really want to know how this gets automatically edited.

The technique is called chroma key and consists of considering as transparent all pixels of the colors within a specified range. This is usually used with a bluescreen or a green background. The image is then simply layered over another background.

As you have noticed, chroma key is not limited to postprocessing: a lot of software products can do this in real-time for live streaming.

By the way, if you have used Google Hangouts, one of the effects consists of replacing the background by an image. Don't be mislead by this, since this has nothing to do with a bluescreen and doesn't require any specific color for the background; I imagine that Hangouts' algorithm rather assumes that parts that don't move are the actual background.


Why I might get this high noise on Sony a7 III with Zeiss 24/70 f4 lens? So I've tried to make a short New Year video and noticed, that I got noise at almost every level of ISO over 3000. And it is the kind of noise, that is impossible to work with.

Am I getting something wrong, or it has to be this way?
For example, this short video shows how high the noise is in both light and dark.

The params are: 1/200 f5.0 ISO:4000 120fps/60m 1920/1080

Can I reduce the noise, or is this something I can definitely expect with 4000 ISO and such lens? Do I have to light everything in a way, that I won't need to go over 500 ISO?

I'll be glad to any suggestion and answer.

You need to define what is acceptable to you.

Record a well illuminated scene and increase the ISO while decreasing the aperture and compare what noise level on your specific camera is acceptable for you, and you will know what are the limitations of your equipment.

In the case of the example video, the noise is "the same" because both moments, the dark zone and the white are filmed in the same settings, therefore we can assume that is the overall noise on your camera on that ISO setting.

There are some programs than can denoise video https://duckduckgo.com/?q=video+denoiser&t=h_&ia=web one that has a good reputation is Neat Video.


How to import clips from one project into another in Adobe Premiere? I have imported one project into another in Premier. After that I got all clips I had in old project visible in new one, at left. But I need only some of them. Unfortunately, when I am trying to delete clips, I get a message:

which makes me think, that if I agree, I will delete clip from both project.

But I don't want to touch old project. How to import clips leaving old project intact?

If you only need one of the clips you used in the old project, you should only import that one and don't even use the old project file. Locate the clip on your hard drive and import it into premiere, e.g. by dragging it onto the project panel. If you have trouble finding it, open the old project, find the clip in the project panel and right-click -> Reveal in Explorer.... That should show you it's location on your hard drive.


ffmpeg streaming to rtmp and extracting image periodically I'm using this command to receive a input stream and transcode it to a different resolution and stream it to ustream.

ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel info -progress /tmp/ffmpeg.log -i udp://10.0.0.150:8181?listen \
-framerate 30 -video_size 1080x720 -vcodec libx264 -b:v 768k -crf 23 -preset medium -maxrate 800k -bufsize 800k \
-vf "scale=640:-1,format=yuv420p" -g 60 -c:a aac -strict -3 -ar 44100 -ab 32k -f flv rtmp://<ustream url>/<ustream key>

I also want to extract a full quality snapshot every 1 minute. I read here how I can extract a thumbnail from a video periodically and I read this explaining how to send one input stream to different output streams with different video filters.

When I combined the two commands I ended up with this:

ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel info -progress /tmp/ffmpeg.log -i udp://10.0.0.150:8181?listen -filter_complex '[0]split=2[in1][in2];[in1]scale=640:-1,format=yuv420p[out1];[in2]fps=1/60[out2]' \
-map '[out1]' -framerate 30 -video_size 1080x720 -vcodec libx264 -b:v 768k -crf 23 -preset medium -maxrate 800k -bufsize 800k -g 60 -c:a aac -strict -3 -ar 44100 -ab 32k -f flv rtmp://<ustream url>/<ustream key> \
-map '[out2]' img%03d.jpg

The command almost works, but the audio is missing on the livestream. The images are created correctly and the video is fine but there is no audio. How can I also get audio in my livestream?

Try

ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel info -progress /tmp/ffmpeg.log -i udp://10.0.0.150:8181?listen -filter_complex '[0:v]split=2[in1][in2];[in1]scale=640:-1,format=yuv420p[out1];[in2]fps=1/60[out2]' \
-map '[out1]' -map 0:a -framerate 30 -video_size 1080x720 -vcodec libx264 -b:v 768k -crf 23 -preset medium -maxrate 800k -bufsize 800k -g 60 -c:a aac -strict -3 -ar 44100 -ab 32k -f flv rtmp://<ustream url>/<ustream key> \
-map '[out2]' img%03d.jpg


Need to record videos - can I buy a PhotoCamera instead of VideoCamera? I need to record videos at least 1080p (mainly video-lectures or like) averagely 5-15 hours every week..

I am not going to send those videos to Oscar's jury, but if possible, I need an normal/good HD quality for an affordable price (below 1000$). I was thinking to buy a camera (lets say, Canon SX50 HS) for that, but someone told me, that it's not advised to use a camera for frequent video-recording purposes, instead use VideoCamera.

So, my questions:
a) while recording with PhotoCamera, and try zooming, it has a sound, right? are mirorless cameras better?  does it have auto-focus?
b) I need it to record audio as well, good quality (I can use separate transmitter as mic-source).
c) is there a really huge concern, which one I use for recording videos? Will a Canon camera work well or do I have to buy a "Video Camera"?
d) about quailty - any difference between  1080p recorder from same megapixel Photo camera and from video recorder?

What are the pros and cons? (p.s. I dont care if they record in 30 minute steps or etc..)

TL;DR

If you have a camera of either type, use it. End of story. If you plan on taking photos as well as video, get a photo camera (I'd recommend a DSLR.) If you will only use the camera for video, get a video camera similar to the one you pictured.

Long Read

Video camera (camcorder):

Pros:

Design: Video cameras are designed to shoot video - they are built from the ground up to do exactly that, so all of the technology is focused on capturing video.
Ergonomics: video cameras are designed to capture video, and part of that design is the way the camera is meant to be held. Video cameras are designed to be easy to hold and control primarily with one hand. They often have a hand strap (small camcorders) or shoulder mount (large ENG-style cameras) where the user supports the camera with their right hand and the primary controls such as zoom and record are accessible with the fingers of the same hand.
Audio: Video cameras often have built-in microphones, microphone
holders or microphone ports (XLR, mini-XLR, or 1/8th inch).
Live-view video: Video cameras almost always feature both an electronic viewfinder and a rotating and folding screen, both of which can be used to view the video as you are recording it.
Accessories: Many video cameras have microphone holders, cold shoes and handles for accessories (a few cameras even have built-in LED lights). Some cameras have easy built in iris and focus controls, while some even include built-in neutral density filters.

Cons:

Stills: The biggest downside of these video cameras is they are often terrible at taking still photos, if they even do at all. There are a few reasons for this. 1) The sensor and processor are designed for taking video, so photos are often relatively low resolution (sometimes as low as 2 MP). 2) The form factor makes taking pictures awkward and often offers very little manual control.
Lenses: Most video cameras under $5000 USD have permanently attached lenses (not interchangeable), so if you want to zoom wider or narrower than the lens, you are out of luck.
Price: Video cameras are expensive! A very low end model will cost a few hundred dollars, a relatively good model will be about $2000-$3000 USD, and high end models can run as high as $100,000 (although I'd recommend a model at about the top of your budget (around $1000).

Photo camera (I will focus mainly on DSLRs)

Pros:

Lenses: The biggest advantage of a DSLR will likely be interchangeable lenses, which allow you to reach and focal length you want, assuming you don't mind paying for the lens.
Photos: DSLRs are designed to take photos. Their form factor and control placement makes this very easy. They will also shoot high resolution pictures (usually ~20-24 MP).
Audio: Often have internal microphones and 1/8th microphone jacks (but will never offer mini-XLR or XLR).

Cons:

Design: The SLR form factor has been around for many decades, since far before DSLRs offered video. Video is an afterthought on these cameras. It's added in as a bonus feature, but isn't supposed to be the primary function of these cameras. This applies to almost all photo cameras except, I would argue, the Lumix GH series.
Time restraints: Most DSLRs have a 20-30 minute video recording limit (depending on camera and quality). After this limit is up, you have to manually restart the recording.
Live-view video: Video can only be recorded while viewing as live-view on the DSLR screen. The viewfinder doesn't work. On top of that, many DSLRs (especially older ones) don't having tilting/flipping/rotating screens, making shooting at any angles difficult without an external monitor.
Price: These cameras aren't cheap, but good quality can be gotten with a $300-$400 body and a $200 lens (although I'd recommend a lens closer to $500). I'd also recommend an add-on shotgun mic (~$100-$250, depending on quality).

Please comment or edit if you think I missed anything.


Fix half blind video I've recorded a mp4 video with h265 encoding using my Android Pixel 3. After investigating the video, half of the video is blind. All other recordings are perfect. Is there any way to repair this video?

Here is an example image:

Here is the ffplay output of the video:

...
[hevc @ 0x7f951c10dfa0] Ignoring POC change between slices: 56 -> 58
[hevc @ 0x7f951c10dfa0] First slice in a frame missing.
[hevc @ 0x7f951c131320] Ignoring POC change between slices: 57 -> 59
[hevc @ 0x7f951c131320] First slice in a frame missing.
[hevc @ 0x7f951c05ee20] First slice in a frame missing.  0B f=0/0
[hevc @ 0x7f951c11f900] Ignoring POC change between slices: 59 -> 1
[hevc @ 0x7f951c11f900] First slice in a frame missing.
[hevc @ 0x7f951c03f140] Ignoring POC change between slices: 0 -> 2
[hevc @ 0x7f951c03f140] First slice in a frame missing.
[hevc @ 0x7f951c10dfa0] Ignoring POC change between slices: 1 -> 3
[hevc @ 0x7f951c10dfa0] First slice in a frame missing.
...

Here is some VLC debug output:

...
avcodec debug: enabling direct rendering
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (37827 bytes)
avcodec warning: plane 0 not aligned
avcodec warning: disabling direct rendering
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (35551 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (38144 bytes)
avcodec debug: enabling direct rendering
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (35844 bytes)
avcodec warning: plane 0 not aligned
avcodec warning: disabling direct rendering
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (34724 bytes)
avcodec debug: enabling direct rendering
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (32349 bytes)
avcodec warning: plane 0 not aligned
avcodec warning: disabling direct rendering
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (34527 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (33336 bytes)
avcodec debug: enabling direct rendering
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (33576 bytes)
avcodec warning: plane 0 not aligned
avcodec warning: disabling direct rendering
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (35214 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (33355 bytes)
avcodec debug: enabling direct rendering
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (31715 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (33360 bytes)
avcodec warning: cannot decode one frame (35697 bytes)
avcodec warning: plane 0 not aligned
...

If the image you posted is the file that the camera generated: No, you cannot restore the missing data. It has not been recorded and so you'd have to generate some where none was. Not possible, at least not if you don't want to paint each frame by hand.


x264 Downsides of a high CRF (22) intermediary codec between conversions instead of lossless I have a huge collection of video files that are in the range of CRF 16-20 taking up TB's of space. The only need I have for these originals is that I have to encode them from time to time but the CRF of these final encodes is very low (CRF 26-28).

I understand that a lossy to lossy conversion ALWAYS results in some quality loss but my question is what if the intermediate file is almost visually lossless compared to the final output.

So to sum up, what quality difference should I expect from the following routes?

CRF 18 (original) -----> CRF 28 (final)
CRF 18 (original) -----> CRF 22 (long-term storage) -----> Lossy  CRF 28 (final)

We could do test runs, show comparison screenshots, VMAF scores, bitrate to quality charts, etc, but there is no other way to answer that doesn't essentially say "it will look worse".


I am trying to generate Speech with audition but option is not visible I am trying to generate Speech with audition but option is not visible on mac pro system please see image for reference click here

Version: audition cc 2014

for system speech ref:

Generate Speech was added in Audition CC 2015.1. You will need to update to use that feature.


Live streaming with Twitter and RSS information In two weeks we have a live event for 7 days. Last year we bought wirecast but it looks like it has just a few features. They now integrated Twitter, but it's just weird how it's all made.

We have a lot of experience in RSS, JSON and XML and we really want to put it at use for this livestream event.

What we want to do is to create 2 seperate RSS files (or json,xml). 1 for latest Tweets and 1 for Current Audiotrack.

Next we want to integrate those RSS files in our videostream. Twitter in some sort of newsticker and the current track every 3 minutes or something.

Our problem, what software do we use. Wirecast looks like it isn't capable to handle our needs. Same for Xsplit and media encoder ofcourse. Boinx looks like it has some features but it's so expensive to just buy without knowledge.

Does anybody have an idea for what software to use?

You may want to look into Camtwiststudio for the mac. I work with Desert Bus for Hope doing a weeklong stream as well and we use it for just the sort of thing you're talking about.

Camtwist has built-in plugins for both Twitter and RSS, and can leverage quartz composer to make more complicated overlays.

It outputs a video feed for other Mac OS X applications to see it like a QuickTime video source, so you can use wireless or Flash Media Live encoder to do the actual compression and streaming.


After effects MP4 render problem On after effects I have been having a problem with rendering as when i try to render a video with a regular 3.2 PAR (Pixel aspect ratio) after effects resizes it from MP4's 1920x1080 to 720x1080 and this is really bad for the video quality, i have tried changing the PAR to 5.1 and this does stop the resizing but it makes my video quality terrible, Please help me if you can.

I think you might be confusing pixel aspect ratios with image aspect ratios.

I suspect you want square pixels - ie a pixel aspect ratio (PAR) of 1:1

Most HD videos are 1920x1080, which is an image aspect radio of 1.778 to 1.
Most HD videos have a pixel aspect ratio of 1:1.

Is your desired image size actually 1280x720 ?  I suspect it is, rather than 720x1280 (720 horizontal x 1280 vertical).

Non-square pixels are only usually used for SD widescreen videos - more of a legacy requirement these days.  Unless maybe you're designing for a specific custom display like a big advertising screen or something like that?


Keep residual image of an element in a video I have a video of a static background with a spider which is the only moving element.

The spider is going forward for a few seconds, then the video stops.
I want to summarize the video into a single image where the background doesn't change, but where we see each frame of the spider going forward, like a superposition. Something that I can illustrate with the following image:

I understand that I will probably need to downsample my video to a few frames, but I don't know how to do the rest. If needed I can put a green background like: (but I'd prefer not to)

EDIT: This is the kind of results that I am looking for

You'll need to separate the spider from the background somehow. Then you can stack successive images of the spider on top of the initial background, and the previous spider image frames.
here's an ascii art representation
        sp5------------->
      sp4--------------->
    sp3----------------->
  sp2------------------->
sp1--------------------->
bg---------------------->

So on the first frame we see the BG with the first Spider frame composited above it. This frame is held, then on the next frame we add spider frame 2 and hold, then on the next spider frame 3 is added, and so on.
How you actually achieve this depends on the software you're using.


Recreate basic AVCHD from MTS files My dad has a Sony HXR-NX5E which writes its output to SDHC cards in AVCHD format.

Wanting to back up his video and not understanding the AVCHD structure, I originally got him to copy the contents of the PRIVATE/BDMV/STREAM/ folder to his backup storage, seeing as they were the video files and they were playable in VideoLan Client.
My dad filmed multiple separate events onto the same SDHC card and I thought that by separating the *.MTS files for a each event into a separate folder, we'd be able to separate the events and work with them later.

I now know that we ought to have backed up the entire BDMV folder and in order for him to edit the video and transfer it to Blu-ray or DVD, it's easiest for him if we could recreate a AVCHD structure for the video files.

It seems to me that it ought to be straight-forward to recreate the clip files (*.CLI) for each of the *.MTS files and create a single playlist (*.MPL) file which will play each of the clips in sequence with no menus or anything else (and an INDEX.BDM and MOVIEOBJ.BDM file) without touching the MTS files at all. But after searching for and trying out a bunch of different free and trial programs, I can't seem to find anything which I can get to carry out this task.

I have problems with programs creating superfluous menus, insisting on re-encoding the MTS files and insisting on combing the video into one short file, presumably with all the streams overlapping.

Can anyone give me any advice on how I might achieve this?

To be clear, I would like an AVCHD which contains no menus, immediately begins playing the first clip and continues playing each clip in sequence until the last one, without re-encoding the video files.

Guess the original poster found his way to do it - I found the following that worked for me, even though I followed a different procedure. I didn't want to convert the MTS files before importing them to iMovie into anything else and was missing too the additional index / descripition files. this is the source and works for Sony SW / Cams. Potentially with other HW / SW constellation a similar way is possible.
http://www.mac-forums.com/forums/movies-video/263323-how-import-mts-files-into-imovie-have-been-archived.html

So what I did:
1. I added the folder with my MTS files on my USB drive with the Sony PMB Picture Motion Browser - in fact I used the more recent Play Memories Home edition
2. Now I marked the MTS files from that source and exported them to an external USB drive - but you can use basically any medium (SDHC, maybe even DVD if you think that's better for archiving)

And now the new folders created can be either imported directly from the medium, copied to the Mac or other location from where you again can import them as archive in iMovie.

Good luck.


How to render on another computer using Adobe Media Encoder CC I use a macbook air (1,7Ghz i7, 8gb RAM) to edit my Premiere projects. Rendering blows CPU to the max. I also have a MacMini fileserver (2,6Ghz i5, 8gb RAM) which could be used for rendering jobs.

Is it possible to allocate rendering jobs from Premiere Pro CC on my Macbook Air to the MacMini?

No, not from one computer to another, you'd have to copy the project files onto a server, NAS device, or external HDD and then load it on the MacMini. You cannot from your Air directly say hey PP on the MacMini let's do this unfortunately.

Now, one option would be network rendering. The thing about it is, both computers are required to have exactly the same project files which means it has to be hosted on a server or some sort of NAS device (costly, and won't benefit your setup that much), some frames get rendered on one, while frames get rendered on the other (both computers will be actively involved, so most likely you couldn't work on other projects).

PP does not support network rendering, so the file PP CC file would have to be imported to After Effects.


How do I edit video footage from an interview? I was asked to produce a set of video interviews for a friend's wedding consisting of individual single-subject interviews (the interviewer is not on camera or mic) with the bride, groom, close family, and wedding party.

The questions were prepared, the lighting and scenery set up, the subjects miked for sound, the cameras positioned, the interviews conducted, and now I have a bunch of video files sitting on my hard drive.

In short my question is, "How do I edit together interview footage?"

To word it in more detail: My experience and background is weighted towards shooting video rather than editing it. I have access to all the software I might need and I know the basics of how to use it (Premier Pro, Sony Vegas), but I don't really know what I am doing. Is there a crash course in video editing, or possibly interview editing, that I could study to get started? Or quintessential interviews to watch? Or books to read?

There is no one right way to edit anything. I've never watched a video of this kind so I probably can't give the best advice. But if I was in your position there are a few ways I'd consider cutting it together:

Edit it a bit like a 'behind the scenes' video. Begin with footage of someone talking and then use appropriate cutaways of the wedding. Cut back to different people whenever it is appropriate and put some music underneath, something that fits the mood.
This would be my preferred way but you'd need a fair amount of footage of the actual event and even some archival footage or photos would be very handy. Most movies have a behind the scenes on the DVD so I'd suggest watching one or two of those if this method sounds good to you.
The simplest way would be to show each interview one by one. So you'd show the first person's interview in its entirety followed by the next person's, and so on. Crossfade between them and have music underneath. This would probably be a boring video to watch in the end, but it'd do the job.
Similar to my previous suggestion, this would require only the interview footage (no event or archival footage). However, you'd intercut the interviewees based on topic. For example, if the bride talks about how she met the groom you'd intercut that along side the groom talking about how they met (assuming he does). This way you would be able to cut out a lot of the fluff that you get when interviewing people.

That's how I'd go about it anyway, mate. Hope that helps you out a little.


Post-production workflow: VFX before color correction? I'm shooting my first internet video tomorrow. It has a spaceship chasing and shooting at a superhero in it. With knowledge accumulated between ~a year ago and now and more focused research over the past week, my idea of post-production workflow for a VFX video in the style of FreddieW or Corridor Digital YouTube channels is something like this (prerequisite: I am talking about color correction as getting all shots into a uniform look color-wise, and color grading as getting the feeling you want from the color):

Edit raw shots into a sequence, and lock them there.
Do music, sound and VFX. Go through each shot in the video and add VFX elements, matching them to the shot's lighting, exposure, color, shadows, ...
Go through each composited shot and color correct and grade it.
Replace shots in locked edit with composited and color corrected and graded shots.

I have now these questions:

Is this workflow "correct"? Are there many "correct"'s (is it mutable)?
You're supposed to shoot in as low contrast and saturation as you can (this is called flat?) to make color correction easier, like you have a blank, unbiased canvas to "pull" the colors out of, right?
This is the real core of my question: how can you match VFX elements to flat footage when there's no amplified color detail to work with? Can I color correct before VFX, and leave color grading where it is?

Any workflow that works for you is "correct".  I don't see any obvious problems with your proposed workflow, though I would think you would want to do sound after VFX so that it can be properly timed to the VFX.  Depending on the software you are using, you may not have to lock the shots but may actually be able to move directly in to working on the shots.

As far as low contrast and low saturation, I would personally disagree with shooting for low contrast/low saturation.  This limits the depth of your available color space too much.  Your camera has a limited number of colors it can describe, if you ignore a large portion of that color space, then you can't describe as many colors and the resolution of your color after boosting the saturation and contrast will be very greatly reduced.  That said, if you have issues with lacking detail in your shadows, exposing it up in to mid-tones can help since your format doesn't actually support using that portion of the dynamic range anyway, so you wouldn't be losing anything meaningful.

The key is that you want to make strong use of the color space your camera can capture and encode that way you have the highest possible use of the color space as long as you are careful not to exceed the color space (color clipping needs to be avoided).  It is always easy to make colors more subdued and to lower contrast as this is moving from a high color resolution to a low one, but you can't move the other way because you don't have the detail to fill in.

What flat means is not necessarily low contrast or low saturation, but rather that the colors are not heavily tinted and that details are well represented within the usable portion of the color space.  They can be fairly vibrant, but they have a neutral response and gamma.  In other words, you want it to evenly capture detail across the DR, but you also want the DR to be fully utilized.  Think of flat as the way the curve looks in the Photoshop curves tool.  Flat would be a straight line rather than a curved one.  It can still have very strong contrast and saturation since the DR is being fully used.

For the third part, it really doesn't matter.  Either you mix to subdued colors and boost everything or you mix to vibrant colors and bring it down.  Either way, as long as it fits at some point, it will fit when you adjust the color grade of the entire frame if it fit well before.


4K camcorder question Nowadays I am using 1920 x 1080 for all my videos/projects using Sony PMW-100.

I would like to start making more detailed stuff in a year or two.

Specifically in the mid-late 2014 I have a plan to make a documentary film.

I would like to use similar small camcoder but wit hthe higher resolution 4096 × 2304.

Do you think that some camcoders capable of 4K recording without the need of external recording source would be in the stores in the mid 2014 and the price would be no more than 5000 EUR at that time?

JVC was first out of the gate with an affordable consumer 4K camera.
Sony is showing their first 4K "Handycam" prototype at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas...

So, I think the answer is YES :)


FFMPEG - Audio missing after combining video I was trying to combine two separate video into one side by side using ffmpeg using the following command in ubuntu server.

ffmpeg -y -threads 4 -loglevel quiet -ss 0 -t 220.162 -i left.webm
-ss 0 -t 220.162 -i right.webm -filter_complex "[0]scale=320:-1,pad=2*iw:2*ih:0:120[left];
[1]scale=320:-1[right];[left][right]overlay=main_w/2:120,scale=640:480" -shortest output.mp4

The video is processed successfully as expected. But the audio is missing from right.webm. Audio from one video is missing from the output.mp4.
How to fix this issue.

You have to mix both audios, else ffmpeg will pick one from among the inputs.

ffmpeg -y -threads 4 -loglevel quiet -ss 0 -t 220.162 -i left.webm
-ss 0 -t 220.162 -i right.webm -filter_complex "[0]scale=320:-1,pad=2*iw:2*ih:0:120[left];
[1]scale=320:-1[right];[left][right]overlay=main_w/2:120,scale=640:480;[0][1]amix" -shortest output.mp4


Can ffmpeg overlays be combined into a single output stream? I am using ffmpeg to create a composite video with multiple overlays onto a static background. I notice that ffmpeg creates a separate output stream in the output mp4 file for each overlay. Ideally, I would like these to be 'flattened' into a single stream. Is it possible to do this?

Here is simple example of what I mean - in this case I have a background 'logo' video onto which is being overlaid another video which is scaled to be a half the size of the background and is positioned in the top left corner of the output:

ffmpeg -i LOGO.mp4 -i VIDEO.mp4
       -filter_complex "[1][0]scale2ref=iw/2:-2[scaled];
                        [0][scaled]overlay=x=0:y=0[composite]"
       -map [composite]
       -y OUTPUT.mp4

The resulting video has two video streams as shown by the output from ffmpeg:

Output #0, mp4, to 'OUTPUT.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : Lavf57.71.100
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (libx264) ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv420p(progressive), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=-1--1, 30 fps, 15360 tbn, 30 tbc
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc57.89.100 libx264
    Side data:
      cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 0/0/0 buffer size: 0 vbv_delay: -1
    Stream #0:1: Video: h264 (libx264) ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv420p, 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=-1--1, 25 fps, 12800 tbn, 25 tbc
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc57.89.100 libx264
    Side data:
      cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 0/0/0 buffer size: 0 vbv_delay: -1

scale2ref consumes two inputs and then emits them both.. In your command, the output of the reference input isn't provided a label, nor connected elsewhere, nor fed to NULL output, so ffmpeg automatically maps it as output.

Use

ffmpeg -i LOGO.mp4 -i VIDEO.mp4
       -filter_complex "[1][0]scale2ref=iw/2:-2[scaled][ref];
                        [ref][scaled]overlay=x=0:y=0[composite]"
       -map [composite]
       -y OUTPUT.mp4

The ref is now consumed by overlay and isn't left 'dangling' for ffmpeg to map.

As to your general query, just label the output of one overlay and feed it as the input to another, and you can combine them.


Batch encode to X265 on the Mac I need to encode thousands of MP4 H264 (mostly) files in a folder hierarchy to H265. Unfortunately Handbrake that I'd normally use have dismal support for batch processing of hierarchies.

The separate project HB Batch Encoder doesn't seem to support X265.

Preferably I'd want a method that can

Accept all source movie files in a selected hierarchy
Encode to X265 as good as Handbrake
Automatically pass thru AAC, re-encode any other audio
Output to the same directory as the source
Move the source to the Trash
Works on OS X 10.11

Can you suggest a tool and method for this that achieves this set of features?

FFMPEG of course. Being a command line application it can be easily integrate into any batch process no matter how convoluted, with the benefit that you get to learn about the power of the command line while you're at it (worked for me).

I haven't explored h.265 encoding much yet, but using settings I stole from the ffmpeg wiki here's how you'd encode a folder full of .movs:

cd "/the/path to/your/folder/"
mkdir "for the trash"
for i in *.mov; do;
  ffmpeg -i "$i" -c:v libx265 -preset slow -crf 25 -c:a copy "${i/\.mov/.mp4}"
  mv $i "./for the trash/"
done

Note that this won't delete the files, it will move them to a new folder called for the trash. This is because if you delete files with the command line they disappear instantly, you don't get a second chance if you change your mind or make a typo. There are trash command line utilities, but that's beyond the scope of this answer.

here's the wiki entry I based my ffmpeg command on, it does a good job of explaining the options used (I'm a bit thingy about lossy compression so I wound up the quality settings somewhat. I also used the slow preset which gives smaller file sizes. Depending on how much time you have you could use anything from ultrafast to placebo to achieve results that vary in file size but with the same quality. placebo being so named because the tiny bit of difference it makes at the expense of greatly increased processing time is mostly in your head):

  In this example, we will use the following settings:

  default CRF of 28. The CRF of 28 should visually correspond to libx264 video at CRF 23, but result in about half the file size.
  medium preset. The preset determines how fast the encoding process will be – at the expense of compression efficiency. Put differently,
  if you choose ultrafast, the encoding process is going to run fast,
  but the file size will be larger when compared to medium. The visual
  quality will be the same. Valid presets are ultrafast, superfast,
  veryfast, faster, fast, medium, slow, slower, veryslow and placebo.
  AAC audio at 128 kBit/s. This uses the ffmpeg-internal encoder, but under AAC you will find info about more options.

  ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx265 -preset medium -crf 28 -c:a aac -b:a 128k
  output.mp4

Handbrake also works on the command line.

And lastly if you are allergic to the colossal power lurking in terminal.app there are GUIs for ffmpeg, like this or this. Not sure how well they deal with batch encoding, and this is not a recommendation, because I don't use any of them. Time to toughen up and use the command line!


Is using a softbox as a back light a good idea when shooting indoors? I'm shooting in a small apartment and I have had a lot of trouble setting up a back light because the subject is directly against a wall.

I am looking at kits like this one, but I was surprised that what I assume is intended to be a back light is a softbox!

Is it normal to use a softbox for a back light? It seems like it would diffuse the light too much and it wouldn't work as a backlight. Additionally, wouldn't it leak light onto the wall behind the subject? (Maybe those concerns can be addressed with the use of grids?)

I thought for a back light you needed to get a spotlight to shine a narrow beam. Would a softbox like the one above work if hung directly above the subject who has their back one or two feet from the wall? Would it be better to get a reflector light like this one?

If a reflector light is better, why do most of the kits include light boxes on the booms instead of reflector lights?

Is it normal to use a softbox for a back light?

It can be sometimes. With two softbox lights, one can very nicely, evenly light a background show here. Note in the video that the subject is much farther than 2ft from the background.

Wouldn't it leak light onto the wall behind the subject?

Yes, it would, but not because it's a softbox. Softboxes only cause less harsher shadows. The reason it would spill light all over your scene is because the light inside of the software box is not directional at all, but rather an open-face bulb.

Maybe those concerns can be addressed with the use of grids?

The purpose of a grid is to shape light and contain it. So, with that in mid, a fabric grid would help reduce spill onto your subject and wherever else you don't want it.

Would a softbox like the one above work if hung directly above the subject who has their back one or two feet from the wall?

It really depends on what kind of look you're going for. What color are your walls? If they're white, the light will likely reflect off of the wall and bounce back onto your subject creating a rim light around them and illuminating the back wall. It won't illuminate it evenly (a single softbox light), however, and will likely have a gradient from light to dark, top to bottom.

If a reflector light is better, why do most of the kits include light boxes on the booms instead of reflector lights?

Nothing is better, per say. Light is highly dependent upon the situation. You as the videographer need to figure out which lights are best for your situation.

I would like to take a moment to say that when it comes to light, the whole motto "buy once, cry once" i.e. get good quality lights, rings true. The kit you linked, while I've never had experience with, will likely not last you very long and be a poor investment. You should consider purchasing used, well known name brands, or rent until you can afford real lights (if budget is a concern). Again, I don't know what kind of production you're running, but this is the advice that I've come across time and time again. A good starter set for interview style set ups, is this guy. Additionally, tungsten lights are cheap and render skin tones very nicely. Some brands to find used Tungsten lights are Arri and Mole-Richardson. Try to stay away from off-brand LED lights.

This is only scratching the surface.


Convert HLS stream to fixed FPS mp4 I am using ffmpeg to convert an HLS stream to mp4 using this command:

ffmpeg -i https://example.com/xxx.m3u8 -y -vcodec copy -c copy -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc test.mp4

I only have access to this video from the stream, and I need it in mp4 format to send on for processing, but I want to be able to set the FPS of the mp4, so that it is consistent.

The HLS stream looks like this:

#EXTM3U
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=264000
xxx/xxx007e.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=464000
xxx/xxx0080.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=768000
xxx/xxx0082.m3u8
#EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=1200000
xxx/xxx0084.m3u8

You can use -r 30 to designate 30 fps for your mp4 output.
The whole cmd can be like this

ffmpeg -i https://example.com/xxx.m3u8 -y -vcodec copy -c copy -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc test.mp4