Video files compatibility for Adobe Premiere pro CS4 I have Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 in its basic settings. I am trying to merge some .AVI files that a friend shot on his digital camera. The videos play perfect on Windows Media Players and on other players. But in Premiere it looks as though it's stuck. Even after I render.
This does not happen when I work with video captures from DV camera.

Why is that? Is there a workaround?

Premiere handles a lot of video formats without requiring an intermediate (editing) file, so this is an uncommon problem to have.

As with other editing codec questions, I think a good place to start is by reading about the different kinds of codecs: The ProRes of Premiere Pro?

It would help us understand your problem better if you could tell us what you can see about the file format when you right-click to get "Properties", or ctrl-click to "Get Info" on the file.  There's a chance that we just need to get the right codec installed for you.

Since it's free to try, maybe download the GoPro Cineform Studio to try reading and transcoding the files.  If that works, then you'll be able to make a decision on whether to keep that workflow, or use a different conversion program.


Schedule a live stream of a pre-recorded video I have a pre-recorded (edited from dozens of sources) event that I wish to play as a "live stream", i.e. the video starts streaming at a specified time, and viewers must watch it in sequence - you can't fast forward to the end. I don't care if they start watching part way through and rewind to an earlier point, or watch/scan through the whole thing later. But the initial play must be "live".
The finished video is about 3.5 hours, and the file is about 10GB. I could likely just feed it into OBS (I've not used OBS, but it seems straight forward), and feed that to a streaming service. But if anything faults my end, the stream goes offline. For something pre-recorded, it seems there should be a safer way.
Looking through various streaming services, none seem to offer the ability to upload the file, and schedule the streaming time. streamingvideoprovider.com lets me upload in advance and schedule a time, but once the stream goes live, viewers can immediately view any part of the stream. Vimeo doesn't seem to allow pre-upload that I can see. Checking others, either I can't see the feature listed, or it appears to be the same functionality as streamingvideoprovider. Have I missed any that are providing this? I would have thought there would be other demand for this. Note that I've excluded Facebook & YouTube from my list, maybe they provide this, but there is background audio in some parts of the video which those services are likely to flag, resulting in muted audio or the stream going offline.
The other services I've found are restream.io and onestream.live, which appear to let you upload a video file, and schedule to stream to various services. They can stream to Vimeo directly, and both offer an RTMP option that I should be able to use with any other streaming provider. This basically ends up being the same solution as me streaming from my own equipment with OBS, except I can pre-schedule the stream, and their equipment is likely to be more reliable than mine in terms of speed and uptime. In the absence of an all-in-one solution directly with a streaming provider, I'm leaning towards this. Either that, or OBS myself and risk it.
Does anyone else have experience doing this on any of these services, or with any other services I've missed in my research? I'm guessing mostly people just OBS the file themselves, but we've got some pretty poor internet here in Australia sometimes, and I just don't trust that for a 3.5 hour stream.

So I ended up running the streams through Vimeo, who provide their own "Livestream Studio" software, which lets you stream from a pre-recorded file. They don't let you pre-upload the video, but it is apparently an often requested feature that they are "looking at".
Vimeo also advised restream & onestream as existing services to do this with - but without being able to verify the reliability of those services or get feedback from anyone, I was hesitant to use them. I tested Vimeo's software prior to airing the first stream, and that all worked smoothly, so in the end I just went with that. Out of 4 events/streams, the connection speed here did flake out a couple of times on one occasion, which is what I was worried about, but it otherwise worked.


Long video clip stabilization with ffmpeg and vidstab I'm learning how to use ffmpeg to stabilize some footage I shot at a conference (my setup had a nasty wobble and I didn't realise how bad it was until I started editing).

After trial and error I finally had great results with ffmpeg with the  vidstab option and I'm about to process some longer clips (over an hour each) and just want to check I'm using the optimal settings (for close to visually lossless quality and speed balance)...

Below are the commands I'm using:

ffmpeg -i filename.MP4 -vf vidstabdetect=stepsize=32:shakiness=7:accuracy=10:result=transform_vectors.trf -f null -

and then:

ffmpeg -i filename.MP4 -vf vidstabtransform=input=transform_vectors.trf:zoom=0:smoothing=10,unsharp=5:5:0.8:3:3:0.4 -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 18 -c:a copy Output.MP4

Questions:

Does -preset slow vs -preset medium make much of a difference in quality at -crf18?
What is the fastest codec to output / encode to in this situation? At the moment I'm using h.264 (file sizes are good).

Note: ffmpeg with vidstab is much better than the other options I tried like Deshake, Pr/Ae Warp stabilizer, Blender, ...

Ad 1:

Presets have (almost) no impact to the quality — their purpose is for adjusting the trade-off of encoding time for the output size (the longer encoding time, the smaller the output stream).

Different presets enable / disable separate algorithms for compression. For example, in my installation, the -preset ultrafast is equivalent to options

--no-8x8dct --aq-mode 0 --b-adapt 0
--bframes 0 --no-cabac --no-deblock
--no-mbtree --me dia --no-mixed-refs
--partitions none --rc-lookahead 0 --ref 1
--scenecut 0 --subme 0 --trellis 0
--no-weightb --weightp 0

As you can see, almost no optimization, i. e. the output will be very large.

Ad 2:

H.264, aka MPEG-4 Part 10, aka Advanced Video Coding (AVC) is good enough, and its particular implementation — x264 library — is a very good one.

The pervasive rule is again the same:

  Recent video compression standards are able to reach a little better compression than their predecessors, but for longer encoding time (and sometimes for lesser compatibility with media players, too).

So if you don't need cutting-edge compression, every contemporary compression standard is good enough.


Why does my VCR output a grayscale video if I use an S-Video cable? I asked here if an S-Video cable could improve the output quality of my VCR (Sharp VC-M401SM). The answers were promising so I bought this S-Video cable (they send me a 2 m cable instead of 0.5 m).
When I connect the S-video cable to the output of SCART adaptor of VRC, however, in the signal that I receive on my PC (through a video grabber like this) the color component is missing. I looked online for solutions to this and I found it could be a number of possibilities. Among the others I noticed that the reason could lie in the non-compatibility of the VCR SCART breakout with the S-Video, as described here.
Question:

How can I determine if the grayscale output is due to the VCR
incompatibility or it is due to other reasons?

Additional notes:

the S-video cable pins seem not to be damaged;
the SCART adaptor pins seem not to be damaged;
with the composite cable I obtain a colored image.

Do you have a manual for the VCR? Does it show the pin mappings for the SCART connector? I did a quick search, I can't find a manual online.

Where did you get your SCART cable? Did it come with the VCR? I'd agree with the link you posted - SCART more commonly connects to a composite signal, or sometimes RGB. All my SCART cables are wired for either to those, I've never seen one wired to S-Video (and from the link you posted, that sounds like a hack that has only been used in some scenarios). Any VCR I've used that had S-Video, had an S-Video connector directly on the VCR, usually only found on an S-VHS model.

Do you have a SCART cable with RGB connectors? If so, you could try using that - would still be a better video signal than composite, providing the VCR is wired for it. Possibly the VCR is only wired for composite though. You could also check the connector on the VCR for clues - often you can find there are is no metal in the connector pins that aren't wired. If you take the cover off, that might also clue you into what is actually wired up to that connector.


ffmpeg: Concatenate then encode I have several similarly-encoded .ts video files that I would like to concatenate and encode into a single .mp4 file.

The .ts files look like

Input #0, mpegts, from 'input1.ts':
  Duration: 00:01:24.14, start: 0.066778, bitrate: 15941 kb/s
  Program 1
    Stream #0:0[0x44]: Video: h264 (High) ([27][0][0][0] / 0x001B), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 59.94 fps, 59.94 tbr, 90k tbn, 119.88 tbc
    Stream #0:1[0x45]: Audio: aac ([15][0][0][0] / 0x000F), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 251 kb/s

The output should be 640x480, 29.97fps video. (The .ts files contain digitized old Hi8 camcorder video, digitized at a much-too-generous bitrate & resolution for the Hi8 video format.)

I can encode a single .ts file like this:

$ ffmpeg -i input1.ts -c:v libx264 -vf scale=640:480 -aspect 4:3 -preset slow -crf 22 -r 29.97 output.mp4

What is the correct way to concatenate several .ts files into a single .mp4 without creating a huge intermediate .ts file?

This ffmpeg documentation presents three concatenation methods: filter, demuxer, and protocol. I think I want the "filter" flavor. However, their example of it is confusing.

You can just use the protocol

ffmpeg -i "concat:in1.ts|in2.ts|in3.ts" -c:v libx264 -r 30000/1001 -vf scale=640:480 -aspect 4:3 -preset slow -crf 22 output.mp4


In After Effects how can I generate the value of an opposite x position and then send that value to an effect on another layer? e.g.
my composition width is 4480
I have a layer with a gradient ramp effect with an x start positon of 1026 and I want to generate and store the value of the x position on the other side of the composition which would be 3454.
Then have a duplicate of that effect on another layer get the stored value or have the value sent to it

I think what you're asking to do is simple using Expressions.
If you alt-click on the stop watch of any keyframe-able control you can write an expression to connect that control to another control.
So if you want to control the end of ramp's x position using the start of ramp's x position in your example, it would be:
x = 4480-(effect("Gradient Ramp")("Start of Ramp")[0]);
y = 1080;
[x,y];

The [0] indicates an array - it means "take the x position of the "start of ramp", which has two values, x and y, which can be called as [0] or 2 in the array.
To duplicate this in another layer, duplicate your first layer using cmd+D, then add an Expression to the start of ramp in the duplicated layer:

You can use the pickwhip to select the control you want to enter into the expression


How to make a film in black and white and add color to some objects? How is a movie made to show selective colors. For instance, in Pleasantville a sister and brother are transported to the universe of an old black and white TV show, and the movie switches to being B&W. Then, as the protagonists cause the inhabitants to have 'real' emotions, like fright, anger, or love, things (people, places, etc.) start having color. In the middle of the movie, many objects are still B&W, yet many more are now colorized.

Sin City also used this effect (the whole film was initially shot in full color, and was converted to black-and-white. Colorization is used on certain subjects in a scene), for example.

How is this effect achieved? Is it post-production editing? What techniques might a director employ to do this?

As you suggest, the scenes are shot in color. There isn't much of a special task for the director, it's almost completely a post-production challenge. In some cases a high contrast take can be made to assist in masking. This would be unusual for scenes involving actors, since the high-con pass wouldn't be well registered. It may also be possible in some scenes to shoot green screen (chroma key) to aid in separating some objects or actors.

The color portions are selectively revealed through masking, and possibly using some green screen and high-con elements. Using a combination of a full color layer and a mono layer derived from it, an artist paints masks that hide or reveal the appropriate layer(s) on a per-object basis. Computerized tracking and tracing can be a great help in this, but in the end it's up to the artist.


Is there an automated process to split a video into sections with motion? I have some video files with a reasonably static background and the occasional movement in the scene.  I would like to edit down the footage to just the sections with movement in.  As there are several hours of footage I would rather not do it by hand.

I hoped to find a script or utility that I could pipe the media into and get segments with motion out the other side.  My limited searching has not suggested anything that could do this, unless I can get VLC to use its motion filter somehow to tag things.

I would rather use a free or FOS system, as I am cheap.  If that is not an option then I will consider paying.  I am happy for the software to be Windows or Linux based.  I would rather not dump all the frames as stills, run a diff and re-encode but if that is the only way then I can probably work with that.  I can do coding in C, C++, Ruby and a couple of other scripting languages if pushed.  I don't mind spending a bit of time to write something if nothing is available and others might find it helpful.  I don't have a background in media processing though, so although I understand the concepts I would be rather lost at picking libraries to use as a starting point and so on.

Video is of a bird feeder with a hedge and fence behind it.  There is some slow shadow travel as the sun moves but otherwise the background seems stable.  I think about 5% of the frame will be filled by the movement I need to pick up on.  I only mention that because I have setup ZoneMinder motion capture in the past so I am familiar with its filter settings.

Even if someone cannot give me a complete answer, I would be grateful to some hints, suggestions and keywords that help me carry this forward.

There is a similar question in stack overflow

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28320004/detect-if-video-file-contains-movement

Apart from OpenCV they also suggest SimpleCV http://simplecv.org/
and "Motion" http://www.lavrsen.dk/foswiki/bin/view/Motion/WebHome


What are these two things on the side of a stage? Currently watching a lot of presidential videos (you know why) and I noticed there are these two black things on the side of the stage:

What are they and what are their purpose?

I believe they are teleprompters. They contain the text of the speech the person at the podium is reading. In this case, the camera is very far away, so they can't be projected onto a half-mirror in front of the camera as is normally done.

Here is a close-up of one used by President Obama.


What's the best way to record a skype conversation? I need to record a skype conversation and upload it to youtube (it's a live conference and the other party asked for it).
Can I record a skype conversation? What would be the best way in terms of quality?

I have different systems available (Windows xp | 7 | 8, Debian 7 or Ubuntu 14.04 LTS), I'll use the one that suits the job better.

I would try with these apps (as they are both free)

http://ifree-recorder.com/index.htm

http://voipcallrecording.com/


Video editing software with good support for dual speaker subtitles? I'm currently using DaVinci Resolve to subtitle my videos but I realize now that it has no support for people speaking with multi track subtitles. I want to color code subtitles for different speakers and perhaps move the subs closer to the speaker depending on who's speaking. What other software should I be using instead? Does premiere have a good workflow for this usecase?

Resolve does support multi-track subtitles.  To add a second subtitle track, right-click in the track header and select "add subtitle track."  This is used for language localization, so that you can deliver different caption versions for the same program.  Resolve is advanced in this respect, with support for updates via supplemental IMF and DCP, so that film and broadcast studios don't need to re-export entire programs whenever they need to make minor corrections.
You won't be able to use two tracks at the same time in any software, because you can't display two languages of captions at the same time within current broadcast television standards.  It's the same reason you can't choose English and Spanish on your television at the same time.
If all you want to do is control the appearance of two different styles of text, use the "Title" category of tools, located in the effects library, not the subtitle track.  I'd recommend "Text+" over the legacy "Text" which doesn't offer any advantages.  Define the settings you want for each style on independent titles on the timeline, then drag a copy of each look from the timeline to the media pool.  Use these as your templates/presets, it helps to rename them accordingly.
If you need to alter the appearance of a batch of titles at the same time, you can copy the source style via cmd/ctrl-C and then "paste attributes" to multiple destination titles via alt/opt-V.


ffplay won't play internal(embedded) subtitle? I want to play videos with their embedded subtitles, which is possible using VLC or even my smart TV. Both recognize the subtitle and play(show) it.

Since ffplay is my favorite player, I want to do the same thing via ffplay, but I didn't make it. I can play external subtitles using -vf "subtitles=filename.srt", but no chance to play internal subtitle. It looks like not detected by ffplay, but ffprobe shows the subtitle stream information.

Anyone knows how it's done?

Thank you guys

You can use subtitles filter like your example in your question but point to the same input file:

ffplay -vf subtitles=input.mkv input.mkv

If you want to choose a different subtitle stream then use the stream_index option. This example will choose the third subtitle stream:

ffplay -vf subtitles=input.mkv:stream_index=2 input.mkv

Or use mpv player and press j or use --sub=1 option.


Combine multiple videos as separate streams in one mkv file So I have multiple videos of the same scenery from different angles. These are stored as separate files. Can I combine these as multiple video streams within one file?

For example I know this is possible with MKV, I just don't know how to "join" them.

Is this possible using ffmpeg? If so, which command sequence do I use?
If not, what other application would be able to do this?

Yes, this is possible using ffmpeg and the mkv container.

An example command sequence would be:

ffmpeg -i input1 -i input2 -c copy -map 0 -map 1 output.mkv

source

Breaking down the command:

-i input1 This selects the first input file. Could be something like my video_track1.mov.
-i input2 Here you can specify the second input file. You can add another entry -i input3 if you have more input videos. I don't know what the maximum amount of videos is you can place in one mkv container.
-c copy This copies all the streams (audio and video) in their original encoding.
-map 0 This maps all the streams (audio and video) of the first input file to the first track of the output file.
-map 1 This maps all the streams (audio and video) of the second input file to the second track of the output file.

More information on the -map option can be found in the documentation of ffmpeg.


Canon 5D mk III vs Sony A7s I have been shooting both video and stills with my canon 7D for the last 6 years and I am looking to upgrade my kit. My initial thought was to get the 5D Mk III and use it with magic lantern to record video in raw but after researching I have seen that a lot of people are transitioning to the Sony A7s.

I am seduced by the smaller size of the A7s and the apparently simpler post-production process for video (smaller files that don't require conversion) but I have always loved the look of Canon and I know it will also be great for stills.

Does someone have experience using both? Is one superior to the other?

Forward thinking the A7s is capable of 4k (with external recorder, e.g. atomos shogun) which is trendy and can shoot at a higher fps (120 fps) and in S-log which for me is three major selling points over the 5D. Not to mention the picture is a lot sharper. The 5D in my opinion is not something I would want to use given the option of the A7s, the image is soft and muddled in comparison. I have used both.

That being said, if you are not concerned with taking pictures, and strictly want to get into video may I suggest buying a C100 MK I. On ebay they are in roughly the same price range, and the camera, although not out performing the A7 in terms of resolution and frame rates, has a beautiful Canon look out of the box, professional video controls + form factor, and many people prefer C-log over S-log.

That being said, if I were to get a B-cam to my C100 MK II, I would get the A7S. Sure it might take some work to match the Sony green-cast to the generally more neutral Canon image, but the pros far outweigh the cons.


How do I record video on my computer using a (mirrorless) camera as the video source? I want to record video on my computer using my Canon M50 as the video source. It's similar to how one might use a webcam instead of the camera integrated into their computer. The only difference is that I want to create videos, not stream.

Any ideas?

There are some options, but I am not sure what would work on your specific camera.

If your camera has an HDMI direct output you could use one HDMI to USB converter, one I know that works well is ElGato.

But here is the issue, you need to test if your camera sends a clean HDMI signal, this is without any menu, timestamp, configuration, etc. Test this connecting the camera to any TV.

Another thing to consider is the time the camera remains transmitting, for example, if it is not recording. It could just turn off in the middle of the transmission.

You can also try a tethered software that can use live view mode. The problem here is that the camera will transmit a Still Image size, for example, an 6000x4000, so the the result could be at an extremely low frame rate.


Voice Over Record doesn't record, displays "Finishing" then stops I've been consistently getting this behavior, it's not clear to me what is causing it.  If I switch to another clip, often I am able to record.

I am using an external ASIO recording interface to do the recording.

I think I've figured it out.  I've been setting my in point to the start of the clip and my end point to the end of the clip.  By moving the start in point after the first bit of footage, it records just fine.


Metadata says the video is 25i, but MPC plays it as 50i I have a DVD with footage which I want to convert to h264/h265. Mediainfo says that the video is 720x576, MPEG-2 encoded, PAL 25 fps and interlaced which is the first time I've seen that, usually 25 fps is progressive.
Media Player Classic plays the video at 50 fps and applies deinterlacing, but VLC plays it at 25 fps without deinterlacing by default. I suspect that the metadata is incorrect, it should read 50i instead of 25i - is it possible?
Is there a way to fix it? Avidemux, Virtualdub and others see the video as 25i and doubling the framerate to 50 either duplicates frames or uses frame-blending, both options look worse than what MPC manages to display.

Here is the Mediainfo's readout: https://pastebin.com/cWKsUraM

25i and 50i are the same thing. 25i means "25 frames per second, interlaced". 50i means "50 fields per second", the latter implies interlaced video.

Likewise, 30i and 60i are the same thing. Basically, if the number before "i" is larger than 30 then it means number of fields, otherwise it is number of frames. All the existing interlaced systems I know of use 2 fields per frame. There were some systems that used 4 or even 8 fields per frame.

DVD are encoded to produce interlaced output. They also have flags that allow to save space by not repeating unneeded fields or frames. These flags are widely used in 60 Hz DVDs, I don't know how commonplace they are in 50 Hz DVDs. If the original title was a movie, you likely should treat it as 25p, not as 25i/50i or 50p.


Premiere Pro sequence to Audition. Apply effect to all clips originating from one native video file :)

I have a Premiere Project with several clips (interview) that originate from 1 video file. The clips are on different tracks (because messy workflow). However, in that clip is a noise air conditioner, I want to apply a multi-compressor to. I exported the sequence to Audition.

How can I tell Audition to apply the effects for CLIP1 to all CLIPn, since the AC is in all of the partial clips across the entire sequence and in different tracks. Basically find all clips that originate from the video file and apply effects to all of them.

Thank you!

Don't apply the effect to the clip. That way lies madness. If all the clips were on the same track then you'd add the effect to that track, but since as you've said the clips are on separate tracks you need to send those tracks to a bus, and then apply the effect to the bus before sending that bus to the master track.

A bus is like a pre-mix, it's useful for grouping tracks with similar audio or audio that needs to be controlled together, or have the same effect applied, e.g. you might have one for all the dialogue, fx, or music. The ouput of a bus will go to your master track by default, but you could send it to another bus if you want and so on.

To make a new bus:

In the track editor window make sure that the inputs / outputs icon is highlighted

On one of the tracks, set the output to a new bus by clicking on the dropdown for the output (I always feel those arrows point the wrong way, but that's just me. It's the bottom one that says Master by default). Then set the output for all the tracks that have the problem to this bus.

You can also add a bus in the mixer panel.

To add effects to a bus / track

in the track editor window, make sure the fx icon is highlighted (next to the inputs/outputs one).

Click on the triangle in the effects rack for the track and choose your effect from the drop down (your list of effects will look different to mine, mine is full of every free VST plugin that money can't buy).

Similarly you can also do this in your mixer window, the UI is the same:


How to set pts time format when using ffmpeg filter to add timestamp I want to add timestamp of current played time to a video, so I use this:

ffmpeg -i video.mkv -filter_complex "drawtext=fontfile=/Library/Fonts/Arial.ttf:
       text='timestamp: %{pts \: hms}': x=5: y=5: fontsize=16:
       fontcolor=yellow@0.9: box=1: boxcolor=blue@0.6" -c:a copy -c:v libx264 -map 0 output.mkv

This comes out that the timestamp was in hh:mm:ss:mm format, but I want it in hh:mm:ss format. So how can I achieve this goal?

Do

In order to draw Timestamp: 01:25., you should specify this one to (feed) ffmpeg:

drawtext = text = 'Timestamp\: %{pts\:gmtime\:0\:%M\\\:%S}.'

Don't

If you specify this one to (feed) ffmpeg:

drawtext = text = '%{pts\:gmtime\:0\:%M\\:%S}'

, it gives Unterminated %{} near '{pts:gmtime:0:%M\' error.

But in bash

But if you're using bash-like shell and a weak quote, "......", to feed it,

\\ is escaped to \, and
\: is not escaped but remains without any changes because \: is not an escape sequence.

So it should be:

-filter_complex "drawtext = text = '%{pts\:gmtime\:0\:%M\\\\\:%S}'"

i.e. bash's "\\\\\:" for ffmpeg's \\\: for getting a single character : displayed.

Note that

If you only want to apply one or more filters to one video stream (e.g, drawtext), you can use -vf instead of using --filter_complex. The latter is reserved for applying filters on multiple streams.


How to trigger an aerender command from a web page What's the easiest way to trigger an aerender command from a web page?

Using Templater, I can create renders based on google spreadsheets, but I can't find a good description of how to trigger a render remotely.  Is there a good howto guide somewhere?  Maybe using PHP or something (not an expert on this)... PS: I'm using a Mac

Depends on which scripting languages your web server supports.

Main requirements

The language should be able to execute the application
The language should provide secure access the files on the server or a network
The language should provide methods to assembly file paths (e.g. relative to absolute paths)
The language should provide interaction methods for connecting the webpage (user input) and your application, also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_application_framework

Execute aerender via python

Assuming your webserver supports python, execute the app via python's subprocess module. You only have to make sure that you can call aerender from your command line properly.

# import subprocess module to call aerender
import subprocess

# create a aerender argument list
args = ['aerender', '-project', 'path_to_file']
process = subprocess.Popen(args, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE)

In order to batch process a folder of .aep files you'll need to iterate through the files:

#import os module
import os

# set the path to your aep folder
path = '/home/user/Desktop/aep-files'    # linux or osx
# path = r'c:\some\directory\aep-files'  # windows, the r is important
# path = 'c:/some/directory\aep-files'   # windows (alternative)

# make sure the files are .aep files
aep_file_folder = [f for f in os.listdir(path) if f.endswith('.aep')]

# iterate through the list
for i in aep_file_folder:
    # setup correct filepath for aeps
    file_path = os.path.join(path,i)

    # call aerender with the correct arguments
    subprocess.call(['aerender', '-project', file_path])

Note: If there is no need to communicate (e.g. getting the output of aerender) you can simply use subprocess.call instead.


16 days in Thailand with GoPro Hero 6 Black [Help] I'm going to Thailand for 16 days with GoPro Hero 6 and I have three questions because I don't have any experience in this field.

First of all I googled some stats about battery life and how much Mbps does camera take for my case (95% of the time I'm going to use 1080p with 60fps and ProTune on). If I'm correct and for this mode camera will use H.264 codec then stats are as follows:

Battery life (per one charge) : ~1h 40min

60Mbps = ~ 8MB/s = ~ 28 GB/h

Am I correct?

Moving on to the second question with given calculated values I estimated that I will need around 3h of content per day. I also decided that I will buy FeiyuTech G5 gimbal which can extra charge my GoPro. I watched some videos on YT, but no one said if this gimbal can charge GoPro from 0-100%. They said that it has around 8h of battery life for itself.

Can I assume that gimbal will work 3h + charge my GoPro from 0-100% on one battery life to match my 3h target?

This is my first trip with camera and I would like to know your opinion about this 3h target per day. I'm not a professional and I will use it only for myself. How much video content do you record on your vacation?

The important factor is not "battery life" as such. It's mAh (milliamp hours) which is how much current the battery pack can deliver for how long.

For example, my battery pack can supply 20,000mAh to one of my devices, which has a battery size of 4,000mAh. So I can fully charge it 5 times from the pack.

As to your other question - I have had days of 10 hours of footage, and others of under 15 minutes. It will depend entirely on what you do and see, the weather, your preferences etc.


I need to modify a movie's displayed subtitles and display as an image overlay I'm kind of at a loss on how to do this. I have access to gimp/inkscape/ffmpeg/vlc, and I can download font styles as needed off the web.

So I have a movie. I play the movie in vlc player, I display the subtitles.

What I need is to take the displayed subtitles, change what they say and make them into an image overlay. So png RGBA I suppose, so I can overlay them onto a different scene. In other words I want to recreate the font and spacing and all the characteristics displayed in vlc.

Calling it up in ffmpeg:
The movie contains the sub file as a .ass file. As well as a single .ttf attachment stream. All I know is that those .ttf streams contain formatting information that make the text look the way it does, I'm unsure what to do with it though. I can separate the .ass stream out of the container with ffmpeg and open it in a text editor. I look at it and I think this is the information I want to use to create new text in the style:

Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, OutlineColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, Underline, StrikeOut, ScaleX, ScaleY, Spacing, Angle, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Encoding

Style: Main,Open Sans Semibold,36,&H00FFFFFF,&H000000FF,&H00020713,&H00000000,-1,0,0,0,100,100,0,0,1,1.7,0,2,0,0,28,1

I don't know what to do with this information though.

In inkscape I create text and go through my fonts and apply a stroke with differing thickness and nothing comes close to the desired font, which seems to be the default vlc player subtitle font shared across many movies i tryout.

I get the feeling there is a much better and easier way to go about doing this.
Can I create an overlay with this info as desired with ffmpeg? That would be great.

Edit: I tried this on the isolated subfile.ass, figuring I could just modify the .ass file with the new text I want if this worked. I got it to work, but the formatting is still a bit off. I need whatever is in the .ttf stream to do its thing here, not sure how to include it in the command.

ffmpeg -ss 00:01:87 -f lavfi -i "color=color=white@0.0:size=1920x1080,format=rgba,subtitles=subfile.ass:alpha=1" -frames:v 1 out.png

Edit: I read that the Stream # 0:3: Attachment: ttf
is just a font style and doesn't contain positioning or anything other than teh font incase u don't already have it. So the solution would be to grab that file and put it in my windows font folder? I tried to grab it out using:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:3 -c:t copy output.ttf

But it says .ttf isn't the right extension to use. How do you export .ttf files out of a video?

Ok great. So 3 steps really:
1. Make sure you have the .ttf on ur computer installed, if not extract it from the streams

ffmpeg -dump_attachment:t:0 OpenSans-Semibold.ttf -i input.mkv

In my case I had 4 streams and the .ttf was my only t stream so its 0. And the filename to be used is the one listed in the stream info which is OpenSans-Semibold.ttf in my case.

Take the sub file, .ass in this case out of the video container. and save it as a .ass file
Use this command here on the subfile. Open the subfile in a text editor and see the timestamps, and just change the text for a specific timestamp with the formatting you want. And write the time of that timestamps in the -ss. Then after you render out ur output. Just change the .ass in the text editor to have the new text you want. Save. And repeat the command changing the output to something new each time.

ffmpeg -ss 00:01:87 -f lavfi -i "color=color=white@0.0:size=1920x1080,format=rgba,subtitles=subfile.ass:alpha=1" -frames:v 1 out.png


Tracking mask in Davinci Resolve Video editing n00b here. I have a clip where a person touches a screen with an access card. I want the screen to be red before it is touched, and green after.

I've used a PlanarTracker node to track the screen, and Corner Pin to place either the red or the green overlay on top. This part works fine.

The problem is that the person's hand and the access card cover part of the screen for a few frames, but the colour overlay is always on top of the hand. I think I need to add a mask to the PlanarTracker that follows the card and the hand, but I don't know how to create this mask.

I tried adding another PlanarTracker using the original clip as input, tracking the card, and connecting the output to the mask input of the first PlanarTracker, but this doesn't seem to do anything.

Any suggestions? What am I doing wrong? Should I follow an entirely different approach?

I don't know the footage, but would guess that it isn't good enough for tracking.
In this case, you will need to Rotobrush it. Or manually create a mask. If it is only for a few frames and a smaller part of the screen, I guess a rough mask with a bit of a higher edge blur will do the trick.


Video capture software for 10-bit 4K I have a Blackmagic Intensity Pro 4K video capture card and Panasonic GH4, which can output 10-bit 4K from the HDMI port.

I'm running Windows 10 and I have two 1 TB SSDs, but with write speeds of about 450 MB/s, they are not fast enough to capture uncompressed 10-bit video, which is the only 10-bit option the included Blackmagic software provides.

I'm trying to find video capture software, but Google only reveals abandoned software like Virtualdub and tools for doing screencasts.

Is there video capture software that can handle 4K/10-bit encoded with some kind of codec on a "normal" SSD?

Uncompressed Prores HQ at 10 bit will yield extremely large file sizes. Is there a reason you want prores? 4K 444 10bit uncompressed would be, in my opinion, better captured as an uncompressed AVI "true uncompressed". Or, if your decklink allows it; Uncompressed MOV using the animation codec with Alpha turned off, only RGB.

Also; you may want to use 2 SSDs and RAID 0 them; while your single SSD may be able to sustain 450mb/s, it is going to fill up rather quickly, and any hiccups will cause a stop in capture or drop in frames.

For a fast HDD solution, I recommend an Intel 4 Channel SAS Raid Card; with 4 SSDs in RAID 0; which of course you would want to back up after capture (due to no fault loss protection using RAID 0.  I use this solution using (2) Intel Cards running (4) 1GB Crucial SSDs and I get sustained 2.4 GB/S read and write. So once your capture is finished, you can transfer all your files from your first RAID 0 to your 2nd RAID 0; in roughly 25 minutes - provided you filled the full 4 TB.

There is also a RAID SAS expansion card which allows more drives which can be helpful if you plan on running a RAID 5, 6 or 1, or other setup.

As far as software is concerned; FCP would interface with the Intensity Pro; as would Premiere Pro (recommended) I also believe that Blackmagic has a free download package that allows for captures in various (non-prores) codecs. But uncompressed would be available.

I'd only close with I see no reason to tie yourself to prores unless the post house you're working with or client demands it. AVI or MOV as animation when dealing with 444 is by far the way to go.


How to fit word to width with ffmpeg drawtext filter? A script takes a single word 3 to 11 characters long, draws it with a custom font and overlays on top of a video. The word should fit a certain width.

The animation involves pan and zoom that the word follows. Maybe this compositing job suits smth like After Effects, but the task is ffmpeg implementation. I made it work with the shortest 3-character long sample word and the longest 11-character one.

drawtext filter generates a transparent png with big margins around the text. zoompan filter does the zooming afterwards.

I determined the font size for 3- and 11-char sample words and tried linear interpolation to get font size, depending on the word length. This approach fails with some words, as the font has variable width letters, and "MMM" vs. "III" differs n times in width.

Is there a way in ffmpeg to fit a variable-width text to fixed dimensions?

Maybe some filter to detect a least-sized rectangle with non-transparent pixels?

Plan-B works fine: bash function that calculates word length depending on each letter width in the particular font. Had to measure each letter width in Photoshop in pixels at 100pt font size.

Still wondering if there is a way ffmpeg could scale font size text to fit some fixed width.

There's no way to force the drawtext filter to fit the text in a certain width.

What you can do, is get the rendered text dimensions in a first pass and then run drawtext accordingly in 2nd pass, or crop and scale the output using the values from first pass.

For first pass,

ffmpeg -i video -vf drawtext=fontfile=path/to/font:fontsize=FinalSize:text='Lorem Ipsor' \
                   :x=0+0*print(tw):y=0+0*print(th) -vframes 1 -f null -

This will print the text at the top-left. The print statements will output

84.000000
14.000000

The first value is tw - the width, and the 2nd th - the height, in pixels.


Using little robots to speed up the stop motion animation process I'm not very well experienced in the animations area,but I would like to be more and more experienced in the stop motion tecnique. I would like to know if someone uses pre built (or easy to build) little robots with the stop motion tecnique. I want to move their arms,the head,the legs with a remote control from my pc and then I will make a full video instead of capture single frames by moving their body parts with my hands. I hope that in this way the creation process will be faster. I don't know how could be the result,since I have no experience in the stop motion area,neither. But I wanna try. Thanks.

Your idea sounds absolutely possible. On the other hand you write that you have never done any stop motion.

I think it would be very well advised to start with some basic techniques (by hand) and then see what you can maybe automate in the future.

Building puppets that can be easily animated is a already a complex task, since it usually involves building metal / wire skeletons etc. so I'd slowly approach the overall complexity of the matter and then advance to the next step.

Some introductory reading to get you started:

Stop motion - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion
Go motion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_motion
Pixilation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixilation
Claymation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_animation
Animatronics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animatronics

I think what would more sense is to follow the idea mentioned by Adam Mann Pro using some basic animatronics.  If you build a remote controllable face for the puppets which allow you to easily setup facial expressions, that would speed up the animation process immensely and is in itself already very complex. Here is an example of an animatronics head from the movie "the world's end":


How do I make a space themed video intro? I am new to video editing. I have been using iMovie and there is a preset video intro with a space-theme that I like but i want to edit the intro itself which the iMovie software won't allow me to do. What steps can I take to create the intro myself?

First up you'll have to upgrade to a different Video Editing program that has more support for the custom effects that you'll need to create an intro. For professional-looking video intros, I recommend using Adobe After Effects. Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas Pro and Pinnacle Studio are also viable options.

Since you're new to video editing, I recommend looking for some tutorials on what you're trying to achieve. I found this tutorial on YouTube which seems to fit your description:

Take what you learned from watching tutorials, and use it to create the intro you that suits you.


From logged footage to clips I've got 40 hours of logged footage. I created a new project for each tape, captured the tape, logged it with pen and paper, wrote in some metadata for the file. Now I need to go back through and create clips from the good bits in the footage. How should I do this? Should I make  another new project, import all the avi files into it and mark clips from those (I don't know how to do this), creating new clips in the project library which I can then drag into the timeline and arrange? I've experimented a bit with this process but I'm not too sure.

More recently I had moved to individual clip logging at the logging level and doing batch captures that would capture the individual clips.  With direct to disk systems, it also uses distinct files, so it's been a while since I did this.

That said, what I did for going through long sets of bulk captured footage back in the day was to place the clips on V2 or V3 in my timeline approximately around where I expected to use them.  If I thought they were interesting but didn't know where they would be, I'd put them in another sequence as a set of B-roll shots to pull from.

I then arranged them in to a rough cut, pulling in clips from my B-roll shots where needed.  This works best if you have a pretty decent familiarity with all your footage and a decent idea of your end result, but can also work (I'll be it kind of painfully) if you have less of an idea.  It just takes more culling passes to get it worked down and more video tracks to place clips on.

I also always shifted everything down as I built the rough cut and removed clips I wasn't going to use once I determined they weren't needed.


Build linux render farm in order to render adobe premiere projects I edit my videos on Adobe Premiere (or even Edius) and I want to build a linux based render farm for rendering my projects.

The concepts I've found in my research are 'render manager' and 'frame serving' which won't do a cross platform stuff in the way I desire or please tell me that I'm mistaken!

How do I set up a render farm for this task?

Note that I have a linux server which means it doesn't have a Graphical User Interface.

You can do this by using ffmpeg. Here are the steps:

First do steps of the second method ("Use a frameserver") here.
Beginning this step you should be streaming your Premier timeline through Debugmode and Avisynth on a specific IP and port. Now open a command line and run this ffmpeg command:

ffmpeg -i frameserver.avs -f mpegts  tcp://[IP address of your server]:[open port on your server]

By running this command, you are sending the Avisynth output (streaming) to a destination machine (your Linux server) through ffmpeg.
After this step all you have to do on the client server (where you edit your videos) is done. Next, set up the server side.

On the server (your Linux server), make sure you have ffmpeg installed and run the following command:
ffmpeg -i tcp://[your server IP]:[The same port you entered in step 2]?listen -c:v libx264 -preset medium -crf 23 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 4 output2.mp4

Through this command, ffmpeg will be listening on a specified IP and port and receiving sent packets and encode them with your favorite options!


Resize images for timelapse before editing or at export of finished video? I'm creating a timelapse video which contains around 200,000 pictures.
Before cutting them together i will do some batch color correction with Gimp. Later in the video editing stage (probably using Premiere) I dont plan to change the images but merely cutting them together.

The current image size is 4000x3000 pixels. The final video will be in 1440x1080 pixels.
Should i do the resizing combined with the color correction in gimp or when I export the file from my video editing software?

Does it make any difference?

If I could suggest, use Photoshop to import a sequence of images (they have to be numbered chronologically). There you can edit the sequence just as you would edit a normal photo. Export it as video and then edit with editor of your choice.

I would resize only in the video editor as it gives you the option to change which way you might crop and so forth.


H.265 disadvantages with video dimensions not multiple of 8 Are there any disadvantages (like worse image quality/more compression artefacts) when encoding a video in H.265 with dimensions that are not a multiple of 16 or 8, but instead a multiple of 4 or 2?
For example 1920x816 vs. 1920x818.

At least in file size there seems to be no difference, as far as my tests go.

Since H.265 is computer intensive, encoding H.265 video will consume a lot of time, especially your computer is not power enough. You have to upgrade your CPU and GPU and download a powerful HEVC video encoder that is able to activate the GPU acceleration to do the task.


How to loop an animated mask? I'm trying to make a loop from an animated mask, but each time I introduce my loop expression: loopOut (type="cycle", numKeyframes = 0), After Effects is telling me that:

  "Expression is deactivated, because of line 1 and that the layer doesn't allow loop"

I have tried to use the pre-expressions from the application, but it still doesn't work:

What I'm doing wrong or what else can I do to loop the mask?

This expression is not supported for Mask Path Property, because it's a User Defined Property, see the note of the error message.

Workaround

Mask Path animation once

Precompose your layer an with the animated mask (one time) by Selecting the Layer > Right Click > Precompose (and move all attributes in the new composition)
Enable Time Remapping on your new created composition (Right Click on the composition > Time > Time Remapping), this extends the length of the layer to infinity
Add loopOut(type="cycle") expression to the Time Remapping Property by holding Alt and clicking the stop watch left beside the properties name

Time Remapping enabled on the new composition and expresssion applied

Example

Example using 3 keyframes (third is same as first) and using loopOut() only


Canon 600D/ T3i Video Output and Converting? I purchased Canon 600D Few days ago. I am very new to the kind of photography and Videography .

I generally use my camera for taking pictures in auto mode .But yesterday I was in the party I shoot some good video which is important to me . When I was previewing that video in my camera it was good but when I import that to my system . It was very choppy I played in almost every video player . (. mov) This file works great on my iPod Touch .I read somewhere I have to convert the file so I use some simple convertor in Ubuntu . But I get poor quality video in .avi format. In short

I just want to know 3 things here :

  1) Is it nessecary to Convert video which I shoot from my T3i .

  2) How do I convert video simply without losing its HD quality.(Which
       format is good for HD videos)

  > 3) I am using Sandisk Extreme 4 GB card it is Getting full in 10 min
  in 1920*1080p 24fps.Why it is taking too much space

The default video files made by most Canon DSLRs is an H264 video file in an MOV container.  Decoding high definition video at the data rates that most Canon cameras use is intensive for both memory, disk and CPU unless you have a dedicated decoder chip.  Your iPod Touch uses flash storage (which is fast) and has H264 decoding capability to make it run smoothly.

On the other hand, a lower end desktop in particular is going to have slow hard drives and may not have sufficient power to decode the file on the fly, thus resulting in lag during playback.  Based on the quality level you describe, data retrieval from disk is most likely the problem you are experiencing.  So now with some groundwork set, lets move on to your direct questions.

1) It isn't necessary to convert video you shoot from your T3i.  It's a standard format and will play or be editable on any system capable of playing it.  If you are having issues with the H264 playback lagging on a particular system, you can try converting it to a lower data rate or less CPU/Memory intensive compression.

Either of these options might make the issue worse if you go in the wrong direction (for example, most algorithms that are less CPU intense take more space and vice versa, so if you were CPU limited and you use a higher compression, it might be more jumpy).  You can also simply sacrifice quality to make it play faster and take less space, but this isn't really ideal.

2) Any good transcoder can do the job.  The files that come off the camera are generally pretty high quality and thus should transcode well.  Your choice of encoder depends a lot on the platform you are on.  FFMPEG(MPEG based formats, including H264) isn't that user friendly, but is freely available and works cross platform.  Other options include the free Windows Media Encoder(WMV) on Windows, Quicktime(several formats) on Mac or Windows, Adobe Media Encoder(numerous formats) on Mac or Windows or Microsoft Expression Encoder(WMV).

The basic key for quality conversion is to keep the native resolution (number of pixels) in the video and use a high enough data rate to support the quality.  VBR 2 pass is better than VBR 1 pass which is generally better than Constant Bit Rate, but each takes more time than the latter to encode.

3) Video is BIG.  Really, REALLY, BIG.  Since the camera needs to record fast, fairly limited compression is used.  It sounds like you are probably using All I frame video which is fairly high data rate video.  Keep in mind that you are effectively storing 24 pictures every second, continuously.  If it was truly uncompressed, it would go even faster.  RAW, uncompressed HD video produces 261 megabytes of information PER SECOND! (14 bits per color, 3 colors, 1920 x 1080 pixels per picture, 24 pictures a second.)  Makes 10 minutes on a 4GB card sound a lot better doesn't it?

If you don't need as high of a quality, you can use IBP frame video which will drastically reduce (about 1/5 to 1/6 the size) the amount of space required though it also drops the quality of the video.


"Video Filter missing" in Adobe Premiere Adobe Premiere 5.5
OSX

I have a project I've been working on for a while, which has become huge
It has some Adobe After Effects embedded segments in it, as "Dynamic Links."
At some point I had a filter in one of the segments (QuickLooksLimited)
Later on, I changed machines… and didn't reinstall QuickLooksLimited (I think)?
I've removed some of the AE clips which used this filter, but there may be more

When the project opens, I see the popup message :

  /Volumes/PATH_DIR/PROJECT_NAME.prproj

  Video Filter missing:  AE.MB QuickLooksLimited

(the PATH_DIR and PROJECT_NAME are additions for this post)

So my question(s) are:

how do I find the clip where this darn filter is?
how do I figure out if the filter is still installed somewhere?

There's one way I know of to find the clip that is using the filter. Inside the timeline, you will see a small badge with the letters 'fx' on your clips. If it it grayed out, there is no effect applied. If it is colored purple, yellow, green, or red, then you have an effect on the clip. You can read about that more here...
http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/applying-removing-finding-organizing-effects.html

You can find the plugin file in your After Effects folder.

Windows - Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects\Plug-ins
Mac - Applications/Adobe After Effects/Plug-ins


Need Help in Replacing Screen of 3d rotating phone ( AE CC 2018) First post here! Apologies for any mistakes!

I have a footage of a rotating iPhone with its screen set to green (so I can play around in AE with what to show on the phone screen).

I have tried to manually place my own footage on the screen ( since it's only 30 frames) but of course, that doesn't look good as there are a lot of shaking and inconsistencies.

I tried Mocha in AE but that too doesn't work that well considering this phone rotates in 3d and it's not linear 2D movement.

Tried 3d Camera Tracker in AE but it fails the analysis never succeeds and fails (and IDK why :| )

Attaching required screenshots here. Any help would be appreciated!

Thanks!

Since it's only 30 frames long, I'd probably do away with tracking and just keyframe it manually using the 'corner pin' effect. Or do a partial track with Mocha AE and supplement the parts that start to drift with corner pinned footage.


Does repeatedly saving a video degrade its quality? I take a video file, let's say an mp4, and use, let's say Windows Movie Maker, to repeatedly just save it, with no edits. Every time, the software has to convert the video into a format it can edit, and then convert it back to an mp4. Will the repeated conversions begin to degrade the video's quality if I do this over and over?

MP4 isn't an ideal format for intermediate saves. If you know you'll be re-opening the file, save it as losslessly as practicable, and use MP4 only for the final output.

That said, depending on the encoder and settings you probably don't lose much if anything on subsequent saves. MP4 and similar codecs work by decimating the higher frequencies (details, resolution) in a predictable way. Once you've saved an MP4 at a particular quality setting you've already discarded the information. If you save again using the same settings, there's no information to lose in the areas that have already lost it.


Simulate 'grass' using a replicator In Apple Motion I thought I'd be able to use a replicator to simulate grass using 'Randomize' on the element angle and then duplicating the individual 'blade' elements using a replicator with 'random fill'.

Unfortunately, every element ends up with identical movement - the randomize behaviour globally affects all the replicated elements, so I end up with something like this.

Is there a way to individually randomize the motion of replicated elements?

I went through all the library replicators and found one that used a Randomize behaviour on the cell's Object.Angle Randomness.Angle Randomness. This looks okay. Everything is still kinda moving in sync if you look carefully but things go to different angles more naturally. I think overlaying a couple of these will look about right for my purposes. But I'd still rather each replicated element had parameters of its own.


How can I change the aspect ratio of the sequence preview pane? I'm wondering how I can change the aspect ratio and size of the preview pane on the right in the following image:

The source video (seen on the left) is 1280x720 but the preview pane seems to be set to 1:1. I've tried playing with the options in the right pane (changing 50%, 1/2 etc) but nothing seems to change the aspect ratio and size correctly.

For what it's worth, I can create a new sequence and set it's aspect ratio, but I'm wondering how can I change the aspect ration on an existing sequence?

The program panel's sequence preview is mainly determined by the sequence settings. You can change those via Sequence → Sequence Settings. However, some parameters of a sequence can not be altered after creation, including resolution and aspect ratio (an exception is the automated adjustment of the sequence settings that is offered to you when you drop a clip in an empty sequence that doesn't match the sequence's settings).

To fix your issue, create a new sequence with correct settings. Then go back to your old sequence, select everything (CTRL + A), copy it (CTRL + C) and paste it into the new sequence (CTRL + V). To create a sequence with correct settings automatically, right-click on of your source clips and select New Sequence From Clip (I recommend this if you don't know what some or most of the options in the sequence creation menu mean).

The size of the program monitor's preview can be adjusted with the Select Zoom Level dropdown button in the lower left of the panel. The other dropbown button that you mentioned (the one in the lower right) controls the Playback Resolution.


ffplay -- suppress configuration information on startup Is there a way to suppress configuration information when starting ffplay? I know I could redirect to /dev/null but I don't want to lose stderr or stdout. Thanks!

The intended way to do this is to add -hide_banner. This way, logging is still visible.


How do I remove automatic feathering of shape in Adobe After Effects? Every time I create a new shape layer in Adobe After Effects it has automatically applied some type of feathering to the shape(see image below).

How do I remove this? I would like the edges to be crisp and defined.

Thank you!

It's all about the little sun icon on each layer, called "Collapse Transformations":
It chooses whether to display the image as a vector (sharp) or as a bitmap (possibly blurry depending on the resolution of the layer).  There's lots online about it - here's one example:
https://www.schoolofmotion.com/blog/collapse-transformations-continuously-rasterize-after-effects/


Merge a Premiere-Elements project into another project I want to create reusable video projects and merge them with other projects. For example - create an ending with a copyright notice, a website url, and some more information, and then use that as the ending for multiple videos.

Of course this can be done by simply merging the video output (as I've seen suggested on several threads), but that would reduce the quality. Is there any way to merge a project into another project so as to preserve the quality?

I'm not sure if that can be done in Premiere Elements. In Premiere Pro, you can import sequences from other projects, which would accomplish what you're asking for, but as far as I know, you can't do that in Premiere Elements.


what kind of action cameras are good for 1080p video onboard a high moving object(more than 800kph)? I'm working on a project that will have a camera onboard the object for FPV as it moves in the air at very high speeds. What kind of frame rates are good to transmit and/or record onboard the flight, and what kind of characteristics in  action cameras should I look for. I know asking for 1080p can be hard but nowadays cameras have improved. DO suggest compromises in different areas and their effects on the transmitted video. I'm new to community so do help improve the question with edits and help me out.

EDIT: This will be onboard a plane so under 100-200g with mount and casing(etc) should be ideal for each camera. 30-60 fps of 1080p is more than good enough for FPV as well as other onboard cameras. We aim to supply electricity as part of the electronics onboard, so any battery it has is more an inconvenience and can be bypassed to maintain electronic supply. FPV maybe live(low latency preferred), but other onboard cameras can be just recorded. I found most budget action cameras(60-200$) are around 64GB compatible and 1080p video consumes about 20-40MB/s depending on the camera. Budget is flexible but for 3-4 cameras I have about 700$ but I can stretch by little it if needed. Should I focus on 720p if data consumption limits my flight time, and/or is there any way to have them store onboard a larger data storage system(?)
Thanks a lot. Came here on the recommendation from photography stack exchange.

The usual solution here, used by many pilots is actually the ubiquitous GoPro. They are robust, housings are built for most purposes and the tech is tried and tested, and compatible with everything. Solutions already exist for continuous power.

And the new GoPro 360 cameras will give you views in every direction - may or may not be useful for your use case.

There are budget versions/copies, but GoPro are the most robust I have used for high-g, high exposure uses.

If you are expecting extreme temperatures, then make sure your housing has the temperature control you need. That's what everyone does for mounting cameras on fast/high aircraft :-)


How can internal software clip the 'From Software' channel on my Apogee Duet? I noticed this the other day: the Maestro mixer on my Mac was showing the 'From Software' channel clipping. It happened to be that Radium was playing internet radio and the volume slider on the Radium app was maxed. The sliders on the 'From Software' channel in Maestro were set to 0dB.

How can it be that an internal audio signal, completely digital, can clip a channel like this? Even dropping the sliders down on the channel didn't stop the clipping. I had to reduce the volume via the volume slider in the Radium application. That's got me scratching my head a bit and wondering if the app is really clipping it's audio line or if it's the Maestro mixer's channel strip monitors showing me something that isn't actually happening. I couldn't hear any discernable digital clipping on my monitors.

Here's a picture of it occurring...

It may be that it counts 0dB (i.e. full-scale) as clipping - I've seen this before.


Opacity depending on the layer Is there any shortcut where I can apply a 0% opacity at the beginning of the layer and 100% opacity after 10 frames after the beginning of the layer and can do the reverse as well?

You can do this with an expression on the Opacity property:

fade = framesToTime(10);
fadeIn = (time - inPoint) / fade;
fadeOut = (outPoint - time) / fade;
if (time < inPoint + fade) { ease(fadeIn, 0, 1) * value }
else if (time > outPoint - fade) { ease(fadeOut, 0, 1) * value }
else { value }

This expression will fade the layer from 0% to 100% Opacity across the first 10 frames, then fade from 100% to 0% on the last 10 frames of the layer. This is based on the layer's in and out points on the timeline.

Full tutorial (starts at 3:08):

Hope this helps!


Create a video from a landscape image with ffmpeg I trying to create a video from a landscape image that moves from left to right of the image.

One form that I thought I can get this done is firstly generating N cropped images from the original one, each of them cropped more and more to the right and then apply some command like this one:

  ffmpeg -framerate 1/X -i img%d.png -r 25 -pix_fmt yuv420p out.mp4

This for sure works but is not the quickest and cleaning form to do it.
Are there a better method to accomplish this?

You can just use the crop filter.

ffmpeg -loop 1 -t 10 -i img.png
       -vf "crop=w=W:h=ih:x='(iw-W)*t/10':y=0"
       -r 25 -pix_fmt yuv420p out.mp4

The crop filter crops the image to Wxih pixels where ih is the original height. You should substitute W with your target width in pixels. The position of the top-left corner of the crop window is set by the x and y expressions.

Since you only want to move left-to-right, y is set to a fixed 0. For x, the expression (iw-W)*t/10 governs the horizontal position of the crop window. t is the processed frame's timestamp in fractional seconds. W is substituted with the target width. iw is the input width. The crop will start from the left edge and end at the right edge at t = 10 seconds.

For an image sequence of 10 seconds, use

ffmpeg -i img%d.png
       -vf "crop=w=W:h=ih:x='(iw-W)*t/10':y=0"
       -r 25 -pix_fmt yuv420p out.mp4


How do I decide if 14ms response time in IPS LCD monitor enough? I was considering buying an IPS LCD monitor (this one; though the question is generic).

It lists the response time of 14ms.

How do I judge if that is enough?

I am slightly concerned since some of NewEgg reviews for that monitor mention issues with playback of movies, but I'm not sure if their attributing the problems to the response time is the correct call. Researching online (TomsHardware forums, Yahoo answers, some other forums) keeps giving contradictory answers, some say don't go above 5ms, some say 14 is enough unless you do FPS sensitive high end games.

The intended usages of the monitor include light fare (productivity, web browsing, Youtube, some light gaming where FPS isn't an issue; and - what seems to be the most taxing to me LCD wise - watching movies encoded as DivX or MP4, with resolutions between 720p and 1080p).

Is there danger with ghosting or any other image issues due to 14ms response time given such usage patterns?
What other things may need to be considered that would either mitigate or exacerbate the response time?

A second sub-question is whether this response time will become a serious problem if the user of LCD becomes interested in some light video editing (it's a child, so nothing professional).

At 14ms, you can still get an effective 71 frames per second.  It should be fine for working with video.  The frames might not show up exactly at the start of their time interval, but it still should be ok.

Faster response is still better, but it isn't going to be critical for anything other than really high frame rate gaming.  5ms is very VERY fast for a high end screen.  Cheap screens go faster because they use simple techniques that are fast and cheap but produce (greatly) inferior image quality.  Better screens like IPS and PVA are by nature slower and the last time I was seriously in the market (which was a couple years ago), 6 to 8ms was considered fast for an IPS or PVA.  sub-5 is completely unnecessary.  14ms is probably on the slower end, but should still be fine.  Even 20ms would likely be ok, though it might start getting more noticeable.

As far as if ghosting would be an issue, at 71 refreshes per second, a frame won't be able to off by more than 1/3 or so of a frame.  That's 1/90th or so of a second, so would be pretty minor.  It might make for a slight stutter, but isn't that likely to be noticeable.  I think most of the arguments against it come from the faster is better mantra and the twitch reflex crowd.  You might or might not be able to notice the difference, but it shouldn't be a significant problem and I'd personally much rather have a good quality display with a slower refresh than a display I can only view from one exact angle and even then have color differences from the angle of one eye to the other, but have "crisp" frame rendering.


GoPro footage: premiere playback performance versus system media player I am trying to edit 2.7k 60fps footage (shot with my GoPro Hero 4 Black) using Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. But even when I try to play a clip in the source viewer (i.e. before even putting a clip onto the timeline), I get a very laggy experience that feels like 2 frames per second. If I play the same footage in my OS's native media player (e.g. Windows Media Player or Quicktime) I get smooth playback without any visible frame drops. I have tried converting the H.264 compressed footage to Cineform digital intermediate, but this does little to resolve the problem.

I am aware that editing high resolution video is demanding (see, e.g., Adobe Premiere Pro CC editing/playback performance), but my question is specifically why does playing back raw, unedited footage perform so much worse in Premiere than in a dedicated media player when both are apparently performing the same task?

System specifications are as follows:

System 1: i7 950 at ca. 3GHz, 12GB DDR3, GeForce GTX 760 2GB, 256 OCZ Vertex SSD

System 2: 2013 MacBook Pro Retina, i77 2.7GHz, 8GB 1600MHz DDR3, GeForce 750M, 256GB SSD

I have the same issue on both systems.

I have discovered that this problem is specific to GoPro cameras from the Hero3 and range and later.

For Premiere CS6, the problem can be solved by updating to version 6.0.5. The update can be downloaded here. After installing this update I get flawless playback in Premiere and others have reported that this solution worked for them too.


How to import SVG file into After Effects I am trying to import an SVG animated file to an After Effects project.

It is not importing right now, so are there any solutions or any alternate ways to do that?

Open in Illustrator.

Save as .ai (sorting the layers according to your needs)

Import into Ae.

Mind with the 'Import Kind' upon importing, suggest 'Composition' if you sorted the graphics into numbers of layers.


what should be the minimum write speed of microSD for 30fps 4K, 60 fps 1080p or 100fps 720p etc? I am planning to buy GoPro 4 silver edition. Since they do not come with a microSD I need to choose one. BH video recommends the below one which has 50Mb/s writing speed and costs75$.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/945286-REG/sandisk_sdsdqx_064g_a46a_64gb_extreme_micro_sdxc_uhs_1.html

the one with 30Mb/s writing speed is 40$.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/886007-REG/SanDisk_sdsdqui_064g_a11_64GB_microSDXC_Memory_Card.html

is 30Mb/s enough for me? Or should I go with the expensive one? How can I determine the required speed?

Thanks in advance.

You have to check the specification of your camera.  30Mb/s could be plenty for 60fps 4k or not enough for 24p SD, entirely depending on what format and data rate is being used.  Your camera should say the data rate of whatever you intend to record in.  Use that to determine the needed card speed.  Make sure that the write speed is actually what you need as well as read and write speeds can sometimes differ significantly on SD cards.

According to this page, the Hero4 Silver only supports 15fps 4k recording.  For that particular camera, the required data rate is 45 Mbps.  Note that memory cards are typically advertised for the READ speed which is faster than the write speed in almost all cases.  Verify that the WRITE speed exceeds 45Mbps as the camera needs to be able to catch up on writing if it falls behind.


Burn ASS subtitle onto MKV without any quality loss I want to burn embedded ASS subtitle onto MKV, but I'm completely clueless when it comes to video converting. I want to keep the same quality, file size and everything else but the subtitle hardcoded.

Can you recommend me any programs/settings to achieve this? I heard that Handbrake can do this but I have no idea what settings to use. Thank you.

The only way to do it with literally zero mathematical quality loss is to make a gigantic output file with a lossless codec.  (e.g. utvideo, FFV1, or x264 in lossless mode (--qp 0).

A better solutions that would achieve the same thing is:
mux the subtitle file into the mkv, with mkvmerge.  You set a flag so it either plays by default or doesn't.  Then you'd have an output file with an untouched video stream, so there's no quality loss.  Also, anyone who doesn't need the subtitles can turn them off.  And you can move them around on playback, or use a different font or font size.  e.g. You could move them down into the letterbox black bar that appears when playing a 16:9 video on a 16:10 screen, so they don't hide any of the movie.

If you really want to use the bad solution of drawing them on the video, you'd just going to have to accept the quality loss that you get from another generation of lossy encoding.  Google an example for ffmpeg.  It shouldn't take more than a minute to find a recipe.  I'm not googling for you because I think it's a terrible idea to ever do this, unless you maybe have a hardware player that doesn't support any subtitle formats at all.  (If it supports any subtitle format, converting your ASS subs to that format would be better.)

Anyway, use -c:v libx264 -preset slower -crf 20 as a starting point for your encode.

The ffmpeg full manual is: http://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html  But there's also a wiki with usage examples on their site.


Is there a "fix" for Adobe Premiere Pro so it doesn't degrade sharp black lines and soften vivid colors? I captured video output from a computer program using Xbox Game Bar in Windows 10.  It looks good.  After cropping in Adobe Premiere Pro, my black lines are fuzzed, the vivid colors are degraded, and there appears to be image "echoes" from compression.  The final output is here, and I would like to do better:

Any ideas?
(The video output from Adobe was bad before the upload to YouTube; the thumb on the video start is good.)

First of all, as we've found out in the comments, you actually use Premiere Rush and not Premiere Pro. There is a difference, Premiere Pro is much more complex but it also enables you to take control of many more aspects of the video making process.
The problem is most likely due to compression with a target bitrate that's too low. Rush is optimized for quick social media video sharing and this means they expect videos to be about a person talking about something filmed in front of a mostly static background, for example. They didn't have videos as yours in mind that require higher bitrates to look sharp and clean.
Normally I don't use Rush, but tried it to check what can be done in your case. Unfortunately, I don't see any option you can try. Setting the quality to high is already the best you can do. Using the 4k preset may help if the original clip has been recorded at 4k.
Another option you can try is to install ffmpeg and use it from the command line. A question that deals with adding the crop effect, you need, is this one: How can I crop a video with ffmpeg?
Handbrake is a GUI tool, that uses ffmpeg and another alternative to try.
Or you could try Premiere Pro (if it's not in your subcription plan you could still try it for a number of days for free). However, both Premiere and ffmpeg are more complex.
It might be good to record another 5 min clip to save time when you try to find out the highest bitrate you need to make it look pleasant, yet still produce videos that are suitably small for upload to the web.


Please tell me if i can use this song and it's title in my promotional film? I am making a film promoting a health product. I want to use the words "eat, sleep, rave" as screened text throughout the film. This is the name of a Fat boy slim song. I also want to know if I can use this remix of the song as background music. It holds a creative commons license. But I am very ignorant towards copyright laws and what I can and can't do. Obviously the product is not related to the song, other than its use for rejuvenation after a late night. Here is the link to the creative common's remix. https://soundcloud.com/riotten/eat-sleep...

Here is a link to the old promotional video-

For this, you'll really need to see a lawyer to determine if the original re-mix has sufficient rights to the song to place their remix under Creative Commons in the first place.

If they do, then it depends what Creative Commons license they used.  As long as it allows commercial usage (not a NC license) then you would be ok as long as you followed the rest of the terms of the applicable Creative Commons license.  (For example, you would need to post the video under the same type of Creative Common's license.)


How to animate size parameter of ffmpeg zoompan filter? How is it possible to dynamically evaluate the s (output image size) parameter of ffmpeg zoompan filter on each frame?

The parameter expectes its value in "WxH" format i.e. "1920x1080".
How to substitute an expression that would update the size as a function of, say, frame number?

Couldn't find a way to concatenate strings.

For a single number parameter I can do smth like y='(out_h-in_h)/2', but how to take two expressions and join them with an "x" string?

The zoompan size parameter cannot be animated. It has to be a fixed numeral size of the form WxH, or a size label like hd1080.


Multiple expression controls in ONE FX controller For the sake of a cleaner workspace is it possible to have multiple expression controls, such as slider controls, in the same FX control?

Basically, instead of seeing "Slider Control" and "Slider Control 2" I would like both of the actual sliders to reside under the same "Slider Control" heading.

No that is not possible, as far as I know. (Tho perhaps it could be with a little programming, using the ScriptUI API. Here's the complete reference.)

However it is possible to rename the "Slider Control" and "Slider Control 2" labels to something more useful to you. That's what I usually do. Just click on the name and hit Return on the keyboard to rename.


Avidemux - how to add my site's name to the beggining of the video OK, I have Avidemux and I want to add my site's name, description, address and logo to the beginning of my videos. I made a PNG image with these items, and with the same resolution of my videos. But I don't know how to configure how many time it will appear in the screen. I don't want it blinking for only 1/30s. Maybe 1.5/2s. How can I do that?

If there is no way to do that using Avidemux, can you please tell me how I can do this using other open-source video editor (for Windows)?

It is not easiest software for video composing, but you can find tutorial here, how to achieve what you want.

I advice you to use something with timeline like Windows Movie Maker or Lightworks. So you can see your changes on timeline.

I believe you also can use ffmpeg for that purpose, but it will be more complex.


Camera-projector installation and reducing projector feedback I'm working on a top-down projection game where i detect objects from the real world and project contours on them. My problem is with the output of the projector, I would like to know how to eliminate the feedback/not pick up the projector's output. Will using an infrared camera guarantee that or should i use other things?
I tried placing a solar filter (from a floppy disk) in front of the camera which helped but i had to have a bigger light source in order to see the real objects.
This is my first time working on such a project so i would appreciate your help.

If you place an IR-blocking filter in front of the projector and a IR-pass filter in front of an IR-sensitive camera and illuminate your objects with IR light, then the camera will see nothing from the projector, and you can color your contours with any visible light colors.


Why is Olympic slow motion footage sharp with little motion blur? Do the 'broadcast quality' cameras used in the 2016 Olympic Games have higher than normal frame rates? It seems that their slow motion footage is smoother, sharper, and less motion blurred than typical day-to-day productions from local stations.

The MacCAM (used in Tennis back in 2004) used a 1000 fps frame rate and had just enough resolution to capture a tennis ball hitting (or missing) a line with reasonable resolution.  Today, a Phantom Flex 4K can do 1000 fps with UHD or 4K resolution.  Many high-end broadcast cameras can do 120 fps at FullHD or UHD resolution, which is probably what they were using at the Olympics.  That's 4x slow motion for NTSC-land and nearly 5x slow motion for PAL-land.  That is a great frame rate for anything but the fastest sports (badminton, ping pong, etc).

The Panasonic Varicam HS is a broadcast camera that does 240 fps.  I wasn't watching these Olympics closely enough to see whether this was the camera used for the gymnastics event, but wouldn't be surprised if it was.


How can I add a transition between two cuts of the same clip in Premiere Pro CS5? I've run into what I think is a bug in Premiere Pro CS5.  I've got one large clip that was pulled from an analog camera, and I'm cutting it into scenes.  When I try to add a transition between two such scenes, it just doesn't work.  If I do a two second clock wipe, for instance, I can see the hand of the clock rotating, but I just see the left image for one second, then a sudden cut to the right image for one second, with no transition.  Can anyone confirm that this is a bug, and is there a workaround?  Thanks.

Well, I never got this to work, but for some reason, Premiere did allow the fade to black transition, so I used that one.  Not ideal, but it sufficed for this project.


OS X: What software for cutting videos? On Windows, I've used Solveig Multimedia Video Splitter and it will cut the video on exactly the time range listed (example: 00:11:34.004 to 00:34:45.005)

I've tried a freeware app LosslessCut (which uses FFmpeg) and it only trims cuts on the B-frames I think.

Any suggestions? Thanks.

If you're looking to only trim videos, I would recommend checking out ffmpeg. It's easy to use from the mac terminal and is able to trim videos with -ss and -t. For downloads and documentation visit:

ffmpeg.org


Marvel-like Image Flipping Technique What software can I use to create the "Marvel" movie like flipping effect that accompanies pretty much every Marvel movie? I am looking to create a home movie on my PC that flips through a bunch of pictures really fast as to show time flying by, so to speak. I do not own Adobe After Effects. Looking for cheap or open source.

Firstly to clarify is it this kind of effect your want to create?

I know you dont have after effects and your looking for something free, however you can get a free trial if you dont want to use the software for long.

You can download this at:
www.adobe.com/go/tryaftereffects/

Here is this video tutorial on how to replicate something similar to the marvel style.

Hope this Helps!


Blu-ray transcode to H.265 using Intel Quick Sync Video Blu-ray transcode to H.265 using Intel Quick Sync Video

I just started a process of transcoding about 100 video discs (with DTS-HD Master Audio on passthrough) from my collection of Blu-rays and want to store them for backup purposes solely.

Source video codec: Advanced Video Codec at profile High@L4.1.

Target video codec: H.265 using Intel Quick Sync Video.

Hardware being a new laptop with:

CPU: Intel Core i7 7700HQ (Kaby Lake).
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 630 integrated in the CPU, capable of Intel Quick Sync Video hardware encode of H.265.

I do this with HandBrake software version 1.0.7 under Windows 10 Pro.

In short I have applied Constant quality with RF20 and Quality preset for the video.

Originals are all at fixed 7.5 GiB size (it is a series on a Blu-ray Double-layer, so on 1 disc there are 5 episodes).

The sizes of my encodes are usually around 3 GiB +/- 0.5 GiB.

That is about 40 % of the original size overall.

Problem

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema plays the video using Native DXVA2 with some unexpected effects, I am unable to describe it, so here's an image in 4K UHD:

I own a license for PowerDVD 17 Ultra, it plays the video just fine, but it does play the video only, not playing the audio at all.
Only VLC Media Player plays both video and audio well.

Question

Could anyone point me to the right direction as to if I am doing anything wrong?

Or are these effects of Intel Quick Sync Video normal?

Wrong container format (MP4)

I omitted the information about the container format. I used MP4 in preliminary tests in an effort to increase compatibility with portable devices.

It did not cross my mind that this would be the cause for the missing audio in PowerDVD 17 Ultra player. So the container has been changed to MKV. It did not, however, change anything on the artifacts in Media Player Classic - Home Cinema.

Probably buggy implementation of Native DXVA2 in Media Player Classic - Home Cinema

Thanks to Mulvya, we have found a work-around (not a solution). It seems to be buggy implementation of Native DXVA2 in Media Player Classic - Home Cinema. Switching to Video Mixing Renderer 9 (renderless) works well.


Converting MTS for best use in After Effects? I have a client who gave me nothing but MTS files to use in After Effects. Basically it's HD slow motion photography, shot sideways, against a greenscreen, and all he wants to do is put one 1920 x 1080 composition up against another (they are rotated 90 degrees), have em move in the slow motion he shot them as, and fade out to another.

It's more of an effect, than a movie, so we're working completely in After Effects, no need to go back to any NLE. There's also no audio.

After Effects WILL work with MTS, but it runs really slow and was going to take hours just to render out 10 seconds. So I suggested we find a way to compress them, while still keeping the quality. (Also the greenscreen needs to retain data to be keyed out)

I've tried using Adobe Media Encoder to try out these formats. Note that the source MTS is 500MB, and 4 mins.

Quicktime PNG Codec (NO, LOSS QUALITY BAD) I forget the size, deleted it.

Quicktime ProRes422 : (SEEMS QUALITY RETAINED, FILE SIZE TRIPLES THOUGH) 2GB

Quicktime Animation (NO, LOST TOO MUCH QUALITY, ALL TILING AND PIXELATED) 5GB

Quicktime Cinepak (NO, SO MUCH QUALITY LOSS THAT IT LOOKS LIKE A 256 GIF PAINTING NOW) 600MB

Quicktime H.264 (NO, BLURRY QUALITY PIXELS) 37MB

Quicktime TIFF Codec (NO, LOST TOO MUCH QUALITY, ALL TILING AND PIXELATED) 10-FRICKEN-GB

Quicktime MPEG-4 VIDEO (NO, BLURRY QUALITY PIXELS, LOOKS LIKE H.264 RESULT) 28MB)

Quicktime HDV1080p24 MPEG-2 (WE MIGHT HAVE A WINNER) 600MB

TIFF SEQUENCE (Hasn't exported yet)

FLV (Hasn't exported yet)

Yeah....so I'm not sure what to do here. Again, the final result, is a no-audio, 1920 x 1080...not sure frame rate, VLC says some crazy number like 46.3432, that retains quality and can be reliably keyed, and renders out the fastest that After Effects CS5 (or 5.5, don't remember, it's the clients) will allow, because my client needs to be able to compare compositions against each other and stuff.

Thanks, I'm going crazy here!

Also, I asked CC, but figured I'd get faster responses here.

Use ClipWrap to convert the MTS file into a Quicktime Movie file (e.g. ProRes 422 codec).  There's a free version and a paid version - both will do what you need:
http://www.divergentmedia.com/clipwrap

Handbrake will also do this, I believe:
http://allmybrain.com/2010/01/05/handbrake-can-convert-mts-files-for-mac/


How to fade in/apply transition as a node in Fusion to image in Davinci Resolve? Title says it all. I have a media-type node in Fusion which is an image, which I'd like to fade in + out/transition with dissolve as a node inside of a video.

However, the "Dissolve (DX)" node doesn't behave in a way that I understand. When I add it in, add keyframes and a spline to control the background/foreground dissolve, nothing comes out of the output (my output screen has a null/empty output, as if I haven't connected up to MediaOut).

There are many ways fade in/out the opacity of a clip in Fusion, and which method you choose depends on your needs.

If, your composition only contains one MediaIn node, and you want the actual compositing to occur outside the Fusion page (to keep your edit flexible, for instance), then a simple method is to use a brightness/contrast node, and animate the Gain slider between zero and one.  Make sure the R, G, B, and A channels are all included in the operation by enabling the corresponding boxes at the top of the inspector.  The Alpha (A) channel is particularly important, as it is the property which controls the extent to which the colors of pixels mix when they are superimposed.  As an exercise, try disabling the R, G, and B channels, and animating A to see the difference between Alpha and Color contribution.  You'll see that Alpha isn't the same as the “opacity” slider in other areas of the Resolve interface.

In another case, suppose you have two media sources inside your Fusion composition, and you want to layer them together and animate a transition from one to the other.  A convenient way to accomplish this is included in the Merge node that you'd need to use to combine the images anyway.  However, if you try moving the alpha gain slider down, the results might not be what you expect.  You'll notice that the results of this action look exactly like the example above, where you only affected the alpha gain channel in the B/C node.  To get the Merge node to affect the R, G, and B channels as well as Alpha, you need to slide the Additive/Subtractive slider over to Subtractive.

Hope this helps.


Live Video object tracking Is there any (Open Source or Low Cost) software that can track x,y position of objects in live video?

An example would be tracking the position of a player in a soccer match.

OpenCV is a good repository of computer vision resources. An example of how to select and track a region of interest is given here: https://docs.opencv.org/3.4.0/d2/d0a/tutorial_introduction_to_tracker.html

Also see an example blog post here: https://www.learnopencv.com/object-tracking-using-opencv-cpp-python/

More state of the art research results and code in visual object tracking are maintained at the following website: http://www.votchallenge.net/vot2017/trackers.html


Adobe Premiere saves m4v instead of mp4 I have problems with my Premiere Pro. It is first time this has happened, and I cannot understand why.

I am creating a timelapse from my images. When I want to export media, I choose format H.264 (not H.264 Blu-ray), dimensions 1920x1080. Output name is visible as "Sequence02.mp4".

After export is finished, there is a file "Sequence02.m4v" on disk. Why? What causes Premiere to change file format by itself? I used Premiere before and this never happened. Maybe I'm using some different setting, but what could cause this change?

I encountered the same issue when I turned the sound off in the sequence.  When I re-enabled audio export, even though I didn't want to or need to, it saved as an mp4 again.


How are 3-dimensional overlays synchronized with videos? One popular feature on TV nowadays is to create 3D overlays on top of the recorded content. Also, as the camera changes direction or position, the 3D content view is subsequently adjusted. How is this implemented?

There are two different approaches that can be used.  Motion/Camera tracking and Motion Control.

In Motion or Camera tracking, multiple non-coplanar fixed points in the scene are tracked and from that it is possible to extrapolate the position of the camera within the scene.  This information can then be fed into a virtual camera used to generate the output from the 3d model such that when the 3d model output is superimposed over the video, the movements line up.

Motion Control is similar but uses a special camera rig to either track the camera movement exactly or to reproduce a movement plotted in the 3d software exactly in real life.  This is the more precise but also much more sophisticated approach as it requires far more elaborate gear to do.  It also allows for more accurate tracking of things like change in zoom verses actually moving the camera in (which are otherwise only evident by fairly subtle shifting of perspective and vanishing points.)

The result of both is effectively similar though.  You end up with data on how the camera moves in the real life scene and it matches the movement done in the 3d scene.  There are other factors such as lighting that also have to be matched for the best looking composition.  Then both outputs are brought in to a composition package like After Effects where they can be overlayed and blended together.  Sometimes various additional effects like depth of field and other virtual camera effects may be applied to help it blend.

Another thing is that if anything in the real scene needs to move in front of the 3d object, then they need something called a mask layer.  This is normally produced by rotoscoping, which is a process of updating the image on every frame to follow the subject.  This mask then tells the compositing software that the real video plate should be placed over the 3d plate on the areas where the mask is painted.  Otherwise the 3d plate is used over the real plate.  Alpha channel blending is used to convey information about the transparency of a 3d shape such that the image behind it can be visible.

If the 3d object has any refractive properties, then the real life plate may be fed into the 3d software as an environment.  Then the 3d render engine can actually sample information from the environment in order to figure out refraction in things like a glass object or a 3d object with a mirror.  Since it is mapping a 2d environment onto a 3d one, a lot of the selection of how the environment is applied would be done manually though.


Using ffmpeg to stream to or from Blackmagic Decklink Card I want to use blackmagic cards with ffmpeg to stream their input but there is a problem.

When I use "H264 Pro" Encoder as a "decklink" or "dshow" input, I see this error in command line output of ffmpeg. Device is ok and I can Use it with other applications like MXPTiny or MXLight.

Here is the command and output:

ffmpeg -f dshow -list_devices true -i dummy -hide_banner
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0] DirectShow video devices (some may be both video and audio devices)
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0]  "Integrated Webcam"
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0]     Alternative name "@device_pnp_\\?\usb#vid_0c45&pid_641d&mi_00#7&11c87d18&0&0000#{65e8773d-8f56-11d0-a3b9-00a0c9223196}\global"
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0]  "Decklink Video Capture"
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0]     Alternative name "@device_sw_{860BB310-5D01-11D0-BD3B-00A0C911CE86}\{44A8B5C7-13B6-4211-BD40-35B629D9E6DF}"
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0] DirectShow audio devices
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0]  "Microphone (2- High Definition Audio Device)"
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0]     Alternative name "@device_cm_{33D9A762-90C8-11D0-BD43-00A0C911CE86}\wave_{11A03288-DE6D-4A21-A66E-DC9303E838FA}"
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0]  "Decklink Audio Capture"
[dshow @ 0000000004efa5a0]     Alternative name "@device_sw_{33D9A762-90C8-11D0-BD43-00A0C911CE86}\{AAA22F7E-5AA0-49D9-8C8D-B52B1AA92EB7}"
dummy: Immediate exit requested

and when I use "Decklink Audio Capture" to identify its options, here is the output:

ffmpeg -f dshow -list_options true -i video="Decklink Video Capture" -hide_banner
[dshow @ 000000000388a660] Unable to BindToObject for Decklink Video Capture
[dshow @ 000000000388a660] Could not find video device with name [Decklink Video Capture] among source devices of type video.
video=Decklink Video Capture: Input/output error

I know this is pretty old BUT as far as I know ffmpeg and Blackmagic Gear, you will have to set your input options according to the Stream it gets from the H-264 encoder.

So you need to tell ffmpeg that it gets H-264 encoded video and AAC encoded audio - then it should work.

This is not an issue with the DeckLink cards as they output raw video data.
You might give it a shot...