I am doing a scene in a movie where someone runs through a forest I don't know how to keep a moving camera steady. I also want to properly light this, is there a way I can get light into a forest? Or is there a good program to fix lighting. (I heard about color-grading, but i'm not sure what it is.)

There are a number of options for keeping a moving camera steady. There's the new electronically controlled gimbal mounts, they do an amazing job of removing camera movement, and they're relatively inexpensive to buy or hire. I use one of these, and it's great for DSLRs or a Blackmagic Cinema camera.

There are also passive stabiliser mounts, that let the camera swing freely but use weights to slow the rotation down. If you're on a super low budget you might want to consider one of these.

Going the other way are the full-body stabiliser rigs like SteadyCam and GlideCam. These are rigs that the operator wears and provide a very stable platform for even quite large cameras. We have a glideCam rig where I work and from experience it requires a fair bit of practise to use well - not to mention stamina and physical strength.

As for lighting, you can't fix what you can't see. Colour correction and grading will fix problems and create a 'look', but you have to be in the ball park for the results to be any good. This is because physics: if you don't have enough light and you try to bring up the levels in post you're only going to get a bunch of noise. Similarly if your picture is completely blown out you won't be able to retrieve any information where the levels are completely white.

To light a forest requires either big lights and a generator truck, or imagination. Without large light sources you're only going to get pools of light, so you need to use smaller shots and edit it cleverly. You could give the character a practical source of light - torch, lantern burning branch, and then move the light source with them, using the pools of light it creates.

Another good trick for lighting for darkness is to mainly light from behind, giving your subjects rim light, but little light on their faces, except maybe a small eye light and some bounce. For close-ups you bring in a bit more fill, but for the wides you keep everything silhouetted.

You can also shoot day for night. That's where you shoot during the day, but then bring down the exposure and saturation and grade it to give the feeling of night time. Done badly it looks rather cheesy, but it is a common technique, you'll find plenty of tutorials for it.


How to map streams to specific output streamIDs I'm trying to map specific streams to specific output indexes. The command I'm using is more complex but it can be reduced to this simple example

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -y -map 0:0 -c:5 copy -f mp4 out.mp4

I expected this to copy stream 0 from input.mkv into stream 5 of out.mp4. The issue is that it copies it into stream 0 (I guess it's using a counter?). Why is that and how can I force it to assign it a different index number?

Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 (native) -> h264 (libx264))

It's using a counter! To get it to be stream #5, map 5 streams before it :)

That said, mp4box will allow you to set a custom track ID.

mp4box -set-track-id 1:5 file.mp4

This changes existing track with ID 1 to 5. Use mp4box -info file.mp4 to get existing IDs.

However, this will still show up as stream 0 in ffmpeg. But mediainfo and mp4box will show it as having ID 5.


Nikon D5200 sharpness issue I've recently been experimenting with the video feature of my D5200 and noticed this issue with the sharpness of the recordings:

2x video crop screenshot:

2x photo crop screenshot

As image width is limited on stackexchange you may want to look at the screenshots in an extra tab for the full resolution. Both shots were taken using the exact same camera settings. I scaled the photo to match the video and I don't think it was sharpened while downscaling. Oh and by the way, I am using the 40mbps firmware patch, but I don't think that should decrease video sharpness.

Has anybody got an idea why this is?

My guess is that it's simply because the photo was shot in a much higher resolution than the video. Even though they were downscaled to the same resolution, a (previously) higher-resolution image will look better in this situation in the same way that a clip shot in 4K will look better on a 1080p monitor than a clip shot in 1080p on the same monitor.


Embedded HD video looks fuzzy on full screen but fine at Vimeo Any idea as to why an embedded HD video would get fuzzy at full screen, but looks fine at Vimeo using the same full screen icon. Using the full screen icon on the video player window on this site,http://southplattebasin.com/. Seems to happen on some larger monitors. The only difference is that the HD video is embedded vs not embedded. TIA

To embed a HD video hosted on Vimeo, you need Vimeo PLUS or PRO.

From this page:

  Can I make my embedded videos default to HD?

  Plus and PRO members have the ability to not only embed their videos
  in glorious HD, but also to default those videos to be viewed in HD.
  This is a sweet way to make sure that your crisp, high definition
  videos are seen in their full glory when they're embedded around the
  interwebs.

They even made a simple diagram to explain it.


After Effects added an extra move to the animation, how to get rid of it? As you can see in the Value Graphic, the second part of the line is a broken line, but I didn't make it that way, and I can't fix that.

That causes the shape to continue moving forward a little bit instead of going back immediately.

I didn't set easy ease or staff like that. It happens every time, but I don't know what is controlling this!

Help!

OK, I finally figured it out. This bug is known as "Boomerang Effect".

Reason: Bezier will cause After Effects randomly mass up the path of the shape.

So you can simply right click the keyframe than select "Keyframe Interpolation" from the menu, than set "Spatial Interpolation" to "Linear" instead of "Auto Bezier", it'll fix everything!

These two video tutorial helped me a lot: AE Boomerang Effect, Part 1 and AE Boomerang Effect, Part 2 they explain the principle of this problem.


How to make a video from a still image and an audio file? I have an image file (png) and an audio file (aiff).  How do I combine them to make a video file that shows the still image and plays the audio file?

Target operating system: either OS X Lion or Ubuntu, using only free software, must be command-line driven (no GUI solutions please).  Thanks in advance!

To expand upon ObscureRobot's answer, use ffmpeg like so:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -f image2 -r 2 -i input1.png -i input2.aiff -c:v libx264 -c:a copy -shortest output.mp4

-loop 1 -f image2 -r 2 -i input1.png tells ffmpeg to loop input1.png forever, at a frame rate of 2fps. -c:v libx264 tells it to use x264 to encode the video, and -c:a copy tells it to simply copy the audio, without encoding. -shortest makes ffmpeg stop when the shortest input ends - input2.aiff in this case.


Split one video file into small files made up of its scenes I'm trying to come up with a workflow to take completed short films, and split them up into individual files based on where each shot that makes up the film starts and ends.

I've used the scene detection feature in Adobe SpeedGrade to figure out where shots should start and end, but I'm having trouble taking that information and actually rendering out individual shots based on it. I had expected to be able to bring this info back into Premiere Pro using an EDL (Edit Decision List) but none of the "cuts" that SpeedGrade marked seem to be reflected when I try this. Either I'm doing something wrong or Premiere/SpeedGrade can't support this sort of workflow.

Also to keep in mind, this is expected to be a repetitive process, and I'm developing this workflow for people who may be inexperienced in video editing, so it really should be automated as much as possible. Manually entering the start and end times of each shot isn't really a viable option because it would be ridiculously time consuming, even after SpeedGrade determines these times.

For AVI-Files there is a little program that can help you split your file into scenes: http://www.avcutty.de/english/index.htm


Making background element out of a part of a video I have this shot which has the right door color corrected to make it look dark and red :

How would I go about making it part of the "background" so that when someone comes in front of it, he is not affected by the correction like in the shot below :

I tried looking into Masks as background or 3D layers but couldn't seem to find what I'm looking for. I'm sure it's an easy thing to do but I just need guidance on what to look / search for.

You need to rotoscope every object in front of your "background". There is not simple solution, because AE cant tell the difference between you foreground and background. Even I can't tell, because people drop shadows on your "background", etc.

You can try to use rotobrush for that, but if you have there a lot of people, it will require a lot of work.


How to embed multiple images in a video recording I have on one side a video (of someone giving a talk) and on the other side a list of slides that were used, and the timing at where the slides were switched. I want to embed the slides in a resulting video. Do you know how to do this?

I've found how to do it with one image, but I don't know if it's possible to do it with multiple ones?

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i image.png \
-filter_complex "[0:v][1:v] overlay=25:25:enable='between(t,0,20)'" \
-pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy \
output.mp4

You can chain multiple overlay filters where each instance overlays one slide, but this will very quickly produce an unwieldy command. It's more convenient to do this in two steps. 1) Generate a video of the slides only with the required timings. 2) Use a simple ffmpeg command to overlay that video onto the main video.

For the first step, I've pasted an earlier answer I gave:

  You can use a combination of two tools to do this: ffmpeg and
  mp4fpsmod

  Step 1 is to generate a constant frame rate file using ffmpeg

ffmpeg -i images%d.bmp -pix_fmt yuv420p ffmpeg-cfr.mp4

  Step 2 is to generate a timecode file like the one below, with each line containing the relative timestamp for a frame in
  milliseconds.

# timecode format v2

0
33
88
100
120
160
200
230
330
347

  Step 3 is to use mp4fpsmod to generate the VFR file

mp4fpsmod -o vfr.mp4 -t timecodes.txt ffmpeg-cfr.mp4

  This file plays as expected with ffplay but may not with some
  players, in which case run

  Step 4 Generate a CFR MP4 from the VFR using FFmpeg

ffmpeg -i vfr.mp4 final-cfr.mp4

  This is a CFR file but the temporal relations are preserved as per the
  VFR, although there will be some PTS adjustments, if the timecode
  intervals are very irregular. That can be remedied by specifying a
  high framerate -r N

You'll have to rename your slide images so that their names form a continuous regular sequence. And for your case, I'd suggest your Step 1 command should be

ffmpeg -i images%d.png -c:v libx264rgb -pix_fmt rgb24 ffmpeg-cfr.mp4

and Step 4 if needed should be

ffmpeg -i vfr.mp4 -crf 16 -c:v libx264rgb final-cfr.mp4

You can then overlay the latest file onto the lecture video, using a command like the one in your question.


Audio Not Playing on Imported Video Files I a currently editing a video and imported a .avi movie into my After Effects project. I went to check the RAM preview, but there was no sound. I checked the audio preview and there still was no audio. I checked the waveform and it showed a straight lines, showing that there was no audio being produced from the video.

I checked the video to see if there was sound playing and I determined there was. I also have another .avi file in the project and it plays audio with no problem.

Please help! Thanks in advance!

Update: It works for some reason now... but now my characters are talking really fast and the video is going too fast! Help!!!

Fixed it! Thanks for the help!

Check for a couple things, as there's more than one thing to cause this. First, make sure sure in your preview preferences that audio is enabled. Also, check that the duration isn't set to zero (default should be 30s, set it appropriately). Then RAM Preview with 0 on the number pad. You can scrub through audio only in the timeline by ctrl+alt+dragging (Windows) or cmd+option+dragging (Mac) to double-check existence of audio. You can also preview audio only by choosing Composition > Preview > Audio Preview.

More detail can be found at these two links:

Adobe help document on previewing audio and video.

Adobe forum post about this issue.


Split-screen closed-circuit sports recording We want to make recordings of high school hockey games for coach and player reviewing.  However, getting a good shot of the entire rink with one camera is impossible.  Using a student to record the game live has proven to be a problem, because the student usually will watch the game and forget he's recording it, so a lot of the action is missed.  So, I was thinking about putting two static cameras at the centerline, one shooting one side of the rink and one shooting the other, then combining into a split-screen video, and then recording that video, so that it can easily be played back at a later time.

So, I have a couple of issues with this:

How to combine the two video streams into a split-screen video.
How to then digitally record these videos for later viewing (digital is preferred, due to the ease of copying and playback).
I would actually prefer HD video... Is that even possible?
Prefer hardware rather than software based, due to the environment.

Any ideas would be appreciated!  I have been googling this and am having a very difficult time finding pro-level equipment made for this... There's a variety of i* apps, and in-car mobile video products, but none of them seem like the right fit.

Your best bet to easily do this is probably to set up two cameras with half the field of view being used.  Then simply setup a simple project that can combine the two and encode it for electronic distribution.  If you want to do an all digital route, you are still going to need to run an encoding after the fact to get the size down, so doing the combination of two feeds as a fixed project in post is probably the most straight forward.  Should be able to just copy the files and hit go.


Watermark in 64-bit AviSynth+ The Watermark filter listed in the AviSynth External filters page works for 32-bit. On my 64-bit machine, after downloading, extracting, and playing the example file in the filter page, I see:

Cannot load a 32 bit DLL in 64 bit Avisynth: '/path/to/extracted/directory/Watermark.dll'. (/path/to/extracted/directory/example.avs, line1)

The first line of example.avs has:

Load_Stdcall_plugin("Watermark.dll")

Does an equivalent plugin exist for 64-bit AviSynth+?

Presuming you are talking about the Watermark2 filter, the AviSynth wiki page for the filter has for download a 64-bit, AviSynth+ version of the filter.


Intermediate Codec for Resolve to Adobe Mediaencoder or Premiere Pro I am editing in Resolve, sometimes I am also just Color Grading in Resolve, so I need an intermediate Codec between Resolve and Adobe Media Encoder or Premiere Pro.
The size doesn't matter as much, as I can delete the intermediates afterwards, what is important is to keep the quality of the video on a high standard.

I shoot in DCI4k and FHD in 12bit (per channel).

I found that Cineform is recommended often, but is it wise to use Cineform as an intermediate when I don't export to an Apple Format afterwards?

Cineform is fine, as is DNxHR and ProRes. There are advantages and disadvantages of each, but the final container format that you export to doesn't really affect that choice. When you edit the intermediate it is decoded into a raster that has whatever resolution and depth your editing software uses internally, but we can assume that it will be higher quality than the intermediate or final codec. Then that raster gets recompressed to the final export codec.

It is possible that there are interactions between using one codec for intermediate and one for final export but they are going to be subtle, and assuming the quality of the codecs are roughly the same, whether it's better to use the same codec in and out or mix it up, is anyone's guess.

Another option is to change your workflow. There's a reason why colour grading was usually done last. Here's a suggested workflow:

Make a "one-light" grade of your raw footage—where you correct any obvious problems such as white balance and exposure, and apply any necessary LUTs if your camera uses a profile that needs correction.  It's called "one light" because you don't grade every shot, you just set a ballpark grade for each scene and apply it to everything. This shouldn't take too much of your time, you just want the footage to be usable for your edit.
Now you export the output to Premiere, using an intermediate codec and importantly exporting as individual clips with the same file name as the original (but in a different location, obviously). This intermediate doesn't have to be at the highest settings, e.g. you can use 8-bit instead of 10 or 12 bit. This speeds up the edit process, because the files will be smaller, so it will be more responsive, with less rendering time etc.
Next do your cutting, lock off your pictures and export the timeline as XML. You can move or delete your intermediate files now, so that when you go back to resolve to do the grade you link back to your camera originals, at full quality. Now you do the proper grade, where you create the look you want, balance between shots, do any secondary grading, etc.. This way you get the best possible quality, without spending time grading footage that you end up not using in the edit.


Is it possible to use an SSD for the RAM preview in After Effects CC? I'm looking at my options, I would like to buy an SSD to do RAM previews with but I'm not sure if it can be configured this way... is there anyone else that has tried this?

An SSD is a replacement for a hard drive, not a replacement for RAM.

RAM previews are rendered into your computer's system RAM, not to internal storage (and then you can save the RAM preview to disk if you wish).

Having said that, I recently replaced a 7200rpm internal hard drive in my macbook pro, and added some more RAM. It makes a huge difference to the speed of loading and saving, and seems to improve render times to some extent too. It's like buying a new computer- I would definitely recommend it.


Editing movies with FFMPEG in command line Is there any crazy guy out there who has tried to mount an entire movie (short or not) using the army knife ffmpeg command line tool?

While travelling with my 10-year-old Linux laptop I produced an application video for an acrobatics teacher training.  Nothing fancy, but it turned out decent.  I'm not sure if this qualifies as a "movie" since it's just a series of unrelated clips accompanied by music. The video is about 10 minutes long.  It's also up on youtube but I think not playable in some countries due to use of copyrighted music.

I was working on another one, an acroyoga flow performance shot on a couple of phones, but there didn't seem to be a way to get ffmpeg to do a Ken Burns zoom over multiple frames of video without a weird stuttery effect.  So I decided to wait until I got home to finish that one in FCP.

I found it was a pretty straightforward approach.  I like that the parameters are all explicitly stated and you don't have to go digging into settings in the hope that you might figure out how to, for example, replicate the scaling that you used on a particular clip.  Perhaps that speaks to my lack of experience with video editing.  Also if you're not a relatively advanced command line user it would be more complicated for you.  I probably spent most of my time Googling how to perform particular manipulations with ffmpeg. I think the whole editing process took about the equivalent of a work day.


Do I need to convert 60fps to 30fps so it will be reproducible? I just bought a GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition.  I have been testing out two modes: 1080p at 30fps and 720p at 60fps.

I have noticed that when reproducing the videos with 720p at 60fps they are not really smooth, they seem a little bit weird (I have used VLC to reproduce them). So, a friend of mine suggested me to convert them to 30fps and then they will be slow motion, and later on speed them up 50% with Adobe Premier.  After doing that, they look better.

I am confused. Why does this happen? Why do I need to low them down to 30fps and then speed them up up to 50%? Wouldn't that mean that we are back to 60fps?

Thanks

You're not back to 60fps, you're still at 30fps but with every other frame discarded (or blended, or interlaced, depending on how the speedup is accomplished).

When you discard every other frame, you're trading off temporal resolution. If you interlace, you're trading off spatial resolution.

Either way, if this appears smoother, something's wrong with the way the 60fps is being presented. Your playback system may not be able to keep up with the data rate or frame rate. If 1080/30 looks OK, then it's probably not a data rate issue.


Selecting all clips on the right of the playhead In Final Cut Pro 7, is it possible to select all clips and transitions on the right of the playhead with a shortcut?

There's something close to it. If you press 't' you will be using the Select Track Forward Tool which selects every visual OR audio track after and including the track you click on. If you press 'tttt' you will be using the Select All Tracks Forward Tool which selects everything including audio and audio transitions after and including the track you click on.


How do I adjust things in 3d in after effects I have multiple layers I now wish edit them in 3 dimensions. So I check the 3d layer attribute, but I still cant move the elements in that layer. In a youtube video (7:45) i have been following, when the user clicks on the 3d layer option, an axis appears on the the element, and it can be enlarged and moved.

See picture:

However no such axis appears when I check the 3d layer option. Do I need to enable it somewhere in the options?

I pressed CTRL + SHIFT + H and my controls were back


How to extract the "real frames" without rely on fps? I noticed if I extract frames with this command:

ffmpeg -i sample_nosound.mp4 $filename%03d.jpg

It will extract depends on fps by default. ffmpeg -i shows this video has 6 fps, so it extracted 1630 jpg frame files, which 1630/6 = 271.6 seconds equivalent to the 4:32 total video duration.

But 1630 jpg frames total size is 13 MB:

$ du -h extracted_jpg_folder
13M      extracted_jpg_folder

, while the file size of the mp4 is 1.8 MB, far  lower than the total frames size:

$ ls -la sample_nosound.mp4
-rw-rw-r-- 1 xiaobai xiaobai 1814889 Feb  13 15:42 'sample_nosound.mp4'

That means ffmpeg extract frames by referring fps info.

Therefore my question is, how to make ffmpeg extract frames by "real frames" without rely on fps ?

I expect I can get total frames size which almost equivalent with the mp4 files size.

I don't expect exact match file size, since mp4 may contains some metadata.

You don't quite understand how this works.
h.264 doesn't save single images, but much rather one image, than f.e. 4 estimations what should come after.

For example:
Imagine a ball rolling from left to right, you could noe either store 30 frames of the ball rolling, or you store 1 frame of the ball in the beginning and one in the end, and when you play the video, just take the first image, and copy the ball a bit to the right.

This means, that I Frame compression can be smaller, than single frames.


Can you change the duration of a video in Handbrake? I have a 1h25m 25fps video file that has an audio file that is 1h29m. I want to change the duration of the video from 1h25m to 1h29m.  Is this possible with Handbrake?

I tried setting the duration to 1h29m up near frames/duration but Handbrake didn't change the video. I know how to change duration with Sony Vegas but I lose quality in the conversion, so I want to do this with Handbrake for higher quality.

Yes, you can select the desired length by chapters, time or even frames.
BUT this only works properly when Audio and Video have the same length (video is always cutted correctly, audio not).
So you have to either
1. cut the audio track with Audacity or any DAW (Tracktion is really good and free) to the correct length and mux it back together afterwards (Yamb for MP4, MKVToolnix for MKV) or you can
2.add a chapter mark at the end of your video and put the video into fre:ac (the best audio converter I know), check "encode to a single file" and unselect the last of the appearing titles (everything after your chapter mark). Now you can convert your audio into anything you want. fre:ac only detects mp4 chapters, you can edit/add them with Drax and you have to use fre:ac alpha version to use this feature.


tools for 2d animation video I don't know if here is the right place to ask that so sorry if I am wrong.
I just want to know wich tools do you use to make a video (or presentation) like this one :

I like the idea of 2D animation in this style, but I don't know wich are the best tools for creating something like this (I know that this is a big company and probably has some really good artistic guys)

After Effects is the preferred tool for motion graphics work like in this film.


how to fix a stuttering camera pan movement? I recently faced a problem I never had before.

I made a video sequence using After Effects and 3D layers.  Nothing has been filmed, it is completely virtual.
It seems that some of my pans have a speed that makes them "stutter", or "judder", flick, jump, shake, or I don't know what is the exact term.

It does not shows up on a "regular" computer video output; but when conforming the project, it clearly shows up.
I can also see it on a computer that has a BlackMagic video card output.

Here's a sample : https://vid.me/AavQ

I've read that a lot of people got this problem.
English is not my mother tongue, so I'm not sure I understand everything, but there is even a post on Adobe.com about it : Avoiding Judder in Motion Graphics.

I'm looking for a technical solution to fix this.
My movie is and should remains 25 fps, noninterlaced.  The timing of my movement should basically remains the same because I can't afford retiming the whole movie (48 mins).

I already did try to play with the shutter angle, the motion blur (and number of samples); to force the blur with CC force motion blur, to slightly change the movement timing... But none works.  Even if I set a very high level of blur, it keeps "blinking".

There is also an interesting topic about it here, where a guy eventually says:

  Try panning the R, G and B channels at slightly different speeds.
  There is a correct order but DS guys have done this for years.

I still should try that but I wonder if this is not too much complicated and I'm not sure I know how to do that.

I would be very interested by your feedbacks and ideas about all that.

Thanks for your help !

I think the Adobe article you linked to spells it out pretty well, especially with respect to the "7 second rule". I think you're just panning too fast.

Fast pans don't like sharp lines that run counter to the pan's motion. If you absolutely must pan at that speed, you'll need to reduce detail (ie, contrasty edges) during the fast pans.

So for starters, I think you need a lot of motion blur. I wouldn't start by using an effect to create motion blur, though. Instead, try using AE's built-in motion blur. Assuming you're in the comp that has the motion keyframes, turn on the motion blur switch for your Painting layer (the little balls icon):

..and then enable motion blur globally using its global toggle button:

Now you can adjust the shutter angle, samples, etc by going to the Advanced tab of the Composition Settings. Set the shutter to the max value 720 just to see if it helps. Lower the value until the judder begins to return.

Adding some grain may help imperceptibly reduce some detail, too. (You can simply create a 50% gray solid, add the Add Grain effect, and set the transfer mode to Overlay.) Play with intensity and size, and monochromatic vs color grain, to see what feels best.

Lastly, I don't think CC Force Motion Blur is a good choice in this case. If the built-in motion blur described above still isn't 'smeary' enough to get rid of sharp edges during pans, try Pixel Motion Blur instead, and set the shutter to something high like 1000 (just to see if it fixes the problem) and then lower the value until the judder begins to return.


How to use ffprobe to obtain certain information about mp4/h.264 files I am but a lowly PHP developer that has been tasked with retrieving some basic information about 100's of thousands of video files.  I've had some luck using ffmpeg extracting the video bitrate, video width, video height, duration, and aspect ratio from them, but with an error ratio of about 5%, this still leaves me with an enormous number of files that I don't know how to deal with.  The videos DO play,
but the massive amount of data that ffmpeg returns in has me baffled as to how parse the returned XML to find what I need with all the conditions that I seem to be encountering.  (The files are a collection from the past 15 years or so, some newly encoded, others converted years ago)

At any rate, I found the following use of ffprobe to get duration, and was hoping that someone here who understands the complexities of using ffmpeg & ffprobe would be kind enough in assist me with finding the other values I need in a more straightforward way than the crazy code I'm finding myself creating to climb through the full results of ffmpeg.

ffprobe -i "video.mp4" -show_entries format=duration -v quiet -of csv="p=0"

Thanks so very much in advance.

CLARIFICATION:

I should add that with the below cmd, I can "see" what I need, but I don't understand how to extract what I need, e.g. retrieving the VIDEO bitrate, and suppressing/ignoring the AUDIO bitrate, or determining which of 2 different durations to use (Audio/Video durations?)

C:\>ffprobe -v error -show_entries stream=width,height,bit_rate,duration -of default=noprint_wrappers=1 input.mp4

duration=1712.000000
bit_rate=64000
width=320
height=240
duration=1711.946113
bit_rate=359827
duration=1712.000000
bit_rate=N/A
duration=1712.000000
bit_rate=N/A

If you only want the information from the first video stream use -select_streams v:0:

ffprobe -v error -select_streams v:0 -show_entries stream=width,height,duration,bit_rate -of default=noprint_wrappers=1 input.mp4

Example output:

width=640
height=480
duration=10.000000
bit_rate=942704

To see a list all entries use -show_streams and/or -show_format instead of -show_entries.
See FFprobe Documentation: Writers for various output formatting styles.
See FFmpeg Wiki: FFprobe for more examples.


How to avoid sluggish UI in FCPX - more CPU, GPU, RAM or what? My question is about what aspects of hardware performance would best prevent sluggish UI and 'beachballing' in FCPX.

Currently I am running on a Macbook Air Core i7 2.0ghz, 8GB RAM and Intel HD4000 graphics.

I am editing 1080p only. The project files are on a Drobo 5D raid-style Thunderbolt drive connected via Caldigit Thunderbolt dock.

Generally the edits are not complicated, just one layer of video with some colour correction basic filter and transitions.

I realise my current system is underpowered, and at times I suffer from unresponsive UI. My question is what upgrade would give the most benefit:

quad core i7?  (currently dual core)
16GB RAM or more?
discrete GPU?  or more recent Intel Iris would be enough?
if GPU, is available video RAM more important than processing power?
the current HDD should be fast enough?

I want to stress that, for the purposes of this question, I do not care about rendering times - only to avoid unresponsive UI.

I have proxy and optimised media for all my projects, and I have the proxy media playback option selected:

Your hardware is NOT underpowered. I can run FCPX on a old MacBook Air using proxy media, with only 4GB if memory. That machine is much slower than yours. So it's not the MacBook that's the problem.

Have you tried to copy your media to a local drive just to see if you have issues with your raid system?

Another thing to check is running the Activity Monitor utility and see if your CPU is busy when you get the beach ball.

Before we know why you are having these issues it's hard to give a recommendation on what parts to upgrade.


ffmpeg concat videos, some have audio some don't I have 4 videos I am trying to string together and here is my command

bin/ffmpeg.exe -f concat -safe 0 -i concat.txt out/documentary_full.MOV

Here is what's in concat.txt

file '/path/to/clip_with_audio1.MOV'
file '/path/to/clip_with_no_audio1.MOV'
file '/path/to/clip_with_no_audio2.MOV'
file '/path/to/clip_with_audio2.MOV'

I noticed in the output that when it ends attaching the second clip it gives the following error

[mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2 @ 05cac5a0] Auto-inserting h264_mp4toannexb bitstream filter
[aac @ 062e05e0] Reserved bit set.
[aac @ 062e05e0] decode_band_types: Input buffer exhausted before END element found
Error while decoding stream #0:1: Invalid data found when processing input

When I play the final output video, I notice the player when it reaches the point where it begins the second clip portion, it skips the whole portion, seeks a few seconds forward and continues playing the video after seeking from that point. How do I fix this?

It looks like the first input's audio is corrupted, but it it hard to say without accessing to the input sources. Could you try to build the transcoding pipeline by following the tutorial here? https://www.bugcodemaster.com/article/concatenate-videos-using-ffmpeg
It might tell FFMPEG more clear which stream to choose to avoid confusion.


Free software for annotations (circles, arrows, etc.) in screen capture videos I have recorded some technical tutorial videos through screen capture. At certain points in these videos, I want to highlight buttons, text, etc. by circling them or putting arrows. An example effect can be seen here:

I know there are paid software out there -- Adobe Premiere Pro, Camtasia Studio, and the like. Is there any freeware that can help me achieve the same?

Related question: Video tutorials: how to add labels, comments, arrows etc

There's CamStudio (GNU General Public License): http://camstudio.org/
It has screen and video annotations tools.


Is there a Jahshaka manual? I downloaded Jahshaka, but I have no idea how to use it. Anybody know where to find a manual for it? Or even their website? I went to the SourceForge page, and clicked on the link to their website. The website never loaded.

The domain: http://www.jahshaka.com/ is online and should be working. The SourceForge site has a support page for the software but it's currently incomplete.


After Effects - output formats Why do I only have these formats in my output?  Where's Windows Media Format?

WMV is not lossless. As all distribution formats, it's highly compressed.

An AVI file can of course be uncompressed, but on the Mac version of AE, AVI is only available as a Quicktime export component (ie, it appears in File > Export) which is really not a recommended path to export video files from After Effects. Same for Flip4Mac.
So, yes, exporting a lossless Quicktime file and feeding that to an encoding application is a good idea.

Adolfo Rozenfeld · Adobe

https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/957757


Find raw footage based on second hand video? I am editing video on Premiere CC 2014. I have second hand video from YouTube that I need to take bits from as per a client's suggestion. Once I've done this I want to remake the fresh edits with the raw footage. Is there any way to match video based on audio. Any program to compare edits with raw footage?

In Premiere, you can align clips based on audio by putting the clips on separate tracks, selecting them both, right-clicking on one, and choosing, "Synchronize."

As far as "programs to compare edits with raw footage," DaVinci Resolve has a pretty robust conform process that lets you play a reference video along with any xml you've got from Premiere (or FCPX, Avid, whatever).  It also has a Scene Cut detection feature, which is helpful when there are a lot of "bits" to extract.  I don't remember which features are included in the free version of Resolve, but BlackMagic typically only restricts features meant for Hollywood studios.  It's worth learning, if you have the chance, just to use whichever tool meets your needs.

But if you don't have time to dive into another full NLE, you could just stack your reference video at the top of your Premiere timeline, turn the opacity down, and lock the track.


Help Me To Translate This After Effects Expression! wiggle(effect("Ondulación - posición")("Velocidad ondulación (ond/seg)"), effect("Ondulación - posición")("Cantidad ondulación (píxeles)"))

How to translate this expression?

Translate this:

wiggle(effect("Ondulación - posición")("Velocidad ondulación (ond/seg)"), effect("Ondulación - posición")("Cantidad ondulación (píxeles)")

My best try:
Given wiggle/effect is English
wiggle(effect("wave - position")("wave speed{velocity})(wave/seconds{seg=segundos})"),effect("{..repeated...}")("wave amount/size ({in} pixels)")
{} my comment
Where/what do you get this?


What would you recommend me to record videos while playing Xbox360 I would like to record some videos while playing on the Xbox360. I've been looking around and I would prefer to not use the PC to record (a PCIe card, for example) and I've come across the following recorder:

http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hyperdeckshuttle/

And I would like to know if anyone knows it or has used it. Also I would like to know if it is good and worth the money it costs. Or is there any other better alternative?

The hyperdeck shuttle is a small, lightweight and easy-to-use field recorder. The downside it just works with expensive SSD volumes.

A possible alternative could be the Atomos Ninja. - Pros: Runs with SSD, but also with cheap and capacious 2.5-inch-HDDs. Built-in Touch-LCD-screen. Double battery connectors. The drives and batteries are hot-swapable. Cons: It's weight and it's size.


How to broadcast on Instagram via obs? I've seen a bunch of paid services that provide the ability to stream to Instagram via obs, but how are they arranged? How can I implement this myself?

A quick google search gave me dozens of options. You can use yellowduck for example. Here's a tutorial on how to use it. An alternative is promovgram. There really are a lot of options, so I would recommend just googling yourself.


Video Analysis Tool - Open Source Software Recommendation This is blurring the lines between programming and vid production (question not allowed on Stack Overflow or Programmers)

I am throwing this out there as I know there may not be a suitable solution, but if there is maybe someone here may be able to help.

My team is brainstorming a video stream analysis tool - essentially something that would be able to test media streams and provide analytics about that stream (bitrate, packet loss,startup time etc), preferably this is a tool that could be run in the background on Linux and accept tests as they come in - perhaps fed from a third party API.

If you are familiar with WebPageTest then essentially i would be looking for something like this, but for media streams (GUI is not required).

We would prefer python but that is not a requirement.

I have seen pymedia - but it seems quite old, and maybe not a good fit.

I believe that can be achieved with ffprobe.

You can see example of getting json format from it here


ffmpeg - line_h option not found in latest version of ffmpeg I'm trying to use the option line_h of drawtext filter, with last build of ffmpeg

ffmpeg version N-45325-gb173e0353-static https://johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/  Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 6.3.0 (Debian 6.3.0-18+deb9u1) 20170516
configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-static --disable-debug --disable-ffplay --disable-indev=sndio --disable-outdev=sndio --cc=gcc-6 --enable-fontconfig --enable-frei0r --enable-gnutls --enable-gray --enable-libfribidi --enable-libass --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librubberband --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libvorbis --enable-libopus --enable-libtheora --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libvpx     --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzimg
  libavutil      56.  9.100 / 56.  9.100
  libavcodec     58. 14.100 / 58. 14.100
  libavformat    58. 10.100 / 58. 10.100
  libavdevice    58.  2.100 / 58.  2.100
  libavfilter     7. 13.100 /  7. 13.100
  libswscale      5.  0.102 /  5.  0.102
  libswresample   3.  0.101 /  3.  0.101
  libpostproc    55.  0.100 / 55.  0.100
Input #0, image2, from 'source/img001.jpg':
  Duration: 00:00:00.04, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 12723 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj420p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 1024x768 [SAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc
[Parsed_drawtext_4 @ 0x45699c0] Option 'line_h' not found
[AVFilterGraph @ 0x4581440] Error initializing filter 'drawtext' with args 'fontfile=Roboto-Regular.ttf:enable=between(t,0,6):line_h=20:text=

I'm talking about this filter option:

line_h, lh
the height of each text line

Is this a deprecated feature? how is possible that this option is not found in last version of ffmpeg?

Thanks

line_h is not an option. It is a variable that can be used in expressions and its value is the height of the tallest character in the text.


How to upload video to YouTube with VP09 & Opus 251 I would like to know how big artists send their videos to YouTube and in what format to have VP09 with OPUS 251 in Audio ?
I tried a lot of format HD H.264 AVI but Youtube keep my video in mp4 with bad audio quality .
How can i do to have the same format like professional videos youtube ?

What device are you reading the VP9 and Orbis codec information from? These are hardware limited, so the options may not be available on your device.


Empty library in DaVinci Resolve I just wanted to work through the DaVinci Lite's manual. It says, the library browser should display all available volumes (Fixed, network and removable).

It displays, however, only one empty, cryptic "c:\vol0"

Any idea how I can access my footage?

Re-Installing the package didn't help.

I'm using version 11.3.0lite004 on Windows 8.1.

I've just received an answer on another forum:

Select "DaVinci Resolve" from the main menu, select "Preferences"
In the media storage tab press "+" and select the desired folder / drive.
Press OK and restart DaVinci.

OK, this software is definitely not intuitive, and one should not read the first 100 pages of the manual too fast!


How can I generate a full waveform from my audio file in After Effects? There is an effect in After Effects which generates audio waves and spectrums from audio tracks. What I get is the form for a given second.
How can I get the full waveform on a single frame ?

It depends what you mean by the full waveform on a single frame.

If you want to view the entire duration of your audio file on screen in a single frame, you can do this, assuming your audio file is shorter than 30 seconds:

Add the audio file to a comp.
Apply the Audio Waveform effect to a solid in a comp.
In the audio waveform effects settings, set the audio layer to your audio track.
Set the Displayed Samples setting to the sample rate of your audio file (eg 44100).
Set the Audio Duration to the duration of your audio file in milliseconds (1000 per second of audio).
Set the Thickness of your waveform to 1, to show more detail.

You should end up with something like this:

Which looks pretty similar to the waveform as seen in Adobe Audition:


Nikon D3300 Headphone output? How can I from my Nikon d3300 get a headphone output? Im using rode micro I would like it not to be a huge box or super long cable.
This is my first preference. Start in the upper left. (mic)

This is my second preference. Start in the upper left. (mic)

REG/rode_videomicro_compact_on_camera.html

Microphone outputs are typically very low level and have only enough output to drive a sensitive preamp, not headphones.  To drive headphones you need an amplified output.  According to a variety of sources, the D3300 does not have a headphone jack, which means you have to provide a separate amplifier, which means you have to provide one, and the power to drive it, and the cable to connect to it.  I suspect the best solution would be a battery-powered preamp that receives your mic output and then delivers two amplified outputs: line level for your D3300 input jack and phones-level for your headphones.


Does HEVC Support 16-Bit RGB Color Format? I have some 3D Rendered Frames in 16-bit rgba Color Format.... I don't Wanna Lose Any Data... Because I have to Use those in editing.... But With Thousands of Frames in 4K File Size Matters.... So Why not Encode to H265
I Know How to Do a yuv 12 Bit Convertion.... I Know how to Do a RGB 8 bit conversion.... Using FFMPEG
But I Can't Figure Out How I would do 16Bit to 16Bit Conversion in x265 codec using FFmpeg..
And would not like to convert to yuv... But If there are No choiche with RGB then I might wanna do yuva444 16 bit... But I also can't figure that out too!

As, Sir Gyan Commented... HEVC Doesn't Support 16-bit....


Scale texts as the the parent shape layer changes can anyone take a look at the animation I've made and provide some insights?
Here is what I've got so far.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1eIdcAp9cK_AaA8UWBx9OKWAXXZWq0F2r/view?usp=sharing
The problem: texts are floating when the cube is rotating.
Current method: I have a cube animation as the background and I added shaper layer and text to each face. For each face, I parent the text to shape layer and use path to adjust the shape as the cube rotating.
Question: is there a better way to scale the text correspondingly as parent shape layer resizing?

If you have the cube animation as a rendered file and can't mess around in the original animation, I would try corner-pins. Simply track the corners by hand by keyframing the four corners of the corner-pin to the corners of each face and apply it to your text layer. You might want to precomp the text first and apply the corner-pin onto the precomp, so you're able to rescale and modify the text alone from inside the precomp.


Easily make loudness more uniform in Premiere Pro I'm having to edit some speech videos (60+ min each) I was given from a conference and the audio levels vary pretty wildly for some of them, due to different speakers and the sound guy not doing a good job with the levels.

In FCPX, the Loudness effect has a slider for Uniformity, but I'm not sure how to easily accomplish a similar task in Pr.

I set the audio type as dialogue and then clicked Auto-Match under the Loudness tab.  I also added a Multiband Compressor and enabled Loudness Radar, but I'm having difficulty balancing the loudness in a track where it varies so greatly, as you can see below

My Question:

Is there a way to automatically (or easily) make the loudness of this clip more uniform?

I know I can go through and manually keyframe it or split the track into sections of equal loudness then balance them all, but I was hoping for quicker approach.

This is a copy and paste from a similar previous question which I answered:

In order to even out the audio of a single stream; you will want to either mix by hand as noted above; or you can use dynamics; specifically Compression.

Within the PPro audio mixer, apply dynamics to the audio tracks, or master track.

You can then use the compressor within the dynamics filter, which you can use on all your tracks, to get your dynamic range all in line.

The simplest way to learn this is just trial and error; but looking at your waveform; you will want to:

Adjust the gain up- it's a pot/knob center column bottom. Use a ratio of about 2:1 to 6:1.

Last, click the checkbox on the bottom right of the dynamics filter for each track to enable the limiter. The limiter; a good setting is -2 db.

Then you want to adjust your threshhold in terms of attack and release, what you want to see on your audio (do your setup/testing on the loud sections and soft sections to find the sweet spot); is your compressor VU meter should just barely be jumping... when say someone is speaking. If it's spiking to high; gain down. If it's not jumping at all; gain up.

This will balance out your audio so the soft sounds are adjusted up and can be heard, and the loud sections are not adjusted up; resulting in overmodulation. Its a much better way to smooth out your audio, decrease the dynamic range, and end up with audio that sounds far more balance.

Once you learn how to effectively use the dynamics filter on tracks, I think you will find you will be far more effecient in mixing your audio on the fly. It really does a decent job to just get everything in balance. Then; after you've done that, you can do back and sweeten the audio with a full mix; using a control surface or the pots, recording the pot movements via Touch Setting.


Error:-[libx264 @ 000001fa2ffdd080] height not divisible by 2 (244x207) I was looking to put an audio visualiser filter on my podcast file(mp3)and got the necessary code from here.But on running the code,the terminal gave an error"height not divisible by 2".I tried my best to apply the solution from here but it didn't work.Any suggestions would be helpful.

Code:

  ffmpeg -y -i audio.mp3 -loop 1 -i image.jpg -filter_complex "[0:a]showwaves=s=1280x175:colors=White:mode=p2p,format=yuv420p[v];[1:v][v]overlay=0:200[outv]" -map "[outv]" -pix_fmt yuv420p -map 0:a -c:v libx264 -c:a copy -shortest output12.mp4

Error Log:

  ffmpeg version N-90762-g223f3dff8c Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
    built with gcc 7.3.0 (GCC)
    configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-sdl2 --enable-bzlib --enable-fontconfig --enable-gnutls --enable-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxml2 --enable-libzimg --enable-lzma --enable-zlib --enable-gmp --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libmysofa --enable-libspeex --enable-libxvid --enable-libaom --enable-libmfx --enable-amf --enable-ffnvcodec --enable-cuvid --enable-d3d11va --enable-nvenc --enable-nvdec --enable-dxva2 --enable-avisynth
    libavutil      56. 15.100 / 56. 15.100
    libavcodec     58. 19.100 / 58. 19.100
    libavformat    58. 13.100 / 58. 13.100
    libavdevice    58.  4.100 / 58.  4.100
    libavfilter     7. 18.100 /  7. 18.100
    libswscale      5.  2.100 /  5.  2.100
    libswresample   3.  2.100 /  3.  2.100
    libpostproc    55.  2.100 / 55.  2.100
  [mp3 @ 000001fa2ffdabc0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
  Input #0, mp3, from 'fast.mp3':
    Duration: 00:00:13.98, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 128 kb/s
      Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s
  Input #1, png_pipe, from 'scott.png':
    Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
      Stream #1:0: Video: png, rgb24(pc), 244x207 [SAR 1:1 DAR 244:207], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc
  Stream mapping:
    Stream #0:0 (mp3float) -> showwaves
    Stream #1:0 (png) -> overlay:main
    overlay -> Stream #0:0 (libx264)
    Stream #0:0 -> #0:1 (copy)
  Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
  [libx264 @ 000001fa2ffdd080] height not divisible by 2 (244x207)
  Error initializing output stream 0:0 -- Error while opening encoder for output stream #0:0 - maybe incorrect parameters such as bit_rate, rate, width or height
  Conversion failed!

Use

ffmpeg -y -i audio.mp3 -loop 1 -i image.jpg -filter_complex "[1:v]scale=2*trunc(iw*sar/2):2*trunc(ih/2)[bg];[0:a]showwaves=s=1280x175:colors=White:mode=p2p,format=yuv420p[v];[bg][v]overlay=0:200[outv]" -map "[outv]" -pix_fmt yuv420p -map 0:a -c:v libx264 -c:a copy -shortest output12.mp4

Since the image is the base layer, its dimensions should be made even.


Is it possible to set more than one motion tracking point in After Affects CS6 at the same time Is it possible to set more than one motion tracking point in After Affects CS6 at the same time in the same scene?

For example one track point closer to our viewpoint, and another one that follows the background (therefore with a slower movement). To achieve a more realistic effect.

Sounds like you need to track the camera in 3D. If you're using CS6 then the best thing for tracking the camera in 3D is the 3D camera tracker (who'da thunk it).

To fire it up Choose Animation > Track Camera, or choose Track Camera from the layer context menu, or choose Effect > Perspective > 3D Camera Tracker, or (because there's always 3 ways to do anything in AE) in the Tracker panel, click the Track Camera button.

After tracking the camera in you footage you have a virtual stage, where any 3D objects that you add will look as though they're in the 3D space of your footage, so if you move past them they respect the parallax of your camera's viewport. It makes it super easy to add elements to a moving camera scene.

Here be tutorial and the Adobe page about it.

Oh and to actually answer your question, yes you can have more than one track point per layer. For 2D tracking where I'm not getting steady results I often make a dozen or so track points and average out their position with an expression. This gives good results on difficult footage. To add track points, select the layer, choose Animation>Track Motion. Set the track type to Raw in the tracker panel. Then in the timeline you'll see the Motion Trackers property has been added to the layer. Expand that and you'll see tracker1, expand that and you'll see Track Point 1.

Select that and choose Edit>Duplicate or hit cmd/ctrl+D. The track point will be duplicated. Note that it will be right on top of the other one, so you'll have to move it in the comp window or adjust the feature centre properties. Repeat as many times as you need.

Now when you go to Analyze using the tracker panel it will analyze all your track points at once.

Oh and FYI here's the expression I use when I'm adding all the track points together. I apply it to the position of a null or whatever it is I want to move:

trackpoints=10;
vsum=[0,0];
for (i=1; i<=trackpoints; i++){
    vsum+=thisComp.layer("tracked layer name").motionTracker("Tracker 1")("Track Point "+i).featureCenter
}
vsum/trackpoints

trackpoints is the number of track points you're using. and "tracked layer name" is the layer with the points on it.


Do Premiere, After Effects and Adobe Media Encoder support huffyuv lossless codec? Can the lossless HuffYUV codec be incorporated into the workflow of a VFX pipeline as an intermediate codec, given ample hard disk space?

I read that since Premiere and After Effects are now 64-bit and commonly HuffYUV is just 32-bit, that might pose problems. However, a x64 version is now available.

I would like to get opinions on a HuffYUV workflow, possible drawbacks and a complete installation guide with suggested settings to use, thanks!

They do on Windows, you need to use the AVI container as HuffyUV isn't available as a quicktime codec, afaik.

I used huffyUV for a while, but have switched to magicYUV which has a better range of colour space support (including 10-bit in beta).  UTVideo is another good option and is available for mac.

With the Premiere - After Effects - Media Encoder workflow I find that exporting to a flattened movie only happens when I am making the final master, I use Dynamic Link for the intermediate transfers from say AE to Premiere. As well as saving disk space it's faster and easier because you can make changes and have them update on the fly.

So for final masters these lossless codecs are great, with the one caveat–they may not be supported in the long term. Mostly they are developed by small teams or even a single person, so if they get a full-time job or have twins the project might tank. If you're making masters that need to be available for the long term – as in decades, then FFV1 is a good option, though for everyday use as an intermediate codec it's a bit slow.


How to make a single video out of few pics of different resolution and videos of different resolution We had a get-together party. I'm the most technically sound person in my group. I collected pictures & videos from all the friends who attended that party. Because, not all are taken using same camera. These pictures & videos are of different resolutions.

Now, I want to group all of them in to a single video and add some music etc. How can I achieve it? Which software would be better suited for my purpose?

Any basic editing program will do the job for you. Are you on PC or Mac? If you have a PC then Windows Movie Maker is a very good, simple option.

To get the footage to the same codec and resolution you should use this free program called mpeg streamclip. I can't recommend a compression setting because I don't know the specs of the footage and what you are aiming to do with the video once it's been made. But there are many tutorials online that you can find with a quick google search.


How to add typewriter effect in Davinci Resolve or Fusion? I know that Adobe After Effects allows adding typewriter effect to text in videos but how to do the same in Davinci Resolve or Fusion?

In the Text+ tool there is a control for write-on that does exactly what you want. To quote from the Fusion 9 Tool Reference:

  Write On
  This range control is used to quickly apply simple Write On
  and Write Off effects to the text. To create a Write On effect,
  animate the End portion of the control from 1 to 0 over the length of
  time required. To create a Write Off effect, animate the Start portion
  of the range control from 0 to 1.

When they say Write-On, unfortunately they don't mean the hand writing effect more commonly called write-on (I got too excited when I first saw it), but rather what you called the "typewriter effect". Video tutorial here


How to losslessly replace a specific area in a range of frames I have a short screen recording of an old video game (duration 1:38.72, 2468 frames, 25 fps, 320×200 px, 4 colours only, bgr24, CamStudio Lossless Codec, no sound, AVI).
The video contains an incorrect area (static, 16×16 px, top left corner at [136, 144]) in a range of frames (starting at 0:43.88 and ending at 1:38.44).
I'd like to replace that area in that range with correct data, everything losslessly.
I searched for "replace area in range of frames" on this server but didn't find anything.
Would you know how to do that with free software on Windows please? Maybe FFmpeg?

I don't know if FFmpeg supports the Camstudio Lossless Codec, but if it would. Then replacing the area with a PNG file (hence: adding a logo) could be a solution.
The explanation is done here at "Timing the overlay".
https://superuser.com/questions/683643/how-to-add-my-logo-for-the-first-30-seconds-in-a-video-with-ffmpeg
In that example codec:a copy was already given (for audio). If you would take any lossless videocodec the result will be lossless.


ffmpeg - H264 vs. H265 codec parameters? When i try to run following command:

ffmpeg -y -loglevel info -threads 0 -f lavfi -i aevalsrc=0 -framerate 60 -i image.png -start_number 000000 -apply_trc bt709 -framerate 60 -i seq1.%06d.exr -start_number 000000 -apply_trc bt709 -framerate 60 -i seq2.%06d.exr -r 60 -preset medium -codec:v libx264 -profile:v high -tune fastdecode -c:a libfdk_aac -ac 2 -vbr 5 -shortest -strict experimental -sn -vsync 1 -pix_fmt yuv420p -b:v 62914560 -movflags +faststart -x264-params high-tier=0:pmode=1:wpp=1:tune=zerolatnecy,fastdecode::bitrate=62914:fps=60:keyint=600:min-keyint=60:vbv-bufsize=62914:vbv-maxrate=62914:scenecut=00 -filter_complex "[2:v]crop=5120:2560:0:0, scale=4096:1152, rotate=0[input_num0];[1:v][input_num0]overlay=0:0[output_num0];[3:v]crop=5120:2560:0:0, scale=4096:1152, rotate=0[input_num1];[1:v][input_num1]overlay=0:0[output_num1];[output_num1][output_num0] vstack [result]" -map "[result]:0 -map "0:0"" output.mp4 2>&1 | tee -a log_file.log

I get the following error:

[libx264 @ 0x7fd8fa003600] Error parsing option 'high-tier = 0'.
[libx264 @ 0x7fd8fa003600] Error parsing option 'pmode = 1'.
[libx264 @ 0x7fd8fa003600] Error parsing option 'wpp = 1'.
[libx264 @ 0x7fd8fa003600] Error parsing option 'tune = zerolatnecy,fastdecode'.
[libx264 @ 0x7fd8fa003600] Error parsing option ':bitrate = 62914'.
[libx264 @ 0x7fd8fa003600] using SAR=9/16
[libx264 @ 0x7fd8fa003600] MB rate (2211840) > level limit (2073600)
[libx264 @ 0x7fd8fa003600] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX FMA3 AVX2 LZCNT BMI2
[libx264 @ 0x7fd8fa003600] profile High, level 5.2

Is it because those parameters are not recognized by H264 or?..

Thanks!

Some of those options don't belong to x264.

Use

-b:v 62914560 -bufsize 62914560 -maxrate 62914560 -movflags +faststart -x264-params keyint=600:min-keyint=60:scenecut=00


Is there a video container which is able to handle segments of different video quality (or even size)? Let's assume I have a video of 10 minutes length. And I want to reduce its size by having some parts in high bitrate, while other less important parts can be low bitrate. For this I'd cut the original into segments. Leaving the important ones as they are, while transcoding the unimportant parts to a lower quality.

Now, is there a video container format out there which is able to "glue" these different parts together into one file? With good support in players so trusty mplayer will play the video as if it's an ordinary file? And in a standardized/annotated/undo-able way so a simple cli command would untangle the segments into separate parts/files again?

I was under the impression Matroska would be able to do this, via chapters, where each of my segments would be one chapter. (I've read it somewhere where merging videos without transcoding was dicussed). But when I read the actual mkv docs, it seems mkv chapters are more like a textual index pointing into another (video) stream of an .mkv file - and not some low level kind of data block index which would help me with my idea. So mkv looks like a dead end.

Simple editing, or merging (which is possible losslessly, with some remuxing) wouldn't offer me having different qualities in different sections of the video - right?

What I'm looking for is region-of-interest adapted quality, something image formats like JPEG2000 offer for spatial areas, only here applied to video over time.

Any suggestions or ideas?

  The accepted answer suggests using the VBR capabilities of a format like mp4. While this works, please leave an answer if you know of a different way of achieving the desired result.

If the only difference is bitrate, then any container which accepts variable bitrate streams, will fulfill your requirement e.g. MP4, MKV..etc

Step 1 is to encode your segments, ideally using the same encoder, to different bitrates with all other parameters being the same e.g. via ffmpeg,

ffmpeg -ss 0 -t 5 -i input.mp4 -b:v 1000k seg1.mp4

ffmpeg -ss 5 -t 7 -i input.mp4 -b:v 3000k seg2.mp4

ffmpeg -ss 12 -i input.mp4 -b:v 500k seg3.mp4

Step 2 is to use ffmpeg to concat the encoded segments in copy mode, using the concat demuxer.

Prepare a text file

file 'seg1.mp4'
file 'seg2.mp4'
file 'seg3.mp4'

and then

ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy joined.mp4

Clips with different properties, like resolution, can be joined together as well into one MP4, but compatibility across media players is iffy, and ffmpeg won't do it reliably at present, anyway.


What do shutter angles mean for electronic shutters? For a mechanical rotary shutter, a shutter angle is the angle of the arc cut into the circular shutter, which is an opening to help "open" the shutter. Then what does a shutter angle correspond to for an electronic shutter which is not a physical circular shutter at all?

It just refers to the shuttet speed and FPS.

As you probably know, 360° means the entire time, the frame is exposed.
0° means it is never exposed, 180° half of the time.

With digital shutters you can just take your FPS, for example 24, and calculate the corresponding value.

For 180°, you can double it 24*2=48 so youbget a shutter speed of 1/48s.
For 360° you can justvtake the FPS 24FPS = 1/24s.

The formula for any shutter angle being:

FPS / (Shutterangle / 360)
24 / (180 / 360) = 1/48


Help me with lyrics sync I am looking for a program that can help me sync lyrics.
I mean, I have txt with lyrics and I want program to be able to sync them with just press and release of any button. At end I want program to export to srt ar any other popular subtitle format.

MX player allows the lyrics (*.srt file) to be synchronized in mobile using its app .(subtitle->synchronization)
For laptop, you can use VLC player.


Positioning and Resizing Captions in Final Cut I have a video for which I need to include captions. The video itself has burned-in captions. I would like to include the new captions on top of the old ones. However, when I import captions, the standard Final Cut position is lower than where I need them. In addition, their font size is way smaller than that of the original.
Question: if I have captions as .ASS file (Aegis sub) and am able to export them as .SRT, how can adjust them to my taste in Final Cut?

Apple has an article in the FCP user guide.
All you need should be explained here.
Format caption text in Final Cut Pro


Premiere Pro CC: Multiple instances of a panel in the workspace? I've worked with Premiere Pro for a while now and created my own workspace based on the panels I need most frequently. I have but one problem: I would like to have multiple instances of the Effect Cotrols Panel within my workspace. This is possible with the Project Panel, however I couldn't find an option to multiply other panels. Is there a way to accomplish this?

Unfortunately, there isn't a way to do this in Premiere in my experience. As far as I know, the only panels you can have multiple of are the Project and Sequence panels.


What exactly is a voyeur shot in cinematography? What exactly is a voyeur shot in cinematography?  Is this movement or style?  The only thing I can find online is basically perverted stuff.  Where can I find an example?

I've not heard of it referred to as a style.  The only thing I could imagine it would be is trying to emulate a style similar to the voyeuristic feel which would probably be made up of roughly shot and edited clips of what would normally be a private, intimate scene, but I am not familiar with a "voyeur shot" as a thing.


Change video start playing time inside a composition - After Effects Here is screenshot of my projects.

Pre-comp 1 is made with inerted shapes
phoneFooting_New.mp4 is a 8 seconds video
Red Solid 1 Comp1 is a composition made with :

A 36 seconds video called iphoneNavigation.mov and
Red Solid 1

iphoneNavigation.mov starts playing at 0s. I want it, to start playing at 24s instead. Please how can I perfom that ?

You can drag the footage to the left, until the point you want is aligned with the start, or you can type in an exact number in the In column in the timeline window. By default this column is not shown, to show it right-click in the column headings, where it says Source name … Parent & Link and select In from the list.

You can click the number and enter -24. in the text field. **Pro tip:**you don't have to type the zeroes, AE will add them for you if you type ., this works for hours and minutes too, so if you wanted 1:02:00 you could just type 1.2..

This brings me to the third way to do it. In the current time box, type -24. to set the current time to -24, then hit [ to set the layer's in point to the current time (the comp window will be grey because you're outside the composition). Hit home to go back to the start of the comp.


What to do when camcorder angle does not cover entire area to record? I'm trying to record an indoor soccer game from the middle of the bleachers. However, I cannot backup enough to get the entire field in the recording area.

I thought about fish-eye lenses but I'm guessing the video will be distorted near the edges where the goals are. I would like to avoid that if possible.

Another option is to try placing the camera near one of the edges of the field and backing up until the entire field is in the recording area.

Any ideas? I have no experience with videography so simpler solutions are preferred.

Thanks.

You're correct that you either need to place the camera farther away until the entire field is in view, or use a wide-angle lens adapter (not necessarily "fisheye" but wider). For indoor soccer, clearly you're limited by the walls.

Presumably, you want to hit "record" and enjoy watching the game, rather than having to actively pan the camera back & forth. Also, I'm presuming you only have 1 camera & 1 operator, and you don't really intend to edit the footage together later... If that's the case, look for a wide-angle adapter & put the camera as far away & as high up as possible (a GoPro or similar as suggested previously might be easier to stick high up on the wall :))

For most basic consumer camcorders, you can get a wide-angle adapter to screw onto the front for about ~$40 (make sure the lens & screw threads are the same size or find one specifically compatible for your camera). That should give you ~20-30% wider field of view. It won't be perfect & might be slightly distorted, but it will capture more of the field than you would otherwise.

That still probably won't be enough to capture the entire game from mid-field, but it will get more of it. To fit the whole thing you'd likely need to be up on the ceiling or on a ladder at the top of the bleachers. Not safe, or easy to maneuver.

If you watch professional soccer matches on TV, you'll notice that they don't capture the entire field either, but instead follow the action of the ball. This is because 1) that's the focal point of the game and 2) In order to really see the whole field the camera would have to be so far away you wouldn't really be able to tell what's going on anymore.

There's little/no zooming (instead they cut between cameras). They tend to keep the player w/the ball just off-center, so there's room for them to run & not go out of frame. Mid-range or close-up shots are usually done w/separate cameras, often at field level along the sidelines. As you'd suggested, you could put a camera near the goal line & see the whole field, but then you're down low & will only capture what happens nearby in that half of the field.


How to fix color "waves" in SpeedGrade? I'm using SpeedGrade to do some coloring for my first time. It's coming along well but having a problem area in one part.
Here's the original:

Basic stuff I've done so far:

The issue is the "waves" on the home's roof becomes much worse after I balanced things a bit. Original closeup:

After grading closeup:

Is there a term for this effect that I could edit into the Question title, and do a search for?
Would the best way to fix it be using some sort of Mask with different color changes on the roof section, or is there some other method I should be looking at?

That's the moiré pattern, which is caused when the camera debayers an image with fine details: Wikipedia about the Bayer Filter (see the Artifacts section)

Many cameras have this problem, some more, some less. The best solution is to get to know the sensibility of your camera regarding moiré and - when you have objects like bricks, roofs, fine-detailed clothes - reframe your shot or zoom out.

In your case you had the moiré problem already in the source image, but amplified it with your color grading actions. The solution here is to have an additional node or effect before your general grading is done. This node/effect defines a mask with the roof and a subtle blur effect. Nobody will miss details in the roof, as long as the rest of the scene has detail.

(I'm talking about nodes, which is the way Resolve names them. SpeedGrade has some other terms that I don't know: Effects or Layers? But the concept is similar.)


FFmpeg hardcoded subtitles revert to default font if subtitle is html Here's how I'm using ffmpeg to hardcode the subtitles:

ffmpeg -i tmp/input.mp4 -vf "subtitles=tmp/input.mp4:force_style='OutlineColour=&H80000000,BorderStyle=3,Outline=1,Shadow=0,MarginV=20,Fontname=Liberation Mono'" -avoid_negative_ts make_zero tmp/output.mp4

which works fine if the subtitle is plain text but if it has html tags in it, then it reverts back to using system's default font. <i> hello </i> for example causes problem.

I've tried cleaning up html tags and then using -vf "subtitles=cleanedsubs.srt:..." but it doesn't work even on plain texts.

How can I force same font even on italic / bold / any other forms?

Extra info

Running:

ffmpeg -i tmp/input.mp4 -filter_complex "subtitles=tmp/input.mp4:force_style='fontname=Liberation Mono'" -f null -

Shows:

[Parsed_subtitles_0 @ 0x55ad579abd00] Using font provider fontconfig
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:1 (h264) -> subtitles (graph 0)
  subtitles (graph 0) -> Stream #0:0 (wrapped_avframe)
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:1 (aac (native) -> pcm_s16le (native))
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
[Parsed_subtitles_0 @ 0x55ad579aa3c0] Shaper: FriBidi 0.19.7 (SIMPLE) HarfBuzz-ng 1.7.2 (COMPLEX)
[Parsed_subtitles_0 @ 0x55ad579aa3c0] Using font provider fontconfig
[Parsed_subtitles_0 @ 0x55ad579aa3c0] fontselect: (Liberation Mono, 400, 0) -> /usr/share/fonts/truetype/liberation/LiberationMono-Regular.ttf, 0, LiberationMono
[Parsed_subtitles_0 @ 0x55ad579aa3c0] fontselect: (Liberation Mono, 400, 100) -> /usr/share/fonts/truetype/liberation/LiberationMono-Italic.ttf, 0, LiberationMono-Italic
[Parsed_subtitles_0 @ 0x55ad579aa3c0] fontselect: (Serif, 400, 100) -> /usr/share/fonts/truetype/dejavu/DejaVuSerif-Italic.ttf, 0, DejaVuSerif-Italic
                                                    ↑
                                                 problem

Possible bug when feeding mov_text to subtitles filter. I can reproduce the issue in git master branch. I did not investigate further.

Workaround is to provide the subtitles filter the SRT subtitle stream present in your original MKV input (file.mkv):

ffmpeg -i file.mkv -map 0:a:0 -map 0:v -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -vf "subtitles=file.mkv:stream_index=6:force_style='OutlineColour=&H80000000,BorderStyle=3,Outline=1,Shadow=0,MarginV=20,Fontname=Liberation Mono'" output.mp4

Make sure stream_index is referencing the desired subtitle stream. See subtitles filter documentation.


Preview the sequence in Premiere I have two workstations with the same configuration, with the same version of Premiere and the same project file.  Why on the first workstation, can I preview the sequence without needing to render while on the other workstation to be able to preview the sequence, I need to render?

Because the workstations most likely don't have the same specs? From what I understand I assume that the other workspace runs slowly in preview or required you to pre-render the sequence in order to play it smoothly. In that case, check your ram, cpu and gpu and upgrade it accordingly. If that is not the problem at hand, please clarify what it is.


Put branding over tv signal Im trying to figure out the most clean way to put custom content (being text or picture for branding) over standard tv signal for a business that want to show their logos and such in the tv´s they have in their place.

So far, the most promising solution involves taking a single source for tv to a capture device and stream it with a regular broadcaster software (something like OBS) through the internal network or to the same machine and distribute the feed over coax or whatever.

Thw downside (or upside, depending on how you look at it) of this approach is that all tvs will have the same channel on the screen, and I was looking for a way to make it more flexible and transparent, without having to actually put a computer with a capture device (maybe a Raspberry Pi + a cheap card would do the trick, but I think that´s just overkill, and really a waste of energy) in the middle of the tv and the sat/cable box.

So you know of any way to add text or image in front of a tv stream, whatever that may be that doesn´t involve what I´ve just described? Maybe a tv model that will allow to load text or bmp/jpegs/etc from a thumbstick; or a settop box, DVR, magic little device that allows to load content to put in front of the signal? It´s a pretty trivial stuff, and I´m a bit surprised I haven´t been able to find something like this.

Cheers,

In VLC you have an overlay feature among the out-of-the-box effects (Tools->Effects and Filters->Video Effects->Overlay). The overlay can be a logo, de-logo eraser, or text. You can run VLC centrally and restream the TV channel, or you can run it in a Linux settop box and control it centrally via its internal built-in web server, via telnet, or via the Lua interface. You can also make more complex overlays such as PIP (picture in picture) but that requires some mastering of the VLC command syntax.


Is it possible to export a Video with transparent Background? (No Image Sequences!) Is it possible to export a video file from After Effects with transparency?

I don't want to export to an image sequence.

Production codecs with alpha channel support

Apple ProRes 4444 / Apple ProRes 4444 XQ

From the Manual:

  Apple ProRes 4444 and Apple ProRes 4444 XQ are ideal for the exchange of motion graphics media because they are virtually lossless. They are also the only Apple ProRes codecs that support alpha channels.

DNxHD

From Wikipedia:

  lossy high-definition video post-production codec engineered for multi-generation compositing with reduced storage and bandwidth requirements

  The codec supports alpha channel information.

DNxHR

From Wikipedia:

  lossy UHDTV post-production codec engineered for multi-generation compositing with reduced storage and bandwidth requirements

CineForm

From Wikipedia

  Current implementations support image formatting for 10-bit 4:2:2 YUV, 12-bit 4:4:4 RGB and RGBA, and 12-bit CFA Bayer filter RAW compression

Uncompressed with alpha

Quicktime Animation Codec
AVI uncompressed (None)

From the After Effects Manual:

  When specifying the color depth for an output image, the plus sign (as in Millions Of Colors+) denotes an alpha channel. Similarly, choosing to output to 32 bits per pixel implies an output depth of 8 bits per channel for each of four channels: RGBA.


How to change orientation of video in project? How to set this video to be horizontal, not vertical? Using Adobe Premiere 2015.

What you are looking for is the aspect ratio of your width/height. Your current aspect ratio looks like 9:16, so probably 1080:1920 in pixels. Change this to 16:9, meaning 1920:1080. You can find these settings in the sequence settings of your sequence.


Encore CS6 "DualLayer: This disc requires a layer break" I am trying to create a dual-layer 8.5 GB DVD image.

It consists of an MPEG multiplexed video with audio and Encore chapter markers created in Premiere Pro CS6 and does not require transcoding in Encore, occupying about 1.69 GB of space.

I also have ROM content where I have two HD video files, with one of them 5.63 GB in size.

Now when I run Check Project, Encore does not show any warnings, however when I try to build the DVD image, it fails with the message

DualLayer: This disc requires a layer break

I have tried both the Automatic and the Manual layer break setting, and I do not see where and how I could set a manual break in Encore.

So, my question is, how do I make this work, what are my options ?
Is this issue because the 5.63 GB file cannot fit onto one layer (why would this even matter) ?

It looks like it is not possible to create a DVD DL with a ROM part that exceeds a layer's size.

So I created a 4 GB HD video (which also fits on a FAT32 file system) and created a DL disc with some GBs wasted space.

I tried to put another file onto the ROM part but this always fails as soon as the ROM part exceeds the layer limit, which is strange because DVD-ROM-only DL discs seem to work perfectly.


Output of FFmpeg has a "slow motion" part - what is it and how to avoid? Source video

I have a screencast recorded from iPad with QuickTime Player on macOS.

When I open the original recording in QuickTime Player for playback, I can see the playback controls as below:

Processing

I processed the video with the following command (full log):

ffmpeg -i test-source.mov test-result.mov

Resulting video in QuickTime Player

Then, when I open the result in QuickTime Player, I see the controls as below:

The part with more sparse "dots" plays in slow motion, I can drag the bars to change the start and end of this part and minimise it to zero-length (the overall length changes from 03:06 to 01:00 then and full video plays at normal speed).

Resulting video in iMovie 10

Similarly, when add the video in iMovie with Import Media, I see "Speed"-control already applied on the source:

I can turn it off before adding to the timeline, but if I don't, the clip shows with the following decorators indicating normal speed (left and right) and slow (the middle section with the turtle):

(for this screenshot I added a black overlay to hide the video)

Both the limits of the speed sections and slowdown rate differ between QuickTime Player (1 min. movie expanded to 3:06) and iMovie (expanded to 1:30).

VLC does not notice it, plays the video at normal speed.

Questions

What is this feature called?
How to avoid this slow motion part in the output of FFmpeg?

Your source is variable frame-rate with a peak rate of 120 and an average rate of close to 60. Editors tend to want constant frame rate streams. If you can interpret your whole transcoded file as 120 fps, then you should get the expected result. Alternatively, you can preserve the original variable frame rate,

ffmpeg -i test-source.mov -vsync vfr test-result.mov

or transcode to a constant 60 fps,

ffmpeg -i test-source.mov -r 60 test-result.mov


Mux mkv and dts file, change default audio stream and language I want to mux (combine) two files into one mkv file. The first one is an mkv file that contains a video and an audio stream in German. The second one is an English audio stream in dts format.I want one mkv file that contains both audio channels, the English one being the first and default audio stream.

Here's the ffmpeg command I'm using so far:

ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -i audio.dts -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0
-map 0:a:0 -c copy movie_combined.mkv

This produces acceptable results. I get an mkv file that has two audio channels, the first one English, the second one German. However, there's two problems. The second (German) audio stream is still the default stream (VLC media player uses it by default and according to MediaInfo, there's a default flag on the stream). Also, the English stream doesn't show up as English, according to MediaInfo there's no language information for that stream.

How do I flag the English audio stream as the default one? And how do I add the language information for that stream (so that, for example, it shows up as English in the audio track selection of VLC media player)?

Based on this answer on stackoverflow, it seems that changing the disposition is now possible with ffmpeg (see also the official documentation).
I think that the command that you would need, so that the final file had English as the default audio stream is:
ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -i audio.dts -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 -map 0:a:0 -c copy -disposition:a:0 default -disposition:a:1 0 movie_combined.mkv

The addition is -disposition:a:0 default -disposition:a:1 0. The numbering of the streams is for the output. -disposition:a:1 0 is needed to remove the disposition from the second stream.
(Instead of -disposition:a:1 0 you could also, in principle, use the non-documented -disposition:a:1 none, which has the same effect.)
To add metadata/language information, see the other answer.


Does a Content Management Tool/Software exist to help me quickly build video trailers from a large collection of content? Does such a program exist whereby I can query a keyword in a database of all my transcript and audio content, and all instances/time-stamps will be displayed? The goal is to prevent my editors from having to do the manual search, as we need to create many trailers very quickly each week.

Convert all your transcriptions to subtitles (with timestamps) and save as one big plain text file, then just use ordinary search tools. This question more related to software for movies catalog.

But I think, you want not just keywords. You want "hot" places from your videos. I experimented a bit with automatic trailer creation:

https://files.catbox.moe/afoyu2.mp4
https://files.catbox.moe/hu91ip.mp4 (same, but other song)
https://files.catbox.moe/mzhc7v.mp4 (funny bug: credits as scene)

There videos was produced in full automatic way, including scene selection, beat matching and re-timing. As you can see, this is very cool, but not perfect. So, I not finished this tool.


What happens when a compressed video is played back? I've been reading up on video compression. I understand that 'raw' media file sizes are to big for practical usage so they have to be compressed, but I'm wondering what happens when the video is being played back.

I mean is the whole video decoded (decompressed) and stored somewhere in memory (this doesn't seem possible) or are the individual frames decoded one at the time and then forgotten, so that when you want to replay a portion of the video you need to decode it again?

It's probably a very noob question and it's because I am one, so would appreciate any info.

In most common compression schemes, there isn't a 1::1 correspondence between "video" frames and "file" (or stream) frames **. Any particular video frame may require the contents of several file frames to become a complete viewable image. So a player will read and buffer as many file frames as needed to reconstruct the video frame in question. The player may buffer much more, but it's not required to.

For example, if some video frame ends up as a P frame when encoded in the file, the player will need to look back to find the previous I frame, decode that, then apply the differences encoded in the intervening P frames to get the complete result.

** EDIT: There is of course a file frame for each video frame, but the point is that you can't usually read one frame from the file and get a complete video frame: that's only true for I frames.


ffmpeg replay input to output giving errors I'm trying to stream something back out using this command:

ffmpeg -i rtmp://xxx.114.173.196/live/ninja -f flv rtmp://127.0.0.1/live/test

but it is throwing the following output:

[flv @ 0x3e3e6e0] video stream discovered after head already parsed
[flv @ 0x3e3e6e0] audio stream discovered after head already parsed
Input #0, flv, from 'rtmp://xxx.114.173.196/live/ninja':
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (Main), yuvj420p(pc, bt709/bt709/iec61966-2-1, progressive), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 62.50 fps, 60 tbr, 1k tbn, 120 tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: aac (LC), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp
[swscaler @ 0x3eb1180] deprecated pixel format used, make sure you did set range correctly
[flv @ 0x3f32780] FLV does not support sample rate 48000, choose from (44100, 22050, 11025)
[flv @ 0x3f32780] Audio codec mp3 not compatible with flv
Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Function not implementedStream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 (native) -> flv1 (flv))
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (aac (native) -> mp3 (libmp3lame))
    Last message repeated 1 times

What am I doing wrong?

Try

ffmpeg -i rtmp://xxx.114.173.196/live/ninja -ar 44100 -f flv rtmp://127.0.0.1/live/test

The sample rate cannot be 48 kHz, which is triggering the absurd message that MP3 isn't compatible with FLV although that is its default codec.

This command should work, while avoiding transcoding:

ffmpeg -i rtmp://xxx.114.173.196/live/ninja -c copy -f flv rtmp://127.0.0.1/live/test


How to trim / edit a video and save with original settings, without encoding I have several videos from which I want to trim the end. Usually it takes too long time – so I need software that does not change the original settings and does not re-encode.

For example if my video 720×576, encoded with H.264  at 25 fps and a bitrate of 8000, these settings should remain – also for sound – and it should export as quickly as possible.


Subtitle SubRip (*.srt) Positioning I like SubRib (*.srt) subtitle positioning, as shown below:

28
00:02:25,016 --> 00:02:27,393
{\pos(200,250)}- <i>Naw</i>, you're fired.
- What?

But that makes me wonder is whether this position will remain the same for the movie file in a different screen resolution?

For example, the dimensions movies is 1920x800 in the 1440x900 monitor, and then played in a 1024x600 monitor.

This method is relative to the dimensions of the movie file or to monitor? Are all the players recognize the positioning in this way? Is there another way to do the positioning?

A player doesn't have to acknowledge the position of subtitles. So a user could re-position them if he wanted to.
Thats actually the standard way of doing it. What you have there is a custom tag. The .srt format doesn't include any position data for the subtitles. Some players can recognize this sort of custom data and use it but you can't expect that a player will understand it.


Burn a single HD video into a DVD without losing quality I created a video (slideshow of 14.2MP photos and music) using Windows Live Movie Maker. The video's resolution is 1440x1080 and is as WMV with 840MB.

Now what I want is to burn that HD video (no menus, no other videos) into a DVD so it can be playable on any DVD player and watchable on a TV. Is there any way to burn it without losing quality? I tried Nero, Windows Live Movie Maker burn dvd option and Wondershare DVD Creator. The video quality got worse in all of them (Nero's being the worse and Wondershare's the better) with loss of sharpness, sometimes minor jpeg artifacts and some color changes.

I believe there must be a way to do it because:

the DVD still has 3.80GB free, so why compressing it?
the movie DVD's image quality is great so what are they using to do it?

Is there any software to burn the video without losing the original quality? Should I compress the video to 720x480 using specialized software /which one?) before burning it?

The short answer is "No."  DVD by definition is limited to 720x480 video with a fairly low bitrate, compressed specifically with MPEG-2.  There is absolutely no way to make your HD video look just as good with those constraints.

Some DVD players do let you play .mp4, .mkv, or whatever files that happen to be stored on a DVD, but that isn't a standard function of DVD players in general.


Using ffmpeg, can I remove the color from an area of the video a TV station I watch has a very distracting logo, which is a semi transparent red square.

I can cover up the logo with the delogo filter like this: (Alas this introduces new distractions.)
ffmpeg -y -i input.TS -vf delogo=x=79:y=36:w=57:h=57:show=0 -t 120 -vcodec h264_qsv -b:v  12300k output.ts

Is there a way to use ffmpeg to remove only the color from the area of the logo?
Because if it was just gray, it wouldn't be that distracting and taking out the color would not introduce flickering artefacts.

I found one solution in cropping the video, turning it into black and white and then putting this as an overlay on itself.
ffmpeg -y -i "input.ts" -filter_complex "[0] crop=57:57:79:39 [cr];[cr] hue=s=0 [cr2];[0][cr2] overlay=79:39" -map "[cr2]" -vcodec h264_qsv -b:v  12300k output.ts


Vegas Pro 15.0 Fade In/Out Hi everyone! Unfortunately, I have no idea how to search for a solution so I will try to explain what my problem is. For some reason, on some video, I cannot add fade in/out, because it is overlapped by another one. Is there any way to fix this instead of leaving a small gap between videos?

Well... You could try to place the clip that you want to fade in/out on top of the other clips. If that does not work, you will have to split all of the clips at the same place and make them all fade in/out. If doing this will ruin the whole project video because you have other effects on it, then I suggest rendering the video without adding any fade in-/outs and then opening a new project and adding the video you made, then making it fade in/out wherever you would like to. I hope this helped!


Import editable Photoshop text layers into Premiere pro cc 2015? In After Effect when you import a Photoshop file you can import individual layers, and if there are text layers in your file, you can edit them into after effects by converting into editable text.

In Premiere Pro you can import these individual layers but I can't find a way to edit text layers/change there text formatting in premiere pro. You can do that in Photoshop a change will reflect in premiere pro, but is it possible to do inside premiere pro.

Suppose I imported a file with a background layer, one text layer with "Anshuman Chandel" in that layer. Now I want to change "Anshuman Chandel" with "foo bar". I can do that by "edit into Photoshop" option, but can this be done in premiere pro itself as in After Effect?

Thanks in advance!

You cannot bring them in directly, the way you describe.

After Effects allows you to import your PSD files from Photoshop, making use of editable layers and text.

Premiere does not.

However, you can get this to work by using Adobe Bridge, which comes with the CS suite. Bridge has a utility called Dynamic Link, which allows you to work in realtime in both PS and PPro. You then import in your PSDs with Dynamic Link / Abobe Bridge, and any updates made to the PSD title cards in Photoshop appear immediately.

This allows more than one person to work on a project, one on Chyron and one on cutting.

The only downside is you have to flip back and forth between the two- or use a multi-monitor setup, with PS on one and PPro on the other.

Only other option is to do you edits in AE, where you can bring in the PSDs as actual PSDs with Text, not just the layers.


obs resize output (source size) feature I use the resize output (source size) of the obs studio to fit the canvas size to windows. Unfortunately, sometimes this feature is grayed out and I cannot select it. See the below screenshot.
Why this happens and how to fix it.

I had the same thing; starting OBS in administrator-mode worked for me.


Best video performance with the Nikon 5100? I have decided to run a "vlog" as of recently, so I decided to test out my Nikon D5100's capabilities. It is consistently refocusing, thus creating a very loud, irritating noise. When I set it to manual, it comes out of focus, and doesn't return. I need both of these issues solved before I use it, or I'm just going to go buy a camcorder of some sort.

I would like to know of any quality microphones I can use, perhaps a different type of lens, tactics, etc.

The focus issue is a side effect of contrast based autofocus.  The camera basically is guessing at what "in focus" means by analyzing the lines in the image and if the overall sharpness is better or worse than it was at the previous focus setting.  This process ends up meaning it will move through the focal point and out of focus again as many as a few times before settling on the best point.  Using manual focus with a narrow aperture to increase depth of field is generally your best bet to get a suitable result, but may require fairly bright lighting.

As for microphones, the best mic to use is going to depend on what kind of look you want.  If you want a handheld mic, the Shure SM58 is a relatively cheap and standard mic.  You can also go with a shotgun mic if you'd prefer something off camera that can pick up clear audio, though it might be harder to use properly without an operator pointing it if you move much in the scene.  The in-between option is a lapel mic which can be worn and remain fairly inconspicuous.  This is the most common approach when a boom operator isn't available and you don't want to be visibly holding a microphone.

There are a wide selection of shotgun and lapel mics available.  Your best bet will probably be to jump on someplace like B&H and start looking for well reviewed mics in your price range.  If you have any more specific questions about what type of mic to choose, we could answer general questions about what features would be best to look for if you have particular concerns or needs.


A animated video with effects similar to Valiant Hearts I am trying to create a 2-3 minute video with a style similar to the below Valiant Hearts video
(Starts at 1:40.

            )
What is that animation called? Is it 2D or 3D? What kind of software is used to make such kind of videos?
As per the feedback from Animation Stack Exchange it uses parallax effects.
Thanks in advance.

I found the software and effect I was looking for.
The Parallax Effect - Adobe After Effects.


How to make Sony Vegas Pro 13 work on a 4K display I bought Sony Vegas Pro 13 recently for my 4K laptop, but when I fired it up, the loading screen did not look good. The text was running into itself, and it didn't fit in the window.

When the application loaded, the buttons and strips on the editor were only about 5mm tall.

Is there a way to make Vegas work on a 4K screen? Are there settings I can change, or a patch I can install? And if not, is there something in the works for this? I will add that I did try changing the screen resolution, but it still looks like this.

There's apparently a hack which alters the Vegas executable to solve this problem. There's a setting of dpiAware in the application manifest which falsely tells Windows that Vegas is DPI aware and will scale up text and icons on a HiDPI display. Vegas does not do this. So, the value should be changed from true to false.

The hack tutorial alongwith link to required tool is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vvr0c5VHGIM

I haven't needed to do this so I can't vouch for the method but it appears to work.