convert live hls stream into rtmp stream one of our partner is exposing a live HLS stream. I want to know if there is any tool that can take hls live stream as input and convert it to rtmp live stream and ideally push that output to some other server.

Basically we are using wowza server to serve live channels to our clients. As per my knowledge wowza is not taking video stream as input using http protocol. Thats why i am looking for a tool to convert hls stream to rtmp stream.

We are trying to do the following, but it fails:

ffmpeg -i http://bgsf.hls.iptvdc.com/islambox/732/play.m3u8 -re -acodec copy -vcodec copy rtmp://ib12.islambox.tv/live/najam83

C:\>ffmpeg -i http://bgsf.hls.iptvdc.com/islambox/709/play.m
3u8 -re -acodec copy -vcodec copy rtmp://ib12.islambox.tv/live/najam83

ffmpeg version N-76023-g0131636 Copyright (c) 2000-2015 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 5.2.0 (GCC)
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --disable-w32threads --enable-av
isynth --enable-bzlib --enable-fontconfig --enable-frei0r --enable-gnutls --enab
le-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libbs2b --enable-libcaca --
enable-libdcadec --enable-libfreetype --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-l
ibilbc --enable-libmodplug --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enab
le-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-librtmp --en
able-libschroedinger --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libtheora --ena
ble-libtwolame --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libvo-amrwbenc
 --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enabl
e-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxavs --enable-libxvid --enable-lzma --ena
ble-decklink --enable-zlib
  libavutil      55.  4.100 / 55.  4.100
  libavcodec     57.  6.100 / 57.  6.100
  libavformat    57.  4.100 / 57.  4.100
  libavdevice    57.  0.100 / 57.  0.100
  libavfilter     6. 11.100 /  6. 11.100
  libswscale      4.  0.100 /  4.  0.100
  libswresample   2.  0.100 /  2.  0.100
  libpostproc    54.  0.100 / 54.  0.100
[aac @ 000000bd32533720] element type mismatch 1 != 0
[aac @ 000000bd325fe4e0] element type mismatch 1 != 0
Input #0, hls,applehttp, from 'http://bgsf.hls.iptvdc.com/islambox/709/play.m3u8
':
  Duration: N/A, start: 54791.428622, bitrate: N/A
  Program 0
    Metadata:
      variant_bitrate : 0
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High) ([27][0][0][0] / 0x001B), yuv420p, 720x576 [
SAR 12:11 DAR 15:11], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 50 tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: aac (HE-AAC) ([15][0][0][0] / 0x000F), 48000 Hz, stereo,
 fltp, 46 kb/s
Option re (read input at native frame rate) cannot be applied to output file rtm
p://ib12.islambox.tv/live/najam83 -- you are trying to apply an input option to
an output file or vice versa. Move this option before the file it belongs to.
Error parsing options for output file rtmp://ib12.islambox.tv/live/najam83.
Error opening output files: Invalid argument

Because -rf is a output option, I guess, you should put -re ahead like that:
ffmpeg -re -i http://example.com/test.m3u8 -acodec copy -vcodec copy rtmp://example.com/app/stream


Phone Video + 3D tracking spatial data for compositing? With all of the AR capabilities of actual phones, I wonder if there is any app to record video with all the spatial data of the camera which lets you export the virtual 3D camera directly from the shot to be used for compositing.

The only one I know of is CV-AR from cineversity, which uses apple AR kit to capture facial animation, and works in conjunction with Maxon Cinema 4D.  I don't think depth sensing on phones is quite to the point where anything further than a selfie is very accurate, although I'm sure that'll change in the very near term if it hasn't already.


Video size difference across different formats I'm working on video editing on VSDC and my exports are so much larger then the original video when I export it into mp4 format.
All I did to the video was delete the sound from the video and replace it with the same sound which I cleaned up a bit with audacity and exported into wav format.
The original size of the video was 34mb and the wav file was about 4mb but the export was over 200mb.
I exported it with the option that the software has for youtube and set the quality for 1080p.
I don't understand whats going on.
Could it be that my original video is of a lesser quality then 1080? And the software is adding filler pixels? Are these the numbers I should be looking at?
the original file was mov.

I got a more reasonable file size of 31mb when I exported to avi.
Even exporting to mkv its only 41mb.

You first need to tell us which software you're using. I'm assuming it's the adobe media encoder? Handbrake? ffmpeg?
Nonetheless, the filesize is determined by your resolution, framerate and bitrate. Try exporting the video with VBR with 2 passes and set the bitrate to something between 3 and 6 - that should be enough for a 1920x1080 h264.


Time lapse video with motion blur Based on some of my videos I would like to make time-lapse videos with motion blur. My inspiration is this YouTube video:

Time-lapse with motion blur from video with Avidemux, AviSynth and VirtualDub   (starting at 6:42)

In the video the man uses VirtualDub with

AviSource("path")
Merge(selectEven(), SelectOdd())
Merge(selectEven(), SelectOdd())
Merge(selectEven(), SelectOdd())
Merge(selectEven(), SelectOdd())
AssumeFPS(30)

My source video has 60fps. Based on the tips given here I tried:

ffmpeg -i IN.MOV \
  -vf "tblend=average,framestep=2,tblend=average,framestep=2,setpts=0.25*PTS" \
  -r 60 -an OUT.MOV

Unfortunately my results are not similar, not so good as in the video. Difficult to say where the different is: the time-lapse effect is missing a bit, the motion blur is “different”? I am sorry, I cannot explain.

Maybe some of you have a tip how to switch die VirtualDub approach to FFmpeg regardless of my poor explanation?

Thanks in advance!

astefan


How does YouTube convert between different videos resolutions? What algorithm does YouTube follow to convert between different formats?
Does YouTube store different videos (for different formats) on disk or store only 1 and convert from this to appropriate format as requested?

Youtube stores whatever you upload and transcodes to other formats using their own versions of multiple compression formats including h.264 and webm.  All transcodes go from the same original file that you upload and are stored after transcoding.  Youtube may change the options used from time to time and save new encodes of the video.  Encodes are generally pre-rendered upon upload and then used from disk as far as I can tell.


How can I find duplicate videos by content I have a lot of video files but also a lot of duplicate with different encoding differences (eg 720p and 4K versions). I wasn't able to find an open source solutions. I tried a Windows paid program who did half the job.

You could check out https://theophanemayaud.github.io/video-simili-duplicate-cleaner/ (macOS binaries available)
It's open source, I created it based on vidupe and QT : https://github.com/kristiankoskimaki/vidupe (windows binaries available but no "auto deletion based on specific criterion")
The idea is to extract a few (eg 2, the first and the last) frames, and compare them. If the duration is close, and the frames look similar : you've got a duplicate.
It uses opencv for frame comparison, and ffmpeg for frame extraction (ffmpeg is also for video metadata which is very useful when trying to tell which video to keep !). Since it's open source, you can improve it to fit your needs !


Should I separate files in After Effects for different part of a Premiere Pro project? I am new to these two software and I want to do a little video for the promotion of the next show of a musical troupe. They want to recruit new people.

I have done an effect for the intro in after effects, I want to add another one effect for the end to tell about what kind of people they want to recruit.

Should I do both in one same after effects project or shoud I do several production in one project ?

I guess I should do several projects but I'm really not sure as far as I am new and found noting about it on the Internet ...

You can do both. I myself have used both methods. However, my recommendation would be to do each shot in its own project. Here are my thoughts on both methods.

Doing it all in one project makes things faster, because you don't have to create a new project for every shot you have. However, the problem with this is that the project gets really convoluted. It means you have to be super organized to keep the project tidy. But even when you do that, if you need to come back to the project, it usually takes you a bit of time to get your head around what is what and where can I find this specific item, especially if you are using a lot of precomps in the project.

Doing each shot in its own project keeps things really simple, because you know that everything here belongs to this shot and that's it. You can quickly figure out what is happening, especially if the project is organized and tidy.

Of course, I am assuming that you are doing simple effects on each shot. If you are doing major vfx or compositing work on your shots, then you should definitely create a new project for each shot, because that project will get convoluted due to the scale of the job you are doing. So you shouldn't be making it even bigger with adding other shots to it.


Different names for video resp. audio filters There are many pairs of video and audio filters for the same purpose - one for video streams and the other for audio streams.

For example fade - afade, trim - atrim, split - asplit, loop - aloop.

The names for audio filters have the a prefix.

Why? Why they are different names for video and audio filters?

After all, every filter is applied to a particular individual stream, isn't it? So FFmpeg knows in advance the type of that stream, and is able to decide itself what type of filter have to use (video or audio), even if the names would be the same.

Mainly because this is how things got implemented / evolved from the start. Yes, it could be a single filter but that would need major changes to the current code.


Biggest possible resolution or go for common denominator? I need to transcode 720p AVC videos to Xvid because they need to be played on a Samsung DVD player. The player can handle maximum 448 pixel high videos and automatically scales the picture up to 1080p for the full HD TV. Now the question is, should I downscale to 448p for the highest theoretical resolution or 360p because it's exactly 1/4 of the source's and 1/9 of the TV's resolution?

Assuming the player can rescale the video to Full HD fast enough, I would output to the highest resolution acceptable.


FFMPEG: Make video with non-constant framerate from image filenames I have a large group (tens of thousands) of images which were captured to an SSD at the max speed possible, which was therefore not a constant frame rate. Because of this, when using FFMPEG to turn these into a constant frame-rate video it seems to speed up and slow down when it shouldn't.

Is there a way to tell FFMPEG to time the images based on the timestamp in the filename rather than a constant framerate?

For example, consider the following (contrived) list of files:

2019-01-28-08-00-28-000-000.tiff
2019-01-28-08-00-28-700-000.tiff
2019-01-28-08-00-28-900-000.tiff

These should be three sequential frames, but should have varying times between them. Then I can use the minterpolate filter to make it a smooth transition.

The below answer was provided as a comment on the question by Gyan. I've reposted it as an answer so this question can be marked as solved.

  The image2 reader in ffmpeg can assign timestamps based on the modification time of the file, with nanosecond precision. Not possible on Win, AFAICT. So, on a linux box, you can parse the filename and generate a timestamp and touch the mtime of the file. The absolute timestamps don't matter, just need to make sure the deltas in the mtimes correspond to the desired deltas. Then rename or symlink the images to form a smooth numbered sequence. Once done, read as follows: ffmpeg -f image2 -ts_from_file 2 -i images%d.jpg -vf minterpolate=... – Gyan

This worked for me! I was able to use the touch -d command to set the timestamp on each file based on the filename, then use ffmpeg -f image2 -ts_from_file 2 -i %d.png out.mp4 to create the video. Interpolation ended up being time-prohibitive, but shouldn't really be necessary in my final video.


Motion graphics vs compositing I am really confused between the meaning of motion graphics and compositing. Is motion graphics mean using still image to create illusion of moving object and compositing is combining 2 or more clips together in the same frame?

Motion graphics consists of Graphic Design and Animation. Main focus is to deal with images, typography, color and illustrations, also it's key to work with design assets, like flow charts, icons, images or backdrops, which created with animation in mind.

However Compositing consists of Animation, Mathematics and Rating Pictures (eyeballing). Main focus is digital image manipulation - it's the art and science to combine (matching) images from multiple sources like film, photographs or 3d renderings into new (blended) images to create a perfect illusion.


How to send stream to server without any compression? How to send stream to server without any compression (output should be exactly the same as the video stream being sent)?

ffmpeg doesn't seem to be able to do that. It always lose something (based on filesize and ffprobe output). Is there any alternative?

This question is asking for alternative to ffmpeg that may do the job more easily than ffmpeg.

Any video you plan to stream from a host machine to another endpoint, or multiple endpoints, will have to be encoded. The question is what is your source? Are you streaming a live video feed? If so, in order to stream uncompressed you’d first have to have your capture setup to injest the video as an uncompressed format, 4:4:4. Even with just 1080, you are talking huge amounts of data.

For uncompressed, to stream over the internet, youre going to need a serious rock solid network uplink... 1000mbps up or greater depending on the frame size.


What artifacts result from image stabilization in iMovie? I just tried the iMovie image stabilization feature for the first time. It seems to me that it adds some sort of shimmery artifact, but it's not so easy to tell. Most manipulations 'cost' something, what does this this one cost?

clabacchio's answer is generally correct but the major artifact you get other than loosing a part of your frame is that no image stabilization is perfect. Especially iMovie doesn't do the greatest job in tracking the camera movement compared to Premiere, After Effects or Nuke. In order to stabilize a video you need to "find" the movement of the camera and move the video frame in the opposite direction, if the algorithm doesn't do its job very well you will end up with an even weirder camera shaking, especially if you have very high amplitude shakes for a few frames, the software has a hard time to account for those and has to blend movement to make it appear less abrupt, its a quite complicated process as its not possible to remove certain amplitudes of movement without loosing absolutely everything of your frame.

Additionally if you have a lot of tilting going on you will have weird distortions in your video because obviously with a 2D video you can only correctly remove movement on the x and y axis e.g. panning of the camera.
These limitations are responsible for most artifacts in terms of picture distortion.


Show current frame or display timecode (frames) on MPC-HC? Does anybody know if this is possible? I know how to encode timecode display using ffmpeg but I would like to avoid this step and find a way in MPC (currently my favorite video player). CTRL+J doesn't display this feature. Thanks.

If the video file has subtitles (even fake ones, even not being displayed), you can go to View -> Subresync (or hit Ctrl + 6) and you'll see the timecode in the status bar displayed as {Hour:Minute:second.frame}.  As yet, I haven't found how to make this display format permanent, to appear even without a subtitle track.

EDIT:  In my own searching, I just came upon a post elsewhere stating that if you right-click the time on the status bar, in ANY video, whether or not it has subtitles, then you will see an option for "High precision".  You only need to select it once, and then the preference will be remembered for all subsequent files (even audio only).


Is there a way to manage Final Cut project files under Linux or Windows? I don't have a x86 Mac at hand I'm having trouble organising a large collection of Final Cut 7 projects.

I have tried to run Final Cut under Virtualized OS X.  But I have trouble installing it since VMWare doesn't provide QuartzExtreme driver.

Is there any way to solve the issue or this is hopeless and I need a real Mac?

You can't edit FCP project files on Linux for sure. Sorry :)


How to change timeline scale in Davinci Resolve Fusion page? I am watching a tutorial about creating an animated title. The instructor shows his time line as A, however, mine is shown as B.
How to change from B to A? I have searched for this but I could not find the proper settings on my installed Davinci Resolve 17 (the latest update, free version).

You can change the preview scale using the numbers below the transport controls. When fusion clips come in from Resolve, Resolve determines the in and out points, based on where the clip sits in your timeline.  So changing the numbers to match a tutorial you’re following is probably not a good idea unless you’re using identical media, and have identical Resolve timelines.


merge audio and video(having audio) using ffmpeg command I run below command for this question that is working and give output file in mp4 but that file is not open in QuickTime Player but open in VLC Player and not open in other PC also.

Command:

ffmpeg -i EnergyVideo.mp4 -i EnergyAudio.mp3 -filter_complex \
"[1:a]volume=enable='between(t,27,33)':volume=0, volume=enable='between(t,38,42)':volume=0[1a];[0:a][1a]amerge=inputs=2[a]" \
-map 0:v -map "[a]" -c:v copy -c:a libvorbis -ac 2 -shortest energyvideooutput2.mp4

Output file Log:

ffmpeg version 4.0 Copyright (c) 2000-2018 the FFmpeg developers
  built with Apple LLVM version 9.0.0 (clang-900.0.39.2)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/4.0 --enable-shared --enable-pthreads --enable-version3 --enable-hardcoded-tables --enable-avresample --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags= --enable-gpl --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libvorbis --enable-libx264 --enable-libxvid --enable-opencl --enable-videotoolbox --disable-lzma
  libavutil      56. 14.100 / 56. 14.100
  libavcodec     58. 18.100 / 58. 18.100
  libavformat    58. 12.100 / 58. 12.100
  libavdevice    58.  3.100 / 58.  3.100
  libavfilter     7. 16.100 /  7. 16.100
  libavresample   4.  0.  0 /  4.  0.  0
  libswscale      5.  1.100 /  5.  1.100
  libswresample   3.  1.100 /  3.  1.100
  libpostproc    55.  1.100 / 55.  1.100
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'EnergyVideo.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : Lavf57.83.100
  Duration: 00:00:42.03, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 9889 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 9779 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 19200 tbn, 38400 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 101 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler
Input #1, mp3, from 'EnergyAudio.mp3':
  Metadata:
    TCM             : Jimmy Tran
    TT1             : This video is about ENERGY Track #1 Clip 1
    title           : ENERGY Track #1 Clip 1
    encoded_by      : iTunes 9.1
  Duration: 00:00:42.27, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 258 kb/s
    Stream #1:0: Audio: mp3, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 258 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:1 (aac) -> amerge:in0
  Stream #1:0 (mp3float) -> volume
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
  amerge -> Stream #0:1 (libvorbis)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
[Parsed_amerge_2 @ 0x7fe0db617100] No channel layout for input 1
[Parsed_amerge_2 @ 0x7fe0db617100] Input channel layouts overlap: output layout will be determined by the number of distinct input channels
Output #0, mp4, to 'energyvideooutput.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : Lavf58.12.100
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 9779 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 19200 tbn, 19200 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
    Stream #0:1: Audio: vorbis (libvorbis) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp (default)
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc58.18.100 libvorbis
frame=  711 fps=0.0 q=-1.0 size=   29696kB time=00:00:23.63 bitrate=10293.5kbitsframe= 1261 fps=0.0 q=-1.0 Lsize=   50650kB time=00:00:41.96 bitrate=9886.9kbits/s speed=45.8x
video:50177kB audio:415kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:4kB muxing overhead: 0.114199%

Thank You.

Drop the vorbis audio

ffmpeg -i EnergyVideo.mp4 -i EnergyAudio.mp3 -filter_complex \
"[1:a]volume=enable='between(t,27,33)+between(t,38,42)'[1a];[0:a][1a]amerge=inputs=2[a]" \
-map 0:v -map "[a]" -c:v copy -c:a aac -ac 2 -shortest energyvideooutput2.mp4


Is there any option for mirror imaging in video editing software? I recently encountered this video:

I really like the presentation of that person in the video. I guess he has a glass screen infront of the him and he is writing it. But is he writing it backward? Or is it an editing effect? I mean, any option for mirror imaging the video?

I don't think it would matter that much other than for the actor writing, easier if (s)he doesn't have to think about reverse-writing. The flipping effect is a one-click effect and wouldn't require much in terms of hardware, software or brain-power.

What editing software are you using - the effect should be easy to find in any way. It might not even be an effect as such but rather a transform feature but it would help if the editor was brought out.

I doubt that your editor DOESN'T have this effect but in the strange case where it doesn't, you can also try setting the width of the image to -100%, that works on some editors. But I'm pretty sure there is a flip.horizontal effect somewhere.


Does it make sense to upgrade my set up to 4K from a (Canon) 70D set up? I'm not very experienced, but I keep hearing, "it's a good time to upgrade to a 4K setup".

This is quite expensive, especially at this stage, but does it make sense from a logistical point of view? I would like to be doing this for quite sometime, but the 70D purchase set me back quite a bit.

It all boils down to "Do you need it"

If you are shooting corp promos and your clients keep asking or are insisting on 4K then Yes you can look into it as you can justify the purchase as the work is going to pay for it in the end.

If it is just an odd job here and there that they want 4K then hire one as it will be much cheaper at £££/$$$ for a day or two compared to £££££/$$$$$ plus upgrading cards and all your other kit to compliment the new camera.

I had the same thought but only upgraded to a Canon C100 from my Canon 7D and didnt have to upgrade much else but did get rid of a few obstacles as well.

Put the money back into some decent glass and or upgrade other elements which could make your productions better, ie Audio, Lighting, Tripods, Lenses etc camera bodies you can swap and change but good accessories will last the test of time.


Transfer Avid project from one machine to another How can I transfer an Avid Media Composer project -- with all media -- from one computer to another?

Are there any issues with duplicating media when transferring media files?

Your best bet for transferring any type of media file will be to zip it along with any session files/data first to preserve the file types. Once you zip your files you can use any external hard drive to make the transfer from one machine to another.


Create a Time Lapse Video with Adobe Premiere I have a video clip that is one hour long and I would like to compress it down to 60 seconds. Anyone know the easiest way to do this with Premiere?

Depending on your version of Premiere, there should actually be a speed adjustment from the context menu when you right click on the clip.  It may be under a sub-menu depending on version, but it will give you the option of either a % to increase/decrease the speed by or a new time that you want the clip to take.


Shape dimensions in AE It's possible to change the dimensions of a Shape in AE under Transform > Scale.

But what if I want pixel values? Is it possible to change the exact pixel dimensions of a Shape w/o resorting to expressions?

On the layer "Scale" value:
Right Click => Edit Value...

There you will see dialogue box:

How you can see, you can change it there.


Is there some sort of macro facility for inserting repeated actions? I'm new to Final Cut Pro X. I do a lot of shooting with two cameras and sometimes I want to do split screen, and other times I want to show one view or the other. I transition from one view to another or from one view to split screen by inserting keyframes and changing the Transform and Crop values between them. But trying to get the keyframes just right for each change is tedious. Can I create some sort of "macro" when I can just click and insert a change from view 1 to split or the opposite, view 1 to view 2 or the opposite, or view 2 to split or the opposite? I'm not even sure what the terminology is.

You want to transition from 2 video feeds in one video to full screen video and back?
(Took me a while, I thought you were talking about the viewers on your monitor while editing multicam)

You can do it one time and cmd+C it. Then where you want to use it again do Shift+Cmd+V and choose which effects (in this case transform) you would like to paste. Works for other effects too.

You can also use a generator that does it, if you can find one or modify or create one in Motion 5 for a more permanent solution. But you'd need to learn how to do that first.

I know it can be tedious work. With Keyframes, I start with the end and work myself backwards. So when you start out with 2 feeds side by side, keyframe them at the begin situation, go to the frame where you want it all to be one video, that's the end situation. There you adjust it to what it should look like.
Play it through and if not perfect yet, walk backwards with a few frames at a time (arrow key) to adjust what you need to.

If the transformations and crops are the same for multiple cuts, you can also screenshot the inspector values for them and just type those in for the next cut.. so you don't need to do it by eyes anymore.

Hope it helps.. good luck!


Get rid of loud pops from audio This is more related to audio than video so I apologize if I posted in the wrong forum. I've prerecorded some podcasts to listen on long drives/flights/trains and for the most part things have been great. I also run them through a normalizer to make sure the sound volume is consistent.

However, some audio files have an occasional pop that goes way above the normal volume and hurts my ears. Since I listen to the audio in my headphones, this is much worse than if my speaker made that noise.

I've tried googling about this but couldn't find much info, so maybe I'm not using the correct name for this phenomenon, it's basically a sudden, loud, and sharp sound that sounds like a balloon popping inside of my head. I was hoping I could use something like Audacity to detect and get rid of it - because detecting them with my own ears doesn't seem to be working too well for me.

You can use Audacity for this purpose, and you can follow this link to learn how: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/tutorial_click_and_pop_removal_techniques.html

Generally, clicks are little bursts of noise (such as a small scratch on a vinyl record), and pops are larger bursts of noise (such as a large scratch or a plosive "P" hitting a microphone without a pop filter).


Create splitscreen video using ffmpeg I have two videos of different length. I need to create a new video with one video at the left and other at the right. I tried using this. Problem is my videos are of different length. I want to start one video a few seconds after the other started. Also, I want to keep the audio of the longer video only.

Use

ffmpeg -i shorter.mp4 -i longer.mp4 -filter_complex
 "[0]trim=0:3.5,drawbox=c=black[delay];[delay][0]concat[left];
  [left][1]hstack[v]"
 -map "[v]" -map 1:a -c:a copy out.mp4

where 3.5 should be replaced with the delayed start time (in seconds) of the shorter video.


Mask in After Effects v 2020 is not accurate I've made sure it's a mask and not a shape layer.  I've precomposed the layer just in case because I"ve applied keylight.  There is no mask expansion applied.  Please help.  Thank you.

Issues like these usually arise when you either have the layer transformed in 3D-space, or when using distortions and transform-effects on the layer. Since you do not have the 3D-checkbox ticked, I assume that you have some sort of transformation applied in the effect-controls. Did you use something like cc-lens, mesh-warp or turbulent displace? If so, first mask the layer, then precompose it, then apply the warping to it.


In Kdenlive, how to select an area for render? In Kdenlive's render settings I can choose the option to render "selected zone".

How do I select the zone?

"Shift + left click" enables a box selection. However it only selects whole clips, so this approach does not work.

Use the keys "i" for "start" and "o" for "end" to create the selection. They use the current frame position.

Example:

Move the playhead to frame 190 and press "i". Move it to 390 and press "o".

This creates a selection with beginning at the frame 190 and end at 390.


Adobe Premiere - export project with original resolution Trying to import a .mov project at 2312x1644, do some editing, then export at the exact same resolution. I'm new to the program so I assume it has something to do with the codecs, but I don't know which ones to use, or in what order. Any guidance would be appreciated!


Can you embed one video inside another? I'm quite new to video editing so I like some advice on whether it is possible to embed one video inside another?

The kind of effect I'm aiming for is to have one video playing then have it pause whilst another smaller video pops out (like a caption I guess) which plays then disappears leaving the original 'background' video to continue to completion.  The clips are reasonably short at around 2-5 mins.  They are in various formats avi, mpeg xvid - all commonly used, however I expect to have to convert them all to the same format in order to do this.

What editing software (for windows) would I be able to do this in, if indeed it is possible!!  I am reasonably technical but I don't want anything too over the top, unless of course I'm not going to do this with anything simple!!

Thanks for your help.

I believe what you're looking for is an editor with basic picture-in-picture (PiP) capabilities. For full and total control (including getting the "background" video to pause), I'd recommend Adobe Premiere Pro. A lot of simple editors (like iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or even Adobe Premiere Elements) might allow for some very basic PiP, but usually nothing more than letting you put a second video in a corner.

Premiere Pro (or, better yet, any modern NLE of its caliber) will let you stack videos into "layers" on a single timeline, letting you place a "smaller" video "in front of" (or "on top of", from a layers standpoint) the full frame.


Use Streaming Online Video/Live As Source In OBS Studio Is this possible?

Use others or your own Facebook or YouTube live stream as source in obs or any broadcast software and then broadcast it on another page or channel.

This would be possible using OBS's BrowserSource.

First, find the embed code for the stream (in YouTube you can click "Share" and then "Embed"). Find the src="" and copy the URL that's inside the quotes. In OBS, create a new Browser. Paste the previously copied URL into the URL field, and set the Width and Height to your canvas size (or your preferred size).

If you need to press a play button, you can right-click the Browser and click Interact.

I hope this helps!


Drawing a line over video that is camera tracked Complete noob here with After Effects but I feel I am so close of achieving it yet...

I am trying to draw a line using the pen tool and get this line to follow along with the camera movements. Something like this:

I have created this using Track Camera on the footage, then selecting a target, right click and create null object. Then I draw the line on the null object using the pen tool, so it creates it as a Mask. All I want is that mask to stay in the footage, no effects, nothing special. Just this yellow line.

So it does work fine if I have the mask selected and I play the footage, but it disappears when I see the video from Premiere (they are linked)
What am I missing?

Thanks!

Masks do not render in after effects, the lines and boxes are UI elements of the program. To render a mask you have to apply an effect such as the stroke effect to the layer, using the mask as the source.

You could also add a stroke as a drawing on a new layer. You can do that by using the pen tool when there are no layers selected. That will create a shape layer with the current fill and stroke settings, so you may have to turn off the fill.

The boxes around the points would also have to be drawn as individual elments. You could use the square shape tool to draw them as either a source for the stroke effect or on the shape layer.


Best way to stabilize footage? I'm working with footages that are shot handheld. The shakes are not too aggressive but they're still noticeable.

For the longest time ever I've been using Final Cut Pro's stabilization function to stabilize these types of footages, but the outcomes are always less than ideal.

What's a good way to deal with this?

Because software stabilization methods cannot compensate for the shifting parallax of a shaking lens, they will always produce less than ideal results.  In my experience, FCPX's stabilization is just as good as other software packages (I have experience with Shake and After Effects as well), and they all basically work the same way.

This is probably not the answer you want to hear, but the best way to stabilize footage is to shoot stable footage in the first place.  Software stabilization is really just analogous to fine grit sandpaper; It's a good final step to add polish, but you'd never use it from the start.

Physically steadying a camera can be expensive, but that's why audiences have learned to appreciate stable shots -- they associate stability with quality.  But of course you know this, or you wouldn't be asking.

But there are good, reasonably priced ways to physically steady a camera.  Where I work, we have dollys, sliders, shoulder mounts, tripods, brushless motor gimbals, camera cranes, clamps, arms, and pretty much you name it.  But in my experience, the most versatile, portable, practical, and cheap piece of kit that we routinely use is a monopod.  It doesn't allow for all of the fancy movements of the other stuff, but nice ones will at least let you do a fluid pan.

Sorry this doesn't help with footage you've already shot, but I hope it helps with future projects.


"Swimming" texture artefact on a drone video footage I came accross footage, which has been shot using a drone. There appears a "swimming" texture effect on a roof of the building. I downloaded an example to youtube to the following link.

Why is this happening and can it be solved in AE?

Thanks!

This is due to an issue with resolving an image to a set of pixels called moire.  Basically, due to the regular pattern, some parts of a straight line end up on one line of sensors and the other end up on the other.  This results in a jaggy line and the line moves around as the image moves across the sensor, producing the effect you see.  It can occur when shooting any regular repeating pattern off angle to vertical or horizontal.

The "solution" is to apply a gaussian blur (or moire reduction filter if you have one available, but it will basically do the same thing) to normalize the lines enough that they don't flicker back and forth anymore.  It results in a loss of crispness of the image, but will also deal with making the shifting less pronounced.


How much film do I need (in feet/meters)? I'm shooting 3-perf 35mm @ 24 fps. How many feet of film do I need if I'm shooting one hour?

Is there a good site/app for calculating this?

Note: This is a repost of an off-topic/closed question I asked on Photography - Stack Exchange.

4,051 feet of film.

For reference:

8mm = 80.0 frames per foot
Super 8 = 72.0 frames per foot
16mm = 40.0 frames per foot
35mm 2-perf = 32.0 frames per foot
35mm 3-perf = 21.3 frames per foot
35mm = 16.0 frames per foot
65mm = 12.8 frames per foot

The math:

  60 minutes = 3600 seconds, 3600 sec x 24 fps = 86,400 frames, 86,400/21.333 = 4,050.06328

Tools for Calculating

Kodak makes a free app for iOS called "KODAK Cinema Tools" which has a film calculator, among other features.

http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Tools/Mobile/index.htm

Panavision has a simple website with a film footage, frame and running time calculator:

http://www.panavision.co.nz/main/kbase/reference/calcfootage.asp


Graphical editor for OggKate Does anyone know of a graphical editor that let's one create and edit OggKate metadata for a file. I prefer using Ubuntu.

Most of the examples I've found so far uses the commandline.
I've come across "mmg in the package mkvtoolnix-gui", a GUI for mkvmerge.

I plan to capture video recordings through IEEE 1394/Firewire into the DV format, and then export to Ogg Theora. The editor should be able to insert the metadata (geo location, tags, comments). It is specifically metadata, not subtitles.

Link:

About OggKate

From the Xiph Wiki, it doesn't look to me as if such an editor exists.  I would use something like the free Aegisub subtitles editor to enter the metadata text at the correct timings, but enter them as subtitles.  Then export from Aegisub as an .srt file, then perform some search & replace funtions on the .srt file (which is a human-readable text file) to generate the metadata strings you need based on this definition.  Once you have the metadata in the correct format, you should be able to add it to an Ogg file using KateDJ.


DSLR RAW video: 1080p or 720p? This question has probably been asked before, but could not find it. With the possibility of recording RAW video on a DSLR, file size matters because CF cards are limited.
File size can be reduced by recording at 720p as opposed to 1080p. First of all, how do I compute the size needed for a certain resolution? I presume it would be

  file_size_per_second = height x width x 14 x fps

and the result must be divided by some compression factor, I guess, otherwise the number would be too large.
Now, the second question is: for practical purposes, how does the size of the screen need to be  be in order to be able to notice differences between 1080p and 720p? Or, perhaps, does it also depend on what is being recorded?
I'm asking this question, because I would go for 720p to save some space if it did not affect video quality significantly.

Keep in mind that it is 14 bit color and there are 8 bits to a byte.  So the uncompressed data rate would be height * width * 14 bits per pixel / 8 bits per byte * fps.  That said, I'm not sure if they store it completely uncompressed.  RAW images are generally compressed significantly, they are just compressed losslessly.  I'm not sure if the MagicLantern hack uses compression or not though.

As far as screen size for noticing the difference between 720p and 1080p, it doesn't have to be big.  Viewing distance makes a bigger difference, but it's fully possible to tell the difference between 1080p and 720p even on screens that are inches in size as long as they actually support 1080p and are viewed from fairly close.

While I wasn't able to find a CC version, Carlton Bale has a nice graph on his site that shows the screen sizes and distances at which 20/20 vision can resolve the differences.  Note that someone with higher than 20/20 vision would see the differences further out.  It unfortunately only goes from 20 inch displays up though.

In closer, it might be easier to use a pixels per inch measure.  Photographs are typically suggested to be printed at 300dpi or higher when in close.  A 4.7 inch screen at 720p has around 312 ppi.  Uping that to a 1080p resolution at 5 inches or so has a PPI of 415.  At arms length, it isn't going to be noticeable, but when you get in close to it, say watching in bed with it a few inches from your face, the difference will become quite noticeable.

Thinking about it another way, it really all has to do with how big of an area of your vision the screen takes.  So using a 50 inch screen as a guideline, if the display takes up the area of your vision that a 50 inch TV takes when sitting 8 to 10 feet away, then you won't see better than 720p with 20/20 vision.  If it is taking more than that area, then you will easily be able to see the difference.


Batch video editing software that can trim without re-encoding What application is there that can open a video, modify it, and save it?
(the software that I am using now, only allows the video to be used as a source, and then exported)

I have adobe premier, but it does not actually edit videos, you have to make a new project, and set the output type/settings, then import the video, then bring in the video, edit it, and then save it.

I also have iMovie, and again, project, import, edit, export.

Is there any application that I can open a mp4 video make edits (clipping segments) and save it in the same format/size/container/etc as it was opened in?

If you can script yourself, all you need to do is call FFmpeg repeatedly:

ffmpeg -ss [start-time] -i input.mp4 -c copy -t [clip-time] output.mp4

Here, start and clip times can be in the form HH:MM:SS.mmmm, or just in seconds.

To give you a rough idea how that'd look like in Ruby, see this Gist of mine. It contains a script that takes an edit list, a folder of videos, and cuts them accordingly. I've used it very often for cutting videos based on an input edit list.

The edit list would look like that, with the timestamps in the proper FFmpeg format (e.g. 00:00:24.240) and the difference passed to -t in the last column.

Note that you can't expect it to work with any input/output without synchronization issues. If that's the case, you need to re-encode video and audio parts. I wouldn't use that script of mine though as it's not very … eloquent in that regard. Rather cut your video in a NLE.


Record desktop at 1080p60 in high quality I am looking to record my desktop in high quality (not nearly as lossy as H.264).  I have tried OBS @ 200mbps and nVidia Shadowplay @ 50mbps and the text on my desktop is still noticibly blurry when i view the video I just recorded at the native resolution it was recorded at.  OBS is a little bit better than nVidia.

Try lossless encoding with ffmpeg

First, with YUV444P

ffmpeg -f gdigrab -framerate 60 -i desktop -crf 0 -pix_fmt yuv444p -preset ultrafast yuv-cap.mp4

If not clear enough,

ffmpeg -f gdigrab -framerate 60 -i desktop -c:v libx264rgb -crf 0 -pix_fmt bgra -preset ultrafast rgb-cap.mp4

These will likely not be compatible with most video editors, but if the result is satisfactory, then you can transcode at leisure to a compatible codec like PNG in MOV..etc

You can add -draw_mouse 0 before -i desktop to skip recording the cursor.


Why doesn't my s-log3 footage reach 100% value? Why does my footage captured with s-log3 gamma curve on a Sony FS5 seems to clip before 100% if I see it on a waveform?

A log curve is a mathematical transfer function.  SONY have defined a LOG curve (as many vendors do) that imagines future/alternative sensors having larger electron well capacity (higher clipping) and lower noise (lower clipping) than your current silicon design supports. In other words, you are seeing where your sensor's designs fits into an idealized LOG space.  You are not seeing a LOG curve that is limited by only what your particular sensor can achieve at the present moment.


Is it possible to "Blur a Transparent Background" in Adobe After Effects? I am a beginner to Adobe After Effects and Sony Vegas Pro, so forgive me for a lack of a better term.

I am trying to create an Adobe After Effects composition. I want the composition to be transparent with a blur effect. I want to add this blur effect to be in such a way that upon exporting it to an .avi file, I can add this .avi file to a Sony Vegas Project, and the .avi file will blur any layers underneath it.

To illustrate, suppose I have the following Sony Vegas Project:

I want to create an after effects composition such that I can make the image look something like this:

However, I don't want to render the composition with the image in it. I want to render it as an .avi file such that I can apply the blur effect to any arbitrary image, or even video files.

Is this possible? My intuition tells me no, but I'm asking in case there is a way.

It's not possible. A generic blur effect relies on a function which smooths out pixel values within a specified radius. A mask combines the value of a pixel in the top layer with the pixel of the layer beneath, modulated by the corresponding alpha value of that pixel in the top layer.

So, in short a blur is a 'lateral' function, whereas layer compositing is a 'depth' function.


After Effects CS6 not recognizing GTX 1050 Ti GPU I have a laptop with Intel i5 chipset and GeForce GTX 1050 Ti GPU. Due to some work related reasons I still use Adobe After Effects CS6. Right now I am facing an issue with Raytracing in AfterEffects as it doesn't recognize my GPU. The GPU option is greyed out and I couldn't select it.

Things I've tried so far :

Updated the Optix.dll file into a newer version(4.1).
Added GPU name in raytracing supported cards list text file.

Updating the Optix.dll to Optix.1.dll version 3.9.1 worked.


Monitor FFMPEG Rtmp live stream with FFPLAY pipe I have wrestled with this for hours and can not figure out how to pipe this to ffplay so that i can monitor it.
google searches and searches on here and stack overflow come up empty
ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel quiet -stats -re -f concat -safe 0 -stream_loop -1 -i %list% -auto_convert 1 -c:v libx264 -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -c:a aac -b:a 128k -ac 2 -ar 44100 -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc -preset veryfast -b:v 1984k -maxrate 1984k -bufsize 3968k -tune zerolatency -vf "pp=hb/vb/dr/fq|8,crop=in_w-20:in_h-40,scale=960:540:flags=lanczos,setsar=1,format=yuv420p,eq=gamma=0.95" -g 50 -fflags +genpts -f flv %video% - | ffplay -f flv -x 720 -y 480

I have tried doing a standalone  just ffplay but it wont see it
I am sure there must be a way to accomplish this in a easy way, without needing to have webpage open that drains the cpu while trying to stream

I think i got it!
if anyone wants to clean this up let me know, it does work though as is
this is the partial code from the windows batch file:
ECHO Type in your stating playlist file
ECHO.
set /p list=""
set video=rtmp://stream.ssh101.com/live/XXXXXXXXX

bin\ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel quiet -stats -re -f concat -safe 0 -stream_loop -1 -i %list% -flags +global_header -auto_convert 1 -c:v libx264 -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -c:a aac -b:a 128k -ac 2 -ar 44100 -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc -preset veryfast -b:v 1984k -maxrate 1984k -bufsize 3968k -tune zerolatency -g 50 -fflags +genpts -map 0:v -map 0:a -f tee "[f=flv]%video%|[f=nut]pipe:" | bin\ffplay -hide_banner -loglevel 0 pipe: -window_title "RTMP Stream Monitor 1.0 - Viewer (powered by FFPlay)" -x 640 -y 480  -sync audio -autoexit -exitonmousedown -autorotate

Hope this helps someone in the future and definitely look forward to anything to add to this to make it even better


A Sony Pro camera's spec shows it shots in 29.97fps, does it really mean it? According to this ffmpeg documentation, it seems one of the 'native' frame rate for ffmpeg is

  'ntsc':   30000/1001

while 30000/1001=29.9700... does not equal to 29.97, I wonder if a Sony Pro camera really means it shots in 29.97, not 30000/1001?

If that Sony camera does shot in exact 29.97fps, I suppose we should keep the 29.97fps, should not change the fps of the video file to 30000/1001?

29.97 is shorthand for 30000/1001. There is no 29.970000... frame rate standard. FFmpeg will keep the native framerate (usually), so no need to specify an output -r value.


How to upload 1hr video to YouTube from fcpx What is best way to upload longer (1hr plus) videos to youtube from fcpx. Currently my fcpx compresses a 1 hr video to 4.5GB and this takes 7000min to upload....

The upload speed to YouTube depends mainly on your Internet connection and has nothing to do with your editing software...

What you can do (if you can't get a better internet connectivity) is to create a smaller file by using higher compression settings.

I don't know how fcpx handles this process, what video format your clip is etc. But you can achieve decent results by compressing a clip to h264 with a bitrate of 10000-15000kbps and then uploading it...

EDIT: As Michael points out thats the Bitrate you are already using. So you need tackle this task from another angle: what is an acceptable upload time for you and what expectations do you have for the quality of the video? And maybe, video technology unrelated: why is your upload speed so slow (and do you have access to a faster connection)...

Then you need to find a compromise between these parameters (video quality vs time needed for upload). You can get a better compromise between file size and upload time by using a more efficient codec like VP9 or h265 which will lead to the same visual result at lower file sizes. This, at least in the case of h265 comes with the "cost" of having much longer compression times. Another option is not using FullHD resolution and just 720p and lowering the bitrate to 5-8000 KBits

Alternatively, export the video with the settings you have now, copy it to a thumb drive and go to a place that has better Internet connectivity for uploading.


Why is there so little lighting continuity (consistency) from the close up shot to the wide shot? In the video from the Joe Rogan Experience #1533, the close up shots of the guests look well lit and perfectly exposed. But the wide shot taken early in the interview around 6:48 looks terrible - the lights are far too bright and the whole shot looks overexposed. What would cause there to be so much difference in the lighting consistency between these two angles?

The lights are positioned to make the single shots look good.  If you point a load of lights at a camera, the image will look overexposed.
Both these shots are, more or less exposed to make the presenters look correct. But lights visible in a camera shot are much brighter than human faces.
It's a compromise in a small room between which shots are the most important (the close-ups) and the wide is a nice to have.  The alternatives would be bigger softer lights, or indirect lighting, but again with limited space (and budget???) options are limited.


Why are there so many color spaces available? Whatever you are exporting, photo or video, you can choose between an enormous amount of color spaces. sRGB, Adobe RGB 98, Apple RGB, and many more. But why there so many different color spaces? Do they affect your photo/video production when rendering? Are there compatibility issues involved? And why is there not just one type of color space?

There are a number of reasons why there are so many color spaces:

Color resolution - sRGB and similar color spaces only cover a portion of the visible spectrum. This means that they can be represented with fewer bits per color channel. (8 in the case of sRGB.) For something like Rec. 2020 or ACEScg, you need 16 or more bits per channel. If you don't have enough bits for each color channel, you'll start to notice banding in displays of gradations of color in the color space. If your hardware is limited, you'll use one that requires fewer resources, whereas if output quality is of the utmost importance, you'll use one that can represent more colors.
Output Devices - televisions and until recently computer monitors are only able to display a portion of the visible spectrum. (Likewise with printers.) If the output device can't display it, what's the point of being able to store and transmit it? Color spaces used for televisions and earlier computers were chosen based on what they could produce. Recently we've started to see wide gamut and HDR displays that can display a much larger portion of the visible spectrum (but still not all of it), so we're starting to see new color spaces for these devices.
Proprietary Needs - various vendors have created color spaces that match the devices and software they sell. The vast majority of photographers and videographers are home users doing it for fun. They don't need high bit depths and wide color gamuts. But professionals do!
Color spaces can also be designed to have certain properties that others don't. For example, some color spaces separate the colors based on perceptual uniformity (colors that appear similar to humans are grouped together), whereas other color spaces separate the color based on display hardware (RGB color spaces are generally used for displays that have red, green, and blue sub-pixels). Depending on what you're using the colors for, you choose a color space that makes working with colors in that way easy.


How to decide where to place and what zoom to use for a camera We have a lecture hall (diagram below) that holds about 200 attendees.  The speaker stands or sits on an elevated platform in the middle of the room and the attendees make a semi-circle around him.  We recently added an option for attendees to connect to the lecture remotely using GoToMeeting.  To do this, we added a laptop (2) to the room and ran wires to the sound box (1).  We have a simple webcam on a stand beside the speaker (3).  The problem is, we get a really bad angle on the speaker with this setup!

We want a new solution where we'll be able to see the entire speaker's platform on the video.  This will allow the speaker to move around without going off screen.  We also want a straight shot at him.  I thought we could put a camera in the back of the room (6) and connect it to the laptop with a long cable.

Would a traditional USB webcam get a clear picture of the speaker at that distance?  (It's about 30 feet from the speaker's platform to the back)
Could I use some kind of zoom lens to compensate for the distance?  Would that distort the picture?
Is there a better place to put the camera to accomplish this goal?

The sound box.  Has the mixer, amplifier, wireless mic receiver, etc
Laptop running GoToMeeting.
Stand on the speakers platform with a monitor and webcam for the remote attendees.
The internet connection
The wirelss mic
Suggested new camera position

You're on the right track. Your set looks okay to me and that's probably what I would do. But, no, there is no webcam I've ever seen that would be a good fit for this. You need a proper camera and possibly some additional hardware and software to assist in the upstream process.

I believe you can best accomplish what you want with a consumer grade camera. There are plenty of consumer grade camcorders that also have an optical zoom at 10x or higher, and they are fairly cheap too (I assume budget/time is tight, hence the webcam/gotomeeting solution). I would get something with at least 10x optical zoom. Completely ignore digital zoom specs and if you can, turn it off in whatever camcorder you get.

It seems there are camcorders out now that can send the video signal over USB, for exactly this purpose. I've never use that, however, and it may not work that well with Gotomeeting. I would use a camcorder with an HDMI out, then incorporate an HDMI to USB hardware option, which should be able to connect to Gotomeeting as if it were a webcam. There's several hardware recommendation found here.

You will also need to change to location of some of your set. First, I would move the sound box and the laptop running GoToMeeting to the back with the camera (item six on your diagram). Whenever possible, always put all tech in the same location: "The tech table". The primary reason is the ease for your techs to manage the equipment. The secondary reason is the lines. USB and HDMI can't run very far without additional hardware, also longer runs means more work, more expense, more risk, etc.

Here's your new diagram:

For this set, you will need:

Camcorder as previously discussed
Tripod that moves nicely
HDMI to USB converter as previously discussed
HDMI and USB wires
At least one tech managing mostly the camera, plus the other hardware.

If budget and time are not big factors here, I would consider adding one or two more cameras, possibly reposition the original camera, and add a video mixer. In this kind of audience set, called "arena", a dynamic speaker will tend to turn frequently and rapidly to address and engage all the attendees. This means he will be facing your camera less than half the time, which makes for a boring and unengaging shot for your remote attendees. Adding one or two more cameras would significantly increase your set complexity and cost, however, it would add a level of professionalism that is worth it if you have the budget, time, and space. Consider this resource that discusses specifically using multiple cameras for Gotomeeting.

Here is a diagram for that, where 7 and 8 are cameras and 9 is a video mixer:

For this set you will need much more:

3 Camcorders as previously discussed
3 Tripod that moves nicely
3 HDMI to USB converters as previously discussed
HDMI and USB wires
HDMI extenders. There's several varieties, discussion of which is too much for this answer.
Video mixer, some of which are discussed in the resource link.
At least 4 techs managing mostly the cameras:

One for each camera
One managing the video mixer

It total, I would say this set would cost 5 to ten times more than the first set, most of that being labor.

Source

I work for a company that does this all the time. If you need professional help with content production you can find information in my profile.


Particles flowing around an masked area I want Particular in After Effects to animate a flow of particles moving from left to right and bouncing into the perimeter of the mask space around the EXPO logo. Is this possible to create in Particular and if so please tell me how to do it?
Many thanks.

I would do this using the built in Foam particle render - it does have basic collision avoidance

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/simulation-effects.html#foam_effect


Blur out an irregular shaped section of the frame using Sony Vegas Studio I have a video in which a person is speaking something. He is right in the middle of the frame. I want to blur out all of his surroundings like you have when you shoot a photograph or a video with a shallow depth of field. I am in post-production.

I am using Sony Vegas Movie Studio 11 HD.

If the shape to be blurred was rectangular, I could overlay two duplicate tracks and blur out the section from the frames in the top track, but I want to blur out everything around the person's body, which happens not to be a geometrically named shape.

How do I do that?

Unfortunately you are asking too much from Sony Vegas my friend! In order to get a true effect you'd have to do something called "rotoscoping" which means you go into each frame and mask out the background.

You can do this in vegas by going into the pan/crop window on the video event. Look for "mask" and then you can key frame out the background with the pen tool there.

There is no way to automate this so you'll have to key frame quite a bit. Then once you have just the person visible you duplicate the track beneath it and uncheck the mask on the duplicate. You then can add lense blur or gaussian blur to create the desired effect.

Unless the clip is super short I wouldn't recommend doing it this way though. It takes a lot of time even for skilled maskers.


What kind of camera do I need to record a moving object in order to do motion tracking? I have a few markers that I use to make augmented reality pictures for DIY projects. It's working fine when the camera is fixed. Now I would like to use them on a moving object to do basic motion tracking.

Here are some frame grabs. I moved the marker with increasing speed in front of my camera. By camera, I mean the built-in camera in my Samsung Galaxy S.

Obviously this is not usable for motion tracking. I am a programmer and I'm interested in computer vision, but I am not a videographer, so feel free to put as much details as you want in your answer. I am not familiar with the characteristics of video capture hardware.

My goal is not to buy a high speed camera to duplicate what they do in Mythbusters for example. For example, I would like to be able to track juggling props, if you need an idea of the speed of the targeted objects.

When tracking there are two (main things) that you need to be concerned with in tracking.  While there are many variables that need to be taken into account, when shooting there are two things that you should keep in mind.

First off, contrast, 99% of all tracking software uses contrast in the luminance channel (brightness) to determine a point and where it is going, green and black is not going to work very well.  White and black is your best bet...

Second is going to be the camera you are capturing the video with, obviously then this introduces a lot more variables...you want the footage to be properly exposed, and the shutter to be correct, the lower or too high of a shutter will make it more difficult to track shots.

Also when choosing a camera understand compression, the more compressed an image is the harder it will, also the lower the resolution.  For example, 1920 TV has a better resolution than a 720 TV.  But compression also matters, an image could be as big as texas but if it is highly compressed chances of pulling a track out of it is unlikely...

Take a look at this image, you can see all the images are the same "resolution" however the further right the more compressed the image is, and the harder it is to detect edges...

So now that you understand how to capture your footage, you need to check out a simple tutorial or two on how to track your footage.  there are several types of tracking but from what is sounds like you are looking to track a point or track a motion of a point.  Your best bet is going to be After Effects motion tracker.

You can get a 30-day free trial from the adobe website, and check out some awesome tutorials on VideoCopilot.net on how to do tracking.

I hope this helps


"ffmpeg" set fontsize and font Im trying to set font and font size but i can use only one of the filters not both here is mine command

ffmpeg -i movie.avi -strict -2 -vf subtitles=subtile.srt:force_style='FontName=ubuntu, Fontsize=30' -qscale:v 3 out.avi

but I get

No such filter: 'Fontsize'

But if I set just Fontsize it works just fine, any help ? TNX in advance

Remove the space.

ffmpeg -i movie.avi -strict -2 -vf subtitles=subtile.srt:force_style='FontName=ubuntu,Fontsize=30' -qscale:v 3 out.avi


Minutes of video shot on Canon dslr I was wondering if there was a way of identifying how many hours of video has been shot with my canon 70d? Maybe a 3rd party software someone can recommend. It would be much appreciated thanks.

To the best of my knowledge there is no way to determine how much time a Canon EOS camera has been used recording video because Canon cameras keep no record of total time recording video. If they do it is a very closely guarded secret.

Most Canon cameras do internally record each time the shutter is activated. It keeps a separate count for activations used to make still images using the viewfinder and for activations used to put the camera into Live View mode, whether for recording still images or video using Live View.

For many Canon EOS cameras the shutter count for still images using the viewfinder can be retrieved using tools based on the Canon Software Developer's Kit for specific models. For other models it is more difficult. In either case, the total number of activations reported does not include Live View shutter movements.

The internal count for shutter activations used to access Live View can only be retrieved by proprietary hardware/software available to Canon Service Centers and other Canon authorized service providers. When sending a camera to a Canon Service Center for cleaning or repair one can request a shutter count report that will include all shutter actuations in the camera's history (or, if the shutter has been replaced in the past, all actuations since the counter was reset to "zero" following the shutter replacement).

Since I can find no reference to - and have never heard of  - the option to have a report generated revealing the total video recording time for a Canon EOS camera one can probably conclude that such a capability is not built in to Canon EOS cameras.


Easy way to take 1s clips from video every 60s and join them all together? Pretty much what the title says: I have a couple of video files and would like to extract one second intervals every sixty seconds or so, i.e. extract the clips

00:59 - 01:00
01:59 - 02:00
etc.

Then I would like to join all of these individual clips.

Is there an easy way to do this?

ffmpeg, a command-line tool, can do this in one command.

Update: New template, first below, is easier to manipulate (and understand)

This is a generalized command template:

ffmpeg -i input -filter_complex "[0:v]select='gte(mod((t\-FS),I),0)*lt(mod((t\-FS),I),D)', setpts=N/TB/FRAME_RATE[v];  [0:a]aselect='gte(mod((t\-FS),I),0)*lt(mod((t\-FS),I),D)', asetpts=N/SR/TB[a]" -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" -fflags +genpts output.mp4

Alternate method:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v]select=isinf(t\/(mod(D*trunc(1+(t/D))\,Interval))),setpts=N/TB/FRAME_RATE[v];[0:a]aselect=isinf(t\/(mod(D*trunc(1+(t/D))\,Interval))),asetpts=N/SR/TB[a]" -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" -fflags +genpts output.mp4

This is the first command formatted for full visibility

ffmpeg -i input -filter_complex \
"[0:v]select='gte(mod((t\-FS),I),0)*lt(mod((t\-FS),I),D)', \
setpts=N/TB/FRAME_RATE[v]; \
[0:a]aselect='gte(mod((t\-FS),I),0)*lt(mod((t\-FS),I),D)', \
asetpts=N/SR/TB[a]" \
-c:v libx264 -crf 23 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" -fflags +genpts output.mp4

Basically, replace input with your source video filename, output.mp4 with your intended output name.

Replace D with duration of segment, I for gap between the start of two segments and FS with start time of first segment . So, for 3-second segments every 45 seconds, starting at 36 seconds, from a file called fullfile.mp4, the command will be

ffmpeg -i fullfile.mp4 -filter_complex \
"[0:v]select='gte(mod((t\-36),45),0)*lt(mod((t\-36),45),3)', \
setpts=N/TB/FRAME_RATE[v]; \
[0:a]aselect='gte(mod((t\-36),45),0)*lt(mod((t\-36),45),3)', \
asetpts=N/SR/TB[a]" \
-c:v libx264 -crf 23 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" -fflags +genpts output.mp4

These segments will be extracts from seconds 36 to 39, 81 to 84..etc

Download ffmpeg for Windows (32-bit static build) from here.


Hearthstone-style graphics with After Effects I'd like to make some graphics like Hearthstone with After Effects. But I'm having trouble finding the right technique to simulate that look. After some research, I found the way that the Blizzard developers make their graphics, but they use coding. How can I achieve similar results with After Effects?

Here's an example. And there is another.

I already figured out how to mask-map(?) using colors thanks to Stib in this post.
But now I'm trying to figure out how to make this "warpy" thing, based on the color map:

I do have the way they make the particles effects and all that stuff in mind, but their technique is way more practical. In deep research some techniques came to me, like Plasma, but they're all coding techniques.
PS: I do know about the displacement mapping.

Here's a few effects to take a look at, which may get you closer to the result you are looking for. These effects are based on your helpful thumbnails:

Effect > Stylize > Glow / Trapcode Shine (uSampler1)

Effect > Noise & Grain > Fractal Noise + Turbulent Displace (uSampler2)

Effect > Generate > 4-Color Gradient (uSampler3)

Effect > Noise & Grain > Fractal Noise w/ Default Settings (uSampler4)

Effect > Color Correction > Colorama (uSampler5)

These styles require heavy experimentation, so play around with Track Mattes, Blending Modes, and importing textures and other source imagery to help achieve these results. Good luck!


ffmpeg - image with zoom - looks low resolution I'm trying to take an image, and apply a slow 'zoom' to the image (think Ken Burns). The animation looks correct, but the image looks extremely low resolution (when the original image is a 5k still). Why is this? Command below:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -f image2 -i 'IMG_8444_edit.jpg' -vf "zoompan=z='zoom+0.001" -c:v libx264 -preset fast -t 5 -crf 22 -s 1920x1080 -y 'zoomout.mp4'

zoompan, by default, scales output to 1280x720 (and at 25 fps).

Use

ffmpeg -loop 1 -f image2 -i 'IMG_8444_edit.jpg' -vf "zoompan=z='zoom+0.001:s=WxH,scale=hd1080" -c:v libx264 -preset fast -t 5 -crf 22 -y 'zoomout.mp4'

where WxH is your required output resolution from the filter.


Video with transparent background file-size issue A client asked me to do an animated product visualization in 3D and then render out the animation in 4K with a transparent background to put on their website. The animation is done but if I want to export it without background I realized that Quicktime is the only option. The 4-sec video then becomes 1,8GB in size! Is there any way around this or do I have to tell them that we can't go with 4K? or can I compress it or use some other format? The animation is also choppy in the video exported without background. When I render out an MP4 with the background it runs smoothly.

Transparent video on the web is possible, but it's going to only work for users with modern browsers.  You'll need to export in two different codecs - one for Chrome users, one for Safari.
From this site:

Safari supports HEVC with alpha, Chrome does not.
Chrome supports VP9 with alpha, Safari does not.

You need to export an HEVC with alpha channel for Safari.
You need a .webm VP9 codec with alpha for Chrome.
The animation codec you've exported at is not designed for web publishing.  It's a lossless very large codec designed for editing or archiving your finished project before you use it to make a smaller lossy version to go on the web.
This is how to make the webm using ffmpeg
ffmpeg -i "movie-prores.mov" -c:v libvpx-vp9 movie-webm.webm

I would recommend also exporting a "fallback version" for browsers that can't cope with transparent video (as a normal h264 mp4 or webm).


How to programmatically personalize video? this article shows an impressive implementation of how to programmatically personalize video.

  "Everybody received their ‘own’ version of the video."

How would I realize a similar solution? Which programming language would I use, which libraries, services are available to achieve a similar application on a web server?

Curious to see you answers!

You can use ffmpeg to do something like this programmatically. It has the capability to composite and edit footage as well as adding effects and text. It is a command line app, so works in the shell of your choice on Linux/Mac/Windows. Youtube reputedly uses ffmpeg to process their videos, so it's safe to say that it's very widely adopted. FFMPEG is free and open source. This is probably your best bet.

Adobe After Effects can also be controlled completely programmatically using the Extendscript language. After Effects is an industry standard video effects tool, used for everything from web banners to Hollywood movies. While it has more capabilities than ffmpeg, it is mainly designed as a GUI application, and the API really needs a good understanding of the application to use, meaning that developers are probably fairly hard to find. It is available from Adobe through Creative Cloud membership.

Coding the solution is another option. Rather than re-invent the wheel you could look at one of the frameworks that exist for creative coding. One of the most popular is Processing; it's a programming language designed for creative use, based on Java. Although not specifically focussed on video it does have the capability to process video, and could add text and effects to video content. Similar tools exist for other languages, for example OpenFrameworks, which uses C++, and Nannou, a relative newcomer which uses rust. To use them you will need programming skills, but a lot of the heavy lifting has been done in terms of things like graphics and video, meaning you can work at a higher level.


Where does the 'extra' data come from when transcoding video? This is something I've never quite understood, but have always wondered. Forgive my basic knowledge here, but I've tried to research this without a specific answer as to what is going on.

When I convert from an .MTS file to ProRes422 HQ, the file get's huge. Why is that? Where is that extra data coming from if it's not there to begin with? i.e. higher bitrate. I understand the codec has a standard bitrate it will always maintain, but why do it if the original file bitrate is so much lower?

For example, a stock GH2 mts for me streams at about 22 Mbits/s, I convert it to ProRes422 HQ, that same file is now playing at 216 Mbits/s. - With no discernible image quality difference.

What is going on in the codec that makes the file so huge? Other than workflow issues, why would you want to transcode from MTS? Does converting it to ProRes (or another codec) 'Unpack' the data in a more efficient way?

Why not use something like ProRes422 LT if you're starting from a much lower data rate like a native MTS file provides?

When video or audio data is compressed, it works by two different mechanisms.  The first (which is the only one used by lossless compression) is to look for patterns that are repeated.  When patterns are found, it can store the data once and reference the stored copy.

The second is only used lossy compression and involves discarding the least significant parts of the information.  This can be done in several creative ways such as being more forgiving in what pattern can be matched, but the loss of information generally ends up equating to a slight loss of detail.

You can think of it kind of like blurring a photo.  You still have just as many pixels and just as much "raw" data, but the amount of detail stored in that data is reduced, and thus it can be compressed further because it fits patterns better.  When you move from the high compression, lossy format to a lossless format, a large number of those savings are no longer applied, so it stores the raw "but fudged" data again under a new system that isn't capable of as much compression.

Basically the video is uncompressed from your original format to form a file of 1920 by 1080 pixels (assuming it's a 1080p file anyway) and then it is recompressed differently to become a ProRes file.  The file size is large because the ways that it will try to simplify the file are simpler, but the information that is recorded is still the blurred copy that resulted from decompressing the smaller file.

This is also why it is important to work with the highest possible quality files until final output because repeated recompression of files will result in additional quality loss every time.


How do i make the different values of two properties change at the same amount in After Effects? I want to make the value of the Point of Interest of a camera change at the same amount i change the Position, but when i simply pick whip parent the Point of Interest to the position, the former takes the same value as the later, which is not the result i expected. How do i accomplish the expected result?

Pick-whipping one value to another sets it to that value, if you don't want them to be the same but rather change at the same rate then try this instead:

value + transform.position

Alternatively, parenting the whole camera to a 3D null object may make things easier to animate and is generally nicer to deal with.

The Angle Script will create a new camera parented to a null for you, which makes things a lot easier: https://madebyloop.co.uk/products/angle-streamline-camera-null-control-after-effects/


Adjusting sequence square frame size for large screen size I am trying to make a square size video of 6:5 ratio for LED display screen. The size of the screen is 12feet x 10feet in pixels it's 13824x11520p.

Do i need my frame size to be this big to make it fit into this large screen OR how do i calculate the ratio to make sure my video will fit perfectly without weird pixelation.

PR ver: CC 13

If you don't want your video to be up-scaled then you need to output at the native resolution of the screen. The physical size doesn't matter, what matters is the pixel dimensions.

However, if the footage is not shot at the native resolution (and I don't think there are many 14K cameras around) you're going to have to resize it to fit. Whether you do that in your edit, or use whatever mechanism the screen has for up-scaling footage depends on a couple of factors:

can the screen / playback device do its own interpolation, and if so how good is it?
do you have graphics etc that you want to be crisp? If you're relying on the resolution of the screen to display small graphic elements crisply then you'll want the video that you deliver to be as high resolution as possible.
can the playback device handle a 14K video stream? Filesize is going to be an issue unless the playback device is pretty fast, and decoding it is going to be taxing for even a powerful machine.

Best bet: ask whoever is in charge of the screen. For a screen that large there's going to be an AV person who knows what they're doing. Ask around until you find who can give you specs for what you have to deliver.


Change the coordinate system in After Effects I'm recreating a Sketch composition in AE. To ease the process I would like to change the position of 0,0 from the center of the comp to bottom left. That would make it possible for me to translate the position values from Sketch to AE w/o doing any calculations.

Is it possible to change the position of 0,0 from the center of a composition to e.g. bottom left? Preferably w/o using expressions.

Have you tried the Sketch2Ae plugin by the Google Motion Design team? It works amazingly well. Here's a link to it:

https://google.github.io/sketch2ae/

I usually couple this plugin with the RepositionAnchorPoint plugin from aescripts, as Sketch2Ae seems to mess up anchor points. I personally prefer my anchor points to be aligned center to an element within AE. Here's a link to it:

https://aescripts.com/repositionanchorpoint/

Once Sketch2Ae builds all your layers, select them all and reposition all anchor points with one click using this plugin.

Both plugins are free, with RepositionAnchorPoint being optionally free.


Combining Hdmi video with composite audii I have a setup with a videocamera in a chapel and an audio amplifier. The output of the camera is HDMI. The output of the audio is composite (red and White).

Next I have streamer with HDMI input that streams that input over the network to a headend.

Inbetween those two the camera hdmi output needs to be combined with the audio into one hdmi output.

With what hardware can this be done (low cost)? Thanks for your feedback!

Something like that should work:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Premium-HDMI-DVI-Audio-Combiner-With-HDMI-Repeater-Function-/311215250396


Adobe Premiere preview video lagging I am attempting to edit video in Adobe Premiere CS6. When I create a sequence and try to play it back in the preview screen, the video is extremely choppy, which makes editing very difficult (dance videos, i.e. trying to sync with music properly).

After some searching, two things seem to work for others - either changing playback quality to 1/4 or 1/2, or rendering the work area before playback. The former seems to have no effect, although the latter (rendering) does create smooth video.

Unfortunately, when the render finishes, the video is now playing in super slow motion, and is therefore completely out of sync with the music. Any ideas on how to fix this?

It sounds like a combination of two things from the comments discussion.  First, with the very high frame rate, your laptop simply can not handle the high data rate.  If you need to edit on the laptop, I would suggest re-compressing the video down to a smaller size and then when you are done, you can replace the low quality footage with the original for the final output.

The second problem is that it appears Premiere is interpreting the footage wrong.  There is an  Interpret Footage option if you right click on the clip and go to Modify, Interpret Footage.  You can confirm the frame rate is correct on the source.  If it is, then you also want to check the framerate on the sequence itself.  Right click on the sequence, choose Sequence Settings and verify that the frame rate is correct there as well.  If both of those are correct and you are still getting the issues, then I am unsure what could be happening.


How do I install Adobe Premiere Elements on a computer that's isolated from the Internet? I want to install Adobe Premiere Elements 14 on a computer that's not connected to the Internet. I used version 3 back when it was current and it did the job, but I don't know what happened to the discs. I didn't have that problem then, however.

Some software insists on contacting the publisher's server,  but they often provide for substitute validation. Does Adobe offer an alternative validation for air-gapped computers?

Using Google, a popular internet search engine, the Adobe help page that discusses this topic is easily discovered.  In particular, it explains:

You must connect to the Internet when you want to install Adobe Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator. Once the apps are installed on your computer, you don’t need an ongoing Internet connection to use the apps.
You can use the apps in offline mode with a valid software license for a limited period. The apps attempt to validate your software license every 30 days. You receive a reminder to reconnect to the Internet to validate your license...

You can read more details on that web page and decide whether or not your online/offline behavior fits within those parameters or not.


FCP X 10.1.1 - Transitioning to libraries without blending As excited as I am about the new asset management possibilities of the .1 release of Final Cut Pro X, I'm nervous about screwing up my existing projects and events. My projects and events are currently spread across 2 hard drives (my boot drive and an external drive). Some are "hidden" via Event Manager X. Some projects and events belong together, and others do not. I performed the upgrade to FCP X 10.1.1 (apparently they've already released some bug fixes to 10.1.0). When I did this, I kept my projects and events "hidden".

Now it's time to import them, but I want to make sure I pair the correct projects and events in the correct libraries. (In other words, I want to have 1 library for each client, not 1 library for each hard drive, nor 1 library for each project.) There is not an menu option for importing and pairing projects and events—at least not that I can find. How can I conduct combine projects and events into libraries in a controlled way?

I got it to work. The key is to update Events and Projects to Libraries (which, incidentally, contain Events and Projects) in stages:

Hide everything except the Events and Projects that belong together in the same Library. Event Manager X is a great tool for this, as Jason suggested in the comments. Whatever tool you use, just make sure that only the Events and Projects that belong together are in the folders "Final Cut Events" and "Final Cut Projects".
Next, open Final Cut Pro X.
Go to File and click "Update Projects and Events..." near the bottom of the menu:
Click "Update All"

Final Cut Pro X will do its thing and you'll have a new library with just the Projects and Events you want inside of it.


Template - Wedding invitation video I am trying to create a wedding invitation video (my own wedding, Nov 2017).  I have been searching for wedding invitation video application the online, however I have not been able to find a suitable (Free) option to create a video.

I want to create something like this :
Youtube - Video link

I have found this particular template at multiple video makers (fiverr and others) and Its perfect for what I want to create.
Some of the other places where I found the same video
Example : fiverr - himaljung

I am currently using Camstasia studio for editing, So I wanted to know where can I find a video template like i mentioned and which software can be used to edit it.

Using Google Image Search I have found the exact template you were looking for:
http://aedownload.com/wedding-invitation-2533538-project-effects-videohive/

The application you need to use for it is Adobe After Effects CS4, CS5


How to change Timeline's output time from "Frames" to "Timecode" (Premiere Pro) I was editing a video for a friend when I accidentally changed my Timeline's timestamps from "Timecode" to Frames"

It has been really frustrating to figure out what second of footage I am on when this is occurring.
Is there any way to go back to a standard Timecode when this happens?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

ctrl-click or ⌘-click the number and it will cycle through the different modes, frames, feet & frames, audio samples, milliseconds, and timecode. More about it in the documentation.


How to create timelapse video using CR2 RAW files? I also took a bunch of pictures to make a timelapse and I'm using Windows Live Movie Maker to create the video. However, it wouldn't recognize the CR2 (raw) format. I installed the Canon RAW codec but no luck. I was able to create the timelapse using JPEG images. Any ideas?

Also, the final video is created in wmv format - I would like to know if there is a way to output some other format such as H.264 using Windows Live Movie Maker?

Basically, I am looking for ways to create time lapse videos using cr2 canon raw files. I would like to use free software for accomplishing this. Any help would be appreciated.

thanks!

Picasa is free software that will do exactly what you're after. It can read a whole range of RAW file types and also creates timelapse videos.

To create your video, first import the folder of RAW files into Picasa and select the folder. Now:

From the menu: Create > Video > From Selection
The Video Maker screen will now appear. In the left-hand pane, make sure the Video tab is selected.
Under Transition Style choose Time Lapse
Set your frames per second using the Slide Duration slider (e.g. 1/25 sec for 25fps)
Set your other options and hit Create Video.

Couldn't be easier!


Decrease FPS of too-high FPS video or increase FPS of too-low FPS video? I created two videos of the same scene with two different cameras. The issue however is that camera 1 captured everything in 23.85 fps and camera 2 everything in 24 fps.

Since I need to synchronise both videos exactly, it's quite essential that the frame rates are the same. I'm however not sure whether to decrease the 24 fps video to 23.85 fps or increase the 23.85 fps video to 24 fps. Thanks in advance for your advice!

I think the answer depends upon what frame rate you want to deliver your video at.

In general it is better to shoot at the delivery frame rate.

I agree they probably won't go far out of sync if the clips are only short (a minute or so).

If you do need to adjust them, I would frame rate adjust whichever clip is going to be on screen for less time in the edit (or is less important to you).


How to achieve trippy breathing effect (visual drifting) on static photo How can I achieve a trippy visual drifting effect like the image is breathing?

See The Visual Components of a Psychedelic Experience - Visual drifting section or more precisely this fragment of this video.

Any software solution is fine, but I would be most thrilled with an implementation in Processing or Javascript

You can achieve an effect like this with a couple of distortion filters from most video editing or motion graphics packages. For example in FCPX/Motion, you could apply a couple of Bulge distortion filters to the upper right and lower left and adjust the scale and radius as appropriate.

In terms of implementing it yourself, I agree that it's a question for StackOverflow (once you've attempted to write it yourself). The algorithm is fairly straightforward. For all the pixels within the radius, apply a mapping function along the vector from the center to the current point. For example (in pseudo code):

distort (vec2 center, float radius, float amount)
{
    for (each pixel in the image)
    {
        vec2 dir = pixel.coord - center;
        float dist = dir.length()
        if (dist >= radius)
        {
            outPixel = pixel;
        }
        else
        {
            float percent = dist / radius;
            float newPos = pow(percent, amount);
            dir = dir / dist;
            vec2 newCoord = dir * newPos * radius;
            outPixel = getPixel(newCoord);
        }
    }
}


How to combine different projects to create final clip in After Effects? I am new to video editing and learning Adobe After Effects CS6. I have downloaded different templates from the web and edited them and now I want to create a final movie by combining all the clips.

Some clips/projects have different resolutions - I have rendered all the projects separately and created individual .mov clips.

Now I want to create final movie by combining all the clips.

First, you don't want to render the clips prior to final output if you want maximum quality.  You instead want to use nested compositions.  Really, final assembly is ideally done using an actual non-linear editor, such as Premiere, however you can accomplish the same thing by putting together a composition and using each of the compositions you have made as assets.  Then, when you output the final render, it will render what it needs from each of the nested compositions and keep the highest possible quality.

Note that you should use nested compositions regardless of if you use Premiere or After Effects.  Premiere will import compositions directly from After Effects if you import the After Effects project in Premiere.  You may also have to apply scaling in order to get the clips to match resolution.


Seamless transitions In this GoPro HERO3 ad, they use what looks like almost seamless transitions.

To me it looks too smooth to be just some hard transitions. Can anyone tell me how to mimic this effect? I use After Effects for video editing.

Playing the video at 1/4 speed on YouTube, there's no discernible transition other than a hard cut.  If there were some sort of cross-fade or dip-to-black or luma fade, it should be visible at that speed.  And it's not.

I suspect that part of what makes the hard cut transition successful in that video is that the motion and the balance of the center of interest in the "from" clip leads the eye perfectly to the center of interest in the "to" clip.  Hard transitions look harsh when the eye must find and acquire a subject in a different part of the frame across the cut.  If the eye is already properly aimed and focused, the hard cut just looks like a seamless transition.


How to convert ts to mp4 I have a lot of videos needed to convert from ts to mp4, how can I convert it without losing quality? I mean a lot like 30+ each week.
I did a search already but none can do it fast enough, doing it manually will takes me half an hour.
Is there any software do it for free?
Please teach me step by step I am not computer geek.

There are two FFmpeg frontends that I have used quite a bit for batch video conversion:

WinFF
XMedia Recode

They are both for Windows, but I know there are more free FFmpeg frontends out there for other platforms. QWinFF is for Windows & Linux, but I think development has ceased.

https://alternativeto.net/tag/ffmpeg/
https://alternativeto.net/tag/ffmpeg-gui/


Is video output in YUY2 color space lossless if the input is sRGB? I am considering purchasing one of these:
https://static.cloner-alliance.com/manual/ca-1080fl_user_manual_v1.1.pdf
It claims to be able to capture "uncompressed video", but in the list of output formats in the document above (page 67), it lists "MJPEG,YUY2". I know MJPEG is a compressed format, but I'm less certain about YUY2.
The source I'm considering is a Surface Pro 7 which outputs HDMI via a USB-C port. I am under the impression that the Surface is likely to output sRGB by default. My reading of the Wikipedia article on YUV leads me to believe that if the capture device receives an HDMI signal using the sRGB color space, and outputs a stream using the YUY2 color space, information must be lost (some discussion here seems to support this theory).
Is there any sense in which this device can claim to support "uncompressed" video or is that misleading?

It's a bit of a semantics game.  The YUY2 video mode is not "compressed," but it won't result in a bit-exact copy of RGB input.  The luminance is full resolution in that mode, but the chrominance is sampled at a lower resolution.  This is technically decimation rather than compression, but some information is indeed lost.
That said, if you are going to wind up posting your video online or something, it'll be even more decimated, and also subject to lossy compression.  So in most use cases, the loss of information from going into that YUY2 colorspace wouldn't be anything to really worry about one way or another.  You probably need to use some lossy compression to be able to reliably record it in real time unless you have very fast storage or are having the device output a low resolution.  If you really care about truly perfectly exact output for some sort of scientific image analysis process, you'd need more specialized hardware.


How to cut and merge mp4 video segments without re-encoding? I have some screencast video files in mp4 container (h.264/mp3 codecs) that I want at times merge (i.e. C.mp4 =  A.mp4+B.mp4) or at times cut removing some intervals (e.g. D.mp4 = A.mp4[0,320{seconds}]+A.mp4[325,340]+C.mp4).

I am now using kdenlive, it woks but it re-encode everything and it seems a bit too much for such a task.

Is there a simpler way to do that without re-encoding (even, and perhaps preferred, command line or stable Python/Julia/R/.. library way) ?

I am thinking at something like PDFtk for the pdfs :-))

PS: Following suggestions from a related question I did try ffmpeg -ss 00:00:05 -to 00:00:10 -i test1.mp4 test2.mp4 but I got the error:

  Option to (record or transcode stop time) cannot be applied to input
  url test1.mp4 -- you are trying to apply an input option to an output
  file or vice versa. Move this option before the file it belongs to.

I would like to be able to specify several start/stop times from a single or perhaps multiple input files.

EDIT: More I look, more I find complicate solutions. My files are exactly the same codec/container/resolution..

Well, this doesn't solve the problem of the re-encoding, but at least it is an handy interface. Just use it (in Linux) with vcat -i inputfile1,inputfile2[start-end],... -o <outputfile> (it needs python3 and the moviepy package)

#!/usr/bin/python3

import sys, getopt, re

def printerror(errormsg):
  print("*** vcat - concatenate video segments using moviepy ***\n")
  print("ERROR:", errormsg,"\n")
  print("Usage: vcat -i inputfile1,inputfile2[start-end],... -o <outputfile>")
  print("Optional start and end points should be given in seconds. If files have spaces should be quoted (e.g. \"input file.mp4[5-30]\").")

try:
 from moviepy.editor import VideoFileClip, concatenate_videoclips
except ImportError:
 printerror("You don't seem to have moviepy installed. Install it with `pip install moviepy`.")
 exit(1)

def main(argv):
    inputfiles_arg = ''
    outputfile = ''
    try:
        opts, args = getopt.getopt(argv,"hi:o:",["input=","output="])
    except getopt.GetoptError as err:
        printerror(str(err))
        sys.exit(2)
    for opt, arg in opts:
        if opt == '-h':
            printerror("")
            sys.exit()
        elif opt in ("-i", "--input"):
            inputfiles_arg = arg
        elif opt in ("-o", "--output"):
            outputfile = arg
    if outputfile =='':
        printerror("Output file not specified")

    iFiles = inputfiles_arg.split(',')

    clips=[]
    for iFile in iFiles:
        subclip = re.search(r"\[([0-9\-\.]+)\]", iFile)
        if subclip is None:
            clips.append(VideoFileClip(iFile))
        else:
            dims = subclip.group(1).split('-')
            if len(dims) != 2:
                printerror("If a specific segment of a file is specified, this should be given as [startseconds-endseconds]")
            iFile = iFile.replace("["+subclip.group(1)+"]",'')
            clips.append(VideoFileClip(iFile).subclip(float(dims[0]),float(dims[1])))

    f = concatenate_videoclips(clips)
    f.write_videofile(outputfile)

if __name__ == "__main__":
   main(sys.argv[1:])

Disclaimer: I don't use Python by a while, so sure there could be better approaches.. bdw it's really nice to be able to do what you want to do in a few hours because of the enormous documentation you can find on the net about python..