Make clip reference (link to) different media file(s) in Premiere After editing a Premiere project and seeing a final video, I often want to change the underlying media, whether that means processing the audio file differently or re-rendering some frames of an animation.

So far, I've been achieving this effect by appending '_old' to the names of the old media files and then saving new versions with the name I used when importing to Premiere, so Premiere will be oblivious to the difference. To be safe and organized, though, I want to do this without the renaming trickery.

Searching so far, I've only been able to find solutions for relinking missing or moved media. I can't seem to figure out how to link to different media. If I could just break the link between a clip and media without deleting/moving the media, that would be good enough, since I could just break the link and then pick the new file when repairing the link. (I think)

Right click, set Media Offline

Right click again, Relink Media

Select your new clip.


How to get a crisp, exact color match for lossless screen-cast? Background

Recording a screen-cast (no audio) in Xubuntu Linux. The following image shows a side-by-side comparison of the video (left) versus the desktop (right):

The screen-cast is recorded using:

ffmpeg -r 30 -f x11grab -s $WIN_GEO -i :0.0+$WIN_XY -vcodec huffyuv -preset ultrafast -qp 0 output.mkv

Here, $WIN_GEO stores the browser dimensions (1030x794) and $WIN_XY has the browser location (1020x221).

$ cat /etc/issue
Ubuntu Trusty Tahr (development branch) \n \l

Problem

The colours in the video differ from the colours shown on the desktop, resulting in a slightly blurry playback. I have read that this could be due to conversion between RGB and YUV colours.

Question

How do you record a desktop video (screen-cast) that when played back (e.g., using mplayer, VLC, or ffplay) results in an exact match to the original desktop colours and crispness?

Related

Relevant pages:

http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/vnc2swf/
http://technically.us/pictures/test.html
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1392026
https://askubuntu.com/questions/347574/how-to-do-screencasting-desktop-recording-with-high-quality-audio-and-video
http://step4wd.com/2012/08/03/recording-screencast-in-ubuntu-linux/
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/73622/how-to-get-near-perfect-screen-recording-quality
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/65970/washed-out-colours-with-screencast-software-but-not-screenshot-on-ubuntu-all-ve
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/How%20to%20grab%20the%20desktop%20%28screen%29%20with%20FFmpeg
http://rayslinux.blogspot.ca/2012/04/capturing-linux-desktop-via-command.html

Capturing the video frames in XWD format then converting to PNG yields results that are almost pixel perfect when encoded with ffmpeg.

Install xvidcap:

mkdir -p $HOME/dev
cd $HOME/dev
svn checkout svn://svn.code.sf.net/p/xvidcap/code/trunk xvidcap-code
cd xvidcap*
./autogen.sh
LIBS="-ldl -lX11 -lXext" ./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make && sudo make install

Capture stills at 25 frames per second:

mkdir -p $HOME/video
cd $HOME/video
xvidcap --fps 25 --quality 100 --cap_geometry 1024x768+768+288 --file out%05d.xwd

This creates a series of X Windows capture files inside $HOME/video. Convert the files to PNG format using ImageMagick then combine into a video:

for i in out*.xwd; do convert -define png:color-type=2 $i $(basename $i .xwd).png; done
ffmpeg -i out%05d.png -c:v huffyuv -preset veryslow -qp 0 -qscale:v 0 output.avi

An example script:

echo "Click window to capture..."

INFO=$(xwininfo -frame)
WIN_GEO=$(echo $INFO | grep -oEe 'geometry [0-9]+x[0-9]+' | grep -oEe '[0-9]+x[0-9]+')
WIN_XY=$(echo $INFO | grep -oEe 'Corners:\s+\+[0-9]+\+[0-9]+' | grep -oEe '[0-9]+\+[0-9]+' | sed -e 's/\+/,/' )

OUTPUT_DIR=$HOME/video

echo Capturing to $OUTPUT_DIR...
rm -rf $OUTPUT_DIR
mkdir -p $OUTPUT_DIR
cd $OUTPUT_DIR

WIN_XY=$(echo $WIN_XY | tr , +)

xvidcap --fps 25 --quality 100 --cap_geometry $WIN_GEO+$WIN_XY --file out%05d.xwd

# Convert captured images to PNG format
echo "Converting XWD to PNG..."
for i in out*.xwd; do convert -define png:color-type=2 $i $(basename $i .xwd).png; done

ffmpeg -i out%05d.png -c:v huffyuv -preset veryslow -qp 0 -qscale:v 0 output.avi

This creates a high-quality video that looks sharp with VLC, can be edited in OpenShot, and uploaded to various video hosts. Playback with MPlayer yields slightly fuzzy and off-coloured results.


Adobe premiere is lagging in preview window Video in source preview is lagging but it plays fine in video players. What may cause this? Why premiere is not using standard codecs for source preview?

Specs:
Video is: h264 2704x1536 @29.97fps (GoPro footage)
System is: Core i7 2.3, 8GB RAM, GeForce GT 650M (MacBook Pro, bootcamp)
Adobe Premiere CS 6

Premiere's preview isn't simply a viewer and can't make as much use of caching as it needs to be able to scrub quickly in any direction.  Interframe compression also trips it up for the same reason.  I believe it also processes the entire amount of data.  The video size you are using is pretty large and bandwidth intensive, so unless you are working from very fast disks (solid state) (or a fast CPU if it is heavily compressed) and have fast RAM to deal with the rate of uncompressed data, it is easy for the playback to fall behind.

The related questions talk a bit more about methods of getting around this (such as letting Premiere finish generating conformed versions of the video or reducing the resolution of playback so that not all pixels have to be rendered).


How to fit 720p video on a 1080p container? I am using Adobe Premier Pro to edit our short film and give some generic editing to it.

At the time of shoot we wanted a slow motion effect in a shot, so we shot at 720p at 60fps (We had limitations, our camera doesn't supported 60fps at 1080p).

Now when post processing all the videos fit in the 1080 container but our slow motion video shows black blank space around them. How to overcome this?

You can make a clip scale to the resolution of the sequence by right-clicking on it and pressing Set to frame size (For older versions of Premiere, use Scale to frame size). To set this at the standard behaviour for new clips that aren't the same resolution as the sequence, go to Preferences → General and check Default scale to frame size.

However, keep in mind that upscaling a 720p video to 1080p won't yield you any more quality, worse case, it will look worse. Also, exporting to 1080p when your video is actually only 720p is kind of tricking the viewer. If you upload an upscaled video to Youtube and flag it as 'Full HD', I will so downvote your video ... So if your source material is shot in 720p, I would highly recommend you export to 720p.


Easiest way to create a continuous shot effect using multiple cameras? Here is the Script:

Lets take the opening scenes of Hugo, of course the film bagged Academy awards, In the scene that starts by following the kid (Hugo), carries on and on for some time with many complex movements and dynamics and finally reaches at a decent close frame.

Yes, in the making it was revealed that it was 3 different boys acting the scene.
What I ask here is an easier way, or maybe easiest among the lot (in the sense of both production cost and human resource/effort) to imitate a continuous shot effect using multiple cameras.

I have heard from my friend (a professional CG artist) that it can be done using 3D techniques. It involves the creation of the entire stage (the area where the scene occurs in real film) in the 3D virtual space. and then intelligently filling up the cuts between cameras using this 3D virtual fillers.

I am really open to that idea. But, are there any real life (no virtual/3D) techniques to establish a continuous looking scene?

CG is probably the best bet.  Motion controlled cameras would be the second best bet, but it would still be pretty tricky as the real world has a remarkable ability to change subtly, but substantially enough to result in a jump cut pretty quickly.  Even if you could manage to stop the camera on something that is static, resuming the movement at the same speed would be difficult at best without a computer controlled camera.

If you are able to have the camera stop movement on scenery in between, that might make a possible stop point, but it would still have to be done pretty quickly to avoid changes in lighting conditions that would be noticeable in the final shot.


Producing a time-lapse video over 6 months or more I have been asked to produce a time-lapse video from a construction site.

Can anyone suggest a setup and recommend equipment for the following requirements? :

Must operate outdoors in Scandinavian weather conditions (mixed precipitation, wind, temperatures below zero)
Should take 1 picture every minute, during working hours (8 hours a day, Mon-Fri)
Electricity will not be available permanently
Camera must not be moved (meaning, charging periodically outside working hours could be an option, but without moving the camera)

I hope you have some good ideas :-)

Sincerely,

Jesper

Finding specific models is outside the scope of this site as the ideal available models will change regularly, but you will probably want to look at a security camera to fill this roll.  Not a lot of cameras are designed to operate reliably in harsh conditions over long periods of time.  Outdoor security cameras are.

The next biggest problem is going to be the lack of power and the cold temperature.  Batteries do not work well at low temperature and if it is below freezing, you are going to see drastic reductions in battery efficiency making it difficult to keep the camera running.

You might also try outdoor hunting webcams.  They tend to be used to take photos at a slower rate and have more battery powered options. These might also work for your purposes.


Looking to get Youtube-quality video stabilization from a software based video editing application (on mac) When I create edited films on iMovie and then export them to Youtube, Youtube's stabilization enhancement greatly increases the quality of many of my shakier action shots. Unfortunately, this same process ruins all of my titles and text overlaid on the screen.

Currently I am exporting the problem (shaky) scenes as single iMovies to youtube, stabilizing them, then downloading them and adding them back into my iMovie project as clips. This saves my text on the screen from being rendered illegible.

I am aware of iMovie's stabilization and have tried it, but haven't gotten even close to the enhancement in watchability of my shaky shots that Youtube's stabilization algorithm/method has given me.

I'm looking for some software that can give me the serious quality improvement that Youtube's can do, without having to use cloud services as a hack like I am now.

A coworker has just turned me on to using Warp Stabilizer. It's a built-in effect in Adobe Premiere CS6. Before using this tool, I also used After Effects to smooth and stabilize motion.

The difference is outstanding. Warp Stabilizer has worked faster, within my workflow, and more reliable than After Effects stabilization has. This has been huge for me. Here's a quick guide that outlines the effect: http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/premiere-pro-warp-stabilizer/

Another solution is Lock and Load. I've never used it, but I've heard it gets the job done. Might be worth looking into if you do not already own the Adobe Creative Suite. http://www.coremelt.com/products/lock-and-load-x.html


I dropped my Panasonic HC-V180 Camera, and now camera doesn't work? So I had my Panasonic HC-V180 camera ready on a tripod extended to its maximum height, and then it lost balance and tipped over. The camera is able to show its storage videos and displays things like the date, whether there is an SD card or not, and its battery, menu, etc. fine but the screen is otherwise black when in video taping mode. Then after a while, the camera suddenly shows a blurry display of the camera along with an error saying "ERROR OCCURRED. PLEASE TURN UNIT OFF, THEN TURN ON AGAIN." It won't record anything.

What is wrong with it? Perhaps the viewfinder?  I have no idea where to go take it to fix (I live in Bay Area of CA, USA)

As far as what is technically wrong with your camera; the answer is it’s busted. You dropped it.

As far as repair, go to the Panasonic Website, navigate to support, cameras, repairs. Depending on your camera model, it will give you your options on repairing it.

Some companies use vendors, some charge a fee up front just to accept it to determine what needs to be repaired, then quote a price for parts and labor.

But the answer to where to get it fixed is on the Panasonic website. Youll have to mail it to a service center. Then decide if its worth repairing.


Import Theora video into Premiere Elements I am trying to edit a Theora video in Premiere Elements 10. I installed the Xiph OpenCodecs package which allowed me to view the video in WMP, but it still wouldn't import into PRE. I then tried installing QuickTime and the XiphQT package, but still no joy. However, QT wouldn't play the video so maybe this didn't work. I notice that the Xiph website has not been updated since 2009, so maybe these are out of date.

Currently it doesn't appear possible to directly import Ogg Theora video into Premiere Elements 10, however I did manage to convert the video to DNxHD/VC-3 so that PRE would handle it nicely (previous conversions had behaved very badly)

ffmpeg -i out-48.ogv -s 1920x1080 -r pal -b 36M -threads 2 -vcodec dnxhd -acodec libmp3lame out-48.mov

http://blog.jamiek.it/2012/11/encoding-ogv-files-to-edit-in-adobe.html


mp4 video exported from x265 does not play I use x265 to encode a video and the output is mp4. Unfortunately, this file is not playable by any program.

The input video is yuv if that matters.

Do you know which the problem might be?

Thank you in advance.

It looks like the x265 codec needs to be installed for the App you are using to play the file with.

VLC does support x265 with a dd on codec but it seems the link on there site is broken
https://www.videolan.org/developers/x265.html which is not very useful right now.

there are some other players out there doing a quick Google brought up some results but I dont have a x265 file to play with to test them.

if you exported the file, have you tried exporting it again to see if the same issue happens ?


Software for real-time 2d puppetry? Effectively, I'm just looking for something that would allow me to have a paper doll bounce around. Any ability to add animation to the face or whatnot isn't super important. I'm hoping there's something simple and real-time out there, since it would be a lot less time consuming to just shake a virtual stick while talking than to try to tween animation to match a voice in post.

There's Adobe Character Animator. It does pretty much exactly what you're looking for. It's a commercial product, part of the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. I'm not aware of any other real-time 2D animation packages at this time.


How to automate cutting the part with audio on a certain track out? How to automate cutting the bits with audio on a certain track out?
So here is the deal.
We live recording radio shows with video.
But we do not have permission to use the music played. So we need to manually rremove it from the video.
There is a single audiotrack for the music playing.
Video Track
Audio track 1 - Everything.
Audio track 2 - Microphones
Audio track 3 - Music
Audio track 4 - Sound bits.
So i have to remove all the pars where there is sound on audio track 3 :)
So my question is - is there anyway to automate this? Either full automatic (FFMEPG)
or in Premiere Pro- A way to select bits on a audio track where volume is over X? and also select all other tracks.
Help please :)

This guy did essentially the opposite of what you're trying to do. However, he posted the source-code here. So with a little bit of IT-finesse, you should be able to reverse the program's understanding of what to edit out - meaning that the code shouldn't say (in a very simplified, theoretical syntax):
if track5dB < 5dB:
{
cutThisOut();
}

but instead:
if track5dB > 0
{
cutThisOut();
}

Now, I haven't personally checked out the code in detail, so I cannot 100% vouch for it to work, but it might just be worth a try.


How To Make an Advanced Loading Bar in Sony Vegas Using Photoshop and Sony Vegas I Have Made a Simple Loading Bar and I Want To Upgrade it. Basically I Want To add a Spark animation To The Top of The Bar That Moves With it until it Loads Completely, I Thought That only Timing Would be The Problem and I could Just use a Push Transition but it doesn't Seem So, Any Ideas?

If the spark footage has an alpha channel, as is likely, then make sure, it is activated - right-click on the event, launch Properties, and check that Alpha Channel in the Media tab is set to Straight.

Now, animate the Spark's position in its Pan-Crop window to track the leading edge of the bar.

Offhand, I don't know if you parent a track, is the parent's Pan/Zoom inherited by the child tracks. Try it out. For Track Motion, it is, but that reduces the resolution of the footage pre-compositing to fit the project dimensions, so I avoid it.


Effect that detects white object throughout entire video and blurs it, without manually running tracking mask? Is there a way to track an easily identifiable white object that appears in every frame of a video and apply an effect like blur to the space it occupies for every frame that it appears?
In Adobe Premiere Pro, the object would have to be manually selected in its first appearance, and from there you apply a tracking mask for the blur effect for one entire run through the video to track it all the way through to the last frame,
but I'm instead looking for a tracker that does not have to be manually attached. Instead it should detect the patch of white, or white object, automatically for every frame that it appears, and applies the effect to each detected frame wherever the object is located at that time.
The object is distinctive in color  against the different-colored background and other objects in the video because of its solid color, and moves to different positions each frame (not fixed in one place), that's why it should be possible somehow maybe by color detection

Not really. Color detection, when you’re looking for a white object is really the same thing as what’s known as a “luma key.” So, you can try that, but you’ll quickly see why the VFX industry prefers chroma keys. You could try a machine learning based approach, and both Premiere and Davinci Resolve have ML object removal, but it’s less automatic, and more error prone than you’d expect, and requires certain conditions to be successful at all. Of course, the state of the art is advancing quickly, and this could change in the near future.


How can I add a background image to a large music file? My music file is about ~300 MB and ~4 hours long. I'd like to add a background image onto it to upload it on Youtube. The problem is, when I try a video rendering program (Kdenlive, Windows Movie Maker etc.) to do that, the output becomes massively big, like ~40 GB. I don't understand, why does merging procession of a 300 MB mp3 file and a 1 MB png file result such a huge file size like that? Does the rendering program render the background image again and again for every frame? Can't the whole video have just a single frame and an audio attached on it?

Is there another way to accomplish it?

Simple answer is yes - the Video frame is repeatedly encoded multiple times. There is compression - including frame-to-frame, but the single image frame is effectively duplicated numerous times. Try reducing the resolution for lower file size - if the quality of that image is not so important.


Where are the opacity map presets for CC Particle World in CS5 and CS6? In versions of After Effects prior to CS5, there are opacity map presets such as Fade In, Fade Out, Constant, etc.

I can see Opacity Map under Particle in the CS6 CC Particle World, but how do I get the presets?

In the newer versions of CC Particle World the opacity map presets have been removed.

The only way to set opacity now is by drawing a curve on the graph.  See screenshot below:


Repairing brightness problems caused by auto lighting optimizer I've shot a video with my Canon EOS 1100D, but unfortunately forgot to turn the auto lighting optimizer off.

Now the video footage looks really bad because there are random changes of brightness every time the colours change, similar to the changes seen in this video, only that it's even worse for me.

Is there a way to repair the footage and adapt the brightness so that it is equally the same throughout the video? Or is my footage lost?

Keyframing and changing the brightness & contrast would be the last possible option, but it's certainly far from perfect and very much work.

Without knowing the exact result of this, if I where you I would give the GBDeflicker a shot (plugin for AE Win/Mac and stand-alone application):
http://www.granitebaysoftware.com/products/productgbd.aspx

This is a software meant to solve time-lapse flickering by averaging the luminance of the scene over time. For the video you showed as an example this would also be the case, unstable luminance.

You can probably isolate your background or the problem area for this plugin to work on, to achieve even better result.

You might need to adjust end lightness but after running the scene through this I would think that's just a matter of matching the first and last frame setting the keyframes for both.


Repeat a clip down entire timeline Is there a better way to take a short video loop (in my case a video watermark) and duplicate it again and again down the full length of my sequence than my current workflow?

Current Workflow

Place the clip in the sequence
Hold Alt down and drag a copy down the timeline
Select the new copy and snap it back against the first one
Select both clips
Holding Alt, drag a new copy of them down the line
Select all clips and repeat step 5.
Repeat 5 & 6 until the clip is looped down the full length of the sequence.

Any insight into a faster solution would be MUCH appreciated!

This is a fast way to copy the clips in succession.

Copy the video clip CMD/CTRL + C
Target ONLY the track that the loop will be on
Then swiftly insert it multiple times by just holding down CMD/CTRL and pressing V multiple times in a row


FFMPEG demux concat dropping audio at stitch points I am trying to use FFMPEG (v.3.3.3) concat demuxer and as the file is stitched the audio drops at concat points. As I have files of same codecs, bitrates and so on - it doesn't make much sense to transcode again, so I really want to make concat demuxer to work.

I've had this problem with h.264 and aac. Here is how to recreate so you can see what I am talking about.

Create test file with bars and tone (10s)

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "sine=frequency=1000:sample_rate=48000:duration=10" -f lavfi -i smptehdbars=size=1920x1080 -t 10 test.mp4
Split the file into two using seeking

ffmpeg -i test.mp4 -ss 0 -t 5 test-1.mp4

ffmpeg -i test.mp4 -ss 5 -t 5 test-2.mp4
Join the files together using concat demuxer

ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i <(for f in ./test-*.mp4; do echo "file '$PWD/$f'"; done) -c copy testconcat.mp4

This creates a file with clearly audible audio drop at 5s mark. To picture this here I've created two spectrograms by extracting audio.

Extract audio

ffmpeg -i test.mp4 test.wav

ffmpeg -i testconcat.mp4 testconcat.wav
Create spectrograms

sox test.wav -n spectrogram -Y 130 -c "Input file" -o test.png

sox testconcat.wav -n spectrogram -Y 130 -c "Concat file" -o testconcat.png

And here is the result:

So my questions are:

Can concat demuxer be used in such a way to avoid the described problem?
Or what would you see as a solution (beyond full re-transcode)?

ffmpeg -i test.mp4 -ss 0 -t 5 test-1.mp4
ffmpeg -i test.mp4 -ss 5 -t 5 test-2.mp4

This is the root of evil. You almost never can split your audio/video with very high precise. Reasons for it:

Non-integer FPS in video. You can't split non-integer number of frames, so if you use 29.997 fps, you can't get 149.985 frames in file.
Audio codecs compress audio samples in blocks of samples, for example, in 1024 samples per second. So, if you split your sound in 5 second and sound has samplerate 44100Hz, you can only get 44100*5/1024=215.332 frames, this is too not integer. Actually, here you get small drop. Some codecs always add some silent frames at end, mp3 do in that way. Only one exception I know: pcm (any kind), this "codec" can save any count of frame, with no rough.

So, in conclusion, if you want split and concatenate files without loss:

use integer count for fps
use codecs what can encode any count of samples without rough or padding.


How to display a video on different wall sections only? Here's the thing:

We wish to display the same browser window (with 3 html5 canvas), on a wall, however, it needs to be masket only on certain points of that wall.

So, in between the wall, there will be some objects that we wish NOT to have the projector to project, like so:

------------------------------ WALL --------------------------

|(canvas1)| real flower |(canvas2)| real flower |(canvas3)|

We can connect a PC, with a graphic card with 3 outputs, OR we can have 3 graphic cards, with 3 projectors, and perhaps that will work but, does anyone know a way for doing this otherwise? For example, using one single projector?

Thank you in advance

With even the most simple projector, if part of the image is black, then nothing will be projected at that point, so why not set up your image to be:

  |(canvas1)| blank space |(canvas2)| blank space |(canvas3)|

Deciding whether that space should be black, white or some other colour is down to you - do you want your real flowers lit? If so, make it a white space


Open Source Software to open .aep file? I've an envato subscription and have access to .aep files but don't have adobe after effects.

I want to do a company video using the .aep but don't want to have to purchase AE for the edit.  Are there any open source editors that will open an aep file?

The best option you have is to use the trial version of after effects. You can create an adobe creative cloud account and try the program for 30 days free of charge there. If it's only one job and you're using a template, the trial time should be sufficient. If not, there's always the option of creating a different account with another mail and beginning the trial anew.


How to manipulate video codec errors using ffmpeg I want to create a video full of codec errors like this:

How can I manipulate ffmpeg parameters to create an output video like that?

The effect you're looking for looks like datamoshing. Give that a quick google search - it might be what you want.


Which color space to use in camera while shooting video? RGB or YCbCr? I want to shoot videos for my blog. Nature, landscapes, fitness. Which color space to use in camera while shooting video? RGB or YCbCr?

The question is impossible to answer in a general way.

If a camera offers to record in RGB, it is likely using a completely different codec that could be better or worse.  Very few cameras will actually record video in RGB, so if you see the option in a menu, it may be referring to something very particular about the color handling of video on that specific model of camera.

What camera? And what is the exact context of the option?


Tool for cutting and joining multiple parts of a video I need a tool that allows to make multiple selections in a video and make a new video by joining all of that selections. The tool should allow to save the project, so that I could close the program, open it later, restore all selections I made before and continue. Preferably the tool should create video based on selections without any encoding settings, just using the same compression as the source file. Support for mkv required. OS: Windows 7, x86

There are various tools that will do this, from the professional Adobe Premier type to Windows Moviemaker (or whatever the Live version is called now)

To be honest, a quick google will give you pages of apps from premium to FOSS. Give some of the free ones a shot, and if they don'tdo what you need, give one of the expensive ones a shot on its trial version, which most have.


FFMPEG : Merging Two Audio Files I am using following command to merge two audio file, which works fine.

ffmpeg -i main.mp3 -filter_complex "amovie=tag.wav:loop=0,asetpts=N/SR/TB[tag]; [0][tag]amix=duration=shortest,volume=2" tag-out.mp3

But what I really need to do is repeat and delay 10 seconds the audio tag depending on the main song length. Also, the main song audio volume lowers while the audio tag plays.

Any ideas/help appreciated. Thanks.

Since you wish to alter effective length of the tag, skip the amovie looping and use the aloop filter after padding the audio to 10s.

ffmpeg -i main.mp3 -filter_complex "amovie=tag.wav,asetpts=N/SR/TB,apad=whole_dur=10,aloop=-1:1M:0[tag]; [0][tag]amix=duration=shortest,volume=2" -vn tag-out.mp3


Software to capture high quality screen-casts I want to record video tutorials but I can't get the program to capture my screen with high quality, and not just that, when I try to edit it in After Effects scaling and positioning the fonts and window seem pixelized and doesn't look sharp. Thanks!

There are a lot of screen recording software, for example:

CamStudio (free)
Screenpresso (free/paid versions)
Movavi Screen Capture Studio ($49.95)
Camtasia Studio ($299.00)


Premiere distorts 2.0 anamorphic R3D footage when paused in the source viewer This is my first time working with anamorphic red footage. When I view footage in the source monitor, all anamorphic clips are sheared diagonally (image below):

The problem does not persist when the footage is playing back, or when I'm viewing it on the timeline, or through RED Player.

It only shears when paused within the source monitor, as well as viewing RED R3D Source settings. How can I fix this?

Just finished working with exact same sort of footage. I never got that issue.

Update Premiere CC.
Start a new project from scratch. Import one R3D file and create a sequence from it. See what happens.
Create a new project in another editing program, one that can read R3D footage. Create brand new sequence, see what happens.
Try this solution: https://video.stackexchange.com/a/16246/11961


Is Nikon D750 a good choice vs. Canon 5D Mark III for avid Videographer?Edit My main uses for getting a DSLR for Video would be the following:

HDR (Video/Audio)
Panoramas
Slow Motion
Excellent Live View
Good RAW Support

Any other pro-features for videography.

You should consider other options than Nikon/Canon. Even if they have proven DSLR can do really good video, thanks to 5D Mark II/III and Magic Lantern, they do not compete well against Panasonic and Sony.

If you compare 5D Mark III against a Sony A7S, you're going to have a much better video quality on A7S, thanks to its far superior sensor. Much higher dynamic range, better low noise performance, 4K, and so on. Watch the 5DIII vs A7S:

The mind-blowing low noise performance on A7S:

https://vimeo.com/99893160

Again, 5D III is left behind Panasonic GH4. The last one is far less expensive, and offer 4K resolution. Even if low noise is not really well performed on it, because of its 4/3 sensor, it's still a good competitor regarding of its price.

Nikon and Canon seem to be left behind nowadays. They provide the best DSLR for stills, but for video, you can find better, and often with less money.

Wake up Canon!


Understanding an FFmpeg command (blurring a video) I searched for a FFmpeg command to blur part of a video, and found the following:

ffmpeg -i short.mp4 -filter_complex
       "[0:v]split=2[v0][v1];
        [v0]crop=200:200:60:30,boxblur=10[fg];
        [v1][fg]overlay=60:30[v]" -map "[v]"
    -map 0:a -c:v libx264 -c:a copy -movflags +faststart filtered.mp4

(cut-cat minimal video editing bash script)

Unfortunately, I can't blur the part of the video that I want to blur. So, I took a picture with the same resolution and color so that someone may help me understand what to do, and perhaps even explain what the numbers in the code above mean or refer to.

Here's the picture:

https://i.ibb.co/4fZNcgN/ask-368-X320-WHITE-BLURED.png

The above command line was copied from FFmpeg - Apply blur over face which also provides a good explanation:

  Note: The x and y offset numbers in overlay (60 and 30 in this
  example) must match the crop offsets.

  What this example does:

  Crop the copy to be the size of the area to be blurred. In this example: a 200x200 pixel box that is 60 pixels to the right (x axis)
  and 30 pixels down (y axis) from the top left corner.
  Blur the cropped area.
  Overlay the blurred area using the same x and y parameters from the crop filter.

So: the 200:200 is the size of the blurred area and 60:30 its position relative to the top-left corner. The input v is split into two streams v0 and v1 where v0 is blurred and the result is named fg. Streams v1 and fg are composed to the final stream v.


How to create tutorial videos? I'd like to know how to create a video tutorial like:

Is there any 'easy to use software' to achieve such effects? I've tried AVS4YOU and other beginner animation software packages, but I don't get it.

I really appreciate any help.

Personally, I don't think those videos look very good. I certainly wouldn't take their message seriously given their poor quality.

But that point aside, many people use either Apple Motion or Adobe After Effects to create motion graphics. Motion offers "behaviors" that make moving objects around a little easier if you aren't familiar with keyframing.


How to time remap faster than 1000% in Premiere Is there a quick and easy way to time remap faster than 1000% in Adobe Premiere CC 2017?

Try nested sequences.  Insert your video in a sequence, speed it up the maximum amount.  Insert that sequence into another and then speed up the original sequence.  Note that the impact will be multiplicative, so if you make the video 10 times faster and the sequence 3 times faster, you'll end up with footage 30 times faster than the original.


Premiere Pro - How to pan around zoomed in Program Monitor I can't seem to find an answer to this anyplace online.

When I zoom in on the Program Monitor window, there is no way for me to easily pan around the window:

In other Adobe programs, you hold Space and drag with a mouse or even just slide a finger along the Magic Mouse to change which area you're zoomed in on.

Is there something like this in Premiere?  It's driving me nuts having to use the scroll bars manually...

I figured it out.

Press H to switch to the Hand Tool, then you can drag the viewport around


Is lighting a green screen necessary? I need a green screen for a project I'm making. However, after some research, they said I need to light it.

I didn't think I'd have to light it, and it looks to complicated. As long as there are no shadows, would it be ok to not go through complicated steps to evenly light it and just use it?

You'd probably want to light it anyway, as it will make it easier to pull a key if it's properly lit. The farther you can keep it away from the objects or talent you'll be keying, the better. But light is essential to accurately capturing color, so if you can light it, you should. You want it to be evenly lit so that you don't have to choose too wide of a color range to key out.


How to record HDMI video output? How to record HDMI video, which is being sent from a notebook to a projector without interrupting it?

The HDMI signal shows desktop activity and/or video game gameplay on different devices that run Windows, Mac OS X or Linux.

Is it possible to use an HD camcorder with HDMI in and out (example device: Sony HDR PJ620)?
Are there devices with built-in storage or that can write to SATA, USB or SD storage?
Are there devices which can be connected to a second laptop which then records the video?

Hardware/Software solutions that run on/in the computer which outputs the HDMI signal are not relevant. The video-outputting computers can not be manipulated.

I would use three pieces of hardware for this task.

A recording laptop.
A device that allows you to input the HDMI to the recording laptop, aka, a frame grabber.
An HDMI spliter.

A recording laptop

Any old laptop will do, really. It doesn't need super specs, like dedicated graphics, but you certainly want at least a mid-range machine. Like an Intel i5 or better, 8 Gig's RAM, fast HDD (SSD would be great, but not necessary). Software wise, anything that can see the generic devices will work. Pro software like Vegas Pro or Adobe Primere if you have it works great. There's also Wirecast and vMix if you have webcast requirements.

A video frame grabber

I've had pretty good success with the DVI2USB3.0 Frame Grabber by Epiphan. Use that with a DVI to HDMI converter and it will work just fine. It also allows audio capture. I especially like its very small size, solid construction, and that it's USB powered. It will work on USB 2.0, but you will get limited bandwidth in the form of limited framerates per the source resolution (I often get about 45 fps at 1024x768 on USB 2.0). It's a bit on the pricey side, but Epiphan has very good customer service. I know other options are available, but I have no experience with them. About 5 years ago I decided against Black Magic products because of the mixed reviews on Amazon, but that may have gotten better. Other items that are like $10,000 are not the kind of equipment you are looking for. I've never actually seen one of those being used for more than what a $1,000 in hardware can do. Basically, if you don't know why it costs so much, you don't need it.

HDMI video splitter

There are plenty available on the market (Google image search). They're pretty simple. They have a single HDMI input and at least two HDMI outputs, which are both exact duplicates of the input signal. Make sure you get one that is powered because the ones that aren't reduce signal strength and it often shows, especially on projectors (at least, this is true for the VGA splitters). If you intend to audio record over HDMI make sure the splitter you get can handle that.

Setup

Take your source HDMI and run it to the video splitter.
Run an HDMI from an output on the splitter to the projector.
Run an HDMI from an output on the splitter to the Epiphan frame grabber via a DVI to HDMI converter.
Plug the Epiphan USB into the recording laptop.

Alternative, VGA-based setup

I would actually recommend this setup if this is in a professional conference setting and there is a professional audio/visual crew working it. I also recommend this setup if any of the HDMI runs are farther than 30 feet. HDMI just can't push very far and VGA can easily do 100 feet.

If this is a professional setup and you're just hooking in to what they already have, then the projector is not yours and you don't know what to expect. Chances are very high that projector will be gathering it's feed via VGA, not HDMI (you really should call the AV company to find out though).

So instead of using HDMI from the source laptop, use the VGA out (if it has one) or convert it to VGA with an HDMI to VGA dongle. The setup is exactly the same as above except everything HDMI is VGA now, including the VGA video splitter and the DVI to VGA adapter. For audio, just plug into the recording laptop's mic input port. As a warning, you might need some kind of audio cleanup when gathering audio this way. I regularly use the Whirlwind line isolator and the Dsan laptop sound port.

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.


Is there a downside to increasing ISO and decreasing shutter speed I'm rather new to filmography, and I just discovered that decreasing shutter speed can minimalist motion blur, which I want none of. I set my SS to 1/10000, but that obviously darkens everything. To compensate for that, I just increased the ISO until it looked normally lit again. It works, but something in the back of my mind tells me there has to be a downside to this.

My camera is a Sony A7S, but I don't think that really matters

With an A7S, MkI or MkII; the camera is ridiculously incredible in terms of noise hint even at extreme ISOs; that's compared to just a few years ago when everyone was shooting on the 5D MkII.

My recommendation BECAUSE it's the A7s and because the visually acceptable level of noise to the viewer is really not noticed until you go into the extreme ISOs; would be to try to maintain a consistent ISO regardless of whether you are indoors or outdoors, or at least a fairly consistent range.

Shooting at 6400 ISO will have virtually no noise, and if you shoot all your material at a set ISO you will have a consistent grain/noise hint to all your footage. Just keep in mind you gain one stop of light each time you double your ISO.

Shutter speed can be adjusted, along with your aperture; to set exposure; along with ND Filters if you have them.

You should really shoot some tests at various shutter speeds to find the look you are happy with. The standard for film/video is a 180 degree shutter; which provides a slight amount of motion blur when shooting at 24-30fps (48-60 Shutter). When you have a higher shutter; your footage will be more "juddered", that is, each frame will have a higher sharpness value with each step up in shutter speed. This can sometimes be a little distracting.

A great example of this is the D-Day Invasion Scene from Saving Private Ryan; shot at high shutter speeds; there is virtually zero motion blur frame to frame; and it adds to the scene's frenetic; racing feel.


Convert sRGB color to linear Color Space Just wondering if there is a simple and fast way to convert a specific color from my Illustrator layout file (#e3000b) to a linear Color Space.

I am working in After Effects in a linear color space. When I add a new solid and enter my hex code for color, its not the same red as in my layout.

Thanks in advance

Using the calculator at http://davengrace.com/dave/cspace/,

Gamma-weighted #E3000B translates to linear sRGB #C50001


Recording Audio for Stand-Up Comedy I have recently come into producing professional recording of stand-up comedy.

When it comes to capturing audio, I use two sources.

1) a line directly off the mic to get the performer

2) a mic in the room to get the audience

The problem is that the source capturing the audience gets a lot of the performer as well which sounds bad.

The performer's audio should be from the microphone line only.

How would one capture the audience without getting the sound of the performer from that source?

How is the sound captured on professional stand-up comedy shows?

It depends on the environment, but generally, you want directional microphones that you can point at the audience from in front of the speakers.  In an auditorium designed to spread sound around though, you are always going to get some of the speaker in the sound.  Directional mics will focus the direction of sound they pick up towards the crowd, but some sound still bounces back.

Another possibility, since crowd noise is generally fairly similar and non-distinct, it is entirely possible that they aren't using the crowd's actual sound.  They may just be using laugh tracks to emulate the audience.  This can get clean sound since there wasn't anything else going on when it was recorded.


Motion RAW Videos possible? Sorry for the rushed question I don't have time.

So my good old DSC W610 could  shoot MJPEG but I always wanted an RAW video so I could make wallpapers from the scenery videos I Shoot.

Is this possible? I want to shoot FHD 30FPS Raw video.

This camera can't shoot RAW for still, not talking about video. And according to the specifications this camera can shoot 640x480x30 which is not very much by contemporary measures.

For shooting RAW video you should jump to much higher class cameras.

About DSLRs I found on this site sample table with cheapest DSLRs for RAW video:


FFMPEG is not trimming the audio to the length of the video As a follow-up on Video concatenation puts sound out of sync, I have 6 video clips where the audio is 200 ms shorter than the video. The last clip has a chair banging on the floor and serves to measure the total misalignment in the concatenation.

I tried concatenating them simply with:

ffmpeg -safe 0 -f concat -i files_to_combine -vcodec copy -acodec copy temp.MOV

where files_to_combine contains a list of the files in format file ./DSC_0013.MOV for example. The result is 0.5 seconds of misalignment.

I also tried trimming each clip to the shortest stream with:

ffmpeg -i DSC_0013.MOV -map 0 -c copy \
  -fflags +shortest -max_interleave_delta 0 DSC_0013_trimmed.MOV

before concatenating them as above. The results is 0.08 seconds of misalignment. I also tried increasing the value of -max_interleave_delta, with similar results.

With iMovie, the concatenation of audio and video is perfectly aligned.

How can I trim and concatenate the clips with FFMPEG so they concatenate as cleanly as with iMovie?

In the process of submitting a bug report, I tested the same input samples on the nightly build of FFMPEG of 11 February 2020, which fixed the problem. That nightly build had version:

ffmpeg version git-2020-02-11-f15007a

To install a nightly build, I suggest using the compiled binaries from Zeranoe. Beginners should choose "Static" libraries, which includes the required libraries in the build.

I suspect that the problem is due to the input samples being slices of an hour-long footage, which is longer than the EU restriction on camcorders. Using the nightly build avoids this case of sound and video out of sync even with shortest clip trimming.

For the EU restriction, see Filesystem that records longer than 4 GiB, or one hour without interruption or Why is there a limit restriction to the 1080p film video?.


Optimize Filesize export from Premiere CS3 After screen capturing a video and editing it with Premiere CS3*, I'd like some help optimizing the Quicktime filesize. I was wondering if I can get the ratio back to 1:1 at least.

I have tried to best match my project settings to my original video type, but when I export my edit, the filesize increases from 55mb (10min) to 963mb (7min).

Original video Settings

H.264 Codec / AAC 44.1khz, 448kbps Audio
1280*720 @ 25fps
VBR Bitrate (many still frames are present), High quality, High Profile

Premiere Project Settings

HDV 720p Preset
1280*720, 25fps
No fields (Progressive scan)
Video Rendering Setting: Maximum Bit Depth (unchecked), Optimize Stills (checked)

Movie Export Settings

H.264
1280*720, 25fps
Millions of Colours
Quality 86% (don't understand!)
Data Rate: Recompress - Always (checked) or Maintain Data Rate (unchecked)
Limit Data Rate: (unavailable)

Keyframe and Rendering:

Bit Depth: Use Project Settings (checked)/ 8-bit (unchecked)/ Maximum (unchecked)
Fields: No Fields (Progressive Scan)/ Lower Field First (unchecked)/ Upper Field First (unchecked)
- De-interlace Video Footage (unchecked)
Optimize Stills (checked).

*Apologies for using outdated software.

I've now solved this problem. I was using Export > Movie, when I needed to go to Adobe Media Encoder to find more extensive options. I kept most settings the same, but believe turning 'Bitrate' off may have decreased the data rate. I got the filesize down to around 120mb, which is much better.

This video helped me find the Adobe Media Encoder.


Missing media prompt top box is missing. Have no idea what it's asking for For some reason the dialogue for the missing media looks like this:

The top is missing. I don't know what media it's referring to which is a huge problem. How would one fix this? Restarting the program and the computer doesn't do anything.

Is this the only clip that is missing? If so, can you offline the clip, then look into your project to see what's missing. Even if there are multiple clips, you can just offline all, go into the project monitor, you can sort by status in the last column:

After you sort, right click on each clip that is offline, then click on link media.

Assuming you remember what clip you want when you right click, even if it won't give you the clip, you'll know what you're replacing.


Editing software to quickly match audio and video transitions I would like to create a short movie from a collection of clips, shot with an action cam, where the video transitions are synced with the beats in my audio. I have done some research and the options I have found are:

Quik - not suitable as I don't have a GoPro
2 . Final cut Pro - I don't own an Mac
Premiere Pro - An annual subscription of £200+ is not worth it just to make a few short videos

The key feature is the synchronization of clips to the audio track. I know there are plenty of video editors out there. But I need something fast that will be able to achieve this.

Are these the only options? Are there any other fast editing programs that can generate synced video -audio transitions without spending a fortune? I would be interested in any other solutions

From a quick Google search, I can see that Movavi has something like this and (as far as I can tell) is free. However, it only marks the beats for you; you'd still need to actually roll up your sleeves and cut the clips down yourself.

Adobe Premiere Elements also has a beat detector thing (I believe) but, again, I suspect that it'll just help by marking the beats on your timeline, leaving you to do the cutting.

I can't actually find something that does it all for you but, to be honest, you'll probably get better results cutting the thing yourself and it really won't take that long (I reckon about an hour or so for a 2-3 min track, if that - especially if you've already selected your clips).


How to annotate specific parts of video in pre-production? When working in pre-production I usually have a lot of video material which I all subsequently place on the timeline and cut specific parts which I will/can use.

Then when starting to work on production I move all the cut original videos to the right and edit on the left of the timeline, scrolling left and right to pick videoparts.

Is there a way, before putting on the timeline, to annotate/mark specific intervals in the original videos with the possibility to only place those specified parts on the timeline?

I work with adobe.

Disclaimer: You didn't specify what program you are working with, so I assume you are using the current version of Premiere Pro.

Assembly Workflow

Your workflow is a common one for beginners. Back when I gave Premiere Pro introductory courses, I noticed many students start out like this, basically doing the assembly, cutting and arrangement of the footage completely in the timeline. While there's nothing wrong with that approach, you can significantly speed up your workflow by seperating the initial material assembly/screening1 and the actual cutting.

The assembly is where you look through your material, sort and rate/tag it so you know what you are working with and can find specific parts of your material quickly. Mastering the project panel and all the sorting/marking options is a large subject on it's own, so I'm just gonna give you an overview of my workflow and the sorting options I find useful.

Workspace. Under Window → Workspaces, select Assembly. This workspace is optimized for assembly and material screening, it's just easier to work with. You can also rearrange the panels and save it as a custom workspace.
Bins. You can create bins to sort your footage into by pressing CTRL + B while the project panel is in focus. They work similarly to folders on your computer, you can drag your video clips and other assets into them for sorting. For example, you can create seperate folders for every scene in your movie, a seperate folder for B-roll material, a folder for music and other non-video assets et c. You will have a much easier time finding specific clips after you have sorted them in this way.
Color labels, Star Ratings & Keywords. You can use several variants of marking systems if you use the Metadata Display options. For example, I like to use colors labels to mark the best clips and the rejects. Once you have set those up, you can also use filters or sort by color labels to find the good stuff quickly. Other options include Star Ratings (that you can assign shortcuts to), Keywording and several other editable metadata options. I've already written some other answers on this, so ...

Quick setup for Star Ratings
Setting up Keywords and other Metadata options

List and Thumbnail Views. On the bottom left of the project panel, you can switch between the two views and adjust the size of the item display. While in List view, you can rename your assets from the generic filename (like MVI_0817.mov) to something more useful. I like to use a consistent naming scheme so I see what every clip contains at one glance. For example, if you name your clips [scene]_[shot]_[angle] (e.g. garden_establishing_panorama), you can find a specific clip without even looking at it.
The thumbnail view is useful to get a feeling of your material and quickly stitch clips together that fit. I usually open a second instance of the project panel, set it to thumbnail view and put it on my second monitor. It's great for quickly sifting through your clips and finding the right one for your scene.
In- & Out-Point, Markers. This is the most important part of this workflow, and the answer to your initial question (got a bit carried away with my answer). You can mark the In- and Out-Point of each clip by pressing the I (In) and O (Out) Keys respectively. This will add those points at the current playback position in the source panel (they are not temporary, so you can add In- and Out-Points to each clip in your project without dropping any of them in the timeline). If you have set up those points for a clip, only the portion of that clip between them will appear in your timeline when you add it to your sequence (you can of course adjust the start and end point in the sequence using the cutting tools as usual). More information on In- and Out-Points and quick ways of adding clips to the timeline can be found in my answer here.
One problem with this method is that you can only use one In- and Out-Point per clip. So if you have one clip that contains two parts you want to use in your movie, you have a problem. There are two ways to deal with this.

Markers. You can add markers to your master clips in the source panel by pressing M. The marker is added at the current playback position, you can change it's color and other attributes by right-clicking on it and selecting Edit Marker… from the context menu. However, this option is somewhat limited, since you will still have to manually adjust the clip length in the timeline, the marker only provides a visual aid.
Subclips. If you have set an In- and Out-Point for a clip, you can create a Subclip from that. Right-click on the clip in the project panel and select Make Subclip from the context-menu. This will create another instance of that masterclip in the project panel limited to the boundaries marked by the In- and Out-Point. This way, you can split up a large clip into several subclips, each containing only the portions that you need. The downside of this is that it's somewhat tedious if you have many long clips.

This workflow works best if you film your material in a certain way, which will also avoid the problems with In- and Out-Points mentioned above. This leads me to the following point.

Good filming habits

In general, try to film in a way that will make the assembly/screening of the material much easier and streamlined. This mainly means two things:

Press the record button only after you have composed the shot. If you point the camera in some random direction, press record and then compose your shot (i.e. position your camera/subject), you will have a few seconds of unusable material to cut from every single clip. And, even worse, the thumbnail view of the project panel will be mostly useless, since the thumbnails won't show the actual shot. If you start the recording after you are done composing your shot, the thumbnails will show you at one glance what every clip contains, allowing you to cut much faster.
Start a seperate recording for each shot. Many beginners make the mistake of just letting the camera run while they film, resulting in long files that are tedious to check and cut. Try to seperate the video files by stopping the recording and starting a new one for every shot/angle. This way, you only have one relevant part per clip/video file, allowing you to work faster with In- and Out-Points and the other Metadata Display options mentioned above. Also, try to make each recording only as long as you need it to be. For example, if you shoot a couple of B-roll shots from the same vantage points, do not just press record and proceed to point your camera at everything. Instead, compose the first shot, press record and record for 5~10 seconds (no longer for B-Roll). Then stop the recording, compose the second shot et c. This way, you end up with a couple of short, concise clips that you can assemble and add to your movie quickly.

This is all I can think of at the moment, though there's definitely more to say about this subject. I haven't even touched the actual rough and fine cutting yet ... but this answer is really getting too long, so I'll leave it at that. If I forgot anything important, feel free to inquire in the comments or ask a seperate question, I will be happy to edit my answer or add a new one if necessary.

1 Not sure what the right term is. In German it's called (Material-)Sichtung, which translates to sighting or screening of the material.


Final Cut - split clip into separate clips Is it possible to split long clips in several short clips?

Now I can open clip in timeline and edit, split, delete, rename parts of clip. But when I go back to project how can I use sub parts of this clip or how can I make separate clips?

I'm not familiar with FCPX specifically, but on pretty much every NLE ever made, you either use the razor tool to split the long clip wherever you want or set in and out points on the source window and drag in the clips already shortened.

If you want to be able to use a preset portion of a longer video as a source that you can just drag on, it will need its own timeline.  Put it in a timeline by itself along with any effects or anything you want to apply to it and then you can use a nested sequence in another timeline.


How to export footage and burn a 16:9 PAL DVD for playback on television I have searched everywhere and consulted many people yet no one seems to know how to solve this problem.

I have created a large project in After Effects in 16:9 format:

  1280x720
  Square Pixels
  Frame Aspect Ratio 16:9 (1,78)

The problem is that every single time I burn any of this footage to DVD, it works perfectly on a computer, but on dvd/tv, rather than letterboxing the tops and bottoms, the sides are cut off. (Even with black bars on the sides where footage should be). The same DVDs play flawlessly on the computer. I have tried cycling through every mode available on the TV as well (4:3, 14:9, Widescreen (16:9), SuperLive, etc etc).

I don't believe it is an issue with Action/Title Safe as vertically, nothing is cut off, only the sides.

I have tried Roxio Toast and Burn. With both, I have ensured 16:9 is enabled/checked and PAL Video DVD Format.

I have tried countless settings in my dvd burning software.

I've also tried putting everything into Final Cut and exporting with Compressor:

  Name: MPEG-2 for DVD
  Description: MPEG-2 elementary stream for DVD Authoring
  File Extension: m2v
  Estimated size: 2.25 GB/hour of source
  Type: MPEG-2 video elementary stream
      Usage:SD DVD
  Video Encoder
      Width: 720
      Height: 576
      Pixel aspect ratio: PAL CCIR 601 (16:9)
      Crop: None
      Padding: None
      Frame rate: (100% of source)
      Frame Controls: Automatically selected: Off
      Start timecode from source
      Aspect ratio: 16:9
      Field dominance: Progressive

In every single case, the footage plays perfectly on a computer, but the edges are noticeably cut off on a TV. Why isn't the DVD just fitting the footage to screen??

I believe the issue lies in the PAR (Pixel Aspet Ratio) - but shouldn't a compressor setting that is setup SPECIFICALLY to output a format made for a 16:9 PAL DVD make it work regardless of the source footage?

Render your footage again downscaled to 720x576 then burn it to your DVD.  Even though the downscaled files look squashed on your computer, when burnt to a DVD with a 16x9 anamorphic setting it should appear correctly.


Displaying map overlay in Final Cut Pro I often see a map overlay in people's driving videos (showing a map in a corner that moves along the street to match the camera location of the main video as they drive through a street).
How do I create this? I use FCPX on a Mac.
I'm aware of the Relive app, but the video that app creates is in 3D, and moves much faster than the driving speed. I'm looking for a 2D version which show the video moving at the actual driving speed, and shows street names.
If not possible through an app, perhaps I can import the gpx data into a software that creates such an animated video.
I'm grappling for the best way to do this.
Thanks in advance.

With a quick search I found this website, simulating a drive with google maps. When you have your maps simulation you should be able to easily match the speed with FCPX to the footage.


Difference between duration_ts and duration in ffprobe output? I am relatively a beginner in ffmpeg and video production and was trying to extract duration of a video using ffprobe, using the following command:

ffprobe -loglevel error -select_streams v -show_entries stream -of json filename.mp4
Output:
{
    "programs": [

    ],
    "streams": [
        {
            "index": 0,
            "codec_name": "h264",
            "codec_long_name": "H.264 / AVC / MPEG-4 AVC / MPEG-4 part 10",
            "profile": "Baseline",
            "codec_type": "video",
            "codec_time_base": "250/15007",
            "codec_tag_string": "avc1",
            "codec_tag": "0x31637661",
            "width": 640,
            "height": 352,
            "coded_width": 640,
            "coded_height": 352,
            "has_b_frames": 0,
            "pix_fmt": "yuv420p",
            "level": 30,
            "chroma_location": "left",
            "refs": 1,
            "is_avc": "true",
            "nal_length_size": "4",
            "r_frame_rate": "15007/500",
            "avg_frame_rate": "15007/500",
            "time_base": "1/30014",
            "start_pts": 0,
            "start_time": "0.000000",
            "duration_ts": 479000,
            "duration": "15.959219",
            "bit_rate": "1826913",
            "bits_per_raw_sample": "8",
            "nb_frames": "479",
            "disposition": {
                "default": 1,
                "dub": 0,
                "original": 0,
                "comment": 0,
                "lyrics": 0,
                "karaoke": 0,
                "forced": 0,
                "hearing_impaired": 0,
                "visual_impaired": 0,
                "clean_effects": 0,
                "attached_pic": 0,
                "timed_thumbnails": 0
            },
            "tags": {
                "rotate": "90",
                "language": "und"
            },
            "side_data_list": [
                {
                    "side_data_type": "Display Matrix",
                    "displaymatrix": "\n00000000:            0       65536           0\n00000001:       -65536           0           0\n00000002:            0           0  1073741824\n",
                    "rotation": -90
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

I have been trying to understand what is the difference between

duration_ts and duration

Can someone just point me in the right direction to understand what each of them means?
I understand that the duration stands for run time of video but don't know what duration_ts here refers to.

duration is in seconds, e.g. 15.9
duration_ts is in the media's time_base, e.g. 1/30014 * 479000 = 15.959219


YouTube's 60fps runs smoother than games? When watching a video on YouTube in 1080p 60 FPS the video runs very smooth and looks nice. When I play games on my PC with more than 60 FPS it does not feel as nice.

Is there a difference between YouTube's 60fps and 'actual' 60fps?

If you're comparing PC games to Youtube video shot with a camera (as opposed to Youtube video of games captured via HDMI), then you're probably noticing the natural motion blur that cameras introduce.  Gaming hardware can't reproduce this effect very well because it either has to render intermediate frames and blur them together or perform "optical flow" or vector-based analysis in real time.

If you are, however, asking about Youtube videos of video games (which presently comprise most of Youtube's 60p content), then my only suggestion is perhaps a performance difference between your machine and the ones in the videos.


How to make Premiere Pro Connect Hindi Characters? I am using Premiere Pro CC 2017.

Recently when I try to type "Hindi"  Language via Google Input tools,

Typed text not showing "Joint word" correctly.

But my language working completely at everywhere except Premiere Pro.

Already Changed text engine to South Asian

If not understanding my question please visit this question,this problem is for android and my question for Premiere Pro.

Solved..

Turned On Ligatures in Preference-Titler

Changed font to Adobe Devnagari

Restarted Premiere

Thanks to @user1118321 for Ligatures Meaning


iMovie 11 starts with a black screen. How can we make this a white screen? I want to make a movie that is a continuous loop. All images have white background.  When I make the movie with iMovie it starts and ends with a black background image.  This does not look good when the video loops.

How do we control the basic background in iMovie?

If there is an image with a white background at the start and end of the video, it should never export a black frame at either end.  (I've never seen it do that, and I've used iMovie '09 to edit hundreds of videos!)


FFmpeg scale video filter does not working as expected I am confused a bit. scale video filter does not scales the video to specified dimensions but doing something different.

For example:

$ youtube-dl -f 134 https://youtu.be/aqz-KE-bpKQ -o 1.mp4 # download file 640x360    360p  723k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 24.87MiB
$ ffmpeg -i 1.mp4 -vf scale=2000:100 2.mp4
$ ffplay 1.mp4 & ffplay 2.mp4 &

I am awaiting that the second video will be deformed as wide and narrow at height, but:

Here is output of ffprobe for both files:

$ ffprobe 1.mp4
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '1.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : dash
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: iso6avc1mp41
    creation_time   : 2018-12-12T10:08:34.000000Z
  Duration: 00:10:34.57, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 328 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709, progressive), 640x360 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 0 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 15360 tbn, 60 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2018-12-12T10:08:34.000000Z
      handler_name    : ISO Media file produced by Google Inc. Created on: 12/12/2018.
$ ffprobe 2.mp4
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '2.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : Lavf57.83.100
  Duration: 00:10:34.57, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 443 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 2000x100 [SAR 4:45 DAR 16:9], 440 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 15360 tbn, 60 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler

So, I missed something or video filter works in wrong way? How to fix this?

PS:

$ ffmpeg -version
ffmpeg version 3.4.6-0ubuntu0.18.04.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 7 (Ubuntu 7.3.0-16ubuntu3)
configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-version=0ubuntu0.18.04.1 --toolchain=hardened --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --incdir=/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu --enable-gpl --disable-stripping --enable-avresample --enable-avisynth --enable-gnutls --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libbs2b --enable-libcaca --enable-libcdio --enable-libflite --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libmysofa --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopenmpt --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-librubberband --enable-librsvg --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libspeex --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx265 --enable-libxml2 --enable-libxvid --enable-libzmq --enable-libzvbi --enable-omx --enable-openal --enable-opengl --enable-sdl2 --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libdrm --enable-libiec61883 --enable-chromaprint --enable-frei0r --enable-libopencv --enable-libx264 --enable-shared
libavutil      55. 78.100 / 55. 78.100
libavcodec     57.107.100 / 57.107.100
libavformat    57. 83.100 / 57. 83.100
libavdevice    57. 10.100 / 57. 10.100
libavfilter     6.107.100 /  6.107.100
libavresample   3.  7.  0 /  3.  7.  0
libswscale      4.  8.100 /  4.  8.100
libswresample   2.  9.100 /  2.  9.100
libpostproc    54.  7.100 / 54.  7.100

The scale filter will adjust the sample aspect ratio to maintain the original display aspect ratio, which is 16:9 for your input. Use the SAR filter to reset the SAR after scaling.

ffmpeg -i 1.mp4 -vf scale=2000:100,setsar=1 2.mp4


Warp stabilizer in Premiere Pro cuts off most of the image Has anyone seen this problem before? When I apply (and only when I apply) the warp stabilizer, it seems like only 1/10 of the video shows up.

Here's a screenshot:

It works on older versions of Premiere for me, and it happens in the latest (CC 2014) no matter what I do or what clips I use from different sources.

Thanks in advance!

The root of the issue might be your footage. If you have high amplitude shakes in your video the stabilizer will try to stabilize those as well. That can result in such issues.
Try different settings, the default values don't work with every type of camera motion.


Will lens softness be visible in DSLR video? Possible Duplicate:
  What factors are important for DSLR lenses for shooting video?

The one-line question above had to be vague, so let me elaborate:

Let's say that I'm using a Canon T4i (doesn't necessarily have to be that camera) with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM lens to shoot 1080p video. I know that this particular Canon lens is naturally not very sharp at 1.4, and this would probably be apparent on a full-size photo when blown up to 100% scale on a screen.

However, it seems reasonable to me that, even if the lens is soft, if I were to shoot video at f/1.4 and then view it at 100% scale on a screen, the video is still so small in resolution that the lack of sharpness may not be very visible, similar to taking the photo previously described and scaling it down to 50%.

In this way, I want to see if I can get away with using this lens at 1.4 and get results that look very good and really sharp, despite the lens's apparent natural limitations (and, of course, assuming proper focus on my part).

Does my theory have any truth behind it?

You are correct. You're shooting at a much lower resolution on video than stills, and so your effective circles of confusion are much bigger. So you can get away with glass that a decent stills photographer wouldn't touch. This is speaking from experience at work where I share DSLR equipment with a bunch of stills photographers who are always complaining about lenses that I use all the time for video with no problems.

"Get away with" being the critical phrase there. Crap lenses are still crappier than good ones.


AE: Frame rate and animating solids For an After Effects project that animates mostly solids and Illustrator objects, what frame rate should one use to achieve smooth visual effects?

I'm currently working with 23.9 fps but it renders a bit choppy. Can I go up to 60 fps, or are there any downsides?

Yesterday, I saw the video at the start of the Apple keynote (http://www.apple.com/apple-events/october-2013/) which has a great level of smoothness to it.

Is that achieved through higher fps or an other technique?

24 FPS should be plenty smooth, anything about 15fps should appear fairly smooth to the human eye.  There are two possibilities I can think of, first, you may be encoding to a fairly low compression format that produces large files, if so, your computer may be having trouble displaying the frames in time.  This can result in lag or frame skips which make the video look much less smooth.

Second, you may need to apply some motion blur depending on the type of motion and objects you have.  While it makes the image less sharp, we naturally expect a certain amount of blur on things in motion and our brain sometimes things it is less smooth if there isn't a small amount of blur.  After Effects can render this, but it's not on by default as it adds additional render time.


Film vs digital - telling the difference There is an ongoing movement for movies to be recorded in digital instead of film.  If I'm watching a movie at home on a 1080p HDTV and a bluray player, could I see the difference between something originally recorded on film vs digital?  Are those differences erased in the conversion to the home viewing format?  Would I have I go to a theater that showed analog films to see the movie as the director intended?

The final presentation has been digitally altered and compressed.  Even if it was full quality, you'd likely be unable to tell as film grain can artificially be added (or removed) and color grading can adjust for much of the differences in the way color is captured.  If no editing had been done to the source, it would be pretty clear even on your home set if you knew what to look for, but after post production is done, you can make one look like the other so that it's pretty hard to tell the difference.

As far as how you are more likely to see it the way the director intended, a high quality digital theater is the best bet.  While films may be shot on film some of the time and digital other times, they never go through the entire process of editing in analog (at least not for any hollywood film and not for most artsy films either.)

The first step after shooting a film reel is going to be to scan it to a digital format so that it can be used in the NLE (non-linear editing) software and whatever compositing software is being used for effects work.  Since all films go through a digital process, the process of converting back to film is more a matter of convenience for theaters that lack high quality digital projection that can match the quality of the actual digital files.

It's also worth noting that theaters that do use film projection have to worry about degradation of the film which happens rapidly and results in imperfections in the playback.  Digital cinema projectors have no such drawback.

The debate in the film world about digital vs cinema cameras is rather about how the light is captured.  The primary difference between film and digital sensors is not how the final product looks so much as how it captures light.  A digital camera is exceedingly high quality and very precise, but similar to a keyboard that can play an exact frequency of a note, it lacks the "warmth" of film.  This is similar to the CD vs Vinyl debate.  The film camera captures the light differently and as an analog medium has a softer and "warmer" feel that some people prefer to the "cold" and exacting nature of digital sensors.

This is only a factor for the initial capture of the image however and after that, it doesn't matter and all parties agree that having the most accurate and exact capture in the conversion to the digital world is important, just the film buffs want it to be in a high quality scan while the digital camera guys see no reason not to shoot directly to a hard drive.


Can upconverting 1080p videos on 4k TVs, lower their quality? I read somewhere its better watching 1080p content on native 1080p (Full HD) TVs, because they keep ORIGINAL video resolution without down\upconverting .

If that's true, so buying 4k TVs without any much 4k sources around (While many FHD and HD contents available) , mean wasting both money and quality, isn't that?

On CNET's article:

  we've found that 1080p Blu-ray upconverted to the 4K screens looks
  great, although not appreciably better than 1080p on a 1080p TV.

Upsample by an integer ratio can be completely blameless, just repeating pixels and lines gets it done, no new information, and you get only the original resolution displayed, but no losses either.

This zero order hold based approach tends however not to be popular, and the amount of processing to do anything else rises rapidly especially if you either want to apply filtering over more then a very localised area or play dynamic games to try to give the impression of more resolution (Popular with consumer gear which compounds the messing about by not having sufficient processing to do it well).

Just doing a 2D sinc interpolation is pretty close to blameless (potentially 90% bandwidth or so if you can afford to throw sufficient processing at it), and takes the edges off the pixel doubling.

However for most reasonably sized tellies at reasonable viewing distances, HD is in fact just fine, 4k is nice on a computer monitor where you are sat 18 inches away from a 30 inch screen, but that is not the usual use case for telly.
You may find a search on the term "Circles of confusion" to be informative.

Now HDR (On a set that has the brightness and contrast ratio to pull it off, not technically easy) is a real win even on a SD screen.


Achieving the Elf "Angel" effect I'm looking to achieve something similar to this effect in a short film for 2 shots :

This is from the new Hobbit movie, with of course a massive budget.  To me it looks mostly a digital effect they used.

I'm looking for ideas on how i could achieve something close to this - I don't expect to achieve something so polished as Peter Jackson et al.  The story uses the "angel" motif as a representation of personal power and self confidence, and this would be a way to demonstrate that visually, as the character feels it, we see it.

I'm not sure if a strong light source behind my actor, and some form of filter (i know little about filters) on the lens would work on it's own?
Or if it's better achieved in post-processing - perhaps in a grading step? If so, ideas on software i should investigate would be much appreciated.

You certainly could get a long way in camera. You might want to add a diffusion filter to your lens - or a stocking if you can't afford one, certainly a strong backlight, and by the looks of it maybe a touch of diffused fog. Then in post grade it up until the skin tone is starting to get crushed to white.


What Video Camera and Tool is best to Produce Interviews & Small Docus for my Contruction Company? I would like to start making some interviews at events and put them on our website. I was first thinking of using my iPhone and Windows Movie Maker, but I like to create professional-looking content.

Could you help out?

This question is really super broad, possibly too much so, however I will try to offer some general tips for starting out in video.

The most important thing with video is having a stable shot.  Whatever you do, you will want to use a tripod when shooting.  If you don't have a stable shot, then no amount of equipment, editing or content is going to make up for it.

Next, you need good lighting.  If you don't have proper lighting, you can't have good composition.  To read up more on lighting, I suggest looking for basic information on three point lighting.  It isn't a panacea, but it's a good starting point from which to build.

Next, you need to make sure the shots are well composed.  This is a bit of an artistic call and while concepts like the rule of thirds can be helpful guidelines, really, look at what other videos do and try to match the way they pose and position subjects within the frame.

Finally, of pretty much least significance is the gear itself.  In a pinch you can use a smartphone camera for shooting video.  It has been done and a skilled editor can make use of such footage.

Moving a step up from that, you have low cost, limited functionality but high quality cameras like the GoPro which can capture great video, but are very limited in their range of functionality.  Camcorders can also work if you need a little more functionality at a slight cost in image quality.

Another step up from that, if budget allows, is to move in to DSLR cameras to use for video.  It's important to be aware that many DSLR options do not support auto-focus while shooting, though some newer ones do offer auto-focus during video.  DSLRs have the major advantage of larger sensors than camcorders and smartphones.  This means that they can get a much nicer depth of field and allow for background blur to be achieved much more easily.

Editing is an even more complex beast.  There is a wide range of editing software options available and the ones that do the best jobs are generally not the easiest to learn.  Additionally, editing is more than just understanding the software, it involves understanding the language of video and how video is used to communicate ideas.

This question already addresses video editing software from a beginner's perspective, so rather than elaborate here, I'd suggest checking the existing question that already covers that portion of your question.


Are there any video programs to trim and export multiple videos at once? If I wanted to cut the first 10 seconds off of a handful of videos(12 videos), is there a program that will open all of the videos at once and let me trim the first 10 seconds off of them all at the same time and then export the changes made to those videos all at once?
Instead of having to open each individual video then trim then export and rinse and repeat 11 more times times.

If all you're doing is trimming the video, you may want to consider the command line tool ffmpeg.

The -ss flag will allow you to set the in point for your trim. You can also set an out point on with the -t flag.

For example, the following command will take "name_of_movie.mp4", trim the first 10 seconds off, copy the audio and video codecs, and output the file as "name_of_movie_trimmed.mp4"

ffmpeg -i name_of_movie.mp4 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -ss 00:00:10 name_of_movie_trimmed.mp4

This should work for any format that ffmpeg accepts, which is pretty much all of them. If you'd like to script it, here's a starting point that I use for this very purpose. Edit the extensions for the type of file you use, and for the time you want, put it in a directory with the files you want to trim, and let it get to work.

#!/bin/bash
for file in *.mp4; do
name=${file%%[.]*};
ffmpeg -i "$file" -vcodec copy -acodec copy -ss 00:00:10 "$name trimmed.mp4"
done

There's a lot you can do with ffmpeg to automate some of the more tedious parts of working with video, so have a look around!


Camera flash produces unwanted artifacts on the video During frame by frame watching of some video taken via Instagram app one noticed strange unwanted artifacts on the video caused by camera flash. Please, consider below several sample image frames taken from the video:

Here we clearly see three cases:

No camera flash.
Camera flash: expected camera flash effect.
Camera flash: unexpected camera flash effect (artifacts: the left side is brighter than the right side).

The questions:

Why this happens at all? How this is related to the physics of the filming process: camera flash speed light, image acquisition by the image  sensor at 24..25 fps, video compression/decompression (guess the H.264 was used by Instagram app, video was taken at the end of 2018), etc.
How to avoid such an artifacts next time?

Thanks in advance for the explanation.

Direct link to the full video: https://scontent-ort2-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t50.12441-16/45731449_1983300578418249_711802823897524155_n.mp4?_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.cdninstagram.com&oe=5D7924B5&oh=b2ddf05b200a10ababd105c8b23d7f23&dl=1

This is actually a collateral effect of the concept of rolling shutter. Most video devices do not expose all the frame area at once. They expose starting from one side and (up or down) and move from there. (The example has the camera rotated 90° so the effect is on the sides of the frame).

This can be either a mechanical element that moves or rotates or an electronic system.

As the flash of a camera is a really fast burst of light, it can sometimes be captured in one zone of the frame, by the time another part of the frame is streaming the data, the flash burst is over, so this zone of the image is transmitting the non-illuminated scene.

On still frame photography, this is the reason you have a minimum sync speed.

Frankly, it is really hard to avoid this situation in an environment such as the example posted, because you can not sync your camera to that flash.

On a controlled environment, like lighting in a movie, you could add the lighting in post-production, making one full frame white, and probably some other just a bit exposed.

Another way to control it is by using a slower burst of light. Rather than using a flash that lasts about a thousandth of a second (which disappears really fast), you use some system that flashes on tenths of a second. This way the burst of light has time to be captured by the shutter of the camera.


Please tell me which tool I have to use to create a video? I want to create a video as in the link below, the effect I want to create is that of a camera moving over a collection still photos and briefly pausing on each one:

Youtube Link to video - iit Madras saarang teser 2009 - India

Can anyone suggest me which tool I can use to create such video??
I have some images only. How can I achieve this kind of path navigation effect?

PS: Provide some video links created by those tools you are suggesting, so that I can close this Question based on that (and upvotes).

UPDATED : QUERY ON AN EFFECT IN ABOVE LINKED VIDEO
Hi all thanks for the help. I am good with after effects, its nice. In between I want to know one more thing how can I create an effect as in the above video (39th sec to 41st sec), transition from one plane to another, is there any special name for these kind of effect??

After Effects could certainly do what you want, as could Apple Motion (only for Macs though). If you're on a budget you might want to look at something lower cost - or free:

Natron is an open source free compositor, that will be able to do that effect
Blender - as well as being a 3D animation package it has a compositor too

compositing is the technique of combining images and video, so if you want to research more, what you need to search for is compositing software.


47.952 instead of 48 fps? I work with some clips, all taken from the same camera, which have the exact following characteristics (apart from the duration of course):

Video: 00:03:21.806, 47.952 fps progressive, 1920x1440x12, AVC
Audio: 00:03:21.835, 48,000 Hz, Stereo, AAC

The spec on the camera says "48 fps" but as seen above the software I load the clip shows 47.952.

My questions are:

Is this a thing of the specific camera? Or is 47.952 some kind of standard number for the 48 fps?
Should I render my final mix at 48 or 47.952 fps?

Yeah! Welcome to the good ol' world of analog television. When they originally introduced color television and put a high frequency chroma signal on top of the black- and white luma signal, they had to introduce a freqeuncy shift to prevent the signal from bleeding over into the audio .... oh, you don't want to know. Srsly! Even in times of digital video this stuff will hunt us around for another hundred years.

To make it short: this is normal, and your computer handles it badly.

Those framerates are very common, for every plain frame rate there is the garbled version, because the framerate got shifted down by one thousands part:

24fps vs. 24000 / 1001 = 23.976...

25fps vs. 25000 / 1001 = 24.975...

30fps vs. 30000 / 1001 = 29.970...

Do the math - this is exactly what you experience too. Even worse: those numbers cannot be precisely represented in binary. Not even with long floating point numbers.

Video editing and player software is normally designed to somewhat compensate and prevent A/V desync anyway, either by dropping a frame every once in a while, or by doing ungodly things to the audio stream.

I would recommend you check the settings of your camera to find out if it really does not have a plain 48fps / 50fps setting. I do not think that in the digital age we are still supposed to keep up with this 1950s electron tube hack.


video chroma keyed background into Skype I speak to my sons via Skype (for Win 10).  I have a new green screen, and would like to surprise them by pretending to be on a beach when we next talk.
Zoom can chroma key in a beach with waving palm tree and waves.  Skype just allows static images.
Is there a free package that would make it easy to get something like Zoom's functionality in Skype?  I'd be particularly pleased for a link to step-by-step instructions.

If there is no plugin I never heard of, the only way you could do this is by feeding an already keyed signal into skype. You could try researching if realtime keying can be emulated on a virtual webcam, otherwise you would either have to stick with zoom or buy a live-keyer like the ones from black-magic (though they are very very expensive)


do starting a youtube video production require huge budget We want to start our own 1st youtube channel we will create in house videos from hd camera but before that we need to get an estimation of capital required in video production anyone who is well aware and already own a channel please give us some tips

thank u in advance

The simple answer to your question is "No, starting a YouTube video channel does not require a huge budget."  There are YouTube channels that consist only of videos made using smartphones.

If you want to shoot for higher production values than that, you should be more specific in your question and you might get a more specific answer.  But the simple answer is: if you have a smartphone with video capabilities, you can start a YouTube channel with just that.


How to rotate object in After Effects without affecting other values? I have a motion path of a object already defined within keyframes. Now I would like to adjust the rotation. BUT if the rotation is set, it affects also the X/Y axis of the object, that's why it completely screws up the created keyframes for position coordinates (if the object was moving upwards, I rotate it 90 degrees, it moves to the left).

So my question is, how can I rotate the object without affecting the position, etc. Thanks.

The anchor point defines the "center" around which an object in AE moves, rotates etc. Often, when not taking care of initially setting the anchor point to the right location, rotating the object can lead to surprises. For simple position changes, you probably don't really care where the anchor point is set, once other Params get into play, this can lead to problems since effectively can look as if it affects position, in case of an object with transparency.


How to use a layer as mask for another In After Effect CC, how can I use a layer, for example with a black shape, to use that shape as a mask for another layer? I know I can draw a transparency map on the layer I want to mask itself, but wheneven I move / resize that layer (it's a simple image, in my case) the mask gets moved / resized as well and I want the mask to stay put.

I think you need to use a track matte - this lets you use one layer to control the transparency of another:

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/alpha-channels-masks-mattes.html


Satellite DVR: Cant play recording on computer I have a Satellite STB which saves .mpg files.

I can't play them through vlc and avidemux gives me a blurred output?

Is there any way I can edit these recordings?

EDIT: Here is a link to a very short clip in this format (6.6MB).

mediainfo output:

General
Complete name                            : CCTV-11[02JUN2012-183712].mpg
Format                                   : MPEG-PS
File size                                : 3.94 GiB
Duration                                 : 1h 43mn
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 5 473 Kbps

Video
ID                                       : 234 (0xEA)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Custom
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=12
Duration                                 : 1h 43mn
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 5 108 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 10 000 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 4:3
Frame rate                               : 25.000 fps
Standard                                 : PAL
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan order                               : Top Field First
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.493
Stream size                              : 3.68 GiB (93%)

Audio
ID                                       : 192 (0xC0)
Format                                   : MPEG Audio
Format version                           : Version 1
Format profile                           : Layer 2
Duration                                 : 1h 43mn
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 256 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -921ms
Stream size                              : 189 MiB (5%)

Okay this has a stupid answer.

I installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras package and avidemux opens this file fine now.

Looks like I didn't have the right codecs.


MP4 to DVD - suggestion for workflow After a break of a few years I have started doing video editing again. So I bought Sony Vegas and later upgraded it to the latest version.

For this particular project my source files was created by two different devices: A Samsung Galaxy S2 mobile phone (mp4) and a Sony Cybershot camera (also mp4). The files from the Sony camera cannot be read directly by Vegas, so I have had to transcode them (they are still mp4).

I wanted to produce a DVD of this event (a birthday party), but when I render the project (to be used by DVD Architect) Vegas crashes for me halfway through the process.

I have of course reported this to Sony, but i don't expect any solution soon, so I was wondering if I was doing this the wrong way.

In this case - when the source is mp4 (and in a higher resolution than DVD) - would you suggest another workflow? Would it be better to transcode the files before I add them to the Vegas project?

It's never a bad idea to have resolution and bit depth to spare during post but if you don't need the extras -- higher bit depth for cleaner effects / color grading, higher res for crop and blowup and so on -- then you can reduce the originals to the final output values with no loss of fidelity.


Mp4 Video Container and the Codecs use with it I have started to learn about mp4 file format, and I just learned that mp4 is nothing but just a container that defines the structure of the video file, and that it has different codecs inside it for audio and video, as well as other data like metadata and subtitles.

I have been searching around for a while now but couldn't find so much on the basics of mp4 containers and the working and complete structure explanation of it.

So far I have read this and this, but there is not enough information specifically about mp4 container.

My question is,

There are so many Audio/Video Codecs available which are used, but which Codecs are used with the mp4 container ?

Can we use any Codec with the mp4 container ? because there are like dozen different Codecs and how one would know which can be used with the mp4 container ?,

and is there a book or a paper on Mp4 container structure and explanation ?

The Wikipedia article on MPEG-4 is a great start as the MP4 file specification is part of the MPEG-4 spec.  Specifically version 2 of MP4 is MPEG-4 Part 14. While not free, you can purchase copies of the ISO spec under ISO# 14496-14:2003.  A preview with some detail is available from the ISO here.

It is designed to contain any of the various MPEG video formats, including MPEG, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 Part 2 (generic MPEG-4) and, probably most commonly, MPEG-4 part 10 (H.264).  It can theoretically support almost any format of video stream, however those 4 are the most widely supported for the file type.

The full list of officially registered codec types is available from the MP4 Registration Authority here.


Stream video using FFmpeg with minimum writes reads to disk We are streaming a video using a 30 instances of docker containers hosted on Azure each instance running FFmpeg. The problem is that Azure limits the reads/writes that a container can do. Is there a way to modify the command to reduce the reads/writes needed to stream?
ffmpeg -re -i file.mp4 -c copy -f flv rtmps://streamingSite.com/live/x4t

I am not sure what exactly the limitation is; let assume you don't want using disk I/O; how about ramdisk? The link tells you how