After Effects Blur Effect with Mask Doesn't Go to the Edge I'm new to After Effects and I'm trying to blur a section of a video using masks and tracking.

Everything is working fine, but for some reason the blur effect (and this is the same with other effects too) doesn't go to the very edge of the video. This only happens for the right edge of the video.

Does anyone know what might be causing this?

Picture:

What I would like is everything inside the orange mask to be blurred. If I resize and move the mask around, it can blur everything, except for the right edge as shown in the picture. Making a new mask has the same result. Example below:

Any help greatly appreciated.

If you applied the blur to an adjustment layer (as you should), check to make sure the layer is positioned in the center of the composition. Hit 'P' on the adjustment layer and right click on the 'Position' name and Reset it.

Check the mask expansion to see if maybe you have it set to a number less than or greater than 0. I doubt this is the issue as when you recreate a mask the problem doesn't persist.

If you haven't applied the blur to an adjustment layer you should do that and see if it fixes your issue.


Remove noise in video post production I have a video, shot with a recent but low-end camcorder (Samsung HMX-Q10) in Full HD 1920x1080/50i.

The problem is that there wasn't enough light (I guess) and the camcorder added some "parasites" to the video on the zones in the shadow (blacks are quite okay, but dark zones are not).
The kind of parasites that you may see on that video (on walls for instance) (this is not a video shot with that camcorder, nor my video).

So, I don't seem to be able to remove them when shooting, whatever the parameters of the cam are. I still need to try with more light, but I'd like to know if it is possible to correct that with a post-production effect on my existing video, especially with Sony Vegas Pro.

Moreover, is there a way to prevent the cam to add those artificial elements to the video ? This looks like some numeric elements added to the video, like the cam tries to correct the lighting. Can't the camcorder write exactly the image it gets from the lens, even if it's too dark ?
Can I achieve this kind of dark image with my cam (or maybe it is darkened in post production ?)

The parasites you talked about is called noise. The setting you can change to get less is called the ISO. It corresponds to the old ASA value we had before the digital age.
We can't see a thing, we can only see light. That's the way the universe is built up. Same with the camera. It sees the light reflected off surfaces. So white objects reflects all light and dark objects no light. And absence of light, as you know, means darkness. Where it is dark it has to "work extra hard" to figure out what's actually there, because there is almost no information there given from the light. Therefore you will get some noise. A better camera will produce less noise.

Turn down the ISO as much as possible without compromising the aperture or "shutter speed" you want.
Remove the noise left in post.

It is also no problem to edit it away in post on your computer! The only compromise is that you will get smoother edges and blurred images the more noise you remove. I once saw a movie shot entirely by moonlight. It was full of noise but they removed everything in post!
There are two plugins you can use:

Neat Video's Noise Removal. I've never tried this, but you can use it with Sony Vegas. They claim to be the best in noise removal.

Red Giant's Magic Bullet DeNoiser. I've used this and am very satisfied with it. Does a really good job. I don't know if this works in Vegas, but it certainly works great in Adobe After Effects and Premiere Pro!


Quicktime rendering issue I am trying to export my composition from AE CC but when I hit 'Render' nothing happens. In status is says 'Rendering' but this is not the case and the cursor looks like it's working but nothing is happening. When I hit 'Stop' it gives me the following warning:

  Rendering error while writing to the file "C:\WORKING EDITS\SY - SCN 1\Exports\Test 1.mov" An output module failed. The file may be damaged or corrupted. (1610153464)

When I then try this the second time it gives me the following warning:

  Rendering error while writing to the file "C:\WORKING EDITS\SY - SCN 1\Exports\Test 1.mov" Unable to delete existing file. (1610153460)

I am exporting QuickTime /h.264. I have recently reinstalled my 64bit PC with windows 10 and the following programs from the Adobe CC suite: PS, PP, AE & ME.

My computer is definitely powerful enough to run the software. Any ideas? please help, pulling all my hair out with this as everything else running smoothly, Thanks in advance.

it seems to me that you are trying to overwrite an existing file. Try to change the name from your file (Test 1.mov) to something different and that is not already used on your Exports folder.
Let me know if it worked.
Cheers!


Sony Vegas Pro 13 insane 4k export size So from my knowledge (and actual experience) Vegas 13 has one option for exporting 4k videos. My phone has a 4k camera, and recently I built a beefy computer and decided to edit some 4k footage.

The final product was exactly 2 minutes long, and (not kidding here) exactly 4GB. It was exported to NTFS formatted drive.

The video played fine on MPC-HC video player, and looked great! But why is the file size so huge?! Does Vegas 14 improve on this or is there a plugin for 13 to make it easier?

Thanks!

There may not be a direct preset for 4K, but you can simply use the Mainconcept AVC module to export 4K. Simply select one of the 1080p presets, like Internet 1080p, then customize template to choose a custom frame size and enter your project resolution e.g. 4096 x 2304. Change average bitrate to 40,000,000. Match the frame rate to your project frame rate, and you should be good to go.


After Effects 2020 not importing the required file I'm trying to import ai file named something 1_03.ai but everytime it shows stubborn behaviour, instead it imports something 1_01.ai I tried something 1_02.ai, but again it imported 1_01.

Then I renamed it to something something else.ai and it imported successfully?

Is it a bug or some feature of Ae aur I shouldn't name them in this way?

This is After Effect's automatic behavior any time it encounters more than one file with sequentially-numbered filenames. It's trying to import them all as entire file sequence. This effectively imports every file, but presents them all as  one single animated footage item, with each file representing one frame.

The solution is that in the "Import File" dialogue box, highlight one or more Illustrator files, and then deselect the checkbox at the bottom named Illustrator/PDF/ESP Sequence.


Suggestions/Ideas for a "Show Me" project for school about Audio or Video Encoding? Basically, I need to make a quick "Show Me Something Cool" project for my physics class. It could be about anything sciency, that is cool, and that you can explain & demonstrate in class in like 5 minutes.
Now, I wanted to do something that related to Audio or Video encoding, such as bit-rate and or bit-depth, however, I've no idea how I will be able to do this while also impressing my teacher. She needs to think its "cool" in order to approve it, however, when I told her of the idea, she said "Sounds boring to me".
So, could any of you think of a "woah... thats cool" moment I could do (probably in a powerpoint with videos and audio), or a reason to why this stuff is actually cool? I mean, I know that this stuff is cool, I just can't think of a way to make my teacher approve a presentation of this? :( Thanks guys.

Entropy

Entropy is an important and notoriously difficult to teach (and understand) concept in physics. It's often explained as a measure of disorder, though that's not technically correct. However, from this perspective a video with lots of small particles would be considered to have a higher entropy than a video showing a black screen, for example. Read this for an explanation of the 'confetti phenomenom' and watch this great video by TED-Ed about the general concept of entropy.

Not gonna do your project for you, but you could for example show how the visible artifacts in a video increase when the amount of small particles in it increases (use a constant bitrate for this though). Based on this you can explain related topics such as bitrate, temporal and spatial interpolation and compression in general (read up on how archive recovery files can be used to replace ANY missing part of a split-up archive, cool stuff (though more maths than physics (is physics just applied maths though?))).

Have fun!


I am not able to take video with my SD card I purchased a Sandisk ultra with 64GB of memory for like 60$ but now it will not allow me to take videos. Why is this and is there any way to change it? When I display the info on the screen I can see a little REC button but it has a slash through it, implying that I cannot record (which is correct)

I did format the disk, and also when I used a friends SD card in my camera it worked for video, AND when she used my SD card in her's it worked for her to take videos(though her card is a 16GB "Silicon Power" make). We both have Nikons though mine is a D5000 and hers is a coolpix p510....

I am on a trip through Europe and I like videos because I make music videos... I would love for the expensive large memory card that I bought to work for my camera. Hence why I bought it. So if anyone has any good answers on how to get it to work, that would be much appriciated

There are two possible problems, first is that your camera does not appear to have SDXC support.  32GB is the limit of the SD and SDHC file system used on lower capacity memory cards.  To move to 64GB, you have to move to exFat which your camera may not support, so the card may simply be too big.

It is also possible the card is simply too slow to support your chosen resolution and quality level.  Have you tried stepping down the quality (to IBP or less than 1080p)?  The Ultra line of SanDisk cards is one of their slowest lines and $60 for a 64GB card is not expensive, it is dirt cheap.  To give you an idea, the SanDisk Pro Extreme SD card that I use (which is still slower than my compact flash card I use) was $150 for a 64GB card that handles 1080p video at All I frame storage.

Update: After some more reading of the manual, it appears the problem is the card size.  I see your camera doesn't even support 1080p video at all and 720p should be fine on an Ultra card.  It simply doesn't support exFat, so you will need to limit yourself to a SDHC card of no more than 32GB.  It might be worth doing some more digging on that too as there are SDHC cards listed for your camera, but none in the 32GB range (but that may simply be that there weren't any available when it was made.)  I would verify 32GB compatibility before buying a 32gb card since 16GB is the biggest listed in the manual.


Record raw video with ffmpeg keeping the full color range I want to do video captures with a video4linux2 device.

The video data contains a lot of darker shades of grey.
When I capture a single PNG file, everything is fine.
Capturing with ffmpeg/avconf using x264 truncates my color space to 16..235.

I tried to define -color_range 2 but it didn't have any effect.
I also played with the different pixel formats (yuv444p, yuv420, ..) --without success.

This is the command line which produces the reduce color range video:

$avconv -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv444p -color_range 2 -crf 14 -t 120 -y out.mp4

avconv version 0.8.17-4:0.8.17-0ubuntu0.12.04.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 16 2015 13:26:50 with gcc 4.6.3
[video4linux2 @ 0x2044b60] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, video4linux2, from '/dev/video0':
  Duration: N/A, start: 1445936359.182177, bitrate: 890634 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuyv422, 1280x720, 890634 kb/s, 60.40 tbr, 1000k tbn, 60.40 tbc
[buffer @ 0x20450a0] w:1280 h:720 pixfmt:yuyv422
[format @ 0x2046d20] auto-inserting filter 'auto-inserted scaler 0' between the filter 'src' and the filter 'Parsed filter 0 format'
[scale @ 0x2047660] w:1280 h:720 fmt:yuyv422 -> w:1280 h:720 fmt:yuv444p flags:0x4
[libx264 @ 0x2045fe0] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 FastShuffle SSE4.2 AVX
[libx264 @ 0x2045fe0] profile High 4:4:4 Predictive, level 4.0, 4:4:4 8-bit
[libx264 @ 0x2045fe0] 264 - core 120 r2151 a3f4407 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2011 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x1:0x111 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=0 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=0 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=4 threads=12 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=0 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=0 open_gop=1 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=14.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.25 aq=1:1.00
Output #0, mp4, to 'out.mp4':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf53.21.1
    Stream #0.0: Video: libx264, yuv444p, 1280x720, q=-1--1, 302 tbn, 60.40 tbc
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (rawvideo -> libx264)

My last tries were to define a color matrix to manually scale 0..255 to 16..235, so that I will end up with a slightly compressed, but a least complete color space.

But this resulted in an error from avconf

$ avconv -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv444p -color_range 2 -vf 'format=yuv444p,colormatrix=bt709:bt601' -crf 14 -t 120 -y out.mp4

avconv version 0.8.17-4:0.8.17-0ubuntu0.12.04.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 16 2015 13:26:50 with gcc 4.6.3
[video4linux2 @ 0xabbb60] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, video4linux2, from '/dev/video0':
  Duration: N/A, start: 1445936333.196864, bitrate: 890634 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuyv422, 1280x720, 890634 kb/s, 60.40 tbr, 1000k tbn, 60.40 tbc
[buffer @ 0xac0ee0] w:1280 h:720 pixfmt:yuyv422
No such filter: 'colormatrix'
Error opening filters!

Do you know how to get ffmpeg to encode the full color range?

In this case, the problem didn't come from ffmpeg/avconv.

The rawvideo source I use offers different color formats to be used:

argb32
rgb24
bgr24
yuv444
yuv420
[...]

When I extract a png file (which was fine), the bgr24 color format is used.
When I capture a video, avconv automatically chose one of the yuv formats.
I guess the clamping to (16..235) did happen in the driver itself, that's why I couldn't influence it.

By giving the parameter -input_format bgr24 to the input device, I chose the unclamped value range and the capturing worked fine.

Final command line, with yuv420p as target format which produces even a Windows Media Player complatible output:

avconv -f video4linux2 -input_format bgr24 -i /dev/video0 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -color_range 2 -crf 14 -t 120 -y out.mp4


Does mjpeg handle interlaced video correctly? I'm using mencoder/libav to capture an interlaced source to mjpeg.
Now, my hunch is that mjpeg is a codec that handles only full-frames, progressive video - because I assume it compresses single (full-)frames as jpeg. How would it handle the "half frames" of interlaced video??
Am I wrong? Did the mjpeg developers take that into account and figured out a way to properly keep the interlaced aspect of interlaced video when stored as mjpeg?
Or is my hunch correct and I am unknowingly "sort of" de-interlacing my material?

To encourage answers, my thoughts on this are:
Ok, Motion-JPEG compresses each frame as a jpg, more or less. Right? Then, how is interlaced material handled? Let's assume it vertically merges/compresses each half-frame from the "lined" state into what looks like a non-interlaced image and then compresses that as a jpeg. Well, then, the (possibly heavy) smearing/blocking/blurring of normal jpeg would kick in and the lines would bleed into each other. On reassembly of the interlaced picture-stream, separating the lines again, this blur then would end up in the final re-interlaced video. Resulting in a loss of quality a native, interlaced-capable codec wouldn't have introduced... At least that's my hunch, as I don't know anything about the internal workings of mjpeg (what probably became obvious above). Prove me wrong.
More encouragement: eye-candy:  This is a screenshot-section, from a mjpeg encoded interlaced video. And even though this image itself is again jpeg encoded (at q=85%), the "bleeding" of lines into each other is not that bad. Could be, jpeg resolution at average compression ratios is good enough to resolve the "lines", and I am worrying about nonsense. Still, technical details anyone?

I don't know about the specific format of mjpeg that you are working with, but it is certainly possible to handle interlaced video with mjpeg.  I believe the most common way is to do a jpeg per field, so you get half the vertical resolution and alternate between the odd and even fields.


How to composite live 4K video with prerendered alpha matted footage I'm looking to take a 4K live video feed, and composite alpha channeled footage on top of the live footage, all in realtime with minimal latency, I then want to display the output on a 4K screen .... Any ideas of the technology and equipment nesasarry to make this happen

I have a Blackmagic Design DeckLink card which, with bundled software, provides live keying.  I bought that card before they sold a DeckLink 4K cards.  But because they come withe the same bundled software and make the same live-keying claims, I would check that this version first: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/decklink/techspecs/W-DLK-04

You should be able to ingest two channels of 4K video, key it, and output the keyed result in real-time, for $995.  It does require you to have free PCIe card slots in your computer.

An entry level 4K switcher (that gives not only pre-rendered alpha matted footage, but also transitions and chroma key) runs $1,695, and runs stand-alone (i.e., not a card in your computer): https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/atem/techspecs/W-APS-04


What's the difference between 29.97p and 29.97fps? I'm working in Premiere and I've got one video file that isn't working for me, it's just showing as green. My initial research said to make sure the aspect and frame rates matched up between the video file and the sequence, and the only difference I can see is one is 29.97p, and the other is 29.97fps. What's the difference?

A 29.97p (p = progressive) video is 29.97fps (fps = frames per second) but not all 29.97 fps video will be progressive. Some will be interlaced, (29.97i) having 59.94 "fields" per frame.

So there may be no difference at all. If Premiere doesn't indicate whether the files are interlaced or progressive, use a tool like MediaInfo.


Is there an app that can Cut, crop, and resize video in 1 encode like imagemagick for video? Is there an app that can Cut, crop, and resize video in 1 encode like imagemagick for video?

Looking for something that accepts a command like this:

videoapp cut 0:20 0:40 crop 4:3 resize 240 320

Outputs as h.264 mp4.

I have a mac with the mac video apps and can get any app that's recommended. Thanks.

ffmpeg will do it. You can either compile it from source, available here. Or more likely, download a precompiled binary for Macs from here. I don't use Macs so I can't vouch for the binary source.

You will have to use the trim, crop and scale filters in a filterchain to accomplish what you want.

The actual corresponding command for your pseudo command would be

ffmpeg -i input -vf "trim=20:40, setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, crop="'if(gte(a*sar,4/3),4*ih/3*sar,iw)':'if(gte(a*sar,4/3),ih,3*iw*sar/4)'", scale=320x240, setsar=1" -c:v libx264 -an output.mp4

You can find the (terse) explanation for all the parameters at the ffmpeg documentation site, but here's a quick run-through, in order:

-i input - Specify the input file.

-vf - this indicates a video filter follows, or a chain of them (separated by commas). If there are multiple filters specified in sequence, then each filter in a chain works on the output generated by the previous filter in the chain. The first filter works, of course, on the original input.

trim=20:40 - trims the video by retaining from the 21st to the 40th second

setpts=PTS-STARTPTS - video is a sequence of images displayed in time, so the frames of a video stream have timestamps associated with them for playback purposes. PTS is presentation timestamp. This clause generates new timestamps for the trimmed video stream so that the first frame of the trimmed stream has PTS of 0 (seconds) and all subsequent frames are accordingly offset as well (I've simplified a bit here).

crop="'if(gte(a*sar,4/3),4*ih/3*sar,iw)':'if(gte(a*sar,4/3),ih,3*iw*sar/4)'" - in short, this crops the input video to 4:3, but based on the input video's effective display ratio, so that the cropped image doesn't contain any blank padding. Video can contain "non-square" pixels so that a 100x100 image with pixel aspect (SAR) 2.5 will effectively display as 250x100 and SAR 0.5 will display as 50x100. My expression evaluates the effective input ratio and sets the output crop window accordingly.

scale=320x240 - scale to the stated resolution

setsar=1 - the crop and scale filters effectively produced a square pixel output, so the SAR metadata should be set as 1 to overwrite the original SAR so that players don't distort the image during playback.

-c:v libx264 - this says, use x264 to encode the video stream. There are many parameters that can be specified in addition , but by itself, it will use the default settings.

-an - leave audio out of the output. If you want to leave the corresponding audio in. replace this by

-af "atrim=20:40, asetpts=PTS-STARTPTS" -c:a aac -strict -2


Wattage for green screen lightning What is the minimum wattage for four-point lighting for a green screen?

I am planning to use led lights in a home studio. Is this enough?

Key light: 300W
Fill light: reflector
Back light: 150W
Light pointed towards the greenscreen: 150W

UPDATE

I think I should rephrase my question to: What settings do I need to use to get a crisp image for a greenscreen? Something like this:

I'm using four softboxes as a light source and one reflector. I was thinking in placing my subject less than 1 m away from the key light and 2 m away from the greenscreen. Something like this

I have a f1.8 lens on a Canon T3i. Do you think this would be enough?

Wattage has nothing to do with lumens, as different instruments provide a wide spectrum of output lumens based on lamp type. For instance, a 1.2K HMI ArriLite would put out more light than a 5000W tungsten lamp. LED, and flourescents are similar, higher output, less watts.

What is critical for greenscreen work is that you use a monitor with a simple waveform scope. When you light your greenscreen, on your waveform monitor you will see basically a horizontal line.

You want to get that line as straight and as thin as possible, at 70-72 IRE. Its fairly challenging the larger the screen (you won't be able to do this with the naked eye).

After your screen is "flat lined". Put in your on camera talent and light them for picture, using dimmers, silks, scrims etc, to cut the light.

If you do it the other way around, you will drive yourself crazy trying to get the screen at flatline 72.

This will give you the best possible key. If you have variance in your IRE (darker corners, even 5 IRE) you will have to use a looser key (meaning more edge artifacting).

I recommend for post KeyLight for AE, Lightwrap for AE.

Also, using a premium screen really makes things easier. Hollywood Rags makes an Ultra Key cloth (order by size) that is ultra bright, the material they use, therefor you need less light to get it to 72 IRE. It really pops.

Last tip most people don't know, based on your Kelvin, use the same Kelvin for ALL lamps. For your hair light; hit your talent from behind, and gel it using 1/8 magenta CTM.   The magenta is complimentary to green, and will give you a clean edge, specifically on the hair.

Hope this helps!


Continuous smooth camera movement in post I'm editing a small video which got recorded on a really cheap tripod, therefore the Camera movment is really uncontinuous and not smooth.

Any ideas how to make the movement smooth? such a thing as warp stabilisation but for mevement smoothness?

As Duvrai mentioned, the docs for Final Cut's InertiaCam setting do say it will handle what you're talking about, but I've never tried it myself.

If you are familiar with the 3D aspects of AE as well as simple AE motion tracking, you could try the following technique. It's a little involved so it's usefulness depends on how important the shots are to you.

First turn the footage into a 3D layer and then apply an Animation->Track Motion to that layer. Change the Track Type to Stabilize. (This is how to access the older, simpler AE stabilizer, as opposed to Warp.)

Stabilize the footage using a position track point on a good spot in your panning shot. Pick a spot with lots of screen time during the pan. Apply the stabilization. Afterwards, if you switch to an alternate POV like Custom View 1 and scrub through your footage, you should see your footage slide left/right in 3D space synced with what your real-world camera did.

Next add a 3D camera layer and keyframe it's position to make it 'shadow' what your original camera did, but this time using eased keyframes instead of a tripod. This effectively creates a more ideal motion laid on top of your original real-world movement.

Obviously sometimes the original footage will go out of the 3D camera's view when the original doesn't match the ideal. To remedy, cleverly add a few more camera position keyframe to throttle the AE camera's velocity over time, or simply use scaling keyframes on the footage layer to smoothly 'zoom-in' occasionally.

"redpc post" -


Reference Request: Camera Movements In order to produce a new logo revealing animation I was just searching the web for useful reference pages dealing with advanced camera movements. By "Camera movements" I don't mean the basic tilting, panning & dolly stuff.

I am actually searching for advanced camera movements, for example in this video (sec 58) when the mic comes up.

Does anyone know some resource pages with good explanations and maybe examples of advanced camera movements with regard to create specific emotional impact?

Mic shot looks like a dolly back tilt to track the subject. This is a compound movement that is natural to do with a hand held camera but more challenging when using a digital camera. Try tracking your camera to a null object in the scene roughly in the same place as the subject, but you can then move the null away from the subject to get better balanced framing.

Try using a handheld real world camera, like a phone, to rehearse shots around a substitute object like a glass or cup. Just fly around but try to stick to a fixed duration, a slow shot might last 6 seconds and a quick move might be 2 seconds. This will give you an idea how long a move takes while still being comfortable to watch later.

They used to do this revisualisation in the movies all the time, before CG came along.


How to smooth/correct sudden exposure changes caused by camera while filming? I have a video clip which shows clouds in a sunset and it lasts half an hour. During that time the light conditions changed and my camera (Fuji X-e1) tried to compensate the changes of exposure. In the final clip i have sudden exposure changes from time to time. The problem is i want to process the clip as a timelapse which lasts only a few seconds and then the sudden exposure changes appear like a really annoying flicker effect.

I know that there are tools for deflickering a set of photographic images shot for a timelapse clip. But is there also a way to deflicker an already existing videoclip within Adobe premiere?

Do you have AE?
In AE you can use the color stabilizer effect.

Import your project to AE, add the color stabilizer onto the clip, change stabilizer to brightness, qnd choose a point that should be black/really dark


Pointers in Premiere Pro CC I am very new to video editing and am using PP CC 2017 on a Mac to edit some old 8 mm film reels which have been converted to digital videos in the .mov format. These old 400 foot reels were spliced together from shorter 25 foot reels but now I am attempting to re-arrange them into logical sequences, title them, color correct them and eventually Export to DVD format.

In PP CC 2017; When I extract clips from a long video, I label them
and put them in a Bin but they do not appear as files on my
computer. Can I assume that these are just pointers from within my
Project referencing the original footage?
All told there is over 4 hours of video and I would like to
re-assemble the scenes into various categories, such as, Holidays, Outings,
Family Gatherings and Birthdays. Should I organize everything into
one big project or into separate projects, like say, one for each
category? Are there any particular advantages of one method over the
other?

In PP CC 2017; When I extract clips from a long video, I label them and put them in a Bin but they do not appear as files on my computer. Can I assume that these are just pointers from within my Project referencing the original footage?

Elements of the Project tab (clips, sequences, black video, etc) are all abstract things which, themselves, take up no space on disk.  Clips refer to media files, and those media files, of course, do take up space on disk.  So, yes, you can assume that the clips in the Project tab are just pointers from within your Project referencing the original footage.

  All told there is over 4 hours of video and I would like to re-assemble the scenes into various categories, such as, Holidays, Outings, Family Gatherings and Birthdays. Should I organize everything into one big project or into separate projects, like say, one for each category? Are there any particular advantages of one method over the other?

You should organize all of this as a single project, and you should create difference Sequences for each collection of clips you would like to produce as a short.  For example, if "Dad's Birthday, 1945" is three different clips (we'll get to what that means in a minute), you'd make a sequence that edits together at least those three different clips, possibly with other clips that provide glimpses into the past or future.

Clips are initially the media files you import.  And judging by the fact that these initial files are spliced together from shorter reels, each clip may have dozens of individual subjects.  What fun!  This is where you are going to want to master two things: sub-clips and Premiere Pro metadata.

Normally when shooting digitally, each time you hit the "record" button, the camera creates a digital media file that can then become a clip.  Inside PPro you would then set the IN and OUT points of the clip to eliminate the unnecessary frames before and after the action you really wanted to record.

In your case, you have a clip that's a hodge-podge of recorded actions.  You can select frames that constitute a specific action you'd like to use as a clip in your timeline, (right-click → Make Subclip) and it will create an object that behaves just like a clip, even though it's relative to another clip, not a media file on disk.

As soon as you make a sub-clip, it's a good idea to tag it with metadata so you can find and organize it later: categories, subjects, dates, whatever keys you can think of that will help you find, collect, and edit related sub-clips.  To edit the related sub-clips, you put them into a sequence and edit.

Bins (and smart bins, which automatically collect clips according to metadata tags) can help you clean up the clutter of having 100s of sub-clips.

If you want to make 12 chapters for a DVD, you should create 12 sequences.  If you want to make a monolithic DVD, one sequence will suffice.  If don't initially know what you want to do, you can make sequences for each category you define.  You can render "lossless" media files from each of these sequences, then import the resulting clips which you can then organize into a DVD.

To summarize: one project, sequences related to categories or chapters, rich metadata, and hundreds of clips organized into bins to keep your top-level project window sane.


Recommendable production codecs for Adobe video products I'm currently searching for new codecs that are better suited for production than the ones we are currently using. So far we used QuickTime Animation and PhotoJPEG. The latter always proved as something "rocksolid" and never made any problems. Though its lossy and has no alpha, thats when we used Animation but that codec is a dinosaur when it comes to compression and bit-depth.
I generally dislike all the built-in QuickTime codecs as they either dont deliver all the formats options or are just not pracitcal in a multi OS workflow. The whole Pro-Res family is a no go as it can only be encoded on a mac (except for the beta version of the ffdshow ProRes encoder).

So far I'm very happy with JPEG2000 using the j2k plugin from fnordware, the format has all the good things from legacy JPEG and Animation and has even more features but the downside is the fact that its an image sequence which is not so nice to handle as a single container file. The crippled JPEG2000 codec in QuickTime is no option.

So what I'm searching is a codec that can be used with container formats like .avi or .mov (or any other container, it really doesn't matter), with a good compressability in the range of lossless JPEG2000, atleast 16bit per channel and support for an alpha channel. E: And of course lossless if that wasn't clear so far. Otional lossy compression like JPEG2000 has, would be great but not necessary.

I hope someone can suggest me something, its no problem if the format needs a plugin for After Effects, Premiere etc. it just needs to be compatible with CS6 and not be restricted to Windows or Mac.

Ut Video is an editor friendly lossless video codec and is a good choice for in house production as an intermediary. It is fast, open source, actively developed, supports RGB(A)/ULRA (for your alpha channel requirement) and YUV colorspaces, and is available for Windows, OS X, and Linux. You can install it on Windows and it will show up in Adobe Media Encoder, After Effects, etc. I don't know if it will fit all of your needs, but it is worth a try.


Are the voice and background tracks merged together when filming hollwood movies? When we watch a movie we can hear background music and voices of actors. We also hear sound effects. When we watch a DVD movie the voice and background music merged inside a language track such as English language audio track. Audacity is program used to mix voice-overs and music. It is hard to create an audio track in another language if there is not a separate sound track. It is easy to dub a movie when there is a sound track.

When creating Hollywood movies, are there separate vocal track and a music track?
Is there a separate track for sound effects?
How do you mix voice and music tracks and convert it into a language track?
What is the software used to mix the tracks in question 3?
What is an original sound track (OST)?
Is the original sound track (OST) used when dubbing a movie?

Thanks in advance.

To answer only the first part, film sound is often split into three parts: music, effects, and dialog. This allows dialog to be replaced for dubbing. This isn't a hard-and-fast rule but it's the general way it's been done for a long time.

This is not how the sound is released, though. For release these are combined into a theatrical mix of two or more (for surround) channels, so the original three-track mix is no longer in play.


Recover broken kazam video file (.mux) History :

Here is some background of this long lasting problem : https://answers.launchpad.net/kazam/+question/218308

I am posting it to get some valuable suggestions from video gurus here.

About Kazam :

kazam is a screen recording tool which also records audio. Once the recording is finished, a popup comes and then we can save the video into a mp4 file.

Problem :

Sometimes, in particular when the screen recording time is large like, 2~3 hrs, in those cases, the pop up does not come up. so, basically we cannot save the recorded data into a file.

We find 2 residual files. with .movie and .mux

kazam_5e8ob247.movie.mux (~ 1.2 GB)
kazam_5e8ob247.movie (0 bytes)

.movie file is of 0 bytes. So, this is just a temporary file.

.mux contains the real data and is of ~1.2 gb.

How can I recover the .mux file?

Notes :

I see from kazam source code (https://github.com/sconts/kazam) that it is using Gstreamer internally.

So, can you please suggest an appropriate gst-pipeline that can convert .mux into a playable .mp4 file?

To provide more details, I tried to get some information about the recorded stream using gst-discoverer-1.0. But it fails saying it cannot read any details.

gst-discoverer-1.0 kazam_5e8ob247.movie.mux
Analyzing file:///home/sandeep/sw/samples/kazam_5e8ob247.movie.mux
Done discovering file:///home/sandeep/sw/samples/kazam_5e8ob247.movie.mux
An error was encountered while discovering the file
 Could not determine type of stream.

First 1 MB :

To analyze, the first 1 MB of the file can be found here

the answer to this question was posted by bukkojot as a comment to this question on 20171012

github.com/bookkojot/mp4fixer

This tool fixes exactly this problem. I tried it and it worked for me.
There are a few simple steps involved, instructions are enclosed. You need a short properly saved video on the same machine with the same kazam to use as input so it knows what the headers should look like. And you get the mp4 from the temporary movie.mux.


Best Sony Vegas Pro 13 videogame footage rendering options for YouTube In order to practice video montage and Sony Vegas Pro 13 as a hobby, I sometimes record online videogames matches I play so I can edit them and show them to my friends via YouTube.

I used an Adobe Premiere Pro CC "YouTube template" for rendering one 30 minutes video and it weighed about 500 MB.

With Sony Vegas Pro 13, I used the Sony AVC template "Internet 1280x720-30p" and a 12 minutes video weighed 1 GB, which is really impressive to me.

I'm looking for a great 720p rendering option for YouTube on Sony Vegas Pro 13 in order to be able to upload it quickly (I have a pretty bad connection speed). If possible, less than 400 MB for a ~12 min video.

I think 30 frames per seconds is enough for the video I do, 25 FPS may even be enough.

What would you use ?

Some considerations for coding H.264 videos for Youtube. I've created my own Sony Vegas rendering templates following those guidelines:

Bitrate

Youtube recommends a bitrate of at least 5.000kbps for standard, and 30,000kbps for high quality 720p video. 400MB into 12 min corresponds to 4,000kbps, which is close to youtube's minimum recommendation. Select variable bitrate to get the best possible quality. You can play and lower the bitrate as long as the resulting quality is OK for you. But below around 2,000kbps you may want to consider switching to a lower resolution (e.g. 480p)

Framerate

The framerate should match that of your footage. I would not recommend rendering a 30fps video into 25fps or something like that, as the resulting quality will be rather poor. But you can rather safely cut the framerate in half, converting 50fps into 25fps or 60fps into 30fps.

Interlacing

Interlacing is recommended to be off for youtube ("Field order: None (Progressive scan)"), but if your footage is interlaced, I would stick with the same setting.

Profile

Using H.264 codec, youtube recommends using high profile (which improves quality a bit, but increases rendering time). It's OK to switch to "main" if you want to have faster rendering times.

Codec

Finally - you have to decide whether to use Sony AVC or Main Concept AVC. I use Main Concept for no specific reasons. You can find some discussions about that topic here: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/Forums/ShowMessage.asp?Forum=4&MessageID=886487 .

What Youtube says:

Here you can find Youtube's encoding recommendations:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171


After transforming the position of a clip, how can I remove the side lines? So, I've used transform to change the position of 2 clips (One above the other), but there's this annoying line on the limits of the clip. Is there a way to remove it?

The problem that you won't be able to easily fix is the missing parts of the right hand in the foreground layer. But if you're ok with that there are a couple of ways to do this shot.
First you could key out the white part using a colour key effect. This is going to be problematic, because there are white parts of the image that you want to keep, like the highlights on the dress and her teeth. You'll probably need a combination of keying and rotoscoping (using a garbage matte and animating it to follow the motion of the character, otherwise known as a truckload of work).
The second way would be to feather the edges of the layer. You'll have to sacrifice a bit more of the right hand to do this, but the background plate won't suffer too much (in this frame; YMMV for other frames). In the opacity tab in the effect controls you'll see an elipse, a rectangle and a pen. Click the rectangle to create a rectangular mask.

Drag the tops and the bottoms of the mask well outside the bounds of the clip, then use the widget at the top or the numerical sliders to adjust the feather. In the image below I've turned off the background layer to see what I'm doing.

Do the same for the other plate.

You'll have to fiddle with this until you get a good compromise between cropping too much and making the feather soft enough. It doesn't really work with this random jpeg of a whippet, but it should be ok for your shot if you don't mind the disappearing hand.


Davinci Resolve: How to easily add background-colour to text? I have created multiple text layers (which is ok) but then I had to create multiple solids, one for each line of text to add the black background-colour:

I am wondering if there is an easier way, maybe a built-in title effect that I don't know.

Use a Text+ for the title.  In the Inspector, go to the Shading Tab, and in the Shading Elements section, change the "Select Element" dropdown to "4" and check "Enabled."  Change the color of the background from the default blue to black, and if you don't want the black boxes to split between characters, then change Properties->Level to "Line" or "Word."
The numbered "Shading Elements," in case you're wondering, are preset slots, where you can save combinations of settings for Fusion Text+ nodes.  A few of the slots are pre-populated with commonly used defaults like this, outline, and drop shadow, for example.  Multiple elements can be active simultaneously.
I'm using Resolve 17Beta9.  I know that R17 allows more of Fusion's parameters to be published in the Edit and Cut page inspectors, but I don't remember if this particular control was new to those pages in R17.  If you don't see the controls in the Cut/Edit page inspectors, and you're using an earlier version of Resolve, switch to the Fusion page, and they'll be available there.
If you don't want to repeat the styling steps every time you want another title to appear, you can save a template by dragging the Text+ clip (after you've adjusted the look) from the timeline to the media pool.  Then, dragging the template from the media pool to the timeline will instantiate a new title, with the saved look, and you only need to change the text.  There are other ways to do this when you want to re-use the same style across projects, but this method is the simplest.


Using a 265 encoded video with a container Let me start by saying I'm not a video production guy. I am a programmer so I'm in over my head in certain areas. I've been trying to use ffmpeg to mess around with HEVC encoded video.

I was told it needs to be an HEVC encoded video, with the filetype of mkv, mov, avi, or something real common like that. I though mkv, mov, etc was their own encoding.

Can someone help me understand what's being asked for? If I use the command ffmpeg command -i input.265 output.avi, won't it convert and encode it? I don't want that.
How do I know what's an encoding and what a container?
What commands or links can I look at so I can accomplish this task?

A container is what the name implies, a container for video data and audio data (and other misc. data).
This might go a little bit under your know-how but just to make it easy to understand:

A video is made up by frames which are made up by pixels. A codec like h265/HEVC is there to take this pixel information and process it in a way that makes it a lot smaller than the raw pixel array, this process is called encoding.
Most codecs do this in a lossy way which discards certain pixel information but trys to keep the image still look the same. The encoded image frame is mathematically not identical with the source but aims to look identical for the human eye.

The container is there to take this raw encoded stream and wrap it, many container formats provide extra meta information about the streams contained in it and support a variety of content other than video, like subtitles and audio information. The container is there to hold all this information, it doesn't alter the information like an encoder alters video or audio, it just holds on to them.

In order to mux (the term used when you mean you want to put a audio or video stream into a container, muxing will give you a lot of google results) your video into a container with ffmpeg you just have to tell ffmpeg to copy the existing stream instead of encoding it (in your case you provided it with no further information and it will just encode it to h264 which is the standard codec in ffmpeg when nothing is provided).

You do that by using -c copy which tells it to copy both audio and video from the source. You can also do -vcodec copy or -acodec copy to treat audio and video differently but this is more relevant to re-mux from an existing container which has audio and video data to another container.

In your case -c copy does the job just fine. Just add that to your command line and it should mux an avi for you. Though mkv is favorable over avi for h265 as its already the supported h265 container that DIVX uses for their h265 implementation.
If just providing a filetype exension to your output file doesn't work like you expect you can also enforce a container by using -f mkv or -f avi.

This does what your client asked for, the h265 stream muxed into a container format without touching it.


How to swap sides of side-by-side video chat interview? I recorded a video interview using Zoom Cloud Meetings, and the 2 participants appear to be looking away from each other instead of towards each other:

How can I swap the sides?

The resolution is 1920x1080, and I want to keep the black bars on the top and bottom.

I have FFmpeg and Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017 and other tools available.

P.S. This has nothing to do with a similarly-titled question relating to 3D Vision.

Using ffmpeg,

ffmpeg -i recording.mp4
  -filter_complex
     "[0]split[a][b];
      [a]crop=iw/2:ih:0:0[r];
      [b]crop=iw/2:ih:iw/2:0[l];
      [l][r]hstack"
  -c:a copy switched.mp4

Two crops of the video are made and then joined in opposite order.

Using swaprect filter,

ffmpeg -i recording.mp4 -vf "swaprect=w/2:h:0:0:w/2:0" -c:a copy switched.mp4


Need to reach a low data rate of about 1.5 - 2 MB/min (200 - 267 kb/s) I am working on a project involving live streaming. My goal is to reach a data rate of no more than 200 - 267 kb/s when streaming. Is it possible to reach such low rate while keeping an acceptable fps and resolution? If so what would the fps and frame resolution?

Also, what compression method will I need to use?

Thank you.

summary: yes, depending on content, with a good encoder h.264 can look pretty good at 240kib/s video bitrate, at NTSC 720x480p30.

With modern codecs, you don't need to downscale the rez too far.  If there isn't a lot of noise in your source, you're just putting the same complexity into fewer pixels.  You shouldn't encode 1080p at 270kb/s, though :P.  There is overhead to having more macroblocks, and diluting the complexity across too many pixels probably means worse results from quantizing the DCT coefficients.  Lower resolution lets you turn up the CPU-usage knob on your codec while still being realtime, though.

For a test encode, I have a lossless source of the sintel trailer.  (3D animation with fades between scenes, and significant amount of changeless).  So it's probably actually a really bad test case...

ffmpeg -i sintel.y4m -pix_fmt yuv420p -vf crop=1920:816:0:132,scale=640:-1 -ssim 1 -psnr -tune animation -preset slow -b:v 270k 640x272.x264.270k.mkv

That does quite well, with an average QP of 18.03(I) / 23.44(P) / 24.93(B).  SSIM Mean Y:0.9852979, PSNR Global:44.801 at 231.37 kib/s.  (a still section at the end leaves x264 undershooting the target bitrate for one-pass).  I left psy optimizations enabled, so x264 is trying to do what looks best, not what scores highest on SSIM or PSNR.  Just useful as a ballpark figure.

I have a live-action source that's not too noisy.  I picked a portion that just has one actor moving around on stage, everyone else standing still, and no camera motion.  So it might be similar in compressibility to a someone talking while looking at a webcam, in front of a mostly-constant background.  (stuff like this matters a LOT for compressibility).  About 1/3 of the screen is black background.  (so black the encoder knows you can't see anything, and hardly spends any bits, I assume.)

ffmpeg -ss 2410 -t 30 -i vid.yadif3.1,mcdeint3.1.10.ffvhuff.mkv -c:a opus -b:a 32k -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 30 -vf framestep=2 -ssim 1 -psnr  -preset slow -b:v 240k  2410+30.slow.opus.230k.mkv

Source is 60p deinterlace output, from NTSC DV or something.  Anyway, with those ffmpeg options, it stays as 720x480@30p (with non-square pixels, display aspect ratio = 16:9).  Output looks pretty darn good considering the bitrate, and the singing sounds good, but has some artifacts.  (audio source is not noisy, and there's no accompaniment, just soloist + chorus.)

frame=  900 fps= 35 q=-1.0 LPSNR=Y:inf U:inf V:inf *:inf size=     990kB time=00:00:30.01 bitrate= 270.3kbits/s
video:854kB audio:120kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 1.635424%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] frame I:4     Avg QP:22.63  size: 23294  PSNR Mean Y:44.02 U:48.68 V:47.86 Avg:45.00 Global:42.71
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] frame P:239   Avg QP:22.23  size:  2492  PSNR Mean Y:43.64 U:48.67 V:47.52 Avg:44.67 Global:44.47
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] frame B:657   Avg QP:24.97  size:   282  PSNR Mean Y:43.38 U:48.52 V:47.37 Avg:44.43 Global:44.24
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] consecutive B-frames:  0.6%  0.0% 19.0% 80.4%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] mb I  I16..4: 27.0% 58.0% 15.0%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] mb P  I16..4:  0.2%  0.4%  0.1%  P16..4: 22.1%  5.1%  6.7%  0.0%  0.0%    skip:65.4%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] mb B  I16..4:  0.0%  0.0%  0.0%  B16..8: 12.5%  0.4%  0.1%  direct: 0.1%  skip:87.0%  L0:23.6% L1:74.4% BI: 2.1%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] final ratefactor: 22.98
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] 8x8 transform intra:59.0% inter:71.2%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] direct mvs  spatial:99.7% temporal:0.3%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 50.7% 48.1% 24.7% inter: 2.8% 5.1% 0.2%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] i16 v,h,dc,p: 36% 38%  7% 19%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 15%  4% 22%  8% 12% 11% 12%  8%  8%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 14%  3%  5% 12% 15% 16% 12% 12% 10%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] i8c dc,h,v,p: 48% 27% 18%  7%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.0% UV:0.0%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] ref P L0: 66.9%  8.4% 14.9%  3.5%  4.6%  1.6%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] ref B L0: 85.5% 10.8%  2.9%  0.8%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] ref B L1: 92.3%  7.7%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] SSIM Mean Y:0.9730952 (15.702db)
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] PSNR Mean Y:43.450 U:48.564 V:47.412 Avg:44.498 Global:44.292 kb/s:232.89

And 35fps on my E6600 (2.4GHz dual core first-gen c2duo) is not bad.  If you're trying to live-stream from a phone, you're going to be much more constrained, though.  You could use lower rez or lower framerate (25 fps, or 24, or 20?)

I was actually surprised at how well x264 did with -preset veryfast.  I guess on this content, even veryfast finds most of the same redundancy to eliminate.

frame=  900 fps= 90 q=-1.0 LPSNR=Y:inf U:inf V:inf *:inf size=     994kB time=00:00:30.01 bitrate= 271.5kbits/s
video:859kB audio:120kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 1.612045%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] frame I:4     Avg QP:21.51  size: 24840  PSNR Mean Y:44.16 U:48.09 V:47.20 Avg:44.99 Global:42.15
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] frame P:227   Avg QP:21.22  size:  2649  PSNR Mean Y:43.57 U:48.08 V:46.72 Avg:44.50 Global:44.26
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] frame B:669   Avg QP:22.30  size:   267  PSNR Mean Y:43.32 U:48.04 V:46.67 Avg:44.29 Global:44.02
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] consecutive B-frames:  0.9%  0.0%  0.0% 99.1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] mb I  I16..4: 24.0% 45.9% 30.1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] mb P  I16..4:  1.4%  2.8%  0.1%  P16..4: 20.9%  4.2%  3.1%  0.0%  0.0%    skip:67.5%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] mb B  I16..4:  0.1%  0.2%  0.0%  B16..8:  1.7%  0.6%  0.1%  direct: 2.1%  skip:95.2%  L0:23.9% L1:45.7% BI:30.3%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] final ratefactor: 20.78
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] 8x8 transform intra:60.6% inter:38.4%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 39.1% 40.2% 10.5% inter: 2.7% 3.1% 0.1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] i16 v,h,dc,p: 73% 11% 13%  3%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 12%  7% 73%  1%  1%  1%  2%  1%  1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 31% 13% 14%  5%  8%  9%  8%  6%  6%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] i8c dc,h,v,p: 76%  8% 15%  1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.0% UV:0.0%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] SSIM Mean Y:0.9737951 (15.816db)
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] PSNR Mean Y:43.390 U:48.047 V:46.685 Avg:44.343 Global:44.068 kb/s:234.13

bitrate ended up 2kib/s higher, with about the same PSNR, and higher SSIM.

With -tune ssim to disable psychovisual optimizations (don't do this for real use),
veryfast gets: Y-SSIM: 15.891db, PSNR Global:44.294, kb/s:233.26.
slow gets: Y-SSIM: 16.097db, PSNR Global:44.752, kb/s:232.86

So that's what x264 can do with h.264 High@L3.0 profile, at 0.023 bits/pixel/frame.

tested x265:
ffmpeg -ss 2410 -t 30 -i vid.yadif3.1,mcdeint3.1.10.ffvhuff.mkv -c:a opus -b:a 32k -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 30 -vf framestep=2 -ssim 1 -psnr -c:v libx265 -preset slow -b:v 240k -aspect 16:9 x265.2410+30.slow.opus.230k.mkv

ffmpeg version N-68044-gb9dd809 Copyright (c) 2000-2015 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Jan 14 2015 23:21:08 with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1)
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-nonfree --disable-doc --disable-ffserver --enable-libbluray --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libtheora --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libwebp --enable-libvpx --disable-outdev=oss --disable-indev=oss --disable-encoder=vorbis --enable-libvorbis --enable-libfdk-aac --disable-encoder=aac --disable-decoder=jpeg2000 --enable-libvidstab
  libavutil      54. 16.100 / 54. 16.100
  libavcodec     56. 20.100 / 56. 20.100
  libavformat    56. 18.101 / 56. 18.101
  libavdevice    56.  4.100 / 56.  4.100
  libavfilter     5.  7.101 /  5.  7.101
  libswscale      3.  1.101 /  3.  1.101
  libswresample   1.  1.100 /  1.  1.100
  libpostproc    53.  3.100 / 53.  3.100
Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'vid.yadif3.1,mcdeint3.1.10.ffvhuff.mkv':
  Metadata:
    ENCODER         : Lavf56.15.102
  Duration: 01:22:11.94, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 95843 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: ffvhuff (FFVH / 0x48564646), yuv420p, 720x480, SAR 186:157 DAR 279:157, 59.94 fps, 59.94 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      ENCODER         : Lavc56.14.100 ffvhuff
    Stream #0:1: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 192 kb/s (default)
Codec AVOption ssim (Calculate and print SSIM stats.) specified for output file #0 (x265.2410+30.veryfast.opus.230k.mkv) has not been used for any stream. The most likely reason is either wrong type (e.g. a video option with no video streams) or that it is a private option of some encoder which was not actually used for any stream.
x265 [info]: HEVC encoder version 1.4+286-a12080554342
x265 [info]: build info [Linux][GCC 4.8.2][64 bit] 8bpp
x265 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64 SlowShuffle
x265 [warning]: --psnr used with AQ on: results will be invalid!
x265 [warning]: --tune psnr should be used if attempting to benchmark psnr!
x265 [info]: Main profile, Level-3 (Main tier)
x265 [info]: WPP streams / frame threads / pool  : 15 / 1 / 2
x265 [info]: CTU size / RQT depth inter / intra  : 32 / 1 / 1
x265 [info]: ME / range / subpel / merge         : hex / 57 / 1 / 2
x265 [info]: Keyframe min / max / scenecut       : 25 / 250 / 40
x265 [info]: Lookahead / bframes / badapt        : 15 / 4 / 0
x265 [info]: b-pyramid / weightp / weightb / refs: 1 / 1 / 0 / 1
x265 [info]: Rate Control / AQ-Strength / CUTree : ABR-240 kbps / 1.0 / 0
x265 [info]: tools: rd=2 early-skip deblock sao signhide fast-intra tmvp
Output #0, matroska, to 'x265.2410+30.veryfast.opus.230k.mkv':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf56.18.101
    Stream #0:0: Video: hevc (libx265), yuv420p, 720x480 [SAR 32:27 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 240 kb/s, 30 fps, 1k tbn, 30 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc56.20.100 libx265
    Stream #0:1: Audio: opus (libopus) ([255][255][255][255] / 0xFFFFFFFF), 48000 Hz, stereo, flt, 32 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc56.20.100 libopus
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (ffvhuff (native) -> hevc (libx265))
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (ac3 (native) -> opus (libopus))
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame=  900 fps= 24 q=0.0 LPSNR=Y:inf U:inf V:inf *:inf size=     998kB time=00:00:30.01 bitrate= 272.4kbits/s
video:861kB audio:120kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:1kB muxing overhead: 1.713292%
x265 [info]: frame I:      4, Avg QP:21.87  kb/s: 5097.48   PSNR Mean: Y:43.899 U:48.345 V:47.187  SSIM Mean: 0.968502 (15.017dB)
x265 [info]: frame P:    177, Avg QP:18.74  kb/s: 710.27    PSNR Mean: Y:43.347 U:48.274 V:47.041  SSIM Mean: 0.973469 (15.763dB)
x265 [info]: frame B:    719, Avg QP:20.83  kb/s: 89.99     PSNR Mean: Y:43.113 U:48.231 V:47.010  SSIM Mean: 0.972552 (15.615dB)
x265 [info]: global :    900, Avg QP:20.42  kb/s: 234.24    PSNR Mean: Y:43.163 U:48.240 V:47.017  SSIM Mean: 0.972714 (15.641dB)
x265 [info]: Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.0% UV:0.0%
x265 [info]: consecutive B-frames: 0.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.6% 98.9%

(Note that I needed -x265-params ssim=1, because the ffmpeg libx265 interface doesn't pick up a lot of the commandline options.)

    slow: 253.245kbit/s fps=1.7  Y PSNR:44.228 unknown SSIM, forgot to turn it on
veryfast: 244.347kbit/s fps= 24  Y PSNR:43.163 15.641dB SSIM.

perceptually, the x265 veryfast output has less blocking than the x264 slow output.  I think x265 looks better.

x264 and x265 both from the git / hg repos, updated Jan 10th.


Quality difference between source and timeline render I'm testing some high quality footage from Arri (https://www.arri.com/EN/camera/alexa/learn/alexa_sample_footage/) and I've noticed that PP when rendering the timeline lowers the quality considerably.

If you reference the below image, I have only added a title only and the timeline render quality in PP is awful.

Both my playback and pause resolution is full.

If I remove the title from the timeline the full quality is restored. This issue will occur with any PP effect. If I don't render the timeline, the program sequence runs at full quality.

The final render out is fine, but I want to work with the footage in high quality as my machine is more than capable. What am I missing here?

CPU: i7 4770K @ 4.3

MEM: 32GB

GPU: GTX970

SSD Disks

after posting this I randomly stumbled upon a setting in Preferences.

Preferences -> Memory

Optimize rendering for performance
Changed to "Memory"

Looks fine now.


open-source or free AVCHD conversion to image sequence I am looking for a good and free option to convert AVCHD (Full-HD from a Panasonic Lumix GH1) to image sequences. I am currently using Blender but it is cumbersome in that it only allows me to convert the videos if I disable the preview - should the preview be open in my workspace, Blender halts for about 1-2 mins until it shows a preview image - any further click on the preview halts it again.

It can very well be a command line tool (I am willing to craft the command line options myself if needed).

The output images can be any common format (PNG, JPG, even TIFF). The conversion to image sequences is asked for because Blender (that I use as editing software) has no problems with image sequences and other formats but AVCHD seems to still be painful.

Thanks!

Wonderful ffmpeg command line utility is the solution. Just check their documentation, but something like the following will probably work for your case:

ffmpeg -i video.mts video%05d.png

This will take your video, and create video00001.png, video00002.png... files in the same folder.

You can find a lot of guides for ffmpeg, or ask here for a specific soltion. We can try to figure out.


connect 8 projectors together to create a large image For an experiment purpose i collected 8 projector with 5000 lumens and 1080P resolution.
I need to connect them altogether to create a really large image?
So, should i use 1 computer for each projector and slice the image and then adjust them to match?
Or, is there any hardware and software to help me do this?
Thanks in advance.

Do you expect the large image to be seamless, both in dimension and in tone? Each is a separate challenge. Color-matching 8 projectors can be daunting, depending on the technology. As a general rule, you would overlap the images from the projectors and feather their edges. This costs you something in size, with the benefit of disguising mismatches to some degree. Some projectors have this blending ability built in.

In any case, it would probably be better to use a pair of 4-head graphics cards on one computer, rather than 8 separate PCs. Keeping 8 PCs sync-locked is not easy.

There are commercial products like Watchout that will perform the slicing and syncing of one image into multiple playback PCs, if you have the budget for that.


Play video skipping some scenes I need a (desktop) video player that is able to play a movie and automatically skip some scenes that I define in advance. Is this feature supported in any video player? I looked at Km Player and VLC and I couldn't find what I am looking for.

Any ideas?
Thanks

This is do-able with the Flash player, or with Adobe AIR which is a great platform for desktop programs.  The video would have to be encoded with cuepoints that were accessible, somehow, to the user. Maybe via buttons that allowed the user to choose which scenes to show or not to show. How much work do you want to do?


Create Text Graphics with Flat-Style Padded Background Boxes I'm using Premiere. Was wondering the best way (base application or if there's a good recommended plugin) to get this style text graphic:

https://twitter.com/CNET/status/1122999001119318017

(0:10 in video)

Where the flat background boxes can be set with a certain amount of padding, and automatically expand according to the length of the text.

Thanks!

I assume you're trying to create this, from the video you linked above:

If you want to create a title template that can adjust to (almost) whatever words you type in it, you're going to have to use After Effects.
In Premiere, you can create title templates, but they're not going to adjust to whatever length of word you use.
The following link takes you to a video that offers a good run-down of the latest title tools in Premiere, with which you can create templates that look like what you have in mind -- by the way, you could achieve a similar look with the old Title Tool: create a black matte, give it an opacity of, say, 30%, and place it under your title words.


Codecs with allow fast backwards stepping frame by frame with mpv According to https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/issues/4019 backward stepping for example with H264 codec is slow compared to forward stepping. Other codecs, for example mjpeg works a bit better.

For which other codecs/codec settings backward stepping is fast?

As @Mulvya says it depends greatly on the GOP size, but you can insure that stepping is easy at the expense of file size, by using an 'all-I' codec like Motion JPEG. In such codecs every frame appears whole and entire so there is no dependence on previous or subsequent frames.


What Codec Shows Absolute Black? I need a codec that outputs an absolute black.
Encoded some samples with .AVI no compression and the black background of my video is very dark. Contrary in other codecs like Apple ProRes or H264/MPEG4 the black background of the same video is dark gray.
Is there a codec that can show the same black that the uncompressed .AVI has?

Gracias.

Vantolinomo - You might just be experiencing 'gamma shift' which can happen when you are exporting to H264 video.  You can find a tutorial to fix this here:

http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2008/06/fix-quicktime-gamma-shift/


Adobe Premiere - Razor Tool screws up clip I'm trying out video editing for the first time and basicly I just want to cut a part of my video.

So I take Razor tool and click on these two blue lines I've drawn with MS Paint:

And now my clip is ruined. When playing or going frame by frame it jumps back and forth.

Like here:

See that casting bar in video preview? It should be shrinking, but I go few frames ahead and it grows, because video gets back in time:

How did I manage to screw up so easily? How to correctly cut that part so I could move it/delete it without screwing up whole clip?

The problem is not the razor tool.  You must have slid the contents of the part you razored back in time using one of the other tools.  The easiest way to recover is to undo the edits or to simply drag out the original again.  The razor tool is completely non-destructive, so it hasn't altered your original video at all, just the parts of the video in your sequence no longer line up with the actual time things occurred.

It's worth noting that as a matter of technique, it's generally preferable to open a source clip in the preview window and use the In and Out points to choose just the part of the clip you want to bring over and then assemble clips together.


change aspect ratio without stretching video ffmpeg ffmpeg -i "a.mov" -i "b.mp4" -filter_complex "[0:v]setsar=sar=${SAR}[a];  [1:v]setsar=sar=${SAR}[b]; [a][0:a] [b][1:a] concat=n=2:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" -map "[v]" -map "[a]" -preset veryfast -crf 18 "merged.mp4"

using the above code I am able to successfully merge a.mov(1920x816) with b.mov(1920x816).  However, Youtube end screens require video to be 16:9 aspect ratio. Thus I tried scale filter and setting SAR to 16:9. however this leads to the output video stretching to fit the 16:9 ratio.

How can I output a video with 16:9 ratio with the actual video with resolution 1920x816. Essentially The remaining vertical space should just be black without stretching the 816 height video to fit the 1080 height.

Have you tried uploading it to Youtube? Their player window will be a fixed 16:9 ratio (on YT.com), but they should accept source videos of any ratio, and simply center it in their window during playback.

Anyway, here's the method:
ffmpeg -i "a.mov" -i "b.mp4" -filter_complex "[0:v]scale=iw*sar:ih,pad=if(gt(dar,16/9),iw,2*trunc(ih*16/9/2)):if(gt(dar,16/9),2*trunc(iw*9/16/2),ih):(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2,setsar=1[a];  [1:v]scale=iw*sar:ih,pad=if(gt(dar,16/9),iw,2*trunc(ih*16/9/2)):if(gt(dar,16/9),2*trunc(iw*9/16/2),ih):(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2,setsar=1[b];
[a][0:a] [b][1:a] concat=n=2:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" -map "[v]" -map "[a]" -preset veryfast -crf 18 "merged.mp4


How can I link a mask path to a track null? Well, I'm trying to make an airplane explosion scene, and I need to make a mask, because the airplane is behind some trees, I made the mask, but how can I link the mask path to the tracking null?

Can anyone help me? Thanks.

In After Effects CC, masks can be made into tracking masks. Right click the mask and you should see a context menu with Tracking Mask. Select it and the mask can be tracked to the video it is applied to. The Adobe page about it is here.

This will track the video but the mask will be a rigid shape. If you want the points inside the mask to track individual points in the footage you're going to need a third party extension. This one does the job:

http://aescripts.com/tracker2mask/

Another option is to apply the mask to a solid layer, then make the tracking null the parent of that layer. This can be useful when working with 3D tracked points, because you can mask objects that are rotating in the frame, eg. for logo removal.


Where can I found example video in 120fps and up? Where can I found and download video example in 120fps/240fps and up? I haven't a device to record on that FPS, I want it for learn to create a slow mo video. Thanks

Most slo mo iPhone videos are 120-240fps. Higher production quality videos that have slowed down video usually shoot at 60fps and cut it in half to 30fps. This is due to many high ends cameras not shooting high speed and if they do it is usually at lower resolutions. That is unless they have a camera dedicated for high speed like a phantom flex. The second part about making a slow motion video. You don't really make it. You shoot something that is going to be cinematic slowed down or adds emotion to it when slowed. Then simply cut the video to 50% or less depending on the frame rate. General rule of them is don't go under 30fps as it gets very choppy.


How to import 2D position data into After Effects If I have a .csv file of x / y coordinates, representing positional data of an object in an animation, what's the easiest way to apply that to a 2D null in After Effects?

Eg:

Frame,Xpos,Ypos
1,33,360
2,34,361
3,38,370

I ask because I'm trying to track movement of an object from a D3.js without having to endlessly motion-track objects.

Found the answer here.
Copying any positional keyframes out of After Effects generates a text file like this:

Adobe After Effects 8.0 Keyframe Data

    Units Per Second    25
    Source Width    100
    Source Height   100
    Source Pixel Aspect Ratio   1
    Comp Pixel Aspect Ratio 1

Transform   Scale
    Frame   X percent   Y percent   Z percent
        100 100 100

Transform   Position
    Frame   X pixels    Y pixels    Z pixels
    0   960 540 0
    1   980 540 0
    2   980 520 0
    3   1000    520 0
    4   1000    518 0
    5   630 498 0

End of Keyframe Data

To manipulate it, just modify the text, copy the text, and paste it back into AE.  Works like a charm


How to realistically add planet in the sky using 3d camera tracker and avoid overlapping with objects in the foreground? Quick summary of what I want to create with AE:
I have a drone shot and I want to add a realistic planet in the sky/horizon by using 3d Camera Tracker in After Effects.
What I want:
While flying past a wind turbine I want to create depth by showing the turbine in front of the planet in the horizon to create some kind of realistic depth.
The Problem:
Currently the planet in the horizon is in the foreground and covers the wind turbine and its moving rotos etc.
What I tried so far:
I know I have to use the masking tool but I am not sure about the order of the procedures of how to get to my results. I've created a mask and tried subtracting but this didn't go as expected. I also readjusted the mask shape and keyframed the mask path for the relevant frames where the turbine should be in the foreground. But this didn't go out as expeted.
Can someone please guide me through the the procedure to get to my final result?
I attached an image which shows the end result I want to achieve in my video:

Thank you

If the blades are rotating, and the camera is moving, you need to create a good foreground layer with anything the planet is supposed to be obscured by.
So from the image it looks like it will be obscured by the spinning rotors.
You need to find a good way to make a layer containing only the rotors.
You could make a mask and move it frame by frame, but if you have more than a few frames this method will take a long time.
You could try using a key - isolating your foreground based on hue (colour), brightness or saturation (how much colour is present).  The blades look like the whitest thing in the image, so this might work, but probably won't give you the result you're looking for...
Or you could rotoscope the blades.  This will take a while, but will probably give the best result. The new rotoscope v2 in the latest versions of After Effects is really amazing, and combined with some careful feathering / motion blur settings will probably work perfectly.  It will still take a while though.
To get the planet in the right position in the sky, you need to make a camera track of the scene, then place the planet as a 3D layer at the right distance and scale.


What is the best version of After Effects to use on my workstation? I have a HP Z600 workstation with these specs:
Processor: Intel Xeon x5650 x2
Memory (RAM): 6*8gb = 48GB total ram
Graphics card: Nvidia Quadro k620 2gb Vram
Windows 10
Which version of After effects should I use that will work fine with these workstation?

First use the trial to test if it runs well on your system. It's the same version as the full version. If you start After Effects it will ask if you want to start the trial now (unless they changed the procedure since the last time I looked).
Adobe has this cloud apps overview tool that let's you install and update apps. Here you could also choose to install an older version and I think you can even install multiple versions side by side. However my recommendation is to work always with the latest version.


Creating a video effect template A friend of mine has a Gopro and something happened to the lens last weekend. We didn't realise that it was damaged and now we have a bunch of videos of our camping trip with a circular smudge looking thing in the centre of the screen.

The smudge gives the centre of the picture a blur.

Is there a way that I can set up a template so that I can make some changes to just the section that it is damaged in an attempt to correct the blur. Once I have found the best settings I would be able to reuse the template for all of the videos. I'm sure it won't fix it perfectly but I would like to try it.

If anyone can point me in the right direction (a link or tutorial) that would be great. I have the Adobe programs so preferably using those

Im a noob

Thanks for you time

If I understand your issue, it sounds as if you could duplicate the video to a second layer, apply whatever correction is needed to that layer, and reveal the layer where needed using a soft circular matte.


What exactly is AVCHD? Is it a codec? I don't think so; I believe it uses MPEG4/H.264 for video and AC3 for audio.

Is it a container format? Doesn't seem to make a huge amount of sense; there are enough out there already and it's likely that a suitable one already exists.

Is it simply a specification that specifies a particular combination of pre-existing technologies? But this would imply that AVCHD files could also be called something else, like "MPEG4 container with H264/AC3 inside".

So what exactly does AVCHD mean?

I think this image from Wikipedia says it best:

AVCHD is not a codec, but it is also not just a container.

Just like "every other" container, AVCHD features:

Video streams
Audio streams
Subtitles

But in addition, for example:

Playlists
Menu presentation (like in a DVD)

  Is it simply a specification that specifies a particular combination of pre-existing technologies?

Yes.

  But this would imply that AVCHD files could also be called something else, like "MPEG4 container with H264/AC3 inside".

But who would like to call it that? Several other specifications take already existing specifications, remix them, and they aren't called "Open Source Container format for XYZ".

I think it's a "one format fits it all" mentality, which is why you'll find AVCHD on many consumer devices.


Effects LEDs are uncomfortably bright - can they be dimmed? (Boss ME-70) I use a Boss ME-70 multieffects unit and its red LEDs are uncomfortably bright. When I bend down to adjust a setting, it's like having a red laser shining in my eyes -- I can't even read the controls. I put black Pro-Touch labeler tape over the LEDs but that's a bit extreme. Anybody else bothered by the brightness and have a better solution?

You might try a few layers of clear and/or colored nail polish


Prevent video stutter / lag in h264 on iPad When the iPad stutters playing my video, it continues playing audio at a normal rate. This causes the video to go out of sync until the video can catch up. Is there any setting that triggers a pause instead? Or are there better export settings than what Premiere provides?

I'm exporting video from Adobe Premiere at 4mb / 5mb the application's preset "iPad 2 / iPhone 4s", with the modified resolution of 1024x768 instead of 1200x1080 (or whatever it normally is).

The only way that I know of to resolve this issue is to reduce the mb/s video quality, so I'm hoping someone out there has a better idea.

Thanks in advance!

From the look of the specs page, the current iPad (4) can handle up to 2.5Mbps MPEG 4 video at HD resolution (1920x1080) at 30fps.

Going above this will result in what you described. See discussion link below:

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5012754?start=0&tstart=0


how to decide the appropriate resolution when recording my screen for uploading online? I am planning of creating a few technical movies where I will record my screen as I work through a particular technology.

I'm unsure whether to record full screen, or select the area to be recorded.

If I select the area to be recorded, will this make it difficult to have a consistent size for recordings?  For example, if I do two screen recording of a browser session and the browser window is a different size both times, then presumably my output will be inconsistent?

If I record full screen, presumably I should record with my desktop set at a particular resolution?

Recording full screen, if your hardware allows you to do it smoothly, is your best option. You can always crop or mask out unwanted areas later in editing. You won't have that freedom if you crop the input at the time of recording. An exception to this rule of thumb can be made if you're absolutely sure that the area of interest is a portion of the screen at an unchanging location.

As long as different recordings are made at the same aspect ratio i.e. ratio of width to height, they may be edited together without creating an obvious mismatch e.g. if you record one video at 1280x720 and the second at 960x540, then since they're both in the ratio of 16:9, you can switch between them seamlessly. But if you record the second at 720x540, then there will be black space to the sides ("pillarboxing") when you switch to the second video in the editor. There's nothing particularly wrong about this, just a matter of style. To avoid pillarboxing in such cases, you will have to crop and zoom in on the second video so that you display a 720x405 portion of it. But that way, you may cut out something you needed to show.

Ideally, you should record at the highest resolution at which you can capture smoothly i.e. without dropping too many frames.


How can I increase the frame size of the titles in Adobe Premiere? In Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015, I did hours of work on a video that is 640x360 pixels.  I added a bunch of "titles" of that same resolution.

Then I later realized that I wanted to export my project at 1920x1080 even though the source video was 640x360.  (At least then my titles would be more legible on high resolution monitors.)

I easily changed the resolution of the video portions of my project, but how can I change the frame size of the titles?

I don't want to just "scale" them up to 1920x1080; I want them to actually BE that size and to be clear.

As far as I know, unfortunately you can't take an old title which was based on whatever frame size, and switch its size to something else. The only way I know for your situation with the small titles is:

Double click on a title that you want to change (either on the timeline or in the project).
In the title editor window, click on the top left button of 'New title based on current title'.

A pop up shows - type in the size you want for the NEW title AND don't forget to check (or change) the name of that new title, just that later on you know which title is which. Click OK.
You have just created a new title, you can find it in your project. It has the old text with all its preferences, inside a new size frame; the visual result is the same as you would have got with scaling, but w/o the quality loss.
That should do the trick for you, but you'll still have to do it one by one on all the titles, and then to put each one in the appropriate place on the timeline.

I hope that helps. Good luck!


Good Intermediate Format for Combining Videos I have a bunch of PNG files in separate directories that I'll turn into videos with FFMPEG.  Say each clip will be a minute long.  I then want to stitch those together into a final video.  The final format can be anything YouTube accepts.

So, I need a format that won't lose a lot of quality when the PNGs are encoded the first time, and that doesn't lose any quality when it's concatenated to other videos of the same format (some need to be re-encoded and some behave like UNIX's cat).  They will also each have their own audio tracks which need to stay lined up correctly.  So, do any audio formats have problems with this?  I can have them in any format.

Also, is there a way to set the video durration longer than then would be assumed?  Say I have 48 frames showing at 24 fps.  Could I have it make the video 3 seconds instead of 2; holding the last frame for a full second?

What you wish to do is somewhat convoluted. There is a path to achieving it in the 2 step process you propose, but I would just suggest creating a new folder where you copy all the input files and rename to form a continuous sequence.

Let's say you have 3 folders and the following files in them to be joined in that order

Folder A: a001.png, a002.png, a003.png, ...... a175.png

Folder B: b0001.png, b0002.png, b0003.png, ...... b1075.png

Folder C: c01.png, c02.png, c03.png, ...... c75.png

Also let's say you want to hold the last frame of B for 5 seconds

So, you rename a001-a175 to s0001-s0175; rename b0001-b1075 to s0176-1250; duplicate s1250 120 times (24fps x 5) and rename the copies s1251-s1370, and finally rename c01-c75 to s1371-s1445.

This method avoids issues of video generation loss. For audio, WAVE files of the correct length and order can be appended losslessy by FFmpeg and then converted+muxed with the output video.

Of course, I see from your history that you have access to Premiere Pro. The simplest way of all would be to load all PNGs and audio in the editor, assemble and take output.


How can you create on-screen text messages using video editing programs? I want to recreate the on-screen text messages technique seen in things like House of Cards or Jane the Virgin. How can you do so and what would you use? Thank you! I use Final Cut Pro to edit my videos, if that's important at all.

These are actually really simple shape/text overlays with a bit of animation. You could probably do a quick and dirty version (though, honestly, it wouldn't even look that dirty!) right in your editor by dropping on some shapes and writing over them in text.

Alternatively, you can create high-resolution versions of the messages in something like Photoshop or Illustrator (or GIMP, if they aren't available) and export them as PNGs which you'll then drop into your project (I use Premiere Pro so I don't know how well FCP talks to Adobe programs - sorry!).

Personally, I use After Effects for things like this and, again, you can either create the text messages in Ae or use Ps/Ai to create the individual layers then import that into your project.

In terms of making it work, there are multiple ways of doing this, too. You could just create a single image and mask areas off until you need to see them (at which point you can animate the mask to reveal the messages or just remove it for simplicity). Or you could animate each message coming in with a swipe or a pop or, perhaps, you could have the sender scale on, the message bubble pop on and the message write on one at a time - entirely up to you!

One more thing - don't worry about sticking too close to a particular design, or about copying the little flick at the bottom of the bubble - as long as you can tell at a glance (ie: without reading the sender info) which messages are incoming and which are outgoing (different colours/left and right margins) you'll be fine ;)


Update keyframe animations only every third frame in After Effects I am new to After Effects and I have the following problem with an animation of mine:

I have a walk cycle drawn for 8 frames per second.
The composition has 24 frames per second, so each frame of the animation is shown for three frames. The background moves using keyframe animation.

But now the background moves every frame whereas the animation only moves every third frame, which looks odd as the feet seem to slip. If I change the frame rate to 8fps, it looks fine.

So is it somehow possible to change the movement of the background so that the position is only updated every third frame?

I would like to avoid changing the frame rate of the whole composition to 8fps, as then other parts of the animation become less smooth.

I don't know if there is an easy way to do it directly.  You could do some modular math in a script for the keyframe positions, but that's kind of complicated and non-user friendly.  An alternate approach would be to do an additional nested composition.

Make an animation composition for your character that is at 8 FPS, perhaps bring in the main composition as a backplate while putting it together, then remove the backplate and import the animation composition at 24fps as a stationary composition.


Post production removal of uneven green screen with glass object shattering in foreground We have a glass object falling and shattering into many shards. Unfortunately the green screen was uneven causing different shadings on the background.

Our edior says to use the shot, he would have to rotoscope all the frames which is not practical on our budget for our short film. It is a very important shot.

Is there an alternative way of removing all of the green screen by computer by screening out a range shades of green?

If the example were a lightbulb at the top dropping to the bottom you would take one frame with the bulb at the top and one frame with the bulb at the bottom, then simply use half of each as a mask.

Choosing a range of colors is also possible if it's not so wide as to reduce the remaining.

Movement detection is also possible.

Where this would be really tough is a moving camera and a light colored Green Screen that was poorly lit with a darker green object that moved slightly and rotated in one spot - better to use a red or blue screen in that case.

Here's a manual and automatic Photoshop technique example: https://phlearn.com/tutorial/automatically-remove-objects-photos-photoshop/ .

Uploading the Video to YT as unlisted would allow us to give a more precise answer than guessing the situation and providing a general answer.


What CRF or settings I should choose for h265 in order to achieve a similiar quality of h264? I'm doing some experiments with HEVC x265.

I have a raw footage and the quality of details of h264 with same CRF setting looks better than h265.

Shouldn't be the opposite?

Maybe my setup isn't the best: I'm using ffmpeg for transcoding and vlc for review the videos, then i copy the screen content and compare the screens on a program like photoshop.

FFmpeg commands I using are the following:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 -crf 30 -c:a copy output_h264.mkv

and

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx265 -crf 30 -c:a copy output_h265.mkv

I used 30 as CRF for testing purposes because the artifacts are more visible :)

Could the loss of quality be caused by VLC and its experimental support in deconding h265? Maybe something more visible at lower bitrates?

The CRF scales for x264 and x265 do not correspond. x265 CRF 28 is supposed to be equivalent to x264 CRF 23. But x265 is not yet as mature in its development as x264, so take that CRF equivalence with a pinch of salt.

That said, you can try to establish your own calibration between the current versions of the encoding libraries in your ffmpeg by running the following command, which executes two popular video quality metrics:

ffmpeg -i encoded-video.mp4 -i reference-video.mp4 -lavfi "ssim;[0:v][1:v]psnr" -f null -

The final lines of the console output will contain:

[Parsed_ssim_0 @ 000000000039ad80] SSIM Y:0.984483 U:0.980458 V:0.980921 All:0.983219 (17.751712)
[Parsed_psnr_1 @ 0000000000398320] PSNR y:42.63 u:43.19 v:44.09 average:42.90 min:42.07 max:46.16

So, run the command once with the x264 output and once with x265 and compare with different x265 outputs, till you get similar measures. Of course, these metrics aren't perfect but you can use them as a rough guide to establish equivalence.


What determines the chosen bitrate with ffmpeg constrained encoding example? Looking at https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264:

I see this example as being the recommended method to target a bit rate for files meant for streaming

ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -b:v 1M -maxrate 1M -bufsize 2M -pass 1 -f mp4 /dev/null
ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -b:v 1M -maxrate 1M -bufsize 2M -pass 2 output.mp4

I encoded a file using a slightly variation here:

ffmpeg -i *mkv -c:v libx264 -b:v 2.5M -maxrate 2.5M -bufsize 5M -profile:v high -level 4.2 -pass 1 -an -f mp4 /dev/null -y \
ffmpeg -i *mkv -c:v libx264 -b:v 2.5M -maxrate 2.5M -bufsize 5M -profile:v high -level 4.2 -an -movflags +faststart -pass 2 output.mp4

I see that sometimes it's uses a bitrate of 1.800 kbits/s but where does it get that?

Is it using some kind of default CRF value or what?

Does setting a -preset slow would increase the quality further?

think of it this way, your driving a car, and you have a target speed of 25, and a max speed limit of 25. Then you stop at a red light for 30 seconds and your average speed drops to 20. It is now impossible to reach an average of 25 again without going over the max. you would need to drive at the max speed an infinite amount of time to get the average back to 25.

When encoding the video, the encoder reached a frame that took less bits to encode than average (low spacial or temporal information.  For example two identical frames), so bitrate temporarily dipped, and now it can never reach max.

What you need is a way to say, if we drop below average, we are able to go over max for a small period of time to bring the average back up. This is called “vbv” and you should use that if you want to target a bitrate.


Advice on Creating Montage of TV Advertisements I want to to attempt to create something like this for the modern age. It's a series of bits and pieces of advertisements from the early 70's that seeks to critique consumer culture. The maker of the film said that he was able to make it by getting access to some reels of advertisements and then editing it like crazy.

So here's my question: How would one get access to commercials of today? For example, what if I just see a commercial on my TV and want to incorporate that into my montage? How would I would access to it so that I can then put it into my editing software and get to work? I was thinking of maybe YouTube, but for one not all commercials are on YouTube and two the quality can often be spotty.

As a person who works for TV and does commercials on a regular basis, I'm afraid to tell you that a youtube-rip is probably your best option. The progress for a commercial usually goes like this:

You've got your customer. The customer speaks to an agency. That agency usually hires a production-company that actually makes the commercial. After that, the final files (usually prores 4444, 422 or rarely an h.264) will be transmitted to the customer for approval, and then go directly to the TV-Station which will broadcast the piece.

So from someone who is not directly part of the creating-progress, it's virtually impossible to get your fingers on the final files. Your best chance would be to ask politely, but I can tell you that those files are almost always exclusive to the people working on it.

Your best option might be to record the signal directly from the TV via something like an elgato capture card. If that doesn't work (or you don't want to spend the money on the hardware required) youtube and reuploads are your only option.


Blur whole text and then "unblur" part of it I have a text in after effects that I wish to first blur the whole thing and then animate it so that a part of the text is clear.

If I have the text Maecenas sed diam eget risus varius blandit sit amet non magna.

First the whole text is blurred. Then it animates and at the end just the last part non magna is blurred.

So far I've used the blur function by going to my Text Layer > Animate > Blur. I've tried doing the thing I want by setting keyframes for the Range Selector properties but I can't get it right.

What you need to do is to use a regular blur effect. You also have to apply the effect to an adjustment layer. I'll explain why later on. Why don't I just make a recipe for you to follow first, and then I'll explain what's going on! :)

  Make your text layer and fill it with text.
  Make an Adjustment Layer. (Layer -> New -> Adjustment Layer)
  Make sure the Adjustment Layer is selected, and go Effect -> Blur -> Test some of them (Gaussian Blur is very common.)
  Go to the Effect Controls panel to set the blur to what you want it to be.

What is happening now, is that the Adjustment Layer is blurring all the layers below it. So if you have other layers below, you may need to Pre-Compose the two layers so that the Adjustment Layer doesn't affect more than the text layer. And the reason why we are using an Adjustment Layer, is that now we can either animate the layer away to reveal the naked text layer, or we can animate a mask to do the same thing. If you use a mask, you can add a feather that will make it look much better in most cases.

Alternatively, you can make two copies of the text, one with the blur directly on it, and one without any blur at all. Then you could animate the mask of the naked text layer to reveal it, but this is a bit difficult if you are animating the text or something like that, because you'll have to do exactly the same on both layers...

Here I'll explain how to do it with the Adjustment Layer with a mask.

  Select the Adjustment Layer and select the Rectangle tool from the top toolbar, and draw a rectangle covering the whole of the text.
  Press M to open the mask settings on the layer. Now you can set the feather to what you want it to be.

Move the mask a bit to the right to see how the effect will look like. Remember also that when you are adding feather, you'll have to make the mask bigger because the mask will fade away in the corners...

  Animate the mask as you please. Tell me if you want me to explain how to do this! :)

If you need to have more layers below the text layer, you need to Pre-Compose it:

  Select both the layers, right-click and select Pre-Compose.

That's it! Good luck with your movie :)


ffmpeg- dynamic drawbox I'd like to apply a dynamic drawbox before a drawtext, for example, with a fixed Y , X and H but with a dynamic W.

This is a trivial example:

/usr/bin/ffmpeg -y -loop 1 -t 5 -i img001.jpg -vf drawbox=x=0:y=0:w=t*300:h=100:color=red@0.5 -y out.mp4

I expect to see a rectangle with the base width that increase with the time; it does not work, the box width is alwais fixed.

Is it possible to create a dynamic drawbox? if not, is there an alternative?

Since drawbox doesn't support time reference, you need to use a workaround

ffmpeg -y -loop 1 -t 5 -i img001.jpg
  -filter_complex "color=red@0.5:s=Wx100[c];
                   [0][c]overlay='-W+300*t':0"
  -y out.mp4

A color source is created equal to the final size of the box you wanted to draw i.e. image width (W) x 100. Then it is overlaid on the image and animated so that it starts revealing at the rate of 300*t.


Is there any AI upscale tool for videos? I’m working on an amateur project, and for part of my project I’ll be using some old, really, really low-res film. I’ve used some free online tools (like deep-image.ai) to upscale low-res photos before, to great success.

I’m trying to find a similar tool for video, but all the tools I’ve come across are for enterprise or cost caboodle.

Is there any free tool out there for AI image upscaling?

There's a few options I've seen listed at https://sites.google.com/view/aiupscalingtutorials/ai-upscaling:

1. ESRGAN

An open source AI upscaler (super sampler) based on a generative adversarial network architecture.
Can be run in CPU mode, but requires a CUDA enabled Nvidia graphics card to get the most out of it.

2. SFTGAN

An open source image enhancer that seeks to restore lost texture details from known types, made by the same team who developed ESRGAN.
Can be run in CPU mode, but requires a CUDA enabled Nvidia graphics card to get the most out of it.

3. Topaz Gigapixel AI / Video Enhance AI

Commercial super sampler that uses artificial intelligence and is made by Topaz Labs.  It costs $100, but comes with a 30 day free trial.
Produces good results with little fuss.  Easy to install, but also requires a CUDA enabled Nvidia graphics card.

4. Sharpen AI

Commercial image enhancer that uses artificial intelligence and is made by Topaz Labs.  It costs $80, but comes with a 30 day free trial.
The algorithm often compliments other super resolution results, effectively sharpening some blurriness and enhancing detail.

5. Nvidia Gameworks

Apparently, it works quite well, but it requires a beta access pass which very few people were awarded.

And then I've also read some good reports about the open-source Dandere2x which may be worth checking out.