How can I fix a resolution discrepancy between nested sequences? I am very new to Premiere (CSD 5) and have put myself in a bit of a bind. I have four clips of footage I edited into one multicam clip. The clips are 720p; however, the sequence where I synced them up was 480p. I didn't notice this and so I nested that sequence inside another sequence so I could do the multicam editing.

The footage shows at the correct resolution in the multi-camera monitor, interestingly enough, but it's masked by black bars everywhere else (including when I try to export). Is there any way I can fix this without having to re-edit my entire 25 minute clip? Perhaps I could somehow make it so that all the references to the bad sequence are replaced with references to the same timestamp in a good sequence?

It's a bit hacky, but I found a solution that did the trick. I opened my .prproj file with a text editor and made these find-replace all changes:

<MZ.Sequence.PreviewFrameSizeHeight>480
changed to
<MZ.Sequence.PreviewFrameSizeHeight>720

<MZ.Sequence.PreviewFrameSizeWidth>720
changed to
<MZ.Sequence.PreviewFrameSizeWidth>1280

<FrameRect>0,0,720,480</FrameRect>
changed to
<FrameRect>0,0,1280,720</FrameRect>

If anyone else has this problem and is desperate for a fix, this should do it, although I recommend making a backup first.


Not able to edit subtitles in Premiere Pro I would like to edit my subtitles in Premiere Pro (CC 2018) but can't change the fonts or size or anything like that. I did try to use open and closed captions but both didn't work. I think I miss a part in my workspace but don't know how to get it back.

Resetting the workspace or selecting multiple options through 'Window' did not help.

The answer depends on whether you want actual captions or just some text in the video. The difference that subtitles/captions are actual streams in the video container or seperate files altogether that can be turned on and off, whereas normal text in the video is part of the video stream, so it's burned in and can't be turned off (which also means the playback decive/software doesn't have to support the subtitle standard that is used, so there's benefits to both methods).

Captions

If you want actual captions, you have very limited formatting options. The way it works is the subtitle file/stream contains only the timecodes and corresponding text for all the subtitles you create and very limited formatting information as well as some metadata. The appearance of the captions (i.e. font family, font size and position) is controlled by the playback device/software. This way, the captions can be optimized for different displays and controlled by user settings (for example, people with bad eyesight can set a larger font size).

If you want to control the display aspects of your subtitles, you can create Open Captions that are burned into the video stream. Make sure to select 'Open Captions' as the standard when you create the captions in Premiere Pro:

If you create Open Captions this way, you have more control over the caption display:

As you can see in the screenshot above (taken in Premiere Pro 2018), you can control the font size, family and style, as you asked. If you create captions this way, you can still export the captions as an individual file (File → Export → Captions…), for example to the SubRip format (.srt). However, this will again only export the timecodes and text, not the display options set by you. If you want to have different font families, sizes et c. in your video, you will have to burn the subtitles in, which you can do if you create them as Open Captions.

Text in Video

If you want the most control over appearance, animation et c. of your text-in-video use Text / Graphics layers. Working with text used to be really tedious in earlier versions of Premiere, but with the new Graphics Workflow it's rather straightforward and elegant. Take a look at this page for an introduction. Keep in mind though that Graphics can't be exported as subtitle streams/files, so they will always be burned in the video stream.


What is the correct aspect ratio to publish video for broadcast television I recently had an opportunity to publish video for broadcast television. I need to know what the correct aspect ratio is to publish video to the broadcaster. U.S. television broadcast. I have not received additional information of what the specifications are for the videos just yet. I'm just trying to be one step ahead. Thanks.

Please provide more information as commented by @MichaelLiebman
But default would be:
30FPS, 16:9 (1920x1080, 1280x720) either Progressive or interlaced.
Mostly you'll need 4:2:2


25 frames per seconds and 30 frames per seconds footage in one seq I filmed a short interview with 2 cameras. one shots in 25 fps and the other in 30 fps. When I open the sequence in Premiere I have to choose one frame rate and then one of the clips is out of sync.

I use the sound only from one camera and have problems with the sync.

How can I fix this?

Thanks

Jonathan

The surest way to make this work is to convert one set of material so the two have matching frame rates. No frame rate conversion is perfect, but moving from 25 to 30 is more likely to look better because no frames need to be dropped. Instead you'll get interpolated or repeated frames. Be sure that your "30 fps" is really 30.00 and not 29.97 before you start. Premiere should tell you, but you can also use MediaInfo or other standalone tool

If Premiere can do rate conversion use it; otherwise try ffmpeg or similar.


Is there any way at all to use a microphone with Canon SX720 HS? Note: This is a question camera, the ability of the camera in question, and help into deciding whether I need a new camera. This isn't a question about just "Video".

Is there any way at all to use a microphone with Canon SX720 HS? I sometimes make review videos or record videos of family/friend gatherings, and I would love to have the ability to use an external mic with this camera. Anything?

The question is also posted here: https://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/62728324

No - while this is a well featured point and shoot, it is not designed to accept external accessories other than those detailed on page 146 in the manual


DVD authoring burning I am looking for a player that i can burn to a disk.
I used to have this facility when i used DVDit le but lost the serial number. I was able to write video files to disk along with a player - thus end user was guaranteed to be able to play disk.
Can anyone help ?

Thanks.

Feargal

There are a number of free, open-source, video players, but VLC springs to mind as one of the best for being cross-platform. You could freely include versions for Windows, Mac, Linux, iOs, Android, as well as OSes you've never heard of like QNX Sylable, OS2, Solaris and three flavours of BSD.


Stabilize Video Rotation How would I go about "stabilizing" a video's rotation using freeware / opensourceware?
Please also name that piece of freeware / opensourceware.

Obviously, I do not want to rotate each frame of the video by hand.

See link below for an example of what I mean (65 844 bytes)

http://s000.tinyupload.com/?file_id=08971816374946938459

Blender has a video stabilization feature based on its camera tracker.  Here is a YouTube tutorial on how to use this feature to stabilize a hand-held video:


Hello ffmpeg heroes - please help me with ffmpeg/ffprobe commands to decode a video for me? I have a sample.mp4 which is currently not playable on VLC or media player and I've checked the FFmpeg values and get the below result? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

It is all about the proprietary codec, i.e. IMM5. The VLC and FFMPEG can't deal with it except patching the avcodec manually using https://patchwork.ffmpeg.org/project/ffmpeg/patch/20190716170703.10960-1-onemda@gmail.com/. Of course, you need to re-compile the ffmpeg using the IMM5 supported avcodec lib.
Good luck.


Small profile camera for recording a lecture (from a student's seat) I would like to videotape my professors' lectures much like others record the audio from the lectures. Of course I don't want to be a nuisance for my other classmates, so I'm wondering what my best bet would be for recording decent video from a small profile camera. I'm considering buying a friend's "old" iphone 4s but I have no idea how it would cope resolution-wise, lens-angle-wise (I suspect I will need a wide-angle lens converter) battery-wise and memory-wise. The total run time will be at most two continuous hours and then I will transfer it to my netbook and recharge the iphone for the next lecture. Any ideas/suggestions/other camera suggestions?

Since your camera will have a fixed position and you will be filming under stable lighting conditions, you don't need a fancy camera. An iPhone will do fine, the results will be satisfactory. Since a lecture isn't really about beautiful pictures anyway, I wouldn't put to much thought into it.

However, if you want to invest some money in a fair camera, I would probably go for a Sony Camcorder, e.g. the Sony HDR-CX330. Those offer a good compromise between usability, recording quality and price.

However, what is really important is the micro. If you use the micro of the camera, the audio will completely suck, no matter which camera you chose. Make sure to get a decent micro, rather than an expansive camera!

And of course, although you are probably aware of that: You need to ask your professor for permission ;)


Why do a lot of animation videos have wiggly lines? You see this style often in animated videos, e.g. this one:

The outer borders/lines of the elements sort of wiggle (for want of a better word) at a high frequency, giving the video more overall movement/activity. Of course for traditional animation that is drawn frame by frame, this is a byproduct of the illustrator drawing the shapes a bit differently every time. However, the video I linked above rather looks like most of it's elements were animated in After Effects (or similar software) rather than being hand-drawn frame by frame.

I see this style quite often, I would like to know if this most likely an intentional effect (for example to give the impression of a hand-drawn animation) or the byproduct of a digital animation method. Also, is there an easy way to replicate this effect in After Effects without having to draw every frame (or manually transform the paths of my vector elements every frame)?

This seems to typically be called 'Squigglevision', it's even patented. There do seem do be ways to replicate this in After Effects.


Where can I find design specs for 6mm to 22mm display signage? I am fine with HD displays, but I would like to know where I can find how to design for LED driven displays where the LEDs are 6mm apart or 22mm apart. What resolution would I be looking for?

There's no standard resolution for such displays. They're generally made up of a collection of individual (usually square) panels or "tiles", of say 16 x 16 LED pixels. You can construct a display having hundreds of tiles horizontally but only a few tiles vertically, like the Fremont Street experience in Las Vegas, which has an aspect ratio of about 14:1 (2596 x 184).

Plus, displays can have any shape, not just simple rectangles. Fremont Street is curved, and I've worked with diamonds, cylinders, triangles, skewed pyramids and truncated circles.

There's no perfect way (that I've seen) of simulating the pixel grid. The best you can do is work in the pixel dimensions supplied by the display company, applying masks as needed for irregular shapes, and field test with any material that needs fine lines or small text. Assume for the most part that the intended viewing distance will allow the coarseness to 'average away'.


Taking video from a DVD & Making it Editable I'm fairly familiar with Adobe Premier... done a few small projects in it.  Recently my father-in-law gave me a corporate training video, on DVD, that was done for his company back in 2008.  The people that did the video are no longer available.  He asked me to make a few edits. I'm not sure how to extract the video from the DVD and import it into Premier.  When I look at the DVD in the finder (Mac OS), this is what I see...

Any ideas?

A musician family member who edited video on his Apple PowerBook G4, swore by Handbrake. Handbrake is now available cross platform OSX, Linux, and Windows (through Windows 10). Much this musician's work in later years was ripping and repackaging DVD footage - and what he particularly liked was that Handbrake was "bulletproof." It even ripped mini-DVD AVCHD video from my Panasonic hand-held, before we were calling it H.264. Downloads available here: Handbrake Downloads


How to batch process hundreds of videos? I have hundreds of videos in storage I need to distribute online.  I'd like to do the following for each clip:

Add a pre-roll video
Process the audio (audio leveling, generic hiss/noise reduction for speaking (no music or other sound))
Add a title overlay at the beginning and end (could be same for all videos, but would like to pull from a spreadsheet to individualize each video if easily accomplished)
Convert video from AVCHD 1080p24 to format(s) suitable for Youtube and Vimeo with as little loss of quality as possible.

While static overlays are fine, it would be nice if things were animatable to add a bit more interest to the final product.

I'm a programmer, so I'm fine with scripting.  My primary video system is an older windows 7 64 bit machine with a quad-core i7 and 16GB RAM.  I'd be fine turning it into a linux machine temporarily if there are better workflows in that environment. I also have a quad core i7 OS X laptop with 16GB memory, but the disk is slower. There's no particular deadline, so if chewing through these videos slowly can be done cheaply, then that's better than paying for quick conversion, but speed would be nice, particularly if I can task multiple machines to the conversion easily on my network.

I'd prefer not to spend more money, but if there's software that can help me out significantly then buying the correct software might be acceptable.

How do I accomplish this task without spending months individually editing each video once or twice a day?

You can achieve all your goals using ffmpeg and sox, these are command line tools for video and audio processing respectively.

I can not provide you with a ready to roll solution, but here are examples for a pre-roll video, audio noise reduction, text overlay and conversion from AVCHD.


What does Ma10p stand for? i.e. a file is listed as being "1920x1080 HEVC Ma10p FLAC"

So....resolution / h.265 video codec / ? / .flac audio codec

On its own I'd guess the 10 stands for 10 bit depth, but the Ma is unknown to me. Other guesses is its some kind of h.265 preset.

"Main 10" stands for 4:2:0 10-bit color, and I'm Pretty sure "Ma10p" is just another way of saying Main 10.


Methods of Amplifying Poor Audio from Camcorder Recording? I have a recording from a camcorder (with a broken mic) where the audio is 1) largely white noise and 2) almost in-audible sound from people chatting in a room.

What methods could be used to amplify the "almost in-audible" parts (and remove the white noise)?

I guess what consumer level audio tools could do this?

From your description of the audio, it is going to be hard to fix, as white noise tends to cover a very broad frequency spectrum and so is hard to get rid of without losing what you want to keep.
A decent starting point for you would be to use a freeware audio editing program like Audacity. Here is a noise removal tutorial using Audacity.

You can also use audacity to cut out sections where there is no background talking. Then you can use an effect called a compressor to attempt to raise the level of the speaking to a better level, although you may still find you are amplifying some background noise. Here's a description of the audacity compressor.


How to time-remap with Twixtor in Adobe Premiere? I have problem to understand, how Twixtor works.

I want to use Twixtor plugin with my Adobe Premiere Pro. I can only change speed for whole sequence. Adobe has its own filter called "Time remapping", but that does not change speed so smoothly, as I saw in some videos.

Does Twixtor have keyframes? Where I can set start and end of slow down effect?

Just like with any effect property you can animate it by clicking on the little stop watch on the left of the effect property name (see below).

You can apply the effect to just a single clip, you don't have to use it on the entire sequence, just drag and drop the effect from the effect list onto the desired clip and then animate the speed of the video via keyframes.

A screenshot from the "Effects Control" panel:


Errors in converting mp4 to ts with FFmpeg I was trying to convert a caption-embedded .mp4 file into a .ts file. Only command found after some search was this which uses FFmpeg:

ffmpeg -i 1559066401592889640.mp4 -c copy -bsf h264_mp4toannexb 1559066401592889640.ts

But when running, I get this error:

Codec 'ac3' (86019) is not supported by the bitstream filter 'h264_mp4toannexb'.

What is going wrong? How to fix it?
I'm using latest FFmpeg:

ffmpeg version N-93649-gd0ca749adb Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 8.3.1 (GCC) 20190414

a) -bsf h264_mp4toannexb applies the filter to all output streams but it has to be applied to only video streams.

b) In any case, newer versions of ffmpeg, like the one you have, will automatically apply bitstream filters so you don't need to.

Use

ffmpeg -i 1559066401592889640.mp4 -c copy 1559066401592889640.ts


Attach image to layer with tracking mask I have a two layers.

First is the an image (PNG)
Second is a video

And i want to "attach" first layer to region on the video and track that (just like mosaic effect with mask and tracking work).

How i can do that? Thanks!

I take it you are looking for Motion Tracking. Unfortunately, Premiere Pro doesn't have that capability. You'd have to set keyframes for the animation manually, which can be a pain if it needs to be accurate. If you need to do automated Motion Tracking, you could switch to After Effects which comes with that capability (see link above).


Adobe Premiere CS5 match sequence settings but change codec So I have a flash video that I tried converting to MPEG4 (H.264) in Adobe Premiere. I simply copied the .flv clip and the created a new sequence by dragging the clip to the new item icon:

I this gave me a new Sequence with Sequence settings that matched the clip:

I then go to Export where I want to maintain the aspect ratio of the clip, no black bars on the top, right, bottom or left. If I check "Match Sequence Settings" I cannot change the format, no surprises there:

:

So I tried to do a custom H.264 and I unlink the Frame Width and Height, and a Pixel Aspect Ratio of square pixels but this gives me black bars on top and bottom (letterboxing) of the final Export, no surprises there:

Since I am amateur hour, I tried a free online flash to mpeg4 converter

http://video.online-convert.com/convert-to-mp4

This actually gave me the full screen mpeg4 with no letterboxing and you can see it in action here in Chrome, Firefox and Safari here (Press play button towards bottom center):

http://beta2.cmykpress.com/

The thing is, I think the free online converter tool gave me some kind of messed up video because Chrome browser is making 3 requests for this video to download while it only makes one request for my Adobe Premiere video converted mpeg4 which you can see here:

http://beta2.cmykpress.com/Home/DifferentMpeg4

So the mpeg4 converted using the online converter seems to be causing bugs in Chrome HTML video player over time so I want to try and figure out how to covert my flash to mpeg4, maintaining the aspect ratio, full screen video with no letterboxing.

Like you see here: http://beta2.cmykpress.com/

My Adobe Premiere export results so far are what you see here: http://beta2.cmykpress.com/Home/DifferentMpeg4

FLV is an Adobe container for streaming video. Historically, FLVs usually contained a variety of codecs (such as FLV1, Sorenson..etc) but nowadays it's usually H.264. Which is to say, the video may already be MP4 compatible. You may not need to recompress the video at all, and could simply transfer it from a FLV container to MP4, bypassing Premiere. ffmpeg is a tool that can do this. Download the 32-bit static build from here and the run the following command:

ffmpeg -i input.flv -c copy -movflags +faststart output.mp4

If the source video is not in fact H264, then try

ffmpeg -i input.flv -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -c:a aac -strict -2 -b:a 128 -movflags +faststart output.mp4


What it means "a royalty free alternative" to video/audio (WebM format) The WebM format says:

  WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML5 video and the HTML5 audio elements.

I am not too familiar with video formats or copyright as related to videos, so wondering what exactly this means (I'm a web developer). Wondering if it means video formats such as mpeg you are supposed to pay royalties to i.e. Microsoft if you use AVI format, or MPEG if you use an mpg, and if so, how that works. Or if the royalty is paid somehow else, or if it means something entirely different.

It's a quite complex topic, but yes, when dealing with non-royalty-free technologies you are in some cases required to pay royalties to the patent holders, depending on your usage. This usually applies when you are the distributor of the video/audio content, but it depends from technology to technology.

Patent pools are groups of companies that claim fees for the usage of a particular technology that includes something protected by patents. An example of a patent pool is the one managed by the popular MPEG LA, which is concerned about technologies developed by the MPEG group (like AVC and HEVC).

It's also important to understand that while royalty-free technologies don't require you to pay, it doesn't mean that they don't include patented technologies. The creator of the technology (Google in this case) is risking for the usage of those technologies. They're basically saying "don't worry, we'll take care for you".

Source: An analysis of WebM and its patent risk.

A perfect example of a royalty-free technology is the new AV1 coding standard, developed by an alliance called AOMedia. For the fact that this alliance is composed of pretty much every important technology company that exists out there, the AV1 codec doesn't require content distributors to pay royalties to them.

John Luther from JW Player says:

  AV1 could be different because collectively the AOM membership owns a vast trove of intellectual property. These assets can be used to defend the technology against patent claims from interests who might not want “a next-generation video format that is…interoperable and open.”

In the same way, the existence of a patent pool doesn't mean that companies in the pool are going to ask for money. For example, the HEVC decoding standard is composed of multiple patent pools, but one of the pools has still to decide whether it's going to ask for fees, and how much it's going to ask. Additionally, not all the companies holding patents regarding HEVC are included in the pools. This is one of the main reasons why HEVC hasn't spread so much so far.

Some resources:

Introduction to video compression patents
AVC fees
HEVC fees
About the MPEG disaster:

The Future of HEVC Licensing Is Bleak, Declares MPEG Chairman

To Deploy HEVC, Users Must Choose What Patent Pool To Dive Into
HEVC Advance Cuts Content Fees on Streaming
An Encouraging Development in the HEVC Patent Mess

An analysis of WebM and its patent risk
Google and MPEG LA settle long-running VP8/H.264 patent dispute
Discussione about: "The AV1 format is and will always be royalty-free"


Best Way To Improve Davinci Resolve 12 Playback Speed? I run a 2011 MacBook Pro, and it can barely handle Davinci Resolve 12. The biggest problem I have is playback. Playback is very laggy for me, and that is a problem because I need cut and sync clips with the music. Is there a way I can improve the playback speed in Davinci Resolve 12?

Try generating optimized media (i.e. proxy files). Optimized Media is a nice feature that will allow you to playback, edit and grade video files that are optimized for smooth playback, but Resolve will still render from the original video files when you are ready to deliver.

Head over the Media tab and right click on the file(s) you want to optimize, and select "Generate Optimized Media". This may take a little while to run, so grab a coffee while you wait.

You can choose what compression format to use as optimized media (ProRes, DNxHD, etc) by opening Project Settings > General Options.

Here's a nice video tutorial that will walk you through it in more detail:


Repeat/loop Input Video with ffmpeg? I just want to loop a mp4 video with ffmpeg and keep the current settings and codec.

For example if input.mp4 is 0:10 long, and I would want to loop it 4 times so output.mp4 is 0:40 long, how could I change the following command line to do that?

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy output.mp4

I tried...

ffmpeg -loop 4 -i input.mp4 -c copy output.mp4

...but I get the error "Option loop not found."

Concat demuxer

This allows you to loop an input without needing to re-encode.

Make a text file. Contents of an example text file to repeat 4 times.

file 'input.mp4'
file 'input.mp4'
file 'input.mp4'
file 'input.mp4'

Then run ffmpeg:

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

For Linux users

This example is the same as above but you don't have to manually make list.txt:

for i in {1..4}; do printf "file '%s'\n" input.mp4 >> list.txt; done
ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy output.mp4

With most commonly-used modern shells, you can even avoid the creation of the list.txt file entirely. For example, with bash:

ffmpeg -f concat -i <(for i in {1..4}; do printf "file '%s'\n" input.mp4; done) -c copy output.mp4

Also see:

FFmpeg concat demuxer documentation
FFmpeg Wiki: Concatenate

loop filter

Example using the loop filter to loop 4 times, each loop is 75 frames, each loop skips the first 25 frames of the input:

ffmpeg -i input -filter_complex loop=loop=3:size=75:start=25 output

Or use the shorthand: loop=3:75:25
Filtering requires re-encoding.
This filter places all frames into memory.
Using loop=3 will loop 4 times.
To loop infinitely use -1.
You must list the number of frames to loop (shown as 75 in the example above). Max value is 32767.
Also see ffmpeg -h filter=loop.

movie filter

The movie filter has a loop option. See answer below by Monah Tuk. Filtering requires re-encoding. For audio use the amovie filter.

-stream_loop option

See answer below by Thingy and answer by Gyan.

Note that this option was buggy (see bug reports #5719, #6121, and #7043) so may not work for old builds (anything older than 2018 06-27 including the FFmpeg 4.0.x release branch). For users of old builds, as mentioned by mulvya in ticket #6121, one workaround is to first re-mux to MKV or TS then use -stream_loop in the next command.

-loop option

The -loop option is specific to the image file demuxer and gif muxer, so it can't be used for typical video files, but it can be used to infinitely loop a series of input images. This example will loop over and over but the -t 30 will limit the output duration to 30 seconds:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i %03d.png -t 30 output.mkv

Or to loop a GIF output:

ffmpeg -i input -loop 3 output.gif


Do modern devices support decoding 4:4:4 pixel formats? I am recording and distributing relatively low motion screen content (not games). Using h264, fine text often appears very blurry due to the poor subsampling with 4:2:0 and 4:2:2 pixel formats. With 4:4:4, the video content (and text) remains very sharp, but all recommendations I've been had so far are to stay away from 4:4:4 at all costs.
I am wondering if there will be any real downsides to distributing 4:4:4 content? Aside from filesize - this is a nonissue. Does anyone have any anecdotal experience to say whether most modern devices (browsers, mobile phones) can decode and play 4:4:4 content? It seems to work on my own devices, but I have a pretty small sample size. Is there a published record of what software and hardware decoders support it, or what the common issues might be if distributing content in this format?
Note: I am not distributing using any online video platforms, so , for example, downsides such as YouTube automatically re-encoding it to 4:2:0 would not be an issue. The question is really more geared towards if devices will actually be able to play 4:4:4 content native / seamlessly or if many will run into compatibility issues.

Most phones and tablets do not support 4:4:4


Frames with pict_type=I yet key_frame=0 I am trying to exrtact key frame information from a mp4 video using ffprobe with the command:

ffprobe -select_streams v -show_frames FILE_NAME  2>/dev/null

I am getting the list of all frames. From these, I searched for frames with pict_type=I to recognise I-frames. However, there were about 10 of the total 700 I frames which had

media_type=video
key_frame=0
pict_type=I

What are these frames? If these are I-frames what makes them not a key_frame?

This means although it is and I-frame, the decoder might still use/need previously sent frames for decoding. In contrast if key_frame=1 this would be an IDR-Frame (Instantaneous Decoder Refresh).
Citing from  Ian E. G. Richardson's H.264 and MPEG-4 Video Compression:

An encoder sends an IDR (Instantaneous Decoder Refresh) coded picture
(made up of I- or SI-slices) to clear the contents of the reference
picture buffer. On receiving an IDR coded picture, the decoder marks
all pictures in the reference buffer as ‘unused for reference’. All
subsequent transmitted slices can be decoded without reference to any
frame decoded prior to the IDR picture. The first picture in a coded
video sequence is always an IDR picture.

This may have impact on random access to a video. Simply said, IDR frames make random access more robust.


Extending a static PNG is there a way in Premier Pro 2019 with a keyboard shortcut to extend a static png to the end of a clip?  For instance, I've edited the program and its ready.  I then insert the program or network logo (think the CBS EYE as an example) onto the its own video layer.  I want that watermark now to stay up for the entire program.  I've been doing it manually for quite a while, just dragging the end point to the end of the program, but that is quite tedious.  Anyone know of a shorter way?

Select the end of the png clip, so that the edit is highlighted. Then move your playhead to the end of the program, and hit e, which is the shortcut for extend edit. More info can be found by reading the manual.


Streaming vs Let's Play on YouTube I want to start my own YouTube channel for various games that I play. I've watched way more than I care to admit from other YouTube gamers. The ones that I really like and find most engaging have 30-45 minute videos of a play through. However, it's often edited to remove the "boring parts" - think of this as the planning time in some games where you can pause it, set stuff up and the unpause it. There is a short jump and everything is set up - the channel creator describes what was set up but didn't show the 15-20 minutes that it actually took to do so. It keeps the video and game play moving forward.

When I'm looking for longer playthroughs, I often find live streams on YouTube. This, obviously, shows everything.

My question is, what kind of set up would I need to do the first option? My computer can run the game, but what do I need to know about recording the gameplay and my voice, editing the video, and stitching it together?

I think your actual question is for a list of resources to get starting making gameplay videos (Let's Play is actually owned by Roosterteeth as a title).

But I think your premise is wrong, you shouldn't go into the game play planning to do "boring parts".  Today, creators usually stream for a long format "livestream" video, then they cut down that footage for a "gameplay" video, and then they will sometimes do "trailers" or "highlights", and this is a good business model.

By all means set up cool stuff and show us what you want, but you'll notice, for single player, that it will feel more organic to just play through.

They also require the same resources, as your first option is a subset of the 2nd option.

I recommend OBS, it's free and works great.  In theory, you need twice the graphics capability of the game to capture it cleanly.  It will stream or just record.

Past that you really just need a headset with microphone, any headset will do, but spring for a Snowball when you can, great quality and affordable.  I can help (sometimes) to have voice recorded separately, but most times it really doesn't matter if you're having trouble with it.

Once you feel ready, find an affordable webcam, and you can do face cam straight from OBS, whether or not you create a second instance of OBS to record it separately.

Eventually you'll need some basic lighting, and maybe a green screen, but leave that down the road until you're already super serious.

Once you get to a point where you feel like editing, you'll need GIMP (basically free photoshop) or any picture editor you have handy that will let you work in LAYERS, very important.

And of course you'll eventually want to actually edit, I recommend Da Vinci for your first free editor.  It has most of the functionality that Adobe Premier Pro or Sony Vegas has, but it's just not very intuitive.

I highly recommend you keep an eye on HumbleBundle, I got Sony Vegas for $20 through them because they occasionally do software bundles, and it's a good deal to find games (check out Monthly, it's fantastic).

Hit me back if I managed to leave anything out.


ffmpeg: Make letters appear one at the time, like a typewriter How can I show letters one at the time using FFMpeg, I'm talking about something like this:

Thank you.

Typewriter effect on ffmpeg using an .ass file, I generated this gif using the following line:
ffmpeg -f lavfi -i color=size=640x480:rate=30:color=black -vf "subtitles=typewriter.ass" -t 8 ffmpeg_typewriter.gif

I used the Eagisub program to get the parameters used in karaoke !! I created two styles (style1 and style2) both with different fonts, background etc. The shadow colors, background colors were chosen transparent because they appear however transparent, and the time of {\Kn} defines the character display time or time of the word or phrase, just change the n as long as you want !!! Too simple !! follow the file generated on Eagisub that can be easily edited by hand !! That's it thanks !!
    [Script Info]
; Script generated by Aegisub 3.2.2
; http://www.aegisub.org/
Title: Default Aegisub file
ScriptType: v4.00+

[V4+ Styles]
Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, OutlineColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, Underline, StrikeOut, ScaleX, ScaleY, Spacing, Angle, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Encoding
Style: style1,Ubuntu Mono,100,&H00FFFFFF,&HFF0000FF,&HFF000000,&H00000000,0,0,0,0,100,100,0,0,1,0,0,4,10,10,10,1
Style: style2,DejaVu Sans Mono,37,&H00FFFFFF,&HFF0000FF,&HFF000000,&H00000000,0,0,0,0,100,100,0,0,1,0,0,4,10,10,10,1

[Events]
Format: Layer, Start, End, Style, Name, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Effect, Text
Dialogue: 0,0:00:01.10,0:00:12.00,style1,,0,0,0,,{\pos(109,187.5)}{\k25}H{\k25}e{\k25}l{\k25}l{\k10}o{\k15}!{\k15}\NI{\k15}'{\k15}m{\k15} D{\k15}i{\k15}v{\k15}e{\k15}r{\k15}s{\k15}a{\k15}l{\k15}i{\k15}z{\k15}a{\k15}n{\k15}d{\k15}o{\k15}!{\k15}!
Dialogue: 0,0:00:05.50,0:00:09.40,style2,,0,0,0,,{\k15\pos(108,374)}Editing{\k15} a {\k15}.ass {\k15}with {\k15}Aegisub {\k15}to\N {\k15}generate {\k15}the {\k15}typewriter {\k15}effect.


How to create “page turn / curl” effect in FFmpeg? Is it possible to create animation that would be similar to "page turn / curl" effect in FFmpeg between two videos? The basic idea: the first video is playing and after some time the second video is replacing the first video with this effect. On images below, blue color means the first video, black color means the second video and yellow color means the transition color between two videos.

You'll need (to compile) a ffmpeg build with a custom filter: https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/ffmpeg-gl-transition, or use node.js script here: https://github.com/transitive-bullshit/ffmpeg-concat

The transition is at https://gl-transitions.com/editor/InvertedPageCurl


AAC stream in MP4 file has wrong duration. How to fix? I've got an MP4 file that is actually 2:09:42 long. But when playing it in VLC player it is being shown as 7:13:45 long. I'm trying to fix this file.

I remuxed it using ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -codec copy output.mp4 which did not change anything.

ffprobe reports:

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'input.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 1
    compatible_brands: isomavc1
    creation_time   : 2012-12-12T09:35:27.000000Z
  Duration: 07:13:45.09, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 578 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 1920x800
[SAR 1:1 DAR 12:5], 1618 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 96k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default
)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2012-12-12T09:35:27.000000Z
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, flt
p, 92 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2012-12-12T09:36:27.000000Z
      handler_name    : GPAC ISO Audio Handler

I demuxed the file and tried to recombine the streams. Here, this is shown:

Input #0, h264, from 'x.h264':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High), yuv420p(progressive), 1920x800 [SAR 1:1 DAR
 12:5], 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1200k tbn, 47.95 tbc
[aac @ 000000000328a8c0] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurat
e
Input #1, aac, from 'x.aac':
  Duration: 07:14:19.51, bitrate: 94 kb/s
    Stream #1:0: Audio: aac (LC), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 94 kb/s
Output #0, mp4, to 'x.mp4':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf58.38.101
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(progressive), 1
920x800 [SAR 1:1 DAR 12:5], q=2-31, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1200k tbn, 1200k tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 94
 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
  Stream #1:0 -> #0:1 (copy)

Here, the wrong duration is shown for the aac stream. Does this mean that the aac stream has wrong time information?

When I play the aac file VLC player shows 7 hours duration. When I play the h264 file no duration is shown.

I then tried to remux specifying -t 2:09:42. This makes VLC player display the correct duration. The movie plays normally and appears complete. But the file size dropped from 1.8 GB to 1.6 GB which makes me suspect that I somehow lost data.

How can I fix this file?

Update: I have now recoded the aac stream to MP3. It really is 7 hours long. The audio is repeated multiple times. No idea why. So I guess I can just trim that stream? Is that appropriate?

How do you know file is 2:09:42 long?

From ffmpeg documention:

  Get duration by decoding
  You can also use ffmpeg to get the duration by fully decoding the file. The null muxer is used so no output file is created. Refer to time= in the last line of the console output. In this example the input has a duration of 00:57:28.87.

$ ffmpeg -i input.webm -f null -
...
frame=206723 fps=1390 q=-0.0 Lsize=N/A time=00:57:28.87 bitrate=N/A speed=23.2x

  This method will report the correct duration in case the methods using ffprobe are incorrect or missing due to corrupt, truncated, or damaged files.
  The command may take some time depending on the input file duration and decoding complexity.

So it seems that your file timings are "incorrect or missing due to corrupt, truncated, or damaged files."
Hence your ffprobe report contains wrong duration.
Your remux "did not change anything" because you did not encode the file: -codec copy

2nd line of your report shows: "Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A" which is another indication of damaged file.
Further in the report, you'll notice "Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate"

Try this:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v libx264 x.mp4

With a very good computer, this should be done in about 2 hrs.
Enjoy.


Why does After Effects cut some last seconds of video in Timeline? I have a video asset that is 1:57 long. When I import it to AE, in Project window it suddenly shows that video is only 1:49;15f long! Why does it happen and how can I get my extra 8 seconds back?

Those 8 hidden seconds contain sound that I need to work with.

UPD: here's all the data about this video asset (taken with MediaInfo software):

General
Complete name                            : D:\work\nuzhnapomosh\SPEC\Cage\thecage_elements_animated\Klekta trailer New Text v02.mov
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : QuickTime
Codec ID                                 : qt   2005.03 (qt  )
File size                                : 263 MiB
Duration                                 : 1 min
Overall bit rate                         : 18.8 Mb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-08-28 07:18:49
Tagged date                              : UTC 2016-08-28 07:19:04
Writing library                          : Apple QuickTime

Video
ID                                       : 3
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Main@L4
Format settings, CABAC                   : No
Format settings, ReFrames                : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP                     : M=1, N=50
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 1 min
Bit rate                                 : 18.6 Mb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.359
Stream size                              : 244 MiB (92%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-08-28 07:18:49
Tagged date                              : UTC 2016-08-28 07:19:04
Color range                              : Limited
Color primaries                          : BT.709
Transfer characteristics                 : BT.709
Matrix coefficients                      : BT.709

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : PCM
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Format settings, Sign                    : Signed
Codec ID                                 : twos
Duration                                 : 1 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 1 411.2 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 kHz
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Stream size                              : 19.7 MiB (8%)
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-08-28 07:18:49
Tagged date                              : UTC 2016-08-28 07:19:04

Other
ID                                       : 4
Type                                     : Time code
Format                                   : QuickTime TC
Duration                                 : 1 min
Time code of first frame                 : 00:06:15:21
Time code, striped                       : Yes
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-08-28 07:18:49
Tagged date                              : UTC 2016-08-28 07:19:04

Try converting the video to Quicktime ProRes format, or another format that doesn't have intra-frame compression before you import it into After Effects.


lift adobe premiere ram allocation limit? I am working on my fight premiere video. I do have a really expensive high end computer. First I only used 16 gb of ram and when it would use the 16gb adobe would freeze and it would kind of get stuck. Now I plugged in 32 additional gigs and I have 48 gigs of ram. However my computer isn't using more then 31 GB. At first I had issues because the standby ram wasn't being reduced and there would be no free ram. I downloaded microsoft's utility to free stanby ram.  Now I have 17 gigs free.

It still refuses to allocate more ram to premiere.
Is this because premiere isn't used to have 48 gigs? can I lift this ram cap somewhere?

it hits a ceiling of 31 gigs of ram and refuses to allocate further.

I upgraded from premiere cs6 to 2014.1 cc pro and pro started using almost all the ram at times. However that didn't solve issues for me.

Premiere does not have a maximum memory usability limit. As several others pointed out, this is probably a motherboard limitation issue. @nofare's solution for working with proxies is one way to reduce the memory needs for your project.

My guess would be, based on your original statement, that the problem is not memory allocation, but disk read speed or perhaps some overly-gargantuan source files. I edit HD and 4K in Premiere on a MBP with 16GB ram all the time and can't ever remember maxing out my RAM.

A few other things to check, assuming for the sake of argument that your motherboard is not the problem:

What is Premiere's internal "soft" maximum memory allocation set to? This will not only tell you how much your OS is actually seeing, but also how much Premiere is willing to consume.
Where are your source files located - on internal storage, a USB drive, in the cloud, etc? Premiere could be slowing down as a result of trying to read your source files, particularly if you are using multiple streams simultaneously, from slow I/O sources like USB 2.0 or cloud-based drives.
What is your largest-resolution timeline asset? And, how is it encoded? If you're using gigantic Photoshop files on your timeline, yeah, well...it's gonna be slow. Same goes for RAW video or even 4k mpeg files. They just don't edit easily and could contribute to choppiness or temporary "freezing" in the interface.
What is your playback display quality set to? I typically work with this set to 1/2 or even 1/4 for optimum fps.


Are there any mathematical advantages for higher sampling rates? Given that most people can't hear so many frequencies above 20kHz anyways, I've never understood the exact arguments for using sampling rates above 48kHz.  At 48kHz, I understand that it is easier to construct a lowpass filter with a bit of higher bandwidth to remove aliasing, but I don't understand why anybody would want to record at 96kHz.

For projects which are strictly digital, ie, using pure digital synthesis and not recording any material which would be converted from analog -> digital, is there any advantage to using sampling rates above 44.1kHz?

For everything else, is there any benefit at all to using 96kHz?  Is it beneficial when applying some particular type of DSP operation later on?  Or is it purely a placebo effect for the ear?

Note: There are other questions here asking about which sampling rates to use for various types of recording projects, but here I am asking for real, hard facts for any mathematical or DSP-related reasons supporting use of higher sampling rates.

I always use double sampling rates if possible, for two important reasons.

First reason: to get rid of the characteristics of the anti-imaging filter when working with analog sound sources. What is an anti-imaging filter?

Let's say I am recording on 44100 Hz.
If I would record a sine wave of less then 10 KHz, you could clearly see the sinewave when you plot the sample values in a graph.
If I sample a sine wave of 0dB FS with a 22,5KHz frequency, the samples read 1 and -1 alternately.

Now, here's the problem. If I record a sine wave of 0dB FS with a 30 KHz frequency, and plot the samples, each sample is taking more than half a sine period, and - if you would play back the samples - it would return an 11KHz sinewave. (If you don't believe me, just make a simple drawing.) This behaviour is called the 'imaging effect'.

This means that before sampling the signal, we have to be sure that there are NO frequencies present what so ever above the so-called "nyquist frequency" (which is half the sampling rate). When using digital sound sources that provide their sounds already sampled, this is not really that big a deal, since they can sometimes just be programmed to never generate a signal above half the sampling rate, or they can filter everything out using a linear-phase brickwall filter that has no effect on the rest.

But, if you are sampling signal from an analog source, this filtering is done before the signal is sampled. The only way to filter analog sound is by use of an electronical circuit. And since the filter is supposed to have a very steep curve, it will affect the frequencies within the audible range, even though the filter was not designed for it. Now there are quite some good filters inside A/D converters, so the problem is minimal, but it gets relatively irritating to listen to when you are working several days on 44.1 KHz audio, compared to using 96KHz. The filter that is going to be applied when you downsample 96 back to 44.1 is of course a digital filter, and is probably of a much better quality. And, it is only applied when you are completely done with all the work, so it won't bother you.

Second reason: to get rid of the characteristics of the dithering signal.

When you are recording in 24 bits resolution and you plan to have your master at 16 bits, you will need a dithering signal to mask away the rounding errors. Now noise is not a pretty thing to have in your recording and while broadband noise is best for masking rounding errors, noise shaping can be a big improvement applied to the dithering signal in order to make it less disturbing. Now if the recording was made using 96KHz, you can noise shape most of the dithering signal to frequencies higher than 24KHz, so nobody will hear them. The dithering noise is at the end of the recording finally filtered out, at the moment you downsample your project back to 44.1 KHz.

So, bottom lines:
Is it useful when recording analog stuff:

Yes, definitely. You have less disturbance from the anti-imaging filter and less disturbance from the dithering signal when used with proper noise shaping.

Is it useful when working with digital stuff that came right of my softsynth?

Yes, still useful if you plan to work with 24 bits, and mastering it down to 16 bits. You can gain a great deal with noise shaping the dithering signal.


I want to insert my photo as background in my video which has white background I just recorded a video of myself talking with background as white screen.Now i want to add my photo in that video, so that the final output should be like myself talking in a video with my photo in the background, replacing my previous white background

To replace a white background with an image, you need to use a Luma Key.  A Luma Key is like a Chroma Key, except that instead of using a color value (such as green or blue, usually qualified also by a certain level of luma), you will use only a luma value (such as anything brighter than 200 IRE).

Most NLE software have both compositing and keying functionality.  But now that you know what the effect is called, you can research how to access that functionality in the software you are using (or will use).


Kdenlive: MP4 file icon I am using kdenlive to create mp4 files.

How do I indicate which image (or which point on the timeline) that will appear as the mp4 file icon when I display the mp4 file in Microsoft File Explorer?

This question has been answered in a previous post here.

The best way to do it is by using ffmpeg.

If you save the frame of video you want as the thumbnail in .png format, you can use the following command to apply the thumbnail to your file in ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i INPUT.mp4 -i IMAGE.png -acodec copy -vcodec copy -map 0 -map 1:0 OUTPUT.mp4


Multiple video encoding loss It's easier to explain my question using an example. Imagine you filmed a few short videos and want to combine them together in a sequence (probably with transitions and etc.). However, for some of this videos you also want to apply some video stabilization, color corrections and so on. So, first you edit these videos one-by-one to apply some stabilization/corrections and render them (first encoding). Then you use these edited videos to make a sequence and render a resulting clip (second encoding).

Since most video encoding formats are lossy, it seems very inefficient to basically double-encode videos, so I'm wondering if there is any common approach for this issue (apart from using lossless compression formats).

If you must encode at each step, use a lossless codec, or at least at a high bit rate and bit depth. But it's unusual and inefficient to perform intermediate encodings. A decent NLE will let you apply the needed transforms on separate segments or layers and only encode as a final step.

And note that rendering doesn't imply encoding in the final format. It may mean only performing some actions in the internal NLE format. If your layers can't be played out for preview because of hardware limitations, a render may permit that. But it doesn't commit you. You would still encode using the original elements in a final render.


why is a video file with .mts extension so huge? I just recorded a 2 minute long video clip with my Sony camera. The output is an .MTS file, which is ~450 MB. What is the reason for that? Could you please recommend a (preferably free) app that I could use to convert it to another file format resulting a much more reasonable file size?

HD video is very, very large at high quality.  450MB for two minutes isn't actually that bad.  To put it in perspective, assuming you were shooting 1080P and 24fps, if there was no compression applied, that same 2 minutes of video would be 6 gigabytes of information.

The reason that videos you download or watch on bluray disks are so much smaller is that they are not source video, but rather highly compressed final output video.  When you compress video, a lot of quality is lost.  It isn't quality that the human eye can easily distinguish, but it is quality that impacts the quality of future encodings and the quality of edited results.

For best quality, you want to take those high quality, large files you captured, edit them to whatever the final output should be and then do a one time compression down to a final output format.  That final output won't be suitable for editing, but it will be perfectly suitable for viewing at a much smaller size.

If you have no desire to edit it and simply want the basic video to be smaller, using a free tool like Handbrake or FFMPEG will easily allow you to transcode to h.264 and a much, much smaller file size.  I recommend using two-pass VBR to maximize the quality you get for the size.


Reasonable hardware for basic video editing? We have an old duo core Windows XP machine, and it seems to be the case that, when using Adobe Premiere Elements 9, we frequently have situations where the audio and video are out of sync. We will load a prores mov, or a new hi res mp4 and try to share a DVD version of the file, or do some minor trimming of a clip, and then have something that is clearly off.

So, if you have to do editing on this level (no special effects, just clips and transcoding) what is a reasonable processor, processor speed, RAM requirement? If we replace this machine, I will be looking at either Windows 7 or MacOS (long story, and I don't get to choose which), so my focus is on understanding the hardware requirements.

Hmmm. We're now using current iMacs (64-bit) and Premiere Elements 10. Being a Mac, that means saving things to .mov (the Mac's version of a "wrapper" format) instead of avi.

Even given that, however, I am still finding that the audio and video get out of sync when writing a DVD. I also have a similar (but possibly not remotely related) problem where, when I define a clip and write the clip to a file, I lose the last ~3 seconds of the clip. In this case, no bad synccing, just that suddenly the conversation stops a few seconds before the action stops.

I really don't want to invest several hundred dollars in video editing software for the trivial editing that we do, but it drives me crazy how little control I have over settings, and how many weird glitches I am encountering.

Adobe has tech specs on all of the software they sell on their website (www.adobe.com). I found the tech specs for [premier elements] 9 that you can look at.

(http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereel/systemreqs/)


What image formats to use for basic 2d animation? In order to practice animation (and as a side project with my son) I want to create some basic 2D children animations using Adobe After Effects. The animations will have backgrounds, characters, movement, and speech.

Since my artistic ability is equivalent to that of a peanut, my artist friend will be providing the background and character files while I will be responsible for the animation.

In what format should I instruct the artist to deliver these files? PSD, vector, other? Is there a specific format that works best in After Effects?

That depends on what kind of animations you're planning. I would ask the artist to give you the project files (.psd if he is working in Photoshop, .ai if he is working with Illustrator) so that you are not limited to one final image (of course in that case, you would need said programs on your computer. Consider that if the artist uses CC and you're using CS6 or older versions, project files might not be compatible). If he refuses to send you the project files (which, in my experience, many graphic designers won't do), I would probably ask for high-res .png files (since they support alpha channels) if the artist's work is pixel-based. If the work is vector-based, ask for some vector format like .svg.


how do I interpret this number? can someone explain this numbers please?, what means equivalent?
Focal Length 4.25-42.5mm, 35mm equivalent 30.4-305mm
thanks for your help

From the wikipedia entry on focal length:

  Due to the popularity of the 35 mm standard, camera–lens combinations
  are often described in terms of their 35 mm equivalent focal length,
  that is, the focal length of a lens that would have the same angle of
  view, or field of view, if used on a full-frame 35 mm camera. Use of a
  35 mm-equivalent focal length is particularly common with digital
  cameras, which often use sensors smaller than 35 mm film, and so
  require correspondingly shorter focal lengths to achieve a given angle
  of view, by a factor known as the crop factor.


Magic Lantern or native specs in 2020 I am photographer and videographer and my main subject is product photography (antiques,  watches, jewelry,...) and one of my biggest issue is poor sharpness and bad looking video from my Canon 77D. I do so many macro shots as well as chroma but the results are very poor, if sometimes not usable, and they require so many hour of noise cleaning that compromises the sharpness a lot.
I was planning to upgrade to the Fujifilm XT4 wich offers native 10-bit 4k at an impressive bitrate of 400mbs. That would solve my issues, however I am considering the  fact that I own may Canon's glass (like the 2nd version of the 24-70 2.8L), since I want to upgrade for getting  better video results, I am not sure if it worth considering the 5D mkIII with Magic Lantern, wich seems to allow 4k ROW at 14-bits. It is way cheaper for me and easier to get in short term.
I am truly confused guys with the "exact specs" ML allows in the 5D III, and if it worth considering it in 2020. So I highly appreciate your recommendations.
About the 5D mkIII specs I would appreciate if someone can tell me of there is a crop as you get in high resolution, if the footage is sharp, what is the maximum bitrate, what is the maximum frame rate, and what are the limitation of pushing the specs toward the limits.... what is the most best/usable/stable you can get form ML in the 5D mkIII?
Thank you in advance.

You'll see an improvement with the 5Diii over the 77D without installing Magic Lantern, because the former has a full frame sensor, and the latter only an aps-c sensor.  Then, you're free to experiment with ML, use it if you like it, return to the normal firmware if you don't.  The major limitation that ML overcomes (in my opinion) is the maximum video duration.  Yes, it adds other bells and whistles, but it won't alter the fundamental physics of the camera, which is what you're getting by upgrading to a larger sensor.


Wobbly lines on static camera videos Hoping this is the right place to ask this and that what Im asking isn't nonsense.

I record some top down videos of board games, the camera is on a boom arm fastened in place overhead pointing down (I can't work out a better way to do that at the moment but it works for now and isn't the main issue of this question anywho...), the boards in question have a white grid on them and when I edit and produce the footage I find afterwards that the lines seem to wobble, see here for an example of what I mean if you scroll to 6.47 (as a random point without things obscuring the view).

I'm wondering what the cause might be and if I can stop it happening.

I do have to use the distort tool in fcpx to drag out the edges and rotate things a bit as usually my camera is never centred on the board and so one end has a noticeable slant/narrowing to it as the camera is pointing at a slight angle, could that cause it and if so anyone have any tips or suggestions as to how I can ensure my camera is pointing square to the table? :/

Cheers!

After much help above it looks like its because the camera I was recording on was recording in 50i but the project I had created in fcpx was set to 60p, this was causing issues with the final result as it tried to convert 50i to 60p...

I restarted one of the projects as 25p instead and copied in some of the source video again and a quick repeat of my normal output process (export as mov, use handbrake to convert to a reduced size mp4 for youtube upload) seems to give a much better result (I'm comparing the mp4 on my machine to youtube but there is 0 wobble and I don't think its youtube adding it in) so I think this is the solution, make sure your projects are set to the same fps as the source!

Thanks all


How do I filter a voice recording to sound like a NES game sample? The style that I am shooting for can be heard on this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZlPiehYpVM
at 2:18 ("Blades of Steel")

I have tried playing with equalization, hi-pass/low-pass, and various filters, but I can't seem to get anywhere close to this effect, where the "s" sounds come off as static, and the annunciation of consonants is muted (possibly an attack filter?). I can't find any documentation through Google search, either.

I know very little about the sound architecture of the NES, other than that music was composed with Square and Triangle waves, and the "samples" were presented through a separate sound channel. On NES sound emulators I use, this channel is usually labeled "PCM," (Pulse Code Modulation?) The NES system itself was 8-Bit, but I do not know if its sound system was.

You wont get that effect with just an EQ.
try using a bitcrusher effect to reduce the bit-depth to 8 or 16 bits, maybe some saturation and a lowpass at the end to tame some of the distortion.

The characteristics of these old game sounds come almost entirely from the crazy low resolution and data compression necessary at the time to get the samples onto the game cartridge.

good luck!


How to learn to produce documentaries? I have several ideas for documentaries.  None of them involve any fancy production or cinematographic techniques.  Most of it would be interviewing people and simple camera works along with including some graphic material, which can be electronically produced on a laptop.  This should be much simpler than making feature movies as no actors or special effects are needed.  Think documentaries that people post of YouTube.

How can I acquire all the skills involved in producing a simple documentary like that?  What minimal hardware setup would suffice (what kind of camera, lights, etc)?  What kind of software should I acquire for the production thereof.  I would prefer to enable myself to do everything involved, from filming, direction, sound, narrative, graphic design, production etc.

Are there online tutorials that provide a basic setup for how to start as a documentary maker?

While there are tons of tutorials on the internet, which keep you learning your whole life (which isn't a bad thing) I would propose one option that I followed myself.

Lynda.com has good quality videos about all aspects of documentary filmmaking - technology, conducting interviews, storytelling, editing, ...

When I knew I had to take the next step in documentary filmmaking, I took one month off and watched these videos from morning to night. After one month I knew enough of all major topics and could cancel my membership. All in all I paid only US$ 25 for 30 days of intensive learning.

After that learning period you just need two things: Practice and errors. Because you'll only learn when something goes wrong. That's why I suggest that you only buy simple gear that you can upgrade after you found out what can go wrong.

Here's a small gear list: a video-capable DSLR, be it Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, ... Then a tripod and a microphone solution (e.g. a handheld audio recorder like the Zoom H2n). Light is not so important, if you can find bright locations.

When it comes to editing software, there is no single best choice. Some people prefer Adobe Premiere, because together with the other Adobe programs they have thousands of possibilities, but with a heavy price tag. Others find Final Cut Pro best to realize their creative visions. Edius is known to be a professional editor that runs fast even on slower computers. The free Resolve would be an option, if you want to do editing now, but later want to become a pro in color grading. There is also Sony Vegas and the free Lightworks,  ... What you will choose depends wholly on which direction you want to develop. The editing process is nearly the same with all of them.


How to detect and extract words from audio/video stream online in a webpage itself? I have a video (or audio, I think it is not important) stream/file which does not contain subtitles. But it has clean english speech. Is it possible to detect and extract words from it. I don't need 100% accuracy.

Are there some services or applications for this case? Maybe some services gives API for this? Any ideas are welcome.

If you work on a regular basis with the "owner" of the voice I can recommend Nuance's Dragon it offers very accurate speech to text with very few errors but it needs some "calibration" to a specific voice.

So if you can get your actor/narrator to read the calibration text you will have an easy time making transcripts and subtitles (though subs will require manual timing afterwards).
Nuance also offers a developer SDK/API if you need that.

However it will not help you in the case of interviews with random people on the street.

An alternative that doesn't need calibration and is also free to use is the Google Voice to Text service. There is a nice un-offical "API" for that on Github.

It will give you usable results in most cases and its fairly easy to use if you know a bit about programming and can use a command line.
Though be aware that I do not know the legal status of that, I'm not sure if that service is allowed to be used for commercial use. You might want to read into the Google Terms of Service for that, they unified that about a year ago so it should apply for the Voice to Text service as well. Also a downside, it only accepts 15 seconds snippets but if you want to automate this anyway you can just split your audio file up with FFmpeg and upload them at the same time.

There is also another commercial alternative called iSpeech which works on a pay per use model.

Also there is a built-in speech recognition in Adobe Premiere which should be the easiest way to make subitles as it integrates into the complete video workflow and allows almost automatic adjustment of the timing. A nice how-to can be found here.


How to change note value in Ableton Live Not the most accomplished music theorist or producer, so perhaps a rewrite of this question would be in order.
When composing in draw mode in Ableton Live, I would like to be able to make more than one 'length' of note. It seems all the notes i make are all eighth notes or some other short note. I would like to use whole notes and quarter notes, etc.

When you draw in a note in Live's MIDI Clip View editor, the note defaults to the current size of the grid. You can change the grid size (there's a right-click menu, as well as keyboard shortcuts, and zooming in/out if that is enabled), and you can also change the length of an existing note by grabbing the beginning or ending edge of it and dragging around in whatever the current grid size is. You can also drag to arbitrary sizes, ignoring the grid, by holding ctrl/cmd.

If you select a group of notes and then change one's length, they'll all expand/contract with it.


Change content in same parent clip? (Premiere Pro) I downloaded a library that comes with a sequence called Typo_06. I want to use Typo_06 several times in my project with different images and text changed inside it. Whenever I edit anything on Typo_06, it edits it for all of the Typo_06 sequence. Is there a way to have each of these sequences independent? I've tried duplicating into its own sequence for each and creating a whole new sequence

Found the answer here (the one selected as best answer): https://community.adobe.com/t5/premiere-pro/copying-a-sequence-using-premier-pro-cc-2019/td-p/10450703?page=1


Is reencoding a YUV 4:2:0 video in a 4:2:0 colour space lossless? I have a video that is stored in the YUV 4:2:0 colour space. Assuming I used a lossless video codec but set the output colour space to YUV 4:2:0, would this still be a lossless encode or would I have to use a 4:4:4 colour space to make the encode lossless?

Probably no loss, but there is more to it than just YUV420. You can need to make sure the same ITU-R Recommendation is used (BT.601, BT.708 or maybe even 2020) In addition make sure the same color ranges is used (0-255 vs 16-235)


Spec sheet requires checksums, How should these be formatted? I'm doing some audio deliverables for a feature film's TV package. The spec sheet I'm working from says that all media has to be provided with an MD5 checksum.

I know how to compute MD5 checksums for files but is there a specific format for checksum's that's customary?  Could I use the MD5 feature of mtree(1)? Or do you do a $FILENAME.md5 for each file? Or something else?

There is no standard used by US broadcasters for how to format checksums. I've never delivered to a broadcaster that requires it, but I've mostly been involved in delivering commercials. DPP/AS-11 doesn't specify anything about checksums and neither does Netflix. I only know of one US broadcaster that does require checksums and they require using their proprietary software to build up the delivery package.


Hardware Screencasting Help Here is my situation. I'm doing a series of lectures for a Udemy course and I need to show people how to boot into tails from a USB drive. Obviously while configuring the bios and when in the new O.S it is impossible to run a software screencast solution thus I need some form of hardware to frame grab.

I've never done this before and I need some help to understand the basic concepts and what I should buy. I understand this question isn't quite in a stackexchange format thus at the very least if you could point me to a forum that could answer this question or a tutorial you think would be helpful, then I'd be very grateful

You can use a graphics card that has a HDMI output connector.

Instead of connecting it to a monitor/TV you can connect it to a camera or a VCR that has HDMI input. This way you should be able to record anything that is shown at the card.


Adding metadata for films/TV shows on Linux I am looking for an open-source solution for automatically pulling films/TV shows informations. I've found MetaX (Windows only) and Subler (MacOSX only) from a post here. Apparently metadata sources can be found from: TVDB, TheMovieDB, Amazon, and tagChimp, as well as IMDB, ref here.

I know I can use MP4Box (or libav/ffmpeg) to easily add metadata (including Cover Art), but really what I would like is a script and/or GUI to easily retrieve metadata (plot summary, cast and crew, genre, release data, Cover Art as JPEG...).

Some people suggested using VLC on Linux. But I cannot get anything to work over here (using debian/jessie amd64). Neither the “Download Cover Art”, nor the “Add Cover Art” seems to work.

The first one does nothing, the second one print this on the console:

[00007f3fc4567d38] taglib meta writer error: File /tmp/big_buck_bunny_480p_h264.mov can't be opened for tag writing

Bonus point: if this could be integrated to Handbrake, that would be awesome.

After some research, I discover this post.

So far the API for http://www.omdbapi.com has proven to be exactly what I wanted. For completeness, I found those command line tools helpful:

https://github.com/xbgmsharp/allocine
https://github.com/bgr/imdb-cli

And on debian:

$ sudo apt-get install python-imdbp


Can two GoPro Hero3 cameras be made to capture the same frame from the same spot? I just bought a Hero3 Silver camera, intending to check it out a bit before getting a second one for 3D. Checked it out, and apart from a malfunctioning time-lapse, liked it, made my second camera a Hero3 Black. These two cameras don't capture anywhere near the same frame, and so appear to be useless as a 3D pair. So I bought another Hero3 Black, expecting the two Blacks to capture the same frame. They don't.

Mounted precisely in the same spot, each camera captures a different area. The two Blacks also differ in rotation.

http://solsifa.com/hero3/

Is this normal behavior for these cameras? In fact, is this expected behavior for cameras in general?

Can two Hero3 cameras be made to capture the same frame from the same spot? Say, by adjusting the lens, the CCD chip or something?

Thanks in advance.

Gunnar Jonsson.

GoPro Hero's are frequently used in the kind of capacity you describe.  It is possible you got some defective units (as certainly the time lapse stuff for the silver is a bad unit), however much of the problems appear to be user error rather than camera problems.

In your overlay shots, the frame appears to be consistent, they just aren't pointed in the same direction.  Keep in mind that a very small amount of variation in positioning will result in a drastically shifted image.  If you are just setting the camera on a table, picking it up and putting another one down in the same place, I would expect results like you are getting.

To really do what you are trying, you need to get a mount for the purpose that will hold the GoPro's in proper alignment.  With many cameras, this type of rig is a custom job, but for the GoPro, things like this are done so often that you can actually buy pre-made rigs for them for things like 3D shooting, 360 degree shots (or even video), time lapse tracking rigs and other forms of multi-shot rigs.

If you get one of these mounts and are still having problems, contact GoPro about the problem because they should be consistent.


Which (video game) recording program fits for these criteria? Record games
File size has to be small (fps doesn't need to be higher than 30, resolution is only 720×480)
Barely uses cpu
The program does not lock the framerate or anything else that changes my gaming experience
Paid or Free
No watermarks

Note relating to file size: is it possible to record 10 hours and use 100gb or less?

None.  If you want low CPU/GPU usage and small file size, you need a hardware encoder.  Period, end of story.  Games are CPU/GPU intensive and video compression is also exceedingly demanding on CPU/GPU.  Programs like FRAPS capture video smoothly by postponing the compression until later and instead save video as very large, minimally compressed files.  This works because most games do not make intensive use of the disk drives.

You can either capture in large files with minimal impact and then batch transcode them to a smaller size or you can buy a dedicated hardware encoder that can take the load off the CPU and GPU. Those are your only two options.

Update: If you only need 10 hours to fit within 100GB, then you might be ok for an SD feed.  It doesn't really have to be that highly compressed at that low of resolution.  It is still going to hit your CPU or GPU though, so gaming performance will be impacted, just not quite as badly as trying to do something like h.264.

I'd probably start by trying something like a DV codec and see how your computer handles it.  Millage will vary based on how much your computer actually needs for the game.  Hardware encoders or software encoding after the fact are still the best option overall though, since they maximize the quality of the recording.  (Fast compression is not good compression unless it is specialized hardware.)


Premiere Pro CC 2017 - Displacement map Can't find it:

Is it a plugin I have to import?
Thanks for your time.

The displacement map effect relies on another layer as a source for the map. Since Premiere doesn't have unique layers like AE does it doesn't support this plugin. If you have After Effects then replace the shot with an after effects comp (right-click then choose Replace With After Effects Composition) and apply the effect in AE.


How can I blur an entire video using iMovie or similar? I've been searching for this and could not find a single solution.

How can I apply a blur effect to an entire video? not just specific objects or faces.

I work with a company that makes a product called Wondershare Video Editor for mac.  It is what I personally use so i can only offer my solution by this software. Check the screenshot first:

In a word, you can make it by the mosaic function in this software. Now i will show you step by step (8 steps in total).

Step one, import the video file and drag and drop to the video
timeline
Step two, click the power tool button to open the editing window
Step three, choose Mosaic function
Step four, pick up "Apply Mosaic to the clip"
Step five, click "Add"
Step six, adjust the size of blur area you need, if you want to blur
the whole video, drag the rectangular to the border
Step seven, you can change the heavy of this blur by dragging the
percent button
Last step, click "OK"

Done! Check the preview video screenshot as follow:
Export it, you will get a blur video. I wish it's helpful for you.


Final Cut Express 3.5 HD quits unexpectedly I am running FCE 3.5 HD on a Macbook Pro and whenever I start rendering, it (FCE) unexpectedly quits. Here’s the crash report:

http://inventaweb.net/matthew/fcecrashlog.txt

I have no idea if this will even help, as I have no idea even how to read it...but....

UPDATE: I posted this on another forum and found out that the cross-dissolve transition was causing a problem.

The problem was with the cross-dissolve transition that I was trying to render. Technically, I haven't figured out the problem, but now I know what is causing the problem. I am able to render video in other sequences and that works just fine. I haven't tried rendering a cross-dissolve transition in another sequence.

https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/17524/final-cut-express-3-5-hd-quits-unexpectedly


Recorder for 2 HDMI Signals into MP4/MKV with 2 Video Tracks Is there something like the Atomos Ninja V, but with two HDMI inputs and producing MP4 or MKV files with two video tracks? A combination of multiple devices (mixer, recorder) would also be fine.

FFMPEG takes 2 -i input options (can a capture device) and uses -map to select the input streams then uses -program to define program name and -st to define output streams to a output file. i.e.
!ffmpeg -y -i https://mkvtoolnix.download/samples/vsshort-vorbis-subs.mkv \
-i https://github.com/Matroska-Org/matroska-test-files/raw/master/test_files/test5.mkv \
-map 0:0 -map 0:1 -map 0:2 -map 0:3 \
-map 1:0 -map 1:1 -map 1:2 -map 1:3 -map 1:4 -map 1:5 -map 1:6 -map 1:7 -map 1:8 \
-program title=vsshort-vorbis-subs:st=0:st=1:st=2:st=3 \
-program title=test5:st=4:st=5:st=6:st=7:st=8:st=9:st=10st=11:st=12 \
 -c:s copy mpts.mkv


Cross dissolve introduces blocky artifacts I'm adding a Cross Dissolve transition to a video. In preview mode it looks great. When I export to H.264, it shows blocky artifacts, even if I have the "Use Maximum Rendering Quality" checkbox checked.

Is there any way to get high quality cross dissolves in Premiere?

Update: I'm creating a 4K video (source was filmed in 4K at 30fps), and using all of the other default settings for Video output.

As this answer alludes to, it's probably an issue with the target bitrate:

  800kbps is very low for 1080p. It probably works for lecture notes
  because there isn't much change from frame to frame, but blocking
  occurs during the transition because there isn't enough bandwidth to
  handle all the changes. Here are a few alternatives:

  Keep average bitrate low but increase the maximum bitrate; this will potentially provide headroom for the transitions
  Use a wipe or slide transition instead of fade so that only part of the image changes at a given time
  Do not use a transition; just cut to black (or white, or a new title); this alternative will likely produce the best results

  A few notes about your other settings:

  Render at Maximum Bit Depth matters if processing and exporting at 10+ bits per channel; you can leave it unchecked for H.264
  Maximum Render Quality is intended for use when exporting at smaller dimensions than the sequence
  Changing Stream Compatibility to Standard and Profile to Main or High will provide better compression via CABAC encoding; however, the
  compressed file might not play on some devices (Main Profile will be
  more compatible than High)
  Consider publishing low-bitrate versions at lower resolution (1280x720 or even 854x480) and encode 1080p at higher bitrate;
  similarly, retangular pixels (1440x1080) can help, but the video won't
  play correctly in many media players

Turns out when I chose H.264 as the format and Match Source - High Bitrate as the preset, the default target bitrate was very low (10 Mbps). For a 4K video, you probably want to use VBR, 2 pass with Target Bitrate set to 44 Mbps, and Maximum Bitrate set to 56 Mbps.

This also explains why my resulting videos in Premiere were originally much smaller than similar ones created in Final Cut Pro.

If you're uploading to YouTube, you can use the YouTube 2160p 4K Ultra HD present, which will choose a respectable 40 Mbps. The one caveat is that there are two versions of "4K" and there's a possibility that your source clips will get cropped with these export settings. To verify, you should temporarily "match source" on the width/height of the video, and verify that those are the same as the YouTube preset you chose.

Although even with this preset, you may want to follow some of the suggestions in this article and tweak it to use VBR, 2 pass. Although the low bitrate mentioned in the article should probably be avoided.


Whats the difference between a sekonic light meter CINE version vs non-cine version I'm looking into getting a used Sekonic light meter, my question is what are the advantages of getting 'CINE' version light meters Sekonic makes versus the regular versions. I'm going to be primarily working with video, but some still work to, and a lot of just testing to understand light.

If you're working with video, the cine model is the one you want. It lets you meter for motion, not just ISO, f stops, and shutter speeds. I've had the 758 for years... great meter.


Video Editor for syncing mult camera videos I am working on a project on human-robot interaction that involves me capturing videos of two humans working on a task together. Eventually, I will analyze the videos and try to model how these humans are working together.

In order to capture their teamwork effectively, I set up three cameras at multiple angles (one at the starting location of the task, one at the ending location and an overhead camera that spans the entire task area). I have obtained these videos. Each of the cameras were started 1 second apart. This is because all three cameras are connected to a laptop computer, so I didn't want to overload the system with 3 camera worth of the video information at the same time.

The first step in modeling this, is to make sure that all the 3 videos are time-synced so that I can apply any number of modeling techniques that depend on time (such as HMM, CRF, DBN's etc). Furthermore, I would need to freeze frame at every time step (granularity of the time step would be determined later but might be as small as one-tenth of a second) and note different features for my modeling algorithm. I am a complete noob in video editing so if anyone could suggest a software that could accomplish what I desire, I would greatly appreciate it. I have access to all three platforms: Windows 7, Ubuntu 12.04, Mac OS X 10.7 (although I would prefer Windows or Ubuntu as my Macbook is quite old and might not be able to perform video editing with ease).

Not sure if this can help you, but take a look at PluralEyes. It can automatically sync your videos based on audio.

As for video editor, I recommend Sony Vegas Pro


Best way to batch rotate 3000+ h.264 videos? I have approximately 3000 short video clips, each about 3 seconds in duration. I need to rotate each of them 90 degrees. What is the best way to do this? I have Adobe Creative Cloud subscription, as well as access to both Windows and Mac machines. Looking for the easiest solution to automate/batch process the rotation of so many videos.

If you were wondering - the videos are part of an e-learning course on lumber. The learner views each randomly selected video, which is just a short clip of a piece of lumber rotating. The videos were shot so that the lumber (2x4s, etc.) were horizontal. But now the client wants the lumber to be vertical in the clips.

Use ffmpeg and the "transpose" filter as "poor" suggested. For example, if your files are mp4 and are in the current directory:

mkdir -p rotated
for f in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vf transpose=2 -c:a copy -metadata:s:v rotate="" rotated/"$f"; done

The transpose value can be "1" or "clock" for clockwise rotation, "2" or "cclock" for counter-clockwise rotation. There are other values which will also apply a flip.
The audio will be stream copied to avoid unnecessary re-encoding.
The video stream rotation metadata is cleared in this example. Otherwise ffmpeg will copy it from the input to the output resulting in an incorrect rotation for players that pay attention to this metadata (some do, and some don't).

Another example, more verbose and flexible, and which keeps the rotated file in the same directory with a new name:

ext=mp4
for f in /some/dir/*.$ext; do
    new=${f/%.$ext/-rotated.$ext};
    ffmpeg -i "$f" -vf transpose=2 -c:a copy -metadata:s:v rotate="" "$new"
done


Reconstrcuting images from MPEG I wish to export all frames of an MPEG video as individual frames.  How can I do this?

Export it from any transcoding software to a frame by frame format such as motion JPEG or an actual image sequence.


Is it possible to use Canon G11 as Webcam? I would like to use my Canon G11 as a webcam, and I thought this would be as simple as getting a video capture card to convert the composite video out of the camera into USB on the laptop. I have tried a number of capture cards now of which show up as a webcam. They allow me to capture video from the device fine, but that's not really what I want to do.

You have to look at the specs for the capture card you want to buy. I don't have the model on the top of my head, but I do have one where you can output video from the card inputs as a webcam. It's a matter of doing your research before the purchase.


Video format to get my comp to export under 50Kb I have an approx. 8s long video in Adobe After Effects CC, res. 200x200px. I need to export it so it has <= 50Kb, which format should I choose so it keeps the most quality but falls under these constraints?

-> here is the .pdf, but it's in Czech. The relevant info is translated lower:
->

format   size (px)  kB   length (s)

Square   200x200    50   unconstrained

After reviewing the PDF, I can confirm that you are misreading it.  They are looking for a flash animation, not a video.  You will not be able to use your After Effects assets at all.  You need to remake the ad as a flash animation in Adobe Flash using vector graphics in order to fit within their 50KB limitation.


Which software a dubbing studio use for subtitles and closed captioning workflow? Many video production and dubbing studios offer services of closed captioning, subtitles and so on. Their audience is generally big broadcast networks.

I was wondering, what kind of software this professionals do they use and which is their workflow?

I don't think they use programs like premiere with this weird interface:

Do they use even common free prosumer software like the ones used by subbers who create srt files like Subtitle Edit ?

Given they have to produce this for many series episodes, do they use custom heavy automatition tools, or is possible use also manual tools?

How is possible learn something about the topic?

Where I can start if tomorrow someone would ask me to work inside a company that have some big networks as customer and need to produce for them closed captioning and subtitles ?

Most episodic (network and cable) TV is captioned by service bureaus who use proprietary software. Some of the big players are VITAC, NCI, and WGBH, and there are several more. They all provide various levels of service, and some rely more heavily on automation / voice recognition etc than others. This is all offline captioning and the goal is accuracy in copy, placement and timing.

The other main thread (and skill) is live writing or real-time captioning, which is done with stenowriters (chord typing) as used by court reporters. These are always delayed by some time because of the need to hear, interpret and input. It's almost always done remotely, with the caption writer networked into a local encoder. The same bureaus usually offer both live and offline.

To learn more, check out the links above -- and google for more -- then maybe contact the providers that look interesting to you.


Sony Vegas Text Parser? I'm working on one of those videos where there's a voice over and text follows it, one sentence appearing at a time. I lose quite a lot of time having to generate or copy media and having to "feed it" once sentence at a time. I have complete control over the format of the text, so is there any way for me to feed 25 sentences to Vegas and have it generate 25 media elements for me, putting one sentence to each of them? I'm open to ANY suggestion, as the method I use now just takes a lot of time alttabing and copying sentence by sentence.

Take a look at Vegasaur's TextGen.
It can import text from SRT, SUB and CSV files, or you can create 25 markers, paste 25 sentences and generate 25 media elements (one sentence for each text media)


How to import AVCHD to macOS while also deinterlacing during import? When I import AVCHD from my Sony camera into macOS via different apps (such as AVCHD to Mov from the App Store), I always end up with interlaced video and then have to pass it through additional filters to deinterlace it.

How can I import the video while simultaneously deinterlacing it?  I have heard that it can be done, but I've not found the method to accomplish this.

Handbrake is really good for deinterlacing video. Under Filters choose Yadif for best result or Decomb for automatic recognition of interlaced frames.


Can continuous video capture damage my DSLR? I am thinking about doing some streaming on Twitch, and I thought I would use some equipment I already have instead of buying new. I have a Sony alpha 5000 DSLR camera. Would continuous video capture (10 hours or more) damage the camera in some way? I am thinking of having it on a tripod, and filming my 3DS.

It depends on the camera.  Digital sensors such as those used in DSLRs produce heat as they capture images.  The main issue with extended video capture is the accumulation of heat in the sensor.  If it gets hot enough, it is possible that either a) quality can be reduced temporarily due to increased noise or b) at the extreme end, damage to the sensor could result.

In many dedicated video cameras, even high end professional models, fans or other cooling solutions are used to keep the sensor cool, but smaller sensors (such as in devices like gopros) are able to cool from simple convection.

Most modern cameras have temperature monitoring and can shut down when they get too hot, so you are unlikely to cause damage, but you might not be able to film as long as you'd like to.  The environment you are shooting in will also make a big difference.  If you are shooting inside in a cool room, it will be much easier for the sensor to keep itself cool than if you are shooting outside on a hot day.

Other than thermal issues, I can't think of anything other than just the general wear on the sensor.  Video obviously requires far more constant sampling of the sensor, so it has the potential to wear the sensor out more quickly, but the sensor was also designed for video and it's unlikely that the sensor will die due to use prior to the camera being significantly outdated, so it probably isn't a major concern unless you are planning on running it 10 hours a day, every day, for a long time.


FFmpeg change overlay color (with audiovisualiser) There is a padding (default black) under the audio visualiser in the script below ,how could one change the color of this padding ?
I tried adding option "overlay :colors= Blue" but received an error= "Option 'colors' not found"

  fmpeg -y -i music.mp3 -loop 1 -i whiteImage.jpg -filter_complex "[0:a]showwaves=s=1280x175:colors=Red:mode=p2p,format=yuv420p[v];[1:v][v]overlay=0:200[outv]" -map "[outv]" -pix_fmt yuv420p -map 0:a -c:v libx264 -c:a copy -shortest output_bg.mp4

Use

ffmpeg -y -i music.mp3 -loop 1 -i image -filter_complex "[0:a]showwaves=s=1280x175:colors=Red:mode=p2p,format=yuva420p,split=2[w][b];[b]format=yuv420p,drawbox=c=blue:t=fill[b];[b][w]overlay[wv];[1:v][wv]overlay=0:200:shortest=1[outv]" -map "[outv]" -pix_fmt yuv420p -map 0:a -c:v libx264 -c:a copy output_bg.mp4

The showwaves will make the background transparent if the filter can output to a frame format with alpha. yuv420p does not have alpha, so the value of the format filter should be changed to a format that does, like yuva420p. Then this picture is cloned; one copy is made opaque and has a color drawn on it. The other copy with the transparent BG is overlaid on top. Finally, this result is overlaid on the image.

It's better to limit the video stream within the overlay filter, if possible. So, -shortest removed.


Command Line Tool for Converting Image Sequence to Quicktime .mov Video I have large number of numbered .tif files and I'd like to convert them to a .mov/Quicktime video file for further editing in Final Cur Pro X. Therefore no artefacts should be added in the process.

Is there a good way to do this conversion. I'd prefer using a command line tool.

You can use wonderful ffmpeg for your desired workflow. There is a guide here on this page but once you have the ffmpeg installed, you can simply cd into your folder with sequence, and type in your terminal:

ffmpeg -f image2 -pattern_type glob -i '*.png' -vcodec qtrle -r 25 -s 1920x1080 test.mov

To understand the options, you can check the documentation but here is the explanation:

When importing an image sequence, -i also supports expanding shell-like
wildcard patterns (globbing) internally, by selecting the image2-specific
-pattern_type glob option.

In this specific command, -r is for framerate, and -s is our image size. -vcodec qtrle tells ffmpeg to use QuickTime Animation. For ProRes, you can use:

-vcodec prores -profile 2

Here -profile refers to ProRes Profiles (0, 1, 2, 3), 0 being Proxy, and 3 being High Quality (source).

Besides these, if you are going to use ffmpeg, there are lots of detailed bits of commands online, or we can figure out specific commands for your workflow here.


FFMPEG single input file, crop to multiple streams, then overlay back into one output file? I'm currently using a couple commands to 1- output two files with cropped regions, and 2- overlay the 2 files back into a single file.

I would like to be able to merge this all into out command and have a single output if this would speed up the process.

Here are my current commands (I'm using this inside a batch file, please excuse the variables):

1.This takes the input file and creates 2 output files cropped at different regions.

ffmpeg -i %input% -filter_complex "[0:v]crop=%size%:%position%[out1];[0:v]crop=200:110:6558:106[out2]" -map "[out1]" -f mp4 -ss %startTime% -t %duration% -rtbufsize 100M -framerate 8 -c:v libx264 -qmin 35 -qmax 35 -b:v 50k -preset ultrafast -movflags +faststart tmp -map "[out2]" -f mp4 -ss %startTime% -t %duration% -rtbufsize 100M -framerate 8 -c:v libx264 -qmin 35 -qmax 35 -b:v 50k -preset ultrafast -movflags +faststart tmpclock

2.This takes the two ouput files from the previous command and overlays them into the final file.

ffmpeg -i tmp -i tmpclock -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v]overlay=%pixFrmLeft%:%pixFrmTop%" -rtbufsize 100M -framerate 8 -c:v libx264 -qmin 35 -qmax 35 -b:v 50k -preset ultrafast -movflags +faststart -f mp4 %input%_Converted.mp4

Use

ffmpeg -ss %startTime% -t %duration% -i %input% -filter_complex "[0:v]split=2[c1][c2];[c1]crop=%size%:%position%[c1];[c2]crop=200:110:6558:106[c2];[c1][c2]overlay=%pixFrmLeft%:%pixFrmTop%" {your encoding options} %input%_Converted.mp4

Note that -framerate 8 is an input option for certain file formats. For an output at 8 fps, use -r 8.