What lenses are preferred for DSLR video? I do plenty of Macro and product photography (love the Tamron 60mm Macro). I have no idea what videographers who use DSLR like for lenses. Any advice and broadest usage appreciated. Assume camera in the 15 MPixel range plus or minus a few MPixels.

Properties that are desired in these lenses are quiet operation, image stabilization, zoom construction that usually cover wide to short tele focal lenght and that have a constant aperture across that range. A perfocal design is good when using a zoom. These are a couple of general characteristics but they may be different for special applications.

Quiet operation helps if you want to avoid focusing sounds appearing in your video. If you're using external microphones this is less of a problem.

Image stabilization makes everything (from static vieography to panning= appear a lot smoother.

To have a zoom lens gives a lot of nice possibilities and constant aperture is an important feature since the exposure won't change when zooming. A parfocal lens is a lens that maintains its focus when changing focal lenght (zooming) and is of course very useful. Also a zoom range from wide to short tele is usually enough and you probably don't want to go out of that range during video production unless you're looking to produce nature films and alike.

Look for for lenses with this kind of properties. Being a Canon user I'm most familiar with them and can recommend Canon EF 24-105/4,0 L IS USM having most of these features but if you're using another brand I can't help ypu more than this due to lack of experience with other brands.


Is there a standard resolution for Video Presentations? A friend asked me to put together a video presentation for his companies national sales meeting.  I put it together in Premiere.  All of that went fine, but I'm not sure what resolution to make it.  They're obviously going to be using a projector to present it, but I'm not sure of the specs.  Is there a resolution you recommend using that would probably work best?  Would it probably be a widescreen format?  What questions should I be asking of them about the equipment?

If it's NTSC/standard def/4x3, 640x480 will be good. If it's HD/widescreen/16x9, 1920x1080 or 1280x720 (1080p and 720p, respectively). Premiere will likely have presets for all of these aspect ratios.

I would ask the projector owner for the pixel dimensions or pixel resolution. Likely, it'll match one of the above pixel dimensions. If the owner's not very projector savvy, ask for the model number and manufacturer, and look up the info you need on their website's support section or downloadable manuals.

The thing to keeop in mind is that the projection hardware is a fixed size...usually one of the pixel dimensions noted above, or something CLOSE to it for computer monitor resolution. Even if you feed a 1280x960 image to an NTSC display, it's going to interpolate it into a 640x480 display. On a projector, what makes it bigger is the lens projecting that tiny 640x480 pixel image to a 10' screen. My point is that if you know the maximum pixel resolution on the projector, you don't need to bother rendering anything MORE than that; it won't affect image quality.

good luck!


How to automatically divide a large video file into smaller clips? I have a large .mp4 file (many hours long) and I want to split it into many 3 minute clips. How do I do that? Doing it manually with an editing software would take ages. Is there any automatic way to do it WITHOUT losing quality? Maybe there is a video editing software with this option? I use Windows.

FFMPEG can do it, with a bit of shell scripting. Here's how you could do it using Powershell on Windows:

$vidLength = <the length of your video in seconds>
$vstart = 0;
$c = 0;
while ($start -lt $vidlength){
  ffmpeg -ss $vstart -t 180 -i inputvid.mp4 -c:v v210 -c:a pcms16le ("output_{0:0000}.avi" -f $c);
  $vstart += 180;
  $c++;
}

What I'm doing is using a loop to control the ffmpeg command line video program. $vstart is a variable that sets the start time of each video segment, $c is a counter that will be used to number the files.

The ffmpeg command works by using the -ss command which seeks to the given time in the input, and the -t command which sets the duration to encode - both numbers are in seconds. inputvid.mp4 is the name of your input video. the -c:v command sets the video codec to v210 which is lossless uncompressed. This will create very large files. Hours of v210 video will run into terrabytes of storage. You might want to use another codec, possibly a lossly one, if so you mightwant to consider using libx264 to encode as h.264. In which case the ffmpeg line would look like:

fmpeg -ss $i -t 180 -i inputvid.mp4 -crf 0 -c:a pcms16le ("output_{0:0000}.mp4" -f $c);

here the -crf command is basically like your compression setting. You can wind it down to 0 -> lossless / big files or as high as 31 -> crappy / small files. 20 is a sane value for good quality viewing copies. The -c:a command is the audio codec, in this case uncompressed. If you don't want audio you can replace this with -an.

the output name of the files is set with the expression ("output_{0:0000}.avi" -f $c) this uses powershell string formatting to produce files named output_0000.avi, output_0001.avi…`. The number of zeros after the colon sets how many leading zeros appear in the file name.

The loop continues, adding 180 (3 minutes in seconds) to $vstart every time, and updating the counter, until it reaches the end of the file.

If you want to get ffmpeg for Windows, I suggest downloading it from here, it's a lot easier than building it yourself.


Can video cameras perceive lights in a way that they will totally change the color of molten metals? Is here anyone with experience of camera physics that could help me with this issue or that knows someone I could contact at a university maybe?. I am trying to find out how regular video camera perceives lights and colors of molten metals in daylight, my understanding being that a regular video camera can't change a color of something in a molten state with silvery color into orange/yellow color just as it should not change the color of a burning flame into a different and wrong color.

The only camera effect I know of is that the brightness levels on a video could be right on the upper maximum threshold for the camera, and going on to exceed it, so that it produces a purple/magenta color.

That very bright objects (such as the Sun, pieces of paper catching the sun, white-hot metal or flames, bright lights, etc), filmed with a CMOS camera, send too many photons onto an area of the sensor. The sensor doesn't handle this well. This causes electrons to overspill onto an adjacent area of the sensor, but usually in the same direction for each bright spot. The electrons cause the voltage on these areas of the sensor to increase, and that causes a problem. The voltage is meant to be 0, so that when light hits it, the sensor can measure the difference between 0 volts and some higher voltage caused by the light hitting it. But now 0 isn't 0 anymore, it's higher. Put simply, the sensor would normally measure the light level by measuring the difference between 0 and, say, 5 (maximum brightness). So black would be 0 and 5 would be white. But now it's measuring between a minimum of 7 (due to electron overflow) and 5 (maximum). So the result is always negative (even bright light would be -2), which the camera treats as 0 (black). Hence, you see a black spot slightly off-centre from the very bright light sources. But why purple? Well, it's simply because the sensor's red, green, and blue detectors have different sensitivities. They tend to be more sensitive to green, because our eyes are more sensitive in green, and we want the image to look right. Conversely, they tend to be less sensitive in red and blue, because our eyes are less sensitive to those colours too. As areas of the sensor start to become overloaded due to the electron overflow, it's the green that get overloaded first, as that's what it's most sensitive to. So these green areas become black (see above), and you're left with just red and blue. If you mix red and blue you get purple/magenta, and this is hence what you see when the sensor starts to get overloaded. Eventually it would become black, but it's not always quite bright enough to do that in every case.

For starters,

You need to research Infrared light pollution caused by the high temperatures of the materials you're trying to image.  Most cameras have an IR filter on the sensor, which blocks incoming wavelengths which are imperceptible to the human eye.  These filters often have different characteristics depending on the camera make/model/manufacturer, which is why I say you need to do some research in that area.

It's possible to remove these filters, and photographers who are interested in IR photography often do; but because the glass of the lens bends visible light differently than IR light, there's effectively different focal planes for the two, and you can't focus them both at the same time.  So, IR photographers will typically remove the sensor filter, and then attach an IR-pass filter to the front of the lens, which blocks the visible spectrum, and only allows IR light through, allowing the IR image to be properly focused.  These IR pass filters are available in different wavelengths.  IR pass filters won't be particularly relevant to your situation.  However, IR cut filters may be.

When IR photographers remove the IR filter from their sensors, they effectively destroy the camera's ability to take "normal" pictures.  This is one reason IR cut filters exist.  They screw on to the front of a lens, and cut the incoming IR light, allowing a modified camera to behave normally again.  But also (and here is where you might be interested) they supplement the IR-blocking capabilities of normal cameras, which may be suffering from IR pollution for various other reasons.  Pointing a camera at hot metal isn't the typical scenario; more commonly, cheap Neutral Density filters and long exposures introduce IR light that the sensor filter wasn't designed to handle.  However, ensuring that only the spectrum you want to capture is striking your sensor should help in your situation.

Other than that, make sure your white balance is set, because that can also tint the image, and get a good quality color chip chart for reference; most of them are made from plastic and wouldn't stand up to high temperatures, but there are some metal ones.  You'd still need to keep it from melting, and be sure the dyes on the color chips were stable at whatever temperature you needed them to be.

Since you're pointing a camera at something very bright, you should be aware of the phenomenon known as aperture diffraction, which will affect the image's sharpness, but not so much overall color (although the colors of edges might be affected slightly; see halation, fringing, and chromatic aberration).

You might also be interested in a more full-spectrum camera, designed to image light invisible to humans, depending on your budget.  I think Flir might make some, maybe?  They're more commonly used in manufacturing and agriculture.


How to show the duration in the clip overlay in minutes and seconds instead of frames in Adobe Premiere Pro? Even though my timeline is showing hours and minutes, when I hover over a clip I see the duration in frames. Is there a way to change this to hours and minutes?

Ok, I figured it out:

Sequence | Sequence properties | Editing mode: HDV 720p | Display format: 29.97 fps Drop-Frame Timecode


Color autocorrected on my Canon G10 in the middle of filming, any tips for editing in post? I was filming a music recital when the color autocorrected on my canon g10. I am new at all of this, but I recently bought final cut pro x and I was wondering if anybody could point me in the right direction for correcting this. There is a 5 second period in the video where the colors shift from dark to light, how would I go about smoothing this out in post?

Thanks

Not easily.  You would need to apply a color correction to try to replicate the change.  If you can use the color correction to get the beginning and end pretty close, you can then use keyframes to have it blend between them and hopefully overcome the adjustment, but results are still probably going to be so-so and it isn't trivial to get even a mediocre fix.


Moving Multiple Layers on Timeline This is probably a simple question, but I do not think I know the terminology to search for it.

All I want to do is move the start point of multiple layers forward without changing the sequence of them. I've tried all the features I can find to do this, but it always changes the sequence.

The first thing I tried was selecting the layers I wanted to move and then:

Animation >> Keyframe Assistant >> sequence layers
In the dialogue box, I left overlap unchecked and hit ok, this failed to do anything
In the dialogue box again, I checked overlap and tried all of the features, each time it changed the sequence of the layers

Next I tried

Moving the timeline indicators to where I wanted it
Choosing the option + open bracket key
This only seemed to change one layer, so I just undid it.

All I'm doing is trying to add one simple slide into a slide show and move all the slides after it, but it appears like I'm going to have to sequence every layer again, which is hard to believe that there would not be a simple way of moving everything forward without changing the sequence order.

There are lots of add-ons that help with stacking and layering in the way you describe - try pt_shiftlayers for example:

https://aescripts.com/pt_shiftlayers/


How to apply an offset to one axis only in 3D space for linked expression position? I have a 3D position property linked with another composition. I want the z-axis to have an offset in the linked expression. But how can I apply an offset just to one axis?

The current expression of the 3D position:

comp("Main COMP").layer("text").transform.position

The position property is an array, which is a container with a number of components in it, in this case the three position values: x, y and z. To specify an array you use this notation foo = [A,B,C] where A, B and C are the individual values – constants, variables, whatevs. TL;DR to create an array you put a number of comma-separated values in square brackets.

Conversely you can access any of the components of an array using this notation: foo[n] where foo is the name of the variable, and n is the index of the component you want. Note that the index starts at 0, so to get the first component of the array you would use foo[0], the second foo[1] and so on. Arrays can also be multi-dimensional, so the address could be foo[0][5][99] for a three dimensional array. But you probably don't need to worry about that at this point.

In your case you want just the third component to have the offset. So you need to unpick the original array using the foo[0], foo[1]… notation and then put it back together as an array using the [A,B,C] notation. Thus:

thePos = comp("Main COMP").layer("text").transform.position;
[thePos[0], thePos[1], thePos[2]+offset]

where offset is whatever your offset is, obviously.

The first line is just for convenience - it assigns the position property as the value of the variable myPos. You could do it all on one line, but it gets a bit hard to read:

[comp("Main COMP").layer("text").transform.position[0], comp("Main COMP").layer("text").transform.position[1], comp("Main COMP").layer("text").transform.position[2]+offset]


Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 playback is too fast, renders are regular speed though Trying to figure out why my playback on the timeline (no matter the sequence settings) is slightly faster. Any possible fixes, or ways to troubleshoot this?

Make sure that there isn't a misconfig of framerate between original media, sequence and export.

Eg: Original 25fps, Sequence at 30fps and exported at 25fps.

In this case the playback would appear faster in premiere, but ok in the exported media.


Exported Lossless Video - Output File Was Lossy I recorded some video-game footage in 320x200 and then upscaled it to 1920x1440 using ffmpeg (nearest-neighbor, lossless libx264).

Screenshots of the upscaled footage have pixel-perfect color matching the original source.

However, when I import this footage into a video editor, and then immediately export it using a lossless format... color-banding occurs.

Input Footage: https://i.imgur.com/tTzFRAq.png
Output Footage: https://i.imgur.com/KO6zFSO.png

I tried 3 different video editors (kdenlive, vsdc, shotcut). I tried five different lossless codecs (ffv1, h.264, huffyuv, utvideo, lossless jpeg). Nothing seems to work.

Any advice or suggestions would be very much appreciated.

FFMPEG comparison between Input Source and VSDC Lossless JPEG Output (which gave best results, but not perfect...)

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i output.avi
ffmpeg version 4.2 Copyright (c) 2000-2019 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 9.1.1 (GCC) 20190807
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-sdl2 --enable-fontconfig --enable-gnutls --enable-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libdav1d --enable-libbluray --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxml2 --enable-libzimg --enable-lzma --enable-zlib --enable-gmp --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libmysofa --enable-libspeex --enable-libxvid --enable-libaom --enable-libmfx --enable-amf --enable-ffnvcodec --enable-cuvid --enable-d3d11va --enable-nvenc --enable-nvdec --enable-dxva2 --enable-avisynth --enable-libopenmpt
  libavutil      56. 31.100 / 56. 31.100
  libavcodec     58. 54.100 / 58. 54.100
  libavformat    58. 29.100 / 58. 29.100
  libavdevice    58.  8.100 / 58.  8.100
  libavfilter     7. 57.100 /  7. 57.100
  libswscale      5.  5.100 /  5.  5.100
  libswresample   3.  5.100 /  3.  5.100
  libpostproc    55.  5.100 / 55.  5.100
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'input.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : Lavf58.29.100
  Duration: 00:00:11.98, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 425 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High 4:4:4 Predictive) (avc1 / 0x31637661), gbrp(tv, gbr/unknown/unknown), 1920x1440, 373 kb/s, 60 fps, 60 tbr, 15360 tbn, 120 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 41 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler
Input #1, avi, from 'output.avi':
  Metadata:
    date            : 2019-08-17
    title           : input
    encoder         : msl
  Duration: 00:00:12.00, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 126738 kb/s
    Stream #1:0: Video: jpegls (MJLS / 0x534C4A4D), rgb24(bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 1920x1440, lossless, 126664 kb/s, 60 fps, 60 tbr, 60 tbn, 60 tbc
    Stream #1:1: Audio: mp3 (U[0][0][0] / 0x0055), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 224 kb/s
At least one output file must be specified

At least using Shotcut, you can get lossless output at minimum file size using the FFV1 codec.

In the export window, choose the lossless/FFV1 preset.
Click the Advanced button at the bottom.
Go to the Codec tab, and set the GOP to 250 frames.
Go to the Other tab, delete everything there and type the following:

coder=1
context=1
pix_fmt=bgr0
mlt_image_format=rgb24

Source: https://forum.shotcut.org/t/lossless-annoyances/18344/2


Lossless A/V delay with ffmpeg I downloaded this video but its' audio has approximately a 600ms advance compared to its' audio.

How can I fix that in a lossless manner (i.e -c copy) with ffmpeg ?

Basic method is

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -itsoffset -0.6 -i in.mp4 -map 0:v -map 1:a -c copy new.mp4

FFmpeg will write an editlist in new.mp4. Players like VLC, Potplayer which parse the editlist will honor the delay whereas players like WMP, which don't, will start the streams at the same time.


Datavideo KMU-100 FORMAT I was able to get only one 4k camera signal into my KMU-100,to get 4 HD outputs.
The issue am facing right now is,
How do i get my two 4K cameras working on the KMU-100?

Because,the format i used for section A, is the same format i do apply to section B.

The DataVideo KMU-100 produces 4 1080p feeds (or 1 4k and 3 1080p feeds) from each input and has 2 different inputs.  It is possible to link the input on Signal Input A with the input to Signal Input B, but in this case, the connections for Signal Input B will not be used and the signal from Signal Input A will be sent to both splitters to make 8 1080p feeds.

If you want to have two feeds, you need to make sure each of the Signal Input sections is properly configured in DV Link.  You will want to make sure each camera is plugged in appropriately on the back.  There are 3 possible ways to plug your camera in to each bank.  Only one camera should be plugged in per input block (there's a square around each set of 1 HDMI and 4 BNC connections.)

If your camera is HDMI based, you will want to use the HDMI connection.  Note that if your camera is too far away, the HDMI signal may have trouble making it to the splitter and it may be necessary to get an HDMI to SDI converter for longer runs.

For single link SDI (3G, 6G, 12G) I would connect to the 12G BNC connector.  It should be backwards compatible with both 3G and 6G and should give you the least possible headaches.  The manual is a little unclear on this, so I'm having to make an assumption, but given that the other's are all 3G, they appear to just be there for dual and quad link signals.

For dual and quad link signals (where two or four 3G cables are used from a single input source), use the necessary number of connectors regardless of if they are 12G or 3G.  The manual isn't clear on which ones should be used, so presumably the unit can figure it out on it's own.  If you have problems I might try using different connectors for the dual link.

Once you have everything setup and the type of line selected in DV Link, the feeds should be detected provided that your cameras are outputting on a compatible video format.  It appears that the unit has it's own frame synchronization so it does not appear that video settings have to match between inputs, but if you experience problems, it couldn't hurt to verify this as well.


Need a cover up for a face to make it more horror-ish Would like to create some sort of mask during post to make a persons face look more towards the horror genre and wondered what would be the best way of doing this? It would only need a 2d image to animate over but wondered how to go about it?

Check out this video tutorial, might help: http://www.videocopilot.net/tutorials/demon_face_warp/

To summarize: You need to motion track the face and stabilize the footage with this tracking data. Good tracking points are the corners of the eyes, nose, etc (the new face tracker might help but I haven't used it much). Once your footage is stabilized you can apply whatever you want onto your actor's face. Then it is a matter of pre-composing everything and re-applying the motion to that precomposition.


After Effects - How to avoid annoying gradations if I render a mp4? I created a light in After Effects. My preview works as expected:

But if I render my composition as a mp4 file, I get these strange gradations errors:

I've tried every option in the comp settings, but the error still appears.

What I can do to get rid of it?

That's called: Banding. About Color Banding from Wikipedia:

  Colour banding is a problem of inaccurate colour presentation in computer graphics. In 24 bit colour modes, 8 bits per channel is usually considered sufficient to render images in Rec. 709 or sRGB. However, in some cases there is a risk of producing abrupt changes between shades of the same colour. For instance, displaying natural gradients (like sunsets, dawns or clear blue skies) can show minor banding.

In your case I assume that this is a compression issue. Movie containers like: mov, avi or mp4 only can have 8bit, but the preview is in 16bit or 32bit. If you render a image format that supports 16bit or 32bit (preferably exr, tga, tiff) instead of a video you should see no difference to your preview screenshot.

The simplest way to avoid banding is to add grain to your video.

One option is to use generated grain shipped by default with After Effects. Just typing Add Grain in the Effects & Presets window and apply this effect to your final comp. Note: A Intensity value of 0.37 or 0.4 should be enough to remove the banding and makes the effect not noticeable.
Another option is to use scanned film grain from real cameras


Motion Tracking in After Effects looks like it is vibrating I am newbie to the after effects and I am working on a video. I want to add call outs on a cocktail glass. I am trying motion tracking but not getting the results that I want. I want my base target not to move. It should stay only on one point.

Anybody out there who can help me?

I have attached the screenshot.
https://imgur.com/a/XR4qs6Q

Thanks in advance.

Motion tracking works best on areas of high contrast.  Maybe the reflections near the rim of the glass are confusing it.  Try tracking from a different part of the glass, eg the base, and see if it works better (you can always use a Null for the track, then parent your objects to that null if the track good but isn't in the exact position you want).


Keying Out Smoke Against a Black Background I have a video of smoke shot against a black background. I would like to make the background transparent so the smoke shows over the video in the background.

I originally tried Remove Matte but that didn't seem to have any effect on the smoke video. I then tried Color Key and I was left with what you see below. (Original smoke is on left, the "keyed" version is on the right.)

I am using Adobe Premier Pro CC (v7.2.1). What is the best way to cleanly remove the black background while leaving the smoke. The goal is to have the smoke over the background video.

I am a novice at this so please use clear instructions. If an option is buried in a menu, please tell me which menu. What I have tried has come directly from the Premier's Effects Panel.

While chroma-keying is a good technique for dealing with solids, it doesn't work so well when dealing with transparent or semi-transparent objects.  Because the difference can be very subtle, you want to copy the difference instead or blend off luminance.

In Premiere, you can use the Set Matte effect to set a track as a luminance matte.  In the case of the sample of smoke from mmphilips post, the luminance was a bit low so I put it in a separate sequence and used curves to boost the overall luminance.  I then placed the matte on Video 3 and made it invisible.  I then placed the Set Matte effect on Video 2, pointed it at Video 3 and specified that it should use Video 3 as the matte.

The same thing can be accomplished in After Effects in a similar manner.  Again two copies are placed on the composition and the top most is made invisible.  The modes option toggles is clicked to bring up the proper controls and luminance is chosen for the second layer so that the third layer is used as a matte.  As shown, I applied curves to the third layer directly to make it blend more naturally.  Note that in this screen shot I actually inverted the matte layer and thus used inverted luminance, but those steps aren't necessary, I just made an error while getting it working and didn't bother to correct it.

Note how this results in much smoother results than a luminance key or chroma key since a luma or chroma key makes a hard cut off and is not able to do alpha blending based on the intensity of the smoke.  Smoke however is somewhat transparent and you want to be able to see through it where it is darker.  That's why this blending technique works.


Can't apply transition effect between clips in Premiere Pro This is really annoying me a lot. I have two clips with the exact same properties next to each other. I usually add a 'dip to white' transition between clips, but somehow I can't apply it between those two.

How is this possible?

When you apply a transition between two clips, Premiere needs to use the frames of footage for each clip that go to the start and end of the transition. If there's no footage past that point, it won't allow you to apply the transition.

Consider my illustration below.

You may need to have some footage remaining after the end of your clip to allow for this. Re-import or trim your clips to allow some footage to 'show' underneath the dip to white.


1080p60 recording has very strong compression artifacts, default Neat Video not reducing them much In attempting to record in the highest quality on a JVC GC-PX100 camcorder, I've been recording 1080p video.  Unfortunately, viewing the video upon edit shows very strong compression artifacts, which affect quality to the point that burning to DVD and burning to Blu-Ray end up with roughly the same results.  The video was taken on a reasonable photo tripod, so the camera was definitely steady, and the bulk of the video was unmoving walls with detailed paintings.

Adobe Premiere Elements 11 is what I'm doing for editing, and I've just tried the Neat Video plugin.  Unfortunately, while the default settings reduce the artifacts/noise in flat areas (cheeks, walls), but not along all edges (faces).

Essentially, the video is "crunchy", and that's visible on playback on a large TV.

Adobe Elements shows the .mts file from the camcorder is MPEG Movie, 1920x1080, frame rate 59.94, 48kHz audio, average data rate 3.3 MB/s (~34Mbit/s), pixel aspect ration 1.0.

VLC shows the .mts file from the camcorder is Codec H264 - MPEG-R AVC (part 10)(h264), 1920x1080, frame rate 59.940060, decoded format Planar 4:2:0 YUV, with A52 (aka AC3) 48kHz audio.

My goal is the highest quality result video, targeting Blu-Ray output.  My budget can handle a plugin fee, but not a new camcorder (spent too much on the add-on microphone).

So my questions in particular are:

Are there better settings to increase overall quality during recording?
Are there better settings for Neat Video
Is there another way to reduce compression artifacts in HD video taken by a good consumer camcorder?

EDITED TO ADD:
AJ, Jim, thank you for your answers; they led me to the regrettable conclusion that my expectations are too high for any 1080p60 mode at 35Mbit, and no 1080p30/25/24 mode is available on my model.

Even after the usual firmware update, and a factory reset as recommended by JVC Customer Support, the video is "crunchier" than I like.  There is no 1080p30 mode, unfortunately, and lesser modes have lesser bitrates as well.

After some experimentation, it appears that the AVCHD and MP4 1080p60 modes are more or less equivalent, with a possible slight edge to the AVCHD variant.

NeatVideo needs to have the plugin expanded and the Temporal Radius increased, as well as going into the settings to profile the video clip in question.  Edges remain crunchy, and dedicated "reference" profile video appears necessary to get good results.

I assume the actual data rate is 3.3 Mb/s, not MB/s (bits, not bytes). This is very low for 1080p60, and artifacts are likely at such a low rate. You might consider capturing at at least double that rate.

Alternatively (or also), halving the frame rate to 29.97 would double the effective bit rate. You would be trading some motion artifacting for less visual artifacting, but the former is usually much less noticeable.

Considering that blu-ray can handle in the range of 40-50 Mb/s, your bit rate is way below the target for the delivery medium you've chosen.


How can i check if a particular sound I used in my video was copyrighted? Been using royalty free music for some time, however youtube shows that I am using some copyrighted material. So just wanted to know if there is any way by which I can check if a song is copyrighted or not?

In nearly all countries, copyright protects creative works automatically. Some exceptions and restrictions apply, but unless the author has voluntarily added his work to the public domain or the copyright has expired (common terms are seventy and ninety years after publication or after death of the author), it's safe to assume all songs are copyrighted, including the royalty-free music you've been using.

Whether or not it's okay to upload material that contains this music to youtube, that would depend on the author's consent. Sometimes, the music is released under a blanket licence that allows redistribution. If not, contact the author to obtain permission.


How to solve audio/video sync issue on my mp4 screenrecording? I'm relatively new to video editing and struggling to solve a problem whereas the video (i.e my lips) is out of sync with the audio (i.e my voice). The beginning of the video is fine but by the end the sync is totally off.

Things I have tried so far:

auto-sync audio based on waveform (DaVinci Resolve)
run it through Handbraker to get constant frame rate (tried 23.976fps or 24fps)
update sound/camera drivers if this was a playback issue

Here are some of the information I get through the MediaInfo tool on the first part of total 45min recording.

VIDEO

frame rate 23.976 in DaVinci Resolve (22.783 fps by MediaInfo)
.mp4 (H.264) file recorded with IceCream Screenrecorder (i will
change to OBS for next video)
6min 51s length
720p HD camera with dual microphones

AUDIO

sampling rate 44.1kHz (MediaInfo / Audacity)
24.00fps in DaVinci Resolve
6min 49s length

The mic i use is integrated in my new Lenovo IdeaPad L340-17IRH Gaming and provides better quality than my blue snowball mic. It is currently set in the settings on 2ch, 16bit, 48kHz (can the diff. with sampling rate 44kHz be the issue).

What am I doing wrong here? What else can I try?

Thanks in advance for your help, VERY APPRECIATED.

Try tsMuxer as it will allow you to change the frame rate without re-encodingn https://www.videohelp.com/software/tsMuxeR


Scroll text up (like in credits) then reverse and scroll text down? Unsure if this is the right "sub-Stack Exchange" for this question, however I've been unable to find a way to scroll a block of text up then reverse it and scroll down after similar to "The Future of Publishing - by DK (UK)"

Or "Lost Generation"

I've tried with Movie Maker (I have a Windows 8 laptop) but if there's some other program that I can get this done with then I'm happy to try it out.

After Effects or just about any titling software should allow this easily.  You just need to make a layer with all the text on it (or even an image) then you simply need to apply a motion effect to scroll from the top to bottom, put a keyframe in the middle and then the keyframe at the end should bring it back.  This should produce exactly what you are looking for.


Greenscreen with gradient color mask I am testing the video editor "videopad" and I use an eyedropper tool to pick a pixel that defines the greenscreen color which will be used overall the image to mask out the background.

However, can I define multiple eyedropper points, resulting in a greenscreen color that varies depending on where in the image you are?

The question extends to any video editing software.

edit

Can I just take a photo of the background before I put myself there and use the photo as greenscreen mask?

In Adobe Premiere, and other professional level video editors, it is possible to specify a tolerance for the color that you would like to remove with the chroma key operation. Apple Photo Booth allows you to take a picture and then use that matte to create transparency behind the subject, but you probably won't find this functionality in a basic editor such as videopad. It is possible to do what you're trying to do in Premiere, After Effects, Davinci Resolve, Lightworks, AVID, Final Cut X, and other video editing applications that support layered effects.


How to add timestamp of N mins between photos on a video combined from photos? I have a set of few hundreds of photos taken every 30 minutes. I combine them into a single video. How can I put a timestamp presenting real time difference between each photo ?

Right now I use timecode filter with the following settings:

ffmpeg -i %04d.png -vf format=yuv420p,scale=1650x1180,fps=24,drawtext="fontsize=15:fontfile=/Library/Fonts/DroidSansMono.ttf:timecode='00\:00\:00\:00':rate=24:text='time\:':fontsize=72:fontcolor='white':x=860-text_w/2:y=960" out_24fps.mp4

This creates timestamp showing the length of the video which takes ~7 seconds. I'd like the timestamp to show that how long it took to record the whole video rather than how long it takes to replay it (difference of 30 minutes between each photo).

Or perhaps is it possible to take a timestamp from each file used to combine the video?

Timecode isn't suitable for this. It assumes real-time footage. You can use the eif and n functions to increment the text counter to advance by 30 mins for each frame i.e.

ffmpeg -framerate 24 -i %04d.png -vf format=yuv420p,scale=1650x1180,drawtext="fontsize=15:fontfile=/Library/Fonts/DroidSansMono.ttf:text='time\: %{eif\:n*(30/60)\:d} h %{eif\:mod(n*30\,60)\:d\:2} m':fontsize=72:fontcolor='white':x=860-text_w/2:y=960" out_24fps.mp4

(BTW, framerates for image sequences should be set on the input. Using fps filter here will cause ffmpeg to drop one frame from each second.)


Is there any free video screen capture applications? I am trying to find a totally free screen capture application for Windows and MacOS. Is there any free apps that don't put watermark on the video ?

Open Broadcaster Software is a (good)

  Free and open source software for video recording and live streaming.
  Download and start streaming quickly and easily on Windows, Mac or
  Linux.


How to reverse Ken burns effect? If some videos created by other people have ken burns effect, is it possible for me to remove it and get static fullscreen view?

In theory you could take screenshots and stitch them together. Any photo editor that has a panorama stitching feature can do this. The question is how sharp are those individual screenshots? It may be necessary to go frame by frame to find the sharpest.


Cross-dissolve in real time between end and start point of looping clip I'm trying to achieve the following: I have a short movie clip that I want to loop for an indefinite amount of time. However, as of now, it doesn't particularly good every time the clip starts over (it just sort of jitters back to the starting point without any form of smooth transition), so I would need a cross-dissolve effect to be applied to it in realtime.

Is there any (preferably free) software solution that could help me accomplish what I want to do here? Preferably, I'd like some kind of free solution that works both across Windows and OS X, but tips relating to the platforms individually are appreciated as well. I don't care whether I need some stand alone software to achieve this (as opposed to using some kind of plug-in for a program that I'm already using, like VLC).

You can't seamlessly loop a clip that wasn't designed to loop. Some suggestions below, but all require video editing software. No plugin for a player that I know of.

Option 1: Clip has a distinctive/necessary beginning & end that have to be seen, or has audio/narration that cannot be edited or shortened

The best option in this case would be to edit the clip to fade-in from and fade-out to black (and/or an identical image) at the beginning & end.

Now when it loops it at least appears the same (even if the player hiccups slightly). Black works well since most players go to black after finishing a clip.

Option 2: No audio, the clip's start/end location doesn't matter & you want a seamless loop

In this case you could try the following, using whatever software - iMovie, Premiere, After Effects, MovieMaker etc...

Place the entire clip on a timeline.
Duplicate the clip.
Find a point in the clip that has as little motion/change as possible.
On the top copy of the clip, move 1 frame to the left and trim everything after this point.
On the bottom copy, go back to the chosen frame and trim everything before this point.
Move the bottom copy left so it starts at the beginning of the timeline

Your chosen point now starts at 0:00:00

Shift the top copy to the right until it only overlaps slightly with the bottom copy.

The original start/end points are now overlapping somewhere in the middle

Add a cross-dissolve to the beginning of the top copy

The original end point will be obscured by the dissolve.
Experiment w/the length and location of overlap/dissolve to find a suitable result. It could work w/just a few frames, or might require a longer overlap to not look jumpy. How well it works depends on how different the original start/end frames are.
Ensure the dissolve only occurs during overlapping frames or else you'll see clips jumping on & off screen.

Trim the end of the timeline so it stops exactly at the last frame of the top clip.

Your edited video will be shorter by the length of the dissolve.
The new last frame is now exactly 1 frame before the new first frame at the beginning.

Export timeline to your required format

The result of this process is that the beginning and end now only  differ by a single frame, making a loop with minimal jump when you restart playback. The cross-dissolve in the middle takes care of the smooth transition that you don't currently have, at the expense of ~1 second of original length.

You could also flip the directions around so the top clip shows the original "end" point clearly & fades to the "start" of the bottom clip. Either way works...

There still may be a slight stutter no matter what, depending on the delivery platform. VLC is decent about looping, but iTunes and WMP have a noticeable gap even in a clip that should be seamless. If your clip is for DVD there might be a slight pause, but visually it would look the same.

If the video is for web or mobile use, it'll depend on the platform. iOS and Android are horrible about looping videos natively (there's always a noticeable gap while it restarts, if looping is allowed at all). With HTML5 video or Flash you could code it to seek to the beginning immediately before it reaches the end, hopefully preventing much stutter and avoiding the need to go to all this editing hassle...

I hope this helps!


How can I fix my video stuttering and moving in and out of frame when exported from FCPX? I recorded the screen for a presentation and edited it using Final Cut Pro X.

Everything looks fine inside FCPX but he problem comes when I export the video.

The image constantly moves in and out of frame and it looks weird.

Here's the video in question:

In the export dialogue choose “Master File” of your project first and make sure the effects isn’t happening when watching the video file on your computer.
When the master export is good upload it to YouTube or else video platforms. The file will be transcoded by the streaming platforms to fit all playing needs.


Help with a Video streaming a Meeting and archiving it in HD using 1 camera The Setup

Sony Camcorder connected to IMAC via firewire And a PC via Component cable to HDMI on the PC

Imac records Hd video using IMovie and a 2TB Harddrive
Pc Streams using DaCast to Flash encoder to the Genesis website
Audio coming from the Analog Sound board to the camera for the HDVideo on Imovie and to the PC for the stream.

WHat we do. We Record a conference in Hd Video using IMAC and I movie, at the sametime a Diff Pc connected to the Same camera we stream a conference in English and in Spanish to our website.
We use Dacast to broadcast.

The question is.

Can someone please give me some advise on how to improve this set up with the newest tech available?

It sounds like you need a video conferencing platform.  Platforms like WebEx, GoToMeeting, Microsoft Lync or Adobe Connect.  All these platforms are designed for handling video feeds from multiple locations along with screen sharing and most of them support reasonable to high quality recordings of the meetings as well.

Several of these platforms also support larger scale conference modes where you have a small number of presenters (that can be at remote locations) but a large number of spectators.


How To Create A Video In Video (Picture in Picture) In DaVinci Resolve I have two video clips.  One from a front facing camera and other from a rear facing camera.  I would like to show the video in the rear facing camera in a window in the video of the front facing camera and output as one clip so they are in sync.
How do I show a video clip do "picture in picture" or "video in video" in DaVinci?
(Note: I know I can do this in iMovie)

Synchronizing the clips and creating a picture in picture effect are really two separate issues, and you could take many approaches to each.  But basically, you drop one clip on one video track, and the other on a different video track.  You synchronize one to the other by dragging either clip left or right on the timeline until they match temporally.  There are automated approaches to this step, including timecode-based sync and audio waveform based sync.  These automated processes are described by the manual in detail, but they essentially perform the same function as manually aligning the clips.
Once the clips are aligned temporally, you can apply a picture-in-picture effect by spatially shrinking or cropping the "topmost" clip (the one with the higher V#).  You'd do this by clicking on the clip in the timeline to select it, then altering its zoom, crop, and position controls in the inspector tab.  Alternatively, you can use GUI transform controls by clicking the transform control button at the bottom of the program monitor, then using the onscreen controls.
This is a very barebones explanation, and one which will work in many older versions of Resolve.  There are fancier approaches, ones which involve the Color Page, or the Fusion Page, or (beginning with R17 beta) ones which use the "Video Collage" ResolveFX.  These are essentially variations on the same basic premise.  The Collage effect does offer many handy shortcuts to produce rounded corers, drop shadows, borders, and animated transitions, as well as re-framing, keyframing, and handling stacks of various tile arrangements, so I would recommend trying the R17 beta if that's an option, for the sake of convenience.


Create 5 second intro from image and concatenate to a video I want to make a 5 second intro from 55.png, and concatenate it to the beginning of 55.mp4. I would like to incorporate it into this command:

ffmpeg -y -i 55.mp4 -i intro -filter_complex "[0:a]atempo=1.15,volume=1.6,pan=stereo|c0<c0+0*c1|c1<c0+0*c1,aeval=val(0)|-val(1) [amain]; [0:v]setpts=PTS/1.15,crop=iw/1.2:ih/1.2,scale=1280:720,setdar=16/9 [vmain]; [1:v]scale=1280:720,setdar=16/9 [vintro]; [vintro][1:a][vmain][amain]concat=n=2:v=1:a=1" -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 30 -g 60 -b:v 1400k -profile:v main -level 3.1 -acodec libmp3lame -b:a 128k -ar 44100 -metadata title="" -metadata artist="" -metadata album_artist="" -metadata album="" -metadata date="" -metadata track="" -metadata genre="" -metadata publisher="" -metadata encoded_by="" -metadata copyright="" -metadata composer="" -metadata performer="" -metadata TIT1="" -metadata TIT3="" -metadata disc="" -metadata TKEY="" -metadata TBPM="" -metadata language="eng" -metadata encoder="" -bufsize 500000k -threads 0 -preset superfast out2222.mp4

Info about my ffmpeg and about 55.mp4:

ffmpeg version git-2020-04-13-59e3a9a Copyright (c) 2000-2020 the FFmpeg develop
ers
  built with gcc 9.3.1 (GCC) 20200328
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-sdl2 --enable-fontconfi
g --enable-gnutls --enable-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libdav1d --enable-libb
luray --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enab
le-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libshine --e
nable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libsrt --enable-libtheora --enable-lib
twolame --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --
enable-libx265 --enable-libxml2 --enable-libzimg --enable-lzma --enable-zlib --e
nable-gmp --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvmaf --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvo
-amrwbenc --enable-libmysofa --enable-libspeex --enable-libxvid --enable-libaom
--disable-w32threads --enable-libmfx --enable-ffnvcodec --enable-cuda-llvm --ena
ble-cuvid --enable-d3d11va --enable-nvenc --enable-nvdec --enable-dxva2 --enable
-avisynth --enable-libopenmpt --enable-amf
  libavutil      56. 42.102 / 56. 42.102
  libavcodec     58. 78.102 / 58. 78.102
  libavformat    58. 42.100 / 58. 42.100
  libavdevice    58.  9.103 / 58.  9.103
  libavfilter     7. 77.101 /  7. 77.101
  libswscale      5.  6.101 /  5.  6.101
  libswresample   3.  6.100 /  3.  6.100
  libpostproc    55.  6.100 / 55.  6.100
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from '55.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : mp42
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: isommp42
    creation_time   : 2020-03-26T08:17:13.000000Z
  Duration: 00:04:29.12, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 1402 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709)
, 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 1270 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 59.94 t
bc (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2020-03-26T08:17:13.000000Z
      handler_name    : ISO Media file produced by Google Inc. Created on: 03/26
/2020.
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, flt
p, 127 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2020-03-26T08:17:13.000000Z
      handler_name    : ISO Media file produced by Google Inc. Created on: 03/26
/2020.

Info about 55.png:

    Stream #0:0: Video: png, rgba(pc), 305x432 [SAR 3778:3778 DAR 305:432], 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc

ffmpeg -y -i 55.mp4 -loop 1 -framerate 30000/1001 -t 5 -i 55.png -t 0.5 -f lavfi -i anullsrc=channel_layout=stereo:sample_rate=44100 -filter_complex "[0:a]atempo=1.15,volume=1.6,pan=stereo|c0<c0+0*c1|c1<c0+0*c1,aeval=val(0)|-val(1) [amain]; [0:v]setpts=PTS/1.15,crop=iw/1.2:ih/1.2,scale=1280:720,setdar=16/9 [vmain]; [1:v]premultiply=inplace=1,scale=1280:720:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1280:720:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2,setsar=1[vintro]; [vintro][2][vmain][amain]concat=n=2:v=1:a=1" -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -g 60 -b:v 1400k -profile:v main -level 3.1 -acodec libmp3lame -b:a 128k -ar 44100 -metadata title="" -metadata artist="" -metadata album_artist="" -metadata album="" -metadata date="" -metadata track="" -metadata genre="" -metadata publisher="" -metadata encoded_by="" -metadata copyright="" -metadata composer="" -metadata performer="" -metadata TIT1="" -metadata TIT3="" -metadata disc="" -metadata TKEY="" -metadata TBPM="" -metadata language="eng" -metadata encoder="" -bufsize 500000k -threads 0 -preset superfast out2222.mp4

The intro needs audio to concat to the audio of 55.mp4 or else concat will fail. This example uses the anullsrc filter to generate silent audio. A short duration is declared because anullsrc duration by default is infinite. The concat filter will automatically extend this shortened duration to match its associated video segment.
The width, height, and aspect ratio of the 55.png is modified with the scale, pad, and setsar filters to match those of 55.mp4.


Final Cut Pro 7: Zoom without using “scale” Here's what I want to do:

I have footage witch I want to divide into several different squares at the same time (think "24"), while also cropping the footage so that I can show certain parts of the original material. All this I can do with the "crop" and "scale" functions under "motion". However, I would also like to zoom in, within one of these frames, during the video. If I use scale for this, the whole frame gets bigger. That's not what I want.

I've circumvented the problem by creating a white square, placed it on a video track higher in the hierarchy than the one I want to manipulate, then using color key to let the footage shine through the white parts. However, this isn't especially confortable to use, especially since I haven't found any good way to feather the edges of the box.

I do this all the time. It's super easy:

Set up the 'shape' of your frame with the crop tool.
Apply the effect 'Basic 3D' (Effects > Video Filters > Perspective > Basic 3D).
In the controls for that effect, use the 'Scale' parameter to zoom your image. It will not affect your crop marks!

Good luck!


FCP Editing: Timeline Footage Looks terrible in timeline & export its 4:3 Im having difficulty in final cut pro, My captured footage looks absolutely terrible on the timeline and when its exported it’s in 4:3 and looks squished, What is the BEST outcome I can setup with this footage, Im a tad naive when it comes to codec’s etc, I literally have two days to get this project completely done and im really struggling on what settings I need as my two source materials are different size’s codecs etc.
 I have two sources of captured footage that Im editing between. the first is in:
DV - PAL, 720 × 576, 4:3, 25 fps, 28.80 Mbps - Audio: DV stereo, 32 kHz, 28.80 Mbps

The second camera’s footage is in:
.mov Apple Intermediate Codec, 960 × 540, 25 fps, 29.43 Mbps - Audio: 16-bit Big Endian stereo, 48 kHz, 1.54 Mbps

The sequence settings are set to:
720x576, CCIR 601 / DVPAL (5:4)
Pixel aspect ratio: PAL - CCIR 601 (720 x 576)
Field Dominance: Lower
Anamorphic 16:9: off (Tried exporting with this on and off)
Compressor: Apple ProRes 422 (Was defaulted to DV PAL)

I use Final Cut Pro     6.06 on an Old Macbook running OSX 10.5.8
I have my mac plugged into an external TV as a monitor at 1920 x 1080

The footage is being used on a projector for an audience, Either as a DVD or File, It may be used on the web later.

Here is a screen grab of the DV footage in the timeline in final cut pro and opened up the source footage in quicktime side by side.
http://i.imgur.com/fs6D7.jpg

It seems to me from a high level, two things. First off your project settings in FCP do not match your source materials. First off you should transcode one of your two sources to a common format so you are dealing with only one aspect ratio and frame size, it may require cropping or scaling down some of the larger content to match the smaller one (i.e. bring the 960x540 down to 720x432 so that the width of that clip is the same width as your PAL source, not the other way or you will get fuzzy resolution)

Next set up your sequence setting, to match your source 720x576.
Usually when you drag a clip to FCP new sequence in FCP 6.06 the dialog message in fcp will offer to create sequence settings to match your clip, do it, just pick the lower res clip, and scale down the high res ones.

As you bring in the 720x432 (formerly 960x540) you will need to adjust aspect manually in FCP for that clip (double click on your clip in timeline, click motion tab, then adjust/play with the distort Aspect Ratio slider) , there will be a little black on top or bottom of the clip, but at least that way you are no blowing out and scaling up the PAL content, and you can manually adjust aspect if needed.


Video quality degrades when uploading to YouTube with variable frame rate So I use OBS (latest ver) to record my gameplay on Windows 10.

OBS settings are:

recording format: MP4
Recording quality: indistinguishable quality, large file size
Encoder: Software (x264 low CPU usage preset, increases file size)
Downscale filter: Lanczos (sharpened scaling, 32 samples)
FPS value for recording: 60
Base and output resolution are both the same, 1080P and my monitor is
1080p as well as my in-game resolution.

So when i'm recording from a less demanding games like the new Resident Evil 2 (RE2) the video file looks perfect, both on my computer (using VLC) and on YouTube they look great. I run the game on fixed 60 FPS using V-sync and ultra graphic settings.

the videos i'm talking about:

But, when I record from a more demanding game like Assassin's Creed Odyssey, I can't get a fixed 60 FPS, average is 45 FPS and it varies between 32 to 60 FPS.
after i finish recording i play the video file on VLC and it looks great, just like my gameplay, but when I upload it to YouTube, it looks awful, blurry and so much noise in it.

My YouTube channel doesn't have so much subscribers (almost 200) so YouTube doesn't use VP9 to convert my videos, it only uses x264, I don't know it's relatable though.

so my question is, where is the problem exactly? is it YouTube's fault converting my videos so poorly? because they look fine on my computer when i play them.

Or

is it my fault and i'm doing something wrong in the settings? if so what should i change?

PS:

I've tried setting the recording FPS in OBS to 30 FPS but the gameplay looked so slow on YouTube and on my PC.

Not sure why YouTube would be degrading the video quality because of the lower framerate. Perhaps, after recording at the lower framerate, re-encode the videos using 60fps before uploading. It'll make the file bigger without the actual benefit of the higher framerate (just creates duplicate frames), but maybe worth it if it prevents video quality from degrading.

Edit: OBS uses FFmpeg, & FFmpeg has some recommended settings specific for YouTube. If you are using the same settings for both videos, this is probably irrelevant.


Downsample in Youtube or in editing software? Target platform: Youtube

Target resolution for audience: Full HD

I record 4K in order to get better image quality from smartphone (2x birate of FullHD).

Should I resample and export the project in Full HD or rather export 4K, upload 4K and let youtube downsample my video ?

Thank you

If you can afford the additional upload and processing time to You Tube, you should use 4k.
Not only will this look better for most people (Not actually look better, but rather it looks more modern to an average user to have 4k and some people don't even watch it if it says FHD). But also, YouTube gives 4k videos a higher bitrate which also FHD videos profit from.

So you will get an better FHD video from downsampling on You Tube, than do it yourself.

If you don't have the time tho to wait for upload and processing, most people won't notice the difference


How to live feed video from a Nikon D3200 to a Mac? I have a Nikon D3200 and I want to take pictures/record video from my mac, I mean use the nikon like a web cam or something, I use Final Cut Pro X and Adobe Premiere Pro for editing if that could work. Thanks!

Since your camera supports NTSC and PAL video over HDMI, recording video from a mac won't be much of a problem.  You'll just need a small conversion box to get the video in.  For our macs with thunderbolt, we use an Ultra Studio Mini Recorder.  If you don't have thunderbolt, Grass Valley has a product that works over firewire.  Once the feed's connected, you can capture from within Final Cut.  Just open the import window (cmd-i) and you'll see a list of cameras at the top left.  In fact you can probably try this out now, because if your monitor has a camera in it, it'll be listed as a facetime camera.  Select the facetime camera or ultra studio or whatever your input source is, and click import.  When you're done, click stop import.  The recording will show up in your events browser.

As far as taking pictures from your mac, I know there's an app for Cannon cameras that lets you adjust settings, trigger the shutter, and download the image over USB.  Nikon probably has one too, but I don't know for sure.


Colors artifacts/jittering after render - filmora Hi I'm having some issues with colors in my video, I have still images that after the render jitter

Never seen something like this, any idea why would this happen?

Is everything else on the screen stationary, or is there other movement in other parts of the screen? If there is, I'd put it down to lossy codecs like h264.
Try exporting at a higher bitrate. You could add a tiny amount of noise or grain to the video which might reduce the jittering at the overall expense of detail.


Add audio bulk in the video file Good Day. I have 1000 Video files ( without Audio ) I want to add audio in the video. same audio for all the videos. Any software suggestions?

the Linux script should be
#!/bin/bash
for filename in /Videos/*; do
    ffmpeg -i $filename -i <audio_file> -map 0:v -map 1:a -c:v copy -shortest OutputWithAudio_$filename
done


ffmpeg png optimization like libpngquant? The png codec in ffmpeg can result large pngs in certain cases. I know pngs are supposed to be non-lossy but there are libraries such as libpngquant that difference between the pixel and the value predicted by the average filter.

Ffmpeg doesn't seem to support these libraries. It will be great if it could. Does anyone know if this is planned? How easy is it to port libpngquant over to ffmpeg's png encoder?

I'm not aware of anyone working on this.

Is this the library you're referring to - https://pngquant.org/lib/?

This appears to generate a palette and then perform the usual PNG encoding upon the palettized image. If so, this can already be reproduced in FFmpeg.

ffmpeg -i image -filter_complex palettegen[pal];[0][pal]paletteuse,format=pal8 out.png

See docs for paletteuse for dithering options.

If the specific algorithm were to be added to FFmpeg, it would be as a libav filter, not as changes to the PNG encoder. Although given existing functionality, most acceptable way forward is to improve the palettegen/use filters if their quality isn't acceptable.


Adobe Premiere Video Size with static image I'm trying to make a music video for Youtube, with a one stable non-moving image, When I tried to export it at Youtube setting 1080p, the estimated file size was around 500 MB, which is too big for me to upload it to YouTube.

I was wondering if there are any better settings to keep audio quality, but lower the video size as much as possible?

Or should I be using another editing software?

If you've got your sound file "input.wav" and your image "input.png" ffmpeg can make the movie without any need to go through an editor. FFMPEG is available for  free download for your favourite OS. If you're a'feared of the command line, duckduckgo for a GUI front end, there are lots out there.

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i input.png -i input.wav -shortest -pix_fmt yuv420p -tune "stillimage" -r 1 output.mp4

to break it down:

the ffmpeg application is controlled by specifying the options and values thus: -option value. Note the dash before the option. Some options don't have values, like the -shortest option (see below). Sometimes they are specified to apply to a particular stream, like -r:v sets the frame rate for the video stream, or -c:a sets the codec for the audio stream.
-loop will repeat the png frame forever, you specify it before the input so that fffmpeg knows you mean loop the input, not the output.
-i input.png means input, then you specify the path to your image. Easiest way to get the path is to drag the file into the terminal window. Pretty much any image format under the sun will work
-i input.wav is the sound, once again, pretty much any sound file will work, and you can get a correctly escaped path by dragginating it.
-shortest stops encoding when the shortest input ends—since the image is looped, and therefore infinitely long, it will literally go on encoding until your hard drive is full (or you hit q or ctrlc) if you neglect to add this
-pix_fmt yuv420p makes sure you're using 4:2:0 colour, as most image formats will be 4:4:4, so that will save some space
-tune "stillimage" tells the encoder (by default the fabulous x.264 encoder, which is way better than anything Adobe use) to optimise its settings for still images. There are a few other tunings like "film" and "animation", they save you having to understand all the arcane tweaks that you can do to get the most out of your encode.
-r 1 sets the fram rate to 1 fps for the video. You could perhaps go lower, I'm not sure if it would cause problems.
output.mp4 is the name of your output file. FFMPEG recognises the extension and automatically uses the right encoder and multiplexer, so you don't need to know what the difference between encoding and multiplexing even is. Since this isn't an option or value there is no - dash at the start.


How do I get Stereo + 5.1 for YouTube videos? Youtube states that it only supports Stereo or Stereo + 5.1.

How does this work? Does it mean that there should be two audio streams included in the container or is this a special encoding?

( I am using Premiere Pro )

It's not very clear what they mean. If you look further down on the same page it says it accepts 5.1 @ 512 kbps.

Recommended audio bitrates for uploads

Mono    128 kbps
Stereo  384 kbps
5.1     512 kbps

YouTube doesn't currently support 5.1 playback. If you upload a 5.1 audio track it gets converted to stereo.


I'm not happy with Final Cut Pro (X). What are my options? I'm a editor who has been editing with Final Cut Pro for the last couple of years and I'm not impressed with the new Final Cut Pro X. I'm interested in looking for another NLE, such as Avid or Premiere or something else. What would you recommend in this situation?

If you're not impressed with X then I'd suggest going back to version 7. Learning your way around a new program will be a pain in the arse.

I'm not sure how professionally you work but if you can be bothered, Avid is a great program once you get to know it.

Otherwise, man, I'd probably just get used to FCPX.


Handbrake :: Why is an RF value of 20 to 23 recommended for HD while a lower value of 18 to 20 for SD? This question is based on the software Handbrake.

Being a newbie to video editing/conversion and Handbrake, I understand that the RF values are used to select quality.

Lower the RF value, higher is the quality.

RF = 51 means fast encoding while very low quality.
RF = 0 means very very slow but lossless.

So from this logic it would mean that if I want to encode a 360p video for YouTube I would have to select higher RF value because it is lower quality and conversely, it I want a 1080p video then I must go for a lower RF value.

But Handbrake itself recommends RF=23 for HD and RF=18 for SD. How is this possible? I'm confused.

Resolution != quality, at least, not in the sense referred to by RF. What the RF primarily modulates is the quantization parameter (QP).

Let's say you have a 2x2 array of pixels and each pixel is represented by one floating-point value e.g. 3.98, 2.10, 1.05, 7.88. If your goal is to compress the video, then storing these values with full precision and fidelity will be more expensive than if you could store 4,2,1,8. Given the limitations of human vision, it turns out this is an acceptable compromise in the service of video compression. The greater the quantization parameter, the greater the 'smoothing out' of values. Such smoothing out reduces spatial detail i.e. sharpness and subtle color variation in the picture. Of course, this is just one strategy among the many used.

(The above is just a thematic illustration and not an example of the result of an actual quantization)

Before RF, video encoders would apply a single QP across the entire video, so a scene with a lot of diversity of visual forms would have the same smoothing applied as a simple scene. If the degree of smoothing is low, the bitrate will shoot up in complex scenes. If it's high, it will degrade simpler scenes more than desired. What RF does is analyze the video content and modulate QP so that visual details appreciated by the human eye are not highly quantized but neglected details are. The RF value determines how much latitude the encoder has to vary the QP.

Now, to your question. A group of pixels, say a 16x16 block, forms a larger part of an SD image than of a HD image, so it will play a larger role in the subjective visual perception of the image (and have greater variation within), so you ought to smooth it out less.


How Was This Isometric Vector-looking Video Made? I'm dying to find out how this beautiful video was made - what program produces these semi-3D animated marketing pieces?  There are flat lines curving around text content in a fixed camera view...it looks very unlike 3D Studio Max or something, that would be using lighting and moving camera angles etc.

http://vimeo.com/92630207

As this is mostly hand drawn animated vector graphics you could do these kind of videos in most 2D animation software. Lighting in this case isn't rendered by the program but painted by the artist.
In most cases this would be done in Adobe After Effects as it offer very sophisticated timeline animation tools and works very well with vector graphics. There are also still quite a few people using Adobe Flash for these kind of animations.

You are not limited to these two software options though, you can definitely do this in Apple Motion or Sony Vegas aswell.

An artist would draw the single elements for the video in a vector graphics program like Illustrator or Inkscape and then these would be animated in a 2D animation software package like mentioned above.

You might want to have a look at this article from the maker of this specific video, it explains the design process quite well: https://www.behance.net/gallery/CBRE-Animated-Infographics/15921655


Exporting h.264 from Premiere Pro resulting in black screen on Windows 7 We have multiple reports of our h.264 video playing audio-only in IE11 on Windows 7. The video screen stays black. I can reproduce the problem.

Here is an example video that exhibits the problem. Downloading it and playing it in Windows Media Player also reproduces the problem.

Visiting https://www.youtube.com/html5 indicates that html5 and h.264 are supported by my Windows 7 test machine, so my thought is that the problem has to do with the particular settings I used to export the video from Premiere Pro (current CC version for Mac).

Has anyone run into this before? Are there known "safe" settings for exporting h.264 from Premiere so that it will play back properly on Windows 7?

Thank you!

h.264 has different "levels" of compression.  These levels have to be supported by the particular playback engine.  Windows 7 supports up to level 5.1 via it's Media Foundation library, however your video is encoded with level 5.2.  Since Windows 7 does not natively have support for this version of h.264, it is unable to play the video component.

You can either re-encode with a lower level or you can suggest that viewers either install a codec pack to provide support or use a third party viewer that includes built in support.


Certain audio tracks not rendering I'm not sure the best way to explain the scenario so I'll do my best, please don't hesitate to ask if I'm missing something obvious to help build the picture.

My problem is I've edited a video in Premiere (CS6) and when I export it part of the audio is missing and I cant seem to find any reason why.

The audio that is missing is at the start and end of the video, it's a stereo piece of music. The rest of the audio is mono (and renders out no problem). When I'm playing back the preview everything plays as expected, nothing seems to be muted or turned down. The settings on the export are set to match the quality of the music track that is missing.

Any ideas why I can't get that audio to render? It's really frustrating! Cheers.

EDIT: I've tried rendering in different formats and sample rates. No joy.

Managed to dive in to it and root out the problem. Despite all the audio playing in the preview there was actually a channel solo'd in the audio mixer. I only noticed this when I ran an update on Premiere, de-authorised and re-authorised it (because of another issue that happened) the audio in the preview started to play back correctly as per the track solo status.

Thanks for those who looked at the question and tried to help.


Premiere: Make clips from extracts of same clip I am dealing with long clips inside which I have several different moments I want to use.

So when logging, I create multiple sequences I use as folders, and I put extracts (i/o) of these clips in the timelines. Then, before starting to edit, I have a master sequence and several others with all my i/o extracts I copy/paste in the master (instead of dragging clips to the timeline).

Is there any way I could have all these extracts (of all clips) displayed as clip icon view, like registering multiple extracts of same clips as one clip, so I could use the Icon View?

Hope I'm clear!
Thanks!

You can create subclips of the sequences in the source material that you want to use seperately. This will create a second instance of the source material in the Project Panel that is limited to a specific part of the source. A subclip is sort of a virtual copy of the original clip (the source material on the disk is not copied).

To create a subclip, you first have to set In- and Out-Points. The subclip will use those as boundaries, so only the part between them will be available in the subclip.

You can set In- and Out-Points at the current playhead position using the I- and O-keys. After you have set those points for the active clip in the Source Panel, right-click on the clip in the Project Panel and select Make Subclip. You can then set a name for the subclip, after that it's available in the Project Panel.

You can also edit your subclips after you created them, which is useful if you realize you need a longer part of the sequence after you created the subclip. The Edit Subclip option is available from the context menu as well, you can shift the start/end timecodes of the supclip this way. There's also an option to restrict the sequence to the subclip's boundaries, which is active by default, you might want to turn it off depending on your workflow.


ffmpeg and mapping against 2 target audio tracks! Im trying to mux and encode a TS file with 2 audio tracks from a mov file.

ffmpeg -loglevel verbose -i test.mov -map 0:1 -map 0:2
-acodec:0 aac -ab 160k  -acodec:1 eac3 -ac 6 -ar 48000 -ab 640k -dialnorm -24 -dsur_mode 0 -original 1 -dmix_mode 2 -channel_layout 63   -y test.ts

Im ending up with 2 audiotracks, both EAC3..

Source output:

ffprobe version N-94156-g93a73df54d Copyright (c) 2007-2019 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 9.1.1 (GCC) 20190621
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-sdl2 --enable-fontconfig --enable-gnutls --enable-iconv --enable-libass --enable-libdav1d --enable-libbluray --enable-libfreetype --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libshine --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvpx --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxml2 --enable-libzimg --enable-lzma --enable-zlib --enable-gmp --enable-libvidstab --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libmysofa --enable-libspeex --enable-libxvid --enable-libaom --enable-libmfx --enable-amf --enable-ffnvcodec --enable-cuvid --enable-d3d11va --enable-nvenc --enable-nvdec --enable-dxva2 --enable-avisynth --enable-libopenmpt
  libavutil      56. 30.100 / 56. 30.100
  libavcodec     58. 53.101 / 58. 53.101
  libavformat    58. 28.101 / 58. 28.101
  libavdevice    58.  7.100 / 58.  7.100
  libavfilter     7. 56.100 /  7. 56.100
  libswscale      5.  4.101 /  5.  4.101
  libswresample   3.  4.100 /  3.  4.100
  libpostproc    55.  4.100 / 55.  4.100
[h264 @ 000001c37707e640] Reinit context to 1920x1088, pix_fmt: yuv420p10le
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 's:\test.mov':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : qt
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: qt
    encoder         : Lavf58.21.100
  Duration: 00:02:28.61, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 61419 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(nor): Video: h264 (High 10), 1 reference frame (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p10le(left), 1920x1080 (1920x1088) [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 52197 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 24k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : Apple Video Media Handler
      encoder         : Lavc58.36.100 libx264
      timecode        : 00:00:00:00
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: pcm_s24le (in24 / 0x34326E69), 48000 Hz, stereo, s32 (24 bit), 2304 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler
    Stream #0:2(eng): Audio: pcm_s24le (in24 / 0x34326E69), 48000 Hz, 5.1, s32 (24 bit), 6912 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler
    Stream #0:3(eng): Data: none (tmcd / 0x64636D74) (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : Apple Video Media Handler
      timecode        : 00:00:00:00
Unsupported codec with id 0 for input stream 3

Anyone know whats wrong?

Use

ffmpeg -loglevel verbose -i test.mov -map 0:1 -map 0:2
-codec:a:0 aac -b:a:0 160k  -codec:a:1 eac3 -ac:a:1 6 -ar:a:1 48000 -b:a:1 640k -dialnorm -24 -dsur_mode 0 -original 1 -dmix_mode 2 -channel_layout 63 -y test.ts

acodec is an alias for codec:a and it does not accept stream specifiers. Same goes for other codec-related options like bitrate.


ffmpeg default output frame rate What is the default output frame rate chosen by ffmpeg to encode MP4s?
Where is this specified on the man page?

My input video stats are:

r_frame_rate=120/1
avg_frame_rate=31230000/1042111
duration=11.579011
nb_frames=347

After (demuxing, decoding) splitting (rescaling, encoding and muxing) the video stream I end up with has the following stats:

r_frame_rate=120/1
avg_frame_rate=120/1
duration=9.575000
nb_frames=1149

I started with 347 frames and ended up with 1149 (should have been 287).
The input average fps was 29.97 and now I end up with 120... which was the max fps of the input video.
So, I imagine ffmpeg picks the highest one from the input... but is this specified anywhere?
How does one go simply matching the input fps?
And why does I have a variable fps to begin with?

Hmm... too may questions I guess.
Still, is this simply a consequence of this paragraph?

STREAM SELECTION
       By default, ffmpeg includes only one stream of each type
       (video, audio, subtitle) present in the input files and
       adds them to each output file.  It picks the "best" of
       each based upon the following criteria: for video, it is
       the stream with the highest resolution, for audio, it is
       the stream with the most channels, for subtitles, it is
       the first subtitle stream. In the case where several
       streams of the same type rate equally, the stream with the
       lowest index is chosen.

r_frame_rate is "the lowest framerate with which all timestamps can be represented accurately (it is the least common multiple of all framerates in the stream)."

avg_frame_rate is just that: total duration / total # of frames

You can just specify -r 30000/1001 to maintain the average rate (near-abouts). You don't specify which format you're outputting to, but for MP4, ffmpeg defaults to constant-frame rate, where it picks r_frame_rate as the value. It will then duplicate or drop frames to keep that rate. Use -vsync vfr to keep the variable rate.


How can I programatically identify video frames containing a fixed rectangular area of a certain color? I have video material containing frames with a rectangular area of uniform color interspersed with other content.  I would like to identify these frames, with the intent of removing them. The technique discussed here  looks promising, as does the ffmpeg blackdetect filter on its own.  However, I need to be able to specify the color of the rectangle for each video.  It is not always black.

Identify a logo should be part of the CV. My suggestion is to use the idea of checking the logo from png (https://ai-facets.org/robust-logo-detection-with-opencv/) and modify the code to read a frame from a video (https://opencv-python-tutroals.readthedocs.io/en/latest/py_tutorials/py_gui/py_video_display/py_video_display.html)
Hope this help


Scale, position, and zoom a still image in Premiere Pro CC I have a photo collage I am trying to move around, scale, position, and zoom in and out of on the images with in the collage. Whenever I go to scale out of the first image and move to the second image it messes up all of the key frames. Am I missing something while trying to do this?

I am trying to achieve the same effect of the linked video below

That's very easy. Simply select all images, press right click -> Nest.
Give it a name and you are done. Now on this single "clip" apply your movement.
If you want to edit the single images, double click the new clip.


Merging 2 video input source into 1 output Is there a way to do this? For example i want to have a single projector displaying a live feed from a camera and a video playing from a laptop.

Its sort of like any overlay of 2 videos playing at the same time.

So far all searches have either return a splitter or a switch. Neither which is what i want

You need to edit it using an editing software like Premimere, Sony Vegas or any other.
I don't know how you do it in Sony Vegas but in Premiere you just place both videos in the sequence and resize them.

That's pretty basic editing, try to search for the best editing software that works best for you and search for tutorial about that software.

If you need it for live broadcasting then you need a professional live video broadcasting software or use what you got in the platform you're broadcasting in.


Is there a decent computer based, multiple video stream capture solution out there? Recently, on a trip home to my dad's, I experienced some great conversations between him and my grandmother. I really wanted a way to record them.

Here's my thinking: using a laptop connected to two or more webcams, capture them both.

I've looked around a bit and I'm finding that the software out there is either clunky, doesn't capture with good video quality, or doesn't record audio. Virtualdub seems to work well.

I've had thoughts of just using multiple in-expensive camcorders but what appeals to me about the computer solution is that I already have a laptop and a webcam. Also, perhaps the clips will be easier to synchronize

I'm wondering if anyone has experience with this kind of thing.

You could just record the entire screen or at least the portion that shows the stream with a program designed to do just that.

One really popular one for Mac is iShowU HD.

One really popular one for PC is CamStudio.

CamStudio is free while iShowU HD isn't. A free one for Mac that is pretty good is Jing.


How to create YouTube home guitar demos from parallel taken phone video and professional recorded PC audio? (please consider, I have zero video recording skills, neither know video editing software. What I know is no more than there are video/audio codecs, container formats, streams, and I also aware that video/audio sync could be a problem)

Context

I would like to create acoustic guitar demos of my home playing.

Sound quality do matter, so audio of simple iPhone video recordings will not do it. I have established practice how to record guitar audio (with my mike, amp) and I have also established audio recording practice, this question is not about this)

Now I would like to do video too, not just the audio.
My very first idea is concurrently record video with my iPhone, somehow transfer to my Windows 10 PC, and then edit the video and (put and sync?) the high quality sound with the video together.

Question

Q1: Is this a good idea? (I've checked how to connect my iPhone cam with PC, but it seems no benefit, it has delay, quality loss, etc)

Q2: I would not like to do sophisticated video effects and postprocessing, however I would like to have multiple recordings (multiple audio/video takes, for example to compare guitars), and "switch" between them (10 secs from one, then 10 secs from other, then back) in the final result. The two streams from two sources (audio and video) must be synced, but preferably not the price of sound quality, video quality is not so important. What free software (Win 10) is recommended for this task?

Bonjour Pickardou!
What you want to do is absolutely manageable and done by a lot of people every day. First, let's talk about the "sync"-part.

On professional movie-sets, you might have seen the movie slate. It's essentially a board with some text on it that can make a slapping-sound. This slap is used exactly for this purpose of syncing. When you recorded both audio and video separately, you then load both in your editing software, find out where the "clap" is in your audio and sync that to the frame in which the slate claps. You could do the same by just clapping with your hands.

To the second question (switching from multiple cameras):
Yes, you can totally do that once you have a recording of multiple cameras - just drag all views on top of each other on a timeline (use premiere or sony vegas to give a few examples). So now you can just cut off the top-layer which will then show the bottom layer, which would be another camera-angle. Do all of that and you got yourself a nice music-video in no time.

I hope I was able to help, have a wonderful day :)


Use ffplay to check how much to brighten video before using ffmpeg? I have a video which is a bit dark that I'd like to re-encode and brighten up with ffmpeg.

As a smarter/faster alternative to running ffmpeg in trial/error mode, is there a way to simply use ffplay to find how much to brighten things up, before running ffmpeg with the same settings?

"ffplay -h" returns so much infos that it's hard for newbies :-/

Thank you.

You can use simple filtergraphs easily with ffplay.

Example using colorlevels filter in ffplay:

ffplay -vf colorlevels=rimax=0.902:gimax=0.902:bimax=0.902 input.mp4

Then you can use the same filter in ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf colorlevels=rimax=0.902:gimax=0.902:bimax=0.902 -c:a copy output.mp4

This example will stream copy the audio.


How do I change the length of the timeline of the composition to only be as long as my video footage? How do I reduce the length on the Time Ruler in order to make the composition shorter in duration?

There's no built - in function that does it, but there's a script for that. I wrote one called first-n-last, it's available (free, open source) here https://blob.pureandapplied.com.au/

Alternatively, park your playhead at the beginning of the first layer (select that layer and hit i), then set the start of the work area to that frame by hitting b then select the last layer and hit go to the last frame (hit o) and set the end of the work area to that frame by hitting n. Now right click the work area and choose trim comp to work area from the contextual menu. This doesn't work for layers that extend beyond the beginning or end of the comp, but my srcipt does.


How to help the autofocus feature of an amateur camcorder I just acquired an amateur camcorder (Samsung HMX-Q10) that has only a few settings available, most of them are automatic.

I tried to shoot a video of me playing a bass guitar cover but it seems that the image is always slightly out of focus. I'm just slightly blurred but with HD image this kind of detail is really noticeable.

Shooting environment : me standing in front of the camcorder (~2-3 meters) with an instrument, in my appartment (walls mostly white), natural winter/cloudy lighting, white /  bright brown background, black clothes, red guitar.

Cam specifications/settings : Full HD 1920x1080/50i, Exposure Value : 0, Shutter 1/50 of a second (there is a "low light mode" that set it to 1/25 but it adds colored artifacts).

I can't notice that the image is blurred on the camcorder small monitoring screen, but when I open the video on the computer it is more obvious (especially because the guitar brand label is blurred), so without proper feedback it is quite hard to manually set the focus.

So what can I do to help the autofocus ?
What can I change in the shooting environment to improve its accuracy ?

I'm thinking, maybe the lighting, the colors (background / clothes), some camcorder settings, another element I forgot ?

I reviewed the specifications for the Samsung HMX-Q10 and have to say there is not a whole lot of information e.g., optics has no mention of "Minimum Focus Distance". So we are pretty much in the dark on the near boundary of the depth of field.

(a little rant on auto-focus)

Most auto focus systems have two modes: Single AF and Full-time AF. Single AF translates into setting the focus once, focusing what ever the sensor picks up first usually in the center of the frame (there are other possible areas depending on the camera, but I'm guessing this Samsung is limited to center weighted focus). Single AF keeps the same focus area during the whole shot. Full-time AF changes focus according to what is changing in the frame. This would be good for tracking a sports event or something moving. Unfortunately the Samsung specs don't mention any of this so I am not sure if this camera has two modes, or one, or if one mode, which one Samsung made the default.

Here is how I would approach shooting your bass playing.

1) mount the camera on a tripod so the camera is steady.

2) Likely 1 meter to 2 meters will be far enough away to be in focus. I recommend that you
   experiment with this to see if 1 meter is better than 2 or if 2 is better than 3 meters.

3) light the set with as much light as you can as this will force the auto-exposure to
   'stop-down' the iris as in a smaller aperture, which translates into more depth of
   field.

4) in front of the camera, dead center, put a chair or something where you will be playing,
   (use some gaffers tape to mark this spot off camera on the floor assuming your not
   going to show your feet) this will force the auto-focus to focus on the space you are
   going to be.

5) set the camera zoom to full wide (the wider you set the lens, the greater the depth
   of field).

6) press the record button, walk to your spot toss the chair or prop that was standing in
   for you and start your action. All the stuff that happened before you started playing
   your bass can be cut out in post production.

Alternately you can have a friend stand in for you on your mark before you start the camera, you could even have them give an intro then decide later to keep it or cut it and go direct to the bass playing. Also, you could have an assistant do all this camera work for you while you stay in place to start the show.

Quick review:
1) tripod to steady the camera,
2) lots of light,
3) set zoom to widest angle,
4) have your spot in focus before you start.


Convert a 60 fps video to a 24 (film) video - is it possible? This may not be as simple a problem as it may seem at first, so read carefully.

When I set my (Canon 60D, but this doesn't really matter at all) camera to record at 24 fps (I think it's actually 23.976 fps, but again, this shouldn't really matter), the film fps, it looks so "perfect", like any Hollywood movie. It is a bit stuttery, kind of "low fps" on the first sight, but it's exactly how it should look - a perfect film - and this is exactly what I want.

Now, the problem is, when I record at 60 fps to have a few more frames in case I need a slowmotion, the movie (when played back at 60 fps) looks too "fluid, fast", like a low-budget documentary movie or something like that.

The question: Can I record all my scenes at 60 fps and then somehow "convert" the 60 fps footage so that it looks like it was recorded at 24 fps ?

The reason: I need to record all the scenes in 60 fps, because I don't know which of them I will need in slowmotion later. I cannot record in 24 fps, but I do want the final cut to look as if it was recorded in 24.

You can, there's a lot of frame blending algorithms that will do it for you. That said, none of them is really great. All your 60fps footage will have a different look than your 24fps footage. You flat out cannot evenly go from 60fps to 24fps, there's just too little overlap in where the frames actually show up on a timeline. For frame conversions of that magnitude (24p->60i for TV, for example), the big boys have traditionally used telecine/telesync setups where they would literally film an image projected from a movie reel with a television camera.

Consider shooting 50fps (if that's an option). It's much easier to go from 50 to 24 (drop every other frame, then drop one frame a second) than it is to do 60->24.


Color Temperature, Contrast, Brightness, and Saturation How Can we measure each of these Parameters for 2 videos ? and the reason behind it is to make a comparison ?

Most prosumer-level (or higher) video editing software has monitor panels which show you information about color distribution, luminace, levels and the likes. Premiere Pro for example offers a range of reference monitors.

Contrary to photo editing, you can't get one measurement of those parameters for the entire video, because they of course vary from frame to frame (I guess you could calculate the average values, but that would be utterly useless). So you can't really compare two videos numerically accurate in that manner.


(FFMPEG) Creating SD Pal Anamorphic I'm using a shell script to automate some FFMPEG processes. The main part I'm interested in is the options following the -vf flag below:

ffmpeg -loglevel verbose -y -i "${FILE}" -vcodec prores -profile:v 1 -vf scale=720:576,setdar=4:3,setsar=1:1 "${OUTPUTDIR}/${FILENAME%.*}_SD.mov" >"${LOGDIR}/${LOGFILE}"

This script should be generating an SD Pal Anamorphic ProRes LT mov which is being sent to an ad streaming company. The worry we're having is that while this generates a 720x576 file which is good, upon comparison to the previous encoder we were using (Squeeze) using Premiere it appears as though Squeeze outputs a 1.0940 ratio pixel, while this outputs a 1.0 and thereby displays it slightly squished horizontally (more so than our normal anamorphics).

One would assume this is because of the setsar=1:1, therefore changing it to 1:1.094 would fix things, but that just makes it 0.9410 or something in Premiere and squishes it even more!

We're unsure on how the ad streaming company processes anamorphic files on their side, so I don't know whether the square pixels will fly or not.

Another note is that when these files are generated, they are pulled into Quicktime, and if the info screen displays 720x576 it's okay, but if it is followed by another resolution like (780x576) in brackets then the ad streaming company will deny it.

Can you confirm the spec? If all 720 px are active, then setdar=4/3 is correct but without the setsar. If Rec. 601  is required,  as is likely,  then setsar=59/54 is needed without the setdar


What techniques are used to create this 1-minute motion graphic? Here's a 1 minute After Effects (?) production about The Noun Project (an iconic website):
https://vimeo.com/48846655
I really like the style of it and would like to learn how to create something similar.
Questions

What effect is used for the letters to animate per-letter vertically?
How is the scene setup so that element gradually fade in and out from the top/bottom?
How can the "elements-to-globe animation" at 0.54 done?
Where can I find or create sound similar to that used in the film?

Okay, now that you have updated your question I think we may be able to answer your questions better...

But keep in mind this could have been done 100 ways and we are simply hypothesizing on how it could have been done.

The individual letters coming in like this could be done 100 different ways, it could be done via an effect in aftereffects, a preset in livetype, etc.  I most likely would simply make each letter its own layer and tie that to a slider via expressions and then be able to keyframe the slider to initiate and finish the animation...this allows me to change the speed of the animation easily and the in and out points of the animation etc.
My guess is that as the items are sliding in and out vertically there is a mask of white with a high feather so that as it goes from center to bottom or top...it is going beneath a layer of white that is feathered to solid at the tops and bottom and feathered to transparent at the center.
I am going to say this was also done with expressions, he had a gride of icons, in a circle...made the middle icons slide from the - in the z axis and arrive on 0, with a crossfade of an icon of the world.
This is more of an audio question, "how do you make music?" but I would say digital performer, or even on the super cheap side is garageband which is free with mac os, and theres millions between, burn-studios.audiotool.com is free, theres audacity, theres fruity loops

Hope this helps you a little bit