Can I add motion blur to make animation less jerky? I am doing an animation, and if I do things the easy way, fast moving objects end up jerking across the screen, rather than appearing to move smoothly – in other words, I have a temporal aliasing problem. One possible solution is to oversample the animation and blend the frames back together at the output frame rate.

To illustrate, at 24 frames per second:

frame
  0    **
  1        **
  2            **
  3                **
 ...                   **

Oversampled at double speed (though realistically I'd probably oversample quite a bit more than double):

frame
  0    **
 0.6     **
  1        **
 1.5         **
  2            **
 2.5             **
  3                **
 3.5                 **
 ...                   **

Blended back to 24 frames per second (all mixed with the background):

frame
  0    ****
  1        ****
  2            ****
  3                ****
 ...                   ****

The problem with oversampling is that if I just use Premiere Elements 14, if I take the oversampled clip and slow it back down to regular speed, it appears to just skip frames rather than blending them.

This seems like something that ffmpeg probably does, but I've barely started trying to understand it, and my reading of the documentation, tutorials, and the forum messages that have turned up with web searches hasn't been enough to figure out what switches would do the job.

So, questions:

Is there an option in Premiere Elements 14 to blend frames from an oversampled clip, rather than just skipping frames?
If ffmpeg is the smart way to do this, what kind of switches do I need to use to get the job done?
Is there some other reasonably easy-to-use software that could do the frame blending instead of skipping them? (And if so, how do I use that?)

Even if there's a way to do it directly in Premiere Elements, answers to #2 and #3 are likely to be helpful to people who use other editors.

I can't test the ffmpeg method below now but it notionally does what you ask:

Let's say your source is 25 fps.

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf minterpolate=50,tblend=all_mode=average,framestep=2 out.mp4


How to fix video shot vertically on a smartphone? I recently committed the crime of shooting video vertically, and now when played anywhere except on my phone the video renders sideways. What is the best method to rotate it (using PC software), without losing any pixels?

VLC Media player, which is free, allows under it's Tools -> Effects and Filters a Geometry Tab, which you could try for rotation.

Then you could use the Encode/Stream option under File - to try to get a decent output.

However, unless your camera has some sort of ccd/cmos rotation feature, if the video was shot vertically, you shot it using only a fraction of the sensor, discarding the vertical space on the top and bottom to create a letter box version at a lower resolution.

You can up-res it, either simply, or with an expensive plugin, but it's never going to be "full resolution" because the information simply isn't there.


How to loop .TS files from Folder with FFMPEG I am using the code below as a batch file. The issue i am currently having is only one video in the folder keeps looping. How can i make all the videos play and loop?

@echo off

set FFMPEGDIR=E:\ffmpeg\bin
set BARKERDIR=E:\slatewithsound
:start
for /F %%x in ('dir /b /d %BARKERDIR%\*.ts') do (
    @echo %BARKERDIR%\%%x
    %FFMPEGDIR%\ffmpeg.exe -re -fflags +genpts -stream_loop -1 -i %BARKERDIR%\%%x -acodec ac3 -ac 2 -ar 48000 -b:a 192K -vcodec mpeg2video -s 1920x1080 -b:v 4.5M -mpegts_start_pid 0x101 -mpegts_pmt_start_pid 0x100 -f mpegts udp://239.203.1.61:4000?pkt_size=1316
)
goto start


Video editor that lets me code my own effects from scratch? I'm the type of guy who likes to produce beauty from code - I mostly experiment with shaders.

Up to this day, I've only been doing so for the sake of games, but an idea popped up in my mind that I could decorate an actual film footage using handwritten postprocessing.

Is there any software that, apart from facilitating basic video editing tasks, lets me code (and later apply) my own effect completely from scratch, that is, lets me manipulate each input frame pixel by pixel? Either in some shader language or maybe CUDA or even C++?

You should check out Processing dot org.


Using ffmpeg to add height (as black bars) to video file without quality loss I have a file of resolution 3840x1632, but my TV stretches the picture vertically to fill up all 2160 pixels of height.  Is it possible to use ffmpeg to add blank / black height, while preserving the video and audio quality?

Tried doing this, which seemed to work (took about 2 hours, the same length of the video), but greatly reduced the file size/video quality):

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -filter:v "pad=3840:2160:0:280" -c:a copy my_output_video.mkv

Is there a switch to say "keep everything else the same"?

Thank you!

You'll have to manually set encoding parameters.

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -filter:v "pad=3840:2160:0:280,setsar=1" -crf 18 -preset faster -c:a copy my_output_video.mkv

The CRF option sets the tradeoff for size/quality. Lower values produce better quality but larger files. The preset will increase speed, but for same quality, the file size will be larger.

The setsar filter has been added as a precaution in case your player reads the SAR stored in the file and stretches the video based on that value.


High cpu usage with FFMPEG copying video codec from HLS Reposted from superuser: https://superuser.com/questions/1340574/ffmpeg-copy-hls-high-cpu-usage

I have a set of batch scripts (Windows 10) to create an "instant replay" for some (11) HLS streams using FFMPEG. When everything is working each instance uses less than 1% CPU. The problem I have is that FFMPEG regularly hangs and does not continue looping. When this happens, the instance jumps to 10-15% CPU usage.

The first time I had this problem, I updated my graphics card drivers and FFMPEG version and that worked for a while but the problem came back. I assumed that it was the graphics card going bad. I now have a brand new computer (Precision 7520 with Xeon E3-1535M v6, Quadro M2200, and 32GB ECC RAM) and the problem persists. I have no idea what the cause is. I have tried updating FFMPEG again to no avail.

If anybody has a fix that would be the best; however, if you know a way to monitor the processor usage and automatically kill ffmpeg when it spikes for more than 10s that would be an acceptable solution.

The recorder script is as follows:

Set Event=%1
Set CamName=%4
::SegLength is normally 30 to 60 seconds
Set SegLength=%2
Set BasePath=%3

mkdir "%BasePath%\%Event%\%CamName%\"
for /f %%i in ('yt-dl PATH_TO_master.m3u8 -f best --get-url') do set url="%%i"

:beg
Set "FileName=%CamName%.%TIME::=-%.mp4"
ffmpeg -n -i %url% -t %SegLength% -c:v copy -c:a copy -f mp4 "%BasePath%\%Event%\%CamName%\%FileName%"
goto :beg

I switched to a 32-bit binary and the problem has gone away.


Why trimming in ffmpeg eats up so much memory? Basically, I want to take two rectangles ouf of sixth minute of the video and overlay them at an earlier point in the video.

If I use ffmpeg three times like this:

ffmpeg -i a.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v]trim=start_frame=9000:end_frame=9001,crop=1280:100:0:0,null,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[v]" -map [v] -c:v libx264 -c:a null -crf 15 -preset slow -y -t 0.1 still1.mp4
ffmpeg -i a.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v]trim=start_frame=9000:end_frame=9001,crop=100:100:600:500,null,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[v]" -map [v] -c:v libx264 -c:a null -crf 15 -preset slow -y -t 0.1 still2.mp4
ffmpeg -i a.mp4 -i still1.mp4 -i still2.mp4 -filter_complex \
"[0:v][1:v]overlay=0:0:enable='between(t,60,61)'[v0]; \
[v0][2:v]overlay=600:500:enable='between(t,60,61)'[v1]" \
-map [v1] -c:v libx264 -crf 17 -preset slow -y -t 362 p.mp4

The consumption of RAM as measured by top stays around 3 GB. However, when I  try it in one command, it quickly eats up 13GB of my free memory and the process quickly gets killed by OOM killer:

ffmpeg -i a.mp4 -filter_complex \
"[0:v]trim=start_frame=9000:end_frame=9001,crop=1280:100:0:0,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[still1]; \
[0:v]trim=start_frame=9000:end_frame=9001,crop=100:100:600:500,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[still2]; \
[0:v][still1]overlay=0:0:enable='between(t,61,62)'[v0]; \
[v0][still2]overlay=600:500:enable='between(t,61,62)'[v1]" \
-map [v1] -c:v libx264 -crf 17 -preset slow -y  p.mp4

I suspect ffmpeg keeps all the frames decoded in memory when trimming, but is there any way around this? It sounds wastefull, I am interested in two little frames, that should not eat up GB of memory!

Use better command: ffmpeg -i a.mp4 -i a.mp4 -i a.mp4 -filter_complex \
"[0:v]trim=start_frame=9000:end_frame=9001,crop=1280:100:0:0,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[still1]; \
[1:v]trim=start_frame=9000:end_frame=9001,crop=100:100:600:500,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[still2]; \
[2:v][still1]overlay=0:0:enable='between(t,61,62)'[v0]; \
[v0][still2]overlay=600:500:enable='between(t,61,62)'[v1]" \
-map [v1] -c:v libx264 -crf 17 -preset slow -y  p.mp4

This way ffmpeg will not keep frames it still needs in memory.


How to detect whether a video is shaky I need to stabilize a video only when the video is shaky.

I have successfully stabilized a video using FFmpeg, and I do not need to stabilize all the videos, I only need to stabilize the videos which appear shaky (not stable).

Is there any way I can detect that?

Try ffmpeg's deshake filter. It scans the full frame (or a portion of your choosing) and detects shake based on a number of adjustable variables. If the video isn't shaking, it doesn't change the content. You can run the default settings with:

ffmpeg -i [input] -vf deshake [output]

Great little demo here. It's a combination detection and repair tool, no need to separately identify videos then reprocess.


Does anybody have suggestion to recreate this light trail effect? Maybe you know this wonderful video:

Can someone help me to understand how the LED trail effect has been done?

There are two ways this can be accomplished.  The easiest is by using a slow shutter speed.  While most DSLRs may be limited to 30FPS and faster, it is possible through the use of third party firmwares to lower that arbitrarily further.  As you can see from the details on Vimeo, they were using GH2s with the EOSHD Vanilla hack.  This removes many of the limitations that would otherwise be on the system.  It is also possible with most Canon hardware using MagicLantern's FPS Override.

The other way to do it is to artificially do it in post production (though the result often isn't as good) by additive combining each frame with previous frames.  This results in a trail that can animate on and animate off and maintain the original frame rate, but it is likely to introduce gaps in the trails and either requires a pre-existing plugin or some creative layering in After Effects.  Layer each video one from apart and then apply blending until you get something that looks like you want.

It is hard to tell which technique is being used for sure without a downloadable copy that I can go through frame by frame, though my initial impression (particularly based on the hacked firmware and the general feel of the video) is that they are using the lower frame rate option in the hacked GH2.

Update: I managed to dig up my old Youtube downloader and got the video in to Premiere.  I can confirm that it is in fact a lowered frame rate (around 1/12 or 1/15 for most of the trail shots).


Can't change Handbrake audio bit rate I'm trying to compress video files using handbrake.

While I'm managing to bring the video bit rate down, the audio bit rate is always at around 380kbps, no matter what I set in the audio settings tab. See below images for details.

What am I doing wrong?

What tool do you use for showing the Audio bitrate?
Try MediaInfo to make sure that Handbrake is the problem here.
But as far as I can see, you aren't doing anything wrong (besides setting the audio bitrate this low ;) ).
The avcodec AAC encoder also has quality settings, you can try these out as well (Couldn't hear any difference for settings 3 and higher, but was able to hear some slight artifacts at 2, never tried 1).
For best compression use MKV container with opus audio and x265 video encoder.


How do I.T. conferences record and synchronise video, audio and slides? Our company has been recently encouraging knowledge sharing via fortnightly presentations (usually on Powerpoint) with respect to tools, technologies and development methodologies. We would also like to record some of these presentations to allow for sharing between sites and to new starters.

I recently watched this presentation and found the way the video triggers slide changes on the site to be a great way of accomplishing this.

Is there a definitive tool-stack that can be used to accomplish something like this? Or is this something we would need to develop in-house using a set of existing tools? How would you do it if you were going to start your own conference?

It is a tall order because it requiters combining many different technologies however university I am studying at have this kind of service.
Here is their main website: https://vips.liedm.lt/en/
Here is an example https://vips.liedm.lt/vflash/klientas/2204/2207/false
Check out recorded sessions to get controls in English there is menu call "Kalba" just click it and chose English controls will change to English.

It was developed on Drupal 6 and uses technologies like Flex and flash it uses wowza and red 5 for live video streaming.


How do I find out if a video is actual or if it was modified with a Software? This video in question is Chameleon Changing Color How do I find out if that color change in the Chameleon is real and not a modification that was done with software? Specifically, I am looking for some software I can use to conduct the analysis or a website that provides such services.

Chameleons do have some pretty wild colors they can change into, and the process is extremely advanced, requiring physicists and biologists to fully understand how it works; check out this video for how it works. Personal note: Something this advanced doesn't happen by random chance.
Anyway, my personal opinions aside, it appears to me, this video was heavily edited by software to get a bigger wow factor. I've edited photos and videos for the better part of 20 years and there are subtle markers that stand out to me.
The biggest tip-off, is at 2:06 into the video when the Chameleon changes blue. If you look carefully at the body, you will see a slight gray outline around the edge of the entire Chameleon, it is especially noticeable at the top of his back and the around his forward paw gripping the branch -- that is a not so subtle sign that a poorly made mask has been used to select an area for manipulation. Other tipoffs include the vibrancy of the colors and the purple/blue, and the whole body changing the same color, instead of patches changing color.
As for what software can do this, there are many. If it's a still image you can use Affinity photo, Gimp, or Photoshop. For video, the best (and free) is DaVinci Resolve is what I would recommend. It was specifically designed to do this kind of work!
For an example of how the change could have been done in software, check out this video or this one.
How it happens in Chamelons

How it's done is software


Split video into equal duration segments I am currently using ffmpeg to split videos into 10 seconds segments. I have taken two approaches but neither seems to yield the desired results. Approach number one is using basic cutting with the -t and -ss options to get the segments. This gives close to accurate segments but  it has some issues with the frames in the ending of some videos. The second option is using segment: great and fast but it gives segments of not equal duration. Any idea how to get segments of the same duration and no issues in the frames? In other words if I play them in a list it should play smoothly

General way

ffmpeg – i input.mp4  -ss <start> -t <duration> -vcodec copy -acodec copy output%03d.mp4

Using segment

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -map 0 -segment_time 8 -f segment output%03d.mp4

The issue with the frames are very likely the results of using h264 and not re-encoding the video. h264 usually doesn't have single frames (unless encoded with an intra profile) but groups of frames (GOPs), ffmpeg will cut at a keyframe position ie. at the end or beginning of a GOP. Or not in the case of your first approach, giving you issues with the affected GOPs.

The issue should be resolved by re-encoding (-vcodec libx264 -preset slow) or if that also yields errors transcode to a lossless codec like jpeg2000 (-vcodec libopenjpeg) cut your video and then encode into h264 again (or any other codec you may prefer).


After Effects What does this Icon mean Thanks in Advance,

Can someone help with explaining what this Icon mean couldn't find any reference,
cheers

It's called a slip-edit (see Adobe's explanation here).
If you have the Pan-Behind tool selected, when you see this icon over a clip, it means you can drag the clip left or right in time, and the start and end points of the clip will change, but the position and duration in your timeline will stay in the same place.  It's just like doing a slip edit in Premiere.


Workflow to ingest files from Zoom audio recorder I use a Zoom H5 audio recorder, and when I copy the audio files from it I like to have them sitting next to the video files they correspond too.

The problem is the way Zoom stores files: every clip in its own folder. Copying all those files into one single folder can take a long time when there are 100+ clips.

Does anyone know of any software, or workflow in Premiere/Prelude to make this easier?

If youre hopefully running windows, use explorer (My Computer). Navigate to the SD card. In the search box for that window, type *.wav (or whatever extension you used to record).

The window will then display all the WAV files found on the card, without the folder. Select all of them. Copy. Paste to a new folder.

If you encounter conflicts in terms of clip name, use the 3rd command called "Allow Windows to Resolve", which will create v2 v3 v4 of the files which use the same file name.


Is it possible to modify a single precomp instance via scripting? The Setup

- PreComp1
-- PreCompLayer1
--- simpleRectangleLayer

- Main Timeline
-- layer1
--- [PreComp1]
-- layer2
--- [PreComp1]

Question

Using only scripting is it possible to modify the inside of a single precomp instance? eg. change the color of layer1.PreComp1.simpleRectangleLayer

Scripting can do anything you can do with the UI. This isn't something you can do with the UI, so no, you can't do it with scripting. If you change the colour of precomp1.layer1.simpleRectangleLayer then it changes for all instances of precomp1. That's how precomps work.

You'd have to make a script that would do the same thing you'd have to do with the UI—duplicate precomp1 to make precomp2, change the colour of the layer and replace the source of layer2 to precomp2. I did make a script that does this kinda. It lets you duplicate a layer and make a duplicate of its source so that it can be changed. Available (free, open source) here (caveat: there are some bugs I've never found the time to iron out).


What is the name of a portion of video between camera changes? Most movies consist of short portions, within which a picture is changing smoothly, but between which picture changes drastically. May be camera point of view changes or entire scene  is replaced.

What is the name of such portions and their margins?

It sounds like you are describing shots.  A scene is composed of one or more shots covering a consistent location and time.  Each separate clip within the scene is simply referred to as a shot.  The shot changes any time that the camera position is moved.  Technically, if you are on a close up shot and cut to a wide angle and then cut back to a close up, they would both be part of the same close up shot if they were from a continuous clip, but I've never heard any other term applied to the smallest unit of continuous video.

If the shots transition directly from one to the other without any interlude, this is referred to as a cut.  The term comes from the film days when one would cut the film and splice it together with the first frame of the next scene.


Is footage recorded through external recorder really better? Most DSLRs offer 8-bit recording, 4:2:0 with 100mb/s 50/mb/s 500mb/s in their own containers.

Why would shooting with an external recorder (let's say ProRes HQ or 422), make the picture look better or easier to grade?
Amount of mb/s difference is huge between internal and external.

Still did not get an external recorder, but before I do, would like to get a clear understanding of this. Of course, bigger LCD and lots of SSD space is a huge plus.

Unless the DSLR/Mirrorless camera you are using outputs 10-bit 4:2:2, using an external recorder to up-convert the footage to ProRes HQ will not result in a better image quality than what the camera is able to produce/output.

If anything it will allow you to edit and re-compress the footage multiple times without losing the original quality.

Using an external recorder may result in a better picture quality compared to the internal encoding, because there is more bitrate available per frame, more robust codecs, and also being able to remove the 5, 15, or 30 minutes recording limitation the camera may have.

A bigger plus using an external recorder (or display) is the ability to nail the focus, assess proper exposure, and having multiple eyes monitoring the recording.


Change sequence frame size Final Cut Express 4 I have a sequence in Final Cut Express 4 that has 1080p video in it, but when I export it, it exports as 720p video, because the sequence settings are set to 720p video. How do I change the frame size?

I think Menu -> Sequence -> Settings -> Load Sequence Preset..., then picking choosing a 1080p  preset might do what you want.  You'll probably have to delete and re-render anything you've pre-rendered.

You can set the default sequence preset for all new sequences with Easy Setup under the application menu.


filming objects that emit light in low light conditions I have a Canon HF100 HD camera which I'm using to produce video for youtube and other online video channels, in HD.

I need to primarily shoot video of objects and people in low light conditions, where the objects emit light (lamps, etc).

The main problem I have with the camera is that it quickly renders the objects to be white when in fact they emit purple light (the diffuser is purple on the object).

Also, during daylight, when I want to shoot video and want it to be obvious in the video that the object is emitting light, it looks like the object is not emitting light at all (probably because the daylight is so intense that the camera adjusts for that and hence the object's light is not visible in the image ... ?)

I'm not a photography or video expert, so I'm wondering what to do with each of these situations. Should I get some lights? Should I buy a different camera, and perhaps specific lenses?

I have a small business, so don't have 10,000 dollar budgets to spend on cameras.

Thanks B

This type of photography is called 'available light' which covers shooting subjects without adding strobes or other lights. It is favored by many photographers for many reasons. I personally favor this because the subject and scene appear more natural to me. Things that glow interest me as well and there are tons of things that fit this: the moon, neon art, neon signs, street light reflections on the surface of wet pavement, faces illuminated by camp fire, Christmas lights and decorations, just to name a few.

Each of these subjects will require the photographer to make needed adjustments to capture the light. Let's start with the brightest thing in my list, the moon. The moon as you know does not emit light, but rather reflects the light from the sun. As I recall when I would measure it with my digital spot meter, a full moon might be close to or exceed 12 EV. When I shoot video of the moon where it is almost 50% of the frame, I have found these things that assist:

1) very high magnification, 80x to 100x

2) heavy tripod and no vibration

3) do not touch camera while recording, use remote to start and stop

4) manual exposure

5) manual focus

6) set the white balance to outdoor (sunlight)

7) setting up these things before starting the recording.

According to the specs on the Canon HF100 it has both manual exposure and manual focus.
When I put my Sony in digital zoom, I notice that the manual focus is not always accurate as far as the numbers go, so I trick it by first lining up the moon in the middle of the frame, set focus to auto then after it adjusts, I lock it down by pressing the manual button. I adjust the manual exposure by looking at how much detail I want on the surface.

example of moon shot:

https://vimeo.com/11145790

Notes: in the example the motion is sped up 4x in post production, also note the wavy lines as per atmospheric distortion.

Regarding the issue you are having with "the camera is that it quickly renders the objects to be white when in fact they emit purple light (the diffuser is purple on the object)."

This could be more than just one thing that needs adjustment. First I would check that you are not over exposing the lamp, then I would also make sure you have set the proper white balance as well. If you were expecting to capture both the purple lamp and an illuminated face, the lamp may be too bright for this or that the dynamic range of getting the lamp's purple glow and enough illumination to see detail on your subject's face may exceed the camera's dynamic range. You may have to change the bulb in the light to be brighter or darker to bring it in range.

Also note that in very low light situations, less than 10 LUX, you may start to notice digital noise in the black areas.

Shooting a light emitting object in sunlight is going to be difficult as you are correct in thinking that the daylight is too intense compared to your subject. Remember the sun is so bright that it may harm your sensor if you expose the sun directly for extended periods of time.

Another thing you can do is add a reflector on your subject as a fill light or add highlight. Here is an example:

Balancing the light of a scene will take some practice and some experimentation. Let's say you wanted to shoot a scene outside in daylight and your subject is working on a laptop. Your goal is to have the subject's features to be illuminated and at the same time be able to read or see detail on the laptop screen. To do this, you will likely have to shoot these in the shade to reduce the amount of daylight in your frame, and may have to use a reflector on your subject as well as put the laptop display in max brightness. It's all a balancing act of light.

If you can not afford a light meter, or spot meter, use your camera's display as the best source of how the scene will be balanced for light.

I recommend that you examine your display carefully to see that all the things you want are properly illuminated. Some scenes may have extreme high and low values of light that exceed the dynamic range of your camera.

Summary:
Capturing things that reflect light or emit light can be interesting yet require camera adjustments and good planning. Adjustments include: manual exposure, manual focus, manual white balance, possibly using a reflector, and if possible change the brightness of any lamps in your scene.


Better transition animations in premiere Let's say I want to overlay image slideshow or transition infographic over my video in Adobe Premiere. I know I can just add some slide or wipe tranistions to my assets, but those transitions look ugly, they don't have any easing or motionblur support. I also know I can animate those assets in AFX. But even with very good Premiere and AFX roundtrip support, this method still lacks crucial flexibility. For example, if I wanted to change asset display duration later, I have to either do it in AFX (and have hard time syncing it to audio for example), or go around with some freeze frame mojo basically spliting the animated asset in three parts (animation in, still frame, animation out).

I am looking for a way to handle those simple animations directly in premiere. Is there a trick or functionality I am not aware of? Or maybe some plugin? Basic functionality I am looking for is creating a slide tranistion with easing (nonlinear progress, speading up and slowing down) and maybe motionblur.

Red Giant Universe has the support you need.

Part of the video transitions included with Universe that might be useful to you:

Swish Pan/Slide: can create a nice slide with motion blur support and easing
Fade In: creates sort of a zoom effect with motion blur support and
easing.

Also has other transitions like Zoom Blur, Fold .etc. all with motion  blur support and easing.

If you are looking for some free presets I'm not sure about slide or wipe. But Chung Dha has some nice presets. They are keyframe based in Premiere, but you can modify them (but its not as drag and drop as Universe).

You can check them out here: http://www.chungdha.nl/?cat=129

Specifically the last two, namely, Smooth Transition Presets and Motion blur with transform effects.

He also has a tutorials on usability in each transition page.


Is this video 50p or 25p? I have some footage shot with a Lumix DMC-FZ38 with the video format set to AVCHD and the SH (super high?) quality setting.

The manual says:

  [AVCHD Lite] (With audio)

  When set to [SH]: 1280x720 pixels

  (50p recording * /17 Mbps, only when card is used) /

  When set to [H]: 1280x720 pixels

  (50p recording * /13 Mbps, only when card is used) /

  When set to [L]: 1280x720 pixels

  (50p recording * /9 Mbps, only when card is used)

  *CCD output is at 25 fps

I think 50p means 50 progressive frames per second. According to advice given in the comments, CCD means "Charge Coupled Device", which is the type of sensor my camera uses. That would seem to indicate that the sensor outputs 25 frames per second.

When I import a video from the camera (00000.MTS) into Blender's Video Sequence Editor and tell it to use the frame rate from the video, it sets the project frame rate to 50fps. However, when I render it, the video plays at double speed, which seems to indicate that it was 25fps after all.

If I extract PNGs from the first second of the video using ffmpeg -i 00000.MTS -to 1 tmp%d.png, it gives me 25 png files, indicating 25fps.

ffprobe 00000.MTS reports:

Input #0, mpegts, from '01.MTS':
  Duration: 00:29:58.18, start: 0.366667, bitrate: 14025 kb/s
  Program 1
    Stream #0:0[0x1011]: Video: h264 (High) (HDMV / 0x564D4448), yuv420p(tv, progressive), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 50 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 100 tbc
    Stream #0:1[0x1100]: Audio: ac3 (AC-3 / 0x332D4341), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 192 kb/s

According to this mailing list,

  tbr is guessed from the video stream and is the value users want to
  see when they look for the video frame rate, except sometimes it is
  twice what one would expect because of field rate versus frame rate.

So ffprobe reports both 50 fps and 25 tbr. Here tbr is half of fps, not double. What's the distinction here?

SMPlayer and VLC both report 50 frames per second.

What is the actual frame rate of my footage?

AVCHD Lite uses 25p/30p shooting rate and records it to 50p/60p container using frame doubling. Panasonic did that because, I presume, they were unable to shoot true 50p/60p at that time, on the other hand AVCHD and Blu-Ray specifications do not support 720p25 and 720p30 videos. Panasonic did this to stay compatible with the AVCHD format.

I guess the reason was that this way you can author the original clips as-is onto AVCHD Disc or Blu-Ray Disc, and they will be fully compliant and playable by standard Blu-Ray Player.

Nowadays a camera simply stores whatever it records in one of the standard containers like MP4, then you edit/author in whatever format you prefer. But ten years ago the compatibility between AVCHD and Blu-Ray was a selling point for both formats.


What format should I digitize mini DV tapes with HDV footage in? I want to digitize a lot of mini dv tape footage, shot on a Sony a1(HDV).  What format should I digitize the footage in? (and on a side note can you point me in the direction of what hardware I will need for this)?

You have a few options for capturing Mini-DV tape.  The first and highest quality, but largest size, is to capture it in HDV format (HDV2 is used by most Sony cameras).  It is a form of MPEG-2 Part 2 video.  This is the same as the format actually stored on the tape.  Storing your files as HDV will preserve the quality of the recorded footage, but it will take quite a lot of space.  This is ideal for high quality archives and any footage that will be used as a source for editing.  It only requires a firewire port and DV capture software (which is also built in to most NLEs.)

If you only care about viewing, then your best option is probably to initially capture to HDV and then transcode to h.264.  h.264 is a high quality compression that you can tweak for the quality/size trade off you desire.  I'd personally recommend either a constant quality or a 2 pass VBR encoding for maximum quality to size.  This doesn't require any specialized hardware beyond the initial HDV capture and can be done entirely in software with free tools (which may even be able to leverage GPU acceleration depending on your video card.)


kind of equipment used in this video In the attached video, the camera films the crowd from above. How is this achieved? What kind of equipment is the camera equipped with?

As Jared said, probably not the most relevant question. But if I wanted to get a simmilar kind of shot I'd put a GoPro on a boom pole.


FFmpeg tool graph2dot doesn't recognize some filters I have graph2dot FFmpeg utility for converting filtergraph descriptions to the textual representations in the dot language for their subsequent visualisation.

(Thanks to Mulvya who uploaded it in this answer).

It works fine for me but it doesn't recognize some filters, e. g. mpdecimate and delogo:

  No such filter: 'mpdecimate'
  No such filter: 'delogo'

Is there some way (e. g. a newer version of this program or its DLL libraries) to fix it?

The older upload did not cover those filters as they require GPL license and the older binary was built with a LGPL configure.

I've uploaded a 64-bit GPL3 Windows binary of graph2dot (with 4 dependencies) to http://www.datafilehost.com/d/6fcd14be

Source is at https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg/blob/master/tools/graph2dot.c

License is at https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg/blob/master/COPYING.GPLv3


How to burn timestamp in video with different date format using FFMPEG? I am using below command to add timestamps to video:

ffmpeg -y -i input.mp4 -vf "drawtext=fontfile=roboto.ttf:fontsize=36:fontcolor=yellow:text='%{pts\:gmtime\:1456007118}'" -preset ultrafast output.mp4

command is working but i don't get desired output. it is adding timestamp like this:

I want to use different date format like this:

Simple Date Format
Date and Time Patterns

I get this date :

2016-02-20 22:25:20

but i want this :

Sat, 20 Feb 2016 22:25:20 -0700

i found my answer in this link:

strftime - format date and time

strftime(3) - Linux man page

ex: i use this command for demo and i made several other command for different date format

ffmpeg -y -i input.mp4 -vf "drawtext=fontfile=roboto.ttf:fontsize=36:fontcolor=yellow:text='%{pts\:gmtime\:1575526882\:%A, %d, %B %Y %I\\\:%M\\\:%S %p}'" -preset ultrafast -f mp4 output.mp4


Auto detect and auto pan to ball in video I'd like to set up a 4K video camera in the corner of a soccer field and just let it record. Afterwards I'd like to use a video editor to zoom into a smaller (1080) area where the ball is and auto pan to follow.

This takes too long to do manually. Do you know any software that will track the ball (or movement of people) and zoom into that area generating a 1080 or 720 output of the action around the ball? If not automatically, any suggestions on the fastest/easiest way to do this?

You could do it in real life by attaching a transmitter to the ball and having a robotic pan/tilt tripod head track the movement.  If you're shooting 4K, your budget's probably in line with something like soloshot. Or, of course, you could pay a cam-op.  Taking the time (or paying someone) to track it in Mocha or AE will end up being more expensive than capturing the moment as it happens.


Rendered File with After Effects is very Huge I'm trying to create a video with After Effects CC 2015.
I'm really new in video creation and need to render this template project.
It is 8 minutes long and 1440x1080 pixels.

When I try to render it with format:Quicktime and codec:H264
result is a 11 gb file.

I'm not even sure if it is normal. But I guess it should be much less ?
I can put screenshots for setting windows and any window necessary.

I'd be really happy if someone can guide me in this because I need to perform this without spending too much time learning to learn AE fully.

Thanks a lot

Short Answer

It's all codec related, AE export follows the direction and settings you give him.

Your choice could be to export a super high bitrate lossless file or a few kb crappy thing horrible to see.

You say h264, probably you used an high bitrate, that could be good but better at this point go for an Intermediate use codec keeping h264 for the final distribution.

Long Answer

It's all depending the workflow you want to follow!

My workflow generally consists in export the render with a true lossless (or if not possibile at least visually speaking lossless) very high bitrate codec in order to have a decent master.

Then i use that master to export the copies in the format i want with a tool like ffmpeg that is a super powerful command line tool that allows you to do all the transcoding and compression job.

Pros

You will not need to re-render again the AE Project saving tons of time.
You will not have troubles expecially as early user for not knowing too much about codec and settings. Compress in a lossy codec while rendering must have first of all a reason (like one only in my life render, target and never use the video again for something else) but also require knowledge obtained by lot of trial and errors that a pro have. If you start with a lossy codec in the rendering phase and you misconfig the settings you will end in a crappy file not good at all!

Cons

Video files will be bigger, but if you have at least a handy external drive all will be easier a nas could be better if you plan to grow and use this workflow for work.

Export your AE render with a Very High quality codec suited for post production or that could retain as much info as possible example a QuickTime movie contianer with Apple ProRes or Avid DNxHD 120 or 185 Mbit/s.

Store your file and use something like:

ffmpeg -i rendered.mov -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -c:a libfdk_aac -b:a 192k compressed.mp4

To obtain a smaller compressed version of your movie.

If you already exported with AE the audio in aac or a format you would like to keep use

ffmpeg -i rendered.mov -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -c:a copy compressed.mp4

Note: If you download the ffmpeg binaries for windows normally the libfdk_aac is not available, so you could use: libfaac or aac or libvo_aacenc


Render settings for DVD in Vegas Pro I've been working on a video project and output should be for DVD.

Video from camera:
1920×1080; 50 fps

65 min. after cut

Software: Vegas Pro 12.0

I need to render it in the best quality possible, but on the other hand, I need it to be max. 4 GB big in size (because of DVD limitations).

Could you please give me advice for best render settings and format choice?

Use variable bitrate to cut down on filesize
4 GB / 65 min = 8.2 Mb/s which is in the norm for DVD quality so fixed bitrate should be fine


.mov file choppy when played back in premiere pro cc I made a screen recording using quicktime, but when I import the video into premier pro cc, the playback is choppy.  In on part of the video I have an object that fades in, when this is viewed in quicktime the fade is very gradual and smooth, but in premiere pro it is choppy as if I only get every other frame of the fade.

This could be a result of a very high resolution video and a slow computer. Try rendering the footage and see if it is still choppy


What exactly do eggcrates do to light? What exactly do eggcrates do to lighting? What is the benefit over adding an eggcrate to a diffuser?

Here is a video that shows a series of effects from no Egg Crates® to 60°, 50°, 40°, 30°, and finally 20°.

The answer is that up to a certain ratio of subject size and distance from the lighting source, Egg Crates make a light source more directional (harder shadows) while also allowing you to maintain a larger source (which offers the benefits of diffusion within the beam spread range).  Beyond a certain ratio (i.e., a small subject far away from the light source), Egg Crates have no meaningful effect because the subject fits entirely within the clear aperture of every cell in the matrix.  In that case the Egg Crate's only function is to reduce the overall lighting intensity just the same way a scrim does.

Another way to think about the effect is to imagine that each cell gives you a mini light source that has a certain beam spread angle.  A single, 2" light source with a 20° beam spread gives a light cone that is D*tan 20° + 2" where D is distance to the subject from the light source.  At 5' (60"), that computes to about 22", but it also has a lot of falloff from the center of its beam (fully illuminated) to its edge (dark because all light eventually eclipsed).  Now imagine that the 22" light circle is subdivided into an 11x11 grid of 2" squares at the subject.  Across the north-south and also east-west axis, the squares go from least illuminated (at the edge) to most illuminated (in the center) and back again, because the square in the center gets fully un-eclipsed light, whereas each square away from the center "sees" an increasingly eclipsed source.  Squares that are within the 11x11 grid but outside the radius of the 11-grid diameter circle are completely un-illuminated because they are fully eclipsed.  If you then created an 11x11 grid of 2" sources at the source, each square around the center would add its percentage of light to each square within the original 11x11 grid defined for the subject area, and the sum of all those squares is--equally illuminated within the 11x11 grid.  Around that 11x11 grid at the subject will be a fall-off pattern that is linear along the edges and circular at the corners.  A 48"x48" Egg Crate gives a 48"x48" area of even illumination 60" away, again with linear fall-off along its longer edges and quadradic fall-off around its farther-out corners.


How can I create a video from an image sequence that is named with a date in the FFmpeg? I am using FFmpeg
I'd like to create an mp4 using an image sequence.

But the images are not named sequentially, like 1, 2, 3, 4... Instead they are named with a time stamp in the form yyyy-mm-dd-mm.

How can I create a script to achieve this?

You can do it with scripting by renaming the files. I don't have a Windows machine at hand at the moment so I can't test this but this is what I would do in power shell:

First navigate to the directory containing the image sequence,  then

mkdir sorted_images;
$serial=0;
Get-childItems *. jpg | sort-object date | %{
Cp $_ (".\sorted_images\image_{0}.jpg" -f ($serial.toString("00000")));
$serial++}

That script should copy all the jpg images in the current folder to a new folder and rename them with a five digit serial number. Try it out on some test images first because I haven't tested it myself.


Trouble When Combining two video fields into one (to create an interlaced video) I'm having trouble with the command found here: Combining two video fields into one (to create an interlaced video)
ffmpeg -i tf.avi -i bf.avi -filter_complex vstack,il=l=i:c=i -c:v ffv1 out_i.avi
It seems to combine the fields correctly, the output, however, appears to be progressive. To test, I used
the video 'in_i.mxf' (XCDCAM HD 422, 1080i25) and separated the fields in tf.avi and bf.avi, using this:
ffmpeg -i in_i.mxf -vf field=top -c:v ffv1 -an tf.avi -vf field=bottom -c:v ffv1 -an bf.avi
That's the result of 'ffmpeg -i in_i.mxf -i tf.avi -i bf.avi -i out_i.avi':
Input #0, mxf, from 'in_i.mxf':
  Metadata:
    operational_pattern_ul: 060e2b34.04010101.0d010201.01010900
    uid             : 25e9aa02-7405-4800-809e-0700022483ea
    generation_uid  : 25e9aa02-7405-4800-811e-0700022483ea
    company_name    : CANON
    product_name    : XF105
    product_version : 1.00
    product_uid     : 060e2b34-0401-010d-0e15-005658460100
    modification_date: 2016-01-15T14:48:13.000000Z
    material_package_umid: 0x060A2B340101010501010D43130000000A25E9AB0274058000008500022483EA
    timecode        : 13:13:46:14
  Duration: 00:00:10.08, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 51874 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Video: mpeg2video (4:2:2), yuv422p(tv, bt709, top first), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 50000 kb/s, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 50 tbc
  Metadata:
  file_package_umid: 0x060A2B340101010501010D43130000000A25E9AA0274058000008500022483EA
    Side data:          cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 50000000/0/0 buffer size: 17825792 vbv_delay: N/A
Stream #0:1: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, mono, s16, 768 kb/s
Metadata:
  file_package_umid: 0x060A2B340101010501010D43130000000A25E9AA0274058000008500022483EA
Stream #0:2: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, mono, s16, 768 kb/s
Metadata:
  file_package_umid: 0x060A2B340101010501010D43130000000A25E9AA0274058000008500022483EA

Input #1, avi, from 'tf.avi':
  Metadata:
    software        : Lavf58.67.100
    timecode        : 13:13:46:14
  Duration: 00:00:10.08, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 98506 kb/s
  Stream #1:0: Video: ffv1 (FFV1 / 0x31564646), yuv422p, 1920x540, 98889 kb/s, SAR 1:1 DAR 32:9, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc

Input #2, avi, from 'bf.avi':
  Metadata:
    software        : Lavf58.67.100
    timecode        : 13:13:46:14
  Duration: 00:00:10.08, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 98381 kb/s
  Stream #2:0: Video: ffv1 (FFV1 / 0x31564646), yuv422p, 1920x540, 98763 kb/s, SAR 1:1 DAR 32:9, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc

Input #3, avi, from 'out_i.avi':
  Metadata:
    software        : Lavf58.67.100
    timecode        : 13:13:46:14
  Duration: 00:00:10.08, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 201187 kb/s
  Stream #3:0: Video: ffv1 (FFV1 / 0x31564646), yuv422p, 1920x1080, 201979 kb/s, SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9, 25 fps, 25 tbr, 25 tbn, 25 tbc

It might be just a metadata problem? Any ideas how to optimize?

Use the setparams filter to mark the frames as interlaced.
ffmpeg -i tf.avi -i bf.avi -filter_complex vstack,il=l=i:c=i,setparams=field_mode=tff -c:v ffv1 out_i.avi


What is the highest rated HDMI category available? It seems there are a number of HDMI category ratings.

In regards to quality, least amount of signal loss, and shielding, what currently are the highest rated HDMI categories available to either the general public or to those who have extra $$ to shell out?

The latest and greatest HDMI specification is 1.4a (and version 2 is expected to be released this year). The fastest/highest bandwidth category of HDMI cable is "HDMI with Ethernet." The rating of a cable's shielding (Class 2, Class 3) has more to do with fire resistance and US wiring code and is not really relevant to the matter of signal loss. MyCableMart.com has a great article with more information and cable recommendations: http://mycablemart.com/help/hdmi_which_one.php.

Whether a given cable available for purchase is higher quality with more more shielding is a matter of finding a good vendor and vetting their claims (caveat emptor). Longer cables with thicker wires inside, e.g., 22 AWG versus 24 AWG, will, all other things being equal have lower signal loss.

However, my experience with long HDMI cables has been very hit and miss. Just this week during an install for a multicamera livestream, a brand new, 50ft HDMI cable with built-in "signal booster" would work when connected to a monitor but not when connected to the video switcher (a Blackmagic ATEM Television Studio). A Blackmagic technical support technician told me that TVs/monitors are engineered to be very forgiving of signals that have fallen off spec. The ATEM switcher is more strict (and rightly so) and would not display the signal. Furthermore, I was told by Blackmagic that after 10 feet, HDMI cables start to fall off spec. In the end, we purchased an HDMI to SDI converter and successfully got the signal from the computer to the switcher.

After this and other HDMI misadventures, my gut feeling is to avoid long HDMI runs in favor of SDI connections or CAT5 baluns/extenders. YMMV.


Adobe After Effects Frame-By-Frame Editing I am currently editing a clip in After Effects. We had a very limited supply of green screen so I am now having to edit some of the white wall too. The thing is, the actors move around, not allowing me to clip out these parts.

I was wondering if there was a thing in After Effects that allowed me to break up the clips so that I can work around the actors in certain time intervals and get the white wall to be transparent.

Thanks!

Have you used the Roto Brush? It was designed for situations like these.

For those unfamiliar, there is a nice concise tutorial here on how to use the Roto Brush.


Errors in FFmpegSource2 plugin source filter for AviSynth I was unable to read MTS or MP4 files in AviSynth. Can AviSynth handle MTS files? pointed to the FFmpegSource2 filter, with information on the wiki. I downloaded the plugin and pointed to it from the first line

LoadPlugin("C:\path\to\ffms2\x64\ffms2.dll")
DirectShowSource("\path\to\MP4\file")

This threw error 0xc1. This thread mentioned different architectures, so I tried the x86 folder (C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth\plugins).

After a little while, Windows Media Player opens a dialog with this text (translated to English):

Windows Media Player is unable to open the file. It's possible that Media Player
does not support this type of file or that you need a codec that is not
installed. [Close] [Help online]

How can I enable FFmpegSource2 plugin in AviSynth?

The short answer, if you're familiar with AviSynth

You don't need to use LoadPlugin(), if you copy the four files in the plugin:

FFMS2.avsi
ffms2.dll
ffms2.lib
ffmsindex.exe

to the plugins directory of your AviSynth installation (see below for its location).

That's all. Then you directly use it in your AviSynth script calling its function(s), mostly the function

FFmpegSource2()

(or FFMS2(), which is the same, or FFMS2("your_file.ts", atrack=-1)) in concordance with documentation, but not DirectShowSource().

The long answer

If you're beginning with AviSynth, the rest of the answer will walk you through the pitfalls.

AviSynth versus AviSynth+

AviSynth has two versions, denoted AviSynth and AviSynth+, at the homepage:

  Official builds
  v.2.6.0 ST, 32-bit at SourceForge
  ...
  Forks
  AviSynth+: new features, backward compatible.

AviSynth 2.6.0 is a very old version, in spite of its title as an "Official build". You're better off with the new version for FFMS2. Download it from the official Github repo pointed to from the homepage.

The directory of plugins for AviSynth+

When you install the Github fork of AviSynth+, check the box Customize plugins directory to find the paths without changing them. Copy the four plugin files mentioned above to C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth+\plugins+ or to C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth+\plugins64+, depending on your version of Windows. The + at the end of the directory is for AviSynth+ instead of AviSynth.

The file FFMS2.avsi in the FFMS2 plugin is the same for both architectures.

If you copy it to the wrong directory, you may see this in Windows Media Player:

Cannot load a 64 bit DLL in 32 bit Avisynth:
    'C:/Program Files (x86)/AviSynth+/plugins+/ffms2.dll'

which means that you should move those files to C:\Program Files (x86)\AviSynth+\plugins64+\.

Choose the appropriate media player

If you play the .avs file with Windows Media Player, you may see  a .MP4.ffindex file for each file that you use with FFMS2() and the .avs file shows no image and no sound, only a musical note that looks like standard Windows.

Windows Media Player is not able to play back .avs files. Use Media Player Classic — you may get it with very useful K-Lite Mega Codec Pack — simply download and install it. Be sure to select the Mega pack, because the Basic pack doesn't contain the player.

Convert the script to a media file

Another possibility is to convert the .avs file into a media file, for example with FFmpeg:

ffmpeg -i your.avs output.mp4

FFmpeg chooses appropriate codecs automatically by the extension of the output file) and play back the result in (almost) any media player.

You may download the ready-to-use FFmpeg from Zeranoe's page — just unpack the downloaded archive file and add the path to ffmpeg.exe into your PATH environment variable.


How to shoot my whole life from first POV? I would like to shoot whole my life (24h, 365d etc) on video, like as through my eyes.

However I came to dead end trying to match recording times of modern action cameras, the battery change hustle, the storage challenge, the convienience and the privacy concerns of my surrondings...

Does the tech advanced so far to allow that? Are there any legal limitations (like GDPR) in place to forbit me doing this?

In the end, any ideas how to do it?

I don't think that you really thought this through thoroughly. (what a sentence!)

On a serious note tho, it would mean that you always have to carry around batteries on you, enough for at least while you're awake, as well as storage devices which you'll want to backup, or at least have in a raid-system. All in all, it's firstly going to be very expensive.

Second, you will have to figure out a smart way to integrate a camera into your life. A simple solution could be to just strap a gopro to your head. This will be clunky, uncomfortable and not too pretty though. I believe the best option for you is to try and conceal the camera in some way, like buying glasses that have a camera in the frame or something alike.

Next, there's legality. As you already assumed, there are places and things that you are not permitted to film. There's also different laws in different states, countries and continents. If you go to europe, you (theoretically) would have to ask any person for a permit if that person is filmed in a way that he/she/it is distinguishable and doesn't get lost in a crowd. That will be a lot of work. Even in America, you will run into places and people you are not permitted to film more frequently than you might think. And: You will have to keep every document of permits you ever got, since you need the evidence in case someone asks you to show it.

And last storage. What you would want is probably a RAID-System, since it's way safer for your files which I assume will be very important to you. So, buying RAID-Servers with HDDs or SSDs for, say, 800-900tb? You usually run at about 100$ / TB with SSDs, which you'll probably need in order to write the video data fast. So the drives alone, excluding the RAID and server-systems at all, you'll run at about 100.000$ alone. That is not cheap.

Nonetheless, I am impressed with your ambition and hope you pull through, just know that it won't be a walk in the park.


RGB + alpha not working I'm having this problem where when I try rendering my animation I keep having background color and I tried googling and youtube tutorials on how to make it transparent but whenever I render my composition (which ofcourse doesn't have solid background and when transparent grid is active I see transparency) I still get background color.
I set my render options to QuickTime and color to RGB+Alpha and still get background everytime.
Help me please.

Make sure to render partially transparent clips with a codec that supports alpha. Try using prores4444 and set the colors to rgb+alpha like you did. This filetype and codec should give you a file with a transparent background.


How to export source timecode and clip names as an overlay in Premiere? I need to supply timecode, source timecode, and source filenames as an overlay for a colour grade.
In Premiere, I have set up my Overlay settings as shown:

Note the checked box "enable overlays for transmit"
But when I export as usual I do not see the overlays.
What am I doing wrong?

I've finally found out the answer. It is possible, but fiddly.
For the source timecodes for every clip:

Duplicate your sequence.
Find the Timecode effects in the Effects panel and apply it to the first clip in the sequence.
Double click the clip and go to Effects controls and make sure the Timecode Source effect is set to "Media".
Then copy the first clip on the timeline.
Select all video clips on the timeline and then Paste Attributes, just the Timecode is needed, untick everything else.

You will now see all the clips have the original source timecode and this can be compared to the original master clip.
To show the filenames of every clip on a given track:

Add a transparent video layer.
Add it to the timeline.
Add the Clip Name effect to it.
Double click on the transparent video clip and go to Effects controls and select under File Name - Display choose - FileName
and under Source track choose the track that the clips are on on the timeline.
You may need to move this down a bit to avoid overlapping the timecode.

If you need to add filenames from another video track, just copy the Clip Name effect on your transparent video layer, and paste it below the existing effect, then adjust the position and size of each effect.


Sony HDR AS30 detect device on imac Does anyone know for sure if Sony HDR AS30 is only compatible with macOS 7 and up?
I know from reading docs it's only compatible for 7 and up for wifi setup but it's hard to know for desktop because there is software current for mac but no ability to input without device detection. I can see the USB connection on the mac and camera but the software is not detecting a camera.

Ok finally worked it out haha

Do not be a dummy like me and insert the memory stick upside down!

You will know when it is correctly inserted because a red light will come on indicating ready to record.


Screen capture at more than 1000 FPS i would like to know if there is a hardware device, a software that would produce PC screen capture at more than 1000 FPS ?

The highest i could get under Linux with a custom program is around 400 FPS.

I suppose there is several hardware/software limitations, if there is no hardware or software, any hints on how can this be achieved ?

Thank you.

I can't rule out specialized hardware devices that might be able to, but 1080p video at 1000fps produces 6GBps of raw data at 8 bit color.  That's 48 gbps, which exceeds the highest standards of most current connectors.  Display port 1.4 is just shy of 26gbps and barely covers half of the needed data rate for a 1000fps 1080p data stream.

You might be able to pull it off with a quad-link 12G-SDI setup, but I'm not aware of any hardware that can work with quad link 12G-SDI.

As far as handling it internally, no modern single SSD can handle the raw data rate.  An ultra top-end PCI express SSD can still only write around 2GBps, so you'd need over 3 of them working in parallel to keep up with the raw data rate.  At PCI express 3 speeds, you'd need 7 lanes minimum for the data transfer alone, so you could theoretically handle it with a PCI-E 3.0 x8 card, but you also need to take in to account the data that needs to be sent to the card for rendering at that rate as well.

You might be able to reduce this a bit by processing in CUDA on the card itself, but that's still an extremely high amount of processing to be doing while also trying to render whatever it is you are rendering at 1000fps, which, btw, you can't even display at 1000fps because there's no way to get a 1000fps feed out of the computer or display it.

Overall, I suspect the reason you don't find any software to do this is that it simply isn't possible or practical to do at this time.  Limits are probably set based on what seems like rational limitations for the capabilities of current hardware.


Good open source Video Editors? Sure, I could Google and find random software. But I rather have the opinion of users that have had hands-on with any open source video editors.

So if you've used one that you like or know of any, please let me know and state whether you've used it or just know of it (and heard good things). Thanks.

I'm looking for Windows software. But you may suggest Linux as well for other people that might stumble upon this.

VLMC is a non-linear multitrack editor. It's based on VLC and inherits a pretty vast format compatibility from that. The UI is a little rough, but it gets the job done.

Lightworks is a more recent project and seems polished. It's rooted in broadcast editing, so a large number of familiar codecs are unsupported. It supports Matrox codecs, which you have to install separately, so you'll have to convert your video to Matrox AVIs first.

Avidemux is a simple editor, good for trimming and small tasks. In my experience, not very stable on Windows, OK on Linux.


Looking for a DVD menu maker which works best with Sony Vegas I am using Sony Vegas 12 to make a movie. I just want to make a DVD menu, something which has play , extra, etc. Which program should I use to do this and which one will work well with Sony Vegas?

Sony makes a companion product that works for both Vegas and Vegas Pro called "DVD Architect Pro 6.0 Author DVD or Blu-ray Disc™ media" for $199.00. This is your best bet for Vegas since it has years of Sony compatibility behind it.

Link here:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/dvdarchitectpro

Please note there is a FREE 30 day trial version here:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/dvdarchitectpro

There is also a tutorial here (webinar originally aired March 31, 2011.):
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/vegaspro10webinar02


avisynth(+) + avslib - cropping each frame with different values I tried to use ArrayOpArrayFunc of avslib (Avisynth plugin) to crop each frame differently based on the contents of an array.

I start with image files, say 20, build my arrays, and try to apply the filters, but I must make a mistake as I cannot get this to work. Any idea how to fix my script?

Import("C:\Program Files (x86)\AVSLib\avslib\loader.avsi")
Import("C:\Program Files (x86)\AVSLib\avslib\avslib.avsi")
LoadLibrary("avslib", CONFIG_AVSLIB_ARRAYS)
LoadModule("avslib", "base", "constants")
LoadModule("avslib", "filters", "frames")

dx001 = ArrayCreate(1250, 1250, 2110, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250)
dx011 = ArrayCreate(1250, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250, 1250)
dx = dx001.ArrayInsRange(dx011)

dy001 = ArrayCreate(1300, 1300, 1300, 2000, 1300, 1300, 1300, 1300, 1300, 1300)
dy011 = ArrayCreate(1300, 1300, 1300, 1300, 1300, 1300, 1300, 1300, 1300, 1300)
dy = dy001.ArrayInsRange(dy011)

FirstFrame      = 1
LastFrame       = 20
FrameRate       = 25

function MyCrop(dx, dy, clip, w, h)
{
  return Crop(clip, dx, dy, w, h)
}

Raw = ImageReader("GOPR%04d.JPG", FirstFrame, LastFrame, FrameRate)
Crop = ArrayOpArrayFunc(dx, dy, "MyCrop", "Raw,1600,1200")
BilinearResize(Crop, 800, 600)

The error message is 'I don't know what "Raw" means'.
The original images are 4000x3000, they need to be cropped variously (simplified version of the arrays above), then resized to final video format.

FirstFrame      = 1
......
......
Raw = ImageReader("GOPR%04d.JPG", FirstFrame, LastFrame, FrameRate)

Probably the file GOPR0001.JPG doesn't exist in your current directory.

From AviSynth manual:

  The first file in the sequence, i.e., corresponding to 'start', MUST exist in order for clip parameters to be computed. Any missing files in the sequence are replaced with a blank frame.

For testing it directly in your script, temporary put Raw  __END__ at the end of the command, i. e.

Raw = ImageReader("GOPR%04d.JPG", FirstFrame, LastFrame, FrameRate)  Raw  __END__

and play back your script (.avs file). If you get the same error, non-existence of the file GOPR0001.JPG is your problem.


How to scroll using a trackpad in After Effects? I'm working on an animation project and I want to zoom in on certain places in the canvas to see better (I don't want to actually zoom in the animation itself" but I can only zoom in and out without scrolling

How can I scroll with my trackpad?

Hold down the alt (option) key on the keyboard, and do a two-finger zoom in the trackpad (make sure you've enabled two-finger zoom in system settings).


Request for Camcorder and Tripod Recommendations for Occasional Amatuer Usage, With Emphasis on Good Sound Quality The title just about tells all about my question, but for a few more specifics, I want to record some monologue rehearsals (of myself) in an empty hall, and will later probably have some live performances recorded, too.

As I may periodically "update" my video "resume", it's probably cost-effective to purchase rather than rent the equipment, I am looking to buy both a camcorder and a tripod.

The key features/qualities I'm looking for in these devices are:

Camcorder:

1) Good audio quality (the audio is probably actually more important to me than the visuals)

2) Ease of use (I just want to be able to record, stop recording, zoom in, zoom out, pan, and then download the "files" to my laptop)

3) Price/Value (I don't want to spend a king's ransom for something that will only be used once in awhile, but then again this may be my chief marketing "agent" (YouTuberizing segments of the rehearsals/performances)

Tripod:

1) Stability/Solidity/Reliability

2) Price

Any recommendations?

90% of good sound quality is mic placement.  The remaining 90% is the microphone.  The 90% that remains of that is the preamp.  Because mic placement is so important, you either have to accept putting the video camera where the microphone sounds best, or you have to disconnect the two, placing and pointing the mic where it is best and then placing pointing the lens (and camera) at what looks best.  Alas, there is no "ease of use" when it comes to capturing good sound--you actually have to listen and adjust until it's right.  Which is almost impossible to do by oneself.  But perhaps you will find that putting a smartphone in a cradle arms-length from your face gives you both acceptable sound and video quality.  In which case, there's a no-cost answer to that part of your question.

As for tripods, if you are not using the camera for active pans or tilts, you don't need a fluid head.  All you need is something that is no so ridiculously flimsy that it will start to move when a whoosh of cold air makes it's way across the room from supply to return.  A typical margin of error is to read the rated weight of a brand you can actually look up on the Internet (Manfrotto, Gitzo, Slik, etc), cut that rated weight in half, and compare it to your load.  If your camcorder is 3 lbs, you need at least a rating of 6 lbs of capacity.

Note, of course, that recording a live performance may require as obtrusive a placement of microphone and/or camcorder as you had in rehearsal, which may be unacceptable.  Fixing that requires a whole new strata of cost and expertise.


Zooming in on one layer in After Effects I desperately need step by step instructions on how to zoom into the child sitting in the window. This composition is an animation, I have a bunch of layers but I specifically want to zoom into the window as a track motion effect. I REALLY do not want to scale every layer larger one by one, because I have approx. 15 layers. Please help! I've extremely new to AE.

Thats simple, pre-comp what you have right now and create a camera layer. Then make you composition layer 3D. The look of you layer will not change unless you add lights or rotate the camera. Then you can pan around and zoom in your picture with the camera.

Thats how you do every sort of zooming e.g. camera animation in after effects. Animating the scale of layers is just a mess like you already realized.


How can I achieve this lo-fi laggy extreme camera shake effect in After Effects or Premiere? There was recently a short film released by a music collective 'Jackboys' with a very lo-fi, noir look to it, and when transitioning verses, the video cuts to shots with intentional, extreme camera shake with lag, and for the short film I'm working on, this effect is perfect. A large part of this effect is going to be in the filming of the video, but I'm not sure what the best way to approach this is.  Should I just shake the camera a lot when filming, or should I lower the shutter speed first?  The laggy part looks like it's either a result of the camera used or was made artificially using After Effects or Premiere.  How would I go about getting the lag effect in one of those Adobe programs?

Thanks!

Examples:

OMG strobe! That's what the "laggy" effect is; it was very popular with "experimental" film school students back in the nineties. It went the way of lens flares and the posterisation effect; some would say it is better left in its tomb, but that's a matter of personal taste.

If you slow down the video you'll see what's going on, the apparent frame rate is slowed down to four or five frames a second, destroying the illusion of smooth motion. In the nineties, to achieve the long exposures that give the light trails and motion-blur you had to shoot on a film camera that could do variable frame rates; these days a lot of digital cameras can do it. You can lower the frame rate in post, but you won't get the trails and motion blur. Here's how to do it in After Effects.

You need to find a camera that can shoot at a frame rate to around 4-10fps, and that lets you adjust the shutter speed to give you as long an exposure as possible. Then, as you said, go nuts shaking the camera around. Your audience will thank you /s.


Wrong centered merge in Davinci Resolve's Fusion I have created a standard "button" composition

But when I click in the Merge9 node, it only moves the text keeping the retangular background static.

I was expecting that the ending merge to move it entirely and with its center correctly aligned with the retangular object.
I'm using Davinci Resolve 17

If you want to move the two things together, use a transform node after they’ve been merged.


I changed the .mp4 extension of my video to .mpg and it still opens and plays fine (in VLC and in Windows Media Player). Why is this so? I'm uploading a file to an external system that accepts only mpg or mpeg extension files. I had a mp4 file so I changed the mp4 extension to mpg and I was able to upload the file into the system. Would other using the system who have access to this uploaded mpg file be able to view my video correctly?

Why is it that I can change the extension from .mp4 to .mpg and the video still plays fine? Should it not give me an error because the extension is not correct?

The .mpg and .mpeg extensions are typically associated with MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files. The structure of these files is different than the .mp4 format used for H.264 video, part of the MPEG-4 family of formats.

I suspect VLC and WMP can play the file because they must not be using the file extension to determine file type, they probably parse the file with all the supported parsers until one works. To prove this point, I took a .wmv movie and renamed it to .mp4. When I played it in my Windows 7 PC with WMP I got a warning window saying that the extension did not match the format, but I told it to proceed anyway and the file played just fine.

If this online service requires MPEG-1 or 2 then you should transcode your video to one of those formats before uploading. Unless the online service transcodes all uploaded videos to some standard format. In that case it does not really matter what the format of the uploaded video is, as long as the service can read it and transcode to its own favorite format.

Good luck.


Reason behind the clarity I have seen many videos with nearly same size and same length, but the clarity of the video changes or differs. I wanted to know the reason or fact behind this.

There can be too many factors involved to properly answer your question. One is the image quality of the source footage, there are objective and subjective parameters influencing this. Examples:

proper lighting
set design
image framing

Etc.

Then there are technical parameters in the image aqcuisition involved:

quality of the cameras sensor
quality of the post production (grading etc)

Then there are parameters in the delivery:

delivery Codec
compressibility of the images

As for the "subjective" parameters, there are a lot of psychological things involved: a lot of people consider these things as "better" while really only being a matter of taste:

sharpened image
enhanced contrasts
less grain

So unless being more specific, your question IMHO cannot be answered.


Is there a rule of thumb for transitions in video production? I'm a software engineer but as the junior member on the team I was tasked with making a looping demo for our product that will be played continuously at an upcoming convention.  The video is not only an advertisement for our software but also for some of the hardware platforms that it runs on, so I have to introduce a number of products and logos.

After a month of working on this I've trimmed and snipped down to a tight 4 minutes, but some transitions between clips and stills just feel off to me.  I've tried a one-size-fits-all-but-not-really with "Cross Dissolve".  I've also tried a spectrum of slides, wipes and dissolves but it feels like someone's PowerPoint presentation from the late 90's (minus the stock sound effects).  Does this community have any guidelines that they follow when creating transitions in their own projects?

A while back I ran some introductory video editing workshops. I used to tell the participants about a particularly cool effect that I once found in Pinnacle; it was a pinhata that came swinging into the first video along with a stick that hit the second video out of it and it unfolded across the screen.

The point of this anecdote is the following: Don't use transition presets. Like, at all. Sure it looks cool in the preview reel, but all those fancy swipes, wipes, slides et c. are just distracting and ugly. Of course it depends on what kind of video you're making, but I would always try if it works with no transitions at all first (i.e. hardcuts). If it doesn't, maybe try a simple, short cross dissolve (like, 0.5 seconds max) or maybe a dip to black. But keep your hands off all the other transition presets.

My rules of thumb are the following:

Don't use transitions.
If you have to use transitions, use as little as possible and be consistent.

The second point is particularly important, even if you're a fan of transitions. Be consistent with (a) what type of transition you use and (b) when you use them. For example, if you use a transition to visually seperate two scenes for the first half of your movie and then suddenly start using a transition for every cut in a scene, it's confusing and distracting. And if you drop different transitions every time, it looks like a crappy Youtube AMV made by a 12 year old.

For example, watch Star Wars (the prequels). They use those swipes and slides with soft borders all over the place. I don't really like those, but at least they're consistent with it.

  but some transitions between clips and stills just feel off to me

This may be opinionated, but in my experience a transition looks weird as soon as you notice it. The best possible transition is the one you don't notice, because a transition is a tool to better tell your story, not a story element itself. And the easiest way to have a transition that you don't notice is to not use one at all.


How to not import/duplicate media in FCPX? When I create a new Event and Project within it, I don't see a way to avoid copying imported media to the FCPX folder (apparently there used to be an option when creating a new Event to not copy imported media, but it doesn't appear to be there any longer).

How can I do that? By the way, I'm importing from the Photos library browser within FCPX if that makes any difference.

For FCPX 10.1 and later:

Open preferences
Select the import tab
Choose to either leave Files in Place or Copy to Storage Library Location.

To set the Storage Library Location:

Select the library.
Open the inspector.
Select Modify Settings in the inspector to choose where your generated files go.


How to delete unused file parts that are not used in the FCPX timeline? I want to clean up my hard disk and delete large unused GB files on my macbook. In the FCPX timeline I have  several hours of footage cut down into a 3-minute movie, with all short 2-second pieces.

I want to delete the folder with unused long hours files from my disk. How do I save the new short files that I want to keep into a folder?

So the old folder is filled with useless long hour files that I want to delete, and the new folder is filled with short good files that I want to keep.

As you already know you can't easily export just the used parts of your clips. But given FCPX uses XML there must be utilities to do that.

You can get something like clipexporter that will do it automatically.

However you can "share" your final project and then slice that up into shots -- I don't know why you want to do that slicing. AVcutty will slice AVI's automatically (windows OS only).

If disk space is a real problem and you don't mind losing your original footage, just share your final timeline.

Personally I buy an external HDD every two years (whatever $200 gets me) and archive all my personal projects to that. I then copy all the old projects from the old HDD to the new HDD.


Google glass sample video I would like to make a video showing a possible interaction with Google glass. I have worn it once and don't even have one.

What I am thinking now is to use

             an iphone 3d printed headmount attachment with gopro headmount

I want the video to be as natural as possible (that it looks like shot from a glass close to eyes)
example:

Thanks for your suggestions

There's several techniques you can use to emulate Google Glass' eyesight videos. The next best thing would probably be to buy a pair of camera (sun-)glasses. Judging by what you're trying to achieve, your best option is to buy any camera from pivothead, they all film full-HD 30fps video. Other options include the SunnyCam Glasses and the iVUE Camera Glasses. There's also the Zeal HD Goggles, but those are probably impractical in temperate environments.

Alternatives include the GoPro Hero 3 (Head-mounted camera, as you suggested), the ContourROAM2 (Waterproof) and the Braun SixZero (or any other head/helmet-mounted camera). If you're on a tight budget you might want to manufacture some sort of head-mounted camera yourself.


Keeping sound from underlay video in creating PIP video with ffmpeg I'm trying to make a video with an overlay video inside (PiP) but I can't get the sound source right, I need the sound from the underlay video but I keep getting the sound from the overlay video.

I don't have very much experience with or knowledge of ffmpeg, but after some searching around on the internet I found some ffmpeg commands and managed to put the following command together:

ffmpeg.exe -itsoffset 35 -i overlay-race-replay.mp4 -i underlay-race-live.mp4
-filter_complex "[0]scale=700:-1 [overlay];
[1][overlay] overlay=main_w-overlay_w-30:30:enable='between(t,35,552)'"
-profile:v high -level 4.1 -ar 44100 -ab 128k -s 1920x1080 -vcodec h264
-acodec libmp3lame output.mp4

It works great to create a video with an overlay video in it which shows up and starts at 35 seconds and ends and disappears somewhere before the underlay video ends which is just what I want.

Only the problem is the sound! In the output file you only hear the sound from the overlay video, and I want to keep the sound from the underlay video.

Does anyone know how to do this right?
What I need is, overlay-race-replay.mp4 resized to a width of 700 with kept ratio, inside underlay-race-live.mp4, showing up after 35 seconds, placed in the top right corner with about 30 pixels margin and only the sound of underlay-race-live.mp4

I would be very grateful for a solution, I think I've injured my brain in the documentations of ffmpeg I really can't make anything of it, it's like algebra to me.

Ah I found the answer to my question, I ventured into the ffmpeg documentations again and found that all I had to do was add -map 1:a in front of output.mp4 and I also added -c:a copy cause I thought that copies the same codec settings from the original videos or something, not really sure but it seemed better then putting all those specifications in like I did which I actually just left in there from the site that I found the main part of this ffmpeg command on.

My code is now working as I want it and I'll share it below:

ffmpeg.exe -itsoffset 35 -i overlay.mp4 -i underlay.mp4 -filter_complex
"[0]scale=700:-1 [overlay]; [1][overlay]
overlay=main_w-overlay_w-30:30:enable='between(t,35,552)'"
-map 1:a -c:a copy output.mp4

The itsoffset is the time before the overlay video starts playing, between(t,35,552) means the overlay video is visible between the 35th second and the 552nd second on the timeline of the output video.


Unable to get T3i to shoot video in manual mode I am sure I am missing something here. I have a host of cameras but bought a T3i recently. I am trying to get it to shoot video in Manual mode but as soon as I click the "Live View" button to start recording, it turns off live view and I get a blank, black screen.

Here is what I do from start to finish. Please tell me what I am missing:

I switch on my T3i by sliding the On/Off slider to the On position on the top of the camera.
I turn the dial on the top to M to go into manual mode.
I click the Live View button that's next to the LCD panel. It starts to show me whatever is in the front of the camera on the LCD screen.
Next, I want to start recording, so I hit the "Live View" button again, assuming that is how it will start recording. But at this point, the LCD screen shuts itself off.

If in step 4, instead of pressing the Live View button, I hold down the shutter, it clicks a picture instead of shooting video.

I'd just like to shoot video on this camera in Manual mode. What am I doing wrong?

Ok, I figured it out. It's a bit quirky little trick.

You do not turn the dial to M but turn it to the little picture that shows the video camera.

Now, though you'll be able to set the shutter speed and aperture, you won't be able to change the ISO.

To be able to change the ISO, click the Menu button to the top-left of the LCD screen, then from the menu, select Manual as the value for the Movie Exposure setting.

Now, you can change the ISO as well.

I figured it out by looking here and here.


Animating between mask paths in After Effects This is a continuation of a previous question where I asked how to animate a waving flag drawn in Illustrator. I received a really useful answer from @poor and I've followed it as closely as I could in addition to a useful tutorial by Adobe titled 'Animating Organic Illustrator Paths in After Effects'. I'm not sure if my drawing is too complicated for this process but I am near to getting the result I want, with just one last problem. I'll explain below and any help is greatly appreciated.

I've drawn each 'keyframe' of the flag waving and would like to smoothly transition in between them. This is what each stage of the flag looks like (each one is a different layer):

Each flag ends up being composed of 6 masks when I paste them into the Path value of Mask in After Effects (because they aren't entirely closed). I paste the first flag, keyframe all 6 masks, then with the 6 masks highlighted paste the next flag in, and keyframe it:

When I play this as is, it does a really weird maneuver. I've tried setting the 'First Vertex' with no luck either:

Even the pole, which is consistent throughout, changes shape a little. Is what I'm trying to accomplish possible, or perhaps are the 'organic shapes' a little too complicated for smooth transitions between? Thanks a lot for any input or advice.

Like @stib said above, masks interpolate in a straight line. However, you can also use tools like the Smart Mask Interpolation panel to tell After Effects to re-examine how the masks are interpolated between each other and find a better route, but this creates a TON of keyframes (one per frame actually) so if you plan to make additional changes to the masks later, this isn't the best option.
If it were me, I would just do each line as its own animation, and use a 10-15 frame hand animated loop, so you have control over each individual line itself...once the first crease in the flag moves from one end to the other, you can just loop that part over and over...
More info on Smart Mask Interpolation here:
https://www.provideocoalition.com/managing_moving_masks/


Building a presentation video Hi everyone I am in my last three days before I present my final project for my exam at college everything is ready for the final presentation except a good presentation. At first I made one in Microsoft Power Point but it isn't very cool looking.

I just got an idea for the presentation to create a video that slide's different images that contain information about my project, add some music in the background and at some point the music's volume will be turned lower and an mp3 with me talking will start playing.

Until now it isn't something I could not do in power point although I hope you guys will suggest another software because I also want to add over the presentation another video with me talking and pointing my hand on different subjects from the video. I have never done this before and do not know how am I supposed to cut that part with me talking from one video and add it over another.

Can anyone suggest a good easy to learn software that can achieve this and has an easy learning curve? And also some tutorials on that. Can a beginner like me manage to do it in 3 days?

I would like to make something like this:

Anyone know a tutorial that teaches how to make a similar video?

On this question @hasanyasin and I provided you with alternatives for slideshow presentations. Additionally I place here a part of my answer, just for your convenience:

  Anyway, what you wish to do in a video can be achieved by a
  professional non linear editing system, like Sony Vegas or Adobe
  Premiere, of which Sony Vegas is the easiest to learn.

  If you are used to Microsoft Based Products (PhotoShop, Corel Draw,
  Office, Movie Maker, etc.) you are almost ready to do it.

  The process to place you in front of the moving images, videos,
  transitions, text and other media is called "Chroma Key" and it can be
  reached in the Effects tab of the Sony Vegas 8 (and previous/further
  versions). A video tutorials on how to create the Chroma Key effect
  can be found on youtube by dropping the terms "chroma key sony vegas",
  here is an example:

  Basically you work in multi layer. Placing in a time line the elements
  in the order that you wish them to appear on screen, adding a
  background, in/out transitions, and other elements. Remember that the
  top layer will be the "front" element on screen. After which you
  insert your blue/green screen video at the very top, apply the Chroma
  Key effect, choose the dropper and select the background in your
  video, after which you adjust the threshold in order not to appear
  like a ghost in the video.

  You will need to use the "Event Pan and Crop" tool in order to create
  the "moving" effect for some static items, like pictures and even if
  you wish your videos to "fly" around the screen. Just run a search in
  youtube with the words "Pan and Crop Sony Vegas" and you will get tons
  of results. Here is an example:

  And yes...  you can create awesome results in a couple of hours. Give
  it a try and drop us back a link with your published video.

Good luck!


how to join video files? I have 12 parts of videos .

I want to join them in a sequence and make a single video.

Please suggest me software and steps to do this.

can i need to install adobe premier?

thank you

example videos are https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLTShW1Bm7xcM0bLdbadfpsdia5MkOEkrI

If you have money CarbonCoder does this. It is very easy, drag and drop the video, check the "stitch" box and select the output format.

Else you can use ffmpeg + avisynth.
Create an avisynth script which will just read and add the different videos:

Avisynth script:

vid1 = FFmpegSource2("path_to_first_video.avi")
vid2 = FFmpegSource2("path_to_second_video.avi")
vidn = FFmpegSource2("path_to_nth_video.avi")
concat = vid1 + vid2 + .. + vidn
return concat

ffmpeg command

ffmpeg.exe -i avisynth_script.avs [ encoding options ] concatened_video.avi

In the example I used avi container, but avisynth supports also quicktime and other.
Find here the Avisynth documentation . This will work on windows, as far as I know avisynth does not work on linux ( or in alpha stage ? ).


premier pro timeline I need to edit some clips for part of my graduate research to 200ms.
200ms are equivalent to 0.2 seconds.

Does the picture show this as 0.2 seconds?

It looks like you have 25fps (25 frames per second) video, so each frame is 40ms long (1/25 second). That means 5 frames of video would be 200ms. Your image shows a 20 frame clip, so it's 800ms long.


"sparkly things" stock assets for Premiere Pro? My wife wants a video slideshow for high school and college reunions, and the "free" (well, free with watermarks) programs have supplied assets for things like firecrackers and snow and other sparkly things; stars that spin and float around, etc.

This is an Asian thing, you might see are popular in the style.  They are usually simple line drawings, on a blank background for compositing over a main picture. The style was popular with Flash graphics back in the day, and is endemic on Chinese websites.

Where can I find these to use with Premiere Pro?

Several years ago, Mitch Martinez created quite a stir by releasing an enormous library of stock footage shot in 4K resolution on RED cameras.  He offers a wide range of fireworks clips that are free to download and use.  Among other things.

I have no affiliation with Mitch whatsoever.  I just know the story.


How to disable putting black frames between concatenated media with ffmpeg? I am using the concat demuxer in ffmpeg. I use the following command:

ffmpeg -f concat -i concat.txt -c copy out.mkv

and it works, except that it adds short gaps of black frames in between the concatenated files (there are three of them). How do I make it stop? If it helps, the audio is cut at those points, too.

I know that a parameter for this exists, but I can't find the original question anywhere.

Thanks in advance.

This can happen if the "streams do not have exactly the same length". You have to specify the range to include for the items in concat.txt. Try specifying the duration or outpoint or in point:

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-formats.html#concat

  The duration of each file is used to adjust the timestamps of the next file: if the duration is incorrect (because it was computed using the bit-rate or because the file is truncated, for example), it can cause artifacts. The duration directive can be used to override the duration stored in each file.


Lagging after render in Movie Maker? I took a break from video editing for a while, but then I decided to come back and start again. However, every time I rendered the video, the clips suddenly wouldn't follow up with the music correctly, but when I check them back in WMM, they're perfectly lined up. I don't know what's happening since I've never had any issue before. Does anyone know what to do?
PS: I'm using the newest version of Windows Movie Maker.

Could you tell me your input specifics. Because if the input was 60fps, there may be some problems if you render with standard settings, I once had this problem.

If you want to solve that, just click on save movie and scroll down till you see "create custom settings", then set the frame rate to 30fps, or whatever you want.


Style all open captions at once in Premiere Pro Is it possible to style all open captions at once in Premiere Pro CC2017?

Since Adobe promotes the captions feature as a way to edit all captions in one place, I hope there actually is a way to style them all at once.

This has changed in the 2017 release of Premiere CC. You can now change all captions at once. Plus Adobe has added some other enhancements to the caption workflow.


Unlink two layers after a certain time in After Effects In After Effects, I want to have a layer (let's call it Leader) that moves and another one (let's say Follower) that is linked to the first one, so it will have the same movement, but at a specific time (t) it should "unlink" from the first layer and stay in that position. I have tried the following:

p = thisComp.layer("Leader").transform.position;
t = 1; // Stop following after 1 second
if (time <= t) {
    position = value + (p.value - p.valueAtTime(0));
}
else {
    valueAtTime(t - thisComp.frameDuration);
}

But for some reason I don't understand, at time t, the Follower goes back to its original position instead of staying in the place in which it was "unlinked" from the Leader. What am I missing?

valueAtTime returns the keyframed value of the property, before any expression is applied.

change it to:

p = thisComp.layer("Leader").transform.position;
t = 1; // Stop following after 1 second
if (time <= t) {
    value + (p.value - p.valueAtTime(0));
}
else {
    value + (p.value.valueAtTime(t) - p.valueAtTime(0));
}

or more simply:

p = thisComp.layer("Leader").transform.position;
t = Math.min(time, 1); // time increases until it hits 1, then stays there
value + (p.value.valueAtTime(t) - p.valueAtTime(0));

This avoids the if() statement which means it should evaluate faster.


Will a lower resolution while rending cut down rendering time Currently I am recording screencast in fullscreen and my resolution is 1920 x 1080, which means I can render in 1080p.

For me 720p is already acceptable if this means that this will cut down in rendering times. But from what I have heard is that changing the resolution while rendering will always result in longer render times.

So the question here is, should I stick with 1080p, because my raw video file is also 1080p, or can I change my render settings to output 720p and cut down on render time.

Rendering in lower resolution will

Downscale the video, which takes very little additional processing time
Take less per frame time for the video encoder to compress

You should definately notice a significant gain in rendering speed if you switch from 1080p to 720p, and I cannot imagine what the other person meant, by "will always result in longer rendering times".

Of course if you cancel a rendering process which is 95% through, just to change the resolution, you will not have gained much, since the renderer has to start all over again.

Also there might be some video software on the market which is so incredebly bad that the situation I described above is reversed. But this shouldn't be the case, especially if you render with video codecs like h264, which always need a lot of processing time.


Why does a video file that appears to be an MP4 not play in Windows Media Player? I have extracted the files from an iOS app for a video streaming site that allows you to download videos (only on the mobile app, so I had to jailbreak to get the files out), but the file extension on the video file is something completely arbitrary specific to the app. If I just open it with MPC-HC or VLC it plays just fine and according to MediaInfo both the video and audio are in mp4 format (AVC/AAC respectively). However, if I just rename the file to .mp4, Windows Media Player refuses to play it so I'm guessing that means that wasn't the original file format? Based on the service that uses the file, I'm assuming that it must have been either MP4 or FLV or something along those lines.

Of course, I can just open the video in avidemux and just re-encode it to an mp4 if I really want to but I'd like to avoid losses in quality if possible.

Probably a fragmented MP4.  Remux it using ffmpeg.

ffmpeg -i filename -c copy out.mp4


Recording a gaming console onto my computer from my TV So I have a TV with two types of inputs. Composite (just mono), and coaxial - yes it's a pretty old TV. I play a video game that I want to record some matches of onto my laptop so I can edit the clips and stuff.

My gaming system is hooked up to my TV via composite (just mono). What type of parts do I need to buy to be able to record from the TV onto my laptop from the gaming console?

You will need a USB Video Capture Device to connect the game to your laptop.

In order to also be able to view the game on the TV, you will need 2 splitters for the video and audio and an extra composite cable.

You would run the yellow and white game console outputs to the splitters and attach the splitters directly to the Video Capture device.  The red cable goes into the Video Capture device directly.  Connect the yellow and white connectors of the extra cable between the splitters and the TV.

I'm not sure how much the video and sound quality will be affected by splitting the signal, so you may need to buy a better splitter to get it to work without any loss.


Cinema 4D Objects Turn Black I saved my file, and later on it crashes. So, I re-opened the file on C4D and my objects turned black. I looked at a post that had a similar question but it didn't seem to help me. Any ideas? I'm kinda new to C4D by the way.

Here's a link to the picture: http://gyazo.com/72d172984dbef3a12a3b864779308eeb

Thanks

Cinema 4D may have lost the texture file in the crash.  Check whatever the equivalent of the hypershade is in Cinema to make sure the object is still textured.  Also be sure to check the lights and whether you have hardware texturing enabled.