First: 4k for livestreaming is pretty overkill. Please remember that your streaming device (your computer) and internet upload speed need handle this... AND to top things of not all of your viewers will be able to watch the stream in 4k because of their internet and missing out 4k devices.
Alpha Gaming (Harris Heller) is covering everything you want to know about cameras (and livestreaming) in video form on youtube.
Here are the most popular (and very professional but "only" 1080p not 4k) cameras for livestreaming with very helpful information: a sony should be your choice
And here are some additional information for you before you choose your camera and lense: equipment all around your camera
IMHO, this should be your question: How much FOV (field of view) and DOF (depth of field) do you want?
If you really want to live stream in 4k (only 30 fps) then the SONY A6100 should be a good choice.


What is the video equivalent of vector graphics?

The whole premise of vector graphics is that there is a drawing engine in the output device that can interpret graphical commands and output shapes and fonts at the maximum resolution of its rasterizer.
In simple terms, when someone produces a Postscript projector or media player, there will be a video equivalent of vector graphics.
But in another sense, this is already the case with video production software that lets you create titles and graphics using TrueType fonts and vector drawing tools. The renderer, such as the Media Export engine in Premiere Pro, rasterizes fonts and shapes at the maximum resolution of the output video format. You don't have to worry about pixelated graphics and fonts that would result from importing low- resolution artwork. This video rendering of vector sources is equivalent to the work of a RIP (raster image processor) or web browser, which render PostScript (vectors and fonts) at the maximum resolution of an imagesetter or printer for output on film or paper or a webpage.
Ultimately, shapes, images and text all have to be turned into dots/pixels at output time. All output devices -- with the exception of pen plotters -- can only print/display dots/pixels -- solid spots of a single color. That applies to laser and inkjet printers, computer monitors and TVs, digital platemakers, and even crowds of people holding up colored cards to make gigantic pictures in the stands of football stadiums.


How can I add animated text to a video programmatically (from a script) for use as quality video introductions?

Get TypeMonkey for AfterEffects. Other than templates, it's the easiest way to generate text animations from scratch.

http://aescripts.com/typemonkey/


How much storage does video editing take?

Original video material

It depends on the protocol and color formats as well as the mentioned compression, but if you're starting in video I assume you're using HDV. A rough estimate based on the HDV format (the one you transfer over the FireWire cable) will give you around 19.2 Mbps (ironically less than the DV format), or 138 Mb per minute.

If in the higher end you can end up with f.ex. HDCAM at 440 mbps (the double with SR1 docking).

But if we use the former as a basis you can store about:

10 minutes with 1.35 GB
30 minutes with 4.04 GB
60 minutes with 8.09 GB

However, this is for compressed video and audio. In practice the files tend to be around 50-60% larger due to various factors such as the audio being converted to uncompressed audio at 16-bit (optional 24-bit on some cameras), 48 kHz.

So conclusively, if you calculate using 12-13 GB per hour you should be fairly safe for 1080i using HDV original video.

Editing

Editing involves referencing the original video in most cases and when you convert it a final product you will probably use a different compression format such as H.264 (mp4, mov etc.).

However, if the editor need to conform the video (f.ex. for use of complex effects) and audio, these files tend to take a noticeable amount of storage.

But this depends entirely on your pipe-line. If you involve 3D graphics/animation in it, then you grow the project considerably more. If you plan to add voice-over, music and so forth you will use even more space.

Give yourselves comfortable space on the disc, say (holding finger in the air to find wind direction) 3-4x the project's length for a good start.


Are you sure it's dropping frames? I have a canon 5d and it never drops frames, it simply stops recording when it can't keep up.

My guess is the file is fine, but the preview on the LCD is dropping frames.


Show current play speed in after effects

You can do it with expressions on the time remapped layers: create an empty text layer ctrl/cmdalt/optshiftt. Alt-click the Source Text stopwatch, and use an expression like:

var s = thisComp.layer("some layer").timeRemap.speed;
"X" + Math.round(s * 10)/10 //limits the result to one decimal place

The time-stretched layers are more tricky. The stretch property isn't accessible to expressions, but what you can do is use the sourceTime() function. This gets the time of the source footage. If your layers start at the beginning of the source then this expression would work:

var s = thisComp.layer("some layer").sourceTime()/time;
"X" + Math.round(s * 10)/10 //limits the result to one decimal place

if the layer source doesn't start at the beginning of the comp then you'd have to do some extra maths, like subtracting the in-point, or to make it easier you could pre-comp the source layer with the text overlay and make sure the precomp has the source footage starting at the beginning of the comp.


Why do weathermen and amateurs use green screens when professional movie makers use blue screens?

Professional film productions use neither only green nor only blue for chroma keying, but switch between both depending on the scene. Each can only be used when there are no objects of the same colour in view, otherwise it takes extra work to un-remove these objects. Blue and green are the usual colours because the human skin, which is what will almost always need to remain visible, is very different from both, but this is not the only thing shown in chroma key scenes!

In most situations, you have neither blue nor green objects in the foreground so both colours will, in principle, work. But they may not work equally well. The main reason why green is predominant in digital productions: digital cameras can resolve green light best, so it's possible to do proper green chroma-keying even with a cheap camera that might have problems to resolve a blue screen accurately enough. But that's not a concern in professional film productions. Analog cameras actually resolve blue better, but the difference is not really significant.
Especially blond hair will sometimes reflect much of the light coming from a greenscreen behind, which can lead to weird and somewhat ill-looking green shades. Blue is less problematic in that aspect. On the other hand, clothing will more often feature blueish colours than greenish ones.


Looking for a suitable lossy video codec to quickly record video in-game

There is a rule in compression, quality, size and speed, pick two of three.  Video compression is an incredibly complex process that requires a lot of resources on either the CPU, GPU or both.  You can get around that one of two ways, you can either reduce the level of compression (with lossless being the fullest extreme) or you can reduce the quality (making larger approximations means the video has more artifacts, but is simpler to compress).

Unfortunately, in the case of video games, this problem is compounded as the game itself requires the same resources that the video encoding requires.  This means that your best (and really only) option for high quality, high compression encoding of video games is to move the processing off the resources that the game is using.

Most simply, this generally means using specialized real time encoding hardware that is optimized for making real time, high quality streams.  Such hardware is unfortunately not particularly cheap and generally runs around $100 on the low end to over $1000 on the high end, with $200 to $500 being around the point at which it becomes "professional" hardware, depending on the features of the device.  Unfortunately, this solution doesn't help your scenario at all other than suggesting that you may want to include support for some of the most popular real time encoders to be used with your game natively.

You can also try doing it by capturing uncompressed on one system and streaming that data over a really fast network connection to another computer and have that computer do the encoding.  This can be a bit cheaper if you already have a second powerful computer and a fast (gigabit or higher) network, but if you have to build a computer for it, the real time encoder is a better option as it is cheaper than a dedicated PC for the job and will do a better job anyway.  You might consider building your own client that could simplify this process for users.

One thing you can do is use the encoder support built in to some more recent graphics cards.  Some cards have started including their own consumer level encoding support for doing things like streaming.  If you tap in to this functionality, you would be able to make pretty good quality encodes on the fly.

Overall, your best bet though, is probably to capture to a lossless or near-lossless quality file and then encode it after the fact.  You can include an encoder of your choice and batch things up to run during free cycles that the game isn't making use of.  After compression finishes, you can get rid of the full size file.

I'd also suggest at looking at some of the codec options used by software like FRAPS to determine what might work well for that high quality, high speed codec that would make the files a bit smaller, but always keep in mind that the more compression you do, the more it will impact the performance of your game.


Help needed in choosing video production device for use with Matterhorn Capture Agent

One of the best resources you will find for this is probably the Matterhorn documentation itself. The Capture Agent Hardware page has samples of hardware that was used at a number of schools that have implemented capture agents for Matterhorn.  It appears that the Epiphan VGA2USB is the near universal standard for VGA capture.  There seems to be a wider range of video capture devices.

Personally, I'd probably take a look at seeing if the Black Magic Intensity or Matrox MXO2 works with the capture agent, but there are also other listed devices there such as capture devices from Hauppauge or Bluecherry which have actually been used successfully already.


h264 (Constrained Baseline)/(h264 (native) vs h264 (libx264)

Let me clarify what a stream mapping line such as the one below, indicates.

Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 (native) -> h264 (libx264))

Stream #0:0 indicates that the input stream is from the first file #0:0 and is the first stream in that file #0:0

-> #0:0 indicates that the input stream is sent to the first stream of the first output file.

h264 (native) means that the detected codec of the input stream is H.264 and that ffmpeg will use its native (builtin) decoder to decode the stream.

h264 (libx264) means that the codec of the output stream will be H.264 and that ffmpeg will use the libx264 encoder to generate this stream.

"h264(constrained)" usually seen in the input file dump e.g.

Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline), yuv420p(progressive)...

indicates that the input stream codec is H.264 and the stream profile is Constrained Baseline. A profile defines the kind of methods that an encoder can use to generate streams and also a set of methods that a decoder is expected to perform, in order to decode the stream.

With your ffmpeg command, libx264 is re-encoding your video stream with CRF 23 and profile High. If the output looks fine to you, there's nothing to do further.

To experiment, you can use

ffmpeg.exe -i [RecordedVideoFileName.mkv] -crf X [OutputVideoFileName.mkv]

where X can go from 0 to 51. 18 to 28 is a good range for good quality and file size. Lower is better quality and larger size.


How to decrease resolution from 1920x1080 to 720?

I would reccomend downscaling after, maybe using handbrake. Also, when you upload the video to YouTube, it may just be your pc that lags.


There is no magic transition that will help you. Simple cuts usually work best. A fade through black may help convey a sense of time passing. The most important thing is to think about the story you want to tell. Select the material that is important to telling that story, edit it together with cuts, and then add complex transitions only if you need to work around something awkward like a jump cut. People won't want to watch the uninteresting parts if you keep everything.


How to focus when recording video using a DSLR?

Other than what you mentioned, the only other alternative is to use a third party firmware that highlights the points of highest contrast.  This gives you a better idea of what is focused on by highlighting the edges that are sharp in the LCD.  MagicLantern offers this for most Canon cameras.  I don't know if third party firmware for other DSLR makes has similar features or not.


The JVC  GY-HM200 has live streaming capabilities - http://pro.jvc.com/prof/attributes/features.jsp?model_id=MDL102319.

I've never used that particular model (so have no personal experience of the live streaming functions) but I do use the 170 and it's a solid little camcorder with a great range of options (including shooting in 4K and at high speed - though not at the same time), it's fairly robust and delivers great quality for the price.


Premiere workflow: Maintain multichannel sync from dailies through edit lock to sound?

The Subsequence Method:

This is the first method I developed to work in this situation.  I'm posting it as an answer here because it might be a sufficient answer for someone with a similar problem.  However, I do not consider it a good or elegant solution.  It has serious drawbacks which complicate the editing process (Subsequences don't display audio waveforms on the timeline, using Shift+O to open in source monitor is awkward, e.g.). I mention Reaper in this answer because it's the specific DAW we're targeting, but the advice might be generalized to other DAWs. Vordio is a translation tool which works in this context, but I cannot comment on its efficacy in others; YMMV

Select all of the Zoom audio, right-click on it, and “select modify audio channels.” Change number of audio clips to 1, set clip channel format to adaptive, click OK.
Create a new sequence from the file menu, making sure that the audio tracks are adaptive.  This first sequence is just for sync dailies, so you only need one adaptive (or stereo) track on A1 for camera scratch, and a Poly on A2 for Zoom audio (with # of channels depending on how many sources used by the recordist.
String out the video by selecting it all, and clicking the automate to sequence button.  The camera scratch audio should land on A1 when you do this.
Drop Zoom audio on A2 and sync each clip, one-by-one, either by using the “syncronize” command, or by lining up slates
Once you’re done syncronizing, delete A1 camera scratch.  You don’t need it any more.
Select each A/V clip pair in turn and “Link”.  This step’s kinda optional, but without it, the Subsequences generated in the next step won’t be linked.
Select each linked pair in turn and “Make Subsequence”
Re-name all of the subsequences.
Now, make a new timeline for editing.  Since double clicking subsequences in the project browser doesn’t open them in the source viewer like regular clips, you’ll want to use Shift+O (That’s an Oh, not a zero) instead.

Edit your material

Once your edit is locked, you need to flatten the subsequences before sending to reaper.  Follow these steps.
Basically, make sure the “insert and overwrite nested sequences as nests or individual clips button” is disabled (white, not blue)
Make sure selection follows playhead is enabled
Lock any tracks you don’t want to affect, and make sure the sequence targeting is active for the track you do want to affect
Repeat the keyboard sequence: [ x ] [ f ] [ . ] [ shift+3 ] (ex, eff, period, shift key and number three together) for every clip in the timeline.

Now, to export a project for mixing, follow these steps:

Command+M
Set Format to Quicktime, Chose Apple Prores Proxy from the Preset dropdown. Under the “Basic Video Settings” section of the “Video” tab, uncheck the box next to width and height and change either number to a quarter of their original size.  The other number should scale by the same amount automatically.  If it doesn’t, make sure the link icon is active.
Under the “Audio Channel Configuration” section of the “Audio” Tab, change “Output Channels” to match the number of channels in the poly wave.  Make sure all of the other, “Basic Audio Settings” match the quality of audio the recordist started with.
Hit Queue, and let Media Encoder do its thing.
Now, to translate via Vordio for Reaper, follow these steps:

In Premiere, do File->Export->Final Cut Pro XML.  Use the default Final Cut XML version.

Download Vordio if you don’t already have it (http://vordio.net/download/) , and open it.  In the “Convert Project” tab, click “Browse” by the “Source File” field, and navigate to wherever you saved the XML.   Browse for an Output Folder the same way, and click convert (all of the other settings can be left at default)


YouTube automatically transcodes all files uploaded to it's server into it's own streaming codecs, and also creates down-converted files which are lower in resoultion and bit-rate to allow for different streaming options based on the viewers connection speed.

How long is your original video? If YouTube transcoded your native resolution video file from 1.5GB to 250 ish MB, (hypothetically assuming this 1080p we're talking about), then your file is bloated as far as YouTube is concerned.

100 MB isn't a lot of space to work with. And you are not going to find any highly adjustable tools to hit that 100MB mark online. Your options will  be limited to either something like Adobe Media Encoder (pay per month), or FFMPEG, command line/learning curve, or VLC, which is robust but not very good with encoding.

If you want to PM me a dropbox link with the 1.5 GB file, I can run it through AME and hit your 100mb mark. It's just a drag and drop, and I'll simply re-encode it back to your shared dropbox folder. Or you can simply subscribe to a 1 month rental of Adobe Premiere which comes with AME, and adjust/play with the settings.


Do video re-encoding operations affect the container's audio file?

In ffmpeg, copy mode for -codec / -c always needs to be expressly set.

So for

ffmpeg -i in -c copy out

ffmpeg will perform automatic stream selection and copy all those streams.

For

ffmpeg -i in -c:a copy out

ffmpeg will perform automatic stream selection and copy audio stream. Video stream will be transcoded.

I suggest you read the above link on stream selection fully. It covers stream handling.


Live video and sound recording (NOT from a security camera) sent to a remote server

All newer camcarders have wifi and can stream directly to a computer or even the internet.

Here is a simple example
http://shop.panasonic.com/support-only/HC-V250K.html

scroll down to Real Time Broadcasting, Remote Shooting / Remote View


inserting video clip into another video but keep original audio

You can use the concat demuxer in ffmpeg to do this. For accurate splicing, re-encoding is needed which is what the commands below do.

Step 1 Prepare the concat text file

You must first create a plaintext file, say, concat.txt, like this

file 'LargeClip.mp4'
inpoint 0.0
duration 10.0
file 'SmallClip.mp4'
inpoint 0.0
outpoint 2.0
file 'LargeClip.mp4'
inpoint 12.0
duration 5.0
file 'SmallClip.mp4'
inpoint 23.0
duration 4.0
file 'LargeClip.mp4'
inpoint 21.0

This shows the first 10 seconds of LargeClip, then the first two seconds of smallclip, then resumes the Largeclip at 12:00, shows it for 5 seconds, then splices in 23:00 to 27:00 of small clip, switches back to LargeClip at its 21:00 and keeps it till its end. These timecodes, in seconds, refer to the source file timecode, not of the assembled output.

Make sure that the sync of LargeClip isn't broken, i.e. after switching to SmallClip for 12 seconds, you want to resume LargeClip 12 seconds later from where you left it off.

Step 2 Concat the video streams

This command will skip the audio since we don't to splice the audio streams.

ffmpeg -f concat -i concat.txt -an -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -fflags +genpts spliced-vid.mp4

Step 3 Insert the audio from LargeClip

ffmpeg -i spliced-vid.mp4 -i LargeClip.mp4 -c copy -map 0:v -map 1:a Final.mp4


Re-encode corrupt videos (that still play) and drop bad frames FFMPEG or other app?

I would try TMPG Smart Renderer, https://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tmsr6.html. It should just "pass-through" any non-corrupted video, and will re-encode the portions of the file the need to be. Or you can manually cut those pieces out. It will depend how corrupt the input is as to what you'll need to do. It is a commercial product, but for a one-off project you can likely do everything you need in trial mode.


How do you zoom in (animated) on a portion of your canvas?

Here's what I would do...

Create a camera
Create a null object
Set the parent of the null object to be the camera
Make the null object a '3D' object
Use the null object's properties to zoom and move the camera around, e.g. use the 'z' position to zoom

You could do this with the camera by itself, but the null object is sometimes easier to deal with. Ease in and out of the keyframes for a smooth animation. I hope this helps!


You can use FFmpeg as an RTMP server as following
ffmpeg -f flv -listen 1 -i rtmp://localhost:1935/live/app -c copy rtsp://YOUR_RTSP_HOST

Notes:

-listen 1 makes FFmpeg act as a RTMP server when used with RTMP protocol
Use rtmp://localhost:1935/live/app as the RTMP server url on the source
You can set any playpath rtmp://localhost:1935/any/thing and any port
The main advantage with this way is simplicity, the disadvantage is server stops if source stopped or had encoding errors
The other option is to use nginx with nginx-rtmp-module


The Casio EX-F1 can shoot upto 1200fps, but the resolution reduces as the frame rate gets higher.  They go on eBay for about £600.

http://www.casio.com/products/archive/Digital_Cameras/High-Speed/EX-F1/

Or the Casio Exilim FH20, for about £300 on Amazon, was used to make this:

More info on how it was made here:

http://straylight.co.uk/?p=120


What Video Camera and Tool is best to Produce Interviews & Small Docus for my Contruction Company?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


How do I replace one layer with another and take all its specifications

Select the layer you want to replace in the timeline or comp window
Alt/opt-drag the new source from the project window into the comp or timeline window.


You can use ffmpeg to split them programmatically or use LightWorks to cut them manually with a GUI.


Create video with filmstrip effect with Adobe Premiere

Essentially what you are trying to do is create a mask with the film strip.

If you are seeing (lets say) 3 frames, then you would duplicate your original image 3 times, and offset each one by one frame. Feel free to cheat more than a frame to get the right look.

Then scale and rotate the images to fit under the film strip.

That is how I would do it.

Other things you might consider doing.

Reducing the frame rate to around 12 frames a second, to make it look more like the old silent movies.
Add dust and scratches effect
Add light leaks effects as well
And add a jitter effect (many ways to do that)

Good Luck


FFMpeg: "Invalid audio stream. Exactly one MP3 audio stream is required"

You're trying to store an AAC stream in a MP3 container, would be my guess.

Either store the result as "${i%.mp3}-ENCODED.aac" or switch -c:a aac to -c:a libmp3lame


record the audio separately AND on your camera.  Then in the editor, align the 2 AUDIO waveforms.  Play them back both together.  If you hear an echo then they are not exactly aligned.  After you have them aligned, then turn off the camrea audio and keep the audio you want.  Mark


How to handle extreme dynamic range in a vocalist?

What Kim Burgaard said is very true. The vocalist has a lot of control over how their voice is recorded. As I'm a much inferior vocalist to those I record, it can be difficult teaching them this technique, as you just want to get a good take.

So what I end up doing is have the vocalist scream. Well, I ask them to warm up and hit the loudest levels they can. I then adjust via that. I try not affect overall sound with compression in the analog domain. With the takes in 24bit, I can use envelopes or a compressor in the mixing stage.

I would stay away from ridding the level during recording. It's more difficult to get the levels right in the mixing stage.

You mention running a second mic for the vocal. I would hope that is what you are doing anyway. I don't think recording the mic and guitar with one mic is a good idea at all. You'll not be able to mix anything.


You've hit the very unfortunate planned obsolescence issue.  Adobe only updates their software for a limited amount of time, so when working in RAW formats, you eventually hit a point where the old software simply will not work with the footage from new cameras anymore.

Your options are unfortunately a bit limited.  You can either update to a newer version of your editing software or use a different software for transcoding.  I'm not particularly familiar with Sony's workflow as I use an Ursa Mini (which uses CinemaDNG), but I'd suspect there to be at least a few options available for ingesting and transcoding MXF as Sony is a significant enough player in the space.

Looking at the documentation for Black Magic's DaVinci Resolve, it looks like you might be able to use that.  I can see from their documentation that MXF is a container format, so it's going to largely depend on what the video format within the MXF is, but DaVinci Resolve has a pretty long list of supported MXF codecs.  If it does support it, Resolve has a free version that could likely be used to do your transcode for you.  In the beta of Resolve 14, you can simply add the files to a project, go to Media Management (under the File menu) and it will let you transcode all videos in the project to another format of your choice.


What are the benefits of a CLI encoder (e.g. FFmpeg) over GUI Software?

You have 10,000 videos that need to have a logo overlayed, subtitles burned in from srt files, and a standard copyright notice attached to the end. Then you need to make three different versions of each, at different sizes and codec settings. It's a quarter to five on Friday night.

Option 1, you spend all weekend doing it in a GUI app, and you have no life.

Option 2, you do it with ffmpeg, which can do all these things, you spend fifteen minutes setting up a CLI batch encoding script, and as the big hand points to 12 you leave it running and head for the pub.


How much GB or TB is 1 hour of raw uncompressed Ultra HD film?

A 'base' value is ~33 GB per minute for 8-bit RGB at 24fps. Multiply by 1.25 for 30fps, and/or by 1.5 for 12 bits/pixel, or 1.25 for 10 bits/px.

3840x2160 = 8294400 pixels per plane
   x 3 for RGB = 24883200 px per frame
     x 24 fps = 597196800 px per sec
       x 60 sec = 3.5831808 x 10^10 px per hour
         x 8 bits per pixel, / 8 bits per byte = 3.6 x 10^10 bytes / hour
So, roughly 33 GB per minute for 8-bit 24 fps


I found a solution about cutting. I can upload the video on Premiere Pro, cut and select "Replace With After Effects Composition" and that's it, that feature is amazing for this type of work! Thank you all by the way!


How do I check codec for a video(mp4) in windows 10?

With ffprobe (included in the ffmpeg build), run

ffprobe yourvideo.ext

Or with MediaInfo, just use the GUI. If you set the display mode to Text you'll be able to see all the details for the streams.


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.


Video rendering time is measured in man-hours. How is that calculated?

I've never heard that term used for rendering before, but it is most likely referring to the number of hours of computation needed for a single CPU or GPU to process it.  In most video and 3d applications, it is possible to parallelize the rendering of the video itself (though not necessarily the encoding.

Thus, a job that would take 200 "man hours" (more often called CPU hours when I've heard it used) would only take 20 hours if you had 10 CPUs working on it.


Do video formats support colour profiles?

No most video formats (nearly all) do not allow custom ICC color profiles to be embedded. (Improvemet/correction: MP4s can have color profiles tagged in the metadata of a video file.) most video on the consumer end is intended for the REC.709 color space. sRGB is similar and uses the same primaries. transcoding (including compressing) will almost always result is a slight shift in color accuracy, saturation, gamma curve, or black and white level shift. This is made worse due to converting between RGB and YCbCr color spaces.


How to decode the PTS timestamps and extract the video frames

FFmpeg will, by default, remove the starting offset. To preserve it, add -copyts.

The description of -vsync 0 isn't accurate and was written 8+ years ago: Each frame is passed with its timestamp from the demuxer to the muxer.. Video sync takes effect only once the frame has exited the decoder(+filtergraph) pipeline. But you should keep it to avoid dropping/duplicating frames.


What new piece of hardware to get to increase video rendering performance?

A GPU will give you the best performance boost, but your rendering software has to be optimized to use the GPU; most is.  Upgrading the CPU is the best option if your software doesn't support GPU rendering.  Upgrading RAM won't give you a noticeable performance if you have 8 or more gigabytes.  You might see some slight increase in performance if you have less than 4 gigabytes.

Some notes on upgrading components.  With a CPU, higher clock speed isn't necessarily better.  Unlike gaming, rendering can make use of as many cores as are available, so get a quad-core at least.  Put your money in more cores rather than higher clocks (unless you game on the side).  An Intel Core i7 or Intel Xeon is ideal.  With a GPU, Nvidia is best.  Most rendering software takes advantage of CUDA which is specific to Nvidia GPUs.  There is immense amounts of information about 3D rendering times on different GPUs available online, use that to make your decision.  I recommend the GTX 660 or 760.  Quadro isn't worth the money unless you need weeks of nonstop uptime from your GPU.


How to reveal 3 masks with Stroke in After Effects

If I understand this correctly, your goal is to be able to adjust the stroke effect in one shape and have it applied to every other shape, right?
If so, here's how I'd approach this:

create your shape layer and add the stroke effect to reveal the image
Pre-compose the shape layer
Duplicate the precomp three two times and scale them, so you have three different sizes
To remain the same thickness of your shapes, you could apply the "min-max" effect and widen the alpha- and colorchannels to make the shape appear thicker.

If you now adjust the stroke-effect of the shape in any of your three precomps, it is applied to every precomp, effectively changing the animation for all the three shapes.


What is a subtle displacement at the moment of the cut?

Subtle cuts are cuts that are blended such that you don't notice they are occurring.  They are the hardest type of cuts to pull off.  You can do them during a quick pan or if you have a near stationary scene.

The key point that Walter Murch is getting at is that jump cuts, cuts where the viewer is jarred in to noticing the cut, should generally be avoided as they break continuity.  As with any guideline, there are exceptions and in some situations you may want to intentionally jar the audience, but generally, you avoid it by either having a major change in context or angle or you blend it so smoothly that the cut is not noticeable.

For a great example of a subtle cut, look at the boat sinking sequence used frequently in the TV show Arrow (available on Netflix).  There is a shot where they go from being in a cabin there is a whoosh of water as the girl is washed out of the boat and then we are looking at a shot from outside.  While there is no clear cut, a transition was made (though in this case it could also be a total cut as there is a context shift).

You may also occasionally notice subtle cuts in documentaries when the editor is able to make a cut between takes where the speaker's head was positioned in the same spot and so you don't actually particularly notice that an edit was made.  These are only possible when the situation lends itself perfectly to such an edit, but it can sometimes be done.


Library with LOTS of clips: Increasing performance

Ideally having all your content and project files on a separate harddisk would give you some performance back, this could be a internal drive if your on a Apple Mac Pro or a external drive, USB3, Fire-wire, Thunderbolt etc.

If you dont need to have the libraries open I would close them as they load up the files when you open FCPX.

Other options are to increase your RAM in the Mac, FCPX likes a min of 4gb, I had 6gb in mine and it was running slow, I upped it to 16gb and now it runs so much better, I also made sure I was running the latest FCPX version and I closed some of my libraries down which I didnt need to have open all the time as you can just re-open them when you need to.

I mainly do weddings where I shoot a lot of clips throughout the day 200+ sometimes so it shouldn't have an issue really. I do keep my projects in a very strict order and filing system
Library Name
--Event Name (normally one for RAW files, Audio, Titles etc etc)
--Project Names (normally one for each timeline)

I can have 3/4 edits going at any one time, once I finish one I close it down and archive the whole library removing any render files, optimized media etc to keep the archive size down.

I hope something in this will help


Ideal frame rate for video with moving objects

There are two distinct types of frame rates and how they're captured and played back.

interlaced
progressive

A progressive frame rate transmits whole images at once, depending on whether you use NTSC or PAL, you'll start on the low end with 25/24 FPS. From there, you can go up as much as you want, but the conventional frame rates are usually 25, 30 and 60. Because you're filming a soccer game, 60fps will give you a more crisp, clear and even slower viewing experience, without actually slowing down the footage.

When it comes to interlacing, it's a bit more complex. TV and broadcasts used and still use interlacing for the most part. With it, you'll only send half the picture, first the even or uneven rows, and after that the other half. Using interlacing, you can safe a lot of data and make the image still look quite good, however, in rapid movements (be it a whip pan or alike), you'll be able to make out interlacing lines which I absolutely detest.

That said, you should most likely opt for 60p (p standing for progressive) or, if you can't get progressive frame rates, 60i or 120i. Interlaced frame rates get confusing, because for example 25i and 50i is practically the same, only the name differs, since you're sending 50 half-frames a second, but 25 whole frames.


Recommendations for HD camcorder for all-day static recording?

Ok, so now that I got that comment out of my system, let me start by saying your expectation is 100% completely, totally and insanely unrealistic.  HD + uncompressed = a data rate measured in gigabytes (11.2 gigabytes to be specific) per minute (16.1 terabytes per 24 hour day) and is only available on very high end cameras (>$3000, without optics) price range.  Additionally, to not have to get the card every 30 minutes, let alone every day, you would need to have it wired in to a recorder elsewhere which means getting a record deck alone that will be over $600.  There is simply no possible way to accomplish all of your goals within an order of magnitude of your stated target cost.

For $6,000 or so, I could probably recommend a setup that would work nicely for capture and then you'd need another $4,000 or so just for the disk drives that could store it, but unless you can bear a reasonable level of compression, then it isn't going to be any cheaper.  Even SD would have problems running fully uncompressed for lengths of time without a dedicated professional deck, though SD might possibly drop the cost in to the 1 to 2k range.

While off topic for AVP, I would suggest that what you need to do is update your analysis to support compression.  Add a buffer that will recognize pixels that are close in color as the same and adjust as necessary until compression artifacts aren't recognized.  Unless people are all the same color as the floor, it should probably still be able to track pretty well.

You'll need this anyway as from frame to frame, there are going to be variations in what hits the sensor even if you have a fully uncompressed signal.  Noise happens in the real world.  You have to deal with it.  The noise in the signal is going to be at least as much of a problem as most good compression, probably much more.


"Opus cuts audio above 20kHz" - Is this normal for lossey audio codecs?

You mistake the sample rate for the audio cutoff rate.  If the sample rate is 48kHz, the absolute maximum frequency that could even theoretically be represented with a lowpass signal is 24kHz (I am not getting into bandpass theories since the 20Hz subsonic band is just too small to be useful for transferring high frequency content).  In practice, you need more leeway to avoid aliasing problems.

So 48kHz is a reasonable sample frequency to use for signals cutting off at about 20kHz.  Now you are asking whether this is customary for lossy audio codecs.  The principal of lossy audio encoding is to throw away information that psychoacoustically is supposed to not be relevant.  Since human hearing is supposed to basically be constrained to the 20Hz-20kHz range, it is not in the least surprising that the range above 20kHz would not be subject to encoding.


Use this filter expression:

"drawtext=enable='between(t,2.5,6.5)':fontsize=50:fontcolor=Green:fontfile='ariblk.ttf': \
text='textline1':x=min(4*(tw\+10)-(abs(4-2*(t-2.5)))*(tw+10)-tw\,10):y=h-th-130"

The above is for the first line. I've changed the values/expression for the enable and xparameters. The movement starts at 2.5 seconds, settles at 3s, stays till 6s and then disappears by 6.5


How to find videos that have free reuse license types on the web?

You can do this is on YouTube by adding a filter under the "Features" header. E.g.:

Also found that Vimeo offers similar search functionality when you add filters on the right:

Specifically on Vimeo these each mean:

CC0: Public Domain Dedication
CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License
CC BY: Attribution License
CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License
CC BY-NC: Attribution Non-Commercial License
CC BY-SA: Attribution Share Alike License
CC BY-ND: Attribution No Derivatives License


You might be doing nothing wrong.
I find dynamic linking between Premiere and After Effects still slow and buggy in CC2020.
If I have a complex comp in AE, I would pre-render in AE, not using the pre-render function in the Compositions menu (because that seems to irreprably delete the original comp, unless anyone else knows otherwise?), but by exporting the comp as a ProRes file.
Then you have two choices:

If you trust dynamic linking:
Place your pre-render video above everything else in your comp in AE, and see if it beahves better in Premiere.

If you don't trust dynamic linking:
Bring your pre-rendered ProRes .mov file into Premiere, where it will play quickly, and disable your dynamically linked comp.


In the manual it says:

  To use opencv use the calibration sample (under samples/cpp) from the
  opencv sources and extract the k1 and k2 coefficients from the
  resulting matrix.

If you go to the opencv website there's a sample source code for a lens correction program, written in c++, here. You'll have to compile it yourself, after installing OpenCV (sounds like you better put on a pot of coffee).
When you run it it will spit out an xml file containing the values for k1 and k2, which you can then use as inputs to the filter.


diffculties using Manual mode with Canon DSLR 650D

There is no global setting that works in all these conditions. The solution is to light properly and expose properly for the conditions. It's hard to give specific advice because you don't say what you're shooting in these low light conditions or what venue you're shooting in. Here are the general solutions:

Do you have the option to increase the lighting? If so, that's you're best bet. Note that you may not need to buy more lights - reflectors can do wonders and are very cheap.
If you can't increase the lighting, the next best thing is to open the aperture. However, that causes your depth of field to become more shallow, meaning it's harder to focus on your subject and keep them in focus, particularly if they're moving.
Decrease the shutter speed. In video, it may be called the "shutter angle" and it may be in degrees. 360° is the entire length of a single frame (1/24th, 1/30th, etc.). 180° would be half that (1/48th at 24fps, 1/60th at 30fps, etc.). You can only increase it so much, though, as a frame can't be longer than 1/30th of a second (if you're shooting 30 fps, for example), so that's the upper limit.
Increase the ISO. As you've noticed, this causes more grain in the image.
Use a camera with a better sensor for low light conditions. Since you're into Canon gear, the 5D is known for its large sensor size. In general, larger sensors (that is sensors with larger pixels) will gather more light and produce less grain. There may be cheaper options. You can rent better gear much more cheaply than buying it in most parts of the world.
Use noise reduction software in post. There are lots of plug-ins available for the major editing applications. I've seen people use Neat Video, De:Noise, and other similar products.

If you describe what you're shooting and where, we may be able to come up with more specific suggestions.


I had the same thing; starting OBS in administrator-mode worked for me.


If you want to save time and learning efforts, and you can live with limited control over the end result, you may want to have a look at:

muvee Reveal
Magix Fastcut
GoPro Studio
Sony Action Cam Movie Creator

The later two are for free.


Freely available video quality of experience tools are quite rare and probably aren't going to work for your use case out of the box. The Netflix VMAF algorithm recently became available as an FFmpeg filter. The MSU VQMT is one of the more mature tools, but is only free for non-commercial use.

There are several (and some even good) commercial QoE monitoring systems available, if you have the budget.


Can running a video over ethernet be split?

Not with those boxes, but the broadcast industry version of video over IP (SMPTE 2022-6 and the 2110 suite) can do this as they are actually IP Multicast based.

The gotcha is that they typically run uncompressed so you are looking at up to several Gb/s per multicast flow (4k60 you are looking at 12Gb/s), and you really want non blocking switching fabric.

It does work, but you will hate the price.

HDCP with consumer gear is also a bit of a pain (There are ways around that however).


How to make a fake 3d effect (The Matrix 3d rotation style) from 2 video sources?

This is possible, though it wouldn't look real at all.. If you use Adobe After Effects you can just put both sources in one composition. Then you would turn on the 3D-mode on each of the layers. There is a button on each layer. If you click it there should be a small picture of a cube where you clicked.

Then you press P on each of the layers to bring up the position sliders. Then you animate the first layer until it "matches" the position of the second camera. (The axis that goes from the top of the image and downwards.) Do this for both the layers and just blend them together. I don't remember if you have to insert a camera into the scene too. So you basically move the layers to simulate movement. Oh, and add motion blur too with the motion blur button next to the 3d-button. Remember to switch on the master blur button too. This will make the camera movement (or in this instance the movement of the layer itself) look more natural. Remember to zoom in a bit into the comp to compensate for the 3D.

Please post your video so we can see how it looks! :)


H.264 does support true lossless compression (see 'Lossless mode' on this page). It seems that to avoid chroma format conversion, you need to encode using the Hi444PP profile, which accepts RGB pixels. However, a cursory search indicates that x264 doesn't support Hi444PP (yet), whereas some commercial codecs like MainConcept do.


Converting a PDF slide show to a video file

Convert the presentation to a series of image files. The classic image format for that is a TARGA sequence. But you can use any format that your LaTeX tool chain can output and a video generator can import. For generating the image sequence, there are several vector and raster formats that LaTeX can export. You can then use ffmpeg to turn the image sequence into video.

As a reminder, be sure to set the aspect ratio of your presentation appropriately.


Recording me write my notes and my speech at my desk

First, you need a smartphone, such as iPhone or Android.  Then you need something to hold it over your notes, such as this.  Then you need diffuse lighting at or above the level of your smartphone, one illuminating the left side of your notes, the other the right side of your notes.  If your lighting is very diffuse, then shadows should not be a problem as you write from one side of the page to another.  These work lights might do the trick.  You'll have to figure out how you want to suspend them, however.

Finally, you need video editing software that lets you trim your video so your beginnings and endings are crisp and where you want them to be.  You can download a free version of DaVinci Resolve that works on Mac and Windows platforms and can output FullHD (but not UHD) video.  You can use the microphone built into your phone.


Yes, they need permission. However, the permission to use the characters in image and other promotional material is likely included in the international distribution or syndication agreement.
It almost definitely was done using a chroma key or other intentional compositing technique, as opposed to trying to mask the movements out of footage from the show. Networks, syndicators, and international distributors usually supply their affiliates with promotional materials. Often, these promotional materials include elements that can be built up into a complete promo that fits the affiliate's branding. The distributor will provide suggestions or instructions on just how a particular element should be used, but it is up to the affiliate to put in their own look.


What's the best free video editor for a music slideshow?

In my opinion, it is the best idea and the fastest Adobe Premier Pro software
Its great user interface can be the best idea for you
Da Vinci Rizalo and Final Cut software are also great
Good luck


What software do I need to edit commercials out of recorded sports games?

Allow me to edit out commercials anywhere in the video.

Any modern editor can do this (Adobe Premier, Sony Vegas, Final Cut etc) including light-weight (ex. Pinnacle Studio) and free editors.

  After editing, it keeps the 5.1 Surround Sound.

Provided your original clip contains 5.1 channels and your editing environment is set up with (and can support, see more professional packages) 5.1 support, and you export in a format that support 5.1, this is granted.

  Burn the video to a Blu-Ray player or save it to disk.

As long as you export in a format supported by the BD-disk creator software, or a format that can be trans-coded, no problem.

  Ability to add menus too my Blu-Rays.

This most BD-disk creator software can do (see for example Adobe Encore).

  If there are logos on the screen(say ESPN logo), be able tell the software to find all instances and remove it.

This is a very specific task and as you say, you need to tell the software to find these. You can do this by combining a tracker to the logo and a script that can follow. When logo is "lost" for the tracker, init a method in the script that do what you want. This as said, will be very specific and it will require you to program your script very specific.

IMO it will be quicker to go through these manually. especially if you know the material you're working with or at least what to expect of it.


How can I animate an iPhone screen within a blender animation?

I made an attempt to use a green screen my rendering the iphone again with a green front and then using track motion within After Effects. Results aren't great, it doesn't track well and it's very wobbly but it seems like I'm on the right track.


Music Policies on Facebook: Using Copyright But Licensed Music

I don't know whats allowed on Facebook but, to keep it safe use songs from Youtube audio library that are not copy right protected. At some songs you need to add the author and by others no. You can also use filters. Now i agree most of the songs wont fit your needs, but i have to say there are some great songs in there!


Microphone problem for camera hp , lc100W

The rule of thumb for recording sound is that the closer to the source you get the better the sound. The reason is that the further you are from the source the more you have to increase the recording level, which means you also turn up all the background noise and room ambiance (echo and reverb). Since sound levels diminish proportionally to the square of the distance having the mic twice as far away means one quarter the sound level, or four times more background noise.

Now it doesn't look like there's a microphone input on that camera. If that's the case the only way you can record sound using an external mic is with a separate recorder. You could use a phone if you have one, you can get external mics for phones. Put the mic and recorder close to the source - on the lectern or even on a mic stand. Then you can synch the sound in your editing app. Premiere for example will synch clips automatically from their audio.


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

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


How can I specify time for text titles in iMovie for iOS

If you click on the "?" in the upper right, you'll get yellow markers that show help. One of them is "Learn More" where it brings up the user manual and a search field. When I type "titles" into the search field, it gives me a list of options, the first of which was "Add a title."

According to that help section, a title lasts the entire length of the video or still you apply it to.

So, you can cut your video into 3 pieces - the piece before the title, the piece containing the title, and the piece after the title. To do that:

click on the clip and scroll to the time where you want the title to start
press the scissors icon at the bottom. This will offer some options.
Click on "Split"

Do the process again where you want the title to end.

Once you've done that, click on the piece you want to contain the title. At the bottom, click on the "T" icon. That will bring up the title selection tool. Choose your title style and click on the text to edit it.


What options are there for hardware encoding/decoding?

I'm sure there are dedicated MP4 encoders out there, maybe someone else has better info.

But I've had good results using AVC Ultimate, which takes advantage of CUDA on an NVIDIA card to speed up MP4 processing, to about double the rate I get without it. There's a free version, but I can't remember if the CUDA option is available in that -- I've used the paid version for quite a while.


Major issue importing and exporting mp4 with AE and Media Encoder

Hmm very strange, never seen this before. Here are some things I would try to figure out what is causing the issue:

Try re-encoding the file with ffmpeg into both the same container (mp4) as well as other containers such as .mov, .mkv, .wmv, etc. Maybe there's a problem with the codecs for Adobe on your machine.
Which version of AE and Media-Encoder are you using? (is it a legal copy?)
Have you tried uninstalling all codecs such as quicktime, etc. and reinstalling them?
Have you tried uninstalling the Adobe software and reinstalling it?

Since you said that on draft quality the preview looks fine momentarily, I assume that the problem is rooted in the Adobe-Software. Maybe switching off hardware-acceleration might also do the trick. Make sure to keep us updated, I'm genuinely interested what's causing this weird issue.


Simulate parenting, (or un-parent) in after effects

The only solution to do this without an extra script/plugin is to use expressions and then convert the expression to keyframes via Animation->Keyframe Assistent->Convert Expression to keyframes.

The big downside is that you have to "build" the parenting yourself, if you parent the position of one layer to another it will result in an expression like: thisComp.layer("Black Solid 2").transform.position. You then have to manage your relative position manually by changing the anchor point which is tedious, then you have to basically parent each transform property manually if you want rotation, scale and opacity as well.

So unless you can't spend the 15$ or can't use plugins for any reason I would always go for the script solution.


Exam Question - end-to-end delay from video capture to video playout

There are a few mistakes in your math.

First, you are multiplying an entire group of pictures (7 frames) by 25, that would be 7 seconds of video, not one.

Second, you are not considering that the first I frame of one set is the last of the next, so it should be assumed that the sequence that would be used is IBBPBBIBBPBBIBBPBBIBBPBB...  It would make no sense at all to put two I frames together in a row, but sometimes the I is listed as an end.

Third, you are not considering the fact that a B frame is bi-directional and can not be processed until the next I or P frame is reached.

These three things significantly complicate the problem from the simple state you initially thought it was, though as this is an academic problem, I will leave the actual solving as an exercise for you.


"Cannot find a matching stream for unlabeled input pad 2 on filter Parsed_amerge_2" ffmpeg

Inside a filtergraph, each pad is associated with a single stream. And a specifier such as 0:a will match the first stream that qualifies. You need to specify two pads and fully specify the input streams.
[0:a:0][0:a:1]amerge=inputs=2[a]


preset is a private option that may be defined for an encoder, such as libx264. It is a shorthand method to set a whole bunch of options at once, and won't have any effect if set when using an encoder which doesn't define them.

When using x264 to encode to H.264 with preset medium, these are the arguments set:

cabac=1
ref=3
deblock=1:0:0
analyse=0x3:0x113
me=hex
subme=7
psy=1
psy_rd=1.00:0.00
mixed_ref=1
me_range=16
chroma_me=1
trellis=1
8x8dct=1
cqm=0
deadzone=21,11
fast_pskip=1
chroma_qp_offset=-2
threads=12
lookahead_threads=2
sliced_threads=0
nr=0
decimate=1
interlaced=0
bluray_compat=0
constrained_intra=0
bframes=3
b_pyramid=2
b_adapt=1
b_bias=0
direct=1
weightb=1
open_gop=0
weightp=2
keyint=250
keyint_min=25
scenecut=40
intra_refresh=0
rc_lookahead=40
rc=crf
mbtree=1
crf=23.0
qcomp=0.60
qpmin=0
qpmax=69
qpstep=4
ip_ratio=1.40
aq=1:1.00

The default preset is medium. You can override any of the individual variables by adding -x264-params key1=value:key2=value after the preset option. But you shouldn't unless you need to.


How do I get a totally white background without the subject being too bright?

We do this all the time. All you need is a white wall and plenty of light.

The goal is to light the wall far brighter than the subject in front. You want it so that when the subject is properly exposed, the wall behind them is vastly overexposed/blown out, thus losing any details/texture on the wall.

It helps to keep the subject at a distance from the backdrop.

Here's the last shoot I was on using this technique:


According to this post on Adobe's forums, the CED file is an attempt by the camera to save a corrupted video file that occurs when the memory card is not formatted in a way it can write video correctly.  It may or may not actually contain a usable video stream depending on what went wrong.  I couldn't find any PC tools that would open it reliably, but JVC might have something if you check with them.


Do Premiere, After Effects and Adobe Media Encoder support huffyuv lossless codec?

They do on Windows, you need to use the AVI container as HuffyUV isn't available as a quicktime codec, afaik.

I used huffyUV for a while, but have switched to magicYUV which has a better range of colour space support (including 10-bit in beta).  UTVideo is another good option and is available for mac.

With the Premiere - After Effects - Media Encoder workflow I find that exporting to a flattened movie only happens when I am making the final master, I use Dynamic Link for the intermediate transfers from say AE to Premiere. As well as saving disk space it's faster and easier because you can make changes and have them update on the fly.

So for final masters these lossless codecs are great, with the one caveat–they may not be supported in the long term. Mostly they are developed by small teams or even a single person, so if they get a full-time job or have twins the project might tank. If you're making masters that need to be available for the long term – as in decades, then FFV1 is a good option, though for everyday use as an intermediate codec it's a bit slow.


How to make an Ableton Live project a set time

Go into arrange view, expand the master track

Enter draw mode: press ctrl+b or click on the pencil button at the top of the screen next to the little keyboard. You want it to be yellow.

Use draw mode to zero out a region of the Master Mixer - Track Volume automation

Exit draw mode: press ctrl+b again, or click on the pencil button so that it is no longer active.
Use the pointer cursor to click on one of the automation corners to the right, deleting it.

Delete the other rightmost automation corner. Now the automation curve should be down at the bottom for the rest of time.


The 'copy' codec tells avconv to skip decoding and encoding. It is useful if you are trying to change the container format but in your case, you are changing the format of the stream from MJPEG to H264.

Just leave '-vcodec copy' out and let avconv figure out that it must transcode from mjpeg to H264:

avconv -i rtsp://admin:admin@192.168.11.11/streaming/Channels/2 -map 0  -f H264 udp://192.168.10.11:5014

[mjpeg @ 0x113f1d0] Changeing bps to 8
Input #0, rtsp, from 'rtsp://admin:admin@192.168.11.11/streaming/Channels/2':
  Metadata:
    title           : Media Presentation
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj420p(pc, bt470bg/unknown/unknown), 320x240 [SAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], 50 tbr, 90k tbn, 90k tb
No pixel format specified, yuvj420p for H.264 encoding chosen.
Use -pix_fmt yuv420p for compatibility with outdated media players.
[libx264 @ 0x116a980] using SAR=1/1
[libx264 @ 0x116a980] using cpu capabilities: ARMv6 NEON
[libx264 @ 0x116a980] profile High, level 2.1
Output #0, h264, to 'udp://192.168.10.11:5014':
  Metadata:
    title           : Media Presentation
    encoder         : Lavf56.40.101
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (libx264), yuvj420p(pc), 320x240 [SAR 1:1 DAR 4:3], q=-1--1, 50 fps, 50 tbn, 50 tbc
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc56.60.100 libx264
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (mjpeg (native) -> h264 (libx264))

Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame=   51 fps= 34 q=31.0 Lsize=       9kB time=00:00:00.98 bitrate=  71.7kbits/s dup=40 drop=0
video:9kB audio:0kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB  muxing overhead: 0.000000%


Picture in picture for my face while recording video games

Xsplit is a popular software choice for people recording and/or streaming video games. It allows multiple inputs and can overlay video on top of video, as you'd need for the PiP effect. There is a small fee to purchase this, but would highly recommend it if you are serious about it.

Another popular solution is Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) which is similar to Xsplit, but is completely free. Here is a guide to using OBS. When you setup a "Streaming Profile," you can just set it to locally record.

With both services, you have the option to record footage locally (such as to edit/produce and then upload to YouTube) and/or stream directly to an online streaming service (such as Twitch or Ustream).


cuvid - slow performance when used 4 devices

NVidia boards has a limit number of concurrent encoding tasks, according number of encode engine chips on board. Look at specifications of boards you are using.
Even if you have a board with unrestricted number of sessions to it, you will have a speed degradation, because of some task pipelining on host side.


Try Selecting your Text Tool... the Capital "T" in the tool bar. Using that Click or double Click on the text you want to edit. That should get you there.


Where can I find build in sounds in fcpx

Make sure you do “Download Additional Content” under the Final Cut Pro menu. Download and install if you haven’t.

Left top corner next to the Library Sidebar icon is the Photo and Audio Sidebar Icon. When you in this sidebar you can find “Sound Effects” with lots of sounds you can use for free.


Essential Graphics - Media Replacement issue

Even though Essential Graphics have been available for a few years now, Replace Media is available around After Effects v18.0, be sure to update your app.


Audio noise reduction: how does audacity compare to other options?

I am the author of the code you are reading.  It appears you were an alpha user of Audacity 2.1.0 in advance of its release, which was only days ago.  You have a version of the noise reduction effect with many experimental optional controls exposed to the user that are not in the release version.

You may be interested in what I wrote here about the inadequacies of the previous version of the effect that I tried to remedy with this rewrite.  But the overall procedure remains unchanged.

http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Proposal_Noise_Removal#Critique_of_current_Audacity_Noise_Removal_by_Paul_Licameli


This is really the same trick as what is needed for a music video.  There are two options for it.  If you want to record the actual performance, play the backtrack while recording the video and synchronize it after the fact.  You can either directly mic the instrument and play the backtrack aloud or you can use headphones or in-ear monitors to play the backtrack and split off a feed to go in to the camera for purposes of synchronization.

Alternately, you can do your audio recording completely separate from the video.  Record the audio in an ideal studio environment with clean trumpet while using headphones for the backtrack, produce the final audio and then playback the audio while recording the video.  This is the option that is generally closer to what a music video does and is what I would personally recommend for best overall quality.

In either case, you take the video track and the audio track (or tracks) and line them up after the fact in a traditional video NLE (non-linear editor).  You could accomplish it with something as basic as Windows Movie Maker, though personally, I'd use something like Adobe Premiere and maybe Audition for the audio (simply because Audition and Premiere integrate so nicely.)


Is there any way to avoid losing a generation of quality when re-exporting an .mp4 after making changes to it?

@user2248 is on the money. The only software I know of that can do this sort of thing is ffmpeg. I'll expand on his answer:

Import mymovie.mp4 into Premiere Pro, or audition or whatever.
Do your sound edit, and export just the audio to myfixedaudio.wav (or .aiff).
Now comes the scary command line stuff:

ffmpeg -i mymovie.mp4 -i myfixedaudio.wav -c:v copy -map 0:v -map 1:a myfixedmp4.mp4

Wow, a whole line of typing, that's going to take forever. Seriously, it might seem that it's mysterious and difficult, but it's actually less work than doing it with the GUI. let's break down that command so you can see what it's doing:

-i mymovie.mp4 -i myfixedaudio.wav import the movie, and the audio. FFMPEG numbers from 0, so mymovie.mp4 is source 0 and myfixedaudio.wav is source 1
-c:v copy set the codec for video to copy, aka completely lossless copy of the original encoded video, copied bit for bit. We don't need to set the codec for audio because it sets the appropriate audio codec for mp4 by default (aac).
-map 0:v -map 1:a map the video from the first source and the audio from the second source to the first and second streams of the output. I.e. the output now has an identical video stream to the original movie, and a re-encoded audio stream from the fixed version in the wav file.
myfixedmp4.mp4 ffmpeg uses the first thing it sees as a filename without a -option in front of it as the output.
if you wanted to preserve more audio quality, you could muck around with the audio settings, you'd do that before the output name.

Compare that to what you'd do in Premiere:

import the movie and the audio
create a new timeline
add the just video to the timeline by deactivating the audio and then dragging the video into the timeline, or by selecting the original audio track from the movie and deleting it
add the new audio
export the movie, after adjusting the export settings

Same same, only you do it with a lot more clicking and dragging and keystrokes. Not to mention that it can't actually do what ffmpeg can.

This will not preserve your audio losslessly, but nothing will. It will however avoid a generation loss with your video, and it is the only way I know of that will.


How to fix choppy/lagging video from Canon t3i?

There's a number of things that can be the issue, and a number of ways to try to work around them.

The first is that depending on the specs of your computer, it might not be able to decode the video files quickly enough, which could cause a stutter. Similar to how people used to have issues trying to watch 1080p videos on Netbooks that didn't have much horsepower. What kind of PC are you using?

What video editing software are you using? Different editing softwares prefer different file formats. What kind of footage and for what purpose? Family footage or more professional presentation work? Are you planning on uploading it to youtube or the net or preserving it on a large hard drive somewhere? With those questions answered, I can recommend some codecs for editing, and codecs that you'll want to export to when you're all edited and finished.

There are a number of free tools for converting video files. FFMPEG is a great one, but it has a little bit of a learning curve if you're not familiar with command line applications. If you'd like to take a stab at it, link below:

http://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

If not, there are some GUI front-ends that you can use along with FFMPEG, that basically make it more user friendly by giving it buttons and sliders like applications you're used to. One of which is below:

http://avanti.arrozcru.com/


FFmpeg can't convert eia_608 subtitles: "Data Ignored since exceeding screen width"

It's a warning, not an error. The subs are still converted.

The EIA-608 standard specifies a maximum of 32 characters per line and the ffmpeg decoder is enforcing that.

A workaround is to use ccextractor to get a SRT file, and then proceed with that.


How to start and record Flash video stream without recording the player taskbar

As long as the video isn't copy protected, you will want to use a stream ripper instead of trying to do a screen capture of your monitor.  Any number of software products are able to directly transfer a video that is in the Flash streaming video format as long as it isn't copy protected.  A quick search for "flash video ripper" and your operating system should return numerous results to choose from.  The advantage of this is that the stream can be recorded with the original encoding preserved, which avoids loss of quality due to repeat encoding and compression.

As a side bonus, since the stream rippers will record the stream directly, you also don't have to worry about the bar or your mouse being over the screen.


How do I record video for more than 30 minutes at a time with a Canon A1400 PowerShot?

Yes, CHDK should be able to do this.  There are actually scripts available on their wiki for this.  Basically, you have to tell it to press the video start button, wait a second or two for it to start, then begin polling to see if the get_movie_status has changed to the status for being done recording.  You then wait a second and repeat.

You'll also want to make sure you remove the 30 minute time limit with CHDK itself if available on your camera (under the video menu).  If it is, then you should only be limited by the 4gb file size limit and the script should restart the video.


How to render an After Effects composition without DRM protection

I've never seen this kind of behavior in After Effects.  I'm going to assume that you are using a system that is typically used for producing DRM protected media and that the default options for your Windows Media format are setup to use a DRM system.  This would be part of the configuration of the encoder itself and should be available from the encoding and format options (not the exact name, I don't have AE on my current computer to check, but it's the setting right below quality level in the render queue.)

Without knowing the exact encoder being used, I can't really give any more direct feedback than that.  If you can post the exact encoder being used and the version of AE, I can give some more specific instructions later when I am at my home desktop.


How can I capture multiple computer screens and put them onto a single video stream?

UStream has a great program that you can do that with. Your video will eighter be streamed over UStream or to a server you specify if you want that.


I've struggled with a similar question, although everything that I have done has been so small that I've usually been able to dance around it. I'll say this, from a liability standpoint the greater the size of your cast & crew and the greater your production, the more that you want to at least look into "General Liability". If you're working with animals, pyro, a lot of moving traffic, swimming/diving, aerial cinematography, things like that. You really have to look at the scale of what you're doing. Once you move away from a one-person or small-group hobbyist into hiring cast & crew, it's time to at least talk to insurance brokers. If for no other reason than to protect yourself, your employees, and your overall production.

You want to make sure that you go through a broker who is primarily an Entertainment Insurance Broker. I could go on for hours however my knowledge here is limited. I found an article last year that really helped me with the bullet points on all of this. I used this to educate myself on what I need going forward. Check out this link...
https://www.studiobinder.com/blog/the-producers-guide-to-film-production-insurance/


How to link URL in flash media player to red5 server

I don't know this particular product, but based on what you are describing, I think this may help.  The player in flash probably wants the actual streaming media link.  When you go to the html page, you are accessing an HTML page that probably has an embedded player.  Flash streaming actually uses RTMP rather than HTTP, so you would need to find out what the RTMP URL is and provide that to the Flash video player.

Update: So to do a live stream, you need to use the rtmp link to the publishing point on your server.  You then need to use the publisher to send a feed to that publishing point.  Whatever name you provide in the publisher will be the name of the file that you need to feed to your viewer.  Everything gets relayed through the server.


What type of equipment can I use to record a live rock performance as a member of the audience?

You can use portable recorder like Zoom H4n or similar. Recorders like this usually have XLR input that could be plugged directly to mixer. You'd then set input type on your recorder to line-in and set its sensitivity to have your levels not too quiet but not clipping (exceeding the scale).
You can also plug in microphone and try to do the same however investment into microphone + recorder seems pretty high considering the fact, that your recording might be better, but still very much sub par.

Higher quality recorders might have a jack for headphones so you could monitor audio quality of your recording or even line-out you could plug into your DSLR audio-in for easier audio-video sync in post.

Apart from Zoom recorders, another popular brand is Tascam. If you don't want to buy, they can be usually rented in rentals for videographers and filmmakers.


replace black frames with previous frames

It's possible to have the black frames removed and earlier frames duplicated.

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf blackframe=0,metadata=select:key=lavfi.blackframe.pblack:value=50:function=less -vsync cfr -c:a copy out.mp4

The blackframe filter analyses and registers the proportion of a frame's pixels which are black. The metadata filter keeps all frames which have at most 50% of pixels black. The removed frames create a gap in the video stream. So by setting the video sync method to constant frame rate, ffmpeg duplicates earlier (non-black) frames to fill in those gaps.

You'll have to experiment with the metadata selection value 50 to get the right threshold.


Using a parameter file for filter option of libav (or ffmpeg)

You can use the -filter_script option:

$ ffmpeg -i input -filter_script filtering -codec:a copy output.mkv

In this example, filtering is a file with the filtergraph.

$ cat filtering
scale=640:-1,negate

I believe this only works for simple filtergrahps that contain exactly one input and one output.

Libav stuff (avconv and their fake, so-called "ffmpeg" version) is buggy. You can simply download a recent Linux build of ffmpeg from FFmpeg or follow a step-by-step guide to compile ffmpeg.


Loss of quality in after effects 3D layer

Unless you need it make sure you are using the Classic 3D rendering mode and not the "Ray-Traced 3D" renderer. You can see and change the renderer in the top right corner of your comp view or just go into the composition settings menu through the top menu bar.

If you are in need of using the RayTraced 3D renderer click on the options menu and increase the quality from 3 (standard) to a higher value like 6 or 8 and see if that fixes your issue.
You may also change your AntiAliasing mdoe to cubic instead of box.

Also make sure your preview quality is not set to fast draft but to adaptive or final quality.


It depends on the quality you want to achieve and where your skill set is.  The bigger difference between 2d and 3d animation isn't so much the time it consumes, but rather the skill set it requires.

The techniques for both are completely different (though there is a subset of 2d animation that is based on cell-shading or other specialized rendering of 3d models).  2D animation requires good vector and hand drawing skill with generally linear shading.  It can be either very fast for basic keyframe and bend work with simple vector geometries, or it can be a painstaking manual process involving rotoscoping changes for each individual frame of animation with elaborate hand drawn textures.

Similarly, 3d can be very quick and simple when making things that don't need to be photoreal.  Textures can be more easily applied and don't have to be perfect for all contexts, lighting is far simpler to get close, though perfecting it is still very hard.  If you are doing things like 3d logo work and basic business effects (such as intro videos and some work for commercials) then you don't really need to be doing hyper realistic photoreal work and 3d animation can be pretty quick.

On the other hand, photo-realistic 3d animation is extremely painstaking, requires massive amount of processing power and a dedicated staff of specialists to get everything tweaked just right.

So, either approach can be done at a professional level with only a couple of people working on it.  Both are within the realm of what is financially viable for an individual to invest in, though 3D animation is much more expensive initially unless you start with Blender, which is free.

You should decide on which you want to approach based on what best fits your interests.  Try some 2D animation with flash, try some rotoscoped, frame by frame animation with Photoshop, try some motion graphics with After Effects and try some 3d animation with Blender.  It might also be worth getting a trial copy of Maya, SoftImage or Cinema4D if you can as well and see how you like those higher end 3d graphics packages.

Choose whichever you enjoy the most and look for work that makes use of that type of animation.


FFMPEG: is it possible to offset output frames from a selection of specific frames?

start_number is ignored with frame_pts, so a workaround is needed. A generic option output_ts_offset is available but it takes timestamp rather than frame number, so we first set the framerate of the images input as 1.

Use

ffmpeg -start_number 94 -framerate 1 -i source.%04d.png -vf select='eq(n\,2)+eq(n\,80)+eq(n\,150)' -vsync 0 -output_ts_offset 94 -frame_pts 1 frames_%04d.jpeg


Output by MP4 defaults to the H.264 codec for the video. H.264 does not support alpha.

You can output to .mov with a video codec -c:v of png or qtrle. There are others but they have restrictions on resolution and framerate.

You can't use the overlay filter as it doesn't output to a pixel format with alpha. So, just the chromakey filter, and no color source.


Why does FFmpeg's stream_loop option add a pause?

This is a known bug with stream_loop. See https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/5719

Wrapping to MKV or TS and then looping may work. Re-encoding your video as intraframe is the safest option.


Why do a lot of animation videos have wiggly lines?

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


Good technique to superimpose face into moving character in AfterEffects?

There is some substantial work that would go in an effect like that.

You'd have to first track the face of the slowed-down singer in 3D-space and apply a mesh to it, which sticks perfectly to his features.
Then, you'd want to rotoscope the normal-speed singer's face (which is going to take a lot of time alone) to then apply that pass with your tracked transform to the slowed-down background. You'd also have to match the change in shape of the head, such as when opening the jaw. This is not only applying to the face, but the whole head really.

(If I understand your vision correctly,) this is a high-end job that would take a few weeks for a professional compositor.

I would recommend you film the entire background in slow-motion, then shoot the singer in front of a green-screen so you don't have to rotoscope him out of the background. You can then simply key your singer in normal speed, track your slowed-down background (if there's movement in the camera) and place your singer on your background, applying the motion of the camera.
This method is not a walk in the park, but significantly easier than the approach above.

Hope I could help, have a great day :)


Why does my VCR output a grayscale video if I use an S-Video cable?

Do you have a manual for the VCR? Does it show the pin mappings for the SCART connector? I did a quick search, I can't find a manual online.

Where did you get your SCART cable? Did it come with the VCR? I'd agree with the link you posted - SCART more commonly connects to a composite signal, or sometimes RGB. All my SCART cables are wired for either to those, I've never seen one wired to S-Video (and from the link you posted, that sounds like a hack that has only been used in some scenarios). Any VCR I've used that had S-Video, had an S-Video connector directly on the VCR, usually only found on an S-VHS model.

Do you have a SCART cable with RGB connectors? If so, you could try using that - would still be a better video signal than composite, providing the VCR is wired for it. Possibly the VCR is only wired for composite though. You could also check the connector on the VCR for clues - often you can find there are is no metal in the connector pins that aren't wired. If you take the cover off, that might also clue you into what is actually wired up to that connector.


How do I filter a voice recording to sound like a NES game sample?

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

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

good luck!


Does anybody know any movies or stock footage with 1800's docks?

so I wasn't able to find any footage from the 1800s (probably because video was very new and not too common back then) but I have found some old footage of docks which I think might be of interest.

London's Lost Docks DVD clip (1980s)

This is about a minute of a Documentary about the London docks and may be of use.

Britain's finest hours: The battle of Trafalgar

This is a recreation of a battle between the UK, Spain and France overseas in 1805.

Another video on the battle of Trafalgar and is using a game to try and recreate the visuals:

Lastly here is some footage from Liverpool docks in 1950

I hope this footage can help and if it doesn't I am sorry and I fully agree that finding the footage is hard XD

Have a nice day.


There are a ton of options.

The easiest one that can be done in any decent video editor, is preparing a transparent shape.

You are used to thinking about the text being the object.

But if you combine it with the big rectangle you now have a rectangle with a hole with the shape of some text.

Put that in a layer above a video and you are done.

For the color, you could make the video with a different blending mode, like multiply, desaturate it and play it above a purple rectangle.

Another option is preparing a mask. This depends on if the program you are using can work with masks. But any decent one will.

You can do that in Premiere, After Effects, or with free software. Davinci Resolve is great and free.

A mask is simply a black and white image.

If your software is simpler and does not accept masks you can use a green text, and cut it using the green-screen option.


ffmpeg re-encode libx264 without quailty loss?

You have a misunderstanding of how compression works.  In all but a few specialized types of lossy compression, when you compress something a second time, even in a much higher quality level than previous encodings, you still lose additional quality.

Using a slower encoding from the same original source with constant quality will often produce a smaller file of similar quality, but if you encode the already compressed version over again, you will still always end up with a lower quality video due to second generation quality losses from compressing twice.


How can I reduce size of video files on a Sony XDCAM?

For $495 you can cut things down to 500MB/10 minutes (or perhaps even less, depending on compression parameters): https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/h264prorecorder


After 5 minutes, audio dramatically goes out of sync for rest of video. Shifting that audio section around fixes problem only for a few seconds

You probably have mismatched framerates. This can cause audio drift. The solution for that would be to slow or speed the audio up slightly.


You can't make a DVD that plays on all players.

Unfortunately for your distribution, @Flimzy was correct with his explanation of most compatibility problems, and only left out the PAL/NTSC issue, which simply put, means that even if you don't have region encodings, or if you get them correct, then many (if not most) DVD players won't play the opposite type.

The best you may be able to do, is focus on media types.  Replicated (pressed) DVDs (not burned) are going to play back on the most devices without trouble.  After replicated disks, in a distant second place for compatibility, comes re-writable disks.  Least likely to play are single-write disks.  But, when you use writable and rewritable media, your disk is either more or less likely to play on any single DVD player, depending on the make and model.


Using little robots to speed up the stop motion animation process

Your idea sounds absolutely possible. On the other hand you write that you have never done any stop motion.

I think it would be very well advised to start with some basic techniques (by hand) and then see what you can maybe automate in the future.

Building puppets that can be easily animated is a already a complex task, since it usually involves building metal / wire skeletons etc. so I'd slowly approach the overall complexity of the matter and then advance to the next step.

Some introductory reading to get you started:

Stop motion - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion
Go motion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_motion
Pixilation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixilation
Claymation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_animation
Animatronics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animatronics

I think what would more sense is to follow the idea mentioned by Adam Mann Pro using some basic animatronics.  If you build a remote controllable face for the puppets which allow you to easily setup facial expressions, that would speed up the animation process immensely and is in itself already very complex. Here is an example of an animatronics head from the movie "the world's end":


Split HLS TS segment at specific timestamp

Try inserting EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY between those splitted ts


Cropping 2048x1152 (16:9) to 1.85:1 removing black bars

You can carry out the changes in one command by chaining the respective filters.
Basic syntax is
ffmpeg -i input -vf "crop=2048:1107:exact=1,scale=1998:1080,setsar=1" -c:a copy out.mp4


AE: Limit Characters in random range selector animation

To do this on one text layer you could use this expression in the sourceText:

Math.round(random(36));

If you'd like to keep the two layers then on the first layer use:

Math.round(random(3));

and on the second layer use:

Math.round(random(9));

The number in the brackets of the random expression is the limit, so if it's set to 100, the random expression will return a value between 0 and 100.


Is it possible to raise H.264's QP without fully re-encoding the video?

A similar question came up before.  I posted some of the same thing in my answer there.

  Is it possible to lower the H.264 video quality and bitrate without
  fully decoding and encoding it?

H.264 B and P macroblocks reference frames that have already been processed by the deblocking filter.  The deblocking strength is adaptive to the QP.  I'm not sure, but I think this would lead to problems if you just re-quantized the DCT coefficients.  In any case, I think it would just be a speed-hack that gives worse quality than full decoding + encoding.  And I'm not aware of any implementations.

Nobody's even implemented a bitstream filter to losslessly convert h.264 Baseline to CABAC.  :(  It has been talked about, though.

However, this paper does have an implementation that partially decodes h.264, modifies it (for data-hiding), and re-encodes it.  IDK what software he started with for the implementation, but his code, if available and appropriately licensed, might be a good starting point for other bitstream filters.

  What conversions are in general available for H.264 content? Is there
  a tool for lossless conversions like jpegtran for JPEG?

jpegtran only works because each DCT coefficient block is completely independent of all others.  Even  h.264 I frames predict from other blocks within the same frame.  (Intra prediction, as opposed to inter prediction in P and B macroblocks).  Lossless rotation or flipping probably isn't possible.

(Although phone cameras for example can just indicate with metadata that the player should rotate the video on playback, if they are held vertically while recording video.)

ffmpeg has a bitstream filter for h.264 that does something about converting how the h.264 stream is stored, or maybe something about the headers?  IDK, I haven't had to use it, or read up.  From the docs:
ffmpeg -i h264.mp4 -c:v copy -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -an out.h264

This isn't anything like what you're asking, though.


How to use ffmpeg to fade in/out a veriable frame rate video clip with unknown duration

This works here

ffmpeg -i VID_1.mp4 -sseof -2 -copyts -i VID_1.mp4 -lavfi "[1]fade=out:s=1:d=2[tail];[0][tail]overlay,fade=in:s=0:d=2,scale=640:-2[video];anullsrc,atrim=0:2.1[audiotail];[0][audiotail]acrossfade=d=2,afade=d=2[audio]" -map "[video]" -map "[audio]" -vsync 2 -sws_flags gauss -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset slow -shortest -report VID_1_out.mp4

With some videos, usually those with variable FPS, the fade filter only works with start frame as non-zero. Also, the anullsrc needs to be only slightly greater than the crossfade duration.


Video player (which can overlay 2 video streams)

Yes, many professional sequencing and playback systems can easily handle playing multiple videos with alpha-blending, there are numerous options, but I don't know of any that are free.  There probably are some players that will handle it for free, but I've used commercial software and never had to dig in to it. (Update: There are free options, CasperCG was one quick option I found, but it looks like it has a rather involved list of requirements and setup.)  To help with the keywords, searching something like "layering video player with alpha support" should give you a pretty good set of results with current products.

I recommend using alpha channel blending. While there are some real time chroma and luma key systems that run in software, the quality tends to be quite inferior to alpha blending or post produced keying.

Alternately, you can use two normal playbacks and a video mixer, though video mixers tend to be EXPENSIVE ($1000 for the cheapest HD one I know and $5000+ on average).  They tend to have the best quality and most capability though and can also work reliably over live video.


Premier Pro CS5 makes AVCHD footage jagged and bad

Incase anyone comes across the same problem, here's the solution I used.

Once you've imported the footage, right click on the clip, go to 'Modify' then 'Interpret Footage':

A window should pop up. Down the bottom, under 'Field Order' change the setting from 'Upper Field First' to 'Conform to: No Fields (Progressive Scan)'.

Your footage should then adjust to it's original quality.

Upper Field First:

No Fields (Progressive Scan):


Premiere Pro: Possible to add several images on one video track?

If you want a hundred images at the same time, you need 100 layers. Often people will make a "pre-comp" which is a nested composition. You create a composition with only the images, then insert that composition into the main timeline. Any changes you make to the pre-comp will carry through even after you've laid it into your main video timeline. So your pre-comp will be the messy one, and your final comp will be nice and neat.


ffmpeg. Converting through rawbitstream results to noise

Use

ffmpeg -i in.MOV -an -vcodec rawvideo -pix_fmt yuv420p rawbitstream.yuv

ffmpeg -s 640x480 -i rawbitstream.yuv -vf select="not(mod(n+1\,2))" -c:v rawvideo -vsync 0 -an even.yuv

ffmpeg -f rawvideo -s 640x480 -pix_fmt yuv420p -i even.yuv -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -profile:v high -qp 1 even.mp4


You need to change the format from AVI to h.264. In the top of the export window there's a section where you get to choose formats:

It's a bit confusing, because it mixes container formats like AVI and Quicktime with codecs like h.264. If you chose AVI you are limited to a few older codecs, as you've seen.

Once you've chosen h.264 you can then chose a preset. The default Match Source - high bitrate preset is usually spot-on for YouTube, as it's a good compromise between quality and file size. It will automatically match the resolution and frame rate of your sequence, so you won't have to worry about other settings.

If your video is 4K or larger you could also consider h.265, which is designed for UHD. It's a lot slower to compress, so don't bother if you're exporting HD or lower.