DVD makes use of the Program Stream(PS) container whereas Terrestrial Stream(TS) uses for unpredictable transmission.
PS mostly uses MPEG-2 codec whereas the MP4 uses better video encoding scheme likes 264, 265 or MPEG-4.


How to implement apearing 3D text in video?

Very easy to do. You can use a mask and vignette to make it appear faded or on the ice. With a layer over the 3D text to make it blend better with the layer it's on. To fade the background and not the text just apply a Gaussian blur to the video.


When I put my shot into Premier, the top half of the shot is cut off. How can I scroll up so I can see the top of the shot?

You want to use the Effect Controls panel:
https://helpx.adobe.com/au/premiere-pro/using/viewing-adjusting-effects-keyframes.html

As the help says, there are several standard effects added to a clip in the timeline, the effect you want to look for is Motion. Select the clip in the timeline, go to the Effect Controls panel, and expand the Motion effect. Inside you'll see Position and Scale, Position has two numbers, horizontal then vertical - if you adjust the vertical, you can scroll it up to see the top of the image. You could also scale the image to fill the frame (zoom in), or scale it so that you can see the whole phone image instead (zoom out).

Just play around with the various options in the Motion panel to get a better idea of what you can do to manipulate your image, it's fairly intuitive.


From the Xiph Wiki, it doesn't look to me as if such an editor exists.  I would use something like the free Aegisub subtitles editor to enter the metadata text at the correct timings, but enter them as subtitles.  Then export from Aegisub as an .srt file, then perform some search & replace funtions on the .srt file (which is a human-readable text file) to generate the metadata strings you need based on this definition.  Once you have the metadata in the correct format, you should be able to add it to an Ogg file using KateDJ.


What part should I buy to render videos?

CPU's used to render graphics was a very very long time ago. GPU's surpassed CPU's for this almost 20 years ago. You absolutely do need to get a good graphics card, yes. Don't look for anything external - the amount of data transferred in and out of the graphics card means running through an interface will be so slow as to be unusable.
You'll want one of the cards from this list:

Nvidia Titan X.
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 Founders Edition.
Zotac GeForce GTX 980Ti AMP Extreme Edition.
Gigabyte Radeon R9 Fury X.
Sapphire Radeon R9 Nano.
MSI GeForce 1070 Gaming X.
Nvidia GeForce 1050 Ti.
AMD Radeon RX 480.

And more than likely, if you have never done this before, you'll need to get yourself a new motherboard to support the graphics card. And look at fast disk...


Would it be legal to use Cott-produced, generic beverages in a film?

I received an answer from an actual lawyer:

  Context matters. As a general matter, it is perfectly "legal" to use anyone's logo or brand indicia in a film, without permission, as long as it is done in a manner which does not falsely suggest the endorsement or sponsorship of the film or the producer's products by the trademark owner. For example, it is entirely possible to have your hero drink Beefeater or 7-Up in clearly identified containers. No permission is required. It is not really clear what interest you may think is being protected, but trademark law doesn't preclude all use of the trademark owner's mark by others. Sometimes, in an excess of caution, such permissions will be sought. They are nearly universally granted.

From Hilary B. Miller on Lawyers.com


I think you need to use a track matte - this lets you use one layer to control the transparency of another:

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/alpha-channels-masks-mattes.html


Is there any way to export/convert the video (.mov) to .mkv while keeping the same resolution?

Yes. It's called ffmpeg. It's an advanced high level command line tool for basically all your video conversion needs.

Download the tool from here. You'll need to unpack it to any desired location. You can either add the bin folder to path or copy your .mov video file into the bin folder itself.

Then open the command prompt and type in the following code.

ffmpeg -i "filename.mov" "filename.mkv"

The video should now convert to .mkv format preserving the resolution.

Note:

.mkv is a container format. Which means the video file can have any codec, including those not supported by TV. So its useful to know which codecs the TV supports. By default, ffmpeg uses libx264, which should work in most devices.

Also check this question, about a similar problem I had with my TV. It should make things a lot more clear to you.

PS: As mentioned in the other answer, Handbrake should also work. Its the graphical tool based on ffmpeg.


I can't buy a streak filter where I live. How do I go about making myself one for my DSLR?

It's not on Youtube, so I can't embed it, but there is a nice tutorial here that looks like a simple, and very inexpensive method to achieve the streak filter.  (link is to vimeo)

Basically, you affix a piece of fishing line across the lens.


You could Parent one layer to the other.

This means that one layer controls the position/rotation/scale of the other layer.

See https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/layer-properties.html#parent_and_child_layers
for more info.


After Effects - Trying to Export Video with RGB Alpha (I get a black background in the export)

Looks like it should work to me. You could try using ProRes 4444 instead, with millions of colours+ and Alpha turned on.


Is there a decent computer based, multiple video stream capture solution out there?

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

One really popular one for Mac is iShowU HD.

One really popular one for PC is CamStudio.

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


Try to use 3d Stroke.

The taper parameter should help you.


how able to change the sequence setting timebase to 100fps in premiere pro

If right-clicking on your 100fps clip in the bin and selecting New Sequence From Clip isn't placing it in its own 100fps sequence, you can create a custom XML sequence template to import with arbitrary values. If you save the following code as an XML file, you should be able to import it into your project and have an empty 100fps 1920x1080 2-channel sequence.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE xmeml>
<xmeml version="4">
    <sequence id="sequence-1">
        <rate>
            <timebase>100</timebase>
        </rate>
        <name>Custom Sequence</name>
        <media>
            <video>
                <format>
                    <samplecharacteristics>
                        <width>1920</width>
                        <height>1080</height>
                    </samplecharacteristics>
                </format>
            </video>
            <audio>
                <numOutputChannels>2</numOutputChannels>
                <format>
                    <samplecharacteristics>
                        <depth>24</depth>
                        <samplerate>48000</samplerate>
                    </samplecharacteristics>
                </format>
            </audio>
        </media>
    </sequence>
</xmeml>

Check out Apple's FCP XML documentation if you want to get super deep into customization, or just export an empty sequence as an XML file and have a look around. Most of the tags are fairly simple to understand as you can see. I've minimized the code here, Premiere can fill in the blanks for most settings if you don't include them.

You could actually edit your .prproj file in the same way, it's just an XML doc, but Adobe likes to obfuscate their data in base64, in addition to a few other gripes I won't get into here. It's more trouble than it's worth.


Both RED and Alexa cameras offer this feature, and the Sound Devices PIX 240i reads it.  But nowhere on the Internet is there any documentation that your SONY camera offers this feature.  Either SONY doesn't have it, or they greatly need to improve their documentation.


Why does video rendering begin at the top left corner of the screen?

Probably because TV and CRTs scanned from the top left.  Video cards store the screen buffer in this order, too, so scan-out from the screen buffer in left-to-right, top-to-bottom reads sequentially increasing memory addresses.  Addressing video RAM as a 2-dimensional array

extern int32_t screenbuf[480][640];
screenbuf[0][0] = RED;

would modify the top-left pixel.  My theory is that this led to graphics APIs using coordinate systems with 0,0 at the top left, even device-independent APIs (not 640x480 or whatever), because that choice mirrors direct addressing of video RAM.  (and saves one subtraction every time a Y coordinate has to get mapped to a memory address.)

As some comment point out, not ALL graphical coordinate systems have the origin at the top left, but it is extremely common for graphics APIs as well as UIs, and for example window coordinates in the X Window System.


...FFMPEG worked, it was a steep learning curve in terms of getting it to work in my environment and, took me a few days to learn how to code in Bash Scripts Shell based, but in the end very happy with the results and it's integration with both Macs and my Unix server.


The problem is you don't have resolution for 700% upscale. ~~And aren't likely to find it in those tools~~ (strike that).

You can or may have already tried Video Enhancer. They claim to use Super Resolution to get the upscale possible. It doesn't suit all video sources. They have an AE plugin too.

If none of your searches for auto upscaling work then my recommendation is scale & interpolate as high as you can accept the results, then apply a blurred background of the footage (like you see when online portrait orientation videos are broadcast on TV. Centre your footage so you have the video playing with the blurred background around 4 sides. see How to Edit Vertical Video Footage YouTube video for the effect.

Alternatively if the church still looks the same, create a sort of picture-in-picture. Shoot a wide 1280x720 video of the empty space matching the original footage camera moves as closely as possible. Drop your upscaled original footage in the middle. You may need to blur this background plate a bit. So if the original video upscales to only 352x288 that's the middle 40% of your frame (vertically).

If you have enough pans and tilts that show larger parts of the baptism space, I've seen reconstructed and enhanced super-8 footage that turned the footage into panorama-like canvases by stitching together individual frames and then assuming those backgrounds did not change. I have no idea how to do that. But it uses software like Hugin to find common parts of a frame to stitch photos together. Then a morph is applied to the outer parts of the frame when the camera moves. The morph is less jarring if you split the 1280x720 frame into 12 or 16 subframes and just morph each of those sections. Note it doesn't look realistic, it takes a bit of time to work out why the moving images look "wrong", but it gives an illusion of movement.

A final suggestion is to build a virtual interior of the church, so skin the walls, (and statues and stained glass) and run your upscaled old footage in the middle of this virtual space. Render the output. This is a VFX plate shot that AE can do.


What's the best way to record a skype conversation?

I would try with these apps (as they are both free)

http://ifree-recorder.com/index.htm

http://voipcallrecording.com/


Captured video in Adobe Premiere - is the next step to make subclips?

Workflow is really up to whatever works for you.  Unfortunately, you kind of did things backwards from the workflow I would have used.

With mini-DV tapes, the fastest thing I've found is to do the clip logging with the batch capture tool and then run a batch capture to have each clip captured as an individual file. It does take a little bit of practice to get good at using the batch capture tool for logging, but it makes it easy to recapture a particular clip down the road and organizes clips much more easily for you.

After the fact, your best bet is probably just to drop each clip in its own sequence or simply insert them all on to your timeline and work from there if you have a decent idea of how you want the rough edit to look.

You could also split the clips if you wanted as long as you are using DV format which will not lose additional quality in each additional export.  It really comes down to whatever will be the easiest for you to work with though.  Everyone can be a bit different when it comes down to how they want to organize their stuff.


I doubt that the creator used a ring light, as you would definitely see the reflection of it in her eyes. The lights she used look like your regular Kinoflo or Kobalt. You could use frost, also called white diffusion in front of it to give softer light, but I don't think she used that either. Remember: The bigger the light source, the softer the light (and shadow). Kinoflos are very very big, and especially 4-Banks (flos with 4 tubes of light) give out very soft light on their own, which is why I assume she opted for this specific light.

Technically, her head is kind of disappearing into the dark tv-screen, since the hair and the display have a very similar color. To prevent this, you would usually set up a light on the opposite end of where your keylight points at. This way, you will have a nice bright edge around the back of the head, separating her from the background a bit more.

As so the lens it's very hard to tell, you'd have to go into pftrack and manually track the leading lines etc. However I assume that it's a lens way below 50mm, probably at about 20-25.


Video Booth / Video Guest Book for Events

The "Photo Booth" application on OS X can record video, and is pretty simple to use

You could probably lock it down with the parental settings

An iPad 2 has the same thing, although it might be more easily misplacable


Adding additional audio to a synced clip and having that sync via audio in Final Cut Pro X

This is a long shot as I did not try it.

Try to use a Multicam clip instead of a Synced clip.
I know that it is possible to add another audio line to a Multicam clip and sync it inside the Multicam clip.


Avid Media Composer 8 - is it possible to edit two video sessions at same time?

Are you talking about having two projects open at one time? As far as I'm aware, Avid MC doesn't let you do that.

But you can import Bins from another project and technically do what you want that way. Otherwise I would just make one project for all the interviews, and separate them with bins if they're all sharing some elements.

EXP:
Interview1 Bin (containing the clips for interview 1)
Interview2 Bin (containing the clips for interview 2)
SFX (Shared sound effects)
Music (Shared music)
GRX  (Shared graphics)


Can H264 achieve "equivalence" with ProRes 422?

Well going by the numbers h264 has a lesser bit-depth and color accuracy than ProRes 422. PR422 has 10bit and 4:2:2 chroma sub-sampling, h264 has 8bit and 4:2:0 unless you encode in the Hi422P Intra profile which isn't very well supported in the wild but offers 10bit and 4:2:2.
So in that case I don't think you will have any difference what so ever between the two formats but a better compression ratio than with ProRes.

E: If you want to go real ape shit you can also encode in the 4:4:4 Intra Profile, that supports up to 14 bit of color depth. So technically superior to ProRes4444. Though you probably wont find any commercial application that supports it.

On another note, I don't think content delivery for cinema should be done in h264 nor ProRes 422 especially when you plan to encode to a lossless codec (JPEG2000/DCP) afterwards. It just doesn't make much sense to do so, all you loose is quality even though there is no need to do so, you only save space until you encode your DCP. There are other good lossless codecs, that offer very good compression, to use before encoding the DCP.

You could for example go directly to DCP, the Adobe Media Encoder offers export to 2k DCP since CC 2014, you can skip an encoding step and have a lossless codec with very good compression ratio.

Another great intermediate codec is UtVideo aswell as Schrödinger (an implementation of the Dirac codec from BBC, its available through FFmpeg).

In the end though theory always differs from practice and if you don't deliver for nation wide cinemas with excellent projectors and what not, that quality difference in your delivery chain will be neglectable.
The only thing that could be pitfall is that h264 is very complex an by that always prone for some weird visual defects, so final inspection is always a necessity with h264.


Perhaps you've already discovered a solution, but you need a server that accepts the RTMP stream, and outputs an HLS video stream.  You can then use one of many JavaScript players (like video.js) to show your video on the web.
Companies like api.video will transcode the video, and give you a "web ready" player that you can just drop onto your webpage.


filter_script usage with ffmpeg and replacing inputs with a file

I found an answer that worked for me. I was trying to use the -map [v] syntax, but it turned out that wasn't necessary and I could just use the filtergraph I made as is. I did use filter_complex_script, which Gyan pointed out is the correct command, but I'm still not quite sure what the difference between the two is after looking through the documentation.


It depends on the configuration and choice of streaming server.  You can generally configure stream servers to either record live streams or simply relay them.


I can recommend Adapter.

It is a Wrapper for the ffmpeg package and does its job pretty well. Because of its easy UI.
You could also use ffmpeg directly via macports, but I think that Adapter is far easier to control.


Automatic Motion Detection in existing GoPro video files

iSpy Connect may be able to help you here. I've haven't played about it with it much but I know you can load an existing video file into it and it will detect motion.


Reliable way to burn VIDEO_TS folder on a DVD?

You must use the proper formatting for it to be read by a DVD player that only reads standards compliant disks.  Specifically, DVD Video disks use the UDF 1.02 format.


ffmpeg convert 1 jpeg frame to 10 sec video

found here: https://talotics.com/post/videos/ffmpeg-add-call-to-action-image-after/
Create a 5 second video from a png as follows:
ffmpeg -loop 1 -i image.png -pix_fmt yuv420p -t 5 promo-image.mp4

This will create a video called {promo-image.mp4} from {image.png} with a duration of {5 seconds}


How do I recover truncated AVI/DV video?

First of all, if I remember correctly, the DV format is intra-only, and thus if there is various damage that has happened to your video, there should be a relatively big chance of getting at least something out -- given that the file isn't completely broken in the most relevant of places.

A good way of checking if there's at least some kind of sanity left in the file is indeed by the aforementioned ffmpeg|avconv -i input.avi or ffprobe|avprobe input.avi. If ffmpeg/avconv and/or the related probe application can 'see' the format as well as other information there's at least some hope that the file actually still contains some of the things you're hoping it contains.

As for actual recovery attempts, I would actually first make a copy of the file (backups are generally useful, even if it's a backup of possibly broken data), and try to open it with Avery Lee's VirtualDub, as I remember it having one of the good general AVI reconstruction mechanisms I've seen so far. If you are lucky and there's enough data for VirtualDub to actually do something with the file, it should ask if you want to repair/reconstruct the index and so forth. After that you can set both audio and video to 'Direct stream copy', and just remux with another file name, and see if that works.

Another way to try and salvage it is to use ffmpeg/avconv, and use the stream copying function there (of course this might not work at all in case ffmpeg/avconv or the related probe application cannot see what container/video/audio format the file is). ffmpeg|avconv -i input.avi -vcodec copy -acodec copy out.avi

A yet another way to try and salvage something is by trying out the now-discontinued AVI-Mux GUI. I have not tried it myself, but I have some hazy memories of people fixing their broken AVI files by remuxing with it a few years ago.

Edit:
And of course the so-called final destination would be to see if there are any chunk-like entities in the file, and manually recreating the AVI header and friends before it either via scripting or with a hex editor, looking at the related technical documentation.


Currently your best bet is to extract the audio of the clip before you start editing, and then importing it into Audacity, which has a great toolbox for dealing with outside noise.
Once done, you can export from Audacity and back into Kdenlive.
It's a workaround, and very labor intensive. It would have been much nicer to be able to apply some basic audio filters directly in Kdenlive.


The scopes are objective and absolute measures of the levels in your image. They aren't susceptible to the vagaries of human perception—colours and levels looking different depending on context—and they work even on un-calibrated monitors.

Scopes are particularly important where viewing conditions aren't optimal - that's why pro cameras will usually have a histogram or scope function. If you're squinting at a monitor in bright daylight you'll have a very different idea of the exposure than if you're inside, and without an absolute measure of the levels it can be very hard to judge what's correctly exposed.

If your viewing setup is correctly set-up and calibrated you can certainly get away without them, but you might find that learning how to read them may give you an insight into the process that you don't get just from looking at the image.

Of course the scopes won't tell you when something looks good, that's your job, but they will ensure that what looks good for you will look good for others.


What is the correct setting in Adobe Premiere CS6 for Nikon Video?

The best option is going to be a format which matches the resolution, pixel pitch, frame rate and color format/color space of your original footage.  These settings can typically be changed based on the shooting mode you used on your camera, so there is not enough detail in your question to give a specific setting.  If you actually open up the footage file, it should show these details in the properties for the clip and you can choose a sequence preset accordingly.


Firstly to clarify is it this kind of effect your want to create?

I know you dont have after effects and your looking for something free, however you can get a free trial if you dont want to use the software for long.

You can download this at:
www.adobe.com/go/tryaftereffects/

Here is this video tutorial on how to replicate something similar to the marvel style.

Hope this Helps!


That is the realm of motion graphics and is probably using vector graphics within the motion graphics.  To get something of that quality, would take a very long time for a beginner to make look that good, though if someone is naturally skilled at it, it could shorten the curve considerably.  It requires skill in multiple disciplines to produces a reasonably high production value video like that.

If you want to try to pursue it though, I would suggest looking at software like Flash or After Effects.  Illustrator is also worth looking at for developing the vector assets.  After Effects with Illustrator is probably the best bet as it supports 3d layers (which could be used for the 3D spinning) as well as fairly easy support for write on text.  The painting effect is probably a little easier in Flash, but should be plenty doable with some work in After Effects.

Your early work isn't going to look anything like the video you linked though.  If you want such a video for commercial purposes, your best bet is to pay a studio to do something for you.  If you just want to play around, then dig in to the topic of Motion Graphics which is way too big of a topic to cover in one question and answer.


FFMPEG fade out image overlay issue on windows 10

In zoompan, you have set d=125 so @ 25 fps, zoompan will create a 5-second stream.
Thus there are no frames after 5s for the fade to be applied to. The duration of the stream should be enough to cover the end of the fade transition. For st=5:d=1, total duration should be 5+1=6 or more.
Change to d=150.
P.S. In d=25*4:d=125 the first d=VALUE is overridden by the 2nd one, so it is useless.


AVI Capture in VirtualDub: MP3 Compression

After you select LAME codec you also have to select the format. Did you? Note it can only support limited set of sample rates and mono/stereo.
There is something weird about compression ratio. Looks like it shows incoming compression (when audio is already compressed by capture source).


put a logo on sportsfloor adobe software

If video was made without any preliminary preparation, you most probably shall use rotoscoping. You can see tutorial for After Effects here.

However, if floor is monocolored and it will not blend with any leg parts, you can try to separate its part for the logo, and use keying on it. But most probably it will be messy.


Using 60 fps footage on 23.976 sequence without slowing down or dropping frames

You can not. You have contradicting parameters.

You need to make some decisions. Either:

Leave your project at 29.97 and drop 1 every 2 frames of your 60fps clip.
Leave your project at 29.97 and use all the frames of the 60 fps clip making it slow-motion 2x.
Change the project speed to 60fps and render twice every frame of the other footage.
Change the project speed to 60fps and make a timewarp filter on the 29.97 footage, what it does is inventing new pixels to the new frames, making it look smoother if the program used is a good one.
Preparing separated projects and making a strange arrangement of projectors projecting two framerates at some cinema screen... Nop, let us discard this idea and just keep the other 4 in mind.


My experience is that people that complain about choppy playback have either outdated hardware, or are using very esoteric formats, and/or have a system with a lot of crap on it, that seriously gets in the way of editing. You are definitely not in the first category, I don't know the origin of your clips and the codec used, so you could be in the second category, but most likely you have a polluted system.


This is available on the page you linked to directly.  Look under the Configuration Files section.

Relevant details from the page:

A file "-conf" file.

[ID]        # The ID of the representation
type=T      # T can be "audio" or "video"
width=W     # if type is "video",
            # W is the width of the representation
height=H    # if type is "video",
            # H is the height of the representation
bitrate=B   # B is the bitrate (bps) of "video" or "audio"

And a "-switch-source" file.

[ID]         # The ID of the source identification.
type=T       # T can be "video"
start=ST     # ST is the start time YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss
end=ET       # ET is the end time YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss
source=S     # S is the address of the source

Additionally, from looking in the source itself, the configuration file is read in the cmd_data.c file starting on line 160 or so (depending on rev) in the dc_read_configuration method.

For the conf file, video type can have codec, framerate, crop_x, crop_y and custom.  Audio types can have codec, samplerate, channels and custom.

Custom appears to push the value assigned directly in to the libav codec.

For the Switch source file, the type appears to actually be able to be video or audio.  Both only have the listed 4 options.


Using ffmpeg to get the actual video resolution

In yuv420p, 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9],

yuv420p indicates the pixel format and chroma subsampling scheme.

the video's raster resolution is simply 1280x720.

the video's Sample Aspect Ratio (width of pixel : height of pixel ratio) is 1:1 (square pixels)

the video's Display Aspect Ratio is 16:9


Animate title mask from location a to b in Adobe Premiere CC 2017

You need to use keyframes instead of tracking. You can find them here:

For better understanding of how they work, read about them, or watch the video.
Long story short, you need to create keyframe in the first place, where motion starts. After that you need to have keyframe in every place, where is key place of position. If you will just move the mask, after creating first keyframe, other ones will be created automaticly, after you move mask.

To create keyframe, press on the middle round button, in the place highlighted on screenshot above.


In

-vf select=gte(n\,360),

-vf declares a video filterchain i.e. a sequence of one or more filters to be applied to the video stream.

The select filter allows the user to keep or discard individual frames, based on the result of the expression presented to it. For each frame, the expression is evaluated. If the result is zero, the frame is discarded, else kept. Here, the expression is gte(n\,360) which checks if the index i.e. presentation serial number, of the current frame is equal to or greater than 360. So, this expr will result in all frames with index 0 to 359 to be discarded, and all frames with a higher index to be selected.

See https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-utils.html#Expression-Evaluation for a list of functions available.

See the docs for the select filter to see the list of variables which can be tested.

Since -vframes 1 is present, ffmpeg will stop after one frame has been received from the select filter.


How to get light swish/trail effect in aftereffects?

One option without using any 3rd party plugins is to track the motion of the object you want to leave a trail, apply that motion to a shape layer, then apply an echo effect to it. Additional effects like glow, and motion blur (all native effects), and playing with transfer modes and opacity will help sell it.


You definitely need the plug-in from Red Giant Trapcode Echospace, I don't know if it's enough for your project but for sure it will help you to make most of the work.


Adobe Encoder fps and duration doesn't match

Unfortunately I couldn't find it in Adobe Encoder preferences - there is no such settings, and by default it loads 30fps sequence.

You can change the default in Media Encoder by going to the Preferences/Media and then change "Indeterminate Media Timebase"


Changing color of numbers in stock exchange AE template with expressions

This is probably not the shortest way of doing it, but it's quick and easy:

Make a null layer with a slider
Make a text layer with green text
Link the source text in your text layer to the slider in the null layer.

You should see an expression like this:
thisComp.layer("slider null").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")

Now add an expression to the Opacity control in your text layer. This is going to make the Opacity go to 0 if the slider value is below zero, or 100 if it is zero or above:
if(thisComp.layer("slider null").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")>=0) {100} else {0};

Now duplicate the green text layer

Rename it "red text"

Change the text colour to red

Edit the expression on the red text layer's Opacity control to this:
if(thisComp.layer("slider null").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")<0) {100} else {0};

Now the red text layer should only be visible when the slider value is lower than zero.
Screenshot of the whole thing below:

If you want a leading "+" before the positive values, you could also make an "if/else" statement in the green Source text control, so you only see a "+" when the value is above zero - something like this:
if(thisComp.layer("slider null").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")>0) {"+" + thisComp.layer("slider null").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")} else {thisComp.layer("slider null").effect("Slider Control")("Slider")};


ffmpeg Auto Level, Auto Color etc similar to YouTubes Auto-Fix

According to this page is not that simple...
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/colorspace


Should I use a GoPro Hero 3 Black for recording drama?

The GoPro is really more designed as a small, rugged, action camera.  It really isn't designed for recording a theater production and you would be able to get much better quality out of any number of camcorders in that price range.  You really want something with an optical zoom on it.

Either something like a Canon T3i or T2i would probably handle what you need.  Alternately, Panasonic makes some pretty good video cameras in that price range.

It is also worth noting that the GoPro has no screen so you would need to buy a separate screen to know what it is that you are actually shooting so that you could aim it.  There is one available from GoPro, but it adds around $80 to the cost.


How do I darken a video smoothly halfway through?

First of all the transition that you are willing to do is according to my knowledge an abrupt transition and according to me dimming 50% of brightness in just 1 second will look less smooth and more immediate than the dimming/reduction of brightness in 5 seconds.

Preferably, I would like you to use Adobe Premiere Pro and/or Adobe After Effects, if you like such transitions, in which "keyframes" do a nice job.

But, in iMovie, you don't have a good keyframe feature. So, what you can do here is answered by AppleMan1958 (quoting it in his own words below):-

  Mar 9, 2012, 5:07 AM AppleMan1958 in response to Penfold941

  iMovie does not contain keyframes like FCP, but you can simulate it quite a bit. Just drag your mouse from your first "keyframe" to the end "keyframe" within a clip so that you have selected a range of clips. Then right-click within the range and select "Split Clip". Now you can apply a Ken Burns zoom to this section. This works for many effects.

  What you cannot do is keyframe the location of a motion graphic to simulate movement, for example.

You may read the full thread here

So, you might have got your answer, if there remains any other confusion, you may ask in the comment section below. But, try this solution out before asking or assuming any confusion. Hopefully, you might get rid of your problem yourself.


How to deparent object between frames in Maya?

Use constraints to do this:

Select the parent (the hand), then shift + select the child (the sword). Warning, selection order matters.
Rigging > Constraint > Parent Constraint > activate Maintain Offset if there's an offset between both pivot points.
Set a translation keyframe (shit + w) and a rotation keyframe (shift + e) on the sword.
By setting those keyframes, the sword now has a new attribute in the Channel Box, called Blend Parent 1. You can animate it to choose between unconstrained (value = 0) or constrained (value = 1) by the hand. If unconstrained, you have to set keyframes on the sword to place it inside the worldspace.


Cannot export video file in correct resolution

From your question, you want to remove the audio from a video clip, using Premiere.

Start a new sequence, and drop your clip into it. There should be audio and video streams in the timeline.

Using File > Export > Media, there is a very simple way to remove the audio.

Using these toggles here, you can disable audio from being included in the export.

However, you will also want to make sure that your export settings are the same as the video clip.

As for setting a codec, I suggest either:

Format: QuickTime / Codec: Animation - if you need a high-quality, large file size video for further editing.
Format: QuickTime / Codec: H.264 - if you need a file ready for playback, distribution, or internet upload.


FFMPEG not writing quicktime "COLR" atom

That is an experimental flag, so you will have to use

-movflags +write_colr -strict experimental


Yes.

Any NLE can do this: you're simply going to insert/layer an image over another.

Here's how to do it with Premiere Pro (if you have access to that program; the same principle applies to any other NLE though)


Workflow of editing in Premiere and Color Grading in Davinci

What works for me is the following:

Sync audio in PluralEyes and export to Premiere.
Edit in Premiere before color correction or grading. Yeah, log footage looks crap, but you should be able to edit just fine. Apply a LUT temporarily if you absolutely can't stand it.
Export to FCPro XML from Premiere and import into DaVinci.
Color correct in DaVinci
Color grade and add any other color effects
Correct audio in DaVinci using Fairlight (yum!)
Export

That's what works for me. YMMV and others may have a totally different flow. But this lets me use PluralEyes which does way better and more complex syncing based on audio than DaVinci or Premiere. It also gives me my hotkeys for editing in Premiere and the best color grader in the biz which is DaVinci along with Fairlight which is great for audio.


ffmpeg- What's the difference between "NN000/1000 fps" and "NN000/1001 fps"?

Yes, 24000/1000 is 24 fps and 24000/1001 is 23.976fps. Some refer to the X/1001 frame rates as "drop down" (as in "dropped down from the integer") but this is easy to confuse with "pull down" which often refers to the cadence of frames when fitting 24 or 25 fps material into a 30 fps program.

You can also think of these notations as 24,000 divided by 1,000 equals 24 and 24,000 divided by 1,001 equals 23.976023976 repeating. This notation is also the exact same thing as saying 24 divided by 1 equals 24 and 24 divided by 1.001 equals 23.976023976 repeating. It is, of course, quite ridiculous to articulate the repeating decimal values.

The 1001 options and their resulting notation are a legacy from analog color television systems. As Mulvya points out "it's because that's the smallest set of numbers that represent the value as integers". These standards are still around today mainly for backwards compatibility (with black and white television sets) and 'cause that's just the way TV grew up. Prior to color television, the NTSC frame rate was actually exactly thirty frames per second.

As for the 30000/1000 and 30000/1001 notation it comes from the NTSC video standard. "30"fps NTSC is actually displaying 30/1.001 frames per second (sometimes referred to as "29.97" or "30DF" for short, but to be precise 29.97002997... repeating frames per second). Due to this slight difference (.01%), NTSC uses either Drop-Frame (DF) or Non Drop-Frame (NDF) time-code counting. Drop-Frame "drops" frame counts in a pattern such that every ten minutes the time-code duration will correspond to the actual playback duration. No image frames are dropped and this was mainly a consideration for broadcasters fitting their programs with commercial breaks. Non Drop-Frame on the other hand more accurately represents a count of the total number of frames in a program (for those who enjoy counting in base 24:60:60:30...)

As for 25000/1000 there's no 25/1.001fps standard because 25fps is a PAL standard and PAL video systems were engineered using 50Hz AC power which did not have the same issues as NTSC when color came about.


Why does Adobe Premiere Pro modify original footage/asset files (e.g. mov)? (CS6)

It's all about this setting, "Write XMP ID To Files On Import" - which confirms that Adobe Premiere Pro is deliberately modifying the .mov file: http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/preferences.html#WSE3BD4A43-7022-4fe6-97F5-95313935347B

These posts give some background as to why having this setting enabled would be beneficial: one benefit being to be able to skip conforming files by matching the conformed file with the original using the embedded XMP tag :-

http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/preferences.html#WSE3BD4A43-7022-4fe6-97F5-95313935347B
http://www.dvinfo.net/forum/adobe-creative-suite/498627-why-premiere-modifying-video-files.html
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/205/876064

(Found using Google search term "adobe premiere pro date modified")

(will accept this answer, when 2 days has elapsed)


How to play a clip only till an Out mark in Adobe Premiere?

To "Play from Playhead to Out Point":

PC: Ctrl + Spacebar
Mac: Ctrl + Spacebar

To "Play In to Out":

PC: Ctrl + Shift + Spacebar
Mac: Opt + K

from: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/keyboard-shortcuts.html


According to the framemd5 muxer documentation:

  This muxer computes and prints the MD5 hash for each audio and video
  packet. By default audio frames are converted to signed 16-bit raw
  audio and video frames to raw video before computing the hash.

  The output of the muxer consists of a line for each audio and video
  packet of the form:

stream_index, packet_dts, packet_pts, packet_duration, packet_size, MD5

  MD5 is a hexadecimal number representing the computed MD5 hash for the
  packet.

If you want to omit a particular stream or stream type use the -map option. This example will only process the video stream while ignoring audio:

ffmpeg -i input -map 0:v:0 -f framemd5 -


Is there a low-cost automated pan/tilt/zoom system?

What you look for is probably a combination of the Bescor / Hague MP360 motorized pan tilt head with the CamRanger controller. CamRanger are selling the combo under their label, you can see some nice video explanations at their web site. If you don't need the extra pizzaz then you can look at just the MP360, or even the lower-end MP101 which is a great product too.

Note that these heads have a tilt limit of 30deg, so, depending on your setting, you may have to throw in a correction plate.


Can I use FFmpeg in a commercial product?

Yes, you can use FFmpeg in a commercial product

FFmpeg is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 or later.

Some features, such as support for some external libraries (libx264 and libx265 for example) and various filters, are covered by the GNU General Public License (GPL) version 2 or later (see commercial x264 license exception below). If those parts get used the GPL applies to all of FFmpeg. See LICENSE.md in the source to see a list of GPL parts of FFmpeg and which external libraries require GPL.

So, yes, you can definitely use FFmpeg in commercial products, and both licenses allow commercial usage, distribution, and modification. FFmpeg is free but is not available under any other licensing terms.

Which license you use is up to you, and depends on what your needs are and how your FFmpeg build is configured, but you must comply with whatever license you end up using. FFmpeg does not care if you use it for a commercial purpose or not: only that you properly follow the license.

What do I need to do to comply?

If you're just using FFmpeg for private or in-house use, or you are not actually distributing anything from FFmpeg at all then you don't need to do anything. Otherwise, for a very verbose list see the FFmpeg License Compliance Checklist. To summarize you need to:

GPL 2.0+

Make available the exact FFmpeg source code that you used.
Provide a copy of the appropriate FFmpeg license with your distributed software (see COPYING.GPLv2 or COPYING.GPLv3).
State changes. If you modify the FFmpeg source code you must document what was changed.
Use same license. If you modify the FFmpeg source code it must remain under the same license.

LGPL 2.1+

Make available the exact FFmpeg source code that you used.
Provide a copy of the appropriate FFmpeg license with your distributed software (see COPYING.LGPLv2.1 or COPYING.LGPLv3).
State changes. If you modify the FFmpeg source code you must document what was changed.
Use same license. If you modify the FFmpeg source code it must remain under the same license. This does not apply if you are just using linked FFmpeg libraries.

What license is my FFmpeg using?

The ffmpeg -L command will output a paragraph indicating your license. Example for LGPL v2.1+:

  ffmpeg is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
  under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published
  by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or
  (at your option) any later version.

What about the x264 commercial license?

The x264 commercial license is LGPL compatible, but FFmpeg does not have an option that disables the GPL requirement for commerical licensed x264 so you have to do that manually. Therefore, if you purchase a commercial license from x264 licensing then you are permitted to:

Compile x264 with --disable-gpl.
Modify the configure file in the FFmpeg source code to move libx264 from EXTERNAL_LIBRARY_GPL_LIST to EXTERNAL_LIBRARY_LIST.
Compile ffmpeg without --enable-gpl and link to your x264 that has been compiled with --disable-gpl.

The LGPL still applies in this case, so don't forget to make available the exact FFmpeg source code you used and state what changes you made.

Do I need a commercial license from x264?

You do if your application is not GPL-compatible and is being distributed with linked x264. See [x264-devel] Announcing commercial licensing for x264 for additional details.

Also see

FFmpeg License and Legal Considerations
GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1
GNU General Public License, version 2
Frequently Asked Questions about the GNU Licenses


Help choose correct HDMI GPU resolution to get standard PAL/NTSC signal

Out of your list, these look like your acceptable modes

  720 by 576 (16bit) 25 Hertz (Interlaced)

  720 by 480 (16bit) 30 Hertz (Interlaced)

Although depending on your adapter, it may be able to work with the other two as well. Note that all the modes are 16-bit so you are working with much reduced color resolution.

The Decklink modes are PAL and NTSC spec signal outputs and, I suspect, it will automatically downscale and crop your full resolution HDMI feed, so no need to tinker with your computer display modes.


How can I get thumbnails from first frame of a set of videos?

The command to get a thumbnail from the first frame of a video is

ffmpeg -i test.mp4 -vframes 1 -vf "scale=360:-1" small_thumnail.png

The scale filter is set to resize the image to 360 px width and choose height so that image proportion is maintained.


Easily convert & archive a bunch of low res Video CD DAT files MPEG 1/2 to newer better format such as MKV or others?

Using ffmpeg, a free command-line tool, you can convert these DATs to MP4 (or MKV):

ffmpeg -i input.dat -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a aac -b:a 128k -movflags +faststart output.mp4

Your VLC output doesn't mention it but if the inputs are interlaced (likely), then use

ffmpeg -i input.dat -vf yadif -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a aac -b:a 128k -movflags +faststart output.mp4


Question about text graphics and audio clips. How do i input text from the audio filename?

Premiere would be a pain in the rear for doing this. You should opt for after effects, create a text and set the text content as the filename using an expression. Then you can just copy+paste this for every file and the name will be applied automatically.
Open your text-layer, alt+click on the "source-text"-stopwatch to create an expression. In this, type

thisComp.layer(2).name

IMPORTANT: For the expression to work, the audio-file must be placed so that it's layer 2, i.e. under the text-layer. If you want to change the position of the layer, just put the place of it in the expression, replacing the "(2)".

Now all you have to do is copy and paste that text-layer containing the expression, and (if the sound-files are all in the same position in each comp) the text-layer will automatically change to the name of your file.


How much film do I need (in feet/meters)?

4,051 feet of film.

For reference:

8mm = 80.0 frames per foot
Super 8 = 72.0 frames per foot
16mm = 40.0 frames per foot
35mm 2-perf = 32.0 frames per foot
35mm 3-perf = 21.3 frames per foot
35mm = 16.0 frames per foot
65mm = 12.8 frames per foot

The math:

  60 minutes = 3600 seconds, 3600 sec x 24 fps = 86,400 frames, 86,400/21.333 = 4,050.06328

Tools for Calculating

Kodak makes a free app for iOS called "KODAK Cinema Tools" which has a film calculator, among other features.

http://motion.kodak.com/US/en/motion/Tools/Mobile/index.htm

Panavision has a simple website with a film footage, frame and running time calculator:

http://www.panavision.co.nz/main/kbase/reference/calcfootage.asp


How can I fix a resolution discrepancy between nested sequences?

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

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

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

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

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


Does DVD support non-interlaced formats (576p)?

I had this issue come up a few months ago, and what I found out was that the video stream frames, irrespective of source properties (field or full frames), are stored as field pairs in authored VOBs, although the scan mode and order is correctly noted in the metadata for benefit of players.

I've had multiple DVDs of progressive source accepted by Amazon Createspace. So you can go ahead and deinterlace.


Software for video cut automation / scripting

MoviePy looks less intimidating than other scripting languages. It may be easier to script your time tag cutting tool with it.

http://zulko.github.io/moviepy/


Can't add effect to master clip on Premiere Pro CC

Most probably you don't have latest version of Adobe Premiere CC. As far as is concerned this feature is added in Adobe Premiere CC 2015.

I have older version (version 7.0.0 (342)) and that feature still missing in that version.

You shall update your Adobe Premiere CC till the latest version.


ffmpeg drawtext text parameter expressions

Ok, it can be done, but it's inelegant and has limitations, which make it in the end, not worthwhile. The limitation is that this only properly works with fixed-width fonts. And due to a still-unfixed-bug in ffmpeg, it will look somewhat ugly.

But here it is,

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -lavfi "color=white:1280x120,fps=30[c]; \
[c]format=rgba, \
drawtext=fontfile=cour.ttf:fontcolor=red:fontsize=60:text='    A   AB  ABC ABCD':x=0:y=0, \
crop=144:120:min(144*trunc(2*t)\,432):0, \
colorkey=FFFFFF:0.01:1,setpts=PTS+(delay/TB)[tx]; \
[0:v][tx]overlay=576:600[out]" \
-map [out] -map 0:a -c:a copy output.mp4

The basic flow is

create an opaque canvas - I used full width as my video input and enough height to contain the text, and I used the same framerate as my video
On this canvas, draw the text once. The basic method here is to animate the crop window. So if your text is 5 characters long, then your print string is text='     1    12   123  1234 12345'. The idea is that the crop width is equal to the full string width and the crop source shifts one string width periodically, thus simulating typing, since each new cropped area contains one additional character. So, first 5 blank spaces for the 5 characters, then after the first 1 there are four spaces to pad out till a full string width is reached, then the 2nd stage text follows with 2 characters and 3 spaces, and so on. I've specified the color space of RGBA since it seemed to provide better results in the keying step further on.
Now the canvas with text on it is cropped. Width is the full string width, and I've kept the same height, but as long it doesn't cut the text, doesn't matter. The crop offset X is animated as follows: StringWidth * integer part of (time divided by period). This shifts the crop window right by one string width after every period i.e. 0.5 seconds in this case. Now, this is enclosed in a minimum function because we want the crop to stay still after all characters have been printed. So, the 2nd value is stringWidth * (no. of characters - 1). Y isn't animated since this is one line only.
The next part makes it ugly. Because of the bug, I kept the background opaque. So, now it has to be chroma keyed out. The filter looks for the BG color of white, and selects only that color (0.01) and fully blends it. I was hoping to smooth out the edges. But doesn't work very well.
The setpts allows to set a delay in seconds. The first character will appear at delay + period seconds.
Finally, we simply overlay the result on the video.


How to precisely synchronise an audio and video track from separate devices?

First off, if you have audio with your video (that you want to replace with your high-quality audio recording), then step #1 is to nudge the Zoom audio track to line up the impulse of the clap with the corresponding impulse of the scratch audio from the video file.  To do that, you need to change the Timecode Display Format to Audio Samples.  Once you do that, audio can be nudged a sample at a time, which makes it possible to get two audio files to agree, rather than a frame at a time, which makes it impossible.

To learn the keyboard shortcuts (which include the Nudge commands), print and study this page from the Adobe manual.  TL;DR: Nudge right is Alt+Right on Windows and Cmd+Right on OSX.  To nudge five frames at a time, add a Shift.  To nudge left instead of right, change from the Right Arrow to the Left Arrow.

Once you have your high quality audio aligned with your principal video, it's time to sync all the rest of your video with your principal video.  If you shoot at 24fps and capture audio at 48kHz, a single frame of video is 2000 audio samples, which is a lot of samples to sort through looking for the start of the clap!  But don't worry about that.  Once you have established principal video, all other video should be aligned based on video frames, not audio samples.  Unless you shoot with genlock, your video frames are not going to be perfectly in sync, which means that other video tracks could be as much as a half a frame early or late when aligned on a frame boundary.  Such is life.  Audio that's off by half a frame is not unlike sound that's coming from 21 feet away instead--about a 20ms delay.  There's nothing to do about that because (1) video needs to sync to video--you cannot slip it half a frame, and (2) you're not using audio from the other video tracks, you are using your Zoom audio, and that can only be locked to a single reference point.

If you are really OCD about timing, you can average your video offsets, weight them according to which is most prevalent/important, and align the audio so that lies at that weighted average point.  I don't know anybody who does this, but if you have two video streams that are 1/2 frame apart (worst case) and you split the difference with the audio, your audio/video error changes from 1/48th of a second worst case to 1/96th of a second worst (and best) case.  Only you can tell if that's preferable to you.


How to get FFMPEG to join non-sequential image files? (skip by 3s)

Besides the workaround in my comment, you should be able to use this syntax from the ffmpeg documentation:

ffmpeg -f image2 -pattern_type glob -i '*.png' out.avi

The quotes are important, you need ffmpeg to see the *, not have the shell expand it.


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

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


How can I adjust brightness when shooting high FPS video?

Two ways

1) Larger aperture (the lower the number the larger the aperture) letting in more light, but also narrowing your depth of field).

2)
I would suggest a higher ISO, don't understand why that does not work for you. The current crop of camera's now are absolutely amazing at capturing low light environments that you cannot see with the naked eye.

One of the best cameras for this is the Sony a7s, just released (s for sensitivity).

It needs to be seen to be believed.

Sony a7s high ISO video link


restart encoding with ffmpeg when bad source

Although I am not sure if stderr will really help here because of the way that ffmpeg does its reporting, I can recommend the following pattern.

Use the -progress [url] flag and parse it with the tool of your choice every 100ms or so. Here is something to get you started that (with a little tweaking) might do what you want:

#!/bin/bash

touch /tmp/ffmpeg.log

ffmpeg -shortest -re -y -err_detect aggressive -i \
rtmp://127.0.0.1/movies/my.stream timeout=10 -codec copy \
-map 0 -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb,dump_extra -f segment \
-segment_time 60 -progress /tmp/ffmpeg.log /video/my.stream#%09d.ts &

pid=$!

while true
    do
         # you'll might have to change "invalid"
         # for whatever is being put into the progress log
         # just look at /tmp/ffmpeg.log to figure out what
         # grep should try to find
         error=$(grep -n "invalid" /tmp/ffmpeg.log)

         # is the length of the error more than 0 / did grep find it???
         if (( ${#error} > 0 ))
             then
                 kill -9 $pid
                 ffmpeg -shortest -re -y -err_detect aggressive -i \
                 rtmp://127.0.0.1/movies/my.stream timeout=10 -codec copy \
                 -map 0 -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb,dump_extra -f segment \
                 -segment_time 60 -progress /tmp/ffmpeg.log /video/my.stream#%09d.ts &
             pid=$!
         else
             usleep 100
         fi
    done
exit 0


How can I change the aspect ratio of the sequence preview pane?

The program panel's sequence preview is mainly determined by the sequence settings. You can change those via Sequence → Sequence Settings. However, some parameters of a sequence can not be altered after creation, including resolution and aspect ratio (an exception is the automated adjustment of the sequence settings that is offered to you when you drop a clip in an empty sequence that doesn't match the sequence's settings).

To fix your issue, create a new sequence with correct settings. Then go back to your old sequence, select everything (CTRL + A), copy it (CTRL + C) and paste it into the new sequence (CTRL + V). To create a sequence with correct settings automatically, right-click on of your source clips and select New Sequence From Clip (I recommend this if you don't know what some or most of the options in the sequence creation menu mean).

The size of the program monitor's preview can be adjusted with the Select Zoom Level dropdown button in the lower left of the panel. The other dropbown button that you mentioned (the one in the lower right) controls the Playback Resolution.


Stream from a windows desktop to multiple TVs/apartments on a separate channel

While what you are asking about is technically possible, it wouldn't be easy or cheap.  It would in fact be very expensive.  To use a channel, you would need to form your own cable network within your house and play different sources for each channel into the system.  These are the kinds of systems that hotels buy to do their own cable network in the building and they can easily cost tens of thousands of dollars.  You would also probably need some pretty expensive licensing from the cable company to rebroadcast their channels so you would need to basically pay for everyone's cable bill.

For the interactive portion (having a stream start when they go to the channel) you actually need a set-top box for each TV as well.  Broadcast networks like cable can only play a signal on a channel to everyone.  They don't normally support starting a video when someone tunes the channel unless the set-top box can communicate back and control the source.  Alternately, the more modern way of approaching it is to have an on-demand type setup where the content isn't streamed in the traditional broadcast manner, but rather is stored on a media server and sent as a digital signal on demand and encoded for a particular set-top box.  This is generally implemented more like Netflix now with a digital stream being sent over a data network allocated to part of the cable network, though some older systems do it as a hidden channel that only that set-top box knows to tune to.

If it is something you still wish to pursue, I suggest looking into manufacturers of different "hotel cable systems" or "private cable systems."  Some quick searching found these guys as one possible option, though I know nothing about them or how good of an option they may be.  They are just the first option I found to give you an idea of what you are looking for.

Update: If you are in a comcast area, it looks like they may also have an option that they can provide to help work it into an actual service agreement which might be cheaper upfront.  See here.


Change the speed of clip based on sound track in Premiere pro

you can change the speed of the video making it slow to or fast in order to fit the timing of the music you are using.

How to change a speed duration of the clip?

Right click on the clip
Click Speed/Duration
Adjust the speed. The higher the percentage the faster the clip. The lower the percentage the slower.

Important Notes:

If you increase the speed the clip will be shortened
If you decrease the speed making it slow it will extend the duration of the clip


pts_time=6.506000 means an absolute presentation timestamp of 6.506 seconds. It's relative presentation time depends on the start_time of the file, for which use -show_entries format=start_time.

ffprobe seeks to keyframes, so it will seek to the nearest KF at or before the specified time and then print info for the stated number of packets.


Software to create videos from multiple songs

With ffmpeg, on Windows, create a batch file AudiotoVid.cmd

for %%A in (*.mp3 *.m4a *.wav *.flac *.ape) do ffmpeg -i "%%A" -i "c:\path\to\image.png" -map 1:v -map 0:a -pix_fmt yuv420p -shortest -f mp4 "%~nA.mp4"

Run it in each folder that you wish to convert.

For each audio file of the given extensions. it will create a MP4 in the same folder as the audio file. This batch file does not recurse through subdirectories. If you want to do that, use the command below.

for /r %%A in (*.mp3 *.m4a *.wav *.flac *.ape) do ffmpeg -i "%%A" -i "c:\path\to\image.png" -map 1:v -map 0:a -pix_fmt yuv420p -shortest -f mp4 "%~dpnA.mp4"

Copy a few of your files to a new folder and test this there first. I don't batch often.

Get FFmpeg for Windows from https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/


Software recommendation for creating videos for demoing research results

Just about any NLE could handle your needs.  Nothing in that listing seems particular difficult, though with a budget of $300 it might be easiest and fastest to pay an editor to put it together for you really quick.  Alternately, Final Cut Pro X could do it pretty easily since you are on the Mac platform and the most recent copy is just within your budget.

It is a professional NLE (non-linear editor) but there are a ton of tutorials available online to get you going quickly with all the basics and your particular needs are very simple to do.


FFmpeg, a command line tool, can accomplish this, via this command.

ffmpeg -i left -i right -lavfi [0:v][1:v]hstack -pix_fmt yuv420p -an combinedvideo.mp4

Replace left with filename of video to be positioned left. Same with right.

ffmpeg (32bit static build) can be downloaded from here. The ffmpeg.exe is in the bin folder of the archive.


Configure FreeStyler to work with DMXking ultraDMX RDM Pro/Micro

Select either DMXking USB DMX512-A or Enttec Pro. Do not choose ultraDMX Pro unless you are actually using this device. Also make sure you've selected the right COM port, plus make sure the latest driver from FTDI Chip is installed (FTDI Drivers). A good practice is to use the ultraDMX Configuration Utility to help locate this if necessary. Sometimes FreeStyler gives an error message during device selection, just restart it.


How To Get The Webcam To Record From Guitar Rig Directly

The focusrite scarlet 2i2 has no inbuilt mic, you need to connect an "external mic" to it, or connect the guitar lineout to it. If you have effects pedals, just connect the last 1/4" connector n the chain to the input of the Focusrite.

Please update why you are having sync problems. Anyway don't not rely on a webcam to give synced audio/video. I would say that if you record video & audio from different sources, almost always you have to sync audio with video. Professional gear have a "sync clock" that makes it automatic but this is expensive. At less expensive level you have to work "hard sometimes" with sync. Having a good program like Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere helps.

Apart from the discussion of how to fix this (Zoom Q3HD Video Recorder) to the guitar, this is a very practical audio/video recorder, you can even connect external input to it.


How to: Add Chapters, Sections, markers to video files to help direct access, skipping/ fast forwarding?

MP4 format does support chapters. You can use free Drax utility to create them. Please note that not all video players support MP4 chapters. You need to find one that does (VLC ?)


Is it possible to recreate VirtualDub Deshaker functionality in Adobe Premiere/After Effects?

After Effects CS5.5 has the Warp Stabilizer (also check the video on the main Adobe After Effects site).


The big thing is to use harsh direct lighting.  Normally in lighting, you are trying to diffuse light to soften shadows, but in this kind of look, hard and dark shadows is actually what you want.  On a budget, place a couple of unshaded lamp bulbs out to light the scene.  The brighter the lamps, the darker you can get the shadow.  Note that you will also want a room with fairly dark walls so that light isn't reflected in to the shadows or you may need to use guides to keep the light directed towards your scene.

If you want a slightly less dark look like the second link, you may also want a base of dim diffused soft light.  If you are using something to direct the direct lights towards the scene and away from the ceiling, you can accomplish the diffused lighting by pointing a light at the ceiling and blocking it from hitting the scene directly.  This gives you a large surface area for the light being reflected in to the scene which makes it very soft and should fill in the shadows just enough to keep detail in the darker parts of the image.

I also highly recommend checking out the link Scott Walter posted in the comments on the main question as it is a fantastic tutorial that shows what you are getting from each light.


"Subtracting" image with clean slate on Premiere Pro/After Effects

Haven't tried it, but this might work by dragging both shots in after effects, setting the layer with the subject to "difference", which shows the parts that are different. You can then pre-compose both layers, drag in the footage with the subject again, put it on top of the precomp and then add levels to the precomp, dragging the rgb curve up so that the image becomes only fully black and fully white, giving you the luma-mask for the subject. If you now set this precomp as the luma-mask for the shot with the subject, it should subtract only the subject and cut out the background.

Here are some reasons why this shouldn't be an alternative to greenscreens:

You really need to make sure that the camera, as well as the background stays exactly the same for both shots. Any difference will produce bits you need to mask out using a garbage-mask.
Because nearly all cameras compress the captured images, those blocky compression-artifacts will get masked out as well. This might result in messy edges and ugly smudges, especially while moving rapidly.
When for example a hand is in rapid motion, the background will shine through the blurry hand, because the difference will detect it as if its a completely opaque foreground.

Now some reasons for why you should use it under some circumstances:

You won't have to deal with "spill", which is the color of the key-screen (usually green) that gets bounced onto your subject. Cleaning up spill isn't magic, but not having to think about this issue might save you some time.
You don't need to buy and set up a proper greenscreen, which - especially for indie-filmmakers - can be a pain in the rear.

I hope I was able to help :)


What is KeyInt and min-keyint and no-scenecut

The frames in your H.264 video are grouped into units called GOPs (Group Of Pictures). Inside these GOPs frames are classified into three types:

I-frame: frame that stores the whole picture
P-frame: frame that stores only the changes between the current picture and previous ones
B-frame: frame that stores differences with previous or future pictures

Additionally, I-frames can be classified as IDR frames and non-IDR frames. The difference is that frames following an IDR frame cannot reference any frame that comes before the IDR frame, while in the case of a non-IDR frame there are no limitations.

Every GOP starts with an I-frame, also called a keyframe, but may contain more than one. To create further confusion, a GOP can start with an IDR frame or with a non-IDR frame. This means that frames in the GOP can sometimes refer to previous GOPs (in this case the GOP is said to be "open"), and sometimes not (in this case it's closed).

It's common to see the structure of a GOP represented as in this example: IBBBPBBBPBBBI. Here the length of the the GOP is 12 frames, with 3 B-frames between each P-frame.

Now your questions:

keyint specifies the maximum length of the GOP, so the maximum interval between each keyframe, which remember that can be either an IDR frame or a non-IDR frame. I'm not completely sure but I think that by default ffmpeg will require every I-frame to be an IDR frame, so in practice you can use the terms IDR frame and I-frame interchangeably
min-keyint specifies the minimum length of the GOP. This is because the encoder might decide that it makes sense to add a keyframe before the keyint value, so you can put a limit
no-scenecut. When the encoder determines that there's been a scene cut, it may decide to insert an additional I-frame. The issue is that I-frames are very expensive if compared to other frame types, so when encoding for streaming you want to disable it.

A couple of other related parameters:

bframes specifies the number of consecutive B-frames
ref specifies the number of references frames that are used when encoding. It means that when encoding a picture, ref previous frames are looked at for encoding the current frame


What is the best way to distribute an audio/video feed from a computer to TVs over existing indoor coax cable?

ZeeVee's ZVBox solution is designed exactly for this - hotels, airports, companies etc use this. They can scale massively, they can take video or feeds from PC's and distribute one or both on different channels to existing HDTV's.

So what are you looking for that would be better?  It appears to cover all your bases.


Yes, you can. If you're in Final Cut Pro X you can use the "Distort" section of the inspector, or in Motion, you can use the "Four Corner" function in the Inspector when your video is selected. (In Motion it will be in the Properties tab.) The same functionality is available via the on-screen controls, which are easier to use than entering values by hand.

I believe that After Effects and Premiere have similar functionality, though I don't remember the details off the top of my head as it's been a few years since I used them regularly.


Multiple expression controls in ONE FX controller

No that is not possible, as far as I know. (Tho perhaps it could be with a little programming, using the ScriptUI API. Here's the complete reference.)

However it is possible to rename the "Slider Control" and "Slider Control 2" labels to something more useful to you. That's what I usually do. Just click on the name and hit Return on the keyboard to rename.


How can I increase the frame size of the titles in Adobe Premiere?

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

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

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

I hope that helps. Good luck!


Kden live window freezes and does not respond?

I don't know much about Kden Live specifically, but a lot of times loading freezes are related to issues with either plugins or codecs.  If you just installed it, the most likely problem is probably an issue with codecs not loading.  Without a startup log though it's not really possible to give a better guess as to what is going on (and I'm not sure how you get that from Kden.)


ffplay -- suppress configuration information on startup

The intended way to do this is to add -hide_banner. This way, logging is still visible.


can I do parent other object to other object masked by mask tracker?

So that's two questions.

1: You sure can _put information of mask tracker to another object's position.

what information are you talking about?

2: Yes.


What are use cases for Timeline button in Preview panel?

If you have all your timelines closed, pressing this button will open up the composition that is visible on screen and go into the timeline of said comp.
This could be useful if you're working with dozens of precomps, lock the master-comp and go diving in the precomps. Then, when you want to return to your master-comp, simply press that button.


How can I achieve the Ken Burn Effect with greater control or in other software?

What you like to accomplish is a zoom?
In that case you can just add keyframes on the position of the video within your canvas/composition.

Find the moment where you want to zoom.
Add keyframe on the scale / position
Add keyframe on end of the zoom
Set preferred value
Add keyframe one frame before zooming out
Add keyframe on that next frame.
Add keyframe at the end of the zoom
Set the value of that keyframe back to 100% (original value)

That's it!


Configuration sufficient for HD video editing

Short answer: Yes.

This machine is sufficient in all aspects. You will certainly benefit from the i7-CPU and the additional SSD, the available RAM. Also you'll have access to graphic acceleration using the CUDA technology of the NVIDIA GPU, which will greatly reduce the time required for rendering.


Make sure to activate “Separate mono and group stereo audio “ and deactivate “Remove silent channels” in the import window.
Maybe consider to check the files with VLC or Audacity to make sure both channels are present. You could export just the audio tracks and import them separately as well.


Davinci Resolve 16 wont playback a clip in the timeline preview

Your clip is only one frame long, according to the number "00:00:00:01"  Perhaps you accidentally imported a single image from an image sequence.  To switch back and forth between how DaVinci treats image sequences, check or un-check the "Show Individual Frames" item in the option (three dots) menu of the media storage panel on the media storage page.

This menu item is fairly hidden, and poorly named; you might interpret it to mean the same thing as the similarly-named, "Show all Video Frames" menu item under the options menu of the edit page viewers, but it is different.
The Media page command, when checked, does two things.  It shows every .jpg, .tiff, .png, etc as distinct items in the media browser. But more importantly, it affects how these items are imported to DaVinci through media pool drag-and-drop, system import dialogue, or any other import method.
When it's disabled, such as in the image above, and you import any member frame of an image sequence, Resolve treats the incoming clip as video.  When it's enabled, Resolve treats the incoming clip as a still frame.  If your setting: Preferences->User tab->Editing->Standard still duration is set to 1 frame, you will experience the behavior you describe.
Another possibility is that your clip imported into the project correctly, but you've accidentally only sent a single frame to the timeline (it's hard to tell from your picture).  This happens by mistake sometimes, if you hit the "i" and "o" keys with the source viewer in focus, but without moving the playhead.  Then, editing the clip to the timeline will result in the behavior you've described. [*]
The other case in which you'd experience the described behavior is that your camera, either by mistake or malfunction, only recorded a single frame in the first place.
[*] With the exception of a "Fit to Fill" edit.


Player like djv and vlc should be able to play dnxhr without issue. The pauses likely occur because of the reading-speed of the drive. If djv and vlc are still buffering while playing, try moving your footage to a faster ssd and try again.


How to resolve ffmpeg error cannot load default config file?

Got it. The error is cuased by the font location in the command is of a Linux computer. The font location need to be different for windows.

The error caused by this line in the command: drawtext=fontfile=/usr/share/fonts/truetype/DroidSans.ttf

The above line does not work in Windows.

For windows change to: drawtext=fontfile=/Windows/Fonts/arial.ttf


ffmpeg: How to convert quicktime (iPhone) video to mp4 format?

I'm new to ffmpeg, but if you want the codecs to remain the same and the data wrapped in mp4 instead of mov, I believe the following will work:

 ffmpeg -i video.mov -c copy video.mp4

The command you posted may have worked just fine, but your computer is having trouble playing the video data. This is almost always a codec issue.

You can compare the data in the mov input with the mp4 output using ffprobe. Compare the output of the commands ffprobe video.mov and ffprobe video.mp4. If the above command works as expected, then the data should read the same under the codecs. Only the container related data should be different.


How can I copy/paste multiple key-frames in After Effects from different layers?

There is no way to copy-n-paste keyframes from multiple layers without using a script.

You can show the keyframes in a layer by hitting the u key. And then you can copy those keys layer by layer.

I'm not sure why you're opposed to using a script. I wrote one that can copy and paste keys from multiple layers in a single click (including copy-pasting with time reversal), and which is free and open source, you can download it here.


Flagging noteworthy moments during lengthy video recording?

If the camcorder records stereo sound and you are only interested in mono recordings, the foot switch could trigger an oscillator that injected a short tone on the left channel and the inverted tone on the right channel.

During regular playback where you might be mixing left and right audio to one mono audio signal, the tone will be unheard because of electrical cancellation of the signals. However, if you had a small electronic circuit that looked for the presence of the tone on (say) the right channel then it would find it.

A better version would use a balanced differential amplifier to look at both left and right together - pure mono sounds (i.e. the sounds you collected in your recording) would be totally cancelled by the differential mixing in the amplifier whereas the "tone" you injected would be plainly and unambiguously heard reminding you to play back the regular recording at this point.


Ingesting professional sony beta and sx tape into iMac thru Canopus ADVC 110

If you have firwire device but no firewire port you need an adapter. Apple offers one:
http://store.apple.com/us/product/MD464ZM/A/apple-thunderbolt-to-firewire-adapter

If you tape deck is offering an output that the Canopus supports you will be able to capture your tapes that way.
Alternatively you might want to look for a USB based solution that might be cheaper than using this device with an adapter.


Easy script for making and overlaying video counters?

In that case Adobe After Effects can do this easily, which probably also produced the effect in the video.
It's actually the only software where I know you can do this without too much manual labor. Other products usually only offer a timer effect which would be tedious to use for these kind of things.

Though if you want to do this based on just a single key press and don't want to set keyframes manually you will have to write a script for After Effects, this can be done either via Adobe ExtendScript which is a subset of JavaScript or alternatively Windows Batch and Apple Script. I'd suggest using ExtendScript, it has better documentation and is relativley easy to use.

Be advised that this won't be a task that you can finish in 1-2 days if you haven't worked with After Effects yet. Especially the scripting part. Do it manually first and then look how you can automate it via a script.


What does the value in parentheses for ffmpeg ssim log denote?

It is dB representation of All value, calculated with following formula:

10 * log10(1 / (1 - ssim))


I do not fully understand if you intend to transmit live or not. Because you are using OBS which sounds like you want to go live, but at the same time you say you want to use Premiere to edit, which sounds like you want to edit and then publish.

If you want to record, edit and then publish, probably the best option is letting the Vixia camera record live audio and use it as a reference for Premiere to detect some of it and automatically sync with the new audio track.

If you are recording live, OBS has one feature to synk the delayed audio or video. Search "OBS Audio delay"

Regarding the question of the frequency... it depends on several factors. The main factor is output format+platform.

For example, Youtube recommends 44.1 kHz 24 bits for music videos. But accept 48 and 96 kHz.

There is some debate if 96kHz is even perceptible for humans or not.


My earlier answer still holds in general. Additional advice I can provide is to try higher CRF values and use the veryslow preset.

ffmpeg -i input.mov -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -preset veryslow -c:a copy -c:d copy -map 0 compressed.mov

You can also mimic a constrained quality mode by setting

ffmpeg -i input.mov -c:v libx264 -crf 21 -preset veryslow -maxrate 5M -bufsize 10M -c:a copy -c:d copy -map 0 compressed.mov


After Effects: Linear Expression - going from value 1 to another value and then back to value 1

Is there any reason why you're using this approach? There are far easier ways to do it (see below).

But anyway the problem is that the second last and last line both return values, but an expression can only return one set of values, and so it only returns the last one. I think this points to a misunderstanding of how expressions work. An expression is calculated every frame*; it has no memory of what happened previously or what will happen later. So your expression has to return one result for any particular point in time, and the result is calculated from the value it returns at that time.

You need some flow control there. Use an if/else statement to replace the last two lines:

if (time < mid1){
    [linear(time, start1, mid1, 640, effect("End Position")("Point")[0]), linear(time, start1, mid1, 360, effect("End Position")("Point")[1])];
}else{
    [linear(time, mid1, end1, effect("End Position")("Point")[0], 640), linear(time, mid1, end1, effect("End Position")("Point")[1], 360)];
}

But you can make your life a lot easier. Why not have a slider effect that has a 0-100 range that defines what percentage of the distance along the path the object should be at. Then you just keyframe it to ramp from 0-100 and back again. The whole expression would just be:

rampCtrl=effect("the Effect That Controls How Far Along It is")("slider");
linear(rampCtrl, 0, 100, [640,360], effect("End Position")("Point"))

Note that you don't have to split it into two parts, the linear() function can deal with vectors as the value1 and value2 inputs.

*(you can think of expressions as being calculated every frame, but they are actually calcualted every time the comp is rendered. If you have motion blur on, the frame is composed of numerous time slices at sub-frame points in time, blended together, and the expression is calculated for each of those time slices. Generally you can ignore this, but it does impact rendering speed if your calcualtion is very time consuming, and it can cause weirdness if your expression returns unexpected results between frames, e.g. when looping back to an original value between two frames)


What you are asking is not quite clear, but if you want to have the colored liquids in front of your people, just add the video on top of the main video, and just change the opacity of the colored liquids. If you want the iridescent liquids behind your people, shoot the main video in front of a green screen with fairly good lighting, then add the colored liquid in after, utilizing the green screen.

Hope this helps!


Filming a Bike From The Angle of The Wheel

Buy an action camera (GoPro, SJcam, Sony, knock off brand) and use one of the many accessories you can get and or some fancy duct tape work. This way you would be able to get closer to the frame and also use the camera for some other more artistic shots due to the size.

Otherwise you could build a rig using clamps and rods to support your main camera but this could make the bike side heavy and not as easy to ride.

I think the professionals (hollywood films) would probably build a side frame for the bike so the bike is more stable


Best and easiest way to remove tracking markers from green screen video

You can do this quite easily without content-aware fill or anything like it. I'd tackle this by doing the following:

create a rough shape for each tracking-point (the color doesn't matter)
track each point using the native after-effects tracker and apply the track to the corresponding shape.
All the shapes should now stick to their tracked point. Precompose all the shapes.
Under "track-mattes" you can now select your shape-precomp as "invered alpha-matte". This cuts out the opaque areas of the shapes, effectively removing the tracking-points.
Key your footage.

I hope this helped you, have a nice day!


.Mov file corrupted after QuickTime Exporting for web

I guess you've uploaded a reference movie file, because this kind of movie is much smaller, and can not play without it's master. What you need is a self-contained movie.

My suggestion: To avoid this, try to export your movie via the "Export…"-Item, but not with "Export for Web…". So you'll get a self-contained movie.


Text templates made in after effects render gibberish characters in Premiere Pro

Could be a text encoding problem. Is the original text using the Latin alphabet, or something more complex (accents, cedillas, or right to left languages)? If not, maybe try copying the text into a plaintext editor (like Notepad on a PC or TextEdit on the mac). Then copy it again, and paste back into AE? I haven't tried the premiere import yet, so these are guesses...


Change content in same parent clip? (Premiere Pro)

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


Cannot create a multi cam clip in Resolve 16

To see that contextual menu item, switch to the Edit page.  You are on the Cut page.  The Cut page uses a different method to create multicam clips, called the "Sync Bin."  Sync bin is most useful when you have sync'ed timecode on all of your cameras, which you don't have, I promise.  So, switch to the Edit page, and right-click on the clips you want to turn into a multicam clip there.  Once done, if you prefer to work on the Cut page, you can switch back.

Personally, I would recommend familiarizing yourself with the Edit page.  When BlackMagic introduced the Cut page, they intended it to be a simplified, minimal approach to editing.  To do this, they removed access to much of Resolve's core functionality. As you've discovered, it is sometimes impossible to accomplish basic tasks without switching into the full UI. This defeats the purpose of having a simplified one.  To their credit, the Cut page is a work in progress, and BMD have already improved it over its initial incarnation.


How do I decide if 14ms response time in IPS LCD monitor enough?

At 14ms, you can still get an effective 71 frames per second.  It should be fine for working with video.  The frames might not show up exactly at the start of their time interval, but it still should be ok.

Faster response is still better, but it isn't going to be critical for anything other than really high frame rate gaming.  5ms is very VERY fast for a high end screen.  Cheap screens go faster because they use simple techniques that are fast and cheap but produce (greatly) inferior image quality.  Better screens like IPS and PVA are by nature slower and the last time I was seriously in the market (which was a couple years ago), 6 to 8ms was considered fast for an IPS or PVA.  sub-5 is completely unnecessary.  14ms is probably on the slower end, but should still be fine.  Even 20ms would likely be ok, though it might start getting more noticeable.

As far as if ghosting would be an issue, at 71 refreshes per second, a frame won't be able to off by more than 1/3 or so of a frame.  That's 1/90th or so of a second, so would be pretty minor.  It might make for a slight stutter, but isn't that likely to be noticeable.  I think most of the arguments against it come from the faster is better mantra and the twitch reflex crowd.  You might or might not be able to notice the difference, but it shouldn't be a significant problem and I'd personally much rather have a good quality display with a slower refresh than a display I can only view from one exact angle and even then have color differences from the angle of one eye to the other, but have "crisp" frame rendering.


Unfortunatley no. Adobe Premiere dropped what would have been your best possible “tool” when CC replaced CS6.

CS6 has a tool called Analyze Speech, used primarily for automated transcribing.

This tool could be used to substitute a rolling message box within the MetaData Window, tied to Key Frames. So you could use it manually in that sense to drop in a script and change the timings.

Your Best Bet is to either use basic slates/titles using the titler window. You could try playing with the rolling title feature, making a single rolling slate the length of your program... Or just block it out.

I do a ton of VO heavy productions however, and have never really thought of this as being an issue, even with CS6.

Not sure what your workflow is. But just recording a scratch track of your VO and dropping in temporary slates to indicate the placement of graphics, future media, tittles, etc, should get you there.


Should I separate files in After Effects for different part of a Premiere Pro project?

You can do both. I myself have used both methods. However, my recommendation would be to do each shot in its own project. Here are my thoughts on both methods.

Doing it all in one project makes things faster, because you don't have to create a new project for every shot you have. However, the problem with this is that the project gets really convoluted. It means you have to be super organized to keep the project tidy. But even when you do that, if you need to come back to the project, it usually takes you a bit of time to get your head around what is what and where can I find this specific item, especially if you are using a lot of precomps in the project.

Doing each shot in its own project keeps things really simple, because you know that everything here belongs to this shot and that's it. You can quickly figure out what is happening, especially if the project is organized and tidy.

Of course, I am assuming that you are doing simple effects on each shot. If you are doing major vfx or compositing work on your shots, then you should definitely create a new project for each shot, because that project will get convoluted due to the scale of the job you are doing. So you shouldn't be making it even bigger with adding other shots to it.


Why videos taken in the dark has color artefacts (noise)?

The noise in dim-lit environments is a result of how digital cameras work. The exposure of a picture or video depends on three essential parameters: lens aperture, shutter speed and ISO. The first two are about how much light falls on the camera sensor. The larger the aperture, the more light can enter the camera. The slower the shutter speed (i.e. the longer the exposure), the more light can enter the camera. ISO/gain is a digital amplification of the digitalised sensor signal By amplifying the signal, the camera can essentially make it brighter. However, the noise that is captured is also amplified.

What's important to understand is that if you were to expose a light and a dark scene using the same aperture, shutter speed and ISO, the dark one wouldn't have more noise than the light one, it would just be darker. The noise is a result of the camera increasing the ISO/gain to achieve a well-exposed scene (which for the camera means a normally distributed histogram).

  1) Why that noise is added at all? why cant the image could be static, i mean, where is black color, there should be black without noise... (same for other colors...) why colors are not static and why this annoying noise is added?

What probably happened with your example video is that the camera noticed a dim-light environment and cranked up the ISO/gain to achieve a well-exposed video. This inadvertently increases the noise of the video as well. What you can do to circumvent this is to switch to a manual exposure mode where you set the aperture, shutter speed and ISO manually. This way, you can set your camera to underexpose the image. It will turn out rather dark, but less noisy. Keep in mind though that this does not mean you should just underexpose your video and just turn up the brightness in post-editing. This will once again increase the visible noise, because it's basically the same thing as increasing the ISO, only less efficient. So there's a tradeoff between noise and exposure as well.

  2) is there any method in photocameras (mobile, CANON etc..) , to force camera to record without noise (like professional videocameras do)?

High-quality lenses will usually be faster, meaning their minimum f-number (maximum aperture) will be lower. A larger aperture means more light entering the camera in the same amount of time, so with a larger aperture you will get a brighter image than with a smaller one (while shutter speed and ISO stay the same).

High-quality cameras will usually have slightly better low-light performance, meaning there will be less noise under the same circumstances with the same settings, but that difference is rather negligible in scenes as dark as the one in your video.

You can also use a tripod to steady your camera, allowing for slower shutter speed (meaning each individual frame of your video will be exposed for a longer time). However, the shutter speed can't be slower than the inverse of the framerate for obvious reasons, so that will only do so much to brighten up your scene.

What you really need to do to lower the noise is bring in more light. You can still darken the video in post-editing, but if you are able to shoot a well-exposed video with a low-ish ISO value (the meaning of low in this context depends on your camera model), the resultant video won't have much noise regardless of how you decide to edit it. Alternatively, if you want an underexposed video (if that is the style you're going for), you can just set your camera to manual and purposefully underexpose the scene as described above.


Video tool with text to speech and video editor (synchronize feature)

For audio/video synchroniziation check out Pluraleyes.
https://www.redgiant.com/products/shooter-pluraleyes/
If you are a student at a film school they offer better prices.

I recommend reading the manual carefully and watching the vendor's video tutorials before going for the trial version and then deciding on the purchase.


How to move/remove/join adjacent Blade Speed points in FCPX

Partial answer...

I still don't know how to remove a single blade speed point.  It is possible to remove all speed points for a clip by selecting the clip and choosing a new speed (eg Normal 100%) from the Retiming menu.

I still don't know how to join adjacent segments (kind of same thing as above).

Found out how to move the blade speed point relative to the clip itself without retiming:

double-click the blade speed centre handle and click the 'Edit' button

You get this icon you can drag in the timeline:

(classic bit of Apple "hidden UI" gotcha)

If you are zoomed in and you have a big speed differential either side of the centre point then it may not be at all obvious that you really are moving the src frame (fooled me before) because the preview changes are complex. But with Normal speed both sides it is clear this does what I wanted.


One method is to use the concat filter:

ffmpeg -framerate 25 -loop 1 -t 5 -i image.png -i video.mp4 -f lavfi -t 0.1 -i anullsrc -filter_complex "[0][2][1:v][1:a][0][2]concat=n=3:v=1:a=1[v][a]" -map "[v]" -map "[a]" output.mp4

The anullsrc filter generates silent audio as filler for proper concatenation. The concat filter will automatically pad the silent audio, so you only need a very short duration for anullsrc (this example uses -t 0.1).
This assumes your image is the same width, height, and aspect ratio as video.mp4. If it is not then you'll have to filter the image to match with the scale, pad, crop, or scale2ref filters. There are plenty of example of how to do this on Stack Exchange.
You didn't provide any info on your inputs or ffmpeg build so I only provided this basic example.
An alternative method is to use the concat demuxer which can avoid re-encoding video.mp4, but it can be somewhat harder to use because you'll have to make the video from the image first and made sure all of the parameters are the same as video.mp4. See the FFmpeg Wiki, and again search Stack Exchange for dozens of examples.


How do I prevent Quality loss in the beginning of a video?

Fixed by updating FFMpeg to newer version