Replicating an accurate VHS-look is a complicated profession, but if you are not worried about the technical accuracy you could emulate it like this:

Create a solid called "Displace-Map"
Apply turbulent noise to it
set the scaling to something huge in the x-axis and something reasonable (100%) on the y-axis.
alt-click the stopwatch on "evolution" and enter "time*100", so that the noise changes with time.
Apply "Displacement-Map" to the layer you're trying to displace
Set your "Displace-Map"-layer as the displace-map in the effect
Dial up the displacement until it looks about right
Don't forget to hide the Displace-Map solid and select "Masks&Effects" under the settings in the Displacement-Map effect, so it also reads the turbulent noise.

You might want to adjust the speed of the turbulent noise. To do that, just up the number you multiply time with in the evolution-expression.
I hope this helped, cheers!


What kind of video encoder can do this? Blend multiple video frames together live

While there are video encoders that do this kind of thing, most commonly this is the work of a video switcher or mixer.  A video switcher is a device used for mixing live video from multiple sources.  The bad news is they generally aren't cheap.  An HD capable switcher is typically in the $6000+ range with the absolute cheapest one I know of  being the Black Magic Design Studio ATEM which is $1000 and requires use of a software interface to control it.

The switcher then would output the final composite video that would go in to an encoder to be sent out, or in some newer cases, may even provide encoding functionality itself (such as the previously mentioned ATEM Studio).

Alternately, you probably can find software that will attempt to do the scaling and encoding operation on the fly, but it is going to require quite a beefy computer to pull it off and you'd likely end up spending more than the $1000 for the ATEM Studio to build a powerful enough system to handle it with any high level of quality.


One long continuous shot, sped-up until it becomes "live"

The answer above answers half of your question, and yes, it is trivial for anybody who has used a non-linear editor (NLE) such as Premiere Pro, Final Cut, Resolve, etc., to do speed ramp effects.  The film Koyaanisqatsi features many visual effects that include speeding up and slowing down time, which may help you better imagine the possibilities of the medium.  But NLEs are really only for off-line production.

To answer your second question about doing this while actually shooting, the short answer is no, nobody has built an off-the-shelf system for doing this.  The concept of "instant replay" (encompassed in a system such as the NewTek 3Play 425) illustrates how live feeds and recently (immediately) recorded clips can be used together while slowing down the playback rate.  And while it's theoretically possible to speed up playback rate (subject to available content in some buffer), it's not anything anybody has tried to do.  Instead, people edit offline and present a finished product after editing.


I don't think there is anything specifically made for use with a glidecam.  My impression of most stabilization systems is that you still operate the camera directly, you just are not supporting it without the stabilization.  I'm not aware of any follow focus/pull systems that are designed specifically for use with a gimble or gimble and spring-arm stabilization system.


Is it possible to have an image be picture-in-picture and just tell FCPX to keep it at its original size?

By "actual size" I suppose you want to conform your footage pixel to pixel instead of frame to frame. For this you will need to change Spatial Conform to None in the inspector.

The new default behavior in FCP is to scale your footage to either "fit" or "fill" the project's frame, the difference being only relevant when your footage doesn't have the same aspect as the project's. This conforming defines the actual 100% Scale in the Transform panel. So make sure the scale is also set to 100%.

You can find more information about Spatial Conform in it's documentation.


Camcorders that can stream directly to YouTube

The "JVC GY-HM200SPU 4KCAM Compact Handheld Streaming Camcorder" claims... "When equipped with an optional Wi-Fi or 4G LTE high-speed broadband modem, the camcorder can deliver a live video stream directly to USTREAM and YouTube, while simultaneously recording HD video internally to SDHC/SDXC memory cards. "

I believe there are other camcorders in the JVC range, and almost certainly in cameras from other brands that will live-stream to YouTUbe.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1206407-REG/jvc_gy_hm200sp_4kcam_compact_handheld.html


Simulating 1080p pan shot by cropping stationary 4K fisheye footage?

Yes, you can do this successfully. I did it with an overhead 4K action camera with a fixed fisheye lens (YouTube video here).

You'll want to remove the distortion in software to "square it up". Then you have some room to zoom in and pan. However, you effectively lose some resolution with the lens correction. You can only zoom in so far before it's noticeable.  Obviously it's not as crisp as nice 1080 video, but it may be perfectly fine depending on your requirements.


Davinci Resolve 16 split a clip in timeline and actual shrink the file

There is a way to do that.  It's in the Media Management tool, under the file menu.  It has plenty of options.  You can go clip-by-clip, do a whole timeline at once, or archive a whole project once you've finished editing it, and keep only the footage you used.  You can also add "handles" if you want, which means that Resolve will save an extra second or so (user definable) to the beginning and end of all clips, so you have wiggle room in case you need to make changes later.  There's also options for transcoding, if e.g., you wanted a smaller footprint for old projects, but it also comes in handy for generating proxy media.
A big word of caution, though:  Not all of the features in the Media Management panel work like you might expect (the automatic re-linking comes to mind).  Some of them are contingent on the TYPE of footage you're using; whether it's intra- or inter-frame.  READ THE MANUAL, and BE SURE you test your Media Management workflow, COMPLETELY before you destroy any of your media.  That is, don't just export it, and trash all of your originals before you make sure you can re-link your project.  Ideally, you should:

Use the Media Management tool to render out whatever clips/timelines/projects you want to trim.
Take the original media (but not the archived media) offline.  It can be tricky to do this if your projects aren't organized.  An easy way to be sure is to keep your original media on an external hard drive, and eject the hard drive for this step. You want to be sure that when you delete the originals, your timelines can find all of the archive material they need, without accidentally pointing at things you're about to erase.  If something in your project is living in your "Downloads" folder by mistake, it'll eventually go missing.
Re-Link your project to the archived material, and make sure everything works.  It may be years before you return to it, so you want to be sure it's in working order before you put it in cold storage.
Export a .DRP project file and save it next to your archived media.  Resolve's normal way of saving is database-driven (disk databases by default, now, but postgresql is necessary for advanced features).  It saves all of your projects together in a big file that isn't meant to be moved around, and is vulnerable to corruption.  If you're ever going to return to the project you're archiving, don't count on the database.


FFMPEG How to use FIFO to solve a "buffer queue overflow, dropping" error?

I went back to a 2016 FFMPEG build and it works fine again.


How to position spheres that are created with the CC Ball action?

CC Ball is a video effect to make an array of balls that video can be displayed on.  It isn't designed for making circles that you can move around like this.  What you want is a 3D shape object.  Unfortunately, unless you have a 3rd party tool like Blender to make a geometry you can import, there isn't an easy way to make a true sphere in AE.

The only real option I know of without using a third party tool is to take a period or circle shape layer, extrude it by its diameter and apply a curved bezel and adjust the strength until it results in a fully round sphere.


How to smooth/correct sudden exposure changes caused by camera while filming?

Do you have AE?
In AE you can use the color stabilizer effect.

Import your project to AE, add the color stabilizer onto the clip, change stabilizer to brightness, qnd choose a point that should be black/really dark


FFmpeg with a lossless codec is one solution. I recall a comparison of different codecs which concluded that Apple Animation (known to ffmpeg as qtrle) gave the best quality for screen-recording.

ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 1024x768 -i :0.0 -c:v qtrle output.mov

Stop it by opening its terminal while it is running and pressing q. Obviously change the resolution (1024x768 here) to match your own. For selecting a section of your screen, see how to grab the screen on the ffmpeg wiki.

It is possible that the ffmpeg which comes with your Linux distribution does not have the qtrle codec included. In this case you have to download and compile your own version.


Apple have released a recent update to FCPX, 10.2.3 which fixes lots of issues like this. I would recommended this update first as it has solved crashing issues for me.

https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT201237

Sometimes FCPX doesn't like it when your library is saved separately to user/movies/ perhaps try moving the library there and see if it helps.

Also media from multiple drives can cause issues if FCP get's stuck trying to link some. If any media is stored on external drives, are they fast drives i.e. thunderbolt, USB3, firewire 800? Potentially FCPX is getting stuck trying to locate the media and can't connect to everything properly. Perhaps try moving media to a reliable drive to try it out like your system drive.

Hope that helps.


Some H.264 videos that I have seem to have excessive bitrate, is there a way to determine/find their recommended bitrate?

So how, if even possible, do I correctly determine the bitrate of a
  video if it seems excessive?

There's not a "correct" way.  That's why every encoder you come across presents bitrate as an option to the user.  The visual complexity of every video is different, and visual tolerance levels of artifacting is subjective in every case.  File size vs image quality will always be a tradeoff, and it takes an informed human being to decide where that tradeoff is most acceptable.

But to focus more on the "how" one best makes this decision, there's not much to say other than: trail and error.

You can bifurcate.  That is, pick a high number, try it, pick a low number, try it, then pick a number between whichever direction was more suitable, rinse and repeat.  It's still a subjective process.  If you search the internet, it's not hard to find ballpark ranges to get you started, given the specifics of your output requirements (resolution, framerate, etc).  When you do this, you should use a representative subset of your total output to test, so that you can iterate more quickly.

Also, be sure to consider your destination platform.  You don't mention it in the question, but it will affect your decision.  If you're delivering to bluray, for example, you have a hard limit on total file size, and you'll probably want to optimize quality for that specific target.  On the other hand, if you're delivering to an online streaming service, you might want to go for maximum quality because YouTube, Vimeo and the like will automatically generate lower-quality versions to serve to people with slower connections.  Conversely, you might value high-speed upload for quick turnaround times.  Only you can decide.


Can I use any audio recorder for filming?

I guess it really depends on your production and how high of quality you want. You will hear countless times, if you stick with this hobby, that audio far outweighs video when it comes to importance. This is somewhat counter intuitive because the video is much more obvious an impact than the audio. For this reason, however, purchasing the best audio solutions one can afford is usually the best solution (depending on your scenario, of course).

Recording inside a car is a whole new can of worms. They're incredibly noisy, especially while operating. For this reason, sound engineers will often entirely reconstruct car scenes specifically by recording sfx, foley and performing ADR with the actors. Hopefully you can think of some creative ways to use your car while it's not operating because it's incredibly difficult to capture usable audio.

Essentially you're asking the question that every beginner videographer asks: "what's the cheapest, all-around best audio solution I can get without having to think too much." It's a fair question, but one that doesn't have the best answer. I don't think a small palm recorder/ipad is a good idea. What I might recommend is a combo solution. I would pick up a wired lavalier mic (atr-3350) for $20 dollars and plug that directly into your camera for portrait shots, and then I might pick up a camera mounted shot gun mic (Azden SMX-10) for $80 for wider shots and you'd have a good universal, cheap solution.

It's worth noting that plugging microphones directly into Canon cameras is often not the best audio solution because of the low quality preamps and AGC found on the camera which results in adding a "hiss" to your audio. You can clean this up in post but it does degrade the audio slightly. Something to look out for, and something that you can kind of fix with Magic Lantern software you asked about earlier.

When you say "exterior sounds" I assume you mean dialogue (correct me if I'm wrong). For outside characters tend to be on the move, so having them attached to your camera (a la wired lavalier) is a bad idea. You never want to leash your actors to your camera for obvious reasons. Additionally, clothing will rub against the mic and create unusable audio. If you're not in motion, the only thing you need to worry about is wind. A few little dead cats for your lavs should solve that problem (while making them more noticeable). However, the ultimate solution to outdoor dialogue is a shotgun microphone on a boom pole. But, that is probably out of your budget, so a cam mounted VideoPro mic will do "well" as long as you get it close to your subject.


Finding frames in video that match an image

The blend filter can be told to terminate with the shortest input, which in your command, will be the video.

-filter_complex "blend=difference:shortest=1,blackf...


Wrapping AVI with RGBA channels in a MOV file?

You can use ffmpeg, a free command-line tool to do this.

The command is

ffmpeg.exe -i in.avi -c:v copy out.mov

This will copy the video stream over without transcoding or dropping the alpha. The caveat here is that if MOV doesn't support the codec of the AVI video stream, then ffmpeg will fail. But, then you can simply run

ffmpeg.exe -i in.avi -c:v qtrle out.mov

This will losslessly transcode the video, keeping the alpha. The size may increase.


What properties of After Effects project can be edited without opening the application itself

To my knowledge there is no tool available for editing After Effects project files other than After Effects itself.

However you can script After Effect using Adobe's Extendscript language, so that it will work without user interaction, and even without showing the GUI. Extendscript is based on ECMAscript (basically it's Javascript) and allows you to do programatically anything you can do with the GUI app. It not only works in After Effects , but can be used to control most of the other Adobe CC apps.

The extendscript documentation for After Effects is here, and the docs for the more general Javascript tools including GUI elements available across the other Adobe applications is here.


If you look at the part where you have

if (headIntro==false){
    y =linear(time,t1,t2,v2,v2); //this is calculated first
}

if (headOutro==false){
    y =linear(time,t3,t4,v3,v3); //this is calculated next, overwriting previous value
}

when headOutro == false is true, the value for y will be calculated using the value returned by the second linear expression, so no matter what it was previously calculated to be it will always return y = linear(time, t3,t4,v3,v3);.

change it to

if (headIntro==false && time < t2){
    y =linear(time,t1,t2,v2,v2);
}

if (headOutro==false && time > t3){
    y =linear(time,t3,t4,v3,v3);
}

so now the linear expressions will only be calculated when the time is in the intro or outro sections respectively.


What is the best tool for creating simple iOS demo videos

If you haven't used iMovie in a few years, I recommend you give it a try. It does exactly what you're looking for. If you create a new movie rather than a trailer, it will just create a timeline that you can drop footage into. On the left, under your events and library is a section called "Titles" that has dozens of titles ranging from tasteful to playful. You use the "V" key to record a voiceover.

FCPX is also a great easy tool to learn. In fact, iMovie is now made so that you can transition easily from using iMovie into using Final Cut Pro X. I think they might even share some of their internal bits. In any event, if you use one, you can probably do some stuff easily in the other.


Why trimming in ffmpeg eats up so much memory?

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

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


Is it possible to create a hybrid Dvd/Bluray?

No it is not possible to create a hybrid DVD/Blu-Ray disk in the manner which you describe.  The reason for this is that in addition to the digital formats between the two being different the physical media is different too.  You would require a multi-layer or multi-sided disk such as the one you linked to and different digital data on each side.

DVD players read DVDs using a certain frequency of light and a set spacing between the track grooves (it really is laid out kind of like the grooves on an old phonograph record but microscopic).  BluRay players and disks use a different frequency of light and closer spaced grooves.  Initially this meant it was necessary to have separate laser systems for DVD and BlueRay in any combined player.  More recently optical systems were developed that could work for either format and made combined drives much cheaper to produce on mass.

I'd suggest the cheapest way would be to get a writable BlueRay and try gluing a writeable DVD to the back of it.  You would need quite thin disks to do this though as they would not fit inside standard drives.  Buying a combined DVD and BluRay disk (and writer?) is the best way to go.


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


Where can I found example video in 120fps and up?

Most slo mo iPhone videos are 120-240fps. Higher production quality videos that have slowed down video usually shoot at 60fps and cut it in half to 30fps. This is due to many high ends cameras not shooting high speed and if they do it is usually at lower resolutions. That is unless they have a camera dedicated for high speed like a phantom flex. The second part about making a slow motion video. You don't really make it. You shoot something that is going to be cinematic slowed down or adds emotion to it when slowed. Then simply cut the video to 50% or less depending on the frame rate. General rule of them is don't go under 30fps as it gets very choppy.


how to change video size in Final Cut Pro

The aspects ratio of your source material does not match the aspect ratio of your output device. That's not unprofessional, as you say it. Often it is just inevitable. Go watch a movie on any streaming platform and you surely will see black bars. Probably at the top and bottom, not the sides but it's the same problem.
Anyway, you have two options:

Crop the photos to reduce the height while keeping the same width until it matches the aspect ratio of your output device. If it's a computer monitor it will be probably 16:10 or 16:9. That means for each 16 pixel in width you need 10 or 9 pixel in height.  I recommend to do it manually for each photo. Another option is to combine several photos in one mashup or panorama if applicable.

Get another output device that has the same aspect ratio as your photos. However, I think this will be much harder.

With some cameras you can set the aspect ratio beforehand, so for the future, there is the option to shoot with your target ratio.


How can i achieve the effect of this video, focused in the foreground with a blurred background?

You need a camera with a relatively large sensor and a fast lens.  What you are seeing is actually a property of optics called Depth of Field.  Only a certain distance from the camera can be in focus at any given point for a given aperture and focal length.  The degree of how out of focus it appears is also relative to the size of the image being projected (thus the distance from the point where the image inverts) and thus, larger sensors show more blur.

Cheap cameras often use very small sensors and thus have a hard time getting a shallow depth of field, however any DSLR will achieve it quite easily, as will any more professional video camera with a larger sensor.  Shoot with the aperture as wide open as possible and try to have the camera relatively close to the subject with the background as far away as possible.

Technically, increasing focal length will also decrease the depth of field, but then you have to move back from the subject which will increase it again.  You want a small depth of field close to the camera so that the background can be significantly out of focus.  If it is too out of focus, you can adjust the aperture or the ratio between the camera, the subject and the background to make it less blurry (by expanding the depth of field).

You can also use many online Depth of Field calculators to figure out a shooting situation with a particular camera prior to trying it in real life.  They won't visualize it for you, but they will give you an idea of what distances will be in focus and which will be out.  There are also lots of great articles on depth of field over on our Photography sister site, though they don't deal with video specifically, but the principal is the same.

In a pinch, you can fake it as well using masks and blurs, but that's really not an ideal way to do it.  In camera always looks better.


What is the best way to capture PC footage?

There are many applications which do this, some free, some not - FRAPS should certainly be able to cope if your CPU/GPU is powerful enough (and in fact this may be the limiting factor for whichever application you choose)

So your question title - "what is the best way" - is easy to answer: use a screen capture application, and ensure you have sufficient power to cope.

In the body of the question it looks like you are asking for recommendations on which application to use. This is not really an answerable question - it will vary depending on your exact needs, but many applications will do just fine, given the prerequisites mentioned above.

update - I have been using WeGame, and it works really well, and is lighter weight than FRAPS.


I have a .mkv video file I need to use but it is apparently infinite

So I've found the issue to be related to inconsistent framerates. I found that running the video through ffmpeg with ffmpeg -i yourfile.mkv -c:v copy -c:a copy -r 30 newfile.mkv actually fixed the issue entirely. Now I can open the file correctly and it appears to be 42 minutes as expected. More information here.


Looking at the capabilities of the XF105, there is no reason you could not simultaneously record to memory card and use the SDI or HDMI output of the camera.  It appears that you can get clean outputs on those feeds to avoid menus and such being present on the output.

The XF105 can't directly stream however, so you will need some type of device to create the stream.  You can either use a computer with a capture card or use a dedicated stream encoder that generates the stream directly.

For audio, if you have the ability to send an aux output from the mixing console, I would suggest using the XLR inputs on the XF105 in line mode to take a direct audio output feed from the sound board itself.  This way both your recording and the stream will have direct audio from the console.  If possible, doing a custom mix on an aux output is slightly preferable since ideal levels will vary slightly between the room vs a direct recording, but using room levels will produce sufficiently high quality results if you don't have the manpower to do both mixes simultaneously.


Transport moving object/person to another video

The answer you're looking for is called "masking."

You can find this tool in the majority of professional editing software, but I personally recommend adobe after effects. There is also a chance that some of "moving objects/people" are already presented on green screens-- where as masking would usually be necessary, a "chroma key" would instead take the job.

Simply "cutting out" the moving figures isn't the only technique seen in this video. If you plan to execute a video in this fashion, you'll need to both cut out the "moving figure," but also motion track these figures onto the new composition. From there you'll need to manipulate their positions in order to make a convincing and visually appealing effect.

Good luck!


How to expand stroke width in one direction

you can't scale the stroke in AE it's fixed. But you can adjust it's stroke thickness.

However the stroke thickness is also fixed. So if you increase the number it will be applied to all sides. So if you want to increase the TOP thickness that's not possible

In addition: By defaul AE allows you to adjust the scale on all sides but you can adjust the scale by not affecting other sides(constrain proportions)

just unclick the link icon(see image below) and adjust

The first value allows you to adjust the length of the shape

The second value allows you to adjust the height of the shape

Adjusting the position of the anchor point has a different result. Positioning the anchor point to the end points allows you to increase or decrease that specific end point

In the picture below the anchor point is positioned at the mid bottom end point. Increasing the second value will increase the TOP HEIGHT without increasing the BOTTOM HEIGHT. Moving the anchor point on top MID end point will have an opposite effect..

Same goes for positioning the anchor point on the side


Vector graphics from Photoshop to After Effects

If the effects and textures you add in Photoshop are raster (pixel) based, then you'll lose the advantages of vectors in the process. I'd probably do the stylisation in AE, but if you're more familiar with PS do it there, just use a high enough resolution that you won't be giving yourself headaches in AE.


is there a movie recording tool for dslr connected to phones?

Try this link you will get some tips
http://dpexperience.com/2010/02/12/recording-audio-with-your-video-dslr-part-i/


adjusting the Premiere Creative Cloud sequence (newbie question)

From what I can gather online, it appears that it is supposed to scale automatically and always extends 10 minutes beyond the end of the last clip in the sequence and there does not appear to be any way to change that.


How to save multiple masks as a preset for use on different clips in Adobe Premiere?

I think to create a Preset in Premier Pro you have to add a few factors to it like effects
OK ?
Because you can't make Preset through musks
You make all the changes and add a separate effect to it, but set the keyframe to zero and do the factors according to the tutorial below.

Good luck


Gradually speeding up a video in Vegas Pro

That can be pretty simple if your video editor support this.

For example here's how you do it in Adobe's Premiere Pro:


Looking for the fastest way shoot video on a camera and review it on a laptop

look for a camera that can trigger recording on/off by it's HDMI output (used when you have something like a atomos recorder), not sure which current models can/can't but any dslr that's marketed as a video camera should do it.
run a hdmi cable to a hdmi capture box ( I think HDMI can do 15m without a repeater )
hook the capture box to a laptop
use software that will start recording when the camera presses record.
use software like stream to me
coaches can use another device ( tablet/laptop etc ) to display the recorded run

Using this setup you can have the camera recording runs while multiple people can stream any previously recorded run at the same time. As long as the software can detect the record flag from the camera the whole process is automatic, playback can begin for a file the moment after recording has stopped.

I'd recommend a black magic thunderbolt ultra studio mini
for the capture box, it comes with Media Express software which will auto trigger when it receives a record flag from the camera. The mini is bus powered & small so it's keeping your cables down & means everything is running of batteries if needed

Stream to me is an iOS app for the playback but the companion app Serve to me is Windows & Mac & that lives on the laptop watching the folder that Media Express records too. Alternatively I'm sure a bit of google will find an android substitute for this part of the link.

All that reasonable cheap, meets the need of recording while simultaneously playback (actually a pretty hard thing to do without spending big bucks) & once it's setup should take care of itself, while you concentrate on practice.


Playing in time line stops when the bar touches the mark out point

The orange bar is the frame indicator. In the screenshot, the playhead is displaying the last frame of your in/out range.

If the playhead stopped one frame further, as you suggest, it would be showing the next frame AFTER your in/out range (and could be confusing, although obviously this method is too!).


What is causing these horizontal lines moving vertically up the whiter portions of the video?

You seem to have a flickering light source that is out of sync with the camera's rolling shutter.
Traditional lights
You should first verify that you are filming in 60/30/24 fps in regions whose power grid uses a 60 Hz frequency, or in 25/50 fps for 50 Hz.
If that is impossible to achieve, you can also adapt your shutter speed or angle to be a multiple of the utility frequency. Red provides a nice calculator for this.
LED lights
Flickering can be particularly bad if you use low quality LEDs because their flicker index (or depth of modulation) can be worse than conventional light sources.
They might also flicker independently of the utility frequency. This is especially true for RGB lights or when dimming.
If you can, choose good quality high frequency switching or flicker free LED drivers, or ones that are made for video. You shouldn't have any flicker problems with good LEDs. You can also try to disable dimming or setting the highest power output to reduce flicker.


Problem setting different framerates with FFmpeg map option

-vf does not accept stream specifiers. You can use e.g. -filter:v:1 for that.

However, you need not use the fps filter at all; output -r will do.

ffmpeg -i input_60fps.mov -map 0:v -map 0:v -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -s:v:0 640x360 -r:v:0 30 -s:v:1 1920x1080 -f mp4 out.mp4


Consider the following technologies:

ffmpeg + command line
Adobe After Effects + ExtendScript language (based on JavaScript)
Sony Vegas Pro + C# language (or any other Microsoft .NET language)


After Effects - Double View in Composition Tab

That was very simple, I should change this to "1 View":


How to make a video where an actor writes facing the camera?

You need a few simple things to do this:

a camera
a large piece of glass or plexiglass
dry erase markers
editing software capable of basic transform controls

Record your actor writing on the glass.  To the camera, the writing will appear backwards.  Use your editing software to flip the image horizontally.  The writing will now appear normal*.  Most editing software is capable of this operation.  If there's not a "flip horizontal" command, try setting the horizontal scale to -100%.

*Pro tip:  Make sure your actor's clothes don't have any writing on them, or it will appear backwards in the final result.


Resolve has a pretty solid tracking system built-in. I would recommend you track your footage first and make sure your trackers really stick to the wall. From there, you can go many ways.

The cheap and easy way is to just take a hole.png and attach it to the trackers, so it sticks to the wall. This might look bad though when moving around the wall, since the geometry of the .png will not change.

The more advanced option would be to export the tracked data (I would recommend pftrack for that) and importing the tracked camera into any 3d-software you like (such as cinema 4d, modo, 3dsmax, etc). There, you can create a 3D-Model of said hole by grabbing the texture from the original footage on the edges and then just blend into concrete/brick-textures you can find online for the parts that penetrate the wall. By now beveling inwards and shaping the mesh a bit, you should quickly come to a promising result.

For the next step, it is very important that you study the light from your scene and try to recreate it in 3D as accurately as possible. Lighting, the angle and color of it makes or brakes your 3D-composition.

When you're done with that, you can render out a sequence as long as your original clip from the perspective of your tracked camera. To get ultra-accurate results, you can also match the focal length and distance as well.

If you now take your rendered 3D-hole and lay it on top of your original footage (plus some blending and color grading to make it sit right in the footage) it should stick perfectly to your wall.

Hope I was able to help, if you have further questions please ask. Have a wonderful day :)


How can I record adobe flash player stream

Use a browser plugin such as https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/.

When you go to the page after installing, an icon will alert you to downloadable media and provide you different formats if they are available.


What is the least noticable way to re-stream a video to Twitch?

You should try FFsplit, is easy to use and free. With proper settings you should loose few or no data at all.

Setup the encoder to match the quality (bitrate and aspect ratio) of the original file.
Add a new layer of window capturing, and adjust width, height and origin (x,y) to capture only the region of the video
Setup hotkeys on ffsplit so you can start the streaming when the video player is on focus

Start your stream first then play you video.

Find a quick-start guide here on twitch.tv help, althoug this an old document, the new version of ffplist has few, but nice changes


Will I lose quality when converting avi to mkv?

AVI and MKV are both containers, so in theory it should be possible to transfer your contents with no further loss. I can't say for certain if MKV can wrap xvid4, but it's very likely. You shouldn't need to decode / re-encode to transfer the contents, just demux / remux.


How can I make a video such that the quality degrades if someone tries to record it using screen recording software?

Rovi does try to add an element of security but the simple truth is that once it is being played, there is actually nothing you can do to prevent it being copied. Unless you control everything (including the screen) then an attacker can just wait until the encryption has been removed and copy the output. So this could be in memory, on screen, by intercepting HDMI etc.

This has been discussed at great length on security.stackexchange.com as it is one of the unsolved issues in security.


Auto detect and auto pan to ball in video

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


How to add Subtitles to already created video file for .avi format on Windows 8?

This can also be accomplished if you have VirtualDubMod and a TextSub provider installed such as VobSub or VSFilter.

To use VobSub, during installation you must select the Plugins -> TextSub for VirtualDub and Avisynth option.

To use VSFilter, you must locate the VSFilter.dll file in the installation directory and copy it to the plugins folder with the extension changed to .vdf (e.g. VirtualDubMod\plugins\VSFilter.vdf).

Once you've installed one of them:

Open the .avi file in VirtualDubMod
Select Video -> Filters from the menu or press Ctrl + F
Click Add and select TextSub from the filters list and press OK
A file navigator should have appeared, select the .srt file.
Optionally, at this point set up the compression under Video -> Compression. Save the merged file with File -> Save as AVI


ffmpeg: make a video with multiple input files and formats

Let's say the framerate of the MP4s is 30, then you would use

ffmpeg -i body.mp3
       -framerate 30 -loop 1 -t 17.56 -i 000000.PNG
       -i 01.mp4
       -framerate 30 -loop 1 -t 6.12  -i 100074.PNG
       -i 02.mp4
       -framerate 30 -loop 1 -t 7.84  -i 200074.PNG
       -i 03.mp4
       -framerate 30 -loop 1 -t 11.88 -i 300074.PNG
-filter_complex "[1][2][3][4][5][6][7]concat=n=7:v=1:a=0[v]"
-map "[v]" -map 0:a -pix_fmt yuv420p out.mp4

(All in one line; use single-quotes if you're on linux/OSX)


Why is the EOS M6 Video Bitrate lower than the EOS 1200D/T5?

That would be a great question for Canon, because only the manufacturer can provide the reasons considered when producing a new model. I only can venture a guess that the M6 is a smaller camera that presumably is a lower-level compared to full-body T5. Maybe higher bitrate results in more heat, and the smaller body may have issues with dissipating it. Your guess is as good as anyone else's. It seems that the M6 uses the same H.264 as the prior models instead of the more efficient H.265, so seems that this is not the reason for decreasing the bitrate.


Changing the effect of a certain object but not anything else

You could create one with parts from a hobby store or craft store, and paint them the correct color of gray.  Model your gun replica off of a specific existing gun that you find photos of online. Figure out ways to shoot the scene so the viewers don't see the gun too much:

keep it in shadow
only have it on screen for 1/2 second at a time
keep it moving, especially if this is an action or chase sequence
show it from a distance
keep it out of focus (while something "more important" is in focus, like a person saying a line of dialog)
train the camera on the face of the person with the gun and the reactions of the potential victim

Also use visual effects (as suggested by bret7600 in his answer) and sound effects. A Foley artist once said he uses a door deadbolt to simulate the sound of a cocking handgun.


Extract audio from video preserving audio quality

If you aren't adverse to using a terminal to extract it, FFmpeg is a very good tool that you can use. The command that you'd want to run in ffmpeg -i [input file name here] -c:a copy -vn -sn [output file name here].

-c:a copy: This argument copies the audio stream of the file.
-vn: This argument informs FFmpeg to not account for any video streams.
-sn: This argument informs FFmpeg to not account for any subtitle streams.

Altogether, this results in a lossless extraction of the audio stream from the video file. If you have some knowledge in making scripts, you could create a script that will perform this action for a set of files so that you don't need to do it manually.


Interesting question. First, here's a question for you: can your supercomputer actually calculate and render, in real time, an animated zoom on images so complex?

My guess (only a guess) is that it will need more than 1/30 sec. to complete each frame (let's assume 30 frames per second as a minimal frame rate in which to achieve a smooth zoom). If that's the case then you just need to spit out x number of images (bitmaps) that can be played back later, at 30 f.p.s., by any non-super computer.

A zoom is just a scale change. Assuming that you don't have in mind a particular rate of change in scale -- in other words, that you don't need to get to a particular scale in a particular time -- try 1% of scale-increase per frame (I'll check this and post an update if you can do much better).

Satisfactory zooming will also involve easing at the head and tail of the zoom. If you need an easing algorithm, just ask. It probably won't be in the language you're using but you'll be able to figure it out.

UPDATE -- I just read something about Blue Gene. Maybe it can do 800x600 Mandlebrodt images @ 30 f.p.s.!  But the same rate-of-change applies -- smoothness is a human perception thing.


How can I fix my video stuttering and moving in and out of frame when exported from FCPX?

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


It really depends on how much you care about realtime operation.  VSTs tend to be used both for production and performance, but with video, because there's so much more processing involved, things tend to be split between production and performance.  That being said, for production, After Effects plugins are probably the closest analogy.  For performance, probably Freeframe.

Freeframe is a format that's specifically tailored to be cross-application, but on the production side of things, I don't know of anything that transcends applications the way that VSTs do.  Each video production app tends to have its own format.  The main reason I say AE plugins are the closest analogy to VSTs is because AE itself is almost as ubiquitous in the same application price range/platform.

So there's not really an exact analogy (if you consider all the various factors), but there are similar things out there.


ffmpeg: using vidstab{detect,transform} on parts of a video

It is possible to use the select filter to select scenes for stabilisation and inclusion into the final result - see the example below. It seems that select is slow for skipping over unwanted material. This does not create any intermediate files except the *.trf file. In my example I am not using audio, which would have to be selected likewise.

#! /bin/bash

f="20191128_215245A.mp4"
x="select='between(t,5,10)+between(t,15,20)',setpts=N/FRAME_RATE/TB"
s="vidstabdetect=stepsize=6:shakiness=6:accuracy=9:result=foo.trf"
y="vidstabtransform=input=foo.trf:zoom=1:maxangle=(1*PI/180):smoothing=30"
z="scale=1440:-2,unsharp=5:5:0.8:3:3:0.4"
a="-an -tune film -r 60 -crf 26 -vcodec libx264 -preset slow"

ffmpeg -y -i $f -vf "$x,$s" -f null -
ffmpeg -y -i $f -vf "$x,$y,$z" $a foo.mp4


Which video editing software should I use for youtube videos?

I've been making YouTube videos for 8 years.  At first I was using iMovie, which came free with my Mac laptop.  It's a solid piece of basic editing software.  I did very precise editing, added music, transitions, and some special effects on about 300 videos with it.  (They're on YouTube.com/CreatedByBrett if you want to see the quality.)

But you're using PC's.  Six months ago I switched to a PC laptop and Adobe Premiere + Adobe After Effects.  The system requirements for After Effects are pretty steep, so if you decide to use Adobe software, see if you can do what you need to with Premiere itself.  Premiere lets you do some animation, maintains great video quality, includes tons of special effects and transitions, and has a built-in title creator.  It also has a decent chromakey (green screen) feature.  I like the pricing plan, which is just $20 a month for a "subscription", which allows you to get any upgrades they put out.  It's better than hundreds of dollars up front!

Windows comes with free video editing software. It's called Windows Movie Maker.  I haven't used it, but from what I've heard it isn't very "feature rich".  (For example, doing a picture-in-picture effect isn't possible without a plugin.)

YouTube also has its own free editing software online.  That has even fewer features than Windows Movie Maker.

You mentioned that the video quality is important to you. If you have an HD camera with a decent lens, you'll be in good shape for YouTube videos.  I've shot several on my iPhone, though I usually use a Sony Handycam HD.  (It lets you set exposure, focus, and white balance manually, which is why I bought it!)  The next thing to be aware of is your lighting.  I use "daylight" colored bulbs for my shoots.  I also use a 2-point light setup:  one key light mostly in front of me, and an extra-bright fill light to one side of me, to make my face appear more rounded on camera.

I didn't spend much on my lights either.  They're just fluorescent tubes, so the light is more diffuse.  Single-point lights can cause harsh shadows.


What encoding settings does Revision3 use to get quality high but file size so low?

Your best bet for high quality and low size is 2 pass variable bit rate, but it is worth noting that the size of the video also has a ton to do with how much motion it contains and how often the scene changes.  One of the most popular modern codecs to use for such compression is h.264.

Video compression works by looking for similarities not only within one frame, but also between nearby frames.  They more similarities there are, the less data it takes to represent it at a given quality.  Variable bit rate seeks to maximize quality by using the most data where it is needed and saves data where it is not.  Using two-pass allows the first pass to figure out what the best places to use the available data are before actually making the final compression.


It seems I was a complete noob ( for I am new with After Effects ). I couldn't see my composition because the blur on the camera was turned to 100% and everything was completely out of focus. Also, I couldn't zoom in on a specific layer because the camera was underneath them. This video helped me a lot to understand the way camera works in Adobe After Effects, and I wish I had found it earlier because I am dealing with this problem for a while now.
Thank you @JasonConrad for trying to help!


How to change the aspect ratio during the film

Putting black bars on the top and the bottom of your frame looks like you changed your aspect-ratio, but really you didn't. All you did was put black bars on top of a 16x9 video. One way of doing this is to record in 2.35:1 and slowly zoom into your footage until the left and right part is cut out. Alternatively, you can just put black bars on your footage but let me tell you from personal experience: any half-way trained eye will look at it and say yuck.


Open Camera is an open source app that let's you do this. You can configure it for various times including unlimited.

Android has typically a 4GB limit on video size. Your one hour video will most likely exceed this limit
. Open Camera let's you restart the video automatically after the 4 GB limit is reached which can be joined in a video editor


How can I Film Inconspicuously with a DSLR?

Any wireless microphone kit would work. Of course the more you spend the more reliable kit you will get. Wireless mic kits under US$500 are typically cheap, fiddly, unreliable, disposable plastic toys.

There are "right angle spy lens" adapters that screw on to the front of the lens and allow you to shoot to the side. So it is not obvious that you are shooting them.  They are quite inexpensive and available at the usual larger online shops.

That said, in most of the civilized world, it is illegal to use the recognizable likeness of anyone without their written consent.  And additionally, it is typically against the rules to shoot on private property (like a shopping mall) without written authority of the management. You are quite likely to get expelled or even arrested for trespassing if you try this in any kind of a mall with half-decent security forces.


How to make an iPad like commercial video?

A lot of commercials involving electronic devices, like Apple advertisements, usually have simulated screens. This is usually done in After Effects or 3D software like 3ds Max or Cinema 4D.

You can do this animation and screen replacement yourself if you have the software and knowledge required. If you are an After Effects or 3D beginner, there are tutorials that can help you and ready-made project files you can download and add your app's footage to.

Example Commercial:

             -
Download Commercial Template: http://videohive.net/item/tablet-commercial/166585

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have any questions.


Focusing away from Premiere causes playback crash

1st, make sure you don't have any equipment or 3rd party programs that interfere with the audio on your computer because, more often than not, it is a problem with that instead of the audio on the computer itself.

I actually asked a similar question (which is specific to your question) about a third party program messing with Ableton (same as with Premiere).

I also answered a similar question (that got accepted) that covers a lot of things about different audio drivers and sound and the tendencies of both.

Since you have Hear installed, make sure to remove the leftover plugin located in Macintosh HD/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins even if you followed the correct steps to uninstall the app.


Is there a high-pass filter for videos in Adobe Premiere Pro?

The high pass plugin in Photoshop doesn't exist natively in After Effects or Premiere.  The Find Edges tool approximates the kind of effect you're after, but given that it's for a scientific assessment of something, probably won't work for you:

You could try something like the Unsharp Mask in After Effects or Premiere, and then apply it back to the original image using a Difference mode - gives this kind of effect:

If the high pass is what you need, I would export the video as an image sequence, then Automate a Batch in Photoshop to apply it (probably overnight).


You can encode to Theora video and Vorbis audio with ffmpeg if it has been compiled with --enable-libtheora and --enable-libvorbis. Depending on your ffmpeg version the default settings may not provide good enough quality. Therefore you must add some additional parameters to enable a constant quality type of mode for the video.

Theora video

Adjust video quality with the -qscale:v (or the alias -q:v) option. The valid range to set video quality with libtheora is -1 to 10. A higher value is a higher quality.

Note: More modern alternatives such as VP8 can provide better quality at lower bitrates. See the FFmpeg: VP8 in WebM Encoding Guide for more info.

Vorbis audio

Adjust audio quality with the -qscale:a (or the alias -q:a) option for VBR audio. The valid range to set audio quality with libvorbis is 0 to 10. A higher value is higher quality. See the Recommended Vorbis Encoder Settings to get an idea of what values to use. The default of -q:a 3 will be used if you omit -q:a or -b:a.

Note that ffmpeg supports two Vorbis encoders: the external library libtheora (-c:a libvorbis) and the native Vorbis encoder (-c:a vorbis -strict experimental). The native encoder is experimental, does not compare well to libvorbis, and usage is not recommended.

Example

The following command will create a good quality output for both video and audio:

ffmpeg -i input -c:v libtheora -c:a libvorbis -q:v 6 -q:a 5 output.ogg

Getting ffmpeg

Make sure to always use a recent ffmpeg build and refer to the current documentation specific to your build since options can change. See the FFmpeg download page for various ways to acquire ffmpeg or follow one of the FFmpeg compile guides.

Also see

FFmpeg documentation on libtheora
FFmpeg documentation on libvorbis


You should be able to use any software for video stabilization. With ffmpeg you can use either deshake, or vidstabdetect/vidstabtransform.

Depending on how shaky the original video is, you can get rid of the black distracting margins by zooming with the zoompan filter, or cropping with the crop filter. See the links for examples.

You'll probably have to experiment a bit to find out what works for your material. Use ffplay with the same syntax to see directly how the filters work.


If you haven't found it yet, the Puppet tool likely what you're looking for.  You will create specific anchor points and you can keyframe their motion.

There's several tutorials out there for the right way to use the tool, but the best advice I can offer is to just play with it till you get the desired effect.

Personally I put more points where I DONT want it to move and use fewer points where I do.    To practice just create a solid and drop points on it, then grab a point and start moving it around.   It will become clear.


How match this broadcast standards with Premiere and ffmpeg

To legalize video with the Video Limiter:

Set the Reduction Axis to Chroma and Luma.
Set the Signal Minimum to 0% (=0 mV).
Set the Signal Maximum to 103% (=700 mV + 3%).

The rest of the settings may take some experimentation to find something that looks good for your project.

I strongly recommend double checking you are within limits with a good gamut visualization. I'm partial to the Tektronix split diamond display, but other test equipment vendors have other good versions. If you are going to be delivering a lot of files, a file-based QC system will also be able to check for legal colors and some can even do the correction.

Something to take in to consideration, depending on the broadcaster you are delivering to, they may not enforce the gamut requirements all that strictly. I know that most in the US don't, unless you are severely and noticeably out of gamut.


using canon 5D markiii or Olympus OMD EM5 as computer video camera?

Neither of these cameras offers video out. They are still cameras that can take limited movies, that you can then download using the USB port for bulk transfer.
It's really worth reading the manuals for your cameras - if you don't have them with your camera, they are available for free online.


By which software/website this animated video was created?

As for video editing, this is pretty straightforward. The frame and the flowers are simply an image that has an alpha channel applied to it to make the contents of the frame opaque. The images in the frame are static (as in not animated) images with crossfade transition (as well as a static background image). You can do this with pretty much any video editing software.

As for the illustrations, I'm pretty sure they were created with Adobe Illustrator (or any other vector graphics software). While the editing for this video is super easy and can be done by anyone, I would recommend you hire a professional illustrator if you want to create something similar but don't have experience in that area (and don't want to have to rely on stock images/illustrations).


Mac Hardcode Subtitles from SRT to MP4 & adjust size and screen position

If you convert the .srt files to .ass, then you can have a lot more control over how the subtitles appear.

To convert use ffmpeg:

ffmpeg -i input.srt output.ass

This will give you an .ass subtitle file. You'll see in the header of that file that there will be details about font, size, placement colour and so on. Here's an example from Wikipedia:

  [V4+ Styles]
   Format: Name, Fontname, Fontsize, PrimaryColour, SecondaryColour, OutlineColour, BackColour, Bold, Italic, Underline, StrikeOut, ScaleX, ScaleY, Spacing, Angle, BorderStyle, Outline, Shadow, Alignment, MarginL, MarginR, MarginV, Encoding

  Style: Default,
  Arial,28,&H00B4FCFC,&H00B4FCFC,&H00000008,&H80000008,-1,0,0,0,100,100,0.00,0.00,1,1.00,2.00,2,30,30,30,0

The first line lists all the settings, and the second lists the values for each style.

You can edit the header by hand to get the size and placement you want, and then burn it in using ffmpeg again:

ffmpeg -i input.mov -vf ass="output.ass" output.mp4

You may want to add encoding settings etc, but that's basically it.


With a quick search I found this website, simulating a drive with google maps. When you have your maps simulation you should be able to easily match the speed with FCPX to the footage.


Mouse drag and drop / drag to select animation in after effects

Expressions are you friend. Honestly I don't understand how anyone use AE without using expressions. To make the size of a rectangle shape follow a mouse you could do this.

Parent the mouse and rectangle to a null, with the top left corner of the rectangle aligned with the null. On the size property alt/option-click the stopwatch to open the expressions editor.

Delete what's there, and drag the pickwhip (the blue curly thing) to select the position of the cursor layer.

the size property will now look like:

thisComp.layer("cursor").transform.position

(if your cursor layer is called "cursor"). Now when you move the cursor the rectangle will scale to match the movement. But there's a problem, it scales from the middle, so you can add an offset to its position to make sure it lines up correctly. This time we use a bit of maths as well. On the position property of the rectangle path (not the position property of the layer) alt/option-click the stopwatch and drag the pickwhip to the size property of the rectangle, and then divide that value by 2. It will look like:

content("Rectangle 1").content("Rectangle Path 1").size/2

Now your rectangle should resize as if it's beign dragged by the cursor. You might have to manually drag the layer to line up perfectly. You can use more javascript to make the layer start and stop following the mouse.

Go learn expressions. As a bonus (or perhaps as a negative) you get to learn javascript, a ubiquitous computer language.


It uses a lower data rate (within the TV, not for the actual signal) and is cheaper to produce.  That is all.  The only difference is that if you are going to view it on a 1080i display, then shooting in 1080i would look slightly smoother since half the information updates every half a frame rather than updating the whole thing at once, but 1080p is preferable pretty much hands down on a 1080p display.

Interlacing just means that the upper and then lower fields update alternately.  It's less difficult to fake interlacing than it is to deinterlace, but you still get some artifacts displaying a progressive scan image on an interlaced display because of how things update.


How to delete unused file parts that are not used in the FCPX timeline?

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

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

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

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

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


Extract all audio channels as separate wave file from a multichannel file

for me the -map_channel option did the trick:
get the file layout using ffprobe multichannelinputfile.mov
    ffprobe version 4.1 Copyright (c) 2007-2018 the FFmpeg developers
  built with Apple LLVM version 10.0.0 (clang-1000.11.45.5)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/4.1 --enable-shared --enable-pthreads --enable-version3 --enable-hardcoded-tables --enable-avresample --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags= --enable-ffplay --enable-gpl --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libsnappy --enable-libtheora --enable-libvorbis --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libxvid --enable-lzma --enable-opencl --enable-videotoolbox
  libavutil      56. 22.100 / 56. 22.100
  libavcodec     58. 35.100 / 58. 35.100
  libavformat    58. 20.100 / 58. 20.100
  libavdevice    58.  5.100 / 58.  5.100
  libavfilter     7. 40.101 /  7. 40.101
  libavresample   4.  0.  0 /  4.  0.  0
  libswscale      5.  3.100 /  5.  3.100
  libswresample   3.  3.100 /  3.  3.100
  libpostproc    55.  3.100 / 55.  3.100
[aac @ 0x7f903d01fa00] Assuming an incorrectly encoded 7.1 channel layout instead of a spec-compliant 7.1(wide) layout, use -strict 1 to decode according to the specification instead.
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'set1permeke.mov':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : qt
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: qt
    creation_time   : 2019-01-05T22:00:13.000000Z
    com.apple.quicktime.make: Apple
    com.apple.quicktime.model: MacBookPro15,1
    com.apple.quicktime.software: Mac OS X 10.13.6 (17G4015)
    com.apple.quicktime.creationdate: 2019-01-05T21:58:54+0100
  Duration: 00:57:02.28, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 23693 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (Main) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1920x1040 [SAR 1:1 DAR 24:13], 22756 kb/s, 60 fps, 60 tbr, 6k tbn, 12k tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2019-01-05T22:00:13.000000Z
      handler_name    : Core Media Video
      encoder         : H.264
    Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, 7.1, fltp, 928 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2019-01-05T22:00:13.000000Z
      handler_name    : Core Media Audio
[aac @ 0x7f903d019600] Assuming an incorrectly encoded 7.1 channel layout instead of a spec-compliant 7.1(wide) layout, use -strict 1 to decode according to the specification instead.`

I then mapped all the audio channels to seperate files for easier editing in my DAW
ffmpeg -i multichannelinputfile.mov -map_channel 0.1.0 ch0.wav -map_channel 0.1.1 ch1.wav -map_channel 0.1.2 ch2.wav -map_channel 0.1.3 ch3.wav and so on producing the asked for separate wav files


Because the workstations most likely don't have the same specs? From what I understand I assume that the other workspace runs slowly in preview or required you to pre-render the sequence in order to play it smoothly. In that case, check your ram, cpu and gpu and upgrade it accordingly. If that is not the problem at hand, please clarify what it is.


What would you recommend me to record videos while playing Xbox360

The hyperdeck shuttle is a small, lightweight and easy-to-use field recorder. The downside it just works with expensive SSD volumes.

A possible alternative could be the Atomos Ninja. - Pros: Runs with SSD, but also with cheap and capacious 2.5-inch-HDDs. Built-in Touch-LCD-screen. Double battery connectors. The drives and batteries are hot-swapable. Cons: It's weight and it's size.


Keyboard shortcut to extend clip duration (without changing speed) in order to fill gap for J-Cut in Premiere

Shift-Q does it - as per the following StackExchange answer which refers to images but this applies to videos too:

Shift-Q - extend previous edit to playhead


Copying timeline to new sequence lowers resolution

It appears that your pixel aspect ratio and interlace/progressive choices differ between the two sequences.  What you are seeing is a combination of the interlacing and the change in pixel aspect ratio (which results in the image having to be scaled to a new set of pixels that aren't exactly like the original.

For playback on a TV that supports interlaced video, you won't notice a whole lot of difference, but on a computer or progressive display, it will look funny.  For best quality, you will want to use a progressive, square pixel sequence if you are outputting to PC or to a progressive display (such as 1080P or 720P TV).

The bad news is that it doesn't appear there is a good way to make any changes to the sequence that you need to make while there is content in it, but if you make a new sequence, you can go to the settings tab and specify everything the way that you need them specified.


Is it possible to export a Video with transparent Background? (No Image Sequences!)

Production codecs with alpha channel support

Apple ProRes 4444 / Apple ProRes 4444 XQ

From the Manual:

  Apple ProRes 4444 and Apple ProRes 4444 XQ are ideal for the exchange of motion graphics media because they are virtually lossless. They are also the only Apple ProRes codecs that support alpha channels.

DNxHD

From Wikipedia:

  lossy high-definition video post-production codec engineered for multi-generation compositing with reduced storage and bandwidth requirements

  The codec supports alpha channel information.

DNxHR

From Wikipedia:

  lossy UHDTV post-production codec engineered for multi-generation compositing with reduced storage and bandwidth requirements

CineForm

From Wikipedia

  Current implementations support image formatting for 10-bit 4:2:2 YUV, 12-bit 4:4:4 RGB and RGBA, and 12-bit CFA Bayer filter RAW compression

Uncompressed with alpha

Quicktime Animation Codec
AVI uncompressed (None)

From the After Effects Manual:

  When specifying the color depth for an output image, the plus sign (as in Millions Of Colors+) denotes an alpha channel. Similarly, choosing to output to 32 bits per pixel implies an output depth of 8 bits per channel for each of four channels: RGBA.


HLS.js player dropping frames at discontinuities in HLS stream

Looks like this might be a bug in HLS.js:
https://github.com/video-dev/hls.js/issues/2873
Hopefully this is rectified in a subsequent version.
UPDATE:
This hls.js bug has been fixed in release 0.14.1:
https://github.com/video-dev/hls.js/releases/tag/v0.14.1


Is it possible to use ffmpeg to move part of the video to another position and crop the video at the same time?

Basic syntax is

ffmpeg -i in -vf "split=2[pip][full];[pip]crop=W:H:X:Y[pip];[full][pip]overlay=W-w:H-h,crop=iw-M:ih:M:0" -c:a copy out

where W,H,X,Y are as per your diagram. M is the margin from the left edge which needs to be cropped out. Select M so that iw-M results in an even number.


Adobe Premiere Elements 11 Crash Issues (Adobe Premiere Elements has stopped working)

Solved! I'm just answering this question in case someone has the same issue...

Short Story:

Update your graphics card drivers. (All of them!)
If you have more than 1 card be sure the stronger one handles adobe premiere.

Long Story:

My laptop has 2 graphic cards

Intel HD Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M

First I updated the driver of Intel HD graphics by uninstalling it from Device Manager (which is a bad idea as the screen disappears any way) then restarted my computer. Than Windows found the driver, installed it Restart number 2.

Now I tried Elements, great it worked! But... consuming 7.5 GB of RAM!!! (Virtual and Physical combined)

This time I don't know why, I just had to try it, I updated my NVIDIA driver (which had 2 updates) and from NVIDIA console I marked Adobe Premiere Elements.exe to use the NVIDIA graphics card.

Than I tried it and Elements worked perfectly...


How To Create A Video In Video (Picture in Picture) In DaVinci Resolve

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


Just -c on its own will set the encoder for all types of streams: video, audio..etc. libopus can't encode video, obviously. You need to attach a stream specifier to limit it to audio, so

ffmpeg -i abc.mkv -map 0:v -c copy -map 0:a -c:a libopus -b:a 128k xyz.mkv

See the section on stream specifiers and also this answer on how multiple codec settings in a command works.


What would be a good video editing computer?

Yes, it's powerful enough, even to edit features ... as long as:

you use low-resolution proxies (copies) for long projects.
you edit from an external drive with USB3 or better and not from your computer's HDD (avoid stuffing your HDD with large data files anyway).


Trying to figure out why my systems render times are so different

System 2 is using GPU acceleration, System 1 is using CPU rendering.  GPUs, especially Quadros run many rendering tasks FAR more efficiently than a general purpose CPU.  It could easily explain the difference of 83% CPU utilization and 40 minutes of render time.

Note that while your system is showing only 14% CPU utilization in the screen shots, that is 100% of a single threaded process.  If the calculation isn't broken in to multiple threads, then it has to process on one core of the processor, which appears to be what is happening here.  That one core is completely maxed out.

I see you have CUDA selected as the renderer in the second screen shot, however it is not being used based on the GPU usage information.  This is probably related to a driver issue preventing Media Encoder from being able to utilize the GPU hardware.  Try updating your graphics drivers and verify that your graphics card appears on the list of supported graphics cards for CUDA support.


Premiere Pro does not currently read audio timecode, I wish it did as it would solve a lot of problems.   There are a couple options but either mean longer work flow and or costs money depending on your situation.

If you have Tentacle Sync hardware, you get a license for Tentacle Sync Studio for Mac or Tentacle Timecode Tool for PC which can overwrite your file embedding the audio timecode as file timecode.

Another paid software is LTC Convert from VideoToolShed. It does a much better job of converting timecode than the Tentacle Timecode Tool can do for PC (TTC tool will not covert 10-bit footage) using ALL-I codec on GH5 and the codec used for 10-bit on the Sony FS7 (and possibly the FS9).

The last option and this one is free, but means more workflow, Davinci Resolve (free version) will allow you to convert your audio timecode and then re-export the footage to use in Premiere Pro.

Me personally, I am going to spend the 135euros for LTC convert for the next big project I need to shoot. The demo version is free and you can convert one file at a time using the demo version.

Maybe someday, Adobe will get with the real world and be able to read audio timecode.


Is converting DVD to a format to play on a tablet legal (in the UK)

Please note this is UK legislation
After some research I found the following in a Government consultation paper:
From MODERNISING COPYRIGHT: A modern, robust and flexible framework
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/response-2011-copyright-final.pdf

There is a clear mismatch between what is permitted by law and the type of private copying that most people think is reasonable. The current law imposes unreasonable restrictions on consumers and may restrict the range of products and services available to them by limiting opportunities for technological innovation. In response to this, the Government will introduce a narrow technology-neutral private copying exception which applies equally to all types of private storage and all types of copyright works. It will allow a lawful owner or buyer of a copy of a work to reproduce that copy for their personal use, but would not permit them to share copies with other people.
This exception would therefore permit someone to copy music from a CD they have bought onto their mobile phone, or to back up an eBook onto their computer hard disk or other private storage, whether held locally or remotely. It would be allowed regardless of contract terms to the contrary. However, it would not allow someone to give copies they have made to friends, family or the wider public, nor would it permit copying of rented, borrowed or streamed content.

And

A permitted act that only allows copies to be made by and for a person who lawfully owns[41] an original copy will remove restrictions on the use of copyright materials that most people consider to be unreasonable and unnecessary, while drawing a clear line between acceptable personal copying and unacceptable sharing of copies. Consumers appear to recognise that sharing copies can harm creators and the Government does not want to dilute this message. Rights holders will therefore still be able to offer family copying and other licences that add value over pure private copying by individuals. They will also remain able to use technological protection measures (TPM) to restrict copying of works as and when they wish to do so.

[41] - This would include downloaded digital content that has been purchased to keep (or licensed in an analogous way) such as eBooks or film downloads, but not rented or streamed materials.
So, as I read it, you can make copies of CDs, eBooks, DVDs/BluRay if and only of they have no TPM on them.

CDs don't have TPM so copying (format shifting) is legal.
eBooks have TPM so copying is illegal.
DVDs/BluRay have TPM so copying is illegal.

But, it's the act of 'breaking' the TPM which is illegal. not the actual copying as long as the copy is for another device (format shifting) or for an archive/backup copy (whether on a local hard disc or a remote storage facility (the cloud)).
So, clear as mud really !


What is the best way to export a Motion movie to Youtube?

my 30-min video exports to

This sounds to me that you are not paying any attention to what settings you are using.
What program, what container, what codec, what settings?
On whatever program you are using If possible export to MP4, h.264, AAC.
As you already have rendered the file (assuming it took a long time to render, let's say if it was exported with special effects) another option is to recompress it.
If you are on Windows, you can try VirtualDub2 with the same settings.
You can also use FFmpeg. There are several users that know how to use it well. I'm not one of them :o)
The problem with this second option is that this will be recompressed more times. The initial, this recompression, and probably a third one by YouTube.


How to make ffmpeg to generate NUMBER_OF_BYTES tag for every stream in file output?

FFmpeg can't do this. These tags are not part of the Matroska specification; they are idiosyncratic to mkvtoolnix (7.0+).


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

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

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


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


If your source footage is interlaced, deinterlace it.  If your progressive frame rate is a constant 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, or 30 fps, then keep the frame rate as it is, unless you require a very low bitrate and want to halve the frame rate.  These are all widely supported frame rates, although other arbitrary frame rates below 30 fps will often work as well.  Many popular devices only claim to support up to 30 fps.  If your source footage has a higher frame rate or you have a variable frame rate, consider converting it to one of these constant frame rates for wider compatibility.  Don't bother if you are submitting to YouTube as they will accept a wide range of frame rates and will re-encode the video for you at various quality levels.

If you are shooting all new footage specifically for the Internet, which will not be combined with existing footage, and you have your choice of frame rate, 30 fps (progressive) is a good and popular choice.  If you will not have any fast motion and want that cinematic look, you may prefer 24 fps.


I can't answer your question about the lenses, but any good editing software should let you apply a fisheye effect after the fact. Just find the effects menu in whatever software you are using, and such an effect should be in there. For example, if you are using Final Cut Pro, the effects menu should be in the top right hand corner (here's the Apple help page about adding effect in Final Cut).


Motion Tracking in After Effects looks like it is vibrating

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


Similar to "levels adjustment" brightness improvement with ffmpeg

You could possibly use the curves filter. It has a lighter preset:

ffmpeg -i input -vf curves=preset=lighter -c:a copy output

The red, green, and blue components can be adjusted separately. The following is the same as what the lighter preset uses:

curves=r='0.4/0.5':g='0.4/0.5':b='0.4/0.5'

Additionally you can make your own curves preset in Photoshop, export it as an .acv file, and then the curves filter can utilize it:

curves=psfile=/path/to/ps_curves_file.acv


Final Cut Pro 7: Zoom without using “scale”

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

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

Good luck!


How to add "two" transitions between clips in Premiere?

I am unclear on what you are asking. So you have 2 clips on your timeline and you want to have clip 1 dissolve but only halfway? That's your opacity. So just click on your clip in the timeline (next to the clip name I believe there's a twirly) and you should be able to select motion, or opacity. Click opacity. Then adjust it with keyframes.

Then go to your second clip and start your first keyframe at 50% and then further along the timeline take it back to 100% with another keyframe?

I hope that helps.


Is it possible to use DaVinci Resolve without any GPU AT ALL?

Even if you could tweak, say, your machine's BIOS or even Resolve's own settings to somehow not use any GPU at all, I really don't recommend doing it. Resolve is built around GPU power to render stuff.


Equipment for video recording in a florescent lighted classroom

I have done this with cheap camcorders and they work great! Currently, I use a Sony camcorder, and a Panasonic, and the only major difference is the brightness of the screen, which only bothers me outside in full sun. However, you are not going to be happy with footage of a presentation screen. There will be moire effects and other problems, and you are way better off getting a digital copy of the presentation PowerPoint or photos or whatever they are using, then editing those originals into your video.

In my experience doing this though, many speakers are incredibly boring to watch, and audio of what was said is way more important than video of the talking head. Your video cameras won't capture production-quality audio, but you can capture that separately by patching into the PA system. You'll obviously need to coordinate with the sound guy for that. They may be able to just give a recording, or you might need to bring your own equipment. ASK first, because some sound guys really don't like you messing with their equipment, and some are happy to hand you a patch cable.

Also, sounds like you're planning to do this for a conference? Many conferences already do very good quality recordings. Unless you're the guy doing that, you might ask about that - I prefer not to make videos when I can buy them :)

I am reluctant to suggest specific equipment because it will be out of date as soon as I submit my answer. I can confirm that many cheap camcorders do fine with business presentations, but I'm reluctant to suggest any specific models. Just look for the removable memory and batteries feature and get whatever seems like a good deal. Sony and Panasonic both have excellent imaging quality, but I prefer the Sony (it is one year newer which is probably the only difference).

Here's two pretty lousy examples:

             - A presentation about 2.4GHz radio control systems.

             - John Penny speaks about piloting the Rare Bear Reno Racer plane.

This is what you can acheive with cheap camcorders and no setup at all. If you have time to do setup, you could improve on this, but as you can see, video of the screen and the speaker aren't going to work together. I have also done video recording at a conference, but those are private. It came out better because I only recorded the speaker, and I had access to all the PowerPoint slides, which we edited into the video later at full quality. If you plan to do that, get a really smooth tripod and follow the speaker, or ask them to stay within your frame. Some speakers are really animated and they cover the entire front of the room walking around. That's going to be a problem for fixed shots. Tape on the ground can help the speakers stay in frame.


I think you want this to be done automatically. But f course you could create 1000 text overlays, each one showing a particular altitude, and place the correct overlay at the correct point in the timeline for the correct duration (1/4 second). That would be a terribly tedious job!


Are there any mathematical advantages for higher sampling rates?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


Does Youtube accept 10bit uploads? If so, what codec should I use?

Youtube converts files in two main containers, flv and MPEG-4 AVC (or h.264). For everything below 720p, youtube usually switches to flv, for everything above it uses h.264.

Your file will get compressed by youtube's own bitrate indeed, but upping the bitrate in the encoder will still give you vast improvements in image-quality.
You need to keep in mind that the file will get compressed about three times in your case. When the camera records the image, it compresses it according to the filetype and codec it is set to. Then, after editing, the file will get rendered and compressed furthermore. And at last, youtube will also convert and compress your file.

So, to minimize loss of quality, it's worth considering upping your bitrate of the encoder you use (Adobe Media Encoder, Premiere, After Effects, etc.), since this is the only thing you could change as of now. A bitrate of 25-30 should be what you want. If file-size is not to be considered, I would even recommend pumping it up to about 50. Also, make sure to tick the "use maximum render-quality" when you're using adobe's encoders.

The only limit youtube has for uploading is 124gb file-size if I remember correctly. It's a value videos should never reach tho.


How to configure OBS studio to have only one recording window?

When you open up the properties of the screen-capture, you should be able to select the screen you're trying to record. If else, please post a screenshot of it.


Favoriting/Subclipping with Long Clips in Timeline in FCPX

Your event browser needs to be in filmstrip view for this to work. Press [⌥⌘1]  Then you can Zoom in [⌘+] or out [⌘-] to whatever granularity you like.


Can two GoPro Hero3 cameras be made to capture the same frame from the same spot?

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

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

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

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


The kind of ones we find on youtube

Well, youtube is a pretty big place, so you can find a lot of different animations, with different levels of complexity... really different levels in complexity.

Even the two online tools you posted are quite different. One is for 2d animations, and the other is more like a video editor. But the most important thing is that those tools have assets, one has animated toons, the other has a library of video clips.

This means that if you use another tool, which I will put a link to, you need to either create your own assets or get them from somewhere else. Video Clips, Music, still photos, cartoons, or even animated cartoons.

Sayed that, two great and free tools are:

HitFilm Express which is a video editor and a compositor (the compositor is the tool to make basic animations)

And NHC Express animate.

Here is a link to the graphic design forum post I made some days ago, explaining a bit more about them:

https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/136912/free-and-easy-to-use-tool-for-easy-2d-animations/136917#136917

But you can not go as blindly as I feel you are going. You need to define what you really need. Video editing, 2D animation, a slideshow converted into a video...


How to double video frames without any duplicate frames

Use

ffmpeg -i in.avi -r 50 -filter:v "setpts=0.5*PTS" out.avi

or

ffmpeg -i in.avi -r 50 -filter:v "setpts=N/50/TB" out.avi

If you want to interpolate new frames, use

ffmpeg -i in.avi -r 50 -filter:v "yadif,framerate=50" out.avi

yadif is a deinterlacing filter, which is needed since the framerate filter does not operate on interlaced media.


Is there a way to record my handwriting and/or drawing as a transparent video in motion?

I found a solution, beit a bit ineligant. I screen-record myself drawing in white on a green background using Adobe Sketch. Then use Filmaker Pro’s green screen feature to put in a different background.

Still let me know if you guys have any other ideas.


Resynchronizing audio in a variable framerate video with missing timing data

No matter how you slice it, this sounds like it's going to be painful if not impossible, mostly because you say the rate changes dynamically. My best suggestion would be to use a software like Adobe Premiere Pro and its "rate stretch" tool to manually adjust individual segments. I'm not aware of any software that can do that sort of thing automatically, mostly because you don't have another (non-corrupted) audio track to compare against. If you did (like, if you had also been recording on an external recorder), you could use Adobe Audition to sync them.

Syncing two audio tracks of varying rates isn't too terribly hard, but syncing a video and audio track of different rates could prove very challenging.


Try applying a de-interlace and make sure that the preview window is at full quality.  If you play back interlaced footage as progressive without deinterlacing, then every other frame only has half the normal information which would look pretty bad.  You should be able to adjust it under Interpret Footage from the footage properties.


Batch video editing software that can trim without re-encoding

If you can script yourself, all you need to do is call FFmpeg repeatedly:

ffmpeg -ss [start-time] -i input.mp4 -c copy -t [clip-time] output.mp4

Here, start and clip times can be in the form HH:MM:SS.mmmm, or just in seconds.

To give you a rough idea how that'd look like in Ruby, see this Gist of mine. It contains a script that takes an edit list, a folder of videos, and cuts them accordingly. I've used it very often for cutting videos based on an input edit list.

The edit list would look like that, with the timestamps in the proper FFmpeg format (e.g. 00:00:24.240) and the difference passed to -t in the last column.

Note that you can't expect it to work with any input/output without synchronization issues. If that's the case, you need to re-encode video and audio parts. I wouldn't use that script of mine though as it's not very … eloquent in that regard. Rather cut your video in a NLE.


what hardware can I use to connect a Laserdisc player to my laptop?

The best quality output that your LaserDisc player has is S-Video, so you will want to get a capture device that supports S-Video input.

Your laptop has three inputs that could be used.  You have 4 pin firewire, ExpressCard34 and USB2.0.  The USB solutions are the cheapest, but also generally the lowest quality.  Either a firewire based external adapter or an ExpressCard34 internal adapter should work about equally well depending on build quality.  The data rates supported are much higher and the quality should be superior, but it's also going to cost more as that moves more into prosumer and professional territory.

Unfortunately, I can't tell you much in terms of capture devices.  Most of the tech has moved on to being HD focused at this point and finding products that are still made to capture high quality SD video seems to be trickier now than it used to be.


Panasonic DMC Gf6 w/HDMI output: can I connect directly to Mac Mini w/o converter?

Mac Mini does not have HDMI input.

GF6 has no video output through USB.


I think this is probably less of a question for video production people as much as it is for Geographic Information Systems (GIS) people.

GIS Forum on Stack Exchange

While you might be able to find an After Effects (AE) wizard who knows some scripting tricks to make this happen, my guess is more folks over in a GIS forum know how to do this in something like ArcGIS.

Additionally, laying out a million records is going to be an awful lot to ask of a program like AE or Motion, while that amount of detail is pretty much what ArcGIS exists to deal with.

My guess is if this is a one-shot project, you could probably hire some college student to turn it around for you.  If it's going to be something on-going and constantly updated for your web site with a million plus data points, that might be also do-able, but a much bigger programming issue.


Loss of quality while adding subtitle via FFmpeg

As you are hardcoding subtitles, the video (with the subtitles added) will be re-encoded.

You can use the CRF rate control method to modulate the quality of the output.

So, start with

ffmpeg -i grdedFinal.mov -vf subtitles=portSbs.srt -crf 18 -c:a copy gradedFinalwithSubs.mov

If the quality's not acceptable, lower that value till it is - in exchange for a larger file. Of course, don't decide based on file size but on visual quality. x264 is very good at compressing video while maintaining subjectively perceived quality.


Is possible to use this "map" as a mask? (After Effects)

Create an adjustment layer above the base image and apply one of the effects to it (you will have to do this whole process several times with one effect per adjustment layer).
Add the colour mask layer above the adjustment layer and use a key effect (Effects>Keying>whatever…) to make the relevant colour for the effect transparent.
Set the track matte for the adjustment layer to "Alpha Inverted Matte the colour mask layer".

Using an alpha inverted track matte will make the adjustment layer opaque only where the Alpha Matte is transparent, so the effect will only be visible in the areas defined by the relevant colour. Note that when you apply the track matte the layer that is acting as a matte is made invisible (eye icon switched off).


Different luminosity between preview and render on Sony Vegas 13

I believe I have a solution. Render the video, put it into Vegas again and apply "Sony Levels" with "Computer RGB to Studio RGB". Worked for me.