How can I create the blurring effect in a video like this?

There are no filters applied there.  It's pretty much basic shots, probably from a DSLR based on the feel of the video.  The shots with the one guy were shot with things overexposed and then they upped the contrast to try and do recovery, but it results in large overblown highlights where there was too much light to fit in the dynamic range (the amount of variation between brightest and darkest spot) that the camera could capture.  It otherwise all looks like standard footage though, nothing special done other than basic color grading.

Note that if you are talking about the shifting blur effect, that's called rack focus and is so apparent because of the use of a fast lens with a short depth of field.  It looks remarkably similar to footage I get with my 5D Mark iii and 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens.

Rack Focus can either be from out of focus completely to focus on a particular subject or from one subject to another. It generally uses a narrow depth of field and a follow focus may be used to help reach the focus points exactly and in a controlled manner.

The technique is often used either to introduce a subject from a dream or stunned like state (for example, if someone is waking up or in an accident, their pov might start out with a rack focus from being completely out of focus). It is also very frequently used to shift the viewer's focus from one subject to another in a dramatic way. In the more artistic sense, it can also be used to simply explore the depth of the scene by moving the viewer through the space.


Here is the link to the White Paper on the codec.

AVID DNxHR CODECS

You can download the codecs for Quicktime here:

http://avid.force.com/pkb/articles/en_US/download/Avid-QuickTime-Codecs-LE


There is no problem with having installed both 32- and 64-bit version of AviSynth on your 64-bit machine, if you correctly placed 32-bit plugins vs. 64-bit ones to their appropriate places.

AviSynth is a frame server, it means, you never call it directly - other program call it back. It means that for example

64-bit Media Player Classic will call the 64-bit version of AviSynth,
32-bit Media Player Classic will call the 32-bit version of AviSynth.

Similarly

64-bit FFmpeg will call the 64-bit version of AviSynth,
32-bit FFmpeg will call the 32-bit version of AviSynth.

I guess that your problem lies in your FFmpeg installation — you have probably 64-bit, and it means that in the process of converting your .avs script to some media file the FFmpeg calls 64-bit version of AviSynth, and you need the 32-bit (because of your 32-bit filter).

So my advice is, install both 32- and 64-bit versions of FFmpeg (into different directories) and use the appropriate one for every particular case.


Text Animations - Range Selector Not Moving - After Effects

Have you adjusted the Transform Position, to make the letters move downwards? The Range Selector only tells AE which letters you want to affect. The transform position tells it how far and which way you want the lettters to move.


Try this and see for yourself if the performance and quality are sufficient for your undertaking:

ffmpeg -i "00020.MTS" -map 0 -c:v libx264 "00020.mp4"


After Effects: How to create a sliding waveform

Simple. Get the waveform of your audio file (You could screenshot the audio file in a sound editor to do this).
Animate it moving sideways.

Less simple: Bring the audio into your comp. Right click the audio layer and chose Animation Assistant>Convert audio to keyframes

Now use the keyframes to drive the scale, rotation, position etc of some elements of your comp. E.G. you could add a solid and apply this to the scale property:

[value[0], value[1]*thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider")]

That will multiply the vertical scale of the solid by the amplitude of the audio (both channels).

If you make an array of layers like the one above you can offset the time at which they read the audio level. You can use the valueAtTime() function to use each solid layer's index (the layer number) to add a two frame delay to each successive layer like this (two or more frames looks better than one frame, because a one-frame delay makes it look like you used method 1):

[value[0], value[1]*thisComp.layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider").valueAtTime(time + index*thisComp.frameDuration)]

  Pro tip: easily make a horizontal array of your solid layers by using this on the position property:
  [index*width*1.2 - width/2, thisComp.height/2]
  that will line up the layers horizontally with a small gap between each one. Remove the *1.2 bit to align them next to each other. Apply that expression to one layer and just keep duplicating till you've filled your screen.

Here's an example which I've pre-comped with an adjustment layer over the top to give graduated colour to the bars:

also, turn on motion blur, it'll look a lot betterer.


How to select multiple keyframes in Premiere?

You can do it in the Effects Control window:

Even if keyframes were added on the timeline, it will work.

Good luck!


Is This Pin-Out for S-Video or Composite Video?

I don't recognize this connector, but I can say that your assumption is incorrect. Video+/- isn't "two cables", it's just a way of notating the two wires (like say, signal and ground) needed for a complete circuit. The same is true for the AUX and RS485 circuits.


Does my Macbook display port support video input?

No, the display port on your macbook pro is output only.

You may be able to use your camcorder as a webcam if it is capable of streaming video over USB or Firewire, though.


Is the difference between full- and crop-frame DSLR footage noticeable and disrupting?

There are several sources of difference, but you should be able to handle them all with some work.  The first difference will be depth of field.  A full frame camera has a shallower depth of field at a given angle of view because it can achieve the same angle of view with a longer lens.  You can compensate for this by using a smaller aperture (higher f/value) for the full frame camera to make the full frame field of view wider, or you can simply ignore it as differences in depth of field between shots won't be that noticeable.

The next major issue will be color reproduction.  Different camera models will likely have a different feel in terms of their white balance.  If they are both balanced to the same grey target, it probably won't be that far off, but there will be some differences in shadow detail and the like, so you may need to do color grading of the footage to match the color of the footage.  This is typical anyway as color grading should be done to achieve the final look you want for the color.

Finally, you will need to be mindful of the crop factor of the APS-c camera which will result in a smaller field of view for similar lenses.  You will also want to consider the relative quality level of the lenses being used on each camera.  These may have a noticeable impact on the overall quality of the final video as well.

So, overall, there shouldn't be any issues that can't be adjusted for, but be aware of what you are doing and be prepared to make some basic corrections in post to adjust the footage to look similar.  You also want to make sure you use similar export frame rates and compression options so as to ensure similar file quality.  It is worth noting that most of these distinctions apply for any two different cameras though, not specifically crop vs ff.


Premiere CC 2015 and DVD conversion audio sync issue

Make sure your video has the same fps as the original video, usually it's 25/29fps. It could also be the format that you're exporting it to.


Is there a mathematical equation to compute the bitrate of a Cisco H.264 stream?

No, because it's content dependent. Video with high motion contains more information than a nearly still scene does. Hence it takes more bits to encode.


What are supported stream formats for h.265

That command isn't well-formed. First, you specify copy, then specify a raw HEVC format with HEVC encoding and then RTSP as an output format.

Try

ffmpeg -f image2pipe -vcodec mjpeg -i - -vcodec libx265 -f rtsp rtsp://10.31.5.126:1935/app2/myStream


Creating a video from a text and an audio file

The Amara website offers a free service that accepts audio and text files, synchronizes them, and lets you download a .srt file (synchronized SubTitle). Source of suggestion: Photography TutsPlus.
YouTube also accepts text files without time coding as SubTitle files and then you can enable auto-sync, you ought to be able to download a .srt file after processing is completed (not tested by me).

To do it manually (with some automation) try the following.
If you convert the text file to a .ass or .srt file then you can use the following commands:

ffmpeg.exe -i subtitles.srt subtitles.ass
ffmpeg.exe -i video.mp4 -vf ass=subtitles.ass video-new.mp4

That will show the words hardsubbed on the video synchronized with the audio. The video can be a moving image (video) or a static image.
Using a .ass editor allows more control over color and other font features than using .srt files.
Without using a SubTitle Format file you won't get synchronized text.
You can add the audio to a video and upload it to YouTube, then wait 15 minutes, after which YouTube will have used audio recognition to convert the audio to subtitles (with better than 80% accuracy). Then you can download the .srt file from the Video Manager and edit the SubTitle file by comparing it to your (presumably accurate) text file.
If you were hoping for a program that automatically syncs raw text files with audio and makes a video I have found nothing by Googling (outside of pay services).
There are a few questions over at SO, but they remain unanswered.
I will do some more searching and improve this answer in a few hours.
Not a one-mouseclick solution but it's about as automated as I can suggest, for free (other than Amara).
[I welcome Mulvya to edit and improve this answer.]


Best Program for combining Images and Videos onto a DVD with menu

Adobe Encore can do what you are looking for.  It is included with Adobe Premiere.  You can either buy a copy of CS6 or if you only need it for the one project, you can use Creative Cloud to obtain it for just a month or two.

In general, you will find most DVD authoring software comes in fairly expensive packages.  It's not as easy as you would think to do and not a lot of software does it.  The options now are cheap in comparison to how much it used to cost.  When I first did DVD authoring, it cost $2500 to get DVD authoring software that crashed every 15 minutes or so.


Very Good Free Lossless/Lossy Video Encoding For Editing on Windows 7 (regarding fraps recordings)

You want to use VirtualDub to convert your FRAPS files. Just drag the clip into the window, select video from the top menu -> compression. Change the codec to Avid AVI Codec 2.0d2 and then configure it to your desired resolution. BAM! The outputted files should work.

You can also try MediaCoder and XVid


Help Me To Translate This After Effects Expression!

Translate this:

wiggle(effect("Ondulación - posición")("Velocidad ondulación (ond/seg)"), effect("Ondulación - posición")("Cantidad ondulación (píxeles)")

My best try:
Given wiggle/effect is English
wiggle(effect("wave - position")("wave speed{velocity})(wave/seconds{seg=segundos})"),effect("{..repeated...}")("wave amount/size ({in} pixels)")
{} my comment
Where/what do you get this?


Adobe Media Encoder CC - No output sound

Often by default the Audio Output checkbox is not checked in After Effects.  When you go to add the composition to the render queue, make sure Audio Output is checked.


Canon XF100 live stream -- additional hardware needed

You need a capture card.  If you have either USB3 or Thunderbolt, then you can use something like the Black Magic Intensity or Matrox MXO2.  You could also consider a stand alone device that is capable of handling the streaming for you directly, such as the Matrox Monarch or similar devices that don't have to rely on the computer's processing to send the stream.


Why can't add I Motion Graphics Templates to Premiere Pro 2020 Timeline

I don't work with MOGRT too much but I assume this is similar to working with AEP comps that you live-edit within Premiere.
Try either dropping into the project first, then into timeline.
Try rolling back to last 'main' version of both AE and PP - so still using 2020 but e.g from 14.5 to 14.0 - often issues appear with PP/AE mismatch during small updates and dynamiclink can be unpredictable.
Hope this helps


Focus is focus is focus, whether for still or video.  But the story does not end there.  Focal length, aperture, sensor size, circle of confusion, etc., all play a role in determining whether you perceive something to be in focus or not.  Here's a link to the math.

The long and short of it is that quite often a camera that shoots both stills and video will use a larger sensor area for stills and a smaller subset of the sensor for video.  Those math equations will tell you that smaller sensors have more things in focus than larger sensors.  A 35mm full-frame camera has a 42mm image circle, which is huge next to the 6mm image circle of a typical prosumer camera, which is in turn larger than the image circle of the typical smartphone.

On top of that, yes, smartphones also dynamically focus the image, both for still and video images.  You probably don't see the refocusing happening in video because the depth of field is already so deep, but it happens.

There are video cameras that have sensors as large as full-frame still cameras; they are just as difficult to focus as a still camera, and have just as shallow a depth of field for the same image size, focal length, aperture, and circle of confusion.


FFMpeg might do what you need. It's pretty powerful commandline tool to convert video formats, sizes, etc.

Here is a clear and simple tutorial for installing FFMpeg and using basic functions

Here is a specific SuperUser thread about using it to cut small clips from a larger clip.

  So is their any video player or software by which i can crop/split
  video online so it don't affect my server space.

There are a couple of "online editors" such as WeView, I haven't used them.

FFMpeg can read files from a stream or ftp, see the documentation: https://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-protocols.html#ftp

But if I understand you correctly, you want the software to cut the clips and convert them totally on server. I do not think that is possible with normal protcols. FFMpeg may be able to download and cut the file in one script. But I suggest posing that as a separate question if you decide to use it.


How to get the highest possible quality out of a MP4 file

If the pixelation wasn't in the sources you had, then it was probably introduced by the video encoder you used to export.  (Presumably Apple's h.264 encoder, creating a .mov with an h.264 video stream, as opposed to one of the many other video codecs that the mov container can hold.)

Video encoding always trades off CPU time vs. bitrate vs. quality.  Using more CPU time can get better quality at the same file size.  Different encoders (x264 vs. mainconcept vs. apple vs. IDK what else) will have worse or better achievable tradeoffs.  x264 is the best H.264 encoder for pretty much everything, esp. if you care most about final quality per file size.  It's free and open source, so there's no reason not to use it.

Look for a slider to turn up the CPU usage and/or bitrate until the resulting encode is high enough quality.  I'm not going to go into any more detail, just google for video encoding guides to find out more.

edit: As stib points out, you might well be in a situation where your output file is going to be transcoded before broadcast, in which case you should just turn up the bitrate as high as is reasonable, to minimize generation loss.  Prores has no advantage over h.264 for this purpose, though.  Your file will be decoded once, at full rez, in order.  Prores is intra-only, and can decode faster at reduced rez, but gives up quality per bitrate in order to gain those features.  h.264 and prores both support bit depths higher than 8bit per component (subject to encoder/decoder support), which may be relevant if the TV station that will broadcast it wants to mess with the colors during transcode.  If they won't, then the small compression advantage of 10bit h.264 is of low value, given how much slower x264 is when encoding at higher than 8bit.

prores is (slightly) lossy, but as far as I know, h.264 at the same very high bitrate will be even less lossy.  You can even use x264 to produce lossless h.264, if the people you're sending it to can decode it.

If you were sending it to people that were going to do something and save that as prores themselves, then using prores yourself might make sense.  I think I read that prores is designed to stop losing quality for multiple generations of transcoding.

If you're going to permanently archive the output file, spending some more CPU time (and using x264) to get good quality per bitrate might still be useful.  But if you're instead archiving the FCP project and sources, then that doesn't matter.

end of edit

If you don't want to set up x264 for Final Cut Pro, or export lossless and feed that to x264, then similar controls for the h.264 encoder that comes with FCP probably exist.  I don't use FCP, but this is really a video-encode-quality question, so I'm answering anyway.  An answer from a FCP user would probably still be useful.

BTW, one case where x264 isn't the best choice is encoding a movie for your mobile device or something where you're only going to watch it once, and large filesize doesn't matter.  Then a GPU encoder like Intel quicksync can throw enough bitrate at the video for it to look good enough on a tablet or phone, but be smaller than the dvd or blu-ray source.

If you're doing "encode once -> watch many", like for broadcast, it makes sense to use as much CPU time as you can, to get the best quality for your target filesize (2pass mode).  Or to get the smallest filesize for your target quality (CRF mode).


After some serious Google time I found a solution.

Here is the link, but just in case is gets removed this is what they said to do.

You want to use a track matte.

Create a mask on a solid layer that lies on top of the layer you want to cut out. Then click on the TrkMatte dropdown menu on your footage layer, select Alpha Matte.

Here's the layer order for you:

Masked solid
Your footage / image - Apply Track matte and apply Alpha Matte
Background (if used)

Now you can move your footage layer around and the mask won't move.

This worked like a charm.

If anyone has any better solutions, please let me know.


What are some ways to simulate an explosion?

If you're looking for a fireball explosion, you could download a visual effect of an explosion that's already green screened for you, and just composite that on top of your footage. (That could also be "borrowed" from an existing film and each frame masked by hand. But you didn't hear it from me.)

The building and anything nearby will need to be lit up temporarily by the brightness of the explosion, especially since the front of the building will be in shadow (with the sun behind the building, as you described in the comments to your answer).  I would recommend doing that as a practical effect with actual lights covered by actual orange gels at the actual location.

To help sell the effect, there should also be a blast wave (wind) that blows trees, bushes, people's clothing & hair, nearby litter, etc.  You might show that with insert shots. The camera could also shake for an instant (even in post production) to show that the impact of the explosion even affected the camera.

I'd also include some bits of debris landing near the camera or in the scene to underscore that the explosion is happening in the same environment as the camera (and possibly characters).

For the explosion noise, lots of sound libraries have explosions and destruction sounds you can layer together. I like using a clean, fiery "boom" along with breaking glass and splintering wood, followed by staccato showering debris.


Very Shaky camera but a constant background

While it's fairly easy for it to figure out the camera position from the shot, it is not nearly as easy for it to identify subjects cleanly.  In order to do what you are talking about, the subject would have to be identified and extracted from the background without any extra bits coming along.

Computer vision algorithms simply aren't that advanced yet and such work is always either done by rotoscoping (manually outlining the subject on each frame) or using a chroma or luma key backdrop that can be removed.  Stabilization works by identifying straight lines and tracking them generally.  The border fill in motion warp then works by attempting something similar to what you are talking about by looking at what appeared to be there in previous frames, but it doesn't really work all that well yet either as it is a new technology.

The same problems that prevent them figuring out accurately what was there in previous frames are what prevent separating the subject from the background (the ability to identify, with precise accuracy, the same object in one image to another.  You would end up with a subject that hovered oddly on the background and had a ring of background around them and/or left bits of them behind if you tried it with current level of technology.

Using motion warp and applying a crop or bypassing the auto-crop and manually cropping and moving around the frame is probably your best bet.  This is how I usually handle stabilization issues.


You may need to perform a “trim pass” to export to Rec709 colour space.

See: https://images.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Wide_Color_Gamut.pdf

Matching colors in Rec. 2020 and Rec. 709 masters

When some colors are translated to the narrower gamut of Rec. 709, they may look
different. To ensure that the Rec. 2020 master and Rec. 709 submaster look similar, you can perform a trim pass color adjustment on the Rec. 709 timeline to bring all the colors in line with broadcast specifications. When performing a trim pass in a Rec. 709 timeline, you should attempt to match the look and feel of the Rec. 2020 timeline as closely as possible.

Prepare for the trim pass

In the Final Cut Pro browser, select a master Rec. 2020 project and then choose
Edit > Duplicate Project as Snapshot.
With the duplicated project selected in the browser, choose Window >
Project Properties (or press Command-J), then click the Modify button near
the top-right corner of the inspector.

In the dialog that appears, click the Color Space pop-up menu and choose
Standard - Rec. 709.
In the browser, click the name of the duplicated project (the submaster), then type
“Rec. 709” at the end of the name.
In the browser, click the name of the original project (the master), type “Rec. 2020”
at the end of the name, then press Return.


How to prevent lossy re-encode of low-bitrate videos uploaded to YouTube

Youtube applies different maximum bitrates to different HD formats. A lot of people these days upscale their original 1080p HD content to 4k, since youtube allows higher datarate for 4k. Probably the same applies to 720p vs. 1080p, you should check. In general, you can optimize a video a lot so the same bitrate encoding will result in better quality, mainly by denoising it beforehand - or in you case, deblocking. I don't know if you are aquainted with AviSynth etc. but there are a couple of deblocking filters for it which might come in handy. From my experience there is no big difference if uploading a h264 with a high bitrate (like 25Mbps) or a ProRes file, after Youtube recompression quality is the same.


How to change note value in Ableton Live

When you draw in a note in Live's MIDI Clip View editor, the note defaults to the current size of the grid. You can change the grid size (there's a right-click menu, as well as keyboard shortcuts, and zooming in/out if that is enabled), and you can also change the length of an existing note by grabbing the beginning or ending edge of it and dragging around in whatever the current grid size is. You can also drag to arbitrary sizes, ignoring the grid, by holding ctrl/cmd.

If you select a group of notes and then change one's length, they'll all expand/contract with it.


Premier Elements "Time Slider" in Premier Pro

The UI part you are looking for is called (depending on your locale, and local film industry) the shuttle, or jogger.

I don't know if Premiere supports the exact same graphical control.

However using the [J] [K] and [L] keys on your keyboard lets you:

[J] / [L] move backward / forward (moves fast for each press of the same button; moves slower in the same direction when pressing the opposite)

[K] Stops playback

Using these keys, you can shuttle around footage in the same manner as you previously used your mouse the the GUI interface.


What equipment do I need to be able to produce 'HD quality' videos?

With your budget, I would suggest investing in a few basic lights and decent audio recording equipment.

While a second camera is nice to have, creating production value with the non-picture parts of your films will make them a lot better. If you need to get second or third angle, just move the camera for a closeup and re-run the scene. Sure, it may take longer to shoot, but from my experience, you'll have better selection in the edit suite than if you're just cutting a bunch of suimultaneously rolling cameras together.

There's also the issue of matching. The 7D is so spectacular, that I'd fear mixing in something that's not comparable (and likely over your budget) will be very visible to the viewer.

Lighting: Learn basic three point lighting. Rather than buying a kit new, check eBay for Lowel lights. They're relatively well made (using metal!) and still very economical. The ProLight, VLight and Rifa lights are good to start a digital video lighting package with. I've put together kits designed to my specs buying individual pieces off of eBay, and spent half the cost of a comparable kit new. I would say a good place to start is 2-3 ProLights and a Rifa Light, maybe a vLight. The latter is good for just makign something bright, but isn't terribly good at adding modeling to a scene. It may not be appropriate for your garage shoot. I usually use it to uplight a tree in night shots jsut to add some texture.

Accessories for lighting: stands, dimmer switches and a roll of blackwrap. Gels are useful once you start shooting outside...you'll need to balance the lights to match the sun. Read about Color Balance and Color temperature if you're unfamiliar with the concept.

Audio: Invest in a good shotgun mic and a boom pole. I cannot stress enough the importance of good audio. If your picture is mediocre, awesome sound can save it, but no matter how awesome your picture is, bad sound makes it unwatchable. Play around with the mic to learn how its pickup pattern works and to find the sweet spot for placement. If you need to record sounds effects, ambient sounds, or record dual system, pick of an H4N. It's one of the best investments I made into my audio kit, and I use it on every shoot.

A solid, economical mic is the Audio Technica AT-435B. Sennheiser is also a good brand, but more expensive. I forget my model numbers off the top of my head; perhaps someone can fill in?

In short, a second camera is not as necessary as lighting and audio. The production value that you can add with those things far outweighs the convenience of adding a second camera. If you do insist on a second camera, look at the GoPro. I work on a lot of network shows that just place one of these to get b-roll...for cooking shows, it'll just monitor the cooktop while the rest of the crew runs around the restaurant. Quality is good enough to cut ionto broadcast shows, but the size of the chip limits its contrast and color reproduction...so there is a marked quality difference between that and the 7D. That being said, perhaps killer audio and lighting will compensate. Good luck!


How to not import/duplicate media in FCPX?

For FCPX 10.1 and later:

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

To set the Storage Library Location:

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


Component AV, higher resolution source into lower reciever?

It won't work... that will be the result :-) The answer is in your question: if the device only does 576, then it won't handle anything else.


How to change clip speed in Lightworks 14

Ah!  Okay, so apparently you now right-click on the clip and select "Speed.." from the context menu.  The location of the mouse pointer when you right-click doesn't seem to matter.  Not sure if the location of the current playback point still determines the stable point during the speed change.


How to stop and start a key frame on a specific time on After Effects?

I understand your problem as follows:

There are three timepoints: T0, T1 and T2.

At T0 you place the image in an initial position.
At T1 you place the first keyframe (position: x1, y1).
And at T2 you have the second keyframe (position: x2,y2).

You want it to stay at T1 for several seconds before moving on to T2. The easiest way to achieve this is to make a new keyframe at a timepoint several seconds after T1, but before T2. Let's name it T1a.
Now the image will move to x1,y1, stay there until keyframe T1a and then move to position x2,y2.


making mouse click action obvious in a screen-cast video-capture

That is a Blender specific plugin that you can activate in the scripts menu.

https://en.blender.org/index.php/Extensions:2.6/Py/Scripts/3D_interaction/Screencast_Key_Status_Tool


How can I create floating objects in After Effects?

This is accomplished during shooting and is not an editorial effect. An set of DSLRs (digital still cameras) arranged in an arc are triggered to all take a shot at the same instant. The individual frames are strung into a sequence and treated as a motion clip. There are lots of examples of this on the web.

You can do similar things using CGI, but it's not a simple task and it isn't cheap.

Edit:

You asked for a tutorial but I don't know of any, so...

Here's a demonstration

Here's a cheaper alternative


How to copy animation from one project to another in Camtasia?

I got it. Right click on track > add asset to library > open another project > drag that asset to particular track.


FFmpeg. CUDA decode. Past duration too large. Variable FPS

The key -drop_second_field 1 fixed this issue.  And result command looks as follow:

  ffmpeg -y -hwaccel cuvid -c:v h264_cuvid -deint 2 -drop_second_field 1
  -i "udp://IP:PORT"  -vcodec h264_nvenc -acodec libfdk_aac -f flv rtmp://IP/test/name

What I think about this problem: at the moment in cuda decoding we can use only 2 deinterlace variants:

-deint 1 it's bob deinterlacing,
-deint 2 it's adaptive deinterlacing.

Both of these variants are increase bitrate, because after deinterlacing each field(half of frame) displaying as frame (framerate is doubled) Bitrate is grow and if fps is variable we got timestamps issue. And when we enable drop second field then everything looks fine with bitrate and timestamps.


Should I expect worse video quality with GoPro using lens protectors?

If you use lens-protection of any kind, same with autocue or eyedirect, the additional glass in front of your camera will have some effect, yes. The magnitude of which will vary depending on your uses. Autocue glass usually has a slightly murky / milky look to it and the image might seem a little but soft upon close inspection - I assume the same will go for GoPro lens-protectors, since they are made of similar transparent material. The absolute worst that could happen is to get your protector dirty. If you have splotches of water or dirt on that protector, they will be very visible and distracting.

tl;dr: If you keep the lens-protector clean, you should experience very little effect. If absolute sharpness is a must for you (when you're filming with green-screen for example), then I would not recommend using it.


Looks like text moving to a "Motion Tracking" effect.

Basically it finds and follows 1 or more points in a picture then moves the text accordingly.

If you use 2 or more points you can track the 3d angle also.

Examples:

2D position only

3D position, scale and angle


How to add a transition to all layers in VSDC video editor instead of having to it one by one?

VSDC team member is here. If you're talking about the transition effects, you can add them using the wizard. Although, you'll still have to drag each one for each transition.

However, if you need to copy any other effects, we have a how-to video for you: How to apply the same effect to different objects with VSDC Free Video Editor.
I hope this helps!


Use markers in After Effects as triggers for a particular animation

Markers are a special time of key, basically you can think of them as keys on a property of the layer called "marker", just like you can use keys on say, the position property. To access a marker on a layer you use

var myMarker = marker.key(n)

where n is the number of the key you want (counting from 1, not zero. WTF Adobe?) or alternatively:

var myMarker = marker.nearestKey(time)

Which will give you the nearest key, which can be ahead of or behind the current time.

Once you have the markerKey object you can get its time, duration, index (useful if you used the nearestKey method), and all of the metadata that can be stored in markers (quite a lot). Details about all the marker properties here. For example, if your marker has a comment, you can get the text of the comment thus

var myMarker = marker.key(n);
var theComment = myMarker.comment;

You can access comp markers too, just use

var myMarker = thisComp.marker.key(n); //or
var myOtherMarker = thisCom.marker.nearestKey(time);


Need culturally sensitive alternatives to standard videography terminology such as "shoot," "shooting," and "shot."

What about:

film, filming, filmed
record, recording, recorded


Using ffmpeg to stream to or from Blackmagic Decklink Card

I know this is pretty old BUT as far as I know ffmpeg and Blackmagic Gear, you will have to set your input options according to the Stream it gets from the H-264 encoder.

So you need to tell ffmpeg that it gets H-264 encoded video and AAC encoded audio - then it should work.

This is not an issue with the DeckLink cards as they output raw video data.
You might give it a shot...


AfterEffects Text Templates - Do changes Progagate to Instances in PPro

Updating in AE does not update the template in PPro directly -like updating a direct linked AE project-composition does.

To update Live Text Templates that are already used in Premiere: Update the composition in AE and export Composition as Text Template (.aecap) and Overwrite the previous .aecap file. It will update in Premiere after a RESTART without loosing the unique text in the instances you've already used. Note: just making the element offline and then relinking does not seem to update it. It's possible if I deleted the preview files it would work, but I haven't tried it. So far a Restart of PPro is required to update the Live Text Template.


Can I modify the volume of a shot in the timeline of Premiere Pro?

When you drag a clip into a sequence, PPro will show a video track (if there is video) and audio track(s) if there is audio.  If there is both audio and video, the tracks will be linked.

The volume controls are on the audio track, not the video track.  You can adjust volume both on a clip basis and on a track basis.  Buy volume is a meaningless concept on a video track (even if the video clip is linked to an audio clip).


AE - Randomly place ~100 layers and then move to the middle

I would use a particle system to do this, like Particular or Particle World.

Particular is part of the Trapcode Suite of AE plugins, and is the easiest to use.

http://www.redgiant.com/products/all/trapcode-particular/

Generate a load of particles in random positions
Make a pre-comp with all the different text layers on different frames, so one text object per frame.
Tell the particle generator to use the pre-comp to texture the particles
Have the particles emit from a central point to their random positions.
Then time reverse the whole comp.

This video tutorial explains how to get different textures (in this case different leaf images) on to each particle:


I solved my problem using 1) motion tracking and 2) a good picture of an eye.

With adobe after effects i managed to track the motion of the problematic iris. The result was a very precise motion path of the iris for the whole video. Great.
Then i used a good picture of brown eyes (google images) from which i cropped a circular selection which had "some" iris and the pupil. I made that circular selection a little transparent around the edges and finally had this result:

Using that image (2) on the motion path (1), the result was excellent. I had to play a bit with the colors to make the new iris blend with the original iris which "embraced" the new one.

(Fortunately, person wasn't blinking.)

p.s. More answers are welcome!


Effects LEDs are uncomfortably bright - can they be dimmed? (Boss ME-70)

You might try a few layers of clear and/or colored nail polish


Any tips how to increase editing speed on Premiere Pro?

I use Cinegy Daniel2 codec for editing in Premiere Pro. This codec take more space on disk, but work veeeeery fast compare to H264. Also it work more fast for me compare to ProRes.

Cinegy Daniel2 can be replaced with DNxHD MXF OP1a or MXF OP1a. Try these codecs. In Premiere it works very good.

You can convert all your raw files to one of this codecs before work, and then you will have more smooth workflow.
With this codec I could edit multicam 4K video with more than 3 cameras and it worked smoothly.
I have i7-4770K, 24gb RAM and GTX970 GPU. It's a PC from 2013 year (approx).

Also you can convert your videos to lower resolution and link them in Premiere Pro as Proxy files. Then you will edit files with proxy preview, but when you will render them, Premiere will use original full resolution files. When you need you can switch in one click between proxy and original resolution files.

For better understanding you can goole "Premiere work with Proxy files", "Premiere Cinegy Daniel 2", "Editing codecs for Adobe Premiere".
I can't google for you, because I will have most of materials in Russian.

Link to Cinegy Daniel 2 codec.


What do shutter angles mean for electronic shutters?

It just refers to the shuttet speed and FPS.

As you probably know, 360° means the entire time, the frame is exposed.
0° means it is never exposed, 180° half of the time.

With digital shutters you can just take your FPS, for example 24, and calculate the corresponding value.

For 180°, you can double it 24*2=48 so youbget a shutter speed of 1/48s.
For 360° you can justvtake the FPS 24FPS = 1/24s.

The formula for any shutter angle being:

FPS / (Shutterangle / 360)
24 / (180 / 360) = 1/48


Why is Adobe Premiere not letting me apply a filter to this sound clip?

Check to see if the filter is restricted to specific audio file / stream / track types.

For instance, I believe you’ll get the same issue if you tried to drop filters that apply only to Stereo Tracks to a Mono File Track, such as Swap Channels, Fill Left, Fill Right, etc. Because its impossible to swap left and right channels when youre on a mono track.

You dont specify what filter, but thats my guess.

Same goes with Video Filters... there are some filters you cant drop onto video tracks with Alpha, or vice versa.


Create a Time Lapse Video with Adobe Premiere

Depending on your version of Premiere, there should actually be a speed adjustment from the context menu when you right click on the clip.  It may be under a sub-menu depending on version, but it will give you the option of either a % to increase/decrease the speed by or a new time that you want the clip to take.


Combining a short video and long audio file efficiently using Vegas or FFMPEG

Have you tried using the ffmpeg playlist feature dubbed concatenate? The fade to black with ffmpeg has been described here.


What sequence presets I must use with a GoPro and Adobe Premiere Pro CS 5.5?

In Premiere, a possible, easy approach would be importing your footage to the library before creating any sequence, then right click a clip and choose 'New Sequence from Clip'. Premiere will automatically adjust the settings according to the clip's properties.

This is also recommended by Adobe (3rd paragraph).


On the layer "Scale" value:
Right Click => Edit Value...

There you will see dialogue box:

How you can see, you can change it there.


Transfer project from one application to another

There are ways to transfer projects between different video editing programs, but they are very limited. Take a look at my answer here; this question is about transfering projects between different versions of Premiere Pro, but the answer is basically the same. You can export a project as an Edit Decision List (EDL), however this will only contain the arrangement of the clips in the timeline (namely your edit decisions, hence the name), any effects, e.g. color-grading, will be lost. Another format that does basically the same is AAF. I'm not sure about the differences between both formats, but either way, most of your post-production efforts will be lost when transfering the project to a different program.

Also, this applies to prosumer-/production-level software. I'm not sure whether "low-end" software supports importing and exporting EDL-files. If I remember correctly, it's not possible with Premiere Elements; don't know about the Sony programs (you should be able to find that out over the developer's websites and/or Google).


Is there blurring in most frames?  (i.e. if you pause it, do most of the still frames that make up the video look ok on their own?)

If the shaking didn't blur out your image too badly, you might be able to recover something usable with ffmpeg's vid.stab filter.  It has some parameters, like speed of camera moves to not count as shake.

IDK how it compares to what iMovie has, but if your video keeps some of what you want in-frame most of the time, and isn't blurred to hell, software should be able to give you something.  (cropped to contain just the part that the camera kept in-shot for most of the frames).


Easy way of editing keyframes in adobe Premiere

Adjusting the default video transition duration

Go to Preferences -> General and change the Video Transition Default Duration to a frame amount of your choice.

Optimising current workflow

I can think of some optimalisations regarding your current workflow. It's not a drastic change, but might help you do the task faster.

I would suggest splitting the timecode list per videotrack (slide & stage) according to the following scheme:

List 1: slide fade-outs
List 2: slide fade-ins
List 3: stage fade-outs
List 4: stage fade-ins

List 1 should match list 4 and list 2 should match list 3.
Go to the first fade-out on a list. Create a keyframe pattern you like for the fade-out, for example the one shown below:

In the effects panel it looks like this:

A linear keyframe followed by a bezier keyframe followd by a hold keyframe.

Now select those three keyframes in the effect panel by dragging a rectangle around them or clicking each keyframe while holding ctrl (Windows) cmd (Mac).
Right click and press Copy
Now go to each fade-out timecode on both video tracks (so list 1 and 3) and in the effects panel right click and press Paste. Of course you can also hit ctrl+V or cmd+V.
Repeat this process for list 2 and 4.

In this way you only have to set the bezier speed once and just copy paste the keyframe sequence at each timecode.

Exporting keyframe locations to textfile

I'm not aware of a way to do this directly, but if you export your project to a Final Cut Pro XML or to EDL (Select sequence, then: File -> Export) you have the ability to change the position of /add keyframes through a text editor by editing the .edl or .xml files . You can then import the .edl or .xml file into Premiere Pro as a new sequence.
However, these formats do not support bezier keyframes.


Davinci Resolve - Blanking Fill is not expanding to the size of the video

****Edit****

With the new information you've provided, I can tell that you're encountering a bug related to Resolve's handling of transparency information in .PNG files.  I can also recommend a solution.

In your screenshot of the Deliver page, I can tell that there are three clips on your timeline, and that one of them is a .PNG.  In the course of its development, Resolve has suffered growing pains with its treatment of alpha channels, and how video tracks on the timeline treat them.  In fact, there's a recent SE question which was asked within hours of yours which you will find instructive.  See here.

In previous versions of Resolve, dragging a video or still image which contained alpha channel information onto a "foreground" timeline track (any track above your background) was not enough to show the background through the foreground.  You would see black where you should see transparency.  The reason for this behavior was connected to the order of operations in the image processing pipeline, and the fact that color page operations occured before edit and deliver, even if you had not performed any color page operations.  So, unless you added an alpha output node on the color page by right-clicking on the background and selecting "add alpha output," You would see black instead of transparent.

Needless to say, this behavior frustrated new users, and BlackMagic Design strove to improve the behavior of images with alpha channels, out of the box.  Now, when you drop a .PNG with transparency over another timeline layer, the color page is "smart enough" to realize that it should show you the cutout image composited over the background on the edit page without requiring you to do any extra work.

However, as you have discovered, there is a bug in the software where dropping a .PNG over a layer-with-effects, incorrectly renders the effects.  This is an internal order of operations compositing error, but the good news is you can force the compositing operations to execute in the proper order.

TLDR: To fix your problem, right-click on the V1 clip in the timeline, and choose "New Compound Clip" from the top of the contextual menu.  You'll now see the full blurred background of the Blanking Fill operation.

Compound Clips in Resolve are like folders in a file system, in a way.  Your original clip is now contained within a larger structure.  You'll notice that if you click on the new Compound Clip in the timeline that it appears as if the blanking fill controls have disappeared from the inspector, even though the blanking fill effect is still clearly visible.  Fear not, the controls are still available, and editable.  Just right-click on the Compound Clip, and select "Open in timeline" from the contextual menu.  This takes you inside of the "folder" where you can see your original clip and adjust its controls.  To get back out to your main timeline, double-click on the timeline name at the BOTTOM of the screen in the "breadcrumb" list, where, it will say "Timeline 1 > Compound Clip 1."

Besides the folder analogy to describe Compound clips, you can also think of them as a set of parenthesis in an algebraic equation; they affect the order of operations in Resolve, and help control which effects are composited before others.  In your case, they'll ensure that the blanking fill gets calculated fully before the .PNG is placed in the foreground.

Bonus:  Here's one more quirk about working with compound clips that you should know about.  In Resolve, it's easy to break apart a compound clip onto the timeline and restore its constituent parts (CC's can contain multiple clips and layers, like a mini timeline).  To do this, just right-click on a compound clip in the timeline, and select "Decompose in place" from the contextual menu (This is a feature which separates Resolve from Premiere, btw, where it's much more difficult to break apart a nested sequence).  So, compound clips are a very handy container for a group of clips, and you can, e.g. apply color page effects to the container as a whole.  That is, if you lasso a hundred clips on a timeline, and turn them into a CC, you could turn them all blue with one node on the color page.

Here's the quirk:  If you decompose this string of 100 blue clips on the timeline, you are ERASING both the container, and all of the effects applied to the container.  The clips will no longer be blue.  The color page effects do not cascade to constituent elements when you "decompose in place."  So, as a rule of thumb, if you're ever going to "flatten" your timeline (for .xml round-tripping to another app, for instance), FLATTEN IT BEFORE YOU COLOR IT.

Hope this helps,

* End Edit. Previous answer below. *

It's hard to know without knowing what your settings are.  If your timeline resolution has square dimensions, and you don't have "Use gray background in viewers" checked, then the black vertical bars could just be the bounds of your timeline.  It's also possible that you have output blanking turned on under timeline->output blanking, which would add black bars over the fuzzy bars.  Also, make sure your viewer window is scaled to "fit" inside the UI.  Here are some screenshots of my settings if that helps. Oh, and make sure you're not cropping the edges, by checking the crop slider values, which should be zero.


A text animation tool or plugin pack that has very elaborate text animations?

If you don't want to do your own animations, you might want to search for Essential graphics presets. Essential graphics allows you to load AE compositions inside PP ready to edit like the ones you have seen. There are a bunch of places where you can get them, for free and paid, like Envato Elements, Premiumbeat, Mixkit, even Youtube itself.
If you want to know more about it, here's a link to Adobe's wiki for "Essential Graphics": https://helpx.adobe.com/es/premiere-pro/how-to/essential-graphics-panel.html


Shadowplay Footage Import to iMovie Introduces Audio Artifacts

After some more digging around and reading on various forums it seems that this is actually a very common problem (along with other effects, not just audio artifacts) with recordings produced by Shadowplay and subsequently imported to many editors.

It seems the source of the problem is that all files produced with Shadowplay record using variable frame rates.

There is a discussion here and here that might be useful.

There is a Handbrake preset here to convert your Shadowplay files to CFR files with no compression.

Or alternatively you can stop using shadowplay completely, skip and transcoding steps and instead use OBS Studio (free) to record your footage.


Can you keep the edges of vector elements smooth past 100% zoom in After Effects?

Don’t zoom in on your display to do this.
Adjust the scale on the layer to zoom in further.
If the sun icon is enabled on the layer, you will get sharp edges as you scale up. Then position your anchors accordingly and scale back down if necessary.

Zooming in on the display will only show you pixel level accuracy for the resolution of your comp, so if you comp is HD you will never see higher resolution than 1920x1080, as that is the resolution at which the comp will be rendered.


Yes. You can use FFmpeg, a free command-line tool, like so:

ffmpeg -i video.wmv -c:v copy -af dynaudnorm out.wmv

dynaudnorm is a dynamic audio normalizer, which will maintain the original range dynamics and avoid clipping while applying the maximum gain possible given those constraints.


I've reported the issue on Debian bug tracker here, as well as upstream here.

Really the only available reference implementation can be found here.


How to render a smooth timelapse from 30FPS video?

I ain't sure if this will work but better than nothing!
Here two of my approaches to this problem:

Warp Stabilization
Software such as Mocha, AE and many others have Warp Stabilization. What is means is that it can automatically stabilize the clip based on the frames and it somewhat relates to Machine Learning approach to Big Data.

Converting to 24fps
You can open in in a video editor and manually delete clips based on your own human ability to judge by looking at the previous and next frame. As we know our eyes can think 24fps as a smooth video clip, you may try this manual fix technique by deleting at 3-5 frames per second of your video!

Giving an opinion based answer, I think warp stabilization would render quite great results.


How to shoot in-situ product videos in restricted locations?

Many people apart from construction workers need to visit building sites, so there are processes for that to safely happen. I used to have a job where we often shot in restricted locations like building sites and factories. It usually involved the producer contacting whoever controlled the site and asking permission, and then we usually had to go through the site induction process (so many induction videos, so, so many).

A few things to note: when you're on site be aware that you will probably wear out your welcome–most people don't realise how long it takes to shoot a video, they expect you to turn up, wave the camera around and go. So it's worth being clear to whoever is going to accompany you on site about how long you think the shoot will take.

Also be aware that the camera operator needs to have support people. If they're in a location like a building site there are lots of dangers around, and if they're focussed on the camera, they may not be fully aware of their surroundings. At the same time, you want to keep the crew to a minimum, so you don't have unnecessary stragglers wandering around.


Need webcam presentation software for digital projectors

I'm a mac user, so haven't tried these out, but:

http://camdesk.sourceforge.net/ looks lightweight and may do the trick

http://www.screenmonkey.co.uk/ is more comprehensive live-presentation software, but should be able to get a webcam video-source full screen.


Make sure the size of your comp in After Effects is the same as the size of your original video clip. Make sure the clip in your layer is set to scale 100%.


Uncompressed Prores HQ at 10 bit will yield extremely large file sizes. Is there a reason you want prores? 4K 444 10bit uncompressed would be, in my opinion, better captured as an uncompressed AVI "true uncompressed". Or, if your decklink allows it; Uncompressed MOV using the animation codec with Alpha turned off, only RGB.

Also; you may want to use 2 SSDs and RAID 0 them; while your single SSD may be able to sustain 450mb/s, it is going to fill up rather quickly, and any hiccups will cause a stop in capture or drop in frames.

For a fast HDD solution, I recommend an Intel 4 Channel SAS Raid Card; with 4 SSDs in RAID 0; which of course you would want to back up after capture (due to no fault loss protection using RAID 0.  I use this solution using (2) Intel Cards running (4) 1GB Crucial SSDs and I get sustained 2.4 GB/S read and write. So once your capture is finished, you can transfer all your files from your first RAID 0 to your 2nd RAID 0; in roughly 25 minutes - provided you filled the full 4 TB.

There is also a RAID SAS expansion card which allows more drives which can be helpful if you plan on running a RAID 5, 6 or 1, or other setup.

As far as software is concerned; FCP would interface with the Intensity Pro; as would Premiere Pro (recommended) I also believe that Blackmagic has a free download package that allows for captures in various (non-prores) codecs. But uncompressed would be available.

I'd only close with I see no reason to tie yourself to prores unless the post house you're working with or client demands it. AVI or MOV as animation when dealing with 444 is by far the way to go.


How to setup indirect lighting for video

A bounce card might save your eyes some, e.g.

Depending on your "studio" you could also just turn the lights away from the talent and towards a wall or the ceiling to bounce and diffuse the light off the surface.


How to get the mobile screen effect in videos?

You will most likely need dedicated compositing software unless your NLE has some basic functionality built-in that allows you to do this. Here are some free or low-cost examples of compositing software:

After Effects
Fusion
HitFilm
Natron (GPL Open Source)


What software should I use to replace an LED display in a train carriage?

I would do this using after effects. You need to do a little bit of motion tracking as there is a tiny bit of motion on the camera as the train moves. Find a font that matches the LED display font on the screen. Carefully match all the colours you use using the eye dropper. Add blur and noise to your comps to better match the footage.
You can fake blurry reflections surprisingly well just by flipping a duplicate of your comp and blurring it. The biggest problem you will have is the swinging handle in the foreground, which you may need to rotoscope with the rotobrush to isolate.
You can see a similar effect (but without any foreground rotoscoping) I made at 26 seconds in here:
https://twitter.com/financialtimes/status/985923651676659713?s=21


Here's something I saw at github might answer your question.

  This example demonstrate how to encode set of buffered images obtained
  from Webcam instance, transcode into h.264 stream and send to remote
  peer where it is decoded and rendered in panel.

  Example provided by hepin1989. Thank you! This is wonderful piece of
  the good code :)

  How To Use

  Run StreamServer - this will open the webcam device and start listening for incoming streaming requests.
  Run StreamClient - this will connect to the StreamServer and start displaying image from the remote camera.   The server / client address
  is localhost by default to run client and server on the same machine,
  but if you want to stream over the network, you need to change it to
  reflect your real IP address (server must bind to eth0 instead of lo
  interface to be visible from the NAT).

  Notes

  The code supports sunny-day scenario only, just to demonstrate the idea, so there are is no complex error checking statements and the
  code may behave in unexpected manner when launched in real network.
  It uses Xuggler which seems to be discontinued.
  Remember, this example is to present an idea, so if you need enhancement or bug fix, please implement it and send pull request to
  share it with community. Be creative :)
  To perform streaming over the network you need to change address in server from localhost to your real IP address (e.g. such as
  192.168.1.10 or 0.0.0.0 in general). I'm not sure how it works with the IPv6 support - feel free to test it.

her is the link- https://github.com/sarxos/webcam-capture/tree/master/webcam-capture-examples/webcam-capture-live-streaming


Video blurry after dragging it to composition

Your resolution is on a third
But most importantly, your video is 720 x 480 resolution but on a 1920 x 1080 timeline (so it seems), so you are scaling it to fit (you can't make up for a lack of resolution but upscaling your footage).

To get the right comp size, you can:

Drag your video file onto the little film icon to the immediate left of the 8 bpc selector below your footage tree
Or create a new composition based on the dimensions of your footage

There is no real point in making 480 footage 1080, it will not increase the quality.


Which is better quality, a larger 480p video or a smaller 1080p video?

There is no concrete answer to this. It depends entirely on the content of the video. Video compression effectively looks for patterns in video. If lots of patterns can be found, then high compression can be achieved with high resolution and low but rate.   If the video is hard to find patterns though, then high compression results in altering the video to make patterns and this produces artifacts that distort the video.

Reducing the resolution of the file in these cases allows for fewer artifacts since less alterations need to be made to the video to find a pattern.

I'm over simplifying here with some technical inaccuracies to make it more accessible, but that is the general idea for compression. If the hd video doesn't have artifacts then the hd video is better, but the sd file is far less likely to have artifacts if similar codecs were used for both.


How to change the pace of imported mov video clip in after effects

Method 1

The Last column on the right — in your pic it says растягиваться but in the English version of AE it's called Stretch — that's the one you need to modify Click on the number that says 100%.

Alternatively, select the layer and from the Layer menu choose Time>Time Stretch… (I'm not sure what it is in Russian).

Then you'll get a dialog that lets you choose the duration you want, or a stretch factor if you want to choose the playback speed.

Method 2:

Apply Time Remapping to the layer (choose Layer from the menu or Right-Click the layer and then choose Time>Enable Time Remapping or hit cmd/ctrlalt/optionT).

This will create a keyframe at the start and end of the layer.

Drag the last keyframe to the point where you want the layer to end.

Method 3

Park the playhead at the time you want the layer to end.

With the layer selected hit ctrl/commandalt/option,, which will stretch the out point to the current time.

You can do the same with the in point using ctrl/commandshift,.


What's the best way to set up a live webshow with multiple Skype video inputs?

The popular VLC media player offers low latencey multicast video streaming solutions. This is not as one-clickish as Skype, but hey, thats what you get for becoming more professional.

Video streamed by VLC can have any properties regarding video resolution and quality - within the limits of your network bandwith of course.

Ususally your PC will be behind a home router which acts as so called NAT-Gateway and firewall. Much to the annoyance of network administrators Skype sees to it automatically that this firewall is cranked open, and multidirectional video casts can flow through. It also handles IP address and port negotiation. VLC does not, as the concept behind it is different (its main use is streaming, not video conferencing).

So for this post I will assume that you are willing to invest a degree of brain juice in creating a clean media flow over the internet. After all you are working on a global technological scale. Do not worry, we still will not need to get into the advanced internet routing stuff.

With VLC you will have to configure your home router manually to present a service running on your computer to the open internet. This is called port forwarding, look it up.

I will not get into details about setting up VLC streaming, as it is pretty much straight forward and you can handle this yourself: Open VLC, press Ctrl S, follow instructions. Best use RTP or HTTP streaming as they are well standardised.
When setting up your VLC to stream media from a webcam, you will configure a network port, on which the webcam stream is offered to the internet. Make sure this port is forwarded by your home router.

Decrease media caching to improve latency, increase caching to prevent stuttering. 200ms will be fine. A h264 stream with 720p resolution will look OK at about 2000 kbps but only if you let VLC handle compression. If you let your webcam handle the compression internally you will need much more bandwith, as the hardware encoders are somewhat limited.

Once both parties (you and your cohost) have set up this stream, you can connect to each other using a media player like VLC, mplayer, Windows Media Player, Quick Time... streaming really is a standard ;-) Any guests you are hosting can connect to this stream too, and so can spectators. VLC also lets you record remote video streams to disk for post production.

To get guests on your screen, you can let them use a tool of their convenience like Skype or Hangouts. Once VLC is using your webcam, you will not be able to offer video from the same cam via Skype. But this will not be necessary, since guests can see you over the VLC stream. You would only need Skype to see them, while video streamed from you and your partner remains fluent.

To have people connect to your stream, they will need to know your public IP address, which you can look up on http://www.whatismyip.com or similar sites. You can use a dyndns service like http://no-ip.biz (or other) to use a convenient DNS name instead of an IP address.

With this description you should be able to get started, ask me anything if you need to know more.


Issue with sony vegas rendering small parts of video

If I interpret your timeline correctly, your video pieces are way shorter than 0.5sec. I would guess, they approx 1/60 sec long. So depending on the rendered framerate and exact the position of the pieces, the image may stay dark. I would suggest you extend your video pieces to the desired length of 0.5sec, that should solve the issue.


Converting video with different resolutions slightly affects in file size, why?

You are using the same bitrate for each video.  The bitrate determines how much data is used per second.  The resolution has nothing to do with how much data is used, it only impacts the number of points of data which are encoded (and thus determines part of the quality of the video output for a given bitrate).

What you end up with is a lower resolution file that more faithfully reproduces the original format since it has more data storage allocated per pixel where as the higher resolution file produces more pixels in the output, but as it has less data available per pixel, it is a less faithful reproduction.

It is a fluid question as to whether you lose more quality from the downscale or bitrate being used, so there is no preferred value to change.  In some situations the best overall quality will be to reduce the resolution and bitrate and in other cases the best result will be to keep the resolution the same but only reduce the bitrate.

If you intend to make different resolutions for different connection speeds, you should decrease both the resolution and the bitrate.  This will result in a smaller file with similar relative quality, so long as you use similar compression ratios (the relationship between the size of the input and the file size).

For example, as a rough guideline, if a video is 1080p and takes 225MB in total, then you would want the 720p version to take around 100MB because there is a little under half the pixels in a 720p video than there is in the 1080p video.  The amount of data used to store each pixel is thus the same, so the amount of artifacts should be pretty similar.  (Though the loss of detail will make it slightly unpredictable, so it doesn't hold exactly.  I'm oversimplifying a bit since compression is actually a pretty complicated field.)


If you can use Zoom, it has a pretty good recording feature which can record separate audio files for each participant in addition to the video in gallery view.  Obviously, already synced.

As far as quality, Zoom does have a video optimization option that improves the resolution at least.


How to alternate between two video clips in Premiere Pro CS6

You can use the multi-camera feature in Premier to achieve this.

From Adobe's page:

  To easily synchronize footage from all cameras, make sure each camera
  records a sync point using a clapper slate or other technique. Keep
  each camera recording to maintain synchronization. After you capture
  the footage in Premiere Pro, use the following workflow to edit the
  footage:

  Add clips from multiple cameras to a sequence.

  Stack the clips from each camera on separate tracks of a sequence.
  (See Add clips for multi-camera editing.)

  Synchronize the clips in the sequence.

  Mark the sync point with numbered clip markers, or reassign the sync
  point for each camera to a specific timecode. (See Synchronize clips.)

  Create the multi-camera target sequence.

  The final edits are made in a target sequence. You create the target
  sequence by nesting the sequence of synchronized clips into a new
  sequence. Then you enable the clip in the target sequence for
  multi-camera editing. (See Create a multi-camera target sequence.)

  Record the multi-camera edits.

  In the Multi-Camera Monitor, you can view the footage of all four
  cameras simultaneously and switch between cameras to choose footage
  for the final sequence. (See Record multi-camera edits.)

  Adjust and refine edits.

  You can rerecord the final sequence and substitute clips with footage
  from one of the other cameras. You can also edit the sequence like any
  other sequence—using the standard editing tools and techniques, adding
  effects, or compositing using multiple tracks. (See Rerecord
  multi-camera edits and Adjust multi-camera edits in a Timeline panel.)

If you like it more visually explained, take a look at this video:


What is the difference between audio Sampling rate and Frame rate?

Audio samples are encapsulated into frames as well. For PCM, the framing is notional, but for DCT-based codecs, it's a basic requirement.

AAC typically bundles 1024 samples per frame, so 1 second of 48000 samples represents 48000/1024 = 46.875 FPS


How to re-edit and/or duplicate an in-progress edit with YouTube Video Editor

The YouTube video editor is just not designed for this sort of thing - it has very basic functionality, just enough to allow you to tweak a couple of things. Once the edit is complete it has no ongoing concept of a 'project' - you just have a new video.

I would always recommend editing locally in a proper video editor and then uploading.


What you are referring to is called a series playlist. A series playlist is used to display videos in that manner.

What you have misunderstood is that it's actually the name of the show that is displayed before the "S11 E80", although I understand that it is confusing when the show has the same name as the channel.

This feature is easily utilized, it is however required that you have a verified channel. If you do, you should easily be able to add a series playlist from the playlist menu in the Youtube studio.

Best of luck


Largest input image size when encoding a video?

FFmpeg is tripping up at this statement in Imgutils.c in function av_image_check_size()

if ((int)w>0 && (int)h>0 && (w+128)*(uint64_t)(h+128) < INT_MAX/8) return;  [ else error() ]

where INT_MAX is defined in limits.h as at least 32767 (2^15-1), or greater depending upon your compiler.

Compiling with a 64-bit compiler will permit larger images.


How to reduce the size of video to 700 mb

Ok one thing to note is the resolution of the video. Most 700mb torrents are not full HD. most are 720p or if they are 1080p they are in h.265

Assuming resolution is 1080p you can go from 2 gb to about 1gb without a huge drop in quality. The big issue becomes with the type of movie. Movies with a lower (smaller) color palette will degrade quicker because compression aims to make as many pixels nearby alike to lower the decoding time and storage space. It analyzes the video in varying block sizes and re-writes it.

H265 was made to take 40% less space as h.264 while keeping the same visual quality. The issue with h265 is the processing power required to encode it. I have a server I use to encode mine and it still takes a long time.

As for the way you would do it...

Use a video converter that allows you to control the bitrate. Adobe media encoder is a great option if you have it. For h264 you don't want to drop your bitrate below about 1-1.3gbps for the video. If you chose to go to h265 then you can drop the bitrate to about 600-700mbps and keep the same quality. all of this comes with trial and error.


What title(s) should a one-person film crew receive in the credit role?

Sounds like you directed it. Would be simple to just put Director, I think one can assume you did everything then if there is no editor or DP credited.

The director is responsible for the overall vision of the flow of the piece.  They oversee filming and work with a cinematographer, if applicable, to determine the right look for the film, work with actors to get the right performance and then work with the editor to make sure it flows.  They are basically the person chiefly responsible for adapting the screenplay or concept of the film in to a finished movie.

For Example:

If you create a documentary completely by yourself, lets say you spend 20 days in Antarctica, you film everything you narrate, when you get back you edit it, and then do sound and music.  At the end of the day you directed that documentary, which for all intensive purposes is the highest credit you could receive, if the film ends and says directed by x.  People watching are not going to stand up and go "Wait who shot this film?" It is implied that you did it since you directed it and nobody was credited under you.

Another way this is sometimes credited to avoid confusion is simply doing created by


HEVC (High Efficiency Video Coding),  the new video coding standard brings promise of huge bandwidth savings of approx. 40-45% over H.264 encoded content

More info here


Adjusting sequence square frame size for large screen size

If you don't want your video to be up-scaled then you need to output at the native resolution of the screen. The physical size doesn't matter, what matters is the pixel dimensions.

However, if the footage is not shot at the native resolution (and I don't think there are many 14K cameras around) you're going to have to resize it to fit. Whether you do that in your edit, or use whatever mechanism the screen has for up-scaling footage depends on a couple of factors:

can the screen / playback device do its own interpolation, and if so how good is it?
do you have graphics etc that you want to be crisp? If you're relying on the resolution of the screen to display small graphic elements crisply then you'll want the video that you deliver to be as high resolution as possible.
can the playback device handle a 14K video stream? Filesize is going to be an issue unless the playback device is pretty fast, and decoding it is going to be taxing for even a powerful machine.

Best bet: ask whoever is in charge of the screen. For a screen that large there's going to be an AV person who knows what they're doing. Ask around until you find who can give you specs for what you have to deliver.


.webm blocky in initial frames, terrible for looping :(

Try something like this:

ffmpeg -f image2 -framerate 30 -i img%05d.png -c:v libvpx-vp9 -b:v 0 -pix_fmt yuv420p -crf 30 -cpu-used 1 -tile-columns 2 -threads 8 -row-mt 1 output.webm

Placing -framerate 30 before the input specifies it as the frame rate of the input to be 30. This is then inherited as the output frame rate as well.
-c:v libvpx-vp9 specifies that you want to use VP9. If you want to use VP8, use -c:v libvpx instead. VP8 has lower compression efficiency but is also less demanding to decode.
-b:v 0 is required for -crf to work the way most people expect when using libvpx or libvpx-vp9. This is very important when it comes to quality, if you forget this your video is going to look bad at a CRF that would normally look good.
-pix_fmt yuv420p set the colorspace to 4:2:0 which is important for wide player compatibility and hardware acceleration. This is essential when converting a series of images into a video since forgetting to set this leads to higher file sizes due to increased color representation capability and can make some players display the video incorrectly or to not play it at all.
-crf 30 sets the bitrate control mode to Constant Quality and the value to 30. In my experience this is a good value to start with. Lower values lead to higher quality. Try out different values to find out what works best for your content.
-cpu-used 1 sets the encoding speed, lower values equal better compression. 0 is the lowest speed and highest compression efficiency while 5 is the fastest speed and lowest compression efficiency.
-tile-columns 2 specifies that the video will use two tile columns. These are used to achieve multi-threaded encoding and depending on how old your version of FFmpeg is this might not be set automatically. 2 columns is suitable for 720p and 1080p video. Refer to Google's VP9 encoding guide for the suitable amount of tile columns and the amount of threads they allow you to use.
-threads 8 defines the amount of processing threads available for encoding. Set this to the amount of cores (or threads if you have HyperThreading/SMT available) on your CPU for the fastest encoding. This option still needs to be set manually even in latest versions of FFmpeg or else libvpx will only use one thread, which slows down encoding significantly.
-row-mt 1 enables better multithreading for libvpx. Setting this manually doesn't seem to be necessary in recent versions of FFmpeg but it doesn't hurt either.


Join multiple M4V to one file (maybe MKV?)

If you have ffmpeg installed, see this article that basically says to create a file that has all of the names, or to use the following command

  Concat Protocol

ffmpeg -i 'concat:input1|input2' -codec copy output

Or

 Concat Video Filter

ffmpeg -i opening.mkv -i episode.mkv -i ending.mkv \
 -filter_complex '[0:0] [0:1] [1:0] [1:1] [2:0] [2:1] concat=n=3:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]' \
-map '[v]' -map '[a]' output.mkv

Or

Concat Demuxer

$ cat mylist.txt
file '/path/to/file1'
file '/path/to/file2'
file '/path/to/file3'

$ ffmpeg -f concat -i mylist.txt -c copy output

Which one to use

concat protocol: use with formats that support file level concatenation (MPEG-1, MPEG-2 PS, DV).

concat filter: use if you need to re-encode such as when applying filters.

concat demuxer: use when you want to avoid a re-encode and your format does not support file level concatenation.
If in doubt try the concat demuxer.

When in Doubt, choose Demuxer

This article was originally published here

Also, see http://ffmpeg.org/faq.html#How-can-I-join-video-files_003f


What video switching application is used for Apple's Keynotes?

They are probably using some kind of a live switcher for that rather than software, but there is no real way to tell what they would be using.  To keep quality in live environments still generally requires using specialized hardware though.


Why doesn't my s-log3 footage reach 100% value?

A log curve is a mathematical transfer function.  SONY have defined a LOG curve (as many vendors do) that imagines future/alternative sensors having larger electron well capacity (higher clipping) and lower noise (lower clipping) than your current silicon design supports. In other words, you are seeing where your sensor's designs fits into an idealized LOG space.  You are not seeing a LOG curve that is limited by only what your particular sensor can achieve at the present moment.


I produced a video on Augmented Reality, for a large corporation that spearheaded the technology. We used After Effects to simulate a lot of effects.

We shot our plates and scenes, and when necessary we added dots on sticks for tracking points.

Then, you can take your footage into AE, latch motion trackers to the dots (if your scene doesnt have points sharp enough to tack to), and once you track the motion, you can nest your AR graphics, either static (photoshop psd files), or animated, and they will move with the camera movement, as if in the scene.

If you want to go the extra mile, you can make the AR layers 3D, and add a camera, and using multiple tracking points get your AR graphics to move in 3D, with axis tilting.

You can also add things like Depth of Field.

And lastly, you can have them build on and build off using the built in transitions in AE under Animation... there are 100s.

Hope this helps, Its more than one could explain here, but there are a lot of youtube videos on how to use motion trackers, 3D layers, etc- so if you look into the keywords I gave you, hopefully it will get you started.

Cheers!


Need a cover up for a face to make it more horror-ish

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

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


Adobe provide two useful sidekick tools to manage video filles.
Adobe Bridge is a digital asset management app fully efficient with photo and video.
Adobe Media Encoder is a is professional video converter with watch folder options, and ProRes support for Windows and Mac.
These software are not available on Linux, but their metadata and files are useful on every modern system.


How to avoid audio border magnetics on Final Cut Pro X?

It looks like Snapping is turn on. Toggle it with N or use the snapping icon (next to clip view options and transitions etc).


Voice Over Record doesn't record, displays "Finishing" then stops

I think I've figured it out.  I've been setting my in point to the start of the clip and my end point to the end of the clip.  By moving the start in point after the first bit of footage, it records just fine.


How to Sync a Layer's Position, to a Layer in Another (Time Remapped) Comp

If you want to link certain properties through several composition you can only do this with expressions. They are really not difficult though and its a matter of 1-2 lines.

F.e. to get the position of a layer in a different composition you can do this:

comp("Comp Name").layer("Layer Name").transform.position

Just alt click the position stop watch of the layer you want to apply that position to and enter that command.
To break it down. This select first the comp you want by name and then selects the layer you want within that comp:

comp("Comp Name").layer("Layer Name")

This part says that you want a value from the transform menu and the name of the value is position. Position could also just be rotation or any other property:

.transform.position

Note that you often get multiple values at once. For example position can have 2 or 3 values depending on if the layer is 2D or 3D. This multiple values are given to you in something called an array or vector. What comes now is only needed if you want independent axis control and not the position value of all 2 or 3 axis's applied to your layer.
So in order to f.e. only get the position of the y axis you can do this:

y  = comp("Comp 1").layer("layer1").transform.position[1];
[transform.position[0],y]

The made-up variable name y in this case is getting the y-axis value of layer1 assigned. by adding [1] at the end of position. Using [0] would give you x and [2] would give you z.

This part is what you call the return value. You write it in the form of an array/vector. Meaning [x-axis-value,y-axis-value] or [x-axis,y-axis,z-axis]. transform.position[0] just means I want the x value of THIS layer where I'm entering the expression in. So you can still control that axis manually.

[transform.position[0],y]

In order to account for the time remap you would need to apply the same remapping to comp2 that you applied to comp1.
If that's not what you are after I might have to see an example project.

Edit: So if you use time remap to loop layers and not to fine tune your animation you shouldn't use it in these situation. In order to retain a better control you should use a simple expression on the animated assets of your looping composition in order to loop you animation.

loopOut(type = "cycle", numKeyFrame = 0);

Add this to every layer property that is animated and make the comp length as long as you need, your 2 second animation will now repeat as long as your composition is, you just have to stretch your layers length to the new comp length. This solves your issue.

If you have more sub-comps in you sub-comp you will have to increase their length as well of course so you can stretch them to the end of their parent comp.

For more information on this expression have a look at this: http://provideocoalition.com/pvcexclusive/story/expression_shorts_-_loop


You probably want Aspera Connect, not the client, which you should be able to download without a password. Additionally, your customer should be able to supply you with the Connect installer that matches their server.


My converted videos look bad... what am I doing wrong?

Taking a closer look at the footage now that I'm at home, it's mostly the level of activity and motion in the shots.  Even in the Sony video, the quality absolutely falls apart any time that there is high motion and unstable video.

The way video compression works, it depends on predictable and smooth motion to achieve good compression results, especially for on the fly recording like a camera has to do since it can't look forward in time and see how things are going to move any further than it can buffer, which is generally not going to be very far (probably sub-second).

There are two places you could get quality loss.  The first is in the recording itself.  If you aren't recording at sufficient data rates, then if there is too much motion, fine detail is going to get lost.  Uncompressed video is absolutely massive and even most video cameras record with moderate to heavy compression already applied.  If your source footage lacks detail (and isn't out of focus) then you need to work on stabilizing the camera to ensure it can better compress the video.  There are a number of different ways you can shock mount a camera to help provide some stabilization, though they also generally add weight.

If the source footage is ok, then the problem lies in the final compression for web/end-user consumption.  The fundamental problem is still the same, but we now have the option of using digital video stabilization to help make movement less random.  We also can use VBR 2-pass compression since we can now look ahead and see how thing move in the future as well as the past, which allows for far more accurate compression and more efficient use of bandwidth.

Additionally, some of the footage could use color grading to enhance the contrast.  Ideally footage should make full range of luminosity (brightness).  Your blacks should be dark black, but without obscuring detail in the shadows.  Your whites should be bright, but without fine detail bleeding in to pure white.  You can start with a white point and black point, but really, using something like curves is the best way to tweak the video to make the most use of the available range of luminosity.  This can also be quickly, but sloppily accomplished by increasing the contrast, but results often look far more artificial that way.  Color grading is best learned by doing it and it can vary throughout a clip.  It takes time and practice to get good at it.


Automating a large series of significantly similar clips in After Effects?

AfterEffects unfortunately lacks the built in batch operation features like you'd find in Bridge/Photoshop.

I would suggest a workflow where you set up your "Master Template".

Use drop zones, as in sub-compositions which are nested into a final master composition which is used to render the final file.
The drop zones would be specifically sized comps for the elements you plan to use. So if you drop a photo of a veteran into "Photo-Drop-Zone-Comp", and it's "crop ready" as in, all of your photos are the same size, cropped correctly, etc, it will frame up correctly.
Use Bridge/Photoshop to size all of your photos to the same exact dimensions with the same safezones so when dropped into the AE project they are ready to render out.
Do the same for the Names, a specific drop-zone composition which allows for short and long names so no issues come up.

FOR AUTOMATING:

Your best bet would be to write a simple automation script/program which works off an excel sheet with the Veterans names. AutoIt would be a good "free choice", but there is a learning curve. I personally use WinAutomation Enterprise, but it's a pricey platform.

But you could create a simple script in AutoIt to query each line in Column A from an Excel sheet, which contains the names of the Vets.

Column B would contain the "photo file name" which you could batch process in Bridge using a specific syntax.

Auto it would then open the Master Template and then:

Save Project As -> Column A(Vets Name).aep
Import -> Image from Row X Column B (Corresponding Photo)
Automate the drop-zone process
Automate the replace text process, pulling the name from the Column A data.
Add to Render Queue - Render Out

You could also script it to instead work within "One Master Project", and instead of saving a project file for each vet, it could create comps instead, so you could do a batch render when it's finished.

AutoIt would be a good choice to do this kind of automation. It's also free, with tons of resources and sample projects you can download online.


Replace image in a template created on After Effects

I don't think it is.  As you say, you can replace text using Live Text Templates.
If you need to easily re-version comps from AE with different source material, I would suggest looking at Templater.


exporting video from flash for html5 video changes colors

Broadcast video codecs such as H.264 (typically) store color as YUV, not RGB. Conversion from RGB to YUV will cause a subtle color shift but also the YUV range used to represent pixel color value is compressed compared to RGB, which may also affect the hue. And finally there's the chroma subsampling, a technique used in video where a block of pixels share the same color values.

If the specific hue of your webpage BG cannot be changed then there are two broad ways to go forward:

1) Avoid a sharp interface between your video and the surrounding page by feathering the edges of your video or flash canvas.

2) A cruder, trial & error solution is to apply a tint overlay over the HTML5 video canvas so that the resultant look matches the hue. This will be a subtle tint and will affect the other colors in the video as well.

Of course, you can always take a screenshot of the webpage with your current video in it, sample its color in an image processing app and make that your webpage background color.


What lighting setup is recommended for filming a presenter in front of a TV screen?

If you can't use green-screen (the ideal), I'd recommend a couple of things. First, use a screen with a matte surface to reduce specular reflections and present more diffuse ones. These are somewhat rarer that glossy ones.

Second, angle the screen slightly top-forward, to deflect some reflections down and away from the camera. A slight parallax won't be too noticeable. Same goes for a slight off-axis view right-to-left

Third, try a polarizer in front of the taking lens to dampen some reflections.

Last, use cutting flags on all fixtures to minimize the amount of light that actually touches the screen. If you keylight from two directions, you can help avoid hitting the screen. Diffuse fill light is much harder to flag effectively.

Good luck. I'm sure others here will have more suggestions.


Convert variable input formats to black and white MP4

Yes, you do need a ffmpeg build with gray pixel format enabled. You should get your binary from the Windows link at ffmpeg. Download the latest 32-bit static build.

You can check if your build has gray enabled by running

ffmpeg -pix_fmts | findstr /r gray

It should list an entry for gray.

And use format=gray in your vf chain and -pix_fmt yuv420p together for broad compatibility.

  The command below is for linux. grep will work as findstr!

ffmpeg -pix_fmts | grep -i gray


How do I setup a camera in a fixed position?

Get a camera (not a webcam), any camera, and put it on a tripod. Make sure the camera has the approriate mount to put it on your tripod. If you have a camera without such mount, just prop it up against some books or something like this. Then connect your camera to your PC (for live streaming) or just record to SD card and put it on your computer later (for prerecorded video).


60fps and 30fps clips exported into one file?

Export to 30p. 29.97 to be exact if there is the option. Exporting at 60fps is only going to bloat the file size (twice as many frames) per second-- if it's 60p and not 60i of data to encode.

Secondly, viewers are akin to watching media playback in or around the 24-30fps range. It's what our eyes are used to, so your viewers wont be distracted as to why the 60 fps has less jutter than your 30 fps material.

Lastly, exporting at 30 fps will convert your 60 fps content to 30 fps by dropping out every other frame. Doing the opposite would mean doubling each 30fps content... and it will not look quite the same.

There are filmmakers that have rallied for moving towards a higher frame rate, lower resolution per frame exhibition format. The Hobbit was one of the most recent films (only one I can think of) that was actually screened in what they coined as HFS (High Frames per Second). I saw it in theaters in this format, and to be honest, it didn't feel like film because of it.

Go 30p. 29.97 Progressive.


What kind of external microphone can I use with my Galaxy smartphone?

Consider a couple of products from Australian microphone maker Røde.

Røde VideoMic Me: http://en.rode.com/microphones/videomicme
Røde smartLav+: http://en.rode.com/microphones/smartlav-plus

Røde makes pretty high-quality products and are leaders in making new products like these mcicrophones which are designed to plug directly into the TRRS connectors of smartphones.

I have no connection with Røde except as a satisfied, paying customer.


Looking to write a DaVinci Resolve plugin

The Resolve scripting API comes with DaVinci Resolve Studio.  The most platform-agnostic way of finding it is through the Resolve "help" menu, under Help->Documentation->Developer.  This will open a folder in your system browser which contains scripting examples for LUA, PYTHON, OFX, and more.  The README.txt file in the scripting folder contains a list of commonly used API functions.
User julian_b has posted pretty printed versions of this text file on the Resolve user forums, but as he warns, those versions may not be the most current. Formatted Resolve Python API Docs
Also, you'll want to get your hands on the Fusion 8 Scripting Guide and Reference Manual.pdf .  Much of Resolve's scripting power came with the acquisition of eyeon Fusion, which is now integrated within Resolve, and its constituent classes and methods are contained within a "Fusion" scriptable object.
There's an active community of Fusion users who maintain a very supportive forum with helpful scripting resources at steakunderwater.com/wesuckless.  (There's a long history behind the strange domain name, which comes from the eyeon days).  There, you'll find the Suck Less Fusion Bug Tracker, the "Scripting, Fuses, and Macros" subforum, and Reactor, a Fusion plugin package manager, which contains more helpful links to resources, as well as its own helpful scripting examples.

or (better yet) a plugin that does this already .. or a plugin library I can search for one?

Reactor is the place you'd find one already built, if one exists already.  It would also be the place to share one which you create.  When you're ready to deploy, the site admin, Secondman frequently helps new developers bundle their packages for Reactor.
While WSL and Reactor aren't "official" documentation, its volunteers are active, supportive, and passionate experts, whose guidance is invaluable, and I cannot recommend highly enough.


Best video performance with the Nikon 5100?

The focus issue is a side effect of contrast based autofocus.  The camera basically is guessing at what "in focus" means by analyzing the lines in the image and if the overall sharpness is better or worse than it was at the previous focus setting.  This process ends up meaning it will move through the focal point and out of focus again as many as a few times before settling on the best point.  Using manual focus with a narrow aperture to increase depth of field is generally your best bet to get a suitable result, but may require fairly bright lighting.

As for microphones, the best mic to use is going to depend on what kind of look you want.  If you want a handheld mic, the Shure SM58 is a relatively cheap and standard mic.  You can also go with a shotgun mic if you'd prefer something off camera that can pick up clear audio, though it might be harder to use properly without an operator pointing it if you move much in the scene.  The in-between option is a lapel mic which can be worn and remain fairly inconspicuous.  This is the most common approach when a boom operator isn't available and you don't want to be visibly holding a microphone.

There are a wide selection of shotgun and lapel mics available.  Your best bet will probably be to jump on someplace like B&H and start looking for well reviewed mics in your price range.  If you have any more specific questions about what type of mic to choose, we could answer general questions about what features would be best to look for if you have particular concerns or needs.


Premiere Pro - Unwanted Letterboxing in HD 1080p Video

That can happen, when you use different Pixel aspect Ratio. Use Match Sequence Settings and use Pixel aspect Ratio in your sequence same with footage.


Most undergraduate media programs have a "The Business of..." course in their curricula. It used to be "The Business of Television" or "The Business of Film". Nowadays, it is probably listed as "The Business of Media" or "The Business of Digital Media."

Unfortunately, those classes seem to be offered only intermittently. As an undergraduate I found the business class I managed to take essential for understanding the industry I was trying to break into. Now, as a seasoned professional, I cannot understand why those courses aren't required to graduate. But those aren't the fun or sexy classes, unlike the production classes.

The most relevant MOOC I could find was on the music industry. I suspect most media programs haven't adopted online delivery because of the difficulty in producing media without the group work you get with an in-person class.