How can I really see the benefits of 10-bit footage?

REC 709, the current standard for HD delivery (and YouTube), really only requires 5 stops of dynamic range (since the legal range is 16..235 out of a full scale 8-bit encoding 0..255).  Now, in much the same way that a 2x4 piece of lumber is milled from a starting point of 2"x4" down to 1.5"x3.5", an 8-bit encoding gives one the freedom to shave down the highest and lowest bits (where noise lives in the shadows and where clipping occurs in the highlights) and still have one more bit of slop to adjust brightness.  Which is not very much room to be creative.

A 10-bit source file allows for two bits more dynamic range that can be used to pull down highlights or lift shadows.  That may not sound like very much, but against a delivery format that encodes a total of 5 bits, it's quite a lot!

Now, it's true that with careful processing (especially noise reduction), one can make more use of the top and bottom bits of dynamic range, which means even more opportunity to stretch the dynamic range of the source material to conform to the intended tonal range of the output format.

Another place where 10 bits becomes essential is in the world of HDR video.  YouTube now supports HDR playback on devices that support HDR10 (and Dolby PQ).  HDR 10 really does can use all 10 bits of dynamic range, but as Ansel Adams teaches in his books on The Zone System (The Camera, The Negative, The Print), the art of photography (drawing with light) is not merely creating a 1:1 mapping between acquisition and exposition, but in how one chooses to distribute the tonal range to best effect.  Starting with a full tonal range in the source makes it that much easier to push things around to get them where you want them to be on output.


According to the symptoms it seems that the workload is too much for VirtualDub. That does depend on the CPU, but also on the hard disk. Sometimes VirtualDub has to drop frames and resync between video and audio. But in the file header there are only static values that MAGIX and other video editors expect to be constant throughout the video.

You should try setting a smaller frame size and a lower frame rate in Video->Capture pin. And in Capture->Timing there are some other important options. Try the "Sync video to audio..." alternative under Resync mode, or the "Automatically disable resync..." option.

When you find a combination that works, then you can increase the frame size again. I hope this helps.


Do internal SSDs challenge the conventional wisdom of storing digital assets on external "scratch" disks?

Scratch disks should never be external.  I'm not sure where you heard that.  External drives can be used for long term asset storage, but it is best to move assets local to work on them.

The point of scratch disks is to be the highest speed work area you have available to work from.  Scratch disks are used for data that needs to be moved in and out of memory quickly, so internal SSDs are the best bet.

The one thing you don't want to do is you don't want assets and scratch disks on the same magnetic drive because of seek time.  This isn't a concern with SSDs though, so you can generally have them on the same drive.  If you are working with very large files, then there may be a bandwidth advantage to having them on different SSDs, but in order of importance you want memory to be the fastest possible, then scratch disk, then working asset storage, then long term asset storage.

The point is to keep data supplied to the CPU and GPU as much as possible.


no such filter, when using filter complex with pre-scale

[0:v][v0] and [2:v][v2] don't contain any filter declaration, and thus ffmpeg complains. Insert whichever filter is desired in between the input and output pads.
I suppose you meant to scale the heights of the 3 inputs to match. In which case,
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -i in2.mkv -i in3.mkv \ -filter_complex "[0:v]scale=-1:1440[v0];[1:v]scale=-1:1440[v1];[2:v]scale=-1:1440[v2];[v0][v1][v2]hstack=inputs=3" -map "[v]" -map 1:a output.mp4
on input processing with -filter_complex, you use this pattern:
[input_number:v]operation[tmp_output_name]


No, there is no difference to the human eye (or exceptionally minimal).  Your monitor can't display higher quality than it is capable of displaying.  The only advantage you would have is if you were to zoom in on part of the image, you would have more detail when you zoomed in.

The exception to this is if the 4k stream uses enough extra bandwidth to reduce the number of artifacts present in the stream, but for a well configured stream this shouldn't be a significant factor.  For Youtube settings, that may or may not be noticeable depending on your sensitivity to artifacts and the type of content you are viewing.


How to speed up playback speed like YouTube using Camtasia?

You don't do this in Camtasia as it doesn't appear that Camtasia supports pitch shifting at this point although there has definitely been some discussion of the topic for quite some time.

There are alternate solutions however, ffmpeg has this capability through the atempo and aserate audio filters, I understand that you can do this with audacity and sox as well. If you have any interest in any of these approaches and would like further detail drop me a comment and I'll do my best to accommodate you.

According to @Mulvya you can also accomplish this with an ffmpeg build compiled to support librubberband You can compile it your self or there are Windows XP compatible builds available here which I've confirmed run under Wine

There's also a stand alone utility that I haven't used that you can obtain from the librubberband link above. It appears that that is limited to adjusting WAV files.

Some sources:

https://superuser.com/questions/292833/how-to-change-audio-frequency

https://superuser.com/questions/1118826/change-tone-pitch-for-file-audio

https://www.ffmpeg.org/documentation.html

https://feedback.techsmith.com/techsmith/topics/speeding_up_the_video_speed_without_effecting_audio_pitch


Downsample in Youtube or in editing software?

If you can afford the additional upload and processing time to You Tube, you should use 4k.
Not only will this look better for most people (Not actually look better, but rather it looks more modern to an average user to have 4k and some people don't even watch it if it says FHD). But also, YouTube gives 4k videos a higher bitrate which also FHD videos profit from.

So you will get an better FHD video from downsampling on You Tube, than do it yourself.

If you don't have the time tho to wait for upload and processing, most people won't notice the difference


How to mask a mp4 video with another alpha mp4 video

This would be easy to do with After-Effects. Do the following:

Create a new composition with the settings of the mp4. You can drag it on the composition symbol to automatically create it.

Then, drag your alpha-mp4 above the color-mp4. Now, set the "track matte" to "Luma-Mask" from the alpha-mp4. This should be all.


What are the essentials for a livestream training room?

Use OBS for the streaming, it can handle multiple inputs and is better than most softwares I have used for live streaming. Might require some time on YouTube watching tutorials but once it is set up you will be good to go.
Good luck!


How to move logo relative video on program monitor in Adobe CC?

Assuming I understood your question correctly (which I'm not certain of, given your poetic writing style that appears to have transcended past the need for meager punctuation), you can still double click the image in the program monitor to get into the 'free transform' mode. I just tested it in the current version of Premiere Pro CC and it works as expected.
Alternatively, you can select the clip that you want to move/scale in the timeline and open the Effects Control panel. Click on this icon next to the Motion tab:

This will also enter the free transform mode that allows you to move/scale the clip.


3D object from CINEMA4D has glowing edge in After Effect

Have a look at how AE is interpreting the footage (right-click it in the project and look for Interpret Footage>Main). Specifically look at how it is interpreting the alpha channel, it could be interpreting a straight alpha channel as pre-multiplied or the alpha channel might be pre-multiplied with another colour instead of black). Have a go at switching between alpha modes, or try setting the pre-multiplied colour to white instead of black.

If that fails you'll need to de-fringe the layer in your comp. A simple choker effect would do the trick.


There are several possibilities here.  It could be that one device or both dropped frames and thus ended up out of sync, it could be a difference in frame rate or it could simply be that one or both devices have inaccurate internal clocks for recording.  Your best bet is to identify a point at the beginning and at the end of each video that should be the same.  Figure out the offset and then do a speed adjustment to one of the clips to make it line up with the other.

After you do this, the beginning and end should both match up, but you still want to make sure to watch the entire video closely to make sure it stays lined up the entire way through.  If the loss of sync was due to dropped frames rather than a difference in clock speed, the rate adjustment will not fix the problem and you'll see sync issues emerge somewhere in the middle of your video.

If it is due to loss of frames, there isn't a lot you can easily do to recover from the problem because you are missing the information that should be in those frames.  If it is an internal clock rate issue or an FPS issue, then there is a decent chance that the rate adjustment should fix it for you.


Is there a program for automatic clip creation from scene detection/recognition result?

I had a similar need as yours - to produce shorter videos with different scenes from a single large video. I came across PySceneDetect which provides two kinds of cutting method:

threshold scene detection (detect-threshold): analyzes video for changes in average frame intensity/brightness
content-aware scene detection (detect-content): based on changes between frames in the HSV color space

More information can be found on their website.


Home video, Canon 60D, 1080p, 23 fps, H.264 lag during playback

This is almost certainly a data rate problem.  The quality level of H.264 from a camera is much higher and much less compressed than a typical media file.

H.264 is an elaborate compression which can achieve substantial compression ratios while maintaining high quality, however it is also very complex and difficult to encode with the best compression settings available.  To save time and battery, a camera such as the 60D uses a hardware encoder and applies only simple compression.  This means the file size is much larger (though the quality is also higher).

Before final consumption, the video file should be re-compressed to a more compressed file for final viewing.  You can use any of a number of compressors (either one built in to a video editing package of your choice or you can use the free FFMpeg).  If you use a two pass VBR preset for something like YouTube it should encode to a much more highly compressed and network/low power device playback friendly compression.  If you have an option for profile, I'd try the low profile as it is supported by more low power devices than the high or medium profiles.


A framerate of 30.30 has become common the past couple years. What is it about the number 30.30 that is significant? Why not an even 30, for example?

30.30 isn't a standard frame rate. I think you see it a lot because mobile phones (especially iPhones) only "target" certain frame rates, they don't necessarily perfectly deliver them.
https://www.provideocoalition.com/understanding-iphone-framerates-for-shooting-editing-distribution/
Interpreting a 30.30 frame rate video as 30fps won't cause significant issues unless the clip is longer than a few minutes, in which case you may have lip-sync issues with the audio vs the video.


It looks like you're zoomed in 2400%. If you view at 100% it should look smooth. I think the "blur" is just anti-aliasing.


Reasonable hardware for basic video editing?

Adobe has tech specs on all of the software they sell on their website (www.adobe.com). I found the tech specs for [premier elements] 9 that you can look at.

(http://www.adobe.com/products/premiereel/systemreqs/)


How Do I create this liquid like animation?

Those paint splats are often done with stock footage or filmed footage. Get a black or green surface, throw some paint at it and film it. Bring it in to AE and extract the alpha from the luma or with chroma-key and then re-colour the paint however you like using your colour correction tools of choice.

To make liquid effects in AE without footage, here's the technique I've been using since forever. I worked it out myself years ago, but so did a lot of other people, so I won't claim to have invented it

Take your source layer, eg. text, footage whatever. Apply the turbulent displace filter to it, starting with 0% strength and ramping up. Muck around with the settings and animate the evolution setting until it looks like you want it. Then apply a blur, again, starting at 0 then ramping up. Then use the extract filter to harden the edges of the blurred outlines. Lastly use the fill filter to fill in the layer with a solid colour. The effect will be something dissolving into blobs of liquid. Works best with line art and text, or high contrast footage.


I don't think there is a name to the effect. If I were to describe it, it would just be "the effect of a shell of an object cracking up and falling / peeling away in fractured pieces".

I am sure you already know the compositing side of things, where you do the colour grading, atmospheric effects and such in After Effects.

For the 3D software I work primarily with Maya and 3D Studio Max. I am very certain any 3D software that can simulate dynamic objects (rigid bodies / soft bodies / cloth) will be able to achieve an effect like this. These include Blender, Maya, Max, C4D, Houdini, Softimage XSI and a host of many others.

In motion graphics C4D is definitely a good choice for procedural effects like breaking, cracking, fracturing. In some software (like Maya and 3D Studio Max), creating the fractured pieces procedurally could be a challenge. The artist might need to use a fracturing plug.

After the objects are properly fractured, the dynamics portion of any the software listed aboev would definitely be able to achieve the physically believable simulation of the pieces falling away.

Thereafter you would need shading/lighting/rendering skills to render out the full image, or portions of it in passes, in order to achieve the final image.


How to precisely trim video with ffmpeg? -ss and -t are off by more than a half second

Transport Stream files are meant for streaming, have no global header, and may be sliced or joined together without the help of a format-aware utility. Because of this, there'a a lot of metadata structure within a TS file that allows them to be playable even after such operations. What that allows, in turn, is having multiple streams of different duration starting and stopping at different times. A format-aware utility like ffmpeg will parse the metadata and respect these features whereas a video editor which is mainly designed for a static file-based and indexed media usually won't - not with full fidelity anyway.

In the sample, there are two streams - 1 video and 1 audio. Run the following to identify the start_time of each stream

ffprobe -show_entries stream=codec_type,start_time -v 0 -of compact=p=1:nk=0 sample.ts

For your file, this results in

program|stream|codec_type=video|start_time=1.978233
stream|codec_type=audio|start_time=1.400000

stream|codec_type=video|start_time=1.978233
stream|codec_type=audio|start_time=1.400000

Ignore the first two lines. You can see that the video start is delayed relative to the audio. FFmpeg respects this delay. Your editor likely doesn't. It will either ignore the surplus audio or desync it with respect to the video.

So, 00:00:34.600 in the editing timeline actually references absolute timestamp of 34.6 + 1.978233 = 36.578233.

So, to accurately extract the desired frame, you need to know the delay of the video stream. Now, ffmpeg, by default, removes the starting offset i.e. it subtracts the start_time of the earliest starting stream before ingesting into its processing pipeline (unless copyts is set).

So, without copyts, the video start_time will be modified to 1.978233 - 1.400000 = 0.578233 and the desired frame will be at 34.6 + 0.578233 = 35.178233.

So, run

ffmpeg -i sample.ts -ss 00:00:35.178233 -t 00:26:40.400 [commands] out.mp4

You can use

ffprobe -show_entries format=start_time:stream=start_time -select_streams v -v 0 -of compact=p=1:nk=0 sample.ts

to get

program|stream|start_time=1.978233

stream|start_time=1.978233
format|start_time=1.400000

where the relative offset for the video is 1.978233 - 1.400000 = 0.578233


Do I need to convert 60fps to 30fps so it will be reproducible?

You're not back to 60fps, you're still at 30fps but with every other frame discarded (or blended, or interlaced, depending on how the speedup is accomplished).

When you discard every other frame, you're trading off temporal resolution. If you interlace, you're trading off spatial resolution.

Either way, if this appears smoother, something's wrong with the way the 60fps is being presented. Your playback system may not be able to keep up with the data rate or frame rate. If 1080/30 looks OK, then it's probably not a data rate issue.


Premiere 6 - how to add black between clips in a sequence automatically

A workflow involving Adobe Bridge is as follows. If you have Premiere Pro, you probably installed Bridge, if not, please do install.

Put your batch of clips in a folder. I would use a directory structure like Client Name > Jobs > YYYY_MM_DD > Footage etc.
Find your footage in Bridge.
Select all your footage, then under Tools menu select Batch Rename (Shift + Command (Control) + R

In your Batch Rename settings, change destination folder to something like Renamed, next to your footage folder (to keep everything organised). Under New Filenames just select Sequence Number, add 1 and select Three or Four digits. This will rename your files 0001.mov, 0002.mov etc.

From Premiere, render a black video with a length you wish or a black
frame with the same resolution and pixel aspect ratio with your
footage. You will need to duplicate the black footage as much as you
need. Rename them with Bridge, this time add a letter a to the
end of filename, and rename in the same folder.

Back in Premiere, import all the footage in your footage folder, including blacks. In your bin panel, sort them by name, they should be sorted in the following order: 0001.mov, 0001a.mov(or png), 0002.mov, 0002a.mov. Select them all and drag to your timeline. They should be placed as you wish, a video clip followed by a black clip.

If you are using still images as blacks, adjust their default length in Premiere's Preferences > General > Still Image Default Duration option.

If the videos are always in the same specs, you can re-use those blacks, by duplicating and renaming again.

Still not the shortest way, but kind of better??


Video player that has a cross dissolve option when changing the clip

The functionality you seek is standard for a item called a Video Switcher.  Video switchers can be found as both standalone units (low-end to 4K broadcast) and as software (also low-end to high-end).  In the latter case, the computer running the switcher needs video I/O functionality, which typically requires adding one or more special cards (video I/O is different than a graphics card driving a computer monitor).


ffmpeg -i music.mp3 -loop 1 -i image.jpg -filter_complex "[0:a]showwaves=s=1280x175:colors=Red:mode=p2p[v];[1:v][v]overlay=(W-w)/2:(H-h)/2:format=auto,format=yuv420p[outv]" -map "[outv]" -map 0:a -c:v libx264 -c:a copy -shortest -movflags +faststart output.mp4

Remove the format filter after showwaves.
Use format=auto in the overlay filter.
Do all of the filtering within the filtergraph, so remove -pix_fmt and replace it with the format filter.

If you want image.jpg to fit within a specific size such as 1280x720:

ffmpeg -i music.mp3 -loop 1 -i image.jpg -filter_complex "[0:a]showwaves=s=1280x175:colors=Red:mode=p2p[fg];[1:v]scale=1280:720:force_original_aspect_ratio=increase,crop=1280:720,setsar=1[bg];[bg][fg]overlay=(W-w)/2:(H-h)/2:format=auto,format=yuv420p[outv]" -map "[outv]" -map 0:a -c:v libx264 -c:a copy -shortest -movflags +faststart output.mp4


How can I achieve this lo-fi laggy extreme camera shake effect in After Effects or Premiere?

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

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

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


If you must encode at each step, use a lossless codec, or at least at a high bit rate and bit depth. But it's unusual and inefficient to perform intermediate encodings. A decent NLE will let you apply the needed transforms on separate segments or layers and only encode as a final step.

And note that rendering doesn't imply encoding in the final format. It may mean only performing some actions in the internal NLE format. If your layers can't be played out for preview because of hardware limitations, a render may permit that. But it doesn't commit you. You would still encode using the original elements in a final render.


ffmpeg - live stream into a browser video tag (localhost only)

I think that the issue is the video tag.  The video tag does not support live streaming directly, see this question on SO.  Specifically:

A. This answer for a technical description of what you want to implement

B. This answer for a code sample


EDIT: Upon further research, this only seems to be available to high-tier YouTube Creator accounts. I haven't been able to find an example of this from an account with less than 1M subscribers. Here's the Creator tier levels:

https://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/en-GB/benefit-levels.html?noapp=1

ORIGINAL: This is a feature called "Cards" on YouTube. Your account must be in good standing to use this. Go to your video and hit "Edit" then navigate to the "Cards" menu. Here, you can add cards and select the content you want to display. Up to 5 can be added on one video at a time. Here's some documentation and a tutorial:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6140493?hl=en

Hope this helps!


Best PC configuration to render Mid level Videos

There's lots of things to consider for a video editing machine, and the program you're using isn't everything, there's also what you're editing. For example, you'll benefit from a more powerful GPU for playback and rendering of high resolution files, and more ram for larger video files. That said, I have a Dell XPS 8700 with an i7-4790 processor for editing short films and some vfx and animation, and it runs fantastic, and it's only a $700 computer.

When looking at specs you'll want at least a quad-core i7 processor, at least 8GB of ram, and some kind of dedicated graphics if only something like a GT 720.

When looking at a processor, go for more cores over a faster clock. An Intel Xeon might he a good choice at the more expensive end.

RAM is easy to upgrade, so I'd start with 8GB and add more if you find yourself running out. I personally never have suffered with 8GB. Clock on the ram doesn't matter that much, just get the cheapest stuff you can.

For the GPU you want an Nvidia GPU. More CUDA cores is what you want. Baseline you've got a GT 720 or 730. A little more and you've got a GTX 750ti. Want to be the fancy kid on the block, get a GTX 960. If you really want to show off, get a GTX Titan X.


You can always try this one for example:

http://www.dvdvideomedia.com/video-cutter-joiner/video-cutter-joiner.html

But as will all "free" software, be aware during installation if you need to opt-in or out of any added software, tool-bars and so forth.


Assuming these have, or can be given, consecutively numbered file names you can do this easily using ffmpeg, avconv and similar utilities. Most have builds for Mac, Windows and Linux.

The choice of frame rate is up to you, and really affects only the total length of the output file (at 30fps, 280000 frames is 2.6 hours; at 24 fps it's 3.24 hours). If you have a target device or platform that needs a specific rate, use that.

You may want to decimate the source stack -- that's a lot of pictures and it's unlikely to be interesting for the entire length. I would convert to 30 fps, then edit the result to eliminate long unchanging sections (nights, etc).

Good luck.


Do old CRT TVs and monitors distort their image, or cut it off?

CRTs were originally round, as can be seen in this 1945 prototype. The cabinet masks off the outer parts of the tube to create the square viewing area. This is called overscan. Later tubes were more rectangular, but still relied on overscan. This was partly because as the tube aged, the scanned area shrank, so the cabinet would hide the blank parts of the screen. The front to back curvature of the tube is not accounted for in the image because every model tube had a different curvature and I don't think it added much distortion.

Curves at the rounded corners of the cabinet were also not accounted for because of the differences in cabinet. But that was part of the motivation for overscanning and for limiting important picture elements to safe areas.


Best software tool to process image/video and obtain greatest level of zoom?

You need to scale and/or crop with the best video solution. None of them do it live.

Top market solution:

  any Autodesk Video Solution (Smoke,Flint,Flame,Fire,Inferno). The number of options for the resample alghoritm is amazing... More than eight(8)!

Top open-source solution:

  Blender, used as a video-editor.

I'm sure you can easily find live solutions too, but not with the same level of quality, without going to a hardware-based solution like Blackmagic.


After Effects Not Rendering Transparency (Quicktime Movie)

There actually is no such thing as a "transparent" background in video.  Instead what you have is either 3 channel video (red, green and blue value for each pixel) or 4 channel (red, green, blue and alpha values for each pixel).

The Alpha channel provides details about how opaque each pixel should be, however unless the video player playing the video file supports reading this extra channel of data, it won't actually do anything special.

Generally, unless the background image will actually be different for different users, your best bet may be to actually import the portion of the graphic that will be behind the video and actually record the video with the background behind it.  Then, when you position things together correctly, it will appear relatively seamless (though you have to be careful about the color encoding to make sure colors match.)  There is also some possibility that people's players will apply a color profile anyway and thus make the video frame have a slight color alteration from the normal background.

Otherwise, the jquery-seeThru project that Professor Sparkle mentioned is probably the best bet.


It depends on the type of production. If it's say, a documentary where you have hours of unscripted footage; a drama where the shots are organised by scene, shot and take and you are working to a script; or a short-form piece like a TVC where you are cutting a small amount of footage down to 30 seconds.

That said, the process of editing is basically one of organisation, and it involves getting to know your footage, and then making decisions about what helps the story and what doesn't.

Getting to know your footage can involve any or all of these steps: logging - actually going through and taking notes of what happens when in the footage, choosing good or NG takes and marking them up in your project, sorting into bins, and even just naming your clips in the project. Actually, I find that naming your clips is one of the best things you can do to get your edit started. The more time you spend watching and organising your rushes the easier it is to cut them.

From there you need to start deciding what's in or out. An assembly edit is the first step – where you put in all the shots in rough story order, without worrying too much about matching cuts or sound or any finesse. At the end of the assembly you'll have a good idea of what your coverage is like, and this can sometimes be the point where you decide to shoot more footage if you can. At this stage the timeline is usually way longer than the final cut.

Then it's a process of finessing the cut, starting with the rough cut. This is where you focus on what shots are needed to tell the story. You may go back to your rushes to find extra angles, or cut-ins and cut-aways to help the cuts work or to improve the storytelling. You won't be doing any sound or colour tweaking, titles, effects or any other malarky at this stage. You may be using placeholders for effects shots etc.

From there it's a matter of making the editing seamless; making good motivated cuts, watching the pacing and rhythm. This is your fine cut, and it's the last stage before you lock down your edit and start doing the online stuff. If you're cutting to a set time this is when you might be making hard decisions about what's not absolutely necessary, and tightening up the cuts.

The "online stuff" includes adding graphics and effects, titles, music, and lastly colour grade and sound mix. Colour grading is where you firstly balance the colours between shots, and then give your shots the look that you want. Sound mixing is similar: you try to make the sound seamless between shots in a scene first, and then add other sound elements like sound effects atmos and music.

In reality there's really not hard division between the assembly, rough and fine cuts, they flow into each other. The trick is not to start worrying about getting a cut exactly right in the assembly edit because you might want to lose the shot altogether later on, so you'll be wasting your time. The idea of the assembly and the rough cuts is to focus on the whole piece without getting bogged down into individual shots.

I find that non-linear editing does make it very easy to get sidetracked into doing fine cutting too soon (when you cut on film you didn't want to cut scenes too short too soon, because it was a damn nightmare finding those one-frame trims in your trim bin and sticky-taping them back on).

There is usually a boundary between editing and stages like colour grading. You want to have your shots "locked off" before you start grading or you'll waste a whole lot of time going back and forth. Though recently colour grading packages have started to have the ability to dynamically respect edits that you make after starting the grade, so you now have the option of grading and cutting in parallel.

Effects too will often require the edit to be locked off, so that you don't waste time doing work on parts of shots that aren't used. But again, you may have to do a bit of to-and-fro between effects and edit. Packages like After Effects and Premiere work well together: if you have shots in your sequence that require effects work you can export them from the timeline via dynamic linking, so that you can watch the effect in your edit without having to render out to file.

There is no set-in-stone way of doing this, everyone and every project needs an individual approach, but this should give you a general idea of the way I like to do things.


why ffmpeg changes video stream from interlaced to progressive when it is set to copy the the stream

Looks like it is a FFmpeg bug.

I tested to remux an AVI with DV to AVI with latest FFmpeg, and the resulting "video properties" chunk indicates progressive, even if the source AVI has the right "video properties" chunk:

010F4   Video properties (76 bytes)
010F4    Header (8 bytes)
010F4     Name:                               vprp
010F8     Size:                               68 (0x00000044)
010FC    VideoFormatToken:                    0 (0x00000000)
01100    VideoStandard:                       0 (0x00000000)
01104    VerticalRefreshRate:                 50 (0x00000032)
01108    HTotalInT:                           720 (0x000002D0)
0110C    VTotalInLines:                       576 (0x00000240)
01110    FrameAspectRatio Height:             3 (0x0003)
01112    FrameAspectRatio Width:              4 (0x0004)
01114    FrameWidthInPixels:                  720 (0x000002D0)
01118    FrameHeightInLines:                  576 (0x00000240)
0111C    FieldPerFrame:                       1 (0x00000001)
01120    Field (32 bytes)
01120     CompressedBMHeight:                 576 (0x00000240)
01124     CompressedBMWidth:                  720 (0x000002D0)
01128     ValidBMHeight:                      576 (0x00000240)
0112C     ValidBMWidth:                       720 (0x000002D0)
01130     ValidBMXOffset:                     0 (0x00000000)
01134     ValidBMYOffset:                     0 (0x00000000)
01138     VideoXOffsetInT:                    0 (0x00000000)
0113C     VideoYValidStartLine:               0 (0x00000000)

It should be

010F4   Video properties (108 bytes)
010F4    Header (8 bytes)
010F4     Name:                               vprp
010F8     Size:                               100 (0x00000064)
010FC    VideoFormatToken:                    0 (0x00000000)
01100    VideoStandard:                       0 (0x00000000)
01104    VerticalRefreshRate:                 50 (0x00000032)
01108    HTotalInT:                           720 (0x000002D0)
0110C    VTotalInLines:                       576 (0x00000240)
01110    FrameAspectRatio Height:             3 (0x0003)
01112    FrameAspectRatio Width:              4 (0x0004)
01114    FrameWidthInPixels:                  720 (0x000002D0)
01118    FrameHeightInLines:                  576 (0x00000240)
0111C    FieldPerFrame:                       2 (0x00000002)
01120    Field (32 bytes)
01120     CompressedBMHeight:                 288 (0x00000120)
01124     CompressedBMWidth:                  720 (0x000002D0)
01128     ValidBMHeight:                      288 (0x00000120)
0112C     ValidBMWidth:                       720 (0x000002D0)
01130     ValidBMXOffset:                     0 (0x00000000)
01134     ValidBMYOffset:                     0 (0x00000000)
01138     VideoXOffsetInT:                    0 (0x00000000)
0113C     VideoYValidStartLine:               1 (0x00000001)
01140    Field (32 bytes)
01140     CompressedBMHeight:                 288 (0x00000120)
01144     CompressedBMWidth:                  720 (0x000002D0)
01148     ValidBMHeight:                      288 (0x00000120)
0114C     ValidBMWidth:                       720 (0x000002D0)
01150     ValidBMXOffset:                     0 (0x00000000)
01154     ValidBMYOffset:                     0 (0x00000000)
01158     VideoXOffsetInT:                    0 (0x00000000)
0115C     VideoYValidStartLine:               0 (0x00000000)

I have open a bug ticket at FFmpeg tracker with an example about how to reproduce the issue.

Note that the DV stream is correctly remuxed only (it is still interlaced, no conversion), the issue is only a piece of metadata in the created AVI file, reason you see both "progressive" (from AVI) and "interlaced" (from DV) in the MediaInfo output.

Jérôme, main developer of MediaInfo.


Spec sheet requires checksums, How should these be formatted?

There is no standard used by US broadcasters for how to format checksums. I've never delivered to a broadcaster that requires it, but I've mostly been involved in delivering commercials. DPP/AS-11 doesn't specify anything about checksums and neither does Netflix. I only know of one US broadcaster that does require checksums and they require using their proprietary software to build up the delivery package.


What is this effect used by a lot of voice actors called?

This is not an effect, it's the way these people talk. Some people have a rather raspy voice, other a smooth one. There is no effect to make your voice more raspy, unfortunately.


Can I move an imported camera track in Maya without manually changing 500+ keyframes?

Select your camera, locators (if exported), and anything else from Nuke. Group them all together with ctrl+g and modify that group as a whole.

You can scale uniformly (but not independent axes), rotate, and translate.

Often one trick is to snap the pivot point of the group to a specific reference point (hold down d and v then drag to the reference point, and then snap the group to the corresponding point in your scene (just hold v while dragging). Then rotate and scale to align the rest of the group.

When finished, you can simply unparent anything not animated with shift+p, but animated objects like your camera will need to be baked:

To bake the camera, duplicate it, unparent it, then parent-constrain it to the camera (Animation menu > Constrain > Parent Constraint). Then bake the keyframes (Edit > Keys > Bake Simulation) and you can then delete the constraint and the original camera.


Yeah! Welcome to the good ol' world of analog television. When they originally introduced color television and put a high frequency chroma signal on top of the black- and white luma signal, they had to introduce a freqeuncy shift to prevent the signal from bleeding over into the audio .... oh, you don't want to know. Srsly! Even in times of digital video this stuff will hunt us around for another hundred years.

To make it short: this is normal, and your computer handles it badly.

Those framerates are very common, for every plain frame rate there is the garbled version, because the framerate got shifted down by one thousands part:

24fps vs. 24000 / 1001 = 23.976...

25fps vs. 25000 / 1001 = 24.975...

30fps vs. 30000 / 1001 = 29.970...

Do the math - this is exactly what you experience too. Even worse: those numbers cannot be precisely represented in binary. Not even with long floating point numbers.

Video editing and player software is normally designed to somewhat compensate and prevent A/V desync anyway, either by dropping a frame every once in a while, or by doing ungodly things to the audio stream.

I would recommend you check the settings of your camera to find out if it really does not have a plain 48fps / 50fps setting. I do not think that in the digital age we are still supposed to keep up with this 1950s electron tube hack.


I used ffmpeg to concatenate to videos and it got stuck and produced a huge file. Where is the mistake?

The concat filter uses the frame rate of the first input as the framerate for the output stream. Some MKV/WebM files don't write valid framerates. That can lead ffmpeg to assign a framerate of 1000 (the inverse of default timebase in Matroska), which can lead to huge frame duplication.
Set a sane output framerate for such scenarios.
ffmpeg -i intro.mkv -i part2.mp4 \ -filter_complex "[0:v:0][0:a:0][1:v:0][1:a:0]concat=n=2:v=1:a=1[outv][outa]" \ -map "[outv]" -map "[outa]" -r 30 output.mp4


How to go about making educational videos of handwritten instructions on a digital pad, where the hands won't be included in the videos?

The easiest way to do this would be to get a graphic tablet (like a Wacom tablet or a cheaper alternative) and record the screen as you write on a drawing program such as gimp, illustrator, Photoshop, paint.net, etc. with a recording program such as OBS. You can set up custom pens that use the speed, angle, pressure, etc. of your drawing to imitate the look of a pen and to create a similar effect to one of these videos.


How to detect and extract words from audio/video stream online in a webpage itself?

If you work on a regular basis with the "owner" of the voice I can recommend Nuance's Dragon it offers very accurate speech to text with very few errors but it needs some "calibration" to a specific voice.

So if you can get your actor/narrator to read the calibration text you will have an easy time making transcripts and subtitles (though subs will require manual timing afterwards).
Nuance also offers a developer SDK/API if you need that.

However it will not help you in the case of interviews with random people on the street.

An alternative that doesn't need calibration and is also free to use is the Google Voice to Text service. There is a nice un-offical "API" for that on Github.

It will give you usable results in most cases and its fairly easy to use if you know a bit about programming and can use a command line.
Though be aware that I do not know the legal status of that, I'm not sure if that service is allowed to be used for commercial use. You might want to read into the Google Terms of Service for that, they unified that about a year ago so it should apply for the Voice to Text service as well. Also a downside, it only accepts 15 seconds snippets but if you want to automate this anyway you can just split your audio file up with FFmpeg and upload them at the same time.

There is also another commercial alternative called iSpeech which works on a pay per use model.

Also there is a built-in speech recognition in Adobe Premiere which should be the easiest way to make subitles as it integrates into the complete video workflow and allows almost automatic adjustment of the timing. A nice how-to can be found here.


How can I combine whiteboard animation, stop motion and live video without massive import/export and adjustments?

Well in that case you would export the video from VideoScribe and then edit it together with your other video material in an video editing program (also referred to as NLE).
Quite straight forward process, how you do this step by step depends on the video editing software you want to use.

There is the free Lightworks and commercial solutions like Adobe Premiere, Sony Vegas or Apple Final Cut and Apple iMovie.
I'd suggest you look into a solution that looks like it appeals to you and then watch a tutorial on the basics of that program.


How to Replicate a Color in Final Cut Pro X

The key thing to realize is that double-clicking the text color within the Inspector brings up a separate color wheel window which contains an eyedropper.  Dragging the eyedropper to the color of interest within the video is how the color gets chosen for the title.

Here's a video on how to replicate a color within Final Cut Pro X.


How do I make titles look like they are in the room as an object?

The technique you are looking for is called "motion tracking".  Currently, FCPX doesn't have the ability to do this on its own, but you could use Apple Motion or Adobe After Effects to accomplish what you're after.  Motion tracking, in general, follows patterns of pixels as they move around the scene.  Depending on the effect you're after, and the demands of your scene, you may be able to get away with just using this x-y coordinate data.  If, for instance, you wanted to replace the text on a moving truck, you could just track the corners of the truck and "corner-pin" the new text over top of it.

For more advanced projects, you need to actually reconstruct the camera's position in space.  This technique is called "3D camera tracking".  It's possible in After Effects (I don't remember if Motion has it though), and there are other apps which are purpose-built for this task, including: Boujou, Syntheyes and PFtrack.  Cinema 4D and Nuke also have this capability, but they do other stuff too.

However, 3D Motion tracking on its own is not enough to make your titles appear to actually be in the room.  You'll also need to composite the titles well, if you're going for trompe-l'œil realism.  And if you want any of the objects in the room to pass in front of the text, to give the scene more depth and realism, you'll also need to research a technique called "rotoscoping".


How can I make the particular trail longer in After Effects CS4?

You need to change lifespan of the particle and move the emitter around.  The longer the lifespan of the particle the longer the trail will be because the trail is composed of ageing particles.


What's the best before editing format to convert to?

I would recommend downloading the trial version of Adobe Premiere Pro, and cutting the videos together in there. The trial lasts 30 days which should be enough to get the job done..

Premiere Pro can take almost any file you throw at it (so you can leave all your videos in their original format). This way you wont be loosing any quality by converting your videos to one uniform codec before you edit.

Otherwise as a completely free solution Id suggest converting all your videos to 1920x1080p h.264 files. Then you can bring them into iMovie or Windows Movie Maker to order and export one final file.

If you dont need the all the videos combined into one file (ie. if your player can play all the files on its drive continuously) then all you need to do is convert them to 1920x1080 h.264 files and load them on the drive.


I did this a few years ago, digitized dozens of my family's old home videos.

The way I did it was, as at the time I was doing it from home and didn't have a IO device such as a DeckLink, I simply used a MiniDV Portable Recorder I got off eBay; which allows composite, component, and S-Video In.

Once the VHS tapes were transferred to my "Digital Intermediate" so to speak, I simply did a standard FireWire Capture using Premiere.

This also provided me with a set of DV Master Tapes as a backup.

You can likely get a used MiniDV HDV Record Deck off eBay for a few hundred dollars now that tape is dead; and just flip it when done (basically no cost if you can sell it for what you pay for it).

Going straight from Analog Tape, really requires a real IO device such as a DeckLink card to get good results, and a DeckLink card with analog IO will be much more expensive.


I'd say your encoding settings are going to be more crucial, given you're limited to the codecs that Chrome can play. Unless I'm wrong you can only use MP4 / h.264 and WebM / VP8 unless you install plugins.

Try lowering the profile of your mp4, e.g. encode using baseline profile. That will mean less compression–so larger files for the same quality or lower quality at the same size–but it reduces the processing power needed to display it.

It is worth noting that there are more hardware decoders commonly available for h.264 encoded video than there are for vp8, meaning that it's more likely to be handled at the hardware level than vp8.


Certainly using RAW on ML will help.  With 14 bit color, your noise reduction options are a lot more advanced.  Traditional noise reduction that you are used to from photos can be used with video as well using either color grading software or editing software.  (With RAW video, it would be in the color grading software before mixing down to processed clips.)  Additionally, with RAW, you won't have the encoding artifact which you may be misinterpreting as noise as well.

That said, how bad of noise are you getting.  I'm in the reverse situation of you.  I started as a video guy and switched to photography and got the 5D Mark iii because of it's strengths in both areas.  You should not be getting significant noise issues below 800 ISO on your 5D Mark iii unless something is wrong.  The 5D Mark iii shoots outstanding video and with RAW is compared fairly closely (though still noticeably different from) much more expensive cameras like the C300 or even some lower end ARRI cameras.

It is generally applauded for it's high video quality and good low light video capability.  Can you post a sample that demonstrates the problem you are seeing?  I wonder if there might be some other issue causing your problems as my 5D Mark iii doesn't give what I would consider unreasonable noise levels on video even at ISOs like 3200 or even 6400 in some lighting conditions.

ISO 3200 video frame grab

There is some noise, but it's pretty limited, particularly considering this is in the shadows under a desk, inside, with no other light other than what was coming in through the window above the table.  There are some newer cameras in the same or lower price range that have slightly improved on the capability, but the 5D mark iii is still one of the top contenders last time I looked around.

Other than that, the easiest option, like Jason Conrad mentioned, is to use more light and lower numbered ISO.


How to cut out pauses and unneeded places from video in Adobe Premiere?

You need to create a sequence. If you're not familiar with video codecs, the easiest way to do so is to right-click on your clip in the project panel and select New sequence from clip ..., which will create a sequence using the resolution and framerate from your clip.

Once you've created the sequence, it should appear as a timeline in the lower right area of your screen. If you have not yet set an in- and outpoint, your video will be in the sequence as a whole. Make sure to delete that (right-click on the video in the timeline and select Clear), so that you get an empty timeline to start with.

Then you can start putting your video together. Set the in- and outpoint for the first scene from your video that you want to use and then drag the clip from the project panel into the timeline (alternatively, you can push insert (shortcut ,) or overwrite (shortcut .)). Move on to the next scene in your video, again set in- and outpoint and insert the clip into the timeline, and so on.

Once you have everything arranged in your sequence, you can export the sequence as a whole via File -> Export -> Media ....


Technical Term for "side by side scene editing"?

What you are describing is called a "ripple edit" (because the adjustment you make to the clip ripples through the rest of the timeline that comes after it).  It may also be called something like "ripple trim" as a more specific term for the precise type of ripple edit.  It is a feature available in any decent professional editing package.  Depending on your other needs, it's probably worth taking a look at DaVinci Resolve as Resolve is a high end professional product which also offers a completely free version with about 90-95% of its features included.  It's out of your price range for the full version (at $299 for a license that they haven't charged for an upgrade in the last 3-4 versions) but there is a decent possibility it will cover your needs in the free version.

There is lots of other software with Ripple Edit capabilities, but Resolve is the cheapest one I personally work with enough to be able to recommend.  I've been out of the consumer market for a very long time, so I'm not sure what products would be current there.


How can I convert the caption file format (.xml to .vtt)?

Closed Caption Converter claims to be able to convert from TTML (XML) to VTT captions. I don't have a source file unfortunately, so I cannot confirm.

What tools have you tried thus far?


Please help identify this rack-mount case

I know it's a long time since you asked this and likely no longer need it, but in case anyone else comes across this thread looking for the same kind of case (as I did!), look for "pop up" rackmount cases for audio mixers.


I can't reproduce your issue on my end, but I can offer an alternative method. Another way to create the circle example you've provided is to use a Radial Wipe effect on the shape layer:

Effect > Transition > Radial Wipe

Just animate transition completion from 0 to 100 percent. If your shape layer is moving, you may also need to pickwhip expression the Wipe Center parameter to your position parameter:

transform.position

I hope this helps you out. Good luck!


How should I go about doing this same exact effect for an upcoming project?

In some parts it is still pictures, in some — probably video. It is better practice to make motion-design with After Effects, but you can accomplish this in Premiere.

To rotate footage in 3D in Premiere you need to add "Basic 3D" effect:

Effects > Video Effects > Perspective > Basic 3D

There you will find everything you need to rotate in x,y,x dimensions. But full video will be easier to create in After Effects. Premiere is better for video montage.

Good Luck!


1080p60 recording has very strong compression artifacts, default Neat Video not reducing them much

I assume the actual data rate is 3.3 Mb/s, not MB/s (bits, not bytes). This is very low for 1080p60, and artifacts are likely at such a low rate. You might consider capturing at at least double that rate.

Alternatively (or also), halving the frame rate to 29.97 would double the effective bit rate. You would be trading some motion artifacting for less visual artifacting, but the former is usually much less noticeable.

Considering that blu-ray can handle in the range of 40-50 Mb/s, your bit rate is way below the target for the delivery medium you've chosen.


how to synchronize text to the video timecode?

I found a nice solution perfectly answering my question : http://www.dashware.net . I'll try it later but it seems the right solution !


Different in and out animations for text in After Effects

You can add more than one selector to a text animator. Selector 1 can control the slide in, twirl down the Animator>Range selector>Advanced properties and look for the control called Based On, and set that to character.

To have a slide-on you would add an offset to the position, and then change the selector so that it progressively de-selects the text. The best way is to set the start and end to 0% and 100% respectively, and the add keyframes to the offset property, starting at 0 and ramping down to -100%.

Now hit the Add button next to the Animator and choose Selector>Range to add another selector to it. Make sure that it is selecting none of the text to start with. Change the Based On property of this selector to words. You can change the way the two selectors interact with the Mode control, this changes whether the selection properties add together, intersect, subtract and so on. Using the **Add* mode should work for you. With this selector you would keyframe it so that it progressively selects the words in the text when you want it to slide out. Use the same technique as the first selector, but with the keyframes reversed.

This will make the slide go back to where it came from, you might want it to continue in the same direction. To do this you would add another animator with a different offset, rather than just a selector. You can add as many independant animators to a text layer as you like.


I took the sample from apple https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/506/
My command line using on colab was
!ffmpeg -y -i https://devstreaming-cdn.apple.com/videos/wwdc/2019/506lqy7sprpfyo800/506/506_hd_hevc_video_with_alpha.mp4 -s 960x540 -vcodec vp8 -metadata:s:v:0 alpha_mode="1" c0016_alpha.webm

Hope it matches your scenario.


Move mask inside precomposition in After Effects?

So, it was a simple thing:

Instead of "Leave all attributes" when pre-composing, I needed to switch to "Move all attributes".


Most cameras have a mode where you can manually control all the settings.. I would set the camera to manual mode, do some tests during a rehearsal.  Adjust the exposure so that nothing is over or underexposed when the stage is normally lit, and manually set the focus such that anyone on the stage is in focus at all times.

Ideally for audio, you would use radio mics on the actors, and record the output from these, as well as a couple of ambient mics to capture the audience, but this requires a sound mixer... If the actors are being amplified already, take a feed from the sound mixer's desk into your camera.  If not, then a stereo pair of mics placed as close to the actors as possible (but not picking up feet noise) might be the next best option.

With more budget, multiple cameras, with multiple operators, long lenses, etc etc... but the points about auto exposure and auto focus would still hold true.

Monitors in the other room depend on the video output options from your camera - what model are you using?


How to recover a video that has no time index?

I've had some success with ASFTools and Steeper WMV Repair. Both of these are older tools (Steeper is from 2005) so may not be able to handle later versions of WMV, but they're worth a try.


Depending on your definition of high quality, this is impossible.  For comparison sake, DV video (at standard definition) takes a gigabyte per 4.7 minutes, which is at a good, high quality level of compression.  You are trying to do 60fps 1080p video and get it under 2GB for 4 minutes.  That's over 12 times the information and you are trying to fit it in just over twice the space.

If you want to see how it works out when you use the highest possible quality that will fit your size requirements, you can simply calculate the data rate. Create a 2-pass VBR encoding with an average data rate determined by the size and time.  The file size is equal to the data rate times the number of seconds in the video.  2 pass VBR will ensure that the best possible use is made of that space.

You mention that you can break it up in to 4 minute sections to send over.  Why is it that you can't split the files (using file tools rather than video tools) and have them reassembled on the other side?  Is it a file size limitation or a file transfer limitation?  Also, is there a reason you can't send the original files along with the project files?  Each additional time that you encode, there is a slight bit of quality loss, so it is preferable to work from the original assets whenever possible.

Another possibility if you are working collaboratively and have issues with moving a huge amount of data.  It is possible to output low quality copies of the original video files and substitute those files for the high quality versions when working on them remotely.  Your friend would take your project files and the low quality assets, do any editing he wants, and then send the project files back to you.  You could then render the final output based on your friend's editing decisions but using the original, full quality assets.

The reason you don't want to go to a smaller file size in-between is that each time you encode a video, quality is lost.  The lower quality the source you are working from, the more is lost in each additional encoding, so if you move to a mid-range format early on, then the final output will suffer.  If you run the render from the originals however, you get maximum quality.


When making a youtube video of coding tutorial, is it good to have the keyboard sounds while I'm typing?

I presume you generally talk while typing, right? Well, when I need to focus on a human voice, any distracting sound is unwelcome. This includes keyboard typing. I do not see any benefit of such sounds when making tutorials during parts when you talk. Also, keep in mind that people with hearing aids will benefit much from a clean voice with no other sounds.
When you have scenes in the video where there is nothing to talk about but you have to type a lot, the silence might be a bit irritating. However, you could cut the boring part and skip ahead until we see the complete code block. Alternatively speed up the scene.


ffmpeg take channels 7+8 and make a stereo

Try something like this:

1) Merge Audio Tracks 7 and 8, put it in Audio Track 1, discard other Audio Tracks from source:

ffmpeg -i "in.mxf" -filter_complex "[0:7][0:8]amerge=inputs=2[mergedAudio]" -map 0:v -map "[mergedAudio]" "out.mp4"

In some cases you might add the option -ac 2 between the end-" of filter complex and the 1st map.

2) 1) combined with all (useful) parameters of your code:

ffmpeg -i "in.mov" -filter_complex "[0:7][0:8]amerge=inputs=2[mergedAudio]" -map 0:v -map "[mergedAudio]" -ac 2 -c:a aac -b:a 320k -ar 48000 -disposition:a:0 default -strict -2 -c:v libx264 -b:v 9300k -minrate 9300k -maxrate 9300k -bufsize 2325k -r 24 -force_fps -s 1920x1080 -aspect 1:1 -pix_fmt yuv420p -profile:v high -preset medium -level 40 -partitions partb8x8+partp4x4+partp8x8+parti8x8 -b-pyramid 2 -weightb 1 -8x8dct 1 -fast-pskip 1 -direct-pred 1 -x264-params force-cfr=1 -coder ac -trellis 1 -me_method hex -flags +loop -sc_threshold 40 -keyint_min 24 -g 240 -qmin 3 -qmax 51 -threads 12 -metadata creation_time=now -sn -y FINAL.mp4

You had a space in your bitrate -ab:1 320k. I have changed it to the current syntax -b:a 320k

Same with -ar:1 48000 -> -ar 48000

Removed -async 1 because it threw an error


What Is That Misty, Glowing, Saturated Look 2000s Music and Pro Videos Have?

I don't know how much of this contributes to the effect,
but it seems that they are applying a blurred copy of the footage with very low opacity.
Similar to this: http://digital-photography-school.com/4-easy-photoshop-techniques-to-make-your-pictures-pop


Video quality degrades when uploading to YouTube with variable frame rate

Not sure why YouTube would be degrading the video quality because of the lower framerate. Perhaps, after recording at the lower framerate, re-encode the videos using 60fps before uploading. It'll make the file bigger without the actual benefit of the higher framerate (just creates duplicate frames), but maybe worth it if it prevents video quality from degrading.

Edit: OBS uses FFmpeg, & FFmpeg has some recommended settings specific for YouTube. If you are using the same settings for both videos, this is probably irrelevant.


Audio/Video Out of Sync with Samsung NX1000 Camera - Why?

I have a similar problem and that's how I found your question online today... The Mp4 file from my nx1000 was imported as it is on adobe premiere cs3.

The audio and video seem to have same starting and ending point, but the video alone is faster than the original as if it was stretched, and the audio has the normal speed but ends in the middle of the original sound track.

Knowing that I imported the file to a project with the same settings as video, 1080i 29.9fps... I tried again with 25fps and with a video card and without a video card... In vain

The only way I got it right, is unfortunately by decoding it on a software called procoder, to a different format (i chose *.mov), and it worked like a charm on my editing software. But of course I lost resolution... I did not buy the nx1000 so i can decode it and lose resolution for editing!

There should be an answer, I hope you found yours!


After Effects - images get corrupted / ruined picture

I don't know why it happened, but I've found out what causes it -
it's the frame blending interpolation, which was set to pixel-motion.


Reverse engineering: which video editing software was used on this video?

With a 99% chance After Effects was used here.
As long as you plan on doing a commercial video I would avoid home video production programs like iMovie at all costs. Specially because iMovie is made for cutting video and not making animations. That's like making a commercial in Windows Movie Maker.

There are many many talented freelancing After Effects animation artists out there who will make you this kind of animation with ease if you don't want to learn the software yourself.

More info on After Effects here on the Adobe website.


How to copy timecode value from a video to clipboard on a mac

This can be done in Apple's Motion (but not FCPX for some reason). To do so, create a new project and import your footage. You'll want the project's frame rate and starting timecode to match the footage's. Next, set the timeline to display timecode by clicking on the downward facing arrow next to the timecode:

Select the Timecode option:

Then double-click to select the timecode:

Now you can copy/paste it or type in a new value to jump there.


What should I be looking for in a low cost color correcting monitor?

There's a loose binning of monitors into 3 categories:

Consumer equipment [$500 - $1500] Dell U-Series LCDs, Panasonic Viera Plasmas
Entry-Level Monitors [$2500+] FSI, HP DreamColor
High End Monitors [$$ - $$$$] eCinema, TV Logic

Some of the features of non-consumer monitors that you'll want to learn about are:

HD/SDI inputs
Additional outputs
Colorspace and signal type support, such as 4:2:2
"Higher" bit depth, such as 10-bit
LUT programmability

If you're asking for low-cost, without already knowing these monitors, then I strongly suggest you stick to the first category, and use something like the DataColor Spyder calibration puck.  Getting that top 5% of color accuracy comes at a steep price, and since it seems you're just starting out, you probably want to stick with the 95% solution.  Upgrade only when you have specific need for the features.


How to upscale the dv 4:3 to dv 16:9 and maintain its quality while scaling

I will say this. Most people who use 4:3 footage in a 16:9 project will only scale up until the clip is even with the top and bottom of the screen. The sides will maintain an even distance from either side of the 16:9 frame. The blank sides will usually be filled in with another layer of video. This background layer will sometimes be graphics and information or even an upscaled, blurred version of the original footage played back in sync.

Check out this link: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1153004

I don't believe there is a way to convert your 4:3 footage into 16:9 without loosing any quality. I suggest a hardware upgrade.

Good Luck,

ND


Should I export all edited clips before final composition?

Would the second method be faster while working inside premiere? I think so since it is already in 1080p and the software is not rendering a preview of noise reduction + stabilization, etc.

Yes… and no. While the 1080p footage may play better in Premiere, doing the post work on all your rushes will chew up your time trying to correct clips that you may not end up using. If you do the noise reduction in After Effects first you will either have to render the clips, or if you use dynamic linking Premiere will be doing the render on the fly, which definitely will slow it down.

My usual workflow is to do the cut in Premiere. The footage will be ungraded, with no post effects or noise reduction etc.. Once the cut is locked off (ish) then I will select any clips that need post-work in my PP timeline and choose Replace with After Effects Composition. This will create an AE comp with the selected clips already cut to length and in order, ready to be worked on in AE. Once I've done the AE work the comp is already dynamically linked to Premiere, so changes I make in AE show up in the Premiere timeline.

This means I only have to export the final timeline from Premiere, thus saving an intermediate render. Obviously if there's a heap of After Effects stuff happening on it it will slow down your Premiere previews, that's why you do it after all the editing is done and dusted.


How to prevent frame smoothing (i.e. get really sharp frame images) when making a video with ffmpeg?

Since you're asking for "uncompressed" I assume you don't care about file size. If so, I suggest rendering to mjpeg. This smoothing issue is because your command is defaulting to h.264. The difference between h.264 and mjpeg is that mjpeg is intra-frame compression only, but h.264 is intra- and inter-frame compression. As such, mjpeg is a massive file by comparison, but each frame is unique and not dependent on previous frames like in h.264. One benefit is frame fidelity, enough should fix your issue. Mjpeg is also pretty universal. You won't need a codec pack to play it.

To make your images into an mjpeg video run:

 ffmpeg -framerate 20 -i slice%04d.png c:v mjpeg -q:v 3 -an output.mov

c:v mjpeg means video codec
-q:v 3 is a quality control factor. Range is a linear 2-31, lower is better. Tune the number to your tastes.
-an means no audio channel included. This is good to run if that's your goal, as some codecs confuse players if you don't.
Output is mov but I'm pretty sure you can wrap mp4 or avi too. Mp4 seems mostly likely to work for your users on windows as well as mac.

Before you try this, maybe don't quite give up on h.264 yet. Run your original command with the crf flag.

 ffmpeg -framerate 20 -i slice%04d.png -crf 18 -an test.mp4

crf is "constant rate factor", and is a quality control. Range is exponential 0-60something. Lower is better and 18 is considered functionally lossless.


Various places I've worked have found different solutions. Some record the LTC from a broadcast video tape to an unused track. Some will reuse a track from an earlier project. The first is slow (1:1), and both are inflexible. Hardware TC generators are flexible, but it's still real-time creation.

I offer a free 32-bit Windows utility that can generate an hour or more of SMPTE/EBU code as an audio track (WAV file) in a couple of seconds, at any common frame rate. No catch, it's free for any use, personal or pro. I only ask that you pass along This Link, and not copy/share the program directly. Enjoy, and please send comments or suggestions.


Why does After Effects not export with audio?

The issue seems with your playback of the rendered file. Try playing it with QuickTime (you are exporting with QuickTime after all) or VLC Media Player or Media Player Classic. All these are good options if you want to test you rendered files.

Using the media player that comes with your version of Windows is always a bad idea, Microsoft never bothered with good codec support.


Retrieve and decode V-Chip data from an aired digital TV stream

V-Chip is encoded in the Extended Data Services (XDS) that is part EIA-608 captions. How it is actually transported in/with the video depends the signal type and medium.

Analog: Encoded with the captions on line 21 field 2.
SD SDI: Probably also on line 21 field 2.
HD SDI: On line 9 of the HANC encoded as per SMPTE ST 334.
ATSC over the air: In the DTVCC transport channel.
In a file: It depends on the wrapper.

It can be decoded in software. However, I don't know of any tools that aren't part of something larger, like transcoding, that can do it.


What's the technical term for additional material at the start and end of a take?

I can't cite any authority, but the term I've used and heard most often is handles. It's not just used for live shots, but refers to any trimmable material that allows for transition points to be adjusted, etc. In your example I'd say "this clip requires 10-frame handles".


I personally use RaceRender, however, there is also DashWare.
Both can edit video and add GPS position overlays.
Bare in mind, neither of them can add the actual "map" like one from Google Maps, just a line showing your path and a marker showing the current location.
Again, my personal preference is to use RR or DW to produce a video with a magenta background so I can Chroma Key it in my editor (Magix Vegas).
I find the built-in editors in both programs a bit fiddly, so the use of a proper editor is recommended but they're fine if you just want to load a video, apply the overlay and render it out.


x265: Is it possible to re-compress HEVC video without quality loss?

In strict mathematical terms, no.

In terms of maintaining an acceptable image quality, yes. If you use CRF 18 and a preset like ultrafast now, you should be able to get a smaller acceptable file with preset veryslow later on.


Adobe premiere - dedicated method for split frame video?

You should position two tracks differently, one to the left and one to the right. Those tracks need also croppings to have the interesting part visible. See for ex. this tutorial video: Adobe Premiere Pro Tutorial: How to create Split Screen Side by Side Video Effect.

There's more of them, search for “Premiere split screen”.


Reimport exported file and make all the cuts same

It could be done automatically with scripting, but scripting premiere is undocumented and requires a bit of experience.

A workaround is to use the keyboard shortcuts. If you put the reimported clip on a new track in the original timeline you can use the ↓ key to jump to the next cut, then hit shiftctrl/⌘k to add an edit at the playhead across all tracks. Rinse, repeat. You could even map the add edit command to a single key to make it easier, e.g. x. Then its just a matter of hitting ↓then x 500 hundred times. Something like Autohotkey (there's probably an equivalent for those still stuck with a Mac) can automate that process to make it even easier.

Or you could use a less insane workflow. Oops did I say that out loud?


Convolution matrix for converting 1080i to DVD?

Really nice question, common problem.
After Effects, Autodesk Combustion and Autodesk Smoke can bring you a software downconversion(1920x1080 -> 720x480) with more quality than Final Cut Pro or Premiere Pro. Smoke can make it near perfectly.

You can use (buy/rent) hardware downconverters, like AJA Kona 3, or Blackmagic clones. Better results goes with AJA.

There are even more expensive/professionals solutions like Sonic and others which will make the MPEG-2 compression directly in hardware too.

If  you don't get your matrix filter from someone (not me, I'm not skilled for this kind of mission), best approach will be small tests with software and settings, tests, tests, tests, and then setup the workflow to not change forever!

Good Luck!


Multi-Cam View Disappeared from Premiere CC

Never mind, I figured it out. Look at the timeline in the picture in my original question. Next to the multi-camera track, the "V1" is not selected. I selected that, and the multi-camera view came back. (I thought the "V1" just indicated which track a clip would be pasted to! Guess not.)


How can I used dashed or dotted line for drawbox in ffmpeg?

This function is not implemented by ffmpeg


Depending on your needs, it might be as simple as using the drivers that come with your system.  I know that certain NVidia cards can make multiple video outputs appear as one single screen to Windows.  In a case like that, it would simply be a matter or properly aligning the projectors (if they can handle the key-stoning themselves)  A lens might be able to handle correcting for the curve.


Why does audio have standard bit rates whereas video does not

Complexity is the main thing.  Because of how audio works, there tends to not be a whole lot of variation in the quality you get from a given bit rate.  While video often has frames that are very similar from one image to another, audio rarely has the exact same sound playing for a long period of time.

This lack of predictability in audio means that the compression ends up being similarly efficient between one clip and another, so the quality levels can be closely associated to a given bit rate.

Video on the other hand can be predictable or unpredictable.  Some videos sit on the same background for a long time with slow changes between scenes and large areas of similar color within those scenes.  Such videos can be compressed very heavily and maintain their quality since large areas of the same color that remain consistent over time compress very well.

Other videos may have lots of action on complex background with rapid cuts between shots.  Such video requires a much higher bitrate for the same quality because the rate of change within the video is much higher.

This distinction makes video unsuitable for "standard" bitrates because they are no guarantee of quality.  Instead, standard metrics are based around arbitrary, subjective quality levels of video.  Since there isn't a good concrete way to measure quality level, each company ends up using their own definition of what quality their videos are and use the balance of file size and quality to differentiate their offering.


Premiere Pro plays media video stream at half the speed as audio

I spent 5 hours with Adobe support and an engineer, where we tried cleaning the media cache, removing preference files, removing "Application Support" files, rendering in to out, and downgrading from 14.7 to 14.3. The issue still persisted. Adobe said it was my fault because I have the minimum 8 GB of RAM instead of the recommended 16 GB. It sounds like a bug to me.
I tried the oldest version of Premiere, 13.1.5 without creating proxies when ingesting, and it did not have that problem.


How to calculate the overhead of wrapping multiple elementary streams?

The only exact approach is to simulate the muxing. On a *nix system this would be

ffmpeg -i i.mkv -i i.flac -c copy -map 0:0 -map 1:0 -f matroska /dev/null

At the bottom of console readout, there's this line:

frame=152217 fps=71723 q=-1.0 Lsize=  551301kB time=01:41:28.66 ...

The Lsize is what you want. This operation is pretty quick as there's nothing written to disk.


Is there an equivalent to Vegas' "select to end" feature in DaVinci Resolve?

It's called "Select Clips Forward On This Track", and it's activated by placing the playhead (the tall orange marker) over the first clip you want to select and doing one of the following:

Select Clips Forward On This Track: Y
Select Clips Forward On All Tracks: Alt/Option+Y

There are more of these available in the Timeline menu ("Select Clips Backward", "Select Clips Forward").


Duplicate layers X times and move 1 frame each time

Check the Array script on aescripts.com website. It duplicates your layer in desired numbers and has more control for offsetting the properties like position, scale, rotation as well as time. It is really easy to use and has many great built in functions for creating really good looking and creative motion graphics. Especially for your case, playing around with the script might function as a brainstorm tool to create new looks. Just watch the provided tutorial video to see the features.

By default, AEScripts website will set a price but you can "Name your own price" for this particular script. Just register with the website and type zero in the price field and add to cart.

My personal thought on the pricing, if you are using the script in a commercial project, it is always a good thing to pay some amount for it. As this is a great and creative tool, it deserves some donations, think it as a tip. It is not compulsory but a way of showing appreciation.

By the way, check the other scripts on the website, it is a gold mine. There are lots of great tools to speed your workflow.


Looking for a solution to remotely control timed video capture

I have no practical experience, but you might take a look at using a (linux) computer with blackmagic decklink or intensity pro card.

There are command line tools like bmdtools which (should) allow you to interface the capture card.
https://github.com/lu-zero/bmdtools

You could then pipe the video input to ffmpeg to record.
I don't know of a setting to provide to ffmpeg to limit the capture-duration, but you could maybe create a script starting and stopping both commands at the right time.
This might be helpful: http://forum.blackmagicdesign.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5109

If you are using such a setup with a computer, the next stages of your workflow could be scripted as well.

edit: I can't really find any information about this, but if you can read/record the H264 stream which the BMD H264 recorder outputs in ffmpeg or vlc, It will be a lot less demanding for your system. The other two options mentioned above will have to do the encoding in software.


Path created with an expression will not draw other than being selected

Apologies if I've misunderstood, but you can just click on the Add triangle, and add a fill or a stroke to your shape:

The modifiers in the "Add" menu are hierarchical - so you have to add them below the path's hierarchical level.


Adobe's CC suite will use the GPU, but the benefit you see from it depends on the power of your GPU compared to your CPU. This feature set is called the "Mercury Playback Engine" and contains, among other optimizations, CUDA support for certain realtime effects (scaling, crop, etc) as well as encoding/decoding.

However, most integrated or mobile GPU's aren't powerful enough to make it worth using CUDA acceleration. Fortunately Adobe is smart enough to transition back to CPU rendering when it detects wimpiness in the GPU department.

With a dedicated graphics card like a GTX970 you'll see a significant decrease in render time - perhaps as much as 50% (so I've heard, anecdotally, from other youtubers like yourself).


That is something called Starlapse. In short it is a form of time-lapse, as you use the same techniques to shoot it but you use a different method to produce the final video. there are many ways in doing this using different programs and plugins. All you need to do is do a search (in a very popular web search program that rhymes with "poodle" and there are hundreds of posts, tutorials, and videos on how to do this.

I do it myself and use https://www.markus-enzweiler.de/software/software.html simple and easy to use but you are limited to editing the images outside of the app. There are other options of using plugins in LightRoom, PhotoShop etc

Hope that answers your question


No matter when the camera shutter is active, if the frequencies of the video vertical timing (the frame rate) and the laser pulse are not congruent, you'll see partial exposures as they drift apart.

The solution is to trigger the laser pulse on every other vertical sync time. The details on extracting the vertical interval will depend on the camera, and how to trigger the laser will depend on the details of that device. But some sort of forced sync is the only way to get exactly what you want.


How to solve audio/video sync issue on my mp4 screenrecording?

Try tsMuxer as it will allow you to change the frame rate without re-encodingn https://www.videohelp.com/software/tsMuxeR


Calculating loss when converting from MTS to AVI using FFMPEG

Your paper is asking for an impossible data point unless you have some method of evaluation specified.  By definition, lossy compression results in a loss of data.  Modern lossy compression is very good at discarding data that is not visually meaningful to people, but it is still discarding data.

The amount of data loss when related to a human viewer is thus very subjective and can't be measured.  There are specific methods for comparing the source and output videos for differences and determining loss mathematically, but you need a particular choice of method to apply and you simply apply it.


Editing software to quickly match audio and video transitions

From a quick Google search, I can see that Movavi has something like this and (as far as I can tell) is free. However, it only marks the beats for you; you'd still need to actually roll up your sleeves and cut the clips down yourself.

Adobe Premiere Elements also has a beat detector thing (I believe) but, again, I suspect that it'll just help by marking the beats on your timeline, leaving you to do the cutting.

I can't actually find something that does it all for you but, to be honest, you'll probably get better results cutting the thing yourself and it really won't take that long (I reckon about an hour or so for a 2-3 min track, if that - especially if you've already selected your clips).


How do you load gopro footage into Blackmagic Fusion?

End answer was dnxhd/mov. Use something like:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c:v dnxhd -b 440M -c:a copy out.mov

The -b argument should be adjusted based on your input resolution. 440M is the correct choice for 1080p @ 59.94 fps.


This is likely a video from a Sony/Vaio product having a vmp extension.  I don't know of any third party converters, however you should be able to export the video file from your Vaio/Sony product itself.  It'll automatically create an mpeg video file for you.


No, you can't. You can use the built-in features of the platform such as adding cards or applying 'Enhancements' (Youtube's terminology, not mine), but there's no way to replace the video itself. From the official documentation:

  You can’t replace a video because any new video you upload to YouTube
  will get a new URL. Instead, you can make changes to an existing
  video:

  Enhance your video: You can make some editorial changes to the video using YouTube Video Enhancements. You can trim parts of your
  video, auto-fix lighting and color, blur parts of the video, apply a
  filter, and more.
  Add cards to your video: You can use cards to change elements of your videos. You can point viewers to a specific URL (from a list of
  eligible sites) and show customized images, titles, and calls to
  action, depending on the card type.
  Change your video's title and description: You can organize and make changes to your video's title, category, description, and privacy
  settings.

If video replacement is a feature you deem necessary for whatever content you are producing, you might consider switching to a hosting platform that allows you to do this. For example, replacing the original video file while keeping views, comments et c. intact is possible on Vimeo (documentation, as of August 2017).


Why is there so little lighting continuity (consistency) from the close up shot to the wide shot?

The lights are positioned to make the single shots look good.  If you point a load of lights at a camera, the image will look overexposed.
Both these shots are, more or less exposed to make the presenters look correct. But lights visible in a camera shot are much brighter than human faces.
It's a compromise in a small room between which shots are the most important (the close-ups) and the wide is a nice to have.  The alternatives would be bigger softer lights, or indirect lighting, but again with limited space (and budget???) options are limited.


My 50 FPS footage automatically converted to 24FPS by DaVinci Resolve

This is related to your default Project timeline framerate.

As soon as you add your first timeline to the Project the Project timeline framerate gets locked, and when you add subsequent imported media it will inherit the same playback framerate as the timeline.

If you start a new Project and first add a New Timeline - it will lock to the Project default timeline framerate.

If you start a new Project and first import Video media with a different framerate to the Project timeline default - it will ask you if you wish to change framerate to match the media, and then lock the timeline framerate.

So probably best to set your framerate on a new Project before you start editing in: Project Settings > Master Settings > Timeline frame rate

You can also create default/loadable settings in: Project Settings > Presets


Can I multiply 3D cards in a Nuke 3d scene on top of each other, like i can multiply layers in After Effects?

It is not possible to use  blending modes in a 3D scene. What can be done though, is to use several scenes or 3D objects with a scan line renderer and a cam. Each of those are merged with the blending mode of choice after the scan line renderer in 2d.


Why does media show up in Final Cut but errors when rendering in Compressor?

Is your Final Cut event using proxy media? It's possible the original media has been moved and Compressor can't find it.


Maya Python - How to create shaderOverride?

You need the MTypeId of the override you want to create. Find typeIDs.py in your Maya installation folder (.../lib/python2.7/site-packages/maya/app/renderSetup/model/typeIDs.py)

As you can see, the MTypeId of a shader override is 0x58000386.

Then, just create a layer and a collection, and call your createOverride method:

from maya.app import renderSetup
import maya.api.OpenMaya as OpenMaya

renderSetup.model.renderSetup.initialize()
rs = renderSetup.model.renderSetup.instance()

# Create layer
rsLayer = rs.createRenderLayer('MyFirstLayer')
# Create collection
rsColl = rsLayer.createCollection('MyFirstCollection')
# Create shading override
over_obj = rsColl.createOverride('MyFirstOverride', OpenMaya.MTypeId(0x58000386))

If you want to create another override, just find the according MTypeId.

Thanks to Fabrice that answered this question here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/48305522/maya-python-how-to-create-shaderoverride


Is it possible to edit a still image in Photoshop which is part of a sequence in Premier Pro?

You can import Photoshop files to Premiere Pro, so that whatever change you make in the Photoshop file also appears in Premiere, like this:


Can modern cameras (BMCC, Red, Arri, etc) record to a drive over ad-hoc wifi?

Any camera with an HDMI or SDI output can can stream via wifi using a Teradek Cube (http://teradek.com/pages/cube).

This setup will allow you to monitor and record via iOS or computer. It also supports remote recording over the internet (decoder needed).

In addition to WiFi, Terdek also supports 3G/4G/LTE cellular networks via a USB modem.


Is it possible to change shortcuts related to playback speed?

Sure you can do that. Go to the Edit menu -> Keyboard Shortcuts... and search for the action you want to change (alternatively search for the keyboard shortcut itself).
Click the little x on the existing shortcut to remove it. Then click the field and type in the new shortcut. If it doesn't work, click once more, and type again.
The only problem is that many shortcuts are already in use and Premiere is immediately removing the shortcut elsewhere when it was in use, so you might want to click undo after accidentally removing a shortcut. You could use the search bar to see if the key is still free or change several shortcuts to free a key.
At the top you can change the keyboard layout profile. So you can always go back to the defaults at any time, if needed.


Nest the text layer, so that the animation works in within the composition and then mask the nested composition.


FFMpeg crop filter doesn't change orientation

What's happening here is two things:

1)your video is portrait but stored as a landscape matrix and ffmpeg is applying autorotate so that all players natively display it in what ffmpeg thinks is the correct orientation.

2) the video has a PAL DV aspect ratio of ~1.09, so after the autorotation and aspect ratio correction, 568 x 320 is autorotated to 320 x 568 with 1.09 scaler being applied to both W and H.

Try this, instead:

ffmpeg -i VID_1438833296.mp4 -noautorotate -vf setsar=1,crop=568:320:0:0 -metadata:s:v:0 rotate=0 -c:a copy out.mp4


Editing a Mac Screen Recording in Premiere Pro causes image fragmentation

I see 2 likely causes:

I think Premiere still supports only frame rates up to 60 and your videos may be recorded with higher fps. Premiere tells you what the fps is, for example in Source Monitor, right click on Properties. Or in the Project Panel, you see the fps (you may have to scroll quite a bit or add the column if it's missing). If your material is beyond 60 fps, try converting it with any other tool, like ffmpeg.

Other users recently asked similar questions (see [1], [2]), so I wonder if there is a bug in Premiere or certain graphics driver versions. If so, you could try to install a slightly older version of your graphics driver. Otherwise maybe contact Adobe support.


Mi Sphere 360, where is stored the gyro data?

The data are stored within the file disregarding of the .mp4 file standard.

the chunk containing those per frame data starts with: #¿Ttlyd or 23C05474 6C7964in hex

Each frame has 36 bytes of data, those seem to be 9 floats of normalized (from -1 to 1) numbers

Those numbers seem to be a 3x3 matrix representing the current coordinate system for this frame.


Proper HD export format in Sony Vegas Pro 13 for a decent video size?

I assume you're using the Mainconcept AVC encoder. 3GB for a 1h50m video implies a bitrate of 3.7 mbps. That's the average bitrate you need. Set max bitrate to 5 mbps.

Now, usually I render in two passes. First pass is a high bitrate from Vegas  (20 mbps or more) and then encode with ffmpeg, which is a free command line tool.

Command would be

ffmpeg -i vegas.mp4 -crf 23 -movflags +faststart final.mp4

ffmpeg offers lot more variables to adjust but the above should be enough for most size adjustment. Usually a CRF value between 18-28 (lower is better but bigger) works.


Creating wave interference in After Effects

I think this requires a 3D effect rather than a 2D effect like Radio Waves. You might be able to achieve something like this using Trapcode Form.

Adding a bit more detail:

Make a radio wave using a black background and white waves..  Make the white waves quite thick, and have the radio waves start on the left of the screen.

Precomp the radio waves into their own comp

Ini the outer comp, add a blur to make the waves fall off gently instead of being hard black/white transitions.

Duplicate the inner comp in the Project tab, to make a second unique version of the comp

Drag this second comp into your main comp

Edit the origin position of the second radio wave comp, so that the second one starts towards the right of the screen.

You should now have something like this:

Make a new solid layer in your outer comp

Add Trapcode Form to it

Set it up using Strings, using settings as shown:

Key thing is to set the Displacement on the Z axis to correspond to the radio waves pre-comp you've made (and make the radio waves pre-comp invisible).


I went through all the library replicators and found one that used a Randomize behaviour on the cell's Object.Angle Randomness.Angle Randomness. This looks okay. Everything is still kinda moving in sync if you look carefully but things go to different angles more naturally. I think overlaying a couple of these will look about right for my purposes. But I'd still rather each replicated element had parameters of its own.


One flac file - many tracks - no cue - yet it's 'split' somehow

You can use metaflac to export both the cuesheet and cover image.

metaflac--export-cuesheet-to=out.cue --export-picture-to=out.png input.flac


Mic positioning in 2 sitting actors scene

It is more important for the mic to be close enough to the talent than it is for the mic to be pointed perfectly on-axis at the talent's mouth.  A cardiod 12" away that's 45 degrees off-axis will likely sound better than a cardiod 36" away that's dead-on.  Shotgun mics give you a bit more range, and a bit less tolerance for off-axis pickup.  But then again, the table may provide a very good early reflection that reinforces the actors voice and allows you to simply mic straight down with good results.

Depending on the size of the table, and where the actors' projection lines converge, you might be able to get away with a single mic aimed down between them, or you might effectively need two mics (either physically or by shuttling a single mic between them as they trade lines).

The key to successful sound recording is to know the principles of mic patterns and behaviors so that you can properly prepare for a session and successfully understand why you might be hearing what you hear when you actually put up the mics.  But that is only the starting point.  You must then always always always use your ears to adjust from what the principles predict to what actually works in the specific case with which you are dealing.


There may not be a direct preset for 4K, but you can simply use the Mainconcept AVC module to export 4K. Simply select one of the 1080p presets, like Internet 1080p, then customize template to choose a custom frame size and enter your project resolution e.g. 4096 x 2304. Change average bitrate to 40,000,000. Match the frame rate to your project frame rate, and you should be good to go.


Puppet tool - how do I make the arms stay attached to the same points on the body?

If you put a puppet pin at the point where the arms attach, then you can tie the position of the arm layer to the position of the puppet pin using an expression. This will attach the layer to the puppet pin, allowing you to move the pin and the layer it is on and have the arm follow.

It's easy to do, with no knowledge of scripting really required.

So say your body layer is called "Body" and it has a puppet pin called "L_Shoulder", which is on the body at the point where you want to attach the left arm. The left arm layer should have its anchor point at the point that you want it to pivot on, which coresponds to the L_Shoulder on the body layer.

Here's what you do:

First, make the arm layer a child of the body.
Now apply an expression to its position property (hit alt/opt and click on the stopwatch).

The expression we want is this:

thisComp.layer("Body").effect("Puppet").arap.mesh("Mesh 1").deform("L_Shoulder").position

This looks very difficult to type, but fortunately we don't have to. Next to the expression editor text box is a pickwhip, that we can use to select properties and values. After you alt/option-click the stopwatch, drag the pickwhip to the position property of the puppet pin, and it will fill it all in for you.

Because the puppet pin positions are relative to the layer this works well. As the arm is a parent of the child, setting its position relative to the body layer is exactly what you want.

If the arm is not a child of the body it gets much more complicated: you have to use the toComp method of the body layer to get the relative position of the pin to the composition space, and then you have to apply expressions to link the other transformation properties of the body layer, but it can be done.


Try adding this ffmpeg parameter:

-map_chapters -1


If your question was

  Where are these pixel formats defined?

Go to http://ffmpeg.org/download.html and download the source of ffmpeg. Then unpack it

tar -xavf FILENAME.tar.*

and descend to the folder in the source code that is called libavutil

cd ffmpeg-*/libavutil/

and open the file pixfmt.h where you will find a description of all pixel formats. A few sample lines

AV_PIX_FMT_YUV420P,   ///< planar YUV 4:2:0, 12bpp, (1 Cr & Cb sample per 2x2 Y samples)
AV_PIX_FMT_YUYV422,   ///< packed YUV 4:2:2, 16bpp, Y0 Cb Y1 Cr
AV_PIX_FMT_RGB24,     ///< packed RGB 8:8:8, 24bpp, RGBRGB...
AV_PIX_FMT_BGR24,     ///< packed RGB 8:8:8, 24bpp, BGRBGR...
AV_PIX_FMT_YUV422P,   ///< planar YUV 4:2:2, 16bpp, (1 Cr & Cb sample per 2x1 Y samples)

Additionally you can read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YUV and it’s cited sources and external links.