Are there technical issues with doing video reviews of software?

I think it is mostly a structural thing.  Games generally involves simple interaction with a lot of similar content.  Hardware devices have a physical interface and while they can run lots of different software, the capabilities of the device are reasonably easy to describe.

For general productivity software, the interactions are complex, but not so deep, thus it is harder to review in video form.  You see many video tutorials about how to do particular things, but a review is concerned with glancing over a lot of information about the product and doesn't give much interesting visual content to go along with it.

For a game, you can show some gameplay while you talk about the review, but what do you put on the screen for a video review of say, Photoshop?  The main screen of Photoshop is the main screen of Photoshop.  You don't have enough time to show all the new stuff and if you don't have time to fully show it, then what do you put on screen while you mention the new things and how they work?

Try it for yourself, read a software review sometime and think about what you would put on screen while reading it if you were to produce a video form of the review.  It's really hard to come up with visually interesting content that would fill the space.  Now you could simply have a video of you sitting there talking about it, but that is slower to consume than reading an article and so doesn't add a whole lot of value.

There simply isn't really any interesting visual interaction that video can handle better than text and simple screen shots that can setup in advance and put into a written review do a better job of naturally showing how a new feature works in a concise manner than video could.


Be careful ISO/IEC 14496 Part 10 is a video coding standard also called AVC or H.264. The associated file format is ISO/IEC 14496-15 which is based on ISO/IEC 14496-12 (aka ISOBMFF).
A standard is the result of a compromise between different people, different companies, different application domains and different scenarios. Indeed the ISOBMFF is very wide and many boxes defined in standard may not be used in all scenarios. RTP Hint track related boxes are used only when one goal is to generate RTP packets from an MP4 file. DASH related boxes are meaningful only when you use DASH. Of course a single file may have multiple purposes and so some boxes may not be processed by some tools.


Without knowing the video properties, my generic answer is

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf geq=lum='p(X,Y)':cb=128:cr=128 out.mp4

This will reset the color information, but pass the luma plane intact. Add -crf 0 for truly lossless re-encoding.

This is the faster way,

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf extractplanes=y,format=yuv420p out.mp4

The luma plane is extracted, and then neutral chroma planes are added in the pixel format conversion. This 2nd step is added because otherwise ffmpeg will auto-convert pixel format to yuv444 which isn't widely compatible.


Even with a floppy drive, you may be SOL -- it's likely the drivers won't work in your current OS. You might have to fire up a virtual machine with an older OS.

If the video is analog, consider a USB video capture device. Here's a whole page of them, or search for "USB video capture".


Adobe After Effects how can you create a distorted line moving along a video / picture? Example given in desc

You can duplicate your footage and add a displacement map as your revealer with a black line with gradient


How was this slow motion effect created? what programs can do this?

There are methods to generate frames in between frames, mostly giving you mixed results.

For one, the plugin "twixtor" (~330$) actually does a somewhat decent job at assuming missing frames, so much so, that a 30fps video can be played back at half the speed, making it look like 60fps slow-mo.

On the other hand side, you can sample the frames directly in premiere for example. I wouldn't recommend it however, as the results don't usually live up to the expectations.


What is the most appropriate approach/tool in the Adobe CC suite for creating animated diagrams for use in a technical video?

After Effects is probably your best bet, as it integrates seamlessly with Premiere and Illustrator.

Create your diagrams in Illustrator, import them into After Effects, and convert them to shape layers. You can then animate them, and add the AE compositions to the Premiere project.


How to send stream to server without any compression?

Any video you plan to stream from a host machine to another endpoint, or multiple endpoints, will have to be encoded. The question is what is your source? Are you streaming a live video feed? If so, in order to stream uncompressed you’d first have to have your capture setup to injest the video as an uncompressed format, 4:4:4. Even with just 1080, you are talking huge amounts of data.

For uncompressed, to stream over the internet, youre going to need a serious rock solid network uplink... 1000mbps up or greater depending on the frame size.


ffmpeg remove 1 of 2 audio tracks without video reencode

The first line of the output you provided explains the problem:

Seems stream 0 codec frame rate differs from container frame rate: 180000.00 (180000/1) -> 23.98 (24000/1001)

and then the last three values in the 4th line tell about it in detail:

    Stream #0.0(und): Video: h264, yuv420p, 1280x720, 23.98 tbr, 90k tbn, 180k tbc

which mean, in words:

I guess the frame rate 23.98 fps from the input video stream.
The time base in the input container is set to (1/90000) seconds.
The time base in its video stream is set to (1/180000) seconds.

Now, return to the the first line of your output, after the semicolon:

180000.00 (180000/1) -> 23.98 (24000/1001)

It means: Your stream's framerate is 180,000 frames per second, but I will convert it to 23.98 fps.

The same is in the mentioned 4th line, in the form 23.98 tbr. It's the FFmpeg's guessed value.

So you are right, the conversion occurs, for both selected streams (video and audio one). You may see it from other lines of your output:

Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
  Stream #0.2 -> #0.1
Press [q] to stop encoding

because in the case of copying them it would be as these:

Stream mapping:
  Stream #0.0 -> #0.0 (copy)
  Stream #0.2 -> #0.1 (copy)
Press [q] to stop

The conclusion:

Your command is correct, but your input file is damaged.

You may convince yourself about it by applying the same command to other, correct input file.


Create time-lapse gif centering point of interest

You don't necessary need to make it the center of the image but always appear at the exact same point in the frame. The center is usually an easy referencing point for that purpose, so why not use that.

Obviously the easiest would be to make the photographs in a way that they don't need postpcessing. If this chance has passed already, you can get a (free) image editing software like the "gimp" and move & scale alle pictures in a way that they have approx the same size and center.

BTW good luck with the baby, ours is almost 3 months already and it has been quite some experience so far.


Is a torn DV tape recoverable in any way?

Mini DV tapes can be spliced, so it should be easy enough to reattach it to the reel in similar way. Be sure to use tape splicing tape and not any other kind of tape. Be sure to only put splicing tape on the substrate of the video tape. Don't let the tape fold over onto the oxide side. If you end up splicing in the middle of the tape, you will see the picture pixelate and freeze around the splice.

I would recommend running the repaired tape through your player last just in case something isn't quite right with your splice and you accidentally damage the head.


The sourceRectAtTime(n) method does what it says on the tin: returns the dimensions of the source of a layer, at comp time n. So because the source of your layer is 1920px wide, it returns 1920.

You want to be using another method, the toComp layer space transform. It returns the comp co-ordinates of a point in layer co-ordinates. To find where the top right (in layer co-ordinates it will be [0,0]) of a layer is you'd do

thisComp.layer("theLayerName").toComp([0,0]);

To find where the anchor point of a layer is in comp co-ordinates:

let theLayer = thisComp.layer("theLayerName");
theLayer.toComp(theLayer.anchorPoint);

The really useful thing about toComp is that it works regardless of the parent chains that the layer may be connected to, and any transformations that have been applied.

To apply it to your case apply this to the red's position property:

let white = thisComp.layer("white");
let red = thisComp.layer("red");
let sRect = white.sourceRectAtTime(time, true);
let offset = white.toComp(sRect.width, sRect.top); //top right of the white layer
value + offset;

value in the last line is a property that returns the currently set value of the layer property, after keyframes. So this will add the offset to whatever the position currently is.

There is no need to use time-white.inPoint when calculating sourceRectAtTime because that method expects comp time as the first parameter, not layer time.


Add noise to video while maintaining compressibility

As you say, noise by definition doesn't compress well. You can try different types of noise in FCP. The Add Noise filter has several choices - Gaussian is a reasonable simulation of film grain, but you can try the other choices, too. They might compress better (or worse).

But your best bet is to increase the data rate of the resulting file. I don't know the limitations of YouTube or Vimeo, and your content may make it difficult to stay within their limits, but that's probably going to get you better results than trying to find some form of noise that isn't (as) affected by compression.


Davinci Resolve: How to flip horizontal a short scene (visually flip every frame, without reversing play)

First, cut the longer clip into 3, to separate the reversed part from the rest of the clip. Then bring the clip into fusion, link the input to a transform node, then to the output. The transform node can flip horizontally on the right hand side panel options for it.

A shortcut to do this quicker is you can do it in the edit page also, by just selecting the clip and using the 'transform' attributes on the right hand side.


Make sure that resolutions match.  Look at the properties of the source clip, make sure that all of the main parameters (height, width, pixel ratio, frame rate) match for your composition and your export.  If it is having to interpolate pixels (as a result of non-divisible height or width or a difference in pixel aspect ratio) or interpolate frames (as a result of a mismatched framerate) then you are going to see a noticeable drop in sharpness.

Also check to make sure that render options are all set to 100% and that Best quality is selected on the render output.  It is possible to run renders in AE that don't process every pixel to speed rendering for drafts.  This could be what is happening as well.  If you can provide more detail about the composition, render settings and source material, then we might be able to help more.


Is there a microphone / video setup that requires little to no post-production?

What I would do is concentrate on the setup in front of the camera, to make sure that what you're recording is the best quality it can be, in order to avoid the need for post.

Set up your lights so that you have good, soft-ish (no harsh shadows) lighting that is well colour balanced. A 3-point light setup is the standard way of lighting interview subjects, but you could also get away with a single keylight and reflector, or keylight, reflector and back light. A good simple portrait setup is detailed in this very good tutorial.

Pay attention to the background. A flat white wall is going to make the shot look flat and boring, but heaps of clutter could be distracting. Pay attention to the lighting levels—havign the background at the same exposure as the foreground may make your subject disappear, it can be good to slightly under-expose your BG. This is definitely not a rule; have a look at this reel, and pay attention to the backgrounds to get a good idea of how to do it right.

Check your white balance and exposure before shooting. Auto exposure may work, but it is usually better to use manual, to avoid it changing during the shot, or over-compensating for white or dark objects in the shot. Most cameras can do a custom balance off a white card held in the same position as your subject.

Try and get the location as quiet and dead as possible. No mic will automatically eliminate background sound. Directional mics will limit the pickup pattern to a narrow beam, but low frequency rumble (e.g. street noise or wind noise) will still cut through.

The absolute best way to minimise background noise is to get the mic as close to the sound source as possible. Sound intensity falls off with the square of the distance, so going twice as far away means one quarter the intensity. So to get the most signal versus noise you want the mic to be close to the signal, and away from the noise. A boom mic (a micstand will do for a seated subject) is a good way to do this, because the head of the subject is usually near the to of the frame, meaning you can have the mic close to the top of the subject's head, and if it's directional, pointed at their mouth. Having the mic above the subject and away from their breath will help eliminate p-pops.

Lapel mics are another way of getting the mic close to the subject, but can be affected by clothing noise.

By "dead", I mean less reverberation. Don't record in a bathroom; a room with carpet, soft furniture and as few hard surfaces as possible will work best. A bedroom is actually pretty good usually.

Good cameras (including some better consumer grade cameras) will have an external mic input. This removes the need to synch audio and pictures in post. Then you can just use a standard analog mic with a cable; on a budget this will give you the best bang for your buck.

If you have the subject well lit, with a good sound setup, and the camera correctly exposed and balanced you've eliminated a lot of post work. You could set up a standard grade if you want to tweak it more, eg. adding a LUT or a 'look' to make it really pop. If you keep your shoot settings the same, then you can just use the same grade each time, and still achieve great results.


As far as I'm aware there are no dslrs with lut loading capabilities. Further, many professional grade cameras don't even have that ability.

I suggest getting a small HD monitor and loading it there and connecting that to your Dslr.


How to remove green lines from adobe premiere pro 2020?

It's basically related to your graphics driver, if you were not getting those lines in previous versions then better you to Roll back your graphics driver to old one, or update/wait for newer version to get released, I was having the same issue I tried many things didn't work and I just left hope but after somedays I opened Adobe premier and saw there were no green lines.


Remove flickering due to artificial light with ffmpeg

The following worked well for me, based on the same ideas

http://www.premiumbeat.com/blog/quick-trick-for-de-flickering-your-video-shots/

https://superuser.com/questions/1025794/merge-two-videos-with-transparency-in-ffmpeg

It's more than a year, so I don't remember exactly how I arrived at this. The VOB was a video shot from a projected screen with serious projector pulldown flicker, alternating lighter and darker frames. The VOB was interlaced at 29.970 fps, where 1 frame would be 0.033 sec. The result was amazingly good, way beyond what I could get with various other deflicker filters.

ffmpeg -fflags +genpts -i FLICKER.VOB -fflags +genpts -i FLICKER.VOB -filter_complex "[0:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[top]; [1:v]setpts=PTS-STARTPTS+.033/TB, format=yuva420p, colorchannelmixer=aa=0.5[bottom]; [top][bottom]overlay=shortest=1" -c:v libx264 -crf 26 -an NOFLICKER.mp4


You can try to repair the file with ffmpeg, a free command-line tool, like so

ffmpeg -analyzeduration 1G -i input.mov -c copy -map 0 out.mov


Quick way to view previous clip in Premiere's Source window?

I just found it by accident. Hit shift2 to go to the source viewer window, and hit it again to cycle through the previously opened clips. There's no display to tell you which clips are in the queue, other than right-clicking on the viewer tab, and the order seems to be alphabetical rather than chronological, so you might have to hit the shortcut a number of times.


Tips to start making a little production

The minute you said "no lighting" you violate the premise of "look as professional as it could be and not too amateur".  Lighting is not only about ensuring there are enough photons to actually record decent image on the camera's sensor.  Lighting defines highlights and shadows, contrast ranges, areas of focus and mystery, etc.  It is almost impossible to overstate how important lighting is to the look of an image.  The understanding of lighting, and use of that understanding in the control of lighting, is perhaps the single greatest factor that separates professionals from amateurs and professional-looking results from amateur-looking results.


How to switch New Composition Settings Duration from Base 25 (time) to Frames?

Oddly enough, this has to be done in the composition window itself.  In the top left-hand corner of your timeline window, you know the little orange numbers that tell you the current timecode?  If you CMD + click on that (ctrl + click on windows), it'll switch to Frames instead of timecode.

When you hit CMD + K to bring up the composition settings again, you'll see that Duration and the other relevant categories are now shown as Frames instead of timecode.

Note that this will shift your whole timeline to Frames (including the markers on the timeline itself), which you may or may not want.  If you just want to have it for frames while you're editing the composition settings, though, you can always just CMD + click on the number in the upper lefthand corner of the timeline to switch it back to timecode.


How to start a freelance editing company?

Depending on where you live, there will be some specific steps you need to take in order to start up your own business (which you'll ultimately want to do if you want to start charging people for your services).

Other than that, I'd recommend that you start out by collaborating with some kind of non-profit organisation, if you can find one that have a need for the kind of work that you offer. This way, you'll get some exposure, you have something concrete to show to potential clients, and you start to build a network. Next thing, try to land a job where you at least get paid something; to get paid, even if it's just a really small amount, is a big step if you've never received payment for your work before.

From there, just try to increment the amount you're getting payed every time you take on a new job. As long as the increment is small enough, you should improve fast enough to justify the new pay-grade.


It does not produce any output file.

After filtering, display_frame() is called, which simply outputs to the console.

/* Trivial ASCII grayscale display. */
p0 = frame->data[0];
puts("\033c");
for (y = 0; y < frame->height; y++) {
    p = p0;
    for (x = 0; x < frame->width; x++)
        putchar(" .-+#"[*(p++) / 52]);
    putchar('\n');
    p0 += frame->linesize[0];
}
fflush(stdout);


Adobe After Effects: Scaling circle changes its movement?

The issue you're experiencing is that the transformation of the circle does not originate where you expect it to be.

This is because the anchor point of the layer is very far from the center of the visual contents.

You can re-position the anchor point of the layer using the "Pan Behind" tool (also known as "Anchor Point" tool.)

There are scripts that will do this while preserving the visual position of the layer on the canvas; one of my favorites is Motion 2 by Mt. Mograph and a very simple, low-cost script is RepositionAnchorPoint by Charles Bordenave

My suggestion would be to first experiment on a copy of your composition to see how manually adjusting the anchor point with the "Pan Behind" tool affects your animation, and once you have a strong grasp on how After Effects implements the changes you make, trying out one of the scripts linked above.

Once you've mastered understanding of the Anchor Point, you'll be able to use Null objects and Parenting to great effect.


Batch processing individual frames into video

Here are some options:

VirtualDub can join still images to videos. Just select the first
image, choose a compression, and save the video. That's some mouse
clicks per folder, but no automatic batch procession.
FFmpeg can do the same, but you need to write a command line for
each folder, which can then be automatically batch processed.


Losing audio/video sync in Adobe Premiere with mp4's

Download the 32-bit static build ffmpeg from here and try either of the two methods:

1) regenerate the timestamps

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -fflags genpts new-input.mp4

2) Extract audio, import that separately, align starts in timeline and then check

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vn -c:a copy input-audio.mp4


Convert resolution 4096x2304 to 3840x2160 keeping the quality the same

Judge based on the quality rather than the bitrate value. Use CRF mode encoding and if the quality isn't what you can accept, decrease the CRF value.

ffmpeg -i "%%a" -s 3840x2610 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -acodec copy D:\%%~na.mp4


How to apply different filters to different parts of a video using AviSynth?

This can be done using the filter ClipClop. Here is an example script from the docs of the filter:

Avisource("D:\avs\test.avi")
ORG=Last

V1 = FFT3DFilter(Plane=0,Sigma=1.6)     # Light Luma
V2 = FFT3DFilter(Plane=0,Sigma=2.0)     # Med   Luma
V3 = FFT3DFilter(Plane=0,Sigma=4.0)     # High  Luma
V4 = FFT3DFilter(Plane=3,Sigma=1.6)     # Light Chroma
V5 = FFT3DFilter(Plane=3,Sigma=2.0)     # Med   Chroma
V6 = FFT3DFilter(Plane=3,Sigma=4.0)     # High  Chroma
V7 = FFT3DFilter(Plane=4,Sigma=1.6)     # Light Luma+Chroma
V8 = FFT3DFilter(Plane=4,Sigma=2.0)     # Med   Luma+Chroma
V9 = FFT3DFilter(Plane=4,Sigma=4.0)     # High  Luma+Chroma
V10= FlipHorizontal()                   # Flip-H
V11= FlipVertical()                     # Flip-V
V12= Invert()                           # Invert

NickNames ="""  # Psuedonyms for clips (clip index number)
    L0   = 1    # Light Luma
    L1   = 2    # Med   Luma
    L2   = 3    # High  Luma
    C0   = 4    # Light Chroma
    C1   = 5    # Med   Chroma
    C2   = 6    # High  Chroma
    LC0  = 7    # Light Luma + Chroma
    LC1  = 8    # Med   Luma + Chroma
    LC2  = 9    # High  Luma + Chroma
    FH   = 10   # Flip-H
    FV   = 11   # Flip-V
    INV  = 12   # Invert
"""

SCMD="""          # Clip editing commands in string, can also use commands in file
    C0  0,99      # Light Chroma frames @ 0 -> 99
    L0  100,-200  # Light Luma frames @ 100, 200 frames ie frames 100->299
    INV 300,399   # Invert 300->399
    L0  400,499   # Light Luma frames 400->499
    FH  500,599   # Flip-H 500->599
    LC2 600,699   # High Luma + Chroma
    C1  800       # Med Chroma, Single frame
    1   900,999   # Light Luma, We used the clip number instead of a NickName
    FV  1000,1099 # Flip-V
    LC1 2000,0    # Med   Luma + Chroma, 2000 -> lastframe
"""

SHOW=True

ClipClop(ORG,V1,V2,V3,V4,V5,V6,V7,V8,V9,V10,V11,V12,scmd=SCMD,nickname=NickNames,show=SHOW)

How to do it:

You define different versions of the original clip (V1 - V12) using your desired filters.
You can assign nicknames to those versions.
You define the segments using the scmd parameter of the filter. Here you can define which frame ranges of the original clip should be replaced by which nicknamed versions.


What are some good accessories for a DSLR video recording setup?

I'm biased, but before anything else, invest in AUDIO GEAR. Far too often, filmmakers forget to keep audio on an equal par with picture. Invest in some good, quality mics. Shotgun? Meh...a good, all purpose cardioid like the reasonably-priced ElectroVoice RE-10 can hold you over for a while until you get some audio recording practice under your belt.

Essential to MY toolkit is an H4N...an excellent digital audio recorder. It's small enough to hide on set, and I'll be honest...I've used it hidden behind a centerpiece to record a conversation at a table with no problems. They're stupid cheap, too...like...um...$299? I forget offhand.

The microphones in DSLRs are pretty much all crap from my experience; I use them more as a reference track than anything else.

Good audio will make your images sparkle even more!


Mac video capture / recording at a resolution larger than, and aspect ratio different to, native display

Apparently, it may be possible to get the OS to output a higher resolution than the native one. It requires some config files tweaking. I can't vouch for this method.

If you just need to show, say, the middle third of the screen, then another possibility is to zoom in to provide a larger source for ffmpeg to upscale. Depending on the size of the area of interest, this might not make much difference.

Of course, I dare say, 1680 --> 1920 should be an easy upscale post-recording with hardly much difference in perceptual quality unless your items of interest are very small.


What is a non-encoding lossless h.264 AVC editor? (other than avidemux which is buggy)

I know only VideoReDo and SolveigMM Video Splitter, but they are not full-featured video editors. Both are not free.


How to reverse these keyframes in Adobe After Effects?

If I understand correctly, you don't want to change "keyframes," you want to reverse the order of the images, so that the ones on the top of the stack appear first, followed by the ones below.

Easiest option:

Delete the images & comp
Reimport by selecting only the 1st image, and make sure to check the box for "image sequence" this should grab all of them in the correct order & make a comp of the group.

Alternative to avoid reimporting:

Select all the layers, from top to bottom.
Hit "Home" to move the Current Time Indicator to 0:00:00
Hit "[" to reset the start of all layers to 0:00:00
With all layers still selected, Right-Click the timeline
Choose "Keyframe Assistant"
Choose "Sequence Layers". Leave "overlap"unchecked.
Hit Enter

The layers should now be sequenced from top to bottom, the next one starting exactly where the previous one ends.


Premultiplication issue with two jpeg sequences

Part of it may be the fact you are using JPEG sequences.  JPEG isn't a pixel accurate format and you are going to have some differences in block quantization that could potentially result in mismatches.

I don't think that is the only issue since it is a bit too regular for it to be the only issue, but I'd try to use an intermediate format that is a bit more lossless for doing things that need to be pixel accurate match up.


Currently Adobe products only support hardware with CUDA support.  While there is a specific list on Adobe's website of officially supported hardware, most cards with CUDA support will work with a little bit of tweaking.  The best bet is probably to Google for the particular card you are interested in and the package you want to use as the exact support and capabilities of each card/software combination will vary.


FFMpeg has an option to modify the aspect ratio of a video file without actually modifying the video, see http://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html#Video-Options

For example, in your case, the desired aspect ratio is 720 / 480 = 1.5 (3:2) (which is NOT 4:3, it should be 540 in that case)

So your command line may look like:

ffmpeg -i input_file.avi -c copy -aspect 1.5 output_file.avi

This copies both audio and video streams unchanged to the output file, and specify into the file's metadata that the aspect ratio is 1.5 as a hint for video players.


When is it necessary to enable "Time Remap" in After Effects?

If you are using Time Remap, a Timewarp should not be needed and vice versa.  Timewarp is designed to allow adjusting the playback rate, where as Time Remap is designed to allow you to tell the playback to be at a particular point in the original timecode when it reaches a particular time in your composition.  It mostly just matters how you want to control the adjustments and what level of control you want over the processing, but only one is needed.


After Effect CC - How to combine and crop videos

After Effects and masking are both total overkill for this problem.

First you want a video editor, not a complex VFX system, as your baseline.  If you have After Effects, you likely also have Premiere Pro.  Drag and drop each video onto a separate video layer.  In Premiere Pro, each video layer has an Effects tab that includes a Motion effect.  The Motion effect includes scaling and translating video (shifting it left/right or up/down).  Scale each video to 50% (they should all scale toward the middle of the screen), then translate each video to their respective corner.

The last piece of the puzzle is to crop the videos as you wish.  In Premiere Pro, there's a video effect in the Transitions category called Crop.  By cropping left, right, top, and bottom by a certain number of pixels, you will get the rectangle (or square) you want.

But almost any video editor at all has Layers, Scale, Translate, and Crop.  That's what you need to solve your problem.


Matching a camera in a 3D scene based on a photo

Production Software Used:

PfTrack, PfMatchit, Boujou, Syntheyes, Nuke Camera Tracker...

Student free use:
Autodesk Matchmover

All of the above software is used to 3D Match Move Cameras to video sequences. Most of them are very expensive. PfTrack is my personal favorite.

Although all of the above mentioned software is used to solve cameras for video sequences they work just as well with stills. PfTrack has tools to orient a scene based on hints that you give it about scale, x-axis, y-axis,z-axis, FOV and so on. The solve is easier with more reference images that have been taken from different angles looking at the same scene.

As was mentioned above looking for key signs in the photo that give hints for y-axis and z-axis will help you align your scene. If you Place grids down you can try to ballpark the perspective of the shot and give yourself a good horizon line. You can also place proxy geometry of some of the objects in your scene to guess depth and so on. Many of these techniques are what is used to match CG to video.

In the end the more information you have about the original physical scene is what will make matching CG easier. such as actual dimensions of the scene and as many measurements as possible. If you have access to any of the above software you can undistort your stills and have assistance on producing good solutions to your scenes 3D camera.


Adobe Premiere Elements 10: File > Export is greyed out

The Export function was removed a couple of generations ago but it is still in the file menu as its used for a couple of things such as tiles.

All video is output using the "Share" button.

If you want some extra information on this matter here is an answer from Adobe:
http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-elements/kb/export-option-unavailable-premiere-elements.html

Hope that helps!


Did you try using the -compression_level flag? It takes an int from 0-100 afaik (maybe the range is even higher, the docs just say "int").

That should set a lossy compression strength.

There is also an interesting blog post about creating DCI compilant JPEG2000 encodes with FFMPEG for DCP's. Which require lossy encoded JPEG2000.


Looks like Audition can read BWF markers but Premiere doesn't. So, two options are

1) to save separately the regions between markers.

or

2) export a WAV from Audition, with cue points that which Premiere seems to see.


I'm trying to crop the sides of a movie which are unwanted... Online

BEFORE I would say
onetruemedia.com

It HAD a great online video editor, but that was bought out by disney and then shut down. (Disney just wanted the tools in one of their software bundles)

Currently I would say
videotoolbox.com
Not the most intuitive, actually a very poor user interface.
But it has the crop feature you are looking for, not easy to find.
But here is a little video on how to use the online tool


FFmpeg, how to record game over than 30 fps?

This might be an issue with the hardware unable to keep up with the required process of recording (compression) and writing to disk, which will result in dropped frames. That being said, your flag for crf should increase by a ton, and remove the qp flag. Set the crf to 17-25 to ease off the required processing power.


How can i crop a frame sequence with ffmpeg?

FFmpeg's image sequence demuxer has a start_number option, so if you want to skip img_0749.jpg and start from img_0750.jpg, you would start your command as follows,

ffmpeg -start_number 750 -i img_%04d.jpg ...

See the docs for the image2 demuxer at http://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-formats.html#image2-1


Create video from a series of single frames and use original audio

if it is something like "Stop-Motion Videography" that you need,
Follow 13 steps

{The keyboard shortcut are defaults of windows, for your case use that of MAC}

Target your 'PlayHead' to the position you want in 'Sequence' or 'Source Monitor'.
2.When the position you selected is the one which shows the photo you want to use as single frame or photo.
If you are in Source monitor Skip to
If you are in Sequence Panel go to "Program monitor"(shift + F4)
Use button named "Export Frame"(CTRL+Shift+E), if not available make it visible by finding in from "+" button on Right-bottom.
Choose the Image_Format, Name & the Path to save.
Check "Import into Project".
A new photo will appear in the "Project Panel".
export as many frames as you want.
Set them manually or whatever the way you want & your visual is ready.
to set the audio Right click on the audio part of the clip and 'uncheck "Enable"'.
Set the audio as you like & Re 'Enable' it.
Set the audio & image sequence in your preference & You are good to go.

Tell me if anything get confusing or I'm Wrong


What are the basics of high-speed videography?

Ok this question should probably be put on hold as it is way too broad for a single answer. If I understand you correctly, you're asking about both the technical and artistic aspects of both photography and videography, topics which people study for years in universities. So if you really want to learn all that stuff, sign up for a course at an university. That said, here are some pointers.

First a disclaimer, you're not gonna 'master' any of this by watching Youtube tutorials, reading blogs or even books. The only way you're gonna become better is by practicing a lot. I know people who know all there is to know about their fancy camera, but couldn't compose a decent shot if their life depended on it. But what sucks even more are those who can't compose a shot and can't handle their fancy camera, so ...

Technical skills

Since you asked about photography, I recommend the reddit photoclass archive. It's a great ressource to start learning the basics of DSLR cameras (most of it will also apply to medium- to high-end video cameras). There's also a list of additional ressources at the end of this post.

Here's an excerpt (Disclaimer: I don't know all of those myself):

  Ansel Adams - "The Camera", "The Negative" and "The Print" - The reference. A bit outdated and dealing mostly with print, but still very useful reading for any serious photographer
  Scott Kelby - "Digital Photography Vol. 1-3" - very easy to read and quite complete, a good introduction text
  1x.com - for inspiration.
  /r/photography - reddit's own photography experts.

The photography subreddit has a weekly beginner's question thread, might be useful for you. Also check out /r/askphotography/.

Again, those are only the very basics.

Artistic aspects

I've already written a lengthy post on that, check it out here. This also contains some links concerning the technical aspects of videography (in this field, technical and artistic goes very much hand in hand). Also check out the second answer for some additional links.

Again, practice. It might also help to look at other people's work. For photography, you can check out the following sites:

Instagram (Yes, seriously, there are some real photographers there.)
Gurushots (Photo competitions. Look at all submissions, not only the winners.)
/r/photocritique (Read the comments to learn a lot about how photographers think about photos and what makes a good photo)
500px (Photo sharing site aimed at professional photographers. I'm not using it, but photographers often recommend it.)

For movies, well, just watch good movies. The post above contains a link to a list of movies to watch.


It depends on what you are doing, but generally for video you want pretty tight manual control to avoid changes during a shot.  What I often do when I'm in a hurry (and don't want to determine optimum settings manually) is to let the camera figure out what it wants for settings and then manually enter those.

That said, while changes in exposure during a shot can be very distracting, it's still better to get the shot than not get it, so occasionally I may shoot with the camera fully on auto and use exposure compensation as necessary to adjust the exposure.  This can be particularly useful for live events where you don't have time to adjust manually.  Note that if you are shooting with multiple identical cameras however, it is best to lock everything down (including white balance) to ensure a consistent look between cameras.

Ultimately, there isn't a right answer, just be aware of how distracting changes in exposure can be during videos and balance the need to have the camera adapt vs the need to control when and how adjustments are being made for the content you are shooting.  It's best to try to avoid uncontrolled changes, but not at the expense of not getting a shot.


Rendering video from Photoshop CS6 leaves background grey where it should be white

It is probably worth checking your Image>Mode settings.
I find they tend to change my colours between exports and prints etc.


Why is a screencast produced by Quicktime (.mov) is much smaller than the converted MP4 file?

I don't think it's the framerate. Maybe check with mediainfo to see more specific settings of each Codec. Apart from the bitrate, there are plenty of settings that can influence file size, even when using the same Codec.


You need to switch to the compositing timeline in HitFilm so that you can animate your effect (using keyframes). There are 2 timelines in HitFilm - one for editing your footage and another for layered animation work.

It's worth watching the tutorials on the HitFilm YouTube channel here > https://www.youtube.com/user/FXhomeHitFilm

This specific tutorial explains the difference between the two timelines > https://youtu.be/bawBXIhMxsM

This video explains animating with keyframes > https://youtu.be/jEPm2FPMZI8

I hope that helps! :D


Capturing audio from a different source in Premiere?

I would recommend Audacity or OBS to record the sound from the microphone, then put it in the Premiere and synchronize it. OBS is not only for streaming, but you can use it to record a separate soundtrack from a microphone while having a camera connected.  Then in Premiere Pro you mute the soundtrack from the camera and leave the soundtrack from the microphone.


Tessellation-like animation in after effects

The easiest way to do this is to sync the scaling and make a cross dissolve between them as you do the scaling.  You want it to fade fairly quickly as you work your way in.  One layer would be the many images in whatever arrangement you want, the other would be the overall logo.  This is also often the technique used for doing a smooth zoom in on a satellite image from a very high level to a lower level.

If you time the fades right, it isn't that noticeable as you move to progressively more detailed images because the more detailed image is starting in while it is still small enough to not be distinguishable.

To keep the sizes manageable, you may also have to do multiple images to transition through.  Don't bring one in to the timeline until the previous image is big enough that details of it will start being noticeable.  Also, be sure to remove the larger previous image from the timeline once the newer image completely covers it.


How to upscale a 480p video to a 1080p with minimal quality loss?

You can upscale Premiere Pro footage using the Detail-preserving Upscale effect in After Effects via Dynamic Link. The results will never be as good as actual HD footage, but the Detail-preserving Upscale effect does a great job at scaling footage without losing too much quality.
There's a short tutorial on how to do this at the following link:


Timeline skimming while pointer is red or white

Make sure you are not have Transform, Crop or Distort icon active under the player. This disables skimming until you deselect it.


Davinci Resolve: Move polyline radius handlers separatley on macOS

I assume, since you use the terminology "polyline" that you are in the Fusion page of Resolve.  Furthermore, since you say "radius handler," I assume you're asking about controlling the softness of a double polyline shape, and not talking about manipulating the normal bezier curvature handles.  Also, to be clear, Fusion polylines behave differently than the power windows found elsewhere in the Resolve interface.

One method of controling Fusion double polylines:

First, activate Double polyline by clicking the outlined "D" icon if you haven't already.
Select all points with Shift-A
Hold the "O" (offset) key and click-drag in the viewer.

There are other ways to control double polylines. More information can be found in the DaVinci Resolve user manual.  As of version 16.2, the relevant pages start at 1298.

Key bindings in Resolve's Fusion are customizable, but not out of the box.  If you're determined to change them, the simplest way would be to use stand alone Fusion, which has a built-in hotkey manager in the "Views" context menu.  The compositions you create in standalone Fusion are easy to copy-paste into Resolve Fusion (but know the difference between Loaders and MediaIn nodes; Savers and MeidaOut nodes).

Alternatively, you can install the Fusion plugin package manager, "Reactor," which is available here, and install Andrew Hazelden's "Resolve Essentials" atom, which includes a script to edit Resolve Fusion keybindings.  Personally, I'd leave them alone, though.


Audio and video filters are invoked in separate chains. And without enclosing quotes, whitespace will break the chain.

ffmpeg -i 00021.MTS -c:v libx264 -preset ultrafast -crf 0 -vf "fade=in:0:500, scale=384:218" -af afade=in:0:300 scaled.avi


How do I resize a image preserving aspect ratio in After Effects?

Click on a layer name. You should see the control points on its border. Click on one of the border points but don't drag it yet. Hold down Shift key and then drag it. Release the mouse button when done and then release the Shift key.


how can I smoothly move a camera without a dolly?

You want something like a Steadicam.

The idea is to add weight to the camera assembly so that it is stabilized by an increase of moment of inertia. For larger rigs, the entire thing might be supported by the cameraperson's body on a harness.

For smaller applications, the mount point of the camera is right above where you grip the assembly, and the pivot point is at the top of this grip. Then, a rigid strut extends from the mount point to below the grip, and weight is added at the bottom of this strut so that the center of gravity of the entire assembly (camera included) is at the pivot point.

This is an example of something like this that you can purchase, but if you're on a tight budget you might even be able to make something yourself.


Click the layer were your made the keyframes
Press U or P to reveal the keyframes
Highlight the keyframes. You will know it's highlighted since the color of the keyframes is colored blue(see screenshot below)

CTRL + C to copy the keyframes
Move your time indicator to the next time you wanted
CTRL + V to paste the keyframe
Note: You need to properly copy the Start and End of the keyframe so that you won't mess up the animation


FFMPEG Convert video from while adding left/right bars with a specific color

Was not too far!

ffmpeg -i input -vf "scale=1920:886:force_original_aspect_ratio=decrease,pad=1920:886:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2:#CFD3DA@1" output.mp4


Understanding an FFmpeg command (blurring a video)

The above command line was copied from FFmpeg - Apply blur over face which also provides a good explanation:

  Note: The x and y offset numbers in overlay (60 and 30 in this
  example) must match the crop offsets.

  What this example does:

  Crop the copy to be the size of the area to be blurred. In this example: a 200x200 pixel box that is 60 pixels to the right (x axis)
  and 30 pixels down (y axis) from the top left corner.
  Blur the cropped area.
  Overlay the blurred area using the same x and y parameters from the crop filter.

So: the 200:200 is the size of the blurred area and 60:30 its position relative to the top-left corner. The input v is split into two streams v0 and v1 where v0 is blurred and the result is named fg. Streams v1 and fg are composed to the final stream v.


Reduce render file size in After Effects

You need to change the encoding settings. By default, AE uses the AVI animation codec, which is very good at retaining quality but creates incredibly large files. Using an intermediary codec like Apple Prores, Avid DNxHR, or GrassValley HQx would give you visually equivalent quality with a significantly smaller file size.

If that file size isn't small enough for you, then you may want to go to a compressed codec like h.264. Choosing h.264 with a bitrate of around 20-30Mbps would give you pretty good quality. The disadvantage of going to h.264 is that you'll lose a lot of visual information, making any additional editing such as color grading more difficult. You'll also be using a multi-frame encoding which makes scrubbing through an editing timeline very difficult.


How can I sync two videos together in Corel VideoStudio Pro X3

There is no way to do this automatically. It has to be done manually by matching the frames together from the two videos. This can be done by placing the videos in separate overlay tracks and works for two or more videos.


The best option would be either to send it out to someone that has a good capture capability or invest in a decent quality RCA capture card.  The USB option will work the best of your two suggestions, but it is still likely going to be a decent quality loss (granted, VHS in general may not be that high to begin with.)

The first option is not worth considering as the result would be completely substandard.


Had to move a clip partially out of frame, how to deal with the new empty space?

It is possible to take a similar approach like you would in photoshop. I recommend using After-Effects, as premiere doesn't really have the abilities to do so effectively. In After-Effects, you can try out the "content aware fill" that was introduced in 2020, I believe.
However, content awareness only works in some cases, and when trying to seamlessly continue the motion and behaviour of cloth, this could get tricky. So let me propose two more options, one simple and one that requires some more work.
First off, you could just use a gradient from blue to alpha, and let the solid blue fade out over the shirt, with the solid's area of 100% opacity just touching the right side of your clip, in order to conceal the edge.
The other method is tricky, and I frankly never tried this myself. You could actually go out of your way and try to simulate cloth using a projected texture from your footage in a 3D-software such as Houdini, Cinema4D, Modo, Blender or something similar with the ability to simulate cloth. In order to match the motion, you could try a cloud-tracker, such as Mocha or the integrated tracker from Resolve and try to apply the vertices of the left side of your simulation to the most right vertices of your cloud-tracking-points. This could work, but I am not 100% confident that it will.
Anyways, I hope this helped you out a bit, have a good one :)


One of the earliest articles in the IEEE database that uses the term, defines it as "coders and decoders."

However, newer material does not seem to be consistent. One of the Wikipedia page's sources (at the time a page author retrieved it) alludes to both encoder-decoder and compression-decompression. This book defines it as compression/decompression.


Outline/stroke around transparent-background PNG in After Effects

Try using Layer--> Auto-trace to tracing around the alpha. It will generate a mask which you can then expand.
Or you could use a Layer Style to get a similar effect with a drop shadow or glow effect.


Resolution loss by chromatic subsampling: is there a workaround?

No. Almost all video on the planet is limited YUV420 (all Blu-rays, even HEVC ones with Dolby Vision, all Youtube, only some satellite FEEDs not for consumers use 4:2:2). Sorry. Of course, there is RGB and even mathematically lossless mode in all common encoders, H.264/AV1/VP9/HEVC... For lossless AV1 see https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/7600
But, alas. It is not used at all.
Only Dolby Vision in profile 5 that is not HDR10 compatible (it uses IPTPQc2 color instead of YCbCr and FULL RANGE) can be good enough for you. It still uses 4:x:x chroma but because of new encoding it is much better looking!


replace a clip with a different size clip but keep the scale in Premiere CC

After the fact, no I don't.  If you know before the fact in the future though, you can put the source on a timeline by itself and apply the scale there and make all the clips point at that timeline.  This is the same technique I use in After Effects whenever I am working with animating a base layer that I know I am going to need to change.  That way I can make a simple change to the source clip and not have it impact the overall sequence.


Extending the size of the video shot on iPhone

Unfortunately, the screen is showing the whole frame. That is all that your camera recorded. It did not record anything to the left or right of what you see.

On YouTube, where many people shoot their videos in a vertical format as you did, it is common to enlarge the video to the full frame width - which will cut off the top and bottom of the video - and use that as a background image. Then place your regular-size vertical video over the top of it. I used iMovie in the past and I think its picture-in-picture feature could accomplish this, but I'm not sure.


This is possible with the FFmpeg command ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -ss 0 -c copy -t 60 output.mp4. This would cut the video from the beginning -ss 0 to second 60 -t 60.

Be aware that -ss is and offset which -t is based upon. So -ss 10 and -t 60 would result in cutting to second 70 and removing the first 10. You can use the -to option to cut at a fixed time unrelated to -ss.

I'm not exactly sure how ffmpeg will handle GOPs but I think it will cut at the nearest GOP at the specified time.

Relevant question on SU: https://superuser.com/questions/138331/using-ffmpeg-to-cut-up-video


Best and easiest way to delete a layer by a specific time in the After Effects timeline

Make a key frame (or more than one at different points) on the Opacity control. You can get to it by selecting the layer and pressing T. Or open up all the triangles to find it. Set the opacity to zero to make the layer invisible.


You need a video capture device or a capture card. It will encode the analog video and audio into digital codecs (like H264 for video and AAC for audio, or other codecs depending on your needs and price range).


How can I stay motivated and become more productive as a video editor?

Do you drink coffee?  That's my solution.

More seriously though - For me, it helps to jump from project to project, setting individual goals each time I move to a different project, e.g. for project 'x', finish creating sub-clips from raw footage before I stop editing.  It also helps to alternate between tasks that are boring and tasks that are more exciting.

In reality, you often don't have the luxury of moving away from a project or boring tasks.  That's when you have to just power through it.  In the end, if you're proud of what you have done, it's always worth it.

It can be extremely frustrating to work with bad material or to have to work in projects with missing shots.  Again, with these situations, there is no secret sauce.  You edit what you can, and do your best to prevent the situation next time.

I hope this helps.

Calvin


How to make python ignore square bracket?

the regex pattern should be
search(r"(\d+),(\d+)\]*\.avi$", f)

previously, the pattern is "13445" + ".avi"
now, the pattern is "13445" + "]" + ".avi", and it should be fine with or without square brackets.


Probably the best way would be to first edit your video completely in Premiere Pro and then use the dynamic-link feature. If you do it the other way round, you won't know exactly what footage will be used and on which clips to apply the effects. If you've already edited your clips and put them into a timeline you know how your final film will look and you're able to integrate the effects much better into your film.

For the dynamic-link workflow, create a new timeline in Premiere Pro and do all of your editing (what you called montaging).
After you've done with your final edit, you can bring the clips into After Effects to do the effects. Right-click on the clip you want to edit and select "replace with After Effects composition". Then this single clip will be automatically opened in After Effects and you can apply your effects. The clip in your Premiere timeline will be automatically replaced with the AE composition and you still are able to change your edit later and change stuff in your timeline. Then after you've done all the effects you need render the Premiere Pro timeline and you have your finished film.


.SRT File Import Problem on Premiere Pro CC 2017 1.2

It's a Premiere bug. Try Subtitle Edit 3.5.5, which is free, insert the .srt, export as EBU STL file (25 fps works fine, it's time coded not frame coded).

Import to Premiere, interpret as open Captions, set the adequate resolution and..way you go. For problems with position of the titles and rows, play with 9 position squares in matrix (3 X 3), it will correct the position of both rows.


What happens if you uncheck key frame distance in Premiere Pro CS6

AVC intra and MJPEG are intra frame (keyframe) encoding only, each frame in your video will be encoded as a whole. Distance between key frames is a parameter for inter frame compression, where some pictures are encoded either as a whole (i-frames a.k.a. keyframes), and pictures between keyframes are encoded in reference to other frames either before (p-frames), or before & after (b-frames).
If you uncheck custom distance between key frames, you essentially tell your encoder that you don’t care about it, and it will chose to add a key frame whenever it needs to, mostly depending on the amount of motion in the scene, and encoder implementation details. The more keyframes in your encoded video, the heavier the average bitrate / file size.
AVC intra is actually based on h264, but uses only keyframes, and no inter frame compression. MJPEG is basically a sequence of jpeg muxed in a video container.


The "Vertigo effect" is achieved by zooming in while tracking out, or zooming out while tracking in. When done right the size of the subject stays the same in frame, while the perspective shifts unnaturally, giving an uncanny feel to the footage.

The effect is achieved in-camera. It could be replicated in post by separating the planes of the image along the depth axis and replicating the real-world camera movement, but it would be highly labour intensive, compared to doing it on set.

P.S. Just to be suuuper pedantic, a "dolly" is a sideways movement, a movement forward or backward is a "track".


Automatic conversion/encode video for Video On Demand streaming

For a server, you definitely want ffmpeg. I would also strongly recommend compiling it yourself (those are Ubuntu instructions, but should work for Debian as well AFAIK) - the best AAC encoder available for ffmpeg (libfdk_aac) cannot be redistributed alongside x264 (because of the GPL), and the version of ffmpeg in the repositories is probably too old for some of the things I'm going to list here.
MP4
To convert an arbitrary video to an MP4 using libx264 and libfdk_aac:
ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v libx264 -crf 24 -preset veryfast \
-ac 2 -c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -movflags faststart output.mp4

Control the quality of the video with -crf: a lower number is better quality, but larger file. 18 is visually lossless under most circumstances, and 24 should be more than good enough for online streaming. Use a -preset to control the speed/size of the video: a slower preset means a smaller file (the presets are ultrafast, superfast, veryfast, faster, fast, medium, slow, and slower). See here for more detail.
Control the quality of the audio with -vbr: the scale is 1-5, where 5 is best quality. Actually, even a vbr of 1 should be good enough for your purposes. See here for more detail. -ac 2 means that ffmpeg will output 2 audio channels, mixing down if necessary; you only really need to use it if you think people will send in 5.1 surround sound audio or something.
-movflags faststart is required for internet MP4 video.
WEBM
.webm is a little more complicated. libvpx (the VP8 encoder) should have a crf mode that will work in a similar way to x264's, but it is currently broken. Unfortunately, you'll have to target a bit rate instead. For standard definition, 1000kb/s should give very good quality (in fact, that is probably overkill). For full 1080p HD, about 5000kb/s will give really good quality (again, you can probably go lower - try it out and see). About 2200kb/s should do it for 720p.
ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v libvpx -b:v 1000k \
-c:a libvorbis -q:a 4 -ac 2 output.webm

NOTE - make sure you use libvorbis (the xiph.org encoder lib), NOT vorbis (the inferior internal ffmpeg encoder). Set the quality with -q:a: the range is -1-10, where 10 is best quality, and 5 is indistinguishable from an original CD. 3 or 4 should be adequate for online streaming purposes.
Subtitles & scale video
To hardcode subtitles, you have to first extract them from the original file, then use either the ass filter or the subtitles filter to encode them. Using the subtitles filter:
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:s:0 -c:s ass subtitle.ass
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -filter:v 'subtitles=subtitle.ass' \
-c:v libx264 -crf 24 -preset veryfast \
-c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -movflags faststart output.mp4 \
-filter:v 'subtitles=subtitle.ass' \
-c:v libvpx -b:v 1000k \
-c:a libvorbid -q:a 4 output.webm

To scale videos, use the scale filter. -1:480 means 'for the width, keep the input aspect ratio, and scale the height to 480'.
ffmpeg -i input.avi -filter:v 'scale=-1:480' \
-c:v libx264 -crf 24 -preset veryfast \
-c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -movflags faststart output.mp4 \
-filter:v 'scale:-1:480' \
-c:v libvpx -b:v 1000k \
-c:a libvorbid -q:a 4 output.webm

You can combine the scale and subtitle filters like so:
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -filter:v 'scale=-1:480,subtitles=subtitle.ass' \
-c:v libx264 -crf 24 -preset veryfast \
-c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -movflags faststart output.mp4 \
-filter:v 'scale:-1:480,subtitles=subtitle.ass' \
-c:v libvpx -b:v 1000k \
-c:a libvorbid -q:a 4 output.webm

You'd probably want to use a bash script to detect the input height and test the existence of subtitles; I'd personally use mediainfo to find that information, it's pretty amenable to regex.
That should be enough to get you going.


We made a new set up but my computer had a new IP which was the old hyperdeck IP. And the switch of the hyperdeck was off.
So if was pinging my own computer.

I switch on the switch, change the ip adress, it work back again.


How to change the start time of track in Final Cut Pro X?

Try using the trim tool (keyboard shortcut "t").


How to produce assemble effect in software product videos

These sequences are produced using Animation™. Animation™ is the technique of manipulating objects or images to create the appearance of motion. If you look closely at the sequences, maybe slowing them down so you can step through them frame by frame you'll be able to see what's going on, and then you just have to work out how to do it with whatever tools you use.

I'd say screen shots of the UI elements have been chopped up with an image editor (e.g. , CinePaint, Darktable, DigiKam, F-Spot, G'MIC, GIMP, GimPhoto, GIMPshop, GNU Paint, GrafX2, GraphicsMagick, gThumb, Hugin, ImageJ, ImageMagick, Inkscape, KolourPaint, Krita, LazPaint, LightZone, MyPaint, Panorama Tools, Pencil2D, Phatch, Pinta, Rawstudio, RawTherapee, Seashore, Shotwell, Tile Studio, Tux Paint, UFRaw, XPaint, Brush Strokes Image Editor, Chasys Draw IES, FastStone Image Viewer, Fatpaint, Fire Alpaca, Fotografix, IrfanView, MediBang Paint Pro, Moai[1], Paint.NET, PhotoScape, PixBuilder Photo Editor, Pixia, Project Dogwaffle 1.2 Free Version, XnView, Ability Photopaint, ACD Canvas X (formerly Deneba Canvas), ACDSee, Acorn Image Editor, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, Adobe Photoshop Elements, Affinity Photo, ArcSoft PhotoImpression, Artipic, ArtRage, Autodesk SketchBook Pro, Bloom Image Editor, Capture One, CodedColor PhotoStudio Pro, Corel Painter, Corel Painter Essentials, Corel PaintShop Pro, Corel Photo-Paint, Erdas Imagine, GraphicConverter, Helicon Filter, Iridient Developer, LView Pro, Manga Studio, Microsoft Paint, NeoPaint, OpenCanvas, Paint Tool SAI, Photogenics, PhotoLine, Photo Mechanic, Photos (Apple app), Photo Raster, PicMaster, Pixelmator, Pixen, PMview, Portrait Professional, Project Dogwaffle, QFX, Serif PhotoPlus, TVPaint, Xara Photo & Graphic Designer, Zoner Photo Studio, Mara, Pixlr, PicMonkey, PicsArt).

Then the separate elements were then moved around in an animation / compositing app, e.g. Blender, Cinelerra, Kdenlive, Natron, OpenShot, Shotcut, Adobe After Effects, Apple Motion, Autodesk 3ds Max, Autodesk Inferno, Flame and Flint, Autodesk Maya, Autodesk Smoke, CompTime, FXhome HitFilm, Saber, Houdini, Blackmagic Fusion, Mistika, Nuke, Piranha, SilhouetteFX, Autodesk Combustion, Autodesk Softimage, Autodesk Toxik, Aviary, Peacock, Avid DS, Avid Elastic Reality, Avid Matador, Avid Media Illusion, Kodak Cineon, FXhome Lab, Range, Pinnacle Commotion, Silicon Grail's RAYZ and Chalice or Shake.


What is the difference between AVCHD and ProRes in terms of quality?

You focus on quality in your question, so the answer is clear: ProRes (in various flavors) offers superior quality. There are other reasons you might choose AVCHD, but they don't relate to quality.

AVCHD is generally speaking a distribution format, while ProRes is more an acquisition and intermediate format (it uses all I-frames). ProRes also comes in a 4:2:2 /10 bit flavor, where AVCHD is 4:2:0 / 8 bit.


Okay I just did with a ffmpeg batch
In PowerShell:
ls | Where { $_.Extension -eq ".webm" } | ForEach { ffmpeg -i "$i" -vf "hue=s=0" -crf 20 -codec:a libvorbis -c:v libvpx -b:v 500k "${name}.webm" }


Premiere writes the text in the wrong side

Check under your Preferences in the 'Graphics' section that the 'Default Paragraph Dirction' is not right-to-left.

After adjusting the setting, you may need to create a new text layer to see the changes take place.


Best approach to go through tv series, annote key scenes?

If you have a Mac, iPhone or iPad I would suggest Bento. It's a program based on FileMaker that allows you to organize all sorts of projects and data.  You could try this Film Library template from their template exchange or search for a different template.  Or maybe just download the program and start entering data.


FFMPEG Loop Concatenate Video to Specific Length

Use stream_loop to loop the input indefinitely and set output -t to limit the duration.
ffmpeg -stream_loop -1 -i input -c copy -t 3600 output


I managed to solve this after some pondering.

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i Image.jpg -i Test1.mp4 -i Test2.mp4 -filter_complex "[2:v]tpad=stop=-1:stop_mode=clone[v2]; [1:v]scale=640-20:360-20[a]; [v2]scale=320-20:180-20[b]; [0:v][a]overlay=10:(main_h/2)-(overlay_h/2):shortest=1[c]; [c][b]overlay=main_w-overlay_w-10:(main_h/2)-(overlay_h/2)[video]" -shortest -map "[video]" -map 1:a -vsync 2 Output.mp4


Which After Effects renderer performs better on a macbook pro? RenderGarden or BG Renderer MAX?

It seems in my experience that render garden is only helpful when you have a network or farm of machines that you can distribute the render to. If you have only a single machine, I'd say BG Render is your best bet. If you have a farm, Render Garden is better. But, either one will speed up your render since both take advantage of multi threading that after effects' render doesn't seem to use/like natively...


It all depends. You have to find out what the organizer and videographer agreed upon in detail. It is possible that the organizer holds all rights even to unpublished material.

The amount you pay is dependent on how much time effort and maybe investment in equipment was taken to produce the original material. But your budget will set a limit anyway. Assuming you can track down the videographer talk to him on the phone and try to find out about their efforts, then offer a higher or lower percentage of your limit.


.mov file is not playing video in After Effects

Can you give us the codec informations from your video file using mediainfo or FFMPEG ?

As Premiere Pro plays well the video, you can export it to a lossless format such as Apple ProRes and then re-open it in After Effect.


How to convert part of mkv file to mp4 for premiere pro?

I would opt by installing a set of codecs to your OS that support mkv files. After that you can try to rename the video files and import them to premiere.

Search for K-Lite Codec for mac and try that.


Is it right time to buy 4K video camera?

You will pay substantially more for a good 4k camera right now than you would for a good 1080p camera. Quality =/= resolution, there are phones that can shoot in 4k but the videos will look a lot worse than a 1080p video from a dedicated 1080p camcorder/dslr, the image quality depends on a lot of factors.
A bigger sensor for example has the ability to capture a lot more light and have much more accurate colors than a tiny sensor that only captures very few photons per pixel.
The video compression used by the camera is also a big factor, even with h264 there can be huge quality differences between cameras depending on the encoding settings of the camera.

The question you should also ask yourself, what do you get from a 4k resolution when you mostly shoot things that are meant to be memories that you don't already get with 1080p.

My advise would be to not think about 4k and look for a nice 1080p camera. Even in commercial video there is not that much to gain with 4k video right now and probably not even in the future, we are reaching resolutions that don't necessarily improve the image quality for every content. It really depends on what you shoot and most importantly how big your screen is and how far you sit away from it. Right now there are quite a few living room configurations where its already hard for a lot of people to tell the difference between 1080p and 720p.


FFMPEG: Loop video to the length of audio

For video, stream_loop option should be used.

ffmpeg -y -stream_loop -1 -i video -i audio.mp3 -fflags +shortest -max_interleave_delta 50000 -c copy output.mp4

You'll have to use a very recent version of ffmpeg (> Nov '17) as stream_loop had a bug, only recently fixed.

Since video encoding is expensive in terms of time and CPU, I've used streamcopy. For most videos, this is fine. Else, you'll have to re-encode.

Edit: another bug related to stream_loop, see workaround below

ffmpeg  -stream_loop -1 -i 1.mp4 -c copy -v 0 -f nut - | ffmpeg -thread_queue_size 10K -i - -i 1.mp3 -c copy -map 0:v -map 1:a -shortest -y out.mp4


Video player with motion blur or frame averaging


Premiere: Waveforms missing on nested sequences

When you nest a sequence with more than one audio clip, your nested sequence will not have a single waveform to reference.

To generate the waveforms you must select the nested sequence and go to Sequence > Render Audio in the top menu bar.


Arbitrary angles or slices for split screens

I don't know of any software that makes this trivial to do, however After Effects can certainly accomplish it.  You would need to make multiple masks that would show portions of the same video and then position them however you want.  You could even derive the masks from a shape imported from Adobe Illustrator that you could slice up however you wanted to ensure that you get full coverage.

This technique is still non-trivial and would take some time to do manually, but you could then manipulate each of the shape layers however you wanted using motion keyframes in After Effects.


Can individual tracking points be edited in After Effects?

(I can't comment because I don't have 50 reputation yet lol)

By the way, if I got what you mean you just have to move with the Selection Tool the keyframe on the Composition screen.

For making the path smoother and more accurate the sub-Pen Tool called Convert Vertex Tool.

Finally, on the timeline thanks to Graph Editor, add dynamicity to the animation in-between frames (delay and advance).


My guess is that it's simply because the photo was shot in a much higher resolution than the video. Even though they were downscaled to the same resolution, a (previously) higher-resolution image will look better in this situation in the same way that a clip shot in 4K will look better on a 1080p monitor than a clip shot in 1080p on the same monitor.


How can I determine the publishing point for streaming an HTTP stream to Adobe Media Server 5?

From the documentation, it appears that you need to use an rtmp capable encoder to send the stream to Adobe Media Server and that Adobe Media Server then shares it out as an HTTP stream based on the configuration of the publishing point.

It appears that

rtmp://ams-ip-or-dns/livepkgr/livestream?adbe-live-event=liveEventName

is the URL to stream to for a constant bit rate, but there are other options if you are using VBR or multi-rate streams.  You can get more details under the URLs for publishing and playing live streams over HTTP section of the linked documentation.


Little skip in webm videos joined with mkvmerge

Try a video editor like Lightworks to join them into one video, there you can cut any black frames and won't have to deal with possible glitches introduced by muxing different videos into one stream.

If your videos are indeed webm and not h264 you might need transcode them into another codec (f.e. with ffmpeg), a production codec like MJPEG or any lossless codec might be suitable as an intermediate codec so you don't loose much visual quality after exporting your finished video.


FCP X is a complete re-write of the software, many and most features that everyday professional editors use when video editing are no longer available in FCP X, this feature was not included.

Update:

Also this only works on true Time-based cameras, a 5D or 7D will not produce this feature even in FCP 7


Weird (interlacing?) artifacts in my rendered video

It is very likely that you have exported your render not as progressive but as interlaced. This would explain the strange artifacts you're experiencing. You can try to deinterlace your footage (a quick google search should prompt you with viable methods) or you might need to export your shot again, but as progressive. Interlaced footage was used to minimize the data required for a fluid motion picture broadcast for TV, there is little to no use in our field of use.


Can't set ffmpeg request header when using file for input

When a single input is directed fed to ffmpeg (-i), various options can be set on it, depending on what the input reader allows and recognizes.

However, FFmpeg does not natively read an input list from a text file. There's a bespoke module called the concat demuxer, invoked by -f concat, which parses the input list, opens each file and concatenates them. To the main ffmpeg pipeline, this is presented as a single input, generated by the concat module. And the concat module does not recognize or carry over options meant for the individual files listed within the text file. All listed files can only be opened with default parameters of their respective demuxers/decoders/protocols..etc. This is a limitation. You may open a feature request at trac.ffmpeg.org to change this.

What you could do is read all inputs directly.

ffmpeg \
    -headers $'Content-Type: audio/wav\r\n' \
    -i 'https://google1.com' \
    -headers $'Content-Type: audio/wav\r\n' \
    -i 'https://google2.com' \
    -headers $'Content-Type: audio/wav\r\n' \
    -i 'https://google3.com' \
    -headers $'Content-Type: audio/wav\r\n' \
    -i 'https://google4.com' \
    -filter_complex "[0][1][2][3]concat=n=4:v=0:a=1" \
    'output.wav'

For WAV inputs, re-encoding to WAV won't lose quality.


Remove datestamp (watermark) from videos

Use ffmpeg (download a static build for your operating system) and its delogo filter, which will try to cover up a logo or watermark by interpolating neighboring pixels.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "delogo=x=100:y=100:w=150:h=20" output.mp4

Here, x and y specify the top left coordinates of the “masking” rectangle, and w/h specify its size. You can add the show=1 option to help locate that rectangle.

If you want to play with the filter values, you can use ffplay to directly show the result:

ffplay -f lavfi -i "movie=input.mp4,delogo=x=100:y=100:w=150:h=20:show=1"


Terminology connected with camera movement

For the three main rotations of the camera you have pan (rotation around the vertical axis), tilt (rotation around the axis passing left to right through the camera), roll (rotation through the axis passing through the center of the lens).

Then there are the three main movements along those same axis.  Pedestal is a movement along the vertical axis.  Tracking, trucking and dolly shots are all roughly synonymous and refer to moving the camera along either horizontal axis (or both).  Tracking generally involves maintaining a constant distance from the subject.

A crane shot is a shot where the camera is on the end of a boom that is being rotated around one or more axis.  In other words, the camera is moving around the outside of a sphere created by a boom mounted on a central point.

Follow shot is a shot that follows a subject at a set distance as they move.  Ie, the subject remains roughly stationary in frame but the rest of the surroundings move.

Dolly Zoom isn't exactly a specific kind of camera movement, but it involves doing a dolly shot at the same time as adjusting the zoom to keep the subject the same size.  This results in an exaggerated perspective shift while the subject remains the same size or roughly the same size.


Source patching audio "light" will not turn on

Your guess is correct. If you have an audio asset active into the Source Panel, you can't activate the Source Patching for an audio track that does not match the type of the asset. Premiere seperates between Standard (Stereo), Mono, 5.1 and Adaptive. You can tell the track type by the corresponding icons in the timeline:

From Top to Bottom: Standard (no Icon), 5.1, Adaptive, Mono.

You can't put Multichannel audio (where multi means more than two) in Stereo tracks and vice versa. Instead, you need to create new tracks of the matching type. To do this, right-click on any audio track1 and select Add Tracks… from the context-menu. This opens a pop-up menu where you can chose to add any number of Audio and Video Tracks. Make sure to select the right Track Type (in your case, you'll need 5.1 or Adaptive). You can also delete the superfluous Audio Tracks from the same context menu (accessed via right-click).

Note that this will not change the Audio Master Type. When creating a sequence, you can change this in the Tracks tab, as well as control how many audio tracks of which types are added.

1 Note that you have to right-click in the right area, as there are several available context-menues hidden in the timeline, depending on where you click. To access the context-menu described above, you need to click anywhere between the Sync Lock icon (to the right of the Track Targeting toggle) and the column containing the Track Type icons (to the left of the timeline itself). You can also access this via the menu over Sequence → Add Tracks….


How can I make videos like this? (mostly samples pitched into iconic pop or meme melodies)

I can't think of a quick way to do this. It's probably going to be, as you said, an unbearably long process. I'd create the music separately from the video. That is:

First, compose some the background parts of all the songs you want to use (without the melody line). Sample the car horn.  Include that sample in a musical keyboard. Use that keyboard sample to play the melody line over your background music. Keep a recording of that.
Then bring that track into your video editor. Remove the video's sound and only allow the music you wrote. Then, cut up little tiny clips of your video - like the cat mid-air for a few frames. Pick 1-2 clips per "song". Repeat that same clip every time the sampled horn plays a note from the melody, and occasionally vary the clip a little (zoom in, reverse it, or some other variation).

That's going to be a very tedious project as you suspected. It took me hours to make this video, but I used the 2-step process above (though step 2 was obviously somewhat different).


NVENC_HEVC Encoding making my files larger

Just because you can get a hamburger at different restaurants doesn't mean they'll taste and look the same.

Apples and oranges

x265 and NVENC are two different encoder implementations that can output the same format, HEVC. What settings, options, and algorithms they use is up to the authors as long as the output conforms to the specs.

Choose the right tool for the job

These encoders are generally for different use cases. x265 may be slower, but it provides more quality per bit. NVENC is more suitable when speed is more important than quality or encoding efficiency, or when the CPU is not available or not up to the task, such as on a mobile platform where using the CPU would possibly consume more battery power and take a long time.

Option mixup

Also, you're mixing up options: -rc vbr_2pass -rc-lookahead 20 -gpu any are private options for nvenc_hevc, but you attempted to apply them to libx265, so they were ignored. There are two types of options: general and private. The private options are specific to each individual encoder. You can list private options such as with ffmpeg -h encoder=libx265.

You'll have to experiment with the encoding presets (see -preset option for both encoders) and rate control methods to get an output that is acceptable for you.

Waste of time?

Lastly, unless your input H.264 files were encoded very inefficiently (or are lossless which is doubtful), or if storage space is of utmost importance, then re-encoding from H.264 to H.265/HEVC is a waste of time and effort.


Launch a AfterEffects rendered in background with cmd update

After Effects has a seperate executable for the render engine.
Have a look at this article from Adobe for some usage examples and an overview of the commands.

http://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/automated-rendering-network-rendering.html

aerender -project c:\projects\project_1.aep -comp "Composition_1" -output c :\output\project_1\project_1.avi

As you define the output file yourself you already have the path available. As soon as the command finished you know your file is done rendering and you can process it further.


CamTwist + Blackmagic Intensity Thunderbolt Shuttle Settings

Solved the problem...

Go to: Mac System Preferences > Blackmagic Design

Set default video standard as HD 1080i 59.94 CamTwist > Blackmagic HD 1080i 59.94 - 8 Bit

I figured out my camera settings using the Blackmagic Media Express app, which did detect the camera. Just take a look in the app's settings to find your camera's connection settings.


If you're trying to make multiple bubbles rise up, you'd probably be better off designing a single bubble, then using it as a particle, inside a particle engine (AE has free particle engines like "CC particle systems" built in, but it's tricky to use).  Trapcode Particular is quicker and easier, but not free.

e.g.
http://people.redgiantsoftware.com/explore/presetdetail.aspx?presetid=831


You are currently probably using the Rec. 601 color space for SD video. Encode your source footage in the Rec. 709 color space.  It's the color space specified for HDTV and comes sRGB quite close.
If you need higher color accuracy you can use the Rec. 2020 color space which exceeds the sRGB color space by far. Though compatibility may not be given everywhere with this color space.


To scale a mask as if you were using the group select tool in Illustrator either alt-click the mask, or hit cmd/ctrlT.  It's truly perplexing how all the Adobe apps have different tools and shortcuts for the same tasks.


Adding a pause to audio track in Adobe Premier

You can split audio tracks (and video tracks) by selecting them and pressing Ctrl + K. If your audio and video tracks are linked, holding "Alt" and selecting just the audio track will select only the audio track (and not the linked video track). After you have split the audio track between paragraphs, you can move the latter audio track out 3 seconds (or however long you want the pause) by dragging it along the timeline.

If you had any sort of "natural sound" in the audio track (static, hum from an air conditioner, etc.) it will be obvious that there is a 3-second break in-between the two audio segments. To fix this, use that "natural pause" of 2 seconds you mentioned, cut it to make it its own segment, and copy/paste it several times to fill the audio void, shrinking the last segment as necessary to make it fit perfectly.

Hope this helps!


Adobe Media Encoder included in After Effects Licence?

Yes it is. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to encode things, and that would be just dumb. Even though it happens a bit under the hood, all encodings from Premiere Pro and After Effects are handled by Media Encoder. When you install Premiere Pro or After Effects, Media Encoder always gets installed alongside it.


Green screen Issue shooting with dslr (background green changes)

It doesnt really matter what type of lighting instruments you use, tungsten, hmi, led, flo, so long as you use the same color temperature lights to light the screen as you do to gauge the lighting of your scene and subjects.

I do a lot of greenscreen work, and my best "short" advice:

1.) Get as big a screen as you can afford. And get your subjects as far from it as possible. This will reduce back and side spill.

2.) Use 1/4 magenta CTM rosco gel for hair/cut lights, behind your subjects. The subtle magenta is complementary to green, and will give you a better key and better edges in post.

3.) Avoid stray hairs.

4.) Use best codec possible. 444, 442, 422 being the worst. I shoot RED 3:1 and still have issues sometimes.

5.) Test shoot, and do your key in post, before you shoot. If you have fast moving action, you will want to shoot at a higher shutter speed. Motion Blur can be a problem.

6.) It's easier to shoot at a higher f-stop, and get a sharper tack, and add back in blur/dof effects in post, than it is to shoot wide open with a long piece of glass. Blur causes masking issues.

7.) Get Keylight for AE.

8.) Have a dedicated waveform monitor if possible. You want your luma to be a straight line at 75 IRE. You will not be able to light your screen evenly by eye, you really need a waveform to get a spot on straight line, with no dips or falloff on the edges.

9.) Dont let your subjects wear green.

Cheers.


What are these rectangular patterns in the frame?

Those are compression artifacts, where the original video has been compressed and has lost data. Block-based coding for quantisation leads to artifacts like this, as the information depth in the image is too high to be successfully compressed at the level required by the lossy algorithm used. From that Wikipedia page:

  Lossy data compression involves discarding some of the media's data so that it becomes simplified enough to be stored within the desired disk space or be transmitted (or streamed) within the bandwidth limitations (known as a data rate or bit rate for media that is streamed). If the compressor could not reproduce enough data in the compressed version to reproduce the original, the result is a diminishing of quality, or introduction of artifacts. Alternatively, the compression algorithm may not be intelligent enough to discriminate between distortions of little subjective importance and those objectionable to the viewer.

@DarkDust worded this well:

  The part that actually leads to these visible blocks is the fact that for some compression algorithms, each frame is divided into smaller parts, so-called macroblocks, which are further divided into transform blocks. When the compression in two adjacent macro blocks is too far away from the original in different ways, they don't "fit" together at their border any more. It is this "not fitting together" that we see in the block artifacts


How best to find literature on motion graphics design

Zettt please check out a site called GreyScaleGorilla.com he covers this sort of, blog esq style bridging the knowledge between those beginners and the mograph world.  He is super helpful, and a great guy...also check out his forums as well as many mograph replated questions have been asked and answered there as well

GreyScaleGorilla.com


I changed the .mp4 extension of my video to .mpg and it still opens and plays fine (in VLC and in Windows Media Player). Why is this so?

The .mpg and .mpeg extensions are typically associated with MPEG-1 and MPEG-2 files. The structure of these files is different than the .mp4 format used for H.264 video, part of the MPEG-4 family of formats.

I suspect VLC and WMP can play the file because they must not be using the file extension to determine file type, they probably parse the file with all the supported parsers until one works. To prove this point, I took a .wmv movie and renamed it to .mp4. When I played it in my Windows 7 PC with WMP I got a warning window saying that the extension did not match the format, but I told it to proceed anyway and the file played just fine.

If this online service requires MPEG-1 or 2 then you should transcode your video to one of those formats before uploading. Unless the online service transcodes all uploaded videos to some standard format. In that case it does not really matter what the format of the uploaded video is, as long as the service can read it and transcode to its own favorite format.

Good luck.


How to change Timeline's output time from "Frames" to "Timecode" (Premiere Pro)

ctrl-click or ⌘-click the number and it will cycle through the different modes, frames, feet & frames, audio samples, milliseconds, and timecode. More about it in the documentation.


How to move a layer only in one direction?

You can move any object by dragging on the Position coordinates in the object's timeline.

Alternatively, you can constrain to a single dimension when moving an object in the canvas by putting your cursor over the appropriately coloured arrow (R, G, B, = x, y, z).  Wait for your cursor to show a letter next to it, then drag the object.


Traditional animation techniques and 30fps software animation?

Yes, repeating every other frame works the same way at 30fps as it does at 24fps.

Animating on twos is done not because it looks better, but because it means less drawing and you can 'get away' with it. Nothing stops you from drawing every frame if you want the smoothest possible motion, and nothing prevents you from repeating a frame indefinitely when there is no motion.

If you really want to work at 24fps, you could always animate 'as though' you were working at 24fps -- your work will look sped up when viewed at 30fps -- and applying a cine expansion (3:2 pulldown) as a final step.


How to make this auto-filling text and logo animation?

Just a proof of concept. Steps to reproduce:

on a new comp, create a shape object filled with black color;
animate some properties, in this case, I'm changing the Inner Radius;
duplicate this shape layer and move it a few frames ahead in the timeline (so it's out of sync with the layer below);
change its color to white and activate the Track Matte pointing to the first layer as Parent;

This is the result (showing all the frames at once):

And this is the base composition:


Use

for %%I in ("*.mkv") do ffmpeg.exe -i "%%I" -i a.png -filter_complex "[0:v][1:v] overlay=25:25:enable='between(t,0,20)',scale=840:480[v]" -map [v] -map 0:a -codec:v libx264 -preset veryfast -crf 18 -codec:a copy "480\%%~nI.mkv"

All filters acting upon a stream should be within the same filtergraph.


That's a pretty funny idea! If you have $50 to spend, you can get royalty-free music from audiomicro.com. Incompetech.com also has royalty-free music; I don't know how much it costs.  And if you use iMovie (which comes free with every Mac), their FREE audio library might include something you could use.  You could even splice together several songs into one to get the effect you want.


This is commonly done.

I suppose with modern digital systems it might be more complicated, but with standard analog systems it should work fine. You'll just need the frequency from the FOH team.


Find frames in video that contain an image

You don't need to black out the entire frame. Once you've blacked out the logo portion, apply crop filter to select a rectangular portion entirely within the logo area. Then run blackframe/blackdetect on that canvas. The cropped result will srill retain the original timestamps.


Filesystem that records longer than 4 GiB, or one hour without interruption

In my experience, that's a indicator of the line between consumer, pro-sumer and professional cameras. At a previous workplace, it was problematic enough to justify investing in a better camera for the situation that could handle longer video lengths.

Additionally, standard FPS for video are 24 or 30 fps.

You might be able to save some time on the card by recording at 24 fps, but not enough to record for an hour by my calculations.


What VFX and video production softwares are used in movies like "Captain America: Civil War" and "Doctor Strange"?

This depends from Company to company, there are multiple companies working on multiple shots, or sometime even on the same shots. Because this (sometimes) differs a lot from eachother, it's really hard to give you an answer to this question.

As mentioned, this heavily depends on effects you want to acchieve and the company you work with.

These are some commonly used programms:

Cinema 4D
BodyPaint
AutoCAD
3DS Max
InfraWorks
Maya
Mudbox
Flame
Smoke
Softimage
Mental Ray
Combustion
FLIX
MODO
MARI
NUKE
OCULA
HIERO
Katana
keylight
Massive Prime
Massive Jet
Massiv for Maya
Ready to run Agents
Matchmover
Z-Brush
Adobe CS6
Illustrator
Photoshop
Flash
After effects
Lightroom
v-Ray for 3DS Max
Rendermann
Avid Media Composer
Avid effects
davinciresolve
Houdini
3D coat
topgun
shotgun Studio
PF Track
NURBS
Filemaker Pro
vue
Plant factory
Ozone
Carbon scatter
Lumen RT
Primatte
ultimate
Final Cut Pro
Qube
Synth-Eyes
boujou
Fusion
3D equalizer
Mantra
Real Flow
Fume FX
BlueArc

I can narrow them down, if you can tell on which effect you are specifically interessted.


You can only cut in-between frames of your video clips.
Videos have generally frame rates per second of 24 or 25, maybe 30. Sound files have typically a sample rate per second of 48000. So you could say you can cut a video e.g. 25 times per second and a sound file 48000 times.
I usually cut to the nearest frame to the beat of the music. IMHO nobody can tell the difference of one or the other frame with a beat in between.
Try both versions and choose what feels the best.
FCPX is not sound editor like logic pro or pro tools. BPM don't apply for FCPX, it's the frame rate of the timeline and clips used what matters more.


This means although it is and I-frame, the decoder might still use/need previously sent frames for decoding. In contrast if key_frame=1 this would be an IDR-Frame (Instantaneous Decoder Refresh).
Citing from  Ian E. G. Richardson's H.264 and MPEG-4 Video Compression:

An encoder sends an IDR (Instantaneous Decoder Refresh) coded picture
(made up of I- or SI-slices) to clear the contents of the reference
picture buffer. On receiving an IDR coded picture, the decoder marks
all pictures in the reference buffer as ‘unused for reference’. All
subsequent transmitted slices can be decoded without reference to any
frame decoded prior to the IDR picture. The first picture in a coded
video sequence is always an IDR picture.

This may have impact on random access to a video. Simply said, IDR frames make random access more robust.


Warning icon next to video file name in Adobe Creative Cloud folder?

Ok minutes after posting this question, Adobe prompts me with the following error:

It's unfortunate they have such a limitation.


Is is possible to copy the viewport to clipboard within Adobe After Effects?

The free Copy Image plug-in should work. The plug-in is executed via Edit -> Copy image. As the readme states,

  The image is copied as an 8bits per channel image. If the active
  project is 16 or 32bits per channel, downsampling is performed.


How to specify different flags for inputs with FFMPEG?

Suppose a video stream is 1440x1080 with sample/pixel aspect ratio of 1.333, leading to a display of 1920x1080. Realize that the actual resolution of the stream, and what's stored in the file, is 1440x1080. The aspect ratio flag tells the consuming app (player/editor..) that the intended display proportion is different than the raw ratio of the width to height and that it should use the aspect ratio to rescale the video to produce an accurate display. FFmpeg will not automatically make a video square-pixel since the user may not want that.

The stack filters require that all streams have the same size at the interface that they are joined at - for hstack, that's height, and for vstack, that's width. Only the raw size matters, the aspect ratio is just an informational flag.

So, you'll have to rescale the first input before stacking.

Use

ffmpeg -i vid1.m2t -i vid2.mp4 -filter_complex "[0:v:0]scale=iw*sar:ih,setsar=1[vid1];[vid1][1:v:0]vstack=inputs=2" -map 0:a -crf 24 -ac 1 -c:a aac -b:a 128k -movflags +faststart output.mp4

As far as the encoder is concerned, it is just presented with one stream of 1920x2160 - the historical provenance and composition is lost. Now, if you want to apply different levels of compression to parts of the frame, that's called Region Of Interest encoding. Some initial patches were applied last month to allow this for x264 and x265, but it is not operational yet. I'll update this answer when it becomes so, but for now, you can only assign a single CRF value for the whole frame.


What's wrong with this MP4 file? Is the pixel aspect ratio wrong?

You are correct. The pixel aspect ratio is wrong. DV has a fixed horizontal resolution, but can display 16:9 frames by stretching out the pixels. The display resolution is set in metadata, so it is possible to make the file play back properly without re-encoding by changing the metadata.
The free, open-source tool ffmpeg can do it. This would be the command you would use:
ffmpeg -i infile.mp4 -c:copy -aspect 16/9 outfile.mp4


Is there a thing that can hold the subject in front of the camera, locked, not moving while shooting video?

Yes, what you are talking about falls in the realm of rigging.  There are lots and lots of rigging products available, but most of the specialty built rigs are going to be very expensive for your needs (hundreds to probably over a thousand USD).  If you aren't turned off by the price, I suggest looking at rigs in a web store like B&H to find something that will suit your needs and allow attaching an extension and the phone mount.

You might be better off to do something yourself to save money.  You should be able to buy a basic mount plate that you could bolt to a pipe and then on the other end attach a device holder for the phone.  I'd probably try and do it with something like a Trident case that will look like a nice case on the phone while allowing you to attach the mount to the back of the case securely.  It will still probably run you a couple hundred USD though, even making it yourself.  (Trident cases and the stand for it alone will run you $70 or so.)


Final Cut Pro X to After Effects Workflow

It is certainly possible to use FCPX and AfterEffects as part of the same workflow.  To do this effectively, you will need to use an intermediate codec that preserves image quality across successive generations.  ProRes HQ 422 is a good baseline as an intermediate codec.  There are higher quality ProRes codecs (XQ 4444) and lower quality ones (ProRes LT 422).  But ProRes HQ should be a good starting place.