How to join these three FFmpeg instances into one command

ffmpeg -y -i inputStream \
 -row-mt 1 -s 1280x720 -b:v 1024k -minrate 512k -maxrate 1485k
 -tile-columns 2 -g 240 -threads 8 -quality good -crf 32 -c:v libvpx-vp9 -c:a libvorbis hd \
 -row-mt 1 -s 640x480 -b:v 750k -minrate 375k -maxrate 1088k \
 -tile-columns 1 -g 240 -threads 4 -quality good -crf 33 -c:v libvpx-vp9 -c:a libvorbis fsd \
 -row-mt 1 -s 640x480 -b:v 512k -minrate 256k -maxrate 742k \
 -tile-columns 1 -g 240 -threads 4 -quality good -crf 34 -c:v libvpx-vp9 -c:a libvorbis sd

After specifying your input(s), all audio/video/subtitle options are designated for the next output, so you may write different options for different outputs.

From FFmpeg documentation, Chapter 2 Description:

  Do not mix input and output files – first specify all input files, then all output files. Also do not mix options which belong to different files. All options apply ONLY to the next input or output file and are reset between files.


What is "Key Frame Distance" in Adobe Media Encoder?

This is an answer I found on the adobe forums after googling it:

The keyframe distance is the maximum number of frames before the encoder inserts an i-frame, which is the highest-quality frame of an MPEG stream (ie, it has all the information for a single frame of video inside of it rather than relying on the frames around it to reconstruct). In between the i-frames are b-frames and p-frames, which are "difference" frames that reconstruct that frame of video by looking at the nearest i-frame and applying all the "difference" frames from that point forward (or backwards). The collection of an i-frame and all its connected p-frame and b-frames is called a GOP, or "Group of Pictures". So in essence the "keyframe distance" value determines the length of each GOP.

Note that Premiere automatically inserts a new i-frame for scene changes, irrespective of the keyframe distance value. This is to assure video quality at the start of a new scene since there wont be enough in common from previous b-frame and p-frames.

Generally speaking, the more i-frames you have, the higher the image quality of video, but also the larger the size of the video. So the value you choose for keyframe distance is a balance between the file size you want the video to fit in vs quality. If you're not concerned with file size or the file size generated is within reason then you can just leave it to its default value. Otherwise you can tweak it as part of the process to get the file size down to where you want it to be (in combination with the other encoder parameters such as bitrate).


How to remove transitions from title motion adjustments in Premiere Pro?

Set temporal interpolation to Hold as seen below:


Final Cut- How to start audio fade from higher than 0db?

You need to use keyframes.  It's been a few versions since I used Final Cut, but they are generally represented by a little diamond indicator.  If you add a keyframe at the point you want the level to start increasing and another at the point where you want it to stop increasing, you can then adjust the value at the later point and the volume adjustment should automatically be performed over the time in-between the two keyframes.

More information on audio keyframes in FCPX is available from Apple here.


Common newbie mistakes for cinematography?

Common oversights of beginners in pre-production:

1) No script or plan of action. Even if you are doing something very abstract or experimental, have a plan of how things begin, develop and end. You can always change this as you proceed, but it's most important to have a baseline. This should include your budget of money and time for all concerned.

2) No research. If you are shooting a documentary or a narrative be sure to do all the fact checking or if this is fiction, make it plausible or not if you desire the comical.

3) No storyboard. The storyboard is a series of panels like a comic book that describes each scene and the action contained within. This is how the camera will set up for each shot. From the storyboard you can derive a shot list.

4) No idea of screen direction. Right from the storyboard you should have a good handle on the direction the action moves within the frame as well as taking into account how the camera may move to cover such action whether that is a pan, tilt, crane, handheld, etc. shot. The key here is continuity of movement from shot to shot. Learn about screen direction and cover the 180 degree rule as this also falls under continuity.

5) No production schedule. Most movies do no shoot each scene in the scripted sequence because you can save a lot of time and money by shooting by location, time of day, or other logistical considerations. I once worked as an Hollywood extra in "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom". The last shoot or wrap night as they called it was actually a sequence near the beginning of the film. Plan your shooting schedule to optimize each location as appropriate.

Common oversights of beginners in production:

1) Not locking down exposure, focus, and white balance.

2) Terrible lighting. Learn about shooting with existing light, and how to make it work with reflectors if need be. If you are shooting indoors, learn about basic 3 point lighting to start. The most important thing is to make sure your subject is lit well and defined.

3) Terrible sound recording. Learn the basics of sound recording, like setting the level so it does not exceed peak load and not changing the recording level while recording. Also, get creative with sound too, learn about Foley and explore ways to create your own effects.

4) Camera shake: it's one thing to shoot hand held but if you are trying for a steady tripod shot, make sure you don't touch the camera when its recording. For instance one of my cameras has a remote so I can start and stop it with out even getting near the camera. Also, if you are using a tripod be sure that it has enough weight to handle the wind. For hand held shots shoot wide angle as vibration is proportionately magnified by increasing focal length (zooming in).

5) Over zealous use of zooming. Learn to use the zoom feature when it is transparent and does not call attention to itself. For instance a more effective use of zooming in or out is done simultaneously with a pan or tilt (assuming you have a tripod with a fluid head) while following an action. A good example of this is how a sports cameramen will follow a play such as someone trying to steal 2nd base.

6) Learn to compose a shot. Use the law of thirds in framing a subject, and when to make exceptions. I highly recommend art history 101 for beginners to learn about composition. Study the greats from Leonardo da Vinci to Pablo Picasso to understand how to frame your subject and study film history 101 to learn how great directors worked with framing in motion, e.g., Orson Welles' work in "Citizen Kane". Others: Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Akira Kurosawa to name a few.

7) Didn't get enough takes to cover the action. Make sure that you have enough good takes of each shot on the shot list. Be sure to allow some flexibility with adding long shots, medium shots, and close ups all with different angles to optimize the light and action. Shooting more is better than less from an editing point of view. Editors love to have tons of stuff to choose from as long as these extra shots highlight the intent and the director is behind it.

Common oversights of beginners in post-production:

1) Wrong format. Be sure that your camera files are compatible with your video and music/sound editing suite.

2) Too much time on one clip. Unless you are using a steady moving crane shot don't expect to keep anyone's attention if your shots are too long, and don't have any sense of movement or action. Having a wide variety of long, medium, and close up shots with varying angles to choose from that cut swiftly on action and appear transparent will be more engaging to your audience.

3) Jump cuts: this is all about continuity, learn when and when not to use a jump cut.
One acceptable form of the jump cut is the 'magic cut' such as some one suddenly appears in the frame like in Star Trek when they beam up. A bad jump cut is when something that may have been in the previous scene is misplaced in the following shot or the reverse is true too. There are a zillion examples of jump cuts. One famous one is Dustin Hoffman driving the wrong way on the SF Bay Bridge in "The Graduate".

4) Over use of effects. There is a huge temptation to over use an effect you may find interesting, even experienced cinematographers can easily over use something new to them and unfortunately your audience finds this boring and distracting. The golden rule is to use effects sparingly but appropriately when used. The best way to learn this is to see how this effect has been successfully used before by professionals in great movies.

5) Non-original music. Too many beginners use popular music for their productions. Even if it appears to fit, we've heard it already. Does "Also sprach Zarathustra" have to always play for a sun rise or moon rise? The question you should ask yourself is, how many buddies of mine play music, how many are good and want to work on it with me? Got a friend that can compose? Original music makes any production refreshing and takes your film from the ordinary to the unique as long as you make the music interesting and supports the film action.

6) Pay attention to the basic rules but don't be afraid to take some risks. My number one rule is that if I break one I better have a darn good reason and it really has to work within the context of the film I am working on.


Most common formats that don't require any software or CODEC installs

I've always used H.264 and have never had any issues with anyone being able to view it on Windows or Mac. H.264 is my standard go-to for formats, but as you mentioned, it might not hurt to convert it to several different codecs/formats, especially if it is a small file.


Adobe After Effects - Why is my position marker not set to a frame?

You don't need to go into the layer source to set the in-point of a layer. In the comp timeline select the layer, put the playhead at the frame you want and hit alt / opt[. For the outpoint it's alt / opt].

Should you wish to learn more have a look at the docs here.


Ever see the credit for "focus puller" in a film's credits? That's a single person's job, just to keep the camera focus where it should be on a moving shot (or even for changing the focus point at the right time in an otherwise static shot).

Usually the shot would be blocked out before hand, and they would work out exactly where the object of focus is going to be throughout the shot - they know in advance exactly where the focus needs to be at what time, and that person will make those focus adjustments as the shot is filmed, while other independent operators are moving, zooming, tracking, etc the camera. If your camera has the ability for the focus to be remote controlled via a pre-programmed sequence, that is also an option (usually you would remote control the camera movement as well, so it is all in sync).

Trying to manually track the focus while you're also operating the rest of the camera will be difficult to achieve accurately. I would consider breaking up your shots if possible, and cutting between more static shots. Otherwise just rehearse the shots as much as you can - it's not that it can't be done, but there's a reason films have an independent person working on just that task.


FFmpeg/Avconv unable to copy subtitles; Unsupported codec?

The fourth stream apparently is a CEA-608 subtitle stream, which during the days of analog television signal transmission was caption data embedded within the video data. Apparently FFmpeg can extract it but can't mux it to a new container.

As for stripping only the audio, MP4Box may be of help.


Edit small portion of a compressed video without losing quality

For tasks like this I like the TMPGEnc tools, try Smart Renderer https://tmpgenc.pegasys-inc.com/en/product/tmsr5.html.

With these tools you can cut & join files, only re-encoding where the cuts / joins are. I would split the file in 3, preferably on key frames, re-render the edited section as needed, then re-join the files. There are trial versions of the products, just download it and see if it does what you need.

I don't know of a way to do this in the Adobe products - if anyone else does, let us know! Or possibly there are other free tools to perform this task, I've just always used the TMPGEnc tools for this type of work.


Because 4096 / 1920 = 2.13333 and 2160/1080 = 2.  They are different aspect ratios, so yes, they end up letter boxing when you convert between them.  That is the expected result.

The 4K format you are using is a multiple of 2K and is not the same widescreen aspect ratio as 1080p.  You can't translate between them without letterboxing, though there are several different competing "4k" resolutions, so it won't hold true for all "4k" formats, but it does for the one you are working with.


Why does my Class 10 memory card run in to buffering problems?

You don't mention which Transcend card you bought but the benchmarks here indicate that the write throughput performance of Transcend cards are a little under 10 Mbps (naively I assume this is true for their brand of SD cards but I could be wrong). Strictly speaking the SD Card class rating seems to imply 10 Mbps minimum for 1080p recording so that may partially explain why you are seeing that behavior with your camera.

If you can try other manufacturers, look at their benchmarks from them as well as reviews to see how it goes.


How to remaster the Old movies to the High Resolution Quality using FFMPEG?

You cannot magically pull out more resolution than the material you have. If it's 1920x1080, the resolution can only get smaller, i.e. 1280x720. There are options like Nvidia's Ai-Upscaling, but it works rather bad when applied to faces, which you'll probably run into. Another method might be to use Red Giant's Upscalers. They use more advanced upscaling methods than After Effects bicubic scaling - however, upscaling 720p to 1080p will not result in a regular fullHD image.


ffmpeg prores alpha channel not present when colormatrix and colorspace operations are performed

The colorspace and colormatrix filters don't handle alpha pixel formats, so those get stripped off. The workaround is to extract the alpha and then reattach it.

ffmpeg -f image2 -framerate 24.0 -i tif_w_alpha.%3d.tif -filter_complex "[0]colorspace=all=bt709:range=pc:format=yuv444p10:iall='bt601-6-625':irange=pc[main];[0]alphaextract,format=gray10le[alpha];[main][alpha]alphamerge" -c:v prores_ks -profile:v 5 -pix_fmt yuva444p10le -alpha_bits 16 this_has_no_alpha_channel.mov

BTW, The Quicktime specification doesn't accommodate output range pc. Consumers should expect to treat range as always tv. If your software allows to override that, nice, but other software may not.


Decrease size of a avi video with lowest quality loss

Now you've actually finished your question, the simple answer is to encode it using h.264/mp4. Blender can render to h.264, using ffmpeg video in the render settings but the better way is to render to image sequences and convert.
Since you have a render, you can convert it to h.264 / mp4 without having to re-render. There are many ways to do this, ffmpeg being one of the best, but if you prefer a GUI then Handbrake is a good option.


How to save each segment as a separate file with DaVinci Resolve?

Go to the deliver tab and on the left click on the file menu. Above it yopu should see the checkboxes labelled Render [ ] single clip [✓] Individual clips. check the individual clips box, and then check the Use Unique Filenames box. This will output every clip in your sequence as a separate file, with a numeric suffix, eg output_0001.mov, output_0002.mov…

You can either use a custom name or base the name on the original source clip. (This is how you export files from a grade, so that they link to the original footage file.)


Choosing the right format/codec for export

I use these guidelines when uploading to the internet. I know that's not what you're trying to do but it's a starting point. I find there is very little loss of quality and massively reduced file size.


How to combine and optimize ffmpeg filters to avoid encoding multiple times?

The single command will be long, but here's an example for 3 inputs.

ffmpeg -i input_01.mp4 -loop 1 -t 11 -i input_01_logo.png
       -i input_02.mp4 -loop 1 -t 11 -i input_02_logo.png
       -i input_03.mp4 -loop 1 -t 11 -i input_03_logo.png
       -filter_complex
        "[0]scale=1280:720,setsar=1[0v];
         [1]fade=t=in:st=1.5:d=0.5:alpha=1,fade=t=out:st=10.5:d=0.5:alpha=1[0l];
         [2]scale=1280:720,setsar=1[1v];
         [3]fade=t=in:st=1.5:d=0.5:alpha=1,fade=t=out:st=10.5:d=0.5:alpha=1[1l];
         [4]scale=1280:720,setsar=1[2v];
         [5]fade=t=in:st=1.5:d=0.5:alpha=1,fade=t=out:st=10.5:d=0.5:alpha=1[2l];
         [0v][0l]overlay=10:10:format=auto:enable='between(t,2,11)'[0vl];
         [1v][1l]overlay=10:10:format=auto:enable='between(t,2,11)'[1vl];
         [2v][2l]overlay=10:10:format=auto:enable='between(t,2,11)'[2vl];
         [0]pan=1c,aresample=r=44100[0a];
         [2]pan=1c,aresample=r=44100[1a];
         [4]pan=1c,aresample=r=44100[2a];
         [0vl][0a][1vl][1a][2vl][2a]concat=n=2:v=1:a=1[v][a]"
        -map "[v]" -map "[a]" -pix_fmt yuv420p output.mkv

You may need single quotes in the map depending on your shell.

Use a recent version of ffmpeg, at least 4.0


Animating Latitude and Longitude points - how to do it? What tools?

I would do this in Blender, which uses Python as a scripting language.  This gives you a powerful way to "fly" through the data as it animates.

If you are happy with just a static perspective of the map with the points being animated, R has an extraordinary range of graphing capabilties that can be used to generate animations.


Improve video quality by lowering framerate

Theoretically it IS possible, and there are working, practical, proof-of-concept research on the subject.
A couple of examples:

Learning to Extract Flawless Slow Motion from Blurry Videos
Blurry Video Frame Interpolation

The picture below is from the second paper.

However, as of this writing, I couldn't find any feasible-to-use, (commercial or otherwise) software to achieve that.
You could actually use the techniques above to apply it to your video, since they even offer the code on Github, but it would be a great effort, you'd need to basically build a video processing pipeline script/software for that.
It probably would also be somewhat computationally intensive (slow).


Video playout software and hardware requirements for simple TV channel

Cheapest solution: OBS for broadcasting, mplayer for video playback, someone who will programm simple schedule for $100. If you don't need exact schedule programming, you can just make playlists playback for free! Here no instruction how to setup it for your needs, but if you is advanced user, you can do everything youself.

If you need advert breaks, logo overlays and so on, it can be programmed with infrastructure of OBS, but you can reach limits very fast. You can try to hire freelancers who will maintain your infrastructure and wishes.

Main price for "out of box" solutions comes from any guarantees what will be provided to you. Cheap infrastructure guarantees nothing.


How to use FFmpeg Command for Reverse Video?

FFmpeg has a reverse video filter and reverse audio filter.
For video only:
ffmpeg -i /storage/emulated/0/ffvid/frameCount.mp4 -vf reverse reversed.mp4

For audio and video:
ffmpeg -i /storage/emulated/0/ffvid/frameCount.mp4 -vf reverse -af areverse reversed.mp4

This filter buffers the entire clip. For larger files, segment the file, reverse each segment and then concat the reversed segments. Remember that you have to concat the reversed segments in the reverse order!


Adobe premiere pro video overexposed after import

This happened due to the display's inability to handle HDR videos. Color space: ITU-R BT.2020 defines a HDR video. As a solution I used 'confirm SDR' effect in premiere pro which converts the video into HDR color range.


What is the underlying difference between motion compensation and motion estimation?

Motion compensation is the use of the motion estimation information to achieve compression.  If you can describe the motion, then you only have to describe the changes that occur after compensating for that motion.

I used this article as a primer.  Basically the first involves how you determine what movement is happening and the other is then used to determine what information changed after the movement and to describe what changes need to occur for playback.


There is no "typical" size.  It depends entirely on the quality level and level of motion in the video.  I could encode ten hours of video where there is no movement with very little space since the compression would work very well.

On the other hand, if I had a video where every frame was completely different from the last, it would take a huge amount of space to compress it with any kind of quality being left over.

Using Youtube as an example, uses a data rate of 2megabits per second for 720p video.  An hour of video has 3600 seconds, so that's 7200 megabits, which is 900 megabytes of video.  Bluray disks on the other hand often use much higher rates, such as 10 or even 25mbps which would take 4.5 gigabytes and 11.25 gigabytes respectively.

As you can see, there isn't a "standard" size and it can vary by orders of magnitude.  The best bet is to compress it to whatever level you need and see if the quality is sufficient for your purposes, though 700 megabytes for an hour of HD video is already pretty small.  Compressing further from such a highly compressed source is likely to obtain sub-standard results at any quality level.


In the composition where you drag and arrange individual pages. Pick the layer of the page you want to make longer, then click and drag that layer in the timeline to the desired length.


Collapse Transformation and Layer Styles (bug)

it's not a bug, it's the nature of collapse transformation switch, and when you've added this dummy effect you simply have disabled the collapse transformation.


ffmpeg audio video separate files 1 command

Daisychain the commands, so

ffmpeg -ss 04:53 -i ./07.mkv -t 3 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -filter:v "setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, crop=960:720, scale=480:360" -an -sws_flags lanczos -fflags +genpts 07-alexFlex.mp4 -ss 04:53 -i ./07.mkv -t 3 07-alexFlex.mp3


Sadly this isn't how it works.
It could work with 25FPS and 1/200 if the shutter is precisly on the light impulse.

Also keep in mind that even if the electricity is 50Hz, the light could have a refresh of 100Hz.
Or you were just lucky that the shutter allways was on the light impulse.

Solution:
Well, sadly you don't really have a direcr solution for this one. But youbhave two Options:
1. Buy yourself some Video Lights (Sometimes also normal lights have a label "Flicker free" those should work too)
2. Do not shoot with such high shutter speeds.
If you know 180° rule and just do it for artistic reasons, skip this part:

You should allways record with dpuble the shutter of your FPS: 25FPS=>1/50 50FPS=>1/100
This will give you the most natural look.
If you choose a higher Shutterspeed, the footage will kinda look robot-erisch and unnatural.
If you choose a lower shutterspeed, it will have more motion blur and feel almost dreamy.

But you may want to use this for artistic reasons, a slow shutter for a dream sequence or a faster shutter for sport video where you wsnt to see everything and stop the video.


Apparently FFmpeg doesn't set input color attributes correctly for BMP input (probably because the file doesn't contain that metadata) and the BMP decoder doesn't check for manually flagged attributes. However, we can force it using the format filter.

ffmpeg -i 000.bmp -vf format=rgb24 -pix_fmt yuv420p -vcodec libx264 -profile:v main -crf 16 first.mp4


Adding metadata for films/TV shows on Linux

After some research, I discover this post.

So far the API for http://www.omdbapi.com has proven to be exactly what I wanted. For completeness, I found those command line tools helpful:

https://github.com/xbgmsharp/allocine
https://github.com/bgr/imdb-cli

And on debian:

$ sudo apt-get install python-imdbp


Using youtube-dl: Does adaptive bitrate (ABR) affect image quality?

Adaptive streaming is accomplished by switching between pre-encoded streams of different bitrates and/or resolutions. But the bitrate within any given pre-encoded stream does not vary too much.

YT-DL, with your command, will select the 'best' video stream, usually the one with the highest bitrate and resolution, and return its URL. This URL is a direct resource address, and there will be no switching when downloading it, even if your network gets congested.


How to extract each video scene with FFmpeg

Using the encoder's scenecut to detect scenes is not advisable, since its purpose is efficient GOP splitting taking into account other encoding parameters. It is not a "pure" scene detector. Its propensity to mark a "scene change" increases as it gets closer to the the next forced keyframe target (set by keyint).

Consider using https://github.com/Breakthrough/PySceneDetect instead.


From FFmpeg FAQ:

  A few multimedia containers (MPEG-1, MPEG-2 PS, DV) allow to
  concatenate video by merely concatenating the files containing them.

Hence you may concatenate your multimedia files by first transcoding them to these privileged formats, then using cat command (or copy under Windows), and finally transcoding back to your format of choice.

ffmpeg -i input1.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate1.mpg
ffmpeg -i input2.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate2.mpg
cat intermediate1.mpg intermediate2.mpg > intermediate_all.mpg
ffmpeg -i intermediate_all.mpg -qscale:v 2 output.avi


What is the best software to do color pass effect for a film?

Mostly any commercial video editing software should be able to do this. Premiere Pro would be my go-to option, there are different ways to accomplish a color pass effect with it. You can set the color you want to be passed, the tolerance, chose if you want softened edges ... Premiere basically can do everything you can wish for regarding color pass. But then again, you should be able to do this with most prosumer-level editing programs.


Yes, they are used for adding visual effects in post. The mirrored ball is for creating an environment map or reflection map. These maps provide the same lighting from the real scene to the virtual scene where graphics are created to composite into the existing scene.

I believe the grey ball is used for recording more diffuse lighting from all angles, though I'm not positive.

The cards with either black and white or colored square patterns on them are for motion tracking, image stabilization, and orientation. They're often used to replace computer or mobile phone screens, for example.


The issue with repairing avi files is that in your case you used Motion JPEG compression not H264. Motion JPEG requires an ending bit of code at the end of the file. H264 builds the video in blocks and if the video is cut off then only the last block is bad and thus lost. The only way that I have found that may yield a result is opening it in a video editor, throwing it into a timeline and cutting off the end and re rendering it out into a new file. This doesn't always work as most editors won't import the file, but it is worth a try. The short answer is that if this does not work then you are probably out of luck. Sorry for the bad news.


Black/silent video with specific duration with ffmpeg

Specify a PCM codec. The default codec is AAC, which has a priming sample that format in ffprobe accounts for, but stream won't, since the demuxer will have discarded it before sending it to the decoder for analysis.

P.S. your syntax is wrong - it should be ffmpeg -f lavfi -i color=c=black:s=3840x2160:r=25/1 -f lavfi -i anullsrc=cl=mono:r=48000 -c:v h264 -c:a pcm_s16be -t 3 out.mov

Options before an input are applied to the input. You've gotten away with it because -c:v h264 sets the video decoder for the following input. However, since it is an audio-only input, the effect is inert. And the default codec for MOV happens to be H264, so the outcome is what you desired.


One of the bits of information associated with a H264 stream is its level. The level informs the decoder the computational resources needed for a successful decode. Turns out that the highest level 5.2 supports upto 9437184 luma samples per frame, which is the number of luma samples needed for a frame of size 4096x2304. So, there may be encoders that can (be forced to) encode higher resolutions but there's no valid level which can be set for the stream, and probably no decoder that can be guaranteed to produce reliable playback.


I think is really rare find something for free, especially something massive like proper 3D environments able to export (as you said, Realflow), instead I can suggest you Newton plug-in.


Need help finding the right video production software

You could use Davinci Resolve. The free version can do all the things you want.
It's a professional software tho, so you'll maybe need to read into it.
But you can allways ask here, we can guide you further if you're stuck.


What Options Are There for Importing Mini DV and Hi-8 Tapes to Thunderbolt?

Well for MiniDV, you want to find yourself should budget permit, the Canopus ADVC Conversion Unit. It is by far the best realtime hardware (external small box about the size of a VHS tape), that will allow you to on the fly input in HDMI, FW-400/800 and component video and output over HDMI or FW.  (So it's flexible).

The encoder is handsdown leaps and bounds better than any of the cheap capture cards, and even the BlackMagic pocket adapters.

Hi8 Tape is Analog, unless it's Digital8. In which case you'll need to capture via Analog, and output via HDMI into your Mac. If your Mac supports HDMI capture, that will work, or you can buy an inexpensive BlackMagic h264 ProCoder to handle the input.

You will still need source decks. The Canopus box I mentioned, (which is no longer made) you might find on eBay (I found my 2nd one there). It also supports HDV, the high-definition mini-dv format, with virtually zero loss in quality (visually).

Other than that- you are going to have to set up a DeckLink card (really the only "better cheapest easiest" option in terms of a one card fits all.

You might be able to get a DeckLink card which handles all the input types you need (they have a lot of models, which differ in what they allow in/out). I'm guessing around $1500.

Then connect your decks, and capture.

As for Thunderbolt. I am sure the newest DeckLink cards support it (I would think), but will be very pricey if they even do.

My advice, either find the Canopus box I mentioned, or get a H264 ProCoder by BlackMagic; pair it with the appropriate BlackMagic converters ($300 each) to get your deck to feed to the ProCoder (Which only takes HD-SDI in), and then capture over USB 3.0. EDIT:  The newest ProCoder may accept HDMI in/out... I'd look at BM's website to see what their current lineup offers.

Hope this helps.


what should be the minimum write speed of microSD for 30fps 4K, 60 fps 1080p or 100fps 720p etc?

You have to check the specification of your camera.  30Mb/s could be plenty for 60fps 4k or not enough for 24p SD, entirely depending on what format and data rate is being used.  Your camera should say the data rate of whatever you intend to record in.  Use that to determine the needed card speed.  Make sure that the write speed is actually what you need as well as read and write speeds can sometimes differ significantly on SD cards.

According to this page, the Hero4 Silver only supports 15fps 4k recording.  For that particular camera, the required data rate is 45 Mbps.  Note that memory cards are typically advertised for the READ speed which is faster than the write speed in almost all cases.  Verify that the WRITE speed exceeds 45Mbps as the camera needs to be able to catch up on writing if it falls behind.


You can use HITFILM EXPRESS. Its absolutely free non-linear editor.
Get Hitfilm Express here : https://hitfilm.com/express

You can drop a sequence of images at once. For this you can refer this YouTube tutorial :

Then you can apply some transitions between the pictures and add a music track to complete the video.
Tutorial on how to apply transitions in Hitfilm Express :


Premiere Pro export black screen on mobile, just audio

Try using 4:2:0, which is the common subdivision in encoding for your use. If that doesn't work, I'm certain that samsung provided a list of codecs which work with their phone.


What are the pros and cons of a few of Photoshop's video format export options?

You don't need to worry about most of those formats. Over the last decades, different formats have emerged for different purposes. Since most of those purposes still exist somewhere, software such as the Adobe suit still supports most of them, but for general online video purposes, you don't need most of them. For a normal video that is intended to be watched on computers, uploaded to the internet et c., MP4 or AVI videos with the H.264 codec is what you will want to use, as it is supported by virtually all applications and hardware. QuickTime Movie (usually used with .mov files, though the codec can be used in other container formats as well) is another option.

  "Keyframe every x seconds"

In the context of encoding an H.264 video, the term 'keyframe' refers to I-frames. For compression purposes, many codecs don't save each individual frame fully. Instead, they save one full frame (similar to one image file) every few seconds (or in irregular intervals) and for all the frames in between, only the difference between the last I-frame (keyframe) is saved, reducing filesize. The keyframe interval controls the frequency of the keyframes. Most encoders can also place them irregularly whenever there is a large difference between two adjacent frames (which usually means a scene change), which is what you want if it is an option and you don't have a special reason why you need to set the keyframe interval manully.

  "Limit data rate to x"

Probably refers to the bitrate (I never understood the tendency of different developers to give their settings special names, even though it's the same damn thing every time. Talk about confusing users). The bitrate is the amount of bits (i.e. information) per second. The higher the bitrate, the better the quality (non-linearly though, after a certain point there are diminishing returns in quality increasement). And the higher the bitrate, the larger the resulting file.

Edit: As Mulvya pointed out, this setting probably refers to the maximum bitrate rather than the target bitrate. That is, the encoder will never exceed that average bitrate, it may however use a lower value if feasible. In this case, the quality slider (see next section) would control the target bitrate.

  Most of them offer a depth and quality setting ranging from low to high or best - I always choose the best quality, but I'm not sure it's necessary.

Quality sliders usually control the compression level, which in turn is related to the bitrate. Higher bitrate = higher quality = higher filesize. You will have to experiment with that to find a setting where you don't notice any artifacts in the rendered file while the filesize is still acceptable.

  For example I just exported this in AVI mode at 1080p, but have a weird flicker.

Looks to me like a framerate issue, but could also be caused by messing with the keyframe interval. As you said, try a different format, preferably MP4/H.264. In general, don't meddle with a setting if you don't know what it does. Setting an unusual keyframe interval for instance can yield unexpected results.

  but this is a complex animation and even with a powerful graphics card the rendering takes 30 minutes to an hour

I had to wait about three days for an animation rendering to finish once (blender using cycles engine though), just to put that into perspective °v°


Adjusting the vertical alignment line position in Premiere's Captions

I've found a workaround in Premiere, outlined below:

Make a copy of your .srt file, as you will need to import two separate files for this to work.

For example sub1.srt and sub2.srt

Import both .srt files into Premiere.

Place them one above the other on your timeline.

Make sure they start at the same timecode.

Set the text size and alignment as usual. Make sure you do this to all the captions by right-click on on a caption and clicking “Select all”.

Now modify the lower track, so that it shows a black background with black text only:

Double click the subtitle track to select the correct captions in the Captions Tab (they all look the same, so this is easy to mess up).

Right click one of your captions and choose “Select all”.

Make all the backgrounds and all the text black

Now modify the upper subtitle track so it shows the text only with no background:

Double click the subtitle track to select the correct captions in the Captions Tab (they all look the same, so this is easy to mess up).

Right click one of your captions and choose “Select all”.

Make all the backgrounds have an Opacity of 0%.

Now select your lower track again, and reposition it in the Effects tab until the alignment looks correct.


How to make full-screen video in Android 10 with Resolve 14?

You have to know the aspect ratio of your phone's screen. It might be for example called "18:9" which boils down to 2:1 and you have to define if you want to view it in panorama (upright/vertical) or landscape (horizontal).
Basically you look up your phone's display resolution and just divide the horizontal value by the vertical value.
Your source video is 16:9 (1.777:1), which means, in terms of the upper example, that you will have to crop it somehow to get it full-screen on your phone. But first of all you have to set up your project to match somehow your desired aspect ratio. In terms of quality the best way would be to go not only for the aspect ratio of your phone screen but as well for the native resolution which could be 2880x1440 for our example.
So one way would be, to set your timeline resolution to 2880x1440 and throw in your clip, scale (and crop) it, and export it in timeline resolution out of resolve.
The drawback for this is that your computer would have to handle this high resolution while its not really necessary because your clip is much smaller.
To avoid this you could just go for the correct aspect ratio and stay resolution-wise close to your source footage. In this case, the scaling would be handled by your phone hardware when you go to full-screen mode while you keep your file small and bandwidth usage low.
You could for example set your timeline-resolution to 1280x640, this crops your source and gives it a 2:1 aspect ratio. If you watch this on your phone it should use the whole display when playing it full-screen.


How can different deinterlacing algo make shots look more like movie or like video?

The complete answer to your question, which definitely includes motion blur, but also more than motion blur, is found in this article in The Accidental Scientist.  To summarize:

The human vision system has at least two major components that work together in a counter-intuitive way.  Persistence of Vision makes it possible for a sequence of images playing at only 16 frames per second to create the illusion of motion.  It is not a super high-quality illusion of motion, but the eye sees it as actual motion, not a sequence of images being flashed in rapid succession.  Ocular microtremor is a phenomenon that explains why the acuity of the eye is more than 4 times the Rayleigh limit.  And its oscillation frequency ranges from 70-105 Hz, and it averages around 84 Hz.  A playback frequency 16fps or faster, but 42 fps or less means that the eye both perceives motion and can super-sample the image.  Frame rates that are greater than 1/2 the microtremor rate (which for some mean 35 fps-70 fps and for others 53 fps-105 fps), the eye does not get to super-sample the image, and thus feeds the brain an image that fools persistence of vision, but doesn't satisfy the ocular microtremor system.  Once the frame rate exceeds the frequency of the microtremor system (120 fps easily does this), the eye sees that as "actual reality".  The article argues that the "uncanny valley", between 35fps and 105fps, is why 48 fps movies are not perceived to be 2x better than 24 fps movies, but actually worse.

Where motion blur comes in is that it softens the edges of objects in motion, letting the brain, not the eye, fill in the details.  Evidence suggests that the standard formula that shutter speed should be 1/2 of the frame rate (1/48th of a second for 24 fps playback) provides the ideal balance between the brain-based system and the eye-based system to work together.

When a shutter is open for 1/2 the frame rate, it's called a 180 degree shutter (in part because that's how it was created mechanically back in the day).  One can shoot with a more open shutter (up to 360 degrees) and one can shoot with a more constrained shutter (144 degrees, 120, 90, 60, 45, etc).  Different shutter angles create very different looks in part because it plays with the balance between these two visual systems.  The D-Day invasion footage from "Saving Private Ryan" was shot with a narrow shutter angle specifically to set the eye on edge.

All this to say--shutter angle and motion blur are very much a part of the perception of "smoothness" or "sharpness" of the motion.  Interlacing is an artifact that mostly just messes things up in the progressive video world in which we now live.  The small details on how people get around interlacing artifacts has little to do with understanding the "Cinematic look".  The Cinematic look is really based on the deeper principles of shutter angle, frame rate, and of course lighting, lensing, atmospherics, etc.  Interlacing either degrades things a lot, or not too much, and while it's strange that somebody would choose two different approaches to interlacing artifacts in a single production, that's less to do with explaining anything deep about the Cinematic look and perhaps more about the discipline (or lack thereof) of the production team.


wmv is often detected as 90k FPS by ffmpeg.  (That's a placeholder value since the demuxer doesn't look into the stream right away, to see the intervals between the first few frames).

ffmpeg's default for mp4 output is CFR mode, hard-duplicating frames to bring the framerate up (to 90000FPS in this case).  Even the most efficient codecs take a few bytes to code a frame that's an exact duplicate of the one before.

-vsync vfr (same as -vsync 2) on the command line should fix the problem (by letting ffmpeg not drop or duplicate any frames, but instead just use the input timestamps for the output frames).  It goes after the input file but before the output file, as it's an output option.

Other than that, see https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264 for example for how to choose settings appropriate for what you're doing.  (e.g. -preset veryslow to spend lots of CPU time for an encode-once task where the quality-per-filesize gain will benefit lots of times.)


ffmpeg Optimizing minterpolate at lower fps

This works for me (I use it a lot):

ffmpeg -i [inputfile] -r 24 -vf "minterpolate=fps=96,setpts=N/(24*TB)" [outputfile]

What I would do is see how well the command works on its own and then manually fix any artifacts you don't like.


Adobe Premiere Pro CC aspect ratio streched

I would check up in the Output window (second image). In the top left there is that option: Scale to Fit. Try changing that. Also check the "Fit" option in the bottom of the window right under the video.


App to quickly analyze audio loudness of several video files?

ffmpeg, a free multi-platform command-line tool, can do this.

Use the volumedetect and EBUR filters on each of the files

ffmpeg -i input.mov -af volumedetect,ebur128 -f null - 2> input.log

This will produce a log file with the initial lines looking like this:

[Parsed_ebur128_1 @ 0000000002d42400] t: 12.7       M: -32.7 S: -32.7     I: -30.7 LUFS     LRA:   3.1 LU
[Parsed_ebur128_1 @ 0000000002d42400] t: 12.8       M: -33.2 S: -32.7     I: -30.8 LUFS     LRA:   3.1 LU
[Parsed_ebur128_1 @ 0000000002d42400] t: 12.9       M: -33.2 S: -32.7     I: -30.8 LUFS     LRA:   3.1 LU
[Parsed_ebur128_1 @ 0000000002d42400] t: 13         M: -34.3 S: -32.9     I: -30.8 LUFS     LRA:   3.1 LU
[Parsed_ebur128_1 @ 0000000002d42400] t: 13.1       M: -34.3 S: -32.9     I: -30.9 LUFS     LRA:   3.1 LU

and the final lines:

[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] n_samples: 18700288
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] mean_volume: -31.5 dB
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] max_volume: -5.3 dB
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_5db: 22
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_6db: 32
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_7db: 250
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_8db: 470
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_9db: 816
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_10db: 936
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_11db: 1796
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_12db: 2632
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_13db: 4516
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_14db: 6028
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 00000000005db400] histogram_15db: 8846
[Parsed_ebur128_1 @ 0000000002d42400] Summary:

  Integrated loudness:
    I:         -28.6 LUFS
    Threshold: -38.9 LUFS

  Loudness range:
    LRA:         9.0 LU
    Threshold: -49.0 LUFS
    LRA low:   -33.6 LUFS
    LRA high:  -24.6 LUFS

The mean_volume is the RMS value.

(Download the latest nightly/snapshot binary for your platform)


Using a 265 encoded video with a container

A container is what the name implies, a container for video data and audio data (and other misc. data).
This might go a little bit under your know-how but just to make it easy to understand:

A video is made up by frames which are made up by pixels. A codec like h265/HEVC is there to take this pixel information and process it in a way that makes it a lot smaller than the raw pixel array, this process is called encoding.
Most codecs do this in a lossy way which discards certain pixel information but trys to keep the image still look the same. The encoded image frame is mathematically not identical with the source but aims to look identical for the human eye.

The container is there to take this raw encoded stream and wrap it, many container formats provide extra meta information about the streams contained in it and support a variety of content other than video, like subtitles and audio information. The container is there to hold all this information, it doesn't alter the information like an encoder alters video or audio, it just holds on to them.

In order to mux (the term used when you mean you want to put a audio or video stream into a container, muxing will give you a lot of google results) your video into a container with ffmpeg you just have to tell ffmpeg to copy the existing stream instead of encoding it (in your case you provided it with no further information and it will just encode it to h264 which is the standard codec in ffmpeg when nothing is provided).

You do that by using -c copy which tells it to copy both audio and video from the source. You can also do -vcodec copy or -acodec copy to treat audio and video differently but this is more relevant to re-mux from an existing container which has audio and video data to another container.

In your case -c copy does the job just fine. Just add that to your command line and it should mux an avi for you. Though mkv is favorable over avi for h265 as its already the supported h265 container that DIVX uses for their h265 implementation.
If just providing a filetype exension to your output file doesn't work like you expect you can also enforce a container by using -f mkv or -f avi.

This does what your client asked for, the h265 stream muxed into a container format without touching it.


avidemux's dialog box for x264 settings is pretty bad.  It's been years since x264 added presets from ultrafast to veryslow, but avidemux still makes you manually choose all the cpu-time vs. quality options.  It doesn't even have a checkbox for more recent (but essential) options like mb-tree, or psycho-visual optimizations (AQ and psy-rd).

I honestly can't recommend avidemux (2.5.4 in Ubuntu 14.04) as a frontend for x264.  It's pretty essential to have something with a slider for slow to fast presets.  I made a test encode, and the important settings default to on, which is good.

It doesn't matter too much what you use for youtube, as long as you use enough bitrate for it to look good.  (CRF 18 is usually visually transparent, you could go CRF 16 to be on the safe side.)

There aren't any settings that will make youtube use your encode untouched for even one of its standard resolutions, instead of doing a transcode.  The encoding guidelines, are all stuff that's on by default in avidemux.  Except the GOP of half the framerate, which makes no sense anyway, and is a horrible idea.  They're going to xcode the whole video anyway, so using a 1/2 second GOP size is just going to hurt compression.  Same for only 2 b frames.  I'm sure their decoder can handle the max consecutive B frames h.264 allows.  (which is probably 16, since that's what x264 allows.)  x264's default setting of 3 b frames is apparently good.  I think with that one, they're just making sure that mis-informed people don't disable b-frames and worsen the rate-distortion (quality vs. filesize) tradeoff of their encode.


Select every second clip in Premiere Pro

When I'm editing my YouTube videos, my footage comprises silence, then a shot I want, then silence, then a shot I want, etc.  I do this as follows:

Select the whole clip.
Click on the timeline where I want to cut.
Press Ctrl-K to cut there.
Press Shit-Delete to delete the first part of clip.
Click on the clip again to select it.
Click on the timeline where I want to cut.
Press Ctrl-K to cut there.
Click on the clip to the right.
Click on the timeline where I want to cut.
Press Ctrl-K to cut there.
Press Shift-Delete to delete the clip to the left (the currently-selected clip).
Repeat.

This isn't exactly what you want, but it sounds as though our workflows are similar.  I just delete the clips I don't want as I'm making my cuts, by using Shift-Delete.


As @Oliver-G said above, your final use of the footage will dictate your render settings. But I'm going to explain HOW rendering works, because it's essential knowledge.

Rendering is the process of taking your After Effects comp - a series of instructions of how to process files - and writing every pixel's value to a file (See footnote 1).

The way AE does this is to work from each layer from the bottom-most upwards, calculating expressions, effects on each later, motion etc. Then it computes the next bottom-most layer, laying it over the previously computer layer(s). The final size is not dependant on the complexity of the comp, so a still image will be the same file size (footnote 2) as a full composite with particles, effects, 3D elements etc.

Once this is done, AE then runs the resultant file through a compressor, which is where you choose your codec(s) and compression.

Codec: Every file has three (footnote 3), one for Audio, Video and Container. Think of a codec like the format for that stream in the file - so you can mix and match codecs. This is why .mov files can be unplayable on some systems: Quicktime is a Container format, and can have any of a huge number of video codecs in it.

Compression: Set how much data is "thrown away" to achieve a smaller file size. Similarly (footnote 4) to how a .zip file has a smaller size than the files it contains - fewer bits to be stored - compression can reduce the file size of a video, at the expense of quality. This is why web video - YouTube especially - looks atrocious, because it is reduced to such a small file size.

These settings are accessed through the Output Module button under each file in the Render Queue.

What you did when exporting is leave everything Uncompressed, so you had a huge file size.

Footnotes

For those with a deeper understanding of encoding, yes, I realise that keyframes, I/B frames make this statement untrue. But it's simplified for this explanation.
Not true, depending on how the codec's compression chooses to handle movement - a still image will be smaller because the codec doesn't have to record every frame of new data.
At least three, for a normal Audio+Video+Container. Multiple audio/video tracks, 3D etc. all add more codecs to the one file.
Not at all, but hey, cut me some slack :)


Download Sparkocam and your problem will go away. I am using a T3i and a T6i for the same live steam. Your other option is remove autofocus from the lens and switch it to manual


It sounds like what you need is a better DVI scaler.  A good scaler should resize your video in-line to a supported resolution for your AJA IO HD.  One example I found of the kind of thing you are looking for is here.  I have no direct experience with that particular scaler, so double check that it will handle your exact needs, but the correct type of scaler will handle resizing your video feed to something that the AJA IO should be able to handle.

Also keep in mind if you are using DVI-A (analog) or DVI-D (digital) as it will impact both cost and quality of the scalers that are available as well as the type of input you use on the AJA IO.  I'd lean towards trying to keep a digital workflow, if you can, as it should preserve the highest overall quality.

As far as alternate capture devices, two of the main ones I normally consider (though I have no direct experience with the current generation) are the Black Magic Intensity and the Matrox MXO2.  I used to use Matrox capture stuff back in the day with great success, but have not used their newest stuff.


FFMPEG - How can I add black bars to top and bottom of my video?

Adding Bars

You can do it with a combination of the crop & pad video filters:

-filter:v crop="in_w:in_h-60:0:30",pad="in_w:in_h+60:0:-30"

Both filters use the same format: width:height:x-offset:y-offset

In the crop filter, you want width to be same as the video's input width (you can use the variable in_w). You want to crop 60 pixels (30*2) from the input height (in_h-60). X offset stays at zero so nothing is changed horizontally. And set the Y offset to 30 so that 30 pixels are cropped from the top & bottom each. Otherwise, it will just crop 60 pixels from the bottom.

In the pad filter, the in_w & in_h variables will be whatever is output from the crop filter (you can just replace these with the actual video dimensions if you prefer). Use in_w again to preserve horizontal dimension. Add 60 black pixels back to the vertial dimension (in_h+60). Leave the X offset at 0 & set Y offset to -30 so pixels are added at top & bottom. Otherwise, it will just add 60 pixels to bottom.

The other option, as I think @Quertiy was pointing out, is to create a PNG image the same dimensions as your video with black bars at the top & bottom, & transparent in the middle, then overlay it onto the image:

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i overlay.png -filter_complex "overlay" -c:v libx264 "out.mp4"

It may be wise to list the streams in the filter arguments: -filter_complex "[0:0][1:0]overlay"

Multiple Files

If you were using a Unix shell (I believe this is what MacOS uses), you could use a for loop to convert all videos in a directory:

for V in *; do ffmpeg -i "$V" -c:v libx264 -filter:v crop="in_w:in_h-60:0:30",pad="in_w:in_h+60:0:-30" "padded-$V"; done

But I'm not sure what the equivalent is using the Windows command prompt.

Edit: Windows command prompt has a for loop as well. So it should be something like:

for %V in (*) do ffmpeg -i "%V" -c:v libx264 -filter:v crop="in_w:in_h-60:0:30",pad="in_w:in_h+60:0:-30" "padded-%V"

But, I haven't tested it.

Note: Use %%V within batch files, %V if using the command prompt directly.

Edit: According to this article, you should be able to do it in Windows PowerShell like this:

foreach ($V in Get-ChildItem .\) {ffmpeg -i "$V" -c:v libx264 -filter:v crop="in_w:in_h-60:0:30",pad="in_w:in_h+60:0:-30" "padded-$V"}

Again, I haven't fully tested it.


Scripting Video Production for data entry

My solution to this issue is fairly complex but stable.  I feel I went well beyond the initial request here.

I built a MySQL database with a table of jobs.  In that table there are columns for status, the text that needs to be in each video and then further more with youtube metadata.  The table has an index ID value that auto increments with each added row.

I manipulate the data via microsoft excel and save it as a CSV. I wrote a python script that reads the CSV and then imports into MySQL.  I do this because the youtube metadata column in each row is stored in JSON format for ease during the upload phase.

Once in the MySQL database, I have a script that runs once daily that generates any videos listed with the status code corresponding to needing to be rendered.

I use ffmpeg with drawtext to push the text desired during the timeline desired on top of a template version of the video that has whitespace in the timeline desired.

Files are named corresponding to the Row ID# in the database to make it easier to pick up later on in the upload phase.


deinterlace on the fly with an external recorder

The Blackmagic Design Tenarex 2D will convert a signal from interlaced to progressive on the fly: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/teranex/processing

It doesn't record, but there are very inexpensive recording devices that will take a progressive signal and give you a digital asset from that (such as the HyperDeck Shuttle: https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/hyperdeckshuttle)


The best way to increase the playback rate for the entire project is to use nested projects: Start new project and add your original project to the timeline as an event. Then Ctrl + Mouse Drag.


cross platform software to convert video to image sequence

Look at ffmpeg. It will run on just about anything and should do what you want, although it might depend on what your source actually is
Something like this should work :

ffmpeg -i sourcefile.avi -f image2 'img-%03d.jpeg'

(see the image2 section for full reference)


Why can't my video play from where I drag the playback bar?

video1 has a very short keyframe interval - it has a keyframe every few frames. video2 doesn't. Some players have the ability to decode upto non-KF silently and start playing from seek point. If yours doesn't, then it will start from the nearest keyframe preceding the seek point.

ffprobe origin.mp4 -show_entries frame=key_frame,pkt_pts_time -select_streams v -of compact=p=0 | grep ame=1

Result:

key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=0.000000
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=0.333667
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=0.667334
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=1.001001
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=1.334668
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=1.668335
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=2.002002
...
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=32.699366
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=33.033033
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=33.366700
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=33.700367

Video2:

ffprobe my.mp4 -show_entries frame=key_frame,pkt_pts_time -select_streams v -of compact=p=0 | grep ame=1

Result:

key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=0.000000
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=2.293958
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=5.171833
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=7.257250
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=9.718042
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=13.221542
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=15.473792
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=21.271250
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=24.357667
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=29.195833
key_frame=1|pkt_pts_time=32.407375

Add -g 8 to ffmpeg transcode command to place a keyframe every 8 frames.


Old question, but in Media Management, there should be an option to relink the new footage.

This should allow you use the new transcoded footage within the same project.

It's under the "+ more options" section.


Format and codec for a video with 5760×1080

For playback the best codec is unarguably h.264 (AKA MPEG-4 Part 10, or MPEG-4 AVC, or just plain 'mp4'). H.264 in an mp4 container allows for small files with good visual quality, the ability to tune the settings to achieve tradeoffs between size, compatibilty and quality, and almost universal playability with modern devices.

In the Premiere export window choose H.264 as the format. There are numerous presets available, but most won't be relevant because of the unusual dimensions of your video. The ones you should be looking at are the ones called Match Source-[...] bitrate. Depending on the playback machine you should try the High bitrate first. Adaptive High Bitrate will give you a lower file size by increasing the compression (= lowering the quality) in parts of the video that don't need it, but for local playback this is not really an advantage.

The Match Source bit means that the encode will be done at the same frame size as your sequence.

If you are having trouble playing back the mp4 you might want to look at the profile in the Video tab of the encoding settings. Simply put, this determines how comlex the task of de-encoding the file is. For lower-powered or older machines use the Main profile, but if your playback machine can support it use High Profile.

High10 lets you use 10-bit encoding. For a final playback file this is usually unnecessary, unless you're using a 10-bit monitor (if you don't know then you're almost certainly using an 8-bit monitor) it won't make any perceivable difference, and will limit the compatibilty for playback.


I have not tried Any Video Converter, but I did try HandBrake, and it works reasonably well. DVD-Video allows up to 9.5 Mbit/s bitrate, so do not be stingy, allow at least 5 Mbit/s or so, considering that free encoders are not very efficient. Make sure frame rates match, or convert without judder or ghosting. Make sure you convert between progressive and interlaced correctly. Make sure your luma is encoded within DVD legal range, otherwise your image will have too much contrast and will lose near-black and near-white detail.

704x576 can be 4:3 or 16:9, plus 8 pixels on each side for digital blanking. The best looking DVDs I authored were 24p ones because they have full vertical resolution. I am not sure whether 25p DVDs can be authored as true progressive DVDs though. Interlaced DVDs look rather sad on a big screen.


Software used for this slideshow/animation?

Software you could do that effect with:

Adobe After Effects
Blackmagic Fusion
Nuke
Autodesk Toxik
Autodesk Flame
Autodesk Smoke
Adobe Premiere Pro
Apple Final Cut Pro and Final Cut X
Avid Media Composer
Avid Symphony
Corel video Studio
Magix Movie Edit Pro
Lightworks
Sony Vegas
Natron
KDEnlive
Avisynth
Cinelerra
Pitivi
FFMPEG (given enough time)
Blender
Lightwave
3D studio Max
Autodesk Maya
Cinema 4d
Photoshop (yes, really)
the Gimp (ditto)
Processing (if you're handy with java)
OpenFrameworks (ditto, but C++)
many more… Pretty much any compositing, visual effects or 3D animation application, and most NLEs could do it

Could they have used a template: yes.


What kind of storage for digital footage?

Don't trust any hard drive to be reliable! Always backup your footage, you can not trust any HDD, doesn't matter how reputable the manufacturer is. There are always monday batches. HDDs WILL fail at some point, so ALWAYS make backups.
Bear in mind that you might find a RAID solution nice to use but that's not a real backup, backup drives are disconnected and are not running with your "live" drive, otherwise you might end up with all your drives failing together, including your backups.

I recommend going for at least 2x3TB drives, they have a lot better price per GB than 1TB drives. Though 1TB drives tend to last a tad longer on average but thats not worth the much higher price in my opinion. If you want to invest more for higher product life, don't buy standard desktop drives but instead a workstation or server HDD. For Western Digital (WD) that would be the Red/Black/Purple series. Seagate has a few 24/7 Surveilance HDDs that are also more reliable.

In terms of speed. I'm guessing you are using USB 2.0. An alternative is USB3.0, the speed of that exceeds the read and write speeds of any HDD. If you are a Mac user you also have Thunderbolt in most newer products but external HDD cases for that are a hell lot more expensive than USB 3.0 cases but they have the advantage of daisy chaining, which means you can connect many external drives to one port without a hub if you need multiple drives connected at the same time.

In terms of what is better, external or internal. For HDDs that doesn't really matter anymore in terms of speed, as long as you get a case with a quality controller and dont use USB 2.0 or Firewire. It depends on what suits you better. A case is of course more portable but there are also hot swap cages for backups that are installed like DVD drives.
Choose what you prefer.

And a general advice, never buy a complete solution where you buy a hard drive already enclosed in an external case. You do not know what you get and they are barely cheaper than getting your own case and installing the HDD yourself in a few seconds.


Get them to work in TextEdit first (assuming you're on a mac).
Check exactly which font works in TextEdit.
Then try that font in Premiere when copying the characters from TextEdit using "paste and match style" into a text box.
If that doesn't work, you might have to export from textedit as a PDF, then import the PDF in Premiere (but this means the text will no longer be editable in Premiere).


All that matters is if the MP4 looks good to you. Of course, you may be able to compress more. There is no set bitrate to use. More complex or rapidly changing visuals require greater bitrate. Most converters use x264 to generate the converted video stream, and x264 offers a CRF mode which adjusts the bitrate based on the visual content complexity. If your app allows you to apply that mode, select a CRF value between 20-28 with lower values producing better looking but larger files.

I suggest switching to Handbrake, which is a better pedigreed tool for casual users. I also suggest using Potplayer or VLC to play video files - both are more robust than WMP.


First, you need to adjust the metadata display. In the panel menu of the project panel, select the option Metadata display. In the Metadata Display window, activate the Rating display under Basic. This way, you get your five-star rating system right in the project panel (you can change the position of the rating column using drag-and-drop). Unfortunately, I haven't found a way to assign shortcuts to this star rating system.

Another option, if you are dead set on primarily working with the keyboard, are label colors. You can change the available label colors in the program preferences. You could, for example, use a color code as your rating system (e.g. green → blue → yellow → orange → red). Then, you can assign shortcuts to these colors: Press CTRL+ALT+K to bring up the Keyboard Shortcuts window. The color shortcuts can be found under Edit → Label.


Beginner looking to try a short CG film, any suggestions for software?

Months ago, I'd done some researches on this topic; even i had CG background, i don't have much time on modeling. My suggestion for you is to do How to Create 2D Animations - Beginner Blender Tutorial firstly, then https://conceptartempire.com/blender-animation-tutorials/


How to lower number of parameters passed to ffmpeg

You can not give fewer parameters, and expect the same functionality.

Instead make use of options -filter_script and -filter_complex_script.
And write all parameters in script file.


Is it illegal for me to download DaVinci Resolve 17 just because I don't work for a company?

Yes, it’s ok*, as long as you’re downloading the free version (not the one that says “Studio”) of Resolve and not trying to circumvent their copyright protection.  When you download the software, they ask that you provide some information about yourself so that they can understand their market demographics.  If you don’t work for  a company, just put that, “self-employed,” “hobbyist,” “none,” or similar.  Even if you accidentally download the Studio version (happens all the time, and vice-versa, because both versions are similarly-named), you won’t be able to use it without paying for a license.  You are required to agree to their EULA to use either version.  Ultimately, it’s your responsibility to read it before you agree to it.  Trying to use the Studio (paid) version without paying for it would get you in trouble.  When you do pay for the Studio version, Blackmagic doesn’t require all of the demographic info, although I think you’re required to register the software before they’ll give you tech support over the phone.
*I’m not a lawyer.


4k upscaled Blu-Ray vs 4k upscaling on a TV

It really depends on the methods of upscaling in both cases, but your TV upscales "on the fly" for each moment, which is meant to be fast while compromising on quality. One would imagine a studio releasing a 4k version took their time processing and rendering that 4k upscale to their liking and only then release it.


Can I digitalize a video with a RCA-Jack adapter?

The cable in the picture is an analogue cable, so it's getting an analogue signal from your camera. It's just a cable, so the signal at one end is exactly(ish) the same as the other. To digitise it you'll need a device to convert the analogue signal into digital code. There is a big range of these devices, from cheap USB dongles on ebay like this to broadcast standard boxes like this. The quality of hardware and software will vary, I'd hazard a guess that you'll mostly get what you pay for.

When looking for a converter you have to make sure that it is converting from analogue to digital. No cable alone can do this, it needs some sort of processing. Basically if you find something that has analogue sockets on one end (like the red white and yellow plugs on your cable, you call them AUX, but they're more commonly called RCA connectors. Professional equipment may have BNC connectors instead) and a digital plug on the other (usb, firewire, thunderbolt, etc. – but probably not HDMI because you generally can't record HDMI without specialised equipment) that you can plug into a computer then you're good to go.


To do any cropping of video in Autopano Video, you will need additional software from Kolor: either Autopano Pro or Autopano Giga. That will allow you to click the edit button below the preview window to send it to the editing program and apply a crop.

Alternatively, you can render out your video from Autopano Video that includes the cameraman, and then make your crop in a video editing program like Premiere Pro or Final Cut (even iMovie and Windows Movie Maker may work). That video can still be rendered as 360 video.


Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017 super laggy playback

What can cause lagging:

Bottlenecks. If you rig is not balanced for a specific task, or has too little firepower in some areas then bottlenecks can occur.
Software issues. Bad drivers, bloated system .etc. Also, premiere isn't the least buggy NLE.

First thing I would check is the system monitor, to see what exactly happens when playback occurs. Does the CPU usage skyrocket to 100%, does the RAM get fully saturated, does the disk get fully saturated? These are all valid questions that will help you find out where exactly the problem lies. If none of these areas are peaking or showing a sign of a struggle, then the problem must lie with the software. If they do show warning signs, then you should consider:

To balance your PC I would add 8gb of RAM and increase the CPU to one of the greater core count i7's (6800k, 6950). Ofc, this will mean changing your motherboard as well as these processors require a different socket type. Premiere doesn't really care how fast your processor is, it cares how many cores/virtual cores your processor has. Case in point, my friend has a new 4 core processor and I have an old LGA2011 (not 2011-2) 3930k; my computer runs Premiere faster and they are both reasonably similar PC's elsewise.
If you are not editing off of your SSD do that now! You need to be able to provide Premiere with a quick means of accessing video clips. It is recommended to have an SSD for OS and apps, an SSD for scratch disks and cache, and an SSD for working projects; only using spinning disk drives for archival or backup storage.

If the software is at fault:

Check to see if this happens in another NLE! Download a trial of Vegas Pro and see if the problem persists there. If it doesn't than somethings wrong with Premiere.
Clean install of drivers for GPU using Nvidia's driver cleaner software, and a clean install of Premiere.

Ideally you want to develop a troubleshooters mindset. You can probably post this quesiton on many forums until you are blue in the face. There are just too many variables that are difficult to diagnose by hunting and pecking at the keyboard. You need to just go through each possible aspect one by one, focusing on the easiest first: (1) work on SSD (2) check other NLE (3) clean install .. etc. Then you can get into addressing whether your computer can handle the footage. Based on my knowledge (which is limited with i5 processors) your computer should be at least able to play 1/2 quality 1080/60 without a hiccup, and 4k in 1/4 quality.

Side note:
I have recently helped someone on a forum with similar specs except a 6700k and a 1080gtx, they were also having issues where the timeline would 'buffer' at the start of each clip on the timeline. Unfortunately we were never really able to narrow it down to any one specific thing. Many other users online have also reported laggy playback on official adobe forums, some of which do not even use newer (and possibly less supported) hardware.

Edit

Also I forgot to mention that the codec you use can make a world of difference. Often people with less than 6 cores find that their computer can't handle figuring out codecs that are compressed using for example XVAC using as their computer is left with the processing:

  In an interframe codec, when a frame is pulled up, the person has to look at the frame before it, and after it and then decide how to unwrap it – before unwrapping it.

In this case, and for troubleshooting, it might be a good idea to convert to DNXHD an intraframe codec.


Video transitions and filters - how to create custom ones?

To get filters, you can use photoshop for that. iMovie can do all of the effects that you were talking about, and iMovie has a pretty nice collection of filters too.
Hope that helps!


Is there a way to use nlmeans_opencl filter with a 10 bits source?

No, the nlmeans_opencl filter supports yuv420p, yuv444p and gbrp, all 8-bit planar formats.


Is there an automated process to split a video into sections with motion?

There is a similar question in stack overflow

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28320004/detect-if-video-file-contains-movement

Apart from OpenCV they also suggest SimpleCV http://simplecv.org/
and "Motion" http://www.lavrsen.dk/foswiki/bin/view/Motion/WebHome


Highest quality convert of wav to aac to fit in mp4 container?

The output is fine. Audacity uses an old version of ffmpeg, which does not skip the priming sample. Other players should skip it. AAC streams will be encoded with that sample, so it's all about the player's handling.


Loop image over audio, as AvidDV codec with ffMPEG

deprecated pixel format used

This is a warning, not an error, and you can ignore it.

DNxHD

The FFmpeg DNxHD encoder only supports valid DNxHD profiles. ffmpeg will output the list if you attempt to output unsupported width x height, frame rate, bitrate, and/or pixel format. Or view the list at another answer.

DV

FFmpeg can output DV, but I'm not quite sure why you would want to. This is an old format and there are better, modern, lossless alternative intermediate formats for editing such as UT video (ffmpeg can encode and decode that too). Like DNxHD it will only output certain DV profiles, but it can use the -target option to make it arguably easier to use:

ffmpeg -i input -target ntsc-dv output.dv


ffmpeg - two videos having same video length but different file size

The -b:v doesn't have effect here since crf was set. Drop crf for similar sizes. CRF varies the bitrate to do justice to the complexity of the video. It aims for keeping quality constant.

Whether it's bitrate or CRF mode, the maxrate and bufsize do take effect.


Lighting a subject far away from the camera

This is hard to answer without knowing the sensitivity of your camera, the ISO, the aperture of the lens, the look of the room, etc. But most importantly, the look you want.

I don't think a flat wall directly behind her is the best background. Take a look at this search. Almost every photo has quite some distance to the background.

So. First of all, try to have some distance to the wall. Let's call the spot where she will be standing as "X"

Second. Imagine what is the things you want the viewer to see? You could have some strip LEDs on the sides of X. Are you shooting vertical? Like for TicToc? or horizontal like norma video. Do you want the strips of light to show? Do you have enough space to put them away from the frame?

The same with softboxes. Do you want a "sporty" look? Put them on the sides of X and not so bright, Do you want a happy look? Put them at 45° very bright. You can use or make a ring light for an urban look.

If you have white walls on the sides, you could use a reflector bouncing the light on them, the same as the ceiling. But bounce them far from X, so you do not have a hotspot on them.

I am sorry I can not really answer. Look for tutorials about lighting, and search for a look you like.

But here are some things that you need to take into account.

Some Led lights have low CRI, this is the colors will be dull, look for LED lights that have a CRI above 90.

You can also be creative and add gels to color some lights, a bit warmer for the background.

Do not put the lights on the sides of the camera, except on the case you want an "urban look". It is the least flattering light there is. It is just a flat light.


Reverse order of clips when importing from card or camera in Final Cut Pro X?

I don't think it's possible. In my experience the contents isn't loaded in any particular order, so setting the order to ascending content created date doesn't actually change the order the files are loaded. You can still try setting the date order to ascending if you wish: click the  button on the status bar then click the ‘content created’ header to sort ascending.


What cable do I need for this connection

It is a composite signal being output via BNC connection.  This connector is used in most professional applications as it is heavier duty and can lock to the connector so that it does not accidentally come detached.  I'm not 100% certain if this standard is compatible with RCA connectors (I started working with BNC with component video and mostly with SDI, so I'm not that familiar with composite on BNC), but it may be possible to run this in to a normal component video input (the little yellow RCA connectors on VCRs for example) via an adapter.


There's a good tutorial of how to do this at videocopilot, called earth zoom.  The tutorial uses after effects, but the technique will be the same for whatever software you use.  I'm making this answer a community wiki in case anyone wants to elaborate.


Reverse the blade tool (merge clips together)

If that's a cut within the same clip, you can move the right edge of the first clip to the end of the second clip, to restore the formerly length.
If you want to combine different clips to make some pivotal changes or append centrical effects. You have to create a compound clip.
If it was a cut within one clip, you can simply undo it. But i hope you know that.

I dont' know what you mean with "I'm-done-here-move-on-feeling", but a typical project has hundreds and thousands cuts. That's absolutely normal.


Workflow / Tool to count cuts in footage material

You might want to try Algorithmia's Scene Detection. It detects timestamps where the algorithm assumes there is a cut. Then you just have to count the number of timestamps to get your result. You need to setup a Python environment for that and have some basic programming skills. I haven't tried it, so I cannot say how well it works.
Update:
Premiere Pro now has an edit point detection. It's quite new, at first glance the results look good. You may want to give it a try. To count the number of cuts, select "Create Clip marker..." in the dialogue and export the markers to a csv file.
Pretty much all solutions can be inaccurate to a certain degree. Some methods of cutting are hard to detect, like match cuts or invisible cuts. Be aware that some of the found cuts might not be cuts after all but are other types of transitions, like dissolves or morphs.


@Gyan gives the answer in comments:

  MP4s and MOVs store only the TC of the first frame, as a literal frame count, along with the framerate. The consuming app converts that frame count back to a TC string using the framerate. For drop-frame TC, ffmpeg only supports 30 and 60 fps. I'll add 24/48 when I have time and a SMPTE reference that I can consult. For non-drop TC, any fps is fine. Add -timecode HH:MM:SS:FF to your cmd. Use ; for the final separator if TC is drop frame.


How should we back-up our media files for our production studio

My process is always to start from the recording media, move the files from recording media to a 12TB external RAID5 array with a utility that verifies the integrity of the transfer.  This is my long term working archive.

While I don't do this at this time, I'd recommend making periodic off-site backups of this array (either to a cloned array or to tape) to guard against loss of the entire RAID array.

For actually working with the assets, I copy (not move) the files to an internal scratch SSD RAID0 array.  Upon completion or archiving of a project, I move only the project files and any newly created files that need to be stored to the RAID5 archive.  I then rename my scratch folder, verify the project works when loaded on the archive array and then delete the renamed folder (which should only contain copies of the master source files.)

This protects against any corruption of original source files while editing and also minimizes the amount of data that I have to move off of the scratch disk.


Zacuto makes an EVF monitor that is 3.2 inches, and I can say from experience this is the real deal...Has built in sharpening monitoring to help with focus support, and has a detachable eyepiece...also look into their camera rigs fro your skateboarding videos, they could be really helpful for you.

http://www.zacuto.com/zfinderevf


Think about what you're asking. When you did the horse you used a luma key to isolate just the horse. If the horse was running through trees or down a racetrack what would you want to happen to the trees and other stuff in the background? Would they go over the horse from the layer underneath? If so, how are you going to see the layer underneath?

There's no way of overlaying frames without the front layer being partially transparent - either transparent in part of the frame (masks or roto), transparent depending on their pixel values (transfer mode, or key) or with an overall opacity of less than 100%. If it's not transparent then you can't see the background, it's that simple.

If you can, shoot against a green screen and key out your foreground. This will let you layer it up to create a visual echo as you show in your example. That's the best way to do this, even though it's "cheating".

If chroma keying is not possible, and if only part of your frame is moving, you might be able to use a difference matte. Get an empty shot of your background and use that to matte out only the parts of the frame that have changed. This will work best with locked-off shots.

Failing that, have a play with various transfer modes. They're basically pixel level keys that work depending on the value of the foreground and background colour. I worked with a visual artist who produced some lovely dance videos using time-delayed layering kind of technique. She filmed the dancers against black, and rather than pulling a key we just used the lighten transfer mode - which is basically a way of keying parts of your image that are darker than the layers below (we were using hundred of layers in each comp, I did some scripting work to make the whole process a lot easier).

Otherwise, if transfer modes, chroma / luma keys or difference keys don't work, put on a pot of tea, turn up the music and get stuck in to the roto.


Why does a video file that appears to be an MP4 not play in Windows Media Player?

Probably a fragmented MP4.  Remux it using ffmpeg.

ffmpeg -i filename -c copy out.mp4


1) Is probablly the easyest. You can download it from YouTube and merge it in Premiere Pro. Easyest way is to burn it in, so you wont have any struggles with other social media plattforms.

If you have basic programming knowledge, ypu could write a script whoch automatocally downloads and adds the sub titles from YT.


The proper way is to download the entire original video, in the highest available quality, using a tool such as YouTube-DL, and then edit that clip like you would any other. Please make sure to consider whether your usage of other people's content constitutes "fair use" under the laws of your jurisdiction.


Is it safe to use the yuva420 pix_format option with ffmpeg to encode webm videos?

YUV color encoding with 4:2:0 chroma subsampling is the only widely safe pixel format for web playback, although for certain codecs, other pixel formats may be supported.

FFmpeg auto-selects the pixel format for the output as not all encoders support all pixel formats. It will select the pixel format which best preserves the source bit depth, chroma sampling scheme and the color encoding scheme, from among the formats supported by the encoder. PNGs have RGB pixel format and until two years ago, ffmpeg did not support encoding RGB formats for the VPx encoders, so it would select a YUV format with full chroma (4:4:4). Since RGB became supported in FFmpeg for VPx, it will select a RGB variant like gbrp.

Auto-selection is overriden by manually specifying -pix_fmt.

YUV streams can be more efficiently compressed than RGB.


ffmpeg colormatrix operations only for 8bpc?

Yes, as it says a couple of lines above, colormatrix supports only 8bpc (8-bit per component) pixel formats. So, when a 16-bit input is filtered with colormatrix, it will be converted to 8-bits. And won't get converted back to 16-bit unless manually done or auto-converted due to output encoder limitations. But that's pointless anyway, as the precision has been lost.

Use the colorspace filter.

-vf colorspace=all=bt709:range=tv:format=yuv422p10:iall=bt601:irange=tv

Depending on your use case, format may need to be yuv444p10. Depending in your input, irange may need to be pc.


If I screen-capture a snapshot from a HDR movie, will the snapshot image be a HDR image?

If I take a snapshot to get a PNG image file, will the image file include the HDR information?

How do you take a snapshot? 10 bits minimum color depth of the PNG has the same effect on your HDR display.


Applying effects to only selected characters in Text

Your question doesn't mention whether you're using text+ from the Edit page, or from the Fusion page, but the answer is the same nevertheless.  You can't create one text element which contains two different styles from the Edit page.  To get individual control of different letters and words in a text+ object, you need to switch over to Fusion.  If you created it on the Edit page initially, switching to Fusion with the playhead over the clip will automatically populate the node tree with everything you need.
With the text+ node hilighted, Right-click anywhere in the text entry area of the inspector.  Select "Character Level Styling" from the context menu dropdown that appears.

You'll now be able to select individual characters and words interactively in the viewport.  Click and drag a lasso around the word you want to change.

When you release the mouse, you'll see kerning guides to indicate which letters are selected.

You'll find the controls to change character-level styling under the "modifiers" tab of the inspector.  If no text is selected, the controls disappear, which is a quirk of the interface which makes the feature difficult to discover.  But with the letters selected, Fusion exposes a ton of attributes to control or animate at the character level.  The text, transform, and shading tabs will now operate on the active selection, and you can change the active selection at any time.  You can also reset all character-level styling, or reset only selected elements by using the buttons in the inspector.

One drawback of Resolve's Charachter Level Styling modifier, is that it isn't very suited to dynamic text changes.  For example, say you meticulously style a person's first and last name, with a different style on the first name.  Say, for example you style...

JohnSmith

...and then learn that there's no "h" in his name.  For the sake of argument, you're using CamelCase, with no whitespace between first and last name.  When you correct the spelling, your styling will look like:

JonSmith

This is because Resolve's character level styling follows the letter count, including whitespace.
To fix this, and to address your question more directly, you would select the word you want to un-bold by drawing a marquis around it, click the "clear character styling on selection" button, then select the word you DO want to be bold, and change the styling in the modifier tab.
You'll find that this behavior will often encourage you to create an entirely different text+ node (to split styles in fusion) or text+ timeline layer (to split style on edit page), and obviate the use of the character-level styling modifier, which is unfortunate once you get used to its convenience.  But on the other hand, when the two elements need dynamic flexibility, they'll need separate logic control anyway.
*These screenshots show Resolve R17b2, which will look slightly different from yours, but the functionality is the same.


how to improve quality while editing video captured through CamStudio?

Most likely, the jerkiness is just your system being overloaded.  Many screen capture programs record relatively large files to avoid loading the CPU while capturing, but this means that the data rates needed for playback can be very high and thus can result in problems with reading the data fast enough to keep up with playback.

As far as the degradation, without a sample of what the degradation looks like, it's hard to tell.  The preview may simply be reduced quality to help with the load.  Also, a final output is going to be slightly lower quality as more thorough compression is probably applied by default and any lossy recompression is going to result in further quality loss, though choosing good compression options should minimize the level of loss.

You can try re-compressing the video from the screen capture and it will likely improve performance, but it will also degrade the quality of the final output.  Alternately, you could use a better NLE (non-linear editor) that might handle it more smoothly through better buffering or graphics card acceleration, but most likely you'll want faster hard drives or more memory to work from if you want to maintain the best quality and smoothest editing experience.


Getting gray instead of white when recording screen activity

Wow, this was a VLC problem. Its the playback of the video recording that has got darkened!

The left program is "Film & TV" provided by windows.

If I in VLC was unchecking the option "use hardware conversions YUV -> RGB", the playback was not washed out anymore. Describe in https://wiki.videolan.org/VSG:Video:Color_washed_out/.


I had the same problem when i updated my graphics driver, I use Windows 10, Intel i3 8th Gen. Version which did the problem was 27.20.100.8336.
you need Intel Graphics - BETA Windows 10 DCH Driver
Windows 10, 64-bit version 27.20.100.8425
link to update your driver https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/80939/Graphics


What is a good workflow when using speedgrade and transitions and effects in Premiere Pro?

It might not be possible to do it that way.
The best way I'm familiar with is actually the other way around.

You start a project in Adobe Premiere Pro

Use the "Direct-Link" function to import your Premiere project into Speedgrade.

Now, all editorial changes from premiere will update into Speedgrade.
A lot of Speedgrade functions will disappear (raw debayering for instance)
That is because Premiere is now "the boss" over Speedgrade and you should change those in Premiere.

Sorry for the bad news, but this is the only way I know, how what you ask is possibe.


OBS Studio: desktop audio falls out of sync

So with everything I've tried I'm not sure if I messed anything up, but....

Turning off "Use device timestamps" in the properties of "desktop audio" fixed the problem.


Sony Vegas Media Generators not appearing

The track containing the "hidden" text appears to be muted in the screenshot. Unmute it. It's the icon in the track controls of a round circle with the diagonal.

Background

There are two ways for a track to be muted. First is by enabling the mute switch of that track. This can be undone by clicking the mute switch again. Other is by soloing another track. To solo a track is to show only that track and mute all others. In such a case, the mute switches on the mute tracks won't be enabled but the solo switch on the soloed track will be. All of the other tracks' visibility state "pre-soloing" can be restored by clicking on the activated Solo switch. An additional tip here is that a track muted via solo can be unmuted by clicking its solo switch. This is useful if one wishes to temporarily unmute another track.


OBS is a video streaming and recording software, not a video player. You will need either find a video player that will play an .flv file, or switch your settings in OBS to record to a different format, like .mp4, which most video players will be able to playback.


Sounds like a color space / range flag or rendering issue. Quickest way to resolve this is to take a short screencast i.e. video capture of the page. Load that into After Effects and pick that color. You can't take a screnshot. It has to be a video. OBS, ffmpeg, VLC, Screenflow, Camtasia..etc can all screen-record.


What are these black tapes in green screening?

I assume these are home made motion markers in order to track the motion of the head in the shot. This is useful for adding other objects (or images) to the object, therefore the technique is called object tracking.

Note: The example given is only useful for 2d tracking, because most 3d solvers needs a minumium of 8 tracking markers around the object (in each frame).


How to Create Fire Light like Ligthing in After Effects

You could add some randomization to applying a redish orange color to the scene, but really, without 3d depth information it isn't going to work all that well.  Lighting falls differently based on distance from the source and angle of incidence and you can't compute that information easily or accurately from a flat frame.


How to get smooth motion when changing clip speed?

Shooting at a higher shutter speed is not an option in my opinion, as it just blurs the motion until the problem is not visible.

I don't get that part. Isn't hiding the problem until it is no longer visible what you want?
Also, a higher shutter speed results in less blurred frames, not the other way around.

I quickly figured out what is happening: by increasing the speed, my 30 FPS video becomes 30*1.2=36FPS. But I am exporting at the standard 30FPS so every 6th frame is dropped.

This is the default behaviour of the Media Encoder. Adobe calls it Frame Sampling. As you said, since frames will be dropped at regular intervals, it will produce curious results.

So finally my question is what option do I have to get smooth motion or hide this problem when changing the the speed of the video by small intervals?

Use one of the other Time Interpolation modes Premiere Pro has to offer. At the bottom of the Export Settings dialog, there's a dropdown menu containing three options: Frame Sampling, Frame Blending and Optical Flow. You will find the same dropdown menu in the Speed/Duration panel that can be accessed via the context-menu to change the interpolation mode of individual clips.
From the documentation:

The Optical Flow feature in Premiere Pro uses frame analyses and pixel motion estimation to create brand new video frames, resulting in significantly smoother speed changes, time-remapping, and frame-rate conversion. [...]
Frame Sampling repeats or removes frames as needed to reach the desired speed. Frame Blending repeats frames, and it also blends between them as needed to help smooth out the motion.

Here's another helpful article on using the Optical Flow interpolation.
I suggest you try all the interpolation modes and see what works best for your footage.
One more thing, you probably don't want to hear that, but 30 fps video is really bad for doing slow or fast motion effects (except maybe timelapses with 200% speed or more). As you explained yourself, there's not that many frames to go on so some frames will need to be dropped, synthesised or blended in some way which looks subpar at best. The interpolation algorithms do a decent job, but it will never look as good as it would with footage that was shot at a higher frame rate in the first place.