How can I keep my project-specific Motion elements together with my Final Cut projects?

FCPX has currently no way to link Motion Projects to FCPX Projects. To place Motion Projects in another directory than the default one, you have to create symbolic links using Terminal (see below). Motion Projects can only be used in FCPX as Templates.

From Apple's PDF "Managing Media with Final Cut Pro X Libraries":

  Motion templates are not managed as assets within the library but are instead stored in ~/Movies/Motion Templates/. If a project is dependent on custom titles or other Motion templates, these must be handed off separately.

I. Managing Motion Templates Manually

FCPX searches for Motion Templates in ~/Movies/Motion Templates/Type of effect/Category/Name of effect/.

~/ means your home directory
Type of effect is one of: Compositions, Effects, Generators, Titles, Transitions.
Category, Name of effect: the name and the category under which the effect will appear in FCPX.

Within Finder you can :

Change the names of categories and effects
Create new categories and rearrange the effects inside them
update: New templates are detected without restarting, removed templates will show as offline until restarted

You can for example put all project-specific effects in a category named after that project. When you archive your project, you move the category's folder along and it will disappear in FCPX.

Update:

II. Templates Outside Templates Folder (Requires Terminal)

Find your Template (see above) and move it using Finder
In the Terminal create a symbolic link to your Templates new location (while aliases from the Finder are not recognized, symbolic links created in the Terminal are)

ln -s /Volumes/ExternalHDD/Untitled.fcpbundle/MyTitle.moti \
      ~/Movies/Motion\ Templates.localized/Titles.localized/MyCategory/

Change the above folder names to reflect yours.

In this example the Template is inside a Library on an external drive! See the next section on how to get it there.
To use this drive on another Mac, repeat the Terminal command there.

III. Templates Inside Library

To make sure a Template stays with the project it belongs to, you can place it inside the project's .fcpbundle:

In FCPX control-click on your library and choose Reveal in Finder

In Finder control-click on your library and choose Show Package Contents

Find your Template (see I.) and place it here. Then create the symbolic link (see II.)

Credits for Terminal inspiration go to MacBreak Studio.


In Adobe Premiere, and other professional level video editors, it is possible to specify a tolerance for the color that you would like to remove with the chroma key operation. Apple Photo Booth allows you to take a picture and then use that matte to create transparency behind the subject, but you probably won't find this functionality in a basic editor such as videopad. It is possible to do what you're trying to do in Premiere, After Effects, Davinci Resolve, Lightworks, AVID, Final Cut X, and other video editing applications that support layered effects.


FCPX => DaVinci Resolve => FCPX color grading round trip

Xudonax,

The preset Final Cut Pro XML Round-Trip renders the graded files in ProRes 422, but it uses an old XML file, not supported in FCPX. You need to go to the Edit (important!) section of DaVinci after rendering the project. Then you will be need to make File – Export AAF, XML... command and check the fcpxml version 1.3 type of file. It will be comfortable to save this five in the same folder used for rendered files in Deliver section.

After that you can do simple import of this FCPXML file in Final Cut Pro X, it will create new Event and Project in your current library with all your graded files.

Be sure to make render before XML-export. If you will export FCPXML ver. 1.3 without delivering, you will make the FCPX-project with original (non-graded) files.
Good luck!


That's not really a large allocation of memory for Premiere. It's only holding as private memory just under 4GB.

My recommendation would be to add additional memory to you system.

I personally would recommend a minimum of 32 GB, but if your overhead is low in general, you can get away with less and not have any issues.


How to delete an edit in Final Cut Pro (un-blade)

If you have made an edit and you want to remove it, you can click on the edit then press delete and the edit will be removed.

fig1. selected edit:

Note that this only works if the time on either side of the edit hasnt changed, as indicated by the red triangles. If you have cut out any video, you cant delete the edit:


Keyframeable effects means that you can set values for the effects at various points along the timeline.  For example, you could tell a dissolve that you want to start at 100% opacity, then move to 50% opacity 5 frames in and then sit at 50% for 20 frames and then dissolve the rest of the way to 0% by another frames.  The effect will make sure it hits each value on the frame you specify and blend the values automatically to get to that value.

Without having it, you should probably still have frame accurate control, but you'll only have a begin and end point to work with, no control over how it progresses in between those points.  It's a nice feature to have, but shouldn't be critical for your described purpose.

Chromakey would seem to indicate that you can do your titles in either, but you may have to produce the title in an image editing program outside of it.  I'd guess that it will let you do static titles inside the program, but it sounds like it won't let you easily make the title move without going to the Plus version.


using images as text characters in after effects

The Characteristic plugin for After Effects is built specifically for this:

https://aescripts.com/characteristic/

You can set  kerning and spacing parameters for each character. Check out this tutorial to see how the font is set up:

https://vimeo.com/72438545

I hope this helps your situation!


What are some Best Camera Settings for Recording for Chroma Keying and which color of cloth reflects least green color?

Lighting is the biggest factor in improving this setup.  Move the subject further away from the sheet, use a lens that has a shallow depth of field so that any imperfections in the sheet are harder to see.  Light the sheet and the subject using diffuse lighting - large soft lights, or bright lights shone through large soft sheets, to make as few shadows as possible.  Backlight the subject slightly to get separation from the green screen and to reduce spill.

Camera-wise, use a camera which records as much colour depth as possible, and doesn't subsample the colour.  (Don't know how the Nikon samples colour)

If you're using After Effects, this is a very useful tutorial to get a good clean key, but without doing the steps above, you may still have difficulty getting a good key.


best way to publish low latency video on ffmpeg

Probably "-threads" option may help. Try this:

ffmpeg -threads 6 -report ...

Add more thread as your CPU can handle.


What gives a local TV news show that "look"?

The answer is both "light: lots and lots of light" and the imaging system.  But it is not f22 (which on most cameras would produce a surprisingly soft result due to diffraction limits).

The "light: lots and lots of light" is really about having not only good key and fill lights, but also lights above and behind the talent, creating a subtle rim of light around their figure.  In the literature this is known as three-point lighting, but it can be implemented with many more points of light, depending on taste.  It is true that studios are not shy about the absolute amount of light they use, but it is not only the absolute amount that does the magic--balancing key, fill, and rim lighting is just as important.

To get the deep depths of field, they don't stop lenses down to f22.  Rather, they have a 2/3rd inch sensor (approximately 1/2 the size of a m43 sensor, which in turn is 1/2 the size of FF35).  By using a sensor that's 1/4 the size of FF35, they get a depth of field that's effectively 4 f-stops deeper.  So, using an 12mm f4 lens on a 2/3" sensor has the effect of stopping down a 50mm lens down to f16 on a FF35 sensor, but without the problems caused by diffraction.

Additionally, studio-grade 2/3" cameras typically use a beam-splitter and three discrete sensors (R, G, and B).  Cameras that use a single monolithic CMOS sensor and Bayer patterns need a strong OLPF to deal with increased Moiré artifacts.  The OLPF cuts a certain amount of the high-frequency optical response we perceive as sharpness.

Finally, typical broadcast cameras have built-in sharpening that can be tuned to really make a properly illuminated subject really pop.  By combining studio lighting with a studio camera, you get a highly recognizable studio result.


I always shoot videos with slowest 50fps in my camera, Full HD. like you said, it provided slow motion & this setting has clearer movement. Sometimes I change back to 25fps when I meet some conditions.

Export in 24fps can be used for website, for example published for vevo, youtube channels etc. Because fast buffering and light file size. It also for animation & Music Video (MV). Full HD.

Export in 30fps is for NTSC Television Boardcasting & it smooth for NTSC live, like TV shows in America & Japan. If you published a video in 30fps alike TV shows.
Other countries used slow motion, able to published in 25fps for PAL TV. FHD, QHD. Mosty they're 4k now, their videos are very sharp.

Cinematic will be more optional and more setting & editing, mostly people used as many as fps their camera have, until 4k/8k 120fps+lighting achieved proffessional result. Export in 25fps, 60fps, etc. It is optional.

You want to be videographer,editor for Music Video, web, etc? Export in 24fps. (Actually your camera fps setting & export is good enough, just remember the quality of camera shoot, quality of resolution FHD or above)

Or Videographer,editor for live or non-live boardcasting TV shows? Export in 30fps. (The researched answer is for Television Boardcasting, 30fps)


Weird zooming in Premiere Pro preview-window

Make sure the resolution in the sequence is the same as the resolution of your clip. Otherwise you'll need to scale the video to fit correctly.


How to flip a clip in iMove 10.1.9 for OSX

To the right of the CROP menu, there are options to rotate left and rotate right.


Premiere: How to export at exact down-scaled resolution?

In general I would set my sequence settings to the desired delivery formats, and scale my source video to fit those. I wouldn't ever squash or stretch the video, as this looks very bad, and all iOS devices these days have square pixels (ie a pixel aspect ratio of 1:1 (or some multiple thereof if you're dealing with retina displays).
In general mp4 files (if that's what you are exporting to) prefer resolutions which are divisible by 16 ( I think - although someone on here may be able to correct me).
Your options are to rescale and zoom manually, shot by shot, to accept letterboxing, or to crop some of your content.  Rescaling and zooming to whatever is most relevant in each shot would be my preference.


Video editing/software technique for static shot composed of two or more cropped scenes

Compositing is the broad term for what you want to do. Making part of the shot transparent is called creating a matte.
Not quite sure what you mean about creating a green screen in post production. A green screen is something that you have in the shot that you remove using chroma keying in post, where you make anything that is a particular shade of green (or blue, or any other colour, but most often green for video) transparent.
Free (FOSS) software that does this includes KDEnlive, Natron, Blender and ffmpeg.


Using a creative commons image in a video

Is such video a derivate work of the images?

Yes.

  If the answer is yes, then how one could include images in a video without making it a derivate work?

You can't. At least not if the images are distributed under a CC-licence. Even if it's just one image (or song), you have to follow the ShareAlike clause. Also, if you use multiple works by other artists (regardless of what it is, i.e. images, songs, video snippets ...) that are licenced under different CC licences that include the ShareAlike clause, you can't publish your video at all without violating the licencing terms of at least one of those works. See the remix chart here for more information on how material licenced under different licences can be used together for derivate works.


Use

 ffmpeg -i IN.MOV
        -filter_complex "[0]split=2[full][crop];
                         [crop]crop=W:H:X:Y,transpose=cclock[crop];
                         [full][crop]overlay='X+h/2-w/2':'Y+w/2-h/2'"   out.mp4

The video is split with one copy getting cropped and rotated. The other full copy remains full-sized. Then the edited portion is overlaid on the full portion.

The variables in capital letters should be replaced with your numerical values.


Animated shape layer would be my first choice. Draw the final shape of the dripping paint, turn on animation for that shape at the end, wind back to the beginning and edit the shape until it looks like how you want it to start, then preview the animation and tweak any intermediate frames as necessary.

TL;DR: animate it.


Based on research I did for a client here's what I found out.

Canto Cumulus is a desktop app that has a good rep but is relatively
expensive.
iDive is a Mac based app that is relatively cheap but may
not have everything you need or want.
Imagine Products has some good
integrated solutions. I've used their ShotPut Pro software. Their
customer service is very good.
I've purchased and implemented CatDV.
It is simple and has a number of automation features. Basically drag
and drop.

You didn't mention platform. I'm on Apple so my solutions are Mac-centric.


Per @Mark's comment I used blender to do this. I followed this tutorial for making a stream of water and modified the water emitter to be 0.1x0.1 meters so that it makes a stringy / gooey like effect.


Seems like the question is asked on other places as well, with no answer so I will propose a workaround as I don't think FCP X gives you option to sort by Modified metadata field.
Bash script that adds a modification date at the beginning if each file in the directory in epoch. Then sorting in FCP by name.

Open terminal and go the the directory you want to apply changes (in my case a directory with videos).
do cat > script.sh
Enter: for f in *; do mv -- "$f" "$(stat -f %m "$f")-$f"; done
Hit enter and then ctrl + D
Now type: bash script.sh
Open FCP X and do Sort by: name

Note:
In order to revert the process, all you have to do is to replace what is in the point 3 to: for f in *; do mv -v "$f" "${f#*-}"; done


According to Adobe, it's a bug. Until Adobe fixes this bug with an update, the workaround is to switch off GPU acceleration in Project Settings.


Practical algorithms for rate adaptation

You may want to read the spec for Apple's HTTP Live Streaming
and see their recommended settings.

While the standard seems to be quite well thought through, its real-world performance on iOS still needs some improvement. Switching qualities and streams (for ads) often results in less than stellar experiences. Encoder support also needs to be more accessible, I think.


How can I save the project for premiere cs 5.5?

Short answer: You can't. Unfortunately, there is no way to save a project so that it can be used in older versions of the program. That's a major downside of Premiere Pro, especially since this is possible with most other programs of the Adobe Creative Cloud (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, ...). But at the moment, you can't do that with Premiere Pro.

You could use EDL files (Editing decision list). From Wikipedia:

  An edit decision list or EDL is used in the post-production process of
  film editing and video editing. The list contains an ordered list of
  reel and timecode data representing where each video clip can be
  obtained in order to conform the final cut.

However, only the order and timecodes of the clips in your sequence will be carried over. All effects and other settings you already put in place will be lost.


Downloading earlier segments from a live m3u8 playlist

You need to download the m3u8 itself, look at the entries and see if the individual TS filenames are entirely regular i.e. no signatures which vary with each entry, and the varying elements that are present can be deduced.

If so, then simply work backwards i.e. if the playlist you download has entries file_03532.ts, file_03533.ts, file_03534.ts..., then file_03529.ts, file_03530.ts, file_03531.ts.. would be the earlier entries. You can then use a download manager that lets you download a list of filenames generated using a pattern. IDM does this. There's probably others.


I've messed with BBB, though no where close to those numbers.  As the presenter, you can prohibit participants from sharing their video or audio, making it a one way presentation.

I have a gut feeling though, that the server requirements would be significant for that many participants.  We ran it on an old HP G3 and it worked , but slow for a dozen participants.

From their FAQ:

  What are the minimum hardware requirements for the BigBlueButton
  Server As a minimum, we recommend you run BigBlueButton on a dedicated
  quad-core machine with at least 4 GB of memory and a 2.6+ Ghz
  processor.

  We recommend installing BigBlueButton on Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit/64-bit on
  the server (see Installing BigBlueButton).

  While the BigBlueButton VM is a good way to try out the system, we
  recommend you run BigBlueButton on a dedicated server to reduce audio
  lag. In a virtual environment, the BigBlueButton VM gets only a
  portion of the host's CPU, and any lag in the CPU cycles can translate
  to lag in processing VoIP packets.

  What are the minimum bandwidth requirements for the BigBlueButton
  Server You'll need good upstream and downstream bandwidth from the
  server. We recommend (at least) 100 MBits/second bandwidth in both
  directions.

Personally, I'd probably looking into a SaaS solution like Webex, GoToMeeting, or the like.  There are probably at least a half dozen solid options.  Without having done it before, I'd hate to have sole responsibility for a conference that big.


How do I scale an object in only one direction?

Set the Anchor Point to the bottom of the object by pressing y or clicking on
Disable proportional scaling
Optional you can add a slider control to to get a better control of direction scale values

The shape can also used as track matte, just set the layer below to Alpha.

Note: As alternative you could use a trim path on a shape layer as track matte, see this answer:

https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/49643/how-to-use-after-effects-trim-path-with-an-illustrator-path/49975#49975


Satellite DVR: Cant play recording on computer

Okay this has a stupid answer.

I installed the ubuntu-restricted-extras package and avidemux opens this file fine now.

Looks like I didn't have the right codecs.


How can I record video clips on intervals automatically?

Ultimately if you want to keep HD quality then interval record at the camera. Hardware option is to use something like a Sony HVR-A1E that has this function built in. These are on eBay for 3-400 quid. Expensive solution!


From the youtube video description you linked:

  The in-house developed and customized cutting edge software tools
  provide better image quality and colors very close to the original.


AAC with no global headers is currently not supported

I assume you're the same poster as at ffmpeg-user who posted this.

.aac stores a raw bitstream and the demuxer has no facility to extract the stream parameters as extradata. So, you can try streaming like this,

./ffmpeg -re -i ~/Downloads/test_audio.aac -acodec copy -vn -rtpflags latm -f rtsp rtsp://shafi:shafi at 192.168.1.135:1935/live/myStream


Premiere sometimes not rendering 4k MXF files from Sony FS5

Premiere supports MXF container file formats with the following formats
P2 Movie: Panasonic Op-Atom variant of MXF video in DV, DVCPRO, DVCPRO 50, DVCPRO HD, AVC-Intra
Sony XDCAM HD 18/25/35 (4:2:0)
Sony XDCAM HD 50 (4:2:2)
AVC-LongGOP
XAVC Intra
XAVC LongGOP
JPEG2000
IMX 30/40/50
XDCAM EX


That is a specially built enclosure called a Sound Blimp, for a still camera, which renders it completely silent, so they can shoot stills without clicks and beeps disturbing the filming.


Yeah, that's a weird thing with the radio waves effect. It seems to be applied after the layer masks, and thus ignores the masks for the layer. This happens for a few effects, particularly ones that generate alpha. It might have something to do with that effect dating back at least to the Bronze Age—you'll have noticed how dog slow it is.

The only way to get the masks to do what you want is to precomp the layer with the effect on it (cut the mask off the layer, then hit cnd / ctrlshiftc and choose move all properties into new composition), and then paste the mask on to the precomp in your original composition.


How do I automatically create burned-in subtitles in Premiere Pro?

What do you mean by burned in?  Do you mean you wish to actually render the text on to the video or that you wish to encode it in a format that supports inclusion of a subtitle channel?  For actually making them a permanent part of the video, I've always done it through titles rather than an srt.  I unfortunately don't have any experience with the latter option of making them a subtitle channel in a compatible format, but it would likely depend greatly on the format chosen.


Why is there a need to render the video if live playback is flawless?

When you export a movie from a video editing software, there are, broadly speaking, three steps involved.

Rendering: reading each frame from source media and applying assigned effects to each individual clip. Compositing all tracks to form a final image. This part happens during live playback as well. However, most software will use faster and cruder methods during live playback, depending on hardware capabilities. So, the results may not be mathematically equivalent. But the average viewer may not notice the difference.
Encoding: This is the compression part. One or more rendered frames are fed to the encoder, which then performs motion estimation and other methods to identify exploitable redundancies. Using that information, the encoder generates an encoded bitstream. This part, depending on the encoder chosen, takes significant CPU time.
Writing: The encoded bitstream is then written to disk. If the frame sizes achieved in step 2 are small enough, then this constitutes a minor portion of the export process. But if not, disk I/O can add delay. This will usually be the case if step 2 is skipped and uncompressed frames are written to the file on disk.

During live playback, steps 2 and 3 are skipped. The rendered frames are stored in RAM and played from there. If the buffer overflows, earliest rendered frames are dropped, and re-rendered if requested. So, the difference in duration between live playback and render to disk is due to the better methods used in step 1 and the addition of steps 2 and 3.


How to improve sense of timing in motion graphics

You could begin by reading or watching videos about the "12 Principles of Animation", which are usually cited as a set of rules or building blocks for life-like animations and aren't in any way software-specific. Examples of videos can be found here, or here.


Negative SMPTE timecode drop-frame handling?

I know this is a very old Q, but it should be pointed out that a 'negative timecode' makes no sense. The SMPTE frame before 00:00:00:00 is 23:59:59:29. The namespace for drop frame (and non-drop) codes is already well-defined -- no need to postulate negative values. If there are systems or programs that use this notation, they should be rethought.


How can a beginner remove an actor from footage?

All of these seem to be simple circle mattes, you just need an editing system that allows you to generate a circle mask that has an animatable position.

You will need 3 pieces of media:
1- the original footage
2- the new actor to go in the circle (or a neutral shot)
3- the moving circle mask

You will need to animate the circle to follow the original circle, then use the circle mask to reveal the new footage in the hole.

I can recommend using the Open Software "Blender", it has a Video editor called the VSE and a system of user defined masks that you can animate with.


Modify the scale depending on the order of the keyframe values

To shorten what you've already written you could pack all the open mouth values into an array and then find if the x value is in it:

var scaleYVals = [1 , 3, 7, 10, 11];
(scaleYVals.indexOf(x) > -1)? [148,199] : [148, 189];

The second line uses the ternary form of if (foo){bar} else {baz}, which can be written as (foo)? bar : baz. IndexOf returns the index of an element of an array, so if the value of x (bad name for a variable except if you're referring to an x coordinate, BTW) is 7 then indexOf will return 2. If the value is not in the array it returns -1

The problem with looking at the previous mouth shape is that you could still end up with no movement: say there was a sequence: open, open, closed. If you disable the stretching on the second open mouth you'll have the sequence stetched, unstretched, unstretched. It also greatly complicates the expression.

How about you make it so that the stretch happens at the beginning of the open mouth and then goes back briefly before the next phoneme?


Merge clips with playback-speed automation

I'm a novice in Resolve, Premiere, and FCPX, but in case none emerges to write up an in-built or automatic procedure, in your place I would think of it as two ops:

First calculate and apply the correct playback speed adjustment. For your example:
clip1: 56-38 = 18 frames difference, 19 frames inclusive
clip2: 40-27= 13 frames difference, 14 frames inclusive
so to show those frames across the same time span for synchronized playback of both clips, your choices are to
play clip1 at nineteen fourteenths as fast: 19/14 = 1.357 = 135.7% or
play clip2 at fourteen nineteenths as fast: 14/19 = 7.368 = 73.68%

Second, now that they'll both be playing at the correct speed, it's just a matter of aligning any frame you can conveniently match up between clip1 and clip2.


Change video start playing time inside a composition - After Effects

You can drag the footage to the left, until the point you want is aligned with the start, or you can type in an exact number in the In column in the timeline window. By default this column is not shown, to show it right-click in the column headings, where it says Source name … Parent & Link and select In from the list.

You can click the number and enter -24. in the text field. **Pro tip:**you don't have to type the zeroes, AE will add them for you if you type ., this works for hours and minutes too, so if you wanted 1:02:00 you could just type 1.2..

This brings me to the third way to do it. In the current time box, type -24. to set the current time to -24, then hit [ to set the layer's in point to the current time (the comp window will be grey because you're outside the composition). Hit home to go back to the start of the comp.


Your best bet if you want to de-interlace and convert to prores without extra loss in quality is to do both actions at once.  Any re-encode, particularly if the encoding you are working from has had consumer level codecs and/or bitrates applied in the past, will cause (potentially significant) additional degradation.  Your best bet is to minimize the number of re-encodes needed by doing as much processing at the same time as you can and maintaining the highest possible image quality as long as possible in your tool chain.

It is unfortunately not possible to make many alterations to video without a re-encode.  There's a limited number of actions that can sometimes be taken, but something like de-interlacing is not included in that list.


Resolve supports scripting with Python, though you’ll need to write your own script. Fusion, included with Resolve, supports scripting with both Python and Lua. There aren’t really templates, per se, but you could probably hack something together by saving a fusion composition as your template and driving the file selection with scripts. I don’t think the render queue is very well supported by the scripting API though, there’s a steep learning curve, and not a lot of documentation.  If you’re just bookending a list of trimmed interviews with static, boilerplate intro/outro, FFMPEG would be more direct.  But yes, it would be possible.
edit Feb 2010
Resolve 17 Beta has added some features which make this process easier, including the ability to execute scripts on render completion, and Fusion Effects templates for the Edit page.


You could use an image or vector of a sine wave and move it to the right, with the second keyframe at exactly the distance between the zero crossing of each cycle, cropping the sides so it looks like the waves are travelling. Use the loopOut() function on the position channel to have it loop continuously.

Then for the nodes you could use shape or image layers. Apply an expression to their position channel like this

var wavelength = 100; //the width of the sin wave in pixels
var magnitude = 120; //the height ""
xPos = value[0];
yPos = value[1];
[xPos, Math.sin(time*freq + xPos/wavelength)*magnitude);

the first line could use the distance between the two keyframes of the sinewave like:

var wavelength = thisComp.layer("sine wave layer name").transform.position.key(1).value[0]-thisComp.layer("sine wave layer name").transform.position.key(2).value[0];


Nice explanation of your problem.
I would simply move the two softboxes higher.

To minimize the falloff put the lights about the center of the framing of the camera. If your camera is targeting the green fabric at 1mt (I see the camera is pointing down a bit) put the lights at 1m.
Probably the softboxes have less power than the umbrellas. Try to add a stronger light on them. Just watch they do not overheat. Safety first.

I do not know if this would help, but If you do not use the window I would put the green screen there because it seems the room is longer in that direction, which will help you have a less green spill on you, and use a longer focal length.


Depending on your country, the website you're uploading to and your usage of both audio and video, the copyright-laws make it legal or illegal to use a specific song.
If you create a video-essay about music-production and must use the song as an example to show your point, you will, in many cases and places not break any laws. If you combine a still-image with the song and upload this in its entirety than you will break the law in almost every case and place.
Copyright to music is no black-and-white topic, and if you're considering using music from an artist, I would seriously recommend reading up on the laws that are applicable where you live, so to not risk a hefty fine.
Youtube has a special approach to this case, in which - when a video uses copyrighted music - the video's revenue (money from ads) will go directly to the artist. If, however, the music is not registered at a database (in germany it's the GEMA, to name an example), the video can be blocked everywhere and you will get a strike. 3 Strikes mean that your channel will be terminated.
So you will likely not risk getting sued when using music in a youtube-video, but I would recommend reading up on the laws or asking a lawyer nonetheless. Copyright should be taken very seriously.


Working on audio effects for multiple clips at once

You can lasso them on the timeline, right-click and choose "remove attributes..."  Then, make sure "plugins" is checked, and click "apply."

After that, I will need to apply some effects to multiple tracks at once, but I believe this can be done by selecting all tracks and dragging and dropping the effect on them.

Yes, you can do that.  You can also apply effects to a whole track, which often saves a lot of mouse clicks, and helps you stay consistent.  There's a row of tiny plus signs on the mixer channel strips labeled "effects" where you go to do that.  It's also possible to group multiple tracks together, send that through a submix, and apply effects to the whole group at once.  So you could affect dialogue uniformly, for instance.


Export multiple clips from one video as separate files

I did it with shotcut. Credit to: https://forum.shotcut.org/t/export-one-track/7503/3

Steps

Load video into shotcut
click+drag video down to timeline
move playhead to desired position & Split at Playead (S)
click on a clip I want to export, then Copy (C)
Open Playlist view (from top bar)
press the plus (+) button in the bottom left, at the bottom of the playlist view
Click the export tab
In the 'From' dropdown (where it says Timeline or Source), I choose 'Each Playlist Item'
Click 'Export File'
Choose location, file name, and click 'Save'


How to add closed captioning to MPEG-2, QuickTime MOV, or AVI/DV for cable broadcast?

You could check out these links to see if they provide what you need:

http://www.theneitherworld.com/mcpoodle/SCC_TOOLS/DOCS/SCC_TOOLS.HTML

Caption Maker Pro:

http://www.cpcweb.com/

And of course Scenarist and Encore, although both are DVD oriented you should be able to produce at least MPEG-2 with closed captions embedded:

http://www.rovicorp.com/products/distribution/content-production-tools/scenarist-bd.htm
http://www.adobe.com/products/encore.html

  Closed-captioning support

  Import line 21 files to add closed captions to your DVDs (NTSC titles
  only).


How can we monitor audio of subject using headphone while recording video using iphone or samsung galaxy s4?

You could use an adapter to split the cell phone jack into XLR & 3.5mm.  Then just plug in your XLR mic and headphones.

Or you could record double-system audio.  Get a second, purpose-built audio recording device like a Zoom, and monitor that while you shoot with your cell phone.  It's super easy to match up the audio again in most editing software nowadays.


After Effects stroke effect doesn't play

It looks like you're changing both the Start and End of the Stroke effect. If you want the text to write on completely, you need to use just one or the other. Which one you use will determine the direction the Stroke is animated in.

The effect will have to be activated and set to "Reveal Original Image" in order to see the animation demonstrated in the YouTube video (which, by the way, is a horrible masking example. I recommend watching some tutorials on using the Pen tool in order to create better masks).


Top and tail GoPro video based on volume

I'm not well-versed with Unix shell scripting, and also only have basic proficiency in Windows scripting, so I can only offer a pseudocode flow of the script:

1) Break up your full video into N-second segments of only audio (into a temporary folder)

ffmpeg -i GoProFull.mp4 -vn -c:a copy -segment_time n -f segment GP%03d.mp4

Obviously, this will generate a sequence of MP4s where GPx.mp4 represents the n second audio starting at n*x seconds. You can get the exact value by running

ffprobe -i GPx.mp4

and parsing for Start: XX.YYYYYY

2) Run ffmpeg with the volumedetect filter on each of the files

ffmpeg -i GPx.mp4 -af volumedetect -f null - 2> GPx.log

This will produce an output with the final lines looking like this.

[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 0000000002584880] n_samples: 575488
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 0000000002584880] mean_volume: -6.6 dB
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 0000000002584880] max_volume: 0.0 dB
[Parsed_volumedetect_0 @ 0000000002584880] histogram_0db: 54799

There may be multiple histogram lines depending on your audio, but the mean and max are on the 2nd and 3rd lines.

3) Now your script should parse those last lines of each log

Check the detected mean and max volumes of each segment. Depending on how long your exciting parts are, and how much of a quiet interval there may be within an exciting segment, decide on whether to use the mean or max (or some evaluating expression involving both) and record the qualifying segment names in a formatted text file. Probably remove the prefix and keep only the unpadded numbers for the next part.

4) Prepare cut list

In the text file containing the numbers of the qualifying segments, collect consecutive segments together, so if your list is 3,4,7,11,13,14,15,18 then you want to treat it as 3+4, 7, 11, 13+14+15, and 18

5) Run ffmpeg to generate the cuts

Now for each cut, use the trim and atrim filter to make the cut. For a cut consisting of multiple segments starting with GPx and ending with GPy, the time codes for the cut is n*x - top seconds to n*(y+1) + tail seconds. You can use ffprobe to get the precise numbers.

ffmpeg -i GoProFull.mp4 -vf "trim=n*x-top:n*(y+1)+tail,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS" -af "atrim=n*x-top:n*(y+1)+tail,asetpts=PTS-STARTPTS" -{video and audio encoding parameters} GPcut-X.mp4

where X is the index of each generated segment.

Output each generated filename, one on each line, into a text file of the form

file 'GPcut-X.mp4'

6) Make into one video.

Run

ffmpeg -f concat -i cutlist.txt -c copy GoPro-Highlights.mp4

where cutlist.txt is the text file created in step 5.


How to get blinking play button on top of the video in Adobe Premier Pro?

Open a text editor and find the ▶ unicode symbol.
It will be called something like:
BLACK RIGHT-POINTING TRIANGLE
Unicode: U+25B6 U+FE0E, UTF-8: E2 96 B6 EF B8 8E

Open a sequence in premiere and create a text object.
Keyframe the opacity to 100%
Move forward 15 frames
Keyframe the opaticty to 0%
Select the two keyframes
Right click them and set them to "hold"
Copy both keyframes and paste them many times across your timeline.


What happens if we put 10bpc video in 8bpc composition?

10-bit footage will look the same as properly shot 8 bit footage, it's how it copes with grading and effects that makes the difference. If you have 10-bit video that's a few stops underexposed you still have a lot of information in the shadows - four times as much information as the 8 bit. You won't see that extra info until you correct the exposure–particularly because most delivery formats are 8 bit, like internet, or broadcast television (but not cinema). The same holds true for over-exposure and colour balance, and any effect that works with colour information. Make the same changes in 8-bit footage and you'll just get mush, because there isn't the data, just like blowing up standard-def footage doesn't make it the same as footage shot in HD.

To understand why, consider the R, G and B channels in an 8 bit image. Each channel has 28=256 possible values*. If your footage is underexposed and the brightest highlight is at 50%, then you've only got 128 values per channel. A 10 bit image starts out with 210=1024 possible values per channel, and the same under exposed footage works out to 512 values, so it still has room to be graded and still have the same colour depth as properly shot 8-bit video.

If your project is set to 16 bit or 32 bit colour then After effects will use the full colour depth of the footage.

*this is simplified a bit, most video codecs are YUV rather than RGB, the information is distributed so there's more data for the Luma than the colour, and the exposure values aren't necessarily linear, but that's beyond the scope of this answer.


IANAL, but as far as I understand it, if you're charging viewers for h.264 / MPEG-4 AVC content you may need to pay license fees. Even though x264 / ffmpeg are Free with a big F, they are just software libraries for encoding video streams into the H.264/MPEG-4 AVC format, which is covered by the MPEG patent. But the threshold for when fees are applicable is fairly high.
According to MPEG-LA, the license holders for H.264 / MPEG-4 AVC, the license fees applicable are:

Where End User pays for AVC Video:
Subscription (not limited by title)

100,000 or fewer subscribers/yr = no royalty;

100,000 to 250,000 subscribers/yr = $25,000;

250,000 to 500,000 subscribers/yr = $50,000;

500,000 to 1M subscribers/yr = $75,000;

1M subscribers/yr = $100,000

Title by Title

12 minutes or less = no royalty;

12 minutes in length = lower of (a) 2% or (b) $0.02 per title

Enterprise cap:

$3.5M/yr 2006 - 07,
$4.25M/yr 2008 - 09,
$5M/yr 2010,
$6.5 million per year 2011 - 2015

They also stated that they:

…will continue not to charge royalties for Internet Video that is free to end users (known as “Internet Broadcast AVC Video”) during the entire life of this License.

So if you're putting it on the internet free you don't need to pay them license fees, ever.
There's other fee schedules for software developers (though Cisco have released free source code and binary implementations of h.264 encoding software and have said they will not pass on any licensing charges for it).


SDI stands for Serial Digital Interface.  Over time, the bandwidth needs of video have changed drastically, and so SDI has gone through a number of revisions and different solutions for handling the ever increasing bandwidth loads.

3G, 6G and 12G SDI all refer to single conductor bandwidth specs.  They refer to the maximum data rate supported.  3G is capable of 3 gigabit transmission, 6G up to 6 gigabit and 12G up to 12 gigabit.  Each standard uses progressively higher grade cables and more rigorous transmission standards to enable the higher data throughput.

Dual and Quad link SDI take an alternate approach.  They use the slower SDI cables, but run multiple cables to the same device.  Using this approach, it is possible to split the data and achieve higher throughput with lower grade (and potentially pre-existing) cabling, but multiple conductors are required.

The standard you use will be determined by the feeds that both your source and destination devices can support and based on the wiring constraints you decide on (length of run and cable costs being the main two factors, as well as any existing wiring).

Much more technical detail on SDI is available on Wikipedia.


What should my aspect ratio settings be for an Instagram ad?

It means that the ratio between the width and the height of the content (in pixels) should be the specified one.

Specifically, for a video you need to have an aspect ratio (technically, a DAR - display aspect ratio) of exactly 1:1, so the width of the video should be the same as the height of the video. In other words, the video should be square. As an example, 1000 pixels x 1000 pixels is fine, because (1000 / 1000) == 1.0, while 1280 x 720 is not, because the division is not 1.

For what they call "story media", the aspect ratio should not exceed 9:16 (which is 16:9 in vertical). In numbers, that's 0,5625. So in this case the "media" you're uploading shouldn't be exceeding that 0,5625 value, when calculating the ratio between the width and the height of the content.


Programs that help you export multi-language videos?

Templater Rig can help with this. It's a plugin that connects the text in your After Effects project to a Google Sheet or other spreadsheet. Bear in mind that each language will have different read rates and sentence lengths for the same meaning on-screen, so swapping the translations is only the first step to making the videos look ok.


Yes- you can connect objects together using something called parenting.
There’s a tutorial here

https://www.surfacedstudio.com/tutorials/adobe-effects-basics-tutorial-parenting

You could also pre-comp the objects together.

https://greyscalegorilla.com/tutorials/fun-with-precomping-in-after-effects/

Parenting is like one object controlling another (or one object controlling many other objects). Precomping is more like making a new video and placing your objects inside it (sometimes called nesting in video editors).


It looks like its the iPhone auto focus, try finding an app that doesn't use the auto focus


What can I use to build a live video recording, streaming, marking application / platform?

Check out Wowza - it should do what you want. The basic premise of Wowza is video in, video out. It can take multiple video streams into it's encoding engine, and spit them out in various formats, live.

If you've got 4 inputs (let's assume they're cameras with HDMI output), you need a computer with 4x HDMI input cards (or 2x computers with 2x cards, whatever), that then sends the 4x streams to a Wowza server, then the Wowza server can either be directly accessed by viewers, or pushed out to a cloud service (like Amazon S3 or EC2 for example) for viewing without bandwidth constraints.

Using Wowza will get you a live stream of your event without using a service like Livestream/UStream.

I'm not 100% sure on marking clips though. Using Wowza gives you the flexibility to use your own player, so if you wanted to add markers within the video timeline, that users can click on and see that specific moment in the video (even during a live broadcast), that would be how you'd do it. But how you'd get the player to read some sort of file for the markers, and how you'd publish the marker information to the player, is beyond me. It might just be easier to create a "highlights package" for people to view later, that's just a YouTube video of clips you've edited together from the live footage.


ffmpeg h264: VLC could not decode the format "aivx"

aivx is simply a specific tag for 4K H.264 streams. Surprising that VLC doesn't probe the stream.

Try with

ffmpeg -i myfile.mov -c:a copy -c:v libx264 -preset slower -crf 20 -vtag avc1 myfilearchive.mov

In some cases, ffmpeg may fail to set the tag without warning. Add -strict -2 if that's the case.


Split video or export keynote slides separately

I think your best bet for splitting the video is going to be to manually razor it in a video editor of your choice.  You can then either use a clip exporter in the editing tool if it has it or export an EDL and use that with something like ffmpeg to do the splitting for you.


Final Cut Pro X Sharing to DVD 66% error? Slideshow compression?

Open Activity Monitor. I found that every time share (from fcpx) hangs @ 66% the app "DSPPublishing Server" wasn't responding. Look down the list of active Process Names and manually terminate it. This should allow Create DVD to restart.


How do I batch replace video clips in Premiere to graded copies? (from Da Vinci Resolve)

Method 1
First, with the Premiere project closed, move the original files that you're editing with to a new folder or other location. Open your project and it will warn you of missing files. Click the Relink others automatically checkbox and then hit Locate.

Navigate to the folder with the new graded footage, find the first clip and press Ok. It will then re-link all the other files to the matching files in new folder.

Note that this will only work if the files have the same name. Different extensions are ok, from my experience it's smart enough to deal with it if your original footage was an MXF and you're replacing it with an AVI for example.

Method 2
In your project window, or in your timeline, select all the files you want to replace, right-click and choose Make Offline. Generally you want to choose "leave the media files on disk" in the dialogue that opens, because it permanently deletes the file if you don't.

Once your clips are offline then you can re-link. With all the files still selected, right-click and choose "Link Media". This will open up the same dialogue as method 1, so as before you choose Relink others automatically and navigate to your graded footage.

Again, this only works if the graded clips are named the same as the originals.

Method 3
With the project closed, move the original clips from where they are on your hard drive, and replace them with the graded clips. When you open the project it will link to the new clips, again, provided that they are named the same. You will need to re-render any rendered clips in your timeline.

Another note is that if your footage contained audio you need the graded footage to contain audio, even if you're not using it. Premiere won't accept them otherwise. So in Resolve, make sure you check the "Render Audio" box.

I use this workflow when I'm working with BlackMagic Cinema Camera footage. DaVinci Resolve gives me much better results than the Adobe grading tools, either in Premiere or Speedgrade. The only thing that does nearly as good a job is using Adobe Camera Raw by opening the footage in After Effects and rendering out intermediates, but that is extremely tedious and dog-slow.


Program that uses grayscale images to make transitions

What you want is called a Gradient Wipe in Premiere Pro or a Luma Fade in Davinci Resolve.

Just make sure your gradient image is a 3rd layer as long as your transition, and is selected as the 'gradient layer.'

(This should be a comment but I don't have enough karma to comment in this forum. Hope this helps :) )


As Windows Movie Maker don't support multi track editing, I don't think it is possible to overlay images onto the main video. Similarly, I don't think it has the required features to blur a specific area.
If you are looking for a software recommendation, Sony Movie Studio can do both of these things (£60), and so can Blender (free, but very hard to learn)
Sorry not to have been more helpful.


Combining Hdmi video with composite audii

Something like that should work:
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Premium-HDMI-DVI-Audio-Combiner-With-HDMI-Repeater-Function-/311215250396


ffmpeg produces the same output file with different bitrate settings

With hevc_nvenc, if cq:v is set, b:v is ignored. Change -cq:v in conjunction with -maxrate:v instead.


Reusable Fusion Clip with Sound in Davinci Resolve

Lasso both of them, right-click, and create a new compound clip. You could store this compound clip within a power bin, and it would be available for re-use in future projects. Or, you could write out a proRes 4444 file to your desktop and import into new projects whenever you need to (has to be 4444 at least to support transparency. If you use a different codec, be sure it does too; common ones like h.264 do not). In either case, if you have trouble with an alpha channel not showing up, you need to go into the color page, right click on the background of the node viewer and select “add alpha output”, then wire the new blue triangle output to whichever node you’re trying to get transparency from. BMD have made this step less necessary in some situations, and try to automatically display transparency when appropriate, but you’ll still encounter black sometimes, and if you do, that’s where you fix it. Oh, and when you say “render individual clips,” don’t use the render individual clips button n the deliver page. It’s for round-tripping to other software, it won’t export single clips like you see them on the timeline. To do that, you can right-click on the clip thumbnail in the deliver page and select “render this clip” from the drop down to set the in and out points to a single clip. The results are very different.


FFmpeg scale video filter does not working as expected

The scale filter will adjust the sample aspect ratio to maintain the original display aspect ratio, which is 16:9 for your input. Use the SAR filter to reset the SAR after scaling.

ffmpeg -i 1.mp4 -vf scale=2000:100,setsar=1 2.mp4


Export timeline with multiple audio tracks as video with single audio track in DaVinci Resolve 16

The likely culprit is the Audio setting [Output Track 1], which should normally be "Main 1 (Stereo)", which is the default final bus/mix of the audio in the compiled video.

When setting it to "All timeline tracks" -- each audio track (stereo or mono) is rendered as separate tracks (stereo or mono) in the output file.


Why two focus controls on Canon KT14X44KRS?

Many lenses of different types have separate Macro modes that allow the photographer to focus on objects that are closer than they normally would be able to. Generally this Macro mode would apply if the object is within 1' of the lens.

There are plenty of ways to work around this limitation creatively, and nicer and more expensive lenses may offer better performance.

I did check the manual for camera, and it doesn't have any information about the Macro mode unfortunately.


Software to combine two videos of the same scene?

Sony Vegas Pro can do it but it is a bit pricey. In general, you need any video editor that supports masking and compositing.


Encode a small proxy file with multiple audio streams for editing on Linux

I've come up with this ffmpeg command:

ffmpeg -i original.mkv -c:v libx264 -tune animation -crf 35 -x264opts keyint=10 -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a pcm_s16le -map 0 proxy.mkv

What this will do:

use h.264 encoder with -c:v libx264 to give small files (prores would give huge files)
use -tune animation to optimize for screencasting
use very low quality to maintain small bitrate using -crf 35
define small GOP settings (complete keyframes will be placed every 10 frames - default settings use more) with -x264opts keyint=10 - this is a tradeoff between small filesize and bitrate and easy of scrubbing. For best scrubbing you'd want to set this to 1, so each frame is encoded independently. However 10 works for me so far.
Use chroma subsampling, as ffmpeg would otherwise maintain original pixel format and you don't want or need 444 for proxy - -pix_fmt yuv420p - this helps make the file lighter.
Encode audio in 16-bit PCM which is very fast to process and easy to scrub (the bitrate is constant) with -c:a pcm_s16le. Compared to video streams the bitrate is still small so using something like Vorbis instead is probably not needed.
Finally, we want to make sure ffmpeg keeps all audio streams in the output file using -map 0. Without it it'd pick just one audio stream and drop the rest.

Resulting file is 1.7 GB (from original 8.9 GB), and plays much more smoothly in Olive Video Editor.

Here's what ffprobe says about created proxy file:

Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'proxy 2020-05-08 21-55-10.mkv':
  Metadata:
    ENCODER         : Lavf58.29.100
  Duration: 00:52:28.95, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 7812 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High), yuv420p(progressive), 3840x1080, 60 fps, 60 tbr, 1k tbn, 120 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      ENCODER         : Lavc58.54.100 libx264
      DURATION        : 00:52:28.950000000
Stream #0:1: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 1536 kb/s (default)
Metadata:
  ENCODER         : Lavc58.54.100 pcm_s16le
  DURATION        : 00:52:28.906000000
Stream #0:2: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 1536 kb/s (default)
Metadata:
  ENCODER         : Lavc58.54.100 pcm_s16le
  DURATION        : 00:52:28.906000000
Stream #0:3: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 1536 kb/s (default)
Metadata:
  ENCODER         : Lavc58.54.100 pcm_s16le
  DURATION        : 00:52:28.906000000


FFmpeg/nvenc(cuda): Where is the documentation for h264_nvenc encoder?

You may check https://github.com/FFmpeg/FFmpeg/blob/master/libavcodec/nvenc.h#L186-L221
and the valid can be referenced from https://github.com/FFmpeg/nv-codec-headers/blob/master/include/ffnvcodec/nvEncodeAPI.h


How do you bring up the effects settings window?

By scrubbing the thumbnail you're only previewing the effect. To add it to the clip, drag the thumbnail to the clip on the timeline in your project. The effect is then added to the effects in the thumbnail (at the top of your screenshot) and controls are available in the inspector and the viewer for manipulating the effect.


How to stay objective after viewing your edit hundreds of times?

I believe the only answer to that is to take at least a 24hr break. Move onto another project or start something new. The number of times I have come back to something after a decent break and can all of a sudden see what needs to be done is shocking.

I don't believe their is a quick fix to this issue.


If a filter is good enough for photo, it is good enough for video.  Video is much MUCH lower quality than photography.  Ultimately, it really depends on your standards though and we can't tell you if it is good enough for your particular tastes and needs.  The reason that there are more expensive cinema lenses is because of how focus works while zooming.


Why would an DSI MIPI HDMI device accept Windows 10 HDMI signal but not HDMI signal from a GoPro or wireless HDMI transmitter?

There are two possible reasons I could see for this.  The first is that the supported resolution information is not being properly sent, resulting in a signal being sent which is not supported by the display.  It is also possible that the GoPro and the wireless HDMI transmitter do not support the same resolutions as the display you are using, in which case it wouldn't be able to send a workable signal.

The second possible issue is that of HDCP.  HDCP is a technology used to protect copyright video data when it is being displayed.  If one of your source devices only operates with HDCP compatible devices, it is entirely possible this display is not HDCP compatible and that would prevent the display from working as well.


Red Epic, Adobe Premiere Editing Workflow

Drag all your r3d files into Adobe Media Encoder (or CineX Pro), transcode to ProRes 422 (Proxy) and then use these to make your edit in Premiere. Once done, make the proxy footage offline in your project window and then relink to the original files.

Make sure to keep your folder structures the same for the proxies so that relinking is just a 1-click process. Also think before about what resolution you're delivering in and use sequence settings to reflect this.

Also make sure you actually have room for the proxies on your desktop. The files will be smaller but still take up a significant amount of space.


Adobe Premiere & Final Cut Pro project file standard?

FCP can export an XML file that contains the basics of your sequence. Premiere can then import this and create a native project file based on the contents of that XML. I'm pretty sure Premiere can also export a similar file for import/conversion into FCP (I haven't tried though).

It's worth noting that the formats are likely to change considerably years down the line, to the extent that a later version of the same software package may not be able to open it. You're best bet is to make sure all the individual files are archived so that if you're in that situation, you can just start over with the same files.


The DV encoder used in the cited test is useless for gauging modern CPUs.

I ran the test command with the referenced media on a 4-core i5 and the difference between -threads 4 and -threads 3 is 0.5% and with -threads 2 is 1%. I see a much larger variance when I use H.264 encoding.

Of course, the bigger flaw is that the command is resizing the video. FFmpeg's internal scaler isn't multi-threaded!


Recording streaming video from my computer

Standard screen-recording software such as Camtasia will work for this.


Forcing a comp to play back at a certain framerate in aftereffects

Oh my goodness after ages I found it.

Comp settings > Advanced settings > Preserve Framerate When Nested or in render queue


FFmpeg is simply telling you the starting timestamp as parsed from the input. MPEG-TS is a transport stream format, used to convey television broadcasts..etc, having no global header, and can be sliced at ~arbitrary points. There are timestamp packets (PCR) at regular intervals, and ffmpeg is showing you the timestamp of the earliest packet.

If you want your TS to have a start time of 0, you'll have to remux it.

ffmpeg -i myRecordedFile.ts -map 0 -c copy -muxpreload 0 -muxdelay 0 newFile.ts

..but this is unnecessary.


Rotating image/video about an axis within xy-plane in FCP

If you don’t want to use keyframes than it sounds more like a job for Motion or you might be lucky and find a plug-in for this behaviour.
I couldn’t think of anything else than keyframes.


Problem exporting a mixture of PAL and ProRes 422 in FCP

I've never encountered this problem, so unfortunately I can't give you advice on how to fix it. However, next time, I would suggest that you convert all your footage to the same format before you begin editing. Prores 422 is a great editing codec.

Go to this website and download MPEG Streamclip. It's a free program that converts your footage to different codecs. Much better than Compressor IMO.

I usually convert all my footage to Apple Prores 422 (HQ) and then, upon completion, export a Quicktime H.264.


That sort of "product shot" is frequently done by firing your lights through a diffusing "tent" that surrounds the subject.  You're looking to get good "modeling" of the shape and detail without specular reflection.

Cars are frequently lit the same way, but with a bigger tent.

Here's an example, although you can rig your own cheaper: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1123911-REG/surface_light_ltd_68056998365_pop_up_photo_studio.html


Automatically generate videos from template

A script that generates a custom ffmpeg command based on inputs provided could do this. You'd need to construct a filter complex with scale/crop filters for each video and multiple overlay filters with time conditions for the compositing. If you're willing to learn and trial it out, grab the Win static binaries here and start with some basic guides.


Does HD necessarily mean clear, high quality images?

HD simply refers to a given number of pixels in the signal, not some measure of quality.  Even 1080p TV is lower resolution than the photos on most camera phones.  Even the 4k video used in the latest Hollywood blockbuster movies is lower quality than the still photos of most camera phones.  Video takes up far FAR more data than stills.  If you think about it, 1 second of video contains between 24 and 60 individual photos depending on the format of video being used.  Now there are ways to shrink the video since a lot of the pictures are very similar, but the quality that can be recorded is still much smaller than what we can process for a still.

The think is that an 8mp camera phone still doesn't shoot any better than 1080p video at most, so while it may take 8mp stills, it only takes sub 2mega pixel video.  720p isn't all that much better than an old 480 display.  The main advantage is the progressive scan, but there still isn't that much more information (about double).

The other thing to note with security cameras is that they tend to be made to be durable more than high quality.  The optics are probably not that great and they favor infinity focus over sharpness.  They want everything in the scene to be reasonably in-focus instead of having any particular area really sharp.  So between the optics, the design goals and the limited resolution, it isn't all that surprising that it doesn't render things that clearly since it isn't the goal of a typical security camera.

The term is not at all misleading though and based on your description, it sounds like it behaves like I would expect for the device.  It is High Definition since 720p is a high definition standard even if the optics don't give you as sharp of an image as you'd prefer.


ffmpeg: Why did my capture speed drop? (can no longer capture using same command)

Since it also happens with -f null, but not with another Codec, the CPU load during the capture is a possible explanation. You did not mention it in your question. Is there any specific reason to use -threads 4? Try raising that number or omit the parameter.


ffmpeg transpose=clock rotates 180 degrees instead 90

FFmpeg, by default, autorotates videos if a rotation tag is detected. The output video will be oriented upright and have no rotation tag. During processing, this step happens before any filtering is done.

So, in this case, you can simply run

ffmpeg -i 20180115_111730.mp4 -r 30 -acodec copy 20180115_111730_2.mp4

Alternatively, to perform manual rotation, you can suppress auto-rotation

ffmpeg -noautorotate -i 20180115_111730.mp4 -vf "transpose=clock" -r 30 -acodec copy 20180115_111730_2.mp4


What is the video codec name of videos made through the Canon 600d DSLR

All Canon DSLRs, including 600D use the same video codec:

Codec: MPEG-4 Part 10 / AVC / H.264
Profile: Baseline
Level: 5.0
Bitrate mode: CBR ± 40 Mbit/s maximum average
PAL: 1080p25, 1080p24, 720p50, 480p50
NTSC: 1080p30, 1080p24, 720p60, 480p60
Colorspace: 8-bit YUV 4:2:0 Rec. 709

Many of the higher-end models have an additional All-I mode:

Profile: High (without CABAC)
Level: 5.1
Bitrate mode: VBR ± 100 Mbit/s maximum average


Will a lower resolution while rending cut down rendering time

Rendering in lower resolution will

Downscale the video, which takes very little additional processing time
Take less per frame time for the video encoder to compress

You should definately notice a significant gain in rendering speed if you switch from 1080p to 720p, and I cannot imagine what the other person meant, by "will always result in longer rendering times".

Of course if you cancel a rendering process which is 95% through, just to change the resolution, you will not have gained much, since the renderer has to start all over again.

Also there might be some video software on the market which is so incredebly bad that the situation I described above is reversed. But this shouldn't be the case, especially if you render with video codecs like h264, which always need a lot of processing time.


Use this:

-vf "scale=iw*min(1920/iw\,1080/ih):ih*min(1920/iw\,1080/ih), pad=1920:1080:(1920-iw*min(1920/iw\,1080/ih))/2:(1080-ih*min(1920/iw\,1080/ih))/2"

This code evaluates which ratio to apply for scaling, then scales it and finally applys the requisite amount of padding.


For some reason the default subtitle colour often seems to be yellow; I can't find any definitive reason why though. I hate yellow subtitles with a passion, they always look hideous and distracting, so I always make mine white. To separate them from light coloured backgrounds I use a soft black drop shadow if possible, or otherwise a black border. As you can see below they are readable even over light backgrounds.
The size depends on the viewing medium. The one below looks a bit wee in the size it's displayed on this page (on a retina screen on a 15" laptop), so if I was doing subtitles for handheld devices where it might be displayed at this size I'd make it larger, but on a TV it's plenty big enough. In a cinema it might be a bit too large. Resolution is a factor, too. If this was going to standard definition I'd have to bump up the font size a bit too.
Sans-serif is my default choice, usually Arial because it's so bland, so it doesn't distract from the art direction. Serif fonts are also a problem if the video is ever going to be displayed on interlaced screens (which applies if it is to be broadcast, at least until all the old interlaced TVs have gone to the verge), because the thin horizontal lines flicker between fields. Also at low resolutions the thin parts of the letters get lost. So while serif fonts generally have greater readability they might not be the best choice just yet.


Recording of Lectures: Tips for compressing video with mostly still images

H264 is actually a pretty good codec for such content. Its based on motion vectors and you can define in which intervals the codec should encode a full frame, everything in between will be based on the last and next keyframe (simplifying here).

x264 is probably the best h264 encoder out there and luckily open source. Probably the best way to use it is through ffmpeg (open source, cross-plattform).
Here is a good general guide for x264 and ffmpeg:
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264
Especially take a look at the -tune option, it has a preset for still images, so perfect for you.

And this guide shows some of the advanced options like keyframes/GOPs.
https://sites.google.com/site/linuxencoding/x264-ffmpeg-mapping


Where does the 'extra' data come from when transcoding video?

When video or audio data is compressed, it works by two different mechanisms.  The first (which is the only one used by lossless compression) is to look for patterns that are repeated.  When patterns are found, it can store the data once and reference the stored copy.

The second is only used lossy compression and involves discarding the least significant parts of the information.  This can be done in several creative ways such as being more forgiving in what pattern can be matched, but the loss of information generally ends up equating to a slight loss of detail.

You can think of it kind of like blurring a photo.  You still have just as many pixels and just as much "raw" data, but the amount of detail stored in that data is reduced, and thus it can be compressed further because it fits patterns better.  When you move from the high compression, lossy format to a lossless format, a large number of those savings are no longer applied, so it stores the raw "but fudged" data again under a new system that isn't capable of as much compression.

Basically the video is uncompressed from your original format to form a file of 1920 by 1080 pixels (assuming it's a 1080p file anyway) and then it is recompressed differently to become a ProRes file.  The file size is large because the ways that it will try to simplify the file are simpler, but the information that is recorded is still the blurred copy that resulted from decompressing the smaller file.

This is also why it is important to work with the highest possible quality files until final output because repeated recompression of files will result in additional quality loss every time.


h264 settings for large flat areas of slowly changing colour

The bands you're referring to could well just be a limitation of the 8-bit colour space.

In theory the way to solve this is to use 10- or 12-bit colour space through every stage from rendering, to editing and mastering, through to output and even in the screen or projector.  However your final output is probably going to be displayed in an 8 bits per channel space whether you like it or not.

So the practical way to do this is to render at 10- or 12-bit colour and dither down to 8-bit from the master.  The dithering will prevent the visual appearance of banding when displayed at 8 bits per channel.

Note that this is not a limitation of h.264 or any encoder but of the colour space used and the noise-free nature of the rendered animation; if real life was this noise-free it would also show this banding in 8-bit colour spaces.  There is unlikely to be any setting you could choose in your encoder in order to solve this.  To confirm, render to an uncompressed format and you will probably still see the banding.

Note: dithering from a 10- or 12-bit render is not the same as just adding some noise to an existing 8-bit dither - while this may disguise the banding a little bit simply by making it less distinct it doesn't solve it.  But you could do it in a pinch.


Credit Rolls.. How do I get the credit rolls to look good? FCPX and Motion5

it looks jumpy

Most probably you have mismatch of framerates between Motion 5 project and FCPX. Check if they match. Also check all other video settings, to match your FCPX composition.


Why video call has no latency, but no matter what options of ffmpeg I tried to transmit video, the lowest I can get is ~0.2s latency?

Try using UDP. It should be faster than TCP but with possibility of losing paackets.


Need a video/audio 'time base corrector' with a very large time buffer

You can do this with GStreamer and a plugin called rtpjitterbuffer. There is an example usage on the bottom of that page with the gst-launch tool to do a simple desktop playback of an rtp stream with network errors.

gst-launch-1.0 rtspsrc location=rtsp://192.168.1.133:8554/mpeg1or2AudioVideoTest ! rtpjitterbuffer ! rtpmpvdepay ! mpeg2dec ! xvimagesink

You can customize this to your need and set specific timeouts and also make a new network stream instead of doing desktop playback. You can do pretty much anything with gstreamer, you just have to read a bit into it.

Regarding hardware I don't know of any that does this but I'd guess its pretty expensive like it usually is with very specialized hardware.


Stream 0 is Stream #0:0[0x1006]: Video: mpeg2video for which you need -c:v mpeg2_cuvid


Black and white moving character in a color video

You'd achieve the effect by masking one part of the image and applying a desaturation effect to it. The hard part is masking off one part of the image.

In software such as After Effects and Nuke you can mask off an area of the image with bezier splines, and the shape of the masks can be animated. Tracing and animating these masks is what is called rotoscoping (it was invented by animator Max Fleischer in 1915, where he hand traced frames of film projected onto paper).

After Effects does come with an automatic rotoscoping tool called "Roto Brush" that works a bit like the magic wand in Photoshop, except that it changes shape over time. This can take a lot of the work out of rotoscoping, but it is far from infallible.


Trouble When Combining two video fields into one (to create an interlaced video)

Use the setparams filter to mark the frames as interlaced.
ffmpeg -i tf.avi -i bf.avi -filter_complex vstack,il=l=i:c=i,setparams=field_mode=tff -c:v ffv1 out_i.avi


How to parent a mask to another element in AfterFX?

At the moment parenting a mask or its vertices to another object like a null is not possible by default. Although it is one of the most wanted features, probably there is no official solution for this. But in the same link you can find a link to a forum post where scripting master Dan Ebberts offers a solution. This solution has some limitations though, yet it might work in your project.

My solution would be more manual, this is not the fastest way but it works. If you are using a text layer, try adding an animator for the opacity, based on the characters.

Then animate your cursor layer's position accordingly. Or better, parent it to a null and animate your null and use hold keyframes.

This option is better than animating a mask on text layers, as it reveals each character. In your screenshot, there is this situation that your letters are revealed as if a linear wipe is used.


Depends on how big the panels are, I'm assuming these are LED panels. Really, you only need 2 lights for the subject, and 1 light if you want to stylize the background. You can use a foamcore if you need fill. You want the panel or box to be as large as possible. I shoot most of my interviews with a 1.2K ArriSun HMI, but it uses a large Chimera with grid. So it's very very soft. Then boom a joker either over head or from and hitting the person's face on the short side of the frame. This gives a nice cut out, and the soft light from the Key Light is perfect. If you cant get your hands on a large softbox, depending on the output power of your LEDs, bounce. The best lighting, and nearly all lighting in Hollywood, is bounced light. Bounce your lights off a board, carry different sizes with cookies, and cutouts, make some dots to shape the light. For background, a single 1K tungsten lamp will do, you can gel it, or wrap it black wrap, poke holes in the black wrap, tear it, to create patterns, or natural shapes. If portable is key, you want your lights to be as high output as possible, smallest package... this means HMI, with LEDs, my biggest reason for not jumping over, is you have to carry a lot of extra grip equipment to get the lights where they need to be... because the output is a fraction of what an HMI puts out.


Will the Samsung 64GB Evo Plus be sufficient for the Panasonic gx80/85?

What speed does my SD-card need?

The manual states that:

So any card that can continually write 100 Megabit per second (so around 13 MegaByte per second) should be fast enough for recording 4K. For photography, there's no hard number: usually, it's the faster, the better, especially when shooting series of pictures in RAW. However, it will only have influence on the buffer and how fast it is cleared.

Your suggested card has a write speed of up to 60 MegaByte - but "up to" can mean anything in between 0.1 and 60.0 MB/s. Look for benchmarks - or look for
Speed Classes - those will usually tell you the minimum continuous write speed of a card. Speed-classes come in all sorts of logos and are usually displayed on the card.

Please note that the camera has to support the protocol of the card - A U3 card will only be able to work at C6-speed (at best) in a camera that only supports up to C6.

Now, having a standard is all well and fine - as long as everyone is abiding by it. "Premium" card manufacturers have a reputation to lose, so they usually will not forge speed ratings. If you do not know if you want to trust them, again, you should look for benchmarks and reviews.

Are µSDs more reliable than regular SDs?

No. I carry some of my (non-essential) SD cards in my purse - next to my coins and without protective cases. So I assume that to break an SD-card, you really have to try. SD-cards are usually cheaper than µSD-cards (at same specifications), so I would go with one of these all the time.

This, of course, does not consider cross-device use of the card, e.g. in a smartphone.

Are Samsung's cards reliable?

Simply look for reviews in the internet (e.g. in the link you posted from Amazon). I have no experience with Samsung, though they tend to have good reputation. Their SSDs are always well-received, so I would think the same would go for their SD-cards. However, there is always the possibility that you get the one bad card of a batch - or that one specific model comes out faulty.


Why do background generators restart in a glitchy way, and how can I avoid it?

It might be a side effect of that FCPX has a top down approach. Elements and timelines on top can have effects of elements and timelines underneath.
Change the order and move the generator on to of everything, this should help the glitching.


This is effectively what every professional editing software in existence does at its core.  Video editing is always done non-destructively in any professional and most consumer contexts.  What that means is that when you are editing a project, you are not actually making changes to the source files, but rather making a series of decisions about what changes should be applied to get the desired output.  When it comes time to make the final rendered output, the instructions are run by the editing software on the original sources and the output is recorded to a new video file.

This series of instructions can be saved off in a variety of different formats such as EDLs (editing decision lists), Final Cut XML files (which are supported by more than just Final Cut) or any number of other formats that include the series of instructions that need to be applied.  These files can be used to move editing projects between completely different editing software.

It is also possible to change the inputs that go in to these instructions.  As long as they are the same size and placement, then it should carry through consistently for different inputs.  This is why proxy workflows work.  In proxy workflows very large and difficult to work with files (such as 4k RAW video) are replaced with easy to work with files (such as much smaller compressed 1080p video).  This makes it easy to work through the edit and then only swap out with the high quality, difficult to work with footage at the end of the project.

The same principle can be applied to swapping photos or videos in to a particular spot in an overall video template.  All the various effects and edits will be applied to the new source just like they were to the old, you just need a render engine capable of doing the rendering and swap automatically.

There are some commercial options available for this, but much is done with custom solutions.  Depending on the complexity, it may also be possible to do it with an ffmpeg script that could be easily run by a command line, though ffmpeg would be considerably more manual to develop the template for.


How to fade out mp4 audio AND video with FFmpeg?

Fade both video & audio

First of all, the command you've provided won't achieve the desired effect: the fade filter only applies to a video stream, plus you specifically apply it to your input video stream with -filter:v.

To fade both audio and video, you'll need both afade and fade filters.

E.g.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v "fade=in:0:30, fade=out:1770:30" -filter:a "afade=in:0:44100, afade=out:2601900:44100" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac output.mp4

This command fades in and out the first and last 30 video frames and 44100 audio samples, on a 1800 frames-long and 2646000 samples-long video (which, if your framerate is 30 fps and samplerate 44100 Hz, will be the first and last second of your 60 seconds-long clip).

Working with frames and samples can be highly impractical, so to work with start and duration in seconds, use the st (start) and d (duration) parameters, like so :

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v "fade=in:st=0:d=1, fade=out:st=59:d=1" -filter:a "afade=in:st=0:d=1, afade=out:st=59:d=1" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac output.mp4

(fades in and out first and last second of a 60s clip)

See afade and fade filters documentation for more details on parameters.

Alternatively, you can also use a complex filtergraph as suggested by Manul Hüttinger, which can be handy if you need to apply further filters to your clip:

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter_complex \
  "fade=in:st=0:d=1, fade=out:st=59:d=1; \
   afade=in:st=0:d=1, afade=out:st=59:d=1" \
 -c:v libx264 -c:a aac output.mp4

Regarding your particular error

I'm not sure where your error comes from, but you should try the following:

First, update your ffmpeg: your libavfilter is in version 6.99.100, latest is at least 7.6.100
I guess you're on Windows, given the filepath and build number. Beware that you cannot use single quotes (') on Windows, you must use double-quotes ("). Looking at the console output, this might be the origin of your error:

  [AVFilterGraph @ 0000000002d64580] No such filter:
  fade=in:0:30,fade=out:227:30'

Then, if it keeps failing, try with a different input (the error message might indicate an encoding/decoding error:

  Failed to inject frame into filter network: Invalid argument Error
  while processing the decoded data for stream #0:0 Conversion failed


Rendered two videos from Adobe Premiere with the same settings but different resolution and they're the same file size

Well you've kinda answered your own question: Both videos have the same size because you used the same settings, specifically the settings for target bitrate and maximum bitrate (assuming you're using the H264 codec, other codecs might only have an average bitrate setting available). If you use identical bitrate settings, videos of the same length will always have the same size, regardless of it's resolution and framerate. This is because the bitrate is exactly that: The (average) amount of bits per second. If you have a 10 second video with a bitrate of 10 Mbit/s, it's size will be about 100 Mbit, simple math.

To elaborate on how this is possible with videos with different resolutions: Most commonly used video codecs (as well as image formats) use highly efficient compressing algorithms that can use different levels of compression, where a higher compression level yields smaller video files at the cost of some video quality loss. For example, a JPG image will combine nearly monochrome chunks of the image to one block of information. The higher the compression, the higher the tolerance for similar pixels, resulting in compression artifacts:

(Source)

So what does that mean for your video? To accommodate for the higher resolution of your 4k video, you will need to use a higher bitrate in order to yield better quality, as there is much more information in a 4k video. If you use the same bitrate, the 4k video might actually look worse because there are more compression artifacts.


How to automatically pull text out of a video

I do not know of any existing solutions for this in Premiere or AE.

However, if you know a little about programming, you might be able to write a script using OpenCV that runs Tesseract OCR on video frames, and comes out with the text you want. Once you have the text and time codes, you definitely could write a script to build the titles at the appropriate time codes inside of AE or Premiere.

(I became aware of these open-source tools since I am currently building a mobile app that runs OCR on documents.)

Check out the Scene Text Recognition docs for OpenCV, if you want to try that route.


Burn ASS subtitle onto MKV without any quality loss

The only way to do it with literally zero mathematical quality loss is to make a gigantic output file with a lossless codec.  (e.g. utvideo, FFV1, or x264 in lossless mode (--qp 0).

A better solutions that would achieve the same thing is:
mux the subtitle file into the mkv, with mkvmerge.  You set a flag so it either plays by default or doesn't.  Then you'd have an output file with an untouched video stream, so there's no quality loss.  Also, anyone who doesn't need the subtitles can turn them off.  And you can move them around on playback, or use a different font or font size.  e.g. You could move them down into the letterbox black bar that appears when playing a 16:9 video on a 16:10 screen, so they don't hide any of the movie.

If you really want to use the bad solution of drawing them on the video, you'd just going to have to accept the quality loss that you get from another generation of lossy encoding.  Google an example for ffmpeg.  It shouldn't take more than a minute to find a recipe.  I'm not googling for you because I think it's a terrible idea to ever do this, unless you maybe have a hardware player that doesn't support any subtitle formats at all.  (If it supports any subtitle format, converting your ASS subs to that format would be better.)

Anyway, use -c:v libx264 -preset slower -crf 20 as a starting point for your encode.

The ffmpeg full manual is: http://www.ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-all.html  But there's also a wiki with usage examples on their site.


Video compression for Beginner, where to start?

Compression is a very complex field that you can get in to either a little or a lot or anywhere in between.  There are companies whose only job is to do high quality compression for major releases.  Part of the trick is that there are different compression algorithms, different storage formats, different codecs and each codec has its own set of settings.

Starting at the most broad, we have different algorithms.  A compression algorithm is a particular approach to trying to reduce the amount of information that needs to be stored to reproduce a signal.  Examples of compression algorithms are things like MPEG, MPEG-2/H.262, MPEG-4, MPEG-4 AVC/H.264.  It defines how to simplify the information and what kinds of patterns are being looked for in the signal.

Then, similarly broad, we have storage formats.  These are either physical formats such as Bluray disk or DV tape or file formats such as WMV, MOV, M4V and simply store information that is either raw or more likely compressed with a compression algorithm via a codec.

A codec is a particular implementation of a compression algorithm.  It is an encoder/decoder.  With standards based codecs, it is not necessary for the same exact codec to be used for decoding as is used for encoding, though proprietary codecs do exist that require the same codec to be installed for playback to function.  Part of the complexity of compression is that each codec makes it's own implementation of even standard algorithms and has it's own settings available to adjust how encoding is done.

Often, the better the codec, the more control it gives over how compression is performed.  Since settings differ from one codec to another, the impact of settings can similarly differ.  There isn't really any substitute for experimentation when learning how a codec behaves, but some key terminology stays consistent between different codecs and even different algorithms.

The most obvious, significant and consistent one is probably VBR (1 and 2 pass) and CBR.  Almost any motion based compression has these options.  CBR is Constant Bit Rate.  It means that a certain amount of data should be used per second every second regardless of the amount of activity or difficulty of compressing.  In motion based video, it leads to really high quality when things are relatively still, but quality suffers during times of high motion.  It also gives very easy to estimate file sizes.

VBR, on the other hand, stands for Variable Bit Rate and as the name implies, the bit rate can change based on the difficulty of compressing the current scene.  Typically a target bit rate and a maximum bitrate are give.  The target is what the codec will try to average out to and the maximum bitrate is the level it isn't allowed to exceed at any time.  1 pass VBR will attempt to do so with no prior knowledge of the video being encoded.  2 pass VBR on the other hand makes a pass through the video to determine the characteristics of the video so that it can properly spread the data rates around to achieve the best possible quality with the allotted bandwidth.  The downside is that it takes roughly twice as long to encode.

Another relatively consistent concept is keyframes.  Many compression work by only actually storing full images occasionally.  The rest of the frames are approximations based on the previous full image.  Keyframes can determine how often those full frames are used.  More advanced codecs will even allow for the actual sequence of frame types being used to be controlled.  (For example, with MPEG-2, I, B and P frames are the 3 main types of frames.)

When using non-standard formats, resolution is also an option for compression.  It can greatly reduce the amount of information that needs to be stored, but also greatly reduces the quality it is designed to be played back at.  When trying to figure out the best compression for the web, it's important to consider both the bitrate and the resolution.  Trying to store too many pixels with not enough bitrate will result in compression related artifacts, but storing too few pixels will result in a universal loss of resolution (but less artifacts).

While each codec can have guidelines for approximating bitrates needed for various resolutions, there unfortunately isn't much substitute for experimentation.  A video of watching paint dry is going to take substantially less bitrate than Uncle Billy Bob's shaky footage of a high speed soccer match.  In general, for motion based compression, the amount of motion in the scenes determines how well it compresses and you can develop a feel for it with time working with a particular codec.

As with your other question, if there are any more specific topics you are stuck on, feel free to ask here or to check a particular format on Wikipedia or similar for much more in-depth information than can easily fit in a Q/A format.


How do I add text like this (picture) to a video? Can it be added post or is it an old camera function?

It was in camera function. But there is no such thing in video editing, which can not be accomplished with correct software.

You can add this text in Adobe Premiere, or Adobe After Effects with some noise etc... You can add it in almost any video editing software. Main thing you need — correct font. It is pixeelated all caps text. You can find one here: http://www.fontspace.com/category/pixelated

Next: Install that font in your system and add text. Make it all caps and with chosen font. Select color and for the second example you also will need black stroke.

Good luck!


Is there a video container which is able to handle segments of different video quality (or even size)?

If the only difference is bitrate, then any container which accepts variable bitrate streams, will fulfill your requirement e.g. MP4, MKV..etc

Step 1 is to encode your segments, ideally using the same encoder, to different bitrates with all other parameters being the same e.g. via ffmpeg,

ffmpeg -ss 0 -t 5 -i input.mp4 -b:v 1000k seg1.mp4

ffmpeg -ss 5 -t 7 -i input.mp4 -b:v 3000k seg2.mp4

ffmpeg -ss 12 -i input.mp4 -b:v 500k seg3.mp4

Step 2 is to use ffmpeg to concat the encoded segments in copy mode, using the concat demuxer.

Prepare a text file

file 'seg1.mp4'
file 'seg2.mp4'
file 'seg3.mp4'

and then

ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy joined.mp4

Clips with different properties, like resolution, can be joined together as well into one MP4, but compatibility across media players is iffy, and ffmpeg won't do it reliably at present, anyway.


How to create Frame Sequential / Alternate frames 3D video from two separate one

framepack is buggy filter. Use framepack=frameseq,settb=1/50,setpts=N, where 50 is frame rate you want to use, and it should be twice of input framerate.


Why is my video alternating between blurry and sharp?

The effect that you've seen is a side effect of the compression algorithm that was used to encode the video.

The most common compression algorithms (MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 among them) compress different frames with different methods, and that is why two very close and relatively similar frames may look so different.

The frame that looks pretty good is likely a keyframe. This is a frame that has all its pixels represented in the encoded stream. The compression introduces some loss of quality, but since the whole image is encoded the result typically looks good.

The image that looks bad is a frame that is not fully represented in the encoded stream. To make videos smaller, for certain parts of the picture the encoder references parts of previous frames that the player/decoder keeps stored in memory, so only the parts that are different are stored for the frame. Because of this these frames end up being a sort of collage. If the bitrate is too low, then you end up with really washed up images like the one you show. But increasing the bitrate enough helps dissimulate this effect, to the point that it is barely or not noticeable. Consider that all the TV that you watch (digital over the air, satellite, FIOS, cable, etc.) is encoded in this way.

For MPEG-2 it is common practice to insert a keyframe in the stream every half a second (15 frames for 29.97fps video, 12 frames for 25fps). For H.264 sometimes they go even longer than half a second.

In general, the image quality of a compressed video is at its highest at the keyframe points, and then slowly starts to degrade, going up again with the next keyframe.

For a more detailed explanation of frame types used in compression algorithms see the Wikipedia article Video compression picture types.

Unfortunately a player cannot improve the quality of the video, since the problem is that the information to reproduce the frame with better quality isn't there. The only ways to address this is by increasing the bitrate when encoding and/or increase the number of keyframes.

On the player side I think the only thing you can do is play the video in a smaller window, so then these artifacts will be less visible.


Technique that seems to freeze everything in the world except the camera

It's called "Bullet Time" and was popularized by the movie The Matrix.  The effect is achieved by using many, many cameras to all shoot stills at the same time, and then effect of motion around the subject is achieved by animating across the different simultaneous images.

To make the effect more believable, the still camera has to really freeze the motion (because motion blur from a given camera-subject relationship contradicts the eye's expected motion blur that would come from motion tracing the path of the camera array that gives bullet time its distinctive look).  But perfectly still images usually make for fake-looking video, so to make it look more believable, motion vectors are derived from the sequence of stills and motion blur is then applied to the stills, completing the effect.

n.b.  Motion cameras that cam capture stills (from GoPro snapping away at 12fps to RED WEAPONs cranking out 96 fps at 6K resolution) can be used as a source for the stills.  This provides the opportunity for a two-dimensional bullet-time effect: in one dimension one can move through time as usual and in the other one can slide across space while freezing time.  This surf video from 2010 demonstrates the two-dimensional possibilities with a shed-load of GoPro cameras.


How do I apply an effect to the entire result of multiple stacked clips in FCPX

I’m not entirely sure what you explain. However I try.
Did you look into the option of an adjustment layer?
http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/tutorials/945-how-to-build-and-use-adjustment-layers-in-final-cut-pro-x


Edit your footage in one timeline, with the sequence setting set to the combined dimensions of all the screens (so the width of one screen across × three times the height). So if they're 1080p screens you'll be looking at 1920 × 3240.

Now make three sequences, each with the resolution of one playback screen, e.g 1920 × 1080. Take your original sequence and lay it into these timelines (as a nested sequence).

Adjust the motion properties of the clip in the first sequence so that the top of the clip lines up with the top of the frame, then in the next sequence align the middle of the clip with the middle of the frame and in the last sequence align the bottom of the clip with the bottom of the frame.

Now you have three sequences that align as you wish. The beauty of nesting the combined sequence is that you can make changes without having to synchronise three separate sequences.