After Effects Expression, layer not found or missing

I don't know if this counts as an answer so much as a workaround but I was getting the same error message when I was manually typing in the layer name. There was no typo; the layer definitely existed. It was maddening.

But when I used the pickwhip to link it to the layer, After Effects would automatically generate the 'thisComp.layer("Layer Name Here")' code. Then I just built the rest of my expression around that line. That seemed to work fine.


To the best of my knowledge there is no way to determine how much time a Canon EOS camera has been used recording video because Canon cameras keep no record of total time recording video. If they do it is a very closely guarded secret.

Most Canon cameras do internally record each time the shutter is activated. It keeps a separate count for activations used to make still images using the viewfinder and for activations used to put the camera into Live View mode, whether for recording still images or video using Live View.

For many Canon EOS cameras the shutter count for still images using the viewfinder can be retrieved using tools based on the Canon Software Developer's Kit for specific models. For other models it is more difficult. In either case, the total number of activations reported does not include Live View shutter movements.

The internal count for shutter activations used to access Live View can only be retrieved by proprietary hardware/software available to Canon Service Centers and other Canon authorized service providers. When sending a camera to a Canon Service Center for cleaning or repair one can request a shutter count report that will include all shutter actuations in the camera's history (or, if the shutter has been replaced in the past, all actuations since the counter was reset to "zero" following the shutter replacement).

Since I can find no reference to - and have never heard of  - the option to have a report generated revealing the total video recording time for a Canon EOS camera one can probably conclude that such a capability is not built in to Canon EOS cameras.


How do they create that kind of "twisting zoom"?

This is not an editing technique and it is not a zoom. There is no change in focal length. The subject is on a product or photography turntable. You can even make your own. The camera is kept fixed on a tripod with no zooming. Just position the camera and the subject to capture the motion you want and rotate the turntable.


How do I know if a video file is encoded perfectly or not?

There are several methods/algorithms to compare a transcoded file against its original.

This is a good article which I believe covers what you're asking. It touches on algorithms such as Peak Signal-to-Noise (PSNR) ratio and Structural Similarity Index (SSIM) used to perform objective analysis -- without having to watch the actual video.

http://www.streamingmedia.com/Articles/ReadArticle.aspx?ArticleID=110206&utm_source=RSS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_campaign=Article_Reads

  Without question, the gold standard for assessing video quality is a controlled subjective test, which, as previously mentioned, can be time-consuming and expensive to run. Objective quality benchmarks are algorithms that compare the compressed video with the source and render a value that predicts how the compressed file would fare in subjective tests. There are multiple algorithms, all rated according to how well they correspond with actual subjective evaluations. None are perfect, but some perform better than others.

Jan Ozer, the article author, even links to a demo of the Moscow University Video Quality Measurement Tool showing good and bad frame-to-frame comparisons.

Cheers,

Ian


Import secondary audio track along with video mpg into Adobe Premiere Pro

According to this post, it should work with Adobe Premiere CC.
And after importing it should look like this:

If you are using a really old version of Adobe Premiere, you could download the latest trial version to check it.


How to apply the same white point to multiple clips of the same take?

I was able to save the corrections to one slice as an effect preset and apply the preset to all other clips with directions from Apple:

You apply a color correction preset as you would apply any other clip effect from the Effects browser.


Quality loss when exporting on Adobe Premiere

Use a visually lossless (intermediary) codec when going between different editing applications. Avid DNxHR, Apple Prores, Edius HQX, and GoPro Cineform are all examples of intermediary codecs. I personally prefer DNxHR, but all the options I listed are good options.

You can also use dynamic link between After Effects and Premiere, which would be even better.


You'll get the best audio by connecting directly to the board the sound guy is using. As you mentioned, the risk involved there is that you lean heavily on the sound guy and hope he doesn't screw up.

If it's an option (depending on what kind of setup he has), sometimes he can record all the audio to a CD for you. This would almost certainly be possible if the wedding is being held in a church or similar venue with a permanent sound booth setup. If that's possible, have him record his audio to a CD (which he can give to you at the end of the day) and use the H1 elsewhere in the room.

Slight side note on this: you might also be able to get a smartphone app that lets you record in through the 3.5mm headphone jack of the phone, freeing up your H1 to use the external mics.

If you do want to keep the H1 separate from the sound board (and recording to a CD isn't an option), I'd try and find a good place in the venue to stick it. Putting it directly on your camera is an option but can be risky as it could pick up whatever noise you/your camera makes throughout the event. I usually try to keep my audio recorder/mics a slight distance from myself/camera so that I don't influence the recording at all. Sometimes it's possible to stick it very close to the bride/groom - tape it under a podium, hide it behind a bouquet, etc. It all really depends on what the actual stage setup looks like.


Does having hardware encoding chip help?

A hardware encoder will produce video with less CPU usage. However, it will require a higher bitrate to achieve the same quality image.


ffmpeg video generation process optimization

Here's the combined command,

ffmpeg \
-i 1.jpg \
-i 2.jpg \
-i 3.jpg \
-i 4.jpg \
-i 'audio.mp3' \
-i 'logo.png' \
-filter_complex \
"[0:v]zoompan=z='if(lte(zoom,1.0),1.5,max(1.001,zoom-0.0015))':d=125,fade=t=out:st=4:d=1[v0]; \
 [1:v]zoompan=z='if(lte(zoom,1.0),1.5,max(1.001,zoom-0.0015))':d=125,fade=t=in:st=0:d=1,fade=t=out:st=4:d=1[v1]; \
 [2:v]zoompan=z='if(lte(zoom,1.0),1.5,max(1.001,zoom-0.0015))':d=125,fade=t=in:st=0:d=1,fade=t=out:st=4:d=1[v2]; \
 [3:v]zoompan=z='if(lte(zoom,1.0),1.5,max(1.001,zoom-0.0015))':d=125,fade=t=in:st=0:d=1,fade=t=out:st=4:d=1[v3]; \
 [v0][v1][v2][v3]concat=n=4:v=1:a=0,format=yuv420p,scale=800:450,setsar=1[v]; \
 [v][5]overlay=25:25,drawbox=y=ih-80:color=#ef2626@0.8:width=iw:height=80:t=fill,drawtext=text='This is a testing text example.':expansion=normal:y=h-line_h-20:x='if(eq(t\,0)\,w\,if(lt(x\,(0-tw))\,w\,x-4))':fontfile='Lora/Lora-Regular.ttf':fontcolor=white: fontsize=40" \
-c:a copy -shortest ./out_fade.mp4


Given that I couldn't find a satisfying solution, I wrote a Ruby script for merging such overlapping captions.
Usage:
ruby ./merge_overlapping_srt_captions.rb _input_file_ _output_file_


Haha! In movies about movies you always see this clap in the beginning of a shot. The one where the take number and everything is written on with chalk. And they hold it in front of the cam and make one loud clapping noise with it.

Well, if you have ever wondered what this ritual is for, congrats! You have found the problem to the solution ;-))

You get a video frame on which you see the clap closing and at the same time you can see the noise level peeking in the audio recording.

The poor mans version of this is to tell one of your actors to do the clap with her hands.


What would a video look like without the shutter separating frames?

The answer to this will differ based on if you are really talking video or film.

In either case, you'd have no control over shutter speed, which would mean you were locked at the exposure time of the frame rate you were shooting in.  This would greatly limit your exposure options which would either impact ISO/film grain or the depth of field or both.

With no shutter on film, the film would be exposing as it advanced and would thus be a streaked mess.  It would be stopped for a longer time than it's moving in most cameras, but you'd still be able to see the streaks distorting the image.

With no shutter on video, you fair a lot better.  Since the sensor itself isn't moving, you'd just have continuous scanning that wouldn't be that noticeably different.  Practically speaking, you still have an electronic shutter though because there is a blanking interval where the sensor has to read and dump charges, so there is going to be down time when the sensor isn't collecting photons and during this time, the "shutter" is effectively closed.  In fact, it's fairly common for video cameras to use a pure electronic shutter rather than a mechanical one.


Editing involving several backup drives: how to assemble a project with minimal clip duplication?

I am not sure why you end up with duplicates. However you might be interested in having a look at the proxy workflow from Felipe. It probably can help you to get rid of duplicates and conserve space.


How do I set up a field recorder with camera/wireless monitoring?

Easiest bet, use a distribution amplifier.  If you need the same audio to both, a DA will boost the signal so that it can actually go to both.  Not sure what the inputs on the Comtek are though, the DA will generally work best if they can both take XLR in.  Also, are you mixing in stereo?  If not, do you need two XLR to the camera?

As for the cable to the camera, you could heat shrink wrap two XLRs if you can't find a basic 2 channel XLR snake (assuming you are looking to have only one "cable" going to the camera.  Any reason not to timecode sync them and combine in post if running two cables is really a problem.


Ffmpeg wipe diagonal transiton with audio concat

Use the acrossfade filter.

...
[0:v][new]overlay;
[0]atrim=0:T+D[a0];[a0][1:a]acrossfade=d=D"

D like in the original command is the duration of the wipe. T is the time at which the wipe starts.


How to to break down nested sequences into its components

Figured it out minutes after posting. Like this:

Enable the Nest Source Sequence option.
Put marker on the beginning frame of nested sequence. double click to go inside it (it will put the marker on the right spot), and then do Ctrl+C.
Go back to the main sequence, and drag the subsequence\nested sequence from the source monitor. You'll get the individual parts from the nested sequence that match the trimmed version you already have.

Hope this helps anyone.

P.S

Adobe, can you please streamline this? I mean, it's ridiculous


FFmpeg encod set of time stamped images as Iframes

Your understanding of what an encoder does is incorrect. It doesn't make up images to fill in the time between I frames. It does somewhat the opposite: it takes a full series of complete images and decomposes them so that only the I frames and the differences between them remain.

What you're asking for is, in animation terms, called tweening. The linked article will point you to some software that can do automated inbetweening, but it's usually not useful for real-life images over the durations you seem to have. For smaller intervals (a frame or two) the process is called interpolation.


ffmpeg + libfdk_aac + vbr => wrong "BitRate_Mode"

The issue was caused by ffmpeg/libavformat/movenc.c::mov_write_esds_tag, it can't find max_bitrate. To solve it you should specify audio bitrate -b:a 128k along with -vbr 4. Then mp4's ESDescriptor would have info about max_bitrate and mediainfo and decoders would know that audio stream has variable bitrate mode.


Speeding up workflow for creating subtitles

My suggestion is only going to be useful if you have several minutes of subtitling to do like this:

Build the subtitles first using something like Aegisub. Export them as .srt files. Import them into the pt_import_subtitles from aescripts.com

This will generate all your text files for you with the lines appearing at the correct time. Then use your workflow for going through to correct the times when you'd like each word to appear.


After Effects: How to animate letters to random position

You could probably write a complicated expression which will allow you to do that. If you deal with short words like those though, I would recommend you duplicate the text layer and mask out one letter for each layer. You can then animate each layer in position and scale so that the letters move into place


After effects | How do I copy an image source from layer to another programatically?

It depends how you mean:

Option 1:
If you put the image in Layer 1 inside a Comp, then any change to the image inside the Comp will change in both Layer 1 and Layer 2 (assuming you also put the Comp on Layer 2).

Option 2:
You could put a load of different images inside a comp, a different one on each frame.
Then in your master comp, place this comp, but assign Time Remap to the comp, to choose to hold on a specific frame.  Then when you want to change the held frame, just keyframe to the different time in your first comp.

Option 3:
If you really mean to change the image programmatically, you could use something like Templater Rig, where you can set a load of different file paths to images, and then assign them to different comps programmatically.


50% higher bit rate vs 20% higher resolution

Could you give files (or png screenshots) to comparing?
I think that file with higher bitrate and higher resolution should look better, with other conditions being equal.

1056*594 = 627 264 pixels.
1280*720 = 921 600 pixels (47% more pixels relative to 1056x594 resolution)
921 600 / 627 264 = 1.469 * 100% = 147% relative to 1056x594 resolution.

2966 kbps for 1056x594 - 43% more bitrate for this video, relative to 1280x720
2073 kbps for 1280x720
2966 / 2073 = 1.43 * 100% = 143% relative to bitrate of 1280x720 video.

What do you think?
I think that with these settings both videos should be approx equals. Maybe the subjectivity of the perception of the human view will make its adjustments in this comparing.


Adobe Premiere CS6 has laggy preview with high disk access but low memory use

I am working in Adobe Premiere CC 2018, but if memory serves you should be able to still do this in your CS6 version.

Set an out point 'O' at the end of the clips you want to preview.
Go up to 'Sequence' in the upper left - and select 'Render In to Out'

Once they're rendered on your timeline they should play with no lag.


What is more important number of CUDA cores on GPU or VRAM for video editing and graphics?

It depends entirely on which software you are using, as well as plugins. Adobe Premiere takes advantage of CUDA, which radically increases rendering speeds and playback of specific file types.

But if you've applied filters, or 3rd party plugin filters that do not take advantage of CUDA optimization, your bottleneck will be the speed of your CPU.

Alternatively, certain 3D platforms are only accelerated by NVIDIA cards, others, require AMD.

The amount of VRAM affects how much data the card can handle in one single load (typically 1 frame), which comes into play mostly with 3D work.


If I shoot in H.264 is it worth it to export the product in ProRes?

The 2 formats have different uses. H.264 is mainly good as a playback format. It's supported widely, compresses very well, and can be decompressed by relatively low-powered devices easily. It's also supported in some video cards making it hardware accelerated on those devices. While it is possible to edit with H.264, it's not ideal as it's a Long-GOP format. GOP here is an acronym for "Group of Pictures". Typically, Long-GOP formats contain 1 keyframe followed by several frames that are differences from the keyframes every so many seconds. So if you want to cut on a frame other than a keyframe, you need to decode the keyframe and all frames from the keyframe up to the frame you want to cut on, making it slower to edit.

ProRes, on the other hand, is intended to ensure the fidelity of the frame through numerous edits. While its compression is good, it focuses more on quality so the amount of compression is less than that of H.264. (In fact, in ProRes 4:4:4(:4) you can have lossless compression with ProRes.) Many devices will not playback ProRes because there's no codec written for them. I think that it's also a higher bit-depth than H.264. (There are higher bit-depth versions of H.264, but I don't know how widely supported they are.) It's also an intra-frame compression scheme, meaning that you don't need any previous frames to decode a given frame. That makes the compression less, but makes it easier to decode any given frame.

So ProRes is better for editing because it preserves fidelity, is faster to decode frames, and offers higher bit depths (or at least offers them more consistently). H.264 is better for playback because it's supported on more devices, and the compression ratio is higher.

You can think of it similarly to audio sample rates. For playback, nothing over 44.1 kHz can make any audible difference to humans (despite what marketing may tell you). But for the purposes of editing, working at 96 kHz can be useful for preserving fidelity through the addition of effects, various mix downs, and mastering.


After Effects: Audio react to beat then become fuzzy/blury?

Add a blur effect to the layer, and then use a similar expression to drive the amount of bluriness.

comp("Music").layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider")*1234

Replace the 1234 constant with whatever value makes sense for the effect–it may have to be a small number like 0.1234 if the effect is too much. One trick I often use is to use the original value as the constant, which means you can adjust the strength of the effect by using the controls for that effect, while still driving it with the expression:

comp("Music").layer("Audio Amplitude").effect("Both Channels")("Slider")*value


Is WonderShare's video editor a viable alternative to Camtasia Studio?

If you are looking for software for windows then:

.Lightworks (free but you need an account)

.Jahashaka

.If you do not want to use either of those, use Windows Live, Blender, slowmoVideo, and GoPro Studio together in your workflow.
  Typically what I do is import the file using GoPro studio(which can be used on most video formats) and color correct the video, then either using GoPro studio or slowmoVideo I add slow motion effects if needed, and Blender can be use to add CG (something I've never done) or maybe camera movement. The final edit of clips, i.e syncing it to music, etc. is done in Windows Live Movie Maker.

If you are uploading to YouTube I highly recomend you check out GoPro studio.


Continuous video autofocus speed on Sony a7 iii

I haven't yet handled the A7s mkIII or A7 mkIII, but I'm familiar and own the A7s and A7r line, and before that shot for years on Canon 5D mkIIs.

First, video cameras are not DSLRs, and DSLRs really aren't video cameras.

Canon's landmark 5D mkI Camera was a game changer for people, creatives, working or aspiring to work in film on a "creative" level. The reason simply was the size of the gate, which directly correlates to very shallow hyperfocal which is realized within the final image. It gave everyone a camera that could pretty much look, at least on a small screen, like they had shot it using an Arri 435 35mm camera system.

But the camera is still a DSLR. And the A7/A7r/A7s mkIII is still a DSLR. The lenses designed for the the A7s By Sony- which is their "video model" within the A7 line, are not "video lenses". They are still lenses. They are designed first and formost to shoot stills. To keep up with fast action sports, shooting at high frame rates using the A7r mkIII. They are not designed in any way to continuously autofocus... even though Sony has "Included that as a feature". It's a feature of the camera sure, but it's not really a feature anyone with video shooting skills would use.

I shoot a lot of content. I've done narrative fiction, I've done live theatrics, I've even shot news both studio camera and eng/efp which included a lot of fast moving objects and scenarios.

But I almost never shoot on auto, actually, I never shoot on auto really. I might in some very rare cases, but 99% of the time I shoot on manual focus with push for auto as an assigned button to 1, and push for focus assist on another (near my trigger finger).

This is because regardless of whether you're shooting with an Sony FS7 or, 5, A shoulder style ENG camera, or a DSLR, you are not going to ever get accurate focus without learning to manually pull focus. The camera simply cannot do it.

Even in the world of high end sports, The NFL, those camera operators shoot using 120X lenses on pedestal cameras from hundreds of yards away acheiving amazingly tight shots with very shallow depth of field. But those cameras are grounded to a block of cement, isolated from vibration, the lenses are stabilized, and the cameras with glass cost $500,000. Those guys... focus manually. Left hand on focus servo and right hand on zoom. They constantly breath the lens to find tack sharp, and their monitors are highly specific for focus showing exactly where that tack point is.

I guess my long winded point is, if you are shooting wide, as in a wide shot, or you're shooting with a small CCD camera, like a 1/4" chip old school camera, auto-focus does an ok Job. But good camera work means you have to practice a lot, and I speak from the standpoint of someone who has trained, and tried to train people to shoot great content.

Many can't do it, because they lack the laser type focus that shooting "anything moving", requires... Constantly watching the shot, for tack sharp focus, and adjusting for every move.

Even when I shoot interviews for documentary/PR/Commercial work, the shallow depth of field on the full frame cameras is so shallow, that if I'm shooting with an 85 at f4 or even smaller- if the interviewee leans in just a half inch- suddenly, his eye lashes are soft, and his ears at the back tip are now the focal point.

So my opinion is you are out of luck. No camera operator, in film, tv, or whatever, who does top notch work would "rely" on an autofocus system unless it was for a very specific need be reason. Autofocus for stills, sure. But that's 12-14 FPS max. And it's a whole other art form. The technology has pushed ahead and made lenses work for that, - but you have to remember, with photo---

99% of the shots they take are outtakes. A sports photographer takes 1000s of photos at a game. Perhaps he gets 1, 2, or 3 great shots- perfectly focused, the right moment... they edit out nearly every other shot.

Video is much much harder in that respect. And I have a lot of photographer friends who have noted that... it's harder. You gotta get the shot, hold the shot, the entire time.


Why does 8K have 16 times the pixels compared to 1080p?

First off, 2K is not 1440p, it is 2048 x 1080p.  4K is 4096 x 2160p.  (Note that UHD = 3840 x 2160p...4K and UHD are like US and Canadian dollars--they are both dollars, but they have different values.)

It's simple math: when you have a straight line and you make it twice as long, the new length is 2x the original length.  When you have a rectangular area and you double both the length and the width in order to keep the same aspect ratio, the new area = (2L) * (2W) = 4 * (L*W)

When you double something twice, you do it again:

2*(2L) * 2*(2W) = 4 * 4 * (L*W) = 16 * (L * W)


Very simple question: converting DVD/VOB to (say) AVI

I suggest you use Handbrake. It's one of the best transcoders I know of, and have used it myself many times to convert DVDs to video files.

It is pretty simple and straight forward to use, but if you need any help/guidance this page covers pretty much all you need to know.

Have fun! And if you have any further doubts don't hesitate to comment.

Kevin.


I think you can achieve this effect using the built in Radio Waves effect.

https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/generate-effects.html

I think you can restrict the arc size.  If you can't, you could always mask the areas of the circle you don't want to see.


What is this filming technique called and how do I do it?

It's called a dolly zoom, and you achieve it by moving the camera towards your subject and zooming out at the same time (or moving away and zooming in).


Are introductions in other languages suitable for internet videos?

Firstly, I don't know if this is on-topic or not; I'll leave it for others to decide.

Simply, there are no rules. The question I would ask, is "would you do this in person?". That should give you your answer.

It intrigues me, however, that you wish to use a phrase from a culture and religion you are not a part of - so you really need to be extremely careful that you understand the implications of the phrase, as well as if it is used within society by non-Muslims. Cultural appropriation can be a serious insult to a culture; or it can be seen as appreciative and continuing their history.


iPhone X or Canon 77D - which will produce better quality?

Well, this hardly depends on what you want to do and need.
If you simply want to create cinematic images, 77D will be a lot better because of the bigger sensor.

If you need highly technical and sharp images, like I would expect it from a tech YT channel, I would take the iPhone X.

In the end, it matters more how you handle the camera, than what it can.
Espacially lighting will make a huge difference on both cameras.

So facts are, iPhone X video will look cleaner, but 77D will be more easily to achieve cinematic footage and give character to the image


Video: What are I-frames and why do they affect the size of the video?

You should do some research about GOPs ( Group of Pictures ) to find the definition of I frames.

This will answer the second and fourth question as well.

In generall, the more I frames a GOP has:

the better is the seeking qualitiy. (If the seek lands to a non I frame, it takes ressources to calculate the frame. To avoid this, sometimes seeking is only possible from one I frame to another)
the bigger is the video ( as I frames are saved as full frames )

The GOP has usually no effect on sound, but the codec does.


Here is a video that shows a series of effects from no Egg Crates® to 60°, 50°, 40°, 30°, and finally 20°.

The answer is that up to a certain ratio of subject size and distance from the lighting source, Egg Crates make a light source more directional (harder shadows) while also allowing you to maintain a larger source (which offers the benefits of diffusion within the beam spread range).  Beyond a certain ratio (i.e., a small subject far away from the light source), Egg Crates have no meaningful effect because the subject fits entirely within the clear aperture of every cell in the matrix.  In that case the Egg Crate's only function is to reduce the overall lighting intensity just the same way a scrim does.

Another way to think about the effect is to imagine that each cell gives you a mini light source that has a certain beam spread angle.  A single, 2" light source with a 20° beam spread gives a light cone that is D*tan 20° + 2" where D is distance to the subject from the light source.  At 5' (60"), that computes to about 22", but it also has a lot of falloff from the center of its beam (fully illuminated) to its edge (dark because all light eventually eclipsed).  Now imagine that the 22" light circle is subdivided into an 11x11 grid of 2" squares at the subject.  Across the north-south and also east-west axis, the squares go from least illuminated (at the edge) to most illuminated (in the center) and back again, because the square in the center gets fully un-eclipsed light, whereas each square away from the center "sees" an increasingly eclipsed source.  Squares that are within the 11x11 grid but outside the radius of the 11-grid diameter circle are completely un-illuminated because they are fully eclipsed.  If you then created an 11x11 grid of 2" sources at the source, each square around the center would add its percentage of light to each square within the original 11x11 grid defined for the subject area, and the sum of all those squares is--equally illuminated within the 11x11 grid.  Around that 11x11 grid at the subject will be a fall-off pattern that is linear along the edges and circular at the corners.  A 48"x48" Egg Crate gives a 48"x48" area of even illumination 60" away, again with linear fall-off along its longer edges and quadradic fall-off around its farther-out corners.


The main advantage is cost.  Historically, there were two main types of imaging sensors, CMOS and CCD.  CMOS was historically used in digital cameras (because of the higher quality images it can capture, the lower cost, and the fact that digital cameras only have to capture a single moment).

CCDs on the other hand were historically used in video cameras, with one CCD per color (3CCD) to increase the quality.  They have been significantly more expensive and generally capable of lower resolutions, but had the advantage of capturing the entire frame at the same time.

Most CMOS sensors scan line by line rather than capturing a fixed image at a time, they exhibit an artifact known as a rolling shutter.  This appears as a distortion when the camera is moving (particularly panning) due to the change of orientation mid-frame.  Previously, the sample rates for CMOS sensors were too slow to allow their use for video, but as the technology has improved, it is now possible to sample quickly enough that, while still present, rolling shutter is not nearly the problem it was even a few years ago.  Now there are even CMOS sensors capable of offering a global shutter and they have all but supplanted the old CCD based cameras, with even major motion pictures being shot on CMOS sensors with global shutters.

The advances in CMOS technology have allowed for CMOS sensors to be used in professional level video, bringing with them the low cost, high resolution and high quality that had previously not been possible.  Global shutter CMOS still costs more than rolling shutter relative to other features of the sensor, so rolling shutter is still present in many cameras (even fairly high end cinema cameras) due to the cost savings and the fact that higher sampling speed has greatly reduced the impact of rolling shutters.

Another large advantage is size.  DSLRs tend to have less processing capability to work with the large amounts of data involved in things like 4k video, so they are more limited in capability, but they also are much smaller and more portable.  This is probably most visible in comparing the Black Magic Production Camera and the Black Magic Ursa Mini 4k.  Both use the same 4k sensor, however the size of the BMPC limits it's ability to work with high frame rate video as well as some other features of the camera.  The Ursa Mini is a much larger form factor that currently costs the exact same amount, but is able to fit more features in due to the extra size and hardware that can be included in the larger form factor.


There's really two main types of film heads; pan/tilt heads and ball heads. There are a lot of other features you can get in tripods, for example, fluid heads. A fluid head is definitely something you'll want for video if you can afford one. They provide much smoother panning and tilting motion while operating the tripod. Geared heads allow for much more precise adjustments, but aren't that popular due to their weight and cost.

A pan/tilt head is the most common. They allow for smooth and controlled camera motion, but are limited by constraints of the different pieces, making them harder to adjust perfectly.

Ball heads have a much wider range of motion than pan/tilt heads, but their design makes smooth and controlled camera motions much more difficult.


Premiere Pro: Loading Footage for Project Problem

I would try following this YouTube tutorial. What they do in it is make a new premiere pro project and then import the project into it.

Summary of video:

Open premiere pro and make a new project.
Go to the media browser
Navigate to where your project is saved
Right click on it and press import
Check import entire project and tick Create folder for imported items and click ok
Go to the tab where it says project:[project name]
Expand the folder there
Find the file  which has a icon which looks like lots of tracks on a timeline
Drag that into the timeline
Save the new project


How can I capture/convert HDMI from an HDCP protected input?

You would need a device that supports HDCP if your output source is utilizing it.  That's the entire point of the system.  The video signal is encrypted and will only exchange the data with a device which can cryptographically authenticate itself as an authorized HDCP receiver. Getting that certificate requires proving that they are going to follow the rules on what can and can't be done with the content (such as not allowing it to be recorded.)

Occasionally codes are cracked, but these codes are then removed from the valid list of codes in future products and they won't work on newer material until another code is broken.  It is also worth pointing out that (unfortunately), if you live in the US at least, such bypassing is illegal in the United States according to the DMCA which specifically prevents bypassing protective measures even if the use would be fair use.

It looks like it may also be possible to connect the PS3 to a non-HDCP device, which would prevent it from using HDCP.  If that is the case, then if you could find a device that isn't HDCP compatible or that can strip the HDCP information, then you could get an unprotected stream and do an end run around DMCA limitations.  You may have to do a soft-reset of the PS3 to get it to recognize a non-HDCP TV if it was previously attached to an HDCP one however since it starts up in the same mode it was in for the previous display.


How to apply an offset to one axis only in 3D space for linked expression position?

The position property is an array, which is a container with a number of components in it, in this case the three position values: x, y and z. To specify an array you use this notation foo = [A,B,C] where A, B and C are the individual values – constants, variables, whatevs. TL;DR to create an array you put a number of comma-separated values in square brackets.

Conversely you can access any of the components of an array using this notation: foo[n] where foo is the name of the variable, and n is the index of the component you want. Note that the index starts at 0, so to get the first component of the array you would use foo[0], the second foo[1] and so on. Arrays can also be multi-dimensional, so the address could be foo[0][5][99] for a three dimensional array. But you probably don't need to worry about that at this point.

In your case you want just the third component to have the offset. So you need to unpick the original array using the foo[0], foo[1]… notation and then put it back together as an array using the [A,B,C] notation. Thus:

thePos = comp("Main COMP").layer("text").transform.position;
[thePos[0], thePos[1], thePos[2]+offset]

where offset is whatever your offset is, obviously.

The first line is just for convenience - it assigns the position property as the value of the variable myPos. You could do it all on one line, but it gets a bit hard to read:

[comp("Main COMP").layer("text").transform.position[0], comp("Main COMP").layer("text").transform.position[1], comp("Main COMP").layer("text").transform.position[2]+offset]


Automate video production with After Effects CC

You could achieve a certain automation by creating precomps for each clip. Then, drag every alternative file into each precomp and just stack them on top of each other. Now, apply the motion effect (the zooms etc.) to the precomps instead of the footage directly. That way, you can just hide the top layer to that the next image is visible, on which the animation will automatically be applied since it sits in the same precomp you animated before. Alternatively, to make the process even easier, you could script an expression that looks at the index of each layer in your precomp and hides every first layer for every comp, or every first and second, etc. etc. When it comes to the scripting of it though I must admit that this would require a few hours of thinking on my own, so maybe someone smarter can help you with that :D


Vegas' text capabilities are rather limited. It allows you to insert captions only one by one.

There is an extension for Vegas Pro, which is called Vegasaur. It contains Text Generation Wizard that can import text from subtitle files (srt, sub etc.) or just from the Clipboard

http://vegasaur.com/Vegasaur


To understand this you need to understand how codecs actually work.
A plain uncompressed video frame e.g. a single picture is pretty large. I'm talking about a bitmap, not a lossless encoded video, no encoding at all, just plain pixel information.

Here simple example of a Full HD frame for some perspective:
We have a resolution of 1920x1080 that equals to 2073600 pixels. Now each pixels has three color values. That is usually an 8bit value per color (though it could also be 10/12/16 or 32bit). So we have 2073600*3*8 which equals to 49766400 bits. To get bytes we have to divide by 8 and we get 6220800 Byte or 5.93MB.
So that's nearly 6MB per frame, for a 30FPS video that's 178MB per second!
A 10 minute video would be an insane 104GB.

Now luckily some really smart people developed all kinds of algorithms to define a frame in a smarter/shorter way while still containing the full information of the original bitmap. That's what we would call a lossless codec, just a different way to save the same information.

So when you record your VHS you capture device is getting every frame as a bitmap that it will encode the way you tell it to. So even while VHS uses analog compression and has a overall bad quality you still end up with the same chunk of information as with a Blu-ray encoded to the same resolution and bit-depth that your capture device is recording your VHS. "Good quality" is only determined by your perception of the picture.

Just keep in mind that when you decode a video file or capture something to play it back in your video player or to encode it with another codec (transcode) you always have this huge raw bitmap as the intermediate step, the "raw" information that you can use to describe it in a new way or simply display it on your monitor.

Now there is a limit to how well you can describe an image in a shorter/smaller way without discarding some information.

Those are the so called lossy codecs like h264. These are even smarter and complex algorithm where a frame isn't just a frame anymore, the encoder looks at several frames and trys to estimate how frames in between of so called "keyframes" will look like based of the information in those keyframes.
They also divide the image into several blocks of information and try to "guess" how they should look. Because we know how we guess information we just need a "clue" so when we decode our frame we can guess pretty accurately how this chunk of information would have looked like but its not a 100% accurate representation of the source information.

Thats why it can be so much smaller than our accurate representation with a lossless codec.

It's also the reason why we had this blocking in heavily compressed MPEG2 encoded videos back in the earlier days of the internet, h.264 handles that in a lot smarter way, hence we don't really have this type of artifacts anymore but we get these weird distortion sometimes when the image smears in this "blocky way", that happens when there is a decoding error and we missed a keyframe to decode the frames between the next keyframe.

To answer your last bit. MP4 with h264 encoded video is generally good idea. Use a tool like Handbrake, it makes the task very easy and you still have a lot of control of the outcome. Either choose a preset or set the "RF" setting to 18 to get a visually lossless video. Meaning you wont see a visual quality difference.


Adobe After effects watch folder render all composition

Make sure that only the comps you want rendered are in the top level of the project. If there are compositions that you don't want rendered, such as subcomps, put them in a folder in your project window


Export at ProRes 4444 "millions of colors+" with Alpha.
If you’re not on a Mac you can still use QuickTime based on these settings:
￼
More info here:
https://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/2050/any-video-formats-that-render-with-alpha-channel
Use something like GIF Brewery to make the conversion. GIF Brewery is free and available for Mac.
On a PC you could try https://www.screentogif.com/ or an online gif converter such as https://ezgif.com/optimize (if you don’t have access to Photoshop).
GIFs are an old format, and the quality for the file size is never great... Choices about resolution, file size and palette size can improve quality considerably. Examples based on Photoshop: https://blog.bannersnack.com/reduce-the-size-animated-gifs/


Exporting video layers for Premiere-DaVinci workflow

This video has a solution using Project Manager to export all clips individually, so that layers can be exported separately.
File > Project manager - Make sure your working sequence is selected.
Under Resulting Project> Consolidate and Transcode,  source: Individual Clips
Adjust the number of handles you want (extra frames on either side of the clip)
Choose your destination path, then OK to transcode.


Find raw footage based on second hand video?

In Premiere, you can align clips based on audio by putting the clips on separate tracks, selecting them both, right-clicking on one, and choosing, "Synchronize."

As far as "programs to compare edits with raw footage," DaVinci Resolve has a pretty robust conform process that lets you play a reference video along with any xml you've got from Premiere (or FCPX, Avid, whatever).  It also has a Scene Cut detection feature, which is helpful when there are a lot of "bits" to extract.  I don't remember which features are included in the free version of Resolve, but BlackMagic typically only restricts features meant for Hollywood studios.  It's worth learning, if you have the chance, just to use whichever tool meets your needs.

But if you don't have time to dive into another full NLE, you could just stack your reference video at the top of your Premiere timeline, turn the opacity down, and lock the track.


"Raw" ususally refers to uncompressed video (though this is technically wrong), meaning you probably have a very large file. Rendering is the process of re-encoding the video using another codec, usually to reduce file-size while maintaining a decent enough video quality. The reason that .mp4-files with the H264-codec are widely used is that they offer a very good filesize-quality-ratio.

In your case, a very compressed file is not what you might want, since Youtube reencodes your video when you upload it. Every reencoding reduces the video quality, so the double reencoding will result in poor quality.

If you cant upload the .ts-file directly (I don't think Youtube allows this), you could reencode it to an mp4 or avi (imho, the latter is better in this case, though getting the encoding settings right is a bit tougher for beginners). The key is to chose a very high bitrate and the same framerate and resolution as the original video. Using a high bitrate, the quality-loss resulting from the reencoding can be minimized. However, this will result in very large files (espacially if you choose avi), which depending on your internet connection might take very long to upload.

There is a range of free encoding programs out there. I'd recommend XMedia-Recode, but you could also try Xilisoft Video Converter or Format Factory.

Edit: If you want to cut your video (i.e. add an intro and an outro, put different videos together, remove unwanted parts, ...), you'll need a video editing program. There are some freeware programs for this (none of which are as good as professional, paid programs), you can find a list of video editing software at wikipedia.


How can I stitch together several m2ts video files into one large file?

I believe you can join MPEG ts (transport stream) files simply by joining them together.  In Linux:

cat file1.m2ts file2.m2ts file3.m2ts > joined_file.m2ts

In Windows/DOS:

copy /b file1.m2ts + file2.m2ts + file3.m2ts joined_file.m2ts /b

As long as the input files are split properly, and each new file begins with a key frame (and I would expect your camera does this), this should work just fine. And even if your camera is not careful about splitting right before a keyframe (again, I'd be surprised if it doesn't), as long as you re-join in the exact same order, it ought to work.


Not in modern terms, but the BBC did this for years. Many a series was shot multicam video on a sound stage, with any location footage shot 16mm, for portability. The blend was anything but seamless. My take on this was a mock scene from such a series... Woman: "What's it like outdoors?" Man, peering through window: "Hmmm. It's a bit soft and quite grainy."


It highly depends on your Bit-depth and scene and post-production. If you're trying to maximize for dynamic range and avoid clipping highlights for example, you should reduce contrast as much as possible (and also expose for the highlights). However, by doing that you might lose details in the midtones (separation of colors and luma), which might lead to banding issues after post-processing the footage (adding contrast and saturation), especially if you are recording 8-Bit per channel, which most consumer cameras do.
From my personal experience if you are recording 8-Bit you are probably better off getting your exposure as finished as possible in the camera and only do little post-processing to avoid banding or similar issue. If you're recording 10-Bit, you have way more information to play with and could use LOG profiles (which are another way of reducing contrast and saturation) instead.


FFMPEG how to add image and soundwaves to video

Use the overlay filter to put the showwaves on top of image.jpg:

ffmpeg -i song.mp3 -i image.jpg -filter_complex "[0:a]showwaves=s=3840x200:mode=line:colors=red|yellow[sw];[1][sw]overlay=(W-w)/2:(H-h)/2:format=auto,format=yuv420p[v]" -map "[v]" -map 0:a -movflags +faststart video.mp4

Adjust showwaves colors with the colors option. Each channel will have its own color, so in this example, if song.mp3 is stereo, the left channel is red and the right channel is yellow.
If you just want a single waveform of all channels add the aformat filter before showwaves, as in aformat=channel_layouts=mono,showwaves=s=3840x200:mode=line:colors=00ff00.


How to light a scene with a window and monitor in the background?

Your foreground lighting must exceed your background lighting, or else you'll have to manually increase your iris/gain a lot, which is not ideal because it will washout the window and monitor.

I would recommend minimizing the amount of window in the shot. Daylight is both extremely bright and inconsistent, even minute by minute. I'd settle with your second still shot and blocking the window completely with a shade. Daylight interviews are atypical mostly because of inconsistency, but also, the closed and controlled nature of a slightly darkened room gives the intimate feel most interviewers are going for.

By "3-point lighting" I assume you mean to say that you have three light sources to illuminate the foreground. This is plenty to work with, but using the monitor and window to your advantage is not worthwhile.

With three light sources you'll want to put one low and center and the others slightly high and on each side. (By low and high, I mean relative to the subject's face). The low center fills the deep parts of the face, like the eyes, under the nose, and neck. The high sides fill everything else. Generally, low center will not need to be as bright af the high sides.

I expect the room has a ceiling light, so you can use that to your advantage. It's likely the shot will look better with it on. If not, I recommend changing the bulb, because ceiling light off will leave a lot of your background dark.

I'd try the follow and adjust as necessary. The green arrow is the cam and the purple arcs are the lights. The gray circle is a mystery of mobile image editing ;)


Those are the expected file sizes for those data rates.  4 minutes and 42 seconds of video is 282 seconds of video, at 2.1 Mbps, that's 592.2 Mbits.  That's around 72 megabytes or so, so your 77.5 megabyte file is the correct size (there can be some variation and sound is also generally factored in separately.)

Those are also pretty close to the minimum bitrates that you can use without getting substantial quality loss.  2.1 Mbps is around the same bitrate that Hulu uses for their 720HD streaming and they are the lowest bandwidth of the major streaming sites that I'm aware of.

If you plan to host video, you really need more disk space and bandwidth.  Hosting is available very cheaply for multiple gigabytes of hosting space with unlimited bandwidth if you look around a bit, though I haven't been in that segment of the market for a while so I couldn't tell you who is best anymore.  (I self host on a dedicated server because I need a lot of space and high performance.)


After effects: masking not working in select compositions

Most likely you have effects on those layers that are being applied and messing up your masks, anything from the distort effects will do this, and others as well...you can wither pre-comp your layers or use layer masks


How to scale a rectangle along its length in one direction while keeping the stroke fixed in after effects?

In this situation I would right-click on the path options in your rectangle and choose "convert to Bezier".  Then instead of adjusting the scale, I would keyframe the path, and change the shape of the path in this way.


Equipment/setup recommendations (1 camcorder, 1 mic)

Image quality and audio quality are really two separate beasts, so address each solution independently.

  Camcorder: Aside from video-related differences, how do video DSLRs or otherwise consumer-grade camcorders compare to professional (big 3-CCD) camcorders in terms of working with external mics?
  Blockquote

"Big CCD" cameras are great at avoiding rolling shutter in the video signal, but this has no bearing whatsoever on the audio they record.  Since your question specifically addresses a stationary scene, though, rolling shutter shouldn't be a problem.  Another big advantage of professional video cameras is their connectivity to broadcast equipment.  But if you're not working in a broadcast environment, these features add unnecessary cost.

With respect to audio, most dslrs and consumer camcorders ship with some sort of automatic gain compensation (AGC) enabled.  This reduces peak volumes and amplifies silences in an attempt to balance the volume.  In uncontrolled situations, AGC can be helpful, and keep your signal from clipping.  In controlled situations such as interviews, however, AGC will introduce unwanted hiss into the silences.  Make sure the camera you choose allows you to disable AGC for these situations.

Of course, the danger of disabling AGC is that your signal might clip.  To avoid this, consider audio bracketing.  Split the signal from your mic, feed it to a preamp on two channels, and reduce the volume on one of the channels.  That way, if your primary signal clips, you'll have a backup.  Feed both of these channels into your camcorder to avoid sync issues.

Apologies if this doesn't make sense.  I'm not an audio guy.

In response to your question about lavs vs shotgun mics, I think this is a matter of preference.  Lavs are easy to set up, but they are more conspicuous than shotgun mics.  With a shotgun, you need a dedicated sound man, or a very stationary subject. Keep in mind that you aren't limited to "wired" lavs.  Wireless ones are actually the status quo.


How to programmatically personalize video?

You can use ffmpeg to do something like this programmatically. It has the capability to composite and edit footage as well as adding effects and text. It is a command line app, so works in the shell of your choice on Linux/Mac/Windows. Youtube reputedly uses ffmpeg to process their videos, so it's safe to say that it's very widely adopted. FFMPEG is free and open source. This is probably your best bet.

Adobe After Effects can also be controlled completely programmatically using the Extendscript language. After Effects is an industry standard video effects tool, used for everything from web banners to Hollywood movies. While it has more capabilities than ffmpeg, it is mainly designed as a GUI application, and the API really needs a good understanding of the application to use, meaning that developers are probably fairly hard to find. It is available from Adobe through Creative Cloud membership.

Coding the solution is another option. Rather than re-invent the wheel you could look at one of the frameworks that exist for creative coding. One of the most popular is Processing; it's a programming language designed for creative use, based on Java. Although not specifically focussed on video it does have the capability to process video, and could add text and effects to video content. Similar tools exist for other languages, for example OpenFrameworks, which uses C++, and Nannou, a relative newcomer which uses rust. To use them you will need programming skills, but a lot of the heavy lifting has been done in terms of things like graphics and video, meaning you can work at a higher level.


How to get FFMPEG output the same quality as Vimeo?

ffmpeg example
tl;dr: The important options are -preset slow and -crf 20:
ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 20 -vf format=yuv420p -c:a aac -ac 2 -movflags +faststart output.mp4

The other options are to ensure compatibility.

How to find out what Vimeo uses
1. Download video using youtube-dl:
youtube-dl https://vimeo.com/123456789

2. Get encoding info
Assuming x264 is used to encode, and the encoding settings weren't stripped out, you can see what version was used and view the encoding settings.
Using mediainfo
Refer to the "Encoding settings" line.
mediainfo input.mp4

Using strings (Linux or macOS)
strings input.mp4 | grep x264

Example output
x264 - core 157 r10 d4099dd - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2019 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=5 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x3:0x113 me=hex subme=8 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=1 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=2 8x8dct=1 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=-2 threads=34 lookahead_threads=5 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 stitchable=1 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=2 b_adapt=2 b_bias=0 direct=3 weightb=1 open_gop=0 weightp=2 keyint=infinite keyint_min=23 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=50 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=20.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=5 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 vbv_maxrate=5500 vbv_bufsize=15000 crf_max=0.0 nal_hrd=none filler=0 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=1:1.00

This shows that -preset slow and -crf 20 were used. The options are set by -preset, so there is no need to manually attempt to set each option.

VBV is enabled for streaming. In ffmpeg this is set with -maxrate 5500k and -bufsize 15000k. I just used the values shown in the encoding settings above.

Thanks to Vimeo for not stripping the SEI (they certainly could have like YouTube) and allowing us to see what they used. Perhaps they wanted to show that they appreciate the open source tools they use.

Also see

FFmpeg Wiki: H.264 Video Encoding Guide
FFmpeg Wiki: AAC Audio Encoding Guide


Burn a single HD video into a DVD without losing quality

The short answer is "No."  DVD by definition is limited to 720x480 video with a fairly low bitrate, compressed specifically with MPEG-2.  There is absolutely no way to make your HD video look just as good with those constraints.

Some DVD players do let you play .mp4, .mkv, or whatever files that happen to be stored on a DVD, but that isn't a standard function of DVD players in general.


What's the difference between an Engineer and a Producer?

The engineer is the "equipment operator".  His expertise is choosing the right equipment for the job and using it in the right way to achieve the desired effect.  His role is analogous to that of the cameraman in film production.

The producer is kind of like a project manager.  His job is to get all the individuals - musicians, vocalists, engineers - to each do their part to achieve the overall goal.
For example, he might decide a certain song should be quiet and soothing, so he'll advise the musicians to tone down the accompaniment, the vocalist to soften her voice, and the engineer to add the necessary processing to achieve that soothing sound he's after.


How can I force YouTube to convert my video's audio stream to Opus or Vorbis / Youtube Red issue

YouTube currently does not have any encoding options for content creators.

As far as why some videos are encoded as webm and others in different container types, I don't believe there is any documentation on that whatsoever. YouTube may be beta-testing specific codecs, to see how codecs perform/stream for end users, or there may be a specific matching system whereas input = specific output attributes.

When you upload a video to YouTube, the video is re-encoded using a Variable Bitrate at the highest resolution / matching resolution of the original upload. If the uploaded video is larger => 360p then smaller versions are also encoded for multiple streaming options (240p as an example).

But there is no current way to force the YouTube encoding platform to encode to a specific codec, and even you were able to figure out what input codec would result in a specific desired output codec, it may only be temporary. I only mention this because YouTube has stated it is currently experimenting with new codecs, including closed source proprietary codecs and encoding algorithms... so what works today may not tomorrow.


Video Editor with custom effect masking and shape/drawing overlays

That isn't really rotoscoping, just mask drawing.  Rotoscoping is more on a frame by frame basis generally.  Either way, After Effects will do what you are looking for very easily, but is not in your price range (not even nearly).  Largely, you get what you pay for though and I'm not sure that there are a whole lot of cheaper options that allow you to draw your masks in the editor.


I have the same issue, the reason is that your graphic card is not supported with the 2020 version of Premiere Pro. I have the exact same graphic card.

Check the Recommended graphics cards from Premiere Pro system requirements.


how do you call the final "render" of a video

When an editor is finished, the edit is said to be "locked," or in "picture lock."  Best practice for file-naming, however, is to use a date string at the beginning of the file name (such as YYYYMMDD_ProjectName.mov), and to avoid descriptors like "locked" or "final." Otherwise you end up with files named, "TVCommercial_V7_final_final_forRealthistimeFinalLocked.mov".
A locked edit doesn't mean the piece is complete, either.  Usually, sound mixing, foley, and color come after the edit room.  The video an editor sends to the sound department isn't usually a high-quality render, and might actually be a low-quality "proxy" designed to conserve system resources for sound.  The editor also doesn't pass a render to the colorist; rather, he passes a project file, XML, EDL, or similar, plus an "offline" reference video.  The colorist "conforms" or "re-links" the project files to the camera originals for "finishing," using the offline reference to check for accuracy.  Once complete, the finished piece is called a "master," but other copies might be generated in tandem for "archival" purposes, and these are usually the highest quality output.


What is the difference between mov, mpeg, and dnx hd formats?

MOV is a container i.e. a wrapper for media streams, and doesn't identify the video codec of the stream wrapped inside.

MPEG refers to a set of standards and could refer to MPEG-1 (from 1980s) or MPEG-2 (DVDs or many TV broadcast streams) or MPEG-4 Part 2 (Xvid, DivX..) or Part 10 (H.264 / AVC). Of the MPEG standards, the last one is the latest and best at preserving quality for a given file size.

DNxHD is a proprietary codec by Avid used as an intermediate format for editing on their systems. DNxHD streams are usually stored in MOV or MXF.

Just going by the bare information here, I'd say DNxHD will offer the best quality but also the largest file sizes and playback compatibility isn't broad. Depending on the video codec used in MOV, say, PNG or MJPEG (likely), that may be the best option in terms of quality and compatibility but you should get details first.


Call FFmpeg filter from source code (C API)

You can't just call a filter, You must instantiate a filter graph.

First you need to create a buffer and buffersink via:

AVFilterContext* source = 0;
AVFilterContext* sink = 0;
AVFilterGraph *graph = avfilter_graph_alloc()
avfilter_graph_create_filter(&source, avfilter_get_by_name("buffer"), nullptr, args, nullptr, graph);

AVBufferSinkParams* buffersink_params = av_buffersink_params_alloc();
buffersink_params->pixel_fmts = /*Your pixel format HERE*/;

avfilter_graph_create_filter(&sink, avfilter_get_by_name("buffersink"), nullptr, nullptr, buffersink_params, graph);

You can then create your filter via something like this

snprintf(args, sizeof(args), "n=-60dB:d=2");
avfilter_graph_create_filter(&freezedetect, avfilter_get_by_name("freezedetect"), nullptr, args, nullptr, graph);

Then link it all together:

avfilter_link(source, 0, freezedetect, 0);
avfilter_link(freezedetect, 0, sink, 0);
avfilter_graph_config(graph, 0);

Finally you can send frames to the filter via

av_buffersrc_write_frame(source, frame);

And get the result with

 av_buffersink_get_frame(sink, frame);

Don't forget to free it all at the end


Can you losslessly ediit H264 at the GOP level?

This is possible to do, in theory. The key is to match all relevant source bitstream properties when encoding.

#1 Segment source video

ffmpeg -i source.mp4 -c copy -an -f segment -segment_time 0.01 seg%d.ts

Since the segment muxer by default only splits at keyframes, by providing a very low segment time, each produced segment will be one GOP long.

(I suggest using the whole audio from the source, we don't extract it here)

#2 Re-encode first segment

ffmpeg -i seg1.ts {-encoding args} -copyts -x264opts stitchable{+any-other-args} new1.ts

It's important here to match source settings.

#3 Rejoin segments

ffmpeg -i "concat:new1.ts|seg2.ts|..." -i source.mp4 -c copy -map 0 -map 1:a new.mp4


Can I use unlicensed music as soundtrack for a video?

The short answer? No.

The long answer: No, copyright law requires you to have an appropriate licence from the copyright holders (usually the record label - not the artist - if they're in a record deal!)

There are three distinct rights for every piece of music:

Phonogram copyright (the sound recording) (symbol: ℗, "P" in a circle)
Composition, score, artwork, cover design, lyrics, which can all be included in one overarching copyright registration per musical work (symbol: ©, "C" in a circle)
The Publishing right, considered separately by some

Each of these rights may be 'assigned' to a third party (e.g., a publisher or a record label) and this is what usually what happens when a track is released by a label. However you may be able to 'encourage' the artist to grant a licence for the music's use if the project is cool or they like it. Ultimately the person who has control of the sound recording copyright is the person to request a licence from.

You are in breach of copyright law if you use a copyrighted piece of music without a licence - moreso if you exploit that copyrighted composition for commercial gain (use it to represent the product or service, even if it's just background music). Whilst I think the current system of licensing music is crazy, that's just how it works for the time being.

Occasionally artists are willing to 'look the other way' if you agree a licence arrangement after the finished work using their copyrighted music is released -- this may not even be a cash payment, it may just be promotion with the band, song name and iTunes link at the bottom of the screen. However, arranging a license 'after the fact' still compromises you from a legal perspective, and you could be forced to stop using that music in your own work (and, worst case, be taken to court for copyright infringement) if the artist or label doesn't like it.

I concur with the other answerer's suggestion to seek Creative Commons licensed music; Jamendo is a good site to start on, and even if the initial license is CC-NC you can communicate with the artist to request a commercial use licence (or to be granted an exemption).

You may also wish to try sites like these to seek appropriate sync licenses for music for a reasonable cost:

SongTradr (https://www.songtradr.com/licensemusic)
Getty Images, formerly iStock Audio (https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/Music)
Shutterstock (https://www.shutterstock.com/music/)
AudioJungle (https://audiojungle.net/)
StockMusic.net (https://stockmusic.net/)
Epidemic Sound (https://www.epidemicsound.com/)
Music Gateway (https://www.musicgateway.com)

Things are moving to subscription-based for licensees, so you may find over time, if you want to licence a track, contacting a musician direct is a better choice. (Or consider one of the YouTube Library tracks...)

Rob Hardy on FilmmakerFreedom has a good writeup of some other 2019 options: https://filmmakerfreedom.com/blog/stock-music-showdown-2019

This older post from NoiseCreators has a list of other outlets and licensing sites, some of which may be defunct but may help on a sync quest. http://noisecreators.com/2016/06/21/a-list-of-40-sites-that-will-help-you-license-your-music/

Also have a read around and decide who you may wish to deal with from an ethical or business stance.
https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2019/03/21/songtradr-12-million-funding/
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-for-picture/1194031-quot-music-wanted-quot-libraries-like-songtradr-taxi-etc.html

(I initially recommended YouLicense.com but they closed down mid-2018.)

Sync is big money. As the rise of digital msuic and streaming has increased, so has global sync revenue. I'd suggest you read https://www.synchtank.com/blog/sync-licensing-in-2017-a-look-at-the-trends-and-figures/ and https://musicindustryblog.wordpress.com/2019/05/03/music-sync-a-market-ripe-for-change/ if you're unfamiliar with the market.


In what order are After Effects layer effects applied?

Yes, it works the way you suspected it would. Applied effects on a layer work from top to bottom, same with adjustment-layers and layer-modes applying from top to bottom.


It is possible in almost any video=editing software.

If you are using Windows and you do not have much experience in video editing, than you can make it Windows Movie Maker. It is free and simple for beginners.


How do I alter just the framerate of a VP9 webm without affecting anything else?

This has come up before for other codecs / containers.

This DOESN'T work in ffmpeg without transcoding, since ffmpeg unfortunately isn't set up for messing with timestamps on non-decoded frames.

I think you should be able to do it with this (untested):
mkvmerge --default-duration 0:30fps  in.webm -o out.webm

Where 0 is the track-id of the video track.  Check the man page for mkvmerge for more details.  Note that it says that --fix-bitstream-timing-information is only implemented for h.264 currently, so your output will have a vp9 stream that probably still says it's 1000 fps, but the container will have frame timestamps at 30fps.  Players almost always use container presentation-timestamps, though.

If there is audio with the video, I assume it's the right length for the video being 30fps?  Otherwise that's a big stretch needed...


FFmpeg concat plus video inside video with different times

Basic syntax is

ffmpeg -i video1 -i video2 -i video3 -i video4
       -filter_complex "[1]scale=0.40*iw:-1,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS+1/TB[v2];
                        [2]scale=0.40*iw:-1,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS+1/TB[v3];
                        [0][v2]overlay=x=W-w-20:y=H-h-20:eof_action=pass[m2];
                        [m2][v3]overlay=x=W-2*w-40:y=H-h-20:eof_action=pass[m3];
                        [m3][3]concat=n=2:v=1:a=0"   out.mp4

I assume all videos have same resolution and framerate. I've scaled videos 2 and 3 to 40% before overlay and offset their start time to 1 second.


What is the orbiting technique involved for this scene [youtube]?

I think you partially answered your own question - the dark background actually makes it easier to hide cameras. In saying that, these days a lot of the heavy work is done by interpolation software (as @romkyns mentioned), so I wouldn't think 150 cameras would be required here.


Do I need to configure CUDA in my graphics card for using CUDA support in Pinnacle studio?

If CUDA is supported by your graphics card it should be enabled by default.

To confirm:

Open NVIDIA Control Panel.
Check that CUDA is enabled in global settings.

Check Application specific settings. Make sure that Pinnacle Studio is selected in the drop down list (where I have Chrome in my example screenshot)
Then make sure Pinncale uses global settings, or directly enable CUDA
finally check if Pinnacle has it's own CUDA settings (I don't know about that.)
if you have still problems, you should contact Pinnacle support


Is there any way to get light flares in a canon m50 and its 15-45mm lens?

The focal length of your lens does not necessarily determine wether or not you will see lens-flares. Lens-flares appear by reflecting light within the lenses, often bouncing around which in on itself would be considered a mistake. So chances are that with cheaper lenses, you will actually see more lens-flares than with an expensive zeiss-prime lens.

There are some tricks to make lens-flares more apparent: You can use a rubber-band and stretch it in front of the lens horizontally - the rubber-band will be almost invisible since it's so out of focus, however, the reflected light will be caught by it and give you an almost anamorphic-looking lens-flare. For more dyi-tips and tricks concerning lenses I recommend you check out the FilmRiot Youtube channel, or the IndyMogul one. They hinted me towards the rubber-band trick for example.


Converting a Video from 1600*1200 to 1920*1080

Using ffmpeg,

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "scale=1920:1080:flags=lanczos,setsar=1" output.mp4

This will stretch the video to 1920x1080.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "scale=-1:1080:flags=lanczos,setsar=1,pad=1920:1080:(ow-iw)/2:(oh-ih)/2" output.mp4

This will keep the aspect ratio but place black bars on the left and right.

The flag in the scale filter determines the scaling algorithm to use. lanczos is the best available, in general, for video.

The setsar sets the pixel aspect ratio. Advisable to keep this square (1) unless you know what you're doing.

In the 2nd command, the -1 tells ffmpeg to preserve original proportion when scaling height to 1080. The pad fills out the canvas to 1920x1080 and centers the scaled video within it.


Stop children from scaling by parent scale

try parenting the position values only, not the whole layer.  So pull the pick whip from the child's position values to the parent's position values.


Davinci Resolve does not shows fusion nodes after re-open the project

It depends on how you created the Fusion compositions in the first place.
If your Fusion clip exists on your edit timeline, then when you're in the Fusion tab, you'll see it listed if you activate the "Clips" panel (at the top of the screen, or under Workspace->Show Panel in Workspace->Clips)
If your Fusion clip doesn't exist on your edit timeline (there are a few ways to do this), then to find it within the Fusion page, you'll need to navigate to it through Fusion's "Media Pool" tab.  Resolve's Media Pool contains all of the elements you've imported or created within the context of the currently open project.  If you don't see your Fusion Clip there at first, don't panic.  To see absolutely everything in your project, first you need to expose the sidebar of the media pool, then select the "Master" bin and all children of it by shift-clicking the last item in the list of bins.  With all of the bins selected, Resolve shows all of the available content in your project.  Your Fusion composition should be listed there.
The reason you're not seeing the nodes you expect to see in the screenshot above is that whenever you switch to the Fusion Page from the Edit page, Resolve turns whichever clip that currently intersects the Edit timeline playhead into a Fusion clip, and populates the node tree with a MediaIn and MediaOut node.  If you don't make any alterations before returning to the Edit page, Resolve will turn the Fusion clip back into a normal clip (at least, in recent versions of Resolve).
To put it another way, the moment in time you're viewing on the Edit page will be the same one you're viewing when you switch to the Fusion page, complete with any Fusion nodes you've set up previously (if any), or set up for a new composition if you haven't created any yet; the Edit timeline playhead and Fusion timeline playhead are linked.
In Fusion, the "Clips" tab lets you skip from one clip to the next down your edit timeline, and the playbar only scrubs through the length of one clip.  But since all of your Fusion compositions don't necessarily need to be on your Edit timeline, the Media Pool holds all available source material.


How can you convert a WebM with transparency to MP4 with a background color using ffmpeg?

The native VP8/9 decoders don't support transparency, so a) you'll have to force a decoder, b) the way to change transparent pixels is to overlay the video onto the color.

ffmpeg -c:v libvpx -i 123.webm -f lavfi -i color=c=0xD9DADB,format=rgb24
       -filter_complex "[1][0]scale2ref[bg][vid];[bg][vid]overlay=format=rgb:shortest=1,setsar=1"
       -pix_fmt yuv420p -c:a copy 123.mp4


How can I put a camera with a standard tripod point on my head?

Not sure what size your cameras is, but a quick search at B&H turned up this:

Midland XTA-104 Vented Helmet Camera Mount


Exporting on the same sequence settings as the clip doubles the size of the output file

Ok there's a few different aspects to this, so here goes.

  I am trying to create an edit/archive render of my videos captured from Sony A6000. The recording format is: 1080p 50FPS H.264 Codec.

Not sure what you mean here, but I assume you want to prepare your footage for archiving purposes? The best way to archive your footage is to leave it as it is. I can't stress this enough. Compressing your footage to save a few gigabytes is a very bad idea. Storage is cheap, you can get an external HDD with 2~3 TB for less than a hundred bucks. Or unlimited cloud storage on Amazon for 70 bucks a year. There's really no reason to compress your original footage, but there are many downsides. If you want to save space at all, you will need to use a lossy codec with a lower bitrate than the original. That means you get artifacts in your video, temporal interpolation (meaning not every frame in your video is saved as a whole, which is quite bad if you want to edit the footage later on and overall reduced quality. You also get chroma subsampling which reduces the available color information, which is bad if you want to color grade your footage later on. So in general, if you want to archive your footage, always archive the original files.

On the other hand, if you have no use for your video files because they are kind of bad and you want to keep them 'just in case', throw them out. You won't look at them again and they are just wasting space.

Anyway, rant over. In case I misunderstood your intentions or you still want to proceed, here's the actual answer.

  I basically want an uncompressed edit or archive render to save the video without any compression or downscaling or without reducing the FPS as well.

If you actually use a lossless or visually lossless codec, you will only increase your filesize massively. H.264 (the format of your original footage) is a lossy codec meaning it's heavily compressed. The thing is, while exporting to an uncompressed format will increase your filesize, it won't actually increase the video quality, as the information already lost in the compressed H.264 files can't be magically recovered. So there's really no reason to export to an uncompressed format except for editing purposes (formats with temporal interpolation can be laggy during editing, because only I-frames are saved in full, B-frames are stored as the difference to the last I-frame or preceding frame).

So there's really no reason to convert your footage to either an uncompressed or a heavily compressed version. Anyway …

  Basically, to replicate the issue you just have to create a sequence from clip and export to the sequence settings and the exported file size is double the original size.

Your final video output is dependent on your sequence settings and your export settings. If you created the sequence directly from a footage clip, they will match the clip parameters, so you're good here.

Regarding the export settings, the output file size is mainly dependent on the bitrate (which is literally the amount of information, i.e. bits per second of your video). To change the output size, you will need to change your Target Bitrate (the setting may have a slightly different name if you use formats other than H.264). Depending on your version of Premiere Pro, the steps to change the bitrate while using the Match Sequence Settings option differ. For completion's sake, I will include instructions for both CC and older versions.

Premiere Pro CC

The Match Sequence Option can be toggled on and off for every parameter individually. So you simply need to uncheck the option for the Target and Maximum Bitrate setting, then you can change the bitrate to whatever you want.

Premiere Pro CS6 and older

Unfortunately, with older versions you only get the Match Sequence Settings options in the form of a checkbox at the top that looks most export settings when checked. I'm actually not sure if that includes the bitrate (it's been a while since I had to use non-CC versions of Premiere). I would have said it does not (as claimed by stib in the comments), but since you said that option is locked, try unchecking Match Sequence Settings and see if the bitrate options become available. Unfortunately this will also reset the rest of your settings to your selected Preset, which might not be what you want. So you have to adjust the Export Settings. You will want to match most of those to your original footage parameters, I wouldn't change to much unless you know what you are doing. To find out all technical parameters of your footage, download something like MediaInfo and inspect one of your video files in it. For example, the video you linked was shot at a 1920x1080 resolution, 50 fps, progressive (not interlaced) and with an audio bitrate of 256kbps. Change the export settings accordingly, and then change the bitrate setting to your liking.

You will notice that the estimated filesize correlates directly to the chosen bitrate. Your original footage was shot with a variable bitrate, at 26Mbps average. If you want to compress your footage down, use a lower bitrate. If you want to preserve as much quality as possible, use a bitrate at least as high as the original bitrate. But again, I can't recommend either of those things, just keep your footage as it is.

If you export for viewing purposes, experiment with different bitrates to find the lowest one that still yields a quality that is acceptable to you for your specific purpose. Here's some math that will help you understand the relation between bitrate and resulting filesize.

Update in response to your comments

  I don't want to store the actual recording because it's not consumable without editing. I want to do my editing save it as one big file and archive it, later I can use this edited ready to go archive file and can export or reencode it to medium

The problem is that those are two very different purposes and it's not really practical to do both with only one file.

For your edited output video that you want to show to the world, you'll want to trade off some amount of quality in return for a reduced filesize. Whatever you intend to do with this video, having huge files (like, gigabits of data per minute) is pretty detrimental. You can't send them to people with slow internet connections, you can't transport them on small USB sticks ... and people with slower computers might actually have trouble viewing your video at all, because their hardware can't keep up. So you want to find the lowest possible bitrate that still yields acceptable quality. On a related note:

  If you pause frames of original footage and rendered footage, the original one looks sharper.

Yeah, but who is gonna do that? You are probably paying closer attention to your video than anyone in your audience will. Of course, you also gotta take into consideration the purpose, target audience and medium in which your video will be displayed (I can only make assumptions here), but for general prosumer-ish/home productions, my point above stands.

  later I can use this edited ready to go archive file and can export or reencode it to medium I want or even do further editing If need be

That's a very bad idea. The thing is, you're exporting from a compressed format to a compressed format. If you use the exported file to export to another format, your final video will have gone through three export cycles already. It's just gotta hurt your overall video quality. Just keep your original files, your Premiere Pro project file, and everything else that is part of your project in one folder and back it up somewhere safe. If you in 20 years from now decide you need your video in H.269 for some reason, open up the original project and export from that (assuming Adobe's SaaS model hasn't crashed by then, just saying). Of course you can also export a version of your video with a visually uncompressed codec, or as an image sequence or something like that (in fact, depending on your production workflow this might be an intermediate step, but not as the final version). However, that file will be huge, so you won't have really achieved anything in terms of filesize.

  It produces as acceptable file size but the quality is definitely not the same.

If you used a bitrate that is close to the bitrate of your original files (~26 Mbit/s) and 2-Pass encoding, I find that hard to believe. I usually use like 6~8 Mbit/s for my exports, and I rarely spot any artifacts in the output at all. I think it's much more likely that you messed up some other setting in your Sequence or Export Settings, and that is what's causing the problems with your output quality. Feel free to open a new topic regarding this problem, this thread is really getting out of hand …


What is the CRF range for VP9 conversion using ffmpeg?

libvpx is a software encoder developed by Google, and used in ffmpeg, to encode VP9. And as the Google docs say, 0-63 is the applicable range for encoding VP9 with libvpx.


What are the various desktop streaming software used by justin.tv and similar sites?

If you want to stream with Justin.TV, you can download FFSplit !

http://www.ffsplit.com/

It is still in a BETA State, but it does run quite well !

Don't forget to follow every instruction that is put on the site.

Good luck !


Is using codecs matter if Facebook re-encode all the uploaded videos?

If Facebook, YouTube and others video hosting sites re-encode all videos uploaded, is the codecs used still matter?

Both no and yes.

Technically, no, because they can handle most common formats and re-encode what you give it no matter the format.

Practically, yes, because you have to take into account your time, energy usage, and upload speed.

  If I use h.264 codec with mp4 or MOV format as Facebook recommended, will it reduce or bypass the Facebook's video processing?

No. They almost certainly re-encode everything for consistency.

  If I use h.265 for smaller file size, will the viewers of my video save their mobile data usage?

If the quality between the two formats is the same, then the answer is no.

What to do

Because it appears you are re-encoding something that has already been losslessly compressed I recommend that you upload the original file and avoid the needless re-encoding step. You'll save time and avoid generation loss.

If you have to re-encode

If you must re-encode, such as if the original was encoded inefficiently, or is too big to upload, or you want to modify the video (such as by using filters), then provide "visually lossless" or as close to that as you can while still being practical to encode and upload. Avoid lossless as it will make a huge file.


Dropping Frames when Playing back Sped Up Footage in PP CC 2018

If you haven't done so already, you might need to pre-render the time adjusted clip.

Select your clip(s) and from the top menu bar select "Sequence > Render Selection".

The green bar above your tracks will indicate that the selection should run at real time during playback as you have preview files store in memory.


Is video output in YUY2 color space lossless if the input is sRGB?

It's a bit of a semantics game.  The YUY2 video mode is not "compressed," but it won't result in a bit-exact copy of RGB input.  The luminance is full resolution in that mode, but the chrominance is sampled at a lower resolution.  This is technically decimation rather than compression, but some information is indeed lost.
That said, if you are going to wind up posting your video online or something, it'll be even more decimated, and also subject to lossy compression.  So in most use cases, the loss of information from going into that YUY2 colorspace wouldn't be anything to really worry about one way or another.  You probably need to use some lossy compression to be able to reliably record it in real time unless you have very fast storage or are having the device output a low resolution.  If you really care about truly perfectly exact output for some sort of scientific image analysis process, you'd need more specialized hardware.


In what aspect ratio shoud one record with a DSLR?

When you take a photo with a Modern camera "usually" it's 4/3, I know you can change the aspect ratio, but that's not my point. I assume, that the sensors of DSLR cameras are the same ratio, because they are created for the purpose of creating photos, aren't they?

Actually, no. Only low-end digital cameras (mostly point-and-shoot) use a 4/3 aspect ratio, because they were designed to match the aspect ratio of computer displays (which used to be 4/3). DSLRs use the traditional 3/2 aspect ratio of 35mm film. So if you set your DSLR to 4/3 (for photos), a part of the sides gets cropped.

  Wouldn't it be smarter, to record with the fullsensor, to get "more" of the image"?

Most DSLRs don't use their 'full' resolution for video because of technical limitations (mostly memory buffer, but also memory card transfer speed). For example: My Canon EOS 80D has a maximum resolution of 6000x4000 pixels for photos. However, the highest video resolution it can record in is 1920x1080p @ 50fps (IPB). IPB means every frame is recorded as a full frame, no interframe compression is applied. Recording 25 or even 50 frames per second at a resolution of 6000x4000 pixels would result in an absurdly high data rate that DLSRs simply aren't built to process and transfer.

  What aspect ratio, should you put your cammera into, to get the highest resolution.

Depends on your camera. Either the camera menu or manual will specify the available resolutions for each aspect ratio, possibly it's a seperate setting as well. This way you can tell what combination gives you the highest resolution. If you can't find the resolution specified in the menu or the manual, take a test recording with every setting the camera has, copy the files to your computer and check each file's resolution with MediaInfo or a similar program.

Note that apart from the resolution, the bitrate will have a much higher impact on your video quality than some pixels more or less. Make sure to get a fast SD card with a lot of space so you can always record at the highest bitrate (and I-frames only if that's an option with your camera). Also, it's good practice to film in the resolution that you want your final video to be in for more reasons than video quality. So if you're creating a video that is intended to be viewed on normal video screens, film in 16/9 from the start.


Is it possible to use Canon G11 as Webcam?

You have to look at the specs for the capture card you want to buy. I don't have the model on the top of my head, but I do have one where you can output video from the card inputs as a webcam. It's a matter of doing your research before the purchase.


Is anyone in this group selling educational videos via a hosting website (in my case Expertise TV)?

I am not, but I am involved with a streaming TV series which is distributed online.  In general, online distribution channels are worth it for the accessibility and ease of use it brings you.

There is always the risk of people pirating your work, but that risk exists even if you never put things online.  If you distribute DVDs, there is nothing stopping someone from ripping them and posting the content online.  If your platform of choice employs DRM, then it provides at least a minimal barrier to copying the content online trivially (though determined people will still manage to do it, but they'll succeed regardless of distribution channel).

If you currently only do live events and are wondering if video is worth it vs just doing live events, that's a little more tricky as a much more limited group of people would have the opportunity to film you with their phone and post it (and the quality would be substandard at best for such videos) but if you are already recording your lectures, then online distribution carries a lot of benefit for the risk involved.


Premiere Pro CS6 preview problem: other application shows through

It looks like a problem with the playback engine.  I would try updating your video card drivers and/or making sure the playback engine (in the project/ project settings/general menu) is set to Mercury Playback Engine Software Only.  If that doesn't work, I'd try uninstalling and re-installing Premiere.

I don't know what can cause it on Mac OS, but on Windows seeing something from another application through a portion of a window is generally a sign of a graphics driver being misconfigured or misused by the software in question.


The error message is telling you that you've got a stray bracket, so count your brackets and see if the (s match the )s. Spoiler alert: they don't.

I can see two cases: after each linear function call you have a closing bracket after the "Null 1" string that isn't matched by an opening bracket. And "Null 1" on its own is just treated as a string, not a layer, so that's another problem.

I'm assuming you mean thisComp.layer("Null 1") which is a reference to a layer. So

out = linear("Null 1").effect("Slider Control")("Slider"), 0, 100, 0, 2.5);

should be

out = linear(thisComp.layer("Null 1").effect("Slider Control")("Slider"), 0, 100, 0, 2.5);


What cable type (TRS or TRRS) is appropriate for connecting my Zoom H5 to my Sony A6400?

Use a TRS cable. Make sure you reduce the line-out level in your Zoom H5, otherwise the audio in your camera will peak all the time.
The quality/purity of the copper in the cable is irrevelant. This OFC vs. OCC is just marketing-blah-blah. Apparently no manufacturer has been able to prove any discernible difference.
A real problem is that these 3.5mm jacks and cables aren't durable in the field. They just break too easily.


Remove audio tracks from multiple MKV files

I don't know Windows, but I have just gone through this in Mac OS X (Linux Applicable).

mkvtoolnix is your friend here, and is available for Windows.

I used the GUI to check (a sample of) my files to make sure the audio tracks that I wanted to keep and delete were in the same order in the files. Then I manipulated the options in the GUI to match what I wanted.

Finally, I used the "copy to clipboard" button to copy the command line output to the clipboard and massaged it into a bash script to run on a directory of the files I wanted strip the audio from.

I know it's quick and dirty (and maybe not to your liking), but you can probably use it as a starting point to massage into what you really want to do.

#!/bin/bash

for file in *.mkv; do mkvmerge -o "$file-noeng.mkv"  --language "1:jpn" --track-name "1:AVC-HD" --default-track "1:yes" --forced-track "1:no" --display-dimensions "1:1920x1080" --language "3:jpn" --track-name "3:AAC" --default-track "3:no" --forced-track "3:no" --language "4:eng" --track-name "4:ASS" --default-track "4:no" --forced-track "4:no" -a "3" -d "1" -s "4" --attachments "1" -T "--no-global-tags" "$file" --track-order "0:1,0:3,0:4";

done


How to change framerate with ffmpeg without re-encoding?

This can't normally be done, but luckily for you, MJPEG is a codec for which streamcopy + piping can work

ffmpeg -i in.avi -c copy -f image2pipe - | ffmpeg -f image2pipe -framerate 50 -i - -c copy out.mp4

The JPEG frames in your input are malformed. For such streams, it's a two step process

ffmpeg -i in.avi -c copy frames%d.jpg

ffmpeg -framerate 50 -i frames%d.jpg -c copy out.mp4


Quality difference between source and timeline render

after posting this I randomly stumbled upon a setting in Preferences.

Preferences -> Memory

Optimize rendering for performance
Changed to "Memory"

Looks fine now.


What is the difference between an amateur and a professional camcorder?

I'd regard this as off topic as it concerns video cameras not stills, but anyway a lot of professionals use the Red series of cameras:
http://www.red.com/
The most popular being the Red One:

(source: redoneutah.com)
Benefits over consumer level video cameras nicely mirrors the difference between DSLRs and Compacts, namely:

The ability to shoot video in raw, for example using the proprietary RecCode format. This makes contrast adjustments, post production and grading easier.

A larger sensor, the Red One has a similar sized sensor to a DSLR (same size as super 35 film) this allows better low light performance and shallower depth of field.

The ability to have interchangable lenses.

Higher resolution pictures (again to refer to the Red One it will output at 4k (4,096 x 2,304 pixels, which is at least four times full HD)).

Better build quality. All professional tools should be built to be packed up and shipped round the world and work first time on location.

There are other advantages specific to professional videography cameras, namely:

Higher framerates for [real] slow motion 24fps -> 1000fps (some consumer cameras do this, but not very well)

Wider range of inputs for mics etc.

Wider range of accessories, HD out for live monitoring etc.

Record to multiple data banks, HDDs, flash memory etc.

Another difference is that professionals will more often than not hire equipment as the cameras cost more than even the most expensive 35mm DSLRs, and they are typically only shooting for part of the year in intensive bursts. This also enables the use of specialist cameras (such as the Phantom 1000fps camera, which can only be rented, not bought).
It's worth pointing out that DSLRs which shoot video offer many of the advantages posted above, but they lack the modularity and flexibility of output that you get with a professional digital cine camera. They are also limited in terms of shooting time.


If the codec lib isn't linked in your binary, you can get one which does from https://www.johnvansickle.com/ffmpeg/ (get a git build).


What needs to happen before we expect x265 to be in wide use, along with encoders something like Handbrake available for it?

If you want to know when x265 is going to be in a usable state you will have to ask the developers about that. Though I'm pretty sure they don't know either.
If you want to know when h265/HEVC will be starting to get actually used I'd say earliest end of 2014 though more realistically in mid 2015.

Why? At the moment the devices most profiting from this new codec are mobile handsets that operate on limited data plans and 4K TVs.
As Smart TVs often use the same SoCs as smartphones and tablets both will happen pretty much at the same time.

Qualcomm already released a preview of its Snapdragon 805 which will be a SoC with h265 hardware decoding support. Thats the most important step towards the widespread adoption of a new codec, without hardware support most smartphones will have a hard time with playing back h265 content. SoCs that also support hardware encoding will come out in 2015 (f.e. Snapdragon 810). At that point all important factors on the consumer sides are ready for a widespread adoption. Now we just need to wait until even the low-end SoCs have hardware playback support.

Though that might go faster than expected with ARM v8 being around the corner at the same time. There might be some more rapid changes again in the Smartphone market.

Something like Handbrake will come around pretty quickly, its not all to hard. In the end its just a good user interface and some good presets. You just have to come up with it.


GoPro video lose color quality while exporting in Premiere CC

This might indeed be a dupe of Upon export in Premiere Pro, colors lose saturation when previewing in QuickTime.

Are you using QuickTime .mov as your video container or MP4? If it's the former you will find your solution in the answer above.

If not, this might just have to do with your settings when encoding to h264. Try to export in a lossless codec and see if you get the same result. Then try an application like Handbrake with High Profile and see if you still get the same issue. H264 is a lossy codec and with a low-bitrate you can get washed out colors.