Best format for audio track with a single/few images

The best compression would come from a variable frame rate format.  Variable Frame Rate formats are designed to adjust their frame rate based on the level of activity in the video.  For something with a very low effective framerate, this would allow it to store the image far fewer times and simply describe how long the image should stay up for.  It would then use more frames when necessary for any transitions.

The one downside to variable framerate formats is that there aren't a whole lot of well supported ones and even fewer good encoders to support working with them, but it is what would give the best results.

Handbrake appears to support VFR output.


What software is used in Hollywood for special effects and video editing

For video editing the Hollywood standard is AVID, however smaller production houses and indie filmmakers tend to use Adobe Premiere. The nice thing about Premiere, in your case, is that it dynamic links with After Effects where you can do motion graphics, composting and basic visual effects such as green screen removal among other things. To explain these keywords would be outside the scope of this website, but dynamic link basically means you can seamlessly go from your edit to your vfx without rendering intermediates.

Nuke is difficult to learn, and requires you to have a foundation in visual effects. Nuke is not an NLE, so it only does visual effects. The benefit of using it is due to its collaborative nature as well as node-based non-destructive structure.

This all probably sounds like garble to a starter, so I would suggest starting to learn Adobe's creative software, and follow some tutorials from http://www.videocopilot.net/.


Automated aligning audio tracks with timings for dubbing screen casts

Add your video to your timeline. Then you play the video from the beginning. Now you are going to insert a marker every time you want a new clip to be inserted. If you have CS6, the shortcut is M, otherwise it's * on the numpad.

When you've added all the markers, you should delete the video track (since you only want the audio. If you want to render the video with the dub directly from Premiere Pro, just delete the audio.)

Then you import all the audio files you want. Be sure to name them alphabetically so that Premiere knows which order to place them in. Then you have to make sure that the Project pane is selected. Then you go to the menu and choose Project->Automate to Sequence... Choose Sort order and At Unnumbered Markers. Now they will be placed one by one at the markers you've placed. If one audio clip is too long , it'll just be clipped where the next one starts.

Hopefully this will solve your problem. Now, you can use the same markers for every language you are dubbing.

Good luck! :)


Need Help in Replacing Screen of 3d rotating phone ( AE CC 2018)

Since it's only 30 frames long, I'd probably do away with tracking and just keyframe it manually using the 'corner pin' effect. Or do a partial track with Mocha AE and supplement the parts that start to drift with corner pinned footage.


Overlay multiple images on one video using ffmpeg?

Add all the images you want to overlay to a video file as input -i
Here -

X,Y are the top left coordinates where the image should be put, with respect to video
Between(t,a,b) means you want to display that image from a (in seconds) till b (in seconds)
gt(t,c) means that display that image from c till the end of video

ffmpeg -i video -i image1.png -i image2 -i image3  -filter_complex
"[0][1]overlay=x=X:y=Y:enable='between(t,23,27)'[v1];
[v1][2]overlay=x=X:y=Y:enable='between(t,44,61)'[v2];
[v2][3]overlay=x=X:y=Y:enable='gt(t,112)'[v3]"
-map "[v3]" -map 0:a  out.mp4


audio recording and video editing software

I don't know Pitivi but in general it's not hard to do what you need, just sometimes a little time consuming. Use a digital audio recorder that can record 48K at 16 bits at a solid fixed rate.

In this case since you already have sync audio from the camera, you can use it as a reference track to find and check sync with the separate track. It helps to use a clapper at the beginning and end of each scene, but since you have both tracks you might not need a visual clap, just a recognizable audio clap. If possible announce the scene and take so that it's audible on both.

If the sep sound drifts out of sync you can use those start and end claps to find the exact frame duration and adjust the rate of the sep sound to match. If Pitivi does this, great, but you can also use a free tool like Audacity.


How do I dynamically reposition part of a sentence based on the width of a word in the middle of the sentence that will change?

I think you could achieve this just by key-framing the Source Text control in your text layer.
Unless you have hundreds of them and need to do it programatically, I would just keyframe the changes of text, and the repositioning would happen automatically.
If I have misunderstood what you mean, please add some screen shots to explain what you need.


What is the easiest, no-frills way to produce a simple video on Windows 8?

If you're looking for super simple and free. The Windows 8 Camera App will allow you to record video files which it then saves to the Pictures->Camera Roll folder.  It's no frills but will do the trick in a pinch.

When you open the Camera App there are two buttons one that looks like a video camera and one a still camera.  You click the video camera button and it starts recording immediately. When you're finished you click the button again and the video is saved to the location mentioned above.


In regards to the green and black mixing, 4:2:2 means pixels are merged and this will always happen, this is why movies shoot in 4:4:4 because then there is no merging of colors.  But I have no idea why you are getting a white halo around a black object with a black background.


How to throw fire from a Saxophone (in live)?

A tube is clipped to the side of the sax. At one end of the tube is the little flame. At the other end, off frame, a technician holds a small canister of gas equipped with a valve. The valve helps the technician control the amount of gas that gets in the tube.
When s/he gets the signal, s/he opens the valve and lets more gas in the tube, which makes the flame go up. It's a very simple and a very common technique.

That's how it's done.
The question is, should it be done?

Good luck.


Canon video recording stopped automatically problem but new question not like the other ones!

Typically the problem likely isn't the SD card speed. Depending on the camera it's likely limited because of file size or import taxation.

Most cameras use FAT32 as the file system on the SD card, which caps you out at 4GiB, so when you record enough footage to slam into that ceiling the camera will stop. Based on the Canon 6D we have in the office you can do ~10-15 minutes (depending on motion) at 1080p24 IPB mode, or 3-5 minutes
in All-I mode.

Some cameras work around this by using AVCHD, which allows for longer clips to be spanned across multiple files (DVDs and the GoPro use a similar trick) but because AVCHD is an established system and specification it does constrain the formats and bitrates that can be recorded at (e.g. Canon's All-I mode can hit 70+MbPS but AVCHD tops out at about 28MbPS), and it uses MPEG-TS to store video which is a bit less intuitive than classic MP4/MOV files.

Other cameras work around this by using exFAT for the SD card file system, which allows for files greater than 4GiB, and can be read and written by both Windows and OS X. However Linux support is a bit spottier.

Now the ultimate question: why don't all cameras use one or both of these systems? The answer: money. exFAT needs to be licensed from Microsoft, and AVCHD from the AVCHD consortium (Panasonic and Sony; hence why those cameras most frequently feature AVCHD modes).

Then there's import taxation. Some countries classify any device that can record for 20 minutes or longer a "video camera," and thus are taxed differently on import. So some camera manufacturers will just stick with FAT32 to save money on both licensing and import tax, as it naturally restricts record time at higher resolutions, with recording limits imposed in software at lower resolutions.


Can't Import Video with Alpha to Premiere

Only Prores 4444 supports alpha channels, see the manual:

  The Apple ProRes 4444 codec offers the utmost possible quality for
  4:4:4 sources and for workflows involving alpha channels.

It seems to work for me, using the Animation codec with "Millions of Colors+". I'm on a Mac using Adobe CC. Here are the steps I took:

Export your AE comp using Quicktime Animation codec with Millions of Colors+ selected.
Import the file into Premiere CC
Right click on your footage and select Modify > Interpret Footage
Select Conform Alpha PreMultiplication to: Premultiplied Alpha
Press OK
Drag your clip into the timeline

With this you should be able to drag another clip beneath it, and see it through your original clip, as shown below (Intepret Footage settings are also shown):


Avconv rotating mpeg4 - video loses quality

There's no way to do this losslessly, other than setting a meta-data flag and depending on players to rotate the video.  (This is what cell-phone cameras do).

With avconv / ffmpeg, what you're doing is using your decoded -> transposed video as a source to encode with x264.  See https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Encode/H.264 for how to do this.  IDK where you found a suggestion to use -qcomp 1, but changing the quantizer compression curve to an extreme is usually not what you want with x2641.

You shouldn't need to enforce framerate, either.  Phone cam videos are sometimes variable frame rate, so you should use -vsync 2 if you're outputting to mp4.  (vsync 2 is the default for mkv).

Anyway, this should work:

ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -codec copy -map 0 -movflags +faststart -vf transpose=1 -c:v libx264 -preset slower -crf 22  -vsync 2 out.mp4

(also include -metadata:s:v rotate="" if needed, see LordNeckBeard's comment.)

See the encode guide for details on how to choose crf and preset.

-map 0 maps any extra metadata streams, like chapters, into the output file.

-codec copy copies the audio untouched, instead of decoding and re-encoding.

Since you're re-encoding anyway, you might want to stabilize your video with vid.stab.  See https://askubuntu.com/questions/405244/deshaking-videos-using-script for instructions (and a note on avconv vs. ffmpeg).  The command I posted works with avconv as well as ffmpeg, but Ubuntu's avconv isn't built with vid.stab.

Footnote 1:   -qcomp 1 is pure constant quality (or constant-something, maybe quantization, which isn't exactly the same thing as quality).  i.e. not reducing quality in high-complexity scenes at all.  (So you potentially spend a lot of bits in a few short scenes / shots / segments which make up a small fraction of the total time of the video, leaving less bitrate for the stuff where those bits gain you more quality.  -qcomp 0 is basically CBR.

The default 0.6 is often a good choice, but some people like to boost it some, maybe to 0.7 or 0.8, to get closer to constant-QP.  -tune grain (try to preserve film-grain instead of smoothing it out) sets qcomp=0.8, among many other psy settings.  (most importantly -psy-rd <unset>:0.25 to favour more energy, even if it doesn't match the source.)

qcomp Anywhere in the middle smooths out the bitrate curve some.


That's a DisplayPort socket. Display port to HDMI adaptors are available, almost always DisplayPort is set up as displayport dual-mode, meaning a simple, cheap cable adaptor—e.g. this randomly selected two dollar jobbie from ebay —will suffice for connecting it to HDMI equipment.


A Macbook pro would be about the most expensive device you could possibly use as a playback machine, but I'm guessing you didn't buy them for the installation…

There are several devices that are designed specifically for the purpose of video playback, for example these units by Brightsign. They're used in the museum where I work, and are popular for retail display. They can synch across networks.

An emerging competitor is the Intel Nuc, which his probably a bit cheaper than the brightsign. They're a bit more general-purpose than the brightsign, but they're becoming popular for exhibition displays and signage. The latest major installation that I did at work was a blended three-screen, seven audio channel video installation plays smoothly on a NUC with synched lighting effects. I'm not sure what the software is that runs it all, I just made the content.

Going even cheaper there's the Raspberry Pi, basically it's a small very cheap computer that has HD video playback capability. Whether there is software to do what you want it to I don't know. I know they are also used at my museum for interactive video displays, but I don't know if you can connect several to synch playback. VLC might be able to do it.

You'll probably find more options if you look for digital signage players. Like this one, about which I know nothing.


It's weird. I see all resolutions - upto 1080p - on Youtube. And the thumbnail hover does show the full frame as seen in your VLC snapshot, but not in the playback window on Youtube.

youtube-dl shows streams in a 1:2 ratio i.e. 540x1080, 360x720, which would be what you're seeing locally.

You can use ffmpeg, a free command-line tool, to crop out the remainder.

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -vf "crop=iw:iw*9/16,scale=0:-2" -crf 20 -c:a copy new.mp4


Creating stereoscopic video from two video files

This depends entirely on what kind of 3d video you want.  There are numerous formats for 3d video.  Some are as simple as placing the left and right images either side by side or one on top of the other (typically compressing them spatially to still take up the original space, for example 1080p video done like this ends up being wither 540 vertical pixels per eye or 960 horizontal ones.)  Others involve doubling the frame rate and interweaving the frames alternating between left and right.  Still other formats store the video files separately and stream them in parallel, possibly combined via timecode.  Some even use entirely separate files and just synchronize the players via the timecode (such as with 3d projection with dual projectors).

The split video is the easiest way to do it.  Most of the interwoven options involve special authoring (for things like 3D bluray) and I've only ever seen authoring options for 3D bluray on pretty high end (and expensive) authoring software.  The split option is easy to do and most 3D displays support it, the only downside is the resolution loss and the fact it typically has to be manually configured for playback.  It's by far the simplest and cheapest approach though.


Is there any automated online service for making white board animation?

The video you showed is simply a stop motion video, not an animation.

So you aren't going to be able to simply send a jpg off somewhere and have it come back as a video.

There are plenty of video houses that will happily make you a video like this, but it is time consuming. Usually they video the entire process of drawing the art, then cut out frames - to ensure they keep in important key frames.


I keep on getting a brownish-green hue around me

Lighting could definitely be part of the problem here. Typically, for green screen work, it helps to have a light between yourself and your green screen to get rid of those shadows behind you (sort of like a backlight).

To fix your current footage, I'd increase the sensitivity of your chroma key in After Effects, since it looks like AE is essentially leaving a thin outline of the screen around you. If you increase your tolerance, you should see that outline shrink a bit. Feathering the edges of your image can help with this, too.


How to import SVG file into After Effects

Open in Illustrator.

Save as .ai (sorting the layers according to your needs)

Import into Ae.

Mind with the 'Import Kind' upon importing, suggest 'Composition' if you sorted the graphics into numbers of layers.


Can one edit a 360 degree video into a traditional video?

I don't think there's any currently way to combine 360 playback and normal non-360 playback into a single player.

More generally, you can convert between rectilinear 360 videos and normal video.  The issue you will have is quality, because the resolution of the Ricoh Theta S is maximum 1920x1080 pixels.  This is HD spec for a normal video, but don't forget that the pixels are being used to cover the whole of a 360 sphere.  When you convert back to "normal" video, I assume you will only want a small portion of that sphere, otherwise the image will be very distorted.

If you're making SD videos, the quality should be reasonable, depending on how much of the viewing sphere you want to use.

You can convert between rectilinear and normal videos using something like Skybox in After Effects.  (There are many other ways to do this, but this is the one I have used successfully).


How can I swap a Motion Graphic Template (mogrt) in Adobe Premiere?

If Mogrt are built similarly (same text layers etc.) drag and drop new mogrt on old holding ‘alt’.

I hope that it is what you were looking for.


Import GoPro (or similar) video segments in one step into DaVinci Resolve in the correct order

As I was typing the question I think I figured it out.
Import all the clips into the Media Pool, sort by "date created" or "date modified" so the oldest is at the top.

Select all the clips, drag into the timeline

It appears they are all in the correct order


Use

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 \
       -filter_complex "[0:v]split=4[a][b][c][d]; \
                        [a]pad=iw+2*ih:iw+2*ih:ih:0:white[base]; \
                        [b]transpose=cclock[br]; \
                        [c]transpose=clock[cr]; \
                        [base][br]overlay=0:w[two]; \
                        [two][cr]overlay=W-w:w[three]; \
                        [three][d]overlay=h:H-h[v]" \
-map "[v]" out.mp4

As per your confirmation, I haven't rotated the video at the bottom. In case it had to be rotated 180, use

ffmpeg -i video.mp4 \
       -filter_complex "[0:v]split=4[a][b][c][d]; \
                        [a]pad=iw+2*ih:iw+2*ih:ih:0:white[base]; \
                        [b]transpose=cclock[br]; \
                        [c]transpose=clock[cr]; \
                        [d]hflip,vflip[dr]; \
                        [base][br]overlay=0:w[two]; \
                        [two][cr]overlay=W-w:w[three]; \
                        [three][dr]overlay=h:H-h[v]" \
-map "[v]" out.mp4

There will be no audio exported with these commands. To preserve audio, insert -map 0:a -c:a copy


Is it possible to encode MP4 video with VP9 codec?

ffmpeg v4.0.2 or higher can encode/transcode VP9 in mp4.
Commandline (when transcoding):
ffmpeg -i INPUT.MKV -c:v vp9 OUTPUT.MP4
Commandline (when remuxing (Super fast)):
ffmpeg -i INPUT.MKV -c:v copy OUTPUT.MP4


Is there a 4K action camera solution that does NOT have perspective distortion?

There are two major advantages to recording fisheye distortion rather than rectilinear distortion.  First, it is optically easier to do, which means one can make lenses that are better in other metrics (such as chromatic aberration, resolution, vignetting, etc) while remaining small enough and light enough to fit into the body of an action camera.  Second, the relative size of an object doesn't change radically as its moves from center to edge when the camera is not under tight control.  For that reason, it is possible to define a crop area that follows the subject as it bounces around the full frame and then use motion tracking to create a relatively stable view of the object, which can then be de-fished.  If it were rectilinear, the stabilization process might have to do some major zoom and tilt corrections as well, which would be very distracting.


Sony Movie Studio Platinum 13 - Rendering output movie freezes, or has glitches in rendered file

I have found the following to work:

Restart the PC
Reset Movie Studio settings to default by:

Hold down Ctrl and Shift when starting program
When the software starts to load, a window asks, Do you want to reset all program preferences to default? Select Yes.
Make sure to tick the checkbox, Delete all cached application data.

Deleting all .sfk files can also help with problem projects
The default MP4 and AVCHD files seem to be pretty reasonable quality, and less error-prone.

Extracted tips from: https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/208/883399


Do key commands exist to navigate up and down Final Cut Pro Timeline?

This article might help.
Select a clip with the keyboard


I'm not being flip, but consider that not every problem has or needs a technical solution. Stage makeup can make you look any way you want to look on camera. No professional video host would go on air in his/her plain skin.


Why is compression rarely included as a builtin effect?

While you often see compression in the effects section of editing software, it is dynamics rather than actual effects.  In the traditional sense in the live world, compression is not considered an effect.  The software world simply does it that way because they are all software filters, but even then they are often in a dynamics category.

Compression, Expansion, Gating and Limiting are all dynamics.  I'm not sure if the effects hardware could do compression, but the controls for the parameters on the effects are certainly too limited.  You need attack, release, ratio, threshold at least and gain and soft/hard and auto attack/release options are common.  You can't adjust these with the very basic effects controls provided in the board.

There are boards that have built in compression, but they list it under dynamics normally.  There are also stand alone compression units you can get that you can use the inserts to feed the signal to.


How to get higher resolution and smooth exposure control when shooting movies with a Nikon D5000?

At least for the resolution, the problem is one of data rate.  While it is easy enough for a camera to rapidly capture a few 12 megapixel images per second, video uses 24 or more frames per second.  The sensor and image processing hardware is simply not fast enough to deal with capturing 24 or more full resolution images per second.

Further, even if it was able to capture the higher resolution, there is nothing that can display that high of resolution.  4k screens are only about 8 megapixels in resolution and they are still fairly new (didn't exist at all at the time the D5000 was made).  1080p video would be nice, but that's still only using 2 megapixels of the sensor.

Also, it is not possible to shoot video when not in LiveView.  When you are looking through the viewfinder, there is a mirror blocking the path of light reaching the sensor and instead directing it to the optical viewfinder.  Since the light isn't reaching the sensor, it isn't possible to record or capture anything.  This is why the viewfinder goes blank for an instant when you take a photo, because the mirror has to swing up out of the way.

With LiveView, the sensor is left exposed and the image from the sensor is instead displayed on the screen so that you can see what you are doing.

As for the aperture, shutter and ISO issues, those are limitations of the camera software.  It may be possible to overcome them with a third party hack for the camera, but I don't know if one is available for your particular camera model.


How to identify i-frame from idr-frame in the ffprobe show frames output?

Frames with key_frame 1 (will have picture type I) are IDR frames.

I frames with key_frame 0 are not.


Any tutorials on how to animate a vector hand

I needed a similar animation recently and I gave up on creating the entire animation from scratch. This is what I did instead -

I used a green screen and captured my hand doing the animation on video. For this purpose, it doesn't need to be a production quality green screen setup, I just used a green cloth on a table, a camera on a tripod from above and few lighting sources I had at home. The whole setup took me about half an hour.

The reason this doesn't need to be super quality is because you won't be actually showing this footage, just using it as the base for the masks.

Now, key the green background out as much as possible. If you're lucky and your green screen footage is relatively good, it will be easier and give you better lines to work with. Use various effects like blur, find edges, cartoon, extract and others to give you the lines you need. At worst case, you will be able to get only the contour of the hand, without the inner lines.

Use auto-trace on this to create your animated masks. These masks will be far from usable but it will give you a good base to work with. You now need to go through your composition, fixing the masks and adding the missing lines.

It is still a tedious work but for someone like me who has absolutely no background in animation, it gave pretty good results.


What video formats should I support (as of 2014)?

MP4/h264 is widely supported today. I'd even say it's the most supported video format since the existence of digital video (without having actual statistics to back that claim).
There is really no reason to deliver .wmv anymore when targeting a multi platform audience, the version of Windows Media Player that came with XP doesn't support MP4 but newer versions definitely do and the market share for that version should be very very low. Most users have adopted third-party players like VLC and even companies usually install at least one third-party video player on their computers that will very very likely support MP4. MP4/h264 has wide hardware playback support (unlike wmv and its possible codecs) and runs without any issues on any platform (unlike wmv).

So yes, in my opinion it's absolutely safe to only deliver MP4 videos as long as they are properly encoded. Using Level 3(.1) would be a safe bet, its supported by practically any software and hardware that is capable of playing MP4/h264.

If you deliver for web it is also a good practice to also deliver a .webm encode as well. If it only targets local playback I would still stick to mp4/h264. While we now have h265 it is very badly supported in comparison.
It will probably take another 8-10 years until we have the same rate of consumer adoption.


What is the minimum camera requirements to create professional quality videos?

The camera only plays a part in what makes a good, clean image. The most important parts are Lighting, Lenses and Knowledge of the person operating the camera.
If you film in a dark location and have to crank up the iso, you will get noisy images even with a 20k$ camera. If you have proper lighting and use a low iso, a 1k$ camera can look really clean.
I understand that you are looking for DOPs to work for you. If their reel leaves a good impression, ask then which camera they used and what gear they would recommend to shoot your project. Many social-media clips are shot with cameras such as the Sony FS7 or even the Pocket Cinema Camera in some cases. These are relatively affordable cameras (compared to feature-film equipment) and are certainly capable of creating images such as the ones you posted.
Don't be cheap on lenses as well. A 20k$ camera will look worse with a 50$ lens, compared to a 2k$ camera with a 750$ lens.
Usually, it's the DOPs job to recommend and pick out the equipment they use. If they insist on 20k$ worth of gear and claim that a slick production is impossible otherwise, maybe look around some more. However, do listen to their reasons when they recommend expensive gear as it might actually be reasonable and in your favour.


Back in the day when movie cameras recorded to film, the sound made by the cameras was something to be isolated from the sound recording process.  Digital video cameras make very little noise (with the odd exception of things like early model RED cameras that needed high-powered fans to deliver sufficient cooling for their hot-rodded internals).

But that's less than half the problem.  The larger part of the problem is that to get good sound you need a proper microphone in a proper location, and that location is usually much closer to your talent than the camera will ever be.  As a rule of thumb, you want the audio microphone to be between 6-12" away from the mouth if it's a lav mic, 12"-24" away if it's a typical cardiod vocal mic, and 18"-36" away if it's a shotgun (boom) mic.  And in all cases you want the mic oriented toward the speaker (protecting it from plosives, of course).

It is for this reason that you want to divorce audio and video recording and then remarry them in post-production.  In that case, the audio recorded on the video camera will give you a very good idea about how to perfectly line up the audio from your audio recorder, and once you have done that you can mute the audio from the video camera and use the audio from the audio recorder.

If you shoot 10' away from the subject and try to record audio from the camera's location, it's going to sound terrible, no matter how much you spend on microphones (unless you also spend $1M+ on an amazing acoustic environment).

Here's a link to a video that really goes over this in detail.

And of course if you do have fan noise you want to avoid, or other sources of noise, that's also a reason to move the microphone, and the talent, away from those noise sources.  If the noise sources are intrinsic to the room (such as a refrigerator you cannot turn off), then you begin to understand the logic of why people rent sound stages...


Recommended format for a large embedded stop motion animation on website?

Likely the best solution is take your frames into a video editor, set the still pix time to about 0.23 sec for each shot as you indicated you wanted to show 150 frames in 35 seconds.
35 / 150 = 0.233333333

Set your project properties to 720p, (720 x 1280 progressive)
As you have 2:1 aspect ratio there will be some letter boxing.

Or a better match maybe to use iFrame format:
960 horizontal by 540 vertical pixels assuming you are using iMovie of FCP.

Assuming iMovie, render to .mov and follow these instructions to make it a .swf movie:
http://www.ehow.com/how_8245141_export-imovie-swf.html


How to import 3D object to adobe without element 3D

yes, After Effects comes bundled with Cinema 4D lite.
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/c4d.html


The primal problem will be the stabilization. GoPro's Cameras offer a decent image-stabilization and are wide-angled. This allows shakes and bumps to have less of an impact. If you now go for a camcorder with, say, a lens of 50mm, you will experience an extreme increase in shakiness.

In other words: When you worry about your camera to break due to shakes and bumps, the footage will most likely not be great.

There are some options you have, which one to choose is on you.

First, you could try to buy a GoPro that can record in 4k (maybe you already own one). That way, you can hit two birds with one stone. On the one hand side, you will be able to zoom in digitally in post without losing any image quality, assuming you want to render in full HD (1920x1080). This fixes the issue of the wide-angle lens. On the other hand side, there will be plenty of material around the visible area, so a warp-stabilizer in After-Effects should easily help stabilize the footage, giving you a much more smooth result than opting to put a camcorder on your bike.

The other options would be to use a camcorder indeed, or even a tv-production or cinema-camera if you like, but staying off that bike. Either, you can rent or buy a Steady-Cam or Gimble (the ones from Ronin are very good) and run along. The Gimble or Steady-Cam will stabilize your Camera and will give you probably the best results (assuming you know how to properly use a Gimble / Steady-Cam).
This is also the priciest option though, I fear.

The other is to use the camcorder or higher-tier camera again, but stay still entirely. You can try to find a Spot on the path where the water flows around you a small bit, like in any curve of the river. Position yourself on the extended piece of land and just pan with the Subject, instead of moving at all. This would be the easiest and probably cheapest option, though it only really works well for short, preferably fast pace sequences, so you don't catch that the camera is stationary. Many people use this method to capture people running in forests: The actors simply run in a circle around the camera and the operator pans with them, which results in footage looking like they follow the subject horizontally.

I hope my answer was helpful, good luck with your project!


How to remove a small 2 second portion of audio from an mpeg video file in Mac?

Use ffmpeg (terminal tool).
https://github.com/fluent-ffmpeg/node-fluent-ffmpeg/wiki/Installing-ffmpeg-on-Mac-OS-X
Copy the audio into a separate file.
Then use ffmpeg again to silence desired part (https://stackoverflow.com/q/38180809/2792138 or https://stackoverflow.com/q/29215197/2792138).
Then merge new audio file with the initial video file, replacing old audio track.


Most likely, they are simply using an output of the notes with transparency.  If you output the digital version of the notes with a transparent background you could just layer it over the video once properly aligned and it would work fine.

Alternately, a quicker process if they do not support alpha is to just apply a blend between the layers.  Since the background matches the video except for where the hand is, it would blend very smoothly.

Finally, what is known as a luma-key could also be used on the screen capture file to generate transparency anywhere that the luminosity (brightness) differs from the empty background.

Any of these options could be used and they are all extremely easy to use, though the first requires the most advanced technique to generate the alpha content, but would also produce the best results.


By default Handbrake selects the longest duration track, it assumes this is the main content - usually a DVD has one main feature, and then may have a bunch of smaller tracks (extras, trailers, intros, etc).
Using the "Title" drop-down near the top left of screen, you should just be able to select the other track. You could also use the Add To Queue -> Add All option to add everything from the disc to the encode queue in one batch.


What equipment can I use to record presenter's computer screen?

Yes. In the old days, we would use a scan converter which took a computer video signal and output it as S-Video.

You have a few options. The least intrusive is to continue to use your existing method of recording the screen, but to request the slides from the presenters.  Then, using the video recording of the screen for timing, you overlay the slides at the appropriate times. If you save the presentation as a website in Microsoft PowerPoint, it will generate a series of JPEG images which are handy for your video editing.

Other methods require you to have access to the computer or the connection to the projector. If you can install software on the presentation computer, you could do a video screen capture.

If you need to capture animations or video, you'll need to capture the actual video signal from the computer. You could send the computer output to a distribution amplifier, and send one of those outputs to a recorder, or you could install an SDI video card, and send the output to a recorder. This is the highest quality solution, but probably exceeds your budget.


I really like what this guy did. He's been "repurposing" YouTube's video compression to create a glitch effect for his voice and video recording. Not sure whether this is what you're looking for.


Blending images together to form a single exposure

'Not sure if it works well if the camera is not fixed in one
  position.'

Correct. If you're doing time-lapse you need to have the camera stabilised somehow, or it's going to look wobbly AF. If the camera is moving in real time, then when you speed it up it will be moving 30 times as fast, so something that might look like a slow pan turns into a whip pan.

If you average out 30 frames then you're going to see partial exposures of everything in those frames, which means if something is moving rapidly you'll get a semi transparent 'ghost' of it - the less frames it is in, the more transparent it will appear.

The reason that video works well is that they're using an electronic gimbal to stabilise the camera—that's what they're showing off. Even though the frame is constantly moving there's enough that is consistent across the whole second to achieve a sharp frame, and the camera motion is stable enough that when it's sped up it's still fluid.


See these two links:

1) MeGUI/x264 Settings for an explanation of the parameters like keyint.

2) About --keyint --min-keyint and --scenecut for a discussion at Doom9 about how they interact, specifically

  --keyint is the maximum interval. x264 will insert key frames earlier if it deems them beneficial, e.g. due to a scene change. From my
  experience the majority of key frames are in place because of the
  properties of the video, not because keyint was reached. The larger
  --keyint is the smaller the impact on overall key frame placement should be.


Why does compressor output 960x540 when frame size is specified "up to 1280x720"?

The original AppleTV could only playback at 1280x720 at 24fps. Because your video is at 25fps, it has to use a slightly lower resolution. If you either lower the frame rate (probably not an option) or exclude the original AppleTV, it should export at the higher resolution. I believe there's another setting than the "Most Compatible" one which excludes the older AppleTVs.


Can FFmpeg output time duration since the start of a job?

In Linux you can use the time command:

$ time ffmpeg -i input.avi output.mp4
  [...]
  real  0m1.927s
  user  0m7.067s
  sys   0m0.243s

This example took 1.927 seconds to complete.


How should I understand audio levels in FCP7 xml?

How can a keyframe occur at 1252.57 for a clip that has a duration of 766 frames?

Because the user could have used a clip that was longer than 1252 frames, set a keyframe, then trimmed the clip down to 766 frames. If the user later decides to make the clip longer again by changing the out point to a later time, the keyframe will still be in the place they originally placed it. So your calculations should treat the keyframes as they are, even if they are outside of the clip times.


How to make particle systems look more natural and realistic in Fusion?

Fusion doesn't have fluid dynamics simulation built in.  To get a realistic particle flow of a natural system, you'll need to use software specifically built for that task, import the results into Fusion, then use Fusion for compositing the smoke by adjusting the way each particle appears on screen and how they blend with the other scene elements.  SideFX Houdini with pyro, or Cinema 4D with X-particles are two pieces of software which might be better suited to fluid particle simulation.

Most people don't think of fire or smoke as fluid because they're gaseous and aren't wet.  However, in the context of particle VFX, fire and smoke are fluids and require decent fluid dynamic simulation to appear natural.


How to deal with reflections in a space helmet

The best thing you can do is get as much right on set as possible. Cover cast, crew, and equipment with black fabric, hide them behind black curtains,  Get your talent as far away from the green screen as far as you can while still maintaining its utility; choose your angles carefully, and keep the shots short, because whatever you do, you're going to have to fix something in post. In a perfect world, all that would be would be the key, but the world is never perfect.

Additionally, you might consider removing the plastic visor and adding it back in post.   You'd need to capture clean plates and a mirror ball on set, so that you can re-cast the reflections on the visor (after photo shopping out cast and crew, etc) . Then you'd use object motion tracking and (if your camera moves) camera motion tracking to insert 3d geometry.where the visor should be. This approach removes some of the complexity of keying a spherical, reflective surface, but adds complexity with the motion tracking, which can really mess up your shot if the solve is even a fraction of a hair off.

In any case, don't underestimate the complexity of what you're trying to do. Hire a qualified person or persons to do the work if you have the budget. If you don't, make sure you test your workflow thouroughly before you commit.


Why isn't ffmpeg used in movie production or broadcasting tool chains?

I work as an assistant editor on feature films, and use ffmpeg all the time, primarily for two purposes:

Transcoding files to be uploaded for producers to view on digital dailies systems (Dax, PIX, etc). I've written up shell scripts that accept property-of and recipient strings as command line input, along with target bitrate, and then generate the desired files with a watermark made from those inputs. It's convenient, faster than AME, and more stable than a Compressor cluster. When I figure out how to do SMPTE timecode and feet+frames burn-ins with ffmpeg, my use of the application will expand further.
Transcoding files for editorial whose original video or audio are in codecs or formats not supported by AME or Compressor. For example, clips needed for temp can be pulled from BDR or DVDR video discs, ingested into an mkv file, and then from there transcoded with ffmpeg to editorial-ready DnxHD or Prores.

I don't use ffmpeg for any sort of final or critical output, and I only use it in a few limited ways that I've extensively tested. But in answer to the original question - I do use ffmpeg a ton on both film and TV work, and think it's a great tool that helps me get through many of my regular tasks quickly and well. I couldn't guess how many other people in features or TV are using it. I frequently recommend ffmpeg to other AE's, but most folk have a command-line aversion.

ffmpeg's use in professional film and broadcast settings is probably also limited by the learning curve of not just the application's own syntax(es) but also the exposed complexity of video formats. Sometimes in ffmpeg a user has to know a ton about source and target codec in order to get things done. Use Compressor or AME to transcode from one codec to another and you'll never have to deal with perusing a long list of different YUV pixel formats, or having to make sure that your target file's height is divisible by 2 to avoid an x264 error. Those of us who enjoy learning arcana and carving our way to solutions are probably silently using ffmpeg at work.


Lossless convert 3gp video to mp4 using ffmpeg

If the codecs of your input file are already h264 and aac for video and audio, respectively, you can just copy without decoding and encoding again.
ffmpeg -i input.3gp -c:v copy -c:a copy output.mp4

The options -c:v copy and -c:a copy indicate video and audio won't be encoded again, respectively. If audio format in the input cannot be embedded to the output, you need to omit -c:a copy from above command.
If you need to encode again, an option -qscale 0 will result similar quality (but not lossless).
below is an example.
You might combine with -c:v copy or -c:a copy if you don't need to encode video or audio again.
ffmpeg -i input.3gp -qscale 0 output.mp4


DaVinci Resolve can't deliver 1920x1080 videos

I don't think it's a limitation of the free version.  Check all the project and system settings in Davinci. There are a lot of them - maybe one of them is set to something other than 1920x1080


How would I produce unevenly colored subtitles with aegisub

One can use the Hydra Aegisub plugin from here: https://unanimated.github.io/ts/scripts-manuals.htm#hydra

And it all works.


How to add Letterbox to the Video I have shot?

There are various ways to add letterboxing in PP.

Some ways I have done are:

creating a Photoshop file (or finding one already made) and using an adjustment layer to apply it. ( I used this post http://whoismatt.com/cinemascopetutorial/)
when exporting you can use the crop function to chop the top and bottom off
using an adjustment layer again but cropping it in 132 from top and 132 from bottom ( believe)
make a new Sequence, using Custom settings that's 1920 x 816.
google has loads of sites if you do a quick search letterboxing in adobe premier

I hope some of the above help in a way


Easiest way to turn something a powerpoint into a video file

Not sure, which version you're using and I didn't use PowerPoint recently, but as far as I can remember, there is a video export function built in. Might be worth a try.

Also there's a list with free video software on Wikipedia, which you can take a look at. Many of them should work for your purpose.


I believe what you're looking for is an editor with basic picture-in-picture (PiP) capabilities. For full and total control (including getting the "background" video to pause), I'd recommend Adobe Premiere Pro. A lot of simple editors (like iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or even Adobe Premiere Elements) might allow for some very basic PiP, but usually nothing more than letting you put a second video in a corner.

Premiere Pro (or, better yet, any modern NLE of its caliber) will let you stack videos into "layers" on a single timeline, letting you place a "smaller" video "in front of" (or "on top of", from a layers standpoint) the full frame.


Concatenating in sync MP4 (H264+PCM instead of AAC) from a Sony 2018 Camera

In this case, I can think of two possible causes. First is differing timebases for the video stream, which is definitely the case here. And second is unequal lengths of video and audio within each file. Unknown but unlikely since these are files produced by a camera.

The reciprocal timebase for the video stream is reported as its tbn value.

For the five files, they are 25k, 24k, 24k, 24k and 24k respectively. The first one should be changed to 24k, else the videos streams of subsequent videos will be speeded up 4%, causing a desync.

Normally, I would just rewrap the MP4, only changing the timescale. However, since PCM isn't supported in MP4 - the workaround here is to rewrap to MKV individually and then concat. Matroska files have a fixed timescale of 1000, so a simple command will do.

ffmpeg -i file.mp4 -c copy -dn file.mkv


Does mjpeg handle interlaced video correctly?

I don't know about the specific format of mjpeg that you are working with, but it is certainly possible to handle interlaced video with mjpeg.  I believe the most common way is to do a jpeg per field, so you get half the vertical resolution and alternate between the odd and even fields.


Best way to batch rotate 3000+ h.264 videos?

Use ffmpeg and the "transpose" filter as "poor" suggested. For example, if your files are mp4 and are in the current directory:

mkdir -p rotated
for f in *.mp4; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -vf transpose=2 -c:a copy -metadata:s:v rotate="" rotated/"$f"; done

The transpose value can be "1" or "clock" for clockwise rotation, "2" or "cclock" for counter-clockwise rotation. There are other values which will also apply a flip.
The audio will be stream copied to avoid unnecessary re-encoding.
The video stream rotation metadata is cleared in this example. Otherwise ffmpeg will copy it from the input to the output resulting in an incorrect rotation for players that pay attention to this metadata (some do, and some don't).

Another example, more verbose and flexible, and which keeps the rotated file in the same directory with a new name:

ext=mp4
for f in /some/dir/*.$ext; do
    new=${f/%.$ext/-rotated.$ext};
    ffmpeg -i "$f" -vf transpose=2 -c:a copy -metadata:s:v rotate="" "$new"
done


According to this post, it might be because I'm using iPhone video footage which for some reason is rated at 30.01fps.  They recommend converting it to 30fps first using Handbrake. I haven't tried this yet, so not sure whether it will fix it.


DaVinci Resolve 12.5.5 - Deselect Power Window

You can use the key combination: Shift + `  (Shift and Backtick) to toggle the Power Window overlay on the [Color] page.

This also works for viewer overlays on the [Edit] page in Resolve 16.


Video Format Compatibility with GoPro cine studio

GoPro Studio allows constant frame rate H.264 .mp4 and .mov files. Your camera might use a variable bitrate which doesn't seem to be supported by GoPro Studio (Source).

You can transcode the video to a constant frame rate video by using the tool Handbrake and choosing a constant frame rate in the "Video" tab. Choose the "High Profile" preset for a good quality encoding or choose your own quality settings.

You might also want to force a certain framerate that comes close to your average frame rate instead of using "Same as source" if Handbrake makes a automated decision.


Are the robots in the transformers films really transforming?

1. They HAVE to cheat
First of all, having a part that is not showing in the frame will consume render time to be computed, even if it is not showing. The files are heavier to handle and all the process becomes sluggish.
2. Transforming in a 3D program is given by 3 main operations

Moving
Rotating, which they are pretty obvious in a transformation.

But you also have

Scaling. If you have something scaled so tiny that you can not see it, the geometry is still there consuming resources of the computer that are wasted.

3. The goal is
Telling a story, a fantasy story about fictitious characters, not to be accurate on a transformation.
The other main goal is to make things look cool, somehow logic and accurate but mainly cool.
4. Autobot's universe actually has parts that "disappear"
Take for example the Spark humungous building-sized cube. It does not only compress in size to be handheld... It would have the density of Jupiter nuclei, weighing the same as a building. But somehow things there just went "poof"... So, again some liberty can be used on the transformations.


Enhance Video/Audio Quality of Old Movies

There are some filters you can use, specifically speaking in regards to Premiere Pro editing, that can enhance old video/film content. These include applying some basic color correction, adjusting gamma, saturation, and using a 3 way color corrector or a filter plugin like Colorista to enhance the color balance per RGB channel.

There is also "Magic Bullet's" Instant HD filter, which is part of their Shooter Suite.

The filter does a slightly better job than simply scaling to frame size (dropping a small resolution video onto an HD sequence for example. It applies some sharpening, and contrast enhancements; however, the rendering time is intense.

FOR THE BEST OUTPUT:

When I need to get the best output possible, this is the workflow I follow:

Using PPro or Adobe Media Encoder; export your video file as a JPG or preferably (if you have the HD space) TIF sequence.
Go into Bridge, and open one of your JPG/TIF files using right click "Open in Camera Raw". Adjust your color, sharpening, clarity, vibrance, you can also, from with "Camera Raw", add "reduce noise" which can greatly help.

The ability to enhance the frame from within Camera Raw is far more powerful than what you will get out of the box with Premiere.

Then click Done to apply the "Develop Settings".
Right Click - > Develop Settings -> Copy Develop Settings
Select all the frames (TIF/JPG) that are your exported sequence (there will be 1000s.
Right Click -> Develop Settings -> Paste Develop Settings

NEXT

Use the Image Processor in Photoshop, it's under File -> Automate.
Choose all the files you've applied your Develop Settings, and Check "Resize to 1920 H by 1920 W.
Now run the Automation App.

It might take a while, but you will end up with a folder filled with enlarged JPG/TIF files, with your develop settings applied.

Lastly, go back into Premiere -> Import -> JPG File number 00001, and check the box at the bottom "Image Sequence".

It will import all your frames as a video file.

This is the best way to get the best results. But plan for overnight runs for the process of Automation of the Photoshop files from original to enlarged.

Hope this helps.


You can use ffmpeg, a free command-line tool, to generate some synthetic videos in the required size and pixel format:

Mandelbrot fractal

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "mandelbrot=s=3840x2160:r=24" -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv444p -t 5 mb444.mov

This will generate a 5 second UHD video @ 24 fps. You can experiment with the various parameters detailed here, such as coloring methods or amount of zoom.

There's also filters to generate patterns as per Conway's Game of Life or a custom cellular automaton, although those will be very 'noisy' with default settings.

You can also use a test pattern as a source:

ffmpeg -f lavfi -i "testsrc=s=3840x2160:r=24" -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv444p -t 5 test444.mov


Software to host multiple camera images at once

Since the advent of HTML5 you can do this with a standard webpage that contains multiple  elements, with no special software required. This will embed a video in a page that any modern browser can see.

<video width="320" height="240" controls>
  <source src="movie.mp4" type="video/mp4">
  <source src="movie.ogg" type="video/ogg">
Your browser does not support the video tag.
</video>

A primer on the HTML5 video element here

Since you're streaming the video it's a little more complex, you need to use the media source extension. If you want to look at how streaming works, there's a good guide here


Renaming source files without breaking link in Premiere?

I figured it out! It was super easy.

I used Adobe Bridge to batch rename. Very importantly, I left the preserve current filename in XMP metadata option checked.

BUT before clicking rename, I first clicked preview and exported the CSV file and saved it somewhere safe. This file will help you remember the original file name. In this instance I will know that file 001.png was renamed to 120.png. This is very important.

Now in Premiere, all your renamed files will go offline. If all your files in one location on your drive, this next step is very easy. Just link one file and if you can't remember what you renamed it to, the beauty is that you can quickly search your CSV file in many ways like excel. Then just relink your file to the renamed file that way. Premiere will recognize all your other renamed files because you preserved the XMP meta data. And that's it!


Add Black background to a vertical video

You can use ffmpeg*, a command-line tool, to do this.

Let's say your source video is 360x640, then to make it 4:3, use

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf pad=854:640:247:0 -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a copy output.mp4

where 854 is used because it's 4/3 of 640, and 247 places the video in the center of the padded canvas. See details for the pad filter here.

Similarly for 16:9, use

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf pad=1138:640:389:0 -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -c:a copy output.mp4

where 1138 is used because it's 16/9 of 640, and 389 for centering.

The width value you specify should be an even integer, so you may have to round up/down your calculated width.

*get the latest nightly or snapshot binary for your platform.


That's the moiré pattern, which is caused when the camera debayers an image with fine details: Wikipedia about the Bayer Filter (see the Artifacts section)

Many cameras have this problem, some more, some less. The best solution is to get to know the sensibility of your camera regarding moiré and - when you have objects like bricks, roofs, fine-detailed clothes - reframe your shot or zoom out.

In your case you had the moiré problem already in the source image, but amplified it with your color grading actions. The solution here is to have an additional node or effect before your general grading is done. This node/effect defines a mask with the roof and a subtle blur effect. Nobody will miss details in the roof, as long as the rest of the scene has detail.

(I'm talking about nodes, which is the way Resolve names them. SpeedGrade has some other terms that I don't know: Effects or Layers? But the concept is similar.)


Looking for a name of a flickering problem

It is specifically a rolling shutter artifact combined with a wagon wheel effect.  It is simply that the scene is only illuminated for a portion of the frame read.  You can actually observe the same thing in still photography when you take a flash photo above the sync speed of the camera (because the flash is not long enough to cover the full exposure and there is no time the shutter is fully open).

With a rolling shutter, the image is captured sequentially, line by line, rather than all at the same time.  If you had a global shutter, you would instead get a blinking due to some frames being completely unexposed and others being exposed.  With a rolling shutter, you get partially exposed frames instead.

Since this occurs at an offset from the frame rate and the rate of the strobe and the shutter are different, the position of the line will shift slightly over time.  This is known as the wagon wheel effect.  If the rate of the strobe is slightly faster, the lines will move opposite the direction of the sensor reading as the light will go on or off slightly before the camera gets to scanning the line from the previous time around.  If the frame rate is slightly faster, then it will move in the same direction as the scan as the lighting conditions will change on a slightly later read.  If you get them in sync (or sync with a multiple) then it will hold position.

The wagon wheel effect is the exact same effect that can make plane and helicopter propellers appear to change speed and direction while they are spinning up.  It is also the same effect used with a strobe for setting a timing belt on a car properly (by making a line on it stop moving up or down.)


Final Cut Pro audio issue that's driving me nuts

I second what Alan commented. I would cut the part on both sides you want to mute and do the speed change on it. You might also consider a J cut from the following normal speed clip.
Double clip in between the video and the sound and it should expand. Now you can extend the audio from the normal speed clip towards the end of the clip which was sped up.


Forcing kdenlive to adapt its profile to the video clip

Curious... recent versions of KDEnlive practically push this option into your face once you add a clip with properties different from the project.

If the option got disabled in your setup you can enable it again by going to Settings -> Configure KDEnlive -> Misc (selected by default) -> [ ] check if first added clip matches project profile

I am using this option in version 0.9.6 on Debian, but I've seen this behaviour in 0.9.4 and probably older versions as well.

Also if you got used at some point to dismissing this funny question window you get immediately when adding a clip, try to control the urge this time - the question is whether KDEnlive should adjust the project properties, which is what you want ;-)

(don't be mad at me if you think this last part is stupid, I've done user support occasionally and I have seen people do this;-)


How to replicate final crop parameters in after Ken Burns effect

Instead of using a Ken-Burns-type crop to create the effect, I did it using Transform effects, setting a Keyframe at the beginning and the end of the zoom.  I think the relative rates of zoom and pan may be a little different with this method, but it works for my purposes.  It should be possible to tweak the settings to create a steady zoom/pan.

So now I can just click on the final keyframe in the Transform row of the Video Animation display for that section of video to get the final X, Y, and Scale values.


Is there a platform where I can automate creating multiple versions of an explainer video?

Most video editing programs will allow you to duplicate a project. Then you can just swap out the old logo image for the new logo image in the timeline, check/fix the scaling, and export it. You can keep all the projects so that if you need to make other changes, you can keep those changes in the project as well.


How to record myself while not noticing myself?

the easy way ? Yeah. Use a post-it note.


Reencoding H.264 to H.264 made it 40% larger

You are using a quality based variable bitrate compression factor on something that already has artifacts.  That means it is going to attempt to preserve the video exactly as it is, artifacts included and artifacts tend to not encode well.  This means you have a video input which is likely harder to encode than the original and you chose a quality based compression that is also likely higher quality than your original 12 Mbps could manage.  This means an overall higher data rate must be used to try to avoid additional loss from the second generation of encoding, even with the extra optimizations that a slower compression cycle can handle, you aren't able to overcome the added complexity of the first encoding and the quality setting being used.

If this was any kind of HD stream that's not really that surprising as 12Mbps is a very heavily compressed end consumer level of compression for any HD formats.  It's not really a big surprise that it doesn't re-encode well.


I need a video hosting online service like Youtube or Vimeo who lets me organize in a useful way videos I upload (which need to stay private) with tags/labels and filter them with a search function. Is there something like this on the net?

YouTube lets you do it for free.

Create a new Channel.
Upload videos as "Private".
Create a new Playlist as "Private".
Tag your videos.
Use the  "Auto-add" with Tags to place the videos automatically into one or more Playlists.


Sony Vegas default chroma key seem to shift blue colors

This might be an issue with the Vegas chroma key program removing green from all objects and making it transparent rather than finding only solid green and modifying that.

Someone may know how to fix this in Vegas, but if all else fails you can run your keyed footage through a program like Davinci Resolve Lite (free) and correct the colors.


You don't say what you're using to edit these videos, but there may be a better chromakey plugin for your platform than what comes natively.

Also, again depending on your platform, most editors will allow you to crop the key area (garbage matte) so that the green screen doesn't have to cover the entire raster, just enough to back the product you're shooting, so you could put the screen as far away as you like.


How to change the font and color on multiple keyframes at once | Adobe After Effects

not sure how you are creating the typewriter effect??

You can use or change the font or color to anything you want.

Create the text then apply the typewriter effect. Adjust effect with the range selectors with the start/end keyframes.


After Effects: Set Alpha/Matte to hdr layer without clamping the values to 0-1 range

Okay, this tutorial answered my question and provides a workaround.


Why does ffmpeg report wrong or missing size information when demuxing some EXRs?

ExifTool reports a "Composite" image size of 1920x1082 on failing EXRs

This was the problem. Some multilayer EXRs were made up of multiple 1920x1080 layers, but the layers were not aligned, so the final size was incorrect (as reported by ExifTool) and ffmpeg couldn't handle it.

After correcting the EXR generation, the new image sequence worked.


According to the comments on that page, it is rotoscoped - which is (from Wikipedia)

  the technique of manually creating a matte for an element on a live-action plate so it may be composited over another background.


I agree with what @MoritzLost said.  Better that you copy those video files directly.

Once you have these MTS files copied, there are a variety of options.  I ran into this problem myself recently and found the two best options were rather simple (despite lots of complicated discussions online):

Simply rename (or copy first and rename the copy) the video file from a .MTS extension to .MP4 extension.

Sounds a bit stupid, but the video and audio are generally supported by lots of different programs.  Problem is, the MTS container surrounding the video and audio streams us bit as well supported.  Give this a try first, because it's the easiest thing to do with keeping the audio and video quality exactly as it is in the original file.
The next best option I found was using ffmbc.  You can find the website for it (which will eventually be unsupported or removed completely) at: https://code.google.com/p/ffmbc/ .  There is also a Google Groups website for it at: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/ffmbc-discuss .  For the Windows version, you'll find a download on the Groups website, while for Mac and Unix/Linux, you can download and build the code yourself (sorry, I can't help you with building on a Mac).

After you have the program built, you can run the following command:
ffmbc -fflags +genpts -i "FILENAME.MTS" -vcodec copy -acodec copy "FILENAME.mp4"

Obviously, you'll need to make sure ffmbc is runable from the command line of whichever OS you are using...otherwise, you can use the full path to the ffmbc executable.  And change "FILENAME" to be the name of whatever file you are using.

**From my experience, you will find the resulting file to be smaller.  For some reason, the MP4 container format is more efficient than the MTS container format.  You could research the reasons behind this, if you're interested.  Anyway, I have found that with a 6.1 GB file, repackaging an MTS file drops to about 5.7 GB.  The time it took to repackage that particular file from MTS to MP4 was about 1m 30sec.  So, even if you have incredibly large files, you are not looking as nearly the length of time that you would for re-encoding the video/audio.
You could also try using ffmpeg, MP4Box, Libav, are a variety of other tools.  The key here is that you do not need to re-encode the audio or video (unless you want/choose to).  You simply want to change the container that "holds" the video and audio streams.

**Generally speaking, the AAC audio format is better supported and standard for MP4.  So, you might want to copy the video stream but re-encode the audio if the application or media player you're using doesn't support AC3 (the default MTS audio format).  Re-encoding the audio won't take much extra time, but will add time compared to simply repackaging the video/audio in a different container.

Also, if you need to change anything, such as framerate, resolution, audio bitrate, etc., then you'll need to re-encode the audio or video (or both).  But, if you literally want the audio/video to be the same, the container change is your best choice and the fastest (with the exception of if renaming the extension MP4, if this works for your purposes).


What is the camera technique use in desiigner - Panda vidéo?

It made with body camera rig.

Here is tutorial, hot to do it yourself, but you will need some adjustments to face it from front.

Or if you don't need hands in the shot, you can use your tripod, how shown in this tutorial (careful, bad audio)


ffprobe/ffplay/ffmpeg command for checking audio/video sync

This tool is impossible. Almost.

To check sync of audio/video, you need something what appeared in both streams, what can be used as sync points. In old days used Clapperboard during film shooting. In television there was hidden timecode at border of frame, in zone of overscan which not displayed on TV

If you writing professional software, include timecodes to both streams. If not, just stream your video and audio in a single container, it enough.


How can I resize Final Cut Pro X to fit on the screen with the dock on the left visible?

Try under the ”Window” menu the ”Zoom” function. That should resize the FCPX window (and any other Mac OS window) so that all is visible.


Is it possible to convert a AVCHD video stored in a MTS file loss-less without recoding into a Blue-Ray video disk?

Here you go, here is a list of applications on PC and MAC that open MTS files and can convert them to a more desirable file format.

http://www.fileinfo.com/extension/mts


Exported Lossless Video - Output File Was Lossy

At least using Shotcut, you can get lossless output at minimum file size using the FFV1 codec.

In the export window, choose the lossless/FFV1 preset.
Click the Advanced button at the bottom.
Go to the Codec tab, and set the GOP to 250 frames.
Go to the Other tab, delete everything there and type the following:

coder=1
context=1
pix_fmt=bgr0
mlt_image_format=rgb24

Source: https://forum.shotcut.org/t/lossless-annoyances/18344/2


Archiving AVCHD from camera for later processing

the way I do this from my Canon 7D / 100D is pop the CF or SD card into my Mac and copy the whole card to a folder with a very simple structure

Project_Name_Date

RAW_Cards

Camera_Name_Card00x
Camera_Name_Card00x

If I would add in a DATE Folder under the Poject_Name for multiple days/Dates, When I get back to the studio to start editing I can then just ingest these into my system.

You probably find the same system will work on a Windows PC as well.

The other alternative would be to use a card copy application to do all of this but might make it to complex for the user in the middle.


How to get MiniDV video from old JVC camcorder

I've had to transfer many older formats to a PC.

I've found the best way is to get a TV tuner card for the PC and connect through that. (if the camera has a video out RCA type connector)  The card will usually come with some sort of software for capturing a signal.  The signal can usually come in via normal RCA type video/audio connectors and if not, you can always hook the camera up to an older VCR and then hook the output RF cable to the tuner card. (Sort of a cluster, but it works)

In your case, you could find an 8 pin to 4 pin firewire cable.  (The 4 pin is what the 'DV' output on the camera is)  The computer would then need the larger 8 pin firewire input on it.  This would allow the input of both the video and audio of the tape.

Example card you could use:  (this card has 8 pin and 4 pin inputs so you could go with either 8pin to 4pin cable or 4pin to 4pin cable)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815283029&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC--pla--Add-On+Cards-_-N82E16815283029&gclid=CjwKEAiA48fDBRDJ24_imejhwUkSJAAr0M5kmWujjnw3dRZE1dYFEfOInwW4d-IpZqXnue0az7FZsRoCcRDw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

The USB connector on those cameras were more for transferring the still pictures that the camera would take.  Even then the USB on those cameras was a crap shoot about if it would actually work.


How to lower the volume of the second audio channel with FFMPEG

After a few hours of searching, I was only able to find this.

I don't know if that's kind of what you are looking for, or at least gives you the info you need to modify the channel volume.

I hope it helps!


The "banding" you are seeing is the levels of the three channels that make up a video signal. It isn't an 8-bit artifact. In the upper left and bottom scopes, the white/grey trace is the luminance channel and the others are the color difference channels. In the histogram in the upper right, you are seeing the white and RGB values.

You can switch between different scope configurations.


How do I apply a timecode and then I speed up x4 a video with ffmpeg without losing quality?

Use

for %%a in ("*.avi") do (
    ffmpeg.exe -i "%%a" -vf "drawtext=fontfile=C\\:/Windows/Fonts/arial.ttf:timecode='00\:00\:00\:00':rate=5:text='Real \time\:':fontsize=46:fontcolor=white:x=30:y=30:box=1:boxcolor=0x00000000@1:boxborderw=5,setpts=0.25*PTS" -c:v libx264 -f avi "%%~na_with-time.avi"
)

Added boxborderw=5 for border width.

Added setpts after the drawtext.

Added encoder explicitly -c:v libx264 - its default settings should produce good images. You can also stick with the default encoder (mpeg4) and just add -q:v 5 for decent quality - the default of 200 kbps is too low.

For a custom timecode string, remove timecode='00\:00\:00\:00':rate=5

and change text to

text='Real \time\: %{eif\:trunc(t/3600)\:d\:2}h %{eif\:trunc(mod(t/60\,60))\:d\:2}m %{eif\:trunc(mod(t\,60))\:d\:2}s'


Avoiding motion blur from a network camera

Shutter speed and motion blur are inversely proportional.  The higher the shutter speed, the less amount of motion blur, so crank up the shutter speed as high as it will go.  If the exposure comes out too dark, add more lights.  Keep in mind that high shutter speeds in combination with fluorescent or HMI light can produce scrolling banding due to the power cycle frequency.


Automated text extraction from video is still an emerging technology.

There is a Microsoft public preview of Azure Media OCR that will attempt optical character recognition at a configurable sampling rate. Using this tool requires programming knowledge.

Another option is an open source proof of concept from a research paper, LOOV. You will need to compile this from source.

This post describes a workflow for automatically extracting screenshots to stills and then running OCR on the stills. You could probably adapt this workflow to other tools besides what are described in the post.


What lighting setup is recommended to achieve a purple atmosphere in an indoor hall

The biggest issue with having only one powerful light source for the whole hall might be the foreground being too bright and the fall-off to dark being to fast. You may compensate for this by placing the light way behind the camera, if this doesn't cast any camera/crew shadows inside the frame. This setup will give you a much smoother fall-off, but will also make the scene darker.

The scientific reason is the 'inverse square law' described here: http://www.usefulphototips.com/2012/04/10/controlling-light-falloff/

But I have another suggestion: Why don't you keep the lighting as shown on the left, and just turn some lights off at the far end of the hall. For achieving the pink effect you then use a color gel in front of the lens. And for having some more colors than just pink in the frame, you can add one or two red light sources distributed in the hall.


How is laserdisc information physically stored on the disc?

Just about everything you'd like to know about LaserVision disks can be found in this Wikipedia page, including the details of how the composite analog video is stored in a series of pits and lands.

Of course it's not strictly analog because it's sampled and later re-integrated, but there is no digitization of the video as we think of it today with Blu-Ray etc.


Is a UK PAL video tape compatible with a continental Europe PAL VHS/S-VHS player in terms of video and sound

The UK PAL VHS tapes will play back in a German PAL deck. The actual method of audio recording is not related to the PAL specification. VHS records up to two linear audio tracks. HiFi capable decks record additional two HiFi tracks that are  multiplexed with the video signal. I don't remember the details.

A non-HiFi deck will ignore the HiFi tracks and use the linear tracks which should have the same content recorded.


How to ignore certain type of streams (mjpeg) while encoding videos in ffmpeg

You can avoid the MJPEG cover art by using properly ordered selective mapping:

-map 0 -map -v -map V

What this does:

-map 0 Map all streams from input 0 (which is the first input per ffmpeg command).
-map -v Then, ignore all video streams including cover art.
-map V Finally, include all non-cover art video streams.

v matches all video streams, and V only matches video streams which are not attached pictures, video thumbnails or cover arts.

For more info see the documentation on stream specifiers and the -map option.


It seems that sometimes Vegas Pro's plugin that opens AVI files is corrupt or installed incorrectly (if this is the case, a reinstall may fix it).

There is a simple fix that involves replacing the DLL file that controls AVI files.

The file is called aviplug.dll. The file path will be similar to: C:\Program Files\Sony\Vegas Pro 13.0\FileIO Plug-Ins\aviplug\

The fixed dll can be found at Mediafire.
Here's a YouTube walkthrough.


Mux mkv and dts file, change default audio stream and language

Based on this answer on stackoverflow, it seems that changing the disposition is now possible with ffmpeg (see also the official documentation).
I think that the command that you would need, so that the final file had English as the default audio stream is:
ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -i audio.dts -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 -map 0:a:0 -c copy -disposition:a:0 default -disposition:a:1 0 movie_combined.mkv

The addition is -disposition:a:0 default -disposition:a:1 0. The numbering of the streams is for the output. -disposition:a:1 0 is needed to remove the disposition from the second stream.
(Instead of -disposition:a:1 0 you could also, in principle, use the non-documented -disposition:a:1 none, which has the same effect.)
To add metadata/language information, see the other answer.


Ghosting effect with open source software

To my knowledge, there is no Open Source tool with a built-in feature for producing that ghosting effect. However, I believe there exist the necessary tools for you to create the effect yourself.

Breaking down what's happening, it looks like the effect consists of:

Freezing and extracting the skater from the background at certain moments
Animating those freeze frames to track with the camera movement

There are Open Source tools to do just that.

Rotoscoping to extract the skater from still frames (Gimp or Blender)
Motion Tracking (Blender) to animate those stills to match camera motion
Compositing (Blender) to put it all together


set scale in pixels in After Effects using Expressions

The size in pixels is easily computed as the source's original dimensions multiplied by the scale. Or in other words

p = d × s

where p=pixel dimensions required, d=source dimensions, s=scale.

So to set the scale so that it takes a given source and makes it conform to a desired dimensions:

s = p / d

In an expression on the scale property you'd use

var p = [123, 456]; / desired output dimension
[ p[0] / width, p[1] / height ] * 100; // the *100 is because scale is a percentage

To be really fancy you could repurpose the scale value input so that it controlled the pixel dimensions. This means if you want the layer's dimension to be [123,456] you'd just dial it in in the scale control:

var d = value; //returns the pre-expression value of the property
[ p[0] / width, p[1] / height ] * 100


Assuming your file is ${F}, the below is an efficient means I have been able to create:

COLORS=$(ffprobe -show_streams -v error "${F}" |egrep "^color_transfer|^color_space=|^color_primaries=" |head -3)
for C in $COLORS; do
        if [[ "$C" = "color_space="* ]]; then
                COLORSPACE=${C##*=}
        elif [[ "$C" = "color_transfer="* ]]; then
                COLORTRANSFER=${C##*=}
        elif [[ "$C" = "color_primaries="* ]]; then
                COLORPRIMARIES=${C##*=}
        fi
done
if [ "${COLORSPACE}" = "bt2020nc" ] && [ "${COLORTRANSFER}" = "smpte2084" ] && [ "${COLORPRIMARIES}" = "bt2020" ]; then
        echo ${F}
fi

I use this inside a looping function to know when to use https://github.com/Fmstrat/ffmkv to create an SDR version of a video on one of the presets.


What are or where to find SDI record start/stop ancillary packet specification for Sony, Red or Panasonic

I couldn't find specific details, but it appears that ancillary data on SDI in general conforms to SMPTE 291M.  I couldn't find any details about the specific implementations used for deck control.  It appears like there could potentially be some variation between manufacturers or even particular decks since the ancillary space doesn't seem to be that regulated other than specifying what it shouldn't step on with the main signal.


Video editing software with good support for dual speaker subtitles?

Resolve does support multi-track subtitles.  To add a second subtitle track, right-click in the track header and select "add subtitle track."  This is used for language localization, so that you can deliver different caption versions for the same program.  Resolve is advanced in this respect, with support for updates via supplemental IMF and DCP, so that film and broadcast studios don't need to re-export entire programs whenever they need to make minor corrections.
You won't be able to use two tracks at the same time in any software, because you can't display two languages of captions at the same time within current broadcast television standards.  It's the same reason you can't choose English and Spanish on your television at the same time.
If all you want to do is control the appearance of two different styles of text, use the "Title" category of tools, located in the effects library, not the subtitle track.  I'd recommend "Text+" over the legacy "Text" which doesn't offer any advantages.  Define the settings you want for each style on independent titles on the timeline, then drag a copy of each look from the timeline to the media pool.  Use these as your templates/presets, it helps to rename them accordingly.
If you need to alter the appearance of a batch of titles at the same time, you can copy the source style via cmd/ctrl-C and then "paste attributes" to multiple destination titles via alt/opt-V.


From my experience all unexpected movements when keyframing are fixed by editing bezier curves of those keyframes, make them linear or something.


animating a line that is a 3d layer in after-effects

The way I normally go about drawing paths in AE is by using the stroke effect with masks

Create an Adjustment Layer
Create Mask Paths for the smiley face
Add the Stroke effect to the Adjustment Layer
Make the Adjustment layer 3D and then position it where you want
Animate the Mask Path to animate the mouth

http://i.stack.imgur.com/MF5pX.png

Note:

For some reason the stroke effect doesnt work on open paths when there is more than one mask on a layer. So I put the eyes on one Adjustment layer, and made a second Adjustment layer for the mouth. Then I turned OFF 3D on the layers, PreComped them together, and made the PreComp a 3D layer.

Have a look at what I did: http://www.filehosting.org/file/details/334754/Smiley_Face.aep


Turning off Automatic Panel Opening in After Effects

The option is specific to the Type Tool. Once you select the Type Tool, the corresponding Panels will open and the option will appear in the Tool Panel (which is on the top edge in the default layout).

Uncheck the Auto-Open Panels Option to turn that behaviour off. Once you do this, the Paragraph and and Character Panels shouldn't be toggled automatically anymore.

If you have rearranged your Workspace and there's not enough space for the Tools Panel, the Checkbox might not be visible in your layout. In this case, save your current Workspace (Window → Workspace → Save as New Workspace…) so you don't lose it, then switch to the Essentials Workspace and reset it by selecting Reset "Essentials" to Saved Layout in the same submenu. You should now have the default After Effects Workspace back and be able to see the Auto-Open Panels option.


Need help finding plugins/techniques to recreate my magic system in After Effects

I think you might be better off building the mesh for your sword using a 3D package, like Blender, Cinema 4D or Element 3D from Video CoPilot. Building hundreds of Beams can be very time consuming, and a true 3D renderer might be easier to achieve the look you're going for.


Unhappy with wedding video production - what to do next?

It all depends on your contract. Unless you have specifically requested it for the contract, you probably don't have any rights to the original footage (artist/creative workers generally don't like to give out raw footage, unedited photos et c.). Because of this, you will in general have to trust the artist/editor to do a good job for the final product. This is why you should always check their creative portfolio before you hire them to see if you like their style, especially if it's about something important that can't be repeated (like your wedding).

  They have used the wrong songs, missed key parts of speeches etc... Their contract states any problems with the final edit should be notified within 7 days of receiving the completed video otherwise they presume that client is happy with the final edit.

If this is the case, you have fulfilled your part of the contract and can refer to it if they later refuse to do the requested edits. But just because you are contractually obliged to inform them about any changes you would like them to make, it doesn't mean they have to answer within the same timeframe. Again, check your contract for what it says regarding their response time. If it specifies a timeframe for their response/delivery of the requested edits, wait at least until that deadline has passed before you contact them again. If it doesn't, maybe try some other means of communication (email/call/personal visit).

  What should be my next steps, I do not mind going to court but that seems like a very long winded and possibly expensive route.

Suing should be your last, last resort. If you still want this company to edit your movie (with the changes you requested), it won't do you a whole lot of good to drag them to court. You have hired them to do creative work, after all, and I don't believe they will be very passionate about getting you the movie you wanted after you sued them. I would only consider suing if they straight out refuse to comply by their contractual obligations. Keep in mind that you can only sue them for what was agreed upon in the contract. Getting the source files might not have been part of that, so your legal footing in this case will be shaky at best.

  I am considering asking them for their original source footage and asking another company to complete the final edit for me - what are you thoughts on this, what would be the best approach with all of this?

This again depends on your contract, specifically the scope/amount of changes that you can request. Based on your question, it sounds like rather then having some minor issues with the movie (e.g. wrong format, some uncomely shots, bad audio mix or something like that), you don't like the style of the overall movie, which means they would basically have to redo the entire movie. Again I can only guess, but this is probably not covered by your contract. In this case, it might be easier to have them give you the source footage so you can hire someone else to cut your movie for you, since even if they do the requested changes, it still won't be 'your' perfect movie. If you wanna go down this route, your best shot is to be honest and try to have them see your site of the problem. It's a win-win after all (you get the source footage, they don't have to put any more work into the movie).

If they refuse to hand out the source footage or you want to hold them up to their contractual obligations (i.e. doing the edits you want), be polite, give them time to answer, and only threaten them with a lawsuit after you've really exhausted all other options. A lawsuit may get you what you want, but it will cost you way more money and time.

If they refuse to do the requested edits or can't do it to the extent/in the way you want it, you can maybe strike a deal (instead of having them go over several improvement cycles, they can just give you the source footage and be done with it). You can try to get that deal in the courtroom, but it will be easier, less time- and money-consuming for both parties to do it extrajudicial.


Probably you forgot to change framerate of composition.


How to reduce noise in old, low-light DV-8 video

Yes, as DragonLord said, with the extended edition.

And assuming it's in a format (AVI, MOV etc. that Photoshop supports.

Once open, select Filter > Convert for Smart Filters.   Then run any filter, including noise reduction, and it will apply it to all frames.   Then Export > Render to Video.


SJCAM SJ4000 How can I pause video recording?

Nope this is not possible. just a limitation of the camera, all cameras work in pretty much the same way


Playing the video at 1/4 speed on YouTube, there's no discernible transition other than a hard cut.  If there were some sort of cross-fade or dip-to-black or luma fade, it should be visible at that speed.  And it's not.

I suspect that part of what makes the hard cut transition successful in that video is that the motion and the balance of the center of interest in the "from" clip leads the eye perfectly to the center of interest in the "to" clip.  Hard transitions look harsh when the eye must find and acquire a subject in a different part of the frame across the cut.  If the eye is already properly aimed and focused, the hard cut just looks like a seamless transition.


What is the easiest, no-frills way to produce a simple video on Windows 10?

I would look into using OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). It's free, and allows you to capture from a webcam and/or your actual monitors or windows. Many people use it for streaming to sites like Twitch, but it also has built-in options for recording to a file.


Is there a way to handle focusing when you're filming yourself?

Put a dummy object where you will sit, and focus on that.

With a dedicated video camera, you would normally zoom in on the focus point, set the focus, and then zoom out again for your desired framing. Your camera appears to be a stills camera, and my understanding is that the lenses on a stills camera don't work the same way as the zoom lens on a video camera, so that particular technique might not be applicable (hopefully someone with stills camera experience can jump in here). But definitely set the framing/focus on a dummy object where you will be, and lock that.

If you are going slightly in/out of focus with your movement, you could move the camera further back as well - the further back the camera is from you, the more depth of field (range of focus distance) you will have on the object being focused on. The trade off being that as you move the camera further away, the sharpness of the image may decrease, the more zoom you are using - although you're unlikely to move the camera far enough back in your setup to make a noticeable difference.


Automated rendering of After Effects or similar

After Effects can be automated using the Adobe extendscript scripting language,  and can be run from the command line, meaning that it can be integrated into other processes.

Extendscript is JavaScript and it works across Adobe's product line (to varying degrees, you can use it to script Photoshop for instance). If you have a JavaScript developer available then this would be a relatively straightforward task.

There are also third party frameworks such as Dataclay that make the process easier for non-technical users to avoid scripting, but they are relatively pricey, though they might work out cheaper than hiring a developer and rolling your own.


ffmpeg - warnings when i try to merge several audio files with an .mp4 file

The first warning means one of the WAV inputs has no channel layout defined i.e. channel 1 is Front Left, channel 2 is Front Center..etc. amerge decides the channel layout of the output stream based on the input, but since that designation is missing for one of the inputs, amerge will assign a channel layout which is default for the number of channels present in the output.

One thing you could try is rewrap all of the audio inputs i.e.

ffmpeg -i audio1.wav -c copy audio1-new.wav

The 2nd warning is displayed whenever VBR mode is invoked. Unless you get the error: Unable to set the VBR bitrate mode, you should be fine.


Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 playback is too fast, renders are regular speed though

Make sure that there isn't a misconfig of framerate between original media, sequence and export.

Eg: Original 25fps, Sequence at 30fps and exported at 25fps.

In this case the playback would appear faster in premiere, but ok in the exported media.


Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve offers a free version, is available on Mac, Linux, and Windows, and is well-suited to creating video collages. One of the effects added in version 17 is actually called “video collage” and greatly simplifies the process over past versions.  Additionally, if you synchronize the timecode of all cameras before you start shooting a multi-camera event, it offers features like “live overwrite” and “sync bins” which simplify typical multicam edits.
Adobe Premiere is a viable alternative, but does not run on Linux, and is not free.
Final Cut Pro X is a Mac-only alternative, and also does not offer a free version.
Avid Media Composer is the other big-name player in the NLE space.


DaVinci Resolve 15 view multiple tracks at once

This is what the Multi-Cam feature is for. You can see this Tutorial: How to use Multicam in Resolve in it, you can preview all cameras at once. Keep in mind that this is quite perfomance intensif. Make sure to use Proxy to improve performance.


Found the answer to this problem in here. The mask should be first be white + transparent, instead of black and white. New code would be:
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i mask.png \
-filter_complex "[0:v][1:v] overlay=0:0" -c:a copy \
output.mp4


Opacity and feather doesn't work at mask

Normally effects are applied before masks, but some aren't. For these effects it means that you need to precompose the layer with the effect applied, and then apply the mask to the precomp. I don't know why, it's pretty certainly a bug, but Colorama is one of those effects.

Turn off Colorama and your masks should start behaving normally. So what you need to do is pre-comp the layer with the effects on it, but not the masks (just select the masks and ctrl/⌘-x to cut, then precomp the layer choosing "Move all the attributes into the new composition", then paste the masks back).


Trouble in Cut a portion of an audio file, and add fade in and fadeout Effect

Your command is wrong, use this one: ffmpeg -i track1.wav -ss 00:00:38.160 -t 00:00:20.720 -vn -codec:a libmp3lame -ac 2 -b:a 256k -map a -af afade=t=in:st=38:d=3,afade=t=out:st=55:d=3 output.mp3


FFMPEG doesn't really have the tools to do motion detection out of the box. You can certainly do the cropping using the crop filter: -vf crop=w:h:x:y where w:h is the size of your cropped area and x:y its coordinates in the original image. So your ffmpeg script might look like:

ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v libx264 -crf 20 -vf crop=123:45:67:89 output.mp4

Then you could find a frame of the output that contains no movement, export it to a still image, invert it and add it back to the video using overlay so that only parts of frames that are different would show up. Then use the blackdetect filter to find frames that are black. Then you could use some shell-fu to delete those parts of the video and finally concatenate the remainder into one clip. Whew.

…or you could use openCV. Here's a ready-rolled script that does motion detection: https://github.com/RobinDavid/Motion-detection-OpenCV


How to play/back-up PAL/SECAM VHS tapes?

The answer to this question will depend on your priorities to some extent — what sort of quality are you looking for in the transfer, how important the content of the tapes are to you / the world, what sort of budget you have, how much time you want to spend on the project — as well as other variables such as what condition are the tapes are in, and whether you want to play them in domestic equipment and risk destroying them if something goes wrong (e.g. if they've got sticky-shed they could end up being chewed).

That said, you could probably pick up a VHS player for nothing if you ask and look around enough — ask on social media, or get your friends to ask their parents, there are still plenty out there. You won't have much control over the quality of the machine, and so you probably won't get one with such things as a timebase corrector that you get on professional machines (or later model high quality domestic machines). An old VHS machine from someone's lounge room may also not be in the best condition, so the output may be less than optimal. However, if you aren't concerned with getting the absolute best possible transfer, and are happy if it just plays the tapes so you can see a picture this is probably the way to go.

Once you've got a machine that plays them you should digitise them on the first viewing — if they are fragile they will lose quality every time they are played. You'll need a video capture card and software to run it. There is a huge range from cheap and cheerful USB gadgets that cost less than $20 on ebay to broadcast level cards that cost a couple of thousand. Once again, your priorities and budget determine what you need.

If the tapes are really valuable to you you could investigate getting an agency to transfer them. If you are concerned that the tapes might be in poor condition and they are irreplaceable you might want to find someone who deals with archival transfers. You could talk to the state film archives for your region if they exist, they may have advice for you. The Australian National Film and Sound Archive have a good page of advice here: http://www.nfsa.gov.au/preservation/care/caring-for-video/


What do the colors in the timeline render bar in After Effects signfify

All of the information is correct, to be clear:

Green cached on RAM
Blue cached on disk

Pressing 0 on the num pad you will notice that on the blue line frames will render faster then on the none line.
Of course it will skip the green line because this process is called "Preview RAM" and as I have just said Green means written on the RAM.

No any other colours in AE.


What's the minimum software for reliably live-streaming a conference?

The minimum software is hardware.  You want specialized hardware for doing top quality live streaming encoding reliably.  You could use something like the Black Magic ATEM television studio which includes 4 inputs and real time stream encoding capability to produce the conference really well or could use a cheaper stream encoder device that simply produces a direct stream.

You then need a CDN to handle distribution of the stream.  You can either use advertising supported options like Youtube or you can use commercial ones you pay for, such as UStream or any number of other services.  That's fairly independent of the streaming hardware you use.  Your end point just produces the stream, which just needs to be reliable and high quality, preferably specialized hardware.


My video is blurry after dragging it to composition

Your viewport preview is set to Quarter resolution (see just below the preview video). Set it to full. Depending on your machine, preview may not be fluid.

This setting only affects the preview.