I can't open my edit in premiere as its saying it was saved in the newest premiere?

I just tested it, and you can successfully import files from CC to CS6 via exporting to final cut pro xml and then importing that xml back. This should work with any versions, though there may be a few issues if some newer features are not supported, or cannot be exported to final cut pro.

This requires that you would have access to the latest version of premiere on any computer that can access the file.


Exporting in Premiere from mpg 720 to h.264 1920

No. I assume your 720x576 video uses anamorphic pixels, making for a 16:9 resolution. Still, there is no added benefit to the higher resolution, as it won't increase the quality of your video. On the other hand, your video file will be much larger. Export in your original resolution with a high bitrate instead (not higher than your source material though). If you need to export an uncompressed copy, use a visually lossless codec such as DNxHD or Apple ProRes.

That is, assuming by 'loaded into Premiere' you mean this is the resolution of your source material. If you are referring to your sequence and your source material actually has a higher resolution, create a new sequence with the respective settings, copy everything from your current sequence to the new one and export that using the same resolution as your source video.


Using FFMPEG, how does one manage to find the file to convert?

If a filename or its folder has spaces or other special characters, you need to enclose it in quotes i.e.

ffmpeg -i "c:\this\file name\and path\has\spaces in it.mp4" ...


how come my editor(vsdc editor) only has audio but not any video footage

http://www.videosoftdev.com/how-to-export-project

Here maybe the link can guide you a bit.

Best basic setting for videos is .mpg, .mpeg, .mp4, try to save for .mpg with video & audio output. You maybe forgot to output your video. Or video rendering failed, you need to save it again.


Which mic to buy for amatour dslr video shooting: RØDE VideoMic vs. Zoom H1?

For the H1, X/Y micing is a good option for an improved stereo room mic, but isn't going to be as focused as a shotgun mic. The input is nice, but doesn't really buy you much over the built in 3.5mm jack that many DSLR's already have. 3.5mm also isn't a professional audio connection, so it greatly limits the selection of microphones available. It does give pretty decent sound quality, though I don't believe it is the best quality in the price range if memory serves (but I haven't looked in a while.)

For the Rode VideoMic, it is much more focused on what is directly in front of it.  It has pretty good quality (probably a little bit better than the H1) but it also won't pick up everything the H1 does (both noise and any actual sounds you want that are off to the sides).

Ultimately, it primarily comes down to which picks up what you need to pick up.  If you want stereo, then the H1 wins hands down.  If you need to pick up the sound of the room overall, the H1 also wins hands down.  If you need to focus in on a particular subject in the middle of your frame or at a distance and need minimum background noise, the VideoMic wins hands down.

If you have a mix of situations and needs, then the H1 is probably a little bit more versatile, but the VideoMic is probably a little bit easier to use as it is designed to plug directly in to the camera instead of being it's own recorder.  Additionally, with the VideoMic, more of your money is going in to the microphone itself since they don't have to worry about the audio recording hardware that has to be worked in to the H1.


I'd pick something that looks flat and unsaturated.  Those are usually the ones designed to retain detail.  If you see clog or slog2, those are good.  Rec 709 will throw out info, so don't use that.

  What should inform this decision?

Trial and error.  A lut is really just a starting point for your grade.  Try some different ones out.  If it absolutely butchers the color, then it's probably not a good place to start.  If you see clipping or banding, then you've chosen a lut which was meant for a different situation.  As you try each one, look at the trace on a waveform monitor and vector scope.  If anything goes out of bounds, pick something else.  Do you notice any kind of granularity, banding, or stair-stepping in the traces?  Look for one that's more even.


How to use ffmpeg drawtext without changing the width of a video

Gyan solved it: (see comment above)

drawtext cannot alter the video frame size. Your video is most likely portrait but stored as landscape with a rotation tag, and ffmpeg auto-rotates the video for you. Add -noautorotate before -i to avoid that.


Black title changes colour when exporting MXF ???

Might be an issue with the smart rendering option available for MXF in Premiere/AME.
Try disabling that.

http://blogs.adobe.com/kevinmonahan/2012/10/11/smart-rendering-in-premiere-pro-cs6-6-0-1-and-later/

If that doesn't work. Render an intermediate and re-import and encode that to MXF.
Though keep in mind that MXF is just a container, you have different codecs available.
Make sure you choose the one suitable for your source footage and what your client requested.


How do I rig a Kino Flo to a gobo arm like this?

The photo shows two grip heads, two arms and a c-stand. The kino would have its normal mounting plate (the one in the second photo).

The two grip arms are interlaced together; this makes them trombone-able (adjustable in length), stronger, and gives the gag a longer reach. One grip head attaches the arms to the c-stand, another attaches the kino to the arms.

I use this rig all the time; it works better if the stand is a junior stand and the grip arms are attached to the junior stand with a junior lolly-pop (much stronger).

Cardellini clamps can indeed clamp a stud to many things, but they aren't the best tool for this rig: you want a 5/8" female receiver for the Kino, not a 5/8" stud.


How do I mute my monitors while leaving headphones on?

you are in the correct track: a small mixer would do the trick. Basically you have the pfl button that would get the specific channel(s)/souce(s) selected to your headhones jack (monitors) without modifying at all your master (and viceversa). Another option would be something like the Mackie Big Knob, made specifically for what you want, but in this case you can only select to monitor a source, not individual channels).


There are many time-lapse DSLR videos out with great star fields moving across the sky per the rotation of the earth and these are very popular.

Here are a few examples:

https://vimeo.com/24253126

https://vimeo.com/48787310

https://vimeo.com/57757618

...this has the moon, but notice how you can't see any detail of the moon's surface as it is overexposed to capture star light:

https://vimeo.com/22439234

The above are for the most part are realistic and shot with DSLR cameras but in time-lapse which can allow for the needed exposure time (both dragging the shutter and opening the lens).

In Hollywood feature films it would be more likely and practical for the editors to composite star fields as shot separately or create in animation as this allows for more control of the total picture with predictable results.

In big productions there is less of a chance that they would try to shoot stars in real time with actors or other subjects simply because the difference in exposing stars is huge compared to that of a lit set. Just as you mentioned that you don't see a detailed moon shot with stars in the background because the moon is like 12 EV units while the stars are like near zero, that's like 12 or more stops difference.

For the present, to get a detailed moon surface shot with a star background would require a composite.

UPDATE:
To be clear, most feature narrative films will not be real stars on their own, possibly composites with the main scene or animation or other effects while many independent cinematographers will use time-lapse that is real however sped up in time.


FFMPEG slow / fast motion part a video anywhere

This slows down one part of a video and keeps the rest as is.

ffmpeg -i Soon.mp4
  -filter_complex
     "[0:v]trim=0:2,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[v1];
      [0:v]trim=2:5,setpts=2*(PTS-STARTPTS)[v2];
      [0:v]trim=5,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[v3];
      [0:a]atrim=0:2,asetpts=PTS-STARTPTS[a1];
      [0:a]atrim=2:5,asetpts=PTS-STARTPTS,atempo=0.5[a2];
      [0:a]atrim=5,asetpts=PTS-STARTPTS[a3];
      [v1][a1][v2][a2][v3][a3]concat=n=3:v=1:a=1"
  -preset superfast -profile:v baseline output.mp4

How does it work?

The trim and atrim filters cut the video into different parts, from 0–2 seconds, from 2–5, and from 5 to the end.
In each part a setpts/asetpts filter is applied, which, when using the option PTS-STARTPTS, "resets" the presentation timestamps of each frame in each part, so that they can later be concatenated easily.
Each part is given an output label (e.g. [v1] through [v3]).
For the video parts that need to be slowed down, every presentation timestamp is doubled (2*(…)), which effectively halves the speed of the video. If you wanted to speed up the video, use a multiplier lower than 1.
For audio parts to be sped up / slowed down, use the atempo filter, whose parameter is the speedup (e.g., 0.5 = half speed).
These parts are finally concatenated using the concat filter.


Could not find codec parameters -- for gif?

It's worth a try using the concat demuxer.

First, create a text file like this:

file 'motor_animate_000.gif'
file 'motor_animate_001.gif'
file 'motor_animate_002.gif'
file 'motor_animate_003.gif'
...

Then run

ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt motor.mpg

Do note that by just specifying a .MPG filename as output parameter, ffmpeg will encode to MPEG-1 at a bitrate of 200 kb/s. If MP4 is not acceptable and .mpg is needed, then add -c:v mpeg2video -b:v 1000k after list.txt to set codec and avg. bitrate. For MP4, just change extension; the defaults are decent.


How do I transition objects individually?

I can think of 2 ways:

Film all the objects separately with green screens. Apply a keyer to each one to key out the green areas, place them all on the timeline, and fade each one in as you see fit.
Film them all together, and then manually mask out each object by hand. If the objects are basic shapes it might not be too hard, but if it includes people moving, etc., it could be tough. Then fade the masks out as you see fit.


How would you go about finding out when a digital video was made?

When data is in digital format they can be manipulated in any way you want, so the initial data would not be certain in any way.

Videos on mobile phones is a fairly recent thing, however video over phone is nothing new and the first video capable phones are based on codecs back from the 80's. Only the later years you will see phones with more modern video formats due to the increased processing power of the phone.

Meta data and it's possible date data can be wrong. See if you can get the phone's brand and model from the meta data - then you can establish a more accurate period as phones come and go at a rather fast pace.

Then you can combine these data (codec used) to see if you have some overlap time-wise.


How to add images at the end of an existing movie?

Use this command:

ffmpeg -i "video" -loop 1 -t 3 -i "image" -f lavfi -t 3 -i anullsrc -filter_complex "[0:v] [0:a] [1:v] [2:a] concat=n=2:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -strict -2 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" output.mp4

Replace the t value with the duration that you want the image to stay. I've supplied the common encoding parameters. Replace those as needed.

For an image sequence, use

ffmpeg -i "video" -f image2 -framerate n -i "image" -f lavfi -t 3 -i aevalsrc=0 -filter_complex "[0:v] [0:a] [1:v] [2:a] concat=n=2:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -strict -2 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" output.mp4

Replace the n in framerate with the rate that you want.


What is a circular motion around a object called when filming?

That's a kind of tracking shot known as an orbit. Here is a product video for the Digital Juice Orbit Dolly, which is a piece of equipment that can be used to achieve this effect:


FFMPEG - How to use crop, scale and overlay all in one go?

To crop before scaling INPUTVIDEO.MP4:

ffmpeg -y -loop 1 -i backgroundimage.png -i INPUTVIDEO.MP4 -filter_complex "[1]crop=1728:970:96:54,scale=1612:906[inner];[0][inner]overlay=154:170:shortest=1[out]" -map "[out]" -map 1:a -c:a copy -b:v 2000k OUTPUT.MP4


Does After Effects expressions follow BODMAS

After Effects (as of version 16, released 2020) uses the V8 Javascript engine to interpret expressions. This is the same as used in many web browsers, such as Chrome.
It's pretty easy to test if it follows BODMAS (The O in which stands for Order BTW). On a text layer alt / opt-click the stop watch for text source and paste this:
let brackets = 2 * (1 + 1);
let order = 1 + Math.pow(2, 2);
let divMult = 1 + 2 * 2 + 4 / 2;
"Brackets: 2 * (1 + 1) should be 4, result: " + brackets +
"\n" + "Order: 1 + 2^2 should equal 5, result: " + order + "\n" +
"Division and Multiplication: 1 + 2 * 2 + 4 / 2 should equal 7, result: " + divMult

Spoiler alert: it does.


This looks like she used a graphics drawing pen tablet (e.g. a Wacom Pen Tablet) and recorded her screen with a screencapture software such as Fraps. To have the person appear in the lower right like this, you will need a well-lit greenscreen to key out the background. To produce the video from your recordings, you will need NLE software. Since there aren't any special effects in this video, you don't need a professional program; the only requirement would be the greenscreen processing capability.

Alternatively, you could also create the screen writing effects completely digitally with an animation/SFX program like After Effects. However, this is pretty difficult and it will certainly take some time to learn the required skills to produce a video like this.


If you just want to look inside a video file, check its individual streams and all metadata, you can use MediaInfo, which will show you everything there is to know about your file and the streams it contains.

If you want to extract, remux or reencode the video file's streams, you can use FFmpeg. If you are not comfortable using a command-line tool, there are several GUI-based programs out there (most of which are built around FFmpeg), such as XMedia Recode.


How to capture / upload videos at scheduled times

The more I thought about my requirements the more I was convinced that I needed a wifi enabled "security" camera setup than an action cam setup.

I'm giving dropcam a try. It seems to satisfy all my requirements.

Broadcast without any additional equipment
Schedule recording times remotely from anywhere
Broadcast is automatically recorded in the cloud for 7 to 30 days (subscription req.)

I just hope the video quality is good enough.


Screen Output to Projector and Another Computer Recording the Screen

What I have done in the past is to use a DA on the output of the laptop. One output to the projector and another one to the recording device.

The problem I faced afterwords is that in the chain I had a video switcher and, since we recorded both audio and video, the audio was noticeable ahead. That's a problem if you also have a camera recording the presenter, but not so much if you are only recording the output of the laptop. Later I fixed it in a simple video editor, no big deal, but next time I am using an audio delay in line.


Big difference in the video file size after the conversion (.mov to .mp4)

Let me explain you from scratch.

MOV, MP4, AVI, MKV etc all these are just containers, It is just kind of wrapper which contains audio, video, text, metadata file together as one file. It does not play a big role in the size of a file.

Size of the file heavily depends on audio and video codec and bit-rate of that audio video codecs.

So there is a possibility for file size reduction during conversion.

Reduce in video codec bitrate. While converting video if default/changed bitrate of video codec is less than source file, then it will lead to a reduction in file size as well as quality for sure.[ May not be perceivable by eye ]
Change video codec. While converting video if change video codec to advance video codec of the stream, then it will reduce size but quality will not be degraded.

For example :
Video codec of a source file is MPEG-2 with bit-rate 20mbps and during conversation we convert to H264/AVC with bitrate 10mbps it will have the same quality with half of the size.

So, Below are the popular video codecs generation and improvement.

MPEG-2 -> H264 (40-50% bitrate reduction than MPEG-2) -> H265/HEVC (40-50% bitrate reduction than H264)

Though the more advanced codecs are computationally expensive during video playback. e.g H265 is ~300% more computationally expensive than H264.

During video conversation point 1. & 2. both can be applied

You can view details of audio/video file can be seen using a free tool (mediainfo)
It will show properties of the stream like video codec, bitrate, fps etc.


why exposing with 18% gray card does not give IRE near 40

I was stupid and using spot focusing and not spot metering.
So the metering was wrong even if the focus was right in the middle of the card.

I repeated the test and it now give me 40 IRE as expected.


How to merge 4 Audio and 1 Video .MXF files in to one h.264 video file on Linux using ffmpeg?

I used ffmpeg with only '-i' switch to figure out which stream was audio and which was video. Then executed the following to merge two audio channels and its video.

ffmpeg -i 0007WA.MXF -i 0007WA00.MXF -i 0007WA01.MXF -filter_complex "[1:0] [2:0] amerge" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -strict experimental -qscale 0 -y  ../ffmpeg-att2.mp4

I think there can be more options by utilizing all four audio files to make stereo or surround. However, I stopped here as the output was acceptable. Note - used '-qscale 0'  to limit quality-loss.


One possible solution is: SQUARED 5 MPEG STREAMCLIP it's a freeware converter with basic editing functions. The Batch function should help you.

Other possible software solution: AviDemux


Fixing desync in a large, long video file

I have no idea if this is optimal for you, but one approach using free software would be to first determine the percentage (and direction) of drift by finding a point near the end where you can tell with some precision what the sync error is, in frames.

Demux the video and audio into separate streams, using a free tool like AVI-Mux. Load the audio into Audacity, and apply the time shift determined above, either as a "new length" or a ratio (frame error / total frames).

Export the audio and remux using the new track.


Imovie 10.1.9 clips turn solid black in Final Cut Pro X 10.3.4 after "Send Movie To Final Cut Pro"

Sorry for panic. Answer has been found.

Problem: Final Cut Pro X was unable to see 4k 60fps videos captured by iOS devices.

Reason: Unknown.

Solution: Need to update Final Cut Pro X to 10.4.1 version.

Source: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208131


Adobe Premiere CC 2017 - decelerate video and audio (without excess of bass sound)?

In the SPEED / DURATION menu that you can find in the context menu (RIGHTCLICK on a clip), check the MAINTAIN AUDIO PITCH checkbox. This will counteract the usual pitch shift resulting from the audio stretching.


How to use the frame at 5s and replace all frames before it using ffmpeg?

You can use a combination of the trim and tpad filters for this.
ffmpeg -i in.flv -vf "trim=4,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS,tpad=start_duration=4:start_mode=clone" -c:v libx264 -c:a copy out.flv


Edits to a Multicam Clip in Final Cut Pro do not Show Up in Timeline

As a quick idea I would try to delete the Optimized, Proxy and/or rendered media, let FCPX create all new and see if that makes a difference.
Manage render files in Final Cut Pro


Hardware solution for live video conversion

That or the UpDownCross converter should meet your needs as long as the frame rates are the same.  I'd personally stick with BlackMagic's hardware as you already have their ATEM and they make some of the most cost-effective hardware around.  They aren't the top quality brand for sure, but you won't beat the value for the price pretty much anywhere else.

If you need to change the frame rate, you will need some kind of frame buffer that can interpolate on the fly, which is likely going to get pricy.

Alternately, is there a reason that you can't vary the output of the laptop to fit whatever quality is needed for the feed from the A/V company?  This would avoid the need for a converter and seems to be the easier option.  A better output for the laptop may well be a cheaper solution.  The Intensity Shuttle for example is only $199 if you have a thunderbolt or USB 3 port.


Project Organization, searchable keywords and tags in Adobe Premiere

Keywords are an optional field of the project panel. In order to view or add keywords, you need to set the project panel to List View (you can switch between List View and Icon View with the buttons in the lower left corner).

In the flyout menu of the project panel, select Metadata Display… to customize the columns of the list view to show whatever information you want it to. You will find the keywords in the category Dublin Core. Check keywords and click ok. You might have to resize the project panel (or remove the columns you don't need from the Metadata Display menu) in order to see the keyword column. You can rearrange the columns using drag-and-drop. Once you have added some tags to your clips, you can search for clips with specific tags using the search function of the project panel.

There's also some more useful metadata columns hidden in that menu that are not shown by default that you might find useful. For example, the category Premiere Pro Project Metadata has the entries Video Usage and Audio Usage that show you how many instances of a clip exist in your sequences in your current project. There are also fields for Comment, Description, Scene, Shot and much more. Using the Metadata Display menu, you can customize the metadata columns to only show those that you need for your workflow.


Adobe Premiere is placing a faint 'X' on video transition

The kind of X you are seeing usually appears when applying a demo-version of a transition of an effect. Are you sure you are not using some third-party transition pack that you simply haven't bought yet? Try using the standard cross-dissolve and report back if the X remains with native transitions. Cheers!


LED light temperature why does it matter?

If I'm adding light to a scene that already has a light source - say I'm shooting near a window, and I'm adding a key or some fill light - I need to be able to match the colour of the existing light so that my light doesn't have a colour cast.

In the olden days, we were mostly stuck with tungsten (3200ºK) for artificial lights (unless you were using expensive HMI lights), so we'd have to add blue gels to our lights if we wanted to mix them with daylight (5400ºK), reducing the output of the light, and generally being a bit of a pain (ask a sound recordist, gels make a tonne of noise when they flutter). It's so much easier to just dial in the colour on an LED panel than it was to try and peg a piece of plastic film to the front of a hot light while balancing on a ladder.

Worth noting that the big disadvantage of LEDs is that the spectrum of light they emit is not as smooth as tungsten. Although they may appear white overall, if you look at their emission across the spectrum there will be peaks and troughs. This means that some colours will be brighter and others less so, depending on whether they're in a peak or trough, and this makes the footage harder to grade. The cheaper the LED, the worse this effect is. That's why the expensive LED lights aren't necessarily brighter, it's just that their colour is better (it's also why CFLs are rubbish for film).


Keeping sound from underlay video in creating PIP video with ffmpeg

Ah I found the answer to my question, I ventured into the ffmpeg documentations again and found that all I had to do was add -map 1:a in front of output.mp4 and I also added -c:a copy cause I thought that copies the same codec settings from the original videos or something, not really sure but it seemed better then putting all those specifications in like I did which I actually just left in there from the site that I found the main part of this ffmpeg command on.

My code is now working as I want it and I'll share it below:

ffmpeg.exe -itsoffset 35 -i overlay.mp4 -i underlay.mp4 -filter_complex
"[0]scale=700:-1 [overlay]; [1][overlay]
overlay=main_w-overlay_w-30:30:enable='between(t,35,552)'"
-map 1:a -c:a copy output.mp4

The itsoffset is the time before the overlay video starts playing, between(t,35,552) means the overlay video is visible between the 35th second and the 552nd second on the timeline of the output video.


Can ffmpeg calculate a new starting keyframe when being asked to split/copy on a non-keyframe?

In principle, this is possible, and is usually called "smart" encoding or rendering in the video editors / apps that offer this facility, typically in limited circumstances. FFmpeg does not have support for it.
The main complication is that the parameters of the encoded portion has to match the coding parameters of the existing stream. That is specific to each codec, and ffmpeg supports hundreds of video codecs. It would require significant redesign to parts of ffmpeg to have different handling for parts of an output stream, and to correctly parse the existng stream and ensure a compatible encoding. It's quite a bit of work and testing required for a feature that can be accomplished manually using a few more commands i.e. segmenting the input file, transcoding the changed /trimmed portions, and stitching the transcoded and old segments.


ffmpeg: Second lower third does not appear

The overlay filter syncs by timestamps i.e. it overlays 2nd input's frame with timestamp X on main input's frame with timestamp X.  Barring certain circumstances like the use of -copyts, timestamps start from zero. So, when your 2nd lower-third overlay enters its active timeline, there are no corresponding frames from the secondary input.

Solution: offset the input's timestamps to start from overlay start time.

ffmpeg -hide_banner -loglevel 56 -report \
    -ss 00:25:00 \
    -i 00005.MTS \
    -i ./constants/edu_logo.svg \
    -i ./constants/name_animation_dr_johnson.mp4 \
    -itsoffset 15 -i ./constants/name_animation_dr_halmilton.mp4 \
    -filter_complex "[1:v]scale=400:122[logo]; \
    [0:v][logo]overlay=x=main_w-overlay_w-80:y=main_h-overlay_h-80[v-l]; \
    [v-l][2:v]overlay=x=0:y=0:enable='between(t,0,10.5)'[v-l-a]; \
    [v-l-a][3:v]overlay=x=0:y=0:enable='between(t,15,25.5)'[v-l-a-a]" \
    -vcodec libx264 -preset fast \
            -flags +cgop -pix_fmt yuv420p \
            -b:v 2M -movflags +faststart \
    -map "[v-l-a-a]" -map 0:a -t 30 my_test.mp4


Just import the video and don't scale it.  Any decent NLE should support using clips at their original resolution and placing them within a larger format either scaled or unscaled.  Without knowing your intended NLE, I can't really offer any more advice than that.  Premiere Pro would certainly meet your needs.


The definition of "29.97" is correctly 30 * (1000 / 1001), which is 29.97002997. That's what you have. I don't know why do you think you need exactly 29.97000, but it's probably a misunderstanding.


Not exactly sure what the problem is. However, try making a adjustment layer above your footage. Apply your mask to it. Then add a transform effect. It has a skew and skew axis that can be keyframed


In my opinion, the market for 4k delivery is still very small, but that doesn't mean its useless.

Shooting at a higher resolution than the delivery resolution allows you to recompose shots without any quality loss. If you shoot a talking head in 4k but deliver in 720p, you can get a wide, medium, and closeup from the same shot.

In my experience clients nearly always want video delivered in 24/25/30fps. Higher frame rates should only be used to achieve slow mo. That being said, everyone loves slow-mo, so the ability to be able to shoot at 60fps or higher is valuable.


Workflow for batch extracting many short clips from long footage

Here is the solution for Final Cut Pro, to export out all individual clips on your Timeline.  There is a FCP plugin called Primaries Exporter, in the App Store, which will very easily export all individual clips on the Timeline, to any folder you designate.  I've been using it myself for a couple of years now, and it works great.


Update media source directory for Final Cut Pro X event

When you link one media file in an event, FCPX should find the other media files automatically.

For example, if you had media files in a folder, then moved the contents of that folder elsewhere, linking one file from that folder back to the FCPX media reference should let FCPX see the rest of that folder and automatically relink the rest of the media from that folder.


How do you play a clip backwards in Sony Vegas?

Found it!

You can press the "J" key to play in reverse. Each time you hit the "J" it will jump a full speed up to x4. If you want to jump by speeds of .25x, hold the "K" button and hit "J". While it is play backwards, hitting the spacebar will jump you back to where you started playing, and hitting "K" will stop you where you are.

To adjust playback speeds going forward, you can use the "L" key in the same manor.

To find the exact point where a breath is taken, you place the play head about where the breath starts, then hit "J", it will play backwards for a bit. Hit the spacebar and adjust the playback spot by hitting the left or right arrow, then hit "J" again. Once you are exactly where you want to cut the clip, hit "S" and you will split the clip right there.

(The arrows will jump one "frame" according to the frame rate of your project, even if it is an audio project. If it is set to 24 fps, it will jump 1/24th of a second forward or backward)


Replicate opacity animation to every title in my sequence

I tried using Cross Dissolve but I can't have it more than once in the same sequence (and I don't know if it works both for fading in and out).

I'm not sure what you mean there. You can add transitions to the beginning and end of every clip (a title is considered a clip in the context of premiere), or respectively to every cut between adjacent clips. In fact, if you only want the titles to fade in and fade out, this would be the preferred method. Far easier than doing it with keyframes. Two quick tips regarding this approach:

You can quickly add the default transition1 to multiple titles/clips by selecting them in the timeline (select multiple clips by holding CTRL and left-clicking on them) and pressing CTRL + D.
You can set the default length of transitions in frames or seconds in the program preferences under Preferences → General → Video Transition Default Duration. This will also affect transitions added using the shortcut described above, but changing this setting will not change transitions that are already applied to your clips.

  How can I repeat this without having to create keyframes and set their opacity manually for every title?

Once you have created the keyframes for the first title clip, right-click on it and select Copy from the context-menu. Then, select all the title clips that you want to add the same keyframe animation to in the timeline and right-click on one of them. Select Paste Attributes… from the context menu. This will open a context window where you can select which effects you want to paste (In your case, select Opacity. You might also have to select Scale Attribute Times. Note that this will work with any effect you have added to your clip, not just the default ones). Click OK and it will apply the selected effect settings to all the selected clips.

1 The default transition is highlighted with a blue border in the effects panel. You can change it by right-clicking on the desired transition in the effects panel and selecting Set Selected as Default Transition.


How do I make animated subtitles to go with music?

The author of the subtitles, Jefferz, says:

  "... I animated the text to match the original subtitles use Adobe After Effects (CS6 specifically) keyframing the text movements ...".

Source Jefferz's Tumblr Blog.

It's a manual process.


ffmpeg add loop to this line of code i have

You want to take a look at the aloop-filter.

ffmpeg -i "song.mp4" -i "2.mp3" -filter_complex "[1:a]aloop=loop=-1[al];[al]adelay=3000|60000[1a];[0:a][1a]amix" -vcodec copy -y "output1.mp4"

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#aloop

And then you will probably want to limit the song.mp4, so we are using the duration option of amix, to tell it to limit by the first input given. https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#amix

ffmpeg -i "song.mp4" -i "2.mp3" -filter_complex "[1:a]aloop=loop=-1[al];[al]adelay=3000|60000[1a];[0:a][1a]amix=duration=first" -vcodec copy -y "output1.mp4"

Since I am not sure which of the two files you want to loop and don't know if you want to loop before or after the delay you might need to adjust the order of filters.


Is it possible to automate a workflow in Premiere Pro

As mentioned in the comments, I realized that Premiere Pro was the wrong tool for the job. Thanks to Florian I got started with ffmpeg.
For the sake of any future users who might want something like this, I thought I'd share my solution.
The following Command helps me convert my wmv source file to mp4 with a png watermark in the bottom right corner and the source video negated (colour inverted).
ffmpeg -i source.wmv -i logo.png -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -c:a aac -strict -2 -q:a 100 -max_muxing_queue_size 9999 -filter_complex "[1]format=yuva444p,colorchannelmixer=aa=0.8[logo];[0]fps=fps=30, negate=1[flip];[flip][logo]overlay=x=(main_w-overlay_w):y=(main_h-overlay_h)" output_file.mp4
I also made a gist with the broken down commands for each of my requirements. ffmpeg is blazing fast too!
https://gist.github.com/gigincg/338ec705632ee69cfe72eae73c2bb95f


In Premiere Pro, how do I set the fps of a video to publish?

You need to select minimum bitrate for video, especially if your video have only 1 image.
If you will look how h264 codec works, you will know that it creates one "basic frame" each 'n' frames and then it creates "intermediate frames" only with areas of pixels which were changed.

I have tried some variants and can show you how fps affect on file size. And how keyframe distance affect to file size.
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ZobMxAzPQi2NaVfLDa5wYrHN87tIc11h

You can look at these 5 files.

Sample_minimum video BitRate_10 fps_keyframe distance = 300 - audio bitrate 320kbps.mp4 has size - 1 348 883

Sample_minimum video BitRate_10 fps_keyframedistance - standart - audio bitrate 320kbps.mp4 has size - 1 943 816

Sample_minimum video BitRate_30 fps - audio bitrate 320kbps.mp4 has size - 1 983 552

Sample_minimum video BitRate_30 fps_keyframe distance = 300 - audio bitrate 320kbps.mp4 has size - 1 544 303

Sample_without video - audio bitrate 320kbps.mp4 has size - 1 210 771 B

Minimum bitrate you can set here:


How to make PNG video render into 10bit h.264 matroska/avi file?

You can use

ffmpeg -i %04d.png -i audio.wav -c:v libx264 -crf 0 -c:a copy output.mkv

where %04d.png represents the pattern for the image filenames. The % is a prefix indicating a numbering pattern is specified afterwards. 04 represents a 4 character pattern, padded with zeros as necessary. d indicates that the characters are numbers.

The particular filename pattern captured in %04d.png is

0001.png
0002.png
0003.png
...

If instead they are

1.png
2.png
3.png
...
999.png
...
9999.png

you would supply %d.png i.e. no padding.

If it's

myimages_00001.png
myimages_00002.png
myimages_00003.png
...

you would use myimages_%05d.png


Trim a segment of live, still-encoding H.264/FLV with ffmpeg

Keep FLV but trim using demuxer seek and duration.

ffmpeg -ss 00:00:03.000 -t 00:00:01.000 -i output.flv -c copy output2.mp4

Also, skip -ss if it's 0 i.e. stream start.


Audio can be heard only in VLC player, but not in the editor

.MKV files are not a friendly video format when working with NLE systems. And the non existent audio you're getting is probably due to the way audio  in .MKV files are wrapped.

I would suggest transcoding the .MKV file(s) to .mp4 if you're working with Windows Movie Maker. Alternatively you can follow this link for suitable formats: video files

A really good transcoder (free) is adaptor. It will read your .MKV file without problems and should convert to a .mp4 file just as easily.

Be sure to crank up the bit rate to get the best possible picture :)


FFmpeg can't do this.

Even theoretically, the method seems unsound (no pun intended). Audios are typically sampled at 40K+ Hz per second. Max image dimension in ffmpeg is 65K. So even at that size, one can barely represent 1.5 seconds of audio at full sampling resolution. Once you go lower and rely on interpolation, your output quality will start to degrade, as your reconstruction gets coarser.


Macro Videography: Lenses, Camera Options

You are absolutely correct that a good macro lens is crucial for a specialty such as shooting miniatures.  You are also correct that cropping into a 4K source to get an HD frame will still give you good video quality.  And it's also true that a RAW image format like BMCC is somewhat forgiving of not only cropping in, but zooming in to some extent.  But I would also caution that once you actually start zooming into consumer-grade digital video, it falls apart way, way faster than when you zoom into typical stills photos.  Since the SONY cannot record 4K natively, but only with an expensive external recorder, and you've set a budget ceiling of $2K, that means no zooming with the SONY.

I have three Canon macro lenses that are each great at what they do: the 100mm f2.8L, which is the simplest to use, the 180mm f3.5L, which is better for shooting nature (more working distance), and the 65mm f2.8 Macro Explorer, which shoots between 1:1 and 5:1 magnifications (great for bugs and other tiny, tiny details).  I don't use my Canon lenses on my GH4 (I also have a RED WEAPON with a Canon mount), but to answer your question, I'd pick the 100mm macro with a speed booster (not for f2.0 performance, but for field of view) and a GH4.  And I'd make great use of my K*FLect light reflector system to light my tabletop scenes.


Blender does have compositing capability, and can be used to do some of the stuff that AE does. It's free, but you have to learn how to use it, so how highly you value your time counts in the final equation.

If you want to see Blender in action as a compositor you can see the "Tears of Steel" short film made with Blender last year.


Color Correction filter to dull/desaturate Video

If you do a primary color correction on your video to get it normalized (this is assuming your footage looks correct in terms of exposure, white balance, etc); I'd add the following filters to achieve that look without any plugins...

You would have to play with the parameters; I haven't seen your footage, so I can't say how strong a filter would need to be applied.

Either ADD and Adjustment Layer on Top of your Footage Layers; or you can nest your comp into another comp and do your color correction there.

FILTERS

USE THIS ORDER ON YOUR FOOTAGE/ADJUSTMENT LAYER GOING TOP TO BOTTOM

Color Correction - Brightness Contrast:   Reduce Contrast (you will have to play with this as I don't know if your footage is High Key to begin with).  But to get that look, you want low contrast footage behind your text, so that you lift your blacks and shadows up. I wouldn't increase Brightness unless you shot 4:4:4.  But you want very low contrast which basically flattens out the overall image and mutes the colors as well.
Color Correction - Hue Saturation Lightness (HSL):   Reduce Saturation by 50%. Increase Lightness: 2-10%  Leave Hue at 0.
Color Correction - Vibrance:  Now that you've reduced your Saturation; adjust the Vibrance Up till you get the colors to punch through to your liking. You may need to reduce Saturation in previous filter or not reduce it so much as 50, depending on your footage. But pulling back your saturation a decent amount, and replacing it with Vibrance will give you the tonality you're looking for color space wise.
Last Filter: Add Video Limiter Filter, and soft knee your Luminance to 99.90.

Lastly; if you want to knock your TYPE out from your footage background, you can add even a very small amount of Blur. Gaussian Blur; or Fast Blur, Lens Blur is nice but adds render time. All options would work for this.

FOR YOUR TEXT

Adding a even small stroke will help it pop. Use video/film friendly fonts, no fine lines/hairline fonts. Some of my favorite fonts for video are:  Gotham Ultra; Gotham Book, Gotham Medium, Whitney (SemiBold, Book, Book SmallCaps) Operator in Small Caps various weights, and if you want Serif, Mercury is a great font, as is Perpetua with the right weight.

If you are using fine line fonts, such as Gotham ExtraLight, adding a stroke of 1px as the same color of your font, and reducing the opacity of the stroke to 50% will help.

And lastly; adding a drop shadow (very subtle so almost not noticable) with 0 Distance, 0 Spread and Size 10-25 (Depending on Fontsize) and then reducing the opacity of the shadow to 10-40% works well.  I particularly don't like the drop-shadow look; but I do use it to get the text to pop out from my motion backgrounds.

Regardless, you want your text to background footage to have a wide latitude of contrast. So if your footage is bright, you'll either want to darken the footage down, or use a solid color layer on it, something to create a wider spectrum if you plan to use a light colored or white font. That-- or use a dark font.

If your footage is dark, either brighten it up, or use a bright colored font. Same goes for color.

FINAL TIP

I would recommend having your project comp set to 32 Bit Floating Point as far as workspace, even if your footage is 4:2:0.  You'll get better CC results.

Hope this helps.

Martin


Looking for real time video streaming/editing software for commercial snips

Any decent software media player can do this. I'd recommend Potplayer.

It has a playlist module --> that's your 'queue'. It has a repeat playlist feature --> that's your loop. And you can add/remove/shuffle the entries in the playlist during playback. Potplayer can display still images but it defaults to a duration of 10 seconds. Not aware if that can be changed. You can duplicate the image entry in the playlist to have a play duration in multiples of 10 seconds. And you can get a custom duration by using ffmpeg to create a video of the still image like this:

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i imagefile -t 01:45 imagevideo.mp4

(1 minute, 45 seconds in the above example).

Use the 32-bit static build of ffmpeg from here.

The other logging/auditing features are probably not possible with regular media players out of the box. Digital signage softwares probably have them.


How do I change the center of a 360 video within Adobe Premiere so that there is always a front side (or main point of interest) in each video?

Go to Effects > Immersive Video > VR Projection > Pan.

Here you can change "pan" to whatever point you want to focus on.


The issue isn't the scan type but the timestamps for the video stream.

Run

ffmpeg -i bad.webm -c copy -an badv.nut

and then

ffmpeg -i badv.nut -i bad.webm -c copy -map 0:v -map 1:a new.,webm

The video timestamps start at some large non-zero number but the audio TS start at zero. That throws stream queueing out-of-whack since the sync relies on the stream with earliest start time within the file. The two step method works around that by isolating the video first into its own file.


Blur a face using only one video layer with Premiere CS6?

Yes and no, you can do it without duplicating the clip, but not without a second layer.  Instead of using a second copy of the clip, you can use an adjustment layer.  You make a new adjustment layer by creating a New Item in the Project window.  You add that adjustment layer over top of the video you want to adjust and then you apply your masking to the adjustment layer and apply your effects to the adjustment layer.

The effects applied to the adjustment layer are then applied to the sum total of all the layers below the adjustment layer.  Effectively, the adjustment layer is a layer that is composed of a sub-render of everything below it and then has the set of effects applied to it applied to that sub-render.

It technically isn't adding two copies of the sequence, but practically it is still doing the same thing.  I'm not personally aware of any more straightforward technique than that for doing what you describe in CS6 though.  That doesn't necessarily mean much though as I normally do this kind of thing in AE anyway, so my experience doing it in Premiere is limited at best (bordering on non-existent.)


how do I produce a time lapse visual animation like this famous video?

R (the letter R) is free software environment for statistical computing and graphics.  It can be extended by means of packages that the R-core team and team and community create.  For creating a video such as the above, you would want the data that describes the date of a nuclear event, the yield of the event, some metric of its decay function (perhaps the half-life of some particular isotope present in the fallout of the event), the geolocation of the event, and the country responsible for the event.  You could then feed this data into a package such as animation combined with rworldmap.

R is a great way to bring data to life, visually.  With the above, you can create animated GIFs, active HTML pages, or full-fledged video files that can be further integrated into digital production environments.


I use FCPX, curious on how I can put a non-360 clip into a 360 video?

It looks like the Dashwood 360 VR plug-ins have a plug-in called Project 2D on Sphere that allows you to put 2D footage into your 360° panorama:

  The Project 2D on Sphere plugin can be used to place logos in your 2:1 equirectangular projection

It has a variety of other useful tools, too.


iOS like (partial) slowmotion with easing in Premiere CC

You can use the Time Remapping effect, and just use keyframes to ease in/out of different speeds.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/duration-speed.html


How can I insert a censor bar into a mp4 movie?

Any decent video editing software will allow you to specify bitrate and resolution in export settings. Sony Vegas Pro or Movie Studio, Adobe Premiere Elements, as should Cyberlink Powerdirector among others.

For a 2 hour movie with 700MB as output size, you want a target or average bitrate of 670 kbps for the video and 128 kbps for the audio.


What you're referring to is the aspect ratio. 1920 by 1080p is HD video, you would have to letterbox it in post production to achieve the 'wider' aspect ratio (I'm assuming you want 2.39:1).

As for the lens, 18mm is a pretty wide lens. If you have a 35mm sensor you may experience some barrel distortion – which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just as long as it's used well.

Not too sure what you mean by your audience feeling claustrophobic. However, a 50mm lens on a 35mm sensor closely replicates the field of view of the human eye as does (approx.) a 30mm lens on a crop sensor.

So to answer your question: no, you don't need a lens wider than 18mm to make a professional looking video.

EDIT: You mentioned that you will be using a kit lens. Typically kit lenses have a low build quality and are rarely used by professional cinematographers. Obtaining a better lens will make your videos look more professional due to the superior build quality and glass.

A good way to look for good lenses is to, firstly, figure out what focal length you require (8mm fisheye, 50mm, 85mm etc.), search online for different brand's lenses (you have  a Nikon but there are many companies that make third party lenses such as Tamron, Tokina, Sigma), look online for reviews of the lenses and test footage (Vimeo is a great place to find test footage) and then you can make an informed decision on which lens is best for you.

I'd recommend obtaining a good 50mm prime lens. Primes have less glass and generally produce a sharper image. Not too sure what Nikon lenses are like but you could try purchasing a 2nd hand lens off eBay and then buying an adaptor to get it onto your camera. This option is usually pretty cheap and if the lens is in good condition you will most likely be impressed with the result. I bought myself a Carl Zeiss 50mm f/1.8 for $80 and an adaptor for $5 – now it's one of my favourite lenses (and definitely the cheapest).


Software to handle 100/1000 hours video?

After reading about FCP's 1600 track, 558 day long sequence test I don't think that's the limit of the software, but the hardware: "...very large numbers of clips within FCPX will slow the machine down."

Same is true of Adobe's Premiere - as the project grows, the performance lags. Avid Media Composer manages media differently and AFAIK, there's no limit (?) to the sequence length, but in the comments of the FCP 558days/1600track article, someone writes, "Last time I built a sequence over 13 hours, Avid stopped playing audio." Again, that might be a hardware and/or configuration issue.

Possibly Sony's Vegas would also be a contender?

Not sure about Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve or EditShare's LightWorks (both free).

------EDIT
After talking to some Avid editors, I think I may be wrong and that Avid doesn't like projects even 24hr long, more like a 12-18 hour limit. Not a lot of day long content getting made for broadcast I suppose!

------EDIT
Interesting - & so much for what I think I know - Avid's sequence length maximum is comparatively quite limited. From a friend, "At 48KHz, about 12 hours. The limit is 2,147,483,648 audio samples. Six hours if you work at 96KHz."

------EDIT
Don't have an Avid setup to test on, but of note, I understand that if you remove audio tracks, Avid sequences can be much longer. This may hold true for other editing applications & worth testing if you only need 100 or 1000 hours of just "video" and no audio.


Media Player for playback of 1000 fps video at 24 fps

You can use the free command-line tool ffplay, which is part of the ffmpeg project.

ffplay in.mp4 -vf setpts=N/24/TB,fps=24

You can change the value 24 above to any arbitrary value. Just remember to change both instances in concert.


Footage of different framerates in Adobe Premiere Pro

It depends on the shutter speed being used on the other camera.  If the shutter speed is faster than 1/50th of a second, then shooting at 50fps and discarding every other frame would be the same as shooting at 25fps, but it means that your shutter speed must be faster than 1/50th of a second.

If light isn't an issue, then the faster frame rate won't have an impact, but if light may require a higher ISO and degrade the footage unnecessarily.  Similarly, if you aren't planning to need any slow motion shots, then there isn't really any great advantage to shooting at 50fps as you gain nothing.

Overall, say go with 1080p and 25fps on the GoPro unless you need to do slow motion and have sufficient light, in which case go 50fps on the second camera (or better yet, do 25fps for all but the slow motion shots and move to 60fps for the slow motion shots since the frame rate will be altered anyway.)


How do I capture a noiseprint in Vegas Pro with the Noise Reduction plugin?

Add Event FX (not Track FX) plugin Noise Reduction by clicking on the "fx" symbol and selecting Noise Reduction.

Select a region of noise in the audio.

Select "Capture noiseprint" in the effects window.

Press play in the Preview window.

Optionally, save the captured noiseprint as a preset.


ffmpeg output file includes two video sequences but input file only one

Use

ffmpeg -y -i input.mkv -map 0:v:0 -map 0:a:m:language:ger -map 0:s? -c copy output.mkv

You'll need ffmpeg 4.2 or newer.


Opaque overlay becomes transparent when fading out both video tracks in Sony Vegas

This is the expected behavior for fading two video tracks.  Video tracks are blended in order to build up what you see as an end result.  When you make the image mask (the overlay) for the chat pain start fading to transparent, it allows the images underneath to be seen.  So if it is at 70% transparent, it lets through 30% of the underlying layers, which in turn is letting through 30% of the layer under it.

To get around this, you need to fade the combined video rather than the individual videos.  The easiest way to do this in your case is going to be to use parent/child compositing relationships.  By telling Vegas that the two clips are related and should have effects applied to both, it should allow you to have an effect applied to the sum total of both tracks instead of needing to apply it to both individually.

Sony actually already has a pretty nice write up on the feature available here.


Create your text layer.
Create a 100% black solid layer
Create a 100% white solid layer, make sure it is above the black layer.
Precomp the two solid layers (cmd/control + shift + c) and jump into the comp.
Add a 'venetian blinds' effect to the white layer and delete the keyframes that automatically accompany it.
Set the 'Direction' to -90deg, 'transition completion' to 50%, width to 100 and the feather to 50 (or half width).
Set a keyframe to position of the white layer. Jump forward two seconds (or however long you want the loop to last) and add 100px to the y position. (Note: the difference in y pos needs to match the width of the venetian blinds effect. 100 = 100).
Go to the previous frame by hitting the 'page up' button on your keyboard.
Hit 'tab' then 'left arrow' then 'enter'. To go to the parent comp.
Hit 'n' on the keyboard to set the animation duration. Duration should always be one frame less that the keyframes of the position on the white layer of the nested comp.
Turn off the visibility of the nested comp and add a 'displacement map' effect to the text layer.
Set the 'Max Horizontal Displacement' to 50 (or your preference) and the 'Max Vertical Displacement' to 0.
Set the 'Displacement Map' to the nested comp layer.

Mine looks like this:

You should be able to modify it to your liking. Good luck!

EDIT: I've just reread your post and realised that you wanted the top to remain static and have the bottom wave.

In order to accomplish that, you'll want to add a couple of rectangular shape layers that will sit directly over your text layers (make them a fair bit wider than your text, but the same height). Add a 'gradient ramp' effect and make is so that it runs from black at the top of the layer to white at the bottom. Set the shape layer's blend mode to multiply. Then cut the layers out and paste them into the nested map layer. Your nested map layer should now look something like this:

With text for reference:

Final map, text turned off:

Now the top of the text will remain static and the bottom will progressively wave more.


Why is rendered playback slower than my project?

This was resolved due to incorrect audio sample rate with my DAW. In Vegas I was editing in 24 bit 48,000Hz. After render, my systems was attempting to playback the video file at 16bit 41,000Hz which will cause this effect.


Get location (X,Y) of motion tracking object?

This is definitely possible! Because you say you're new I'll write this out in detail, you might know some of this already but here goes:

Make a new composition with just your footage, and add a new Null Object (Layer>New>Null Object). Make sure this is just above your footage in the layer stack. It doesn't actually have to be, but if it is then it will simplify a few things.

Motion track your footage and in the motion tracking panel click "Apply" and then just hit "OK" on the dialog that opens up.

Now what happens is your tracking data gets applied to the Null Object (it automatically takes the layer above the footage layer - you can change this of course but no need to in this example).

Select your null object and hit "u" which is the shortcut to show all keyframes. You'll see that there are now position keys on the null object, and those are the coordinates you want already given in X and Y, with the top right corner of the screen at (0,0).

What do you want to do with them from there?

EDIT: Just realized an even simpler method... just motion track your dot, select your footage layer and hit "u". Now you will see a keyframed property called "Feature Center" and this is what you want. Everything in AE has (0,0) in the top left corner.


Make only a specific region of a video blurry

In your Premiere timeline put two copies of the lower third above each other on top of the footage. Right click on the lower copy and choose Adjustment Layer from the context menu. Now it acts as a mask for any filters you apply to it, affecting only the opaque areas. Apply a blur effect to this adjustment layer and the footage below will blur where the lower third is opaque.

Now because adjustment layers use the opacity of the clip to set the strength of the effect you might find the blur won't be very strong where the lower third is semi opaque (this is what it looks like with the top layer turned off):

You can fix this by making a duplicate of your lower third in After Effects with a more opaque background, and using that as your adjustment layer:

And Voila! Your beautiful lower third with bg blur:


How to stretch an image in vegas? Tips? (Reference image in body)

I believe most of this effect can be achieved using Deform FX.

For true perspective, you need 3D track motion.

I have not used either but here are some links:

Perspective

How do I skew a video clip?


How do you edit out pauses in YouTube videos?

The effect you are talking about is called jumpcut and it is particularly popular among vloggers.
As far as I know, there is no automatic way to do it although it would probably be possible to do from technological perspective.
However using jumpcuts has several functions.

You get rid of silence and squeeze as much information in short form as possible, keeping viewers attention.
Second important function is selection of your shots. While going through your material (shot usually in one take) you can discard stuff you don't want (even if you were talking at that point) and fundamentally alter the tone of your video.

This increased creative control is worth it considering that editing your video manually in this manner is very easy and won't take much time or effort.

tl;dr
It might be doable, but there is no user friendly solution now. Anyway I would suggest to do it manually for various reasons described in full answer.


You should be able to send it directly to FCPX using the "Send To Final Cut Pro" menu item. Per the documentation, they say:

  Do one of the following:

  Select the project in the browser, or double-click the project to open it.

  With the project open, click anywhere in the timeline.

  Note:  If you can’t find the project you’re looking for, verify that the correct library is selected.

  Choose File > Send Movie To Final Cut Pro.

  Final Cut Pro X opens. A new library appears in Final Cut Pro X with the name of your iMovie library, and a new event within that library contains the movie project you sent.


How did ILM create the hyperspace tunnel effect?

Although it looks like a slit-scan effect similar to the Tom Baker era Dr. Who titles, in this case, the effect was very simply made with mylar - a reflective plastic.  Due to time and budget constraints, there wasn't much they could do, so they made a tunnel out of mylar and flew the camera through it.  They apparently had a lot of mylar left from making the reflective background behind the starfield.


Need to reach a low data rate of about 1.5 - 2 MB/min (200 - 267 kb/s)

summary: yes, depending on content, with a good encoder h.264 can look pretty good at 240kib/s video bitrate, at NTSC 720x480p30.

With modern codecs, you don't need to downscale the rez too far.  If there isn't a lot of noise in your source, you're just putting the same complexity into fewer pixels.  You shouldn't encode 1080p at 270kb/s, though :P.  There is overhead to having more macroblocks, and diluting the complexity across too many pixels probably means worse results from quantizing the DCT coefficients.  Lower resolution lets you turn up the CPU-usage knob on your codec while still being realtime, though.

For a test encode, I have a lossless source of the sintel trailer.  (3D animation with fades between scenes, and significant amount of changeless).  So it's probably actually a really bad test case...

ffmpeg -i sintel.y4m -pix_fmt yuv420p -vf crop=1920:816:0:132,scale=640:-1 -ssim 1 -psnr -tune animation -preset slow -b:v 270k 640x272.x264.270k.mkv

That does quite well, with an average QP of 18.03(I) / 23.44(P) / 24.93(B).  SSIM Mean Y:0.9852979, PSNR Global:44.801 at 231.37 kib/s.  (a still section at the end leaves x264 undershooting the target bitrate for one-pass).  I left psy optimizations enabled, so x264 is trying to do what looks best, not what scores highest on SSIM or PSNR.  Just useful as a ballpark figure.

I have a live-action source that's not too noisy.  I picked a portion that just has one actor moving around on stage, everyone else standing still, and no camera motion.  So it might be similar in compressibility to a someone talking while looking at a webcam, in front of a mostly-constant background.  (stuff like this matters a LOT for compressibility).  About 1/3 of the screen is black background.  (so black the encoder knows you can't see anything, and hardly spends any bits, I assume.)

ffmpeg -ss 2410 -t 30 -i vid.yadif3.1,mcdeint3.1.10.ffvhuff.mkv -c:a opus -b:a 32k -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 30 -vf framestep=2 -ssim 1 -psnr  -preset slow -b:v 240k  2410+30.slow.opus.230k.mkv

Source is 60p deinterlace output, from NTSC DV or something.  Anyway, with those ffmpeg options, it stays as 720x480@30p (with non-square pixels, display aspect ratio = 16:9).  Output looks pretty darn good considering the bitrate, and the singing sounds good, but has some artifacts.  (audio source is not noisy, and there's no accompaniment, just soloist + chorus.)

frame=  900 fps= 35 q=-1.0 LPSNR=Y:inf U:inf V:inf *:inf size=     990kB time=00:00:30.01 bitrate= 270.3kbits/s
video:854kB audio:120kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 1.635424%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] frame I:4     Avg QP:22.63  size: 23294  PSNR Mean Y:44.02 U:48.68 V:47.86 Avg:45.00 Global:42.71
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] frame P:239   Avg QP:22.23  size:  2492  PSNR Mean Y:43.64 U:48.67 V:47.52 Avg:44.67 Global:44.47
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] frame B:657   Avg QP:24.97  size:   282  PSNR Mean Y:43.38 U:48.52 V:47.37 Avg:44.43 Global:44.24
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] consecutive B-frames:  0.6%  0.0% 19.0% 80.4%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] mb I  I16..4: 27.0% 58.0% 15.0%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] mb P  I16..4:  0.2%  0.4%  0.1%  P16..4: 22.1%  5.1%  6.7%  0.0%  0.0%    skip:65.4%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] mb B  I16..4:  0.0%  0.0%  0.0%  B16..8: 12.5%  0.4%  0.1%  direct: 0.1%  skip:87.0%  L0:23.6% L1:74.4% BI: 2.1%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] final ratefactor: 22.98
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] 8x8 transform intra:59.0% inter:71.2%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] direct mvs  spatial:99.7% temporal:0.3%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 50.7% 48.1% 24.7% inter: 2.8% 5.1% 0.2%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] i16 v,h,dc,p: 36% 38%  7% 19%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 15%  4% 22%  8% 12% 11% 12%  8%  8%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 14%  3%  5% 12% 15% 16% 12% 12% 10%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] i8c dc,h,v,p: 48% 27% 18%  7%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.0% UV:0.0%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] ref P L0: 66.9%  8.4% 14.9%  3.5%  4.6%  1.6%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] ref B L0: 85.5% 10.8%  2.9%  0.8%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] ref B L1: 92.3%  7.7%
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] SSIM Mean Y:0.9730952 (15.702db)
[libx264 @ 0x2400360] PSNR Mean Y:43.450 U:48.564 V:47.412 Avg:44.498 Global:44.292 kb/s:232.89

And 35fps on my E6600 (2.4GHz dual core first-gen c2duo) is not bad.  If you're trying to live-stream from a phone, you're going to be much more constrained, though.  You could use lower rez or lower framerate (25 fps, or 24, or 20?)

I was actually surprised at how well x264 did with -preset veryfast.  I guess on this content, even veryfast finds most of the same redundancy to eliminate.

frame=  900 fps= 90 q=-1.0 LPSNR=Y:inf U:inf V:inf *:inf size=     994kB time=00:00:30.01 bitrate= 271.5kbits/s
video:859kB audio:120kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 1.612045%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] frame I:4     Avg QP:21.51  size: 24840  PSNR Mean Y:44.16 U:48.09 V:47.20 Avg:44.99 Global:42.15
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] frame P:227   Avg QP:21.22  size:  2649  PSNR Mean Y:43.57 U:48.08 V:46.72 Avg:44.50 Global:44.26
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] frame B:669   Avg QP:22.30  size:   267  PSNR Mean Y:43.32 U:48.04 V:46.67 Avg:44.29 Global:44.02
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] consecutive B-frames:  0.9%  0.0%  0.0% 99.1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] mb I  I16..4: 24.0% 45.9% 30.1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] mb P  I16..4:  1.4%  2.8%  0.1%  P16..4: 20.9%  4.2%  3.1%  0.0%  0.0%    skip:67.5%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] mb B  I16..4:  0.1%  0.2%  0.0%  B16..8:  1.7%  0.6%  0.1%  direct: 2.1%  skip:95.2%  L0:23.9% L1:45.7% BI:30.3%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] final ratefactor: 20.78
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] 8x8 transform intra:60.6% inter:38.4%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 39.1% 40.2% 10.5% inter: 2.7% 3.1% 0.1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] i16 v,h,dc,p: 73% 11% 13%  3%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 12%  7% 73%  1%  1%  1%  2%  1%  1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 31% 13% 14%  5%  8%  9%  8%  6%  6%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] i8c dc,h,v,p: 76%  8% 15%  1%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.0% UV:0.0%
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] SSIM Mean Y:0.9737951 (15.816db)
[libx264 @ 0x37b6420] PSNR Mean Y:43.390 U:48.047 V:46.685 Avg:44.343 Global:44.068 kb/s:234.13

bitrate ended up 2kib/s higher, with about the same PSNR, and higher SSIM.

With -tune ssim to disable psychovisual optimizations (don't do this for real use),
veryfast gets: Y-SSIM: 15.891db, PSNR Global:44.294, kb/s:233.26.
slow gets: Y-SSIM: 16.097db, PSNR Global:44.752, kb/s:232.86

So that's what x264 can do with h.264 High@L3.0 profile, at 0.023 bits/pixel/frame.

tested x265:
ffmpeg -ss 2410 -t 30 -i vid.yadif3.1,mcdeint3.1.10.ffvhuff.mkv -c:a opus -b:a 32k -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 30 -vf framestep=2 -ssim 1 -psnr -c:v libx265 -preset slow -b:v 240k -aspect 16:9 x265.2410+30.slow.opus.230k.mkv

ffmpeg version N-68044-gb9dd809 Copyright (c) 2000-2015 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Jan 14 2015 23:21:08 with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.2-19ubuntu1)
  configuration: --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-nonfree --disable-doc --disable-ffserver --enable-libbluray --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libtheora --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libwebp --enable-libvpx --disable-outdev=oss --disable-indev=oss --disable-encoder=vorbis --enable-libvorbis --enable-libfdk-aac --disable-encoder=aac --disable-decoder=jpeg2000 --enable-libvidstab
  libavutil      54. 16.100 / 54. 16.100
  libavcodec     56. 20.100 / 56. 20.100
  libavformat    56. 18.101 / 56. 18.101
  libavdevice    56.  4.100 / 56.  4.100
  libavfilter     5.  7.101 /  5.  7.101
  libswscale      3.  1.101 /  3.  1.101
  libswresample   1.  1.100 /  1.  1.100
  libpostproc    53.  3.100 / 53.  3.100
Input #0, matroska,webm, from 'vid.yadif3.1,mcdeint3.1.10.ffvhuff.mkv':
  Metadata:
    ENCODER         : Lavf56.15.102
  Duration: 01:22:11.94, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 95843 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Video: ffvhuff (FFVH / 0x48564646), yuv420p, 720x480, SAR 186:157 DAR 279:157, 59.94 fps, 59.94 tbr, 1k tbn, 1k tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      ENCODER         : Lavc56.14.100 ffvhuff
    Stream #0:1: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 192 kb/s (default)
Codec AVOption ssim (Calculate and print SSIM stats.) specified for output file #0 (x265.2410+30.veryfast.opus.230k.mkv) has not been used for any stream. The most likely reason is either wrong type (e.g. a video option with no video streams) or that it is a private option of some encoder which was not actually used for any stream.
x265 [info]: HEVC encoder version 1.4+286-a12080554342
x265 [info]: build info [Linux][GCC 4.8.2][64 bit] 8bpp
x265 [info]: using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 Cache64 SlowShuffle
x265 [warning]: --psnr used with AQ on: results will be invalid!
x265 [warning]: --tune psnr should be used if attempting to benchmark psnr!
x265 [info]: Main profile, Level-3 (Main tier)
x265 [info]: WPP streams / frame threads / pool  : 15 / 1 / 2
x265 [info]: CTU size / RQT depth inter / intra  : 32 / 1 / 1
x265 [info]: ME / range / subpel / merge         : hex / 57 / 1 / 2
x265 [info]: Keyframe min / max / scenecut       : 25 / 250 / 40
x265 [info]: Lookahead / bframes / badapt        : 15 / 4 / 0
x265 [info]: b-pyramid / weightp / weightb / refs: 1 / 1 / 0 / 1
x265 [info]: Rate Control / AQ-Strength / CUTree : ABR-240 kbps / 1.0 / 0
x265 [info]: tools: rd=2 early-skip deblock sao signhide fast-intra tmvp
Output #0, matroska, to 'x265.2410+30.veryfast.opus.230k.mkv':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf56.18.101
    Stream #0:0: Video: hevc (libx265), yuv420p, 720x480 [SAR 32:27 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 240 kb/s, 30 fps, 1k tbn, 30 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc56.20.100 libx265
    Stream #0:1: Audio: opus (libopus) ([255][255][255][255] / 0xFFFFFFFF), 48000 Hz, stereo, flt, 32 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc56.20.100 libopus
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (ffvhuff (native) -> hevc (libx265))
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (ac3 (native) -> opus (libopus))
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame=  900 fps= 24 q=0.0 LPSNR=Y:inf U:inf V:inf *:inf size=     998kB time=00:00:30.01 bitrate= 272.4kbits/s
video:861kB audio:120kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:1kB muxing overhead: 1.713292%
x265 [info]: frame I:      4, Avg QP:21.87  kb/s: 5097.48   PSNR Mean: Y:43.899 U:48.345 V:47.187  SSIM Mean: 0.968502 (15.017dB)
x265 [info]: frame P:    177, Avg QP:18.74  kb/s: 710.27    PSNR Mean: Y:43.347 U:48.274 V:47.041  SSIM Mean: 0.973469 (15.763dB)
x265 [info]: frame B:    719, Avg QP:20.83  kb/s: 89.99     PSNR Mean: Y:43.113 U:48.231 V:47.010  SSIM Mean: 0.972552 (15.615dB)
x265 [info]: global :    900, Avg QP:20.42  kb/s: 234.24    PSNR Mean: Y:43.163 U:48.240 V:47.017  SSIM Mean: 0.972714 (15.641dB)
x265 [info]: Weighted P-Frames: Y:0.0% UV:0.0%
x265 [info]: consecutive B-frames: 0.6% 0.0% 0.0% 0.6% 98.9%

(Note that I needed -x265-params ssim=1, because the ffmpeg libx265 interface doesn't pick up a lot of the commandline options.)

    slow: 253.245kbit/s fps=1.7  Y PSNR:44.228 unknown SSIM, forgot to turn it on
veryfast: 244.347kbit/s fps= 24  Y PSNR:43.163 15.641dB SSIM.

perceptually, the x265 veryfast output has less blocking than the x264 slow output.  I think x265 looks better.

x264 and x265 both from the git / hg repos, updated Jan 10th.


Is it possible to alter the playback *preview* speed?

Yes - while playing the video, press the L key to increase playback speed and press the J key to decrease it.

For further options, please reference the relevant Premiere Pro documentation.


Is it possible in FFMPEG to change scale over time?

From what I understand 't' is evaluated once. Have you read this: https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-filters.html#zoompan ?

Ffmpeg Docs:

9.170.1 Examples

Zoom-in up to 1.5 and pan at same time to some spot near center of picture:

zoompan=z='min(zoom+0.0015,1.5)':d=700:x='if(gte(zoom,1.5),x,x+1/a)':y='if(gte(zoom,1.5),y,y+1)':s=640x360

Zoom-in up to 1.5 and pan always at center of picture:

zoompan=z='min(zoom+0.0015,1.5)':d=700:x='iw/2-(iw/zoom/2)':y='ih/2-(ih/zoom/2)'

Same as above but without pausing:

zoompan=z='min(max(zoom,pzoom)+0.0015,1.5)':d=1:x='iw/2-(iw/zoom/2)':y='ih/2-(ih/zoom/2)'


Why does premiere perform so badly when it shouldn't?

Not sure if this was meant as rhetorical or not, but ..

I think your problem is the WMV. Premiere never works well with it. I don't know if its the way its encoded or what. Can you not capture in something more universal?

It looks like you're making minecraft videos, try using fraps or something that captures in avi or mp4. Those would probably give you better performance also if youre greenscreening, its better to used an uncompressed format.

Your video card could be an expensive, awesome gaming card but still not adobe-certified for gpu acceleration. Using one that is can help with this issue.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/system-requirements.html

Alex


What software is used to add animated characters to live TV?

It seems like they added this in post with a program like after effects(but this is simple enough that they could have even used a video editor). The cartoon was made in a program like after effects, blender, or any other animation program.


whats the technical name of this 'effect'/issue?

The horizontal lines are likely caused by an effect called Rolling Shutter

  why is it more pronounced in slow motion (does interlacing effect this)?
  I would have expected interlacing to reduce the visibility of the effect iff it was done on a line of pixels at a time.  However, if bands of pixels are read during the interlacing, that might make the effect worse.  That would provide a stripe of pixels at a similar exposure level and a step change when the next stripe was read.

  is there anything I can do with regards to shutter/speeds or utilizing 'clear scan' in the c100 to reduce this?

I don't believe so.  It is usually related to lower light levels so anything you can do to get more light into the camera would help.  You might find that reducing the exposure time (faster shutter speed) might help as it would force the camera to complete all the scan in less time.

(Seems a bit unsporting to use some of the question comments as an answer but they matched and expanded on what I knew.)


Clips appear "zoomed" in program monitor (Premiere Pro)

Right click on the clip you placed in your sequence and select 'Set to Frame size' and your clip will automatically be resized to fit the size of the current sequence.

You may also wish to reset the magnification of the Program Monitor by right clicking on the clip shown in the monitor and selecting 'Magnification > Fit'.


What is the ffmpeg filter equivalent of "Automatic levels" for colors?

Here's the details on what the presets do:

[PRESET_COLOR_NEGATIVE] = {
    "0/1 0.129/1 0.466/0.498 0.725/0 1/0",
    "0/1 0.109/1 0.301/0.498 0.517/0 1/0",
    "0/1 0.098/1 0.235/0.498 0.423/0 1/0",
},
[PRESET_CROSS_PROCESS] = {
    "0.25/0.156 0.501/0.501 0.686/0.745",
    "0.25/0.188 0.38/0.501 0.745/0.815 1/0.815",
    "0.231/0.094 0.709/0.874",
},
[PRESET_DARKER]             = { .master = "0.5/0.4" },
[PRESET_INCREASE_CONTRAST]  = { .master = "0.149/0.066 0.831/0.905 0.905/0.98" },
[PRESET_LIGHTER]            = { .master = "0.4/0.5" },
[PRESET_LINEAR_CONTRAST]    = { .master = "0.305/0.286 0.694/0.713" },
[PRESET_MEDIUM_CONTRAST]    = { .master = "0.286/0.219 0.639/0.643" },
[PRESET_NEGATIVE]           = { .master = "0/1 1/0" },
[PRESET_STRONG_CONTRAST]    = { .master = "0.301/0.196 0.592/0.6 0.686/0.737" },
[PRESET_VINTAGE] = {
    "0/0.11 0.42/0.51 1/0.95",
    "0.50/0.48",
    "0/0.22 0.49/0.44 1/0.8",
}

For each preset, each x/y pair maps input x to output y, where the range is 0-1. If not set, the filter automatically sets 0/0 and 1/1 i.e. input black = output black and input white = output white. Whereas 0/1 would mean set input black pixels to white in output. Where you have multiple pairs in quotes, separated by commas, the sequence is "R","G","B" mapping. The interpolation between the points is natural cubic spline.

For auto leveling, a crude method would be use the autolevels subfilter of the pp filter.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf pp=al output.mp4

What this does is stretch luminance to full range.

To check levels before (and after) any adjustment you do, you can generate a RGB parade for a frame like so

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "format=rgb24,waveform=c=7:d=parade,scale=1200x512" -vframes 1 frame1parade.png

For a specific frame, use

ffmpeg -ss 12.4 -i input.mp4 -vf "format=rgb24,waveform=c=7:d=parade,scale=1200x512" -vframes 1 frameNparade.png


Premiere Pro - How to pan around zoomed in Program Monitor

I figured it out.

Press H to switch to the Hand Tool, then you can drag the viewport around


What is the text commonly found at the end of documentaries called?

This might even be more on-topic at English.SE, but as far as I'm concerned that's definitely called an epilogue.

From Wikipedia:

  In many documentaries and biopics, the epilogue is text-based, explaining what happened to the subjects after the events covered in the film.


Prime or Zoom for Video (Micro Four Thirds)

I have that camera.  Here are a few things to consider:

The camera doesn't have any in-body stabilization, so the footage can be very shaky unless you're prepared.  In my situation, I knew I wanted to use a gimbal to stabilize.  This works great, but it will affect your lens choice.  If you plan to use the BMPCC on a gimball ever, remember that you won't be able to touch the lens to focus it, change iris, or zoom without disturbing the gimbal operation, so if that's in your playbook, you'll either need a remote follow focus setup (for a prime lens), or a lens that can be controlled remotely through the camera's bluetooth interface (for an autofocusing and/or stabilizing photo lens).  Keep in mind the autofocus on this camera is very slow, and not very "auto."  You have to tap the screen to re-focus unless you use bluetooth or remote follow focus.
When you say that you plan to use the BMPCC on a "Rig" I assume you mean shoulder rig.  Consider how you are going to monitor the footage and control the camera with it on your shoulder; if you're planning to use the camera's built-in screen, the camera's center of gravity will be VERY (entirely) forward.  Without proper counterbalance, you're better off not using a rig at all.  With a properly balanced shoulder rig, you can just about let go of the thing with both hands, and it should stay balanced on your shoulder.  There's no way to do that with this camera without an EVF or, like I said, some serious counterbalancing, which will more than double the total weight of what you're carrying.  With a shoulder rig, it's possible to grab the focus/iris/or zoom ring, and you won't shake the image as much as you would on a gimbal, BUT it can be very awkward to reach, and it's better to have a follow focus setup with remote hand grip controls in this situation as well.
The crop factor on this camera is 2x.  So, if you buy a 50mm lens, it's going to look like a 100mm lens on the BMPCC.  So, you'll want to get something wider than you think you'll need; a 35mm prime would be good for portraits/interviews.  If you want to do landscapes, you'll want at most a 12, and if you want to show real-estate interiors, you'll want an 8.  If you film in 4K, but deliver in 2K, you can use the extra pixels to digitally zoom (or stabilize), so again, it's better to err on the side of wider rather than telephoto.  Using a wider lens also has the added benefits of requiring less stabilization and having a larger focal plane, which translates to touching the lens less.
The price you pay for using a zoom lens is speed.  Zoom lenses have more moving parts, and more elements than prime lenses, which translates into less efficient light transmission and a higher minimum f-number than you'd find in a prime lens at the same price-point.  Yes, they are convenient.  The cost of that convenience is image quality.

For my starter kit, I went with three ultra cheap manual lenses.  I got a SLR MAGIC 8mm f4.0 for about a hundred bucks.  It was designed for drone use, so it works perfectly on a gimbal, and even handheld, the footage doesn't look shaky.  I wouldn't use anything higher than that without stabilization, though.

I also got a Meike 25mm f1.8, which translates into a 50mm equivalent, and is a good general-purpose lens.  At 1.8, it works in low light situations, although it is not at its sharpest.  It was also around a hundred bucks, so at that price, I'm not complaining.

Then to round out the kit, I found a m.zukio 40-100 olympus 5.6.  I use this one the least because the crop factor makes it a 80-200 equivalent.  It does have autofocus, though, and it was also VERY cheap.  It's an OK lens for sports, in the daytime.  At night, I had a hard time finding enough light with it at a local dirtbike track for HFR footage, and could just eek out a decent exposure at normal speed.  I suspect a football or baseball field would have more light, though.

TO BE CLEAR, I don't use my personal lenses for paid work.  These lenses are basically toys for practicing.  For paid jobs, I rent good glass, and what I get depends on the shoot.  If the shoot calls for a remote follow focus, I'll rent that, too.


How to add lower third text graphics to a video using FFmpeg

The drawtext filter doesn't support automatic wrapping.

So, if you want to display your text in n lines, you have to use the drawtext filter n times, with different values for parameters text, y (and maybe x, too) for every line.


What is this colour blocking/ banding i'm seeing and can it be corrected for?

This is most likely a compression issue from chroma subsampling and 8-bit log footage. Log footage does have very little contrast and saturation so that it does not clip. However, that means that your colors are compressed into a small range of possible values. By applying a LUT (or adding contrast and saturation) afterwards, you basically reverse that but lose the interpolation between the colors and therefore create banding.


Can I record directly to a computer with the HC-V250?

I have the same camera. As far as I can remember it can be used in "web cam" mode where it records straight to the computer.


How to record system sound without video?

With 1:0 you're including the video input from FaceTime HD Camera. Try:

ffmpeg -f avfoundation -i ":0" output.wav

This only selects audio device 0 which is Soundflower (2ch).

See avfoundation input device documentation for more info.


removing an x265 audio track without conversion?

Use ffmpeg*, a free command-line tool:

ffmpeg -i input.mkv -c copy -map 0:v -map 0:a:0 singleaudio.mkv

where 0:a:0 is the index of the audio stream you wish to keep. In ffmpeg, numbering starts from zero, so 0:a:0 refers to the first audio stream in the source file. Running ffprobe input.mkv beforehand will show the contents of the input.

*download the latest snapshot/nightly build.


How to import AVCHD to macOS while also deinterlacing during import?

Handbrake is really good for deinterlacing video. Under Filters choose Yadif for best result or Decomb for automatic recognition of interlaced frames.


Which web server is better for HLS streaming?

I'm working in a Live Streaming company in Singapore, and we use Nginx as the web server for HLS. Since Nginx is way better at processing static files. You never need to worry about the performance, nginx can utilize the 10G network card easily.


Do any iOS video apps record in log color space?

This announcement article dated January 11, 2017 indicates that there will be an upgrade to the app FiLMiC Pro which may accommodate what you are looking for. Note that the FiLMic Pro App Store web page indicates the latest release is 12/23/2016 - I do not know when the update the article speaks of will be available:

  The forthcoming update will introduce a new log mode that allows
  filmmakers to shoot videos with a flat picture profile containing
  additional stops of dynamic range.

Also check out FiLMic's website - I couldn't find any details, but I was interested to read that they develop it with Apple's Swift language.

Of note, they have apparently released a beta version for testing and demo of the LOG capture. Compare in particular the dark area of the dashboard in the lower left hand corner in this example of source video vs. the same footage after grading with BlackMagic Design's DaVinci Resolve. Disclaimer - these videos are from the article and the quality of the color grading vs youtube compression and such is relative. Also, as an example of the extra detail shooting this way may afford, note in the third shot, the shadow detail of the hat before and after.

Likely you don't need this information, but here is a recent article which provides a decent overview of what it means to shoot in log color space , or, record a "flat color profile." Also, some related VideoSE Q&A about shooting considerations.


You can use ffmpeg to perform this conversion. Grab the 32-bit static build from here.

And run the following command from the command prompt:

ffmpeg -i "c:\path\to\input.avi" -c:v libxvid -vtag xvid -qscale:v 3 -c:a libmp3lame -qscale:a 4 output.avi

You can experiment with the value of qscale:v to get the quality or file size that you need. Values from 1 to 31 are accepted, with 1 being best quality (and largest file size) and 31 being worst quality and smallest file size.


What does a Cube LUT offer over a PNG HALD?

They're essentially the same thing with different storage layouts.  A 2D LUT is just slices of a 3D LUT laid out in an image.  People use formats like Cube becasue that's what the software supports.  Because formats like Cube were invented before hardware acceleration it was probably just easier to load data already stored as 3D because the color transform was all done on CPU anyway.  You need extra math to transform an RGB value in 2D space instead of just a 3D array lookup: LUT[R][G][B] plus you have to interpolate between 3D points of your LUT is smnaller than your color space.  The file size difference is mostly due to cube files being ascii not binary.

LUTs are also used extensively in Game development to apply looks in realtime using the GPU.  Here LUTs can be stored as 3D (volume) images.  An advantage to 3D image storage is you can take advantage of hardware pixel interpolation in 3D.  I suspect any video editing/compositing/coloring software with hardware acceleration would transcode Cube/Hald LUTs to 3D images for the actual lookup on the GPU.

Look here for info on hardware color conversion.


Import Adobe Premiere Proxy files encoded separately with FFmpeg

It appears that you can attach proxies later in Premiere by right clicking on your source files and going to the Proxy > Attach Proxies menu. In there, clicking attach brings up a file dialog to get the proxy files.


Freezing/repeating the last frame of a video clip in Apple Motion 5

Okay, figured out how to do this. Make sure you location is at the frame you want to freeze, hide all the other layers in Motion to just show the video that you want to freeze.

Then go Share menu > Save Current Frame. Then save that image somewhere.

All you have to do then is import that image back in and place it again at the end of the clip it came from. Ensure it's lower in the layer stack so that other clips appear on top of it until they disappear - or just crop it.


Can a low-bitrate BluRay video be written to DVD-R to be played by BD-players?

Almost all Bluray players will play a UDF v2.5 with a movie on it, even if the physical media is a DVD.
Another twist is to encode the movie as AVCHD, which was originally meant for HD camcorders recording to DVDs. Many DVD (!) players and all Bluray players are compatible with this format, so if you encode your movie in this format, you have the unexpected benefit that it will work not only in Bluray players but in many DVD players, too.


Why deshaken video looks "wobbly" and how to fix it

The problem is that this is what the original footage looked like.  While you can stabilize the objects themselves by tracking, you still have motion blur from the movement because the objects moved within the time each frame was being captured.  Additionally, you also have perspective changes if the camera is moving in 3d space in addition to having the angle change.

This motion blur appears regardless of the stabilization as the stabilization simply repositioned the video to keep objects in the same place, but you can't get rid of the motion blur without completely synthesizing the image to produce something that resembles what the frame would have looked like without any motion blur.  This is both exceedingly difficult and also extremely likely to introduce as many artifacts as it fixes.

Similarly, the perspective issues result in a shifting perspective without corresponding movement as the camera position changes are counteracted by providing a perspective correction, but the contents of the video are still viewing from the wrong angle, so what portion of the surface is visible changes very disconcertingly.

This is most obvious if we take a hypothetical situation where we have a camera looking at a dice.  We start looking straight down at two dots.  Then, after a few seconds, the camera suddenly gets jerked around to the front and we are looking at 4 dots.  To smooth that camera motion, we would need to make it look like the camera movement was smooth between the two positions, however, we don't actually know the 3d geometry of the dice, we just know that it shifted relative to other things in the scene.  We can't simply apply some distortion to each frame, because half of our frames only show the 2 dots and half our frames only show the 4 dots.

Most image stabilization is limited to working with whatever detail is available in frame and warping and adjusting it (and in advanced cases, independently warping individual objects on screen).  We can shift the perspective of the image so it seems kind of like the camera is moving, but we'll still see the two dots until suddenly it changes to 4 dots.  The camera movement will feel a bit more smooth, but the perspective was telling us we were looking at half way between the side and the top while the number of dots shows us to be looking at the top.  This disjoint can't be fixed without synthesizing new data, which is super hard.

The best bet to avoid motion blur is to use the fastest possible shutter speed when capturing footage.  This will reduce the amount of motion blur present and help make stabilized footage look much better.  After the fact, it is exceedingly far more difficult to correct for.

For perspective, there isn't much you can do other than trying to limit the amount of changes in position of the camera.

There are some interesting bits of research by organizations like Microsoft Research (there is also an interesting tidbit they have here about what the currently available state of the art is) can build point clouds that can be used to correct for perspective issues if the video is complete enough, but such research is exceedingly ground breaking and mind numbingly complex, so you won't find it in the open source world yet (or even the commercial one quite yet.)


That's processing speed i.e. ffmpeg is encoding 18 frames per second, not the output file's framerate. You can set -preset fast to speed it up but again this has nothing to do with output file's framerate.


Use

ffmpeg -re -stream_loop -1 -i file.flv -c copy -f flv rtmp://x.y.z

This option is buggy when the input it is applied to is filtered with another input, like in an overlay. For a single input - output chain, it works fine.


Easiest way to narrate video with freeze frames etc.?

Thats not how you do it, you record a text and time your video cuts based on your voice over. Unless you stream live you dont do live editing while you do a voice over, its very impractical and makes your live a lot harder as you will not record a 5+ minute text in a single take and you will have to do everything over and over again instead of editing your video once.


Containers like LXF/GXF/MXF allow EIA-708 (VBI) streams but as far as I know they do not encode the video data -- the blanking interval -- that originally contained those streams. That would run counter to the idea that codecs embody, that of squeezing out redundant information. I could be wrong, but I've never seen or heard of a codec that encodes invisible lines.

You could scan the file for the packet headers that identify caption / VBI streams, and if you find them you could impute a frame size that would have contained them, but you could do that anyway: any encoded video, if it were output as a TV signal, would have associated blanking, whether it contained captions or not.


Setup for Premiere Pro on Laptop with SSD/HDD

The question is whether disk performance is critical in your normal workflow, in which case you'd want to place the footage on the SSD.

I have a similiar setup with Sony Vegas and I observed that, disk performance is rather uncritical during rendering, because it's always the processor that's the bottle neck. But your situation may differ from that. Especially, if you have a very fast CPU and a very slow HDD.

Alternative 1:

The following configuration works well for me:

OS on SSD to have fast boot time
Vegas/Premiere on SSD to have fast startup time
Video footage on HDD to have all footage in a single location.
External drive for backuping your footage
All other stuff: where-ever there is room left. Just make sure there is enough storage for your videos on HDD. 750GB fill up very quickly with HD footage ;-)

Disadvantage: May be slow with fast CPU's and slow drives. Project opening times may be slow as well.

Advantage: Fast boot and programm start. All footage in one place.

Alternative 2:

Of course, if OS+Premiere+Video fits to the SSD, put it there. This will give you the fastest experience. Plus the option to have a very fast backup to the HDD and a second slower backup to the external drive.

Advantage: Fast. Double backup.

Disadvantage: Not much storage for footage.

Alternative 3:

Put OS+Premiere to SSD and video to HDD. Place the one project that you're currently working on to SSD. This configuration is also very fast, but I sometimes experience issues with moving projects across the drives, so I try to avoid that.

Advantage: Fast.

Disadvantage: Possibly issues with moving footage/projects around.


Which are the best settings for crisp graphic output using After Effects?

If you're designing source artwork in Illustrator, take advantage of the fact you can bring your .ai files straight in AE.

On the layer in AE that you put the AI vector, click the 'continuously rasterize' button and you'll get your crisp vector edges back.


Adobe Premiere: PNG transparency ist not interpreted correctly

I don't have the files to look at, so I can't say for sure, but if you're importing a flat PNG Premiere should interpret the transparency correctly and convert it with transparency on the alpha layer.

One thought, make sure you're using layer the PNG on layer 2 or above.

Second, make sure you are placing the PNG above a filled video layer (Black Video), File -> New -> Black Video

Third, if that still gives you problems, try saving your file as a layered PSD file in Photoshop. Import it in and when prompted/select the import the layers as individual layers.

Then place the layers as needed and in what order on your timeline.

Lastly, it could possibly be your timeline/sequence settings - importing in a 24 bit PNG to a lower bit depth sequence could and would cause color issues if the sequence doesnt support that bit depth.

Last, you should be working in sRGB unless there's a specific need for another workspace.

Hope this helps.


Split subtitles to line up ends of files?

Don't transcode your video, there shouldn't be any need to do that.  You might be able to concat the two ogm videos into a single ogm, or mkv, without transcoding, just remuxing.  (e.g. with ffmpeg's concat filter, and -codec copy)

http://www.nikse.dk/SubtitleEdit has a split feature.  You'll have to edit the 2nd file after splitting, since the split dialog box doesn't have anywhere to add in a gap.  But it's easy to apply the same time-shift to all subs in a file, with it.  I haven't actually used that editor much, I think last time I had to mess around with subs I used gaupol or ksubtile, forget which, (on GNU/Linux) to stretch the timecodes in a .srt to correct for a 25fps / 23.976fps speed difference.  But anyway, I think Subtitle Edit is good, and it's cross-platform.  (Runs on GNU/Linux under WINE, with mono.)


I think Trapcode Form or Particular is probably the best way to do this.  It allows you to easily set up a grid of objects (in 2D or 3D).  In this case you'd make a 2D set of objects, then mask them with your text within the plugin settings.


Use

ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -strict -2 -vf "subtitles=subtitle.srt:force_style='FontName=ubuntu,fontsize=30',scale=720:-1" -qscale:v 3  Movie.avi

All filters applied to a single input should be presented as a sequence, separated by a comma.


What is the cheapest camera I can plug external microphone to?

Do you own a high-end smartphone? You can plug-in pretty much any microphone and have very decent audio quality. Some Android phones even support usb mics.
So you probably need a cheap adapter for standard stereo or mono mics to work with the 3 channel type headphone+mic jacks in modern phones. Something like this: https://www.amazon.com/StarTech-com-headsets-separate-headphone-microphone/dp/B004SP0WAQ/

It then only depends on the video quality of your phone. If that is satisfactory just get some sort of tripod adapter or other type of stand for phones and you're good to go. Definitely the cheapest solution if you already own a fitting phone.

If your phone is not an option I recommend you go with a webcam and USB microphone attached to your PC or Laptop. Most recording softwares have the option to choose a different audio source than your video recording device.
You can get a decent quality webcam for 20-30€ and a decent quality USB mic that can capture room audio for 15-20€.


ffmpeg overlay x expression with logical condition

FFmpeg uses functions, rather than operators, for conditional execution and comparisons, so t<2 is not a valid syntax.

The syntax for your given command would be

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i overlay.mov -filter_complex \
       "[0][1]overlay=x=if(lt(t\,2)\,t*3\,t*5)[out]" \
       -map '[out]' -c:v qtrle -y output.mp4

where lt(var,value) is the less than function.


How to remove hiss and static noise from a DVD

You need a program to download the files from your DVD. Then dump them in a video editor and replace the audio tracks. I believe Windows Video Maker would allow to do everything I am talking about. I sincerely never used vob files straight out of a DVD, but I believe any video editor would be able to support them.