How does the agate filter in FFmpeg work?

I am the author of the original Calf plugin, I had no idea it was being used in FFmpeg, great!  The original plugin used to have a sidechain input to use as the level detection, but I am assuming the ported version just uses the input signal as this level.

The main parameter is the threshold, it sets the level below which gating begins to occur.  Having 0 knee makes it a very sharp transition from signal to no signal, as well as the attack and release times.  I have not actually used the FFmpeg ported version of this plugin before, but I assume it would be similar.  It has quite a number of controls which probably makes it unsuitable to use without the usual GUI that shows the current level and the gating curve.  One way to test it would be to install calf-plugins and play with the Calf Gate until you get a feel for the parameters, and then apply the same to FFmpeg.  Sorry I cannot be more helpful because I did not write this port and I don't really understand the FFmpeg code.

PS: Thanks for alerting me about my malicious javascript, I think my blog was attacked recently, I have been cleaning it up.


How to delete a gap in an After Effects timeline

There's a script that does it for you (I just wrote it). You can get it (free, open source, WTFPL license) here on my blog. With the playhead in a gap, run the script and it will pull the layers after the gap along so the gap disappears.

BTW all care, no responsibility. It works on my machine, but I've tested it like, twice. Save before using.


overlay filter with simple PNG adds black fringe

Default pixel format for overlay filter is yuv420p. Use the format option in overlay to set it as auto or rgb.

ffmpeg -y -i b.png -i a.png -filter_complex "[0:v]format=rgba[a]; [1:v]format=rgba[b]; [a][b]overlay=format=auto" normal.png


Add intro and outro to multiple files (batch)

This is indeed possible with After Effects via its Scripting Interface, though this is a bit harder to use than Photoshop Actions. You will need to learn Adobe ExtendScript and how to use it in conjunction with After Effects.

For this particular job I'd suggest a different approach using FFmpeg. It's an open source video encoding and processing tool that is used for many video automation tasks in the industry.
You will have to write a script here aswell but that would be a LOT easier and shorter than digging into Adobe ExtendScript in conjunction with After Effects.

Assuming you have an rendered video of your intro, outro and main media file in the same codec. You can then use the concat command in ffmpeg to mux the three file into one, which results in a joined video without any re-encoding of the source media.

Here is a tutorial on how to do that in the Linux bash but you can do the same thing with AppleScript or Windows Batch script. You want to generate a filelist like shown in the tutorial:

file '/path/to/intro.mov'
file '/path/to/main.mov'
file '/path/to/outro.mov'

You would generate this filelist for every main media file and only change the path for your main media file for every "export".

Just for reference, this is the final command you would then use:

ffmpeg -f concat -i filelist.txt -c copy output.mov

How the script part looks that comes before the FFmpeg command that generates the file list, completely depends on your operating system and or choice of scripting language.
Note that you don't have to use the source codec, instead of doing copy you could also encode the output file into a different codec by specifying a codec with encode setting instead.

For example:

-c:v libx264 -preset medium -f mp4


Exported video doesn't look like the preview within Adobe Premiere

Be sure media encoder has the same LUTs in same order - otherwise it will take a different lut...

its a better way to browse to your lut in premiere - Media Encoder will use the same path and therefore doesn't screw up the correct lut.

Took a while for me to find out!


Automatic video stop on SDCX class 10 card

You could try a new card. Could be the issue. My guess it's the camera and the heatsink on the sensor.

Try a different card first to see if that solves it. Card's can go bad. But with the Canon line (and all DSLR cameras really) do have issues with overheating- especially as they age.

If a new card doesnt fix it, you can try to service the camera, perhaps it just needs a good blow out/dusting of the heatsink.

Canon, Sony, Nikon, most models have had some sort of issue at higher resolution video/frame rates with heat issues, and as the cameras age the cameras don't behave as well as when they were new.


Easiest way is to use a greenscreen. This can be done with household items, but will be a lot easier with equipment of about 150$.

You hang a green cloth behind you, light it up good and evenly.

Then in an editing/streaimng software you simply use the Grenn Screen/Key/Chroma Key tool.

There are cameras which can do it too, but those are expansive and don't work as well.


Is it possible to select particular portion of a video in adobe premiere pro?,

If the element you need to put on the video doesn't move and the shot you are putting it in doesn't move, the best bet is to actually use Photoshop to extract the object you want to place in another video and put it in a file format that supports a transparent background (TGA, PSD, etc.)  You can then import it to Premiere and place the image wherever you want in the frame using the Motion effects settings to define the size and placement.

If the video you are placing it in is not stationary, then it will be necessary to perform motion tracking on the video you want to place the image within.  This is much more complicated and is generally done in something like After Effects.


How to convert .scc closed caption subtitles into human readable text

Subtitle Edit can convert to/from .scc, .srt, and many other formats. It is GPLv3 (and possibly also LGPL licensed). It also has a BSD licensed DLL. The downside is that it is C# code.


Changing playback speed by changing frame rate

So you want an output video with the same frames in the same order, but with just the timing changed.  No problem.

ffmpeg can't do it without transcoding, unfortunately.  So you'll need a program that can muck around with the timing info in the container.  mkvmerge can do it, and so can MP4Box.

I knew I'd seen an answer to this when I googled on it before:
https://askubuntu.com/questions/370692/how-to-change-the-framerate-of-a-video-without-reencoding

From there: the guy eventually found the right MP4Box command line (since he was working with MP4.)

MP4Box -add test_track1.h264:fps=30 -new dest.mp4

(where test_track1.h264 is the raw h.264 stream he demuxed from his source.mp4)

If a Matroska container works for you, there's also the option of:

mkvmerge -o out.mkv  --default-duration 0:30fps --fix-bitstream-timing-information 0 in.mp4


"Video Filter missing" in Adobe Premiere

There's one way I know of to find the clip that is using the filter. Inside the timeline, you will see a small badge with the letters 'fx' on your clips. If it it grayed out, there is no effect applied. If it is colored purple, yellow, green, or red, then you have an effect on the clip. You can read about that more here...
http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/applying-removing-finding-organizing-effects.html

You can find the plugin file in your After Effects folder.

Windows - Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects\Plug-ins
Mac - Applications/Adobe After Effects/Plug-ins


severe artifacts pixelation when using cuda rendering premiere pro

Rolled back the Nvidia driver to the version before and it seems to have fixed it. Might be a bug. Typical!


How to record a slide presentation efficiently with video/audio

Using one of these solutions will be more efficient. That's what you've asked for. It saves you time, because there's no more need to manually sync the presentation and the voiceover.

Free Solution

Keynote can record a running presentation with the mic-audio.
QuickTime X has also a screenrecord-feature incl. audio.

Low Cost Solution

Specialized screenrecording software like ScreenFlow, Camtasia, Screenflick, Screenium, etc.

Pro Solution

Capture hardware like Ninja Atomos, HyperDeck Shuttle, Intensity Pro, Aja IO, etc., can record directly with ProRes-codec.

A professional solution with capture hardware can record directly in Final Cut Pro X (and other NLE) native codecs/formats like ProRes422. This saves a lot of time and discspace. The picture and the audio will be always in sync, and in addition you'll get a recording with smtpe-conform timecode. – There are even more advantages, but they will be more important if you record live presentations.


Software advice to create animated sketches

You would want to use after effects if you want to animate sketches and graphics in flexible ways.


Importing Adobe Illustrator files as Parametric shapes in After Effects?

I don't think that it's possible to import AI shapes as parametric shapes (in 2019 at least, this might change, with luck). There are workarounds that can help though.

If you convert the AI layer to a shape layer you can get the individual points of the path like so:

var pts = thisComp.layer("test Outlines").content("Group 1").content("Path 1").path.points(t = time)

where the layer "test outlines" is the shape layer created by converting the AI document, and Group 1 is one of the paths in the shape layer. Then for a rectangle you can get the size like this:

var pts = thisComp.layer("test Outlines").content("Group 1").content("Path 1").path.points(t = time);
var size = pts[0] - pts[2];

if you want to set the size you could do the reverse, putting this on the path property:

var size = [123, 45];
var pts = [[0, 0] - size/2, [0 - size[0]/2, size[1]/2], size/2, [size[0]/2, 0 - size[1]/2];
createPath(points = pts, inTangents = [], outTangents = [], isClosed = true);

if you do the substitutions you'll see that the second line works out to

[-61.5, -22.5], [-61.5, 22.5], [61.5, 22.5], [61.5, -22.5]]

which describes a rectangle 123 wide and 45 high.


Here's a list of free third-party plugins for Premiere Pro, including additional transitions.

Here's the official Adobe Add-on Website, where you will find both free and paid-for plugins, also including some transition preset packs.

Here's a great tool which will help you find even more transition presets on your own!


How to Setup Resolution and Frame Rate Between Two Cameras for Premiere Editting and YouTube

1080P/24 seems to be the way to go in this case.  It's generally considered to have a more cinematic look and both cameras appear to support that resolution and framerate.  Youtube has a 24 fps setting and should handle 1080P video fine.  As you already said, use All I on your 70D to ensure highest quality.


How to prevent blur(?) footage at the recording stage?

If I understand correctly, your question is "why is the footage of this camera blurry".

The answer to that would be: It is out of focus. Cameras have a focal point and everything straying away from that (spatially) will get blurry. You can see that the back-windows is in focus, meaning that the lens has its focal point further back.


overlap silent video with video and audio

What you want to use to control where clips are placed is Source Patching and Track Targeting. Those are two of the small indicators to the left of the timeline tracks. Track Targeting has a couple of functions, in general it controls which tracks varied editing operations can affect. For example, if you paste clips from the clipboard, the pasted video and audio will be placed on the lowest active (targeted) audio and video track respectively.

If you want to control where the clips from your Project Panel go, you can use Source Patching instead. Only one audio and video track respectively can be the activated at a time in the Source Patching column, and those will be the tracks that new material is placed into by default.

You can find more info on that on the Adobe support pages.


Workflow to ingest files from Zoom audio recorder

If youre hopefully running windows, use explorer (My Computer). Navigate to the SD card. In the search box for that window, type *.wav (or whatever extension you used to record).

The window will then display all the WAV files found on the card, without the folder. Select all of them. Copy. Paste to a new folder.

If you encounter conflicts in terms of clip name, use the 3rd command called "Allow Windows to Resolve", which will create v2 v3 v4 of the files which use the same file name.


Changing the input frame rate of a series of images in FFmpeg

With image sequences, you have to use the framerate option. So,

ffmpeg -framerate 30 -i %d.png -itsoffset 0.770 -i soundtrack.wav -vcodec mpeg4 -y "ffmpegtest.mp4"

With -r specified before the sequence name, FFmpeg assumes 25 fps and duplicates/drop frames to meet the set rate.


Best to make it a square-pixel stream:

... -vf crop=720:432:0:72,scale=iw*sar:ih,setsar=1 test.mpg


How to convert single image to video in infinite loop and set duration of 15 seconds using FFMPEG

ffmpeg -loop 1 -i https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/cartoon-weather-images-16836392.jpg -t 15 output.mp4

FFprobe result:

ffprobe version 3.4.8-0ubuntu0.2 Copyright (c) 2007-2020 the FFmpeg
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'output.mp4':   Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : Lavf57.83.100   Duration: 00:00:15.00, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 188 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuvj420p(pc), 1182x1300 [SAR 1:1 DAR 591:650], 186 kb/s, 25 fps, 25
tbr, 12800 tbn, 50 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler


How to produce this no-shadow effect?

Some examples will explain this best.

Lighting with a soft box makes the shadow soft and unobtrusive.

When close to a subject, the light rays from a large light source strike the subject from many angles. The closer the light is, the softer its shadows are.

Results of the lighting setup. A fill card was used to lighten the front of the gourd by reflecting some light from the overhead soft box.

Images and captions from Light – Science & Magic: An Introduction to Photographic Lighting.

  How many lights do you think are required?

This could be done with one light, but it should be a large light source relative to the object. This doesn't mean the light itself was large, but the area the the light is being emitted from was large enough to cause scattered, soft light.

This is often done by placing diffuse material between the light source and the subject such as a soft box attached to the light, a diffusion panel from a cheap collapsible reflector, a light shed/tent that you can make yourself, or even some tissue paper (make sure it doesn't catch on fire). This results in a light quality similar to an overcast sky.

  Would some classical bulbs that I have at home work?

I don't know what a classical bulb is, but sure, you could possibly use typical household bulbs if they provide enough light for your camera and if you properly setup the scene. Don't forget to set the white balance. Use the same type of bulbs; don't mix types due to the potential differences in color temperature.


How to fit word to width with ffmpeg drawtext filter?

There's no way to force the drawtext filter to fit the text in a certain width.

What you can do, is get the rendered text dimensions in a first pass and then run drawtext accordingly in 2nd pass, or crop and scale the output using the values from first pass.

For first pass,

ffmpeg -i video -vf drawtext=fontfile=path/to/font:fontsize=FinalSize:text='Lorem Ipsor' \
                   :x=0+0*print(tw):y=0+0*print(th) -vframes 1 -f null -

This will print the text at the top-left. The print statements will output

84.000000
14.000000

The first value is tw - the width, and the 2nd th - the height, in pixels.


How does ARRI saturation formula differ from the ASC-CDL spec?

I would imagine it has something to do with the white point/primary chromaticities are Alexa Wide Gamut vs. Rec709.

http://www.arri.com/camera/alexa/learn/log_c_and_rec_709_video


increasing sequence resolution in premier pro

First variant. You can change "Frame size" in "Sequence Settings" (Sequence -> Sequence Settings) to more higher. You need to change them with saving proportions of your video frame.
To save 720p quality on youtube you should set amount of vertical pixels to 720 or more. With 1080p it should be 1080p or more.

Second variant. You can change resolution of your video file on the render stage.
Move to Basic video settings, then uncheck checkbox for changing resolution. And then you can change it to needed. With height to 720p or more.
Also you can save proportions of frame.


Change sequence frame size Final Cut Express 4

I think Menu -> Sequence -> Settings -> Load Sequence Preset..., then picking choosing a 1080p  preset might do what you want.  You'll probably have to delete and re-render anything you've pre-rendered.

You can set the default sequence preset for all new sequences with Easy Setup under the application menu.


Premiere Pro shifting keyframes during an insert edit

When I do an insert edit (using the shortcut '.' key) in CC 2018, I do not see this problem.

Make sure the Source Patching on the audio tracks is selected correctly, otherwise the audio tracks won't move when you do the insert?  Apologies if this is teaching you to suck eggs - maybe a screen recording would better demo what's going wrong?

Before insert edit

After insert edit (note keyframes have moved)


Transcode 5.1 audio in ffmpeg leads to incorrect audio mapping in output

FFmpeg assumes that the input's 5.1 channel mapping is the same as the one it uses. To correct that, use the channelmap filter to remap, add:

-af "channelmap=4|0|1|2|3|5:5.1"

(I based it off the channel labels on the right in your images)


Losslessly convert from RGBA rawvideo to H.264

You are downsampling the chroma, so thin lines will lose definition. Either use full chroma sampling

ffmpeg -y -f rawvideo -s 960x540 -pix_fmt rgba -framerate 60 -i -
       -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv444p -crf 0 video_demo.mp4

or keep pixels as RGB.

ffmpeg -y -f rawvideo -s 960x540 -pix_fmt rgba -framerate 60 -i -
       -c:v libx264rgb -crf 0 video_demo.mp4


I would duplicate a copy of your background (doggy) layer.  Put it on top of your text layer, then animate the mask on your foreground layer. So in total you have three layers:

V3 - foreground dog (masked)

V2 - text credits

V1 - background dog (and everything else)

(I reckon masking like this is easier in after effects but can be done in Premiere)


This is absolutely possible to create in After Effects. Without you asking a specific question it's difficult to give a specific answer here, but broadly speaking:

Scan Lines in principal are very easy, they're just alternating black and white lines, set to a blending mode like Overlay and their opacity reduced
A Vertical Reveal is most simply achieved using the Linear Wipe effect
There are a lot of blurs and overexposures in this, which tells me you'd want to change your project settings to 32 Bit Color Space
Chromatic Abberation is a key part of this look -- essentially you precompose your composition, duplicate it three times (red, green, and blue), and apply color channel effects and offset the position of each one.
The VHS footage is almost certainly a recording of real static from a VHS tape, composited in using a blending  mode like Add or Screen

This is a pretty popular look these days and as such there are all sorts of tutorials if you search for "Retro 80's VHS". Here's a good example.

If you have a more specific question please let me know.


How to rotate object in After Effects without affecting other values?

The anchor point defines the "center" around which an object in AE moves, rotates etc. Often, when not taking care of initially setting the anchor point to the right location, rotating the object can lead to surprises. For simple position changes, you probably don't really care where the anchor point is set, once other Params get into play, this can lead to problems since effectively can look as if it affects position, in case of an object with transparency.


Help with the epiphan vga2usb frame grabber

I'd first try some different software to see if it is a hardware shortcoming or not.  If it is a hardware short coming, I'd go for a different approach to getting the highest quality signal possible.

Based on your needs to operate with minimal gear, taking the fewest devices and trying to keep the best quality, I'd probably try and go with something like an HDMI capture device like the Black Magic Intensity (which will work over either Thunderbolt or USB3) and then for dealing with analog signals coming in, I'd probably pick up a scan converter to handle the analog signals.

DVI's pretty much cross compatible with HDMI, so if you can get either DVI or HDMI, you should be able to use it with the Intensity directly.


how can we shoot tv show so "tarak mehta ka ulta chasma" it will look like "house of card"?

I see four basic differences (in what I believe is the correct priority order):

Lighting.  The lighting on Kevin Spacey is classic three-point lighting with warm fronts, a 2:1 key/fill ratio, and cold back/rim/hair light.  Proper 3-point lighting is the biggest difference between the pro look of episodic television and the amateur look of most YouTube videos.

Resolution.  House of Cards is shot in 5K and mastered in 4K resolution.  You can see it even in greatly scaled down images.
Sensor size/shallow depth of field.  With a large enough image sensor and a large enough lens aperture, it's possible to get crisp focus on the subject and beautiful blur in the background, which as you rightly observe, make you really pay attention to the subject instead of all the many distractions surrounding them.
Set design and wardrobe.  The muted colors (and lower light levels) of the background and the dark suit again focus the viewer on the face and hands (key dramatic communicators) of the actor.  Contrast that with loud colored clothing and bright walls, the eye is overwhelmed with too many subjects to deal with.

Slumdog Millionaire got all this right.  You can, too!


Can I import .mov files with embedded closed captioning into Premiere Pro CS6?

You might try CCExtractor. I'm not sure if it supports text tracks in .MOV containers, but it's a good starting point. I can create .SRT files which are common companion files for captioning.


Use the concat filter:

ffmpeg -y -i a.mp4 -ss 2 -t 22 -i x.wma -ss 00:01:22 -t 19 -i y.mp3 -ss 29 -t 124 -i z.mp3 -filter_complex "[1:a][2:a][3:a]concat=n=3:v=0:a=1[a]" -map 0:v -map "[a]" -shortest output.mp4

Alternatively, instead of -ss/-t you can use the atrim and asetpts filters.


is there a way to fix this through video editting?

I can't tell for sure from the single frame there and not knowing what the source was, but it appears that you were using an HDR video application.  The result of such an application is that you get frames with two different exposure settings that are designed to be combined to form video with frames that have a higher dynamic range.

If that conclusion is correct, then yes, you should be able to split the video in half, merge the two parts of the frame back together and produce an HDR video from that data.  You will need to control how you merge them back together using a typical HDR technique, which you can find many details about how to do online from photo resources.  The process for video is the same, it just gets bulk applied to all the pairs of frames.

It is worth noting that the overall resolution of the video may have suffered as a result of splitting the frame like that and there won't be any way to get back any lost resolution, but you should at least be able to get it reduced to a single video.

If I'm wrong in those assumptions though and the video frames are not individually correct, then there may be more complex blending that needs to be done and it may be specific to that application.  Does the application have an option to export the video after processing?  Whatever the application was, that seems like a very odd final output unless it is either expecting only basic processing to need to be done or it is expecting that that file is only an intermediate stage.


Separate all layers every "X" interval of time in After Effects

No scripting or expressions are needed, it's built-in to After Effects:

Drop all your frames into a comp…
go to the 5 second mark…
with all layers selected, hit alt] or option] to trim the end of the layer to the current time…
still with all the layers selected either right-click or go to the top menu and choose Animation>Keyframe Assitant>Sequence Layers…
in the dialog that comes up you can choose to overlap the layers and to add dissolves. Usually for a slideshow you will choose to dissolve the top layer only. Dissolving top and bottom layers mean that the background shows through in the middle of the dissolve.


How to change AviSynth plugins directory?

As the docs indicate, you have to create registry keys to tell Avisynth+ where to look. They are

PluginDir+ in Software/Avisynth in HKEY_CURRENT_USER
PluginDir+ in Software/Avisynth in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
PluginDir2_5 in Software/Avisynth in HKEY_CURRENT_USER
PluginDir2_5 in Software/Avisynth in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE

There is no separate key for 32 or 64-bit. Since 32-bit AVS will not load 64-bit plugins, I suggest setting the first key in the above list to the 64-bit plugins folder, and the 2nd to the 32-bit. The 64-bit AVS DLL when loaded will use plugins from the first folder. The 32-bit DLL will skip them and load from the 2nd folder.


Is there a way to make Premiere reuse nested previews?

I don't think there is a way to accomplish this, since you can apply effects on nested sequences as well as to single clips, which means the nested sequence might look different in the main sequence than it does in the nested one. My humble guess is that that is also the reason why Premiere does not use the existing preview files.

A workaround would be to export the nested sequence and re-import the rendered file in your project, replacing the nested sequence. This of course means you won't be able to make changes to that part of your video anymore, as well as a slight loss in quality (unless you export the sequence using a visually lossless codec such as ProRes or DNxHD) ...


Last Adobe Premiere Pro version for Windows 7

Version (CC 2019) 13.1.5.47  is the only version that installs on Windows 7,8,10
Good luck


Camera shake produces ripple-like effect

This "effect" is called Rolling Shutter. It is common in most CMOS camera sensors because they don't capture an instantaneous image, instead they do it progressively over a period of time. CCD sensors do not have this problem as they do have instantaneous capture.


What you're looking for is a difference matte. (Not to be confused with a Color Difference Key which is similar to regular chroma key.) It can certainly be done, though you should know that difference mattes are fairly temperamental.

The way it works is by finding the difference between an image and each frame of video, and removing anything that's the same, while leaving whatever's different. This means you need a locked-down camera when filming and you need a clean plate of the scene without any actors (or whatever you're trying to remove).

I'm not knowledgable in Blender, so I don't know if it's possible there. I haven't used one in a long time, so don't know what the current landscape is for plug-ins or apps that do this.


I personally would use media encoder and let it do the conversion. Convert it to a mpeg2-dvd format and pick a preset, you can adjust the preset to your liking. ME would do most of the heavy lifting. At this point I trust them to do the best job.

I find that nothing beats actually trying it though, you're not really out anything but time. And very little time at that. It's not like your encoding each frame by hand. :)

Alex


Convert video from 24 to 25 fps while keeping video and audio length and also correct audio pitch

Your command already achieves that. When specifying -r as an output option, ffmpeg will change the framerate of the video, duplicating or dropping frames as necessary to achieve the same overall duration. The audio stream will be processed independently, thus not affecting the pitch (since the overall duration is not changed) or sync (since the timestamps of both streams stay aligned).

-global_quality is not valid. For libfdk_aac you should use the -vbr option as mentioned in the AAC encoding guide.


how to burn full hd movies (1080px720p) in DVD

DVD Video is limited to Standard Def, not High Def (HD).  Blu-Ray overcomes that limitation.  Alternatively you can use the DVD as a filesystem and play arbitrary media using a computer.  But as a media container itself, the DVDs limits are very restricted.


how to Checkbox Control one item twice in after effect?

Expressions are evaluated until they return a value. Your first line will always return a value, and the expression will stop there. Think about what you're telling the property to do. If the percents checkbox is ticked then you're set to 100 otherwise you're 0 Okthxbye. Oh and also if the background checkbox is ticked then 100 otherwise 0. What happens if percents is ticked but background isn't?
What you need to use is boolean logic. So if you want the opacity to be 100 if either checkbox is ticked you'd say: if percents is ticked or background is ticked then 100, otherwise 0. The javascript way of writing this is to use the logical or operator: ||
let percents = thisComp.layer("Controller ").effect("Checkbox percents")("Checkbox");
let bg = thisComp.layer("Controller ").effect("Checkbox background ");
if (percents > 0 || bg > 0) { 100 } else {0}

the two let statements just assign variables to the checkbox values, to keep the logic bit tidy, otherwise it looks like
if(thisComp.layer("Controller ").effect("Checkbox percents")("Checkbox")>0 || thisComp.layer("Controller ").effect("Checkbox background ")("Checkbox")>0) {100} else {0};

Which is a bit hard to read. You could also shorten the last line by omitting the > 0 bit. If something is equal to 0, javascript treats it as false and anything > 0 is automatically truth`. So the last line could be simply:
if (percents || bg) { 100 } else {0}

Now if you wanted the opacity to be 100 only if both the checkboxes were checked then you'd say: I want you to be 100 if percents is checked and background is checked. The javascript notation for a logical and is &&. So now your expression would look like
let percents = thisComp.layer("Controller ").effect("Checkbox percents")("Checkbox");
let bg = thisComp.layer("Controller ").effect("Checkbox background ");
if (percents && bg) { 100 } else {0}

Boolean logic can be more complex, you can use not or in JS ! to return true when something is false, and you could group things together to make more complex expressions. E.g.:
if ((! percents) && background){100} else {0}

returns 100 only if percents is unchecked and background is checked. Boolean logic can be represented by Truth tables, like this:


As it seems both videos have a bitrate of 118 (117) megabits per second.
This means - regardless off any other parameter - your video will take up 118 mb for each recorded second.

But as you already noted, a video with double the FPS should have double the data, so if you originaly exported the 4k60 video with 118, you can export the 4k30 video with 57mb/s and gain about the same quality.
There's more to it like diffrent codecs optimized for diffrent types of videos or Interframe Compression, so you can compress high FPS a bit easier. It is recommendable to go slightly above the half.

Keep in mind, that many consumer cameras tend to have a low bitrate for high FPS as the camera is not able to record more.


Command-line tool to split video at timepoints?

ffmpeg is the obvious choice.

ffmpeg -i x.mov -ss 00:05:00 -t 00:01:00 y.mov

will split out a segment of the movie 1 minute long from minute 5.

I've not had much luck with lip-sync when doing this. I think there a problems with both decoding and re-encoding the GOP structure and the equivalent AAC or MPEG1 audio structures; but the underlying issue must be that the audio and video frame rates are not linked, e.g. 48 kHz for the audio and 29.97 fps.


Keyframe interpolation is essentially what you're looking for here. One really easy way to achieve this is by using modifying your "keyframe velocity".

This article explains it better than I could:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/speed.html


Encode settings for HTML5 background video

You should export multiple versions to accommodate for different browsers. With HTML5, you can offer different versions of the video and the browser will automatically pick the first one that's supported. For example, take a look at the source code of the paypal website you refered to:

<video autoplay="autoplay" muted="muted" poster="none">
    <source src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/webstatic/mktg/wright/videos/send-money.mp4" type="video/mp4">
    <source src="https://www.paypalobjects.com/webstatic/mktg/wright/videos/send-money.webm" type="video/webm">
</video>

As you can see, they offer both a mp4 (H264 codec) and a webm version of the video. Those would be good options for you as well.

Furthermore, you should try to keep the videos as small as possible, so that site visitors with slow internet will also be able to watch it. For that purpose, you should export the video with 720p instead of 1080p (nobody will see the difference, especially if the video is in the background) and aim for a bitrate below 1 Mbit/s. For example, the paypal video uses a bitrate of about 700 Kbit/s. If you don't need the audio, you could export without audio or with a low audio bitrate, i.e. 96 Kbit/s.

You can also save the video from the website to your computer and check the codec, bitrate and other parameters e.g. with MediaInfo or similar programs.

Update November 2018

Since this question is still getting a lot of views, I wanted to add some up-to-date information. By now, all modern browsers support MP4 (MPEG-4/H.264), and have been for a long enough time that you will be fine offering only MP4 for most projects. Check the link above for a browser compatibity table to make sure all browsers your project needs to support can play MP4. Keep in mind to use AAC for the audio track, not MP3, since it's supported by fewer browsers.

Still, you can and should offer a WebM video as the first <source>, since it features better compression, so users on a limited data plan will thank you. I just wanted to add that if you are limited in terms of disk space, render time or some other variable that makes it difficult to offer WebM, MP4 is all you need by now.

Also, since my original answer included something about audio, one additional takeaway that's not strictly related: Browser vendors are cracking down on autoplay videos (video that start playing automatically after loading the page, without a user interaction), especially if the video contains audio. For example, Safari will only allow autoplay videos if the video contains no audio track, or the video is muted (using the corresponding attribute on the <video> element). So if you don't need the audio track, export your video without one (autoplaying videos with audio are obnoxious UX anyway). And if you do need the audio, keep in mind that some browsers will block the autoplay, so make sure to include a placeholder image using the poster attribute.


Drag the clips into your editing software and go frame by frame. If the freeze doesn't occur, the playback of the video might have lagged behind, causing the freezes. If the freeze still persists when going through it frame by frame, it is likely that something about the clip is broken (perhaps the i, p or b-frames are mangled, assuming the mp4 uses h264 compression.)
If so, try to edit out the section in which it freezes and export the clip as a prores4444, which doesn't overtly compress the clip further, so you can work with the pores-file from that point on.


Adding graphics into video real time (lightweight)

I doubt an Arduino or Raspberry Pi solution would be practical, or even possible, due to the limited processing power of those units and the processing power required to do what you want to do: Add an Overlay

Overlays are acheived using Alpha Channels. An Arduino, may be able to handle video, do certain encoding, input/output functions, but adding an overlay which requires the use of a larger bit-depth and different approach to color space due to the 4th Channel: The Alpha Channel, in addition to the Primary RGB Channels.

Your best bet is a simply HDMI capture card, or using a GPU that has HDMI capture, in conjunction with a software package like Livestream, which can handle overlays, logos, etc. They have different options, but their Producer / Studio Software, which goes from free to paid plans depending on usage and features, can do what you want.

There are others out there. You can also look at Bandicam. Bandicam is a great Screen Capture application, and it may have the abilty to apply its features, such as adding overlays to its recordings, to a camera input feed.

Its also very user friendly. Supports H264 and other codecs, and is very affordable (I think $30).

Worth looking at.


Clips not sitting on top of each other in FCPX

Sounds weird. Maybe try deleting the FCPX preferences:

Hold Command Option and start FCPX. A window will pop up and ask you if you want to delete the preferences.


How does one recover a multiplexed video stream with missing headers?

Try to extract header from other file (e.g. create a new one with that recording software) and prepend it to your stream.

On Windows you can use that command to concatenate files:

copy /b header.hdr + stream.mov outputFile.mov


Is After Effects capable to show me every asset in the projects library that is NOT used in active comp?

With the desired composition selected in the Project Panel, go to:
File > Dependencies > Reduce Project:


After effect using multiple linear expression based on its value

When expressions are evaluated the first term that returns a result will set the value of the property. If you look at your expression line 1 will always return a result - 0. None of the other lines will be executed.
What you need to do is test what the value is and then execute the right function accordingly.
if (value <=15){linear(value,0,15,0,0)};
if (value <= 20){linear(value,15,20,30,80)};
if(value > 20){linear(value,20,30,80,100)};

note that the linear() functions on the second and third line have minimum values of 15 and 20, not 16 and 21—consider what would happen if the value was 15.5 or 20.5.
What the expression does is only evaluate the first linear() function if value is in the 0-15 range. If it is that result is returned and the expression stops being evaluated, if not it goes on to the next line, and so on.


Which (video game) recording program fits for these criteria?

None.  If you want low CPU/GPU usage and small file size, you need a hardware encoder.  Period, end of story.  Games are CPU/GPU intensive and video compression is also exceedingly demanding on CPU/GPU.  Programs like FRAPS capture video smoothly by postponing the compression until later and instead save video as very large, minimally compressed files.  This works because most games do not make intensive use of the disk drives.

You can either capture in large files with minimal impact and then batch transcode them to a smaller size or you can buy a dedicated hardware encoder that can take the load off the CPU and GPU. Those are your only two options.

Update: If you only need 10 hours to fit within 100GB, then you might be ok for an SD feed.  It doesn't really have to be that highly compressed at that low of resolution.  It is still going to hit your CPU or GPU though, so gaming performance will be impacted, just not quite as badly as trying to do something like h.264.

I'd probably start by trying something like a DV codec and see how your computer handles it.  Millage will vary based on how much your computer actually needs for the game.  Hardware encoders or software encoding after the fact are still the best option overall though, since they maximize the quality of the recording.  (Fast compression is not good compression unless it is specialized hardware.)


Program to convert videos by interpolating 30fps video to 60 fps similar to Splash Pro video player

If you're exporting your finished project to a 60 fps format, your editing or compressing software will generally do some sort of conversion for you. It's not usually necessary to conform all your clips before editing.

If you have different options for how to handle the conversion, using "Optical Flow" or "Motion Estimation" options will interpolate frames. Depending on how good the interpolation is and the nature of the footage, this may look perfectly acceptable or horrible. As mentioned, you can try frame blending, too.

If your software doesn't do the conform automatically, you could try 3rd party tools. I know many people who have had good success with Twixtor from RE:Vision Effects. But there are others you can try as well depending on which application you're using.


Recording Hi8 SD NTSC home movies ideal quality with ffmpeg?

I would suggest encoding to H264 in MP4. Making it square-pixel is fine, Deinterlace first. Doubling framerate has no use here (Exception would be if you used an interpolation filter to generate full frames for each existing field, but that's not needed here).

ffmpeg -f alsa -thread_queue_size 1024 -t 1500 -i hw:2
       -f video4linux2 -video_size 720x480 -framerate 30000/1001 -i /dev/video0
       -vf yadif,scale=640:480,setsar=1
       -c:v libx264 -crf 21 movie_0001.mp4


Wrong frame-rate, corrupted playback of isom/mp4 files remuxed from H.264/AC3 MPEG-TS

To answer part of your question (and add a couple of other abbreviations you will run into):

PTS = Presentation Time Stamp
DTS = Decode Time Stamp
PCR = Program Clock Reference
SCR = System Clock Reference

MPEG elementary streams reorder the frames for transmission. The PTS indicates the order that the frames should be re-assembled into. The DTS lets the decoder know if a frame needs to be decoded earlier than it is displayed (because a P or B frame references it). The PCR or SCR are the time scale that the PTS and DTS reference.

tstools and other transport stream analyzers can help you determine if the PCR/PTS/DTS issue is in the source file or not.


Save existing project to an external drive Final Cut Pro X 10

"I copy pasted Final Cut Events and Final Cut Projects folders to my external HD but I don't know how to restore it into project in FC. Any help is appreciated."

It's better to perform this type of operation from within FCPX, instead of the Finder via copy/paste.  With the project selected in the Project Library, choose File->Move Project...  As long as you have an external drive connected, the resultant "location" dropdown menu will be populated (instead of saying "no value").  Selecting the "Move project and referenced events" radio button will transfer all of the necessary media to the external drive, AND remove it from the local drive, thus freeing up space.

When you work this way, there is no need to, as you say, "restore it to a project in FC".  You simply make sure the external drive which contains the project file and media is connected to your machine, and the project is available in the project library window.


What's the minimum needed to make a video of my guitar performance with good quality sound?

There are a couple ways you could go about this.  If you can do it in a single take, then you can record the audio and video at the same time and then simply sync them up and all will be well in the world.

If you want to be able to do multiple takes, then what you should do is do it the way they make music videos.  Do the audio first, make your recording and do your editing and multiple takes.  Once you have done that, play back the audio aloud and fake it.  You don't actually use the audio from while playing in the video, you just record yourself playing in sync with the pre-recorded audio.  After, you do the same sync process as you would have done with the first option.


How to disable continuos autofocus during video shooting with Canon SX230 HS?

See "Shooting with the AF Lock" on p94 of the user manual.  This is linked from p120 which is for shooting movies so I would assume it works for movies as well as stills.


High cpu usage with FFMPEG copying video codec from HLS

I switched to a 32-bit binary and the problem has gone away.


To directly answer your question, where Rotoscoping is concerned, it is simply the task of masking out, or cutting a hole in a moving image, for every frame.

Technically in almost any software capable of Rotoscoping, It is achieved by using a spline connected by a set of points that conforms and deforms each frame in your footage, to match the shape/outline of the object you wish to cut a hole through.

In the bigger view of what is required for your video, it seems like you wanted to "keep the background intact". That is a much tougher requirement than it sounds, both artistically and technically.

Basically when we take a photo, shoot a video, of a car on a grass field, the camera does not take an x-ray imagery of what is behind the car. Therefore when we mask out and remove the car, we cut a hole through the video clip, and there is nothing behind to show through.

If you are familiar with the idea of compositing layers of images on top of each other, one way to deal with this is to take a similar looking patch of the background (grass, ground, etc) that is correct in perspective, and place it on top of the gaping hole created by the rotoscoped mask.

If your footage is shot by a camera on the move (panning, dollying), it adds to the challenge.

In this case you will need to then animate that patch of missing background in position and maybe rotation, to pin it to the ground so it moves together with the rest of the shot.

On top of all that, you will need to clean up and blend the edges of this patch of ground with the rest of the footage. Also you will need to do adjustments like colour, brightness correction all so that your patched up area does not stand out and call attention to itself.

Another trick you can use is to take a part of the footage that hasn't been obscured by the running person (maybe 2 frames before he passes over that grass/ground), you can take a frame of that ground /grass , freeze that image, and place it and match it over the hole created by the Rotoscoping and then animate/track that patched up piece as the camera moves so it appears to stick solidly on the ground.

These are some techniques of visual effects workflow. Sometimes the concept sounds easy but the real pain is figuring how to solve the little problems that crop out, pushing the shot to look better, if your work requires a more refined result.

If you want to see someone actually doing stuff like that, Video Copilot has huge number of tutorials where you can see how visual effects tasks can be accomplished.

Www.youtube.com/user/videocopilot
Www.videocopilot.net

Watch a couple of tutorials, and you will soon get a good idea of the processes that are involved for compositing, Rotoscoping, background replacement, background reconstruction.


Two simple solutions:

1.) Plastic bag of blood with a fine wire/string stuck to it.  Thread the wire through the wound hole in the shirt/leg/buttocks of the clothes, and yank.

2.) Lightly compressed air with a blood hose.  Indy Mogul's first Backyard FX episode has a great video on building this kind of rig: http://www.indymogul.com/backyardfx/episode/BFX_20070611


Premiere Pro CC won't import exported image from Lightroom

Chances are very good that you are presently running the initial version of El Capitan (OSX 10.11).  The work-around suggested by Adobe is to change Premiere's Mercury Rendering engine from GPU to CPU (software-only).  That really wrecks rendering performance, but it does solve the problem.

Chances are also very good that if you install the update (OSX 10.11.1) the red-and-yellow pixel stripes will go away, even with the Mercury Rendering engine set to GPU (OpenCL).


How should I go about making 80's style graphics?

There are a few things you can do to get this look, first, use an artificially low resolution.  A lot of early graphics generators were done on things like the Amiga Video Toaster at 320 by 240 resolution.

Additionally, you can get the background look by making a normal gradient in Photoshop and then reducing the color depth substantially.  You can either reduce to 8 bit color or simply use a GIF with dithering turned on and lower the number of colors until you get the desired result.

Use classic pixel fonts for the lettering.  There are literally hundreds of possibilities out there to choose from, so you best bet is to look through something like Google fonts until you see something you like.

Finally, use interlaced video and run a couple interlaced to non-interlaced and back conversions to add the scan line related issues typical of old footage.  If you have an old VCR, try recording the video through a couple generations of VCR recording too and it will give it some nice analog degradation to really maximize the feel.


What is the name of the effect where every other frame is dropped and the remaining frames are duplicated?

Back in the days of analog video, TBCs used to call that a strobe effect. It looks like Premiere has a strobe filter, but I don't know if it can be configured to do the freezing, instead of flashes.


Are JPEG compression and H.264 intraframe compression the same process?

This is a complex topic, so best to link and excerpt

From https://sonnati.wordpress.com/2010/10/19/h-264-for-image-compression/

  H.264 contains a number of new features that allow it to compress
  images much more efficiently than JPG.

  New transform design

  Differently from JPG, an exact-match integer 4×4 spatial block
  transform is used instead of the well known 8×8 DCT. It is
  conceptually similar to DCT but with less ringing artifacts.  There is
  also a 8×8 spatial block transform for less detailed areas and chroma.

  A secondary Hadamard Transform (2×2 on chroma and 4×4 on luma) can be
  usually performed on “DC” coefficients to obtain even more compression
  in smooth regions.

  There is also an optimized quantization and two possible zig-zag
  pattern for Run Length Encoding of transformed coefficients.

  Intra-frame compression

  H.264 introduces complex spatial prediction for intra-frame
  compression. Rather than the “DC”-only prediction found in MPEG2 and
  the transform coefficient prediction found in H.263+, H.264 defines 6
  prediction directions (modes) to predict spatial information from
  neighbouring blocks when encoded using 4×4 transform. The encoder
  tries to predict the block interpolating the color value of adiacent
  blocks. Only the delta signal is therefore transmitted.

  There are also 4 prediction modes for smooth color zones (16×16
  blocks). Residual data are coded with 4×4 trasforms and a further 4×4
  Hadamard trasform is used for DC coefficients.

  Improved quantization

  A new logarithmic quantization step is used (compound rate 12%). It’s
  also possible to use Frequency-customized quantization scaling
  matrices selected by the encoder for perceptual-based quantization
  optimization.

  Inloop deblocking filter

  An adaptive deblocking filter is applied to reduce eventual blocking
  artifacts at high compression ratio.

  Advanced Entropy Coding

  H.264 can use the state of the art in entropy coding: Context Adaptive
  Binary Arithmetic Coding (CABAC) which is much more efficient than the
  standard Huffman coding used in JPG.


For best results on any Youtube upload it is always best to follow the recommended video encoding settings.
Listed here: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/1722171?hl=en

If you have followed those settings exactly and you are still having a problem it is a localized problem that will not affect everyone.

Youtube videos do not play the exact same way on every computer nor every playback.

I watched the videos and as predicted I had no problem with resolution, it was a constant 480p throughout.


How do DVDs avoid the blockyness that plagues dark scenes in most video files?

A single layer DVD has about 4.5 GB of capacity, a dual layer DVD has about 8.5 GB of capacity. Some of this space is taken up by menus and special features, but that still leaves plenty of room for video with minimal compression.

Take a look at the "blocky" videos - they have probably been re-compressed down to 700MB (so they can fit on a CD-R blank) or 1GB (because people love round numbers). Shrinking the video down requires more aggressive compression settings, which results in lower quality video. Sometimes this lower quality exhibits itself in terms of large blocky dark regions.

The other issue is that the compression algorithms used on DVD video are lossy. When you transcode to a lower bitrate codec, the software uncompresses and then recompresses the video. Since the compression is lossy, the uncompress step recovers imperfect video, and that imperfect video is then compressed. This slightly compounds the quality problems.

If you want to make a perfect copy, just rip out the original video. Don't transcode it to a new format.


How to concatenate 2 MP4 videos to output of certain bitrate?

Step 4 (first attempt) will work if you re-encode the 2nd video like the first (without the filters).

What's happening is that besides the timescale difference between CC's output and ffmpeg's (which will only result in timing errors), x264 is producing a High profile stream with a different parameter set than CC's encoder. Re-encode the 2nd video with ffmpeg and your files should be matching. Alternatively, you can speed up in CC and export the 1st video.


There are a number of comparison algorithms available beginning with PSNR through SSIM/SSIMPLUS to VMAF. VMAF is implemented as an ffmpeg filter.


Merging mp4 video stream with subtitles for use in creating DVD

Use the subtitles filter to create hardsubs ("burnt-in" subtitles):

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf subtitles=subs.srt -target pal-dvd output.mpg

-target pal-dvd will make the output have a frame rate of 25 and a frame size of 720x576. If you want NTSC output instead for a frame rate of 30000/1001 and frame size of 720x480, then use -target ntsc-dvd. For a frame rate of 24000/1001 and 720x480 frame size use -target film-dvd.
The old, so-called "ffmpeg" version 0.8.16 in the repo is a counterfeit from a fork that lacks the subtitles filter. If you need the real thing you can simply download a static build.
I do not believe ffmpeg can convert the text-based SRT to the bitmap-based dvdsub/vobsub, but there are probably other tools that can do so. This will allow you to use standard DVD subtitles which can be turned on or off by the viewer.


Create Text Graphics with Flat-Style Padded Background Boxes

I assume you're trying to create this, from the video you linked above:

If you want to create a title template that can adjust to (almost) whatever words you type in it, you're going to have to use After Effects.
In Premiere, you can create title templates, but they're not going to adjust to whatever length of word you use.
The following link takes you to a video that offers a good run-down of the latest title tools in Premiere, with which you can create templates that look like what you have in mind -- by the way, you could achieve a similar look with the old Title Tool: create a black matte, give it an opacity of, say, 30%, and place it under your title words.


How do I record decent sound during an interview?

You should definitely get a mixer!

The "complete" setup for audio would include:

a field mixer (like the PSC ProMix just for example) - needs XLR in/out
lavolier microphones
shotgun mic (or other very directional mic) with boom or pistol grip - this way you aren't stuck with the lavoliers all the time!
cables connecting the microphones to the mixer
your recording device
cables connecting the recording device to the mixer
headphones to monitor the sound coming in, and going out, of the mixer

Note I say your recording device, because theoretically you could record to the camera (not recommended).

The monitoring part is pretty crucial, because you don't want to be surprised in postproduction.

I prefer more directional microphones, because lavoliers can pick up some kinds of ambient noise.  Note however: a shotgun requires skill and endurance to use correctly!  Not to mention, an extra person on your crew.

I would also avoid wireless if you can.  It seems cool, but there's always some unexpected source of interference, and it can potentially add a lot of time to your set-up.

I hope this helps!


How to re-encode a video file's audio, but leave the video stream with ffmpeg?

So Apparently FFMPEG can do this, I had to use -c:v copy and that will leave the video stream intact. I actually used an app called iFFMPEG to figure this out.


Take a look at Vegasaur's TextGen.
It can import text from SRT, SUB and CSV files, or you can create 25 markers, paste 25 sentences and generate 25 media elements (one sentence for each text media)


What’s the best way to use a Canon 60D as a webcam on MacOS?

From what I have found, using Canon 60D on Mac has the following challenges:

There's currently no listed EOS Webcam Utility for Canon 60D on Mac. There do seem to be some people succeeding with workarounds by installing drivers for similar Canon models (e.g. 77D) - but I was not successful.
--EDIT: As of 2020-11-11 there are now drivers available for 60D on Mac.
Using micro-hdmi and a USB capture card, after flashing my 60D with the latest Magic Lantern firmware I was able to get 'clean hdmi' output, but was only able to get 480p output (instead of the almost-1080p output that should be possible).

You could perhaps have more luck with https://github.com/v002/v002-Camera-Live or waiting until updated Webcam utility drivers are released that support the 60D.


There are dozens of ways to get that kind of colour shift. The way I would do it is by using colour/response curves, and perhaps hue / saturation controls. Most compositing, grading and editing software have these effects.
Here's a two minute attempt in AE, trying to match the leftmost panel to the 2nd from the right. It needs work, but I got bored.

Looks like there's some chromatic aberation or mis-registration effect there as well. You can do that by making a copy of the original layer, altering the curves and using transfer modes (add, overlay, multiply, whichever works) to composite it with the original. Below, I copied the original layer, used overlay transfer mode, Nudged it 20px to the right and mucked around with the curves (mainly just inverting the luma value). You can see the effect control for this layer in this screenie:

Then you can animate all the parameters.


How to stack three videos side by side with ffmpeg

For vertical stacking, the widths have to be equalized.

[1:v][0:v]scale2ref=iw:ow/mdar[1v][0v];[2:v][0v]scale2ref=iw:ow/mdar[2v][0v];[0v][1v][2v]vstack=3


Video editor that lets me code my own effects from scratch?

You should check out Processing dot org.


You could use black screens as section dividers, e.g. one screen could feature a large question mark and the other one an exclamation mark as text.
The idea is to drag the black screens across the video frame from side to side at the same speed you're panning. Make the animation so that it looks like the black screen is attached to the middle pole.
Step by Step:

show the black question screen for a second or two
cross dissolve to you asking the question, the camera being fixed on you
begin panning
as soon as the pole comes into view, move the black answer screen from off-the frame into view, at the same speed as the panning, so it looks like the pole drags the screen with it.
this screen will cover the empty lift seat while you pan
the black answer screen comes fully into view
in the background cut to the other video track
Cross dissolve again and show you sitting in the other seat and answering the question.
start panning again
and so on

You could start the speech tracks just before the dissolve effects start, this is a common technique that simulates typical human dialogue where we perceive someone started speaking first and only then turn our eyes on that person. Research J and L cuts if you want to know more about this.
Also record some ambient sound from the lift ride and environment, that can be played continuously on loop in the background.


Can low quality video be manipulated to change the displayed time without being detectable?

The easiest way would be to simply add a timecode to video that doesn't have one.  If you had a clean video, it's super trivial to add something to it.  It would be quite a bit harder to alter something if there was already timecode put there (unless cropping would work like BrettFromLA suggests), but it could also be argued that the clock was also simply wrong on the camera.

Your best bet is to have a video forensics guy look it over for signs of manipulation and have them act as an expert witness.


If the instrumentation code is available as an audio signal (Modulated or Modified Manchester), it can be added as a new track on the video (separate stream in the file). In a multi-track environment it should survive editing etc.


ffmpeg adds unneeded zero samples at beginning of resulting m4a file

I have seen this also with libfdk_aac and x264 and am not sure what causes it but I have had success using the itsoffset flag like this:

ffmpeg -itsoffset 0.046440 -i original.wav -c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 5 ffmpeg.m4a


ffmpeg/x265: fixed-GOP, IDR only keyframes, repeating headers

Minimal command line, for a GOP size of 2 seconds:

ffmpeg -i input -force_key_frames expr:gte(t,n_forced*2) -c:v libx265 -x265-params open-gop=0:scenecut=0:repeat-headers=1 output.hevc

Verification:

ffmpeg -i output.hevc -c copy -bsf:v trace_headers -f null -

After each line containing key frame e.g.,

Packet: 18115 bytes, key frame, no pts, dts 2319977, duration 40000.

You should see the VPS/SPS/PPS. The first Slice Segment Header that follows should have a NAL unit type of 20 which is IDR_N_LP.

ffprobe can't invoke bitstream filters.


What is the name of this effect in After Effects?

You can search "After Effects morphing" and you will find some tutorials which you will help to recreate intro like in this video. It's not a standart (by default) effect in After Effects. It's an animation created from scratch, probably in After Effects. It's a Shape Animation, shape morphing, mask morphing, liquid animation.


Use of time remapping to stabilize the velocity of a rotating object?

One thing you could do is track the rotation of the drum, so that it's virtually stabilized and then use a Null-object to drive the rotation of the layer. This would give you a fresh, new, smooth rotation all the way through.


HTML5 background video encoding settings

There shouldn't be anything special about making a video for HTML5 video, so just look for any video encoding guide to learn about choosing how to trade off CPU time vs. bitrate vs. quality.

Hint: encode once, display many is a use case where it makes sense to spend as much CPU time as possible on the encode, to get the quality you want in as small a download as possible.


How can I become a video editor with Adobe Premiere?

Premiere is simply a tool. While learning how to use it will give you some experience and you can experiment to find out techniques, it will not teach you how to be a video editor.

Same with the other video editors.

If you want to become a professional video editor, there are college courses in this, some lasting 3 years or more, which will give you techniques, skills, training etc in concepts, the mental and artistic processes you will require etc., as well as training you in the tools.


How to make that effect in After Effects?

I think what you mean is called "depth of field" and is the way cameras work, no effect.


how to convert container format for a video file without re-encoding

I achieved this using ffpeg, a free and open source command line tool.


GH2 HDMI out on MX02 & Black Magic (Need for studio recording)

It isn't really clear what you are asking here.  The 23.9 frame rate is most likely 23.976 which is the more accurate standard frame rate for 24fps.  This shouldn't result in a stutter.  It is possible that your computer is simply not powerful enough to play the video smoothly.

Are you trying to capture from both the Intensity and the MX02 at the same time from different cameras?  This is going to put a pretty extreme load on your system's ability to store the file and will almost certainly not work without an SSD and even that might be pushing it.

Is there a particular reason you need to be capturing the input live?  If you simply want to do uncompressed capture, I would recommend recording to Black Magic HyperDecks and then syncing in post.  Alternately, if you need to be doing live editing, you could get the Black Magic Studio ATEM Production Switcher which would handle what you need.


What software do you recommend to easily import and edit tapes?

I used to translate videos from tape to digital with a capture device.
The program i used was Ulead Video Studio which is really easy to set up and use. Right now it is called Corel VideoStudio.

It has a bunch of transitions and media generators to add titles and credits.

http://www.corel.com/corel/product/index.jsp?pid=prod4900075

Oh the other hand, going to a much cheaper option, you could try  Lightworks, it is a lightweight program that has a lot of functionallity suitable for what you are asking.

Hope it helps


Did you install ffmpeg? This script uses it so it'd be good to have it...

The Idea is that you create a txt-document with all the file-names inside, which will then get stitched together. You can read up on how it works here:

  https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Concatenate


After Effects experience with virtual choir 3D environment

This is a tricky video production technique. Anyway, try the following steps:

First, create 4 black solid layers. Then, add a Lens Flare to them.

Place one flare in the bottom right corner.
On another solid, make the lens flare on the fare right middle.
For the third color solid's lens flare, make it on the top. With different color flares, it will look closer to what you are after.
Then, add a Ramp behavior to the last black solid and make sure it is on the bottom of the other layers.

Also, make the top a light gray and the bottom a dark gray.
Add an Adjustment layer above the black solids.

Add a Fast Blur to it and set it to around say 60, making the lens flares blurry.

Select all of the layers and create a pre-comp.
Meanwhile, try to add another color solid and make it white. Then, add a mask to it and make it an oval shape. Make the feather big like 250 or more. Move it so it is where the floor would be.


Slow Video Render? incl. New & Old PC Specs

Rendering in 1080p takes up more resources than 720p, so it is normal that your render is slower than usual, even though your new hardware is superior. 1280x720 = 921600 pixels per frame, 1920x1080 = 2073600 pixels per frame. The software has to render 2.25x the amount of pixels per frame, so you can expect it to take about twice as long.

the 770 GTX has 1536 CUDA Cores, the 260 GTX has 192, so your new graphics card is far superior for video rendering. In theory it should be a lot faster for video rendering.

Depending on your version of Sony Vegas, you can enable CUDA for your Nvidia graphics card, this should increase the speed. Go to Options >> Preferences... and go to the video tab. In version 12.0 there's a dropdown menu labeled "GPU acceleration of video processing". Set the value of the dropdown value from "Off" to your Graphics Card ("NVIDIA Corporation (GeForce GTX 770)")

If you're not using 12.0, it comes down to selecting the right render settings in the Render As... menu. Since you're uploading to YouTube, I recommend rendering as Sony AVC (.m2ts) and selecting the template 'Internet 1920x1080-30p'. The ratio rendering time to video length should be about 1:1. Still, Sony Vegas 12 had a lot of updates regarding GPU acceleration and rendering in general, so consider upgrading.


How to import youtube video into premiere cs4

It's not really all that astonishing.  Youtube is a streaming media service and Premiere is a video editing suite designed to work with files on your local computer.  It isn't part of the function of Premiere to deal with streaming media or convert from a stream to a file or to stream content (though it can produce stream ready files).

To use a video from Youtube, you would first need to use a Youtube stream ripper that will save it out as an actual video file which Premiere should then have no problem opening.  When you finish your project, you would then export to a Youtube compatible format and upload the file to Youtube.  Adobe Media Encoder (which can be used for doing the rendering out of Premiere) actually has presets specifically for Youtube.


how to measure bitrate of video over time

It does not make sense to speak of the size of an encoded frame in an inter-coded video stream, which is typical of MPEG-X videos. I-frames are self-contained but P- and B- frames are predicted frames and the final decoded result uses data from various inputs. On the other hand, the size of a single Group of Pictures (GOP) may be a meaningful measure.

The FFmpeg segmenter in combination with a compatible demuxer can break apart the video stream at GOP boundaries. By specifying an ultra-low time for segment size, you can ensure that each segment contains 1 GOP. Running a ffprobe on each segment will then provide the bitrate for that GOP.

I tested the command below on MP4s which had 1) a variable-sized GOP, 2) an intra-coded scheme and 3) fixed GOP of unusual length (11 frames), and each output had the expected result.

ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -an -c:v copy -segment_time 0.00001 -f segment i%0d.mp4

Each segment contained exactly 1 I-frame (each segment of the intra input contained exactly 1 frame in all).

Running ffprobe on each segment gives a bitrate reading:

Duration: 00:00:00.37, start: 4.466016, bitrate: 1539 kb/s
Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p,
1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 1520 kb/s, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 15360 tbn, 60 tbc (default)

The above one is from the 11-frame GOP, and has a bitrate of 1520 kbps.


There are two main concepts that I think are key here.  The first is learning about signal paths and what the functions of each piece of equipment does along the way.  The second is understanding the signals themselves and how they work.  In video, this can be particularly important since many signals are actually the same on different cables.  In both cases, I think the best way to get started is to research each individual device and signal.

For signal flow, simply looking at how things are wired up should help you start.  You've normally got something similar to a camera that runs in to either a video switcher or a time base corrector followed by a switcher.  From the switcher, there are feeds to the preview and production monitors as well as an output that most likely goes to a Distribution Amplifier and from there it goes to the outputs which are probably projectors.

If you understand the purpose of each device, that is the first step towards understanding where problems may be coming from.  For example if one camera's signal is bad but the others are fine, check the camera and cable.  If all the output has the same problem, it may be the switcher or something between the switcher and DA (or the DA itself).  If only one projector has a problem, then either the DA, the cable from the DA to the projector or the projector itself has a problem.

The second part is understanding signals.  This is more in-depth and many video guys don't get this deep in to things.  Again, Wikipedia searches on either the cable or signal type are a great way to get detailed, accessible information.  To talk about the ones you specifically mentioned.  NTSC and PAL are actual video standards.  NTSC and the Japanese version NTSC-J are 29.97 frame per second interlaced (every other scan line is updated) formats.  PAL is the equivalent of NTSC that the rest of the world uses and is 25 frames per second, interlaced.  They are both analog, standard definition formats.

BNC is a type of coax cable connection.  It is a twist lock connector that can attach the cable securely and is generally used for professional video.  It also used to be used for old school Token Ring networking (on computers).  BNC cables can carry a very wide variety of signal types including Composite, Component and SDI.  BNC refers to the physical medium and not the format of signal passing through it.

DMX is a lighting control protocol that works over either an XLR or a 5 conductor wire similar in connection to XLR cable (but with 5 pins rather than 3) or a standard RJ45 cable (network cable).  There are also various wireless implementations of DMX.  It supports 512 addressable channels with 256 possible values per channel.  It can be used for controlling either robotic or fixed lighting.  With fixed lights, one or two channels is used per light. (Dimmer and possibly color selection)  For robotic lights, any number of channels may be used and each channel controls some different value such as gobo selection, x axis movement, y axis movement, strobe settings, dimmer, color, prisms, etc.  Additionally, some devices may use 2 channels to give finer control over a single axis.

There is also far more information available on Wikipedia in a fairly friendly and accessible form assuming you have a fairly basic understanding of electronic concepts.  That is how I have picked up the majority of my knowledge.  You can also learn fun things like the fact that VGA is identical to the analog feed in DVI which is also a component RGBVU feed.  Also, the digital signal on a DVI-D cable is the same as an unencrypted digital signal on HDMI.

Identifying the keywords to search for is probably the biggest trick, but if you know the cable name for example, you can likely find what the signal type is.  Also, if you ever end up stuck on a particular signal or cable, feel free to come back here and post a question and someone would be happy to point you in the right direction and provide you with details about the particular signal or device.

Oh, one other term that might be worth searching is Gen-lock.  It's a clock signal that is how the frames of video signals from higher end cameras are synchronized. Most modern video switchers can correct for time base shifting automatically now, but for minimum lag in display, if the video cameras support gen-lock, then using it to have them sample together can be helpful.


Does the HDMI output of a Nikon D750 use HDCP?

A mini-HDMI to HDMI adapter will not impact the presence of HDCP on the signal, it merely changes the connector passively.  As to whether your Nikon uses HDCP or not, I'm unsure.  My Canon 5D Mark iii also uses a mini-HDMI output and the first couple cables and adapters I got didn't connect very reliably, so I had signal issues until I found a cable that worked well.

You may be having a similar problem to this or it could be HDCP causing issues.  I'd recommend two things you can try in order to troubleshoot this issue.  First, try connecting a known HDCP signal, such as a bluray player to your capture card and see what happens.  It may simply give no signal or it may give an error.  If it gives an error, then you will know that your camera is simply not connecting (unless you get the same error about HDCP being present).

If this is inconclusive, you could also try connecting the camera to a TV that supports HDCP or connecting another mini-HDMI device to the capture device and see if either of those situations work.

It is possible that Nikon may have actually included HDCP in an anti-consumer move intended to prevent use of DSLRs for high end video production, but this seems like an odd choice for them as they have no product in that market segment.  (HDCP would allow connecting to TVs, but prevent use in recording and most video mixers for event production.)


Does raising the framerate while not changing the bitrate result in quality loss?

If the result of increasing the frame rate is that more pixels are displayed per second, then yes, keeping the bit rate the same will almost certainly mean a loss in overall quality. Not all such losses are objectionable or even necessarily noticeable. For example, if the bit rate is 30 Mb/s and you reduce it to 15 Mb/s, probably not many people would notice.


Cross Dissolve not available in between clips [Premiere CS6]

Do your clips have overlap?  If you put the clips end to end, running them right up to the end of the file and beginning of the file, then there is no video for Premiere to apply a dissolve to.  You need to have sufficient video left in the clip to complete the transition.


Generating numbers counting up with fix poisition for units

Not sure if this is what you mean, but can't you just set your text object to Align right in the Paragraph tab?  So all the text is right aligned.  That way the units won't jump around.


What is the maximum length of Portable Recorder to Camera cable that is safe to use?

Without more detail this is not directly answerable. The short answer is, the shorter the better, but the long answer depends on many factors.

The amount of electromagnetic noise in a room will impact how much the cable picks up noise by working as an antenna.
The type of cable being used will impact how much shielding prevents cross talk (between conductors if shooting stereo) and acting as an antenna.  Features like balanced signaling will also greatly reduce the amount of noise picked up over the length of the cable.
The signal type coming out of the recorder also matters.  If the signal is low power (mic level) then it will be more susceptible to noise, but less susceptible to cross talk.  If it is powered (line level) then it will be more susceptible to cross talk but will be much further above the noise floor.

Conversely, for just about any case, the impact of cable length is unlikely to be as significant as the quality loss expected for sound dissipating through the air, so getting as close to the subject as possible is pretty much always ideal.

For a long cable run, the wired solution will always be lower latency than a shorter one.  Latency is introduced primarily by processing or by signal dropouts on a digital signal that supports retransmission.  Analog signal on a cable is going to move at the speed of light while the sound waves themselves will have to travel at the speed of sound, so if your camera is in the back of a large room, the sound from the mic coming over a wire will likely actually get to you before the physical sound waves reach you.

There may be some exceptions to the noise level rule if the room is extremely EM noisy and you don't have the option of using balanced and shielded cabling with a line level signal, however sound drops off in strength EXTREMELY quickly as the pressure waves spread in all directions and lose power at an inverse square level. (Inverse square law).  The closer you are, the more signal you have to start with and it's difficult for a cable to lose signal that quickly.


What metadata can be stored in a .dv file?

you can check http://www.videohelp.com/tools/DV_Datecode and http://www.avpreserve.com/dvanalyzer/dv-metadata/
the rest is on google :)

i was using an automated software developed in house to extract the info, later on we moved to FinalCutServer so we get to manage everything in there...

edit: this link could help you. http://premierepro.wikia.com/wiki/DVMP


Tracking in Premiere Pro: Keep an object in a zoomed-in video in place

You'll need to use AfterEffects to effectively track camera or object motion.

There are tutorials on YouTube, my advice is do the tracking last, so you only track the footage frames used in your project.

Put all the shots you plan to track on a dedicated track in premiere while editing.

Export that video track with all other tracks off and import that video into AE, then track the sections that appear in the video.

Or you can use Bridge with Dynamic Link.

I say this because the tracking feature in AE is "intelligent" and will do a lot of the work for you, to a point, but many times you have to make corrections, do manual frame by frame track points... It's time consuming.

Hope that helps.


Final Cut - split clip into separate clips

I'm not familiar with FCPX specifically, but on pretty much every NLE ever made, you either use the razor tool to split the long clip wherever you want or set in and out points on the source window and drag in the clips already shortened.

If you want to be able to use a preset portion of a longer video as a source that you can just drag on, it will need its own timeline.  Put it in a timeline by itself along with any effects or anything you want to apply to it and then you can use a nested sequence in another timeline.


Looks to me like a kind of "chromatic aberration" effect - where the red green and blue channels of an image are processed separately - sometimes shifted in position or blurred a little, then they are recombined back together. There are lots of ways to do this using built in plugins, or using 3rd party plugins such as Red Giant's.


Mixing different digital cameras in the same movie

HD 1080 video is only 2 megapixels, so the camera full size rating would not be an issue for video.  You have to put all of the video clips together in a video editor of course, which should not any issue.  I would shoot with both cameras at the same settings, like 30p.

There is always a possibly of slight color/tint differences in two cameras.  Probably not noticeable on different scenes, but different views of the same scene possibly might notice? The video editor should allow correction in some degree even it does show.


How to make a multi-audio video into several video files with one audio track each?

There are several ways to do that. The simplest, but not the best would be to run some sort of remuxing twice, each time taking just a single audio track. But since there is no re-encoding the speed will go down since the computer is forced to read the whole file twice (or more times if you have more audio tracks).

To accomplish the task with a single read using libav (ffmpeg will probably be the same):

avconv -i in.mkv -map 0:0 -map 0:1 -c:a copy -c:v copy out1.mkv -map 0:0 -map 0:2 -c:a copy -c:v copy out2.mkv

It is probably also possible to do that with gstreamer.


UHS1 vs. Class 10 sd card (Samsung dv100)

Here is some reasoning based on numbers:

You don't need a fast card for video. It is generally advised to use at least class 6 for video recording on a consumer AVCHD device:

Max recording bit rate of AVCHD 2.0 is 28 Mbit/s and minimum write speed of a class 6 card is 48 Mbit/s, this should provide enough headroom even with an almost full card.
Your camera doesn't mention UHS-I in it's specs, only SDHC. So if you use a UHS-I card, it will be limited below 25 MByte/s, which is still faster than many class 10 cards.

For shooting pictures in continuous (burst) mode: when the high speed memory buffer of the camera fills up, you will continue to shoot below 25 MByte/s, about 3 images per second or less.
Using high speed card reader, transferring a full 32 GB UHS-I Class 1 card will take you maximum about an hour.

Take a look at this list of some bitrates for cards, cameras and video formats.

                        MEGABYTE/S    MEGABIT/S

---- 1080p30 Consumer ----
          AVCHD              3.0         24     also in some prosumer cams
        AVCHD 2.0            3.5         28
------ 1080p30 Pro -------
          DNxHD             9-28     36-220
         ProRes            12-41    100-330
        AVC-Intra           6-55     50-440
  Compresed CinemaDNG         60        480     roughly, as seen in BMPCC
        12-bit Raw            89        712

---- 16 Mpix Picture -----                      File size per picture
  Uncompressed 14-bit Raw     27        214
   Lossless Raw (NEF,CR2)     20        160     roughly
           JPEG                8         64     roughly

------ SD Card Class -----
          Class 2            2.0         16     Card class is the minimum speed
          Class 4            4.0         32     of the card according to the spec,
          Class 6            6.0         48     measured with empty card
          Class 10          10.0         80
------- SD Card BUS ------
            SD              12.5        100     Bus speed: speed of interface
          SDHC/XC           25.0        200     between device and card,
                                                data transfer speed is lower.
--- UHS SD Card Class ----
    UHS Speed Class 1       10.0         80
    UHS Speed Class 3       30.0        240
---- UHS SD Card BUS -----
       SDXC UHS-I         50/104    400/832
       SDXC UHS-II       156/312  1248/2496


Is there an easy method for detecting or marking the actual sample frequency?

What file format are you passing back and forth?  The sample rate is stored in the file.  No need for a reference tone.

One of you is likely recording at a different sample rate than the other.  Probably one is recording at 44.1kHz, and the other 48kHz, or 88.2/96, etc.

Now, audio interfaces do vary in sample rate frequency.  44,100Hz can be 44,099Hz on one, and 44,0102Hz on another.  This won't throw your tuning off by any perceptible amount.  Given enough time, you can start hearing a difference.  However, if you are recording against a track already recorded, this isn't an issue.  The playback sample rate on his DAW while recording will be the same rate as the record rate.

So, if you put together a few parts and send him the files, and then he records a couple tracks and sends you the files, there should be no issue here.


To ease in the alignment of the photos, you could use something like Anazi Stop Motion Animator.

It has an "Onion Skin" feature that allows you to see two different frames at the same time to help in aligning them.

You may find some good advice on how to use this software or what software others are using for this by searching for some stop animation sites.  The only site I have personally seen is brickfilms.com which is a stop motion animation site specializing in animating LEGOs.  On their resources page you might find some helpful advice.


Is there a way to manage Final Cut project files under Linux or Windows?

You can't edit FCP project files on Linux for sure. Sorry :)


Can you smoothly change speed of video in FCPX

Next to your speed marker are greyish areas. These areas can be adjusted and you can use that to make the transition to the speed change as long as you want.


Do you have to build ffmpeg from source to use 10-bit codecs in Windows?

Not quite. The x264 encoder, specifically, can be compiled with either 8-bit or 10-bit support, but not both.That restriction doesn't apply to x265 or any other encoders that I can think of. So, unless you need to encode to H.264 10-bit using x264, the regular builds of ffmpeg are fine.

You can fetch standalone binaries for 10-bit x264 from the official site at https://download.videolan.org/x264/binaries/ Too much hassle to compile ffmpeg with all other dependencies if you just need that one 10-bit encoder.

Edit: This is no longer true as of late Dec 2017. x264 now compiles and links as a multilib with both 8-bit and 10-bit support.


Where/when should I specify unsharpen when converting images to video?

Just do it all as one step and forget about up-sampling to 16 bit. That just adds complexity, processing time, extra storage and for no gain in quality in the end result that anyone could possibly perceive.

fmpeg myinputVideo.avi -vf "scale=3840:2160,unsharp=1x=13:ly=13"la=2.0" myoutput.mp4

The internal process of ffmpeg works basically like this:

 _______              ______________
|       |            |              |
| input |  demuxer   | encoded data |   decoder
| file  | ---------> | packets      | -----+
|_______|            |______________|      |
                                           v
                                       _________
                                      |         |
                                      | decoded |
                                      | frames  |
                                      |_________|
 ________             ______________       |
|        |           |              |      |
| output | <-------- | encoded data | <----+
| file   |   muxer   | packets      |   encoder
|________|           |______________|

The "decoded frames" box basically is where the pixels in the image are stored in memory as uncompressed RGB or YUV (or whatever) samples. That's the point where your footage is as good as it is going to get. Any extra filtering or processing will notionally degrade the image due to quantisation loss, or compression etc.. That image is what is sent to the filter chain. What you're doing is:

demux → decode → [decoded frames] → resample → encode → mux → save →
demux → decode → [decoded, resampled frames] → upscale → sharpen → encode → mux → save

so you're applying your filters to frames that have had an extra resample and encode step added, not to mention taking up a whole bunch'a space on your HDD.

When you filter something the output of one filter goes to the input of the next filter in the chain, so if you put scale first the scaled image is then sent to the sharpen filter.

 _______        ________        _________        ________
|       |      |        |      |         |      |        |
| input | ---> | scale  | ---> | sharpen | ---> | output |
|_______|      |________|      |_________|      |________|

You can get more complex by using -filter_complex which allows you to have various inputs and outputs for filters.

https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html#Filtering for more ascii-art empowered knowledge


Increasing text layer area size without changing font in Premiere Pro

This is a good question, and it's not obvious.
When you click once with the text tool, you make a single line of text.  If you drag the handles of this line, the text gets bigger and smaller.
But if you click and drag with the text tool instead to create your text, you get a text box.  Now resizing the box with the handles increases the amount of text in the box, not the font size.
Video (animated gif because of this website) below to demonstrate:


Stack videos with ffmpeg without padding

The stack filters don't insert any padding. Your videos probably have empty space in them. You'll need the crop filter to remove the dead space.

The stack filters require the video edge along the join axis to have the same dimensions i.e. height for hstack and width for vstack. So, don't crop those aspects.


Add transparent background to ffmpeg with text over it

Use the box options i.e.

drawtext=enable='between(t,2.5,6.5)':fontsize=50:fontcolor=White:fontfile='ariblk.ttf':text='textline1':x=min(4*(tw\+10)-(abs(4-2*(t-2.5)))*(tw+10)-tw\,10):y=h-th-130:box=1:boxborderw=12:boxcolor=black@0.45

This adds a box with padding of 12 pixels around the text boundary, and the color is black with 45% opacity.

Using drawbox (add it before the drawtexts)

drawbox=y=ih-140:h=110:c=black@0.45:t=max:enable='between(t,2.5,6.5)'

Here's the entire vf expression:

-vf "drawbox=y=ih-140:h=110:c=black@0.45:t=max:enable='between(t,2.5,6.5)',drawtext=enable='between(t,2.5,6.5)':fontsize=50:fontcolor=White:fontfile='ariblk.ttf':text='textline1':x=min(4*(tw\+10)-(abs(4-2*(t-2.5)))*(tw+10)-tw\,10):y=h-th-130, drawtext=enable='between(t,2.5,6.5)':fontsize=50:fontcolor=White:fontfile='ariblk.ttf':text='textline2':x=min(4*(tw\+10)-(abs(4-2*(t-2.5)))*(tw+10)-tw\,10):y=h-th-75, drawtext=enable='between(t,2.5,6.5)':fontsize=50:fontcolor=White:fontfile='ariblk.ttf':text='textline3':x=min(4*(tw\+10)-(abs(4-2*(t-2.5)))*(tw+10)-tw\,10):y=h-th-20" -codec:a copy videoout.mp4


After Effects P/B-frames aka motion vectors for Datamosh replication

The easiest way to get this kind of effect is to use Glitch - a plugin from aescripts.  It's not going to let you properly combine two sources, but it will go a long way towards giving you "broken" looking digital video...


Adobe Premiere Pro no H265 export option?

It should be there, "HEVC (H.265)", selectable under format. If it's not there the codec may not be installed on your system. Adobe describes how to check and install it here: https://helpx.adobe.com/in/premiere-elements/using/hevc-decoding-on-windows.html
For the last laptop I bought, it was preinstalled. For my desktop PC I had to manually install it, using the free version. I've never understood the concept behind this codec and it's payment. Right from the start they offered the exact same codec as a free and a paid version. At some time they noticed this and removed the free version from the store search. Somehow it's still there, just hidden.
If you still want the free version, use the direct link:

open the Edge browser
input ms-windows-store://pdp/?ProductId=9n4wgh0z6vhq
Click on Redeem Code and it should eventually install (without any need for a code)

(Source: Reddit, beware, I haven't tested that method, not sure if it works.)
And if it doesn't work, you probably have to buy it.


You want to concatenate the videos. see
https://www.ffmpeg.org/faq.html#How-can-I-concatenate-video-files_003f

I don't know what OS or multimedia containers you have, so read that FAQ. Especially if you want to avoid making potentially huge intermediate files.

In Linux/Mac OSX you want something like:

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

On  Windows I think the syntax is:

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

If your multimedia containers are already MPEG-1, MPEG-2 PS, or DV you can skip the transcoding steps and just concat using cat or copy or better yet concat protocol.

You can get fancy with scripting to add pseudo-randomisation to add the Outro. But I'd just add outroA to all odd numbered files and outroB to all even numbered files.

If you want to add more that one outro to your content randomly, I'm not that good a command line hacker to pipe and nest randomisations. So I'd build the randomisation (aka spinning) of 100 cat/copy/concat lines into a script via a spreadsheet, then copy/paste the script into a batch/shell script.


Can I charge to view videos of other people performing?

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice, just my understanding of common application of copyright law. Copyright law varies between countries and even within countries, so you should consult a lawyer who is familiar with the copyright law in any relevant jurisdictions before proceeding.

You would need permission from the performers and may also need to pay a fee for reproduction of the music or any other copyright aspects of the performance (this can include lighting effects, dance moves, or any other creative aspects of the performance).

The performance itself would be copyright by the performing group, whoever is paying them to perform, or whoever organised the event, so you would first need their permission to reproduce the performance. This of course may involve a licensing agreement.

The music they are playing might also be subject to copyright, depending on how old it is, so you may need to pay the owner of said rights to reproduce it (yes, even though its someone else performing).

Other aspects of a performance can also be copyright; things like dance moves, lighting effects, any other video/music playing that might be visible, costumes, props, any artworks or even advertisements visible in the video. That said, may all be owned by the event organiser/producer so that may simplify things. But it can be harder in a public space to get permission from all relevant parties.


Will adding more RAM to my system speed up rendering?

If your external drive is a spinning disk, and your internal drive is an SSD, you may find it faster to host the project and render everything on the internal drive.

This is what I do - the problem is keeping enough available space on the drive as SSDs are expensive and small.


Why does Adobe Premiere increase video size even when nothing has been done?

You cannot do this with Premiere.
The media info of the recording tell us that you need a maximum video bitrate of 0.108 Mbps to achieve 15 Mbyte. However Premiere's smallest available bitrate is 0.19 Mbps which would yield a 23 Mbyte final video (including the audio) in theory which is pretty close to what you see. As far as I know you cannot get below that.
If this bothers you, contact Adobe for help. Technically there is no obvious reason to stop at 0.19 Mbps. Tools like ffmpeg can work with even lower bitrates with this codec.


Exported MOV from Flash Pro with alpha channel doesn't retain transparency

Seeing as this appears to be a bug, my only suggestion is to export it as a PNG sequence. At my work we always transfer from Flash to AE as a PNG sequence, as we find MOV notoriously unreliable and buggy.

If you need to retain an audio track, try exporting that separately as a WAV or MP3 and placing it on your timeline in AE.