text:
Using brush tool for alpha channels/rotoscoping in after-effects
I'm trying to rotobrush/rotoscope a bunch of footage, see image below for what I mean.
Currently I'm using the rotobrush, but it is too time-consuming and slow - it keeps trying to guess the paths, which aren't accurate enough. I also don't want to draw pen masks, as it is too slow to do frame by frame and the hands are too complex.
Ideally, I just was to brush paint each frame and have that as a alpha mask. I'm sure this can be done, I just don't know the way to do it!
Any help would be awesome, thanks!

The thing about masks is that you don't have to do them on every frame. To quickly do rotoscoping you let the computer do as much of the work as it can, by interpolating wherever possible.
To mask out the hands with the pen tool, draw the mask for the first frame and then move as far along the timeline as you can until the point where the motion dramatically changes, e.g. if the hand is moving up, continue until it stops or starts moving down. Adjust the mask points, trying to keep the points close to the part of the hand they were near when you first drew them. It's good to give yourself enough points to work with when you first draw the mask.
Now go back between the two keyframes and find the point at which the maksk is the furthest from matching. Re-adjust, thus making a third keyframe. Now
rinse, repeat: between each of your keyframes, pick the point where the mask is the worst and refine.
As you work you'll find that the mask needs less and less tweaking and eventually starts following the hand well. If your motion is really crazy this might not be until you've done every frame, but the adjustments you'll need to make will be smaller and smaller each time.
You'll find this will be tedious, but way less tedious than rendering as an image sequence and photoshoping each frame, or just opening the movie in photoshop (which is the answer to your question BTW). The difficulty in getting smooth motion that way would be immense. Think about the way hand drawn animation looks - the lines constantly 'boil' because each frame is painted from scratch. Painting the matte frame by frame will give you a result like that, which might be nice, but it doesn't seem like the look you're going for.
Put on a podcast or some music, make a coffee, get comfortable and get busy with the béziers.

Thanks for this. I ended up using the rotobrush and just trying to teach it best I can which eventually worked. If I need to do it again, I'd just open it in photoshop as you suggested.
For other footage in the video, I've been using masks with the pen tool as they are more non-organic shapes in the foreground and it makes sense to use the pen tool for those. For things like this hand which changes its shape too much with blurring and softer edges, the pen tool isn't as useful.

If you turn motion blurring on for the layers with the masks you'll find that the masks will be motion blurred as they move. There's also the feather tool (tap the g key twice) which allows you to variably feather a mask


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Adding edge for open captions in Adobe Premiere Pro
I'm on Mac OSX El Capitan, Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 V10.3. I've created some open captions and I want to add some edge to them, to make them more readable. Only that I find no option for this. What should I do?
Screenshot:

Any help will be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Turned out that edged captions is a new feature in CC 2017, and is only available for open captions. My bad.

Thanks for sharing what you found, and welcome to the site.

Thanks : ) I'm a newbie and there's much for me to learn! Glad to have a supportive community on stackexchange.

source: Stack Exchange

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

sort: votes


text:
SW to chunk up individual songs from larger recording of an audio stream
I record audio streams from internet radio stations.
The recordings are usually about an hour long ( mpeg or flac format ) and each recording contains several songs / pieces of music.
Is there software that could take the recordings as input, discern / detect the individual song boundaries ( as a best effort of course ) and output the songs / pieces contained in each input file as individual audio files?

This is not a video production question.

@MichaelTiemann yikes, didn't realize this was off-topic here, else I would have deleted my answer and voted to close the question :/

…quite apart from the issue of intellectual property.

Audacity's Silence Finder will place labels anywhere which match the requirements of your filter. I think you will still have to manually cut the track though to do original processing.
There is also an option to export by label.  That might allow you to automatically split the file and export as several separate files.

Most audio editing software comes with a "search silence" option and, in the case of Logic Pro X, you can create regions automatically with the "strip silence" function which will search for all instances of silence in the audio file and create audio files from what's left. The process will take minutes.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/


text:
Biggest possible resolution or go for common denominator?
I need to transcode 720p AVC videos to Xvid because they need to be played on a Samsung DVD player. The player can handle maximum 448 pixel high videos and automatically scales the picture up to 1080p for the full HD TV. Now the question is, should I downscale to 448p for the highest theoretical resolution or 360p because it's exactly 1/4 of the source's and 1/9 of the TV's resolution?

I tried both and the empirical result is that the 360p video looks much better than the 448p. Even on my full HD computer screen played in VLC but on the TV screen it was definitely a lot better.
So in my experience the proportionate imaging is more important than the theoretical resolution.

Assuming the player can rescale the video to Full HD fast enough, I would output to the highest resolution acceptable.


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Prediction and Motion Estimation
As far as I understand, the motion estimation is a process, where when we have two frames t and t+1 we search for the blocks/pixels that changed position and then encode that change with a motion vector. So in the end we have only the frame t and its encoded successor.
After that we use compensation in order to use these motion vectors, and further encode only the difference between the "vectorized" frame t+1 and the frame t.
Firstly, am I right? Secondly, when the prediction issue comes into play? I'm reading about prediction all the time, but in the sequence I've described, I don't see any prediction happening anywhere.

The prediction comes in when actually adding the motion estimation to both frames t and t+1.  Consider a video of a ninja cutting a melon in half, but shot at a very short shutter speed, so as to freeze motion in each frame.  The motion estimator notices that the sword is moving between frame t and frame t+1.  (It also moved between frame t-1 and t, and also frame t+1 to t+2).  Frame t gets half the motion from t-1 to t and half the motion from t to t+1.  The latter half is the prediction.  Frame t+1 gets half the motion from t to t+1 and half the motion from t+1 to t+2.  In this way, the video does not appear to shift half a frame later than the audio.

So by estimating the motion of the frame t+1 (based on frame t), we're also "predicting" half the motion of the frame t+2 (the "starting points" of its own motion vectors)?

Nothing in t+2 contributes to the estimation of frame t.  Frame t gets half its motion estimate from the immediate past (frame t-1) and the immediate future (frame t+1).  It doesn't use the full motion difference between t-1 and t or t and t+1.  It should use at most half of those motion vectors (minus it's own instantaneous motion).  It could use less than half, depending on how much blurring you want.


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How to create a glitch effect
In many films(especially trailers) we can see some kind of glitch effects. Recently I found one more here:
Video on FB: link.
I want to try to create one by myself but cant find any useful info. How and where is it possible to make? I would be pleased to see some links and guides.

K guys. Found this guide to make glitch effect after all:

Thx guys for answering, you made my day :)

There are several effects like this available today. If you're using Final Cut Pro X or Motion, you can use the BadTV filter.
There are also 3rd party filters for a variety of platforms including DigiEffects' Damage filters.
You could probably make your own by copying your input video, applying noise, maybe offsetting it, and then masking parts of the result to mix with the original.

Thx, but I`m on windows :/ Is there any analogy for windows?

I think the DigiEffects works with After Effects and Premiere on Windows. If you want to do it by hand, I would think AE and Premiere have the pieces you need - noise, transformations, etc.

oh, thx. I don't think I can do that myself, thats why I asked here how to do that :) I'll look that filter as soon as I can, thx  ones more.

all_licenses: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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Multiple expression controls in ONE FX controller
For the sake of a cleaner workspace is it possible to have multiple expression controls, such as slider controls, in the same FX control?

Basically, instead of seeing "Slider Control" and "Slider Control 2" I would like both of the actual sliders to reside under the same "Slider Control" heading.

No that is not possible, as far as I know. (Tho perhaps it could be with a little programming, using the ScriptUI API. Here's the complete reference.)
However it is possible to rename the "Slider Control" and "Slider Control 2" labels to something more useful to you. That's what I usually do. Just click on the name and hit Return on the keyboard to rename.

I know to rename them, though do you know if the "Slider" portion can be renamed? It seems weird that every built-in slider property has a unique label, but I can't rename these. I suppose it doesn't matter if there can never be multiple in one FX control.

No, there's no easy way to rename the "Slider" portion. I looked more into the ScriptUI reference, though, and it does look as though you could create what you are talking about using a little bit of JavaScript programming. Depends on how much you'd care to tidy up I suppose!

Thanks for your help! Thought in the short term it isn't worth my effort, I will still check this out as I would love to learn how I can apply the ScriptUI stuff to help me later. :)


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Syncing audio and video from different sources
We recorded a video of a talk and its audio on separate devices (camcorder and phone). Both are relatively new an the camera indeed does nice full HD video. My problem is that they both seem out of sync when seen from within the editing progams.
I post the Mediainfo data of the video and audio below. Basically, when I import both the video and audio into Lightworks (or some other software), I can align the waveforms but they drift from each other. I have wondered whether this is due to different bitrates, but adjusting the speed does not seem to help. Is this our problem, editing program's limitations, the medium, file formats...?
Any hint on improving our workflow would be appreciated. Our recording equipment is a Canon Legria R68 and an Android (Moto G 3rd gen) mobile phone for the video and audio, respectively.

Video info (one chunck out of two)
General
ID                                       : 0 (0x0)
Format                                   : BDAV
Format/Info                              : Blu-ray Video
File size                                : 3.88 GiB
Duration                                 : 37 min 59 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 14.6 Mb/s
Maximum Overall bit rate                 : 18.0 Mb/s

Video
ID                                       : 4113 (0x1011)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : High@L4
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 2 frames
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=12
Codec ID                                 : 27
Duration                                 : 37 min 59 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 13.8 Mb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 16.0 Mb/s
Width                                    : 1 920 pixels
Height                                   : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Interlaced
Scan type, store method                  : Separated fields
Scan order                               : Top Field First
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.266
Stream size                              : 3.66 GiB (94%)

Audio
ID                                       : 4352 (0x1100)
Menu ID                                  : 1 (0x1)
Format                                   : AC-3
Format/Info                              : Audio Coding 3
Mode extension                           : CM (complete main)
Format settings, Endianness              : Big
Codec ID                                 : 129
Duration                                 : 37 min 59 s
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 256 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate                               : 31.250 FPS (1536 spf)
Bit depth                                : 16 bits
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Delay relative to video                  : -80 ms
Stream size                              : 69.6 MiB (2%)

----
Audio file info (it is longer because it covers the whole session)

Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : 3GPP Media Release 4
Codec ID                                 : 3gp4 (isom/3gp4)
File size                                : 61.9 MiB
Duration                                 : 1 h 8 min
Overall bit rate mode                    : Constant
Overall bit rate                         : 126 kb/s
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-11-10 18:27:57
Tagged date                              : UTC 2016-11-10 18:27:57

Audio
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : 40
Duration                                 : 1 h 8 min
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 128 kb/s
Channel(s)                               : 1 channel
Channel positions                        : Front: C
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 kHz
Frame rate                               : 43.066 FPS (1024 spf)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 61.2 MiB (99%)
Title                                    : SoundHandle
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-11-10 18:27:57
Tagged date                              : UTC 2016-11-10 18:27:57

Your audio streams are at different sample rates. Now, a good NLE should resample all input audio to the project sampling rate but I don't know how Lightworks handles it. Also, were there any interruptions in recording, either in the video or audio?

This is a rather common problem.  The issue is NOT sample-rate.  And the issue is NOT frame-rate, either.  Most modern editing software (or file-manipulation software) is capable of easily resolving sample-rate or frame-rate issues.  For example, clearly there is no "frame-rate" or even "sample-rate" setting on a typical smart phone.
The issue is that the internal clock references in mass-market consumer gadgets like your camcorder and your phone are not precise enough to stay in lip-sync for more than a few minutes.  For most of the history of shooting film and video, professionals actually connected the camera clock and the audio recorder clock together with a hard wire. (This was called "genlock".) And in more modern times, pro gear uses internal (or external) reference clocks that cost more than your whole camcorder and phone combined.  And even then they are "jam-synced" together several times a day.
Depending on which editing software you are using, you will very likely find it much more acceptable to use the audio track as the "master reference" and "pull-up" the video to match the audio.  Many editing applications do pretty horrible things to the audio track if you try to lengthen or shorten the clip slightly.
But doing the same thing to the video track will result only in a dropped or duplicated frame every few seconds, and almost nobody viewing your video will notice that.  But they will certainly complain about lousy audio if you try to "tweak" the length.
But try it for yourself on your own software and see how it works for yourself. Only YOU can do that experiment with YOUR video and audio and editing system.
You may get lucky.  Start by syncing the beginning of the video/audio together. Then go to the end and drag the length of the video clip so that the audio is in sync at the end.  If you are lucky, the audio will be in sync through the entire length of the recording.  But if there was more drift during the clip, you may have to divide your video into sections and "pull-up" the video to match the audio at several points.
We typically use "B-roll" (PowerPoint slides, presentation video, audience shots, etc.) to cover edit and/or sync points.  It is always good to get some "audience reaction" shots to cover edit points. Even if you don't shoot the "B-roll" during the main presentation.

Thanks, those are nice ideas. Indeed we are switching to having two video tracks: screencast of presentation and recording of speaker + audience. That should help mask all those technical problems... Pity that time/frequency standards are so crappy in phones (I myself work in metrology-related physics and am very surprised of that, hehe)

I don't think it's because the internal clocks drift. A phone just would not be able to get GPS location or connect to the cell network if its clock was that bad. I think it's because they often record with variable frame rate.

There is a vast difference between the kind of clock drift that causes lip-sync problems vs. the kind that causes the "time of day" display to be incorrect on your screen.  Even if the phone were actually phase-locked to the GPS reference (which no phone is), the camcorder is not referenced to GPS and so there will be  DIFFERENTIAL DRIFT. GPS does NOT require local-clock stability to work. GPS works by comparing the signal coming from different satellites, it does not depend on any local clock reference. Neither the camcorder nor phone is running at "variable frame rate".

Sample Rates are not the issue - you will find that one of the devices is running at a non-integer frame rate. This is your problem. When doing multi-camera shoots you have to ensure that both devices are running at the same frame rate or you will not be able to synch these up in post. Some NLE's will be able to conform your non-standard footage to the project frame rate, but looking at the frame-rates in the OP. these are very non-standard frame-rates. Try and run at 25FPS if at all possible across all devices. Then you have a good chance of being able to edit the footage.

Usually when recording externally or with two cameras a clapper comes in handy. You match the spikes and then mute the other audio tracks so you just have one. I would expand the audio tracks and find similarities.

If you're liquid enought to shell out 300.- then try https://www.redgiant.com/products/pluraleyes/
Since you synced the audio manually in front and it's deviating after several minutes, you need to squeeze one movie to fit.

Have a clap at start of record and one at end of record
align the first spike in audio
count the samples / seconds/frames between last spike in first and last spike in second audio
calculate difference in percentage
squeeze clip by that percentage


text:
How to find videos that have free reuse license types on the web?
Google Image Search provides a very handy method for isolating specific license types:

Is there anything like this for videos?  I've been shooting blanks so far...

You can do this is on YouTube by adding a filter under the "Features" header. E.g.:

Also found that Vimeo offers similar search functionality when you add filters on the right:

Specifically on Vimeo these each mean:

CC0: Public Domain Dedication
CC BY-NC-ND: Attribution Non-Commercial No Derivatives License
CC BY: Attribution License
CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike License
CC BY-NC: Attribution Non-Commercial License
CC BY-SA: Attribution Share Alike License
CC BY-ND: Attribution No Derivatives License

Note that, as always, you should make sure that the video really is free to use - sometimes videos come up under the YouTube creative commons search which are very obviously not creative commons.


text:
After Effects slow animation
I f****d up and changed the framerate of my AE preview because the project began taking its toll on my computer, mistakenly thinking that this will increase performance. However I sadly had to notice (after continuing to work on my project for quite some time) that this only affects the playback speed. And herein lies my problem: Everything is twice as fast as I had animated it. As a workaround I simply put everything in a precomp and enabled time-remapping, however this feels more like some makeshift solution rather than something proper.
Now here is my question: Is there a way to tell after effects to stretch everything (layer length, keyframes, etc.) so that they are of correct length? Or do I have to rework everything manually what will probably make me never forget the difference between skipped frames and framerate again? :D

Only for key frames on a particular layer, but you can select all within a certain layer an alt drag them out.

I was going to recommend nesting the comp and use time-remapping actually, which of course you came up with as the solution.
I think, to be honest, this is your best bet, or time remap each layer in your existing composition.
Doing the time-remap on your original comp, has the advantage that the keyframes will in fact be at the correct place given whatever time-base you want to end up in. This will allow for, if say your time-base is higher, more discrete frames, or points, in which to place new keyframes.
Doing a remap in a nested comp will limit your ability to add keyframes in between what would be 2 frames... being your master comp (parent) only has 1 keyframe and therefor cannot be divided.
Try time-remapping the composition; after you adjust the composition settings to the correct timebase. I don't see why that wouldn't give you what you need.

Even worse, the shutter angle/motion blur will play a role here


text:
Anyone knows what kind of transition like this video?
Here is the video:

I know it's "transition effect" at [1:46 -> 1:51] and [0:45 -> 0:49]
But i can't find the name, and some tutorials to do it in After Effect or Sony Vegas Pro.
Anyone knows?
Thanks

What it is
There is no set name for this transition as it isn't a standard transition effect that you would expect to find as a preset in your editing software. It is probably a custom made transition sequence, however it's a rather simple one. It just takes the same image multiple time, applies different filters to them and uses a simple slide-in effect to iterate through them.
How to do it

Extract a frame of your video.
You can either apply the different filters in an image editing program or in the animation software. I think the first method is easier. The filters used in the video you linked are pretty simple; for example, there's a black-and-white converted version of the frame in there, an inverted black-and-white version and one with crushed blacks, increased contrast and overall lowered brightness.
Import those versions of the still frame back into your project, put them in the timeline in quick succession (about 0.5 seconds per image) and apply the same slide-in effect to all of them (you can do this with keyframes, but you will probably also find it in the transition presets of your software).
(Optional) Note that the two instances of the transition you mentioned in your question are not exactly the same, they use different filters and effects interchangeably. For example, in the first occurance there's a grain effect applied to one of the still images and the whole transition sequence has a sepia coloration. The second instance uses a faded film look/effect for the last image in the transition. So you can customize this transition using different effects to have it look however you like.

Why not to do it
Because it looks like crap. I have no idea what kind of video you are doing, but this transition will make you look like you just found out about Photoshop and decided to press all the buttons.
(cough Photoshop Philipp cough)
If you want your video to be taken seriously, use hard cuts or short, soft transitions only. In general, I wouldn't recommend trying to copy Hatsune Miku AMVs from YouTube, unless that is precisely the look and audience you want. Some more advice on transitions can be found in my answer here.

Thanks bro, i don't copy Hatsune Miku AMV or anything. I can make those filters images, just i want to know the transition


text:
Export EDL from Movie Maker WLMP (Windows Live Media Project)
I am editing a video and the director pre-edited some footage using Windows Movie Maker (no need to tell me how absolutely inadequate a tool MovieMaker is).
Is there some way to export something like an EDL (in any readable format, even if i have to manually convert) from a WLMP project so that i can import the project into another NLE?

A WLMP file can be opened as an xml.  Save a copy of the project changing the extension to XML.
Convert XML to CSV using one of various free converters available online.  Open the CSV file as a spreadsheet (Excel, Calc, etc).  Now you can access the filenames and durations of each edit.
You must reformat your spreadsheet to match an EDL format supported by your NLE.  Once you have the correct format, export spreadsheet (sometimes you must convert to CSV, open in notepad and save again with the desired extension).
This is an example of the cuts once converted to csv / spreadsheet format:
_id,_filePath,_arWidth,_arHeight,_duration,_songTitle,_songArtist,_songAlbum,_songCopyrightUrl,_songArtistUrl,_songAudioFileUrl,_stabilizationMode,_mediaItemType
159,F:\video\img(7).jpg,2448,3264,0,,,,,,,0,2
106,F:\video\img(8).jpg,2448,3264,0,,,,,,,0,2
160,F:\video\img(50).jpg,960,960,0,,,,,,,0,2
107,F:\video\img(51).jpg,667,667,0,,,,,,,0,2
161,F:\video\clip (32).mp4,1280,720,26.026,,,,,,,0,1
108,F:\video\clip(20).MTS,1920,1080,12.69,,,,,,,0,1

i apologize for choosing my own answer, but, as of this time, no one came forward with a better solution and this mine workflow did work in the end.  I opened the project up in Vegas and Avid (didnt try Premiere, but surely woulda been ok, too).


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Mono to Stereo using FFMPEG
I have an unusual problem that I hope someone can help me solve.
I have 45 video files that I'm batch encoding as MP4.
Some of those files have their audio channel position set to Front L R and others have have it set to Front C.
However, the distribution system which these videos are sent to (and which I have no control over) does some re-processing of these videos.
All the videos that have their Channel Position set to Front C are coming back with distorted audio.
My question is:
Does anyone know how to encode a video with ffmpeg and force the audio channel positions to be Front L R?
(I have carefully studied this page (https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/AudioChannelManipulation#monostereo) but it was not obvious what the solution might be)
Thank you!

The encoder will set stereo layout when you encode with -ac 2 as shown in the wiki you linked to.

@Mulvya Thank you, I tried your suggestion. After encoding ffmpeg reported the following for the audio information: "Stream #0:1(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 128 kb/s (default)" It's not clear to me how to read this. Does LC mean "Left Channel"?

No. LC means Low Complexity and refers to the audio bitstream profile.

If you run ffmpeg -layouts, you will see that stereo indicates the presence of two channels, one assigned as Front Left and the other as Front Right. If you use -ac 2 in your encode, ffmpeg will create a stereo layout output by default. FFmpeg does not display the individual channel assignments in the readout of the file.


text:
FFMPEG add resize to my comand
Hey guys how can I add scale/resize command to mine command, because where ever I place the "scale" command I got error
Here is mine
ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -strict -2 -vf "subtitles=subtitle.srt:force_style='FontName=ubuntu,fontsize=30'" -qscale:v 3 -filter:v scale=720:-1 Movie.avi

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

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

Thats it tnx again Mulvya


text:
Opacity and feather doesn't work at mask
currently I have the problem that I cant change the opacity of a mask.
It's just on (1-100%) or off (0%).
I noticed that the feathering doesn't work too.
Here is a example picture.

There are two masks, one with less opacity than the other, but they are still appear to be the same.
I tried different things but nothing worked and I can't find anything about this in at the internet.
Is it maybe because of the effects?
How can I change the opacity of the masks respectively the feather?

Normally effects are applied before masks, but some aren't. For these effects it means that you need to precompose the layer with the effect applied, and then apply the mask to the precomp. I don't know why, it's pretty certainly a bug, but Colorama is one of those effects.
Turn off Colorama and your masks should start behaving normally. So what you need to do is pre-comp the layer with the effects on it, but not the masks (just select the masks and ctrl/⌘-x to cut, then precomp the layer choosing "Move all the attributes into the new composition", then paste the masks back).


text:
Is there any way to find the video editing software or camera that created a video?
This question is inspired by the Exif data exists in JPEG files.
Is there any way to find:

the video editing software that created a video file?
the camera model that created a video file?
Get above information from a Youtube video?

Video editing software?  Highly unlikely. Best bet would be to ask the producer.
Camera model that created a video file?  Same as #1 above..
From a Youtube video?  No. Even if there were any metadata that you wanted (which is highly unlikely) it would be stripped by YouTube re-encoding and compressing it.

Different NLEs each seem to live in their own metadata world.  One common metadata element they all seem to preserve fairly well is timecode.  Almost all support a few common elements, such as REEL, SCENE, and SHOT.  But DaVinci Resolve, Premiere Pro, and Final Cut Pro X each have metadata slots that are unique to them, even in cases where the metadata slot shares a common name.  MPEG, Quicktime, and other media formats do have slots for metadata, but nothing like the expansive and consistent world of EXIF.
In the pro video world, metadata is usually entered first via a slate, with the camera shooting the actual metadata at the start or end of a shot, and then what is now called the DIT (director of Imaging Technology) translate the slate data to metadata for the project.  Some digital slates actually create little databases so that at the end of the data, all the text the camera shot as video footage is also available to be uploaded to a (metadata) database.

Sorry, I am new to this site. What is NLE?

NLE means non linear editor. It is the more proper term for editing software.

YouTube reencodes all uploads, so there is no way to recover any video metadata unless you have the original file.
If you have the original video file, sometimes cameras write specific metadata information into the video headers.  Same for editing and compression software.
You can use a tool such as MediaInfo to output audio, video, and header information from a media file.


text:
Add semi-transparent box around subtitle
Hey guys how can I add box around subtitle like on picture with ffmpeg
here is mi current command
ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -strict -2 -vf "subtitles=subtitle.srt:force_style='FontName=ubuntu,fontsize=30',scale=720:-1" -qscale:v 3  Movie.avi

Use
ffmpeg -i movie.mkv -strict -2 -vf "subtitles=subtitle.srt:force_style='FontName=ubuntu,fontsize=30,BorderStyle=3,OutlineColour=&H80000000',scale=720:-1" -qscale:v 3  Movie.avi

See Style Fields and Data Types for tag info and color syntax.


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ffmpeg - image with zoom - looks low resolution
I'm trying to take an image, and apply a slow 'zoom' to the image (think Ken Burns). The animation looks correct, but the image looks extremely low resolution (when the original image is a 5k still). Why is this? Command below:
ffmpeg -loop 1 -f image2 -i 'IMG_8444_edit.jpg' -vf "zoompan=z='zoom+0.001" -c:v libx264 -preset fast -t 5 -crf 22 -s 1920x1080 -y 'zoomout.mp4'

Do you have a sample of the problem that you can post?

zoompan, by default, scales output to 1280x720 (and at 25 fps).
Use
ffmpeg -loop 1 -f image2 -i 'IMG_8444_edit.jpg' -vf "zoompan=z='zoom+0.001:s=WxH,scale=hd1080" -c:v libx264 -preset fast -t 5 -crf 22 -y 'zoomout.mp4'

where WxH is your required output resolution from the filter.

Yes awesome! That was the trick! Question: it looks like the pan zoom filter has some other parameters such as input resolution... If I set that to the size of the still image, would that increase the output quality even further?

No, you can use the input width and height in expressions, but zoompan will work with the original resolution before it resizes.


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See all video layers at once in a preview/program menu - Adobe Premiere Pro
I work with Adobe Premiere Pro and I am editing a wedding.  We had 5 cameras at the wedding and I am having to hide and show video layers a lot to determine the best shot for specific moments and when to fade in, etc.
I've got dual screen and I would like to be able to have all the difference layers displayed on my second screen to be able to see all camera angles as the video plays to determine which shot I want to have showing at any given time.  I need the regular "program" to be able to see what the video actually looks like LIVE.
Any way to do this in Premiere Pro?
Thanks

The short answer is YES!  The specific Adobe documentation you need to read is here: https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/create-multi-camera-source-sequence.html
But the general idea is simple: given a set of clips that are all synchronized on the timeline, group them together as a single object (a multicam clip or a nested sequence), and then set your viewer's display mode from "Composite Video" to "Multicam Viewer".  The multicam viewer will show, side-by-side, the 5 clips (in a matrix) and the presently selected camera angle.  When you play the clip, you can select which angle to switch to, and when.  The first time through you don't have to be super-precise about the when, because you can always slip the edit point earlier or later in the timeline as you need.  And you can later decide "I don't want Angle 2 because somebody is photobombing from that direction, so let's cut to Angle 5 instead".  It takes a little while to get the hang of it, but it's pretty easy, once you have your clips synchronized, grouped, and displayed in Multicam View.

Is there a way to do it if all 5 clips don't line up from the start?  I've got all the clips lined up in the sequence, I'd just like to see Video 1, Video 2, Video 3, etc. live at the same time as I play through the sequence.  I'm starting to think this isn't possible.  It would be nice to be able to see all of them live though because you can then decide where you want to put fades, cuts, etc. and which video track you want to have live at any given time.  Rather than having to hide video tracks to be able to see whats under them.

They don't all have to line up from the start.  Imagine you first started camera 1, then camera 2, then shot for a while, then added camera 3.  Then camera 1 ran out of storage, then you started camera 4.  Then camera 2 ran out of storage and you started camera 5.  In that scenario, the various cameras do have some temporal relationship, and it makes sense to arrange the clips on the timeline accordingly.  But you don't have to be constrained by time.  You can scroll through 5 random clips and see them all.  But cutting won't make much sense within that framework.  Only previewing will.

Do you know what settings I need to activate to have this scenario play out?  I like that concept for previewing.  I don't really need the cutting using the framework.  Just previewing.  Every time I try to set this up, it tries to play all the videos at the same time.

You just need to get your 5 clips into a sequence, select them all, nest them, enable multicam (using in points as "sync"), then set your viewer to Multicam.  Just like the Adobe documentation says.  Just like I said above.

Basically have you a cam b cam. Etc on different layers and synced. Then follow the rest of Michael's instructions. When one camera stopped rolling it will disappear from the multicam view until it reappears on the timeline. Super easy. Just make sure not to apply any effects to the audio  in the nested multicam sequence or you'll loose waveforms in the main composition you are editing the multicam in.


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I want to have 2.7K footage stabilised in Full HD
I'm solving following situation. I have plenty of footages from my GoPro recorded in 2.7K.
As I don't need such a resolution, I will be happy to have some from my shoots stabilised and as I need "only" Full HD resolution so I can crop a lot, I would like to have it stable as much as possible.
I've tried Warp stabiliser in Priemere, but the software throws me an error "Warp Stabilizer requires clip dimension to match sequence" but as I don't want to nest the video and loose pixels...
Can you please help me how to stabilize properly ? Thank you a lot!

Well you won't loose pixels if you nest it.  Nest it. Then change the sequence settings of your nest to match your clip settings. Then run warp on the clip in the nest.
Back in your main comp you can set the sequence to full HD and just scale it down. You will get the extra sharpness of 2.7k as it will be in the HD timeline.
If you have a majority of the clips in 2.7k then it might be best to edit in 2.7k and drag that composition into a new composition with full HD settings and scale that instead of doing it on a clip by clip basis. Which can get tedious.
Or you can just edit in 2.7k and export in HD.
Side note: you always loose a little bit of pixels if you stabilize (this can be avoided to a certain extent if you adjust the settings albeit at the detriment to the actual stabilization). But downscaling to 1080p it won't be noticeable. Especially with gopro footage.
I've also have mercalli does better with some clips than warp. It's available as a plug in for premiere.


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Adobe Media Encoder CC 2017 Will Not Launch on Mac OS Sierra
I click the app to launch it, it starts to load in the doc, it even creates preference files in Documents, but then it exits. No error, no splash screen, nothing. I've tried every single suggestion out there from deleting slc files to deleting preferences, uninstalling, reinstalling, deleting the logs and prefs under documents, holding shift down when launch, holding alt, cmd, shift when launching. What else can I do?
For some reason this is required to export videos from Premiere, is there no way to export videos without it?

When you choose Export Media from Premiere Pro CC 2017, there are options to either Queue the export request (which sends to Media Encoder, aka AME) or Export directly, which, as it says, directly exports media without going through AME.
Perhaps your Console log has some notes about what your system doesn't like about AME (or vice-versa).  On my system it launches without error (though it takes its time initializing all the bundles before it starts).

Is there somewhere that I can find the relevant console log?

In the finder, Apple (clover) U will bring up Utilities.  Console is the app in that folder you want to open.


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What -preset medium stand for in ffmpeg
Here i found
-preset medium

I was wondering for what it stand for is it for video quality ?

preset is a private option that may be defined for an encoder, such as libx264. It is a shorthand method to set a whole bunch of options at once, and won't have any effect if set when using an encoder which doesn't define them.

When using x264 to encode to H.264 with preset medium, these are the arguments set:
cabac=1
ref=3
deblock=1:0:0
analyse=0x3:0x113
me=hex
subme=7
psy=1
psy_rd=1.00:0.00
mixed_ref=1
me_range=16
chroma_me=1
trellis=1
8x8dct=1
cqm=0
deadzone=21,11
fast_pskip=1
chroma_qp_offset=-2
threads=12
lookahead_threads=2
sliced_threads=0
nr=0
decimate=1
interlaced=0
bluray_compat=0
constrained_intra=0
bframes=3
b_pyramid=2
b_adapt=1
b_bias=0
direct=1
weightb=1
open_gop=0
weightp=2
keyint=250
keyint_min=25
scenecut=40
intra_refresh=0
rc_lookahead=40
rc=crf
mbtree=1
crf=23.0
qcomp=0.60
qpmin=0
qpmax=69
qpstep=4
ip_ratio=1.40
aq=1:1.00

The default preset is medium. You can override any of the individual variables by adding -x264-params key1=value:key2=value after the preset option. But you shouldn't unless you need to.

How did you get this list of default settings?

From the emitted SEI in the output bitstream.

On the page you linked to it explains it fairly well:

A preset is a collection of options that will provide a certain encoding speed to compression ratio. A slower preset will provide better compression (compression is quality per filesize). This means that, for example, if you target a certain file size or constant bit rate, you will achieve better quality with a slower preset. Similarly, for constant quality encoding, you will simply save bitrate by choosing a slower preset.

Basically there are three variables: speed, quality and file size that all depend on each other. With constant quality encodes (using the -crf option) you can change one of the other two. With the same quality setting if you increase the speed then you increase the file size, and if you decrease the speed you will get a smaller file.
What the medium preset is is a balance between encoding speed and file size. You can tip the balance either way, if you have time you can change the preset to slow, slower, veryslow or—for a tiny improvement in file size with big increase in time—placebo. Or if you need something converted on the fly you could increase the speed all the way up to realtime.
But all of the encodes will have the same quality. You change your quality only with the -crf setting. Of course lowering the quality will result in smaller files and vice versa, but that has nothing to do with the preset setting.

all of the encodes will have the same quality. --> not strictly true. The variance usually won't be much, but they don't produce the same result. I thought the same, but having read the threads at doom9, and done some short testing, I don't hold that anymore. For "simple" videos, it's more true than not, but with fine detail, not so much.

@Gyan Good to know.


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DVD not displaying full picture
I have created a DVD from video files, originally FLV 1280x720p files.
Although I followed the support literature and help guides, approx 10 pixels are missing vertically and approx 20 horizontally from all the DVD content(I have tried 2 players/TVs with same result)(like a slightly zoomed-in effect).
In Encore and WMP, it plays perfectly fine.
This is the transcoded file:
General
Name                                     : ZZ Top.m2v
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
File size                                : 2.02 GiB
Duration                                 : 57 min 12 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 5 053 kb/s
Video
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Default
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=12
Duration                                 : 57 min 12 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 5 053 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 7 000 kb/s
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS
Standard                                 : PAL
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel x Frame)                     : 0.487
Time code of first frame                 : 00:00:00:00
GOP, Open/Closed                         : Closed
Stream size                              : 2.02 GiB (100%)
This is a VOB off the DVD;
General
Complete name                            : G:\VIDEO_TS\VTS_02_1.VOB
Format                                   : MPEG-PS
File size                                : 1 024 MiB
Duration                                 : 26 min 51 s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 5 329 kb/s
Video
ID                                       : 224 (0xE0)
Format                                   : MPEG Video
Format version                           : Version 2
Format profile                           : Main@Main
Format settings, BVOP                    : Yes
Format settings, Matrix                  : Default
Format settings, GOP                     : M=3, N=12
Duration                                 : 26 min 51 s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 5 031 kb/s
Maximum bit rate                         : 7 000 kb/s
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 576 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate                               : 25.000 FPS
Standard                                 : PAL
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Bits/(Pixel x Frame)                     : 0.485
Time code of first frame                 : 00:00:00:00
Time code source                         : Group of pictures header
GOP, Open/Closed                         : Closed
Stream size                              : 967 MiB (94%)
More info:
The first DVD player(Panasonic) is quite versatile with regards to settings. I use the component(R/G/B) output(576p) and the HDTV(Samsung) recognizes it as 720 x 576p. I have tried different aspect ratio settings on both TVs and DVD players and the best/closest settings are:
DVD Players: 16:9 (1.0x zoom)
TVs: 16:9
NOTES:

Curiously, I have two video-loop-buttons "(%)" in the Main Menu, and in those, the same slightly zoomed-in effect occurs on the video, even while previewing in Encore, but I think that is because I used a 1280x720 thumbnail of the original HD video. Just thought I'd mention that.
I used "Scale to Fill" during rendering in AME, because of black lines on the sides.
This issue is very recognizable due to the logo in the top left of the screen being 1/3rd missing.
I am in the UK(i.e. PAL). But I wonder if a NTSC render would resolve this? Is this the kind of effect using wrong TV standards would cause? Or is it an overscan issue?

The horizontal crop sounds like overscan - PAL active area is ~703 pixels out of 120, so 2.4% which is 25 pixels out of 1024 px your content effectively is. As for the vertical, if your players are zooming in to preserve ratio, that could be it. Render to 702 or 703x576 and pad to 720 with black.

Wow - ZZ Top, overscan, I'm having a flashback! It indeed sounds like an overscan issue Have you tried playing it on a computer?

@stib Haha, yeah. The menu and videos are perfect when the DVD is played on computer(WMP). On the two DVD players, even the menu is "zoomed in" slightly. I don't think it is stretched or anything, just slightly zoomed in both dimensions possibly equally.

@Mulvya Does overscan not 'crop' vertically then?  The problem is, how can I render the menu at 702 in Encore? When rendering the videos in AME, I could have left the 8 pixel side bars instead of 'Scalling to fill', but I don't know how to do it for the menu. I'm currently creating a test DVD with test display videos and menus rendered differently to narrow down the problem.

Hold the flip-phone... I just selected 4:3LB on the DVD player, and I can now see the top & bottom of the video and menu, but there are also black bars above and below, so the image is squashed because the sides are still missing(unchanged). I don't like this game.

silly question but when you built the DVD menu and all did you turn on the TITLE safe area so anything inside this area will guarantee the menus and anything else will be shown. or am I just under thinking this ?

@AdamMannPro (I think) you're spot on there. I didn't work with the safe-areas in mind. I have never created a video where these bounds really mattered. I am still troubled by the fact that pixels are purposely removed from a SD format like DVD.

@Mulvya The video def looks better @ 702, so thanks for that. One more question; Do people who convert to DVD format adjust the video to fit it in the action safe area? Or do they just accept that they have lost some of the picture?

I haven't made a DVD in a long time but as I remember, I didn't adjust the video, because the footage and graphics are shot/made with the action/title safe area in mind.

You will need to work within the title safe areas when burning to DVD as depending on what the final player will be, there might be overscan which will/can crop anything out that is not within this field. as for the pixel things, I'm not to sure.

Yes, but I was really looking for a solution to the problrem. But I don't think there is one. Do people who convert to DVD format adjust the video to fit it in the action safe area? Or do they just accept that they have lost some of the picture?

I do make DVD's all the time, I do all my editing in my NLE (FCPX) then I export using Compressor and open up DVD Studio Pro to build my DVD menu and content. when building the DVD it will always put all my content into view but turning the title safe on it will show me what is going to show on hte screen and what might be potentially cut out depending on the viewers TV (all makes and models show different amounts) some will over scan and some will compensate, I know I have  all Samsung TV's (1 overscans a lot, 1 is just a little bit and the other is kind of mid range)

Ah, so it is the TV that removes the edges, not the DVD player. That confuses me, because it was originally added to resolve issues with CRT displays, so I can't see why LCD TVs still overscan. I have samsung too. I roughly measured the overscan to around 4%.

its mainly down to the amount of "Screen" behind the bezel around the edges, CRT's had quite a to hold them in, LCD's/LED's all have weird and wonderful bezels which hold the screen bit in.

I disagree with that last comment, because CRT TVs, as I remember, didn't have trim on the screen. The phosphor 'pixel' things ended at a black strip (inside the screen), so they didn't even reach the bezel. That's early to mid 90's TVs I'm talking about. and newer LCD/LEDs(I have LED) are more precise, the pixels ending at the bezel. So I don't think the display (pixels) ever passed the bezel. This is more of a technical thing.

There doesn't seem to be an exact answer or solution here, or on any other forums.
The general answer is basically:
"It's most probably overscan, which isn't a universal, predictable measurement, so you are going to lose some of your picture and there's nothing you can do about it"
This doesn't really make sense to me, removing varying amounts of pixels from an already limited range. Plus, I can only find literature on why it was originally implemented, so I'm not even sure if it's the TV or the DVD player removing these pixels. I created a test DVD, so I'm at least sure of the bounds for my TV/DVD player(which is just outside the action-safe 5%(so ~4%)). But this doesn't help me with the resolution which is obviously lowered due to this process.

not quite correct - as Adam pointed out, if you turn title safe on, you will not lose anything from overscan.

@DrMayhem No, you still lose the same amount, the title safe margins Adam is referring to are just guides. It makes no difference to the boarders of the final display.


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After Effects Blur Effect with Mask Doesn't Go to the Edge
I'm new to After Effects and I'm trying to blur a section of a video using masks and tracking.
Everything is working fine, but for some reason the blur effect (and this is the same with other effects too) doesn't go to the very edge of the video. This only happens for the right edge of the video.
Does anyone know what might be causing this?
Picture:

What I would like is everything inside the orange mask to be blurred. If I resize and move the mask around, it can blur everything, except for the right edge as shown in the picture. Making a new mask has the same result. Example below:

Any help greatly appreciated.

Strange… Is the blur effect applied to the footage layer, or an adjustment layer. If it's an adjustment layer you could check to see that it hasn't accidentally been nudged off-centre.

If you applied the blur to an adjustment layer (as you should), check to make sure the layer is positioned in the center of the composition. Hit 'P' on the adjustment layer and right click on the 'Position' name and Reset it.
Check the mask expansion to see if maybe you have it set to a number less than or greater than 0. I doubt this is the issue as when you recreate a mask the problem doesn't persist.
If you haven't applied the blur to an adjustment layer you should do that and see if it fixes your issue.


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mplayer/ffmpeg How to set caca filter's output size
I'm curious how different clips would look like in ASCII art. So I'm trying caca.
To just play, I use mplayer -vo caca $FILE.
But that creates an output of quite small size.
How can I change that size?

Found. Caca library is driven mostly by environment variables rather than filter params.
export CACA_GEOMETRY=200x78
mplayer -vo caca $INPUT


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Creating a freeze frame type effect purely in post
It it possible to create a sort of pseudo freeze frame effect in post production on ordinary video or archival footage. For example, doing this in After Effects?

You can easily freeze a frame in AE, but it's a bit unclear exactly what you mean. What's the difference (to you) between a freeze frame and a pseudo-freeze frame or a 'freeze frame type' effect?

Is it possible to create a freeze frame effect not in post? Run the camera infinitely fast so that time slows to zero? Position the actors close to a black hole?

I am looking at not only freezing the frame, but panning the After Effects camera around in 3d space (just a bit) to make it as though the shot was captured this way in the original footage with the subjects standing still.

Are you looking for a bullet time effect?

Yes, similar to a bullet time effect.

Yes it is. The idea is rather simple - you want to create a parallax effect.

Basically you take an object of interest in the foreground and roto/mask the object/person out.
You then duplicate that layer and reverse the mask for the background. At this point it should look exactly as it did at the beginning.
Now what you do is turn the layers into 3d objects. Position the background far away in 3d space, and scale it up so that it matches with the foreground layer as it did during Step 2.
Now create a camera and you can pan slightly and zoom to create the desired effect. Note that this may take some playing around, perhaps by scaling the background or the foreground layers more so that there is no clear 'space' between them.

If you want to do this with moving footage I would say it's probably not worth it as you'd have to do a lot of roto. But assuming you just want to do this with a freeze frame, it shouldn't take you that long.
Site note: usually what sells this effect is if you have something else moving really really slowly with the still frame grabs. Such as a 3d object you can manipulate in space. See this.


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Combine audio and video file without creating a 3rd file
if this is the wrong place to post this let me know.
I want to download a very large video (9.1GiB) from youtube on my device and I have ~10GB free storage space for it.
Because it's youtube, I have to download video and audio separately and combine them afterwards. I'd normally do that using ffmpeg. I'd have to let it create the combined video in a new ~9.1GiB file because it can't overwrite it's input. The video only file of similar size must exist during the whole process.
Problem is: I can't store 2 9.1GiB files, only one.
The possible solutions would be to edit the video only file to have an audio stream or have a super intelligent buffer system that'd delete the parts of the video only file that have already been copied into the new file.
Is there any program that is capable of doing that or do you know a different solution to this problem?
-Atemu
(Sorry for my bad german)

There's no way to combine two files without making a third file, at least temporarily. But I don't understand why you think you need to do this -- surely you can just download one combined A/V file?

Everything above 720p 30fps h264 .mp4 and vp8 .webm is stored as DASH video and audio only files on youtube. Run youtube-dl -F someyoutubevideolink if you want to ccheck for yourself.

Using a tool like JDownloader 2 I seem to be able to d/l any video as a combined A/V file. Maybe I haven't encountered the files you're referring to: can you provide a specific link?

any youtube video that is in full HD or higher https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iNJdPyoqt8U. I'm guessing JDownloader combines them automatically

Nope, works fine as is. There's a direct link to the 2160p .MP4 file. It's 667 MB in size. Try JDownloader 2, it's free.

jd comes bundled with a copy of ffmpeg and it muxes the DASH streams after download.

I found a solution to my problem:
Ffmpeg can use a http stream as input:
ffmpeg -i YoutubeVideoOnlyURLHere -i YoutubeAudioOnlyURLHere -c copy -map 0:0 -map 1:0 Path/to/outputFile.mp4
You can get the needed URLs from
youtube-dl -f bestvideo,bestaudio --get-url https:www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXXXXXXXXX


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Will Canon lens work with a7s II?
Will this lens work with the Sony A7s II.
So I am learning which lenses can be used with my new camera. Basically I am looking for a relatively inexpensive zoom lens. I understand that the lens has to not only be e mount but also needs a full frame lens.
Eventhough this lens is canon, will it work with my Sony camera with an adapter. Will the frame be cropped? (I am looking at the Fotodoix adapter). Also will Image Stablization work at all?
Thanks in advance

FWIW, I have this lens and like it very much. Good luck!

Have you used it with a7s? How is the IS?

I've not used it with a Sony, only an older Canon Rebel and a Canon 7D. I find the IS to be pretty nice. I feel like I can get an extra stop or 2 out of it with the IS in many cases. I like that you can choose to stabilize along only 1 axis or both.

Ah yes, Canon lenses are a lot cheaper it seems than Sony lenses. With the A7s ii you an use both APS-C and FF (full frame) lenses. With an APS-C lens you have to enable APS-C mode in the camera and it will result in a crop, and in my experience, a slightly noticeable drop in quality/sharpness especially in low light. That being said, APS-C lenses shouldn't be completely written off.
With regards to this lens, I check and it is a full frame lens so you are good to go!
With regards to your choice of adapter. I've personally used the Fotodoix adapter and it works fine. Sure you won't get the extra stops of brightness as you would with the Metabones speedbooster, but its a good low-cost alternative.
Image stabilization. This lens has IS which means that you can turn off IS in the camera and use the built in lens IS, OR you can manually set the zoom distance (mm) in the IS settings of the camera and turn off IS on the lens. The latter can be a pain because every time you adjust the zoom you have to change the mm setting in the camera, but you can always use a custom key to shortcut to it.


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What VFX and video production softwares are used in movies like "Captain America: Civil War" and "Doctor Strange"?
I was thinking that for VFX, they used Maya or some other animation software (especially for Dr.Strange) and for the video production, they used Sony Vegas or After Affects. And of course, they might have also made some of the movie visual effects directly from the video production software itself (for example, in AfterEffects you can make VFX in the software itself).
Those were just my guesses, but if you guys have any ideas or links to what VFX and video production softwares were used in Dr.Strange and Civil War, please state them.
Thanks!

This all changes from film to film depending on who is making it, I know films like the new Starwars and Startrek were both cut on Avid and the effects were done by ILM (plus other smaller houses) it might be worth looking into the companies who did the work such as ILM to find out what they use as a lot use custom builds and inhouse developed software for a lot of the work.
saying that BlackMagic Resolve is normally used for Color Correcting and grading as well as Fusion is becoming popular in FX

A simple (popular search engine) search "what software does ILM use" brought up a ton of hits on what they use as well as their history, same goes for other films wtih simple searches like "what software was used to edit captain america"

I bet they use Excel to do the production spreadsheets. Producers love spreadsheets. Probably Word too, unless they went openOffice.

This depends from Company to company, there are multiple companies working on multiple shots, or sometime even on the same shots. Because this (sometimes) differs a lot from eachother, it's really hard to give you an answer to this question.
As mentioned, this heavily depends on effects you want to acchieve and the company you work with.
These are some commonly used programms:

Cinema 4D
BodyPaint
AutoCAD
3DS Max
InfraWorks
Maya
Mudbox
Flame
Smoke
Softimage
Mental Ray
Combustion
FLIX
MODO
MARI
NUKE
OCULA
HIERO
Katana
keylight
Massive Prime
Massive Jet
Massiv for Maya
Ready to run Agents
Matchmover
Z-Brush
Adobe CS6
Illustrator
Photoshop
Flash
After effects
Lightroom
v-Ray for 3DS Max
Rendermann
Avid Media Composer
Avid effects
davinciresolve
Houdini
3D coat
topgun
shotgun Studio
PF Track
NURBS
Filemaker Pro
vue
Plant factory
Ozone
Carbon scatter
Lumen RT
Primatte
ultimate
Final Cut Pro
Qube
Synth-Eyes
boujou
Fusion
3D equalizer
Mantra
Real Flow
Fume FX
BlueArc

I can narrow them down, if you can tell on which effect you are specifically interessted.

The 3d VFX (fluids, ironman suit, strange's cape etc) for all Marvel movies is handled by Houdini. Editing is Avid. Colour is Resolve.


text:
Proper way to play 50 fps video as 25 fps in FCPX
I just started using Final Cut Pro X and I have footage in 50 fps. I want to play this back in 50% speed in a project that outputs 25 fps. What is the proper way do achieve this? I can start a project with 50fps, import the media an choose "50%" speed reduction, but will this really intepret the media as 25 fps and output 25fps from the project? I suspect that it won't that it infact just will "make up" frames and ouput 50fps, and I don't want that. Any clue on how to fix this would be appreciated.

Your project's frame rate should be the playback frame rate.  So if you want to output 25fps, make it a 25 fps project.  When you import other frame rates, many NLEs will attempt to automatically adapt the frame rate to your project rate.  If FCPX does not do this for you automatically, then you can manually set the timing of the clip to play back at 50%.
But when you make a 50fps project, you are basically making it impossible for FCPX to do the right thing.  Setting a clip to play back at 25fps in a 50fps project is meaningless.


text:
Could not find codec parameters -- for gif?
The scene: Ubuntu 16.04, newly upgraded from 14.04 where things perked along happily with avconv
The props: a directory full of stills, motor_animate_000.gif, motor_animate_001.gif, etc.
The players: Me, a mostly-newbie ffmpeg user, and ffmpeg.
The drama:
Based on a suggestion I had to solve another problem, I execute the command line:
ffmpeg -f image2 -framerate 30 -i motor_animate_%03d.gif motor.mpg
After the usual excrutiating detailed list of stuff from ffmpeg, I get the following error message (in more than one color, ooh, ooh).
[image2 @ 0x14f8420] Could not find codec parameters for stream 0 (Video: none, none): unknown codec
Consider increasing the value for the 'analyzeduration' and 'probesize' options
motor_animate_%03d.gif: could not find codec parameters
Input #0, image2, from 'motor_animate_%03d.gif':
  Duration: 00:00:04.03, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: none, none, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 30 tbn, 30 tbc
File 'motor.mpg' already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y
No decoder for stream #0:0, filtering impossible
Error opening filters!
Can anyone tell me what's going on and how to fix it?  All I want to do is make an mpeg clip out of a bunch of one-frame gifs.
Thanks.

How were the GIFs created? And have you tried with a recent binary?

GIFs were created using Scilab.  It works for one frame if I specify a fully qualified file name.  I'd really rather not step outside of Ubuntu's package maintenance protocol on this -- I'm using other things (kdenlive) that work Just Fine using the Ubuntu version of ffmpeg, and don't want to throw myself into Dependency Hell.

And I spot-checked some of the GIFs -- they look just fine, at least to Ristretto.

It's worth a try using the concat demuxer.
First, create a text file like this:
file 'motor_animate_000.gif'
file 'motor_animate_001.gif'
file 'motor_animate_002.gif'
file 'motor_animate_003.gif'
...

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

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

That gives me a buttload of warnings of the ilk "DTS -922328613750886, next:100000 st:0 invalid dropping //
PTS -922328613750886, next:100000 invalid dropping st:0 //
Past duration 1.999992 too large".  But it works.  Thanks.

Yeah, you can ignore those. The concat demuxer usually works with video files which contain valid PTS values, not a relic like GIF.


text:
ffmpeg: Concatenate then encode
I have several similarly-encoded .ts video files that I would like to concatenate and encode into a single .mp4 file.
The .ts files look like
Input #0, mpegts, from 'input1.ts':
  Duration: 00:01:24.14, start: 0.066778, bitrate: 15941 kb/s
  Program 1
    Stream #0:0[0x44]: Video: h264 (High) ([27][0][0][0] / 0x001B), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 59.94 fps, 59.94 tbr, 90k tbn, 119.88 tbc
    Stream #0:1[0x45]: Audio: aac ([15][0][0][0] / 0x000F), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 251 kb/s

The output should be 640x480, 29.97fps video. (The .ts files contain digitized old Hi8 camcorder video, digitized at a much-too-generous bitrate & resolution for the Hi8 video format.)
I can encode a single .ts file like this:
$ ffmpeg -i input1.ts -c:v libx264 -vf scale=640:480 -aspect 4:3 -preset slow -crf 22 -r 29.97 output.mp4

What is the correct way to concatenate several .ts files into a single .mp4 without creating a huge intermediate .ts file?
This ffmpeg documentation presents three concatenation methods: filter, demuxer, and protocol. I think I want the "filter" flavor. However, their example of it is confusing.

You can just use the protocol
ffmpeg -i "concat:in1.ts|in2.ts|in3.ts" -c:v libx264 -r 30000/1001 -vf scale=640:480 -aspect 4:3 -preset slow -crf 22 output.mp4


text:
Software to handle 100/1000 hours video?
There is some project that will be 720 hours long http://www.thelongestfilm.com/ what software can handle such amount of hours in timeline? Maximum what I could find is final cut pro x - 558 Day Timeline. On Windows every major application like premiere pro or avidemux can handle only 24 hours. Any suggestions?

After reading about FCP's 1600 track, 558 day long sequence test I don't think that's the limit of the software, but the hardware: "...very large numbers of clips within FCPX will slow the machine down."
Same is true of Adobe's Premiere - as the project grows, the performance lags. Avid Media Composer manages media differently and AFAIK, there's no limit (?) to the sequence length, but in the comments of the FCP 558days/1600track article, someone writes, "Last time I built a sequence over 13 hours, Avid stopped playing audio." Again, that might be a hardware and/or configuration issue.
Possibly Sony's Vegas would also be a contender?
Not sure about Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve or EditShare's LightWorks (both free).
------EDIT
After talking to some Avid editors, I think I may be wrong and that Avid doesn't like projects even 24hr long, more like a 12-18 hour limit. Not a lot of day long content getting made for broadcast I suppose!
------EDIT
Interesting - & so much for what I think I know - Avid's sequence length maximum is comparatively quite limited. From a friend, "At 48KHz, about 12 hours. The limit is 2,147,483,648 audio samples. Six hours if you work at 96KHz."
------EDIT
Don't have an Avid setup to test on, but of note, I understand that if you remove audio tracks, Avid sequences can be much longer. This may hold true for other editing applications & worth testing if you only need 100 or 1000 hours of just "video" and no audio.

LightWorks - looks like it works, but too customize project video size I need pro. For other heads ups - very big thank you!

@PavelVanchugov, ah yes... there are some limitations to the freeware... Tried Resolve? Also, I believe Avid has a 30 day free trial

@PavelVanchugov, it's a 3D app but has some basic 2D editing: https://www.blender.org/

vegas pro is 10 hr or something max, blender is 300 000 frames, but it could be rebuild with more. I will try.

@mr-kennedy blender did it, but some code needs to be edited and rebuild. Avid was too hard for me, I couldn't understand a thing, and it had limits, that you told previously. Thank you very much!

@PavelVanchugov very glad to hear you found a solution, I would love to know how you did it if you feel like sharing :)

@mr-kennedy sure:) http://blog.machinimatrix.org/building-blender/ and after step 3, edit "maxframe" in blender\release\scripts\addons\io_shape_mdd_init_.py

@PavelVanchugov nice - thanks! (I'm a Blender newB) What's the project you are working on?

@mr-kennedy It's not interesting, so let's just say I was curious.

@PavelVanchugov there's a lot to be said for curiosity :)


text:
What kind of laptop should I be using: Alienware or Macbook Pro?
I'm planning to buy a new laptop since my current PC(Lenovo U430) is kind of slow when it comes to gaming and video editing. My current budget is $1,000 to $1,500, after researching, I chose these brands: Alienware 13 inch(latest model) and Macbook Pro 13 inch(with retina display) only.Question: Which brand or model should I be buying that is compatible and worth it for a little gaming and video editing(no lagging while editing or checking the video preview in After Effects or Premiere Pro) with my current budget?
Here's the link to Alienware 13 inch list of models:
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/alienware-13-laptop?~ck=mn
Here's the link to Macbook Pro 13 inch list of models:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?st=macbook+pro+retina+display+13&_dyncharset=UTF-8&id=pcat17071&type=page&sc=Global&cp=1&nrp=&sp=&qp=&list=n&af=true&iht=y&usc=All+Categories&ks=960&keys=keys
Comment your answer with the link or the brand and specs of the model.
Thank you very much !

Recommending a particular brand is off topic here - it comes down to personal preference.

If you plan on using Premiere, Adobe recommends 16GB of RAM and a minimum of 8GB. They minimum RAM for After Effects is less, but there are some other equally important things to consider. I'd also recommend spending as much as you can on as much SSD storage as you can afford.
Check the specs of the software you want to use for editing - particularly the minimum RAM and the kind of Graphics processor (GPU). If you want to use DaVinci Resolve for editing (it is FREE) and color correcting - you'll want all the RAM you can get.
If you are comfortable with the hardware, I'd recommend a Dell or HP laptop as you will likely find more affordable options for RAM, GPU and SSD than what Apple offers. I don't know much about gaming, but I understand Windows solutions are what the kids dig. FWIW I am plugging along on an 11" mid-2012 i7 AirBook and it does alright with an external monitor out the Thunderport. I edit with Resolve, iMovie, & LightWorks and move pixels about with ffmpeg. Nothing fancy or long-form, but I'd much prefer a 15" screen.


text:
How to get MiniDV video from old JVC camcorder
I have a bunch of old MiniDV tapes taken with a long-dead camcorder. I recently bought a used JVC GR-D200U on eBay, but I can't figure out how to transfer videos from the camcorder to my PC. The instructions to connect to a PC are on page 66 of the user manual, but these seem to be outdated because a direct USB link just doesn't seem to work and I'm not sure how to make the "DV" link. Here is a picture of the two ports available on my camcorder. Can someone tell me what wires/connectors/software I would need to make the connection and start capturing videos. For the record, my PC is new -- Windows 10, I7/6700, 16GB memory -- but does not have any ports beyond the basic HDMI/USB3/Network. Many thanks!

possibly a USB converter? Can't you also use an SD card reader (xfr to card in cam, read off card w/card reader on cpu)

I've had to transfer many older formats to a PC.
I've found the best way is to get a TV tuner card for the PC and connect through that. (if the camera has a video out RCA type connector)  The card will usually come with some sort of software for capturing a signal.  The signal can usually come in via normal RCA type video/audio connectors and if not, you can always hook the camera up to an older VCR and then hook the output RF cable to the tuner card. (Sort of a cluster, but it works)
In your case, you could find an 8 pin to 4 pin firewire cable.  (The 4 pin is what the 'DV' output on the camera is)  The computer would then need the larger 8 pin firewire input on it.  This would allow the input of both the video and audio of the tape.
Example card you could use:  (this card has 8 pin and 4 pin inputs so you could go with either 8pin to 4pin cable or 4pin to 4pin cable)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815283029&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC--pla--Add-On+Cards-_-N82E16815283029&gclid=CjwKEAiA48fDBRDJ24_imejhwUkSJAAr0M5kmWujjnw3dRZE1dYFEfOInwW4d-IpZqXnue0az7FZsRoCcRDw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
The USB connector on those cameras were more for transferring the still pictures that the camera would take.  Even then the USB on those cameras was a crap shoot about if it would actually work.

Thanks Joe. As you mentioned, I'll go with the Firewire card solution. My plan: • Dig up an old dual-core PC • Install Windows 10 (I'm hoping it will work without a product key); • Install a Firewire card; • Enable firewire port if needed (see link below); • Connect camcorder and see what happens. With any luck there's some built-in software that will detect the camcorder. Otherwise I'll get WinDV or some such. Unfortunately I'm on the road now and won't do any of this until early Feb. Stand by... [ Enable firewire port on Win 10: https://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/Firewire-1.htm ]

I was successful in transferring my videos. My process: Old dual-core PC • upgraded to Windows 10 w/o product key • installed Firewire card (US$12 on Amazon) • enabled firewire port (see my  previous note for link) • installed Windows Live Movie Maker (no longer available from MS, luckily had a downloaded exe on another machine) • used a Firewire 4-pin to 6-pin cable to attach camcorder to PC. Finally, my old miniDV videos have been converted. This would have been so much easier if there was some easy-to-find Win10-compatible Firewire-to-USB converter.

One final comment: Windows Live Movie Maker is probably not necessary. It looks like the video capture functionality is built in to one of the Windows 10 native picture viewing applications. This simplifies things a bit.


text:
Proper Microphone for Indoor Use & Filter out Ambient Noise
I'm working on creating some training videos that will cover a single presenter from the waist up, and I'm trying to avoid the microphone being visible while also getting good sound and avoiding ambient noise. If possible, I'd love the setup to be static so that it requires less repetitive setup (but that is a nice-to-have, not a requirement).
The setup for the shooting is a relatively small space (About 10 x 6), and the building is relatively close to an extremely busy street with fast/noisy traffic. As a result there is a lot of ambient noise from the traffic. I'd like to avoid as much post-production audio work as possible.
My question is: How do I go about selecting the proper microphone for this space?
I originally was thinking that a Shotgun mic would be appropriate since it picked up sound directionally, and that I could even potentially hang this microphone from the ceiling. However, the more reading I did indicated that the way shotgun mics work to reduce ambient noise is not effective indoors; and that specifically  in my small room setup its not likely to have the desired effect.
I've been browsing microphones on Amazon, but I don't know where to even begin with selecting the appropriate microphone.
Are there certain microphone characteristics I can use to compare one microphone from the next to determine what is a good match? What other details do I need to know to make this selection?
I'm looking at spending up-to $200, but I don't want to spend money I don't need to if it won't make a significant difference.

I'm going to answer this broadly in theory and then get back to your question.
Shotgun mics are usually supercardoid or some variant. That means that although a majority of the pickup is in the front (say 70%), there is also some pickup in the back (30%); as well as some pickup on the sides. Outdoors this doesn't matter that much as the closest thing to the mic is usually the talent and sound isn't bouncing back into the microphone but rather drifting to it from other sources so the background rejection is better. Indoors, however, this 30% characteristic can be a major pain as your mic will pick up on the reverb of the room, the ambient noise, .etc.; this is why it is usually suggested to have the back of the mic pointed to the corner of the room so the audio waves from the source deflect a bit.
This means if the room isn't properly treated the mic has to be absurdly close to the source otherwise it WILL pick up at least some reverb. I personally never have time, or the budget, to properly treat a room with acoustic foam or blankets to help absorb the waves before they start bouncing into the mic.
Another characteristic of shotgun mics seen in the picture below is that they have incredibly narrow pickup patterns such that if the shotgun is off-axis from the source there will be a noticeable difference in sound. Some shotguns are advertised with off-axis rejection which means that this effect will be exacerbated, with the caveat of having more rejection of the 30% category.

Looking at the above chart we can see that we have other options. Hypercardoid is even worse, with more background pickup. But there is a saving grace, a cardoid microphone. It has a relatively wide front pickup pattern and hardly any background pickup. An example of this, that I use on indoor shots is the Octava MK-012 with a cardoid capsule (this mic can also be used as an hypercardoid or an omni with different capsules). This mic is competitively priced at 179 and was recommended to me by an audio professional; apparently its been around for a while with good results in the field.
But if it were me... there is something about ease of use that makes me a happy filmmaker. When you are carrying everything yourself, it’s nice not to have to setup a boompole on a light-stand with sandbags and xlr wires and recorders....
So what I would do.. get a good lav system. It will be worth it in the end, and you'll use it more in the end. Although lavs are omni directional, they are incredibly incredibly close to the source. Say your source is speaking at a 10, the omni is right there picking up a 9.5, and all of the rest of the noise is far away at about a 1... you can barely here it. Conversely with a shotgun your source is at a 10, the shotgun is picking up a 7 and the background noise at a 3. You don't have to worry about talent moving too much with the audio being off-axis, and you don't have to set up so much.
You can hide the lav with a simple piece of medical tape or rode invislav. I use the Sennheiser AVX system and have been happy but its $$$. You could get the Rode link system but its a bit over your budget. To fit your budget I would do something like a zoom h1 with a rode lav or giant squid lav but it would require you to sync in post. Spend the extra money and get the rodelink :)
That being said you might not even need any of this, if you want to treat the room and you have a shotgun you can get good results. Just take it for a test run first.

Thank-you for the very detailed response. This not only gives me an answer, but just as important; let's me understand the "why".

My two suggestions are:

Use a lav mic and don't worry too much about a small mic being visible.  Training videos don't have to look like Downton Abbey.
Use a shotgun mic, but also use an acoustic absorber behind the talent.  It is true that all the ambient noise that comes through the walls will bounce around the room, and if you don't have an absorber behind the talent, the shotgun will "see" the echoes of the ambient noise coming from behind the talent just as much as it "sees" them coming from everywhere else.  But if you can deaden the back wall, the shotgun will "see" a quiet wall with talent in front of it and can filter the noises coming from everywhere else.  The closer you can get the shotgun to the talent (using a boom) the better.

The Shure SM11 is a good, reliable, starter lav and is often available for less than list price. It is a little bigger than some lavs, but is still fairly unobtrusive.


text:
Make a video ONLY 2 colors? (Not grayscale)
Unfortunately I do not have an example because I do not know the name of the technique.
I have seen in films at a local film festival an "effect" that makes the video black and white. I don't mean grayscale; anyone can make a black and white movie. What I mean is only black and white.
I know how to do this in programming with individual pictures. Get pixel color, and if its average RGB value is above 128, its white, and vice versa.
How would I do this in video? I personally have Sony Vegas Pro 13, and a friend has Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 that he can let me use.
I can add more info if needed, and I'll try to find an example.
Thanks!

You could use the Posterize effect in Adobe After Effects, and set it to 2 colours.  Or the Threshold RGB effect and set it to 127 (if it's an 8 bit colour video). You may have to greyscale the video first.

Awesome, this worked perfectly in Sony Vegas! Thanks :)


text:
How do I insert the program requested bitrate from YouTube Recommended Uploading Encoding Settings?
I'm about to do some screen recording with OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) and I've just been checking the YouTube Recommended Upload Encoding Settings to get the best quality without overkilling the end file size.
So basically. I know I'm going to be recoding in 640x480 window running at 50 FPS. Which is 480p High Frame Rate option. Which is 4 Mbps. Now OBS is asking for video bitrate, how do I convert 4 Mbps to bitrate OBS is asking for?
Also, I presume I be recording in Stereo which is 384 kbps. However, the only bitrates available are: 64, 96. 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 288 and 320. Mono is 128 but I hadn't seen anything higher than 320 for mp3 audio bitrate and I don't know if the value it's after is in kbps.
I've been doing many searches in Google like "Mbps to bitrate" and "kbps to bitrate" with no success even after checking the calculator pages.
My knowledge in bitrates are low and I just know 128-160 are average for mp3 and I don't know if this is correct that 320 is lossless or close to it.
Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

4 Mbps IS the bitrate. 4 Mbps = 4000 kbps = 4000000 bits per second. MP3 doesn't do higher than 320 kbps. Just select that.

Since Mulvya's habit of answering questions in the comments ruins our answer rate statistic, let's put this into an answer °v°

Which is 4 Mbps. Now OBS is asking for video bitrate, how do I convert 4 Mbps to bitrate OBS is asking for?

Bitrate is the general term for the amount of bits per second (1 bit = 1 unit of information). Mbps stands for Mega bit per second, which is the unit in which the bitrate is measured (not to be confused with MBps, which would stand for Mega Byte per second. One byte consists of eight bit). Both the audio and the video stream have a bitrate, which correlates directly (though not linearly, depending on the codec used) to their quality.
1 Mbps = 1000 kbps = 1.000.000 bit per second
4 Mbps = 4000 kbps = 4.000.000 bit per second

Also, I presume I be recording in Stereo which is 384 kbps. However, the only bitrates available are: 64, 96. 128, 160, 192, 224, 256, 288 and 320. Mono is 128 but I hadn't seen anything higher than 320 for mp3 audio bitrate and I don't know if the value it's after is in kbps.

320 kbps is the highest audio bitrate available for MP3, as defined in the MP3 standard (MPEG-1 Audio Layer III). If you are still not satisfied with the resulting quality at that bitrate (which I find unlikely), use a better codec. For example, MP3's successor AAC is generally considered to yield better results than MP3 while using the same bitrate. But really, 320 kbps MP3 is all you need.

My knowledge in bitrates are low and I just know 128-160 are average for mp3 and I don't know if this is correct that 320 is lossless or close to it.

128-160 kbps are acceptable if you use a variable bitrate (VBR). For a constant bitrate (CBR), I wouldn't go lower than 256 kbps.
But realistically, you can just use 320 kbps for everything and not worry about it. The thing is, if your video will take up 4 megabits or more per second, the added 320 kilobit per second for the audio won't add considerably to the overall file size. So really, there's no reason to go with a lower audio bitrate.
Also, MP3 is by definition a lossy codec. However, whether any human will be able to hear a difference between 320 kbps and a lossless codec such as FLAC is questionable (I maintain they are not, but everyone is entitled to their own opinion).

I've just been checking the YouTube Recommended Upload Encoding Settings to get the best quality without overkilling the end file size.

Don't pay too much attention to the recommended bitrates. In my opinion, those recommendations are way too low. The thing is, YouTube reencodes all videos you upload anyway. So if you encode your video at your end first, you have two lossy encoding cycles. If you use a low bitrate, your video will contain artifacts after the first encoding cycle already. Those will only be made worse in the second cycle. So if you use a higher bitrate for the encoding on your end, the endresult on YouTube will also look better. I would only go for a lower bitrate if you have a metered internet connection or your connection is so slow that your video uploads take an annoyingly long time.


text:
Enhance Video/Audio Quality of Old Movies
I managed to get my hands in a few very old video files (really!) whose quality, audio and video, are not so great. I checked the technical details of the file and this is what I've got.
In overall the scenes of these video files are looking like this. Not so vivid, blurred, shaky...
Now I know there's no magic bullet to make this video from trash to HD, we can't wring blood from a stone, but i do know that it is possible to apply filters, re-encode and others nice little tricks to improve the experience.
However I don't know which filters I'm looking for or softwares to do the job so here I am, asking for some guidelines 9otherwise it would fit the subject as too broad) to have a kick start of this personal project.

There are some filters you can use, specifically speaking in regards to Premiere Pro editing, that can enhance old video/film content. These include applying some basic color correction, adjusting gamma, saturation, and using a 3 way color corrector or a filter plugin like Colorista to enhance the color balance per RGB channel.
There is also "Magic Bullet's" Instant HD filter, which is part of their Shooter Suite.
The filter does a slightly better job than simply scaling to frame size (dropping a small resolution video onto an HD sequence for example. It applies some sharpening, and contrast enhancements; however, the rendering time is intense.
FOR THE BEST OUTPUT:
When I need to get the best output possible, this is the workflow I follow:

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

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

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

NEXT

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

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

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

It will import all your frames as a video file.
This is the best way to get the best results. But plan for overnight runs for the process of Automation of the Photoshop files from original to enlarged.
Hope this helps.


text:
Is a torn DV tape recoverable in any way?
I am digitizing several DV tapes via a Sony handycam, a firewire cable, and a MacBook.
Unfortunately, the tape of one of the DV tapes is torn: it only attaches to one of the spools, the other end is unattached and hangs out of the top.
Is there anything I can do to repair this tape such that I can digitize it? The tape is a JVC miniDV 60 (60/90ME).

Mini DV tapes can be spliced, so it should be easy enough to reattach it to the reel in similar way. Be sure to use tape splicing tape and not any other kind of tape. Be sure to only put splicing tape on the substrate of the video tape. Don't let the tape fold over onto the oxide side. If you end up splicing in the middle of the tape, you will see the picture pixelate and freeze around the splice.
I would recommend running the repaired tape through your player last just in case something isn't quite right with your splice and you accidentally damage the head.

Thanks, this worked out nicely. Small note: while I understand that splicing tape is the recommended method I have successfully used regular office tape. I did have to skip the spliced location manually though by taking out the tape, turning it past the splice and then putting it back in.


text:
How to add notes/tags to specific times while watching a video?
I have a large archive of video that I want to catalog, so that I can go back and find clips about certain topics. So far, I've done a couple videos by playing them 1.5x and writing the time code and making a note about the topic... on paper. Then, I transfer everything into a spreadsheet. It's certainly effective, but relatively inefficient.
Ideally, I'd like to be able to create a list of tags that I can choose as I'm watching the video. Alternately, the ability to type a quick note that's tied to a particular time signature would also be good. If I have to pause the video to do it, that's a no-go. I'm thinking of something a lot like SoundCloud's feature where you can make a comment while you're listening to something.
Is there any way to do something like this in Adobe Premier, AfterEffects, or some other tool?

Is this a thing many people would want? If you don't find such a tool, comment here. I could write something fairly easily to do that.

It seems like it'd be easiest to do with Blender, partly because the other thing that I'd like to do is export all those tags and timestamps directly to a CSV or spreadsheet.

Have you tried Adobe Prelude? It is designed for shot logging prior to editing and may meet your needs. You may also find transcription software that would work.

This seems possible in Adobe Premiere Pro (CS6 at least).
From your question I understand you want to do three things, I will treat every one of them separately. The steps can be used to achieve your goal.
First, open a new project in Premiere Pro (PP) and import the media you want to add comments to.
Additionally, I found the Metalogging window lay-out convenient for this task (Windows -> Workspace -> Metalogging or Alt+Shift+6), but you might find another lay-out fit your needs better.
1. Play video at 1.5x speed
Double click the video you want to play, it will open in the Source panel.
Press Spacebar to play the video and use the L key to increase the playback rate and the J decreases it (credits to this answer).
2. Create a list of tags during playback
While the video plays hit the M key to create a Marker at the timecode currently shown in the Source panel (markers pointed out):

Make sure the Source panel is in focus (i.e. has a yellow line around the panel):

3. Add comments to the tags without pausing the video
Make sure the Markers panel (Window -> Markers) and the Source panel is visible (Window -> Source).
When you add markers during playback, these will show up in this panel with a comment field:

While the video plays, you can add markers in the Source panel and then add comments to these markers in the Markers panel. The video is not paused.
In your comment you mention you would like to export the markers to a file. Unfortunately I did not find a straightforward way to do this in CS6, however, PP Creative Cloud does have this option according to this tutorial.
The option can be found in File -> Export -> Markers and allows you to export an HTML file of your timestamped markers, including comments and a screenshot of the video at that time.

Excellent! This is pretty much exactly what I need!