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Convert HDMI video to Coaxial Antenna?
I need to take an HDMI (unencrypted source) from a Sony video camera and send it via coaxial cables which are hooked directly to TVs wired throughout the building. I'd like to be able to tune into i.e. Channel 3 to tune into the video signal.
I've searched and the only solution I can find is an SDI to HDMI converter, but I'd rather not use that and would prefer to hook coax directly to the TV as below:
Camera (HDMI) --> [CONVERTER BOX??] ==coaxial==> TV
                                     |=========> TV
                                     `=========> TV  (etc)

What you are looking for is a device like this: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Edision-HDMI-Modulator-Full-Distribution/dp/B00KBXKJ2A

Yes, @JonasCz has suggested the perfect solution for your question. There are several similar products like this that will take HDMI HD video input (from your camera) and output a digital TV channel signal to send to the antenna inputs of all your TV receivers.
Note that you will need RG6 cable (or at least RG59 for short distances).  Your present cable (for composite video) may not be suitable for RF.
If that is not good enough quality, you should consider converting the camera HDMI to SDI so that you can distribute full-quality HD video to all the screens (assuming they have HDMI inputs.)  You will need an HDMI->SDI converter at the camera and a SDI->HDMI converter at each screen.
If you get the kind of SDI->HDMI converters with "loop-through", you can daisy-chain the SDI video from one screen to the next. This could save some budget in cables.  Note that you can use quite inexpensive RG6 as used for wiring cable and satellite TV. Less than $US100 per 1000 foot roll, etc.

Well I almost answered this, but I'm in the USA and that product doesn't appear to be sold here.. either because it is illegal(?) or won't work(?). Any thoughts about getting something like that in the states?

That is one of the deficiencies of this website, they strip away any location information which is critical for questions like this.  You need a "HDMI ATSC modulator", and to my surprise, there are no inexpensive solutions to this problem.  There are $100-300 solutions for TV standards in other parts of the world, but not for ATSC in North America.  You may be stuck with distributing SDI and using an inexpensive HDMI to SDI converter for the camera and SDI to HDMI converter boxes for each screen.  Upside: it will be significantly higher quality than encoding onto a TV channel.

Assuming you want digital channel 3, you can use an HDMI to QAM modulator, like this one or this one. You will need appropriate multiplexers, amplifiers, and splitters to combine your feed with your CATV provider and then distribute to the TVs.
If you need analog channel 3, then it is more complicated. You will probably first need to convert to SDI, then convert to analog video and audio, and finally feed an analog modulator.

I think QAM would be sufficient -- these will be going to LCD TVs with standard Cable TV input. There isn't any other use for the TV besides displaying the camera feed. (Currently it's displaying a low res component yellow cable signal and looks crappy.)  If there are any other cheaper alternatives, I'd be happy to hear them.


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Lighting a table is just not working
We are trying to take short videos of a small product.
The video happens on a table of 1x1 Meters, where the camera is about 40cm above the table-static.

I have 4 6000k led bulbs each 20W (=100W) , 1 meter from each corner
I have a little light comes out of the window

What happens is that only when I film very close to the object ( 10-20cm above) I get great video. If I go up to 40cm and more - you do not see details good enough.

Have tried good Cannon, and Fugi with different lenses
Tried iPhone 6 that surprised me with much better videos.

But still, 40cm above that table you see good picture but not detailed enough.
On 3 of the camera I used, I get great picture only when close to the product.
What else can I do on a budget ? if I put diffuser around the table would it help ?

Maybe you should add screenshots of your video to better show what you think is amiss. If you move farther away, your video will naturally show less details. Do you mean there are underexposed parts? Or does the light blow out all of your product's contoure?

That sort of "product shot" is frequently done by firing your lights through a diffusing "tent" that surrounds the subject.  You're looking to get good "modeling" of the shape and detail without specular reflection.
Cars are frequently lit the same way, but with a bigger tent.
Here's an example, although you can rig your own cheaper: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1123911-REG/surface_light_ltd_68056998365_pop_up_photo_studio.html

You definitely want to diffuse the light. Sounds like you have enough, and well-distributed.
It's not clear what you need from the video, though. If you need a lot of detail, fairly close-up, consider a telephoto macro lens.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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How to stop Sony AVC/MVC encoder from adding 4:3 aspect ratio to 16:9 videos?
I am using Movie Studio Platinum 13 (essentially, light version of Sony Vegas).
I am creating a project based on mp4 files recorded on my Sony Alpha camera. These files have pixel resolution 1440x1080 and aspect ratio 16:9, which means that they are anamorphic (pixel aspect 1.333) and are stretched to 1920x1080 when playing back. All the video players I tried are playing the files with correct aspect ratio. Mediainfo tool shows the following information:

When creating the project, I specify that I want to detect project settings from an existing file and I pick the file from the camera.
When rendering the movie, I pick Sony AVC/MVC encoder and specify the settings as in the original videos (1440x1080@30p, 1.333 pixel ratio for anamorphic aspect ratio, 25 FPS):

But the final rendered movie plays back with black bars and 4:3 aspect ratio on some video players! When I inspect the media information, I see the following:

The Sony AVC/MVC encoder has added "Original display aspect ratio" as 16:9 and set "Display aspect ratio" to 4:3, whereas in the source files "Display aspect ratio" was 16:9 and there was no "Original display aspect ratio" at all.
Why is Sony encoder doing this? How do I force it not to add 4:3 ratio but keep them all at 16:9 while using the same anamorphic pixel ratio for 1440 -> 1920 stretching?

In project properties, set your pixel aspect ratio to 1.333 as well. Furthermore, make sure that when you right-click a video on your timeline that both resample is disabled, and try fiddling around with the "maintain aspect ratio" option. I have a hunch that it has got to do with these settings.
Try using different formats/encoders as well to see what effect that gives.

I suppose some video players do not support non-square pixels, or can't read this flag from the file attributes. Why don't you use 1920x1080 format with square pixels? 1440*1.3333=1920 ;)

The problematic player starts displaying it fine when I go to its settings and manually specify frame aspect ratio 16:9. I don't use the full 1920x1080 format because it seems to take considerably more time to render and I'm not sure if there is any use of it if the source videos are 1440x1080 @ 1.333 pixel aspect ratio. For the time being, let's hope that most people won't use a problematic video player (more specifically, it's MPC-HC which gets confused by that 4:3 attribute in the file info).

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

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


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Proper HD export format in Sony Vegas Pro 13 for a decent video size?
So I have decided to unite in a whole video everything I have of my child. I wanna render it in a sole .mp4 file with 1080p, good audio, etc. I want all that (1:50:00) in 2GB or 3GB, no more. I've seen videos accomplishing this smoothly, but everything I've tried so far ends in 9-12GB.
What I need to do to achieve it?
Thanks.

Instead of targeting the final size you should target the bitrate. 1080p at bitrate lower than, say, 5 Mbit/s using AVC encoder would be too low. Not sure why do you care about the file size, the storage in cheap. Unless you plan to put it on a FAT32 memory card.

I assume you're using the Mainconcept AVC encoder. 3GB for a 1h50m video implies a bitrate of 3.7 mbps. That's the average bitrate you need. Set max bitrate to 5 mbps.
Now, usually I render in two passes. First pass is a high bitrate from Vegas  (20 mbps or more) and then encode with ffmpeg, which is a free command line tool.
Command would be
ffmpeg -i vegas.mp4 -crf 23 -movflags +faststart final.mp4

ffmpeg offers lot more variables to adjust but the above should be enough for most size adjustment. Usually a CRF value between 18-28 (lower is better but bigger) works.

If Vegas can't produce a small enough H.264 file on its own, it would be better to encode with Vegas to a better mezzanine format than H.264, like DNxHD, ProRes, or even XDCAM/MPEG-2, and then use ffmpeg to convert to H.264. H.264 suffers from very severe concatenation issues that are visible to the average viewer.

'concatenation' issues? I don't follow. My workflow is for output meant for web playout, not broadcast.

Concatenation errors occur when you go through multiple encode/decode cycles, particularly of the same codec. I understand that your workflow wasn't for broadcast, but the problems with H.264 are so bad even with just 2 codec cycles, that the average person will notice significant drops in quality. It's no more difficult for the OP to output from Vegas to MPEG-2 and get a much better result.


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Smooth aperture transition on Canon lenses, are they an advertised feature?
When shooting in video mode using Canon lenses on Canon bodies, when the aperture changes the blades may or may not make a sound. Newer lenses have gradual, silent aperture transitions. Older lenses only have the sudden and noisy transition.
The observations confirm that such a feature exists. But searching on the web I could not find any official or unofficial information about it.

Is there any materials (marketing, discussion, etc.) that acknowledge that some Canon lenses support smooth aperture transitions?
Is there a list of lenses that are known to support and not support smooth aperture transitions?

Some verbose extra background information, only if the above question is unclear.
In Canon's video recording mode, the aperture can change during filming. You can either manually dial in the aperture, or you can let the auto exposure algorithm run the show. Interestingly, the auto exposure uses large jumps, like from f/2.8 to f/5.6 to f/16 with nothing in between.
What I noticed is that different lenses behave differently when the camera requests it to change aperture. Some lenses will gradually change the aperture (you can look through the front of the lens to see the blades in motion) and make no sound. Other lenses will change the aperture abruptly and make a metallic flapping sound. This question only applies to video mode - because in photo shooting mode, all lenses will change the aperture abruptly when the depth-of-field button is pressed or when a photo is being taken.
So far I know these lenses support smooth aperture:

Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro L IS USM
Canon EF 16-35mm f/4.0 L IS USM
Canon EF-M 11-22mm f/4.0-5.6 IS STM
Canon EF-M 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM
Canon EF-M 22mm f/2.0 STM

And these lenses do not support smooth aperture:

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0 L
Canon EF 24-105mm f/4.0 L IS (Mark I)
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM
Canon EF 85mm f/1.8 USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L USM
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4.0 L IS USM

These sources allude to something about smooth aperture without giving definitive details on what's going on:

http://www.sonyalpharumors.com/cool-metabones-adds-native-af-smooth-iris-ef-mount-speed-boosters-smart-adapters-firmware/

I'm not sure to what extent the video mode smooth aperture feature depends on the camera body's model. Maybe old bodies never support smooth aperture even on good lenses. Maybe new bodies support smooth aperture on a wider selection of lenses.
I'm not interested in information about clickless hand-operated apertures. But I am interested if other non-Canon brands are supporting smooth electronic aperture transitions on their lenses, especially if they have official marketing materials.


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What causes the VHS rewind effect? And how did rewind preview work?
(Apologies if this is the wrong stackexchange, it seems the most appropriate)
When rewinding a VHS tape on an analog player (i.e. a VCR hooked up to a (CRT?) TV) when rewinding, or fast-forwarding, and regardless of video format (NTSC vs PAL vs SECAM) we're always treated to the same effect: a relatively clear window into the video playing backwards (or forwards), overlayed with two or three bars of static. I found a good example on YouTube here (around the 00:06 - 00:10 time):

What causes this? How does the action of the helical-scan tape over the read head cause these artifacts?
I also wonderred: when rewinding, if the VHS tape is playing backwards, and the video signal is scanned one scanline-at-a-time, how is it the video display is not vertically and horizontally inverted? Even on early, pure-analog VHS players lacked framebuffers yet when rewinding their displayed the video in the correct orientation, how was that possible?

It has been a long time since I was responsible for tape decks, especially analog ones, but here is what I think is happening. The tape is moving backwards, but the head is still spinning forwards. In other words, the head does not reverse directions. That means that the head and the tracks don't line up properly, which gives you the static. That's also how the image isn't inverted: the electrical system isn't reversed, just the mechanical, tape transport.

@MichaelLiebman If the head isn't aligned with the tape, how is it the video field(s) still fill the output frame?

The heads are always going to output the same number of lines, whether they encounter properly aligned tracks or not. When misaligned, it reads what ever is under the head as static, since it is analog system.

@Dai  Also, note that the mechanical part of the playback doesn't output the video "one scanline at a time". The head isn't scanning lines, it's scanning video fields (262.5 lines in NTSC), each one a modulated RF 'bundle' that contains the combined mono portion of the video and a subcarrier with the color-difference portion.

In helical-scan video players, the tape is wrapped around a rotating drum that has one or more magnetic pickups (heads) that are the width of a track and angled slightly from true horizontal. Each track is several inches long and laid down diagonally at (roughly) the same angle as the head is tilted. (The angles differ because the relative motion of the tape and heads causes a precession, an "active angle").
When the tape is moving forward at normal speed, the rotating head aligns with the angled tracks and all is fine. When the tape moves in reverse the angles are misaligned, and when the motion is faster than normal the heads will "sample" more than one track during a video frame, and pick up some of the inter-track guard space as well (the static).
This is what you see when you rewind. Nothing about the orientation of the data on tape changes, so there's no reason for the images to be inverted. If the drum rotated in a different direction then you'd see something else.

Thanks for confirming my memory and explaining it better than I did.

@MichaelLiebman  No problem. It's always good to find a use for otherwise obsolete knowledge. (-:

I understand most of your answer - but I don't understand this part "When the tape moves in reverse the angles are misaligned" - could you visually explain that with a diagram?


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I don't know how to explain but it is about limiting audio
How can I limit the audio up limit like this one in Premiere? Thanks in advice.

What are you actually trying to accomplish?  The waveform you pasted doesn't look like it would sound right at all.  Describe what you are trying to accomplish in terms of what the final output sounds like and we should be able to provide better direction.

The second one looks hella clipped, isn't it distorting?
Anyway the effect you're after is unsurprisingly called a limiter. A limiter is a form of compressor, so a compressor can also be used, by setting the compression ratio high.
Premiere ships with a filter called hard limiter, and a compressor as well, but there are plenty more free and commercial VST limiter plugins out there, and scads of compressors if you want more knobs to twiddle.


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Extract video from sony handycame with perfect quality
I've got an old sony handycame that record into tapes. When i try to display the videos in my samsung tv using RCA cables, the video is full screen and with a really good quality.
I wanted to transfer the videos into my computer using usb communication. I've got the handycam's driver, installed, the handycam is recognized as well.
Using OpenCV library, have been able to collect the pictures but in a resolution of 320*240, resolution of the screen of my handycam.
When i try to resize the pictures, the quality get really bad. I would like to have videos of more than default resolution, with a good quality.
So, how come that the videos are displayed so well into the tv, but not in my computer ? and is there any way to solve this problem ?
CAMCORDER: DCR-TRV238E
TV: SAMSUNG PS43D450A2W

How does that camera save video that it shoots? If it's DV tape you'll need a firewire connection most likely. If you can hunt down a manual on the internet or IRL that will help.

I think a firewire will be usefull since the camera chip doesn't encode the data before transfering them, just my computer doesn't have a firewire entry , is there any other suggestion please ? sorry for late answer


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Identifying unused files in Premiere Pro
I have some Premiere Pro project that have a lot of big files, some which are in the bin, some which are not, many that are not used and could be deleted. Is there a way to identify these files to delete them?
Thanks

Head into your Project Panel and check the columns you have available. You may need to scroll right, but look for one titled "Video Usage."
If it isn't there, right click on the columns and click "Metadata Display..." Drop down the Premiere Pro Project Metadata menu and check "Video Usage."
Now, using the "Video Usage" column, you can see how many times each clip is referenced in a sequence. Anything without a number next to it is not used.  A quick tip, if you have any audio-only files or used just the audio of any clip, you may want to also include the "Audio Usage" column and cross reference the two of them together when making your decision. Either way, if any clip is referenced in a sequence, Premiere should warn you before allowing you to delete it.


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Oprtical Flow artifacts on cuts in Premiere
I rendered a video using Optical Flow (it includes lots of Time Remapping). Basic cuts look as if there was a short glitch-like transition between them.
Frame of first shot
[1
Frame between two

Welcome! It isn't clear what you are asking. Could you expand your question and perhaps post a sample video instead of just screen shots?

What it's doing is trying to optical flow between the two scenes. You may have to render out the clips individually with 1 or two frame "handles", and then trim them back down.

Did you apply the Optical Flow to a nested sequence that contains a transition?  This looks to me like Optical Flow trying to invent new frames to fill in the slow motion and getting confused by the fact that a transition is blending two different videos.  You should apply your time remaps to the base clips and then do transitions on top of the already adjusted clips.


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Can you export a video from Premiere Pro to an SWF file?
Can you export a video from Premiere Pro to an SWF file?

Do you mean FLV?  SWF would be a very odd output choice for full motion video.  SWF normally provides the player (and is generally being moved away from with HTML5 now supporting direct video playback).  FLV or F4V are the actual video streams that the SWF players playback.


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Convert 360 to flat video
is there any method to cut part of 360 video and convert it to plain video? I want to take half, or less of 360 footage and then edit/view as plain one.

Yes, I believe the latest versions of Premiere CC can do this natively.  It's a little bit tricky since the video needs to be unwrapped, but it is a fixed distortion to be applied depending on the size of the sphere map.  360 videos are actually rectangular videos that are texture mapped on to a sphere.
Software that wants to convert can either look at the size of the sphere and use a fixed distortion to get the correct output or actually execute the spherical mapping and then shoot a flat image of the mapping in a 3d translation.  The later approach is more complicated by a bit, but allows for easy manipulation of the camera within the 360 sphere.
I'm not particularly aware of any other applications that directly support working with 360 video yet.  I know Fusion has VR capabilities now, but have not had a chance to work with the new features yet.

Pinnacle Studio should be able to do this in the latest version, in Ultimate edition:
https://www.pinnaclesys.com/en/landing/360video/#convert-360


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How to mask in Premier Pro CC
I'm using Premier Pro CC but at a fairly basic level.  My question is probably a no-brainer for an experienced user. I've searched a lot of other sites and tutorials and haven't found anything that helps.  Here is my dilemma.
I want a constant background, full size, 1080p, but on top of that,(a different track) I want a clip that is a smaller size, like an overlay, that only covers about 50% of the screen size.
I need a mask (or matte) around that top video, so I can zoom and pan on it, yet the borders stay constant, it never consumes more than the original 50% of the screen. If I zoom in 150%, it is still only utilizing 50% of the full screen and the background is still visible.
Does my description make sense?


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Is there any use in archiving graded 8-bit footage as 10-bit file?
I've made a video that was filmed with a Canon 60D. It has been graded and edited in Davinci Resolve.
The original footage from the camera is 8-bit. But what happens in the grading process? Will I use nuances from the grading if I archive it as 8-bit?
I understand there's no point in converting the 8-bit video to 16-bit when unedited, but how about when it's graded?

Yes, you will lose information from the grade if you save as 8-bit.
Here's a thought experiment to illustrate. Say your original red level for a pixel was 128 out of 256 (00001111 / 11111111), and then in Resolve you grade it (using the internal 32-bit floating point colour in Resolve) to be a little bit brighter, say 128.25. Now you'll need to save it in 10 bits  or more to keep that information (e.g 000111101 / 1111111111 where the two right-hand-side bits 01 / 11 = 1/4 = 0.25). If you saved it as 8-bit it would have to be rounded to 00001111, meaning it would go back to being 128.
The upshot is, if your new colours don't fit into the 256 values per channel of 8-bit colour they will get rounded to the closest fit. So while you don't gain anything from up-depthing (that's a thing now, because I just invented it) ungraded footage, you do gain by not collapsing the higher-bit-depth graded footage back down to 8-bit.

Of course, if the new red is 128.13, then 10 bits is insufficient. Considering that the end-user display is almost always 8-bit, the question is, do the extra storage bits make a difference to the final 8-bit raster that's displayed, or does it simply shift the burden of the rounding step downstream?


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Still Photo Rendering in Premiere Pro CC 2015 is Yellowy After Export
So I start with a perfectly good JPG still set in the timeline 4 second long duration cross dissolve to another photo.  Not all photos change color after rendering.  And this only just stated happening.  Now I can't get it to go away.  Have tried several different export types (H264, Wide DVD, MP4, etc.) but they all look the same.  Does anyone have any suggestions.

Did any bit depth settings change on the output?  That is extremely odd behavior.

Put the image into a new sequence with no plugins, effects or anything else... Do you still get the same issue?  This will at least narrow down the issue..

Also share your sequence settings and export settings as a screenshot

Try re-saving the image to different formats. Often this will do the trick.


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FFMPEG, colormatrix and WEBM conversion
I met this anon on 4chan who made me notice a color issue in my webms. I generally make webm using ffmpeg and I never noticed a change in colors. He suggested me to change the color matrix into 601 but I have no idea of the criteria he used in the first place.

Why there is this difference in colors from source (mkv) and output (webm)? What's the best way to preserve the color scheme during conversion/compression? This is the typical command I use when I convert from mkv to webm:
ffmpeg -threads 4 -i <input> -c:v libvpx -b:v 1500K -vf scale=-1:360 -an -map 0:v:0 <output>

What is wrong? I'm going to post more info about the source in 30 minutes, if you need it.

Show the console output of the command,

here is the relevant part https://pastebin.com/if9eNSkV

Basic filter would be colormatrix=bt709:bt601 This goes before the scale. But without knowing all source properties and intended target, this is a crude guess.


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Recommendations on Video Editors similar to Movie Maker
I used to create videos a lot in the past, and I am trying to get back into it. I used Windows Movie Maker back when it was 2.6 and really liked that version of it. I liked the ability to click and drag the clips into the timeline as well as when you imported the video you could click a checkbox and it would turn the video you were importing into smaller manageable clips that I could then click and drag into the timeline from the Collections section. I was hoping to find something similar to those features as well as had the ability to add in some cool effects. I was able to find something similar called Filmora. It is so close to having everything that I need. It even has a scene detection feature that is similar to the "Create video clips" feature that Windows Movie Maker has. But the clips stay in the timeline. I can't have them set aside in a collection out of the way so that I can click and drag them into the timeline in the order that I want. Does anybody know of any video editing program that is similar to Movie Maker that isn't too expensive? I don't need anything fancy. Just a few effects that I can add, a timeline editor, and the ability to create video clips when importing a video. Any suggestions?

Have you tried Youtube? The Creator Studio provides a lot of simple tools for free and once you upload your videos it should be possible to edit, not only easily but quickly.

Avid just came out with a free version of Media Composer, looks very capable. "It's a fact that over 95% of all mainstream movies released in 2016 were edited on Media Composer. And so were most TV shows, too! Media Composer | First is a completely free version of the same video editing application, available on either Mac or PC. If you are an aspiring filmmaker or vlogger looking to get a start in editing, there’s no better way..."
Adobe Premiere Elements is in the price range you mention.

www.windows-movie-maker.org/ if you like windows movie maker then you can use it here. If you want something easy to learn search Camtasia, which cost some money.

I would be very cautious before downloading the Movie Maker linked in this message. It is obviously not a microsoft website.

Good point but I'm sort of sure I got it from this site before and it was safe, but yah like you said use caution.

I actually did download it from that exact website. But unfortunately, I think because I have Windows 10, it doesn't work properly. When I was using it the sound on the music that I added to the video would go out anytime I was editing and splitting the clips. I would have to restart and play the whole video over again which is a pain because the video has to be in time with the music. I will look at Camtasia.

Camtasia is too expensive for what I am wanting, and I can't even tell if it has the ability to create video clips when importing in videos like I want. I am looking for something around $60. $200 is too expensive for my needs. Thank you for the suggestion.

But the clips stay in the timeline. I can't have them set aside in a
  collection out of the way so that I can click and drag them into the
  timeline in the order that I want.

So you want "playlist" insted of timeline?
Fresh article about alternatives in 2017: http://www.techradar.com/news/the-best-free-windows-movie-maker-alternative
Free only alternatives: https://alternativeto.net/software/windows-movie-maker/alternatives/?license=free
Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/edtech/comments/63f9f2/alternative_to_movie_maker/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/letsplay/comments/5pcgh2/does_anyone_here_have_a_free_alternative_to_movie/
And use google!

This actually gives a great example of why this question is relevant.  The top answer on Google there is a "vendor" known for spamming SEO optimization and using basically a repackaged version of open source software that they then sell.  Similarly, my luck with alternativeto.net has been mixed at best and generally useless.

With the Google screenshot that is mostly showing poor results is removed, then this is also a link only answer.  If the links go dead, this won't be an answer.  If you can include some details from the relevant recent article in your own words, that would greatly improve this answer.

I included google screenshot to show funny fact: it can give results even in autocomplete! And I very love alternative.to, it's gives me very much cool software. To use or not to use - this is choice of peoples, because it I have different life experience, I can't give exact answer about "best alternative", everybody has own taste acctording their experience.


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Track Multiple Moving Objects Simultaneously
I am an animal behaviorist and AfterEffects (CC) may be the key to solving my unique problem. Let's say I have a video of six small animals housed individually in circular arenas.
Can AfterEffects:

Track each animal simultaneously in real time or track them when the
footage is sped up. The latter bit is important since I have hours of
footage to track and it would be nice if I could expedite this
process.
Export or copy/paste the 2D positional data (x,y) to a spreadsheet.

I know that AfterEffects is capable of tracking a fixed point when the camera is moving. However, I am interested to know if the app can perform the inverse of that scenario: static camera position with multiple moving objects.
Thank you!

You might want to investigate openCV, it's used a lot in scientific applications. http://opencv.org/

After effects can definitely track 2D motion and allow you to export x,y coordinate pairs, but it does not work in realtime.  You would have to import the videos, then track each object (and correct for any mis-tracking) then export the tracked data as text.
This probably isn't the best tool for the job - I'm guessing there are better realtime motion tracking systems for what you need.
You can read about how 2D tracking works here:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/tracking-stabilizing-motion-cs5.html


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Codecs with allow fast backwards stepping frame by frame with mpv
According to https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv/issues/4019 backward stepping for example with H264 codec is slow compared to forward stepping. Other codecs, for example mjpeg works a bit better.
For which other codecs/codec settings backward stepping is fast?

It's not codec-specific, but related to GOP size. See https://video.stackexchange.com/q/16836/1871 and https://video.stackexchange.com/q/21892/1871

I fixed by uncommenting the RIGHT seek 5 and LEFT seek -5 lines in input.conf
and also by adding hr-seek=yes in mpv.conf

As @Mulvya says it depends greatly on the GOP size, but you can insure that stepping is easy at the expense of file size, by using an 'all-I' codec like Motion JPEG. In such codecs every frame appears whole and entire so there is no dependence on previous or subsequent frames.

Abbreviation info: "all-I" as in "using entirely Intraframe Coding". Opposed to Interframe Coding (IPB) where the abbreviation stands for Intra-Frame + Predicted Frame + Bi-directional predicted frame.

I assume, you want fast codec for video editing.
In previous years here was "codecs for editing", it was DV codec (used in miniDV cameras) and mjpeg (used in some video cards/"montage" cards). This codecs was implemented in hardware and mainly used for capture, but some hardware allows playback and even adding some simple effects and transitions. Yes, video transitions was implemented in hardware. Today this hardware and tricks is obsolete. But mjpeg still used in many webcameras which connected by usb! Yes, you usually got not "raw signal" from your webcam, but compressed by jpeg.
Today you can use DNxHD/DNxHR/ProRes, but mjpeg still good for creating proxy footages.
Other intra-only codecs: JPEG2000, lossless-jpeg, MagicYUV
Great blog post about codecs and proxy-editing: https://blog.frame.io/2017/02/15/choose-the-right-codec/

If you don’t have enough storage space, or if you’re on an
  underpowered machine, then take the resolution down a notch. A lot of
  huge-budget Hollywood films were edited in 480p just a few years ago,
  so don’t sweat it if you need to lower your resolution from 4K down to
  720P for the edit.

Also, you can specify "gop size=1" or "not use P and B frames" (it same) in almost any modern codec and get similar results. If you want REALLY FAST, I suggest to see on very old codec Cinepack - it was able playback video on even 80486 machines and you can find it today! Quality of Cinepack not perfect by today standards, but it enough for editing and preview purposes.

I fixed by uncommenting the RIGHT seek 5 and LEFT seek -5 lines in input.conf
and also by adding hr-seek=yes in mpv.conf


text:
Premiere Export Issue With Still Photos
After years of using Adobe Photoshop & Premiere, I have finally run into a problem I can't solve, and I know it is very likely a relatively simple issue, but I can't figure it out for the life of me.  I have a series of still photos as part of a montage leading into the video portion of a project.  The source photos are fine but the Exported Project comes out all wrong - the stills are color shifted for some reason.  I am wondering if anyone out why

Are the photos in .psd/.tif/.dng format? do they contain any filters/enchantments?

No - all JPG's - but I believe the issue is related to 'Scaling'


text:
How to film theatre performances?
I am working with a small amateur theatre group, and they would like to record their performances. We tried with a consumer-grade camcorder. positioned behind the audience, but image quality and sound quality were poor.
For the sound quality, I guess the problem was that the camcorder's built-in microphone is not meant to record people on a stage ~10meters away, with ~100 people audience in between.
For the image quality, well, we had some problems with the auto-focus, also the changing light conditions on stage caused trouble. e.g. sometimes the light goes off, the stage is modified in the dark and then light goes back on. In those situations, the camcorder usually tried to get a picture in the dark, which led to overexposure when the light went back on. Also, there was a situation with one actor in a spot on the left side of the stage and the rest of the stage in the dark. In this situation, the camcorder's autofocus went crazy. Apparently, it could not decide what to focus on, and tried to focus on something else every other second.
What kind of equipment/setup do you suggest for this?
PS: It would be a nice plus to have a live monitor, such that actors backstage can see what happens on the stage.

For the auto focus issue I think you can change the camera settings to fix the focus at center stage. Similarly constant exposure could do the trick.

What is your budget in terms of money and people to operate the equipment?

Is this the kind of production you want?  It was done with Canon vixia (hfg 10/20/30) consumer cameras, a don't handicam, and a cellphone by my crew of 11 to 18 year old technicians.  Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=6LQsJ650mBk

Most cameras have a mode where you can manually control all the settings.. I would set the camera to manual mode, do some tests during a rehearsal.  Adjust the exposure so that nothing is over or underexposed when the stage is normally lit, and manually set the focus such that anyone on the stage is in focus at all times.
Ideally for audio, you would use radio mics on the actors, and record the output from these, as well as a couple of ambient mics to capture the audience, but this requires a sound mixer... If the actors are being amplified already, take a feed from the sound mixer's desk into your camera.  If not, then a stereo pair of mics placed as close to the actors as possible (but not picking up feet noise) might be the next best option.
With more budget, multiple cameras, with multiple operators, long lenses, etc etc... but the points about auto exposure and auto focus would still hold true.
Monitors in the other room depend on the video output options from your camera - what model are you using?

Low-budget scenario:
Place camcorder on tripod. Disable auto-focus, disable auto-exposure, disable everything... Sometimes you can do it only on "PRO" cameras.
Use prime lenses with proper angle, so only stage can be seen, zoom lenses is fine too, but cheap lenses / part of matrix can make not so perfect image. Make sure, you got good focused image: create some test recordings and see in on computer, NOT on camera viewfinder.
Place mics on actors and record sound of them on any device, even on cellphones, today it very cheap. Also, you can use directed mics on scene - not so cheap, but may be better to get some "environment noises".
And spend some time on final video edit, sound mixing and so on. With minimal cost you can get good quality results.

My team of teenage volunteers does this every year for our church Christmas program. We use mostly canon vixia consumer cameras, augmented with a Sony handicam and other sources as needed and available.
Example:

Use sound from the house sound system as your primary source. Augment as needed or desirable with ambient. Use a clapper board so you can later sync the sound and the video.
Shoot a dress rehearsal. I like to use dress rehearsals to get shots I could never get in a live performance (dolly shots, dramatic lighting ,  then insert them into the live performance in postproduction .
Use multiple cameras from different angles. Use tripods and monopods to stabilize the cameras.
Postproduction - get Adobe creative cloud. You lease the sections of  suite you actually use on a month to month basis. Get really good with premiere pro and audacity.
If budget permits, rent a Black magic ATEM 1 M/E flypack to . Live production is more stressful but much quicker than doing everything in postproduction. You can also use the recording from the ATEM as a rough edit template for postproduction,  rather than as the primary recording.

EDIT:  More details as requested
We have permanently mounted vixia HFG10 and HFG30 cameras on servo PT heads, feeding a BM ATEM1 M/e with 1080P signal. You can achieve much the same (or better) effect with a good tripod and live operator for each camera.
In addition to the two fixed cameras, in this production we used additional hand held HFG10 and HFG20 cameras (2 more cameras), a Sony handicam, and an iPhone. Footage from the additional cameras was added into the recording in post production with Adobe Premiere Pro.
We used the tungsten preset white balance. Only the iPhone video was white balanced in post production.
We toggled the autofocus on to get focus quickly, then off again because the sparkles and christmas lights on stage play havoc with the autofocus.
Everything else was on automatic.
The most important part of the equation was the crew. This crew has been working together since 5th and 6th grade (5+ years now), doing live webcasts at least once per week with this equipment, and has on occasion put in 40 hour weeks for special events.

I'm about to film my daughter's middle school production of "Into the Woods" with a Vixia R700. Would you mind posting what settings you used on your camera? For example, did you use a preset white balance or manually set the white balance? Did you put it into "P" mode and manually adjust the exposure down to get rid of the glare from the stage lights?

Once you get used to it, using the ATEM is less stressful, but they can be a bit finicky depending on how you connect everything up.  The BMD ATEMs are great for the cost, but require you to know how to set them up more so than higher end switchers.  (I say that as a very happy owner of one of the 4k ATEM 1 M/Es.)  Just make sure you get the system setup and tested well in advance.


text:
Aspera Client availability for download
A customer asked me if it was possible to use Aspera FTP instead normal FTP protocol to upload files to their machines.
Obviously I got their address, credentials and so on. The fun part started when I tried to download the Aspera client in order to upload the files to their servers.
It seems that the clients are on the aspera website, but if you want to download the file you have to provide the username and password.
Is this a misconfigured HTTP server or you have to pay even for the client in some ways? Tome sound weird because normally you pay if you want to implement the infrastructure not if you just want to connect to the remote server but who knows..

You probably want Aspera Connect, not the client, which you should be able to download without a password. Additionally, your customer should be able to supply you with the Connect installer that matches their server.

In fact the IBM Aspera Desktop Client, a transfer client similar to "filezilla" for FTP, used to be licensed, and is now free of charge, the password protection has been removed.
The IBM Aspera Connect client is also free but requires to use a web interface first on server side.


text:
Is there any way to "pre-load" my sequence so that the preview is smooth?
So as I'm getting into the 2 minute mark of my video and starting to add a few effects, the preview/program window is becoming very choppy. It's hard to see how things are going because of the choppiness. Is there any way I can like "pre-load" or "pre-render" everything so that when I play it, it's smooth?
I sometimes now have to export my video to MP4 and watch it there in order to get a smooth preview and feel as to what's really going on.
I'm running macOS High Sierra on a MB Pro w/ Retina (2015 edition), 2.8 GHz i7, 16GB DDR3 and a 1TB SSD.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Nevermind. Just found a few tips that I had been looking for. Couldn't necessarily figure out the terms I was looking for. A few things to look for if anyone else is interesting:

Rendering in and out points to speed it up
Reducing the preview quality from Full to 1/2, etc.


text:
How can I mux video and audio from separate sources that're at different frame rates?
I'm having trouble muxing the video from one source with the audio from another because the audio drifts over time. As I mentioned in the title, the sources are at different frame rates, the video's source is at 23.976, and the audio's source is at 29.97.
Maybe my current code will help to better understand the situation:
ffmpeg -y -i source1.mkv -itsoffset 0.85 -i source2.mp4 -map 0:0 -map 1:1 -c:v libx264 -crf 23 -c:a aac -b:a 112k output.mp4

The audio source's audio starts a bit early, hence the 0.85 second delay.
I'm using FFmpeg version: 20170904-6cadbb1

The (originally paired) video's framerate does not apply to the audio. You'll probably have to rescale the external audio. Check the stream durations: ffprobe file -show_streams

Yeah I understand that audio doesn't work in frame rates but that doesn't explain why it goes out of sync. I tried slowing down the audio by matching its length to the video source's with the atempo audio filter, but it doesn't really work due to the offset.

Try scaling to audio length = video length - offset and mux with the offset. This assumes that the drift is linear.

You mean to input into atempo the value of the video source's length minus the 0.85s offset, but to also include the offset in the code? so ffmpeg -y -i videosource.mkv -itsoffset 0.85 -i audiosource.aac -map 0:0 -map 1:0 -af atempo=(video source's length - the offset) / video source's length -c:v libx264 -crf 23 out.mp4? If so, it didn't work.

atempo = oldaudiolength / newaudiolength where new length is video stream's length - the offset.

Still doesn't work.

works for me: ffmpeg -i video_25fps.mkv -map 0:a:0 -af atempo=23976/25000 -c ac3 -b:a 192k audio_23.976fps.ac3 && ffmpeg -i video_23.976fps.mkv -itsoffset 0 -i audio_23.976fps.ac3 -c copy -map 0:v:0 -map 1:a:0 result.mkv. im using a temporary audio file, so i can use -c copy in the second ffmpeg call. you may need to adjust itsoffset to fix audio/video sync. (i was a bit surprised that this requires to recode the audio... but well)


text:
FFmpeg hardware cuda decoding and overlay picture
I can overlay a picture to the video stream with the following command:

ffmpeg -thread_queue_size 1024 -i udp_source -i watermark.png
  -filter_complex "[0:v]scale=1920:1080,yadif=0 [base]; [base][1:v] overlay=main_w-overlay_w-10:10 [marked]" -map "[marked]" -vcodec
  h264_nvenc -acodec libfdk_aac -ab 192k -ar 48000 -f flv rtmp_output

But if I made a hardware decoding with deinterlacing and resizing at the GPU with the following command:

ffmpeg -thread_queue_size 1024 -hwaccel cuvid -c:v mpeg2_cuvid -deint
  2 -drop_second_field 1 -vsync 0 -i udp_source -i watermark.png
  -filter_complex "[0:v]scale_npp=1920:1080 [base]; [base][1:v] overlay=main_w-overlay_w-10:10 [marked]" -map "[marked]" -vcodec
  h264_nvenc -acodec libfdk_aac -ab 192k -ar 48000 -f flv rtmp_output

I got the following error:
Error while decoding stream #0:1: Invalid data found when processing input
Impossible to convert between the formats supported by the filter 'Parsed_scale_npp_0' and the filter 'auto_scaler_0'
Error reinitializing filters!
Failed to inject frame into filter network: Function not implemented
Error while processing the decoded data for stream #1:0

As I understand we can't overlay the picture to the video via NVIDIA. I added the "hwdownload" filter in the command to copy data to CPU:

ffmpeg -thread_queue_size 1024 -hwaccel cuvid -c:v mpeg2_cuvid -deint
  2 -drop_second_field 1 -vsync 0 -i
  "udp://226.58.24.4:2000?overrun_nonfatal=1" -i
  /home/anis/logo/2mbps.png -filter_complex
  "[0:v]scale_npp=1920:1080,hwdownload [base]; [base][1:v]
  overlay=main_w-overlay_w-10:10 [marked]" -map "[marked]" -vcodec
  h264_nvenc -aspect 16:9 -b:v 1808k -minrate 1808k -maxrate 1808k
  -bufsize 904k -g 100 -no-scenecut 1 -forced-idr 0 -preset:v medium -vprofile main -level 4.1 -map 0:#0x091d -acodec libfdk_aac -ab 192k -ar 48000 -f flv rtmp://10.150.12.104/virginandtv/abr2k_test

After this I got the following error:
[udp @ 0x39abda0] Circular buffer overrun. Surviving due to overrun_nonfatal option
I tried to increase a fifo size up to 1M, but this issue still exists.
Is it possible to overlay a picture directly on NVIDIA card?

For 1st question - Most likely you're looking at not applicable error (the default yuv420p is not usable here - you may also need to get newer ffmpeg) - while using the hwdownload you need to tell explicitly to the NPP scaler the output format of the video frames. For your case the below command should make the trick:
ffmpeg -thread_queue_size 1024 \
    -hwaccel cuvid -c:v mpeg2_cuvid -deint 2 \
    -drop_second_field 1 -vsync 0 \
    -i "udp://226.58.24.4:2000?overrun_nonfatal=1" \
    -i /home/anis/logo/2mbps.png \
    -filter_complex "[0:v]scale_npp=1920:1080,hwdownload,format=nv12 [base]; [base][1:v] overlay=main_w-overlay_w-10:10 [marked]" \
    -map "[marked]" -vcodec h264_nvenc -aspect 16:9 \
    -b:v 1808k -minrate 1808k -maxrate 1808k -bufsize 904k \
    -g 100 -no-scenecut 1 -forced-idr 0 -preset:v medium -vprofile main -level 4.1 \
    -map 0:#0x091d -acodec libfdk_aac -ab 192k -ar 48000 \
    -f flv rtmp://10.150.12.104/virginandtv/abr2k_test

If you could please always include full ffmpeg output as this makes debugging always easier.
For 2nd question - I wasn't able to find any way how to mix frames on the GPU using the current NPP library w/ ffmpeg. It certainly should be possible so whenever you find a solution let others know. I personally don't have enough time to read through all the NVIDIA docs and work on implementation but somebody else may get more time :-)


text:
AVI Capture in VirtualDub: MP3 Compression
I would like to capture my old VHS tapes to my HDD. I already was successful installing the xvid codec which gives me an acceptable video compression.
But somehow I am not able to set audio compression. In the VirtualDub Audio menu I can choose compression. It then shows me a list of available codecs, among them I can select MPEG Layer-3. But when I go back to check the settings it is not selected anymore and it definitely is not set as compression, since I can see in the stats while capturing: Compression ration 1.0:1.
I also tried to download LAME 3.99.5 ACM codec for Windows 64 Bit and I was able to install it (though it was a bit tricky).
I am on Windows 10 64 Bit. Any suggestions?

After you select LAME codec you also have to select the format. Did you? Note it can only support limited set of sample rates and mono/stereo.
There is something weird about compression ratio. Looks like it shows incoming compression (when audio is already compressed by capture source).


text:
Highlighting current speaker on multi person podcast?
Is there any easy way to highlight the current speaker automatically (rather than edit the video file manually) in a multi person podcast, similar to this for example:

Easy way: patch some client for voice conferences, save info about speakers. I did it with Mumble. Then write simple app for rendering such movies, read/write of images and footages can be done with ffmpeg, fftw3 can calculate spectrum for us, grab some filters for image scaling...
Hard way: write each speaker in separate channel (mumble can do this), then place all tracks in After Effects, use there tracks for scaling avatars and adding spectrograms. You can done it without writing code, but if you have many-many podcasts, you will suffer. Also, this not applicable if you want broadcast such video in realtime, for example, with questions and calls of guests.


text:
Can I paint a rough wall with chromakey paint to make a green screen?
I'm setting up a studio to make videos. My space has walls that have been covered with stucco-style paint. In other words, they're rough. I want to have a green-screen background behind me. If I paint these rough walls with chromakey "video paint" will little shadows mess with the chromakey effect and defeat the purpose? In other words, do I need to put some other flat surface in front of these walls? Hope this question makes sense!

Yes the shadows will mess with the chromakey, yes put a flat surface up, and yes, your question makes sense.

It depends on some factors.

For example, how far is the wall from the main actors? If you have some good spacing, the texture can probably blur out due to DOF. But as on a green screen you need to maximize the focusing range, probably you will still have some texture visible.
How even is the light? You can probably lit good enough from both sides to eliminate the shadows on the texture produced by the other light.

In reality, you need to test. You do not need to paint in green before making these tests. Use your wall as it is, and use that color as a chroma key, you can even use white. Put a subject with clothing that has no white (or whatever current color you have now) and make a test. If it passes, it will probably work better when painted in green.
If you do not need a large green screen, you could probably use a frame made of PVC and green fabric.
But if it is sort of permanent thing... probably add a panel.


text:
Converting 4k to mkv
I need to send a short video clip (30 seconds) to a client of mine, the video is 3840 × 2160 resolution.
The client is using some cheap, 4k TV and he is using a USB to play the video which only supports JPEG, MP3, MKV.
Is there any way to export/convert the video (.mov) to .mkv while keeping the same resolution? (3840x2160), I tried some softwares but they reduced the resoultion to Full HD.
I have all of Adobe CC programs if that helps.
Thank you.

Please get details of the TV. It'll help to know which codecs the TV supports.

I'd tell my client to use a computer. He's just wasting your time.

Is there any way to export/convert the video (.mov) to .mkv while keeping the same resolution?

Yes. It's called ffmpeg. It's an advanced high level command line tool for basically all your video conversion needs.
Download the tool from here. You'll need to unpack it to any desired location. You can either add the bin folder to path or copy your .mov video file into the bin folder itself.
Then open the command prompt and type in the following code.
ffmpeg -i "filename.mov" "filename.mkv"

The video should now convert to .mkv format preserving the resolution.
Note:
.mkv is a container format. Which means the video file can have any codec, including those not supported by TV. So its useful to know which codecs the TV supports. By default, ffmpeg uses libx264, which should work in most devices.
Also check this question, about a similar problem I had with my TV. It should make things a lot more clear to you.
PS: As mentioned in the other answer, Handbrake should also work. Its the graphical tool based on ffmpeg.

There is an open source video transcoder named HandBrake.
From their documentation, it does support:
Source Formats

...open many common video files produced by recording software, including
  but not limited to TS/MTS/M2TS, MP4 or M4V, MOV, MKV, MPG or MPEG, and
  AVI.

Output Formats / containers

HandBrake supports two widely supported formats. MKV and MP4
  (Sometimes seen as M4v)

And it can handle 2160p 4K videos too. Read this doc for more info about quality settings.


text:
Trying to understand the delay converting a sequence of images to video
I am using java to create image files that I am converting to video using FFMPEG. I am creating the midi and audio simultaneously on reaper then using the duration of the notes on the midi file to create the number of frames I need. These are the durations of the different notes I have:
306.1224966434529
612.2449932869058
1224.4899865738262
1836.734979860732

In order to get the frames I need I am using the formula (fps * duration) / 1000 then rounding down which results in:
306.1224966434529 -> 18 frames
612.2449932869058 -> 36 frames
1224.4899865738262 -> 72 frames
1836.734979860732 -> 110 frames

When I combine the audio it gradually goes out of sync. I played around and realised that the 72 frames require 74 frames and the 110 frame notes require 112 frames.
I am not sure how to account for this. I need to be able to calculate the number of frames required ahead of time rather than creating them in real time.

Are you using a drop frame or non-drop frame rate? Please share your full ffmpeg command.

Thanks for responding. I am not explicitly using either so whatever the default is. I managed to get it working by increasing the frame rate. 180fps + gets a good degree of accuracy so I think the precision wasn't close enough after rounding.


text:
Easiest way to create detailed animations
I'm looking for a software to create animated gifs (or webm's) like the following:
http://gph.is/2fvtMv7
How do you think these animations are created? Of course I could do this layer by layer in e.g. Photoshop but look at the delay effect when the conveyor starts to move - wouldn't it cost days to create things like this? There must be an easier way.

 Folks, if you have an answer, please post it below. Comments to not have the features designed to vet whatever you say here. Comments are not for answers; answers are for answers. Thanks.


text:
Animating particles with collision avoidance?
I need to drive a large number of small 2D cars around on screen in a fairly random fashion... I have the Trapcode Suite.  I'd really like them not to overlap each other.  What's the easiest way to achieve this? Any good tricks using C4Dlite maybe? At the moment I'm using Particular to splatter them all over the screen, and it looks a bit rubbish.

Don't know about C4D, but there is a physics plugin for After Effects called Newton 2 that can achieve that.

You can do it with expressions, there is a sampleImage function which you could call for perimeter points on each car to find out if they're overlapping, https://is.gd/cXC6Il You could also just fudge it by avoiding cars within a certain radius. But it would be super slow for lots of cars. If it was my project I'd do it with a script, using something like the Boids flocking algorithm. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boids

I solved this using the built in Foam particle render - it does have basic collision avoidance

I solved it with the enable flocking option
attract 0%
separate 20%

In Trapcode Particular?


text:
Can you put in and animate 3D models in After Effects exactly like in this video?

From 1:25 to 1:30.
I want to do something like in this video where the 3D models of candies float up, swirl around together, shoot out to the viewer, and then land softly on a pile of itself. I was wondering if After Effects can be used to accurately recreate this scene?
If writing in detail of each action is too long/time-consuming, can someone at least explain how to do the swirling "tornado" effect? That is my biggest question.
For reference, I found a site that sells the exact 3D candy models used in the video above.
https://www.turbosquid.com/3d-models/candies-obj/1006028#

Recent versions of AE come with Cinema4d lite bundled, which lets you insert 3D objects into a shot. You'd do the swirling tornado effect by animating it. With keyframes and stuff. Whether it's too time-consuming is your call.

Combining camera footage with generated objects is called compositing.
The candy scene could be created in three steps:

The girl was filmed ahead of a green screen. Green parts of the footage made transparent.
3D scene was created with background furniture and the candies flying – in Cinema 4D or any other 3D package. It was rendered to a movie clip A. And the frames with candies flying towards the viewer rendered with transparent background to clib B.
AfterEffects or other compositing package was used to combine the three layers (front to back): clip B, green screen, clip A.

Yes, you can do exactly that and lots more with this awesome plug-in - Element 3D for After Effects (Not free though). You can import 3D models from various programs, create primitives and 3d extrusions based on shape layers and texts right inside of After Effects with cool lighting.
Check the plug-in out and you'll be driven to buying and using it yourself. There are tons of possibilities with that plugin.

Yes, this can be done in After Effects, but I can suggest to use specialized 3D software, like 3dsmax. Here you will get much more tools to manipulate models and motion. Tornado effect can be done with particle systems and their "gravity systems", it much more easy than animating every candy.


text:
Auto-Orient to Camera creates unwanted Z orientation
I have eight icons arranged in a circle, a Null object in the centre, and a camera that's parented to the Null. Each icon is set to be a 3D layer, and Auto-Oriented towards the camera. The camera is Auto-Oriented to Point of Interest, and parented to the Null, so that I can adjust the Z rotation of the Null to have the camera orbit the circle (producing the effect that the circle of icons is carouselling around).
Everything else is perfect, but the icons on the sides are somehow inheriting quite a dramatic Z orientation / rotation. I've attached a screenshot below to illustrate what I mean.
I tried this expression, but it made the problem worse, and I don't have the expression skills to adapt it to my needs.
How can I have each icon always face the camera, but remain fully level without manually adding keyframes to compensate?

That expression is correct, when you applied that expression did you apply it to just the x and y rotation, with z rotation set to 0? And did you turn off auto-orient?

A solution would be parenting the icon to a 3D null and applying auto orientation to the null, afterwards you can rotate your icon back.

I did the following:

Make 8 icons (I used text numbers).
Make them 3D.
Add a 3D null in the centre.
Add a circle shape at the mid point of your comp as a guide.
Make the circle 3D and orient it so that it's visible from top view.
Add a camera.
Position all the icons around the circle (more accurately than I did).
Parent the icons to the centre null.
Select all the icons and select "Auto-orient --> orient to camera"
Rotate the null in x and y.


text:
How to get this transition using ffmpeg?
I have bee experimenting with ffmpeg on video transitions , Now am stuck in this transition , I have no where to go ,
I have two videos like this,

at the end of first video i have to split the first video into two from center and reveal the second video like the following,

any help would be appreciated

ffmpeg is processing, not composition tool. But you can many tricks with it.

I think you'd need a custom filter to accomplish that. You might find this useful.

This needs a slightly elaborate filtergraph to do as described.
-filter_complex
    "[0]split[b1][b2];
     [b1]crop=iw/2:ih:0:0[b1];
     [b2]crop=iw/2:ih:iw/2:0[b2];
     [1][b1]overlay=x='0-(W/2)*(t-DUR0)/D':enable=gte(t,DUR0)[ob1];
     [ob1][b2]overlay=x='W/2+(W/2)*(t-DUR0)/D':enable=gte(t,DUR0)[fv]
    "

where 0 is video '1' and 1 is video '2'. DUR0 should be replaced with duration of video '1' and D with duration of the effect.

A curtain effect, like what Paul described, can be done like this:
blend=all_expr='if(lte((W/2-abs(X-SW*W/2))/(SW*W/2),(T-S)/D),B,A)'

where S is start time in seconds. (You may want/need to adjust the timestamps of the top video 'A' beforehand using setpts) and D is duration of effect. These two variables should be replaced with the required numeral values.
I can't test either of these for a few days.


text:
Adobe after effects showing green background with nothing every time I import hd videos
I want to make a project about my country by combining various hyperlapse videos and adding some graphical kinetic topography to them. But every time I import a video, it appears full green...nothinge happens but the workplace appears full green. It does not happen with low quality videos like 240p,but happens with the 1080p ones. Please help!!!!!I have very less days to finish this project. (P.S.- I am a mediocre beginner)(https://i.sstatic.net/aOoZL.jpg)

Are those videos opening normally in video-players?

Yes they are opening normally in windows media player @Shultc

It should be problem with codec. Found two solutions:

First — recompile footage to different codec.
Second — try to install software with codecs.Like Auicktime. Or if it will not help, some codeck pack.

I typically re-render videos I can't edit as h.264/mp4 using Adobe encoder


text:
Error converting mp4 to matroska format
I'm using ffmpeg version 2.8.11 to convert an AVC/AAC video to HEVC/AAC: with the command ffmpeg -loglevel error -i input.mp4 -c:a copy -c:v libx265 -preset fast -x265-params crf=25 -vf scale=-8:ih output.mkv
The command works as expected on other files, but this particular file throws:
[matroska @ 0x88c2e0] Error parsing AAC extradata, unable to determine samplerate.
Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Invalid argument
Source info from mediainfo:
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size                                : 138 MiB
Duration                                 : 25mn 31s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 755 Kbps
Encoded date                             : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date                              : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Main@L3
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP                     : M=1, N=50
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 25mn 31s
Duration_FirstFrame                      : 40ms
Bit rate                                 : 650 Kbps
Width                                    : 864 pixels
Original width                           : 854 pixels
Height                                   : 470 pixels
Original height                          : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 25.000 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.064
Stream size                              : 118 MiB (86%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 148 r236 a01e339
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=1 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-1 / threads=2 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / stitchable=1 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=0 / weightp=0 / keyint=50 / keyint_min=5 / scenecut=0 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=650 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=850 / vbv_bufsize=850 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date                             : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date                              : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Codec ID                                 : 40
Duration                                 : 25mn 31s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 98.5 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 KHz
Frame rate                               : 43.066 fps (1024 spf)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 18.0 MiB (13%)
Encoded date                             : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date                              : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00

I've tested playback of the source file which works as expected on both totem and mplayer. Based on the error I can only surmise that there's something off with the AAC stream description data. (extradata). My goal is to somehow repair/normalize this data so that I can successfully transcode it with HEVC encoder v.1.9

Your ffmpeg is outdated. Update and it will automatically insert some bitstream filters (at least aac_adtstoasc, hevc_mp4toannexb, h264_mp4toannexb). According to the aac_adtstoasc documentation:

Please note that it is auto-inserted for MP4A-LATM and MOV/MP4 and
  related formats.

It also seems to also work for Matroska. You can verify the behavior by adding -loglevel debug and viewing the output. Look for Automatically inserted bitstream filter 'aac_adtstoasc'.
See the FFmpeg Download page (Get the Packages section) for links to recent builds for Linux, macOS, and Windows. Get a build from the master branch: releases are essentially "frozen" branches derived from master; they are meant for distributors and those who need to stay within a particular API version. Releases receive less attention and get no new features so therefore they age quickly.

I'll give that a try. Honestly I should upgrade the entire distro on this machine. (Still running Ubuntu 14.04 on it)

@ElderGeek 18.04 LTS is 6 months away if you can wait.

Oh yes, I can wait. I have other systems running 16.04 that I can use. I'm still running 14.04 on this system mainly so that I can support it (without the inherent delays of running a VM) :-)

So are you stating that with a recent version of ffmpeg (say 3.0 or above) I won't need the -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc switch?

@ElderGeek Yes, but I'm unsure what release, if any yet, have the autobsf behavior. Releases are just "frozen" branches from master and are intended for distributors and those who need to stick with a certain API version. Most general users should use a recent build from the master branch. You can add -loglevel debug and view the output. Look for Automatically inserted bitstream filter 'aac_adtstoasc'. The docs say, "Please note that it is auto-inserted for MP4A-LATM and MOV/MP4 and related formats", but it also seems to also work for Matroska.

That's interesting information and certainly adds value to your answer. If I may be so bold to suggest incorporating it?

@ElderGeek Sure. Updated.

ffmpeg will happily rewrite the incorrect extradata for you if you simply copy the streams and utilize the bit stream filter aac_adtstoasc with the command ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc -c:a copy -c:v copy output.mp4 the resulting file converts as expected.
This filter creates an MPEG-4 AudioSpecificConfig from an MPEG-2/4 ADTS header and removes the ADTS header which appears was the root cause of the problem.
mediainfo reports the output file like this:
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom (isom/iso2/avc1/mp41)
File size                                : 137 MiB
Duration                                 : 25mn 31s
Overall bit rate mode                    : Variable
Overall bit rate                         : 750 Kbps
Encoded date                             : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date                              : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00
Writing application                      : Lavf56.40.101

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Main@L3
Format settings, CABAC                   : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames                : 1 frame
Format settings, GOP                     : M=1, N=50
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 25mn 31s
Duration_FirstFrame                      : 40ms
Duration_LastFrame                       : 23ms
Bit rate                                 : 650 Kbps
Width                                    : 854 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 16:9
Original display aspect ratio            : 16:9
Frame rate mode                          : Constant
Frame rate                               : 25.000 fps
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.063
Stream size                              : 118 MiB (86%)
Writing library                          : x264 core 148 r236 a01e339
Encoding settings                        : cabac=1 / ref=1 / deblock=1:-1:-1 / analyse=0x1:0x111 / me=umh / subme=8 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.15 / mixed_ref=0 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=0 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=1 / chroma_qp_offset=-1 / threads=2 / lookahead_threads=1 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / stitchable=1 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=0 / weightp=0 / keyint=50 / keyint_min=5 / scenecut=0 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=50 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=650 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / vbv_maxrate=850 / vbv_bufsize=850 / nal_hrd=none / filler=0 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00
Encoded date                             : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date                              : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : 40
Duration                                 : 25mn 31s
Bit rate mode                            : Variable
Bit rate                                 : 96.0 Kbps
Maximum bit rate                         : 217 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 44.1 KHz
Frame rate                               : 43.066 fps (1024 spf)
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 17.6 MiB (13%)
Default                                  : Yes
Alternate group                          : 1
Encoded date                             : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00
Tagged date                              : UTC 1904-01-01 00:00:00

And a diff of the reports shows the relevant changes made:
6c6
< File size                                : 138 MiB
---
> File size                                : 137 MiB
9c9
< Overall bit rate                         : 755 Kbps
---
> Overall bit rate                         : 750 Kbps
11a12
> Writing application                      : Lavf56.40.101
24a26
> Duration_LastFrame                       : 23ms
26,29c28,29
< Width                                    : 864 pixels
< Original width                           : 854 pixels
< Height                                   : 470 pixels
< Original height                          : 480 pixels
---
> Width                                    : 854 pixels
> Height                                   : 480 pixels
30a31
> Original display aspect ratio            : 16:9
37c38
< Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.064
---
> Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.063
47a49
> Format profile                           : LC
51c53,54
< Bit rate                                 : 98.5 Kbps
---
> Bit rate                                 : 96.0 Kbps
> Maximum bit rate                         : 217 Kbps
52a56
> Channel positions                        : Front: L R
56c60,62
< Stream size                              : 18.0 MiB (13%)
---
> Stream size                              : 17.6 MiB (13%)
> Default                                  : Yes
> Alternate group                          : 1

Source: https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-bitstream-filters.html#aac_005fadtstoasc


text:
Hey All, want to know whether this Animation is maden on After Effect or not?
Link:-

If this animation can be make on After effects then how to make it

looks like 3d software like 3d studio max were involved

@bukkojot thank you for responding the answer Ps I have some basic know how about 3ds Max can you give me the hint where might be 3ds max involve (In skull modelling or animation) thanks in Advance

3ds Max can be used in almost every stage, even in final composition

@bukkojot thanks for your answer and giving me the direction now know where I have to look cheers


text:
ffmpeg latency related to buffer not flushed
I am using ffmpeg (server-side) to create a UDP video stream which is then sent over the internet. When receiving the stream and playing it back (client-side) the latency is constant and about 1 second. When the stream is stopped and started again from the server-side, then when playing back the stream the latency is increased to 1.5 seconds.
Having researched the matter further, this could be related to an ffmpeg buffer not being flushed either on the encoding side or the decoding side. Can anyone tell me if indeed this is this case, or if not, what the cause of the increased latency may be?
Just to note - when I reboot the client-side PC, the latency is back to 1 second.

As ffmpeg flushes the pipe after a stream is stopped, the logical conclusion is that the additional latency is created on the decoding side. One solution that worked was to clear the standby memory. Am looking into other options ....


text:
Crisp Gif images
I am working on a small gif image and I am finding it difficult to get a crisp gif output. The final output looks all blurred. I am using after effects to make the png sequence and using photoshop cc to convert it into a gif image. Please let me know if there is any way to attain a crisp output.

The GIF format isn't made for crisp animation .. since true GIFs save every frame individually, you will have to use a ridiculously high bitrate and end up with a huge file ... does it have to be a GIF? A video format would work much better

Thanks for the reply @MoritzLost . I will consider that option.

Try folowing steps:

Disable anti-aliasing in After Effects
Find some fonts with embedded bitmaps (like Tahoma) which looks good after it
Output can be almost in every format with no  quality loss (for small animations you can even use unsompressed AVI), then you can join all it in ImageMagick, it can optimize your palette.
Don't use/try to avoid any shadows, alpha-blending or gradients
For smaller size, try to avoid to much image changes (as you have).

If you publish your scene, I can try to render it.


text:
Concat files of different encodings?
I have nearly 130 files that I want to burn onto a DVD as an end result. I've gone down a bit of a rabbit hole and ended up at ffmpeg trying to combine all the files into a single giant 2 and a half hour mp4 that I can then use avidemux to burn onto a DVD. Note that combined, the videos are 4.13GB.
If there already is an easier method to this, I would absolutely love to hear it.
I started off by trying
ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i mylist.txt -c copy output.mp4

But this gave a ton of Non-monotonous DTS in output stream errors. I figured (after extensive googling in a topic I am not familiar with), the encodings are not the same causing some kind of desync. I resolved to re-encode them all into a standard format and then concat them.
    ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i mylist.txt -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset superfast -c:a copy output.mp4

The video still has video/audio sync errors. I reduced mylist.txt to be about 10 or so videos just so I don't have to wait so long. The resulting log can be viewed in full here.
The main points I assume the errors are coming from are lines such as;
...
...
frame= 2340 fps= 69 q=21.0 size=  194048kB time=00:01:18.22 bitrate=20320.3kbits/s speed=2.29x
frame= 2375 fps= 69 q=19.0 size=  196864kB time=00:01:19.23 bitrate=20354.3kbits/s speed=2.29x
[mp4 @ 000000000060f760] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:1; previous: 3831808, current: 3520405; changing to 3831809. This may result in incorrect timestamps in the output file.
[concat @ 00000000006084c0] DTS 1226511 < 7174903 out of order
[h264 @ 0000000000559960] Invalid NAL unit 1, skipping.
    Last message repeated 1 times
[h264 @ 0000000000559960] no frame!
[mp4 @ 000000000060f760] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:1; previous: 3831809, current: 3521429; changing to 3831810. This may result in incorrect timestamps in the output file.
[mp4 @ 000000000060f760] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:1; previous: 3831810, current: 3522453; changing to 3831811. This may result in incorrect timestamps in the output file.
[h264 @ 0000000002820480] Invalid NAL unit 1, skipping.
[h264 @ 0000000002820480] no frame!
[mp4 @ 000000000060f760] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:1; previous: 3831811, current: 3523477; changing to 3831812. This may result in incorrect timestamps in the output file.
[h264 @ 0000000002820960] Invalid NAL unit 1, skipping.
[h264 @ 0000000002820960] no frame!
[mp4 @ 000000000060f760] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:1; previous: 3831812, current: 3524501; changing to 3831813. This may result in incorrect timestamps in the output file.
[mp4 @ 000000000060f760] Non-monotonous DTS in output stream 0:1; previous: 3831813, current: 3525525; changing to 3831814. This may result in incorrect timestamps in the output file.
[h264 @ 0000000002820e20] Invalid NAL unit 1, skipping.
[h264 @ 0000000002820e20] no frame!
...
...

There are also a bunch of Past duration 0.998665 too large errors but I read that's not a big issue.
I'm thinking now to use Vegas Pro and just render all the videos together in the timeline but ffmpeg sounds like the cleanest (and fastest) way. What am I not understanding?

So, you've got two targets there -- on one hand you said you want to go to DVD, and the other, you're encoding to H.264. Pick one. :)
Assuming you want DVD still, use -target ntsc-dvd
ffmpeg -f concat -safe 0 -i mylist.txt -target ntsc-dvd video.vob

Oh wow, never expected a response for this. Where exactly am I defining two targets? I ended up with a really convoluted solution that didn't use ffmpeg I believe.

Maybe I misread, but you started off saying you wanted to burn to a DVD, but then used ffmpeg to encode to MPEG4 with x264. So, one is MPEG2, the other is not. :)


text:
Only the first video clip I drag to timeline has audio
Running premiere pro on windows 10.
I'm importing 3 videos into my project. When my timeline has nothing in it, the first video I drag in will have audio. However, the second one will never bring in the audio with it. This is the case even if I'm dragging the same clip twice. If I delete all clips and the project clip that shows up at the bottom of the media pane (forgive my lack of terminology) then I can drag another video and have it show up with audio.
The only solutions I've found involve deleting the cache file in appdata, which does nothing for me. I don't know what triggers this problem, or how this could possibly be desirable behavior. What could I be doing wrong?

I have seen this before with camcorder clips. It was a bug in the codec used for avchd files. The workaround was to extract the audio with Adobe encoder,  and add it separately. I have not seen this since spring 2017. You might see if your deployment is up to date.


text:
Frame transition in sony vegas
Can someone help, by telling me can this transition, where frame is pushed up multiple repeatings, be made in Sony Vegas, and how?
Transition Here

I believe that the effect used for both the zoom in the beginning and the multiple vertical frames later on is the effect 'BlurMoCurves'. It's part of Sapphire OFX plugins and can be installed (and used) in Sony Vegas Pro. It's not a transition but thanks to zooming it can look like one.
The very last frames, when the clip goes down vertically, is probably one of Roll transitions which are a part of NewBlueFX plugins, also compatible with Sony Vegas. Here you can see the examples (the one I'd say was used is the second one in the Roll video). Hope this helps!


text:
Tripod Quick Release Video Pin Dimensions
I have an Industrial camera that I am working with and I want to mount it to a standard tripod that features a quick release with video pin; otherwise known as an anti rotation pin. While I wait for the tripod to be delivered, I'm designing an adapter to mount it and I would like to also include a hole for the anti rotation pin.
The Issue I need help with is figuring out the diameter, protrusion height and distance between centers of the video pin and the 1/4-20 mounting screw. Another Problem is I can't figure out if the video pin is fore or aft of the 1/4-20 screw. Does anyone have such a drawing or can take measurements? I've already spent two hours looking for this and can't find a single drawing calling out that pin.


text:
Premiere pro cc2015 preview lag
I tried editing a video shot on canon 750d @1080p 25fps.
I am using premiere pro cc2015 , windows 10 , Intel i3 and Intel HD 3000 graphics . When I import the video into premiere and play there is a red line on the timeline and the video lags.
Please help me out.
Thanks.

1080p is a large resolution. Based on the information you've provided, you're likely hitting a hardware bottleneck and won't be able to do much to increase your performance.

Is is pre-rendering problem. Look at the link in the comment to question.


text:
What should I do to improve the quality of the screen capture?
I'm creating videos to post to YouTube.
My videos are about some jobs I do on the computer.
I watched some of my videos posted and that the quality of the video capture was not very good and clear.
What should I do to improve the quality of the screen capture?
To use better software?
I'm using Windows Media Encoder

Windows Media Encoder creates files in wmv format (I guess), which is highly compressed. Make sure you follow the YouTube recommendations

Try to use OBS (Open Broadcast Software) for screen capture.
Screen Capture with OBS
It not best option, but it easy  to use and it free.
Best solution:
Capture to lossless codec like huffyuv, edit it and then encode for youtube (you can find tons guides about it).
It requires much more time to process, but you will get maximum quality.


text:
How do I align a multi-layered cartoon character in After Effects?
I selected all the layers of the character and opened the align panel and pressed vertical and horizontal alignment but the eyes, shadows and all the inner features of the character get aligned too into the center
How can I do it?

how did you create the character images?

Also, a screenshot might give us a better idea of what's happening


text:
.SRT File Import Problem on Premiere Pro CC 2017 1.2
I'm having some really strange behaviour of an .srt file when I import into a Premiere project.
First off, the .srt file defaults to 720 x 480 in size and 1000 fps. My project video settings are 23.976 fps. My sequence lasts 3:30:00 in duration but when I drag the .srt file over it only lasts 1:30:00. The timing info for all the subtitles are out of whack. When I modify the settings of the .srt file to 23.976 fps, the subtitles then extend to over 5 minutes.
To me, it's as if Premiere is not reading the data in the .srt file properly. Do I need to export it differently than just using Notepad (or similar), changing to unicode and saving the text as a .srt file? I really thought this would be a simple import functionality on Premiere but it's not.
Thanks for your help!

It's a Premiere bug. Try Subtitle Edit 3.5.5, which is free, insert the .srt, export as EBU STL file (25 fps works fine, it's time coded not frame coded).
Import to Premiere, interpret as open Captions, set the adequate resolution and..way you go. For problems with position of the titles and rows, play with 9 position squares in matrix (3 X 3), it will correct the position of both rows.

Is there any other subtitle format beside EBU STL that will allow closed captioning?

So I found a workaround. I was importing .srt files developed through Rev.com and then was editing them in Premiere.
The problem was each file was imported as a default of 1000fps and 720x480. This caused issues in my 23.976fps and 1920x1080 based timeline. I basically just exported the .srt files as Timed Text Files (.xml) and made the timebase 23.976, then reimported the .xml files and applied them to my sequence instead. Simple but it fixed all of my flicker/crashing issues. To fix the resolution issue you can just right click the caption file in your timeline once it's dropped in and click "Scale to Frame Size". This should scale your image up to the correct size.
If when you import some of your text is scattered or laid in the wrong order, try selecting all of your captions and reposition using the 3x3 placement box in the caption panel. This should reset everything to look normal for you.


text:
How can I mark or tag spots in a video clip during a live recording
A couple of years ago I reacll seeing something on a crowd funding platform.  It was a way to 'tag' or 'mark' a portion of a video during live recording. i.e. if you just had a sports play that you wanted to find, you could just "click the button" to mark it.  Then, later on, you could have the computer s/w search for the marks.  it seemed like it would be useful for sports recording.  Has anyone seen something like this?
Thanks for your help.
Mark

Adobe had a good start on something called Adobe Prelude Live Logger, but I think they stopped development on it.  I'd love to be told otherwise.  Curious what else has popped up in this realm since last time I looked.  Key search terms you might want to use are: slate, timecode, metadata, and markup, in addition to the ones you're already using.

The answer to this largely depends on your budget and use case. If you are a TV network, especially a sports-centric network, many media asset management (MAM) systems add the logging capability on top of their existing search, organization, and workflow pieces. For example, Dalet has Sports Logger.

Some cameras inherently support this.  It can be achieved via several ways but most generally consists of monitoring the timecode and generating a list of interesting time codes that are stored in metadata for the file.  The first time I saw this feature was actually a mark functionality that was built in to my Canon GL2 (pro-sumer SD mini-DV camcorder).  It isn't available on all platforms directly though (I'm not aware of a mark timecode feature on my Ursa Mini for example.) However, there may also be alternatives that can measure from either external timecode generation or by monitoring timecode on the output video feed (when timecode is included).
It might also be possible to use some other form of syncronization based on a simple stopwatch, however such timing would need manual sync for each file and would potentially drift over time if not genlocked since different timers can drift slightly over time.


text:
Decent quality video hosting for China
For most of the world, YouTube provides decent quality video hosting, and for those who want higher quality, there is Vimeo.
Unfortunately, practically all non-Chinese video hosting services are blocked in China, and all Chinese ones I tried compress videos to abysmal quality (in addition to watermarking it with their own name).
Are there any high-quality video hosting services that are accessible from China?

It wasn't clear to me if this question is on-topic here. If not, let me know and I will delete it.

Cloudflare recently started video distribution. In beta now, but take a look. https://blog.cloudflare.com/introducing-cloudflare-stream/

@Mulvya Thanks for the pointer, it looks interesting. But as far as I can tell, this is for people who are trying to set up their own integrated streaming, and are willing to pay for it. I am looking for something consumer-focused, suitable for a hobbyist: just like YouTube or Vimeo.  If I could find something that is as good in quality as YouTube, I would be very happy.  All Chinese services I tried (Bilibili, Youku, Tudou) look obviously worse than YouTube, not only for a trained eye, but for just about anyone looking at them.


text:
When does YouTube Reencode Videos?
I've got some videos on Vimeo that I want move over to my new channel on YouTube. I can download what Vimeo lists as the 'Original' files, ~2GB H.264 MP4s (20-30mins).
Does YouTube re-encode regardless of the incoming format, or does it just re-mux? I don't want any more video degradation than necessary; I figure YT will re-encode to optimize for delivery to other resolutions / bit-rates, but if my original files are 720p, will they get re-encoded / go through another lossy pass when re-uploaded to YouTube?
And to be clear, these are all /my/ videos (I'm the creator on both channels), so not trying to move someone else's content.

A size of 1GB for 10 minutes at 1080P will result in 'OK' quality depending upon the amount of motion, and to a lesser extent colors, in the video. -- Exactly what works and the results has changed over the past years without there necessarily being updated info on the YouTube Help pages. -- Triple that filesize (at least) to get pixel-perfect results.

Yes, youtube re-encode videos. You can see more information here, and find, which codecs most fits for youtube upload (in case you will make new ones).
As a example of degradation, here is video, which was re-uploaded to youtube 1000 times in 2010 year:

And with different content you will see more degradation. You can see it here  at 2:33::

About "When": Re-encoding happens right after uploading in the save progress-bar will be written "Processing"

Always. As does Vimeo.
You can as the publisher still access the original upload. That file is retained on youtube’s server.
But even when posting 1080, the public 1080 is a re-encode from your upload.

Do you have a source for this?

The videos you upload are always reencoded to a list of preset sizes. For the videos already uploaded you can see the list of sizes the original has been reencoded to by using some video download browser extension. This allows streaming an appropriate size depending on the screen size, browser window size, available bandwidth, etc. The goal is to save bandwidth.
The original is reencoded even when the parameters are similar with one of the presets to not send to the users content potentially with viruses, exploits, etc.


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Comparing audio waveform in a visual and / or numeric way
Aside taking screenshots of my favourite DAW software in waveform or frequency view and comparing them, what solution can I use for compare 2 audio waveforms ?
For example if i have 2 video with visual differences I tend to put both on a timeline with "difference" blending mode and check if the video resulting is full black or there's some kind of minor visible differences.
I'm conforming to EBU R 128 one waveform, I want to check if the outputted audio file is identical to the original, or if there was some changes in terms of waveform and decibel correction.
There are plugins, software ways (I'm using Adobe Audition) or ffmpeg commands to show changes in a visual and / or a numeric way (such the pnsr or ssim used for video) ?
The best for me would be a software solution able to show both the waveform with 2 colors and overlayed one over the other for visual comparison + some kind of numeric comparison.
Basically I'm looking for a "Compare / Diff" of notepad++ but for Audio Waveforms.

What about comparing audio statistics?

@LordNeckbeard could work but I want to actively see what changed in the precise timecode, statistic could show me a difference but not so precise, right ?

Keep in mind that loudness is always integrated over time. Generally the most precise you can get is 1 second intervals. That said, I haven't come across a loudness workflow like this before. You may want to re-evaluate what you are trying to accomplish and see if you can use the available tools like ffmpeg ebu r128 video option or the Adobe/TC Electronic Loudness Radar to do that.

For numerical comparison, amerge the two inputs, then use aeval to output their difference. Halve each input, so that the result isn't clipped. For visual comparison, I believe the showwaves filter produces a transparent background, so overlay one on the other.

You could try a SoX and imagemagick solution, which could visually diff spectrograms, for example:
# generate spectrograms with SoX
$ sox 0000001353.noframedrop_Lg.small_1_edit.ogg -n spectrogram -arl -o spectrogram_1.png
$ sox 0000001353.noframedrop_Lg.small_2_edit.ogg -n spectrogram -arl -o spectrogram_2.png

# imagemagick
$ composite spectrogram_1.png spectrogram_2.png -compose difference spectrograms_difference.png

This could give you a quick heads up if there is a difference, similar to how you do for video streams, however is not suited to precisely locating TC positions. Below is an example with one of two source SoX spectrograms generated above (10min speech), and its imagemagick comparison with the other (nonblack indicates a difference):

At this time I don't know solution to effectively compare sound. So, I worked on tool to solve my needs. Using fftw3, I calculated spectrums and make images like that:

Every color represents each channel. This sample from 5.1 sound.
Each color has 3 tracks: 1 file. 2 file (normalized to level of 1 file, difference of 1 and 2. Top line - level RMS and maximum level, bottom line - spectral representation.
I faced many problems, like different levels, normalization of both signals and so on. At some point, I lost my interest. Unfortunately, I don't finished this tool, as I don't need it anymore.
But I hope, this can give any ideas for you.