text:
Recommended format for a large embedded stop motion animation on website?
I have a stop motion animation of about 35 seconds in duration (~150 frames). The resolution is quite large at around 900px x 450px.
What is the best format to play this looping on my website? I think my options are either .gif, standard .swf, or convert it into a movie .swf.
What is the recommended approach to this? I want the images to have a high fidelity and I was hoping to not use flash due to Apple incompatibility.

I think that's too big for a .gif, so some sort of movie is probably the best answer. You don't necessarily need to use Flash--there are a number of JavaScript players that use HTML5: look at JW Player.

Likely the best solution is take your frames into a video editor, set the still pix time to about 0.23 sec for each shot as you indicated you wanted to show 150 frames in 35 seconds.
35 / 150 = 0.233333333
Set your project properties to 720p, (720 x 1280 progressive)
As you have 2:1 aspect ratio there will be some letter boxing.
Or a better match maybe to use iFrame format:
960 horizontal by 540 vertical pixels assuming you are using iMovie of FCP.
Assuming iMovie, render to .mov and follow these instructions to make it a .swf movie:
http://www.ehow.com/how_8245141_export-imovie-swf.html

It would also be possible to just upload the video to a video-sharing site e.g. Vimeo or YouTube and then just embed the video in his website.


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Lowest-Latency in Guitar/Vocal software-based effects?
What is (roughly) the lowest real-world latency achievable for the "roundtrip" from a guitar/mic input through realtime software-based processing and out to the speakers?
-
Bonus questions:

What apps and "virtual buses" (like JACK) are best for low-latency realtime audio-processing?
What apps and "virtual buses" are worst for latency?
Does "chaining" PC-based (either within a single app like Ableton Live or when chaining between multiple apps) effects necessarily compound the latency?
What is roughly the typical latency of "DSP-based" (not software-based but not analog) guitar/vocal effects?

I can't answer the main question, but I can give some guesses to the bonus ones:     For 1., I believe the better systems (ASIO, Jack, Core Audio...) all get to the limit of the hardware. There are differences in practise, but these have to do with the kernel and drivers more than the virtual buses. — For 2. I'd strongly suspect WSS. — For 3., yes, how could it not? There's no way the subsequent plugins could foresee what the first one will output after its latency delay. — For 4. I believe it is possible to get zero latency with embedded DSPs (when running with sample-rate synchronous clock).

source: Stack Exchange

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Automatic conversion/encode video for Video On Demand streaming
I need an automatic solution to convert video clips for html5 (mp4/x264, webm/vp8) and flash (mp4/x264) video-on-demand streaming. For a site like Youtube, just much smaller.
The input files are mostly h264/x264 but sometimes others (like divx/xvid) and have different resolution and sometimes contain subtitles (.ass) that need to be hard-burned. The output resolution should be 720p and 480p for >=720p video, 480p for 480p-720p and the original resolution for everything else.
The server is running debian.
I couldn't find any open source project, just some cloud services (SaaS) that offer this kind of conversion. I tried working with ffmpeg but each video needs a different bitrate to be still in a good quality and have a file size that allows video-on-demand. If the input video is bad the output video shouldn't be larger. I have no idea how to set the x264/vp8 params right and obviously I can't do that manually.
Do you know of any (linux) tool for this? There are many video sites out there, how do they do this? I looked at video files from youtube and they all differ in bitrate and file size. Or do you know any website or tutorial that could help me? I've spend much time searching for tips but I just can't find anything, maybe I'm searching for the wrong terms..

For a server, you definitely want ffmpeg. I would also strongly recommend compiling it yourself (those are Ubuntu instructions, but should work for Debian as well AFAIK) - the best AAC encoder available for ffmpeg (libfdk_aac) cannot be redistributed alongside x264 (because of the GPL), and the version of ffmpeg in the repositories is probably too old for some of the things I'm going to list here.
MP4
To convert an arbitrary video to an MP4 using libx264 and libfdk_aac:
ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v libx264 -crf 24 -preset veryfast \
-ac 2 -c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -movflags faststart output.mp4

Control the quality of the video with -crf: a lower number is better quality, but larger file. 18 is visually lossless under most circumstances, and 24 should be more than good enough for online streaming. Use a -preset to control the speed/size of the video: a slower preset means a smaller file (the presets are ultrafast, superfast, veryfast, faster, fast, medium, slow, and slower). See here for more detail.
Control the quality of the audio with -vbr: the scale is 1-5, where 5 is best quality. Actually, even a vbr of 1 should be good enough for your purposes. See here for more detail. -ac 2 means that ffmpeg will output 2 audio channels, mixing down if necessary; you only really need to use it if you think people will send in 5.1 surround sound audio or something.
-movflags faststart is required for internet MP4 video.
WEBM
.webm is a little more complicated. libvpx (the VP8 encoder) should have a crf mode that will work in a similar way to x264's, but it is currently broken. Unfortunately, you'll have to target a bit rate instead. For standard definition, 1000kb/s should give very good quality (in fact, that is probably overkill). For full 1080p HD, about 5000kb/s will give really good quality (again, you can probably go lower - try it out and see). About 2200kb/s should do it for 720p.
ffmpeg -i input.avi -c:v libvpx -b:v 1000k \
-c:a libvorbis -q:a 4 -ac 2 output.webm

NOTE - make sure you use libvorbis (the xiph.org encoder lib), NOT vorbis (the inferior internal ffmpeg encoder). Set the quality with -q:a: the range is -1-10, where 10 is best quality, and 5 is indistinguishable from an original CD. 3 or 4 should be adequate for online streaming purposes.
Subtitles & scale video
To hardcode subtitles, you have to first extract them from the original file, then use either the ass filter or the subtitles filter to encode them. Using the subtitles filter:
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:s:0 -c:s ass subtitle.ass
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -filter:v 'subtitles=subtitle.ass' \
-c:v libx264 -crf 24 -preset veryfast \
-c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -movflags faststart output.mp4 \
-filter:v 'subtitles=subtitle.ass' \
-c:v libvpx -b:v 1000k \
-c:a libvorbid -q:a 4 output.webm

To scale videos, use the scale filter. -1:480 means 'for the width, keep the input aspect ratio, and scale the height to 480'.
ffmpeg -i input.avi -filter:v 'scale=-1:480' \
-c:v libx264 -crf 24 -preset veryfast \
-c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -movflags faststart output.mp4 \
-filter:v 'scale:-1:480' \
-c:v libvpx -b:v 1000k \
-c:a libvorbid -q:a 4 output.webm

You can combine the scale and subtitle filters like so:
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -filter:v 'scale=-1:480,subtitles=subtitle.ass' \
-c:v libx264 -crf 24 -preset veryfast \
-c:a libfdk_aac -vbr 3 -movflags faststart output.mp4 \
-filter:v 'scale:-1:480,subtitles=subtitle.ass' \
-c:v libvpx -b:v 1000k \
-c:a libvorbid -q:a 4 output.webm

You'd probably want to use a bash script to detect the input height and test the existence of subtitles; I'd personally use mediainfo to find that information, it's pretty amenable to regex.
That should be enough to get you going.

Video transcoding is very confusing and there is loads of different options.
If you dont want to use FFMpeg you could try VLC
Read more about transcoding with VLC here
Otherwise FFMpeg (or some kind of wrapper tool) is your best bet.
By omitting the -vb option you let FFMpeg decide bitrate. There is also a few Presets you can use for encoding to specific devices and qualitys, like ipod640.
I've build a tiny java application that transcodes video from a que (using MySQL)
but a cronjob and a shell-script is also a good solution

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How to create super smooth slow motion clips in After Effects that will be edited in Premiere Pro
I would like to make one of those 600fps slow motion clips that can are on YouTube. such as this

. I know it can be done in AE but I cannot figure it out.

Are you only thinking about animation? If you are thinking about live action as well, have you considered Twixtor? They do have a trial version.

As 50ndr33 says, you need to shoot/capture at as high an FPS as possible. The more FPS the better the slow motion effect afterwards.
Kronos is also a great plugin, but as he also states - it has some problems when footage isn't linear. If that's the case, you should have look at Twixtor. It's a bit more advanced (and more expensive) but it's better at handling advanced remaps, and gives you pin-point control.

This footage was probably around 24 fps.. If you want to slow it down to 50 % of the speed you would need to shoot at 48 fps to be able to get 24 fps when played back in 50 % speed. If you don't you can see that it is a series of pictures animated. And if you shoot at 24 fps and slow it down 12 times you get only 2 pictures per second.
BUT, there is fortunately a great way of making the computer generate the frames in between the frames that are actually there! So you could make it generate 9 pictures between each real frame thus resulting in a source clip with a fps of about 240! If you capture at 60 fps, which is possible you can get 600 fps. And the magic software that does this is called:
THE FOUNDRY'S KRONOS!
I've used it and it works great! It works, as far as I have noticed, by making a vector of the two images and animating that vector in between the two images that it is filling in frames inbetween. All natural movements are slowed down perfectly, but for example explosions can look a bit fake becaue they don't have a linear movement, not in terms of speed or in terms of position..
I hope this software will help you on your way!


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How to technically tell if a video has been sped up or not?
If given a youtube video, where one part of the video is normal, and the other part is sped up so slightly that it's hard to notice... is there a technical way of proving that it is sped up or not?

Would you consider posting a link in your question to the Youtube vid you referenced?

I would but I was hoping to not go the direction of having a debate about whether or not it is sped up by visual alone.  I was hoping for some technical advice about how to analyze such a video.  If it is deemed necessary to post the youtube link, I'll do so.

Understood. As you know there are numerous ways time can be manipulated. It may start with time-lapse or slow motion right in the raw shot, and it may include further manipulation in the video editor, either compressing the timeline or stretching it. The range will depend on the video editor, e.g. Vegas Pro will allow a 4 x either way. When you have an instance where two things are in the same frame but moving in different time domains, aka bifurcated time, it should be obvious and usually the extreme as illustrated here: http://vimeo.com/29213923. However, your case suggests something close.

Thanks for allowing me to review the video. One one hand the crane like shots are a reference for the motion, these seem to indicate that the video was not sped up as the crane motion is pretty consistent. On the other hand after 3:38 when the piece picks up tempo, the medium and close up shots of the lead guitar show more blurring, which does look a bit unnatural. I think that since this was shot in a studio (less light than outside), the camera has to drag the shutter a bit and so blur would be expected, and faster tempo is going to make a CU of a hand appear more slurred.

@filzilla: if anything, there would be less motion blur in a sped-up video – which could actually be used to determine if it was sped up, albeit only very inaccurately (and, of course, it would be easy to add the lacking blur in post-processing). Those shutter settings really don't have anything to do with the studio setting, 1. in any professional studio there is enough lighting to allow good camera settings and 2. since the light doesn't change, neither need the shutter settings, and such change is all that could be used to give a positive answer here.

@leftaroundabout Well, as I think you said: You can very easily add motion blur on the computer, and as I said in a comment on my own answer, this is all about how good you are at speeding a video up. Filzilla: Yes, the cranes looks like they move persistant. But if they wanted to speed it up they probably moved the cranes more slowly and in the editing stage they sped up according to the crane movement?

Technical reason's why I think this video is both not sped up but looks unnatural.
Using the camera crane tracking shots as a time consent, I am pretty certain the video was not sped when the music tempo stepped up as the camera crane tracking shots that follow this appear to be consistent with the earlier shots. So for my eyes, I do not see a sped up video.
The key thing I think that is going on here is that this was shot in a studio with studio lighting. Even with bright studio lights the stage area is large enough to demand the iris to be stopped down to get the most depth of field but the trade off is a slower shutter speed. When the music tempo picks up the close ups of the hands playing the lead guitar appear to be more slurred which looks unnatural. The longer shutter time explains why there is this slurring or blurring.
Another element to consider in favor of the video not having been sped up: this looks like a live show, in other words, there was no post production, everything was done live as for broadcast. You can't speed up video in real time and match it with the sound unless maybe you have a whole chain of effects and delay lines which does not seem practical for this.

I would like to mark this question as answered, or give some thumbs up out, but your answer still strays from my technical answer request.  Again, I do not want answers based on visual alone.  If I handed this video to the FBI and asked them to prove it was sped up in a court of law, how would they prove or disprove it?  They would need some kind of technical proof to do so, and conversations about how it looks or about how its blurry or unnatural do not provide anything really meaningful.  I was looking more for something along the lines of analyzing frames, but I suppose there is no answer.

@Vigrond No, there isn't.. :(

What you are looking for is perhaps beyond the expertise of this group, Forensic video analysis is not something I would expect to get a solid answer on in this forum. However, you never know, maybe one of the CIA or FBI Forensic Video experts hangs out here? It never hurts to ask. Conclusion: understanding time constants, depth of field, slow shutter speed, and the possibility that this was a live broadcast are not technical enough to satisfy your answer.

There is unfortunally (or maybe fortunally) no way to see if it is slowed down or sped up if done properly. What you have to look for is their movements. I'm not a guitar player, so I can't tell if it is real, but I think it sounded and looked real.
If you study the people there you can see that they move pretty natural. You can see on several occations that they blink in normal speed, but you also see that the main guitar player looks from place to place pretty rapidly. But from
 my experience with the piano you do everything a little bit faster when you play fast. Because you need to look at what you do, and when you are working hard with your brain and "slowing" everything down to keep up the pace you do things fast. The left hand finger movement also looked pretty natural. If it was sped down it would probably have been unnaturally fast and awquard movements.
Everything looked like it goes in normal speed, even their foots. Normally you have a constant speed on your foot when you tramp the beat. Depending on how slow you play you just increase the time you have your foot flat on the ground. Their foots didn't look like they went up and down too fast. If they had sped it up they would probably have had a small brake holding their foots flat on the ground before tramping the beat again really fast.
Secondly I don't see why a spanish TV programme would slow down their footage or why a good guitarist wouldn't be able to play that.

See my comments above, this is precisely the type of answer I would like to avoid.  Technical answers only please.

Yes, I answered that, but I also wanted to help you out. :) "There is unfortunally (or maybe fortunally) no way to see if it is slowed down or sped up if done properly. What you have to look for is their movements. "

is there a particular reason why it is not possible 'if done properly'?

FYI: I am a guitarist, and the hand movements look spot on.

Yupp, so if you play the guitar and you too think it looked natural I think it's not sped up. The reason is that if you speed a video up you can use good programs or cheap programs. If you use AE you could for example use KRONOS to slow things down a lot, and it still looks real. If you use the right software and don't overdo it you can't detect it. Just an awkward example: Go through the alphabet. Note down the letters you can't say without moving your mouth. A ventriloquist changes these letters to letters you don't have to move your mouth to say. Example: F - Fabulous. If you thay Th

instead you say Thabulous. If you manage to say that naturally noone will ever notice that you really don't say Fabulous. Just listen to a ventriloquist on Youtube. You can't hear it even when you know their secret! If they are good at it, you can't notice. It's almost the same with video. The computer calculates how the video would have been like if it had been filmed in twice or half the speed. If you overdo it or the software isn't good enough, it will be noticable. If you keep it more suddle and use a good program, then it will be unnoticable.

What exactly is your point now? Of course a good guitarist would be able to do it in this tempo (the original version is rather more energetic, but of course that's Paco himself!). It seems highly unlikely to me that they planned to speed this up, but maybe they found out it was slower than intended when they listened to the record but didn't want to record it all over again, and therefore decided to give it just a little extra-push – as you say yourself, a subtle modification with a good program may well stay unnoticable.

@leftaroundabout I mean that we can't know, we can only assume. I believe it was not sped up, but there is arguments both for and against that, and I believe that the arguments for this statement is better than the arguments against. So, I think it's real. :)

Slowing down a video is a magic thing, but isn't cinema magical?

What we are dealing with?

Video/cinema is a big lie. All we have there are photos, called frames.

What we are looking for?

To "slowdown" a "video", you need more frames per second. Since they
  cannot be recorded again with a higher speed cam, the only way is to
  create intermediate frames, just repeating, or blending frames.

You should look for this(repeated or mixed frames), as a prove of the "slowdown" process, made by a computer. If you made the "slowdown" in the cam (shooting more frames per second) the process is smooth, and no prove can be extracted. Sure you should download the video to your computer to do this kind of observation.

Decent slow-motion algorithms will use more clever interpolation than just blending between pictures, so even when the video is slowed down to 1/4 its original speed there are no repeated or "mixed" frames. — Anyway, the question was about sped up, not slowed down.

lol. You right. My mistake. So, no prove at all. Sped up just steal frames, how u gonna look for this?

There is nothing in this that looks or sounds even slightly sped up. As @leftaroundabout said, the original is paced a bit faster all the way through, but also has that tempo increase halfway through.
While being a fairly fast piece, it is not challenging enough that I would anticipate speeding it up for any reason.

YouTube offers users the means to modify tempo. Accelerated playback exists all over YouTube. Sometimes this occurs when film recorded at 24fps is played back on video at 25fps. However, faster does not mean better or more musical. Our brains are good at detecting musicality or the absence thereof, but sometimes it’s possible to compare the length of a piece as stated on the original disk with the length of playback on YouTube.

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How to figure out video format by video sample?
I have a video file (30Mb) in some unknown format, hex dump of its header looks like this:
0000000    78  55  52  30  09  10  02  0a  00  00  09  09  22  93  00  39
0000020    00  00  00  00  bd  09  a4  00  a4  00  a4  00  a4  00  1c  00
0000040    24  00  00  00  00  00  8d  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  a3  00
0000060    00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00
*
0002560    00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  24  24  24  24  24  24  0f  23

I have a first frame of that video in BMP format, so I can compare encoded and decoded bytes. The only thing I came up to is that one pixel (RBGA) is encoded to one byte. So some kind if YUV encoding is used (?).
Also there are misterios 6 same bytes before each line and 7 after =) and header is 100 bytes long.
For example first line of pixels in video
0002560    00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  24  24  24  24  24  24  0f  23
0002600    10  22  0f  20  0f  20  0d  21  0e  21  0e  21  0e  1f  0e  1f
0002620    0d  1e  0e  1f  0c  1d  0d  1c  0c  1c  0c  0c  0c  0c  0c  0c
0002640    0c  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00  00

Corresponds to first line in BMP.
3960   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 0e 48 43 0e 48 43 0e 48 43 00 45
3980   42 00 45 42 00 40 43 00 3c 40 00 3d 3d 00 3e 3d 00 3f 3d 00
4000   42 40 00 42 40 00 41 43 00 42 40 00 40 43 00 3e 3d 00 3a 3a
4020   00 3a 3a 00 3a 3a 00 37 35 00 37 35 00 37 35 00 3a 3a 00 36
4040   39 00 32 36 00 30 35 00 31 35 00 30 30 02 30 31 02 30 31 00
4060   00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

I thought maybe my video's format is not custom and I could detect it with file or ffmpeg but both knew nothing about it.
So me questions are:

Maybe you know what format that video has?
Maybe there are tools to find it out?

damn, call Indiana Jones!


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Frequency of refreshing for a green wall
We are setting up a big cellar as a studio in which we will shoot with a green screen.
At this point we have two solutions:

Put in place a curtain which will be attached to a rail on the ceiling.
Paint directly the wall in green ( with the proper paint of course )

What do you think is the most practical?
Is there a risk to have chroma-key issues with the curtain?
If we opt for the paint, how often should we expect to have to refresh the paint?
Thank you for your help!

Practical or most effective?
Green Screen work demands the following optimazation points to have it be effective.

flat even lighting, no hot spots, no dark spots.
no shadows,
no reflections,
the lighting has to be bight enough to register the green correctly, aka no noise.

Additionally, to help avoid hot spots, plan on a fresh drywall/plasterboard for that wall and when fixing, ensure sunk and smooth plastered nails. This will help you get a consistent surface for the green.
A curtain if it can be expanded to be absolutely flat with out any wrinkles might work,
but I think this will be very troublesome.
Painting the wall with the appropriate paint would be more effective.
When to repaint?
Establish a base-line video test, that is repeatable, same lights, same object(s), same camera. Run this in your post production chroma-key video track before each production use, and it should be obvious if the paint needs to be refreshed.
Paint source:
http://www.tubetape.net/servlet/the-5/greenscreen-screen/Detail
Disclaimer: I have not used this paint, it comes with no recommendations.

Additionally, to help avoid hot spots, plan on a fresh drywall/plasterboard for that wall and when fixing, ensure sunk and smooth plastered nails. This will help you get a consistent surface for the green.

Yes, I agree 100%. I should have mentioned this explicitly and not implied it. Thanks.

added that para in for you then - is that ok?

Thank you for your answers. I am trying to make a budget estimation, so if someone is actually using a painted green wall, I would like to know how often, in average, there is need for paint refresh.

Thank you Dr. Mayhem. And, sorry I can't predict the refresh rate.


text:
Choosing a frame-rate for an animation project
How do you choose a framerate for an animation project? In this case I know the exact context where the video will be displayed (company's head office, on a 51" HD TV) and it needs to look  really slick.

I will write a simple answer.

You have specified the output device, a 51" HDTV but I don't know what camera, animation software, or video editing gear you plan to use.
Here are the standard video frame rates for HDTV as quoted from this WIKI page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-definition_television
Standard frame or field rates
ATSC table 3 defines the following frame rates for digital high-definition television.[24]
23.976 Hz (film-looking frame rate compatible with NTSC clock speed standards)
24 Hz (international film and ATSC high-definition material)
25 Hz (PAL, SECAM film, standard-definition, and high-definition material)
29.97 Hz (NTSC standard-definition material)
59.94 Hz (ATSC high-definition material)
60 Hz (ATSC high-definition material)

The optimum format for a broadcast depends upon the type of videographic recording medium used and the image's characteristics. For best fidelity to the source the transmitted field ratio, lines, and frame rate should match those of the source.
Although PAL, SECAM and NTSC frame rates technically apply only to standard definition television, not HD, with the roll out of HD, countries maintained the heritage of their former systems. HDTV in former PAL countries operates at a frame rate of 50 Hz and HDTV in former NTSC countries operates at 60 Hz.[25]
How to choose?
First identify the process by which you are going to animate your subject. Is it software or a stop action camera or both or something else.
Next, you want to learn what are the compatible frame rates and formats across all the animation tools you are using in your workflow.
Next, select the highest resolution and frame rate that is compatible with all your gear.
Next, make a short sample and then test it on a close if not same model HDTV that is in the "company's head office."

Sorry, I thought the After Effects tag made it clear that is the program I was talking about. Anyway, the whole animation will be created within After Effects with static elements drawn in Illustrator, no actual camera work.

So then determine if you are NTSC or PAL, and set your project to 1920 x 1080 progressive. BTW: the tag was implicit, I wanted something more explicit.


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Best transcoding path using Sorenson Squeeze for AVCHD video?
We have some AVCHD files (MPEG 4, 1280x720 H.264, AAC) that we have had a world of trouble editing with Premiere Elements. The main problem is that the audio and video get out of sync. Reviewing this question on the Adobe forums, the likely issue seems to be that Premiere Elements doesn't import some MPEG 4 formats correctly and Adobe recommends transcoding.
We have Sorenson Squeeze 7 in-house (we're using simple iMacs), so my first thought is to simply transcode. The question is what format is best from an editing (and preservation) standpoint. I am currently trying the AVI "NTSC DV" format, since I =think= that's what we get off mini-DV tapes, but I would hate to be throwing away resolution or image/sound quality if there is a more recent, non-lossy format that we should be using. I'm also quite open to upgrading to Sorenson Squeeze 8, purchasing/installing a different transcoder, and/or going to a professional video editing platform--although the latter seems to be a waste. We pretty much exclusively generate flash and MP4 clips from our source files--simplest editing, rarely use any sort of effects (and nobody here knows video editing more sophisticated than what can be done with iMovie--ie., home movie production).
So, my primary goal is to generate reasonably good clips today, and to be saving master files in the best, stable, long-term "archival" format that is accessible without specialized equipment.

With NTSC DV format (854x480), you are throwing away resolution. I'd suggest I-frames only MPEG2 with a good bitrate (about 5MB/s). I don't know Squeeze, so I don't know what parameters are available. If you post a screenshot of the export/convert dialog, I may be of help.

Remember that MPEG is lossy, so for long-term archival purposes, no MPEG level is going to be desirable. We are currently exploring Metroska (sp?).

You have two different goals: 1)editing and 2)archival. Any transcoding except to a lossless codec like Lagarith or HuffYUV or uncompressed YUV/RGB will generate further loss. But these formats won't make for smoother editing on your platform. So, your optimal choice is to keep the source format for archival purposes, and generate intermediate files for editing purposes. For which, my answer above still stands.

You are correct that there are two separate goals. But I'm not sure that points to editing in a lossy format such as MPEG. It sounds like I need to talk with the folks at the local public broadcast station and see what they do in terms of standards and editing platforms.

It's not the different goals which point to using MPEG-2 as intermediate, but the lack of horsepower in your editing rigs and the use of Premiere Elements. Pro workflows on Avid Media Composer use Avid DNxHD codec as intermediate, which isn't lossless, and on FCP use Apple ProRes, which also isn't lossless. Premiere Pro works with a lot of formats natively, else a 3rd-party codec like Cineform is used, which also isn't lossless. All that said, do let us know what the station recommends.

Here's a comparison link for digestion.


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How To See The Dimension Of A Still Image in Adobe Premier
I added an Image to a video layer, by default premier scaled it up 323x its original size. I want to be able to see the resulting dimension in pixels. Is there a way to see dimensions of an element in a scene. Same question applies to titles. If i add a title to a video layer, and i scale it, is there a way to see what the resulting pixel dimension is.


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Making a gif from a video
I have a video clip that I want to convert to gif. I used this app: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/gifbrewery/id435989461
But I couldn't figure out how to make a gif that's the proper speed. The default preview they showed had way too many frames missing, so i increased the frame count. But once I did that the gif played way too slowly. How do I make the gif speed simply the same speed as the original video?
I also used MPEG Streamclip to export to PNGs so I can use GIMP to create the GIF. Same problem, couldn't create a proper speed GIF.

The GIMP has a GIF Animation Package that can convert MP4 to gif.
You can just use the Split Video into Frames function, which will split each frame into a layer in GIMP.
Then when you Save As, select .gif and choose Save as Animation.
Photoshop has a similar function, but I haven't used it for a while now.

Depending on the format you might be able to use MEncoder or ImageMagick, both of which are installable via MacPorts.

You could try GifNinja.
It is web based.


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putting 24/7 live radio on website
I am trying to figure out how to put a live radio player in a website, for broadcasting from my home studio. I also want to open it up so other people can also broadcast to the website from their homes with minimal setup (maybe through skype?). Not massive amounts of people - it will be just a friends thing to start with. Other features I'd like to implement are being able to switch between live broadcast mode and playing files hosted on the server (or elsewhere, e.g Soundcloud), as well as live broadcasts being automatically recorded and made available for downloading.
I don't know if there's anything out there that does all of that, even though it seems a fairly standard set of requirements, but if there isn't I'd also like to ask for suggestions of how I could piece all this together, since I've no idea how live audio works!
If there really is nothing like that, maybe I could start an open source project and make it happen.

Lithiumhosting is a great provider of streaming audio over the internet. They are pretty cheap too. I use their webservers and I am very pleased with their service!
As to what softwares you should use. It depends on how much money you are willing to put into it. A good way of doing it would be to use an analog mixing board and send the audio into the streaming computer. But you could as well do it on the computer. Again, it depends on how much money you are willing to put into it. Go to Google and study each software in depth. There are dozens of them.
Good luck!

lithiumhosting looks great, I will definitely give that a try!
About what software to use, I can figure that out, I'll do it quite low-key and maybe if I feel like it eventually patch my own sollution together. Soundboards are a definite must!


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Video Output to TV is shutting down on full speed playback of video, or split screen display
I've got a client at a golf course with software that captures videos from two cameras.  One video is from down the line and the other is from straight on.  They have two physical displays, 1 computer monitor connected via VGA and a big screen TV connected via HDMI (DVI to HDMI converter).
Recently, the video card went out on this computer, so I replaced it.  Everything is working except for two instances.

If the user selects a 'split screen' display (showing the input from each camera side-by-side), the TV display goes black.  When you go back to another display that works, the TV briefly displays the split screen as it should have, but then switches to the new type of display selected.
If the user selects a previously recorded video and plays it back full speed, again the TV display goes black.  However, if you pause the video it will display fine on the TV. You can also play it in slow motion and it will display. Only full speed playback causes the issue.

I'm trying to troubleshoot this to the best of my ability before doing anything else.  I've considered buying a better video card to see if this is the problem, but I don't want to do that until I've eliminated any other possible issues.
Thanks in advance,
Jeff

Assuming that everything worked fine before you replaced the video card, did the software vendor recommend a video card for this set up? if not, does the software vendor provide a list of supported video cards? Does your new card fall in this list?
I highly suspect that the replacement card has a compatibility issue with the "capture" software. Have you contacted technical support for the software vendor?
It is possible there is also a driver conflict or that when you replaced the video card you did not provide the correct driver. Assuming this is a PC running Windows, did you check the 'device manager' to see if there are any yellow or red flags?
How to check the device manager, one way. Start-->right click on 'my computer', then choose 'manage' from the drop down menu, a 2 pane window will appear, click on device manager in the left pane, look for details in the right pane.

Yes, they recommend ATI or nVidea. The new card is ATI.  I am working with them, but it's slow support (24 hour response time).  There aren't any device conflicts. I downloaded the latest driver from the manuf. website. I think I'll get a new upgraded card, a different brand ATI card and see if it works. I'll update once I get more info.

Sounds good. Am I correct that you are running Windows on a PC?

Yes, Windows Vista on a PC. The software is V1 Pro from www.V1Sports.com


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Changing position creates loss of quality in Premiere Pro CS5
I have a Premiere Pro (CS5) project with raw files that are of good quality (image looks sharp), etc. When I export it, no matter what settings, it looks worse. At first I thought it was an OS X vs. Windows problems, but eventually I pinpointed the problem:
Clips for which I changed the position (slight moves up or down to better center the frame), without any further effect, result in a noticeable loss of quality (even without ANY encoder).
Did anyone encounter such a thing?
Do you know of a way to solve this?

Can you link to some samples of before and after for both moved and unmoved video?

Are you moving whole pixels? Moving half/partial pixels would result in anti-aliasing as the program blends adjacent pixels to make the correct colour.

This is most likely a resampling problem like @nchpmn suggests. It could also have to do with the codec you're using for your output. If you're using a 4:2:2 or other chroma-subsampling codec, you can also see degradation in the resolution of the outputs. It can be particularly noticeable in the saturated reds and blues.


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How can I reuse an effect sequence in FCPX?
I'm creating a video for my son's fifth grade class that has a large number of interview clips. In each interview, I want to show a split-screen effect with a still photo on one side and a video of the interview on the other side. I have worked out the effect I want with some transitions, a title, cropping and a couple of key frames.
But I want to reuse this sequence across interviews for over 100 kids. Is there a way to create a template or a combined sequence that I can then copy-paste and then replace the source photo and video?
I apologize if I'm not using the right terminology, but I'm new to FCPX (and video production in general).

This is stab in the dark. I don't use FCPX but I do use Vegas Pro, in Vegas after you alter a default effect you can save it. E.G. while doing a split screen for showing an A/B comparison I save the "cookie cutter" option I had altered as an effect I could use again. Do you see any icon in the effect function suggesting it can be saved?

@filzilla Thanks. That put me on the right track but with FCPX you can't create effects. That's what Motion is for. So now I created the same sequence as an FCPX Effect in Motion and published it to FCPX where I can use it multiple times.

Use "Total Adjustment" it works like a photshop-layer. You simply can duplicate it for reuse with other clips.
How to: Install Total Adjustment. Open the effect-library in Final Cut Pro X. Select the titles. Drag the "Total Adjustment"-title to your project. Copy all effects you need to this title-clip. Place it above a new videoclip. Every video-clip that's under this kind of "layer"-clip will be affected of its effects and adjustments.


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Recording Video From one PC to Another
I'm planning on recording PC screens in general, including gaming and videos.
I'm aware of screen capture software like FRAPS, Playclaw etc. and have tested them out, but the increased strain on my computer is noticeable while they are active, even with extra background programs closed.
I'd read elsewhere  about a lag-free solution that sent the video to a second computer running the screen capture software, offloading the extra effort to the second machine and keeping gameplay smooth.
If I intend to try this solution, what hardware and software am I likely to need in order to duplicate the video output and be able to record it with a second machine? Audio recording won't be a problem, as I intend to do that separately.

In order to duplicate the display you would need extra hardware in your machine anyway, otherwise you will still get lag, so I would instead recommend simply upgrading your existing machine - it will be cheaper, and the spinoff is that you will have a better machine.
The machine I am currently writing on has a reasonable GeForce graphics card, quad core i5 and 8Gb of RAM - pretty cheap, but can happily use FRAPS on full screen (1600x1050) at >25 fps while playinng COD4 or MW2 for example.

I think I agree with Dr Mayhem, but something like the Intensity would do what you want. (Other HDMI capture products are available).

Depending on the resolution you need, I would use something like an Elgato HD 60 S to do this.
Your second PC would then only need to be fast enough to capture the data rate generated by this box - it only captures 1080p at 60fps, at a maximum rate of 60MBps. I've been looking for something similar for a project, and this is what many people have recommended to me.


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Want to try green screen with my elementary students. What do we need. Using Mac OS 10.5.8
I am looking to put together an affordable portable studio to use with elementary school students.  Doesn't have to be fancy just affordable.  Budget around $200.
I have seen some green screen kits with lights, stands and screen for around $130 - $200 or less. Could I get a decent screen kit for this cost? Space in the classroom is limited but would 6x9 be too small?
Would we need software?  If so, are there any free or inexpensive programs that work with Apple Mac?  Would Photo Booth be sufficient?  We do have a video camera.
Examples of how we might use it is to have background photos or pictures behind students while they do a weather forecast report.  Can we take our own photos and videos and use them also in the background?
Thank you in advance for trying to address this questions.

Summary:
Green screen work is not trivial, the quality largely depends on technique and good lighting, and at least enough space for doing the work you suggested. It does require software although iMovie bundled in most MACs has a chroma key effect (the software that allows you to composite your subject with whatever background you want including maps, other videos, pictures etc).
Things you will need to purchase:
A pro screen.
Enough lights (with stands and diffusers) with the correct color temperature to fill the screen evenly as well as light the subject appropriately.
For your situation I think you might get there on $200, assuming you have iMovie on your MAC, spend under $100 on a screen, and another $100 on enough lights do do the job.
Details:
Here is a good tutorial on how to shoot with a green screen:
http://www.youtube.com/user/tubetape?v=q3PZO_lCBkw
Here are some tutorials showing you how to composite your green screen with iMovie:

Things to remember:
1) The green screen has to cover the entire area of the frame you are shooting. That is you can't have the green screen half way in the shot or showing any edges.
2) The green screen has to be flat, no wrinkles, no reflections, no hot spots, and no shadows.
3) The green screen has to be lit evenly and bright enough to register light in the frame.
4) The green screen should be at least 5 feet behind the subject and appear diffused not in focus. (The subject should be in tight focus, and the background green screen out of focus to optimize how it blends in the chroma keyer in your editing software).
5) Your subject can not wear anything green and should not have anything reflective on them, e.g. jewelery, watches, glasses.
As you can see from the tutorials a 6 x 9 room may be too small. Alternately if you purchase a portable screen, you can clear the classroom, move your lights in, set up the screen and you are good to go. Tearing down the set should take even less time. Better to have plenty of space to do this right then jam this into a space that doesn't allow for the minimum screen to subject distance.
Alternately, if you shoot outside with indirect sunlight or on a cloudy day, you won't have to buy lights.
Suggestion 1: Take it in two steps. Get a screen first, shoot outside when the light is flat and diffused to get the hang of it, then spend the money for lights and go for the studio thing.
Suggestion 2: Should you use the portable set it up as you go method, once you achieve optimum results document the studio set up, where the lights are placed and aimed, where the subject is, and so on so you can repeat this next time.

props to the detailed answer!

@filzilla: once again, awesome advice.
I would add Suggestion 3: With the space you're describing, you may be limited to tighter shots; I'm thinking head and shoulders with a graphic above a shoulder, or perhaps a virtual studio image in the background. What I have in my kit for similar setups is a collapsible greenscreen: http://www.adorama.com/BD401S.html?gclid=CJv45Kf1z68CFSWFQAodyk3uEA and It's bluescreen on one side if you want to experiment with the differences between the two colors. That, in and of itself is an interesting exercise in lighting techniques.
Suggestion 4 would be greenscreen paint on a wall of your "studio". Grented, if your school is cinderblock and the walls aren't near smooth, that may not be an option.
When it comes to lighting, I've found that halogen work lights are an excellent way to light the screen. They're bright, you can use matte black foil to create barndoors and eliminate spill, and you can throw diffusion over them to even out the harshness a bit. When thinking about placement, imagine that you're creating a vertical copy stand. I usually place my subject a few feet in front of the screen (a luxury you MAY not have in your space), out of the spill from the background lights, and model the light to the subject as approp

good ones ! Thanks for the augmentation, note, green screens work better with digital sensors while blue screens work better with real film. Can you get halogen's with suitable color temperature/white balance or will she need to use the custom white balance feature on her camera (assuming she has this) ?

Good point about white. I've had good luck with Philips globes being "close enough" (within 100-150K) of each other. Personally, I always keep lots of pre-cut 1/8 CTB & CTO lying about so I can tweak as needed. However, with four or six of 'em on a 5x6, they blend quite nicely.

@filzilla Also a good point about blue...especially on Sony cameras. I've had good luck with blue on my Canon XL1, but that was EONS ago. :)


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How can I set clip color in Avid media composer 6
I select the clip, then edit->set color, but it doesn't seem to effect anything. How can this be done?


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Looking to intentionally distort video
I am looking to intentionally distort a video file. Filters and effects are not really doing it for me, they are simply too generic or predictable over the course of a 2-3 minute video. I am looking for something that is close to entirely random. I would like to still be able to decipher the video content (in some manner, at least recognize it). Having the video overlaid with all kinds of random effects (I am really open to anything, as long as it changes over the course of the video) is what I am aiming for.
I care less about it, but any similar suggestions for audio would be great!
I really look forward to any creative suggestions. I've done a bit of research and haven't got anywhere satisfying. I know this is probably a silly question.

John Rygielski is spot on. Yes, toss us a bone, we need to know what tools you have in your shed, e.g. video editors, or other applications, as well as your level of expertise on each.

Sorry, meant to add something about this. I have OS X/XP/Win7 and have access to Adobe Premier/After Effects as well as Final Cut Pro. I am not an expert in either, but am definitely proficient and have no issues getting what I need from them. Not sure if you are looking for anything more specific.

That's s pretty meaty bone to gnaw on, that should help a lot. Thank you.

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

It totally is. This is definitely in line with the kind of effect I am going for, but am looking to achieve it without uploading a video to YouTube 1000 times. Any thoughts on replicating it in a more controlled manner (not requiring me to upload 1000 times)?

Well, just re-encode the video over and over again. That's essentially what that guy did. :D

Have a look at AEScripts TV Distortion Bundle. It has a bunch of scripts that can be used to create distortion and artefacts on videos. Its just a matter of tweaking them to your liking and then keyframing the settings rather than just using a preset.

From AE Scripts:

DataGlitch: Data Glitch creates realistic digital image glitch    effects on the fly. You can control the glitch pattern, type of
  glitch and create awesome audio reactive image glitch effects. Data
  Glitch also helps you to create controllable compression artifacts
  with ease.
BadTV: BadTV    creates realistic analog TV distortion with control over    vertical,horizontal syncs and scanline distortion.
  Simulates VCR, DV    Tape and Poor Reception Television effects.
TVPixel: TVPixel is a plugin for After    Effects and Premiere Pro that pixelates your image into R,G,B Pixels    like a real TV/LCD
  Screen.
Dot Pixels: A native plugin for After Effects and    Premiere Pro to pixelate your image into circles and rings.
Separate RGB:    Separate RGB separates the individual R,G,B channels. Not only you    can separate them but you can also offset,
  fade and rotate individual    channels in a single layer. You can
  create many color distortion    effects including Chromatic
  Aberration.

Well this is about 9 year late but-

Please don't just post the video link. Add at least a short summary of the video content.


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Codec information application
I need to get video/codec information from several files (avi, matroska etc).
Is there any alternative to GSpot?
GSpot is outdated with lack of support for mkv, ogm, 264 ...
I already know MediaInfo (really good - doesnt go as deep as GSpot) and AviCodec.
Thanks in advance for your help.

I'm using VideoSpec occasionally.


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How do I remove audio from all files in a directory with ffmpeg?
I have a directory full of short video clips in .AVI format, and I want to remove the audio from all of them. I'm using Ubuntu 12.04.
I tried this command:
find -name '*.avi' -exec ffmpeg -i {} -an -vcodec copy {} \;

But while it did remove the audio, it also reduced each clip down to just a few frames. They are originally about 1 to 2 minutes long each, and should stay that way.
This might just be because ffmpeg can be buggy sometimes. Or maybe there's a better way of formatting the syntax.
In any case, whether it's with ffmpeg or a different command, is there a way I can reliably remove the audio from a bunch of clips without changing the video in any way?

Related: https://superuser.com/questions/268985/remove-audio-from-video-file-with-ffmpeg

I suspect you are having problems because you are trying to overwrite the input file with the output, ffmpeg just doesn't work that way. For a single file:
ffmpeg -i input.avi -an -c:v copy output.mkv

To do every file in a directory, you can use a for loop. For every `file.avi``in the working directory, this command will create an output called file-v.mkv:
for f in *avi; do ffmpeg -i "$f" -an -c:v copy "${f/%.avi/-v.mkv}"; done

To do the same thing recursively, you can indeed use find like so:
find . -type f -name *.avi -exec bash -c 'ffmpeg -i "$0" -an -c:v copy "${0/%.avi/-v.mkv}"' {} \;

you might want to use -map 0 -an to copy all non-audio streams.  (Without -map, your output won't have any metadata or I think even subtitle streams.)  Or you could use mkvmerge -A, and that will default to copying everything untouched, except audio streams.

Also, don't forget to quote '*.avi' for the argument to find.  And you could use -iname rather than -name.  I thought $0 looked wrong at first, but apparently args after bash -c start at $0, so that is correct.  I was going to suggest an edit, but it had to be more than 6 chars long, and fixing quotes was all that needed changing.

oops, just tried this, apparently ffmpeg does take one subtitle stream.  But if you have multiple sub streams, or other data streams, then you need -map 0.

I'd suggest installing WinFF, which is a GUI for ffmpeg, and comes with a job manager.
Basically, perform the task for one video and verify it's ok, then populate the job queue with the remaining files, and it will adopt the last used encode parameters and process the queue.

Thanks for the suggestion. However, the interface for WinFF, as far as I can see, does not have any particularly easier options than just using the command line. Put another way, they have fields where you enter in the command line options, so I'm not even sure what the advantage of it is. At the very least, I can't see any option for removing the audio from a video file.

My apologies. My original answer was Avanti, which would do the job very simply. Then I saw that you were running linux, and Avanti is Win-only. I had used WinFF a long time ago and is cross-platform and has a job queue. However, you have to form a preset by manually inputting the command line (not the case in Avanti). The reason for suggesting a frontend is that you don't need to worry about quirky syntax issues such as parameter sequencing or flag overrides or the like. If you can do this on Win, Avanti will do the job easy.


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What is/are the best free tool/tools for editing my videos?
I need to complete 4 specific tasks on my videos.

Stabilize.
Crop to Anamorphic
Convert resolution up or down to 720p
Convert to mp4 (H.264)

Can someone point my in the right direction to the best free tools to complete these tasks?  I'm using Handbrake to do all my -> mp4 conversion.  I've tried VDUB with DeShaker and Mercelli (not free) for stabilization.  Mercelli only lets me output to wmv or mpg but it compresses and creates a lot of pixelation in the process.  Not to mention it crashes more then Windows 95.  DeShaker is ok, but if the person taking the video moves around at all, it distorts and bends a lot in the background.  I can crop to anamorphic from Handbrake but it doesn't let me scale the videos up to 1280x720.  Is there a good free tool that will do all of these?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks
-Craig

Craig, it might be time to get yourself a camera that shoots in HD from the start. (That is if I understand this situation correctly). You're gonna save so much time getting it right from the start that it will probably pay for the new camera. There are plenty of point and shoot pocket cameras that can shoot both 720p and 1080p for under $500 but you will not get the manual controls until you spend about 50% more.

I have a camera now that does 1080p.  My company makes some very unique products for very specific purposes.  Most don't last in production for more then 3 or 4 years.  We have videos of some products that we want to show in the presentation from 10 years ago.  As much as I would love to retake new videos in HD, it's simply impossible.  The product probably doesn't even exist anymore.  I gotta work with what I've got.

I can dig that.

Adobe Premiere Elements is like $80 and does all that including stabilization.
I use Premiere pro on my main comp and you elements on my backup computer since I couldn't afford another copy.
It's not free but I've looked for free editors and you won't find anything free that does stabilization.
Elements project files can be imported in to Premiere Pro so you can work on something and send the project file, files and folder to a pro and he can work with it from there.

You can download a FREE 30 trail version of Vegas Pro 11 from Sony.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/trials/vegaspro
I've have Vegas Pro 10 and I have used these features: Stabilize, Convert resolution down to 720p, and convert (render) to MP4.
I never convert resolution up, it just looks terrible (see my comments above).
By "Crop to Anamorphic", I am assuming you mean to convert 4:3 to 16:9, I have not tried this with Vegas as all my originals are already 16:9 HD. So you might want to google for that part.
If you go this route search YouTube for tutorials on each item as it will speed up your learning curve considerably.
Caution: if you want to take a 4:3 SD video and make it into a 720p 16:9 HD it's just gonna look terrible. Why? Because you are asking the software to expand the resolution, this never looks good. It's ok to reduce resolution say go from 1920 X 1080 and step it down to 720p, that's just fine, but when you try to go the other way you are asking the software to essentially make up material that is not there.


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Display clip length on timeline in Avid MC 6?
How can I display the length in seconds/frames on the timeline? I know this is possible but couldn't figure this out.


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Checking duration of a marker-created subclip in Final Cut?
I just went through a long video clip in Final Cut 7, adding a marker as the speaker went into the next bullet point of his talk. I'm supposed to convert the clip into video podcasts less than 10 minutes apiece, either by posting each section individually or combining the shorter ones, so I needed to check how long he spent on each bullet point.
But when I click the disclosure arrow next to the video clip in the Browser to list the marker-generated subclips, there is no time listed next to them in the Duration column. I had to double-click each marker individually and drag the playhead to the end of the Viewer timeline for final cut to tell me how long each section was - not a big deal admittedly but I'm suspicious that I'm missing something. Is there a place in the Viewer or Browser windows I can get the length of each marker-generated subclip at a glance?

The reason you cant get the durations is because a marker is just reference to a point in time, not a time range. This time around you will need to find the durations manually either by opening the clip or subtracting the time of the previous marker form the current one.
You can give markers durations, but not as effortlessly as just placing a single marker while watching through the video:

Place a marker by pressing M then at the end time hit
  Option+M, this will extend the duration of the
  marker to wherever the playhead is.


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How to avoid problems when filming in a bath house
I'm going to cover a concert early June inside a bath house. I've visited the location and it's both quite hot and humid. The plan is to bring in at least three video cameras and have them running constantly for an hour or so (there will be a Panasonic GH2, a Canon  HF10, and probably some fairly cheap sony video camera). I will also use a couple of self-powered michrophones (such as the zoom H1).
External power is of course something I will have to abandon, but are there any other tips what I should think of to keep this event safe and high-quality? What kind of problems can I expect to run into?

Don't slip on the soap. Ok, seriously, have a buddy keep an eye on the gear that you are not using so you still have it when you leave.

Get underwater housings for your cameras. Since it doesn't sound like you will actually be dunking the gear under the water, you can probably get away with the cheap bag-type housings.
To avoid fogging up the lenses, let your gear warm up to the ambient temperature, then clean the lens.

Would it be possible for you to clearify this last point?

Sure - if your gear is cooler than the ambient temperature, water from the steam in the air will condense onto it. This is very obvious if you wear glasses in the winter. As soon as you step inside, your glasses will fog up until they warm up. The same is true of camera lenses. So give your gear some time to warm up and you should have an easier time with the lenses fogging up.


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How can I use my JVC as a webcam on my HP pavilion laptop?
So I have a JVC Everio GZ-MG360BU handycam and a HP Pavilion DV2000 Laptop.
The JVC has three ports - USB, A/V and DC (for charger).
My lap has a S-Video port (Is it an input or output port?)
How can I use the JVC as my webcam?? Do I need a firewire or S-Video cable?
Thanks in advance
Kaushik

On page 31 of the JVC Everio GZ-MG360BU manual it describes how you can hook it up to your TV using the A/V or S-Video outputs of your camera.
http://resources.jvc.com/Resources/00/01/13/57.PDF
Unfortunately the S-Video port on the HP Pavilion DV2000 is output only.
How do you hook up the A/V cable to your HP when this HP laptop does not have separate stereo line in audio or an RCA type video input as is the layout of the A/V cable?
You may want to look at an A/V to USB adapter:
http://compare.ebay.com/like/120691660283?var=lv&ltyp=AllFixedPriceItemTypes&var=sbar
I am assuming that you want to use the JVC camera over the built in webcam that comes with your HP laptop because the JVC should have better resolution and a zoom lens?
Caution: The image sent to the computer from your JVC will likely have the status information text/graphics over laid on it such as REC on/off unless the JVC has a way of clearing the display.


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Cheap solution for shooting with multiple (>2) cameras in sync (genlock or LANC?)
I'm doing research into natural phenomena in computer vision, and I'm looking for a method of shooting video from multiple camera angles. It's likely that the subject will move very erratically, therefore any synchronization issues between the cameras will be a problem. Imagine a flame or flowing water, it's hard to say exactly but it's going to need to be microseconds rather than milliseconds. I will want to use as many as 8 cameras, ideally constrained by budget rather than the ability to keep them in sync.
The cameras the department owns are Canon DSLRs, however after much searching it seems infeasible to synchronize them, especially with this level of accuracy. Therefore if I can find affordable cameras that can be synchronized easily, we might be able to buy some.
The two options available to me seem to be genlock and LANC. From what I can tell, I'm not going to get hold of a single genlock-able camera for under, say, £5000. Even forgetting the genlock signal, that's too much for us to be able to afford one, let alone 8. The Sony/Canon LANC thing seems more feasible, however I can't find any reliable information about how to go about setting this up or what cameras actually support it which are available now. I keep hitting dead-ends trying to look into this, and it doesn't help that mostly everyone doing this is trying to shoot in just stereo. Can anyone advise me on what set up we'd need and how much it would roughly cost? Or if there's some other synchronization solution that someone would like to recommend? Ease and cost are the biggest factors! Quality of video would of course be nice, but something is better than nothing.
Thanks! And I hope this doesn't sound like a shopping recommendation question. While I do want to go shopping, I really just need help understanding the synchronization techniques, and I'll work out what to buy after that!

Ideally I'd love to be able to rent such things, but again cost is prohibitive. Nothing consumer-level (that I've found) has genlock, even the high fps cameras. And even 'high fps' is still nowhere near high enough to give genlock-like synchronisation with just a clapperboard. I still find it really hard to even track down whether a camera has genlock or not, it seems like an industry understood thing, which I'm completely oblivious to. Anyway thanks for replying to such an old thread :).

I asked a similar question in case you are interested: http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/12312/creating-synchronized-stereo-videos-with-2-cameras-at-low-cost

A year after posting this question, I'm getting a few extra comments and answers, which is really great. It is technically still a problem, but let me share what I've learned in the last year, in case anyone else stumbles on this page with a similar problem.
We came up with two inexpensive solutions to the problem which I think will work, in the right conditions.

Use a high speed strobe light. This only works if the subject does not emit light (unfortunately not the case for me) and can be placed in a very dark room. Get hold of a very fast very accurate strobe light, then set it to go off at the same frequency as the cameras, say 50fps/50hz. Then set the shutter speed of all the cameras to 1/50th of a second, i.e. the shutter is always open. Place the subject in a very dark room, and set the aperture such that the video appears black without the light. Then illuminate with the strobe light. The videos will naturally be synchronised, because the only light they get is from the strobe, and it happens once per frame. Difficulty is getting a precise enough strobe. But I hear that they are used in heavy manufacturing operations to inspect blades/wheels/belts etc, which can't be turned off. You light the tool only with a strobe that has analogue control, and slowly increase the speed of the strobe, and as you reach the frequency of the tool it will appear to slow down, and eventually stop. Now you can inspect for problems. Just don't touch it ;).
Use the vsync signal on the composite video out of the cameras. This is inspired by http://samj.snappages.com/. This signal is sent out regularly every frame, and with some electronics you can measure the difference between the signal on two (or more) different cameras. You can then power cycle the camera (or on some cameras, take a picture. More on that later...) and measure it again, and so on. If you are clever with the timing on the power cycling you can bring them closer and closer together to within a threshold. We didn't end up trying this just because we didn't end up building the circuit, and we figured this would just be too fiddly to work with, especially with more than 2 cameras.

As I said, we didn't end up doing either of these. We ended up putting in a bid for funding for a not-inexpensive system, one that is designed for this exact purpose, from a company such as NorPix. These are synchronised over ethernet and come set up. I was never able to find out how exactly (protocol etc) they use ethernet to synchronise, so if someone wants to explain that I'd be very interested. Last time I was updated, I was told we did find some money, but of course, if you know anything about academic bureaucracy you won't be surprised to find out that I'm still waiting for the equipment!
If anyone does have a magic idea that achieves true synchronisation inexpensively, I'm still open to suggestions.
To close, I will mention a strategy that did not work, in my tests. And that is the one on this website: http://3dfilmfactory.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=93:gen-lock-canon-5d-mark-ii-cameras-and-shoot-3d
Granted, we have different hardware, Canon 60Ds, and we had very cheap off-brand wireless shutter releases. However I have no reason to think they caused any noticeable difference to the setup in the link. I set up tests using an LED device, like Bokan suggested in his answer, and the average difference in synchronisation only dropped by about 1ms after using the wireless shutter release compared to the control tests, and sometimes it made it worse. I didn't do any statistical analysis, but I suspect it would not be significant compared to chance. I think it's very likely that 3D Film Factory either weren't shooting material in which they'd notice the synchronisation problem, or their more expensive hardware gave a slightly more reliable result which still isn't measurably that different. Scaling to more than 2 cameras, I'm confident that it's not a reliable method.
However, using the remote shutter release does reset the video. If you use the 'record' button on the cameras (or a remote), then it simply starts saving the footage that is already being processed. In other words, if you measure the synchronisation in several different tests without turning the camera off, taking a picture, or letting it go into power save mode, then the synchronisation will be the same. You could incorporate this mechanism into approach number (2) above: rather than power cycling the cameras it could take pictures until the vsync signals were in line. It would be a cool device, we just never got round to actually building it.
Thanks again for any suggestions. I hope someday someone will find this useful, and the months I wasted trying to solve it will save someone a bit of time!

This guy seems to do a HW hack with vsync to get a composite video into sync: http://letsmakerobots.com/node/29869

I've done 4-camera DSLR shoots with Nikon gear (D7000 & D3S). For our shots, we simply did a clapstick after all the cameras rolled AND just before cutting, so we had two sync points. Our longest shot was about 18 minutes long, and there was no noticable drift in sync in out post system. Although genlock is the PREFERRED way to go, I've found that a lot of digital equipment is ~close enough~ (heck, I've shot a music video with playback from a CD boombox and a constant speed (not crystal controlled) camera motor and it was SPOT ON.
For something that's under a minute, which your project sounds like, I'm fairly confident you won't need to worry about sync.
Just get a clapboard, make sure all the cameras can see it clearly and are RUNNING, then clap it down. Without cutting, jsut reposition your focus and focal length to where you need it for the shot. Capture the shot, then, again without cutting, zoom back out to where all eight cameras can see the clapstick, and clap. THEN you can cut your cameras. Sync up the frames where the clapstick hits in all 8 shots, e viola.
Good luck!

The issue isn't drift, but rather millisecond differences between the cameras that happen at startup. e.g. even assuming I'm shooting both cameras at 60fps, that means there's ~16ms between "shots" in the video. In the worst case, two cameras could be 8ms out and this would be totally uncorrectable in post, it's only possible to move one frame "left or right" without interpolating/faking a higher fps, and one frame is a movement of 16ms, so you go from being 8ms behind to 8ms in front. For a lot of subjects this is probably no problem, but unfortunately not flickering flames! Thanks anyway.

If your research involve some motion analysis, you should consider shooting at high FPS.
You'll get better synch by default as the synch error cannot exceed the time gap between two frames.
Shooting at high frameratee in high resolution cost a lot, but you can trade resolution for FPS on cheap cameras (like sports cameras). Resolution is often less important than we think. Computer vision has sub-pixel accuracy, if you move a white object on a black background the edge will be aliased (grey). If your software take this grey shades into account it can theoretically get a precision of 1/256 pixel width. But for this to work you must have uncompressed data because compression quantize color and therefore change the information.
For cheap synching solution I can think of this :

link all start buttons together electrically
build a led small device with several leds displaying accurate time in binary (one led per bit), show this device to each camera then manually synch the shots. Kind of advanced clap.

The syncing difference could be handled on software side. If you are studing motion, you can analyse it in 2D for each camera, then interpolate results from one camera to guess what was the position at the time shot by the other camera. Ask if this is not clear for you.
This software compensation is definitely the way to go. Especially if you have to compensate also rolling shutter effect that most cameras have. Top of frame is shot slightly before bottom of frame.

A high framerate is definitely preferable, the resolution isn't a big issue at all (although a lot of high framerate low resolution cameras also tend to have terrible image quality). But I was told by previous researchers (whose work I am working from) that wire synchronisation is necessary for their system. To emulate that just with a high framerate, I would need over 1000 FPS. Maybe I could get away with less, but really I posted the question because of lack of understanding of hardware synchronisation methods. We already have an LED device as you suggest. But thank you for the answer!

Remember that taking a picture is only about capturing light. You need as much light as possible to get faster shutter time and sharp pictures.

Right, and that's why the low resolution cameras tend to be terrible quality too at high frame rates. Although videoing fire does mean that you get quite a lot of light! We investigated software compensation, and that creates more headaches than it solves in this case. I am looking for 'ground truth', these are going to be used for reconstructions and motion artefacts are going to cause massive problems, even ignoring the fact that it would undermine the claim of being from real data. Also, research done into flames in particular has shown it is nearly impossible to interpolate frames.

FreeMocap has a way of syncing multiple webcam videos based on source time code after the capture and may be what you are looking for. Free but in pre-alpha.

I think the solution is rather simple,hold large stopwatch in front of two cameras for the first few seconds; during editing can easily be synced. I used this methods, working fine.

This is not a solution.  The correct solution is to acquire cameras that support GENLOCK.  GENLOCK ensures that the shutters of both cameras are in sync.  There is simply no mechanism other that that that can guarantee any consistency of synchronization based on any attempt to start the cameras all at the same time.

@MichaelTiemann is correct. As I've pointed out above the problem was not lining up the video during editing, in fact a single flash discharge is much simpler (since we were shooting in the dark). The problem was synchronising the actual capture of the frames themselves.
As I think I also commented the solution we ended up using was buying cameras that had proper synchronisation (don't know if it was GENLOCK or otherwise, they came from a scientific camera company and worked over ethernet). Also this was all 5 years ago! But I appreciate this question still occasionally gets comments...


text:
How do I.T. conferences record and synchronise video, audio and slides?
Our company has been recently encouraging knowledge sharing via fortnightly presentations (usually on Powerpoint) with respect to tools, technologies and development methodologies. We would also like to record some of these presentations to allow for sharing between sites and to new starters.
I recently watched this presentation and found the way the video triggers slide changes on the site to be a great way of accomplishing this.
Is there a definitive tool-stack that can be used to accomplish something like this? Or is this something we would need to develop in-house using a set of existing tools? How would you do it if you were going to start your own conference?

It is a tall order because it requiters combining many different technologies however university I am studying at have this kind of service.
Here is their main website: https://vips.liedm.lt/en/
Here is an example https://vips.liedm.lt/vflash/klientas/2204/2207/false
Check out recorded sessions to get controls in English there is menu call "Kalba" just click it and chose English controls will change to English.
It was developed on Drupal 6 and uses technologies like Flex and flash it uses wowza and red 5 for live video streaming.


text:
Tracking box to full viewport
Basically, I've recorded a video of gameplay on my DS console using a camcorder, and I want to:

Remove the shaky movement caused by me not having a tripod
Stretch the screen to cover the entire viewport.

I'm a complete newbie at video editing, but I've got Adobe After Effects so I figured I'd give it a try. My video is imported and thanks to a tutorial I have it happily tracking the corners of the screen. Now what I need to know is how can I expand that area to fill the viewport?
Any tutorials or other step-by-step instructions would be much appreciated!
EDIT: Motion tracking isn't quite working the way I'd hoped... If it helps any, the console is black so the video is essentially just the screen surrounded by near-black area. Any idea how to track that?

Tracking the corners of the screen isn't the same as stabilising the image.
Whatever you do, the stabilisation is going to reduce the overall resolution of the video, as it is going to have to scale up to fill the viewport with the cropped stabilised image.
Here's a YouTube tutorial showing how to use image stabilisation in AE:

LockNLoad is a plugin that can help with stabilisation, but it will still make the image look softer.
Alternatively Final Cut has stabilisation built in too.
The best option would be to reshoot with the camera on a firm surface, and avoid the wobbles in the first place.


text:
Extract section from Premiere without re-compression
Is there a way to use premiere like the hundreds of other "cheap" video cutters out there?
I need a quick way to select a portion of video, for example our source footage is often 1h long, and we need to cut out many 30s clips.
However, this needs to be a fast process, and we cant re-compress those clips on the export.
We have premiere pro, can this do the job? Every time I try, it wants to compress the footage.

What's the source container and AV codec? Is the OS Windows?

We need to know what @Mulvya asked, however also compression is how you export in any editor - you HAVE to "rewrite" the data into a new file (otherwise there is no new file).

I know this is an old question abandoned by the asker, but I use ffmpeg to stream copy (re-mux) sections.
Example 1: Single output
Skip first 14 minutes and make a 30 second output:
ffmpeg -ss 00:14:00 -i input -t 30 -c copy -map 0 output

This will not re-encode, so the process is quick and preserves the quality.
Depending on your input format the output may not be exactly from the desired time, but usually it's close enough. See the -ss option in the FFmpeg documentation for more info.

Example 2: One segment of every n seconds
Use the segment muxer:
ffmpeg -i input -c copy -map 0 -segment_time 30 -f segment output%03d.foo

This will not re-encode, so the process is quick and preserves the quality.
Note that splitting may not be accurate, unless you force the reference stream key-frames at the given time. See the segment muxer documentation for more info.

Cool, but the poster asks specifically for Premiere.

@kazanaki More than 3 years ago... This answer is really targeted to others.

You can export your clips using one of the lossless options (e.g. Quicktime/PNG or Quicktime/Animation).
Notice that this will result in very large files so make sure that you have enough space.


text:
Camera setup for quick preview/editing
I'm setting up an educational lab which is going to have a number of cameras positioned around the room. Ideally, there would be one button somewhere which we could press to automatically start all the cameras, and when we pressed the stop button, all the cameras would send their video to a computer in the room. What would be the best setup for this? I don't want to have to walk around and press record on five cameras, then walk around and press stop, then attach 5 USB cables, then remove 5 USB cables, etc.

Are you expecting all the cameras to be in sync too? If so what sort of gen-lock like system did you have in mind?

Well, that would be cool, but not necessary. They just need to start at approximately the same time.

Do you already own the cameras or are you going to buy new ones? I can help suggest solutions based on this answer. If you already have them, post the make/model, and if not, what's your budget?

If your cameras have a LANC port, you can build yourself a LANC controller using arduinos:

http://controlyourcamera.blogspot.de/2011/02/arduino-controlled-video-recording-over.html?m=1

Or alternatively get a cheap lanc controller.

http://pages.ebay.com/link/?nav=item.view&id=281983277383&alt=web

Depending on the camera you are going to use, like the other replies mentioned, there might be options to control your cameras as well through a regular remote control or control over USB.

Most newer camcorders can be controlled via wifi from a mobile phone or tablet. So the easiest solution would be to have 5 mobiles phones in front of you. Press record  on all of them and you are done.
Using the same technique you can also obtain their video.
Alternatively, you could connect the cameras to 5 laptops and then have a screen sharing program where you see all 5 laptops on a single computer.

a lot of cameras come with remote controls too.

You need a security/surveillance system, not a production solution. All-in-one security camera setups can do all of this. Consumer grade options can be cheap and decent quality too. I would suggest a surveillance system with at least five cameras, powered over Ethernet (called PoE, allows you to run a single cat-5 to each camera and nothing else), always on and record when there's motion only. With the right system, you will set it up once, then never have to touch it again. Just log-in over your network to view, download, or manage the videos.
If you're in the USA, Costco has some pretty good systems for fairly cheap prices too. Professional grade stuff can get expensive, but it's pretty awesome stuff.

Source: I had the pleasure of helping a friend install an advanced security system at my Father's house. This particular system ran from a standard PC with a capture card and special software, consisted of 8 cameras in two locations, and was managed locally over the network or remotely over the internet.


text:
Import Audio Markers or Cues to Audition CS5.5
I want to import Cues from an external source (CUE-File or mp4chaps Simple Chapter Text file) to Audition, or even better yet, permanently stick them to WAV files.
Looking through old documentation for Audition 3 (Windows), I noticed that there used to be an "Import" function for Markers or Cues.
This function is no longer available in Audition CS5.5, and I don't know if CS6 will bring any new functionality.

I had a similar problem I solved differently. It depends on your volume and workflow whether it suits. I had a few files marked up with labels in Audacity and wanted to import those label markers into Adobe Audition as marked ranges. I have a simple but manual solution, and since exporting labels from Audacity only allowed for a text file of timecodes I chose not to use Tom's solution because it seemed like there would be many manual steps in any case.
My solution:

Open the AUP project file in Audacity
Choose to export the labels to a text file (file export labels)
Open the unmarked audio file in Audition
Lay down the correct amount of markers (converting them to ranges in my case)
Copy and paste the time codes from the text file to the Audition marker window

That should do it.
I think it's quicker than rolling an XMP file by hand and converting my source material to WAV and back again. However if there was a tool to convert the label/marker text file into an XMP file and I had a lot of cues to import then Tom's method sounds appealing.
p.s.
I'm using Audition CS6 on OSX. I find it much better than Audacity overall so that's why I'm switching. Too much destructive editing in Audacity. I like having my originals.

And as I spent the last two days hunting down a solution, I'll share it with you right away:
tl;dr: Use this cross platform & open source tool by the US Government (ya, really) to stick XMP Metadata in the WAV File.
http://bwfmetaedit.sourceforge.net/
WAV Files support the "cue " chunk, and this chunk is written by Audition, but I couldn't make it read from this chunk, and related chunks containing the cue names.
But Audition also writes the XMP Metadata, including a somewhat redundant copy of the Cue chunk. And it will also read it back.
So, by generating an XMP file containing the cue information, and sticking it in the XMP chunk of a WAV file, you can import that data to Audition.
For example:
<?xpacket begin="" id="W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d"?>
<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="Adobe XMP Core 5.2-c003 61.141987, 2011/02/22-12:03:51        ">
   <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
      <rdf:Description rdf:about=""
            xmlns:xmpDM="http://ns.adobe.com/xmp/1.0/DynamicMedia/">
         <xmpDM:Tracks>
            <rdf:Bag>
               <rdf:li rdf:parseType="Resource">
                  <xmpDM:trackName>CuePoint Markers</xmpDM:trackName>
                  <xmpDM:trackType>Cue</xmpDM:trackType>
                  <xmpDM:frameRate>f254016000000</xmpDM:frameRate>
                  <xmpDM:markers>
                     <rdf:Seq>
                        <rdf:li rdf:parseType="Resource">
                           <xmpDM:startTime>18645250f44100</xmpDM:startTime>
                           <xmpDM:name>Marker 01</xmpDM:name>
                        </rdf:li>
                        <rdf:li rdf:parseType="Resource">
                           <xmpDM:startTime>69088263f44100</xmpDM:startTime>
                           <xmpDM:name>Marker 02</xmpDM:name>
                        </rdf:li>
                     </rdf:Seq>
                  </xmpDM:markers>
               </rdf:li>
            </rdf:Bag>
         </xmpDM:Tracks>
      </rdf:Description>
      <rdf:Description rdf:about=""
            xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">
         <dc:format>audio/x-wav</dc:format>
      </rdf:Description>
   </rdf:RDF>
</x:xmpmeta>

The format should be self explanatory.
If you want to write your own tool to automate this, follow the XMP specs from Adobe concerning WAV files and the XMP chunk, which, ironically is named backwards:

The XMP in […] WAV is in a chunk with the ID "_PMX", encoded as UTF-8.
  Note that the ID is backwards, due to a bug in the initial
  implementation concerning processor byte order.

Here's an iOS App that will generate Audition-compatible XMP files:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/xmp-marker/id525322095?ls=1&mt=8


text:
Automated Commercial Recorder
I'm working on a project and one part of the project needs me to create an application that needs to record commercials from the TV shows.
Basically people skip commercials, but in my case I need to record them. and for that Case I will need a trigger to let the recorder know that it is time to record!
This is one of the times that I searched Google alot couldn't figure out something!
Thanks for any advice!

You need to provide more information. How do you access the TV-show? Is it on television, on a DVD, in a video file? "Basically people skip commercials, but in my case I need to record them." Does the fact that people skip commercials have anything to do with the question? Please clarify the question so that we can help you! :)

Mythtv could be of use to you.  It will automatically mark commercial in points and out points in a recording.  You could modify the their transcode shell script to cut the program and leave the commercials.


text:
How to critique promotional videos?
I want to start producing short promotional videos for products, services, events, etc.
I figure the first thing to do is:

Know how to find examples of 3-5 minute promotional videos,
Learn how to critique the how the video expresses it's message, and
Access the cost required to produce the video.

Any suggested resources for learning to do this?

A quick google and the 3rd result is this article on how to write a product review...
Finding examples is easy, just do a youtube search or google "Canon 550d Video Review" or any other product event or service. Just add "video review" to the end.
I dont think you will find any specific tutorials or resources on how to produce review videos. Making good review videos comes from experience. Either because the producer has been educated in writing & marketing or because they have done it many times before and have worked out what 'works' and what doesnt. Just look at the reviews that are already out there  and model yourself off those.
Cost is simple: What equipment do you need?

Camera
Lights
Microphone
Editing Software (eg Final Cut)
Editing Hardware (eg Laptop)

I don't think "video review" is the same thing as a promotional video. Might do better with "promo"


text:
Exam Question - end-to-end delay from video capture to video playout
Hi I'm preparing for my exam tomorrow and I've come across a 17 Mark question which seems trivially easy, so I think I'm missing a key point giving the rest of this exam is fairly difficult. The question is below and my attempt is below that.

My attempt:
I looked up video capture on wikipedia and it defined it as the process of converting an analog signal to digital - so I took the point at which frames were captured as being after they were digitised. We are told to ignore the time taken for compression and decompression, so the next part is just to send the data. The total amount of data in the frame sequence is 54KB (I'm not sure why the frame sequence starts and ends with an I-frame to be honest - doesn't seem to make sense). So to transfer 1s of video will take 0.27s.
To be play a second of frames smoothly the the playout buffer must contain 25 frames minimum. The sequence of frames is IBBPBBI which has a total size of 54 KB. In one second the playout is 54 x 25 = 0.432 MB/s.
I'm pretty sure that we would need to make some estimations to solve the rest of this.
As always I'm open to any suggestions! Thanks for reading :D

You are not considering reordering of MPEG frames, I think.

You need a whole GOP before you can create any B frames.

There are a few mistakes in your math.
First, you are multiplying an entire group of pictures (7 frames) by 25, that would be 7 seconds of video, not one.
Second, you are not considering that the first I frame of one set is the last of the next, so it should be assumed that the sequence that would be used is IBBPBBIBBPBBIBBPBBIBBPBB...  It would make no sense at all to put two I frames together in a row, but sometimes the I is listed as an end.
Third, you are not considering the fact that a B frame is bi-directional and can not be processed until the next I or P frame is reached.
These three things significantly complicate the problem from the simple state you initially thought it was, though as this is an academic problem, I will leave the actual solving as an exercise for you.


text:
Which Text falling and flipping animation preset or plugin is used in after effects
If you open this video on vimeo.
Then fast forward to 00:56 on the timeline you can see a text animation where the blocks of text appear like there are being flipped and falling. I want to know what plugin or pre-set animation they are using in After Effects to achieve the same.
If you need more clarity on the question please let me know. Thanks

They haven't used a preset or plugin. They have animated it.
Achieving this effect in After Effects is done by enabling 3D on the layer, positioning the anchor point and then animating the rotation.

no believe me, its a preset or plugin. there is 50 odd videos with the same effect. I Knew it can be done via 3D and rotation but its time consuming. Thanks

I want to second OrangeBox's answer. It's not "time consuming".

The steps are literally: Set anchor point to the top of the layer, keyframe the X rotation to -90 degrees, add another keyframe for +50, then another for -30, +20, +15, 0. Then just copy those keyframes and paste it to your 50 videos :)


text:
How does the “AUTO TAKE” feature on the Panasonic WJ-MX12 work?
How does the “AUTO TAKE” feature on the Panasonic WJ-MX12 work?
Also, what is the purpose?

According to the Instruction Manual for the WJ-MX12 from Panasonic, the "AUTO TAKE" feature allows "A WIPE MIX EFFECT mode" to be "operated automatically without changing the MIX/WIPE lever."
This is from pp. 2 of the manual that you can read here:
http://tda.panasonic-europe-service.com/docs/2z4fd648faz3z1f340z656ez706466z35z6265ac2843a7c8785ba2cc5185b68bc80d0f9dea/ttips/Visual/Mixers_Edit_Controllers/WJ/MX12/727808/BMX12.pdf
On pp. 16 item 4 of the same manual there are more details


text:
Canon xf105 blending frames at 24p?
I just finished shooting some film on a Canon xf105 in 1080p24 on the 50mb/s setting with a shutter of 48. Every few frames it seems to be doubling the image, reminds me of deinterlaced blended frame. What is happening? I have twiked the fps playback in premiere thinking it is trying to convert up to a higher frame rate, but everything is 23.976 fps and it still does it. Could this be an effect of the rolling shutter on the camera? or maybe the camera does not capture true 24p and it is interpolating frames for some reason?

The XF-105 will acquire native 24p video, that is 23.97 fps.
3:2 pulldown is only added to the Composite/YUV and SD/HD-SDI signal interfaces during 24p, and 2:2 pulldown during 30p.
Can you upload the video seq somewhere, and I'll have a look at it for you.


text:
Does my Macbook display port support video input?
I have been reading through all these resources here and here . But, I don't have my answer.
My question is simply, can the display port on a Mac take video input source?
More Details:  I have

Macbook Pro Model 6,2 (Mid 2010) that has a Display Port
A camcorder that has HDMI output and NO firewire outputs.
A HDMI to Display port adapter.

I want to know if it's possible to use my camcorder like a webcam i.e capture live video for the purpose of streaming. As a primary test, I should be able to connect the camcorder and do a capture using iMovie.
Would this be possible? I am pretty sure input through USB won't work. And from what I have seen there is no easy way to convert the HDMI video stream into firewire. So, any suggestions?

No, the display port on your macbook pro is output only.
You may be able to use your camcorder as a webcam if it is capable of streaming video over USB or Firewire, though.


text:
Fixing a badly telecined 8mm film digitization
I had some old 8mm (16fps) and Super-8 (18fps) film transfered to HD video (1080p30).  Since the video is 30fps, they telecined it, duplicating frames.  The telecine pattern (from looking at the video frame-by frame) appears to be:
AA
BB
CC
D
EEE
FF
G
HH
II
JJ
KK
L
MMM
NN
O
PP
Which seems breathtakingly awful from a playback point of view.  It should have been something like:
A
BB
CC
DD
EE
FF
GG
HH
I
JJ
KK
LL
MM
NN
OO
PP
So my question is:  Are there any tools out there that can fix this?
My secondary question is: Should this have been digitized at 16fps?  Seems like that would minimize file size, introduce no errors (like I'm dealing with now) and let the playback engine decide how best to convert the frame rate (when needed).

For question one, the short answer is not that I know of with that pattern. Most NLEs today include tools to reverse 3:2 and 2:3 pulldown, and you ~may~ want to experiment with the clips to see if those help improve it. You may also want to export as a targa sequence. Sometimes this export has tools specifically built to remove pulldown. Sometimes not.
As to recording in 16fps, that's not really an option since video systems don't RUN at 16fps. The whole purpose of pulldown in the first place is to take a 24p (or, in this case, 16p and 18p) source and stretch it into a 30i destination. Any way you slice it, it's just not a clean transfer.
16fps should typically be a 3:4:4:4 pulldown, and 18fps a 3:3:4. Obviously, your telecine house got confused. Maybe they'd be willing to re-do it if you bitched loud enough>
While it may not be possible to fix the problem because of the transfer rate, I will share what's worked for me in the past with a similar situation. I had some Super8 and I transferred it frame-by-frame as a series of jpgs. I loaded single frame jpgs into my NLE, rendered out the jpgs as a file, then added a velocity envelope to adjust the speed as if it were 30p. A little cumbersome, but it got me the results I needed.
That being said, I'm sure if I'd hunted some more, I'd been able to find a function that would have played back these stills at a certain frame rate in the project settings. Or, since this was a few years ago, just before true HD was starting to make its way into NLEs, that funtionality was missing, but is available in current versions.
If the pulldown is really screwing you, and you can't get something close enough from the software, I'd recommend a clean transfer For safety, I would do a video file at the correct pulldown rate, and a series of frame-by-frame bitmaps.
Good luck!

Is there no useful tool (command line) to pull out individual frames from a 1080p video? If the individual frames positions can be derived, then a looped batch file with frame numbers is doable.

There may be some open source something of which I may not be aware. However, the problem is not pulling individual frames, but de-interlacing them along the way, too...and knowing which frames are full frames and which are interlaced.

When he said duplicating frames, I presumed it wasn't interlaced, but I see that I misread it.

Telecine, by nature, interlaces. That's why I hate it. :)