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How to parent a mask to another element in AfterFX?
I have this video whereby text is revealed one letter after another. A text cursor is moving along with each letter to simulate the fact of writing the text on a word processor.
I have separate animations for the text being revealed: a mask expands, for the cursor: the position. Keyframes are aligned and the animation is linear.
However, the cursor is overlapping the text at the start of the animation as you can see here:

I also tried adding a solid layer that moves with the text and hiding everything to the right of the cursor. That works except when the background is not a solid color as is my case.
So my question is if I can parent the mask's movement to the cursor, or vice-versa? Alternatively, is there a better way to do it?

If I understand you correctly, this problem shouldn't exist. The text cursor doesn't take any intermediate positions between letters. It is always stuck to the right edge of the latest character. You appear to have assigned a continuous translation to the cursor. Instead, make one frame jumps from old letter edge to new edge. Similar animation applies to the letter appearances themselves. Sorry for not tackling your Q. But, to answer it, "When you want one layer to show through a hole in another layer, set up a track matte"

At the moment parenting a mask or its vertices to another object like a null is not possible by default. Although it is one of the most wanted features, probably there is no official solution for this. But in the same link you can find a link to a forum post where scripting master Dan Ebberts offers a solution. This solution has some limitations though, yet it might work in your project.
My solution would be more manual, this is not the fastest way but it works. If you are using a text layer, try adding an animator for the opacity, based on the characters.

Then animate your cursor layer's position accordingly. Or better, parent it to a null and animate your null and use hold keyframes.
This option is better than animating a mask on text layers, as it reveals each character. In your screenshot, there is this situation that your letters are revealed as if a linear wipe is used.

Great help as always! Learned something new. Thanks Inan.

You can add another animator to the text for the character value. You can set it to force the character to be the | symbol, which is as close as spitting to the cursor symbol. See it in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwSm4keW8d0 (apologies for the music, that's what the producer wanted)

As of CC 2018, as mask vertices can now be controlled by expressions. In previous versions it is only possible through scripting.


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Comment about a video
can I ask you some comments about this video?

I'd like to do a video like that.. Can anybody tell me a good SW to do that?
Thank you

You have to be more specific in your question. For example you can ask what software is needed to do a certain effect in the video. Or what camera lenses you'll need. Now the question is way to broad. Besides that, SW is the least of your worries when you want to produce such a movie. Lights, cameras, actors and good production staff are very important.

What specifically are you interested in here? Which effect?

This is a lot of hard work by a lot of hard working professional people that obviously love what they are doing as witnessed by how easy they made it look.
First start with this really talented band that knows their material inside and out. Take a close look, do you see any other mics in the scene beside the one for the lead vocalist?
There's no mics on the amps, or any on the drums for that mater. You can't get that sound without mic'ing everything and their brother. This band had to do a heck of a job of making it look live when indeed they are miming a master recording--not once but for possibly many takes. These are both fine musicians and actors at work and that's what you get when you have talent in the hands of good a director.
Next you have a crew that is so good you don't even know they are there. Likely two or three live camera feeds otherwise you would have to have that band play it over and over again to get all those shots with a single camera. Speaking of cameras, likely some high end gear, maybe a Canon 5d mark II or III, or maybe even a Red or who knows but it is something that has some great glass on it. Camera(s) like this cost over 2K and as much as 40K and then add the cost of the glass.
Did you notice the lighting? Perhaps not, it's so natural you would think there isn't a light on anywhere albeit there are a couple of shots with that box light on the floor in the left corner. Then there's the post production color grading, this a pro job by someone that understands and has lots of experience in color grading never mind the software.
How about that make up? Wardrobe? The decor? Who did the location scouting and pre-production planning? Guitar and amp techs? Catering? Security?
There is so much more here that is significant to speak about than the editing suite. I don't mean to chide you or discourage you as this is truly an inspiring piece of work and begs the question: "how?"

Ok, it seems not an "easy work".. I had to work hard to get a result like that, with many people that helps me for lights and so on! Thank you very much for the "recap" of all the important things to learn.. Now I now how to approach this world!

I recommend that you watch more videos you like and see if you can contact the directors or others in the credits on more information. For instance, let's say you like the editing, you might address the editor and ask how he/she got a certain effect. Pro editing suites include Avid, Final Cut Pro, Adobe Premier/After Effects and Vegas Pro. Please note that some production companies will have their own proprietary software specifically written by their staff of expert programmers and editing designers.

To do a video like that you can use any pro or semi-pro editing suite.
But they will not enable you to produce something like that unless you have some experience in directing and in composing.
There really is nothing deeply technical required to do this, so unfortunately you won't be able to just buy some software and assume you can do this.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Will lens softness be apparent on DSLR video footage?
The one-line question above had to be vague, so let me elaborate:
Let's say that I'm using a Canon T4i (doesn't necessarily have to be that camera) with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 USM lens to shoot 1080p video. I know that this particular Canon lens is naturally not very sharp at 1.4, and this would probably be apparent on a full-size photo when blown up to 100% scale on a screen.
However, it seems reasonable to me that, even if the lens is soft, if I were to shoot video at f/1.4 and then view it at 100% scale on a screen, the video is still so small in resolution that the lack of sharpness may not be very visible, similar to taking the photo previously described and scaling it down to 50%.
In this way, I want to see if I can get away with using this lens at 1.4 and get results that look very good and really sharp, despite the lens's apparent natural limitations (and, of course, assuming proper focus on my part).
Does my theory have any truth behind it?

Your theory is correct, video is much less demanding of resolution than stills (1080p HD is only 2 megapixels). However you'll never get a truly sharp video image out of a Canon DSLR due to the strange interpolation/line-skipping that is used to produce a video frame from the full image sensor resolution, the result is always a lot softer than you would get from a dedicated HD video camera (or strangely the much cheaper m43 Panasonic GH2).

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


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Why not filming computer or TV screens?
I see this all the time: a character is doing something on a computer or watching TV. Instead of filming the actual content of the screen, they film the scene with a fixed camera and add a layer with the content they want to show during post production.
Here is an example (from a TV series named Underemployed, Season 1 episode 1 at 18:42).
In this case, you can see that the perpective correction is wrong (the bottom right corner doesn't match the actual corner of the screen), and I'm really wondering what I'm looking at. It looks like a deformed iPad application displayed on a cheap PC, I really don't know.
What kind of problems occur when you film an LCD ? Is it a technical issue, or is there another problem I'm not thinking of ? Maybe a logistic problem (like.. the actor doesn't know how to use a computer, or they should synchronize the actors play with the content played on the TV..).

The problem with recording a video display with a video camera weather LCD, LED, or old fashion CRT is the frame rate often does not match the camera. Artifacts may include a vertical bar rolling through the screen. Even if your camera can match the frame rate of the display being recorded one may still end up with moiré pattern artifacts.
Many productions find it easier to either cut out the display and add by compositing and masking another layer for the desired content. Another way is to green screen the display area and use chroma key to add the additional layer of content in post production. Not everyone is great at setting up the perspective correctly in post. One needs a professional video editing software that has the ability to alter the added layer with track motion that has x, y, z axis controls. This is not a trivial task.
Other possible solutions may involve the use of gen lock and frame lock systems.

OK. I thought that LED or LCD pixels stayed lit all the time when they displayed a constant color, but I was wrong; I'll try by myself and see how it looks.

By all means give a go to see what you get, at best I think you will see moiré patterns depending on the distance and focal length of your camera lens.

BTW: I was able to capture real time HDTV at home last weekend but the HDTV was only 1/3 in my field of view, but the trick was to bring the illumination down considerably to match a dark scene and to my surprise there were no moiré patterns. This video is not ready for release yet otherwise I would point you to a link.

FYI: Example where it worked, Low light situation where I was able to get my HDTV set to very low illumination with a camera shooting 1080i and rendered to 1080p here: https://vimeo.com/55295820 look at time makers 00:27 and 00:41 in this short video.


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Cluster laser stage lighting
I'm not entirely sure if this is on-topic here, since it's about stage lighting rather than audio or video directly, but I'll give it a shot.
I've been looking at various types of laser stage lighting, and I'm trying to work out how they work internally. I figure the scanning lasers (single fast-moving beam) work by firing a single laser onto a rotating mirror, or a mirror controlled by servos for more precise movements.
However, I can't figure out how the cluster lasers work. I'd guess there's some kind of prism in there, or some trickery with a set of mirrors and lenses that somehow "split" the beam, but I can't quite figure it out. My first thought was a fixed prism, but that wouldn't explain how these devices can spread, focus and rotate the beams.
How do these laser effects usually work?

The question as to whether lighting questions are on topic or not has been asked, though I don't think it's been settled.  There are a number of questions tagged [lighting], though most of those have a production angle.  You're a little bit in uncharted territory here.

The way most stage laser effects work is by using a holographic plate or diffraction grating which splits the single beam up into multiple beams.
[image removed due to a DMCA request from copyright holder]
These then pass to further holographic elements to provide shapes and lines, and these can then be manipulated further with lenses or mirrors.

That's pretty cool. So it works a little bit like the double-slit experiment?

Very much so - when I did my laser optics course we actually used double slit slides, but apparently now holographic plates are all the rage, and can produce from 2 to millions of individual beams!

I'll have to look into holographic plates. Might warrant a post on physics.SE, actually.

Any idea what a good search term is for finding these plates? eBay produces some undesirable results if you search for "holographic plate".

"holograph laser elements" seems to work okay

very cool indeed :)


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How to convert large iMovie-imported videos preservig aspect ratio?
I have a camcorder that does 1024x576 videos imported from a camera on a MacBook, using iMovie. But, those videos are H.264 encoded (I think), and that's not convenient for sharing where most of my viewers use Windows.
I tried to convert it of course, but every program (even Mac OS) think my video is 720x576-encoded, so when I convert them the aspect ratio is not conserved.

As you can see on this screenshot, took from QuickTime info, the "normal size" of that video is "1024x576". But all other programs, including Mac OS, only see the 720x576 (in the Format line here).
Mac OS :

Any Video Converter Ultimate :

SkySoft iMedia Converter :

I get stuck.
Do you know a way to convert large-width iMove imported videos to other formats preserving aspect-ratio ?

What about using compressor?

There is no trial, I don't want to risk 50 boxes... But thank you anyway

Are you sure this isn't an issue with non-square pixels? Any player worth using will probably deal with it properly. Why are you re-encoding in the first place? Because the files are too big?

I spent my eveening but finally found a working software. That's not a freeware :( 69 boxes, but it works so I'll buy it. This is Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate.

Don't hesitate to edit this answer if you feel that my answer is too spammy.
Happy converting

Wow, $1721.55? You didn't give much time for any free suggestions.

$1721.55? hell, no, $69

Duh. I assumed you purchased licenses for 69 computers.


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Software to combine two videos of the same scene?
I think this software idea seems simple enough to have been created, but it might be so specific that no one has done it. I'm just wondering if it already exists.
I'm looking for some program which takes two videos which have identical backgrounds (or nearly identical, there are likely slight intensity differences in pixels) and allows you to combine the dynamical elements of each into a single video. For example, If I have a video of a room where I'm standing on the left side of the room, then another video from the same view where I'm standing on the right, and then the program would combine the two so I'm standing on both left and right. I guess things like shadows and whatnot would cause some problems here, but the general idea shouldn't be too ridiculous. Does something like this exist?
Thank you much!

I thought I might expand a bit on the previous answers here. They're both correct, just not very informative.
What you are after is a technique often called the cloning or twin effect. As you have already stated, it consists of filming two different clips against the same background and then layering them over eachother.
This can be achieved in almost any conventional video editing program (even Windows Movie Maker and iMovie) - so which one you choose depends only on your own preferences and other needs.
However, here is a video tutorial of how to do it in Premiere Elements. This should help show you the basic technique. If you need more specific help with whatever other piece of software you want to use, simply googling it will give you some great links. ;) Also, if anyone wants to specific video tutorials on how to do this in other video editing programs - feel free to edit (or comment on) this post.
I hope that was of help to you - and if you need more help I'll gladly assist.

Sony Vegas Pro can do it but it is a bit pricey. In general, you need any video editor that supports masking and compositing.

Check out After Effects, this is a pretty easy thing to do within using masks...You can download a 30-day free trial at adobe.com


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What is a projector's "pixel frequency"?
I am looking at the specs of a BenQ projector and trying to understand it's output frequency.
On page 74 of the manual, there are specs for vertical, horizontal and "pixel" frequency. What does pixel frequency mean?


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Why is this ffmpeg command outputting such long clips?
I am trying edit out a two minute clip from a long movie.
This is the command I'm using:
ffmpeg -ss 01:05:16 -t 120 -i input.avi -vcodec copy -an clips/output.avi

I thought that 120 would be in seconds, giving me a two minute clip. But the clip I get is over 45 minutes long. It seems to be as long as from the start time to the end of the film.
Why is this not working and what command should I use to get a two minute clip?

ffmpeg is sensitive to the order in which you put the different options. Try changing that around (as Mulvya) suggests.

I found that the time after -t has to be in the format 00:00:00. So, for a two minute clip, the command is:
ffmpeg -i input.avi -sameq -ss 01:05:16 -t 00:02:00 clips/output.avi

This is a perfectly fine solution, except you should (almost) never use -sameq - it doesn't mean 'same quality'. There are a few cases where it may be useful, but it is very much an advances option (so if you aren't sure that you need to use it, don't use it).

And it was removed in recent ffmpeg builds - https://www.ffmpeg.org/faq.html#Why-was-the-ffmpeg-_002dsameq-option-removed_003f-What-to-use-instead_003f

Try putting-t 120 after -an


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Entire Track Velocity in Sony Vegas
I have created a video+audio clip in Sony Vegas. After the work was completed, I decided to increase velocity a little bit (final percentage ~95% original).
In the project, I have several audio and video tracks, each of which obviously has multiple events.
I can Ctrl+Mouse Drag each individual event, but it seems even impossible to do the same when several events selected (only one event changes).
For both audio and viodeo, I need only velocity changed (time stretch, but no audio pitch shift), and all event points (transitions etc) change accordingly.
For audio, it seems possible to go to Master FX and add Time Stretch FX, but it only affects audio.
How can I change velocity for each individual track (or, well, an entire project) with minimum hassle?
P.S. Sony Vegas Pro 12.0, Windows 7.

The best way to increase the playback rate for the entire project is to use nested projects: Start new project and add your original project to the timeline as an event. Then Ctrl + Mouse Drag.

That's a very clever trick, thanks. Can I find it somewhere in the docs? I worry about the quality of video/audio rendering, e.g. would it lose any quality if the first project has source video samples assigned -5% velocity and then the wrapper project has +5% velocity.


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Simple way of clipping video files?
What is a simple way of extracting a video clip from, say, an .avi file? An example: I only want between 1:05 and 1:35 of this video, and I want to save the clip as its own file. I have been using Premiere Pro but it has not been particularly efficient.
Thanks!

VirtualDub is probably the best tool for trimming/splitting AVI files (without recompression). For other formats, you should look for other tools, eg.:

Avidemux
AVS Remaker
etc.

You can use FFmpeg to accomplish this. FFmpeg is a command line tool that is used to convert and cut audio and video.
 From this answer I got the sample code which I have rewritten for your purpose.

ffmpeg -ss 00:01:05.0 -t 00:00:30.0 -i input.avi -acodec copy -vcodec copy -async 1 output.avi

Will this re-encode or not?

Does this work for .MOV ?


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DVD playback jagged
One of my DVD plays jagged when objects moves fast in the picture, I want to know what is this effect called and hope someone could give a solution. I have VLC. It is like this:

I enabled Deinterlace in VLC and the problem almost got solved, see the screenshot from the same frame, there is still jagged edges, but much better.

And I changed its deinterlace mode from the default "Blend" to something else the lines seems to disappear...

There is ways to solve this...its a field dominance issue, if the video is playing interlaced that means that it is in two fields, an upper and a lower.  If you can see the lines, that means that it is assuming the wrong fields for upper and lower and they need to be swapped.  A simple would solve your problem, try a free program like mpeg streamclip and you can rip the DVD and deinterlace it at the same time. deinterlace


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Preventing flicker when recording live presentations
Say someone's giving a presentation with the projector image next to them. What I see when recording this is the screen flickers, kind of like top-to-bottom scan refresh that's actually visible. What can be done to fix this? Recording is done with Canon 5DIII.


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Video editor with basic color correction for commodity hardware?
I have been using Adobe Premier Pro and After Effects on my main Core i7 machine for actual videos, but I would like to know which Non-linear video editor would work best for some of my slower machines.
For some videos all I really need is the ability to trim clips and do basic color-correction.
It seems Adobe CS4 software is a little too much for my dual core (even my Core 2 Quad) machines. I was thinking about installing OSX on some of them and using something more basic like iMovie, or trying some other software like Sony Vegas.
What are my choices for this? I run ubuntu, Windows XP-7, and OSX 10.6.x.


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How to do a "deep" / full copy of a nested sequence in Premiere Pro CS6? (i.e. constituent components are all copied)
I created a title sequence: title, with glow/fade in then fade out and made this into a nested sequence. I wanted to reuse this nested sequence in other parts of my project, but use different text content for the title in each of the other instances.
So, I copied the nested sequence several times. But when I changed the title to different text, this affected all of the nested sequence copies. So it seems that the copy creates a new 'container' but references the same components (e.g. title) as the original.
So I'm looking for a way to entirely copy a nested sequence and make duplicates of all the consituent components. Is there a way?
By the way, there seem to be three different ways to make a copy: from the contextual pop-up menu for a sequence there is 'Copy', 'Duplicate' and another method (name escapes me at the moment). I've tried all three and none of them solve my problem. I'm hoping that there is a check box somewhere that I can tick/enable to say 'copy all components'.

Duplicate both your Title and your sequence, call one sequence V1...and the other V2, then take your title and call it Title V1 and title V2...then replace the title in sequence 2 with V2, then from that point on any changes made within the V1 side will not affect V2 and vise versa.

Understood and thanks. However my preference was that when Premiere Pro is copying a sequence, that it would also make true, independent copies of the components that the copy of the sequence should contain. It's inconvenient that this has to be considered manually by the user.

Yea unfortunately it just doesn't work that way...your looking for the FCP way, this is the AVID way of thinking where the title essentially is its own footage, if you want to different versions of a title, much like too different takes of a shot, then you literally need two versions of that title.

+1 and accepted - it tells me that what I want is not quite possible (yet). Thanks. Which version of FCP by the way do we see this in? I also have FCP 7 - the last (I think) version before X.

Yes when you use FCP and you duplicate a sequence everything is copied, with the exception of nested sequences, if you change a nested sequence it will change in both, but I do not recommend using nesting sequences if it can be avoided

I also have an idea, if your sequence and titles are too complicated you can save a copy of your project and then import a sequence from it to the main project.
It's best possible solution to copy title I've found with motion titles templates.

I voted for this answer, giving you the benefit of the doubt.  It is a correct answer.  But it can be worded better, to be a more authoritative answer.  Please do edit it, writing as if you have an explanation to give, not just a hunch.

I also bumped into this issue and couldn't find a way to create a true copy of a text layer that contains effects, etc. However, there is a way around this, it still adds 1 step to the process, but it's better than most solutions I found.
So, duplicate your title, rename then go to the original title, choose it on the timeline, copy it. Then go back to the new title you just made, right click and choose " paste attributes " from the top of the list.
There, you have the same effects on a new line of text. Lemme know if you guys find an easier method.
cheers

We created an extension for easy and true duplication of sequences, and it's create unique copies of all items included the sequence with custom settings of naming.
https://aescripts.com/duplicate-it/

Bought it. Used it. Friggin love it. Thank you.

Save a copy of the file and import the nest, that way they are independent

Thanks for your contribution. Don't hesitate to leave detailed instructions on what to do, next time though, with a breakdown of the steps one should take (where to click, etc) to achieve what you describe.

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


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4K camcorder question
Nowadays I am using 1920 x 1080 for all my videos/projects using Sony PMW-100.
I would like to start making more detailed stuff in a year or two.
Specifically in the mid-late 2014 I have a plan to make a documentary film.
I would like to use similar small camcoder but wit hthe higher resolution 4096 × 2304.
Do you think that some camcoders capable of 4K recording without the need of external recording source would be in the stores in the mid 2014 and the price would be no more than 5000 EUR at that time?

Hi Derfder - asking the community to predict manufacturers timing and pricing models is offtopic here I'm afraid.

JVC was first out of the gate with an affordable consumer 4K camera.
Sony is showing their first 4K "Handycam" prototype at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas...
So, I think the answer is YES :)

Thanks, what about the storage part? E.g. Hobbit at 40fps 3 hours is 20TB of storage. (100mb a frame). And 20fps is twice less.

E.g. this guy from TimeScapes http://vimeo.com/36969764 says that a project in Adobe Premiere of 45 minutes is about 5TB.


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Documentary with the actors from e.g. The Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone etc.?
Can I do a documentary with the actors from The Outer Limits or The Twilight Zone etc.?
Is it possible or the actors cannot speak because of some waivers with the film studios?
Or I can ask the main characters, directors, producers without any problem and I need only the approval of the people I am questioning in the document?
I wont use any footage from the series just interviews with the actors,directors and other peopl who were involved.

IANAL but that would likely depend on their contracts with the studios.


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Which software use people in PBS? FCP or Premiere?
I am interested which software do people use in PBS? Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere?

PBS as in the Public Broadcasting Service?

Having a big company like PBS, they most likely use a mix of many pieces of software. They need to have a 3D tool like Cinema 4D for some of the title sequences and may even use custom made software. Some of the software they use may not even have been heard of before. So the answer to your question is most likely both.

PBS is made up of 354 different broadcasters and carry content from many different studios, it is highly unlikely that they all use one product and chances are good they use a product other than Final Cut or Premiere.  Avid makes several very popular products and the software that drives actual broadcast studios isn't the same kind of software used by production studios.
I'll try to clarify further.  PBS is not a content creator, they are a broadcaster.  Content creation shops, such as studios, would be the ones to use Premiere or FinalCut, but generally studios prefer higher end rigs like one of Avid's platforms.  A broadcast studio isn't going to use FinalCut or Premiere (at least not for anything beyond very limited and basic work if anything).  They are going to use software that is concerned with sequencing up content and playing it back in order without interruption so that they can have programs run together smoothly.  In some cases, this can even be a hardware system rather than any software component, particularly in someplace like a PBS station where finances are limited.

Its astonishing that you have 3 votes up if you didn't answer my question. I wasn't asking on the number of broadcasters and studios neither if they use some custom software. Anyway, thanks for your answer and your time.

Please, remove your answer and add it as a comment if you want. Otherwise I will flag your answer. Thanks.

@Derfder This is actually a fine answer, it really is the same as mine.

Sorry, I have flagged your answer, because it is a comment not an answer.

@Derfder - If you'd prefer I could have simply answered your question "no, most PBS stations don't use either as their primary system and could use either for side projects, depending on which station" but I thought it would be more helpful to explain why and give some context around why there isn't a simple answer.

@ChrisJamesChampeau I'm deleting your comment because of the direct attack on the OP.  Please keep it civil.


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FCP vs Motion 5
I searched around and I have not come across a good answer.
What does FCP have that Motion5 does not? I have been looking at the two and they look relatively the same. Here is some of what I am doing/care about:
I love YouTube, I want to become a video maker. I want to do productions from Minecraft ExplodingTNT to Smosh to Productions and more... I need a video editor to make up for iMovie because I am sick of the export errors, slowness, and overall limitations of it. My budget is low so I don't really want to get FCP, Avid, or Adobe Production Suite until I can get the money to get them. I am also looking into 3d stuff like Cinima 4D and Autodesk Entertainment  Creation Suite (or a few of the products in that suite) but that can be for another time. I am also experienced in audio creation and editing. I have Ableton and am planning to get more software (if that is helpful to know). Really, I want to know if Motion is all that is needed for a pretty experienced, but still new person to video creation. Or if I should go strait to the big stuff.
I still want to know some big differences regardless of my needs.
If I did something wrong or you want more information on something, feel free to leave a comment because I am new to AVP.

Well, FCP is a NL Editing software and Motion is a motion graphics and compositing software. So there are lots of features that one has and the other has not. Actually, all the software you are asking about has a similar situation. What aspects of video creation are you really interested in?

@InanBerbatov Just look at all the YouTube channels I gave, that is all of the stuff I want to do (I know it is a lot)

There's actually a big difference between the two. If you're on a budget and don't mind that editing video is not as straight forward, then Motion is actually not a bad route to take.
Final Cut allows you to use things you've created in Motion as graphical templates. Motion in and of itself is a 2D(/3D) animation app, it wasn't made for video editing.
So, although you can edit video in Motion, doesn't mean it's very comfortable. For instance, you can just press a shortcut to render your timeline in Proxy, High Quality format. If you'd do the same thing in Motion, you would have to encode the material by yourself and tell Motion manually to use the Proxy's instead of the original material.
Final Cut also has some media management tools that allow you to quickly find the footage you want to edit. So if you imported tons of clips, it's easier to find a particular clip in FCP than in M5.
Both apps work well together, but in itself, Motion wasn't made to edit video. If you come from iWork. Editing in Final Cut Pro is almost equal (if not the same).
I can't talk about Avid, Premiere, but they work similarly to the "old" way of editing video, where the timeline is static. When there is a clip deleted between two clips, they don't ripple together. They stay at their current position. Some people prefer to edit that way. Personally I can't see myself going back to that way of editing, it is simply too slow.
Now in regards to 3D… Motion is a 2D motion graphics application. It can do 3D too, but it misses most features "real" 3D apps have like fluid or explosion calculations of material. Material can also have a real material. So the app knows that wood explodes differently from glass. If you are new in 3D animation and just want to tip your toes in, go for Blender. It is hard to learn, though, because it's free, there are tons of tutorials available online to get you quick up and running.
After Effects is the industry leader in motion graphics. It is said that nothing can't be done in After Effects. Motion tries to an After Effects. It is also said that Motion can do everything that After Effects can, but, again, with more effort.
As a summary. If you're on a budget and need a great 2D motion graphics app, Motion is not a bad choice. It works well together with Final Cut Pro, a video editing app that is similar to iMovie. Though 3D animation can be done in Motion, it is better to use a dedicated 3D animation app like Blender. If you really want the most top-notch effects, templates and biggest community (and can afford the price of a monthly/yearly Cloud membership) go with Adobe.
Hope this helps.

Thanks, I just need something to start with and then move up. Thanks for taking the time to write all that! You pinned the nail on the head for what I need to do and Adobe has always been big on my list. I eventually will also want FCP. I will go with Motion because it seems like what I want right now, a better iMovie. I have worked with adobe software and want to work with FCP. Thank you for your help!

For what it's worth, I use and love Premiere. Every now and then I give FCP another try but I never stay long before coming back to Premiere Pro.


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Lossless extracting of JPEGs from an MJPEG video
Using the Timelapse app on my Sony NEX-6 camera, I get an AVI which contains an MJPEG stream.
However, I'd like to take all the individual frames into Lightroom as normal photos, to do my post-processing. Is there a way to extract the individual JPEG frames in a lossless fashion, e.g. without resaving them? As I understand it, MJPEG format is essentially just a lot of JPEG files contained within (in this case) an AVI container.
I would prefer to do this on a Mac (I normally use Lightroom and Photoshop), but any application that does it would be fine, I'll find an OS to run it!

Could you please add to the question which OS you're using and which photo/video editing applications you have? This helps people to answer your question.

The easiest way is to use ffmpeg or avconv.
The command:
ffmpeg -i mjpegvideo.avi -vcodec copy frame%d.jpg

will create a series of jpeg without reencoding.

If you have access to Photoshop you can open the MJPEG in Photoshop and apply the same edits there as you would in Lightroom.
The instructions below are carried out on a Mac with Photoshop CS5.1 but for Windows it should be comparable.

Open Photoshop
Open your MJPEG file
Go to Window -> Workspace -> Motion
Now a timeline appears on your screen where you can play and scrub through your footage.
Go to Layer -> New Adjustment Layer and choose the adjustment you want.
When you're done editing go to File -> Export -> Render Video and choose the desired video settings.

Make sure to use adjustment layers, as a simple adjustment will only affect one frame.

A simple thing that works on my Sony A7RII's liveview stream is to look for FF DB bytes in the stream and copy data from them to next FF D9 sequence (including both FF DB and FF D9) to a jpeg file, repeating as needed.


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What is a good utility for trimming .dv files without losing metadata?
I'm using a mac and I'd prefer a free utility, but don't mind using a commercial tool if I have to.

The following ffmpeg command will remove the first and last minute of a ten-minute input file:
ffmpeg -i input.avi -ss 00:01:00 -t 00:08:00 -c copy output.avi

-ss means start seek; that is, where the output will begin. -t means time; that is, the length of the output: so the above command will start at the first minute, and end eight minutes later.
With some video codecs, using these options with -c copy can cause issues due to I-frames (i.e. ffmpeg will cut to the nearest I-frame). This shouldn't be a problem with DV, though, sine AFAIK it's I-frame only.


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Render srt subtitles to video?
I have subtitles in .srt file format, and I need to render them on top of video file (prefereably mp4). I have tried handbrake and mediacoder so far, with no luck. What should I do?

I don't know about Handbrake features in 2012, but currently it's able to burn-in subtitles

@janot I tried handbrake on ubuntu 20.04 and it can burn subtitles in video, but does not allow to set font color or font or font size or background color (transparent or otherwise), and it prints the html/css srt tags directly in the video; just big white text

With a recent version of ffmpeg (requires the subtitles to be in a separate file, due to current libavfilter limitations):
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v subtitles=subtitle.srt -c:a copy -c:v libx264 -crf 22 -preset veryfast output.mp4

If your SRT subtitles are muxed into an MKV container, you can extract them like this:
ffmpeg -i input.mkv -map 0:s:0 subtitles.srt

Can you provide proper links and documentation for the command line utility you mentioned above?

@FagnerBrack Docs link includes Command Line Tools Documentation

Please note that for this to work, ffmpeg needs to be compiled with libass support as noted in these answers:
https://superuser.com/a/869473
https://askubuntu.com/a/519207
See the ffmpeg build instructions on how to build the ffmpeg binary appropriately

Freemake would be my best choice. It gives you great flexibility and also enables you to add subtitles to your video also. There is a variety of codecs and formats available for your testing. Just give a try , after  all its free na ? Here is the Link.

`.freemake: Free Video Converter with Subtitles Support
Convert DVD, MKV, MOV with embedded subtitles to any video format or
  device for free. Add SSA/SRT/ASS external subtitles to any video with
  our free video converter.`

says so in the official site.And they also says,

.freemake: Fastest Video Converter with CUDA and DXVA
Freemake is the only free video converter that features integrated
  both CUDA and DXVA technologies for the fastest ever video conversion
  and less CPU usage. The software automatically detects the optimal
  conversion parameters and switches on/off CUDA and DXVA for better
  conversion results.

I've just discovered Subler, which makes it super easy to add subtitles to an existing m4v file, and then burn that.

sadly subler is mac only.


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Save frame with current camera angle
I'm an absolute noob to After Effects. I'm not using it for video. I just want to use the 3D ray tracing to get a single image. I've created the 3D image, set the lighting I want and have a camera angle that I like. If I try to save the frame using Composition -> Save Frame As, I lose the camera angle - it saves just a front-on view.
How do I save the image as it looks in the composition?

The following steps work for me for an arbitrary camera.

Create the desired composition.
Create a camera by going to Layer -> New -> Camera. For now just accept the default settings..
Position the camera as you desire by changing the Transform parameters or by dragging it to the desired position. Here below an image of the Transform parameters:

Make sure that all the layers are 3D layers.
In the bar between your composition and the timeline there is a camera dropdown menu:

Make sure that you choose the camera angle you wish to export. In this case it is Camera 1:

Go to Composition -> Save Frame As...

I have mine set to Custom View 1, but it saves the front-on view.

As I state in the answer at point 6 it is necessary to choose which camera you want. I have added an additional step on how to create a camera as I think you have not added a camera to your scene. Custom View 1 is not a camera.

Thank you! At step 3 I right-clicked on the camera layer and selected Transform -> Center in View.

Glad I helped. It's up to you of course to decide which method you're using to place your camera.


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Easy way of editing keyframes in adobe Premiere
I'm a first time adobe premiere user. I can get the results I want after a fashion, but I find the methods I use way to cumbersome. I was wondering if you guys could point me some shortcuts.
I have two video streams from two camera's (slides & stage). I fade over from one camera to the next depending on what happens. I have added both streams to the sequence and just turn the opacity of the top stream to 0 when I want to show the bottom stream.
I have a large bunch of timecodes for when I want to make a fade-over. However, the default fade is way to slow. So I have to now:

go to the time code
add a keyframe
drag the frame to 0 or 100
right click selecte bezier
drag the bezier handle upwards enough that the fade speed is acceptable

That's a lot of mouse work, fiddlings and clickings. I have found the effect controls which allow me to fine tune the controls, but still with a lot of imprecise mouse moving.
I would love to have a way to just specify all keyframes and bezier parameters in a text file or so, so I can quickly edit them change all bezier parameters for all keyframes at the same time and be able to twiddle the results. Another possibility would be to copy keyframe settings, apply settings to multiple keyframes at once or to define keyframe 'classes' or so.
Even more so, I'm just learning premiere so I sometimes make rooky mistakes. For example by picking the wrong sequence framerate (I think) i managed to create a result that flickered heavily. I can't edit sequence settings so I had to create a new sequence. But I can't find how to copy markers or keyframes from one sequence to another. So I have to set them all over again :(
Any ideas on how I can improve the efficiency of this process? Or maybe I shouldn't be using keyframes and opacity at all?
thanks!

Adjusting the default video transition duration
Go to Preferences -> General and change the Video Transition Default Duration to a frame amount of your choice.
Optimising current workflow
I can think of some optimalisations regarding your current workflow. It's not a drastic change, but might help you do the task faster.

I would suggest splitting the timecode list per videotrack (slide & stage) according to the following scheme:
List 1: slide fade-outs
List 2: slide fade-ins
List 3: stage fade-outs
List 4: stage fade-ins
List 1 should match list 4 and list 2 should match list 3.
Go to the first fade-out on a list. Create a keyframe pattern you like for the fade-out, for example the one shown below:

In the effects panel it looks like this:

A linear keyframe followed by a bezier keyframe followd by a hold keyframe.

Now select those three keyframes in the effect panel by dragging a rectangle around them or clicking each keyframe while holding ctrl (Windows) cmd (Mac).
Right click and press Copy
Now go to each fade-out timecode on both video tracks (so list 1 and 3) and in the effects panel right click and press Paste. Of course you can also hit ctrl+V or cmd+V.
Repeat this process for list 2 and 4.

In this way you only have to set the bezier speed once and just copy paste the keyframe sequence at each timecode.
Exporting keyframe locations to textfile
I'm not aware of a way to do this directly, but if you export your project to a Final Cut Pro XML or to EDL (Select sequence, then: File -> Export) you have the ability to change the position of /add keyframes through a text editor by editing the .edl or .xml files . You can then import the .edl or .xml file into Premiere Pro as a new sequence.
However, these formats do not support bezier keyframes.

I've marked Bart Arondson's answer as correct because it answers precisely the question I was asking. (and thanks for that and the quick response! Especially using Final Cut Pro XML to be able to automate this process)
But because I also added the reason why I was asking the question, and some people might end up here through google based on those keywords, I'd like to repeat the answer I got from the Walter Soyka at CreativeCow which gives a different method of achieving the goal (without keyframes)

I wouldn't do this by keyframing opacity.
I'd either use a multicamera sequence, or I'd make split top sequence with the razor tool, delete the material I didn't want, and apply transitions to the top layer to get the fades.

(from: http://forums.creativecow.net/readpost/3/935382)
Multi camera sequence seems to be what I need.

+1 This actually is a better method, but as you state, I just answered your question.


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Configure file naming & presents in Adobe Media Encoder
I'm running the latest version of Premiere Pro & Encoder (CS6). Encoder has a watch folder capability to automatically encode files, but it defaults to Flash output with a specific preset & gives the file the name of the original sequence selected in the Premiere project.
What I'd like to do is drop a Premiere project file in a watch folder and have my rendering server pickup the file and start encoding it but I want to configure a specific output file type, present & name the output file the name of the Premiere project file. I can't figure how to do this or if it is even possible (aside from the watch folder & encoding).
The current project I'm on has over 100 video outputs and we're looking at 1 Premiere project per output. This is just the first project... looking at many more in the future so working on a workflow now.

You can change the format, once you add a watch folder to your watch folders window, click the F4V under the format tab, and you can configure how you want each video from that watch folder to be set as...
Furthermore if you click the output folder destination, you can change the filename and destination in which the movie will be saved to.
Hope this helps


text:
How much storage does video editing take?
I'm brand new to video so I don't even yet have a favorite software package.
In general, on popular software like FCPX or Premiere, how many MB per minute of 1080p will I need?
I realize there are a hundred different ways to compress the video, but I'm just asking about the rough storage requirements for a typical editing workflow.

The most complete answer is probably to simply describe the way data rates are calculated.  Basically all HD video uses some amount of compression, but the simple algorithm is to take the number of horizontal pixels times the number of vertical pixels times the color depth (in bits) times the frame rate to get the raw, uncompressed data rate per second.
For 1080p 24bit color at 30fps, this is 1920x1080x24x30 bits per second or 186 megabytes per second of uncompressed video.  That makes 671 gigabytes per hour for an uncompressed stream at 24 bit color and 30fps.
The level of compression typically used can range anywhere from 1:3 to 1:300 so you could be looking at anywhere between 230gb an hour to 2.3 gigabytes for an hour (and possibly even less if they compress really heavily.)
The acceptable level of compression also depends on the format used, the compression options chosen and the level of movement and similar color areas in the video.  So it really is extremely hard to estimate without an idea of what you want to work on with it.


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Music-sync'd Strobe effect in video
What's one way to get a strobe flash effect in video (you know, virtually, in software) that's synchronized to the beat of a music track?
Or for that matter, how do I synchronize ANY effect with music?

there are many tools and plugins which will identify beats and output a trigger - some are configurable to only search for beats in particular frequency ranges, others auto-tune themselves.

@DrMayhem Could you maybe name a few? Wouldn't that be sufficient as an answer?

Once I hunt down named ones -yes, but I can't do a useful search at work ;-P

Assuming that you're using AE...
The old fashioned way:

Select your layer, hit 0 (on the numeric keypad) to do a ram preview
Wait till the preview is loaded into the ram
When the preview begins to playback, hit * (on the numeric key pad) at each beat
As soon as you stop playback, you'll have a marker at each beat
now you're ready to begin key framing according  to the beats

Red Giant's - Trapcode Sound Keys is probably the best plugin out there for automating it.
http://www.redgiantsoftware.com/products/all/trapcode-sound-keys/


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Traditional animation techniques and 30fps software animation?
I'm putting together a very basic software to animate a few pixels frame-by-frame. I've skimmed through Richard William's Animator's Survival Kit in the past and noticed most traditional animation uses 24fps and he used to "animate on twos" for most motion and on "ones" for fast motion.
Since my tool will deal with frame by frame animation I'd like to make use of those principles, but I am constraint to 30 fps. Because of this, I'm wondering how would I workout at what frame interval(every frame, every two frames, every three frames, etc.) a 'keyframe'/changed frame should be placed to look good ? Is there a way to work that out arithmetically ? Does it make a bit difference/ is it safe two stick to twos even for 30fps ?

Yes, repeating every other frame works the same way at 30fps as it does at 24fps.
Animating on twos is done not because it looks better, but because it means less drawing and you can 'get away' with it. Nothing stops you from drawing every frame if you want the smoothest possible motion, and nothing prevents you from repeating a frame indefinitely when there is no motion.
If you really want to work at 24fps, you could always animate 'as though' you were working at 24fps -- your work will look sped up when viewed at 30fps -- and applying a cine expansion (3:2 pulldown) as a final step.

Pretty thorough answer Jim, thanks! I thought about 'getting away' with less frames...24/2 = 12 (the minimum amount of frames needed for the eye to perceive continuous motion) - is that plausible ?

Thanks for the explanations Ken, pretty interesting stuff ! :)


text:
Annotating sports video: design principles?
I was watching Match Of the Day (a soccer highlights show for those not from the UK) and I've found they use this software Piero to annotate the football matches.
When annotating video of moving players I find that the graphics can be quite clunky and perhaps a bit too obtrusive. You can't see clearly the ball when some graphics are applied for example.
As I take an interest in video editing myself, my question is what would be the best design principles to annotate sports videos, especially while they are moving?

http://www.ericsson.com/broadcastandmedia/what-we-do/piero/

I'd think the best principal would be to ensure that motion always trump graphics.  Ie, any pixels that are detected as having velocity that is not equal to the velocity of the background should be rendered over the graphics.  This might be difficult to accomplish without purpose built software, but such an approach should keep the graphics from going over any action.  You actually already see this with things like American "Football" (not soccer) games where they render on lines for things like line of scrimmage and first down.  The perspective makes it look like it is simply graphics on the field even though they are actually added electronically.


text:
Can I use the videos marked as "youtube standard license" for a non profit video?
I'm creating a video for my institution.
It's a scientific institution, so I suppose that the video can be considered no-profit (we don't make it to sell our products but to show our scientific project).
I already searched around for explanations about the youtube standard license, but it seems there is not much clear information on that: only vague posts ( google groups or yahoo answers ) in which there is not a clear reference to the term of use (which I'm not able to read as I'm not a lawyer), while there is much documentation on the CC BY license.
So my questions are:

can I use the videos marked as "youtube standard license" for this video, of course citing the source?
In case I can't, do you know any other place where I can take video I can use for this non commercial purpose of makning a scientific video to show the project?

Your best bet is to talk to a lawyer.  We aren't lawyers and don't know the details of your particular jurisdiction and what might be or might not be classified as a not-for-profit organization in your jurisdiction.  This is really a legal question rather than an A/V question.

I know you probably already found this link, but according to Yahoo, you will want to contact the Uploader before you try to use it. Thats what I would try. I don't think I would want my youtube videos just used by anyone who wanted to. Seems this person ran into that problem.
If a video is only using the Creative Commons License you may use it, but otherwise contact the YouTube user before you use it.
Good luck.

You can restrict YouTube to search only those videos who have a CC licence.
Just click "Filters" under the search bar, then "Creative Commons".
The concrete details of reuse are described here: http://www.youtube.com/yt/copyright/creative-commons.html
If a video is not marked as CC, then the standard YouTube license applies. To reuse such a video you have to ask the owner first.

I am a little late in this topic.
With a Creative Commons license, the Author wishing to use work of another author is typically permitted to use portions of the work, change, edit, recompile, or any other alteration except for specific items listed in the license document, with the caveats that; they include a clear path for the end user to obtain the included work in its original form including copyright notice, indicate clearly that it is a derivative work indicating and holding the author of the original work free from accountability for damages caused by the derivative work. The Author of the original work included in the new package retains minimal authority over the use of their work within the new work, and is typically not entitled to residual payment from benefits gained from the work that also includes their work.
With a Standard Copyright License, a Derivative Author is entitled to perform the work either in a comparable manner to the original, incorporated into their own work, or in their own style, with the caveat that the original author is clearly identified and there is no attempt to claim the creation is your own, where only the your unique performance of that work would be your own. The original author retains "some" right to decline the works use by some people or prevent its use for topics that would be contrary to the opinions of the original author or would otherwise diminish the reputation of the work or its original creator. The Author of the original work is entitled to be financially compensated by any benefits realized from the performance of the derivative performer. Once the original work has been published, broadcast, or otherwise shared with the public, they no longer have complete control over who can perform their work, but to retain the right to reject the license to use from a specific individual, as alluded to above. To be clear, they can specifically deny an individual from performing their work, but they do not have a blanket license to deny that license to everyone, only the right to be compensated for it's use.
In the case of Audio or Video performances, a parody of an original work is considered an original work in itself by virtue that it includes primarily new content yet clearly indicates its original author and does not pretend to be an original work. As such it does not in itself constitute a performance of an original work and in many cases would serve as a mechanism to increase the fair use of the original work as well.
I will not comment on how YouTube views the difference between a Creative Commons license and a Standard Copyright license, but wanted to point out that Copyright is not an assurance of the right to completely prevent the use of your work by others, it is simply a mechanism to ensure the creator is compensated for any gains made on the use of their work by others. Simply, if you want to ensure that nobody else can perform your work, do not publish, broadcast, or otherwise share it with anyone else.

This answer is misleading since it refers to Creative Commons licenses as a fixed set of granted rights, which is not only false, but the contrary is the case. With a CC license, the author decides which rights he or she grants people. that's the main reason creative Commons was established in the first place. Creative Commons licenses can cover everything, from a public domain license up to a standard copyright license in terms of use limitations. For example it is NOT uncommon that a CC license states "No derivative work"...

Additionally, as mentioned in another answer, giving advice in terms of copyright is a complex thing, since copyrights vary extremely from country to country. The "fair use" case, which is pretty common in the US can easily get you sued in Germany, so I'd be extremely careful with these kind of advice.


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Format to view on iOS and PS3?
I have Apple Compressor and have been trying to determine the correct format for my videos to allow them to play on both the iPad and my PlayStation 3 via a Media Server. Can anyone help me to determine a format that both can play? I'd hate to have to keep two copies of the same video on my Media Server. Thanks!

MP4 with AAC audio and h.264 video is definitely playable on the PS3, and since it's an extension of Apple's .mov files, it should work on all the iDevices too.
For maximum compatibility, use the h.264 'baseline' profile, and avoid AAC-HE.
Older devices (like some DVD players) may require XVID video and AC3 audio in an AVI container, but that won't apply to either the PS3 or iPad.

Thanks, there's a lot to try to wade through on formats. I appreciate the help!


text:
Tips for recording pen and paper
I've got a set-up where I'm using an iPad to record myself writing something on a white sheet of paper (with less-than-perfect lighting, of course). I'm recording a video in 1080p, and would like to improve its quality.
The kind of things I'd like to do are:

Even out the paper tone or, better yet, make the paper invisible. Other objects in the frame (the writing and my hand) are 'less white', so I'd like to keep them.
If possible, get rid of my hand altogether, leaving only the stuff that's on the page. Not sure how feasible it is, but I thought that since my hand is moving, maybe it can be filtered out. (Writing is 'moving' too, but stays persistent after I move my hand away.)

I'd appreciate any ideas for how this can be achieved. I know the second-part is science-fiction (or maybe not, but not doable with stock tools). Thanks!

To even out the paper tone a bright light relatively far away would really help you. Far away is needed to not see the fall-of of the light on the paper. Getting rid of your hand will require some advanced masking, no easy click and go solution there that I can think of.

Also might be helpful: http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/34244/how-to-photograph-books-on-location

The old school way is stop-motion animation. You basically take snapshots of the paper at regularly timed intervals, where you remove you hand and take the snapshot, then compile a video from the stills. You can use interpolation to smooth out the framerate.
Another idea to remove your hand and pencil is to chroma-key your hand and drawing implement (green-screen). If you keep the hand and pencil away from the center of the frame, you might have some success with this, and touch up any problems with elements from earlier or later frames. Problems with this: reflectance of the mask color on the paper; cast shadows etc.
Lastly, and probably most difficult, is to use a secondary camera (such as a video camera with "night-mode") and an IR pass filter. Cover or disable the IR spotlight on the camera, and attach an IR LED (extracted from a tv remote etc) very close to the business end of the pencil. With the right setup, one might wind up with a dark video field with light area where the LED is shining. With some manipulation, and {magic}, you now have a mask of the pencil area.


text:
Looking for a tile slideshow transition effet
i am looking for a way to produce this transition effect for a slideshow :

i mainly use After Effects and Final Cut but i couldn't find a way to do it.
Also i am ready to use any other software, free or not.
does anybody knows ?
thanks

Here is something similar, http://www.mihaipanait.com/portfolio-items/hexagon-transitions/
I know Noise Industries used to have that effects with squares and I am sure you could make the squares into hexagon shapes if you wanted...but their website seems to be down at the minute
Also check out videohive.com they have some pretty cheap templates for transitions etc and you may be able to find something that you can tweak to make work

Cool man, yea videohive has some great stock footage, and effects all for dirt cheap


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Why is Audio and Video out of Sync during recording?
I make a 30 second recording using a webcam on a laptop. When I play the .avi file afterwards, the audio and video are out of step. The sound starts arriving about a second after it should do and gets increasingly delayed.
Why is this?
Whilst I am making the recording, I can see the video that is being captured being displayed on the laptop monitor. I can actually get lip synch if I  s-p-e-a-k  l-i-k-e  t-h-i-s.
I clap my hands at the start of the video. When I watch the video afterwards, the sounId is delayed by about a second.
The audio track continues for about ten or so seconds after the video component has finished. (A still image remains in the video player while the voice continues.)
I can fix this problem after the recording (laboriously), but I want to have the recording work properly in the first place.
The webcam is a BisonCam NB Pro integrated into the laptop. It is a 2 Megapixel camera that can record at 15 fps. The CPU is an Intel dual core T4200. The machine has 4GB of RAM. I am saving the recording to a file on a ramdisk, so I don't think the hard drive is the problem. I am using BisonCap to record, the software that came with the computer. I have set recording for 15 fps.
Please help!

decrease bitrate to 512 and set screen size to custom instead of full screen. worked for me

Try different software - I guess that whatever came with your laptop is broken in some way.

You should check your recorded video with MediaInfo. Regarding your problem, it shows,

if the durations of the video and the audio is the same or not,
if the interleave of the audio (the starting offset) is set correctly
in which sampling rate your audio was recorded.

Then, I would import your video file into Audacity (which imports only the audio, of course).

On the left side of each track you find the sampling rate, too. Is this the same sampling rate as being reported by MediaInfo?
Does Audacity play the audio too slow, too?

My impression from the symptoms that you describe is that the audio is recorded at a certain sampling rate, but reported as a lower sampling rate, or not at all.
Try to modify your sampling rate, either in your recordings settings, or in the Windows system. On Win7, it's under Control Panel->Hardware & Sound->Manage Audio Devices->Recording. There, select your microphone, then Properties->Advanced. There you can change the sampling rate.
If changing the sampling rate doesn't help, then you can only try another webcam software, or record the audio independently.

Best way to check if it's out of sync or drifting, or both would be make a recording, clap with your hands once at the beginning and at the end.  Check if the sound is earlier or later at the beginning or the end.  Then to resync, use an Non Linear Editing program to align and possibly re-time the audio, retiming the video will look much worse than fixing the sound.  Also recording at 15fps rather than 30 won't look great.

I think you should try another program first and see the result. Maybe the software is the reason or tweak the settings of yours.
Also try to close any other software which is running at that time like antivirus programs etc.

The quick answer that worked for me:  do NOT save your captured video to a drive on the computer, save it to an external drive that runs at 7200 RPM   (many are 5400).
This problem was driving me crazy.  I checked so many blogs, FAQs and help lines, but nothing worked.  Finally a salesman at B&H Photo in NYC pointed me in the right direction (this is not an endorsement, but I do want to give credit where credit is due, and his suggestion definitely solved my problem!)
Some detail:  I was capturing old VHS tapes from a tape deck directly to PC; an old Gateway EDX4840-15 workhorse.  I use Media Express (not crazy about the software, but it worked) capturing to AVI files (the only choice, oddly).  Originally I captured to the internal drive and all the captured video would gradually get out of sync, as described.   It would start out synced, gradually getting more and more out.    Capturing to the external drive at 7200 solved the problem.   The drive I used is a G-Drive Mobile USB 2TB, but I suspect any 7200 drive would work.     After the capture I move the files to my regular 5400 drives for long term storage (I have a lot of them).   Note:  once I mistakenly captured to an external 5400 drive, and the sync problem re-emerged, so the faster drive is definitely the problem solver.   Now that I think of it, if you have a 7200 internal drive, maybe that would work okay.   I don't know the speed of my internal drives at the time of this writing, but it's a thought.

There are quality settings for both the audio and video recording.  Have you checked out the video capture settings?  Maybe some adjustment here would get the audio and video back in sync.

The picture is from this Dell support site.  May be some more useful info there.
Also, just in general (sorry if it's obvious) are you sure your drivers for the webcam are up to date?

I am experiencing this problem and I am implementing a solution. Presently I used a program to extract the audio into .mp3 format separate, and Windows Movie Maker to extract the video alone into a .wmv silent video. Since I have the .mp3 file I loaded it into Audacity so that I can add and subtract time in order to synchronize the audio file manually into Windows Movie Maker along with the .wmv silent video. Having split the out-of-sync video into constituent video and audio parts, I am going to use Windows Movie Maker to integrate an edited version of the audio file on the fly as I edit it in Audacity.

I had the same problem with audio being out of sync with the image, recording from my webcam using screen recorder. In my case it seems it was caused by the time it takes for the webcam to activate. I changed 'delay before capture' to 2 seconds and it seems to have fixed the problem.


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Save existing project to an external drive Final Cut Pro X 10
I have a project with events saved on my Mac drive. I want to save this project on my external HD drive to clean space and work on this project later.
I copy pasted Final Cut Events and Final Cut Projects folders to my external HD but I don't know how to restore it into project in FC.
Any help is appreciated.

Well I doubt you can run strait off of the drive. Is it OK if you copy it over to your computer again then back to a drive? Most software does not like reading off of drives.

I dont know what you mean by "most software" but most software has absolutely no problem reading off of external drives

"I copy pasted Final Cut Events and Final Cut Projects folders to my external HD but I don't know how to restore it into project in FC. Any help is appreciated."
It's better to perform this type of operation from within FCPX, instead of the Finder via copy/paste.  With the project selected in the Project Library, choose File->Move Project...  As long as you have an external drive connected, the resultant "location" dropdown menu will be populated (instead of saying "no value").  Selecting the "Move project and referenced events" radio button will transfer all of the necessary media to the external drive, AND remove it from the local drive, thus freeing up space.
When you work this way, there is no need to, as you say, "restore it to a project in FC".  You simply make sure the external drive which contains the project file and media is connected to your machine, and the project is available in the project library window.


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Is there any automated online service for making white board animation?
I want to know is there any website or software available to make white board animation as following?

The video you showed is simply a stop motion video, not an animation.
So you aren't going to be able to simply send a jpg off somewhere and have it come back as a video.
There are plenty of video houses that will happily make you a video like this, but it is time consuming. Usually they video the entire process of drawing the art, then cut out frames - to ensure they keep in important key frames.

Thank you for the answer. I have seen this kind of marketing videos so many places. So I curious to know that is this make from service like goanimate.com . So I asked

VideoScribe : Open a svg > select a hand [optional]. Thats all. Your animation is ready. But you cant provide motion animation as you can do in Flash. If you want to give painting, sketching, zooming in/out, camera move or erasing effect you can do all.
PowToon : Good for animated presentations where you don't want instant sketching effect


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adding depth and motion to images for video
I was struck by some of the effects in the "god made a farmer" superbowl commercial... and was curious what programs are out there that let you take an image, and in a video, produce the illusion of...

the sky moving in the background
false depth as the camera "pans" across the image (making different layers in the image overlap)

Any ideas?

I think you're referring to the (false) parallax effect. This guy has applied it to stationary photographs in a similar way as in the "God made a farmer" video and in the video description he explains the global steps he has taken.
Here's a quote from his description concerning the production process:

First, the image is cut into multiple sections, each cut section being
  at different distances from the camera. After the photos have been
  sliced into multiple layers and the holes filled in (yes, you have to
  fabricate some of the background, a slow but usually pretty easy
  process in Photoshop) the layers are then brought into After Effects
  and separated in Z-Space (pushed away from the viewer in 3D space). If
  the layers are put approximately in the correct distance from the
  virtual camera, mimicking the distance from the original image, a
  believable parallax "video" can be made with simple virtual camera
  moments.

I believe the technique you're interested in is most commonly called "camera mapping" or "camera projection".  Here is a tutorial on the technique which employs the use of Maxon Cinema 4d, although the effect is achievable through many other other software packages.


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How to change the start time of track in Final Cut Pro X?
I'm exporting a project from iMovie to Final Cut Pro X.
It's really a mess, but working patiently on the project on FCPX can achieve some better results... in any case, during the exporting many videos and sounds chenged their start and end time.
So, to give an example, if I had an audio of me reading the sentences "Hi all, how are you? Today I'm not fine because I'm getting crazy", and in iMovie I had cut the
"how are you" sentence, then in FCPX it gives me the "I'm getting crazy" part of the track.
So I have two question:

do you know how to fix this? Is there a known issue? I searched a lot but I couln't find anything!
in case there is not a solution to this problem, is there a FAST way to change the start time and the end time of a track?

I tought it was simple to do with the "open in timeline" menu, but it is not possible.
When I open the audio track in the timeline, the active part is eveidenced, but appartenly there is no way to MOVE the part I want to use...
I hope I made myself understand.

Try using the trim tool (keyboard shortcut "t").

is there a way to speed up the trimming (so that with one move I skip, for instance, one minute instead of one second)?

zoom out of the timeline?

yes that's a way. Then I found also one more efficient: after typing 't' you can manually enter the time shift typink '+' or '-' and then the number of seconds you want to shift. it works! Thanks again.


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Convert Uncompressed AVI to JPEG2000 in MXF
I'm looking to convert raw, uncompressed video (currently in avi container) into lossless motion jpeg2000 encoded video in an mxf container. I've tried FFMPEG, but don't think it can do this. What's the best method for transcoding on Linux?
FFMPEG command tried:
ffmpeg -i Glueck_Newsreel.avi -vcodec libopenjpeg -acodec copy ms0001.mxf
Errors:
[mxf @ 0x1f43a00] track 0: could not find essence container ul, codec not currently supported in container
Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?)

The JPEG 2000 codec in FFMPEG is still experimental. To use it you would have to compile FFMPEG by yourself with a special option enabled.
But you could use OpenDCP, which has it's documentation here. It needs TIFF images and WAV files as input, that you can produce with FFMPEG. The resulting MXF can be tested with the easyDCP player.
OpenDCP is available on all mayor platforms, but the easyDCP player only on Windows/Mac. But perhaps this is still an option for you, since you only need to run the easyDCP player once (on a friend's PC), just to be sure that the OpenDCP output is "according to the standard".

FFmpeg won't put JPEG2000 in MXF, even with the codec enabled.


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motion effects missing from adobe premiere elements 10
I'm a new user to Premiere Elements 10.
I want to rotate a video.
However, the motion effect is not present in the effects panel.
I have only recently installed Elements.

It doesn't appear in your panel as rotate, but if you go to your transform effect you will see roll and rotate options in there.

Thanks.  I can select Transform, and can click Apply, but double-clicking or right-clicking on Transform in the effects list, or in the applied effects list does nothing.

I found the edit effect button, cheers.


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Adobe Premiere Elements 10: File > Export is greyed out
I have a new install of APE 10 on a Windows 7 64-bit machine.
I am a new user of APE.
I have edited a .MOV file, and now I want to save it in a format compatible with YouTube.
When I go to the File menu, Export is greyed out.
What are the requirements before being able to export in Adobe Premiere Elements 10?
Thanks.

The Export function was removed a couple of generations ago but it is still in the file menu as its used for a couple of things such as tiles.
All video is output using the "Share" button.
If you want some extra information on this matter here is an answer from Adobe:
http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-elements/kb/export-option-unavailable-premiere-elements.html
Hope that helps!


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Marvel-like Image Flipping Technique
What software can I use to create the "Marvel" movie like flipping effect that accompanies pretty much every Marvel movie? I am looking to create a home movie on my PC that flips through a bunch of pictures really fast as to show time flying by, so to speak. I do not own Adobe After Effects. Looking for cheap or open source.

Idk if I would consider it a actually flipping motion, more like rapidly overlaying images on top of each other with a slight motion blur to the right possibly. A lot of movie software can do this

Or, print the images out, flip them Marvel style and record that with a camera. Make sure there's enough light.

@TravisDtfsuCrum: Which software?

Firstly to clarify is it this kind of effect your want to create?

I know you dont have after effects and your looking for something free, however you can get a free trial if you dont want to use the software for long.
You can download this at:
www.adobe.com/go/tryaftereffects/
Here is this video tutorial on how to replicate something similar to the marvel style.

Hope this Helps!


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Copyright of materials used in a video
It is common that TV channels or internet TV channels (e.g. those regularly post their shows on Youtube) use materials from other sources. For example, displaying photos from the internet, parts of videos already posted on Youtube and other websites, etc.
I am curious how the copyright permission is handled for using copyrighted materials in videos.
In the past, major TV channels were only in the market, and they had their own reporters and photographers to make their materials. Nowadays, there are many small channels (even personal ones), and I doubt if they take of care of copyright issues at all.
As a more specific example, how to obtain right to use a part of a Youtube video in an online show, which will be posted on Youtube ?

Very broadly speaking, you have a much easier experience obtaining permission if you are not making money from someone else's content.
Most copyright laws recognise 'fair use' -- a small quote or a clip that is proof of someone else having said something.  It is customary and advisable to put such clip in a box or window to show that the content is being referenced.  Fair use for a small portion of text or video is easily established than a picture, for a picture is the entire content.

For images, search engines usually have a license filter in the search. Usually, it errs on the side of caution. Unfortunately, you have to contact the original agency or person and obtain permission to use.
Youtube now has content signature comparison and will warn you that you are using someone else's content but will leave it up to the copyright owner to enforce it.

So, if it is does not fall under 'fair use' and is clearly someone else's copyright, you will have to track down the owner and obtain permission.

Just to clarify, the "Standard YouTube license" found in YouTube's ToS basically grants YouTube the permission to serve the video to anyone who asks to see it on YouTube.com or through an approved portal like an embedded player or mobile app (you may restrict the work's playback in certain markets, or prevent certain non-core uses, such as embedding, including in a playlist, listing in search results, etc). You, as the uploader of an original video, retain all other rights to the work including the right to prevent anyone else from using it in a derivative work, including a TV show.
Now, you may, and many do, give your express permission to the producers of a TV show to use the video in their own show. This is the honest and upfront way for the producers of the show to get the needed clearance, and it's done quite simply by sending the video's uploader a private message asking them for their permisison. If they want to use it badly enough, they'll pay you, but my guess is that >95% of the videos shows were shown without any financial compensation paid out; there's a lot of puke on the Internet, so Daniel Tosh doesn't ever have to look very far to find enough people willing to let him show their videos.
Now, the question is, what happens if they did't ask, or if you say no and they show it anyway?
Unfortunately, patent law is subject in most cases to the Golden Rule: Whomever has the gold makes the rules. In this case, the TV networks such as Viacom (MTV - Ridiculousness, ComCent - Tosh.O) and NBC Universal (E! - The Soup, G4 - Web Soup) have armies of legal staff for the sole purpose of representing the network in copyright cases, whether as plaintiff or defendant. The networks can and do take the stance that what they're doing is "parody", which is protected under the First Amendment and thus exempt from copyright law as "fair use".
The short version; while you may indeed own the copyright, free and clear, there is a limitation on your right to prevent derivative use of the work for the purpose of criticism, ridicule or satire. Such uses constitute "parody". This is, for instance, how Weird Al does his stuff (though he generally asks permission, and until relatively recently it was considered a great honor to most artists to have him parody their song). There is no line in the sand here, where on one side it's protected parody and on the other side it's copyright infringement. There is a legal test, but each allegation is decided case-by-case; it's a real can o' worms. Virtually all of these viral video shows air a piece of a clip and make a humorous statement ridiculing the person/people in it; that's parody, in the producers' eyes. So far, nobody has been willing to test this claim in court.
It's somewhat ironic that in 2007, Viacom filed suit against YouTube's owner Google alleging massive copyright infringement due to its users uploading Viacom's content, including clips of The Daily Show (which uses news broadcast footage under similar "parody" doctrine). Most of the "viral video" shows started up after that (Tosh.O and Web Soup in 2009, Ridiculousness in 2011).

If you need royalty free music for Youtube you can download the samples of voiceovers+music .  It is a legal website and It is no charge

Are you affiliated with the site you are recommending?


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Native SDI-output vs HDMI-SDI adapter for live stream
I currently run live streams of amateur sporting events, mainly inside. Currently I am using several Panasonic HS-900ks connected to a PC desktop via RCA cables and several Easycap DC60+s (USB 2.0). As you can imagine, the quality from the Panasonic's gets degraded very quickly. Some of the RCA cables are carrying video over 100ft from source to destination.
I am looking to upgrade the connections to SDI via the Blackmagic Decklink products. That said, I will need cameras that support SDI output, or purchase an HDMI-SDI adapter (~$300).
My budget is approx. $3000 for a single camera, and since I'll only be outputting the stream at 720p max for the foreseeable future (don't want to overburden end-users bandwidth), I really don't need a fancier camera then that.
Obviously there is a big price difference between a new camera and a HDMI-SDI adapter. Is there a big quality difference, or does HDMI-SDI not really lose much quality? Will it provide the same signal as a new camera such as a Panasonic AG-HPX170 P2HD that provides native SDI-output? I am not looking to output audio from these cameras, just video.

possible duplicate of How to connect a camera to a computer 100ft away?

@AJHenderson This question is asking about quality loss in an HDMI-SDI adapter.  It does have some similar elements, but since it already has a satisfactory answer and was not answered directly by any of the answers of the other question, I think it should stay.

For amateur events, SDI may be overkill compared to using simple Component.  The key for long runs is to separate the various components so that they don't degrade.  There is a similar question here about long distance runs.
As for HDMI to SDI, there should be no quality loss compared to HDMI as both are digital formats supporting full uncompressed HD streams.  The quality of the converter may make a difference, but there is no technical reason that you couldn't have a flawless conversion between formats.  Both support both YCbCr 4:2:2 and 4:4:4, so the color spaces should be compatible either way.

At this point, the distance isn't a huge factor in what is really killing it. The 5-foot cable still doesn't provide the quality that myself or my clients are looking for, so an upgrade in connection is really required.

@John - I get that the A/V output (ie, composite) is insufficient quality.  That isn't a big surprise as it is standard definition and a USB2.0 video capture device is going to be lacking as well.  Component is able to carry an HD feed and may very well be able to be broken out with a simple cable from your HDMI as the analog signal on HDMI is the same as the analog signal on DVI which is the same as the analog signal on VGA.  It's a form of component signal and will go long distance well without needing the expense of SDI.  SDI is generally a high end system for much more expensive setups.

The HS-900k only has RCA and HDMI mini out. Are you recommending then that I try HDMI mini -> DVI -> RCA -> USB2.0 video capture device, before I splurge on SDI?

Err, strike that.  HDMI lacks the analog support.  You would still need an adapter.  HDMI to component adapters should be cheaper though and a component input would be cheaper for a computer.  It should still get much higher quality than composite out.

Err, have you tried the Component output on the A/V output or only the composite?  Apparently the A/V output supports both component and composite on that camera.  Either way, you will need to replace your EasyCap as it is a very poor capture device that only supports SD component in.  I generally like a lot of the capture gear that Matrox makes as far as good prices for good quality go.

Only the composite (yellow, just so we are on the same page). Like you've suggested, I really think my biggest signal loss is the USB 2.0 adapter and the composite cord. So if I went HDMI->component into a Component PCI card on the computer, it would certainly be a better signal. However, I'd still have to fork out $200 a piece for multiple Blackmagic Intensitys, the only component-in PCI card I can think of, one for each camera. Am I really saving much money over the SDI at that point?

You would want to use the A/V component output cable rather than HDMI.  I was wrong about there being an analog option in HDMI.  You'd need a converter to use HDMI to Component, but not to go Component out of the A/V port.  The savings over SDI is going to be that you don't need a converter from component to SDI or HDMI to SDI.  It does seem that Black Magic has driven down the price on SDI though.  The last time I seriously priced out a setup like what you are doing was about 2 years ago.

Thank you for all the information, I'll take a deeper look into savings/quality with component connections. I can't mark this as the answer though, since the question is HD-SDI adapter vs native SDI.

@John - updated the answer to answer the direct question as well as offering an indirect solution to the underlying problem trying to be addressed.  I have a bad habit of trying to answer the underlying question if there is a better alternative to the actual reason the question is being asked, but it is still a useful direct question as well.

You don't want to use a USB capture device if you want quality.  For quality capture of uncompressed HD video you will need a specialty card comparable to Black magic Declink or Intensity Pro

@pojo-guy - Newer USB specs (3+) have sufficient bandwidth for uncompressed HD.  The most recent version with Thunderbolt 3 even allows for working with uncompressed 4K.  100% agree for USB 2 devices though.


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how accurate frequency does a PC speaker produce
I was wondering how accurate frequencies do PC speakers produce. I'm talking about the old small things in computer that usually beep.
I used the beep linux command to generate some frequencies. But I noticed something interesting. When I use the hardware PC speaker I stop hearing anything on 1700Hz. Actually I barely hear up to 16850Hz and I feel it more like a pain in the back part of my head.
Emulating PC speaker with the integrated sound card and listening through the laptop speaker I hear up to 20KHz and it is nothing like a pain.
So I am wondering if any of these two can be trusted for producing frequencies above 8Khz? I'm more inclined to trust the old PC speaker because I expect to hardly be able to hear such high frequencies. Not having experience with known correct equipment it is hard to judge though.
P.S. I don't think there is any spec I can read about frequency response.

The classic PC Speaker is a very simple system that was designed to be inexpensive and use off-the-shelf parts of the early 1980s.
The core problem is that the PC speaker system consists of a cheap speaker, a timer, and digital pulses. Using this system, you can get quite a lot of interesting sounds out that weren't originally intended. But you are limited to square waves and the harmonic content that comes with them.

I don't think there is any spec I can read about frequency response.

The best you can find is specs for the timer and then run experiments with the actual hardware. The early IBM PCs had discrete timers, but at some point that functionality got rolled into the VLSI chipsets that PC makers used to build motherboards.
If you have an actual audio chip built into the motherboard (fairly common, these days, much less common even in the late 1990s), then it is likely that the PC speaker functionality is emulated there. So the behavior will be different from the original hardware.
Your integrated sound card should produce the most accurate sound. But at the upper end of the sound range, you may be limited by the physical capabilities of your laptop speakers. If you drive the speaker faster than it can move, then you won't get the sound you expect.

That was my surprise that I actually have a true pc speaker in a laptop. It's interesting to know wave form, I was wondering why sound is so ugly from the true pc speaker. FYI in linux there is an alsa emulation of real sound card via the true pc speaker- just load snd-pcsp kernel module. Although noisy it's still amazing.

Back in the '80s, there was a file floating around that, when executed, would speak "help, somebody! I'm trapped inside this computer" through the PC speaker.

There isn't a good answer to this.  It depends on the quality of the speaker and the quality of the sound chipset that is sending the output to the speaker.  20khz is a typical estimate of average human hearing range, so I wouldn't be that surprised if the sound card is more accurate.  Generally they try to cover the range from 20hz to 20khz as the "typical human hearing range".  A lot can alter that such as age and any hearing loss, but it's a general rule.  It's also entirely possible for someone to be able to hear considerably past 20khz (22 to 23 isn't unheard of.)
Really, neither is designed as a calibrated audio system, so they may both be off by a bit, but for a simple sine wave, the sound card is likely much better quality than a simple PC speaker.

I actually tried generating pure sine wave with audacity. It seems more accurate to me but I thing the built-in laptop speakers produce parasite lower frequency sound above 16KHz. I'll have to try with some quality headphones. I can only say that these high frequency sounds are not pleasant.

Yeah, pure sine waves at high frequency are not pleasant.  We usually hear them as harmonics of lower frequencies in day to day life.

Keep in mind that your built-in sound card probably generates audio at 44KHz. That means that a 22KHz sinewave will come out as a square wave. But it won't be that bad because your speaker can't move that fast, so it will be a somewhat rounded square wave. At 16KHz, you are still getting a much rougher approximation of a sine wave than you would at 1khz.


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Good Intermediate Format for Combining Videos
I have a bunch of PNG files in separate directories that I'll turn into videos with FFMPEG.  Say each clip will be a minute long.  I then want to stitch those together into a final video.  The final format can be anything YouTube accepts.
So, I need a format that won't lose a lot of quality when the PNGs are encoded the first time, and that doesn't lose any quality when it's concatenated to other videos of the same format (some need to be re-encoded and some behave like UNIX's cat).  They will also each have their own audio tracks which need to stay lined up correctly.  So, do any audio formats have problems with this?  I can have them in any format.
Also, is there a way to set the video durration longer than then would be assumed?  Say I have 48 frames showing at 24 fps.  Could I have it make the video 3 seconds instead of 2; holding the last frame for a full second?

Please show some details on an example png file. The complete output of ffmpeg -i input.png will suffice.

What you wish to do is somewhat convoluted. There is a path to achieving it in the 2 step process you propose, but I would just suggest creating a new folder where you copy all the input files and rename to form a continuous sequence.
Let's say you have 3 folders and the following files in them to be joined in that order
Folder A: a001.png, a002.png, a003.png, ...... a175.png
Folder B: b0001.png, b0002.png, b0003.png, ...... b1075.png
Folder C: c01.png, c02.png, c03.png, ...... c75.png
Also let's say you want to hold the last frame of B for 5 seconds
So, you rename a001-a175 to s0001-s0175; rename b0001-b1075 to s0176-1250; duplicate s1250 120 times (24fps x 5) and rename the copies s1251-s1370, and finally rename c01-c75 to s1371-s1445.
This method avoids issues of video generation loss. For audio, WAVE files of the correct length and order can be appended losslessy by FFmpeg and then converted+muxed with the output video.
Of course, I see from your history that you have access to Premiere Pro. The simplest way of all would be to load all PNGs and audio in the editor, assemble and take output.

Okay, not ideal, but I think I can make it work.  I no longer have access to Premiere.  I'm curious to see if there are any other answers, because I'll be in this situation on a semi-regular basis.

The easiest way to do this is to simply use the png sequences directly in your editing program.  Any good editing package should support using them directly and you can interpret the sequence at any framerate you desire (though be aware you will have some quality loss if your final frame rate is not an even multiple of the various PNG sequence frame rates).

Use ffmpeg's concat filter to concatenate multiple -i dir/foo%d.png input sources into a single output video.
Old question so not taking time to dig up links or write more.  Just google.


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Adding 3d animations in a video
For a project we need 3d animations to start unfolding whilst a person is walking. The video camera will be moving. Using After effects, achieve such a thing?
Also what is this called? So I can also continue my search on google.
Thanks!

I'm honestly not sure what you are asking here.  What do you mean that you need the animation to start unfolding?  What is unfolding?

You will need motion tracking at a minimum if the camera is moving during the shot and you want to composite a 3d animation.  It will need to be able to do 3d motion tracking, which is the hardest to do.  I believe that Mocha (which comes with recent versions of After Effects) can handle this passably enough for a simple project.  I'm not entirely sure what you are trying to do with the animation though based on how you phrased the question.

The technique you're looking for is called 3D match moving, and AE is definitely capable of pulling this off for simple/short shots, but you'll need to use it in conjunction with a 3d package like blender, maya, max, c4d, etc.  Basically, you use AE's Effect->Perspective->3d Camera Tracker to extract 3d information about your physical camera's spatial orientation, and use this data to animate a camera in your 3d package.  Render your 3D animations (with separate passes for whatever info you'll need to recomp, shadows, lights, AO, reflections, alphas, etc), and then composite them with the original footage back in After Effects.  Keep in mind, this is a VERY simplistic overview of a VERY difficult process.  For more advanced tracking, you might want to look into programs like Boujou, PFTrack, or Autodesk MatchMover.

After Effects CC comes with Cinema 4D Lite, so if you're on the Adobe cloud, you're in luck. (CC is the successor to CS6 and was released this week)
There are many other programs that can accomplish this, (see other answers), but you'll need particular expertise in 3D and compositing (match moving) to accomplish it. There are tutorials floating around the net, but they are program specific...
You could also build something in After Effects 3D layers, but I wouldn't recommend it unless it is really simple boxes/planes.
If you're new to 3D, I'd suggest getting into Cinema 4D Lite as it looks like there is a lot of effort by the Maxon and Adobe teams making the match-moving and import processes really easy.