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Camera for live feed-transfer to external monitor in adjacent room?
I need a camera that functions like a surveillance or webcamera but that I can output to a computer monitor (via adapters) with a VGA-cable. I could perhaps use a normal camcorder for this, but I find those to be too expensive for our simple needs.
Basically, I want the cheap price and simple functionality of a webcam but the possibility to connect it to a computer monitor using only adapters (not running through a computer).
Any tips?

A Raspberry Pi might be what you are looking for.  It is a credit card sized Arm based computer running Raspbian (a Debian variant), and at $25 it may even be cheaper than buying several adapters.
You could simply attach a web cam to the Pi and attach the monitor or TV via HDMI or Component out.  To get to VGA you will need a converter which you can get for about $30.

As far as a digital solution goes, I like this the best, since it allows me to use a webcam. Thanks for your creativity!

A web cam is digital and designed to output a stream and be controlled over USB, it outputs a digital feed, you will need something to translate that to an analog feed that the VGA monitor can understand.  You really can't do it without a computer, but a simple cheap computer could do the job.  It doesn't require particularly sophisticated hardware, but a cheap camcorder with an analog output would probably do the job more cheaply and easily.

I know that, it's the very point of my question. But what I want is not a camcorder. A camcorder is used for recording and for collecting video. All I want is a simple stream/feed. What I'm asking is if there is a type of camera that does this simply? What I want is very basic, an analog webcam if you will. Is there such a thing?

Camcorders are not expensive and are your cheapest option.  They come as cheap as $30.

@burnso A camcorder can also send live video directly to a monitor.  The one mentioned by AJHenderson will do just that.  You may still need an adapter to get it to VGA if that is required, but it still is a really simple way to go.

@AJHenderson I realize that, but I feel camcorders such as the one you linked are not built to last. I need a camera that can be kept running for a few hours of time per instance. These are not great for that purpose.

@friend-of-george Thanks! But as I said above it is not optimal. I will probably try using a simple DV camera, just without tape. Sometimes older stuff is simply better for this kind of purpose. Nothing digital to mess things up.
Thanks for both of your answers! I hope I did not come across as rude, it is not my intent.

@burnso No problem.

@burnso - A DV camera is also digital (DV = digital video).  If battery life is an issue, is there a reason it can't be run off a power adapter?  You are going to need power for the monitor anyway.  Also, cheap web cams are not built to last either.  Either you get something cheap and it isn't built to last or you get something good that is.  You could also look at cameras that are specifically built for security systems as they are generally durable and cheap.


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Is is possible to trim portions of clips in FCPX to save disk space?
I know that it's possible to selectively ingest in the import dialogue, but is it possible to delete "rejected" portions of clips once they've been imported, without deleting the whole clip?  If not, what are viable workarounds?

It depends on your method of encoding, but with many formats, you can not simply cut a clip at a point of your choice without running in to other issues related to how the file is stored.  It might be possible to do it within a few seconds of the desired point, but it's not frequently done in an editing application itself since that isn't the point of an editing application.
What you want to look for is an application that is capable of splitting the file format you are working with.  Quicktime itself can do this for at least some MOV formats.  Once you have split the file in two, you can delete the unnecessary portion and import the part you want to use.

But media manager in final cut pro 7 used to work fine.

Ah, I haven't used FCP since 6 back in college, not a Mac guy.

what codec are you working in? If it's proRes you'll be fine cutting clips. Is there no Media Manager in FCPX then?

@stib, No more media manager in fcpx.  It's not that i have a problem cutting clips to make edits, It's that I want to delete unused media to save disk space.  To answer your first question, we shoot in a variety of codecs, including prores, h.264, CinemaDNG, Cineform, and Sony RAW.  The raw formats always get transcoded to prores, the h.264 sometimes does, and the Cineform never does.

I meant cutting clips to trim them for disk space. Intra-frame codecs like h.264 can't be cut on arbitrary frames, without recoding.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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how to make video scribe or whiteboard animation?
I want to know how to make video scribe or whiteboard animation?
Example:

Please suggest me some tools

Related... http://avp.stackexchange.com/questions/7096/is-there-any-automated-online-service-for-making-white-board-animation?rq=1

also related... http://avp.stackexchange.com/questions/7178/whiteboard-animation-how-to-zoom-and-draw-a-motion

There are any number of ways.  You can do it with flash, you can do it with After Effects (probably the most popular).  If you want to do it cheap, you can do it with a tripod and a still camera and just do a lot of stop motion.

Stop motion, or just speed the video up a lot.

You can do it with Powtoon. It's free. They have whiteboard writing effects for text, but to get images drawn, you might need to use a pro app.

This doesn't really answer the question.  Yes, the OP does ask for names of tools, but without some explanation of how to use the tool it is of limited benefit.

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


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Why does all timecode start at 1 hour? (01:00:00:00)
Is there a reason timecode in Final Cut 7 and timecode in Pro Tools starts at the 1 hour mark? eg. 01:00:00:00? As opposed to all zeros? Some old broadcast standard that I don't know about?

You can change it to all zeros by going to Sequence>Settings>Timeline Options>Starting Timecode and change the 1 to a 0.

It's to leave room before first picture, for slates, countdowns, test signals etc, while still preserving an easy count of running time for the video. Yes, it traces historically to broadcast and in particular videotape.
Many tape-based editing systems couldn't deal with 24-hour wraparound, so the next even hour became traditional 'time zero'. I suspect that most non-linear systems are the same.

This is correct, because typically a leader starts at 00:59:50:00 and your two pop is at 00:59:58:00

Starting at 10:00:00:00 is also widely used.

Useful answer thank you, but the phrase "next even hour" is rather confusing. Do you not mean "next whole hour"?

@Ray - 'next even hour' wasn't meant as 'next even-numbered' hour, just next non-ragged time slot, next hour-aligned time, etc. But I agree that it might be better to say 'next whole hour', 'first non-zero hour' or similar..

Some projects use the hours field as a reel/tape/memory card indicator. Many cameras permit setting the TC hours number arbitrarily to support this usage. You could set the hours number in Pro Tools or FCP to conform to such a system if required.

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


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Free songs for video production
I would like to make a video with songs in the background. I'm mostly interested about classic music, but other genres as well. I know of Creative Commons. However, I was wondering if there are recordings of famous songs available for free (perhaps, old recordings?).

-1: This is a shopping cart question. It's difficult to write an answer that isn't a list of links that will eventually go out of date.

@FriendofGeorge (and @Kevin) Is this really a shopping recommendation? It's asking whether such a thing exists, not asking for a specific source. Sources are, at best, supporting detail in an answer, not an answer in and of themselves.

You are probably right.  However it is a duplicate of this question:  http://avp.stackexchange.com/questions/5518/how-to-find-royalty-free-music?rq=1 Which is a duplicate of this question: http://avp.stackexchange.com/questions/5214/where-to-find-free-music

You can download royalty-free songs for video production or poems free for video production. It is no charge

Look for music released with Creative Commons licences.


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Is it there a way to create a video playout system? (Preferably in Linux)
I am facing a situation caused by the need to start broadcasting in High Definition and there are a few Digital Automation/Playout Suppliers that offer excellent solutions such as Fission, Miranda, Black Magic, Tricaster and a few other.
My question is related to the possibility to use a different system, preferably (but not limited to) in a Linux based system.
I am currently using a NLES Sony Vegas 8.0 timeline in order to use the preview's output in the secondary monitor (via GPU) for sending such video to an analog video converter and this way drop the signal to my video switcher, after which I can route both the audio and the video to the transmission block.
I would appreciate a lot if somebody tell me if is it there a way to keep my current workflow by adding a digital video card to my computer in order to Sony Vegas drop the video signals to the proper outputs.
Additionally, if the solution involves linux, I would really appreciate if somebody provides the details of such solution. I have tested many free and open source software in Linux (Ubuntu) but they are far from my needs yet. It does not matter if the software is paid, free or open source.
BTW: I am planning to include Tricaster 8000 in my production lane, just to be considered.
Thanks in advance.


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Component YPbPr to VGA with monitor that supports Sync-on-Green
I want to connect a YPbPr component video signal to a computer monitor using a simple component-to-VGA adapter, I know this isn't possible on most monitors as you would need a converter to convert YPbPr to RGB.
But if the monitor supports Sync-on-Green will it work?

It works for me, but everything has a green tint and the higher the brightness the less any color but green is visible.
Using a sony trinitron.


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Automate turning on and off Twixtor effect in After Effects
While using Twixtor in After Effects, you can automate the speed of the clip by manipulating the "Speed %" under "Output Control". Now, since there's no good way to do time-remapping natively in After Effects (rather, you'll have to automate specific time codes yourself, as stated in this thread, which is a total drag), I'd like to use Twixtor's controls even when I don't need to use the frame interpolation it offers.
For example, let's say I'm running a 60 frames per second clip first at 100% speed, then at 40% speed, and then at 20% speed. When running the clip at 100% and 40%, I do already have enough information contained in the clip and won't need Twixtor's interpolation feature (it might even destroy my footage by affecting it when it's really not needed). It's only at 20% that I'll need it.
Is there some way to turn of Twixtor's interpolation during certain sections of the clip, while still taking advantage of the automation of the "speed %" variable?

You could try making two copies of your footage, then disabling all the interpolation features within Twixtor on one of the copies - ie:

Motion Vectors = None
Image Prep  = None
Motion Sensitivity = 0.00
Frame Interp = Nearest

Keyframe the "speed %" controls on both tracks exactly the same, but then remove the appropriate track when you're running at 20% (maybe by keyframing opacity between 0% and 100%).
Let me know if it works.


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What are the placards in this picture?
I've always wondered what these things are such an awkward angle. I only see them in Whitehouse shots.

They are for the teleprompter.  The words are on a screen below, the angle is to reflect to the speaker's line of site...
I'm sure there are different implementations, but that's the basic gist.

oh how awkward, I'd think it would be very hard to read that viewing angle.

@EvanCarroll, well, I guess it's less awkward than looking down at the podium when you're speaking :)

It isn't an awkward viewing angle at all. It looks like the page is held vertically in front of you. That is why the monitor is also at the 45 degree angle.

These are teleprompters, or more accurately the upper mirror of a free standing teleprompter.  The screen is at the base of the device and can be larger and brighter than would otherwise fit on a small stand.  They place the screen at a 45 degree angle and then place the mirror at a 45 degree angle such that the image looks like the screen is hovering directly in front of the speaker.
Teleprompters are actually used for far more than political presentations, but typically if the speaker is not presenting to a live audience, they will be presenting to a camera.  For camera setups, they actually use a half-silvered (see-through) mirror that will project the text directly in front of the camera lens.  This allows the speaker (such as a news caster) to read a script directly off the camera as they are looking at it.
In the case of live presentations however, they need to be able to engage the audience, which means they need to look around but still have the script close at hand.  Using multiple teleprompters allows for this.


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AE - Randomly place ~100 layers and then move to the middle
I currently have around 100 text layers placed in the middle of my composition in After Effects. What I would like to do is randomly place this layers around the middle and then create an animation where they are all moved to the center again.
Is it possible to do this without manually placing the layers?

I forget the exact setting (I'll check it later), but there should be something in Keyframe Assistant for doing what you are talking about.  I believe it is called Jitter.

Nope, I take it back, I couldn't find what I was looking for.  Wiggler might be another term to look for though, but I couldn't find it in CS6.  It might also not do what you are looking for as I'm starting to remember what I did with it before.

I would use a particle system to do this, like Particular or Particle World.
Particular is part of the Trapcode Suite of AE plugins, and is the easiest to use.
http://www.redgiant.com/products/all/trapcode-particular/
Generate a load of particles in random positions
Make a pre-comp with all the different text layers on different frames, so one text object per frame.
Tell the particle generator to use the pre-comp to texture the particles
Have the particles emit from a central point to their random positions.
Then time reverse the whole comp.
This video tutorial explains how to get different textures (in this case different leaf images) on to each particle:


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Export rotated video out of Adobe Premiere
I am creating a video in portrait orientation but the TV I am putting this on cannot rotate the video while playing, so I need to export the video in landscape format. Is there a way to rotate the video when exporting or rotate the entire sequence?

You can simply transform the video to be vertical within the normal frame.  I'd do it using a nested sequence that way you can avoid having to alter your main full quality sequence.  Simply make a new scene, drag your existing scene in to it.  Click on the clip, go to Effects Control.  Expand Motion control and adjust the rotation, scale and position as necessary.


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What exactly is a voyeur shot in cinematography?
What exactly is a voyeur shot in cinematography?  Is this movement or style?  The only thing I can find online is basically perverted stuff.  Where can I find an example?

Where have you heard of this style?  I've never heard of it as a style.

Better late then never. This is a typical voyeurshot

I've not heard of it referred to as a style.  The only thing I could imagine it would be is trying to emulate a style similar to the voyeuristic feel which would probably be made up of roughly shot and edited clips of what would normally be a private, intimate scene, but I am not familiar with a "voyeur shot" as a thing.


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Adobe Premiere CS6 stuck at 0% exporting still images
I am creating a slideshow in Premiere so it's just a bunch of images with transitions. When exporting to any kind of format or codec, it would get stuck "Encoding 0%" forever and freeze afterwards. This doesn't happen when I put videos in the sequence. As soon as there is 1 image, the whole thing just won't export.
Any idea why?

Gonna need more information.  Does anything max out?  CPU, Memory, etc.  Does it seem like the computer is trying to do something or does it just stop working altogether?

@AJHenderson CPU is maxed out. And I have to force quit the application. This is on MBP Retina with 16GB RAM

Have you tried rendering the work area prior to export?  Does the same thing happen when rendering work area?  What happens if you try exporting through Adobe Media Encoder?

@AJHenderson The preview rendering is looking corrupted (just noise, sometimes I see my desktop in there too) But if I double-click the area, the image shows up. The preview also shows up fine on the Export window.

sounds like maybe something is wrong with the rendering engine itself.  Have you tried reinstalling Premiere?


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iPhone 5 video: continuous shooting without creating independent clips
I'm shooting some doco footage using the iPhone 5. I'm looking for a way to shoot "tape" style. I don't want independant clips when I stop recording. Just want to append clips back to back continuously like pausing and recording does on any video camera.
I'd rather not combine clips at the end. If there's a way to avoid this that would be perfect.
Any suggestions?

If there is, you'd have to find an app that does it and it would effectively be doing the same thing of simply appending the clips automatically for you.  In a good NLE, it should just be a matter of dropping a multi-selection of clips on to a timeline to have it assemble them back to back.

At this time the iPhone 5 does NOT have that feature. The only thing you can do is download an application such as Qik or other recording in the appstore which they have a feature such pause or zoom.


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MHL HDMI to HDMI
I have the Roku Stick which plugs directly into an MHL port. I have a TV without MHL (just normal HDMI) that I would like to try this on.
My understanding is that I would need to introduce 5v at 500mA and then I would have a compatible port. The HDMI spec says pin 18 is powered, is this port the powered for MHL as well?
Is there a detailed pinout available for MHL HDMI?
Is there a pinout for a Micro USB to HDMI cable for the MHL spec?
Should I be asking this somewhere else?
Thanks!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_High-Definition_Link

http://www.roku.com/streamingstick

i've done some Googleing, but don't see an off the shelf adapter, why not return the stick and get a normal roku?

Hi Corey, Thanks for your help. I bought the stick with an LED projector for $169 from an Amazon Gold Box sale the other day (http://www.amazon.com/3M-Streaming-Projector-Powered-SPR1000/dp/B008X1BV2Y). So I won't be returning it. I might, however, just go buy a normal Roku. They are pretty nice.


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TitleBox .seq2 animation files
I am using TitleBox for dynamic graphic animations.
There are several was to play an animation in this tool, but the "safest" seems to be the internal "animation file" object, which comes with a tools to create an "image sequence file" from a list of pictures ( .png / .tga  ). Such sequences files, once generated, have a .seq2 extension.
My question is: does anyone know about this format ? Is there a cli tool with which I could create a batch which would generate the .seq2 files?


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How can I capture/convert HDMI from an HDCP protected input?
Basically the situation is I have a PS3 and I want to be able to split a lossless HDMI connection to my TV and something to a capture card. Using an HDMI splitter I can connect to the TV just fine but my capture card does not read HDCP.
I could use a component splitter but that would prevent me from being able to use HDMI quality video/audio on the TV, and not using HDMI as the source means my setup is more complicated; I have other sources (like my Wii U) where I have to use HDMI.
How how can I record from this HDCP HDMI in? I can take HDMI without HDCP or component video, but my searches have been unable to find to find something that either converts HDMI (with HDCP) to component or takes HDMI and spits out something non-HDCP devices can read.
For the record I know of one device that does this: The HDFury4/3. However, the HDFury3 is about $150 above what I'm currently willing to pay, I'm just looking for something barebones. I have seen numerous other devices claiming to do things like convert HDMI to component but they either have multiple 1 star reviews saying "this doesn't work at all" or they have no reviews at all. I'd rather be reasonably confidence before purchasing something like this since it seems like there are a lot of solutions which simply don't do what I need them to.

Welcome to Video Production. This answer doesn't really give much information, you could improve it by adding a link to one of the converters that you've seen.

Pretty simple actually--running the signal through most HDMI splitters seems to work just fine. I can't be sure if this is a feature of all splitters, but Iv'e got two different models/brands of HDMI splitter and I can record HDMI just fine with 'em.

Thanks for sharing what worked for you.  The HDMI splitters often do not support HDCP which results in the PS3 not outputting HDCP protected video.  See the third paragraph of my answer for a more detailed explanation.

You would need a device that supports HDCP if your output source is utilizing it.  That's the entire point of the system.  The video signal is encrypted and will only exchange the data with a device which can cryptographically authenticate itself as an authorized HDCP receiver. Getting that certificate requires proving that they are going to follow the rules on what can and can't be done with the content (such as not allowing it to be recorded.)
Occasionally codes are cracked, but these codes are then removed from the valid list of codes in future products and they won't work on newer material until another code is broken.  It is also worth pointing out that (unfortunately), if you live in the US at least, such bypassing is illegal in the United States according to the DMCA which specifically prevents bypassing protective measures even if the use would be fair use.
It looks like it may also be possible to connect the PS3 to a non-HDCP device, which would prevent it from using HDCP.  If that is the case, then if you could find a device that isn't HDCP compatible or that can strip the HDCP information, then you could get an unprotected stream and do an end run around DMCA limitations.  You may have to do a soft-reset of the PS3 to get it to recognize a non-HDCP TV if it was previously attached to an HDCP one however since it starts up in the same mode it was in for the previous display.

try this its the latest device that's coming out that can get past a lot of issues you are having.
http://www.evsonline.com/atomos-ninja-star-pocket-size-prores-recorder-deck.html

This still isn't going to capture from an HDCP protected input.  Nothing that is legitimately available on the market is going to provide that functionality as they would have to lie about what they are doing with the decoder keys that they obtain from the governing body of HDCP.


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Scrolling rainbow when projector screen is in frame
We're doing rear-screen projection.  It looks great, but in tests with the canon t2i there's a scrolling rainbow in the video that changing shutter speed or frame rate won't get rid of.  Any advice?

You are seeing the scan line of the projector.  You need a camera with a screen sync feature in order to deal with the rolling shutter issue and depending on the technique used by the projector, it may not even be possible.
What you are actually seeing is what the projector actually does, it's just that it happens too fast for your eye to perceive it normally.  A video camera is however fast enough to catch it.
This is regularly a problem even for professional gear and it is not at all uncommon for video screens to be shot with the device off and the video on the screen composited in after the fact.

yeah, we're aware it's the scan lines; but there's glass distortion involved between screen and camera POV and compositing would have defeated the point.  We may be going with that anyway, if the T2i can't compensate, at any rate.

@Junopsis can you post a frame grab of what you are getting?  Perhaps that will help in identifying it.  I'm still thinking it may be a side effect of the way the projector is operating.  Is it by any chance a DLP projector?

Newton Rings or Polarizing artifacts? Some devices use polarization for 3d display. This could also be an aliasing problem: the sampling resolution needs to be approx 2x larger than the smallest frequency.

One way I have found that works is to change the ISO setting.
For example, if I set my camera to 200 and look at an image being made by a projector, I can see a faint rainbow line go across the screen. If I set it higher, it gets bigger and at a point it looks like a continuous rainbow going across. Also zooming in seems to make it worse.

Slower shutter speed would reduce the rainbow a little.


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Setting up (negative?) midi delay in ableton
When tapping a simple beat on my MPD24 controller in Ableton Live on a Macbook, the notes sound fine when I play them, but as the clip repeats, they seem to play too early. I must admit I am an utter amateur, but it seems like Ableton has moved the notes a bit earlier (to compensate for latency?).

Perhaps there is something wrong with my brain, but I really think I am playing these notes on the beat, not before. There is also a notable difference between when I play them and when the clip repeats after that.
What setting controls this behavior? Is there a MIDI latency setup step that I skipped?

Go to Preferences, the click on the MIDI/Sync tab.
Open up one of your MIDI ports, and you will see the MIDI Clock Sync Delay.
Mess with that.

If that doesn't do it, then Driver Error Compensation, under Latency in the Audio tab.

Just to verify that this is the switch; if I set the MIDI clock sync delay to some ridiculous value, my notes should be way off, no? This doesn't happen.


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Retaining quality while re-encoding with same codec
Just say I have a bunch of separate clips (DV stream format .dv), and I join them using Quicktime 7. If I then export them out as a new .dv file, am I losing any quality?
Is there a loss in quality if you re-encode a video under the same exact codec with the same exact settings? If so, how can I join my clips and retain the original quality?

It can depend on the compression used, but generally yes, there will be a loss of quality, particularly if there is any alteration to the video.  For a fairly low compression format like DV it probably isn't going to be much, but the best bet, if the format supports it, is to append the stream data and alter the file such that it has the necessary format or simply make a virtual clip if your editing environment supports it.
Personally, I've always taken the latter option when working with DV, so I don't recall if it is a format that easily supports combining files or not, though I would expect it is since it compresses every frame independently as I recall. (May be wrong on that though, haven't worked with DV in a while.)


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Why does After Effects shear my last frame in a loop?
Following the short tutorial here to make a loop in After Effects using time remapping and the loopOut() expression I encountered some odd behaviour.
In the tutorial it is mentioned that when this method is used a black frame appears between the loops. To remedy this problem one needs to create a new time remapping keyframe the frame before the last one and then delete the last one. This should give a smooth loop.
However, instead of the black frame my frame gets "sheared" as shown below:
Normal frame:

Sheared frame:

How can I get a loop using (preferably using loopOut) and not get a sheared frame in the loop? I'm using After Effects CS5.5 on Mountain Lion 10.8.3.

This seems very odd.  Are you sure this isn't a problem with the source file?  How was the source originally developed?

I am applying the time remapping to a pre-comp containing three layers with identical content. The content is a jpeg sequence of 5 frames, looped 10 times (through interpret -> loop). I have three layers, one of them is the main image, the other two are masking the sides of the image with the same content. Playing the pre-comp without time remapping works fine.

Any chance you could post the project files somewhere that we could take a look at them.  The behavior seems very odd.

I've uploaded it here: http://www.mediafire.com/?837pzj72hpd5z9r
The behaviour seems to revert to a black frame instead of a sheared frame after a restart of AE. However, if I replace the last keyframe in the new session, the sheared frame is present again.

Yeah, the black frame is more what I would expect.  The shearing is very odd behavior.

It does appear to be a bug.  I was unable to reproduce the problem on the Windows version of CS6 and the loop appears to work fine for me.  I unfortunately had to uninstall CS5.5 when I installed CS6, so I can't test on the Windows version of CS 5.5.  Your keyframe for the loop was off by one frame (you were looping on 1:04 instead of 1:05 (your video ends on 1:06)) but that shouldn't cause the problem you are seeing.

Oh, one last thought, have you tried removing the de-gitter effect?  That may be trying to blend between the jumping frames.  I didn't have a matching effect so I had to disable that.  That's the only difference I had with my trial run (other than the different platform and AE version.)


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Codec/Hardware Advice on real-time encoding multiple HD streams
Does anyone know of what kind of hardware along with any good codecs that could reasonably encode 3 x 1920x1200 60fps DirectShow streams in real time? Preferably a lossless codec but I know at these massive rates it might not be feasible. I know there are some OpenCL/CUDA based codecs out there but don't know of what kind of hardware would be required to to this in real time. Price is non-issue but we are planning on using epiphan's DVI2PCIE capture cards.

To do this, you would need real time encoding hardware and some seriously high speed hard drives.  I know devices like the Matrox MX-02 will work for 1080p30, but I'm not sure about resolutions higher than that and at 60p.  I think Black Magic Design has some 4k real time encoders but I'm not sure if they support 60p.  Multiple SSDs would also pretty much be a requirement.  Probably on separate controllers and even then the bus rate might be a bottleneck with that much data.

Throughput wouldn't be an issue here if we are talking about live capture and encoding, everything would stay in RAM for this and only the final video would be written to the disk which isn't much with h264 encoded video, a modern SSD would suffice for that.

@ProfessorFartSparkle - "Preferably a lossless codec but I know at these massive rates it might not be feasible."  Even as H264, it can cover a very wide range of possible data rates, including some that would require extra SSDs to record to in parallel.

I'm faced with that issue at my current job quite often, mostly concerning playback but its the same for writing when it comes to high-end synchronous SSDs.
Lets take a completely lossless approach. An uncompressed full HD frame is 5.93262 MB in size. JPEG2000 can compress a lossless frame at a ratio of 2:1 on average. Ususally even better. At 60 FPS that would mean we would need to write at 177,9786 MB/s per second. Times 3 we are at 533,9358 MB/s. Thats scratching at the limits of SATA3 SSDs but still possible when having a reasonably sized RAM buffer and no issue at all with PCI-E SSDs.

Though the reason I mentioned h264 is that its one of the few codecs that have full hardware support in many devices. If you dont go for hardware encoding you will need a quite powerfull system, though if money is really not an issue at all you can just go for a crazy system with 64GB of RAM and 12+ cores. That will cost you about 2000-3000$ (self built) but will definitely get the job done if the software can keep up with that, not all capture card drivers are made for having multiple capture devices in the system.


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Removing silence and no movement from videos
Using Windows 7, which program helps me

Remove silence, like the option in adobe audition
Remove still images in video, when nothing happens

in the same program?
Both functions should require a threshold value to distinguish between silence and non-silence and still image and non-still image.
Goal is when silence was removed these parts are removed in the video aswell, so audio and video remain in sync. Maybe a fade between frames then.

There is an answer to the similar question, but without the audio issue at http://avp.stackexchange.com/questions/9361/how-can-i-automatically-remove-pauses-from-a-video

ffmpeg with -vf mpdecimate won't shorten the audio, and will produce a variable-frame-rate output.  You could remux it to alter the frame timing, e.g. so all the frames came at fixed intervals, effectively removing the gaps.  IDK how to approach the problem of doing this while keeping audio sync.

This question (http://superuser.com/questions/818342/strip-motion-events-from-file) has an answer that uses -vf "mpdecimate,setps='N/(5*TB)'" to skip no-motion parts.  (output is CFR, but with only frames that have motion).  It still doesn't handle audio.


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Hardware Screencasting Help
Here is my situation. I'm doing a series of lectures for a Udemy course and I need to show people how to boot into tails from a USB drive. Obviously while configuring the bios and when in the new O.S it is impossible to run a software screencast solution thus I need some form of hardware to frame grab.
I've never done this before and I need some help to understand the basic concepts and what I should buy. I understand this question isn't quite in a stackexchange format thus at the very least if you could point me to a forum that could answer this question or a tutorial you think would be helpful, then I'd be very grateful


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Best Program for combining Images and Videos onto a DVD with menu
I thought there would be 100 and 1 good solutions for this but so far I have not found something that could all of the following:

Create a DVD-player DVD
Have a menu with options
Have images & Video
prefrably handle .mod

Basically I am trying to put a bunch of photos and videos from our wedding & honeymoon on and older-relative friendly DVD. So it must be able to be playable in a normal dvd player so therefore it must be able to show a menu with categories.
Anyone got good recommendations for this? Everything I come across is either a completely generic menu or frankly broken!

either windows or linux programs are fine but windows would be eaiser :)

Adobe Encore can do what you are looking for.  It is included with Adobe Premiere.  You can either buy a copy of CS6 or if you only need it for the one project, you can use Creative Cloud to obtain it for just a month or two.
In general, you will find most DVD authoring software comes in fairly expensive packages.  It's not as easy as you would think to do and not a lot of software does it.  The options now are cheap in comparison to how much it used to cost.  When I first did DVD authoring, it cost $2500 to get DVD authoring software that crashed every 15 minutes or so.

Take a look at Movie Studio Platinum 12 (or DVD Architect Studio w/o video editor)

seems a bit overkill and expensive?


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Where are the opacity map presets for CC Particle World in CS5 and CS6?
In versions of After Effects prior to CS5, there are opacity map presets such as Fade In, Fade Out, Constant, etc.
I can see Opacity Map under Particle in the CS6 CC Particle World, but how do I get the presets?

In the newer versions of CC Particle World the opacity map presets have been removed.
The only way to set opacity now is by drawing a curve on the graph.  See screenshot below:

is there any way to reset the Opacity Map? Its really hard to just draw on.


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How to make black text accept light in After Effects
I'm trying to add a light to a scene that has black text on a white background. My goal is to keep the light in position and slide in the text. As the text slides, part of the text will be less black because of the light.
I've added a light and positioned it correctly. I've also made sure my text is 3D-enabled and has "accepts lights" on.
The problem I'm having is that no matter how I position the light or tweak the material options, I can't figure out what to do so that the surface of the text changes intensity with the light that's being cast. The text will cast shadows (when turned on), but the surface won't change.
What do I need to do to get the surface of the text to change color (to grey or white) based on the light source?

Here's what it looks like:

I don't know this one off the top of my head, but if I remember I'll take a look tonight when I get home.  I think there is a setting about how the light interacts, but I've worked with so many different programs they sometimes cross in my head.

Adjust Metal to 0% and Specular Shininess to taste in the material options of the text layer.

I'm currently following this tutorial

and at 12:44 i think i got the same problem as you did in this situation. When I turned on "Accept lights" my text turned white to my frustration.
To fix it I tried experimenting with "Light transmission". I think this was set to 100% without me knowing, so when i adjusted it, my problem got resolved.

Play with the cone feather settings on the light. This will alter how harsh the gradient between lit and unlit sections of the text is.
Also, make sure your text is not totally black (#000000) otherwise the lighting will probably not look right.


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Videomapping tutorials
Anybody knows how or where I can see tutorials about Videomapping? I searched a lot. Truthly, I found lots of info about Madmapper, Modul8, etc..., but I am looking for something fully awesoe, like real practical examples, how I build the scaled video and how I can play all that stuff (more than a simple loop) into projection.
Thanks to all.

I hope someone has a good answer.  I personally hadn't even heard of the term until you mentioned it.  My guess is there probably isn't a whole lot out there about it since it is pretty rarely seen or used from what I can gather about it.  I'll do some more research later and see if I can find anything though.  It sounds interesting.

Hi AJ. You did not know what VM is? Yeah, I strongly believe that it is an unknown concept in lot of countries, here in Portugal is growing...
So check this out: "Full Tutorial", I seriously hope that this fast tutorial helps you like helped me. :)


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Apply effects to multiple video channels in Sony Vegas
Is there a way to apply the same effects across multiple video tracks?

I don't have Vegas, but have you tried copying and pasting the effect if it is possible to select it?  I know this works in several other similar products.

Say, you have a video that has indoor and outdoor scenes, and also some other tracks. And you notice that indoor parts require brightness/saturation adjustment.
You cut your video into a sequence of scenes (Video Events), and you find it boring to apply FX to all/several indoor events, especially if they are cut into many places across your video.
I use a pretty simple technique to automate it.

Make sure all Video Events that need to have an FX stay on a separate Video Track, so that the track contains only events that do need the FX. Call it, say, "Indoor with brightness".
Let's complicate things and assume you also need some scenes to be pixelated. Place them into yet another track, call it "Indoor with brightness and pixelate". Apply Pixelate FX to this track.
Make a new Video Track, and call it, say, "Brightness FX Master"
Make both "Indoor with brightness" and "Indoor with brightness and pixelate" tracks to be children of "Brightness FX Master" track
Apply the Brightness FX to "Brightness FX Master" track

Pros: You set all FX only once. Modify it freely and you don't need to re-apply it.
Cons: Usually, you will have to cut through the tracks carefully because it's impossible to add a non-FX track in between two child tracks. Also, managing cross-track crossfades is often a difficult to accomplish.
Also, You can't partially apply an FX this way, e.g., Brightness +10 is always Brightness +10, there's no way to set its opacity=50% (effectively to Brightness +5). In this case, use Animate feature to dynamically change parameters of applied FX ("Brightness Amount", in this case).

U P D A T E:
I have located a script that suggests it can "apply the same effects across multiple video tracks" here:
http://mmdv.com/vegastips/index.php?title=Scripts
Under "Beginners Scripts" is this one:
AddEffectToAllMedia demonstrates how you can add an effect to all media files in the project.
You will need to download "Media:Beginner Scripts.zip" and unzip then install this script in Vegas as shown here:
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/scripting_in_vegas_pro_and_sound_forge
(Scripting became available with Vegas Pro 4)
-------------------- old but may have some other value ---------------------
I have considerable experience with Vegas Pro and generally there is no button to push that will apply the same effect to multiple clips. I generally apply effects individually to each clip and move on to the next one. But here's something you might like to know. If for instance you apply an effect and you change its default values as in tweak it a bit you can save this new effect by the following.
Assuming I had a special blend of brightness and contrast, I would type in a new unique name, lets say "brightness -10, contrast +25" and then hit the save button next to the line, this button looks like the standard save icon (an old floppy). You won't see this effect show up in this effects group until you navigate to another effects group and then come back to it (a manual refresh if you will). This way you can at least apply the same effect without tweaking it each time over multiple clips.
Finally if you are good at scripting you might investigate if there is a script available to apply an effect to multiple clips by addressing this to the sony vegas forum at creative cow.
I generally don't want to apply all the same effects to each clip as each clip may need a tweak one way or another as I need to pay attention to all the effect details.


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Presentation to Video conversion
I'd like to make several online language courses, and was thinking about incorporating video into a lecture.
I was looking for a way to convert presentations (PowerPoint or OpenOffice) directly to some video format, or, indirectly, maybe through Adobe Flash format.
Right now I'm on a Ubuntu.
Maybe there is some kind of tool, like FFmpeg style?
Thank you again!

What you are looking for is called a Screen Capture program or Screen Cast program.  A quick Google search turned up gtk-recordMyDesktop as an option that should work for your purposes and appears to be built in to Ubuntu.  This was the site I found that explained more detail on how it is used.  I personally have no experience working with Ubuntu, let alone screen capture on it.

Thank you very much. I also came this conclusion. For reference, there is another one, called 'Kazam Screencaster'.

This is a "very" old question, but there is a pretty simple method to do this (and something that comes up surprisingly often). So if you landed here, I do hope you find this solution helpful.

Change the individual slides to pdf.
Turn the pdf to jpg
Turn the jpg's into a film.

To do this I have used unoconv, ghostscript, graphicsmagick and ffmpeg.
First: Update your system.
 sudo apt-get update
 sudo apt-get install unoconv gs graphicsmagick

Because ffmpeg is pretty complicated for beginners to install correctly, there is a page here that shows you:
https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/CompilationGuide/Ubuntu
Then the following console command will change the ppt into a pdf:
 unoconv -f pdf presentation.ppt

The following command will turn the pdf into a series of images:
 pageNum=$(gs -q -dNODISPLAY -c "(presentation.pdf) (r) file runpdfbegin pdfpagecount = quit"); gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=jpeg -dFirstPage=1 -dLastPage=$pageNum -sOutputFile=%09d.jpg -dJPEGQ=90 -r90 presentation.pdf -c quit

And finally turn the images into a video where every frame is 15 seconds long.
 ffmpeg -ar 48000 -ac 2 -f s16le -i /dev/zero -r 1/15 -f image2 -i %09d.jpg -c:a libfdk_aac -c:v libx264 -vf "fps=fps=25" -shortest presentation.mp4

Of course if you are smart (and need to do this often) you'd turn it into a bash script. Good luck.

And for extra credit, you can use the browser to skip to the next slide. Here is a bit of info on that: http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/10801/how-to-make-a-video-presentation-with-the-possibility-to-go-to-the-next-or-the-p/12507#12507


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What compression should I use for archiving VHS tapes to HDD?
What do you recommended for capturing VHS for archiving on a HDD? Will DV PAL codec do? H264 at high quality? (I'm PAL over here btw). I want to retain the quality, but at the same time I don't want 60GB per hour...

DV has a something of a focus on simplicity, so it can be encoded with primitive microprocessors and decoded quickly in an NLE. In particular, it's intra-frame: a DV file is basically an array of still-image files.
That's useful for professional editing; it means however DV can't achieve nearly as high compression ratios as more complicated formats with P- and even B-frames – space used to be not so much of an issue since magnetic tape fits quite astonishing amounts of data.
So DV isn't really a great format for archiving, it takes up not 60 but easily 10 GB per hour. And that for SD quality, albeit with very little compression artifacts.
h.264 is much more space-efficient, and its higher computional cost isn't much of an issue now everybody has a fast, at least duo-core processor at hand. You can easily get VHS-like–quality files down to about 1 MB/s with h.264.
It's pretty much the canonical format now. The main alternatives I'd suggest are free alternatives, mainly

Theora. Reasonably well-supported, simpler than h.264, not quite as that good as that- but still pretty ok compression-wise. And
Dirac. Highly sophisticated, really good quality/compression, but computation-heavy and not supported by anything consumer-grade. Not too well by professional stuff either.

This so far applies to pretty much any kind of video, not just VHS. All of these formats support PAL resolution; Theora doesn't have interlacing, but switching to progressive-scan prior to compression is no big deal and might in fact be a good idea anyway. Just make sure you use a good deinterlacing algorithm.

Another plus for H.264 is the level of hardware decode support. Playback of H.264 is a cinch on most modern devices even if the main processor isn't very beefy.

For archiving VHS I suggest using MPEG2 720x576 as the best format in terms of quality/space.
DV is 12 GB per hour, but this is the best format for editing. H264 takes up much less space, but it is the delivery format, not for editing. MPEG2 is a compromise. In addition, you can burn them to DVD w/o reconverting.

MPEG2 isn't great for editing, either, since it has already P- and B-frames just like h.264. It's easier to decode, yes, but the difference isn't that big (OTOH, h.264 is much more expensive to encode, but this isn't an issue here since copying from VHS takes ages anyway). And MPEG2 has much nastier artifacts than any of the alternatives at comparable bitrates. The only real advantage of MPEG2 is its near-universal support (any DVD player will do).


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How to demux MPTS to SPS
I have a live multi-program MPEG-TS stream [MPTS] over IP, I'd like to select just one program from the stream, and output a single-program MPEG-TS stream containing just that program.
is there any software, either open-source or for sale that can do that?

Better be asked on SU?

I think it is on topic here, I just don't know the answer on this one.  SU might have someone that knows though.

Are you trying to rebroadcast someone else's stream?  I think the way this would normally be done is to have a separate stream from the origin.  I'm not sure of any software splitters, though that isn't to say there might not be a commercial streaming server capable of doing it.  Unfortunately I am a Windows streaming media services guy when it comes to live streaming, so I don't know much on the MPEG-TS side of things.

We're deploying an OTT solution that only supports SPTS as input, in a DVB broadcasting facility that utilizes MPTS streams. need some way to split the MPTS streams to multiple SPTS streams

Adobe Media Server appears to support the functionality you are looking for.  There is a free starter edition or the Extended or Professional editions also support live stream splitting.

thanks! to complete the answer, can you point to documentation, screenshot or anything to direct at how to setup this feature?

@AviadRozenhek - unfortunately not, I don't actually have the software.  I was just able to verify from spec sheets that it could a) work with Live MPEG-TS streams and b) split live streams.

that's what I was looking for, where did you see it in the spec?

@AviadRozenhek http://www.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/products/ams/pdfs/ams5-intro-wp.pdf  Also http://www.adobe.com/products/adobe-media-server-family/buying-guide-comparison.html is useful.

@AJHenderson Is there any open source project to demux MPTS to SPTS?

@Mr.Hyde - I have no idea, but you are welcome to ask that as a new question.

tsMuxer should be capable of doing just that. It can handle pretty much any form of transport stream.

Is there any open source project to demux MPTS to SPTS?

You can also use ffmpeg

Well ffmpeg is open source, there are several language bindings including C: http://dranger.com/ffmpeg/tutorial01.html


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Glitch effect won't work
I'm learning After Effects from scratch so sorry if this is obvious but whenever I try to make one part of an image 'glitch' I create a section of the image and place it in the middle but when I press play my desired glitch (JPG noise) does appear but black pixels appear outside the selected area of the image, anyone got any idea how I can stop this??
Thank you

Your question is not very clear to me. Could you maybe add a link to a video (uploaded by you, or an existing one) showing the desired effect and you're problem? This would greatly help answering the question.

I think you should use the "Bad TV" plugin to achieve this effect.  It has a setting to glitch images, and make them look as though the encoding has broken:
http://aescripts.com/bad-tv/
An example:


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Fixing desync in a large, long video file
I've got some moderately large, compressed video files (~2+ gigs, over an hour long) from a few Open Broadcaster Software streams to Twitch.tv. All output files (including the twitch archive's export) have the dreaded gradual audio desync.
I have assorted tools to play with audio, but all of them seem to be failing me. Camtassia Studio barely loads the files (sometimes it just plain doesn't), and since the desync is gradual, Camtasia can't really help since I can only shift ALL audio.
I used to be able to fix a similar desync problem in Virtual Dub, which would change the "framerate" or some equivalent timing of the video or audio to make them match up in timing, I did this with small 10 minute AVI files and it worked like a charm. But Virtual Dub doesn't support mp4s with h264, and even after adding a plugin to give VDub support for them it crashes when I load the files in Virtual Dub.
Is there any moderately easy way to correct this audio sync? I have about 6 video files to work with, all over an hour long, so manually adjusting timing with millisecond precision just isn't practical. I have Camtasia Studio and access to any free software for x64/32 bit windows and I'm willing to buy software to fix this as well, I just have no idea what I'm looking for to make this really work.
How can I fix gradually desynced audio in large video files?

moderately large is 2 gigs to you?

@ColeJohnson for a final file file to upload to youtube it's pretty big, but for a source file for editing I'll often have 5-40GB files for 30 minutes to an hour, over 100 GB with a long Fraps recording (but those get compressed/chopped up quite a bit)

I have no idea if this is optimal for you, but one approach using free software would be to first determine the percentage (and direction) of drift by finding a point near the end where you can tell with some precision what the sync error is, in frames.
Demux the video and audio into separate streams, using a free tool like AVI-Mux. Load the audio into Audacity, and apply the time shift determined above, either as a "new length" or a ratio (frame error / total frames).
Export the audio and remux using the new track.

I do have audacity and I think I have some software that can rip out the audio stream. Does audacity allow you to edit the length of the audio track too? I know you can shift the whole thing forward, but what's the option to edit how it syncs up? The audio track is the right length but doesn't sync, so just shifting the start position won't fix it.

You can squeeze or stretch time in Audacity either as a percentage, or by simply specifying a new length for the track or selected portion. Under Effects, Change Speed / Tempo / Pitch. For a small drift just do a speed change and ignore the slight alteration in pitch. Doing a tempo change while maintaining pitch takes longer and may not sound as good.

Oh, hm. Is there any clever way to know how much of a % to tweak but or will I just have to play them side by side until it's right?

If it's noticeably out of sync, what is it that you notice? Find a spot near the end of the clip where you can identify a lag or lead, and note the video and audio times where the matching points occur. The difference in time, divided by the total time (either as frames or as decimal seconds) gives the percentage error. Or guess -- if it's a 30.0 vs 29.97 type error, use 0.001 as the factor, either plus or minus as needed.

It is the video frame rate that VirtualDub can manipulate, and there is good reason for this. Recording involves encoding, which usually takes more processing power for video than for audio. Thus, video is more prone to glitches; you can better trust that the length of the audio stream is correct.
It also seems easier to manipulate video. VirtualDub can simply duplicate or delete the necessary number of frames, evenly distributed along the length of the recording, and the human eye won't notice these artefacts.
So I would recommend finding a software that can change the frame rate of mp4 files.

Processing audio is generally far easier than processing video.  Dropped frames produce highly noticeable artifacting unless interpolation is done around the dropped frames to blend over the sudden change of speed and missing data.  Also, adjusting the frame rate doesn't do anything about dropped frames.  The clock rate of an audio source is just as likely to be off as the clock rate of video, the only difference is that video is more likely to miss a frame entirely, but this is a separate type of problem.  (though drop frames can cause desync as well)

authors: Артем Соколов


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Issues importing iStock comps into After Effects
So I'm downloading a placeholder video FLV comp from iStockphoto.com (right click, save-link as under any video preview). When adding the downloaded FLV to AE, it comes up with an import error, saying that it is damaged or unsupported.
It plays fine in VLC, so using VLC, I convert/save it to other formats, but it still will not play in After Effects. Closest I've come is by converting to MP4, which at least imports into After Effects, but shows the flat error green screen instead of the actual footage.
Anyone know how I can import an iStock comp into AE?

I believe FLV supports copy protection.  It may be possible that there samples are protected and thus unable to be trans-coded out of flash video.

Seems strange as they would offer it as a small watermarked download link but then they do that. I'll follow up with iStock and see if this is the case.

Found a thread on istock.  Seems that I'll have to use another 3rd party tool to convert the file first.

After Effects works better with codecs that compress each frame individually (intra-frame codecs).  FLV files compress across multiple frames (inter-frame), as do mp4 files.  If you can get your FLV successfully converted to a codec like ProRes, it should work correctly in After Effects.  FLV files are quite unreliable in conversion- there's a post here that might help - it seems most people use the (now deprecated) open source Perian codecs to get this to work:
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/8/1038982
Your best bet is probably to find source stock material in a format that is easier to work with (most videos on iStock are now mov/mp4 which should be easier to convert)
(NB - I'm not sure this is really an After Effects question.)


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Beginning video editing (colouring eyes on a moving face)
If I have a video of a face moving around, and I want to change the colour of the eyes in the video for example, how do I do that? I don't need specifics, just point me in the right direction, like which software is designed to do things like this? What is this process called? Do I literally go through frame by frame and make the changes? Is this a task that is mainly done programmatically?
I just want to know where to start learning. I'm very technical but I don't have experience with video editing, and don't know where to start googling even. Thanks!

As Jason Conrad pointed out, this would fall into the realm of visual effects rather than video editing.  Also, as he said, After Effects would support doing what you are attempting by tracking the eyes and then doing a selective hue change would probably be the easiest way to do it after a video has been shot.
That said, this isn't really the right way to do it.  It is far more practical and will get far better results to simply use a physical effect.  Get colored contact lenses and have your actor wear them to change the eye color in practical effects instead of trying to artificially change it in post (which will get far inferior results).  You should be able to find color contact lenses at most costume stores.

Technically, what you're looking to accomplish falls into the scope of visual effects (commonly abbreviated VFX), more than editing.  Editing is mostly making decisions about timing cuts between audio and video tracks.  I don't mean to be pedantic, but perhaps this distinction will help your google searches.
Basically, you want to perform two actions:

Track the eyes
Adjust the color of the eyes over time

For the first task, I would recommend researching "motion tracking"
For the second, I would recommend "color correction"
Adobe After Effects (with the bundled Mocha module) and Davinci Resolve are each capable of accomplishing both of these tasks.  I'm sure there's more, but these are the software packages I'm most familiar with.  Nuke, Houdini, Premiere, Shake, FCP7 (FCPX can't keyframe color adjustments), and Apple Motion are all other names that come to mind, but I'm less familiar with them.
edit Bukkojot correctly pointed out in the comments that I forgot to mention matting and masking, which is the process of isolating the effect on the eyes, and making sure that the effect doesn't show through occlusions, such as blinking or foreground objects passing between the camera and subject.

You forget masks/matte creation and possible masks animation


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Which software should I use for making an YouTube intro for videos on a channel, and how long would I take to learn it?
I was thinking you probably use Adobe Premiere and/or Adobe After Effects, but I'm not sure at all.
Also, how hard will it be? I have some basic experience with Photoshop and Illustrator if it matters.

This question is very opinion based. You could use a eg variety of tools here. Personally, I think for this purpose Premiere or AE are overkill, but others may disagree - it will depend on what you prefer.

There isn't enough information here to address your question.  What kind of intro do you envision?  Live action? Still images? 2D animated? 3D animated?  Without some knowledge of what you are trying to put together, it isn't possible to give a recommendation.

Yes, I'm sorry, I should've given more information, I kind of forgot for some reason. Anyway, I was looking for something 2D or 3D animated, something like the intro for the videos on this channel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epLszn-rnpA

If you are updating your question, please do so by editing your question.

Based on the link you added in your comment, I would say you could use After Effects, and Premiere for this very easily...there may be easier/cheaper solutions but essentially what you are going for is pretty easy to make
Graphic designing aside you could probably learn and do this in a day or two, if you have any sort of background in photoshop or computers.
Start here, I am pretty sure this is where I learned how to use After Effects http://www.videocopilot.net/basic/


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Canon 650D HD movie stop after 10-12 sec
I have a Canon-DSLR-650-D,the problem is when I start recording move at HD it will automatically stop after 10-12 sec, whereas at 640 resolution it is working fine.
My Memory card is empty..can anyone help me is there any issue with my SD card or what ???


text:
Editing a 640x480 mp4 in premiere CS4
I have a video with 640x480 resolution, which I want to import into premiere and add a MASK over specific areas which should not be visible.
I'm wondering what settings I should select when I start my project.
Additionally, wondering if there is a better way / program. Basically I want to have te final result with minimal loss of data from re-compression and minimal creation of artifacts etc..
My video has the following characteristics:
ID_VIDEO_ID=0
ID_DEMUXER=lavfpref
ID_VIDEO_FORMAT=avc1
ID_VIDEO_BITRATE=0
ID_VIDEO_WIDTH=640
ID_VIDEO_HEIGHT=480
ID_VIDEO_FPS=1001.000
ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=0.0000
ID_LENGTH=10970.24
ID_SEEKABLE=1
ID_CHAPTERS=0
ID_VIDEO_CODEC=ffh264
ID_VIDEO_ASPECT=1.3333

The Media Information from VLC is the following:

A custom resolution of 640 by 480 with square pixels would work.  It's also worth noting that if you import the video and drag it on to a new sequence, Premiere should offer to automatically adjust the settings for the sequence for you.


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Why is Adobe Media Encoder so slow?
I have a 2.5 hour corporate event that I edited in Premiere Pro. There are AE clips, sound, imported video, the works. When I run it out to AME, the source resolution is 1440x1080 and I am downsampling to 640x480 for delivery on Vimeo.
The thing is... Media Encoder is teling me that it is going to take 20 hours to render this video. Why would it take that long? I rendered last night at full resolution, it took 8 hours and produced a 27 gig MP4. I have run out video this size (previous events) with way less of a time investment. Clearly I am doing something wrong! My newbie-ness is showing something bad here.
I am on a Mac Pro, 2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Inel Xenon tower with 22 GB of RAM running OS 10.8.4 and the Adobe Master Suite 6.
Can you make a suggestion, or maybe point me at a tutorial on render settings? I thought I had everything set right, but this is crazy!

I assume you are working with H.264?

10 times the length does sound pretty long, but isn't completely insane, particularly if you are running two pass.  The more compression you are trying to do while maintaining quality, the longer it is going to take to compress it down.
It's also possible that if you are using nested projects, it may still be trying to do some rendering at the native resolution of the output for it.  Are you running the MP4 or the project through encoder?  If you have a full res MP4, I would suggest trying to run it directly instead of running the project.  The quality will likely be lower, but it should run a lot faster.

This is probably pretty obvious, but...
Sometimes the 'Remaining Time' indicator in AME jumps up at particularly intensive parts then drops back down when not processing stacked AU+AE+PR sections

The encoding time is pretty long (but not unheard of), but I think your problem is your output format. You're likely not using a compressed format which is why the result is 27 GB - a movie at 1080p of the same length usually doesn't top 5 GB. It would be helpful if you elaborated a bit on the settings you used to export the media.


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Software Advice for producing video ads
I am developing a web application and going to launch it soon. I am already done with the website, photos and brochures, and only the video presentation is missing. To present the app, I just want to show them the features in text and graphic form, sans the actors, locations and props. I want to produce the video taking inspiration from Oracle video ads like this Oracle Exadata. Are You Ready? and this Power Your HR Business Contribution With Oracle Human Capital Management
Do you know how these videos were produced? Can you suggest some software that can produce videos like these? Thanks!

You're not looking for software, you're looking for a person, namely a motion graphics artist.

That is motion graphics.  A program like Adobe After Effects in combination with Photoshop or Illustrator is ideal for producing such a video.  Something like Flash could also be used.
Note that it is very complicated to make something that good on your own.  There are however templates available for After Effects that you may be able to use.  Alternately, you could look for someone who knows how to do motion graphics and hire them to do something.

+1 -- if you want it to look professional, hire a professional.


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AE Adjustment Layer Separate Effects on It & Its inverse
I have a square adjustment layer which I have to animate to follow a screen around during a video. I want to apply some Color Correction filters to only that square, and a separate set of photo filters to the rest of the video. This way the filters do not overlap.
I tried to make the negative of that layer by duplicating and using "Invert Selection" but that didn't seem to invert the selection. I also do not know how to link the animation on the two layers (position, size, rotation, etc.)

The easiest way is to use Track Mattes. This will let you use one layer to automatically 'mask' another layer without the need for manual masking.
Take your square adjustment layer and make any effect changes you want, then create a new adjustment layer (make sure its comp size to fit fully over the video). Place this new layer (background adjustment layer) below your screen adjustment layer.
Select the background adjustment layer and set the Track Matte to Alpha Inverted. This action will turn automatically turn off the visibility of the top layer which is normally the desired effect, but in this case we want to turn it back on. You should end up with a layer panel looking something like this:

What this has done is the background adjustment layer is using the screen adjustment layer as a window. So wherever the screen layer is, the background layer wont be visible.

For what you are trying to do, I think you need masks rather than adjustment layers.  An adjustment layer simply applies an effect to all layers under it.  If you mask the adjustment layer, then it will impact all layers under the mask in the composition.  You want two masks that are the inverse of each other so that you can apply different effects to each masked area.
Update: As I was thinking about this a bit more, I realized there is a simpler way.  You don't need two masks, you only need one.  Apply one effect to the entire background layer.  Then apply a mask to the foreground layer that needs to be tracked.  You can apply whatever effect you need to that layer and it will only contain the portion of the screen that has your different effect and will be layered over top of the base plate.

thats good, that works, but now how do i link them, because i have to animate one (move around) and then i want its inverse to move about too.

@AimForClarity - see my update to my answer.  It occurred to me a bit later that there is a far easier way to accomplish your goal.  Simply track the one layer and overlay it over the full video.


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How to change note value in Ableton Live
Not the most accomplished music theorist or producer, so perhaps a rewrite of this question would be in order.
When composing in draw mode in Ableton Live, I would like to be able to make more than one 'length' of note. It seems all the notes i make are all eighth notes or some other short note. I would like to use whole notes and quarter notes, etc.

When you draw in a note in Live's MIDI Clip View editor, the note defaults to the current size of the grid. You can change the grid size (there's a right-click menu, as well as keyboard shortcuts, and zooming in/out if that is enabled), and you can also change the length of an existing note by grabbing the beginning or ending edge of it and dragging around in whatever the current grid size is. You can also drag to arbitrary sizes, ignoring the grid, by holding ctrl/cmd.
If you select a group of notes and then change one's length, they'll all expand/contract with it.

This is easily done by right-clicking on a blank cell in the draw module and changing your gird layout from there.


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How could I recreate this stroke effect in After Effects and/or Sony Vegas?
In the many Red Dead Redemption trailers, they use this cool effect were paint/brush strokes somewhat pan into the actual game-play and overlay it with an awesome drawn out piece from the previous frame - what I am trying to do, is recreate just that.
An example is :

 at 0:11 and 0:17

It's a lot of matte painting.  While the video is still running, they animate a semi-transparent shape (probably made in Illustrator or something similar) and animate the shape in over it.  As soon as the painting finishes, they switch to a frozen shot of the last frame and seem to transition to the painted version of that frame.  It's hard to tell exactly from the Youtube video since I can't frame advance, but that should get the general feel of it.

Down and dirty and did I say simple?
Alternately in Vegas Pro under the transitions tab is a group of transitions called gradient map. In this group is a paint stroke or splatter like transition. First set the fade time on the clip(s) then add this effect by drag and drop. You'll find it's more like a drippy paint than a stroke, perhaps you can fiddle with the settings of this transition to season to taste.
You could use this effect with a solid background color field and blend with your next scene, just another track to add, but be aware that you will may need to play with the compositing method to see what looks best: add, subtract, dodge, burn, difference, etc.

I'll take you through how to replicate the paint stroke effect in After Effects, as briefly as I am able. The artwork would have to be created seperately.
Hold tight, because this guide assumes you have some basic knowledge of After Effects.
I've broken it up into three parts. The paint stroke, the brush texture and putting it all together.
1. The paint stroke
Firstly, I scoured Google for a 'free brush stroke texture' and found this:

I then searched for 'free paint splatter texture' and found this:

Bring these images into After Effects
Create large compostion at 3840 x 1080. Name it 'Paint stroke'.
Use two copies of the brush stroke texture and scale them up and stretch them in the X direction, so that they create one long stripe across the screen.
Use two copies of the splatter image and scale and rotate them until you like how it looks.
Add a white solid to behind everything.
Add an adjustment layer above all others and add a 'Levels' effect to it.
Drag the lefthand slider until your blacks are nice and dark.
Select all layers and precompose them by hitting control (command on Mac) + Shift + c. Name the layer 'Paint stroke matte'.
Add another copy of the white solid layer below the precomp layer.
Set it's track matte value to 'Luma Inverted Matte'. (This will set the whites of the layer above to transparent.)

You can add a 'Fill' effect to the white solid layer to control the colour.

Here what mine ended up looking like (Fill set to red colour and black is transparent):

2. Brush texture

Create a new composition, sized 1920 x 1080 and name it 'Brush'
Use the pen tool to create a shape layer that looks something like this:

Add a 'fast box blur' effect and set the blur radius to 120.
Create a new solid layer above and add a 'Fractal Noise' effect.
Set the contrast to 350 and then unfold the Transform section.
Click off 'Uniform Scaling' and set the Scale Width to 5000 and the Scale Height to 15.
Prcompose this layer and name it 'Brush Map', then turn off its visibility.
Add an adjustment layer between the two layers and add a 'Displacement Map' effect. Set the Displacement Map Layer to the Brush Map layer and set the Max Horiz Dist to 350 and the Max Vert Dist to 0.
Select all layers and precompose them (Ctrl/Cmd + Shift + D). Name it 'Brush Texture'.
Add another solid layer below the texture layer and set its Track Matte value to 'Alpha Matte'.
Add an adjustment layer to the top and add a 'Roughen Edges' effect and set its scale to 25 (the effect scale, not the layer scale).

Hopefully now it looks something like this:

Create another large comp at 3840 x 1080 and name it 'Brush on matte'.
Drag in the 'Brush' composition, then add another solid (make sure it is 3840 x 1080 size).
Set the solid layer's scale to 120, then drag it so the right side of the layer just covers the right side of the Brush Layer.

Parent the solid layer to the Brush layer.
Keyframe the X-position of the Brush layer so that it goes from completely off screen on the left to completely covering the screen on the right over about half a second (or however long you want it to take). Should look something like this:

3. Putting it all together (Almost there)

Add the 'Paint stroke' layer and the 'Brush on matte' to a 3840 x 1080 composition. Make sure they are in the same position and that the matte layer is on top. Name the comp 'Paint on'
Parent the 'Brush on matte' layer to the 'Paint Stroke' layer, then set it's scale to [100, 60] (60% on Y only).
Set the 'Paint stroke' layer's Track matte to 'Alpha Matte'
Create one last 1920 x 1080 comp and add as many 'Paint on' comps as you want. Position, rotate and scale, until you are happy with the effect.

Here was my final product. Hope this helps someone.

Pause your live video on the frame that you want to animate.
Export that frame into something like photoshop or illustrator.
Design several "painted" layers over your still frame.
Export the layers back into After Effects.
Animate some masks to expand across each of the layers, to appear in such a way that they  appear to be painted on.
To improve the effect, you could use some stock animated footage of brushed paint as a matte layer.


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Using 1080i on a 720P monitor will produce better image/video quality?
I have a LCD monitor which only has resolution of 1366 x 768, and it can support 1080i
So,

Should I output 1080i video to this monitor, or should I just use 720p? Which one is better?
I have tested using 1080i/50 give me the best result, while 1080i/60 produce flicking image, any idea?

Native resolution is always better than non-native.  If it only has a resolution of 720p, then it would have to be down-converting to that resolution which means it has to blend pixels which can produce artifacts from the pixel blending.  (Notably, softer edges is the most likely.)
Update: I'm sorry, re-reading, I noticed that it isn't native for either resolution.  I didn't read closely enough as I was a bit tired when responding just before bed.  Given that the resolution exceeds 720p, it would probably be better to use the higher resolution, though the interlacing would be the bigger problem.  I'd suggest trying both and picking whichever looks better to you.

Although given the option I would usually go for the p as the interlaced ones really annoy me. My peripheral vision is very sensitive to flicker. . .

Indeed interlacing and frame rate is going to be the biggest issue here; going down from 1080 to 720 lines should work flawlessly and give no difference to native resolution quality-wise – after all sampling is lossless, right...? (It really is, in this sense!)

@leftaroundabout - This would actually be resampling which isn't lossless and involves interpolation of data. It still isn't compression as the point is making a new set of images based on the old one rather than storing the old one using less space.  Please don't try and drag it in to other completely unrelated questions.  The downconversion or upconversion both result in a quality loss as it is not an equal ratio and pixels have to be blended which has a net loss of real resolution compared to the original.


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Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 Shortening Video
I have a video that is 38 minutes and 13 seconds in length but when I convert the video to the H.264 encoding using the 'YouTube HD 720p 29.97' preset the video is converted - but only the first 2 minutes or so.
The video file is of the extension '.avi' and was originally recorded using the Lagarith Loss-less video codec in DXtory - the original file fps is 30.
What can I do to convert the entire video?

Is it only H.264 that shows this behavior? IOW is this a source issue or a conversion issue?

After selecting File -> Export -> Media, in the Export Settings window that pops up, go to the lower left and make sure that Source Range: Entire Sequence is selected.

There are two possibilities here.  One is that your work area is highlighting less than the entire sequence.  There is a selectable area (shown by two notches on the timeline) that will normally be the limit of the area that Premiere exports if you leave the defaults.  You can either adjust the selected work area or choose to Entire Sequence as the range to export.
The other, though much less likely possibility, is that you are using a third party H.264 encoder that is in a demo mode and limiting output to two minutes.  It is reasonably common for trial modes of codecs to include a length limitation so that the full quality can be seen but it isn't useful for any major projects, but unless you've installed a third party codec, this isn't a possible cause.  If you had a codec installed in the past however, Premiere may have picked it up and started trying to use it.


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Convert VfW-codec based video to "normal" (Windows)
my CCTV software (GeoVision) supplies me with AVI videos with the FourCC "GMP4" codec ("Geovision MP4"). The codec is supplied as a Video for Windows 32-bit driver only, so I had to set up a virtual machine to even be able to play the files with MPC-HC. What software can I use to convert the files into something more universal like h.264?
The "usual suspects" ffmpeg/VLC don't play the file at all because they are not able to use VfW codecs.
Thanks!

While it can't go direct to H.264, VirtualDub I believe can work with Vfw codecs and can transcode to something more compatible with your other tools.  I don't know if Quicktime for Windows supports Vfw codecs or not, but I do believe the Pro version of Quicktime supports H.264 encoding.
If you have Adobe Media Encoder, it would also easily do what you are looking for, but I believe it only comes with the Adobe suite, thus would be prohibitively expensive if you don't have it already.


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Adobe Media Encoder CC do not work/start/load on Win8 x64
So pretty much it. Simply clicking the .exe nothing happens, no errors, no nothing. It just simply do not work. Premiere works and when exporting video and clicking Queue simply nothing happens, AME doesn't get loaded neither, I just get back to Premiere window.
I also applied latest 7.0.1 update and nothing.
With CS6 everything worked.

Reinstall helped. Uninstalled everything together with Premiere, and installed fresh copy.

Welcome to AVP!  Please take a quick look at the help section concerning what types of questions are on-topic.  If you don't get a suitable answer here, you may have better luck at superuser

Solution #2 (as Eric Vinyard suggested):
1. Locate file: C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\SLCache\X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw==.slc
2. Open it with a text editor (may need to open it as an admin as this is in Program Files directory)
3. Delete everything the file contains
4. Save and close
5. Set the 'Read Only' attribute for the file: Right Mouse - Preferences. On the first page that opens for you, look for Attributes at the bottom of this page and check 'Read Only'. Close with OK.

For the curious, that apparently random looking file name is actually the base64 encode of "__slc_features__".

Create a .bat file containing:
del "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\SLCache\X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw==.slc"
start "AME" "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Media Encoder CC\Adobe Media Encoder.exe"

and just run AME with it.
You could add Premiere Pro in as well so that AME get's started before Premiere Pro and all is good. Premiere will then be able to queue directly to AME.
del "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Adobe\SLCache\X19zbGNfZmVhdHVyZXNfXw==.slc"
start "AME" "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Media Encoder CC\Adobe Media Encoder.exe"
start "PremierePro" "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Adobe Premiere Pro CC\Adobe Premiere Pro.exe"

Thanks for the answer. Do you by any chance know why this should work?

I'm just guessing here but it looks like the old cache files might be invalid for a new session of Premiere and cause an error internally that simply doesn't show up for the user.

If nothing helped you to launch AME, watch this:

Please consider adding some of the key details to this post.  If the video was to move, this answer would not provide enough to go on.


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Can't make Ken Burns effect zoom properly
I'm trying to use the Ken Burns effect in FCP X. I have no problem accessing the functionality and altering the settings, but when I run it in the preview, the video just shows as zoomed in and then pans across. I have it setup to do a zoom in and pan. What am i doing wrong?

Did you use keyframes for both the pan and the zoom changes?


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Large scale video conferencing
Is there any way to providing video conference supporting large number of participants in conference (around 2000). The conference will be held in future and I should guaranty the performance. What is System Requirements for server.
Does anybody test "Lync Server 2013", "apache-openmeeting" or "BigBlueButton"?

Do all the users have to be able to send video or just the presenters?  Whatever you use would have to be able to select a user to present at any given time and have the video feed only sent on request or the data rates involved would become completely impossible to sustain.  You probably want to look more into remote presentation software than video conferencing software since video conferencing tends to be more of an everyone sees everyone kind of thing.

I've messed with BBB, though no where close to those numbers.  As the presenter, you can prohibit participants from sharing their video or audio, making it a one way presentation.
I have a gut feeling though, that the server requirements would be significant for that many participants.  We ran it on an old HP G3 and it worked , but slow for a dozen participants.
From their FAQ:

What are the minimum hardware requirements for the BigBlueButton
  Server As a minimum, we recommend you run BigBlueButton on a dedicated
  quad-core machine with at least 4 GB of memory and a 2.6+ Ghz
  processor.
We recommend installing BigBlueButton on Ubuntu 10.04 32-bit/64-bit on
  the server (see Installing BigBlueButton).
While the BigBlueButton VM is a good way to try out the system, we
  recommend you run BigBlueButton on a dedicated server to reduce audio
  lag. In a virtual environment, the BigBlueButton VM gets only a
  portion of the host's CPU, and any lag in the CPU cycles can translate
  to lag in processing VoIP packets.
What are the minimum bandwidth requirements for the BigBlueButton
  Server You'll need good upstream and downstream bandwidth from the
  server. We recommend (at least) 100 MBits/second bandwidth in both
  directions.

Personally, I'd probably looking into a SaaS solution like Webex, GoToMeeting, or the like.  There are probably at least a half dozen solid options.  Without having done it before, I'd hate to have sole responsibility for a conference that big.


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Hardware solution for live video conversion
To briefly summarize: I am looking for a video conversion box that will accept any resolution/refresh rate/color space and split out a properly converted feed.
I utilize a hardware H.264 encoder/video switcher called the ATEM Television Studio for live-streaming company events. It's worked wonderfully for all intents and purposes, except it requires precise audio and video inputs.
For audio, I use a Behringer DEQ2496 to convert my audio into a usable AES/EBU digital signal and to provide an audio delay (when needed). Super useful.
For video, I have a laptop that sits at 720p and I've set a 59 refresh rate--and it is accepted as a 720p59.94 signal. As such, it requires any other video input be precisely 720p59.94.
In the past, I've requested A/V companies I've worked with to supply the video signal at precisely 720p59.94. This has caused some issues, the last conference we hosted I was barely able to get working (they had to find a spare video conversion box on-site, as the first box they were using did not give a correct signal).
I would like to take the A/V company out of the video conversion process and be able to accept any video input, and convert it. I would like to be able to accept both HDMI and SDI inputs of any resolution/refresh rate, and be able to convert that signal into something usable.
I am looking at a Blackmagic Broadcast Convertor, but the lack of documentation about it has me slightly concerned. I'm not very familiar with any non-Blackmagic solutions for this problem.
Does anyone have any familiarity with the above equipment, or have a similar piece of a equipment they've used for live, on-site video conversion?

That or the UpDownCross converter should meet your needs as long as the frame rates are the same.  I'd personally stick with BlackMagic's hardware as you already have their ATEM and they make some of the most cost-effective hardware around.  They aren't the top quality brand for sure, but you won't beat the value for the price pretty much anywhere else.
If you need to change the frame rate, you will need some kind of frame buffer that can interpolate on the fly, which is likely going to get pricy.
Alternately, is there a reason that you can't vary the output of the laptop to fit whatever quality is needed for the feed from the A/V company?  This would avoid the need for a converter and seems to be the easier option.  A better output for the laptop may well be a cheaper solution.  The Intensity Shuttle for example is only $199 if you have a thunderbolt or USB 3 port.

The issue is more of taking the A/V company doing video conversion out of the loop. In one particular instance, the A/V company was running an NTSC signal over an SDI line to their video convertor, which supposedly was upconverting to 720p/59.94 and giving it back to us. I was getting no signal from this. Eventually a second box showed up, and it worked, but I'd like to just leave as little of their equipment in my setup as possible.
The only workable signal I could get from them as NTSC

Basically, I can change the laptop output to anything from 1080p or 720p, 50 or 59.94, but it would still require conversion of the video signal. Even if it's just a possibility of getting a non-working signal from an A/V company, it's still a possibility I'd like to avoid.

@Mattc0m - the ATEM will support just about any standard format, NTSC, PAL, 720i/p, 1080i/p and on the 4k models, 4k.  If you get any of these, you should be able to match the output of your laptop to it.  The UpDownCross converter will work to upscale their resolution so you can send a higher quality feed.  As far as frame rate, you'll get best results by matching their frame rate, even if it is more or less than you'd prefer, rather than interpolating unless the final output won't cleanly support that frame rate.

I agree regarding the framerate, and I'm able to get the laptop to output to any of the ATEM Television Studio's supported HD resolutions (1080i50, 1080i59.94, 720p50, 720p59.94). 720p59.94 is just a preference.
The issue more lines when I get an NTSC signal (525/29.97) that needs upconverted or if the video feed I'm getting is for some reason not working, I have video conversion that can take pretty much any video input and give me a workable output.
The only issue w/ UpDownCross is it relies on SDI, and would like HDMI input/output as well (if we have a prosumer camera as a video input).

@Mattc0m ah yes, good point, missed that.  I suppose that may make the broadcast converter a cheaper option than also getting the HDMI to SDI converter.


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What's the minimum needed to make a video of my guitar performance with good quality sound?
I've recorded a lot of my audio guitar performances successfully, enjoying the ability to edit out some mistakes thru post-production editing of the .aif files. Typically I just plug the guitar into my amp, and plug the amp's line output into the the audio input jack of my Macintosh computer, and record directly into Sound Studio. I'd like to make the jump to doing a video recording, but the problem of how to sync and edit the audio seems more daunting since any edits require precise sync of audio and video.  I've got an HD digital camcorder with a 3.5mm external mic input jack. Seems like I'll need to connect the output jack on my guitar, to a small preamp (i've got a SansAmp that might do the trick) to boost the low level signal from the guitar pickup up enough to generate appropriate volume in the video, and also to feed a signal into my headphones so I can hear what is being recorded. Once all this is done, and I have a video, I can run it through IMovie to edit as needed. Am I on the right track?

Put a Y splitter between the amp and your headphones, with one branch to the headphones, the other branch to the video recorder mic in. If you record the video via a pre-amp straight from the guitar, you will obviously be recording a different mix than what you hear out of the amp.

There are a couple ways you could go about this.  If you can do it in a single take, then you can record the audio and video at the same time and then simply sync them up and all will be well in the world.
If you want to be able to do multiple takes, then what you should do is do it the way they make music videos.  Do the audio first, make your recording and do your editing and multiple takes.  Once you have done that, play back the audio aloud and fake it.  You don't actually use the audio from while playing in the video, you just record yourself playing in sync with the pre-recorded audio.  After, you do the same sync process as you would have done with the first option.


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Are comedy shows recorded with live audiences?
I have watched How I Met Your Mother, The Big Bang Theory and there are these laughs from audiences. Are these shows recorded with live audiences watching?

It depends on the show.  Some still are, but lots just use sound effects (called laugh tracks) to replicate the style of the older style of shows that are/were done live.
The best bet for determining it for a particular show is to try and find tickets to the show.  If you can't find tickets or people talking about tickets, it probably isn't filmed live.  It does tend to be more prevalent with BBC shows, but there are still some US shows that have live audiences, though I'm not sure how many sitcoms and comedy shows specifically do.

Good clue on checking for tickets +1 for you. Also, laugh tracks can be called 'canned laughter', here's a little history from wiki, seems like this started in the 1940s:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laugh_track

They usually have stadium seating inside for a couple hundred people, with a bunch of microphones pointed at you. They have a comedian warm you up between takes to get everyone in the mood, play silly games etc. The sets are prebuilt for each show and they film most but not all scenes live, usually taking a few takes. The writing team is on standby and they change some jokes as they go if they don't get a big enough laugh form the live audience.

Often ones that are will mention some time during the opening/closing "filmed before a live audience" - I believe Big Bang Theory does.

It's really hard to be funny without an audience.  Audiences are brought in to help with that, and are also recorded for the laughter that occurs.  However, the end product you see on TV is heavily edited.  Timing is adjusted for better comedic effect.
This isn't a hard rule though.  Think of a show such as 30 Rock.  It has no audience (except when they do their live shows).


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How to create a simple DVD with menu and a set of scenes (on a mac)?
I want to create a DVD form a dancing show.

There are about 30 scenes
I want to separate the scenes with some black space
add a title before each of the scenes
create a DVD menu with each scene
have a menu with at least 12 tracks per page

I used to do this with Ulead Viedeo Studio 11 (on a really slow XP-PC). Now I have ACVD material, a Mac and the old hardware and software cannot handle it anymore.

What software would you use?
Is this possible with Adobe elements 11?
Does final cut provide custom menus?

iDVD should have come with your mac. Give it a try.
iDVD is a very basic DVD authoring tool (a category that is distinct from video editing, though authoring tools may be bundled with some editing packages). I've only used it a handful of times, but I'm fairly sure that it does everything that is requested here.
One thing to keep in mind is that DVD authoring is very much an art. I can't offer much specific advice other than the observation that different DVD players react to different Codecs in their own ways. Single-layer DVDs are relatively easy to author, but if you get into making dual-layer DVDs then you need to do extensive testing to ensure that your discs will actually be playable.

Adobe Premiere Pro (which includes Encore) would certainly meet your needs and is what I use for such projects.  I am unsure if Premiere Elements supports this level of functionality or not, though from what I've seen, it seems very limited in capability.  I believe there is a free trial available for it though, so you could use that to test if it is possible.


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Why does iMovie convert a 1.8GB .MTS (AVCHD) file into a 2.2 GB .mov file by reducing resolution?
I am just importing some AVCHD (.MTS) files into iMovie and even if Import them as 960x540 (original is 1920x1080) it uses more space than the original.
If I import it at full size, the .mov file is 5 times bigger than the original!
That means 4h of video which are originally 25 GB suddenly become 400GB on my disk!
What am I doing going wrong here? Why can't iMove work with the original file and only convert it when I export the file?

Video is practically never stored uncompressed because the data rates are insane if they were.  Each image in a video is 1920 by 1080 pixels and takes 3 bytes per pixel (one each for red, green and blue).  That's 6.2 megabytes per frame.  There are 24 frames in a second, that's roughly 150 megabytes per second for 24p video.  That's 9 gigabytes per minute.
To reduce this size, codec's (encoders/decoders) are used that can compress the data either losslessly(similar to a zip file, they uncompress to produce identical input to the raw, uncompressed data) but typically can take as little as 1/3 of the space, or lossy, where the video is altered to make it easier to compress without significantly distorting the video.  Most HD video is shot with a minimally lossy codec due to the size (H.264).  AVCHD also records using H.264.
If you are outputting to uncompressed or lossless compression for the MOV, then the file size would increase significantly from the compressed AVCHD file, even if the number of pixels being stored has been reduced some.  If you change to a similar H.264 data rate for the mov file, then you should not see an increase in file size.

iMovie does it because it is (or was? it is 2018 now) a crap video editor. It cannot handle proper AVC HD with interframe encoding, so it converts it into 960x540 with intraframe encoding, much easier to handle but lower resolution and larger files. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFrame_(video_format)
Just throw iMovie away and use a proper editor that does not require you to convert your source files into specific format for editing. On Windows, Vegas proved to be a very fast editor that accepts tons of formats and does not require pre-rendering, that is, converting to some internal format. Not sure what you can use on Mac.


text:
Final Cut Pro 7: File Error: Unknown file
The sequence is composed of a jpg followed by an mp4. When the jpg is not present, after I hit Command + R, the sequence can render without errors. When the jpg is present, after I hit Command + R, the sequence cannot render and it returns a message "File Error: Unknown file."

Final Cut Pro may not recognize your file location. Did you change the location of the jpg after you imported it into the sequence? If so, you may have to locate it again.

There are three reasons I can think of:

The file is (as Andrew suggested) offline.
The JPEG doesnt have a .jpeg extention (final cut has problems with files that are missing their extension)
The JPEG resolution is too large. Try sizing the resolution down to under 2000x2000