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What kind of camera do I need to record a moving object in order to do motion tracking?
I have a few markers that I use to make augmented reality pictures for DIY projects. It's working fine when the camera is fixed. Now I would like to use them on a moving object to do basic motion tracking.
Here are some frame grabs. I moved the marker with increasing speed in front of my camera. By camera, I mean the built-in camera in my Samsung Galaxy S.

Obviously this is not usable for motion tracking. I am a programmer and I'm interested in computer vision, but I am not a videographer, so feel free to put as much details as you want in your answer. I am not familiar with the characteristics of video capture hardware.
My goal is not to buy a high speed camera to duplicate what they do in Mythbusters for example. For example, I would like to be able to track juggling props, if you need an idea of the speed of the targeted objects.

When tracking there are two (main things) that you need to be concerned with in tracking.  While there are many variables that need to be taken into account, when shooting there are two things that you should keep in mind.
First off, contrast, 99% of all tracking software uses contrast in the luminance channel (brightness) to determine a point and where it is going, green and black is not going to work very well.  White and black is your best bet...

Second is going to be the camera you are capturing the video with, obviously then this introduces a lot more variables...you want the footage to be properly exposed, and the shutter to be correct, the lower or too high of a shutter will make it more difficult to track shots.
Also when choosing a camera understand compression, the more compressed an image is the harder it will, also the lower the resolution.  For example, 1920 TV has a better resolution than a 720 TV.  But compression also matters, an image could be as big as texas but if it is highly compressed chances of pulling a track out of it is unlikely...
Take a look at this image, you can see all the images are the same "resolution" however the further right the more compressed the image is, and the harder it is to detect edges...

So now that you understand how to capture your footage, you need to check out a simple tutorial or two on how to track your footage.  there are several types of tracking but from what is sounds like you are looking to track a point or track a motion of a point.  Your best bet is going to be After Effects motion tracker.
You can get a 30-day free trial from the adobe website, and check out some awesome tutorials on VideoCopilot.net on how to do tracking.
I hope this helps

As far as I can tell, what you are asking for is a camera that can capture your content into smooth, sharp and crisp video that will remain sharp and unblurred.
Most cameras can do this. It's not so much about what camera you get, but rather about what settings you use and what conditions you film in. To explain further, you need to film with a short shutter speed and in a well-lit environment. The faster your object is moving, the shorter shutter speed and the more light is needed to keep it sharp and neat-looking. You will also want to make sure that the aperture of the camera lens is completely open (to let in as much light as possible). There are more factors to consider but these are the most important.
Now, obviously the camera on your phone is not optimal to do this since you can not change any of the settings I mentioned above. What you need to look for is a camera that let's you change the aperture and shutter speed settings. That is the most important and should be sufficient for your needs. Most DSLR's (with a video function) and camcorders today allow this - at least to some extent.
Also, after taking a second glance at your pictures, I just realized that you might have used some kind of digital zoom for this. Don't, it will be way harder to get any type of quality content from your camera in that case. Also, try to shoot in as high of a resolution as possible. At least 720 (HD).
I hope you understand this and that it helps you some. English is not my first language so the post might be a bit messy. But hopefully someone can edit and clean it up a bit. With that said, best of luck to you! I hope you find what is right for you.

I can see what you are talking about for the digital zoom problem. I didn't used the zoom, so I guess the staircase effect seen on the first image, near the highlight of the top quadrant of the marker is due to some internal upscaling. Anyway, I never intended to use my smartphone as a serious camera.

Ok, well what is your price range? Or what other cameras do you have available to you?

In addition to this, see if you can get a camera that can shoot a high number of frames per second (50, 120, or even more). More frames gives your motion tracker more data to work with.

Not sure if that would matter much in this case. He still needs to track every single frame (even if it's done automatically), so I don't quite understand how much help a high speed camera would be?


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Is importing to Aperture then editing in iMovie a viable workflow?
I'm primarily a still photographer, but necessity is pushing me into learning video editing. I'm in the habit of dumping my camera data to Aperture, using the rating & stacking system there to sort out favorite pictures, and finally exporting those for final touches in PhotoShop.
Will a similar workflow work for iMovie and editing there? iMovie automatically picks up the videos I dump into Aperture, but at first glance I don't see the precious, precious metadata I've taken the time to mark them up with there: No ratings!
Is there a way to get ratings/sorting from Aperture showing up in iMovie? If not, what's your favorite workflow for picking clips to use in iMovie?

I usually manually drop my files into the iMovie Drop Box for safe keeping until I want to use/edit them and do all my managing of videos (personal ones, at least) in iMovie.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Premiere 6 - how to add black between clips in a sequence automatically
We have regular fulfilment jobs for clients which require us to insert a few seconds of black between each clip in a contiguous file. It's not a great deal of effort to do it once or twice but when the jobs are larger, consisting of 50+ short clips, it seems like some time could be saved if there were a way to get the sequence to automatically and consistently add the black clip every time a footage clip was added.
Can anyone think of a clever way to do this? Would handles help here?
Very grateful for any thoughts!
Thanks.

What OS do you use? Some OS tools might help us to achieve this workflow. Such as Applescript etc. Just brainstorming, because as far as I know, there's no automation possible in Adobe Premiere.

A workflow involving Adobe Bridge is as follows. If you have Premiere Pro, you probably installed Bridge, if not, please do install.

Put your batch of clips in a folder. I would use a directory structure like Client Name > Jobs > YYYY_MM_DD > Footage etc.
Find your footage in Bridge.
Select all your footage, then under Tools menu select Batch Rename (Shift + Command (Control) + R

In your Batch Rename settings, change destination folder to something like Renamed, next to your footage folder (to keep everything organised). Under New Filenames just select Sequence Number, add 1 and select Three or Four digits. This will rename your files 0001.mov, 0002.mov etc.

From Premiere, render a black video with a length you wish or a black
frame with the same resolution and pixel aspect ratio with your
footage. You will need to duplicate the black footage as much as you
need. Rename them with Bridge, this time add a letter a to the
end of filename, and rename in the same folder.

Back in Premiere, import all the footage in your footage folder, including blacks. In your bin panel, sort them by name, they should be sorted in the following order: 0001.mov, 0001a.mov(or png), 0002.mov, 0002a.mov. Select them all and drag to your timeline. They should be placed as you wish, a video clip followed by a black clip.

If you are using still images as blacks, adjust their default length in Premiere's Preferences > General > Still Image Default Duration option.
If the videos are always in the same specs, you can re-use those blacks, by duplicating and renaming again.
Still not the shortest way, but kind of better??

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


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Does YouTube allow multiple soundtracks
Is it possible to upload one video on YouTube, and have multiple soundtracks for it? Much like one can choose the subtitles, can one make several language-specific voice-overs for the same, say, screen-cast?
If that feature is not present on YouTube, are there calls or plans for it? What other services may have this implemented?

Any update on this?

@pnz Yes. Read this article. Assassin's Creed Valhalla trailer uses this feature.

@VidathD The article claims that it can be done, but it does not explain how it can be done.

As of now, Youtube doesn't allow multiple soundtracks other than adding a music-track.  So you'll need to create multiple videos with voice-over for different languages. Thankfully however this is already automated using a bash script.
Demo Video with Automatic voice-over translation from SRT subtitles using eSpeak
VoiceOver Script Version 0.3 to convert Subtitle file to Audio Track using eSpeak
This solution works on Linux but I guess one can use Ubuntu Linux as a VM using virtualbox on windows.

Doesn't work. I'm guessing the API has changed.

here watch this video, here in settings there are different languages in which you may select of your choice.

While this does indicate the answer (which is yes) it doesn't really provide any useful info to the OP, unlike the other answers. Sadly they may well be outdated now.

What are you talking about? What settings? There are no language settings for videos other than subtitles.

Indeed, the answer is actually "no".

Apparently incorrect answers should not be removed...

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


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Old video tape effect in Premiere Pro
I am creating a video promo, and the customer wants the "crap old soviet" style.
We have shot the video on a Nikon D800 and it is being edited in Premiere Pro CS6, so the workflow is top-notch digital.
I want to impart a few "old analog" effects into the video but cant figure out how to do it.
first effect:
 - The weird fuzz you got when you started a recording over another one on VHS, the new recording was always really fuzzy/noisy for the first second or so as the tracking changed between the old and new recording.
second effect:
- the general "old videotape" look - odd colour casts, fuzz, like the tracking is off a bit.
third effect:
- now the sound, needs to be a bit muffled and low-fi

Try downloading those video files (or similar ones, search for them) (Video 1, Video 2, Video 3) with some service like keepvid.com (But you should contact the owners first, to prevent any possible future copyright issues).
They are actual recordings from VHS tapes. They have different aspects of the distortion you are after. Edit them as you wish, loop, reverse, slow down etc. Then just use different blending modes fitting your choice of clips to superimpose them on your edit.
You can combine them along with some vignette, noise, Wave Warp and other possible distortion effects. So it all depends on your clients' and your taste.
But If you have some experience, I would recommend using After Effects for this part. You will have more control over your distortion and there will be wider range of image distortion effects.


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Footage feels "faster" when exporting from After Effects
I'm editing a project with premiere, and using After Effects to edit some of the footage (color corrections, some masking etc').
All raw footage was captured with a Canon 550D, 1280*720 at 50fps.
My premiere sequences are defined to be 50fps, as well as my AE compositions. However, when exporting edited footage from AE as 50fps H264, the exported edited footage feels "faster", compared to the original footage, even though thee clips have the same length. The discrepancy is very noticeable.
How can I resolve this issue?

Just check that your footage has been interpreted correctly in AE. Else a short snippet from before and after AE would be helpful.

Also take a look at the frame blur settings. If Premiere has frame blurring turned on and After Effects does not, this might change the perceived speed.

I will check on those, Thanks! What site can I use to upload the clips for you to view?

Dropbox or the ilk like WeTransfer should do.

I had the same problem!
So let me explain the answer :
After effects imports your video at the wrong frame rate, so to fix it follow these steps :

Open the Project panel (by default on the left of your screen)
Right click on your footage and go to Interpret Footage -> Main... as shown below.

In the screen that opens up input the desired framerate (15fps in this case) in the textbox next to Conform to framerate. Press OK.

Now After Effects should know that the footage is 15fps.

I'm not sure if this applies to his problem (could be). But here is the original answer: http://avp.stackexchange.com/a/6991/2178

Bart, thats indeed the answer i copied, i was a question I asked, and i thought I'd share it with him, so he can continue on what he's working on

It is a good idea to include a link to the answer if you are going to copy it.


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Adobe Premiere Elements 11 Crash Issues (Adobe Premiere Elements has stopped working)
After installing Adobe Premiere Elements 11 Trial I opened the Editor and pressed New Project. Than our beloved Windows error: Adobe Premiere Elements has stopped working contact there, do this, do that error... It just crashed...
Restarted the computer... No
There were some video related services running I stopped them... No
Any suggestions?

Solved! I'm just answering this question in case someone has the same issue...
Short Story:

Update your graphics card drivers. (All of them!)
If you have more than 1 card be sure the stronger one handles adobe premiere.

Long Story:
My laptop has 2 graphic cards

Intel HD Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M

First I updated the driver of Intel HD graphics by uninstalling it from Device Manager (which is a bad idea as the screen disappears any way) then restarted my computer. Than Windows found the driver, installed it Restart number 2.
Now I tried Elements, great it worked! But... consuming 7.5 GB of RAM!!! (Virtual and Physical combined)
This time I don't know why, I just had to try it, I updated my NVIDIA driver (which had 2 updates) and from NVIDIA console I marked Adobe Premiere Elements.exe to use the NVIDIA graphics card.
Than I tried it and Elements worked perfectly...


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Easisest way to convert whole DVD folder (all titles and chapters) to MKV file(s)?
I have lots of movies stored as DVD folders(.bup, .vob, .ifo files); I am looking for the easiest way to convert each folder into one (or more) mkv files (preferably by using freeware program(s))
HandBrake does a decent job; there is only one problem - it would not convert all titles automatically, you'd have to go and do it one title after another one; would anyone suggest a good DVD->MKV converter, or, perhaps, describe how to force HandBrake to convert all titles (just as is takes all chapters for each title)?

If you wrote a small script (say in python) you could use the Command line client of the software convert all the videos sequentially. Python has good system calls functionality and make this quite easy.


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Cheap solution to shoot during several hours at night?
I'm facing an annoying problem, for the last few weeks somebody in my neighborhood steals gas from my motorcycle.
It's a Honda VT125 Shadow, all the wires and hoses under the tank are apparent. So the guy unplugs the hoses and siphons the tank.
So i'm looking for a way to film the bike at night to try and find out who this jacka** is.
The street isn't very dark at night.
Any ideas are welcome

ZoneMinder would be worth a try.

I would say your best bet is to look through the surveillance section on amazon and see what your options are for your budget...100 bucks seems to get you a pretty good setup.
http://www.amazon.com/Security-Surveillance-Home-Automation/b?ie=UTF8&node=524136

Do you have a camcorder?  If you do you can probably connect it to a PC or Mac with firewire and use capture software to record to a HDD with overnight.
If you have the hardware already it's just a matter of finding software (iMovie for Mac is an option, as well as Premier for windows), and making sure you have a HDD large enough for several hours of video.
Another option would be to stay out one night waiting for him.  If it's just a thug maybe all he needs is a good scare - maybe you could yell or shine a bright flashlight at him.

Sorry, I would've voted you up if not for the "handgun or shotgun" part. I would suggest you edit that out as it has nothing to do with AVP and condones violence.

@BartArondson ok.


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What's the right setup for recording programming talks?
I go to lots of monthly developer meetings, and there are many requests that the talks be recorded. I have no idea what kind of camera or setup is right for this.
Recordings are always indoors, generally in front of a big LCD or projector screen. There are varying levels of background noise.
Here are my requirements:

Total price tag for everything (camera, tripod, bag, mics, etc) <= $1000.
Must be very easy to use correctly, and be confident that it's recording. Volunteers can be trained in ~ 2 minutes.
Wireless mic for the speakers to wear.
Fastest possible route to the web. E.g., built-in compression so I don't have to transcode later, or automatic upload/streaming to the web on its own.
It would be nice if multiple mics were supported, for spread-out roundtable discussions.

I do this all the time for local user groups and I'm yet to find a "plug and play/set and forget" solution. To do the recordings at a professional quality, you need some sort of skill and training, otherwise it will look amateur.
If all you want to record is the person talking, and not what's on their screen, it's relatively easy: buy a wireless lapel mic (the Samson Airline range is good) and plug it into a video camera of your choice that has audio input. Put that on a tripod and away you go. Then copy that on to a computer, trim the top and tail in something like iMovie, then export to YouTube or whatever format you like.
If you want to do multiple microphones for discussions, then you need to buy more than one mic (a couple of Sennheiser MD46 mics are great for this - one per person) and plug them into a mixer (Behringer mixers are fine and cost effective), then plug a recording device (such as a Zoom H4N) or the camera into the mixer's outputs (using the tape output, 2x RCA to 3.5mm for example).
When it gets tricky is if you want to record the presenter's slides/demos as well as them talking, in videos like so: https://vimeo.com/omtconf/videos/page:1/sort:alphabetical
That requires more than $1,000, plus a bit of A/V knowledge that's probably too long winded for this response. You also need to do some editing in post. It can be done live (using something like a Blackmagic ATEM switcher), but will cost even more and you'd need a bit more training than two minutes. Upside however, if being able to easily live stream it to the web, using that sort of setup, so people who can't make it can watch.
If you've got any specific questions, feel free to ask for more info :)

@Jeff Clune, Welcome to AVP!  I'm glad you've found some useful information.  However, unlike a traditional forum, posts in response to a question are expected to attempt to answer the question.  I understand that you don't yet have the privilege to comment, so I've converted your 'answer' to a comment.


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How does GSpot calculate "Recommended display size"
I've got a video and I thought it's size was 640x480 and this is shown on GSpot.
However also in the container section of GSpot it is saying
 Recommended Display Size: 853 x 480

does anyone know where it get's this from?
1) If it is calculated what from?
2) If it is a property of the file while isn't it the same as the width x height?

I don't know what tags or fields are present in a .MP4 file, but something is flagging the file as having a 16:9 'display aspect ratio' (shown as "dar" in GSpot), while the 'pixel aspect ratio' (par) is 4:3.
((480 * 16) / 9) = 853

480 is the original height? Multiplied by the dar ratio width, divided by the dar ratio height = 853 new width? Seems an odd calculation

BTW 16:9 is correct, so is it the 'par' that needs updating and this would correct the original WxH?

Not all video formats use square pixels.  In this case, the pixel's are oval (anamorphic wide screen).  This comes indirectly from the film days when anamorphic lenses would condense a wide screen image on to a narrower strip of film.  The same concept was later applied to squeeze wide screen videos in to video formats that wouldn't normally support them.  The playback would occur at a normal resolution, but then the display could scale it out to make the proper aspect ratio.
There may only be 640 by 480 pixels in the video (standard definition 4 by 3 video with square pixels) but since it is widescreen, each pixel represents a wider area.  The recommended display resolution is determined by resolving how that would map to actual square pixels based on the width of each of the 640 columns of pixel data.


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Effective working at audio/video editing sessions (avoid fatigue making steady progress)
Background
I've just completed an editing project to produce video highlights of an awards evening for my local community radio station. It was a voluntary non-paid project and I'm very pleased the results I achieved - and more importantly, the station are very pleased with it too. But, as with many other previous projects, have found editing can be tiring at times. I have a full time job in computing but unrelated to video editing (funds all the software and equipment that I learnt this stuff on!) and usual housekeeping commitments so I had to produce this work from a number of sessions, some into the early hours. When I know I have to resume the work to get it done I procrastinate and do other jobs sometimes before I finally get in the zone, once in the zone I get frustrated when I have to stop to meet other commitments: sleep, work etc.
Any top tips to bear in mind for a future project?

Maybe this question is too broad for the Q&A format here. In my view the question is actually applicable to any project based work, be it video editing or illustrating a book.

+1 Thanks for your input. I guess the difference between editing and illustrating a book might be that with editing you start with raw content whereas with illustration you might sometimes start from scratch. Where they are the same is that both involve iterative work, going over the same content to refine.

This is an interesting question and I think maybe you are coming from a different situation than I am, I worked as a professional editor / VFX Artist and before that assistant editor for many years before graduating to directing and I think the easy bottom line answer is, if you love it, you wont be able to get enough.
However there are those days your like screw this im surfing the web or this and that.  Which are a given.
I really loved what I was doing and while I may sit on a project for two years every day was a new day and every day brought new challenges, both technical and editing related.  I tend to work an area until I am bored with it or until I get in the zone, and then move around.  The longer the job the more things that need to be done etc.
After awhile it just becomes clockwork and you dont think about whats going on in the world, tunnel vision just becomes so normal to you when you sit in front of your system that when your there, its work.
When its time to go, its time to go, and also I think setting a time limit.  If I sit down I wont work more than 7 hours, if I work more then I feel like I can always work more, which is fine when you have deadlines, but if your always letting yourself work too much, you'll get burnt out and hate doing it.
Hopefully something in this answer helps

Are you for hire?  7 hour workdays and you have to stop yourself... Wow. If I get 5 hours editing in in one day, I exceed my goal.

OK, I'll have a go. Here's my own answer (and advise I should take for myself - which I actually did do to some extent):

Avoid procrastination. Start small. Start with doing something. Don't hold up too high expectations to put yourself off. Good ideas here: http://zenhabits.net/dead-simple-guide-to-beating-procrastination/ (I succeed a bit with this advice, BTW I have no affiliation to zenhabits)
Regularly deliver draft work in a complete state to the customer. This rewards you. It gives them confidence that this is being done. It gives them opportunity to give feedback during the process (to avoid unnecessay work or deviation or disappointment). It gives them something to do on in the event you are delayed later, due to illness or other commitments.
Take breaks.
Track progress to help predict how long the remainder may take.

I'd welcome anyone else's input. I'm really answering here because no-one else has yet. I'd welcome some enlightenment from your own experiences.

I'm in a very similar situation to yours.  I'm a software architect that also does a professional level of A/V work on the side as a professional hobby.  The time commitment can be difficult at times, but I have always found that putting aside blocks of time is the best way to make solid progress.  I find that if I try to do it small bits at a time, it tends to give the end product a bit of a fractured feel if I try doing it 30 minutes at a time here and there.
It sometimes means I only get one or two times a week to work on a project, but I try to put in at-least 2 to 3 hours to a session.  More if I can manage on a weekend.  For larger projects, I'll try to get everything done I need to during the week so I can just dedicate most of a Saturday to it.  I'll actually probably be doing just that this Saturday since I have a back log of photo and video work to post produce from the last two weeks (a birthday party, two work parties and a weekend conference from last weekend).
Oh, also, try to plan out what you want to do before you do it.  Having a good idea of the full picture lets you move around while working on it between different aspects of the project.  It takes some practice to figure out what bits you can do in what order, but finding ways to be able to change things up while not interrupting your flow tend to be helpful in avoiding fatigue of logging clips for 3 hours after spending a long day at the office writing code.

+1 Thanks @AJ Henderson for your experience! I will leave the Question open for other contributors and then look at closing.


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suction-cup lamps for video lighting
Here's an idea that I wonder if anybody has tried...
In order to get better lighting for indoor video camera work, get a few small pendant lamps, each with a suction-cup.  Just stick them onto a nearby wall, plug in to an outlet, and shoot.
Question: where can I find some suction cups with which to do this?

While I have not tried this.  I imagine the problem would be getting a good enough seal to hold the weight of the light and cable.  Having your (generally pricy) light with a hot, sensitive bulb in it go smashing to the floor because the suction didn't quite hold is generally a risk most people wouldn't want to take.  Simple tripods are easier to setup and are easier to adjust the positioning (you aren't confined to positioning it on a wall for example).


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Tips for making multiple video shoots appear Continuous in color?
I'm brand new to video production, but I'm finding that when splicing some clips together in the NLE captured with my GH1 camera, there can often be very jarring jumps in the color, white balance, brightness, and things like that.
How do amateur videographers keep the image looking consistent from one shot to the next?  Is it a matter of using the same manual settings on the camera for every shot, or a matter of using some NLE editing features?

I should add that I'm interested in AUTOMATIC or near-automatic ways of keeping color consistent.  Aren't there some features or plugins of PC software that can simply "guess" and auto-adjust all the clips to "normalize" them or make them look "natural" (via heuristics)?

Consistent camera settings are a good beginning for continuous looking footage. Here below I will try to explain how to achieve consistent brightness and colour of footage.
Consistent brightness
Assuming that the lighting of the scene stays the same, you can pick a shutter speed, aperture and ISO that gives you a desired exposure. If in the next recording you will use the same settings on the same scene the brightness of the image will stay the same.
It gets trickier when the light changes. By using your exposure meter you can get close to consistent footage. If for example in scene 1 your exposure meter shows -2/3 with the desired settings, try to get an exposure of -2/3 in scene 2 with the same metering mode.
This will only work when the scenes are lighted similar to each other. Night/day shots or inside/outside shots are not going to get consistent brightness ever.
Later in post-processing you can of course alter the brightness of two different clips, but you don't have much working space getting it right in camera is the best starting point.
Constant colour
Again assuming that the scene lighting stays the same, you can pick the white balance. On a GH1 this can be done in several different ways, it even allows you to set the colour temperature in Kelvin. Pick a method of your liking, but to avoid Automatic White-Balance (AWB). AWB is a big cause for changing colours across different clips because it can get thrown off easily by changing objects in the scene.
Baseline: for the same scene, set the white-balance manually and don't let AWB decide for you.
Again, in post-processing you will probably need to do some colour grading and this gives you the chance to colour correct your footage.
But, get it right in camera and you will save yourself some work.

I should add that I'm interested in AUTOMATIC or near-automatic ways of keeping color consistent.  Aren't there some features or plugins of PC software that can simply "guess" and auto-adjust all the clips to "normalize" them or make them look "natural" (via heuristics)?

Exactly those heuristics and automations (e.g. auto white-balance) make it hard to get consistent looking footage. As a human you can judge better than a computer what WB or exposure setting should be used for a certain scene.    I'm only familiar with a plugin that is used to minimise flicker ( = rapid brightness change) in time lapses. It's called GBDeflicker and does a pretty good job when used with time-lapses. I have not tried it in another setup.

The key rule of avoiding these jumps is to use manual settings on your camera. I already had these jumps only because a cloud was suddenly covering the sun.
Normally, I let the camera adjust WB, exposure, and focus. Then I turn everything off and start filming.


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Lightworks problems importing, editing, and exporting using Canon EOS Rebel T3i
I'm using Lightworks 11 for Windows and I can't import the .mov files from my Canon EOS Rebel T3i.  Lightworks identifies the .mov files as "Apple / H264" but the show up in a red color.
Other .mp4 files that I have can be imported easily without problem.
(I will be answering my own question)

FYI I tried to answer my own question, but with my low reputation points, it won't let me answer my own question for another 7 hours.

So after 8 hours of research, trial and error, I found a successful workflow for .mov footage from my Canon EOS Rebel T3i.
The first part is that you can't import .mov "Apple / H264" files with Lightworks without purchasing the "Pro" version.  The pro version costs $60 per year (which is actually a good price for what you get).  So I bought that and was able to import my .mov files.
The next problem I had was that playing the imported footage was horribly slow and choppy.  I wanted to "mark and park" to get clips added to my editor but when I would play the video, it would only play a few frames and then get horribly choppy (audio would still play).  By the way, I have a laptop with an Intel Core i5 (2nd gen) and 4GB of RAM.
After some research, I found the solution to this was to import the video while transcoding it to AVI format with "DVCPRO100".  This made the video playable within Lightworks for editing.
Next I had some real problems exporting my edits into a codec/format that would actually work.  Some formats would just error out (post an error and exit).  Others would succeed, but the final video would not have audio (I think this happened with MP4).  Finally I found that exporting as "Quicktime Movie" (not to be confused with the "MOV" option!) worked.  It worked with the following options:
Quicktime Movie
H.264, Quality = High, Key framerate = 24
Frame Recording = Yes, Encoding Mode = Multi-pass
Sound:  Format = Uncompressed, 44.1 kHz, Channels = 2
For the other Lightworks export options, I chose:
HD 1080, 29.97 fps, and Progressive button checked.
I sure hope this helps other people save 8 hours of frustration!  With this workflow, I can now be efficient and productive and make some great videos.

Looks like they've changed the licensing model a little - according to their feature comparison all import formats are supported in both editions, it's only the export formats that vary - however I can't play back my imported 120fps videos :(


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GPUs for motion graphics
What are a few common GPUs that offer the best hardware acceleration for motion graphics and compositing? (i.e. After Effects, Motion, Combustion, etc)

Probably some good shopping criteria here: http://blogs.adobe.com/aftereffects/2012/05/gpu-cuda-opengl-features-in-after-effects-cs6.html

Currently Adobe products only support hardware with CUDA support.  While there is a specific list on Adobe's website of officially supported hardware, most cards with CUDA support will work with a little bit of tweaking.  The best bet is probably to Google for the particular card you are interested in and the package you want to use as the exact support and capabilities of each card/software combination will vary.


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How to buy a decent monitor
If I want good color rendition, do I just need to search for monitors with "IPS", high contrast, and high brightness?  Or are there other keywords I should use in shopping?
Note: I'm talking about CONSUMER monitors ($200-300 range), NOT fancy commercial models designed for ultra-accurate color.

Relevant: http://avp.stackexchange.com/questions/1758/what-should-i-be-looking-for-in-a-low-cost-color-correcting-monitor

Additionally, try them!  Get a demo of any monitors you plan to use.

In addition to the content in the post I linked to, note that high contrast and high brightness isn't necessarily a strength when looking for color accuracy, but IPS and true 8bit or higher color is normally a good sign.  Many high contrast monitors use tricks of dimming portions of the screen to make the contrast ratio higher, but it destroys the ability to produce accurate color.


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How is it customary to pay a video editor - global or per-hour?
Hope this is on-topic.
It is often that assesing the amount of work required for editting a video is a very hard task. This makes the payment issue a bit complicated.
I assume there is no one standart for this, but still, is there a recommended, customary payment system that helps making the deal fair for both parties?

While it's probably more common to find freelance editors, it is possible to find salaried work as an editor.  In such a case, you're not getting paid by the job, or by the hour.  You negotiate an annual salary with your employer, agree on the terms of your employment, and do your best to field whatever they can throw at you.

My experience is that it really depends on the situation and the editor.  I personally have done both hourly and project rate editing.  Typically I'll only take project rates if it is clear how much time it will take (ie, a simpler project), but it will really depend on your area and what particular editor you are working with.
I'd suggest having estimates of what you are willing to pay for either option and then simply ask them which method they prefer and then supply them with that number.  If you have a preference one way or the other, you might also ask them if they would consider the method you prefer.

The price what you as a videographer can ask per hour depends on a supply demand market. You could ask at least more then the minimum wage.
This is how I calculate price per hour.
equipment_costs = total_value_of_used_equipment/((8736/10)/3)
price_per_hour = (minimum_wage_per_hour + workexperience_in_years) + equipment_costs

8763 is the total hours in one year

Great point about making sure you factor in your costs when considering a rate.  If you have better equipment (and know how to use it sufficiently well) then it makes the service more valuable.

I can't give you guidance on pay rates - that depends on experience, your local market, and probably other factors.
I've had video editors on staff that were paid a full-time salary. When I was helping to interview a new team member, most of the candidates were doing contract work on an hourly basis. So it seems clear to me that payment for video editing can be as variable as any other job.


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How much to charge for a re-posting of a video?
Created a short promotional video for a client, it's an online magazine.
For the sake of example, let's say I charged the magazine $700. The video is embedded into the magazine using a proprietary method (ie: not youtube, vimeo, or any other video sharing site with embed options). This is fine.
Now the video happens to be something of an pseudo-official biography on a local artist (hes in it, he talks in it, official interview stuff), but the video wasn't made FOR him, but now he's inquiring how much it would cost him to embed the video on HIS site as well, for marketing purposes.
Again, lets say I charged the Magazine $700 (2.5min video), how much should I charge for a re-embed?
(ps: I own the copyrights)

Good question, though I'm not sure it's appropriate for fact-based Q&A format of SE sites.  Answers are likely to all begin with "it depends".

I expect that, absolutely, it's not a "defined" scale, I just have no idea where to start, and most AV forums take 3 years for people to respond :\

@DJDarkViper As-is, this question is too vague for this site, as it's basically discussion without any real definitive answer, and it's also too localized, especially with the price discussion. You could probably re-word it though, to ask "Is there an established practice in this situation?" rather than "what should I charge him?".

@DJDarkViper I can give you a hand with it if you're not sure - @-reply me in chat if you like!

That is completely up to you, how much is it worth to you, etc.  Keeping in mind you have to do zero additional work on it to give it to him, and if he were to put it up on his site without your knowledge you would loose nothing.

The same amount of money for every person. But if he couldn't afford it then go for less 200? 300? ;)

my mind was also saying something in the ballpark os $200, as it's no real extra work on my part...


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Best rendering output for 720px X 480px Sony Vegas Pro 12
I'm pretty new to video editing so please excuse if my question is rather entry level.
I have a bunch of archival films that were converted MPEG-2 at 720px by 480px. I'm required to put a watermark on them (which I've already figured out) and then upload them to youtube.
My question is, given the size (720X480) and non-HD quality of my archival film what would be the optimal settings to render in for Sony Vegas Pro? Or what would be the optimal format to render to given the above and it's end purpose being to get the best quality to Youtube?
Any help is much appreciated

Not sure if you are asking about rendering to edit, or rendering for output to Youtube...
Whilst Editing pretty much whatever your system is setup up for will be fine, most likely Mpeg-2 or DVCPROHD will get you by...
But if you are referring to uploading to youtube, your best bet will be H264 since that is what Youtube will convert it to anyway.
Here is a little bit more reading you can do on Youtube Video formats...
http://www.ifunia.com/youtube-column/best-youtube-video-format.html

Many ways here:

You can render your video using Mainconcept renderer with one of the
Internet 4:3 SD templates
You can create your own render template that best meets the YouTube specs
You can upload your video w/o rendering, and let YouTube convert it for you (in this
case, you can not apply a watermark)
You can use free extension Video4YouTube
Something I forgot :)


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After Effects: Importing Illustrator sequence?
I have 200 layers in Illustrator CS6. I have another set of the same layers but where basic attributes (position, scale) have changed.
Is there a way to import these two "states" into After Effects CS6 so that I end up with 200 layers animating from state 1 to state 2?

It's not entirely clear to me. Will the final animation have 2 frames and moving objects from frame 1 to 2?

Yes, what I want to achieve is an animation between "State 1" (for all the 200 objects) and "State 2". I already have the static setups in Illustrator but I want to do the tweening in AE so I need it to recognize that it is the same objects/layers in State 1 as in State 2.

I have tried the following steps with 4 layers, and it seemed to work.

Name the file with the state 1 set, your-filename-1.ai and the file with the state 2 set your-filename-2.ai. Make sure they are in the same folder
Open After Effects, click File -> Import -> File... and click your-filename-1.ai. Make sure the checkmark is checked as shown below:

To keep all the individual layers, set Import As: to Composition.
 3. Now you will have a composition in your project panel named your-filename and a folder named your-filename Layers that contains all the layers.
 5. Now you can open the composition and check Frame Blending -> Frame Mix for every layer that you want to tween.
 6. Don't forget to enable frame blending. The image below shows how to do this:

Now you have an animation from state 1 to state 2. To change the animation playback speed you can use time-stretching on a layer-per-layer basis.

Thanks for helping out! Is there any way to have AE recognize the individual layers so that I can apply a per-layer tween instead of a general frame-blending?

@dani I've updated my answer to recognize individual layers.


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Scan Library for music track
Hope, I got the right forum for my question.
I'm a Podcaster and publishing podcasts since 2005. In my first few episodes I used a Music Track as an opener which seems to have a copyright on it, so I got a mail from a lawyer. First of all: Yep, i didn't check the license in detail so I have to pay for this now. I appreciate the work of musicians and I never wanted to do piracy - the website I got the track from seemed to have free tracks and so I used them.
Anyway: I have to commit myself to never ever republish this copyrighted track again. But in The mass of episodes I have created it would be hard work to check of I used the track even after changing the opener to a (real) free track. Is there a possibility to scan my library automatically against a short part of the copyrighted track?
If this is the wrong section, please refer to the correct one.
Thanks in advance
Phil

What OS are you on? What format are your podcasts in?

I' m using Windows7. But I can also use a Linux Distribution if it's really needed. But Windows is preferred.

Sorry, was on mobile, didn't See your Second question: I'm using MP3 as Format.

https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/5339/match-two-sounds-with-a-level-of-certainty/5344#5344
Similar post, but the conclustion was that while the technology exists, it is mainly used to confirm what a song is etc...but you could for sure look into the Shazam or Soundhound APIs to see if you can create a code/script that would do it for you
However if the song, has a point in which the song is literally the only thing playing, you could use a software called pluraleyes, to sync your podcasts to that song, if they find a sync point, most likely it will be that song...
This may or may not work to some degree, there is obviously a high level of error while trying to make it match, the more of the song playing that is not mixed with anything else, the higher the likelyness of this working.

Pluraleyes is not available for Windows yet

Additionally Pluraleyes is a kind of expensive. Of course: Compared to a fine it's perhaps cheap. But there has to be a less expensive method, I think.
I have several seconds in the podcast without any voice on it, so I am quite sure, that if there is a matching tool out there it would have easy work...

This is the only matching software that I know of, there is a free trial


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How do I automatically create burned-in subtitles in Premiere Pro?
I have subtitles for a video in .srt format and I want to use this create 'burned-in' subtitles in Adobe Premiere Pro. Is this possible to do - and how?

What OS do you use?

Windows 7 Professional.

related question: http://avp.stackexchange.com/questions/5160/render-srt-subtitles-to-video

What do you mean by burned in?  Do you mean you wish to actually render the text on to the video or that you wish to encode it in a format that supports inclusion of a subtitle channel?  For actually making them a permanent part of the video, I've always done it through titles rather than an srt.  I unfortunately don't have any experience with the latter option of making them a subtitle channel in a compatible format, but it would likely depend greatly on the format chosen.

By 'burning' in I meant rendering them as a text titles within the video. I know I can use the title feature to add titles manually, but some form of converting SRTs to text tiles according to timing would be helpful.

This is not possible with Premiere without plugins and I don't know of any that would do this.
I recommend doing this outside of premiere like explained in this question: Render srt subtitles to video?

Official Documentation

Premiere Pro lets you burn in permanent captions into your video.
  Burned-in captions are always visible regardless of whether closed
  captioning is enabled on your television or streaming device or not.
Premiere Pro supports burning in both closed captions and open
  captions while exporting your video.
When you import SRT files and XML files that  have open caption data
  in them, Premiere Pro automatically converts these files to CEA-708
  CC1 closed caption files. You can then edit these files and burn in
  the captions as subtitles while exporting using Premiere Pro or Adobe
  Media Encoder.
In the Export Settings dialog box, select the Export Format as Burn
  Captions Into Video.
Note: You cannot edit captions that are burned into the video.

https://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/working-with-captions.html

Use aegisub to create an srt file (believe me it is easier this way). Then simply import the srt file into premiere. It will create a title sequence that will act as a layer that you can render onto the video. There are of course other ways of doing this such as what Ryan posted.
I personally do not like Premiere's handling of subtitles as there is no way to batch format all the subs!


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After Effects Alternative for Windows
I use Sony Vegas for video production but would like to be able to create more visual effects.
Are there any cheaper alternatives for Adobe's After Effects? Or is there an extension for Vegas?

Blender does have compositing capability, and can be used to do some of the stuff that AE does. It's free, but you have to learn how to use it, so how highly you value your time counts in the final equation.
If you want to see Blender in action as a compositor you can see the "Tears of Steel" short film made with Blender last year.

HitFilmFX integrates nicely with Sony Vegas Pro 12. It is much cheaper than AE.
Take a look at Sony Vegas Pro 12 Suite. There is also Boris RED and Boris Continuum Complete for Sony Vegas, GenArts products, NewBlueFX...

These arent really VFX programs tho, these are sort of like plugin suites...and they def do not compare to AE

After Effects is an extremely powerful tool, not just because of the out of box abilities but also its integration with 3rd party plugins...In some degrees I could say it can compete with Nuke which is like 4k, and even more for Nuke X
In terms of Pro-sumer/ boarder-line Professional Software these two are in a league of their own, being both MAC and PC compatible also is a huge advantage for them over, well there really isn't any competition.
After Effects has a 30-day free trial and Nuke has a 15-day free trial, also if you are a student you can get AE for just a couple hundred on its own, and will work great with Vegas, just need to export and import VFX clips.  Same would be for Nuke, however obviously much more expensive and probably not in your budget so...
To simply answer your question, no...Use the 30-day free trial, and if you like it, find someone who is a student (if your not) and get it via the student discount.

If you need it for a limited time (but longer than the trial), Adobe now also offers monthly pricing that is pretty reasonable (compared to the full price of the software).  They call it Creative Cloud.  They have both a Master Collection version as well as a single product version.  A student edition is also available, though it isn't that good of a deal.

Are you kidding, AE retails for $1000 the production premium suite which includes Photoshop Illustrator Premiere Aftereffects Audition Speed Grade Prelude Encore Bridge and Media Encoder is only $599
Student pricing is huge!

If I wasn't clear enough, I was talking about Creative Cloud, it's $30 a month for the student version vs $50 a month for commercial.  Master Collection for students is so cheap that it isn't worth the monthly rates, you are better off just buying.  On the other hand, for non-students, $20 a month for a single product or $50 a month for Master Collection is a far better deal if you only need it for a limited time and probably even in perpetuity now that they switched to one version upgrades only.

NOT really  alternatives but you can look into these tools too..

Pinnacle Studio HD
Corel Video Studio Pro
Nova Cut (Open ,Distributed Editing)[NOTE: CHECK FOR WINDOWS COMPATIBILITY]

As i said, these are not Proper alternatives..
But many simple and at par professional level performance can be expected from these.  The first one, Pinnacle Studio HD, delivers a failrly good quality output and also supports extra features like Chroma Keying, Basic Color Grading and also has some additional Pligins available like the RED GIANT EFFECTS. I am not sure whether its capable of giving you what you need, but have a look . Here is the link to Pinnacle

Secondly, Corel® VideoStudio® Pro X5 is an all-in-one video editor that brings together creative editing, advanced effects, screen recording, interactive web video and total disc authoring. Ultra-fast and packed with intuitive tools, it lets you create everything from family movies and slideshows, to fun stop motion animations, and screen recordings of presentations, tutorials and more. Get creative with advanced compositing and stellar creative effects. Tap into the full power of your multi-core processor with unprecedented speed. And share everywhere with native HTML5 video support, and enhanced DVD and Blu-ray™ authoring as said in the official site. Here is the Link to the Product Have a look.
The third and slighlty interesting item is the Nova Cut Pro. (A free movement, still under development) . Warning: i am not sure about its capabilities and disabilities. But i have read from their blog that , it provides powerful solutions for distributed editing requirements. You can(should) take a look and go through their blogs before trying it.Good thing is it is (or was) free.. Have a look here , here and here

I don't think any of these are actually answering the question about video effects software, but are instead recommending alternatives to Vegas, which isn't what the asker is asking about. It's a good list, just not answering the question as far as I can tell.


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After Effects quality drops
I am trying to make a animation. There is a 3D animation which is sharp, I need to put some layers over it with descriptions about some parts that are shown.
The original video is extremly sharp, but when I render my own version in After Effects it isn't sharp at all. I changed the 'Interpert footage > Main' a couple of times but it doesn't help. Also in the render queue I changed the export settings, still nothing changes.
I am trying to export as a QuickTime > Photo > Quality 100%. I am using AE CS5.

What is the resolution of the original 3D animation and what is the resolution of your own version?

They are both 1280 x 720

Make sure that resolutions match.  Look at the properties of the source clip, make sure that all of the main parameters (height, width, pixel ratio, frame rate) match for your composition and your export.  If it is having to interpolate pixels (as a result of non-divisible height or width or a difference in pixel aspect ratio) or interpolate frames (as a result of a mismatched framerate) then you are going to see a noticeable drop in sharpness.
Also check to make sure that render options are all set to 100% and that Best quality is selected on the render output.  It is possible to run renders in AE that don't process every pixel to speed rendering for drafts.  This could be what is happening as well.  If you can provide more detail about the composition, render settings and source material, then we might be able to help more.

The resolution is the same, also the frame rate and pixel ratio. Ask what you need to know and I will tell.

@RobinV91NL - What format and compression settings (if any) are on the input?  What are the format and compressions settings on the output?  Other than those details, if everything else I mentioned is set correctly, I'm pretty near out of ideas off the top of my head.

Yea if everything matches, input info, comp settings, and output settings, then something is wrong with ur AE

@AJHenderson As far as I can see, this is the input: duration 0:33, framewidth 1280, frameheight 720, data rate 39454 kbps, frames/sec 30. The file is a .avi. My composition is: width 1280 height 720, pixel ratio square, 30 frames/sec, full resolution, duration 1:30. Advanced settings I haven't changed from standard. I tried to export as a .mov. If I interpert the footage without seperate fields, the movie is not viewable, with the lower field first it's blury. Even with preserve edges on.

@RobinV91NL - What are the actual codecs from the AVI and the MOV?  Was the original interlaced or progressive?  Are you doing an output as progressive or interlaced?

Check your Comp Settings to make sure that matches what you want your output to be...and I would recommend to make your output match your input in terms of Resolution, Aspect Ratio, Pixel Ratio, Codec, Colorspace (if applicable)...and make sure your not changing it with your Comp settings

It is worth noting that codec match doesn't really matter that much.  Multiple generations with a lossy codec are still going to degrade the image, particularly with alterations made to it.  If the codec was lossless, then any codec is fine as long as that codec would normally produce sufficient quality.

This is true, just trying to see if it was any sort of progress in the right direction for the OP...but you are correct


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Last bit of RGB changed
I'm going to compress a video but I have one problem.
Is a frame with a bit(last bit) of each color(RGB) changed unacceptable or distinguishable from the original one in HD?

Is it possible for you to just try it out and post back with the answer?

Unacceptable is in the eye of the watcher, so that part is tough to answer.
Distinguishable is easier: yes, there will be a difference. It will not be obvious in every frame or circumstance, but it will be there. If you simply truncate the lowest bit, it will raise the noise floor and the effect will be most evident in low light areas. So, it will look worse, but how much worse, and whether it's acceptable, depend on the particulars.

It is unlikely to be noticeable.  This is basically the principal on which steganography operates.  It changes the least significant bits in images and video such that there is not a noticeable change in the final image, however software can later pull out the data without it being obvious that the data was there.  Without access to the original image it is quite difficult for even a computer to know that the change occurred.  The NSA and security professionals in general have put considerable time and resources in to trying to figure out good ways to identify steganographic messages.


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Video file format won't play
Hopefully I'm not out of line asking here, but I used to have a Sony HDR camera and of course all the files were in a sony format.  Quite some time ago I used iMovie to import them and since then I've just been storing them on a file server.  Now I'm going through my archive and trying to figure out what I want to keep and what I don't.  However, I'm having issues opening some of the files.  It seems completely random quite honestly.  Clips from the same day will work while others won't?  I've downloaded VLC for mac and pc and neither recognizes the file.  VLC has always opened everything pretty much.  Any thoughts on how I can determine if this is just a unrecognized format or a corrupt file  or something else?
Here is the a public link to the file in case you want to have a look.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/25690725/clip-2008-12-25%2009%3B21%3B23.mov
Thanks!

It seems corrupted. MovieInspector, VLC, MPlayer OSX Extended and FFmpeg can not open this file. The latter program reports moov atom not found.

@BartArondson that was sort of my guess as well.  Would have thought there would have been a checksum error or something if that would have been the case though?  Some of these videos are of my kid when he was first born too.  My wife is going to love me.

I'm not very familiar with file-corruption, it's just that if no a/v program can open the file at all, in my experience this often was a corrupted file. Don't throw it away yet though, other more experienced members might have a solution.

I just downloaded the clip from provided Dropbox link and found that the file is repairable. Please try to diagnose it using MP4repair.org or in case you're on a Mac computer using Treasured. You will be able to repair it in a few minutes.
Regards,
Javier
(As crew of Aero Quartet I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.)


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Capture Date For Video
I have tons of videos of my children and they have been moved from drive to drive many times over the years.  Is there a way to easily get the date the video was taken?  I'm importing them into iTunes currently, but I can find nothing that shows the date the video was taken?

MediaInfo gives you a way to check the file metadata, including the creation date for the video and audio streams. This is free, cross platform and open source and also provides a GUI for you to check.

If you're up for using the command line, with MediaInfo:
mediainfo in.mp4 | grep "Encoded date" | head -n1 | cut -d: -f2-

With FFmpeg's ffprobe:
ffprobe -v quiet -print_format flat -show_format in.mp4 | grep creation_time | cut -d= -f2-

If it was, it is no longe free! Oh well.

Of course it's free. It even says so on the homepage and I've been using it for years. Where are you prompted to pay?

If you're on a Mac and follow the main page link you will go to the Mac App store where it's not free: https://itunes.apple.com/app/mediainfo/id510620098. But if you go on the main page to the link below it you will arrive at the free version: http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en/Download/Mac_OS

Oh, you got caught in that Mac App Store trap some developers think they have to set up. On the MediaInfo download page, just look a few pixels down to where it says "free GUI".

If you have ffmpeg installed you can type

ffprobe filename.mp4

and it will give you a list of information about the file with in the end the creation time.
I'm sure it is possible to automate this with a bash script and maybe even to extract the creation time out of the list of info, but I wouldn't know how exactly.

It entirely depends on what information the camera embedded in the video file.  It may or may not have actually stored the date.  If the information is in the meta data, then any advanced video player or editing tool should be able to see the meta data and tell you the date associated.  Also, it is possible that the file date may be accurate, though there are a lot of things that can cause the file date to change.  The meta data, if present is the most accurate and best bet though if it is present.

MediaInfo shows you all sorts of meta data for video files.
It offers you a GUI to easily check the files by hand. Look for the field General > Encoded date. You might have to change the View.
In order to automate the job, I recommend the console though:
mediainfo video.mp4

It is also possible to output only certain fields like the encoded date:
mediainfo --Inform="General;%Encoded_Date%" video.mp4

That metadata will only be present for certain encoders in certain codecs and wrappers. It isn't universally defined like EXIF data for stills.

Well, when there is no information embedded in the file then it is of course not possible to extract it.
Or do you mean that there are also differently named tags which contain the same information?


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No experience with AE, I want to create a Kinetic Typographic video. Am I being too ambitious?
Ok so I have this presentation thing for next week, and I have to make a explainer video. I'm super torn between whiteboard animation (I can do this) and kinetic typographic video. I really want to try out the latter, but have no experience with AE. My school has almost any imaginable A/V tool.
Am I being ambitious? What are some good resources to learn to generate the video (like a 3-minute video) using AE? Are there any "shortcuts"?

Hi Karan - I think 'am I too ambitious' is not an easily answered question, but you could edit your question to ask about what techniques/experience would be required.

Just wondering -- how'd that go for you?

This is pretty funny, literally the first thing I ever did in After Effects...Was this
I was able to achieve it pretty easily and if I remember correctly I did it after watching a few of the VideoCoPilot.net beginner tutorials from Andrew Kramer.  And as you get more advanced do some of his harder tutorials, I found it probably to be the number one source in terms of learning the basis to After Effects

So do you think I can make like a 3 minutes video like this with no AE experience in under 12 hours? (I do have experience with PS)

Absolutely...with enough will power anything can happen

What do you mean by kinetic typographic video?  Do you simply mean that you want moving text?  It is quite easy to setup and animate the movement of layers in After Effects, so I don't think it sounds too ambitious if you have a passing familiarity with other layer based systems (like Photoshop).  You simply need to place what you want on a layer and then manipulate the layer using the Transform options.
As long as you click the diamond for key frame tracking you simply go to the desired keyframe, adjust it to where it should be on that keyframe and AE will interpolate the motion in between.
Alternately, if you want to be a bit more complex, you could use path text, setup a path for the text to follow and then use key framing to adjust the start position along the path.

Like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwrGvlwOCcg

Yeah, that is mostly layer transformations and some color changes.  A few motion blur effects added in, but it's pretty easily doable with AE using transformation key frames like I described.

So do you think I can make like a 3 minutes video like this with no AE experience in under 12 hours? (I do have experience with PS)

In the shown quality? Depends on your design skills and how much actual animation you want to be happen. The video is quite playfull, it would require a ton of keyframes to do such a video. I'd say if you stick with more basic animation, yes its possible but try not to be overly fancy and get a rough animation going first and improve details later on.

@KaranGoel - I concur with Paul Green.  It depends on how skilled you are with keyframe animation in general and how high quality of a result you are looking for.  I'm not really sure I could give a good estimate of how much progress you could make in 12 hours.  Your best bet is to probably give it a try and see where you can get.  I also concur that the best bet is to get a rough concept done first and then worry about refining.  You can always select and drag groups of keyframes to adjust timings.


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Emulate iMovie PIP exchange effect in Final Cut Pro X
I'm exporting a project from iMovie to Final Cut Pro X.
Not all tracks are exported properly, mainly the pip tracks.
What I want to do is to re-make in FCPX the same pip effect that in iMovie is named "exchange" (or something like this, my version is not in english).
Is there some fast way to to that in FCPX or I have to play with the keyframes each time?

You have to create the effect in Motion.  I'm not sure what the iMovie effect looks like, but I use this technique on a daily basis. In my setup, there are actually six separate effects; left_panel_in, left_panel_static_, left_panel_out, right_panel_in, right_panel_static, right_panel_out.  This allows me to go between a 1-up and 2-up configuration at any point in time, and to do so consistently throughout multiple projects.  If you need step by step instructions, I would be happy to assist once I'm sitting in front of a machine with Motion on it.
best, Jason.


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Record and edit two videos at same time
I have a need to record a lecture. I would like to capture video of the speaker and video of his slides.
Optimally, I would like to hook up two recording devices, hit record on one program, then the program will record a video stream for each device. When I am done recording I would like to hit stop once on the program and then I would have two videos that are the same length and are basically synchronized. Later I would like the same benefit in editing for simple functions like trimming.
Is there such a program available? Prefer windows but open to other options.

There are several ways of doing this... really depends on the cameras you are shooting on & budget.  On set we sometimes use a piece of software called Qtake, which can record two video feeds from an HDSDI source, and play them back immediately, but it's really pricey.  Other ways to do it would be to use a HDSDI trigger to set both devices in to record mode.  Another way is to just make sure your TimeCode is in sync. What cameras are you planning on using?  If you are using Canon 5DII/7D's etc you could use the magiclantern hack and get a trigger record going, see the link below, then the files would correspond and sync up pretty well by the looks.
http://www.magiclantern.fm/forum/index.php?topic=1088.0

Sony HDR-FX7. I take the iLink out into a firewire card and record in sony vegas pro. For slides I use epiphan vga to usb and record in epiphan capture tool, which is not very good.


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Whiteboard animation: how to zoom and draw a motion?
I want to make a video that will mix a whiteboard drawing animation in the style of RSA Animate videos (so speeded-up drawings) and stop-motion. I think I'm almost ready to start but I still have two questions I can't figure out an answer:

when I want to make a drawing move in stop-motion, do I have to erase it and draw it again a little bit on the right, then erase it and draw it again and again? In some videos like this one

 , the motion is very fluid, how do I know how many drawings I have to make to get a fluid motion like this?
What's the best way to move the field of the camera to draw in different areas of the whiteboard, like what you see here

 ? If I manually move my camera I feel like the transition will not be very smooth, but if I do it by software I could have problems in terms of resolution?

Erase and redraw
If you play the first video frame by frame (by pausing the video and pressing the left or right key) you see that moving objects are erased and redrawn again and again. The line properties (thickness, straightness) change a little bit between frames, hinting that the line is redrawn each time (best seen at 0:45).
Camera motion
About the 2nd video you're correct that manually moving your camera will be not so smooth. If you have a jib you could achieve much smoother motion.
However, I don't think they used that in this video. The biggest output size is 720p meaning that the frame has a size of 1280x720 pixels. If you have a camera that can film 1920x1080 pixels you have quite some room left in which you can crop and move the frame.

Excellent thanks I didn't know I could pause the video. I'll study it frame by frame :) And I can film in 1920x1080 so I'll try the crop function.

You could even shoot way higher res than 1920x1080 if you put the camera in stills mode and shoot timelapse, say 5fps, which is what I'd expect this playback speed it (6 times quicker than realtime, at 30fps, although you could easily playback at 24fps too)... Things to watch out for here would be lens distortion, ie a reasonably wide lens would produce bending at the edges, so you would want to undistort the pictures before doing the post pan & tilt.

Well!! I am surprised no one talked about VideoScribe and PowToon. See my answer here.
To give erasing effect you need to be more smarter in VideoScriber. For this;

takes some blank scribelout svgs
add it aanother picture in your picture.
change hand style. pick some hand which is having eraser in hand.
that's all


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Is there a good collection of examples of the different type of video cuts?
So I'm a beginner when it comes to video editing, but I hear and read about a lot of different types of cuts between clips, e.g. jump cut, smash cut, etc. I always felt it would be great to just see them demonstrated in some example video clip.
Have anyone seen such a resource, preferrably free, online, where most or all of these types of cuts are shown in examples?

I haven't found a resource where all the cuts are collected. But if you search youtube for editing match cut or editing jump cut you'll get plenty of examples. One could collect those and put it in an answer to answer the question.

As Bart said, if your looking for examples of these sort of cuts then yes check out youtube and take a look...my recommendation though would be to take a cheap class at say a community college on film/editing, you would probably learn a lot from such a class in terms of types of cuts and how to use them to tell a story.

Wikipedia is not a bad resource for explaining the different types of edits in continuity editing. Some have examples using stills of the out and in points, or references to usage of the edit in a well known film sequence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continuity_editing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/180-degree_rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/30-degree_rule
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_cut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-cutting
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutaway_(filmmaking)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutting_on_action
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Establishing_shot
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyeline_match
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Insert_(filmmaking)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L_cut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_take
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Match_cut
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shot_reverse_shot

Try to use Avidemux as free video cutting and joining software. Also try freemake video converter is quality software to convert multimedia files.

As I understand it the OP is more looking for examples of those cuts (to see the actual effect) rather than ways to actually generate that cut (with Avidemux). Hence the downvote.

That's correct. I have the tools to do the cuts, I just want a reference library of cuts being used in video editing in general.


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Any DSLR monitors around 3 inches?
I'm looking for an external DSLR monitor that is not bigger than around 3 inches. For example, 4 or 5 inches is too big. I need something small and not bulky, for skateboarding videography.

I doubt you will find an external screen no bigger than 3" as that is already the size of the built-in LCD screen of some DSLR's. Some even have 3.2". The main use of external screens is easier focussing and composing, and there a big screen is beneficial. You might be interested in DSLR's with flip out screens (e.g. the Canon 600d) as that will allow you to shoot from the ground, while still seeing the LCD. It's a much bigger investment though.

have you looked into DLSR controller apps for android and iphone? some of them allow for control and preview via a cable

Zacuto makes an EVF monitor that is 3.2 inches, and I can say from experience this is the real deal...Has built in sharpening monitoring to help with focus support, and has a detachable eyepiece...also look into their camera rigs fro your skateboarding videos, they could be really helpful for you.
http://www.zacuto.com/zfinderevf


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How to compensate for red oversaturation and contrast increase?
When uploading a video to Vimeo the video is transcoded by Vimeo and in the process red gets a bit more saturation and the contrast is increased a little.
As I chose Vimeo as my platform I have to live with that and hence compensate for it during my video production.
How would I determine the exact amount of red desaturation and contrast decrease? Can I overlay the screenshots somehow and calculate a difference? Is there maybe a plug-in for Premiere Pro that compares two videos and outputs a suggested colour correction?
I know I can do this by trial and error, but I'd rather have an automatic solution.
Here's an image showing the effect:

Note the difference of skin tone between Safari and Vimeo HD file. The latter is the intended colour.

Did you try to download the file re-encoded by vimeo and compare it locally in the same player? AFAIK all browsers nowadays are color managed so that could be an issue as well.

Unfortunately, even if you could get an exact amount of the difference, it is highly unlikely that adjusting by that amount will fix your problem.  Since a lossy compression is being used, the codec is deciding to alter the color to something that is more easily stored in a small space.  You will likely get a different color artifact if you try to correct for this one.  Your best bet would probably be to look in to the formats that Vimeo uses and try to encode it yourself such that Vimeo won't have to transcode it.  This would give you control over the compression itself and you might be able to use a better encoder that would maintain color more accurately.

As far as I know Vimeo always transcodes, so that's not going to work. But thanks for the suggestion.

@BartArondson - yeah, sadly then, there is no way to ensure the color ends up the way you want it if it is changing as an artifact of the encoding.  I highly doubt that they are intentionally shifting the color, so you probably can't compensate for it.  Certainly not easily.

@BartArondson - have you tried using the settings as described by Vimeo?

Yes, those are the settings I used for the original file (far right in the screenshot).

@BartArondson - one other thought, though I doubt it is the case, is that it is possible that something about the browser is causing a change in color, either by gamma or some color profile.  It isn't likely that it is the case, it is most likely the compression being used, but it is a possibility.

To me Safari and Firefox look similar so that means that would mean it's not caused by a browser applying a specific colour profile. Here there are a bunch of other people with the same problem, I'm gonna dig through that to see if there's a fix. I also notice that the HTML5 player shows the colours closer to the source and the Flash player shows the above problem. This is becoming quite complicated...

@BartArondson - it might be flash applying a color profile then.  Do both Safarii and FireFox use Flash?  It also could be that a color profile is applied in the viewer that you are using for the right two versions, but not being applied by either browser (which is probably more likely).  I'd still expect it is likely encoding related, but I'm just trying to think of everything in the workflow that could be causing issues.


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Best way to edit mashup video of downloaded movies?
So I wanted to do a mashup video for personal usage, meaning scenes cut from downloaded commercial movies or Youtube. This is typically relatively highly compressed h264-material.
The workflow that I attempted, but feel is not optimal, is to:

Remux losslessly to .mov containers and stereo-only audio where applicable
On 2x speed, watch through in QuickTime Player X. Whenever I want to use something, I use the Trim function, Duplicate the trimmed movie, save the duplicate, and then undo the changes in the original and continue.
In FCPX, I import the clips and put them in a project.

The problems in my workflow is, that it would be great with a tool that is more optimal to scan large amount of video (e.g. a full length movie) and mark sections to become clips. Secondly, FCPX frequently crashes when I try to use the clips natively. I have converted some of them to Optimized Media (Prores 422).
Is there a better tool, or a workflow combining tools, that makes it particularly easy to do these types of video mashups?

Why are you not simply using the video editing package to scrub for clips?  My preference has always been to do things in the editing software directly.  I'm a Premiere guy not a FCPX guy, but is there any method to form a virtual clip based on given start and end points in FCPX?  How powerful is your system if it is crashing trying to scrub H264 files?  It sounds like there are some bigger issues going on with your hardware or software.  Either that or FCP has really truly fallen off the wagon with X.

Yes, I could, I am able to scrub. Problem is, even all the clips are h264, depending on details in them (presumably, which profile or whether there are errors in frames), FCPX will choke on it and either just give up or crash. Same files play fine in Quicktime. So it looks to me like a software issue.

Post your cpu specs, this should not be happening, I really dont like FCPX I would highly recommned getting a free 30-day trial on premiere pro however, if you computer is choking on FCPX I am questioning the computer setup...Yes H264 files are ram intensive...but not that much

It's a MBP Retina with Quadcore 2.4 Ghz. It plays fine with most out-of-camera H264s but not with highly compressed ones, e.g. what you'd get out from Youtube.

Not on FCPX, but on Avid.  However, this is what I do and it may help:

Download at the maximum possible resolution you can download at.
Use AVIDemux as my rough-cut tool to mark 'A' and 'B' and save as clips with meaningful names.  Leave a few seconds on either side.
Import clips into Avid

Sometimes, I have to convert the container to 'MP4' or resample frame rates and AVIDemux handles these well.

For me, FCPX is barely able to handle these MP4-clips. The transcoding just stops, and the program crashes.

Another option worth exploring would be to use Cineform Studio (http://gopro.com/software-app/cineform-studio) from GoPro.
It allows you to mark clips within a larger movie file, and to individually export the clips as separate .mov files, which can then be imported into your favourite editor.
While Cineform Studio is developed by GoPro, I've found that it works fine on H.264 DSLR video  footage. I can't confirm whether it will work for a full-length movie, however.

Good suggestion, will give it a go!

If you search for a tool that has a great performance with h.264 editing. Try Adobe Premiere Pro CS5+ (though CS6 is recommended, it has improved perofrmance with DSLR footage which is basically h.264 for most cameras), you can edit natively with nearly no frame drops even on lower end systems.
Though that might be a bit expensive for a hobby solution.
If its a one time project the 30 days trial version might be an option.


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White Balance/ Filters
I have a silly question:
Do I have to the WB before or after choosing a Color filter?
If I do it after, then the camera will "see" white and the filter wouldn't make sense. If I do it before, why just not balance for the color temperature I want, say, 2900K if I want warm colors?
I am sure I don't understand something basic
Thanks

The ability to set custom white balances largely makes color filters unnecessary.  The only thing they really (potentially) offer is better dynamic range.  With a white balance adjustment, it alters the processing of what the sensors pick up, but if there is a really bright orange area for example, it could overload those sensors and thus detail would be lost if the rest of the image was darker.
Using a filter would reduce the amount of light of that color reaching the sensor and could potentially keep more detail.  This probably isn't going to happen in the vast majority of cases, but it is one physical difference between the two processes.  For the most part, color filters are a hold over from film days when there wasn't electronic white balancing.

does white balance adjustment impact capture speed? It does (or did) increase the required exposure time in DSLRs I have used.

@horation - would depend on how the camera is configured.  The image sensor itself still has the same light sensitivity.  The only difference is how it processes that.  If the reduction in sensitivity results in more information being needed to generate a standard exposure, then the length of exposure would have to be increased or the image would have to be gained up (increasing noise).  It is worth pointing out that the same thing would result from using an actual filter.

So, the progression would be:

Choose the light i want, for example: if I am going to use the window light, I would fill with reflector or a 5,600K light.

Then, i choose the filter if needed. and last WB, right?

@User17252 - if you want to use a filter, then yes, you would filter first, then apply white balancing electronically.  The only exception would be if you actually wanted to induce a tint, in which case you could white balance prior to applying the filter and then apply the filter to give the output a tint.

And one last question: normally if there is more than one light source, they should be the same temperature, right?, in witch cases yes and witch no?,thanks

Ideally, you want the same color light, but if you are going for an effect that appears like light is different you would use a different color.  For example, if you wanted light to look like it was coming in a sunny window, you'd use light with a slight tint.  Similarly, you could do this for giving a candle light look, or any other situation where you want the light to have a color to it.  You'd want one light to fill with the main color you are shooting (the key) with a fill light of the color you want to appear and mix the intensity to taste.


text:
How do I accurately calibrate an external on-camera LCD monitor?
I'm specifically using the smallHD DP6 SDI version, so I don't have scopes built into the monitor.  I'm generating bars with a Sony HXR-NX5U, and using the blue gun feature on the monitor as per these instructions.  But when I record to an SD card, import onto my laptop, and compare, the laptop matches the Sony LCD, but the SmallHD one is way too saturated.  Do I just have to eyeball it, or are there hardware solutions ("spiders"?) available?

It is because you are calibrating the monitor correctly however the other two, The Sony LCD and the Computer are probably not correctly color calibrated in the same way, I know that my laptop seems to desaturate colors around the 30% mark and when compared to a calibrated monitor it looks quite a bit different...I would assume this would account for why they are different, if you want it to look like it does on the laptop or Sony Camera then you will need to do just as you have, then eyeball it to bring the saturation back down.


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how do I interpret this number?
can someone explain this numbers please?, what means equivalent?
Focal Length 4.25-42.5mm, 35mm equivalent 30.4-305mm
thanks for your help

This may be better migrating to Photography

Here's a relevant question at photo.stackexchange.com about focal length and angle of view: http://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/5917/what-is-angle-of-view-in-photography

From the wikipedia entry on focal length:

Due to the popularity of the 35 mm standard, camera–lens combinations
  are often described in terms of their 35 mm equivalent focal length,
  that is, the focal length of a lens that would have the same angle of
  view, or field of view, if used on a full-frame 35 mm camera. Use of a
  35 mm-equivalent focal length is particularly common with digital
  cameras, which often use sensors smaller than 35 mm film, and so
  require correspondingly shorter focal lengths to achieve a given angle
  of view, by a factor known as the crop factor.

good explanation,thanks. I my camera says 4.25-42.5, that means that my wider angle would be 4.25mm? that seems too wide, I am sure I am getting something wrong

Well, yes.  The wide angle on your camera is 4.25mm. But since your sensor is smaller than that of a 35mm camera, this is equivalent to a 30.4mm lens on a 35mm camera.  Alternatively, when your lens is fully zoomed in, it's focal distance is 42.5mm, which is equivalent to 305mm on a 35mm camera.


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What hardware/software to get fastest possible access time in AVC/h264 files?
Sometimes I watch a video that I don't want to see from beginning to the end, but only some parts. Sometimes I need to quickly find some scene/spot in a video. The less keyframes there are, the longer it takes to seek random place in a video.
What hardware/software configuration I need to make seeking time as fast as possible?
I mean if I to build a new PC, what hardware is there to get fast access time by fast decoding?

can you specify a worst-case or average time (at least a magnitude) you are asking about? (i.e Are you trying to optimize a 5 second delay or 5 ms?)

The worst case scenario is about 3-4 seconds with high bitrate 1080p videos. For example if I seek to the point 20 seconds after the previous keyframe. 5 ms is so fast you wouldn't even notice it, it's almost immediate. I wouln't even ask any questions if it was that fast.

If its just about playback, I can highly recommend Media Player Classic HC for Windows. I think I haven't seen a faster player so far. It utilizes DirectX 9 for most image rendering which results in a lot faster playback on many machines. Most players only uitilize the CPU for drawing.
Even uncompressed avi's had a lag free playback and fast seeking times from a USB 2.0 hard drive. The player is very good at caching aswell which should give you a benfit with files that have keyframes that are far apart from each other. It also has the option to always skip to the next keyframe when seeking (Options/Tweaks/Fast Seek). It also has a setting for the jump distance when seeking very long videos.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpc-hc/
Generally for all plattforms recommendable is mplayer with a fitting GUI (there are quite a few of them out there for Windows/Mac/Linux). A little "geeky" but very powerfull.
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/design7/dload.html
You dont need RAID storage to seek through h.264 files fast. That only applies to really huge "raw" video files that are meant for editing. A video card that has MPEG-4 decoding supported would be good to have but normally any video card from the last 4-5 years supports that. Apart from that you dont need any special hardware, your problem is mainly a software issue.

The software tweaks work great if seeking to the next keyframe and there is no decoding to start playback prior to the playback from the seeked point. That however doesn't help when I seek to a random point which happens to be several hundred frames after a keyframe.
And if you read the question carefully, I also specifically asked for hardware to get fast decoding. I'm not even sure you understand how these things work.
Nearly 100% of the worst seek time are due to slow decoding. The only way to lower that terrible seek time of up to 3-4 seconds is fast hardware decoding.

Like I already said in my answer. Every modern GPU supports hardware decoding for h.264, you dont need special hardware. It can't get faster than a modern GPU.
Though several hundred frame after a keyframe?! You sure those are valid h.264 files? Thats an extremly high interval.

Yes, I've had several videos with 10, 15 and 20 seconds between keyframes! Even with 10 seconds and 24 or 30 fps, which is not quite uncommon, it is 300 keyframes!

The comments on this answer were getting a bit out of hand so I deleted the rest.  Remember comments are for clarification.  Please go to chat for discussion.

The correct answer to this question is Intel iGPU on Sandy Bridge or Ivy Bridge. It has the fastest decoding unit. Unlike Paul Green claims, it is mainly about hardware, not software.

No one is hindering you to answer the question yourself. Though I have 6 years of experience in video editing and have acquired enough knowledge about hardware to know that what you are talking about is quite non-sense and filled with half-informations and will certainly not spread false information that I dont approve of even though you think its correct what you are saying. I'm still not sure if this meant as trolling or not..
Answer the question yourself if you want this to be the answer to your question.

I didn't know much about hardware decoding when I asked the question. I got those answers somewhere else, and basicly copying them to this place. But I need to verify it first, so I'll take a few steps to do that.

On the hardware side, I would recommend a RAID storage system, that you can assemble with smaller, cheaper hard drives. With this you will have a large overall capacity, fast read performance, and depending on the RAID level your data is also protected against hard drive failures. One negative aspect is the additional noise of the hard drives.

I actually do have a RAID system, but it is not the bottleneck. Decoding the video during seek time from the previous keyframe to the need spot is the bottleneck.


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Bulk/Mass Edit Video Audio?
I have 100 videos that need editing so that I can level the and amplify the audio track. However I do not want to have to extract the mp3 track from each one and edit it then merge it again with the video. this is aloooonggg process.
Is there a software that can achieve this or something similar?

Slightly relevant: http://avp.stackexchange.com/questions/5615/batch-video-editing-software-that-can-trim-without-re-encoding

you can use avconv (the ffmpeg utility replacement) and mp3gain to script extracting, adjusting and merging the files.
The advantage using mp3gain is that it does not reencode the audio but just adjust levels. So you don't lose any quality. It has a nice automatic mode that work descent although not perfect.

This is a given for any professional video editing package.  Audio effects should be able to be applied to the video tracks to make the necessary adjustments.  The exact details depend on your software of choice.


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Accessing the Layer Panel in After Effects
I want to edit the anchor point path of a layer, and to do that I know I need to open the layer in it's own layer panel. However I can't figure out how to open the layer in the layer panel.
I'm following along with a beginner tutorial, and using the tutorial source files so everything's the same: The instructor says to "double-click on the layer in the timeline", but when I do that nothing happens.
I also tried right-clicking on the layer, but the "open layer" option is grayed out.
Finally, I switched to the "All Panels" workspace, select the Layer Panel, but it's gray and empty and doesn't allow me to choose a layer or add a new layer view.
I'm new to After Effects but experienced with CS5 - I just can't figure out what's wrong

Figured it out- Apparently shape layers can't be opened in the Layer Panel. That includes Illustrator footage layers with "Continuous Rasterization" turned on. If you turn Continuous rasterization off, it will open in the Layer Panel.


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segment does not contain sync frame
Whenever I split a video using Apple's mediafilesegmenter, using the following command: medifilesegmenter video.ts -t 10. I get the following error for each segment except the first:
segment does not contain sync frame

Before splitting I've converted the .MP4 version to a .TS with the following command:
avconv -y -i video.mp4 -f mpegts -acodec libmp3lame -ar 48000 -ab 64k -s 640x480 -vcodec libx264 -b 64k -flags +loop -cmp +chroma -partitions +parti4x4+partp8x8+partb8x8 -subq 7 -trellis 0 -refs 0 -coder 0 -me_range 16 -keyint_min 25 -sc_threshold 40 -i_qfactor 0.71 -bt 200k -maxrate 64k -bufsize 64k -rc_eq 'blurCplx^(1-qComp)' -qcomp 0.6 -qmin 30 -qmax 51 -qdiff 4 -level 30 -aspect 640:480 -g 30 -async 2 sample_64.ts

Can anyone tell me why this error occurs?


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Sending real time audio from the field unit to the radio studio over 3G
We have a temporary FM radio station running for a week before the May Day. We don't have a portable radio transmitter for our field reporter and we're planning on using the mobile data (3G) for the field to studio link.
Mobile data network here is quite good, but the latency varies. We can either use mobile phones/pads or the reporter can carry a laptop. Which protocol/software could be suitable for this kind of a scenario so that the audio stream survives a bit jittery and lossy network?

Look at Pocket Lite or Pocket codecs, for example. They use N/ACIP protocol.

Expect a certain degree of latency. 3G (Such as hspda+) is fairly latent and not suited well for real-time data transmittal.


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Looking for a Graphics program
I Am looking for a good program to make graphics for 2d games. I have a lot if experience with adobe after effects but want to expand and make some game graphics for my friend who programs c# with a xna framework. Any suggestions for a good program?

Don't forget to ask your friend what file formats, color depth(s), transparency etc. his/her program will support.

The free and open source alternatives to Photoshop and Illustrator are Gimp and Inkscape, respectively. While Adobe has introduced some flexible payment options, their cost can be prohibitive to the non-pirating hobbyist or independent developer.
Don't overlook Paint.NET on Windows; it's actually pretty capable as an image editor.

I would recommend learning Illustrator and Photoshop for 2d work.  Illustrator is a vector graphics program and will produce very small and infinitely scalable art work as the graphics are defined as line and curve strokes with various different types of fills.  I believe XNA has vector graphic support.  This would mean that the resolution could effectively scale without having to have different assets at each level.  Also, if you need to move beyond what can be done with vector graphics, you can bring them over to Photoshop and do raster (typically what you think of as a picture) work with them in a format that supports alpha channel (for example TGA).
After Effects isn't really practical for 2D asset creation for games as it is a video compositing tool.  It would be very useful for cut-scenes though.

I'm not too familiar with XNA, or graphics for games in general, but judging by this, After Effects is probably a good fit, probably in combination with Photoshop.


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Avoiding motion blur from a network camera
I'm a newbie here. I have a problem that I don't really understand. Hopefully, someone can share their experience.
If I have an ip camera of
1) 640x480(sensor width = 3.6mm),
2) focal length from 5 to 50mm,
3) need to record 30fps,
What is the suitable shutter speed to be use to avoid motion blur?Assuming that the object distance to camera is 30ft (80 ppf needed =~ 13.5mm lens focal length needed).

Motion blur also depends on the speed of your subject. Are you trying to film a fast moving car or a tree in the wind?

What is ppf????

@Bart I'm trying to capture a moving car. probably 40~50 km/hr.
@ Jason ppf is pixel per foot. It's a minimum requirement of object pixels that required.

Shutter speed and motion blur are inversely proportional.  The higher the shutter speed, the less amount of motion blur, so crank up the shutter speed as high as it will go.  If the exposure comes out too dark, add more lights.  Keep in mind that high shutter speeds in combination with fluorescent or HMI light can produce scrolling banding due to the power cycle frequency.

If the shutter speed to fast, less amount of light goes in and during night will the video captured too dark+noise although motion blur could be avoided?

You didn't say anything about shooting at night.  If you've got the ISO (sometimes called gain) cranked up, the aperture as open as it can be, and the shutter speed cranked up to where you don't see motion blur, there are only 2 ways to get a brighter exposure: 1. Add more lights. 2. Get a better camera.

Thanks for the info on ISO(called gain). I guess add more lights are better option.