text:
Identifying source of audio drift between camcorder and recording PC
I'm recording our church's sermons using a standard consumer-grade camcorder (Handycam HDR-CX380). Depending on mixer circumstances (our church moves around a lot), I'll either run a line from our mixer to the camera's microphone in, or use the camera's internal mic.
Unfortunately the audio quality isn't so hot. Lately I've been researching some options for improving the quality going into the camcorder's mic, but I'm not sure those will pay off. So what I do is split the audio from the .m2ts file using ffmpeg, import it into Audacity, and line it up with another file that we record on a PC (also using Audacity, but separately). I used to do this by manually subtracting timestamps, but since discovering Audacity's Time Shift tool I decided to start using that for greater precision.
But what I'm finding is that when I use ffmpeg to extract the audio from the camcorder's audio track, there's a very small difference in the recording rate, where the camcorder's audio track is shorter than the PC's audio track by a constant rate. I haven't been able to nail down what it is precisely, but my best estimate is .20-.25 seconds per 50 minutes -- so the camera's recordings are about 99.99% the length of the PC's. It doesn't sound like much, but it causes the lip-syncing to be off about 6-8 frames.
My suspicion is either that the clock in the camcorder is bad, or that the clock in our (admittedly rather cheap-looking) USB audio interface is bad. (The error rate appears to be the same on multiple computers.) I know that I could test it using a clapboard & stopwatch, but I estimate it would take about 8 hours of dead audio/video before the rate difference got to the point that I could reliably determine the problem by looking at the waveforms and timestamps. (And that's a lot of stuff to set up for eight hours.)
So, has anyone experienced similar problems before, that could offer advice on likely causes and remedies?

What you are experiencing is indeed clock drift between your camcorder and your PC. Whatever their quality, two independent clocks will drift eventually. If the drift ratio is small enough and your takes are short, it will not be noticeable.
Common way to solve this issue is to use a common clock on both devices, which requires a ref input on the camcorder and a ref or wordclock input on the sound recorder, as well as a master clock generator.
In your situation, I would suggest either

to edit at appropriate points to get back in sync. As your audio is shorter than video, it means finding places where you can cut a few video frames without it being noticeable. Not easy if the speaker is on frame all the time but it can be done if you use some other shots

or

find out why the audio recorded on the camcorder is not good enough
for your use. Camcorders audio inputs can be tricky and require an
appropriate adaptation of the audio signal in order to get best
results.

So, I had it slightly backwards - video is shorter than audio. (I recorded my stopwatch overnight and compared the times - video's specifically about 0.0036% shorter than "real time.") I'm assuming the same advice still applies, just that it's easier to "squash" audio than video. But is that significant of a recording inaccuracy "normal" for consumer-grade camcorders, or is it a sign that something's seriously wrong with our camcorder? (I can break that out into a separate question if you think others would have better insight)

I posted it as a follow-up question: https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/16692/is-0-0036-time-inaccuracy-on-a-consumer-grade-camcorder-expected Thanks for your response to this question!


text:
ffmpeg: white padding is light grey but not white
I want to generate 16:9 thumbnails from videos with white padding but the resulting picture has grey padding instead of white. This is the command line (input here is a jpg but the effect is the same when using a video):
ffmpeg.exe -i "https://gooseberry.blender.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/franck.jpg" -filter_complex scale=iw*min(852/iw\,480/ih):ih*min(852/iw\,480/ih),pad=852:480:(852-iw*min(852/iw\,480/ih))/2:(480-ih*min(852/iw\,480/ih))/2:white,fps=fps=50/5.000000 output.jpg

the resulting image (text and white box added with paint):

even though the padding color is white it's light grey in reality. Is there a way to get it 'whiter'? It's especially ugly if you plan to print it on paper.

Please show the complete console output from your ffmpeg command.

The padding is RGB 235, which is the upper limit in conventional video. So, a video player will expand 235 to show white.

@mulvya that's great for conventional video but not if you plan to print it. Any way to override this

Outputting to PNG will get you pure white. Then using ffmpeg again to convert to JPG preserves the values.

So, first ffmpeg.exe -i franck.jpg -filter_complex "scale=iwmin(852/iw,480/ih):ihmin(852/iw,480/ih),pad=852:480:(852-iwmin(852/iw,480/ih))/2:(480-ihmin(852/iw,480/ih))/2:white,fps=fps=50/5.000000 franck-padded.png

Then ffmpeg -i franck-padded.png franck-padded.jpg

That's a nice workaround. Thank you. Nevertheless I prefer a direct way so I don't lose time unnecessarily.

The end of the filter chain should output full RGB, like this:
Windows batch:
ffmpeg.exe -i "https://gooseberry.blender.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/franck.jpg" ^
  -filter_complex ^
   scale=iw*min(852/iw\,480/ih):ih*min(852/iw\,480/ih),^
pad=852:480:(852-iw*min(852/iw\,480/ih))/2:(480-ih*min(852/iw\,480/ih))/2:white,^
format=rgb24 franck-padded.jpg

Linux bash:
ffmpeg -i "https://gooseberry.blender.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/franck.jpg" \
  -filter_complex \
   "scale=iw*min(852/iw\,480/ih):ih*min(852/iw\,480/ih),\
pad=852:480:(852-iw*min(852/iw\,480/ih))/2:(480-ih*min(852/iw\,480/ih))/2:white,\
format=rgb24" franck-padded.jpg

The important part is format=rgb24 which keeps or converts the final filter output to the RGB pixel format, which allows full range values from 0-255. Without that final filter, ffmpeg will convert the filter output to the YUV pixel format where the range of legal values is 16 to 235 for luma (brightness) - 16 maps to black and 235 to white - and 16 to 240 for the chroma components (color). (The default YUV colorspace range is a legacy of analog television signals and carried over into the digital realm by the MPEG committee and hence still widely adhered to by most digital video formats)

It doesn't work for me. Still get grey color.

What command are you using?

ffmpeg -i input.png -vf "pad=iw+0:ih+300:0:300:#FFFFFF@1,format=rgb24" -y output.png

Don't see anything wrong. How are you checking the output?

I open the output in both Chrome and Preview on Mac and I confirm that the color is grey instead of white. FFmpeg is based on an old version (2015-02), I will try the latest version soon.

I tried the version downloaded here: http://evermeet.cx/ffmpeg/  and it gave me white color even without format=rgb24!

For PNG, that will be the case.

This worked for me but I had to put the format=rgb24 at the beginning of the filter chain, not the end.

The accepted answer doesn't work for me. I find a work around to this problem. PNG images doesn't have this issue. So you could first convert the file into PNG, then do the padding and convert it back to original image type. Let's say you have a file named input.jpeg, try something like this:
ffmpeg -i input.jpeg -y temp.png
ffmpeg -i temp.png -vf "pad=iw+0:ih+300:0:300:#FFFFFF@1" -y output.jpeg

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Premiere Pro CC won't import exported image from Lightroom
I have a timelapse I shot on my Camera and developed the raw-images in Lightroom. Now I've exported them to a folder called, each file called like file_1.jpg, file_2.jpg, etc.
Whenever I import one or more (as an image sequence) files into Premiere, I get a bad picture. It has a lot of viewable pixels and red stripes all over it. Only when I move forward in a sequence, I can see the original (how I want it to be), but after that the image is replaced with something that looks like this:

Here is the good image:

Similar issue in this question - http://video.stackexchange.com/q/16244/1871

Chances are very good that you are presently running the initial version of El Capitan (OSX 10.11).  The work-around suggested by Adobe is to change Premiere's Mercury Rendering engine from GPU to CPU (software-only).  That really wrecks rendering performance, but it does solve the problem.
Chances are also very good that if you install the update (OSX 10.11.1) the red-and-yellow pixel stripes will go away, even with the Mercury Rendering engine set to GPU (OpenCL).

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


text:
Is ok to post on youtube or vimeo custom resolution videos?
I'm having the need of post some screen capture content where some cropping is applied (eg: 850x620) and/or the original monitor resolution is not full hd 1920x1080 but could happen i have to use directly a 1600x900, 1024x768, 1600x1200 and so on.
Uploading videos in h264 but with a video resolution like that will end in a serious quality loss?
What could be a best practice? Give to youtube, vimeo and other services a classic full hd video adding a black frame to match the size or is possible upload a file in native res?
Main goal is keep everything as sharp as possible.

A custom video resolution has no bearing on quality here; only the choice of encoder, bitrate/rate factor and other parameters will impact the final result.
Youtube's player frame on its site is always 16:9, so if your video has an aspect ratio other than 16:9, YT will automatically add black bars as necessary. No need for the uploader to do so. However, if you decide to embed videos hosted on Youtube elsewhere, you can specify a custom frame size in your embed code which matches the aspect ratio of your uploaded video. In which case, your video will be displayed with no black bars. So, best practice is to never manually append black bars.


text:
Record raw video with ffmpeg keeping the full color range
I want to do video captures with a video4linux2 device.
The video data contains a lot of darker shades of grey.
When I capture a single PNG file, everything is fine.
Capturing with ffmpeg/avconf using x264 truncates my color space to 16..235.
I tried to define -color_range 2 but it didn't have any effect.
I also played with the different pixel formats (yuv444p, yuv420, ..) --without success.
This is the command line which produces the reduce color range video:
$avconv -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv444p -color_range 2 -crf 14 -t 120 -y out.mp4

avconv version 0.8.17-4:0.8.17-0ubuntu0.12.04.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 16 2015 13:26:50 with gcc 4.6.3
[video4linux2 @ 0x2044b60] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, video4linux2, from '/dev/video0':
  Duration: N/A, start: 1445936359.182177, bitrate: 890634 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuyv422, 1280x720, 890634 kb/s, 60.40 tbr, 1000k tbn, 60.40 tbc
[buffer @ 0x20450a0] w:1280 h:720 pixfmt:yuyv422
[format @ 0x2046d20] auto-inserting filter 'auto-inserted scaler 0' between the filter 'src' and the filter 'Parsed filter 0 format'
[scale @ 0x2047660] w:1280 h:720 fmt:yuyv422 -> w:1280 h:720 fmt:yuv444p flags:0x4
[libx264 @ 0x2045fe0] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 FastShuffle SSE4.2 AVX
[libx264 @ 0x2045fe0] profile High 4:4:4 Predictive, level 4.0, 4:4:4 8-bit
[libx264 @ 0x2045fe0] 264 - core 120 r2151 a3f4407 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2011 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=1 ref=3 deblock=1:0:0 analyse=0x1:0x111 me=hex subme=7 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=0 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=1 8x8dct=0 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=4 threads=12 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=3 b_pyramid=0 b_adapt=1 b_bias=0 direct=1 weightb=0 open_gop=1 weightp=2 keyint=250 keyint_min=25 scenecut=40 intra_refresh=0 rc_lookahead=40 rc=crf mbtree=1 crf=14.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.25 aq=1:1.00
Output #0, mp4, to 'out.mp4':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf53.21.1
    Stream #0.0: Video: libx264, yuv444p, 1280x720, q=-1--1, 302 tbn, 60.40 tbc
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (rawvideo -> libx264)

My last tries were to define a color matrix to manually scale 0..255 to 16..235, so that I will end up with a slightly compressed, but a least complete color space.
But this resulted in an error from avconf
$ avconv -f video4linux2 -i /dev/video0 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv444p -color_range 2 -vf 'format=yuv444p,colormatrix=bt709:bt601' -crf 14 -t 120 -y out.mp4

avconv version 0.8.17-4:0.8.17-0ubuntu0.12.04.1, Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the Libav developers
  built on Mar 16 2015 13:26:50 with gcc 4.6.3
[video4linux2 @ 0xabbb60] Estimating duration from bitrate, this may be inaccurate
Input #0, video4linux2, from '/dev/video0':
  Duration: N/A, start: 1445936333.196864, bitrate: 890634 kb/s
    Stream #0.0: Video: rawvideo, yuyv422, 1280x720, 890634 kb/s, 60.40 tbr, 1000k tbn, 60.40 tbc
[buffer @ 0xac0ee0] w:1280 h:720 pixfmt:yuyv422
No such filter: 'colormatrix'
Error opening filters!

Do you know how to get ffmpeg to encode the full color range?

In this case, the problem didn't come from ffmpeg/avconv.
The rawvideo source I use offers different color formats to be used:

argb32
rgb24
bgr24
yuv444
yuv420
[...]

When I extract a png file (which was fine), the bgr24 color format is used.
When I capture a video, avconv automatically chose one of the yuv formats.
I guess the clamping to (16..235) did happen in the driver itself, that's why I couldn't influence it.
By giving the parameter -input_format bgr24 to the input device, I chose the unclamped value range and the capturing worked fine.
Final command line, with yuv420p as target format which produces even a Windows Media Player complatible output:
avconv -f video4linux2 -input_format bgr24 -i /dev/video0 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -color_range 2 -crf 14 -t 120 -y out.mp4


text:
How to cut a single clip in a Sequence into multiple clips for use in multiple Sequences in Premiere Pro
I have a single clip of a multi-speaker conference in Premiere Pro CS6 that I need to split into individual clips of each speaker, so that I can make a timeline of each clip with the end goal of exporting several individual videos, rather than one long video of the entire conference.
I've already split the clip up within a Sequence using the Razor Tool and removed extraneous footage, like so:

How can I get these split-up and renamed clips to their own individual Sequences for production as separate video files? (If there is a Premiere shortcut or tool specifically for this, I haven't found it)

The easiest way I've found is to simply click the New Item button at the bottom-right of the Project window and select "Sequence..." to create a new one; you'll need one Sequence for each clip section you've created:

From there, You can simply copy/cut and paste each section of video into its respective Sequence. You'll want to make sure the old sections are removed from the original Sequence if you want to use that one. Otherwise, you can just delete the original Sequence when you're finished.

You could copy each section into your Project Window by dragging and dropping it, but that creates two extra steps (and can be confusing if you haven't already renamed your split-up files in the original sequence):

The new file in the Project Window won't be aware that you've renamed it in the timeline, so you'll have to rename the new clip; it'll have the same name as the original source clip, even if you rename the original source clip to something else.
You'd still have to create new Sequences for each clip manually, so that you can drag and drop the new clips into their own respective Sequences.

Here's the "Premiere" way to do it.  Create N sequences, one for each of the N speakers you want to create an output clip for.  Copy (by reference) the clip into each of the N sequences.  If you do this correctly, you will have N sequences and 1 clip in your project folder.
For each sequence, set the in and out points of the clip to bound the speaker of interest.  Name the sequence according to the speaker.  If you do this correctly, you will still have N sequences and 1 clip in your project folder.
Here's the magic: select all the sequences and hit "Export Media".  This will queue up the creation of N clips.  Each one will be exactly the speaker it should be, and the clip file names will be based on the sequence name (meaning something related to each speaker).
That is how to do it.

If I select multiple Sequences in the Project Window, the "Media..." option in the Export sub-menu is grayed out. Only AAF and Final Cut Pro are selectable.

The easiest way to do this is to NEST each clip. Select the Video portion and Audio portion together. Right click with your mouse and select "Nest...". Rename to desired sequence name (Remember to copy this name and use for every new Nest you create, so you can have the sequence name be same, like, CUT_01, CUT_02, etc..). Then, once finished, create a new bin in project and organize all cuts there. Not only is this the fastest way to do this, but also helps you keep all Nested Sequences in the same timeline. This will save you a lot of time.

Here's a cheesy workaround that I use sometimes. You can set the start and end points (in & out?) to encompass just a single clip, and then export it. Then move the start and end points to encompass the next clip, and export that. You will end up with a separate video for each of the clips, but you won't have a Premiere file that you could easily use to produce them again, since they'll all still be in the same sequence.

Another cheesy solution, which will create one Premiere file for each of the clips:

Exit out of Premiere.
Duplicate your Premiere file once for each clip in it.  (Ten clips? Ten Premiere files.)
Open up each Premiere file, one at a time. In the first Premiere file, keep the first clip and delete all the others. Save it. In the second Premiere file, keep the select clip and delete all the others.  And so on.

Once you have one clip already cut up inside a single sequence, the easiest workaround is probably to make several copies of your current sequence. Within each new sequence, delete all the extra pieces, so that each sequence ends up as just one separate portion of the original clip.

This solution is already given in the accepted answer.

@TylerH The accepted answer is to create new sequences and then copy the video clip into those sequences. This answer is to copy the existing sequence and then remove the unnecessary clips from each sequence (which is a copy of the original).

I don't see a substantial difference in methodology there. This answer is like the difference between tying your shoes starting with the left shoe vs starting with the right. All the other answers describe substantially different methods (use self-lacing shoes; use shoes without shoelaces; use the bunny method instead of the bow method; etc).

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


text:
How to convert video to required codec?
I am trying to convert mp4 videos to match the codec requirement of
Codec: XVID as per the attached picture.
Can anyone advise how or what tool can be used?
screenshot http://xomf.com/wkvgv
http://xomf.com/wkvgv
Thanks

You can use ffmpeg to perform this conversion. Grab the 32-bit static build from here.
And run the following command from the command prompt:
ffmpeg -i "c:\path\to\input.avi" -c:v libxvid -vtag xvid -qscale:v 3 -c:a libmp3lame -qscale:a 4 output.avi

You can experiment with the value of qscale:v to get the quality or file size that you need. Values from 1 to 31 are accepted, with 1 being best quality (and largest file size) and 31 being worst quality and smallest file size.


text:
How to add a "presenter's name" graphic to Camtasia that appears in from the right
I want to have a graphic or animation that pops in on the lower right hand side of the screen that says the presenter's names, stays there for a few seconds then moves back off screen to the right. Like what you see on the news when they switch to a reporter in the field, their name appears below, then it disappears.
Can Camtasia do this with its own tools or do you have to use external programs?
In either event, how do you do this in Camtasia?

The term you're looking for is 'lower third'. Here's a tutorial from the software publisher on how to do that.


text:
Convert resolution 4096x2304 to 3840x2160 keeping the quality the same
I have recently come into possession of a couple of 4k movies with a resolution of 4096x2304. Unfortunately my Samsung 4k TV wont play anything over 3840x2160.
I have managed to re-encode the videos to 3840x2160, unfortunately the bitrate fell to 1/10th of what it was before.
I used:
for %%a in ("*.mkv") do ffmpeg -i "%%a" -s 3840x2610 -q:v 0 -c:v libx264 -acodec copy D:\%%~na.mp4

Original file size was 27.8GB, the re-encoded one was under 8GB.
Is there any way I can re-encode them so I can keep the original bitrate/quality?

Rant: Even my 4 year old computer can play the movie, but that fcking
  new Samsung TV of course can't /rant-end

Judge based on the quality rather than the bitrate value. Use CRF mode encoding and if the quality isn't what you can accept, decrease the CRF value.
ffmpeg -i "%%a" -s 3840x2610 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -acodec copy D:\%%~na.mp4

Is it possible to say which -crf gets me the same quality as the original?

CRF 18 is advertised as 'visually lossless', but isn't technically lossless. See http://slhck.info/articles/crf

Alternatively you could use -vf scale=3840:-1.


text:
Organizing a Multicam Clip in Premiere
In Adobe Premiere Pro 2015, you cannot sub-clip a multi-camera source clip, which is a shame, because sub-clipping is the most useful way I've found in Premiere for organizing segments of an extended interview.
I have a 2-hour multi-camera clip from an interview for a mini-documentary. My normal mini-doc/corporate workflow is:

import footage
watch and tag (sub-clip) footage
create rough cut by adding sub-clips to a sequence and fine-tuning

Now that I've got a multicam interview, I want to preserve this workflow or find an alternative. I've considered creating a sequence for each interview segment, but that requires a lot more interaction with the UI, slowing down the workflow. Yet it's important to organize these clips, because this interview may get used in multiple productions over the next several months, and I only want to watch and tag it once.
Question: Is there a way to tag multicam clips in Premiere that achieves the same organizational goal as sub-clipping?

Maybe I am missing something, but I don't understand your question. In a multi-cam sequence when you select which camera you want to include in your final clip you are essentially "retagging" your video. You create implied subclips as you watch the multi-cam sequence. So isn't that enough? What more would you need? You watch the multi-cam sequence only once.

"but that requires a lot more interaction with the UI, slowing down the workflow". If you go from one camera to multiple cameras, there is an added complexity anyway. There is no avoiding this complexity. More interaction with the  GUI is inevitable when you deal with multiple cameras.

Good question, @kazanaki. My multicam clip is 2 hours long, but I'm only going to use 10 minutes of it in one video, then 3 minutes of it in another... I want to preserve the whole clip (it's an interview) and tag various points in the interview so I can easily find them when I need them for the next video.

Then in that case I would use simple markers on the video. And have a note somewhere (a simple text file) where each marker is described.

Thanks to a tip from the editor I've been working with recently, I've started to build a sequence with all usable clips from an interview in it, cutting out the white noise.

And for videos with more than 3 interviewees, I plan to use a service like Rev.com for timecode-marked transcription.

@nofare's subject-sequences may be even handier than my buildout sequences.

Using @nofare's method on a project now. Already love it. Well worth the time spent labeling subject-matter areas.

I was recently editing a 5-camera short film with Premiere. Over 7 hrs worth of footage. Lots of going back and forth over the clips. Lots of trying different angles. All that over many weeks. Yet, we never got lost or confused about what was happening or where things were.

Create your multi-cam sequence.
Log all camera angles individually by using a lot of markers and/or extended markers. Label those markers clearly and consistently: mention the subject discussed and whatever interesting thing the interviewee does (facial expression, laughter, hand movement, etc.)
Maybe use a marker-color per subject-matter.
I would make sure to keep the original multi-cam sequence cuts-free. Just duplicate it as many times as you need to: that way you can always come back to it, a clean slate, if and when the cutting gets messy.
Edit the interview by copying and pasting bits that deal with similar issues to as many sequences as you have subject matters. Duplicate those initial "sub-sequences" and edit their duplicates down, as the director and you see fit.
Make sure that you name those "subject-sequences" clearly. Let's say one is about "Boats". Call the first one "151031_Boats_E01" for the date, the subject matter and the edit number. Then the duplicate would be called "151031_Boats_E02", etc. Duplication is you friend. Use bins, etc. I'm sure you have your workflow already anyway.

That way, you should be able to get back to your edit and the various subject matters over the course of a few months without finding yourself lost.

Could you share a screenshot example of the color markers? This is a wicked good answer.

Do the markers show up in the subject-sequences?

You can choose to bind the markers to the source clips or to the sequence itself (a better option if you send the project over to an editor located abroad or in another city). But, yes, they should appear in your multi-cam sequences.

Here's what I do, however I will admit Premiere's buggyness seems to flare up with this workaround.

Sync the cameras into a multicam seq
Open the multicam seq
Nest each camera angle (track) into its own seq
Open each camera angle seq and ad an adjustment layer to correct all clips to match other camera angles
Open the multicam seq in the source monitor
Set I/O point for a notable moment
Drag image from source monitor to project panel (creating a duplicate multicam seq which holds your latest I/O data)
Name that duplicated multicam seq based on the description of the moment
Since each copy of the multicam seq has inside it a separate instance of the camera angle sequences any CC effects you apply to the camera angle sequences in one copy of the multicam clip will not be replicated in the other multicam copies.  By doing CC via the adjustment layer inside each root camera angle sequence you can make CC changes to the camera angles at any time and they will be instantly reflected in every multicam copy used.

As you can see this level of nesting nears inception insanity and Premiere can bug out a bit.  The biggest warning is to make sure all your audio sources and sequences/multicams are the same sample rate or else your exports are going to take ages for audio previews (Adobe please fix this). If for example you recorded with a 96K external recorder and your clips all have 48K audio, I recommend turning all your sequences 96K and deleting all other audio in your sequences. In terms of audio also don't add any audio effects (this includes volume changes) in your nested sequence or audio waveforms won't show up.

This is essentially my workflow. Except I simply add markers in the multicam sequence, and then put the multicam sequence in the final sequence at the section I want. But the tip with the individual camera sequences within the multicam sequence is spot on. This allows you, as Alex said, to properly manage your color-matching which is imperative if you are using different cameras.


text:
What is the size of 1 minute video at 1920 x 1080 (60 fps)?
I would like to know what is the size in MB for 1 minute video captured in the following format:
1920 x 1080 (60 fps) AVCHD
and
1920 x 1080 (60 fps) MPEG-4
with peak data rate of 24Mbit/sec
How to calculate it?

You need to know the average bitrate instead of the peak bit rate. Than you pretty much only need to do the math.

Also note that the codec, container, even the frame dimensions make no difference in the calculation: average or constant bits per second times the number of seconds determines the file size without regard to any other factor.

Try those calculators, they should do the trick.
http://www.digitalrebellion.com/webapps/videocalc


text:
How can I have a music track fade to a low gain/volume while I talk over it with a second audio track in Adobe Premiere Pro CC?
I'd like to know how I can setup two audio tracks where the following happens:

The first audio track (music) plays at full power/volume/gain.
A second audio track (narration) causes the first audio track to fade to a much lower volume (but still able to hear it) while the narration happens.
The second audio track (narration) finishes which causes the first audio track (music) to resume to it's normal/full volume.

I don't want any audio discontinuity to occur. Meaning, I want the first audio track (music) to play through while the narration happens.
I am using Adobe Premiere Pro CC 7.2.2

Ducking is a great solution for broadcast audio (for example, muting crowd noise when a commentator is trying to explain what's happening on the field).  In production, the limitations of ducking become apparent: sometimes it's too much or too little, sometimes it needs to be faster than the default, or slower.  These are things that are not necessarily obvious the first time you listen, but become obvious after the second or third listening.
Broadcast audio production presumes you hear things only once, so the limitations of ducking are acceptable.  If you are producing material that people might watch more than once, you really should do the ducking manually, setting audio keyframes and moving the volume manually to maximize not only quality and intelligibility, but also emotion and impact.

The phenomenon is called audio ducking i.e. lowering of music when there's a voice being heard.
It's best to do this in Audition See this tutorial. You can send your audio to Audition using Dynamic Link.
It may be possible to do this in Premiere itself using a VST plugin, but it's not straightforward or intuitive.


text:
Automatically sync text to video for subtitles
I was wondering if there is any way I can sync a script in plain text to a video automatically. I just want software that will take the transcript and sync with the finished video. I use adobe creative cloud and right now for captions I use camtasia and moviecaptioner. Any automation will help.
Thank you in advance for your help

Are you asking whether there is a system that can identify the words spoken and match them to a text file?

Yes, a program that can take the words spoken and match them with a pre-written script I wrote.

The current top end speech recognition systems still need training to every person's voice, and are quite expensive. And none of them connect to video editing suites, so you'd need to write the conduit software yourself. I'd suggest hiring an intern...

Thanks... this would actually be a pretty decent idea to start a business on.

What you're looking for might be something like ScriptSync. It used to be included with Avid's Media Composer. These days you need to purchase it separately.
http://www.avid.com/US/industries/workflow/Scriptbased-Editing


text:
How to make a project for compilation videos?
I am trying to create a project that will automatically convert videos to a compilation. Although not literally, but kinda.
I want to create project that will hold effects, motion data in specified duration, then import videos into them, is it possible to apply motion and effects to sequences?

Yes, in Premiere, you can create a master sequence consisting of nested sequences and apply motion and effects to those nested sequences within the master sequence.
And swap footage within those nested sequences as desired.

Thanks but I am fairly new to Premiere actually, can you guide me with a video if possible, please? Thanks!

See http://4.sendvid.com/bhg98x58.mp4  - it's a crude demo. First, I populate two sequences with a clip each. Import those sequences in another sequence. Apply motion. And then swap out the clips in the nested sequences.

You're great! This is absolutely I was looking for! Thanks a lot :)


text:
How can I set up video files so that, if a film is foreign, the subtitles automatically play?
How can I set up video files so that, if a film is foreign, the subtitles automatically play, whereas the subtitles remain dormant if a film isn't foreign?
The reason I ask is because I'm in the process of learning a language, and might want to learn other languages in the future, so I'll keep certain subtitles for films of my native language. However, I don't want to have to disable subtitles every time I watch a film in my native language, and I don't want to have to enable subtitles every time I watch a foreign film.
I read somewhere else that I could insert an empty subtitle file as the default track, which is a great idea, yet I can't find any information anywhere explaining how to do this.vi I've tried creating an empty .txt file and then changing its format to .srt, but this doesn't fly on MKVToolNix.
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Finally, I found a video on YT.

Open notepad
Type "0" on the first line
Type "00:00:00.00 --> 00:00:00.00" on the second line
Save as .srt file type

Now you have an empty .SRT file that MKVToolNix accepts.
You can also edit the file order and the default audio/video files in the program itself.


text:
ffmpeg concatenation introduces video stutter but does not affect audio
I've gone through several different variants of this process and it always causes me problems.  I've gotten it working sometimes but it doesn't seem to be consistent.
I have a video camera which records AVCHD to MTS files, it splits files at 3.89GB.  Since its microphone is crap, I also record audio separately and have to sync them back up before editing.  The problem I have is that the audio recorder doesn't break files at the same times so I'll usually end up with 3 video files and 1 audio file.
So I'm wondering where things are going wrong in this process:

Converted all the H264 MTS files to ProRes MOV files.  The editor handles ProRes better than the compressed files so I convert. ffmpeg -i 00000.MTS -vf "yadif=3:-1:1,mcdeint" -vcodec prores -vprofile 2 -ar 48000 1.mov
Concatenated the 3 .mov files together.  At this point I have a file with video stutters every ~32 minutes, but the audio stays in sync with the video. ffmpeg -f concat -i mylist.txt -c copy full.mov
Extracted the audio to FLAC.  Imported into audacity, lined up the external audio with a clap and trimmed to length.  At this point both audio tracks line up, the external track is still in sync with the camera audio at the end.  Export the new external audio matched to the start and the length of the original audio. ffmpeg -i full.mov -aq 256k full.flac
Recombine the large .mov file with the new audio.  At this point the audio that was just in sync with the original audio from the video files now goes out of sync when the video stutters. ffmpeg -i full.mov -i full-tascam.flac -map 0:0 -map 1 -vcodec copy -ar 48000 full-tascam.mov

What do?  I've had the same problem before introducing ProRes, just concatenating the MTS files into MP4 copying the video stream and adding the new audio.  Is there anything I can set while concatenating to remove the stutters, or to prevent them from throwing the new audio out of sync when I'm adding that track?

It sounds like camera is giving each successive .MTS file a little bit of a handle, or it's dropping a couple frames between segments.  Do an experiment: point the camera at some running timecode on a TV and let it record a few segments, and see if there's an overlap in the timecodes, or if numbers are getting dropped.

For some reason I think this is avoided when using ffmpeg's concat PROTOCOL (ffmpeg -i "concat:...") rather than its concat DEMUXER (ffmpeg -f concat -i mylist.txt).  Oddly, it's also slightly more convenient since using the demuxer requires me to create the text file with the file names in it while with the protocol I can just specify them on the command line, eg: ffmpeg -i "concat:00001.MTS|00002.MTS|00003.MTS" -c copy output.mts
I'll need to confirm this later, I'm at the wrong computer but something brought the question to my attention so I decided to update it with new information.

To concatenate mp4 losslessly you use these steps: ffmpeg -i input1.mp4 -c copy -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -f mpegts intermediate1.ts´, then ffmpeg -i input2.mp4 -c copy -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -f mpegts intermediate2.tsand finally:ffmpeg -i "concat:intermediate1.ts|intermediate2.ts" -c copy -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc output.mp4`.

This worked for me. The video using the concat protocol was about 1.78% shorter than the one using the concat demuxer. No lag in the former.


text:
Sync Video to Audio in SonyVegasPro13 with multiple anchors
I have a sample recorded with half speed at 60fps (for better quality later on), which is my video track.
Then I seperately recorded the audio track at normal speed.
I imported the video track into SVP13 and in its Properties I set the playback rate to 2.0000
When syncing the video to the audio at one point, it is out of sync a few moments later, as the audio and the video track don't match in there playbackrate.
Is there a way to set multiple anchors on the audio and video track and let SV sync these anchors together (with the priority on the audio track, so the sound does not get distorted and the video get adapted)?

Sample recorded using what? Does the video have a constant framerate? Use Mediainfo from https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo to find out if you don't know.

Short Answer

Split your Video track into separate Events;
Adjust the Events individually by dragging them along the timeline and stretching/expanding them;
Overlap the adjacent Events so that there were no gaps;

Long Answer
I find one of the most valuable features of Sony Vegas its ability to split the original tracks into Events and adjust them individually. As I wrote in another answer, playing with Track's Velocity or Velocity envelope appears to be inefficient.
Also, no plugin will detect the best moments in timeline for transitions. Doing this manually seems a bit boring at the first glance, but it will certainly give you the best result.

Full scale image here
Note, this image shows splitting of a single track, but in your case it would be two Grouped tracks, one is Video and another one is Audio.
Here's how I would align Audio and Video tracks to accomplish your goal:

Decide what Tracks are to be adjusted. Since you probably have a high-quality Audio and you worry about any distortions, let us assume your HQ Audio remains intact. Moreover, since the video is filmed in double framerate, there's no worry of possible artifacts appear after adjustments.
So, place both Video and Audio tracks to the timeline.
Note, if the Video track goes with some Audio, you will have three tracks:

Video
Its accompanying Audio (to be discarded in the future)
A high-quality Audio

Make a temporary adjustment of Audio volume so that you could hear both Audio tracks. It can be 50% for each, or you may set them to left/right channel, depending on the nature of the audio. You will revert this at the end;
Find the moments of any mismatches. The best way to do is by finding drums or some other sharp sounds. Zooming Tracks' height will also be helpful as it lets you see the audio peaks on the histogram;
At each moment of mismatch, split the Video event (along with its accompanying sound since they are Grouped); Don't do it straight on the peaks. ½ seconds earlier is a better idea.
Shift the Video to right or left so that it matched;
Note, Shift+dragging ignores grid, markers, fade-in/fade-out marks, and all other time points that otherwise would cause "sticking".
Repeat for the rest of your composition;
Now, on the Video track, drag the left/right edges of each Event and Ctrl+drag them to change the playback speed of individual Events. Your final goal is to make the speed matched firmly.
Manage the overlap of the Events. Make sure you have standard Fade as your Transition Effect, not another fancy one. Make sure the Transition is not longer than ¼ of second (at 60 FPS, it would be 15 frames), or otherwise you get video artifacts.
After you complete, simply turn off the original low-quality Audio track.

Also note that the split points are best when the picture movement is minimal. For instance, if you have a drum player, the best would be when his/her hands are in the lowest point of hitting the drums, not raised.


text:
ffmpeg bgr vs rgb and other similiar pixel formats
I was wondering about the difference between rgb and bgr pixel formats available in many codecs.
It reminds me in some way the Big Endian and Little Endian flavours of computer processors.
While I always guessed that the big / little endian was more a matter of patents rather than performance, why we have both rgb and bgr?

It's still a matter of patents?
Have something to do with Subpixels Rendering ?
Why some codecs has alternate support of them like this huffyuv example here:

Encoder huffyuv [Huffyuv / HuffYUV]:
  Threading capabilities: no
  Supported pixel formats: yuv422p rgb24 bgra

It has rgb24 but then not rgba as I could expect. It jumps directly to bgra!
Could be again a matter of patents that the codec author could not break ?

Please feed my curiosity with some extended explaination here if possible, i want to know something more about this various pixel formats!

The order of the components in RGB32 seems to do with endianness:

PIX_FMT_RGB32 is handled in an endian-specific manner. An RGBA color
  is put together as: (A << 24) | (R << 16) | (G << 8) | B This is
  stored as BGRA on little-endian CPU architectures and ARGB on
  big-endian CPUs.

The descriptions of the various related formats enumerated on that page provide more details.

Oh, i wasn't aware of it! Upvote.
However my core question was closed to a detailed explaination of how this formats are born, pro vs cons, why some software or standards are in one direction instead of another, if they have also to do with subpixels rendering and as much detailed info's is possible. A sum of some topics + external references to feed all possible curiosity.

Do you mean why endianness or why different stacking orders? The latter seem tied to the existence of the former, for the sake of efficiency. Don't think it's any deeper than that.

@user3450548: More like, the designers of different systems made arbitrary choices differently.  Maybe dating back to video memory / 3D texture layout.  Maybe some hardware design choices made one ordering more efficient than the other.  Although you're probably on to something with the endian argument.  The other way to phrase it is:  A raw pixmap file/block of memory with packed color components will be read one way by little endian CPUs, the other way by big-endian CPUs.

While I always guessed that the big / little endian was more a matter of patents rather than performance,

Nope little endian was developed as a performance optimization whern moving to multi byte words. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endianness#Optimization
Nothing to to with patents. Different representation have different advantages and disadvantage. Hence different situations may use different representations. Codecs suffer from network effect. Nobody wants to use your encoder if nobody uses your decoder. And vice-versa. So codec designers go for maximum compatibility, and often support several formats. But the usually don't support them all, because there are dozens. So they use a combination of the most common, and easiest to include into the design.

Thank you for pointing out the endianess performance and the patent matter ;)


text:
Remove unwanted person from background of a shot?
I am working on a project for someone's video series about pain relief during child birth. During the whole scene, every shot takes place from this perspective. There's a couple people walking through the stairs on the right and behind the window there. I understand that by use of 'rotoscoping' and 'masks' I should be able to cover up the background with a still image and allow the blonde woman in the foreground to walk over the still images, but I don't know where I'd start that.
I've already made this background layer in Photoshop.
I'd really appreciate your help! :)

Is the camera static throughout the shot?

It doesn't move, if that's what you mean.

If the camera's static, then it's totally doable. Start by making a clean plate image of the whole area, as I think you have done.
Put that on a layer above (on top of) your original footage. Whenever the problem people wander in to shot, cover them up by putting a masked area of your clean plate over them.
As you mentioned, sometimes this means the desirable foreground subjects get covered up by the clean plate. But there is a solution to this, (even though it is time consuming):
Duplicate your original footage, and put the duplicated track on top of your clean plate, so it's the uppermost layer. Whenever you have some "desirable foreground" subject overlapping your clean plate, animate a masked area of it on top of the plate. Use lots of feathering and careful key framing, and you should be able to get an acceptable result.
Here's a (non-video) tutorial showing how to remove an unwanted object:
http://www.surfacedstudio.com/blog/after-effects-how-to-remove-an-object
Here's the excellent video copilot series, showing how to animate a mask:
http://www.videocopilot.net/basic/tutorials/04.Keying/
Neither show the idea of putting another foreground track over the top, but should get you along the way...

If the human subject movement is the chief interference or deviation between the clean plate and the footage, then some kind of blend mode could create a reasonable dynamic mask. Maybe Difference, or the result of Subtraction between the duplicated track and the clean plate.

I'm sorry, but I have done quite a bit of googling to find tutorials, it's why I came here, because I don't know what I'm looking for. I don't know what it means to "animate a masked area on top of the plate." If you could explain this or help me find a tutorial that would be appreciated.

i've added a couple of links to the end of my suggestion - hope they help - the video copilot Basic Training series is excellent, and free!


text:
Is there an app that can Cut, crop, and resize video in 1 encode like imagemagick for video?
Is there an app that can Cut, crop, and resize video in 1 encode like imagemagick for video?
Looking for something that accepts a command like this:
videoapp cut 0:20 0:40 crop 4:3 resize 240 320

Outputs as h.264 mp4.
I have a mac with the mac video apps and can get any app that's recommended. Thanks.

ffmpeg will do it. You can either compile it from source, available here. Or more likely, download a precompiled binary for Macs from here. I don't use Macs so I can't vouch for the binary source.
You will have to use the trim, crop and scale filters in a filterchain to accomplish what you want.
The actual corresponding command for your pseudo command would be
ffmpeg -i input -vf "trim=20:40, setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, crop="'if(gte(a*sar,4/3),4*ih/3*sar,iw)':'if(gte(a*sar,4/3),ih,3*iw*sar/4)'", scale=320x240, setsar=1" -c:v libx264 -an output.mp4

You can find the (terse) explanation for all the parameters at the ffmpeg documentation site, but here's a quick run-through, in order:
-i input - Specify the input file.
-vf - this indicates a video filter follows, or a chain of them (separated by commas). If there are multiple filters specified in sequence, then each filter in a chain works on the output generated by the previous filter in the chain. The first filter works, of course, on the original input.
trim=20:40 - trims the video by retaining from the 21st to the 40th second
setpts=PTS-STARTPTS - video is a sequence of images displayed in time, so the frames of a video stream have timestamps associated with them for playback purposes. PTS is presentation timestamp. This clause generates new timestamps for the trimmed video stream so that the first frame of the trimmed stream has PTS of 0 (seconds) and all subsequent frames are accordingly offset as well (I've simplified a bit here).
crop="'if(gte(a*sar,4/3),4*ih/3*sar,iw)':'if(gte(a*sar,4/3),ih,3*iw*sar/4)'" - in short, this crops the input video to 4:3, but based on the input video's effective display ratio, so that the cropped image doesn't contain any blank padding. Video can contain "non-square" pixels so that a 100x100 image with pixel aspect (SAR) 2.5 will effectively display as 250x100 and SAR 0.5 will display as 50x100. My expression evaluates the effective input ratio and sets the output crop window accordingly.
scale=320x240 - scale to the stated resolution
setsar=1 - the crop and scale filters effectively produced a square pixel output, so the SAR metadata should be set as 1 to overwrite the original SAR so that players don't distort the image during playback.
-c:v libx264 - this says, use x264 to encode the video stream. There are many parameters that can be specified in addition , but by itself, it will use the default settings.
-an - leave audio out of the output. If you want to leave the corresponding audio in. replace this by
-af "atrim=20:40, asetpts=PTS-STARTPTS" -c:a aac -strict -2

I get this error: [AVFilterGraph @ 0x7fd560f00820] No such filter: '4/3)'
Error opening filters!

Sounds like '/' may not be allowed on Macs. Replace 4/3 with 1.333

And 4 * ih / 3 * sar with 1.333*ih   and  3 * iw * sar / 4 with 0.75 * iw * sar

Thank you, is there a way to get trim to accept minutes and not just seconds?

setpts=PTS-STARTPTS doesn't seem like it's enough to get the correct metadata for the video file. For example I'm trimming a 20 minute video to 20 seconds but the seekbar still shows 20 minute long video.

Looks like another quirk of the Mac version :)  Add -fflags +genpts just before the output filename. See https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg-utils.html#time-duration-syntax for specifying in larger subdivisions

-fflags +genpts doesn't give an error but doesn't seem to do anything to fix the issue, could it be something else?

It would probably be easier to use all single quotes for the filter string, i.e. -vf 'trim=20:40, setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, crop=if(gte(a*sar,4/3),4*ih/3*sar,iw):if(gte(a*sar,4/3),ih,3*iw*sar/4), scale=320x240, setsar=1'. Alas, I can't test this myself just now.

Harry, you are supplying something for the audio - either -an or -af , right?

Homebrew is another good way to get ffmpeg for macs. It's like apt-get for osx. http://brew.sh/

Apple compressor can do all of this in the GUI.  If you need to use the command line, I think you'll find the relevant information here.

Avisynth is a powerful frameserver for Windows with which you can write small scriptlets that dictate how you want to manipulate your video. You can do simple transforms such as scaling, cropping, adding borders, resizing, resampling, deinterlacing, etc. If you are comfortable with writing code then it can be very powerful, but there is a bit of a learning curve in getting to know how to use it. As far as I know there is no GUI for it.
There is also a port to Linux OSes called avxsynth, which I haven't used.
It processes the frames all at once and then you feed the output of the synth to a compressor such as xvideo or ffmpeg.


text:
ffmpeg audio video separate files 1 command
I'm trying to get ffmpeg to output separate audio and video files in 1 command.
Here are the 2 commands I have:
ffmpeg -ss 04:53 -i ./07.mkv -t 3 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -filter:v "setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, crop=960:720, scale=480:360" -an -sws_flags lanczos -fflags +genpts 07-alexFlex.mp4
ffmpeg -ss 04:53 -i ./07.mkv -t 3 07-alexFlex.mp3

Is there a way to get it in 1 command? Ideally both the audio and video files would share the same name automatically without me changing it twice in both commands. Thanks.

Daisychain the commands, so
ffmpeg -ss 04:53 -i ./07.mkv -t 3 -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -filter:v "setpts=PTS-STARTPTS, crop=960:720, scale=480:360" -an -sws_flags lanczos -fflags +genpts 07-alexFlex.mp4 -ss 04:53 -i ./07.mkv -t 3 07-alexFlex.mp3

Is there any way to set variables so that the file names could be copied? Like 07-alexFlex.

Sure, with simple shell scripting. It's been years since I used Linux but bash scripts should work. See https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/OpenSource/Conceptual/ShellScripting/Introduction/Introduction.html - I'm sure someone will come along and provide the specific script for your current use case.


text:
Properly working with vector files
I have a project that I've edited in Davinci Resolve 12 where I want to add a logo in the beginning. However, Resolve won't import either PDF, SVG or EPS format, so I created a high resolution PNG of the logo instead. Even though the PNG file looks fine on its own when looking at it, when bringing it into Resolve, it gets very pixely.
As a backup solution, I tried importing the original PDF into Final Cut Pro X instead and exporting a MOV file that I could bring into Resolve. However, the logo got pixely when exporting it from FCPX as well.
So, I'm at a bit of a loss here. How could I properly work with vector files so that the result looks smooth?

Ok, so I solved it myself, and it wasn't pretty.
To be able to work with my vector file in Davinci Resolve 12 (and in Final Cut Pro X without loosing any detail), I first had to convert it into a font. Yes, you read that correctly. I had to create a font where I assigned my logo to a specific character and then use the font in my editing program.
More specifically, to achieve this, I used the excellent Icomoon web app where I could import my vector image, assign it to a character code (in my case, I used "30", which stands for numeric zero in standard UTF-8 encoding).

Then I simply downloaded my font, installed it on the system as any other custom font, and accessed it as a text object in Davinci Resolve 12.

What a time to be alive!


text:
What happens when I upload a multi-audio video to YouTube?
I livestream video game tournaments. The videos I record have two audio tracks. The first track is a low-volume game sound, combined with commentary audio. The second track is just the normalized volume game sound.
When I upload this video to YouTube, what is going to happen? Will YouTube combine both audio tracks into a single track? Will it throw out track 2?
Has anyone done this before?

Youtube will encode the primary or default audio stream.
Youtube doesn't support multiple audio streams. Neither does Vimeo.
Although, apparently, some videos like the 2012 Olympic streams did have it. Special handling by Youtube, I'm sure.

So it will throw out Track 2?

In the encoded versions, yes.

Good news at the horizon. You should expect Multi-audio tracks and descriptive audio feeds support in the near future. There's actually a video demo with this capability, which is kind of proof of concept.


text:
What determines video orientation (landscape or portrait) during playback?
I captured a short video on my Android phone in portrait mode (i.e. to be viewed vertically).  When I played it on Windows 7 using WMP (or VLC), it displayed incorrectly in landscape orientation.
Thinking that I had to rotate it, I transferred the video to a Windows 10 laptop to process in After Effects.  To my surprise, I found out that it plays in the correct portrait mode on Windows 10 (using whatever is the default player that comes with Windows 10), and also plays correctly when imported into After Effects, requiring no rotation.
What determines how a video is oriented during playback?

If the video is meant to be played in a different orientation than its stored representation, then a rotation flag is set in the stream metadata. A compliant player uses that tag and rotates the video during playback.
A tool like Mediainfo will display that data (if specified) like here:

A tool like ffmpeg can reset the tag. Of course, you'll also want to rotate the video stream as currently stored so it plays in the correct orientation after the tag has been reset. ffmpeg's transpose filter can do that.

Could you provide an example ffmpeg command line to set the Rotation tag let's say to 90° in the answer? Thank you very much!

See this earlier answer: http://video.stackexchange.com/a/16340/1871

Thanks so much, for the information as well as the tool.  I installed Mediainfo, and sure enough, rotation value was 90 degrees for the file in question (counter clockwise).  I read somewhere that the rotation tag can be changed while recording if the recorder is so capable.  How would this tool handle that?  Just curious.

The rotation tag isn't dynamic i.e. 90 for the first minute 180 for the rest. Never seen that happen. Is that what you're asking? What you read probably meant that before the file is finalized on the recorder, the user could specify a value manually.

Thanks, yes that's what I meant (dynamic) - can't locate where I read that, but it doesn't matter now, based on your comment.


text:
possible to lighten almost black video?
My caravan was recently broken into. The good news is I have a surveillance camera installed and I captured and recorded the breakin. The bad news is the footage is so underexposed that it is almost black.
Is there anyway I can lighten the footage in Premiere Pro? Is premiere pro even the best software for that? I am not after high quality stuff, just lighten and cleanup enough to be able to identify the suspect. I have tried adding a brightness and contrast filter to the footage, and I can see he goes right up to the camera, but there is just not enough detail to even tell if he is male or female.
Any help would be appreciated.

Of course, but I'd recommend denoising the clip first. Simplest way is using brightness/contrast tool, but this depends on your requirements.

Underexposure is the worst! The problem is that some areas are just completely black, so there's nothing to be recovered in any way ... and the noise is particulary bad, making it hard to make out anything in the video. See my question here. In this case, I was able to recover the video to some degree using a combination of Premiere's color and luma effects, but it still looks kinda awful. Maybe post a screenshot of your video, so we get a picture of what you're dealing with ...

You can brighten the footage, but it's doubtful you'll get anything out of the footage. Odds are, the areas you see as black are clipped which means they'll just turn into grey when you brighten the footage.


text:
Is there a way to split a mp4 into 2 mp4, one is metadata.mp4 and another is mediadata.mp4
When media data is stored in the end of the mp4 file(it always be there),it is very difficult to extend or delete metadata infos,because metadata will use absolutely offset of this mp4 file to locate media data,so is there a tool can help me to split metadata and mediadata into 2 file?Or,is there a tool can move 'mdat' box so I can let metadata stored behind the mediadata?
All I want to get is I can freely modify the metadata related boxes and don't worry about the offset.
Thanks.

If I understand you correctly, you want the MOOV atom to be stored at the end of the MP4 (after the media payload). If so, this is the typical scheme used by ffmpeg unless flagged otherwise. So, copy your current MP4 into a new container via ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy output.mp4

At first,thanks ! And I know how bad my English is :).

Your answer help me.And I also want to know can I move the media payload to another file? I mean 1.mp4 only contains metadata and 2.mp4 only stores media payload. If I can, is there a tool?

Let me clarify: some of the metadata is related to the data structure of the payload in the file i.e. chunk offsets and the like, for the media player to map out the media itself. And then there's information stored like a rotation flag or XMP fields..etc These latter are of the key=value form. The former will be generated by ffmpeg when you create a new MP4. For the latter, MP4Box should be able to transfer those - https://gpac.wp.mines-telecom.fr/mp4box/

Sorry,I didn't get it clearly.The reason I want to split it into 2 parts is that in the ISO/IEC 14496 Part 12, it says that 'dref' box indicates the location of media payload. And the definition of 'dref' shows that we can place the payload into another file.

Ah, that's beyond my ken. Best place to ask that is the GPAC forum at https://github.com/gpac/gpac/issues

https://github.com/gpac/gpac/issues/326#issuecomment-158327529  Concolato gives me an alternative way to move the 'moov' :).

Yes, that's using MP4Box, which works as well. But see if you can reopen the thread and get an answer to your original question i.e. moov and mdat in separate files.


text:
How is possible for YouTube and Vimeo transcode so fast?
For the bit I read YouTube and Vimeo rely on servers powered by some modified libs i guess like libavcodec and tools like ffmpeg in a serious custom build.
Let's assume a transcode to h264 but the same could be applied to other codecs, I think VP8 and VP9 works in the same way.
If I upload 1h video file on their servers, right after the upload i have all the versions ready... pratically like 1 seconds after.
But, if codecs doesn't scale horizontally in a good way unless you want to trade time vs compression (see h264) and I'm pretty sure this websites care about the size of the videos..
Given also that single threads speed are capped by CPU frequency and actual frequency isn't up to 3.5 ghz generally unless they use overclocked servers under liquid nitrogen :D
How the transcode is done so fast?
They use still multithread with a mix of settings, trading on initial file size, custom builds and everything else to have just the files insta-ready to the user and then continue a second transcode with a slow preset that will be swapped as soon this file will be ready? They start to transcode as soon they receive the file stream (aka: during the upload ?)

"pratically like 1 seconds after" --> that's not my experience. It's fast but not that fast for me, and the HD versions take somewhat longer. See https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/71674?hl=en and http://greenlimepie.com/how-long-does-it-take-videos-to-process-on-youtube/

A common method is split-and-stitch where the file is cut into pieces and sent to multiple servers for transcode. That way you can transcode a file of any length in a fixed amount of time.
Telestreams Episode Engine can do this, but I'm sure Google uses something custom coded.

Sounds right: http://www.tvtechnology.com/news/0086/hpa-day--youtubes-video-flow/223783

Great article, @Mulvya. All the internet should have the edit function from [se], the text over there badly needs a revision :)

I could imagine that they also use hardware supported transcoding. A company like Google certainly has the resources to make custom FPGA transcoders and then transcoding speed gets blazing.

This could also be an option yeah. For example I guess that the v8 and v9 codecs were designed to scale optimally with their hardware, but regarding the x264 I think that the best pick is slice like a boss, give each slice to a different thread and rejoin the pieces together at the end.

A bit of insight about YouTube internals although quite dated: http://multimedia.cx/eggs/googles-youtube-uses-ffmpeg/


text:
Does the MP4 HTML5 compatible video type allow for mono audio?
I'm doing some rendering in Vegas Pro and notice that if I select MainConcept (which gives me an HTML5 compatible MP4) the audio tab only has options for the bit rate and the sample rate. Before rendering, I combined both left and right channels on the timeline, but once rendered, the video file has two audio channels.
This is normally not a problem, but in this case, the audio is only voice and I'm concerned about file size, so if I could render with a mono channel, I would be able to get a higher bit rate for audio quality, but keep the file size small.
What Vegas is doing is taking the single channel audio from the timeline, duplicating it, setting a left and right channel, then cuts the set bitrate in half for each channel. So if I want 96kbps mono, I actually end up with  stereo, 48kbps on each channel.
Is this an inherent issue with MainConcept file types? I notice that with others I can actually select mono in the audio tab, but not with MainConcept. I thought I read a short half sentence saying as much on some forum, but not sure.
If there is a way to have an HTML5 compatible MP4 with mono audio, please tell me how.

The Mainconcept or Sony codecs in Vegas are subpar for low-bitrate output such as needed for HTML5 use. Use ffmpeg to generate your HTML5 videos. Yes, mono audio is acceptable for HTML5 use, but once you use ffmpeg/x264 for generating those videos, the 6kB/s savings you get from switching to mono audio won't matter much if at all.
Get the 32-bit static build of ffmpeg from here. Render a high bitrate Mainconcept MP4 from Vegas, say, 12 Mbps. And then run the following ffmpeg command:
ffmpeg -i "vegas-output.mp4" -crf 23 -c:a aac -b:a 96k -strict -2 -movflags +faststart "html5-video.mp4"

If you still want mono audio, insert
-ac 1

after aac.
If you don't like the quality or size is too large, then play around with the CRF value. They go from 0 to 63 with lower being better. 18 to 28 is the usual range you want to stick with.

Thank you. I'll give this a go and report back. A few things 1) Why is Vegas Pro not better suited for this? Is that by intentional design or a flaw? 2) Where did you get 6kbps? My understanding is that the difference between a 128kbps mono stream and a 128kbps stereo stream is that the mono stream is double the rate of any of the two stereo channels. In speech, the quality difference between 64kbps and 128kbps is remarkable, and on a one hour lecture is close to 50MB. Multiplied by thousands of lectures (which I have) that's a notable consideration.

Not Vegas the editor, but the third-party MP4 encoders included in it i.e. Mainconcept (a German software company), also used by Adobe, and Sony, which may not be from the same division as Vegas. Those encoders are good for broadcast quality output but x264 (available standalone or within ffmpeg) has developed some tricks which allows it to shine at the low-bitrates used in web videos.

I see I misread your question, which says, "if I want 96kbps mono, I actually end up with stereo, 48kbps on each channel". I thought you wanted only a single 48 kbps mono stream, hence the 6kB/s savings from discarding one channel. In which case, render out your audio at 192 kbps or higher from Vegas before feeding it to ffmpeg.

Seems to work, except -a:c 1 is not the correct command. Should be -ac 1. Submitted an edit for the post.


text:
Many boxes/atoms never used?
I'm studying mpeg4 file format according to ISO/IEC 14496 Part 10.But I'm confused that there are many boxes (at least 40) NEVER (in my personal conclusion) be really used,e.g.MPEG-2 transport hint track,ALC/LCT and FLUTE hint track and so on.Could somebody tells me why they aren't be used or how and when to use them?Thanks!

Be careful ISO/IEC 14496 Part 10 is a video coding standard also called AVC or H.264. The associated file format is ISO/IEC 14496-15 which is based on ISO/IEC 14496-12 (aka ISOBMFF).
A standard is the result of a compromise between different people, different companies, different application domains and different scenarios. Indeed the ISOBMFF is very wide and many boxes defined in standard may not be used in all scenarios. RTP Hint track related boxes are used only when one goal is to generate RTP packets from an MP4 file. DASH related boxes are meaningful only when you use DASH. Of course a single file may have multiple purposes and so some boxes may not be processed by some tools.

Thanks very much,this confuses me for a long time.But the result seems that it is not easy to find that kind of .mp4 file.Thanks!


text:
RED streaming interface
I need to get a live video stream from a RED camera into a proprietary app running under OSX (though I can switch to Windows if necessary). I'm unable to find any information about getting a live preview from a RED camera.
We have a video shoot tomorrow. The video is going to be shown in a 3D environment, and we need to make sure that the actors' eyeline, etc. is correct for their position within the simulation. Note that we're recording 2D video, not 3D - the flat video will be placed on a plane within a 3D environment.
Preview resolution is unimportant - 320x200 would work fine for this stage of production.
The best solution I have at the moment is to tape a webcam to the side of the RED and use that as the input to my application. That will work, but I don't think the camera owner will be thrilled with my use of duct tape.
My app works fine with a webcam interface, but somehow I doubt that RED has something like that available.
HELP.
(In case it matters, the application is a Unity3D app running under OSX. Video is being displayed within a 3D room on an Oculus Rift.)

You can tap the SDI output port of any RED camera and feed that to a hardware device that reads 1080p video.  Blackmagic make some things that translate SDI -> internal video stream via PCIe card (Decklink), USB (Ultrastudio), and Thunderbolt (Ultrastudio for Thunderbolt).  This would be the easy way to do it.
If you have a RED DRAGON (EPIC or SCARLET) with the latest firmware, there's a RED Tether option.  It requires a special LEMO->RJ45 cable, and it feeds live video out the ethernet port.  See this article for more info.

It may be worth noting that the EPIC camera we were using had an HDMI output. I actually wound up pointing a cheap webcam at one of the monitors and feeding that into my app. Not ideal, but sufficient for the task at hand.


text:
Can't browse Photos library in Final Cut Pro X
I can't browse the Photos library from within FCPX. It just says "Open Photos to see your photos in this list". Yes, I've closed and reopened both Photos and FCPX.
I had everything working, but now I'm using a different Photos library on a different harddrive, and it has stopped working as before.
Any ideas?

In the Photos app (not FCPX), go to Preferences, then click "Use as System Photo Library". Then FCPX will be able to find the library file.

I did as you said. Even created two photos libraries, since my (the only one) was of course grayed out. Did not helped. FCX still see photos as empty junk


text:
ffmpeg encode in all-i mode h264 and h265 streams
Which params I can use to obtain a transcode all-i based? No B and P frames?
I know that this is not efficient for compression purposes but this is not my case now.
I guess i have to fiddle a bit with -x264-params or -x265-params but I don't know the switches to do it :)

For H264
ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -intra output

For H265, seems no alias or preset has been set yet
ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx265 -x265-params frame-threads=4:keyint=1:ref=1:no-open-gop=1:weightp=0:weightb=0:cutree=0:rc-lookahead=0:bframes=0:scenecut=0:b-adapt=0:repeat-headers=1 output

H265 code stolenborrowed from here.

The commands for h265 can be used for h264 as well including some tuning ? Also, can I use frame-threads=1 instead of 4 ? Thanks :)

Should be no problem, on both counts.

Thank you :) Also I was wondering if repeat-headers=1 is really necessary.

Since keyint=1 seems to generate the same file, are the other parameters necessary (scenecut=0 only speeds up the processing by saving the frame comparison analysis for instance)?

for ffmpeg 5.0 you'll need to do -g 1 instead of -intra. I.e ffmpeg -i input -c:v libx264 -g 1 output


text:
How do i put the image behind video by using FFmpeg?
I have one video (400x300) and an image (1280x300).
pls show me how can i put this image behind the video like that:
i've try, but not working T-T

Use the overlay filter
This will overlay the video on top of the image:
ffmpeg -loop 1 -i image.png -i video.mp4 -filter_complex "overlay=(W-w)/2:shortest=1" output.mp4

If you need to resize the video then add the scale filter:
ffmpeg -loop 1 -i image.png -i video.mp4 -filter_complex "[1:v]scale=400:-1[fg];[0:v][fg]overlay=(W-w)/2:(H-h)/2:shortest=1" output.mp4

You can use pad filter instead of an image
If you just want to add black padding you don't need an image and can use the pad filter.
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -filter_complex "pad=1280:0:(ow-iw)/2" output.mp4

Using the player to do it instead
You could add the padding upon playback so you don't even need to re-encode:
ffplay -vf "pad=1280:0:(ow-iw)/2" input.mp4

thanks you sir! It's work :-bd
by the way, Can u give me another favor !?
If my video isn't 400x300, for example 500x350. and I wanna make it fit to 400x300 then do the action 'v mentioned .
I always use cmd:"ffmpeg -i 1.mp4 -s 400x300 -c:a copy output.mp4"
So how could we convert the video to 400x300 then add image in one command !!
pls help me.  thx so much!!!

@OYAKHILOMEJOSHUA I added an example using the scale filter. If the answer is good you can accept it by clicking on the green arrow to the left.

I think you should clarify that your scale will output 400x280 for his hypothetical input of 500x350 instead of 400x300, and thus leave blank space above and below. -1:300 may be a better option, assuming that he doesn't want to distort the image.

Thanks you so much for supporting me !!!!
My code skills is too bad T-T
Because i working on asian media business, there are too much suck random resolution (ex: 520x423, 427x340, 608x260, etc) it's make me confused all the time. all i wanna do is :
"with one cmd, we can fit them on constant resolution ex: 600x400, then add the image as we've mentioned"
pls help me @@


text:
how to decide the appropriate resolution when recording my screen for uploading online?
I am planning of creating a few technical movies where I will record my screen as I work through a particular technology.
I'm unsure whether to record full screen, or select the area to be recorded.
If I select the area to be recorded, will this make it difficult to have a consistent size for recordings?  For example, if I do two screen recording of a browser session and the browser window is a different size both times, then presumably my output will be inconsistent?
If I record full screen, presumably I should record with my desktop set at a particular resolution?

Recording full screen, if your hardware allows you to do it smoothly, is your best option. You can always crop or mask out unwanted areas later in editing. You won't have that freedom if you crop the input at the time of recording. An exception to this rule of thumb can be made if you're absolutely sure that the area of interest is a portion of the screen at an unchanging location.
As long as different recordings are made at the same aspect ratio i.e. ratio of width to height, they may be edited together without creating an obvious mismatch e.g. if you record one video at 1280x720 and the second at 960x540, then since they're both in the ratio of 16:9, you can switch between them seamlessly. But if you record the second at 720x540, then there will be black space to the sides ("pillarboxing") when you switch to the second video in the editor. There's nothing particularly wrong about this, just a matter of style. To avoid pillarboxing in such cases, you will have to crop and zoom in on the second video so that you display a 720x405 portion of it. But that way, you may cut out something you needed to show.
Ideally, you should record at the highest resolution at which you can capture smoothly i.e. without dropping too many frames.


text:
Software used to create such animations?
Check the video -
https://youtu.be/uAyPXcYick0
I'd like to know which editor could I use to create such videos? I can get the flat icons, but how do I animate those? Are there presets for such animations?

You could recreate most of the stuff in that video inside Adobe After Effects, if you have all the assets on individual pictures (layers), and not merged on top of each other.
You can easily take a layer (image file) and independently change the position, rotation, opacity, size, etc. with keyframes. If you have the body parts of a character as different files, you can position them how you'd like them by dragging and dropping, and then parenting them to one specific layer, for example, the chest. Then when you change the position of the chest, the entire body moves with it.
It would also be a good idea to have the transparent versions of the flat icons, so you can add a custom background, and no whitespace overlaps with other layers.
It would be a better idea to draw any characters inside AE with the shape tools so you can modify the shape of any of the body parts.

I figured out from one of the source that they used flash too. But can all of these be created just using After Effects? Thanks a lot for taking an effort in writing that answer. :)

Just rewatched the video; yes, you could most definitely do everything inside After Effects, either with assets (like pictures of the individual objects), or by drawing each object with the shape/mask tools. The character in the beginning might be a bit hard, since his different body parts are moving independently, but it's possible by animating.


text:
Component AV, higher resolution source into lower reciever?
If I have for example 720 or 1080 component (analog YPBPR) output from one device going into another device that only does 576 will it work ? what will be the result ?

I might add that the dvbt modulator (reciever) doesnt specifically set any input limits, more that it outputs at 576...

It won't work... that will be the result :-) The answer is in your question: if the device only does 576, then it won't handle anything else.

Heads up - this post was flagged - can you add some background..?

@Mulvya are you talking to me or the answerer ?

The answerer. But you could update the question with the model numbers of the two devices.


text:
exporting video from flash for html5 video changes colors
I'm exporting video from Flash CC 2015 to video - it renders a quicktime (.mov) file which seems to retain the quality and color palette of my original flash file, but then when I use adobe media encoder to create an h264, the colors get washed out, which would be ok except that there is a discrepancy between the background color of my website and the background color of the video.
I can't use alpha channel video to get rid of the background since h264 does not support it. Anyone have any pointers on how to retain the color palette of my flash file / best way to convert flash into a video file?

Broadcast video codecs such as H.264 (typically) store color as YUV, not RGB. Conversion from RGB to YUV will cause a subtle color shift but also the YUV range used to represent pixel color value is compressed compared to RGB, which may also affect the hue. And finally there's the chroma subsampling, a technique used in video where a block of pixels share the same color values.
If the specific hue of your webpage BG cannot be changed then there are two broad ways to go forward:
1) Avoid a sharp interface between your video and the surrounding page by feathering the edges of your video or flash canvas.
2) A cruder, trial & error solution is to apply a tint overlay over the HTML5 video canvas so that the resultant look matches the hue. This will be a subtle tint and will affect the other colors in the video as well.
Of course, you can always take a screenshot of the webpage with your current video in it, sample its color in an image processing app and make that your webpage background color.


text:
Draggable effect split screen
I want to know that draggable split-screen effect is used in the next video? j-query?
Draggable interact split screen video
Regards

You can accomplish that with simple masks. The main thing you need to do, it is to make several shots from same angels and same positions of the camera.

Thanks for the response, but the interaction, is a plugin for example?

There is no interaction. It is just video, you can't interact with it. =)

thanks. Only interectaction in desktop version. Can you check this in http://earth2045.com/

Desktop? Like Windows/Linux application?

You can interact video in the web with mouse control. Regards

Ok, here you go: http://thenewcode.com/913/HTML5-Video-Before-and-After-Comparison-Slider

However, it is more coding question, so you chose wrong place to ask it ;)


text:
Getting extra blank minutes at the end of the video
My editing area looks like this:

For some reason when I export I get about 2 minutes of extra black screen at the end of my movie. I tried adding in and out markers but I haven't been able to fix the problem.

There are three things you have to get right:

You have to have the right length of video in your sequence (which can be helped by having explicitly set in and out markers at the right place).
You have to export the correct sequence.  If you don't have the correct sequence selected when you render, your export might, by coincidence, render the same content you are looking at, but from from a differently defined perspective--one that has a different concept of the in and out points you have defined for the sequence you should be rendering.
In the rendering window, there are several options, including whether to render the whole clip (irrespective of in and out points), render just between in and out, or some other options.

Try setting the correct in and out points, rendering the correct sequence, and then ensuring that your rendering actually honors the sequence's in and out points.

If you're having trouble getting FCPX to export exactly what you want, look no further than the range select tool.
Use the "r" keyboard shortcut to summon the tool, drag a marquee around everything you want to include in the export (or cmd-a for your whole timeline), then cmd-e to export (or your favorite flavor from the share menu).  In the export dialog, you can skim through the video to make sure everything you want is included and everything you don't is excluded.

go into quick mode and drag the out points that way, thats how i got mine to render properly


text:
How to display subtitles as default in an MKV file
I have an MKV file with multiple subtitles.  I would like to mark one set of those subtitles as default, so that it is turned on by default when the video starts playing.  NOTE: I do not want to "burn" this subtitles set into the video (I want to be able to turn these subtitles off at any point in time if I so choose).
Is there an MKV editing tool that would allow me to do this?

There are two aspects to your query - 1)setting one of the subtitle streams as the default and 2)automatically displaying it during playback.I'm not aware of a method to force a player to display subtitles if that facility has been turned off in its settings.
For the first facility, try mkvpropedit from MKVToolNix to set the default flag for a subtitle stream. See 2nd example.

Your solution worked wonderfully.  What do you recommend as a GUI for MKVToolNix?

The standard installer does come with a GUI. It's what I use. Here's a GUI for mkvpropedit, but I haven't used it personally.


text:
How can I put a PowerPoint presentation with a recording of the presenter?
I have a video recording of a presenter, going through her PowerPoint presentation and taking crowd questions.
I'd like to be able to upload the video of the presentation along with the PowerPoint presentation, shown side by side.
There are plenty of YouTube videos that have this sort of thing going on. For example, most DEFCON presentations (example) show the recording of the presenter in a corner, the logo below, and the slides taking the rest of the video.
Is there a simple way to do this?

Any timeline-based multi-track video editor with crop and scale features will allow you to do this. Basic idea is to import all three assets viz. video, logo and Powerpoint (see below) on different tracks in the editor and resize/crop each of them so that the composition looks like the DEFCON videos.
The time-consuming part is syncing the slides with the presentation. That may be simple but not quick.
For Powerpoint, one has to export individual images of all slides, if there's no animation or transition in the PPT that you want to preserve, or export a video if you do. For video export, you need 2007 or later version of Powerpoint, I believe.
All professional video editors (Premiere, FCP, Avid, Vegas, Edius..etc) can do this. Here's a list. I'm not aware which of the free or lite video editors are best suited for your task, sorry.


text:
Transposing keyframes or recursive keyframing in AE
I want to embed a clip inside of itself inside of itself inside of itself. I have a clip of a person using a tablet, and I want the same clip displayed on the tablet. I have tracked the motion of the tablet in Mocha and mapped the clip onto the tablet. Rather than track the the motion of the tablet in the video on the first tablet, I'm curious if I can just copy the movement keyframes but transpose them for the movement of the first tablet? Can keyframes be transposed relative to another set of keyframes?

Duplicate your composition twice. Let's call these 1, 2 and 3
In 2, replace the embedded clip layer with 3. With Alt held down and the embedded clip layer being selected, drag 3 on top of it. In 1, replace its embedded clip layer with 2.
I assume that the dimensions of the source clip and the composition are the same, else some transformation will be required.


text:
Help choose correct HDMI GPU resolution to get standard PAL/NTSC signal
Hi im trying to go from computer's ATI GPU via hdmi->component_adapter to SD DVB-T Modulator.
According to modulator spec it does 720x576_50i (PAL) & 720x480_60i (NTSC)
Which if any of these control panel resolution choices would match either or those: (ive reduced the list to the ones i think are closest)

720 by 576 (16bit) 50 Hertz
720 by 576 (16bit) 25 Hertz (Interlaced)
720 by 480 (16bit) 60 Hertz
720 by 480 (16bit) 30 Hertz (Interlaced)

And finally how would any of these compare to the outputs from a Decklink Mini Monitor, that states it does SD 625/25 PAL, 525/29.97 NTSC.
Thank you.

Out of your list, these look like your acceptable modes

720 by 576 (16bit) 25 Hertz (Interlaced)
720 by 480 (16bit) 30 Hertz (Interlaced)

Although depending on your adapter, it may be able to work with the other two as well. Note that all the modes are 16-bit so you are working with much reduced color resolution.
The Decklink modes are PAL and NTSC spec signal outputs and, I suspect, it will automatically downscale and crop your full resolution HDMI feed, so no need to tinker with your computer display modes.

Interesting comment about the bmd rez, as now you mention it, it likely does do it internally. I can do 32bit color, just only listed 16bit for simplicity. So i did try the first one you recommended (Pal 25i)  and half the tv had the image and then it went to garble. so not sure if its the gpu not putting out a spec signal or the adapter.

Can you comment on how you think the two options you recommended would likely compare against PAL/NTSC spec signals ? , my modulator is fussy ...

Will need to know your adapter details (model #) to see how it does the conversion. Unlikely to be the GPU.

Adapter reports as Lontium, it is chinese no model. Does Hdmi in, and component YPbPr w spdif sound out or vga out. Im thinkingi will send it back, and get a used ati radeon 3450 off ebay for $20 which has YPbPr out.

Hey, it must have been the adapter, as the ati works fine with the modulator and tv when it defaults to 720 by 576 (32bit) 25 Hertz (Interlaced) for the component out. thanks


text:
Three Point Lighting on Green Screen
Ok - I have a 10' x 8' foot DIY green screen. Since I am newbie I have not yet purchased any lighting. I do have a set of circular reflectors, and a lightstand with a boom and clamps that I was "thinking" of using for fill light. What inexpensive light set should I get? Do I need to light the green screen with 2 softbox lights? What should I use for the key light and back light?

Using 2 lights with softbox would be great for your background.
The goal here is to get the background lit equally on all sides.
You can use the zebra on your camera to help achieve this.
Avoid shining your background lights onto your subject. That's what your key and fill are for.
Make sure you keep enough distance between your subject and the background. This ensures you have little/no shadows on your green screen. Also, it helps to remove the green spill bouncing back from your background onto your subject.
Please spend twice as much energy on lighting your subject. People tend to spend more time and energy on the part of the image that they will throw away (green screen) and forget about the part that they will use in their film.
Keylight is a difficult decision and might be different for each project. For a regular MC/CU another light with softbox would be great!
Those reflectors will work great as fill light. Depending on what Keylight you chose. They might be less optimal when using certain LED sources. In that case you might need a second LED as a fill.
We kind of skipped the backlight of you subject. Sure, this is optional. But it could really help your footage to the next level.

Good Luck,

Thanks for the helpful suggestions! Should I use yet another softbox for the backlight? Do I need a boom on that, so I can point it above the subject?

Hi David, softboxes are not ideal for backlights. Although they could be, especially on larger sets. Personally,  I prefer the smaller hardlight sources. For instance,  a 300watt fresnel light. These are quite affordable these days. You can definitely use a boomarm or, maybe look into  a way to mount it to the seiling.  Best position is not really above the subject, but more from behind the subject only just above the top of the frame (camera). Obviously,  this depends greatly on the situation and the look that you're trying to achieve.


text:
How would describe this editing technique
I am trying to write about the editing techniques in this clip here:

and at the 0:39-0:41 section I want to describe what editing technique is used where the scene stays the says but the character changes but I can't find any terms that describe it.
Thanks for any help.
(The film is what I made for college, it was not great as the camera we used was terrible and we ran into a lot of issues)

Those are usually called jump cuts, but I'm not completely sure in that situation where it cuts to multiple people doing the same action.

It is a jump cut (creating a short video loop) followed by a match cut.