text:
H.264 produced by ffmpeg from images has no duration
I have a sequence of PNG files (3D renders) that I want to encode as an H.264 video @ 30fps.
I'm using the following command (I happen to be compositing a background under the renders):
ffmpeg -loop 1 -i bg.jpg -r 30 -i renders/frame_%04d.png -c:v libx264 -preset veryfast \
       -profile:v main -filter_complex overlay -shortest -r 30 -pix_fmt yuv420p -t 16 \
       video.h264

The resulting video plays in VLC, but I can't seek properly (always corrupts like no keyframes), it shows no duration, and it shows no elapsed time as it plays.
If I use ffprobe to analyze the result, I see this:
$ ffprobe video.h264
ffprobe version N-81995-gd790e48 Copyright (c) 2007-2016 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.3)
  configuration: --extra-libs=-ldl --prefix=/opt/ffmpeg --mandir=/usr/share/man --enable-avresample --disable-debug --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --disable-decoder=amrnb --disable-decoder=amrwb --enable-libpulse --enable-libfreetype --enable-gnutls --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libvorbis --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvpx --enable-libspeex --enable-libass --enable-avisynth --enable-libsoxr --enable-libxvid --enable-libvidstab --enable-libwavpack --enable-nvenc
  libavutil      55. 32.100 / 55. 32.100
  libavcodec     57. 61.103 / 57. 61.103
  libavformat    57. 52.100 / 57. 52.100
  libavdevice    57.  0.102 / 57.  0.102
  libavfilter     6. 64.100 /  6. 64.100
  libavresample   3.  0.  0 /  3.  0.  0
  libswscale      4.  1.100 /  4.  1.100
  libswresample   2.  2.100 /  2.  2.100
  libpostproc    54.  0.100 / 54.  0.100
Input #0, h264, from 'surround-view_front.h264':
  Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (Main), yuv420p, 1920x1208, 30 fps, 30 tbr, 1200k tbn, 60 tbc

Why does that show Duration: N/A, bitrate: N/A, and how do I fix it?

You're outputting to a raw bitstream. Usually, you want to output to a container like .mp4, .mov or .mkv.
H.264 raw bitstreams have no index and individual frames have no timestamps (PTS/DTS). The definitive way to estimate the duration is by counting the frames and dividing by the frame rate. Of course, this only holds for streams to be shown at a constant framerate.

I appreciate the comment. In this case I am intentionally omitting a container because I am feeding the raw stream to an internal system that normally receives data from live cameras, and which is designed to work with H264 streams without containers.

I haven't seen a (ffmpeg-produced) H264 bitstream with duration since there's no global index or timestamps. At best you can count frames with ffprobe, and divide by the framerate.


text:
ffmpeg - video from images - stops before last frame
I am trying to create videos from images. Although I have done this many times, I see now that a certain video stops before the last frame, encoding only ~50% of it.
The way I call ffmpeg is
ffmpeg -y -threads 16 -r 30 -i /tmp/teaser/SINGLE/%*_2_.png -vcodec h264  -vf scale=2000:-2 -an -b:v 5000k /tmp/teaser_SINGLE_2_.mp4

The output is:
Output #0, mp4, to     '/tmp/teaser_SINGLE_2_.mp4':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf57.41.100
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (libx264) ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv444p, 2000x1316, q=-1--1, 5000 kb/s, 30 fps, 15360 tbn, 30 tbc
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc57.48.101 libx264
    Side data:
      cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 0/0/5000000 buffer size: 0 vbv_delay: -1
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (png (native) -> h264 (libx264))
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=6 speed=0.0278x    x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=16 speed=0.0237x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=23 speed=0.022x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba drop=30 speed=0.0206x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba drop=47 speed=0.0172x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba drop=54 speed=0.0163x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=59 speed=0.0155x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba drop=65 speed=0.0148x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=71 speed=0.0141x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=77 speed=0.0135x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=90 speed=0.0124x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=148 speed=0.00909x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=179 speed=0.00786x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba to size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 drop=184 speed=0.00765x
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:2000x1315 fmt:pal8 to size:2000x1315 fmt:rgba
frame=   64 fps=2.6 q=-1.0 Lsize=     822kB time=00:00:02.03 bitrate=3310.7kbits/s dup=0 drop=209 speed=0.0822x
video:820kB audio:0kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 0.190141%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] frame I:1     Avg QP:13.80  size:  6902
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] frame P:16    Avg QP: 4.91  size: 20914
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] frame B:47    Avg QP: 9.96  size: 10589
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] consecutive B-frames:  1.6%  0.0%  4.7% 93.8%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] mb I  I16..4:  0.2% 98.3%  1.6%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] mb P  I16..4:  0.1%  0.1%  0.5%  P16..4:  0.3%  0.6%  0.6%  0.0%  0.0%    skip:97.8%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] mb B  I16..4:  0.0%  0.0%  0.0%  B16..8:  0.6%  0.6%  0.6%  direct: 0.2%  skip:98.0%  L0:35.6% L1:34.8% BI:29.7%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] final ratefactor: 0.46
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] 8x8 transform intra:87.7% inter:9.6%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] coded y,u,v intra: 9.6% 6.6% 8.9% inter: 1.2% 0.4% 0.8%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] i16 v,h,dc,p: 83% 10%  6%  1%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] i8 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 29%  1% 70%  0%  0%  0%  0%  0%  0%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] i4 v,h,dc,ddl,ddr,vr,hd,vl,hu: 38% 11% 14%  5%  5%  8%  5% 10%  5%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] Weighted P-Frames: Y:6.2% UV:6.2%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] ref P L0: 53.5% 16.5% 18.2% 11.2%  0.6%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] ref B L0: 86.6% 10.8%  2.7%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] ref B L1: 93.8%  6.2%
[libx264 @ 0x7feb45023a00] kb/s:3147.04

There doesn't seem to be any destroyed frame. Any idea?
I use ffmpeg version 3.1.4

Has to do something with naming. Try renaming it a numeric sequence. Also, use -framerate 30 instead of -r 30.

Just the -framerate 30 did the job!!!!! But I don't understand why. If you want please post this as an answer so that I can mark this as accepted.

With image sequences, you have to use the framerate option. With -r specified before the sequence name, FFmpeg assumes 25 fps and duplicates/drop frames to meet the set rate. I'm guessing you had a very short sequence, so it wasn't readily apparent.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
FFmpeg - Synchronize external audio file
I'm creating some encoding templates for multi-bitrate streaming, and I want to create a fallback that is audio-only. So when the bandwidth of a users connection falls below x, it drops video playback and switches to audio-only.
The problem is alignment of said audio stream. I've aligned the videostream with
-x264opts keyint=48:min-keyint=48:no-scenecut

This creates equal intervals in keyframes, allowing consistent GOP's for streaming. But such an option is not available for audio only.
I extracted the audio from the original file, like this:
ffmpeg -i Sample.avi -vn -ar 44100 -ac 2 -ab 128k -f mp3 audio_only.mp3

That creates a separate .MP3 file, equal to the audio-streams of the original file (.MP4). However, I have no way to ensure this is inline with the audio streams of the encoded .MP4's (the multi-bitrate set).
So, is there a way to make sure these files are aligned? Or should I extract the audio from one of the encoded files, instead of the mezzanine file?

One way to achieve this might be to create an .MP4 with your audio and an all-black image, which should encode to something not much larger than the audio file but still have the same internal structure as the full video files.

I could use that, and it wil probably work. However, the file wouldn't be technically audio only then. I don't see any other way though. Thank you for your suggestion!

Extracting the audio from one of the encoded files should get you audio only. Remember to add -copyts to the extraction command and extract to .mp4.

@WouterPol  Another possible advantage to this is that you could use a static image such as text over black saying "Low Bandwidth - Audio Only". This would take a little more space, but not much.

Yes, that would be a great fallback technique, thank you!

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

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


text:
Manually creating proxy files for Vegas Pro
To prevent lag, I need to create proxy files for each of my videos, but the built-in function is taking too long. Creating a separate file and swapping it in is too inconvenient.
I used the built-in method to create a proxy video, then restarted the editor without saving. I re-added the same video and noticed that the proxy file was recognised and used. This means that if a proxy file were to be encoded externally, Vegas Pro should recognise it.
How do I create proxy files myself with ffmpeg for example?
I discovered that the proxy file is an MPEG-4 Part II with codec ID "mp42", the "Commercial name" in the metadata being set to "XDCAM EX 35" and timestamps. It also appears to be stretched from whatever aspect ratio to 16:9 at 1280x720.
Knowing this, I composed the following ffmpeg command:
ffmpeg -i input -c:v mpeg2video -brand mp42 -metadata "Commerical name"="XDCAM EX 35" -metadata:s:v:0 "Commerical name"="XDCAM EX 35" -metadata "Encoded date"="UTC 2022-07-20 23:16:01" -metadata "Tagged date"="UTC 2022-07-20 23:16:01" -movflags use_metadata_tags -vf scale=1280:720 -an -f mp4 input.mp4.sfvp0

The editor did not recognise the file, as when I dragged the source in, I was still given the option to generate a proxy file. What am I missing?

You seem to have misspelled "Commerical"; is that a problem?

Here's how I did it:
ffmpeg -i input -c:v mpeg2video -brand mp42 -vf scale=1280:720,select="gte(n\, 2)",tpad=start=2 -profile:v main -level:v 4.0 -colorspace:v "bt709" -color_primaries:v "bt709" -color_trc:v "bt709" -color_range:v "tv" -qscale:v 5 -video_format component -g 2 -an -f mp4 input.mp4.sfvp0

We configure ffmpeg as follows:

-c:v mpeg2video - MPEG2 codec
-brand mp42 - mp42 codec ID
-profile:v main -level:v 4.0 Main@High Profile
-colorspace:v "bt709" -color_primaries:v "bt709" -color_trc:v "bt709" -color_range:v "tv" BT.709 colour space
-video_format component - Component video format
-an - Don't include audio
-f mp4 - mp4 container

To synchronise the proxy file with the original, I used select="gte(n\, 2)",tpad=start=2.
You may also be able to modify the scale of the video so long as it conforms to the 16:9 aspect ratio, regardless of stretching and increase the quality of the proxy file with qscale:v.
Despite this, Vegas still tracks whether Proxy files were created before and does not recognise when this happens externally so these may not even be recognised in the first place.

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


text:
ffmpeg merge video with 2 audio files
What I'm trying to accomplish is the following:
I want to use ffmpeg (preferably a single command) to combine a video (video.mp4) file with an audio file (audio.mp3) and have some background music (music.mp3) playing.
The output should end after the length of audio.mp3 (or even better after the end of audio.mp3 + 5 seconds). So music and video are allowed to be cut.
All separate tasks work in a way but putting everything together just doesn't work.
My approach (with some extras like fading in video and audio volume control):
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i audio.mp3 -i music.mp3 -vf "fade=t=in:st=0:d=5" -filter_complex
"[1:a]volume=1[audio]; [2:a]volume=0.25[music];
[audio][music]amix=inputs=2[mix]"
-map 0:v -map "[mix]" -c:v h264 -c:a aac -shortest output.mp4

That works but the output is not cut after the the duration of the shortest file (which is always the audio.mp3)
Second question:
Is it possible to refine that command so video.mp4 and music.mp3 don't need to be very long but are looped until the end of audio.mp3 + 5s?

I think I managed to do the audio part at least (after that I combine the audio track with the video):
ffmpeg -f lavfi -t 5 -i anullsrc=channel_layout=stereo:sample_rate=192000 -i file1.mp3 -filter_complex "[1:a][0:a]concat=n=2:v=0:a=1[audio_silence],amovie=file2.mp3:loop=0,asetpts=N/SR/TB,volume=0.1[music];[audio_silence][music]amix=duration=shortest,volume=1" out.mp3

But one thing is not quite as expected: The audio quality go really bad. There is hissing and some higher frequency noice ... i tried some low pass filtering but doesn't seem to help. Any ideas on that topic? I think I'll open another question for that.
Cheers


text:
How to render png's as h.265 12 bit video?
ffmpeg -framerate 500/21 -i %d.png -i audio.wav -c:v libx264 -crf 0 -pix_fmt yuv422p10le -c copy output.mkv

I have the above command for converting a PNG sequence of images into 10 bit h.264 video file.
I want to know: how do I modify it to render my PNG sequences as a 12 bit h.265 video? Or do I need a completely different command and what would that be?
Aside:
I noticed it in Handbrake, but I see a lot of complaints that Handbrake isn't as clean an encode as raw ffmpeg? I don't know if there's any basis to that or if I should just do it in Handbrake instead.

BTW your command, as written, isn't converting the images to H264 but simply storing them in the MKV. This is due to the -c copy at the end. Place it immediately after audio.wav

oh okay I guess that makes sense. There any drawback to storing the images in the mkv? is it just large file size?

File size and playability on some players.

Use
ffmpeg -framerate 500/21 -i %d.png -i audio.wav -c:v libx265 -x265-params lossless=1 -pix_fmt yuv422p12le -c:a copy output.mkv

You'll need a ffmpg with a libx265 that supports a bit depth of 12. At this time, I can't find such a precompiled binary so you'll have to compile ffmpeg using the auto-build script at https://github.com/jb-alvarado/media-autobuild_suite

Why is it like -x265-params lossless=1? Can I use -crf 0 instead? or is h.265 a bit different? also i was always told to use -c copy instead of -c:a or any of the other copy audio variants.

For x265, this is the syntax for lossless encoding.

I'm getting an error and its changing to 10bit: Incompatible pixel format 'yuv422p12le' for codec 'libx265', auto-selecting form at 'yuv422p10le

Get the latest ffmpeg binary from https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/

Getting same problem unfortunately. Testing on a sequence of seven 16 bit png numbered 1.png...etc without the audio bit: ffmpeg -framerate 24 -i %d.png -c:v libx265 -x265-params lossless=1 -pix_fmt yuv422p12le test.mkv

is there possibly another way at this time to get 12 bit h.265? I'm having a hard time going through the process linked. Or if there is any other documentation you could recommend or just recommendations on how to go about figuring the prescribed method out. Anything like that would be appreciated.

Is this easier now?

My builds include libx265 with 12-bit support.


text:
Live streaming with Twitter and RSS information
In two weeks, we have a live event for 7 days. Last year we bought Wirecast, but it looks like it has just a few features. They now integrated Twitter, but it's just weird how it's all made.
We have a lot of experience in RSS, JSON, and XML, and we really want to put it at use for this livestream event.
What we want to do is to create 2 separate RSS files (or JSON, XML). 1 for latest tweets and 1 for current audio track.
Next we want to integrate those RSS files in our video stream. Twitter in some sort of newsticker and the current track every 3 minutes or something.
Our problem, what software do we use? Wirecast looks like it isn't capable to handle our needs. Same for Xsplit and Media Encoder of course. Boinx looks like it has some features, but it's too expensive to just buy without knowledge.
Does anybody have an idea for what software to use?

You may want to look into Camtwiststudio for the mac. I work with Desert Bus for Hope doing a weeklong stream as well and we use it for just the sort of thing you're talking about.
Camtwist has built-in plugins for both Twitter and RSS, and can leverage quartz composer to make more complicated overlays.
It outputs a video feed for other Mac OS X applications to see it like a QuickTime video source, so you can use wireless or Flash Media Live encoder to do the actual compression and streaming.

This could probably be done using Open Broadcast Software and writing your own plugin for it, but the details of how to do that is more of a programing question than a video production question.
I honestly don't think you are going to find anything out of the box that handles your specific needs.  You are going to have to do some development work to get it up and running I think.


text:
what is the easiest way to put multiple separate videos one after another in Blender
I'm currently using Blender on Ubuntu for video editing. It's not that easy to drag videos and put it close to another, one by one when there are many separate videos. Is there any easy method to do this other than dragging each and every one of these?
Consider number of videos like this:

Welcome Dscript :) Please check if this: http://blender.stackexchange.com/questions/28450/drag-and-drop-multiple-files-in-the-vse solves your issue and keep me posted. Anyway, enjoy video.se!


text:
Removing / Overlaying logo on mp4 video format with ffmpeg on linux
I'm trying to remove a logo from an .MP4 video format with ffmpeg on a Linux machine without re-encoding (for preserving the same quality) with the following command:
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf delogo=x=270:y=190:w=40:h=40 -c:a copy output.mp4

and it gives me the following errors:
Unrecognized option 'vf'

then a new error came up:
Unable to find a suitable output format for 'delogo=x=270:y=190:w=40:h=40'

ffmpeg is always updating and it seems that they change command line arguments a lot so any material or tutorial I find online seems to get outdated quickly.
I review their website documentation but can't get it to work, I think i'm missing something...?
What is the correct command line in Linux shell;
also, how to view or find out exactly the area coordinates to be removed before actually removing logo/overlaying it and keep testing every while?
And how to overlay a solid color in certain area instead of removing logo transparently as well?

It is discouraged to crosspost the same question on multiple Stack Exchange sites (and it is offtopic on Stack Overflow; that site is for programming questions only).

Understood Sir, Pardon me for writing the same question on the other site as well, but i figured out the other is having much more traffic volume than this, also found 8K ffmpeg specific questions there as well, I might vote for deleting this one.

Your command is missing double quotes around the filter definition :
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "delogo=x=270:y=190:w=40:h=40" -c:a copy output.mp4

(as explained in FFmpeg filters documentation)
Nevertheless, this filter will decode and re-encode your video stream.


text:
Howto Repaire or fix the duration of a mp4 video
I'm having a film that's ffmpeg and other progs claims to be 07:03:52 long, but the real playtime is actually more like 2:35:00
ffprobe video.mp4
ffprobe version 3.0.2 Copyright (c) 2007-2016 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 5.3.1 (Debian 5.3.1-17) 20160429
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-cflags='-g -O2 -fstack-protector-strong -Wformat -Werror=format-security ' --extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro' --cc='ccache cc' --enable-shared --enable-libmp3lame --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-libfaac --enable-libxvid --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libgsm --enable-libtheora --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libx264 --enable-libspeex --enable-nonfree --enable-libvpx --enable-libschroedinger --disable-encoder=libschroedinger --enable-version3 --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-avfilter --enable-libfreetype --disable-decoder=amrnb --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libtesseract --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --disable-vda --enable-libbluray --enable-libcdio --enable-gnutls --enable-frei0r --enable-openssl --enable-libass --enable-libopus --enable-fontconfig --enable-libpulse --disable-mipsdsp --disable-mips32r2 --disable-msa --disable-mipsfpu --disable-mipsdspr2 --enable-libvidstab --enable-libzvbi --enable-avresample --enable-libutvideo --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libx265 --enable-libbs2b --enable-libilbc --enable-libopenh264 --enable-libkvazaar --enable-libsnappy --enable-libsoxr --enable-libiec61883 --enable-vaapi --enable-opencl --enable-libdc1394 --disable-altivec --shlibdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
  libavutil      55. 17.103 / 55. 17.103
  libavcodec     57. 24.102 / 57. 24.102
  libavformat    57. 25.100 / 57. 25.100
  libavdevice    57.  0.101 / 57.  0.101
  libavfilter     6. 31.100 /  6. 31.100
  libavresample   3.  0.  0 /  3.  0.  0
  libswscale      4.  0.100 /  4.  0.100
  libswresample   2.  0.101 /  2.  0.101
  libpostproc    54.  0.100 / 54.  0.100
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'video.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 1
    compatible_brands: isomavc1
    creation_time   : 2012-12-12 07:03:52
  Duration: 07:13:45.09, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 274 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Video: h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 1280x528 [SAR 1:1 DAR 80:33], 601 kb/s, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 96k tbn, 47.95 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2012-12-12 07:03:52
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 92 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2012-12-12 07:04:15
      handler_name    : GPAC ISO Audio Handler

Is there any one who can help me fix the playtime / duration with a terminal command on debian/centos
I have HandBrake-cli + FFmpeg installed
UPDATE
Thought: since the video plays perfectly in various players and the frame-rate is right, how comes, that encoders like HandBrake and ffmpeg can't calculate the right duration?
UPDATE 2 - Solution
I duckduckgo.com it and found a usable solution on a well.. torrent site
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -t 2:09:39 -c:v copy -c:a copy -c:s copy out.mp4

How ever, this is not an repairing or any acclimatisation of the job, but it worked.
So summon up what this does

ffmpeg - Video encoder
-i source video
-t When used as an input option (before -i), limit the duration of data read from the input file.
-c:v + -c:a copy video+audio from source
output file

Any optimization or acclimatisation of this workload is still welcome

07:03:52 is being reported as the creation time, although the estimated duration is 07:13:45.09. Try a remux: ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -c copy out.mp4

Hi @Mulvya thx for your replay and suggestion, tried this, but it gives the same playtime error. Did also try to convert it to other formats like webm, avi, mov etc... same thing :(

Except for the manual time option, your solution is the same as mine. Run ffprobe video.mp4 -show_entries stream=codec_type,start_time,duration -of compact and show the output.

Hi thought I had replied to this thread, but I did find the solution by using the -s -ss options to simply cut the length of the video and now it's playing lovely

Refer to Format (container) duration

The command from Update 2 worked like a charm... Stargate is a great movie isn't it?

Joakin, what you have suggested in your Update 2 is remuxing. Alternatively to what you have suggested atom manual editing can be utilized.
Manual editing is
(a) much faster - just the metadata is modified
(b) can be applied both ways - to scale up and to scale down. I have persinally succeeded in decreasing length by remuxing, but i failed in increasing it.

I had the same problem. I solved that by removing the audio from video.
This is why the video seems frozen but it continues to play it, due to audio duration.
For that reason, you may remove entire audio from video file using "-an" ffmpeg option. When it removed, no incorrect time in video exists. You may extract audio from the initial video file, match its duration time with the video duration, and then, you encode video and audio files together, resulting no frozen video frames play.
eg.
ffmpeg -i video_to_encode.MP4  -r 16 -crf 18  -vcodec libx264 -vb 10M -an  video_output.avi

I also faced with this issue and I had to add -vcodec libx264 in addition to -an. Cutting a video:
ffmpeg -ss {sec2time(start)} -to {sec2time(end)} -i {video_path} -c copy -vcodec libx264 -an {save_path}


text:
ffplay - Live capture video gradually lags behind
I have a Magewell capture device that I'm trying to preview with ffplay.  It works great, except over time the video will become choppy and lag behind the actual live feed.  Right clicking on the ffplay window will sync it back up, however continuously right clicking it is obviously not a good solution.
I am using a command similar to the following to display my capture:
ffplay -f avfoundation -pix_fmt 0rgb -framerate 60 -i "1:none"

How do I get it to remain synced the entire time?  Viewing ffplay stats shows that there is a buffer that gets filled over time and right clicking clears it.  You can also force this by pausing the stream and unpausing.  I need it to display without filling the buffer at all.
I've tried using this and it helps to some extent, but doesn't completely disable the buffer:
-probesize 32 -sync ext

With that it takes longer to fill as most frames are dropped if it can't read them fast enough, however it does still fill up over time.

So I solved this by simply adding an audio stream instead of having "none" selected.  Doing this makes -framedrop (default) work properly.  I left the master clock as default as well (audio) instead of changing it to ext.

Did you try "-an" instead of "1:none"?


text:
ffmpeg fade to specific color values over time
I have a background image that I'm trying to fade to specific color values using this filter: lutrgb=enable='gte(t,3)':'r=0.3*val:g=0.3*val:b=0.3*val'
This almost works, but it changes the values instantly.  How do I get it to fade to those values gradually over time?

Your example doesn't alter alpha but the color channels. Is that what you want?

Sorry, I was messing with alpha earlier and the word "opacity" stuck. I'm simply trying to get the background image to partially fade/darken, not become transparent.

The lut filter expressions don't work with time. geq does.
geq=r='(1-0.7*min((T-S)/D,1))*p(X,Y)':g={the same as r}:b={the same}:enable='gte(t,S)'

S should be your start time in second. D is duration for the change in colours. T and p(X,Y) are variables and should be kept as is.

Gives me an error. I tried both substituting each S with the start time and not substituting. [Parsed_geq_0 @ 0x7fa6ab5007c0] [Eval @ 0x7fff576460e0] Unknown function in 'S)/D,1))*p(X,Y)' [AVFilterGraph @ 0x7fa6ab413a80] Error initializing filter 'geq' with args 'r=(1-0.7*min((T-S)/D,1))*p(X,Y):g=(1-0.7*min((T-S)/D,1))*p(X,Y):b=(1-0.7*min((T-S)/D,1))*p(X,Y):enable=gte(t,3)'

S and D have to be substituted with numerical values.

I got it working, however it's slowing the rest of the encoding process to a crawl. How do I get it to resume normal encoding speed?

Change enable to between(t,S,S+D)  And add your lut filter for gte(t,S+D)

I get an error trying that. Here's what I have: geq=r='(1-0.7*min((T-3)/3,1))*p(X,Y)':g='(1-0.7*min((T-3)/3,1))*p(X,Y)':b='(1-0.7*min((T-3)/3,1))*p(X,Y)':'between(t,3,3+3)',lutrgb=enable='gte(t,3+3)'

You have to keep the enable= before between (and I assume you've simply omitted the lut exprs for brevity. They should be specified)

Finally got it. Thanks for your patience. I actually had to use gt instead of gte, otherwise I would get a frame of overlap where the image was extra darkened. Final command that works: geq=r='(1-0.7*min((T-3)/3,1))*p(X,Y)':g='(1-0.7*min((T-3)/3,1))*p(X,Y)':b='(1-0.7*min((T-3)/3,1))*p(X,Y)':enable='between(t,3,3+3)',lutrgb=enable='gt(t,6)':'r=0.3*val:g=0.3*val:b=0.3*val'


text:
How do I remove excess video duration in ffmpeg when using lavfi?
My goal is to take clips that last over 40 seconds and overlay them on a background, then trim the total time once the clips and background fade out.  It works great, except the seeking goes up to 24 seconds even when I specify 21.
ffmpeg -y -framerate 60 -loop 1 -ss 0 -t 21 -i ~/Desktop/FP2.tiff -ss 0 -t 21 -i ~/Desktop/fp.mov -lavfi \
"[0]fade=t=in:st=0:d=1,fade=t=out:st=20:d=1,trim=end=21[bg]; \
[1:v]setpts=(PTS-STARTPTS)+1/TB,fifo,fade=t=in:st=1:d=2,fade=t=out:st=15:d=2[fade]; \
[bg][fade]overlay=10:(main_h-overlay_h)/2:format=rgb[v1]; \
[1:v]setpts=(PTS-STARTPTS)+3/TB,fifo,fade=in:0:120,fade=t=out:st=18:d=2[v2]; \
[v1][v2]overlay=460:(main_h-overlay_h)/2:format=rgb[video]; \
[1:a]adelay=1000|1000,stereotools=muter=1,afade=t=in:st=1:d=2,afade=t=out:st=15:d=2[a1]; \
[1:a]adelay=3000|3000,stereotools=mutel=1,afade=t=in:st=3:d=2,afade=t=out:st=18:d=2[a2]; \
[a1][a2]amix=inputs=2[audio]" \
-map [video] -map [audio] -c:v ffv1 -level 3 -c:a pcm_s16be ~/Desktop/filtergraph.nut

You can see this in ffplay; the background will fade completely by the 21 second mark, but the video itself ends at 24 seconds.  How do I get them to match exactly?  I'm aware I can use -ss and -t after the inputs, but that method can be slow if you intend to use a start point past 0.

I'm aware I can use -ss and -t after the inputs -> you can keep your current command and just add -t 21 after the inputs.

You are feeding 21 seconds of audio from the video file and then applying adelay=3000|3000, hence 24 seconds. Add atrim=end=21 at the end to both your audio filterchains.
And
Add shortest=1 to both your overlays.

I still get the 24 seconds when I try that, even if I lower the seconds for atrim below 21.

Works here. Where have you placed the atrim?

[1:a]adelay=1000|1000,stereotools=muter=1,afade=t=in:st=1:d=2,afade=t=out:st=15:d=2,atrim=end=21[a1]; \

Adding shortest worked and now the video properly ends after the background fades.  ffprobe and ffplay still report the duration as 20.98 instead of 21 (final encoded frame says 21 flat), but for all intents this gives the expected result.  Thanks for the help!


text:
Pre-render composition in file? (Adobe After Effects)
I was wondering if its possible to prerender a composition 100% in-file (NOT prerendering out then bringing back in).
Prerender might not be the best word - I'm essentially looking to do what rasterize does to a smart object in Photoshop. I want to take the output as is and make it so if I change any of the compositions inside the to-be-prerendered comp, the output DOES NOT reflect those changes.
It would take the comp and turn it into non-editable footage.
If anything like this is possible, please tell me how! I can't just pre-render normally and bring it back in due to storage limitations - if what I'm describing doesn't exist I'll have to find another way

If you want instant access to a baked version of a comp, it has to be stored somewhere - either in memory or on disk. The former will limit your computing performance (eventually), and the latter needs storage space.
The third way is to duplicate the comp, including all precomps and bring in the duplicated comp as a base layer to the original comp. Since the duplicate won't refer to the original layers, it'll serve as a reference. A script to do this is True Comp Duplicator.

I know this is an old post, but for whoever ends up here and doesn't know the answer; use proxies. They are lowres prerenders that you can toggle on and off, thus taking less space in your hard drive and increasing performance. Just right click on a comp in the projects panel and select "Create proxy/movie". Hope that helps!


text:
What type of equipment can I use to record a live rock performance as a member of the audience?
I've been attending some friend's concerts and using my phone or my DSLR or my high end point and shoot the audio quality is extremely poor. I assume if I wanted the best quality I'd need to plug in directly to the amps / mixer for all the performers but I'm not doing this as a pro. I just want to be able to record a few 30 to 120 second clips and later post them on facebook / youtube. BUT, the audio at the events is extremely loud (I usually wear ear plugs) and on top of that it often sounds off key even though it didn't sound so off key live.
Is there certain easily portable equipment I can say add to my camera (a certain type of mic or mic + amp) that would let me record and get reasonable audio quality (for some definition of reasonable)? Are there special kind of mics specifically for loud situations or mic attachments? Do I need my own equalizer on the input or can I adjust the audio later in something like Audacity (or some more professional software). For example I noticed in one video the singer's voice seems louder than everything else but at the actual performance the instruments seemed louder than the vocals.
Note: I specifically listed a rock performance because they tend to be much louder than say a jazz performance. Also have friends in an industrial band and they are so loud I have no idea what they sing (haha). I just put my ear plugs in and enjoy the spectacle but I'd love to be able to record them too just as a member of the audience, not someone who has access to the stage (too much work and coordination, especially since usually many bands are playing). These are small venues that usually hold less than 50 people and usually each performer or band only does 3-6 songs and then the next group is on.

I want to make it clear I'm not trying to record concerts it would be illegal to record. Besides, my experience is those types of concerts confiscate all high end equipment on the way in. At least that's my experience. Example, you can take your smartphone in but you can't take your DSLR and I'm sure they'd check for mics etc. The places I'm talking about are small venues where I'm a friend of the band hanging out and taking pictures for fun etc. Here's a picture from last March 25th 2017 if you want some idea of the type of venue. That's literally 1/4 of the venue. Another 1/4 is the bar leaving space for about 15 viewers.

You can use portable recorder like Zoom H4n or similar. Recorders like this usually have XLR input that could be plugged directly to mixer. You'd then set input type on your recorder to line-in and set its sensitivity to have your levels not too quiet but not clipping (exceeding the scale).
You can also plug in microphone and try to do the same however investment into microphone + recorder seems pretty high considering the fact, that your recording might be better, but still very much sub par.
Higher quality recorders might have a jack for headphones so you could monitor audio quality of your recording or even line-out you could plug into your DSLR audio-in for easier audio-video sync in post.
Apart from Zoom recorders, another popular brand is Tascam. If you don't want to buy, they can be usually rented in rentals for videographers and filmmakers.

Thanks but like I mentioned in the question I'm a member of the audience, not someone who can plug in to the mixer.

@gman If it's your friend performing and wants it recorded, then just ask the sound guy to plug you in. If he won't do it it's because he's a dick.


text:
How do I apply an effect to the entire result of multiple stacked clips in FCPX
How can apply an effect to the RESULT of multiple composited clips in Final Cut Pro X? Googling all I see is how to apply the same effect to multiple clips but that's not what I'm trying to do. I'm trying to apply a single effect to the result of compositing multiple clips.
For example, one way would be to render my video without effects. Then start a new project, load the rendered video, apply the effect. It seems like I shouldn't have to render the video and start an entire new project to achieve this.
To give a simple example. Start a new project. Make the project 1280x720p, drop in a iPhone portrait mode video (make sure the project stays 1280x720p), apply the colorize event. Since the colorize event only applies to the clip I get this

But I want it to apply to the entire video (the result of all the clips)

Note I am not try to achieve the effect shown above. I just needed to throw together an example showing the issue (effect applies to clip instead of to entire video).
Is there a way to do it short of rendering out the entire video, starting a new project and applying the effects to the rendered video?

I’m not entirely sure what you explain. However I try.
Did you look into the option of an adjustment layer?
http://www.fcp.co/final-cut-pro/tutorials/945-how-to-build-and-use-adjustment-layers-in-final-cut-pro-x

That would work. I guess I need to go buy Motion though.

Someone posted a already created Adjustment Layer from Motion here

I can't see your timeline so I'm not sure if this might help too:
I think you can select all clips within the timeline and than group them (alt + g) to a compound clip. This way you can add effects onto the compound layer and it will be placed on all.


text:
How do I setup a camera in a fixed position?
Im interested in creating a video stream channel. There are cases where say I'm building a computer that I want to place a WebCam in a fixed position above my head. Or say doing a car repair, I will need a similar set up.   Most web cameras I've seen are designed to be attached to a computer directly.  Im imagining a stand and a camera attached to it.  Ideally, the camera attaches to a PC but it doesn't have to.
I guess I could pull this off with my iPhone if it had a stand to hold it.

I've shot many videos on my phone and they come out great. You can also get an inexpensive tripod; I saw one about the size of my hand that can grip onto things like the neck of a floor lamp, and it only cost $5.

@BrettFromLA I already have a Tripod.  I found an iPhone 6S mount for tripods that I'm definitely gonna try!  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B016KZDN5M/ref=twister_B016KZDLPE?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Make sure to shoot with the primary camera on your iPhone 6S, not your secondary phone. I just Googled them and they have significantly different quality.

Get a camera (not a webcam), any camera, and put it on a tripod. Make sure the camera has the approriate mount to put it on your tripod. If you have a camera without such mount, just prop it up against some books or something like this. Then connect your camera to your PC (for live streaming) or just record to SD card and put it on your computer later (for prerecorded video).

There's nothing wrong with using a WebCam instead of a camera, provided you have a long enough cable.  There are USB extension chords that can give you a few extra feet, and USB extenders that can go quite far (over Cat6a cable, for example).
But regardless of whether you use a webcam (that interfaces as a digital device to your computer) or a camera (which interfaces as a digital video stream to a video capture card in your computer), you do need something to fix it to.  In the world of video, the department that supplies such this is the GRIP department.  If you visit sites on the web that cater to the video world, look for GRIP and that will bring you to the wide variety of clamps, mounts, screws, plates, etc., that attach to your camera on one side and to something in your room or the ground on the other.


text:
Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum Suite 12.0 - 21:9 / 2560x1080
I recently brought a new monitor which is 21:9 (2560x1080) and I use ShadowPlay to capture interesting moments when I'm gaming. I always use Movie Studio Platinum Suite 12 to cut down and edit these clips to then upload them to YouTube, however I've been struggling to figure out how I can render videos in 21:9 to then upload. I've tried the MP4 Internet video setting and then selected a custom aspect ratio, however it throws an error that Movie Studio can't do this size. Does anyone have any ideas / a way I could get around this issue (other than render in 1920x1080 with a border)?

YouTube does not natively support 21:9 aspect ratios.  If you upload a 2560x1080 video, it will scale the video down to 1920x1080 and letterbox it (put black bars top and bottom).  You are better off rendering 1920x1080 in your video editor and doing your own letterboxing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqT1WZH_Ojk Take this video for example, when made full screen on 21:9 it has no letterbox, however my video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgfrR91aykU does. Do you know any reasoning behind this?

Youtube preserves the original ratio, but always frames it in a 16:9 player window when viewing it on YT. So the black bars aren't part of the video. If embedded externally or viewed in full screen, it obtains the best fit ratio it can, which on your monitor is edge to edge. Whereas your video is rendered at 1080p with the letterboxing baked in.

@Mulvya, nice explanation. However, in this case, how do I render in 21:9 for M.S.P.S.12 so that I can then get this desired affect on YouTube?


text:
rendering video with Adobe After Effects
I bought an effect on Videohive (http://videohive.net/item/classic-music-visualizer-/13342497), and create a 1h long video with music and picture in background.
I'm trying to render this video, but the estimate time for this is more than 10h... Also the filesize is huge (8GB for 5min of video!). How can I render/e
These are my settings:

Could you help me with settings to render/export video to normal filesize? I need video for publish on YouTube (but it must be 1920x1080 and good sound).

Within the video format optionss, check and set the Limit data rate to 10000 kbps. This will produce a file under 400 MB.

I tried your recommendation and the file was 2,8GB, but the quality was very bad :/

Can you post screenshots from the rendered file, as well as mediainfo report?

Try rendering to an all I-frame codec first and then compress to h.264 later. Use proRes since you're on a mac. This will be a larger file, but you can delete it after you compress if you need the space. All I-frame codec encode every frame separately, whereas h.264 uses the similarities between different frames to reduce the file size, which doesn't work well with the way AE renders frame-by-frame.
This workflow also means that if you need to change your compression settings you don't have to re-render the whole thing again, just re-compress the master.


text:
Dark interview setup, what should the subject wear?
I am doing a project using a similar setup to the "I am Second" lighting. Basically a black background and the subject light from overhead/ front. I'm not keen on my subject wearing black (also I don't want to copy this style directly). With a dark interview setup, could my subject wear white? I know white can be tricky and reflect more light. What solid color would you recommend?
I plan to shoot CU to MCU, so the chair or stool the subject will sit on won't be seen.

Here is a great tutorial about lighting ratios: http://wanderingdp.com/cinematography/cinematography-school-lighting-ratios-101/
Tl;DR?  Whatever skin tone your subject has, and whatever tattoos you might want to highlight, you need to know the key value and dynamic range of your subject, independent of the shirt.  Once you have established those, you can decide where in the range you want to place the shirt, and whether you want to add color (and all that color may symbolize) into the mix.
A white shirt might be so bright that when you adequately light your subject, the white shirt uses up too much of your available dynamic range.  Also the extreme contrast between the white shirt and the black background may compete against your subject for attention (since the vision system is always looking for contrast).  The reference shot you provide is a great example of a splash of white that balances with the white highlights of the forehead without trumping it.  A CU that just barely includes a white collar may do the same thing, but an MCU might show too much white.
But do look at the lighting tutorial to see how one properly gets the right key value and dynamic range for the face, and then you'll see how to fit the shirt into that range.


text:
Depth of focus for video recording
How can I calculate the depth of focus (Depth of field, DoF) for video recording?
There are some tools around that calculate the DoF for different camera types depending on focal length, f-stop and subject distance, e.g.

http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html
http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/dof-calculator.htm.

My assumption is, that the DoF for video recording is bigger than that for photographs, because video is recorded with lower resolution, and therefore a higher degree of unsharpness can be accepted without visible effect.
My idea was to calculate the size of a single pixel and use this size as "circle of confusion" parameter.
My question: Are these assumptions and the example calculation below correct? What is a reasonable way to calculate DoF for video?
Example:

Canon EOS 600D / Rebel T3i
f2.8
16mm
object distance 2m
recording format 1080p

From the 600D's sensor size (22.3 mm x 14.8 mm) and video resolution (1920x1080) I calculate the pixel size to be 0.0116 mm x 0.0116 mm, or 0.016 mm in diagonal.
Entering these numbers into dofmaster, I get 1.6 m as a result (1.48 m ... 3.08 m).
What surprises me is, that using the camera model directly instead of the CoC, the result is 2.02m, which is bigger than that vor video.
Accordingly, when calculating for a video resolution of 720x576, I get a DoF of 146m.

I believe that many DSLRs do line skipping, which means that the pixel size is the same as when shooting a still, there's just more space between them. I'm not sure how that figures into the calculation, though.

I assume that both methods would yield almost the same results, apart from "non-line-skipping" functioning as a kind of low pass filter, and thereby reducing nasty Moire effects. I assume skipping or not skipping has no effect on sharpness impression.

Well, your calculations appear to be correct, but the only calculation that isn't exactly known is the pixel size of your camera sensor. Either your calculation of the camera's pixel size on the sensor (at least when filming 1080 video) is off, or their recorded circle of confusion of that sensor is off. Or both. Though I find it more likely that their stored CoC value for that sensor is based on what is "reasonable focus loss" not on the actual pixel size, and so they have a larger CoC value than what you consider to be reasonable, as your reasonable is that the CoC is no bigger than a pixel.
Either way, calculating the differences based on resolution shouldn't be an issue. In the spirit of better safe than sorry, use your own calculation of the pixel sizes (0.016mm with the DoF result ~1.31m) as a basis. If you're going to test for half the resolution of 1080 (being 540) then you'll double the pixel size calculation (0.032mm) resulting in ~4m DoF.
To calculate for 720x576 (which is 576 resolution, not 720 resolution. Careful with that) you'd do (1080/576)*0.013mm = 0.03 (new CoC for calculation resulting in 3.44m DoF).
I'm not sure how you got 146m as a result though. Perhaps you input the wrong circle of confusion value?

Your impression is incorrect.  Depth of field has nothing to do with resolution and everything to do with sensor size.  Depth of field does depend on viewing distance, but that is a little different from resolution and not particularly applicable in this case.
For most online calculators that don't include a viewing distance, they are often assuming viewing the entire scene at once and that wouldn't make a big difference if it is a 2MP video image (particularly since the meaningful resolution of video is much higher due to blending) vs a DSLR.

I think this is true only as long as your resolution is higher than actually needed (which is normally true for photographs).
Not so for video. Video resolution can be quite small and becomes a limiting factor. What can be regarded as reasonably sharp in 720x576, doesn't necessarily look sharp in full HD, being equivalent to a greater DoF at lower resolutions. Besides that - what do you mean with "is much higher due to blending" ?

@nwsp - due to playing multiple frames, the effective resolution is much higher due to aliasing.  When you look at a still from video, there isn't much information there, but when you watch a video, you aren't looking at one still.  You are looking at a progression of related images and you pull information from more than one frame at a time.  This is (one reason) why video often looks sharper when it is playing than when you pause it.

And you are correct that if you get close enough that pixelization is a problem, then you are going to have an impact on what looks blurry, but at that point the entire image is blurry, not because of DoF, but because of lack of resolution.  Each piece of data you need is blurred with other nearby pieces of data.

And that's exactly the point. To which degree can I open the aperture without adding apparent additional unsharpness in the case of low (video) resolutions. Looking at http://www.erik-krause.de/ , the minimum resolution for "normal viewing distance" is always 5.7MP, way beyond normal (low quality) video. Hmm, maybe I should just play around with viewing distance until the computed minimum resolution  fits the target resolution? Which results in 1:1.8 (image size : viewing distance) for 2K material, and 1:4.6 for 720x576 compared to 1:1.3 "normal viewing distance".

Right, but you are still assuming a static image not a moving one. Your brain blends frames. Think resolution gains from stacking lower resolution shots and doing analysis. Your brain does this on the fly with video.  It is a lot more obvious if you use SD video and look at the details of something on a still frame vs moving, though part of that is also the interlacing.


text:
Best way to output two streams, and add lower thirds keying to one stream?
We are looking to enhance our production with some lower thirds keying on our video.
We currently output a single HD stream and encode it in real time. This output doesn't have any keying because it's application requires it to NOT have this.
A new request that has come in is to have a separate recording that DOES have lower thirds keying for a couple of select applications.
We could add the keying in post production, however this is time consuming and we'd rather not.
I've attached a diagram of how our system is currently configured.
I'm wondering what the best way to add lower thirds keying would be if we're doing it in real time on a second stream... and is this possible with our current equipment list?

My thought on this would be to throw a Mac mini on the second preview output and use software to key the output of the Mac back into a second input card on the StreamZHD.
I'm a little nervous in using the built in keying ability as it would require a single operator to be managing ALL of our production.

Now, why don't you use the AVhs400 keying capability and store that output?

As I said above I'm a little nervous in using the built in keying ability as it would require a single operator to be managing ALL of our production.

I think you shouldn't, it can take some time for the operator to get used to the 'new' flow of work but it's worth it, specially if you are only working with only one output. However, if you are still nervous about it, I don't think the idea of using a Mac mini is any ideal. I would use a Folsom switcher instead, but the price is too high compared to that of a computer.

Much like your Mac Mini approach, you can set up a PC with a free demo of vMix (http://www.vmix.com.au) and see if it will work for you.

I'd recommend to add an optional i/o board (AV-HS04M7 or AV-HS04M1 for external CG) to have simultaneous program output w/o graphics (clean feed) and still have fully functional preview & program outputs. You can use ProPresenter or any template-based CG with key&fill outputs, which is quite simple to control. E.g. CasparCG. You can even create a special control application for shows, an operator would have to push the only button at desired time.


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Recording Video of iPad
I am trying to record some video of an iPad with a Canon 60D. The camera is mounted on a tripod about 100cm above the iPad. Everything next to the iPad is sharp, but the display itself seems a little fuzzy. I can't seem to focus the lens so that the icons are sharp.
Does this have to do with the image repeat rate? I tried a 35mm 2.0 prime lens but that did not help.
When I take a picture with the same setup everything is sharp as can be, but as soon as I go into video mode it becomes fuzzy.
Thanks for any ideas on how I can get the icons and what is on the screen sharp?

@j-g-faustus You should make this an answer.  It is correct.

@AJHenderson Well, knowing is better than guessing, and I think your answer is better than mine would have been. But thanks for the confirmation :)

You have two things going on here, both related.  The first is that the native resolution of the display you are filming is higher than the format you are capturing in.  You are immediately losing 1/3 of the image information on the iPad.
This is further compounded however by the natural anti-aliasing that filming a screen at similar or lower resolution produces.  Since the pixels of your camera don't line up with the pixels on the display exactly, each pixel of the camera's video file is going to have contributions from multiple distinct pixels on the display (as many as 4).  While the resolution of the video may be near 2mp, it is going to get information slightly blurred together as pixels become less sharp from this blending.
This isn't an issue when you are using much higher resolution because the amount of pixels in your image that are covering multiple pixels of the display are minimal and the majority of each pixel is sharply exposed, but in the case of a video that is 1/3 smaller, as many as 9 pixels on the display may be getting blended for each pixel in the final video.
The ideal way to overcome this is either shoot in a substantially higher resolution or use a direct output from the iPad that will preserve pixel alignment.  I believe there is an HDMI mirroring option and you could then capture the HDMI feed with an HDMI capture card unless they are using HDCP on the HDMI output.


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Zooming in on one layer in After Effects
I desperately need step by step instructions on how to zoom into the child sitting in the window. This composition is an animation, I have a bunch of layers but I specifically want to zoom into the window as a track motion effect. I REALLY do not want to scale every layer larger one by one, because I have approx. 15 layers. Please help! I've extremely new to AE.

Thats simple, pre-comp what you have right now and create a camera layer. Then make you composition layer 3D. The look of you layer will not change unless you add lights or rotate the camera. Then you can pan around and zoom in your picture with the camera.
Thats how you do every sort of zooming e.g. camera animation in after effects. Animating the scale of layers is just a mess like you already realized.

You could zoom the pre-comp without making it 3D and adding a camera; that would make it even simpler.

Not really true, the camera control is far more intuitive with great manual control with the help of the camera control tool. No need to fiddle around with corner points and numbers.

As there's always at least two ways to do things in After Effects, another option to Professor Sparkles' answer is to parent the layers to the one you're zooming in on. Parenting a layer means that any transformation you apply to the parent affects the child (but transformations to the child do not affect the parent).

So select all the layers in the comp, except the one you're zooming in on, and set their parent layer to the layer you're zooming in on. To set the parent either use the pick-whip (the spiral) or the drop down in the parent column of the timeline window (if the parent column is not visible right-click on the column titles in the timeline window). Now when you scale the parent layer, all the children will scale too.

However, say you wanted to scale the background more slowly than the foreground, to give the sense of 3D depth, one way to do this would be to have a few sets of parents corresponding to the foreground, midground and background for example.
But if you want 3D-style perspective you could make the composition actually have 3D depth, and use a camera layer to do the zooming. So here's yet another way to do it:
Make the layers 3D by selecting them all and checking the little box on the far right of the switches panel on one.

Then move the foreground layers forwards (decrease the value on the z axis, the third set of numbers that appears in the position property of a 3D layer), and the background layers backwards (increase the z axis). As you do that you'll see them move.

Now you can create a camera layer (layer>new>camera) and zoom in on the window by moving it, and the background will scale proportionally. If you want to see how everything is layed out in your 3D scene, switch the viewport from "default Camera" to "Custom View" or one of the other views.

And here's the city layed out in 3D (well, my two-layer approximation that I did in a couple of seconds, but you get the idea).

In custom view you can use the camera tool (hit 'c' on the keyboard) to orbit (left mouse button), pan (middle mouse button) and zoom (right mouse button) in the viewport. In the camera view using this tool will actually move the camera. You can use this to make your start and end keyframes for your camera.
There's truckloads of 3D tutorials for AE on the web, here's a place to start, at Adobe's own website

Well thats exactly what I proposed without the pre-comping. The advantage of the pre-comp is that you don't alter the way your layers behave which can be irritating or unwanted behavior. But nice detailed explanation.

It isn't clear to me if you are trying to zoom with perspective differences between the layers or not, but if you just want to zoom the viewpoint without altering the scene, you could use either of the previously mentioned methods or, for something even simpler, you could also include the composition as a source in another composition and simply scale it all together.  You might have to increase the resolution of the source composition for this to work best, but it depends on how your compositions are setup.


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how to motion track in after effects
How to motion track and put a 3d model on a video so it looks like it belongs there. I have a 3d sequence wolf that I am importing through element and once I get it into ae, how do I track the video and put the model on it so it looks like it belongs there? Thanks.

I'm not quite sure what you mean. Are you trying to use Mocha? What have you tried?

Maybe this could help you out

@PandaAB Joonases tutorial is about as good as it gets. You can do it in blender as well

Did you try google? Seriously, this question probably has tons of different implementations and even more tutorials exampling how to do this.


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HDSLR Movie Making Flickering Problem
I have used Canon 5D Mark III and C100 and both cameras give a footage where motion is slightly flickering especially under sunlight (My teacher doesn't agree but I always see DSLRs and other cameras with -equal quality or price- have this problem). Shortly: I don't like that picture. It grosses me out. It looks like it lack fps but I know it's not about fps (which is generally 25).
Do you agree with me ? I don't see this with the old movies that were shot with 35mm cameras. Even Super 16 or Super 8 footage have no such an issue. Is it about monitors or the camera itself. I wonder if you see this problem, too. (I also used Nikon D3300, Canon 650D, and other cheaper cameras like these) What is the reason ?
If you agree with me then I will suggest no camera under Canon C300 (supposedly) or Black Magic's expensive ones can give me a really fine, smooth, cinematic look.

This might be better migrated to videos.stackexchange.com.

I highly disagree. Try shooting at 60 fps and see how that looks.

If I shoot it at 60 fps then it will be slow motion. It must be 25 fps to get a cinematic look unless I want slow mo specifically.

There are a number of factors that could cause the effect you've described. It's unclear which you're talking about specifically, but here are the possible problems and their possible solutions:

Interlacing - Video filmed for broadcast is split into 2 interlaced fields. For NTSC, this means that instead of ~30 full frames per second, a camera will first film even lines for ~1/60th of a second, then the odd lines for ~1/60th of a second. Or for PAL, instead of 25 full frames, they'll do even lines for 1/50th of a second, then odd lines for 1/50th of a second. The solution to this problem is to shoot progressive (full) frames.
Rolling Shutter - DSLRs, cell phones, and other types of cameras use a CMOS sensor which scans the field of view from the upper left of the sensor horizontally, going down to the next row of sensor sites until it reaches the bottom left and starts over. This can cause artifacts when objects in the scene move faster than the scanning happens. (Or when the camera is moving.) The solution is to use a camera with a different type of sensor, such as a CCD sensor, or to apply a post process to fix the rolling shutter problem. Most video editing applications have a filter of some sort to correct this.
Shutter angle - When shooting video, you can tell the camera how long you want the shutter to be open for each frame. If you're filming at 25 frames per second, then it can be opened as long as 1/25th of a second. But you can reduce it to, for example, 1/50th of a second while still only shooting 25 frames per second. This may be expressed as either a time value (such as 1/50th of a second) or as an angle, where 360° is the full frame time, 180° is half the frame time, etc.

It's hard to tell from your description which problem you might be encountering, but you can try making changes for each. Canon cameras will allow you to film in either interlaced or progressive modes by simply changing a setting. Likewise with shutter angle. Fixing rolling shutter requires either a different camera or applying a post-process.
The Canon C300 has a CMOS sensor just like the 5D and the C100, so it's probably not the rolling-shutter issue.

I tried changing fps and shutter. I understand what you are talking about. But the problems still exists. However, I will try a camera with CCD Sensor.   Is there difference in quality of shutter mechanism of different cameras ? Now I think of this question.

Based on "motion is slightly flickering especially under sunlight" I would venture a guess that you do not use ND filter, hence you are shooting with fast shutter speed. For traditional film-like effect you should be shooting at 1/50 s.
I suggest learning tricks that film camera operators know and use daily, like appropriate shutter speed, appropriate panning speed, appropriate depth of field, following the subject when it moves, usage of neutral density filter, turning off built-in image stabilizer when shooting from a tripod (including panning and tilting), not using shakycam techniques when using a CMOS-based camera, etc.


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Connect GoPro Hero 7 Black to Macbook Pro 2017 via USB-C
I have just bought a Hero 7 Black, which sports a USB-C port. I can use it to charge the battery etc. but I would expect it to also allow me to connect to another device, like my MacBook Pro, with a USB-C port.
I have tried a few configurations:

a few USB-C to USB-C cables, including one with Thunderbolt 3
the USB-C to USB-A cable that comes with my GoPro, and the USB-A side goes in an adapter that is then connected via USB-C to my Mac (works with a lot of other devices, so the adapter is fine)

No matter what I do, however, the only thing I succeed in doing is charging the camera.
Do GoPros support a direct USB-C connection to another device?

According to page 61 of the Hero7 Black manual, you can transfer files to your computer using USB-c.  The manual only mentions being able to do this with the Quik application on your computer.  Most likely your computer is missing the drivers necessary to exchange data with the camera due to either not using or not installing this application.

It does work with GoPro Quik software and I also found that my Android File Transfer software picked it up and showed me the SD card as a filesystem I could copy files from just like it would my phone.

Android File Transfer worked for me on mac OS X Catalina 10.15.2

There is no option to open the GoPro as an external disk.
But you can use the import functions of Final Cut Pro X, iMovie and the GoPro Quik application instead.


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Use XLR for power?
I currently use a regular 50 foot power cord rated for 15 amps. I use it only for two laptops and one camera, making a draw of about 5 amps according to the "input" label on the power supplies.
The 50 foot cord is heavy, while I notice 100 foot XLRs I have are a pound lighter. Considering both are three wire cords, I thought that there might be "power over XLR" in some way.
If not, would it be safe to snip off the ends of an XLR and attach standard power plugs that you can buy at the hardware store, assuming I never try to draw higher than 5 amps?

Something no-one has mentioned is that using the XLR connectors "off book" as it were is dangerous, when someone who expects an audio line-level signal coming through it plugs your modded XLR cable into the back of their bit of audio equipment and puts on their headphones ☠↯☠↯☠↯

I just looked on ebay and if you search for 'Power XLR combo cable' you'll find cables that have kettle plugs and XLR audio plugs, for using with powered speakers. Might be what you need.

Hard NO.
Not as a high voltage extension cord.
You're drawing only 5 Amps, sure, and XLR cables can carry from 2 to 10 amps, but not 120 volts of alternating power. XLR cables are not meant to conduct that kind of voltage, if you attempt it, the wire could overheat, melt your connections, and potentially start a fire.
XLR is commonly used for low-voltage applications (mostly 4 and 5 pin XLR though), so you could rig up something to carry the DC power from your device transformers. Plug your power adapters into the wall, then use the XLR cable to carry the low-voltage DC power to your electronics. This will require some more fine-wiring, and there's no guarantee the wires will carry the DC 100 ft to the satisfaction of your devices. They may not power on at all.
You're better off using your proper power cable.

You're mixing voltage and current in your answer. What will melt the wire is not the voltage, but the power that is being dissipated in the wire, which is proportional to the current flowing through it (amps) × the voltage × the resistance of the wire.

You would best off speaking with an electrician as there is more to this than just wires, you have to consider things like current, draw, heat, limits to voltage with thinner cables etc.

Absolutely not. XLR (off the shelf) is rated for mA, not Amps, and at 48v at the high end... which is basically phantom power.
Now you COULD have a custom cable made. Markertek does this, and they do a great job making custom cables. They certainly could use an AWG 18 4 Wire, and put Neutrik connectors at both ends, one male and one female. But I don't see why you would need this.
If you want to only carry 1 cable, just so everything is run on a single path, I'd recommend having Markertek make a custom cable with break away tails. They would set it up with a shielded AC 120v rated main for your power, and run what ever you need along that same path (3 pin xlr, 4 pin xlr, multi-xlr, bnc). At each end you could have them either wire a small breakout similar to a malt box, or just have break away connectors with "x" amount of lead at each end.
But definitely do not run Amps of power through a cable rated for 1/1000th of that current.

Actually, common 3 pin XLR of reputable make is rated for well north of 10A (Time was they were often used on loudspeakers!), but they are NOT a mains connector, and usually the cable used will also not be rated for power service. Your weight comes really from the cable, not the connectors anyway, and you would want to be using something that your local approvals folks would accept for mains usage, which is NOT going to be mic cable.

There used to be a variant of XLR plug rated for AC power. It was 50 years ago so the details are hazy, but I remember helping my supervising tech replace the power connector on the back of a Tektronix Vectorscope with one in my first two years of apprenticeship as a broadcast tech.

Yes you can as a cable is a cable, you just need to know the particular specs of the cable in question. XLR cables are typically rated from 50 to over 300 volts depending on which one you have, you just need to verify it is rated over your local mains voltage depending on what you have (120 vs. 240). The amperage rating some manufacturers specify can be a bit questionable as most XLR cables are made from either 24 AWG or 22 AWG wires. Continuous rating for PVC 24 AWG is 3.5 amps while 22 AWG is 5 amps, however if it is using a bit more exotic insulation such as ETFE that increases to 5 amps for 24 AWG and 6.5 amps for 22 AWG. I believe the reason why manufacturers are able to state up to 12 amps is because they are using charts for 22 AWG ETFE or PTFE in a NON continuous mode. Over voltage on a cable will cause insulation breakdown and arcing and over amperage will cause enough heat to build up to soften, melt or burn the insulation away. Regardless it is always good to test an experimental cable made like this with an experimental proof test after constuction. Simply plug in something slightly above your desired rated load and leave it to sit powered non stop in and outdoor environment continuously powered for several or more hours while being monitored. This way you will have your own proof testing to fall back on before you plug in your labtop and fall asleep one night and burn your house down. Make no mistakes this will be a specialist cable after construction, typical bare minimum for a power cord should be 14 AWG although 16 AWG does exist. People have burned down their home using 16 AWG cables and plugging in high amperage loads such as space heaters.


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Streaming vs Let's Play on YouTube
I want to start my own YouTube channel for various games that I play. I've watched way more than I care to admit from other YouTube gamers. The ones that I really like and find most engaging have 30-45 minute videos of a play through. However, it's often edited to remove the "boring parts" - think of this as the planning time in some games where you can pause it, set stuff up and the unpause it. There is a short jump and everything is set up - the channel creator describes what was set up but didn't show the 15-20 minutes that it actually took to do so. It keeps the video and game play moving forward.
When I'm looking for longer playthroughs, I often find live streams on YouTube. This, obviously, shows everything.
My question is, what kind of set up would I need to do the first option? My computer can run the game, but what do I need to know about recording the gameplay and my voice, editing the video, and stitching it together?

I think your actual question is for a list of resources to get starting making gameplay videos (Let's Play is actually owned by Roosterteeth as a title).
But I think your premise is wrong, you shouldn't go into the game play planning to do "boring parts".  Today, creators usually stream for a long format "livestream" video, then they cut down that footage for a "gameplay" video, and then they will sometimes do "trailers" or "highlights", and this is a good business model.
By all means set up cool stuff and show us what you want, but you'll notice, for single player, that it will feel more organic to just play through.
They also require the same resources, as your first option is a subset of the 2nd option.
I recommend OBS, it's free and works great.  In theory, you need twice the graphics capability of the game to capture it cleanly.  It will stream or just record.
Past that you really just need a headset with microphone, any headset will do, but spring for a Snowball when you can, great quality and affordable.  I can help (sometimes) to have voice recorded separately, but most times it really doesn't matter if you're having trouble with it.
Once you feel ready, find an affordable webcam, and you can do face cam straight from OBS, whether or not you create a second instance of OBS to record it separately.
Eventually you'll need some basic lighting, and maybe a green screen, but leave that down the road until you're already super serious.
Once you get to a point where you feel like editing, you'll need GIMP (basically free photoshop) or any picture editor you have handy that will let you work in LAYERS, very important.
And of course you'll eventually want to actually edit, I recommend Da Vinci for your first free editor.  It has most of the functionality that Adobe Premier Pro or Sony Vegas has, but it's just not very intuitive.
I highly recommend you keep an eye on HumbleBundle, I got Sony Vegas for $20 through them because they occasionally do software bundles, and it's a good deal to find games (check out Monthly, it's fantastic).
Hit me back if I managed to leave anything out.

You have a lot of different options for something like this.  At the most basic, NVidia shadowplay can capture your gameplay and the audio from your mic to a video, but this is somewhat limiting of your options for changing stuff later on as the game and voice audio are pre-combined, you are limited to the quality of shadowplay and some computing resources have to be used to do the data handling for the encoding.
To move things up a step, you could use a stand alone recorder for your voice and only capture the video game audio with Shadowplay.  Another further step up would be to setup an external recorder that could offload the entire capture process to dedicated hardware.  This rapidly gets more complex and more expensive, but allows for the best overall output quality and least load on your computer.
There are many different capture devices out there, some consumer, some professional.  Some require you to use a distribution amplifier or a cloned output from your graphics card to feed your monitor and the capture device separately.  Some capture devices have a pass through output that lets you plug the monitor in to the capture device and capture everything going to the monitor.  It really depends on how much you want to spend and how complicated you want to get.
Once everything is captured, it's no different from typical video editing.  You go through, review your footage, identify the parts you think will fit your narrative and assemble it.
Another option with post produced videos like this is that you can do your initial playthrough with no voice over and then add the voice over after you've finished your editing.  This can allow for your voice over to better flow with the editing and how you tell the story of your gameplay.


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Premiere can't import youtube-dl MP4 file
Any idea why I can't import this MP4 file into Premiere?
It is downloaded from YouTube using youtube-dl.
Format details below:
401          mp4        3840x2160  2160p 18468k , av01.0.12M.08, 25fps, video only, 91.85MiB
The error is:

What's the right command structure to get 4K MP4 files from youtube-dl preferably with audio as well, that Premiere on a Mac can play?


text:
After effect how to make zoom effect
I want to make the text zoom when it passes the red rectangle. I have added the magnify effect, but it's not looking good. I want to make the long list of text from A to Z. And as the word passes or stops at the red rectangle it should zoom. Any suggestion as to how it works and make it good?

Hi Atikroshan, I migrated your question to a community that is a better fit for video questions.


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Concat 2 video and add watermark first video ffmpeg
I have a Video #1, it has audio. Also I have a Video #2, with audio too. I would like to concat the #1 and #2 (or play #1 first, and then #2) and then add a watermark in #1 for the rest of the video, preserving audio timestamps.
I used this command but the watermark appears on the #2 video?
ffmpeg -i Video1.mp4 -i Video2.mp4 -i watermark.png
   -filter_complex
       "[1][2]overlay=5:5[v2];
        [0][0:a][v2][1:a]concat=n=2:v=1:a=1"
   -c:v libx264 -crf 21 -c:a aac -b:a 384k -ar 48000 -movflags  faststart Out.mp4

Please don't make more work for other people by vandalizing your posts. By posting on the Stack Exchange (SE) network, you've granted a non-revocable right, under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license for SE to distribute that content. By SE policy, any vandalism will be reverted. If you want to know more about deleting a post, consider taking a look at: How does deleting work?

Concatenate can be found from this link
In case of using same codec
!echo "file 'video_1.mp4'" > list.txt
!echo "file 'video_2.mp4'" >> list.txt

Add watermark at (x=1, y=1) coordinated
!ffmpeg -y -f concat -safe 0 -i list.txt -i watermark.png -filter_complex "overlay=1:1" output.mp4

I don't quite understand your description, but i think it fits your title.


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After Effects: Expression reading specific Audio-frequency
I am trying to get a result similar to that of the audio_spectrum effect, but want to build it from scratch since the settings of the effect are quite lackluster.
Here's the plan:

create a square
create keyframes from audio amplitude
attach amplitude from audio to scaling of the square, making it grow in y-size only.

So far so good, I have all this working. But now, I want to read a different frequency depending on the x-position of my square, so that if I shift it over to one end of the audio-spectrum, it automatically adapts to the corresponding frequency. My very last resort would be to output the audio with low- and highpass already on them, but that would be highly unpractical.
If you kind people know what I am missing please let me know. Have a wonderful day :)


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Can I view sublayers of an AI file inside of After Effects?
I have an AI file consisting of a few different elements (like a windmill, a house with a solar panel, etc.). I have different items (take the house, for instance)separated by a top-level layer, with many sub-layers within the top level.  When I import this into After Effects, I end up only being able to see my top layers, cannot figure out any way to view the sublayers.  Is there any way to view these sublayers within AE?  The basic kind of animation I am trying to pull off requires having access to individual parts of each vector (IE I need to have access to just the fan blades on the windmill, not the blades, and stand together).
So far all I can see as a solution is to pull out all my sub-layers and name them all accordingly..which if that is the only solution then that works, but I would love to not have to do this if there is another and more simple way!
Thanks for any input!!


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Play is sometimes very slow and other times it's very fast in After effects. Why?
I've just installed after effects and I would like to learn it.
When I click the play button, it seems like it starts to render so the frame rate is very low ( one frame per many seconds) and the the whole interface is laggy.
After rendering few frames, I don't remember what I really did but I clicked the play button again and the video was played smoothly.
I clicked the play button again and it became laggy one more time.
I think the preview process should be different from the rendering process in After Effects (just like 3D max or any other similar software. There is a 3D view port that doesn't render the exact materials and lighting). The two processes are separated to make the play/pauses fast.
I would like to know how do people use after effects with this mixed (Rendering & Preview) processes? Of course, I know that there is a method to get around it and I'm missing it. I would appreciate it if you give it to me.


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FCPX Caption Editor shows black text on black background
I successfully imported an iTT caption file, and the captions show up fine as white on a black background. The problem is that when I try to edit it in the caption editor, the text is black-on-black, i.e. not visible.

When I drag to select text, the selected text is white-on-purple, so the text is definitely there, just black-on-black.

Obviously this makes it difficult-to-impossible to edit my captions, which need editing. The same problem happens in the Inspector.
All the images I see on line, like this one from Larry Jordan, show white text on a black background.

(source: larryjordan.com)
Any help appreciated!
EDIT: resetting the preferences didn't solve the problem.

This seems to have been caused by a problem in the incoming iTT file. I was able to solve it by creating a new SRT caption role, selecting all the captions, moving them to the SRT role,  and then moving them back. Alternately, it looks like you can change the caption color  to something other than white, and then change it back to white. More at https://discussions.apple.com/thread/250624181?answerId=251201017022&page=1.


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Error with After effect Pro_FX_Presets_Particular plugin
Does anybody know about the Pro_FX_Presets_Particular plugin? Why am I getting this error? I tried with png and jpg files. I have trapcode 15 installed. Any suggestions?

more error images

you will need to provide more information. What is it you're trying to do? Did it ever work before? What have you tried? Which versions are you using?

@FlorianClaaßen with the reference video with the addon i followed all the steps. I tried with png and jpeg logo did not work with me. Im using 2018 AE. I have upload all the image that getting error with png and jpeg. I tried to convert layer to 3d yet did not get the success.


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Help Me To Translate This After Effects Expression!
wiggle(effect("Ondulación - posición")("Velocidad ondulación (ond/seg)"), effect("Ondulación - posición")("Cantidad ondulación (píxeles)"))

How to translate this expression?

Translate this:
wiggle(effect("Ondulación - posición")("Velocidad ondulación (ond/seg)"), effect("Ondulación - posición")("Cantidad ondulación (píxeles)")
My best try:
Given wiggle/effect is English
wiggle(effect("wave - position")("wave speed{velocity})(wave/seconds{seg=segundos})"),effect("{..repeated...}")("wave amount/size ({in} pixels)")
{} my comment
Where/what do you get this?

Is it the default text for the wiggle property?
wiggle(freq, amp, octaves = 1, amp_mult = .5, t = time)

So the shortened terms are

Frequency
Amplitude
Octaves
Amplitude Multiplier
Time

You can see this by:

Make a layer
Alt or Option-click on the Position control on that layer
Click on the Expression Language Menu (it's a little solid circle with a triangle inside).
Choose Property --> Wiggle


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How I can change position of the blinking cursor in the code
I have this text typing with blinking cursor, I used the effect type-on-text-preset on the text so it's typing with cursor, but I want to control this cursor, so I can scale it or change position or what ever I want....
The effect has a code as u see in the picture… so what I should do in the script, so I can control the cursor? All I want is control the cursor to change its position… Thank u all


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After Effects: Create Text inside Shape layer
Hello you beautiful people. I am trying to create a shape made out of text. I thus need the text layer to set its bounding box to the path of my animated shape, instead of a simple box. I cannot simply mask the text, as no letter should be cut off. Do you have any idea how I may achieve this? I haven't found anything online so far...

Since there's no control for the bounding box, you can't use an expression. You could script it, I think.


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How to change shutter speed on manual mode when movie setting is on?
I have Nikon d5200. And I am trying to shoot video in manual mode. Movie setting is set to ON from main menu. I can't record video until I switched to live view. And when I switched to live view, shutter speed of my camera sets to 1/50. I can increase the speed to 1/60, 1/80 and so on. But I can't slow it down to 1/40, 1/30 and so on.
Now if I set Movie settings OFF, I am able to change the shutter speed. But actually it doesn't change. I mean it shows on the screen that it is changed but in recorded video there is no change.
Is this the bug of Nikon d5200? Or am I missing some settings? Can it be resolved with some settings, tricks, or firmware update.

I can't even change aperture. :(

There is a video stackexchange forum. You should post your question there.

Even if shooting video at 30fps the camera probably won't allow a "shutter" speed longer than about 1/50 second. This is because with only one sensor each frame has to be recorded and read out before the next frame can be recorded. If each frame is recorded for, say 1/5 second, then you would need multiple sensors and lenses to start a new frame 30 times per second.

@PhilipKendall That is ambiguous. The exposure time can be no longer than the frame time, but there's no a priori reason a camera can't take 1/2000 images at a 30 fps rate.  I'm hoping :-) you meant "no longer" when you wrote "less than"  .

@PhilipKendall well, as a (not-quite-ex)physicist, I fully commiserate with you.

If your shutter speed would be slower than 1/50, you wouldn't be able to make a movie.
A movie is a sequence of (typically) 24 or 30 pictures ('frames') per second; so to be able to make 30 pictures, each picture can only take 1/30 of a second. Considering that the camera needs to do some processing and refreshing of the receptors, 1/50 is just enough time to make those 30 shots in second.
You can check if your camera has a time-lapse setting, which means you take less than 30 frames per second, then you might be able to set a slower shutter speed. However, the result might be unattractive because any moving objects would be smeared.


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Does oval-shaped bokeh indicates that the aspect ratio of the image was modified?
In Mission Impossible III, I notice very often that bokeh is not circular, but has a shape of an oval. For example, here are two images where such bokeh is noticeable:

Does it necessarily mean that he was filmed using chroma key and the background was filmed separately and then resized using a different aspect ratio, or this is specific to the lens (maybe anamorphic lenses)? Is this made on purpose, or is just a side effect?

Relevant: http://photo.stackexchange.com/q/31004/9161

It's the effect of using an anamorphic lens which squashes the image horizontally to fit a wide-screen image on conventional 35mm film. The image is then un-squashed by a similar lens on the projector when the film is screened (or by computer after the film is scanned in a digital post production environment).
Bokeh appears elliptical because the front of the lens barrel which is circular, appears as an ellipse when viewed through the back of the lens. A regular lens with an elliptical opening at the front would generate exactly the same effect.
The film's director, J.J. Abrams is well known for using anamorphic lenses for the effects they generate, which also includes unique lens flare that manifests itself as strong horizontal blue lines.

Ok, this was my first thought and from doing more research, I agree it is correct, but I still don't understand how it works optically.  If the image is a circle getting compressed on to the film, it should be a circle when uncompressed, if it was a circle after compression, it should end up elongated in the horizontal.  What am I missing that makes it so it elongates vertically, even after uncompressing the image.  Is it just that something about the optics compresses the bokeh more than the in-focus image?

I tried to figure out your question myself, but I can only assume, that the stretching effect of the anamorphic lens on the bokeh is stronger than the "decompression". Film Riot did an episode on anamorphic shooting and it is quite insightful. Hopefully someone can explain, why the bokeh is stretched, because that is an interesting question.

@AJHenderson The out of focus highlights are subject to two effects, they get clipped to an oval by the front of the lens barrel, which looks oval shaped when looking through the anamorphic adapter, this oval then gets squashed by the effect of the anamorphic element in the adapter. The un-squashing of the image removes the latter effect, but not the cropping, hence they appear as ovals in the final image. The cropping affect is not visible in the in focus area as each individual oval is smaller than a pixel.

@J0hj0h see my response to AJ Henderson, above.

This is likely the result of using an anamorphic lens: http://www.red.com/learn/red-101/anamorphic-lenses
From the page:
Standard Bokeh

Anamorphic Bokeh


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How should I go about making 80's style graphics?
I want to make a title screen thing that looks like this:

See how it's all anti-aliased and bloomy, and the font is sort of computery?
Also, I want to make it slightly waver here and there.
I can use After Effects, Premiere, and Sony Vegas
Thanks!

Why, pray tell, would you want to?  What you are using it for may also make a difference in the best approach to use.

@AJHenderson I'm making a parody of 80's public access news shows. It's supposed to be kinda like Check it Out with Dr. Steve Brule on Adult Swim.

There are a few things you can do to get this look, first, use an artificially low resolution.  A lot of early graphics generators were done on things like the Amiga Video Toaster at 320 by 240 resolution.
Additionally, you can get the background look by making a normal gradient in Photoshop and then reducing the color depth substantially.  You can either reduce to 8 bit color or simply use a GIF with dithering turned on and lower the number of colors until you get the desired result.
Use classic pixel fonts for the lettering.  There are literally hundreds of possibilities out there to choose from, so you best bet is to look through something like Google fonts until you see something you like.
Finally, use interlaced video and run a couple interlaced to non-interlaced and back conversions to add the scan line related issues typical of old footage.  If you have an old VCR, try recording the video through a couple generations of VCR recording too and it will give it some nice analog degradation to really maximize the feel.


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Small Kitchen studio setup
I have a small apartment kitchen that I'd like to be able to convert (at will) into a small studio.  The idea is to capture myself cooking.  I'd like your thoughts on the type of cameras to purchase, unique mounting options and lighting.
Ideally I'd like to be able to take all video sources and bring them into my computer (Mac) and edit via Final Cut.
Space is at a premium and with that, what would be my best option for digital cameras for the following purposes:

Overhead shot of stove
Active camera I can look at to speak and give direction
Overhead shot of cutting board

Secondly are Mounts. I'd need something that could 1) support the camera in question 2) be long and flexible so I can position a camera above the stove
Do I have to be concerned with heat/steam interfering?  Any tips on thwarting such problems?
Lastly, lighting.  I have no clue, I guess I'm looking for affordable and not too bulky.

Yes, steam will be a problem, but I'm not sure what would work best to get around it other than a powerful fan to suck the steam away without going past the lens.

Bogen magic arms are great for holding small cameras and lights.  Not sure what your budget is, but a mixture of black magic pocket cinema cams and go pros would probably get you pretty far.

Yeah, I was going to recommend Go pros for the top shots too. Now, an idea: if you mount a computer fan (prob a 80mm one) 90 degrees off the camera itself and blowing across it, wouldn't it avoid any problems the steam will cause otherwise? I would recommend a lav too, since you are going to be moving around and eventually be talking against your main camera.

Also the idea of the bogen arms is good but also consider a gooseneck if more flexibility (and cost) is needed.

Got a lav already thanks!  I'll post an answer with my setup once it's done!

Any suggestions on which Go pro version?

In regards to using a fan to suck the steam away, you'll be introducing a ton of noise into your LAV microphone so what I might suggest is for overheard shots of the stove and cutting board, do post-recording narrative style for clean audio. For main camera stuff, turn off the fan and move the camera to a safe location. Part of what separates good and bad videos is how cleanly produced the audio is.

I will answer this in a few parts
Cameras:
I assume you are looking for some kind of a web release for what ever media you are recording and I assume you want to go high def. For this most if not all of the current DSLR's from the big makers (cannon, nikon, etc) will shoot in both 720 and 1080 (i and p depend on the camera but for what you are looking to do I would say either will suffice). When it comes to video my only requirement is that the camera has an external mic input (I know the Nikon D series has them). The on board mics on DSLR's are not that great and an external one is a must. This would be your main camera.
Go Pros are GREAT and come with a wide variety of mounting options. They are also in waterproof cases (I have used mine in the pool a few times with good success) so I would think they could stand up to some puffs of steam although continuous steam will be an issue for any camera.
You can also troll ebay or tag sales etc. for used DSLR's for your overhead shots. You can usually find them cheap and be less worried about them breaking form steam/heat
Mounting:
Good tripods area easy to find. In this case I would look for something hefty but on the smaller side. I have a small Slik 504 that is small but really steady and has a smooth head. I also have a MeFoto for when Im on the road. These are much smaller than the Slik's but REALLY well made (all aluminum) and will not have a problem holding your DSLR.
Lights:
Theater/Video lights can be pricy as can their mounting hardware. For this I will offer a simple home brew hack. Go to home depot and pick up the double halogen with stand work light. They are constantly on sale and fit the bill really well. they are bright, cheap, and come mounted to a stand. They usually are capable of pivoting in all directions as well.
Steam solution:
I dont know much about this issue but one possibility is to mount a mirror over the stove and shoot the mirror. This puts the camera out of the line of steam and out of harms way. You can also get one of those shower mirrors that does not fog up in high steam environments.
Hope This Helps...

FWIW, I've used the work lights for a production or two and they are very useful and very cheap!


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How to add Ogg Skeleton 4 to an Ogg Theora file with oggz?
The man page for oggz reads:
[Oggz] can read and write Ogg Skeleton logical bitstreams.

I have attempted the following:
oggz-merge -o test-out.ogv test-in.theo.ogv
oggz-sort -o test-out.ogv test-in.theo.ogv

Both of them write a new Ogg video file with all the streams intact, but I do not see a Skeleton track being added. I have checked man pages, and cannot find anything akin to addskel of hogg.

I have now also tried ripping the tracks (I have 3) with:
oggz-rip -o test-out.ogv -i 0 -i 1 -i 2 test-in.theo.ogv

This has not created a skeleton track either.