text:
How to create MPEG-DASH variants at resolutions where one dimension is not a whole number in pixels?
I've created a bunch of variants and a DASH manifest for Sintel, which more or less works, but does not pass validation. The issue is when I want to scale a video to a specific width, but the height that maintains the aspect ratio is not a whole number - or vice versa. For example, I've tried 640:-1, 640: -2, and 640:290 as the value of "-vf scale=", but either ffmpeg rejects it, or validation fails. How can I transcode to these resolutions?
Error log from conformance site:
### error: moov-1:trak-1:tkhd-1
### Width in TrackHeaderBox is not matching with out of box width information
WARNING: Sample description width 2560 not the same as track width 2558.532104
Warning: Unknown atom found "pasp": video sample descriptions would not normally contain this
WARNING: unknown mvex atom 'trep'
WARNING: unknown/unexpected atom 'meta'

My ffmpeg and MP4Box commands (OSX):
OUTDIR="sintel-transcoded"
#VIDOPTS24="-an -c:v libx264 -r 24 -tune animation -force_key_frames expr:gte(t,n_forced*3)"
VIDOPTS24="-an -c:v libx264 -tune animation -x264opts keyint=72:min-keyint=72:no-scenecut -vsync passthrough"

mkdir -p $OUTDIR

ffmpeg -i $SOURCEDIR/sintel_4k.mov \
$VIDOPTS24 -vf scale=320:146 -profile:v baseline -level 3.0 -crf 31 -maxrate 170k -bufsize 170k $OUTDIR/sintel_320.mp4 \
$VIDOPTS24 -vf scale=480:-2 -profile:v baseline -level 3.0 -crf 30 -maxrate 330k -bufsize 330k $OUTDIR/sintel_480.mp4 \
$VIDOPTS24 -vf scale=640:290 -profile:v baseline -level 3.1 -crf 30 -maxrate 500k -bufsize 500k $OUTDIR/sintel_640.mp4 \
$VIDOPTS24 -vf scale=640:290 -profile:v baseline -level 3.1 -crf 25 -maxrate 1000k -bufsize 1000k $OUTDIR/sintel_640_hq.mp4 \
$VIDOPTS24 -vf scale=960:-2 -profile:v main -level 3.1 -crf 19 -maxrate 2800k -bufsize 2800k $OUTDIR/sintel_960.mp4 \
$VIDOPTS24 -vf scale=1280:582 -profile:v main -level 3.1 -crf 19 -maxrate 4000k -bufsize 4000k $OUTDIR/sintel_1280.mp4 \
$VIDOPTS24 -vf scale=1920:-2 -profile:v high -level 4.0 -crf 20 -maxrate 6800k -bufsize 6800k $OUTDIR/sintel_1920.mp4 \
$VIDOPTS24 -vf scale=2560:1162 -profile:v high -level 5.0 -crf 19 -maxrate 12000k -bufsize 12000k $OUTDIR/sintel_2560.mp4 \
$VIDOPTS24 -profile:v high -level 5.1 -crf 20 -maxrate 20000k -bufsize 20000k $OUTDIR/sintel_3840.mp4 \
-vn -c:a aac -b:a 64k $OUTDIR/sintel_audio_64k.mp4 \
-vn -c:a aac -b:a 96k $OUTDIR/sintel_audio_96k.mp4 \
-vn -c:a aac -b:a 128k $OUTDIR/sintel_audio_128k.mp4

cd $OUTDIR

MP4Box -dash-strict 3000 -rap -frag-rap -profile dashavc264:live -bs-switching no -out Manifest.mpd \
sintel_3840.mp4:bandwidth=20000000 \
sintel_2560.mp4:bandwidth=12000000 \
sintel_1920.mp4:bandwidth=6800000 \
sintel_1280.mp4:bandwidth=4000000 \
sintel_960.mp4:bandwidth=2800000 \
sintel_640_hq.mp4:bandwidth=1000000 \
sintel_640.mp4:bandwidth=500000 \
sintel_480.mp4:bandwidth=330000 \
sintel_320.mp4:bandwidth=170000 \
sintel_audio_128k.mp4 \
sintel_audio_96k.mp4 \
sintel_audio_64k.mp4

mkdir dist
mv *dash* Manifest.mpd dist

Using "-vf scale=1920:-1" (auto 'y') or "-vf scale=1920:-8" (evenly divisible by 8) ought to work. Are you using the newest ffmpeg?  -- There are online Stream Validators like: https://viblast.com/stream-validator/ . Try a different resizer within ffmpeg.

The scale filter resets the sample aspect ratio to match the original display aspect ratio. You should add setsar=1 after each scale. In any case, videos don't contain pixel count with fractional components, and FFmpeg won't output those.
I'm not sure about DASH but I suppose the validator expects each variant to have the same exact aspect ratio. In your command list, I can see 640x290 and 1280x582, which are not the same aspect. If DASH needs all to be same, the latter should be 1280x580


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How can I Film Inconspicuously with a DSLR?
I want to shoot infield videos in a mall, with a DSLR camera, without anyone noticing.
I'm interested in knowing how it's done and what equipment I'll need eg. type of microphone etc.
Here's a link that illustrates what I'm referring to: YouTube video

Don't do that. It's creepy, unethical, and (depending on where you live) illegal to film people without consent (or at least implied consent, meaning they can see you filming and don't actively tell you to stop/not to use their own image/recordings).

It's worth adding that most of these kinds of videos are either staged or they have to ask for permission afterwords and destroy the footage otherwise.  Many places don't let you use someone's likeness for commercial purposes without permission, if they allow using someone's likeness without permission at all.

You guys are not answering my question.

@MoritzLost and surveillance cameras aren't creepy? In the USA, it is legal to photograph or videotape anything and anyone on any public property. Also, see: http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

IANAL, but I'm pretty sure public spaces are fair game as long as people don't have the reasonable expectation of privacy.  Weather or not shopping malls constitute "public space", I can't really say, because they're usually owned by private companies.  edit  Just read above comment.  Good resource.

Any wireless microphone kit would work. Of course the more you spend the more reliable kit you will get. Wireless mic kits under US$500 are typically cheap, fiddly, unreliable, disposable plastic toys.
There are "right angle spy lens" adapters that screw on to the front of the lens and allow you to shoot to the side. So it is not obvious that you are shooting them.  They are quite inexpensive and available at the usual larger online shops.

That said, in most of the civilized world, it is illegal to use the recognizable likeness of anyone without their written consent.  And additionally, it is typically against the rules to shoot on private property (like a shopping mall) without written authority of the management. You are quite likely to get expelled or even arrested for trespassing if you try this in any kind of a mall with half-decent security forces.

The legal aspect you refer to isn't totally accurate. Typically using someone's likeness is only illegal when you use their likeness for commercial gain (right to publicity), or for defamation.

If you are trying to get someone to be in your film without their consent, I would advise you to just go and talk to them (but I don't think that's what you're asking).
If you're trying to be inconspicuous while filming to get a street journalism or anthropological type of footage, then I would recommend using a small camera with interchangeable lenses, such as a Canon EOS-M or Pentax-Q, and use a lens with autofocus.
Turn off the AF light or you might get spotted. Shoot from the hip, because most people will look at your eyes. Wait for people to be looking at something else. Pretend to be doing something else. For the sound, you could be wearing the microphones on you under your clothes or somewhere hidden. You could also have the camera around your neck/shoulder rolling and pretend it's not, like let it dangle as you walk and then stop somewhere pretend to look at a book or a map and fine tune the focus and framing using an app on your phone that recopies the camera's screen.
One trick that really works is having the camera on a tripod and having a couple of friends with you, and standing around the camera and chatting while the camera is recording. If someone comes to ask you if it's rolling, you can say no, you're waiting someone to start. In this case you could be using larger cameras and sound recording devices, but it's a little harder to set up and you can't really do it twice in the same place.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Set file size limit for video on Canon 5D mark iii
Contrary to what it seems like everyone else is trying to do with their DSLR's, I was wondering if anyone knew how to limit file size for a single recorded file to 2GB instead of the usual rate of 4GB. Due to streaming requirements, I need my recorded files to not exceed 2GB and it's way, way more work to split the files manually. Is anyone aware of a way of accomplishing this on the camera (Canon 5D mark iii) itself?

The 4 gig limitation is there cause most memory cards are formatted with FAT32 which can't handle files larger than 4 gig.
Refer to Manual page 234, http://gdlp01.c-wss.com/gds/8/0300007348/05/eos5d-mk3-im7-en.pdf
The only way to limit the file size, is to limit the recording time.
You can always do the math and find out how many minutes to record to hit 2 gig.
EDIT: the link no longer works.  Here is a screenshot of the page -

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

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


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Best encoding to fit 10hours of 1080p in 30gb?
I will be running a 10hour loop on a 1080p screen with only 30gb of storage.
The loop will be created from a variety of 1080p .mp4s that will need to be compressed. (for example, one video is 12mins long and is 1.5gb. Not ideal.) Quality is not paramount.
What is the most effective encoding to fit 10hours of 1080p into 30gb? The output needs to be .mp4.
I will be using a Mac and have Final Cut Pro, Handbrake and Compressor.
Thanks!

You can calculate the maximum total bit rate that would fill the storage:

30GB ≈ 30,720 MB ≈ 245,760 Mb
10 hours = 600 minutes = 36,000 seconds
245,760 / 36,000 ≈ 6.83 Mb/s

You need to encode to a video bit rate less than that maximum to account for the audio and any overhead. Plus, you probably want to leave some space free on the storage. I'd say that 5 Mb/s is probably a safe bet. From there, you should try out different codecs and settings to see what gives you the quality you want at that bit rate.

Do you have any info on which codecs and how to choose the settings? I'm not adept at video encoding—I am not sure where to begin with testing different codec/settings @5Mbps.

H.264 should be a good starting point. I don't have any good suggestions for settings, since my background is on the broadcast side of things and the settings are vastly different for high bit rate than low bit rate. Depending on what kind of quality you are looking for, the default settings may be good enough. If it isn't, the best advice I can give is to try out changing one setting at a time on a short test clip.


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How are idents like these made?
Here is a YouTube link to a Channel 9 ident from Australia featuring characters from "The Big Bang Theory":

I was watching it and it made me think about a few things:

Do the Nine Network have to get permission from CBS/Warner Bros. for the use of "The Big Bang Theory" in their ident?
Described simply, how do video editors go about featuring the characters so smoothly in a pre-made ident? Obviously it can't have been done on a greenscreen since the characters are all the way over in the US, so how could this be done using standard footage from the show?

it can't have been done on a greenscreen since the characters are all the way over in the US --> I hear the US has a few studios. Seriously, looks like a sop from the producers to a regional distributor. I don't watch the show, but those movements don't look like they're part of the show.

Yes, they need permission. However, the permission to use the characters in image and other promotional material is likely included in the international distribution or syndication agreement.
It almost definitely was done using a chroma key or other intentional compositing technique, as opposed to trying to mask the movements out of footage from the show. Networks, syndicators, and international distributors usually supply their affiliates with promotional materials. Often, these promotional materials include elements that can be built up into a complete promo that fits the affiliate's branding. The distributor will provide suggestions or instructions on just how a particular element should be used, but it is up to the affiliate to put in their own look.


text:
Audio gain for subclip in Premiere Pro
I trimmed my sequence to short part. Now I want to normalize audio on it in timeline. However, since it is still part of bigger clip, I can't do Right Click => Audio Gain => Normalize Max Peak To:... Because there are louder sounds in another parts of video.
So, are there is any solution or workaround to Normalize Max Peak of part of clip?

I'm not sure why you would want to use normalize at all. You should use audio tracks and place the audio you need to adjust on it's own track.
Then, using the audio mixer, apply dynamics to the audio tracks. You can then use the compressor within the dynamics filter, which you can use on all your tracks, to get your dynamic range all in line.
On the clip that needs to be (from what it sounds) adjusted up, in the dynamics filter for that track/clip, you can from there manually adjust the gain up- it's a pot/knob center column bottom. Use a ratio of about 2:1 to 4:1.
Last, click the checkbox on the bottom right of the dynamics filter for each track to enable the limiter. The limiter; a good setting is -2 db.
This will balance out your audio so the soft sounds are adjusted up and can be heard, and the loud sections are not adjusted up; resulting in overmodulation. Its a much better way to smooth out your audio, decrease the dynamic range, and end up with audio that sounds far more balance.
Once you learn how to effectively use the dynamics filter on tracks, I think you will find you will never, ever, use the Normalize filter again.

Normalize is not a filter per se.  It is simply an amount of gain to ensure that the audio peaks hit full audio scale (for 16-bit or 24-bit audio).

Agreed, but the OP said he wanted to normalize only a "part" of a clip. Meaning, he doesnt really want to normalize. It sounds like theres a section that needs to be boosted, and a better way to do that is with a compressor. If you overall at the end want your peaks to touch zero, normalize is fine. But if you're trying to get your audio leveled out, dynamics is the route to go.

It's probably more advanced than the OP is looking for, but it may be worth mentioning loudness metering as opposed to just level metering.


text:
How do I drag multiple media clips and vertically stack them onto a premiere pro timeline?
I want to be able to grab multiple media clips from my project window all at once, then drag and drop them to a timeline stacked on top of each other as opposed to side by side. Each track would take its own track in the timeline.
Sort of like keyframe assisting in after effects.
Is there a way for this to be done, maybe by holding down a particular keyboard command?

I dont believe there is any native built in way to do this. The easiest way would likely to build a simple keyboard mouse macro which can be run to repeat the action of selecting the next clip down, and adding to a new track at the start of the sequence.

Thanks for the reply! That's a shame, it would be nice as a native feature rather than creating macros though - to me that's too much hassle for such a simple task.

Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2015 has a thing called a Multi-Camera Source Sequence.  This is kind of a combination of both a multicam clip and a sequence.  I believe it is enough of a sequence that it can behave like a sequence, meaning that if you were to composite the layers together instead of switching between them, you'd get the expected result.  Such sequences can be created by selecting a number of Project items, as you wish to do.  When you create such a sequence, choose "In" points to sync everything, which means everything starts with each clip's first frame.  For more about this new feature, read the relevant section of the Adobe manual.


text:
How does green screening work with green objects?
A question that has been on my mind for so long is: How exactly does green screening work with an object to vanish?
Short example: Normal green screens as a background are replaced with an image the viewer sees, like a news show where they show the weather. The weather-man stands infront of the greenscreen and presents the weather - while the greenscreen is replaced with actual information, kinda simple.
But how does it work when a real scene is filmed and only an object should be replaced with the actual background staying intact?
I saw a still-image from a Harry Potter film where Hermione got a book in her hand which is being picked up by a green hand, so the hand could be removed later so the book looks like it is floating.
How does the computer 'know' the background behind the hand?
Its kinda hard to explain and I cant draw or show you what I mean since i'm posting via phone.
Imagine the camera shot as a 2D Image - Hermione with the book in her hand and the green hand receiving and grabbing the book. As you film this, the hand is opaquing the background it is infront from. Since the hand is removed later, the background will be shown since there is no more hand to see (removed because of the effect for the movie)
How is it possible to see the background? Is the scene once filmed without the hand and then again with the Hand to forge two images together in the end?
I hope I explained it right so you can help me with that, it's really interesting and bugging me at the same time.

For static shots they shoot what's called a background plate: the same scene shot from the same angle but without the foreground action. Then where the green is taken out the empty background shows through.
If the camera is moving this presents a problem. This can be solved by using motion control - basically a robot arm with the camera on it that can repeat the same camera movement with and without the foreground action. This technique is being used less and less, because today even a modest laptop running off-the-shelf software is now capable of tracking moving cameras in 3D. So that the computer works out where the camera was in 3D space, then the background–which can be real or CGI–can be composited with the camera footage.


text:
Physics and Chemistry Animations in After Effects
Are there any plugins/physics simulation engines other than Newton that will be useful for creating Physics and Chemistry content in After Effects??
For example, if I have a requirement to create the motion of electrons in an atom, how do I go about it?

Isn't the motion of electrons best described as a probability cloud? Gaussian Blur would be the effect I'd be using for that (comes with AE).

There are a number of physics engines and related scripts available in the Physics Simulation category at AEScripts.
However, without a more specific question about what kind of animation you're looking for (that is to say, I don't know how the electrons in an atom are supposed to move), it's hard to point you to a specific answer.


text:
Trading off resolution vs quality
I have some 720p 30FPS H.264 video that I want to downsample for online backup. I want to get to somewhere around 10% to 20% of the existing size, which will evidently require a large sacrifice in quality. I will use H.265 as the destination format.
Now I have two main knobs I can turn to achieve this: I can lower the resolution, or I can lower the quality factor for the encoder. Of course, I can also combine both approaches.
How should I approach this to preserve as much quality as possible? It's pretty clear that turning the quality way down while keeping the resolution at 720 results in some pretty terrible video, but I'm not sure that I should draw the conclusion that I should mostly use resolution decreases to achieve the size reduction.

The choices will partly depend on how compressed the source is to begin with. Paste the Mediainfo readout for one of your source files. Use View -> Text mode.

And what about reducing the rate down to 15 fps?

Do you have audio as well?

@Necrodeathify - yes there is a mono audio stream as well.

10% of the original quality is not a backup, it is more like a proxy.

Decreasing the size a little won't help much, decreasing it a bit more induces a fair bit of aliasing (unless it smooths it also) butchering the quality without much gained.
Cutting the size 50% will reduce errors and double the jaggyness and be easily enough to save a lot of space, question is: Do you want 360P Video? You really wouldn't want any smaller.
So while that is one way to save space for Archiving I would recommend using 'Q' at 40 to test one file at 720P (output) and see if you can tolerate the quality.
H.265 has superior output quality as well as an approx. 50% reduction. Decreasing the resolution in half means an approx. 25% reduction alone, along with approx. 50% from H.265 your going to be under 15% WITH the same quality.
So decreasing the resolution from 720P will be either too drastic or induce greater errors in the output (it will begin to look like mush). Best to try using 'Q' alone as see where between 30 and 40 you can stand.
Here's an example from one particular Video YMMV.

Note that going from 24 to 40 gets you down to 10% (in that one example).

In addition to suggestions above, you could also do a pulldown from 30fps to 24 fps.
This would likely not be noticeable to the average viewer; as 24p is the standard for film and narrative tv production.
You thus decrease the amount of discrete frames by a factor of 1/5 (20%).

I think just turning it in H265 will reduce it of the 10% you need. To do it well you can bring it bac to uncompeessed yuv format using ffmep then encode the yuv in HEVC using HM référence software.

Why use the reference encoder? It's not well-tuned.

To be clear I mean I want the file to be 10% to 20% of the original size, hence a reduction of 90% to 80%. I think HEVC is only going to cut my file size in half at best?


text:
70D mov import to DaVinci Resolve 12 appear darker
I import mov files from Canon 70D to Davinci Resolve 12 and it appears darker on the preview than if I run the video on VLC video player.
I render the video and the output is the same as on the preview (darker than VLC).
I also shoot jpg for reference and look the same as the video on VLC.
I am using nvideo video card on windows 10.
What should I do to make it consistent?

Can you post screenshots for reference?


text:
Subtitle format guide
I was asked to subtitle a student movie. I don't care much about which subtitle format to use - I'd probably use vim for typing them, and still it is interesting which formats are most common and what are the benefits for using them.

Do you intend to burn the subtitles onto the video or provide them in a sidecar stream or file?

What audio and subtitle language? What country will the film be shown in? And just to be certain, you are not doing closed captioning, correct?

@Mulvya provide them separately for maximum flexibility, but if format depends on that usage, I would be interested to know that.

@MichaelLiebman thanks for the pointer. Subtitles are needed for several languages - Belarussian (native), English. And it would be really awesome to provide subtitles for hearing impaired audience.

SBS - Australia's Special Broadcasting Service has an extensive and international reputation for quality subtitles. from http://www.sbs.com.au/aboutus/faqs/index/id/120/h/Subtitles

SBS subtitles the majority of its non-English language programs in-house. The distinctive colour, font and size of subtitles were adopted after extensive research. For the majority of our programs, which are broadcast in colour it was found that yellow letters with thin black borders provide the maximum degree of contrast. For black and white material we use white subtitles with thin black borders.

Madman is an Australian distributor (originally of anime) their subs match SBS:

Most of the time Madman uses Arial, size 36. The yellow is straight-up no frills yellow: R=255, G=255, B=0.

A similar match is these settings (obviously size depends on your video aspect ratio).

Font: Verdana, Regular
Size: 22
Primary Color: Yellow
Outline Width: 1
Shadow Depth: 1
Border Style: Outline + Shadow


text:
How can I film my two hands?
In filming a video diary, I am often trying fruitlessly to put my two hands in the frame (as I stand, walk, etc) to show in the video when I am doing certain things with my hands.
It is difficult to achieve, as I have tried with iPhone and with DSLR/mirrorless cameras as well as with camcorders, and holding the device, as well as seeing the screen to frame and focussing were all very difficult.
Has anyone achieved this? I would love an answer that explains solutions on how to do this with an iPhone as well as with a DSLR/mirrorless camera. A tripod cannot be an answer, unless if it fits on my head or shoulders.

Technically (although this would be a very heavy and bulky solution) you could use a tripod: if you make all the legs as short as possible and then strap them around your head, you could make a first-person view—but what a drag lol

Go Pro offers both headbands and helmet mounts for their cameras.  Once you learn how to position and aim your head-mounted camera based on what you want it to see, you then only need a mechanism to start/stop the camera.  WiFi support and an appropriate app can be helpful.

Thank you very much for this answer. However, I am still wondering if this can be done with iPhone or SLR

you could build an overhead rig and use an external monitor to view what is being see on the screen, there are many videos on sites like YouTube to see how these are built and work

If you don't really need to see the video as you're shooting it, you could simply strap your phone to your chin (if you need it to move like your field of vision) or you could also strap it in the space where the neck and chest meet, with a slight tilt (if all you need to film is your hands). This is a very DIY solution and can be adjusted as you please if you have legos or spare plastic or cardboard lying around.
If you don't mind buying something, there are straps specifically designed for first-person video. Check out https://www.amazon.com/Head-Mounted-First-Person-Shooting-Compatible-Smartphones/dp/B08L6MTKMQ or other similar products.


text:
Adding a pause to audio track in Adobe Premier
I'm working on my first video, which is about seven minutes long. One thing I need to fix is several breaks between paragraphs in the audio file which are too short.
For example, imagine a paragraph or sequence ending with the words, "we'll take a closer look at the polar bear."
There's a natural pause of two seconds before the next paragraph begins...
"This is the world of the polar bear."
How can I increase that two second pause to five seconds?

You can split audio tracks (and video tracks) by selecting them and pressing Ctrl + K. If your audio and video tracks are linked, holding "Alt" and selecting just the audio track will select only the audio track (and not the linked video track). After you have split the audio track between paragraphs, you can move the latter audio track out 3 seconds (or however long you want the pause) by dragging it along the timeline.
If you had any sort of "natural sound" in the audio track (static, hum from an air conditioner, etc.) it will be obvious that there is a 3-second break in-between the two audio segments. To fix this, use that "natural pause" of 2 seconds you mentioned, cut it to make it its own segment, and copy/paste it several times to fill the audio void, shrinking the last segment as necessary to make it fit perfectly.
Hope this helps!


text:
How to create circle gradient in Final Cut Pro?
I'm starting out with Final Cut Pro and I want to create a circular gradient to white in Final Cut Pro so that the movie looks like the image below.
I searched around and found a Graduated Mask effect. That is only a linear effect though, and it does a gradient to black (and I can't find a setting to change the color).
Does anybody know how I can do this in Final Cut Pro X? All tips are welcome!

Add a new custom generator and set the colour to white.

Add your media above. In this example, I will use a photo.
Apply the Draw Mask to your image.
Click to add 4 control points, then set the control point positions using the inspector.

Choose B-Spline as the Shape Type, then set the Feather and Falloff as appropriate.


text:
Share a cropped video as an output to the extended screen
I have Qt code where I developed a GUI to show the output from data acquisition from a camera, I would like to show the cropped output on the extended screen of size 640*480. Is there any software that can automate the procedure by selecting a rectangular cropped window that is output to the second screen .


text:
Understanding / troubleshooting After Effects crash
I have been struggling to export a project.
The project was edited in Premiere Pro CS6, color graded and stabilized in After Effects CS6 and I usually export straight from AE, but it kept crashing at the same point.
When I have problems like this, I sometimes export the audio from Premiere and uncheck the audio in AE's timeline and add the one audio file exported from Premiere. This happens sometimes, maybe because I use shots from a wide range of cameras in one timeline who have different time-rates and audio encoding settings. But this didn't help.
I also tried importing the project into Adobe Media Encoder, but Adobe Media Encoder returned an error too.

Another thing I tried was to look at the temporary files in the export folder. The AAC file always has a duration of 6:51 minutes (the whole film lasts about 11 minutes), so I inspected the shot located at 6:51 in the timeline, but it seemed normal.
How can I troubleshoot this kind of crash, and solve it to be able to export this video?

Crash log:
Process:               After Effects [1554]
Path:                  /Applications/Adobe After Effects CS6/Adobe After Effects CS6.app/Contents/MacOS/After Effects
Identifier:            com.adobe.AfterEffects
Version:               11.0.4 (11.0.4)
Code Type:             X86-64 (Native)
Parent Process:        ??? [1]
Responsible:           After Effects [1554]
User ID:               501

Date/Time:             2016-06-26 18:16:55.948 -0700
OS Version:            Mac OS X 10.11.5 (15F34)
Report Version:        11
Anonymous UUID:        BE310E80-903C-A620-D4F3-A77FA58199E9

Time Awake Since Boot: 31000 seconds

System Integrity Protection: enabled

Crashed Thread:        31

Exception Type:        EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes:       KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0xfffff5ffd7894010
Exception Note:        EXC_CORPSE_NOTIFY

    Model: iMac12,1, BootROM IM121.0047.B23, 4 processors, Intel Core i5, 2,7 GHz, 12 GB, SMC 1.71f21
    Graphics: AMD Radeon HD 6770M, AMD Radeon HD 6770M, PCIe, 512 MB
    Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x45424A3231554538424655302D444A2D4620
    Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM0, 2 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x02FE, 0x45424A3231554538424655302D444A2D4620
    Memory Module: BANK 0/DIMM1, 4 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x830B, 0x4E54344743363442384847304E532D434720
    Memory Module: BANK 1/DIMM1, 4 GB, DDR3, 1333 MHz, 0x830B, 0x4E54344743363442384847304E532D43472

It sounds like AE is encountering a point in one of your source files where there may be corrupted data, and while the file might be playable within the AE/PPro canvas, exporting isnt possible because of the way AE reads the file.
I don't see why using Media Encoder would be any different, they are built around the same engine.
I would suggest trying to replace the file you think is the issue with a proxy (same resolution) rendered using another application, perhaps VLC. Another option, would be (you mentioned 6:51 timestamp), is to split your clip in Premiere on a Sequence. Splice 10 seconds before that timestamp, and 10 seconds after. Render 2 separate files out, and drop them in.
This will leave a black hole, which you would have to fill... But that would tell you if the source file is the issue.
Lastly, clear cache, and also you could try accessing the hidden secrete menu in Preferences. On windows, hold Shift and while holding, click Edit - Preferences. There will then be a new "Secret" tab that allows flushing of memory every X frames during output, and some other options.
My guess, bad source. Have to work around it by either re-encoding the file into a format AE likes, or splitting if you can.


text:
How to overlay SRT or ASS on a video and output the pre-render captioned video?
I noticed a lot of video having pre-render captions. I remember I saw someone working in a Chinese studio that primarily does translation works and she was using a software to render the SRT or ASS file to raw videos automatically. I thought it was very convenient and wonder if anyone knows how it was done.

Adobe Premiere Pro allows you to create caption files (including SRT) and export them individually (as SRT files) or embedded with the actual video. This link gives a pretty good overview of how it's done in Premiere.


text:
How to learn all about video editing?
I have been self learning about 3D art(especially using blender) and have reached a level where I can make some use of my skills on a productive scale. (Even though blender has an integrated VSE) I though have to learn to make my small footages produced from 3D art seamless and I realized the importance of video editing. But, learning video editing comes with also technical knowledge about codecs and encoding and all the technical stuff.
I am not really a programmer, and I have been practising 3D art in a very intuitive and practical process. How do I learn about these technical sides of video editing in order to ready myself for a more strong and production scale way?
It would be very helpful if some books and resources were also included as a recommendation.

The best resources I've seen for learning how to edit are on YouTube. A lot depends on what NLE you'll be using to edit, but most editing fundamentals translate well across all NLEs (which is what I believe you're asking for anyway).
One popular YouTube channel with a ton of videos on how to edit is Film Riot. They have 700+ videos on all aspects of production, but a search for "edit" on their channel shows they have a ton to offer on that subject as well. They typically stay in Adobe Premiere Pro, but they generally strive to make their tutorials work across any editing software.
Surfaced Studio is another channel I've discovered recently with a nice playlist of some beginner-level Premiere Pro tutorials. Unlike Film Riot, Surfaced Studio seems to be pretty specific to Premiere Pro - usually, explaining how to work within the PP interface.

On the technical side, I recommend the tutorials Lynda offers.
It's not that expensive, and you get access to a lot of material.
You'll learn how to use your editor of choice and gain some insights into the art of editing, which happens to be the toughest part.
To make it easier on yourself, find a professional editor and asks her or him if you could observe them working or even if you could start assisting them. Otherwise, you'll end up knowing the tech part (like thousands of people out there) but have no idea how to really tell a story and how editing actually works or not.
Also, watch films. Good films. Start with films that won editing awards. Start with classic films, made for cinema and not television.

I have collected the best editing books that I could find, like In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Murch, which is a brilliant breakdown of story telling and conceptual editing. To apply these ideas you need good pictures and some form of story to tell. It doesn't have to be complicated.
But honestly the best way to improve at editing is to do it. And do it and do it. The best way to do this is shoot a bunch of stuff on any camera you have access to, like a phone. Plug a handfull of shots into a timeline and try to cut a sequence, that is make the shots illustrate some action. Perhaps its a person climbing stairs or making a drink. Try to understand continuity of action.
After you have something that makes sense, try and condense the action. Fnid out what you don't really need to convey the same message. Often you don't need to see someone perform an entire action. For example a person can approach a door, they don't have to go through it as everyone understands what will happen next and walking is more dynamic to watch that pulling on a door handle.
Blender's VSE is great but not so cool for beginners.
Ideally you need to be able to load up and arrange your media (video clips) into some sort of searchable format. For the VSE I strongly suggest that you look at the Easy-Logging addon at http://easy-logging.net/
It allows you add semantic details to your media. But handling the clips is still a bit of a handful due to the way Blender splits audio and video into separate strips (you can loose sync to easily).

I know a bit of editing, I what I was really searching was the technical part of editing. Like when you try to output a video, I don't get stuff like which video codec is supported by which audio codec. I wonder if you'd know if there is any site or place where i could get the very  basic to optimum advance knowledge on this kind of stuff? Is it mentioned in the book you mentioned above?

the easy-loggin site wont open, is it a direct download link?

No, the book covers the "why" of cutting not necessarily the how. Blender is not an ideal app for outputting media as its strength is rendering individual frames. It can mix audio with video but its quite limited and may not give high quality results. The easy-logging site opens ok for me.

I also didn't find it in graphicall.


text:
How can I merge multiple solves from boujou to fusion 8
I've been trying to camera solve a specific video file in boujou but everytime I solve it, I get multiple solves. I looked up some tutorials but it seems they use footages that are smooth and high fps but mine isn't, so rather than me trying to prevent the multiple solves which can have many causes, I want to know how to join all the solves into Fusion 8. Does anyone know how I can achieve this?


text:
How can I convert a video to BPG format? BPG= Better portable graphics
I am trying to embed video into my site. And since loading time is important, I want to implement it using BPG.
The author of this post implemented it https://eek.ro/why-bpg-will-replace-gifs-and-not-only/
How can I do the same? I can find ways to convert jpeg to bpg, but when it comes to making a video in bpg format, I'm clueless.

Which BPG encoder are you using?

It looks like BPG is at quite an early stage of development.
To use it, you would need to install an encoder, to convert your video to the BPG format.  At the moment, all of these encoders are command-line only.  You can find links to the encoders on the official site.
Note that the format doesn't include audio currently, so it may only be useful in some circumstances.
You might be better using a more conventional video format (h264, mp4, webm), but concentrating on encoding it with the most appropriate bandwidth and quality settings for your needs.


text:
Caught between gamma and brightness
I have a video source that, to my surprise, has a lot more detail than I could at first see. Turning down gamma I could see details in a bright part, turning up gamma I could see details in a darker part. I did experiment with brightness for obvious reasons, as well as with saturation, but I seem to be stuck at 50% of the details. Is there really such a predicament in video reproduction that you have to sacrifice one for the other, is my monitor involved (pre-retina Macbook), or have I simply not found the sweetspot of all those image tweaks?

Usually when I see this happen, if I look at the histogram of my clip, it's "U" shaped. There's a lot of pixels near black and a lot near white and not much in-between. This usually happens when shooting mid-day on a very bright day, though there are other possibilities. I concur with @AJHenderson - use Curves if it's available.

Looks like you are ready to enter the world of Lift-Gamma-Gain!  These are the three controls that most colorists use to tame light and the sensors that record it.  AJ Henderson is putting you on the right path, with suggestions that there's more to image control than just gamma, levels, curves, etc., but really you will find a lot more resources by researching the subject of Lift, Gamma, Gain.  (It's so fundamental that the bboard for professional colorists is liftgammagain.com)
Here's a graph that helps show how these three controls interact:

Once you are good with that, you might like to play with lift gamma and gain in log space, which are called shadow, midtone, and highlight:

There are many who will argue long and hard about which is best, most useful, most true, etc.  I have found LGG is better for creatively manipulating the look of an image, whereas SMH is better for being more surgical.  Explore and report back!

You want to adjust a mix of gamma, brightness and contrast, or if available, simply use curves.  Gamma impacts the way in which the output intensity corresponds to input intensity, but if you don't also adjust other settings, you will still end up clipping key details outside of either the signal range of your signal or the display range of your display.
Using curves gives the most flexibility to adjust the amount of contrast in each portion of the range of signal intensity so that you can see everything clearly, however it is also possible you are simply near the effective limit of the range your display can produce depending on where the information you need contrast for is.
I suggest starting by trying to make sure your contrast or black point (on curves), is set such that you can tell the difference in shadow detail and then trying to adjust the brightness or white point (in curves) to get it so you can just tell difference in light detail and then try adjusting gamma to give you the needed spread.


text:
Is it possible to create an endless loop using concat?
Basically I have 4 movies I would like to stream in a continuous loop (ie: like a 24/7 tv channel).
Here is the ./test.txt list of videos:
file 'video1.mp4'
file 'video2.mp4'
file 'videoN.mp4'

Here is the ffmpeg command:
ffmpeg -re -stream_loop -1 -f concat -safe 0 -i ./test.txt -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -c copy ./test.m3u8

It starts to play the stream and I think it even loops, as the video files are 10 second clips...but then I get an error "Illegal Seek".
Here is the output:
$ ffmpeg -re -stream_loop -1 -f concat -safe 0 -i ./test.txt -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -c copy ./test.m3u8
ffmpeg version 3.1.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
  built with Apple LLVM version 7.3.0 (clang-703.0.31)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/3.1.1 --enable-shared --enable-pthreads --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-hardcoded-tables --enable-avresample --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags= --enable-opencl --enable-libx264 --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libxvid --disable-lzma --enable-vda
  libavutil      55. 28.100 / 55. 28.100
  libavcodec     57. 48.101 / 57. 48.101
  libavformat    57. 41.100 / 57. 41.100
  libavdevice    57.  0.101 / 57.  0.101
  libavfilter     6. 47.100 /  6. 47.100
  libavresample   3.  0.  0 /  3.  0.  0
  libswscale      4.  1.100 /  4.  1.100
  libswresample   2.  1.100 /  2.  1.100
  libpostproc    54.  0.100 / 54.  0.100
[matroska,webm @ 0x7f9791809c00] Auto-inserting h264_mp4toannexb bitstream filter
Input #0, concat, from './test.txt':
  Duration: N/A, start: 0.000000, bitrate: N/A
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (High), yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 1k tbn, 47.95 tbc
    Metadata:
      HANDLER_NAME    : VideoHandler
      DURATION        : 00:00:10.046000000
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: opus, 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp
    Metadata:
      DURATION        : 00:00:10.001000000
[hls @ 0x7f979105a600] Using AVStream.codec to pass codec parameters to muxers is deprecated, use AVStream.codecpar instead.
    Last message repeated 1 times
Output #0, hls, to './test.m3u8':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf57.41.100
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264, yuv420p(tv, bt709), 1920x1080 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 23.98 fps, 23.98 tbr, 90k tbn, 47.95 tbc
    Metadata:
      HANDLER_NAME    : VideoHandler
      DURATION        : 00:00:10.046000000
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: opus, 48000 Hz, stereo
    Metadata:
      DURATION        : 00:00:10.001000000
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
  Stream #0:1 -> #0:1 (copy)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
Error while filtering: Illegal seek time=00:00:09.60 bitrate=N/A speed=   1x
frame=  220 fps= 22 q=-1.0 Lsize=N/A time=00:00:09.98 bitrate=N/A speed=0.998x
video:4821kB audio:152kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: unknown

I'm unclear what I'm doing wrong. I tried with just one file entry in test.txt list of movies and it still chokes.

It appears not.

any ideas how to play multiple movies into one live stream and have it repeat? I suppose I can just copy the entries in the concat file

There's a bug in the execution of stream_loop, so without re-encoding, this doesn't look currently possible. Enlarging the concat text still gives only a finite loop.

Even large numbers, such as TREE(3) (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kruskal%27s_tree_theorem) and SSCG(3) (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedman%E2%80%99s_SSCG_function), are finite.

@Mulvya how should I re-encode so stream_loop works?

Actually, you can concat once without the stream_loop to a MKV file and then copy that MKV using stream_loop to HLS. This produces a working loop. However, there's a bug with timestamps generation, so there's a timestamp gap at each loop joint. ffplay plays the output correctly without gaps but Potplayer output freezes in that interval before resuming. No idea how HLS clients will behave.

I think this will fix the time gaps: -fflags +genpts

Did you ever figure out how to get this working @chovy ? I am thinking of moving this to a pythonic solution.

@FightFireWithFire I did not get it working. If you figure it out please come back here and update us!

ffmpeg concat demuxer supports nested scripts
 with the header "ffconcat version 1.0".
Example of endless recursive playlist script "test.txt":
ffconcat version 1.0
file 'video1.mp4'
file 'video2.mp4'
file 'video3.mp4'
file 'test.txt'

ffmpeg command:
ffmpeg -re -f concat -i ./test.txt  -c copy -f flv rtmp://....

Note: all file paths must be "safe",
  because the header "concat version 1.0" also resets the safe option to 1.

Can you explain what is going on here?

Beware that probably it's leaking file descriptors.


text:
Accurate automated closed captioning
I have been looking into automated closed captioning and the accuracy of the services found so far is poor.
I am looking to caption a number of 1hour + presentation recordings so manual captions isn't a feasible option.
Are there any worth while automated services out there??

Why do you say manual captioning isn't an option? There are some good, affordable captioning services out there. You get much better results with manual captioning.

Where I work we use 3playmedia. Accurate enough, and way cheaper than if any of us did it.

YouTube's automated closed captions are actually getting better and better (and it's free!). Even if you don't use the automated (speech-to-text) captions in YouTube, it has a neat tool that pauses while you type a transcript (or lets you upload a transcript) and then automatically adjusts all the timings. You can find it in the Closed Captions section of any video you've uploaded.


text:
How to make a film in black and white with some objects in color Final Cut Pro X
I'm trying to produce a short film in black and white and occasionally make only certain objects appear in color, using Final Cut Pro X

The simplest way to do this (also known as the Pleasantville effect) is to apply a Color Correction effect to your clip and then do the following:
Click on the Color Board to open the Color / Saturation / Exposure menu.  Select the Saturation menu and pull the Global (leftmost) slider to the bottom.  Your image should be fully desaturated.
Return to the Color Correction menu and select Add Color Mask.  It's disguised with an icon that shows an oval in a square.  When the eyedropper is blue (default), you can click (or better, click-drag) a spot on your image that has the color you want to preserve.  You can do this again and again until you get enough of the color selected to achieve the effect you want.  Select Invert Mask to get only the color you selected, or leave the mask as-is to desaturate only the color you selected.
This will work well for simple cases, but it is a far cry from the HSL qualifiers offered in programs like DaVinci Resolve, for many reasons.
A much, much more complicated thing to do is to use masks and manually composite in FCPX.  Compared with other NLEs, which all seem very intuitive to me, FCPX utterly baffles me when it comes to masks and layers.  YMMV.


text:
How to copy animation from one project to another in Camtasia?
I have created some animation in Camtasia studio. When I copy paste them into another camtasia project everything gets messed up, animation effect, start n end position, size etc. I tried to match the resolution size still the same issue.
Is there any proper way of doing this? like creating a template or theme or library media and use in another project.

I got it. Right click on track > add asset to library > open another project > drag that asset to particular track.


text:
Youtube-like video stabilization on Linux
Does anyone knows a free video stabilization software for Linux (ubuntu, fedora or something else), whose result is like the Youtube Video Stabilization?
At this moment, to stabilize my video I need to upload my files on youtube and wait a lot until stabilization finishes and then download my files. One software for computer will be helpful, and save a lot of time.
Does anyone knows one?
Thank you!

To stabilize your video you can use the ffmpeg command line tool.
The easy way: one pass using deshake filter
ffmpeg -i shaky-input.mp4 -vf deshake stabilized-output.mp4

The deshake filter has also some optional settings.
The better way: two passes using vidstab filters
For better results you can try the two-step process using ffmpeg's vidstabdetect and vidstabtransform filters: (Thanks @Mulvya)
ffmpeg -i shaky-input.mp4 -vf vidstabdetect=shakiness=5:show=1 dummy.mp4

This will output a transforms.trf that will be read by the second pass:
ffmpeg -i shaky-input.mp4 -vf vidstabtransform,unsharp=5:5:0.8:3:3:0.4 stabilized-output.mp4

The vidstab filters documentation explains all the configuration options.

There's also the vidstab filters.

I got this error: No such filter: 'vidstabdetect'. I guess on some distros (like Ubuntu) this filter isn't included by default.

libvidstab is external and GPL, so ffmpeg needs to be configured with --enable-libvidstab --enable-gpl

Tried multiple methods so far and the 2nd two-step process is the best quality and simplest so far. Many thanks.

Blender has motion tracking, which can in turn be used to stabilize video.  Here is a YouTube tutorial showing how to load video footage into Blender's movie clip editor, setting a tracking point, solving the tracking equation, and then discusses considerations about how to balance the various factors between too much and too little stabilization.  The video tutorial is here:

Now do it on the command line

The original question did not ask for command line.


text:
FFMPEG: Add outro to the end of video
I'm a youtuber...and have more than 100 videos
My question is : how to add 1 outro clip to the end of all 100 videos ?
My question is : how to add 2 or more outro clips to the end of all 100 videos randomly ?
Thanks you guys !

Are your videos already uploaded to youtube? If so I don't think you use ffmpeg. You need to use YouTube Editor. If you haven't uploaded the 100 videos yet, you need to script ffmpeg

No....I don't upload it yet....I want to edit it and add outro to all 100 video before upload.....!

Can anyone help me plz ?

It also helps to tell us what OS and multimedia format container you are using, but I'll give you an answer for now.

You want to concatenate the videos. see
https://www.ffmpeg.org/faq.html#How-can-I-concatenate-video-files_003f
I don't know what OS or multimedia containers you have, so read that FAQ. Especially if you want to avoid making potentially huge intermediate files.
In Linux/Mac OSX you want something like:
ffmpeg -i input1.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate1.mpg
ffmpeg -i input2.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate2.mpg
cat intermediate1.mpg intermediate2.mpg > intermediate_all.mpg
ffmpeg -i intermediate_all.mpg -qscale:v 2 output.avi

On  Windows I think the syntax is:
ffmpeg -i input1.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate1.mpg
ffmpeg -i input2.avi -qscale:v 1 intermediate2.mpg
copy intermediate1.mpg+intermediate2.mpg intermediate_all.mpg
ffmpeg -i intermediate_all.mpg -qscale:v 2 output.avi

If your multimedia containers are already MPEG-1, MPEG-2 PS, or DV you can skip the transcoding steps and just concat using cat or copy or better yet concat protocol.
You can get fancy with scripting to add pseudo-randomisation to add the Outro. But I'd just add outroA to all odd numbered files and outroB to all even numbered files.
If you want to add more that one outro to your content randomly, I'm not that good a command line hacker to pipe and nest randomisations. So I'd build the randomisation (aka spinning) of 100 cat/copy/concat lines into a script via a spreadsheet, then copy/paste the script into a batch/shell script.


text:
Adobe Clip's features in Adobe Premiere
Adobe has made mobile application called Adobe Clip. It can automatically cut videos, zoom stills and sync them with background music.
Can I do something similar in full-fledged Premiere? I want something that can automatically trim and sync with music for me.
I know, that clip from mobile app can be later imported to full-fledged Premiere, but to do that I need to transfer my videos to Android device, edit in the app, and later transfer it back to PC. I'd prefer to do all of this quickly and on just one machine.

To my knowledge, there's not a comparable feature in Premiere Pro. That sort of "automatic" feature is one more often found in basic/entry-level editors, like the mobile Clip or iMovie. My guess is that this type of feature isn't included in more advanced editors for a couple reasons:

Typically, if you're working in something as advanced as Premiere, you'll want full control over your synchronization with background music. You'd rather do it yourself than have the machine do it for you.
Editors using NLEs like Premiere would rather have more advanced customization and other features than have the software developers spend time adding automation to things (like creating slideshows) that they, as editors, feel they could do better on their own anyway.

Just my take on it. From my experience, if I was making a slideshow requiring zooming/panning of stills, I'd much rather do it manually than let a machine do it. I feel like I can too easily spot an automatically generated slideshow (heads cut off on pans/zooms, etc.).


text:
Can you embed one video inside another?
I'm quite new to video editing so I like some advice on whether it is possible to embed one video inside another?
The kind of effect I'm aiming for is to have one video playing then have it pause whilst another smaller video pops out (like a caption I guess) which plays then disappears leaving the original 'background' video to continue to completion.  The clips are reasonably short at around 2-5 mins.  They are in various formats avi, mpeg xvid - all commonly used, however I expect to have to convert them all to the same format in order to do this.
What editing software (for windows) would I be able to do this in, if indeed it is possible!!  I am reasonably technical but I don't want anything too over the top, unless of course I'm not going to do this with anything simple!!
Thanks for your help.

I believe what you're looking for is an editor with basic picture-in-picture (PiP) capabilities. For full and total control (including getting the "background" video to pause), I'd recommend Adobe Premiere Pro. A lot of simple editors (like iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or even Adobe Premiere Elements) might allow for some very basic PiP, but usually nothing more than letting you put a second video in a corner.
Premiere Pro (or, better yet, any modern NLE of its caliber) will let you stack videos into "layers" on a single timeline, letting you place a "smaller" video "in front of" (or "on top of", from a layers standpoint) the full frame.

I use Adobe Premiere Pro and was going to offer this same answer. There's one thing I want to add:  Adobe Premiere is part of Adobe's "Creative Cloud" suite of programs. So if you see Creative Cloud, that's the version of Premiere you're looking for. (That confused me when I was researching different editing programs.)

Ok, thanks for this guys :)  I'll be having a look at Adobe Premier Pro. I assume it's relatively easy to do - I guess I'll see if I can get a trial download!!

Depending on what you mean by "pops out like a caption",
If you mean something that is completly "pre-programmed" then that is simply a matter of editing the video with the kind of visual effects that implement your desired effect.
If you mean something that is dependent on the view interaction (clicking on something, for example), then that depends on how you are PLAYING it for the viewer.  You would need to embed the video in a web page (or equivalent) where you could sense viewer interaction (clicking, mouse-over, etc.).
Not possible to really answer your question properly without a better concept of what you are trying to do here.


text:
Recommendations for Video Recording/Editing
I am going to portray Mark Twain lecturing on his life "so far" at the age of 60 (the monologue/one-man, one-act play will be set in 1896).
I plan to perform in small ampitheateres, opera houses, and suchlike venues.
Although I have decades of public speaking experience, this will be a new venture for me ("show business"), and I will need to market my performance; specifically, I need to have a performance videotaped and then a "trailer" made of a section of it that will provide booking agents with a good feel for how the performance "plays."
Is my best option (naturally, I'm "on a budget") to hire a videographer to film and edit this, providing me with the electronic files, or can I get by with having a friend film it and use software (preferably open source) to do the editing and post it on youtube?

This is always one of the biggest questions when a consumer finds they have a need to record something, just once. Couples wonder if their friend can record their wedding, dad's try their best to record their son's baseball game, and actors on a tight budget hope to capture their performance without the expense of a professional videographer.
In short, I'd say you get what you pay for. If your performance is only an hour or two, you can probably get a good videographer for $500 or even less. Depending on the venue, theater houses might already have dedicated locations for cameras, and could probably refer you to good videographers.
Editing is as much art as it is skill, and usually comes under different expense terms. Editing a single shoot production should be very cheap and easy. This, you could probably do yourself for free, as long as you're willing to put in the time.
You mention a "section" of your performance. I imagine you mean like a several minutes long movie trailer. I would see if any of the performance houses you will be performing at will let you record sections in the morning or something, when there's no audience, and the cameras can be set anywhere in the theater. I would hire a videographer with two or three cameras, then perform the parts that you want in the trailer. Later, this videographer or another can edit the parts into your final production, the marketing trailer. For the best success, you need to storyboard the trailer; make sure you have a very clear and exact idea of what it will be. Then start the shoot and stay on target. Do not deviate from the planned story. You should be able to get all of the shooting done in a few hours.
Editing will be difficult if you've never done it before, so I would definitely hire someone for this. They will know how to artistically mix the clips together, add animations where necessary, find the right music to put over it, laugh tracks and the like, etc. If you're already starting a new career in show business you probably shouldn't try a concurrent hobby of video editing. Minimum I would budget for this is $1000. It might seem expensive, but you won't regret it. Show business people are extremely impatient and if you don't keep their attention, they'll move on. A professional level trailer will keep their attention.
So total budget, I would go for the videographer and the editor, is at $1500. Doable and I think you'll be very pleased with the product and the attention it will bring.

Again, if you don't want to do that, as in, don't have the money, you can certainly try to enlist friends and edit yourself, but it will cost you a lot of time and you probably won't be very pleased with the product in the end, and neither will the talent scouts.


text:
Suggestion to record video from TV
I don't know much about video recording.
I want to record some programs from home TV that receives signal from the normal coaxial cable.
I'm seen some VCR/DVD Recorders that record digital and air TV, I think they use HDMI port.
I've seen on internet USB TV Tuners that can be connected to laptop in USB port and in the other side connect the coaxial cable input, so I understand the TV signal would be shown in laptop display and I think some software should be use to say "Record" within laptop but I don't know.
May you suggest me a good options to do what I want please? less expensive the better.
Thanks in advance

Perhaps it would help if you could elaborate on the purpose for recording. What exactly would you be recording from your television? Actual programs airing (like on large cable networks) or something from another feed?

Hello John. I want to record from classic cable network source. The coaxial cable signal has some analogue channels and some digital channels. The digital channels can be seen since the TV has digital TV tuner inside. (I am not in USA, where I think you have full air digital tv)

Kodi is free software that can rcord and time-shift free to air TV broadcasts. I don't know about the digital channels on the cable, but analogue certainly. https://kodi.tv/

Hello stib. Thanks for share about kodi. I see that can be installed on major operating systems to record live tv. But what hardware is needed to get the signal from cable network source into laptop in order kodi be able to handle it?

Personally I use Pinnacle Studio to record the TV shows. I have used it to record over a 100 hours of TV footage till now and I'm pretty happy with it.
What You Need

TV Tuner
Software to record.

For the card you can buy Pinnacle TV Tuner (~ $70), but any compatible card will do. Many good cards are available for a lower price. Just make sure it has a coaxial cable input.
Pinnacle Studio comes along with the card if you buy that. This software can be used to record/edit videos. Recording is straightforward. You can select the encoding format, resolution, quality and begin recording. You can also schedule TV recordings to record when you are not at home.
But once you have the driver for card, the rest is easy. You can use any software to record the feed (including VLC player).
The only thing to keep in mind is storage. More often than not, live recording won't have the best encoding used, so it will take up a lot of space. To take care of storage problems I record in HD only if really necessary. Otherwise I would need additional tools to re-encode in high compression formats (like h264 or h265). Use ffmpeg or Handbrake for that.
Good luck!


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Convert .3GP to MP3?
I recently recorded some audio on my cell phone that's a file type .3gp. Is there a way I can convert this to a more workable file type, such as MP3?

You can use ffmpeg, a free command-line tool. Basic command is
ffmpeg -i file.3gp file.mp3


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Sony Vegas Vs Adobe premiere Pro/CC
I wanna learn video editing but im not sure which program is best. Which program do studios or professional youtubers use.

It depends on what you want to do with your YouTube account.
What is your operating system? How good is your PC?
Which camera do use?
For example, for vlogs, a simple Magix/Premiere Pro Elements/Final Cut solution is totally sufficient.
If you want to do more complex work, like color correction/effects/animations/handle RAW files/etc., I would recommend Premiere Pro (PP) as it has a lot of features and, in combination with the other Adobe products, handles most aspects of post-production. Premiere Pro is also a little bit harder to learn because it has many advanced capabilities.
I started with Sony Vegas, but as soon as I used PhotoShop and After Effects the first time, I immediately switched to PP as it used the same environment as well as similar looks, workflows, and shortcuts. And since I am used to it, I don't want to switch to any other software.
As far as I know, in the YouTube scene (especially the German one), most of the lifestyle vloggers use Final Cut and most of the more "technical" ones (gamer, unboxer, etc.) use Premiere Pro. If they produce more complex work like short movies or a high-quality series, they all use Adobe products. Some of the really professional big channels combine those products with DaVinci Resolve and 3D Software like Cinema 4D.
So to sum up, I would recommend for you (if you can afford it) to start with Premiere Pro. There are a lot of good tutorials for every aspect of the software. But do not forget that software is not everything! The better your footage and content is, the better is the overall quality of your videos. So try to learn aspects of camera tricks and script writing as well!

cool thx guess i'll go with PP . i dont got a youtube channel i just wanted to learn video editing.


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Most common formats that don't require any software or CODEC installs
I have a small MP4 file that I need to send to someone on a USB stick. Without knowing anything about the PCs that this person has access to, how can I be reasonably certain he will be able to play it without needing to install any software or codecs?
Should I just convert the video to several different formats? What are the most common ones that require the least hassle? (I wouldn't be surprised if something as old as Windows XP is used in this case)

MP4s will work on Macs and Linux. WMVs are a fallback for Windows.

I've always used H.264 and have never had any issues with anyone being able to view it on Windows or Mac. H.264 is my standard go-to for formats, but as you mentioned, it might not hurt to convert it to several different codecs/formats, especially if it is a small file.


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Is it feasible to create a true multi-language video file with visual localization?
I'm of Russian descent, but I've been living in Germany for the better part of my life now, which means that I deal with both German and Russian media on a regular basis. Most video stuff I have will have two or three audio tracks (depending on source language, which is usually included), so that one or another track can be played, depending on the audience.
This is where my children come into play. I try to raise them bilingual, so they could watch their cartoons in either language, again, depending on the audience. Which is a problem: any Pixar / Disney production is always fully localized, including the visuals, which means that I have to decide which visuals the file will contain.
I would like to incorporate multiple localized video tracks. However, my naive understanding is that there is no way to just replace the localized parts of the main movie (i.e. one large video track with a couple of hundreds localized snippets), but instead I'd have to keep several full video tracks in the file.
Is this correct, is multiplying the file size the only way? Is there any workaround, maybe something like the snippets model described above? Is this problem solved for physical media, e.g. is there any Blu-Ray which provides multi-language video tracks in a comparable form?

Which playback devices/software does the solution have to work on?

@Mulvya ideally mpv and Kodi, but I'm mostly interested in the solution as is, if anything is missing on the player side, that's something that can be fixed or at least reported.

In theory, some of the MXF OP's would allow you to do this on the professional side. However, all of the standardization work I know of  (SMPTE and AMWA, especially) has been around multi-language audio.

I don't understand "I'd have to keep several full video tracks in the file." --- There seems to be three solutions: 1. Bit-copy (duplicate what you have, one large file + all snippets). - 2. Copy with snippets for both Russian and German languages inserted (so, 2 large files). 3. Copy with snippets inserted for all supported languages (so 3 or 4 big files, not several large ones). I know DVD supports this (and you can copy BR to DVD (with compression). What is your Input Format and Output desired?

ASS-subtitles. Anime-fans use it for rich-style subtitles and simple drawing over frame. In theory, format supports images/videos as overlay, but I don't know player with full format support.
MKV with linking. You can split your movies in tons of small parts and create two different sets. The you just launch file with proper link sets. Low compatibility. But seems will work. Same as playlists. Same as HLS.
Just 2 video streams. Even lower compatibility. But can works sometimes.
In DVD exists "multi-view" feature, you can encode multiple streams as differen views. Actually it's double stream. To be very precise, you must recode all streams with lower bitrate, as DVD has max limit for all streams, but it exists as standard!
You can write DVD (and I think BD) with "hacked filesystem". Did you remember strange CD disks which contains much more data than 700mb? For example, I have "all windows versions" with 2gb of data! Magic? No: there disks contains many same file duplicated, which on physical disk was written only once.

I can't give you a complete answer, but it's certainly possible in theory to create 'playlists' (for lack of a better term) that call out a sequence of clips, most of which are common to two or more lists, with localized clips being different in each list.
This would require a player that understands these lists, so it wouldn't work for general distribution since no common, general purpose player I'm aware of can do this. But I've written such players -- not for this purpose, but with the same result -- so I know it could be done. Audio sync might be the trickiest part.
I hope someone else has an off-the-shelf solution. There's a whole lot out there and more every day. Good luck.
EDIT:
It later occurred to me that this is exactly the function of an NLE (non-linear video editor) when previewing: create a timeline onto which you place audio and video clips, then play out the result without creating a new file. If this suits you, there are free or low-cost NLEs available, including LightWorks.

If you mean HLS playlists, Potplayer, VLC..etc play them.

@Mulvya  Well, you read the question. Do HLS playlists address it? Can they play a separate continuous audio track and play a series of video clips in sync with it? If so, that could be an answer.

Quicktime "by reference" movies do this. They don't contain the actual media, just links to the media. To create them you need Quicktime Pro version <= 7, or an apple NLE

@stib Cool, so it's essentially a mini-NLE. Where is the actual media? And which players support this format?

I think it's only really supported by quicktime player, I think it relies on the quicktime framework to work, though from memory VLC might be able to play it. Yup, it's exactly like a mini NLE, and it uses the original media, so if that gets moved or renamed the movies won't play. It was very useful as an intermediate format from FCP7. It's kind of surprising that there's not a non-proprietary container format that does it, though I guess its usefulness is limited to cuts-only editing - anything else usually requires pre-rendering.

https://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=105%26section=2%26tasks=true


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Download older version for free
I know that for Adobe CS2, Adobe released the program for free online due to some glitch or something.
But are there any (really good) NLE video editors what have been legally released for free online?
My objective is to gradually produce material - keeping costs low at startup - to then pay for products like Adobe Premier and AE. I am not a student so I can't swing that angle. However, my preference to Adobe is because of college.


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Recommendations for a newbie
I have been amazed by the wonders of video editing. However, i am not sure what software to use. I have used movie maker and i am good with it. I want to move on to more sophisticated editors. Any recommendations for 2016 :>


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What is the difference between RGB and RGB + Alpha?
I know what is Alpha channel but when I rendered a motion logo using RGB and RGB + Alpha in After Effects, I didn't see any difference. So what's the basic difference between them and how to decide which should be used?

The alpha channel is a grayscale 2D image plane of the same size as the RGB image, and is used when overlaying (or blending) the image on top of another image. If the value of an alpha pixel is zero, then the corresponding RGB pixel is invisible when the image is overlaid. If the value is 255 (in an 8-bits per channel image), then the RGB pixel is fully opaque. For intermediate values, you get a composite result, depending on the blending mode used. When viewed in a video player, you won't notice a difference because there's no other video 'underneath'.
See Alpha compositing for more details.


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Lightbox required with LED Lights?
I'm using three LED lights for interview recording - do I need a light box for them? I am mostly doing seated interview recording. Portability is important as I'm travelling for most of these interviews so skipping the diffusion would help, but I'm happy to include them if they're going to make a big difference.
I'm shooting with a GH4 and three LEDs (Savage Lumiunous Pros) so they're dimmable and switchable between 3200K and 5600K.
Any advice for someone who's a bit of an idiot about this stuff is really welcomed!

Depends on how big the panels are, I'm assuming these are LED panels. Really, you only need 2 lights for the subject, and 1 light if you want to stylize the background. You can use a foamcore if you need fill. You want the panel or box to be as large as possible. I shoot most of my interviews with a 1.2K ArriSun HMI, but it uses a large Chimera with grid. So it's very very soft. Then boom a joker either over head or from and hitting the person's face on the short side of the frame. This gives a nice cut out, and the soft light from the Key Light is perfect. If you cant get your hands on a large softbox, depending on the output power of your LEDs, bounce. The best lighting, and nearly all lighting in Hollywood, is bounced light. Bounce your lights off a board, carry different sizes with cookies, and cutouts, make some dots to shape the light. For background, a single 1K tungsten lamp will do, you can gel it, or wrap it black wrap, poke holes in the black wrap, tear it, to create patterns, or natural shapes. If portable is key, you want your lights to be as high output as possible, smallest package... this means HMI, with LEDs, my biggest reason for not jumping over, is you have to carry a lot of extra grip equipment to get the lights where they need to be... because the output is a fraction of what an HMI puts out.

My LEDs are http://savageuniversal.com/products/studio-lights/luminous-pro-led-video-light lights. I can connect two of these for my key. I'm thinking of using an umbrella to soften it, but I am not sure its necessary. The light isn't a single source, but it's not that big either.

Scrim or trace is good over LED panel lights, even just to get rid of the fringes in the shadows. For softening the light source the further away from the light source you hang the diffuser the better, because it makes the apparent light source bigger and therefore softer, even a few inches makes a difference.
My 'fits-in-the-carry-on-luggage' 3 point interview set up is this: I have a LED key (a flexible LED panel - really recommended for doco work) and a couple of strips of card that I tape to it that hold the scrim out 10cm or so from the panel, it works well as a small soft key light for interviews. For fill I usually use a folding circular reflector, and if needs be I aim another LED panel at it. Then I also have a small DedoLight spot which I use as a rim  or 'hair' light or to add spots or slashes of light to the BG.
Also remember to look for natural lighting. It can be problematic, like when there is bright sun outside and a dark interior, but if you use windows and practical lights as sources intelligently and then augment with what you have in the kit you can get good results with less gear, and you get a more verité look than a Hollywood style lighting setup.
As CoinRocket said, bouncing is better, but generally LEDs don't give you enough grunt to be any use as a key light when bounced. A 1.2K HMI is an order of magnitude brighter than a battery powered LED.
There also inflatable softboxes that win as far as portability goes. I haven't used them but I've seen good reviews.


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How can I use 50fps media in iMovie 11 and avoid a frame drop to 30fps?
My photo camera records FullHD video at 50fps, and when I import the videos into iMovie (version 10.1.2 according to the app store) the frame rate stays there, I can see smooth videos playing in the library. However, when I drag a 50fps video to the timeline of an empty project, the frame rate is visibly reduced, and when I export the video I get a 30fps movie.
Is there anything I can do to maintain the 50fps through the edition process and into the output?

While it is unfortunate that iMovie drops by default from 50fps to 30fps, it also upscales videos to 60fps if the project is started with a 60fps clip! I've ended making myself a one second 60fps dummy clip which I drag first into the project line. After dropping this dummy clip, I verify that the archive export dialog shows 60fps FullHD option, then add the other 50fps clips. At the end I remove the 60fps dummy clip and the project still allows exportation at 60fps.
In this situation iMovie will upscale the 50fps video to 60fps, generating a duplicate frame every five to compensate. Still, this is much better than dropping from 50 to 30 frames.
The most important thing to remember is that the option to export at 60fps is only available if the first clip dragged into the project is recorded at 60fps. If you already have a full project at 30fps dragging the 60fps clip won't help. So remember, drag always the 60fps dummy clip first!

Sounds to me like iMovie desperately needs to learn about the PAL world.  I would file a bug report with Apple if I were you.


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How to stack frames of a video together using lighten blending mode?
I want each frame of video to get added on top of the previous frames. I don't want any of them to fade out. I am shooting locked down with a black background. A model moves through the frame with a light. I want to stack the frames one on top of the others so that the light moves through the frame and the last frame shows the path taken as a light trail.
What is the easiest way to add each new frame on top of the rest? I would like to avoid putting a separate layer for each frame manually.

Use "Echo" effect. I believe it will suite you.
You need adjust it. Make number of echos equal to your frame count.

Copy this script into a text file and save it as stackinator2000.jsx then in AE go to File>Scripts>Run Script File and load the file you saved. Then select a layer and run it.
NOTE

It will take a long time if the comp is long.
It will create a layer for every frame. I hope you've got a fast machine.
save your project before trying it. I've tested it and it works here, but  all care, no responsibility, yadda yadda.
It is important that the script is saved as stackinator2000.jsx—trust me on this one. If that's unacceptable then calling it The_Mighty_Stackatron.jsx or stackMeister_77.jsx is a possible workaround, but it will be 25% less awesome.

app.beginUndoGroup('stackinator2000');
var theComp = app.project.activeItem
if (!theComp) {
  //no comp selected, silly rabbit
  alert('choose a layer in a comp');
} else {
  var theLayer = theComp.selectedLayers[0];
  if (!theLayer) {
    //no layer selected
    alert('choose a layer');
  } else {
    var firstFrame = Math.max(theLayer.inPoint / theComp.frameDuration, 0);
    var lastFrame = Math.min(theComp.duration, theLayer.outPoint) / theComp.frameDuration
    var frame;
    //set the blending mode while we're at it
    theLayer.blendingMode = BlendingMode.LIGHTEN;
    //turn on time remapping
    theLayer.timeRemapEnabled = true;
    //delete the last key to make it a freeze frame - this will remove any other time remapping set
    while (theLayer.timeRemap.numKeys > 1) {
      theLayer.timeRemap.removeKey(2)
    }
    //step forward one frame at a time
    for (frame = firstFrame; frame +1 < lastFrame; frame++) {
      //duplicate the layer and work with the new layer
      theLayer = theLayer.duplicate();
      //offset the inpoint by one frame
      theLayer.inPoint = (frame + 1) * theComp.frameDuration;
      //prevents weirdness with the out point that I don't understand
      theLayer.outPoint = lastFrame * theComp.frameDuration;
      //set the time remapping for the first frame of the layer
      theLayer.timeRemap.setValueAtTime(theLayer.inPoint, theLayer.inPoint - theLayer.startTime);
      //delete the old key which should be before the current one
      while (theLayer.timeRemap.numKeys > 1) {
        theLayer.timeRemap.removeKey(1);
      }
    }
  }
}
app.endUndoGroup();


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Adobe After Effects labels: Project vs Layer/Timeline
How do I label my Composition clips in the Layer/Timeline panel, based on how they are categorized/binned in the Project panel?

I have a composition created by Adobe Premiere of about 100 items
I've set the label for each clip/asset in the Project pane

I have bins for each label
I did this because the different clips were shot with different light, and I want to correct for this

I see my clips in the Layer/Timeline panel
...with labels...
yet the labels are NOT the same as how they appear for the same assets above, in the Project panel!

Q: why are these labels inconsistent?
Q: I want to apply a effect preset I have to a subset of the clips, which is already labelled and binned in the Project pane.  How?

Try clicking on the "Layer Name"/"Source Name" column title in the timeline.  It should toggle between the name in your Project bin, and the name you've given the layer in the comp.


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How do I preserve the filesize of an MP4 edited in After Effects?
I'm editing a small animation video (.mp4) of our app with After Effects (cropping composition to region of interest). I then add the composition to Adobe Media Encoder Queue and process it with the preset on my composition being Match source - High bitrate, encoded at H.264 as it's meant to be displayed on the web. Initially the filesize of the file is 8.3mb - after rendering, it's 30mb+ ! Why is this happening (I don't see how the quality can be better than it initially is) and what settings should I be using to export the .MP4 while keeping the video the same quality and a slightly lower filesize, as it should be?

When you choose match source - High Bitrate the name is a bit of a clue to the encoding settings: it's going to be using a high bitrate, so the file will be big. Match Source means matching the size, frame rate etc of the comp, not the original quality of one of the layers in the comp. Just wind down the video bitrate until you get to the size you want.

In general, it's better to work with lossless, or at least, less lossy formats than MP4 if you're going to be re-editing the video.  If you can, work from a ProRes or Animation codec .mov file of the original file.
When you export, adjust the bitrate of the video by entering specific bit rate numbers... Vimeo suggests between 10,000-20,000kbps for HD video.  Adjust it downwards until you get the output file size you want, but bear in mind the quality will reduce as the number goes down.


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After Effects: Strange motion tracking problem
I've tested this on numerous videos: whenever I try to track motion in a video, the track point just flys straight up.. no matter how many different ways I've tried it, it also does this. I've linked a gif of what I'm talking about.
I hadn't touched AE for a few months, and motion tracking worked fine before, the only difference between now and then is 1-2 windows updates.
Please help, I need this for a production due Friday (if this is the wrong place to ask this question please let me know)
gif of problem - http://giphy.com/gifs/l2SpXUaPwPEoz4LzW

Is it only doing it on that piece of footage? Have a try on another video to see if the problem is localised to that file or a general problem with AE.

as I stated in the question, I've tried this with SO many different videos and reinstalled AE.. i really am confused.

I'm far from an expert on AE, let alone motion tracking, but it looks like it is trying to track the bricks. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but does the same thing happen with a plain background?

yep. really confusing. and it's always a straight line, above the tracking point. Thanks for the reply!

@SamTubb I'd suggest convert the footage into an image sequence first to ensure that this is not an internal encoding issue (since the tracker seems to find nothing).

@SamTubb The built-in tracker is really bad (IMO). However, you can try to decrease the search area and pin it on the ear instead. Just let me know if this works or not. Otherwise I'll write some instructions. Are you allowed to provide the footage? Unfortunately I can't find something similar on my machine :)

I don't really have any of the footage anymore.. I used mask tracking to finish the project, and I turned it in last week (it turned out great still) but I just want to know what the issue is.

some possibilities:

You are trying to track a very general area. Try to track a smaller
area with well differentiated colors (maybe another footage).
You are using CC 2014. There are bugs that have been solved since
then. Why don't you try to update your After Effects version to
2015.3.

Answer 1 is not the answer, I've tried different sizes, different videos, different video resolutions, everything imaginable.

Answer 2 however could be possible. I'll get back to you on that.

I use CS6, which preceeds 2014 CC and the tracker feature works great. Was that a known bug?

Maybe. There are several lists with known bugs. For example: https://blogs.adobe.com/creativecloud/known-issues-in-after-effects-cc-2015-13-5.

Make sure your trackers are being applied to points that are trackable. That is #1. Second, there are two bounding boxes, the inner box being the point you are tracking, the second, is the bias that AE will use to determine how much drift it will allow to maintain smooth motion / spline, or curve which requires zooming the footage and thus a loss of resolution.
There are Advanced options in the tracker panel, in terms of how the tracker will analyze the footage. Using RGB vs Luma is one. Second, make sure Detailed Analysis is checked.
The trackers shouldnt stray, as long as you've placed them on a point that has relatively decent contrast and a "point" of reference that moves -- IMPORTANT -- and stays -- within the outer bounding box of the next discreet frame.
If the track point, going frame by frame (you can analyze it that way, go frame by frame to test, and make sure that, on your next frame, the track point is still inside the outer bounding box, otherwise the tracker will lose it.
Think of the outer box as the "field of view" where the tracker looks for the point to follow.


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Prelude and Premiere Workflow with DSLR and External Audio
This is a little long, but hopefully will make sense...
I am shooting with a GH4 to record interviews and cuts the videos into 4GB segments. I'm recording the audio with a Zoom (external recorder). So I end up with a multiple video files with in-camera audio (which I use just for syncing) but one large .wav file from the recorder.
Here's the issue. I want to be able to sync the video but also use proxy videos since I'm recording at 4K (but producing 1080p). Here are the options as I see them but maybe something I'm missing:

Concatenate the videos so that I can sync the .wav file but then I lose the ability to use proxy videos (I'd have to re-encode before editing)
Edit with proxy videos but then syncing and splitting the audio to the multiple videos becomes really difficult.
Concatenate without reencoding so i can sync the .wav files, but then cut it up into manageable chunks for editing. But the multiple encoding it concerns me.

I'm using Prelude to log my footage, then Premiere to edit it.
Is there a senseable answer I'm missing? I hate all three options.

How are you synching the audio? I synch in Premiere using the audio from the clips, and often have just one audio file for lots of video files. Premiere deals with this situation fine, without having to split the audio track.

Great to know. That would solve it all! Let me try it!

It seems that when it does this it pads it with black video. Is this what you're seeing? I was hoping it would sync the audio and keep the video the same time.

Yes, where the audio starts before or ends after the video you won't see any video so the screen will be blank. This isn't usually a problem when you're editing, just set your in and out points as normal.


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video stabilisation of tripod-taken video with many fast moving objects
Is there a way - in Linux - to stabilize with respect to a certain edge or region in the video? My situation:
I have a video taken with a tripod (well, not exactly, the camera is suspended and slightly shaken and rotating, but not by much).
In the video there are a lot of moving objects - I want the image to be stabilized according to a jagged edge. I've tried transcode with vid.stab, specifically transcode -J transform=tripod=1 ..., but there is much more movement in the image than before stabilisation.
As stated at the beginning of this question: Can I define a region in my image that is a non-moving object and stabilize according to this object?
If there is no linux software to do this, is there any other free (preferably open source) software that can do this?


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Voice is dropped in ads on cable channel via OTT
I am not a video expert. I used to be an audio engineer (like a 1000 years ago) and have done some video editing on my own professional grade editor for giggles but not in the last 10 years.
And yet, I am seeing something that makes me curious. So I thought I would finally ask.
I get cable over OTT via a Roku. Periodically, on channels that have minor packet loss, I have noticed that ads will lose any actor voice and the voice over portion of the content. The background and other sounds are there. Just the voices are missing. For example, an ad for a popular insurance company will have all the background sounds, however, the voice of the person in the video and the voice over announcer are gone. This does not happen for shows. It also does this for most any ad periodically and inconsistently. The same insurance ad can show again in the next ad block just fine. One ad can be missing voices, the next ad is fine, then the third ad is missing the voice. This can happen on any channel from time to time and seems to be tied to very minor packet loss. Basically, the channel is working just fine, just very minor periodic packet loss. This may be a hint.
Strange huh? Any ideas? It is not really a problem for me, just a curiosity. In fact, it is kind of nice so I am not really complaining.

Is the audio feed multichannel?

@Mulvya I have no idea. It is a live stream of one of any cable channels via ACC (I assume is the stream protocol) on Roku. Be that as it may, I am sure they are getting this via a satellite as it exists for a market. I am not sure if they are inserting local ads like traditional cable would. It seems that all the ads are national except for the broadcast channels (also streamed) which does not seem to have this problem now that I think about it.

@Mulvya BTW- When I say I am not a video expert, I mean I do not know my arse from a podcast. ;-) After school, I started my career as a systems internals engineer (computer) and quickly forgot everything useful. Worse yet, I am retired and a landlord, farmer, antiques dealer. So now I only which end of the shotgun goes where. Cheers!!

That definitely sounds like a bad downmix, but I don't know why that would happen intermittently.

@MichaelLiebman I like the missing center channel idea. It aligns with the facts fairly well. I tried and set the Roku to Stereo versus Auto (there are only two options) just to see. It still happens. Again, this is not a general streaming problem, so I am thinking that it is coming from the cable provider that way and not happening on my end. At least now I am. I ask because it seemed so odd to my old school mind. ;-)

Yes, a proper 5.1 mix shouldn't have VO on the L, R, Ls, Rs, or LFE, only on C. An incorrect downmix would just grab L and R, instead of Lt and Rt that should be sent with the commercial to the provider (if the provider is doing the downmix before transmission) or not using a more sophisticated downmix algorithm.

@MichaelLiebman It all makes sense. What this company really does is take satellite feeds from the channels and resells to cable providers. Along the way, they offer some cable channels via IPTV/OTT up to 200. OTT has been going through growth pains. In the end, home cable and satellite (tether tv) will have to deal with the reality of an untethered world. They offer OTT if you are tethered. They are not getting the new market. Bundles, tethers, paying for useless channels as a means of supporting them, is all changing. For consumers, it is a cost for performance issue.

I don't have a definitive answer, but what you're describing sounds like phase inversion on one of the stereo channels. This causes cancellation when heard in mono of anything centered in the mix, as an announcer voice would most likely be. Someone listening in stereo would not hear much if any difference, so I assume you're listening to a mono feed. It's hard to imagine a scenario where a commercial is delivered in a way that would separate the main channels but leave the background sound.
Why only sometimes? Speculating again, there may be one misconfigured server in a group of servers, and playout of any given spot is randomly coming from that server. It's also likely that these are local insertions, since an issue like this would probably be detected quickly at a national level.

Thanks Jim for the reply! I think you are onto something. It could be the center channel. As for the ads being local, I think they are all national. This is not the traditional cable set-up and there does not seem to be any local ads other than on the broadcast channels. I do listen through my Aragon 2ch set-up and there is phasing and depth when I use it streaming films, however, I cannot say that I have checked this on a cable channel for a long time. I will check out if there is a difference I can see between off the back of the Roku or through the T.V. Curious. Cheers!!


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After 5 minutes, audio dramatically goes out of sync for rest of video. Shifting that audio section around fixes problem only for a few seconds
At the 5min:12sec mark in this Facebook Live video, there is a glitch/freeze. The audio goes out for a few seconds, and then comes back in. But when it comes back in, it is terribly out of sync. I have downloaded the video, and am trying to fix it. I will ultimately be uploading it to my YouTube account.
Unfortunately, shifting that section of audio around fixes the problem briefly, but it soon returns. In other words, it seems that the length of the video is now a different than it's audio track.I tried the advice in this video without success.
How do I re-sync the audio and video tracks?

Would it be possible for you to lay the video back out to tape then to recapture? This would be the quickest fix for the issue. Or differing audio sampling rates, 32k, 44.1k, and or 48k..

You probably have mismatched framerates. This can cause audio drift. The solution for that would be to slow or speed the audio up slightly.

Depending on what the source was; it could be that as well. For instance, PPro, once it reached CS6, no longer handled HDV content and there was audio drift over time... it was a big problem, I am not sure if it was ever fixed.
Just throwing this out there, but it could be the source codec not playing fair with whatever module FB uses to transcode it's video for playback.

You can consider the part where the whole video freezes as lost but if you simply import it to Premiere Pro and split the video from the audio you can then cut in the audio layer and move it to where the audio syncs.
If there is a change in speed I would recommend to change the speed of the video in stead of the audio.