text:
Good learning resources for 'non-technical' aspects of filmmaking
I am a relative newcomer to video production but have a background in still photography. This means that I have a good understanding of things like ISO/aperture/shutter speeds/resolution/etc. (and have already checked how these ideas transfer to moving images). I also have a lot of experience with Adobe CS and similar software, and some brief tinkering suggests that, at least for now, finding my way around Premiere/After Effects won't be too much of a problem. But when I look at books for amateur filmmakers, it seems that 90% of the book is usually taken up with stuff like "this is what a DSLR is" or "this is how you import a clip into Premiere". In other words, stuff a technically competent individual could figure out on their own.
I, on the other hand, am interested in learning about artistic/creative techniques that are harder to learn by osmosis. Some examples of the kinds of thing I have in mind:

how to plan and frame shots so that you end up with good variety of source material that can be edited into an interesting sequence;
how to imbue documentary style footage with a narative;
how to frame particular types of subject (e.g. how to position the camera for a talking head interview).
creative ways of making boring/static subjects more interesting;
how to manage on location when you have limited ability to control the light;
how to time the editing of shots/clips to achieve the right tempo;
how and when to transition between shots to get professional-looking results;
how to get source footage and music to work together harmoniously;
tips for colour grading from an artistic perspective (i.e. I know how to shift the colours, but I would like to learn more about when and in what ways this is typically done for various artistic ends).

This list is non-exhaustive, but hopefully gives an indication of the kind of thing I am looking for. Hence, my question is:
Can anybody recommend one or two good learning resources for this kind of artistic/'non-technical' aspect of filming and editing?

Do you realize people go through years of academical studies or expensive courses at private universities to learn all that? It's certainly not something you're going to master by watching a few Youtube videos ...
If you want to seriously get into film making, I would suggest you take a course. Not necessarily a full blown film studies degree, but you could look into some crash courses, an online course (not a playlist on Youtube but an actual, professional online course) or something like that. With some research, you might even find a free course (google for Open educational resources (OER), OpenCourseWare and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) or start here or here).
Apart from that, here are some tips and things that I would recommend you learn (from my humble not-a-professional-either point of view):

Watch movies: The best way to learn about great camera and composition techniques is to watch movies (by watch I mean actually concentrate on the movie, not have it run in the background while doing your taxes). There's a list of the 100 best movies of all time (actually, there are several lists; this one was assembled by the American Film Institute). Go ahead and watch some of the movies on this list. Also, see if you can find another 'Top X films of all time' list that wasn't put together by Americans for Americans.
Camera Angles: Different camera angles differ in what information and emotions they convey. Here's a list, here's another one and this is also a list.
Image Composition: There are several rules of thumb and guidelines to help you with the arrengements of the subjects of your video. This is the part where your photography experience will matter the most IMHO. Here's a short summary of that topic. Here's another one.
Video Montage: The montage is how you put all of your videos together, make them seem connected and fit together as a whole. This is very difficult. Apart from some general rules of thumb (e.g. there are some camera angles that just don't go with each other) and some specific montage techniques (e.g. jump cuts (historic example), match cuts (historic example), shot-reverse-shots and more), you will only learn that via practice (and, again, watch movies. Hollywood movies are fine in that regard by the way. Here's a great montage from James Bond: Quantum of solace).
Here's a video tutorial on creating a music montage. Here are some other tips.
Dramaturgy: How to tell a compelling story. Again, this isn't something you'll learn over night. There are some very basic story structures that are repeated over and over again, the most common of which is the Hero's Journey (Seriously, four out of five movies you have ever watched follow that schema).
Again, watch movies. People will disagree with me on that, but I think the best video to understand dramaturgy is the filmlet 'Schwarzfahrer' by Pepe Danquart. Watch it on youtube with english subtitles (it's only 12 minutes long).
Color: Color grading in movies is not only used to convey certain emotions, but also to tie sequences together. Take a look at this website. Read this on the meaning of different colors, then go read some more. Also, see my answer on color in movies here.

These are only the most essential parts of media aesthetics concerning film and film making; you will need to do your own research on top of that. Some other things to learn include construction of time (google won't help you here, this is about the relation between narrated and narrative time), genres, some more aspects of camera angles and perspective, camera movement, writing story-boards and screenplays and more. Again, look into what (online or offline) courses you can resonably take. Also, apart from internet summaries, read books on the topics. I can't really recommend a specific book right now ... Just look for a general introduction on film / media aesthetics.
Also, it is really important you get some practice. No matter what role you're planning on playing in a real-world film production (the smaller a production, the more responsibilities lie with every member), no amount of theory will prepare you for everything there is to know about filming and cutting (and possibly acting). So make sure to get some hands-on practice!

If you feel comfortable with learning from good Youtube resources, here's some channels that have tons of material to answer your questions:

https://www.youtube.com/user/filmriot
https://www.youtube.com/user/everyframeapainting
https://www.youtube.com/user/D4Darious
https://www.youtube.com/user/DSLRguide (even better: His Blog http://dslrguide.tv/blog/)

Lynda.com has absolutely loads of pro Video courses i have learned quite a bit from them. I do however agree with MoritzLost in takes years to study and master with a lot of practice. But Lynda.com is a great resource for people who want to pick up some of the theory.
https://www.lynda.com/


text:
How to make this auto-filling text and logo animation?
I found this great video on youtube:

and I just love this text animation at the beginning.
I mean that one which start like black and auto filling itself with white color and the animation also repeats with the logo and with other text but it changes the color to red.
I've tried using stroke effects, but I couldn't figure out how this can be achieved.
Any Ideas?

Just a proof of concept. Steps to reproduce:

on a new comp, create a shape object filled with black color;
animate some properties, in this case, I'm changing the Inner Radius;
duplicate this shape layer and move it a few frames ahead in the timeline (so it's out of sync with the layer below);
change its color to white and activate the Track Matte pointing to the first layer as Parent;

This is the result (showing all the frames at once):

And this is the base composition:

Hello brasofilo ! Sorry for long not answearing your response but i have a lot of work to do and i just now finally find time to test it and answer!
You are great man! I just do it and it's great! Didn't expect that it's so simple..
Thank you very much again! That is what i was looking for!
Thaaaaaaaaaank you!
:)))))))))))

Glad to hear, Raznyy, have fun :)

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Transitions in Premiere Pro CC 2015 with After Effects Sequence
I have two clips in Premiere, to which I want to add a black fade transition. So far that works without a problem.
But when I replace the clips with After Effects compositions (because I want to add some effects on the clips, like Twixtor) and then try to add a black fade transition between those clips (now AE compositions), it doesn't work.
Premiere tells me there are not enough frames for the transition, altough the clips are still the exact length, but only AE compositions...
What is the right workflow for doing stuff like this, so I will still be able to add transitions over the clips when they come back from After Effects?

Often (and perhaps in your case) what is happening is the following.  Initially you have a clip that has plenty of content before or after your transition point.  You trim that clip to represent the content you actually care about.  If you do a fade at this point, the fade is going to use frames from the trimmed part of the clip that you don't necessarily see, but which are there (and which are used to complete the fade).  Now, if you send your trimmed clip through some external process, it doesn't send the /whole/ clip to the external process, just the frames you "see".  That clip that seems properly trimmed doesn't actually have the frames to allow the fade to complete the way you want it to.
To fix this, send a longer trim of the clip to AE, then, when it comes back, re-trim it to what you want.  You should find the fade working as well as it did for you initially.

Thank you very much! That did the trick.. didn't think of that before on my own :)

I usually use "Render and Replace" for things like this. The whole dynamic link integration is great and works wonders, but it isn't perfect. There are lots of caveats, such as specific plugins that won't work 100%. So I've adopted render and replace as my go-to resource whenever I use AE comps. It's basically:

insert the comp on premiere
make a copy of it to a video track below
right the comp on the top video track
pick "render and replace"

That will create a mov file that is much better for Premiere to work on. In case you change the AE comp, you have to re-do this, but so far I've found that doing this has been faster then trying to solve the many little problems that come up with some more complex compositions.
Hope it helps.

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


text:
Why is my Sony Alpha 6000 not synchronzing with other recorders?
Using a Canon 70D and a couple stand-alone audio recorders, I have no trouble matching footage between the different devices.
With the Sony Alpha 6000, I can't line them up on the Premiere timeline: I sync one side of the clip and then the opposite end is not matching.  Where the video is split into multiple files, I want to shift each toward the center so I overlap a few frames in the middle.
It seems to be about 1 second every five minutes.  MediaInfo tells me that the files from the camera are "23.976 fps". I created the Premiere Timeline to auto-match the clip's settings, so it's not changing the rate as part of the project.
Update
With the cameras still set as they were, I shot a controlled test video and was unable to reproduce the problem.  Everything lined up just fine!

My careful test showed that the Alpha 6000 loses 0.2084 seconds of sound when it changes files, which is good to know in general but not relevant here.  That is, the last bit in the file is silent, but the next file starts with the correct synchronization for the next frame.  If you concatenate the streams, 1/5 second of sound is missing but no other glitch is apparent.  (I did not look too closely at the video frame timing.)
It also shows that over a 30 minute recording it does drift slightly, less than a frame.  Measuring, I see the tick on the Sony's audio track appears to the right of the same position on the Zoom H4N track: 0.0055 seconds after about 10 minutes (end of one file), and up to 0.14 seconds after 27m18s, near the longest a single "take" can record on the Sony.
In comparison, the Canon 70D audio track shifts to the left by 0.0065 seconds over the same half-hour span: about 1/3 the amount of drift, and in the opposite direction.

The real problem with my synchronization was not due to the Sony camera.  For some unknown reason, the Zoom H4N seamlessly dropped close to 3 seconds (2s19f out of 24 fps) in the middle of the file.
That is, the recorded WAV file (one file—not a file break) somehow stopped laying down samples and resumed a moment later with no indications that anything took place.  Looking close-up in Audition there is a line visible in the frequency display where the discontinuity in the waveform is interpreted as noise on all frequencies.  One person is talking before the break, and another person is talking after, as if a section was deleted from the recording and saved back to a WAV file.
Strange, isn't it?


text:
Object removal in After Effects via Content-Aware?
I have footage from a drone, and there's a rather unsightly floating thing that I'd like to remove. I've heard that one could export this video as frames and use Photoshop's built in "Content-Aware" function to remove an object like this, but there's quite a few frames to work with here (and it's a rather complex object), so it doesn't seem completely feasible to do just that.

Here's a link to a GIF: Hosted on Imgur
I'd like to know if there's an easier way to do this (Maybe via plugins if necessary). Any help would be very much appreciated.

Welcome George :) "Content-Aware" for every frame isn't a option since the algorithm produces a different solution per frame. I'd recommend to track this part of the image and replace it by a part next to it (left or right or should give best results, because of the camera movement and the floating sea).

Can I suggest that you try Davinci Resolve for this?  It's free, and has a fantastic "clone stamping"-style tool, called Node Sizing  - see "Example 2: Using Node Sizing to duplicate a windowed area of an image to cover a blemish" p638 in the manual:
http://software.blackmagicdesign.com/DaVinciResolve/docs/DaVinci_Resolve_11_Manual_June_2014.pdf
It allows you to clone one region of a video over another, and to feather the edges. You can track the positions of moving items too - it's remarkably effective.
Update: After Effects now has content aware fill for video:
https://helpx.adobe.com/after-effects/using/content-aware-fill.html

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


text:
After Effects won't consistently stop previewing video when I ask it to
I'm teaching myself After Effects CC while trying to make a music video. I use the spacebar or the 0 on the numeric keypad to preview my work. When I press one of those keys a second time to stop the preview, After Effects often ignores me and continues playback.
It's very frustrating to carefully time a spacebar press to place the Current Time Indicator exactly where I want it and have my input be blithely ignored by the software. What can I do to ensure that After Effects CC will always respond to keyboard commands?

im late to this post post but i found a simple fix. go to prefrences, press preivew, dont change anything and just press ok. for some reason this fixed it for me.

When you press space bar, After Effects tries to playback the composition out of the current playhead position instantly. Theoretically the playback depends on your machine, but an instant playback of a  composition (in real time) is a very computing-intensive process and with conventional computers not possible at the moment. This also is the simple reason why After Effects sometimes does not respond. Also see the official Improve performance manual.

For correct playback (25fps) use the RAM-Preview instead of the space bar. Press Numpad 0 or the associated |||> in the Preview Panel to start the preview rendering process:

Press Numpad 0 again to stop it
Press Numpad 0 twice to stop and playback the previously rendered (green) frames

In order to facilitate the work:

Set the rendering resolution of the view to a lower value for e.g. to half or quarter
Limit the work area in your timeline, press B to set the start render point (Begin), press N to set the end point (End)
Enable loop preview (7th button) to repeat the preview of the current work area
Press Numpad ,  for audio preview only

With the new release, on Win10 anyway, sometimes the preview will not stop using any method other than this workaround.
Left click on the taskbar icon and select “Close window”. Then, select “Cancel” in the box that pops up. You'll return to AE with the preview paused.
Rusty


text:
how do 4k or 1080 images look like on a 720p monitor?
I try to display higher resolution images (2400x1600) on my smaller 1366x768 monitor. I've noticed in 'normal view' (without zoom), it looks like some details are washed out, however when I zoom into a certain extent I notice that these details appear very clearly.
I believe that there are missing pixels, which not displayed properly on my monitor because of the difference between the pixel scale of the image and the monitor...
Would this 2400x1600 image look better on a monitor of the same pixel scale?
Thanks in advance to all your help!

When displaying an image whose pixel sizes are larger than your monitor, you loose some information and your graphic card is doing some processing to fit the large image in a smaller screen. You will get the best result when watching the image on a monitor whose native pixel sizes are equal to the image pixel sizes.


text:
Is there a product(s) to stream recorded videos, all at same given point in time
I've been searching for a hardware or software product that can stream up at least 17 time stamped video recordings, all at the same point in time.  If I had 17 separate recordings of 17 different flight simulations for example, I would like the ability to fast forward/rewind to a given point in time and have these channels all stream the recordings from that point in time.  Any products I've come across so far can only work with a small number of channels.

I did find a product called Calypso by Haivision
http://www.haivision.com/products/record-stream/calypso
I've spoken with their tech support and they claim it can do the time sync functionality I desire.
I recognize this product will be out of the price range for some looking for the same sort of thing.  The multiscreener app screaming drills mentions above looks promising, as does some other software products that website mentions.  I just do not have the time to check them out.

Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro X can. Final Cut is particularly good at this. Look up multicam FCPX for some demos.

I see the multicam feature is able to sync multiple imported streams for editing in these products, but what about exporting?  I've started researching both Adobe Premiere and Final Cut Pro and haven't found anything yet that says either product will stream multiple sources to multiple destinations, all sources starting at a given point in time.

You're right about that, its great for syncing and viewing, but most editors assume you would want to watch one stream at a time. Can you tell me more what you're trying to achieve? How would you like to watch the video? What player would you use (QuickTime, VLC). What's the max resolution you'd want?

I would like to be able to play back training sessions that took place on multiple computers simultaneously.  I am flexible about what video format the recordings would be in.  The recordings would all be time synced.  The idea is that I could jump to x minutes after start and have each of these recordings streamed to a separate display for review at the same point in time.  I'd then proceed to fast forward/rewind, and have all the streams jump to that time.  I'd like to view each of the recordings on a separate display.  I am flexible about what player to use.  I'd prefer full HD res

Gotcha, this a really interesting problem. I'm sure there is a good very expensive broadcast solution but I'd like to research and see if I can figure this out. Now that you've got me thinking I can think of a dozen applications for this.

I found this multiscreener app: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/slade/know/3447. This looks promising. I would prep the videos by using the multicam FCPX function to synchronize and create several "tracks" with the exact same start and end time. It would be just as simple with Premiere. Ill have to test it out when I get home.


text:
Windows - Easy to use video editor
I want to make a video using photos and video snips and add titles freely. Is there any user-friendly software to do so? I don't have much time for complicated software right now. So I'm looking for one which I can easily understand and use.

Operating System?

Windows 7. Thanks anyway! :)

If you use Windows, that Windows Movie Maker — your choice. It have everyting you need for basic editing.
I myself work in Premiere, AE and Edius, but when I need something really simple, and do not have my computer with me, then using Movie Maker.

If you want to save time and learning efforts, and you can live with limited control over the end result, you may want to have a look at:

muvee Reveal
Magix Fastcut
GoPro Studio
Sony Action Cam Movie Creator

The later two are for free.

If you use the Windows operating system, you have the option to  the movie maker. But if you use the Apple OSX operating system, you can use Final Cut. It's also important to say that the Adobe package, which includes After Effects and Premiere, also runs on both operating systems commented - Windows and OSX.


text:
What are these black tapes in green screening?

In some 'making of' green screening videos, I saw these black tapes on the actors. What are these for?

related: http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/5541/what-kind-of-camera-do-i-need-to-record-a-moving-object-in-order-to-do-motion-tr

I assume these are home made motion markers in order to track the motion of the head in the shot. This is useful for adding other objects (or images) to the object, therefore the technique is called object tracking.
Note: The example given is only useful for 2d tracking, because most 3d solvers needs a minumium of 8 tracking markers around the object (in each frame).


text:
How to move a clip aside for possible future use in FCPX?
I'm editing a short movie, and there are clips that I'm considering cutting that I want to keep in place but not necessarily use. How can I deactivate a clip such that it doesn't occupy the storyline, but stays in place?
"disabling" a clip (pressing V) doesn't do that- it still remains a blank part of the timeline. "Lift from timeline" doesn't seem to accomplish that either.
Ideally, I could just leave the clips in place and disable them in a way that makes the playhead skip ahead when it reaches those clips, so that I can easily see what the movie looks like with those optional clips and without them.
Any advice is much appreciated.

I'd lift the clip from the story line and then disable it with V. There's no other way to keep a clip in the timeline near the edit point without leaving empty space or affecting the timing of the cut.

Not the downvoter, but as you can see OP already mentioned this... Please explain your solution more in detail.

I understood OP as trying either or. Doing both works great. There's not other way to keep a clip in the timeline near the edit point without leaving empty space or affecting the timing of the cut.


text:
How to remove little camera movements
I want to remove little camera movements from a video. Is this possible?
I tried virtualdub with deshaker plugin, but it only works for shaking.

Shooting position: bridge
Weather: strong wind

Example shot on youtube.

Adobe premiere and After effects have a stabilizer plugin with a "no motion" setting that does what you want. These are commercial applications.
The free Da vinci resolve lite also has a "stabilize option" (but I have never tried it personally)

If you have After Effects or Mocha you could track those building and use the track to stabilize the video. By manually tracking the motion you decide, what to eliminate and don't leave it as guesswork to the computer. If done right, this would give the best result and in your case wouldn't take long.

Da Vinci Resolve 11 Lite is free and awesome. Thx @kazanaki !

FFMpeg's vid.stab filter is configurable.  Crank up the time-scale and even slow global motion should get stabilized.
You have to run it as a 2-pass process: detect, and then stabilize.  If you're going to do more with the video later, after stabilizing, output to a lossless format and then point your other tools at that.

Another option to try is Prodad Mercalli - a standalone application with some very cool features, such as CMOS correction. Contains many built-in presets for action cameras. Not cheap, though.


text:
Blotchy, pale, reddish skin
My skin tone is reddish and pale.
It seems even moreso in front of a video camera, where I'm recording some lectures in front of two lights and a black backdrop.
Also whereas looking in a mirror it doesn't look like I have acne, in front of a camera my skin looks very blotchy, see:

What can I do to reduce that?

@poor, good call. http://imgur.com/F486lP6

I'm not being flip, but consider that not every problem has or needs a technical solution. Stage makeup can make you look any way you want to look on camera. No professional video host would go on air in his/her plain skin.

When politicians cannot control the cameras, the lighting, the post processing, then they are pancaked in makeup. You can use this but you have more control:
Lighting: A wide diffused lighting source is more flattering for imperfections but may not help you with colour blotchiness. Some LEDs may not play nicely with your camera sensor and have green spikes in some parts of the spectrum that can make you seem jaundiced. Tungsten light that throws off more infrared can be good with some cameras but worse with others.
Camera choice: some cameras are kinder in rendering skin tones thanks to their processing of reds. From the sensor's response including the reds outside of our usual visible spectrum, through to the onboard matrixing or combination of the sensor data into a usable signal. Flattering caucasian skin tones is done at the expense of being able to differentiate subtle shades of red more accurately. Canon are anecdotally liked for their skin tones, but more orange reds.
Edge enhancement: Cameras have a "detail" circuit to artificially enhance the edges of contrasting areas to make a camera sharper. Some will have the ability to selectively not apply this to areas that are of a pinkish skin tone.
In post-production various "Beauty" plugins allow for a selection of the skin tone range and then will apply diffusion or colour evenness to that area.
You can a achieve a similar result to this yourself in a free colour grading system such as DaVinci Resolve Light with this method:
1. Add a serial node and use the colour picker to "grab" your skin tones. Widen the selection in the colour, saturation or luminance sections to get as much of your face as possible while not grabbing other parts of the picture. Blur the key selection somewhat.
2. Now in the midtones colour wheel, push the whole range into a red/orange direction. This will make you look like an Oompa Loompa.
3. Reduce the saturation on this node till you look more natural but you will now have an even tone in the range you selected. You can also add a slight blur to this node to soften imperfections. If the overall effect is too false, selectively mix this processed face back in with the original to taste.

Possible solutions

Check your White balance settings on the camera.
Change your camera settings to reduce contrast and introduce
softness in the video (search for a "portrait" color profile if you
have a dslr)
Edit the final video and perform color
correction/grading

or a combination of those.

Or might be a White Balance issue, right?

Yes true! I implied this in "camera settings", but I will update my answer


text:
ffmpeg stream options for mp3, cover art of mp4
I have potentially millions of HLS streaming videos to create from cover art and mp3s.  Obviously, I'd like to keep the resulting bandwidth to a minimum.  I tried various ffmpeg flags specifically suggested for this task and even some on the apple media segmenter that claimed to put a cover art in each segment(meta-file/meta-type).  I had a lot of problems getting chrome to display the cover art when playing back using HTML5 despite it working in VLC.  I ended up with a working command line like this.
ffmpeg -loop 1 -i 1k_image.jpg -i song_219kbs.mp3 -c:v libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p  -profile:v baseline -c:a aac -strict experimental -b:a 64k -r 1 -shortest song_64k_2fps_baseline.mp4

The -pix_fmt and baseline profile seemed to be key.  Can you see anything I am doing that is unnecessary?  Is there a better way of achieving my goal?
Also, I look at several of the commercial cloud transcoding solutions and didn't see how to configure one to do this.  Did I miss the options?

Please include the complete console output from your command.

Use libfdk_aac.  It has better quality per bitrate than ffmpeg's built-in AAC encoder.  Also, don't forget -movflags +faststart to put the MOOV atom at the front of the file (essential for streaming).

If you just want to embed a cover you might consider keeping the result as mp3, for example:
ffmpeg -i original.mp3 -i cover.png -map 0:0 -map 1:0 -metadata:s:v title="Album cover" -metadata:s:v comment="Cover (Front)" -id3v2_version 3 -write_id3v1 1 result.mp3

If you are creating mp4's, e.g. for YouTube, then I suggest to split the process to two steps - first create the video movie with no audio track, duration somewhat longer than that of the audio. Then mux the video and audio together with the -shortest option which will truncate the video to the exact duration of audio. In terms of time these two steps will take a tidbit longer than a single pass but your whole workflow will be much simpler and more manageable.

Wow that really worked. Isn't that shorter with ffmpeg?


text:
How to create a light wall in after effects?
I want to create a wall of lights, that will be animated (on/off) by simple graphics in motion, similar to:

So far I created the wall of lights using Optical Flare + AE point lights. I can also "flash" the full wall by animating the brightness of the optical flare FX.
BUT: how can I actually base the brightness of individual lights on eg a graphical arrow or any, as seen in the video linked above?
Can I somehow add a matte/mask to the optical flares FX layer, so that the optical flare FX will only pick the lights that apply to that mask, and change their brightness accordingly?
Or maybe I'd have not to apply as matte animation on the FX, but on the 200 light layers somehow?

Putting this as a comment as I'm not sure how to actually make it work, but my first guess would be to make a greyscale video at the resolution of the light wall.  Then use scripting to wire up the intensity values of the lights to the corresponding pixel in the down-scaled grey-scale video.

Most light walls in AE are made using a matrix of sorts, rather than individually creating many light layers.  Trapcode Form would allow you to create a 2D array of individual glowing particles, which can then be "driven" by another layer, to adjust the brightness of each individual particle.  A lamp image could be used for the particles, and additional glow effects can then be overlaid to make the effect more convincing.
There's a page here listing lots of different ways of achieving the same effect:
http://provideocoalition.com/ryoung/story/led_and_casino_text_effects_in_after_effects/


text:
Corrupt images, when capturing from multiple cameras using the V4L2 API
I would like to grab images from multiple cameras under linux. I followed this presentation used the code and enhanced it for my purpose. It works very well for 1 camera.

Once I begin to grab images from multiple cameras (successively) I get corrupt images.

The more cameras I sue the more artefacts/stripes in the images appear. It does not make any difference if I save the images as BMP using another code. So I assume the problem has nothing to do with the storing routine. The resolution is also right (744 * 480).
The result is the same on two different computers running Fedora and Debian. I am absolutely baffled and can not find any clue what is going wrong. Could me please someone give some hints ?
Here is my code
int main()
{
    /* #################### INIT #################### */

    int numOfCameras = 1;
    int xRes = 744;
    int yRes = 480;
    int exposure = 2000;
    unsigned int timeBetweenSnapshots = 2; // in sec
    char fileName[sizeof "./output/image 000 from camera 0.PNG"];

    static const char *devices[] = { "/dev/video0", "/dev/video1", "/dev/video2", "/dev/video3", "/dev/video4", "/dev/video5", "/dev/video6", "/dev/video7" };

    struct v4l2_capability cap[8];
    struct v4l2_control control[8];
    struct v4l2_format format[8];
    struct v4l2_requestbuffers req[8];
    struct v4l2_buffer buffer[8];

    int type = V4L2_BUF_TYPE_VIDEO_CAPTURE; // had to declare the type here because of the loop

    unsigned int i;
    unsigned int j;
    unsigned int k;

    int fd[8];
    void **mem[8];

    /* #################### OPEN DEVICE #################### */

    for (j = 0; j < numOfCameras; ++j) {

        fd[j] = open(devices[j], O_RDWR);
        ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_QUERYCAP, &cap[j]);

        /* #################### CAM CONTROLL #################### */

        control[j].id = V4L2_CID_EXPOSURE_AUTO;
        control[j].value = V4L2_EXPOSURE_SHUTTER_PRIORITY;
        ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_S_CTRL, &control[j]);

        control[j].id = V4L2_CID_EXPOSURE_ABSOLUTE;
        control[j].value = exposure;
        ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_S_CTRL, &control[j]);

        /* #################### FORMAT #################### */

        ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_G_FMT, &format[j]);
        format[j].type = V4L2_BUF_TYPE_VIDEO_CAPTURE;
        format[j].fmt.pix.width = xRes;
        format[j].fmt.pix.height = yRes;
        //format.fmt.pix.pixelformat = V4L2_PIX_FMT_YUYV;
        format[j].fmt.pix.pixelformat = V4L2_PIX_FMT_GREY;
        ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_S_FMT, &format[j]);

        /* #################### REQ BUF #################### */

        req[j].type = V4L2_BUF_TYPE_VIDEO_CAPTURE;
        req[j].count = 4;
        req[j].memory = V4L2_MEMORY_MMAP;
        ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_REQBUFS, &req[j]);
        mem[j] = malloc(req[j].count * sizeof(*mem));

        /* #################### MMAP #################### */

        for (i = 0; i < req[j].count; ++i) {
            buffer[j].type = V4L2_BUF_TYPE_VIDEO_CAPTURE;
            buffer[j].memory = V4L2_MEMORY_MMAP;
            buffer[j].index = i;
            ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_QUERYBUF, &buffer[j]);
            mem[j][i] = mmap(0, buffer[j].length,
                    PROT_READ|PROT_WRITE,
                    MAP_SHARED, fd[j], buffer[j].m.offset);
        }

        /* #################### CREATE QUEUE #################### */

        for (i = 0; i < req[j].count; ++i) {
            buffer[j].type = V4L2_BUF_TYPE_VIDEO_CAPTURE;
            buffer[j].memory = V4L2_MEMORY_MMAP;
            buffer[j].index = i;
            ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_QBUF, &buffer[j]);
        }

    } /* ### ### end of camera init ### ### */

    /* ##################### STREAM ON #################### */
    for (j = 0; j < numOfCameras; ++j) {

        ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_STREAMON, &type);
    }

    /* ##################### GET FRAME ##################### */

    k = 0;
    while (!kbhit()){
        k ++;

        for (j = 0; j < numOfCameras; j++) {

            buffer[j].type = V4L2_BUF_TYPE_VIDEO_CAPTURE;
            buffer[j].memory = V4L2_MEMORY_MMAP;
            usleep(100000);
            ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_DQBUF, &buffer[j]);

            // create filename
            sprintf(fileName, "./output/image %03d from camera %d.PNG", k, j);
            // save as PNG file
            saveToPng(mem[j][buffer[j].index], fileName, xRes, yRes);

            ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_QBUF, &buffer[j]);

            sleep(timeBetweenSnapshots);
        }
    }

    /* ##################### STREAM OFF ##################### */
    for (j = 0; j < numOfCameras; ++j) {

        ioctl(fd[j], VIDIOC_STREAMOFF, &type);
    }

    /* ##################### CLEANUP ##################### */

    for (j = 0; j < numOfCameras; ++j) {

        close(fd[j]);
        free(mem[j]);
    }

    return (0);
}

This is a very borderline question for this SE, anything programming related should be asked on StackOverflow instead.

Are you sure that the frame rate and frame dimensions are uniform between the cameras?  That looks suspiciously like improper line timing, which would result from having the wrong height and width and/or frame rate.

Your issue is probably that you don't have enough USB bandwidth available, if your webcams support it switch to MJPEG instead of uncompressed frames. Usually any webcam supports MJPEG encoding to deliver frames to your PC.
Here a similar question on SO https://stackoverflow.com/questions/9781770/capturing-multiple-webcams-uvcvideo-with-opencv-on-linux

I am fairly certain you are getting the corruption because of the usleep(100000); - This is based on the fact I have achieved similar corruption using one webcam by adding usleep(100000) to my code.
My usleep(100000); is substitution for running an opencl kernel, meaning this point I know the problem is that the usleep(100000) affects the video frame delivery in some way (this happens in my code if I strip out all other code, and just save the frames to disk as ppm files).
What I don't know is why ....
I can put the usleep anywhere in my code, the affect is always the same.
Perhaps the video4linux webcam code needs to be on a different pthread ..


text:
After Effects Not Rendering Transparency (Quicktime Movie)
I have a comp that I made that is a write-on effect.  I have selected the alpha channel toggle so in my view, I see the checkered background.
When I queue to render, I select lossless + alpha (I've also tried custom RGB + alpha) with quicktime selected and it renders a white background instead of transparent one. I had selected the white background, but transparency was toggled when I did the export, and so was the lossless + alpha.
Please help.

Chances are that your video already has a transparent background. To be sure, you can try importing it to a video editor, like AE. Desktop players don't usually support transparency as far as I know. At the very least they show a solid background behind it. Kinda like how PDF readers show white background by default. --- You might be able to use html 5 to embed transparent video to website, at which point the question becomes more of a coding question. I have no idea if same export settings apply in those cases. Chances are that browser support is narrow too. I wouldn't really know though.

If the video is going to be embedded on a website, see if this could help you with that.

Thanks,  I am trying to put it over a background image on a site. Thanks for the Jquery link I'll check that out.  That being said: When I play it from the file in chrome or safari there's a white background and then black margins.  Is this normal for a a webm that does support transparency?

I haven't got the slightest idea. Just remembered something. You might wanna try adobe edge animate and see if it could do what ever it is you're trying to do with the video. After all, it is pretty much like AE for the web.

Did you try re-importing the rendered video into After Effects? You should definitely have transperency with these settings.
If you only tried to play this back as a webm video in chrome and safari you won't see transparency, neither browser is supporting webm with transparency right now. Only Googles Cannary project offers this future at the moment.
As Joonas mentioned in the comments, the jquery-seeThru project is offering a workaround for that.

Well, I just imported it into a new comp.  new comps default have a black background right? So i just toggled the bg in the new one and then it was transparent, so I'm good right?

Would it be advisable to export a different file format then?  Could I export a png sequence or a gif that would be transparent without the jquery-seeThru?  It's just a 'write-out' effect - essentially writing out a word and I want transparency to put it over a BG image

Sure using a png sequence or gif will both work in all browsers. If its just a single color or a small gradient on your "write out" effect a gif would be sufficent. You can import your rendered video into Photoshop and export it from there to a GIF. Photoshop Export to Web has more control over the GIF quality than Adobe Media Encoder.
Though if you have a soft edge GIF will be a bad choice, it only has a 1bit alpha. You probably also experience some aliasing with GIF if you have lots of round edges.

There actually is no such thing as a "transparent" background in video.  Instead what you have is either 3 channel video (red, green and blue value for each pixel) or 4 channel (red, green, blue and alpha values for each pixel).
The Alpha channel provides details about how opaque each pixel should be, however unless the video player playing the video file supports reading this extra channel of data, it won't actually do anything special.
Generally, unless the background image will actually be different for different users, your best bet may be to actually import the portion of the graphic that will be behind the video and actually record the video with the background behind it.  Then, when you position things together correctly, it will appear relatively seamless (though you have to be careful about the color encoding to make sure colors match.)  There is also some possibility that people's players will apply a color profile anyway and thus make the video frame have a slight color alteration from the normal background.
Otherwise, the jquery-seeThru project that Professor Sparkle mentioned is probably the best bet.

To get a transparent Quicktime Video:

select the composition
press Ctrl+M to add it to the render queue,
click on Output Module to choose the File Format,
select Quicktime Container Format for Video Output,
select RGB+A to render RGB and Alpha channel

@AkhterHumayun the codec you're using needs to be one that supports transparency, most don't. Apple Animation is one that does

I found that when I changed my color depth to 32b, I got my transparencies. Beta does not like anything under 32 apparently. I opened a project that was set for 16 bits and my transparencies were gone. When I changed it to 32, everything ran fine.


text:
How to remove Tracker points from green screen footage
I have downloaded green screen footage that has tracker points with it. I have easily remove the green screen but I am unable to remove tracker points from it.
I have google it, but unable to find any way to remove tracker points from video.
I am using Adobe After effects CC. Kindly guide me or refer me some good tutorial on how to remove tracker points from a video:

Really? Why do you want to remove the markers in this case?

They are appearing over my video.

You don't need to use greenscreen. You need to track markers, and put your footage above the markers and greenscren. Just lock position on markers points.

Like in this video, but track not corners, but markers.
Then you can add some effects for footage, to look more immersive.

You are welcome! Have a good luck!


text:
How to prepare AVCHD on a PC for Mac use later?
I recently began a job in IT and part of my role involves recording at some company events. However, it isn't my role to edit the videos themselves. These files need to be handed off to a Mac user who has Adobe Premier. I, however use a PC (Windows 7).
I am using a Panasonic HC-V520 which records AVCHD, and only have the typical included Windows 7 software. I need to somehow get the video to a Mac user (who has Adobe Premier) so that she may view and edit. It would also be nice, if possible, to store the files on our (Windows) server for archiving purposes.
I've found so far that I can play and store the .mts files on my PC and play them in VLC and Windows Media Player, but getting them from the PC to a Mac is really a pain-- Even if I wanted to edit them on my PC they don't burn to a playable DVD in Windows Media Center, and the files aren't playable on a Mac at all.

Don't do anything to the files, Premiere Pro should be able to handle them. Just copy them to a USB drive and hand them off to your editor.
NEVER convert your video files prior to editing. You'll lose quality for no reason.
If the Mac won't open them, try another media player such as VLC media player. For a PC, I'd say you may need to install Quicktime as it comes with a codec that may be required, but on a Mac that should be preinstalled anyway. If that doesn't work, update your operating system. Or just try to import them to Premiere, if it doesn't work, update Premiere.

Your question sounds more like a Filesystem related question... For a couple of years now both Windows and osx can read ExFat formatted drives, so as moritzlost mentioned, leave the files untouched and just copy them to an ExFat drive. BTW not touching the avchd files also includes not changing the directory structure, in case your idea was to just copy out the mts files from the folders.

Actually that might lead to a problem on a Mac. If the Mac recognizes the avchd file structure, it will display it as a clip show instead of a folder. You can still import the videos into premiere, but the OS will prevent you from accessing it's content directly. This becomes a problem if you move the folder to a different directory, because you can't relink the media files. This can be solved by renaming the avchd folder.

I didn't mean the folder name but the structure of the files in the folder. At least when the recording device used spanning clips (recordings that are split into different 2gb pieces), this was "destroyed" when taking out the actual video clips from the folder. Often this is only detected by the NLE if the directory contains the files in the original structure with the accompanying metadata.


text:
Attach image to layer with tracking mask
I have a two layers.

First is the an image (PNG)
Second is a video

And i want to "attach" first layer to region on the video and track that (just like mosaic effect with mask and tracking work).
How i can do that? Thanks!

I take it you are looking for Motion Tracking. Unfortunately, Premiere Pro doesn't have that capability. You'd have to set keyframes for the animation manually, which can be a pain if it needs to be accurate. If you need to do automated Motion Tracking, you could switch to After Effects which comes with that capability (see link above).


text:
Using ffmpeg with avfoundation, capture_cursor and capture_mouse_clicks options are ignored
Situation: cash-strapped ivory tower visionary and ffmpeg newbie manacled to a 2nd hand 2010 Macbook Pro concealing a 'Black Screen of Death' NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M graphics chip.
With the help of the gfxCardStatus app (option 'Integrated Only' selected), I overcame this particular Apple quality control failure to record fullscreen video and at full resolution, using the following command:
ffmpeg -video_size 1680x1050 -framerate 30 -f avfoundation -i "1" -c:v libx264 -qp 0 -preset ultrafast -capture_cursor 1 -capture_mouse_clicks 1 capture.mkv

The capture_cursor and capture_mouse_clicks options, however, are steadfastly ignored.
Aside from these omissions, ffmpeg is recording at a quality and smoothness better than any of the screencapture/screencast apps I've tried, so for once I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with the crap hardware, but rather with my use of ffmpeg.
There is nothing to suggest the installation/compilation process went wrong, for which I used:
$ brew install ffmpeg --with-fdk-aac --with-ffplay --with-freetype --with-frei0r --with-libass --with-libvo-aacenc --with-libvorbis --with-libvpx --with-opencore-amr --with-openjpeg --with-opus --with-rtmpdump --with-schroedinger --with-speex --with-theora --with-tools --with-libavformat --with-OpenCV --with-libx264

Is there something I'm overlooking, but which is needed for capture_cursor and capture_mouse_clicks to work? Compilation parameter? ffmpeg option order? Some OS flag setting?
Operating System
 - OS X Yosemite
 - Version 10.10.5 (14F1021)
Hardware:

MacBook Pro (15-inch, Mid 2010)
Processor 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
Memory 8 GB 1067 MHz DDR
Graphics Intel HD Graphics 288 MB
NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M

Addendum
Here the ffmpeg video capture command usage, following the guidelines provided by @Mulvya:
$ ffmpeg -video_size 1680x1050 -framerate 30 -f avfoundation -capture_cursor 1 -capture_mouse_clicks 1 -i "1" -c:v libx264 -qp 0 -preset ultrafast capture.mkv

Place those options before -i "1"
In ffmpeg, parameters and flags apply to the next input/output entry.
So,
ffmpeg {-flags for input1} -i input1 {-flags for input2} -i input2 {-flags for output1} output1 {-flags for output2} output2


text:
Is there a "starting place" in terms of colour correction before adding a stylistic LUT
I am new to the world of LUTs and am just doing initial research on it in advance of doing some colour grading on a video project. I understand that LUTs are applied to either give a 709 look to footage recorded in log - OR to give a particular style.
My footage was shot on a humble Fugifilm hs10; so it's not log and I'll have to attempt to make it good good with the manual colour correcting tools (I'm using premiere pro CS6).
But if I want to apply a stylistic effect how do I go about that. When I visit websites which sell LUTS to give particular effects - eg rocket rooster, deluts, ground control - they all have luts for sale but they appear to be starting from a point of view of a log file - at least the footage always looks washed out like log files do.
Regardless of whether they're starting from log footage or not - my question is do I have to be starting from a particular point of view ( eg particular nominal values on the scopes for instance ) to achieve these stylistic effects - or are there any general guidelines for me to get my footage ready to apply one of these stylistic luts

Applications such as FCPX and Adobe Creative Cloud actually ship with a wide variety of stylized LUTs, so if you use either of those you can play around with them.  Most LUTs will specify what they expect as input, and many I have seen are designed to work either with LOG or REC709.  (There are many LOG formats out there--Arri Log-C, RED RedLogFilm, Sony SLOG, Canon, etc.  Some LUTs get really particular, others less so.)
A good rule of thumb is that the LUT expects a properly exposed image, meaning black, white, and 18% gray land at around 16, 235, and 110-120 in the 8-bit broadcast video safe world of 16-235.  It's very helpful to have an optical signal generator (calibrated black, white, and gray pieces of paper which, when hit by light, generate an optical signal) so that you can verify exposure before you shoot.
If you don't have a waveform monitor on your camera or in your signal chain, you can record data from the optical signal generator, upload it to your favorite NLE (which should have a waveform monitor) and you can verify that your white, black, and gray levels are sane.  Learn whatever it is your meters are telling you when you shoot your black/white/gray value chart with a correct exposure.
If you cannot shoot LOG, then look for LUTs that will accept REC709, shoot properly exposed images, and have fun!

Thanks - a lot of info in there which I think will cover what I was asking when it get to the bottom of studying it - actually btw edited my question I'm on CS6 so I don't think I have any LUTs in that.


text:
Grading Colour To Black And White In Davinci Resolve
I use Photoshop / ACR a lot and I'm well used to they way they handle conversion from black and white. I have control over reds, greens, blues, yellows, cyan and magentas, which allows a huge flexibility in conversion.
I'm trying to transfer this knowledge to Resolve, but I'm struggling to find a comparable workflow. The Saturation setting in the Primary settings doesn't give any such control, so I'm assuming I need to break the footage in it's RGB components and work on each separately, however I can't find a way to split and recombine them so that I end up with a monochrome image.
I can find almost nothing relating to grading colour footage to black and white in resolve, so what is the most flexible approach?

There is actually a specific option for this in Resolve.

In your primaries pane (bottom left of the color tab) navigate to the "rgb mixer" tab.
In the top right of the tab, click the options menu (3 dots)
Check the 'make monochrome' command.

Now you'll see 6 from the 9 rgb mixer bars turn gray and you'll be able to use the other 3 to mix you black and white the way you want to.
Good luck!

No actually , this has been there ever since I started working in version 8. But it's well hidden.

Assuming I'm reading your suggestion correctly, I would recommend making a node for color management, then adding a node after that which changes your footage to black and white. You'll be able to edit the node before the black and white in full color and then re-enable the black and white node to finish the effect.
EDIT:
As I've said, I'm not entirely sure I understand what you want. One thing you can do is make three separate nodes for the R, G, and B channels. They can either be sequential or parallel, assuming you do it correctly it shouldn't matter. You can use each node with a color picker to separate the color channels. This probably won't work exactly how you expect because the color picker will only select objects that have an output of solid color, not separate the colors. You can also use the standard color tools which will give you full color control. The idea is that you have a node with color that you can edit before the desaturating node.

It's easy to desaturate the image by setting saturation to 0, but this doesn't give control over the rgb components of this process. The channel mixer can also be set to monochrome, allowing control over each channel, but this doesn't allow me to split each component into a separate (parallel) node and work on them separately before recombining them.

You can use the color picker and separate nodes to separate the different components.

Please could you elaborate on this in your answer.


text:
premiere cc: LINK audio and video tracks greyed out
I have multiple audio clips and want to link them to a video clip. I first unlinked the camera audio from the video, then selected the video clips, the cam audio and the external recorded audio clips. Now the context menu entry "LINK" is greyed out. I can only relink the original audio clips to the video clip. This doesn't make any sense to me. To group clips doesn't help me either, because if I intercut the group, all parts are grouped together.

Any solutions for this?

Okay, so here is the answer: as you can see above, the clips on A1 and A3 are mono, the clip on A3 is stereo. This has nothing to do with the tracks, all three tracks are "standard", so they allow to carry stereo and mono clips. After setting the clip on A3 to mono in the project panel, and adding it anew to the A3 track, it finally works. Now with ALL three clips in mono, I now can link them together with the video clip!

There are at least three ways to put things together in Premiere Pro: linking, grouping, and nesting.  Linking is the lowest-level, assigning audio tracks to a single video clip.  You cannot link two video clips together, regardless of how much audio they may want to share.
Grouping allows you to treat multiple clips of audio and video as part of the same group for selection, moving, trimming, etc.  If you have a bunch of related clips (video and audio) which you want to behave as a unit, but whose relationships you still want to be able to see, use grouping.
Nesting creates a new sequence with all the audio and video clips you want to behave as if it's just a single entity.  You can change the relationships (and of course edit) within that entity, but to do so you have to open up that sequence on its own timeline.
You probably want to use either grouping or nesting, not linking for this case.

Hi Michael, thanks for clarifying the underlying concepts! For what I wanted to do linking still seems the way to go. I allready found the answer why it didn't work here at first place - see my comment above.


text:
How to concatenate clips from the same video with ffmpeg
I have a long video with different scenes in it.
I want to extract and concatenate 2 scenes from the video (that do not start on an I-frame) using ffmpeg 2.1.4.
For argument, say I want 5 seconds from 01:00 and 02:00.
I can do this:
ffmpeg -ss 01:00 -i in.mkv -ss 02:00 -i in.mkv -filter_complex "
  [0:v]select='lt(t,5)'[v0];
  [0:a]aselect='lt(t,5)'[a0];
  [v0][a0][1:v][1:a]concat=n=2:v=1:a=1
" -c:a libvorbis -t 10 out.mkv

That gives me the movie I want, but select actually forces ffmpeg to decode the entire rest of the movie.  So, how do I tell it to truncate the first movie instead of decoding it?
I would prefer to do this with an ffmpeg complex filter, if possible.  I know that I can just use -t to recode separate movies first, but the extra encoding step is very slow in my case and also loses a fair amount of quality for this video.
I can't seem to find a filter that truncates the length of a steam.  Are there filter nodes that correspond to the -t or -ss parameters?

concat filter
This method is best if you need to perform additional filtering:
Use the trim, atrim, setpts, asetpts, and concat filters:
ffmpeg -i input -filter_complex \
"[0:v]trim=60:65,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[v0]; \
 [0:a]atrim=60:65,asetpts=PTS-STARTPTS[a0]; \
 [0:v]trim=120:125,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS[v1];
 [0:a]atrim=120:125,asetpts=PTS-STARTPTS[a1]; \
 [v0][a0][v1][a1]concat=n=2:v=1:a=1[out]" \
-map "[out]" output.mkv

setpts and asetpts will prevent a jerky output due to presentation timestamp issues.
Make sure to use a recent version. See the FFmpeg Download page for links to builds for Windows, OS X, and Linux.

concat demuxer
Another method is to to create the segments individually and stream copy them instead of re-encoding (to save time and quality), and join them with the concat demuxer.
$ ffmpeg -ss 60 -i input -t 5 -codec copy clip1.mkv
$ ffmpeg -ss 120 -i input -t 5 -codec copy clip2.mkv
$ echo "file 'clip1.mkv'" > concat.txt
$ echo "file 'clip2.mkv'" >> concat.txt
$ ffmpeg -f concat -i concat.txt -codec copy output.mkv

Ah, thanks.  trim is what I was missing.  However, it takes a very long time to get to the time offset I specify, as if decoding everything up to it.  Also, part of the output was missing audio.  To fix, I specified the same input multiple times with -ss, then use trim to truncate the video.  You don't need setpts in that case, since ss sets pts to 0.  That seemed to work and didn't have weird random pauses during encoding.  As for copying streams, I tried that before.  It starts at the previous I-frame, so you get a different part of the movie than the one you wanted.

Would you please answer my question it is similar to this one. http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/18247/ffmpeg-concat-demuxer-corrupted-output-freezed-video-on-some-concatenated-parts

Interestingly the -filter_complex works but the concat files doesn't - i.e. the 1st video looks fine but the quality of the 2nd is horrible.  Note, I copied these commands exactly for both (except for the input file).

How can I trim clip by frames and concatenate?

@puneet18 Are you using concat filter or concat demuxer?

@llogan can you please suggest any way to trim video by multiple frame numbers and then concatenate it

@puneet18 Answer depends on the concatenation method you intend to use. What is the concatenation method you intend to use?

@llogan I don't know about concat filter or concat demuxer. could you please suggest what the best way?

@llogan can you please check my question on https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63656881/how-to-trim-video-by-multiple-frame-numbers-then-concatenate-using-ffmpeg

How can I with a single command cut into separate files where some of the output files have jump cuts, that is, they're concatenations of some of the cut segments? For example, I want to with a single command (so there's only one seeking through the input file) cut out segments a, b, c, and d and create output files where the first one is concatenation of a+b and the second, c+d?

This should work faster...
ffmpeg -ss 1:00 -t 5 -i in.mkv -ss 2:00 -t 5 -i in.mkv \
  -filter_complex "[0][1]concat=n=2:v=1:a=1" \
  out.mkv

There's no need to specify -t on the output.  There's no need to split the audio and video before the concat.

This uses the concat filter which will require re-encoding. This may or may not be desired by the user.


text:
Motion capture and 3D model formats
I have a light background in CAD and modelling, and I want to use some virtual sets with motion capture.
I'm trying to determine what program/platform my next 3D model should use if I want to work with someone to place an actor in there, with camera movements.
I have some models I've already built, but I can rebuild them if I need to use a new program.
Q: Are there standard model file formats that mocap systems use?  What are they?
Q: what about the camera mocap data?
I am just now learning about the pipeline for this, so if I've made inaccurate assumptions somewhere here, please feel free to correct me.
I believe it goes like:

the "live" crew captures footage of an actor, either with a mocap suit on, or not

somehow there is camera motion data captured from this process
if a mocap suit is used, somehow it is captured from this process

the "virtual" crew builds models for sets, lighting models, and possibly character models to use the mocap data
once both are finished, a renderer composites the motion with the models for a finished product

You are a little confused in the MoCap process.
Most mocap is captured live on either a soundstage or direct to your computer with a webcam/video camera with specialized software. This software converts the action footage with markers into data (usually xyz coordinates for each marker on the model for the time of the motion. This data is then used to move the 3D model with the motion file (there are several file formats, 'bvh' being the most generic).
You can also purchase motion data of a variety of actions from certain companies that sell their data online. The motion data will only work with models that have a 'skeleton' file embedded with the object file. There are several file formats that ave used for this. Models by 3D Studio, Maya, Poser, Daz Studio have their models available with the 'skeleton' file available.
Learning this on your own will be quite a challenge! I used to teach whole classes in college dedicated to these individual parts of 3D computer graphics!
I would recommend going to the Daz Studio site, or the Poser site for a ton of information about this subject. Have fun!


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Which graphic card to buy
I have decided to buy a new pc for short videos rendering in after effects. I dont have a big budget, it's around 1000$.
This is the thing i thought to buy, but i'm not really sure about graphic card.

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790K 4.0GHz
Motherboard: ASRock Z97 PRO3
Memory: Kingston HyperX 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory
Storage: Samsung 850 EVO 250GB
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB, GAINWARD 3361-BLISS GTX970 4GB GDDR5 or GTX970 G1 Gaming Gigabyte

Which graphics card is more suitable for After Effects?

Those are all very similar in terms of performance. I'd take the EVGA GeForce GTX 970, but other people will tell you something else.
One recommendation: Samsung SSDs are severely overpriced. People still buy them because Samsung has a good reputation (basically it's the same as buying a Mac for no other reason than 'all the graphics people have one'), but you won't notice any difference in any aspect between a Samsung and, say, a Crucial SSD. I recently bought the Crucial BX100 and I'm very content with it. Same price, but twice as much storage capacity.
Also, if you're getting a good GPU anyway, I would consider something like the lntel XEON E3-1231V3 over the i7 CPU, since you don't really need the inbuilt graphics unit of the latter.


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best way to publish low latency video on ffmpeg
I am trying to publish a stream of live video that need to get to the client side in under 3 sec in latency.
I am using vMix to capture a 720p/50 stream from a camera, that by virtual camera letting FFmpeg to encode the stream into h.264 720/25 stream using this code:
ffmpeg.exe -report -rtbufsize 256M -f dshow -i "video=vMix Video:audio=vMix Audio" -codec:v libx264 -s:v 1280x720 -pix_fmt:v yuv420p -threads 4 -bufsize:v 2000k -g:v 24 -preset:v veryfast -profile:v main -level:v 3.1 -b:v 2000k -minrate:v 2000k -maxrate:v 2000k -codec:a libfaac -b:a 64k -strict -2 -rtmp_flashver "FMLE/3.0 (compatible; vMix/15.0.0.74)" -f flv rtmp://Url/StreamName.

The stream goes through a Wowza transrating to three qualities, and than to a CDN, than to the client. Right now, with a buffer on the client player on 0.8 sec, i get just about under 3 sec but with a choppy frame rate.
I am using a HP Z440 QC E5-1620v3 workstation and I see that there is a lot of CPU power that I am not currently using. I have also a K620 Graphic card, but as i understand there is no use for it currently with FFmpeg.
Question
How can I utilize my CPU more than I do in order to get a faster encoding using FFmpeg? I know I can set a preset "Ultrafast", but I am concerned it will effect the quality too much.
My idea is to get the latency faster in order to be able to enlarge the client player's buffer so it will be able to handle the stream.
Any ideas on that matter? Thanks in advance :)

Probably "-threads" option may help. Try this:
ffmpeg -threads 6 -report ...

Add more thread as your CPU can handle.

I do use threads in the command. should I start with it?


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How to color grade gold
Whenever I take videos in churches/ temples with little light and a lot of gold, the gold looks kind of greenish brown on the final video.
As gold is not a colour in RGB, I have difficulties to find the correct color grading settings that make gold surfaces look golden.

Can you provide a sample to play with?

Two thoughts:

Go to images.google.com and search for "gold".  Find something you think is gold-colored, check its RGB values, and then use that as a target for your gold.  Many editing programs have the ability to aim one color toward another, so you can select a range of colors that your camera thinks of as gold and then aim it toward what you think of as gold.
Perhaps the reason why Apple's high-end iPhones are rose-gold instead of regular gold - they want pictures to look warm and rich no matter whose camera is snapping the image

Ultimately (and perhaps this is your best answer) the eye very much judges color on a relative basis.  See http://www.archimedes-lab.org/color_optical_illusions.html. To get something that really looks gold, you have to have both the right target color and the right complementary contrasting colors around it to make it really look gold.


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How to add images at the end of an existing movie?
I'd like to add some images at the end of a mp4 file via ffmpeg:

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Use this command:
ffmpeg -i "video" -loop 1 -t 3 -i "image" -f lavfi -t 3 -i anullsrc -filter_complex "[0:v] [0:a] [1:v] [2:a] concat=n=2:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -strict -2 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" output.mp4

Replace the t value with the duration that you want the image to stay. I've supplied the common encoding parameters. Replace those as needed.
For an image sequence, use
ffmpeg -i "video" -f image2 -framerate n -i "image" -f lavfi -t 3 -i aevalsrc=0 -filter_complex "[0:v] [0:a] [1:v] [2:a] concat=n=2:v=1:a=1 [v] [a]" -c:v libx264 -c:a aac -strict -2 -map "[v]" -map "[a]" output.mp4

Replace the n in framerate with the rate that you want.

Great work. Unfortunately doesn't work with audio-less videos. Could you add enough explanation to allow one to manipulate it to suit?

As a modification to top answer, this is for working with videos with no audio by removing the [a] parts. ffmpeg.exe -i input.mp4 -loop 1 -t 3 -i d.png -f lavfi -t 3 -i anullsrc -filter_complex "[0:v] [1:v] concat=n=2:v=1 [v]" -c:v libx264 -strict -2 -map "[v]" output.mkv Note that for some reason ffmpeg will run forever when outputting to mp4 but works fine outputting to mkv. It's easy to then copy .mkv to .mp4 with ffmpeg -i output.mkv -codec copy output.mp4

In the first command, where does the name of the image go?

Substitute "image"

Refer to this command:
ffmpeg -y -i input.mp4 -loop 1 -framerate 25 -t 3 -i foo.jpg -t 3 -f lavfi -i aevalsrc=0 -i bar.png -filter_complex '[1:0]scale=640:480[curtain];[0:0][0:1][curtain][2:0] concat=n=2:v=1:a=1[out];[out][3:0]overlay=W-w-25:H-h-25' -max_muxing_queue_size 1000 output.mp4 -loglevel 'trace'

this will add an image at end of the mp4 ,and add watermake to the mp4.

Can you explain some of the options given to ffmpeg since readers may need to change them to fit their situation (for example, -framerate)? Why do you specify -loglevel 'trace'? That doesn't seem necessary for the command to complete properly.


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After Effects distance between two points
I have written an expression to get the distance between two points, but it does not work and I haven't a clue why. It's pretty simple:
function findDistance(xa, xb, ya, yb)
{
    return Math.sqrt( (xa - xb)^2 + (ya - yb)^2 );
}
findDistance(682, 617, 310, 342);

The error I get is, "Error at line 0... invalid numeric result (divide by zero?)."
I am so confused by this. It seems so straight forward, so I am not even sure what to ask. Can anyone see what is wrong with this?

EDIT: I am trying to narrow down the issue. Even using the following expression is not working:
Math.sqrt( (682-617)^2 + (310-342)^2 );

Narrowing down further, this finally worked:
Math.sqrt( 5249 );

I also isolated and confirmed that X^2 is the correct way to square something, so what gives?

Hate to spoil all your good work, but it's a lot easier to use the built-in length() function:
length(pointa, pointb)

e.g.
length(thisComp.layer(1).position, thisComp.layer(2).position)

or
length([682, 617], [310, 342]); //raw vector values as an array
length(thisComp.layer("foo").anchorPoint, [310, 342]); //a spatial property and an array
length([123,456,789], [10,9,8]); //works in 3D too.

It's in vector math in the expressions drop-down panel.

I figured it out. The syntax and/or order of operation could not handle squaring two numbers before adding them, so I added parenthesis to isolate each number and square them BEFORE adding them together.
function findDistance(xa, xb, ya, yb)
{
    return Math.sqrt( ((xa - xb)^2) + ((ya - yb)^2) );
}
findDistance(682, 617, 310, 342);


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Effects Control does not show anything
When I made a shape, all of my effects like rotation, scale, etc. would pop up in the Effects Control window. Now they don't and I have to work in that cramped space in the timeline. Why is this?
Here's an image of the problem:

Learn the keyboard shortcuts, that makes accessing the different properties much easier. And if you want to edit the graphs the button just to the left of the playhead in your picture is the one you want to click.

My AE was always like that. I believe you confusing Adobe After Effects "Effects Control" panel, with Adobe Premiere "Effects Control" panel, where you can find all basic effects.


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Tracking a person
What program does this kind of tracking and how hard is it to achieve good results? I've seen this done in a lot of vfx breakdowns.

Basically without any mocap studio (or mocap hardware at least) it's hard work (or impossible) to reconstruct the exact motion. In order to deform (match) the head geometry some rigging skills and extra markers on the body are required to drive the bones by the markers. Might be interesting: https://www.fxguide.com/featured/so-just-how-was-that-chemical-brothers-video-made/. Simple face feformation test via blenders object tracker: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_oNv0uLxMA

I come from a Hollywood visual effects background, and I was a matchmove lead for a couple of shows. For the above process mentioned, Vfx facilities do it all the time.
Like Poor mentioned, it is very labour, skill and time intensive. Unfortunately, in almost all cases if you see the actor in the shot without a tracking suit, and if we need to track / match animate him, we will ALWAYS have to manually match-animate his motions by hand (and by eye).
When we think of matching character motion we tend to immediately associate that process with the imagery of behind the scenes publicity shots for Ironman, Pirates of the Carribean, the Golem in Lord of the Rings,  The Avengers, Avatar, etc. In these behind the scenes shots we see men in motion capture suits, and face cameras.
You need to know that in these cases, these men in suits are meant to be entirely replaced with computer generated characters in the final shot. Golem, Ironman, The Hulk in Avengers, blue aliens in Avatar, were all replaced with CGI.
The fully replaced CG characters always get the limelight. For the tracking team, a huge amount of effort also needs to be put into manually tracking and matching live actors that do not get replaced by CG at the end of the day.
Why do we need to track live actors with a painfully and accurately matched up model in 3D? It is for interactions with the CGI character that never existed on the set when the footage was shot. For example, when Frodo Baggins was holding a dagger wrestling the Golem, at the time of shooting, the dagger (and all metallic parts of his costume) never have the Golem reflected in them. Similarly, there was no Golem to cast an accurate shadow on Frodo too, in the areas where they contact.
Thus in all the instances where you see any CGI character interact with footage elements that is shot live (physical location, physical props and physical actors), we have to create a digital counterpart in 3D and match them exactly, place them correctly in relation to the other objects in our 3D workspace, in order to capture shadows, reflections, colour diffusion, of the digital character.
Besides having to match and body-track digital counterparts of live actors for reflection and shadow-catching, we also need to have them match-animated for dynamics simulation purposes.
In John Carter I was in the digital costumes department, we have humans interacting with alien characters which are fully CGI. The characters all have flowing, draping costumes and accessories. We had to match-animate shots so that CG clothing items, hair and fur can collide, slide across and rest correctly on live human actors. If we do not create a digital counterpart to those actors and match them, those costumes, hair and fur will go straight through the live actors in the footage because those things never existed in the same 3D space where the simulation took place, for them to interact with.
Finally to answer your question, lots of effort need to go into tracking a character. In the beginning we have the modelling stage, where we create a human model that need to have the same head, body and limb proportions as the actor. If these are wrong, you will fail to match up due to arms being too short, head being too large, and so on. Sexy industry methods like scanning of the actual actors are only reserved for films of very high budget, and where the effort and hours put in are justified. Most of the time, 3D artist will model them by eye, taking lots of references from the Web for proportions and such. Takes up much labour and time either way.
Then comes the rigging stage where the otherwise rigid model is put through the technically involved process of adding complicated controls that will later allow match-move animators to articulate the digital model to match the live actor.
Finally the match animation or body tracking artist will have to use their human understanding of perspective and how human actors move, to re-create the exact movement of the actor in the shot, from a 2d image to an accurate representation of movement in a 3D environment. Trust me, this is no easy feat and takes years of experience before an artist can become good at it.
Body tracking is several orders higher in difficulty than tracking inanimate, non deforming objects like a moving knife or a pole that was going to become a light-saber. Matching these rigid objects only require an animator to handle a set of translation (in X, Y, Z position), and a set of rotation (in X, Y, Z axes).
In body tracking, each and every joint of the human body has many different possible positions, many possible degrees of rotation. To control and manipulate one digital character is more difficult than tracking multiple non deforming objects.
Thus in a smaller budget or indie production, such accuracy is usually not required, and not viable given the time and resources needed. We would usually use cheats, hacks and shortcuts to get by.
Finally finally, here's the difference between the motion capture process that are featured behind the scenes, versus matchmoving a character (which never gets featured anywhere).
The purpose of capturing the motion for characters, is that they are ultimately going to be completely replaced by full CG characters. The reason for capturing motion of people in Mocap suits is so animators can acquire the mocap actirs' performance. Thereafter, the Mocap actor's performance is always modified. Due to jitter and inaccuracy in the captured data, Mocap data almost always needs cleaning up by artists. In most cases the captured movement will be modified, exaggerated more, acting and poses are pushed for greater impact. Some poses are changed because they do not work when viewed through the camera in the shot, or when composited in with real actors' acting, timing and reactions doesn't match or pace very well. Sometimes mocap data is used only for timing reference to the characters acting, as a guideline for the animator to start animating the digital character by hand from scratch. All these things are done so that we have a more engaging shot. Thus motion capture has no intent to match the action of an actor in shot. It serves a more artistic purpose - acting.
The purpose of matchmove tracking of an actor serves a more technical purpose, to get CG elements to "gel" with the live elements in the shot, to ground them firmly, getting them to interact and react with each other, therefore they need to match the live action as close as possible, if not exactly.
I hope this explanation is clear enough, and does not further confuse you in the end.

Thank you for such a great explanation, I was looking for some time for a good background explanation on human cg tracking. So in the end it all comes to manual matching everything, as I understand even the cloth folds.

Actually, a lot of things that were presented to us in Hollywood featurettes and behind the scenes, suggest that things were easy and with software/technological superiority, can be achieved at the push of a few buttons.
Green screen is another process where the untrained viewer is led to associated green backgrounds with automatic colour keying processes where the artist just needs to click on a colour (like in photoshop) where the background would be removed cleanly & magically.
That's not true! Check out Rotoscoping: https://goo.gl/yW2JgS.

Yep, I'm familiar with rotoscoping process, probably one of the most tedious movie editing process (of course not compared with manual 3D tracking).


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How to obtain clipname while shooting?
Is there any kind of solution to obtain simultaneous the clipname while shooting? prehaps to read hanc and fanc of the SDI signal? I use a sony AX1 4K.

Both RED and Alexa cameras offer this feature, and the Sound Devices PIX 240i reads it.  But nowhere on the Internet is there any documentation that your SONY camera offers this feature.  Either SONY doesn't have it, or they greatly need to improve their documentation.


text:
How can I link a mask path to a track null?
Well, I'm trying to make an airplane explosion scene, and I need to make a mask, because the airplane is behind some trees, I made the mask, but how can I link the mask path to the tracking null?

Can anyone help me? Thanks.

Does this help?

In After Effects CC, masks can be made into tracking masks. Right click the mask and you should see a context menu with Tracking Mask. Select it and the mask can be tracked to the video it is applied to. The Adobe page about it is here.

This will track the video but the mask will be a rigid shape. If you want the points inside the mask to track individual points in the footage you're going to need a third party extension. This one does the job:
http://aescripts.com/tracker2mask/
Another option is to apply the mask to a solid layer, then make the tracking null the parent of that layer. This can be useful when working with 3D tracked points, because you can mask objects that are rotating in the frame, eg. for logo removal.

Great tip that it's now possible to track the mask! Seems not that accurate, but works as expected. Thanks.


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Quicktime rendering issue
I am trying to export my composition from AE CC but when I hit 'Render' nothing happens. In status is says 'Rendering' but this is not the case and the cursor looks like it's working but nothing is happening. When I hit 'Stop' it gives me the following warning:

Rendering error while writing to the file "C:\WORKING EDITS\SY - SCN 1\Exports\Test 1.mov" An output module failed. The file may be damaged or corrupted. (1610153464)

When I then try this the second time it gives me the following warning:

Rendering error while writing to the file "C:\WORKING EDITS\SY - SCN 1\Exports\Test 1.mov" Unable to delete existing file. (1610153460)

I am exporting QuickTime /h.264. I have recently reinstalled my 64bit PC with windows 10 and the following programs from the Adobe CC suite: PS, PP, AE & ME.

My computer is definitely powerful enough to run the software. Any ideas? please help, pulling all my hair out with this as everything else running smoothly, Thanks in advance.

Try to debug the error: render to different location (different drive/partition), with a different format..etc. Also see this at Adobe.

it seems to me that you are trying to overwrite an existing file. Try to change the name from your file (Test 1.mov) to something different and that is not already used on your Exports folder.
Let me know if it worked.
Cheers!


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How to upload 1hr video to YouTube from fcpx
What is best way to upload longer (1hr plus) videos to youtube from fcpx. Currently my fcpx compresses a 1 hr video to 4.5GB and this takes 7000min to upload....

The upload speed to YouTube depends mainly on your Internet connection and has nothing to do with your editing software...
What you can do (if you can't get a better internet connectivity) is to create a smaller file by using higher compression settings.
I don't know how fcpx handles this process, what video format your clip is etc. But you can achieve decent results by compressing a clip to h264 with a bitrate of 10000-15000kbps and then uploading it...
EDIT: As Michael points out thats the Bitrate you are already using. So you need tackle this task from another angle: what is an acceptable upload time for you and what expectations do you have for the quality of the video? And maybe, video technology unrelated: why is your upload speed so slow (and do you have access to a faster connection)...
Then you need to find a compromise between these parameters (video quality vs time needed for upload). You can get a better compromise between file size and upload time by using a more efficient codec like VP9 or h265 which will lead to the same visual result at lower file sizes. This, at least in the case of h265 comes with the "cost" of having much longer compression times. Another option is not using FullHD resolution and just 720p and lowering the bitrate to 5-8000 KBits
Alternatively, export the video with the settings you have now, copy it to a thumb drive and go to a place that has better Internet connectivity for uploading.

Knowing that there are 3600 seconds in an hour, and that there are 8 bits in a byte, the compressed size (in MB) of a 1hr video is 3600/8 = 450 times the bitrate.  Thus, an hour-long video @ 10000 kbps = 4.5M KB = 4.5 GB.

Good point, but more helpful would have been using the math skills to calculate the speed of his Internet connection which seems like mid 90's slow :)

I routinely upload videos of an hour or more to YouTube and Vimeo and have found that although FCPX is my editor of choice, it can't handle web uploads as easily as you would hope. For our long shows, it has been proven easier to export a master ProRes file for archiving purposes and then dropping that file into Adobe Media Encoder for further processing. Not only is it faster, you end up with a manageable file size that will look just as good as your 4.5 GB file at a fraction of the size. It will also upload much faster.


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Style all open captions at once in Premiere Pro
Is it possible to style all open captions at once in Premiere Pro CC2017?
Since Adobe promotes the captions feature as a way to edit all captions in one place, I hope there actually is a way to style them all at once.

Any update on this - is it still not possible?

This has changed in the 2017 release of Premiere CC. You can now change all captions at once. Plus Adobe has added some other enhancements to the caption workflow.

Ho do you change all captions at once in the 2017 release of Premiere CC?

You can no longer select all captions in 2021, unless you do it manually.

As of Premiere 2021 you don't need to select all captions to change the style for the whole project. Just change the style for a single caption, and hit the "Push to Track or Style" button. All other clips in that style will take on those settings.

If you have the option, push to style works just fine. I've had some trouble with push to all captions.

Select all the captions in the Captions window; then go to the top right are of the window, right above the first caption -- here, you'll find a grid made up of 9 little squares. Select the bottom middle and all of your subtitles will align in the center of the frame. Hope this helps!

Right-click on the blank space of any caption and you'll see a "select all" option. Congratulations, you are now a Jedi that can edit everything at once. Enjoy.

This doesn't work in Premiere 2021

If you select all the captions in the Captions window (not the timeline) you can change the font parameters there.

Unfortunately no, and sadly there is not even an option to 'select all.'
I believe you can export the captions and load it into a program like Lemony to do you styling (better option anyways), and then import a alpha-channel file back in to Premiere (more on that below).

I have recently (about 2 months ago) started getting into subtilting or open captions for projects. And as of now I can say that I am very disappointed in Premiere's captioning system. If you are just doing 2-3 sentences its fine, otherwise I use a dedicated system for it.
My workflow is as follows

Aegisub to create a encore txt file
Import in Lemony Subtitler
Run a batch style on all my subtitles
Export .avi? with alpha channel
Import into Premiere and put the subtitles on a top layer.

This workflow is extremely fast, and way better than dealing with Premiere's archaic captioning system. Especially Aegisub, which uses some wizardry to automagically select spoken 'text' by analyzing the waveform so that your subtitles meet an optimal length (characters per second) for reading based on the time of the selection.


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Transcoding AVCHD MTS to Motion JPEG on a Mac
Bigtime video neophyte and I've not been able to figure this out after a day of trying.  Hopefully this isn't a big deal - pls assume I know nothing.

I have some AVCHD MTS files from my camcorder which I want to convert into a Motion JPEG.  I know that's a strange format, but this is the recommended codec for a programing environment called Max/MSP (because it doesn't do temporal compression), which I'm trying to use.
(Btw the source video is really jumpy / unstable.  I made lots of quick movements when recording them.  I'm just throwing that out in there in case it has any affect on transcoding.)
So, I've tried using ffmpeg and VLC on my Mac and every time the result is super pixellated and/or the playback is really jittery.
I'm not sure if I need to change the container format, use a totally different codec, change the bitrate, or any of the other parameters in ffmpeg which frankly overwhelm me.
Maybe there's a simple solution - or maybe there's a resource that will explain to me everything I need to know (concisely, briefly) to figure it out on my own.

Here's the output from ffmpeg, btw.  It produces a file, but VLC on shows the first frame and Quicktime can't play it.
ffmpeg -i 00000.MTS test1.mjpeg

ffmpeg -i 00000.MTS test1.mjpeg
ffmpeg version 3.1.4 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
  built with Apple LLVM version 7.0.2 (clang-700.1.81)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/3.1.4 --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
Input #0, mpegts, from '00000.MTS':
  Duration: 00:01:03.58, start: 0.800300, bitrate: 6745 kb/s
  Program 1
    Stream #0:0[0x1011]: Video: h264 (High) (HDMV / 0x564D4448), yuv420p, 1440x1080 [SAR 4:3 DAR 16:9], 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn, 59.94 tbc
    Stream #0:1[0x1100]: Audio: ac3 (AC-3 / 0x332D4341), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 256 kb/s
[swscaler @ 0x7f9890867a00] deprecated pixel format used, make sure you did set range correctly
[mjpeg @ 0x7f9890810200] Using AVStream.codec to pass codec parameters to muxers is deprecated, use AVStream.codecpar instead.
Output #0, mjpeg, to 'test1.mjpeg':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf57.41.100
    Stream #0:0: Video: mjpeg, yuvj420p(pc), 1440x1080 [SAR 4:3 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbn, 29.97 tbc
    Metadata:
      encoder         : Lavc57.48.101 mjpeg
    Side data:
      cpb: bitrate max/min/avg: 0/0/200000 buffer size: 0 vbv_delay: -1
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (h264 (native) -> mjpeg (native))
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame=   20 fps=0.0 q=24.8 size=    1601kB time=00:00:00.66 bitrate=19652.8kbits/s speedframe=   45 fps= 44 q=24.8 size=    3138kB time=00:00:01.50 bitrate=17122.3kbits/s speedframe=   70 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=    4697kB time=00:00:02.33 bitrate=16473.7kbits/s speedframe=   95 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=    6242kB time=00:00:03.16 bitrate=16131.8kbits/s speedframe=  116 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=    7782kB time=00:00:03.87 bitrate=16471.2kbits/s speedframe=  140 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=    9538kB time=00:00:04.67 bitrate=16726.4kbits/s speedframe=  163 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   11093kB time=00:00:05.43 bitrate=16708.8kbits/s speedframe=  183 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   12324kB time=00:00:06.10 bitrate=16534.5kbits/s speedframe=  208 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   13943kB time=00:00:06.94 bitrate=16457.4kbits/s speedframe=  233 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   15519kB time=00:00:07.77 bitrate=16352.3kbits/s speedframe=  257 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   17036kB time=00:00:08.57 bitrate=16275.0kbits/s speedframe=  274 fps= 37 q=24.8 size=   18046kB time=00:00:09.14 bitrate=16170.0kbits/s speedframe=  299 fps= 37 q=24.8 size=   19430kB time=00:00:09.97 bitrate=15954.1kbits/s speedframe=  325 fps= 38 q=24.8 size=   20687kB time=00:00:10.84 bitrate=15627.3kbits/s speedframe=  351 fps= 39 q=24.8 size=   21949kB time=00:00:11.71 bitrate=15352.4kbits/s speedframe=  377 fps= 39 q=24.8 size=   23232kB time=00:00:12.57 bitrate=15129.2kbits/s speedframe=  404 fps= 40 q=24.8 size=   24521kB time=00:00:13.48 bitrate=14901.9kbits/s speedframe=  429 fps= 41 q=24.8 size=   25786kB time=00:00:14.31 bitrate=14757.3kbits/s speedframe=  453 fps= 41 q=24.8 size=   26875kB time=00:00:15.11 bitrate=14565.8kbits/s speedframe=  478 fps= 41 q=24.8 size=   28025kB time=00:00:15.94 bitrate=14394.6kbits/s speedframe=  504 fps= 42 q=24.8 size=   29252kB time=00:00:16.81 bitrate=14249.8kbits/s speedframe=  529 fps= 42 q=24.8 size=   30373kB time=00:00:17.65 bitrate=14096.3kbits/s speedframe=  554 fps= 42 q=24.8 size=   31670kB time=00:00:18.48 bitrate=14035.1kbits/s speedframe=  579 fps= 42 q=24.8 size=   32862kB time=00:00:19.31 bitrate=13934.4kbits/s speedframe=  604 fps= 43 q=24.8 size=   34189kB time=00:00:20.15 bitrate=13897.2kbits/s speedframe=  630 fps= 43 q=24.8 size=   35514kB time=00:00:21.02 bitrate=13840.1kbits/s speedframe=  656 fps= 43 q=24.8 size=   36826kB time=00:00:21.88 bitrate=13782.4kbits/s speedframe=  682 fps= 43 q=24.8 size=   38169kB time=00:00:22.75 bitrate=13740.7kbits/s speedframe=  708 fps= 44 q=24.8 size=   39691kB time=00:00:23.62 bitrate=13763.8kbits/s speedframe=  734 fps= 44 q=24.8 size=   41156kB time=00:00:24.49 bitrate=13766.0kbits/s speedframe=  761 fps= 44 q=24.8 size=   42427kB time=00:00:25.39 bitrate=13687.9kbits/s speedframe=  787 fps= 44 q=24.8 size=   43759kB time=00:00:26.25 bitrate=13651.3kbits/s speedframe=  812 fps= 44 q=24.8 size=   45429kB time=00:00:27.09 bitrate=13736.0kbits/s speedframe=  837 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   47019kB time=00:00:27.92 bitrate=13792.0kbits/s speedframe=  861 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   48304kB time=00:00:28.72 bitrate=13773.8kbits/s speedframe=  885 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   49697kB time=00:00:29.52 bitrate=13786.7kbits/s speedframe=  911 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   51121kB time=00:00:30.39 bitrate=13777.1kbits/s speedframe=  936 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   52444kB time=00:00:31.23 bitrate=13756.1kbits/s speedframe=  962 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   53783kB time=00:00:32.09 bitrate=13726.1kbits/s speedframe=  987 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   55249kB time=00:00:32.93 bitrate=13743.2kbits/s speedframe= 1011 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   56504kB time=00:00:33.73 bitrate=13721.7kbits/s speedframe= 1036 fps= 45 q=24.8 size=   57766kB time=00:00:34.56 bitrate=13689.6kbits/s speedframe= 1062 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   59216kB time=00:00:35.43 bitrate=13689.7kbits/s speedframe= 1087 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   60757kB time=00:00:36.26 bitrate=13722.8kbits/s speedframe= 1112 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   62211kB time=00:00:37.10 bitrate=13735.4kbits/s speedframe= 1138 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   63693kB time=00:00:37.97 bitrate=13741.3kbits/s speedframe= 1164 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   64994kB time=00:00:38.83 bitrate=13708.6kbits/s speedframe= 1189 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   66360kB time=00:00:39.67 bitrate=13702.6kbits/s speedframe= 1215 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   67591kB time=00:00:40.54 bitrate=13658.1kbits/s speedframe= 1241 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   68794kB time=00:00:41.40 bitrate=13609.9kbits/s speedframe= 1268 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   70053kB time=00:00:42.30 bitrate=13563.8kbits/s speedframe= 1295 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   71602kB time=00:00:43.20 bitrate=13574.8kbits/s speedframe= 1322 fps= 46 q=24.8 size=   73001kB time=00:00:44.11 bitrate=13557.4kbits/s speedframe= 1349 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   74387kB time=00:00:45.01 bitrate=13538.3kbits/s speedframe= 1376 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   75815kB time=00:00:45.91 bitrate=13527.4kbits/s speedframe= 1402 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   77184kB time=00:00:46.78 bitrate=13516.3kbits/s speedframe= 1428 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   78430kB time=00:00:47.64 bitrate=13484.4kbits/s speedframe= 1454 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   79746kB time=00:00:48.51 bitrate=13465.4kbits/s speedframe= 1479 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   81117kB time=00:00:49.34 bitrate=13465.4kbits/s speedframe= 1505 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   82743kB time=00:00:50.21 bitrate=13498.1kbits/s speedframe= 1531 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   84374kB time=00:00:51.08 bitrate=13530.3kbits/s speedframe= 1553 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   85538kB time=00:00:51.81 bitrate=13522.7kbits/s speedframe= 1578 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   86826kB time=00:00:52.65 bitrate=13509.0kbits/s speedframe= 1603 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   88343kB time=00:00:53.48 bitrate=13530.5kbits/s speedframe= 1628 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   89845kB time=00:00:54.32 bitrate=13549.3kbits/s speedframe= 1653 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   91502kB time=00:00:55.15 bitrate=13590.4kbits/s speedframe= 1679 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   92702kB time=00:00:56.02 bitrate=13555.6kbits/s speedframe= 1696 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   93553kB time=00:00:56.58 bitrate=13542.9kbits/s speedframe= 1723 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   94751kB time=00:00:57.49 bitrate=13501.3kbits/s speedframe= 1750 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   95990kB time=00:00:58.39 bitrate=13466.9kbits/s speedframe= 1777 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   97272kB time=00:00:59.29 bitrate=13439.3kbits/s speedframe= 1805 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   98579kB time=00:01:00.22 bitrate=13408.7kbits/s speedframe= 1832 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=   99810kB time=00:01:01.12 bitrate=13376.0kbits/s speedframe= 1858 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=  101036kB time=00:01:01.99 bitrate=13350.8kbits/s speedframe= 1882 fps= 47 q=24.8 size=  102361kB time=00:01:02.79 bitrate=13353.4kbits/s speedframe= 1905 fps= 47 q=24.8 Lsize=  103872kB time=00:01:03.56 bitrate=13386.9kbits/s speed=1.58x
video:103872kB audio:0kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: 0.000000%

Show the full command that you ran and its full console readout

you could try compressor as I believe it has a Motion JPEG option

FFmpeg defaults to a bitrate of 200 kbps.  Add a -b:v 10000k in there