text:
YouTube's 60fps runs smoother than games?
When watching a video on YouTube in 1080p 60 FPS the video runs very smooth and looks nice. When I play games on my PC with more than 60 FPS it does not feel as nice.
Is there a difference between YouTube's 60fps and 'actual' 60fps?

It's very likely that your framerate drops below the refresh rate of your display while you have v-sync on which can produce a noticeable stuttering or input lag in that situation.
Disabling vsync will probably give you a more "fluid" experience but can introduce screen tearing, which vsync is meant to prevent by locking the framerate to the refresh rate of your monitor, though if your pc doesnt render fast enough it waits for a short amount of time which you can notice in this lag/stuttering appearing.
Unlike games, the framerate of a youtube video in this case is consistent at 60fps and isn't depending as much (by far) on the rendering speed of your computer as a game does.

My best guess is that your computer may be having trouble actually producing 60fps fast enough.  Try turning on triple buffering and see if that helps.  If the buffer doesn't fully fill before a frame goes to display, you will get an artifact known as screen tearing (some of the buffer has the current frame, some has the previous).  Triple buffering fixes this by fully pre-rendering a frame in advance but results in increased latency due to the extra processing delay.
Additionally, if you are comparing videos from games that other people are running vs your own recordings, the game quality settings make a huge difference.  Things like Anti-aliasing are very demanding on computer hardware, but make edges look far smoother.  Motion blur and shadows are also rather processing intensive effects that make a big difference.  If your system isn't super, super powerful, keeping up with 60fps while also keeping those settings on all the way is quite hard.

If you're comparing PC games to Youtube video shot with a camera (as opposed to Youtube video of games captured via HDMI), then you're probably noticing the natural motion blur that cameras introduce.  Gaming hardware can't reproduce this effect very well because it either has to render intermediate frames and blur them together or perform "optical flow" or vector-based analysis in real time.
If you are, however, asking about Youtube videos of video games (which presently comprise most of Youtube's 60p content), then my only suggestion is perhaps a performance difference between your machine and the ones in the videos.

I indeed watched a gamingvideo from a PC. If I have 100fps on a game it's still not as smooth as the videos with 60fps. Your answer suggests I might have different hardware but what difference could that be?

sorry.  I'm not an expert on that.  AJ Henderson's answer seems informative, but perhaps this question might be served best by moving to http://gaming.stackexchange.com ?

@JasonConrad - gaming didn't seem to particularly want it.  This is a bit on the edge of our scope, but game streaming is a very real video production effort these days and this question would be relevant to them, even if it isn't necessarily directly what this particular OP was looking for an answer for.  With a lack of a better home, I think it is probably okay to stay unless the community wants to VTC (which would be fine too).

Do you play your game with v-sync on?  If no, your frames don't line up with when the video card actually sends an update to the monitor, so you get tearing.  This can and does make things look less smooth.
Maybe the videos you're watching were made by people that had vsync on at 60Hz, to avoid any tearing in any of the captured frames?
Check out this article on g-sync / freesync, aka variable sync / variable frame-rate monitors.  The author does a good job explaining v-sync, input lag, and all that.  With diagrams even.
(And as an update since that article came out, AMD now does have their own version of this.  And variable-refresh-rate is optional in the VESA DisplayPort 1.2a spec, so it's on the road to becoming an industry-standard feature.)
Adaptive sync gives you the same (or even better) smoothness you'd get with a game that stayed pegged at 60Hz with vsync on.  But it's still smooth with settings pushed up so high that you get occasional dips below 60FPS, so you can crank the settings up and have your game look awesome, while still being smooth with minimal lag between keyboard/mouse input and screen output.

60 fps videos on YouTube are progressive while many video games cheat with interlacing.
Another potential cause is the refresh rate of your monitor.  Most monitors refresh at 60Hz, meaning 60 times a second.  But because of the way GPUs cycle when rendering video games, you need a 120Hz monitor to appreciate 60 fps.

I searched for this but found no way to deinterlace or how to make my computer display the content 'progressively'. Can I make my OS do this to everything?

He is talking about PCs not consoles.  PC games are doing full frame buffers for frame counts normally.

@KCMcLaughlin - do you have anything to back up your new edit either?  To the best of my knowledge, both statements here are incorrect.  There is no reason I'm aware of that a proper buffer configuration can't produce true 60fps on a 60hz monitor.  Either way, if his monitor being unable to display 60fps was the problem, then not only would the game have issues, but the Youtube video would have the exact same issue, since it is going to play from the same frame buffer.

https://www.udacity.com/course/viewer#!/c-cs291/l-68866048/m-96403515

@KC, I think you're talking about the problem that an average of 60fps from a game isn't the same as 60fps with v-sync on.  Variable frame-rate monitors are the best solution:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonevangelho/2013/12/12/for-gaming-industry-nvidias-g-sync-technology-is-truly-next-gen/


text:
How best to stretch an area of video
Using Premiere or After Effects, what is the best (or possible) way of stretching a section of footage.
Basically I have some talking head footage that is too central, and want to shift the talking head left, and stretch the righ hand BG area to fill the remaining BG.

Many Thanks!

is the background an even texture like a blank wall or greenscreen?  does the camera move?

How much does the subject move?  enough to establish a "clean plate"?  there are a couple of ways you could go about this depending on these specifics.  Of course, it's always best just to get it right in the can.  I assume re-shooting is not an option, correct?

Thanks @jasonConrad Yep, reshooting is not an option. The subject doesn't move much (seated) and is against a neutral BG with shadow (gradient) on it.
I've actually just discovered Mesh Warp and have moved the clip left and stretched just the right hand area.

As Jason says, if the camera is stationary throughout, this is probably doable.
First, work out how much more scene you need to create, by opening the video in After Effects, and dragging it to one side until it looks right.  Export a frame from that comp as a still (something lossless like TIFF is best).
Open the still in Photoshop, and build your "clean plate" - try using the Content Aware fill tool.  It works suprisingly well sometimes.  Any dodgy bits, go over again with the Content Aware brush, then use a soft Clone Stamp to fill in any further bits that look wrong.  Save your new still image as a TIFF.
Open the new TIFF file in AE, and put it behind your main video in the comp.
Draw a mask around your main video, and feather the mask until the edges start to go transparent.  Drag the edges of the mask, so that you have a nice gradual feathering gradient into your clean plate, but make sure the other edges of your video aren't becoming transparent (make the mask much bigger than the video on all sides except the side you're trying to fix).
Finally, add some noise or film grain to the still image layer - it will help "sell" the shot more, and make the still look more like video - don't overdo it - a little goes a long way.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
Exporting to .mov from premiere cc? queuing as .mxf?
I am trying to export an .mov video from premiere??? So i am doing this by going: File > Export > Media...
Ok so I got Quicktime predefined in the dropdown then I select H264 from the drop down menu and viola all the settings that I need are here ready to go. See image below...

As you can see my output name is duffy_fuck.mov
But when you queue it to Adobe Media Encode it outputs an .mxf file..

I'm not even kidding, as an avid abobe user all I am doing it selecting quicktime as a format and encoding h264 I promise. I've tried outputting other files and they all pass through as the premiere output name..
Seriously WTF!

Sounds like a bug. Usually you export directly to AME and set your format there, so the workflow you use is not very common and it might have gone undetected in bug testing. I would report it to Adobe. https://www.adobe.com/cfusion/mmform/index.cfm?name=wishform&loc=en

Yeah it is odd, not had an issue like this other systems, must be my install that is messed up because anyway I try though media encoder, .mov can't be done. It comes out as .mxf files every time. I just used an alternative encoder. Thanks for your comment.

Maybe you dont have QuickTime installed? Could explain why it chooses a different format as a sort of fallback.

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


text:
Stock footage creative commons license
I'm making a travel documentary, and I'm missing a couple of shots of places which are quite touristy. E.g. Bikaner in India where there is a large red fort, the Nagour fort and Jodphur in the streets. Also the Delwari temple at Mount Abu.
I visited these places but they don't play a major part to my film, however, I would like to have a couple of shots of them if I can. Does anyone know of places to get stock open source footage, or contact people in those places who may be able to film for me - e.g. Couchsurfers?

I think you should try CC-Search, however use this wisely as some sites that are linked, do not always upload non-copyright footage, though you should be good for the most part.


text:
Camera randomly re-connects to PC
I don't know if it's the right place to post this question or I should go to StackOverflow, but I'll give it a try.
I've got my camera connected to PC. It works just fine. But sometimes, let's say every 10 minutes, it 're-connects' to the computer which makes a process of capturing a video from a tape impractical.
I'm sure that the camera works fine by itself, because on the other computer everything works fine. I know that in order to find the core of the problem I should check if the cable is not damaged first or if there is something wrong with Firewire adapter card inside the computer, but I do not have access to a second cable or card.
So is there any programmatical way to find out what the problem may be?

No, but if you have another computer entirely that it works on, then you know that the cable is good.  This means it must be the firewire card or drivers on the PC that isn't working that is messed up.  I'd first try uninstalling/reinstalling the firewire card and drivers and if that doesn't work, I'd try a new card.


text:
Black title changes colour when exporting MXF ???
Been asked by client to export in MXF format. Never done that before (worked within PP with MXF, just never exported to that).
At the end of the ad I've made a very simple after effects title/call to action. Simple black text over the final shot.
Everything fine when I exported h264 mp4. But when exporting MXF, the black title went green.
Any ideas why? Help appreciated.

Might be an issue with the smart rendering option available for MXF in Premiere/AME.
Try disabling that.
http://blogs.adobe.com/kevinmonahan/2012/10/11/smart-rendering-in-premiere-pro-cs6-6-0-1-and-later/
If that doesn't work. Render an intermediate and re-import and encode that to MXF.
Though keep in mind that MXF is just a container, you have different codecs available.
Make sure you choose the one suitable for your source footage and what your client requested.


text:
How to add Letterbox to the Video I have shot?
I would like to add letterbox to the 1080p video I have shot. How can I add it?
Which software should I use? I have Premiere Pro and After Effects.
What technique should I use?

What format are you trying to move to?  Do you have a particular resolution it needs to fit?  What are you actually trying to accomplish?  This will impact the best way to scale the video.

My videos are of 1920x1080 resolution & I would like to add letterboxing to the videos of that resolution. @AJ Henderson♦

So you are specifically looking to crop them so they won't go full screen?

Yes. That's what I want. Can you post an answer for that? @AJ Henderson♦

do you want the resolution of the video altered so that it will only take up that space or do you actually still want a 1080p video with black boxes (note, this will waste bits in the video file).  If you can give some more detail about the context you are using it in and why you need it cropped in this manner, then we may be able to provide better advice.

There are various ways to add letterboxing in PP.
Some ways I have done are:

creating a Photoshop file (or finding one already made) and using an adjustment layer to apply it. ( I used this post http://whoismatt.com/cinemascopetutorial/)
when exporting you can use the crop function to chop the top and bottom off
using an adjustment layer again but cropping it in 132 from top and 132 from bottom ( believe)
make a new Sequence, using Custom settings that's 1920 x 816.
google has loads of sites if you do a quick search letterboxing in adobe premier

I hope some of the above help in a way


text:
mp4 video exported from x265 does not play
I use x265 to encode a video and the output is mp4. Unfortunately, this file is not playable by any program.
The input video is yuv if that matters.
Do you know which the problem might be?
Thank you in advance.

What player are you trying to use ? does it play in another app like VLC, Quicktime, etc. Are you using a Apple Mac or Windows PC ?

I use a windows PC. I tried VLC, Quicktime and media player and non of them can play it. No, it does not play anywhere right now.

It looks like the x265 codec needs to be installed for the App you are using to play the file with.
VLC does support x265 with a dd on codec but it seems the link on there site is broken
https://www.videolan.org/developers/x265.html which is not very useful right now.
there are some other players out there doing a quick Google brought up some results but I dont have a x265 file to play with to test them.
if you exported the file, have you tried exporting it again to see if the same issue happens ?

Thank you for your response! What is a dd on codec? Yes, I've tried exporting the file once again and the problem still remains. Using -r parameter, I managed to get a yuv reconstructed file which in playable using YUViewer.

"an add on codec" sorry for my sloppy typing

VLC is usually quite slow to update their version of ffmpeg.  A recent build of mpv should do well.  It's been playing h.265 for me since well before this question was asked.
Also note that Adam's answer is not quite right.  x265 is an encoder, and doesn't include a decoder.  FFMpeg's hevc decoder (in libavcodec, aka lavc) is the main Free Software implementation that everything uses.
IDK if VLC's current release plays h.265 (at all / well), or if you need a nightly build.  (assuming you want to use VLC, and not mpv / mplayer2 / mplayer).


text:
Audio extraction from video issue
I've extract audio from a mov file. The output (m4a) has the same length of the video, but it starts first.

Starting first, audio has a silent space at the end. I tried many different audio/video converter(any video converter, avs, freemake) but the result it's always the same. Any suggestion?

What program did you use to extract the audio?

Any video converter

I'm not sure why they are not lining up, perhaps there is some problem with the audio track near the beginning that is causing truncation at the start.  Unless you have meaningful information there, my suggestion would be to remove the silence at the end of the audio file (since it is clear when it goes perfectly silent) and then end align rather than start align.  It appears that would likely give you proper sync.

The situation is slightly more complex because I have many mov file that I have split from a single mov file. My goal is to merge the output audio files of any mov and have a linear sound.


text:
What is the name of this type of treatment in video/audio?
I ran into an expression a couple of months ago to describe videos which involve audio that is very present, as a way to heighten the senses. An example of this can be found here:

I'm looking for the name of that expression... It was something like high sensory experience or something similar but I've looked up a bunch of different names and couldn't find it. Would anyone know what I am talking about? It's often used in the context of filming people who are working with their hands and I know there are playlists of these types of videos around on YouTube.

It's also known as having an solid understanding of microphones and recording techniques, as well as sound audio editing principles. These types of videos are a great example of how awesome sound recording can enhance picture, and examples of the reason no filmmaker should skimp on sound. It's easier to mess up good sound for dramatic effect (say, adding EQ for distortion or making it quieter and adding reverb to make it sound farther away), but near impossible to clean messed up sound to make it usable.

CICO as they say... (crap in, crap out)

Well, I ended up finding it myself in the end:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomous_sensory_meridian_response


text:
What's the benefit of using an external audio recorder compared to an internal one?
Lately, my friends have been prompting me to buy an external audio recorder. They said that the quality of the sound is way better. I have always been using the internal audio recorder of my DSLR.
As for the gears, I own a prosumer Nikon DSLR and a 20 cm shotgun microphone with an XLR output. I don't think syncing would be a problem for me. I am thinking of the Zoom H4n as recommended by my friends. Is the audio quality of the audio that different?

There are a variety of reasons to have an external recorder depending on the size of your production.  A big advantage is the number of audio inputs and the ability to record each of those inputs as separate tracks, allowing you to do the mixing in post.  I'm not sure about the H4n, but I know the H5 and H6 support multiple inputs as well as interchangeable capsules.
Another advantage is quality and control over quality.  Most audio devices have a switch for uncompressed .WAV or compressed .MP3.  You always want uncompressed audio unless you are tight on space.  External audio devices also give you better control over gain and have better support for audio monitoring.
The final advantage I'll list here is portability.  When your mic is tied to your camera, you'll need to string cables from the mic to the camera.  This isn't an issue when the mic is sitting on the camera, but if you want a distance shot this becomes a problem.  External audio gives you much more freedom of movement to place your mic in the best position to pick up sound.

The h4N supports 2 XLR/TRS hybrid connections as well as the tiny 1/32(?) inch mini-jack that really cheap mics often use.  It can support 4 channel recording only in 48khz 16 bit though.  You can only use the two inputs if you want 96khz 24bit.

Yes, its way better. Being able to monitor the levels, and headphones, makes a huge difference.
However, its not even just the quality of the mic or recording device its the location. Having an external recorder means you can separate the audio easily from the camera. Back in the day when I was a teen, and had more enthusiasm than money, we used mics from old telephones to capture the actors speak. It improved our recording quality immensely, granted we also had a sound boom and sound operators, even so having the mic there on person saved our sounds more than once. Point is even a lousy mic in a great location is better than a great mic in a lousy location.
So look at it this way now you have 2 sound sources.

Can't speak for the Nikon, but the Canon 5D and 7D both have terrible on-board audio, with no way to easily monitor the audio levels.  The Zoom will have a better mic pre-amp, and will let you monitor the levels easily and accurately.  You can also monitor the audio on headphones whilst filming, so you'll stand a better chance of spotting problems, like wind noise, obtrusive background sounds, etc.

Most modern DSLRs have a jack for monitoring audio with headphones.

Getting the audio recording separated from the video recording is one of the best things you can do to improve your sound. What makes good camera placement doesn't always make for good audio placement. Also, your audio recorder can keep running while your camera isn't, so you don't miss anything.
That being said however, the zoom h4n has some mediocre pre-amps, you start to hear a hiss once you set the volume past 60 or so.

Apart from the other benefits mentioned - mic placement, quality of the pre-amps, ability to properly monitor levels, another advantage is that many of the good quality digital recorders (like the Zooms) will let you record 24 bit samples at up to 96kHz. To use a not completely accurate analogy, that's like recording raw video at 4K instead of 8-bit at 1080p.

I wouldn't recommend the h4n anymore.  It is still a huge step up from the on-board audio, but it generally isn't the best value anymore.  The H5n or H6n are both better options available now and generally better value unless you are getting a used H4n that someone is selling so they can buy the 5n or 6n.
That said, yes, you want an external audio recorder.  The "internal audio recorder" on your camera is nothing more than a consumer level audio jack with a minimal quality capture capability.  It lacks key features like phantom power and balanced audio as well as lacking a high quality audio interface.  Monitoring is limited, the audio is heavily compressed and the connection is not secure and has to be plugged in to your camera.
An external recorder, such as something in the Zoom H#n series or higher end devices with similar function provides much cleaner audio as well as the ability to work with a much wider variety of high quality microphones.  Additionally, you can still use the output from the external recorder and feed it in to your mic input on the DSLR if you want to have audio on your rough footage (though I still recommend using the actual audio files from the recorder for your final audio.)  You don't need to have it connected to your camera if your camera needs to be moving.  It can be operated by a separate sound engineer without bothering the camera operator.  It is just all around a smoother and much higher quality experience.

Good points about phantom power and the scratch track, I forgot about those in my answer.


text:
How to let the path of a composition shine to parent layer?
I added some point lights that form a letter. Then I added an optical flare (AE plugin FX) with source type "track lights" to get light dots from the light layers.
This works fine and looks as follows:
optical flare layer FX
light layer1 (point)
light layer2 (point)
light layerN (point)

Now I of course want to create several letters. Therefore I group the light layers each in a composition that represents a letter. Of course I do not want to dublicate the optical flare layer into all my compositions, but move it out and just have one flare layer that is FX for all lights:
[optical flare layer FX]
[light composition A]
[light composition B]
[light composition C]

Problem: As soon as I move the optical layer out of the light compositions, the FX is not applied anymore to the lights that are contained inside the multiple compositions.
Why? How can I let the light layers of my compositions "shine through" to the parent layer, and apply the flare FX there with only one single FX layer?

have you tried turning on continuously rasterise / collapse transformations (the little sun icon) for the light comps. Also, you know there are other ways of getting glowing light effects without using actual lights, don't you?

No I don't, can you give me some keywords? I tried rasterise, but that won't work as the optical flare FX requires the lights to be in the same composition than the FX layer itself.

Are the light comps 3D layers (as well as collapsed)? As for other glowing lights, the good ol' glow effect works well on bright coloured layers. You could create a shape layer and use a dotted stroke, and apply the glow effect. Or an adjustment layer with a blur effect on it set to additive mode.


text:
Masking out the video background in Sony Vegas
I have a video and I need to mask out the background for it.

A screenshot from the original video, credits to The Muppets Studio
The video has been shot with a still camera on a steady background.
My goal is to mask out the background (e.g., everything not related to moving objects).
I don't have the original sources, of course.
It is also hard to recreate the background (I mean, to precisely match colors).
My approach, in theory, is the following:

Collect a series of screenshots where different parts of background are visible (when objects move away);
Glue those parts into a background image (see image below for a partial result);
Place the background into a layer and compute the color difference between the original video and the background;
Build a set of pixels for which:

the difference is nearly zero (within a certain color threshold occurring due to rounding/compression problems);
and within a certain minimal area (so that individual pixels did not occasionally appear);

Wrap those pixels into a key mask.

Still, I'm stuck with building a proper structure of layers within Sony Vegas to accomplish my goal.
How this can be done?

My backround attempt
My environment is:

Sony Vegas 12.0/x64, I'm not considering another software;
Basic set of plugins/filters, but I will also appreciate references to 3rd-party plugins, even the commercial ones;
Still, I would prefer a "clean" approach based on masking.

Thanks a lot!

You seem to be heading down the right track, you might also have some luck with blending options, but I imagine you will need some kind of key that you can feed from a hidden track.  I don't have Vegas though, so I can't really help you with specific details other than to say you seem to be heading in the right direction and wish you the best.

chroma key choose a colour*drag) then take eye dropper and select background in the preview window

The OP's question shows that they have already tried simplistic approaches such as the one you suggest, and they are looking for more powerful solutions.  To prove you have a great answer, test the technique you propose, show the max, and let that be the proof that you have offered the correct answer.


text:
How to rotate a group of 2D layers around the midpoint in one axis only?
I have lots of point light layers aligned as a vertical line.
Now I'd like to distribute the 2D-light-layers along an ellipse into the 3D space (probably the z-axis).
How could I do this, without having to pic each of the (200) lights manually? How can I eg select the first few lights and rotate them based on the most left light into the z-axis? You know, so that the first light stays at this position, but all the others are moved into the back a bit.
I could then repeat it with several bunch of lights so this could give me an approximated ellipse. But how can I set some kind of "rotation point" if I select multiple layers and want to rotate them?

Maybe a little drawing or image would help to illustrate what you are trying to achieve. Guessing from what you are saying you would have to move the anchor point and maybe work with a null object.


text:
Lagging after render in Movie Maker?
I took a break from video editing for a while, but then I decided to come back and start again. However, every time I rendered the video, the clips suddenly wouldn't follow up with the music correctly, but when I check them back in WMM, they're perfectly lined up. I don't know what's happening since I've never had any issue before. Does anyone know what to do?
PS: I'm using the newest version of Windows Movie Maker.

Ive had this problem for a while and finally found a solution. It seems that Windows Movie Maker has trouble previewing mp3 audio files and therefore previews at a lag. I fixed this issue by replacing the mp3 audio file with a wav file.

Could you tell me your input specifics. Because if the input was 60fps, there may be some problems if you render with standard settings, I once had this problem.
If you want to solve that, just click on save movie and scroll down till you see "create custom settings", then set the frame rate to 30fps, or whatever you want.

My best guess (and it is a total guess) is that things are actually lagging when you are viewing it unrendered. If the video is playing out on a delay from when the audio should actually be playing, you would have aligned it wrong and then when you output and if makes an accurate playback, you find that the audio is coming before the video.
Most probably the issue is related to the video input.  If it is particularly large or difficult to read the video, WMM may not be able to keep up and will start lagging (you'd also probably notice a stutter when playing back, but maybe not).  I would try transcoding the videos to an easier to use format and try again or, preferably if possible, switch to something better than Windows Movie Maker that is worth exactly what you pay for it (nothing).


text:
Can't change Handbrake audio bit rate
I'm trying to compress video files using handbrake.
While I'm managing to bring the video bit rate down, the audio bit rate is always at around 380kbps, no matter what I set in the audio settings tab. See below images for details.
What am I doing wrong?

What tool do you use for showing the Audio bitrate?
Try MediaInfo to make sure that Handbrake is the problem here.
But as far as I can see, you aren't doing anything wrong (besides setting the audio bitrate this low ;) ).
The avcodec AAC encoder also has quality settings, you can try these out as well, should give better compression efficiency. However, avcodec AAC is generally not a good AAC encoder, you'd have to compile Handbrake with FDK-AAC support for good AAC encoding quality in Handbrake.
The alternative would be to use Vorbis or Opus instead, which won't go into an MP4 container though, but provide higher compression efficiency, especially Opus is just superior to any AAC encoder.

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


text:
Is there a way? multiple images to looping video via ffmpeg?
I want to use ffmpeg to create a 15 second looping video from images for posting to instagram.
For instance:
Camera takes 3 pictures
Each image plays for 2 frames (3 images = 6 frames)
After 6 frames, video should loop until desired video length has been achieved
Final output is 15 seconds long at 30fps
Is this possible??


text:
Programs to improve audio quality?
I just recently purchased a Blue Snowball USB microphone and a Dragonpad Studio Mic Filter pad because I am interested in creating videos and podcasts. However, I am still experiencing excess background noise. Is there any way to reduce this using Audacity or any other freely available program?

Once it's in post-production, it's extremely difficult... When recording next time, try things like sitting closer to the mic, closing all doors and windows, and even putting towels or mattresses against noisy walls. One of the best places to record in a home is a walk-in wardrobe.

Audacity has a compressor effect, however I found the "Compress dynamics" VST plugin generating better results, see more here. If you want better control over the compression parameters you should try SoX.
Another approach is to try the Vocal Remover VST plugin for Audacity (it is in the same package as Compress dynamics), and if it succeeds in removing the vocals then you can run the result through an inverter (in the VST pack too) and apply it to the original track.

Interesting idea to do the vocal remover and invert.  Not sure how well it would work, but would be interesting to try.

I'm not sure if Audacity has this, but what you need is a compressor (actually an expander, but they're opposite things built into a tool referred to as a compressor). The compressor allows you to limit sound that is above a certain dB level, the expander limits sound under that level, called a gate.  You can set a gate with the compressor at a sound level, cutting out faint background noise but keeping your voice.  This will also cut out breathing noises you make at the beginning and end of syllables particularly Hs and Ss. This technique will not work if your voice is not considerably above the level of the background noise.
Another tool which can help refine your voice, but not entirely solve the noise problem is an eq (equalizer).  Look specifically for a parametric eq; these are the most intuitive. Essentially the equalizer loudens or softens sound based on its frequency.  You can use this to raise the level of your voice, but also soften background noise.  This works particularly well if there's a hissing sound that fills up only a small area on the frequency spectrum.
In terms of the recording environment, ideally you could build a sound proof room, but these are incredibly expensive.  Another slightly cheaper idea is to give your recording room an acoustic treatment, essentially coating the walls in acoustic foam.  This won't solve existing noise problems, but it will limit reverb.  Acoustic treatment is fairly cheap.  Generally you can coat a fairly large room at 50-75% coverage for under $100.
UPDATE: Audacity does have a compressor, but the GUI looks really ugly and unintuitive.  A parametric eq also requires an external plugin.  That said, it's still probably the best free program available.  Something paid and marketed as a DAW (digital audio workstation), would do the job much better.  Something like Adobe Audition, Apple Logic Pro, or Avid Pro Tools.

A noise supressor will actually work better than an expander in this case, but they effectively do the same thing by monitoring the quiet parts for noise and then attempting to limit it in the signal parts.  The problem is that most noise is random and an expander is still going to gain up the noise when someone is talking, even if it is less noisy while it is quiet.  Expanders work on total signal level, not level of some particular part of the total sound.

I'm not familiar with a noise suppressor because when I work with audio it's generally from a clean studio track, but it sounds useful. The expander does limit all sound, but generally the quieter sounds in vocals aren't particularly necessary anyway. I did mention that for the expander to be effective, it requires that there be a noticeable difference in level between the vocal and noise.

Yeah, suppressors still often end up with a robotic sounding digital quality to them.  Clean is still way, way preferable.

You can generally push them a surprising amount before audio becomes distorted, but yes, all post methods have limitations

You may find this answer from our sister site Sound Design to be useful.  Basically, it depends on the kind of noise you are getting though.  If it is random background noise, then it may be fairly difficult to remove unless it is pretty regular frequencies.  Either way, most noise removal tools will listen to the noise and try to identify what they can remove.
Your best bet is to prevent noise from occurring in the first place.  There are two main ways to do this, decreasing the noise itself and increasing the signal (and using less gain if needed).
For reducing the noise, your options are limited if the mic itself is noisy, however if there is any background noise in the room you are recording in (such as fans, power supplies, air conditioning or heating, etc) turning them off or recording in a quieter location will help considerably.
For increasing signal, get closer to the mic.  Make sure the mic has its gain set such that it is getting the strongest possible signal without cliping (maxing out the volume it can record).  This will result in a signal that is as strong as possible and keep the noise floor as low as possible.

One note is that if you get too close to a mic, like within a few inches, you'll start to get the bass-heavy distortion you generally hear from radio announcers. It's a cool effect, but not always desirable.


text:
Best format (compression-wise) for Khan Academy Style video
I wanted to do very crisp (maximum resolutions/MB) videos that uses a style similar to Khan Academy (blackboard style with several stroke colors throughout the video, maybe a few still pictures here and there) but needs to be lightweight in size. What's the best format to save these videos and how should they be compressed?

please note this video isn't being uploaded to a website that will stream it or apply any other compressions to it (at least for the time being)

Format doesn't really matter, I usually use something fairly common like .mov or .mp4.  The more important thing is the codec.  Usually when exporting for online upload, H.264 is the most common codec because of its balance of size and quality.  For resolution, either 1080p or 720p.  Most people can't tell the difference between the two, but 1080p is the standard so I generally stick with that.
Another thing to keep in consideration is color bit-depth.  I'm not sure if the H.264 codec or different programs allow you to export with different bit-depths, someone else can comment on that (or downvote, whatever).  Assuming you can control bit-depth, I would go with 10.  Most consumer grade cameras only shoot with 8 bit-depth, but you can get higher with the animation depending on what you generate it in and how you render.  The extra bit-depth will improve the overall crispness.
One last thing to keep in mind is how you render the animations.  I know you probably intend to create 2D, but I'll describe my process with Maya which is 3D, and hope all the information pretty much transfers over.  First, export at slightly higher than 1080p.  I'd go with something like 2K.  The downscaling will improve your quality and it's just nice in general knowing you have that extra space to work with.  Don't enable motion blur, or at least keep it to a minimum.  Other than that, just experiment with the render settings to get the effect you want.

As an example, this Khan Academy video is uploaded as 720p to YouTube.
Youtube's upload recommendations for 720p are:
Standard quality:
Video Bit RateRate  Stereo Audio Bit Rate
5000 kbps
Mono Audio Bit Rate: 128 kbps
Stereo Audio bit rate:
384 kbps
High quality:
720p    30,000 kbps 128 kbps    384 kbps    512 kbps
resolution: 720 p: 1280x720

authors: Владимир Семёнов


text:
Video encoders that display frame with most movement
Are there any video encoders that can monitor multiple video frames and display whichever frame is the most active?  I would use this during a live streaming event and it would be great to automate the process.

Might be easier to suggest something if you explain the actual purpose?

This feature is called "motion detection" in the video surveillance jargon and can be found on most IP cameras and NVRs. There is a large variety of solutions out there depending on the level of accuracy that you need, the ability to divide the monitored perimeter into zones, whether the analytics run off a live or recorded feed, the OS that you use, and more.
If you look for something free and simple that just feeds you with XMLs then you might check Shotdetect. If you look for more of a "solution" then check motion, note that it is unix-specific.
It is also possible to use ffmpeg to extract thumbnails from your feed and run SNR comparisons on the fly, if you extract only I-Frames then the overhead is minimal. You are bound though to a detection rate that depends on your keyframe rate.
Try to provide some more detail regarding your operating system and overall use case for a more specific answer.

I assume you have multiple inputs and want some kind of automatic editing that will switch which feed is live based on what has activity at the time.  Unfortunately, pure changes in pixel values aren't really a super ideal way to tell what is interesting.
There are systems which handle automatic selection of the speaker such as Microsoft's RoundTable system which is able to recognize who is speaking based on position of the audio source and this kind of triggering is pretty common for source selection in things like WebEx and other meeting platforms.
You might be able to find something along the lines of what you are looking for in security software as well as security systems would want to display the most active frame.  In general, it probably isn't something you will find in most streaming systems though.  It would require a relatively high level of development to do well and the nicer streaming systems are going to be more about allowing an editor to directly control things as any high end stream is going to have a dedicated editor manning the console.


text:
Adobe Media Encoder Flicker Issue
When rendering my video in Adobe Media Encoder using either h.264 and mpeg-2 I get random flickering appearing.
I have rendered directly out of After Effects using a lossless codec. The video is fine, however the file size is obviously way too large.
The source DNG raw files are fine - they have no flicker whatsoever.
Does anyone have any advice for me so I can deliver a flicker free video to the client without a massive file size?
Thanks,
Andy

Can you post a sample of what kind of flicker you are getting?  This sounds like a very odd issue.  Also, what lossless format are you exporting from and what are the export settings you are using for the h.264 and mpeg-2 outputs?

Have you tried to export lossless and then to use ffmpeg / mpegstreamclip to reencode? Does the same issue appear then?

Are you using a keying effect? Does your flicker look anything like the original images posted here?
https://forums.adobe.com/message/5112063
If so, this issue has been around for a while, and we never seemed to get an accurate response from Adobe. However, there are some workarounds spelled out in that post.


text:
Import subtitles from spreadsheet into Aegisub?
I have a set of timed transcripts in a spreadsheet in the following form:
Timecode mm:ss:ff  |   Line of dialogue
01:02:25           |   This is some dialogue

I would like to import them into Aegisub, running on Mac OSX.
Is there an easy way to do this?
Note that I do not have start & stop times for subtitles, only start times.
Ideally I would make each line of subtitles remain on screen until the next one was due to take over, then manually adjust them in Aegisub afterwards.
I know that Aegisub can import plain text scripts, but this doesn't appear to include importing timecodes for some strange reason?  Am I missing something?

I Couldn't find a way to import into Aegisub, but If the subtitles are in a standard spreadsheet such as Excel, I saved as other format and chose Tab delimited text. Copy all the data in this text file and paste into Subtitle Edit. Then adjust limits on times (Will not overlap the next start time). Then save in whatever format you'd like to use in Aegisub.
I suggest you to use Subtitle Edit because of it's VERY simple sync feature with the video as well as these other abilities. At least it works and you can use Aegisub for your more familiar uses.

Does subtitle edit exist on Mac OS X? I couldn't find it..


text:
Discrepancy between VirtualDub CPU usage and Task Manager, Lag resulting
So I'm trying to capture footage from my PS2 at a low resolution (720x576 if memory serves) through Virtual Dub. I'm on Windows 7 64 with an 8-core i7, 8GB RAM, 150G SSD and an EZCap capture card. When I start to capture, Virtual Dub says CPU usage is 80 - 120%, I've messed with the settings and got this down to around 40-60% usage, meanwhile Task Manager says I'm using around 10%. Because of this or some other reason I get lag and dropped frames every half-second or so.
All I want is to be able to capture without lag with this or some other program. I've tried some other forums and people there were stumped. Can anyone help please?

EZ Cap is an extremely cheap capture device and may be dropping frames itself.  You may also want to check if things are spiking any.  Can it play back video without recording it and if so, is it still dropping frames?  If so, then it is likely a hardware problem.  If you are plugging it in to a non USB2.0 port, that could also cause problems.
I would recommend trying a low compression codec and see if that will work.  It will use lots of disk space but take a minimal amount of CPU.  You can then encode the intermediate format to a good quality high or moderate compression format to save on space.

authors: Виталий Гоголь


text:
Trimming MLV or CDNG Footage
I need to edit some mlv footage that consists of a number of lengthy takes. Due to the nature of the subject matter, a lot of the footage is effectively unneeded and given the size of mlv files, I want to trim away as much as possible, leaving only relevant footage to work with. I'm not talking about editing the footage. I'm talking about trimming down the original footage, leaving much less source material to then edit.
How can I trim this footage down?
If necessary, I can convert the mlv files to cdng files for trimming, though this is far from ideal.

I'm not talking about editing... I'm talking about
trimming... In your terms, what's the difference between 'trimming' and 'editing'? In almost any NLE, the first step when capturing video for editing is choosing which takes to digitize into clips, and 'binning' them appropriately. The material you don't digitize isn't in the system and doesn't occupy any storage in the NLE. What beyond that do you need to do?

As far as I know I cannot re-export CDNG from Premiere and I definitely can't re-export MLV. This means that by opening the CDNG file in an NLE and trimming the footage, I lose the original format and am stuck with an NLE project depending on all the original footage, or an edited version of the original footage that is no longer a CDNG. I want to trim away the useless footage from the CDNG to save space whilst preserving the format.

Yes, but... are you eventually going to bring this material into an editing system? If so, that's the point at which you cull. If not, what are you going to do with it?  The idea of digitizing selects is to have a project in the NLE that uses only footage you want to edit with. What am I missing?

I have around 500GB of MLV footage, most of it is junk, but probably 100GB is gold. I want to archive this footage as well as edit it. I don't want to store 400GB of junk footage, just to store 100GB of good footage. Neither do I want my NLE project linking to so much junk footage. I just want to trim away the crap and archive and work with the good stuff. When I say crap, I mean it's never going to be used for anything. When I say good stuff, this is the material I would draw on when putting an edit together.

MLRawViewer has functionality that allows a range of an MLV file to be exported as a CNG. There is no ui for it, but when scrubbed to the desired start-point, i will set the in-point and when scrubbed to the desired end-point, 'o' will set the out-point.

authors: Сергей Лобачев


text:
Equipment needed to record sound when filming an interview with two people
I am currently filming interviews for a project and to date, a friend has kindly lent me the following sound equipment.  Unfortunately, I am going to have to give this equipment back very soon and need to replace it.  I don't however, have the budget to replace exactly like for like so wanted to know what was really essential and what cheaper options I could buy to achieve more or less the same effect.
The equipment that is currently on loan to me is:

Pair of HD201 Sennheiser headphones
Alesis PalmTrack 24bit WAVE/MP3 Recorder
2 x Levalier mics - ECM-77B Electret Condensor Microphones (SONY)
1 Mixer - SignVideo ENG-44 (4 channel audio mixer)
1 Cable to connect mixer to either MP3 recorder or to camera - jack to stereo XLR

I would really appreciate if anyone can help me.
Thanks!

You could simplify your costs and needs with this approach to your kit:
Get a similar unit to the Alesis PalmTrack to record your audio, preferably on 2 channels, or as a pair of Left and Right inputs from suitable microphones.
Monitor your Left & Right balance with suitable headphones to ensure the usual clean, distortion free audio.
Later, you could remix your balance levels in Audio Editing software between the 2 Mic inputs.
This would effectively eliminate the cost for the separate Audio Mixer, & the "live" audio mix.
Another solution could eliminate the need for 2 separate mics:
For any interview between 2 people, a pair of mics is almost always necessary.
However, if the camera shot and setup allows, you could park your Audio recorder on the end of a "fish pole" or "boom" attachment, and hold this over your subjects, out of shot, to record the conversation. A bit of practise and skill is required for this to be successful.
You do have to avoid the noise of handling the boom, as you 'pan' or 'swing' the recorder mics in the direction of either speaker.
Another alternative would be to park the recorder above the 2 persons, just out of shot and record audio from there. Correct positioning and minimum body movement of the subjects for the duration of the recording would be critical, however. Best done by seating both at a table, or similar.
A look online at some setup examples, like the searches below might help to visualise a rig:
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Film+interview+audio+setups&tbm=isch
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Film+interview+setups&tbm=isch

Thank you Robin for your great advice. I think a good audio recorder without a mixer is the way to go and would save a lot of money. Not sure about the fish pole or boom though - will have to try this out.

You really want to have XLR input capability to use decent quality mics, but you can get that directly in a recorder for a little bit less than the cost of the field mixer.  Zoom makes a nice selection of products that are pretty popular for having XLR inputs at a cheap price.
You also don't need to use quite as expensive of mics.  Audio Technica, among others, makes relatively decent condenser mics for as cheap as $150 or less.
For monitoring, you don't really need anything fancy, so any old cheap headphones will do the trick as long as they provide you with decent isolation and relatively low noise so that you can be listening for noise problems and making sure you have clean signal.

Again thank you AJ for your advice. Have been looking at audio recorders but was not sure whether they would be sufficient without a mixer. A friend has also recommended the Zoom H6 which would allow up to 6 XLR inputs so think need to look at that and the Alesis PalmTrack.

I avoided mentioning specific products in my answer as they would date the answer, but yes. I would currently recommend an h6n if it is in your price range. I personally have an h4n and love it.


text:
Changing aperture within a single video clip
Is it considered bad practice to change the aperture while shooting a video clip?
What is the best practice for shooting two different lighting conditions in the same shot? For example, when panning 180 degrees during sunset? Or is this simply to be avoided?
Any relevant newbie resources would be much appreciated.

In video terms, aperture is often called iris as well and particularly in live video, it is fairly common to adjust the aperture to adjust light sensitivity.
For both live and post produced video, it is also relatively common to use lenses with smoother apertures.  Most photo lenses have apertures that click in to set values, but video lenses will sometimes have aperture rings that will move smoothly through the aperture range to allow for very smooth transitions in aperture.
Aperture is the preferred means of adjusting sensitivity to light if needed as changes in shutter speed have a more pronounced impact and until recently, smooth changes in ISO were not easily possible in most cases.  (Certainly not smooth as a smooth aperture ring.)
Adjusting aperture live with a click-in aperture is probably non-ideal, but if you have a smooth one, it should be fine and in a pinch you can still do click-in adjustment, it will just be rather obvious when it changes, but that's still better than whited out or blacked out video.

Agreed.  A de-clicked photo lens for dslr video shooters, or a cine lens is really the only way to smoothly adjust exposure during a shot.  Shutter speed, iso, and nd usually (allways?) cannot be changed smoothly while recording.

I suppose a variable ND could be adjusted smoothly, but would be tricky to keep your hands out of the shot when you are adjusting the filter.


text:
Most-efficient inexpensive way to speed/slow video track to sync with audio track?
My machines are a few Android tablets (not the newest, but not too old either) as well as a Mac running OS X 10.9.5 (not about to upgrade the OS - long and irrelevant story why). Sometimes I do a presentation where I record separately the video track and the audio track - and then selectively speed-and-slow parts of the video track to sync with the audio --- thereby producing something similar to whiteboard animation.
Here's my question. The current way I do the speeding-up and slowing-down is through iMovie -- where I load the video, strip the audio that comes with me (which is just the sounds that are in the room at the time) load the audio that it is meant to go with --- and then I split the video clip at the right places, and for each segment, adjust the speed manually, thereby getting the video to sync with the audio. It's a slightly tedious process --- and I'd like something a tad more efficient. Say, something that would allow me to select key points where I map the audio track to a corresponding key point in the video track -- and maybe let the program then automatically speed-up and slow-down the video segments between those key-points so that things sync. Would make the process much less tedious.
Here's the thing though -- I am on a very limited budget -- and therefore, if the only options for something like this are too expensive, I probably will then just go on doing it the way I'm currently doing it through iMovie (which is tedious - but gets the job done). I can spend a little money, but something expensive is just out-of-the-question for me - and will remain so for a while it looks like. I'd like to have more money to spend on expensive tools (and if I had such money, I would have been using FinalCut Pro rather than iMovie for example) but the reality of the situation is that I don't have much money to spend.
So --- any suggestions what tool I can use to more-easily speed-slow the segments of the video track to sync with the audio track?

A bit like my question (still lacking any good answers) http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/14529/sync-separate-audio-to-videobad-camera-audio-free-nle-recommendations/14549, but I'm not trying to make significant speed changes to the video.

Well you could download a trial 30 day copy of the legacy version of Adobe After Effects CS6. It allows a full unrestricted 30 day install trial.
From there, you could take your footage in, place the master clip in a composition, and instead of cutting it, use the the time warp feature, which will give you smooth keyframes where you can adjust up the speed to X, then place a keyframe if you notice it begin to slip, and set a keyframe to slow it down a bit. This will provide ramping, which basically "cuts" the clip in half over and over again, and does all the math for you, to make the smooth changes in speed. Then render it out. Premiere might also have that function- it's also included in the CS6 Production Premium Bundle, google the download link, and you can install and try for 30 days without purchase.

Depends how much it would cost after those 30 days are up.

Your problem is not necessarily a software problem, it is a workflow planning and logistics problem.
The following steps should help you sync your external audio to your video easier and more efficiently saving you time.
Note how step one is all about methodology and should resolve your issue provided your software has the assumed functionality.

Prior to recording each scene, you need to make a loud clap sound that both the audio input of your video camera, and the external audio recorder can pick up at the same time. Typically, a clapper or hand claps are used for this purpose. A clapper is a framed chalkboard or whiteboard with scene information that is recorded by the video camera, and has an arm that is raised and clapped down to make the needed sound. The clap, when recorded, creates a spike in the audio of both the video camera's audio and the external sound recorder audio. These spikes are illustrated in the sounds waveform view with larger spikes if the sound is loud enough. When you align these two waveform spikes in your time line, the video and external sound are aligned and synced perfectly.

If you record your audio and video in one setting without breaks and without stopping the camera and the audio recorder, there is no need for you to have multiple claps during the recording, a single one will do. However, you will need to insure that when you edit out unwanted portions, you delete both the video and external audio portions at the same time otherwise, your external audio and video will cease to be synced.

Once you have aligned your audio and video; rather than delete the video audio, mute the video's audio track. If the video editing software you are using does not allow you to mute the audio track on your video, then you do have a software problem and you may want to look for a different program. I have been looking at OpenShot.org. It appears to be a full featured open source cross platform video editor which I am currently downloading and have yet to try out.

This should help you refine and simplify your video production.
ST.

Almost instant and Free Trial available: http://www.redgiant.com/products/pluraleyes/ .
I use AviSynth, but it is also tedious to get frame perfect results.

Checkout:

Hitfilm 3 Express (free after registration)
Lightworks (free with some limitations)
Adobe Premiere elements (about 100$)
Blackmagic da-vinci resolve (free - but with steep
learning curve and heavy systems requirements)

In HitFilm Express 4 (not 3) it is very easy to slow or accelerate your video. Give it a try. It is free.
You can use keyframes to change the speed of the movie. And you can use a pitch effect to prevent your audio to become too distorted.
Another nice app to accelerate or slow your video, is the video editor of GoPro cameras, now called Quik. I stopped using it because it used to be very buggy, but this new version looks a lot better.


text:
Importing VOB from DVD results in squeezed image
When I import VTS_01_1.VOB into VirtualDub or Avidemux or try to play it with Media Player Classic, it plays in dimensions 352x576 (squeezed) which should clearly be 576x352. But when I play the file in VLC, it plays in the correct dimensions and it looks like it should, so I know the frames are in 576x352, it's just that they're being misinterpreted by VirtualDub and Avidemux. Furthermore when I try to convert it with VLC, the result is 352x576 even though VLC plays it correctly in 576x352.
How do I fix this? I just want to import the file into VirtualDub or Avidemux so I can edit it.

576x352 is not the correct size for AR: 1.33 PAR: 24/11, which you reported in a comment below.  The correct display size would be the same height, and width = 576 * 4/3 = 768.  I hope THAT's what VLC is actually showing you?  Otherwise there's more weirdness.  IDK if VOB stores a display aspect ratio, or an actual WxH to scale the output to.

Sounds like thoses apps aren't respecting the Pixel Aspect Ratio (PAR) flag.  Widescreen DVD movies aren't usually made of more pixels, they have a setting in the metadata telling the player to stretch the pixels from squares into rectangles to make the picture look right.
VLC is reading the PAR flag and playing the pixels back in their correct aspect ratio.
A possible solution that has worked for me in some situations is to use HandBrake to convert from stretched pixels with a PAR flag to more pixels that are square.  You can do this in Handbrake by previewing the movie in Anamorphic PAR mode, noting the image dimensions listed, then turning off Anamorphic and the PAR, and typing the dimensions in by hand.  The resulting render will have square pixels (PAR 1.0) but the image will be properly stretched.
Hope that helps.

HandBrake reads the source as 352x576 (AR: 1.33 PAR: 24/11), but previews it through VLC as 576x352 (even though Codec Information in VLC says 352x576). I cannot manually enter a larger width than 352 in HandBrake. Since VLC displays the video correctly, is there a way to capture what VLC is showing, just record the output on the screen?

Those are some SERIOUSLY non-square pixels.  Most DVD VOBs are 720x576, with Display aspect ratio 4:3 or 16:9.  Non-square pixels are normal, and I'm surprised it's causing problems.


text:
Whats the best video camera for shooting weddings and Docs?
I was just wondering what would be the best professional Video Camera for shooting weddings and documentaries? I have a Canon 6D but want to invest in a prosumer camera that I can move around and keep focus. I find it awkward that you cant digitally zoom in to check focus on the 6D when its recording.
I was looking at the Canon C100 but its not very ergonomically designed for run and gun shooting. That said with the Atmos Ninja it can be every bit as good as its big brother the C500. Has anyone used this for weddings.
Is there anything in particular that would be a deal breaker on a camera. Ie no XLR's, a noisy internal zoom.
Should I invest in gear that can shoot 4K? I want to steer clear of Mini DV and i have a macbook pro with 16 gb RAM and an i7 processor.
I'm thinking of spending between 3000 - 3500 Euro on it as it'll need to last me for years.
I'd really appreciate any information you can give. Thanks!

Questions asking for product recommendations are of-topic for Video Production, as the answers tend to be opinion based, and become outdated very quickly.

There isn't enough information here and the subject changes fairly regularly.  You can hop in chat if you want to discuss current models or you can ask another question here if you want to focus in on what the key features for wedding videos are and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of various types of cameras (such as DSLRs vs CMOS sensor video vs CCD video).  You may also want to consider looking at questions about how to better shoot on Canon DSLRs such as those talking about Magic Lantern or take a look at whatever is current in Black Magic's line up as well.

I shoot weddings and currently use a Canon 7D with a Zoom lens, it is all up to how you shoot and feel when shooting, I like the 7D as it is small and doesnt look to intrusive, I would like to upgrade to the Canon C100 as it would give me better options but still stay in the small form.
It is all down to personal preference in the end, You could just hire a few out and see if you like to feel, form factor etc as some people would say go ARRI and others would be DSLR route

"Best" is kind of a vague request.  Based on what you wrote about your shooting,  maybe you should look at the Canon 5dmkIII, or the Sony A7S.  Both have superior video, and are well-suited for run-and-gun.

If he is saying the C100 isn't ergonomic enough, then a DSLR isn't really what he is looking for either.  The C100 basically is a DSLR that is designed specifically for video.  The traditional solution in that case is to build rigging to go around the camera itself.  True run and gun shooting requires either using a steadicam rig or a shoulder rig (or at least something that provides 3 points of contact, such as a zFinder.)


text:
Footprint or breadcrumb animation
I'm after a very specific effect and I haven't found an effective way to accomplish it.  Basically, I want dots to appear along a path and disappear over time.  The dots should not move after they're born, only fade out via alpha channel.  It's important that this is an actual alpha transformation, not just a color blend, because I plan to overlay this graphic on different source videos.  The paths also need to be easily editable and there will be hundreds of dots, so individual layers for each dot is out of the question.
The best way I can describe the effect I'm after is: Imagine a person walking through the snow, the footprints appear instantly, and fade out over time.  I've seen plenty of tutorials on creating a series of elements which follow each other, as if you're dragging a string of pearls, but this is not what I'm after.
I've tried After Effects, and it's easy enough to make a dotted line with a shape layer, but a gradient stroke doesn't follow the path, or give me control over start position, end position, or offset.  (here's an illustration of the problem)

I've also tried using Cinema 4D and mograph, but keep running into similar problems.  I basically can't get a graduated shader effector to follow a spline.
Any solutions which use C4D or AE are preferred.  All are welcome.  Thanks.

Semi-related, though I'm sure there are better options.

Feel free to comment if my answer don't solve your issue...

It looks good.  The edits you added are helpful.  I just can't help but feel that there's an easier way.  I'm going to give it some more time.  Actually, maybe add a bounty.

Ok, nice :) What exactly bothers you? Do you prefer After Effects? 2d is ok?

I'm not too familiar with blender, and am not quite sure how to translate into c4d.  I guess it's the soft transition part that I don't quite get, or maybe it sounds a little cumbersome.  Honestly I haven't sat down and tried it yet, it might make more sense when I do.  And really, this is a compositing problem, so I'm going to need to see the background as I draw over it and decide where to place the lines.  I know how to do that, it just seems like a job for a compositing app.  Guess I'm disappointed it's not as simple as it seems like it should be.

here's a solution that I've used. It can be used to reveal a shape path, or as a way to add a smooth fade-out on the stroke effect as-is:

Create your dotted path using the pen tool (or whatever you like),
then use the path to create a mask on a new adjustment layer. I use
an expression so that I can dynamically change the path - just
alt-click the stopwatch on the Mask Path property and drag the
pick-whip to the shape path:

Apply the stroke effect to the mask path on the adjustment layer.
We'll be using the adjustment layer as an alpha matte for your
dotted line layer, but best to do that later so you can see what
you're doing. Set the Brush Size property so that the brush
covers the dotted line layer. Set the Paint Style property to
On Transparent.
Animate the Start and / or End property for the stroke
effect to animate the reveal / disappearance of your stroke. Now
this creates a hard start and end, so what you have to do is apply
the Echo effect — Effects>Time>Echo. set the decay to
something less than 1. You may want to increase the Number of
Echos and decrease the Echo Time to make the fade
in/out/smooth.

Now set your alpha matte on the shape layer et Voila!

If you want the stroke to fade in as well as out, you'll need to add another echo, but with the echo time set to a positive value (or is it negative) so that you're echoing from the future. You thought it was slow with just one echo effect applied? You're in for a world of waiting now! The reason it's so slow is that it has to compute the value for the previous frames for each of the echos, so for every frame you're rendering ten, twenty frames. That's why you might want to only ramp up the number of echos when it's time to send it off to the render.
Caveat: if the stroke crosses itself the alpha matte will reveal areas out of sequence. You can manually mask the offending areas out, or split the stroke path up into separate layers, this works, but it's a world of tediousness, I know from experience - I used it on an animation that featured hand-written text slowly fading in. Also Echo is dog slow, so you may want to ramp the settings up to final quality only once you done everything else you want to in the comp.

out-of sequence image appearing.
You can mitigate this by making sure that your brush size is as small as possible:

But if that's still a problem you can spit the stroke: add an extra point somewhere between the overlapping parts of the stroke

Now duplicate the shape layer and the adjustment layer (note that I've coloured the duplicated shape layer yellow)

Then you delete the points at either side of the point you created on each layer

one side

and the other.
Make sure you adjust the expression in your duplicated adjustment layer to reflect the name of the new stroke layer - if it was thisComp.layer("Shape Layer **1**").content("Shape 1").content("Path 1").path you'll have to use the pick-whip or manually correct it to thisComp.layer("Shape Layer **2**").content("Shape 1").content("Path 1").path.
Now you just have to offset the keyframes in your adjustment layer so that one starts when the last one stops. You might need to juggle the position of the middle keyframes to deal with the echoes.

and you have a correctly revealing crossing:

Thanks for the really spectacular answer.  Just wanted to say I'm sorry for not awarding you the full 300 in time, I totally meant to, but I got pretty sick for a week or so.  Anyway, much appreciation :)

A simple way in blender or any other 3d package would be to use a boolean modifier, if you want to subtract real geometry:

use a array modifier to duplicate your shape
create a path and aligning the objects on it
animate the object count of the array modifier
create a simple geometry for subtracting the path objects at the beginning
add a boolean modifier to your base object
animate the position of the boolean object to subtract the shape objects
make the boolean object invisible to the camera (e.g. with a transparent material)

.blend file

Edit: To get a soft transition you can render the bool object seperatly, blur the alpha channel and subract it from the another alpha. Or simply use a roto mask.

.blend

Very close, but it's important that the tail fades out.  C4D has booleans too, and I could do something very similar.  It's just the "8. OR render the bool object as mask for creating a softer edge" that's tricky for me, and actually the crux of this whole question.  The most frustrating part about it is that I don't actually need the effect to be 3D.  I'd just settle for a 3D app solution if that's the only way I can get the control I need.  All I really want is an alpha gradient that can traverse a path.  But thank you for your answer, I'll upvote it.

@JasonConrad To get a nice alpha gradient, you can render the bool object seperatly like this: https://i.sstatic.net/qm5ts.png, blur the alpha pass and combine both alphas.

I would also suggest to do the alpha fade in post.

I tried to accomplish a similar effect and used the 'Vegas' and 'Echo' (or a similar) effect in AE to create an alpha matte.
The problem with the 'Vegas' effect is that when you set your line to be right before the beginning of the path, it appears at the end of it (try it out, you'll quickly notice what I mean).
My solution was to only use a little dot in the 'Vegas' effect but duplicate and fade it over time using an 'Echo' effect (or another of that sort).
The 'Echo' effect controls the length and falloff of the stroke, the color and width are controlled by 'Vegas'.
It's not very pleasingly clean, but it might get the job done.


text:
Closed shapes with Newton 2
I'm trying to simulate water filling up a closed sphere, but I'm having trouble getting Newton to recognize that my box is empty on the inside but has borders. It only sees my box as a solid object and I am unable to put anything else inside of it.
I've tried removing the fill and playing around with the box's properties but it doesn't seem to be affecting anything. I know it's possible because I've seen a few videos using the technique, but not a single one explaining how to do it.
In short, I want to be able to create a "hollow" box that Newton can see and that I can fill with a bunch of tiny balls.

Hi - I think you need to post some screenshots of what you're trying to do.  Newton is a 2D physics engine, so I'm not sure how you'd use it to fill a sphere?  Are you filling a box or a circle?  Some images would definitely help to get this answered.

Did you manage to find a solution to this? I'm trying to do the same thing as you but I can't figure out how to do it exactly

instead of shape layer with outline use solid layer with masks to recreate the outline. that seems to work for me..


text:
Split subtitles to line up ends of files?
I'm on a windows PC and have two files of a movie that's been split into those two pieces. I also have a subtitle file, but it's in one whole piece. Is there a way, using Subtitle Workshop(what I have now) or any other free program to split that one subtitle file into two pieces such that the subtitles end at the same time the video does, and it's cut at the beginning?
I can already split it so they start at the same point and split at the end, but is there any way to do to the opposite? I'd usually just split it at the end of the first video so that the second one should already line up correctly, but I think there's an extra intermission/credits/etc. somewhere that the subtitles don't account for, so that wouldn't work. Also, the files are .ogm's, which I have converted into .mp4's of the same length, but they're of terrible quality. VLC player can play ogm's, so I figure if I can split them like this using another format I can then apply the subtitles tot the .ogm's, right?
Anyway, all help is appreciated.

Don't transcode your video, there shouldn't be any need to do that.  You might be able to concat the two ogm videos into a single ogm, or mkv, without transcoding, just remuxing.  (e.g. with ffmpeg's concat filter, and -codec copy)
http://www.nikse.dk/SubtitleEdit has a split feature.  You'll have to edit the 2nd file after splitting, since the split dialog box doesn't have anywhere to add in a gap.  But it's easy to apply the same time-shift to all subs in a file, with it.  I haven't actually used that editor much, I think last time I had to mess around with subs I used gaupol or ksubtile, forget which, (on GNU/Linux) to stretch the timecodes in a .srt to correct for a 25fps / 23.976fps speed difference.  But anyway, I think Subtitle Edit is good, and it's cross-platform.  (Runs on GNU/Linux under WINE, with mono.)

Is there any reason to have two separate files? From my point of view, merging both parts of the video and editing the subtitle would be the easier way. You could split the file afterwards as you like and the subtitle would still be in sync if you mux it with the video.
I would recommend mmg/mkvmerge to make a single mkv (the function is called append and requires that all streams have the same properties) then shift the times where necessary in Aegisub. It is recommended to use the graph of the audio track in Aegisub for syncing/timing.
When you are done with that you can mux the subtitle into the mkv too and check again that everything is as you like. Only after you are satisfied with this project you just created should you choose the target format, which is a completely different topic.
You could use simple tools like Handbrake or go with VLCs built in conversion functionality or ffmpeg. It should be obivous that using some random tool with unknown parameters for conversion of an almost unknown file and content is likely to turn out sub-optimal or incompatible with the target playback device. Mediainfo is another useful tool in the toolbox to read detailed meta information from media files, which I prefer along with mkvmerge, ffmpeg, and Aegisub as all of them are cross-platform and FOSS.


text:
Premiere Garbage Mask Not Rendering Correctly
I am working on a Premiere project that will be exported for YouTube. At the end, there is a screen with two boxes in which I've placed clips of my previous videos. These will be annotations on YouTube. The background of this end screen is a timelapse video that I took of a white board drawing being created. So, in order to 'cut out' the boxes where the annotation video clips will play, I used garbage masks. Everything looks great in Premiere. But when I render it, the background white board video disappears. It's just the two smaller annotation video clips on a black background. What am I doing wrong?
TLDR: The clip on which I've placed my garbage mask is rendering black when I export it.

So are you applying the garbage matte to the whiteboard clip or the annotation clips?

@stib I used the 16-point garbage mask and put it over the square where the annotation clip will play. Then I added the Alpha Adjust effect and selected Invert Alpha. This is my first time using a mask in Premiere, so maybe I'm just doing everything backwards. But it plays the way I want it to look in Premiere. It's just when I export it that it looks weird.

Try adding the mask to the annotation layers, you shouldn't have to use the invert alpha effect. And you won't need any masks or alpha effects on your background.


text:
Burn .mkv to a .dvd for playback on DVD player while retaining multiple tracks?
If I use a program like ASVtoDVD or ConvertXToDVD to convert a .mkv to a .dvd, and the .mkv has multiple audio tracks/subtitle, will the produced .dvd only have one of those, or will it retain more or less everything the .mkv had? Also, how would I choose which is used if I'd use DVDFlick or ImgBurn to burn those to the disc once it's actually in the player? If you happen to know, while we're discussing ASVtoDVD/similar programs, can the convert .ogm files as well?

A lot of hardware dvd players can play mkv and mp4 files.  Are you sure you even need to make an actual Video DVD, rather than a data DVD with video files on it?

Also, just try it.  VLC can open a Video-DVD directory of VOB files, and probably also from an ISO.  If not, then mount the ISO, or extract the contents with 7-zip.


text:
Video archive solution
We are a community TV station, looking to improve our video archive. Currently we archive our master files on external drives. But to make the archive easier to access, both for saving and re-using, we are looking into a network-based solution.
We have a gigabit network and currently use about 18.5 TB (our exported files for broadcast already reside on another NAS). But we likely will need at least 30TB for now (we have about 34TB worth of disks available).
My question is, how to we best set up this archive, to make it available over LAN? RAID5? Do we need a RAID controller or can we get away with some kind of software/motherboard/PCIe RAID, as it's only for archiving? Is it better to buy a dedicated NAS solution, or to set up our own server with a good amount of swap drive slots? Or would we even need a SAN?
About six editing computers will on a more or less regular basis archive/backup to this archive server.
Our budget is pretty tight, so we're looking for a cheap, yet efficient solution.
Although we currently use Google Spreadsheets to track what's on each disk, a media asset management solution would probably be a nice addition to this as well :)
Thanks!

As I said, buried in my long answer, RAID controller cards are most useful for taking the load off the server CPU.  Also, battery backed cache to allow write caching.  But neither of those are important for you.  I'd prob. use a cheap PCIe SATA card just to hook up more HDs, and run software RAID.

A SAN (storage area network) would be, in your case, a separate gigE network for carrying fileserver traffic only?  So every computer would need 2 gigE ports?  Doesn't make sense, IMO, esp. if cost-efficiency is more important than performance.

I haven't ever done exactly what you're trying to do, but I think I know how I could do it.  Hopefully this answer is useful, or at least starts some discussion from people that do have more concrete experience.
One of the important factors in your choice is going to be buying something that someone knows how to admin.  I think you'd be fine with a commodity fileserver appliance, where you admin it through a web interface or something, and just plug in hard drives + ethernet + power, and set it up to mail you when a drive dies.
If you use a normal PC, running Linux (with Linux's very excellent software RAID), and samba and/or NFS to share the files, you can easily stuff 6 hard drives in.  With any cheap PCIe SATA card, you can add another however many.  Your server will have lots of CPU time to spare, too, so you can have it do video encoding or something if you want.  Or just go really cheap on the CPU.  (Don't get slow RAM, though.  Copying around and checksumming data will potentially bottleneck on memory bandwidth.)
RAID6 is more CPU intensive, since the parity info has to use fancy modulo arithmetic, instead of just XOR, but again, with gigE as your bottleneck, and where you don't need the machine to have a lot of CPU time left over for anything else, it's fine.  You don't need an expensive RAID card, since cost per TB is more important for you than maybe 10% speed.  RAID cards often come with software to monitor them and send email when a drive needs replacing.  smartd from smartmontools, and/or mdadm can send email, too, if you set them up to do so.
gigabit ethernet is going to be by far the biggest bottleneck (100MB/s).  If you get a server with multiple gige ports, you could bond them (multiple cables all connected to the same switch), so multiple clients at once could read and write 100MB/s.
Since you're mostly going to be using this over gigE, and for video (big files read and written sequentially), something like WD Green hard drives would be most appropriate.  Lower idle and max power means you can more easily pack a lot of HDs into a case without overheating.  You'll have to shop for cases that can hold a lot of HDs, preferably with them accessible from the front for hotswapping.  Maybe a rackmount server case, esp. if you already have a rack.  I haven't ever looked into cases for boatloads of HDs, so there's probably stuff I'm missing here.
I think there are external chassis (with their own PS) for holding extra HDs, and they may even have SATA port multipliers.  If so, then you might be able to hook it all up to your mobo onboard SATA ports, since you'd have 4 or more hard drives on each of the 6 SATA connectors on your mobo.  I'm not sure this is how things work, so better read up.  (even sequential reads on current drives don't use the full bandwidth of 6Gb/s SATA, so the interface would be a bottleneck with 3 or more drives on a single SATA port.  But gigE is a bigger bottleneck.  And anyway, 6 mobo sata ports all running flat out would be helluva fast.)
edit: apparently not all SATA controllers support port multipliers.  e.g. a http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817182280 I was looking at for my own use has a manufacturer reply that mobo SATA ports often don't support port multipliers.
edit: The FreeNAS HW recommendations advise caution with SATA port multipliers.  Apparently they can eat your data.  That FreeNAS guide is exactly what you should look at for getting specific about hardware.  (But if you don't use ZFS, then tons of RAM is not very important.  Linux instead of FreeBSD will also probably have somewhat better hardware compatibility.  Remote management IPMI will be very valuable if anything goes wrong, other than disk HW failure.  Or even then, for determining which disk is failed.)
As for details of the RAID setup, yes, I'd suggest RAID5 is probably a good bet.  If you can afford to have at least a 2nd copy of your data somewhere, as a backup, then you don't need to be too paranoid about the reliability of either the main archive or the backup.  If not, well then you should probably go RAID6.
Even RAID6 still doesn't help you if someone accidentally deletes or overwrites the wrong directory on the shared server, or if a CPU or RAM failure leads to filesystem corruption.  RAID only helps you read back the data that was written.  If other errors lead to the wrong data being written, you are in trouble.
ZFS might be a good choice, for extra checksumming to detect corruption.  You can set it up to give RAID5 levels of redundancy (RAID-Z), or RAID6 (z2).  Linux BTRFS does basically the same stuff as ZFS, but its built-in RAID5/6 isn't mature yet.
If you end up using more than maybe 16 drives, you might want to think about breaking them into 2 smaller RAID5 or RAID6 arrays.
Off-site backups, updated at least weekly from your main storage server, are a really good idea.  For this special case of backing up video, maybe use the CPU time on your NAS to transcode your videos to lower bitrates for off-site backup, so you don't need so much space off-site.  Then if you lose everything, you have whatever you can pull off people's workstations that they had copied there, plus the lower-quality videos from your offsite backup.  Hopefully you never have to use it.
Oh, another idea.  The costs of having that much storage available online all the time is a bit of a factor (having to buy a server).  Possibly useful to use external hard drives as a 2nd copy.  Or even "internal" hard drives that you stick into a docking station.  (looks like a toaster, but takes SATA HDs instead of bread.)  Insert HD, sync some data to the drive, take it home for safe keeping.  Then if your studio burns down, someone has the data at home.  This might be easier than finding somewhere off-site to put a backup server for your archive.
Or just pay for cloud backups of your archive.  That might actually make the most sense, if your Internet connection can handle it.  (you could use the lower-bitrate off-site backup idea with cloud backups, too.)
This is all pretty theoretical, since my job as a sysadmin for some small Linux beowulf clusters was several years ago.
Anyway, remember that someone will have to admin this thing.  Being the admin probably won't mean any hours a week babysitting it, but you need someone that understands the setup and knows what to do if there's a problem.  Swapping a drive usually requires poking at the admin UI, not just physically changing hardware.
Have a spare HD ready to pop in to replace a failed one, so your data isn't going unprotected for long.  Probably you'd want a failed-drive email to go to multiple people, so whoever's around can replace a failed drive with the spare.  (If you have the drive in the NAS PC or appliance, then it's a hot spare and can get used automatically.)

Thanks a lot for a very detailed and thorough reply! Now I have a lot more info to digest to make a more informed decision.

Cheers.  I'd be interested to hear what you end up doing.  Maybe post a summary as an answer to your own question :P

Yup, will post something when we've decided on exactly what to do.


text:
Embedded HD video looks fuzzy on full screen but fine at Vimeo
Any idea as to why an embedded HD video would get fuzzy at full screen, but looks fine at Vimeo using the same full screen icon. Using the full screen icon on the video player window on this site,http://southplattebasin.com/. Seems to happen on some larger monitors. The only difference is that the HD video is embedded vs not embedded. TIA

I was able to watch it in full screen and high quality from the link you posted above. However, I had to explicitly press the "HD" icon on the timeline bar. Perhaps there's some sort of parameter you need to set when embedding it? Or perhaps Vimeo disallows HD by default when embedding?

Thanks user1118321. Question for you - After hitting the HD icon, did your "view" of the video improve? Was it less sharp prior to your using the HD icon? Thanks!

Yes, absolutely. It looked like it was maybe half res before I hit the button. After I hit the button, the jaggies went away and it was nice and crisp. (I'm on a Retina MacBook Pro, for what that's worth.)

Thanks again. I'm using a MacBook Air and see the movie in all it's crisp glory. My client is using a Windows machine : (  I'm going to have to go to their office and see first hand. Thanks again for your feedback. Cheers!

To embed a HD video hosted on Vimeo, you need Vimeo PLUS or PRO.
From this page:

Can I make my embedded videos default to HD?
Plus and PRO members have the ability to not only embed their videos
  in glorious HD, but also to default those videos to be viewed in HD.
  This is a sweet way to make sure that your crisp, high definition
  videos are seen in their full glory when they're embedded around the
  interwebs.

They even made a simple diagram to explain it.


text:
"Video Filter missing" in Adobe Premiere
Adobe Premiere 5.5
OSX

I have a project I've been working on for a while, which has become huge
It has some Adobe After Effects embedded segments in it, as "Dynamic Links."
At some point I had a filter in one of the segments (QuickLooksLimited)
Later on, I changed machines… and didn't reinstall QuickLooksLimited (I think)?
I've removed some of the AE clips which used this filter, but there may be more

When the project opens, I see the popup message :

/Volumes/PATH_DIR/PROJECT_NAME.prproj
Video Filter missing:  AE.MB QuickLooksLimited

(the PATH_DIR and PROJECT_NAME are additions for this post)
So my question(s) are:

how do I find the clip where this darn filter is?
how do I figure out if the filter is still installed somewhere?

There's one way I know of to find the clip that is using the filter. Inside the timeline, you will see a small badge with the letters 'fx' on your clips. If it it grayed out, there is no effect applied. If it is colored purple, yellow, green, or red, then you have an effect on the clip. You can read about that more here...
http://helpx.adobe.com/premiere-pro/using/applying-removing-finding-organizing-effects.html
You can find the plugin file in your After Effects folder.

Windows - Program Files\Adobe\Adobe After Effects\Plug-ins
Mac - Applications/Adobe After Effects/Plug-ins

That is a good start with the plugins directory, thanks!
Unfortunately this is an fx-heavy project and every single clip has fx applied.


text:
I wish to make short clips for my website from existing Final Cut shows
I have made a number of videos in Final Cut Pro and would like to make some short clips of these as demos in my website. What is the best way to do this? What is the best export format? I have a Weebly template website/

Are you asking about how to export from FCP, how to compress for the web or how to upload videos to weebly?


text:
Places to look for sound tracks for videos
I'm wondering what's a good place to look for background music for our video productions.
I'm not asking for a free one, but for any good place with a good categorization of soundtracks and songs for our videos.
I've tried the ones listed in "Legal Music for Videos" but I was wondering where do pro people get their sound tracks from.

I've used AudioMicro.com and like a lot of their music. I hear good things about incompetech.com.  You can also just Google "royalty-free music sites" and you'll find several, each with different terms and prices.

I know for a fact GoPro gets its music from extrememusic.com, and I personally use Night3x from youtube for electronic music, and RFGB for orchestral music.
AudioJungle offers some great services to.
Another source is CC-Mixter, straight from the creative commons, but I myself do not think that the library present is too good.
If you are looking for audio (eg. wind noise, etc.) then check out freesound.org, but check to make sure that you can use the track.
Hope that helps :)

My favorites:

Premiumbeat
AudioJungle

I always used Jamendo. Normally artists upload full albums and there are many classes of licences, even PRO/paid licenses:

From their FAQ:

What is free music?
  Free music is music that is not managed by performance rights organizations (PRS, ASCAP, SOCAN, BMI, BUMA, JASRAC...). Artists choose to protect their rights through specific non exclusive licenses such as Creative Commons. 'Free music' doesn't necessarily mean free-of-cost or devoid of any rights restrictions, it means "some rights reserved". Artists define what rights they grant on their music through their choice of license.
What is Creative Commons?
  Creative Commons are licenses that enable musicians to give away their music for free while protecting their rights. They are easy to use and compatible with internet standards, and allow rights holders to authorize (or not) certain uses of their music, such as commercial uses and derived works.

musicbed.com is probably the best quality I've heard from these types of sites.  Of course, it's a little more expensive.  But when you need quality, you should be prepared to pay for it.  They have tons of good stuff already, but you can also actually commission them to write custom music for your project.

Well there is a source I have used a lot in the past. Very popular, a lot of others have used as well. Its free, legal and good quality. but I tend to pay a token fee for stuff I use ($5) though there is no obligation to do so.
Its called http://incompetech.com
Kevin MacLeod. He is an American musical and sound track composer. He has a large volume of tracks one can use as well as a breakdown of the track.
Other commercial sites.
JewelBeat - more music than all of the free sources combined.
SmartSound - customize music mixes and lengths.

Try this one...everything is free (with attribution.)
http://soundimage.org/

I've used Adrenalin Sounds before and they have a great selection of music and an easy search system. If you can't be bothered going through a heap of tracks they will create a playlist for you, which I have found helpful in the past.

From my experience there are some parameters you need to check for each of the sites mentioned here already:

What is their licensing model: usually the licensing depends on the distribution channel you use, i.e. "unlimited worldwide TV distribution" usually being the most expensive.
How does their "curatorial" skills meet your quality standards. I wouldnt bother browsing a site that is cheaper but their selection of music is mainly crap. There are huge quality differences of the selection they offer and usually the free sites have the worst "crap" vs "quality" ratio.
Check what types of music, license wise,  the site is distibuting. In the case of extrememusic.com i know that not all of their tracks are royalty free. While the music they offered is great, you might find stuff that is actually registered with ascap, gema, whatever and have to negotiate royalties with them, which is often unacceptable given the timeframe in which music selection has to take place.
Consider hiring a composer: Sometimes it is faster, and not even more expensive to let somebody write a piece of music specifically tailored to your needs. I wouldnt rule that option out and that way you avoid using a music bed that may have been already used in a context you dont like.
Don't assume that if a music file is offered for free, that this holds true. Especially in sites that offer user maintained content, you can only be sure that the file is really royalty free if you got that in a written statement. Companies specializing in these kind of music take care of that, if using stuff from a "free" site i would contact the author of the track and get a written confirmation to avoid legal consequences.


text:
Multivideo player with histograms?
Is there a tool that can play multiple videos while displaying a histogram of each video simultaneously?

Is there a tool that can do that for one video?  If so, run it twice, right?

That would work, but I haven't found one to do it live. I want to be able to seek and pause while the histogram is updated near-realtime(within a frame or two, ideally realtime).

I've started trying to port camstudio to VS2013Community, if that works, I'll use the pixel-ripping frontend and generate my histograms that way.

Just came across this idea: interleave two streams, so you get frame1a, frame1b, frame2a, frame2b, etc.  http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?p=1475311#post1475311.  Sounds like a good way to do some kinds of comparisons.  Esp. if you have something that can framestep backwards, to flip between the same frame.

Blackmagic smartscope duo will do 2, if you're looking for a hardware solution.

That's a neat device, but I'd much prefer a software solution.

IDK how well this would work. Prob. not at all for vids with differing GOPs, but you could try using something to mirror your keystrokes to multiple windows.
Autohotkey can do that on Windows.  On GNU/Linux, Terminator can send keystrokes to multiple gnome-terminal tabs at once, so you could control mplayer that way (since it reads the tty as well as accepting keystrokes to its windows.)  I'm sure there's a way to dual-box games on GNU/Linux by mirroring keystrokes to arbitrary windows, I've just never had occasion to go looking.
If any open-source player has the kind of histogram you're looking for, and an existing API for writing GUI frontends, then in theory it shouldn't be too hard to (pay a coder to) hack something up that sends seek-to-a-position commands to multiple instances of a player.  This could solve loss of sync problems after seeking, if you get that with blindly driving multiple players.
ffmpeg has a histogram filter. From an example in the ffmpeg docs: play a vid with a filtered version side-by-side: -vf 'split[a][b]; [a]pad=iw*2:ih[src]; [b]histogram[filt]; [src][filt]overlay=w'. I just changed deshake to histogram.