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Projecting image from computer that is a distance away
For our schools theatrical production class, we need to project an image using a projector, however the only way to use the projector is to hang it on a lighting bar (Not a problem)  The problem is that we do not have a long enough VGA cord to hook that projector up to a laptop/desktop.  I have called around and asked about a 200ft VGA cable, but at that length that would loose signal.  So I thought I would ask this form what would be the best solution to my problem.  I have thought about getting a 200 coax cable with VGA ends, but is that even possible?
Thanks in advance.

It's possible to amplify VGA for long runs, but since that's an analog signal it's usually not the best option. VGA over coax is probably more trouble than it's worth (you'd have to merge the many VGA channels somehow to use the single coax pin, and then reverse it).
VGA over Cat5e is fairly common. You still aren't running an analog signal over 200ft, but there's hardware to convert from VGA to a digital signal and then convert back at the other end with minimal latency. For example, this product, which also has a monitor port at the source end.
A less reliable option, but possibly less pricey if your projector supports it, is wireless projection over wi-fi. But like I said, this may be not reliable enough for theater application.

What about something like this combo (With a 200ft Cat5e) link and link

Not going to work in a million years. The second link is just the remote unit for the product I linked to in my post--it requires the base unit, which is powered and is going to encode your VGA signal digitally. The first link is just a straight analog converter at each end. If they work at all, the quality is going to be worse and MUCH more susceptible to interference over a 100ft+ unshielded cat5e run.

Alright, I understand.  I was just trying to find some cheaper options.  But if the product you linked me is the one you think is best, We'll order it.

This one is a little less expensive since it doesn't include the audio (which I imagine you won't need). If I was doing technical direction for a show that required this on a budget, that's probably what I would purchase; knowing that Tripp-Lite is a reputable brand, and that the product is highly rated on Amazon. The real professional quality stuff (and thus, professionally-priced) can be found here.

Perfect!  Yes, we would never use the audio in the converter, as the computer is running in the tech booth we would have our own audio system set up.


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Rendering video with pixel aspect ratio 0.9091 (in premiere CS5.5)
I have a video (from my Android Nexus One).  Dimensions are 720 x 480.
The pixel aspect ratio is, according to data embedded in the file, 0.9091.
Now, editing the video and exporting it to a media that says it has square pixel obviously makes the video look 'narrow' on the X axis.
The only way I could edit this in Premiere and export it to MPEG (2 or 4), was to scale each source video up to 109.9% on the X axis (since 0.9091 * 1.09 is ca 1.0).  Premiere doesn't allow me to say that the generated file as a pixel aspect ratio of 0.9091.
This works, but feels wrong.  Especially if I have lots of source videos, to set the scaling factor on each of them.
Is there a better way to do this ?

If you're exporting directly from Premiere, then select the MPEG2-DVD NTSC preset in File -> Export -> Media, as shown in this image.
Also, it looks like MP4Box will allow you to change the pixel aspect ratio flag in a .mp4 without re-encode.
FYI: 720x480 with PAR 0.9091 @ 29.97fps is the NTSC DV standard resulting in a 4:3 display aspect ratio. Similarly, 720x576 with PAR 1.0667* @ 25fps is the PAL DV standard.
*The actual PAR is supposed to be 59/54, but many apps use 16/15. See here if you're interested.

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Is there a way to link the animation of two layers?
I am building a kinetic type-style video and am struggling to get some of the animations to sync correctly.
In this particular example I am trying to have a text box (imported .ai file) rotate with the text inside (made with an AE animation preset) but at the moment they fall out of alignment part way through the animation.
Is there a simple means of link their animations so they stay in the same position (relative to each other) or do I have to fiddle with the registration point to make sure their animations sync together?

What you want is layer parenting.

You are looking for Anchor Point.
Position on composition is the sum of Position+Anchor Point. Play a little with it to understand how it works. Simple press "A" on keyboard to show this propertie on timeline.
If you need to link values (position to anchor points or whatever) of each layer use the @ operator (on timeline too). This will give u an moving "arrow" to link both values. The icon of this tool really looks like a "@". After linked, propertie 'childed' will follow propertie "father" . Parenting is the name of this tool in AE.

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


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Who owns raw footage?
I am working at a Multimedia Production placement for my college course for a company that wants a promotional video. I shot about 4 hours of video.
They believe claim that I have no right to use the raw footage that I shot for anything (including my own portfolio) and that they have the right to full access of the raw & audio footage that I shot.
In order to avoid escalating the situation, I didn't say anything because right now, I am the sole holder of all the raw footage files.
They want to be able to use the footage I shot for their projects in the future and I doubt credit will be given to me for the footage.
Do I have the right to put a watermark on the footage before I give it to them?
Do they have the right to the raw footage, or ONLY the finished product which I am producing for them?
I signed a generic contract when I went into this placement, but the form mentioned nothing about media (as this is a hospital). So what is the default rule of thumb about the rights to this footage?
I am not sure if it makes a difference, but I am in Canada

Albeit this a legal question and should be addressed by an attorney familiar with all the details of your case, it is an interesting question, and I am curious about the outcome.

If this is work done for a college course, your college might own the rights.

I am not a lawyer, but I played one on TV.
If the contract wasn't specific then you might have some wiggle room. Typically contract law (varies by state) says that if the contract is unclear then it favors the person who didn't write it. So if they provided you an unclear contract it favors you when it isn't clear.
Unfortunately if they hired you to create the "work" of the footage, then it may be a "work for hire":

A "work made for hire" is— (1) a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or (2) a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. (17 U.S.C. § 101)

Read up on work for hire, but generally speaking, unless the contract states otherwise, if you are hired / contracted to create something, the party paying you owns your work.
BTW, to be a work for hire doesn't mean they paid you cash. They could be paying you in work experience.

That's not exactly how "work for hire" works. There must be a written agreement that explicitly declares the independent contractor's work as "work for hire." See U.S. Copyright Office circular 9: https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ09.pdf

That is basically what my citation says, but thanks for the additional resources.

Unless you/they have a contract which states that it was a" work for hire" and they have ownership of the raw media, the videographer or photographer owns the rights to the raw footage. The client has paid for the finished product, but that is all, and it is questionable if they even have the right to take excerpts from or re-edit it without your permission, or given a right of first refusal. The client is not the creator, the person who shot it, the production company or, if single videographer, is.

So the contract has to explicitly state that the raw footage (camera originals) created are "work for hire"? In other words this is not simply implied when you're contracted to shoot footage and edit it into a deliverable final cut?

@Crowder that is correct, it is not "work for hire" if there is not a contract saying that you are being officially hired to perform the work.

It appears this question is not relevant for this group as it is about a legal matter, I am not qualified nor would anyone here be expected to be able to give you legal advice. I recommend that you seek legal counsel from an attorney that practices copyright, trade mark or intellectual property law in Canada.
You might start by looking for firms that provide pro-bono services to students such as yourself.
Here is a link that might help:
http://www.probono.net/
Be prepared to provide any and all documents you have signed with this employer, and any and all paper trails (emails, tweets, messages, letters, notes, etc) regarding any communications about your filming for this employer.

I am not a lawyer, nor have I ever directly worked in professional video production.
That said,
In a typical situation where, say, a cameraman is working for a production company which is then in turn being contracted by some other entity, the cameraman would likely have no rights to the footage he shoots, but there would probably be a clause in his contract that grants him the right to use footage in a portfolio.
The production company then negotiates with their client to decide if the client will own all raw footage at the conclusion of the project, or just the finished product.
If your situation doesn't have any contract in place that mentions ownership, well, that's not a situation I'd want to be in. If you are single-handedly being contracted to shoot, produce, and deliver a finished video to the company, then you may have rights to the footage. However, if the company is producing the video in-house and you are simply there to shoot for them, you probably don't have rights to the raw footage. On the other hand, if this is a placement for a college course, then it may actually be YOUR SCHOOL that owns the rights to your raw footage. You'll have to find that out.
You should NOT watermark anything unless you have signed something that specifically allows you to do so. This will just make people angry, and that's not good for anyone unless you're prepared to enter a costly legal battle.
The fact that you are holding all of the raw footage right now does not necessarily mean you have the rights to it.
Frankly, the fact that this is an academic placement (and therefore unpaid, I imagine) makes me think the "generic contract" you signed essentially means YOU do whatever THEY want, and you get a grade for it. End of story--they own the footage. And besides, when have you EVER seen cameramen credited on the footage they shoot? Only at the ends of feature films, and in the cameraman's own portfolio; never on a promotional video.
Nonetheless, I do believe you are justified in wanting to retain the use of your footage for your professional portfolio. If they are going to begrudge you that, I think you have a fair case to make as a student, and your advising professor should be able to vouch for you and bargain on your behalf.

I am the only producer/director

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


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Halogen brightness for video
I'm trying to get an idea of the brightness of halogen lights before I go and buy any. I'm going to be producing a music video and for some indoor scenes I'll need lighting. I'm on a small budget unfortunately so hiring hundreds of dollars of lighting is not on the agenda.
I was planning on getting some cheap work lights of 250W or 500W but I've heard people say that 500W lights are actually very bright and get rather hot.
If I was looking for an exposure at 1/50th of 1/100th (for 50fps shots) at f/2.8-4 at around ISO 100 or 160, will a 500W light be too bright? I obviously want the ISO to be as low as possible since I'm working with an APS-C DSLR, not a dedicated cinema camera.
I do have an ND4 filter on hand. The only remaining issue would be controlling the light from the work lights.

If anyone was curious, I managed to pick up a 400W halogen work light (supposedly delivering equivalent to 500W) and the exposure within a few metres (3-4) was spot on. I also bought a 250W halogen that I would probably use more as a fill light as it's a stop or so darker.
At f/2.8, ISO 100-320, 1/100th at 50 frames per second, the exposure on the histogram was pretty well on the money.
And the light cost me all of $20. I filmed it at 3000K (approximate temperature of halogens) using the CINEMA pf2 profile on my Canon EOS 60D. The profile produced an almost completed colour grade.

In my kit, I've got a BUNCH of halogen worklights. Maybe 2500W altogether & most of the time, they're way to bright. However, with a very basic knowledge of electronics, you can build a dimmer switch. http://filmflap.blogspot.com/2010/02/build-dimmer-switch-for-725.html is a good site that explains/shows how. Working with electricity is dangerous...make sure you feel comfortable with it. The link above is for a cheap dimmer, but for safety's sake, I usually get a 1000W dimmer similar to this: http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/LUTRON-AthenaTM-Dimmer-3X755 - Not the cheapest, but then I managed to find a 12-pack of 'em on eBay for about $15.00 each a couple years back. You may have good luck with that. I also tend to overdo it on the cable as well...using 10 gauge where 12 gauge is just fine, etc. Safety, safety, safety. That solves your "too bright" issue.
Get yourself a roll of blackwrap, too...instant barndoors. :)
Good luck!

Yeah, while you can inevitably build barn doors to control spill, you still face the issue that they're one brightness and that brightness is well.. bright! A dimmer is a fantastic idea. How do you find the colour when they're dimmed? Does it change the frequency at all?

Excellent point that I completely forgot about. Yes, the color temp will get warmer as you dim. I've never run into a circumstance where I've gotten too warm for video's white balance setting, but if shooting film, I have a lot of CTB in my kit (color-to-blue gel) at varying densities. That'll help cool the color down. Of course, that cuts the light, too, so you need to get brighter, which leads to the need for less CTB and then you have more light...it's a balancing act. Color temp meters help find that sweet spot.

Wow cool. Blackrap would save a lot of hacksawing, bolts and hammering hinges to resistance!

And blackwrap is smaller than a case full of barndoors, can be shaped into snoots or manipulated into complex angles and shapes to follow contours on the set, punched into a cookie, or ripped into strips as a makeshift finger. Best. Invention. Ever. It's safed my a** many times when I ran into something unexpected on location.


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Gradient banding
I have a video with a gradient background, with silhouette vector animations on top. The gradient therefore stays exactly the same throughout the video.
However, rendering the video as mp4, I'm having considerable trouble with banding in the gradient. There should be enough of a difference to have a color for each pixel, yet the gradient in the video looks like it's from the good ol' days.
Are there any settings or tricks I could use to avoid gradient stripes in my video? My aim is to match the video's gradient as closely as possible with the gradient background displayed on the website it's supposed to be embedded on.
Thanks in advance!

Banding isn't uncommon in compressed video files, and can is exacerbated by the type and level of compression...there's also the bitrate of the original file and the final output. Lot's of points along the chain can cause banding. But I'd guess it's in your final output.
What software are you using for rendering/conversion, and what are the render settings you are using?
Are you keeping the video on Vimeo or YouTube? If so they both have great FAQs for how to best render/compress videos for uploading, but the settings are a decent balance of economy of space vs. video quality. The FAQ on Vimeo is my personal favorite, and should do you well for both platforms.
Here is a great video (which may not apply in this case) dealing with banding and fixes, particularly if the banding is in your original/source file.

Thanks for your response! I'm using After Effects to render. The gradient (along with the animation itself, of course) is rendered from Flash in a top quality jpeg image sequence, so the original source contains no banding. I'll tell you the render settings I'm using when I get back home. I'm probably going to use Vimeo to host the video.

If you are using the Ramp effect then you can increase the Ramp Scatter value which helps decrease banding.

Also working in 16 bit or 32 bit rather than 8bit can also help!

I found that you get better results from gradients in AE when you run in floating point, i.e. 16 or 32bit and output those very bits to the encoder. This means not introducing banding by downsampling it to 8 bit before sending it to the encoder, or even the internal Adobe encoder in AE (which is crap for low bitrates).
On the Mac, you might want to export to ProRes HQ and then use the x264 Component in Compressor to directly input flawless gradients into the encoder. You still will always get banding in h.264, but less visibly.
Also, when shooting for Blu-ray distribution, good old MPEG2 seems to work better than AVC.

Thanks for your answer! Could you expand a bit on what you mean with the floating point method? I'm on a PC so all the Mac magic won't do :)

All I'm saying also works on the pc, in principle. You want to keep your animation in 24 or 32 bit as long as possible. You don't want to feed degraded, banded 8bit material to a lossy encoder. So, find a way to export the animation to a file format and codec that supports floating point depth, eg 32bit. And an encoder that supports that input format. This may be done within AE's render queue, but for my taste, the h264 encoder from adobe doesn't cut it.


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How to create a good short video with limited supplies and time
My buddy and I are contemplating putting a project up on Kickstarter. Most projects have a video (nice quality for the most part) that users can view to get a gist of the project and decide whether or not it's worth investing money in.
The problem is, we don't have much equipment, and purchasing some is out of the question (we're poor University students). Our current supplies are:

IPhone 4
Studio quality mic (that plugs into an amp)
Macbook Pro (for editing)

As you can see, it's quite limited. Has anyone had experience working with similar tools and creating something worthwhile? Light and sound are my major issues, as the IPhone needs good lighting to really shine and good video without quality sound sucks.
As for the editing and production of the video, what software should we be looking for? Something simple that can produce some nice tones (filters I think is the correct term, pardon my ignorance) and mix everything together without knowing a whole lot about color spectrums and the sort.

The following video was made entirely on a Nokia N8 mobile phone. It is the winner of the Nokia Shorts competition 2011 and was just posted this week in the short list for the Vimeo 2012 Awards under the 'Advertising' catagory. Time Magazine says it's the 9th Most Creative Internet Film 2011.
http://vimeo.com/25451551
As you can see by the credits there is whole lot of professional people collaborating to make this amazing video:
Director: James W Griffiths
Producer: Kurban Kassam
Director of Photography: Christopher Moon
Editor: Marianne Kuopanportti
Sound Design: Mauricio d'Orey
Music composed by: Lennert Busch
Here is a site that takes a closer look at how this was made:
http://makingbettervideo.com/2011/06/29/splitscreen-a-love-story-and-things-to-learn-from-it/
Summary: low budget does not have to equal a janky video, lots of talented people who know what they are doing with basic tools can do amazing things. An iphone editied in iMovie should get you and your buddies a big leap into a great video. However, be prepared to find yourself spending a lot of time on this if this is your first project. If you like this sort of thing, you will love every second of production through post production.

Start by throwing all the technical questions out the window. ALL of them. Don't ask about what cameras to use, which software works, or techniques. Change your mindset and think about your story.
What is it that you're going to tell us about? Find a story that's based on solid collective-consciousness archetypes (read Joseph Campbell's "The Hero's Journey"; free, libraries). The reason that we still have The Odyssey & Shakespeare regarded as classics (and not Pauly Shore films) is that they play into the stories that run through our common experiences as humans. Life, death, money, power...BIG topics. But whatever you find for inspiration, work on your STORY first.
Note that I didn't say "Script". For me, a script implies dialog. Story...not so much. Film is a visual medium. How can you communicate your story in pictures only? Pretend sound doesn't exist. VISUALS only. How will you tell your story? Show, don't tell.
Once you have a SOLID, VISUAL story...that's when you inventory what you have. Resources, locations, people, equipment. For a cell phone camera, if you can't light it really well from a budget perspective, that means the you shoot using what Edison used in the early days of film. The sun. Your entire story takes place outside. Shoot in shade so there's not a ton of harsh shadows.
Try to create a soundscape that AUGMENTS the story instead of telling it. Narration is evil. Avoid it at all costs. If you need narration, go back to step one. How will you tell your story with solid visuals?
Hell, a silent film just got a bunch of Oscar cred. Kick-butt sound that's not dialog will HELP your film, not tell the story. Record your dialog in edit, in a quiet room, direct into the computer. Google ADR and Foley to get some ideas.
Also, prepare for a slow process. In filmmaking, there's good, fast and cheap. Problme is, you can only pick two.
Best of Luck!

Very impressive and out of the box as well. I dig it.

Very inspiring!


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How can I sync two videos together in Corel VideoStudio Pro X3
I have two videos of a dance at a dance competition taken by two different people. The videos are of the same dance but are from different angles.
I want to create a single video that contains both videos side by side and synchronised to the same point. The videos start and finish a few seconds apart from each other and thus are slightly different length.
My video application is Corel VideoStudio Pro X3. How can I do this? I imagine that somehow using the audio this could be done. The music should act as a good guide for syncing them together.

There is no way to do this automatically. It has to be done manually by matching the frames together from the two videos. This can be done by placing the videos in separate overlay tracks and works for two or more videos.

As you are using Corel VideoStudio Pro X3, here is a tip:

Did you know ? You can import your projects as videos into your timeline before actually rendering them. So You can do all your touchups and effects (all that doesn't alter the length of the clip) to match the tone and look & feel of the two cameras, then simply save the two clips as VSP (project file). Start a new project and simply add the two VSP's on to two Video tracks and there you are.. Same looking clips available for your sync Editing.[ Pardon me if you already knew this. And thanks for bearing with me ]

Although not relevant to the original question, this is quite a handy tip. Didn't know about this. Thanks.


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How do I 'downgrade' an Adobe Premiere Pro project file to open in older versions?
Is there any way at all (perhaps with a plugin, paid or otherwise) to save an Adobe Premiere Pro project file so that it's compatible with an older version of the software? The scenario I have is that I use Adobe Premiere Pro CS5.5 but I need to send project files for editing to someone who only has CS3.

I dont know of any software for Premiere that can do this (there are plugins for After Effects but cant find any for Premiere - thats not to say they arent out there).
I think your best option would be to export your sequence as an XML. You will loose any CS5.5 features there are not in CS3, but this would occur regardless of which method you use to get the project into CS3.

Choose File > Export > Final Cut Pro XML.
In the Save Converted Project As dialog box, browse to a location for the XML file, and type a file name.
Click Save.

This is the only method, by exporting as XML or AMA (for AVID and some other NLEs). There is no backwards-compatibility for Premiere projects.

@nchpmn turns out it's not true: https://video.stackexchange.com/a/21365/2178

Since this is the top google result, I would like to give the actual solution to this problem

Option 1

Duplicate the .prproj file you want to downgrade and name it temp_downgrade.prproj or something. Just so you don't have to mess with the original.
Download 7zip.
Right click on temp_downgrade.prproj and select Extract here.
You should see temp_downgrade next to the original temp file with no .prproj.
Now right click on the temp_downgrade file and open it with a text editor.
You should see a couple million lines of confusing text, ignore it. you are looking for the 4th line, it will look like this:

   <Project ObjectID="1" ClassID="62ad66dd-0dcd-42da-a660-6d8fbde94876" Version="29">

That version=29 (or whatever it says in your file, could be any number) is what you have to change. Simply set it to 1 so the whole line reads:

 <Project ObjectID="1" ClassID="62ad66dd-0dcd-42da-a660-6d8fbde94876" Version="1">

Save the changes you've made to the file.
Now right click the temp_downgradefile - remember the one without the .prproj - extension and select add to archive under 7zip .
Change archive format to gzip and change the file name to be something. like temp_downgraded.prproj. Doesn't really matter it must end in .prproj though.
That's it open temp_downgraded.prproj like a normal premiere project and it'll ask to upgrade the file or something. Save the copy somewhere permanent as that's where any changes you make will be saved. You can delete all the temp files now.

[Here is a gif of the whole thing.][2]

Option 2
EDIT 2018: This tool mentioned in an answer below mine seems great! http://joshcluderay.com/downgrade-premiere-project-converter/
If you would prefer a local open source version, I also made a small JavaFx app that should automate everything in Option 1. You can download it for a Mac/Windows computer with Java(!) installed. Over here.

Are there any consequences from doing this?
Not reeeeeally. At least - it's much less than the current accepted answer on this thread. If you export something as an xml file on premiere you will effectively lose most of the editing you've done. Aside from maybe the most basic sequences. All the colour correction, Sound work, etc is gone. With this method - yes some of that will disappear if you are working on an old enough version of premiere. But, I'm talking like five years old. If the difference is CC2017 and CC2016. Sure you'll lose any effects that only exist in CC2017. But I would bet this is mostly niche stuff and 99.999% of your project will probably be fine! But - even if it isn't - say you make some small changes to your downgraded version on CC2016. If you copy the downgraded version to a computer with CC2017, after the changes have been made. All the newer features will still be there. So as long as you render on the computer with CC2017 nothing will be lost.
tl;dr: Obviously there are some cases where you could lose information, but if you just need to make minor edits or fix something small on your home computer then take it back to work or something - this is fine.

Why this works?
Apparently adobe save files are just gzipped xml, so that's why. Should work on AfterEffects as well.

Josh's website has been brilliant but was down today so I had to try an work it out manually. I worked out (on a mac) that it's possible to skip steps 2-4, 9-10 by just opening it in a text editor like BBEdit, do the version number change and then, save and open as normal. Wish I knew this before going down a 7zip, JavaFX wormhole :D

I made a tool which instantly downgrades Premiere projects so they can be opened in a previous version. Try it here.

I tried your tool for a cc2018 pproj to be opened in cc2017, but got a "damaged file" pop-up when tried to open. Is your tool suppose to work with these versions? Thanks

I've recently fixed a problem which caused some browsers to download an empty file. Perhaps it will work for you now?

When I tried to convert a CC 2018 project, I got "The project appears to be damaged, cannot be opened" when opening with PPro CS6

Hi Josh, thanks for your work there, I've used it successfully to downgrade from 2018 to 2015 in the past...however now I have another project file from 18 to 15, and I can't seem to make it work with your converter or manually. Your converter uploads it, and then does nothing, and then refreshes like nothing happened. Manually it keeps telling me there's something outdated or broken in the file, even though I did the same thing to another file of the same type (18 to 15). I can't figure out what's wrong with this particular file.

continued: I've tried opening it in the 2018 version, and deleting things that might've been different from the last success, title cards and markers. The only other thing I can think of is this one is using bigger, much longer video, and multicam. And I used lumetri color on one clip in 2018 but reset it. I may've accidentally left the effect on the clip though and that's something different that 2015 doesn't know how to handle? Thanks

I've just increased the max upload to 50mb, which might help. I think there may also be some compatiblity issues with the most recent pproj files which I haven't had time to investigate yet. In the meantime, nmu has described manual steps above to achieve the same thing as my tool.

You  might be able to get away just sending the project to them as is.
They get some warnings on opening but I think it works (remember trying this with CS5 --> CS4)

Uncompress the project file using something like WinRar into a standard uncompressed project file. Then edit the version at the beginning. I had to roll back to 2013.2 from 2013.4 to use speedgrade. i bought a utility using paypal and noticed that the only changed was the "31" at the top to "30".

guys. I know this is an old topic, but I just found something that worked for me.
I don't really know why, but it did. A friend has send me a project created with a recent version.
I could open it, but only by clicking in the "download bar" in the bottom of my browser (google chrome). If I open the folder where the file was saved, I could't open it, but by clicking on the "google chrome download bar", it opens!
Hope this can be replicated.


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What is the best workflow solution for editing a movie in FCPX and creating specific effects for it in Motion 5?
Since there is no way to send a clip directly to Motion 5 from Final Cut Pro X, only to open up general effects, transitions and generators; what is the best workflow for actually using Final Cut Pro X for a specific clip?
Let's say I have a movie that is five minutes long, and that I want to, every minute, create a floating text with some kind of motion following behavior. How am I supposed to accomplish this? Export separate clips, import them to Motion 5, do the edits, export the clip again, importing it to Fincal Cut Pro X and replace the old clip? This seems quite cumbersome.

has your workflow changed since Final Cut Pro X 10.1 was released?

@LuceGoose Should it have? I haven't seen any updates that would adress this problem. Or?

Looks like you're right. I found where Apple's white paper on media management in FCPX explicitly addresses this in a footnote on page 9: "* Motion projects (such as effects, transitions, and generators) and third-party effects are not managed within the library and must be separately tracked and archived." http://images.apple.com/final-cut-pro/docs/Media_Management.pdf

There's no really good workflow, I think, yet. The best way I found is to export the video out of FCPX and import it into Motion. Apple thinks that you don't need to work in Motion solely, you only go there to create an effect, title, whatever and then put that thing right on top of a clip in Final Cut.
The problem there is that sometimes you'd rather want to have all the editing options Motion offers and just want to see how the video's going to look like. That problem is, to my knowledge, not solved yet. I hope this is all going to change in the future.

This is such a bummer but I too hope that they'll fix it!

The new way: Create your Effect in Motion, but use it in Final Cut Pro X.
How to:
Start up Motion. Select the category "Empty" and choose the "Final Cut-Title"-Template. Then create your title and effects in Motion. If you "save" your project you have to select or create a effect-category for FCPX, then it will be published in Final Cut Pro X.
Start Final Cut Pro X. Open your project. Choose your newly created title or effect in the effect-library and apply it to your clips.
P.S.:
If you want to adjust an effect-parameter from within Final Cut Pro X, just rightclick it in Motion and select "publish" in the dropdown-menu. It will be available in the Videoeffect-Pane of FCPX.

So, how would this for example apply to motion track a title to a moving object or creating muzzle flashes?

Motion tracking is imho one of very few instances that doesn't work that way. I think in that case you have to use Motion.

My description was more general.

I think Apple are pretty clear with how you should handle generic effects, such as titles not interacting with the material it's overlayed upon, and I think this workflow makes a lot of sense. However, when it comes to more specific uses it feels like they leave the users pretty much in the dark. I would love for them to make a tutorial on how to for example create an action movie (complete with muzzle flashes and explosions) in FCPX and Motion 5, but I doubt they could show us something tantalizing, workflow vice.

I'm sure they will fix it. Maybe with FCPX Version 2 or 3.

Let's hope so!!

It's not just motion tracking, in the sense of Motion's motion tracking behaviors. It's also anything where you're matching animation to the video in multiple places, even if you do it with keyframing.

Here a tool to convert Final Cut X timelines into Motion 5 timelines.
http://www.ilgattohanuovecode.it/tool/final-cut-round-trip/

There's a paid tool Xsend Motion - https://fxfactory.com/info/xsendmotion/
You can share your timeline or compound clip through this program directly to Apple Motion.


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What are some good resources for learning Motion 4?
I am trying to learn Apple's Motion 4, which is pretty complex. I'm looking for some free online tutorials to learn the ins and outs of Motion. Where can I start?

I found rippletraining to be very helpful. Larry Jordan is also a good starting point.
Alex4D puts out some really cool, easy to learn from, Motion templates. Sight-Creations is another great resource to find Motion templates.
You're also going to find lots of good starting material on YouTube.

TimesaverTutorials
DoApproductionss
Dan Allen

If you didn't know, you can also save YouTube search queries and subscribe to them in Google Reader. I find a lot of good stuff there too.
Lastly, I want to mention Vimeo. The quality of videos you're going to find there is really astonishing. Check out the group Motion tips & tricks
Cheers,
Andreas

Thanks! Great resources! I've learned a lot already!!!!


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solution for archiving digital video
What solution do you use for archiving digital video content?
Are magnetic tapes adequate, or better setup another 8HDD raid5 server?
I read some news that SONY will bring to market an 1.5TB tape drive by the end of the year

Your best bet is to save them on two disks, that is two back up copies. A RAID sounds nice, but have you ever had to replace a RAID system with a faulty controller? It can be a nightmare. Forget RAID as a back up unless you are talking about an instant snapshot retrieval system that is online 24/7. If you are talking about a long term back up as in a real archive then get two USB disks with enough capacity and make two copies, one on each disk.
Tapes will require hardware that may not be around when you want to retrieve the data.
As a systems administrator for many years please allow me to demonstrate this issue.
In the 1980s we used 1/2 inch tape transports to back up our servers, this was replaced by 8mm tapes by 1995, 8mm tapes were replaced by DLT transports, DLT was then replaced by super DLT, which then was replaced by LTO. This never ends. If you wanted to read those old 1/2 inch tapes you would have to go to a museum, and this will eventually be true for every tape transport system that was ever developed.
Yes disk interfaces change, but getting a conversion interface say EIDE to USB, or ATA 100 to USB, or SATA to USB is easy. Other serial interface conversions will be easy too vs. trying to locate a 'vintage' tape system that still works.
I only shoot on digital memory, so backing up my data is simple and painless. I make two back ups on two different disks. The disks are then removed from service and stored where they will not get toasted, or frozen. I only use these disks when I need to update the backup. Eventually when they are full I store the disk in what I call a dormant back up.
Because I only power up the disks when I either need the data or I need to do a back up increases their reliability. Most disks have a 5 year warranty, if these are on 24/7 or turn them on every time I use my computer I would be needlessly heating them up, and after 50,000 hours they may not work. Using the back up disks only when you need them will extend their life way beyond 5 years.
Currently I have two 2 TB disks as my active back up. I have two 1TB disks in the dormant state too.
Like a volcano, information has 3 states: Active, Dormant, and Extinct.
Active data should be accessibly 24/7, dormant should be available, and extinct goes to the shredder.


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What does a phantom technician do on a production set and why would a director need one?
I just saw a video and in the credits is listed "phantom technician" ?
What are this person's duties, and why would a director need one on a production set?
Here is the video reference:
https://vimeo.com/23141142

A phantom tech is someone who basically operates the high speed camera.  Everything from initial set up to shooting to transfer of footage.  The camera itself is quite complex, so it requires a little bit of knowledge, and tons of experience as it really is nothing like any other camera, with that said, the footage is incredible


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Is there a way to find out if the current frame is a keyframe in Premiere Elements 10?
Sometimes I animate the properties of certain effects using keyframes. It's a really nice feature, but something has been bugging me about it. The Add/Remove keyframe button doesn't tell me whether or not the current frame is an existing keyframe.

Am I missing something here? Is there a good way to find out whether or not the current frame is a keyframe for a certain property? I'm using Premiere Elements 10.

The Help specifies how to view keyframes.

I didn't know you could make them visible in the timeline. Still though, they should probably make that a toggle button. Thanks!


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How can I make a video more seekable?
I am looking at the factor that allows software video players to seek at any (or close to) position in the video.
Is this the keyframes or what?

The problems with seeking are typically in the video player and not in the videos themselves, so you may want to look at different video player. A video player should be able to seek to any frame in the video, regardless of format and the encoder settings used. It is also technically possible to play any video backwards, even though very few players support this.
The problem is, seeking into frames that are not keyframes is difficult and CPU intensive. Frames that are encoded as keyframes can be decoded on their own, while non-keyframes depend on other frames to be decoded. If you are playing the movie left to right all the dependencies  for a given frame have been already decoded, but if you are seeking directly into the frame, then the player needs to search for all those dependencies, decode them and only then it can decode the target frame.
So I think I can summarize my advice as two different suggestions:

Switch to a player that can seek to any frame.
if you can't switch to a better player, then encoding your video with more frequent keyframes will give you better seek accuracy, at the expense of picture quality (if you keep the bitrate the same) or file size (if you increase the bitrate to compensate).

Good luck.

Yes, that has to do with keyframes.  Most players can only seek to a keyframe.  Others will go to the prior keyframe and decode up to the point selected.  Others will just play gibberish until the next keyframe.  Having regular keyframes increases your file size, but also adds many more points a user can seek to in your video.
If you are referring to how to make your video more seekable for the web, that is a different problem.  Video compression is typically not a constant bitrate which is why it is hard for a web-based player to guess the byte offset of a particular position in the video.  Many web players allow sending a file of metadata that contains offsets to help with this problem.


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tools for 2d animation video
I don't know if here is the right place to ask that so sorry if I am wrong.
I just want to know wich tools do you use to make a video (or presentation) like this one :

I like the idea of 2D animation in this style, but I don't know wich are the best tools for creating something like this (I know that this is a big company and probably has some really good artistic guys)

After Effects is the preferred tool for motion graphics work like in this film.


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Tool for cutting and joining multiple parts of a video
I need a tool that allows to make multiple selections in a video and make a new video by joining all of that selections. The tool should allow to save the project, so that I could close the program, open it later, restore all selections I made before and continue. Preferably the tool should create video based on selections without any encoding settings, just using the same compression as the source file. Support for mkv required. OS: Windows 7, x86

There are various tools that will do this, from the professional Adobe Premier type to Windows Moviemaker (or whatever the Live version is called now)
To be honest, a quick google will give you pages of apps from premium to FOSS. Give some of the free ones a shot, and if they don'tdo what you need, give one of the expensive ones a shot on its trial version, which most have.


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Premiere Pro - How to make a slideshow/compilation
I have a bunch of videos and pictures. I want to make a compilation with them. I just don't want it to be worse than movie maker. I am looking for these moving effects that you can play while the video is changing ( http://prntscr.com/29coci ) I already have experience in After Effects and Photoshop CC

Premiere Pro has a number of default transitions under the "video transitions" tab in the effects pane (usually located in the bottom left of the window). Are those what you are looking for? If you have experience with After Effects, you could also use AE's more robust effects library to animate interesting effects for your videos.
Based on your included image, it looks like you might be interested in wipe transitions.

Exactly what I was looking for!


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Smooth horizontal and vertical camera movement
I have a Canon EOS 60D camera. I want to use this to take some video by moving the camera smoothly in horizontal and vertical axis. For example, if I want to take video of the bezel of a TV, I'd like to be able to smoothly have the camera move down on the vertical axis with the lens facing the bezel in the same angle the whole time.
Something like this, but not this expensive

Here is an example at 3:40 when the camera man slides through the keyboard horizontally.

"Something like this, but not this expensive." Welcome to video production. That's always the search.

Turn the TV and cam on their sides, then use a basic horizontal track.

Unfortunately, there aren't really cheap options to do this.  You can approximate it using a crane or a stabilization rig (like a SteadiCam Jr), but both of those is still going to cost you hundreds of dollars.
For horizontal movement, the cheapest option is probably to use a more basic track and roll it by hand.  You can use a motion control unit to get smoother motion, but a motion control unit itself is going to be over a grand normally.
For pure vertical, you need something called a camera pedestal.  Unfortunately, this is probably the most complex movement to perform in a controlled manner, so there simply are no cheap options.  There are some DIY approaches out there, but you're looking at expensive hardware if you want to do a pure vertical movement with good control.  (The cheapest commercial pedestal I know of is over a grand.)
That is just the way the market is for being able to do advanced moves.  They are all specialized, limited use devices and the cost rapidly multiplies with the weight of the camera.  That's why rigging costs so much, because the market is so limited and specialized.  It requires careful design, tight tolerances and a very limited market, that all adds up to big costs to the consumer.

Thanks for your answer. I did some reasearch on this subject and came to the same conclusion: these cost a lot. Well, I have the ability to build something myself here, so I'm going to make something myself and use a microcontroller with a stepper motor to make it move automatically.

@MikkoP - I'd be interested in hearing more about whatever luck you have making something yourself.  You could probably make a self-answer about how you built one yourself if it works out well since it would be a cheaper solution to the problem.  As I understand it, the big trick will be getting it to move smoothly without shaking as it moves.  You pretty much need a precision track with a controlled motor, but it should be able to be accomplished if you are decent with electronics and machining.

I already started modeling the system. http://sharepoint.peltoset.fi/1388433406842-slaideri2.PNG I will be using some ball brushings with oil lubrication for smooth movement. I will make an Arduino software for controlling the motor I'll put there and have some buttons and a dot matrix screen for that.

@MikkoP - so primarily going for horizontal at the moment?  I'd expect some movement issues if you try using that design for vertical due to the track being able to twist and any play between the track and the bearings becoming an issue.

Horizontal movement is the primary goal. I'll add some support pieces there for better stiffness.

For horizontal, there is this kickstarter project.  It's still a bit pricy, but is one of the cheaper options out there.  There are also lots of documented DIY approaches that you might be able to borrow from.

Smooth horizontal and vertical camera movement with a Canon EOS 60D camera

Revolve Automated Motion Motorized Dolly + Slider Bundle - U$400
There are 2 motor speed options supporting 6-10 lbs vertically, 15-20 horizontal.
They sell a slider but with accessories you can use 3 to 10 foot pipes. Also available are reversing switches and interval timing for sliding time lapse videos.

Neewer 70in/177cm Aluminum Alloy Jib Arm Camera Crane - U$100

Not motorized and there's a bit of dolly motion along with the pedestal movement, an arc motion, but it keeps the camera level. For distant shots it wouldn't be noticeable.

Compare those to a professional system:

FloatCam DollyCrane SD / DC Slider - U$4400

For the jib, you always notice the arc. If the shot is far enough that you don't notice the arc, then you won't notice the vertical lift either.

If you use a long enough focal length to appear close to the screen, as MikkoP intends to do, you'll notice the pedestal; the dolly will be a much smaller percentage of the movement - if you're desperate to save a few hundred dollars you have to accept compromises. To find out how focal length and distance affect your shot there's much more information available at Photo.SE, where we'll be happy to address your concerns.


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How to re-encode a video file's audio, but leave the video stream with ffmpeg?
Does anyone know how to take a video and re-encode the audio, but just copy the video data using FFMPEG?

Yes, this is definitely possible to do with ffmpeg with one command, but more information is needed for an exact example. What audio format do you want for the output? Please show some information about your input: ffmpeg -i input.foo

Another forgotten question...

So Apparently FFMPEG can do this, I had to use -c:v copy and that will leave the video stream intact. I actually used an app called iFFMPEG to figure this out.

Note that if your input contains more than one video stream then only one will be stream copied by default. You can add -map 0:v to include all video streams or simply -map 0 to include all streams regardless of type (video, audio, subtitle, data, etc). See the documentation on stream selection for more info.

I know that Virtual Dub can do this, but it only works with a limited number of codecs. Since it's free, it's worth a look to see if it'll do what you want.
Otherwise, any demux/remux software will work, but it'll take three steps. First demultiplex the file into video and audio streams, re-encode the audio as needed, then remux them into a combined stream.


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Old 8mm video recording tapes and standards
I want to transfer a set of old home video tapes recorded on a Sanyo VM-D66P. I do not have access to the camcorder anymore need to buy a camcorder that will play them so I can capture it via USB. The manual unfortunately does not make it clear precisely the type of tapes that it used.
The instruction manual gives the following hints:

Television System: PAL, CCIR
Video recording system: Rotating 2-head helical-scan FM, color under system
Audio recording system: Rotating head FM system
Cassette type: 8mm video tape cassette
Tape speed: SP: 20.051 mm/sec
Tape speed: LP: 10.025 mm/sec
Recording/playback time: 180 minutes (P5-90 cassette)

After looking through the 8mm video format wikipedia page, I have come to the weary conclusion that the VM-D66P used the standard "original Video8 (analog recording) format". Does this sound correct? And does this mean I can use any Video8-compatible camcorder to play back the VM-D66P tapes?
Thanks!

The logo on the manual I could find indicates that it was standard 8mm, not Hi8 or Digital8.  If you are in a PAL region, then most likely it is the PAL version of 8mm.  You should be able to use any PAL based 8mm playback deck or camcorder to play the tape back.  You then be able to use a standard video capture device to digitize the video that you playback.


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Remote pan/tilt/zoom cameras that aren't expensive
I can't quite tell if shopping/product questions are allowed here, but...I'm not sure where else to turn on the SE network.  I have no a/v experience.
I'm trying to gather info for a project here at work where we need the ability to remotely control various cameras during a webinar presentation from a host computer.
Ideal would be the cameras have the ability to pan/tilt/zoom on their own, but as I've found out PTZ cameras are expensive.
I know we can use something cheap like the Logitech Orbit camera, but we'd really like the ability to have decent video cameras hooked up to a multi-input control video box and then also have them on tripods that can control their p/t/z if that even exists.
tl;dr - So basically:
What options do I have if I want to remotely control multiple cameras via a single computer (pan/tilt/zoom) during a webinar, so that the host/actor can just speak/present and we don't have to manually operate the cameras or have dedicated cameramen?

You want a Pan/Tilt head.  Zoom will depend on having a camera that can have the zoom remote controlled and a remote control that can hook in to the zoom.  A pan tilt head can generally either be left sitting on a table or threaded on to a tripod.  They are, however, not cheap.  Expect to spend at least $300 for a cheap one and more if the camera ways more than a couple pounds.

Thanks.  I found a few p/t heads like these that weren't that expensive, around $159 for a cheap one.  The goal here is to spend under $3k for everything (video cams, mounts, software, audio, mics) so I think we'll be OK going this route.  A turn-key solution would be ideal so I may check with some VARs as well.

Guess Polycom has something like that, PTZ camera that can automatically follow a presenter. It follows a special "tag" device that presenter should be wearing, but not his/her face. If more than one camera will be used there should be the video operator anyway to switch views, choose the best angle etc. Standalone PTZ heads for handycams or more heavy-weight professional cameras are usually quite expensive, PTZ cameras may be even cheaper (look at Panasonic, Sony and others). For webinars - it's my point of view - it's enough to have 1-2 PTZ cameras + 1-2 fixed ones (e.g. audience view, screen view etc), so operator won't have to control all of them all the time.

it is worth noting that a "static" camera with a PTU head doesn't still have to be controlled all the time.  You can set it and forget.  The only reason not to put a PTU on is cost savings, but it can be very nice to have the ability to move when you have a smaller audience.  (And screen should be direct capture rather than a camera, unless you mean like a whiteboard or some non-audio/video screen.)


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Home video, Canon 60D, 1080p, 23 fps, H.264 lag during playback
I can play almost all videos without problems on my Google TV or XBMC box, but when I try to play videos recorded on a Canon 60D camera it gives severe lag and takes some time to start up. Any reason for this? Should I check some other option? Tried also without network streaming, but almost same result (although better than streaming). Starting from a windows machine with VLC does not have a problem.

I'm sorry to be the one to tell you but I think you're trying to play your FHD video from your camera on to slow of a hardware!!

This is almost certainly a data rate problem.  The quality level of H.264 from a camera is much higher and much less compressed than a typical media file.
H.264 is an elaborate compression which can achieve substantial compression ratios while maintaining high quality, however it is also very complex and difficult to encode with the best compression settings available.  To save time and battery, a camera such as the 60D uses a hardware encoder and applies only simple compression.  This means the file size is much larger (though the quality is also higher).
Before final consumption, the video file should be re-compressed to a more compressed file for final viewing.  You can use any of a number of compressors (either one built in to a video editing package of your choice or you can use the free FFMpeg).  If you use a two pass VBR preset for something like YouTube it should encode to a much more highly compressed and network/low power device playback friendly compression.  If you have an option for profile, I'd try the low profile as it is supported by more low power devices than the high or medium profiles.


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When is it necessary to enable "Time Remap" in After Effects?
In After Effects to speed up and slow down footage this tutorial shows that you first enable Time Remap then use Timewarp. He doesn't appear to do anything with the Time Remap though.
This other tutorial shows doing slow motion either with the Stretch or with Timewarp
I get the Stretch vs Timewarp a bit but don't understand the Time Remap. When, if ever, should I be toggling that? From this nice written tutorial on time remapping it seems that Time Remapping is more useful if you need to reverse playback or add still frames and such. So was there a reason the Time Remap was toggled before the first guy did Timewarp? Does it make it render faster or work better or was it completely unnecessary?

If you are using Time Remap, a Timewarp should not be needed and vice versa.  Timewarp is designed to allow adjusting the playback rate, where as Time Remap is designed to allow you to tell the playback to be at a particular point in the original timecode when it reaches a particular time in your composition.  It mostly just matters how you want to control the adjustments and what level of control you want over the processing, but only one is needed.


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Reliable way to burn VIDEO_TS folder on a DVD?
I'm building a video dvd for a wedding. I have rendered the VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS folders using an authoring software.
I have burned them into a DVD using Windows, but the DVD is unreadable on 3 different dvd players, so I can suppose I have made something wrong.
What else do I need to have a working DVD?

What type of DVD disk are you using?  Some DVD players work better with DVD+R or DVD-R disks.  The specs for the DVD player usually show what types of disks they are compatible with.

You must use the proper formatting for it to be read by a DVD player that only reads standards compliant disks.  Specifically, DVD Video disks use the UDF 1.02 format.

Using a proper burning software I fixed the issue, setting the UDF format. Thanks!


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Final Cut Pro 10.1: How to move clip framewise in timeline?
in Final Cut Pro X 10.08 I have been able to move a clip frame wise with the arrow key. In 10.1 this moves the cursor, not the clip. Is there a way to move the clip?
Kind regards,
Nils

I don't have FCP 10.1 so this is a guess, but have you tried selecting the clip first or using any of the modifier keys?

Use the comma and period keys to nudge the clip left and right, respectively.


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Is it possible to find a webcam with large aperture?
I'm looking for a Webcam with large aperture and shallow depth of field, similar to the F 1.8 Canon lenses, so far It has been really difficult since most of the specifications for any webcam are meant for home users.
I do video casting with green screen, and it does help tremendously having large aperture to diffuse the green screen (color evenness) and clarity at night with inexpensive lighting equipment. Also editing time is reduced considerably since I wouldn't have to re-sync audio and video or import files from the DSLR to my computer.
Please give your thoughts.

If you can get some distance between the green screen and the subject, you can light the green screen differently (use blinders with extra lights) such that when the subject is exposed properly, the green screen becomes over-exposed. This is an alternate way to get the color evenness you are hoping for.

Actually, your best bet is to use a PCIe or USB 3.0 HDMI input card, like a Blackmagic Intensity, which will take the clean HDMI output of many high quality cameras (e.g: a Nikon D600 or D800, a Canon C100 or C300, etc.) and make it available to other apps on your computer. This is what professional productions do for green screen work to ensure they're getting the full quality image out of the camera before it hits the camera's compression software.

Does this apply to Canon T3i?

The Canon T3i only output 480p via HDMI when in video mode, so whilst it will work, you're better off getting a proper camera (DSLR or a camcorder/video camera) with what they call 'clean HDMI output'.

Thank you, for know I will keep up using my DSLR with Magic Lantern and continuous video shooting on a 32 GB video card to get decent amount of time and quality.

Working at this level, your best bet is probably to use a DSLR and use one of the hacks available to use them as a webcam via USB.  Consumer web-cams use a very small sensor which makes it virtually impossible to get any kind of meaningful background blur.  You really need the large sensor of a DSLR to best accomplish what you are looking to do.

I agree, but also make sure you get a camera with at least 4:2:2 chroma subsampling.  Not sure if you find this in most webcams today.

Opal C1 and Razer Kiyo Pro Ultra are product offerings that offer DSLR-like quality, and specifically, aperture control, and both cost about $300 at the time of this answer.

I expect this is a market that will emerge after Corona. I can't see the rationale in investing in a full frame DSLR for the single purpose of using it as a WebCam. There are a few things that you want from your "better quality webcam", wide angle, large aperture (i.e. from f8 and down to f1.8 or even f1.4), and 4k of course. The cameras that are used as webcams today can do all this, but you're paying for a whole bunch of features that you aren't going to need, such as storing to a memory card, video/photo/timelapse specific settings, even framerate could be made cheaper by setting a hard limit to 24 or 30 frames/s, you really don't need more for a webcam.
With a larger sensor, it is even debatable if you need 4k.
My guess is that we will see this kind of devices come soon.


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Crop the center region
I want to crop the center region of a video while exporting it for YouTube upload. It is 360 x 360 pixels. I don't know what is the best format for this task and when I try MPEG2 and set the frame width and height to 360 the output is blurry. What should I do instead? I'm using Adobe Premiere 4.2.1.

Crop the video in a new sequence in Premiere and then export it using Youtube's standard encoding settings.

Thank you for your reply. Unfortunately, it's not a solution, because there is no sequence preset with matching frame size, so there will be black bars.

@Beginner - you can either make a sequence with a custom frame size or you can simply scale the video to show only the part you want with it interpolated to a higher frame size.  To do a custom size, ignore the presets tab, go to the settings tab, choose Custom as the Editing Mode and enter your resolution, frame rate and pixel aspect manually.  You can also save it as your own preset if you will need it regularly.


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Editing 1440p @ 47 FPS in Premiere Pro CS6
I am attempting to edit the videos I've recorded with a GoPro Hero 3 in Premiere Pro CS6. However, the preview window jumps, is slow and not smooth at all. As this pretty much makes video editing impossible, I was looking for a solution.
Are there any settings in Premiere Pro CS6 which would fix this or are you guys able to recommend me another program for Windows 7 which has a comparable features?
My computer specs:

OS: Windows 7 Professional 64-Bit
RAM: 32 GB
Processor: Intel i7-3820 @ 3.60Ghz (8 CPUS)
Graphic Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670

This sounds like a hardware problem.  The playback engine in Premiere has been very, very fast since CS5, so it is unlikely to be a software problem.  The data rate for 1440p video at 47fps is going to be astonishingly high (170MB/sec once decoded, for comparison, 1080p 24fps is just under 50MB/sec) and extremely demanding on your system.  Based on your system specs, it probably isn't a processing or memory problem, particularly if you have CUDA enabled, however you may be running in to a bandwidth problem loading off your hard-disk or loading in to memory (depending on your memory speed).
It also may be an issue with the format of the video you are using.  Not all video formats are designed for random access.  Even with a very powerful computer, if the file format you are working with requires rendering out multiple frames from the latest key frame every time that you move your preview, you will hammer your computer far harder.  (In the worst case, you end up having to load over a dozen frames of video to get one frame.)
It also wouldn't hurt to double check if anything is bottle necking by looking at Task Manager when you are previewing video.  Does memory utilization or CPU get high?  I expect it will be hard disk access (which won't peak the CPU or memory utilization) but it doesn't hurt to double check.

My CPU goes at about 55% while using 9 GB RAM. I guess I will have to look into the speed of my hard-disk.

@JanBerktold - are any of the cores maxing out?  It is possible that the playback isn't able to run multi-threaded as well.  That could potentially cause a bottleneck even without maxing the overall available CPU power.


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.SAV live video?
I bought a camera that I plan on using for my videos. The problem? It streams over the network, live, in a format that I've never even heard of.
.sav
I've tried everything, and I don't know how to get it to a format that something can read. What is this format, and what can read it?

What kind of camera is it?

I bought a Lowes iris camera. I'm doing a production with "survailence" like footage, and I thought that rather than do editing to make it look like that, just buy a camera that does it for you.

From everything I can see, this is a proprietary format with no third party software that can open the files.  Does the software that came with camera allow you to export footage as a more compatible format?  It would be up to the manufacturer to be providing a software package that can save out a standard video format.


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Vegas pro will not show video for avi with mp4v fourcc codec?
I have a few avi videos that are encoded with the mp4v fourcc codec. I have Sony Vegas Pro 8 and it will not open the video part. It will bring the files into the file manager, but when I drag them into the project timeline they only show the audio track as if there is no video track at all. There is no error message at all.
I would like to be able to resolve this without converting the files.

If it helps, they were encoded with ffmpeg

You might want to consult with http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/support/technicalsupport.asp please read their knowledge base first to see if your issue has already been covered.

@filzilla Searching that site for mp4v yields no results.

He can still open a trouble ticket with Sony Creative Software.

Related: How to make Vegas Pro open AVI files

I resolved this issue by installing VLC. Apparently VLC has some necessary codecs that Vegas Pro uses.
After installing VLC I was able to import the video and use it normally with no hindrances.

After some time, this issue cropped up on a different computer. Installing/reinstalling VLC did not work.
I installed AVI Codec Pack Pro v2.4.0 from Softpedia and the issue was resolved.
If Softpedia no longer has the file available by the time you are reading this, the file was titled "avi.codec.pack.pro.v2.4.0.setup.exe" and was 16.7MB (17,538,685 bytes). A google search at the time of update yields other sources for download, but some are concerned with malware imbedded in it. I haven't noticed any malware with the softpedia download.

AVI codec pack still working and available as of this date.

To get the proper codecs supporting FOURCC of MP4V you can install ffdshow codec pack http://www.videohelp.com/software/ffdshow/old-versions some of the older versions are nicer. the one i use the most is rev3631 because its the last one that contained the MPEG1 and MPEG2 encoders/decoders with it.

That's how I was able to record with the codec in the first place. ffdshow seems to have the encoder for MP4V, but not the decoders, or at least, not any decoder Vegas Pro will use.

ahh, for the decoders, you might need to run the vfw configration or decoder configurations that come with ffdshow. When you look there, ensure mpeg4 is enabled, or maybe its divx, or mp4, not sure how it might be listed.


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use video for demo player is it legal?
My question is about copyright of videos.
I want to use this video inside my demo web base video player,but i do not know any thing law of copyright or license of video. how can i check for this video license ?
Thanks.

Why not look around for some Creative Commons material?

I am Really with zero details,
How Can Do it ?

ahem. http://bit.ly/1axI8VW

Check Blender Institute's Open Projects. They are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. You can use and distribute those films by providing a credit to Blender Institute.

Anything published anywhere is automatically copyrighted, with all rights reserved to the author or publisher. The source of this video is known, so your obvious choice here is to contact the publisher and ask permission.
This is a promotional video, so it's very possible that they will permit your use, with proper attribution or for a small fee. But you have to ask, and they have to agree, for your use to be legitimate.

Anything captured anywhere is automatically copyrighted.  Publishing is not generally a requirement.

Right, the requirement is only that it be fixed in a tangible medium. My point was that since this HAS been published, you can be certain that it's copyrighted, absent a notice to the contrary.

Oh yes, not disagreeing with you, just wanted to make sure that the OP or future users realized that it would be copy-written even if it was unpublished.

Often short clips for demonstration purposes qualify as fair use, however you can't generally use more than a few seconds.  Even video clips that have been released on the Internet are not necessarily safe to use as the content may still require you to have a license.  Your best bet is to contact a lawyer since fair use varies greatly from jurisdiction to jurisdiction or look for content that is released under an open license such as creative commons.


text:
How could I make a map zoom in effect?
I'm the only one that knows how to use a computer in the family and so I've been asked to produce a video for a wedding. One of the main requirements for the video is that a map location must be zoomed on. Something similar to this:

I guessed Google Earth would be the best tool for this, however it wasn't as simple as I first thought as the app takes a while to download map data and sometimes the camera location jumps when zooming in. I tried using the built in video tool within the mac Google Earth app to achieve the effect, but then discovered that you have to pay to export the video. Unfortunately the price is too steep for this one project...
How can I overcome this problem? Or are there any other methods I could try to achieve this effect? Would screen recording Google Earth be the right thing to do (potential copyright issues)?
Thanks in advance.

You could get a high resolution image of the desired satellite map and zoom in on it in your video editor. For extra effect you could add a clouds layer in it as well. Search  for high resolution google map to see the possibilities of free high res google maps.. Regarding the copyright I would say this is fair use so no worries there, but I am not a lawyer.

this might be comming out soon
https://www.google.com/earth/studio/

You want images of varying degrees of zoom that you can align and then scale between.  You start from far out and as you zoom in, you fade in the image that is slightly closer (and aligned to the other image).  Once the closer image takes up the full screen, you remove the first image from the background and place the next level of zoom in the correct spot and start fading it in.
Repeat this process for each level of zoom you can get until you reach your target level of zoom.
It can be helpful to align and animate the images without any transparency and then add the transparency after.  This helps to ensure the proper look before you blend the images together.
Note that this requires a video editor capable of keyframe animation.  If you don't have one, then your options are far more limited and there may not be a good way to do it.

There's a good tutorial of how to do this at videocopilot, called earth zoom.  The tutorial uses after effects, but the technique will be the same for whatever software you use.  I'm making this answer a community wiki in case anyone wants to elaborate.


text:
How can i check if a particular sound I used in my video was copyrighted?
Been using royalty free music for some time, however youtube shows that I am using some copyrighted material. So just wanted to know if there is any way by which I can check if a song is copyrighted or not?

In nearly all countries, copyright protects creative works automatically. Some exceptions and restrictions apply, but unless the author has voluntarily added his work to the public domain or the copyright has expired (common terms are seventy and ninety years after publication or after death of the author), it's safe to assume all songs are copyrighted, including the royalty-free music you've been using.
Whether or not it's okay to upload material that contains this music to youtube, that would depend on the author's consent. Sometimes, the music is released under a blanket licence that allows redistribution. If not, contact the author to obtain permission.

In short: If YOU didn't make it, and you don't have EXPLICIT permission (that you can find, and show to prove your allowance), you CAN'T use the element.

"Royalty free" is funny that way, because the content is actually copyrighted - but you're given permission to use it.
If you have your source, and can point to a licence that states 'royalty free' you should be able to get Youtube to reactivate your video. You'd probably need to give credits where credit's due in your about text.

The royalty free music is still copy-written.  You have purchased a right to use it without paying royalties, but YouTube doesn't know that you have those rights.  You need to provide the necessary documentation to YouTube that you have the right to use it there (license statement from your purchase) and they should re-activate it for you.
They do this to make sure that someone else doesn't grab the music from your video and use it in their own without paying for it.  (Since generally royalty free video is licensed to the individual and can't be reused by other people you give it to.)


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Inexpensive do-it-yourself Steadicam rig
Anyone have experience with a cheap DIY Steadicam style rig for a video camera? It doesn't have to take perfect picture, but be steadier than a handheld camera. Thanks.

Maybe this is enough for you?

Basically just use a tripod as a balance and let gravity do the job for you.

A follow-up, @AlexanderBrevig. What's the next step up from this?

Maybe use a gyroscopic balance where you'd want it? I think mechanical correction is easier for DIY than programming it (if you have some know how about that you could check out PID loops and sensor fusion). If you've ever used a power tool equipped with a large plate (for grinding, for instance) you know about the force I'm talking about. I've never tried to make anything like this. Is there no project online? Check instructables first :)

@Alex - the next step would be to add a gymbal on the balance to make it so that it can rotate freely. This is the concept behind a steadycam jr.  You basically want a shaft with a mounting plate on one end and a counterweight on the other with a frictionless gymbal slightly closer to the mount than the weight.  The next step up from that is either to add a gyroscope that will actually fight to keep orientation rather than just using inertia to do it or to add a spring arm that mounts to a chest rig to take your arms out of the equation.


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Why does audio have standard bit rates whereas video does not
I got into live streaming recently and while I was reading up on encoding settings I noticed that even though there are rules of thumb, there doesn't seem to be a standard set of bit rates we could point to for various requirements of quality like audio (eg 96 128 192 224 etc).
Why is that? Wouldn't a standard set of numbers be handy? Am I looking at this the wrong way?
Thanks

Complexity is the main thing.  Because of how audio works, there tends to not be a whole lot of variation in the quality you get from a given bit rate.  While video often has frames that are very similar from one image to another, audio rarely has the exact same sound playing for a long period of time.
This lack of predictability in audio means that the compression ends up being similarly efficient between one clip and another, so the quality levels can be closely associated to a given bit rate.
Video on the other hand can be predictable or unpredictable.  Some videos sit on the same background for a long time with slow changes between scenes and large areas of similar color within those scenes.  Such videos can be compressed very heavily and maintain their quality since large areas of the same color that remain consistent over time compress very well.
Other videos may have lots of action on complex background with rapid cuts between shots.  Such video requires a much higher bitrate for the same quality because the rate of change within the video is much higher.
This distinction makes video unsuitable for "standard" bitrates because they are no guarantee of quality.  Instead, standard metrics are based around arbitrary, subjective quality levels of video.  Since there isn't a good concrete way to measure quality level, each company ends up using their own definition of what quality their videos are and use the balance of file size and quality to differentiate their offering.

I believe this is the most thorough explanation, my confusion is resolved. Thanks again to all for the answers!

The reason audio has 'standard' bitrates is because it evolved in such a way that was supported by the 'infrastructure' of the industry - that is, digital audio became a standard because those creating the content (record labels) decided "this is how CDs will work".
Digital video, however, has always* been a free-for-all, with each camera manufacturer creating their own proprietary format. As such, there has been no 'infrastructure' standard for video - the closest we have yet have been codec standards, not bitrate.

*Close enough

I'd say rather than being a free-for all, it is more a case that video encoding is still improving dramatically, whereas audio has been pretty stable for a while. Also the demand for efficiency in compression is higher - 128k for an audio stream is nothing compared to what a HD frame requires - and now 4K and soon 8K etc. Also the processing power required to compress and decompress audio has been around for longer than it has for video.

Most video cameras use standard formats (at least at the level of consumers to moderate level professionals).  They may choose different quality settings, but that isn't proprietary formats for the most part.  Select high end models do use their own formats, but that has nothing to do with final output bitrates in standard video formats that are consumed by the masses (which seems to be what this question is talking about).

The bitrate for music has to do with the way our brain perceives audio.
I won't go into detail, but for each bit you add to a sample, you lower the noise floor -6dB. This means, that there is definable sweet spot for when humans starts to enjoy listening because the fidelity of what we hear through the speakers is close enough to what we think we would hear if the original audio source was there with us.
I guess I'm not the only who has confused a lamp for a person in the dark, or been fooled by visual illusions.
Our brain is funny this way, and much more sensitive to audible distortion, than to visual.

This only really applies to bit depth in pcm audio, rather than bit rate in compressed audio.

Oh man, I answered a bit too quick there. - You still need a certain bit rate to ascertain fidelity in terms of both sample rate and bit depth though

I had to vote this down because the answer is simply wrong.  Yes, a certain bit rate is needed to maintain fidelity for a certain sample rate and bit depth, but it doesn't give any reason for a standard set of rates and the basic premise is misleading.


text:
Is there a way to apply an Animation Preset - Text Effect onto a shape?
I have a few bullet points as so:

I would like to apply an Animation Preset > Text > Blurs > Bullet Train to it... But I want the effect to include the blue circle. I've tried applying directly, parenting, and pre-composing. None had the desired result. Is there a way to get the Text Effect onto the shape layer?

There sadly does not appear to be a direct way to do it, however you can approximate it by using a Directional Blur on your shape layer with a 90 degree orientation and then applying a fade in.  If you mess with the keyframes a bit, you should be able to get it to look like a constant animation.

What about cheating by using a font that has numbers in circles? This, for example: http://www.fontscape.com/explore?3O4
Won't work for more than 9 bullet points though.

Those don't give you control of both colors. The only way to rig it up that way would be to use a large solid circle in text (oversize bullet in most typefaces) and then the number in a separate layer on top of it with the keyframes aligned.


text:
What is the text commonly found at the end of documentaries called?
In documentaries / semi-documentaries and even fake documentaries there's often text that comes on at the end showing some facts fading in and out, or where the people are now (depending on subject).
Is there a term for this element of a video? I tried searching for "end text in documentary" but couldn't really find anything except actual credits.

I don't recall a formal cine term for this, but traditionally in literature an "epilogue" would serve the same purpose.Perhaps "epitaph", or some fused term I just made up "epiText".

This might even be more on-topic at English.SE, but as far as I'm concerned that's definitely called an epilogue.
From Wikipedia:

In many documentaries and biopics, the epilogue is text-based, explaining what happened to the subjects after the events covered in the film.

Hmm feel like I should've known that. Do you know if filmmakers use any term for the design of this section? I tried searching youtube for documentary epilogue and still only find music. I'm trying to find examples of different styles to get a better idea of what I think is most effective.


text:
High resolution recording with component cable
I am using a HD Video Camera with a max resolution of 1920x1080. It is a Canon Legria HF M32.
I would like to record the videos using my PC. I have a component cable to USB adapter. My problem is the max resolution this allows me to record at is roughly 700x500.
Is there a way to record at a higher resolution on my PC?

If you are actually using a component cable (3 or 5 connectors with 2 more for audio) then you should be able to do HD signals unless your capture device or source device is limiting you.  Based on the SD resolution limit, it sounds like you may actually be using a composite cable though (1 yellow cable for video and a white and red cable for audio).  Composite cables only go up to SD resolution (more accurately 720 by 480 for NTSC and I forget the exact resolution for PAL but it is 576 horizontal lines.)
If you want to record HD videos using your PC you will need an actual HD capture device.  I'd personally recommend going with something HDMI based since your camera supports HDMI out.  This would prevent quality loss from going to analog and back to digital (component video cables are still analog).  Such devices aren't super cheap though.  Devices like the Black Magic Intensity or Matrox MX02 will handle your needs, but they are in the $200 price range.


text:
live stream saved or not
Trying to work out if you upload a live stream if it is routed and just played or if it saves into a folder. So for example if you set up a webcam 24 hours and relay that online if that just broadcasts and you then can configure options to save, otherwise it just plays? It would take up a lot of space if were saving to server so trying to be clear on it. Any help to understand greatly appreciated.

A little more detailed is needed here to help you with your problem. What are you doing exactly and what do you want to achieve? What software is used?

It depends on the configuration and choice of streaming server.  You can generally configure stream servers to either record live streams or simply relay them.

Right so I can safely say I am only relaying the stream at present, thanks.


text:
Screen recording 3d zoom
I want to record screen and add some zoom effects like in this video: https://vimeo.com/59343034 (for example at 00:11)
Can you tell me, how can I do that?

That is a very simple perspective shift or 3d transform of a video layer.  It can be fairly easily accomplished in any decent non-linear video editor or trivially in After Effects.
You simply have to scale the video to fill the frame and then apply a perspective distortion to it to make it appear to be off angle from the "camera".
Alternately, a 3d layer can be used in After Effects and the plane the video is being played back on can actually be moved closer to the camera and rotated.

But if I do this with normal screen record, will it be good quality?

Yeah, it should be fine with a normal screen recording as long as you are using a decent resolution for things.  That is how that type of thing is traditionally done.


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How to Set the defaults for Render Queue in After Effects
I'm using After Effects CS3 (yeah, I know it's old) and I'm rendering my composition out. When I Add to Render Queue I have to change the settings like Render Settings & Output Module every time.
Is there a way to set these once and have AE use them every time you Add to Render Queue?

I'm pretty sure it hasn't changed since CS3 (in fact It's been the same for as long as I can remember): in Edit > Templates > Render Settings >. Another way of getting to this dialogue is from the Render Settings drop-down in the render queue. At the bottom of the list of templates in the drop-down is Make Template…
Choosing that brings up the dialogue box pictured below. Up the top of the dialogue box you'll find Movie Default; set that to whatever template you want to be the default for renders. If you haven't got a template that has the settings you need then you can make one here - hit the New button, set all your settings and give it a name.  I find duplicating an existing one and modifying it a useful way to go.
Same goes for the output modules, which you get to from Edit > Templates > Output Modules, or from the Output Modules drop-down in the render queue.

Thanks for getting that posted, I'll delete my answer since you beat me to getting the screenshots up.  I can also confirm with 95% certainty that it has not changed substantially since CS3 off the top of my head.  It was like this prior to CS entirely.

I am pretty sure there is a way to get to that screen from the Render Queue settings as well, but I can't remember what link it is off the top of my head.

Yep, indeed there is, as always there's several ways of doing anything in After Effects. I've amended my answer.

authors: валера фролов


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Is it possible to have stereo sound from an external mic on a Canon Vixia HF G20
I have a Canon Vixia HF G20 and I cannot find anywhere in the manual about an external mic in stereo mode. The "advanced hot shoe" does support stereo and surround sound but through the Line In/Mic port on the camera I can't seem to produce stereo sound. My source is definitely stereo. Any suggestions?

Can you provide more details about the source and how you have hooked it up.  That may allow me to clarify my answer further as it appears the camera should support it.

According to the Using Commercially Available Microphones section on page 76 of the manual for the HF G20, it should be possible to connect a stereo microphone to the external mic connection.  There may be some problem with the kind of a source you are using or the way you are connecting it.

Verify again that your source is indeed a stereo source and that your cabling is TRS cabling. I own this same camera and have been able to record audio in full stereo and also on only one side of the stereo spectrum.

I have the G20 and VidPro Xm-55... u r going to go into custom audio settings and then go to audio mix and just mix about two clicks up on internal microphone and let the external to the rest- that way you get clean sound with stereo separation.
We do live music studio recording and when my overall level is set around 67/70 it seems to be perfect.


text:
Sony Vegas Text Parser?
I'm working on one of those videos where there's a voice over and text follows it, one sentence appearing at a time. I lose quite a lot of time having to generate or copy media and having to "feed it" once sentence at a time. I have complete control over the format of the text, so is there any way for me to feed 25 sentences to Vegas and have it generate 25 media elements for me, putting one sentence to each of them? I'm open to ANY suggestion, as the method I use now just takes a lot of time alttabing and copying sentence by sentence.

Take a look at Vegasaur's TextGen.
It can import text from SRT, SUB and CSV files, or you can create 25 markers, paste 25 sentences and generate 25 media elements (one sentence for each text media)


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What to do with a VMP video file
I recieved a VMP video file to convert to avi or mpeg or something. I searched the web but I cannot find any association with this file.
Can anyone help? Which program does this file come from?
What can I do with it?

Seems to be a video from a Sony/Vaio product. Can't find anything about it on the web.

I can't find any information on anything using that file extension.  Is it small enough that you might be able to post the file or atleast post the first few hundred characters if you open it in a hex or text editor?  That might be helpful for identifying if it is some standard format that has had the extension altered.

This is likely a video from a Sony/Vaio product having a vmp extension.  I don't know of any third party converters, however you should be able to export the video file from your Vaio/Sony product itself.  It'll automatically create an mpeg video file for you.

Good lead on the Vaio products.  Are you sure there are no third party tools out there that can access it?  My quick search didn't show any reliable links, but I didn't get a chance to dig in to any of the more questionable ones looking for an answer.


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What is the video codec name of videos made through the Canon 600d DSLR
I need to know the name of the codec?
They have the file extension of .mov  but i need to know what codec that is.
What is the video codec name of videos made through the Canon 600d DSLR?

All Canon DSLRs, including 600D use the same video codec:

Codec: MPEG-4 Part 10 / AVC / H.264
Profile: Baseline
Level: 5.0
Bitrate mode: CBR ± 40 Mbit/s maximum average
PAL: 1080p25, 1080p24, 720p50, 480p50
NTSC: 1080p30, 1080p24, 720p60, 480p60
Colorspace: 8-bit YUV 4:2:0 Rec. 709

Many of the higher-end models have an additional All-I mode:

Profile: High (without CABAC)
Level: 5.1
Bitrate mode: VBR ± 100 Mbit/s maximum average

It isn't low end DSLRs it is all DSLRs - whether you buy a 700D or a 5D MK III/1D X.
THe cnema 1D may be an exception and video cameras aren't DSLRs.

You are right, I'll correct that

I can just copy my answer from the comment:
Canon SLRs encode video using h.264 - use of Magic Lantern will give you control over the bitrate which is not available by default.
The standard Canon codec is available on any spec sheet for Canon cameras - such as the 700D or 5D MK III (my 5D MK II also uses h.264)
Go to Specifications -> file type for the codec information.
Source 1: http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_5D_Mark_III/index.aspx#p-specification13
Source 2:
http://www.canon.co.uk/For_Home/Product_Finder/Cameras/Digital_SLR/EOS_700D/index.aspx#p-specification13


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No audio during footage preview
I'm using AfterEffects CS6 on Windows 7. During footage preview/playback, I never get any audio. I have the Mute Audio option in the Preview panel turned off (audio is not muted). I checked the Edit > Preferences > Audio Hardware settings and found that 1) the only device listed in the Default Device list is "After Effects WDM Sound", and 2) clicking the Settings button and checking all of my audio devices (with and without the Device 32-bit Playback option selected) does nothing.
Am I missing something here? I have to preview my clips in Windows Media Player and then go back to AfterEffects to do the trimming - it's annoying!

related: http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/15319/how-can-i-preview-with-audio-in-after-effects-and-be-able-to-pause-resume-the/15321#15321

After Effects is not designed as an editing platform.  Audio preview only works when you do a RAM Preview and pre-render all the frames for the content you are previewing.  You never get Audio with the real-time preview.
The intent behind RAM Preview is that it lets you check the final quality of the render prior to writing it to disk, but it isn't really designed to be used constantly while doing effects work in most cases.

So there is no way to efficiently preview footage and trim/cut/insert into the timeline? Seems like a feature that must exist - unless I'm missing something...or using AE improperly and should trim/cut my clips in Premiere first?

@JoshM That's it exactly, AE is designed for manipulating individual clips (compositions) and then those clips are put together in to sequences in Premiere.  It is possible to embed an After Effects composition directly in to Premiere, including transparency support.

Interesting. My understanding was that Premiere was to get video content (from DV/cam, etc.), layout out the timeline and then bring it into AfterEffects to do overlays and such. Is the "After" in AfterEffects not to be taken literally?

@JoshM yeah, not to be taken literally.  It's effects after shooting, not editing.  Workflow is generally, capture shots, edit individual shots (if needed) in After Effects (color correction, stabilization, composition, etc) and then edit shots together in to a video in Premiere.  Premiere is pretty much always the final output.

Yeah, complete opposite of how I was thinking! Hmm...

If you want to Preview Audio you need to use RAM Preview... Press Numpad 0 on the number pad (shortcut key for Ram Preview), then you can hear the audio.
Press Numpad 0 on the Numberpad.

Thanks. Turns out I was using AE when I should have been using Premier.

Make sure number lock is on.


text:
How can I keep my project-specific Motion elements together with my Final Cut projects?
I'm producing a video with several graphics animations, and some of them need to be done in Motion. What's the best way to store a Motion animation that will only be used in one place in one FCP project?
Motion appears to want me to save it as a FCP template, but then it'll be in that template list for all time. I want to keep it with the project, ideally in an Event. It's media, just like my video and audio.
Is there any good way to handle this?

FCPX has currently no way to link Motion Projects to FCPX Projects. To place Motion Projects in another directory than the default one, you have to create symbolic links using Terminal (see below). Motion Projects can only be used in FCPX as Templates.
From Apple's PDF "Managing Media with Final Cut Pro X Libraries":

Motion templates are not managed as assets within the library but are instead stored in ~/Movies/Motion Templates/. If a project is dependent on custom titles or other Motion templates, these must be handed off separately.

I. Managing Motion Templates Manually
FCPX searches for Motion Templates in ~/Movies/Motion Templates/Type of effect/Category/Name of effect/.

~/ means your home directory
Type of effect is one of: Compositions, Effects, Generators, Titles, Transitions.
Category, Name of effect: the name and the category under which the effect will appear in FCPX.

Within Finder you can :

Change the names of categories and effects
Create new categories and rearrange the effects inside them
update: New templates are detected without restarting, removed templates will show as offline until restarted

You can for example put all project-specific effects in a category named after that project. When you archive your project, you move the category's folder along and it will disappear in FCPX.
Update:
II. Templates Outside Templates Folder (Requires Terminal)

Find your Template (see above) and move it using Finder
In the Terminal create a symbolic link to your Templates new location (while aliases from the Finder are not recognized, symbolic links created in the Terminal are)
ln -s /Volumes/ExternalHDD/Untitled.fcpbundle/MyTitle.moti \
      ~/Movies/Motion\ Templates.localized/Titles.localized/MyCategory/

Change the above folder names to reflect yours.
In this example the Template is inside a Library on an external drive! See the next section on how to get it there.
To use this drive on another Mac, repeat the Terminal command there.

III. Templates Inside Library
To make sure a Template stays with the project it belongs to, you can place it inside the project's .fcpbundle:

In FCPX control-click on your library and choose Reveal in Finder

In Finder control-click on your library and choose Show Package Contents

Find your Template (see I.) and place it here. Then create the symbolic link (see II.)

Credits for Terminal inspiration go to MacBreak Studio.

That's so very unlike the rest of FCPX. Seems like a terrible experience for professionals, let alone an amateur like me. But you're right, that's what it says. Thanks for all the info!

I totally agree. Luckily Apple has been regularly adding big new features and I'm sure they will continue to do so. This is certainly not the only missing feature in FCPX.