text:
Export high bitrate video in lightworks
My goal is to get a high bitrate video to a friend of mine, so he can then use the video and edit it for another use.
I am to the point where i need to export the video.
What export option is going to keep the best quality and bitrate but still be under 2 gigs? My video is currently 12 minutes long, but i can shorten it into 4 minute sections.
So, what is the best export option to keep a high bitrate and quality and get 4 minutes under 2 gigs. 1080p @ 60fps.
Thanks

Screenshots of lightworks pro export options. It is not all of them, but let me know if you would like to see more of the options.
Picture of the format options:

AVI

Image Sequence

MOV

MXF

WAV

What about mailing your friend a hard drive of the media, and the project files? Sometimes works out faster than compressing and downloading.

I have also considered that as an option. Just wanting to see if i can get it done without having to ship something first.

Depending on your definition of high quality, this is impossible.  For comparison sake, DV video (at standard definition) takes a gigabyte per 4.7 minutes, which is at a good, high quality level of compression.  You are trying to do 60fps 1080p video and get it under 2GB for 4 minutes.  That's over 12 times the information and you are trying to fit it in just over twice the space.
If you want to see how it works out when you use the highest possible quality that will fit your size requirements, you can simply calculate the data rate. Create a 2-pass VBR encoding with an average data rate determined by the size and time.  The file size is equal to the data rate times the number of seconds in the video.  2 pass VBR will ensure that the best possible use is made of that space.
You mention that you can break it up in to 4 minute sections to send over.  Why is it that you can't split the files (using file tools rather than video tools) and have them reassembled on the other side?  Is it a file size limitation or a file transfer limitation?  Also, is there a reason you can't send the original files along with the project files?  Each additional time that you encode, there is a slight bit of quality loss, so it is preferable to work from the original assets whenever possible.
Another possibility if you are working collaboratively and have issues with moving a huge amount of data.  It is possible to output low quality copies of the original video files and substitute those files for the high quality versions when working on them remotely.  Your friend would take your project files and the low quality assets, do any editing he wants, and then send the project files back to you.  You could then render the final output based on your friend's editing decisions but using the original, full quality assets.
The reason you don't want to go to a smaller file size in-between is that each time you encode a video, quality is lost.  The lower quality the source you are working from, the more is lost in each additional encoding, so if you move to a mid-range format early on, then the final output will suffer.  If you run the render from the originals however, you get maximum quality.

I would like to send the original files, but that would be 100gigs of information. I have made 4 minute videos before that are around 20mb bitrate @ 1080p and are under 2 gigs. And they appeared to be very good quality. And i was only using windows movie maker. I am very new to lightworks, just wondering if there was a way that i could get similar quality or better at a similar size with the pro version.

@prolink007 - for final output, it is possible to get decent quality HD video at 60fps at as low as 15mb bitrate or so depending on the amount of action.  The problem is the intent to re-encode.  If the person you are giving the assets to intends to work with them and then export again, then they will run in to quality problems.  Your comment does make me think of another possibility though.  I will update my answer accordingly.

That is interesting. I believe he will probably be adding new assets and parts though. So, he might then run into the issue of having to send me originals. I actually found a way that i can get 50G to him easily. Is there a render option that would give me good quality at that size? Basically i just need to go into the video and cut certain sections out and then export the video. Basically reducing the length of the video and maintaining original quality.

@prolink007 - that's a trickier question and probably drifting a bit from the original question.  Depending on format, you may be able to clip portions of the video out without having to recompress anything.  That would give you the maximum quality.  Even if you do have to recompress, 25 to 50GB still gives you plenty of space for a high quality re-encode for the amount of footage you have.  Assuming this is footage of a game that was captured in real time, the type of compression used isn't very optimized.  Running a high quality 2 pass VBR compression on it can still reduce file size.

You can use VirtualDUB to see if the source files can be split.  If not, using a data rate of around 183mbps (about 1.4 gigabytes per minute) VBR 2-pass All I Frame video should be very good quality source video at a much smaller file size than you currently have.

Ok, well thanks for your assistance. I will use this information.

I am not seeing an option to export with the options you listed in lightworks "data rate of around 183mbps (about 1.4 gigabytes per minute) VBR 2-pass All I Frame video". I am very new to all of this, can you be more specific about what i would need to do to get this exported correctly? Thanks

I am unfortunately not familiar with the exact export controls in that software. If you can post a screen shot of the export dialog I can probably figure it out, but I don't know exact steps.

Will do. Try to get that later today.

Ok, i added the screen shots.

let us continue this discussion in chat

What can i use to play back the matrox mpeg422p@hl? To test to see if the video looks and sounds like it is supposed to.

@prolink007 - I would think just about any player should be able to play that back.  Not sure if it is MPEG 422 or Mpeg4 22, but either MPEG or MPEG4 are both common video standards.

Windows movie player does not play it back. And MPC-HC plays it back. but it does not have the correct dimensions. It is elongated horizontally and squished vertically.


text:
How can I stabilize very shaky video in After Effects?
I'm new to After Effects and am trying to stabilize some VERY shaky hyperlapse video of a waterfall. The warp stabilizer with the default options fails. I've been trying to use the Tracking window to set points that shouldn't move but I don't understand how it works well enough to do it. If someone could explain the general idea to me or point me to a tutorial on the subject I would appreciate it.
Thanks!
Edit:
Here's the unstabilized video that I'm working with:

The best way to stabilize footage depends highly on the footage.  Perhaps you could link a short clip?  I'm guessing that if the falling water comprises a significant portion of your frame, it's going to interfere with the tracking.  If it doesn't completely cover it, you may get away with masking it out.

Another thought: maybe you should start out by trying something "easy" to get an idea of how the process works.  Try a short (~3 sec) clip of non-hyperlapsed video where there is only camera shake, and no moving elements in the frame.

Another possibility is to stabilise it by hand, frame by frame. I've done this before on wobbly walking time lapses, and the results are usually better than just using a warp stabiliser. In order to do it, you need a point of reference in your shot, that you can line up to a pair of horizontal and vertical rulers in each frame. Takes ages, but it's worth it.
Without seeing your footage, it's hard to show, but I'll give an example:
We did this on the timelapses in this programme:
https://vimeo.com/52539719
Take the first shot.  The camera was moving between every frame, but the peak of the roof does not move, and is in every shot.
We decide whereabouts in the shot we want the peak to be in the first frame.
We place one horizontal guide and one vertical guide in the comp, so that they cross over at the centre of the peak.
We scale the original footage up slightly, so that any repositioning of the frame doesn't result in black edges to your shot.   It's best to shoot in a higher resolution than your final output resolution.  Our shots were on a Canon 5D, full frames, so much higher than the final 1920x1080 HD output.
Set a position keyframe, then go to frame two.
The roof will have moved in the frame, because the camera is wobbly.
Reposition the frame, so that the roof is in the middle of your two guides again.
Make sure a new position key frame has been set.
Keep going, frame by frame, with lots of coffee and music playing :)
update: Looking at your footage, I'd probably use the right edge of the waterfall, as it's fairly central in the shot... But I don't think you've got enough frames to ever make a nice smooth timelapse, even if you slow it down with some frame/motion interpolation afterwards...

I think hand-stabilizing it may be the way to go. It's a short clip so it won't be that bad. How do I go about doing that?

I've re-edited the answer to provide more info & steps.

Thanks! I added the video I'm working with to my question as well.

I think you should hand-position the frames like tomh suggests, and then look into morphing software to create additional in-between  frames.  Check out Michel Gondry's Like a Rolling Stone video, it's one of the earliest examples of this technique. http://www.michelgondry.com/?tag=the-rolling-stones

Apparently, that link doesn't work in the US.  Here's another one:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SrN8OubuHo

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


text:
How to add meta data to a video file
I tried to change the Meta data of a video file.
My system runs on Windows. So I tried to change meta data through rightclicking on the file and going to the properties > details. After chaning some information and saving this error occured:

What happend next is that the video file couldn't be played in a videoplayer anymore. This is the error message in Windows Media Player:

I have to re-render my video file. But my question is: what is the best method for adding meta data to a video file? What is the best Tag editor application on Windows?

Googling for "mp4 metadata editor" brings up lots of candidates. Many of these will search online databases for tagging DVD movie rips, a feature I don't think you're looking for, but they also let you add and edit tags in most common container formats like MP4. Two you might look at are MP3Tag (yes, MP3) and MetaX/MetaZ.

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


text:
Smoothcam filter vs Warp Stabilizer
To smooth out shaky footage I want to know which of the following apps is the best:

Final cut Pro X
Adobe Premiere Pro CS6
Adobe After Effects CS6

I found this video comparing the adobe warp and Final cut:

I think warp stabilizer looks way better, but it might also be relative to the type of footage and the specific settings applied.

After Effects, especially with Mocha, has the most advanced motion tracking and stabilization capabilities of these 3 options, but they are also the most complicated to use if you want the best possible results.  (Note that AE also does offer simple options like Warp Stabilizer if you don't need super advanced stabilization.)
The options in Final Cut Pro X and Premiere CS6 are far more limited, but both are still reasonably powerful.  I will deffer to Guus' answer for that comparison though since I don't have experience working with Final Cut's stabilization.

Definitely the Warp Stabilizer its a very easy to use and powerful tool and I'd say the best tool for automatic stabilization out there.
When it comes to the more manual workflow, yes, After Effects together with Mocha is a lot harder to use but you can get very great results with a certain amount of experience.
Given that After Effects offers both I definitely go with AJ Henderson's recommendation and always go with After Effects (with optionally Mocha) when it comes to stabilization.


text:
How can I clip off / crop out a piece of a .MOV file using a free tool?
I tried using ClipChamp to remove some sections of a video. I dragged the sidebars to the point where I want the video to end, but I see no way to then save this new/improved/shortened version. Is saving only available in the paid edition?
I then downloaded movavi, and it seemed as if I was able to crop what I wanted, but then when I went to save the file, it wouldn't allow me to do it with the free version because my video is over the 60-second limit for the free edition.
Is there a free software or web site where I can upload a video and then have it cut off the first second or two and the last second or two of my video?

What platform are you working on? Windows / PC / Mac / something else?

Windows 11 (not to be confused with Oceans 11)

I found Veed.IO to work well and easily; it is an online tool that can be found here. The free version puts a watermark (Veed.IO) on the video, but for my purposes that doesn't bother me.
I chopped one second off the start of the video and 2 seconds off the end rather easily.
The .mpf file it generated is larger than my original .MOV file, but that additional size shouldn't be a problem, either.

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


text:
Can I suppress ("blue-screen"?) the background of a video?
I am going to record a short (approximately 5 minute) video of myself talking.
I want the background (which will be "bla" and perhaps a bit grainy, as I will probably just be using the built-in photo app on my iPad) to be "blacked out" (it will be whitish (the sliding doors of my clothes closet will be my "background")).
There is an app/web site that removes the background of still images of people (remove.bg); I want to do the same with this video (and then turn the background black, rather than leave it white, as I do with Paint's "bucket" feature after downloading the background-removed picture after using the site above).
Is this possible? Of course it is; I guess my real question is, "How can I do this using the built-in video capabilities of my iPad or via a free or inexpensive video creation/editing app"?

Natron is a free and open source software that allows for keying (removing a specific color from your video, helpful if you actually have a blue or greenscreen) as well as rotoscoping which is a technique to mask out specific parts of a video through a mix of manual and automated masking.
If you have the possibility it will be a lot easier if you record yourself infront of a single color background that is in contrast to yourself, also avoid wearing colors that are similar to your background color. It does not always have to be a blue or green screen.
Lighting is also important.
Of course the best approach of all is to do it right while recording and get a black sheet instead of residing to digital editing which is a LOT harder to achieve a reasonable result with.
This will change with machine learning becoming more and more available but at the moment the most natural looks is always achieved in front of the camera.

Hmm, visqueen (sp?) might be the way to go; or if necessary, visking.

Well, white could get quite difficult, it would need to clearly differnce you from the white background. (Dark clothes, dark hair...)
Else I'd guess this won't give a good result.
It would be better if you hang a green/blue clothe behind you. Something like a bath towel will do it just fine enough. Make sure to hang it really tight and put some good lighting on it.

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


text:
Replacement for Windows Live Movie Maker for combining images and audio (Windows 10)?
I want to combine some audio I recorded with an image (for uploading to YouTube).
Googling turned up "Windows Live Movie Maker" which appears to be more dead than alive, now, at least as far as Windows 10 is concerned.
Who can recommend a free software download (or web-based service) that will allow me to create this simple, You-Tube-uploadable file? All I want is for a single image to remain static during the entire playing of the audio file.
The audio file was created with Audacity and is, at present, available as an .m4a file (but could be converted to another format from within Audacity); the image file is a .jpg, but could of course also be saved to another format.
UPDATE
I tried to figure it out using both of those links from the Upload page (Slideshow and Edit Video) and in neither case did I see how to combine and audio file and an image, and then convert that mashup to a video.
I found this link, which appeared promising initially, but wasn't of much help.

It can be made directly on the YouTube website. Look at the "Upload" page at the bottom-right corner:

Okay, I'll try that. So I'm assuming the "Video Editor" allows you to upload an image and an audio file, and it does the mashup?

I think you need not "Video Editor", but "Slidshow".... But I didn't use eater. Just try it.

I'll see; since I only want to use one image, calling it a slideshow would be kind of bizarre.


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Adobe Premiere Pro clip audio works in Source panel but not timeline
I have a Adobe Premiere Pro CC 2017 project with an mp4 in the sequence.
That mp4's sound plays fine in Source Monitor.
And its sound plays fine if I right-click the mp4 in the Project panel and choose Modify > Audio Channels > Preview Media Source Channel.
But this mp4 clip's sound does not play in Timeline.
In Timeline, the track itself does not have the muted M enabled. I've tried toggling that back and forth too, just to be sure. I've also tried the trick of clicking the S to solo the audio of this clip or others (and then disable all S buttons).
The Audio Clip Mixer panel seems disabled when this clip plays in Timeline. But Audio Clip Mixer works (and shows dynamic levels of sound) when other clips in this project play.
In Effect Controls > Audio Effects > Volume, I see 6.0 dB. Changing this value up or down doesn't seem to help.
How can I get the audio back for this clip?
P.S. I've also tried Edit > Preferences > Media Cache > Media Cache Database > Clean.

I would appreciate a better answer than this because although I finally found how to get the sound back, I still don't fully understand what is going on here.
I stumbled onto the Remove Attributes menu when right-clicking a clip.
Removing "ERA4_ReverbRemover" from each of my clips seems to restore their audio.

I still don't know:

What ERA4_ReverbRemover is
How or when it got added to these clips
Why it removed their audio completely
What are the risks of me removing this attribute from each clip

I'll gladly accept a better answer. Thanks!


text:
short Train movie for school
I am a 7th grader and in school I have to make a funny movie. In this movie we are going to film a close-up of a model train to make it look like a real train and show a man in the middle of the tracks about to get hit.
Then we are going to zoom out and show the man getting hit by a model train and stubbing his toe. The video-editing software we use is iMovie. Anyone one know how can pull this off? especially the part where we make it look like a real train?
P.S. the train is a model japanese bullet train or shinkansen

Hi, and welcome to Video Production SE!  It sounds like what you're trying to do is pretty ambitious, and I'm sure there are people here with good advice for you, but we might need a little more information to be as helpful as we can.  First of all how do you plan to achieve these effects?  What sort of cameras, lenses, equipment do you have available (particularly, I'm wondering about macro lenses and green screens)?  When you say, "Then we are going to zoom out...", are you envisioning a jump cut, or something fancier?  For something fancier, I imagine you'll need software other than iMovie.

I am planning a jump cut i guess

AJ Henderson and Craig have excellent answers. I'd just like to add my own knowledge about making miniatures look full-size. As far as I can tell, there are 4 factors that make a miniature look, well, miniature.
1) Lighting. If the train is supposed to look like it's outside, shoot it outside or next to a window that sun is coming through. Sunlight looks way different than indoor light because of color and the fact that it's one really bright light and a bunch of "ambient" light from the rest of the bright sky.
2) "Thickness" of the air. If you look at faraway mountains or buildings or trees, they're always a little "hazy", a little less colorful, than things next to you. So if a real train is 1/2 mile away, it will also appear a little bit hazy. A model train, which is probably a foot away or less, won't be hazy at all. The artists who did special effects on movies used to up a scrim (a tranparent but hazy sheet) in between the camera and the model to add fake haziness. It looked more "real" on film.
3) Details. A real train has tiny, tiny details like bolts and screws. A model train won't have anything that tiny -- they would be nearly microscopic!! But the person watching the film / video will notice that they're missing, so the model will look more like a model.
4) "Depth of field". That's a photograph/film term that has to do with what is in focus: things that are close, things that are far away, or both. When you focus on something even 10 feet away, everything behind it is (usually) in focus. That's called having a big depth of field.  If you focus on something 1 foot away, everything behind it is (usually) out of focus. That means the depth of field is small. If you're focusing on the nearby model, and so you have a small depth of field, most people viewing the film/video will notice that and it will look like a miniature. One way around that is to have a fake background just a few feet away, behind the model, so it will still be in focus.

The easiest way to make it look real would be to film a real train and then use a model of the same kind of train engine.  You could use a macro lens to try and get a good shot, but the camera elevation will likely be too high still (unless the track is elevated).  Putting the actual person on the tracks would be hard with iMovie as well since I don't know if it has much (if anything) in the way of keying ability.
You may be able to simplify it a lot, including the comedic effect by using direct cuts rather than a zoom as well.  I'd recommend you consider building tension by cutting back and forth between the person standing on a track and a real train moving down the track.  Start with fairly slow cuts back and forth and then get faster and faster as the train gets closer.  Then at the last second, cut to a shot where the model train runs in to the persons foot (it should be the first shot that actually shows the train and person together.)
This will build anticipation as people worry about what will happen before the sudden comic reveal that it was just a model train.

I like Henderson's answer. I'll add two suggestions: consider using stock footage of the 'real' train. I don't think that would be cheating -- even pro filmmakers use stock footage frequently. The real art is in the editing; that's where the story- telling comes from.
If you used stock footage of the train (one example: http://footage.shutterstock.com/clip-7465-stock-footage-historic-steam-train-coming-straight-at-the-camera-camera-locked-down-original-ambient-sound.html) it would be a lot less dangerous than shooting a real live train. And then you could concentrate on getting good scary close shots of the poor guy who's gonna get hit.
You could do that on real tracks when there's no train coming. Try to make the light match whatever stock shots you use.
Also when you cut, finally, to the model train, shoot the collision in a few different ways: long shot (train + the guy's leg from the knee down), medium shot (train + foot and ankle) and close shot ( train + foot), so that you can see which works best in your edit.  If you can put in a few model trees or anything else that helps the model shot match the stock shot -- extra points for that!
If you DO end up using stock footage you should get that footage first, before shooting anything else. Do a rough edit, breaking up the stock train shot wherever you think one of your live shots should go. You could make rough drawings of the shots that you'll eventually put at those breaks and insert them into your rough edit. This is a form of 'storyboarding' your project and it'll give you a better sense of the dramatic timing of the whole edit. You'll also get better ideas, in this way, about how to shoot the live shots that you'll make later.
This, by the way, is how many grown-up filmmakers work so it's good practice in case you want to go further in movies.

Great advice for the stock footage.  Probably easier to match whatever train models you have that way too.  Might be a trick to find the right kind of angle and a long enough shot of the train approaching, but if they do find it, it will be easier and safer.

the train is a model shinkansen or japanese bullet train


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Why does FFMPEG fail when converting Intervalometer photos into a time lapse movie?
I loaded CHDK firmware on my old Canon IXUS 980IS and took 796 images, each
weighing in at:
JPEG 4416x3312 4416x3312+0+0 8-bit sRGB 9.182MB 0.050u 0:00.049

So I want to convert 796 images into a movie. Each still could be a frame in a 24fps movie, so:
796 / 24 = 30 sec = half a minute video
FFMPEG fails with Killed
x264 [error]: malloc of size 83759040 failedime=00:00:00.-4 bitrate=N/A
Video encoding failed
Killed

Complete log
I guess the 4GB of RAM isn't enough memory. But why can't FFMPEG simply build the movie in a memory efficient manner?
Gstreamer fails
ERROR: from element /GstPipeline:pipeline0/GstDecodeBin:decodebin0: Your GStreamer installation is missing a plug-in.

Complete log

Did you want the output movie to be 4416x3312 like the source frames? As you can tell from the log, the encoder wants a great deal of free memory to make a clip that size. What's the final use of the clip?

Would be nice to be able to make a "4k movie" but 1080p size is probably more sensible. Still not sure why it needs so much memory. Can't it append frames?

1080p is a 16x9 format, where your source frames are 4x3, so you'd have a pillar-box result. And '4K' can mean several things, but is also a widescreen format. So you'd need to crop to fit, or accept black bars.

I'm not sure what is best without seeing the result. Don't have the experience. I do hate black bars though.

That's a x264 error, not ffmpeg. Does it work as expected if you use a native ffmpeg encoder? Just to test add -vcodec mpeg4 before the output name. Are you using a 32 or 64-bit build?

What's the GStreamer command you are using?

The problem is that a sequence of images is not a video file.  In order to convert it to a video format such as h.264, it has to load an entire group of pictures (probably somewhere around 15 of them) and then perform a whole bunch of calculations to determine how the images are related to each other.  It then uses that information to determine what to actually store.
It doesn't store actual pictures, but rather it stores a couple of pictures (I frames) but then stores information about what changed from those frames to the next frames and what will change from those frames to the frames after (known as P and B frames).  This is a big part of why h.264 compression (and most other modern video formats) are able to fit so much video in to such small amounts of space compared to how much space the images take on their own.
If you were to save it as something like an MJPEG where each image is actually stored on its own, then it would just be a matter of appending them together, but then the file size of the video would probably be unplayably huge.

"...a sequence of images is not a video file". FWIW, that's just what ffmpeg treats it as: a stream in MJPEG format. Not that it helps the OP, just clarifying. What you say about compression is of course correct. But in a single-pass encoding there's no reason an encoder couldn't output / append each GOP as it's completed. I don't know of one that does, but it's not impossible.

@JimMack - yeah, I was oversimplifying a bit and you are correct about the mjpeg bit.  And yes, each GOP could be output separately, but just holding an entire GOP and the necessary analysis is going to take a fair bit of space for images that large.  I don't know exactly how much, but it is  a non-trivial task even for 1 GOP.

I followed Henderson's advice and wrote a little script to resize the images:
$ cat jpg2mp4.sh
test -d "$1" || exit
tmpdir=$(mktemp -d -p .)
counter=0
find $1 -iname '*.jpg' | while read jpg
do
        convert -resize 1440x1080 $jpg $tmpdir/IMG_$(printf "%04d" $counter).JPG
        counter=$((counter + 1))
done
echo ffmpeg -i $tmpdir/IMG_%4d.JPG test.mp4

It does work! I still wish ffmpeg could handle the original images and I also wish gstreamer would work! For further tips to enlarge a photo or adjust time, see this tip.

I don't think you need to resize the images before giving them to ffmpeg, just tell ffmpeg what size you want the movie, these are the settings I tend to use: ffmpeg -r 15 -i img%04d.JPG -b 15M -s 1440x1080 out.avi. 15 frames per second, 15M bit rate, HD.


text:
Adobe premiere is lagging in preview window
Video in source preview is lagging but it plays fine in video players. What may cause this? Why premiere is not using standard codecs for source preview?
Specs:
Video is: h264 2704x1536 @29.97fps (GoPro footage)
System is: Core i7 2.3, 8GB RAM, GeForce GT 650M (MacBook Pro, bootcamp)
Adobe Premiere CS 6

Possibly Related... http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/9976/editing-1440p-47-fps-in-premiere-pro-cs6

Also... http://video.stackexchange.com/questions/8133/adobe-premiere-preview-video-lagging

Anyone still having this problem ? Im using CS6, and my video preview is lagging. But when I play the video using windows player, the video was smooth. and I also tried with premiere CC, the video went smoothly. But why CS6 isn't ?

Premiere's preview isn't simply a viewer and can't make as much use of caching as it needs to be able to scrub quickly in any direction.  Interframe compression also trips it up for the same reason.  I believe it also processes the entire amount of data.  The video size you are using is pretty large and bandwidth intensive, so unless you are working from very fast disks (solid state) (or a fast CPU if it is heavily compressed) and have fast RAM to deal with the rate of uncompressed data, it is easy for the playback to fall behind.
The related questions talk a bit more about methods of getting around this (such as letting Premiere finish generating conformed versions of the video or reducing the resolution of playback so that not all pixels have to be rendered).

Data rate is only 4MB/s. Also Windows Media Player plays it smoothly while Premiere preview is choppy even on 1/8 resolution

If your data rate is only 4MB/sec then you have to be using some seriously heavy compression.  Your uncompressed video is around 124 MB a second (which is what that video has to decode to).  Premiere will try to fully decode the stream which is going to be pretty CPU intensive for that much decoding.  How is your CPU and/or GPU utilization during playback?  I'm a bit surprised about the 1/8th still being a problem in that case, h.264 in general doesn't handle well in NLEs though, so conforming is still the best bet normally.

@Poma - It does seem like it is a performance issue, even without conforming, I was able to play back a GoPro 2.7k file on my rig in Premiere Pro with no issues.  I've got a 2.93ghz fist gen i7 with 12GB of high speed triple channel ram and a Radeon 6970 graphics card.  I tried playing it back in quicktime and it stuttered a bit, but playing it in Premiere was smoother.  There still was a little bit of bounciness, but my impression was that that was the original footage.  Even a 4k sample was ok.

looks like the cause of the problem was software rendering. In project settings I have only Mercury Playback Engine Software Only. Don't know how to fix it though.

@Poma - that's the only option I have as well, but it still runs fine.  That is just because you don't have CUDA support, however you could try one of the CUDA hacks to get the 650M to be recognized for CUDA support.  It may be that your 2.3ghz processor is too slow without CUDA support though.  There is a nice write up on enabling CUDA on non-officially supported NVidia cards here

Just installed premiere updates that adds GeForce 650M support without hacks. Now everything works smoothly.

Anyone who is still having poor playback issues with Adobe Premiere CC you need to go to Edit -> Preferences -> Audio Hardware -> and change your Default Input to "No Input".
Boom.

Thank you so so much, there is no way I would figure this out myself within the next few hours if not your answer. I did not have the faintest idea that plugging it my headphones could result in such a drastic decrease in performance without changing this setting. Like really, I had a 480p rendered video stuttering. Thanks much!

I had this as well one time. Solution for me was to edit in the correct video mode and fps. Maybe you can try to create a sequence from a standard HD DSLR preset? Or first try to edit in that preset. Prem 6.0 was created with native h.264 support, so you shouldn't need any proxies.

The problem was with source preview so it has nothing to do with the sequence. But I chose to match sequence format to source video anyway.


text:
Video Capture using ffmpeg (V4L2 indev) Results in Bad A/V Sync
I actually contributed to a bug report on this issue a year and a half ago ( https://trac.ffmpeg.org/ticket/692#comment:15 ). Basically, the problem is that using ffmpeg to record from a USB video capture device leaves the audio and video tracks out of sync. Depending on which input you list on the command line first, the sync problem will be different.
Since contributing to that report, ffmpeg has undergone many revisions, and the bug report has been updated to say that the problem was fixed by adding new command line options to the V4L2 indev (-ts default|abs|mono2abs). However, I have no idea what these new options mean or how they're meant to be used. I tried again tonight using ffmpeg to record from the video capture device. While the audio and video aren't as badly out of sync as they were 18 months ago, they're still out of sync.
Clearly, someone thinks this is fixed, leading me to think that I need more magic on the command line. Here's my latest incantation:
ffmpeg  -f alsa -i hw:1  -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0  -acodec libfaac -b:a 128k -vcodec libx264 -b:v 12M -g 1 -preset ultrafast  SYNCTEST.mp4

Adding various -ts options to the line doesn't seem to accomplish anything. I'm using ffmpeg version 2.1.4. Can anyone provide further insights?
Console Output:
$ ffmpeg  -f alsa -i hw:1  -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0  -acodec libfaac -b:a 128k -vcodec libx264 -b:v 12M -g 1 -preset ultrafast  SYNCTEST.mp4
ffmpeg version 2.1.4 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Feb 24 2014 08:21:48 with gcc 4.8 (Debian 4.8.2-16)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-cflags='-g -O2 -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -Wformat -Werror=format-security ' --extra-ldflags='-Wl,-z,relro' --cc='ccache cc' --enable-shared --enable-libmp3lame --enable-gpl --enable-nonfree --enable-libvorbis --enable-pthreads --enable-libfaac --enable-libxvid --enable-postproc --enable-x11grab --enable-libgsm --enable-libtheora --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --enable-libx264 --enable-libspeex --enable-nonfree --disable-stripping --enable-libvpx --enable-libschroedinger --disable-encoder=libschroedinger --enable-version3 --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-librtmp --enable-avfilter --enable-libfreetype --enable-libvo-aacenc --disable-decoder=amrnb --enable-libvo-amrwbenc --enable-libaacplus --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --disable-vda --enable-libbluray --enable-libcdio --enable-gnutls --enable-frei0r --enable-openssl --enable-libass --enable-libopus --enable-fontconfig --enable-libpulse --disable-mips32r2 --disable-mipsdspr1 --disable-mipsdspr2 --enable-libvidstab --enable-libzvbi --enable-avresample --enable-libiec61883 --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-vaapi --enable-libdc1394 --disable-altivec --disable-armv5te --disable-armv6 --disable-vis --shlibdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu
  libavutil      52. 48.101 / 52. 48.101
  libavcodec     55. 39.101 / 55. 39.101
  libavformat    55. 19.104 / 55. 19.104
  libavdevice    55.  5.100 / 55.  5.100
  libavfilter     3. 90.100 /  3. 90.100
  libavresample   1.  1.  0 /  1.  1.  0
  libswscale      2.  5.101 /  2.  5.101
  libswresample   0. 17.104 /  0. 17.104
  libpostproc    52.  3.100 / 52.  3.100
Guessed Channel Layout for  Input Stream #0.0 : stereo
Input #0, alsa, from 'hw:1':
  Duration: N/A, start: 1394670862.629223, bitrate: 1536 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Audio: pcm_s16le, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 1536 kb/s
Input #1, video4linux2,v4l2, from '/dev/video0':
  Duration: N/A, start: 575244.424820, bitrate: 165722 kb/s
    Stream #1:0: Video: rawvideo (YUY2 / 0x32595559), yuyv422, 720x480, 165722 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 1000k tbn, 1000k tbc
No pixel format specified, yuv422p for H.264 encoding chosen.
Use -pix_fmt yuv420p for compatibility with outdated media players.
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Slow SlowCTZ
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] profile High 4:2:2 Intra, level 3.0, 4:2:2 8-bit
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] 264 - core 142 - H.264/MPEG-4 AVC codec - Copyleft 2003-2014 - http://www.videolan.org/x264.html - options: cabac=0 ref=1 deblock=0:0:0 analyse=0:0 me=dia subme=0 psy=1 psy_rd=1.00:0.00 mixed_ref=0 me_range=16 chroma_me=1 trellis=0 8x8dct=0 cqm=0 deadzone=21,11 fast_pskip=1 chroma_qp_offset=0 threads=3 lookahead_threads=1 sliced_threads=0 nr=0 decimate=1 interlaced=0 bluray_compat=0 constrained_intra=0 bframes=0 weightp=0 keyint=1 keyint_min=1 scenecut=0 intra_refresh=0 rc=abr mbtree=0 bitrate=12000 ratetol=1.0 qcomp=0.60 qpmin=0 qpmax=69 qpstep=4 ip_ratio=1.40 aq=0
Output #0, mp4, to 'SYNCTEST.mp4':
  Metadata:
    encoder         : Lavf55.19.104
    Stream #0:0: Video: h264 (libx264) ([33][0][0][0] / 0x0021), yuv422p, 720x480, q=-1--1, 12000 kb/s, 30k tbn, 29.97 tbc
    Stream #0:1: Audio: aac (libfaac) ([64][0][0][0] / 0x0040), 48000 Hz, stereo, s16, 128 kb/s
Stream mapping:
  Stream #1:0 -> #0:0 (rawvideo -> libx264)
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:1 (pcm_s16le -> libfaac)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame=  436 fps= 30 q=-1.0 Lsize=     706kB time=00:00:14.91 bitrate= 387.9kbits/s dup=0 drop=4
video:448kB audio:240kB subtitle:0 global headers:0kB muxing overhead 2.682203%
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] frame I:436   Avg QP: 0.00  size:  1051
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] mb I  I16..4: 100.0%  0.0%  0.0%
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] final ratefactor: -25.57
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] coded y,uvDC,uvAC intra: 0.0% 0.0% 0.0%
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] i16 v,h,dc,p: 97%  0%  3%  0%
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] i8c dc,h,v,p: 100%  0%  0%  0%
[libx264 @ 0x1d1b0a0] kb/s:252.03

Added console output.

What player are you using? Does it seem like the sync is correct with ffplay? The option you referenced is meant to be used as an input option for the v4l2 input: -f v4l2 -ts abs -i /dev/video0 or -f v4l2 -ts mono2abs -i /dev/video0.

I'm using mplayer2, which has been exceedingly reliable (and I'm used to its keystrokes).  I'll re-check with ffplay.  --  It's not always obvious where to put the codec- or device-specific options on the command line; I'll try your positioning later this evening but, again, I don't know what they mean or are supposed to do.

Just tried using ffplay; the sync problem presents the same as in mplayer2 -- Tried both -ts abs and -ts mono2abs in the position you suggested; no apparent effect.

BTW, in the above-mentioned incantation, the video leads the audio by a fraction of a second.

Try: ffmpeg  -f alsa -i hw:1 -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0 -c:v libx264 -crf 0 -preset ultrafast -c:a copy lossless.mkv then re-encode it with ffmpeg -i lossless.mp4 -c:v libx264 -c:a libfdk_aac test.mp4 Does test.mp4 have better sync? What CPU are you using?

Will try that when I get home. -- The machine I'm running these experiments on is an older one; AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+ (2.2GHz).  I also use my laptop; Intel Core 2 Duo T7200 (2.0GHz).  However, the CPU load from these captures is negligible. -- Previously I've been using mencoder to do the captures, whose resulting A/V sync is fine, but mencoder isn't as flexible as ffmpeg.

Just tried your incantation.  Both lossless.mkv and the transcoded test.mp4 still exhibit the sync problem.  --  It really feels like a buffering issue (as I detailed in the bug report 19 months ago).  If I swap the order of the input devices, then the video trails the audio by a fraction of a second.

What if you use one ffmpeg process to capture video and one for audio (start them at the same time) and then mux the resulting files? ffmpeg -i audio.wav -i video.mkv -c copy -shortest output.mkv

The first thing that I noticed is that your camera is delivering yuv422p - which isn't bad in and of itself, but you could try forcing it to yuv420 by adding -pix_fmt yuv420p to your command. (This is nice if you ever plan on displaying your video on anything that isn't linux.)
The second thing that I noticed is that the start times are wildly different - which can often be a signal that things are going to sync wrong.
This is the command line that I used  that was able to reproduce your lag.
ffmpeg -f alsa -ac 2 -i hw:0,0 -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0 -r 25 \
       -acodec libfdk_aac -b:a 128k -pix_fmt yuv420p -vcodec libx264 SYNCTEST.mp4

by adding a -force_key_frames 00:00:00.000 I was able to sync them correctly.
ffmpeg -f alsa -ac 2 -i hw:0,0 -f v4l2 -i /dev/video0 \
       -force_key_frames 00:00:00.000 -r 25 -acodec libfdk_aac \
       -b:a 128k -pix_fmt yuv420p -vcodec libx264 SYNCTEST.mp4

Finally got around to trying this, using ffmpeg v2.4.2.  Although I swapped the position of the inputs on the command line from your example, it appears to work.  Thank you very kindly!


text:
How to add captions file to video podcast?
I'm starting a tutorial video podcast and have recorded a couple of episodes.
I've captioned them, and have the captions file in .srt format. However I haven't yet found a way to embed that file in the .mp4 video file that makes the captions optional for podcast viewers.
How can the captions be included with the podcast, so that viewers can turn them on only if they want them, but they will be off by default? I'm most interested in getting this working in the iTunes podcast section and the iOS Podcast app to start with (although a universal solution that works with all podcast clients would be great).
UPDATE 3rd April 2014:
No luck yet I'm afraid with solving this. Until something better comes along, in the podcast feed, for each <item>, I set the <link> element to a URL that hosts a version of the video with optional captions (captions are off by default), and towards the end of the body of the <description> element I repeat the same URL mentioning alongside it that subtitles are available there. See http://a.webdevbreak.com/episodes if you'd like to see an example.

Just so you know, if you come up with your own solution (even partial) like you described in your update, you can feel (and are encouraged) to post an answer to your own question.

Ordinarily, I'd create an Adobe AIR or AIR-for-iOS app to solve this problem. You'd just sychronize your captions to cue points in the video and make 'em visible or invisible with a programmed-in button. You could easily have multiple languages in this way.
Are iTunes podcasts just flat-out mp4 movies?

The video podcasts in iTunes are mp4 files. I think .m4v might be supported too in case that helps.

I think that, by definition, a flattened movie file of any type can't do this. You can, of course, add captions to the video but to have an optional on-off button you'll have to graduate to a more programmatic way of packaging video.

Have you tried WebVTT for marking up the subtitles?
http://www.w3.org/community/texttracks/2012/08/23/webvtt-support-in-browsers/
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Graphics/CaptionMaker/ is a surprisingly good tool for making captions. You could also cheat a bit and use Youtube's pretty good voice recognition to perhaps save time transcribing.


text:
What Codec Shows Absolute Black?
I need a codec that outputs an absolute black.
Encoded some samples with .AVI no compression and the black background of my video is very dark. Contrary in other codecs like Apple ProRes or H264/MPEG4 the black background of the same video is dark gray.
Is there a codec that can show the same black that the uncompressed .AVI has?
Gracias.

Vantolinomo - You might just be experiencing 'gamma shift' which can happen when you are exporting to H264 video.  You can find a tutorial to fix this here:
http://www.videocopilot.net/blog/2008/06/fix-quicktime-gamma-shift/


text:
1080p60 recording has very strong compression artifacts, default Neat Video not reducing them much
In attempting to record in the highest quality on a JVC GC-PX100 camcorder, I've been recording 1080p video.  Unfortunately, viewing the video upon edit shows very strong compression artifacts, which affect quality to the point that burning to DVD and burning to Blu-Ray end up with roughly the same results.  The video was taken on a reasonable photo tripod, so the camera was definitely steady, and the bulk of the video was unmoving walls with detailed paintings.
Adobe Premiere Elements 11 is what I'm doing for editing, and I've just tried the Neat Video plugin.  Unfortunately, while the default settings reduce the artifacts/noise in flat areas (cheeks, walls), but not along all edges (faces).
Essentially, the video is "crunchy", and that's visible on playback on a large TV.
Adobe Elements shows the .mts file from the camcorder is MPEG Movie, 1920x1080, frame rate 59.94, 48kHz audio, average data rate 3.3 MB/s (~34Mbit/s), pixel aspect ration 1.0.
VLC shows the .mts file from the camcorder is Codec H264 - MPEG-R AVC (part 10)(h264), 1920x1080, frame rate 59.940060, decoded format Planar 4:2:0 YUV, with A52 (aka AC3) 48kHz audio.
My goal is the highest quality result video, targeting Blu-Ray output.  My budget can handle a plugin fee, but not a new camcorder (spent too much on the add-on microphone).
So my questions in particular are:

Are there better settings to increase overall quality during recording?
Are there better settings for Neat Video
Is there another way to reduce compression artifacts in HD video taken by a good consumer camcorder?

EDITED TO ADD:
AJ, Jim, thank you for your answers; they led me to the regrettable conclusion that my expectations are too high for any 1080p60 mode at 35Mbit, and no 1080p30/25/24 mode is available on my model.
Even after the usual firmware update, and a factory reset as recommended by JVC Customer Support, the video is "crunchier" than I like.  There is no 1080p30 mode, unfortunately, and lesser modes have lesser bitrates as well.
After some experimentation, it appears that the AVCHD and MP4 1080p60 modes are more or less equivalent, with a possible slight edge to the AVCHD variant.
NeatVideo needs to have the plugin expanded and the Temporal Radius increased, as well as going into the settings to profile the video clip in question.  Edges remain crunchy, and dedicated "reference" profile video appears necessary to get good results.

You could try to make your video more compressible by using a tripod, or trying to hold the camera more steady, if that's an option.  Then the bad hardware encoder should have an easier time finding similarity with previous frames, and not having to throw away as much information.

It was tripod mounted, but thank you; I'll update the question.

Wow, that's just horrible if it has bad artifacting on low-motion content.  Is it recording in intra-only mode?  ffplay -vf showinfo, and look at the frame types.  If you see any type:P or type:B, then most of the blocks in each frame should just reference previous frames.  Sounds like a bad choice of chips by JVC, assuming there are some HW encoders that don't suck quite as much, compared to x264.

There is no way around needing more data rate to capture that much video information.  It sounds like the camera probably isn't actually capable of delivering 1080P/60 but that they use a very low quality version so they can slap the label on the box.
Data rates are generally measured in Mb(bits)/sec rather than MB/s, but even if your suggested rate actually is in MB/sec, 3.3MB/s for the video you are describing is near uselessly small and strong artifacting would be expected (particularly for a real time encoding) as the compression algorithm breaks down.
You need to use a mode that supports either a higher data rate or supplies less data to be encoded at that data rate.  There is no other real solution since there is no information there to actually use to fix the problem.

Thank you.  I'll try the 720p modes as well, since higher resolution is counterproductive if compression destroys more detail than is gained, though from the spec sheet they record at a lower bit rate (MOV: 1920x1080/60p, 40Mbps (Video: 36Mbps, Audio: 4Mbps)
MP4: 1920x1080/60p, 36Mbps / 1280x720/60p, 16Mbps
iFrame: 1280x720/30p, 36Mbps
AVCHD Progressive: 1920x1080/60p, 28Mbps
AVCHD: 1920x1080/60i, 17Mbps/5Mbps
MP4 (High Speed) 120/240/300fps: 640x360, 420/600fps: 320x176).

I assume the actual data rate is 3.3 Mb/s, not MB/s (bits, not bytes). This is very low for 1080p60, and artifacts are likely at such a low rate. You might consider capturing at at least double that rate.
Alternatively (or also), halving the frame rate to 29.97 would double the effective bit rate. You would be trading some motion artifacting for less visual artifacting, but the former is usually much less noticeable.
Considering that blu-ray can handle in the range of 40-50 Mb/s, your bit rate is way below the target for the delivery medium you've chosen.

Even if it was 3.3 MB/s, it is still very low for 1080p at 60fps.  Uncompressed that'd be 124 MB a second, so 3 is a 40 to 1 compression ratio...

I've updated the question: The data rate really is in Megabytes Per Second, and 3.3MB/s matches fairly well with JVC's claims of 35 Megabits per second.  I'll try and see if recording in 1080p30 still records at the same data rate, and if it reduces artifacts.

Ah, well 3.3 MB/s is more like 26Mb/s (3.3 x 8), which I would expect to provide fair video quality. I do think you'll get better pictures at 30p, but only testing in your environment will tell. You may also find that the sensor isn't really providing 1920x1080 and that 720p looks better overall.

hardware h.264 encoders are usually horrible compared to even x264 -preset superfast.


text:
Post-production workflow: VFX before color correction?
I'm shooting my first internet video tomorrow. It has a spaceship chasing and shooting at a superhero in it. With knowledge accumulated between ~a year ago and now and more focused research over the past week, my idea of post-production workflow for a VFX video in the style of FreddieW or Corridor Digital YouTube channels is something like this (prerequisite: I am talking about color correction as getting all shots into a uniform look color-wise, and color grading as getting the feeling you want from the color):

Edit raw shots into a sequence, and lock them there.
Do music, sound and VFX. Go through each shot in the video and add VFX elements, matching them to the shot's lighting, exposure, color, shadows, ...
Go through each composited shot and color correct and grade it.
Replace shots in locked edit with composited and color corrected and graded shots.

I have now these questions:

Is this workflow "correct"? Are there many "correct"'s (is it mutable)?
You're supposed to shoot in as low contrast and saturation as you can (this is called flat?) to make color correction easier, like you have a blank, unbiased canvas to "pull" the colors out of, right?
This is the real core of my question: how can you match VFX elements to flat footage when there's no amplified color detail to work with? Can I color correct before VFX, and leave color grading where it is?

Any workflow that works for you is "correct".  I don't see any obvious problems with your proposed workflow, though I would think you would want to do sound after VFX so that it can be properly timed to the VFX.  Depending on the software you are using, you may not have to lock the shots but may actually be able to move directly in to working on the shots.
As far as low contrast and low saturation, I would personally disagree with shooting for low contrast/low saturation.  This limits the depth of your available color space too much.  Your camera has a limited number of colors it can describe, if you ignore a large portion of that color space, then you can't describe as many colors and the resolution of your color after boosting the saturation and contrast will be very greatly reduced.  That said, if you have issues with lacking detail in your shadows, exposing it up in to mid-tones can help since your format doesn't actually support using that portion of the dynamic range anyway, so you wouldn't be losing anything meaningful.
The key is that you want to make strong use of the color space your camera can capture and encode that way you have the highest possible use of the color space as long as you are careful not to exceed the color space (color clipping needs to be avoided).  It is always easy to make colors more subdued and to lower contrast as this is moving from a high color resolution to a low one, but you can't move the other way because you don't have the detail to fill in.
What flat means is not necessarily low contrast or low saturation, but rather that the colors are not heavily tinted and that details are well represented within the usable portion of the color space.  They can be fairly vibrant, but they have a neutral response and gamma.  In other words, you want it to evenly capture detail across the DR, but you also want the DR to be fully utilized.  Think of flat as the way the curve looks in the Photoshop curves tool.  Flat would be a straight line rather than a curved one.  It can still have very strong contrast and saturation since the DR is being fully used.
For the third part, it really doesn't matter.  Either you mix to subdued colors and boost everything or you mix to vibrant colors and bring it down.  Either way, as long as it fits at some point, it will fit when you adjust the color grade of the entire frame if it fit well before.

Agreed with the low color situation. The problem gets worse because the camera has less color in the lower end because of gamma correction that happens on the die, camera sensors are not linear.

Yeah, You're right about the flat color. I'm so used to thinking that that means really desaturated, so thanks for clearing that up. But I think a good way to think about it, is like your audio levels. You want to record it as loud as you can without clipping to get the most detail out of it.

I'll echo AJ on most of his response, but I would caution against doing color correction after compositing unless the elements are already fairly congruent. Ideally you would apply at least gross color correction to each layer or element.
The notion of shooting 'flat' or low contrast IMO is a holdover from film, where you could pull contrast from the negative in a subsequent transfer or interpositive step. It's really not wise in a pure video / digital workflow. You do want to avoid clipping on either end, or oversaturating, but otherwise, use the range you have available. You can always compress or clip later, but undoing premature work later can be tough or impossible.

One really effective way to match VFX elements to real ones is to manually correct each channel. What you want to do, is start with let's say the red channel, match the lows, then match the highs, and then the midtones. Once you repeat it for the rest, they all basically fall into place.
Just to clarify, your footage color correction should only be to fix the exposure and any color errors in your footage. It shouldn't include any grading.


text:
What kind of video encoder can do this? Blend multiple video frames together live

How can I recreate the effect in the video above?  Having multiple camera frames blended together in a live stream  Preferably better.  I need some kind of video encoder that can stream to my FMS.
Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

While there are video encoders that do this kind of thing, most commonly this is the work of a video switcher or mixer.  A video switcher is a device used for mixing live video from multiple sources.  The bad news is they generally aren't cheap.  An HD capable switcher is typically in the $6000+ range with the absolute cheapest one I know of  being the Black Magic Design Studio ATEM which is $1000 and requires use of a software interface to control it.
The switcher then would output the final composite video that would go in to an encoder to be sent out, or in some newer cases, may even provide encoding functionality itself (such as the previously mentioned ATEM Studio).
Alternately, you probably can find software that will attempt to do the scaling and encoding operation on the fly, but it is going to require quite a beefy computer to pull it off and you'd likely end up spending more than the $1000 for the ATEM Studio to build a powerful enough system to handle it with any high level of quality.

Thanks AJ, you've been extremely insightful.  From a scalability standpoint, say I want to install this at many different facilities, would a software solution not be the superior solution?
Do you have any specific examples of video encoders that can perform this kind of blend?

ljavor - you would need thousands of dollars of hardware either way.  Is it going to actually be used simultaneously in many places?  If not, hook it up to a road case and setup a connection point for it at each location.  It would be far, far cheaper than buying setups for every location.  You are going to spend close to 3 grand per encoding system to get the kind of real time performance you would need to do it right.  The studio ATEM is a more affordable solution in addition to being more reliable and higher quality.

The idea would be to have many locations going all at once, however initially for testings sake it could be limited to streaming from 1 location.  I need to make the system as automated as possible such that once I go and install the system, no further interaction on site is needed.  The back end of my site would handle when the feed would be visible as well as delete un-wanted files.
Do you still think a switcher is still the best way to go?

Hmm, maybe not, but permanent installation stuff like that is less my area of expertise.  A preset scaler could probably make the output with a fixed encoder/streamer unit, but that will probably be more expensive than the ATEM.

Are there any video encoders that track and display a video frame with the most motion in it?  I would imagine that would suffice.
So is the blending being done in the above video chroma keying? And if I went with the ATEM, what additional equipment would I need?


text:
Pinnacle Studio 17 vs Adobe Premiere Pro CC
I have my own YouTube channel that I am currently developing graphics for. I use Adobe Photoshop CC to create the graphics and I have been using a trial of Premiere Pro for video editing and I love it.
However, I'm lucky enough to of got Photoshop on a year contract cheap from a special offer on Adobe but Premiere Pro will cost me twice as much each month for a year. I've seen Pinnacle Studio 17 Ultimate Movie Editor in a local store for £75 and that's a one-off cost.
So my question is: would I be able to use Pinnacle Studio as well as I used Premiere Pro?
Needs:

Accepts video formats that Premiere Pro does including .MP4
Multiple video & audio layers
Adjust position and size of separate layers
Chroma key
Accept .psd files (if possible)
Change audio layer volumes independently

Both Pinnacle Studio 17 and Premiere Pro CC will suit the needs you listed, but only Premiere Pro accepts .psd files, Pinnacle Studio does not. Furthermore, Premiere Pro has an option to directly export frames to Photoshop, edit them there, and import them back to Premiere Pro. That sounds like a feature you will find useful.

Both options will achieve most of what you need (possibly not PSDs, but you can use transparent TGAs exported from Photoshop), however Premiere Pro is a far more powerful and professional option.  If you don't like the idea of subscribing, I believe Premiere Pro CS6 is still available for one time purchase.
Alternately, Sony's Vegas Pro is also a highly capable professional level software NLE if you want to really maintain the feel and level of functionality of Premiere Pro without buying in to a platform that has moved to the rental model.
Personally, I work with Adobe Premiere CS6 and plan to move to Vegas when it gets too old unless Adobe comes to their senses and allows me to buy software again.


text:
color correction in fcpx
I am a long time photographer and have been doing more video work over the past few years. One constant source of angst when I need to correct the coloring of the video clips in FCPx. With photographs, I am used to very tight, quick and accurate control over the color and being able to match colors from a wide variety of sources and resulting output being able to look the same.
What I am really looking for is the ability to the same kind of color correction as available in Lightroom, Adobe Bridge, or even Aperture from inside FCPx. For example, I would love to target a particular color and shift it (oranges shifted more magenta, blues a little less green, etc.) And for the rest: recovery, brightness, black, etc. would be marvelous to have the same control.
What FCPx gives me are these very broad-brush, difficult to use, inaccurate tools. I must click and drag a 'light', 'medium', 'dark' and 'overall' slider around to a particular color range and hope it's OK. It's very crude and has none of the finesse and accuracy I can get with Lightroom. There is no ability to target specific colors and work with them individually.
Is there any plug in, tool or something that will enable me to have the same color mastery of video color correction that I now exercise over photography?

Try DaVinci Resolve lite. It's professional colorist software with most of the features of the full version, and it's free.  http://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/davinciresolve

thanks jason. do you have any suggestions for a decent coloring tutorial for resolve in an fcpx workflow?

Anything by Alexis Van Hurkman.  He does plenty of free tuts on youtube, and he has an excellent training series for sale on rippletraining.com  https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=+alexis+van+hurkman http://www.rippletraining.com/categories/avid-adobe-davinci-courses/davinci-resolve-products.html

@JasonConrad so... with Resolve (lite) do I have to export out of FCPX, import into Resolve and possibly export and import back into FCPX? If I understand right it's not a plugin to work with footage already imported in FCPX?

@Anetropic Yes, you'll need to roundtrip between FCPX and Resolve, but Resolve is pretty smart about it.  You can both import and export .fcpxml files with Resolve, so you're only really exchanging information about the edits, not the whole rendered movie.  And yes, you're right, Resolve isn't a plugin, it's a full app.  With release 11 (and now 12 beta), it's editing toolset is becoming stronger all the time.

I second using Resolve, but there are a few "hidden" color tools you can access if you have Motion, or know someone who does.
Motion allows you to publish effects for use in FCPX and can be transferred from one machine to another.
See this post from creativecow for a downloadable zip which includes
Brightness,
Channel Mixer,
Color Balance,
Colorize,
Contrast,
Gamma, and
Hue/Saturation.
https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/344/14335


text:
What is the technique behind mkv. video format?
Can someone please explain in detail the technique of encoding and decoding used in mkv video format and what is the major difference between mkv. and other video formats. It will be good if someone provide the link containing technical information regarding mkv video format  Thanks.

Do you actually mean encryption or do you mean encoding?  There is encrypted stream support in Matroska, but generally video is encoded, not encrypted.

@AJHenderson yea i am sorry i meant to say encoding decoding not encryption decryption.

This question is a bit nonsensical as Matroska is only a container format, however I think it does bring up a deeper question on how video files work in general.  Matroska doesn't actually define the way anything inside it is encoded or encrypted, it just stores the information that says what was used on the content so it can be decoded.
While Matroska does support encrypted content streams, generally video and audio is encoded, not encrypted.  Encoding is when a format is used to store data in a more efficient manner than a simple representation of the data, such as MPEG2, h.264, etc.  Encryption is when a key is used to protect data from unauthorized access or tampering and uses algorithms like DES, 3DES, TwoFish, Blowfish or AES.  In the special cases where video is encrypted, it is also generally still encoded prior to encryption to make it a manageable file size.
Either way, it is kind of a moot point though, because matroska can use any of a large number of encoders and/or encryptors.  As an open standard, the details of the container format are publicly available on the Matroska website here.  More precisely, this page describes the different codec formats that are currently suppoted by the container.
As far as the differences between Matroska and other formats, there isn't any meaningful difference.  It is a different way of storing the information about the streams, but the streams themselves are exactly the same as if they were in an AVI, MOV or m4v file (provided they are encoded in a codec that is supported in those containers.)  Transitioning between containers with appropriate tools is a lossless operation as the media stream itself is not materially altered.

@JunaydKhalid - no problem, video file formats are confusing since they are so many nested bits.  It's easy enough once you understand it all, but really confusing until you do.  You are certainly not the first to be confused by this, nor will you be the last.


text:
Vertical Black Bars, Aspect Ratio Problem. NEED A FIX
Heres the problem.
When exporting in Adobe Premiere CS5, there is an output tab. Once clicked it should show me what the video will look like when its exported but this is not the case and even when uploaded to youtube it isn't correct. Here are some screen shots to prove what I am talking about. I should add, when looking at the exported version. I have even checked off aspect correction to off and on then on and off. Also, matching sequence settings doesn't work either.
Ouput Tab

Presets

Clip Settings (Proves its actually in 480)

Finally here it is after its exported, how do I fix this. Many suggestions would help. THANKS!

You have set the wrong pixel aspect ratio (that has nothing do with the aspect ratio of your video resolution). Notice how you're source footage (the mpg file) has a pixel aspect ratio of 1.21 but you export it with a pixel aspect ratio of 0.91. Also your sequence is set to a pixel aspect ratio of 0.91 (that value in parenthesis next to your resolution in the export settings where the source specs are listed).
Change your sequence settings to the same pixel aspect ratio as your source (1.21 or simple the widescreen setting in the drop down menu), aswell as in your export settings. Though your might wanna export with a square pixel aspect ratio of 1:1 which is what youtube prefers. You will have to change the resolution for that though.

Minor issue, I believe the Standard 4:3 actually is refering to the pixel aspect used in 4:3 DV which is either .91 or 1.09 depending on NTSC or Pal, not 1.33 which is the ratio used for HD anamorphic widescreen.  1.21 is what should be used, which is NTSC DV widescreen.  Source

Right I forgot about that, I just divided the aspect ratio.

Edited accordingly.

It looks like you may have different aspect ratios on your various source files based on the appearance of the video.  You will need to adjust for this which will also mean needing to crop some of your video files to fit properly.
You need to choose a target resolution.  I'd recommend starting with square pixels if you intend it for web distribution or the appropriate DV standard if you intend it for DVD (either NTSC Widescreen or regular).  You then need to interpret everything at the appropriate format so that it displays properly despite whatever scaling is applied and then apply positions as necessary to get it to fill the screen.
This is non-trivial and may take a bit of time to get right.  While it will reduce the quality some, you may also want to consider resizing and altering the pixel aspect ratio of each clip individually before editing as that may be easier overall to keep track of what you are doing.


text:
FFMPEG standard transcoding settings
I am working on a project that provides video streaming to the users over the internet on web-browsers as well as mobile devices.
I am using following sample FFMPEG command to transcode the video:
ffmpeg -y -i inputvideo.mp4 -async 1 -metadata:s:v:0 start_time=0
-s 1280x720 -vcodec libx264 -strict experimental -pix_fmt yuv420p
-profile:v baseline -movflags +faststart -acodec aac -profile:a aac_low
-b:v 2000k -refs 6 -coder 1 -sc_threshold 40 -flags +loop -me_range 16
-subq 7 -i_qfactor 0.71 -qcomp 0.6 -qdiff 4 -trellis 1 -b:a 128k outputvideo.mp4

The command is generated dynamically using programming language after getting the video details once uploaded. What am I doing is, just reset bit-rate, height and width of the video using following settings:
If height >= 720 then set it to 720, width will be automatically set according to height and bit-rate will be 5000k,
If height >= 480 then set it to 480, width will be automatically set according to height and bit-rate will be 2500k,
If height >= 360 then set it to 360, width will be automatically set according to height and bit-rate will be 1000k
I got this logic from this link.
However, I want to downgrade the quality of video by 25-30% more as still videos are of greater size than I suppose to get after transcoding and it will cost the data charges more.
While searching for it, I found another link and it have different bit rate than the one I am using. I am not sure which one is better.
Can anyone suggest me how to downsizing the videos more by 25-30% more than current setting without more affecting the quality of video?

Rather than using constant bitrate, have a go using constant quality (AKA constant rate factor, or crf).
So instead of -b:v 2000 use -crf 23 (adjust the number to change the quality, higher is smaller / lower quality and lower is larger / better quality).
Constant quality usually gives you more bang for your bits, as it skimps on bitrate where it's not really needed. It also removes the need for extra scripting for diferent sizes, as it will automatically lower the bitrate for smaller frame sizes.
You could also use the x264 presets, like -preset slower or -preset veryslow to get x264 to spend more time optimising. It also removes the need to add all the extra encoding flags — the presets are basically some ready-rolled encoding flags (presumably made by people who know what they're doing). More on x264 encoding here
So your command could look like:
ffmpeg -y -i inputvideo.mp4 -async 1 -metadata:s:v:0 start_time=0 -s 1280x720 -vcodec libx264 -pix_fmt yuv420p -profile:v baseline -movflags faststart -profile:a aac_low -preset slower -crf 23 -b:a 128k outputvideo.mp4

I don't think you need the -strict-experimental flag, unless you've got an old version of ffmpeg.

+1 for -crf. If you have the time, -crf 23 and veryslow can give very compact files with quite good quality.


text:
How to move several parts of a multicam video and it's associated audio
What I need to do is to take a very complex multicam video and insert a new piece in the middle of it.
For instance, I have this project:

I need to move EVERYTHING from a certain point onward to the right:

And then I'm going to stick a new piece in that gap.  There are more synchronized pieces to the right of this screenshot, the whole video runs a little over an hour.
How would I do this and keep all the sync'd pieces intact?


text:
What is the productive way of doing multiple speed changes in a video editing project?
I have to stitch various pieces of footage together, and the final result will be about 1–1.5 hour long.
Because of all the needed changes (blurring faces, inserting images and icons in certain places, synchronising the footage pieces among each other and fading them out\in with right timings etc), my project map starts to look like this. The #3 and #4 tracks are just transitions from one piece to another. In tracks #1 and #2 is how most tutorials tell to deal with blurring\changing a screen area (duplicate the track above itself and then pan\crop the duplicate).
The problem is that in multiple places the video also has to be sped up\slowed down, and when I do it, the footage length changes like a fractal curve, and all the alignments get messed up. And besides these speed changes, the whole eventual video has to be sped up again once more too (x1.5).
This looks like one of those things that I’ll be cursing myself about later, because a simple and overlooked mistake led to losing huge amounts of time\work, so I decided to just ask about it now: am I doing it wrong, and if so—what’s the more productive way of dealing with many playback speed changes in relatively big editing projects?

I don't know Vegas unfortunately, but does it support nested sequences/timelines?  If so, you could apply the edits separately from the speed changes.  The transitions also seem to be a weird and atypical way to do them, but maybe it's a limitation of Vegas.

AJ Henderson: I don’t know why, but it didn’t work at first, right after I saw your reply. The markers were still getting messed up. Now, however, nesting the project as a single track does work. Would you kindly resubmit your message as an answer, so I’ll admit it and mark the question closed?

It isn't a perfect solution, but you can use nested sequences in order to apply your edits separately from your speed changes.  This way the speed changes impact the final video instead of just one clip.

Your screenshot does not have sufficient zoom to see how the checkpoints of Velocity envelope behave. Let me assume they are all having Transition of Hold, e.g. velocity changes abruptly, not gradually: 100% immediately to 150%, then immediately back to 100%.
Along the course of my experience with Vegas, I found velocity envelope inefficient. Instead, I find splitting Video Event into several ones more effective, and here's why.
Say, you have a video event of length 1 minute, as on Track 1. Say, you want the original timeline 0:20 till 0:30 to play at Velocity of 200%, so that it took only 5 seconds instead of 10 original.

Full scale image here
If you add a Velocity envelope as in Track 2 (200% at timecode 0:20), you would need to guess at which point to put another control point for Velocity so that playback continued at original speed.
Also, the end marker of the video indicates that the actual timeline ends at approx. 0:54 (and the rest is a repeat of the same video event from the beginning).

However, if you take another approach and split your video as displayed on Track 3 and then Ctrl+drag the end point of the middle Event, it would work smoothly. You will be sure that the third Event starts at proper timecode (in original scale).
The only thing you would need is dragging the 3rd Event backwards, as shown in Track 4.
Moreover. As soon as you Group all three Events by Ctrl+clicking them and then pressing G, you will be able to process them together. In Track 5, I have stretched all three events so the entire video played a bit slower.

Note 1. Most likely, you will need to overlap these three Events somehow. This will let the stream to be smoother, without abrupt Velocity changes.
Note 2. Of course, all above applies to multi-track Groups as well. You need not keep all Events within the same Track.


text:
Spec for GPAC's DashCast configuration?
According to DashCast, we should provide a configuration file of several entries. The document demos some options:
[v1]
type=video
width=1280
height=720
bitrate=800000
[v2]
type=video
width=640
height=360
bitrate=400000
[a1]
type=audio
bitrate=128000
[a2]
type=audio
bitrate=256000

For my first run of DashCash, the configuration file would be automatically generated if it is not existing. Here is the autogenerated one:
[v1]
type=video
bitrate=2000000
framerate=24
width=1920
height=1080
crop_x=0
crop_y=0
codec=libx264

[a1]
type=audio
bitrate=192000
samplerate=44100
channels=2
codec=aac

I'm wondering where I can get a spec of options for this configuration file?

This is available on the page you linked to directly.  Look under the Configuration Files section.
Relevant details from the page:
A file "-conf" file.
[ID]        # The ID of the representation
type=T      # T can be "audio" or "video"
width=W     # if type is "video",
            # W is the width of the representation
height=H    # if type is "video",
            # H is the height of the representation
bitrate=B   # B is the bitrate (bps) of "video" or "audio"

And a "-switch-source" file.
[ID]         # The ID of the source identification.
type=T       # T can be "video"
start=ST     # ST is the start time YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss
end=ET       # ET is the end time YYYY-MM-DD hh:mm:ss
source=S     # S is the address of the source

Additionally, from looking in the source itself, the configuration file is read in the cmd_data.c file starting on line 160 or so (depending on rev) in the dc_read_configuration method.
For the conf file, video type can have codec, framerate, crop_x, crop_y and custom.  Audio types can have codec, samplerate, channels and custom.
Custom appears to push the value assigned directly in to the libav codec.
For the Switch source file, the type appears to actually be able to be video or audio.  Both only have the listed 4 options.

I doubt it is the full spec. According to my test, the automatically generated configuration would use more options than the one in the doc. I just updated my question with another sample.

@Drake - hmm, I don't know then, I couldn't find any further documentation available when I looked.  I suppose you probably had the same problem.  I was able to dig up a little bit more detail from reading the source code itself.

Let's wait and see if there would be more complete spec then.


text:
Any m2ts optimizer under Linux?
My goal is to optimize m2ts generated by ffmpeg for HLS because the generated m2ts has lots of structural overhead.
The below is an example of the result analyzed by Apple Media Stream Validator:
Average segment duration: 4.95 seconds
Playlist target bitrate: 112.00kbits/sec
Segment bitrate: Average: 149.65 kbits/sec (exceeds target by 33.62 %), Max: 179.40 kbits/sec (exceeds target by 60.18 %)
Average segment structural overhead: 33.52 kbits/sec (22.40 %)

The m2ts is generated through the following ffmpeg command (for generating HLS):
ffmpeg -i audio_p0.mp4 -i video_p0.mp4 -dn -sn -threads 0 -map 0:0 -map 1:0 -f ssegment -segment_time 5 -segment_list movie.m3u8 -segment_list_entry_prefix p0 -segment_format mpegts -c:v copy -c:a copy -vbsf h264_mp4toannexb -flags -global_header p0/stream_%04d.ts

The output of the above command:
ffmpeg version 2.5.2 Copyright (c) 2000-2014 the FFmpeg developers
  built on Jan  7 2015 09:58:46 with Apple LLVM version 6.0 (clang-600.0.56) (based on LLVM 3.5svn)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/2.5.2 --enable-shared --enable-pthreads --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-hardcoded-tables --enable-avresample --cc=clang --host-cflags= --host-ldflags= --enable-libx264 --enable-libfaac --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libxvid --enable-libfreetype --enable-libvpx --enable-libvo-aacenc --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libx265 --enable-nonfree --enable-vda
  libavutil      54. 15.100 / 54. 15.100
  libavcodec     56. 13.100 / 56. 13.100
  libavformat    56. 15.102 / 56. 15.102
  libavdevice    56.  3.100 / 56.  3.100
  libavfilter     5.  2.103 /  5.  2.103
  libavresample   2.  1.  0 /  2.  1.  0
  libswscale      3.  1.101 /  3.  1.101
  libswresample   1.  1.100 /  1.  1.100
  libpostproc    53.  3.100 / 53.  3.100
Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'audio_p0.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2mp41
    encoder         : Lavf56.15.102
  Duration: 00:00:43.76, start: 0.046440, bitrate: 33 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(und): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 32 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler
Input #1, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from 'video_p0.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
    encoder         : Lavf56.15.102
  Duration: 00:00:43.63, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 80 kb/s
    Stream #1:0(und): Video: h264 (Constrained Baseline) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 426x240 [SAR 640:639 DAR 16:9], 79 kb/s, 24 fps, 24 tbr, 12288 tbn, 48 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
Output #0, stream_segment,ssegment, to 'p0/stream_%04d.ts':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 512
    compatible_brands: isomiso2mp41
    encoder         : Lavf56.15.102
    Stream #0:0(und): Audio: aac (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 44100 Hz, stereo, 32 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : SoundHandler
    Stream #0:1(und): Video: h264 (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 426x240 [SAR 640:639 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 79 kb/s, 24 fps, 90k tbn, 24 tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      handler_name    : VideoHandler
Stream mapping:
  Stream #0:0 -> #0:0 (copy)
  Stream #1:0 -> #0:1 (copy)
Press [q] to stop, [?] for help
frame= 1047 fps=0.0 q=-1.0 Lsize=N/A time=00:00:43.76 bitrate=N/A
video:427kB audio:172kB subtitle:0kB other streams:0kB global headers:0kB muxing overhead: unknown

You did not provide very much information. Are you using ffmpeg? If yes, then show your command and the complete console output. What do you mean by "trim out"? What exactly are you trying to do?

I update the title to reflect more clear. To optimize or reduce the structural overhead of m2ts generated by ffmpeg.

You forgot the console output from ffmpeg. I'm not sure how I could be more clear about asking for the output, but I need to work on that since it seems to be omitted often.


text:
Importing miniDV using passthrough on Elura 85 not working
First, I have an old VHS unit that I confirmed working by outputting tape to our current TV.
I then connected the VHS unit to the Canon Elura 85 using the provided cables. I switch it to playback, AV>DV to ON and played the tape.
I see nothing on the viewfinder of the Elura. Well, nothing except some black lines jumping here and there.
I think the Elura isn't sensing full video playback, that it's a blank tape perhaps? Not sure if there's a setting that would tell it to ignore whatever it thinks as blank tape and just play the noise?
Update #1
I'm assuming the Elura is thinking that the VHS is spewing ghost signal...
https://www.manualslib.com/manual/24448/Canon-Elura-80.html?page=84
Update #2
I also tried other various home video tapes and got the same results.

What VHS tape are you trying to copy? Is it a commercial video or a home video?

It's a VHS tape of home videos.

It was the cable (STV-250?) linking the VHS to my camera that was the problem. After borrowing one from a friend, it worked and I'm now capturing video.


text:
Camcorder pass-through or stand alone capture box for VHS source
What would yield better quality: camcorder pass-through or buying a more recent dedicated capture box?
I have a Canon Elura 65 that I've used in the past to capture video from VHS sources. It produces 480i AVI files. However, I lost the AV cable.
So, should I get a new cable from EBay or buy a dedicated capture box?

I'm not very experienced with VHS but usually you get the best results with a good VHS player rather than the on-board playback hardware of the camera.

@ProfessorFartSparkle - That isn't what he is talking about here.  He's talking about using an old DV camcorder as the capture device for an analog source.  Many DV camcorders supported line input and would translate it to a digital signal.

This is really going to depend on the quality of your camera and the quality of your VCR.  In general, the circuitry that is used to digitize an analog signal has grown by leaps and bounds in the past 10 to 15 years, but also VHS tapes and VCRs produce limited quality to begin with.   For maximum quality you will certainly want something with an S-Video input and a VCR deck with an S-video output to maximize quality.
As far as the line input goes, I'd probably favor the line input on a high quality camera from the end of the DV era over a cheap USB capture device, but a modern moderate or high quality capture device is going to do much better than even a high end in-camera analog to digital converter.  Even cheap USB devices now are most likely better than cheap camcorders or early camcorders in the DV era, but millage will vary depending on the specific device.

I forgot about S-Video. I went and looked at my VCR and it only has RCA plugs, no S-Video. Ebay has USB S-Video/RCA capture devices for $10. The Elura 65 cable is $5 (but enables me to use Firewire).


text:
which camera is best for conducting the interview constantly as one-man show?
i tried some DSLR but those have some video shoot limit like 20 minuets. please
help me for select good tools like (camera, light, microphone) in low budget.
i want to shoot constantly 2hr interview.and my budget $1800 for all equipment.

Hello Harshad, and welcome to Video Production. Thanks for your question, but there's a lot of room for improvement. For the best answers, give us as much detail as possible: what budget do you have ($100? 1000?), are you indoors, outdoors, how long do you have to record continuously for? You can edit your question to add this vital information.

Additionally, is there a reason you need to have it record constantly.  Often a single long video shot is very visually boring and it is best to edit the footage to break up the flow in to something more visually interesting so that viewers are not staring at the same shot for more than a few minutes at most.  If you do this, then the 29 min 59 second limitation of a DSLR isn't a problem at all.  Additionally, some DSLRs have third party extensions that will allow filming beyond the 30 minute limit.

@nchpmn thanks for answer
my budget $1800 for all equipment and i want to shoot constantly 2hr interview in indoors environment.

@AJHenderson thanks for answer. actually i don't want to bother interviewee  every time in interview. and second thing is i am the only person is host and camera handler so that's why i need camera which shoot constantly 2 hr

Let me start by saying that $1800 is a very, very small budget for this kind of a setup.  Bordering on impossible to get the kind of results you probably are hoping to get, if not over the line in to impossible.
Video is sadly a rather expensive field to get in to and a professional quality camera the likes of what most popular YouTube shows are produced with runs more than your entire budget for one camera alone (often upwards of $5 or $6k per camera when including lenses and support/stabilization gear) and that's considered a fairly "budget" option by the wider video production industry (where broadcast and movie cameras are in the $60,000 or even $100,000+ range).
Now, you don't need the same quality they are using and thankfully lower end gear has come a long way, but even minimal costs run close to or over your budget and it will show in the final product, just so you know what you are getting in to.  It will still be much better than Uncle Bob's family home videos, but it won't look like a top YouTube production either.
So my approach to answering the question is basically to give you what I think the bear minimum is to have any chance of achieving the quality you are hoping for.  It makes sacrifices in areas I'd personally rather avoid sacrificing in, but it's the only way to give you a chance of accomplishing your goal in your budget.  If you could increase the budget to $3000, it becomes far simpler (or considering used gear could also do it, though that really depends if you have a reliable vendor of used gear in your area.)
Personally, I'd still look at DSLRs, particularly Canon DSLRs with Magic Lantern support.  With a remote, it's not a larger distraction than having to stop for re-takes which you will also likely need to do for a top quality end product.  The way you do it is that you have two or more different cameras running and you start them on an offset.  As long as you check every few minutes, you can restart one at your leisure because the other is filming.  It isn't hard or even something that noticeable to your interviewee.
That said, the best bet is to have both the quality of a larger sensor and better optics crossed with being able to record without interruption.  Using a camcorder in your price range is going to have a noticeable negative impact on the footage, but using a Canon DSLR that Magic Lantern supports, it is possible to bypass the 30 minute limitation and have the camera automatically start recording a new file when it reaches 30 minutes.  There might be a gap of a second or two, but it won't matter since the other camera will have a shot then and you just edit around the gap.
Magic Lantern is technically a bit of a hack, but it is a well established third party "firmware" (it isn't actually firmware technically) that offers a wide range of enhancements for Canon DSLRs and makes them far more powerful video platforms.  Alternately, I believe there is also a similar hack for Panasonic's Lumix GH2.
Another decent option, though again limited, is to go with GoPro cameras.  They will get you good quality sensors and video but they limit you to the built in fixed lens.  As long as you don't mind positioning the cameras carefully though, they are cheap, light and high quality, and they don't have the 30 minute recording limit of DSLRs.  They won't get quite the same quality, but it's probably the best quality you'll get in a non-DSLR for your price range (or anywhere close to it).
Don't forget that you need tripods either.  At your budget, you won't be able to get tripods that are good for video, but since they are static shots, that shouldn't matter too much.  (A halfway decent video tripod is around $300 alone.)  For your purposes, go with the cheapest tripod that can hold your camera still, probably around $50 to $80 a piece.
As for lighting and mics, $1800 budget is really not a whole lot to go on, even for cameras alone if you want solid quality.  You are pretty much looking at getting either a stand alone recorder like a Zoom h4n or, if you can have a PC present, a USB audio interface that accepts XLR inputs (would be a bit cheaper than the h4n) and a couple of basic Lavilear mics (the kind that clip on to your shirt) or perhaps shotgun mics with stands depending on how quiet the room will be.  The Lav's are honestly probably the best bet since you don't have anyone to monitor the audio.
Lighting, you'll just need to use what little you have left to pick up some basic lights to fill out the kit.  We're probably talking home depot (hardware store) clip on light cheap with some home made diffusers and reflectors at that point because you will only have $100 to $150 left in your budget probably.  You might be able to squeeze in a really cheap quality lighting kit, but I don't have any direct experience using those to know if they would be substantially better than the home depot solution.
If you do have a reliable used gear vendor and don't mind going used, get used DSLRs (perhaps T2i cameras) and then use what that saves you to get a decent lighting kit and/or slightly higher end LAVs.

Rather than enumerate how unrealistic the budget is for what you're trying to do.. Here's some thoughts towards making it, with the information you gave.
In the $500 range we're talking about a camcorder (DSLR like a used t3i might be in this category, but he specifically asked for a camera without the "shooting limit").
Perhaps one of these would foot the bill.
Canon Vixia R52
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1023205-REG/canon_vixia_hf_r52_full.html
or the Sony HDR XR160
http://www.amazon.com/Sony-HDR-XR160-High-Definition-Handycam-Camcorder/dp/B004H8FN8K/
These are below the budget, have relatively "long" running batteries, mic inputs, etc..
This is not an expensive or likely sturdy lighting package.. but it will work and with very little outlay you can experiment and find what you really use.
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B005FHZ2SI/
For sound: add a mic to one of those cameras or get a cheap external recorder like the zoom H2 which you can mount on the camera with a hot-shoe or on a tripod near the subject with/or without a lav mic.
http://www.amazon.com/Zoom-H2-Portable-Stereo-Recorder/dp/B000VBH2IG
This whole package at the moment will run you less than $700 + tripod, extra batteries, etc.
If you need more "professional" look maybe a Black Magic Pocket Cinema ($500 + lens)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/964117-REG/blackmagic_design_blackmagic_pocket_cinema_camera.html
Will give you the run-time and with the proper lens and setup, better footage to work with.

It is worth noting that you did not include a tripod in this setup.  It's a pretty solid effort at a gear recommendation so far, but a tripod is really critical.  The main weakness with this setup so far will be audio.  A single microphone or recorder is going to get a lot of room noise and not be all that great in terms of audio quality unless you are shooting in a really good environment.

Given a camera budget of $500, there are several handheld camcorders without recording time limits.  Before you choose one, here are some considerations:
You'll want to be able to disable autofocus, since focus hunting is very distracting.
Manual iris + exposure are a major plus for the same reason-- in an interview, you want a consistent image. Camcorders are designed to be handheld, and as such, they have hyperactive auto settings.
You will probably want two cameras, a master medium shot and a close up. This allows you to edit for length and clarity by cutting between the two angles.
You can record sound either in the camera or on an external recorder of some kind. Look into shotgun mics and lavalier mics. I prefer shotguns, as lavs can be a hassle.
For lighting, you can get really far by visiting a hardware store. Clip-on lights are cheap and preferable to halogen work lights for the quality of the shadows that they produce.
Light can be softened by bouncing it off of opaque white surfaces like walls, ceilings, or foamcore.

Edited for clarity. $500 refers to the camera budget. As no actual budget was stated, I substituted the cost of a cheap DSLR body.
As we have discussed previously, when conducting an interview on your own, set-and-forget is the name of the game. Whether on camera or off, you are part of the performance, and you simply cannot have good conversational flow when you're constantly hitting the record button on multiple cameras. I would argue that the quality of the interview itself is more important than stylistic decisions like shallow DoF.

30 minutes is hardly constantly, especially if you can use a remote to start it.  I do agree that you wouldn't want it to distract from giving the performance though.  I've just never been that impressed with the visual quality of a camcorder in the $500 range, but my experience in that range is also quite limited.