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Morph between 100 portraits
I`m looking for a workflow to morph between 100 portrait photos without animating every single transition in After Effects.
Are there any tools to achieve this automaticly ?

There is a "new" "Morph Cut" as Premiere Video Transition. You could just place all images in a new Sequence and then copy paste the Video Transition. Remember to adjust the length of the transition itself before copy´n paste and also the length of the images.

I don't think there is a plugin that does this 100% automated for you.  However I have used the steps in this tutorial many times and it works great.
http://cgi.tutsplus.com/tutorials/create-a-facial-morph-without-using-3rd-party-plug-ins--ae-22370

This technique using Time Remap is effective and doesn't require any extra plugins, (but isn't automated):


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is this movie "I Am Kalam (2010)" shot with sony nx level camera?
Please check this video and help me to know that can we shoot same quality level movie using Sony HXR NX1 Video Camera

Thanks for help in advance.

The depth of field and dynamic range visible in the movie lead me to think that it was shot on film, or perhaps with a much higher-level camera. You will not be able to reproduce the look of I Am Kalam with any NX-level camera. The sensor is simply too small.
However, you could shoot a very nice movie with that camera if you paid extra-close attention to lighting. Careful control of highlights, shadows, and the shape of your light will give you a much better result than any camera you might use.

i guess most of short film maker and low budget film maker use higher range of camera and good lighting

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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Converting iCop Encrypted DAV to AVI or MP4
I work for a newspaper. Late last year there was a car chase leading to the death of a couple of people. We've recently ... persuaded ... the police involved to release the dash cam footage.
Unfortunately they are using the iCop software, and the footage they released is encrypted and can only be viewed through the shared viewer that they sent along with it.
We want to convert this to an AVI or MP4 format, so we can edit and upload to our website with the story about the accident. Does anyone have any experience working with this video format? I've Googled heavily, and I have used a multitude of other converters that work with DAV format, but unfortunately I believe the encryption on this one is causing the file to not convert properly.

Worst case scenario - you can use a screen-capture tool to record the video as it plays back in the proprietary viewer. Then convert that to a standard MP4. Let me know if you want specific steps.

That's my plan B. I'm hoping that I can find a more permanent solution, though. I'd like to be able to solve this moving forward, as well as for this particular video.

How does the file not convert properly? What does the output look like?

It won't play after conversion. The original file is encrypted, so a converter without a decryption won't work.

I guess you've tried Dahua and ffmpeg?

I haven't tried Dahua (need to be logged in to see the download links there, or I'd try it) but ffmpeg has the same conversion errors as the rest.

Let us continue this discussion in chat.

Did you manage to solve this?

My company software Amped FIVE supports the conversion of hundreds of proprietary DVR formats, including the DAV. I am not sure we ever encountered an encrypted DAV, though it may be worth a try. Feel free to contact me to evaluate your file.
I fully agree with you that screen capture is the last resort.

In my opinion, most converting software on the market don't support to convert DAV files, except Dahua AVI Convert.

But it only can convert DAV to AVI, not all video formats.

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


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Live-stream HD camera to stream on one's own Wordpress website
I was wondering if someone could help me with this project with live-stream cameras. I am not sure what the best camera / broadcast transmitter or internet package I should purchase to ensure that it goes smoothly. The project will take place in Italy. Thank you so much for your time in advance!!!
The IDEA: 4 live-streaming HD web cameras that are mounted to a headpiece at a petting zoo. The cameras have wifi transmitters that stream footage to a wordpress-based website where all four cameras are showing their live video feed (using the VideoWhisper plugin). The visitors will wear the devices so it is their POV so via the web, it is as if one is virtually petting the animals. Online viewers can choose which camera of the 4 they would like to see in full HD or switch to view another to see/virtually pet other animals at the zoo.

I think the answer to your question depends largely on your budget. A pretty easy and standard config (but which is not really cheap) would be using GoPros with the corresponding helmet / head mount and plugging it into something like a Teradek VidiU http://teradek.com/pages/vidiu - configuring it for your favourite streaming provider and pointing your WordPress plug-in to show that stream.
A wired article about the vidiu and two other streaming devices:
http://www.wired.com/2014/10/hd-streamer-boxes/
Depending on how long this needs to run, you should maybe add an additional battery solution to the setup, the vidius internal battery only seems to run for 60 minutes...
Apparently GoPro themself announced a streaming transmitter / receiver System called heroCast but it seems to be even more expensive than the teradek.
Alternatively you could use a smartphone to do the recording / transmitting with something like the bambuser app / service, most certainly the quality will be worse than the GoPro / vidiu solution, but cheaper. For both solutions you additionally need to make sure you got a decent WiFi coverage for the areas you want to be part of your project or - broadcast the stuff over LTE / UMTS, involving extra cost for the appropriate data plan you need to get in that case.


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What's the benefit of Hollywood still using film for most major productions?
As a semi-professional cinematographer and photographer, I've always wondered why large productions mostly always prefer to use Film cameras, even with the development of cameras such as RED and BlackMagic?
How do the recorded films get converted to digital? isn't there some sort of inevitable quality loss from this process? Not to mention expensive?
(Sorry in advance if any of these points sound uninformed or just plain dumb!!)

Film shows are digitized by scanning the film. The films are often then color graded before creating the deliverable. This process is known as "digital intermediate" or "DI"

Is this an impression you have or based on statistics you read? My impression is the opposite: projects shot on film have become so noteworthy they get some press coverage for the fact alone they are shot on film. Then you have things like "interstellar" where the hype was about the 70mm or tarantino who says movies on digital are not sexy. What I heard is that unlike 5 yrs ago, the predominant tool in feature film has become the arri Alexa, while RED is going strong in advertisement. From the distribution side I know that (in Germany) the big multiplex cinemas don't have 35mm projectors installed anymore - they set them up on demand - and that at big film festivals like the berlinale, the amount of analog prints has changed from 9 out of 10 to less than 1 out of ten over the last ten years. Apparently it has become difficult finding a lab that can develop analogue film (in Germany) nowadays.
The reason for people still using film is probably that film automatically adds a lot of organic texture, like minor irregularities, grain etc. that a lot of people aesthetically prefer and which is not easy to mimick digitally in post-production. Using the "original" material also is a tribute to the history of the craft in a way... Going analogue all the way, even in editing (which is really not done anymore I think, even with the biggest fans of film stock) takes you back to a process which is actually destroying something (making a cut) to create something new, so there are some powerful metaphors in the original process ;)
Products like Blackmagic cameras are not used in big budget productions because the quality assurance, sensor quality etc. Is not up to par with cameras by arri or red. And for productions on an average Hollywood budget, the difference between I.e. 5000$ for a bm camera or 60.000$ for an Alexa is not really relevant, especially since a flaky camera ruining a shooting day can result in much higher costs.

The biggest reason for shooting on film is because...it looks like film.
20 years ago, Red Hat founder Bob Young told a story about branding that bears on this question.  He explained that if you offer somebody who has never tasted Ketchup before two samples, one being the most popular brand in America (which enjoys > 80% market share) and the other being any other brand of Ketchup (chosen at random), almost everybody will find both to be equally unpalatable.  Yet among people familiar with Ketchup, the majority specifically prefers Heinz.  It is now possible to build digital imaging systems (ARRI Alexa, RED Weapon, SONY F65) that are objectively better than film in resolution, dynamic range, noise, etc.  But those features do not influence a preference that is based on familiarity.
As Hans Meiser points out, there's been a huge flip from film projection to digital projection in the past 10 years, which means that extraordinary measures are necessary to even screen films these days.  So it is newsworthy and remarkable, like a dinosaur actually walking down Main Street, when a movie is released as an actual film.
Film does have the advantage of being an interesting archiving format.  It is not perfect, but when properly stored, it has many advantages over naive digital archiving strategies.  But I would say that the principle reason for film's continued popularity among the Hollywood Elite is because the current generation of the Elite grew up with film, and that is their favorite brand of Ketchup.  The next generation have different preferences, and they will have their say as the older generation ages out.

Actually i think film, as a relatively "high resolution" medium, is (as far as i know) the only archival medium known to last 100yrs and longer. I don't know if they changed it recently but the really super important governmental stuff (in germany) is still archived on microfilm, put into steel containers and sent down a storage facility in a salt mine. who knows what will be left of all the digital stuff in 100 yrs...

We can very accurately model the reproduction characteristics of film with digital systems.  It's 100% perfect because of the stochastic nature of silver grains in the emulation and the spectral sensitivities of the film vs those of digital cameras but we can get close.

By far the biggest benefit is archival.
We know how to store film and retrieve the images for at least 100 years.  That's not the case with digital  film making.  Assuming you are able to get the bits off the disk (damn where's my syquest drive), and you can read the file format (will anyone know what a jpeg is in 100 years), you still have no idea how the values relate to the images on the screen.  Are they scene referred values encoded relative to camera spectral sensitivities?  Are they device code values intended to drive a particular display?  Are they values representing a device independent color encoding like DCDM X'Y'Z'.
Assuming you have that all worked out there's the significantly greater expense associated with archiving digital films.
The issues are very well laid out by the Acadmey of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences here : https://www.oscars.org/science-technology/sci-tech-projects/digital-dilemma
The Academy Color Encoding System (ACES) is intended to address some of these issues.  http://www.oscars.org/science-technology/sci-tech-projects/aces


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How to smooth a time lapse video
I want to improve my video time lapse made by many pictures. How can add an effect like fade in/out on overlapped photos (1000+). I want nice changes of photos like in this video

 so the video play smoothly. An example of a my time lapse is here

the video links are broken

In order to get a smoother timelapse you should shoot at a higher frequency. If you want you can always blend between two images results in somewhat more smoothenes.
The first video however is made with a totally different technique, there we only have a few videos and use morphing to get from one image to the next.
This technique interpolates the colours on one hand, but also the position of different points on the image on the other hand. This requires you to find some keypoints on both images in order to find a corresponding function. There are softwares that can do this for you, but I do not know any I could recommend.

What is exactly blending and how do I use this?? Can you post a link of this??

Blending is the generic transition from one image to another.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alpha_compositing#Alpha_blending

Yes I was thinking about this.. This is what I meant with "fade in-out" . I used this on movie maker but I don't know how to use it on after effects on multiple pictures.

In the DiCaprio video above, the main technique used is actually morphing.  You could use this to smooth out your time lapse videos, and I believe there is still cheap/ free morphing software available, but the process would be somewhat laborious for the video you posted above.
A better solution would be to use the built-in motion stabilization tools of programs like adobe after effects or final cut pro x. Both of these programs are capable of optical flow analysis and can use it both to re-time motion (and create new in-between frames) and to stabilize footage.

Yes I want to re-time the motion. But warp stabilisation is risky because it may shake the video. Is there any other tool that smooth the video like warp stabilisation to create new frames between photos?

I would suggest you to find more information about Frame Blending or Motion interpolation.
This is for example used in timelapse videos to smooth the render.

To blend frames, use ffmpeg with the tblend filter.
For example the following command can help :
ffmpeg -i {input} -vf "tblend=average,framestep=2,setpts=0.50*PTS" -r {srcfps} -{encoding parameters} {output}. Replace {input} by your input file, {output} by the name of the output file, {srcfps} by your source frames per second, and -{encoding parameters} the parameters you tell ffmpeg to output.
You could also add minterpolate filter to the filter stack to add some motion blur.
To generate new frames based on motion, the Butterflow project can help : https://github.com/dthpham/butterflow

Features
Makes motion interpolated videos (increase a video's frame rate by rendering intermediate frames based on motion, uses a combination of pixel-warping and blending).
Makes smooth motion videos (simple blending between frames).
Leverages interpolated frames to make fluid slow motion videos.

I'm using lighten instead of average and it doesn't seem to be working - I've got a timestamp in the footage and instead of blurring together like a lighten-only filter would do it's crisply jumping ahead by 7 seconds each frame.

Oh... I just reread the documentation on lighten.. I had assumed that if I increased framestep it would blend more frames together but it seems it only blends two.. How do I blend more, say 100 frames at a time?

Please check another way to mix frame using multiple lighten blending.

https://www.visionrouge.net/web/2020/01/how-to-de-flicker-long-term-time-lapse-pictures-for-smooth-video/

Welcome! Can you summarize the contents of the link here? That is strongly encouraged so that people can easily get complete answers here and in case the link becomes unavailable in the future.

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


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Does anybody know any movies or stock footage with 1800's docks?
For my school project I need footage of an 1800s dock with old-fashoined sailing ships at it. I've been searching for at least 2 hours already, but I found nothing useful. Does anybody know any good documentaries or movies that have footage of docks? Thanks!

Anywhere in the world or in a specific place?

so I wasn't able to find any footage from the 1800s (probably because video was very new and not too common back then) but I have found some old footage of docks which I think might be of interest.
London's Lost Docks DVD clip (1980s)

This is about a minute of a Documentary about the London docks and may be of use.
Britain's finest hours: The battle of Trafalgar

This is a recreation of a battle between the UK, Spain and France overseas in 1805.
Another video on the battle of Trafalgar and is using a game to try and recreate the visuals:

Lastly here is some footage from Liverpool docks in 1950

I hope this footage can help and if it doesn't I am sorry and I fully agree that finding the footage is hard XD
Have a nice day.


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proper way to undo AVCHD mess?
Most of my video editing programs simply take the stream (.MTS) files from my camera's AVCHD videos. I can confirm the imported video/audio are exactly the same if the program has access to the whole directory structure or simply the MTS file and nothing else. In fact, no program even touches the other files (my filesystem saves the time the file was last accessed).
But everywhere everyone says that all the other files are important, that by saving only the MTS files i can lose information. What information am i losing?
And if there is any information to be had, is there any way to get rid of AVCHD so my other NLV editing programs do not have to care about it (since they obviously can't handle it anyway)? maybe MTS/AVCHD converted to audio + stills (PNG)? what should i use to do that conversion and not lose all that hidden information that is scattered around?
If the specific AVCHD implementation matters, I'm using mostly panasonic cameras (GH2 to GH4).

tl;dr how do you import AVCHD footage into your workflow for maximum flexibility?

It's possible that with certain Panasonic or MTS-specific software, the associated files are useful. I've heard of situations where Premiere won't import the footage correctly without the full folder structure. I don't have any MTS folders here at the moment to verify for sure, but it's most likely just metadata that the camera recorded.
That being said, I've never had an issue importing an MTS file disassociated from its associated files (and I do this for a living). Fortunately, the associated files and folders are relatively small and don't take much space, so it's usually more trouble to weed them out than it is to remove them.
I'm assuming you're editing in Final Cut, as the rest of the major NLE's can handle the AVCHD codec, and an MTS wrapper, natively. Final Cut's Log and Transfer does a fine job with the transcode and you won't lose anything significant.
If you're using another NLE, the best transcode codec you can use is ProRes, as it's fairly universal and a very high-quality codec. I've also seen guys use DNxHD for visually lossless transcodes, but it's a heavy codec and some machines may have trouble playing it at full speed. Unfortunately, on Windows you're out of luck with ProRes altogether as it's Mac-only.

i tried to import on final cut, to see if i would get anything "else" but no. it is just the same audio/video stream. I can also see a subtitle stream but it has nothing in it. I was hopping for something like lens info and zoom level at each time, but so far i can't see it. almost believing all the AVCHD metadata on that folder is a lie and it is only there to make camera previews faster....  (btw, final workflow will not include finalcut. we demux everything to stills, colorgrade on some other thing i am not familiar with, and then edit in blender)

I'm really curious why you edit in Blender? It seems horribly inefficient...

The metadata being saved really is just that - thumbnails, clip length and resolution, framerate perhaps, etc. just there to identify and ease ingestion. It has nothing to do with the actual media streams and won't affect sound or image whatsoever if you remove it.

@mike-thorn well, i know you are asking with the GUI in mind, and i like the procedural interface, the ease of customization of keyboard shortcuts, etc... but the power of blender is the python api and ease of adding one-off features to the source. Try to do that with prosumer tools from adobe :(


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Using little robots to speed up the stop motion animation process
I'm not very well experienced in the animations area,but I would like to be more and more experienced in the stop motion tecnique. I would like to know if someone uses pre built (or easy to build) little robots with the stop motion tecnique. I want to move their arms,the head,the legs with a remote control from my pc and then I will make a full video instead of capture single frames by moving their body parts with my hands. I hope that in this way the creation process will be faster. I don't know how could be the result,since I have no experience in the stop motion area,neither. But I wanna try. Thanks.

Not exactly the answer you are looking for, but absolutely worth the watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okCIHAbve3k

Stop motion animation (also called stop frame animation) is animation that is captured one frame at time, with physical objects that are moved between frames. When you play back the sequence of images rapidly, it creates the illusion of movement. - this site might be of help http://www.dragonframe.com/intro_to_stop_motion.php

I dont think you want stop motion then be reading the above question, with stop motion you are not just moving the "robot" but you are also moving the camera, back / fore ground elements to enhance the film. if you want to use a automated robot (or controllable) from a PC then animatronics might be the place to start. Stop animation takes time and a lot of it as there are so many elements to think about

what's is animatronic ? can you give me more informations about it ? a place to start ?

Your idea sounds absolutely possible. On the other hand you write that you have never done any stop motion.
I think it would be very well advised to start with some basic techniques (by hand) and then see what you can maybe automate in the future.
Building puppets that can be easily animated is a already a complex task, since it usually involves building metal / wire skeletons etc. so I'd slowly approach the overall complexity of the matter and then advance to the next step.
Some introductory reading to get you started:

Stop motion - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_motion
Go motion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_motion
Pixilation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixilation
Claymation https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay_animation
Animatronics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animatronics

I think what would more sense is to follow the idea mentioned by Adam Mann Pro using some basic animatronics.  If you build a remote controllable face for the puppets which allow you to easily setup facial expressions, that would speed up the animation process immensely and is in itself already very complex. Here is an example of an animatronics head from the movie "the world's end":


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Dash live streaming
after a lot of googling and after I've read tons of forums, I'm still not able to do a live stream using my cam to another device.
My system is made up by a server ( a windows laptop ), that capture the scene and stream the acquired video, untill now I tried to use ffmpeg, MP4Box and DashCast obviously without results, and by a client ( some device ) that should be able to read the video flow by using a simple html5 page equipped with dash.js.
At the very beginning, in order to understand how dash works, I tried to stream some "static" video and all work perfectly thanks to this tutorial. The issues arise when I tried to stream live video and I followed this tutorial, because ffmpeg failed when it was trying to create .mpd file, but it can be divide in two sub-problem:

When I try to handle audio and video together the system say that audio channel doesn't contain any stream. Following I list the inserted command:
ffmpeg -f dshow -i video="USB2.0 VGA UVC WebCam":audio="Microfono /
(Realtek   High Definition Audio)" -map 0:0 -pix_fmt yuv420p /
-c:v libvpx -b:v 3000k -keyint_min 30 -g 30 -speed 6 /
-tile-columns 4 -frame-parallel 1 -threads 8 -static-thresh 0 /
-max-intra-rate 300 -deadline realtime -lag-in-frames 0 /
-error-resilient 1 -f webm_chunk -header live.hdr /
-chunk_start_index 1 live_%d.chk -map 0:1 -c:a libvorbis -b:a 128k /
-ar 44100 -f webm_chunk -audio_chunk_duration 2000 -header /
live_audio.hdr -chunk_start_index 1 live_audio_%d.chk

The above rows call audio and video hardware and save the multimedia streams
in chunks.
ffmpeg -f webm_dash_manifest -live 1 -i live.hdr -f webm_dash_manifest /
-live 1 live_audio.hdr -c copy -map 0 -map 1 -f webm_dash_manifest /
-live 1 -adaptation_sets "id=0,streams=0 id=1,streams=1" /
-chunk_start_index 1 -chunk_duration_ms 2000 /
-time_shift_buffer_depth 7200 -minimum_update_period 7200 manifest.mpd

This last command failed to attach audio stream in the .mpd file and in console appeared "Output file #0 does not contain any stream" as error.
So I try only with video using essentially the same options, but when I tried to create the manifest an error of this type "Could not write header for output file #0 (incorrect codec parameters ?): Invalid data found when processing input" arise, so I'm curious to know what kind of parameters are wrong.

At this point I change completely my strategy, so I create a fragmeted version of the live stream and I tried to use MP4Box to create .mpd file, but seem that MP4Box works only with finite time video, or at least I can't to use it in live.
And finally I used Dashcast and I able to see some frame from my client page, but simply it doesn't work. The last command I inserted is the following:
DashCast -vf dshow -vfr 15 -v video="USB2.0 VGA UVC WebCam" /
-live -seg-dur 500 -frag-dur 100 -time-shift 10

Actually I played a little with the parameters etc... but the result is still the same, simply I not able to see my face in the browser. In this case the error is "real-time buffer 101% full! frame dropped!" or "real-time buffer 80% full! frame dropped!".
So my question is what's wrong with my FFmpeg commands?
How I can use MP4Box for live purpose( with examples because I don't find a sigle example in the whole net)?
And finally, why DashCast is so slow?
Obviously every suggestions about alternative methods to perform a live stream with some other tool are accepted.

Have you tried this? http://wiki.webmproject.org/adaptive-streaming/instructions-to-playback-adaptive-webm-using-dash

Sorry, didn't see you linked that before. Your Ffmpeg line looks much more complex than the one in the example given there, why is that?

And just out of curiosity, did you research if VLC can do what you need?

Hi @HansMeiser, thanks for the comments, anyway my string look more complex because I used the variable ${VP9_DASH_PARAMS} in plain text version -speed 6 -tile-columns 4 -frame-parallel 1 -threads 8 -static-thresh 0 -max-intra-rate 300 -deadline realtime -lag-in-frames 0 -error-resilient 1 , that are the parameters for live stream. Actually is the parameters for VP9 encoder, but I used VP8, because VP9 give me some problems. Finally no, I didn't research on VLC, now I'll take a look on VLC stuff

I have similar problem as yours and it seems windows ffmpeg is broken. The same commands that give me errors in Windows work in Linux.

I'm in a similar position to you and I suspect part of the problem is that my CPU can't transcode the stream fast enough, especially when running a player on the same machine.
Check your CPU usage, if it's maxing out that's probably the reason for the frame drops.
Apparently mp4box can be used to stream live DASH (it has a -dash-live option) but I haven't managed to get this working yet either.  This link is quite old, but seems to have a working example:
http://www.slideshare.net/cconcolato/live-streaming-of-video-and-subtitles-with-mpegdash


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Ffmpeg video rotation and center
I was wondering is possible to from 1 video i copy 3 more, then rotate them all by 90 degrees, then move they center with ffmpeg commands? To be clearer what im saying here is picuture what i want to to do:

Can you illustrate the rotation aspect and then describe what kind of movement you would like?

@Mulvya first, i want to rotate all 3 videos for 120 degrees, so 1 video will be at 0 degrees, another at 120, another at 270, and last at 360 but that is same as 0 degrees, so when they all are rotated like that, i want to move them, like in the picture to get empty cube in middle of screen surrounded by 4 videos.

Did you mean 90? The illustration shows orthogonal placement. So, video 1 is 0 degrees, video 2 is 90, video 3 is -90 and video 4 is 0. Is that right?

Yeah 90, and in middle i need to make a white space to be empty...

Use
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 \
       -filter_complex "[0:v]split=4[a][b][c][d]; \
                        [a]pad=iw+2*ih:iw+2*ih:ih:0:white[base]; \
                        [b]transpose=cclock[br]; \
                        [c]transpose=clock[cr]; \
                        [base][br]overlay=0:w[two]; \
                        [two][cr]overlay=W-w:w[three]; \
                        [three][d]overlay=h:H-h[v]" \
-map "[v]" out.mp4

As per your confirmation, I haven't rotated the video at the bottom. In case it had to be rotated 180, use
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 \
       -filter_complex "[0:v]split=4[a][b][c][d]; \
                        [a]pad=iw+2*ih:iw+2*ih:ih:0:white[base]; \
                        [b]transpose=cclock[br]; \
                        [c]transpose=clock[cr]; \
                        [d]hflip,vflip[dr]; \
                        [base][br]overlay=0:w[two]; \
                        [two][cr]overlay=W-w:w[three]; \
                        [three][dr]overlay=h:H-h[v]" \
-map "[v]" out.mp4

There will be no audio exported with these commands. To preserve audio, insert -map 0:a -c:a copy


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After Effects: How do I achieve collapsing transform using nested CC Cylinder Effect?
I am just preparing for a new project where I am going to need a lot of cylinder-shapish layers reacting to my 3d moving camera. In order to have eveerything organised I am using precomps to nest seperate elements.
Usually by activating "collapsing transforms" (further explained here: http://www.digitalsandwich.net/portfolio/ae-quicktip-collapse-transformations/) I can have one master Camera in my outer composition and have all elements reacting to it accordingly. But somehow, using the cc cylinder effect in precomps, it messes up.
Does anyone know why? Or have a workarround?
Thanks in Advance
Marten

I am not at my editing pc right now so just a guess: are you maybe expecting the cylinders to be 3d while in reality they are not? Without understanding completely what you are trying to achieve, for me it sounds like you might need a "real" 3d software like blender, or at least use the cinema 4d plug-in of after effects. Most objects of afx internal plug-ins are not real 3d objects. But maybe you can post a screenshot of how it's messed up and approx describe how it is supposed to look.

I don't think CC cylinder create true 3D objects, they are really just flat 2D planes with 3D shaded shapes on them.  I think Hans' suggestion of creating 3D shapes in Cinema4D (a basic version ships with AE CC 2015) is probably the way to go.

Not sure what version they added the Cinema 4D and Raytrace renderers in After Effects, but I think they are the only way to collapse a curved surface.


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How to automatically turn camera to follow speaker?
I record lots of user group events. Typically the output file is a composite of the slides and the speaker. This works if the speaker stands still, but quite often the speaker frantically oscillates on stage and I'm struggling to follow them and furthermore, compositing this is a real pain!
So my question - is there any technical solution that solves this problem? The two things that I would consider are:

A motorized tripod head that turns to follow the speaker based on some tracking device they are wearing. Is this even possible?
A software solution! What if I record to 4K and then decide to crop out - is it possible to detect speaker position automatically through some software algorithm?

High-end sports productions have cameras that can pan, tilt, and zoom their way to tracking a golf ball when driven 300+ yards off a tee.  Such systems are well beyond the budgets of typical user groups.  A system called SoloShot costs less than $1000, and might have the spatial resolution needed for your application.
Recording in 4K gives you a 2:1 punch-in for FullHD and around 4:1 or 5:1 punch-in for SD.  The problem with a 2:1 punch-in is that it only cuts your peripatetic speaker's travel by 2x, which means if they are dashing 18' from one side of a 12' screen to another, their apparent motion will still be as if walking 9' across the view, which is still distracting.  If you are OK producing with SD-ish video, a 5:1 punch-in will keep their motion to reasonably within frame.  The open source software Blender has motion-tracking software that can effectively steady a camera around the subject of interest (your speaker).  But you should check that it has the video codec support you need.  Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve also has a tracker that can do this, but the free download version works only on Mac and PC, not Linux.
Another problem with using digital shot cropping is that at 24fps or 25fps, you might see lots of motion artifacts that seem strange: the speaker stays in the middle of the frame, but they are constantly blurring left or right, whereas the background is whipping back and forth but it's perfectly sharp otherwise.  Your eyes will tell you "that's backwards!".

There are are couple of systems where you pin a beacon on the speaker and the camera follows them automatically. I remember receiving a NAB newsletter where one of those systems was announced. A quick googling didn't let me find them again, but it exists. While probably not as expensive as the solution Michael mentions I would assume that this "robotic" studio system still comes at a price not feasible for people on I tight budget. Generally speaking, I guess it would possible to build a system on your own but this needs a lot of research.

And a DIY solution would also not be cheap since you need very precise transponders to aquire position, very silent servos for camera positioning etc. I think that may be one of the tasks where as of now just hire a human being with its excellent sensory skills and let him / her do the job :)

@HansMeiser what kind of money are we talking here?

I just added info about SoloShot to my answer.  Might be what you need for approx $500

In addition to SoloShot, another product to consider may be TecNec ITP-1 In The Picture - Robotic Camera Panhead
Ref: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/490975-REG/TecNec_ITP_1_ITP_1_In_The_Picture.html


text:
Change the duration of multiple images vegas
I have 5 different video files on my timeline and I want to make every one of them to be only 5 seconds long. Basically squeeze each of them to be 5 seconds long each.
I am using Vegas 13, but before when I used premiere I had the option when I right clicked the video in the timeline called "Speed/duration". Is there something similar to this in Vegas?

Are these images or videos? Do you just want to trim or change speed as well? Are their current lengths different from each other?

@Mulvya these are videos, I just want to change the speed so the video will be a specific length and yes the lengths are different but they are mostly 6-8 seconds each.

So, if you want to keep the same in-point, press down Ctrl and trim from the out-point till you achieve desired duration,

@Mulvya The problem is, I'll have over 100 clips, and doing it by hand dosen't seem like a smart move.

Doing it this once won't take that long. If you have to do it regularly, then, yes, you need an automation control.

Did you ever find a solution? I'm making a gym transformation video, so at the start i have two photos of 2 different posed myself side by side, and then the same for the next month, I want them to be exactly a certain time frame, doing it individually seems kind of annoying, is there anywhere i can type in the number of seconds i want the two photos for each month to appear?

If you want to change the speed of multiple clips - find a script that does this. Vegas Pro supports scripting and there a lot of different scripts out there, both free and commercial. For example, this one (commercial) can do this (enter the desired duration to  Duration control).


text:
ffmpeg concat with or without audio
I'm splitting and merging a single video clip using this ffmpeg command:
-ss 0 -t 1 -i C:\source.mp4
-ss 3 -t 1 -i C:\source.mp4
-ss 6 -t 1 -i C:\source.mp4
-ss 9 -t 1 -i C:\source.mp4
-filter_complex "[0:v][1:v][2:v][3:v]concat=n=4[outv];
[0:a][1:a][2:a][3:a]concat=n=4:=v=0:a=1[outa]" -map [outv] -map [outa]
-vcodec h264 -acodec aac -pix_fmt yuv420p -strict -2 C:\output.mp4

But if source file doesn't have audio track, this command fails. if I remove
    ;[0:a][1:a][2:a][3:a]concat=n=4:=v=0:a=1[outa]
part it fixes the problem but I need to analyse file before using the command.
is there any parameter that will automaticly remove this part or ignores audio track if source doesnt have any audio track at all.

Use the concat demuxer instead:
Create a text file of the following format
file 'C:\source.mp4'
inpoint 0
duration 1
file 'C:\source.mp4'
inpoint 3
duration 1
file 'C:\source.mp4'
inpoint 6
duration 1
file 'C:\source.mp4'
inpoint 9
duration 1

Then run
ffmpeg -f concat -i file.txt -map 0:v -map 0:a? -vcodec h264 -acodec aac -pix_fmt yuv420p -strict -2 -fflags +genpts C:\output.mp4


text:
Advice on lens for Glidecam
I was asked to video a wedding. Here are my lenses: 50mm f1.8, 10-18 f4.5-5.6, 18-135 f3.5‑5.6. Camera is a Canon 3ti.
I'm thinking about renting a glidecam hd 1000, and my question is, will the 10-18 be good enough, or do I need a faster lens for better results since there might be times when light is low? For example, a canon 20mm f2.8 or 24mm f2.8 or Tokinha 11-16 f2.8 or even a 24-70 or 24-105. Also, does the IS play a big role here?
Thanks for any advices.

Two things come to my mind: If you never operated or balanced a Glidecam before you will probably have a hard time. When using a Glidecam IS will not make such a big difference but nonetheless there will be one. So better have IS.
I am assuming that you are using a DSLR like the Canon EOS 5D Mk III.
Especially the 5D has quite good low light capabilities. Faster leses are generally speaking good but keep in mind that you need to pull focus manually and that you need several meters depth of field. So you might be good to go with what you have.

Thanks @Max. I wish I had a 5D Mk III, but no, it's just a humble t3i, which obviously not going to do as well in low light. As to the glidecam, correct, I have never operated or balanced one, but would you say if I could practice for a day or two I would do fine, or is it that difficult?

I rented the Glidecam for in of my own productions. I used the Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera and could not balance it in approx 30min. We had several issues that prevented me from training. I would recommend at least a whole day of training. Also: watch tutorials on YouTube


text:
Compressing a large MP4 file that is on 2.30mins long
I have been sent a video that is only 2.30 mins long. But is a whopping 168mb, unfortunetely this has to be embedded into an app - so I need it as small as possible. I need to get the file size down big time.
It's attributes are Frame Width 1920 x 1080. 25fps data rate: 8690 kbps
Total bitrate 9008kbps
It will be going on a tablet that is 1040px at potrait.
What is the best way to shrink the file size?

if its going to be embedded into the App (as part of the download or distribution) you could compress it to say 720p using something like Handbrake at a lower bit rate to get it smaller in size

Will it be played full screen on the tablet? Or in a window? What resolution is that?

Ask to the person who sent you the video for reencoding it with lower bitrates. If for some reason you can not do that tell me what softwares do you work with. Cheers!

I can recommend you to one nicely done piece of software which can enable you to compress this file, it is called HandBrake. Its encoder options provide for manipulating the Frame width, rate, quality and resulting format size.


text:
Choosing a Video Camera
I am videoing myself giving instructions against a 10' x 10' green screen. I am about to purchase lights and now I need to select a video camera that will give me the best videos which will be put on a web site.
I have a $200 camcorder. Do I need to get a DSLR in order to get quality videos?
Thanks,
JB

Getting good, bright lights that can evenly illuminate a green screen is half the battle.  The other half is using a camera that will give you a clean key by not blending together too many pixels in its macroblocks.  Many low-end camcorders use 4:2:0 chroma sampling, which means the border between your key and your subject is going to be at least two pixels wide, and difficult to properly clean up.  Higher-end camcorders user 4:2:2 chroma sampling, and the best use either 4:4:4 or RAW encoding.
You can see for yourself how these different chroma sampling systems affect the edges you are trying to key.  If you are doing your own post-production for fun, and you have the time to futz with fuzzy edges, you can certainly spend time in place of money and get results that make you happy.  But if you are trying to do a live broadcast and you need keys that "just work", then 4:2:2 is probably the minimum color spec that you will want to work with.

And since the OP mentioned DSLRs it's worth noting that DSLRs generally shoot compressed 4:2:0, though there are some 3rd party hacks around which can improve this.


text:
how to animate dots in sequence
I'm new to After Effects and wondering how that's possible to animate opening for this map so each dot appears individually? I know how to make the opening using the mask but it shows the edges while I'd like to have "popping one by one dots" animation.Please see image below:

This tutorial can help you:

You will find there how to make dotted effect from scratch (use outlines of the map). Then you shall add some key-frames for animation.
To make dots appear more random, you can use Fractal Noise as animated mask.
Good luck!

"how that's possible to animate opening for this map so each dot appears individually?" Halftone effect does not give you control of "each dot" to make them "appear individually". It's a random effect.

"popping one by one dots" can be accomplished with Fractal Noise mask. Author did not say, that he need some special order for each dot. In that case, of course it shall be done manually.

You could create an animated gradient as the picture layer in the technique above to control when the dots popped on.

Check this out:
http://misterhorse.tv/new-feature-stagger-layers/
Let's you randomize the order layers appear in.

I ended up animating this map manually. The easiest way to me was to animate dots frame by frame in Flash and import movie to AE.


text:
Focus in Video vs Focus in Image
This is kind of a weird question, but how does focus in video work? I understand how focus works for single, still images. And, I understand that a video is a sequence of images. However, unlike taking still images, it seems like a common video capture devices (such as iPhone 6) don't need to focus at each frame of the video.
So, is the camera actually focusing at each frame, and doing it so fast that I don't notice. Or, it is something else?

Focus is focus is focus, whether for still or video.  But the story does not end there.  Focal length, aperture, sensor size, circle of confusion, etc., all play a role in determining whether you perceive something to be in focus or not.  Here's a link to the math.
The long and short of it is that quite often a camera that shoots both stills and video will use a larger sensor area for stills and a smaller subset of the sensor for video.  Those math equations will tell you that smaller sensors have more things in focus than larger sensors.  A 35mm full-frame camera has a 42mm image circle, which is huge next to the 6mm image circle of a typical prosumer camera, which is in turn larger than the image circle of the typical smartphone.
On top of that, yes, smartphones also dynamically focus the image, both for still and video images.  You probably don't see the refocusing happening in video because the depth of field is already so deep, but it happens.
There are video cameras that have sensors as large as full-frame still cameras; they are just as difficult to focus as a still camera, and have just as shallow a depth of field for the same image size, focal length, aperture, and circle of confusion.


text:
Sync several movie clips with one audio file
Have several video clips from DSLR with terrible sound, and one audio file from zoom. It was a bend concert.
Zoom was recording all the time but clips are separated, as there were breaks from song to song and break where i did not want to record.
I am aware there is option to combine one audio file and one video clip, but is there a way to import all clips and audio file at once and have them sync, atleast some of them ?
I am using Premiere and FinalCutX.

This sounds like a perfect candidate for using multi-camera editing. You can automagically synch all the clips using their audio, and turn them into a multicam source, which lets you edit from the multiple synched cameras quickly and easily.
How to do it in premiere:
Select your clips in the Project panel. Then, right-click the selected clips and choose Create Multi-camera Source Sequence from the context menu.

It will then let you choose the synch method, in your case use audio. Also set the audio Sequence Settings to the clip with the good audio, and it will only use it in the sequence.

You now have a multicamera source clip, you can edit from it as if you were doing a live vision mix by choosing the camera you want to use while it plays (with of course the luxury of being able to go back and redo it and tweak the edits. The details of how to do multi camera edits are here.
The workflow in FCP7 was very similar to Premiere, but I'm not familiar with FCX, have a look here to get started.

Create a timeline from the master audio track, then drop the video clips one by one onto a matching video track using the native sound from those clips as a guide to line them up with the good audio. Then mute or delete the audio from the clips.

Premiere and FCP-X both have auto-sync features to get multiple audio and video clips synced together.  Chances are very good that you can get your first video clip to align with the audio clip automatically.  You might then be able to incrementally sync each additional clip with the audio clip, one at a time.  I'm pretty sure neither program would do anything intelligent if you just selected all video clips and asked it to align them all with the audio file.  But each might be smart enough to link them one at a time.
For your next shoot, you should consider making a slate for each clip.  To begin, shoot a video of a clock or a watch (perhaps from your smartphone) next to the Zoom and clap.  That tells you how your clock reference relates to your audio file.  Then, during the show, start each video shot by looking at your clock or watch reference, then record as normal.  When you are all done, each clip will begin with a time reference that you can normalize against the initial time, and which will tell you roughly where to put the clips on the timeline.  You can then synchronize manually, as suggested by Jim Mack, above.

Syncing video tracks by correlating the audio was the original application called "PluralEyes".  The functionality was incorporated in to higher-end video NLE apps as mentioned here previously. But the original app is still available and being improved.
Ref: http://www.redgiant.com/products/pluraleyes/


text:
Alternative to mCallouts that runs on Premiere?
I'm looking for an alternative for a plugin called mCallouts for FCPX that has similar functions that I can use on Premiere.
Is there such thing or do I have to use a Dynamic Link from After Effects to Premiere Pro?

Call out titles is a good alternative for mCallouts that works for premiere pro


text:
What software is used to add animated characters to live TV?
Specifically, I am wondering how Cartoon Donald Trump was added, voiced, and puppet-ed in clips such as

My guess is that this was done as a pre-recorded spot, with trump animated and added in post.

It seems like they added this in post with a program like after effects(but this is simple enough that they could have even used a video editor). The cartoon was made in a program like after effects, blender, or any other animation program.


text:
How to create youtube overlays?
If you look at this video by FunForLouis:

You can see that there are three overlays that link to other content of his. I was wondering if anyone else has found how to do this themselves.

I was thinking, that it is "Cards" or "Annatations"... But was unable to reproduce that on my account

EDIT: Upon further research, this only seems to be available to high-tier YouTube Creator accounts. I haven't been able to find an example of this from an account with less than 1M subscribers. Here's the Creator tier levels:
https://www.youtube.com/yt/creators/en-GB/benefit-levels.html?noapp=1
ORIGINAL: This is a feature called "Cards" on YouTube. Your account must be in good standing to use this. Go to your video and hit "Edit" then navigate to the "Cards" menu. Here, you can add cards and select the content you want to display. Up to 5 can be added on one video at a time. Here's some documentation and a tutorial:
https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6140493?hl=en
Hope this helps!

Cards are different. They come up as squares that are on the side of the screen. I am looking for the way to add these round circular items.

Upon further research, this only seems to be available to high-tier YouTube Creator accounts. I haven't been able to find an example of this from an account with less than 1M subscribers. Let me know if you find information or examples that say otherwise.


text:
Personalized videos
I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction. I'm wanting to create a personalized video where a person's name is inserted dynamically. I know there are services out there like vidyard and idomoo that will put a person's name on a mug or a piece of paper, but would like to figure out how to make my own. Any help and direction is appreciated

You could do it with After Effects and scripting. After Effects has a javascript-based API called extendscript that allows you to programatically create compositions - which can be as complex as you like, using pre-shot and/or generated footage, and effects. Extendscript means that AE can be run from the command line–on a server for instance.
You can either write the scripts yourself if your JS skills are good and you don't mind learning the quirks of the API, you could find a developer, or there are 3rd party frameworks that let you automate things like this - the downside is that they are relatively pricey: have a look at dataclay for instance. Work out what is the best ROI for you.


text:
8bit vs 10bit vs 12bit
I do a lot of HEVC encoding and what I've read is 10bit is always better than 8bit, even from an 8bit source, because it avoids rounding errors. Is that true?
Also, then is 12bit better than 10bit or are the rounding errors insignificant at that point?

Well, 10-bit has 4 times the resolution of 8-bit, so yes, rounding errors will be smaller. Assuming you are encoding for end use, the benefit will depend on the source material and the display medium. The same is true for 12-bit, in principle, but the extra resolution over 10-bit shouldn't be significant for normal end-use.

And it depends on what you mean by better: if you're talking about storage size then 10 bit is 25% worse than 8 bit, and 12 bit is 50% worse. If storage and drive speed is not an issue then obviously throwing more data at it will make the encoding better, but the difference in quality might not match the increase in size.

@stib, Everything I have read suggests the opposite. http://myanimelist.net/forum/?topicid=358699#msg12115983 https://gist.github.com/l4n9th4n9/4459997#L37

I use 12 bit footage in production, it's huge, but it has the advantage that the video has waaay more latitude for grading: you can pull down over-exposed shots and bring up details in shadows without it all turning to mush, like 8-bit footage does if you push it too hard. However if you aren't going to process the video any more you don't need the extra latitude, especially if the extra info didn't exist in the first place. Sure, 10 or 12 bits will mean less quantisation error but quantisation error is trivial compared to the losses you get in a lossy codec.

Are you sure your not using 12 bit raw vs like 12 bit hevc/x264? Because raw anything is huge.

I can answer your first question. At the same bitrate and transcoding from an 8-bit source 10-bit HEVC is better than 8-bit HEVC, because it hardcodes dither. archived version of https://gist.github.com/l4n9th4n9/4459997
I am still unsure, whether that makes 12-bit HEVC transcodes superior  to 10-bit, thats why I ended up here.

After I ran some tests I have found that 10bit also results in higher file sizes too. I'm curious if the bitrate was raised for the 8bit encode to match the final size of 10bit would it result in the same quality.

The reference you linked to seems highly contentious, and there has been no response to the controversies since. Elsewhere on the net there also seems no agreement on this.

To clarify, dithering was added to the 8-bit file resulting in a larger file. The 10-bit file did not require dithering. Obviously if everything else is constant, a 10-bit file will be 25% larger than an 8-bit file, but the consensus is that a lower file size for the same quality can be achieved with 10-bit.

In my experience (using handbrake) increasing the bit depth increases the file size but not by much. However, lowering the CRF is what causes significantly larger files. I encoded several times the same source with different settings to see what I'd get, so for a random source of 1.45Gb (H.264/AVC) it gave theses results:

H.265 8bit CRF 22 (slow) > 362.6 Mb
H.265 10bit CRF 22 (slow) > 385,2 Mb
H.265 12bit CRF 22 (slow) > 390,7 Mb
H.265 8bit CRF 20 (slow) > 470.2 Mb
H.265 10bit CRF 20 (slow) > 509,9 Mb
H.265 12bit CRF 20 (slow) > 518,9 Mb

Hope that helps.

I've been running some tests lately (2H2020) concerning reducing the size of some high quality movies of my collection, just for PC to TV 1080p viewing, from 20-30mbps videos to 2-3mbps ones. To that end, I run some ffmpeg (latest gyan.dev version at the time) tests comparing same-bitrate encodes between: codecs (x264,x265,VP9,AV1), presets (slow, slower etc), CRF's (21,22,23,24 etc) and encoding colorspace (8bit, 10bit, 12bit), where applicable. I have arrived at the following combination as my personal preference:
• x265. This is always better than x264 bitwise. It's also worse than aom-av1, but aom-av1 is not optimized to work on all CPU cores, therefore aom-av1 is time-expensive in the end. Unless you run multiple encodes at the same time, which in this case I can also recommend AV1.
• Preset slow (on x265). If you have a fast machine (I don't), you can go to slower. But from then on, it's not worth the CPU-time (as I found in my tests).
• CRF 24. That's my sweet spot for final movie size. Higher CRF's create smaller files (and I found they encoded faster), and lower CRF's create bigger files (and slower encodes). No big deal here, this was expected.
• 12bit colorspace. Here's the good part. In some of my test encodes (for example in Bosphorus_1920x1080_120fps_420_8bit_YUV.y4m), 10bit encode provided 2% smaller and VMAF better results. But, in most other commercial clips I did some testing, I found that 12bit encoding gives better results (smaller size AND better VMAF). It goes without talking that they both are better than 8bit encoding of those 8bit source videos. If you go to 10bit source videos, 12bit encoding also gives better results than 10bit encoding. I'm no master at why this happens, the other answers provide some insight to that, but I also did some screenshots comparison of comparable size 8bit/10bit/12bit encodes of 8bit/10bit content, and I consistently liked the 12bit encodes more. They provided smoother gradients where 8bit encoding showed banding. Now the drawback is that going for 10bit/12bit encodes, you may lose hardware-decoding capabilities for the device used for playback (my PC loses hardware playback capability at 12bit), but for my target usage (lowest acceptable quality for small size), the above combination (x265,12bit,slow preset,CRF24) is my sweet spot.
That was my experience, backed by extensive testing, feel free to run some tests yourself.


text:
Are movies recorded on film?
I was watching BTS of Batman V Superman and I saw this camera with the film thing on top of it. Is it actualy the place where the film is or it is something else. Are movies recorded on films still and if yes why?

Yes, many big budget features are "still" shot all or partially on film.
Here's a list of a number of movies shot on film for 2014:
Reasons vary, but many consider film to have a particular reality or consider themselves purists and apprecate the sublties they believe analog film can offer.
Here is an interesting article on why Star Wars: Force Awakens was shot on film rather than digital:
http://petapixel.com/2015/12/16/star-wars-the-force-awakens-was-shot-on-film-and-kodak-may-be-profitable-in-2016/
And here is another:
http://www.techradar.com/us/news/home-cinema/high-definition/why-has-star-wars-turned-its-back-on-digital-film--1310861
IMAX cameras shoot on 70mm film. Since many big budget features end up shown in IMAX they use IMAX cameras for all or usually parts of the film. Certain scenes in Batman V Superman were filmed on IMAX "real film" cameras.
Reference here:
http://batman-news.com/2014/11/13/batman-v-superman-dawn-justice-will-shot-imax/
About IMAX cameras here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX


text:
Split HLS TS segment at specific timestamp
I am currently using ffmpeg to segment/transcode a longer transport stream into HLS with 10s segments. Now I want to grab the second segment from the following section:
#EXTINF:10.041667,
bbb_fhd_50s_000.ts
#EXTINF:10.041667,
bbb_fhd_50s_001.ts
#EXTINF:9.666667,
bbb_fhd_50s_002.ts

and split that into two chunks at 3s, result would look like:
#EXTINF:10.041667,
bbb_fhd_50s_000.ts
#EXTINF:3.008000,
bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut1.ts
#EXTINF:7.104000,
bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut2.ts
#EXTINF:9.666667,
bbb_fhd_50s_002.ts

Now, I got this to work using the following commands:
ffmpeg -i bbb_fhd_50s_001.ts -ss 00:00:00.0 -c copy -t 00:00:03.0 bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut1.ts
ffmpeg -i bbb_fhd_50s_001.ts -ss 00:00:03.0 -c copy bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut2.ts
ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration   -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 -sexagesimal bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut1.ts
ffprobe -v error -show_entries format=duration   -of default=noprint_wrappers=1:nokey=1 -sexagesimal bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut2.ts

Now when playing back the new m3u8 the transition between bbb_fhd_50s_000.ts and bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut1.ts works smoothly, but the transition back to the next uncut segment does not (from bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut2.ts to bbb_fhd_50s_002.ts). The video hangs for a couple of seconds after bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut2.ts has finished after which it continues. If I run the following sequence it works fine as well:
#EXTINF:10.041667,
bbb_fhd_50s_000.ts
#EXTINF:9.666667,
bbb_fhd_50s_002.ts

Anyone got any idea what goes wrong at the ending of bbb_fhd_50s_001_cut2.ts, and how to cut it correctly?

What's the start_time and duration of both the audio/video streams for cut2 and the next segment? Is the transition between the two cut segments smooth?

Yes, the transition between the two cut segments is smooth. I've done additional testing on it and now it kinda looks like the problem is that bbb_fhd_50s_002.ts doesn't start with a keyframe. This is a bit confusing for me though considering you can put bbb_fhd_50s_002.ts as the first segment and it will work.

Try inserting EXT-X-DISCONTINUITY between those splitted ts


text:
Canonical Way to Specify Readable text for TV feeds: Pixels?
I was reading an advertizing code which specifies:

""For TV Advertisements the size of the “Supers” shall be of minimum
  12 pixel height....."

This got me thinking: If readability / legibility is the goal, does it make sense to specify a pixel size? i.e. Won't the same font display as varying numbers of pixels depending on what kind of TV it is shown on?
If ensuring readability was the concern what would be the best way to specify the font size? A fraction of the total frame? Or something like

"....to show up as at least 12 pixel on a 1080 pixel display"

Specifying text in terms of pixel size is the most independent way of specifying size. Where you know the vertical resolution (like 720 lines or 1080 lines) then specifying pixels is exactly like saying "a fraction of the total frame".
And in practical terms, 12 pixels is pretty much the minimum recognizable height for common western characters, especially if some viewers are watching on screens of lower resolution.

Thanks. But isn't the bit about "where you know the vertical resolution" critical? i.e. 12 pixels on a 720 line screen will be far more readable that 12 on a 1080 line screen?

Probably "12 pixels on a 720 line screen will be far more readable that 12 on a 1080 line screen", but a 1080 line frame is arguably more likely to be viewed on a physically larger screen.  In reality, there is NO foolproof way of specifying minimum character height for readability on the entire range of viewer screen sizes and resolutions.  If you want a cogent argument for that specification, you would have to ask the people who made it.  I rather agree with you that it sounds like something written by lawyers and not by practical people.


text:
Blending Mode Options Missing After Effects
I'm trying to change my blending mode on After Effects CC 2015, but I have no options on certain layers. Only 2 of my layers have options to change the blending mode. How do I change it so all of my layers have that option?
Thanks,
Natasha

That looks very strange. Lights and Cameras don't have blending modes, but precomps and normal layers (even nulls and guide layers) should. Have you tried restarting AE?

There are effects on that layer?

If they were precomps (like layer 6) and collapse transforms is on (the sun icon) you won't be able to set a blending mode. Shouldn't happen for layer 7  and 8 though.

My guess is that layers only have blending modes if they have alpha channels associated with them.  If your layer has no alpha channel, what would be the meaning of the blending mode?

Blending modes can be applied without needing alpha e.g. lighten is mathematically A > B ? A : B where A is value of the R/G/B plane in top layer, and B bottom layer. And in any case, I believe AE assigns a default alpha of fully opaque if the media doesn't have one.

Check your 3D Renderer. Blending and Compositing may not work if your Renderer is Cinema4D or Ray-Traced. Stick with Classic

Are you doing the tutorial below?

I have found that we need to change the composition settings.
If you want access to the blending modes, ensure your composition is using the Classic 3D rendered. This can be found by going to your composition settings, click on Advanced tab, then select it from the Renderer drop down list.
Thanks to Declan Smith on https://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/1028397


text:
Copyright laws about commercials
Let's say I own a TV channel and I voluntarily play a commercial between my shows, like a Coca-Cola ad, without asking or making an advertising deal. Assuming I made a notice that they don't endorse me, could/would I be sued?

Off-topic -- it's a legal question, not a video production question.

Thank you for pointing that out. However, I see lots of copyright questions being asked here.

Concur that it's off-topic, but taking a stab: yes, you could be sued. You wouldn't have copyright permission to reproduce the ad. And if your use of the ad was against their marketing/brand strategy, they would be incentivized to stop you running their ads.

Sorry for asking an off-topic question. For future reference, can someone explain how this was different from the other copyright questions? Thanks.

Laws for broadcasting are a completely separate category than copyright laws for video program production.  You couldn't even own or operate a broadcasting station in  most countries without extensive legal advice and assistance. Broadcasting any content for which you have no legal permission puts your broadcasting license in extreme jeopardy. No legitimate broadcaster would even dream of doing such a thing.


text:
rotoscoping moving limbs
A project I am working on requires me to obscure some body parts, currently I have been using masks in premiere pro to achieve this but its a bit rough.
So what I have is a video of someone running, I want to selectively hide/disappear say their legs, or arms whilst they are running but leaving the background intact. The quality of the graphic isn't great but will hopefully be good enough.
I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction of a couple of good tutorials on the best way to achieve this..I am by no means a graphic designer or video editor but this has fallen to me because "I know computers"...
I've watched a couple of vids but they weren't really what I was after so if someone has a tut where moving parts of a subject in the foreground can be hidden I'd greatly appreciate the help.
Feel free to suggest any other tips too :) !!

Depending on the length of the clips and the complexity of camera movement / background of the subject, it's a very complex task you are talking about. Typically this would be done in an application like after effects - or even Photoshop, frame by frame. Premiere doesn't sound like the right tool for this. Masking out the limbs is only one part of the task, recreating the background of the video that was originally covered by them the other.

I am fully aware of that. That is why it is tagged with after effects. Premiere pro was mentioned simply because its how we currently achieve the effect we are after. Please read it fully

I did. But if you are aware of the work it involves, I don't understand your question. Rotoscoping is not complex to do, it is just an incredible amount of work unless you work with some tricks like covering parts of the body with "keyable" cloth (blue/green molton), and/or using repeatable motion control movement of the camera.

To directly answer your question, where Rotoscoping is concerned, it is simply the task of masking out, or cutting a hole in a moving image, for every frame.
Technically in almost any software capable of Rotoscoping, It is achieved by using a spline connected by a set of points that conforms and deforms each frame in your footage, to match the shape/outline of the object you wish to cut a hole through.
In the bigger view of what is required for your video, it seems like you wanted to "keep the background intact". That is a much tougher requirement than it sounds, both artistically and technically.
Basically when we take a photo, shoot a video, of a car on a grass field, the camera does not take an x-ray imagery of what is behind the car. Therefore when we mask out and remove the car, we cut a hole through the video clip, and there is nothing behind to show through.
If you are familiar with the idea of compositing layers of images on top of each other, one way to deal with this is to take a similar looking patch of the background (grass, ground, etc) that is correct in perspective, and place it on top of the gaping hole created by the rotoscoped mask.
If your footage is shot by a camera on the move (panning, dollying), it adds to the challenge.
In this case you will need to then animate that patch of missing background in position and maybe rotation, to pin it to the ground so it moves together with the rest of the shot.
On top of all that, you will need to clean up and blend the edges of this patch of ground with the rest of the footage. Also you will need to do adjustments like colour, brightness correction all so that your patched up area does not stand out and call attention to itself.
Another trick you can use is to take a part of the footage that hasn't been obscured by the running person (maybe 2 frames before he passes over that grass/ground), you can take a frame of that ground /grass , freeze that image, and place it and match it over the hole created by the Rotoscoping and then animate/track that patched up piece as the camera moves so it appears to stick solidly on the ground.
These are some techniques of visual effects workflow. Sometimes the concept sounds easy but the real pain is figuring how to solve the little problems that crop out, pushing the shot to look better, if your work requires a more refined result.
If you want to see someone actually doing stuff like that, Video Copilot has huge number of tutorials where you can see how visual effects tasks can be accomplished.
Www.youtube.com/user/videocopilot
Www.videocopilot.net
Watch a couple of tutorials, and you will soon get a good idea of the processes that are involved for compositing, Rotoscoping, background replacement, background reconstruction.


text:
rate stretch tool on premier
I have made a sequence on adobe premier. One of the clips I have stretched using the stretch rate tool and another I have compressed using the same tool.
I have made sure the clips are video blended. However when I render the sequence into a QuickTime movie the clips I've slowed down and speed up are green and damaged. Does anyone please know why this is and how I can fix it? Many thanks

Do you know what codec the clips are?

Probably you forgot to change framerate of composition.

Thanks how do I change the frame rate of the composition please?

Via composition settings. Right click on composition, and there "Composition Settings."

The framerate of the composition won't make the clips "green and damaged", and changing the frame rate will affect all the other non-stretched clips. I really don't see how that would be a solution to this problem.


text:
how to recover corrupt mp4 from samsung note 3
I have an app which records mp4. Some videos are fine and some corrupt. But even the corrupt ones are huge in size which I conclude have data.However, I have tried ffmpg, avconv and media info. I am pasting media info from both working and corr ones. How do I recover the corrupt video ?
Possible solution:
I found this webpage (look at the Incomplete files - or not finalised  section). I am guessing this is one of the issues that while recording my phone would have died ? Anyway to recover this ? If you notice in the ffmpeg output only for corrupt video that the video stream is not detected.I do not know how to do this on ubuntu.
http://www.cnwrecovery.com/html/3gp_recovery.html
Corrupt:
mediainfo cor.mp4
General
Complete name                            : cor.mp4
File size                                : 2.91 MiB

Working:
mediainfo ../wo1.mp4
General
Complete name                            : ../wo1.mp4
Format                                   : MPEG-4
Format profile                           : Base Media
Codec ID                                 : isom
File size                                : 150 KiB
Duration                                 : 334ms
Overall bit rate                         : 3 689 Kbps
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-01-12 18:31:21
Tagged date                              : UTC 2016-01-12 18:31:21

Video
ID                                       : 1
Format                                   : AVC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                           : Baseline@L3.0
Format settings, CABAC                   : No
Format settings, ReFrames                : 1 frame
Codec ID                                 : avc1
Codec ID/Info                            : Advanced Video Coding
Duration                                 : 334ms
Bit rate                                 : 3 659 Kbps
Width                                    : 720 pixels
Height                                   : 480 pixels
Display aspect ratio                     : 3:2
Rotation                                 : 90°
Frame rate mode                          : Variable
Frame rate                               : 29.970 fps
Minimum frame rate                       : 28.911 fps
Maximum frame rate                       : 31.110 fps
Standard                                 : NTSC
Color space                              : YUV
Chroma subsampling                       : 4:2:0
Bit depth                                : 8 bits
Scan type                                : Progressive
Bits/(Pixel*Frame)                       : 0.353
Stream size                              : 149 KiB (99%)
Title                                    : VideoHandle
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-01-12 18:31:21
Tagged date                              : UTC 2016-01-12 18:31:21

Audio
ID                                       : 2
Format                                   : AAC
Format/Info                              : Advanced Audio Codec
Format profile                           : LC
Codec ID                                 : 40
Duration                                 : 320ms
Source duration                          : 597ms
Source_Duration_FirstFrame               : 277ms
Bit rate mode                            : Constant
Bit rate                                 : 4 125 bps
Nominal bit rate                         : 128 Kbps
Channel(s)                               : 2 channels
Channel positions                        : Front: L R
Sampling rate                            : 48.0 KHz
Compression mode                         : Lossy
Stream size                              : 165 Bytes (0%)
Source stream size                       : 165 Bytes (0%)
Title                                    : SoundHandle
Language                                 : English
Encoded date                             : UTC 2016-01-12 18:31:21
Tagged date                              : UTC 2016-01-12 18:31:21
mdhd_Duration                            : 320

Working ffmpeg:
ffmpeg -i ../wo1.mp4
ffmpeg version 2.5.10-0ubuntu0.15.04.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.9.2 (Ubuntu 4.9.2-10ubuntu13)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-version=0ubuntu0.15.04.1 --build-suffix=-ffmpeg --toolchain=hardened --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --shlibdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --incdir=/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu --enable-gpl --enable-shared --disable-stripping --enable-avresample --enable-avisynth --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libbs2b --enable-libcaca --enable-libcdio --enable-libflite --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-libmodplug --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libshine --enable-libspeex --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvorbis --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libxvid --enable-opengl --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libiec61883 --enable-libzvbi --enable-libzmq --enable-frei0r --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libsoxr --enable-gnutls --enable-openal --enable-libopencv --enable-librtmp --enable-libx265
  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 '../wo1.mp4':
  Metadata:
    major_brand     : isom
    minor_version   : 0
    compatible_brands: isom3gp4
    creation_time   : 2016-01-12 18:31:21
  Duration: 00:00:00.33, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 3688 kb/s
    Stream #0:0(eng): Video: h264 (Baseline) (avc1 / 0x31637661), yuv420p, 720x480, 3658 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 90k tbn, 180k tbc (default)
    Metadata:
      rotate          : 90
      creation_time   : 2016-01-12 18:31:21
      handler_name    : VideoHandle
    Side data:
      displaymatrix: rotation of -90.00 degrees
    Stream #0:1(eng): Audio: aac (LC) (mp4a / 0x6134706D), 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 2 kb/s (default)
    Metadata:
      creation_time   : 2016-01-12 18:31:21
      handler_name    : SoundHandle
At least one output file must be specified

Corrupt ffmpeg
ffmpeg -i cor.mp4
ffmpeg version 2.5.10-0ubuntu0.15.04.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.9.2 (Ubuntu 4.9.2-10ubuntu13)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-version=0ubuntu0.15.04.1 --build-suffix=-ffmpeg --toolchain=hardened --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --shlibdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --incdir=/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu --enable-gpl --enable-shared --disable-stripping --enable-avresample --enable-avisynth --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libbs2b --enable-libcaca --enable-libcdio --enable-libflite --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-libmodplug --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libshine --enable-libspeex --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvorbis --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libxvid --enable-opengl --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libiec61883 --enable-libzvbi --enable-libzmq --enable-frei0r --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libsoxr --enable-gnutls --enable-openal --enable-libopencv --enable-librtmp --enable-libx265
  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
[adp @ 0x16967e0] Format adp detected only with low score of 25, misdetection possible!
Input #0, adp, from 'cor.mp4':
  Duration: 00:00:55.61, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 438 kb/s
    Stream #0:0: Audio: adpcm_dtk, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16p
At least one output file must be specified

Update
I will put my progress here as this thread can potentially help someone else also
201604270700:
ffmpeg is not able to get the video stream from corrupt file
figuring out right codec -- look at links
    ffmpeg -i cor.mp4 -vcodec copy -an -bsf:v h264_mp4toannexb -loglevel 56 test1.h264
ffmpeg version 2.5.10-0ubuntu0.15.04.1 Copyright (c) 2000-2016 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.9.2 (Ubuntu 4.9.2-10ubuntu13)
  configuration: --prefix=/usr --extra-version=0ubuntu0.15.04.1 --build-suffix=-ffmpeg --toolchain=hardened --libdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --shlibdir=/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu --incdir=/usr/include/x86_64-linux-gnu --enable-gpl --enable-shared --disable-stripping --enable-avresample --enable-avisynth --enable-ladspa --enable-libass --enable-libbluray --enable-libbs2b --enable-libcaca --enable-libcdio --enable-libflite --enable-libfontconfig --enable-libfreetype --enable-libfribidi --enable-libgme --enable-libgsm --enable-libmodplug --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopenjpeg --enable-libopus --enable-libpulse --enable-libschroedinger --enable-libshine --enable-libspeex --enable-libssh --enable-libtheora --enable-libtwolame --enable-libvorbis --enable-libwavpack --enable-libwebp --enable-libxvid --enable-opengl --enable-x11grab --enable-libdc1394 --enable-libiec61883 --enable-libzvbi --enable-libzmq --enable-frei0r --enable-libvpx --enable-libx264 --enable-libsoxr --enable-gnutls --enable-openal --enable-libopencv --enable-librtmp --enable-libx265
  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
Splitting the commandline.
Reading option '-i' ... matched as input file with argument 'cor.mp4'.
Reading option '-vcodec' ... matched as option 'vcodec' (force video codec ('copy' to copy stream)) with argument 'copy'.
Reading option '-an' ... matched as option 'an' (disable audio) with argument '1'.
Reading option '-bsf:v' ... matched as option 'bsf' (A comma-separated list of bitstream filters) with argument 'h264_mp4toannexb'.
Reading option '-loglevel' ... matched as option 'loglevel' (set logging level) with argument '56'.
Reading option 'test1.h264' ... matched as output file.
Finished splitting the commandline.
Parsing a group of options: global .
Applying option loglevel (set logging level) with argument 56.
Successfully parsed a group of options.
Parsing a group of options: input file cor.mp4.
Successfully parsed a group of options.
Opening an input file: cor.mp4.
[adp @ 0x2672d60] Format adp detected only with low score of 25, misdetection possible!
[adp @ 0x2672d60] Before avformat_find_stream_info() pos: 0 bytes read:1048576 seeks:0
[adp @ 0x2672d60] All info found
[adp @ 0x2672d60] After avformat_find_stream_info() pos: 51200 bytes read:1048576 seeks:0 frames:50
Input #0, adp, from 'cor.mp4':
  Duration: 00:00:55.61, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 438 kb/s
    Stream #0:0, 50, 1/48000: Audio: adpcm_dtk, 48000 Hz, stereo, s16p
Successfully opened the file.
Parsing a group of options: output file test1.h264.
Applying option vcodec (force video codec ('copy' to copy stream)) with argument copy.
Applying option an (disable audio) with argument 1.
Applying option bsf:v (A comma-separated list of bitstream filters) with argument h264_mp4toannexb.
Successfully parsed a group of options.
Opening an output file: test1.h264.
File 'test1.h264' already exists. Overwrite ? [y/N] y
Successfully opened the file.
Output #0, h264, to 'test1.h264':
Output file #0 does not contain any stream
[AVIOContext @ 0x2673da0] Statistics: 0 seeks, 0 writeouts
[AVIOContext @ 0x2672320] Statistics: 1048576 bytes read, 0 seeks

Try this.

recover_mp4_to_h264 does not work. I ran it on the correct video. It outputted 2 files which it will then consume to run the incorrect video. And after running an incorrect video it just outputted a 25kb file. Any other suggestions ? Is there a hex editor which can fix mp4 etc ?

@analyst Ive just found mp4fixer, maybe you can give it a try.

Untrunc may be able to help.
It's a Linux based command line utility that will restore lost MOOV sections.  Using it currently requires libav and a C++ build environment, though instructions are provided to do the build.  After it is built, you call it via the command line and just provide the path to a working video from the same phone, the broken video and it will write out a new file that should hopefully work.

Can you add some more detail about how this tool would be useful/used?

@AJ Henderson This tool solves the problem

yes, but how do you use it?  Generally when a tool is the answer, explaining how to use the tool to solve the problem is preferred.

@AJ Henderson I need to copy the documentation from github?

Ok, I went ahead and made the alteration.  I hope that makes it more clear.  Sorry about the confusion, I moderate 3 different sites, so I didn't actually have a chance to look more in depth at the particular answer until clarification was needed.  Basically, we just don't want people to have to click through multiple answers to find the best one, so the key pieces to determining which answer is best for a particular user should be in the answer itself, when possible.  Hope that makes sense.

I've experimented with untrunc — or, rather, the fork done by anthwlock — but it fails when it cannot find a moov atom or a mvhd child atom, which is exactly what I need to fix a broken MOV...


text:
Is it possible to "Blur a Transparent Background" in Adobe After Effects?
I am a beginner to Adobe After Effects and Sony Vegas Pro, so forgive me for a lack of a better term.
I am trying to create an Adobe After Effects composition. I want the composition to be transparent with a blur effect. I want to add this blur effect to be in such a way that upon exporting it to an .avi file, I can add this .avi file to a Sony Vegas Project, and the .avi file will blur any layers underneath it.
To illustrate, suppose I have the following Sony Vegas Project:

I want to create an after effects composition such that I can make the image look something like this:

However, I don't want to render the composition with the image in it. I want to render it as an .avi file such that I can apply the blur effect to any arbitrary image, or even video files.

Is this possible? My intuition tells me no, but I'm asking in case there is a way.

It's not possible. A generic blur effect relies on a function which smooths out pixel values within a specified radius. A mask combines the value of a pixel in the top layer with the pixel of the layer beneath, modulated by the corresponding alpha value of that pixel in the top layer.
So, in short a blur is a 'lateral' function, whereas layer compositing is a 'depth' function.

This is not possible, because the blur effect needs the underlying video as input.
You can either create the blur effect in Sony Vegas without the need for After Effects, or you can (for more complex effects) import the video into After Effects, add your effects, render the result as video, and import it into Vegas.
As you can see the second option takes some time and is only worth it for complex effects/animations that you cannot do in Vegas. It's better to try the included effects of Vegas first.

You won't be able to create a clip that can 'blur any layer underneath' when placed in other applications.
You can just blur assets from within AE and export them out.

No this can't be done as you explain. You need to make a comp with multiple layers (as many as satisfy what you are going after) and mask them the same. I've applied the iOS blur effect in my lower thirds titles in FCPX with just two layers. Premiere, AE and other NLEs are the same. Wish it were easier!


text:
App to rotate .mp4 video for Windows or Android
I have an .mp4 format video filmed in portrait format, when currently played on any landscape format device the people appear sideways.
I would like a sipmle app for either Windows™ or Android OS to only rotate the video so it plays 'portrait format' on any 'landscape format' device, such as a Smart TV.
Any suggestions ?

If I've understood you correctly, your video appears upright when viewed in portrait orientation and rotated in landscape. This suggests the image is stored in a landscape matrix but with no rotation tag set. If so, there are two things you can try using ffmpeg, a free command line tool.
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -metadata:s:v rotate=90 output.mp4

If your landscape devices don't understand or obey the rotation tag,
ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -c copy -vf transpose=2 -c:v libx264 -crf 20 output.mp4

The 2nd command will re-encode the video portion of your file. CRF controls the quality - lower is better but will produce bigger files.
In the commands, you may have to switch the 90 with -90 and 2 with 1 depending on how the video was stored.


text:
cutting with ffmpeg results in few seconds of black screen, how do i fix this?
i'm using this command to cut a segment from a video from command line
ffmpeg -i %1 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -ss %2 -t %3 %~n1_cut%~x1

and i call it like
cut.bat video.mp4 001:23:45:678 10

and as expected i get a video_cut.mp4 with 10 seconds of the original video, problem is that few seconds of the resulting file is black screen with audio, why does this happen and how do i fix it?

%~n1_cut%~x1 what does this part of the command mean?

@ScipioAfricanus %~n1 expands %1 to a file Name, or if only a path is present (with no trailing backslash) - the last folder in that path and %~x1 expands %1 to a file eXtension only - .txt source:https://superuser.com/questions/224416/what-do-df0-and-df1-mean-in-a-batch-file

Most videos use codecs which perform temporal compression, so a specified cutpoint may rely on frames before (and after) that cutpoint to be correctly decoded. So, when you use ffmpeg to trim videos and use copy mode, ffmpeg has to include all frames before and after the trimmed segment which are needed to decode the segment correctly.
So, you have two options, use copy mode but set a switch which will allow all players to correctly play these files
ffmpeg -ss %2 -t %3 -i %1 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -avoid_negative_ts make_zero %~n1_cut%~x1

(this will likely result in output that starts before your cutpoint)
or re-encode the streams
ffmpeg -ss %2 -t %3 -i %1 %~n1_cut%~x1

Although re-encoding is slower, it will produce better results, because with the other solution the video might be longer then what was specified in the -t option.

@Gyan What does % do? I tried searching https://ffmpeg.org/ffmpeg.html but I can't find the usage.

As your answer suggested I used both -ss and -t before -i and it worked, before, I only put -ss before -i and -t was after it so it didn't work.

So, no way to use -codec copy but not blank video at start of trimmed video? If I have to, I will, but the trimmed video loses quality. The first option starts before cutpoint and that includes copyright music which I want to cut out.

https://github.com/mifi/lossless-cut/pull/13
When I run ffmpeg with the arguments in this order -i ... -ss ... -t ..., it produces a video file that has no video for a few initial seconds. (as far as I can understand this is because it doesn't seek to a keyframe?)
If I change the order to -ss ... -i ... -t ..., then the resulting cut videos play properly.

I tried -ss before -i but it didn't work on my mp4 file.

Worked for me, thanks. Merely changed the order of parameters. ffmpeg version 3.2.12-1~deb9u1

Actually, this just moves the blank duration to the end of the video

Changing parameter order worked well for me.

It works only partially plus it produces much larger chunks. I thinks is really depending on the codec used. I have a thermal camera footage (5min, 27MB) that I want to split into 30 chunks. With the i-ss-t order I get 30 pieces I get 15MB with most chunks smaller than 600KB but most containing black frames for several seconds (each chunk is 10sec long). With the ss-i-t order I get almost 10MB per chunk with still some seconds of black footage for the first file.

The changing of the order of input file and -ss command worked for me! Very strange!!!

this is really weird.. changing the order worked for me. But the file size sky rocketed by a few xx.


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Decimating files in Moviemaker
I need to find a way to cut down on the total number of frames in a video I'm editing. Essentially, if it was shot in 60 fps, I'd like to choose to only keep every 20th or 30th frame.
The only programs I have available are Windows MovieMaker and any freeware available. I have a video that is too detailed for the analysis program I'm using which is why I need to be able to keep only every 30th frame.

You can use ffmpeg, a free command-line tool, to do this:
ffmpeg -i in.mp4 -vf "select=not(mod(n\,30)),setpts=N/FRAME_RATE/TB" -r 30 out.mp4

-vf specifies a video filterchain i.e. a sequence of filters applied to a single input.
select=not(mod(n\,30)) - this filter keeps only each 30th frame from the source.
FFmpeg works primarily within the framework of time-based containers, such as a video, which is a series of images shown in a cycle through time. The PTS is the presentation timestamp of a frame i.e. when the player should present a frame. Due to how ffmpeg works, setpts filter is needed in this case to ensure that no frames are duplicated or dropped other than what the select filter specifies.
-r 30 is the framerate of the output. To set it to the rate of the source, you can either skip this parameter or set it manually i.e. -r 60 for a 60 fps source.


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FFMPEG - Add intro and outro to a video
Here is basically what I'm trying to do.
I have three files :
1. image.png
2. music.wav
3. video.mp4
I'm trying to create a new video file (mp4) with :

IMAGE.PNG for the first 5 seconds
VIDEO.MP4 for the duration of the file VIDEO.MP4 (example 60 seconds)
IMAGE.PNG + MUSIC.WAV for the duration of MUSIC.WAV (example 60 seconds)

is it possible in FFMPEG ?
and if yes, is it possible in one "go" meaning without creating several intermediate video files ?
thanks a lot !

It's possible. Use
ffmpeg -loop 1 -i image.png -f lavfi -t 5 -i anullsrc -i video.mp4 -i music.wav \
-filter_complex "[0]trim=duration=5,fps=N[pre];[3]showwaves=WxH:r=N[b]; \
                 [b][0]overlay=shortest=1[post]; \
                 [pre][1:a][2:v][2:a][post][3]concat=n=3:v=1:a=1[v][a]" \
-map [v] -map [a] out.mp4

The image and video have to be of the same dimensions. If not, you should scale one of them, likely the image.
The fps filter should be set to the framerate of the video.
The showwaves is a kludge. Since the looped image stream does not terminate, I generate a video stream using showwaves from the audio, which will be of the same length as the WAV. WxH should be the same as the video, and r the same as the video's framerate.
Then the image is overlaid on top the filter is set to terminate when the waves video ends.
Finally, the concat filter assembles the full video.


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How to add "AR" elements over video?
disclaimer: I'm completely a neophyte, mildly competent with Photoshop and that's it.
I was trying to figure out what would be the quickest/easiest way to add AR-ish elements over a video. For example if in the video there is a landmark like a historic building I would like to have a "marker" composited over the middle of the face of this building. Would the gps/compass data of the camera that recorded the video help in any way?

This doesn't quite seem to be about video as much as it is about coding. If I knew anything about AR, which I don't, I would use scripting to "listen" to the video time, then other scripting (the AR stuff) would trigger based on that time.

I produced a video on Augmented Reality, for a large corporation that spearheaded the technology. We used After Effects to simulate a lot of effects.
We shot our plates and scenes, and when necessary we added dots on sticks for tracking points.
Then, you can take your footage into AE, latch motion trackers to the dots (if your scene doesnt have points sharp enough to tack to), and once you track the motion, you can nest your AR graphics, either static (photoshop psd files), or animated, and they will move with the camera movement, as if in the scene.
If you want to go the extra mile, you can make the AR layers 3D, and add a camera, and using multiple tracking points get your AR graphics to move in 3D, with axis tilting.
You can also add things like Depth of Field.
And lastly, you can have them build on and build off using the built in transitions in AE under Animation... there are 100s.
Hope this helps, Its more than one could explain here, but there are a lot of youtube videos on how to use motion trackers, 3D layers, etc- so if you look into the keywords I gave you, hopefully it will get you started.
Cheers!

I think not. AR-ish sounds like to want to elude something, here I think locking down the camera and simply generating the AR-elements in photoshop/illustrator, or if moving AR elements are cqlled for, After Effects and compositing them in premiere or After Effects would get you where I think you want to go. If the video is shot and not locked-down, you can try using the tracking tools in after-effects to allign the AR elements with your source footage.
For inspiration have a peek at this reel; I think many of thes effects follow this general principle: