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Resize a paragraph text box in After Effects using expressions
I'm building a Mogrt using After Effects.
I need to be able to drive the size of a paragraph text box dynamically using expressions.
Is that possible?
I can't find a parameter related to this.

It's not possible directly from what I understand, but you can make a "faux text box" and alter the scale while inversely altering the text size and leading.
For example, add a paragraph text box and resize it (closely) to 1920x1080. Drag the anchor to the upper left corner. The anchor point will be the point the text box scales from. Then add 3 sliders to the text layer: FontSize, TextBoxWidth, and FontLeading. Set these sliders to arbitrary values to start, maybe 16 for FontSize, 800 for TextBoxWidth, and 1.6 for FontLeading.
Add this as the Source Text expression
textSize = effect("FontSize")("Slider");
targetWidth = effect("TextBoxWidth")("Slider");
textLeading = effect("FontLeading")("Slider");
originalBoxWidth = 1920;

boxScale = targetWidth / originalBoxWidth;

text.sourceText.style.setFontSize(textSize / boxScale).setLeading(textSize * textLeading / boxScale);

Add this expression to Transform > Scale of the text layer.
targetWidth = effect("TextBoxWidth")("Slider");
originalBoxWidth = 1920;

boxScale = targetWidth / originalBoxWidth;

value * boxScale;

You'll then be able to adjust the sliders to set the text box width, font size, and leading.
See this video for more details:


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Why do my Objects show up black in Cinema-4D?
I am new to 3D software and have just started with Cinema 4d. This is a very noobish question but when I create any object in a project it always shows up pitch black.
The tutorial videos I have seen create objects where the faces can be see in a shaded grey. What am I doing wrong?
Image relating to the problem:

This normally happens when you have a light in the scene and the light is inside the box such that it can impossibly light the box. But in your screenshot I don't see any lights in your scene, so that's not the case.

If you click on the object, in the lower right corner basic properties of the cube (like the Name, the Layer, Visible in Editor, etc...) will show up. Can you check if Use Color is set to Off? If it's set to something else it might be the cause of your colour problem.

Hi Bart thanks for the response! I have checked the object in question and the Color is set to Off.

This can either be an issue with OpenGL and you may want to disable it in the program settings (under "File) to test if thats the issue. Or you may have disabled the standard infinite light that is present in every new scene until you add your first light. Add an infinite light from the lights menu and see if that gives your objects some shading.
Also try what @Bart Arondson said and look if you have the "Use Color" option enabled and set to black. If yes set it to "off".

Hello Paul, thanks for the response! I applied a light and it did show me the faces of the cube. However, what's strange is that when I turned Open GL off like you said, it showed me the cube's faces without the lights. I think its could be a problem with using my integrated graphics on my i7 CPU. Thank you for the help :)

If you go to Preferences -> OpenGL -> Show OpenGL Capabilities... you can see if your graphics card meets Cinema4D's OpenGL requirements.

OpenGL is important for C4D to show advanced shading. The viewport is very limited in software mode. Always have OpenGL enabled as long as its not causing any problems (which is rather rare anyways). If adding a light shows you a shaded face then the missing infinite light was you problem.

Hey bart, I just checked the capabilities and the computer seems fine to run it. I have added an infinite light and it seems to work with Open GL on. Thanks for your help guys :)

When you create a light the standard infinite light gets deleted, if you now delete the light you just created you delete all lights in your scene and by that making the scene black. Without OpenGL you dont have any light visualization in the viewport thats why you see your stuff again.

I had the same issue but I fixed it. All I did was add light layers around my object & it no longer was black.

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Timing of script pages
(I'm making a short film with a friend, and we want to make this as close as possible to a blockbuster film without blowing our budget. We have spent about $5000 on a camera, lenses and two microphones. So we have made an outline of the movie and I've started making the script. I'm using Final Draft 8.)
I've written the first page which describes what happens when the actors and our names appear in the beginning of the movie and the start of the first scene. I figured that all this lasts exactly 1 minute, and the page is only 3/4 full. Should I expand the page, should I start on a new page or should I just continue and end up with a page describing 1.5 minutes?
(Do you know about a good website where you can learn all you need about this stuff? All the websites seems to have their own interpretation about how you should write a script. Some make them for Word, WordPad and so on.. As I said, I use Final Draft 8.)

As a rough estimate, one page of a script equates to one minute of screen time. It is impossible to say exactly how long a page will last on screen because it relies on too many factors.
You shouldn't worry about trying to make each page go for exactly one minute. You'll find that some pages will go over a minute on screen and some will go under. So don't start a new page - that'd be incorrect script formatting and if you give an incorrectly formatted script to a producer you'll have no hope of getting it made.
I've found the best way to learn how to write screenplays (other than professional lessons) is to read screenplays. Here are a few websites that you can find scripts on:
Drew's Script-O-Rama
Screenplays for You
Simply Scripts
Daily Script
I haven't used Final Draft to write scripts before. I use Celtx and it's an amazing program. It's free and it formats the script for you as you go. I highly recommend it.

I already have Final Draft. Do you mean that Celtx is better, even if I already have got FD?

I've never used Final Draft so I can't compare them. If it formats your script correctly and you know how to use it then that's fine - stick with it.

As I understand this, your script is for you and your friend and that you are both one of the producers and the director, perhaps even the camera man, editor, etc as is the case with many independent movies. So if I have this correct, your script format is only as important as how it serves you to make this movie, not some Hollywood guys unless you plan to have this done by the industry.
Regardless. Here's some long range goals for your script.
1) be prepared to change it.
2) if there are lines for actors, rehearse these to see if they sound right and make sense in the context of your story, also, it would not hurt to block out the action or positions of actors for each scene.
2) make sure you have enough visual information to make a good storyboard which will be the basis for the shot list and production schedule.

Yes, it's basically my friend and me plus some actors and other people helping with the mic boom etc.. I asked this question just to learn how you "formally" should do it, what's correct.

To add...one page DOUBLE SPACED is about one minute for screenplay format. For two column format, one page Double Spaced is 30 seconds; right column is only half the page width.
And, CELTX is the bomb.

You mean CELTX is actually BETTER than Final Draft 8 if you don't look at the price tag?

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Technique: remove background by combining two images?
I have two videos - both are on a tripod, so they are locked in place. First video has an empty background (no people or objects), the second video has a person walking through the scene.
Is there a technique that allows me to combine the two images - have the empty background remove the background from the person walking through it - and only keep the person with a transparent background?

I believe the effect you're after is Difference Matte. Keep in mind your clean plate needs to be exactly the same, pixel for pixel, as in your shots. You'll likely need to do some manual clean up as well.

I dont quite understand but I think you need to grab a video composer like After Effects or Sony Vegas Pro and put the video with the person ontop of the other video. You can achieve clones by that!

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Will the Samsung 64GB Evo Plus be sufficient for the Panasonic gx80/85?
Will the Samsung 64GB Evo Plus be sufficient for the Panasonic GX80/85 for 4K video?
I have recently purchased the Panasonic GX80 and need to get an SD card to go with it. I know nothing about cameras or SD cards. I am trying to find the cheapest, reliable card that will work well with the 4K video. My research has indicated that the Samsung card linked above should work fine with its (up to) 100 MB/s read and 60 MB/s write speed with class 10 and U3 compatibility. I've noticed that (for this product) the write speed scales with the memory size. I am really trying to determine if:

Is this card overkill / insufficient / fine for a beginner?

In addition to

I've read that Micro SD Cards with Adapters are preferred as full sized SD cards tend to break and with the micro SD cards it is trivial to replace the adapters. Is this nonsense or does it generally hold true?
Are Samsung SD cards generally reliable?

Most of my information comes from this forum post, which would now appear to be out of date. I won't ask about memory card size as I understand that this is completely subjective and situational. First time post here, so apologies if this is subjective / not the quality of question that you expect here. If so, I'll happily delete.

What speed does my SD-card need?
The manual states that:

So any card that can continually write 100 Megabit per second (so around 13 MegaByte per second) should be fast enough for recording 4K. For photography, there's no hard number: usually, it's the faster, the better, especially when shooting series of pictures in RAW. However, it will only have influence on the buffer and how fast it is cleared.
Your suggested card has a write speed of up to 60 MegaByte - but "up to" can mean anything in between 0.1 and 60.0 MB/s. Look for benchmarks - or look for
Speed Classes - those will usually tell you the minimum continuous write speed of a card. Speed-classes come in all sorts of logos and are usually displayed on the card.
Please note that the camera has to support the protocol of the card - A U3 card will only be able to work at C6-speed (at best) in a camera that only supports up to C6.
Now, having a standard is all well and fine - as long as everyone is abiding by it. "Premium" card manufacturers have a reputation to lose, so they usually will not forge speed ratings. If you do not know if you want to trust them, again, you should look for benchmarks and reviews.

Are µSDs more reliable than regular SDs?
No. I carry some of my (non-essential) SD cards in my purse - next to my coins and without protective cases. So I assume that to break an SD-card, you really have to try. SD-cards are usually cheaper than µSD-cards (at same specifications), so I would go with one of these all the time.
This, of course, does not consider cross-device use of the card, e.g. in a smartphone.

Are Samsung's cards reliable?
Simply look for reviews in the internet (e.g. in the link you posted from Amazon). I have no experience with Samsung, though they tend to have good reputation. Their SSDs are always well-received, so I would think the same would go for their SD-cards. However, there is always the possibility that you get the one bad card of a batch - or that one specific model comes out faulty.

Thanks for the great answer. I'd upvote but I don't have the required rep. I will come back when I do. The cards is class 10 and is U3 compatible. From what I've read class 10 means a write at a minimum of 10MB/s and the U3 compatibility corresponds to a minimum of 30MB/s. So hopefully I'd always be close to the 13MB/s as you suggested?

Agreed. I would love to see some speeds tests for this card. I can only find reviews for the 128GB versions. Samsung have also been confusing (in my naive opinion) by using "+" for their old cards and "plus" for the new cards.

(included the answer to your first comment into my answer). Well...if you don't like their naming scheme, you can always look for cards of other manufacturers (Kingston, Transcend, Sandisk, Lexar, Sony, Toshiba - just to name a few).

Just to say that the first card I received only managed an average write speed of 5.5MB/s. I immediately returned this and the replacement averaged around 60MB/s. Just shows that you have to check!


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Verse: If I create a hotspot link to a nested chapter, does the story return to the hotspot or the parent chapter?
In the Verse Story Editor, if I create a hotspot link to a nested chapter, does the story return to the hotspot when the nested chapter finishes playing, or does the story return to the "parent" chapter above the nested chapter?

The story returns to the hotspot and continues from there. If you're creating a story with Verse, it's important to understand this behavior so you have creative control over the flow of your story.


text:
Shutter Speed or frame rate we looking at when dealing with flickering issue?
I'm using SONY RX10M3 to shoot video at 1000fps. But using conventional lighting system I get flickering. Now I'm planning to buy a LEDs light by STRATUS, which they stated that :

Flicker free at shutter speeds up to 1/3000th second

So I wonder which parameter should I be looking at when I want to shoot at 1000fps video? At this rate, what is the shutter speed used by the camera?

The reason you get flicker in the video is that many conventional lights don't actually stay on all the time.  When running on AC power, the power actually "goes off" 100-120 times a second (depending on if you have 50hz or 60hz AC).  The way this oscillation impacts things differs by type of light from a slight dimming in incandescent to a color shift in some florescent lights to other odd behaviors in LEDs (depending on the DC conversion circuitry and how power is supplied to the LEDs).
When the light says it is flicker free up to speeds of 1/3000th of a second, it means that any flicker it has should balance out for frames as fast as 1/3000th of a second (meaning the flicker, if it has one, is faster than that so that it's guaranteed to give most of the exposure in any 1/3000th second window.)
As far as the shutter speed the camera uses, I'd assume it is whatever setting you choose.  At 1000fps shutters, the "shutter" is purely electronic and is just the interval between blanking and reading of the sensor.  As long as each frame has more than 1/3000th of a second to accumulate light, you should be ok.  If your camera gives shutter speeds in degrees, that means you'd want at least a 120 degree shutter at 1000fps.  If it measures it in fractions of a second, just make sure it is set for 1/3000 or higher.
You may need to adjust the exposure type for HFR shooting by putting the camera in HFR mode and then using the function menu to make it either manual or shutter priority exposure so that you can keep the frame rate fixed at a slow enough setting.

This is a very well explained answer! Thank you for clearing up my confusion!

AJs answer is the correct one. You can also get brighter lights where the electrical current variation doesn't result in as much dimming. But ultimately it's about having high quality lights.
However, you can also solve the problem in post usually with software. Flicker Free is a plugin designed to de-flicker slow motion and other causes of flicker. More info at: https://digitalanarchy.com/Flicker/main.html


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After Effects - images get corrupted / ruined picture
As shown in the picture, the image got corrupted: flipped vertically, and damaged...
Sometimes I get just a black picture, sometimes other image distortions.

I don't know why it happened, but I've found out what causes it -
it's the frame blending interpolation, which was set to pixel-motion.

Did the original video have cuts in it? Pixel motion doesn't deal very well with scene changes.

it happens mostly in transitions... but sometimes just by itself. I guess it happens when the frame rate of the video is not fully compatible with the composition frame rate


text:
What is the camera used by the scientists at the beginning of Titanic?
In the film Titanic [1997], the scientists (and mostly Bill Paxton's character) use a white camera as seen in these screenshots:

It looks like one of the Canon camcorders but it's not obvious what the brand and model are.


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Blu-ray transcode to H.265 using Intel Quick Sync Video
Blu-ray transcode to H.265 using Intel Quick Sync Video
I just started a process of transcoding about 100 video discs (with DTS-HD Master Audio on passthrough) from my collection of Blu-rays and want to store them for backup purposes solely.

Source video codec: Advanced Video Codec at profile High@L4.1.
Target video codec: H.265 using Intel Quick Sync Video.

Hardware being a new laptop with:

CPU: Intel Core i7 7700HQ (Kaby Lake).
GPU: Intel HD Graphics 630 integrated in the CPU, capable of Intel Quick Sync Video hardware encode of H.265.

I do this with HandBrake software version 1.0.7 under Windows 10 Pro.
In short I have applied Constant quality with RF20 and Quality preset for the video.
Originals are all at fixed 7.5 GiB size (it is a series on a Blu-ray Double-layer, so on 1 disc there are 5 episodes).
The sizes of my encodes are usually around 3 GiB +/- 0.5 GiB.
That is about 40 % of the original size overall.

Problem

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema plays the video using Native DXVA2 with some unexpected effects, I am unable to describe it, so here's an image in 4K UHD:

I own a license for PowerDVD 17 Ultra, it plays the video just fine, but it does play the video only, not playing the audio at all.
Only VLC Media Player plays both video and audio well.

Question
Could anyone point me to the right direction as to if I am doing anything wrong?
Or are these effects of Intel Quick Sync Video normal?

Wrong container format (MP4)
I omitted the information about the container format. I used MP4 in preliminary tests in an effort to increase compatibility with portable devices.
It did not cross my mind that this would be the cause for the missing audio in PowerDVD 17 Ultra player. So the container has been changed to MKV. It did not, however, change anything on the artifacts in Media Player Classic - Home Cinema.

Probably buggy implementation of Native DXVA2 in Media Player Classic - Home Cinema
Thanks to Mulvya, we have found a work-around (not a solution). It seems to be buggy implementation of Native DXVA2 in Media Player Classic - Home Cinema. Switching to Video Mixing Renderer 9 (renderless) works well.


text:
Transcoding 100+ files from H.264 to H.265
I am in a process of transcoding 100+ High Quality Bitrate 720p MKVs containing H.264 (x264) to H.265 (x265 / HEVC).
I do this with HandBrake software under Linux Debian 9 on Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.2GHz 4-core.
Various versions follow.
Kernel:
4.8.0-1-amd64

HandBrake:
0.10.5 (x86_64)

x265:
2.1-2
using cpu capabilities: MMX2 SSE2Fast SSSE3 SSE4.2 AVX AVX2 FMA3 LZCNT BMI2

I have these settings applied, according to mediainfo:
Encoding settings: wpp / ctu=64 / min-cu-size=8 / max-tu-size=32 / tu-intra-depth=3 / tu-inter-depth=3 / me=3 / subme=4 / merange=57 / rect / amp / max-merge=4 / temporal-mvp / no-early-skip / rskip / rdpenalty=0 / no-tskip / no-tskip-fast / strong-intra-smoothing / no-lossless / no-cu-lossless / no-constrained-intra / no-fast-intra / open-gop / no-temporal-layers / interlace=0 / keyint=240 / min-keyint=24 / scenecut=40 / rc-lookahead=40 / lookahead-slices=0 / bframes=8 / bframe-bias=0 / b-adapt=2 / ref=5 / limit-refs=1 / limit-modes / weightp / weightb / aq-mode=1 / qg-size=32 / aq-strength=1.00 / cbqpoffs=0 / crqpoffs=0 / rd=6 / psy-rd=2.00 / rdoq-level=2 / psy-rdoq=1.00 / log2-max-poc-lsb=8 / no-rd-refine / signhide / deblock=0:0 / sao / no-sao-non-deblock / b-pyramid / cutree / no-intra-refresh / rc=crf / crf=21.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / ipratio=1.40 / pbratio=1.30

In short I have applied Constant Quality RF21 and at veryslow preset.
Originals are all at fixed 2 GiB size. The sizes my encodes differ (you can deduce how much time it took too from the file list):
494M Dec  7 07:02 S05E16.mp4
551M Dec  7 00:14 S05E17.mp4
654M Dec  6 16:11 S05E18.mp4
668M Dec  6 08:10 S05E19.mp4

The original files have these settings applied:
Encoding settings: cabac=1 / ref=5 / deblock=1:0:0 / analyse=0x3:0x133 / me=umh / subme=7 / psy=1 / psy_rd=1.00:0.00 / mixed_ref=1 / me_range=16 / chroma_me=1 / trellis=1 / 8x8dct=1 / cqm=0 / deadzone=21,11 / fast_pskip=0 / chroma_qp_offset=-2 / threads=12 / sliced_threads=0 / nr=0 / decimate=1 / interlaced=0 / bluray_compat=0 / constrained_intra=0 / bframes=3 / b_pyramid=2 / b_adapt=1 / b_bias=0 / direct=1 / weightb=1 / open_gop=0 / weightp=2 / keyint=250 / keyint_min=23 / scenecut=40 / intra_refresh=0 / rc_lookahead=40 / rc=2pass / mbtree=1 / bitrate=5670 / ratetol=1.0 / qcomp=0.60 / qpmin=0 / qpmax=69 / qpstep=4 / cplxblur=20.0 / qblur=0.5 / ip_ratio=1.40 / aq=1:1.00

The question is, is the CPU time well spent? I mean, can I do any obvious optimizations to speed things up without having lower quality and / or larger files as a result?
EDIT1:
Citation from the official source:

x265 has ten predefined --preset options that optimize the trade-off between encoding speed (encoded frames per second) and compression efficiency (quality per bit in the bitstream). The default preset is medium. It does a reasonably good job of finding the best possible quality without spending excessive CPU cycles looking for the absolute most efficient way to achieve that quality. When you use faster presets, the encoder takes shortcuts to improve performance at the expense of quality and compression efficiency. When you use slower presets, x265 tests more encoding options, using more computations to achieve the best quality at your selected bit rate (or in the case of –crf rate control, the lowest bit rate at the selected quality).

EDIT2:
Hardware configuration

Type: Dedicated server of mine. Currently used only to transcode videos.
CPU: Intel Xeon E3-1225 v3 3.2GHz 4-core
GPU: No dedicated card, only integrated
RAM: 32GB ECC 1600MHz
Disks:

SSD; used for system
HDDs in RAID6; used for writing the output videos
RAMDisk 20GB; used for reading the source videos

EDIT3:
With regard to the comment about swapping the memory, I have had set vm.swappiness = 1.

veryslow takes a lot more time for a marginal improvement. I would suggest medium preset with a lower CRF.

Remember too that the files will have the same quality regardless of the speed setting, using veryslow will just spend more time making it (as Mulvya said, marginally) smaller. So you can prioritise any two out of: speed, quality or file size.

Have you tried running more than one encode in parallel? With multiprocessor machines this can sometimes lead to dramatic reduction in the overall time. Not sure if you can run more than one instance of Handbrake, but you certainly can with ffmpeg. Two or more parallel encodes means that while one is not using the CPU, e.g. during disk i/o, the other will soak up the spare cycles. As long as you don't use all the memory on your system, because then it will start swapping to disk and things will go way slower. I'd suggest monitoring the CPU, disk I/O and memory usage during the encodes to see.

no, see the last sentence: (or in the case of –crf rate control, the lowest bit rate at the selected quality). IOW if you use crf the quality is constant, just the size or encoding speed varies.

Well then you need to prioritise size over time, given that quality is constant. Just BTW how long term are you talking?

@stib ~ 10 years

You should be right with h.265 then. If you were talking 100+ years I'd be suggesting an open source codec/container.

You could check https://software.intel.com/en-us/intel-media-server-studio/try-buy if you want an encoder that is faster. It's not intended for end user like handbrake, but ships with example code.

To the OP, you cut out the relevant clause of the sentence you bolded " to achieve the best quality at your selected bit rate ". But since you are using CRF mode, the next part is the actual relevant part: "or in the case of –crf rate control, the lowest bit rate at the selected quality". And with slow presets, the difference in bitrate is small but the time spent is much more.

The whole one day I dedicated to testing various scenarios. The following applies to this particular series in this particular quality, so I don't say it applies generally. So in this case the following applies:

file sizes at the very same settings with only medium and veryslow preset changed vary negligibly: ~ -10 MiB on average in favor of veryslow preset
visual quality at a very close look is rather the same in either medium or veryslow preset

One thing solved. I have changed the preset to medium.

at a very close look, the source videos are not in such a high quality as I thought, that explains why x265 compresses to almost 1/4 of the original size

Another mystery solved.
Provided I now transcode at 25 fps, I have raised the RF to 20.

RAMDisk does not provide benefit in this case, both for medium and veryslow preset; I ended up with RAID6 as the source and SSD as the output drive

The inconvenience of moving files to RAMDisk solved.

To answer the question, the CPU time was not spent well at all.

In my experience, the slow-er presets make a difference when you have moving objects on the scene. AFAIK, the one of the main improvements area in x265 is the "prediction" and reuse of info about objects moving in the scene.
The more computing power the encoder spends on finding these moving objects and the way to encode them, the better quality (or smaller bitrate) you get.
So, the answer is: It depends on the content of your clips and what do you want to do with the result. Do you need a good quality of every single frame? (Security camera) Then it's worth encoding with slow and -qb. Is it just an informative recording? Then go with medium and crf 28 and -tune film.


text:
If I can buy SSD, how do I best use it to improve video editing?
I am a small hobby editor. Just for fun, nothing serious. Hence: I don't know really much about the technical side at all, and most things I just don't understand. I'm really just a consumer.
I do have a good PC already: i7 4.00 Ghz, GTX 980.
I have 4 HDD's now, all 7200rpm: 1TB, 2TB, and 5TB(external). And one 500GB as primary containing my OS.
Now money restricts me a lot, so I can buy now ONE SSD and not even the greatest. I see an EVO of 500GB I can afford.
So how do I use that the best for video edit preformance?
I will have to keep all my source material on the HDD's. So I will import files from HDD into my Edit-program to edit.
I'm thinking to have my OS and all other programs on the SSD. But install only my Edit-program on the 2TB HDD and use that entire HDD ONLY for the Edit-program.
Or even the exact other way around: keep my OS and other on the HDD as it is, since I don't care much about fast boot or 'quickly open programs'. And install my Edit-program on the SSD and use the SSD only for that.
I searched google and internet for days trying to find a good answer for me, but I guess all other editors know too much to have such a low profile question lol.
I did find lots of editors claiming to have great benefit from SSD, but all of them had many SSD's so they could have their OS, Edit program AND their source material on SSD's. I can't possibly afford that now and I'm even wondering if one SSD will do me any good. If all the benefit I will get is that my Edit-software starts up really really fast, I wont bother...
Sorry for my rambling but I truly have no idea how I could make it work best. The ONLY reason I want to buy the SSD is to improve video editing, I have absolutely no other desire for it.
Any tips or advice I would highly appreciate!
ADDED: Maybe also useful info? My Edit-program is Cyberlink Powerdirector 15. I's very affordable and can still do nice things for it's price.
I mostly edit 1080p using quite a lot of multiple track splitscreens, multiple effects and transisions.
(Wow, I got 6 reputation and Bronze medal already? That wasn't hard lol :-)

All computer performance optimization is based on understanding critical paths (bottlenecks), then removing or relaxing the bottleneck until there is nothing more you can afford to improve (possibly because there is simply no known widget, at any price, that will improve whatever else is on your critical path).
Some very common critical paths in video editing are

Reading video data from disk
Rendering video data (for display and/or for writing to disk)
Writing video data to disk

When you import video data into a project, rarely is it all loaded into RAM, though it could be.  If it is loaded into RAM, then buying an SSD is only going to speed up the initial loading of your RAM--a one-time benefit.
More often, video is buffered into RAM, but it fundamentally lives on disk, and thus disk speed becomes important as you play or scrub through your files.  If you have 1080p ACVHD stream, it uses approximately 28Mb/sec of bandwidth.  Modern HDDs can average 25MB/sec to 120MB/sec or more, depending on whether they are connected via USB2, USB3, USB3.1, SATA, eSATA, etc.  But if you need to load and display from 8 streams, it can try to read 28Mb/sec times 8 streams = 28MB/sec from the disk, but because the streams are likely scattered across the disk, it has to issue many seeks and buffer lots of data, leading to uneven performance.  An SSD is an advantage here because the seek time is virtually zero.  A single SATA SSD could easily handle 8 and perhaps 24 streams without choking.
However, the computer's CPU and GPU are typically designed to handle HD and perhaps quad HD video, meaning that they are going to begin to choke if they have to display 24 simultaneous streams.  But 4-8 should be OK.
To optimize your system, you should use a system profiling tool to see just how much disk bandwidth your system delivers under load vs. the calculated bandwidth of your video streams.  And you should measure how much video rendering performance your CPU/GPU can do vs. the estimated complexity of your streams (are they all just passed through a virtual switcher, or does every frame have scaling, translation, cropping, blur, sharpening, noise reduction, color correction, etc)?  You can then do some math: how much does it cost to close X% of the gap for each different gap you can measure.  Which dollars have the greatest impact on closing the gaps you can close?
You might find that indeed an SSD is just the ticket.  Or it might be that your GPU is really your rate-limiting step.  Most serious video editing workstations are a collection of many high-end components.  Having just one piece of the puzzle might only speed things up by 5%, whereas having all of the pieces, even if only half as good as the best, can speed things up by 50%.
It does take a little technical knowledge to profile and tune a system, but what it really takes is dedication to the process and good measurement tools.  Or enough money to keep buying bits until you can no longer see any improvements.

Hello Michael, thank you so much for this generous answer! There's a lot of interesting info in there for me that I've read multiple times and will read more in an attempt to understand/learn as much as possible.                                            I'm thinking it doesn't really answer for me my question, which remains.                         But nevertheless thanks a lot! :)

@EvilYoda Which part of your question do you feel isn't covered by MichaelTiemann's answer?

I don't know, now I'm thinking I just don't get it. At school I was always REALLY bad at math. When too many terms keep coming at me my mind just blocks. So now I'm thinking: maybe I'm too stupid and now while I have a great answer, making me just about sorry I came here to ask, self hatred is an issue.

So I'm really sorry Michael Tiemann, but now I read your answer many times over, and it does seem to me you know what you talk about.                            From your answer I am thinking the only way one SSD can help my editing is if I have my source material on it so my Edit-program can read from it fast?

Because then I'm thinking my best setup would be: keep my OS on the HDD as it is. Keep my Edit-software on a HDD. And just use the SSD to copy my source-material to that I use in current projekts so my Edit-software can read from the SSD?           Because for as far as my brain grasps all this, that seems to be the ONLY way an SSD would really benefit me right? Am I getting it?

Because thats the problem, I can only afford one 500GB SDD. If I could have multiple SSD's I probably wouldn't be here with this question because then it would be no brainer.

If the bottleneck you are trying to solve is video playback, then using an SSD for your system drive gives you no advantage--you need to use the SSD for your video source drive.  Or perhaps for your video proxy/scratch drive (which might be one and the same with your video source drive).

Hi Michael thank you very much! I'm not really trying to solve a particular bottleneck (I think), just giving it a shot if I could get an even smoother edit experience (luxury lol). It's true some particular video's wont run as smoothly as others in my edit-program...

But: "then using an SSD for your system drive gives you no advantage--you need to use the SSD for your video source drive" is exactly what I was looking for! Because I suspected that. So thanks again so much.                      Last question (I hope): what do you mean by "video proxy/scratch drive"?

Many video editing programs will create video proxies in order to optimize performance.  Imagine putting all your video data on a fast drive that can play back and full speed, only to have your edit program try to out-smart you and put reduced data, but many streams of it, on a non-SSD drive.  The latter might play back faster than full-res video from the same hard drive, but more slowly than from an optimized SSD.  Programs like Adobe Premiere Pro and Davinci Resolve let you put proxies whereever you want, but by default it may put them somewhere dumb.

So video proxies = for instance, shadow files? Other temp files?                        I have the shadow file option turned off. But there is always temp files.               Would it be a good idea to use the SSD for video source drive, but also have my edit-software installed on it entirely?

There are too many possible variables to hazard a guess.  System profiling is how you identify your next-to-fix problem, and then you can go about fixing it, sometimes by using software configuration and preferences to get the slow-running stuff over to faster-performing hardware, and sometimes by replacing slower-running hardware with faster-running hardware (which you might have to do if the software insists on trying to out-think you).

Ok, thank you so very much one last time, Michael Tiemann, for the time and attention you spent in answering for me! I think I learned enough of what I was going for to start trying some things, you officially made it into my awesome-book. ;-)


text:
Which options exist for exporting music used on the timeline?
I'm trying to get an overview of which options I have to get a list of audible music used on a Premiere Pro, Avid Media Compoaer and Final Cut Pro timeline. I mention audible, because I would not be interested in music on the timeline which is e.g. muted - and thus not audible.
I would be interested in knowing e.g. the filename, start and stop positions to build a summary of the music used - and audible - on a timeline.
Such a list could simply be the name of files (containing the music) used on the timeline.
I know these applications can extract EDL lists, but I am uncertain how precise these are. Is this the best I can get in terms of timeline summaries, or do I have other options?
I am not interested in 3rd party applications, but only functionality provided by the applications themselves.
What is the best way to extract a summary of e.g. filenames, start and stop positions - and how can i make sure that these extracts only include audible music?

To my knowledge FCPX does not have anything built in for this. You would need 3rd party.
If you willing to use 3rd party my best bet would be Producer’s Best Friend


text:
Continuous video autofocus speed on Sony a7 iii
So I've got my a7iii and continuous autofocus (AF-C) with Wide focus area is blazingly fast when shooting stills. It recognizes faces and can clearly keep the running man's eyes in focus when looking thought the viewfinder and shooting bursts at 10fps — green squares are there and jumping like they should.

But when I switch to video, autofocus becomes slow and laggy, even with the AF Drive Speed set to Fast. Pressing AF-ON or shutter button works not continuous, ignoring AF-C mode. I can tap the screen to set the Lock On AF object. White rectangle appear and it works, but slow — clearly not capable of keeping fast moving objects in focus.

Is there any way to make a7iii to focus the same fast way in video as in stills?
Are there some settings that I miss or it's the way it's designed and I'm out of luck?

I haven't yet handled the A7s mkIII or A7 mkIII, but I'm familiar and own the A7s and A7r line, and before that shot for years on Canon 5D mkIIs.
First, video cameras are not DSLRs, and DSLRs really aren't video cameras.
Canon's landmark 5D mkI Camera was a game changer for people, creatives, working or aspiring to work in film on a "creative" level. The reason simply was the size of the gate, which directly correlates to very shallow hyperfocal which is realized within the final image. It gave everyone a camera that could pretty much look, at least on a small screen, like they had shot it using an Arri 435 35mm camera system.
But the camera is still a DSLR. And the A7/A7r/A7s mkIII is still a DSLR. The lenses designed for the the A7s By Sony- which is their "video model" within the A7 line, are not "video lenses". They are still lenses. They are designed first and formost to shoot stills. To keep up with fast action sports, shooting at high frame rates using the A7r mkIII. They are not designed in any way to continuously autofocus... even though Sony has "Included that as a feature". It's a feature of the camera sure, but it's not really a feature anyone with video shooting skills would use.
I shoot a lot of content. I've done narrative fiction, I've done live theatrics, I've even shot news both studio camera and eng/efp which included a lot of fast moving objects and scenarios.
But I almost never shoot on auto, actually, I never shoot on auto really. I might in some very rare cases, but 99% of the time I shoot on manual focus with push for auto as an assigned button to 1, and push for focus assist on another (near my trigger finger).
This is because regardless of whether you're shooting with an Sony FS7 or, 5, A shoulder style ENG camera, or a DSLR, you are not going to ever get accurate focus without learning to manually pull focus. The camera simply cannot do it.
Even in the world of high end sports, The NFL, those camera operators shoot using 120X lenses on pedestal cameras from hundreds of yards away acheiving amazingly tight shots with very shallow depth of field. But those cameras are grounded to a block of cement, isolated from vibration, the lenses are stabilized, and the cameras with glass cost $500,000. Those guys... focus manually. Left hand on focus servo and right hand on zoom. They constantly breath the lens to find tack sharp, and their monitors are highly specific for focus showing exactly where that tack point is.
I guess my long winded point is, if you are shooting wide, as in a wide shot, or you're shooting with a small CCD camera, like a 1/4" chip old school camera, auto-focus does an ok Job. But good camera work means you have to practice a lot, and I speak from the standpoint of someone who has trained, and tried to train people to shoot great content.
Many can't do it, because they lack the laser type focus that shooting "anything moving", requires... Constantly watching the shot, for tack sharp focus, and adjusting for every move.
Even when I shoot interviews for documentary/PR/Commercial work, the shallow depth of field on the full frame cameras is so shallow, that if I'm shooting with an 85 at f4 or even smaller- if the interviewee leans in just a half inch- suddenly, his eye lashes are soft, and his ears at the back tip are now the focal point.
So my opinion is you are out of luck. No camera operator, in film, tv, or whatever, who does top notch work would "rely" on an autofocus system unless it was for a very specific need be reason. Autofocus for stills, sure. But that's 12-14 FPS max. And it's a whole other art form. The technology has pushed ahead and made lenses work for that, - but you have to remember, with photo---
99% of the shots they take are outtakes. A sports photographer takes 1000s of photos at a game. Perhaps he gets 1, 2, or 3 great shots- perfectly focused, the right moment... they edit out nearly every other shot.
Video is much much harder in that respect. And I have a lot of photographer friends who have noted that... it's harder. You gotta get the shot, hold the shot, the entire time.

Martin, thank you so much for your answer! I’m new to video shooting, will try to learn focus peaking as you suggest!

No problem. Most people are surprised to hear, the more expensive the video camera or cinema camera gets- the less likely it is to even HAVE auto focus functionality. For instance Broadcast ENG News Reporter Cameras almost NEVER have an autofocus system. And the high end studio and field production for creative/narrative production, the Arri Alexa, RED line of Cinema cameras, have no native auto focus systems. There ARE auto focus assist systems out there, even ones so advanced they use lasers which trigger on and off when the gate is closed to clock the distance. But these are $$$$$$ Bucks.

That said, the more professional the camera operator, the less likely he would be to even think of using an AF system.


text:
False copyright claims by "Orchard Music"
I've created a video with background music. The background music is licensed under Creative Commons. Link (contains a download button):
Please click on the 'Awareness (Ambient Lounge Mix)' text to be directed to the license description.
When I uploaded the video to Youtube it had a copyright notice from "Orchard Music". So, I disputed the copyright infringement claim. My argumentation was that the music was a Creative Commons license. Orchard Music rejected my dispute.
I can dispute the rejected decision again. Two things can happen then.

The Copyright claim will be taken down
My uploaded video will be taken down

I fear that option 2 will be applied. I did some research and found valuable sources.

https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/aVZ_dp7Ikt4
I have three questions actually:

How is it possible that Orchard Music can claim ownership of a Creative Commons music production?
Why do I need a publishing license to a Creative Commons music production?
Should I dispute the claim for the second time?

maybe http://opensource.stackexchange.com/ would be more appropriate for this question.

Where did you get the music from and who is the author of it? Is it actually owned by Orchard Music? Did you download it from their website?

Or possibly law.stackexchange.com

@DrMayhem I would suggest to leave this open. It might also be a fit for law.SE, but it's on topic here as well. YouTube has a very important place in the video creater's community after all. Also, copyright and Creative Commons are topics of particular interest to creatives and videomakers ... I will also be happy to add an answer once OP replies to my question in my previous comment, there are way too many possible situations based on the question ...

Agreed - if I was convinced it needed closing I would have. Hopefully the OP will edit with the required info.

@MoritzLost I updated the answer. The owner is "Mark Southeron". I downloaded it from Soundcloud. Please head to the link.

Ok, this is quite a complicated problem actually, and depending on the specific situation, the answer might vary. So I'll break this down in a couple of subsections.
CC licences and unauthorized distribution
Creative Commons are a set of licences that allow creators to distribute their original content (e.g. music) using liberal licences under easy to understand terms. However, in order to do so, the uploader needs to hold the rights to the music (usually this means they are the creator). If they don't, they have no right to grant any permissions regarding the use of that music. It's your responsibility to check if they do have those rights.
Excerpt from my answer here:

Remember that just because someone uploads music to a website and claims it's free-to-use, it doesn't mean he actually has the right to do so or the authority to grant you any rights to it. And if you use a copyrighted piece of music in your project without knowing any better, you can stil be held responsible even if you downloaded it from a website that claimed it was free. Always check if the website you are downloading from is legit and if the uploaders actually have to rights to the music (in most cases, that means they made it themselves).

In short, just because someone uploads a Hannah Montana album to some website and puts a CC icon next to it, you still can't use Best of Both Worlds in your video. And if you do, you can't rely on your claim that you got it from that site, because the uploader didn't hold the rights to that music in the first place and it would've been your responsibility to check if they do.
If it's music from a rather unknown author and there were no signs that the original source isn't legit, you might not be held responsible for the 'damage' (claimed by the copyright holder, whether that damage actually exists is a rather philosophical question) caused by your usage of the music. However, even in that case, you'd have to take your video down. So there's no winning in a situation like that.
tl;dr: Always make sure that uploader of whatever music you want to use actually made that music.
In your case, the Soundcloud account looks to be legit, so let's proceed.
CC licenses and retractability
This is only tangetially related to your specific problem, but it's actually something that I think is quite relevant to false copyright claims regarding CC licenced work. All CC licences contain this condition:

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

What this means is as long as you uphold the terms of the licence, the uploader can't retract the permissions granted by the CC licence. Of course that doesn't mean he has to continue distribution his works indefinetely. But if a music creator at some point decides to stop distributing his work under a CC licence, this doesn't affect any work using his music (e.g. your YouTube video) that was created before that time.
So, assuming you made sure the uploader of the music holds the right to it and follow the licence terms (e.g. proper attribution), your video doesn't infringe any copyright and you are right to dispute such a claim.
(Note: If an artist at some point stops distributing his music under a CC licence, from that point onwards you can't rightfully publish any new work using his music, even if you downloaded it while it was still CC licenced. The non-retractibility only affects works published while the music was being distributed under a CC licence.)
However, being right isn't all there is to it. There's a saying in German:

Recht haben und Recht bekommen sind zwei Paar Schuhe.

Roughly translated: Being right and being proven right are two different things. That's where YouTube's ID system and false copyright claims come into play.
YouTube's ID system

"In the beginning the YouTube ID system was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move"

YouTube has a system in place that automatically checks for copyrighted music in uploaded videos and places copyright claims accordingly. The copyright holder of that music (according to YouTube's database) then gets notified and can decide what to do with it; for example, they can have the video taken down, or they can decide to leave it up but receive a portion of this video's ad proceeds. They can also decide on a default action, and that's a big part of the problem that made many people very angry.
In 2013 especially there was much trouble regarding this system. The problem was, the automated ID system was terrible to begin with and would often attribute music wrongly. There were also many scammers that would claim copyright for music that wasn't theirs. The problem is that in cases like this, YouTube favors the copyright holder. So instead of having the person who claims a copyright infringement provide them with proof, the video creator's have to dispute a claim and provide prove that they didn't infringe any copyrights. This usually took a couple of weeks and in the meantime, the person to claim the copyright infringement got all the proceeds from that video.
This system has since been refined and the uproar died down, but you still hear stories like yours occassionaly. When in doubt, YouTube still favors the copyright claimer over the video creator.
The Orchard Group
I hadn't heard of the Orchard Group before, but I've looked through the links you included in your question and did some additional research. As you already said, you are not the first creator to have problems with false copyright claims. On the forums, many people are quick to call them scam artists. But I'm not sure about that. There are also some stories about people that contacted them and got their false copyright claim resolved quickly. I believe the root of the problem might be this:

The Orchard's YouTube multi-channel network has more than 1,000 channels across the globe and uses technology, built in-house, called B.A.C.O.N. (Bulk Automated Claiming on The Orchard Network) to crawl, claim and track YouTube videos to monetize for their clients. It was ranked 7th in the U.S. in July 2014.

Source: Wikipedia
However, according to this source, the Orchard Music isn't unwilling to forfeit wrongly submitted copyright claims:

YouTube users have expressed concerns about The Orchard claiming copyright ownership of music used in user-generated content that may or may not belong to them. According to an article by The Orchard on their Daily Rind blog, if audio is matched to a particular copyright owner via YouTube's content identification system, then one or more links will be placed under the video in order to help promote the copyright owner's music, with the video remaining available. The article states that erroneous claims are removed by The Orchard Team after review upon email communication with their dispute department.
In this context, The Orchard has been criticized by YouTube users for claiming content that is not theirs or in some cases, content that did not exist within the video at all. In a blog post on The Daily Rind, The Orchard explains that this is due to YouTube's automated Content ID matching and outlines steps for resolving this scenario.

So, you got two automated systems that can both screw up and have been shown to do so often. Not an ideal situation for content creators. If you get caught in such an automated system, the solution is almost always to contact the people responsible for it. Contact the Orchard Group and possibly also contact the original artist of the music. If they are indeed not trying to scam anyone, they will be willing to help you. If the Orchard Group doesn't reply, public shaming on Twitter oftentimes helps you get in touch with an actual person, not just with an email autoresponder.
If they actually are scammers or plainly refuse to forfeit their copyright claim, you will have to contact YouTube to get it resolved. So ...
Your questions

How is it possible that Orchard Music can claim ownership of a Creative Commons music production?

As mentioned, this is mostly done by automated systems that are prone to misfires, especially if larger distribution/collection companies are involved. Also, you can claim anything, that doesn't mean you actually have any lawful grounds on which your claim is based. I can claim that I be crowned High King of the Universe, but nobody will have to call me Your Majesty. And if I sue them, I'm unlikely to win that case.

Why do I need a publishing license to a Creative Commons music production?

You don't. The CC licence gives you the right to publish your video if you follow the terms laid out in the licence, you don't need to pay any additional licence fees or royalties. However, a human error is also possible.
For example, maybe the artist is represented by the Orchard Group and never intended to publish their work under a CC licence. Maybe they just forgot to change that setting while uploading their music to Soundcloud. I'm not sure about Soundcloud, but if you for example upload something to Vimeo, a CC-BY licence is applied by default, and you have to go into a submenu of the settings to change that. I think that is a terrible implementation, but that's how it is.
Even if that case, you would probably be within your rights to invoke the licence terms the author published his music under, but it might not be feasible or realistic to do so and see your claim through.

Should I dispute the claim for the second time?

That is your decision. Before you do anything, check if you followed all the licence terms, the legitimacy of your music source and everything else mentioned in this post. It might also be better to contact the Orchard Group or the artist directly to see if you can't get the issue resolved without involving YouTube as a third party. Though a lawyer would probably tell you that contacting them is the worst thing to do if you plan to follow this up with a lawsuit.
Just remember, being right doesn't mean YouTube will take your side. And if they don't, there's little you can do besides suing, which might not be feasible for you.

Disclaimer: I'm not actually sure I answered your question after all that text. I'm sure I forgot something, but there's so many important factors involved, it's hard to put everything into one answer. Feel free to ask if I forgot anything, I'll be happy to edit my answer if I can. Also note that none of this constitutes legal advice. It's rather a description of the current situation regarding YouTube's copyright claims systes and some pointers as to what you can reasonably do to get this problem resolved. Your theoretical (lawful and moral) rights and responsibilites might actually differ from what you can reasonably enforce.

Just a comment to the detailed answer, besides the fact that anyone can (falsely) claim copyright for anything, CC licenses are not per se "more liberal" you can actually "tune" a CC license to be very much like a standard "copyright". The difference for CC is that it gives the author the liberty to CHOOSE what kind of rights he or she wants to be regulated in connection to his / her work.

Yeah I know what you mean, I am from Germany too. I was surprised to find out that the US "fair use" clause is much more liberal than anything similar in Germany. The thing with the GEMA (and that'd what I meant in my answer to the original question) is a bit a problem of the authors / musicians themselves. They just don't know what they give away when signing up with the GEMA (which, to non Germans, is similar to ascap in the US). One example: if you have a musician friend and he / she signed on to GEMA, even if they give you a written permission to use a song from them, they can not.

The have to write a letter to GEMA, telling them that you will exclude the rights for song X for the use in film Y from them and negotiate them yourself. Nobody will go through this hassle to allow you to use something for free. Actually that's Why alternative organizations like freibank had been founded in Germany.

You have the most detailed and well written answer I ever recieved on stack exchange! Now lets go down to this case. I choose to email Orchard Music and kindly asked for a second opinion. They emailed me within 24 hours and they took the copyright notice down. Case closed.

@JulianSawicki Good to hear that, glad I could help! If you have no follow-up question, you could mark my answer as accepted :)

Not really a legal advice more like a practical suggestion: why don't you just ask the author of the track if you can use his music? There are cases where even then there might be legal issues (as with the GEMA in Germany) but generally you would be legally ok then.


text:
Problems opening 3GP files in Sony Vegas 12 64bit
My system crashed and i reinstalled windows, including Vegas.  Projects that included 3GP files (GSpot says that the codec is MP4V), now cant link the 3GP files.  Vegas says files are offline, i search and relink, but in the end it gives an error and files stay offline.
I have reinstalled (and rebooted) Cole2k, VLC, XVid and still no results.
VLC opens the files, no problem.
Any suggestions?
PS:  yes, 3GP did open up before - the generated sfk files are right alongside the 3GP files.

I had a related issue with mp4v in avi. https://video.stackexchange.com/a/10011/3643

I finally got back in working order by also installing AviDemux and Quicktime.
CONCLUSION: Vegas is capable of opening 3GP files AS LONG it has the right codecs, which Quicktime seems to supply when installed alongside other codec packs.


text:
How to encode with x265 cli
I have some raw H.264 10bit videos need to convert to HEVC format, but the encoder only takes some frames (600/170000) to encode, and the video is full of noise. What is the correct way to encode those videos?
The command I used:
x265 --input video.h264 --fps 24 --input-res 1920x1080 --output video.hevc

EDIT #1: I just tried to use ffmpeg but give me following error

Truncating packet of size 24883200 to 538208
  [rawvideo @ 0x1561e80] Invalid buffer size, packet size 538207 < expected frame_size 24883200
  Error while decoding stream #0:0: Invalid argument

EDIT #2: ffmpeg cmd
 ffmpeg -f rawvideo -vcodec rawvideo -s 1920x1080 -pix_fmt yuv420p10le -i video.h264 -c:v libx265 -crf 18 -preset medium -x265-params profile=main10:level-idc=50:high-tier:vbv-bufsize=100000:vbv-maxrate=100000 video.hevc

What's your ffmpeg cmd? Note that for x265, infile can be YUV or Y4M

@Mulvya I updated the post with the ffmpeg cmd. In x265 part, my source is YUV but I don't know how to convert it to Y4M.

Your source is neither YUV nor Y4M, going by the extension (and also the FFmpeg error you received). x265 is referring to a raw uncompressed bitstream by those extensions, not simply the pixel format. A .h264 is a raw H.264-encoded bitstream.
To use ffmpeg only, start the cmd like this:
ffmpeg -f h264 -i video.h264 -c:v libx265 ....

To use the x265 standalone encoder, use
ffmpeg -f h264 -i video.h264 -f yuv4mpegpipe - | x265 --input - --fps 24 ....


text:
ffmpeg default output frame rate
What is the default output frame rate chosen by ffmpeg to encode MP4s?
Where is this specified on the man page?
My input video stats are:

r_frame_rate=120/1
avg_frame_rate=31230000/1042111
duration=11.579011
nb_frames=347

After (demuxing, decoding) splitting (rescaling, encoding and muxing) the video stream I end up with has the following stats:

r_frame_rate=120/1
avg_frame_rate=120/1
duration=9.575000
nb_frames=1149

I started with 347 frames and ended up with 1149 (should have been 287).
The input average fps was 29.97 and now I end up with 120... which was the max fps of the input video.
So, I imagine ffmpeg picks the highest one from the input... but is this specified anywhere?
How does one go simply matching the input fps?
And why does I have a variable fps to begin with?
Hmm... too may questions I guess.
Still, is this simply a consequence of this paragraph?
STREAM SELECTION
       By default, ffmpeg includes only one stream of each type
       (video, audio, subtitle) present in the input files and
       adds them to each output file.  It picks the "best" of
       each based upon the following criteria: for video, it is
       the stream with the highest resolution, for audio, it is
       the stream with the most channels, for subtitles, it is
       the first subtitle stream. In the case where several
       streams of the same type rate equally, the stream with the
       lowest index is chosen.

r_frame_rate is "the lowest framerate with which all timestamps can be represented accurately (it is the least common multiple of all framerates in the stream)."
avg_frame_rate is just that: total duration / total # of frames
You can just specify -r 30000/1001 to maintain the average rate (near-abouts). You don't specify which format you're outputting to, but for MP4, ffmpeg defaults to constant-frame rate, where it picks r_frame_rate as the value. It will then duplicate or drop frames to keep that rate. Use -vsync vfr to keep the variable rate.

Wow... You're impressive. The first line comes from the FAQ. Any idea where this is mentioned in the man page? Yes, I'm encoding in MP4. Where did you get that info about the constant frame rate picking? I ended up setting -r to the input avg_frame_rate. (My client expect temporal constancy between the frames.)

r_frame_rate is not a CLI option, so I doubt the man pages mention it, although I haven't looked.  You have to look in the mp4 muxer source to check the default rate muxing mode. Again, not in the man pages. FFmpeg docs are a work in progress.

Again, impressive. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.


text:
How to save a stream to a file that would constantly change over time to have the right duration?
How can I save a ffmpeg stream to a file that would contain the last 10 minutes of the stream and would constantly change over time to have this duration?

Are you asking for an output file that acts as a FIFO buffer?

Yes. I want the file to contain the last 10 minutes of the stream.

Computers don't let you delete from the start of a file, so every time you trim video away, would required the file to be completely re written. Not a great idea. It would be better use some a fragmented format like HLS or DASH, and delete old fragments.


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h264_omx and non-existing PPS 0 referenced
Trying to stream a webcam through rtp with a raspberry pi.
Cating the SDP file on my desktop, and launching ffplay:
ffplay sdp.out

then streaming out this way:
ffmpeg -i /dev/video0 -c:v h264_omx -f rtp rtp://192.168.0.101:1234

works perfectly. But If I launch ffmpeg first THEN ffplay, ffplay stutters some error message about missing PPS and never displays any frame:
[h264 @ 0x7fd97c0008c0] decode_slice_header error
[h264 @ 0x7fd97c0008c0] no frame!
[h264 @ 0x7fd97c0008c0] non-existing PPS 0 referenced

After looking for a while I understand some intermediary frame might be missing. However, using the -g option this way does not change anything:
ffmpeg -i /dev/video0 -c:v h264_omx -g 30 -f rtp rtp://192.168.0.101:1234

It is a problem for me because I am using the raspberry as a securiy camera. My desktop can be restarted from time to time and I need ffplay to be able to catch after the streaming is started.
Any help is appreciated.

Rather than a intermediary frame being missing, it's about head frames. When ffplay starts, if the first frame it receives is not a keyframe, then that frame needs a previous (missing) frame to get decoded. That previous frame may be a I-frame not queued to be ever shown or a P frame referred to by a B-frame and would have been shown after the B-frame had it been received.

I'm confused. Does it mean there is no solution to this problem (it's the way rdp works, the listener has to be started and then the flow started) or there would be a way to regularly insert  a keyframe for the listener to be able to catch the stream in the middle.

Does the stream not become smooth after a few seconds?

No, ffplay keeps outputing error message for ever. It is never able to display any frame.

Does replacing -g 30 with -force_key_frames "expr:gte(t,n_forced)" work?

Indeed, thanks to your suggestion I found another interesting question about this: http://superuser.com/questions/908280/what-is-the-correct-way-to-fix-keyframes-in-ffmpeg-for-dash. So I'll try force_key_frames and also check the result with the forensic method mentioned in the question and let you know.

I tried your solution to no avail. ffplay is still not able to display anything if not started first. If I dump the output into a file, I see that intermediate frames are generated:./ffmpeg -i /dev/video0 -c:v h264_omx -force_key_frames 'expr:gte(t,n_forced)' -o file.avi
and then ./ffprobe -i file.avi -select_streams v -show_frames -of csv -show_entries frame=pict_type. O see some frame,I in the middle of the frame,P. So why would ffplay not able to decode those frame? Is this a limitation of the rdp protocol somehow?

It turns out it is impossible to live stream with the RPi hardware acceleration using ffmpeg.
For ffmpeg to configure the hardware acceleration to issue SPS/PPS frames during the stream and not only at the beginning of it, it needs to use a specific API of the raspberry firmware which it does not at the moment.
Raspivid and gstreamer does that though. So turn to thoses solution and forget about ffmpeg.

If this is the issue, then you may be able to stream the omx encode to a pipe in mpegts format and then use a 2nd ffmpeg instance to pipe to rtp. The MPEG-TS muxer will insert xPS in-band.

Here my FFmpeg patch to enable inline header on OMX hardware encoder.
libavcodec/omx.c
OMX_SetParameter(s->handle, OMX_IndexParamBrcmVideoAVCInlineHeaderEnable, &vid_param_inline_header);
where vid_param_inline_header is a OMX_CONFIG_PORTBOOLEANTYPE struct.
https://github.com/Serveurperso/FFmpeg/commit/6e410823e63103342e8fc3407ff6698808d4d1ef

Consider submitting a patch to ffmpeg-devel but make it an option instead of hardcoded.

Yes but there is a last problem:( only when I enable OMX InlineHeader the latency grow over the time.There is a strange time calculation problem inside the muxer. I get a lot of "application provided invalid, non monotonically increasing dts to muxer in stream xxxx/0" and it always freeze at 3335.


text:
Technique that seems to freeze everything in the world except the camera
What is the name of the shooting technique that seems to freeze everything in the world except the camera you're shooting? The camera can travel a certain path and nothing moves in the scene, even things that are falling are as if they were frozen in the air.
Unfortunately I can not remember any examples at the moment ....

It's called "Bullet Time" and was popularized by the movie The Matrix.  The effect is achieved by using many, many cameras to all shoot stills at the same time, and then effect of motion around the subject is achieved by animating across the different simultaneous images.
To make the effect more believable, the still camera has to really freeze the motion (because motion blur from a given camera-subject relationship contradicts the eye's expected motion blur that would come from motion tracing the path of the camera array that gives bullet time its distinctive look).  But perfectly still images usually make for fake-looking video, so to make it look more believable, motion vectors are derived from the sequence of stills and motion blur is then applied to the stills, completing the effect.
n.b.  Motion cameras that cam capture stills (from GoPro snapping away at 12fps to RED WEAPONs cranking out 96 fps at 6K resolution) can be used as a source for the stills.  This provides the opportunity for a two-dimensional bullet-time effect: in one dimension one can move through time as usual and in the other one can slide across space while freezing time.  This surf video from 2010 demonstrates the two-dimensional possibilities with a shed-load of GoPro cameras.

Clarification:  Many, many STILL cameras to all shoot at the same time. And some computer interpolation between shots from nearby still cameras was used in The Matrix movies to make the apparent camera movement appear more smooth.

It's basically a step down from cgi.

The BTS from The Matrix shows the early days of this technique:

 .
The newest technology is Intel 360° Replay.
Its customized for Sports Arenas and other places where there's a high value in making instant (takes almost a minute) 360° stop motion replays.
In some setups a low number of low resolution Cameras are used, this is evident by a lack of zooming or 'fine circular panning' with more expensive setups using dozens of JAI 20MP Cameras (and a Semi-Trailer full of Server Racks hooked up with Fiber).
Baseball Game example:

 .
Formerly it was called Recode's FreeD:

 .
It's simply a matter of recording Video simultaneously from many angles (not necessarily lined up, but it makes the Math a bit easier and the result more universally useful (audience acceptance)) and then on one particular Frame you switch from one Camera to another.
You could have a curved track of Cameras that follows the action or evenly distributed Cameras around an Arena. They can be low resolution or extremely high resolution which allows interpolating between Cameras and zooming in without loss of resolution.
Additional Notes:
One of the most advanced uses of 360° Replay is this Video of the Super Bowl 50 in "EyeVision 360" (Motion Graphics overlaid with FreeD zooming and flying): https://vimeo.com/157809580 .
The Earliest Days ('6 Cameras in a Basement'): https://vimeo.com/162429040 .
How it works and Demo:
Simplified: https://vimeo.com/178228338 .
Technical: https://vimeo.com/155729581 .
In the future TV could be FreeD: https://vimeo.com/195225232 .
You would watch using VR Goggles. You could stand in the middle of a Football Field or fly through the air while watching the Game. You could run through the local park wearing VR Goggles and determine if YOU would have caught the ball that fumble fingers missed; you would be in the Matrix (oops, I mean the Game on VR TV).


text:
Position the anchor point in the exact center of the smaller circle
What is the best way to position the anchor point in the exact center of the smaller circle of this PNG figure?
My methods were all manual and in this way I did not have good results.

The horizontal centre is easy, just use AE's align tools. For the vertical, have you tried drawing a circle over it with the shape tool and moving it until it lines up? Zoom in a lot and you should get pretty close just by eye.

I Will try this

You can create a different file by filling in the desired region in red.

Go to website: WOLFRAM DEVELOPMENT PLATFORM
And enter the code below:
image=Import["C:\\Users\\Image.png"]
value={ImageDimensions[image]}-{Mean[ImageValuePositions[image,Red][[All,#]]]&/@{1,2}}

Enter the values offered for the anchor point. In this case: 386.995 and 173.982


text:
Plugins for Character Rigging
Are there any plugins or scripts that make it easy to create Character Rigging?
I just watched a video that shows something I've never seen in AE.
Is this something I can incorporate into the software?

Look up DUIK by rainbox studios. Free rigging tool that is pretty essential for character work. https://rainboxprod.coop/en/tools/duik/

On this site there are some interesting scripts for you to use:
AEScripts


text:
FFMPEG is hanging on a single frame
We're having a Node application where users can upload their own videos files. All videos are converted to mp4 files to make them available in all browsers, since some users may upload other video formats like webm or 3gp.
This is our FFMPEG command within our application:
this.inputFile = tmp.fileSync({dir:"/tmp/videos"});
this.outputFile = tmp.fileSync({dir:"/tmp/videos"});

new ffmpeg({timeout:600}) // 10 minutes timeout
        .input(this.inputFile.name)
        .input(__dirname + "/../logo.png")
        .complexFilter(['[0:v]scale=w=trunc(oh*a/2)*2:h=720[scaled]','[scaled][1:v]overlay=main_w-overlay_w:main_h-overlay_h'])
        .withVideoCodec('libx264')
        .withAudioCodec('aac')
        .toFormat('mp4')
        .audioBitrate('128k')
        .videoBitrate("1000k")
        .fps(24)
        .outputOptions(['-profile:v high', '-level 4.2', '-movflags +faststart','-preset ultrafast'])

        .on('error', (err,stdout,stderr) => {
            this.outputFile.removeCallback();
            this.inputFile.removeCallback();
        })

        .on('end', () => {

            //Cleaning input
            this.inputFile.removeCallback();

            var readStream = fs.createReadStream(this.outputFile.name);

            readStream.on('open', function () {
                readStream.pipe(writeStream);
            });

            readStream.on('close', () => {
                this.outputFile.removeCallback();
            });
        })

        .output(this.outputFile.name)
        .run();

Most of the time, the conversion process is working fine. But some conversions ran into a timeout. It seems like FFMPEG is hanging on a single frame and never finishes:
1|project- | Error: process ran into a timeout (600s)
1|project- |     at Timeout._onTimeout (/var/www/project-files/source/node_modules/fluent-ffmpeg/lib/processor.js:465:23)
1|project- |     at ontimeout (timers.js:365:14)
1|project- |     at tryOnTimeout (timers.js:237:5)
1|project- |     at Timer.listOnTimeout (timers.js:207:5)
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0311x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0311x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0311x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.031x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.031x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.031x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0309x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0309x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0309x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0309x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0308x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0308x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0308x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0307x
1|project- | frame=  405 fps=0.7 q=32.0 size=    2272kB time=00:00:17.10 bitrate=1088.1kbits/s dup=233 drop=0 speed=0.0307x

I've also noticed that this error happens on corrupted webm files, which seem to not have a correct timestamp. I've also tried to set shortest=1 to the overlay filter:
overlay=main_w-overlay_w:main_h-overlay_h:shortest=1

This solves the loop, but the converted mp4 file only shows a single frame and not more (it's "frozen").
Any idea what could cause this issue and how I could fix it?
// Edit: I'm now able to reproduce it. The problem occurs if the user is recording a video on his smartphone and changes from landscape<->portrait mode during recording.
This is the output of FFMPEG on my dev machine:
Past duration 0.679985 too large
Past duration 0.799995 too large
Past duration 0.719994 too large
Past duration 0.639992 too large
Past duration 0.759987 too large
Input stream #0:0 frame changed from size:640x480 fmt:yuv420p to size:480x640 fmt:yuv420p
frame=   33 fps=0.0 q=34.0 size=     173kB time=00:00:01.67 bitrate= 845.0kbits/s dup=2 drop=7 speed=3.33x
frame=   33 fps= 33 q=34.0 size=     173kB time=00:00:01.67 bitrate= 845.0kbits/s dup=2 drop=7 speed=1.67x
frame=   33 fps= 22 q=34.0 size=     173kB time=00:00:01.67 bitrate= 845.0kbits/s dup=2 drop=7 speed=1.11x
frame=   33 fps= 16 q=34.0 size=     173kB time=00:00:01.67 bitrate= 845.0kbits/s dup=2 drop=7 speed=0.831x
frame=   33 fps= 13 q=34.0 size=     173kB time=00:00:01.67 bitrate= 845.0kbits/s dup=2 drop=7 speed=0.665x

Is there a way to use the overlay filter with it?

Will need to see fully formed command and console output. You can add -report to outputoption to generate it.

Normally you can edit your questions without needing approval, but it appears you made another account. See I accidentally created two accounts; how do I merge them?

Adding -loop 1 to the FFMPEG command solves the problem:
new ffmpeg({timeout:600})
[...]
.inputOptions(["-loop 1"])
.run();

What does this command do exactly?

This problem comes from frame size changing.
Scale your input videos to the same size first, then do the overlay stuff.


text:
What is Frame Doubling in Action Cameras?
Many action cameras claim to record 4K UHD but only meet the spatial characteristics, i.e., 3840 x 2160, but not the temporal characteristics, i.e., minimum 23.976fps.  Instead they record at 12fps (or 15fps) and playback at 1x speed but 24fps (or 30fps).  My understanding is that this is accomplished by playing each frame twice and these added frames are not interpolated but rather are exact copies.  In action cam forums this is called frame doubling.  I have two questions.
1. Is it in fact correct that the added frames are duplicates, not interpolated?
2. If yes, is frame doubling the correct technical term?
EDIT:  I should clarify that when I view these videos frame-by-frame it appears the frames are duplicates.  However, I'm viewing 4K video on a 1080p monitor so I'm not sure if I'm missing something.

Different brands of cameras will probably handle this differently. Some may duplicate; others may interpolate. Did you have a question about a specific camera?

Thanks for responding.  I didn't have a question about a specific camera.  It's a general question about all the "fake 4K" cameras out there.  So many are not 4K native resolution or frame rate.  Can you tell me please if this is correct usage of the term "frame doubling" regardless of whether the extra frames are duplicated or interpolated?  I even had a camera that claimed to shoot 720p at 240fps but it was actually 30fps at octuple frame rate!

I'm honestly not sure of the right definition of "frame doubling", but I understand what you mean when you're using it the way you do. I'm much more of a producer / director / practical effect guy.

Thanks BrettFromLA.  I just like to be sure I'm using the terminology correctly.  I hate to sound stupid (but often fail anyway!)!  Cheers :-)

A similar question, and an answer: https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/23671/is-this-video-50p-or-25p

The term "frame doubling" is occasionally used to describe the result of animators who "shoot on twos".  Namely, when an animator draws only every other image for a given frame rate, the image is displayed twice before the next image is displayed.  That "frame doubling" is an observable property of the animation, but it is not the key idea.
The key idea is that frame rates can be subdivided (shot on ones, twos, threes, or even fours) and the look and effect of each can be appropriate for a given instant.  Generally, lead animators generate key frames and junior animators (or computers) generate the in-between frames.  Shooting on ones requires generating twice as many in-between images as shooting on twos.  But it also creates a smoothness that may or may not better serve the aesthetic of the animation.  Nick Park's classic Wallace and Grommit animations look "right" because of frame doubling.  Pixar's Toy Story films look "right" because they shoot on the ones (and integrate motion blur on every frame to look as if shot on a cinema camera).
I would argue that a camera that shoots at 1/15th of a second and then doubles those frames for a 30fps playback will create a highly stylized look that combines (in a "wrong" way) the motion blur one would expect from shooting on the ones with the pacing of shooting on the twos.  As Blues music teaches, the wrong note at the right time could be the right note.  But generally, animation shot on twos rarely integrates motion blur as such would be "too obvious".  So if going for a frame doubling effect, one should use a small shutter angle, like 30 or 45 degrees, not 180 or 360, when shooting 15 fps.

Do you mean recording at a Shutter Speed slower than the Frame Rate:

 ?
Panasonic Cameras call it "Creative Movie Mode". This Blog has a few entries covering this technique: http://m43photo.blogspot.ca/2011/01/new-years-eve-fireworks-with-gh2-8mm.html and http://m43photo.blogspot.ca/2010/02/gh1-video-recording-at-slow-shutter.html .
If most of the Scene is static and any movement is slow (or OK if it is blurred) then holding open the Shutter longer than would be normal for the Frame Rate (IE: Less than 1/30 sec. for 30FPS) allows in more light.
A 30FPS Video with a 1/15th of a second Shutter lets in twice the light with two frames of blur on the moving objects. That would be "doubling" but it's not restricted to 50%.

Thanks for responding Bob.  I did have a response to your comment but it's too long to post.  Basically it would have said, "I think I'm getting confused!"  I know that in action cameras each frame is made up of several exposures that are put together by the processor and made into a single frame.  I wanted to post a much better explanation of this from a forum on the website DashCamTalk https://dashcamtalk.com/forum/ but it's too long to post and I can't link to specific comments there.  Basically the issue is not what goes into producing a single frame but how they are played back. (cont'd)

When a manufacturer claims their action camera can record 4K at 30fps but actually records at 15fps, what are the other 15 frames that are played back every second?  Is every other one an exact duplicate (what I've normally been calling frame doubling) or is it a combination of the preceding and following frame, i.e., interpolated, and would that still be considered frame doubling?  Perhaps I'm splitting hairs or perhaps "frame doubling" is one of those imprecise terms that's used in more than one way.  Perhaps you are in fact describing what should be properly considered frame doubling.

Rob, here's the post from Nigel on DashCamTalk set out in three comments: ". . . assuming it is night time the frame rate will be 30 fps (if you have it set to 60 fps then it actually records 30fps when it is dark to get a brighter exposure), the 30th of a second will contain something like one exposure of a 35th second, one of about a 350th and one of about a 3500th. That almost fills the 30th second and allows correct exposure for everything from the shadows to full headlights (although not quite HID headlights) (continued)

the 3 exposures are then combined and recorded while the exposures for the next frame are being collected. During daylight the same thing happens, even if using 60fps which is genuine 60fps during daylight."  - AND - "I did say "something like" before my sequence, I don't know the exact exposure times or even number that are used and obviously it changes depending on lighting conditions.  As far as I can tell by analysing the results, it does use 3 exposures at least most of the time, you can sometimes see the separate exposures when there is very fast motion somewhere in the image.(continued)

The longest exposure can't be slower than about 1/35th due to the frame rate and I doubt the fastest would be much faster than 1/5000th as I don't expect it is capable of reading the data out of the sensor faster than that and the data isn't buffered, it is read out a line at a time with the "rolling shutter". As I said, it doesn't quite cope with the brightness of HID headlamps so it obviously isn't very fast. (END POST)

Q1: "When a manufacturer claims their action camera can record 4K at 30fps but actually records at 15fps, what are the other 15 frames that are played back every second? ...". - A1: There are no "other 15 Frames", 15 in, 15 out, viewed at 15FPS; IF you loaded the Video into an Editor and set the Program to output 60FPS then the chances of an inexpensive Editor quadrupling the Frames is excellent, if the Program cost over a few hundred if might interpolate. You can use AviSynth and it's free Plugins to do that.

Q2: "... 35th second, one of about a 350th and one of about a 3500th. ...". A2: That's HDR Recording. Playback on a Display with a wide Gamut. To play it on a 2017 'HDR TV' it will need to be 30FPS (possibly 60) regardless of what Frame Rate it was recorded at; 'PC HDR' is restricted to a maximum without tearing but no minimum.

Q3: See A2. -- Q4: "The longest exposure can't be slower than about 1/35th due to ...". A4: Answered. It can, see answer. Perhaps do a Search and come up with a URL or a few words if it will help. I think the answer is given already.

Thanks for the response Rob - much appreciated. Cheers :-)


text:
Is mp4 or avi format convertable to raw?
Can I convert it to a raw video ?
Arduino Drone Next Step| Buying New Item(s) and Public Flight

Q is unclear. What do you wish to do with the output?

No, if you don't record in raw, you can't get back to it.  That's why people go through the headaches of recording in RAW.  RAW is the actual photosite exposure data and isn't actually a usable image on it's own.  Imaging sensors don't pick up all colors on each individual pixel.  Some pixels pick up red, others blue, others green.  Some fancy designs may have one or more other colors as well.
The data about the values of each of these photosites (each of which will eventually be a pixel) is fed in to an algorithm that looks at neighboring pixels and figures out the RGB value for each pixel.  During this calculation, the information about the original values is lost and only the RGB pixel values are kept.
On some sensor designs, it might still be possible to work backwards if you had full bit depth RGB data (though many can't), full understanding of the filter and conversion logic and avoided certain exposure situations, however you have an additional problem that the video has been put through one or more rounds of compression in addition to being stored in a color format that does not preserve the full bit depth of the color data.
This means that the necessary color information does not exist anymore no matter if your particular camera happened to use an algorithm that was reversible (which is itself unlikely).
Practically speaking, there is no way to get back to RAW from a processed video.  If you want to work in RAW, you need to start in RAW.
If you don't have an option to work in RAW and are trying to maximize your color correction ability, shoot with the highest color depth you can and shoot log color to avoid losing information in the brighter and darker areas.  You'll end up with a little bit less color information in the mids of the finished product, but it will buy you a ton of room for tone adjustment in post (and if you are able to shoot 4444 and are editing to a final output of 422 or lower you probably won't lose a ton anyway.)


text:
my client is unhappy with the video editing of the evening dancing as we havent used the actual audio but used songs that were playing that evening
My client is unhappy with the outcome of evening dance footage since we didn't use a recording of the actual music being played that evening. Instead we used clean music, the original CD recording of the particular songs.
There is no contract signed, but client wants the actual audio recorded by the camera that evening, since it reflects the atmosphere of the evening more. The audio is mostly blown out though.
What would you do, offer a partial refund?

Is it close enough that you can blend the clean audio with the ambient?

to be honest the actual audio on main cam is not usable, its blown out, but have added the songs actually playing that time as we could understand the songs playing and we have synced that with their singing along with it.. the other camera has usable audio but we havent filmed as much with it as the main one. Anyway, im just looking for some advise as what you would do in this case, as he is complaining that he wants all audio. Now we never work like this anyway, even when audio during the dance etc is a little over to top we prefer to add that song ..he is just being very difficult..

Does the client know that the original audio is blown out?
Can you substitute clean audio, and add some room noise to it, so that it sounds like what the original audio should have been?

Yes he knows that its blown out but he wants me to use that, at least that is what he says, im afraid that when he hears the blown out audio, he will make an even bigger problem. so i prefer to leave it like this. In cases where actual audio is not very clean, i am using a clean track, and nobody has ever complained, well there is always a first though.. in this case ive offered him to subsitute the songs played that evening but he is asking for raw footage which i will never give.. and i usually dont give. i could add some room noise but not sure if he will be happy with outcome.

what was the outcome in the end?

I would suggest trying to combine the two audio feeds.  If you layer the room audio with the clean audio, it will probably help make things more usable.  Otherwise I would give the customer what they asked for.  Ultimately, I don't think it is your failing to have had blown out room audio when there would be no good reason to use the room audio.
As an aside, you should also consider the legal ramifications of using either the room audio or clean audio.  Unless you have rights to the songs being played, you are most likely violating copyright and if they go posting it online, there is a reasonable enough chance to find yourself sitting on the wrong end of a lawsuit, again depending on jurisdiction and how much attention the video gets.

hi, thank you so much for taking the time to answer .. im going to try how mixing the 2 audio feeds will sound.. if it still sounds horrible.. im just going to leave the clean audio.. also, this wont be posted online so no worry for copyright infringement. thank you!

In today's world you have to assume everything will be online eventually. Something to keep in mind for future projects. My daughter learned this on her first solo wedding job back in middle school,  and made far less profit than she had expected.

The way to go is record separate audio in the first place even if not requested/required. For an afterwards fixup I'd find where people are obviously talking and double-duck it in over the clean tracks. If you keep your takes under 20 seconds before you change to another view (then swap back, replaying or skipping a bit of the audio) then the output won't be instantly automatically detected and flagged for ©.


text:
TV trope name for monologue to unexpected off-camera recipient?
Theres a definite technique where the cameraman is focusing solely on character A who is speaking to character B, and character B is not within view for the TV viewer. Then, when it is revealed who person B is, it is completely surprising and often to comedic effect.
I'd like to read more about this technique, but without a name there is little to search for. Is there one?
There are 2 examples where I see this semi-frequently:

Simpsons: (I may not have this accurately recalled) Homer Simpson is giving a stern warning that her daughter's radical behavior will not be tolerated in this house. Then the footage cuts to what turns out to be Maggie, the baby.
WWE: at least every couple of weeks, there is a wrestler backstage and he is talking to someone off-camera about something very specific and serious with the storyline he's involved in. But when the camera pans to the recipient, it's someone unexpected (e.g. a midget, a female valet etc.) which is funny but still makes 100% sense by the speaker.

Does this technique/trope have an name?

TV trope name for monologue to unexpected off-camera recipient?
Theres a definite technique where the cameraman is focusing solely on character A who is speaking to character B, and character B is not within view for the TV viewer. Then, when it is revealed who person B is, it is completely surprising and often to comedic effect.

It is close to the Trick Dialogue, with a bit of Subverted Trope, not a Fourth Wall Psych.

Trick Dialogue:

A subversion of the most fundamental aspect of Dialogue: whether a character is talking to someone else or not.
Commonly, a character will appear to be making a brave confession, and then be revealed to have just been practicing before a mirror. Or, he will seem to be explaining his life to someone, and then be shown to be talking to a gravestone.
Alternatively, a character will clearly be talking to himself, but we find out that someone just happened to overhear. (Bonus points if it was the intended recipient of a difficult request.) This can follow on the first kind for a Double Subversion of dialogue.
Visual media typically use a Reveal Shot, often a Close-Up on Head, to execute Trick Dialogue. Compare Fourth Wall Psych (where the character appears to be speaking to the audience but is actually talking to another person). See also Not So Dire.

Subverted Trope:

Basically, this is playing bait and switchnote  with a trope. A work makes you think a trope is going to happen, but it doesn't.
But how could people know a trope is going to happen? Well, tropes live in the minds of the audience. As such, sufficiently Trope Savvy audience members can predict a familiar trope coming based on the hints dropped by the writer. So when the writer decides to build on this expectation, only to reveal that the expected "trope" was a Red Herring while an entirely different situation results, you have a Subverted Trope.

Great answer. And can someone add a tag for trope? It’s not an available tag.

@Sridhar-Sarnobat - Thanks. Apparently I have enough Rep to create a Tag  so I will add it.


text:
How do I install Adobe Premiere Elements on a computer that's isolated from the Internet?
I want to install Adobe Premiere Elements 14 on a computer that's not connected to the Internet. I used version 3 back when it was current and it did the job, but I don't know what happened to the discs. I didn't have that problem then, however.
Some software insists on contacting the publisher's server,  but they often provide for substitute validation. Does Adobe offer an alternative validation for air-gapped computers?

Apologies for what I would think is a duplicate, but I searched and couldn't find an existing question about this with the search terms I could think of.

This is really a question you should ask Adobe.  It's not really a production-related question.

I have found most large software companies difficult to reach, particularly with issues that they think are covered in their web FAQ. Adobe licensing practices are notoriously user-hostile, so I anticipated that asking them would not be helpful. But I can try. I thought that getting a video production workstation working is a production-related question, but I'm new to this part of Stack Exchange.

I just did a super-simple google search and hit this page: https://helpx.adobe.com/creative-cloud/kb/internet-connection-creative-cloud-apps.html

Looks like offline activation is a thing for Elements, even if error-prone.

Using Google, a popular internet search engine, the Adobe help page that discusses this topic is easily discovered.  In particular, it explains:

You must connect to the Internet when you want to install Adobe Creative Cloud apps, such as Photoshop and Illustrator. Once the apps are installed on your computer, you don’t need an ongoing Internet connection to use the apps.
You can use the apps in offline mode with a valid software license for a limited period. The apps attempt to validate your software license every 30 days. You receive a reminder to reconnect to the Internet to validate your license...

You can read more details on that web page and decide whether or not your online/offline behavior fits within those parameters or not.

That doesn't mention Premiere Elements, unless something else on the site says that Premiere Elements is a part of Creative Cloud. But thanks for the advice to try Google. I never would have thought of that.