text:
Cheapest way to convert from toslink to 4 channel analog audio?
I have a mac-mini and an old analog 4.1 set of speakers and I want to use all 4 channels instead of only two.
I do not have a receiver and I am looking for the least expensive way of achieving 4 channels audio working.
I should also mention that the mac mini does have an HDMI out, so this could contain some audio out but I'm not sure how many channel it does have and I do know that my TV is not able to convert the signal to analog (and it's speakers are far worse than the 4.1 old system).

http://apple.stackexchange.com/q/19831/1916

I use a Behringer ADA8000 for this - it converts toslink to 8 channels of analogue, and vice versa.  It works well, and is relatively inexpensive.


text:
How can I create an effect of pictures like an album
I am using Vegas Pro 10 and I can't find a (good) way to make pictures flying through the screen.
Well, it's a little bit difficult to describe but what I am thinking of is a screen, where you can see small pictures coming from the background and growing to the middle of the screen, these pictures come in sequence und after it reaches a certain size it fades away. (A little bit like a Picture Gallery). So there is also a little bit of an 3D-Effect included.
Maybe the best comparable situation is when you click [WIN] + [Tab] and then you go through the windows.
Sorry for the bad eyplanation, I hope anybody gets what I am talking about ;)

Vegas Pro 10 has two features that could help you out. Either using the Track Motion feature for the entire video track engaged with key frames, or the pan/crop feature for the shot itself engaged with key frames would allow for changes of size, shape, rotation, zooming, orientation (reverse, upside down) and such.
Here is a tutorial on Vegas (not sure of version but this will work in Pro 10) on
how to use the Track Motion feature:

Here is a tutorial on Vegas Pro 10 on how to use the Pan/Crop feature:

If you are using more than one clip or several still images, you should use the Track Motion with key frames as the Pan/Crop feature works only with the shot itself.
Hope this helps.

Not sure if this was possible in Vegas 10 already, but in Vegas Pro 13 there is a transition called "3D Fly In/Out" which you could use to achive that effect. It probably much simpler than having to deal with pan/crop. As any transition it also offers the option to store your settings and re-apply them to other events.
3D Fly In/Out let's you determine

the start position of your event in three coordinates (x, y and z, where z is the distance from the screen)
the number of rotations in three dimensions
an additional lighting effect

You can apply the effect to the event by

adding a normal fade transition to the event
right-clicking in the fade transition
selecting Transition-->Insert Other
The PlugIn-Chooser-Transition Window opens. Select "Sony 3D Fly In/Out"

source: Stack Exchange

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

sort: votes


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What would you recommend me to record videos while playing Xbox360
I would like to record some videos while playing on the Xbox360. I've been looking around and I would prefer to not use the PC to record (a PCIe card, for example) and I've come across the following recorder:
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/hyperdeckshuttle/
And I would like to know if anyone knows it or has used it. Also I would like to know if it is good and worth the money it costs. Or is there any other better alternative?

The hyperdeck shuttle is a small, lightweight and easy-to-use field recorder. The downside it just works with expensive SSD volumes.
A possible alternative could be the Atomos Ninja. - Pros: Runs with SSD, but also with cheap and capacious 2.5-inch-HDDs. Built-in Touch-LCD-screen. Double battery connectors. The drives and batteries are hot-swapable. Cons: It's weight and it's size.

You're looking for the Intensity cards from Blackmagic. They're pretty affordable and rock solid.

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


text:
How to reduce noise in old, low-light DV-8 video
I have some old, low-light, pretty noisy DV8 video that I'd like to clean up. What is the best tool/technique to remove noise from low-light scenes?
I also want to change the gamma correction to bring out the details - should I do that before or after I run any noise reduction?
I saw that Photoshop CS5 had some pretty amazing noise reduction capability, and that the new CS6 allows you to edit video, so my original question was "can I use CS6 to reduce the noise?"  But I'm ok with making the question more general.

Well, I posted it in the photo forum because my goal was to ask Photoshop experts who I assumed would know the most about the new Photoshop CS6 capabilities.  In this forum I'd want to ask a different question, so I guess I'll rewrite my question.

Yes, as DragonLord said, with the extended edition.
And assuming it's in a format (AVI, MOV etc. that Photoshop supports.
Once open, select Filter > Convert for Smart Filters.   Then run any filter, including noise reduction, and it will apply it to all frames.   Then Export > Render to Video.


text:
2 h264/mp4 files does not merging in right way by mp4box
I have a problem when merging two h264/mp4 files with the same parameters except length. I'm using the command
mp4box -cat ....

After that the video player's behaviour is strange: if I drag the time slider closer to the end of file it restarts the video; Sometimes the player shows an incorrect video file length; Also there is a problem with audio sync.
Input file sample parameters:
Movie Info * Timescale 90000 - Duration 00:15:00.214
Fragmented File no - 2 track(s)
File suitable for progressive download (moov before mdat)
File Brand mp42 - version 0 Created: GMT Thu Jun 7 23:31:52 2012
File has root IOD (9 bytes) Scene PL 0xff - Graphics PL 0xff - OD PL 0xff
Visual PL: ISO Reserved Profile (0x7f)
Audio PL: High Quality Audio Profile @ Level 2 (0x0f)
No streams included in root OD

iTunes Info: Encoder Software: HandBrake 0.9.6 2012022800

Track # 1 Info - TrackID 1 - TimeScale 90000 - Duration 00:14:59.858
Media Info: Language "Undetermined" - Type "vide:avc1" - 21576 samples
Visual Track layout: x=0 y=0 width=853 height=480 MPEG-4
Config: Visual Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x21 AVC/H264
Video - Visual Size 864 x 480 AVC Info: 1 SPS - 1 P
PS - Profile Main @ Level 3 NAL Unit length bits: 32
Pixel Aspect Ratio 80:81 - Indicated track size 853 x 480 Self-synchronized

Track # 2 Info - TrackID 2 - TimeScale 44100 - Duration 00:15:00.214
Media Info: Language "English" - Type "soun:mp4a" - 38769 samples MPEG-4
Config: Audio Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x40 MPEG-4
Audio MPEG-4 Audio AAC LC - 2 Channel(s) - SampleRate 44100 Synchronized on stream 1

Output:
Movie Info * Timescale 90000 - Duration 00:29:24.136
Fragmented File no - 3 track(s)
File suitable for progressive download (moov before mdat)
File Brand isom - version 1 Created: GMT Thu Jun 28 19:40:39 2012
File has root IOD (9 bytes) Scene PL 0xff - Graphics PL 0xff - OD PL 0xff
Visual PL: AVC/H264 Profile (0x15)
Audio PL: AAC Profile @ Level 2 (0x29)
No streams included in root OD

Track # 1 Info - TrackID 1 - TimeScale 90000 - Duration 00:19:36.968
Media Info: Language "Undetermined" - Type "vide:avc1" - 28219 samples
Visual Track layout: x=0 y=0 width=1024 height=576 MPEG-4
Config: Visual Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x21 AVC/H264
Video - Visual Size 1024 x 576 AVC Info: 1 SPS - 1
PPS - Profile Main @ Level 3.1 NAL Unit length bits: 32
Pixel Aspect Ratio 1:1 - Indicated track size 1024 x 576 Self-synchronized

Track # 2 Info - TrackID 2 - TimeScale 44100 - Duration 00:29:24.136
Media Info: Language "English" - Type "soun:mp4a" - 75975 samples MPEG-4
Config: Audio Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x40 MPEG-4
Audio MPEG-4 Audio AAC LC - 2 Channel(s) - SampleRate 44100 Synchronized on stream 1

Track # 3 Info - TrackID 3 - TimeScale 90000 - Duration 00:09:46.503
Media Info: Language "Undetermined" - Type "vide:avc1" - 14062 samples
Visual Track layout: x=0 y=0 width=1280 height=720 MPEG-4
Config: Visual Stream - ObjectTypeIndication 0x21 AVC/H264
Video - Visual Size 1280 x 720 AVC Info: 1 SPS - 1
PPS - Profile Main @ Level 3.1 NAL Unit length bits: 32
Pixel Aspect Ratio 1:1 - Indicated track size 1280 x 720 Synchronized on stream 1

And I do not understand, why in output file I have 2 video tracks?

Could you provide output of ffprobe -i ... for two input videos and one output videos?

I believe this statement:

I've a problem while merging 2 h264/mp4 files width the same parameters except length

is incorrect. In addition to length your video files have different picture dimensions, and that prevents the merge.
Your "input sample" shows a track size of 853x480. The output, however, shows that track #1 is 1024x576 and track #3 if 1280x720.
So clearly, the input file that you are showing in your example is not one of the files you merged in the output. There are at least three different files at play here, and each has a different picture size.
To be able to merge two files they must have the same picture size. As a test, you may want to try merging the same file twice.


text:
Color temperature
If there is more than one light source, they should be the same temperature, right?
If this isn't always the case, when should they be different?

Generally speaking yes. This makes it easier for your camera to define the correct colors. Normally you gain experience best by committing errors or by analyzing the errors of others. So, if you see an image that is too cold, the color temperature / white balance should be higher. If it's too warm, the color temperature should be lower.
If you have two different light sources, you must prioritize: Which part of your scene should have a neutral color temperature / white balance, which could be different.
And here are the creative exceptions: If you analyze movies or professional documentaries, you realize that there aren't many neutral, correctly white balanced shots. Because they look boring. So, if you only have different light types, why not use them to compose your scene. Just to give one example: If you compose a scene and want to present an actor or an interview partner in a comfortable mood, he can have some warm light in his face, and a colder light in the background.

Perhaps you could clarify this – you might have used the words "warm" and "cold" in two opposite meanings here, or at least said it in a way that might confuse people. Warm light, the yellowish kind characteristic for old incandescend bulbs, has in fact a lower color temperature than blueish, "cold" light from e.g. fluorescent tubes. — Also, I don't quite agree about using light sources of different temperature in the same scene; this can be used as an effect but usually just makes either of the objects look strange.

Yes, you're right. The whole color temperature system is confusing on first sight, because bluish light is in fact warmer than yellowish light, but appears colder. For example in this Colosseum picture ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_hour ) I estimate the blue sky to have a color temperature of  above 8000 K, but the lights should be around 3000 K. This Colosseum picture is also an example that sometimes mixed light sources work together. Nobody wants the sky or the lights to appear white or grey.

It depends entirely on what you are looking for.  If you want an image that appears consistently lit, then you will want to have uniform light temperature.  If however, you want to have some type of effect lighting, you will want to alter the lighting temperature.
Say for example you have a candle in the scene (or want to allude to a fire off-screen), or perhaps it's a sunny day outside the window.  You can use lights of a different temperature and vary their intensity to achieve the desired look of shading with color after white balancing to your key light (the main wash you are using to light the scene).

So that means that you you want just one color temperature, you want to light the lights first and then WB. But if you want to add some effect with, say a candle, you set the WB first for the key light and the add the candle?

Yeah, though you may have to mess with the color of the key some to get the right tone.  The dynamic range of sensors isn't comparable to that of the eye.  In normally lighting, a candle may not make enough of a difference or lighting from a window may color the scene too intensely, but the procedure is still the same to set the white balance based on what you want to appear as a neutral grey/white and then add color from there as you want it to appear in the scene.  Can't really do it any other way since white balancing could remove the color you are looking for.


text:
Lines on my H.264 video export
I exported a music video using H.264 for the first time (I would normally just use a simple Apple intermediate codec) and as the 1st shot fades up, for the duration of the fade up, there are ever so slightly visible 'lines' across the white background. It is literally just for the 1st second of the clip, but being the opening shot it's rather important. check it out, it's more obvious at 1080p

By the way, yes it is meant to be out of focus and grainy.
I set the quality to 10,000KB/s which as far as I'm aware is pretty good for online streaming?? I use Final cut express 4.1
Any help would be greatly appreciated as I have no H.264 knowledge at all

Are you able to post it encoded in a way that looks correct to you as a basis of comparison?  Hard to tell exactly what you are seeing as an artifact.

Ok, now that I'm home I think I see what you are noticing.  That is just an error with the block transitioning from black to white.  You can either slow down the fade or increase the keyframe frequency.  H.264 works by storing only certain frames and then storing the change in-between.  It breaks the image in to sections to analyse and so you can see if you go frame by frame that it is having a hard time figuring out what the change is around the edge between black and white.
Either decreasing the rate of change or increasing the frequency of keyframes should give it a better idea of what is happening.  You might also try 2 pass VBR if you were only doing one pass or CBR prior as the analysis pass should help clean up artifacts like that by directing more bitrate to harder areas to compress.

Thanks, I tried these but unfortunately it stayed the same. I'm wondering now if, for lack of technological terms, the lines are actually 'in' my video. As I adjust the size of quicktime player, the lines get worse or better depending on the different view type. Does this mean anything?

@Luke - no, but it makes me wonder if you are seeing the same thing I am.  Have you tried playing it on another computer by any chance?

I haven't, but the guy building my website has looked at it on his and says it's there. I might just experiment with the brightness/contrast a bit and see what I can come up with.
It's not the end of the world if the lines are there, but obviously I would rather lose them if I could


text:
How to ignore file name extensions while replacing source files for online editing in Premiere?
I'm encoding all my source files for offline editing with Premiere Media Encoder. I have MP4 and MTS files, and I thought of converting them all to AVI DV-PAL.
Problem is I guess I'll have some problems when I'd like to replace the files back to original resolution, because of the different file names.
How should I approach this? Is there a way to ignore file name extenstions while replacing source files for online editing in Premiere?

You can use "Replace Footage" (right click on a source clip in the project) to swap a file with another file, but I don't know of a good automated way to do a bunch of files at the same time.  I think it might be a manual process to wire up the clips unfortunately.


text:
Audio noiseless video becomes noisy after importing in windows movie maker
I am getting a problem whenever I import a video having formats in wmv & avi in windows movie maker, the audio becomes noisy I dont why it is happening may be is it the bitrate issue or something else please advice me on this as I have to stick with Windows movie maker.
I am using Adobe Soundbooth to reduce noise but after exporitng from Adobe soubdbooth video's audio becomes noisy only in windows movie maker else it is fine.

I'm not aware of anything in particular that should cause this other than the fact that Windows movie maker is horrible.  It is likely an issue with the bitrate of audio that Movie Maker exports and I'm not sure if there is anything that can be done about this.  If you can buy even a fairly basic and well reviewed consumer targeted editing software you would probably be far better off.


text:
How to combine different projects to create final clip in After Effects?
I am new to video editing and learning Adobe After Effects CS6. I have downloaded different templates from the web and edited them and now I want to create a final movie by combining all the clips.
Some clips/projects have different resolutions - I have rendered all the projects separately and created individual .mov clips.
Now I want to create final movie by combining all the clips.

First, you don't want to render the clips prior to final output if you want maximum quality.  You instead want to use nested compositions.  Really, final assembly is ideally done using an actual non-linear editor, such as Premiere, however you can accomplish the same thing by putting together a composition and using each of the compositions you have made as assets.  Then, when you output the final render, it will render what it needs from each of the nested compositions and keep the highest possible quality.
Note that you should use nested compositions regardless of if you use Premiere or After Effects.  Premiere will import compositions directly from After Effects if you import the After Effects project in Premiere.  You may also have to apply scaling in order to get the clips to match resolution.

You can import whole AE projects into your project, just choose them in the import dialogue like you would any other asset. When you do this the imported project will appear as a folder in your project with all of its assets inside.
What you can do is import all of the projects you've created and drag all of the compositions you want into one final composition. The advantage of this is that you can resize the comps without re-rendering the pixels.

To Illustrate: say you had an image in one of your individual comps that you'd scaled down to 50%, then you want that comp to be twice the size in the final comp. If you pre-render then you will get softness because you will be scaling up the layer and having to re-interpolate the pixels, but if you nest the composition your image will be displaying at 100% and no interpolation will be required. The downside is that it may take longer and require a lot more RAM when you render.
Don't worry if the nested comps are different sizes, you can quickly resize them to fit your output comp size by using one of three methods:

Fit to the Comp (without preserving aspect ratio) by hitting
Cmd+Opt+Shift+F or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+F on Windows (F for fit)
Fit to Comp Height (preserving aspect ratio) by hitting Cmd+Opt+Shift+G or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+G on Windows (G because it's next to F)
Fit to Comp Width (preserving aspect ratio) by hitting Cmd+Opt+Shift+H or Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H on Windows (this should be the shortcut for fit to Height, but it isn't)
You can select all of your layers and do this in one hit. This is great when you have a bunch of layers with different sizes.

Once you've done that you'll want them all to be one after the other. Select them in order and from the menu menu choose Animation > Keyframe Assistant > Sequence Layers (or if you right-click on the layer choose Keyframe Assistant > Sequence Layers).
You could also investigate turning on Collapse Transformations/Continuously Rasterize for the nested compositions. It's the icon on the layer switches that looks like a sun. What that does is to do all the transforming - rotation, scaling etc before rasterizing the layer, meaning you won't get pixelation on any shapes, vectors or text etc in those layers.


text:
Is there an easy way to import textured 3D geometry from Maya into Nuke?
I have a room with a number of objects inside it, many of which are duplicated, and I've managed to transfer the room as a single object into Nuke, and then attach its texture as a separate read node attached to the readGeo node, but any time I try to export more than one object, even if it's just another instance of the same object, the import fails to show all objects.
Do I need to import every single object separately (around 30 objects total) or is there an easier way to do this that I'm overlooking?

This still isn't as easy as it should be, but the way forward is to export your geometry as Alembic.  It supports many textured objects, and even animated sequences.  Depending on your version of Maya, you may need to install a plugin, but it is much better than dealing with OBJ and FBX as the interchange format in most cases.

authors: dǝɥɔS ʇoıןןƎ


text:
No -external codec- option in bandicam 3.0.4
I am using Bandicam 3.0.4, and I want to use the Lagarith Lossless codec.
I installed it from the official website, and then I used a tutorial on Youtube to select it.
According to the tutorial, I have to go to the video option to the left, then click on setting in the bottom under format, click on codec under video, and then select -external codec-, but I don't have that option.
The only 3 options I have are h264 (Intel Quick sync video), wich doesn't work, H264 (cpu) and MPEG-4. What should I do to get the external codec option? And if I can't, should I use H264 or MPEG-4?


text:
4K Workflow in FCPX - crop down for multicam angles
Shot an 80min interview @ 4K 422LT (271GB)on BMPC and want to create 3x 720p angles for multicam. Unsure if it's best to create them as compound clips cropped from the one 4K master clip inside of FCPX or Render out the 720p's as standalone clips then reimport.
Once the Blackmagic ProRes422LT 4K clip has been imported and a LUT + Noise Reduction applied it gets unwieldly (to say the least)
Is it best practice to Render out a new 4K clip via Compressor with those corrections baked in, OR
Create cropped 720p compound clips (from the effects applied 4K) for each of the angles for use in Multicam, OR
Crop the 4K down to 720p angles and Render those out via Compressor as individual clips and reimport to make multicam angles on interviewee.
If there is 1x 4K master file that has corrections (LUT+NR) applied - would it be better to render out a new 4K version with those changes baked in, and then make 720p multicam angles from the corrected clip - I guess that's my question.
Always looking for ways to make everything work faster.
2013 MacPro 28GB RAM / 30TB LaCie T2 RAID - not sure what upgrade options are available.

I'm a little confused.  Perhaps it's the terminology you're using.  Are you really talking about cropping (throwing away the top, bottom, and sides of the image), or do you mean scaling?  Are you creating three angles from the same camera (which explains why you'd crop, but I can't imagine happening in an interview scenario), or do you have one BMPC and two other 720p cameras (which would explain why you'd scale the BMPC)?
In either case, you should probably skip the compound clips.  FCPX doesn't play nicely with CC's stacked inside of multicam clips.  Just make sure that when you create the multicam, it's the size of your desired output.  When you add higher-resolution footage to a lower-resolution multicam clip, FCPX scales the new clip down to fit within the smaller bounds automatically. But you can always use your transform tools to scale the image up afterwards, effectively cropping it.  There's no speed or image quality penalty for this type of operation because FCPX doesn't apply these transformations sequentially, it does them simultaneously at render.  For this reason, it's usually good to keep your multicam output size the same as your smallest angle.
I also wouldn't render any corrections beforehand.  Each render you do is going to degrade the image quality through compression and/or error.  If it's the NR and color correction that's slowing down playback, you should just disable them while you edit and re-enable them before you render.  If your computer bogs down with vanilla 4k prores LT, you could try working with proxies, but you'd save yourself some headache by just upgrading your computer.

By the way, are you using a 3rd party NR plugin?  Just curious.  I didn't think final cut had one built in.

Good to know about avoiding CC's as angles in multicams - I had considered trying it but won't now; thanks.

Yes - Photon Pro

I can't imagine happening in an interview scenario… Huh? Using 4K to get multiple angles from one camera for interviews was one of the main reasons we bought a 4K camera. What's not to like about getting all your coverage in one take?

@stib I guess I don't really think of punching in on the same shot in post as separate "angles".  To me, another angle == another camera.  I was envisioning some crazy setup with lots of mirrors ;-)

Angles in the Angle Viewer – FCPX terminology

I wasn't aware of the FCPX terminology–I abandoned the FCP ship after FCP7. So lets just say you can get multiple "shots" in one take with a 4k->HD workflow.


text:
clipping out object from a video/movie/gif
How do I clip out a object from a video/gif/movie and use it elsewhere, where it still moves? I have Adobe PS CS6, After Effects CC 2015 and Sony Vegas Pro 13.
Here is an example of what I mean.

Welcome to Video Production. There are various ways to do what you want to do. To help us answer give us some more detail about the footage - a screenshot or video link would be the most useful and will enable us to give you a better answer.

Welcome to Video production. To do this using After effects use the mask tool to draw around the object, you have to do this at each frame of the footage. Then bring in the footage you want the object to be in. (make sure you put it below the object layer) then you can move the object to any part of the footage you want. Or you can view this playlist of making tutorials to know more about masking; https://m.youtube.com/user/SurfacedStudio/search?itct=CAUQuy8iEwi2sOr165HOAhVMIBwKHZZMB44%3D&query=Mask


text:
Recording Video Games and uploading to YouTube
System Specs:
-GTX 660 Windforce 2GB
-i5 3570k Ivy Bridge
-2 x 4GB 2133Mhz RAM
-Processor HydroCooled (H100i)
-My HDD is old and 500GB
-Case Corsair 500r(Awesome cooling)
-Nevermind about the internet connection
Generally , what is better?->
Q#1: I play many games and want to upload gameplay/do livestreams. For recording:
nVidia ShadowPlay/DxTory/FRAPS? If I decide to livestream , should I use the game's own streaming machine or use something like XSplit or OBS?
Q#2: Videos are usually big.I heared from a friend that he does some stuff in video editors and QuickTime so video size gets reduced (preserving quality). Also , youtube recommends something about Quicktime's settings.
Q#3: How many FPS should I record?

1) Each software has its own advantages and disadvantages, there isn't a right answer.  If you have ShadowPlay support, the hardware leverage is nice.  FRAPS is good at dumping a really high quality video quickly, but it needs lots of memory and high speed disks to deal with the amount of data it dumps.  I've not personally worked with DxTory, so I can't speak to that, though I believe it offers a slightly more balanced level of data rate (can use slower hdd) but at a cost of CPU performance.  I could be wrong on that last part though.
2) There are two things you can do to help reduce the size.  You can edit the video in a video editor such as Premiere or Windows Movie Maker in order to remove portions of the video that you do not need.  This trims file size by reducing the amount of time the video covers.
You can also use what is known as a video encoder, such as Quicktime, Adobe Media Encoder or ffMPEG.  A video encoder stores the video in a more compressed way that allows for smaller files size while minimizing the quality loss.  Using a format like 2-pass VBR h.264 will produce very high quality files with a minimal size, however it is time consuming and CPU intensive to produce such files, so the live encoding tools can not use that level of compression.  Running the slower encoding will produce smaller files as it can take the time to find more ways to save space.
The Youtube recommendations that you talk about are the preferred encoder settings that Youtube wants a source file to have, however Youtube itself will still transcode (make additional encodings) the file for streaming at different resolutions and speeds.
3) Your preference.  Video standards tend to be either 30fps (NTSC TV (America/Japan)), 25fps (PAL TV (most of the rest of the world)) or 24fps (Cinema, used frequently by everyone).  Choose based on what your system can handle and what you like the most.  If you can't manage 24fps, then an even multiple tends to work best since frames will match up at the higher rate. (For example, 15fps on a 30fps video will result in each original frame being used twice, so the computer doesn't have to guess at any frames [called interpolation].)


text:
synchronizing video and audio in a remuxed MKV
I am quite new in the area of audio/video manipulation so apologies if the question is obvious. I did not manage to find an answer online, though.
I have a MKV file with several tracks: video (MPEG4), audio (DTS EN), audio (AC3 FR) and subtitles. I wanted to extract the video and French audio, then merge them back into an MKV file.
I did this via mkvextract and mkvmerge (without any specific options). The MKV file I got is playable but the audio is shifted (by 10 or so seconds). The audio in the original file is fine for both languages (ie. it is correctly synchronized with the picture).
I guess that there should be a way to align the video and audio, though I do not really understand why they are shifted since I did not do any manipulations on the extracted files.
I would be grateful for any hints.
Thank you

What operating system are you on?

Use mkvmerge with
  -y or --sync
                       Synchronize, adjust the track's timecodes with

                       the id TID by 'd' ms.

                       'o/p': Adjust the timecodes by multiplying with

                       'o/p' to fix linear drifts. 'p' defaults to

                       1 if omitted. Both 'o' and 'p' can be

                       floating point numbers.


text:
Create a DIY Green Screen / Chroma Key
What are some good resources for people attempting to setup their own green/blue screen, light, record and pull a quality key from it? Particularly on a low budget, or with materials that aren't specifically designed for that purpose. Such as,

What sorts of fabric/material give good results? Both general tips and specific examples/links are helpful.
Is it possible to light it adequately without a full lighting kit?
What sort of encoding is recommended when filming it? (i.e. is it possible to use a DSLR with h.264?)
What software would you recommend for post processing the key? Does some work better with homebrewed screens than others?
If you have one, post an example of the results you were able to achieve with your suggestions.

You should ask for examples - I've (helped) set up too many green screens with huuuugely varying levels of success. If I were you, I'd be curious to see how the keyed results look.

I find this really interesting - but use linux. - so for all the people answering this question - what linux software could you use?

What sorts of fabric/material give good results? Both general tips and specific examples/links are helpful.

Great Resources for tips on lighting and materials:
http://provideocoalition.com/index.php/alindsay/story/greenscreen_primer_part_1/
http://rebelsguide.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2432
Underexposure (not lighting enough) is your biggest enemy, followed closely by uneven falloff across the screen.  Always keep your talent/target a good distance from the screen.

Is it possible to light it adequately without a full lighting kit?

Not easily, but don't dismay, it always takes a skilled hand to get greenscreen lit well, so in many cases, even with a full lighting kit, results will be sub-par.  It's a tough thing to get right, because lighting needs vary a lot depending on your shooting situation.  Your best bet for getting good, even light, is to have an on-set monitor setup (such as a computer with OnLocation), and test, test, test, before you start shooting.

What sort of encoding is recommended when filming it? (i.e. is it possible to use a DSLR with h.264?)

Great question.  This is showing that you've done enough research already to be aware of the issues.  "Possible" isn't the word I'd use to describe your capture options, because it's more of a spectrum from good idea, to difficult to work with, almost entirely because of chroma subsampling
Difficult: DSLR on-camera recording, consumer capture codecs (AVCHD, HDV, all of which probably will be 4:2:0)
Better: Output to an HDMI recorder at 4:2:2
Good idea: Uncompressed S-Log 4:4:4 (from something like an F3)

What software would you recommend for post processing the key? Does some work better with homebrewed screens than others?

Some ordinary options are KeyLight (in Premiere and After Effects) and Primatte (which is a real pleasure to use).  Keying tools won't care how you created the screen, just how well it was exposed, and how much color separation there is between subject and background.
Finally, a more-radical-than-it-should-be thing to consider is using a neutral gray background instead of green or blue, and relying on a combination of luma keying and roto.  One bad example I've always remembered was about the keying in Forrest Gump. Stu Maschwitz once explained the effects artists had to roto every single frame to take care of green spill and edges.  Their lives would've been easier if they'd just gone with a neutral gray.
Green does not equal magic movie effects, it's just one of many options.

Note from the future: this answer hasn't aged well.  OnLocation no longer exists, compressed RAW is now more viable than it was in 2011, with .braw, R3D, and proRes RAW now being options (uncompressed 444 was at one time the only RAW available from Sony cameras.). Also, using a grey background to luma key was probably always bad advice.  A better idea is to first get the talent as far from the screen as you can to reduce spill.  After that, use magenta bounce on set to kill spill as much as possible, IRL.  Use vectorscopes and waveform monitors to evenly light screen and tune spill supression.

Here's what I used for my setup.
Fabric/Material
The main thing is to find a material that is very green. Walmart sells (at least in Maine) a very green cotton fabric that works well ($9 for 3 yards).

I've tried materials that are a lighter green, but without success. One thing you have to watch out for is large wrinkles, which will quickly ruin the key. Also, since this fabric is typically not very wide, you don't have a lot of room to move around unless you figure out a way to combine multiple pieces. Finally, you'll probably want to hem the edges so they don't unravel.
Lighting
You want to light the screen evenly, which probably means some sort of defused light. I used a desk lamp with some sheer fabric in front of it, and tried to center the screen underneath the overhead light that was in the room. You want to be far enough away from the screen so you're not casting a shadow (unless you're compositing it in a way that you want a shadow, if you were adding a nearby wall for example).
Encoding
Most places around the internet will discourage using DSLR, or anything with a highly compressed encoding format for chromakey. That's because they often use 4:2:0 encoding, which means there's less color information to pull your chromakey from.
While it's less than ideal, however, it is possible. I was surprised how usable the footage from my Canon t3i DSLR (h.264 encoding) was. There are some very good tips on this thread on Creative Cow on what settings to use when you have a less than ideal encoding situation (low ISO, etc).
Software
Mac - I've used both Final Cut Pro X ($299) and Motion 5 ($49) for pulling the key, but I'd recommend Motion. The chroma key filter has more advanced options for tweaking the key (spill suppression, etc) as well as a "light wrap" feature that seems to help with color correction on the actor after compositing.
Linux or Windows - I recommend the Blender (free) node based compositing features. Although I haven't used them with my latest green screen, they were the best solution I could find before I got Motion. They are more complicated, however, as Blender isn't primarily a compositing tool, and you have to wait for rendering.
Here's a test I did using this setup (cotton screen, defused lamp, DSLR, and Motion) over about 4 hours. Hopefully I'll be able to get even better results with more practice and some lighting improvements.

Me and my friend made one for a video project.
What we did is took a white bed sheet and just painted it with basic green paint. It becomes a stiff starched fabric texture, which works well for hanging it on a wall. To light it, We used just work lights (3 100watt bulbs + unknown wattage) to light it. The lights we used were like this:

We just had to play around with the positioning until there were no dark shadows (omni- directional light)
We used two DSLRs (Nikon d90 and 3100), we encoded the footage into uncompressed h.264 and went right into final cut. With a little tweaking, we were able to almost completely key out the green screen. We used Final Cut Pro 7, but all major softwares have Chroma key. You just have to play around with it. The same green screen worked well in Premier Pro CS5 as well

BTW, total cost was $30. And that was for the paint.

"uncompressed h.264" ;)

There are a zillion greenscreen tutorials on YouTube. The basics are simple.
1.Pure green paint or fabric.
2.Even lighting on the green, good lighting technique on the subject. Avoid spills and shadows.
3.Use the highest quality camera, lenses and compression you have available -- but don't freak out unless you're using a lot of translucent objects like smoke or water.
4.You often need to try more than one keying product to find the best for your situation. I primarily use Spectramatte and Keylight. There are many others.

I've reflecmedia chromakey with good results using a DSLR for both stills and video, producing great easy to key files.
Reflecmedia Pop up screen
We plan to use this as part of our DSLR HD Video DIY Greenscreen Training course at United By Photography.

I've heard of them, that's really cool technology. have you been able to find any configuration of their products that are under the $1k mark? (it seems like you need both the lighting ring plus the fabric)

I've used one of these (different company) on several occasions... truly the easiest and fastest way to get clean footage!

This won't be a full answer to your question, but LearningDSLRVideo has a few clips about DIY greenscreen--more from a shooting/software standpoint, than the physical setup standpoint, though.

How to Key DSLR Green Screen
DSLR Green Screen Test
DSLR Green Screen Test with Premiere CS5

I've heard green table clothes from a dollar store work very well. You can stack them to make them more opaque if you like, and the lighting is more important than the material anyway.

I've edited your earlier comment into your answer. You can improve answers like this (actually, anyone with enough rep can!) using the "edit" link above. I've deleted our comments since they no longer are relevant, but please feel free to edit the answer if you have any improvements (more information, better wording, anything like that). Thanks!

For a green screen, you can use a green or blue polyurethane film, which is stretched on a frame of metal rods. The film can be found in the Home Depot.

Welcome! The specular reflections from the plastic don't cause problems with getting a clean key? Or is the film matte enough that minor imperfections don't cause a problem?

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


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Crop and boomerang at the same time using ffmpeg?
I'm trying to use ffmpeg to create a cropped "boomerang" video. Where it would take in a video, take a small segment, crop it and then play that little piece forward and then play it backwards.
ffmpeg -y -i x.mp4 -c:v libx264 -filter_complex 'trim=start=1.32:duration=0.4,crop=500:500:1200:300,split=2[f][ri];[ri]reverse[r];[f][r]concat'  x1.mp4
The end result, however, is 00:00:02.34 long, almost the exact same as the original 00:00:02.46. What am I doing wrong?

Reset timestamps after the trim, and disable audio.
ffmpeg -y -i x.mp4 -c:v libx264 -filter_complex 'trim=start=1.32:duration=0.4,setpts=PTS-STARTPTS,crop=500:500:1200:300,split=2[f][ri];[ri]reverse[r];[f][r]concat' -an x1.mp4

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


text:
Comparing Hardware Solutions for Transferring 8mm film to Digital?
I'm looking to better understand the various 8mm film silent movie scanning solutions available.  Can anyone shed light on the differences between Moviestuff (appears inferior to me) and MWA (appears superior to me).  Are there other vendors that should also be considered?  I also see the Lasergraphics Scanstation.
How have they varied over time?  Has the technology changed much in recent years?  Has the technology gotten past the point of retrieving all the information in 8mm film?


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Cool Edit Pro alternative for Mac?
I just can't find a program similar to Cool Edit Pro for the Mac. Any idea?

Cool Edit Pro is now Adobe Audition. They have started a beta, so you're in luck.
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/audition/

As a side note: Audition is, in my opinion, much worse than CEP. If the OP really likes CEP, they might not find Audition a reasonable substitute.

@Sklivvz: exactly what I was going to write :)

It is miles and miles ahead of Soundbooth, though.

+1 and it's now officially released as Adobe Audition CS5.5 for both Mac and PC. I use it on both platforms and they work pretty much the same. Also, if you have old Cool Edit Pro / Audition .ses files, you will need to get them converted to the new XML-based .sesx format using the following cheap third party tool: http://www.aatranslator.com.au/ses2sesx.html

@Sklivvz - why do you think Audition is worse than Cool Edit Pro (CEP)? I have used both. Though I have to say that some of the great features in Audition have been in the software for years, including in CEP: such as the multi-track, non-destructive editor, the envelopes, the timeshifting, the noise reduction. I'm still learning with CS5.5 so maybe I'll see what benefits it brings.

Depending on the functionality needed, Audacity (it's free) may do the trick.  Otherwise, you might try Cubase (it's expensive depending on version).
Both can use your existing sound interface.  If you want an easier (in my opinion) user interface, check into ProTools, but you will need to buy compatible hardware.

I tried Audacity a while ago, but I really don't like the interface. As for Cubase and Pro Tools, aren't they too 'big' to be compared to CEP? I need an application focused on audio editing only, easy to use and with a relatively simple interface - like CEP basically. Thanks for the answer!

See my answer here for info on Reaper.

As a fellow Cool Edit user, I recently started doing some basic single track recording on Mac.  The best app I've come across so far has been Sound Studio by Felt Tip Inc http://felttip.com/ss/ (You'll need the older version created by FreeVerse for older versions of OSX).  I'm planning to experiment with some other apps listed here: http://www.pure-mac.com/audio.html but will most likely purchase Felt Tip, as so far, it has served me well.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.5/


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What is the orbiting technique involved for this scene [youtube]?
As in title, what is the technique involved for this scene:

Scene starting from 0.43 to 0.48 secs, orbiting camera view with subjects at standstill.
My best guess is they had many cameras all taking a still shot all at once. Post processing stitch the still frames together. But the scene lasted for 5 seconds. In a 30 FPS video, we will need 150 still shots or 150 cameras!! How did they hide the cameras so well in the dark background? Not practical at all?
Hope someone can shed some light? Thank you all.

I believe this works by using only a small number of cameras, together with some really clever software which reconstructs a 3D model using stereoscopy and infers textures from the shots. It can then be re-rendered at any angle as slow as necessary.

@Dr Mayhem actually there might be 150 cameras! This video at 2:32 happen to show the behind the scenes. I think maybe many producers these days still prefer to use a method as direct as possible than rely on post processing manipulation.

I think you partially answered your own question - the dark background actually makes it easier to hide cameras. In saying that, these days a lot of the heavy work is done by interpolation software (as @romkyns mentioned), so I wouldn't think 150 cameras would be required here.

A simple explanation of how they achieved this effect in The Matrix: http://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/question295.htm

I think this effect is different from The Matrix because it is simpler in Matrix's case. I do not even need to read up to guess it correctly. Mostly because it involves a subject (bullet, dodging man) in the foreground and then the background rotates around the subject. In this case however, the falling petals "interacts" with the foreground (girls) so I thought this is much complicated.

FWIW, I don't see the petals moving during the orbit effect.

I see the foreground petals scrolling side to side. Looks like they were added later.


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The ProRes of Premiere Pro?
I'm going to be editing more and more DSLR videos, most notably music videos for my band as we start releasing singles and want to know if there is an intermediate format for both cutting and exporting that rivals the kind of features found in ProRes 422 used in Final Cut?
Is it possible to use ProRes in Premiere Pro anyway (with the same advantages in editing speed and bit-depth)?

I-frame encoding/decoding for speed.
Higher sample depth for making image modifications.
Intended for 720p 60fps H.264 footage captured from Canon EOS 60D.

If ProRes itself can be used in Premiere Pro, I have all the tools I need to begin transcoding. Just wondering if anyone has some workflow/codec tips for using an intermediate editing/exporting format in Premiere instead of directly editing .MOVs.
I'm not using an overly powerful Mac but it seems to do the job with editing MOVs and AVCHD files directly (mostly using preview renders). 60fps shots and other HD with effects applied start to make it crumple without rendering previews. It's a MacBook Pro 13" 2.53Ghz Core 2 Duo, 8GB DDR3, 1TB internal 2.5" drive (slow).
I intend to use ProRes or similar footage on an external 7200rpm FireWire drive.

In Premiere, AVCHD (in an avi wrapper) is basically equivalent to ProRes. But I have used ProRes in Premiere, and it works great (but I am on a mac)

I am also on a Mac (13" MacBook Pro Core 2, 8GB DDR3, not the most powerful laptop...). I may just try converting a few clips to ProRes 422 and see how it handles it.

It should handle both well. And I use a Macbook (Late 08, 4GB, Core2 @2GHz) for editing. Dont complain :P

Not complaining :) Just stating a fact. Updated my question btw.

I would recommend ProRes if it works for you. AVCHD works great, it just does not like being worked with in real time. ProRes is natively supported by Mac, and has hardware acceleration.

I think ProRes is looking up. The upside of using ProRes is that if I ever buy Final Cut Pro X the files are there.

As an update, I'm basically using Final Cut Pro X now and thus using ProRes.. It's lovely.

There's a philosophical difference between delivery codecs (e.g. mpeg4, avchd), editing codecs (e.g. DNxHD, ProRes, Cineform), and capture codecs (e.g. r3d, DVCPROHD).  While almost any codec can be used for each of these three stages, your workflow needs will help you decide which are best suited for each stage.
The question you seem to be asking, is "Which editing codec should I transcode to for an online edit?".  Editing codecs are generally less compressed and larger on disk, to make playback simpler from a processing perspective.  It's definitely possible to use ProRes in Premiere, and coming from DSLR (as of July 2011) 422 is probably (technically) overkill, but it is a reasonable default choice.  Another editing codec option to consider is Cineform, since you can get the 1920x1080 codec for free now, as part of the GoPro Cineform Studio package.
There are even specialized tools to help you with transcoding batches of files, such as Magic Bullet Grinder.  If you're concerned about editing speed, there's even a chance that Premiere and your computer will be powerful enough to slog through your capture files as-is without transcoding, saving you from this step altogether.
As always, try it for yourself, and test, test, test, your workflow before putting it into production.

On my MBP, it's actually not until I use 60fps footage or apply effects (such as colour filters) to clips that I need to render. I'll be giving ProRes a run to see how it works first then check out the CineForm Studio option considering it's free.

Color filters are the textbook example of heavy processing horsepower needs.  Even if you're working with highly optimized modern plugins and software that use all your processor/graphics cores (e.g. Colorista II and Resolve), there's just a limit to how much math a computer can do in realtime.  Millions can be spent to get real time performance in "any" circumstance, but it's usually more reasonable to settle for non-real time playback at some point, and disable the filters while editing.

I ended up just getting Final Cut Pro X in the end.

If you are going to be doing any serious work with your 60D, I strongly encourage you to stick with Final Cut Studio for your projects.
I work with a producer who shoots a 60D (amongst others) for music videos. We spoke with Alex Buono (DP for Saturday Night Live) about how he gets the quality with gets with the Canon. He uses a specific set-up to defeat a lot of the auto features of the camera, desaturate the image, and modify the contrast. After that, the footage goes immediately to ProRes 422 and is cut, then sent to Color for creation and "look creation."
Color is a huge component in getting the 8-bit color of the AVCHD to perform. Using the 10-bit colorspace of the ProRes 422 codec and the 32-but float capabilities of Color, Alex felt he was able to effectively increase the dynamic range of the footage. I agree with this because I've seen the differences with/without "the set-up" and with/without Color.
There is no right or wrong in creative endeavors, but there may be smart and smarter...

All your facts are true, but your suggestion to stick with an EOL'd editing program doesn't logically follow your facts.  You can achieve the same color behavior from most varieties of editing codecs.

Premiere uses 32 bit floating point colour. DaVinci Resolve uses 32 bit YRGB (whatever that is). The fact that Color does 32 bits too isn't really much of a feature. And sure when you're grading footage use a 10-bit codec, but you're never going to get back any more dynamic range than the original 8-bit footage had.


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Blur out an irregular shaped section of the frame using Sony Vegas Studio
I have a video in which a person is speaking something. He is right in the middle of the frame. I want to blur out all of his surroundings like you have when you shoot a photograph or a video with a shallow depth of field. I am in post-production.
I am using Sony Vegas Movie Studio 11 HD.
If the shape to be blurred was rectangular, I could overlay two duplicate tracks and blur out the section from the frames in the top track, but I want to blur out everything around the person's body, which happens not to be a geometrically named shape.
How do I do that?

Unfortunately you are asking too much from Sony Vegas my friend! In order to get a true effect you'd have to do something called "rotoscoping" which means you go into each frame and mask out the background.
You can do this in vegas by going into the pan/crop window on the video event. Look for "mask" and then you can key frame out the background with the pen tool there.
There is no way to automate this so you'll have to key frame quite a bit. Then once you have just the person visible you duplicate the track beneath it and uncheck the mask on the duplicate. You then can add lense blur or gaussian blur to create the desired effect.
Unless the clip is super short I wouldn't recommend doing it this way though. It takes a lot of time even for skilled maskers.

Thank you very much for your answer. I think I am going to just crop everything around the speaker out and then blow up, i.e. resize his face to fit the whole frame. I know it'll look ugly but I can make it look like it is some artistry. :-)

You can easily do this in Vegas Pro using the blur function and compositing two tracks.
One way to do this:
The lower track will be your back plate, apply the blur effect on this, the top track is your clear on blurred original track, use the cookie cutter likely an oval or a circle and and invert it so you have it allow everything around the cookie cutter to show through.
The effect should be an out of focus back ground with a sharp area where the cookie cutter was not applied. You may want to use the feathering feature of the cookie cutter to blend the tracks better.
Another way to do this would be to put your clear unblurred video on the bottom track (back plate) and put the blurred version of the original on top, again with the Cookie Cutter bit but this time allow only the cookie cutter to shine through. Either way you get the same effect.
I did something like in my video "K I T E S":
https://vimeo.com/47605517
At time marker 02:41 you will see a post production selective rack focus.

Thank you, @filzilla. I will try this. I don't have Vegas Pro at the moment, but I think it'll be worth buying. I have Vegas Movie Studio, which is a stripped down version of Pro.

I think Vegas Movie Studio supports at least two video tracks, and I am pretty sure it has the "blur" effects.

Thanks, @filzilla. I just saw your movie. Very nice. I was told about this feathering and to apply the cookie cutter. I can't remember why I didn't do it. I am not sure if Movie Studio has the cookie cutter or the feathering tool.

It definitely should have blur effects. I can't remember why I didn't go with them. It would have been obvious. It's been a long time. I can't remember. I have to get back to the issue to recollect. But thanks much for the help. May be it's possible. I will try it. Thank you so much.


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How can I move an Adobe Prelude CS6 project
I have a Prelude CS6 project that I need to move to a different folder but there seems to be no way to change the file path for the clips.
When I move the project, in logging mode I see the clips in the project but they have the old file path and I can't see any way to change this. When I double click on a clip I get the error. The media you are attempting to work on is offline. Please locate your media, bring it online and try it again

Found a way to do this 10 minutes later and I thought I'd share it in case it helps someone.
There might be a "proper" way to do this within the program, but this way has just worked for me. The Prelude project file is just an XML document so easy to edit and this method should be bulletproof ( make a copy of the project file first though )

Close Prelude
Open the Prelude project file in a text editor, eg notepad but you'll need Sublime Text unless you want it to take ages or if it's a very small project
Replace all the FilePaths with the new file path ( if you use sublime then it's easy to use ctrl-D to multi-select them all in one go but if you're not a Sublime user you'll need to do them one by one - only change the file paths fo each clip not anything else at all
Save the file and open in prelude

Eg, for each clip you'll have something like
<MasterClip AssetName="back-head" AssetType="AssetTypeMasterClip" ClassID="9091c12c-9d39-43b7-b55e-4de81592552c" CreatedDate="11/27/15, 12:54:25" DropFrame="false" Duration="2542700160000" FilePath="C:\old\path\tozfootage\DSCF4661.MOV" FrameRate="8475667200" ImportDate="2015-12-18 03:04:59" ParentClassID="18e728c6-1583-44f4-96da-2a830cded31a" StartTime="0"/>
change the part where it says FilePath="C:\old\path\tozfootage\DSCF4661.MOV" to your new\path\to\footage

so you'll end up with FilePath="C:\new\path\tozfootage\DSCF4661.MOV" - and so on for the other clips
in my windows 7 machine I can find the path easily by right clicking the address bar in explorer and selecting "copy address as text"

Page 17 of the Adobe Prelude manual has the answer:

When you open a project containing files that have moved since you last opened the project, a list of such files is
  displayed. Click Yes to relink the files by specifying their current location. If you choose to not relink the files, you can
  manually relink the files later.
1 In the Project panel, right-click the file with the offline icon , and select Relink. To select multiple files that exist
  at the same location, use Ctrl-click/Cmd-click or Shift-click.
2 Navigate to the folder containing the files and select a file. Prelude uses this location to relink all the other files in
  your selection.
3 Click Open.

Yes - no such dialog that I either encountered or was able to find on Prelude however

I updated my answer with The Answer.

Yes I would have expected something like that but it wasn't my experience - right clicking on the files did nothing  - I spent ages going through all the menus etc and trying everything I'd do if it were moving eg and AE or PP project - but there was just the error I mentioned . Though I have another project to move and I'll double check when I move that.


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What exactly am I hearing from my 5DMkII audio out jack?
I was playing with my shotgun mic on my new 5D Mark II (upgraded from my T2i), and had it plugged into the camera. I plugged some headphones into the audio out of the Mark II and was hearing what I thought was live audio in my left ear (nothing in the right though).
Everything I've read says that the Mark II cannot monitor sound. So what exactly am I hearing?

You may be getting just a little bit of drive from the A/V Output connection.  The 5D Mark ii has no headphone connector.  All it has is a TRRS (tip, ring, ring, sleeve) connector that happens to be the same size as a headphone plug.  It is designed to feed an analog video feed out of the camera and in to a TV.
While there would be a drastic impedance difference, the part of the headphones that happened to connect to one of the audio channels may have been sufficient to minimally drive your headphones.  The other ear piece likely got connected to the video feed which wouldn't do much except perhaps produce noise, quite probably in-audibly.
I would avoid trying it as sending the wrong kind of signal through your headphones may potentially cause damage, though you could use the A/V cable to output the audio and then wire it up to a small headphone amplifier to monitor the audio output from the A/V cable safely.
More information about the 5D Mark ii's A/V output connector can be found on page 139 of the manual.

Thanks for the help! I was very confused when I was hearing clear audio, because I knew it didn't have a headphone jack.


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Corrupted video (Green/pink) on Premiere Pro CS6 in Win8.1 Pro 64bit but not on Mac OS Yosemite
I have a volume license for Premier Pro CS6 whereby I can run it on Mac OS and Windows.
When I run it on Windows, I get this:

But on MacOS it is fine.
The video is HDV 1440x1080i MPEG4 QuickTime.
Do you know why this happens?

I'd examine your codecs. There are utilities that will tell you what codec is actually being used. Does this happen if you play a 1440x1080 QT video outside of Premiere?

It plays OK on MPC-HC (Media Player Classic) for Windows, Jim. Thanks for commenting!

FWIW, that green/pink combination is often an indication of Y'CbCr data being interpreted as RGB.

You can change
Disable GPU acceleration of effects

Choose Project > Project Settings > General.
In the Video Rendering And Playback section, select the appropriate renderer: Mercury Playback Engine GPU Acceleration or Mercury Playback Engine Software Only.

It Worked For Me


text:
How does QuickTime Player know when do play a video in HiDPI/Retina/@2x mode?
When you’re on a Mac with Retina Display (HiDPI), and you make a screen recording using QuickTime Player, whenever that video is played in QuickTime Player, it is shown with the expected 2:1 pixel density.
However, if you attempt to re-encode this video using ffmpeg (like in this question on Stack Overflow) the outputted file will instead be played back at a too-big/fuzzy 1:1 pixel density.
Also, if you attempt to play the QuickTime-generated screen recording in a player like VLC, you’ll notice it plays at the blurry 1:1 instead of the sharp 2:1. So it seems like there’s a feature in QuickTime Player that knows this video was captured at a 2x pixel density, so it needs to be played-back at a 2x pixel density.
How does QuickTime Player know when to play a video back in HiDPI/Retina mode? Is there some special metadata that’s written to the file?
How to reproduce:

Use QuickTime Player to create a Screen Recording on a Retina Mac.
Play the video you recorded in QuickTime Player using the ⌘1 Actual Size view. Notice that it’s playing 2:1 on your Retina Display, so the video looks sharp. It’s playing in half the space of the actual recorded pixels.
Use ffmpeg to encode the video using a command like this:
ffmpeg -i retina_sample.mov -c:v libx264 -crf 23 retina_sample_compressed.mov

Play the new ffmpeg-compressed video in QuickTime Player using the ⌘1 Actual Size view. Notice that it’s playing 1:1, so the video looks fuzzy.

To clarify, the video does not look blurry because it was compressed. Rather, it looks blurry because the video is being played twice as big as it should be, at a 1:1 pixel density, instead of the required 2:1 pixel density, presumably because some metadata is being discarded when encoding.
Here are links to example videos:

Before: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5a9l23jdlmhtqut/retina_sample.mov?dl=1
After: https://www.dropbox.com/s/v0ek4k981b0y2jn/retina_sample_compressed.mov?dl=1

It'll be via an atom in the QT file. Upload a small sample and I'll check.

@Mulvya I edited the question to add two links: before and after videos.

Does this file play in QT with 2:1? https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PPTE4zwN44g91D0Hsf5OvYrkLtJJ0g4K

@Mulvya No, it plays 1:1 (blown-up/blurry).

@Mulvya I've uploaded new videos. I realized the original video I uploaded was not playing in 2x for me — videos of a certain smaller size seem to not be played back at 2x.

Does ffmpeg -i retina_sample.mov -c copy new.mov play at 2:1?

The specific atom is in the trak metadata. When the com.apple.quicktime.pixeldensity metadata has the value 0x30, quicktime will play it at double the DPI.
There is currently not very good support for transferring this atom when re-encoding the file. You may have success using the use_metadata_tags value for the movflags option if you are just copying the video.
Example:
# loses high dpi playback
ffmpeg -i retina_sample.mov -c copy new.mov

# retains high dpi playback
ffmpeg -i retina_sample.mov -movflags use_metadata_tags -c copy new_high_dpi.mov

Hopefully soon issue 7045 will be addressed to fix this.

Created native screen recording with ⌘-⇧-5. With HandBrake I transcoded screen-recording.mov to screen-recording.mp4 (h264, RF 18). Saw no possibility in HandBrake itself to achieve the Display Size to be half of the Storage Size to achieve @2x resolution. With ffmpeg I'd like to postprocess the metadata/flags of the MP4 file without re-encoding anything. Does -movflags use_metadata_tags work between different container formats, e.g. from MOV to MP4 ? Can I transplant com.apple.quicktime.pixeldensity from the original MOV into the transcoded MP4 ?


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Is it possible to recreate VirtualDub Deshaker functionality in Adobe Premiere/After Effects?
I'd like to automatically stabilize some poorly-shot shaky footage in Adobe Premiere or After Effects.
VirtualDub Deshaker analyzes frame motion, computes smoothing, adjusts frame position, scale and rotation, and does smart filling of the area outside a frame.
Is anything similarly powerful achievable using Adobe software, possibly via third-party plugins?

After Effects CS5.5 has the Warp Stabilizer (also check the video on the main Adobe After Effects site).

Top menu>animation>stabilise motion
You'll have to find some tracking points, and if there's a lot of camera movement this is guaranteed to be a right royal PITA, but you don't need any 3rd party plug ins, because it's built in to after effects (since before it was even "CS", IIRC).
Alternatively you can use Mocha (or was that CS5?). It does a better job of stabilising footage, at the expense of a fairly unintuitive UI.
But what's wrong with Virtual Dub? Just because it's free doesn't mean it aint better.

Yep, it's a royal PITA up until CS5.5, when the Warp Stabilizer finally makes this a child's play! What's wrong with VirtualDub: nothing, it just doesn't exactly integrate into the editing workflow. You can use it to deshake one clip, but if you're editing a video composed of 50 clips, VirtualDub just doesn't cut it. (and I avoid intermediate renders like the plague)

Unless you know of a way to plonk a VirtualDub savefile right into the Premiere timeline, just like one can do with AE compositions? I'd love to be able to do that.

I thought I read that TOP was using CS4. Hmm.


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File compatibility for Final Cut Pro 7 project files with Adobe Premiere Pro CS4
The video editing labs in my university have Final Cut Pro 7 installed on them, and most projects that we work on are done in FCP. I don't have a Macbook so I personally use Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 instead for my projects. Is there any way to transfer project files back and forth between the two software?

Yes, in Premiere Pro, you can export to Final Cut XML. In Final Cut 7, you can export into an XML as well. Then you can import the XML files into each program.
The only problem is that Premiere on windows uses the AVI wrapper, and Final Cut 7 uses Quicktime. It might work going from Final Cut to Premiere. But going back into Final Cut probably will not work, as Final Cut does not like AVI. Also, the file paths will be different (but you can reconnect the media, but you are looking for an easy way).
Unless there is a software that does this, switching in between Programs and OS is going to take time.

According to this thread and this video, it is possible to import a Final Cut Pro 7 project from a Mac into Premiere Pro CS4 on Windows. From those sources -

Make sure that the codec you're using works on Windows (supported file formats list)
When exporting from Final Cut, use Version 4 of the XML


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Automatically split takes into individual files in Final Cut Pro
One of my 'favourite' features in Adobe Premiere Pro CS family is automatic scene detection - its  ability to spit out individual clips when capturing from tape using pause/stop information. As far as I know, Final Cut Pro has no automnatic way of doing this. Splitting clips during import manually is so tedious. Is there something I'm missing out, or a plugin perhaps that provides this feature in FCP 7?

There is a  pop-up menu in the General tab in User Preferences that has all the options in dealing with timecode breaks. There is an option where you choose Make New Clip from the “On timecode break”. This option will make a new clip in the bin when a timecode break is reached.
SRC: http://documentation.apple.com/en/finalcutpro/usermanual/index.html#chapter=20%26section=5%26tasks=true

I clarified the intent of my question for what specific feature I'm looking an analogous option for. The timecode break option is for a different purpose, it seems.

In Final Cut a timecode break is when the tape is stopped. So then a break in the timecode is detected (indicating there was a stopping of the recording), final cut will create a new clip in the browser. And this will all be done when capturing from a camera/tapedeck via firewire. I am pretty sure that this is what your looking for

There will be no timecode breaks between scenes if you are in rec-run mode (which you should be if you plan to batch capture) thus there will be no splitting. You should use the DV Start/Stop Detect feature in the Mark menu.

Select the clip you wish to work on in the browser, then in the top menu bar for FCP, select Mark > DV Start/Stop Detect. This will break the clip up by the start/stop metadata generated when you were shooting.
The options in the user preferences are for timecode breaks that occur during capture.
ps: I don't know when this DV Start/Stop Detect feature was first included, but it was in FCP3 in 2002...


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I'm not happy with Final Cut Pro (X). What are my options?
I'm a editor who has been editing with Final Cut Pro for the last couple of years and I'm not impressed with the new Final Cut Pro X. I'm interested in looking for another NLE, such as Avid or Premiere or something else. What would you recommend in this situation?

I've converted this question to community wiki since it doesn't really have one "right" answer, but rather many answers that might be useful.

so many people were unimpressed with FCPX that Apple was issuing refunds. http://forums.thoughtsmedia.com/f386/apple-issue-refunds-request-unhappy-final-cut-pro-x-users-112188.html

If you're not impressed with X then I'd suggest going back to version 7. Learning your way around a new program will be a pain in the arse.
I'm not sure how professionally you work but if you can be bothered, Avid is a great program once you get to know it.
Otherwise, man, I'd probably just get used to FCPX.

I think the traditional knowledge is that if you want to be an editor, then you should know how to drive all 3 of the major programs (Avid, Final Cut Studio, and Premiere), and maybe some of the less mainstream broadcast editing and finishing systems (e.g. Smoke).  You should probably know a handful of specialized audio programs too.
Lucky for you, the 2011 FCX launch has simplified the landscape, reducing to 2, the number of editing programs you should know how to drive.  Well, that's not entirely true - you do still have to know FCX, but it'll be a while yet before it's back on the table as a competitive option with a multi-user workflow.
Most importantly, think "editor". Not "an FCP editor", or "an Avid editor".  Just "editor".
I don't know any "Makita craftsmen" or "Price Pfister plumbers", and if I ever met any, I probably wouldn't trust them with work around my house.

If you are in the market to rethink your workflow, now is a good time to look at Adobe's lineup. If you want to capture to a computer, check out the OnLocation application in the Production Suite. The fact that you can edit while you render in CS5... and that Premiere keeps up just fine... it's beautiful.
Avid is great when it works. I've never had FCP or Premiere throw so many errors, crashes and lost work as Avid has. Plus I feel like they aren't really keeping up. I used to be a big Avid guy and lately I've been working with FCP and Adobe and to be honest the only thing I really miss from Avid is the Colour Correction mode.
I'd say try them all out. Read reviews. Some say "It's just a tool, who cares" but it was Abraham Lincoln who said: "If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I would spend the first four sharpening my axe"


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Simple Squib (gun wound)
I was wondering if there was a simple way to make a squib to imitate gun wounds without having explosives in an actors shirt.

Two simple solutions:
1.) Plastic bag of blood with a fine wire/string stuck to it.  Thread the wire through the wound hole in the shirt/leg/buttocks of the clothes, and yank.
2.) Lightly compressed air with a blood hose.  Indy Mogul's first Backyard FX episode has a great video on building this kind of rig: http://www.indymogul.com/backyardfx/episode/BFX_20070611


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Very Good Free Lossless/Lossy Video Encoding For Editing on Windows 7 (regarding fraps recordings)
I am looking for a very good method to encode video recorded with fraps in 1080p into an intermediate format which I can edit in Avid Studio. Most video files load up into Avid, as far as I know, but Fraps recordings isn't one of them (on my computer at least). So I'm here to ask if anyone here knows of a guide, or is willing to write one as an answer on how to do that.
Assume that I have no previous codecs installed apart from the included ones with windows 7 home premium.
My problem, if anyone is interested, is that when I load fraps videos into avid, I get audio, but no video. I don't know much about video editing or encoding, only what I have learned in the past 2 weeks. Please feel free to link me to websites with required theory(I will read it), but I'm really just looking for a tutorial right now.

You want to use VirtualDub to convert your FRAPS files. Just drag the clip into the window, select video from the top menu -> compression. Change the codec to Avid AVI Codec 2.0d2 and then configure it to your desired resolution. BAM! The outputted files should work.
You can also try MediaCoder and XVid

ok, so I've used virtualdub quite a bit in recent times, I have heard of people using the Avid AVI Codec 2.0d2... one big problem... I don't know how to get the Avid AVI Codec, can you provide an installation instruction link? XVid is out, it crashes on me when I try to playback the encoded file, and I haven't heard of "MediaCoder", will check that out in the future.

Try media coder. Ill try the virtualdub install and give you a guide.


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Final Cut Express 3.5 HD quits unexpectedly
I am running FCE 3.5 HD on a Macbook Pro and whenever I start rendering, it (FCE) unexpectedly quits. Here’s the crash report:
http://inventaweb.net/matthew/fcecrashlog.txt
I have no idea if this will even help, as I have no idea even how to read it...but....
UPDATE: I posted this on another forum and found out that the cross-dissolve transition was causing a problem.

Glad you got it working! You should post the resolution and a link to the forum as an answer to your question.

The problem was with the cross-dissolve transition that I was trying to render. Technically, I haven't figured out the problem, but now I know what is causing the problem. I am able to render video in other sequences and that works just fine. I haven't tried rendering a cross-dissolve transition in another sequence.
https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/17524/final-cut-express-3-5-hd-quits-unexpectedly


text:
Best Lossless Video Encoder For Editing
I'm looking for a good video encoder to compress HD files for editing within Sony Vegas Pro and Adobe After Effects.
What video codec would provide the fastest possible encoding and decoding? Also, what are some recommended encoding settings?
The video files must be usable in Sony Vegas Pro and Adobe After Effects.
EDIT: Source Clip Info:
Format                           : AVC
Format/Info                      : Advanced Video Codec
Format profile                   : High@L5.1
Format settings, CABAC           : Yes
Format settings, ReFrames        : 8 frames
Bit rate                         : 4 334 Kbps
Width                            : 1 920 pixels
Height                           : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio             : 16:9
Frame rate                       : 23.976 fps
Color space                      : YUV
Chroma subsampling               : 4:2:0
Bit depth                        : 8 bits
Scan type                        : Progressive

The container is Matroska.

File size and decode speed are part of equation, but so are number of streams playing and disk speed.  We need to know how important each individual feature is for you, in order to balance them together and come up with an answer. You can't have all of everything, because the features tug at each other.  Also, "lossless" is a terrible word to use here, if your intent is to say "highest fidelity".

@Clint The source files I have are 1080p HD 24fps clips. The container is .mkv. The video streams are x264. My intent is to convert these clips into something less hardware intensive. H.264 decoding isn't terribly fast on my computer. I'm aware of lossy encoding, however, I'd like to preserve the fidelity of the clips. Disk space isn't an issue here, however. The most important thing is that the clips can be used in Sony Vegas Pro and Adobe After Effects.

I'll start by pointing you to another answer I wrote before, roughly covering the different kinds of codecs.
(Nice edit on your question, by the way, removing the file size limitation helped figure out what you were after.)
My recommendation (again) will be to either use ProRes 422 or Cineform as your intermediate, probably via Magic Bullet Grinder or GoPro Cineform Studio respectively.
Either of these codecs will give you good decoding speed, and both will work with Vegas and After Effects.  Any workflow that involves transcoding and not capturing natively to your editing codec (such as with ProRes on an Arri Alexa or a Cinedeck), is going to sacrifice time for processing, but in your case, it seems like that's a necessity.

Lossless requires such high bitrates that I have more trouble playing back lossless video than 5Mib/s lossy h.264, on my C2Duo (first gen) E6600, 2.4GHz.  lossy 5Mib/s 1080p h.264 at 24fps plays perfectly without even having to use mplayer's -lavdopts threads=2 option.  (single-threaded software decoding is enough.)
My system isn't fast enough to play lossless h.264 RGB, or RGB utvideo.  It actually can just barely play back the directory of PNG files of the Sintel trailer.
raw video takes even more space than losslessly-compressed.  If your SSD or raid array can read fast enough to play it back in realtime, great.  Otherwise, only useful for things like feeding a slower-than-realtime video encoding or filtering job that's CPU limited, and you don't want to use any CPU time decoding the video.
I'd imagine you'd have better luck just feeding your mkv sources into your NLE, unless you want to accept some lossyness.

.mp4 always works for me.  If you are using Sony Vegas to compress it, then there should be an option to compress it as an AVCHD option, which can be one of several formats.  The best one to use would be .mp4.  It makes the file much smaller while still losing next to no quality.  (I've had 45 minute HD videos, cut to under 1gb, but it depends on how long the video is, and how many cuts there are.)  Usually that mp4 file can be read by most other programs.  I'm not sure about after effects, but I believe it can at least be read by premier.
Just a note of caution, there is more than one mp4 file type.  You want the one that is categorized under AVCHD, not the regular one, and not the one in caps (MP4 as apposed to mp4).
Once you've selected AVCHD you can change the file type by using the "custom" button, or you can just type in ".mp4" at the end of the file name, and it will do it for you.

I'm aware of the export settings for Sony Vegas. I'm looking for a way to convert source clips losslessly that can be imported to Sony Vegas Pro.

MP4 isn't a codec, it's a container format.


text:
The color in my Final Cut PX Viewer is way off
So I have a bunch of clips that I shot at 1080/24p/neutral with my T2i that all look pretty good which I'm trying to import into FCPx to assemble into a short film. When I first got FCPx last week, I was playing around with the color correction on a dummy video clip. Now, for whatever reason, it seems that every clip I import has the same settings applied to it. (I'm pretty sure clips looked normal before doing this, but I'm not 100% sure).
I have tried un-/re-installing FCPx, creating a new project, checking the effects applied, etc. but nothing seems to work. I have checked the original media in the Finder and the color looks perfectly fine, as well as in Quicktime, and on my camera.
What am I doing wrong here? The thumbnails in the Events tab look correct, but when I preview them in the viewer or add them to the timeline, then the color of the clip changes. It's almost as if the viewer is just showing the video incorrectly. I don't quite understand what's going on here. I did a Google search and it sounds like it might have something to do with the Quicktime Player gamma, or the color profiles in Apple Snow Leopard. Any thoughts or suggestions?
Thanks for the help!

The curse of the early adopter! Check your system preferences -> displays -> color. FCX (Its not Pro) might have made a new color profile

It's strange, because others seem to be having success with it (despite the scathing reviews). Not sure what I did incorrectly.

I have the same issue. Videos in the preview area (only) are quite a bit darker, but they come out fine after exporting...

I discovered that it is an issue with my graphics card. I am running FCX on a late 2008 Macbook, which does not have a graphics card that supports the application.
Check HERE: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4664

I'm running a 2010 MacBook Pro with a 9400M which is supported. Apparently it's got something to do with the colour profile used on the monitor.

I discovered that it is an issue with my graphics card. I am running FCX on a late 2008 Macbook, which does not have a graphics card that supports the application.
Check HERE to see if yours is supported.


text:
WMV vs MP4 Streaming & Download
I work for a company that outputs videos in many formats.
We currently stream movies in FLV format, offer downloads in a WMV and MP4 format.
However in the interest of saving server space and offering the user a better service, we are preparing to offer our streams in MP4 instead.
What I am wondering is: What format would be good for downloads:

Download size
Encoding time
Format compat: Will it work out of the box on both a Mac and Windows machine.

To my knowledge, WMV works out of the box on Windows and MP4 works out of the box on Mac. Is there a format that works for both and has a reasonable file size?

Deleted obsolete comments.

Your comparison of WMV to MP4 is a little bit confusing, because you're comparing apples and oranges.

MP4 is a container format, which may contain a variety of audio and video formats.  Most commonly, an MP4 file will contain wither an MPEG-4 Part 10 (aka H.264) or MPEG-4 Part 2 video stream, although it can contain MPEG-2 or MPEG-1 video streams.  There are a number of audio codecs that can be stored in an MP4 file as well. See Wikipedia for more information.
WMV is an actual codec (akin to H.264 or MPEG-4 Part 2 mentioned above), and files that end in .WMV are generally stored in an ASF container (see here).

What this all boils down to, is you need to use a codec that both Mac and Windows can play.
According to Microsoft, as of July 2010, Windows Media Player for Windows XP supports (among others):

Microsoft MPEG-4 Standard Video Codec
Vivo H.264 Video CODEC

Which suggests that it ought to play back the two common video formats contained in .MP4 files.  Note the caveat:

NOTE: Not all of the supported codecs are installed by default. These codecs will be downloadable when you play content that requires the codec.

So it's possible that your users may be prompted to install a codec the first time they try to play one of your videos.
You'll also want to make sure you use an audio codec supported by Windows Media Player. The most common (but by no means only) one is probably MPEG-1/MPEG-2 Audio Layer III (aka MP3), and this is in the list of supported codecs.
So based on this information, if you use MP4 streaming, Windows users should have no trouble playing back your videos.  Although you'll surely want to test your specific output files on a fresh Windows (and Mac) install before you commit to this decision.


text:
Is it possible to charge a panasonic HDC SD900 while filming?
On this camera, the battery can only be charged inside the camera. So I cannot charge one battery while using an other.
My only alternative is to charge while I film. Can I do that?

Yes, you can.
I first asked the question on a youtube video reviewing the camera. And I got the folowing response:

Yes, it works. You can do anything while charging.

Now, I have bought the camera and tried it myself, and I confirm that Yes, is it possible to charge a panasonic HDC SD900 while filming.

I don't know on this exact model, but if it has a dedicated power port, then it should be able to charge while filming.


text:
What settings should I use when recording my child's play in a dark theater?
I am not sure whether this is a good question to ask in this forum or even if it is answerable. I'll let the community decide.
I am a complete newcomer to video recording having purchased my first video camera this week--a Panasonic HDC-TM900. In reading many various reviews I settled on this due to its supposedly great low light performance. I will be using this primarily to record family events the first of which is my child's play.
The stage of the play is fairly well lit though I do not know the lux. The rest of the theater, naturally, is quite dark. How do I go about recording the best possible video of the play with the the equipment that I have?
Being a newcomer should I just leave everything at auto? Does 1080P vs. 1080i really make a difference in video quality? Should I try recording in 24 FPS (Digital Cinema Mode) to get a more movie like experience?
I do have two shots at this as there are two showings so I can experiment with one and adjust for the other; however, I am not sure where to begin.

I think if you leave the settings on auto it should do the job just fine. Especially if the reviews say it performs well in low-light, I don't think you'll have a problem with exposure. Personally, I've never used that camera, so I guess I can't say for sure.
1080P vs. 1080i is just progressive scan and interlaced scan. I won't try to explain the differences fully – if you want to read up on it, have a look at this site. There are pros and cons for using both, but for your purposes I would suggest going 1080P, that way you won't have to worry about de-interlacing your footage.
Not sure what they mean by Digital Cinema Mode, but don't shoot 24fps. That's mainly for shooting film. Shoot 25fps (I'm assuming you live in PAL world?) if you're in NTSC land, shoot 29.97fps (or 30fps).

Digital Cinema Mode is Panasonic's fancy way of saying we can shoot in 24FPS. I live in NTSC land and so I'd be looking at 30/60 FPS. From what I can tell the biggest disadvantage of 1080P @ 60 FPS with this camera is that it does not record to AVCHD so compatibility of the shoot is suspect though the quality should be better. That said, 1080i @ 60 FPS does record to AVCHD.

RyanTaylor lives in Maine according to his profile, which is "NTCS land"

Auto seems to work fine for my needs. I noticed however that the object in focus sometimes shifted as people moved around the set and the lighting changed from scene to scene. I may need to set focus to manual.


text:
How to choose a VCR for pulling stock footage from VHS for theatrical release
I'm making a documentary and some of our historical footage is on VHS.  I'll be capturing the footage into our Non-Linear editor (We already have the analog to digital converter worked out).
What should I look for when choosing a high-quality VCR that can preserve as much quality as possible when playing these tapes. (They're not SVHS, in fact they're VHS-C which we'll use a tape adapter with.)
Also, do they make $5000 VCR's that the FBI might use to analyze tapes?

I have modified the question slightly to make it less of a request for a specific purchase suggestion, which is off topic.

I worked on a documentary project two years ago. The solution that worked best for me was a VHS Recorder, that had 6 heads and was able to play NTSC and PAL. I could not find a VHS Recorder with HDD or DVD recording unit, that played both formats.
VHS (and VHS-C) tape quality is limited. No matter how big your budget is, you will not get a full color-range HD video-material.


text:
Workflow for making interesting videos
I'd like to start a bit of a travel video blog about my adventures, but I'm wondering how I can:

Make my videos interesting, and
Make them look and sound reasonably professional.

I currently have the following devices at my disposal:

Canon 60D + lenses
HD capable point and shoot Fujifilm camera
Zoom H1 Mic
Pretty average tripod
MacBook Pro with a range of different software available.

What tips/workflow advice would you give for getting started out?

Depends on your equipment. Please update your question with the equipment you have available.

Thanks @Chard, I've updated the post with my current equipment.

I attempted to answer this and then got stuck. What kind of travel video are you trying to make? Will you be talking to the camera or will you simply just be shooting the things you see? Also, do you want to make a single video or a series?

Little bit confused. The title of the question refers to workflow but then in the description you ask for advice on how to cut it together...
Might just do my best to answer both.
Workflow. You should shoot on your 60D mostly as that'll give you the better looking image. Use the point and shoot if you're doing anything that might compromise the safety of your gear, like skateboarding.
So you have your footage. Dump it onto the computer and convert it using MPEG Streamclip, I would recommend converting the footage to Apple ProRes 422. Import transcoded footage and audio from Zoom mic (if any) into preferred editing software. Edit it. Export to these parameters if you are uploading to the internet.
Interesting product. There are lots of techniques you could use to make a video interesting and it depends largely on the footage that you have. You haven't specified what style of travel video that you want to make and I won't sit here and explain all the different types (mainly because I don't know and secondly because it would take ages). But I will suggest two that stand out to me.

Think of it as a music video. Film things that look interesting, film the people that you meet (ask permission), film your feet – literally film anything that looks cool. You should of course film the landmarks if there are any. Get a large variety of shots: extreme long shots, mid shots, close ups, even macro if you can. In my experience, the more close ups you have the more interesting a video like this will be. And then, using the workflow I described earlier, cut it together. Pick a song that you think matches well with your footage and then cut to that. You won't have to worry about your audio if you choose this path as you'd just use the music and delete the camera's audio track in FCP.
Chat to camera... Pretty straight forward. Go somewhere quiet (and scenic if possible, but quiet is the main thing), set up your camera on a tripod, set up your mic and place it in the best position, hit record and chat away.

Hope that helps.

That is really helpful - thanks a bunch for the great advice!


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Which software to batch join videos and add a chapter for each?
I have 55 short clips (<1min) that have the same characteristics (only the content and length change) and I want to combine them into one big chaptered video.
I know with QTPro how to combine 2 videos and how to add chapters to 1 file.
Now I need a Mac OS X tool that's gonna do it automagically.
P.S. I ask here cause I know many Mac users are video professionals, if it doesnt't fit though I'll ask on apple.stackexchange.

This is a near duplicate of Concatenating videos (mp4) in Mac

@ObscureRobot I think it's okay that it's on both sites. There's a "assembling your own videos" context here that I think is useful, plus that other question wouldn't come up in a search on this site. However, linking it as you have is very useful, since I suspect one of its answers is valid here as well.

Ever since the fall of Visual Hub, there have been several generations of programs that have taken up the sourcecode and tried to remake the magic.  Visual Hub was awesome at stitching files together, sad it no longer works.  Film Redux was a fork of VisualHub, but has since been abandoned also. You can still download FilmRedux for free, however I can't get it to process any of my files. It may just be a configuration issue on my machine, you may have better luck.
Your Mac should have come with iMovie, otherwise it's at the Mac App Store for $15.  I found this comprehensive guide to iMove '09 and the section on markers is still relevant to iMovie '11.  The drawback is you'll have to add them manually, but that shouldn't be too much trouble.

You can easily create such chaptered file just draggin all your small files into  SimpleMovieX.
(As crew of Aero Quartet I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.)

It is customary to add a note indicating your affiliation with the recommended software.

My fault George. As crew of Aero Quartet I may receive some form of compensation, financial or otherwise, from my recommendation or link.

Thanks for responding.  I'll add that to your answer.  (By the way, it does look pretty easy to do what the OP is asking for in that software.)


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Best software tool to process image/video and obtain greatest level of zoom?
I would like to get advice on what is the best software to obtain the best level of zoom possible for a video.
Do I need to resample the video? Are there tools that can do this live? (maybe selecting just the small part of the screen I am interested in?)
Please note I am not asking about a quick zoom, which I can get with any media player, but I need an actual "processing" which will allow me to perceive more detail.
What's the market top solution, and what's the open source top solution?

Just to point out, no matter the software, the resulting image is still a 'guess' of what was really captured. There is no way to recreate detail when data isn't there. There is no CSI "Enhance" - only a best-guess that a computer can make.

Yea I was asking on regard to this, which was the software that is industrially recognized as the best at interpolating/guessing the pixels so that the final impression on the human eye is to have a nicer (apparently more detailed) level of zoom in contrast to some other software.

You need to scale and/or crop with the best video solution. None of them do it live.

Top market solution:

any Autodesk Video Solution (Smoke,Flint,Flame,Fire,Inferno). The number of options for the resample alghoritm is amazing... More than eight(8)!

Top open-source solution:

Blender, used as a video-editor.

I'm sure you can easily find live solutions too, but not with the same level of quality, without going to a hardware-based solution like Blackmagic.

I think it is good to mention here: scale and crop in autodesk machines usually are realtime, or very near realtime. This is not called "live". It is called realtime rendering.

I think you misunderstand just what zoom processing software can do for you. If we exclude some highly specialist areas with supercomputers (eg NSA and others who can interpolate successive frames to gain more detail - to provide a higher resolution single frame) any software zoom you carry out will lose detail.
Any algorithm which carries out a zoom works with the detail already in the video - from a basic one which just makes the pixels bigger, to an interpolating algorithm which tries to blend between pixels.
The only solution if you actually want a zoom is to use a more powerful lens on the original recording device. Once the recording is on media you are limited to the amount of information on the media - to get higher zoom resolution you would need to recreate information...just doesn't happen, I'm afraid.

@jj_  I have deleted your comment because it was a bit rude.  I encourage you to rephrase your comment and post it again.  (from the FAQ under the Etiquette section "Civility is required at all times; rudeness will not be tolerated.").


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Video & Audio Kit on a Budget
My group has a budget of ~£1000 to spend on high quality recording equipment so I need to do a little background research before I go off and advise them about what to buy.
The aim is to be able to record high quality video with good sound. Often is the case that the sound lets the videos down. So I'm assuming that we'll need a separate sound kit.
Therefore, I am in the market for:

A video camera which records at least HD quality video and manual zoom (as well as automatic) - ~£600
A sound recording kit which either attaches to the camera, or is totally separate in which case the sound will be synced later on. - ~£200
Perhaps some lighting so help with indoor scenes - ~£200

What kinds of products do you recommend I look into? I'm relatively new to professional quality video recording so any advice is greatly appreciated.

On the audio side, I've been extremely happy with my Sony M10. It takes two batteries and MicroSDHC cards. With a pair of fully-charged eneloops, it can fill up a 16GB card and the 4GB internal memory at 24/44.1 and still have some power left. Audio quality is good, but the close-set omnis don't give you a lot of stereo separation. You will also need to manually sync your audio with your camera.
Given your budget, does it make more sense to rent gear than purchase?

+1 for rent. £1000 is going to get you reasonably good amateur equipment. You aren't getting anywhere near professional quality with this much cash.

https://video.stackexchange.com/questions/8442/its-2013-is-hacked-gh1-still-the-best-cheap-cinematic-video-camera
This camera body can be had for £200-400. Use a "micro four thirds adapter" to attach any high-end used lens you can get your hands on. Beware, however, if you use such an adapter, zoom and focus motors do not work. Or instead you can use a real micro four thirds lens if you need focus and zoom motor.