Video editing problems

that said, looking for 'avidemux windows' in google seems to suggest that avidemux is a clone of the windows virtualdub thing, so maybe try that. http://www.virtualdub.org/ and is free to download and use thanks to gpl.

the out of memory thing could be a ram problem rather than a disk-space problem.

Is it easy to do and approx how long will it take to stick a logo on each minute video? Thanks.

I'm using ULEAD 10 to put a bunch of 3min music videos together - I want to burn it to DVD so I can play it on a DVD player, can ULEAD 10 do this?

Is there a quick and dirty way to split-screen effects in FCP (or iMovie!) that don't look cheesy?

For a basic split screen, you can pull in the opposite edges on two stacked clips on the timeline (bottom clip 50% off of the right/top 50% off of the left). You may get a little line btween the clips, so you might want to undercrop the top clip by a point or two so it overlaps.

Thank you, I'll try that.

how do i go about getting footage from a vhs tape onto my pc as mpeg (or avi)? ive got a digital camcorder which i connect to my pc with a dv lead - is there some way of connecting my vcr to the digicam via the scart output on the vcr?

you'll likely need a Canopus card (or some other kind video encoder). Go out of VHS deck via RCA (or S-video/ RCA) to encoder, then firewire to pc.

what is a canopus card, are they expensive?

i just realised that i bought a tv card a few weeks back specifically for this - i unplugged the lead from the wall aerial and stuck that in the 'out' bit of the vcr and the other end in the input bit of the tv card but i'm not getting anything on the tv card program, not even when i do autoscan for channels. i know the info is a bit ropey but does anyone have any ideas?

i'm admitting defeat on the above. the simplest solution i can think of is to get a scart to firewire cable, do these exist? are they the answer?

it seemed i should tune my tv card in frequency channel 36 as that's what uk video rf out cables work from but the tv card program im using only allows me to search from 474mhz to 858mhz. would another downloadable tv card program solve this problem?

Did Bryan ever upload his Swift Current documentaries to YouTube, I wonder.

I know you can "storyboard edit" and arrange clips in the bin like a storyboard then transfer to timeline, but is there any way to do the reverse and view the existing sequence as a storyboard (that could be printed)?

In FCP

Are there any After Effects users on ILX? I have always wanted to learn a little AE but never seem to have the time and the learning curve seems kind of steep. I use all kinds of video editing software but have only a basic familiarity with Adobe (a little Photoshop). Any advice?

My video editing problem = this is hard

and I keep feeling nauseous.

Sweet Jesus i am at wit's end. I've got this project that should be totally easy to do, and in fact, has been relatively simple as I've done it a number of times before. I capture some HDV source an hour of footage, edit and add tags in FCP, export to quicktime, then run it through compressor. At first I was getting I/O errors exporting from FCP, and when i recaptured the footage it seemed to fix this. However I just can't seem to get compressor (the Apple one or the Adobe Media Encoder) to finished the file all the way through. It seems to stop at a certain point and just sit there, unsure of what to do.

The exported MOV (encoded as Apple Intermediate Codec) opens up and plays in Quicktime, and there is really no evidence that the file is corrupt. It shows all the correct info and doesn't ring any bells with my compressor programs. Is there an open source solution or free way to verify quicktime movie files?

I looked around and found some MOV REPAIR applications but they cost money and I'd rather not sit for hours while a trial install runs through this 40GB video file.

OK i just got Preference Manager and trashed my preferences before this attempt at compression. Compressor seems to be doing fine, but this is a project that takes around 5-6 hours total to compress, and it seems to fail after about 3 and a half hours or so.

http://www.digitalrebellion.com/prefman/

I just don't understand how FCP would export a video from start to finish, report no problems, and still have the file be damaged. And I've run Disk Utility on my stuff and it all checks out...

So you fixed it? Not sure if this is what you are looking for but I use Media Info Mac to get info on video files. Otherwise, maybe you could try exporting as something else or trying something like Adobe Media Encoder. Otherwise I was just going to suggest trashing prefs or even opening a new project and moving everything over before you try again. Are you running any other big applications or do you have another program like AVID installed on that machine? I've heard that the latter setup can cause corruption.

Also - have you tried exporting to a different drive maybe?

Yeah I just did the trashing prefs and i have my finger's crossed. I remember doing this a long time ago when i had no idea what was wrong and it fixed everything.

The only program I'm running is compressor. I'll try exporting to a different drive. The working files are all on an external HD, perhaps having them on my home drive will fix things.

Thanks i will look into Media Info Mac!

Holy sweet jesus there are 14 minute left (according to Compressor). What i did was export the video (all files located on external HD) to my desktop, trash all preferences, and then run it through Compressor. It has never gone this close to the end so i hope and pray this works...

8 mins to go (so maybe 20?) ugh Compressor and your weird clock

It finished up but still says "Processing" and has for about an hour. I'm too scared to hit cancel, maybe i can find it in cache somewhere...

Ok i paused it, then waited a minute, then resumed it, and now it's doing the transcoding/merging distributed Quicktime files! Phew!

Oh thank you sweet Lord of quicktime! Success!

Remember folks, trash your preferences!

Is there an app or program that makes it very easy for a novice to add a background to a video? I even have a green wall (green screen) that I'm filming in front of, would like the easiest path to just replacing that green with some other chosen background.

I do this by recording a video call in zoom or teams and setting it as my virtual background.

Yeah I want to be able to do this to stuff recorded in the iphone camera app though.

Also ideally I'd like to make custom backgrounds. Or at a minimum be able to change the color of the wall.

I don't know about the iPhone camera app, maybe there is an alternative app which you could use on an iPhone? the feature you're looking for is usually called "chroma key"

Okay ILX, can anyone help me before I get in over my head? Any advice on what I should do - especially when it comes to what software I should use - is welcome.

Perhaps ill-advisedly, I've taken it on myself to make a fun film about my family in time for a big occasion this summer. It would involve editing-together archive footage, home videos, photos (Ken Burns effect yay!) interviews etc...

My editing skills are rudimentary, but I'm keen to learn and teach myself. I've used iMovie here and there for very simple projects at work, and it's fine. The question is - should I continue with it or is it better to try a different suite for this project?

Bearing in mind I'd rather stick to cheap or free options - it would be great to learn Premiere Pro or Final Cut of course but they're spenny and likely surplus to requirements (unless there's a cheap way to get ahold of them). I also have limited free time to learn, and need to get this project done by the end of August.

To gear up to the main project I've been practicing a few things in iMovie. YouTube tells me you can do all sorts of things in it - more than first meets the eye. But I'm finding it a bit of a pain to use - so many times I want to do something that seems simple and it becomes a major headache.

For example, as practice I've been trying to edit-together some footage of myself DJing, but filmed on two separate cameraphones with the master audio track running underneath it. I don't have footage for the whole DJ set, just parts of it, and I want to intersperse the parts I don't have footage for with a title card placer.

I don't know if it's just me, a gap in my knowledge, but this all seems incredibly fiddly or sticky or something? After a bit of effort I manage to arrange Camera 1 and Camera 2 clips so they're in sync with each other and the audio. But if I go to delete or trim a part of a clip from my timeline, the magnetic "ripple" causes all my other carefully-arranged clips to move up and go out of sync with the audio track. Before I know it, I've got a total mess on my hand where everything is out of sync.

Also, sometimes I go to delete a Camera 1 clip and it deletes the Camera 2 clip underneath it as well, which is infuriating.

I just want to be able to arrange and crop my clips without them all affecting each other. Ideally I wouldn't have to edit everything in sequence either - I might want to work on a section towards the end of my DJ set first and then move backwards. I've tried pasting the title card all across the entire audio project, but that also seems to create havoc with sequencing.

Zooming in and out also seems to be a massive faff - half the time I end up zooming out way too much, or zooming in on an area that I don't want to and getting really lost in the thing. It doesn't help that for some reason the image of the clip doesn't load up at first and I have to click on the clip in order for it to appear, otherwise it just appears as a big blue bar.

Ooh, and antoher frustration was organising clips in My Media. I labeled all my clips and put them into folders on my computer, but when I imported them into iMovie it put them into an apparently arbitrary order, and I couldn't find a way to label them or reorder them. Not that helpful when I'm dealing with 12 clips of myself just standing at some DJ decks at various points in the night - I couldn't tell one from another without listening to the clip audio.

Is all this just down to teething problems and a lack of experience, or am I better off trying DaVinci, or a trial version of another program? Are these magnetic/ripple systems the same across the board? Am I likely to have more luck using a different program or should I just stick to iMovie?

I'm no expert but I've been using CapCut and I find it pretty pleasant to use. Whether it's better than iMovie I have no idea because I haven't used that, but I certainly find CapCut enjoyable to use. It's free but with extras like additional filters and effects that you have to pay for. I've not found any need to pay for optional extras. As I say I'm not an expert and I'm only using it to make short videos for Instagram and the like.