[Bf-committers] VSE movie and other improvements

Joshua Leung aligorith at gmail.com
Fri Jan 8 04:52:23 CET 2016 

Agreed. I've run across this a few times, and agree that this is one of
those things that should "just work".

Perhaps the only complication here is that, due to the structure of the
code, we need to get FFMPEG to actually load the file before we can read
off information about the file (like frame rate, etc.), but by that point,
it becomes a lot harder to prompt the user for feedback about what to do if
there's a mismatch. If there's nothing in the scene yet, then of course we
can probably just assume that the clip's framerate be used, but the issue
is when importing a new clip into an edit with various other clips already.

----

Slightly off-topic, but since we're discussing VSE quirks already, there
are a couple of things I've noticed recently (2.76/master) which a few
casual users using it for certain types of projects (e.g. using the
sequencer to assemble 2D animation frames, or setting photos to video,
etc.) may run into. I'm wondering what VSE users think about these issues -
in particular, whether there's sufficient interest to warrant spending some
time looking into these:

1) Add a "Fit to Frame" for images, instead of only "stretch to fit" or
"crop"
The idea is that we fit the "long edge" of the image to the matching
bounds, and the other one adjusts accordingly. For example, this comes up
when including some photos from a stills camera (~4:3) into a standard HD
video (~16:9), including some which are vertical instead of horizontal.
Since you're dealing with a lot of these images, and not all of them are
horizontal or vertical only, it's much more of a pain to have to deal with
Transform strips to get things in order, while "stretch to fit" is really
ugly  (imagine, portrait photos, stretched out to be short and wide).

2) The lack of a way to quickly change the length of a bunch of strips
quickly (e.g. to make a bunch of image strips longer, or to stretch + slow
down a meta/movie). Sometime in the past few releases, we seem to have lost
the ability to simply scale the lengths of a bunch of strips, and have them
adjust accordingly (i.e. s for "scale" is now s for "slip"). Trying to just
change the "length" values of the strips with all selected doesn't work, as
the strip collisions force them to get splayed out vertically, stacked on
top of each other without adjusting the start/end times to make them all
fit.

3) We really need to look into font support (even just different font face
options) on that text strip :)

----

Regards,
Joshua



On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 3:49 PM, David McSween <3pointedit at gmail.com> wrote:

> To this point it is unfortunate that the VSE cannot determine the frame
> rate of an imported video. It would be useful if the user could match the
> Frame Rate as you can with dimensions, using Set Render Size.
> So many users have low frame rate screen grabs to edit, often they're
> unsure of exactly what Frame Rate their system has recorded at.
>
> The only indication is the mismatched audio strip length, assuming they
> have sync sound. Essentially they have to guess the best frame rate for
> their project.
>
> Cheers
> David
>
> On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 12:36 PM, Aaron Carlisle <
> carlisle.aaron00 at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > >That the media frame rate is matched with frame rate of the current
> > >project, that is, its hard for them to understand the mismatched audio
> to
> > >video strip length.
> >
> > This is a good point and reminds me that you will want to talk about
> fixing
> > corrupted video headers.
> > This can be done using timecodes see (1) as many users are dealing with
> > badly coded videos.
> >
> > 1)
> >
> >
> https://www.blender.org/manual/en/editors/sequencer/properties/proxy_timecode.html
> >
> > On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 9:27 PM, David McSween <3pointedit at gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I am glad that someone with expertise is able to improve the VSE docs.
> > >
> > > Could I suggest that new users wanting to edit video may have
> > preconceived
> > > ideas from other video editing applications.
> > > They typically expect to see:
> > >
> > > - Audio and Video tracks as separate entities.
> > > - That imported media will have audio and video linked (editable as a
> > > single strip or joined for sliding along the timeline)
> > > - That effect strips change everything bellow them (in Blender they
> > > typically change only the layer immediately below)
> > > - That the media frame rate is matched with frame rate of the current
> > > project, that is, its hard for them to understand the mismatched audio
> to
> > > video strip length.
> > >
> > > Cheers
> > > David
> > > @3pointedit
> > >
> > > On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Aaron Carlisle <
> > > carlisle.aaron00 at gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > I have been working on getting the VSE documented.
> > > > If you would like to join me on my journey see the the contribute to
> > the
> > > > manual page (1).
> > > >
> > > > As for that one phrase 0 is used by the display mode to view all
> > strips.
> > > > You can change the viewing channel to be something other then 0 e.g.
> > > > to just see channel 2 change the viewer channel to 2.
> > > >
> > > > Does this make sense? I will adjust the wording on that phrase.
> > > >
> > > > As for your tutorial you should also include adding basic effects and
> > > > filters.
> > > >
> > > > 1) http://www.blender.org/manual/about/contribute.html
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > On Thu, Jan 7, 2016 at 10:33 AM, Sybren A. Stüvel <sybren at stuvel.eu>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > On Thu, Jan 07, 2016 at 04:11:17PM +0100, Knapp wrote:
> > > > > > I started researching the VSE.
> > > > >
> > > > > Great!
> > > > >
> > > > > > So my first question is how do I correct the manual? For example
> "
> > > you
> > > > > > can’t put anything thing in this special one!"  I am not even
> sure
> > > what
> > > > > the
> > > > > > means.
> > > > > > Near the end.
> > > > > >
> > > https://www.blender.org/manual/en/editors/sequencer/introduction.html
> > > > >
> > > > > That's quite a gem you found there. I think it refers to the
> channel
> > > > > numbers being shown a bit weirdly in the VSE; it looks like there
> is
> > a
> > > > > channel 0, while there actually isn't. I think this is the "special
> > > > > one" the manual refers to.
> > > > >
> > > > > > Second question; is there anything you want me to be sure to
> cover
> > > > > > in this short video? Any must haves?
> > > > >
> > > > > Things that come to mind:
> > > > >
> > > > >     - Loading a video and placing it on the timeline.
> > > > >     - Configuring the render settings based on the video properties
> > > > >       (dimensions & frame rate)
> > > > >     - Rendering the VSE to a video file (covering at least
> exporting
> > > > >       to a Youtube-compatible h.264 file).
> > > > >     - Cutting a video into strips, and moving them around.
> > > > >     - Cross fades between video strips.
> > > > >
> > > > > I think with these things covered, most people that want to "just
> > edit
> > > > > a video" are helped.
> > > > >
> > > > > Cheers,
> > > > > --
> > > > > Sybren A. Stüvel
> > > > >
> > > > > http://stuvelfoto.nl/
> > > > > http://stuvel.eu/
> > > > >
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