[Bf-committers] VSE movie and other improvements

Joshua Leung aligorith at gmail.com
Fri Jan 8 04:55:18 CET 2016 

On second thought: Why prompt when user's can specify the preference to
have frame rates and/or dimensions adjusted automatically when selecting
the source material anyway :)

On Fri, Jan 8, 2016 at 4:52 PM, Joshua Leung <aligorith at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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>> > > > >
>> > > > >
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