The Best DVD Editing Software

There have been some very accurate complaints on the chroma keying engine of the AVS Video Editor. The AVS people will be notified of this and hopefully the problem will be fixed by their next release.

In the mean time here is a simple process you can do to get better chroma keying for your videos:

1. Open a new project for the video you wish to key in.
2. Make the main video timeline a solid color that does not appear in the video to be keyed.
3. Insert your video as an overlay that fills the entire frame and choose the color to chroma key.
4. With some less than perfect videos, due to the problems with the keying engine, some artifacts will be seen. Do not worry, they will be dealt with in the next steps.
5. Render the video in uncompressed format.
6. Repeat steps 3 to 5 with the video you just rendered until it is properly keyed.

The final product should be an uncompressed version of your video, properly keyed in and with a solid background. You can insert this video into your original project and you will be able to chroma key the solid background easily and without unwanted artifacts.

This process still requires some fairly good quality videos for proper keying, but the final product is usually worth it.

It is important to remember to do all the rendering in uncompressed format and to give the project the correct size to avoid further quality degradation. This requires a big amount of free space for handling all the uncompressed version of the video along the keying process.

Technorati Tags: avs, chroma key, editing, editor, format, keying, overlay, render, uncompressed, video

This is a two part tutorial on the basics of Adobe After Effects by Sircedric88. It covers the basic features of After Effects and gives you a rundown on all the basic commands and how they interact with each other and your video.

Basics in Adobe After Effects Tutorial Part 1

Basics in Adobe After Effects Tutorial Part 2

Technorati Tags: Adobe, after, basic, basics, editing, effects, tutorials, video, youtube

JayCut is a new free web service that allows you to upload an unlimited amount of clips, music and pictures and then mix them into a clip. This is done through a web based editor. The final clip can later be uploaded to your MySpace and Facebook profile among other places.

It is a very simple process and the video editor is as easy as it gets. Just upload your clips, images and music, mix them in the editor and export. 3 simple steps!

Here is a small introductory tutorial:

The upload might be unlimited, but apparently the clip output is limited to around 2 minutes. This is not yet confirmed.

Technorati Tags: editing, editor, free, jaycut, online, service, video, web

Video Trace is a piece of software that allows you to create 3D models from a video file by tracing the object at any frame. The traced model is then mapped with the video itself giving the object a realistic look. The obtained model can then be used to modify the video in ways otherwise impossible to do.

The project is still in the prototype phase and in closed beta. The release schedule is still in the works, but with some good fortune it will not be long til you can get your hands on this.

The Siggraph paper describing the research side of this story can be found here: Video Trace (PDF)
You can see the official website here: Australia Centre for Visual Technologies

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Technorati Tags: 3d, acvt, australia, editing, manipulation, model, prototype, research, trace, tracing, video

Just ran into this video by Chris Pirillo where he gives his opinion on the ZS4 free cross platform video editor.

If you want to check it out for yourself, here is the download link ZS4 Video Editor

Technorati Tags: cross, editing, editor, free, nonlinear, platform, software, video, zs4

Here is a series of tutorials on Adobe After Effects by TheNewBoston. They are in YouTube HD quality (640*480).

Adobe After Effects Tutorial 1

Adobe After Effects Tutorial 2

Technorati Tags: Adobe, after, cs3, editing, effects, hd, tutorials, video

Here is a compilation of the free video editing software that is available. It is not particularly ordered in any way other than to highlight the ones that I consider mainstream for the available Operating Systems and then those cross-platform. These are Windows Movie Maker (not the best, but comes preinstalled), iMovie (possibly the best free video editing software around) and Cinelerra (the one that makes professional video editing as cheap as the cheapest computer you can buy*)
Read the rest of this entry »

Technorati Tags: atomic, avedit, avidemux, blender, cinelerra, ddclip, dub, editing, editor, engine, free, hyper, iMovie, ino, jahshaka, kdenlive, learning, lives, maker, movie, pro, software, solveigmm, stein, storyboard, video, virtual, wax, zs4, zwei

Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 comes packed with a punch. It comes with a nice collection of upgrades that will not only save you big chunks of time, but they will pay for themselves with the amount of work you could be doing. As Michael Testi puts it “Adobe Premiere Pro CS4 attempts to reduce the complex process that is video production. It does this by including copies of the products Adobe OnLocation CS4 and Adobe Encore CS4 to try to make each step of the video production more efficient and giving you more time to work your story”.

Among the many upgrades, here are the few that I consider the best. First, the support for HD video, both on the hardware edge and on the software edge. That is, the support for AVCHD cameras and the support for full HD Blu-Ray auhoring. This one is something everybody wanted. Now you can connect your HD Digital Camcorder to the computer and start working on your video in minutes. When you finish, just pop in a Blu-ray disc and you are done (well almost).

Second, the batch encoders. Now on Premiere CS4 you can easily render HD videos, DVD’s and SWF (Flash) files from the same master. It might not seem like a big deal, but it will save you a tremendous amount of time. Add to this that you can directly export your video to Encore CS4 and you have 3 distribution channels for the price (and time) of one.

Lastly, there is a nice additional feature that goes more into the breakthrough technology than the productivity suite. Adobe has included a speech recognition engine that automatically transcribes what is said in the video. This turns into keywords (for easy search) and full transcripts. Although it is not a very developed feature it has many possibilities and will surely flourish in upcoming updates.

Adobe Premiere just got better, if you are looking forward to improving your productivity and render the best professional videos, Adobe Premiere CS4 is your best bet.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, blu-ray, cs4, definition, dvd, editing, encore, flash, hd, high, onlocation, Premiere, professional, swf, video, youtube

Here is a series of tutorials on Adobe Premiere by TheNewBoston. They are in YouTube HD quality (640*480)

Adobe Premiere Tutorial 1

Go To Adobe Premiere Tutorial 2

Remember to bookmark this with Ctrl+D or the tools below for later viewing.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, cs3, editing, hd, Premiere, pro, tutorials, video

Here is a mini tutorial by TalentedPixie.com about how to apply effects in Adobe Premiere CS3. It should also allow you to get a sense about how Adobe Premiere (and many other video editors) works. Take into account that this is a piece of software targeted to professionals, so you probably will not be seeing a very intuitive and clean User Interface (UI), but a more packed and efficiency driven one. That should not scare you though, once you get around the ropes with it, you will be doing things much faster and much easier. Then you will appreciate why the interface is like that.

Technorati Tags: Adobe, apply, cs3, editing, editor, effects, interface, nonlinear, Premiere, professional, ui, user, video