Video Editing

[Eltern]

I have a pressing video editing issue, and I can't seem to find anyone that specializes in the area. Luckily for me, I remembered that several of the people on Khoras make, you know, -movies-, so one of them might have a suggestion for me.

Basically, the issue is I have 20 hours worth of film (data for an experiment in my lab) where one section of the feed is too bright. It's one room for the whole 20 hours, and the lighting puts too much glare on an area, meaning our tracking software can't do it's job. Is there any software out there that can selectively manipulate the brighteness and/or contrast of just a specific section of the viedo feed?

Thanks!

[avisarr]

What software are you using to edit the raw footage? I do video editing all the time and I use mostly Adobe products. Adobe (www.adobe.com) makes Premiere Pro (the video editing software) and After Effects (their motion graphics and compositing software). Either of those products can do a lot with video, although After Effects is better at "fixing" bad video. They both have filters and there are any number of filters that could be applied to fix your video, but it really depends on the video. I'd have to see it.

After Effects is better because you can apply filters to very precise areas of the video by using masks and other techniques.

Anyway, the answer to your question is YES. There is software that can do it. Some video editing software might be able to do it. But compositing software such as AE, might be able to fix it with more precision and do a better job. Other programs out that that could do it would be Shake, Boris FX, Avid, etc. I can't give a more precise answer, such as HOW to do it, without actually seeing the video.

In case you didn't know, I do this stuff professionally, so I'd be happy to help you out. I probably can't fix the whole 20 hours for you. But if you send me a small chunk of it, say 10 minutes on a mini-DV tape or something, I could do some tests and experiments and see if I can fix it for you and at least give you a step by step procedure using some specific software. That I could do for free. But if you want me to just fix the whole 20 hours, I'd probably have to charge you.

How many tapes is it? What kind of tape format did you record on? Or were you recording straight to disk? Is this HD, SD or something else? How much of a hurry are you in?

Hope that helps. Keep us posted.

David

[Eltern]

"What software are you using to edit the raw footage?"

Software? What software? :-D There really isn't any. A camera in the room ran straight to a DVD recorder, which burned to the DVD (10 of them, each with 2 hours of footage). The tracking program we use to get data out of the video is called Ethovision, and it has next to no video editing capabilitis, since it has a very specific use (tracking animals), and nothing else. I can change the brightness and contrast of the total video, but not individual sections like I'm describing.

This by no means needs to be done professionally, just selectively adjust the video enough so that Ethovision can track the animals, no matter where in the room they go. I'm going to call Noldus, the company that makes the program, within the next day or two to see if they know some other way to fix the problem. I'm doubtful, though.

[avisarr]

Well, it is possible to selective adjust the video after it's been shot. You just need to have the right software. And if it's burned to DVD, well, it's still possible. You just need to digitize the footage and get it into the computer. Once it's in the computer, you can do a lot with it with the right software.

Let us know how it goes.

[Eltern]

Well, I've done some toying, and I've done some fiddling, and I've deduced that I'm not good at this.  So, I need a bit more advice.

What is there in the video editing program world that is free and/or open source, and has a good user interface? Because the hacking that I thought I'd be able to do in Ethovision is probably no good, which means my last option is to edit the video itself. Now I can try to do this myself, or I could try to take this to a professional ::coughDavidcough::, if the price is right.

Of course, I have no idea what exactly I'm getting myself into, for either option. I have 30ish hours worth of video on DVD, all of which needs to be editing using the same basic filter. Is it in my best interest to do it myself, or send it to a professional? If I send it to a professional, what sort of rate am I looking at for this? $10s? $100s? $1000s?

Thanks!

[avisarr]

You're looking at a lot considering the quantity of material. 30 hours of footage is a LOT of footage. You're looking at several hundred dollars at least, and it'll probably be closer to a thousand or two depending on the size/experience of the video shop.

How many DVDs are we talking about? How much footage is on each DVD? Is it compressed footage or uncompressed?

I'll make you an offer. Why don't you make a copy of some of that footage... maybe a couple of DVDs worth or 30 minutes worth or something like that and send it to me. I'd be happy to take a look at it. I'd probably be able to give you a much more precise answer on how to fix it if I could see it. Also, I could fix that bit you send me and send it back, let you take a look at it, and tell you what software and filterr combinations I used.

I might be able to fix the whole 30 hours for you, but first, let me take a look at a chunk of it and let me see what's involved.

[Eltern]

Provided that the lighting conditions are -exactly- the same throughout the 30 hours (which they are), would it be possible to construct a single filter and apply it to the whole thing? Again, all that needs to be done is to make the video uniform in brightness (making the dark areas lighter and the bright areas darker). Since the dark and bright locations are in the same location all the time, I would think this would be relatively easy. Second by second editing is completely not necessary, I don't think. But again, this isn't my area of expertise.

There are 16 DVDs, all but one of which has 2 hours of video on it (the odd one out just has 1). I'm assuming this is uncompressed, as it was made with by writing a video feed coming from a simple IR-sensitive camera to plain old DVD-R+s with a low-end DVD recorder.

David, do you have high speed internet? Because I could create a torrent or directly email the video to you. Or I can snail mail it. At that point, however, we're talking about a turn around time of over a week. I'm currently working on another hack of our tracking program that may give us useful data, so by then I may not need edited video. Could still be nice to have, though.

[avisarr]

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you -

Yes, assuming the lighting conditions through the thing were the same, you could use the same mask and filter and apply it to the whole thing. The problem is that you would still have to digitize all that footage. In other words, it's not any quicker. You still have to get it all into the computer, apply the mask, then re-output the footage to some form - either a compressed video file, a DVD, a master tape... whatever. But it's gonna be very time consuming no matter what. 30 hours is a lot of footage. It would take 30 hours to get it into the computer (at real time speed), a few hours to apply the mask and filtering and probably 30 hours to get it out. And that's being optimistic. This would be a week of full time. I do tweaking and fixing on video all the time, but usually that's 10 minutes here and 5 minutes there. I've never had a client bring 30 hours of footage before.

I don't currently have an FTP set up. Especially for the quantity of data you're talking about. Seems like Fedexing the DVDs would be faster than trying to FTP hundreds or thousands of gigabytes. Come to think of it, the only way you could FTP it to me is if you were digitize it first. So, that's step 1 down. Are you digitizing the stuff right now? I might be able to set up an FTP. How much data is each DVD going to end up being? If you digitize it and turn it into raw, uncompressed video at SD resolution, you're talking about 3.3 terabytes of data. I definitely can't take that much through FTP.

[Eltern]

Ah well, too late and too much of a hassle. I've managed to hack my tracking program to do something like what I need it to do, so nevermind now :-)