HD Video Editing with Blender

Posthis writes "While the VSE sequence module has been part of Blender for a while, the upcoming version v2.46 comes with some new powerful video editing features, like Proxy editing, optimized FFmpeg support, and more. Not many use Blender strictly as a video editor because it's not very straight-forward, but given the fact that it now deals with HDV and 24p footage much more comfortably compared to other OSS video editors, it makes it a sound contender. This new tutorial shows the basics of how to use it as a video editor and put your masterpiece together."

Re:Now if only I could find ...

[Anonymous Coward]

S-Video isn't really component. It uses a luma and a chroma signal, while what people typically refer to as component video uses luma and a pair of chroma channels, or just map to straight RGB.

I agree with your point about just going digital, though. For capture, sure, there might be some analog sources you might want to grab from, but there's no point in going to analog output these days. Professionals still dream about keeping everything in their pipelines digital; at the end of the day, they still have to print out to film, at least until digital cinema has taken over the market.

S-Video is not component.

[Skapare]

S-Video [wikipedia.org] is not real component. S-Video still has NTSC subcarrier modulation. Its only benefit over composite is that the subcarrier is not mixed with the luminance, making it unnecessary to filter them apart later. That reduces the artifacts of NTSC, but it does not eliminate them. Component is all baseband; there is no modulated subcarrier.

Additionally, S-Video only supports the NTSC format, which is 480i59.94. Component can support all the video formats used by ATSC and DVB video transmission standards. Many DVD and BR-DVD players have component output. I've seen one DVD recorder with component input. Many high-definition, and a few standard-definition, TVs and TV-oriented monitors have component input. You can recognize component input/output with 5 RCA or BNC connectors (1 for luminance referred to as Y, one for Y-B chroma, one for Y-R chroma, and 2 for stereo audio).

As for "going digital", suggest a digital input/output that is universally available (e.g. is input for monitors, output for cameras, input/output for computers including Linux supported, and input/output for recording devices like DVD-R, DVR, etc) ... and supports HD. Hint: I doubt you can find one.

Re:Excellent!

[Eugenia Loli]

Kino does not do HD, but dvGrab, the utility that Kino uses does HDV capture. You simply need to use the dvgrab 3.x version (not earlier) and use it from the command line. It captures HDV fine, in .m2t format, that Blender supports.

Re:Learning Blender

[Eugenia Loli]

Lots of links here:
http://www.blender.org/community/user-community/

Re:Learning Blender

[LetterRip]

'The Essential Blender' [blender3d.org] is a pretty good book for learning the basics of Blender - after that use the Blender Wiki [slashdot.org] and other sources for deeper information.

Re:Now if only I could find ...

[Saval]

... a video input/output card for Linux that supports component [wikipedia.org] (YPbPr [wikipedia.org]) video.

There are lots of products from several manufacturers to choose from:

Deltacast [deltacast.tv]

AJA [aja.com]

Bluefish444 [bluefish444.com]

They are high quality professional grade cards and the price range is also high.

Re:The real question is...

[AKAImBatman]

Is it still insanely counter-intuitive and hard to learn?

For the 3D part? Probably. But the video editing was (surprisingly) a snap. Just follow Eugenia's instructions and you'll be up and running in no time flat!

If you don't believe me, check this out. After seeing this story, I downloaded the latest Blender and got cracking. A short time later I had this video uploaded to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UUzVi_f5kyE [youtube.com]

All the source videos were fairly large clips that Blender handled without issue. With only a smidge of practice, I was able to clip them to size and add transitions. So I'm pretty happy with the result. Especially since I have absolutely NO video editing experience. If I had a bit more time with this tool, I imagine I could whip up a pretty good promotional video.

I didn't bother with the audio tracks on my first run-through, but it doesn't appear to be too difficult to include them. The one issue I'm concerned about is if there is support for a decent mixer. (e.g. Could I play background music, then at some point fade it to a less audible level, play the original speech/effects, then adjust the BG music back to full volume?) Worst case, that's probably something I could work out in an audio editing program, but it would be a major pain.

I can't complain, though, given what I paid for Blender. (i.e. Nothing!) It's possibly the best FREE video editing tool I have ever seen. Which probably says more about the lack of such tools than about the brilliance of Blender, but I'm still happy. :-)

Feel free to give it a go yourself. If you need some footage to mess around with, the stuff I used can be found here: http://blog.wiicade.com/?p=177 [wiicade.com]

Re:The real question is...

[Eugenia Loli]

For bg music in addition to another audio track, use the "ADD" plugin between the two audio tracks and then use the iPO curve editor to make one of the two tracks louder or less loud.

As for other audio options, go to the panel at the bottom and click the last toolbar icon, the one that reads "Sound block buttons".

Re:S-Video is not component.

[ZERO1ZERO]

"Additionally, S-Video only supports the NTSC format, which is 480i59.94"

Erm. That's bollocks. There are more countries and standards in the world than America you know.

Re:Now if only I could find ...

[Saval]

AJA has linux support, drivers and SDK for (at least) their OEM boards: [aja.com]http://www.aja.com/html/products_oem.html [aja.com]

and Bluefish444 has Linux SDK available to registered OEM customers: bluefish444 OEM [bluefish444.com]

We are about to try those for use in our product in Q4/08 (hopefully)... If anyone knows other possibilities we would like to know!

Re:Learning Blender

[WK2]

Sorry I can't answer your question about finding a good book, as I read all my technical information online. Here's a source for great blender tutorials though:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD [blender.org]

BSOD stands for "Blender Summer of Documentation". It was a Blender/Google Summer of Code/Documentation thing they did a few years ago. It produced the best documentation that Blender has to date.

Try starting with this one:
http://wiki.blender.org/index.php/BSoD/Introduction_to_Modeling [blender.org]

Re:Now if only I could find ...

[Bill Wong]

I've been using a blackmagic intensity pro [blackmagic-design.com] for my own high definition video captures over hdmi/component
No linux support though, which is unfortunate
But it's very very very cheap (~$330 online for the pro, ~$235 for the hdmi-only version)
Didn't post in reply to your parent post as he was looking for something that was linux native, but, if you're working for an OEM, your company might be able to convince blackmagic to finally provide linux support.. They've been tethering on the edge for a while..

Re:Now if only I could find ...

[Bill Wong]

Oh, and your company might also want to look into a couple Japanese OEMs with products in that space
The hardware is cost-competitive with most of the other products on the market, but, probably at the expense of increased support costs
There's Sknet [sknet-web.co.jp] with their Monster X [sknet-web.co.jp]
And, Canopus Japan [canopus.co.jp] has a notable HDRECs [canopus.co.jp] product.
And, also earthsoft [earthsoft.jp] who I know has done some OEM work for Sony in their high defintion PVRs

Re:3D kits are difficult to handle. Quit wining.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd like to mention that the 'most' intuitive 3d Modeling interface I've come across is probably Sketchup [www.sketchup.com](from @Last and then bought by Google!). It's not one for Nurbs or any of the more complicated features of modeling, but for the basics of solid items, it's a dream. And then export the results into your preferred editing/rendering package and continue to fine tune the work.

My current workflow is either model in Sketchup then build the scene and render in either Blender or 3DSMax or Hexagon or Lightwave (or any other tool I have at hand).

Works for me.

Re:The real question is...

[MenTaLguY]

Unless they've changed things in the newer versions, you don't need the "ADD" part (though you do need IPO to set volume); all of the audio tracks are mixed automatically.