What is Best Way/Software to Show/Explain Video to Child (and me) ?

[abrogard]

I have explained to my child how movies are made by rapidly showing us a sequence of still photos and that gives us the impression movement.

Demonstrate that with a picture book and flicking the pages, you know that trick.

I'd like to show him on a video editing prog. But I've got movie maker and shotcut and openshot and I don't know what else but nothing that clearly shows individual frames on the timeline to make it clear to him.

And I now realise it's not clear to me, either. Because perhaps ( I don't know ) digital video doesn't require frame by frame shots. Perhaps it doesn't work like that.

I can grasp the idea from animation of a keyframe and then everything transitioning from its position in that keyframe to the next. Is that the way it is done? So that in effect there are no intermediate frames really, they're created 'on the fly' by the software.

But there'd still be keyframes I could show him wouldn' t there? I don't find that either.

Can anyone help me with this?

I know I did once used to have some software that laid out the frames one by one, I think. It might have been Magix. My licence lapsed years ago and I let it go.

[Selur]

In in all current video formats, videos are still just a bunch or single frames.
What you are mixing now is:
a. how frames are presented
and
b. how frames are stored in mpeg based formats (key frame = full frame, other frames are not saved as full frames, but partially as references to other frames). Since frames can have references to other frames we differentiate between decoding and presentation order. With b-frames decoding order (order in which the data needs to be transmitted for sequential decoding) is different from presentation order (order in which the frames are presented to the viewer).

Since as a normal user you only look at the presentation order, they can forget about the presentation order and you are fine.
Differentiation between frame types only really is needed if you want to edit lossy video and you try to avoid recompression.

Cu Selur

[abrogard]

Okay. 'still just a bunch of single frames'. well that's good. easy for me and the boy to understand. now where can I find some software that will clearly demonstrate that? It doesn't have to be any good at editing or anything... as long as it has a timeline with single frames presented so's we can see them.

[Selur]

Take for example VirtualDub2, but basically all tools with filter previews should allow you to navigate through the video stream frame by frame. (OpenShot&Co should also have this, it's probably just not the default view.)

[Alwyn]

Video is indeed a collection of still frames but they are joined in the video file. When you shoot 25 frames per second, you are, in effect, getting 25 still shots per second all joined up, or stitched, together. Bu they are individual frames.

I'm not familiar with your video editors, but you could try zooming right in so that you can see each frame. Unless there is very quick motion, they may appear to be the same, but they are actually different.
Here's an example Note the car position in each frame (the frame shown is marked by the orange marker):

Timeline:

[Attachment 63300 - Click to enlarge]

Frame 1:

[Attachment 63301 - Click to enlarge]

Frame 2:

[Attachment 63302 - Click to enlarge]

Frame 3:

[Attachment 63303 - Click to enlarge]

Frame 4:

[Attachment 63304 - Click to enlarge]

Frame 5:

[Attachment 63305 - Click to enlarge]

Here I've made a cut at each frame:

[Attachment 63306 - Click to enlarge]

[abrogard]

Ahh... thanks for that. That's very beautiful. Does exactly what I want. Even tells us in words, uses the words 'frame' all the time. 'prev frame', 'next frame' and so on.
And the right and left arrow keys just scroll through them, we can see what's happening.
It's lovely.
I suppose we could even extract one single frame and save it to disk, look at it with an image viewer, see it is one 'still' picture. I'll find the way.
But thanks a lot. That's very great. I'm especially pleased because it's such a brilliant open source thing of such long standing. I've used it from time to time for years. Not sure now what for. Been a while. I think it was always for converting formats maybe?
Anyway I always was fond of it and to see it do this now is brilliant.

[abrogard]

Alwyn...

Yes, yes. thanks a lot. What you're showing is what I was looking for to show the boy (and me). A timeline of clear frames. I couldn't find it. What prog have you got there?

But Virtual Dub has come to the rescue anyway. We're motoring on...

[Alwyn]

What prog have you got there?

That's Movie Edit Pro.

[abrogard]

Yep. Magix. That's what I've remembered, that display, can't find it anywhere else. Not in the freebies anyway. I'm still cranky about how they moved to a later version and invalidated my 'purchase'. Can't remember the details at all but it was something like that. Suddenly I couldn't even remain with my 'old' functioning copy.
So it was a good prog, for sure. But I'm a more than a bit curmudgeonly and I won't have a bar of them. Pity. Cutting off my nose to spite my face I suppose.
Ah well. Virtual Dub will do.