Combine two videos to remove time-code?

[Jerry1964]

This might be a new question not sure

I have several video items with time-code. In this case, I have a video twice One source has the time code on the top and the other the bottom. What I was thinking, is there a way to combine the two and make a time-code less version?

[DB83]

Not that difficult.

You need to create a two-color image matte (same frame size as the 2 clips) where one of the colors will hide the unwanted material from one of the clips.

You then need a video editor that supports overlay tracks - I tested this in Ulead Media Studio 7 but I think the same can be achieved in Video Studio.

Import clip 1 on to video track 1.
Import clip 2 on the the overlay track.

The clips will have to match up frame for frame through the entire running length.

Click on 'overlay options' for clip 2 and select an image matte. Chose the matte you created.

You then 'key' out the color that was to hide the unwanted material. Media Studio also has options the overlay window to soften the edges of the matte.

If all goes well you end up with a clean picture (the color you keyed out is replaced with that part of the image from clip 1. It will not be a perfect picture as depending on the colors around the matte you could still see some edges.

[Jerry1964]

Thanks for the reply. I am kinda new at this. Lucky for me the footage is black and white, so color difference won't be an issue. I have After Effect I can use. Wonder If I could do something like this in that program?

[whatsmyname]

Track matt will work. An easier method in After Effects or Premier is to:

Import both video assets.
*Video 1 = with timecode on top
*Video 2 = with timecode on bottom

Put the video 2 on top of video1 in your timeline. Apply the "Linear Wipe" Effect (found under video effects or transition effects) to video 2; then under the "Linear Wipe", use the following settings:

Transition completion: 50% (shows top half of video 1 with bottom half of video 2)
Angle: 0 (horizontal cut, use 90 for verticle cut)
Feather: about 150 (video 1 and 2 blends in nicely without any potential harsh cut in the middle).

Re-encode video.

The above takes about 30 seconds in Premier or After Effects. The longest part to it will be the re-encoding.

Here is a reference screenshot in Premier.
http://img205.imageshack.us/img205/2373/blend2videos2dl6.jpg

I used two different videos in the example for illustration purposes. Play around with the Linear Wipe settings, particularly the angle and Transition Completion % value to suite your videos. The feather value of 150 blends video 1 and 2 together quite smoothly.

Make sure both video 1 and 2 run in sync. You only need the Audio track from one of the videos, so 'right click' on the video with the worse audio source, chose "unlink" so you can remove it's audio track from the video.

[manono]

AviSynth. You didn't say what kind of video or give the resolution, but for the purposes of this example they'll both be AVIs with the same 720x480 resolution. You'll take the top half of one, after cropping away the bottom half of it, take the bottom half of the other, after cropping away the top half of it, and then join the top half with the bottom half:

A=AVISource("C:\Path\To\Video1.avi")
B=AVISource("C:\Path\To\Video2.avi")
A=A.Crop(0,0,0,-240)
B=B.Crop(0,240,0,0)
StackVertical(A,B)

[mpack]

Lucky for me the footage is black and white, so color difference won't be an issue.

There will still most likely be a difference in brightness, and the human eye is /very/ sensitive to structures such as straight edges in images.

However, if you apply a brightness adjustment to one of the clips it might be possible to get them very close.