Adding transitions to videos with free software

[Cyber Akuma]

I have a bunch of videos I recorded off my camcorder (MP4/h264 format) that I want to make into a dvd, problem is if I just toss them together into my dvd authoring app they will just cut from one scene to another, so I wanted to add transitions to make them look better.

I Googled everywhere and tried everything I can think of but can't find a decent freeware app that will let me add transitions between the videos. Most of the programs I found just crashed every 2 seconds, didn't work, or had a ridiculously convoluted gui that didn't let you preview and looked like it was made in Windows 3.1.

The only thing that appeared to work was (UGH...) Windows Live Movie Make 2011....... but it was useless since it would only let me encode in WMV codecs and containers.

I tried everything I can think of but can't find a decent freeware app that will let me add transitions between the videos,can anybody here recommend anything?

[Baldrick]

You could try export the to dv-avi in windows live movie maker. THen can you convert it to dvd with other free software like avstodvd.

[Bjs]

Try videospin by pinnacle ... its free

[Baldrick]

Try videospin by pinnacle ... its free

But you have to buy the plugin to be able to make dvd/mpeg2.

[Cyber Akuma]

Videospin was one of the ones I tried, it just kept crashing nonstop, it was useless.

And I only see the option to save it as WMV, I won't want to use WMV9 or any other such codecs.

[manono]

Depending on how complex you want to get, AviSynth can do stuff like Fades and Dissolves easily enough. And it's totally free:

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Fade
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Dissolve

[Cyber Akuma]

Depending on how complex you want to get, AviSynth can do stuff like Fades and Dissolves easily enough. And it's totally free:

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Fade
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Dissolve

Hmmm, Fade dosen't seem to be what im looking for, as for Dissolve, that would work if I find I have no other options but I would like something of a crossfade that is a more obvious than a dissolve if I can, like for example that diamond-shaped transition WMM has, plus I don't understand how I would dissolve between several videos together, that link only talks about how to dissolve between two videos (Basically, when video a is ending dissolve to b, then when b is ending dissolve to c, etc).

That being said though, is there any way I can have something a bit more flashy than just a dissolve? Some of these videos were taken at night where they are a dark/grainy, so a simple dissolve might not be noticeable.

[manono]

V.C. Mohan's Transall filter for AviSynth has a ton of different kinds of transitions:

http://avisynth.org/vcmohan/TransAll/docs/index.html

Maybe the TransVenetianBlinds part of it does something like the 'diamond-shaped transition' you mentioned:

http://avisynth.org/vcmohan/TransAll/docs/TransVenetianBlinds.html

And dissolves can be made to work with as many videos as you have. After all, once you dissolve from one video to another, then it's a single video which can be used to dissolve into a new video. None of this is automatic, though.

[Cyber Akuma]

Hmm, that blinds thing might work.

How exactly would I use that though? I mean, I know there is a sample script, but that is only a fragment, I don't know how to write AviSynth scripts that well.

And this means I will need to re-encode the video in order to add these transitions doesn't it? I should just be able to load the script in MeGui to do that right?

What would I do about sound?

[manono]

I prepared 2 partial videos using different scripts and then imported those scripts into a new script:

LoadPlugin("D:\AviSynth Stuff\Dlls\TransAll.dll")
Left=Import("E:\Meera Naam Joker\2\2.avs")
Right=Import("E:\Meera Naam Joker\1\1.avs")
TransVenetianBlinds(Left, Right,100,40,"diam") 
Trim(140,354)
BilinearResize(640,480)
FadeIO0(45)

I also faded in and out. I just used one of his example scripts, and you can play with the parameters to adjust things if you like. Here's the XviD AVI (no audio) result:

[manono]

And you're making a DVD from those camera videos, aren't you? So you'll have to reencode the entire thing anyway, won't you? Yes, whenever you use AviSynth scripts the whole thing gets reencoded. If you're making a DVD then ordinarily the audio gets added during authoring. Joining the different audio pieces and the audio transitions can be handled in a WAV editor such as the free Audacity. I don't know much about that end of it. I'm sure someone else can help.

[Cyber Akuma]

And you're making a DVD from those camera videos, aren't you? So you'll have to reencode the entire thing anyway, won't you? Yes, whenever you use AviSynth scripts the whole thing gets reencoded. If you're making a DVD then ordinarily the audio gets added during authoring. Maybe joining the different audio pieces and the audio transitions could be handled in a WAV editor such as the free Audacity. I don't know much about that end of it. I'm sure someone else can help.

Yes I mean, I just didn't want to have to encode them to add the transitions then encode AGAIN into whatever format my dvd authoring software will make them.

However, I am having some trouble with my AVISynth scripts AND my codecs....

I just re-downloaded and re-installed AviSynth and Matrosoka Splitter to make sure, but even a very simple script like "DirectShowSource("SANY0143.MP4")" is causing me headaches.

If I try to load said script in Media Player Classic, first it complains about "ACM Wrapper::Output", something about not having an output pin, and then the video plays very jittery.

I tried loading the script in VirtualDub and encode it in huffyuv.... but I can't see huffyuv in my list of codecs, even though I also just re-installed it to make sure. (I don't see core codec listed there either).

I loaded it in megui and it worked ok, even the one with the effects I added.

However, again, I saw no way to encode in huffyuv in megui either.

Finally, all the videos were silent. Normally I can just add the audio from the mp4 files, but the problem is I don't know how its joining them in order to do that, if I just combine all the audio tracks together they will be off more and more with each transition, is there any way to include the audio with the script?

[manono]

The script can get sent directly to the encoder, transitions and all. Be sure to test it first in VDub(Mod) or in a player that accepts AviSynth scripts as input, to make sure the script is good and that it does what you want. Or, if the script is slow and you're running multiple passes, you can make a lossless AVI for later sending to the encoder (also in VDub(Mod). Yes, there's a way to add audio to the scripts, but I don't so it so maybe someone else can help:

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/AudioDub

But that's for WAV audio only. The NicAudio.dll can be used with other kinds of audio. Also, I never use DirectShowSource if I can possibly help it. I much prefer FFmpegSource2. With it you can combine the video and audio. I think others use DSS2.

I don't use MeGUI. And if making a DVD, why would you either?

[Cyber Akuma]

The script can get sent directly to the encoder, transitions and all. Be sure to test it first in VDub(Mod) or in a player that accepts AviSynth scripts as input, to make sure the script is good and that it does what you want. Or, if the script is slow and you're running multiple passes, you can make a lossless AVI for later sending to the encoder (also in VDub(Mod). Yes, there's a way to add audio to the scripts, but I don't so it so maybe someone else can help

Thats what I was trying to do, but MPC and VLC failed to preview it correctly, and for some reason huffyuv wasn't showing up in VirtualDub.

[poisondeathray]

Use ffmpegsource2
http://code.google.com/p/ffmpegsource/

vid=FFVideoSource("SANY0143.MP4")
aud=FFVideoSource("SANY0143.MP4")
AudioDub(vid,aud)

You can try ut video codec as an alternative to huffyuv if you can't get huffyuv sorted out

[Cyber Akuma]

Use ffmpegsource2
http://code.google.com/p/ffmpegsource/

vid=FFVideoSource("SANY0143.MP4")
aud=FFVideoSource("SANY0143.MP4")
AudioDub(vid,aud)

You can try ut video codec as an alternative to huffyuv if you can't get huffyuv sorted out

FFVideoSource and FFAudioSource did the trick, but now I have a new problem.

I just realized that in every single one of my scripts, even if it a simple one line DirectShowSource or FFVideoSource, the videos come out darker then the source video, they are already dark enough being night shots, like this they are far far worse.

Any idea why this is happening?

[poisondeathray]

How are you judging they are darker ? What software? What renderer ?

[Cyber Akuma]

How are you judging they are darker ? What software? What renderer ?

Its pretty obvious just by eyeballing it, like I said, its not a small difference.

Playing the original and the video that went through AviSynth in the same player results in a much darker AviSynth video.

[poisondeathray]

Do you have more than 1 instance open ? What renderer are you using? If you are using overlay, then your graphics card settings also affect the appearance. Only 1 instance can use the overlay renderer

You have to be more specific. There are a dozen things that can change the appearance including renderer, decoder, RGB conversion, graphics card settings, etc....

avisynth is frameserving YV12 video which gets converted to RGB for display - how it does that conversion depends on how you have things setup in the decoder, input & output levels.

Playing the original video goes through a different chain than the avs script

You need to provide more information

[Cyber Akuma]

Where can I look up this information about my colorspaces and everything?

[poisondeathray]

you can use search ; a lot of it has been discussed several times in this forum

99% of the time these discrepancies can be attributed to how you have your playback chain setup ( the things I mentioned above) . If you don't know what decoder your software is using, then it's impossible to even begin to troubleshoot. You need to provide the information asked or you're on your own.

if you are making a DVD, your PC monitor is calibrated differently than a TV (PC levels vs. TV levels) . You should be using a waveform monitor to get proper levels

If you use avisynth to feed into an MPEG2 encoder like HCenc, it's staying in YV12 (i.e. input YV12 = output YV12) unless you have configured something else differently with decoder or using other filters

[Gavino]

Yes, there's a way to add audio to the scripts, but I don't so it so maybe someone else can help:

http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/AudioDub

But that's for WAV audio only. The NicAudio.dll can be used with other kinds of audio.

In fact, AudioDub is a general filter for combining video and audio clips.
Technically, I suppose you could say it is dealing with 'WAV', as internally Avisynth works with uncompressed audio. But the external source of the audio could be anything and is handled by the appropriate source filter earlier in the script. To put it another way, you always use AudioDub, but the source filter (NicAudio, etc) varies according to the source type.

[manono]

In fact, AudioDub is a general filter for combining video and audio clips.

Yes, I didn't state that very well. What I meant to say is that AudioDub can be used only with WAV audio unless an outside plugin (like NicAudio) is used to allow for other types of audio. Thanks for the correction.

[Gavino]

What I meant to say is that AudioDub can be used only with WAV audio unless an outside plugin (like NicAudio) is used to allow for other types of audio.

No, that's still not quite right.
Avisynth's internal source filters AviSource and DirectShowSource can also read sources with non-WAV audio (as long as you have the appropriate codecs installed).

[manono]

OK, I guess I should have quit after saying earlier, "Yes, there's a way to add audio to the scripts, but I don't do it so maybe someone else can help".

[tin2tin]

If you need to color/contrast/brightness correct your clips you can look into this plugin: http://compression.ru/video/smart_contrast/index_en.html or the various functions in Avisynth: http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Internal_filters#Color_conversion_and_adjustment_filters

If you make a avisynth script for each clip like the one mentioned above:

Use ffmpegsource2
http://code.google.com/p/ffmpegsource/

vid=FFVideoSource("SANY0143.MP4")
aud=FFVideoSource("SANY0143.MP4")
AudioDub(vid,aud)

You can import each avisynth script in DVD slideshow GUI and add transitions between them. NB use negative transition duration values to get videos to overlap insted of freezing during transitions. Then it can be exported to a new avisynth script or encoded to various formats from DSG.

[Cyber Akuma]

99% of the time these discrepancies can be attributed to how you have your playback chain setup ( the things I mentioned above) . If you don't know what decoder your software is using, then it's impossible to even begin to troubleshoot. You need to provide the information asked or you're on your own.

You mean ffdshow?

if you are making a DVD, your PC monitor is calibrated differently than a TV (PC levels vs. TV levels) . You should be using a waveform monitor to get proper levels

I am just making this on a laptop, I don't have such high end equipment.

If you use avisynth to feed into an MPEG2 encoder like HCenc, it's staying in YV12 (i.e. input YV12 = output YV12) unless you have configured something else differently with decoder or using other filters

I am using either megui or virtualdub to test-encode actually, or just playing the avs file directly.

If you need to color/contrast/brightness correct your clips you can look into this plugin: http://compression.ru/video/smart_contrast/index_en.html or the various functions in Avisynth: http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Internal_filters#Color_conversion_and_adjustment_filters

If you make a avisynth script for each clip like the one mentioned above:

Use ffmpegsource2
http://code.google.com/p/ffmpegsource/

vid=FFVideoSource("SANY0143.MP4")
aud=FFVideoSource("SANY0143.MP4")
AudioDub(vid,aud)

You can import each avisynth script in DVD slideshow GUI and add transitions between them. NB use negative transition duration values to get videos to overlap insted of freezing during transitions. Then it can be exported to a new avisynth script or encoded to various formats from DSG.

I want it to play/encode the mp4 and avs files using the same colorspace, not to have to adjust one to match the other.

In all honesty, if the DVD Creation program can add transitions itself then I won't even need AviSynth, since that is all I am using it for, but I thought DVD slideshow GUI was only for creating slideshows out of still images? The description sure seemed to paint it as such a program.

[tin2tin]

@ Cyber Akuma

In all honesty, if the DVD Creation program can add transitions itself then I won't even need AviSynth, since that is all I am using it for, but I thought DVD slideshow GUI was only for creating slideshows out of still images? The description sure seemed to paint it as such a program.

Well it can do all sorts of things Maybe I should rename it to the AV Swizz Army Knife

[Cyber Akuma]

Hmmm, its not loading my MP4 formatted video however.

I know I can use an avs to load it, but if I do that I want to know why it is coming out darker.

Can anyone help me figure out why the avs files make the video darker?

[poisondeathray]

post a video sample