Preventing pitfalls working different formats, resolutions, old footage

[lennyb]

Hi everyone! I hope someone can help me.

I have some basic editing skills from the past. I want to create some new content but I would like to know 2 things:

1. I am going to work with many different types of old footage from home videos of the 90´s (digitalized) and footage from all kinds of phones and cameras with different formats and resolutions. Is there something I should already take into account, something I can do to prevent headaches later on? It´s okay for the footage to look old and with noise on the screen, slightly pixelated even. But once I made a video with footage from iphone5 (1080) and when I uploaded it to instagram it became very pixelated. I never knew why. I would like to prevent this for this next video. It can be slightly pixelated if it´s old footage, think of Lana Del Reys ¨Video Games¨. But otherwise it needs to be a good looking video, not looking shredded after uploading.

2. What are the best sources for public domain footage of old news and archive film footage?

If this topic was already answered please redirect me to the threads associated.

Thank you very much!

Lenny

[johnmeyer]

You want to use an editor which can accept multiple resolutions (e.g., 720x480, 1920x1080, etc.); multiple frame rates (e.g., 29.97, 59.97, 30, 60, etc.); and interlaced or progressive. You'll have to decide what output resolution to use. If all your source material is standard definition (SD), then you will want to create a project that is 720x480 (0.909 PAR) and probably make it progressive.

However, so much depends on the actual mix of what you are going to be dealing with that it is hard to give advice that is more accurate and tailored to your situation.

[lordsmurf]

Professional editors will normalize all assets before the edit timeline They never import whatever, and expect the NLE to do a quality conversion.

[frank_footer]

i don't know what the other poster is talking about but i have never had a problem mixing different resolution videos in the same timeline and you can find many videos on youtube where many people do this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvqTdYO0ahc&ab_channel=MattWhoisMattJohnson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CarFGXDk8cA&ab_channel=DylanHaskin

[hydra3333]

i don't know what the other poster is talking about but i have never had a problem mixing different resolution videos in the same timeline and you can find many videos on youtube where many people do this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvqTdYO0ahc&ab_channel=MattWhoisMattJohnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CarFGXDk8cA&ab_channel=DylanHaskin

Really ? What tool do you use ? Ah, I see, the 2 youtube clips you posted are Premier Pro.

I've been through this specific mill with 27,000 photos and videos into video slideshows, and it's a pretty tough ask. I ended up rolling my own and would not want to impose my kludged up script on anyone

One may see various, if not all , variations of
- resolutions
- framerates
- VFR / CFR (especially from different phones, unfortunately they tend to love vfr)
- interlaced / progressive
- colour spaces, including pretend-HDR
- rotation orientations (some specified in the metadata, some not, mediainfo can diagnose some, ffprobe others, none interprets everything properly)

Just a thought, h.264 1080p seems to be ubiquitous as most things understand it so why not go with a .mp4 most things can read .

Good luck.

[lennyb]

Professional editors will normalize all assets before the edit timeline They never import whatever, and expect the NLE to do a quality conversion.

Ah ok, and what do people use to normalise their files to the best possibility?

[lennyb]

i don't know what the other poster is talking about but i have never had a problem mixing different resolution videos in the same timeline and you can find many videos on youtube where many people do this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvqTdYO0ahc&ab_channel=MattWhoisMattJohnson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CarFGXDk8cA&ab_channel=DylanHaskin

Ah cool! Thnx!

[lennyb]

i don't know what the other poster is talking about but i have never had a problem mixing different resolution videos in the same timeline and you can find many videos on youtube where many people do this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvqTdYO0ahc&ab_channel=MattWhoisMattJohnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CarFGXDk8cA&ab_channel=DylanHaskin

Really ? What tool do you use ? Ah, I see, the 2 youtube clips you posted are Premier Pro.

I've been through this specific mill with 27,000 photos and videos into video slideshows, and it's a pretty tough ask. I ended up rolling my own and would not want to impose my kludged up script on anyone

One may see various, if not all , variations of
- resolutions
- framerates
- VFR / CFR (especially from different phones, unfortunately they tend to love vfr)
- interlaced / progressive
- colour spaces, including pretend-HDR
- rotation orientations (some specified in the metadata, some not, mediainfo can diagnose some, ffprobe others, none interprets everything properly)

Just a thought, h.264 1080p seems to be ubiquitous as most things understand it so why not go with a .mp4 most things can read .

Good luck.

I have no idea what you are trying to say except for perhaps try to export .mp4. I will try, thanks!

[lennyb]

What about good sources for public domain video footage?

[hydra3333]

I have no idea what you are trying to say except for perhaps try to export .mp4. I will try, thanks!

Cool.
Strap yourself in, depending on your sources and hence a possible multitude of incoming video encoding types, you may be in for a learning curve and a fun time.
Don't give up, it's all doable
If you are using Premier Pro perhaps that'll invisibly fix a lot of things for you as you go, so you won't notice odd stuff.
Good luck.

Sorry, I don't re-encode internet stuff, perhaps https://www.google.com/search?q=public+domain+videos ?

Good luck.

[davexnet]

There's a few samples here:
https://kodi.wiki/view/Samples

[frank_footer]

i don't know what the other poster is talking about but i have never had a problem mixing different resolution videos in the same timeline and you can find many videos on youtube where many people do this as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvqTdYO0ahc&ab_channel=MattWhoisMattJohnson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CarFGXDk8cA&ab_channel=DylanHaskin

Really ? What tool do you use ? Ah, I see, the 2 youtube clips you posted are Premier Pro.

I've been through this specific mill with 27,000 photos and videos into video slideshows, and it's a pretty tough ask. I ended up rolling my own and would not want to impose my kludged up script on anyone

One may see various, if not all , variations of
- resolutions
- framerates
- VFR / CFR (especially from different phones, unfortunately they tend to love vfr)
- interlaced / progressive
- colour spaces, including pretend-HDR
- rotation orientations (some specified in the metadata, some not, mediainfo can diagnose some, ffprobe others, none interprets everything properly)

Just a thought, h.264 1080p seems to be ubiquitous as most things understand it so why not go with a .mp4 most things can read .

Good luck.

can u clarify what u r suggesting?

r u saying that the op should convert everything he has to 1080p avc?

that can't be what u mean, is it?

[Alwyn]

Hydra3333 is not making sense to me either.

As I see it, you have two options. Either you individually process each video into a standard format using high-quality tools such as AVISynth to match things such as frame rate, colour system, deinterlacing and then bring each standardised file into your editor, or you just drag all the files in and let the editor convert the clip FPS to the project FPS and you set up the cropping as required for each clip so it matches your output frame size.

The second option is obviously the easiest but it depends on what the quality is like afterward.

[Sharc]

Leave the files as are (or edit them individually) and play them via a playlist is another option. (Assuming your player can play your files at all).

[hydra3333]

Hydra3333 is not making sense to me either.

As I see it, you have two options. Either you individually process each video into a standard format using high-quality tools such as AVISynth to match things such as frame rate, colour system, deinterlacing and then bring each standardised file into your editor, or you just drag all the files in and let the editor convert the clip FPS to the project FPS and you set up the cropping as required for each clip so it matches your output frame size.

The second option is obviously the easiest but it depends on what the quality is like afterward.

I did similar to the first, fully automating images and videos into video "slideshows".
I now see the OP did not say stick any videos together, nor say join perhaps tens or more into one clip ... which I did in an automated way from a variety of different cameras and VHS captures and photo sources etc.
[Frame rate, colour system, deinterlacing] is a start, VFR can becomes important to deal with from different phones, as is HDR, rotations, etc ... and then there's audio conversions too
As you say, if your tool does it for you automatically then good.
If you are not joining stuff, or your giu tool handles stuff your you automagically, you are well on your way using a good giu tool alone.
(A good thing you are not additionally dealing with images into slideshows, that doubles or more the complexity)

r u saying that the op should convert everything he has to 1080p avc?
that can't be what u mean, is it?

No not quite. As Alwyn suggests, standardization is your good friend.

Sharc, the OP mentioned "I uploaded it to instagram it became very pixelated" ... not only playing on the PC ...