Fastest(with Quality) Way To Add Watermark To Videos

[yugurya]

Hi all, i have question to experienced video/watermarking users. Which software does provide the fastest way of adding a simple-text(logo/title)/watermark to the complete duration of a video, without causing for any audio/video out of sync problem and quality loss?

[poisondeathray]

Permanent watermark always involves re-encoding, so there's always quality loss (unless you use lossless format, but then filesize will increse 10-20x)

You can try vdub's logo filter , or avisynth overlay() + any encoder that accepts avs scripts . All NLE's it's easy to do in as well eg. vegas pro, premiere pro etc...

Export speed will be partially dependent on the format and settings you choose. In general, slower , higher quality encoding settings will be slower; lower quality, fast encoding settings will be faster for a given codec

If you don't want permanent watermark, another option is soft subtitles eg. srt subs

[yugurya]

Does the producing with software like vegas pro, premiere pro, etc. end up with constant bugs and crashes?

What is the best software for my situation? A bit quality loss(not too much quality loss) is not important, as long as the video/audio sync is ok.

[poisondeathray]

I don't know about "best" because there are so many criteria

For me, the easiest/fastest "best" way is to do everything with avisynth script with overlay(), but you might now know how to use it. But other might find using NLE easier.
http://avisynth.org/mediawiki/Main_Page

You can load any video into vdub using .avs script , or you can try vdub directshow driver plugin

You might need haali media splitter installed + ffdshow

Install avisynth, open a text file with notepad in same directory as video, copy & paste the following (change filename to match), save it, rename .txt extension to .avs

e.g

DirectShowSource("video.ts")


Open that .avs in vdub


But vdub cannot export mpeg2 directly very easily, so if you end goal was mpeg2, then you could bypass everything and do it all with avisynth script into mpeg2 encoder (faster, IMO)

If your "watermark" was just a text file, then you can use textsub(). Overlay() gives you many more options, you can make a PNG with alpha channel for example in photoshop/gimp to overlay

[poisondeathray]

Avidemux is also "easy" to use and has a subtitle filter (if your "watermark" was in .srt/.ssa/.ass format) , with many export options

[yugurya]

Thanks for your help poisondeathray, i will now experiment with these programs and will reply the conclusion.

[yugurya]

I have tried the avidemux, but the saving of the file with a subtitle filter does take too long, more than 1 hour. Isnt there another program like avidemux who can save the video with subtitles in a couple of minutes?

[poisondeathray]

I have tried the avidemux, but the saving of the file with a subtitle filter does take too long, more than 1 hour.

That doesn't mean anything out of context

A faster computer might be 10x faster, or slower

Faster settings might be 10x faster, or slower

Faster encoder might be 10x faster, or slower

For a 1000hour movie, 1 hour is fast!
.
.
.etc...

ie. there are many factors that contribute to speed

What are your computer specs ? What are your source format characteristics (use mediainfo view->text) ? What settings and format used for export ? How long is the movie etc....

Isnt there another program who can save the video with subtitles in a couple of minutes?

Fastest way is softsub, same quality, no re-encoding, take seconds

Re-encoding always takes long time, but dependent on all those factors above (and many more)

[yugurya]

I have tried it on a dual core pc, but will try it also with a better pc.

[poisondeathray]

A faster pc would help, higher clockspeed, more cores etc.. - but some encoders are faster (and better) than others . e.g. cce (not free) is about 3-4x faster than avidemux's mpeg2 encoder with the same hardware , but you would need to use avisynth , and multiplex audio separately (it's just a video encoder, no audio)

The difference is you're re-encoding the whole thing. When making simple edits in videoredo, only a few frames are re-encoded around the cutsite, the rest is passed through untouched (you're essentially limited by HDD/SSD IO transfer speed) - that's why it's so much faster

I'm not sure what else to suggest, maybe others have faster suggestions

[TreeTops]

And 1.8GB for over an hour of video doesn't look correct either.

[poisondeathray]

You're right - according to the bitrate calculator

https://www.videohelp.com/calc

1h 34min with 192kbps audio should be 6292kbps, but mediainfo reports 2494kbps, so there is a discrepancy

[olyteddy]

I have tried the avidemux, but the saving of the file with a subtitle filter does take too long, more than 1 hour. Isnt there another program like avidemux who can save the video with subtitles in a couple of minutes?

Probably not, because as many have pointed out you are re-encoding the video.

[yugurya]

I have done a bit research and have come to a conclusion, that the best way to watermark videos is with a batching process. At this page https://forum.videohelp.com/threads/335034-Adding-a-watermark-to-an-mpeg-2-video-file, it is suggested to use virtualdubmod and xvid codec to cause for a smaller .avi output size.

[yugurya]

Could someone pls look at the questions ive written above?

[manono]

Just ask yourself this, "Would I want to watch a video that was defaced with a watermark someone put on it?" Of course, the answer is 'no'. So, before you go around ruining videos (and also most likely illegally spreading around copyrighted material), think again and give up your ridiculous idea that sticking a watermark on it somehow improves it.

And forget the VDubs. They're for AVI, for the most part. You want to reencode for MPEG-2? Use an MPEG-2 encoder.

And before you go around asking these really basic questions, why not do a little reading on your own? For example, YouTube is quite clear on what they like and will accept:

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/static.py?hl=en&guide=1728585&page=guide.cs

http://support.google.com/youtube/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55744

If you don't care enough to do some of the work yourself, why should anyone want to help you?