Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Geoff <geoff@nospamgeoffwood.org>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.os.windows-10,rec.photo.digital
Subject: Re: Burn caption into video
Date: Fri, 28 Feb 2025 11:36:27 +1300
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On 28/02/2025 7:47 am, Oliver wrote:
> On Thu, 27 Feb 2025 15:00:49 +1300, Geoff <geoff@nospamgeoffwood.org> wrote
>>> For that, Subtitle Edit & ffmpeg freeware appear to work fine, but it's
>>> wonderful that there are professional level tools to help the creators.
>>
>> That's really the 'amateur' version, though capable of 'pro' results. 
>> Their (Magix, was Sony, was Sonic Foundry) professional equiv is Vegas 
>> Pro. Any functions are optional, and subtitles is just a very basis one.
>>
>> I guess it comes down to factor such as $$$ spent, ease of 
>> implementing subtitles (and tweaking of them), how you value your 
>> time, etc.
> 
> I appreciate that you brought up the professional tools as compared to teh
> freeware tools, where there is often a 1:1 freeware copy to the pro tools.
> 
> An example is PhotoShop versus Paint.NET/Pinta on the Windows platform.
> The freeware tools do almost everything the pro tools do, as that's what
> their main raison d'etre is after all. To copy what the pro tools do.
> 
> In that case, you get most of the pro editing functionality, for free.
> And, as a bonus, the freeware tools are easier to use than the pro tools.
> 
> So I agree with you that it depends a lot on how you value your time.
> Speaking of how much time it takes to do something...
> I agree with you that the professional GUIs often can sometimes do far more
> than the freeware GUIs do, but even so, I think we perhaps might be hard
> pressed to find a professional GUI that does much of anything faster than
> some of the free command-line programs suggested in this thread can do.
> 
> For example, a 'deshake' operation with ffmpeg freeware is pretty fast.
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf deshake output_deshake.mp4
> 
> So is a 'rotate by 180 degrees' pretty fast on the freeware command line.
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "transpose=1,transpose=1" output.mp4
> 
> So is embedding yellow 32-point fonts pretty fast as a freeware command.
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf 
> "subtitles=input.srt:force_style='FontSize=32,PrimaryColour=&H00FFFF'" 
> output.mp4
> 
> Extracting thumbnails is also very easy on the freeware command line.
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "fps=1/5" thumb%04d.jpg
> So is embedding any chosen thumbnail easily to do as a freeware command:
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -i thumbnail.jpg -map 0 -map 1 -c copy - 
> disposition:v:1 attached_pic output.mp4
> 
> Removing metadata (including thumbnails) is also easy on the command line.
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -map 0 -map_metadata -1 -c copy output.mp4
> 
> Cropping/blurring areas using the cmd line is much more work though.
> 
> Crop out a section 20 pixels from the top and 20 pixels from the bottom.
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v "crop=in_w:in_h-40" -c:a copy output.mp4
> Blur out a section 20 pixels from the top and 20 pixels from the bottom.
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "split[original][blurred]; 
> [blurred]crop=iw:20:0:0,boxblur=luma_r=10
> 
> Crop to an 80-by-60 pixel area, starting from position (200,100).
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v "crop=80:60:200:100" -c:a copy output.mp4
> Blur an 80-by-60 pixel area, starting from position (200,100).
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -filter:v "crop=iw:ih:0:0,split[original][blurred]; 
> [blurred]crop=80:60:200:100,boxblur=luma_r=10:chroma_r=5[blurred_cropped];[original][blurred_cropped]overlay=200:100[out]" -map "[out]" -map 0:a? -c:a copy output.mp4
> 
> As is speeding up (or slowing down) a section a little more work though.
> AFAIK, you have to first chop the input video up into separate sections.
> ffmpeg -ss 00:01:00 -i video1.mp4 -to 00:02:00 video1-cut1.mp4
> 
> And then you can speed up that section (handling audio how you want).
> ffmpeg -i input.mp4 -vf "setpts=0.5*PTS" -af "atempo=2.0" output.mp4
> 
> And then you can reassemble the separate sections back together.
> dir /b *.mp4 > list.txt ffmpeg -f concat -i list.txt -c copy output.mp4
> 
> So far, I've had to do all those things repeatedly with my short videos
> taken from my phone. I find ffmpeg does it fast once you know the command.
> 
> But I think the two or three things your suggested professional GUI would
> probably do faster & easier might be these three tasks I have had to do.
> 
> 1. subtitles of what I want to point out in the video
> 2. cropping (or blurring) hand drawn areas of the video
> 3. speeding up/slowing down entire sections of the video
> 
> 
> While I found that I had to use the SubtitleEdit freeware GUI to make
> adding subtitles into a push-button simplicity, the other two are harder.
> 
> Is it very easy to do those other things using your suggested pro program?

Yes. And not even the 'pro' level app.

But you seem to equate 'paid for' as 'professional' - which is not the case.

Your 'free' does seem to involve a hell of a lot of unintuitive frigging 
around to achieve basic results.

But whatever gets you through the night....

-- 
geoff