Video editing

[JohnE]

My buddy & I have many hours of GoPro videos chasing each other down the mountain. I think this perspective is called "tailgunning" but that's a misnomer. The tailgunner is the guy in the back of the bomber facing backward shooting at the attacker. This is more like pursuit video. 

 Anyway I'd like to edit these down into more watchable video. I have no editing experience. It appears there are lots of free desktop computer editing software packages. Is it really just as easy as downloading the software and starting to play with it? Is it best to select some music first and pair the video with it or vice-versa?  Any suggestions on the best (easiest) editing software?

 

Thanks

[SunSurfer]

Any video editing software beyond the most simple will have a significant learning curve.

The current GoPro Player didn't recognise my old GoPro Silver 3+ files, but did recognise my 8 Black.

Have used a range of free editors over the years and they have steadily grown in sophistication. Currently using the free version of DaVinci Resolve which has an enormous feature set, including colour grading and stabilisation, and will render in 4k. Given that the free version is the generation behind the current commercial version I hope to be using DVR for quite a while yet.

It is not the simplest out there, but it is basically a professional level feature set for free. As your needs grow you probably won't need to change software.

Music can be troublesome if you plan to post on YouTube etc. During the upload process YouTube will recognise tracks and flag if there are copyright issues.

 

[philw]

It really is that easy. Easier if you don't shoot in bad light, and don't shoot stuff you won't/ can't use. Editing makes you more selective in what you shoot, because if you're not selective, editing is a lot of work. Learn to keep the camera off almost all the time, just turn it on when the light's good and something is happening.

It really is that easy though. I also use DaVinci Resolve, which is free but has a learning curve. I used to use Adobe Premier Pro (paid for...) and Da Vinci passed it years ago. You could try to go simple and use whatever GoPro give you with the camera, but that stuff is usually either advert-ridden (Da Vinci is not), or to simple to do anything useful. You'll find some "get you started" tutorials on YouTube, but expect a couple of days work before you can do basic edits. There is a lot of free video stuff out there, but it's mostly advert based or they're trying to up-sell you to something, and it's mostly quirky.

Me, for snowboard videos, I like to pick the music first, then lay the footage over it. However... as pointed out, you need something which you can legally use. There are sources for free music, eg https://freemusicarchive.org/ You may also have some actual snow sound you want to use (eg edge cutting hardpack), and you can mix that in. Bear in mind that not everyone likes the same kind of music.

Stuff people told me which I think is helpful:

1. Less is more. 30 seconds would be better than 1:30.
   And editing 5 minutes of footage down to 30 seconds is a lot quicker than starting with 5 hours, so don't shoot garbage.
2. Use short segments, not long ones. They should look like a progression, but a single cut tends to be boring.
    

[Chouinard]

I use Power Director which is reasonably priced and is a 64 bit editor.  Drag and drop multiple video and music files on multiple tracks. Tools include stabilization and rotation among other simple to use features. Get a good video card with a decent amount of ram to make your life easier.

[pokkis]

Strong recommending Vegas, it is usually quite costly one, but on Humble Bundle they have very nice price.

[JohnE]

On 8/24/2022 at 7:48 AM, philw said:

It really is that easy. Easier if you don't shoot in bad light, and don't shoot stuff you won't/ can't use. Editing makes you more selective in what you shoot, because if you're not selective, editing is a lot of work. Learn to keep the camera off almost all the time, just turn it on when the light's good and something is happening.

It really is that easy though. I also use DaVinci Resolve, which is free but has a learning curve. I used to use Adobe Premier Pro (paid for...) and Da Vinci passed it years ago. You could try to go simple and use whatever GoPro give you with the camera, but that stuff is usually either advert-ridden (Da Vinci is not), or to simple to do anything useful. You'll find some "get you started" tutorials on YouTube, but expect a couple of days work before you can do basic edits. There is a lot of free video stuff out there, but it's mostly advert based or they're trying to up-sell you to something, and it's mostly quirky.

Me, for snowboard videos, I like to pick the music first, then lay the footage over it. However... as pointed out, you need something which you can legally use. There are sources for free music, eg https://freemusicarchive.org/ You may also have some actual snow sound you want to use (eg edge cutting hardpack), and you can mix that in. Bear in mind that not everyone likes the same kind of music.

Stuff people told me which I think is helpful:

1. Less is more. 30 seconds would be better than 1:30.
   And editing 5 minutes of footage down to 30 seconds is a lot quicker than starting with 5 hours, so don't shoot garbage.
2. Use short segments, not long ones. They should look like a progression, but a single cut tends to be boring.
    

Thanks for the advice. In the end I think the only real audience will be the 2 people in the videos (my buddy & me) so making it too long shouldn't be a problem. If I want the video only for myself, do I need to worry about music copywrite? 

Also, If I don't think this will be an ongoing skill I want to perfect, would I be better off sending the files to a videographer and paying them $50/hour to make a video for us?

[SunSurfer]

If it's only for private use, you can put whatever music you like to it and no-one is likely to be bothered, although some viewers may draw the line at Stockhausen .

Doing your own editing means you get just what you want. I assume you and your mate aren't going to stop videoing your riding so this is a skill you would continue to use.

Selecting some clips, stitching them together, and laying some music over the top was not particularly difficult in any of the editors I've used. But I also enjoy learning stuff and new skills, which is not everyone's taste.

Having had some interesting experiences getting some old analogue video digitised I avoid getting other people to do this sort of stuff for me.

 

Edited August 25, 2022 by SunSurfer

[philw]

What he said. Copyright's only relevant because YouTube and Vimeo won't let you use stuff you don't own. If it's just on your phone, of course that's irrelevant.

I think the problem with a professional is (a) cost; and (b) they most likely don't know what's important. I mean, I don't shoot football.... I dislike the game, so I don't understand it, and if I shot it, I would not shoot the right bits, so my results would be rubbish.

 

[JohnE]

Does anyone know of a good way for the front rider to have the camera viewing the rear rider and be able to track him without seeing him?

[pokkis]

Use 360 cam or camera with active tracking, like DJI Pocket

[st_lupo]

On 9/1/2022 at 9:15 PM, JohnE said:

Does anyone know of a good way for the front rider to have the camera viewing the rear rider and be able to track him without seeing him?

I am blown away by the object tracking on the insta 360 one rs 360 module.  Will post a link to a video in a bit.

[philw]

What they said, 360 is the way to go for pretty much all that stuff as you can "frame" a crop into the spherical video those cameras capture "in post production" - in the camera's editing software. The problem is then riding close enough safely...

[nextcarve]

Here's a little example with a insta360 one (first gen 360 cam).
 

The new insta360 one X2 has a higher resolution and much better image quality, but you get the idea of what's possible.

PS: The camera man (me) rides full throttle, like usual
 

Edited September 2, 2022 by nextcarve

[nextcarve]

Addition: With insta360 Studio you get a very easy to handle, free desktop and smartphone app. I usually prepare the 360 recordings in this software (camera work, crop selection) and export it into a normal (non 360) video format.

Now it's easier to cut, add transitions, titles and music etc. with a traditional more powerful video editing software. Working on a mac I use imovie. For Windows there are also great powerful and free applications like:

DaVinici Resolve (Powerful, professional grade video editor)
HitFilm Express (full featured video editor, especially powerful for special effects)

[gawdzira]

I use Adobe Premiere Rush. I have an Adobe Creative Cloud account since I do graphic work professionally. Rush is the light version of Premiere. This allows me to cut and trim audio as well as video with a lot of precision. I did not spend a lot of time on this one but was able to get some of the sound cuts to hit my video cuts pretty close to what I wanted.   https://www.dropbox.com/s/pzrgw1wdh6hlkgt/Time Warp Bottom Time a.mp4?dl=0

[slapos]

Mobile apps these days offer very good options if you want to do something quick.

Both QUIK go pro and insta360 mobile app rock.

for PC editing i also go with Da Vinci - a ton of tutorials on youtube how to do this if you have the time to spend on it.

Definitely worthwhile

 

[st_lupo]

Hope nobody minds that I'm reviving this thread but I just have to give some props to a very cool (but relatively expensive at $200) video tool.  The Topaz Labs Video Enhance AI SW is pretty bloody impressive at upscaling both the picture resolution and framerate.  And when I say pretty bloody impressive, I mean this is like the spy movies where they zoom video into the license plate of a car from 5 miles away, press "enhance" and suddenly get a crystal-clear number.

 

The following edit is made off of some video I had posted on here a few years back, but I used the Topaz Labs SW to upscale the source material from 720p/24fps to 4k/240fps (but playback in the edit is at 60fps).  There are some artifacts here and there (high-speed movement in a relatively low source framerate is difficult) and the some of the upscaling lends it a bit of a cell-shaded look (but there are tons of parameters that can be tweaked).   The real upshot is that youtube's encoding doesn't slaughter 4k 60fps video like it does 720p/24fps.  (you can see the original source material (from kvitfjell) on the same youtube channel) for an example of what YT encoding does to low-rez video.

 

[patmoore]

On 9/2/2022 at 4:00 AM, st_lupo said:

I am blown away by the object tracking on the insta 360 one rs 360 module.  Will post a link to a video in a bit.

I've mounted a chest harness on my back and done that.  Go to the 65 second mark of this video:  

 

[philw]

On 9/2/2022 at 4:43 PM, nextcarve said:

Addition: With insta360 Studio you get a very easy to handle, free desktop and smartphone app. I usually prepare the 360 recordings in this software (camera work, crop selection) and export it into a normal (non 360) video format.

I just picked up an Insta360 x3, although I'm a month off being able to try it on snow. The overall resolution is the same as my old (4 years old!) Rylo, but the pipeline from sensor onwards should be significantly better. Plus you can run it in 4k/30fps as a traditional single-lens action camera, for when you know what you're shooting and want maximum quality.

The workflow software is obviously massively better. The phone app probably works, but I've this big-ass gaming machine with a RTX 3080 Ti in there, and the "Studio 2022" software works pretty well. Sadly they provide one for Adobe, but not DaVinci.... but it's not a massive chore with this software to extract even multiple perspectives from one file (all on the PC) and then mix that in DaVinci. Windows has a new free video editor https://clipchamp.com/en/ which looks pretty capable if people don't want to learn the power tools.

Topaz Labs Video Enhance  ... Interesting, I shall take a look, because 360 footage is way less than 4k when cropped. Topaz must have a free version for testing. That embedded video isn't selling it though - it all looks out of focus to me. Am I missing something there?

 

Ski pole mount: as demonstrated, a ski pole is probably not long enough to get your head and your board in all at once, with a traditional action camera.

[slapos]

53 minutes ago, philw said:

The workflow software is obviously massively better. The phone app probably works, but I've this big-ass gaming machine with a RTX 3080 Ti in there, and the "Studio 2022" software works pretty well. Sadly they provide one for Adobe, but not DaVinci.... but it's not a massive chore with this software to extract even multiple perspectives from one file (all on the PC) and then mix that in DaVinci. Windows has a new free video editor https://clipchamp.com/en/ which looks pretty capable if people don't want to learn the power tools.
 

i use the 360 studio to export proress in 4k resultion and then put together the vids in davinci.

check out Hugh Hou channel on youtube

 

he shows quote a few useful workflows and few tricks to make the vid look great on youtube. 

Sure the 360 content will never be true 4k, but its close after listening to this guy.

[philw]

Oh, Tried that Topaz Labs Video Enhance and that works really well on my old Rylo 360 camera footage. Scary good. I may need to actually buy the thing, but I'll wait and see how good the Insta360 x3 output is first. 

(You need the NVidia Studio [not game] drivers for the thing to encode output as mp4 using the graphics card as the main engine. The render is fairly compute intensive and hits the graphics card 3D stuff at 100% plus a fair bit of the CPU. Overall it's clearly doing a lot of work, but less than Cyberpunk 2077 etc.)

Edited November 11, 2022 by philw
Added graphics card note

[st_lupo]

On 11/11/2022 at 5:18 PM, philw said:

Topaz Labs Video Enhance  ... Interesting, I shall take a look, because 360 footage is way less than 4k when cropped. Topaz must have a free version for testing. That embedded video isn't selling it though - it all looks out of focus to me. Am I missing something there?

 

Are you sure you had playback on 4k?  On my phone playback always defaults to 480p or something and looks like crap, but going into the settings and setting it to 4k is a huge difference I think.  Here are is a screen capture from youtube with the original material straight off the phone.

Here it is after processing through topaz labs.

The end result isn't maybe 35mm quality, but it is a dramatic improvement from the source imho.

[patmoore]

I bought the GoPro MAX 360 camera last winter and got a fair amount of hardboot riding footage but I had a really cool experience when I was one of 20 lottery winners at Snowmass in early April.  We got to to up an hour before the lifts opened and make a run with Bode MIller who was demonstrating  his new line of Peak Skis.  I mounted the camera to my helmet and chased him.  Click and drag to change the view.  You can even look down to see my skis.  You'll see Bode in front of me and everyone else behind me.  The best way to watch it is with VR Goggles.  Regarding editing, I started wth GoPro's program, then used Handbrake, Spatial Media Metadata Injector and finally Cybervision PowerDirector 17.  

 

Edited November 14, 2022 by patmoore

[philw]

Cool, I don't have the VR stuff though

Topaz Labs Video Enhance... is on "black Friday special offer", so $159 instead of $299, although I expect they always have offers, it feels like $299 is too much. I bought it anyway.

.. and it solves the general low resolution issues my Rylo 360 had, and generates reasonable 4k/60fps stuff . It's much quicker than Python based Cupscale etc and that stuff is mostly still a pain in to use, where as this isn't.

Topaz fixing the main video issues with the Rylo leaves me stating at the blue/purple artefacts you get in snow surfaces with that camera. I can probably fix those with DaVinci and will try to do that. These are typical of what you'd see in early digital cameras when shooting bright things near maximum brightness, like snow. Ugly but probably straight forward to remove.

The Topaz footage needs a bit of skill to avoid it looking synthetic.. it's a subtle one. I'll post some stills or video when I'm done if I can get it right.

 

 

 

[pokkis]

Now you can get Vegas Pro with Mercalli stabilation with nice price

https://www.humblebundle.com/software/vegas-pro-2022-software