The unoffical "How Do I Do That in Cinelerra?" thr

Rosie-chan · Post by **Rosie-chan** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 11:44 pm

One of the problems with using freeware/Open Source software is the fact that often, the documentation is incomplete, scattered between various websites and authors or somehow otherwise Not That Great.

Ok, the real reason I'm making this thread is because I have/will have a lot of questions that are mainly AMV/effects-specific and I'm not all that comfortable flooding the Cinelerra developers mailing list with. But as I'm still set on eventualy making an "AMV Making in Linux" guide (I've even got an outline started for it), I'm hoping that a: this can become a: a sort of clearing house for Cinelerra-related AMV tips and b: I'm not the only one asking the questions so I don't feel silly about starting a whole thread about it.

This could also be considered "spreading the word/help for Open Source" if you want to think of it that way.

I don't mean for this to be so much a thread for basic technical stuff (questions like "How do I use Cinelerra?" or "Help, I can't install/it keeps crashing/this command doesn't work!" because there's already the existing docs, developers list and IRC channels for that) so much as a thread for artistic stuff ("What plugin in Cinelerra translates to effect X in my old editing program", "Is there a way to get the program to produce what I have in my head?", etc.) and stuff relating mostly to AMVs or otherwise outside the scope of the regular documentation (e.g: "When and how should I de-interlace my footage for the best quality?", "How do I edit my video tracks without screwing up the audio I just laid down?", "Preprocess, postprocess or realtime processing?", "Can I try this safely without trashing my work?", etc).

Required reading before posting quesitons:
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra/cinelerra.html - "Secrets of Cinelerra", more or less the offical manual. Probably the place to point to when (politely) giving "RTFM"-style responses.
http://www.robfisher.net/video/cinelerra1.html - A good intro tutorial.
http://www.ftconsult.com/twiki/bin/view ... aManualTOC - The Cinelerra Wiki: based somewhat on the offical manual, tries to go beyond it a little but is rather incomplete and the tips are directed more toward live-action filmmaking.

Rosie-chan · Post by **Rosie-chan** » Fri Sep 10, 2004 11:58 pm

The first bach of questions!

- I have some very heavily interlaced footage. I've been trying to edit with clips from the interlaced, raw VOBs and already have some rough cuts that I don't want to have to re-assemble again. But the interlaced footage is driving me insane and doing de-interlacing in realtime is slow and not completely effective. Would it be possible to take my VOB files, apply de-interlacing to them (either in Cinelerra or AMVapp via WINE if i can get it working) and render them as such with the same filenames while still preserving my clips?

- The freeze frame effect sucks. What's the best way to get a single frame of footage to play for x ammount of time/ replicate frame y so it is more or less copied z number of times onto the timeline?

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 6:14 am

Rosie-chan wrote:The first bach of questions!

- I have some very heavily interlaced footage. I've been trying to edit with clips from the interlaced, raw VOBs and already have some rough cuts that I don't want to have to re-assemble again. But the interlaced footage is driving me insane and doing de-interlacing in realtime is slow and not completely effective. Would it be possible to take my VOB files, apply de-interlacing to them (either in Cinelerra or AMVapp via WINE if i can get it working) and render them as such with the same filenames while still preserving my clips?

Yes. Assets are not identified by extension, as far as I can tell, so a file replace should be just fine.

[quote\
- The freeze frame effect sucks. What's the best way to get a single frame of footage to play for x ammount of time/ replicate frame y so it is more or less copied z number of times onto the timeline?[/quote]

Render the still frame you want out to a file with paste at insertion point, and then stretch the still to however long you want it.

Rosie-chan · Post by **Rosie-chan** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 8:48 am

trythil wrote:
Yes. Assets are not identified by extension, as far as I can tell, so a file replace should be just fine.

Even if that conversion changes the framerate, as it would with inverse telcline?

Rosie-chan · Post by **Rosie-chan** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 12:55 pm

Well, I mean inverse telcline + decimate. But scratch that, because I've been trying some test renders on selected clips from my source, and rendering with inverse telcline doesn't get rid of the scanlines at all as far as I can tell just by eyeballing it.

The deinterlace effect set to do averaging produces better results but it's not perfect...I think I've got blending in my source too and I don't know of anything in Cinelerra yet that will tackle that...

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 1:40 pm

Rosie-chan wrote:
trythil wrote:
Yes. Assets are not identified by extension, as far as I can tell, so a file replace should be just fine.

Even if that conversion changes the framerate, as it would with inverse telcline?

Well, no. You'll have to adjust your clips then.

Cinelerra' IVTC function worked pretty well for me when I tried it on the Escaflowne movie...how are you setting it up?

Rosie-chan · Post by **Rosie-chan** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 2:35 pm

trythil wrote: Cinelerra' IVTC function worked pretty well for me when I tried it on the Escaflowne movie...how are you setting it up?

Just the ripped VOBs indexed in mpeg3toc. I've done some playing around with the IVTC settings...With A B BC CD E patern selected, the preview starts jumping back and forth a lot when I play it back. In any other case, the interlacing effect sometimes seems to get worse.

As a possibly-related side note, I played one of the vob files in mplayer for kicks and noticed that it kept switching between 24fps progressive and 30fps with 30fps being the dominant setting. I've apparently got hybrid footage and Genon knows what else (footage in question is the Sailor Moon R movie, the master of which I'm guessing was the same one used for the VHS release because of the hard-subbed credits.)

*Also* noticed that Cinelerra is displaying the video as if it were RGBA, straight 30fps instead of YUV and hybrid like mplayer is.

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 2:50 pm

Rosie-chan wrote:
trythil wrote: Cinelerra' IVTC function worked pretty well for me when I tried it on the Escaflowne movie...how are you setting it up?
Just the ripped VOBs indexed in mpeg3toc. I've done some playing around with the IVTC settings...With A B BC CD E patern selected, the preview starts jumping back and forth a lot when I play it back. In any other case, the interlacing effect sometimes seems to get worse.

The automatic IVTC chained to a decimator (29.97 -> 23.976) worked pretty well for me. I got the occasional combed frame but it wasn't too bad.

*Also* noticed that Cinelerra is displaying the video as if it were RGBA, straight 30fps instead of YUV and hybrid like mplayer is.

Cinelerra will play back the project at the project framerate; it won't adjust its framerate to compensate. How are you detecting RGBA, though? Performance difference?

Rosie-chan · Post by **Rosie-chan** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 3:38 pm

How are you detecting RGBA, though? Performance difference?

"Settings--> Format" pannel

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Sat Sep 11, 2004 5:12 pm

Rosie-chan wrote:
How are you detecting RGBA, though? Performance difference?
"Settings--> Format" pannel

That's the color model you want it to use, not what it sets itself to.