lost root partition..oops.

I was running some disk performance statistics on the new Fedora 12 64-bit yesterday according to the very good benchmarking article on 3ware's site:

Benchmarking the 3ware 9000 Controller Using Linux Kernel 2.6

Benchmarking

I was benchmarking the write performance of my RAID set when it seemed to stall out. The process I was running was writing a bunch of zeros to a 20 gigabyte file. I believe the stall was due to the fact that my RAID controller card's battery was disconnected; hence, write-cacheing was disabled.

I let the process try to finish for four hours. I figured it should have finished writing that 20GB file by that time. However, the fact that the system was still slow to non-responsive indicated that activity was still taking place. But, being an impetuous fool, I was anxious to get working on some video and also thought it might be an interesting test of the resilience of the ext4 filesystem if I just shut the system down. So I as a soft reboot did not do the trick, I hard powered the box off.

Sleeping the Sleep of the Dead

In retrospect, I should have let the box finish whatever it was doing, because as you may have guessed it, the box didn't come back up. Here was the first indication from the kernel messages:

Boot has failed..sleeping forever

And in the dmesg output:

can't mount root filesystem

can't access tty job control turned off

Woops. Dracut did find my volume group:

dracut: 2 logical voumes in "vg_ogre" now active

Something was wrong with the root filesystem mount:

mount: you must specify the filesystem type

Just in case, I rebooted with the following kernel parameters in grub to see more debugging and to drop me to an emergency shell to see if I could debug the problem:

kernel .. debug rdshell

What Up, ext4?

Oh boy. So, ext4 is not as resilient as I believed. I thought the best course of action would be to load up Fedora Live, and look at the disk stats. Since fdisk does not work with GPT partitions, I used parted and thought that I'd use e2fsck to fix any bad blocks. After booting the Live CD, here's what I found:

The swap drive seemed in tact (oh, great):

[liveuser@localhost ~]$ dmesg | grep vg
vgaarb: device added: PCI:0000:07:00.0,decodes=io+mem,owns=io+mem,locks=none
vgaarb: loaded
Adding 12369912k swap on /dev/mapper/vg_ogre-lv_swap. Priority:-1 extents:1 across:12369912k

I thought I'd try to manually mount my / partition. I had to become superuser in order to do this:

[liveuser@localhost ~]$ su
[root@localhost liveuser]# mkdir /mnt/root
[root@localhost liveuser]# mount -t ext4 /dev/mapper/vg_ogre-lv_root /mnt/root
mount: wrong fs type, bad option, bad superblock on /dev/mapper/vg_ogre-lv_root,
missing codepage or helper program, or other error
In some cases useful info is found in syslog - try
dmesg | tail or so

Dmesg tells me what I already know:
[root@localhost liveuser]# dmesg | tail
[drm] nouveau 0000:07:00.0: 0x00409910: 0x3fbf3fdb
[drm] nouveau 0000:07:00.0: 0x00409e08: 0x0002dea8
[drm] nouveau 0000:07:00.0: 0x00409e0c: 0x00000000
[drm] nouveau 0000:07:00.0: 0x00409e24: 0x0a21026f
EXT4-fs (dm-2): VFS: Can't find ext4 filesystem

I just want to see what fdisk reads about my hardware RAID5 array (3ware 9650SE):

[root@localhost liveuser]# fdisk -l /dev/sda

WARNING: GPT (GUID Partition Table) detected on '/dev/sda'! The util fdisk doesn't support GPT. Use GNU Parted.

WARNING: The size of this disk is 4.5 TB (4499967049728 bytes).
DOS partition table format can not be used on drives for volumes
larger than (2199023255040 bytes) for 512-byte sectors. Use parted(1) and GUID
partition table format (GPT).

Disk /dev/sda: 4500.0 GB, 4499967049728 bytes
255 heads, 63 sectors/track, 547089 cylinders
Units = cylinders of 16065 * 512 = 8225280 bytes
Disk identifier: 0x000f0844

Device Boot Start End Blocks Id System
/dev/sda1 1 267350 2147483647+ ee GPT

What does parted see about /dev/sda?

[root@localhost liveuser]# parted /dev/sda print
Model: AMCC 9650SE-4LP DISK (scsi)
Disk /dev/sda: 4500GB
Sector size (logical/physical): 512B/512B
Partition Table: gpt

Number Start End Size File system Name Flags
1 17.9kB 210MB 210MB ext4 boot
2 210MB 4500GB 4500GB lvm

At least the partition is there. But it looks like parted does not have support for checking ext4 filesystems yet:
[root@localhost liveuser]# parted /dev/sda
GNU Parted 1.9.0
Using /dev/sda
Welcome to GNU Parted! Type 'help' to view a list of commands.
(parted) check 1
No Implementation: Support for opening ext4 file systems is not implemented yet.
(parted) check 2
Error: Could not detect file system.
(parted) quit

e2fsck bound!

Let me run e2fsck (which does have support for ext4 filesystems) and see if I can fix the problem:

[root@localhost liveuser]# e2fsck
Usage: e2fsck [-panyrcdfvtDFV] [-b superblock] [-B blocksize]
[-I inode_buffer_blocks] [-P process_inode_size]
[-l|-L bad_blocks_file] [-C fd] [-j external_journal]
[-E extended-options] device

Emergency help:
-p Automatic repair (no questions)
-n Make no changes to the filesystem
-y Assume "yes" to all questions
-c Check for bad blocks and add them to the badblock list
-f Force checking even if filesystem is marked clean
-v Be verbose
-b superblock Use alternative superblock
-B blocksize Force blocksize when looking for superblock
-j external_journal Set location of the external journal
-l bad_blocks_file Add to badblocks list
-L bad_blocks_file Set badblocks list

My skills at e2fsck are pretty basic. I use the -n option to make no changes while I review what e2fsck finds out about the array:

[root@localhost liveuser]# e2fsck -n /dev/mapper/vg_ogre-lv_root
e2fsck 1.41.9 (22-Aug-2009)
e2fsck: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks...
Superblock has an invalid journal (inode 8).
Clear? no

e2fsck: Illegal inode number while checking ext3 journal for /dev/mapper/vg_ogre-lv_root

Invalid journal..oops.

[root@localhost liveuser]# e2fsck -v /dev/mapper/vg_ogre-lv_root
e2fsck 1.41.9 (22-Aug-2009)
e2fsck: Superblock invalid, trying backup blocks...
Superblock has an invalid journal (inode 8).
Clear?y

I had thought that ext4 gave us the safety of a journalled filesystem (like ext3) with increased performance. You would have thought it could have recovered from being shutdown while writing a bunch of zeros to a 20 gigabyte file.

And then of course, hundreds to thousands of these various errors:

Group descriptor 32923 checksum is invalid. FIXED.

Entry 'e61abf8156cc476151baa07d67337cae-le64.cache-3' in ??? (57347) has deleted/unused inode 212. Clear? yes

Unconnected directory inode 98305 (...)
Connect to /lost+found? yes

Free blocks count wrong for group #138 (32768, counted=557).
Fix? yes

Free inodes count wrong for group #308 (8192, counted=8186).
Fix? yes

Directories count wrong for group #308 (0, counted=6).
Fix? yes

Finally..at the bottom of the list of errors:
Recreate journal? yes

Creating journal (32768 blocks): yyyyyyy Done.

*** journal has been re-created - filesystem is now ext3 again ***

/dev/mapper/vg_ogre-lv_root: ***** FILE SYSTEM WAS MODIFIED *****

327475 inodes used (0.12%)
585 non-contiguous files (0.2%)
130 non-contiguous directories (0.0%)
# of inodes with ind/dind/tind blocks: 0/0/0
Extent depth histogram: 310327/414/1
239381919 blocks used (21.85%)
0 bad blocks
42 large files

283167 regular files
27385 directories
0 character device files
0 block device files
0 fifos
3953 links
16849 symbolic links (16659 fast symbolic links)
63 sockets
--------
331417 files
[root@localhost liveuser

Result?
So let's see if I have files in tact after that 18 hour experience..
[root@localhost liveuser]# mount -t ext4 /dev/mapper/vg_ogre-lv_root /mnt/root/
[root@localhost liveuser]# ls /mnt/root
lost+found
[root@localhost liveuser]# ls /mnt/root
lost+found
[root@localhost liveuser]# ls /mnt/root/lost+found/
*348489 *723483 324843 238390

Ah..that would be a "no." Time to reinstall F12. Ugh. Lesson learned. But I need to know why I couldn't recover a journal. Maybe I did not look in the right place. I need to understand journalling better.

Things I Learned Along the Way

Some boot info from the Live CD

[root@localhost liveuser]# grep EFI_ /boot/config-2.6.31.5-127.fc12.i686
CONFIG_EFI_VARS=y
CONFIG_EFI_PARTITION=y

You can force a filesystem check upon the next reboot with this command:

shutdown -rF now

You can run verbose debug messages and drop to an emergency shell by placing these commands on the kernel line in grub:

kernel /vmlinuz-2.6.31.12-174.2.3.fc12.x86_64 ro root=/dev/mapper/vg_ogre-lv_root debug rdshell

References

Ext4 Howto - Ext4
Recover lost partition table on GPT using testdisk

TestDisk - Undelete file for ext2

Linux Creating a Partition Size Larger than 2TB

Fedora 12 common bugs

time average video effect

Time average is a neat effect. It takes a number of frames of video to average or accumulate.


:averaging
In the below video, I show averaging. Averaging lots of frames gives a very ghost-like effect. Average very few frames shows trails of whatever movement is happening. Medium settings are like you've had too much to drink.

Cinelerra time average effect from crazed mule on Vimeo

:accumulate
A second option called Accumulation is just that..stacking one frame on top of the other. If the scene in the frame is well lit, the frame will blowout..make it so bright that all detail will be lost. The detail gets lost quickly too, when just a few frames are being accumulated. Accumulate is more useful for extremely dark scenes, like making very distant stars become more visible, as in the example below. In the example, I show the original and the time averaged result:

Cinelerra time average effect: accumulate from crazed mule on Vimeo

There is another time averaging parameter called "Inclusion Or" that I have not used. It is explained in the link to the manual below as are the two options "Reprocess Frame Again" and "Disable Subtraction."

cheers,
the mule

Reference
Cinelerra User Manual

mpeg toc maker

I got tired of having Cinelerra hang while create table of contents files for a list MPEG videos. So I wrote my own script to create the table of contents files for a list of MPEGs in a directory. Once you specify the LIST, the script plops the table of contents files in your users' .bcast directory in ~/.bcast.

I output the file name, start time, end time and elapsed time for the table of contents creation. This output looks like this:

SCRIPTSTART:                  20100130_121201
       FILE:                     mvi_0703.m2t      START: 20100130_121201        END: 20100130_121204    TIME(s):       3
       FILE:                     mvi_0705.m2t      START: 20100130_121204        END: 20100130_121222    TIME(s):      18
       FILE:                     mvi_0706.m2t      START: 20100130_121222        END: 20100130_121255    TIME(s):      33
       FILE:                     mvi_0708.m2t      START: 20100130_121255        END: 20100130_121325    TIME(s):      30
       FILE:                     mvi_0709.m2t      START: 20100130_121325        END: 20100130_121341    TIME(s):      16
       FILE:                     mvi_0710.m2t      START: 20100130_121341        END: 20100130_121347    TIME(s):       6
       FILE:                     mvi_0711.m2t      START: 20100130_121347        END: 20100130_121401    TIME(s):      14
       FILE:                     mvi_0713.m2t      START: 20100130_121401        END: 20100130_121403    TIME(s):       2
       FILE:                     mvi_0714.m2t      START: 20100130_121403        END: 20100130_121415    TIME(s):      12
       FILE:                     mvi_0715.m2t      START: 20100130_121415        END: 20100130_121415    TIME(s):       0
       FILE:                     mvi_0716.m2t      START: 20100130_121416        END: 20100130_121416    TIME(s):       0
       FILE:                     mvi_0717.m2t      START: 20100130_121416        END: 20100130_121421    TIME(s):       5
       FILE:                     mvi_0718.m2t      START: 20100130_121421        END: 20100130_121442    TIME(s):      21
       FILE:                     mvi_0719.m2t      START: 20100130_121442        END: 20100130_121442    TIME(s):       0
       FILE:                     mvi_0720.m2t      START: 20100130_121442        END: 20100130_121446    TIME(s):       4
       FILE:                     mvi_0721.m2t      START: 20100130_121446        END: 20100130_121449    TIME(s):       3
       FILE:                     mvi_0722.m2t      START: 20100130_121449        END: 20100130_121454    TIME(s):       5
       FILE:                     mvi_0724.m2t      START: 20100130_121454        END: 20100130_121455    TIME(s):       1
       FILE:                     mvi_0725.m2t      START: 20100130_121455        END: 20100130_121507    TIME(s):      12
       FILE:                     mvi_0727.m2t      START: 20100130_121507        END: 20100130_121515    TIME(s):       8
       FILE:                     mvi_0728.m2t      START: 20100130_121515        END: 20100130_121531    TIME(s):      16
       FILE:                     mvi_0730.m2t      START: 20100130_121531        END: 20100130_121534    TIME(s):       3
       FILE:                     mvi_0731.m2t      START: 20100130_121534        END: 20100130_121535    TIME(s):       1
  SCRIPTEND:                  20100130_121535 RUNTIME(s):             213

*** Update 2010/05/28 ***
I added a little logic to the beginning of the script that checks for the presence of a single argument to the script. That argument is the name of a single file to convert. So now, you have two choices:
1) convert a list of mpeg files as specified in the LIST variable or
2) convert a single file via the command line like so:
./tocMaker.sh videoToConvert.m2t
*** end update ***

Here is the script:

#!/bin/bash
#
# tocMaker.sh
# Author: SCF
# Website: http://crazedmuleproductions.blogspot.com
#
# Purpose: This script builds the table of contents files for a list of mpeg files
#
# Input: List of mpeg files as specified in the LIST variable or a single file via command line like so:
#  ./tocMaker.sh videoToConvert.m2t
#
# Output: Runs mpeg3toc and puts toc's in your users' .bcast directory
#
DEBUG=
if [ $1 ]
then
 LIST=$1
else
 LIST="*.m2t"
fi
echo "converting $LIST"
TOTALTIME=0
function dt {
       DATE=$(date +"%Y%m%d_%H%M%S")
       echo $DATE
}
function st {
       SECONDS=$(date +%s)
       echo $SECONDS
}
PWD=$(pwd)
DIR=$(echo $PWD | sed 's/\//_/g' | sed 's/^_//g')

SCRIPTSTART=$(dt)
printf "%13s %32s\n" "SCRIPTSTART:" $SCRIPTSTART

for FILE in $(ls -1 $LIST)
do
       START=$(dt)
       COUNTBEGIN=$(st)
       NEWFILE=$(echo $FILE | sed 's/\./_/g')
       FULLPATH="${DIR}_${NEWFILE}.toc"
       ORIG_PATH="$PWD/$FILE"
       if [ $DEBUG ]
       then
               echo "$FILE was: $FILE, is: $NEWFILE"
               echo "FULLPATH is $FULLPATH"
               echo "command is mpeg3toc $ORIG_PATH ~/.bcast/$FULLPATH"
       fi
       mpeg3toc $ORIG_PATH ~/.bcast/$FULLPATH
       END=$(dt)
       COUNTFINISH=$(st)
       ELAPSED=$(expr $COUNTFINISH - $COUNTBEGIN)
       printf "%13s %32s %11s %15s %11s %15s %11s %7d\n" "FILE:" $FILE "START:" $START "END:" $END "TIME(s):" $ELAPSED
       TOTALTIME=$(expr $ELAPSED + $TOTALTIME)
done
SCRIPTEND=$(dt)
printf "%13s %32s %11s %15d\n" "SCRIPTEND:" $SCRIPTEND "RUNTIME(s):" $TOTALTIME

cheers,
the mule

batch render redux

As a follow up to this original post, I thought I'd give a few hints on working with the batch render function in Cinelerra. I've been using the batch render to prepare me for my new Fedora 12, x86-64 system. Specifically, I am using batch render to profile the capacity and speed of my current Fedora 10 system. After I install the new Fedora 12 system, I can then use the Fedora 10 performance baseline to tell me how much faster (or slower) the new system is in relation to the old system.

Selecting a Cinelerra Project
The first thing I did was use a short (~1 min) clip of a project that I had been working on:


I then used this project to output a short clip as the basis for the batch render:


Batch render is accessed by typing Shift-B within Cinelerra:


You can save a batch render list to XML format. This format is similar to the XML of the edit decision list (EDL) that Cinelerra stores when a project is saved. You can then load that XML to use later.

Batch Render Gotchas
I used a previous batch list to render out that short clip to about twenty different file formats. The batch render blew up a few times, so I had to get over a few obstacles:
1) the batch list I had saved months ago was out of date and the directory pointers in the XML were incorrect. I fixed the incorrect pointers by going into the vi text editor and doing a wholesale conversion with a sed construct:
:1,$ s/videos\/oldpath/videos\/newpath/g

1,$ says look for and make replacements on all lines. s means "search for.." The matching expression looks for the string "videos/oldpath" in the file and replaces it with "videos/newpath". g means "do the replacement globally"

2) my project had an improperly formatted Quicktime video track on the timeline. I kept getting Quicktime errors when the batch ran, which would crash Cinelerra. Once I removed that errant track, the batch render worked correctly.

3) once I got the batch running, my disk would fill up quickly as I was rendering to a few uncompressed formats. I deleted some very large, extraneous files and the batch was able to complete.

So you can see that you need to prepare both the base project and your system if you expect your batch render to run properly.

Command Line Batching
Once you get your batch working, another nice feature of batch rendering you can take advantage of is the ability of Cinelerra to do this at a command line. I just kicked off a batch job at the command line and see that it does work on a box with X installed. Nicely, it also give you an ETA:

[sodo@tbear ~]$ cinelerra -r /mnt/videos/cinelerra/batch/batchList.xml
/mnt/videos/cinelerra/batch/renderCompatibility.xml
Cinelerra 2.1CV (C) 2006 Heroine Virtual Ltd.
Compiled on Sat Jan 23 01:32:17 EST 2010

Cinelerra is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License,
and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under
certain conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for Cinelerra.
Render::run: /mnt/videos/cinelerra/batch/renderCompatibility.xml
Render::render: starting render farm
[mpeg4 @ 0x7ff313d3ba00]warning: first frame is no keyframe
[mpeg4 @ 0x7ff313d3ba00]concealing 1 DC, 1 AC, 1 MV errors
12% ETA: 0:07:45


Batch Results
So my goal was to profile my current system's capacity by capturing the system's cpu and disk utilization while the files rendered. To really see what is going on though, I thought it might be nice to have a graphical representation of the render as it occurs over time. So I spent some time writing a gnuplot script to plot the system utilization as the files rendered:

A bit of explanation may be required. I captured the output of vmstat to a file. VMstat has CPU load and wait i/o (disk utilization) statistics. While capturing that output, I kicked off the batch render.

In the graphic, you can see that different types of renders have different utilization profiles. For example, the mpeg4 renders were generally lower in CPU utilization (red line), while h264 renders used a lot of CPU. Similarly, the uncompressed formats like rgb/rgba/yuv420planar stress out the disk quite a bit (green line). Please excuse the fact that the filenames aren't perfectly lined up with each file's render profile..this was my first effort at graphing render times.

It will be interesting to see how the new Fedora 12 install affects the CPU. Also, I am planning on installing a new hardware RAID set, so I expect those green lines to go to zero (hopefully)!

ciao,
the mule

compile time performance improved!

I was compiling Cinelerra today and noticed that CPU usage was very low during the compile..around 10-15% utilized. I have a dual CPU, quad core box. This makes for a total of eight processors. So with all those CPUs, I figured there must be a way to make compiling faster.

Actually, this low CPU use during compiles was something I had noticed the first time I installed Cinelerra. Ashamedly, I've forgotten to investigate this issue in the two years that I've had the box. So today I googled for "make compiler see multiple CPUs" and found the -j switch to "make" the program that does the compiling:
http://blogs.koolwal.net/2009/04/20/tip-compile-your-programs-fasters-with-multiple-processor-machines/

This article also mentions the CONCURRENCY_LEVEL environment variable, but that variable did not work for my box, a Dell SC1430. So I used the -j switch to make instead:
[mule@ogre my_cinelerra]$ make -j7
(CDPATH="${ZSH_VERSION+.}:" && cd . && /bin/sh /home/sfrase/my_cinelerra/missing --run autoheader)
rm -f stamp-h1

Here are my results.

the time it took to compile Cinelerra normally, without -j:
3min 45s
the time it took to compile Cinelerra with the -j8 (for eight cores):
1min 16s

Holy crap! That's a 300% speed improvement!

Glad I finally researched this.
scott

ps - one other note: 7z is a multithreaded version of tar. On Fedora, use 7za
Installing : p7zip-4.65-2.fc12.x86_64
7za - A file archiver with highest compression ratio

SYNOPSIS
7za [adeltux] [-] [SWITCH]

Related Posts
http://crazedmuleproductions.blogspot.com/2007/10/multithreading-in-ffmpeg-and-mpstat.html

Fedora 12, x86-64 upgrade

The time has come again..sytem upgrade. Ugh.

From Fedora 10 x86-64 to Fedora 12 x86-64
I say "ugh", but I truly am excited as Fedora 12 does have some nice performance improvements (ext4, kernel modesetting, faster boot, rpm) that they've packaged since the Fedora 10 system I'm working with now:
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/11/FeatureList
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Releases/12/FeatureList

To be clear, I don't do upgrades. I will tar up my /home directory to USB, install the new OS from scratch and then blast my /home directory onto the clean new OS and RAID array.

Thinking Hard
I've spent quite a bit of time planning this upgrade. One of the big things I am doing is to profile the performance of my system before and after the OS and hardware upgrades. Of course, I won't be able to determine whether or not the performance gain is coming from the OS or the new RAID array, but at the end of the day, I simply want to be able to say "my system is now X% faster."

I will be looking at the performance of the system from the OS, Cinelerra and encoder perspectives.

Learning about Fedora 12
http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Common_F12_bugs
http://www.scribd.com/doc/24513176/Fedora-12-Installation-Guide
Changes_in_Fedora_for_Desktop_Users

Hardware changes going in
New RAID configuration:
3WARE Pci-e 9650SE RAID card with Battery Backup
four Western Digital 1.5 TB Green SATA 32MB Cache Hard Drive

Virtual Machine Testbed
One of the things that has helped me in the process is using VMware Server to test out Fedora 12. I've caught a couple things right off the bat: as it is a proprietary format, FAAC is not installed with FFmpeg by default. I was able to resolve this through Doran's excellent post here:
http://fozzolog.fozzilinymoo.org/tech/2009/11/recompiling-ffmpeg-for-fedora-12-to-add-faac-support.html

Also, H264 encoder magic has changed a bit. Other than that, my output testing to various formats (MPEG-PS, HDV, DVD, iPod/iPhone) has worked very well.

General prep work
work out bugs with Fedora 12 virtual machine
clean up old F10 system
backup F10 system files via script
backup /home directory via tar to external drive

Installation steps
Install new F12, Developer's edition
Install RPMs via script
Build and install FFmpeg RPM with faac support from nonfree RPM Fusion repo via script
Install favorite programs
Install Cinelerra dependencies
Install Cinelerra

For those with strong constitutions, here's the full project plan:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AjSzE_zejuQZdFphck9aQUVBbzZVOWhyOC1CaVFVQmc&hl=en

I'm almost there..most of the planning is done. Now, to execute! I'll let you know how it goes.
The Mule

Reference
http://www.graphics-muse.org/wp/?p=501

best practices to alleviate audio sync problems in Cinelerra

Audio synchronization problems are the bane of video editors everywhere. Here's what I do in Cinelerra to try to prevent them.

The first thing to understand is that playback in Cinelerra is a separate process from rendering (exporting) your project to a final format. So it is a good idea to calibrate the audio-video synchronization of your files when they are played back in the Cinelerra compositor as well as the a/v sync of rendered output. More specifically:
1) You need to calibrate the audio you see being played back in the compositor. Do this by setting Audio Offset in the Preferences -> Playback -> Audio Out so that your playback audio is in sync with the video. I generally use ALSA as my audio driver under Preferences -> Playback. (You might also want to try to use OSS or ESound to see if those audio drivers help your playback sync issues.) For reference, my offset is .1 seconds.

2) You'll need to calibrate the audio and video once it is rendered out of Cinelerra. This doesn't have to be the absolute final format of the file. Just an intermediate file format to determine that audio is not drifting and in sync. You'll do this by setting Nudge on your audio tracks so that your rendered audio and video are in sync. Here's an article on nudge:
http://crazedmuleproductions.blogspot.com/2007/05/nudge-avidemux2-and-reminder-about.html

Let me give you an example.

My projects usually run about an hour on the timeline. When I start a project, I will concatenate a bunch of clips or raw videos on the timeline. I will then render a short segment of video, about 15 seconds long, from about 45 minutes into the timeline. The segment I take should have key features like someone speaking or someone hitting a drum that I can use to determine audio synchronization. I then render the file to a format that works well in the various Linux media players:
-Quicktime for Linux using MPEG4 video compression and MP4 or twos complement (pcm) audio compression
-Quicktime for Linux container using JPEG video compression and MP4 or twos complement

The side benefit of using MPEG4 video compression is that it renders damn fast.

The good thing about these steps is that if you work with the same format of video over and over, you won't need to change #1, the Audio Offset.

Here are notes regarding specific source formats and output formats.

MPEG SOURCE FILES to MPEG RENDERED OUTPUT
After much study and pain, I've found that when working with MPEG-TS HDV files as my source (and MPEG formats in general), the best pipe to render from Cinelerra in order to alleviate sync headaches is mpeg2enc. I'm not five channel yet, so I just export my 48.1Khz stereo audio as MPEG Layer II audio MP3s @ 384kbps. I then use mplex to combine my audio and video streams into a program stream. Further on, I use VLC to convert that PS into MPEG-TS (HDV) and then use FFMPEG to convert the HDV into DVD and iPod/iPhone compatible formats.

QUICKTIME (QT) SOURCE FILES to QT RENDERED OUTPUT
If my source video format is Quicktime for Linux (like from a screen capture), then I have no sync problems rendering out to QT for Linux.

MPEG SOURCE FILES to QT RENDERED OUTPUT
If I render my MPEG-TS, HDV projects using Quicktime for Linux as an output format (MPEG4 or JPEG video w/twos complement or MP4 audio compression), then I will get sync problems in the rendered output. I then follow the above best practices to alleviate the problem.

TEST YOUR OUTPUT
In Fedora, I've found that the best media players to test final output are mplayer, vlc and ffmpeg.

Finally, there are options to mplex and ffmpeg to offset audio and video sync problems:
mplex -O ; eg, mplex -O 350
ffmpeg -itsoffset ; eg, ffmpeg -itsoffset 0.35

Hope this helps,
the mule

Reference
My Article on Cinelerra's "nudge" parameter
FFMPEG HowTo
http://man-wiki.net/index.php/1:mplex

automating repetitive tasks by scripting Cinelerra EDL, part I

I produce a bi-monthly video of my band's jam sessions:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/StormpigsPodcast

The format of the video edit is roughly the same for every video:

• intro titles
  
• staff titles
• songs
• end credits
  

Since the Cinelerra EDL (edit decision list) is an XML text file, it occurred to me that I should be able to add the titles by editing this text file.

Cinelerra's Edit Decision List (EDL)
Let's look at Cinelerra's EDL. This is an XML text file that gets written when you save a Cinelerra project. The easiest way to review the EDL is to open it in a browser, as the browser will let you expand and collapse the XML elements. Here's a screen cap of the EDL in Firefox:


When I create my monthly video podcast, I place title effects on Cinelerra's timeline for each song of about a dozen songs. The title effect looks like this:


Placing title effects is a real time sink, especially when I have to place one for each song. I place title effects about 20 seconds into each song. I separate each song by placing a label between the clips. So the labels indicate where in the video track I will need to place title effects. You can see that the title effect is placed after the appearance of a label in Cinelerra's timeline below:


The Task
My goal is to have a shell script find the position of the label in the EDL and plop the title effects about 20s after the appearance of the label. After I add the labels programmatically, I can do fancier edits to the project later on.

In today's post, I will describe a bit more about my workflow and the EDL, and also show you a basic shell script command to insert a title effect into the EDL.

The Procedure
First, I put my basic edit together assembling the clips on the timeline, doing my audio and video fades and placing labels between the clips. This is my first round of edits. At this point, my timeline is very simple. I only have a video track and two audio tracks:


I will use a script to insert a title effect into the EDL file. In the Cinelerra EDL, a title effect (designated by the PLUGINSET XML element) looks like this:


Let's inspect the EDL in order to find the block of labels. If you grep for 'LABEL TIME' in the EDL, you'll find an XML code block that looks like this:


I will need to edit the video TRACK that appears directly beneath the LABELS in the EDL. Since there is quite a bit of confusing repetition in the EDL file, finding the list of LABELs helps identify which TRACK we need to edit. I've capitalized the words in the above sentence to highlight the XML elements you'll need to look for when editing EDL.

Using a bash shell script, I'll add a title effect after the last MASKAUTOS XML tag, but before the closing TRACK tag. Again, this is the closing TRACK tag of the video TRACK:


I've created a second file containing just one title effect, the PLUGINSET example from above:


I will then use a bit of sed (stream editor) magic to insert that file into the right spot in the main Cinelerra EDL for the project. Here is the script command that will place the PLUGINSET into the correct position in the XML:
sed -e "/LABEL TIME/,/^<\/MASKAUTOS/{ /<\/MASKAUTOS>/r titleEffectPluginset.txt
}" cinelerraEdl.xml > cinelerraEdlNewEdit.xml

Let's break this apart:
sed -e "/LABEL TIME/ # This finds the first occurrence of "LABEL TIME" (a label) in the EDL. Remember that the appearance of labels in the EDL tells us that the video TRACK in which we need to insert our title effect comes next in the file.

,/^<\/MASKAUTOS/{ # This finds the first occurrence of a closing MASKAUTOS tag after the string "LABEL TIME". Our title effect, the PLUGINSET, will be inserted after this closing tag.

/<\/MASKAUTOS>/r titleEffectPluginset.txt # Insert the title effect boilerplate after the end MASKAUTOS XML tag

}" cinelerraEdl.xml > cinelerraEdlNewEdit.xml # Have sed perform the edit on "cinelerraEdl.xml", but save the output to "cinelerraEdlNewEdit.xml

The Result - Before


The Result - After


You can see that sed has inserted the title effect (the PLUGINSET XML boilerplate) in between the closing MASKAUTOS tag and the closing tag of the video TRACK. Pretty cool!

This is a simple example of editing Cinelerra EDL, but is the first step to helping me automate otherwise manual tasks in my monthly video podcast creation.

I will try to expand upon this subject in future posts.

-enjoy-
The Mule

Cinelerra 4 just not working

I was interested in trying out Cinelerra 4, Heroine Warrior's latest version of Cinelerra. To reiterate, there are two versions of Cinelerra available:
Heroine Warrior's, the original coded by Adam Williams (bow down to the man!) and
Cinelerra Community Version, Cinelerra CV

On my Fedora 10, x86-64 setup, I gave the latest HV Cinelerra 4 version a try. I encountered a bunch of hurdles, mainly the GCC 4.3 changes that caused missing header information in mjpegtools-1.9.0_rc3 listed here:
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=200767

I got the software to compile. At the final "make install" step, the installation starts, but does not complete with only the first 40 or so lines of the install finishing:
[mule@ogre bin]# make install
make -f build/Makefile.cinelerra install
make[1]: Entering directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4'
make -C plugins install
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4/plugins'
mkdir -p ../bin/fonts
cp fonts/* ../bin/fonts
mkdir -p ../bin/shapes
cp shapes/* ../bin/shapes
cp ../thirdparty/mjpegtools*/mpeg2enc/mpeg2enc ../bin/mpeg2enc.plugin
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4/plugins'
DST=../bin make -C libmpeg3 install
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4/libmpeg3'
cp x86_64/mpeg3dump x86_64/mpeg3peek x86_64/mpeg3toc
x86_64/mpeg3cat ../bin
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4/libmpeg3'
make -C po install
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4/po'
mkdir -p ../bin/locale/de/LC_MESSAGES
cp sl.mo ../bin/locale/sl/LC_MESSAGES/cinelerra.mo
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4/po'
make -C doc install
make[2]: Entering directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4/doc'
mkdir -p ../bin/doc
cp arrow.png autokeyframe.png camera.png channel.png crop.png cut.png
expandpatch_checked.png eyedrop.png fitautos.png ibeam.png
left_justify.png magnify.png mask.png mutepatch_up.png paste.png
projector.png protect.png record.png recordpatch_up.png rewind.png
singleframe.png show_meters.png titlesafe.png toolwindow.png
top_justify.png wrench.png magnify.png ../bin/doc
cp: warning: source file `magnify.png' specified more than once
cp cinelerra.html ../bin/doc
make[2]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4/doc'
cp COPYING README bin
make[1]: Leaving directory `/usr/src/cinelerra-4'
[mule@ogre bin]#

Therefore, the installation does not copy the cinelerra binary into /usr/local/bin. If I try to run the binary from the source code directory, I get this:
PluginServer::open_plugin: /usr/src/cinelerra-4/bin/brightness.plugin:
undefined symbol: glUseProgram
PluginServer::open_plugin: /usr/src/cinelerra-4/bin/deinterlace.plugin:
undefined symbol: glUseProgram
undefined symbol: glNormal3f
PluginServer::open_plugin: /usr/src/cinelerra-4/bin/swapchannels.plugin:
undefined symbol: glUseProgram
PluginServer::open_plugin: /usr/src/cinelerra-4/bin/threshold.plugin:
undefined symbol: glUseProgram
PluginServer::open_plugin: /usr/src/cinelerra-4/bin/zoomblur.plugin:
undefined symbol: glEnd
signal_entry: got SIGSEGV my pid=3965 execution table size=16:
awindowgui.C: create_objects: 433
awindowgui.C: create_objects: 440
awindowgui.C: create_objects: 444
awindowgui.C: create_objects: 447
awindowgui.C: create_objects: 453
suv.C: get_cwindow_sizes: 744
suv.C: get_cwindow_sizes: 774
suv.C: get_cwindow_sizes: 800
suv.C: get_cwindow_sizes: 821
editpanel.C: create_buttons: 177
editpanel.C: create_buttons: 303
editpanel.C: create_buttons: 177
editpanel.C: create_buttons: 303
mwindowgui.C: create_objects: 192
mwindowgui.C: create_objects: 195
mwindowgui.C: create_objects: 199
signal_entry: lock table size=6
0x357dc80 RemoveThread::input_lock RemoveThread::run
0x64d0370 CWindowTool::input_lock CWindowTool::run
0x64f3640 TransportQue::output_lock PlaybackEngine::run
0x3441940 TransportQue::output_lock PlaybackEngine::run
0x3442420 MainIndexes::input_lock MainIndexes::run 1
0x3442f80 Cinelerra: Program MWindow::init_gui *
BC_Signals::dump_buffers: buffer table size=0
BC_Signals::delete_temps: deleting 0 temp files
SigHandler::signal_handler total files=0


Even though I have an NVidia graphics card, the error lines above were related to OpenGL. Thus, I thought I might have better luck compiling without OpenGL enabled. After I removed those lines from from hvirtual_config.h, I did a make clean;make. This time around, I was able to get Cinelerra 4 to start properly. Though, it soon locks up when viewing my 720P MPEG-TS files:
[mule@ogre cinelerra-4]$ ./bin/cinelerra
Cinelerra 4 (C)2008 Adam Williams

Cinelerra is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License,
and you are welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under
certain conditions. There is absolutely no warranty for Cinelerra.
[mpeg2video @ 0xeafd00]slice mismatch
[mpeg2video @ 0xeafd00]mb incr damaged
[mpeg2video @ 0xeafd00]mb incr damaged
[mpeg2video @ 0xeafd00]invalid cbp at 14 37
[mpeg2video @ 0xeafd00]slice mismatch
[mpeg2video @ 0xeafd00]ac-tex damaged at 25 40
[mpeg2video @ 0xeafd00]ac-tex damaged at 6 41
[mpeg2video @ 0xeafd00]ac-tex damaged at 7 42

So much for that experiment! I'm going back to the CV version for now.
the mule

ffmpeg pipe to mpeg2enc

Occasionally, I'll need to send a video stream into mpeg2enc. Mpeg2enc doesn't take an input file; it only accepts a yuv4mpeg stream. In order to send a yuv4mpeg stream to mpeg2enc, I do this using ffmpeg and the -f yuv4mpegpipe command line switch. Also, for best quality, I will send the stream using the FFMPEG variant of the Huffyuv lossless compression algorithm. ffyhuff is an enhanced version of Huffyuv that compresses better than Huffyuv.

Update 2009/05/19As per Dan Dennedy's comment below, ffmpeg's yuv4mpegpipe command will ignore the -vcodec option and pipe the video stream to mpeg2enc using an uncompressed C420jpeg stream, which is an uncompressed YUV format. Certainly good enough for the likes of me!
*** end update ***

Here is a sample command to reencode a 720P video stream as a yuv4mpeg pipe to mpeg2enc:
ffmpeg -threads 4 -i INPUT.M2V -f yuv4mpegpipe - ¦ mpeg2enc --verbose 0 --multi-thread 4 --aspect 3 --format 3 --frame-rate 4 --video-bitrate 18300 --nonvideo-bitrate 384 --interlace-mode 0 --force-b-b-p --video-buffer 448 --video-norm n --keep-hf --no-constraints --sequence-header-every-gop --min-gop-size 6 --max-gop-size 6 -o OUTPUT.M2V

Note that I am taking advantage of the eight processors in my dual quad core using the multithread switches in the commands to both ffmpeg and mpeg2enc. Note that the eight threads have been split evenly, four to each encoder, to avoid CPU context switching. (Thanks again, Dan!)

Here's another trick: to see the header information of a YUV4MPEG stream, pipe the FFmpeg conversion stream to head -1 like so:
ffmpeg -i intermediate.mov -vcodec mpeg2video -f yuv4mpegpipe - | head -1
ffmpeg -i intermediate.mov -pix_fmt yuv420p -f yuv4mpegpipe - | head -1

The FFmpeg output should show you some very important information, bolded below:
the output format: YUV4MPEG2 stream
height and width: 1280x720
framerate: 30001:1001 (or 29.97fps)
colorspace: C420JPEG
not sure what IP: 1 or XYSCSS is

Duration: 01:19:46.74, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 110301 kb/s
Stream #0.0(eng): Video: mjpeg, yuvj420p, 1280x720 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 108762 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn, 30k tbc
Stream #0.1(eng): Audio: pcm_s16be, 48000 Hz, 2 channels, s16, 1536 kb/s
Output #0, yuv4mpegpipe, to 'pipe:':
Metadata:
encoder : Lavf52.64.2
Stream #0.0(eng): Video: mpeg2video, yuv420p, 1280x720 [PAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], q=2-31, 200 kb/s, 90k tbn, 29.97 tbc
Stream mapping:
Stream #0.0 -> #0.0
Press [q] to stop encoding
YUV4MPEG2 W1280 H720 F30000:1001 Ip A1:1 C420jpeg XYSCSS=420JPEG
Sweet, eh?

As a final note, I am a bit confused on the differences between FFMPEG compression algorithms: ffyhuff and ffv1. If someone has pointers to the documentation on these, I'd be interested in finding out more. A google search just added to my confusion.

the mule

References
mpeg2enc man page
mpeg2enc manual
ffmpeg vs mpeg2enc
Huffyuv
FFV1
FFMPEG How To

related posts
http://crazedmuleproductions.blogspot.com/2010/01/batch-render-redux.html
/2010/01/compile-times-performance-improved.html
FFMPEG HowTo

VMware virtual appliance for video editing

Over the weekend, I created a VMware Partner Account and got my Fedora 10, x86-64 virtual machine approved to be listed on VMware's Virtual Appliance listings:
http://www.vmware.com/appliances/directory/148183

If you want to try out Cinelerra and you use 64-bit VMware Player, Workstation or Server, this is an easy way to get started. I'd appreciate someone giving it a shot and letting me know how it works.

the mule

presentation at TCF, 4/25/09

Got my presentation worked out for the Trenton Computer Festival (http://www.tcf-nj.org/web/) tomorrow. It looks ugly, but the content of the presentation should outweigh the aesthetic of the slides:

Video Production Using Open Source Tools

View more presentations from Crazed Mule.

http://www.slideshare.net/crazedmule/video-production-using-open-source-tools

Update 2009/5/15
Here are a few pics from the talk.

The Mule in front of a LARGE display (only got to 1024x768 resolution, though).


A rapt audience.


The Mule making an important point.


Definitely had some fun, with a little help from my buddy Ironlung on the Mark II 5D.
*** end update ***

The Mule

animated route in Cinelerra

This was fun. I spent the day perfecting a way to automate a line on a map in Cinelerra. You might think that was a somewhat pedantic exercise, but I think the image I used was very pretty and that the moving line, ala Raiders of the Lost Ark, came out great. What would make it even better would be to use an ancient map of some sort.

Here it is:

a line on a map from crazed mule on Vimeo.

Update 2009/04/07
For some reason, this video is not playing as embedded on this page. Please visit my crazed mule profile on Vimeo to view.

Thanks!
*** end update ***

Using Gimp to Spice Things Up
I created the graphics in Gimp:
-the line representing the route and its shadow
-the circle representing the route's start
-the star representing the route's end

The circle and the star were created using Gfig, the Gimp add-on utility that let's you create geometric shapes. Also note that the shadow of the line matches the position of the light source in the photo of the globe.

Note that the circle and the star are not flat, 2D creations, but they look like stickers pasted on the side of the globe. I acheived that effect by using Gimp's Perspective and Shear tools. Here's a resource that discusses Perspective in Gimp:
http://gimp-university.blogspot.com/2008/03/perspective-and-layers.html

I created four images to import in Cinelerra:
1) globe with no Gimp object overlays
2) globe with just the circle as start of route
3) globe with the circle and the line
4) globe with the circle, line and star representing the full trip

Assembling the Images in Cinelerra
The tracks in Cinelerra looked like this:
Top Video Track
image 1 (plain globe) at beginning of timeline and image 4 (all objects) at end of timeline
Bottom Video Track
image 2 (globe and circle) and image 3 (globe, circle and line)


Gradient Created for Line's Movement
The key to the movement of the route was a screen wipe that travelled from the upper left corner of the screen to the lower right, mimicking the direction of the line's travel. Since Cinelerra does not have a built in wipe that moves in this direction, I had to create my own gradient using Gimp and plop it in /usr/local/lib/cinelerra/shapewipe. I then used that gradient in the Shape Wipe video transition tool:


In the timeline picture above, you can see the Shape Wipe transition effect that I used between the image of the map with the circle and the image of the map with the circle and the line.

Here are some resources on wipes and making your own wipe in Cinelerra:
http://cvs.cinelerra.org/transitions.php
http://www.mail-archive.com/cinelerra@skolelinux.no/msg05664.html
http://akiradproject.net/your_own_transition
http://cvs.cinelerra.org/images/

I love the way this turned out, because it looks a s*1tload better than most of the other animated routes I've seen out there. In fact, it blows away the lame route create with Photoshop and After Effects that I read about in VideoMaker magazine this month.
http://www.videomaker.com/article/14206/

enjoy,
the mule

motion stabilization tutorial

After reading Jacob's post today:
http://jakedth.tumblr.com/post/85794790/cinelerra-cv-motion-tracking-tutorial

I realized I never mastered a repeatable method to stabilize shakey video using Cinelerra's motion tracking tool. The Motion effect is very powerful, but also difficult to understand. At least for me. In addition, the manual isn't much help because it is couched in confusing terminology.

The motion tracker can do a lot of different things. However in this post, I am going to keep it simple and only describe how to stabilize shakey video. I made it easy for myself and chose a sample piece of video that bounces around pretty badly:


This movement left and right and up and down is called Translation. Or to a programmer, movement on the Cartesian Coordination System. Before we get into further discussion, familiarize yourself with what the manual says about the motion tracker:
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra/cinelerra.html#MOTION

What You Need to Make It Work
Since the manual's description of motion tracking is cryptic, I'm going to try to clarify the muddy waters. In order to stabilize a section of video, you're going to need a few things:
1) a easily identifiable object in your video that will be used to track motion
2) a box that encircles that object. The following is important: this box needs to be wide and tall enough to encompass the range of motion of the shakey video.
3) a video track (master layer) with the range of motion that needs to be stabilized
4) a video track (target layer) that will be stabilized

I would suggest starting small. Just try stabilization with a clip of video that is short (<10seconds) and needs stabilization throughout.

Step 1: Apply the motion effect to the video track you want to stabilize
Like so:


Step 2: Open the Motion tracker effect dialog.
In order to simplify the configuration process for the motion tracker, I've divided the configuration box into the only three sections you'll need to worry about:


Step 3: Enable Draw Vectors (in Section 2 of the graphic above)
You may leave Track Single Frame selected. Also, Frame Number set to 0 means that the motion tracking of your video will start at the beginning of the timeline.

Step 4: Use Translation Block and Search Radius and Block X/Y to fit a box around an easily identifiable object in your video that will be used to track motion (in Section 1 of the graphic above)

In the above picture, you'll notice there are two boxes around the Budweiser sign. The center box around the Budweiser sign is the Translation Block. You'll make the Translation Block fit neatly around the object you're tracking. The outer box is the Translation Search Radius. For the purpose of this tutorial, we'll make the Translation Block always fit within the Translation Search Radius. Below is a graphic depicting these components:


The Translation Search Radius needs to be as large as the range of motion of the video. In other words, the Search Radius needs to be large enough to accommodate all the shaking of your video. If the shaking extends beyond that box, strange things happen, like the motion tracker will start tracking another object in your video. Remember that.

Finally, Block X and Block Y represent the X/Y coordinate location of where you will move your Translation Search Radius.

In sum, you will configure those objects just discussed in the Motion Tracker effect dialog. To review:
1) Encircle the object you want to track with the Translation Block
2) Encompass the entire range of motion of your shakey video inside the Translation Search Radius
3) Use the Block X and Block Y coordinates to move the Translation Search Radius (including the Translation Block) around the screen

It is cumbersome to move the boxes around and X/Y coordinate plane using a round dial. The Translation Block and Search Radius should be drag and drop. The motion tracker interface can definitely be improved upon in this respect.

Step 5: In Section 3 of the Motion config screen, set Action to Track Pixel and set Calculation to Save Coordinates to /tmp
The reason why we do this is that we are going to Track the motion of the video around our selected object (the Translation Block). The coordinates of the movement will be saved in temporary files, which we will later apply to a second track.

You may now either playback the video or render out a test video to see the results of the motion tracking. As the motion effect is very CPU intensive, I would recommend just doing a few seconds of playback or rendering, just to make sure the motion tracker is working properly. I also recommend rendering to a file, as it will be at the same speed as a playback, but will also give you some output that you can replay at will.

Reviewing Vector Paths and Translation Block object
Once you've rendered out a test file, review the vector path to make sure the Motion tracker is always centered on the Translation Block, the object you want to track. I have found that the Motion tracker is easily confused if the object you've chosen to track is a similar color to the background. You'll know it loses track when the arrow on one end of the vector path no longer points to the original object in your translation block.

Also, the Motion tracker will lose track if the Translation Search Radius is not wide enough to capture the entire range of motion of the camera movement. In my Budweiser example, I found that I needed to widen Search Radius to more than half the width of the video so that the Motion tracker would stay on track.

Step 6: In the Motion effect on the original track, deselect Draw Vectors, set Action to Stabilize Pixel and set Calculation to Load Coordinates from /tmp


Step 7: Make a duplicate of your original track
Once you have good motion tracking, you will then be able to apply your saved coordinates to another track or Target Layer. In my Budweiser example, I simply made a duplicate of the track that I generated the coordinates from. One way to make a duplicate of the original track is to:
* in the patch bay of the original track, set both the playback and record to on
* select the entire track (key "a")
* press "c" for copy
* create a new video track (Shift-T)
* in the patch bay of the new track, make sure playback and record are both set to on
* press "v" for paste

This procedure *should* copy the motion effect as well, with the settings from Step 6. If the settings from Step 6 are not in the Motion effect dialog, manually set them.


Step 8: Set the original track to not playback.
The Target Layer (duplicated track) should already be set to playback from the last step.


Step 9: Playback or Render the Video
Again, I suggest to render out the video to a file, as playing back or rendering will take the same amount of time.

Step 10: Analyze your results
You'll find that with motion stabilization, your video will tend to bounce around and you'll see black borders appear along with the motion removal. The easiest way to remove them is to experiment with different zoom levels (Z axis levels) using the Projector (NOT the Camera). For my Budweiser video, I found I needed to zoom in 1.6x. Of course, the side effect is that it may ruin whatever cinematic effect you were trying to achieve. So be advised!

Here were my results from earlier today:
1) The original video:


2) Motion vectors being generated to /tmp:


3) Motion stabilized


4) Video zoomed in to crop after stabilization. Note this crops out most of the interesting content of the video:


Advanced Use
I had a second video that bounced around quite a bit:


This time, I followed my own directions from above, but the resulting video came out jittery and jumpy:


Therefore, I increased the sensitivity of the Motion tracker by increasing Translation Search Steps from 256 to 1024:


This still was not sufficient, as I saw a couple jitters and jumps. I increased Translation Search Steps from 1024 to 8196. Be advised that this took about four times as long to render as having Translation Search Steps set to 1024. But it did remove the jitters and jumps!


The final outcome..sweet!


Enjoy!
The Mule