Leo:Blender

Blender is a great tool for video sequencing among other things.

This is a wiki of my notes.

Video tutorials

• Blender Video Editing by Mikeycal

My notes

Initial Setup

Properties Section

• Start Blender
• Select View layout to Video Editing
• If you see graph Editor, replace it with Properties window (with "drop-up button")

Properties

Dimensions

• Change the preset to your format, e.g. HDTV 720
• Check the Resolution
• Check the Frame rate. E..g. 30fps for youtube (should match the source video).

Output

• Check the location of the output file
• Set File format, e.g. MPEG or Xvid
• Select RGB (for color)

Encoding

• Set preset, e.g. H264 or Xvid
• Set Format, e.g. MPEG4 or Xvid
• Bitrate: 6000 is ok
• GOP - should be half of the frame rate for Youtube
• Select Audio Codec (e.g. AAC or MP3)

Timeline Section

Playback menu:

• + Audio Scrubbing
• + AV Sync
• + Frame dropping

Save as defaults

• Menu -> File -> Save Startup File

System settings

Open: Menu -> File -> User Preferences -> System

• Sequencer / Clip Editor:
  • Prefetch frames: 500 (later versions may not have this setting any more)
  • Memory Cache limit - set to reasonable memory size in gigs: e.g. 10G out of 16G total RAM

Sequencer

• Right click selects a stream
• Home key zooms to the whole (project) view
• S - sets start frame. E - sets end frame

Preview

Set the preview interval. does not change the project start and end time points:

• Sequencer-menu -> Frame -> Preview (or press "P")

Selecting strips

• Box select: Press B, then draw a rectangle over the target strips
  • Shift B - selects and zooms to the selection

• Grab: G - grabs the selection and can move to different channel or time point
  • G, X moves only in X azes. Y restricts to Y axes.
  • Shift while moving strips slows down the movement - better precision.

Add media

• Add media: Sequencer Menu -> Add -> Movie...
  • Make sure the frame rate matches.
  • To match the size for the whole movie, select the strip, then go to Sequencer-Menu -> Strip -> Set Render Size

Cuts

• Soft cut: K (menu-strip-cut). Can move handles left-right to change the cut boundaries.
• Hard cut: Shift+K
• PageUp - PageDown takes you to the previous/next cut

Combining resolutions

• Select the largest resolution strip for the final resolution
• The other strip: in properties check "Image offset" to keep the aspect ratio.

Hiding strips

• press "H" or menu -> Strip -> Mute Strips

Blending

• Top strips will take all screen, unless you select "Blend" type in strip properties, e.g.
  • Alpha over - for images with transparent backgrounds
  • Over Drop - for overlay videos

Fade in/out

• Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Color
• Stretch as long as fade is needed
• Select the color strip, then the video strip
• Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Gamma Cross

Fade with key-frames

- better solution with key frames.

• Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Color - above the video strips to be faded
• Stretch as long as fade is needed
• Set cursor to the beginning of the color strip. Select Opacity to 1 in the properties. Press "i" to insert a key-frame.
• Set cursor to the end of the color strip. Select Opacity to 0 in the properties. Press "i" to insert a key-frame.
• Now you have a fade effect that shows through all the strips, and that can be moved to a different location.

Cross-fading sounds

• Select the audio strips
• Sequencer-menu -> Strip -> Crossfade sounds

Wipe transition

• Select the video strips
• Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Wipe
  • Can select the input in the Wipe stripe properties and blur the lines

Correcting color, hue, etc

• Select strip, then in strip properties go to Modifiers. Make changes.
• Better to add adjustment layer and do the corrections there:
  • Sequencer-menu -> Add -> Effect Strip -> Adjustment Layer

Meta Strips

Make meta strip:

1. Select multiple target strips (with box select)
2. [Ctrl+G] Sequencer-Menu -> Strip -> Make Meta Strip

A Tab button will unwrap the metastrip. A Tab again will wrap it.

Rendering out the video

Pay attention to Render tab and Scene tab in the project Properties View.

• Display: Keep UI
• Set render size
• Set frame range
• Set frame rate
• Set ouput file location
• Set movie format and RGB
• Encoding: Set Codec (and container)
• Set bitrate (6000 or test a different value on a small sample)

• GOP size - set to half of frame rate for youtube
• Audio codec: AAC
• Audio Bitrate (160 or higher)

Scene tab

• Audio, set Rate to 48000

Ready to test:

• Click the Animation button - renders to file
• Go test the result, quality.

For Lossles output to file

• Chose AVI
• H.264
• Check the lossless option
• For Audio select PCM

Use Handbrake to convert the result for smaller file size

Handbrake settings

Settings for Linux:

• File menu -> Preferences
  • Deselect "Use IPod/iTunes friendly .m4v..."

• Source button, select file
• Select output file name and directory
• Check "Web optimized"

Picture tab

• Uncheck Auto Crop (all 0)
• Storage geometry should match the movie resolution
• Anamorfic = off
• Keep Aspect ratio = Checked on
• Filters - all off

Video tab

• Codec = H.264
• Framerate = Same as source
• Framerate = Constant Framerate
• Preset = fast
  • Tune = none
  • Profile = High
  • Level = 4.0
• Constant quality = Checked on
  • Quality = 23 (could be larger number for less quality and file size, 23-20 is ok)

Audio tab

• Codec = AAC (FDK)
• Bitrate = 160
• Mixdown = Stereo
• Samplerate = 48 (or same as source)

Audio list tab

• Delete the line (kept the old settings)
• Add the line (Now will have the new settings)

Save as preset

At the bottom of presets click "Add" button

• Type in the new name for the new preset.