How to use AVIDEMUX

The open source video editing

Software For complete beginners

Kayo de Bellis

 

  

How to use

Kayo de Bellis Realitas Ltd

 

  

How to use Avidemux ® Published by Realitas Ltd London – United Kingdom www.realitas.co.uk Copyright © 2016 by Realitas Ltd, London  All  rights  reserved. No part of  this publication may be  reproduced, distributed, or  transmitted  in any  form or by any means,  including  photocopying,  recording,  or  other  electronic  or  mechanical  methods,  without  the  prior  written permission of the publisher, except  in the case of brief quotations embodied  in critical reviews and certain other non‐commercial uses permitted by  copyright  law.  For permission  requests, write  to  the publisher, addressed  “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address on Realitas website www.realitas.co.uk or to enquiries@realitas.co.uk.  Realitas Ltd www.realitas.co.uk  Trademarks: Realitas  limit  of  liability/disclaimer  of warranty:  the  publisher  and  the  author make  no  representations  or warranties with  respect  to  the accuracy or completeness of  the contents of  this work and specifically disclaim all warranties,  including without  limitation warranties of  fitness  for a particular purpose. No warranty may  be  created  or  extended  by  sales  or  promotional materials.  The  advice  and  strategies contained herein may not be suitable for every situation. This work is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional services. If professional assistance  is required,  the services of a competent professional person should be sought. Neither  the publisher nor the author shall be  liable for damages arising here from. the fact that an organization or website is referred to in this work as a citation and/or a potential source of further information does not mean  that  the  author  or  the  publisher  endorses  the  information  the  organization  or  website may provide  or  recommendations  it may make.  Further,  readers  should  be  aware  that  internet websites listed in this work may have changed or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read.   ISBN: 978‐0‐9935655‐0‐2   Printed in the United Kingdom 

 

  

I would like to dedicate this book to my lovely wife Rita — it’s a cliché, but I really couldn’t have done it without you.

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Contents About the Author ................................................................................................................................ 8

Preface ................................................................................................................................................ 9

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 9

Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................. 9

Chapter 1 VIDEO EDITING SOFTWARE ............................................................................................... 10

Avidemux .......................................................................................................................................... 10

Installation ........................................................................................................................................ 10

User Interface ................................................................................................................................... 16

Main Window – QT Version .......................................................................................................... 16

Main Toolbar ................................................................................................................................. 17

Navigation Bar ............................................................................................................................... 18

Audio/ Video Side Bar ................................................................................................................... 19

Avidemux Menu ................................................................................................................................ 20

System Menu (Windows platform) ................................................................................................... 21

System Menu ................................................................................................................................ 21

Avidemux Auto Menus ...................................................................................................................... 21

Recent Menu ..................................................................................................................................... 25

Zoom Menu ....................................................................................................................................... 27

Go Menu ........................................................................................................................................... 29

Help Menu ........................................................................................................................................ 30

Chapter 2 Quickstart .......................................................................................................................... 35

Multimedia files Characteristics Basic Terms ................................................................................... 35

Container Format .............................................................................................................................. 35

Video format ..................................................................................................................................... 36

Encoder ............................................................................................................................................. 36

Video Output encoders ..................................................................................................................... 37

Audio Output encoders ..................................................................................................................... 37

Decoder ............................................................................................................................................. 38

Avidemux support Input file formats ................................................................................................ 38

Avidemux supported output file formats ......................................................................................... 39

Inbuilt video decoders in AVIDEMUX ................................................................................................ 41

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Audio encoders ................................................................................................................................. 42

Inbuilt audio decoders in AVIDEMUX ............................................................................................... 43

Multi-audio files or Multi soundtracks ............................................................................................. 43

AVI ................................................................................................................................................. 44

MPEG files ..................................................................................................................................... 46

Opening Files ..................................................................................................................................... 46

Cutting Video Files ............................................................................................................................ 48

Audio/video sync .......................................................................................................................... 48

Markers ............................................................................................................................................. 50

Saving a video section ....................................................................................................................... 53

Cutting a video section ..................................................................................................................... 54

Advanced cutting .............................................................................................................................. 55

Auto-split ....................................................................................................................................... 55

External audio source ....................................................................................................................... 56

Intra frames and Smart Copy ............................................................................................................ 57

Copy/paste ........................................................................................................................................ 60

Encoding ............................................................................................................................................ 60

The copy mode .................................................................................................................................. 61

Encoding mode ................................................................................................................................. 62

Screenshot an individual frame as jpg or bmp ................................................................................. 62

Chapter 3 Filtering ............................................................................................................................. 64

Video filters ....................................................................................................................................... 64

Meta filters ........................................................................................................................................ 66

Chapter 4 - Transform a video .............................................................................................................. 67

Add Borders to a video ..................................................................................................................... 67

Add a Logo to a video file .................................................................................................................. 76

Transparency for the logo ................................................................................................................. 79

Add Blacken Boarders around the video file .................................................................................... 81

Speeds up or Slow down a video (Used for Converting between Pal and NTSC formats) ............... 85

How to Crop Videos .......................................................................................................................... 92

How can we fade a video “In” and “Out.” ........................................................................................ 98

How to Remove colour from a video (the Gray Scale Filter) .......................................................... 104

How to Mirror a video - Horizontal flip or the Mirror Filter ........................................................... 110

How to Synchronize a video (Converting between Pal and NTSC formats) .................................... 115

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How to Rotate a video .................................................................................................................... 120

How to Change the Aspect Ratio of a Video - SWS Resize .............................................................. 124

1) Lanzcos3 .................................................................................................................................. 126

2) Bilinear .................................................................................................................................... 126

3) Bi-cubic .................................................................................................................................... 127

How to vertically flip a video (Change the video upside and down) - Vertical Flip ........................ 131

Chapter 5 - De-Interlacing a video with the Meta group filters ......................................................... 136

Decomb Decimate method ............................................................................................................. 137

Choosing the Decomb Decimate Modes: ....................................................................................... 140

Dgbob Method ................................................................................................................................ 145

Donald Graft Bob Filter ................................................................................................................... 145

Horizontal Stack Fields methodology ............................................................................................. 153

Kernel Deint Method ...................................................................................................................... 157

The Kernel Deint configuration filter elements .............................................................................. 159

Libavdec Deinterlacers .................................................................................................................... 165

Merge Fields filter ........................................................................................................................... 171

Separate Fields method .................................................................................................................. 175

Stack Fields method ........................................................................................................................ 179

Un-stack Fields method .................................................................................................................. 183

Yadif method ................................................................................................................................... 187

Configuration .................................................................................................................................. 189

Mode: .................................................................................................................................. 189

The "Order" option: ............................................................................................................ 190

Chapter 6 - How to edit and change the Colours of a Video .............................................................. 193

How to Utilize the YUV management method to change the colour of a video - Avisynth colour

filter ................................................................................................................................................. 193

How to fix the Chroma Shift of a video or as some call "colour Ghosting. ..................................... 198

How to Adjust the Contrast, Brightness and colours of a Video .................................................... 204

How to Remove the Colour of a video using a Grey Scale filter ..................................................... 208

Adjust the Contrast, Brightness, saturation and gamma of a video using the Mplayer eq2 filter . 212

How to Adjust just the Saturation of a video using the Mplayer Hue filter ................................... 216

How to Remove Y, U or V plane with the Remove Plane filter ....................................................... 221

How to Swap the U and V by using the Swap UV filters ................................................................. 226

Chapter 7 - Removing the Noise and making the video image smoother .......................................... 230

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How to Smooth and cut the noise of a video using the Flux Smooth filter .................................... 230

Using the Gaussian convolution filter to blur a litter bit the video file quality image.................... 235

Large Median (5x5) filter ................................................................................................................. 238

Median convolution filter ............................................................................................................... 242

How to reduce the image of a video making it almost still using the Mplayer De-noise 3 D filter 245

Mplayer De-noise 3D HQ filter ........................................................................................................ 248

Chapter 8 - Sharpness a video quality image and removing a logo from a video image .................... 251

How to sharpen a video by using “Asharp” filter ............................................................................ 251

How to Remove a Logo from a TV station on a video by using the Mplayer delogo ...................... 255

How to sharpen the edge of the video image by using the Msharpen filter .................................. 259

Sharpen convolution filter .............................................................................................................. 262

Chapter 9 - How to Add Subtitles to a video ...................................................................................... 266

How to add Subtitles by using the SSA subtitle filter ..................................................................... 266

Subtitles filters for Avidemux version 2.5.6 .................................................................................... 269

Adding subtitles to a video by using Vobsub filter ......................................................................... 270

Using DVB sub filter for subtitles .................................................................................................... 273

Subtitler (SRT) ................................................................................................................................. 276

OpenGL ........................................................................................................................................... 280

Miscellaneous ................................................................................................................................. 281

Chapter 10 - Audio Filters ................................................................................................................... 282

Copy mode ...................................................................................................................................... 282

Process mode .................................................................................................................................. 282

Changing Frame Rate of a video - PAL to Film and Film to PAL ...................................................... 283

Chapter 11 - Removing, converting or extracting Audio from a Video .............................................. 286

Extracting and saving the audio from a video file........................................................................... 286

Delete audio from a video file ........................................................................................................ 287

Extracting and converting the audio from FLV and mp4 video to MP3 audio file .......................... 289

Chapter 12 - Convert DVD video to AVI .............................................................................................. 291

Video Size and Aspect ratio before conversion .............................................................................. 293

Chapter 13 - Convert AVI video to DVD .............................................................................................. 295

Preparation before we convert it ................................................................................................... 296

Chapter 14 - How to join several Video files into one video file ........................................................ 300

Appendix ............................................................................................................................................. 305

Shortcuts in AVIDEMUX .................................................................................................................. 305

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About the Author

Kayo de Bellis is an IT System Administrator at a Training and Development Company based in the

United Kingdom. He has more than 20 years of experience designing, deploying and administering IT

infrastructure in a wide range of organizations around the World and in São Paulo, New York,

London and Paris.

Kayo has been involved in giving IT support and consulting to Trading Companies, Financial

Institutions and institutions linked to the stock market. With a degree in Business administration and

Foreign Trade and a BTEC in Computer Science, fluent in English, Portuguese and French he has

developed an IT view in a multi-National environment. He also has been involved with various

extracurricular activities such as writing documentation for IT training courses and Guides in IT and

other fields like popular Science.

Kayo also has a Military formation background where he also developed some IT skills and a passion

for Cryptography and electrical engineering.

Kayo is very passionate about his community. He’s been contributing with some charity institutions

and the Red Cross to give support for homeless in Brazil and United Kingdom distributing food and

resources to these communities on the street.

He lives in London with his wife and daughter.

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Preface

Introduction

This book is intended for anyone who is interest in using an easy open source video editing software

in a windows environment and do not have any previous knowledge in video editing and media.

Presented in a simple visual layout “How to use Avidemux” is a book where the reader will be guided

with practical video editing samples making something that could be a complex and a pain process

just a matter of “following the steps”.

Instead of making a very technical and theoretical video editing work the book was divided

according to the AVIDEMUX interface layout we can find when we use the software in a windows

system environment.

If the user follows the Avidemux menus and options the user will be following the book contents.

This makes this book a quick and easy guide for those who wants to understand and work with a free

open source media software without having to spend a lot of money and resources in order to

achieve very good and advance results in video editing.

I hope you enjoy this piece of work and that it helps anyone who wants to develop skills towards

video editing.

Acknowledgements

There are no coincidences. Even something as simple as a small book, a writing work that was not

considered important enough to be created, takes a great amount of effort to bring it forward to

reality. A great proportion of this effort comes from people who do not share in the opportunity to

have their names on the cover. The author owes a great debt of gratitude to these people, and

without their contribution this work would not be possible to be concluded.

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Add a Logo to a video file

This filter puts a log on top of the video, with alpha blending.

In order to do this, we need first to add the Filter in the filter options.

First we click on the video and filters in the main menu.

Figure 4.11 – Add a Logo to a Video

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Then we choose the filter Meta filter group in order to add the new filter.

Figure 4.12 – Add a Logo to a Video

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Now we click on the button to configure the filter and add it to the video.

We have then a Logo Setup window opened where we can set up the logo position on the video.

Figure 4.13 – Add a Logo to a Video

The logo file format can be only a JPG file. And the X and Y position will determine where the logo

will be located on the video file.

Warning:

If we use another image file format instead of JPG, we will have a scrambled error image in the file.

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Transparency for the logo

The Logo does not support alpha transparency. The Alpha value is an overall transparency control

where 255 is fully opaque, 0 is completely invisible, and the values in between cause the bitmap to

be partially transparent. The blending uses linear interpolation.

We then choose the location where the logo will be displayed on the video file.

Figure 4.14 – Add a Logo to a Video

Note that as much we decrease the value from 255 to 0 in the “Alpha” option in the logo window we

increase the transparency of the logo.

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Figure 4.15 – Add a Logo to a Video

Warning:

We need to be careful with the size of the JPG image file because if it is too big it will fill up most of

the video file displayed area.

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Appendix

Shortcuts in AVIDEMUX

Unfortunately, AVIDEMUX does not have the option where we can customize shortcuts.

We have preset shortcuts in the software as we can see bellow:

Ctrl + O = Open

Ctrl + S = Save

Ctrl + U = Queue

Ctrl + M = Save image as BMP

Ctrl + E = Save image as JPGE

Ctrl + W = Close

Ctrl + Q = Quit

Ctrl + Z = Undo

Ctrl + X = Cut

Ctrl + V= Paste

Ctrl + C = Copy

Del = Delete

Ctrl + Alt + F = Filters

Ctrl + T = Go to time

Play / Stop = Space

Previous Frame = Left

Next Frame = Right

Previous Intra-frame = down

Next Intra-frame = Up

First Frame = Home

Last Frame = end

Go to Marker A = PgUp

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Go to Marker B = PgDown

External links

Tools - scripting shell

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Index appendix 305 artifacts 126, 127, 141, 157, 162, 187, 235, 238 audio 3, 4, 6, 10, 18, 19, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 48, 54, 56, 57, 58, 61, 62, 64, 282, 283, 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 292 auto-split 55 avi 6, 10, 35, 36, 42, 43, 44, 55, 59, 60, 291, 292, 293, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299 blur 235, 236, 237, 238 boarder 81, 82, 83, 84 brightness 204, 205, 206, 207, 212, 213, 214, 215 calculator 18 chroma 141, 198, 199, 200, 201, 202, 203, 204, 226, 235, 238, 239 clip 147, 159, 162, 163, 165 codec 35, 36, 38, 42, 62, 226, 282, 289, 292, 298 codecs 10, 42, 59, 304 colour 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 193, 194, 195, 196, 197, 198, 199, 208, 209, 210, 211, 273, 279 colours 66, 193, 204, 205, 206, 207, 210 compatible 21, 295 compressed 10, 35, 36, 289 compression 60, 62, 245, 248 configuration 18, 122, 126, 139, 147, 149, 151, 155, 159, 163, 168, 173, 177, 181, 185, 189, 190, 195, 209, 214, 215, 220, 225, 227, 254, 279 configure 21, 69, 78, 83, 87, 94, 100, 106, 112, 117, 122, 126, 127, 128, 133, 139, 147, 155, 158, 168, 188, 194, 201, 205, 213, 217, 222, 232, 236, 241, 244, 247, 250, 253, 257, 260, 264, 268, 271, 275, 278 conversion 62, 292, 293, 294, 297 convert 10, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299 converted 189, 292 copy

308

38, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 64, 66, 282, 289, 291, 292, 305 create 13, 42, 55, 62, 165, 170, 173, 174, 177, 178, 181, 182, 185, 186, 191, 197, 203, 207, 211, 215, 220, 225, 266, 269, 282, 291, 292, 295 crooked 120 crop 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 cut 56, 59, 61, 95, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 305 decoder 38 decoders 32, 38, 41, 43 deinterlacers 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170 delete 54, 286, 287, 288, 305 delogo 251, 255, 256, 257, 258 display 18, 29, 273, 281 download 10, 266, 269 dvd 24, 46, 187, 230, 270, 273, 282, 291, 292, 293, 295, 296, 297, 298, 299 edit 48, 54, 55, 56, 66, 193 editing 9, 10, 35, 56, 136 encoding 18, 35, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 189, 230 enlarging 126, 127 extract 66, 270, 286 fade 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103 fades 98 files 25, 35, 38, 39, 40, 43, 46, 48, 61, 62, 193, 266, 270, 291, 292, 300, 301, 302, 303, 304 flips 110 format 10, 18, 21, 22, 35, 36, 42, 44, 46, 59, 60, 61, 62, 66, 78, 266, 270, 276, 282, 289, 290, 291, 293, 298, 299, 304 frame 19, 29, 52, 53, 59, 60, 62, 63, 66, 87, 89, 90, 118, 136, 141, 145, 147, 159, 171, 175, 187, 230, 281, 283, 284, 285, 296, 305 frames

309

29, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, 60, 73, 115, 117, 122, 136, 137, 141, 147, 150, 187, 189, 230, 266 gamma 193, 212, 213, 214, 215 green 95 grey 104, 106, 108, 109, 196, 208, 209, 210, 211 high-resolution 251 horizontal 110, 112, 153, 154, 155, 156, 163 install 10, 14, 38, 269 installation 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 invert 134, 137 jpg 62, 63, 78, 80 key-frames 62 keyframes 59 logo 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 251, 255, 256, 257, 258 making 9, 59, 230, 245, 246, 247, 248 marker 51, 52, 53, 59, 305, 306 mask 95, 258 methods 124, 126, 136, 139, 147, 149, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188, 190, 191, 192 mirror 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 182 mode 18, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 64, 66, 139, 147, 149, 150, 151, 157, 189, 190, 282, 292 modes 61, 137, 140, 189, 190 motion 151, 157, 159, 189, 230 multi-audio 43 noise 66, 81, 230, 231, 232, 233, 234, 235, 238, 239, 245, 248, 252, 259 ntsc 63, 85, 115, 296, 297 old-versions 269 opening 46, 47, 65

310

overwrite 74 pixel 230, 235, 262 play 29, 89, 266, 305 playback 18, 19, 187, 189 player 42, 266, 270 quick 9, 13, 22 ratio 23, 36, 124, 125, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 174, 293, 294, 297 remove 54, 66, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 141, 208, 209, 210, 211, 221, 222, 223, 224, 225, 230, 235, 242, 251, 255, 256, 257, 258 removes 81, 137, 208, 210, 221, 255 removing 230, 251, 286 resize 124, 126, 127, 128, 130, 293, 297, 302 rotate 120, 121, 122, 123 rotates 120 saturation 212, 213, 214, 215, 216, 217, 218, 219, 220 scale 104, 106, 108, 208, 209, 210, 211, 268 screenshot 62 sharpening 159, 230, 252 sharper 66, 127, 251 sharpness 235, 251 size 18, 21, 36, 55, 62, 69, 70, 71, 80, 83, 94, 95, 97, 126, 189, 273, 293, 294, 302, 303 slow 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 151 slower 62 small 9, 292 smaller 62 smoother 230

311

smoothing 230, 235, 245, 248 snapshot 63 sound 42, 60, 151, 282, 292, 298 sounds 283 soundtracks 43, 286 space 59, 305 speed 62, 87, 88, 117, 122, 230 speeds 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91 split 175 splits 147 subtitle 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 273, 276, 277, 279 subtitler 266, 269, 276, 277, 278, 279, 280 subtitles 66, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270, 271, 272, 273, 274, 275, 276 subtitling 273 sync 48, 54, 56 synchronisation 282, 283 synchronization 115 synchronize 56, 115, 116, 117, 118, 119 text 276 timing 56, 102 toolbar 17, 20, 46 toolbars 27 transform 66, 67, 293 transmission 273 transparency 79 updates

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15 users 10, 31, 187 version 15, 16, 34, 151, 187, 230, 248, 251, 266, 269 versions 10, 266, 269 vob whole 117, 219, 270, 291, 292 workaround 56 wrong 130, 190 xvid 38, 226 youtube 10 zoom 27, 28