Can I insert a Frame Counter on videos?

[RichBAND1T]

Hi, I am thinking about purchasing Sony Movie Studio Platinum Suite 12 and was wondering if anyone knew if it allows for a frame counter to be inserted on top of a video. I do 3d animation and would like to insert a frame counter on top of my videos so that people that critique it can point to an exact frame.

I also wanted to make sure it supported .mov files and if its good and compressing to .mp4 without losing a ton of quality. I render out animations in Maya that are about 1gb or bigger, and Id like to compress them down to under 100mb losing as little quality as possible. Would this be the right program?

I really dont know much about video editing software yet, so please forgive my ignorance on the matter... Thanks for any help you can give!

[VernonRobinson]

The only program that I have personally seen that does this type of work is DVDate. However, it seems to work only with DV. Here is a link for you to look at it further.

http://paul.glagla.free.fr/dvdate_en_installer.htm

From the DVDate website:

Datecode indicates the date and time when the video was captured by a DV camcorder, as written by the camcorder in each frame. It is displayed by default with format yyyy/mm/dd hh:mm:ss. This format may be changed in the Settings of DVdate (F10), e.g. to display the day of week: Sunday 29/06/2003 16:50:13. When the datecode is not available in a DV file, it displays N/A (Not Available). It happens mostly for DV files which have been recompressed. It displays a sign - for all non DV AVI files (coming from analog camcorders).

Timecode indicates the position of the video clip in the DV tape when the DV camcorder recorded it. It is displayed in format hh:mm:ss:ff (hours:minutes:seconds:frames). This data is hidden in each frame - as well as datecode - and remains in it as long as the video is not recompressed. If the timecode is not available in a DV file, then DVdate displays N/A.

[Peru]

Before I moved from Premiere Elements to Premiere Pro (which has a counter), I filmed a timer and cropped it to fit on an upper track.

[Steve Grisetti]

Sony Movie Studio 12 does include a plug-in for adding timecode. It's in the Video FX.

It will also work with a number of formats. Although an MOV file is only an "envelope" for your video, and I'd have to know more about the codec, resolution, frame rate, etc., to know if your particular MOV will work in the program.

Likewise, it will probably work with your MP4. (Though, in the same way, there are many flavors of MP4.) It's not the ideal format to work with in the program, but it can do it.

So it might be best to download the free trial and give it a test drive before you buy it. Make sure that it works at an acceptable level with your video on your computer. Better to know in advance than to drop $100 on it and find out later.

[RichBAND1T]

Thanks for all the quick replies everybody!

Peru that's a pretty clever work around, I never thought about actually filming a timer to place on it.

Great info Steve, I appreciate it. I am downloading the trial now. Ill have to check virtualdub and see what codec it saves the avi file out as. Ive been saving it out of virtualdub as an .avi and then using quicktime to export it to a h.264 .mov or mp4. I lose a good amount of quality in the compression though.

Ill check the Video FX and look for the timecode plug-in. Thanks again!

[Steve Grisetti]

Converting VirtualDub's AVI to an MP4 is counterproductive, if you plan to edit your video in Movie Studio, Rich.

As we show you in our books, VirtualDub's AVIs are DV-AVIs, the ideal format for editing on virtually any PC-based video editor.

[RichBAND1T]

Thanks Steve, yeah with Movie Studio Ill just bring Virtual Dubs avi right into it. I used the trial version today and it looks like Movie Studio can do everything I need it too. I found the time code plug in and applied it to a video. It has so many options for saving out video formats, so Im sold on Movie Studio!

I had two more quick questions that are pretty minor and not a huge deal...

The time code for absolute frames has 3 extra 0's (24.000), do you know if there's a way to get rid of that padding so that its just the frame number (24 or 24.0). Not at all a big problem or deal breaker, I was just wondering it was possible?

I didnt see flash video files in the list, is it possible to save a video out as an flv?

Thanks for the help!

[Dave McElderry]

Here's a little freebie utility that worked for me the one time that I had a need for it. You might want to check it out.

http://timecode-frame-generator.softwar ... r.com/2.0/

If you download this use the green and white download link directly under Home › Audio & Multimedia › Video Tools at the upper left.

[RichBAND1T]

Thanks Dave! Thats a pretty cool and easy utility. I think Im still going to get Movie Studio, but I may use this in the meantime.