I have used blender in the past, only to make 3d models for games and export them.
I now have the need to edit together some clips of video, along with dubbing over audio. When I read that blender has this functionality, I was rather excited to try it.
I have hit a dead end rather early on though.
I wanted to have two windows. One to drag the clips of video and audio into, and another to view the playback of the current video.
To view the playback I changed the windows editor type to “video sequence editor”. I then hit the button icon that says (when hovered over) “type of sequencer view: Image preview”. This changed that editor window to show a still image of the first frame of the video. So I thought I was off to the races.
I then went to a timeline editor window and hit play button (play animation). In my seqeuncer window with the clip in it, the green marer scrolls across the video sample, yet the window with the video display in it does not play. The image is static.
So that is where I am at.
The video file format is mp4 taken from an android device screen capture.
Thanks for any advice or direction you can give me!
Actually there is a faster opportunity to create a proper video cutting setup:
Open the dropdown list in the top menu bar and select “Video Editing”
Finished.
I did a quick test with a full HD video (also mp4) - blender played it fluently without any delay(s).
May I ask you how much computer power you have (ram, graphic, CPU)? Maybe your PC couldn’t handle the playback fluently…
First, that was a great tip! Much simpler this way.
I have noticed something. My imported clip is stretched VERY long in the editor. And the green line indicating play back is only looping over the first like 0.5% of the clip length. But that does not make sense because the slip is only 3 min long. At the rate the green indicator is moving at, it would insinuate that the imported 3 min clip is SUBSTANTIALLY longer than 3 min.
So it seems like the time values and framerates are massively out of sync!
Note: because of the delay of my post showing up, I can not simply edit it to an info , I have to make a new post.
Anyways. I notice when I drag my clip in, in the “edit strip” dialog on the right, it says “length: 300000”. But my clip is only 3 min, not 208 minutes long…
When I got into the timeline editor and extend the start and end frames from 1-250 to 1-50000, I am then able to freely drag the green marker. I move it just slightly to the right, and the video plays (at the proper framerate), and when 3 min is up the playback ends, but it keeps playing (moving) because the blue strip that I thought represented my imported clip is 208 minutes long, when the clip is only 3 minutes.
For example, download a small video from the internet, and try playing that back on Blender. repeating the same steps.
Just remember there are many factors that could affect the playback of a video besides the container (normally identified by the file extension): that means, a mp4 video can play nicely on VLC player, but some other mp4 video can present problems in the same player.
I remember once to have seen a video that remained with the image frozen while playing, but with normal audio…
Since you are new to the forum, your first 10 posts will be checked by a moderator, which takes approx. 1 day. Furthermore to prevent bot spamming the first posts should not contain links, otherwise they may not be published.
I suggest you reading Point 5 of the FAQ for detailed information.
To your original problem: with how many FPS you captured the clip? You need to ensure that you select the corresponding frame rate in blender (go to default layout, then have a look on the render tab on the right side of the screen)
mp4 is just a container you need to make sure you have the correct codec either embedded in the application you are using or on your system depending on the app. It might be better to transcode the clip into a more video editing friendly format depending on where it came from and what your system is i.e. win/mac/linux etc. (this is not blender specific most NLE’s work better with a video codec better suited for editing) What did device you record the mp4 video on / can you post a clip in dropbox or whatever that doesn’t work and I’ll have a look.
check to see if the framer rate of the video is the same as the frame rate set in blender. I believe they have to be the same, because a 60 fps video running at 30 fps should, in thoery, take twice as long to run.
