What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4 video frame?

"Paul" wrote

| Rather than being largely ineffective, they were worried
| about some questionable Youtube video content

It seems to be both. They cut back at Facebook because
they didn't see profits:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/p-g-to-...ads-1470760949

They cut back at Youtube because of the concerns
you mention, but then found that not running those
ads didn't seem to affect profits.

From general hearsay I've had the sense that small
companies who ship products often do well with Google
ads, but I don't have any stats.

He who is harry newton said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 13:40:55 +0000 (UTC):

What's a good free Windows video editor that crops out data in the MP4
video frame?

I dropped this project last week because all the tutorials sucked but I
finally picked the task up again today when I found a good Shotcut
tutorial.

Following only that one tutorial, I easily figured out how to do everything
I needed in Shotcut opensource Windows/Linux/Mac/etc. freeware, which turns
out to be a great program, once you get the hang of it - to obscure any
number of disjoint sections of any given video.

If you're interested in using Shotcut freeware on your platform, then read
on - otherwise the information below will not likely be useful to you.

I think one problem learning how to use Shotcut is that everyone customizes
their interface such that it's not the default that a new user sees, and,
that Shotcut has a ton of command items that don't show up explicitly on
the text pulldown menu bars.

Those two problems above show up in spaces in almost all the Shotcut
tutorial videos, most of which seem to be made by Shotcut experts who have
long since forgotten that what's obvious to them isn't obvious to a noob.

So far, this is the *only* video I've found yet that doesn't make the
mistake of assuming you already know how to use the entire Shotcut GUI.
https://youtu.be/sphcVAUWM4Q
Where the video shows how to add text to desired sections at time 430:
https://youtu.be/sphcVAUWM4Q?t=430

But even that video above makes a few mistakes that I tried to rectify
below for other noobs to leverage in my footsteps.
a. I reset the shotcut GUI to the defaults (so we all start the same)
b. I let people know the version that I tested (which can matter)

With those caveats, here's a quick tutorial for using Shotcut freeware on
any platform to obscure sections of the video which might include faces or
street signs or house addresses (or whatever) in certain sections of a
video.

Since the video that I followed used 3 components, I will suggest those
three components, but all you really need is a single short test video.

Here's the tutorial written sufficiently detailed for you to reproduce!

Collect any 3 short test files (2 videos with or without audio & 1 audio):
video1.mkv (the file format is up to you)
video2.mp4 (optional)
audio.mp3 (optional)

Start Shotcut & let people know the tested version (where mine was)...
Help About Shotcut 17.09.04 OK

Reset Shotcut to the default layout for consistency in using this tutorial:
View Restore Default Layout (almost all tutorials omit this step)

You will need a timeline so now add the GUI for the timeline at the bottom:
View Timeline (almost all videos assume this step)

This next step is not intuitive - and most tutorials simply gloss over this
step - but without this simple step, you're doomed.

You must add a "blank" V1 video track to the timeline:
{Leftmost Timeline Hamburger} Add Video Track
(Or just press the "Control + Y" keystroke to add a blank video track.)

Optionally, add another blank V2 video track to the timeline:
{Leftmost Timeline Hamburger} Add Video Track

Optionally add a blank A1 audio track to the timeline:
{Leftmost Timeline Hamburger} Add Audio Track
(Or just press the "Control + U" keystroke to add a blank audio track.)

If desired, resize the windows so all blank timeline tracks are visible:
(Note that Control+Z is the undo keystroke (you'll use this a lot!).)

This next step is critical, and also very often glossed over in tutorials!

Open the desired first video file and drag it into the V1 timeline:
File Open File filename.mp4
Drag it to the V1 time point you want this first video to start playing.

Open the desired second video file and drag it into the V2 timeline:
File Open File filename.mkv
Drag it to the V2 time point you want this second video to start playing.

Open the desired audio track and drag it into the A1 timeline:
File Open File filename.mp3
Drag it to the A1 time point you want this second video to start playing.

Test your newly assembled video by pressing the PLAY button above the
timeline.
(Get used to the video playing features by clicking about.)

Select a section of the V1 track to cut from the video (leaving zero space)
In the timeline, select the desired video track V1
Place the timeline vertical bar at the beginning of what you want to cut
out
Press the "Split at Playhead (S)" icon in the timeline toolbar
Move the timeline vertical bar to the end of the section you want to cut
out
Press the "Split at Playhead (S)" icon in the timeline toolbar

Once the section is selected, you have three main options for "removal":
Pressing the timeline "minus" icon will "ripple delete" leaving no space
Pressing the timeline "scissor" icon will copy to clipboard & "ripple
delete"
Pressing the timeline "caret" icon will "lift" the section, leaving a
space

Now add text to a selected section of the video as shown in this video:
https://youtu.be/sphcVAUWM4Q?t=430

Define the section of the timeline that you want to add the overlay text:
In the timeline, select the desired video track V1
Place the timeline vertical bar at the beginning of what you want to text
Press the "Split at Playhead (S)" icon in the timeline toolbar
Move the timeline vertical bar to the end of the section you want to text
Press the "Split at Playhead (S)" icon in the timeline toolbar
Then click on that portion of the video to "select" it for operating on

Add a black box over the desired redaction area:
View Filters Add a Filter Show Video Filters Text
NOTE: Add a Filter is the plus symbol.
NOTE: Show Video Filters is the TV symbol.
The default text box will be the entire video screen.
Drag the textbox center and/or corners over the area to be redacted
Click the "Background" box to set the background color to black (or
whatever)
Click the "Font" box to set the font color to the same color as the
background

Save the resulting file to any desired video format:
File Export Video Export File (dig around for the button) filename.mp4

This will redact that selected area during the selected section of the
video, where my next hurdle will be to find a no-registration video-upload
web site.

Does anyone know of a no-registration video (i.e., large file) upload site?

He who is newshound said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 22:13:35 +0100:

It's certainly fine with MP4. Here's one I made earlier. MP4 from a
Canon Legria.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPHwPgHuRfo

I thank you Newshound for being one of the only few on this newsgroup who
actually knew the answer to the question of how best to obscure variously
sized sections of a video for posting to the net.

You are correct that Shotcut freeware is fantastic, and, it handles
basically every format out there (and it converts to almost any format - so
Shotcut might even be a good platform-independent open-source replacement
for Super or Handbrake freeware).

After reading all the posts in this thread, I found it amazing how few
people there are on rec.photo.digital who possess this basic video editing
skill, but now anyone can possess this skill on any platform as I wrote up
and posted a text tutorial that closely follows this video tutorial.
https://youtu.be/sphcVAUWM4Q?t=430

The only question I have left now is how to post my video to the net using
a no-registration site that will handle MP4 videos of a decent size.

He who is Neil said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 17:41:24 -0400:

Yet, the knowledge gained at the cost of time & effort, isn't useless.

Education always costs. That doesn't mean that the cost isn't of value
well beyond the investment; the two are not related in that manner.

Hi Neil,

While the Payware Filmora almost certainly would do the job at a learning
cost of "x", it turns out that the Shotcut open-source freeware also does
the job at a learning cost of "x".

The difference is not in the learning cost, but in the leverage that
results.

I wrote up a tutorial and posted it to this thread showing others how to
perform the needed task, where my text tutorial was partially based on this
tutorial. https://youtu.be/sphcVAUWM4Q?t=430

Had I spent the "x" amount of learning time in Payware, the leverage of
that effort to others would have been nearly zero, hence the cost:benefit
ratio atrocious.

However, since I can now show anyone else on any platform how to do the
task at any time, the leverage is tremendously higher - simply because we
have effective Freeware that performs the task as well as the Payware does.

The difference between Filmora Payware and the Shotcut Freeware is that the
Shotcut Freeware has a far greater cost:benefit ratio than the Filmora
Payware can ever have.

He who is Mayayana said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 11:00:52 -0400:

I'd be interested to know of even one free video
editor for Windows that has drawing tools like
line, rectangle, etc, that can be applied on a
per-frame basis, or even to the whole video.
I spent an afternoon exploring at one point and
Avidemux was by far the best option I found.

Hi Mayayana,

I haven't tried what you ask above with Shotcut since I only needed an
assortment of variously sized rectangular blocking boxes on arbitrary
sections of the video, but...

From what I have learned about Shotcut, I think it "should" be pretty easy
to do if you can create the drawing outside of Shotcut in any drawing
editor.

Then all you do is overlay that drawing onto the section of video that you
want to obscure.

Shotcut "says" it can do this, no matter what format the drawing is in
(PNG, BMP, JPG, GIF, etc.).

He who is Mayayana said on Thu, 28 Sep 2017 09:46:20 -0400:

So you want someone else to do all that testing for
you? I've used Avidemux after trying some other things,
including Windows Movie Maker.

Hi Mayayana,

I finally figured out how to blank out any number of specified disjoint
sections of a video using Shotcut freeware which is better than Windows
Movie Maker and AviDemjux and VirtualDub for a ton of reasons (not the
least of which is that the open-source Shotcut runs on all platforms).

So far, this is the *only* video I've found yet that doesn't make the
mistake of assuming you already know how to use the entire Shotcut GUI.
https://youtu.be/sphcVAUWM4Q
Where the video shows how to add text to desired sections at time 430:
https://youtu.be/sphcVAUWM4Q?t=430

Following that video, and a few other videos, I put together a text
tutorial that will help others get up to speed in just about 15 minutes, if
they follow the steps I outlined for them in this thread.

If you test out my tutorial, which was designed so that others didn't have
to go through what I had to go through, let me know how it works out for
you.

He who is J. P. Gilliver (John) said on Fri, 29 Sep 2017 18:56:38 +0100:

or if you knew how to use google.

Obviously you think that you do; however, you'd rather not enlighten the
rest of us, for some reason ...

As a related aside, I found that both Google and DuckDuckGo kept giving me
tutorials for "shoRtcutS" in almost every one of my searches for tutorials
for Shotcut!

Even with "-shortcut" in the search, both erred amazingly high, although
Google search seemed to err less so than did DDG.

harry newton wrote:


After reading all the posts in this thread, I found it amazing how few
people there are on rec.photo.digital who possess this basic video
editing skill

photo != video

rec.photo digital
rec.video.desktop

And that's because you should have asked in rec.video.desktop,
which is where desktop video editing is done.

Unfortunately, the regulars has vacated. Some passed
away. Some went to social media. The guy experimenting
with high-bit-rate and high definition (4K) video, left for
social media. No reason stated. No forwarding address.

Paul

He who is Paul said on Fri, 06 Oct 2017 11:45:59 -0400:

After reading all the posts in this thread, I found it amazing how few
people there are on rec.photo.digital who possess this basic video
editing skill

photo != video

rec.photo digital
rec.video.desktop

Actually, not only was Newshound one of the few people on this
rec.photo.digital newsgroup who were actually knowledgeable, but you,
presumably from the Windows side, were also extremely knowledgeable.

In addition, you *tested* various solutions (e.g., ImageMagick) to
fruition, which takes effort and expertise to accomplish.

I agree with you that expertise on r.p.d for video editing is virtually non
existent, so it's with appreciation that I also acknowledge your expertise
and helpful endeavors.

And that's because you should have asked in rec.video.desktop,
which is where desktop video editing is done.

As for rec.video.desktop, I've never found it to be an "active" group, at
least not in terms of how the Windows and Mobile Phone groups are active.

Unfortunately, the regulars has vacated. Some passed
away. Some went to social media. The guy experimenting
with high-bit-rate and high definition (4K) video, left for
social media. No reason stated. No forwarding address.

A quick look just now only shows 4 "current" threads, 3 of which appear to
be completely off topic, but none of which have any followups.

harry newton wrote:


A quick look just now only shows 4 "current" threads, 3 of which appear to
be completely off topic, but none of which have any followups.

It used to be a very good group.

But nothing lasts forever.

Paul

He who is Paul said on Sat, 07 Oct 2017 00:36:41 -0400:

It used to be a very good group.

But nothing lasts forever.

The good news is that I've gone through a steep learning curve where
Shotcut does edit video.

One thing I've learned the hard way, which I'm sure all experienced people
already know, is that the better I take the input video the easier the
editing will be. My test video was "jumpy" so I had to constantly get rid
of stuff.

Another thing I learned the hard way is that the one character you can not
use in Shotcut to blank out text is the "space" character. It *looks* like
it works when you're editing, but the output is *never* blanked out!

If you use any other character than the space, what you see in editing is
what you get in output - but if you use the space (which, logically, is
what you'd first use), you get NOTHING redacted in the output.

Go figure.

These are lessons easily enough remembered - but hard learned.

The good news is that Shotcut seems to pretty much do everything you will
need in at least a rudimentary way - but it has a steep learning curve
(IMHO).

Now I'm going to start looking for a no-registration upload site for
videos, and that will complete the loop for my first edited MP4 video from
Android to Windows.

Hello harry,

He who is Paul said on Sat, 07 Oct 2017 00:36:41 -0400:

It used to be a very good group.

But nothing lasts forever.

The good news is that I've gone through a steep learning curve where
Shotcut does edit video.

One thing I've learned the hard way, which I'm sure all experienced
people already know, is that the better I take the input video the
easier the editing will be. My test video was "jumpy" so I had to
constantly get rid of stuff.

Another thing I learned the hard way is that the one character you can
not use in Shotcut to blank out text is the "space" character. It
*looks* like it works when you're editing, but the output is *never*
blanked out!

If you use any other character than the space, what you see in editing
is what you get in output - but if you use the space (which,
logically, is what you'd first use), you get NOTHING redacted in the
output.

Go figure.

These are lessons easily enough remembered - but hard learned.

The good news is that Shotcut seems to pretty much do everything you
will need in at least a rudimentary way - but it has a steep learning
curve (IMHO).

Now I'm going to start looking for a no-registration upload site for
videos, and that will complete the loop for my first edited MP4 video
from Android to Windows.


Have you tried VideoPad Video Editor?

He who is Keith Keith said on Tue, 10 Oct 2017 11:10:33 +0000 (UTC):

The good news is that Shotcut seems to pretty much do everything you
will need in at least a rudimentary way - but it has a steep learning
curve (IMHO).

Have you tried VideoPad Video Editor?

I'm always open to suggestions as to the best freeware extant.
So thanks for that idea. I'm testing it out now.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/10/videopad.jpg

Quick observations (which can change over time)...
---------------------------------------------------
Here's the canonical site for others to benefit:
VideoPad Video Editor http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/

"VideoPad Video Editor is a video editing application developed by NCH
Software for the home and professional market. The software is complemented
by the VirtualDub plug-ins that work with the software. VideoPad is part of
a suite that integrates with other software created by NCH Software. This
other software includes WavePad, a sound-editing program; MixPad, a
sound-mixing program; and PhotoPad, an image editor"

"A free video editor version is available for non-commercial use only."
http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/vpsetup.exe
It appears to be available for Mac, Windows, & Android.
-------------------------------------------------------
The interface looks clean and simple and it seems to use VirtualDub
plugins, but bear in mind a lot of the options are turned off in the
freeware (so we have to see what works and what doesn't work).

As I always maintain an observation log when I install software three
oddities immediately struck me as quite different about VP.
a. The installer defaulted to accepting the EULA (no big deal)
b. The installer installed the program incredibly quickly (unusual)
c. The installer exhibited other badly written hallmarks (a warning sign)
d. The software phones home via the web with what appears to be an "id"
e. The software seems to have a 7 second start delay that kicks in later
f. The software phones home secretly to audiochannel.net (66.39.83.117
g. The GUI seems far more intuitive (with big buttons!) than Shotcut is

VP imported the video quickly when I ran the File Add Files command.
Like Shotcut (the only other video editor I can compare it to), it puts the
"video preview" in one corner and the audio & video timelines on the bottom
row. Like Shotcut, VideoPad Editor has a GUI for splitting the track into
shorter clips. VideoPad has a nice "zoom" button for zooming in on the clip
in a Preview Timeline of sorts.

I'll test it out further to see if it can do the minimum I need which is to
blur faces and redact privacy information in smartphone video clips.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/10/videopad.jpg
-------------------------------------------------------

Hello harry,

I hired a "profesional" Sony shoulder-mount video camera to film my grandson's
wedding and "do"; used VP to process the "film" then used "Totally Free Converter"
to make the HD output available as.avi's as well as the .vob's (for displaying
on mobile phones/TVs/Tabblets.
It is the first time I have used a video camera abd was amazed at how steady
the images were.


He who is Keith Keith said on Tue, 10 Oct 2017 11:10:33 +0000 (UTC):

The good news is that Shotcut seems to pretty much do everything you
will need in at least a rudimentary way - but it has a steep
learning curve (IMHO).

Have you tried VideoPad Video Editor?

I'm always open to suggestions as to the best freeware extant. So
thanks for that idea. I'm testing it out now.
http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/10/videopad.jpg

Quick observations (which can change over time)...
---------------------------------------------------
Here's the canonical site for others to benefit:
VideoPad Video Editor http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/
"VideoPad Video Editor is a video editing application developed by
NCH Software for the home and professional market. The software is
complemented by the VirtualDub plug-ins that work with the software.
VideoPad is part of a suite that integrates with other software
created by NCH Software. This other software includes WavePad, a
sound-editing program; MixPad, a sound-mixing program; and PhotoPad,
an image editor"

"A free video editor version is available for non-commercial use
only."
http://www.nchsoftware.com/videopad/vpsetup.exe
It appears to be available for Mac, Windows, & Android.
-------------------------------------------------------
The interface looks clean and simple and it seems to use VirtualDub
plugins, but bear in mind a lot of the options are turned off in the
freeware (so we have to see what works and what doesn't work).
As I always maintain an observation log when I install software three
oddities immediately struck me as quite different about VP.
a. The installer defaulted to accepting the EULA (no big deal)
b. The installer installed the program incredibly quickly (unusual)
c. The installer exhibited other badly written hallmarks (a warning
sign)
d. The software phones home via the web with what appears to be an
"id"
e. The software seems to have a 7 second start delay that kicks in
later
f. The software phones home secretly to audiochannel.net
(66.39.83.117
g. The GUI seems far more intuitive (with big buttons!) than Shotcut
is
VP imported the video quickly when I ran the File Add Files command.
Like Shotcut (the only other video editor I can compare it to), it
puts the
"video preview" in one corner and the audio & video timelines on the
bottom
row. Like Shotcut, VideoPad Editor has a GUI for splitting the track
into
shorter clips. VideoPad has a nice "zoom" button for zooming in on the
clip
in a Preview Timeline of sorts.
I'll test it out further to see if it can do the minimum I need which
is to blur faces and redact privacy information in smartphone video
clips. http://wetakepic.com/images/2017/10/10/videopad.jpg
-------------------------------------------------------

He who is Keith Keith said on Wed, 11 Oct 2017 14:22:50 +0000 (UTC):

I hired a "profesional" Sony shoulder-mount video camera to film my grandson's
wedding and "do"; used VP to process the "film" then used "Totally Free Converter"
to make the HD output available as.avi's as well as the .vob's (for displaying
on mobile phones/TVs/Tabblets.
It is the first time I have used a video camera abd was amazed at how steady
the images were.

Thanks for the hint of Totally Free Converter for file-format conversion.
When I searched, it showed up in lots of download sites.

Is this the canonical download site for Totally Free Converter?
http://www.sabsoft.com/TotallyFreeConverter.htm

This is the marketing blurb at that site:
"Totally Free Converter is an express video & audio conversion tool.
It converts video file to another video format, extract audio from
video file and convert audio file to another audio format. A big
feature of Totally Free Converter is the wide range of supported
video and audio formats. It works with all popular formats."

I put it in my video-conversion software archive:
C:\software\editors\video\converters\totallyfreeco nverter

In that same directory is the last non-adware version of Super freeware,
which, on Windows, was the canonical video converter software until they
went to the dark side a few years ago.

Also in that conversion directory is the Handbrake freeware converter,
which has the distinction of being open source and cross platform. There
are also other related video and audio conversion utilities such as
avidemux, ffmpeg, anyaudioconverter, klite codec packs, mkvtoolnix, oxelon,
etc.

I'll check out this Totally Free Converter and write up my observations, as
always. One observation I can make though, about video converters, is that
there are a lot of them, so, finding one isn't the effort.

As with most software - freeware included - finding the best at task is
where all the effort lies.