Best Way to mask some selected portion of video clips

Jagandeep

Newbie Joined: Jan 25, 2015 22:44 Messages: 10 Offline

Solved by

Feb 07, 2015 21:44

PD 13.0.2408.0

Newbie here

I have recorded multiple episodes of some show from my STB. STB periodically inserts a serial no in a rectangular box in the video at many points. I want to join all the clips (trimming some portion of clips, masking that serial no). Currently I have created gif image with rectangular black bar mask with transparency in other portion except the rectangular one and insert it in the time line for required duration. But here are the problems with this method.

1. Serial No box is displayed many times at many different locations. It is very painful to create different masks for many many different random locations in the image editor(GIMP) by taking snapshot, opening in Gimp to create mask.

I am comfortable with scripting. Is it possible to do some kind of scripting (VBA, C#, C++) to automate this process in PD itself ? Does PD supports scripting ?

2. If at some point in time I insert new clips before the clips already in timeline, crossfade, change clip duration, then real problem starts. I have to readjust each and every mask position in timeline.

PD should have supported multiple PDS files in a same project so that every mask position is anchored relative to individual clip rather than to the entire movie. Is it possible to anchor the mask position wrt to start of untrimmed individual video clips so that the mask position remains at desired position even if I trim some portion of the clip from starting position or insert some other video clip before it(apply other things like trimming, changing duration, crossfade etc on inserted clip) ?

Thanks
Jagandeep Singh

PlaySound

Senior Contributor Joined: Dec 02, 2010 10:26 Messages: 2031 Offline

Feb 08, 2015 12:55

Quote: PD 13.0.2408.0

Newbie here

I have recorded multiple episodes of some show from my STB. STB periodically inserts a serial no in a rectangular box in the video at many points. I want to join all the clips (trimming some portion of clips, masking that serial no). Currently I have created gif image with rectangular black bar mask with transparency in other portion except the rectangular one and insert it in the time line for required duration. But here are the problems with this method.

1. Serial No box is displayed many times at many different locations. It is very painful to create different masks for many many different random locations in the image editor(GIMP) by taking snapshot, opening in Gimp to create mask.

I am comfortable with scripting. Is it possible to do some kind of scripting (VBA, C#, C++) to automate this process in PD itself ? Does PD supports scripting ?

2. If at some point in time I insert new clips before the clips already in timeline, crossfade, change clip duration, then real problem starts. I have to readjust each and every mask position in timeline.

PD should have supported multiple PDS files in a same project so that every mask position is anchored relative to individual clip rather than to the entire movie. Is it possible to anchor the mask position wrt to start of untrimmed individual video clips so that the mask position remains at desired position even if I trim some portion of the clip from starting position or insert some other video clip before it(apply other things like trimming, changing duration, crossfade etc on inserted clip) ?

Thanks
Jagandeep Singh

As far as I know, PD13 does not have the recusro to track one or more objects in a video.

If I presiso do what you describe, the first thought was to add rectangles images that will cover or disguise the objects (I assume this in a static position each)
one rectangle on each track, each for a specific position.

All set for the 1st clip, Select all images (masks), the right click ,Copy.

To the next clip, righr click, Paste , adjustments and advance to the next clip.

With this method may make an adjustment along the clip if necessary.

You can also save this as a project for later use.

In this case will use the option, INCERT project, the main project.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Feb 08. 2015 15:34

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Jagandeep

Newbie Joined: Jan 25, 2015 22:44 Messages: 10 Offline

Feb 08, 2015 23:38

Thanks for the reply.

Yup the rectangular box is static in the video. I am already masking it one by one using black rectangular box but the real problem is that it appears many times in the video at many different places. It is very painful to manually mask each and every box in a long video. I was looking for some better/automated way to do that.

I am not able to find any info regarding how to start the scripting/plugin development in PD.

Carl312

Senior Contributor Location: Texas, USA Joined: Mar 16, 2010 20:11 Messages: 9090 Offline

Feb 09, 2015 21:52

Quote: Thanks for the reply.

Yup the rectangular box is static in the video. I am already masking it one by one using black rectangular box but the real problem is that it appears many times in the video at many different places. It is very painful to manually mask each and every box in a long video. I was looking for some better/automated way to do that.

I am not able to find any info regarding how to start the scripting/plugin development in PD.

There is not an automated way to do it.

However, you can copy one of the PIP that is the black box and the paste that PIP at the current location of the cursor.

You should know that you do not have to resort to GIMP to create a black box to use for masking.
Powerdirector has Color Boards that you can use and resize to fit.

In the Medial library the first drop down has the access to the Color Boards.


Filename	Color Boards.png	Download
Description	Where to find Color Boards
Filesize	18 Kbytes
Downloaded:	525 time(s)

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Feb 09. 2015 21:54

Carl312: Windows 10 64-bit 8 GB RAM,AMD Phenom II X4 965 3.4 GHz,ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB,240GB SSD,two 1TB HDs.

Jagandeep

Newbie Joined: Jan 25, 2015 22:44 Messages: 10 Offline

Feb 10, 2015 04:50

Thanks Carl312 I'll try it :d