Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with edit

edit detection

yegga — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:41:10 -0800

I'm interested in detecting edits in a given video stream. Is there any literature out there on edit detection? The idea is to take in an arbitrary video stream as input, and detect 'edits', 'scenes' or 'cuts' in the stream. Further, to try and cluster similar kinds of edits/scenes/cuts.

How would you go about researching this?

Some examples:

http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=1579591

Editable PDFs?

Kattiara17 — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 14:09:58 -0800

I want to be able to create editable, form-based PDFs. What software do I need? I want to be able to create editable, form-based PDFs. For example, if you look at this W4 form, you can click and type information into each of the preset fields.

What software do I need to be able to do this? My google-fu is failing me; it looks like I need to buy Adobe Acrobat, but is that the only option? If it is, does it matter as far as Standard vs. Pro edition?

How to fix my PDFs ?

GrooveStix — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 19:01:46 -0800

How to adjust brightness/contrast in PDF files? I have several PDF files which were created by scanning some material containing text, but some of them came up with unnecessarily dark backgrounds, that is, with borked contrast. If I print them, they will waste too much ink, and the printouts will be harder to read. I know that there's a program that allows the brightness/contrast to be adjusted, but I have forgotten its name, though I spent 3 hours downloading various programs with no luck. :(
So what I want to do ideally is to simply select the page numbers (that are over 100 pages, by the way) and do a batch adjustment of whatever is needed.

Do you know a program that could help?

Manipulate pdf file

Mr_Thirdworld — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:03:30 -0800

Possible to edit contents and remove password from pdf? I have a pdf document that I reference often. The thing is, it requires me to input a password every time i wish to view it. Is there any way that I can remove the password while keeping everything else in tack? I would also like to making changes to the information found in the footer of the document. Any ideas?

How to manage a work blog?

ialwayscryatendings — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 12:28:39 -0800

Is it possible to set up a multi-user blog where anyone with the password could write a draft, but it wouldn't be made public until, say, two other users approved the content? My work is thinking of setting up an employee blog, where we could write about issues related to our field and share information with customers and our community. I am really excited about this and would like to see it happen. My co-workers and I are trying to come up with a proposal showing why this would be a good thing, and we would like to anticipate and address concerns management might have about this plan. The main problem we foresee would be understandable concern that someone could write something inappropriate or controversial that readers would take as our business' official stance on a matter. We thought of having a moderator who could approve everything before it became public, but we prefer the idea of a collaboration, where, for example, any three of us could sign off on a piece before it was published. If the blog kept track of who had given approval, I think it would provide good accountability. Does this sort of arrangement exist? We are not very tech-savvy--would it be difficult to set up?

I have also suggested that we keep the blog separate from our official website, and that we have a disclaimer specifying that the content is unofficial. My feeling is that most readers would understand that an employee blog would be informal, but we want to cover our bases.

Any information would be much appreciated! Also, if you have a better solution or any other advice on or experience with this situation, I would love to hear it. Thanks so much.

I want to draft a contract to work on spec.

helios410 — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 19:44:30 -0800

I am a freelance video editor and I am being asked to work on spec (as in do the work and the producers will pay for my work if they like it). I want to draft some sort of contract outlining what I am doing, and their use of my work if they do like it, but I don't know exactly what I should include in a contract like this. Can anyone point me in the right direction?

Help my find this quotation about editing

VeniceGlass — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:08:29 -0800

Help my find this quotation about editing... A long time ago, I ran across a great quote but didn't write it down. It was, in essence, "There is no greater urge than the desire to edit another man's text." I seem to recall it was Mark Twain's, but who knows.

Anyone?

Video Card for AVCHD editing

Eiwalker — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 06:16:32 -0800

Would a video/graphics card allow me to be able to edit my avchd (.mts) files from my new Canon HF100 camcorder? When I try to play my files, a lot of frames get skipped. They play at about 2 frames per second, skipping all the rest. Nor can I edit.

Worse: the Canon ImageMaker 3 software that came with the camera has the option of burning straight from the camera to a DVD, but when I try this option the application goes into "not responding" mode.

My rig is Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz, 4GB ram, no video card. But the ImageMaker 3 software says you can burn to a DVD with a Pentium 4 1.49 Ghz, 512GB ram, and sound card compatible with DirectSound. So maybe I just need a cheap sound card to be able to do that.

To play or edit, you need at least a Pentium D 3.0 Ghz cpu or an Intel Core 2 Duo 2.13 Ghz cpu, and a sound card compatible with DirectSound. A cheap sound card would meet the sound standard. But what about my having a Pentium 4 instead of a Pentium D? Do I need a better cpu, or can I make up for the deficiency by getting the right video card? I'm poor. Might this $26 card do the trick?

Here are the specs:
Model
Brand GIGABYTE
Model GV-R435OC-512I
Form Factor Low Profile
Interface
Interface PCI Express 2.0 x16
Chipset
Chipset Manufacturer ATI
GPU Radeon HD 4350
Core clock 650MHz
Stream Processors 80 Stream Processing Units
Memory
Memory Clock 800MHz
Memory Size 512MB
Memory Interface 64-bit
Memory Type GDDR2
3D API
DirectX DirectX 10.1
OpenGL OpenGL 2.0
Ports
HDMI 1
D-SUB 1
DVI 1
General
RAMDAC 400 MHz
Max Resolution 2560 x 1600
Cooler With Fan
Dual-Link DVI Supported Yes
HDCP Ready Yes
Packaging
Package Contents GV-R435OC-512I
Driver Disk
User's Manual
L-P Bracket

How to edit cell phone text information

tipper — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 11:19:52 -0800

A friend of a friend who does not care for me told his friend that I sent him a text mesage to his cellphone and even showed his friend the message however, I did not send the message, do not know this person's cell ph # nor do I know his last name. The question is, how did he show my cell ph # as having sent a text message to his cell ph. It must be possible because my friend saw my # attached to this message in the inbox in his cell ph .

Where can I find free photos online that I can use to practice my Photoshop retouching?

Chorus — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 10:28:13 -0800

Where can I find free photos online that I can use to practice my Photoshop retouching? Hi all. I'm looking to improve my Photoshop skills and would like to try my hand at retouching photographs of female models, in the style of something you might find on the cover of a fashion/beauty mag.

Is there anywhere online that'd have a stock of untouched but 'studio shot' photos? I think random, candid photographs gleaned from the net might be unsuitable. I'd naturally like a free source, but would be willing to pay for a source that allowed me to post the retouched images on like a personal blog or site to get crit/feedback.

Thanks!

Automatically remove certain items in Firefox history?

sittered — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 13:02:36 -0800

How can I arrange it so that my Firefox history is automatically purged of sites of a certain domain like imdb.com or facebook.com? I don't know much in terms of scripting languages, but I won't rule that out as a possible method. I was thinking in terms of a greasemonkey script or a full-fledged extension, but a script that directly edits the history database file is OK, too.

I use Mac OS X with Firefox 3.0.4.

Free software to write on PDFs with my tablet?

jk252b — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 13:55:10 -0800

PDF editing software for Mac to use with my Wacom tablet? I recently bought a Wacom Bamboo tablet thinking it would revolutionize my graduate school research by allowing me to write directly on PDF documents without having to print them out.

Does anyone know of software that exists to allow me to write directly on PDF documents, and save them in their original format.

I know about Skim but that doesn't work to draw directly on the page.

FormulatePro starts to get at what I want, but any documents you write on are saved in the ".formulate". I know I can print to PDF, which is better than nothing, but it's an annoying step that I'd like to avoid if I can.

It seems like PDFpen and PDFclerk do what I want, but I'd prefer NOT to pay $50 after having spent $70 on the tablet.

Does any freeware or really cheap (<20$) software exist to do this?

Looking for a CMS with inline or front end editing.

bristolcat — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:48:33 -0800

A simple CMS with an inline or front end editor? I searched the archives and I was surprised that for all the questions about CMS solutions, there weren't many mentions of inline or front end editing (assuming those are the correct terms for what I'm looking for, of course).

My holy grail of web design right now is to find a CMS that is dependable, simple and dead easy for the client to edit. I usually use Joomla, but I'm finding that it is anything but simple for my average client to use.

The ideal solution would be a system in which the person in charge of content could edit directly on the page. It would also be necessary to be able to add images and video. An added bonus would be the ability to add new pages from a front end editor, but I don't know if that would work well or be any easier than logging into a backend.

I searched and found a reference to Plone, which seems a bit complicated and unfortunately isn't demo-ed on Open Source CMS. I haven't found much else. I remember a friend of mine using a simple ASP CMS back in 2003 that had inline editing, but I know that it changed its name and now I can't find it back.

I've seen some mentions here and there in searches of plugins that would do this for Wordpress. I'm not crazy about that idea, but it would work. Does anyone have any experience with them? I have also seen a plugin developed for Joomla that did this, but the developer I spoke with had it custom programmed for a private organization and wouldn't share any information about it.

Does anyone have any suggestions? It would preferably be either free or really worth the money. Any help or leads would be appreciated.

On preview, I'm seeing a few related questions with interesting solutions. Would like to see if anything new has come up in the last year since the previous question, though. Thanks

Looking for ideas on managing files from multiple locations

djgh — Mon, 26 May 2008 16:25:56 -0800

Give me some ideas to manage my files, my data, my general computer setup etc. etc. for best use from multiple locations. Basically, I have the following situation:

I have a laptop (Macbook, Tiger), which I use to take notes on etc. I also occasionally make notes on other computers elsewhere (PCs, can't install software on them - they've got web browsers and Cygwin, and some have the option to boot Linux - can't remember which distro). I don't leave my laptop on and on the internet all the time (so I don't think remote desktop is a viable solution).

Sometimes I have an internet connection, sometimes I don't.

I'd like to be able to access all my files from everywhere (this includes PDFs), edit from everywhere etc. - but I also quite fancy version control, and having my own backups.

I have shell access to a shared server, and some (but not a huge amount) of technical competence (I've set up PHP/MySQL sites, dabbled in Ruby, but I'm far short of rolling my own fullblown solution).

I have access to an iDisk.

Could you outline (and provide any links) to my various options - so far I'm thinking Google Docs solution (but I'm worried about reliability - my worst nightmare is making notes offline, and them not syncing and then losing them all - plus I'd quite like to have overall control of my stuff), or some kind of version control system (but what if I have no connection - I probably can't get the latest version of a doc to edit).

Other stuff being available (address book etc.) would be great.

Any ideas appreciated, including purchase of new hardware (within reason - eeePC etc ok, rack mounted server less so).

Help me create digital music.

flatluigi — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 18:52:08 -0800

I'd like to find some tutorials or general guides for editing and creating music on the computer. I'm very interested in mashups and making music out of other music, but I honestly don't know what I'm doing. I got a copy of Ableton Live from a very generous musician friend of mine for my birthday a while back and I've been using that to put stuff together. I can put together some basic A+B vocal over instrumental deals, but that's about it.

I can't do anything fancy and I'm sure I'm missing things due to my relative lack of experience with audio effects and methods. For example, just last week I discovered how to consolidate a cut-up track and make it loop without having to deal with all the pieces, which seems really obvious in hindsight.

What I'd love to find is a guide that takes me through the creation of a track, showing off what X effect does, how to do Y cleanly, ending a track successfully through Z -- that sort of thing. Otherwise, I'd like to find some general tips and methods.

How Do I Turn my $400 Dell into a Video Editing Powerhouse?

dismitree — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:53:31 -0800

I want to edit video on my bottom-of-the-line Dell Dimension 3100... cost-effective suggestions for success? My 2008 resolution was to buy a Mini-DV camcorder and get various family members telling stories about life in the old country. So far, so good...I'm building a nice little stack of tapes and would like to start cobbling some of it together.

If possible, and if cheaper than purchasing a new system, I'd rather upgrade my very basic Dimension 3100. Here's what I have...what else do I need?

Dell Dimension 3100 P4 2.8Ghz with 500MB RAM and 160GB HDD
I figure for about $500 I can upgrade to 2GB of RAM and a second HDD - is this all I'd need? Do I need this? Worthwhile?

I figure I'll have about 40hrs of raw footage when I'm done interviews, mostly talking heads, and the most complex thing I'll want to do from a post/editing perspective is adding subtitles to parts where the dialog isn't in English.

Primary audience will be extended family and future kids and grandkids. Still, I'd like the quality of the edited video to be good enough to screen to people unrelated to me.

FWIW, I'm using an external mic and taking manual control of things like white balance and focus, so I'm feeling confident about the quality of the filming...more concerned about being able to do the edit 'right'.

Thanks.

What do I need to know to help start an electronic academic journal?

b33j — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:22:21 -0800

My boss, the professor, has accepted the challenge of starting a new electronic academic journal to be self-published by the professional organisation that she currently heads. She is, understandably, very busy, so she has asked me to find out everything we need to do to make this happen, with, of course, a limited budget. The first issue must appear on the organisation's website in early July. Happily the articles will be received by March because of a linked conference.

This is a helpful Askme. But I want more. Where do I start looking? What should I be looking for? What practice/product should we absolutely avoid? If I outsource the layout template, how will I know that the designer can handle it? What hasn't even occurred to me? Books, links, advice, please. Make me look good, or at the very least competent.

How do I unlock a downloaded podcast?

kristymcj — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 15:01:01 -0800

How do I unlock a downloaded podcast? I was interviewed on my local NPR station and I'd like to send my spot to my ma without the preceding story. I uploaded it with Orbit and opened it in Audacity but it's not letting me allowed to edit it. Any idea how to unlock it?

Software for AVCHD?

sockpup — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:06:24 -0800

Please recommend consumer level video editing software for working with AVCHD in Windows Vista. My friend was using Pinnacle Studio 8 previously and was reasonably satisfied with it. He's now looking at v. 11 which supports AVCHD but is wondering what else is out there.

free video editor?

princeofpersiaxz — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 17:06:58 -0800

I am looking for a free video (mpeg, wmv, etc) editor with some very basic options! ok I have looked far and wide online for a video editor. my disk space on my PC is getting scarce, so I am wanting to edit clips out of some video files to free up some space on my hard drive. is there a free video editor that will let me cut out (not "hide" hint hint Microsoft Movie Maker) clips from a video file, without any watermarks or restrictions? my hard drive says thanks!

trimming pdf's?

washburn — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:43:47 -0800

Without "pro" software, how can I trim pages from large pdf files? There are a lot of public domain pdf texts out there on the internet, but they are frequently scans of old "collected works" editions, etc., with a thousand pages or so.

How can I use free software to save just, say, 100 pages of a thousand public domain .pdf?

I've not yet had much help trying to use openoffice Writer or Foxit reader/editor (the option is blocked out or available only to paid Foxit users, I think).

Thanks much for any help.

Censoring Aduio in Quicktime

Smarson — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 10:54:26 -0800

How can I censor the audio in an .avi file using Quicktime Pro? I've got this hilarious video of my wedding reception "after party." It's comedic gold and I wanted to post it online for some other friends and family to see except that in two separate sections someone says something totally inappropriate. Thus I just need to either cut the audio at those two points (for like 2 seconds each) or dub it over with a censoring *BEEP* (which might actually be funnier). Using Quicktime Pro I've figured out how to overlay the current audio with other audio (i.e. inserting a soundtrack), but this doesn't actually remove what was said and it can still be heard over the insert. Can what I want to do be accomplished with QT Pro?

Video was shot as .avi.

Help me make two videos into one.

Asef Jil — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 10:52:28 -0800

A client wants to make/edit a video that displays two distinct videos side by side. He needs to synchronize frames between the two videos and add captions. What Windows software would accomplish this? He's working in Windows Movie Maker right now, if that matters.

One click text adding - now with added BBCode.

Solomon — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 06:13:05 -0800

I'm looking for a Greasemonkey script/Firefox extension that will allow me to add some text to a text box. I need to be able to customise the text and preferably be able to store up to 5 different snippets. I have some text that I repeatedly have to type into various message boards, and I'd like to be able to automate the process a bit. Ideally it would place the text right after the cursor, but that's not essential.

For example, I post a message to a message board that links to a specific thread. I'd like a button on the status bar that I could click, that would insert a pre-formatted link to that thread, instead of repeatedly having to type in the URL and format it with BBCode.

I've done some extremely basic editing of Greasemonkey scripts, but I'd rather not have to if I don't have to. :)

Where can I find such a thing?

I need mp3 editing software

BradNelson — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:14:37 -0800

I need Mac software to let me edit out "stage talk" on some mp3s. I have a few mp3s of live recordings, many of which have annoying stage banter at the end or beginning of the track. So, I need a (Mac) program that will allow me to easily edit a few seconds/milliseconds from either the end or beginning.