Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with video and movies

Best video rental stores?

davidriley — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 10:13:06 -0800

I make independent films and distribute them myself. I've started sending my movies to independent video rental stores around the country. I've sent my movies to I Luv Video in Austin, Scarecrow Video in Seattle, Video Underground and Hollywood Express in Boston, Acme Video in Providence, and others. What are the best independent video rental stores in your city? Don't say Netflix.

Adding ADDITIONAL audio to an avi file

Charlie Lesoine — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:23:01 -0800

How do I add an additional audio track to a .avi movie file in OSX? I downloaded a full length movie, it had stereo channel audio, but one of the audio tracks was still missing, possibly the center channel that was lost from a surround sound mix when it was bounced to standard 2 channel audio. I now have the missing audio file and need to add it to the other two. I could just remove one of the existing tracks, or turn the existing two tracks into a mono track and then add the 3rd missing track. It doesn't need to sound amazing...but I don't know what software to use to do this. Any ideas?

Seeking film projector for viewing recently discovered movie reels?

jeanmari — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 12:43:43 -0800

Is there anywhere within (or near) the city of Chicago to rent a 16mm film projector? Long story short, we bought a house six years ago from a world traveler family who were also hoarders. We're finally cleaning out the WHOLE basement (yeah, there has been that much stuff in here). I found a box of 16 mm film canisters with the film in them labeled intriguing things like "Florida, #2, 12-5-1937", "Europe, Dec 14, 1942", "The folks about 1945", "Yellowstone June 1941", "Europe re-edited 11-29-1942, 360 feet" and "Athletes - Michigan, Florida, Ohio". There are 12-15 films in here I'd like to see.

I'm dying with curiosity here. Not only because there may be pictures of our house in here (which was pretty poorly muddled over three generations by these folks) but also Europe 1942? Come ON! That is so cool.

Most of the places I've found rent to commercial businesses only or are pretty expensive. Any mom and pop shops that rent this equipment to anyone's knowledge? I'm thinking of putting together a movie night for some friends who are interested in the history of this place.

Recorded HD-TV shows to laptop?

vizsla — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 18:43:30 -0800

Are there (legal) ways to copy recorded TV shows from my HD-TV box to my laptop for personal use? Note: This is a technical question, not a legal one - I just don't know where to start. I have a Topfield PVR but I think most of the shows are being recorded on this Foxtel box.

Back up some old videos?

toastchee — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:07:38 -0800

Best way to get analog 8mm videotapes to digital format? Hi green gang - I would like to finally finish a long standing todo. I have approximately 15 8mm analog video tapes that I would like to have digitized (is DVD best?). My camera no longer works so I can't play 'em back.

Also some of them may have some audible hum that would be nice to be filtered out.

What's the most straightforward way to preserve these memories?

What are the best programs that can convert almost ALL kinds of video files and vice-versa?

omaralarifi — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:59:44 -0800

What are the best programs (paid/shareware/freeware/open source) that can convert almost ALL kinds of video files and vice-versa? All sort of video files such as : MJPEG · Motion JPEG 2000 · MPEG-1 · MPEG-2 · MPEG-4 ASP · MPEG-4/AVC · H.120 · H.261 · H.262 · H.263 · H.264 · AMV · AVS · Bink · Dirac · Indeo · Pixlet · RealVideo · RTVideo · SheerVideo · Smacker · Snow · Theora · VC-1 · VP6 · VP7 · VP8 · WMV · 3GP · ASF · AVI · Bink · DMF · DPX · EVO · FLV · Matroska · MPEG-PS · MPEG-TS · MP4 · MXF · NUT · Ogg · Ogg Media · QuickTime · RealMedia · Smacker · RIFF · VOB · AIFF · AU · WAV · FLA · Flash · and others

Note: It does not concern me if it a paid software or free.

Also are there programs that can rip VCD, SVCD, so the I can burn the files into DVD?

Thanks

DVD player that isn't hostile to end-users?

odinsdream — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 19:54:31 -0800

Can you recommend an upconverting DVD player with component output that ignores region coding and allows me to perform any action at any time? Can you recommend an upconverting DVD player that doesn't treat me with active hostility? I'm specifically looking for a player that:

1. Ignores region coding, or can be easily set to ignore region coding without installing new firmware.

2. Never, ever restricts me from fast-forwarding previews/warnings/anti-piracy tirades or skipping to a particular menu.

I can work around these issues by ripping the discs and then re-burning them but this is highly inconvenient.

It would also be nice if the player had all of the usual standard cool things, like digital audio output and some nice pulldown detection, and didn't sound like a jet engine.

Looking for movies with tuff (punk) girls...

apetpsychic — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 13:57:00 -0800

I'm working on a video project (and I also love the genre) and looking for movies with "bad' or "tough" girls; gangs or solo, the more punk the better. Extra points for fight scenes! I'm thinking along the line of 70s and 80s exploitation films. I'd also like to check out any general punk or teens-in-crisis movies that aren't Repo Man, Suburbia, River's Edge, Over The Edge or Permanent Record. Thanks for your help!

Watching media together in a virtual living room, is it possible?

Syntoad — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 21:02:41 -0800

Are there any sites online that let people watch movies or listen to music in sync with each other? One of my best friends has recently moved across the country. One of our favorite things to do together was watching movies, but it's pretty hard to do with a few thousand miles between you. I was wondering if anyone knows of a site where you can either listen to music or watch movies together, and be able to pause so it will stay in sync with the other person watching.

I'm especially looking for something flash based, no software to install. If that doesn't work, I am thinking about setting up a stream with vlc. Has anyone else ever set something similar up? I know technically how to do it, but I don't know if it's really something feasable to do (and yes I have a very fast connection, so upload speed is not an issue.)

Subtitles in letterbox area

snarfois — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 11:03:29 -0800

Why are movie subtitles almost never put into the black letterbox areas, outside the picture? This question really nags me. On most consumer screens, most movies will be letterboxed to a degree. Unless they're hard-subbed into the picture, what reason is there not to use that space for subtitles?

All DVDs use soft-subbing, where the text is overlaid onto the picture by the player software. And soft-subbing is the preferred approach for compressed video too, whether packaged into a single file like MKVs, or with separate subtitle files like .srt.

Can't players detect the screen's aspect ratio and determine the best placement of the subtitles, out of the picture if possible? Why don't any of the popular media players (VLC, Perian, Mplayer, MPC, Quicktime) do this?

Movies from video game footage?

snowjoe — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 17:52:25 -0800

Help me find this NPR story about making movies from video game footage. I think it was two days ago (April 14, 2008) I heard part of a radio article or show on KPCC (NPR) about making feature length movies using video game "footage". I would like to find the entire article and listen to it but my googlefu isn't working. I would also like find a website or some other venue where I can view some of these movies and learn some of the technology used to make them. Ideas?

Legally adding video clips to a review site?

Foci for Analysis — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:30:11 -0800

I'm working on a site (it's a personal project) where I basically review movies that I like. Lately, I've been thinking about adding video clips from the movies/series to give visitors a better understanding of what the movies/series are about. How do I do this legally? My idea is to take a couple of minutes from each movie, do some minor editing and upload it to YouTube or a similar site.

However, this seems pretty difficult from a legal perspective. It seems like I have to get permission for each and every clip, which would take too much time (we're talking 40+ movies/series). To make matters worse, I'm not sure which country's laws to follow: I live in Sweden, the web site is hosted in the US and I'm not sure about the video hosting provider.

Professional transfer of 16mm movies to digital?

Dave 9 — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 15:11:55 -0800

I inherited some 70-year-old, 16mm home movies (not 8 or Super 8) and am looking for a reliable expert to transfer them to digital video. Many vendors say that they can do this. Can you comment on any from personal experience? (I have seen this thread and the links therein.) Are there any issues I should particularly look out for? Thanks.

Homemade DVD server- Whats the best/easiest/cheapest way?

weiler63 — Thu, 12 Jul 2007 22:21:47 -0800

Homemade DVD server- Whats the best/easiest/cheapest way? I wanted to take my 200+ DVD collection and store it on something that could serve it up to my Infocus IN72 projector.

I was thinking DVD Shrink( ~3GB .vob each movie)--->External Hard Drive--->Mac Mini with DVI out. I'm a Windows guy, but I want to be able to integrate the IR codes to my universal.

I want something with ease of use (no Linux), Future expandability and as cheap as possible. Being able to network it is a plus, but not required.

Any Tips?

Thanks,

Weiler63

long zoom anyone?

Gankmore — Wed, 16 May 2007 18:27:43 -0800

Searching for famous scenes from movies where the camera pans out across a vast distance in a single shot... for example, powers of ten is one of the best examples. Also, the opening scene in Contact where we zoom out from Earth through the cosmos only to end up in the young Jodie Foster's eye. But the subject matter doesn't have to be the cosmos per se, just any memorable scene where a camera pans or zooms out across a vast distance.

(I'm also aware of the opening scene from fight club where we zoom through a characters brain and such)

Attack of the Benny Hill music!

dmd — Wed, 09 May 2007 09:07:19 -0800

Why are old film clips always played at super-speed, in spite of the ease with which this could be fixed? Whenever you see old film clips, people walk around at super-high-speed, as if there was amphetamine in the water supply up until around 1940. I always assumed that technical reason for this was that film used to be captured at a lower frame rate than those in common use today, so playing them back using the current frame rates made them speed up.

However, it's now trivial to change the speed of a clip to be correct - I can do it in a few seconds on my home computer. Given that, why are old clips still replayed too fast? Is there some overriding technical reason I'm not aware of? Is it purely a cultural phenomenon, a marker that says "this is an old movie?" It seems somewhat in poor taste when one has documentaries featuring, e.g., emaciated Holocaust victims strutting around camps in fast-motion.

Movies on the PS2

squidlarkin — Sat, 13 May 2006 23:30:44 -0800

What exactly do I need to do to play AVIs and the like on my Playstation 2? I have a CD-RW drive and don't want to spend any money.

Depth of Field and Focus. How do they work?

odinsdream — Tue, 04 Oct 2005 23:52:29 -0800

Selective Depth-of-Field in Six Feet Under, and a question about lens flares. In the commentary for either the first or last episode of Season 1, the director mentioned a lens technique that would put two subjects in focus when they're each positioned at different depths. He couldn't recall the name of this technique, or even how it worked. What is it called, and how does it work?

I've taken some screen shots of examples here and here. (~150KB jpegs) They aren't the best representations available in the show, but it was tedious to find them. Many are in the kitchen, where the characters are very far apart. In the first example, note that both characters are mostly in focus, while the edges of David's face and the arm of the chair between him and Nate is not. Similarly, in the second example, Ruth's face is in focus, as is the background, but her dress is not entirely in focus.

And, more of a general lens question, what determines the shape of lens flares or point light sources thrown out of focus? In this example, the lights appear as 9-sided regular polygons. I've seen everything from stars to perfect circles. What are the physics/optics behind these shapes?

Video Game from "Hackers"

defcom1 — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 06:37:55 -0800

Please help me find a game similar to the one from "Hackers (1995)" In "Hackers" the main character steps up to a giant screen and beat Angelina Jolie's high score in some neat looking racing game, where a triangular shaped vehicle skims over a U-Shaped course. I remember once seeing a friend play a game just like it.. but I can't for the life of me remember the name. Can anybody help?

3CCD vs. 1CCD?

nitsuj — Tue, 05 Apr 2005 07:36:38 -0800

I'm considering the purchase of one of Panasonic's 3CCD camcorders - is it worth it? I'm in the market for a new camcorder. I've done a boat-load of research on the subject, but I can't seem to weed through the millions of contradicting reviews and myriad of models, makes and features that today's market offers. I've been thinking heavily on getting one of the Panasonic 3CCD models, but I'm curious:

--Is the extra money spent for a 3CCD worth it?
--Why are there similarly priced cameras under different makes that offer only 1CCD?
--Would my money be better spent on a camera in the same price range, but from a better brand (say, Sony?) and only 1 CCD?

I feel that I mostly understand the technology behind 1CCD vs. 3CCD, but what I am lacking is real-world experience and side-by-side comparisons. I've found some reviews and messageboards with video samples comparing the two, but most of these were compressed for the web, thus hard to tell what the final product will look like.

I've attempted to visit local retailers who stock the Panasonic 3CCD's and other cameras, but my attempts to fully test the products in the store failed. (Best Buy sucks - they claimed they weren't allowed to hook the camera up to one of their TV's, and claimed that "the resolution you see on the LCD is a good representation of what you'll see on TV"!). Their return policy also prevents me from purchasing the camera and taking it home for a few hours. They have a 15% restocking fee.

I'm looking to do amateur shots, nothing professional, but a bit more than "family picnic" style shooting. I'd like a camera that, with the right lighting and directing, can achieve a broadcast-like quality.

This post is a bit of a mess, and I apologize... but I appreciate any advice you could throw my way.

Renting Art Films in VHS

SoftRain — Tue, 07 Dec 2004 00:03:38 -0800

Torontonians: Where can you rent art films on VHS these days? Generally Bay St. Video covers all my rental needs, but they only rent DVDs now, which is great for movies that are available on DVD, but less great for those that aren't. (+) The movie I'm looking for specifically is Night on Earth by Jim Jarmusch - not especially obscure but presumably not readily on hand down at the Blockbuster. It's for a paper that is due in a week's time (not the main focus, but it's an essay on Jarmusch's career, so I really need to have seen all his films), so it's not like I can just order it from Amazon (it takes 2-5 weeks to ship).

(Also, this has come up for me in the past. I had the same problem with Johnny Guitar - though I think that I could get from the U of T library if I really wanted. Night on Earth is only available for short term loan on the Scarborough campus, and I refuse to believe I can't find this thing downtown.)

Any ideas?

What's the best OS X tool to watch the movie with subtitles?

matteo — Thu, 07 Oct 2004 04:10:29 -0800

You have an .ogm file of a non-subtitled movie and a .srt subtitle file -- what's the best OS X tool to watch the movie with subtitles? For educational purposes only, etc, (more inside) I am aware of this previous discussion, but it doesn't really answer my question (I think).
Also, is anybody familiar with ffmpegX? is it good? and if it is, is it too complicated for a not monstrously competent user?
thanks.

ps I almost always use VLC to view stuff.

Obscure Movie Recommendations

dobbs — Wed, 17 Dec 2003 11:46:37 -0800

I'm a film junkie and am running out of things to watch. What's an obscure feature-length movie that's available on dvd or video that you can recommend to someone who's seen more movies than had warm meals?