How to: Picture in Picture

[bb]

Recently I had to create a motion menu for a DVD, and I wanted to place four small films next to each other in a 2x2 matrix. So I had to discover how to do this using Ulead MediaStudio Pro 6.

This is my solution:

- I wanted a black background, so I put a black color clip in video track Va.
- I needed four overlay tracks for the PIP films, and a fifth one for the menu text. So I increased the number of overlay tracks in the project settings by two (three overlay tracks is standard).
- In the production archive I created four motion items ("Bewegungsverlauf" in German, don't know how it's called in the english version), one for top left, top right, bottom left, and bottom right.
- Each of the motion items had the same settings for the first and the last key frame, each had a width of 320 and a height of 192 (the PIPs had 16:9 aspect ratio).
- The X and Y settings were different, of course, to meet my positioning needs: top left X=190, Y=182, top right X=530, Y=182, bottom left X=190, Y=394, bottom right X=530, Y=394.
- The four motion items were assigned to the corresponding PIP films in overlay tracks V1 to V4. No special overlay options were needed here.
- For the fifth track (V5) with the menu text I used a white key color, because the text image had a white background. Because the text was anti-aliased, I used a similarity setting of 51% to get the text fit into the video smoothly.

In short my solution uses non-moving motion items :) .

Please post if you have another solution, or if you have one for another software like Adobe Premiere, Vegas Video, etc.

Any comments welcome (I know you can do this in AviSynth, too ;) ).


bb

[matzed]

bb,

I'm not sure i understood you needs but maybe this link can help you : http://www.repaire.net/navig/mont_sfx/multi_ecran.php

They are explaining how to make a multi-screen effect within Premiere without a plug in (Pinnacle Hollywood will do it, i think).

If you can't read french, try with the google translation :

http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.repaire.net%2Fnavig%2Fmont_sfx%2Fmulti_ecran.php&langpair=fr%7Cen&hl=fr&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&prev=%2Flanguage_tools

Hope that helps

Matz

[bb]

matzed,
thanks for the link (I can read french).

This seems to be about the same approach as I used with the Ulead software. Apparently you have to do it the complicated way, if you don't use plugins like AfterEffects.

By the way: In the meantime I found out that what I called "motion items" is in fact named "moving path" in the English version.

bb

[Kika]

@bb

Hm, why you don't use AVISynth to create a Movie for your Menü?

Something like this (it's an German Example from an other Board):

a=avisource("f:\temp\clip1.avi")
b=avisource("f:\temp\clip2.avi")
c=avisource("f:\temp\clip3.avi")
d=avisource("f:\temp\clip4.avi")

a=addborders(a,8,8,8,8)
b=addborders(b,8,8,8,8)
c=addborders(c,8,8,8,8)
d=addborders(d,8,8,8,8)
x=StackHorizontal(a,b)
y=StackHorizontal(d,c)
z=StackVertical(x,y)

z=AddBorders(z,293,203,43,53)
Return(z)

Im Beispiel wurden mit VirtualDubMOD vier Clips mit jeweils 176x144 Pixeln erzeugt.
Das Skript verpasst ihnen als Abstandhalter einen Rahmen von 8 Pixeln an jeder Seite. Das kann man je nach Bedarf natürlich ändern. Danach werden mit StackHorizontal(a,b) und StackHorizontal(d,c) zwei Clips erzeugt, die je zwei Videos nebeneinander enthalten. StackVertical(x,y) erzeugt dann daraus einen Clip mit 2x2 Videos.
AddBorders macht dann daraus schließlich einen Clip gewünschter Größe, wobei man gleichzeitig auch die Position der Clips im Videofenster festlegen kann. Sinnigerweise sollte das die Position des dafür vorgesehenen Fensters im Menü-Bild sein, das man vorher erzeugt.
Praktisch jedes Videoschnittprogramm ist dann in der Lage, beides, Menübild und das von AVISynth erzeugte Video, richtig zusammen zu setzen. Mithilfe von Layer() geht's natürlich auch direkt in AVISynth.

[sekxx]

Pardon me but can i have the english translation?

[katjarella]

Originally posted by bb
Any comments welcome (I know you can do this in AviSynth, too ;) ).
Picture in Picture @ Avisynth (http://members.lycos.co.uk/verglade8kihr/motionmenu.htm)

[matzed]

Originally posted by katjarella
Picture in Picture @ Avisynth (http://members.lycos.co.uk/verglade8kihr/motionmenu.htm)

Thant's a very useful technique. Thanks a lot...

[Kika]

@sekxx

Guess there's not Translation needed, the link, katjarella postet, does it a very similar (and more professional) way.

But, OK, here's a simple, bad translation.
First, i produced the Clips, using VirtualDubMOD with the Resolution of 176x144 Pixels. They all has to have the same lenght.

a=addborders(a,8,8,8,8)

This adds Borders to the Clips as "Spaceholders".

x=StackHorizontal(a,b)

Creates the Clip x by setting clips a and b side by side. New Resolution is 384x160.

y=StackHorizontal(d,c)

Creates the Clip y by setting clips c and d side by side. New Resolution is 384x160.

z=StackVertical(x,y)
Combining of Clips x and y. New Resolution is 384x320

z=AddBorders(z,293,203,43,53)

Set Borders arround the Clip to get the right Resolution for a DVD-Video and Place the four Motion-Clips on the right Position. I first draw a Background-Picture with the Place for the Movie-Clips and use Premiere to combine the Picture ande the Motion-Clips.
But this can be done by AVISynth, if you like.

[katjarella]

Adobe Premiere Tutorials (http://www.wrigleyvideo.com/videotutorial/tutorials.htm)

http://www.wrigleyvideo.com/videotutorial/tutdes_quadpip.htm
This tutorial demonstrates how to create a 4 position Picture in Picture (PIP) effect. The same demo is also used to show how the Virtual Clip feature of Premiere can be used to apply a transition to multiple layers of video.