Directly editing video frames

[ottermi619]

Are there any tools avaliable that allow direct editing and manipulation of individual AVI frames without extracting them all to bitmaps or some other still image format, and then using another program to recompile them?

[matrix]

Yes, Avisynth and/or VirtualDub

[LocalH]

I don't think that's what the OP is talking about. I think the intended concept would be something like Photoshop and After Effects rolled into one. And I'm not aware of any such software myself, although I'm sure there's something out there.

[Doobie]

You'd have to work with uncompressed bitmaps because in most movie compression formats, the compressed data of one frame affects other frames.

[vinetu]

A Quote from this page: (http://www.blackmagic-design.net/support/software/)
"FrameLink utility for instant access to any frame in a movie"

That means the user can open a frame from a "mapped" avi file with say Photoshop, then edit and save back to same avi , without the need for extract to intermediate files.

[Schrade]

Sounds like he might want something like CinePaint (http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/). Unfortunately, there's no Windows version that is up to date. Just an old one.

[eb]

It seems simple for I frames, but what about P and B frames?