HOWTO: Make Time Lapse Videos from Photographs

[Denkogami]

Thanks CyberAngel!

Had a bit of trouble installing ffmpeg, but managed to get that working.

With the codecs/settings you recommend I get a bizarre diagonal on the timelapses when the images move fast and furiously. It's like the two parts of the movie don't sync up on either side of this diagonal.

But the following doesn't present this issue. Dunno if the issue is on the encoding side or the viewing one...

ffmpeg -framerate 30 -pattern_type glob -i '*.JPG' -s:v 1280x720 -c:v libx264 -profile:v high -crf 20 -pix_fmt yuv420p  output.avi

[macburgerjunior]

Hi,
thanks for sharing this...
When i try using ffmpeg I get this message:

*** THIS PROGRAM IS DEPRECATED ***
This program is only provided for compatibility and will be removed in a future release. Please use avconv instead.

and also I get this error:

Unrecognized option 'pattern_type'Failed to set value 'glob' for option 'pattern_type'

and also something changed how ffmpeg/avconv wants the input source: it wants

./*.jpg

[FakeOutdoorsman]

You're using the counterfeit "ffmpeg" from a fork of FFmpeg called Libav. As far as I know the fake "ffmpeg" and avconv do not have support for the glob pattern type.

You can download, extract, and run a static build of real ffmpeg available via links on the FFmpeg Download page. Or you can compile ffmpeg.

[CyberAngel]

@macburgerjunior, FakeOutdoorsman gave you the answer.

However, I think you could use avconv just by changing the following line in the first step from:

ls -1tr *.jpg | while read filename; do cp $filename renamed/$(printf %05d $counter)_$filename; ((counter++)); done

to:

ls -1tr *.jpg | while read filename; do cp $filename renamed/$(printf %05d $counter).jpg; ((counter++)); done

Then you know that all of your renamed picture will have a name composed of 5 digits and a ".jpg" extension and something like the following "should" work.

avconv -r 15 -i '%05d.jpg' -c:v copy output.avi

I haven't tried it though, so you might need to experiment a little bit.

[Jonathan_F.V.]

Hey, I just wanted to thank you CyberAngel for the deflickering script. I just made a timelapse with my tripod on a walkway by the sea at twilight, and many people passed with flashlights, changing the exposure. Your script made a HUGE difference in the quality of the timelapse.

[CyberAngel]

Glad to know it is useful not only for me

[CyberAngel]

My first 4k time lapse video that is based on this technique

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEBFQj8oid0

Edited the video with kdenlive. Added Fade from black and Fade to black effects plus music.

Rendered with a custom project 4k profile (3840x2160 @ 25fps) and the following custom rendering profile (Lossless 4k MKV):

acodec=ac3 ab=448k ar=44100 ac=2 vcodec=libx264 crf=15 rc-lookahead=60 coder=1 flags=+loop cmp=+chroma partitions=+parti8x8+parti4x4+partp8x8+partp4x4+partb8x8 me_method=umh subq=10 me_range=24 g=250 keyint_min=25 sc_threshold=40 i_qfactor=0.71 b_strategy=2 qcomp=0.6 qmin=0 qmax=51 qdiff=4 bf=8 refs=9 directpred=1 flags2=+mixed_refs+dct8x8+fastpskip+mbtree cqp=0 wpredp=2 trellis=2 weightp=2 deblock=1:0:0 direct=auto muxer=auto aspect=%dar

Converted to 1080p:

avconv -i 4k.avi -scale 1920x1080 -c:v libx264 -preset slow -crf 15 1080p.mkv

In youtube, I uploaded only the 4k video and youtube provides the rest of the available resolutions.

[CyberAngel]

Just updated the main thread to include some more info about the options used on kdenlive in order to get a 4k output.

I also added an alternative "mogrify" option for multi core resizing using the command "parallel".

[chili555]

Simply awesome! Thank you for giving us your processing details. Very impressive.

[FakeOutdoorsman]

Nice post. Here is some info that you may be able to use:

ffmpeg

• Use -framerate instead of -r as an input option for the image file demuxer. It is more forgiving than -r in case the images somehow vary in frame size or pixel format.
• In your last ffmpeg example you can use the scale filter instead of -ss: -vf scale=1920:-2. It will keep the aspect ratio.
• Since FFmpeg development is so active, and because Ubuntu lacks this package until 15.04, I recommend users get a recent build before each major timelapse session (download, PPA, or compile).

jpegtran

JPEG images can be losslessly rotated using jpegtran (part of the libjpeg-progs package, I believe). This is useful if the camera was mounted upside-down.

jpegtran -rotate 180 -optimize -copy none -perfect -v input.jpg > output.jpg

Some extra options are in this example:

• -optimize will "perform optimization of entropy encoding parameters", which can be slow but can also significantly reduce the size of the image. Probably a waste of time here though since you're likely to re-encode anyway.
• -copy none will remove all excess baggage such as comments, Exif info, thumbnails etc. This can save file size too, but sometimes that info is useful. Use -copy all if you want to keep everything.
• -perfect will halt with an error message if the transformation is not considered perfect. The man page doesn't say much else, but I've never had an imperfect one yet.

Alternatively use exifautotran, also in libjpeg-progs, to rotate according to the Exif Orientation Tag:

exifautotran *.jpg

Kdenlive

In Kdenlive you should use the x264 presets instead of attempting to declare a legion of options. So your profile can go from:

acodec=ac3 ab=448k ar=44100 ac=2 vcodec=libx264 crf=15 rc-lookahead=60 coder=1 flags=+loop cmp=+chroma partitions=+parti8x8+parti4x4+partp8x8+partp4x4+partb8x8 me_method=umh subq=10 me_range=24 g=250 keyint_min=25 sc_threshold=40 i_qfactor=0.71 b_strategy=2 qcomp=0.6 qmin=0 qmax=51 qdiff=4 bf=8 refs=9 directpred=1 flags2=+mixed_refs+dct8x8+fastpskip+mbtree cqp=0 wpredp=2 trellis=2 weightp=2 deblock=1:0:0 direct=auto muxer=auto aspect=%dar

to (untested example):

acodec=libopus ab=128k vcodec=libx264 crf=18 preset=slower muxer=auto aspect=%dar

• It will probably be hard to notice a difference between crf 15 vs 18, but the file size will likely be roughly 25% smaller (a bad guess). See FFmpeg Wiki: H.264 Video Encoding Guide.
• libopus, libfdk_aac, libvorbis, and libmp3lame will usually provide better quality per bitrate than ac3, but then it may not be compatible with your desired output container format or playback device/player, or your ffmpeg build may not support these encoders. See FFmpeg Wiki: Guidelines for high quality lossy audio encoding.