Thread: A question and apology...

Hello. I joined this forum before noticing it is for those who are a lot more serious about the subject of this forum than I have the aptitude or time to ever belong here. Anyway, now that I'm here, I apologetically request some information or suggestions regarding the following: I need to do this one edit in one 'home' video (for someone else, in fact). I need to 'censor' it. Let me explain. I agreed to help a co-worker at the psychiatric hospital where I work who asked me to make a digital copy of an old VHS tape recording, and transfer this to several DVD copies for private distribution (to various co-workers who appear, or know those who appear, in the video'd event). Fine, no problems... until an administration person viewed a copy and noticed a problem: There's a patient who had somehow wandered in and lingered in the background within view of the camera when this video was taken. Now both the law and this hospital's policies are very clear regarding psychiatric patient confidentiality, etc. This patient's identity must be hidden or removed from the video. To accomplish this without deleting several minutes of otherwise valued video footage, would simply be to 'blur out' or 'pixelate' this person's face. Should be easy, right? Problem is my video editing software doesn't feature any tools to do this kind of editing, and I'm not in a position to invest in professional grade/equivalent video-editing software that does. Perhaps if I could know what key words to best use to describe this particular editing function I might successfully Google for and find some freeware program that would allow me to perform this one task. Or, failing that, if I could know what choice of for-purchase software would be most economical whilst suitable for my purpose here, I could at least then address the matter of cost (and/or its defrayment) with the co-worker(s) requesting finished copies of the video.

Any suggestions, advice, feedback (except for deserved expletives) would be much appreciated.
Thanks

What is the purpose of the video? commercial? Educational? personal?

Originally Posted by Editore56

Hello. I joined this forum before noticing it is for those who are a lot more serious about the subject of this forum than I have the aptitude or time to ever belong here.

No apology required. We'll welcome anyone here if they have either an interest in developing videomaking as a hobby or profession or if, like you, they have a specific requirement.

The most common method for this is to blur/pixelate the face in a the video. Googling "Blur faces in video" brings up a load of options. Popular commercial programs like Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro are easily capable of this and time-limited fully working downloads are available.

Incidentally, in case youre not aware. The first step could be to get the VHS onto your computer. Edit that footage then create the DVDs from that.

Good luck.

If you can tell us what editing software you are using it might help us to help you. Putting a blur or "masking out" someone should be pretty simple with most pieces of editing software.

Originally Posted by TimStannard

Popular commercial programs like Sony Vegas and Adobe Premiere Pro are easily capable of this

Just in case your put off by the pricing of these options, they do reduced feature versions for a lot less money, i.e Adobe makes "Premier Elements" A lot less features, but should be enough for what you need.

Everyone here's still learning, so no worries about posting queries at any level. If you aren't equipped with the gear to do the job, upload somewhere and most members would be happy to blur your choice of face and re-upload. If you're unsure of how to do any connected task, someone will talk you through it.

Originally Posted by Bpotter908

Just in case your put off by the pricing of these options, they do reduced feature versions for a lot less money, i.e Adobe makes "Premier Elements" A lot less features, but should be enough for what you need.

Engage brain before typing. I thought "Elements" but typed "Pro". Nevertheless I was suggesting the "free" option of downloading the trial as this is a one-off exercise.

Originally Posted by Bpotter908

What is the purpose of the video? commercial? Educational? personal?

Personal. It's a record of a staff x-mas party which took place 20 years ago.

It's not hard to do - but you might be able to cheat and use the edited dvd as source material, which is easier to get into the editor than a VHS tape. you can then blob it out by a number of different ways. It could be easier to give it to somebody who already has the editor and get them to do it for you - rather than buy the software and then spend ages learning how to use it!

I'm sure we could do it for you - but finding somebody local where you can sit next to them and do it with them is probably better for security.

Originally Posted by Midnight Blue

If you can tell us what editing software you are using it might help us to help you. Putting a blur or "masking out" someone should be pretty simple with most pieces of editing software.

My video editing software is VideoReDo Plus (Version 2. 5. 6. 512). Unfortunately this program provides little functionality beyond the mere cutting and/or splicing of whole video footage. However, before I turned here for help I had downloaded and tried using a couple of freeware editing programs, the key one being, Debug Mode Wax. This program is supposed to be able to do the kind of editing I need to do here. [At least according to this "how to" video at How To Blur Faces In Videos - YouTube .] But I hit a wall trying to get it to work for me. It appears the program is simply not running in my system the way it's supposed to; although not being familiar with the process of what I'm endeavoring to do here I can't be 100% certain the "wall" I've hit is not my own lack of familiarity with the process and the program itself.