How to Use the VirtualDub MSU Old Cinema Filter for VideoPad

The VirtualDub MSU Old Cinema Filter is a Free Plugin for VideoPad by MSU Graphics and Media Lab to Give Your Videos an Old Film Look

Download for free here: http://msu-old-cinema-2-0-virtualdub-plugin.soft112.com/

The MSU Old Cinema Effect Filter is an optional VirtualDub plugin for VideoPad similar to the Old Film effect already available in VideoPad but gives you more parameters to control. It works by adding the following to your video or movie:

• Several color correction types
• Vertical stripes
• Adding small and large noise
• Emulsion exfoliation effects

Editor's Note:
VideoPad comes with a built-in old cinema filter, however, for those who want additional controls, we support the Old Cinema plugin. Please note that due to the plugin being a 3rd party product and not maintained by us in any way, we cannot provide technical support if the plugin causes the program to crash. We recommend saving your project before applying the filter.

To install the Old Cinema plugin,

1. Download the filter & specify a location on your computer to save them. We recommend creating a folder called "VirtualDub" to save this and any other VirtualDub effects.
2. Once you have downloaded and saved the Old Cinema plugin, open a video project in VideoPad. Click the Effects button on the Home tab, and from the effects, drop-menu at the top, select Load/Unload VirtualDub Plugins. This will open the Video Effect Plugins window.
3. Click the Load File(s) button and browse to your saved VirtualDub effects. Select the Old Cinema filter (look for .vdf format) and click Open. Click OK to close the Video Effects Plugins window.
4. The filter will be added to the drop menu in the Video Effects window. Select the effect to open it and click the Configure Plugin button to view/adjust its parameters. You can edit the effect any time after it has been applied by clicking this same button from the Applied Effects list for the selected clip. 

Using The Interface and Settings (Advanced Setting Shown)

• 16. Color correction
• No Changes - there is no color correction

• Manual Linear - transform from color to black&white video
  1. Red - Correct red color
  2. Green - Correct green color
  3. Blue - Correct blue color
• Yellow Shift - colors are faded to yellow
• Blue Shift - colors are faded to blue
• Fade effect
• 4. True/False - activates transfer from "Color cinema" to "Old cinema"
  
  5. If 'Fade In' then we transfer from "Color cinema" to "Old cinema", if 'Fade Out' then transfer from "Old cinema" to "Color cinema"
  
  6. Start frame number
  
  7. Duration of transfer (in frames)
• Roller`s track
• 8. Number of tracks
  
  9. Clarity tracks
• Scratch settings
• 10. Number of scratches
  
  11. Probability of scratch
  
  12. How many frames scratch will be shown
  
  13. Clearness of scratch
  
  17. Scratch thickness
• Border fade
• 14. Shape of an ellipse. If this parameter is greater, the ellipse transforms into a rectangle
  
  15. Fade sharpness. If this parameter is greater, pixels outside the ellipse fadeless
• Settings
• Show noise - display large noise
• Screen shivering
• Effect light lamp - colors are faded at the image border
• Random noise on-screen - display small noise
• Flicking - light intensity changes randomly
• Big noise - display large spots

How to Use the VirtualDub MSU Cartoonizer Filter for VideoPad

The VirtualDub MSU Cartoonizer Filter is a Free Plugin for VideoPad by MSU Graphics and Media Lab to Animate Your Videos

Download For Free Here:
video-msu-cartoonizer-virtualdub-plugin.soft112.com

The Cartoonizer filter overlays strokes and edges onto your video to simulate animation and includes a variety of styles such as colored and non-colored pencil, watercolor and oil painting to convert movies into cartoons and also to transform images into artistic paintings.

Editor's Note:
VideoPad comes with a built-in cartoon filter, however, for those who want additional controls, we support the Cartoonizer plugin. Please note that due to the plugin being a 3rd party product and not maintained by us in any way, we cannot provide technical support if the plugin causes the program to crash. We recommend saving your project before applying the filter.

To install the Cartoonizer plugin,

1. Download the filter & specify a location on your computer to save them. We recommend creating a folder called "VirtualDub" to save this and any other VirtualDub effects in.
2. Once you have downloaded and saved the Cartoonizer plugin, open a video project in VideoPad. Click the Effects button on the Home tab, and from the effects, drop-menu at the top, select Load/Unload VirtualDub Plugins. This will open the Video Effect Plugins window.
3. Click the Load File(s) button and browse to your saved VirtualDub effects. Select the Cartoonizer filter (look for .vdf format) and click Open. Click OK to close the Video Effects Plugins window.
4. The filter will be added to the drop menu in the Video Effects window. Select the effect to open it and click the Configure Plugin button to view/adjust its parameters. You can edit the effect at any time after it has been applied by clicking this same button from the Applied Effects list for the selected clip. 

The Interface and Settings

"Painting" mode settings:

Brush Size
Controls the size of the brush. Small brushes make the image more detailed and are recommended to apply small brushes to the video with small resolution. Large brushes make the image more blurred to amplify the non-photorealistic effect.

Brush Wetness
Controls the simulated wetness of a brush, Higher settings reduce the accuracy of strokes.

Color Randomization
Adds variety to the color of strokes.

Color Saturation
Changes Saturation of the resulting image.

Show Edges
This setting allows to render edges and add a stroke to them. and can be modified in Pencil Edge Options.

"Filled Segments" mode settings:

Number of Segments
Controls the number of rendered segments.

Color Saturation
Changes Saturation of the resulting image.

Show Edges
This setting allows to render edges and add a stroke to them. and can be modified in Pencil Edge Options.

"Drawing" mode settings:

Pencil Type
Allows choosing the type of pencil, Black or Colored.

Number of Edges
Controls the number of rendered edges.

Edge Brightness
Controls the brightness of edges for non-colored pencil and saturation for colored pencil.

Edge Thickness
Controls edge thickness.

Edge Accuracy
Controls accuracy of edge rendering. The left side of the bar maximizes precise strokes.

Use Face Detection
If enabled, this setting allows improving the accuracy of rendering for Faces.

General Settings:

Process each N frame
Control the number of processed frames. Each N-th frame is processed, other frames are duplicated. This parameter can be used to reduce the realism of the processed video or decrease shaking. 

To see various examples of how the filter can be used, take a look at the MSU gallery here 

WavePad Audio Editing Tips & Tricks

Below you will find a compilation of some of the audio effects and sound editing basics for the WavePad audio editor that you will want to know and test out for yourself as you delve into the world of audio editing. Another great way for those new to audio editing to get started is by watching the WavePad sound editor intro video tutorials so you can see the audio editor in action.

Split and Cut Audio Files

You can split a file at any point you choose by simply clicking the Split button on the Edit tab. This will create two audio files split at the point you had the cursor. Be careful when you use this function, the action cannot be undone. Additional audio splitting options include splitting at bookmarks, splitting at silences and similar Trim options that delete sections instead of creating new audio files.

Amplify Audio Volume

To make the audio sound louder, instead of simply turning the volume control up you want to amplify the file. You will find Amplify on the Effects tab, which will open a window where you can either adjust the amplification using the slider or by selecting a preset level from the drop-down menu. Selecting 200% will double the volume, 50% will cut the volume in half.

Equalize Audio

Amplifying affects the full spectrum of the audio in a file, but if you want to increase or decrease certain frequencies, for example, boosting all of the lower bass frequencies, then you want to use the Equalizer. The Equalizer is also on the Effects tab and opens a graph of the frequencies going from low to high frequencies as you move left to right. This gives you very finite control of the frequency ranges you want to control. Moving a point up will make the frequency stronger and moving a point down will make it weaker.

Normalize Audio

Normalizing an audio file is similar to amplifying, except that normalizing increases the sound of the loudest peak to the maximum level without causing clipping in digital audio. This is frequently used as the last step before saving a final version of an edited song or recording. To normalize an audio file, you will find Normalize on the Effects tab.

Fade In and Out of Audio

Fading in and out of an audio file will help acclimate the ear to the background noise of a file. To fade in, select a region at the beginning of your file, then select "Fade in" under Fade on the Effects tab. Similarly, you can select "Fade out" with a region at the end of your file selected. A good tip is to fade in quicker than you fade out because the ear expects to hear the initial audio quickly, but abrupt transitions to silence at the end can be jilting.

Remove Background Noise

Since not every audio recording is made in a sound studio environment, you often get unwanted background noise in recordings. To remove background noise you want to take advantage of the Cleanup options on the Effects tab. Specifically, under Noise Reduction try using Audio Spectral Subtraction and then Multi-band noise gating. If the presets don't give the results you want, try using lower levels on these reductions until you find a combination that leaves only audio you want to keep.

Remove Vocals

You will find an option to Reduce Vocals under the Voice button on the Effects tab. This will open a dialog box that allows you to change the pan position and width, the vocal level, and preserve the bass. Generally, the default settings will work the best, but different songs may require different settings to effectively reduce or eliminate the vocal frequencies, so if you don't get the results you want, try adjust these settings until you are satisfied with the result.

Layer Audio & Voiceovers

WavePad won't allow you to record directly over another file; highlighting a file and clicking record will replace the selection. Depending on how much mixing you want to do, you may want to consider moving to MixPad audio mixing software, but for some basic audio mixing within WavePad, you want to use the Paste Mix feature. Copy the audio you want to add to your file to the clipboard, then select all in the file you want to add it to, then select Paste Mix on the Edit tab. This will open a window with options on what to do if your files are not the same length. When you click OK the two pieces of audio will be combined.

Sound Effect Library

Find audio clips and sound effects to add to your audio projects in the NCH Sound Effect Library. Open the Sound Library from the Tools tab. This opens a new window where you can preview and download sound effects and royalty-free music clips.

Audio Effect Plugins

In the Windows version of WavePad, you can add DirectX and VST plugin effects to further expand your audio editing capabilities. Find the options to add and use VST and DirectX plugins on the Effects Tab. VST Plugins will open their own interface where you can adjust the settings, while you will need to go into the settings when selecting a DirectX plugin for the effect to be applied when you click OK. Get started with this list of free VST plugins you can download and use with WavePad.

FFT Sound Analysis

All of the audio editing features outlined above are all easy to put into action, but don't let that fool you into thinking that WavePad doesn't have a lot of power under the hood. One of the more advanced areas you can explore is the powerful audio analysis tools for examining the spectral content of the audio. Learn about the FFT and TFFT audio analysis graphs and what they represent to start to get your feet wet. These tools can be used in many fields, including linguistics and mathematics, in addition to sound engineering.


If you have any other tips, favorite features, or advice of your own, please comment and share them below.

Audio Effect Plugins for WavePad Sound Editor

In addition to the wide range of audio editing features and effects built into WavePad Audio Editor, you can also add plugins to further expand your Audio Editing possibilities. WavePad supports both DirectX and VST plugin effects, providing access to thousands of additional audio tools and effects.

VST Plugins

VST or Virtual Studio Technology, is a standardized way of adding effects to digital audio editing programs like WavePad. To add a VST effect to WavePad choose VST on the Effects tab, which will open the VST plugins window. In this window browse to the directory on your computer where you have saved your VST plugins (note that the plugins must be DLL files). When you have a folder selected, the list of VST effects in that directory will populate the VST Plugin list, so you can use the drop down list to select your plugin. When you click OK, the VST plugin will open in WavePad and you can make any adjustments to its parameters and continue to edit the waveform, but now the audio you hear is being processed by the VST effect. To save the effect, click the Apply button on your effect which will close the effect and save the audio with the effect added.

DirectX Effects

Similar to VST, DirectX plugins are another standardized way to connect audio synthesizers and effects to audio editors. These plugins do not have their own interfaces, but pass and process the audio behind the scenes. Also, as with the VST plugins, you will find DirectX on the Effects tab, and clicking on it will open a window with a list of the DirectX plugins detected on your computer. Select the effect you want from the drop down menu and click Settings to make changes to the configuration settings, and click the OK to apply the DirectX effect to your audio.

There is a world of extra effects out there that you can use when you start exploring VST and DirectX effects. To get you started we have a list of free VST plugins available online for you to download and try with WavePad, but this is just the beginning. There are lots of other plugins available that you can use with WavePad Audio Editing Software to further enhance your audio editing projects.

Note: currently plugin support is limited to the Windows version of WavePad

Easier Than Ever Audio Mixing

When you’re mixing an audio project, you want things to be as simple as possible. Some great new features have been added to the latest version of MixPad recording and mixing software making it easier to use than ever.

To help you quickly make changes to the tracks in your projects - like adjusting the volume of tracks, adding effects, or using a VSTi - we've added a "mixer" view that opens in a separate floating window so you can still see the tracks. You can move the mixer anywhere on your desktop, or minimize or close it when you don’t need to use it. The mixer includes faders for each track along with a Master fader so you can control the volume of your entire project. Along with the faders for each track, the mixer has controls to:

• Pan a track right or left
• Arm a track to record
• Mute or Solo a track
• Open the Effects Chain to add, modify or delete effects
• Adjust the Audio Options
• Add a VSTi for a MIDI track

Another improvement you're sure to like is the ability to change the colors of the waveforms in each track. Use this feature to help organize your project. For example set your drum tracks to blue, your guitar tracks to green, and your vocal tracks to yellow. Now, at a glance, you can see where things are located in your project. It’s simple to change the colors of each track using the controls on the mixer, or just right-click on a track and select "Track Color" from the menu

Other enhancements you’ll find in the new version of MixPad multitrack mixing software include presets for effects, and an easier way to delete fade points. So if you mix audio, you will definitely want to check it out.

VirtualDub Plugins for VideoPad

Want to do more with VideoPad? You can add VirtualDub Video Plugin Effects to VideoPad Video Editor, giving you access to additional tools and effects. Some of the most common VirtualDub plugin features you will find out there have already been added as built-in features of VideoPad, but there are certainly more out there if you take a little time to look. For example, if you want to disguise someone before you post a video on YouTube, you might want to take a look at the NVeiler Video Filter from NeuroTechnology, which can be used to detect and pixelize faces to hide a person's identity.

Find more information on adding and using plugins in VideoPad on our site, and let us know what your favorite VirtualDub plugins are for expanding your copy of VideoPad.

Upgrades to MixPad Music Mixer include VST plugin support

For recording your band, creating voiceovers, or mixing music, MixPad Multitrack Audio Software has always been a valuable tool. It's both easy to use, and robust enough to handle your biggest audio production projects. And most recently MixPad has had some significant updates that include a tabbed interface for quick access to all of the music mixing and editing features, VST plugin support to apply extended effects to your projects, improved selection making mixing even faster and improved effects chain allows you to apply non-destructive effects to individual tracks. All of these upgrades are available now with the same great small download size to get you working on audio production projects in mere minutes without taking up your valuable disk space.

VideoPad Video Editing Tips & Tricks

Some of our most popular blog entries have been the posts about speed changing feature to VideoPad and how to stabilize video. Not surprising since changing video speed was such a long-awaited video editing feature for the popular video editing software. To expand on the topic of helpful video editing effects and features here are several Tips and Tricks for how to edit video with VideoPad. If you have any tips of your own please comment and add them to our list. You can also get started with video editing by watching the the VideoPad video tutorials.

Title Screen and Ending Credits

Add a blank slide to the beginning or end of the timeline. Add text to the slideslide by clicking the green plus button on the Overlay Track, and a fade transition to create a dramatic opening or closing effect to your movie. For ending credits, select the vertical scrolling option and adjust the clip duration to control the scrolling speed.

Text Overlays

Adding captions, title screens and credits is a cinch. See our post on Adding text to your videos for some tips to help you get started using the Overlay Track to add text to video clips.

Video Subtitles

Subtitles are another way of adding text to your video projects. See our post on adding subtitles to your video for a quick overview on importing or creating an .ssa subtitle file in VideoPad, or for more detailed instructions go to our video subtitles tutorial.

Image Overlays

To create a watermark effect or add images to your video for presentations, use image overlays. Click the green plus button on the Overlay Track, select the Image or Video radio button, browse for a file and apply it to the sequence. Once it’s on the sequence, you can select it and edit its size, opacity, positioning and more.

Control Effect Duration

To apply an effect to only part of a clip, try slicing the clip in two. Apply an effect to only one slice, and place a cross-fade between the slices for a seamless transition.

Change Video Speed

Speed up or slow down video clips by selecting a clip and selecting the Speed effect from the Effects tab, then use the slider to select the new speed for the video clip, (i.e. 50% for half speed, 200% for double). You can also choose to play the clip backward.

Video Stabilization

One possible problem you may have with videos you have recorded on your camcorder is video clips that are shaky or unsteady. This is a common problem when you film without a tripod to keep the camcorder still no matter how steady you think your hands are. The video stabilization feature is an easy solution to eliminating camera jitter in your videos, giving you a final video that won't make you seasick to watch.

Upload Videos to YouTube

VideoPad has a wide range of output options for saving your final video, and if you are creating your video for YouTube you can even skip a step and upload to YouTube from VideoPad by entering your YouTube account information and other details, which is just one of the many choices available when saving your finished movie. VideoPad also has automated upload options for Facebook and Flickr.

Sound Effects

VideoPad comes with a Sound Effect Library. You can preview and download sounds from the Sound Effects Library by going to Edit -> Sound -> NCH Sound Effect Library. And since VideoPad has unlimited audio tracks, you have plenty of room to add and mix in the sound effect to your movie soundtrack.

Greenscreen Video Editing

For shooting those scenes you can’t do on location, use the chroma-key feature to transport yourself to another locale. To use chroma-key, click the green plus button on the Overlay Track, select the Image or Video radio button, click the Record button, click the Remove Background button, and follow the onscreen instructions. Also see out post on Easy Chroma Key Overlays.

VirtualDub Video Plugins

For even more effects, VideoPad supports VirtualDub plugins. You can add new plugins by selecting Load/Unload Plugins on the Effects Tab, and loading your saved .vdf format VirtaulDub plugin filter.

And for improving the audio or working on a soundtrack for your movie you may want to start by checking out the WavePad audio editing tips and tricks to help get you started with audio editing.