Remove Date/Time Stamps

HeeHee wrote on 4/2/2002, 9:28 PM
In my first years shooting home videos with my 8mm Canon camcorder, I had the date/time stamp always on. Then, over the years, I learned to switch it to the first 10 secs of a clip and try to remember to turn it off for the remainder of the shots, but forget to do that at times. Now I am archiving and editing the footage and don't need all the stamps I reluctantly captured.

Does anyone have a decent way to remove or at least cover up Date/Time stamps? I thought I could do it with a blur effect, but don't know how to limit it to a region on the frame. The text is white and in the bottom right corner of the frame.

Comments

tserface wrote on 4/3/2002, 9:31 AM
You could create a mask that reveals all of the video, but blurs the area where the date is located. Or, you could crop it if you don't lose too much (depends on where the data/time is located).

Tom
Former user wrote on 4/3/2002, 10:17 AM
Use the Cookie Cutter effect. Have a blurred track on one video track and straight on the other. Use the Cookie to reveal only part of the blurred track.

Also, at one time VirtualDub had a filter plug in called "Logoaway' (I think) that tried to interpolate and remove a logo and replace with video. I don't know how well it works, but you might try it.

Dave T2
HeeHee wrote on 4/3/2002, 2:24 PM
tserface,

I'm not sure how to use the Mask feature in this way. I have tried cropping and it works for some things, but in this case I need the full screen. Let me know how you would go about masking the region to blur.

Thanks
kkolbo wrote on 4/3/2002, 2:29 PM
The other way is to excentuate the issue. Rather than blur it away, make use of the area. You can make a small banner graphic in a graphics program and overlay it at the point of the date. Take a look at the local news and you will get many ideas of things you can do with it. It does not have to be an entire "Lower Third" as they are called, but just a strip you can lay new text stuff over.

The other thing is some clips may lend themselves to having it covered with clip art stuff ala "Blind Date". Just some ideas.

Keith
HeeHee wrote on 4/3/2002, 2:37 PM
DaveT2,

The Cookie Cutter and blur effect on a duplicate track is what I eventually came up with on my own early this morning, but was too tired to go back and post it. I only have one problem with this. In the beginning of the scene I am crossfading from another. Even with the Date/Time stamp blurred on the overlay track I still see it as sharp as can be during the crossfade. I muted out the non-blurred track to just show the transition going to the blurred track and it looks fine. So I think the Fade is causing this problem. If I remove the fade from the blurred track it is much too obvious during the transition. The only way to make it look right is to remove the cross fade and just snap to the next frame. I would really like to retain the crossfade because I am going from a shot of a nice stain glass window in the form of a cross to the Godparents signing the Baptism forms. The shot of the Godparents is already Zoomed in so I can't just use the crop tool. I guess I will have to take the raw footage and apply the cookie cutter/blur effect on the time code, render to a new file and then use that in the scene to cross-fade. Did I answer my own question?
HeeHee wrote on 4/3/2002, 3:22 PM
kkolbo,

The ultimate goal would be to elimate the eyesores completely, but that was a creative solution you gave. Now, I would just need to figure out what I would put there that would make sense.