Video Editing Software For Video Surveillance?

I did this with adobe premiere after watching a 7min video on youtube.

If memory serves I believe it was less than $20/mo. maybe much less, and a very robust platform with a ton of great capabilities.

Was for old company so I don't know current pricing but it was a very cost effective and capable tool. Somewhat of a standard in non-linear video editing too so the time spent learning the platform is a marketable skill...nice secondary benefit.

For basic linear editing (just very basic editing) windows movie maker sufficed for a free program but no blur of dynamic objects. You could blur or block static things with filled text boxes or shapes but moving objects or moving frame (PTZ) was a problem.

Hope this helps.

-Dale

Need To Blur / Mask People On Exported Video - How?

Hi Paul, I used to work for Blackmagic Design which makes the DaVinci Resolve software. DaVinci Resolve is a powerful, free software application for Windows and Mac OS X which allows you to individually place trackers on one or more objects of interest and then set a blur on them. If you set the blur high enough, it completely masks the object rather than merely blurring. Alternatively, you can track the objects you want to be visible and then blur everything else around them. This is nice if you want to show the faces of specific people but blur out anyone else in the footage.

The automatic tracking is great because, unlike regular video editing software, you don't have to manually move the blur as a face or object moves in the video.

The free version of Resolve is all you need and you don't need any special hardware or editing keyboards to make this work. The tracker is amazing and it is uncanny how well it tracks faces and number plates and just about any other object you wish to track.

Once I've set the window (area) I'd like to track, I like to use the Highlight feature to verify what I'm isolating with the tracker. It knocks out the rest of the video image and only shows you what you're tracking. If you've applied a blur to the tracker, then you can easily see if the blur has successfully tracked the object or if it needs fine-tuning. Resolve also includes editing features which should be more than enough for editing surveillance footage. You can then export the final video to many different video formats.

There is also a paid version of this software but you won't need it unless you are editing on Linux or deciding to move to Hollywood.

Upload your clip(s) to YouTube, then go to their online editor function - make all the standard cuts, splices, transitions, text overlay, closed captions; then apply enhancements like stabilization, color correction, effects, etc.

YouTube also has a very efficient "FaceBlur" feature you can apply to your video to selectively blur faces before or after editing.