Author Topic: Water Marking Videos - Software Recommendation?  (Read 3568 times)

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BayAreaSM

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Water Marking Videos - Software Recommendation?
« on: Dec 08, 2013, 01:27 am »
I'm curious if anyone out there has to create watermarks for their company's archival videos and what software you use.

In my company's current season, we have several lighting designers who are from out of state/country, and in order to have them design a rep plot, they need to see the other ballets in their rep program. Our company has decided to use private YouTube videos of our works, but watermarked, as it is very easy to download just about anything on the net. Granted, there is software you can buy that can remove watermarks, but we can't help that.

I've done a ton of searching online to try to find a free video watermarking program, and I can't seem to find one. I don't need a how-to from Adobe on how to build one and lay it in, as my company doesn't have the Adobe Suite. Have you found anything that was freeware? If you paid for software, is there a particular one that you recommend? (I'm currently using WonderShare as a free trial, so I can only watermark 10 videos, and the WonderShare logo is watermarked on my video as well.)

dance stage manager

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Re: Water Marking Videos - Software Recommendation?
« Reply #1 on: Apr 04, 2014, 12:27 pm »
Hi BayAreaSM,

I know your post was a while ago, but I just discovered that a program that I use to encode video files to different formats will actually add a basic watermark.  The software is called MPEG Streamclip.   I use it on a Mac platform, so I'm not sure about it's functionality in a PC world.

After selecting the file to export, the window to add a text watermark is found after clicking the 'Adjustments' button.

Pros: MPEG Streamclip is free and exports to a wide variety of formats (you may need to purchase a $20 MPEG2 viewer from Apple).
Cons: The watermark is only simple text, and I don't believe it can be formatted at all (ie. font, colour, size)

Let me know if you have any success, or if you've found another solution.

BayAreaSM

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Re: Water Marking Videos - Software Recommendation?
« Reply #2 on: Apr 05, 2014, 12:41 am »
Well, our company ended up purchasing Wondershare - and I have to admit - it's pretty great. Once I purchased it (it was actually $39 when I bought it), I realized that it could also do other fun stuff.

It allows for using an image (e.g. our company logo) as the watermark, or text, if I choose. I can change the size and transparency of my image and place it anywhere in my video.

It also downloads the DVD material to my computer as a MOV file and will change it's format to just about anything I want - even across different platforms and can encode for just about anything. And it will also convert audio files to other formats. And, as an added touch, it has a burning option (I get rather tired of working in iDVD and having to remove all the menu garbage).

Just using Wondershare and iMovie together, I can download, edit, watermark and upload to YouTube without needing to call IT (aka my husband) while at work. (And Wondershare has an "edit" option that will export your file to whatever editing program you are planning on using.) Quite helpful when choreographer trust contracts now require that we DropBox videos of our performances.
« Last Edit: Apr 05, 2014, 12:43 am by BayAreaSM »

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Re: Water Marking Videos - Software Recommendation?
« Reply #3 on: Apr 05, 2014, 09:33 am »
Interesting, I'll have a look at Wondershare.  My current workflow includes MPEG Streamclip (to convert to Quicktime - .mov), Final Cut Pro X to trim/edit and add watermark, and sometimes FFmpegX to transcode for Apple iOS device use.  It's not complicated, but it is time-consuming.  I'm always interested in removing unnecessary steps.