Put a custom watermark on your video

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Put a custom watermark on your video

jimmalenko posted 2004 Dec 13 03:10

PUT A CUSTOM WATERMARK ON YOUR VIDEO

This guide will enable you to place a watermark over an existing video. This watermark can be text, or an existing image. Please note that some basic working knowledge of VirtualdubMod would be an advantage, but not a necessity. If you wish to add a watermark, you must re-encode your video, so it is suggested that you would use this guide immediately after acquiring your source, just before you are about to re-encode your output.

Tools Required:
VirtualDubMod
Image manipulation/creation software (Windows Paint will do the job)
Optional - Donald Graft's logo filter (only required for Part 2 of this guide)

PART 1: WATERMARK PRESENT FOR ENTIRE VIDEO

In this part, I'll show you how to place a watermark in your video for the entire duration of the video. If you wish to only have your watermark visible for certain parts of the video, or you wish to configure a number of different watermarks at different time intervals, please see Part 2 at the end of this guide.

1. PREPARE YOUR WATERMARK IMAGE

a) If making a text watermark:

Open up your favourite image manipulation/creation program. Create a new image – I’d suggest a canvas size of 200 (width) x 20 (height) as a good starting point, but you can use whatever you like, just bear in mind how it will look and fit on the screen. Use your image software to paint the background black. Now create the text you wish to appear in the watermark, and place it on the black background, making sure that the text colour is white. Once finished creating your watermark image, save it, but make sure that you save it as either a .BMP or a .TGA file.

b) If you are using an existing image:

Simply open the image, and make sure you save it as a BMP or TGA file.

Please note:
It is imperative that you save your watermark as either a .BMP or a .TGA file, as these are the only file formats virtualdubmod will accept for watermarks.

Some examples of watermark images appear below:

Text:

Existing image:

2. SET UP VIRTUALDUBMOD

Open Virtualdubmod, go to File > open video file:

Select your source video and press the Open button.

You should now have something similar to the following:

Go to Video > Filters:

Click the Add button, scroll down to the logo filter:

Click OK.

You should now have something similar to the following:

Press the … button to the right of the Logo image field and select your watermark image.
Tick the enable per-pixel alpha blending using alpha channel tickbox.
Leave the Use premultiplied alpha tickbox ticked.
Tick the use gray channel of secondary image for alpha channel tickbox.
Press the … button to the right of the Alpha image field and select your watermark image.

Click the Show Preview button, and you should have something similar to the following:

1. corresponds to the opacity of your watermark, This control how “see-through” your image is. I’d recommend a value of 50% if you wish the background to show through from behind the watermark. Your changes are automatically updated in the preview window, so you can quickly see the results of your actions.

2. corresponds to the manual adjustment of the positioning of the watermark, where X offset is the distance from the left of the video, and Y offset is the distance from the top of the video.

3. corresponds to the preset adjustment of the positioning of the watermark. TL stands for Top Left, MC stands for Middle Centre, BR stands for Bottom Right …… and you get the idea.

Please Note:
If you have used the manual adjustment, this will also affect the presets, so if you change your mind and decide to use a preset instead of manually adjusting the placement of the watermark, make sure you set both the X offset and the Y offset back to 0, otherwise you might get some unexpected results.

Once you are happy with your settings, click OK, and then OK again.

You should now have the following:

Now you can set up your video with any encoding settings you desire as per normal. Once you have selected your compression settings for both video and audio (if required), Go to File > Save As, specify your output filename, and click the Save button, or start the frameserver if you’re frameserving to an MPEG encoder.

Now some examples with opacity set at 50%:

Text:

Image:

PART 2 (OPTIONAL): CUSTOM DURATIONS FOR LOGO(S) / MULTIPLE LOGOS

In this section, you'll be able to set custom durations for one or many watermark logos/text.

Download Donald Graft's logo filter and extract all files in the Zip file into your Virtualdubmod\plugins directory.

Go to Video > Filters.
Click the Add button.
Click the Load button.
Browse to your VirtualdubMod\plugins directory, select the logo.vdf file and press OK. Scroll down through the list of filters until you find logo (1.4), click on it, and press OK.

You will be presented with the following:

I found the help file so descriptive that IMO it would be very beneficial for me just to post the entire contents of it here:

This filter provides the ability to overlay a logo contained in a bitmap file. The position of the bitmap may be specified. Selectable alpha blending allows variable merging with the video, and a transparent color may be selected to obtain a free-floating effect. Animated logos can be created by defining a series of bitmaps. Filter preview is supported.

This filter is ideal for unobtrusively placing a logo on the video as is done on many cable TV channels.

Two test bitmaps and an animated bitmap sequence are provided in the zip file.

How to Make a Static Logo
Create a 24-bit-depth windows bitmap file with the desired size and with a transparent color zone if desired. The transparency color may be arbitrarily selected and then configured in the filter configuration.
In the filter configuration dialog box, enter the input file. If the specified bitmap file cannot be found, or if it is not a bitmap file, or if it is of the wrong depth, the output frame will be all black. Set the desired X and Y coordinates, the starting frame and the duration (in frames). Set the desired alpha blend and transparent color.

How to Make an Animated Logo
To make an animated logo, create a series of bitmap files named name0000.bmp, name0001.bmp, name0002.bmp, etc. (you can replace "name" with desired text). Specify the first one as the input file and check the 'Animation sequence' checkbox. Set the duration to be the number of frames to display each bitmap file before moving to the next one. Set the loop count to the number of repetitions desired for the sequence. Set the other parameters as described for static logos.
Note that stepping forward and rewinding will operate correctly, but stepping backward is currently not supported.

A sample sequence is provided that produces a spinning earth. To run it, set the duration to 1, loops to 0, and enable a transparent color of 0/0/0.

Detailed Option Descriptions
The following options are provided:
Input file: Specifies the full pathname of the bitmap file to be used.

Animation sequence: Check this to enable an animated sequence.

X: This option determines the X offset of the start of the bitmap on the video.

Y: This option determines the Y offset of the start of the bitmap on the video.

Starting frame: The frame number on which to begin displaying the logo.

Duration: For a static bitmap, the number of frames for which to display the logo. For animated bitmaps, the number of frames to display each bitmap before moving to the next bitmap. To display a bitmap for the whole clip length, select 0.

Loops: For static logos, this has no effect. For animated logos, the number of repetitions of the bitmap sequence. To loop forever, select 0.

Alpha: This option determines the blending of the bitmap with the video. For full bitmap and no video, use the value 255. As this value is reduced toward 0, more and more of the video is blended in. An alpha of about 100-128 gives a nice unobtrusive overlay.

Fade: These options allow for the logo to be faded in and/or out. For fade-in, the starting frame number of the fade is determined by the logo starting frame. The length of the fade is determined by the In Len value. For fade-out, the ending frame number of the fade is determined by the Out End value. The length of the fade is determined by the Out Len value. If fade-in and fade-out overlap, fade-out overrides. Even if the logo is otherwise enabled such that it would appear beyond the end of a fade-out if the fade-out were not there, the logo will be suppressed after the fade-out. Finally, if you put silly values in the fade boxes, you will get what you deserve.

Enable transparent color: Check this if you have made a transparent color zone in your bitmap. Then select the transparent color in the Red, Green, and Blue edit boxes. Full video shows in the transparent areas. The tolerance box allows you to specify a 'sloppiness' factor fo the match to the transparent color. As long as the difference between each color channel and the corresponding specified transparent color is not greater than the specified tolerance, then the color will be considered to be transparent. For example, if the tolerance is 10 and the specified transparent color is 37:45:10, then a color 39:44:5 will be considered transparent, while a color 39:56:11 will not be transparent (because one color channel's difference exceeds tolerance).

Knock yourselves out !

mats.hogberg posted 2004 Dec 13 04:02

Great guide, besides some of the images are broken (image7 - image12)
And really - plastering logos and stuff all over your encodes is IMO one of the most n00bish things you can do, and should not be taught to minors! ;-)

/Mats

jimmalenko posted 2004 Dec 13 04:04

mats.hogberg :

Having issues uploading images ATM - please bear with me :wink:

EDIT: Images now uploaded :)

magicmycote posted 2004 Dec 14 00:36

I have yet to find a good way to have a watermark appear at intervals throughout the video. For instance, the mark appears in the first few seconds of the vidoe, then disappears...only to reappear at intervals of 10 minutes or so, instead of constantly being displayed. What method would you use to do this? My attempts have resulted in making huge numbers of images, some with mark, some blank, and encoding them as an animation - with the number of blank images being the way I 'time' the appearance.

jimmalenko posted 2004 Dec 14 01:06

magicmycote :

I daresay it's probably very easy (certainly much much easier than what I'm about to describe) in advanced editing software such as premiere. BUT, I don't have Premiere to test on, so I'll do it the free way with VirtualdubMod :wink:

I'll use an example where the you have a 10 Minute clip and the watermark is displayed for the first 3 seconds, then at the 5 minute mark for 3 seconds.

You need to do it in sections - open your video in virtualdubmod and set up the watermark you want to display. Using the

buttons, set the start point to frame 1 (you can navigate easily through the frames using the multitude of commands on the Edit menu) and end point to the 3 second mark (you can use Edit > Go to ... to specify a timecode if you're spooked by using frame numbers). Go to Video > Compression, and specify a video codec to use, and if you have audio, go to Streams > Stream List, right-click on the audio stream(s) you wish to keep and go to Direct Stream Copy. Then go to File > Save As, and save the first portion out to an AVI file. Call this section part01.avi, or something similar.

To make the watermark "come back" at the 5 minute mark, set the start point to the 5 minute mark (you can use Edit > Go to ... to specify a timecode if you're spooked by using frame numbers) and end point to the 5 Minute 3 second mark (you can use Edit > Go to ... to specify a timecode if you're spooked by using frame numbers). Go to Video > Compression, and specify a video codec to use, and if you have audio, go to Streams > Stream List, right-click on the audio stream(s) you wish to keep and go to Direct Stream Copy. Then go to File > Save As, and save the first portion out to another AVI file. Call this section part03.avi, or something similar.

Now we have to do the "non-watermark" sections. Remove the watermark by going to Video > Filters, select the logo filter you set up and press the Delete button. Press OK. Now set the start point to 1 frame after where you set the first end frame to (in this case, it would be the frame at the 3 second and 1 frame mark), and set the end point to the frame before you set the second start point (in this case, it would be the frame at the 5 minute - 1 frame mark). Go to Video > Compression, and specify a video codec to use, and set audio to Direct Stream Copy and save again. Call this section part02.avi, or something similar.

Repeat for the second section - set the start point to 1 frame after where you set the second end frame to (in this case, it would be the frame at the 5 minute 3 second and 1 frame mark), and set the end point to the last frame of the clip (Ctrl + -> will take you straight to it). Go to Video > Compression, and specify a video codec to use, and set audio to Direct Stream Copy and save again. Call this section part04.avi, or something similar.

Now close all your clips, and reopen VirtualdubMod. Go to File > Open, and open part01.avi, making sure that the "Automatically load linked segments" tickbox is ticked (or you could just open part01.avi on its own, and go to File > Append segment). Either way should automatically load part02.avi - part04.avi. Then you can frameserve to your favorite encoder, or re-encode (aqain) with your codec of choice.

As I mentioned, this isn't a very user-friendly way to do it, and probably requires oodles of hard drive space, but it CAN be done :wink:

gll99 posted 2004 Dec 14 01:12

magicmycote :

Donald Graft has a vdub filter which allows you to cycle bitmaps as an animation sequence for a specified number of frames. If you only had 2 images and one was just a colored frame which you could blend out and if you set a large number of frames between changing images it might produce the effect you want. Of course it would be at precise intervals based on the number of frames image 1 is seen and then image 2 is blended out. What I don't know is whether you could make the second image (plain color) just completely transparent. I've not tested this myself but you may want to try it yourself. There is a small text file with the filter which explains how it works. The only link I have dating back to 2000 is a dead one but you probably can find it with a google search on his name and/or vdub filters. My version is called logo v1.1 by Donald Graft.

ps I just noticed that the filter has a tranparent color option so this should work if one image is the selected tranparent color. It's worth a try.

Found a link with updated version 1.4
http://neuron2.net/logo.html

edited in:
Since you must display each image a set number of frames one way to toy with this could be for example to have 1 logo image and nineteen colored frames (same transparent color) then let each image show for 30 seconds then the real logo would only show for 30 seconds once every 10 minutes. Choose the variation that suits your needs.

Tommyknocker posted 2004 Dec 14 01:24

I hate logos.

mats.hogberg posted 2004 Dec 14 01:39

Yes, Donald Grafts logo filter is really cool -

you can set fade in/fade out values for the logo to appear for just a certain amount of frames, along with an over all alpha value. The transparent color can be specified to a specific RGB value. By adding this filter several times, you can have logos coming and going all over the movie (God forbid!)

/Mats

jimmalenko posted 2004 Dec 14 02:16

^^ Well I'll just go and rewrite the guide then, shall I ..... :doh:

mats.hogberg posted 2004 Dec 14 03:11

I wouldn't say that - It's a good guide for the std VirtualDub logo filter!

/Mats

jimmalenko posted 2004 Dec 14 03:17

mats.hogberg :

I wouldn't say that - It's a good guide for the std VirtualDub logo filter!

I might have a play with this other logo filter and integrate it into the guide as a "Part 2" to my guide I think :wink:

jimmalenko posted 2004 Dec 14 05:07

Part 2 added to the guide :wink:

DereX888 posted 2004 Dec 14 05:21

gosh, jim... you should autoban yourself for at least a year for this guide!!
Isn't station logos bigger and longer every year not enough? Like there is not enough music videos already on the net with such idiotic logos as someone's freaking head popping up in the corner on 25% of the screen, or even more idiotic "thoughtful messages" scrolling at the bottom... :(

// Images removed.
// -- moderator lordsmurf

EDIT:
do you work for MPAA or some broadcasters association by any chance? :evil:

You are in breach of the forum rules and are being issued with a formal warning. This is the USER GUIDE forum. Do not ruin others' guides by filling the page with your smileys or images. The commentary is also out-of-line. Start a new topic in the general forum about why you hate watermarks. DO NOT HIJACK POSTS, ESPECIALLY HOW-TO GUIDES.

OT regular or not, that was not cool. Common sense says "if my images screw up the post, fix it". Don't just leave it up there as a mess somebody else has to clean up.

/ Moderator lordsmurf

jimmalenko posted 2004 Dec 14 05:33

DereX888 :

gosh, jim... you should autoban yourself for at least a year for this guide!!

Says he that just put a fricking scroll bar in my guide because of his images

// Images removed.
// -- moderator lordsmurf

racer-x posted 2004 Dec 14 05:36

Nice job on the guide.

I just want to say that all this can easily be done (and much more) in Wax2 wich is also Free. You can also animate the logo if you want.

But if you only want a simple logo and don't want to learn a complicated but powerfull advanced editor, then this guide is very useful.

DereX888 posted 2004 Dec 14 05:48

;)

// Images removed.
// -- moderator lordsmurf

EDIT:

:refilao: :refilao:

(the rest of the angry mob are the future logoed video users ;))

jimmalenko posted 2004 Dec 14 06:57

Peaceful protests are fine.

Duly noted :wink:

johns0 posted 2004 Dec 15 01:35

Just curious,would you be able to load the filter again so it shows a logo in the middle of the clip for a few seconds and then so it has an ending logo?

mats.hogberg posted 2004 Dec 15 01:44

mats.hogberg :

By adding this filter several times, you can have logos coming and going all over the movie (God forbid!)

I quote myself... ;-)

/Mats

jimmalenko posted 2004 Dec 15 01:49

johns0 :

Just curious,would you be able to load the filter again so it shows a logo in the middle of the clip for a few seconds and then so it has an ending logo?

As mats rightfully says, "God forbid!" ......

Seriously, I don't see why not.

johns0 posted 2004 Dec 15 01:57

I think logos are a good idea in that they can be used as beginning and end credits and introductions where needed.

racer-x posted 2004 Dec 15 18:45

Another good use for this, is to make scorebugs. Say you're editing sports videos you shot and want to add a nice scorebug to keep the the viewer informed of the score, you can easily create the scorebug in an image editor.

I use this stuff a lot in sports videos, but I like to animate mine. I also like to flash players pictures after a great play.

Gi-Ma-Mi posted 2006 Feb 05 02:15

how come when i pressed save as avi, i got this message:
Cannot start filter 'logo': Failure reading image file'''': The system cannot find the path specified
any advice?

mats.hogberg posted 2006 Feb 05 06:02

Because the image file isn't there? Or it's sunday?
Sorry, crystal ball in for overhaul this weekend... :-)

/Mats

Gi-Ma-Mi posted 2006 Feb 06 02:19

the link for Donald Graft's logo filter isn't working anymore :(

mats.hogberg posted 2006 Feb 06 02:24

What about this}?

/Mats

Gi-Ma-Mi posted 2006 Feb 07 18:22

mats.hogberg :

What about this}?

/Mats

just downloaded it, thank you!

Gi-Ma-Mi posted 2006 Feb 07 23:17

i have 2 images, one i named logo1.bmp, the other is logo2.bmp
how come when i set the duration for the first image, VirtualMod crashed?

mats.hogberg posted 2006 Feb 08 01:16

Sorry, crystal ball still in the shop... :-)
Does it work with the sample images (rotating earth) that's included with the filter IIRC?

/Mats

Gi-Ma-Mi posted 2006 Aug 09 22:38

can i ask how many bmp files we can add because it seems like after a certain number of bmp files, my logo seems like it's staying the same

hypnoticpimp posted 2007 Mar 01 16:24

Hey man! it got the watermark to show on the preview, but my problem is , when i save it as avi. its only a 1 minute clip and it comes to like a 800 MB file.

im trying to save this vob, to a high quality xvid, divx, or high quality mpg, but when i click on file save as, it doesnt have the mpg option, just a simple avi

So please tell me, how i can save it to a high quality mpg, or high quality avi, without a huge file size, like 800 mb

jimmalenko posted 2007 Mar 02 01:41

Before you go to File > Save as AVI, go to Video > Compression. Choose your XVID codec or whatever other compression you wish to use. Then go to File > Save as AVI.

incrediblej posted 2007 Aug 03 20:00

Hi There guys, okay i have folowed the steps, but i get stopped right at the top almost.
when i get to :
Go to Video > Filters:

and add my logo and follow all instructions and click preview, nothing comes up, its blank.

I have tried with 2 types of files, a low compression .avi and a high quality .avi

same thing in both cases, can someone tell me what i am doing wrong?

I noticed the file in the tutorial is a mpeg, does it only work with mpegs or something? if so how do i convert my AVI's into MPEG so i can do this logo procedure please.

Any info would be great, i am new to adding logos to video as you can see, but NEED to add them to my files, but they are all .avi files, but i am willing to change them to mpeg to do so (but i dont know how) if that is what i am doing wrong.

Thanks again in advance.

UJay.

jimmalenko posted 2007 Aug 03 20:04

Nah, AVI files should be fine (although you will have to re-encode them to include the logo). I'd say that it's something to do with your logo file. Can you upload it here ?

incrediblej posted 2007 Aug 03 23:06

yep, it was my image, i could'nt save it in photoshop as bmp, so i open the image i made saved a ebmp into paintshop or something, and changed it to bmp. this time i opened just plain old Windows Paint (the only program i have that will save bmp - huh, useless for ceativity lol), anyway, now i am back at the same step and all looks good. thanks for the help, and the tip it was my image.

I will continue with the tutorial now...

btw, is there any good programs you know of that save files as .bmp that are a bit more creative as Windows Paint?

what do you use?

thanks.

jimmalenko posted 2007 Aug 03 23:50

I prefer PaintShop Pro, but I'm astounded that "Photoshop can't save as BMP" - that doesn't sound right to me since BMP is a native windows format and an international standard.
I just checked Photoshop CS2 V9 and it definitely can save out to either BMP or TGA, so don't know what version you're using ???

incrediblej posted 2007 Aug 04 21:52

I am using photoshop7 still, i am used to it, so have had no reason to bother installing a newer version, i have CS3, but dont need it. PhotoShop7 has the option to save as:
JPG
GIF
(2 PNG formats)
EBMP - thats what i used first but was not recognized.

I will just get PaintShop Pro.. thanks heaps for ur help mate!

jimmalenko posted 2007 Aug 04 21:59

incrediblej :

I will just get PaintShop Pro

Either that or just do what you want to do in Photoshop, save as JPG, then open that file in Windows Paint and Save As BMP. An extra step, but at least you get full use of the software that you know how to use.

elite posted 2008 May 03 07:55

Hi.. first of all, I'm new on this forum....

2nd of all, I am sorry that I have to bring up this thread.. since I've been looking for newer threads but seems doesnt have one that look have my problems.. and this is the closest I can find that probably could help me figure out what problem I'm having...

I just got VirtualDubMod_1_5_10_2_b2542, and using it right now to make watermark... I have gone trough all your tutorial about making watermark on video and everything went good including when I previewed it out...

now the problem is when I tried to save it as, and I already change the compress type to Divx, now why it always compressing my source file.. which is my output file endup having no watermark... even I already add it, and it shows on the right box... (the source video should be on the left one right?)

but everytime I tried to save it, and again I already set the compress type to any type (I tried one by one, but not the "non compress" one) but it always ended up generating new avi file without my watermark... which is just alike the original one...

what could be my problem here?

thanks in advance guys...

mats.hogberg posted 2008 May 03 12:18

Sure you've set the full compression mode?

/Mats

michael315 posted 2008 Sep 05 17:11

Hey all! As a new member here in the forums, I have a question concerning the program VirtualDubMod. I just want to make sure that I don't have to buy the program but... is it free? :? Just asking fellas. :P

Noahtuck posted 2008 Sep 05 19:36

michael315 :

If you look in the tools section, you can either actually search the tools section, over there on your left, or click the actual link in your own post....

That will tell you if it is free or payware.

michael315 posted 2008 Sep 05 21:17

That's what I did before asking the question. But I went there again after reading your reply, looked to my right of the downloads section and saw that it is a free program. So I guess I can download it than. By the way, the Logo Filter is free too. :D One more thing, are both programs spyware free? :?

Noahtuck posted 2008 Sep 05 21:56

michael315 :

are both programs spyware free? :?

ABSOLUTELY!!!!!!

michael315 posted 2008 Sep 05 22:05

Just asking! :P Thank you! :wink:

michael315 posted 2008 Sep 05 22:48

Okay! I have VirtualDub downloaded and my watermark is showing up. But I have a few problems. Is there a way to reduce the size of your logo? And is there a way to make it where the video doesn't show up through the logo?

jimmalenko posted 2008 Sep 06 01:39

1. Reduce the size of your logo source file.

2. See Part 2 of the guide, it talks about running logos for particular durations.

michael315 posted 2008 Sep 06 13:13

I reduced the size to my logo just like you said, but the biggest problem I'm having is the video coming through the logo during playback. How do I make it where the video doesn't come through the logo?

jimmalenko posted 2008 Sep 06 18:06

Sounds to me like either your logo has a transparent background and/or you haven't got the opacity set correctly. An opacity of 0% should mean that no video comes through the logo at all.

michael315 posted 2008 Sep 06 21:33

An opacity of 0% makes the logo disappear! Whereas a 100% opacity makes it appear. Usually in other programs, the video never comes through the logo when it appears and I think this is the only program that does such a thing.

jimmalenko posted 2008 Sep 06 22:54

Sorry, I got my number scales mixed up - 100% should mean that the video cannot be seen underneath. Can you upload a screenshot to show us what you mean by "video coming through the logo" ?

Thanks.

michael315 posted 2008 Sep 09 17:44

Here's what I'm talking about:

Click here for the original forum topic.