reverse neg to pos

[bbrent73]

in MediaStudio Pro or VideoStudio (Full, SE) can I reverse (negative to positive) the entire image of a video file? I have a dvd of a film negative and need to turn it into a positive. thanks

oh and by can I - I mean "how can I"?

thanks
Bill

[Black Lab]

You can look thru the video filters and see if any of those will do. I could see how a filter could change a clip to look like a negative, but I don't see how it would work the opposite way.

[Ron P.]

In VS X3, there is a filter called Invert, applying this to a normal clip makes it appear as a negative. So out of curiosity, I took a short clip, applied the filter, and rendered it to a new video file. I then started a new project, inserted the newly created "inverted" video file, and then re-applied the Invert filter. The result was it restored the clip back to it's normal appearance. So yes you can do a pos-neg, neg-pos inversion with VS X3..

[Ken Berry]

I can't help idly wondering, though, if Ron's experiment worked because the converted video contained some flags indicating its original properties, inserted by VS... In other words, whether a video already in negative format through some other program would have similar flags which could be read by VS... ??? Proof would be in the pudding, I guess. But I would certainly be interested in hearing the OP's experience in this regard...

[Ron P.]

I'm not sure if this works, as Ken stated, with videos produced with other programs. There may be some flag that VS is applying and is able to read to bring the video back from its negative state. However I do know that it does work with videos produced in VS. Here's the pudding...

This is using one of the videos supplied with VS. In the Organizer/Library the thumbnail shows a V21, however the actual file name is V13.wmv. Yesterday I used one of my DV videos, and the result was the same.






Note:
I also tried this by using one of my personal DV files, and applying the Invert filter to it in VS8, then rendering that file to a DV to save time. Then I opened VS X3, inserted the video file rendered in VS8 with the Invert Filter. I then applied the Invert filter in VS X3, and the result was the same. If there is a flag it is maintained and read by the spectrum of VS versions. I don't have any other video editing packages installed to test outside of VS.

This was further tested using MediaStudio Pro 8, result: same..

[Black Lab]

That was my initial hesitance as to if the negative to positive would work. How would VS know what the original colors were? Interesting.....

[Ron P.]

I too am very interested if that would work. I've never had such a video file, or know where to get one, other than creating it. If I had another program like Premiere or Vegas installed I would have created one using one of those to see if VS is still capable of reversing it. I hope bbrent73 posts his findings on this..

EDIT
Ok, couldn't wait curiosity got the best of me, so I D/L Sony MS Platinum 10 (trial). I took one of my DV files, inserted it, applied Sony's Invert filter and rendered it to NTSC DVD MPEG-2. Then I inserted the MPEG-2 file into VS X3, applied VS's invert filter and it produces a perfect positive, same results as if done just with VS. So I would say that since another program was used to create the negative, we would have to say that it is possible to use VS's Invert filter to produce a Positive from a Negative. This however does not take into account what filter was used on bbrent73's video files. If it was a simple invert filter than he can, if it was something other than an invert filter we still may not know. If his DVD was done commercially/professionally, they may have used some other process to create the negative, OR the old PAL vs NTSC, where it may have produced in the wrong region's format, and appears as a negative on TV, that's a whole different ballgame..