Video Editing Help!

posted on May 5th, 2009, 7:26 pm

Recently I observed a game and recorded it.  I used Virtual Dub to try and view it, had some difficulties, but was able to save all the good parts (about the last 2/3 of the game) as separate clips.  I then used Windows Movie Maker to put the video and audio together (they were separate due to some error), and everything looks great.  The sound is synced up, and the video quality is high as a Movie Maker Project.  When I publish it uncompressed as an AVI, it the quality isn't as good.  I've got ffdshow, which covers pretty much all the codecs I need, and players such as WMP and Divx have the same quality problem.

What I'd like to know is how I create a common video file such as AVI and still maintain the quality I have as a Windows Movie Maker Project?  I've used trial versions of Sony Vegas and Adobe, but they have their own issues.  I'm new to video editing, so any info would be great!   I'll try to fill you in on anything I've left out, and if you can point me to anything I've missed on the internet I'll be happy to check it out.  Although I've feel I've already scoured it for every possible way to make this work, maybe one of you has the answer!   I think next time I'll just break down and buy fraps.

posted on May 5th, 2009, 7:46 pm

Sounds to me like you just have a compression problem, maybe you should try to pre-compress it or save it as a mp3 file or wma.

posted on May 5th, 2009, 7:58 pm

When I convert it to AVI I leave it uncompressed.  The audio is fine, it's just the video that loses quality.  One thing I should mention is that the resolution is a little smaller, but that can't be helped with movie maker. 

[Zebh]

posted on May 5th, 2009, 8:04 pm

Last edited by Zebh on May 5th, 2009, 8:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.

If the quality drops, it doesn't sound that it is uncompressed.
Perhaps you should try to put it together by using a video editor

posted on May 5th, 2009, 8:45 pm

I'm pretty sure it's uncompressed, because the file sizes are the same.  And windows movie maker is a video editor.   Although at this point I don't feel it's much of one.

Let me take you through the entire process of what I've done.  Maybe that will help.  I wanted a free recorder, so I used Camstudio to record the game.  When it was done, it gave me some error messages.  I thought the whole thing was lost.  I used Virtual dub to find out that only the first 10 minutes of the game were corrupted, and that the sound was in a separate file.  I had to separate what I did have into two video chunks.

So now we have 2 small AVI files with no sound, and 2 sound files that will match up to those files.  I want to put the two video files with no sound, and the 2 sound files with no video, put them in the same room together, and have a 4 way, making one complete AVI file.  That's where Movie Maker comes in.  I've used the trial versions of Adobe Premiere and Sony Vegas, but apparently I don't fully understand them, I'll keep working with them to see if I can get them to work.  In the meantime, Movie Maker is the only program to successfully make an AVI with the clips I have.

One thing that might be causing this is a change in resolution.  I recorded this to my monitor resoultion:  1440x900.  The best movie maker can do is  720x480.  A lot of the other video editors do the same.  So I'm looking for either a free video editor that can do 1440x900 that you know of, or maybe a solution I haven't thought of. 

[Zebh]

posted on May 5th, 2009, 9:01 pm

Last edited by Zebh on May 5th, 2009, 9:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I think that you can do that kind of video editing with VirtualDub too.

posted on May 5th, 2009, 9:05 pm

Thats why I said to save it under another file extension.  Sometimes the comp automatically compresses it for certain file types. 

posted on May 5th, 2009, 10:21 pm

I got it!  Thanks.  I think if anything I just needed a sounding board for my frustrations.  I figured out how to make it into an Avi with high quality.

It's the video of the game with the Devs that I got to observe, so I wanted it to be a good one.

posted on May 5th, 2009, 10:23 pm

Cool, can't wate to see it

posted on May 6th, 2009, 1:48 am

how will you publish it? just to youtube or will you offer a way to view it at a higher quality?

posted on May 6th, 2009, 2:16 am

Indeed.  You tube might take a while, as finals week is next week and I need this week to prepare.  But eventually a torrent will be available for download which is high quality.  I got some great shots  , one in 3D mode of Detektor warping in a Descent to a fight already in progress.  Twas pretty sweet.  I cycled around a lot to show you what everyone was building, etc.  There's about 20 min of video, starting at the first attack.