| | | | | General Software Problems Quality not quite what you expected? Need help with video capture, editing, encoding or playback. Post here for software not covered elsewhere. | 
04-06-2006, 10:45 PM
| | Junior Member Windows Movie Maker | | | Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 3
0 Videos nominated Video Of the Month(s): 0 | |  Simple Video Editing and Compatibility
Hey guys,
Sorry if this question gets a bit long, but, I've got a bit lost with video editing.
Basically, I'm using Virtual Dub, Windows Movie Maker and occasionally Ulead Video Studio 8. I'm not editing particularly high quality footage. I have a Canon IXUS55 which saves my vides as .AVI files at 30 fps at 640x480 (I think).
What I really want to do is, cut and splices the clips together without losing quality. For that I use Virtual Dub and use Direct Stream Copy. I also want to have some fades (again I use Virtual Dub), some cross fades, and add some titles. I can't cross fade or add titles in Virtual Dub. So, I turn my attention to Windows Movie Maker.
So, I import my video clips to Windows Movie Maker. I add my titles and do my cross fades. Brilliant. I then output the video as an .avi file from Windows Movie Maker. So, now I have my titles and my main "film", and I want to put them together. However, I can't put them together in Virtual Dub, because: WMM has outputed the video size as 720x480, and I can't seem to find any way of changing that. I could create my own profile with the Windows Media Encoder, but I seem to only be able to create formats with WMV and VirtualDub doesn't support WMV.
So, now I have two seperate files, that I don't seem to be able to join together.
So, really, I was wondering, what do you suggest? Should I drop using WMM? Or Virtual Dub... or both? I tried importing all the clips into Ulead VS8, and outputting as one file, but I keep getting an unspecified error, and, also, when it does work, there seems to be a noticeable drop in quality. I tried using QuickAvi join to join them. It converted the clips (took it about an hour), but the quality was awful.
I'm quite new to video editing, so I could be going about this in entirely the wrong way. But it's very annoying, and I can't think of a good way to rectify this. I do like WMM - it's quite simple for creating titles, but since any file outputted from it, is incompatible with my clips, that seems a bit useless. Is there a way I could fit these clips together in one file, without seeing a drop in quality?
Thanks for any help you can offer guys.
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04-06-2006, 11:03 PM
|  | Administrator | | | Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Kent
Posts: 8,799
0 Videos nominated Video Of the Month(s): 0 | |
The only 'non-WMV' format you can output from WMM is DV-AVI (as you've seen). The reason this is a different frame size is because the framesize for the codec must meet certain conditions.
Why don't you do all your editing in WMM, then export from there? To be honest, you won't really lose any visible quality.
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04-06-2006, 11:19 PM
| | Junior Member Windows Movie Maker | | | Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 3
0 Videos nominated Video Of the Month(s): 0 | |
Ah, I suppose that's quite a good point really. Thanks a lot for such a quick reply.
I don't suppose you could tell me, though, what you mean by: "the framesize for the codec must meet certain conditions. " The framesize for which codec? And what are those conditions? Presumably, though, the bottom line is, there's only one non-wmv format you can export from in WMM, and the frame size for that is fixed.
I suppose, though, my next question is, what do people recomend for making DVD titles and turning my exported .Avi from WMM into a DVD? Adobe Encore does titles, doesn't it? But can that turn my .avi into the Video_TS folder, or do I have to use (yet another) programme for that?
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04-07-2006, 06:42 AM
| | Administrator | | | Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Kent
Posts: 8,799
0 Videos nominated Video Of the Month(s): 0 | |
I wou;d have thought that Encore was out of you price bracket (given that you're using WMM and VirtualDub). All DVD authoring applications will create the necessary file structure and burn the disc. I would recommend you take a look at the likes of Ulead DVD MovieFactory.
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04-07-2006, 06:15 PM
| | Junior Member Windows Movie Maker | | | Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 3
0 Videos nominated Video Of the Month(s): 0 | |
<<Why don't you do all your editing in WMM, then export from there? >>
I've realised why I didn't do that, actually - because my 10 minute clip ends up over 3 gigs in size... seems a bit silly, when it's only 1.8 gigs straight from the camera.
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04-07-2006, 07:22 PM
| | Administrator | | | Join Date: Nov 2003 Location: Kent
Posts: 8,799
0 Videos nominated Video Of the Month(s): 0 | |
...which is why we use compression  Output to wmv and your file size will be a lot smaller. Use a decent bitrate setting and yo won't really notice a difference in quality.
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