[Contribution] January 2005 Tips & Tricks

[Raaabo]

Hi all,

Here's your chance to be featured in the Tips & Tricks section in the January 2005 issue of Digit. All you have to do is post your contributions here:

Give us some useful tips and tricks on using the following:

Video Editing Software

If your tips are selected by our expert panel, Digit will publish your tips—along with your photograph, name, city and e-mail address.

Here's something to remember:
Try and send tips that aren't standard, such as keyboard shortcuts, or similar "easy" tips.

[Edited - digitadmin: Tips & Tricks for video editing carried forward to January 2005 issue, hurry deadline approaches]

[dadhwalprince]

ok nest time i'll send u

[it_waaznt_me]

While I was chatting (read arguing) with my friend last night, this tutorial came to my mind .. This cant be published in the magazine now I think .. but still .. wil contribute to some people ..
Btw .. S#### I know you are reading it .. Now say what ..???


Cutting a portion of Video file using VirtualDub

This is a very useful feature of VirtualDub. With it you can extract a portion of a movie and save it. It is very easy to do it. To extract a portion of video from a movie file, just put the movie cd in your cd drive, and Open VirtualDub. Here we are going to just extract the movie file and are not applying any compression to it. To enable compression, you will need Video codecs like XVid or Indeo ( I am deliberatly skipping them ) ..
Now make sure these settings are applied in VirtualDub settings:

VirtualDub > Options > Preferances :
OutPut color depth = Match Display Depth
Display = Use DirectX for displaying panes.

VirtualDub > Video > Compression :
Uncompressed RGB / YCbCr

VirtualDub > Audio > Directstream Copy

So, after the options are saved, time to select the portion that we want to extract.
Just move the slider of TimeLine until you reach the starting point of the scene you want to extract.
Press [Home] Key on your Keyboard to mark the start position of selection.
Now move the slider until you reach the end position of the scene you want to extract.
Press [End] key on your keyboard to mark the end position of the selection.
Now do like this:
File > Save as AVI or Press F7
In the Save As dialog box, give the address where you want this file to be saved, hit enter .. You are done. ..


Extracting a song from a movie CD using :

To extract a song (audio portion), we will use VirtualDub.
First open the movie file in VirtualDub and in the Audio menu, make sure Direct Stream copy option is selected. So, after the options are saved, time to select the portion that we want to extract.

Just move the slider of TimeLine until you reach the starting point of the song you want to extract.
Press [Home] Key on your Keyboard to mark the start position of song.
Now move the slider until you reach the end position of the song you want to extract.
Press [End] key on your keyboard to mark the end position of the selection.

Now click on File > Save Wav and enter the location where you want to save this file as Temp.wav. As WAV files are uncompressed format, this will be a huge file but dont worry, you can convert this file to Mp3 using encoders like RazorLame easily.

[kaysquare]

here is the process i follow to create DVD-Video movies.

I use ulead videostudio (got it with my firewire card) to capture from camcorder to MPEG-2 29.97frame video. Bitrate depends on the video. If its a fast moving video encoding at high bitrates will help(~6Mbps to 8 Mbps).

If its a slow video like a function or kids playing etc you can get a very good video at (4Mbps - 5 Mbps).

The dvd authoring tools (dvdworkshop nero vision express etc ) i tried sucks. The only software i liked is DVD-Lab from mediachance. it accepts only DVD compliant video and completes dvdauthoring in 30 minutes(full DVD).


Later you can burn the dvd with your favourite Burning software. I use nero Express 6 OEM

@ Raaabo

I request you to publish some tips for DVD-lab. Its a very good software. Its very light on system resources.

url www.mediachance.com

[ShekharPalash]

Hmmm... well... it's not a Trick 'n Tip....

Okay...

Windows PhotoStory 3 for Windows XP

It was earlier part of Plus! Digital media Edition but now free download for genuine Windows customers.

It creates PhotoStories means a nice video presentation from your photos to a video clip, you can edit background music, caption for each photo, effects, background... and finally when you're done... share it to your friends mobile/e-mail/buletooh device/or save it...

It's really a nice software to create PhotoStories on the fly...

[theraven]

hmm
took me a lil time

This is a "no scripting required" method on how to batch trim AVI files with VirtualDubMod without re-rendering.



Start VirtualDubMod (VDM)

Open the video file (can drag&drop from explorer too)

set the in point where you want the video to start (50 frames, ALT+Right arrow moves in 50 frame increments)

Click the "Mark in" button" (or the "HOME" key)

Now the in point is set, go to the video menu and choose "Direct stream Copy"

Go the file menu and choose "Save processing settings..." (or CTRL+S)

Save the settings where ever on your drive (add .vcf to the extension too).

Now from the file menu, choose "Job Control (or F4)

From the edit menu of the job control window, choose "Process Directory.."

Select the source and destination folders when prompted

Now you should see a list of all files that will be processed. Select and delete any files you don't want to process (not necessary)

FInally press Start, and you should witness the VDub batch in progress.



Speeding up video

First, you need to use Frame Rate/Decimate to remove frames (ie decimate by 4 if you want a 4x speed increase). However, this will simultaneously reduce the FPS to maintain audio sync. So you end up with a file that plays in the same amount of time with 1/4 the number of frames.

So after you decimate, re-open the resulting file which will have some ludicrously low FPS (like 7.5 or so) and reprocess to 30 FPS or whatever you want.

u can do both of these operations in Direct Stream Copy mode, so it is quite fast.


Decompress That AC3
if u use TMPGenc for all ur work u must be stuck with those divx/xvid files with AC3 codecs
really pi$$e$ me off too
so theres another software called avi2vcd ( no im not askin u to shift software )
when u extract it there is a file called DECOMPRESS.EXE
feed in ur input avi and the path for ur output
then use tmpgenc to encode ur file
ofcourse the resultant file will be lik 1.2gb as opposed to the 700 mb u started off with

ofcourse u can rip the audio in virtualdub as WAV as well

u can get virtualdubmod here http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/

[edit]
Correcting DV Brightness Levels for MPEG encoding in TMPGEnc

DV format has a default brightness level from 16-235
this needs to be changed to 0-255 for mpeg2 or the video will look washed out in the player
this can be done automatically but manual adjustment gives u more control

open the file u wanna encode in tmpgenc .. and click on settings =>advanced Tab
this gives u a list of filters u can apply
Click on the checkbox next to "Custom color correction" to enable it. Then double-click on the phrase "Custom color correction" itself, to bring up the settings dialog for that filter. there click on the "Add" button at lower left which gives you the "RGB Brightness" type. you can use that but I prefer another one... in the "Type" pull-down menu click on the down arrow and select "Basic setting". now you'll have five sliders for Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, and Red and Blue shifts. on the right click on "Enable Filter" and "Show Histogram". a separate window will apear showing the pixel histograms for this video frame. There are two "Color" selections: chose the YCbCr button rather than RGB. Now, as you move the cue slider in the main correction window to scan through your video, the histogram window will show you the levels for each frame. Most important is the top graph (Y, or video intensity level). Standard DV levels (16-235 instead of 0-255) will not occupy the full width of the window.

for optimal MPEG2 encoding you want to adjust the filters brightness and contrast sliders so the intensity histogram just fills the whole width (but not too much which would clip whites or crush blacks). however you want to scan through your whole video and find the "extreme" dark and light scenes. If you adjust contrast based only on a low-contrast scene, you'll have bad looking video where the original was more dark, or bright. there is some judgement involved and this is one reason they pay the big bucks to "color shaders" in professional production a la "Mughal-E-Azam"

Variable Bit Rates In TMPGenc
use variable bit rates instead of constant ones for those fast moving action scenes
see the diff urself
i tried it too
found the link here
http://www.digvid.info/tmpgenc/settings.php

[yehmeriidhain]

oK! i did it just a few days ago! ..it's gud & i know most of U would be knowing this but u know i wanted to share....

i put a rename option in Win XP :
step 1: open registry editor
step 2: open HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\645FF040-5081-101B-0011002F954E ....
step 3: open this registry & look for shellfolder in left panel ...
step 4: click on it & then in right panel change the Attributes from 40 01 00 20 to 50 01 00 20 ....
step 5: click on Callfor Attributes ...change it to 0 ...

close registry editor ... u must find a rename option in recycle bin right-click menu!! enjoy!!

[Maverick340]

No one talked about extracting a frame from a vedio file

[SWEET SNEHA]

Why u brought up the months old thread

[kaysquare]

hi aman,

you can extract frames from video using ulead videostudio. I dont remember the exact steps but you have to make sure the frame u want to extract is visible in the window and use options in the left pane.

[selva1966]

But this is almost July 2005. The thread should have been locked long back I think. Reporting.