Do you edit videos?

[FelixDeCat]

Ive started getting into creating and editing videos. I tried it before but Windows Movie Maker was a confusing, crumby poc so I quit. Then I got a hold of AVS4YOU and really do like the tools it has. Ive been editing like crazy (downloaded youtube vids, my own vids, etc) and have lost count on how many Ive made to suit my tastes (old music bands' videos with bad sound or lighting, etc). :sneaky:

I seems to handle anything I throw at it including DVD files, etc. I havent had one video so far that it wasnt able to manipulate because of codec or filter (not even Virtual Dub could handle). I havent tried bluray since I dont have one attached to my computer.

The only thing missing is the ability to play scenes in reverse. I use Virtual Dub with an AvSynth script to do it currently, but it is a hassle compared to the ease with which other tools are used in AVS4YOU.

Another thing too is when you create the final product it is very picky about aspect ratios, so you usually wind up with a big black box vs. full screen if you try to create HD and 16x9. I convert to 4x3 and use 512x288 (yt format) which eliminates the black box in full screen mode. Youtube has also implemented the "black box" approach and now displays all old videos with a black box so they match HD aspect ratios (which is stupid, they looked fine the way the were covering the entire screen).

I also like using Webcam Max to create new footage.

What about you?

 

[chalmers]

To answer your question, no I don't. I view them on popular websites such as youtube.com and spankwire.com.

 

[Aikouka]

I use Sony Vegas for video editing. The only problem that I run into is that the non-professional (Pro costs $500) versions of Vegas refuse to render anything larger than 1080p. What makes this bad is that if I use FRAPS to capture video from my PC, I cannot render it at its natural resolution, because I have 1920x1200 resolution monitors. I usually just use the 16x10 ratio to scale it down to 1728x1080.

The other issue I run into is that sometimes, Vegas just isn't that good at encoding... the videos come out somewhat poorly in that there's noticeable artifacting around areas with a lot of movement. Running the exact same encode in Handbrake (in this case, with no fancy text crap) provides a much better video :\.

I'm using Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0, and I've been tempted to try the trial of 10.0 to see if it's any better.

 

[FelixDeCat]

I use Sony Vegas for video editing. The only problem that I run into is that the non-professional (Pro costs $500) versions of Vegas refuse to render anything larger than 1080p. What makes this bad is that if I use FRAPS to capture video from my PC, I cannot render it at its natural resolution, because I have 1920x1200 resolution monitors. I usually just use the 16x10 ratio to scale it down to 1728x1080.

The other issue I run into is that sometimes, Vegas just isn't that good at encoding... the videos come out somewhat poorly in that there's noticeable artifacting around areas with a lot of movement. Running the exact same encode in Handbrake (in this case, with no fancy text crap) provides a much better video :\.

I'm using Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9.0, and I've been tempted to try the trial of 10.0 to see if it's any better.

Thats the thing, its easy to spend lots of money doing this. I try to stay as close to free as I can, that way if I dont like it, Im not out anything but a little time.

I wont claim to know a lot about codecs but I wonder if you have tried different ones (Divx, H264, Quicktime, MP1/2 etc) to try to get 1900x1200. AVS will spit out 1900x1200 but it will be a monster sized file. Another thing I try to achieve is making the file size small and comensurate to desired quality.

A raw downloaded FLV might start out at 16mb and wind up 84mb to 120mb+ using the specs mentioned in the OP. If I tried to encode it as 1900x1200, that same file would probably be 600mb+ because of the number of frames per second.

Try saving it in one format and use other software to convert it. Just an idea.

edit: I just tried it and I stand corrected. The max resolution in 1920 x 1080.

 

[Ichinisan]

... Youtube has also implemented the "black box" approach and now displays all old videos with a black box so they match HD aspect ratios (which is stupid, they looked fine the way the were covering the entire screen). ...

Remove that video editing software RIGHT NOW and never EVER touch it again.

I can't stand when people stretch and distort original aspect ratios and think it looks "better". The next "video editor" comes along and adds on some more stretch-o-vision. Ugh!

 

[FelixDeCat]

Remove that video editing software RIGHT NOW and never EVER touch it again.

I can't stand when people stretch and distort original aspect ratios and think it looks "better". The next "video editor" comes along and adds on some more stretch-o-vision. Ugh!

So you would rather see a smaller image with a big black box around it rather than fullscreen?

Heres an example of a video youtube ruined with that new stupid black box. It used to be fullscreen, now its not:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0FNckgqtlA

And they did it to thousands if not millions of videos retroactively.

 

[Aikouka]

Thats the thing, its easy to spend lots of money doing this. I try to stay as close to free as I can, that way if I dont like it, Im not out anything but a little time.

I don't mind spending money on a good product, but I was rather disappointed to see that it wouldn't support a relatively standard 16x10 resolution. I mean, Vegas really isn't plugged as a "video game capture editing tool", so I can't complain too much, but it is pretty lame.

I wont claim to know a lot about codecs but I wonder if you have tried different ones (Divx, H264, Quicktime, MP1/2 etc) to try to get 1900x1200. AVS will spit out 1900x1200 but it will be a monster sized file. Another thing I try to achieve is making the file size small and comensurate to desired quality.

I use h264 for my encodes. In Handbrake, I use 2-pass and typically set it to meet a certain file size. I usually go on a basis of about 70mb per minute for a 1080p video. I got this number from looking at a lot of "standard" scene rips of blu-ray movies. Typically a 2 hour movie is about 8gb. Honestly, I might be able to squeeze this number down further.

I captured some footage from Borderlands this weekend and rendered a 1920x1200 4 minute video at about 270mb. It looked fine and that's a bit smaller than what I mentioned above (especially given that this was at 1920x1200 -- which based on calculating the difference between 1920x1200 and 1920x1080, it should be ~76mb per minute). It's all rough and doesn't include the differences in audio though.

Try saving it in one format and use other software to convert it. Just an idea.

I've tried using Vegas to render in a few loss-less formats, but the videos still look bad. I think I need to tinker with its "render quality" section, which I'm not a huge fan of having that separate slider to mess with my renders, which should be based purely on the encoding bitrate!

EDIT:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0FNckgqtlA

Actually, that looks like the encoder's fault. He didn't cut off the black bars from the source video

 

[Ichinisan]

So you would rather see a smaller image with a big black box around it rather than fullscreen?

Heres an example of a video youtube ruined with that new stupid black box. It used to be fullscreen, now its not:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0FNckgqtlA

And they did it to thousands if not millions of videos retroactively.

That's the fault of whoever encoded it ORIGINALLY for including the black bars encoded in the video as 4:3. That's the incompetence I'm talking about. It would only end up mega-stretched if YouTube didn't do that, but I guess YOU would be fine with that

YouTube should give zoom/crop options and monitor user statistics to determine if it should be enabled by default for specific videos. Of course, I'd imagine that lots of users will be confused when only part of the video has hard-encoded letterboxing.

 

[alfa147x]

Final Cut Studio
and
Premier Pro on windows (Had to do this for a client once :|)

 

[KaOTiK]

I've been using Final Cut Pro for all video stuff I have to do (work related)

 

[iGas]

OpenShot & Kdenlive work well for me, both are for Linux.

 

[FelixDeCat]

That's the fault of whoever encoded it ORIGINALLY for including the black bars encoded in the video as 4:3. That's the incompetence I'm talking about. It would only end up mega-stretched if YouTube didn't do that, but I guess YOU would be fine with that

YouTube should give zoom/crop options and monitor user statistics to determine if it should be enabled by default for specific videos. Of course, I'd imagine that lots of users will be confused when only part of the video has hard-encoded letterboxing.

Since you are in the mood to argue (mr. know it all) this is the last time Im going to say this, so pay attention:

The video I gave as an example would not end up "mega stretched" because youtube always displayed videos in their relative height and width settings prior to this strict adherance to HD format for all videos, and they covered the screen. Youtube was like this from inception until last year. It didnt matter how you encoded the file, youtube always rendered the video to cover the screen. They made relative minor adjustments to width AND HEIGHT to keep the aspect ratio as close as possible to the original and still cover the screen.

If you dont remember this, then you must have started using youtube last year, because I favorited that video close to its posting date and it was full screen in all directions with no black box. However, starting a few years ago you could upload a widescreen HD video and it would be shown that way, with letterbox and all. Now, youtube has decided to render videos in the aspect ratio as uploaded by the user regardless of outcome for new and all previously uploaded videos. That is stupid because a lot of people didnt know the ratio was incorrect and would look like crap. Thankfully YT compensated, but they dont now.

I do agree with you that they should give users an option of auto correction to eliminate letterboxing.

Finally, since Im not in the mood to argue and you have chosen to be rude, you go on ignore for a couple of weeks. Have fun talking to yourself.

 

[FelixDeCat]

I don't mind spending money on a good product, but I was rather disappointed to see that it wouldn't support a relatively standard 16x10 resolution. I mean, Vegas really isn't plugged as a "video game capture editing tool", so I can't complain too much, but it is pretty lame.

I use h264 for my encodes. In Handbrake, I use 2-pass and typically set it to meet a certain file size. I usually go on a basis of about 70mb per minute for a 1080p video. I got this number from looking at a lot of "standard" scene rips of blu-ray movies. Typically a 2 hour movie is about 8gb. Honestly, I might be able to squeeze this number down further.

I captured some footage from Borderlands this weekend and rendered a 1920x1200 4 minute video at about 270mb. It looked fine and that's a bit smaller than what I mentioned above (especially given that this was at 1920x1200 -- which based on calculating the difference between 1920x1200 and 1920x1080, it should be ~76mb per minute). It's all rough and doesn't include the differences in audio though.

I've tried using Vegas to render in a few loss-less formats, but the videos still look bad. I think I need to tinker with its "render quality" section, which I'm not a huge fan of having that separate slider to mess with my renders, which should be based purely on the encoding bitrate!

EDIT:

Actually, that looks like the encoder's fault. He didn't cut off the black bars from the source video

Thank you for the informative and thoughtful post. I have gained further insight from it.

To keep the file size as small as possible I try to keep the bitrate down from 4200 for hd to around 2400. Same for the audio 96 or 128 is fine. I dont need 320br with a 32 bit sample when 16 is fine.

For screen/audio captures I use CamStudio because its competent and free. How do you get the file from the capturing software to Sony Vegas? Is it saved initially in your desired size? Or are to trying to edit the output in Vegas? I dont know if I can help you, I was just curious though. CamStudio saves its captured footage to AVI at completion. I dont think Ive tried 1920x1200 though (my moniter displays that size like yours does).

 

[FelixDeCat]

Final Cut Studio
and
Premier Pro on windows (Had to do this for a client once :|)

I've been using Final Cut Pro for all video stuff I have to do (work related)

Any time your job pays for it, its usually expensive. FCS seems like it would be fun to try though. Not to mention the fact that Im not using a Mac.

I know there is some editors that do backgrounds without having to have a screen behind you. There is also picture in picture. I would like to try those. AVS4YOU has neither of these features.

 

[Aikouka]

Thank you for the informative and thoughtful post. I have gained further insight from it.

To keep the file size as small as possible I try to keep the bitrate down from 4200 for hd to around 2400. Same for the audio 96 or 128 is fine. I dont need 320br with a 32 bit sample when 16 is fine.

For screen/audio captures I use CamStudio because its competent and free. How do you get the file from the capturing software to Sony Vegas? Is it saved initially in your desired size? Or are to trying to edit the output in Vegas? I dont know if I can help you, I was just curious though. CamStudio saves its captured footage to AVI at completion. I dont think Ive tried 1920x1200 though (my moniter displays that size like yours does).

It all depends on the source that I'm working with. When I rip my movies, I just care about a certain size and usually encode the audio to DD5.1 AC3.

I just drag and drop my files into Vegas as an unedited source. Usually, I will take the multiple 4gb files and compile them into one large AVI using VirtualDub.

As for Vegas, it strictly refuses to encode higher than 1080p. If you attempt to set the project's resolution to greater than 1920x1080, it will just change it back automatically.

 

[M0RPH]

So you would rather see a smaller image with a big black box around it rather than fullscreen?

Heres an example of a video youtube ruined with that new stupid black box. It used to be fullscreen, now its not:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0FNckgqtlA

And they did it to thousands if not millions of videos retroactively.

I downloaded that video and took a screenshot.

As you can see it's a letterboxed video... the top/bottom black bars are encoded into the video. So as the other poster said, the way it's displayed in Youtube is the fault of the person who encoded the video, not Youtube. Youtube only converts the format of a video, it doesn't do any cropping.

 

[Ichinisan]

Since you are in the mood to argue (mr. know it all) this is the last time Im going to say this, so pay attention:

The video I gave as an example would not end up "mega stretched" because youtube always displayed videos in their relative height and width settings prior to this strict adherance to HD format for all videos, and they covered the screen. Youtube was like this from inception until last year. It didnt matter how you encoded the file, youtube always rendered the video to cover the screen. They made relative minor adjustments to width AND HEIGHT to keep the aspect ratio as close as possible to the original and still cover the screen.

If you dont remember this, then you must have started using youtube last year, because I favorited that video close to its posting date and it was full screen in all directions with no black box. However, starting a few years ago you could upload a widescreen HD video and it would be shown that way, with letterbox and all. Now, youtube has decided to render videos in the aspect ratio as uploaded by the user regardless of outcome for new and all previously uploaded videos. That is stupid because a lot of people didnt know the ratio was incorrect and would look like crap. Thankfully YT compensated, but they dont now.

I do agree with you that they should give users an option of auto correction to eliminate letterboxing.

Finally, since Im not in the mood to argue and you have chosen to be rude, you go on ignore for a couple of weeks. Have fun talking to yourself.

I am sorry you mistook that for sincere hostility. I only wanted to emphasize how irritating it is when people mess with aspect ratios and mess them up, which I'm sure you understand.

Anyway, you are incorrect about that one video. There would be black bars on any shape display, because they are encoded that way in the video. The YouTube player has never had the ability to crop-out encoded letterboxes / pillarboxes. I would have noticed.

Since you asked, I registered for YouTube April 10, 2006 (more than 5 years ago). I had been using it without an account for a while before that.

 

[Texashiker]

. Then I got a hold of AVS4YOU and really do like the tools it has.

A couple of years ago I bought the AVS suite and used to use it for all kinds of stuff. Until I found out that the license is "per computer". Meaning, when you upgrade your computer you will need to buy another license.

I used to recommend the AVS4you suite, but not anymore.

Now, I use windows movie maker live for all of my video editing needs.

 

[Saint Nick]

Adobe Premier is a bloated, non-intuitive mess.

 

[Jeeebus]

when I had time to do so, I frequently used Premiere Pro. One of those programs though that if you don't use for a year, it's a pain in the ass to re-learn.

 

[alfa147x]

Any time your job pays for it, its usually expensive. FCS seems like it would be fun to try though. Not to mention the fact that Im not using a Mac.

I know there is some editors that do backgrounds without having to have a screen behind you. There is also picture in picture. I would like to try those. AVS4YOU has neither of these features.

You should be able to do that with Premier Pro
I use After effects for green screen work

 

[KaOTiK]

Any time your job pays for it, its usually expensive. FCS seems like it would be fun to try though. Not to mention the fact that Im not using a Mac.

I'm freelance, gotta pay for it myself

 

[Wyndru]

I use premier and sometimes pinnacle. Isn't there a script you can use in the avs file to play in reverse? I think you just pass the command start and end time, and it will reverse it. Regarding the aspect ratios, I've always done that myself in the avs file because a lot of times you don't get what you want.

Doom9's page has a ton of info on avs editing if you want to manually do things.

 

[AnonymouseUser]

OpenShot & Kdenlive work well for me, both are for Linux.

OpenShot is pretty damn good. :thumbsup:

 

[Barfo]

Yes, TMPgenc video mastering works is enough for me.