Video Editing / Codecs

[Gametheory]

I recently am looking to create movies out of clips I am getting from the games i play on the PC. Warcraft 3 : Frozen Throne, World of Warcraft, Matrix : Online BETA , Counter-Strike, and CS : Source. Now, the problem I have with this is that I am a complete n00b on the subject and what it all means. I am slowly learning how to use Sony Vegas Video, Fraps and other video editing tools... but when it comes down to the actuall encoding and compressing the movie file... I am clueless. I am currently trying to use XVid codecs, Divx, MPEG-4 and all this crazy stuff. I have no clue how to edit the #'s in configing these codecs to get opitmal quality but have the .avi not be a large file. I decided to post here because I visit this site often and love the reviews and everything else anandtech.com does, maybe someone here can lead me to a web-site that can help me out or you can help me out yourself.

Thanks in advance...

-Jim

 

[MScrip]

Welcome to the world of video editing. It's an amazing hobby.

As for all the confusing encoding questions you have.... your editing software should take care of most of that. You mentioned using Sony Vegas, which is an excellent program. Once you capture your video and edit your project, Vegas gives you many options on how to deliver your project. If you want to make a DVD, Vegas will do all of the compresing and encoding for you. Or you could export clips into MPG, WMV or Real.

I can see how all of those acromyns are confusing... XVid, Divx, MPEG-4....

But if you're using a package as robust as Sony Vegas, it will do much of the work for you... You don't need to worry about that stuff, so you can concentrate on telling a good story.