The Sonic Center

Sonic Central => Competition Central => Topic started by: Crowbar on April 03, 2006, 07:44:14 am

Title: Help with videos? :(
Post by: Crowbar on April 03, 2006, 07:44:14 am
Uh, I'm gonna look very dumb asking this but I might as well. :|

I recently recorded a Rush video (posted it here (http://www.soniccenter.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=1339)). I'd like to submit it to the site but for two things:
1. The filesize, even though I compressed it and the resolution is small, is very large in comparison to other videos (32MB, where others of similar length are less than 15). I've got no experience with video compression so I have no idea what I'm doing wrong. I've got VirtualDub and ffdshow. Any help? :(
2. I got video submission authorisation from Rolk, but couldn't get the upload to work. Then I saw in the FAQ that vids over 2MB need to be "uploaded directly". What does that constitute?

Thanks for any help. =)
Title: Help with videos? :(
Post by: douglas on April 03, 2006, 09:38:18 am
It's possible you haven't compressed the audio stream (that's what I did when my vids were huge).  Try removing it (Streams->Stream List then Disable) and see what that does for your file size.  If it is that, you can remove it, compress it and re-attach it to the video in that same panel.

Another thing to try is Ctrl+R (or Video->Frame Rate), then under Frame Rate Conversion try Decimate By 2.  Reducing the frame rate usually gives watchable video at small sizes.
Title: Help with videos? :(
Post by: Crowbar on April 03, 2006, 10:26:51 am
Removing audio and halving framerate takes it down to about 13MB, which is much better. I guess that's fair, since BenB17's (outdated) LeafStorm 1 vid is less than half the length but twice the resolution (dunno bout framerate), and is about that filesize. So thanks alot for that piece of advice! =)

It seems Virtualdub can compress audio without having to remove it first like you suggested, but whenever I go to the "Compression" and try to save I get problems. Instead I just went to "Conversion" and turned down the bitrate and precision. Makes the audio sound like shit, but this in tandem with compressing video with DivX 6.1.1 YV12 Decoder (maximum compression settings) got it down to 16MB, or, alternatively, ffdshow got it to 15MB (not changing any settings since that dialogue box is waaay too complicated :( ), which I guess will do for now. I'm not sure what I'll do if I want to have video at higher resolution though (since this one is a bit small), so I guess I could stand for a few more pointers if there are any to give.

Still don't know how to go about uploading it though. E-mail to Rolken? (I get the impression AIM is preferred, but I don't use IM programs anymore for personal reasons)

[size=8]Sorry I'm pathetic :([/size]
Title: Help with videos? :(
Post by: Taco on April 03, 2006, 07:43:12 pm
Email will work. That's how I submit my vids