I'm making videos recently.
I use Sony DSC-T90 to shoot HDTV-720p quality video. The format is MP4, which can be played by VLC media player.
Next I use VideoPad Video Editor to edit it. Different clips are cut and put together. It seems like the subtitle added is not in nice font. It looks rather stout. When saving movie the YouTube HQ format (.flv, 854x480, 25.00 standard frame rate) so far gives the best quality. I tried other formats such as HD1080, HD720, Widescreen TV and Traditional TV, and used other file format (primarily .wmv), all give aliased graphical effect. .flv format can be played by VLC media player. However there is no way to drag on the progress bar, once you do the VLC media player ends the play. Also the VLC media player needs download and install for most windows users and not so convenient.
So I use the Prism Video File Converter Plus to convert from .flv format to .wmv format. This has much better quality than the .wmv file directly generated by VideoPad Video Editor. I'm hoping to add subtitles using Windows Movie Maker now.
Well, Windows Movie Maker does not keep the widescreen setting of the movie. So I'm now trying Subtitle Workshop. It's said the version 2.51 is the best, latter versions not as good. So I downloaded Subtitle Workshop version 2.51.
- 10/19/2010
Subtitle workshop 2.51 works great.
VideoPad Video Editor can directly save the movie to .avi format (parameters: custom, 1024x576). This has the best quality, even better than the previous .wmv format converted by Prism.
Font: when saving as .avi, font height 26 looks the best. When saving as .wmv converted by Prism, font height 24 looks the best. Previously I mentioned the font looks stout. That was because the font's border color is white. Set it to black then it's perfect.
- 12/3/2011
Extracting audio from video.
Extracting audio from video can be done using the recent version of VLC media player (version 1.1.11). But when the video is big, VLC will crash. The workaround is to extract the audio from the original video and compile it into a small video file, for example, a video with a still image.
This latter task can be done in two steps: 1) Open the video in VideoPad, split the audio track from video track, choose the audio section needed, open a still image and compile the chosen audio track with the image, save to a new video file (e.g., in wmv format). 2) In VLC media player, open "Media -> Convert/Save", follow the instructions, the audio can be saved into OGG, mp3, mp4, flac, CD formats.
Showing posts with label Record. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Record. Show all posts
Monday, October 4, 2010
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Audio Editting
Audacity is an open source software used widely for audio editing.
Audacity use the LAME MP3 encoder to convert audio files into MP3 format.
See "Where Do You Create and Share Your Audio Files and Remixes?" at youtube for relevant suggestions.
The following are my current steps from collecting raw recording to compile into audio and video:
1) Digital voice recorder is first used to record the sound into wav format. The raw file is rather dry. This can be seen from the "ocean mist" wave shape when played in windows media player: one only sees some very small individual mist peaks, instead of the normal wide and abundant mist.
2) Open this raw file in Audacity and export it into MP3 or WAV format. Then the wave shape becomes normal. Audacity has the function to remove white noise, but trying it doesn't show that the effect was actually good due to sound distortion, so I gave up.
3) After this, windows movie maker can be used to incorporate the audio into a video, which can then be uploaded to youtube. In this step, one should use the audio file exported from Audacity. Using the raw file would result in plenty of noise, and sound quality totally screwed.
However, it should be noted that seems the automatic "processing" function of youtube would trim the video to remove silent ending. This leads to the loss of the last chord in the second version above, which appears in the end after a while of silence. That's bad. The solution is to add some variation to the end. Since the sound cannot be changed, an end title page can be added (change font color to be the same as background, so words won't show).
Audacity use the LAME MP3 encoder to convert audio files into MP3 format.
See "Where Do You Create and Share Your Audio Files and Remixes?" at youtube for relevant suggestions.
The following are my current steps from collecting raw recording to compile into audio and video:
1) Digital voice recorder is first used to record the sound into wav format. The raw file is rather dry. This can be seen from the "ocean mist" wave shape when played in windows media player: one only sees some very small individual mist peaks, instead of the normal wide and abundant mist.
2) Open this raw file in Audacity and export it into MP3 or WAV format. Then the wave shape becomes normal. Audacity has the function to remove white noise, but trying it doesn't show that the effect was actually good due to sound distortion, so I gave up.
3) After this, windows movie maker can be used to incorporate the audio into a video, which can then be uploaded to youtube. In this step, one should use the audio file exported from Audacity. Using the raw file would result in plenty of noise, and sound quality totally screwed.
However, it should be noted that seems the automatic "processing" function of youtube would trim the video to remove silent ending. This leads to the loss of the last chord in the second version above, which appears in the end after a while of silence. That's bad. The solution is to add some variation to the end. Since the sound cannot be changed, an end title page can be added (change font color to be the same as background, so words won't show).
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