I want to make movies

**astro1002** · #1 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 05:09 PM

I want to make in-game movies of my play and do some editing and add music. I tried searching the forums (with advanced) but to no avail for the last 30 min. I have also checked out some Google results and came up with some capture programs but I would love some feedback from anyone who has a clue about this. I have "no clue" yet but find this very interesting and would like to dedicate some time to learning more about this.
The programs I found that were interesting are:

Fraps - It seems pretty basic though and a resource hog FRAPS show fps, record video game movies, screen capture software
ACA Capture Pro v 5.60 - ACASystems - Screen Capture & Recording, free download
ZD Recorder - ZD Recorder - a screen recorder can capture streaming video and record PC game
Growlers Guncam - no new release in over a year, but recommended on many sites Growler Guncam video game recording software

However these don't allow you to edit ( I think)...just capture. What is the best editing software that you have found (through personal use) that is the easiest to learn, but offers results? Is there a "combo" program available that I am missing?

Anyone who knows anything about this please help point me in the right direction. Thanks. Simple is best for now, but having the most options is important as well, as long as I don't need to learn how to program to do them.

***EDIT*** I had no idea where to put this request. Mods, feel free to move as necessary.

**Silent** · #2 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 05:19 PM

I use Camtasia. It's a capture and editing program. You can record a specified size or a window, etc., and then edit it with the video editing software.

Camtasia

If you wanna try it out, I'll find you a cracked version if you want it.

**SnagglePuss** · #3 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 05:45 PM

Can camtasia capture ingame footage?
It depends on what type of game stuff u want to record...punkbuster dont let u use anything other than FRAPS and XFIRE recorders. Its up to u which u choose.

SnagglePuss

**astro1002** · #4 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 05:58 PM

That looks like EXACTLY what I am looking for. A couple of questions if you don't mind.

Do you see a performance decrease during play when you record? I have a very good connection but I am afraid of getting lag during play with the hack and having it show on the vid. The way I rage I find it hard to believe that ANY program can keep up. I assume you just change the capture FPS to a lower # to compensate...but I am a nube at this so...

Also, can you manipulate the program while recording your playing with "hotkeys" and not let it interfere or show with the final capture? Can it make its GUI invisible during recording? So, lets say, if I am in-game and recording, can I make changes to Camtasia without it showing on the final recording or does it show everything I do. Or would that be the edit feature coming into play and loosing that segment?

This looks perfect and easy from the 5 mins I have looked at it. I will dnld the free trial and check it out. I appreciate the crack offer and will probably take you up on that if you have a RS link. Anything else and I might need instructions...lol.

Completely new to me...but I want to do this so badly. That vid set me off...lol. I can do better. I know I can!

***EDIT*** This is mainly for COD4 by the way if that makes a difference.

kiodis · #5 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 06:15 PM

I use fraps and edit it with windows movie maker. works well

**Silent** · #6 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 06:33 PM

For COD4, Fraps works well, then using Camtasia's movie editor to edit it is a good combination.

Naturally recording with any program will result in an FPS drop, so it just depends on the computer's abilities.

**astro1002** · #7 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 06:50 PM

Thanks for the feedback guys. I think after everything you have contributed I will ask for Fraps from Noname and have some fun for a while (or some very frustrated nights...either way it'll be a fun thing). Camtasia seems to be the best I've seen so far and I cant wait to play with it. Silent if you can get a crack for it I would love you long time...lol. A RS dnld would be great for my nube ass.

I appreciate the help from everyone. Man I love this place!

**dmphotography** · #8 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 07:51 PM

I did a lot of experimenting with different video formats and all the ways to compress them for 1)small file size and 2) maintaining the highest quality in the end result. FLV format is probably hands down the best, which is Flash Video format. The second one up is the DivX codec.
I personally use Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 and it has some very nice codecs built in. I cracked the DivX codec, as this is a good format to upload to video websites like Wipido, which is were I recommend uploading gaming videos to if you want to keep the quality high. If you're hosting your own videos such as on your own server, then I'd say FLV is hands down the best format and is included in the VideoStudio Pro X2. The only catch is you need to use a player to embed FLV videos and there's one that's fairly easy to setup and use at Setup Wizard | LongTail Video.

As far as capturing the video goes, I feel FRAPS is the best way to go. I usually try to target a resolution of 640 x 480 when I'm capturing and I DO NOT change the resolution during editing, because this will greatly reduce the video quality. It's better to capture in whatever your target resolution is. In regards to screen recorders, I don't have any suggestions because I just don't use them enough to give any advise other than resizing the resolution in those videos is a bad idea as well.

I don't remember the exact settings for DivX I found to be best, but I believe the FLV codec doesn't have any customizing options for it, so it's pretty much cut and dry. I recommend taking about a 10 second video that contains both fairly still and faster action movement in it, then just keep exporting it in different settings to figure out what setting works best for you. This gives you a good way to judge quality and a small file size comparison as well. Here's one example I did comparing a video rendered using the DivX codec and one rendered using the FLV codec, both at almost the exact same quality.

I took the same 2:30 clip and converted it two ways, 1 was using the DivX codec and the second was one using the FLV codec. The results were amazing, the quality of the FLV file was every bit as good as the DivX conversions, yet 1/3rd the file size. Here's the results:

DivX 2:30 640x480 - 69.2MB
FLV 2:30 640x480 - 24.3MB

Now one other option, if you're REALLY trying hard for great video quality and the smallest file size possible (this would be if you're hosting your own video files), then export your videos as uncompressed AVI files from the editing software you are using (if you captured it using FRAPS, otherwise export it with the same settings you used to capture it in), then using a program called Adobe Media Encoder CS4. It comes with Adobe Flash CS4 and is by far the best FLV compression software I've found to date. It will give you the highest quality and smallest file size as you're going to get. It's pretty simple to use too, just takes finding the "sweet" settings that work for your type of video.

Here's an example of a file I created using it. It's 1:30, 20MB file size, and looks almost exactly as good as it did on my screen while playing the game.

http://www.imgoingtoreportyou.com/files/titancarton.flv

As you can tell, I host my own video files, because even though the compression of websites like Wipido are very good, you still loose some quality uploading to them and it's a hassle to me. Here's the videos I posted there: Titan Pods - Wipido. I believe I uploaded all of those in AVI format, using the DivX codec to encode them first.

I hope this helps and you find this resourceful. Let me know if you have any other questions.

**astro1002** · #9 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 09:02 PM

Wow...I may take a day to digest all that but...wow...thx. So what I get from that at a (long...lol)glance is:

1:FLV is cleaner than DivX but has less options...If any at all.

2:Wipidio is where I want to host my vids...not UTube. The res is better. (I heard this from someone else here just recently). However...If I make a vid targeted for Wipidia, can it be seen on UTube in a better res there than normal?

3:Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 is what you use...was it hard to crack (or would it be hard for me) the Divx codec?

4:Quote "The only catch is you need to use a player to embed FLV videos and there's one that's fairly easy to setup and use at Setup Wizard | LongTail Video."
I'll pass as I have no clue in how to do this yet (embed). Sounds above my paygrade...lol.

5: Would 640 x480 be the max res you recommend for a capture? Why not 1024 x ?. Does it use to many resources. You are gaming at the same time and it is a load I understand...but a higher res would produce a better finnished product...no?

6: "DivX 2:30 640x480 - 69.2MB
FLV 2:30 640x480 - 24.3MB"
That is very interesting. However, can the FLV format be opened just as easily in, say, UTube or Wipidia as the DiviX format. Does the end user have to do something different to dnld or open it? Because I am betting they won't unless they are very interested.

7:I have the CS3 suite (thx to Noname)...is this sufficient or do I need the CS4 package?

8: I am so sry for the multiple questions but I thought asking here first would save many hours of just searching and following others looser links. You guys have really given me some direction here. I cant thank you enough. I will show some results as soon as I can. I want to produce the vids that advertise this site as best as I can...It seems to be a void that needs to be filled. We have some great vids; but programs, hacks, skills and technology get better by the day. I want to be to 187ci vids, what CommanderPyle is to sigs. It's a stretch, but a goal none the less. I will only get there with you're help.

That vid is the quality I am looking for...nice. I am SICK of trying to figure out what I am looking at on UTube. The only reason I have a clue is because of the title. It's like watching definitive evidence on the Locke Ness Monster or Bigfoot. "I saw it on UTube it must be real"...You saw shit...lol. Grainy and undecipherable.

Thanks again DM, you might get a pm or two. So will you Silent and Snaggle...Thx.

**dmphotography** · #10 (**permalink**) 12-09-2008, 11:32 PM

Wow...I may take a day to digest all that but...wow...thx. So what I get from that at a (long...lol)glance is:

1:FLV is cleaner than DivX but has less options...If any at all.
In Corel VideoStudio Pro X2, yes. If you choose to use the Adobe Media Encoder CS4, it has several options such as multipass, VBR, and a few other things I don't fully understand. I would only recommend going through the effort of downloading Adobe Flash CS4 to get the Adobe Media Encoder CS4 if you plan on doing a lot of video converting in FLV format and are picky about high-quality.

2:Wipidio is where I want to host my vids...not UTube. The res is better. (I heard this from someone else here just recently). However...If I make a vid targeted for Wipidia, can it be seen on UTube in a better res there than normal?
Youtube does offer a "High Quality" mode, but I haven't found what determines that option. The reason Wipido is better is because all of those sites convert the videos to flash video and Youtube's method of doing that tends to hurt the video quality more than Wipido's way of doing it.

3:Corel VideoStudio Pro X2 is what you use...was it hard to crack (or would it be hard for me) the Divx codec?
VideoStudio is easy to crack, it usually comes with a keygen off a torrent site. Now I will warn you about using the keygen for Divx, because the one I had was infected. I do however have a list of serials for it that's clean I'll gladly send you.

4:Quote "The only catch is you need to use a player to embed FLV videos and there's one that's fairly easy to setup and use at Setup Wizard | LongTail Video."
I'll pass as I have no clue in how to do this yet (embed). Sounds above my paygrade...lol.
I don't blame ya. It's not too complicated, but I do this because I host my own videos. Embedding doesn't work here though, because HTML is turned off do to security vulnerabilities I believe.

5: Would 640 x480 be the max res you recommend for a capture? Why not 1024 x ?. Does it use to many resources. You are gaming at the same time and it is a load I understand...but a higher res would produce a better finnished product...no?
640x480 makes a good resolution for sharing video over the internet for multiple reasons. The first being it's not too small where you can't see details, the second being it's not too big to where the file size is going to be huge. When you capture video at 1024 x 768, it writes a lot more data and your video files will be A LOT bigger than if you do it at a lower resolution setting. And as I stated before, when you resize videos, you instantly loose a lot of quality. It's better to capture as close to the output resolution as you can. I don't believe it makes any difference on your resources which resolution you record in, other than it might hit the graphics card a little harder and will be accessing the Hard Drive a lot faster.

6: "DivX 2:30 640x480 - 69.2MB
FLV 2:30 640x480 - 24.3MB"
That is very interesting. However, can the FLV format be opened just as easily in, say, UTube or Wipidia as the DiviX format. Does the end user have to do something different to dnld or open it? Because I am betting they won't unless they are very interested.
FLV is basically the same format as MPEG4. In regards to Utube, Wipido, etc, they convert all the videos to their format, which is Flash video, no matter what format you upload. I seem to think the DivX files do better for uploading to those sites, but in all honesty I don't think it makes a noticable difference. To get that FLV file size, you have to use Adobe Media Encoder to encode it. Just guessing from VideoStudio, it'd probably be around 40-50MB using the FLV export in it.

7:I have the CS3 suite (thx to Noname)...is this sufficient or do I need the CS4 package? It only comes with Adobe Flash CS4. It is completely seprate from Photoshop, etc. If you have Adobe Flash CS3, just uninstall it and install Flash CS4, or keep both.

8: I am so sry for the multiple questions but I thought asking here first would save many hours of just searching and following others looser links. You guys have really given me some direction here. I cant thank you enough. I will show some results as soon as I can. I want to produce the vids that advertise this site as best as I can...It seems to be a void that needs to be filled. We have some great vids; but programs, hacks, skills and technology get better by the day. I want to be to 187ci vids, what CommanderPyle is to sigs. It's a stretch, but a goal none the less. I will only get there with you're help.
No problem man, glad I can help. I spent hours researching how to encode video for the internet and maintain high quality. Xvid is a great codec for human videos and the most common used one for high-quality DVD Rips. But anyways, good luck with that. I uploaded some childhood videos to youtube I encoded with the Xvid codec and they turned out pretty nice. The best I can tell, the high-quality option is triggered by what the resolution of the video you are uploading is. 640x480 is what I uploaded and they all had the high quality option, so maybe that's the trick.

To record gaming videos, the biggest factor in quality is going to be your graphics card(s). The higher you can put your settings on in the game and still be able to record at 30 FPS, the better. I personally use 2 8800GT's in SLI mode and it's smooth sailing. Video rendering (encoding) will be totally dependent on your CPU, so the faster the processor, the less time it takes to render the video.