☛ Video Tools, Tips & More page 1

Fri, Jun 22 2007 21:38
Hunter27
Classified
Posts 4,142
Retired Moderator

Please do not begin new topics concerning video.
Post all of your questions, comments, and advice here.

Updated 3-11-09

  Thanks to the many contributors throughout the surfing tips forum for contributing many links and so much great advice. And thanks to jch1 for bringing up the fact that it doesn’t make any sense to have all this video related information scattered throughout various threads. So… Here’s everything I can think of all in one place.

  I’ll list an index of this post below and put topics in bold so it should be easier to search this thread and find the exact information you need. If there’s anything I missed please share and I’ll add it to this knowledge base.

Index:
      Subject:                                                             Search Key:
1.  Video Capture (Screen caps)                              V C 0 1
2.  Ripping FLV / SWF  ect.                                       R F S 1
3.  Media Players FLV+                                            V P 0 1
4.  Converting Video Formats                                  C V F 1
5.  Playing Partial/Damaged videos                         V P 0 1 - #4
___________________________________________________________________
VIDEO CAPTURE (Screen caps): VC01

A. THE PRINT SCREEN KEY:
   Here’s a useful method for capturing your entire screen. Press the print screen key… Open up an image editor such as paint ect, and paste it in. This method always works for capturing the contents of your screen, however, some setting may need to be changed in order to capture video.

   Go to your <Control Panel> <Display> (or right click on your desktop) <Settings> <Advanced> and turn down your “Hardware Acceleration”. Take note that you shouldn’t turn it down all the way, otherwise you will end up with a shit quality video and a crumby capture. I would suggest turning it down only a couple of notches. Not enough and it won’t work, to much and it will be low quality. Find a medium your happy with and use it.

B. CAPTURE PROGRAMS:
   *Note that some of these programs may still not work with “hardware acceleration” at full (See Above).

Gadwin PrintScreen: http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/
Freez Screen Video Capture: http://www.download3000.com/download_20457.html

A good share of freeware capture tools also available at http://www.download.com/

And my personal favorite - image grabber II:
http://z18.zupload.com/download.php?file=getfile&filepath=33380
Is perfect for capping an entire video in time frames.
___________________________________________________________________
RIPPING FLV / SWF ect.: RFS1

   Here’s some methods for getting those YOUTUBE or GOOGLE FLV files downloaded on to your hard drive.

A. FOR EVERYONE:
   Realplayer 11 works within your browser. Once installed, simply mouse over the video while it’s playing and a small box will appear at the top of the video allowing you to download it. You can get Realplayer 11 here: http://www.realplayer.com/

B. FOR NON-FIREFOX USERS:
   Plain and simple, check out this site: http://keepvid.com/

C. FOR FIREFOX USERS:
   Get the DownloadHelper Extension here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3006

   The DownloadHelper extension will enable you to download ALL forms of media from pretty much ANY website. Take note that in most cases DownloadHelper will attempt to save the file as type “all files”, so you need to manually add the proper file extension in the filename when saving. This is a good thing when it comes to downloading things like DIVX files from sites like STAGE6. Simply select the media and rename with extension AVI to be able to view them in your usual video player..

C. THE MANUAL METHOD:
   This won’t work for a lot of the mainstream sites, but if all else fails, click View or File (depending on your browser) and have a look at the page source (source code). Search the code text for the extension your looking for such as FLV MP3 ect. Once you find it copy the entire URL and open up notepad.

Type the following into notepad:
<HTML><TITLE>Download</TITLE>
<A href=“ PASTE THE URL BETWEEN THESE QUOTES “>Right Click and Save Here</A>
</HTML>

   Save the text file as DOWNLOAD.HTML or whatever.HTML and close notepad, then open the saved file in your browser and do what it says…
___________________________________________________________________
MEDIA PLAYERS FLV+: VP01

Back in the day Windows Media Player blew goats. But if your OS is windows Vista than WMP is your one stop media player. All you need is the Vista codec package and WMP will treat Quicktime, RealMedia, FLV, MP4, MKV, and pretty much any format you can imagine as a native format.

You can get the Vista Codec Package here:
(Note) I haven’t personally tested it, but it seems it’s XP compatible:
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Codec-Packs-Video-Codecs/Advanced-Vista-Codec-Package.shtml

As of recent and from some sites I won’t mention, I’m able to download FLV using the listed methods but unable to play them even with the codec package installed. For rare cases such as this I recommend trying out VLC for both Windows and Mac OSX. VLC can stream video that most players cant, and even has it’s own export conversion function.

You can get VLC player from VideoLan:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Other players recommended by members are:
Winamp: Not a bad player at all, in fact I prefer it sometimes to play those low volume vids.
Get it here: http://www.winamp.com/

I haven’t personally tested this one yet but it sounds like something worth looking into. Especially if your trying to play partial or damaged files. Here’s a description from the site, and thanks to TGB_72 for the recommendation.

  “Gom Player is a multimedia player that can play most of the differently encoded video formats that include AVI, DAT, MPEG, DivX, XviD, and plus more with its own built-in codec system.

GOM can also play video files that are being downloded from the Internet or that are broken during the downloading process.” ‘softpedia
http://www.gomplayer.com/main.html

I also recommend trying Realplayer 11 for anyone not using Windows or Firefox. Not only does it allow you to download the FLV files it’s also an excellent player. Unlike VLC player Realplayer indexes the files so that you can skip ahead or back, and also supports full screen playback. You can get it here: http://www.realplayer.com/

SWF VIEWERS:
   As long as you have Flash installed, you should be able to view all content right inside your web browser:
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer/
___________________________________________________________________
CONVERTING VIDEO FORMATS: CVF1

A. SITE CONVERSION & DOWNLOAD:
   This is by far the best means of converting your FLV files into real video. It’s pretty self explanatory, so just have a look:
http://media-convert.com/convert/

  I use the site mainly to convert FLV files into WMV at 30fps 730kbps. This maintains an acceptable file size and produces an output video that sometimes seems even better quality than the original.

B. PROGRAM CONVERSION (FLV):
  I’m certain that there are more programs out there that are made for just such a thing. But the best freeware program for this is Riva Encoder (Not Vista Compatible), as mentioned above, here’s the converter.
http://www.download.com/Riva-FLV-Encoder/3000-2140_4-10381392.html?tag=lst-0-1

  Intended to be used to convert formats into FLV, for whatever reason it can be used to do just the opposite. Run Riva and open the .FLV file (input file) by either browse or drag and drop. The export video name will appear under "Destination Video File" with the .FLV extension. Remove (backspace) the .FLV and replace it with .MPEG

  For best quality set the "Preset" to Offline.xml and click "Encode". Riva will seem to have frozen, but just be patient. When it's done, all will return to normal and you can do what you'd like with your new .MPEG file.

   NEW: Super has outstanding conversion capabilities for converting all sorts of video formats. Though it can seem quite technical, once you have figured everything out you can easily convert FLV files to other formats and maintain exact quality of the original file. You can get Super at http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

C. PROGRAM CONVERSION (NON FLV)
  I recommend using a video editing program for non FLV format conversions.



Mon, Jun 25 2007 3:31
TGB_72
Posts 45
For those who don't like an "all-in-one" like jetaudio for playing video, consider GOM Player, it has built-in decoder for all sort of mpeg4 (divx 3-4-5-6, xvid, 3ivx...) in avi, mkv, ogm... built-in decoders also for mpg1 & 2 (in all kind of containers) and for audio (mp3, ogg, ac3, dts...) putting end to the mess that creates other players/codec packs spreading files all over the system32 (many times causing conflicts).
It can also play incomplete or damaged avi and it have great support for a wide variety of subtitles among other features.
Give it a try if you want, It put in shame to many video players including VLC (it's only my opinion)

Site: http://www.gomplayer.com/main.html

Full description: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Video-Players/Gom-Player.shtml
Wed, Jul 11 2007 23:08
bass slayer
Posts 173
i just bought a new computer and am wanting my mpegs to have better quality, i downloaded something on the old computer and it made a huge difference in the quality. i dont remember what i did or what it was i downloaded. my question is does some1 know what i need to download to have better video quality in my mpegs and other video formats. i have windows vista if this info will help me get an answer. thanks. i hope i have this question in the right place.
Sun, Jul 22 2007 5:46
TGB_72
Posts 45
If it wasn't a player in particular probably was a directshow decoder filter like ffdshow that allow you to use many postprocessing filters (mainly to deblock & denoise) that improve the image quality of the video while it's playing. Take a look http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/
Thu, Nov 1 2007 20:21
Hunter27
Classified
Posts 4,142
Retired Moderator
  I just found and tested a GREAT new media conversion software called Super. I didn’t have any success at all converting FLV to WMV, and haven’t played around enough with it to find satisfactory results to convert to MPG, but the FLV to AVI conversion is superior to anything Riva could ever produce. Absolutely no loss in quality. Check it out:

http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
Sat, Feb 23 2008 13:23
preethamkumar
Posts 9

bass slayer:
i just bought a new computer and am wanting my mpegs to have better quality, i downloaded something on the old computer and it made a huge difference in the quality. i dont remember what i did or what it was i downloaded. my question is does some1 know what i need to download to have better video quality in my mpegs and other video formats. i have windows vista if this info will help me get an answer. thanks. i hope i have this question in the right place.

it depends on the video card. generlly speaking ati video card ahve better video images they have a decoder with the driver , whereas if you r using nvidia card then the video decoder will not come with the drivers u have to download the nvidia pure video decoder and before installing that , you should know which video player uses this decoders , i use KM player to watch and its really good, and also it support video decoder.

 

Mon, Jun 16 2008 5:54
dobo
Posts 6

any free down loads, sites ect  to convert wmv into mpeg format.

 

 regards 

Mon, Jun 16 2008 17:05
qed2000
Posts 170
Wed, Oct 29 2008 7:48
jigalo
Posts 10

If you use firefox download helper, there is a list here that is supported for it, a lot of the sites link to other sites and 99% work with the download helper

http://www.vidohe.com/sites.php

ps. I also want to vouch for the gom player it rocks Worship

Mon, Nov 10 2008 17:20
Hunter27
Classified
Posts 4,142
Retired Moderator
Here’s a kick ass open source power tool (freeware) for editing videos, cropping, watermarking, and several other effects. I find it very useful even after I blew $99.99 USD on the latest version of Arcsoft Showbiz DVD. Virtual dub works by breaking the video down into thousands of frames, then applies image techniques to each frame to achieve the desired video result. You can even save every video frame into a folder then batch process them through your desired editor.

The only drawbacks about Virtual Dub is that it doesn’t support asf or wmv formats. Second is AVI exports are huge, were talking 10-40 GB. Assuming you have the drive space available that’s not really a big deal since a simple conversion prog like Super © can easily compress it into a more reasonably sized file.

If you edit videos often and have a good amount of free HD space for exports, it’s almost a must have.

http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

Fri, Dec 26 2008 21:44
yellowmsam
Posts 4
If you make you sure you have direct stream copy checked your files will be much smaller
Tue, Feb 10 2009 3:16
paddy111
North America
Posts 436

 Or use compression. Sometimes I cut one minute out of a 15 minutes file and it goes dowm by half the size. Your are probably using the full compressing mode, that makes file much bigger. Use Direct stream as yellowmsam wrote or use compression to really make it much lighter (but compression is much much slower than direct stream coppy).

Mon, Feb 23 2009 20:26
Hunter27
Classified
Posts 4,142
Retired Moderator

 New HD video formats
MKV & TS. Any thoughts? New to me but they seem to work well on Vista. They just popped out of nowhere. Anyone know anything about them?

Tue, Mar 10 2009 13:39
caboosier
Posts 402
Tue, Mar 10 2009 15:41
Hunter27
Classified
Posts 4,142
Retired Moderator

 There are a couple methods posted here: http://peachyforum.com/forums/t/177319.aspx">http://peachyforum.com/forums/t/177319.aspx

I'd recommend following the link and try "Super"

Tue, Mar 10 2009 22:07
hwashington
Posts 803

 

what about the reverse?  Mpg into wmv format?  I prefer wmv- I can't figure out how to get the mpeg files to display on a full screen.
Tue, Mar 10 2009 22:12
hobo81
Posts 976
[quote user="hwashington"]what about the reverse?  Mpg into wmv format?  I prefer wmv- I can't figure out how to get the mpeg files to display on a full screen.[/quote] http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

But you're better off leaving any video in its native format instead of losing quality re-encoding it. What media player you have?
Wed, Mar 11 2009 13:39
Hunter27
Classified
Posts 4,142
Retired Moderator

 Merged the conversion thread with the existing video tips thread. It's better to keep all of a topic in one place ;-)

Wed, Mar 11 2009 21:27
hwashington
Posts 803

I use windows media player

 


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