The Super Duper Video Compression Tutorial

[bigjoker66]

I have been eagerly awaiting this post, BJ. Thanks for this. Possibly deserves it's own thread?

I don't know if it deserves its own thread or not. I figured this one was a sticky already and people had talked about camstudio here already.

This is more to give guidelines for settings. This is what I found to work well.

Two other applications that I have found useful is Virtualdub for editing the video. http://www.virtualdub.org/ That page also has some good documentation on video capture and processing.

The other App is Manycam. http://www.manycam.com/ This portrays you desktop as a webcam, so you can use it with Skype or any other webcam capable application.

 

[Stu_Ungar]

I have just started using Camtasia and am having difficulties.

I record the video using the default setting fine.

Then I import the clip so that I can compress it, but the production options are greyed out.

What am I doing wrong?

 

[icemonkey9]

Not sure it might depend on what version of Camtasia you are using plus what export type you selected...

 

[Stu_Ungar]

I think I have figured it out.

Very simple.

I have to drag the video onto the time line first.

I just haven't used this software before!

 

[WiZZiM]

I'll separate this into 3 parts 1) Capture 2) Codec 3) Compress

1) You can capture video from your screen in many ways with various software. Some of this software compresses while it captures. I have found this to result in poor video, that is still fairly large. I use the free software Camstudio found here: http://camstudio.org/

A few notes on capturing. Under Options>Video Options use under compressor use: CamStudio Lossless Codec v1.4
Set Quality to 70, Set key frames every 40 frames
The next is critical so your audio and video don't get out of sync. Capture frame every 100ms and playback rate: 10 frames/sec

With these settings you get about 60MB/min on a 1024x768 screen.

2) you will probably need codecs to compress and decompress the video. A good all around codec pack is the K-lite codec pack found here: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_lite_codec_pack.htm


3) Compression I use the free software Mediacoder found here: http://www.mediacoderhq.com/index.htm
I have found the h.264 format to provide some of the best compression while still retaining quality. Mode should be "quality Based". One of the best file types to be flash. Although wmv will produce a smaller file with almost as good video.
In audio I set it to mp3 at 64Kbps in CBR rate mode and mono channel.

With these setting I get about 50:1 compression so the 60Meg/min becomes about 1.2 Meg/min. Not to bad.

Hope this helps people capture and compress videos.

Brilliant! thanks a lot, 1.38 GB into 104 MB. Cept the sound is a little off on mine.

 

[bigjoker66]

Brilliant! thanks a lot, 1.38 GB into 104 MB. Cept the sound is a little off on mine.

If your audio and video are out of sync this is probably your issue (from original post):
"The next is critical so your audio and video don't get out of sync. Capture frame every 100ms and playback rate: 10 frames/sec"

There are also some free utilities to get them back in sync, but I can't think of them off hand now. Let me know if you need them and I will see if I can find them in my notes.

 

[bigjoker66]

Ah I had it above in a previous post: Virtualdub (free) for editing the video. http://www.virtualdub.org/

You can use this to get video and audio back in sync. look at youtube for videos on how to do it or google instructions. I remember it was not straight forward on how to do it.

 

[WiZZiM]

If your audio and video are out of sync this is probably your issue (from original post):
"The next is critical so your audio and video don't get out of sync. Capture frame every 100ms and playback rate: 10 frames/sec"

There are also some free utilities to get them back in sync, but I can't think of them off hand now. Let me know if you need them and I will see if I can find them in my notes.

yeah i put it at those settings, but it's still out of sync. it's not overly bad though. I might have made a mistake in the compression part. im not sure, either way it turned 1.3 gig into 100meg, which is pretty darn sweet.

 

[triplesyxx]

considering this is still a sticky....is there anyway we can get these files from somewhere else? Since megaupload got seized and all

 

[jorzunik]

MEGAUPLOAD FAIL

SOMEONE PLEASE UP A NEW LINK

 

[odnarud]

Link not working, another link that works? I'd like to invest some time to learn how to play correctly.

 

[mitea2013]

thank you very much