saving multiple segments without rerendering

[starstrike]

I would like to save multiple movie files together, they all have the exact same type (resolution/frame rate/original encoding/sound/EVERYTHING). I want to be able to save all the clips together as one file without altering the original files.

Can this be done?

[TubaDad]

You will only be able to save them as a project file if you do not want to render a new file. If you put them all together in a timeline and render a new video file you are not going to alter the originals, as long as you don't try to save it as the same file name as one of your originals. I'm not even sure you could do that.

You message was a bit confusing because your subject line says you don't want to rerender, but your message says you want to save them together as one file, just not modify the original files. The only way to get them in one file would be to render the new file.

I hope this was of some help.

[Ken Berry]

First, enable 'Show message when inserting first clip into timeline' in File > Preferences > General, and allow the program to set the properties of the first clip as being the properties for the whole project. This will enable Smart Render to work. Put all your clips in the timeline in the order you want them. Go to Share > Create Video File > mpeg-2, and then choose Custom > mpeg-2 > Options. Make sure 'Smart Render' is checked on the first page, and then set the other properties on the General and Compression tabs to match exactly the properties of your clips, which you say are all identical. That way you get one new big clip done by Smart Rendering (and so no degradation in quality) and all your orginal files are preserved as well.

[starstrike]

First, enable 'Show message when inserting first clip into timeline' in File > Preferences > General,

How come i never see a message when i put a first clip in the time line after enabling this?

and allow the program to set the properties of the first clip as being the properties for the whole project.

How do i do this? i see no opton anywhere.

This will enable Smart Render to work. Put all your clips in the timeline in the order you want them. Go to Share > Create Video File > mpeg-2, and then choose Custom > mpeg-2 > Options. Make sure 'Smart Render' is checked on the first page, and then set the other properties on the General and Compression tabs to match exactly the properties of your clips, which you say are all identical. That way you get one new big clip done by Smart Rendering (and so no degradation in quality) and all your orginal files are preserved as well.

Also, im using AVI files, so i'd just pick the AVI options instead huh.

I really appreciate the help, im kinda new at this.

EDIT: after doing a google search for "AVI joiner" i was shocked at all the programs that could do this, so i downloaded this thing http://www.brizsoft.com/avijoin/ and works perfectly, and it only takes like 2 seconds to join two 40 MB files.

Although, i still would like to know how to do this in UVS.

[Ken Berry]

Sorry -- I am not sure what made me assume you were using mpegs, but yes, exactly the same procedure works with AVI files. Can we at least assume they are DV/AVI files (i.e. captured from a digital video camera or other digital source)? If so, though, and if they are also all only around 40 MB each, they must be very short files indeed, since DV/AVI takes about 13 GB space for one hour of video. I am worried, you see, that if they are a few minutes or more long, they might not in actual fact be AVI files, but mpeg-4s using the AVI carrier extension. This is common, for example, with DivX and XVid clips. Can you tell us the exact properties of one of the clips (right click on one of them within Video Studio and copy down the Properties.

Apart from that, I am sorry, but I don't know why you are not getting a pop-up message when you insert the first clip, if you have enabled 'Show message' in Preferences. Works perfectly on mine.

And as for the question on how to do it if you don't get the message, then click on File > Project Properties > Microsoft AVI, then ensure the properties in that are the same as your files. In your case it probably doesn't matter since all the clips have the same properties. When you go to Share > Create Video File, select Custom and then 'Microsoft AVI' as the format, just make sure all the properties in that are the same as the clips, and of course, make sure Smart Render is ticked. The smart rendering process should also not take very long.

Sorry, don't know anything about the program you mentioned. Have always used one of my editing programs for the job as they do it very quickly and simply too.

[starstrike]

Here's a screenshot of one of the movie's properties. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v647/ ... erties.gif

Okay here's what im doing: I'm using a program called FRAPS to record some of my gameplay, then taking those huge uncompressed videos and using the Divx 6.1 codec to compress them. Then im using UVS to speed up certain parts of the movie (just little bits and peices here and there, then have it save like that in one big file). Im doing that by splitting the movie up all over the place, and shrinking some of the parts (so some parts play back faster).

What i would like right now, is to be able to save the project so that, the parts that were remained untouched (the parts not shrunk), to save so that the original quality remains the exact same with those parts. I would obviously assume the parts that were shrunken would have to be rerendered with the final clip.

I hope ya understand what im trying to say.

Does smart rendering do this?

Also, i still never see any message when i put the first video in the timeline, i do have this checked "Show message when inserting first video clip into Timeline". Ill put videos with different properties in first, and still, either way, no message. BTW, I'm using Ulead Video Studies 9 trial version right now.

Also, i dont think i can get smart rendering to work, cause no matter how i have it set, it still takes the same amount of time to render it, which is still kind of a long time. Is there any kind of feedback that lets me know that smart rendering is working?

Im all about making sure i dont lose as much of the original quality as possible. I can't even cut a single short AVI video clip in half and have it save the two peices with the original quality, you would think it would be possible for sure, but i just cant seem to do it with UVS.

I appreciate all the help, this means a lot to me.

[Ken Berry]

Yes, well, that confirms a couple of things.

In the first place, DivX files, though they use an .avi extension, are really a variety of mpeg-4 file, which is highly compressed though of good quality. The thing is, though, that Video Studio 9 can only handle them with an optional free plug-in which is only available to registered users i.e. not available with the trial version. So in effect, you cannot do anything with them with the trial version of VS9 and without the plug-in.

The fact of the matter is also that by converting your original huge files to DivX, you have already altered their quality. DivX is highly compressed to make resulting files very small, though as I say, it retains a very good quality. But that doesn't alter the fact that mpeg-4 is a (very) lossy format, and thus loses quality every time you render it. I confess that I don't even know if Smart Render works via the mpeg-4 plug-in. Maybe someone else could answer that point...

Which brings me on to my third point. Just how 'huge' are your original files? (The image you sent, though useful, is of a converted DivX file, but I would like to know about the very first originals.) Does five minutes of video take over 1 GB of space or over 5 GB? I ask because I don't know anything about this FRAPS program you used to record your gameplay. I suspect, though, that it may allow recording in full, uncompressed AVI format (65 GB an hour), instead of the special compressed, but not lossy, version of AVI called 'DV' (which is used by most modern digital video cameras). The point is, though, that you will only retain the original quality if you retain the original format -- either the uncompressed full AVI (which of course presents space problems), or else convert it to DV format, if this indeed can be done.

But it also depends on what you eventually want to do with all these files. Do you eventually intend to make a DVD of them? If so, then you have also chosen the wrong codec to make a DVD. DVDs made with mpeg-4s are possible, but there are only a tiny number of stand-alone players that will actually play them, though this is likely to change in future. The standard DVD file format is mpeg-2. So if indeed your original is uncompressed AVI, and you need to conserve hard disk space by converting it, then I would be converting it to high quality mpeg-2 format with DVD settings. You could still edit the parts you want to change the speed of in AVI format, but then convert them also to DVD-compliant mpeg-2. And then you could join them all together and use Smart Render as per my original post to you. Mpeg-2 files are of course much larger than mpeg-4, but one hour of mpeg-2 at the highest DVD quality settings will still only be around 4 GB.

[starstrike]

So in effect, you cannot do anything with them with the trial version of VS9 and without the plug-in.

What do you mean by "anything"? Im still able to work with divx in UVS, i just cant seem to save untouched parts of the movie as the original quality. Please enlighten me on this, cause i will buy UVS if i have to, that would be no problem for me.

FRAPS generates 4 GB of 8 minutes of gameplay, and it only goes that big, so i will have a bunch of 4GB files on my drive, but i combine an hours worth of that (30 GB) and compress it together with Divx using UVS down to 80 MB per 8 minutes.

I am recording about 30 hours of gameplay. I only have 400 GB of hard drive space to work with, and i can only edit the files once i am done with this 30 hours of recording, so i have to compress them as i go, so i have enough hard drive space for it all.

So, once i have compressed them once, im trying to figure out a way so i can edit the parts i want, and retain the original quality (of the allready compressed once file) of the rest after i resave the file.

These movies are meant to be played on a computer monitor, just through any regular media player.

What do you suggest i do? Should i still stick with Divx for compression?

[GuyL]

Also, i still never see any message when i put the first video in the timeline, i do have this checked "Show message when inserting first video clip into Timeline". Ill put videos with different properties in first, and still, either way, no message. BTW, I'm using Ulead Video Studies 9 trial version right now.

I do not get this message when using an AVI file. It only seems to work for me when an MPEG is used. I have purposely set it up so that I know the project and video clips do not match before inserting the file.

[2Dogs]

I do not get this message when using an AVI file. It only seems to work for me when an MPEG is used.

hi Guy,

I wonder if your VS9 install is faulty? I certainly get the prompt when inserting AVI files into a new, blank project.

I have purposely set it up so that I know the project and video clips do not match before inserting the file.

Not sure what you mean by that.

hey starstrike, FRAPS looks like a useful program! I've been looking for a way to record some Media Player visualisations to use as background video in conjunction with the chroma-key overlay ability of VS9, and maybe FRAPS can do it

I notice that FRAPS can record video at up to 1152 x 864 resolution, though - so it might be relevant for you to give us some more info on your original screen resolution, and the final video properties. Your DivX resolution was only 512x384. It may be that if you want to end up with that frame size, you could do your gameplay in a lower resolution, and then the captured avi files would be significantly smaller, which could ease some of your drivespace problems.

To get the best posible quality, you might try to retain the resolution, so you might get better results making a 640x480 video of a game played at that resolution. On another video editor, WinDVD Creator 2, however, I note that the DivX output formats have some odd frame sizes - apart from the "Home Theater" settings of 720x480, there's a "Portable" format of 352x240, and a "Handheld" of 176x144, all NTSC.

[GuyL]

I have purposely set it up so that I know the project and video clips do not match before inserting the file.

Not sure what you mean by that.

I meant that to come to this conclusion I have purposely set the project properties to something different than the AVI I'm about to insert. I've since reinstalled VS9 after a new system install and it behaves the same way.

[starstrike]

I notice that FRAPS can record video at up to 1152 x 864 resolution, though - so it might be relevant for you to give us some more info on your original screen resolution, and the final video properties. Your DivX resolution was only 512x384. It may be that if you want to end up with that frame size, you could do your gameplay in a lower resolution, and then the captured avi files would be significantly smaller, which could ease some of your drivespace problems.

Im playing at 1024*768, but i have fraps record on "Half-size" at 25 FPS.

[2Dogs]

I notice that FRAPS can record video at up to 1152 x 864 resolution, though - so it might be relevant for you to give us some more info on your original screen resolution, and the final video properties. Your DivX resolution was only 512x384. It may be that if you want to end up with that frame size, you could do your gameplay in a lower resolution, and then the captured avi files would be significantly smaller, which could ease some of your drivespace problems.

Im playing at 1024*768, but i have fraps record on "Half-size" at 25 FPS.

Hey, this is getting like the "quoting game" my daughter plays on her favourite forum!

After my post, I tried out FRAPS, and realised that was what you probably did. You might as well use that as the DIVX resolution too. I don't have any experience of working with DIVX with VS, but if it can be set to use 512x384, you could make up separate DIVX files coressponding to more manageable chunks of your gameplay. If you work on a couple of hours worth of AVI footage and edit that down, you can output it to a single DIVX file, and then delete the AVI footage and do the same for the next section. You'll end up with several DIVX files, which you can then assemble in a new project and burn to DVD or folders on your hard drive - or maybe just use to create a single large DIVX file of the whole project if you don't need menus, chapters and so on. If VS9 can Smart Render DIVX files, there will only be two steps with quality loss - first when you use FRAPS to capture AVI at half the screen resolution, and then when you use VS to render those AVI's to DIVX.