Rendering Formats for Logitech WebCams?

[gwhite]

I've created a bunch of "how to" videos for the team I coach using two different Logitech web cams. I did a bunch a few years ago using a C920, and I wasn't wild about the results. I recently bought a C930e, and made several more videos. They both produce WMV files. The C920 videos come out at 1920x1080 at 15 fps, and the C930e videos are 1280x720 at 29.97 fps.

I uploaded them to YouTube right as they came off the camera, and have shared them with the team. In order to make them public, I need to add a disclaimer at the beginning to keep the school's lawyers happy. I've got VideoStudio version 7.

I created the disclaimer as a still image, and can tack it on the beginning of a video as a "background" image just fine. The problem comes when I want to render the result. I was hoping I could just just keep the resolution, frame-rate and WMV format untouched to minimize adding any artifacts & speed up the rendering process. However, neither of the two native formats are support by VideoStudio Ver. 7 (that I could find). If I rummage around, I can find other file formats with the same resolution, but different frame rates, or vice versa. I did one video from the older camera as an MP4, keeping the same resolution, but it insisted on doubling the frame rate. The result was more than 3 times the size of the original video, and it doesn't look as smooth as it did in its original form.

The fact that VideoStudio doesn't support the native formats of two of the most popular webcams around is baffling to me. It has no trouble importing them, so why can't it export the same formats? I would be willing to upgrade to Version 10, but ONLY if they've added rendering options that can support the native file formats better. Unfortunately, that level of detail is missing from all the info I could locate.

Can anyone tell me if the two format's below are supported in Version 10:

WMV file at 1920x1080 & 15 fps

WMV file at 1280x720 & 29.97 fps

Alternatively, is there something I am missing about picking file formats when rendering that will: A) not bloat my files, and B) not mess up the smoothness of the original videos?

Thanks!

[Ken Berry]

I take it that when you refer to your current VS version as being 7, in reality it is X7 (Corel's fancy way of saying 17). Version 7 without the X is ancient, and was indeed the first VS version I ever used about 14 or 15 years ago!

If so, there is no difference AFAIK between what X7 can produce by way of WMV than X10 or the recently released VS 2018 can do by way of 15 fps. You can certainly produce 1280 x 720 30 fps if you go to Share > Custom and then choose WMV as the output format. (30 fps is the 'easy' way most editing programs use these days for 29.97.) This menu provides quite a variety of other WMV formats.

Towards the top of the Custom > WMV menu there is a category called 'Corel Screen Capture Profile 1920 x 1080'. That will produce a new video clip with that size frame and at 15 fps. This is because 15 fps is a speed used by the Screen Capture plug-in that comes with Video Studio. (A lot of people complain that this speed is too low!) Since one of your Logitechs uses the same speed, that sounds to me like you would get what you are after by selecting that profile.

More to the point, as far as I am aware, those options should be available already in X7 since I am pretty sure Screen Capture came with it too! Have a look under Custom and not WMV when you go to Share. I am pretty sure you will find it, and thus not even have to consider upgrading to a more recent version if you are otherwise happy with X7.

Another way you could get the 15 fps is to make sure you place one of the 15 fps clips in the VS timeline immediately after starting a new project. You won't get a message asking if you want the project to have the same properties as the clip. But when you get to the Share stage, at the very top of the Share page, above the bigger choices of formats, there is a little box which you can tick. It's drop-down menu allows you to choose between Same As Project Properties and Same As First Clip. If you choose the latter, then again you will be able to produce a new clip at that speed and with a frame size of 1920 x 1080.

And there's even a third way of getting what you want. If you go to the VS Settings menu, there is something called Movie Profile Manager. It may be called something a bit different in X7 -- I don't have that version on this computer so can't check. But it will be similar. When you click on that a dialogue box appears, and one of the buttons is 'Add'. Click that, and a further slightly mysterious little dialogue box appears with two windows in it. The top one, called File Path, has the even more mysterious button "..." beside it. But click that and navigate to where one of your original 1920 x 1080 15 fps clips is located. Choose it and its file path will now appear in the window. Then fill in the second box with a relevant name you will recall. Then click OK to close that box, then Close to close the first dialogue box. And next time when you want to produce one of your videos with those properties, you go to Share > Custom and in the drop-down menu, your new template should appear at the bottom. Choose that and proceed to render your project with those properties.

One, or perhaps two , things to remember with this latter template, though: first, probably best to make sure that original clip you chose remains on your computer. And never try to edit that specific template. If you do, it reverts to a generic default profile and you would need to do the Add process all over again.

[gwhite]

Thanks! That's a lot to digest & play with. I'll try to experiment over the next couple days.