Computers and Related Hardware/Software

OK. Installed the firewire card. Works great.

For my first foray, I used movie maker to capture the file from the camcorder. Several options to capture as AVI or WMV. First problem popped up with the WMV option. I can record in wide screen. When I transferred the wide screen recording using WMV it squashed it to standard square TV. The AVI option kept the proper ratios. So what as long as AVI is correct I'll just work with that.

New problem. I need to do some color corrections.... to the AVI file..
tried using TEMPgenc... it rejected both AVI and WMV files....

What's a good software to make color(hue) corrections to AVI files (captured from DV camcorders). ALso want to use transitions and other effects that movie maker has available.

Enna wrote:Problem: When I right click on my mouse to see the box with the cut, copy, paste info. in it, I am only able to see the ouline of the box not the words. If I scroll down the box then I can see the words one at a time almost as if I am highlighting them. This just started this evening. :puppydog:

Any suggestions? :)

(edited to say)Now this is wierd. The problem that I just mentioned above, had lasted for several hours, has now gone away. :confused:

Did you shut down or reboot your machine?

ralphm1999 wrote:New problem. I need to do some color corrections.... to the AVI file..
tried using TEMPgenc... it rejected both AVI and WMV files....

That's odd: I use TMPGEnc all the time when I'm converting my hardsubbed AVIs to MPEG2... :headscratch:

Be forwarned: Doing any type of stuff like that (color correction, sharpening, etc.) makes the encoding process a WHOLE LOT longer since the software has to process each and every frame of the video... :sweat:

bmwracer wrote:
Did you shut down or reboot your machine?

No I didn't do either. It just seemed to correct itself. Very strange. :shakehead: Thanks for your suggestions b-kun. :hug:

bmwracer wrote:
That's odd: I use TMPGEnc all the time when I'm converting my hardsubbed AVIs to MPEG2... :headscratch:

Be forwarned: Doing any type of stuff like that (color correction, sharpening, etc.) makes the encoding process a WHOLE LOT longer since the software has to process each and every frame of the video... :sweat:

I had the same problem with some AVI dramas that I d/l. But after I passed them thru 'Super' converter to mpg, I had no problem with TEMPGenc. I could do the same with these AVIs and use the color correction in TEMPGenc then.
As for time, it's OK. These are very short 20 second demo scenes I'm making for my friend Kelly for her movie stuff. I need to correct for some overly reddish skin color which resulted from shooting under normal tungsten lights. I'm going to buy some special colored movie lights soon which should pretty much relieve that problem.
I'd sure like to find some software that will color correct and have the effects that are available in movie maker.
:grumble:

ralphm1999 wrote:I had the same problem with some AVI dramas that I d/l. But after I passed them thru 'Super' converter to mpg, I had no problem with TEMPGenc.

You realize that with each pass through some software it degrades the video... I know what a stickler you are for maintaining quality. :)

I could do the same with these AVIs and use the color correction in TEMPGenc then.

Are the AVIs DiVX or xViD?

Most likely it's a non-standard format that TMPGEnc doesn't like.

You might try demultiplexing the video and audio components and trying to run TMPGEnc on the video only... Then once your done, multplex the audio back into the video... TMPGEnc has the tools to do that. :)

bmwracer wrote:
Are the AVIs DiVX or xViD?

Most likely it's a non-standard format that TMPGEnc doesn't like.

You might try demultiplexing the video and audio components and trying to run TMPGEnc on the video only... Then once your done, multplex the audio back into the video... TMPGEnc has the tools to do that. :)

Don't know how to tell wether divx or xvid.

I realize the quality degradation which I why I bought the firewire PCI... Before I had to rerecord on my DVDR... then take the output DVD and transfer it to my computer.... But even then it was already in DVD format which as far as I know there is no software available to manipulate the color so I would have had to convert it back to AVI.
Also that's why I would like to find software that would color correct and add effects in one pass. Eventually I will still have to run it through TMPGence author to convert the final product to DVD.

I will look at the demuxing possibility as a solution. Thanks. :sweat:

ralphm1999 wrote:Don't know how to tell wether divx or xvid.

Use AVICodec: it'll tell you all the particulars of your AVI file. :)

Also that's why I would like to find software that would color correct and add effects in one pass.

If you can get TMPGEnc to work with the AVI, it can do the correction as the conversion to MPEG2 is being made...

Eventually I will still have to run it through TMPGence author to convert the final product to DVD.

There's no conversion during that step: the MPEG2 is just reformatted to the DVD's VOB format... So no quality loss. :)

I will look at the demuxing possibility as a solution. Thanks.

I had to demux when I hardsubbed Nodame since the audio went out of sync during the connversion for some reason.

An extra step or two, but the results were well worth it. :)

d/l ran avicodec and got this:

Video : 99 MB, 29818 Kbps, 29.970 fps, 0*0 (), dvsd = Sony Digital Video, Supported

ralphm1999 wrote:d/l ran avicodec and got this:

Video : 99 MB, 29818 Kbps, 29.970 fps, 0*0 (), dvsd = Sony Digital Video, Supported

So desu.

A proprietary Sony AVI video format... :sweat:

My mistake: when I talked about demuxing using TMPGEnc earlier, that was for MPEG2 video streams only.

To demux a AVI file, you'll need to use VirtualDub... When that's done, you should encode the video only using TMPGEnc, then mux the audio back with the newly-created MPEG2 video stream. :)

Anime Dad wrote:What do you mean, "Making" soft subs? Actually creating the subs, or adding subs to a DVD?

I recently switched from "Subtitle Workshop" to "Aegisub". I'm totally in love now. Although I have to say that I really want a solution for my Macs. I may have to write one, but at least I'll have one and I can put in the features I want. :D

bmwracer wrote:A proprietary Sony AVI video format... :sweat:

Since AVI is just a wrapper for handling many different codecs I'm not very surprised by this. QuickTime works the same way. All they need to do to make somehting proprietary anyway is change the sequence of the first few bits written in the file. :grumble:

Danji wrote:I recently switched from "Subtitle Workshop" to "Aegisub". I'm totally in love now. Although I have to say that I really want a solution for my Macs. I may have to write one, but at least I'll have one and I can put in the features I want. :D

I thought Macs had PC emulation....?

bmwracer wrote:
I thought Macs had PC emulation....?

Haha, they do, but I don't want to run it that way. If I ran Aegisub through BootCamp I'd have to reboot the machine into Windows. If I ran Windows through Paralells (3rd party software) I could run both the Mac and Windows at the same time, but I really want a solution for th Mac so I wouldn't have to do anything with Windows on my Mac.

Danji wrote:Haha, they do, but I don't want to run it that way. If I ran Aegisub through BootCamp I'd have to reboot the machine into Windows. If I ran Windows through Paralells (3rd party software) I could run both the Mac and Windows at the same time, but I really want a solution for th Mac so I wouldn't have to do anything with Windows on my Mac.

There's always buying a PC. :beaten: :hehe:

bmwracer wrote:
There's always buying a PC. :beaten: :hehe:

Hahaha, I already have several. But I mainly use the tower for games. The laptop is for work, and the server is for client files.

I use my Macs for a ton of stuff. From web and software development, to bittorrent to interface design to graphics work to games and movies... It's just a more natural environment for me.

I have a couple Linux boxes as well. One acts as a PBX (phone system). Another is an internal RAID fileserver. The last one isn't really doing anything at the moment. :puppydog:

Danji wrote:Hahaha, I already have several. But I mainly use the tower for games. The laptop is for work, and the server is for client files.

I use my Macs for a ton of stuff. From web and software development, to bittorrent to interface design to graphics work to games and movies... It's just a more natural environment for me.

I have a couple Linux boxes as well. One acts as a PBX (phone system). Another is an internal RAID fileserver. The last one isn't really doing anything at the moment. :puppydog:

Yow, with all those machines you'd think there would be ONE free to do your subbing... :hehe:

bmwracer wrote:
So desu.

A proprietary Sony AVI video format... :sweat:

OK. So that's the output from the video capture using movie maker.
Then movie maker must be creating that codec since it offers other output formats. I will try a different capture device to see if I can get a more popular codec output.
:shakehead:

bmwracer wrote:
Yow, with all those machines you'd think there would be ONE free to do your subbing... :hehe:

Hahaha, I tend to use the laptop for subbing at the moment. But with a 15" screen instead of the 24" widescreen on my iMac + the higher rez, I'm missing out on a lot of useable space. That's what I really want. But just going out and buying another screen to connect to the laptop externally wouldn't cut it because the laptop's video card sucks and wouldn't support the resolution options.

ralphm1999 wrote:OK. So that's the output from the video capture using movie maker.
Then movie maker must be creating that codec since it offers other output formats. I will try a different capture device to see if I can get a more popular codec output.
:shakehead:

When I was using my brother's Sony DV Cam for capture, I used a program called WinDV ( http://www.videohelp.com/tools?tool=WinDV )... And TMPGEnc had no problems with its output. :)

Danji wrote:Hahaha, I tend to use the laptop for subbing at the moment.

Yeech, laptops... I'm at my brother's house right now and I'm using his laptop... I HATE touchpad mice. :bleh: