Author Topic: Windows Media Player  (Read 632 times)

Offline Jake54

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« on: August 23, 2006, 07:25:41 PM »
How do I put my movie for viewing as in a Windows Media Player. I dont want to view it in youtue I wana do it where u watch it using windows media player. I see alot of other peeple do that how?

Offline Kermit de frog

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« Reply #1 on: August 23, 2006, 09:43:36 PM »
I bought a website that gives X amount of webspace and X amount of bandwidth (number of times it can be downloaded per month).  Since I have my own website, I can upload any file I want and then save the link so that other people know where to go to download it.

The answer is.......It cost money to do what you want to do.   Or you can ask someone here if they are willing to host the video file for you.  I think a fellow by the name Morpheus allows people to place AH video files on his website.  You just have to sign up and I think email him.  Do a search for his name on the bbs and click on his profile for contact information.
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Offline dmf

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« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2006, 05:14:31 PM »
Or you can use winrar to zip it and put it up on rapid share, and post the link on the AH board.

Offline Kermit de frog

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« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2006, 10:54:24 PM »
windows XP can zip it for ya.
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Offline dmf

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« Reply #4 on: August 25, 2006, 04:58:30 PM »
Yes it can, but windows xp's zip thing suks.

Offline Schatzi

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« Reply #5 on: August 26, 2006, 07:03:55 AM »
Ultimate Zip :).
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Offline Kermit de frog

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« Reply #6 on: August 26, 2006, 01:13:30 PM »
Windows XP Zip sucks?  How so, compression ratio isn't high enough?  Is it hard to use?  Do you even know the compression ratio for XP's zip process.  Certain files compress better than others. Besides, Win XP's Zip is more compatible with the average computer user.  It's there by default.
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Offline jamesdeanoo7

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« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2006, 08:10:19 AM »
There are lots of free programmes and web hosters about. Also fraps is a free programme but if you buy the full version you can save at mpeg quality. If you need more advice pm me.

Offline Kermit de frog

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« Reply #8 on: August 28, 2006, 12:16:06 PM »
fraps quality or mpeg quality.  Hmmmmmm.

Fraps gives you 32bit video colors while mpeg gives you 16 bit?   Is that mpeg2 quality?   I wonder which one compresses more with less video loss.  I wonder which one encodes faster.  JD, can you help me?
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Offline jamesdeanoo7

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« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2006, 01:05:42 PM »
Hey kermit I am pretty new to this myself but I will pass on what I know. I run at almost maximum resolution and have a great card and computor. The first time I filmed anything the replay was awesome but in using the wmm and the Fraps it lost alot of quality. I hunted around and found alot of advice from the ubisoft website and this guy....
http://www.simhq.com/_air3/air_116a.html
apparently what was happening was that these programmes operated at 800x600 or less and they were continually trying to compress my film. I bought the full version of fraps so that I could compare capturing directly at mpeg quality but to be honest they look the same too me. Right now I am investigating things like sony vegas as I think I can just capture everything at the same quality but get alot more options to play with. Anyway if you go to that link you can view this guys training films etc. He is very good also there is an email address there.Of course in amongst all this is the fact that ah is more into modelling than graphics but I must admit when you set the arena to full moon in a snow setting the moonlihght glinting off a planes wings looks great. If you want to swap info anytime just let me know, I really would like to get into this filming a bit more. Jim.

Offline jamesdeanoo7

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« Reply #10 on: August 28, 2006, 01:13:52 PM »
ok kermit heres the next answer I got :
ok,

Recording either with fraps or exporting replays from game engines,

800x600 is 4:3, and in windows movie maker the max it will do with default is 720x480 Animorphic which is not 4:3, so you'll get interpolating pixels, and random side effects,

also, you have to look at source files for encoding Windows Movie Maker isnt the best of programs, even free programs.. It lacks any kind of serious user customizable options, For example, if the AVI File you have is Interlaced, WMM will encode it without de-interlacing, and you;ll get a bunch of horizonal lines/blurs.

even for High Quality Video Editing, I'd Go with using 1280x960/640x480(4:3) or 1280x720/640x360 (16:9), Recording and Editing in the Resolution you want to encode is always best in cases of video, especially when using free programs that arent hi-end. Most Programs Like Pinnicle Video Studio 8/9 Or Adobe Premiere Pro (7.0) or Premiere 6.5 Do a Alot better at Re-sizing Video.

You could try searching for and downloading virtual dub, use that to re-size to whatever your want.

Another Thing you have to look at is what compression your Video File is Using, MPEG-4, wether it be WMV, Xvid, 3vix, Divx, or any other form, is ust way to lossy , meaning the image quality to compression ratio is just gross.., and requires more CPU Power to Encode on the Fly.

MJPEG is the Best option for COmpression during recording, it uses less CPU poer than anything, just need decent amount of ram and Harddisk Bandwidth. (I record and Edit Video Footage in MJPEG at 1920x1080i for some game companies)

WMVHD is a Good way to go for Final Encoding, but outside of the Adobe Premier 6.5 Windows Media Exporter I havent found any way of encoding them.

Offline dtango

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« Reply #11 on: August 28, 2006, 01:44:37 PM »
Jake - your question is a little confusing.  Maybe it would help to understand why you want a movie to be viewed by Windows Media Player.  What is it that you think the WMP will give you vs. what YouTube etc. does not?

I'm guessing it has something to do with controlling the resolution / quality of the video vs. what you might get via YouTube?  If this is what you're after specifying which media player you want to have the movie played in doesn't determine a movie's quality.  The quality is determined by how you've encoded the movie.

Regardless - in all cases you will need to host the file somewhere.  As Kermit mentions you can:
(a) find a service that will do this for you - might be free or for pay,
(b) pay for a webhosting provider for space to host yourself,
(c) ask if someone here has some space on the internet to host it for you.

YouTube is a free option A service.  Some others are Yahoo Videos and PutFile.  The good is that these services are typically for free.  The downside is that you're usually restricted to the encoding format that you can have as well as file size and media player restrictions.  For example...

YouTube -
File Formats: .avi, .mpg, .mov
Space: 100 MB per movie
Player: Flash

Yahoo Video -
File Formats: .wmv, .asf, .mov, .mpg  
Space: 100 MB per movie
Player: Flash

PutFile -
File Formats: .wmv .avi .mpg .mpeg .mov .asf .asx .mp4 .3g2
Space: 25 MB per movie
Player: Windows Media or QuickTime

In general the higher the quality the video, the larger the filesize.  That's why some folks opt for options B & C above.

Tango, XO
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"At times it seems like people think they can chuck bunch of anecdotes into some converter which comes up with the flight model." (Wmaker)

Offline dtango

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« Reply #12 on: August 28, 2006, 02:30:55 PM »
JD007 - for clarity Vegas won't capture your game video for you.  You will need some capture program like Fraps, snagit, etc. to do that.

Vegas is a non-linear editing system (and so is WMM).  These tools are where you assemble and edit your vids captured through Fraps etc.  

The difference between Vegas ans WMM are pretty big in terms of functionality.  WMM is a nice little program but it's pretty limited in terms of flexibility.   For instance defining the movie "resolution" if I recall correctly you only have a couple of choices with WMM (e.g. 320 x 240, or 720 x 480 etc.).  Your also locked into a 4:3 aspect ratio as well I believe as mentioned below - meaning WMM will try to take your captured videos and fit them to a 4:3 aspect ratio.  That's why "Dart" from simHQ recommends the 800x600 settings for games so that Fraps captures in this aspect ratio.  Otherwise you get video image distortion because it's trying to stretch or squeeze the picture into the 4:3 aspect ratio.

Vegas gives you tools to address this.  That's how I was able to get the 600x312 widescreen aspect ratio for "Two Horsemen".

You don't need Vegas to do this however.  One method for addressing this if you're using WMM is to render the completed WMM movie in an uncompressed .AVI format.  Then take the movie into VirtualDub (Free!!) and use it's filters to crop the aspect ratio and resolution you want (e.g. say WMM .avi file is 720 x 480 but using virtualdub you crop it to 600 x 312).  You will lose some of the image if you don't want any distortion but you can plan that out.

EDIT:  Another example of this is how I put together  "Mustang Rhapsody".  (A) Captured in Fraps (~900 x 700).  (B) Cropped in VirtualDub to (720 x 480).  (C) Assembled in WMM (720 x 480).  (D) Saved as uncompressed .AVI in WMM.  (E) Pulled in .AVI file into VirtualDub and encoded in at 720x480 using the divx encoder.

Tango, XO
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« Last Edit: August 28, 2006, 02:45:02 PM by dtango »
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"At times it seems like people think they can chuck bunch of anecdotes into some converter which comes up with the flight model." (Wmaker)

Offline jamesdeanoo7

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« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2006, 09:29:27 PM »
Thats great tango but what I really want to do is film at a high resolution in the game and capture and edit it in the same. When I alter my video card settings to 800x600 its like looking at square boxes.

Offline dtango

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« Reply #14 on: August 28, 2006, 10:31:09 PM »
JD007

Fraps supports a max of 1152x864 resolution.   Anything else above that Fraps auto-converts it to 640x480.  The image is that of the higher resolution detail set up in the game but the captured window resolution is 640x480.

A few random notes - using AHF in normal windowed mode Fraps will capture the game playback at about 952x726.  If you go into fullscreen mode in AHF Fraps captures that again no greater than 1152x864.  Anything above that gets auto-converted to 640x480.

I would question the practicality of trying to do any movies for internet distribution greater than a film frame size of 640x480.  The file sizes become much to prohibitive.  (E.g. I did Mustang Rhapsody at 720x480 - resulting in a 230 MB file even with divx compression!)

The trick to get great resolution with a 640x480 frame size is basically what I had explained above.  Capture your game video at the highest resolution possible - e.g. 1024x768, 1152x864 with Fraps.  Then use VirtualDub (or any program that has the capability like Adobe Prem. or Sony Vegas etc.) to create a cropped movie frame of 640x480 and process the captured video using this cropping.

What cropping means is that the image is cropped to the desired size with the area outside the frame area being discarded.  This is very different from having the entire image resized (squeezed down) to a lower resolution.  Also typically the cropping tools allow you to move the movie window frame that you have defined centered/focused at any place within the original captured video frame to help you capture most of the important parts of the action.

The result of cropping is that you get a high resolution image (e.g. 1024x768 quality) framed within a lower resolution window.  The metaphor is like moving a smaller picture frame over a larger painted canvas with only the view through the smaller picture frame visible.

This is the very technique I used in "Two Horsemen" which is a 600x312 framed movie.  The original Fraps captures were of 1280x1024 game playbacks that resulted in resized Fraps vids at 952x762.  I took the 952x762 movies and created a 600x312 movie frame (16:9 widescreen aspect ratio) and placed appropriately over the 952x762 movie canvas focus on the meaningful action.  The end product is a high-res movie with just a 600x312 movie frame.

I hope all that makes sense.  Let me know if I need to explain this differently.

Tango, XO
412th FS Braunco Mustangs
« Last Edit: August 28, 2006, 10:33:25 PM by dtango »
Tango / Tango412 412th FS Braunco Mustangs
"At times it seems like people think they can chuck bunch of anecdotes into some converter which comes up with the flight model." (Wmaker)