I'm now an international movie producer!

Having spent about twenty years writing articles for the web that no-one reads, in November last year I finally made the transition to producing videos for YouTube… that no-one watches. So far these all revolve around retro gaming (Amiga-based mostly) and often its connection to the movies.

I started out translating my written articles to audio using a text to robot voice synthesiser, without necessarily synchronising it with the video, though now record my own voice-overs and ensure the two elements complement one another. I'll let you decide if it's an improvement or not. ;)

I've learnt a lot in the last nine months or so, the biggest lesson being... never ever use entry level free video editors (I can't vouch for the high-end pro ones). For projects more complicated than a single video track with a single audio track they're rarely fit for purpose, and even then they tend to fall over in the wind. You'll read glowing reviews of some of them online… written by top 10 compilers who have only spent five minutes playing with each editor before deciding they're awesome. I'm sure half of these lists exist purely for click-bait purposes.

Secondly, if you're editing video via Linux, stop it now. If there's one thing Linux spectacularly fails at delivering, it's a means of editing video… without being pushed to the brink of insanity. I could go on, but the memories are too painful, and therapists are expensive.

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Geeks are doing it for themselves

Blogs gave we the little people a soapbox from which to preach, prophesise and disseminate information. These rapidly evolved into more intimate, full-bodied podcasts, and yet this development marks only the beginning for homebrew, digital creatives. As subscription-based, audio-on-demand approaches its first anniversary, independent bedroom broadcasters are once again raising the stakes by turning to full-motion video to convey their message. Veejays, not deejays are the flavour of the month!

Video blogs - or vlogs for short - allow enthusiasts of all kinds to create their own digital content and broadcast it to the world via the web. All that is required is a camcorder or webcam, an average home computer and a dash of technical know-how.

The practicalities of directing, editing and starring in your own 'TV' show are mere formalities; the main challenge as I see it is capitalising on the extra visual dimension, or in other words, offering something over and above a typical, podcast audio feed.

Some early adopters of the vidcast format have been content to film themselves - with a static, tripod-mounted camera - sitting on a sofa delivering their commentary or conducting interviews, while others are beginning to produce content which wouldn't look out of place in the line up of a national TV network.

I seem to be in the minority here, but I really don't see the point in offering video for video's sake. If I'm watching an internet TV broadcast I want to see some computer graphic overlays, screenshots, out-in-the-wild footage and so on - something, anything to justify the extra bandwidth and hindrance of having to be tethered to my computer instead of getting some exercise while I absorb my techtainment fix.

By failing to do this, many vidcasters are shooting themselves in the foot; when you're out and about, making your way from A to B and back again, you're a captive audience - you're looking for some form of entertainment to fill the void of your monotonous journey and so your expectations are lower than they would be if you were at home with a broader range of things to do. In effect, a vidcaster has to work much harder to grab your attention than a podcaster, even if the material is virtually identical.

When it comes to releasing pointless video feeds, Kevin Rose and Alex Albrecht of Diggnation take the biscuit. Their weekly round-up of the most dugg Digg stories began life as a podcast, and an excellent one at that, don't get me wrong. The video-on-demand feed (vodcast), vidcast, IPTV series, or whatever you want to call it, soon followed, but to what end? It features two guys sitting on a sofa, chugging beer and discussing the latest tech news (and goofy, highly dubious animal 'research'). Why we need to know they're sitting on a sofa in a living room is a mystery to me. I don't know about you, but my imagination can just about stretch to filling in these blanks. For any listeners struggling to picture the scene perhaps there could be a public service announcement at the beginning of each podcast. Thereafter they could adopt the style of a police interrogation recording; "for the benefit of the tape Alex just took a swig of beer and Kevin scratched his backside".

Moaning aside I really enjoy the hyperactive banter, insight and insider annecdotes. Kevin and Alex make a great team - they ooze with enthusiasm and truly know their stuff. Diggnation is so captivating you can even forgive the constant Bill and Ted-esque exclamations of cool, awesome and dude!

They must be doing something right because every other vidcasting upstart is trying to emulate them at the moment. 99.99% of tech vidcasts seem to have covered war driving at one stage or another (a topic Kevin addressed in great depth in an episode of The Broken, one of his other internet-only shows). It's not just subject matter the copycats are borrowing; many have also incorporated identical props, namely beer. I'm not sure if the inclusion of booze is supposed to lend a 'guy's night in' feel to the shows or if they're merely trying to shake off the geeky image associated with knowing a lot about computers. Either way it's quickly becoming a tedious gimmick.

Traversing the vlogosphere (don't you just love these hip buzzwords?) I couldn't help noticing how cliquey the vlog community is. Nine out of ten vidcasters appear to be either ex/current TechTV presenters or friends of an ex/current TechTV presenter. When they're not plugging each other's shows they're making guest appearances on them. This may have become a turn-off but for the fact that all the best shows are hosted by this circle of friends and colleagues: Patrick Norton's Digital Life TV, CommandN courtesy of Amber (and brother Jeff) MacArthur and Mike Lazzazzera, the aforementioned The Broken and SystM, yet another Kevin Rose brainchild. Incidentally, this phenomenon isn't limited to vidcasts: refer to TechPhile, TWiT, Security Now and so on, for their podcast counterparts.

The common thread running throughout is superior production value and highly polished, professional presenters (well all except for the self-proclaimed 'hot stuff Lazzazz' who sounds like a creepy version of Mickey Mouse and makes me squirm in my seat). I can't make up my mind if his super-perky co-host, Amber, is cute, annoying, or both at the same time, but I digress. Even when a segment is so geeky your vacant eyes begin to glaze over (the whole of SystM for me) you can't fail to admire how much work has gone into preparing the demonstrations and CGI. If you happen to fall into the niche target demographic you'll think you've died and gone to mod-heaven.

While the vlogosphere (teehee) is currently dominated by tech talk, there's at least a handful of shows dedicated to each category you would expect to find listed in a more traditional blog directory, and the number is set to rise along with the availability of broadband connections.

You can subscribe to vidcasts in the same way you would a podcast e.g. using iTunes (4.9 or above) or a similar podcast client such as Juice. Many of them are released in multiple video formats (Windows Media Video, QuickTime, DivX, Xvid, H.264) and so are equally accessible to Linux, Mac and Windows users.

When the mainstream media networks catch on to the IPTV concept, where will that leave the traditional goggle box, and will anyone care?

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Can you recommend any good video capture/editing programs?

My personal favourite is Virtual Dub. It's a tiny download and you can't get any cheaper than free.

Ulead's Media Studio Pro is also very impressive, yet extremely bloated in comparison to VDub. A 30 day trial version is available to download for gratis, while to unlock the full functionality of the application you may have to remortgage your house - it costs a small fortune!

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How do I fix my corrupt DivX movie?

One option you have is to use a tiny, freeware utility known as Div Fix. This is designed to enable you to watch partially downloaded DivX movie files, but will also allow you to correct the faulty index structure of complete movie files.

Using the program couldn't be any more simple: open the movie file you wish to correct using either the file menu or the 'add files' button and select 're-build index'.

To view an incomplete movie you would instead select the 'strip index' option and proceed to open it in your favourite movie playback tool. If you decide to continue downloading the movie you should re-build the index before resuming. This is very useful if you want to preview a movie file to check that it is what you expect it to be, or to see if the quality is up to par.

Always remember to keep a backup copy of the original file just in case anything goes wrong.

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Is it possible to save streaming movies to the hard drive?

Yes - what you need to do is get hold of a program called Streambox VCR. This will enable you to keep a permanent copy of Real Media movie and audio files on your hard drive once they have been streamed to your computer.

Tracking down the program via the web is easier said than done as it has never been publicly released, however, it is available on all the popular file sharing networks. For legal reasons, the project was terminated whilst in the beta stages of development, and since it was 'leaked' rather than released, it is technically stolen software - this is why no home page exists from which to download it.

To use SVCR you first have to save the .ra shortcut file of the movie or audio file you wish to 'capture'. To do this, right-click on the link and select the 'save target as' option from the menu. Once this file has touched down, open it in Notepad using the 'open with' command located in your right-click context menu. You should now be presented with the address of the server where the file is located, for example...

ptsp://streamingmovieland.com/streamingmovie.rm and pnm://streamingmovieland.com/streamingmovie.rm

The one with the pnm prefix is the one we're interested in, so highlight it and copy it into your clipboard using the right mouse button. Now open SVCR and select 'edit' and then 'paste link' from the menu. Paste the address into the location box and choose a directory to save the file to. All that remains to be done now is to stab the OK button with your pointer and Bob's your mother's brother.

Note that no matter how fast your internet connection is, you can only capture streaming files at the speed they were designed to be streamed at. If the video you're trying to save is an hour long it will take you at least an hour to download. Obviously if your transfer speed is inferior to that of the streaming movie it will take you even longer than this.

Update: 'ASF Recorder' will perform the same function as Streambox VCR, yet is nowhere near as elusive - again, use Google or your favourite P2P client to track it down. My advice is to grab it while you still can as the project has now been abandoned!

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How can I convert MPEG movies to other formats?

If you want minimal hassle and a small, free download, the best software to use is Flask MPEG.
Unzip it to a folder of your choice, run the program and open the file you wish to convert by selecting it from the 'file' menu. Open the 'options' menu and click on 'output format options' to choose which video and audio codecs you would like to use to convert your movie. The final step is to press the 'run' button and poke 'start conversion'.

The vital ingredient at this stage is patience. Add five tablespoons full and mix well. ;)

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How can I repair stuck movie frames?

You can use either AVI Defreezer (which doesn't appear to have a home page associated with it) or DivX Anti Freeze. AVI Defreezer fixes troublesome movie files by editing them and DivX Anti Freeze provides a background workaround without tampering with the original files. The latter 'patch' requires you to do nothing more than install the program so don't waste your time looking for its GUI - it doesn't have one.

To fix files using AVI Defreezer you will first need to find out exactly which frames are frozen - this detective work can be carried out using Virtual Dub. What you need to do is scan through your movie using the tracking controls until you reach the point just before the frozen frame occurs and press the play button. Wait until Virtual Dub displays an error message, click on the 'previous keyframe' button and note down its frame number (see the status bar at the bottom of the program). Now click on the 'next keyframe' button and again note down the frame number.

Open AVI Defreezer and enter these frame numbers in the boxes provided in the order they appeared in the movie i.e. chronologically and click on the 'add frames' button. Repeat this procedure for all the frozen frames, choose a new filename for the repaired file and then click the 'defreeze' button.

Now when you open the new movie file it should play smoothly through the previously frozen scenes, although some errors may still be evident - these cannot be fixed using AVI Defreezer, but can be cut out completely using Virtual Dub if they bother you that much.

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How do I delete frames from a movie?

You've probably gathered by now that I'm quite fond of Virtual Dub. Unsurprisingly this is the program I'm going to recommend you use here too. Run the program and open the movie you wish to edit. Use the tracking slider bar to locate the start of the scenes or frames you would like to delete, click on the 'edit' menu and choose the 'set selection start' option to place a marker on the slider bar.

Now repeat the process to find the end of the scene or frames you would like to delete, but this time select the 'set selection end' command from the 'edit' menu to place a second marker on the slider bar. The segment of the movie you intend to delete will become highlighted on the slider bar - this can now be cut out using the delete key on your keyboard or by selecting 'delete selection' from the 'edit' menu.

All that remains to be done now is to save the movie as a new file. In order to do this you first have to decide which video and audio codecs you would like to use to encode the movie (if you do not choose to compress it you will end up with a file so cumbersome that it becomes useless). Codec selections can be made by choosing the 'compression' option from the 'video' and 'audio' menus. If you select 'direct stream copy' from the 'video' and 'audio' menus before commencing you can save a lot of time. The final step is to select 'save AVI' from the 'file' menu, choose a filename and location to store the file and press OK.

Note that we saved the edited version of the movie as a new file just in case our changes didn't go according to plan and we needed to revert back to the original copy. Also, it is very likely that trying to overwrite the original file while it is being accessed by Virtual Dub will fail, or worse still, result in file corruption.

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My movie is too large to fit on a CD-R. Is it possible to chop it up and put it on two CD-Rs?

You can do this using Virtual Dub's 'save segmented AVI' option, but this is very slow because you have to recompress the file using the full processing mode for both video and audio streams. If you only want to cut the movie in two then it would be much faster to do it manually using the techniques described in my blog entry entitled, "How do I delete frames from a movie?"

What you need to do is open the file you wish to cut in half and place a marker at the point you would like to make the incision remembering to note down the frame number displayed in the status bar. Now move the slider to the final frame of the movie and place the end marker. Delete this part of the movie and save the remaining frames as name-of-movie part 1.

The second stage requires you to open the original file and repeat the process to highlight and delete the first half of the movie and save the remaining frames. To make the split perfectly precise use the 'go to' option situated in the 'edit' menu and type in the number of the frame at which you cut the file in the first stage described above. You can name this segment name-of-movie part 2 and proceed to burn the AVI files to separate CD-Rs.

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Common movie/audio encoding formats defined

ASF is yet another video format to receive the MPEG4 codec treatment. It stands for Advanced Streaming Format because it was designed to be watched while being transferred from the internet (or to be 'streamed' if you want to use the correct lingo). The quality is nowhere near as good as MPG, DivX or VCD, but is still acceptable for most purposes while maintaining a comparatively favourable size to quality ratio.

AVI is an acronym for Audio Video Interleave. Technically it is a container rather than an encoding format in its own right in that it specifies how audio and video data is structured within the file. The DivX codec is one notable example of an encoding format which makes use of the AVI wrapper.
AVI files contain a four-digit code which is recognised by movie playback tools such as Media Player or VLC, allowing them to determine how to decode the movie.

DivX is the name of the encoding process used to convert DVD, VHS etc movies into a very high-quality AVI video format. This is carried out using a combination of the MP3 format for audio compression and a hacked version of Microsoft's MPEG4 codec for video compression.
A typical DivX movie will fill a standard 650mb CD-R and can be played back using nothing more than Microsoft's trusty (ha!) Media Player providing you have the DivX codec installed (see my movie links page).

The MPEG format was devised by the Motion Picture Experts Group, hence the abbreviation and its variations (MPEG-1, MPEG-2 and so on) form the basis for many other formats (see previous definitions). It combines very high-quality video playback with large file sizes.
Once again keep the VLC Media Player handy.

Musepack is a lossy audio compression format much like MP3 though distinguished by its .mpc extension. The most notable benefits of the MPC format are:- - Superior quality audio at medium to high bit rates - Very fast encoding and decoding - 100% transparency i.e. MPC music tracks sound identical to their CD counterparts Despite the high-quality audio output rendered by Musepack, the format is not widely used because most media players do not support it natively i.e. a plugin is required. Currently the only media player which can handle MPC files 'out of the box' is Foobar.

Also to it's detriment, very few hardware audio players make provisions for MPC playback. In effect, to listen to MPC music on the go, the files first have to be converted. As this entails switching from one lossy format to another, inevitably the quality will deteriorate in the process. Ideally, if you wish to use MPC files in such a way, you would be best advised to re-encode them directly to the destination format, though if this isn't possible you might like to let either the Alive MP3 Wav Converter or 4U WMA MP3 Converter go to work on them.

Burning MPC files directly to CD enabling you to play them in the usual manner is less problematic. To do this using Nero you will need to install Mausau's MPC plugin. Alternatively, you could use the freeware audio CD writing tool, Burrrn, which supports the MPC format by default.

More detailed information relating to the Musepack audio compression format can be found at the official home page.

nAVI is a non-streamable hybrid of the ASF format, which boasts better quality playback due to its adoption of much-improved frame rates.

Ogg Vorbis is a completely free, streamable, open-source audio encoding format. Compared to the more widely known MP3 format, Ogg Vorbis files provide superior sound quality and smaller file size. Since the format is patent-free, software vendors do not need to pay licensing fees to implement the encoding of Ogg Vorbis files into their software. Effectively this means that a greater variety of encoding software will be available for the Ogg Vorbis format.

QuickTime format was conceived by Apple and therefore it is not surprising that these type of movies first appeared on Macintosh computers before being ported to the PC. They comprise high-quality playback and the ability to be streamed over the internet. Many Mac-friendly web sites favour this encoding method, largely due to its association with Apple I don't doubt.

What is most annoying about proprietary codecs is that the authors will have you believe you need to use a specialist tool to play them back - in this case, Apple's QuickTime Player (who'd have thunk it?). A waste of perfectly good hard disk space if you ask me! Use VLC instead.

Real Media is a proprietary, MPEG-2 based streamable format used to encode audio and video data. Small file sizes mean you won't have long to wait for content to begin streaming, or finish downloading if you are transferring the complete .ra or .rm files before attempting to play them back, but quality can leave a lot to be desired. Real Media movies and audio can be played back using Real Network's free RealPlayer application or Real Alternative. Real Media movie clips are very common on mainstream news sites that don't know any better, bless 'em.

VCD stands for Video Compact Disc. These are CD-Roms containing full-motion video encoded using the MPEG1 codec. Because they consist of high-quality stereo sound coupled with reasonable quality video playback (equivalent to the VHS format) you will often find that they occupy two CDs.
VCDs can be played back with Microsoft's Media Player, amongst a host of other more specialist programs simply by locating and opening their '.dat' files.

WMA is an acronym of Windows Media Audio; Microsoft's propriety audio format. WMA files provide CD-quality sound and are slightly more compact than their MP3 equivalents. Like MP3 files they are streamable.

WMV is an acronym of Windows Media Video; again one of Microsoft's propriety formats. WMV is used to encode movie data, which can contain both video and audio streams. Such files offer near broadcast-quality video, and as an added bonus, can be streamed over the internet.

The observant readers among you may have noticed that XviD spells DivX backwards. I would imagine this reflects the wish of its authors to highlight the similarities between the two codecs. Both are MPEG-4 based and are derived from source code written under Project Mayo.

The principal fork in the path can be traced back to their respective software licenses; DivX is commercial and closed source, whereas XviD is open source and released under the GPL license.
It's difficult to definitively answer the question, "which codec is better?" because there are so many factors which can affect the performance and quality of movies encoded using either codec. See www.xvid.org for downloads and further information.

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A monagerie of movie media merging methods

How do I join two or more MPG files together?

First of all you need to download Camel's MPEG Join. Open up the program and click on the 'add' button. Now browse through your directories, locate the files you want to combine and select them. Press the 'join' button, tell the program where you would like to place the output file and then OK your decision. That's all there is to it!

Note that you can only use this program to join MPG or MPEG files - it won't co-operate if you ask it to combine any other file type.

Before getting started make sure the files you are attempting to merge possess exactly the same properties (check that they use the same screen resolution, video and audio systems for example). The program will not compare your files for similarities before combining them, so it may appear as though the process has gone according to plan even if errors have occurred. However, if the original movies were not identical, the composite file will not play correctly, if at all.

How do I join two or more AVI files together?

For this task you will need to get hold of the freeware tool, Peck's Power Join. Exactly the same principles apply to this process as in the previous entry, so instead of repeating myself I'll let you refer back to that if you're still struggling to get it working.

The bad news is that it appears that PPJ is no longer being supported by its creator and his former home page has now vanished without trace. If you want a copy, feel free to contact me and I'll send it to you (it's just over 2.0mb).

Alternatively, have a wander over to the AVI Join home page. This is a more advanced program, which was originally inspired by Peck's Power Join and therefore shares the same basic functions.

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