Wondering if anyone with good video knowhow can streamline my video recording, converting, splicing, and youtube process. Couldn’t really find much on the subject as a whole, which struck me as kind of odd. But, here we go.
I currently use an HD PVR(Collossus, by Hauppage) for recording 1080p HD from my consoles. The software it came with(WinTV) works well, and exports somewhat hefty .ts files(5 gigs an hour, or thereabouts). From there, I trim it to the time segments I want with Windows Live Movie Maker, which exports only .wmv files. After that, they get uploaded to youtube, which does it’s own compressing process, etc.
My only problem with it, is that it takes about two hours to put a fifteen minute clip up on YT(half an hour for WLMM to cut and convert to .wmv, and about an hour and a half for youtube to process it), and that seems a lot longer than I’d expected.
Is there something that would make the process a lot smoother? I know Youtube’s preferred format is MPEG-4, or at least, it used to be, would it help to find a workaround that exports to mpeg-4 before youtube gets it? Should I ditch WinTV’s recording capacity, and just use a desktop recorder to cap it’s footage? If I have to put an hour or two of material up, I’m sure something could probably do it better than WLMM, which requires me to come back to it every half hour to set up a new trim and conversion, instead of lining them up. Or at least, as I understand it.
Just curious, mostly; new to the whole thing.
-Merc
It depends, but if you are not “adding” anything ( intros, voice commentary, etc) to the videos ( it’s just pure match gameplay ) then I would suggest manually segmenting them by doing a start record at the beginning of the match and a stop record at the end. That way you don’t have to deal with cutting and re-encoding aspect. Instead of recording the matches live, just use the Battlelog and play them back. Then just upload the source files to Youtube and let Youtube convert it for you. Also I think Youtube has a built in tool where you can piece videos together to make a larger video.
So a rough example would be record 3 separate matches using the Battlelog feature. Then upload all 3 to Youtube. Next use Youtube’s built in editor to piece all 3 together and create the final video.
Of course you may be doing things that actually require recoding like adding text or commentary at which point I have just waisted you time reading this
My experience is with the HDPVR ( stand alone unit ) but I assume most of the tools and processes are the same.
Best of Luck!
PS: Also if you are playing on console I think the game runs closer 720P native resolution than 1080 ( for the PS3 version at least) so dropping the recording resolution may offer the benefit in smaller files ( less time to upload and re-encode/process ) without sacraficing quality. I assume the Xbox360 version probably runs closer to 720P resolution as well and then just gets upscaled to 1080i.
I think the general rule with console games is that they are normally running at 720 because the hardware can’t truly render 1080. Some games do run at 1080, but I think it’s a small segment.
Also you might want to adjust the bitrate ( I assume you can do that with the Collosus) that it is recording at, again to reduce the file size. I recorded 6 different 1 minute files at 6 different bit rate and chose the one I thought looked the best with the lowest bitrate.
Last note is looking at the specs of the Collossus is it only seems to record in 1080i not 1080p. So you might not be recording in 1080P like you state, but you know your device better than I do so take that with a grain of salt.
1: What kind of computer are you running? Processor, Memory, Graphic, and how many programs you’re running. If you’re planning to edit videos and upload to Youtube. Don’t run anything unless you have a good computer and I suggest you have a dual monitor so things won’t clutter on one screen.
2: What is your upload speed? Is it over 1mb? Even with 2MB it’s going to take a while. Especially if you don’t render it. You don’t need to use Window Media Maker to render your videos. There are plenty of programs that will render and compress it and still have a good quality.
These are the following programs I suggest you have. Camtasia, Sony Vegas Pro 8, Final Cut, and Adobe Effect CS5. You just import the videos and then you render it. You really don’t need to upload a 1080p video to be honest. 720p will do good enough to be uploaded to Youtube. After all, videos that are 1080p is nothing but upscale.
