My video method (updated!):
Got a new PC with a GeForce FX5600 256MB video
card, and can now use the TV out funciton to send qood quality pictures to
my TV/VCR, resulting in a much better picture to begin with. This clone screen
view is then recorded on VHS tape (picture
quality degradation stage 1)
I then play back the tape and use a TV tuner
card in my PC to capture them. I use a Hauppage Win/TV card. I capture only
the scenes I want as at this stage I use uncompressed frames at 320x240 pixel
size (30 seconds of which is about 75 MB!) I tried using compression on this
stage but the results were appalling! :-) (picture quality degradation stage
2)
Next is to edit the video clips and add music.
For this I now use Ulead VideoStudio 7, which I bought end 2003. Before then
I used Ulead VideoStudio 6 LE which came
free with my video card. VS 7 finally gives me a decent crossfade filter as
wel as several other enhancements sucha as changing the clip speed which is
very useful. I then use the DivX 5 codec to encode as the final output stage.
With the movie's I've done so far I've output at 320x240. This give me an
output file of 5-7MB per minute. (picture quality degradation stage 3)
I decided on the DivX codec because
I'd heard good things about it and a test I did with the WMV format
produced much bigger files for no apparent improvement in picture
quality. Possibly this was because the picture quality had degraded
already :-)
I hope this explains the process... what is
sometimes annoying is to have a great battle in RvR and then realise I hadn't
connected up the video beforehand!!! They
take a long time to make, but its a lot of fun :-) and the feedback is a great
ego boost ;-D What is funny is when in RvR now I get people asking me if I'm
filming plus I've lately had mids emote kisses and salutes at my corpse instead
of the usual things ;-)
