Editing Camstudio files in Vegas Pro 8

[TC]

I tried editing a Camstudio avi file in Vegas Pro 8 but had various problems. One clip was very fuzzy. I realised that if I reduced the resolution of the preview window to preview or draft there video appeared but of very poor quality. I used Divx codec as the video compressor and Lame mp3 for audio compression. Is there some other setting in Vegas that I need to change to edit it?

[VideoCobra]

Hello TC,

Of course if you reduce preview then the video will of course look more fuzzy. Usually, you may like to set to auto.
But are you now referring to preview is fuzzy or rendered final is fuzzy?

VideoCobra

[TC]

Hi Derek

Thanks for your reply. I'm trying to remove some bits of the video where my mouse can be seen going to the camstudio window to click on the end button (there's no short cut key is there?). Also, some bits need to be replaced and eventually I want to render to mp4 for reduced file size to upload to youtube.

When I drag the clip to the timeline the clip looks very low resolution (both in the timeline and in the preview window) with a lot of it broken up. However, playback on windows media player looks fine.

I guess Vegas is good for higher resolution video only right? Or is there some preference setting I need to tweak?

Philip

[jaegersing]

Hi Philip. Vegas can work very well with SD and HD. If the source clips are good quality, there must be some settings that are making the output no good. Even the size of the preview window can make a big difference, if it is too small the video will look like sh**. But the important thing to know about Vegas is What You See Is NOT What You Get. The preview could be poor but the final rendered output could be fantastic. So we need to find out what is happening with your project.

To begin with, try setting your project resolution and frame rate to match the video clips that you want to trim. This will stop Vegas from upsizing or downsizing the resolution which would just lose quality.

Next, set the preview window pane to around half the screen height. Set the preview quality to Preview/Auto. This is not necessarily the best settings for preview, but it should give reasonable picture quality. Does the video look OK now?

The thing about mp4 compression is that it requires a lot of processing for playback, so it is possible that, no matter how you set up the preview, it will never look really good while you are editing. So in order to test the final output quality, you need to try a test render. Select a few seconds of the timeline, and render it out as an mp4 or Divx file with 5Mbps data rate. Keep the frame size and frame rate the same as the clips (and project settings). If your source clips are high quality, this should give you great looking video except maybe for very high resolution stuff. So how does it look?

If the test render is good, then the preview quality is not too important. If the test render is no good, then please provide more details of your video clips, the project settings, and what processing/filters/transitions you are applying to the clips. Also provide details of the compressor you are using and the rendering settings. Somewhere in there, something could be screwed up but nobody can tell without knowing the settings.

Richard

[TC]

Hi Richard

Sorry for this delayed reply. I decided to set Camstudio to auto and although the file size was big it was better quality. I initially followed the instructions by somebody who posted a tutorial on youtube using an earlier version of camstudio.

Is mp4 the best format for youtube?

Philip

[jaegersing]

Hi Richard

Sorry for this delayed reply. I decided to set Camstudio to auto and although the file size was big it was better quality. I initially followed the instructions by somebody who posted a tutorial on youtube using an earlier version of camstudio.

Is mp4 the best format for youtube?

Philip

No, flash is probably the best for youtube, but I don't use it so am not sure of the best settings. If you get it right, supposedly youtube might not recompress your video any further.

Richard