FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS! - Read This First

For help and discussion concerning the Windows Movie Maker software.
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Willen
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Post by Willen » Thu Mar 22, 2007 12:56 am

Kumatora wrote:Also, does this only apply to DIVX MPEG-4?
No. Any type of MPEG compression (MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, etc.) uses temporal interframe techniques. This includes all the MPEG4 'flavors' like DivX, XviD, 3ivX, H.264 (AVC), etc. Same goes for similar video compression like WMV7/8/9 (VC-1), Real Media, VP6/7 and all other modern-day high-efficiency video codecs.

Recommended editing codecs like Huffyuv, Lagarith, DV, and MJPEG all use intraframe compression where each video frame is compressed within itself without depending on other frames for data. This results in every frame being a Keyframe and provides frame accuracy when editing.

On the quality side of the equation is getting the best, lowest-generation source for footage. Lossy codecs like MPEG1/2/4, WMV7/8/9, etc. in addition to being interframe codecs, take another hit by permanently throwing away video data to achieve higher compression. If high enough bitrates are used, the amount lost can be minimized to hard-to-perceive levels or enough so it's not objectionable. But given that most available downloadable material (fansubs and raws) must balance filesize versus quality, there is inevitably some quality lost as a compromise. The more rounds of compression, the worse the resultant video will look.

A good analogy of lossy compression is this: think of a video as a nice flat sheet of paper, say the size of a page of a newspaper. It's easy to read and write (edit) on and stays flat on the surface of a table for accuracy. Unfortunately, it's size makes it hard to carry and move around. So what can we do? Well, we can fold it up to make it more compact (compression). But now we have permanently lost the paper's flatness and the creases make it harder to write on it properly, not to mention read some of it. The more you fold, the smaller the area the sheet takes up, but the more creases you get. What if we wanted to have another flat sheet again? Well, we unfold (decompress) it and we can make a photocopy of the original (such as it is, and assuming that this photocopier is a super-makes-perfect-copies-exactly-as-it-scans-them copier). This copy, is nice and flat, but now we have remnants of the folding embedded in it. We can reduce the visibility of some of these compression effects by adjusting the copier settings (filtering) which may affect the visibility of the writing on the page also. Now imagine if we repeat the compression-decompression-copy steps a few more times. Or re-fold that original sheet in a different way (re-compression).

Now lossless compression? It's like rolling the paper up into a tube. It takes up more space than folding, but doesn't leave permanent creases. You can unroll it and it (and done correctly) is as flat as before the rolling.

And this doesn't even factor in the effects of colorspace conversions...

Additional reference: VideoCompressionExplanation.pdf
Having trouble playing back videos? I recommend: Image

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CrackTheSky
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Post by CrackTheSky » Thu Mar 22, 2007 1:52 am

Willen wrote: A good analogy of lossy compression is this: think of a video as a nice flat sheet of paper, say the size of a page of a newspaper. It's easy to read and write (edit) on and stays flat on the surface of a table for accuracy. Unfortunately, it's size makes it hard to carry and move around. So what can we do? Well, we can fold it up to make it more compact (compression). But now we have permanently lost the paper's flatness and the creases make it harder to write on it properly, not to mention read some of it. The more you fold, the smaller the area the sheet takes up, but the more creases you get. What if we wanted to have another flat sheet again? Well, we unfold (decompress) it and we can make a photocopy of the original (such as it is, and assuming that this photocopier is a super-makes-perfect-copies-exactly-as-it-scans-them copier). This copy, is nice and flat, but now we have remnants of the folding embedded in it. We can reduce the visibility of some of these compression effects by adjusting the copier settings (filtering) which may affect the visibility of the writing on the page also. Now imagine if we repeat the compression-decompression-copy steps a few more times. Or re-fold that original sheet in a different way (re-compression).

Now lossless compression? It's like rolling the paper up into a tube. It takes up more space than folding, but doesn't leave permanent creases. You can unroll it and it (and done correctly) is as flat as before the rolling.
Did you come up with that on your own? 'Cause that's probably the best analogy for compression I've ever heard, and it makes a lot of sense.

Listen to the man.

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Willen
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Post by Willen » Thu Mar 22, 2007 7:18 am

CrackTheSky wrote:
Willen wrote: A long-ass compression analogy.
Did you come up with that on your own? 'Cause that's probably the best analogy for compression I've ever heard, and it makes a lot of sense.

Listen to the man.
Yeah I did. And thanks.
Having trouble playing back videos? I recommend: Image

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Post by MawTheKiller » Fri Apr 13, 2007 6:33 am

Hey still new to AMVs and Window Movie Maker(WMM). I suck at using them simply becuse I learned how to use Final Cut and not the crappy but free WMM. DO NOT SAY THAT WINDOWS SHOULD BE EASY FOR ME. I will come to your house and remove your body inch at at time. That is the reason I'm no allowed in Canada anymore. Now do you know if it is possible to create a image with a blue background and work it like the text in WMM? Now if you are confused by what I'm asking the deal is if you have the text in a color other then blue when place below the audio track and music layer you have the text over the video playing. I'm wondering if it is possible to perform the same task you can do with text with images in WMM?

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Autraya
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Post by Autraya » Fri Apr 13, 2007 8:10 am

MawTheKiller wrote:Now do you know if it is possible to create a image with a blue background and work it like the text in WMM? Now if you are confused by what I'm asking the deal is if you have the text in a color other then blue when place below the audio track and music layer you have the text over the video playing. I'm wondering if it is possible to perform the same task you can do with text with images in WMM?
wmm has proper layers :shock: since when!?! lol
threre are essentially 5 track/layers in wmm;
1 video
2 audio from the video
3 transitions
4 song audio
5 titles/tile overlay

Is this what you are asking.. can we put pictures on layer 5, video on layer 1 and titles on layer 5 as well..?
The answer is no. Video and pictures can't be put on layer 5 (unless you code a new tittle sequence in xml) or there is some other weird ass trick that i'm missing.
You cannot have more than 1 "image" layer in this program... check out some of the *pip effects there's a link in the FAQ page 1.... some of them come close to what you are after ... sort of...not really
new banzors in the making :p

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Post by MawTheKiller » Fri Apr 13, 2007 4:46 pm

Thank you very much Autraya.

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Post by Bustercloud » Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:19 pm

Great, now just add how to convert a file from an avi that won't work in wmm to something that will. This faq pretty much says don't, but it doesn't say what to do if thats what you have.

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Post by JaddziaDax » Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:23 pm

JaddziaDax wrote:open the video file in virtualdub mod go to video->compression->Huffyuv

then go to file->save

Image
use those to mark the beginning and the end of the "clips" you want so you can save room

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Post by Bustercloud » Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:27 pm

Thank you >.>" From the quotes it was in another thread huh? At least I didn't make a new thread asking ^^"

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JaddziaDax
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Post by JaddziaDax » Sun Apr 15, 2007 8:42 pm

aparently it gets quoted all over the place O:
i figured i might as well quote myself too :)

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