A&E's Technical Guides to All Things Audio and Video mk 2

NOTE: A newer version of these guides can be found here.

Welcome to ErMaC and AbsoluteDestiny's guides to all things audio and video version 2!

These guides are designed to give you an insight into the theory behind audio and video and also to show you how to get some of the best looking and sounding AMVs that you can using software in Windows. If you have any problems regarding the instructions in these guides, please ask in the Video Help forums.

- For reference, there is also a useful software list and a glossary of terms.

- If you are looking for the AMVapp you can get it here. This has been radically updated since version 1 and many of the programs operate differently, please refer to the new guide pages for information.

VIDEO

AUDIO

Theory Guides:

Video Basics

Television Video, Digital Video, Framerates, Resolutions, and Aspect Ratios

Understanding Audio

What Makes Audio Sound,
Digital Audio - what it all means,
Quantisation
Normalisation
What a waveform actually shows you.

The Big Picture

Interlaced vs. Progressive,
Fields vs. Frames
3:2 pulldown and Inverse Telecine

Colorspace

YUV and RGB and why they are very important to you (updated with YV12 info)

The Ins and Outs of Audio Compression.

How Audio Compresses
MP3 Compression
Psychoacoustics and Masking Sounds
Bitrates and how they work
CBR and VBR
Joint Stereo

The Ins and Outs of Video Compression

What is Video Compression, Lossless Compression, Lossy Compression, Intra-frame and Inter-frame Compression

Advanced Video Compression

Editable Codecs
Distribution Codecs

 

Producing your AMV:

Before you start - Software Information

Understanding the basics of Video and Audio in Windows.


The AMVapp, AVIsynth and VirtualDubMod

Installing the AMVapp

Testing the AMVapp Software

AVIsynth: What it is, how it works and why you need to use it

VirtualDubMod: What it is, how it works and why you need to use it too!

Getting your Video

How to get your source footage into something you can edit.

Options for Video Sources

- Capturing footage using a video capture card.

- Ripping DVD Footage (vob files)

- Steps for using DVD footage

- Indexing your DVD footage with DGIndex

- Loading a d2v project into an avisynth script for use as footage

- Analysing the DVD Footage
    (-Is it Interlaced?
    - Checking the Field Order
    - Interlacing Methods
    - Aspect Ratios - PAR and DAR
    - Anamorphic Widescreen Video)

- Interlaced vs Progressive Editing

- Restoring Progressive Frames

- Dealing with Aspect Ratios

- Cleaning up the footage

- Deciding what to do with the avisynth file(s)

 then

- Making Clips or
- Editing avs files directly in an editing program or
- Faster Editing with Perfect Quality

Getting your Audio

Introduction

How to get perfect audio copies from -

CDs

DVDs

Downloaded Audio

Video Files


Editing and Preparing your audio

Editing your music/song so it's shorter

Making your music louder

- Normalising
- Boosting

Converting Sample rates


23.976fps in Adobe Premiere

How to attempt to edit 23.976fps video in Adobe Premiere 6, Pro and Pro 1.5

Setting up a Video Editing Project:

Adobe Premiere 5.x and 6.x
Adobe Premiere Pro
Vegas Video 4.x/5.x
Windows Movie Maker 2
Ulead Movie Studio Pro 7

 Avoiding and Fixing Common Video Problems

'Jerky video'
Memory Conflicts when using Avisynth Scripts
Garbage data in HuffYUV exports
Bad Premiere Exports
Pixellated footage where there should not be
Interlaced footage where there should not be.


Using your audio to help you make your video

Principles and Theory of AMV Timing

Premiere Audio Editing

Basic Timing
Advanced Timing
Stereo Positioning and Audio Effects

Exporting Your AMV Ready For Compression

Adobe Premiere 5.x and 6.x
Adobe Premiere Pro
Vegas Video 4.x/5.x
Windows Movie Maker 2
Ulead Movie Studio Pro 7


Video Distribution Options

Before you begin

Online Video Distribution

Post Production:

Removing any Interlacing

Improving visual quality and compressibility
Aspect Ratios and Frame Sizes

Options:

Distribution Formats 101

Video:

Compressing video to DivX-5 compatible XviD

alternatives:

Compressing video to MPEG-1
Compressing video to WMV9
Compressing video to RealVideo 10


Audio:

Compressing audio to MP3 (recommended)

alternatives:

Compressing audio to Mpeg1 Layer 2 for mpeg1 files.
Compressing audio to Ogg Vorbis
Compressing audio to AAC
Compressing audio to WMA


Convention Video Distribution

Preparing for Convention Encoding:

What format does the convention want?

Post Production:

Frame Rates, Aspect Ratios and Frame Sizes

Improving visual quality and compressibility

Encoding:

Compressing video to MPEG2 with TMPGenc

alternatives:

Compressing MPEG2 with QuEnc
Compressing MPEG2 with CCE
Compressing and muxing AC3 audio


Compressing to HuffYUV AVI

Sending it in:

In the mail

over the internet via ftp