AbsoluteDestiny & ErMaC's Technical Guides to All Things Audio and Video mk31 [Updated in 2010]

[Guides]

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

This guide was originally written by ErMaC and AbsoluteDestiny in August 2001.
It was later updated by Zarxrax in November 2010.
It is presented as close to its original format as possible, but was adapted for forum reading.

This is THE guide to video quality and performance. A must read! The guide is also available for offline viewing by downloading this ZIP archive. (including images ~4.8mb) The new guide is the greatly updated version of the old avtech guide (mk2 - February, 2005 :: mk1 - October 27, 2002) and the even older "ErMaC's Guide to All Things Video" (Aug 6, 2001).

This guide on archive.org

[Guides]

Welcome to ErMaC and AbsoluteDestiny's guides to all things audio and video version 3!

As of version 3, this guide is being maintained primarily by Zarxrax.

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. Please note that this guide is intended to be read in its ENTIRETY. If you simply skip around, it is VERY likely that you will be confused.

You can download this guide for offline viewing by clicking here.

Last Updated: October 10, 2010

[Guides]

0. Getting Started
Download AMVapp 3.1

The AMVapp is basically just a package containing most of the software used in these guides... [Read more...]

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Message from archivist:
For purposes of archival, we have not edited the guides' content.
However, it is important to note an updated AMV software pack exists.
It is heavily recommended you use the AMVpack INSTEAD of the AMVapp that is listed in this guide.
The AMVpack has updated software and is cross-platform.

[Guides]

Theory Guides

Video
1. Video Basics
2. Interlacing
3. Colorspace
4. Video Compression
5. Codecs and Containers
6. Multimedia Frameworks
7. Aspect Ratios
8. DVDs

Audio
9. Understanding Audio
10. Audio Compression

[Guides]

The AMVapp, AVIsynth and AvsPmod

0. Installing the AMVapp

11. AviSynth & AvsPmod: What they are and why you need to use them!

[Guides]

Producing Your AMV

12. Getting Your Video

Overview - Read this!
Options for Video Sources

• Using Various Media Files for Footage
• 13. Ripping DVD Footage (vob files)
  • 14. Indexing your DVD footage with DGIndex and loading the d2v files into an avisynth script
  • 15. Analyzing the DVD Footage
    • (Is it Interlaced?)
    • (Interlacing Methods)
  • 16. Restoring Progressive Frames
  • 17. Dealing with Aspect Ratios
• 18. Cleaning up the footage
• 19. Deciding what to do with the avisynth file(s)
  • Making Clips or
  • Editing avs files directly or
  • Editing with proxy files

[Guides]

Producing Your AMV

20. Getting Your Audio

How to get perfect audio copies from -

• CDs
• DVDs
• Downloaded Audio
• Video Files

21. Editing and Preparing Your Audio

• Editing your music/song so it's shorter

[Guides]

22. Editing Your AMV

Setting up a Video Editing Project

(Edit your video here)

Exporting Your AMV Ready For Compression

[Guides]

Post Production

Before you begin
23. Removing any interlacing
24. Aspect Ratios and Frame Sizes
25. Improving visual quality with AVS filters

[Guides]

26.

Online Video Distribution

Compressing to H.264 with Zarx264gui
[Archivist recommendation: use AMVTool (included in AMVpack) instead.]



Guidelines for sending your video to a convention

Guidelines for sending your video to a convention