Read this first. This is the most comprehensive guide for newbie AMV makers. Don't try and absorb it all at once - go over it section by section over a few days to let it sink in.
some answers, just so you don't get discouraged:
1. Virtual Dub allows you to edit your full video file into smaller clips. At the bottom of the screen there is a slider bar and a bunch of buttons below that. There are 3 controls you have to use to make clips from a bigger video files: the first is the slider bar, the second is 2 sets of buttons on the far right side that look like <-- & -->, the third are your arrow (or directional) keys ususally to the right of your main keyboard layout.
First, get to the start position of the clip you want to cut out of your bigger file by using the slider bar and your directional arrows (the slider is good for advancing quickly to the scene while the arrow keys move the image either forward or backward 1 frame at a time). Once at the start of your clip, hit the <-- key - - this is the 'cut in' or start of your clip. . Now advance to the end of your scene you want to cut (by using the slider or the arrow keys) and hit the --> button, this is the 'cut out' our end of your clip. The space between the cut in and cut out should now be highlighted in blue in the slider bar - if this is true, you've done it correctly (but note, if the clip is very small, you might not see it, so you may have to just try it and see).
Now, go to your 'File' menu and pull down to 'Save As...', name the clip and choose your compression format (at this stage, save the clip as either an uncompressed AVI or a Huffyuv compressed file if your video editor can use that compression type). Repeat as many times as required. Please note, an uncompressed AVI file (even a Huffyuv file too) are VERY LARGE FILES, so be sure if you are making a 12 minute video you have sufficient room on your HD to store all these files which average (for me) to about 1 gig of HD space per minute.
2. Huffyuv is a lossless (no quality loss when you compress/recompress) video codec that shrink video files down to a smaller size (think of it as a ZIP format for video files).
Lagarith, I beleive is also the same, but I haven't used it so I'm not sure.
AVISynth is a frame server (basically a pre-processor program) that has a lot of video tweaking capabilites to help make your video footage better. It isn't a progam that most will be familiar with because it has no GUI (graphical user interface - an image on your screen that you can interact with via a mouse). AVISynth is a COMMAND LINE program (you access it's capabilites via a text file by writing simple scripts). It all sounds sort of difficult to learn, but it really isn't. Read the guides is all I can say more about this...
3. Virtual Dub (or any of it's mods) do not REMOVE subtitles in the way you are thinking. If you play your video files you ripped to your HD and they show subtitles, they are most probably 'hard' subtitled (the subtitles are actually embeded into the video image itself rather than just 'sitting on top' of it). They cannot easily be removed without either doing some serious editing work (by digitally removing them frame by frame or by masking them) or by actually 'cutting' that portion of the video off the bottom of the screen (which you can do with Virtual Dub).
So, yes, you can create your music video file and then chop the bottom portion off in virtual dub. This will give your video a letterbox look, but you will loose the bottom portion of your video and if there is anything crucial happening there, you've just lost it.
4. yes, you can do a 'picture on picture' effect and have Virtual Dub clip off both bottom parts of the vid. Once you've crated your video file in your editer and exported it, it 'blends' all your effects, sound, video clips into one file. [/url]
