FRAPS Recording Time

[dricketts]

I've had the full payware version of FRAPS but never really took the time to learn learn how to use it and then convert videos using Windows Movie Maker.

My first question is about the recording time. is there a setting to change this on the full version? For me FRAPS still wants to create several avi files for one video just a few short minutes.

Any help much appreciated.

[leeferr]

The free version of FRAPS has a built-in limit to recording times, but the full version does not. With the full version, you can make a video recording as long as you desire. Just get ready for some really huge file sizes. If you're running a train that you want to record video, you can record, stop recording, and restart recording as often as you like. It's also fairly easy to edit the video in Movie Maker, but the first time that I did it, there was a little bit of a learning curve.

Mike

[cascaderailroad]

When I worked as a photographer, my employers told me that videos and slide shows should be brief (@ 5-10 sec tops, as a viewer gets quite bored with longwinded slideshows and videos of a train that takes over a minute to come into view).

Stitching together many many short clips makes a movie fun to watch ... just look at TV shows, it is alot of real short clips all stitched together.

One of the most boring TV shows was "Dark Shadows" BLAH: http://www.myspace.com/video/dark-sh...ode-1/38360166

[leeferr]

When I worked as a photographer, my employers told me that videos and slide shows should be brief (@ 5-10 sec tops, as a viewer gets quite bored with longwinded slideshows and videos of a train that takes over a minute to come into view).

Stitching together many many short clips makes a movie fun to watch ... just look at TV shows, it is alot of real short clips all stitched together.

One of the most boring TV shows was "Dark Shadows" BLAH: http://www.myspace.com/video/dark-sh...ode-1/38360166

I've also found this to generally be true also although with some shots that I've done, I've found the time limit for the free version of FRAPS to be just a little bit too short. I'm sure that's by design though.

Mike

[jrfolco]

I've had the full payware version of FRAPS but never really took the time to learn learn how to use it and then convert them using Windows Movie Maker.

My first question is about the recording time. is there a setting to change this on the full version? For me FRAPS still wants to create several avi files for one video just a few short minutes.

Any help much appreciated.

The payware version of Fraps will allow unlimited videos, however, for some reason, Fraps limits the .avi file to just above 4,100 KB and then starts a new file. These files can be combined in just about any video editing software without losing a framerate.

I experienced this while creating the videos on my site.

Joe

[dricketts]

The payware version of Fraps will allow unlimited videos, however, for some reason, Fraps limits the .avi file to just above 4,100 KB and then starts a new file. These files can be combined in just about any video editing software without losing a framerate.

I experienced this while creating the videos on my site.

Joe

Thanks. Yes that is my experience. So this is the way FRAPS is supposed to operate? Doesn't this create a a lot of extra work? Why doesn't FRAPS create just one AVI file?

[jrfolco]

Thanks. Yes that is my experience. So this is the way FRAPS is supposed to operate? Doesn't this create a a lot of extra work? Why doesn't FRAPS create just one AVI file?

Not necessarily. When creating a video, just add the .avi files in the order that they were recorded, and they will become one video when completed. Fraps may not be able to record an .avi file larger than 4,100 MB, so it starts another file without losing any frames. This has been my experience.

Joe

[gremlin1812]

G'day All, 4gig is the file size limit for most operating systems, I think the latest 64 bit operating systems support over 4gig though. That is why fraps does this and fraps captures in uncompressed AVI to retain video quality, which is the reason for the large file size.
Regards
Barrie

[dricketts]

So what type of file does WMM create? Is it a compressed AVI for upload to youtube?

[Enkidoh]

No, Windows Movie Maker only outputs video in Microsoft's own .WMV (Windows Media Video) format. This can be easily played back on any Windows-based computer with Windows Media Player, but I have no idea if Macs/iPads etc can play them without a specific video player or not (probably not I'd imagine). I've heard there is an AVI output codec plugin for WMM, but as I've never used WMM I have no idea if that's true or not.

As for Youtube, as far as I'm aware upon uploading a video to their servers the video is automatically converted into other formats (by default, it's Flash Video: .FLV format). Although web browsers can normally view this fine (with Flash Player installed), other programs have trouble playing it back without specific plugins. In any event, as I'm something of a wimp when it comes to video editing, I'm going to leave it to someone more knowledgeable on this subject to give you more accurate and detailed information on making video files.

[dricketts]

Thanks for the help but I'm still a little confused. Don't I need to use WMM to compress the file suitable for youtube or emailing?

[philskene]

On my 32-bit system the full version of FRAPS records in blocks of something like 1.6GB (Senior's memory).

There is an excellent freeware package called VirtualDub that I strongly recommend for manipulating the FRAPS .avi files. It can do all sorts of wonderful things - join, edit, compress, ... - before uploading to eg Youtube . It does all these things relatively quickly too. But be advised that documentation is rather sparse.

If you need help I'll be around.

Phil

[dricketts]

Thanks Phil. I'll check it out.

I figured out how to use WMM to compress the file using the publish feature and convert it to a wmv file. The wmv is more manageable but it just doesn't look very good and there is a large black border around the video after conversion. I played with the conversion settings in WMM but so far they all look pretty poor in my opinion.

[JCitron]

When I worked as a photographer, my employers told me that videos and slide shows should be brief (@ 5-10 sec tops, as a viewer gets quite bored with longwinded slideshows and videos of a train that takes over a minute to come into view).

Stitching together many many short clips makes a movie fun to watch ... just look at TV shows, it is alot of real short clips all stitched together.

One of the most boring TV shows was "Dark Shadows" BLAH: http://www.myspace.com/video/dark-sh...ode-1/38360166

The short video clips also help editing too. With the little clips, the editor can go through the small sections and either keep them or trash them. The small cuts too all make titling and seques easier because then there is no need, or rarely a need to cut into the video to fade in or out to another scene.

These all become an issue with long videos because editing out sections, particularly if they have a lot of sound, become quite tedious. Sounds need to be trimmed and edited to match the cuts, and editing sound is very difficult without a really high-end audio system. With smaller video sections, the audio is also at a manageable length so there are rarely any reasons to edit trim the audio clip.

This is exactly what I do when I go storm chasing. I make a bunch of short clips that are then assembled later in our video editing package.

John

[Satyr]

G'day,

In adition to FRAPS and windows movie maker, I also use " Any Video Converter", a free proggy that can convert to many diferent formats. I Convert my vids to MP4, which makes for small files, great for uploading.

Have a good one,
E.C.