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Video Codec Issues.

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So I recorded some gameplay from a game and I'm making a video out of it using Adobe Premiere Pro CS3, and I just got this, so I have hardly any idea how the codecs work.

Now, all of my videos are in a .avi file format and so I coverted them to a .mpg (I cannot remember the codecs in involved). This made the videos look like trash, like you put pixelated water over the video itself to shield it from anyone who might actually, you know, want to see this video.

So, I was curious, seeing as Premiere Pro can read .avi files, but it couldn't recognize the video codec involved, what is the best video codec to use for a .avi for clear video in a 16:10 ratio?

Any hints in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.
 
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do you have perian installed? If not it may help your apps open your avi files
 
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theafiguy
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I'm sorry, Perian? I've never heard of this before. What exactly does it do?

I failed to mention that when I attempt to open the file in Premiere Pro, it says "codec is missing or damaged".
 
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If you are on Mac, was the avi file created by importing the video into cs3? Or was it an avi copied from a pc? or what? What were the original files created on? Camcorder? Some sort of PVR software? CS3 should have its own codecs for importing certain file formats; unless CS3 is different on mac then pc, it should be able to import most avis. You can try to get perian to see if it would solve your problem...

Perian - The swiss-army knife of QuickTime® components

------------------ conversion notes-------------

You should be able to get clear video, but you will probably need to tweak the settings. Check what your kbps is set to. if it's set to something ungodly low (like 256k) you need to crank it up. I've not used Premiere CS3, (only the older Premiere Pro 1.5) but if it is being encoded as a variable bit rate, you may want to try the midrange around 4500-6000 kbps, top around 8000kbps and bottom around 3000kbps.

If you're just going to play on a computer (and not output to dvd), I'd see about exporting to an H.264 .mp4 - assuming cs3 can do it. If it can, try setting the kbps at around 2500 and see what the video looks like. Depending on the subject, amount of fast movement, etc. you may need to crank the bit rate up to keep it from getting blocky. If 2500 looks blocky, try encoding at increments of 500, so 3000, 3500, 4000, etc. until you find a bitrate that looks good for your video. If you can, so you don't have to go through a long encode process each time, see if you can just encode a section that has a lot of movement in it (unless your overall video is only a few minutes long)

Just a thought.
 
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theafiguy
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Each video is about 10-20 seconds long. It's meant as a frag vid for a game, but I'm also taking this time to learn the program.

I can definitely take your advice and attempt to turn the bitrate up to about 3000 (I believe the last one was around 800 I believe).

All of the videos were recorded using Fraps on Windows. I'm not too keen on how they differ too much seeing as I'm still kinda new to the Mac OS X.
 
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Perian should allow you to play the fraps avi's on your Mac in quicktime.

In terms of CS3, if it uses quicktime codecs, it should then be able to open those files. If it can't, you'll need to transcode those files into another format compatible with CS3
 
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theafiguy
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Well, I'll give Perian a shot. Thank you very much :)

EDIT: Unfortunately, Perian didn't solve my problem. However, I am very glad you guys told me about the...well, component pool haha.

The error in Premiere Pro has changed though. Rather than saying the codec is missing, it's saying that there's an unsupported compression in file.
 
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Downloading a sample from the Fraps site shows the codec information below.

Windows Media Audio 9 Standard, Stereo, 44.100 kHz
Windows Media VC-1, 1600 x 900, Millions​

You'll have to confirm this is what your file is. I used QuickTime and did a Command-I on the file. I also have Flip4Mac installed which allowed me to play the file. Flip4Mac is a pay app if you want to export to something else.
 

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