In Dire need of help I am so frustrated....

[JohnMatrix]

Ok I have worked for MONTHS creating an UNREAL TOURNAMENT 2004 Frag Video. It has taken me forever to extract the frags and I am just now done organizing the clips nicely in premiere 1.5.....now the conflict....

No matter what codec I use, I get bad results in one form or another.
For Example:
If I use QuickTime with an mp4 compression, the video turns out good quality but the file is 1.33 GIGS, how am i supposed to get people to download that?

If I try to use the XVID codec that is already on the list premiere FREEZES every damned time....

If I use the DIVX 5.2.1 codec, i replay the video and nothing plays, not even audio.

I exported the file with NO compression and used DR Divx and DIVX converter to try and compress it there.....
yeah compresses great, but do they even know what quality means when its on the HIGH setting?

It seems that I cannot win,
I have tried numerous codecs on the list and have tried setting the quality Lower upon exporting such as 30 or 50% 30% giving me an estimated 250 meg file and 50% giving me around 500 megs for a file.

Pleaseeeee pleaseee help I just want to finish this frag video so I can move on to quake 4 and leave my UT2004 days behind me with a video to remember them by.

Thank you

Btw all my raw video files are .avis and total about 12 gigs in size
i recorded the frags using FRAPS, the old version and all my stuff is in size 640-480

help me please!

[Taelon]

You could try CCE which is one of the top MPEG encoders has a plugin from Premier. Or you could skip premier and encode it directly using Xvid or DivX using VirtualDub. But I don't think you'll see much difference from using DR Divx etc. if you can't find settings there you aren't happy with. I'd suggest using 2-pass mode with Xvid.

You might want to read some of advantages and disadvantages of the various containers/codes in this guide to Common Distribution Codecs and Formats Then see this guide if you decide to use Xvid.

[JohnMatrix]

Thanks for your suggestions, but what is 2pass Mode for XVID?

WHen the list drops to choose a codec, it just says XVID then if i try and
export with XVID chosen premiere freezes.......

[eh1109]

Wow, months of work for a game clip! Believe me, you will hardly ever go and look at this video. And in few years you will laugh at yourself for wasting months after it. Priorities my friend, gotta get that perspective.

[admin]

eh1109: That was a hardly helpful post, was it? It's the process of learning that's the most important here, whether it's a game clip or another clip.

JohnMatrix: Single pass mode encodes the video using just one pass. Since video encoding requires the encoder to compare the differences between the current frame and the next frame, single pass doesn't always work out best. This is why there is 2 (or more) pass encoding, which takes twice the time, but offers significantly better looking video.

You may want to try and use VirtualDub - it works a lot better with DivX/XviD than Premier (and if you learned to use Premier, than VirtualDub should be easy to learn - just search for a basic usage guides if you can't figure it out).

[tigerman8u]

If you have the editing done in premiere you can save the output to an uncompressed avi file then use virtualdub as stated above. If you use Virtualdub after you choose xvid as your encoder you will see a config box. Click it and you will be able to set xvid for 1/2 pass and for video bitrate etc. Virtualdub (I use Virtualdub mpeg2, works with mpeg files also) with xvid is really a good combination giving real good results IMO and both are free.