Video Recorder

[GunnerMan]

Well I want to record a FS video with a good quality/size ratio.  Thanks

[the_echo]

try good old fraps www.fraps.com i prefer to use it rather then using any "in-game" recorder.

[JBaymore]

Gunner....

Hook up a VCR or videeo cam to the video out on your video card and the sound connections from your sound card to the VCR or cam sound in.

No processor "hit" using this method.  Lets the computer focus on flying when you are flying.  Then load the video into the computer for editing... and the computer can deal only with video issues when editing.

best,

................john

[Jared]

OR, you could do like I do, go direct to my moms pc on the other side of the desk, directly to a file!

All that's left is to edit...

[JBaymore]

If you are using a video capture system on the same computer that you are flying the simulator on..... the video capture is using up a LOT of the copmputer's resources.... taking away from the smoothness of the flight sim.  NOT what you'd want for a video session  ;).

If ya' got a REALLY high end machine....... doesn't matter too much.

best,

..................john

[Jared]

Yep, I know what you're saying, I can do it on my system without losing enough resources to make it not worthwhile. Luckily though my moms pc has a good input device.. So I can just do that..

[GunnerMan]

Well I can do it with no real performance loss but FRAPs only does 30 seconds and that 30 seconds is about 100 megs. Any new programs, advice

[Jared]

Typically you don't want to focus on the aircraft for more than 30 seconds, but if you wanted to record for longer periods of time you could always pay for fraps then it will record longer I believe...

Your 100MB file is very believable.

Now what you need to do is open it in windows movie maker and edit it to include what you want, don't want, etc.... And then save, as a smaller, lesser quality, whatever...this will also compress it thus reducing your file size as well..

[GunnerMan]

Thanks well its mostly to take a video of a lading or some good scencery, be much more fun than a screen shot if I culd get it to a manageable size

[Scottler]

Gunnerman, the best way (visually, from a filmmaking perspective) would be to take 10-15 second shots from multiple angles.  Do the same shot, over and over and over, from different viewpoints.  (The ingame flight video is perfect for the playback, then use FRAPS to capture it.)

Then stick the sequence into your video editor of choice.  I suggest Pinnacle Studio.  Sony Vegas is decent too, but I thought it to be overpriced for the features it offers.  Pinnacle makes a decent home user level program.  Movie Maker is also an excellent platform, but it lacks a lot of the stuff you'll want later on.

Never keep the same camera shot for more than 8-10 seconds.  Your video will really seem boring, trust me.

Video files are HUGE by nature.  If you're looking for a tiny file, then you're not going to want to look at video.  I do a TON of video editing...you're going to have some big files.  lol  Consider it a blessing if you're getting 100MB files...mine are in the tens of GIGS.

A tip for making your sim video smoother.  Fly the sim at half sim-rate...then put it into your video editor and double it.  Seems like such a tiny step, but the difference is astounding.

Good luck!

[Sterk]

Yes,agree with Scootler-the fact that FRAPS lets recording of not more than 30-second pieces shouldnt bother you-good videos never has longer than 5-10 seconds shots-otherwise it looks boring-so after FRAPS stops recording-just hit F9 again and again to record more pieces-believe me-30-second -shot-thats  extremely more than enough...

[Gunny04]

Yea, but he plans on sending the FS Vids to me, so I can see what he see's in flight  ;D thats why the size comes in, took an hour at 40kbps for a bloody 100 meg vid too download, We both have broadband, but geeez.... imagine a good 2 min vid! be huge and boring? nah not to me, I've seen worse then long FS vids just watch documentaries in school for 5 hours  ::), Cheers, Gunny

[Scottler]

I'm not talking about the length of the video...I'm talking about the length of each shot.  Watch that documentary again, and time the length between shots...

[Ben_M_K]

Yeah what I do is take small clips, 10 to 30 seconds long. Then open them in Windows Movie Maker and edit and render them. A 1:30 video was 10MB. Not to bad. And with Movie Maker, you can add credits and stuff at the end very easily.

[GunnerMan]

Ok well thats help full but I dont want to do any fancy editing, just want a program like FRAPS....

Well I just found HyperCam, have not tested it in game yet but I can change qualty things and if useing the Divx codec make other changes so if it works well like FRAPS in game I will be happy..