A Question about virtualdub

[JustSomeGuy]

I have an avi file that is 320x240 pixels.
I'm trying to add boarders to an avi.
I need this avi file to have a new dimension of 352x240.
I expect to see virtical black bars on the left and right of the video.
They should be 16 pixels wide and 240 pixels high.
I'm using virtualdub to do this.
I add a resize filter.
I set the new width to 320
I set the new height to 240
I click on Expand frame and lettre box image.
I set the frame width to 352.
I set the frame height to 240.

Then from the main menu I select save as avi.
The image looks the right size with the left and right boarders I wanted.

I think I've done this correctly however, the resulting avi doesn't appear to be compressed and is too large to fit on my hard drive.

Have I done this right? What must I do to make sure the resulting avi file is also compressed? (I'd rather it be mpg than avi...)

[ZippyP.]

I think I've done this correctly however, the resulting avi doesn't appear to be compressed and is too large to fit on my hard drive.

Have I done this right? What must I do to make sure the resulting avi file is also compressed? (I'd rather it be mpg than avi...)

If you want it to be an mpeg then you need to frameserve it to an encoder like TMPGEnc. There's a frameserving guide in the Edit section (over there <-<-<-) at the bottom of the page. Frameserving allows the video to be fed direct without saving a very large uncompressed file.

If you want to save the avi compressed then you need to select and configure your compression under video>compression before you save. Set the audio to Direct Stream Copy so that it is saved as-is.

[JustSomeGuy]

Ok I found the video compression menu and selected divx.
But are you saying that I can go directly to mpeg2 using the frameserver?

[Tommyknocker]

Exactly. That is why we frameserve. Instead of encoding and saving to AVI in Vidtual Dub, loading the saved AVI into TMPGEnc, encoding and saving again, we encode in VDub, frameserve to TMPGEnc, encode again, and save it there. Encode twice, save once.

[JustSomeGuy]

Is the audio being served as well?

[Tommyknocker]

Yep.

[sacajaweeda]

AVISource("whatever.avi")
AddBorders(16,0,16,0)

[JustSomeGuy]

Thats interesting... Is that a scripting language of some sort?
What application interprets it?

[Tommyknocker]

That is AviSynth. Be careful, once you learn how to work it, you may wonder how you ever got along with out it. The script is written on NotePad, saved with an .avs extension, and programs like Virtual Dub and TMPGEnc love to run it. Look in the Edit section at left, if you're interested.