high quality fast forwarding on Xvid files? Continous repeat?

[cchen921]

Anyone know what kind of software that can fast forward really good and then at the end, it would repeat with the fast forwarding? I know windows media player can do it, but the fast forwarding is slow! I have 6 and a half hour footage, and I would like to be able to fast forward that in about 5-10 minutes maybe 20, and then at the end, it would repeat itself and continously fast forward? The files I have are in xvid format. I used VLC, but if you fast forward 3x, the footage wouldn't even show, at the same time, when it is done with the video, it repeats without the fast forward feature. Thnx...

[jagabo]

Decimate the frames and reencode. You can then just have it repeat in any media player. VirtualDub can do this easily (change frame rate).

[cchen921]

Sorry to bother you, still a noob. What buttons do you click to do what you just instructed me to do? To decimate and reencode? Will this affect the size of the file? Maybe you already heard me say this in other forums, but the 6 and a half hour footage I have is only 1 gigabyte, that's pretty good size. No sound of course, not needed. Not a big problem if it's a little bigger, but just curious. Thanks!

[jagabo]

Open file in VirtualDub(MPEG2/Mod).

Select Video -> Frame Rate. In the middle section (frame rate conversion) select "Decimate By" and enter a decimation value (eg, 10 to play 10 times faster). Or one of the other options in that section. Press OK to close the box.

Select Video -> Fast Recompress (a little faster and better quality than Full Processing Mode).

Select Video -> Compression. Select a compression codec and configure it.

File -> Save as AVI...

The size of the file will depend on the codec and its settings. Try Xvid, single pass, target quantizer = 3 or so.

Note that decimation by 10 will produce 1/10 as many frames in the output so if you use the same bitrate as you source file you will get a result 1/10 the size.

Note also that audio will get out of sync. If you don't need the audio you can select Audio -> No Audio. Otherwise you'll have to speed up the audio by the same amount with some other software.

[cchen921]

if i get 1/10th the frames, does this mean that there are some footage missing? thansk.

[jagabo]

if i get 1/10th the frames, does this mean that there are some footage missing?

Yes, 9 out of every 10. If you just want your existing video to play 10 times faster (no reencoding) you can use AVIFrate to change the frame rate. It only takes a second. But I doubt your computer will play 300 frames per second. And even if it can, the display is only refreshed about ~70 times a second so you won't see them all anyway.

[cchen921]

are there any displays that can play up to 300 frames per second? Does CPU speed matter more or monitor?

[celtic_druid]

A 300Hz display? Don't think so, I also don't think that the human eye can detect 300Hz anyway. Maybe drop 1/5 frames and play at 60fps?

[cchen921]

You guys ever watch the weather report and see how they fast forward from like 14 hours to like 15 seconds, and you can see all the boats and ships that sail along with all the clouds? Anyone know how to do that? I think you might need some more expensive equipment though.

[jagabo]

You guys ever watch the weather report and see how they fast forward from like 14 hours to like 15 seconds, and you can see all the boats and ships that sail along with all the clouds? Anyone know how to do that? I think you might need some more expensive equipment though.

They take one frame every second or minute or whatever. It's the same thing you'll be doing if you do what I originally suggested.