How can i decrease the size of videos i record with Fraps?

[combatsimulation]

hi, i'm hoping somebody here can answer a question i have. i'm recording in game footage of video games i'm playing with fraps and want to post them online when i'm finished. the only problem is even at some of it's lowest settings the video files that fraps creates are pretty big.

is there something i can do to decrease the file size so i can post them online?

any info would be greatly appreciated.

thx

george

[daamon]

Hi combatsimulation,

Welcome to the forums.

Take a look at this:

www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1371583#1371583

I can't see that changing the codec Fraps uses can be set. So I capture to what looks like uncompressed AVI and then using VirtualDub to compress to DV AVI.

There's no reason why a different codec can't be used, or even using Windows Movie Maker to generate a WMV.

[combatsimulation]

hi, daamon thanks for responding.

this is what it says over on the fraps faq page.

Why is the AVI movie generated by Fraps so big? How can I reduce the size?

The filesize is big because there isn’t enough time to encode the movie while the game is running. The movie frames are slightly compressed, but still require a large amount of disk space due to the high resolutions. Once you have finished capturing you should convert the saved AVI into one of the popular compressed movie formats such as mpeg or divx. Recommended programs for doing this are tmpgenc (Tsunami Mpeg Encoder), and VirtualDub.

Using VirtualDub is quite easy. To create a compressed version of the AVI follow these steps:

Start VirtualDub

Select File->Open and choose the AVI in the Fraps directory you wish to compress.

Select Video->Compression and choose the codec you wish to compress with (usually divx)

Select File->Save As AVI and specify a filename for the new AVI.

If you have Windows XP you can also use Windows Movie Maker to compress the video files. If you use Windows Movie Maker it's recommended that you keep your Fraps video files at 800x600 or under.

now i downloaded virtualdub and did everything it said and when i go to file and click on save as avi and give the file a name and save it. it says "virtualdub error video compression error the source image format is not acceptable. (error code -2)"

what am i doing wrong?

i recorded the video at 60 fps at 640x480 if that's any help.

george

[Alan69]

Camstudio 2.0 is free and can also record the screen, not sure about running it with games since I use it for other things, but it lets you choose the compression.

The sharp text and having many discrete moving objects like in many games can still make for larger than normal files if you're trying to keep the quality high. If you don't care if text blocks a bit and then fills in though, you can really cut the file sizes down and still look ok for showing what's going on.

Alan

[combatsimulation]

yea i just purchased the full version of fraps so i want to get some use out of it. i know there's a way you can convert the videos to divx it says so right on fraps's site i just haven't been able to figure out how to do it yet using virtualdub and that's why i was hoping somebody here can help me.

george

[steveryan]

Taken from the Fraps website -

Using VirtualDub is quite easy. To create a compressed version of the AVI follow these steps:

Start VirtualDub
Select File->Open and choose the AVI in the Fraps directory you wish to compress.
Select Video->Compression and choose the codec you wish to compress with (usually divx)
Select File->Save As AVI and specify a filename for the new AVI.
If you have Windows XP you can also use Windows Movie Maker to compress the video files. If you use Windows Movie Maker it's recommended that you keep your Fraps video files at 800x600 or under.

[combatsimulation]

i already stated in my second post of this thread that i did everything that said and i got the following error "virtualdub error video compression error the source image format is not acceptable. (error code -2)".

[gadgetguy]

That error indicates that the frame size of your video is not supported by the compression codec you've selected. What is your framesize and which codec are you trying to use?

[mike909]

This probably doesn't help, but I have captured with fraps and dropped that avi into PremierPro 1.5 and saved it as an mpeg2 (dvd-spec). PremierPro uses mainconcept, have you tried tmpgenc?

[daamon]

i already stated in my second post of this thread that i did everything that said and i got the following error "virtualdub error video compression error the source image format is not acceptable. (error code -2)".

It's probably the 60fps that's causing the problem. When converting in VirtualDub, see if there's a filter you can use to change the frame rate to something like 30 or 29.97 for NTSC or 25 for PAL. That might do the trick...

Failing that, the source resolution isn't liked by the codec you're trying to use. If it's Divx, I'll be surprised - but hey, anything's possible in the world of video.

There is a resize filter in VirtualDub that's easy to use.

Good luck...

[combatsimulation]

That error indicates that the frame size of your video is not supported by the compression codec you've selected. What is your framesize and which codec are you trying to use?

i recorded the video at 60 fps at 640x480 but i also had half-size checked which stores the video at exactly half the size of the screen resolution. the codec i'm using is divx 6.0 codec.

[combatsimulation]

This probably doesn't help, but I have captured with fraps and dropped that avi into PremierPro 1.5 and saved it as an mpeg2 (dvd-spec). PremierPro uses mainconcept, have you tried tmpgenc?

i have tried tmpgenc and it appeared to work BUT when i played back the video it was like in tye dye lol there was colors everywhere man lol

any suggestions?

[gadgetguy]

I don't use any divx codecs so I'm not familiar with the requirements. Hopefully, someone more familiar with the codec will recognise the incompatability. As daamon suggested it could be the 60 fps try changing it. Try experimenting with altering the framesize as well.

[combatsimulation]

i already stated in my second post of this thread that i did everything that said and i got the following error "virtualdub error video compression error the source image format is not acceptable. (error code -2)".

It's probably the 60fps that's causing the problem. When converting in VirtualDub, see if there's a filter you can use to change the frame rate to something like 30 or 29.97 for NTSC or 25 for PAL. That might do the trick...

Failing that, the source resolution isn't liked by the codec you're trying to use. If it's Divx, I'll be surprised - but hey, anything's possible in the world of video.

There is a resize filter in VirtualDub that's easy to use.

Good luck...

well see the reason i used 60 fps is because when you record with fraps whatever fps you record at its what you'll be running in game as well as your recording and at 30 fps it's not going to allow me to function in multiplayer like i normally would.

i haven't found the resize filter yet i see theres a resize option but it says if you change the fps size the audio and video will come out of sync.

[gadgetguy]

There should be no problem changing the fps in virtualdub. Under Video/Framerate/ Frame Rate Conversion select Process every other frame (decimate by 2). This will remove every other frame and double the duration of each frame. Since the playing time isn't changed there should be no synch issues.

[combatsimulation]

lol it worked! and the funny part is just before you posted i was in that exact option and chose covert to 30 fps and that worked too.

which one should i be using?

converting to 30 fps or as you said selecting process evey other frame (decimate by 2)?

thx by the way

george

[gadgetguy]

Actually, in this case they both do the same thing. If your source was a different framerate they would not give you identical results. If you are always going to record at 60 fps then either will do.

[daamon]

i haven't found the resize filter yet i see theres a resize option but it says if you change the fps size the audio and video will come out of sync.

In VirtualDub: Video -> Filters -> Add -> select "resize" -> Set parameters (I've found the "Lanczos3" filter mode to be good).


On a totally seperate note: your sig image may be larger than the forum rules allow. The limit is set so that pages don't take too long to load coz of the images in sigs. I'm not a mod so I can't say "change it", but it might be worth while in respect of other users, particularly those on dial-up.

[Kanti731]

Fraps creates notoriously large files because it uses a lossless codec to record. I recommend using a program such as Bandicam which gives the user a choice of codecs so that you can select the compression / quality ratio that you reqiure. It also has nice presets for YouTube making things even easier. Since the files are encoded while recording, they will be small and one won't need to re-encode or edit them further to get the filesize down.