Pictures of MPGS?
 

I'm just starting to work with MPGs and I'm not captain obvious or anything, but is sure seems like 8 MPGs are easier to edit instead of 24 to 30 pictures that I'm having trouble compressing to perfection...what do the rest of you do with MPGs when you're editing them for your freesites? Do you just grab them from the sponsor and take a screencap and then post with some original text or is there more to it?

this is my first stab at a gallery with mpgs...any feedback?

http://www.handrodeo.com/fs/dp/1/1a/

Is there any preference given to MPG or WMV?

I've used both formats without a problem. I do the occasional movie freesites, but for me at least, doing the pics is faster than doing movies. With the pictures, I make an action with photoshop and run all 24 images through it. Takes a couple of minutes at most. With movies, I sometimes have to cut down long clips into smaller ones, then take the screenshots and then edit those in photoshop.

I'm using SuperJPG, probably the easiest tool around for compressing your pics. You can download it for free at Ray Morris's Webmasters Guide.

Site looks good, but the last bottom right screen cap in Gal 2 , is not real clear as to what it is.

True. It wouldn't stop me from listing the site, but you might want to address that for a better chance at getting listed at as many sites as possible.

Other than that, it's a nice looking site.

Thanks for the feedback

Personally I'm a WMV guy all the way - I absolutely hate the way all of my browsers handle mpg files and I even detest them more when I can't expand them and I'm looking at a postage stamp sized mpg file on my 24" monitor.

WMV is good however for editing purposes I like MPG better.....

Hell - for editing - I only use the original digital .avi captures - but then I'm spoiled - I own all my own content.
WMV (or any of the highly compressed formats) was/were never designed as a format to be re-edited dozens of times - each time you edit and re-compress an already compressed image or video, the quality of the video or image is reduced. Same reason I (almost) never re-edit a .jpg file - if I have the original raw file, tiff, or psd, I'll always work with it instead of the jpg.

However, I do prefer the final wmv to any other delivery format - but that's purely personal.

Anyone got any quick tips on breaking long mpgs into 15, 20, or 30 second clips? I'm using windows movie maker....

Just hit the "split" button when you are 15, 20 or 30 seconds into the movie...

When you import the mpg into Movie Maker it breaks it down into many small clips. Drag several clips down to the timeline so you have a little more than what you need. Right click at the beginning or the end of the clip and move until you get the desired length then save the clip. Just to the left of the timeline is a "+" and a "-". Click the "+" so it extends the clip on the time line and you can cut the clip in increments of .02 seconds or thereabouts.

Any opinions/experience as to which converts best...movies or pics? I seem to have done a little better with movies, and I prefer working with them.

Fonz, I'm trying this technique and can't figure out how to save them...when I hit file save as, I get either a .mswmm project file or get the option to save the entire move...I'm trying to cut a 1 minute mpeg into 3 20 second mpgs. What am I doing wrong? Thanks

I'm working with this technique and also struck out...I imported two one minute clips and and I played around with the timeline and set start trim points and end trim points but didn't figure out how to actually trim the mpg or save it. You mentioned when I import the mpg that Movie Maker breaks it down into many small clips... do I have to change my settings for this? When I import two one minute clips, I only have two clips in my collections....it'd be nice if I could just tweak some settings to turn a 1 minute clip or 10 minute clip into equal 30 second clips and then choose which ones I want to use...but I'm not able to get the smaller ones broke down yet...any follow on advice? I'm really not this retarded, I don't see what I'm doing wrong...I'll continue to work at it...thanks...

easymama, here's how I do it maybe this will help.

import the whole clip into Windows Movie Maker, then drag it down into the timeline. The '+' will magnify the timeline so you can work in 2 second increments. When you find where you want to start or end your clip, put your cursor on the beginning or end of the timeline. When you hit the right spot the cursor will turn into a double arrow. Drag the double arrow to where you want to start or end the clip & it will trim it to that point. You may have to play with the magnification "+/-" so you can trim the clip exactly to where you want it to be. I also use the time counter in the display to note where I want to trim to. I usually trim a 30 second clip roughly, then zoom in to trim it to 22 or so seconds for example.

Once it's trimmed to the length you want it, click file > save movie as. This will let you save it to wherever you want. The next step will give you settings that let you compress it, and it will be saved as a .wmv file.

Once you get the hang of it, you'll get pretty quick at cutting up larger clips. Personally, I prefer to work with entire movies & chop them down, the flow is easier, but I also use it to trim 30 sec clips down to 20 etc.

If you need any help, just let me know, I can get on icq and give you a hand if you need it :)

I have a little program called AVI MPEG RM WMV Splitter. I think I got it for like 20 or 30$, I cant remember where or how much it cost exactly. You can custom split any sections you want with it, but what I use is the auto splitter. Say I have a 20 minute movie that I want 20 second clips to use to make free sites. I set it to split it into 60 clips and it cuts the whole 20 minute movie into 60 20 second clips. Its by far the easiest and quickest way I have ever found to make clips. The process takes less than a minute.

Is that the one from boilsoft? What kind of file sizes do you end up with for a 15 sec. clip? Does it do file compression? I've been looking for something that can both auto split and keep the file size reasonable.

Had to open it up to look at it, but yeah its from boilsoft.com.

It doesnt compress the files, the file sizes all depend on the file size and compression of the movie you're chopping up. The movies I chop into 30 second wmv clips usually end up being 1.1-1.4 megs if that gives you an idea :)

I just gave the free trial a try. That thing is fast! Looks like it will get the job done for me and the price isn't to bad either. |thumb

I found videocharge.com has one that's pretty nice...worth the trial...these other ones are by far more user friendly than movie maker....movie maker is good to isolate something and do a good screen capture but videocharge is a pretty good tool for auto splitting files.

Thanks for this helpful thread! :)
Mr Exotic, this boilsoft stuff is fine, just what I needed.

I just wanted to add two notes to this thread.

First, about the importance of the content and choosing wisely which scenes to use at all, and where the action should stop and start. I've seen so many movie galleries (in and out of free sites) which are just a waste of time and bandwidth, since there's little chance the chosen clips would ever help convince anyone to join a paysite. That may be due to automated software making the choices a creative marketer should be making, or they can simply be galleries built by someone who doesn't understand why the clips are there.

Second, while Mac users may only make up 20% of computer users, that can be a lot of potential joiners that you can throw away if you (or your sponsor) uses copy-protected Windows media. Once they get used to not being able to play the videos, a lot of Mac users won't even bother clicking a link to a WMV file and will be gone from your pages pretty quickly. Not many surfers have problems with MPG files, so it may be worth considering whether expanding your market by 25%* could be a good idea.

HTH


* I used that number because if you're missing 20% and get it back, you've increased the size of the market you used to be reaching by 25%

--Okay, third note: Think about who owns the Mac you're ignoring... at some colleges the ratio is more like 40% Mac users. And things like torrent use are lower among Mac users, which explains why the iTunes movie and video store was such a success immediately.

- - must have had too much coffee too soon this morning ... sorry for hijacking the thread.



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