soongmak Posted December 16, 2004 Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 OKay, the thread title is a little ambitious, but who knows, with your help this could become a useful starting guide for anyone playing around with video files. I only recently started donloading files through bit torrents, mostly movies, and I came across a set of problems: - sometimes I couldn't play a file, because I didn't have the right codecs installed. - I sometimes didn't know what kind of video file I downloaded, so I needed a program to analyze these files. - I needed to cut or join video files, but didn't know what tools to use. This is the list of tools that work for me, and may not work for you, so feel free to add some suggestions to the list. I run this software on a 3 year old laptop wiith 1200 mhz processor and 512 mb memory. Operating system is windows XP. Client for downloading torrents: azureus. Dependable bit torrent client that is very easy to use, and I use it to download all those movies. Two downsides: a you need to install java first and it uses a lot of your system resources. I am all ears if you think there is another client out there that is just as fast and reliable as azureus, but uses less (far less!) memory. Codecs and video players to play the movies: for those who don't know what a codec is: a codec is an algorithm or specialized computer program that encodes or reduces the number of bytes consumed by large files and programs. Files encoded with a specific codec require the same codec for decoding. Some codecs you may encounter in computer video production are Divx, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, Xivd, DV type 1 and type 2 for video and MP3 for audio. a lot of abracadabra, but what it means is that there are tons of different video formats out there. To be able to play them all, you need the right codecs. I use K-lite codec pack full version. it has all the codecs I need, plus more. before you install this pack, be sure to uninstall previous installed codecs to make sure you don't get software conflicts. Also, don't install every codec that comes with this pack. Some are useless, and the more codecs yiou install, the more likely you get software conflicts. Besides codes, this codec package comes with a set of great utilities: -Media Player Classic: my preferred video player. Plays everything I throw at it. options are somewhat limited. - BS player: sometimes people share movies with a fucked up aspect ratio. People look way too thin or way to thick. You can fix this by changing the aspect ratio of the file. It is also a great video player for when you hook up a tv to your pc. - Gspot: If you can't play a video file, Gspot will tell you why you can't play it. it also gives you all technical details about your file, like the codecs that you need to play the file, frame size, number of frames per second, aspect ratio, bitrate per second, audiocodecs that were used, etc. etc. K-lite is free. don't download it from the official website, they make you fill out useless forms. get it here: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/K_Lite_Codec_Pack.htm Joing, splitting and converting video files - VirtualDub: A usefull program for chopping up avi files that are to big to burn on a cd. Again, this one is free. - Advanced X video converter. a very simple program to cut, join, or convert video files to AVI, DivX, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, VCD, SVCD, DVD, WMV and ASF formats. Not freeware, but if you're lucky, you can find a working registration code on the net. If not, registration will set you back 30 us dollars. Burning software: - Nero: I love it, always works for me. The only thing I can't get to work is getting nero to put audiio files in the same order as the original album. It always puts the songs in alphabetic order. I can get aound it by loadiing the songs through a play list, but this bugs me. anybiody have some suggestions? For the rest, I think it is THE burning application. Cheers, soongmak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 16, 2004 Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 my burning software is IOmega. it came with the burner, and is a piece of piss to use. even incompetents like me can use it without a problem. that virtual dub splitting software, is it easy to use, and does it work well? if that torrent thing works i will have to either use that, or buy a DVD burner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted December 16, 2004 Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 Great summary Soonmak .... and I agree with all your choices as well. Maybe someone can copy this to the 'Sticky' about software for future reference. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soongmak Posted December 16, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 VirtualDub is easy to use if you follow the instructions. Here's a guide to cut avi-files with virtual Dub: http://www.dvd-guides.com/content/view/13/59/ A great site for anything video is www.videohelp.com . You can find tutorials and guides to anything you want to do with video. Cheers, soongmak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nervous_Dog Posted December 16, 2004 Report Share Posted December 16, 2004 We use Videolan for a lot of our demo work, VLC Client, a www.videolan.org I think (Do a search) Very good as both a streamer and a client DOG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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