Cheap & easy fan videos for Windows, using Ulead VideoStudio
Please note that this is an old tutorial! While I tried to update a few things, it may still contain a few errors. I'm keeping this tutorial up for those of you who are going to use this older piece of software. If you are using a new version of VideoStudio, read this tutorial instead.
PLEASE NOTE: These instructions might not work well with VideoStudio 10 or 11. While I (finally) get around to updating this tutorial, please consult this LJ entry for more information on exporting (at high quality) with VideoStudio 11.
Exporting your finished VideoStudio 9 project and converting it for the web:
Exporting . . .
After you have edited and tweaked your mastepiece, you must export it out of Video Studio. There are several built-in options for exporting, but we're going to go a different route.
- Click on the "Share" tab, choose "Create Video file." The drop-down menu will give the option of "Custom" at the very bottom. Select it.
- Choose either Quicktime MOV or AVI as your file format. (AVI works very well with the program we'll be using to make DivX files.)
- Keep most the defaults in Ulead's "Custom" setting, (but make sure that the audio is set to 44 or 48 KHz—48 KHz is DVD quality, 44 is CD quality).
- In "Frame Size" choose "User defined." If your finished video is 16:9 aspect ratio (and it almost certainly is, unless you have ripped a DVD from an older TV show or movie, or a "fullscreen" version of a movie), then type in the dimensions 720 for width, 405 for height. Compression should be set to "None."
- IMPORTANT CORRECTION: In "Frame type" I have kept it at "Upper Field First" in the screenshot below. However, I now recommend that you try "Frame Based" instead.
- If your video is 4:3 aspect ratio (fullscreen DVD, or older TV show), then save the frame dimensions as 640 x 480. (Learn more about how to identify your video's aspect ratio. Link opens to new page.)
- Frame rate should be 25 fps for PAL video (Region 2 DVDs) and 29.97 fps for NTSC (Region 1 DVDs).
- Find a place to save the file (keeping in mind that each minute of video will be over 1 GB in size) and wait for VideoStudio to convert it over. It will take a few minutes, depending on the speed of your computer.
It is important to remember that yes, uncompressed video is REALLY huge. This is desireable. The philosophy should be "good quality in, good quality out." Whenever a video is compressed, some detail is lost. Avoiding this as much as possible means that the final video will have a sharper, more detailed picture.
Frame rates on your video depends on whether you used PAL video (25 frames per second, or fps) or NTSC (29.97 fps). (PAL is used in Europe, NTSC in North America.) VideoStudio seems to automatically detect which frame rate you used (it knew that I was using 25 frames per second), but double-check to make sure it got that detail right.
Next up: Converting your uncompressed video for the web >>