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Recording vid from webcam – lowering filesize?
Hi guys,
I’ve just started to get into making vlogs or whatever you want to call them with my new webcam I got the other day, however filesizes are getting out of hand. A simple 9 minute video comes out as 15GB of raw uncompressed video footage! While I know uncompressed data is inherently extremely large, I just can’t seem to find good settings to compress it to a manageable size while making it look relatively the same. I tried a WMV, but the colours came out entirely different than those in the source video. So I have a few questions:
1. Could anyone recommend how to go about compressing the raw uncompressed video from my webcam in a way that there is little quality loss?
2. If it’s as simple as rendering it out again before editing with it, does anyone have any good suggestions on settings and codecs to use?
This is in Vegas 8.0, and if you need the webcam, it’s a Logitech C300 recording at 640×480 at mostly 30FPS (unless there’s rapid movement, in which case there are a few dropped frames, however most of the time it’s just me talking straight to the camera, so really not a concern).
Thanks!
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5 Replies
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I’m sure there are probably better ways of doing this, but one option I like is to use AutoGK. This is a free XviD/DivX utility (found easily via google search).
Simply select your input file, choose an output file location/name, set “step 3” to “Target quality” at “100”, click “Add Job”, and click “Start”.
Without changing any other settings, your file should be significantly compressed with relatively little quality loss. (The most significant difference at “100 target quality” is a loss in pure blacks with some artifacting. My guess is that for webcam footage, this shouldn’t be a big deal.)
For example: I have a fully uncompressed huffyuv .avi file (15 seconds) that takes up 202MB. After using the settings I described, it dropped in filesize to 5.27MB.
Here’s a screenshot of the original:
And the AutoGK render:
These screenshots probably make it look as though no quality was lost at all, but trust me, the blacks have deteriorated (it just happens that the original video was 1080, so it looks great this small).
Best of all, you should then be able to drop the AutoGK file right into Vegas and start editing. (Not sure if you actually need other codecs to do this…I downloaded the k-lite mega codec pack and thus have everything under the sun.)
As for getting back out of Vegas small, it sounds like these are headed for the internet, so “.mp4” is probably your best bet here. (Render as –> Save as type: MainConcept AVC/AAC (*.mp4) –> Template: Apple iPod 640×480 video). This WILL add to any interlacing issues you may have with the footage, but since you said most of it is stationary, I don’t think it’ll be a problem.
Hope this is what you’re looking for,
Aaron
Vegas Pro 9.0c
Intel Core2Quad Q9550 @ 2.83GHz
8.00GB RAM -
Glad you mentioned the Template: Apple iPod 640×480 for rendering video for the web. I’ve experimented with them ALL and that is the only one which seems to be satisfactory resulting in nice web video.
I was always concerned with the large files but after shooting for so long one finally gets over it and begins to accept it. A one terabyte external HD is the answer. Back it up and forget it. If it’s something I want to keep, I back it up to two HD’s.
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Ah, thanks very much for the tip! I had AutoGK installed before, but I reformatted about a few months ago and I guess I forgot to reinstall it. Worked perfectly, nice video at a workable size, thanks again!
The final rendered video did unfortunately come out darker than it appears in the preview…wmv, avi and MP4, all of them the colour saturation is higher than normal. Any ideas on how to fix that?
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The problem could be coming from your project and preview settings. If these don’t match your output settings, then what Vegas thinks it’s going to be rendering and what it actually finishes will look different.
File –> Properties
Create a custom template for the 640 x 480 Apple .mp4 using identical settings (Pixel aspect, frame rate, and the like). Don’t forget to set the “Full-resolution rendering quality” to “Best”, and you might even want to play with toggling on the “Adjust source media to better match project or render settings” option (though to be honest, I’m not sure what this will do).
Also, make sure that you try looking at the “Preview (Full)” and “Best (Full)” previews (drop-down located above the preview window) as opposed to the default “Preview (Auto)” setting, just in case.
If that doesn’t work, you can always try compensating before rendering by adding an effect such as Sony Levels, but I realize that isn’t the ideal solution.
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Well I think i’ve sorted it. If I save it again as an uncompressed avi then the the colours seem fine. So just to recap for anyone else who has this problem:
1. Record video w/ webcam via Sony Vegas
2. Run the resultant avi file (which is uncompressed) through AutoGK in order to lower the filesize
3. Use the smaller filesize version you just created with AutoGK as the source video and edit with that. You can delete the previous huge uncompressed video to save space
4. Once all your editing and stuff has finished, you can render it out as an uncompressed avi in order to get the correct colours
5. Finally, run that file through AutoGK in order to get a compressed version of your final videoA little long-winded, but it’s not too bad.
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