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Newbie

Postby davidpingu » Tue May 26, 2015 11:54 am

Hi all, a complete novice here in search of the knowledge required to make better quality videos for YouTube.
I bought a GoPro camera thinking that was pretty much all there is to it and although I'm impressed with the quality this camera can give, as soon as it hits YouTube it becomes grainy and dull.
I'm just using the free windows movie maker software at the moment and wonder if this is some of the issue and whether I should upgrade to something a little more advanced but am hoping my joining here will help me to start making a little more sense of it all. Any hints and tips on where to start and how to get the most from this site/forum it would be most appreciated.

Dave

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Re: Newbie

Postby sidd finch » Tue May 26, 2015 12:53 pm

Dave welcome to Muvipix. You will find this is a great place to land for your video journey.

Regarding YouTube you want to make sure that your output video specs match the recommended YouTube video specs. Windows MovieMaker is a great program to get started towards understanding how to create and generate a movie. The free GoPro editing software is also a great beginning start.

Editing is like riding a bike. Good to start with something simple so you understand the fundamentals before jumping into something so advanced that it discourages you from continuing on.

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Re: Newbie

Postby Steve Grisetti » Tue May 26, 2015 2:32 pm

Welcome to our community, David!

I agree that there's nothing at all wrong with Windows MovieMaker. It can produce pretty good video for YouTube -- but only if you know how to work around its limitations.

And you've come to the right place to find out how! But first: Which operating system are you using and which version of MovieMaker are you editing with?
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Re: Newbie

Postby davidpingu » Wed May 27, 2015 5:20 am

Thanks for the replies guys that's some useful progress already. Perhaps if I give you the information requested you could tell me how to tweek the output settings best for YouTube?
I'm currently running Windows 8 (not by choice I might add) but it was pre-installed on my laptop.
Moviemaker is the 2012 version, build 16.4.
It's all I've used to date. Personal impressions are for pure editing it's great. Trimming, splitting etc is all straight forward. I've even recently started making videos with sound recorded separately (just on a dictaphone app) and then layered over as I find the GoPro mic to be quite poor. Where I find its limited is in producing something that doesn't look amateur in terms of screen transitioning and captions. Those two details in particular make me cringe a little. Also I'm not sure how to overlay say a photo or logo or other video in a corner of the screen which would just add another degree of overall production quality.
Just a personal thanks to Steve for contributing. You are the creator behind this site I believe? Really nice to see you are active on here! I have a book of yours currently in my Amazon wish list!
Thanks,
Dave

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Re: Newbie

Postby davidpingu » Wed May 27, 2015 5:26 am

Just to add my current routine for video input and output.

Record on GoPro which is MP4 format. Open in GoPro software and convert to avi.
Edit the avi format and then have tried several of moviemaker's output options - YouTube, high quality for TV (both of which return it to MP4 I believe). I've even tried uploading avi to YouTube but I understand YouTube will compress video anyway.

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Re: Newbie

Postby Steve Grisetti » Wed May 27, 2015 5:52 am

Never convert your video if you don't have to, David! Each time you convert, you lose a bit of quality.
Thanks for the information -- and for supporting the book, David!

Just use the GoPro footage directly in MovieMaker. Then use Make Movie/High-Definition to output the movie when you're done editing. Upload that to YouTube and it should look terrific.

At least as far as quality of picture. If you're issue is with transitioning, captions and the other functions of MovieMaker -- well, then maybe you should consider another video editor. Sony Movie Studio, Adobe Premiere Elements and CyberLink PowerDirector are all excellent choices, and you'll find tutorials for them all here at Muvipix.com.

It all depends on what you want and how much work you want to put into it.
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Re: Newbie

Postby davidpingu » Wed May 27, 2015 9:21 am

That's really interesting. I was told to always covert to avi as the MP4 is compressed and lower quality than avi.
Are you saying not to covert specifically for YouTube? Simply because it ends up in the same format in which it started so there's no point decompressing?
I'd read to always edit avi but again it perhaps different if YouTube is the main goal?

I'll try your advice for my next video thanks Steve.
Is a 30fps output acceptable or would I benefit from dropping this a little? Most of my videos are typically sweeping landscapes so lots of data to take in but slower movement of frame.
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Re: Newbie

Postby Dave McElderry » Wed May 27, 2015 10:45 am

:meet: Welcome, from one Dave to another!

You'll never increase quality by converting. The most compelling reason to convert to AVI before editing would be if your choice of editor doesn't work well with the format that you started out with. I don't work with WMM, but if Steve says it handles the GoPro format just fine then that's the thing to do. No benefit to messing with the frame rate here either.
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Re: Newbie

Postby davidpingu » Wed May 27, 2015 11:11 am

Brilliant. Well I guess I have all I need for now so will use this for my next video and report back. Thanks everyone for the information and warm welcome!

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Re: Newbie

Postby sidd finch » Wed May 27, 2015 2:19 pm

Just a note. GoPro studio uses cineform to un-compress the MPEG4 video. The resulting AVI file will be approx. 8x the size of the original MPEG4 video file. This makes it easier to edit and to do any color grading.

You might also check what settings you are using to convert in GoPro Studio. Make sure you are using the highest quality setting.

Then after you have edited the file in MovieMaker your completed file should be an MPEG4 file.

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Re: Newbie

Postby Bob » Wed May 27, 2015 5:30 pm

I was told to always covert to avi as the MP4 is compressed and lower quality than avi.


The recommendation to use AVI came from a long time ago when consumer video editors were designed to edit a very specific type of AVI generally referred to as "DV-AVI". This is the type of video that came from standard definition tape based consumer grade camcorders. DV-AVI had very low compression compared to mpeg files and could be easily and precisely edited. Mpeg files, because of the way the compression was done, were difficult to edit. This all changed when high definition video was introduced. High definition video is typically recorded with some form of mpeg compression. With the shift away from standard definition to high definition, video editors had to adapt too. Current video editors can now handle mpeg formats very well. Also, today's mpeg formats are far better than the older one and can achieve much higher compression while maintaining high quality.

With modern video formats and video editors, there is generally no need to convert mp4 to avi. However, it does take significant computer resources to process this highly compressed video. If your computer is not up to the task or your video editor has problems handling that format, it does make sense to convert to a less intensive video format.

The video you get from your GoPro is already highly compressed using a lossy format. Converting it to another format is not going to increase the quality, generally it will degrade the quality. The amount of degradation is small, but cumulative. For highest quality, you want to minimize the number of times you recompress the video.

FYI, AVI is not a format, it's a container. The AVI specification details how the contents will be stored in the container, but not what you put into it. When you go to the grocery store, you can buy a can of stewed tomatoes and a can of refried beans. The can may be identical for each, but the contents certainly are different. The same with AVI. You can store many types of content in an AVI container -- you can even store MP4 content in it.
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Re: Newbie

Postby Steve Grisetti » Thu May 28, 2015 7:21 am

Brilliant, Bob!
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Re: Newbie

Postby Ron Hunter » Fri May 29, 2015 3:32 pm

Welcome to the site! You'll love it here. There is no condescension or snarky responses. Everyone here is friendly and helpful. This is by far the best Internet forum I've encountered.
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Cameras (in use): Panasonic GH4/Canon HFR400/Canon HV30, GoPro HD Hero2.
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Re: Newbie

Postby momoffduty » Sun May 31, 2015 7:03 pm

Welcome Dave to Muxipix! GoPros are fun and our resident Sidd does some incredible work with macros on a GoPro.
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Re: Newbie

Postby Chuck Engels » Tue Jun 02, 2015 9:44 am

Yes, welcome Dave, glad you found our community :meet:
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2. Cybertron PC - Liquid Cooled AMD FX6300, 6 cores, 3.50ghz - 32GB DDR3 - MSI GeForce GTX 960 Gaming 4G, 4GB Video Ram, 1024 Cuda Cores.
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