I'm sure I'm not the only one that has a lot of MPEG files they would like to work on in Video Factory, so here's a few tricks I learned.
The HSL filter will likely mess up any filtering efforts because of transcode errors if you attempt filtering on a MPEG source file and then attempt to render to another MPEG. Thanks to Dave of Sonic Foundry for that juicy tidbit of information. Other filters like brightness/contrast don't seem to have this problem and work OK MPEG to MPEG.
Since adjusting Hue/Saturation and Luminance is important if you really want to improve your less than stellar video, the workaround is open your MPEG source file in VF, then apply all your editing and filtering, then render to a uncompressed AVI file. The resulting file will be huge, but the filtering will now work fine without distorting the output.
The 4GB limit really isn't a problem. Doing the above I was careful to create a series of AVI files all under the 4GB limit, broken into scenes.
However I wanted to see what would happen if I took a big 35 minute MPEG source file and convert the whole thing in one shot to AVI after I finished editing knowing the file would be way past the 4GB Windows 98 SE file limit.
Well, Video Factory handles it without a blink, by creating a series of files automatically. So that 35 minute source file ended up being a series of AVI files together adding up to 20 GB.
OK, that takes care of the editing, but I didn't want no 20 GB file hoging my hard drive space so the last step was to clear Video Factory's timeline, then starting with a fresh timeline I dropped all the created AVI files one at a time, applying crossfades and transitions as I wanted, then I finished by rendering to my final version using one of the MPEG templates. Result, file down to a managable 330MB and just a slight loss in overall quality.
As you noticed this takes a LOT of hard drive space. If you don't have dozens of gigabytes to spare you can overcome that problem this way:
Open your MPEG source file in VF. Do your editing and apply the filters you want. Once you have it all in AVI format, clear the timeline, drop in the newly created AVI file then render to your favorite MPEG template numbering the files in order.
Once you are sure the results are OK, delete the AVI files as you make them, (now replaced with MPEG versions) so you don't run out of hard drive space. Repeat as necessary. Once done you'll have a series of MPEG files. Finish up by using one of the many joiner programs you can find on the web or create a batch file and join the MPEG's that way. The only down side would be you won't be able to have cross fades or transition between the various MPEG files.
The HSL filter will likely mess up any filtering efforts because of transcode errors if you attempt filtering on a MPEG source file and then attempt to render to another MPEG. Thanks to Dave of Sonic Foundry for that juicy tidbit of information. Other filters like brightness/contrast don't seem to have this problem and work OK MPEG to MPEG.
Since adjusting Hue/Saturation and Luminance is important if you really want to improve your less than stellar video, the workaround is open your MPEG source file in VF, then apply all your editing and filtering, then render to a uncompressed AVI file. The resulting file will be huge, but the filtering will now work fine without distorting the output.
The 4GB limit really isn't a problem. Doing the above I was careful to create a series of AVI files all under the 4GB limit, broken into scenes.
However I wanted to see what would happen if I took a big 35 minute MPEG source file and convert the whole thing in one shot to AVI after I finished editing knowing the file would be way past the 4GB Windows 98 SE file limit.
Well, Video Factory handles it without a blink, by creating a series of files automatically. So that 35 minute source file ended up being a series of AVI files together adding up to 20 GB.
OK, that takes care of the editing, but I didn't want no 20 GB file hoging my hard drive space so the last step was to clear Video Factory's timeline, then starting with a fresh timeline I dropped all the created AVI files one at a time, applying crossfades and transitions as I wanted, then I finished by rendering to my final version using one of the MPEG templates. Result, file down to a managable 330MB and just a slight loss in overall quality.
As you noticed this takes a LOT of hard drive space. If you don't have dozens of gigabytes to spare you can overcome that problem this way:
Open your MPEG source file in VF. Do your editing and apply the filters you want. Once you have it all in AVI format, clear the timeline, drop in the newly created AVI file then render to your favorite MPEG template numbering the files in order.
Once you are sure the results are OK, delete the AVI files as you make them, (now replaced with MPEG versions) so you don't run out of hard drive space. Repeat as necessary. Once done you'll have a series of MPEG files. Finish up by using one of the many joiner programs you can find on the web or create a batch file and join the MPEG's that way. The only down side would be you won't be able to have cross fades or transition between the various MPEG files.