Is the random mosaic artifacting and stuttering due to it being scaled up? Looks like a codec problem, but I'm no expert. It LOOKS like a DVD that is having issues in a deck (random jittering, big coloured blocks, etc)... not that it IS obviously, I'm just describing the effect.

Is it just from it being scaled up? External players seem to have no problem playing it fullscreen. I just want to make sure.

Oh, and how WOULD I have the video at it's original size in DVDA? I can't seem to figure out how to set the video scale...

Edit it in Vegas, not DVDA. I put YouTube videos on DVDs all the time and it works fine. Obviously the quality won't be any better than what you see on YouTube, but it certainly isn't any worse. Also, make sure before you capture the video that you enable YouTube's high quality viewing option, if it is available for that particular video.

Well, there's nothing really to edit. The vids are divided into parts, which makes for convenient automatic chapters in DVDA.

Even so, I brought them into Vegas just to see if I could convert them to some other format that DVDA might like... and to see if Vegas itself played them find.... Same deal.... Random, big mosaic blocks, stuttering, etc.... much like a bad DVD reacts in a hardware DVD player.

Do you mean make the DVD in Vegas itself? I wasn't sure if you could do that (if that's what you mean). Even so, Vegas still doesn't seem to like the codec or something....

Weird, again, as the files play beautifully with an external Quicktime player, even at fullscreen. The Adobe Flash video encoder (standalone) converts it into a FLV file that also plays beautifully... but I can't import that into DVDA.

AfterEffects loads the mp4... but the video is blank, so I can't convert it using that either.

How do you get yours to work?

If you want to post a link to the mp4 that doesn't work, I'll take a look at it. The problem is almost certainly not Vegas, but the codec being used to decode the video and feed it to Vegas. YouTube videos, AFIK, are all FLVs. Certainly all of the ones I've dealt with are FLV. I wasn't aware that any of them were mp4. How are you capturing these videos? I wonder if your capture process is modifying the video? When I capture, I just copy the files from the temp folder, convert them from FLV (which Vegas -- and no other editing application -- cannot read) to HuffYUV, and then edit them.

I'm getting the videos by copying the link to 'www.keepvid.com' (which gives you the option of getting a low quality flv or a high quality mp4.

I previously tried grabbing the flv from the temp folder, but could never find where they were (...I'm using Firefox). I've now tried finding it in both Firefox and IE, but I can't seem to find the temp internet folder in XP.... In Win98 it was no problem, but I can't find any of them in XP. You know where it is?

I'll definitely have to look into that again. I hope I have something that can convert flv's...

What do you use?

First of all, keepvid.com does NOT convert the FLV files into "high quality mp4." They cannot perform that magic any more than you or I could. They simply convert to a different format and, in doing so, reduce the quality (as any re-render will). Since you are going to be re-rendering to MPEG-2 for DVD, this means you don't have control over one of the renders. So, I would opt to get the FLV files and convert them yourself with something like Total Video Converter (excellent program).

I have used keepvid.com, but it only works on some sites, and sometimes quits working when YouTube or the other sites change how they work. If you only do a little of this, all you have to do is change the settings in Windows Explorer so you can see hidden and system files. Then, you go to your system's TEMP folder after you have started to watch the video, and you will see some brand new TMP files. Wait until the video is finished downloading (which is often many minutes before it is through playing). Then, try to copy the file to another location and rename the extension to FLV. However, the file is probably locked and Windows won't let you copy it. However, if you own any backup software, you can make a temporary backup of just that one file and then restore it to a new location. Backup software is designed to copy all files, even those which are locked.

This works fine for the occasional file. However, if you are going to do a lot of this, then the program to get is WM Converter. Download the free trial and I think you will immediately see that this is the way to go. For a few extra dollars, you can get WM Converter which, while not as good as Total Video Converter, lets you convert directly to whatever format you wish to use for editing.

Thanks for the response again...

Damn... I thought the mp4 thing was it grabbing the original uploaded version, and not just using the low quality .flv.... But, I guess that makes sense.

I tried looking again for those temp files, but I still can't find anything in XP. The structure of XP is all over the place compared to Win98, which used to simply have the Temporary Internet Files folder... Firefox itself also uses a very convoluted method of caching web data. So, I have Internet Explorer installed now as well, just to try and make this less hell.

I'll check the temp folder. I was doing searches for .flv files as well as the (apparent) file name, but found nothing... I'll keep looking, and I'll check out the conversion programs you mentioned...

[Late addition...] I finally found the cache folder and the video files inside... Well, that's one part figured out... Now I just have to see if I can convert them with what I have (before committing to buying a conversion program). Flash should be able to do it (imports it fine and I can export a movie file)... but so far it runs out of memory each time for some reason. Just got to tinker with that a bit I guess...

If you ever need to find the temp folder on another computer, go to the Start button, select Run, and type:

CMD

and press Enter. At the DOS prompt, type SET and press Enter. You will find the environment variable, and you will find a TEMP= line that tells you where these files reside. You then have to enable showing hidden files and system files (Tools -> Folder Options in Windows Explorer).

Sounds like you've done that and have grabbed a few files. Remember that these are FLV files and not SWF Flash files. Others in this forum can explain the difference, but even though they are both Flash, a lot of programs which are happy with SWF, don't like FLV. The conversion program I mentioned before handles them just fine, and I think has a trial download.

It sounds like you are getting pretty close. At some point, even though free is great, it is nice to get the job done, even if you have to spend $20-30 to do it.

P.S. If you send me the URL of the video that didn't work for you (as you explained in your initial post), I'll see if I can get it to work in Vegas and then either send the file to you, or just explain how I did it. I'm doing this on a pretty regular basis for a Silicon Valley startup (yes, there are still a few startups, although about 1% of what was going on eight years ago). I can't reveal their business plan just yet, but it involves taking stock video from corporate sponsors (with their permission) and doing things with it. For demo purposes, I capture it and then the engineers do things with it, and then they go give a sales demo using the company's own footage. Since we want to do it as a "surprise" we can't just ask for it up-front and so I have to capture it from their site, edit in Vegas, etc.

That's why I am fairly current on how to do this.

You were right, it was the keepvid.com's mp4's... I tried it with the cached .flv's (converted in Flash to mov files)... and that seemed to do the trick (so far... as I haven't actually created a DVD yet). So, my original source (keepvid.com) is kind of irrelevant anyway.

Now it's just a matter of me trying to find the cache again today! XP has so many different folders and users, it's really hard to track down the internet cache. I had it yesterday, but I'm trying to do another clip now, and forgot where the cache was! So I'm hunting again...

Your project sounds cool. A friend of mine from my old filmschool days posted some movies that we worked on for our final projects. All I have of them is a (rapidly deteriorating) VHS dub, so I was glad to see a copy of it on YouTube that I could grab so I could make a DVD for my dad to see... (Heck, I could even use a DVD copy, as my VHS 'master' is starting to fall apart). Quality is not really a concern, as it's just for him to be able to watch my stuff. He doesn't have highspeed, so I figured I'd save him the grief of having to watch these on YouTube.

Thanks again for your help... I'll let you know how it goes, and if there's any other questions.

**Now it's just a matter of me trying to find the cache again today!**

You didn't say what browser you have, but try typing about:cache into the browser address.

Ya, I mentioned it's Firefox a few posts before... but I also tried IE, as I read that Firefox's system is fairly convoluted... I tried the about thing that you suggested a few posts back too... That helped me find it again (...it was just initially confusing, as there's multiple user folders, Firefox AND IE folders, plus system folders... Quite a mess, but ya the about: thing got me back on track...

So, I got all the .flv files, and was converting them using Flash... and half way though the files, I started getting bogus 'not enough memory' errors. Tried a whole bunch of tricks, but ultimately nothing worked... Only some of the parts would load and convert... Flash was crashing and giving bogus errors... Very frustrating.

But, I found a post where someone mentioned a free conversion app, so I installed that, and found it worked pretty good. Unfortunately, it wouldn't allow uncompressed formats of any type, so I just cranked the bitrates (assuming that it equated to quality.... and assuming that it would get re-compressed by DVDA anyway). Certainly was easier to convert the files than using Flash (as you just made a list, and it went through them, rather than having to manually load in each clip and set everything up each time).

So, everything seems to be ready to burn. Ya, the quality is pretty horrific, more so because of the compression (artifacting) than the scaling... but it didn't seem like I could do anything about that.

As long as it plays smoothly and without those big mosaic block artifacts, I'll be happy. It's not like it'll be played on a huge HD plasma screen...

Thanks again!

Finally got a successful DVD!

Thanks to everyone for their help!

BTW, when changing resolution (up or down) which you will obviously be doing when you go from 320x240 to 720x480 (or whatever), you will get better quality if you use "Best" for the render quality (click on the Custom button in Render As). If the blocks are already there, this won't make them disappear, but you may get smoother edges on diagonal lines and that sort of thing.