VirtualDub, as stand-alone, cannot handle mkv, mp4, flv, mov or any other files besides avi. You need a plugin or plugins to load anything else besides avi. Mind you, VirtualDub still only can and will save in avi!

There are a couple plugins that can handle loading different files formats. For me personally only 2 come to mind:

There's my personal favorite: Ffmpeg Input Driver which can handle 31 different file formats according to the plugin developer. Among them are the popular mkv, mp4, flv, mov, rm, rvmb, wmv and ts. The plugin is based, as the name may suggest, of the ffmpeg libraries. And if something doesn't work, remember, this is a plugin still in early development stage as of 03.07.2011.

Then there's fccHandler, which can handle mpeg-2, flv, wmv, fli, flc, mkv. However fccHandler also offers the AC-3 ACM codec, which I use for sound in my videos.

Download whichever plugin you prefer, and unpack it into your VirtualDub plugin folder.

Remember however that those plugins only allow you to load said file formats. You cannot save those loaded files in mp4, mov, flv, only in avi.

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Fraps records video and audio unencoded, uncompressed, raw. That means the files are huge. 30 minutes of recorded gameplay footage are about 50-70 gigabyte large, and there's absolutely no way around that. Which brings me to my first point of this how-to: get a large HDD/SSD. I'm talking about 1 single HDD/SDD, specifically just for Fraps. 250 Gigabyte ought to do it. Recording video and audio uncompressed also means a huge tool on your computer initially.

Now, the trick is to set up your system in a way that Fraps, while recording, takes as little a tool as possible on your running game.

I have 3 HDDs. 1st HDD is partitioned in C, F, G. 2nd HDD is partitioned in E, H and 3rd HDD is unpartitioned, D. C is my System partition, H is my games partition and D is my Fraps HDD.

You see, 1 HDD for my system, 1 HDD for my games, 1 HDD for Fraps. They are all physically separated, which is imperative. Why am I doing it this way? When a game runs the read/write heads goes back and forth reading the game and deploying the data to your CPU/RAM/GPU. When Fraps records it causes the read/write heads to move around and write data on the HDD.

Now imagine you have a game running and Fraps recording on the same HDD/partition. That means the read/write head has to do double the work namely reading the game and writing the recording (in simplified terms, realistically it's more than double the work) on the HDD which in turn translates into FPS drops and "lags" in the game. And remember, recording uncompressed with Fraps already takes a huge tool on your computer.

So ideally you'd want your game running on one HDD and Fraps recording on another, physically separated, (unpartitioned) HDD. Another important point is the swap/page file. Make absolutely sure your swap/page file is not on the same HDD as Fraps or your games are. I've my swap/page file stowed on C: .

It took me a bit experimenting back then but all this lead to a more stable, even increased, FPS while a massive drop in "lags". It may not work for each and every one of you, but it did for me.

On a side note: Perhaps some of you are using SSDs and can share your experiences? I don't have a SSD, yet, so I can't say how well it works on SSDs.

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When you set the threads in the x264 codec to fully utilize your CPU, meaning all cores, and then some, you make sure the CPU is working at its maximum capacity just for video processing.

If you then add audio to the pile, the CPU just hasn't got any resources to spare, and if it does, it does a miserable job, thus resulting in lag which translates in asynchronous sound.

If that is the case, lowering the numbers of threads in the x264 codec should fix it. This way you can have both audio and video encoding in one go. I haven't tried this method, because I employ a different solution.

How I do it:

I process video and audio separately. First I encode/transcode the video, leaving the audio in its original form. Then I encode the audio and overwrite it.

Let say we have recorded a video and named this video myvideo_unedited.avi .

Transcode/Encode your myvideo_unedited.avi according to this or this BUT leave "Audio" at "Direct Stream copy". DO NOT change it like suggested in the aforementioned links and name this new video for instance transcoded-myvideo_RAWAUDIO.avi.

Now open transcoded-myvideo_RAWAUDIO.avi and set your "Video" to "Direct Stream copy". In "Audio" you set it to "Full Processing Mode". Go on and set your "Compression", "Volume", and other settings to your liking and save this new sound via "File"->"Save WAV...". The WAV-file is called the same as the video, in this case it'll be transcoded-myvideo_RAWAUDIO.wav.

Now set your "Audio" to "Direct Stream copy", and click "Audio from another file..." and select the new transcoded-myvideo_RAWAUDIO.wav and save this new video with its new audio via "File"->"Save as AVI..." and name it for example myvideo_final.avi.

You're surely asking why I'm doing this stupid extra work, when I can just lower the threads and be possibly done with it. The answer is transcoding/encoding speed. Lowering the threads in the x264 codec translates into longer transcoding time. Processing video needs much, much more time, than processing sound does.

Say for example, if I were to encode a 15 min. video, and I'd lower the threads just so I can process sound and video in one go, the whole process might take me maybe 1 hour, 30 min. If I encode video first, and leave the sound alone, the process takes me about 1 hour to complete. Then I process the sound alone which takes about 10 seconds. After that I merge both and I'm done in 1 hour and 5 min. That's 25 minutes shaved off.

Another important notice: Sometimes the sound is asynchronous when you play it in your vlc or any other player. However after you upload your video to YouTube the sound magically seems to be synchronous again. I haven't got a clue why that is but it happens sometimes.

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3. VirtualDub: How to split and merge video files

I made 2 How-to clips way back then, but somehow forgot to include them in my previous tutorials, so here they are:

How To: Split a single video file into multiple video files with VirtualDub

Click here to view the embedded video.

How To: Add multiple video files into one single one with VirtualDub

Click here to view the embedded video.

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2. VirtualDub: How to prevent asynchronous sound
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So I hit google and came up with UPX, Ultimate Packer for eXecutables. What it does, is very simple: It compresses the .exe and all the DLLs associated with said .exe! Thus reducing its total size and load time.

1. Download UPX and unpack the upx.exe into your Firefox folder, usually it's C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox.
2. Close Firefox, and make sure its not running by checking the task manager
3. Start the command prompt, the cmd.exe in ADMIN MODE!
4. go to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox in cmd.exe
5. enter this command and execute it
   for %v in (*.dll *.exe plugins\*.dll components\*.dll) do upx "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v" -9

Should you, for whatever reason, need to decompress and get the original files back, run this command
for %v in (*.dll *.exe plugins\*.dll components\*.dll) do upx "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v" -d

What does it do?
It compresses all the DLLs and all the *.exe in C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox, then it goes to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins and compresses all the DLLs, lastly it goes to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components and compresses the DLLs in there. The -9 is for the best possible compression. The -d is for decompression.

My dad's Firefox folder went from 31 MB down to 20 MB. A 35% save!

The best bit?
UPX is usable on any other application you have. As long as they have *.exe and DLLs, you can use UPX on it.

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3. Firefox 3.5 Add-Ons Round-up!

1. enter "about:config" without the " in your URL bar
2. search for "browser.privatebrowsing.autostart"
3. change false to true
4. ???
5. Profit

If browser.privatebrowsing.autostart doesn't exist, then create a new boolean string called just that and set it to true!

Enjoy!

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Now I've been using mostly VirtualDub, a superawesomewtfbbqomgz application by the way, for encoding my recorded raw footage into acceptable size and quality. The guides I wrote can be found here and here.

But that's it, VirtualDub, compared to Sony Vegas Movie Studio or even Adobe Premier it is relatively primitive in terms of effects, filters, etc. But that's ok it was never VirtualDubs intention to be a full blown editing suite like the aforementioned applications.

Lately I've been watching user-made machinimas and clips and I've found some pearls amongst them on YouTube. I liked the movie effects, the text effects, and any other effects they implemented into their movies, and I set out to try some of mine.

I set out to do very simple text- and movie-effects in Sony Vegas Movie Studios. And I recorded the steps I've done until the final product. Enjoy!

The how-to's:

Part 1/2:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 2/2:

Click here to view the embedded video.

and the final product:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Boy howdy, was I blown out of my shoes when I first started Sony Vegas Movie Studio. Dood, I tells ya, I haven't seen this many options for that many options in a long, long time.

Now I'm by no means an amateur nor a professional, I'm a full blown newbie with almost absolutely none knowledge what-so-ever. The little knowledge I've got is through trying out hundreds of different options and reading up a few guides on the internet.

So my utmost respect goes to folks who know their stuff in Adobe Premier and Sony Vegas Movie Studio.

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Well, to be honest not every add-on needs a huge code change, some of them simply need their compatibility status updated, most of them work with 3.6 anyway. At least mine do...

I wanted Identi.fox and Echofon running, which I way I turned of the Extension Compatibility Check! Here's how to force your Add-ons to work with 3.6+ betas.

1. Type "about:config" in your Firefox url bar
2. Search for "extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6b"
3. If you have this entry change it from "true" to "false"
4. If this entry doesn't exist, create it via:
5. Right click your mouse -> "new" -> "boolean"
6. Type in "extensions.checkCompatibility.3.6b" for the new entry and set it to false

This is how it looks finally:

Enjoy your add-ons, but bear in mind there's a reason that the add-on compatibility check is there!

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3. Start Up Firefox in Private Browsing mode!

How to enable it:

1. Go to google.com
2. Copy/Paste this into your web browser address field and hit enter:

   javascript:void(document.cookie="PREF=ID=20b6e4c2f44943bb:U=4bf292d46faad806:TM=1249677602:LM=1257919388:S=odm0Ys-53ZueXfZG;path=/;  domain=.google.com");

3. Reload google.com

Bear in mind, I have no idea how to revert this change. Still I like it this way much more!

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Without it you can't transfer your songs to your Sony NW-A3000 player,...or so I thought until yesterday! There are a few ways to transfer your songs to the player, let's start with the easier one, shall we?

JSymphonic, an open source application (1 file!) written in Java, thus making it platform independent. It's not fancy, it hasn't the functionality of SonicStage, but that's exactly what I did not want.

The biggest plus? JSymphonic supports up to Generation 7 of Sony's portable music players!

You can transfer your songs from/to the player, delete them, erase the whole HDD, that's it. You want more? Well, get SonicStage then. Since the whole application resembles only 1 file, you can easily place it inside the player thus being able to transfer songs from/to any computer anywhere anytime.

Note: In order to run JSymphonic you need to have Java Runtimes installed.

Now, the not so easy method!

1. Plugin your mp3-player
2. Backup your files by renaming your directory "OMGAUDIO" to something else like "OMGAUDIObackup" or copy them onto your HDD...
3. Create a new directory "OMGAUDIO"
4. If you have any mp3-player that is not protected: create a file named "nocode.txt"  inside the OMGAUDIO directory
5. If you have a protected mp3-player make sure you have at least ONE of the following:
   • MP3FM correctly installed with a MP3FM/DvId.dat file: see the official Sony page about MP3 File Manager
   • Make sure you have the decodeKey.dat from the keywizard in the directory "GYM" (Grab Your Music): more info at: http://clientes.netvisao.pt/~sonygym/index.htm
6. Download and copy ml_sony to your WinAMP-plugin folder

That's it. Now run your WinAMP and start copying to/from your Sony's mp3-player. I know a lot more work than JSymphonic, but there are folks out there using WinAMP.

Now least not last the Volume Limiter Hack!

Sony's portable music players have, by standard, a volume limiter enabled to protect you from hearing impairment. Some of you couldn't care less I presume or the normal volume is too low for you, so here's how to hack it..

Enter the test mode, but ignore step 3:

Proceed to alter the settings according to

After that turn off the mp3-player, and voilá u hasz got moar volumez!

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