Video Conversion Workaround

[Croix Noir]

The Problem
When I record anything with Fraps and import the video into Adobe Premiere (a video editor) there is no audio with the Fraps clips. It plays with audio in every other program and editor though. I did my research and it turns out this happens to everyone. Premiere and Fraps just do not like each other. There is no way to get the Fraps audio to show or play in the timeline. Premiere just can't deal with the Fraps codec. Even having the Fraps clips in the timeline can randomly bug the program.

The Workaround
After some thought, I concluded the most logical workaround would be to run the Fraps video through a video converter before importing it into Premiere. That way it wouldn't have the Fraps "smell" (codec) and would be compatible.

The Question
Can I convert AVI to AVI and lose the Fraps codec? (Convert Fraps AVI to Non-Fraps AVI) If not, can I convert it to DV-AVI and keep the game resolution and the original quality? Is there any way to lose the codec and keep the quality/resolution using a video converter?

If so, I have found the answer. Simply take the hundreds of Fraps clips, run them through the converter as a batch and spit them out clean on the other side.

Thanks for the help, I really need an efficient way to do this as I produce fan videos semi-professionally for the internet. Thanks again!

[frapsforum.com]

instead of giving a couple suggestions, I'm just going to flat out tell you how I would do it. There might be a better way but this isn't painful at all.

To Setup:


Go download virtualdub at this site: http://www.virtualdub.org/
Extract the folder from the zip and set it on your desktop, or at least make a shortcut to the VeeDub executable. (its VeeDub64 if you downloaded the 64 bit version)
Run Virtualdub, and go to File>Open Video File>YourFrapsFile.avi

Extracting Audio:


Go to Audio, then select "direct stream copy"
Go to File, select "Save Wav" and give a name to the file

You will now have a wav file with the sound from the video that you can match up inside your video editor.

Extracting Video:


Go to Video, then select "direct stream copy"
Go to Audio, then select "no audio"
Go to File, select "Save as AVI" and give it a name

Now you have a no-audio video file for editing. Note that this will retain the fraps codec. If you want to remove that and go with a more uncompressed video that editor programs might enjoy more, try this extra set of steps:

Setup:


Make sure Virtualdub isn't running
Download and install the Lagarith codec from http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html (i used the windows installer link)
Start up Virtualdub and load your movie file
Go to Video>Compression
Select Lagarith Lossless Codec
Remember to turn off audio extraction!
Go to file>Save as AVI

The footage should be slightly larger than the fraps file, but will not be using the fraps codec which sometimes causes issues.


I hope this helped some, and please let us know if this worked for you.

[Croix Noir]

Before I consider this, tell me how extracting audio from all my clips manually and saving them as separate file for each clip I have and naming/organizing them in relation to their respective clips then matching up audio and video for the hundreds of clips in the video editor by hand would be more painless than just converting all the video? There is no way I could do that...

Your second suggestion is good though, I didn't think about recompression as opposed to converting, but the main question is which is easier to do on a large scale? I need the least limiting and most flexible method. Keep in mind I am essentially doubling the size of the video I have taken which already uses multiple hard drives just to store, which means I have to delete the original video. That means the resulting video must be high-quality and true to the original or I am just breaking my video and ensuring that it will give me problems with other programs in the future. I need reusable video that I can continue to work with in all sorts of situations and won't respond badly to resizing or color correction. Essentially, I need raw and pliable footage.

Ideally I would run everything as a batch through one program overnight and have video that is better than what I recorded. (Because it is now free of a foreign codec) I could extract the audio, convert in then sew the video and audio back up together again outside the editor, but:

a. That would take at least twice as long
b. Fraps video still causes random errors and crashes in Premiere
c. The audio itself may not be the problem, but some bit of codec somewhere telling Premiere what to do with the audio file.

Thanks for the feedback though, hugely appreciated! :)

I just need one program that smoothly removes the codec while retaining the quality and resolution of the original. I had a trial for Prism (http://www.nchsoftware.com/prism/index.html) by NCH software that is an excellent video converter (in fact, if you need to convert anything go to NCH) and maybe the answer is just as simple as converting the video. Maybe I have to recompress it though...

I would love more thoughts on this, the burning question I have is whether conversion from AVI to AVI will work, or if conversion from AVI to DV-AVI (or any other "lossless" and editor-compatible format) will reduce quality/lock the resolution and aspect ratio. Premiere can handle a literal ocean of formats, it's just the unfamiliar codec Fraps uses that's the problem.

[frapsforum.com]

I just need one program that smoothly removes the codec while retaining the quality and resolution of the original.

Virtualdub has a batch function for processing folders, so doing the Lagarith encode method above, plus keeping audio set to "direct stream copy" should get you a lossless output that is slightly larger than the original file, with the original audio still present. Test a few files out in premiere and see if it gives you the kind of file you can use.

[Croix Noir]

It works! Thanks for the help, I will probably stick with Virtualdub over Prism now that I think about it.

Thanks again!

[Trackah123]

This also works.. saves alot of time.

Just import in Virtual Dub. Choose "Direct Stream Copy" for Audio and Also Video. so both of them

Then just Save it to AVI again.. this time it will work in Adobe Premiere with Audio (this worked for me, dont ask me how :)).