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[Μarkham]

Any idea on how to get video to not screw up every time I export it?  I've taken video from Camstudio and brought it into After Effects so that i can add music to it and fade it out at the end, but I keep getting the stupidest issues when exporting the video from After Effects.  Quicktime export leaves me with flashing green videos, AVI has no control over codecs and stuff, and H.264 would work except it takes the video clip I made with Camstudio and plays it twice as fast, leaving the last frame on for 2 minutes before it fades out to the logo.

Extensive Google searching has given me nothing.  What am I doing wrong?

[Strom]

Video codec  settings are a pain but you should use the xvid MPEG4 codec when using camstudio I find that works best with QuickTime.

[Μarkham]

But... that's the codec I've been using with camstudio, since the Camstudio lossless makes weird black blocks and other (different) issues when brought into After Effects.

[Martin 2BAM]

Try passing everything through ffdshow. I even do it when exporting uncompressed avi and stopped getting troubles.

I don't know if it will solve your After Effects problems, I never used it, but you could give it a try.

[Μarkham]

I converted the file through ffdshow.  Same problems.  I tried re-recording it in Camstudio using the ffdshow codec, but got an error dialog.  Reprogrammed flash game to play the background music and re-recorded with Xvid to try to use that to force After Effects to export it at the right speed (the preview shows all frames in the right place), but gave me a message stating that the audio portion was skipped because a "lack" of disk space.  I still have multiple gigs of free space.

Adobe can go die in a fire.

[aeiowu]

what kind of ram are you rocking? video will eat your computer alive.

anyway, i know nothing about camstudio (is that a screen cap app?) but the raw footage shouldn't be an issue. it's never been an issue for me. In AE did you check your composition settings and make sure your frame rate is where you want it and all that good stuff? I'd recommend exporting in MPEG4 with .h264, but it seems that's not working. Maybe you could do a workaround and export as .mov (highest settings) and then reimport it to AE and then try exporting _that_ from AE with a reduced MPEG4 version.

I'd recommend doing a small bit of debug. Perhaps taking a video with your digi camera or webcame or something. Just like 3 seconds of video or something. Throwing that raw file into AE and see if you have the same problems.

Also... what version of AE are you running?

[bateleur]

I'm no After Effects expert, but since it doesn't seem likely there are many of those here I'll make a few suggestions anyway (I do use the package)...

1) Select "Composition Settings" (for example, from the menu in the top corner of the Composition window).

2) Make sure the dimensions of the Composition are set as you want them, that the pixel aspect ratio is set to "square pixels", that the frame rate is set to whatever you want the output to run at (not whatever your input is in), that the start timecode is zeroed and that the end timecode corresponds to the length of the clip (note: fractional seconds are not hundredths, the denominator is the frames per second).

3) With the Composition selected, choose "Make Movie" from the Composition menu. This will add your clip to the Render Queue. DO NOT render it yet.

4) In the Render Queue, click on the output module entry (probably yellow and underlined, probably currently set to "Lossless").

5) Change the output format to FLV (never use any other format unless you're forced to). Ensure the Video Output is ticked and set to RGB/"Millions of colours"/Premultiplied. Ensure the "Audio Output" is ticked (note: it isn't by default) and set to 48000 kHZ, 16 bit, Stereo.

6) If required, click on the "Output To" setting and make sure it's going to save it somewhere sensible.

7) Save the Project, then hit the "Render" button for the Render Queue.

Wait for (probably) a long time. (Sorry about the "cool smiley"... it's number "8"!)

9) Check the output FLV in Adobe Media Player. (No, not your favourite playback software, always start by checking it with Adobe Media Player.)

10) After Effects doesn't do anything special with disk management, so the only way to get a "lack of disk space" error is if it's getting an error back from the OS. Is it possible your disk is extremely fragmented or suffering from high latency?

[Μarkham]

I am running 3 gigs of DDR 400 ram.  My board can handle 4 gigs, but 32-bit Windows XP wouldn't really use more than what I have.

I am using the latest update of CS4.  OpenGL settings are off.
The problems also happen in Adobe Media Encoder.
The source video is 30 FPS, the Composition is 30 FPS, and the export settings are set for 30 FPS.
I tried a new composition with a video clip taken from my camera, and the same problems happen there.


This is an abstraction of the most common problem:

    Composition as viewed in the preview window, or source video as seen in video player:
    [Beginning          Middle             End (After Effects fade out to logo PNG)]
    Result through After Effects and Adobe Media Encoder:
    [Beginning Middle End                      (After Effects fade out to logo PNG)]

No matter what, the total length of the video clip is the same, as is the clip's frame rate.  The programs seem to drop half the frames and hold the last frame for the rest of the movie.

Sometimes the resulting video will flash green frames all over the place.

I've also found that by setting the export frame rate at 29.97FPS, all frames are included, just not the way anyone would reasonably want - the frames are dropped like usual, but it will randomly go back and play those dropped frames in the exported video, so things appear to play multiple times at random.

[bateleur]

Ewww!

I sounds like the clip you're importing has had some kind of weird framerate pulldown applied to it. Certainly it's not really at 30fps, even if something has told you it is.

Do you have the option to produce/export it in some much less processed format in preference to H.264? You said AVI was bad due to "no control over codecs", but I'm not quite sure what you mean there. Camstudio -> AVI -> After Effects -> FLV is the workflow I would use myself under WinXP.

[aeiowu]

i would try resetting AE back to default settings. If that doesn't work, try reinstalling after effects. Sounds like something very bad-wrong is wrong with your copy of AE.

[Dhomochevsky]

Camstudio -> AVI -> After Effects -> FLV is the workflow I would use myself under WinXP.

i do:
everything->after effects->avi->premiere->some other codec

but maybe premiere is not an option, right?

[Μarkham]

Tried Adobe Media Encoder on my laptop.  Same issues.  I'm thinking it's Camstudio's fault now.  I just noticed the "Actual Input Rate" line, and it seems I can't get higher than 22.3 FPS on that at a size of 720x404.  I can't even get 30FPS on that line on sizes higher than 200x112, even. 

[Μarkham]

Any idea if the "Actual input rate" has effect on the rate Camstudio records, and how to get it up to the actual desired frame rate if it is?  When I set the frame rate to 30, the actual input rate is around 20.3, but when I set the frame rate to 20, the input rate drops to 12.

[inkBot]

How long is the video you're trying to render? We heard from our teacher that After Effects was not intended for long running videos and that things would get mucky, or not work at all, after the 5 minute mark. This was two years ago so it may be obsolete, I've only brushed a little on AE CS4. AE use up a lot of power and it's possible that too long videos can get rendered badly, try exporting a short test of what you want to do, if the problem persists I'd agree on the re-install advice.

AE does seem to be a bit on the heavy side if all you want to do is add sound and a fade-out though.

Edit:
A google poke got me this, I think your problem is similar to the one presented here:
http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/2/936637

Judging from that I think the problem is your ingoing codec, not the one you want to export to.

Edit2:
Some slouthing uncovered the term intra-frame, which is, supposedly, how AE works. With intra-frame each frame is treated as a separate picture whereas inter-frame, the one used with most compression codecs like MPEG, does the opposite, which supposedly doesn't work right with AE and throws it off producing rendering errors. One inter-frame codec is MJPG, try exporting your video with that codec before importing it to AE.

I also found a list of supported formats for import. You probably have seen it but I'm going to post the link here just in case.
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/AfterEffects/9.0/WSB108BC99-A69B-46c4-86D3-2192805C2AF8a.html

Hope that helps.

Otherwise, just use Premiere

[agj]

Premiere has the same problems.

Transcode your file to DV AVI. I use MediaCoder.

5) Change the output format to FLV (never use any other format unless you're forced to).

I guess you're just considering uploading the resulting video to Youtube? Otherwise, why FLV?

[Bones]

Now, I don't condone "pirating" software... but.
All I can say is using After Effects specifically for adding music is quite a waste of resources.
Also switching between Camstudio and After Effects just sounds like a pain really.

Personally, for all my recording needs I use Camtasia Studio.
It's better then Camstudio as it has a screen recorder, which you can then take into their Editor which has some great resolution options for either digital video or youtube resolution.
In the editor it has a zoom in feature in case you want to show off a certain close up of a game or something, I find that handy.

Either way your using After Effects for a pretty weak feature from it.
After Effects takes a while to open on my computer, so it seems like it'd be a long waste of time just to use it to add music to a composition, considering Windows Movie Maker can do the same thing.

[Μarkham]

I have a lot more uses for After Effects than just adding music.  Primarily, I'm an animator, not a game developer.  I tried the demo of Camtasia Studio, but it kept dropping frames when I recorded.  Windows Movie Maker is retarded.

Edit2:
Some slouthing uncovered the term intra-frame, which is, supposedly, how AE works. With intra-frame each frame is treated as a separate picture whereas inter-frame, the one used with most compression codecs like MPEG, does the opposite, which supposedly doesn't work right with AE and throws it off producing rendering errors. One inter-frame codec is MJPG, try exporting your video with that codec before importing it to AE.

MJPG actually worked right, despite artifacts from compression.  I tried no compression, but it gave me a corrupted file.
The result:




Thanks for the help, everyone. 

[Bones]

Well you had mentioned Camstudio + After Effects so I was to assume all you'd be doing is adding music to a screen capture.
Not animating on top of a screen capture.
I know what after effects is for, I just don't find it useful if all I'm doing is adding music is all.

I use after effects for special effects on videos and such, but couldn't see myself using it simply for a screen capture of any game footage I might have.
Since I doubt you'd animate on top of gameplay footage, though I may be wrong.

I haven't experienced any kind of frame drop from Camtasia, I have the full version so I'm not sure if the demo works 100% or not.
In fact out of all the recording software I've come across this is one of the least laggiest that I've found.

Before Camtasia I was using fraps to screen capture record for a while, but the resolution of the videos was so small it was ridiculous.



As you can see by the following youtube video the resolution was crap.

If I recall the last video I recorded with CamStudio was extremely laggy which is what made me try and find a different program.




I used Camstudio before Camtasia, can't say anything bad about it, as it worked decently while I had used it.
I just hated having to goto After Effects or Movie Maker (horrible quality saving) just so I could add music.

The fact that Camtasia is both a recorder and an editing software is what made me get it.

[inkBot]

Happy to help out

The music in the video sounds like it was made with a Kaossilator, was it?