Best audio for making video

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damianhk

Member
Is it better to use a wave file or an mp3 to make a video? I don't want it (video) to take forever to load. I'm just curious about what most video makers do, and the pros and cons of both (mp3, wave).
 
Are you talking about doing YouTube kind of videos?

Most video editing applications will take the audio you provide and when you create your final video format, they also compress/convert the audio per settings.
YouTube will do its own compression/conversion to their online format.

I recently did a couple of YouTube videos with music...so when I shot the video, I didn't want to use the sound from the crappy camera mounted mic...so I simultaneously recorded the music into my DAW...which was a CD-quality WAV format.

Then I took that audio, imported it into my video editor (Sony Vegas)...lined up the DAW audio with the existing camera mic audio...deleted the camera mic track, and was left with the WAV audio track and video.
Then I spit out the complete videos in AVI, WMV, and MPEG formats...and compared which sounded and looked the best (for some strange reason, the AVI won out, which I didn't expect....so that's what I uploaded to YouTube.

They in turn applied their own compressions/conversion to my AVI...but with YouTube, it's a streaming format...so even large files will play without waiting for a complete download.

What exactly are you looking to do with your videos/audio?

Oh...if you record the audio into a DAW...make sure the DAW is set to the same SMPTE frame rate as what your video...which is usually 29.97fps here in the USA. Most DAWs that use SMPTE tend to default to 30 fps, which makes better sense for audio since 30 fps devides perfectly into real time (60 secs) which is how music is done. If you do mix the two, there will be a very slight time difference, but for YouTube purposes or the like...I don't think it's much of an issue. It's more of a concern when doing broadcast video where the sync issue will be visible over time...like a bad Kung Fu movie. :D
 
Want to load up an audio file (for youtube), then use video clips of guitar playing, and i have sketches to add to the story. So, a mixture of guitar playing (the audio will be from the loaded file only) and sketches. I only understood some of what you explained:o, but it seems that i can go ahead and use the wave file for better quality, and everything should work?

This is all hobby stuff. I just hate it when i try to watch a video, and it keeps stopping and loading. That's what i want to avoid. Is that the video quality slowing it down, or both (audio/video)?

I'm gonna use windows movie maker. I think i can sync the clips by trimming them and/or fading them in.

Just saw your video, nice playing and clear video. It played fine for me here, no pauses. You have a mixture of live sound, and a backing track. I'm not going to attempt that method right now. Not equipped, i don't think.
 
damianhk said:
I just hate it when i try to watch a video, and it keeps stopping and loading. That's what i want to avoid. Is that the video quality slowing it down, or both (audio/video)?
Click to expand...

No...that's an Internet bandwidth issue...that's the speed of your connection and/or the amount of traffic on the Internet at any given moment.
YouTube compresses/converts to one format regardless of what you uploaded...BUT...IMO...the better the quality that you have to start with, the better it survies any/all following compressions/conversions.

The simple thing to do with slow connections is to let the YouTube video play/chug through one time even if it starts/stops...then when it gets to the end, just start playing again from the beginning and the second time it will NOT chug/start/stop...because it's "preloaded" already on your end.

How were you planning to record the video and the audio...and were you going to using any video editing software to trim/adjust the video into proper clips...add titles...etc....
...or were you going to go "raw" from the camera source file right to YouTube?
 
I just have a very cheap jcpenney camera/camcorder; it's really bad indoors, but i'm not trying to be professional. I play the loaded audio and play along with it. When i load the video clip into movie maker, i can sync the audio from the clip to the audio file by using a slider for video/audio mix. Once it's synced, i move the slider all the way to audio. I actually made a couple of vids using this method, but i forgot if i loaded an mp3 or a wave file. Here is the song that i'm adding clips and sketches to > http://www.angelfire.com/indie/damiankidder/FIHE.html



Here's a couple videos i made using recorded audio

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aFvHidjnIA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUJ_GrwMDU&feature=related
 
It really depends on what you use for editing.
I make bad vids using Windows Movie maker. It's fine for doing Utub type vids. I found that wav files aren't really compatible with WMM & nor are decent MP3s (320 or so) The best quality I was able to use that would allow me to construct a video (even there WMM prefers WMV files - not essential but less processing so I convert vid to WMV using super so life is easier) is 224kb MP3.
After that it'll depend on what quality/speed you upload serviec is.
Mine is slow & poor so I often convert the finnished vid to FLV just to make the wait a little less horrendous.
SO
audio file type/size depends on:
Video editor program's preferences
&
Internet speed
here's an example of a reasonable quality one I pulled off at that MP3 size:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tvT2Ef6mlk
Your Winter Song is quite good - both audio quality & vid quality - well done so far!
 
heh heh, fun video. I'm guessing that it took you awhile to get all that footage together. I have to admit that i'm lost when it comes to converting, flv, wmv, fps, smpte, etc. i need to take time to educate myself on this. i guess it'll take lots of trial and error, learning, reading, and maybe better equipment. Appreciate the tips. :cool:
 
I wouldn't be too concerned about all that.

Looking at your videos...I think you've a got a good handle already on what you need to do. :)
 
Ethan Winer said:
It's great to finally put a face (and nice guitar chops) to the name!
Click to expand...

Thanks for the props Ethan...though I guess old age is getting to you a bit... ;) ...'cuz we met at AES in NYC back in 2003 (or whatever year it was when you first started your Real Traps product).

But I'll cut you some slack...it was only for 5 or 10 minutes that we talked...and I'm sure my face was one of hundreds you saw that weekend. :D


damianhk said:
Just curious miroslav, what kind of camera are you using?
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It's a consumer grade digital Sony Handycam...a few years old, it uses the small DV tapes. I have access to a nice Canon digital camera, with a big lens and more of a pro-sumer grade...next time I will use that.
One thing...when I shot those two videos, it was done at night with only my small studio lights that have color gels on them (creates a nice vibe in the studio)...so the lighting was rather subdued, but that creates a nice film-like soft quality to the videos instead of the more typical hard contrast that digital video gives off when you shoot in brighter light.
 
I think that the general rule for video making is the same as that for recording.

You start by creating the best, most practical, quality, then work from there.

For example, when recording, you render or bounce to WAV, then, if you need to, you convert to MP3.

When making videos, I render to AVI, which yields good quality for making DVDs where upload times are irrelevant. If I decide to upload to Youtube, I then convert the AVI to WMV.

Like Miroslav, I use Vegas. But Windows Moviemaker is not half bad. And it is particularly good at doing file conversions. So I render a video to AVI in Vegas, then load it into WMM and convert to WMV for Youtube.

Like RayC, I have poor connection speeds, so uploading and downloading is most of the time tedious and frustrating, and seems to be getting worse (which is why I don't do that much reviewing of songs in the MP3 clinic these days). Unlike RayC, though, I have not found any compatibility issue with WAV and WMM.

This recent clip uses WAV (created in Reaper) with footage edited in Vegas, and converted to WMV in WMM:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yopNx6qu6hU
 
enjoyed that vid, smooth sound and original, because i can't think of it who it sounds like. I think the tips here will help, i definitely need another camera.
 
gecko zzed said:
When making videos, I render to AVI, which yields good quality for making DVDs where upload times are irrelevant. If I decide to upload to Youtube, I then convert the AVI to WMV.
Click to expand...

AVI, WMV, mov are container formats. What's in them could be completely different. For video, you need to take a look at the video codec (compressor) used. Mostly, it will be H264 on the input side. I don't know what Windows Movie Maker uses as an output. And most of the times, these codecs also have settings, for instance they could be using AAC or MP3 for the audio.
 
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