What's a good encoder to use to produce clean, youtube-legal movies? I'm starting with the huge AVIs Fraps generates.

To put stuff on my iPod I use Nero Recode, but it produces files with an MP4 wrapper, which I don't think will work on youtube.

What do you fellas use for this? Hopefully something free.

I have never found a way to do it, but i know a guy that does.

actually when uploading to youtube, they convert it to flv as part of the
upload process. I used DivX to encode a 200MB AVI from fraps down
to like 50MB and then uploaded to YouTube, from there the reset was
automated by the service. But that was a year ago.

Late reply:

VirtualDub + ffdshow encoder (for Divx/Xvid, whatever). I rarely compress the audio unless the file is huge.

The results are good.

I've even used windows movie maker (as terrible as it is) to shrink FRAPS avis.

You just got to make it so that it outputs to a reasonable quality file. It'll be a WMV, but youtube will still accept it.

I'll have to try out these suggestions. Although the last time I installed ffdshow, it borked my codecs pretty hard.

Thanks for the ideas, guys.

I use Adobe Premier for all my video editing...

for .avi I like divx, or cinepex codecs

by my favorite codec is sorensen3 .mov for quicktime. youtube lets you upload .mov now

but they do convert it so whatever you choose is just temporary, and to save the amount you need to upload.

I use River Past Video Cleaner Pro for most stuff. It's especially good with high-quality WMVs.

Other times I just use Adobe After Effects. Premiere would work great too. Windows Movie Maker 2 might do the trick. You could also check out TechSmith Camtasia Pro (great for awesome screen-records and simple video editing).

I used to do all of my editing and encoding with Final Cut Pro. Although, now Apple has Compressor. You might be able to get something decent out of iMovie (or Quicktime Pro).

If YouTube supports divx, you could just download the divx bundle with the free divx converter at divx.com.

Artesia wrote:
by my favorite codec is sorensen3 .mov for quicktime. youtube lets you upload .mov now

Try the H.264 mov codec. I think it has the best quality to size ratio.

ive never heard of that one, when did it come out?

I've just been compiling my animations in sorensen3 for the past 4-5 years

I've been using H.264 for 3 years. Looks like that's about how long it's been publicly available.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H.264

It can take a very long time to render out if you do a double pass. So I usually set it to do a single pass. I also set quality (# of colors) to a medium value. Also, if it's for web I always limit my framerate to 10 - 15 fps for best filesize.

cool I'll have to try that next time I render out an animation...

you can see some of my very very old work here

http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d93/V ... /?start=40

the only animation there is a scapula movement rig test

2 animations ive posted are:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NB0JrglKhzQ
a stock footage project for school, we weren't allowed to shoot additional footage, only add stuff to it.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Rg4hlEU5drE
a modelling timelapse of a skull, its currently more developed than the video shows, ive been working on it off and on for years, its still not done

I believe the first one was sorensen3 and the second was divx, but I forget

Easy way:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wygVdhVv2j0