How to: Create, Edit, and Encode Game Videos

So you want to create awesome gameplay videos for free? Well, you have your work cut out for you. If all you want to do it combine or encode a few nice clips you captured with Fraps, it shouldn’t be too hard. If you are interested in creating a finely edited HD quality video, it can be done, but will prove much more difficult.

This installment in Game Central’s how-to series will take you from capturing, to editing, to encoding, and finally uploading. The only stipulation is that the tools used are entirely FREE. While the actual game footage can be captured easily for free, it is not so easy to find free video editing software.

Capturing

To capture game video, you need a tool like Fraps or Xfire. Alternatively, WeGame is a semi-popular new service that supposedly captures, encodes, and uploads videos in high definition. Unfortunately, their client would not run on my PC running 64-bit Vista or 64-bit Win7. Additional, their support for this issue leaves something to be desired. Until it works on my machine, I cannot review it, let alone recommend it. That said, Fraps and Xfire are both great options. Although I only started using it recently, I much prefer Xfire, if the game you are using supports it. Personally, I did not run into any games that had trouble allowing me to capture video with Xfire. There are two main benefits. First, there is no capture length limitation in the Xfire. Fraps’ free version has a 30 second time limit. Second, the Xfire interface displays the length and size of the video at the top of the screen while capturing; while this isn’t strictly necessary, it is nice to see. Another Xfire bonus is the option to quickly encode and upload a video right from the application. You don’t get the option to edit or have much control over the video encoding options, but it is fast and easy.

To capture video, just download either program. Once the application is installed (with Xfire you do have to create an Xfire account), launch them and check out the Options screen. Both applications have very similar options. The important things to change are the destination folder, the frame rate, and the capture size. The best results are to be had when you record to a secondary hard drive, if possible, and at 30 frames per second.

For general use, half-resolution usually has less impact on game performance. With a mid-range to high-end rig, you should be able to capture and maintain 30 frames per second from any game where you normally get at least 60 fps. These tools capture uncompressed AVI video files, so the filesize will get large in a hurry. Depending on resolution figure, it is usually close to two minutes of video per gigabyte. If you plan on creating an HD video for YouTube upload, you will want to change your game resolution to 1280×720 and capture at full resolution for the best quality. Because this is the resolution you will encode and upload at for YouTube HD, you should capture at that resolution or higher for the source material. However, running at higher resolutions generally slows things down.

Now that you know all the settings, that just leaves getting the right content. Of course you can just press the “Start Recording” shortcut key in game and hope you get something good, but my favorite method is to record a demo, or save a replay, and then record the video after the fact. With this method, you can often utilize the in game camera controls more effectively, and the reduced CPU load when playing back a replay or demo file will make for a smoother frame rate for your capture. For this article, I utilized the demo recording and playback capabilities of the Source engine in Left4Dead.

Editing

Free video editing tools are the clear weak link in this chain. I have yet to find a good editing tool that is free and capable of creating HD quality content. If all you want to do is splice together several clips from a number of different videos, you can do that fairly easily (this will be addressed in the Encoding section). If you want to use a timeline based user interface to put together a more professional video with titles and transitions, you may be disappointed with the free tools that are out there.

Windows Movie Maker is the first option people generally look to when they think of free video editors on Windows. While it does have some rudimentary features, the future of that application looks bleak. I am currently running on Windows 7, and the Windows Live Essentials version of Movie Maker is still in beta; although things will without a doubt change before the final release, the software is quite pathetic in its current form. You can only output in WMV format and only at resolutions of 640×480 or 320×240. So if you are on Windows 7, Movie Maker is out. For Vista it is an option, but the free editing tool I recommend is Pinnacle Video Spin. The software is easy to use, and well featured. There are a wide variety of output options, and it allows you to output at resolutions of up to 800×448 for 16:9 aspect ratio content. While this resolution is clearly not desireable for creating YouTube HD content, it is not terrible.

The great thing about Video Spin is the interface. The basic timeline layout allows you to mix scenes together easily, and add title overlays to your video. The title creator is amazingly full featured for a free software, and it includes the most frequently used video transitions. Additionally, it is easy to add additional audio tracks with sound effects, many of which are included with the software, and soundtracks. This is the software to use if you want to create more of a production, rather than just game footage, for free.

One additional note on Video Spin, if you can, work with videos that are already at the resolution you want to output. Either resize videos before you edit (more on this later) or capture at 800×448 (to do this, the game you capture from will need to support custom defined resolutions, most do). The resizing algorithm used by VideoSpin induces noticeable artifacts that looks a bit like interlacing. The program has the option to do progressive output, but only when encoding as an h.264 MPEG-4 (MP4). A note on file format and codecs; h.264 is the compression-decrompression (codec), and MPEG-4 is the file wrapper, or file type.

When you are through editing, you need to output your file. If you are using VideoSpin, or any other application that cannot output a 1280×720 MP4 file, you should output as an uncompressed AVI. This will allow the compressing encoder to have the most data to work with. If you encode multiple times with an encoder that produces compressed output (h.264 MP4 for example), the quality will degrade with every recode.

Encoding

While there are many free tools out there for encoding video, there are only a few that are easy to use specifically for game footage. Fraps, in particular, is difficult to deal with. Many video encoding applications do not work nicely with its proprietary codec. For this and several other reason, I am recommending MediaCoder as the free tool of choice for encoding. MediaCoder provides an easy to understand UI, and a useful Setup Wizard. It also has the ability to do some rough editing; it is possible (but not all together easy) to cut out unwanted portions of videos and then patch multiple clips together.

First, lets get through the basics. Download MediaCoder, and install it (there is also an add-on for 64-bit operating systems). When you first run, a website will launch (loaded with ads) to help you configure. Within all those banner ads (they have to pay the bills somehow) is actually a useful setup tool. Once in the setup wizard, it will first ask you what mode you prefer, Normal or Advanced, I chose normal.

For the rest of the setup, follow these choices if you want to encode for YouTube HD:
2: Audio and Video mode;
3: a) Yes, b) 1280×720;
4: Yes, 30fps;
5: h.264;
6: High Profile;
7: Bitrate-based, 2Mbps;
8: mp4;
9: AAC, quality mode, higher quality;
10: Audio Sample Rate, no;
11: Audio Channel-Yes, Stereo.

That may seem complicated, but if you read it while going through the setup wizard it will make sense. These settings can be changed, but they will get you started. The assisted setup is nice, because it covers all the essentials, and without it, it is easy to forget something when using a new application for the first time. Once you close the Setup Wizard, MediaCoder will appear. Once it does, you can add you edited file or raw game video file, confirm that the destination folder is correct, and just hit go.

Trimming clips – In MediaCoder, it is possible to trim and combine multiple clips, but it requires some patience. I have found that it is much easier to use a separate application, the well known VirtualDub. Why not use VirtualDub for the transcoding also? Well, you can, but with MediaCoder the x264 codec is built in, and the guided Setup Wizard helps you choose the right resolution and framerate for YouTube HD. Additionally, MediaCoder encodes faster. To edit in VirtualDub is quite easy. You mark in and out points and then click Edit and Cut. You can append other clips, and cut out whatever you don’t want. Then just make sure the Audio and Video are set to “Stream Copy” and choose “Save As AVI” from the file menu. This will not recode any video or audio, it just trims off the portions of the clip you do not want. Now just open the file you saved in MediaCoder and then hit the Start button.

Resizing clips – If you are looking to put together the finest quality you can with VideoSpin as your editing tool, you may want to resize your clips before editing to avoid unnecessary quality drop because of poor resizing algorithms. Simply use MediaCoder in it’s stream copy mode and choose the resolution manually (again, 800×448 is the maximum 16:9 ratio that VideoSpin will output). This is an extra step that is really not necessary unless you are looking to squeeze every possible bit of quality from VideoSpin.

Adding titles – If HD output is a must, and you still want title screens, hope is not lost. You can add images to VirtualDub and MediaCoder. VirtualDub’s interface makes this task easier, put it takes some work to get it right. Just choose add video, but select any PNG file you previously created with the title on it. Virtual Dub will add this as a single frame, you need to then copy and paste it as many times as needed to create the length you desire. Remember, you are generally using 30 frames per second. This is a tedious task, and certainly one that is generally not worth doing unless you are determined not to pay anything for your high-def video production needs.

Uploading

If you encode a video with MediaCoder using the above settings, your output will be about 15-20 MB per minute of video. the YouTube maximum is 10 minutes, so figure on a 200 MB upload for that length. This isn’t exactly tiny, but remember this is HD resolution. A one megabit upload is a pretty standard highspeed cable connection these days, and on that 200 MB will take around 25 minutes to upload. Again, this is assuming a 10 minute long movie.

The Easy Way

If you decide to give Xfire a try, they have a very simple way to get game footage online quickly. When you capture in game, and then exit or ‘alt-tab’ back to your desktop, the application will prompt you to tell you that you recorded a video. You can then right click any “Source Video” on the Video tab and choose upload. The application will transcode the video and upload it to your Xfire page, which you can access by double clicking any video listed under “Remote Videos” on the Xfire window. While this will be no where near the quality of the video on YouTube HD, it is a very fast, and simple solution. This is by far the easiest way to get game footage up on the web for all to see.

Quick and dirty

If you are interested in getting a clip up onto YouTube in HD quickly, and with minimal editing, use only Fraps or Xfire with MediaCoder to compress. You can trim the captured clip with MediaCoder using the “Time” tab, and output it using the settings we selected previously. MediaCoder provides a very high-quality output and transcodes very quickly.

Sample videos

The following are two samples. They were both generated from the same 1280×720 source videos captured with the free edition of Fraps. The first was edited in Video Spin, where titles and transition effects were added. The second was edited to contain the same clips in MediaCoder, but there are no titles or transitions. The Video Spin file was saved as uncompressed AVI at 800×448 resolution (again to maintain the 16:9 aspect ratio) and then upscaled to 720p (1280×720, the resolution required for YouTube HD) with MediaCoder. Upscaling to 720p does not add any quality, it just allows you to take advantage of YouTube HD’s high bitrate.

Conclusion

The truth is, creating a nicely edited high definition video is hard to do for free. The real problem is that there just are not any great free tools I have found that can add slick effects, transitions, soundtracks, and title overlays and output with HD quality. VideoSpin is excellent, but its output quality leaves a lot to be desired. Another great tool, which has a free version and utilizes GPU acceleration; it is called LoiLoScope. The free version is limited to low resolution output to YouTube only, but the interface is very cool. Because it is GPU accelerated, it is the most slick video editing tool I have ever used. You really have to try it to get the experience. The full version is around $70, so it is on the low cost side of video editing solutions. One additional low-priced solution is Sony Vegas, which can usually be found for under $100 on Amazon.com. Sony Vegas will allow you to edit and add titles, and then output with full resolution as an MP4, or even as an uncompressed AVI to be transcoded with MediaCoder if you desire (the output quality from Vegas is inferior to MediaCoder at 2 Mbps). With free tools it is possible and even easy to get game footage onto YouTube in glorious HD, but unless you can settle for DVD resolution, it is quite difficult to create a nicely edited high-def film with slick transitions and fancy title overlays.