Using Video Game Footage - Part 3

Cleaning

Frame Rate

Your final frame rate chosen for the video project might be different than the original frame rate in the clips. The only stand alone frame rate conversion program that I have found was incredibly expensive but would do the “tweening” between frames to make things incredibly smooth. What I have found was to simply rely on the editing package to handle it, unless you have an obscene amount of money.

Size and scaling discussions

When we do the video clean up and the editing, there will be 3 resize steps. The actual resolutions chosen for these resize steps are the first choices you have to make, and will subtly effect your final video. You are going to have to decide on whether you stretch the videos, letter-box them, or apply other size and scaling considerations. No matter the resolution chosen, the stepping of them is 16x, 4x, and 1x.

When deciding the sizes to scale to, there are a couple of options. First is to base everything on the original size of the video. Every video will first be scaled up 16 times its original size, filters applied, then scaled down to four times its original, edited, and then scaled down to its original. This works when all of the clips are the same resolution. The video is not letter boxed, is not stretched, and when done matches its original properties.

The second is to homogenize all of the resolutions to the most common of the original. For instance if you have a source that has resolutions of 320x240 and 204x160, you would scale up all of the videos along the stepping of one of them. Care has to be chosen in which of the resolutions to choose from since videos with a smaller resolution might not scale properly and look funny or the larger ones might lose detail if brought down. Also when scaling a video to a resolution that does not have the same aspect of its original, you have to decide if you are going to scale to fit or maintain the original aspect ratio. Each has its advantages and must be decided on a case-by-case basis.

The third is a derivation of the second. Instead of choosing a resolution of one of the original clips, an externally decided resolution is chosen. Most examples of this would be to choose 352x240 as the base resolution for the stepping, since it is the standard VCD resolution. This can be used when you know what you want your final resolution to be and exposes scaling flaws early so they can be worked out quickly. More so then with the second option, you will have to decide on whether to scale to fit, or maintain the original aspect ratio.

For choosing the resizing filter, Resize or Smart Resize, both use the same core logic so only the interface should differentiate which filter to use. No matter the filter always choose “precise bicubic” for the filter mode. This is the slowest, but is the highest quality way to scale the video. With Resize you will have to figure out the numbers and the resolutions used, whereas Smart Resize has options to simply scale versus the original or scale to a set resolution, with or without letterboxing.

Now for my personal preference, and this is something you should decide on your own. I prefer to use a standard resolution, and scale all of the videos along that resolution, letter boxing it…. Kind of… What I prefer to do is choose the standard resolution of 352x240, which makes my initial resolution 1408x960 and my post filter resolution 704x480. If black bars appear on the left and right instead of top and bottom when the original video is letterboxed, I don’t letterbox. That is my standard for things, and you should decide for your self what you want to do. In my examples I am going to use this method of things, and use the Resize filter (not Smart Resize).