Video Time Compression with Virtualdub

[Jim Saueressig]

I know many including myself have wanted a good way to time compress video in the past that didn't cost an arm and two legs to purchase. I figured out how to do it with the free Virtualdub tonight and it was quite simple once I had it figured out.

I grabbed an old video that was laying on my drive and ran it for this result at 8x speed.



For the specifics see my Kansas Horizons Blog.

This was an HD video as well from my Pentax K-7

 

[Jason Foster]

Have you tried it with anything close to 40x or higher compressed time. This is where I've had issues with everything other than Adobe 6.0 (which is a real pain on the old, old, old (did I say old) laptop. It also won't do HD.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Have you tried it with anything close to 40x or higher compressed time. This is where I've had issues with everything other than Adobe 6.0 (which is a real pain on the old, old, old (did I say old) laptop. It also won't do HD.

No, Just figured this out tonight and I don't really have a longer video to try it with that I can think of.

Edit: It worked on my 3:14 file at 40X but it brings it to :04 seconds

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Results:

 

[Jason Foster]

Results:

Cool...good enough for me...have to try it. BTW...big thanks for actually doing a test that quick. Didn't expect that at all.

 

[Jim Saueressig]

Cool...good enough for me...have to try it. BTW...big thanks for actually doing a test that quick. Didn't expect that at all.

Not a problem, it only took a few seconds to run it. Hopefully there will be no issues with a longer file. I just know you need to be certain to compress them and shrink them after the fact.

 

[James Langford]

That's awesome Jim, thanks! I've played around a little bit with Virtual Dub, but not much. Looks like it is a pretty powerful tool.

 

[Marcus Hicks]

Thats got options I still haven't figured out yet but I do like it.

 

[Skip Talbot]

I will have to give that a shot. I've been using Vegas Pro to make my time lapses, and it maxes out at a 4x compression. So I render it once and then compress it again at another 4x to get 16x. It does a nice job blending the frames, but the two step process is cumbersome.

 

[James Langford]

I will have to give that a shot. I've been using Vegas Pro to make my time lapses, and it maxes out at a 4x compression. So I render it once and then compress it again at another 4x to get 16x. It does a nice job blending the frames, but the two step process is cumbersome.

Skip,

I'm playing around with Vegas for time lapses too. If you insert an "Event Velocity" video envelope on a clip, you can also speed up or slow down the the clip. Once the envelope is there, drag it up vertically for a speed up. Vegas creates a little arrow along the top to show you where the end of the clip now is, and you have to shorten it down to the point to keep the clip from repeating. I'm not completely sure how much it speeds it up, though.

James

 

[Jim Saueressig]

The only downside to high time compression might be loss of lightning strike frames but I believe you could re add them into the stream via virtualdub