Vidding Resources

All resources listed here are freeware, shareware, have free trial offers, or come bundled with your Operating System (OS).

  1. Quick Start
  2. Getting Started
  3. Cross Platform Essentials
  4. Sites and Comms
  5. Individual vidders
  6. Windows
  7. MacOSX
  8. Linux

    9. Wha..?

    Vidding is a fannish form of storytelling using music and video. Essentially, you set clips from your show to music. Hurray! Vidding is a strictly non-profit activity, but, nevertheless, could be argued to be a form of copyright infringement (of the song), which is a reality you should really consider seriously before deciding to have a go.

    There's a Vidding for Newbies post on Permetaform's LJ and her Newbie Guide is on the newbie_guide community. And there are lots of resources on the LJ community Vidding. In fact, there are absolutely loads of resources for the newbie vidder all over the place and I'm not sure we need another but, well, I couldn't exactly write a resource page for the veteran vidder. *g*

    Sometimes LJ might give you the impression that vidding is hard, a veritable minefield of legal, technical, and social missteps, and that maybe you should just give up now! But, no! Wait! Come back! Vidding is great fun; anyone with a half decent computer can have a go and if it's crap, who cares, right? You'll get better at it, and it's a laugh anyway.

    Windows Quick Start: [player: VLC] [edit audio: Audacity] [codec pack: KLite] [process/encode/capture video: VirtualDub] [edit video: WMM] full

    Mac OSX Quick Start: [player: VLC] [edit audio: Audacity] [capture video: Handbrake] [process video: MPeg StreamClip] [codec pack: Perian] [edit video: Hyper Engine AV] full

    Linux Quick Start: [player: VLC] [edit audio: Audacity] [capture video: Kino] [edit video: Cinelerra] full

    Getting Started

    1. Design your workflow
    2. Find a song on iTunes »
    3. Find Lyrics: »
    4. Plan timeline »
    5. Collect source from DVD or .AVI »
    6. Preprocessing: Prepare clips »
    7. Preprocessing: Edit your audio »
    8. Edit together audio and video (make the damn thing) »
    9. Postproduction: add titles etc »
    10. Postproduction: Encode for distribution »

    A workflow is basically the order in which you do things, what goes where. Everyone's will be different, but here's a printable planner that might be helpful.

    My workflow is a bit like this at the moment:

    iTunes »Firefox »Pen and Paper »Quicktime »ImageReady »Photoshop »After Effects »Quicktime

    I nest the folder for each step in the folder for the step before it, so it's easy to track back to earlier ideas and to see where I am in the vid. And then, when I make a mistake, I never need to go farther than one step back. I group my files by type within this structure, to mirror the organisation I use in my main vidding app. It helps me navigate my files (which is sort of what a vid is, a really complicated path through files) dead easily.

    Anyway! Onward! To the software! Don't be scared. You only need to read the section for your operating system. If you don't know what your OS is, it's Windows. [Jump to Mac OSX] [Jump to Linux]

Windows [quickstart]

Get your source: capturing and ripping

The VideoDownloader Firefox extension will download video from most video sites (YouTube, Google, etc) with just one click. [Get Firefox]

You can rip from DVD using the command line or using various freeware apps. The best one changes frequently, and my information is probably out of date, so I'm linking Doom9's Ripping FAQ instead of a specific program.

Read your source: codecs

The Wikipedia entry has a lot of detailed information, but for now you need only this: All video and audio files are encoded with a codec. You need to have the right codec to play your file.

You can find out everything you need to know about a file using G-Spot.

Download the KLite codec pack. G-Spot is often included in this pack.

If you still need help you can find most codecs listed on Omiod.

Preprocessing: clipping, encoding etc

You may need to cut down your files before importing them into your video editor, especially if you have limited hard drive space. Virtual Dub is a great, stable, fast video capture and processing application for Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000 and XP. You can make clips, strip audio, and more. Check the website for more help, or check out the digital video links at the bottom of this page.

Audacity is a simple, relatively intuitive audio file editor. Shorten, stitch, remix or dub with this multitrack waveform editor.

The main event: editing footage

Windows Movie Maker is a free drag and drop video editor that comes bundled with all newer versions of the Windows OS. The Wikipedia entry is very helpful and has links to many more resources, including tutorials. The LJ vidding community seems to use this program a lot and if you check the vidding memories you'll find lots of posts about it.

Adobe Premiere and After Effects are two very powerful, professional video processing applications and you can try them free for 30 days. The help files are extensive and the online forums and tutorials are a great resource. You might also like to check out Creative Cow, for tutorials, podcasts and support forums.

Other popular video editors include: Sony Vegas [time limited trial], Ulead VideoStudio [time limited trial] and WAX [freeware] but I have not ever used these programs so I can't comment on them. I did try Zwei-Stein's [freeware] universal binary and I found it to be a total nightmare and I do not recommend it all.

Editing still frames

At some point you may want to edit specific frames, and for this you need image editing software. Ideally this would be Adobe Creative Suite 2 (CS2), comprising: Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Illustrator CS2, Adobe InDesign CS2, Adobe GoLive CS2, Adobe Acrobat 8 Professional, and Version Cue CS2 software. You can download a free 30 day trial from the website. The LJ community icon_tutorial has a huge amount of resources and many thousands of members willing to help with questions. In After Effects you can save frames as Photoshop documents (.psd), flip into Photoshop to edit, then reimport into After Effects and use the document as a frame or as a sequence of frames. It's like magic! ImageReady can open video files and save them as .psds with each frame as a layer. Here's a tutorial on how to do that.

GIMP is a free, still image manipulation application (how you make icons). It's not as good as Photoshop but then, nothing is, dammit. But it will do the job and it's open source. Check the website or icon_tutorial on LJ for tutorials.

Playing your vid

VLC is the most reliable and versatile free audio/video player.

More

If you want to make your own music, Sony's Acid XPress is a free version of their loop editor. "Paint" with sound - loop beats and instruments to make original tracks. Windows 98/Me/2000/XP

Footage locked up in your head? Anime Studio (formerly Moho) was a pretty decent animation studio with a good discussion and support forum last time I tried it. It has a free trial version linked on the front page. Universal binary.

For a different approach, VeeJay is a loop-based system for live video mix and scratch performances. VeeJay is experimental software and you need to compile it for your system from source code. This is not recommended for beginners and I have not yet tested this software so, you know, at your own risk.

Mac OSX [quickstart]

Get your source: capturing and ripping

Handbrake, DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter. Rips any DVD-like source, even encrypted.

The VideoDownloader Firefox extension will download video from most video sites (YouTube, Google, etc) with just one click. [Get Firefox]

PodTube, download, encode to MPEG4, and add to your iTunes library any YouTube video you are viewing with Safari.

Transmission is my favourite bitTorrent client. Simple, powerful, stable and free. <3 Universal Binary

Read your footage: codecs

The Wikipedia entry has a lot of detailed information, but for now you need only this: All video and audio files are encoded with a codec. You need to have the right codec to play your file. Macs call different codec families media "components" and they go in your Quicktime library:

Hard Disk > Library > Quicktime > codec.component.

Perian, the Swiss Army knife of Quicktime.

Flip4Mac, a windows media component, for playing wmv files. Just download and doubleclick to install. The "export to .wmv" function is hobbled in the free version but who cares, right? It's a crap format anyway. You can control Flip4Mac in System Preferences.

DivX, a very common codec. Macs have had a troubled relationship with DivX but apparently it is all betters with DivX 6.2/ Quicktime 7/ Mac OS 10.3.9 .

Downsize this: clipping footage

You can use MPeg Streamclip to: open most movie formats including MPEG files or transport streams; play them at full screen; edit them with Cut, Copy, Paste, and Trim; set In/Out points and convert them into muxed or demuxed files, or export them to QuickTime, AVI, DV and MPEG-4 files with more than professional quality, so you can easily import them in Final Cut Pro, DVD Studio Pro, Toast 6 or 7, and use them with many other applications or devices.

Audacity is a simple, relatively intuitive (audio file) application. Shorten, stitch, remix or dub with this multitrack waveform editor.

The main event: editing footage

Hyper Engine AV is an amazing, freeware, non-linear video editor. I've tried it out and I recommend it, especially for the newbie vidder who will have the advantage of not being set in their vidding ways. It's a small program, less than 20mb, so it's great for laptops with limited space. Import .mov clips, .jps, .mp3s and then just collage them on the board however you like. Live editing and instant playback.

Adobe After Effects is a very powerful, professional video processing application and you can try it free for 30 days. After Effects is geared towards post-production but it is possible to make your entire vid in this program. I'm deeply in love with this app. The help files are extensive and the online forums and tutorials are a great resource. You might also like to check out Creative Cow, for tutorials, podcasts and support forums.

iMovie is bundled with many newer Macs, which is why I've included it here (unlike Final Cut, which has no free or trial options at all). It's a simple drag and drop video editor with one video track and two audio tracks. Apple provides a heap of free plugins and downloads. This brilliant tutorial should get you started and this unofficial FAQ should keep you from tearing your hair out when you hit problems.

Editing still frames

At some point you may want to edit specific frames, and for this you need image editing software. Ideally this would be Adobe Creative Suite 2 (CS3). You can download a free 30 day trial from the website. The LJ community icon_tutorial has a huge amount of resources and many thousands of members willing to help with questions. In After Effects you can save frames as Photoshop documents (.psd), flip into Photoshop to edit, then reimport into After Effects and use the document as a frame, or as a sequence of frames. It's like magic! ImageReady can open video files and save them as .psds with each frame as a layer. Here's a tutorial on how to do that.

GIMP is a free, still image manipulation application (how you make icons). It's not as good as Photoshop, but nothing is; it will do the job and it's open source. Check the website or icon_tutorial on LJ for tutorials.

Seashore is a brilliant little app, er: Seashore is an open source image editor for Cocoa. It features gradients, textures and anti-aliasing for both text and brush strokes. It supports multiple layers and alpha channel editing. A free, simple and usable image editor that serves the needs of most computer users. This is much more newbie-friendly than the Gimp.

Playing your vid

VLC is the most reliable and versatile free audio/video player.

More

If you want to make your own music, GarageBand comes bundled with Mac OSX Tiger. It's a crazily intuitive loop-based audio editor. Mix live performance tracks with preloaded loops and beats to make your own basic tunes in minutes. [screencast about Garageband]

DJay is a two-deck and mixer interface for live mix and scratch audio performance. I like it a lot.

Footage locked up in your head? Anime Studio (formerly Moho) was a pretty decent animation studio with a good discussion and support forum last time I tried it. It has a free trial version linked on the front page. Universal binary.

For a different approach, VeeJay is a loop-based system for live video mix and scratch performances. VeeJay is experimental software and you need to compile it for your system from source code. This is not recommended for beginners and I have not yet tested this software so, you know, at your own risk.

Free up space on your hard drive with Disc InventoryX. This will generate a colour-coded visualisation of everything on your hard drive so you can target and delete all those logs, caches, and other bed blockers. Please read this article carefully before you delete anything.

Mac OSX is UNIX based and so has a lot of periodic maintenance tasks scheduled to run at night, when your UNIX server is less active. If you have a pretty little snow laptop, however, you probably turn it off at night and so these tasks don't get completed. You can reschedule these tasks via the terminal, but MacJanitor is a smart little GUI to help you keep your Mac happy and healthy without typing a line of code.

I actually use Cocktail to maintain my computers. This is the application I recommend every Mac user get, and buy, if you can afford it. It's fifteen squid.

At some point, usually about five-sixths of the way through your vid, you will bugger your computer. Install AppleJack, do it now, and then read this article on macfixit.

Linux Distros [quickstart]

If you're using Linux you probably don't need this guide, and I don't vid with my Ubuntu, so this section is slim. I could reduce it to one sentence really: Run Ultamatix and choose from the sound and video category. The End. (Ubuntu 8.04) The Linux Digital Video site has some good support. Also maybe Dugan Chen's fan vidz on Linux tutorial (Slackware).

Read your source: codecs

The Wikipedia entry has a lot of detailed information, but for now you need only this: All video and audio files are encoded with a codec. The good people at MPlayer can help you install what you need.

Capturing, ripping, clipping

The VideoDownloader Firefox extension will download video from most video sites (YouTube, Google, etc) with just one click. [Get Firefox]

Kino: wget http://superb-west.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/kino/kino-0.9.2.tar.gz

If you don't know how to install this software on your linux of choice, google sudo apt-get kino. If that's no help, try posting on your support forum. And if that doesn't help, then switch to Ubuntu! There's a user tutorial here. This guy has also precompiled some binaries, because he's clearly d00dular.

Audacity is a simple, relatively intuitive audio file editor. Shorten, stitch, remix or dub with this multitrack waveform editor.

The main event: editing footage

Cinelerra: wget http://kent.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/heroines/cinelerra-2.1-src.tar.bz2 tar xfj cinelerra-2.1-src.tar.bz2 cd cinelerra-2.1

If you don't know how to install this software on your Linux of choice, google sudo apt-get cinelerra. If that's no help, try posting on your support forum. And if that doesn't help, then switch to Ubuntu omg. Rob Fisher again has a user tutorial here.

Editing still frames

GIMP is a still image manipulation application (how you make icons). It's not as good as Photoshop but then, nothing is, dammit. But it will do the job and it's open source. Check the website or icon_tutorial on LJ for tutorials.

Playing your vid

VLC is the most reliable and versatile free audio/video player.

More

For a different approach, VeeJay is a loop-based system for live video mix and scratch performances.

Cross Platform Essentials:

VLC is the most reliable and versatile free audio/video player. OS supported: Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu Linux, Mandriva Linux, Fedora Core, Familiar Linux, YOPY/Linupy, Zaurus, SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux, WinCE / PocketPC, Slackware Linux and ALT Linux

Audacity is a simple, relatively intuitive audio file editor. Shorten, stitch, remix or dub with this multitrack waveform editor. OS supported: Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, or later, Mac OS 9 and OS X, Alt Linux, Debian, Gentoo, Mandriva i586 and Mandriva x86_64, PLD Linux, Red Hat / Fedora Core, Fedora Extras, Planet CCRMA, SuSE Linux, and Ubuntu Linux.

GIMP is a still image manipulation application (how you make icons). It's not as good as Photoshop but then, nothing is, dammit. But it will do the job and it's open source. Check the website or icon_tutorial on LJ for tutorials. OS supported: Windows, Mac OS X, UNIX: GNU/Linux: Debian testing (deb), Debian unstable (deb), Fedora Core 3 (RPM), SuSE 9.2 (RPM), Gentoo Portage, Slackware; BSD:FreeBSD; Sun Solaris:Blastwave Software Distribution

Azureus is a cross platform, multi-language bitTorrent client with a decent help wiki.

Transmission is my favourite bitTorrent client. Simple, powerful, stable and free. <3 Universal Binary

Adobe claim to be porting Photoshop to Linux in 2007.
Handbrake has an experimental build for Windows up now

LiveJournal Communities

There are mailing lists and forums for vidders but unless you're really dying for an endless nagathon about feedback, etiquette, and clip-theft, they're not much practical use that I have found. Try searching vidding on del.icio.us for more practical help. Searching LiveJournal's interests might also be a good thing to do.

Digital Video Sites

Motion Graphics Sites

Some Individual Vidders

An haphazardly selected, SGA-biased list; I starred (*) the SGA vidders and in quotes is a vid you should check out (as they occur to me).