Movie Capture Bug

[iffy]

When I first saw the "Capture Movie" option in the file menu, I was very excited, but to my dismay, I can't get it to work. I don't see any documentation about capturing movies anywhere in this forum or on the Celestia site and wonder if it's really a feature.

I am running a 1.3 GHz, Windows 98 SE, nVIDIA RIVA TNT-2 32MB, 256 RAM with plenty of disk space.

Help please!

[selden]

Since you didn't actually specify the precise commands you used, it's a little hard to know why it isn't working for you.

Unfortunately, it isn't obvious to me where Celestia gets its codecs.

However, I've found that only some of the movie file formats actually work. On my system (running WinXP), I've found that I get the best results using either "Full Frames (Uncompresseed)" or "Indeo video 5.10". Some of the other formats work, but the results don't look as good. The uncompressed frames produce a very large file, of course, but you can use your favorite video editing tool to convert them to whatever format you like.

The steps that I use are:
1) select "Capture Movie" or press Shift-F10
2) in the "Save As" popup window,
2a)browse to an appropriate directory (if necessary)
2b)specify an appropriate filename (e.g. IO) The filetype .AVI will be added automatically.
2c) select an appropriate video window size (e.g. 320x240)
2d) click on "Save"
3) in the"Video Compression" popup window,
3a) scroll up to "Indeo Video 5.10"
3b) click on "OK"
A red outline will appear, centered in your Celestia window.
Only whatever is inside that border will be recorded.
4) manipulate Celestia to get to the right starting point for your recording
5) Press F11 to start or pause the recording
6) press F12 to terminate the recording.
That's it.
Then you can
7) open a window to the directory where you saved the movie
8) double-click on the AVI file. Windows Media Player will start and display the movie.
Or otherwise manipulate the file.

Two example (trivial) movies that I created can be found on the Web page http://www.lns.cornell.edu/~seb/celestia/blok/index.html
rgbmars.avi is the direct output from Celestia in Indeo format.
rgbmars2.wmv was converted from "Full Frame (Uncompressed)" into WMV format by Windows Movie Maker.

Does this help?

[chris]

Since you didn't actually specify the precise commands you used, it's a little hard to know why it isn't working for you.

Unfortunately, it isn't obvious to me where Celestia gets its codecs.

Celestia just relies on the Video For Windows API to enumerate the codecs.

However, I've found that only some of the movie file formats actually work. On my system (running WinXP), I've found that I get the best results using either "Full Frames (Uncompresseed)" or "Indeo video 5.10". Some of the other formats work, but the results don't look as good. The uncompressed frames produce a very large file, of course, but you can use your favorite video editing tool to convert them to whatever format you like.

The best codec by far that I've used with Celestia is DivX 5.0. The basic version is available for free from http://www.divx.com. It's quite fast, and it does an amazing job of compression while maintain quality.

--Chris

[selden]

Chris,

Thanks for the clarification!

[billybob884]

i've also noticed that some of the red letters get recorded at the top of the box

[iffy]

The steps that I use are:
1) select "Capture Movie" or press Shift-F10
2) in the "Save As" popup window,
2a)browse to an appropriate directory (if necessary)
2b)specify an appropriate filename (e.g. IO) The filetype .AVI will be added automatically.
2c) select an appropriate video window size (e.g. 320x240)
2d) click on "Save"
3) in the"Video Compression" popup window,
3a) scroll up to "Indeo Video 5.10"
3b) click on "OK"
A red outline will appear, centered in your Celestia window.
Only whatever is inside that border will be recorded.
4) manipulate Celestia to get to the right starting point for your recording
5) Press F11 to start or pause the recording
6) press F12 to terminate the recording.
That's it.
Then you can
7) open a window to the directory where you saved the movie
double-click on the AVI file. Windows Media Player will start and display the movie.
Or otherwise manipulate the file.

When I get to step (2d) and click on "Save" I always get an error pop-up that says, "Error. Could not capture movie." I've never even seen the Video Compression dialog.

Iffy

[selden]

Hmmm. It sounds like a file protection problem of some kind, although I'm pretty sure W98 doesn't implement file protections.

Or could it be that your system simply doesn't have any encoding libraries installed?

Have you ever tried creating video files using other programs?
In other words, does your system have video capture hardware and/or software? I'm guessing not. You might consider installing Windows Movie Maker v2 and Media Player v9, which are free downloads from Microsoft. (I'm rashly assuming they'll run under W98.) They're quite large, but should include the necessary codecs. Or, if you're willing to spend some money, you could invest in a video I/O card. They would include the necessary software.

I hope this helps a little.

[iffy]

Yes, I've done all kinds of video stuff before. I got this computer specifically so I could do video stuff. I have Adobe Premiere 6.0 (which installed more than enough CODECs) and a Firewire capture card and have been making movies for school for the past year and make many other movies (weddings, friends, etc.) all the time. My hard drive is 40GB at 7200 rpm.

I love making movies - this is why I was so excited that I could add space voyages to them, and this is why I'm sad:cry: that it doesn't work.

I'll try getting Movie Maker though I already have Media Player. Thanks for the suggestion.

Iffy