Steps For Saving H.264 MP4 Videos In VirtualDub2

How I wish that saving my edited video files in VirtualDub2 is as simple as clicking on a single button or option like in Avidemux. Unfortunately, there isn't one.

It took me quite awhile to figure out the parameters and the steps to save my video files in the H.264 format in the MP4 container in VirtualDub2. I use the parameters in the video files that were produced by my cameras as a guide. My uploaded VirtualDub2 post-process videos were accepted by Dreamstime, no rejections based on technicalities. So I assume that what I have done must be correct.

Yes - after a lull of 2 years, I have rekindled my love affair with VirtualDub, albeit with one of its younger siblings VirtualDub2. Not bad considering that I only have a 2GB RAM, Pentium Dual Core 2.7 GHz computer and I could get my video processing done in a reasonable amount of time.

H264 Encoded MP4 Video Uploads To Dreamstime

The message board and stock video requirement page at Dreamstime says that video format should be encoded in PhotoJPeg or MotionJPeg and stored in the Quicktime .MOV video format.

But what's this that I see some MP4 stock video on Dreamstime when I do a search?

Poking around, even the upload page says that it accepts MP4 video files (picture above).

Black Blank Frames

I have to be a little more careful in my video uploads to Dreamstime. Videos with black blank frames either in the front or the back will be rejected. I just had one happening to me recently. These 4 blank frames must have been inserted by MPEG Streamclip since there was no such frames in my source video - I checked.

My Stock Video Workflow

I just started shooting stock video recently, and I must say I am enjoying it. I think I am a fool if I were to ignore stock videos as the payout is much higher when compared to stock photos. As far as I could gather, we are talking about tens of dollars here for stock video sales against cents for stock photos. But still, the content matters.

Workflow

This is what I do before uploading my videos to Dreamstime. My workflow if you will.

Dreamstime prefers Quicktime .MOV container files compressed using Photo Jpeg. So this is what I aim to achieve here.

Software used

Avidemux, VirtualDub2, MPEG_Streamclip (I also installed KL QuickTimeAlternative 1.18 as I do not have the necessary QuickTime software for creating Photo JPegs in a .MOV file) and FileZilla.