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.

Where Are The Free FM Radio Tuners For Windows?

I find it odd that there are not many free FM Radio tuner software for the Windows platform. FM Tuners for Linux, yes - and with the source code too. But for Windows there is none. The best that I could find is just a plug-in for Winamp called Winamp TV version 1.9Beta8 - the page on this link says version 1.9lite10 but upon installation the Winamp TV documentation says version 1.9Beta8.

V2CRS Does Not Like Windows System Restore

I do not really need a user login account for my Pentium Dual Core computer that I use for TV captures. Security is not a concern as I am practically the only user on this PC. But I have a need to use V2CRS for scheduling my VirtualDub TV recordings. And one of the requirements of V2CRS is that it needs a user login account with a password.

Windows Scheduled Tasks

In the documentation of V2CRS, there is no mention of what the user login account should be. So I just create an account called "user" (with administrative privileges) that requires a password to login. Since I can use V2CRS to schedule and record without any problems, I did not give much thought to this after that. I thought everything was alright. That is until when I did a "Restore my computer to an earlier time" via the Windows System Restore. Some, but not all, of my scheduled V2CRS task will not launch. A look into the Windows Scheduled Tasks window, which V2CRS actually uses to schedule the task, shows a status of "Could Not Start" next to the task.

TV Captures On-Demand - An Easier Way

One Touch Recording or OTR. A function on my old VCR that enables me to record a TV program immediately without delay. And with the ability to set a countdown timer, the VCR will shut off once the countdown reaches zero.

I wanted something similar to OTR on my PC for my TV recordings with VirtualDub. There are times when I wanted to start recording a TV program immediately without scheduling a task in V2CRS. Task scheduling is easy with V2CRS but it takes time keying in the parameters. Consequently, there is an undesirable delay when I want to start recording immediately.

Batch Files To The Rescue

The easiest method that I could think of in creating an OTR like function on my PC is to use Windows batch files, that will in turn call the V2CRS program "Scheduler.exe". VirtualDub capturing will start almost immediately plus I will get a countdown timer, courtesy of V2CRS.

A command for immediately capturing TV1 (channel 6 in my case) into the file name "TV1" in the directory "F:\RecordedTVPrograms" for a length of 30 minutes will look like this:

VirtualDub Post Capturing: Deleting Advertisements

There are two things that I do before I start cutting out commercial breaks from my TV captures:

• I make sure that the audio and video are in sync; and
• I remove all MP3 artifacts.

The Problem With VirtualDub

VirtualDub was the first tool that I used for cutting out these ads found in commercial breaks. But AVI capture files that have been resynced (and MP3 artifacts removed) will gradually go out of sync again after cutting out the ads. No matter what I did, I could not cut out ads correctly with VirtualDub.

Avidemux To The Rescue

So, I now use Avidemux to edit out these advertisements from my TV captures.

Avidemux is a multi-platform video editor and it is free and open-source. The version that I have installed on my PC is version 2.5.4 (r7200). I only use 7 keys on the keyboard to locate, mark and cut out advertisements.