General Question Conversion of Orbiter Playback file to AVI

[Aerostar]

How do I convert the playback file (It's in .scn) to a playable video file like .avi?
Please help.

 

[malisle]

I don't know if you can do that directly, but what you can do is start the scenario playback and record it with Fraps, CamStudio or some other screen capture software.

 

[garyw]

You can't do it directly as the playback file is just a series of instructions telling the vessel what to do.

In order to make it into an AVI you'll need to run the playback and record it from the screen via something like FRAPS as was mentioned by malise.

 

[Ripley]

Basically, you have to..."play" it in Orbiter while simultaneously running a screen capture software.

If it's a video tutorial you're making, you can just grab the first take, without much fussing with views.

If you want to make something more "artistic", you must plan a sort of script (you are the Director), so you can choose some cool external views at the right moments, camera rotations, zooms, and so on...

Others, more experienced Orbiter-videomakers, will eventually give you more useful advices.

Meanwhile, have a look here:
http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=11689


Ninjaed by malisle and garyw!

 

[John_L]

First, you need to install a screen cap program like Cam Studio http://camstudio.org/

It's a free open source screen recorder that will record both audio and video. Then, simply turn on the recorder, and then run the playback, when it's done, stop the recorder and you're done. With Cam Studio, you can record the entire sceen or just a window. Playing the playback in a window would probably be best because you can define it first, then start the video, then the playback. Otherwise, some editing might be involved to clip the beginning and end.

 

[martins]

What I've always wondered - are there any screen recording utilities where the frame grabber can be invoked by a manual trigger signal rather than a timer?

If so, you could set orbiter to a fixed time step size, say 1/30s, send a trigger to the frame grabber at each frame, and get a perfect 30fps video independent of how fast your computer actually is. No more jerky videos.

I'm doing my own (short) videos by writing out a jpg screenshot at each frame, and then converting them to video with avidemux. But this requires a huge intermediate amount of disk space, and writing out the jpgs is very slow, so it can't be used interactively - but it still works for pre-recorded flights.

 

[orb]

I'm doing my own (short) videos by writing out a jpg screenshot at each frame, and then converting them to video with avidemux.

This intermediate step can be eliminated by sending fixed time step frames directly to a video encoder instead of saving them to separate images, like to ffmpeg/libavcodec library, already with chosen encoding algorithm.

 

[blixel]

I make a lot of videos for Orbiter. I use Open Broadcaster: Free, open source software for live streaming and recording.