Video Editing with AviUtl

The main use of AviUtl are encoding and editing.
Editing : basicaly, join several video sequences, deleting useless frames and apply filters.
Encoding : Converting a video file to reduce its file size, to fit on a CD-R for example.

Open a file
With AviUtl you can open files with the following extentions : .avi, .bmp and .mpg (for .mpg files you need the m2v_vfp-0.5.25 plug in)
Just clic on ‘File’ ‘Open’.
If you open a bmp file, AviUtl will automaticaly load all the files with the same name numerated from _0.

Open mpeg2 or mpeg1 movies
To do so you need to install the m2v_vfp-0.5.25 plug in.
You can dowload the plug in directly here http://digvid.info/software/download/m2v_vfp-0.5.25.zip
Just unzip everything into the AviUtl folder.
Now when you open a file, the .mpg and many other extentions will be available.
If the aspect ratio is not correct, for example if the image is elongated verticaly, apply the " resize " filter.

To join a stack of bmp files into a movie file
Make sure that all your bmp files are numerated in order, starting from _0 at the end of the name.
For example : yourname_0.bmp yourname_1.bmp yourname_2.bmp … yourname_3587.bmp yourname_3588.bmp etc.
Put all the bmp you want to join in the same folder.
Open the first bmp file, the one numerated _0. That’s all ! All the bmp files have been loaded automaticaly as if it was already a movie!

Select a sequence
Clic on the arrows on the right bottom of the widow to set the selection start and end on cursor. Or use the " [  " and " ]  " hot keys.

Select a single frame
Simply clic on both arrows on the right bottom of the widow or press both the " [  " and " ]  " hot keys.without moving the cursor. Two arrows should be shown on the frame.

Delete a selection
Go to " Edit " and clic on " Delete selection range ". For easy use I suggest to set a hotkey for this operation, for example Del.

With AviUtl you can delete between keyframes ( DivX encoded movies) but during playback the image may seem to stop during about one second where it was cut.
In fact the movie doesn't stop but AviUtl repeated the same image about 20 times.
Also, such a movie may not open in AviUtl nor in Virtual Dub if you delete some frames before the second keyframe (the next keyframe after the first frame fo the movie).
So, it's recommanded to delete sequences starting and finishing at key frames.


Copy and Paste a selected sequence
Unfortunately with AviUtl you can copy and paste only one frame at a time, which is not very helpful.
The only way to do it is to save a selections as avi not recompressed, then join them togheter.
See " how to join avi files " for further information)

Filters
Please go to the Filters and Settings for AviUtl page.

Deinterlace
Use deinterlace to remove the white horizontal line following moving objects which appear on analog TV based movies.
Do not use the deinterlace filter if your movie is not interlaced. It will blur the image if you do so.
" Automatic Deinterlace " is the best choice. " Blend " deinterlace will blur the image, while " Automatic " will give a sharper image albeit with some aliasing (tiny stair looking artifacts) on edges.
DivX and some other codecs also offer deinterlace. This not necessary and redundant if you use the AviUtl’s Deintrlace. Make sure you don’t use deinterlace twice.

Jumping from key frame to key frame
Especialy useful when working on DivX (or similar) encoded movies. Key frames are frames used as reference for the next frames. Searching trough a DivX is difficult because the decoder needs to decode all the frame between the key frame and the current frame. Sometimes it can be very long and even freeze your computer. That’s why it’s useful to jump from one keyframe to another.
First of all, set a hot key for this operation. I advice to set the same hotkeys as in VirtualDub : shift+right (or left) arrow. (see : How to configure AviUtl ?)
Disable deinterlace and noise filter. If not the searching will still be very slow.

Join video files
To join video files use " Append ". The selected file will be added to the one already open.
If you don’t apply any filter and don’t make any transformation on the image, you can check " no recompression " for video and audio so the operation will be much faster. To do so make sure you disabled deinterlace and all other filters.
You can append only video files with audio tracks in PCM (wav) . If you join files with audio tracks encoded in mp3, AviUtl will save the video without the sound.
AviUtl is able to join videos with slightly different frame rate (for example 24.998 and 25.001) but if the frame rate difference is too large (for example 24.357 and 25.001) the process will take longer and may not be good.
I recommand opening the video file using the " change framerate " option and choosing a standard frame rate. Doing so you will be able to join files in Virtual Dub if you want so.

Batch processing
Use batch procesing to run the tasks later. It’s especialy useful for multipass compression.
When saving, instead of pressing on " save " press " batch ".
To run the batch processing, clic on " File " " Batch Processing ". If you don’t see " shut down computer when batch processing is done ", remove the enu098b.aul file and make sure the enu098d.aul file is in the AviUtl folder.

Save Batch files
If the computer crashes during the batch processing, the batch files will be lost. To avoid that, close AviUtl (the batch files are created only when AviUtl is closed)., go to the AviUtl folder in Explorer, copy the files named " batch1 ", " batch2 ", " batch3 " etc. Paste them in another folder.
In case of crash or whatever illegal operation and bad shutdown, just re-copy-paste the batch files back to the AviUtl folder.

Save Project
Save a project if you want to resume your work later.
Attention :
Don’t delete the avi files you are working on after your saved the project. You still need them !
AviUtl remembers all the filter settings of the previous session and the project also. So when you open a project, disable filters and deinterlace or they will be applied twice ! You can disable " remember settings " in the preferences (see : How to configure AviUtl ?), but it’s also very helpful to keep it on, so you don’t have to reset the same settings evrytime you open a file.
Project are saved with the .aup extention. That’s the same extention as the Audacity project. That doesn’t cause any problem if you open the project with the program with which it was saved, just make sure you don’t mix them up !

Running other software when AviUtl is already busy encoding
Set the process priority of the first AviUtl to " lowest ". If you do so, you will be able to use your computer almost normaly while AviUlt precess the batch files.
I strongly recommand to set the priority to "lowest" to avoid any problem.
If you do so, you will be able to work for example with Word, with Excel, Outlook Express etc. Of course everything depends on the resources of your system.

If you want to surf on the internet while AviUtl encodes, and if you have two physical hard discs, change the temporary internet files to the other hard disc.
If AviUtl is working on a file located on disc C, move the temporary internet files to the disc D.
To do so: open Internet Explorer, clic on "Tools" "Internet Option" "General" under temporary internet files, clic on "Settings" "Move Folder".

Work with AviUtl when AviUtl is already busy encoding
You can run two or more instances of AviUtl .
Assuming that you put AviUtl in a folder named " AviUtl ", copy all the files from this folder to another folder named, for example " AviUtl2 ".
Set the process priority of the first AviUtl to " lowest " and the process priority of the second AviUtl to "normal ".
Use the AviUtl with the lowest priority first to launch a long encode or a batch processing. Now, you can safely work with the second AviUtl and you can even open a file already used by the first instance !
You can save a baatch list with the second AviUtl, and when you have closed the second AviUtl, you can copy-paste the batch files to the folder of the first AviUtl to run this batch with it.
To do so, you need to close both instances before. If there are still batch files in the first AviUtl folder, then renumerate the batch files coming from the second AviUtl folder so that they don’t overwrite the first ones.

 

Next Pages

Filters and Settings for AviUtl

PlugIns for AviUtl Guide