#capping tutorial

[video transcription] so, this is avidemux, this is what i use to gather my caps for my gifs. i don’t know any other method, all i’ve ever used is the capping method and i find it really, really easy and simple, and it doesn’t, like, overwhelm your photoshop. so, this is what you get when you first open it up.

now, i wanna come over here to “output format” and i want to change this (mkv muxer) to the one right below it (mpeg ts muxer (ff)) and then for configure, we’re gonna open that and unclick that (vbr muxing), change this (mux rate) to 15.

i don’t really know what it does, like, exactly; i know i messed with it when i first got it a couple years ago and it’s just worked really well with my gifs . so that’s what i keep using and that’s what i’m gonna recommend. i don’t touch anything else, it’s just - i never needed to .

up here (top left) we’re going to “open video”. i have a movie here, we’re just going to click it to open it. now we have this scrollbar down here (bottom) that can, like, move really fast through scenes if you have something, like, specific that you know you wanna gif.

or you can use the up arrow. and it kinda jumps frames and stuff, and then the back arrow, obviously, it jumps the same amount of frames (backwards). or if you want something very specific, you can use the right arrow, and it will change, like, 1 by 1 by 1. same with if you go left, it goes backwards.

so what i am going to do is just start here and in order to do that, here’s this little “a” button right here (bottom, below the scrollbar). we’re going to set that. and over here (bottom right) you see that it’s started the capping at this (time) marker.

[my dog barks in background] sorry for my dog, she’s yelling in the back.

so you can either use your keys to move forward or you can just hit the space bar and let it play. [i hit the space bar] and i’m just gonna stop it right there [hit the space bar again].

to get the end of the cap, we’re just gonna press “b” (right next to “a” below scrollbar) and you can see over here (bottom right) that it’s stopped it at this time stamp, too.

what i would recommend is from the start to the end (of the cap), at least 2 seconds. sometimes i do 1, or 1 and a half, depending if it’s like a scene that i really wanna gif or something, but usually 2 seconds difference is good.

and so now that we have this, we’re gonna come up here (top left, besides the “open video”) to the “save video”. sometimes if i’m doing a lot of caps, i’ll just put a number on the end of the title or i’ll just put a number as the “save as”. so it’s going to save as a “.ts file”, make sure it’s on that.

and then you just save it, and that’s it! easy peasy. that’s how i get all of my caps. and then i’ll make another video showing you the photoshop and how to, like, upload them and all the fun stuff. so, yay. [video ends]

Step One: Preparations

Before making your caps you need to select a place for your caps to go. To do this click on VLC -> Preferences. At the top you should see different categories. Click on "video."

At the bottom of the screen you should see an area titled "video snapshots." It will look like this:

Click on browse and select a place for your caps to go. I personally let mine go to the desktop and then move them to a separate file. 

Now look back at the top and click on hotkeys. Look for the action titled "take video snapshot."

This will be the button(s) you press to cap scenes. I have mine set to where I press the letter v to make my caps. You can change your shortcut key by clicking on take video snapshot and then select change.

Step Two: Open Your Video/Selecting a Scene

I will be capping a clip from The Snowmen. I'm going to go straight to the end when Clara is standing by the gravestone. Make sure that you go to a little bit before the scene you want to cap. You'll see why in a few moments.

Step Three: Making the Caps

With your video still paused go to the top and click on playback. No you will see an option to change the playback speed. It looks like this:

Now click on the little arrow under 1.00. This will change the speed of the video. I will be moving my arrow to the left and leaving it at .36. This will slow the video down. Now press play. 

*I slow the video down because I like to have a lot of caps. I feel that it makes a gif more fluid. You can cap at whatever speed you like. 

The reason that I said to go to a little bit before the scene you want to cap is because the video will pause for a moment before playing. That is why I take this step. Once the video begins playing you just press whatever shortcut key you have selected to take your caps. 

Step Four: Making the Gif

Like I said earlier I won't be going through how to make a gif, but I will tell you how I time mine. Once I load the caps, crop, color, etc I change my speed to .13. I think for the amount of frames I get this speed yields the best results. And now for the finished product:

Tips and Tricks: