Fraps is giving me craps!

March 4, 2007 6:05 PM

How can I edit Fraps AVIs from my windows machine on my Macbook (iMovie)?

Importing the file directly results in a black movie file, and I couldn't tell if I didn't have a codec or what. Trying to play it in quicktime takes me to an addon page but I have no idea which will solve the problem. Reencoding in Windows Movie Maker produces WMV files, which iMovie can't use.

Anyone know what codec to get so that iMovie can read that Fraps AVI?

(Windows XP machine, vanilla yr-old low-end Macbook, no extra video software -- I'm a noob at this)

posted by cowbellemoo to computers & internet (5 comments total)

I forgot to mention, I want to edit it on my mac since I think the editing software is better on the mac, though I really don't have experience with either.
posted by cowbellemoo at 6:07 PM on March 4, 2007

Try installing this codec pack. iMovie should then be able to read all sorts of AVI-encased video files then.
posted by todbot at 7:34 PM on March 4, 2007

Actually it looks like Fraps uses a custom codec ("FPS1") in an AVI container, so the standard codec packs available probably won't work.

I think you'll have to use a Windows machine that has the both the FPS1 codec and something more standard and do transcoding there. VirtualDub is a free Windows program that will let you do this transcoding. To maintain maximum quality, transcode to another non-compressed codec like DV.
posted by todbot at 11:48 PM on March 4, 2007

You can use ffmpegX, it handles the FPS1 codec.
posted by mphuie at 12:26 AM on March 5, 2007

Saving in vdub in a vanilla AVI format did the trick! Now I just need to learn how to use iMovie... ; - D
posted by cowbellemoo at 10:28 PM on March 5, 2007