I captured a video I wanted to play backwards. I also wanted it to be played slower than it was captured.
I know how to make it slower – Windows Live Movie Maker does an excellent job (“Speed” dropdown in Edit tab).
It cannot reverse the video though
I found instructions on the internet to run an Avisynth script with Reverse, but it is not very smart about codecs (all I got is codec errors).
Then I found instructions to do it step-by-step. First, I slowed the video with Mindows Live Movie Maker. Then I converted it with VLC. Then I decompressed it with Avidemux. Then I revered it with older version of Avidemux as new version (2.6) no longer supports reverse (no kidding! I’m glad I still have 2.5!) and compressed it.
Here is the result:
Then I thought: hmm, there should be an easier way. I tried all free video editors – they all both unusable and do not have this feature. Then I found VideoPad.
VideoPad has free license for personal use. It also has an option to change clip speed in “Effect” menu (10x is the limit, but I can live with it). It also has a checkbox for “Reverse”.
It is exactly what we need, right?
Sadly, it does not work. Video is ugly, shaky, badly interlaced, and jumps back and forward in time.
I thought – well, may be if I slow video down with Windows Live Movie Maker, it will help? Because slowing down does not work smooth in VideoPad. No, it does not.
Next thing to try was decompression of the video before reversing. First time it decompressed into colorful noise, but after playing with codecs, I decompressed it decently. Sadly, it did not help.
The bottom line is: VideoPad is not commercial grade software, and those guys should test it before releasing and before asking money for it.
How I’m going to reverse my video next time? I guess, I will play more with Avisynth, figure out codecs issues and write a script.
