is fraps the best way to get a demo to media player?

I want to start putting together a little movie. What would be the best way to capture my recordings? Im guessing fraps, but is there anything better?

well I just took it for a test run, and changed my resolution down to 600x400. I seemed to get decent fps, but when I go to play the avi that fraps created, it looks like it recorded my demo at a slow speed

Your hd read and write speed is probably slowing it down. Fraps makes very large files, and most hd's struggle transfering all that data. I have a sata hd and it's never been a problem, but I've been compressing the avi's Fraps makes with divx and virtual dub to conserve space. This would solve your playback issue, and make the files easier to cut into a decent video.

I play at 1024, and set Fraps to record at 1/2 size. When I get a bunch of recordings, I'll fire up virtual dub (free download) select the divx codec (free) and run a job on the entire directory. With divx set on 2.5 I see about 10x compression and almost no visible loss.

There is a prob with demo recording in T:V. The demos don't seem to have a timescale value. Usually when watching a demo it will play back at game speed regardless of FPS. So when you are recording with Fraps and your framerate drops less frames are shown to keep the demo at the same game speed.

In T:V right now if you are recording with fraps and the framerate drops the game tries to draw every frame so if the FPS dips to 15 fps the game speed slows down and gives that slow motion effect.

turn down some of the in-game settings to get back some FPS for fraps to use. that would be my suggestion... i usually get around 50fps, with all grafix on ultra high, on my system. i'd prolly turn down to high or medium if i was worried about going below 24 fps or so, since 24 fps is standard theater film framerate. oh well. my two cents for you. just try turning down graphics quality as far as you can.