After finding out info from this blog, it seems like there is indeed a way to make Fraps register AO and AE - But it's a little complex. I used my old 17" TFT monitor for this - Not sure if you can make a widescreen monitor run at 1280x1024.
You have to use DxWind and configure that to run AO at 1280x1024 in a way that doesn't show a window border, then wrestle with your mouse to centre the window on your screen. Set up Fraps to record the desktop (Monitor Aero Desktop), and there you go. It's a little choppy in parts though and doesn't do the FMVs very well.
I was going to do a walkthrough of AO, but realised just how pointless that would be. This was to be the first part until I decided not to bother doing it anymore. Instead this will simply be a quality demo of Frapsing AO - Even if YouTube loves to corrupt my vids for some reason.
That's down to how I managed to get Fraps to capture it. I could've lowered the resolution in Windows Movie Maker but it'd have lowered the quality and been pointless.
Not that there really was much of a point to this anyway, though - Apart from doing what I wished I could've done earlier. I probably won't be making more 'cause of this.
The native size for videos is 640x480, I usually record things at my native resolution at 1280x800 and then when I import it into Vegas 9.0 and edit it it turns into 640x480 which can go upto 480p I guess.
Windows Movie Maker does its job well... For a free extra that comes with an OS. A powerful, yet incredibly basic editor... And far too basic for my tastes. Tricking it into doing complex things that it wasn't meant for is hard.
I use VirtualDub/Vegas for all of my videos if I'm editing a video or compressing. Also I would record with fraps because I know an even easier way but I prefer HyperCam2 still because I will always get 30 fps (youtube limits videos to 30 fps making 60 fps useless/blurry), it will compress during the record for added laziness and I wont have to edit with VirtualDub/Vegas unless it desyncs or something else random occurs, which is unusual.
Also it is harddrive friendly and I wont be spammed with uncompressed video of my 2 hour recording sessions. This would probably be useful if I was on an older pc but my PC is fine.
I'd recommend you use VirtualDub if all you're trying to do is compress the video, since WMM can gimp the quality.
I use Vegas if I want to preserve the quality but also add effects and whatever.
Windows Movie Maker doesn't have nearly as many options as Vegas, and in terms of compression the wmv file isn't as nice as what I can pull off in Vegas and VirtualDub...that being said, this would probably work but I would have to feel the amount of effort whoever makes videos this way is a bit too much.
EDIT: I didn't notice that you said this way doesn't record FMV's very well and is choppy. Well hypercam2 is better then. Oh well. Also I end dwm.exe when I start windows up because it causes problems
It honestly does, but since he's only using it for basic short-films that don't need editing I don't see why he'd need a different program (assuming he is a he )