Is this the best way?

[Guest]

Could someone please put me on the right track? I have about 100mins of my mates wedding that I want to burn to a cd so he can play it back on computer, I don't mind having two cds.
I have MGI Videowave 3 and would like to know how to get the best quality on to a couple of cd's. So far I have found the best quality by capturing from an analog Sharp camcorder to my hard drive via avi format and then converting that to

"Video that will be played back from a CD-ROM.
Video: MPEG-1, 320 X 240, 30 Fps
Audio: 44.1 kHz, 16 bit, Stereo"

This produces a file that I can play back in Windows Media Player 7. I was intending on burning this to a cd. Is there a better way than splitting the single file into two 650mb? I have found the quality to be pretty good but is there a better way for me to capture my mates wedding? Thanks.

 

[Guest]

If you have a fast computer, why not try and capture it at 640 x 480 and output it to divx? Virtual Dub and the Pegasus video capture codec work well for me in capturing and converting videos to divx. Virtual dub also can de-interlace the video and enhance the picture through filters to give you a nicer output for the divx codec to use. Virtual dub can also limit the size of the video per section so you can chop it down into chunks for CD burning if you even need to. Divx is pretty efficient and for converting video, Virtual dub is one of the best, if not the best tool I have used.

Good luck encoding and let me know how you came out. BTW, you can get the Pegasus codec from www.jpg.com

Virtual Dub is easy to find. Divx is all over too.

 

[74merc]

640 x480 won't help much, you probably will be better off size vs quality with 320 x240.
encode it as you said before, download virtual dub and encode it to Mpeg 4 or divx, or half a dozen other formats.
it will be playable and small.
depending on the compression format, the vid should be able to fit on a CD and be playable on anything faster than 350mhz.

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why, oh WHY, is the world run by morons?

 

[Guest]

Just to confirm, you guys are suggesting that I caputer with my current software to an avi file and then use virutaldub to convert to mpeg4 (divx). Just a quick question, I assume that this is this the best quality you will get but obviously taking up the most disk space. Are there other suggested capture formats that I could use that when converted to divx will retain decent quality?

 

[74merc]

you may be able to capture it in Vdub and then encode directly into a divx avi file, it has a capture feature, but I've never used it.
better make sure you have plenty of hard drive space because even this way will use a huge swap file.
good luck.

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why, oh WHY, is the world run by morons?

 

[lakedude]

Answer to why morons:

If you are smart enough to do the job you aint dumb enough to take it.

 

[74merc]

rotfl
sounds about right

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why, oh WHY, is the world run by morons?

 

[Guest]

If you capture in MJPEG as the pegasus codec will allow, you can get about 2 hours of video captured in 40 gigabytes using the highest quality setting using 640x480 (need fast puter to do this). Lower quality, which is still VERY good will greatly extend your recording capacity (and reduce the processor requirements for capture). Seriously, you could probably get quite good quality in 320x240, but why use a lower resolution than you have to? Capturing to a MJPEG .avi (multi-segment format) at 640x480 then converting to DIVX .avi at 640x480 should allow you to fit almost 2 hours of video onto one cd even at the high quality DIVX setting (6000kbs / assuming you have divx 3.11) I don't see you loosing a whole lot of quality throughout the whole process. Your output video should almost match the original for quality. One direct advantage to using a higher resolution compared to a lower one when using DIVX is simply because DIVX leaves artifacts in the picture. Not huge ones, but they are there none the less. The higher the resolution used, the less noticable the artifacts are. DIVX does better at higher resolutions.

Virtual Dub is a great tool for the whole process.

I routinely capture using Virtual Dub and have experimented extensively with different codecs. Pegasus MJPEG paired with DIVX at 640 x 480 has to date, done the best for me.

Hope this helps. BTW, not trying to step on any toes here.

 

[lakedude]

My 2 cents

I agree with goomphy. Trying to capture directly to divx or any other highly compressed format in real time will over tax your CPU and result in poor quality or a crash. I know cause I tried it. First you should record in a high quality,high res format that does not compress too much so your CPU can keep up. This will take up serious HD space. Then after a MJPEG or MPEG2 is made convert to one of the formats that have better compression like DivX. This can take some time.

You might be thinking why the extra step? Because your CPU cannot keep up with the tape using DivX directly. The hours it takes to convert are done "offline" after the camcorder is disconnected. There are other codecs out that may be better than DivX but DivX is free and works pretty darn good.

One thing you might do is burn to SVCD. A SVCD copy could be played in a stand alone player without need for a computer. SVCD will not compress as far as DivX so you will need two cdrs. Same process here, capture to high res high quality and convert to SVCD in a second step.

Go to <A HREF="http://www.doom9.net" target="_new">http://www.doom9.net</A> for DivX help.
Go to <A HREF="http://www.vcdhelp.com" target="_new">http://www.vcdhelp.com</A> for Svcd help.

Good luck

 

[mrtj]

2 hours of mjpeg = 40 GB!!!
i have a matrox card and i cap with mjpeg and i got a 2 hour film on the highest qual available @ 704x576 and it was only 7 gb. + looked the same as the broadcast, but maybe that's the diff between hardware and software codecs.

 

[Guest]

What about FlasKMpeg? Do it work with MJPEG or DV? Or MPEG2 only?

 

[Guest]

Thanks all for your replies and I would love to start trying out some of your suggestions but I have a problem. This is post I have tried to put in other forums but thought I would give it a go here. Well here goes:

"Hi, I have a Sharp VL-AH50 Hi8 Viewcam which I recently lent out to a scouts group. It came back and I am unable to view previously recorded footage. There is no sound and 3 lines of distortion running accross the screen. This happens on all of my previously recorded tapes.

Now if I am to record new footage it can be played back with no problems. This would not pose much of a problem, but I have a mates wedding on one of my older tapes and would really like to rectify this. I have purchased a head cleaner, but this has not helped. Please help."