Best intermediate format?

[David_UK]

Hi all
I have downloaded FLV's - some are quite high quality. I want to edit out highlights and then convert to both WMV and MP4 format. This is how I do it:

1. ffmpeg to convert entire FLV to HUFFYUV
2. VirtualDub for editing
3. ffmpeg to convert to the WMV and MP4

My intermediate HUFF files can be huge (several 4Gig sections), which is inconvenient, do you think MPG is a better intermediate format - any thoughts?
Thanks.

[jagabo]

do you think MPG is a better intermediate format

No. MPEG is lossy. It will create another round of compression artifacts.

Lagarith compresses a little better than HuffYUV but takes more CPU power.

[Baldrick]

Have you tried virtualdub flv plugin? http://moitah.net/ and open flvs directly. You probably also need ffdshow to decode flv,on2 or h264 video.

And I wouldn't use ffmpeg to convert to wmv, use instead wmnicenc or windows media encoder.

[David_UK]

jagabo - Thanks, my experiments confirm what you say - big areas of plain colour look awful after mpeg compression.

Baldrick - Thanks, as usual! I can't use the flv plugin unfortunately, as I don't have admin rights to install, and I gather the ffdshow is essential. All this has to be done with standalone apps. Interesting comment about the WMV conversion - I'll have a play with those apps.

[guns1inger]

4 GB is not huge in video terms.

[lordsmurf]

Have you tried virtualdub flv plugin? http://moitah.net/ and open flvs directly. You probably also need ffdshow to decode flv,on2 or h264 video.

And I wouldn't use ffmpeg to convert to wmv, use instead wmnicenc or windows media encoder.

Thanks for this. 8)