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  1. Member
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    Hi,
    I would like and tried to covert my .avi files (which I captured from my Sony Hi8 using Canopus 110 and WinDV) using HCencoder and Avisynth to DVD format. I would like to preserve the best quality so output files size does not matter. At the moment, editing is not my concern.

    I think I should use Lagarith codec for the conversion, but I could not figure out HOW to use it, because I could not find where the codec could be assigned/set in HCEncoder. I also tried TMPGenc but did not see where to set it either.

    I did research and read topics about codecs trying to figure out how to use them but no luck.
    Could you please telling me how I could assigned a specific codec like Lagarith to an encoder, say HCEncoder? Or if you know any link/guide please help!

    Thank you very much in advance!
    TB
    PS: I hope this is not off topic!
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  2. Always Watching guns1inger's Avatar
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    I hope this is not off topic
    Not off topic for the forum, but still threadjacking. I have asked a mod to split it off to it's own topic.

    DVD requires mpeg-2 unless you are working at VCD resolution. Then mpeg-1 can be employed. Lagarith and other codecs may be employed as intermediate measures, but you still have to encode to mpeg-2. That is where HCEnc comes in.

    So when do you use what ?

    If you are just encoding, without doing any heavy restoration, or you are encoding with CBR, you don't need an intermediate file. You can encode directly from your avi file. You gain nothing at all going to another format.

    If you are doing heavy restoration (using filters in avisynth) and encoding with 2 (or more) pass VBR, you may find it is faster to load the avs script into virtualdub, and using Fast Recompress, save as Lagarith (of Huffyuv), then encode to mpeg-2 from this file later. Some of the noise reduction filters can take many hours to process, and doing a multi-pass encode means repeating that processing several times for no gain. In this case it makes sense to save to a lossless format first.
    Read my blog here.
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  3. I'm a MEGA Super Moderator Baldrick's Avatar
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    I have splitted out your post to a new topic in the conversion forum. Please don't "hijack" topics.
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  4. Member
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    Hi Baldrick and guns1inger,
    I'm sorry I hijacked the thread. I even did not know that's hijacking, because I thought that was about encoding and codec stuff. However, sorry again! In the other hand, thank you for splitting the thread!
    If you are just encoding, without doing any heavy restoration, or you are encoding with CBR, you don't need an intermediate file. You can encode directly from your avi file.
    So my understand is: if I just want to encode (convert) my raw .avi files to DVD format (mpeg-2? correct?) to burn to DVDs in order to watch them on normal player, I just need an encoder (either WMM, TMPGenc, HCEncoder+Avisynth,...)? There would be nothing to do with the codecs anyway, if I do not involve in editing or filtering or anything altering the quality of the videos?
    If so, what's your practice suggestion in order to just convert .avi files and burn to DVDs "losslessly" with the video quality "as-is," or minimum degraded? Again, size does not matter, quality first!

    I guess I got big mistakes and confusion with my research:
    1) I believed that a codec (e.g. Lagarith) must be somewhere in between the .avi file and the encoder,
    2) The encoder use the "method" of the codec to encode (convert) the .avi file to make a new mpeg-2 (and an audio) file,
    3) therefore the quality and the size of the output files depend on the encoder AND the codec,
    4) therefore my test output (using HCEncoder and Avisynth) looks a little degraded comparing to my .avi source file though a little better than the test output using TMPGenc,
    5) because they were using my system default codec (Sonic, I believe) and this codec is lossy.
    Again, I do not involve in any editing yet, though I am eager to, since my time resource is so limited!
    Please help clarifying and correcting my understanding!

    Thank you very much in advance, and please forgive my English
    TB
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  5. Hi-
    If so, what's your practice suggestion in order to just convert .avi files and burn to DVDs "losslessly" with the video quality "as-is," or minimum degraded? Again, size does not matter, quality first!
    As mentioned, unless you're doing a lot of filtering in the script, you don't need an intermediate Lagarith AVI. Just open the script in HCEnc. The script would go something like this:

    AVISource("C:\Path\To\Video.avi")
    ConvertToYV12() #if not already YV12

    And stick that in an .avs, perhaps one named Video.avs. If it's not already a DVD resolution, then you'll have to resize also. FitCD is a good little program to use for resizing for DVD. Open the .avs in HCenc, and set it up for encoding. If you don't know how, here's a guide:

    http://www.doom9.org/mpg/hc.htm
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  6. Member
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    Hi all,
    Many thanks. I check it now!
    Cheers,
    TB
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