Divx to FLV to MOV to FLV again, just for the sake of some effects?!

[ayyash]

Hi im new here and i tried to search through your website, but its pretty overwhelming and i did not wish to look into old posts because this is a new subject (using Flash 9), so bare with me please

I was trying to create short clips of Divx movies (downloaded them from late stage6), create few textual effects, and upload again to youtube, i came to the following path which i believe is pretty "newbie" so your thoughts and ideas are pretty appreciated:
I use Flash 9, and its video encoder

first i use the encoder to create an flv of the divx (which is not a default supported video extension, i understand the format is supported which is mpeg4, thus it works fine) for this i used: 400 to 700 kb/s Sorenson Spark (the one used by youtube), same fps (which is usually 29.97) deinterlace 96 kb/s stereo for audio (mp3), although these look like pretty default settings in flash video encoder, but it took me few trials and errors to figure it out :s
this produces a black-boxed flv file (inside an flv player) which at this stage i wouldnt mind (later i have a problem, lets call it Problem Kasper)

i create a new flash file (fla) and add my flv player that hosts the flv file, i change the frame rate to 29.97 (apparently any other frame rate will cause audio syncro problems later in youtube!)

now i create my other layers and textual nice stuff, and export the whole thing to mov, i use H.264 29.97, frame recording, multi-pass, 48khz, 16bit stereo no compression, it works beuatifuly (except for a problem i will mention later lets call it Problem Geena)

now i have to use the encoder again to create an FLV from that mov, i use the same settings as above with Divx, again works beautifuly, i upload to youtube, and finally it works nicely

Kasper: i need to know every frame so i can manage the other layers, to know when my text appears and when the actual movie ends and so on, cuePoints seem a bit complicated for this purpose, so i had to use SWF embedding, unfortunately, and here where Kasper comes in, the audio quality of the SWF is lousy!!! i used the same encoding settings but its just not as good :( why is that?

Geena: well you will wonder why MOV, why not AVI, i tried to export to AVI but the audio disappears, i used all compressors i had on the list: Cinepak, divx 6.8, ms video1, indeo, and ffdshow, no audio compression, it never plays the audio, any thoughts? also, you might wonder why not directly to SWF and back to FLV, well, the video encoder never converts swf to flv (a week ago i would have asked do u know of a way, now im totally convinced there shouldnt and there must not be a way)

from my youtube experience: the movie must be 29.97 for the audio not to go out of sync, flvs are good, but if u upload mov it will take care of it just fine, and youtube suck! im convinced now that i should host my own clips

so, is there a smarter way?

[filmboss80]

Wow. Where to start? I don't know about Kasper and Geena, but I'd say the first step--converting your divx sources to flv BEFORE doing the effects works--is just the start of many problems. Both divx and flv are highly-compressed playback formats that were never intended for editing and effects. And every time you do a conversion, you re-compress to another lossy format. For starters, you should have skipped the flv stage and done a straight upconversion from divx to either mov or a less compressed avi like dv or yuv. (Under the Tools listing on this site, look for a converter that will do what you need.) Do your effects and such on the upconverted file. Only after you are finished should you convert down to flv. Thus, the pattern will be divx > mov (or high-quality avi) > flv. As for loss of audio, use G-spot to analyze the audio codec of your source, and make sure you have the proper codec installed for conversion.

[ayyash]

well i did not complain about the quality, its terrific i do that because i want to cut a small portion of the DivX movie, i dont want to convert the whole thing, i will be looking into the other tools you listed, but can i really select short scenes before conversion?

and how do you add effects to a .mov file? what software do i need to use (note that im not talking about movie effects, im just adding text here and there, and fading in and out some scenes... and flash, well lets just say its my comfort zone)
i will be looking into G-spot, but until then, does anybody know why an SWF has less audio quality than FLV?
thanks