Suitable codec after rotating a digicam AVI?

[terrypin]

A movie clip AVI from my digicam was in the wrong orientation. So I used the Rotate filter in VirtualDub to turn it through 90 degrees. The original was 5.5 MB, but the filtered version uncompressed was 82 MB, so I want to compress it. Apart from trial and error, how would I decide what compression codec would be 'best' to use please? GSpot tells me the following about the original:


The following codecs should both capable of processing this format:
--> AVI Draw
--> MJPEG Decompressor

DirectShow claims to be able to play the file. The following combination of filters were
used:
Avi Splitter (Splitter)
MJPEG Decompressor (Video Decoder)
Color Space Converter (Video Post-processor)
Video Renderer (Video Renderer)
Default DirectSound Device (Audio Renderer)


Neither 'AVI Draw' or 'MJPEG' seem to be included in the list of codecs I have, as offered in VirtualDub's list:

(Uncompressed RGB/YCbCr); Cinepak Codec by Radius; Converts YV12, I420, YUY2, UYVY to RGB24; Converts YV12, I420, YUY2, UYVY to RGB24; DivX® 6.4.0 Codec (1 Logical CPU); DivX® 6.4.0 YV12 Decoder; FHelix I420 YUV Codec; Huffyuv v2.1.1; Intel Indeo(R) Video R3.2; Intel Indeo® Video 4.5; Intel IYUV codec; Lagarith lossless codec; Ligos Indeo® Video 5.11; MainConcept DV Codec 2.0.4; Microsoft H.261 Video Codec; Microsoft H.263 Video Codec; Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V1; Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V2; Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V3; Microsoft RLE; Microsoft Video 1; Microsoft Windows Media Video 9; XviD MPEG-4 Codec

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

[guns1inger]

What do you want to do with the output ? This will determine what codec is best for your needs.

[terrypin]

Thanks. Several possible uses, but for a start I want to use it with the other 30 or so non-rotated digicam AVIs in MemoriesOnTV.

That won't accept DivX or XviD, for example (as per separate thread).

Putting it another way, I want to get back to as close to the 'type' of the originals. A similar balance of size/quality.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

[guns1inger]

You can't have both. To put it back to the same size will require compression which will reduce quality. I would use a lossless codec, which will cut it back to around 40mb (based on the 82mb uncompressed size)

[terrypin]

You can't have both.

Why not? The camera did it in 5.5 MB, why can't my PC do something similar?

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK

[mats.hogberg]

Sure it can, but the computer version would be a compressed version of a compressed version (even if it's compressed by the same factor as the source) which inevitably will look worse than the original. We're not talking lossless compression here, like a ZIP, but lossy compression, where bits are taken out to make the file smaller.
If you're going to create a DVD with MemoriesOnTV, use the 82MB AVI as source for that process (the size of the source files wont affect the size of the final DVD), then delete it.
Keep your unrotated original AVI as archive version.

/Mats

[mgh]

Try with a mjpeg codec
https://www.videohelp.com/tools?toolsearch=mjpeg&Submit=Search
first versions of picvideo codec were free-may still be available at their site

[BJ_M]

the mjpeg codec is not as good as huffyuv if you are going to later compress to mpeg2 ,use DV or huffyuv --- but as stated , better yet is to leave it as it is ... 82 meg is nothing

[terrypin]

Thanks for those helpful follow-up replies. I already have huffyuvmay so may try the mjpeg codec.

Accepting that there's one more stage of degradation, I'm just curious to see what visible quality change I'd get if I could recompress the rotated file to something similar in size to that of the original.

--
Terry, West Sussex, UK