Any other options except .avi?

[luzgin]

Hello,

Does anyone knows a software which could be used to capture and save video in less hard drive space consuming format then .avi?
It's taking crazy amount of space when I'm trying to load my video from camcoder.

Thanks,
Eugene

[Bstansbury]

The answer is yes,... but it comes with a question... you didn't say anything about what kind of system you have, capture card, or anything. What do you think we are!!!! mind readers. IF you want an intelligent answer, ask an intelligent question.

As far as AVI, it is the "Largest" capture codec file size. If you have the right system and capture card (no information here) you could capture directly in MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 (VCD or SVCD) and this would be considerable smaller file. You could also capture in MPEG format with "I" frames only and then edit and convert the file to anything you wanted to. This is also about 1/5 the size of an avi file.

Looking forward to your next post.

Bud

[luzgin]

Hi,

What I was doing - I was transfering video from my digital Sony PC9 camcoder to computer via FireWire. I used VideoWave III program (which came with camcoder) for capturing. Actualy I also tried Adobe Premier, Ulead Video Factory and VirtualDub... - they all don't capture audio for some reasons.
I understand that encoding from AVI into MPEG is time consuming process and is probably not possible in real time on average computer (I have PII with 128MB Ram) during capturing.
But what frustrates me most - that quality of video on VCD seems much worse than VHS tapes. I recorded 2 minutes of video on CDR for test and then viewed it on my DVD player - terrible. It seems like MPEG-1 resolution 325x240 is too small.
Am I doing something wrong?

Eugene

[FiEND]

thats is mpeg1, its crap and will generally look bad unless you have a very clean signal or use noise filters. but even from DVD rips, mpeg1 is way under powered.

mpeg1 is 352*240
DVD is 720*480

Your best bet is to do SVCD 480*480. mpeg2 will stretch the image to 720*480 which looks pretty good.. at least 10x better than mpeg1.

avi is the best way to capture, sorry. you can simulate it by capturing at a ungodly bitrate in mpeg, 6000Kbit or higher mpeg2 then compressing that, but I don't think your cpu can handle it. (depends on what PII though, a 450 should be able to as my celeron 600 can easily).

[luzgin]

Thanks for the tip.

I didn't know the DVD resolution before.
I recorded SVCD sample CDR but unfortunetly it doesn't play on my SAMSUNG DVD-M101 player.
I think about giving up my idea of recording Video CD untill I will buy DVD burner.
Does anyone knows if DVD-R/RW plays on DVD players for sure?

Eugene

[Rich927]

Why give up on recording till you get a DVD burner? Use that time to fine tune you editing skills. Making VCD's is cheap.

[thxkid]

NO, MPEG1 can look good, not as sharp as MPEG2, but I can get a VCD captured and encoded with no pixelation, actually its a XVCD because I encode at the higher 2520 bitrate, my family video's come out looking perfect, a little soft mind you because of the lower resolution, but still macro block free. I use avi with no compression to capture, edit with ulead 5.0 media, use hollywoodFX gold, encode the finished product with TNPGE with my VCD Template, burn using NERO, pop it into a DVD player looks great, done over 100 VCD's so far with great results, just started doing SVCD about 6 months ago, granted it does look better.

[kinneera]

MPEG1 is not restricted to 352x240. You can raise the resolution to 480x480 or 720x480.

Given equivalent bitrates and resolutions, MPEG1 can be made to look about as good as MPEG2. It does not, however, support interlacing, among other specifications added to MPEG2.

[luzgin]

How do you make MPEG-1 with resolution of 720x480?
I captured AVI with resolution of 720x480
and then used TMPGEnc to encode it into MPEG-1
but I could not change 352x240 resolution setting.
Is there some other program to do this job?

[Greg12]

u have to manually program it into TMPG, not use a pre-built setting

[kinneera]

In TMPEnc, go to load a template, open the "extras" folder, and load the "unlock" template. Then you'll be able to change any of the settings, including resolution.

[luzgin]

I learned so much thanks to your notes folks.
I managed to encode my video into MPEG-1 with 720x480 resolution
but VCDEasy refused to accept such resolution for VCD.
So I took file structure from my another working VCD and just replaced a DAT file (which is MPEG) with my new MPEG with a new 720x480 resolution (renamed to the same filename) and then burned it all into CDR using regular CD burning software.
Unfortunetly this trick didn't work for my DVD player.
It gave me "no disk" message.
Does anyone can give me an advice how to record 720x480 VCD movie and still be able to play it on standalone DVD player?

[Zlash]

Probably as a xvcd instead.

[kinneera]

VCDEasy should accept the nonstandard resolution, but I will admit I haven't used the newest version. If it is now restricting the creation of non-standard disks, it has eliminated its own reason for existence.

You may also want to try one of the other authoring tools based on VCDImager, such as TSCV, if VCDEasy is giving you problems.

[luzgin]

I used Nero to record MPEG-1 720x480 as VCD.
It gave me warning about not standard resolution but let me burn CD.
Still I couldn't play it on my SAMSUNG DVD.
May be it's just my DVD doesn't recognize such format.
Did anyone actually played 720x480 VCD on DVD player?

[kinneera]

I have played 720x480 VCDs, but it does not conform to standards, so there is no guarantee from player to player. You might also try burning your disc to a CD-RW, as a fair number of players have problems reading CD-Rs.