Edited clip bigger than original!?

[cradix]

I just captured 30 mins (or so) of video using VirtualDub and HUFFYUV. Total size is 5.5GB. Then I took out 10 mins (or so) of commercials using VirtualDub and did a "Save as AVI..." (HUFFYUV compression set in the Video --> Compression menu). Final size now is 7.3GB.

Why is a shorter clip using the same compression mechanism in the same program 1.8GB BIGGER than the longer, unedited video clip? Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,
Matt

[Tommyknocker]

You may have changed the frame rate without realizing it. You may also may want to change your codecs and use one of the Divx encoders, or frameserve to TMPGEnc to convert to MPEG-1 or 2.

[cradix]

I've checked the frame rate settings in VirtualDub before saving the edited clip as an AVI and it is set to "No Change" (along with every other setting). There are less frames in the edited clip once saving when compared to the original, so I'm convinced the frame rate is not the issue here.

Which leads us to audio settings? I've tried all sorts of combinations including "Direct Stream Copy", "Full Processing Mode", changing "Interleaving" options, etc. all to no avail...

Instead of going through everything I did that obviously did not work, can someone just please tell me what settings (both audio and video) I should have so that if I were to simply take the original and NOT EDIT IT but simply save is as a different AVI, I would come out with the exact same file size.

Once I know my settings are correct, I can then proceed to edit. This issue really is causing me problems, because the encoded version of my edited file will NOT fit onto a CD, but the original (longer) file when encoded leaves me with room for more!

-- A very frustrated Matt

P.S. -- My original was captured in VirtualDub using HUFFYUV at 352x480 (YUY2) with the audio set at PCM, 44.100 kHz, 16 bit, stereo, 172 kb/sec.

[snowmoon]

Ok, what's probably happening.

When you take out the commercials with full processing mode and huffyuv is that the original .avi is decoded to RGB and then re-encoded with huffyuv. This may or may not increase the filesize, but RGB IS 33% more data over YUY2 or similar 4:2:2 codec. You may also have problems with dropped frames since when VDub re-compresses them they become full frames and therefore will take up more room in the output file.

What you want is direct stream copy for both audio and video. This will just take the pre-compressed huffyuv frames and move them into the new file.

Cheers,
Eric

[cradix]

Snowmoon, once again you have helped me like no other! I could have sworn I already tried "Direct Stream Copy" on both (cuz it makes the most sense). Anyway, it worked like a charm!

Thanks to all you guys, I am now well on my way of archiving the 99 episodes of Animaniacs!!

Thanks again, everyone... but this here newbie has many more questions to come, I'm sure...

hehe --Matt