Video Capture Optimization Questions

[rhuala2]

Been trying to imporve on my current video capturing process. Here's how I am processing stuff now:
1. Capture to raw .avi file using Power VCR II or WinProducer.
2. TMGEnc compress, crop and edit.

or
1. Capture to compressed mpeg
2. Edit? Haven't found good way to edit yet. Should I avoid this process altogether?

I am getting pretty decent quality and would now like to really focus on finding ways to improve it. Here's my system spec first:

AMD 1700+, 512MB RAM
Geforce 4 Ti4400, Latest detonator drivers installed and WDM capture drivers
Windows XP Pro
60GB, 7200rpm Hard Drive, ATA66


Here goes the questions...

1. What's the best program/way to cut out video sections from compressed mpeg without loosing quality and fairly quickly. I use

TMPEng, but if I re-use this on an already compressed file to take out unwanted frames will it re-compress and kill the quality.

Also, it's real slow with TMGEnc, and Virtualdub only saves as .avi to my knowledge. In other words, I would like a program that

takes a compress mpeg1/2 file and can remove frames and re-saves it with out altering the remaining frames.

2. I often get, what I can best describe, as motion blur. In moving images there is a slight bluring from the lagging edge of the

moving object. I thought this may be due to the HD writing speed, but if I change the capture rate from say 720x480 to 350x200, I

still get the same blurring effect. Any ideas on how I can reduce this?

3. How to determine if my HD is adaquate? I actually have 3 HD's and would like to test all 3. I was thinking of trying to run

Sandra Soft on all 3 to find the fastest, but I think SS may use just reading speed? Anyone know a good way of testing hard drive

write speed?

4. Does the HD speed really matter. It seems WinProducer and POwer VCR II, ask for the file name AFTER I hit the stop record

button, which leads me to believe it's capturing to memory, then saving to HD after. Or is it buffering to the HD behind the scene.

If it is capturing to RAM, am I limited to capture size by available RAM?

5. Please explain the uses/needs for filters in Virtualdub? which filters do you commonly use other than 'null transform'. I use

'null transform' but have always wondered if the others could be put to good use...

6. How can I add text to a movie. I would like to add a title to the first few second of a compressed mpeg or avi. Also, how could

I add a .jpg title to the same movie. So that the first 5 secs play a .jpg picture?

7. I'm a bit confused about the codec situation. I currently download and install:
1. Nimo Codec, from http://www.divx-digest.com/software/nimo_pack.html
2. DivX, from www.divx.com
3. SLD Codec Pack 1.3, from http://download.com.com/3000-2194-10132352.html?tag=lst-0-1


This kinda seems like overkill? Am I throwing to much crap on my machine and possibly making things less stable?

8. I still can't get Virtualdub to stop saving my captures properly. I can see the captured image and the data on the 'monitor dub

status' is working. Yet when I play back the video it comes out ALL green and generally crashes the player (winXP) before it ends.

9. In Virtualdub when I try to change the compression from the menus: Video->Set Custom Format->YUY2 (or any other like YUY?). I get the error 'Not Supported' for every option.

Any answers on the above questions would be HUGELY appreciated, thanks in advance!

rhuala

[Poplar]

That's a lot of questions. Well, I got some time to kill. So let me take a stab at some of them.

1. I haven't done reat-time MPEG-2 capture. Based on cheap hardware most of us have, quality is generally inferior to software encoding. TMPG is not a MPEG-2 editor, it is a poor choice to use it do MPEG-2 editing. Try M2-Edit Pro. But the BEST way is edit is do it BEFORE compression/encoding. You can do it with Avisynth or VirtualDub, then frameserve to your encoder.

2. To reduce artifacts, best way is to increase bitrates. Sometimes deinterlace and some softening filter will help too.

3. All Hard drives made recently are fast enough. ActiveSmart is good hard drive utility.

4. There many ways to add texts and pictures to your video. Adobe Premiere can do almost anything, if you can afford it or know where to find it for free 8) . For uncomplicated texts and pictures, Avisynth is sufficient.

5. Only install codec you need. I downloaded Nimo's pack and never install it. I had apprehnsions and felt no need to install it, because I can view everything without installing it.

6. VirtualDub works best with VFW drivers, if you use WDM driver, well I don't know the answer

[rhuala2]

Thanks Poplar,

Sounds like VirtualDub just doesn't work great on Windows XP. Can anyone do good video capture using VirtualDub on Windows XP with a nVidia based card. If so, please post the drivers you are using. Thanks.

rhuala