250 MB for 4 minutes of blurry video. What am I doing wrong?

[Phosphorous]

Hello all,
I have read through quite a few of the posts and guides before posting here, so please bear with me.

I have used FRAPS to capture some video from a computer game. It is being captured at full screen resolution(in my case 1024x768) at 25 frames per second. 4 minutes of captured video produces a 4GB avi. I figured that since it was all uncompressed, a good encoder would drastically reduce the file size. I mean, 4 minutes of video seems like it should be only like 30 megabytes compressed (just a guess). I've tried dozens of different compression options using TMPEGEnc and Vegas Video. Both of them are able to get it down to somewhere in the vicinity of 150-250mb.

The two problems I am having are:
1. The compressed video isn't very crisp, and text on the screen is almost totally illegible.
2. 250mb for 4 minutes of audio/video seems too big. TMPEGEnc says that mpeg2 encoding should give me something like 4 hours of space. At the current compression, 80 minutes would be 5GB.

Is there something that I haven't figured out, like when I put it onto a DVD, the resolution will somehow look much better? Im going out to buy some DVD's today and I'd like to reduce the likelyhood of a bunch of expensive coasters.

Thank you so much for any help you can throw my way.

[migf1]

Actually 250Mb for 4 mins of 1024x768 video sounds rather small. The more the compression, the more the distortion of the original video.

I don't know what FRAPS is (a capture utility I assume?), but if it allows you to select a compression codec for the capturing, I think you should use either Huffyuv or PicVideo (both availabe in the tools section of this site -under Codecs). Then you can use TMPGenc (or any other program of this kind) to convert your captured video to MPEG1 or MPEG2.

Btw, you don't need to capture in 1024x768... 720x576 (PAL) should be more than enough.

Regards...

[Phosphorous]

Well, it's 250MB after conversion down to 720x480 for NTSC. I guess I was thinking that if it was 250mb for 4 minutes, 40 minutes would be 2500mb. I was under the impression that I should be able to get at least 3 or 4 hours of DVD quality resolution on one disc.

FRAPS is just a video capture utility that hooks into DirectX applications and is able to dump the raw frames to disk. It creates huge files because it is uncompressed, but the video quality is identical to whatever your system settings are. I just happened to capture in 1024x768 because it uses whatever your screen resolution is.

I've seen HuffyUV but haven't used it yet. Is it unreasonable to expect to get a couple hours of high-quality audio/video onto a DVD?

Thanks for your help!

[migf1]

Oops... I got confused in my previous answer. I thought you were talking about the filesize of your captures, not the final (encoded) output. So 250Mb in 704x480 sounds pretty normal. Also, if you don't care about the size of your captured video then you don't even need Huffyuv or PICVideo MJPEG... they are just compression codecs for getting smaller filesizes during capture.

Now, about the real question, I'm affraid I can't be of much help as far as DVD creation is concerned, since I've never done it.

However, I've made quite a few VCDs (MPEG1) and just a few SVCDs (MPEG2) and as far as I know, DVDs (also MPEG2) follow pretty much the same logic (with some extra stuff needed to be taken into account). The bitrate plays important role in the final size and quality of the outcome. Generally, the higher the bitrate, the larger the file (and consequently less recorded minutes on the DVD)... and vice versa of course.

VCDs have a constant (low) bitrate, while SVCDs use more than double the bitrate of VCDs, with higher resolution as well. DVDs use even higher resolution and bitrates (up to 8000 I think, in order to be compatible with everything), with the option to use variable bitrate (defininig the min, average, and max bitrate).

Before buying a DVD burner, you may wish to experiment with VCD (and/or SVCD) which are actually nothing more than normal CDR disks, which most stand alone dvd-players will recognise and playback.

The VCD quality compares to that of VHS and you can fit up to 80 mins of video on a 700Mb CDR. SVCD gives better quality, but you can only fit about 40 mins of video on a CDR (for it to be fully compatible).

One possible procedure (rather typical I may add) is as follows:
1. Capture your video with your favorite capture utility in AVI format.
2. Convert it to one or more VCD/SVCD compliant MPEG file(s) (using TMPGenc for example).
3. Use Nero (or similar program supporting VCD/SVCD burning) to burn your MPEG file(s) onto a CDR.

To reduce encoding time (and captured filesizes) you can decide in advance which media you itend to burn your outcome onto, and use a relative resolution for your captures.

Regards...

[Phosphorous]

Thanks again for your response.

I think I had the bit rate set fairly high, which would account for the file size. The poor quality is still a problem though. Seems as if the movie studios can burn a full length movie with AC-3 audio on it that is crystal clear, I should be able to do it too (unless they use some proprietary encoding that nobody knows about).

I'd like to hear from anyone out there who can tell me if I am crazy for thinking I can get a few hours of high quality video onto a dvd.

Best Regards...

[housepig]

Seems as if the movie studios can burn a full length movie with AC-3 audio on it that is crystal clear, I should be able to do it too (unless they use some proprietary encoding that nobody knows about).

it's not so much the proprietary encoding (although they are dealing with encoding and equipment that puts most home users to shame), it's the fact that they are using professional tools and dealing with pristine original source footage.

I don't know what game you are using or how FRAPS works, but you are taking something that probably has a really high framerate and is running at a high screen resolution, and crunching it down to 29fps, and dvd frame size, which is around half of the original.

imagine taking a dvd and shrinking it down to 320x240 at 10 frames per second - it wouldn't look very good, would it?

[Phosphorous]

Hmm, thats a good point. Maybe I should try starting with a lower resolution. The captures are being done at 25fps. I guess I had thought that starting with a higher resolution and then downsizing it would make more sense. Maybe a lower resolution would work out better. I'll give it a shot.

Thanks!

[migf1]

Hmm, thats a good point. Maybe I should try starting with a lower resolution. The captures are being done at 25fps. I guess I had thought that starting with a higher resolution and then downsizing it would make more sense. Maybe a lower resolution would work out better. I'll give it a shot.

Thanks!

I don't think that lowering the resolution during the capture will solve your quality problem (most probably it will hurt it). Actually, I don't even know what kind of capture this FRAPS thing does (I assume a digital one, since you capture internally from your graphics card/monitor).

What Housepig pointed out makes sense to me. If the orginal footage is made and intended to be shown on a high definition progresive monitor, it sounds logical to get screwed-up when it's converted and outputed to a technologically limited media, such as the TV set.

I'm quite a newbie in the video-processing stuff, but the general logic of Housepig's note seems to makes sense.

[Gazorgan]

Any gamer knows you can't take a hi-res game and put it on a TV. ESPECIALLY a Direct-X game. 1024x768 in what...60...80 fps? Is going to look poor at 29.97 fps TV. You have to decimate it quite a bit, so it's going to look jerky. Force your video card to 30 fps and see what I'm talking about.

Now you can make a DivX at 60 fps just fine, and it will look good on a PC, but not a TV. Try running in 640x480 mode and do your captures there, you will get much better results!

[Phosphorous]

Thanks for all the help. I haven't tried this kind of capture before, so I appreciate all the pointers. I'll bump the resolution down and see if it looks any better.

Best Regards...

[videocheez]

Hey Phosphorus,

Where can I buy a copy of FRAPS. I'm a gamer and this sounds cool.

VC

[The_Pioneer]

Seems as if the movie studios can burn a full length movie with AC-3 audio on it that is crystal clear, I should be able to do it too (unless they use some proprietary encoding that nobody knows about).

I'd like to hear from anyone out there who can tell me if I am crazy for thinking I can get a few hours of high quality video onto a dvd.

Best Regards...

Your DVD writer can only burn DVD-5's. I could try and explain it badly but...

https://www.videohelp.com/glossary#DVD-5

will do a better job. DVD-9 is what most commercial DVD's are using.