converting and keeping video quality....

[Questmark]

Hi,
I had a couple of questions on this....

I'm attempting to frameserve to Vegas with makeAVIS. However,the file is an ogm. If I direct stream copy the video to an avi file, the quality is exactly the same, right? Is that's basically what "direct stream copy" implies....?? My understanding is that I only lose quality if I use a filter or recompress it or change the audio, etc. and use "full processing mode."

Basically, I want to get the ogm into a format where I can frameserve it. I'm trying to add hardsubs, and I figure I can do that in Avisynth, rather than VDubMod, and the quality will remain better.

My other question is whether I should be frameserving a huffyuv video or not.... If I'm frameserving then that shouldn't matter, right? I guess I'm curious whether frameserving a video in huffyuv would somehow provide better results in Vegas than the current Divx5 codec. I can see that how I save it in Vegas will change the quality of the final product (if I'm doing some post-processing), but for the input to Vegas , if the ogm is already Divx5, then it shouldn't matter whether I change it to huffyuv or not, if I'm frameserving it, right??

Finally, is there any difference if I add filters to Avisynth script before I edit in Vegas, versus after I edit in Vegas-- smoother, color saturation, that sort of stuff. Will having the script include that stuff make Vegas run slower? I guess this project is getting bigger than I thought it would, and I looking at encoding from Vegas straight to m2v, rather than exporting from Vegas, using the filters in Avisynth and then encoding in Tmpenc. It just seemed like a crazy number of steps--

VdubMod ogm to huffyuv with hardsubs-->Vegas--> huffyuv output-->Avisynth post processing--> tmpgenc encode to m2v-->DVD authoring

versus

VdubMod Divx5 ogm to Divx5avi--> Avisynth with text subs, and smoother, etc.--> Vegas edits to m2v output

I'm just looking to see if there's some failure in my logic, as I'd like to make the process more streamlined. Does vegas not encode to m2v as well as tmpegnc? Or....??

[whitejremiah]

just kinda out of curiousity, why not just keep the subs and author to dvd with the subs intact using say...dvd lab pro? i'm not particularly familiar with hardcoded subs, but it strikes me as strange that you would want to hardcode the subs into the movie instead of leaving them as optional?

[Questmark]

Frankly, I don't know enough about subs to answer that for sure.

However, I have an srt file, which I demuxed and edited in notepad. I did this for the 4 seperate ogms that I'm combining into one "movie."

I'm brining them into Vegas 5 to edit them (cut scenes, crossfade, etc.), and I'd always assumed that if I didn't hardsub them, that the timing would be off since I'm combining the 4 files. Even if I kept the 4 files seperate in Vegas, and seperated them at appropriate scenes, I still always thought the subs would be off since I'm editing the video. If I hardsub, then that timing problem is solved, without having to use Subtitle Workshop (which I'm sure is a great program, but after having to learn Vegas 5, VDub Mod, and Avisynth in the last 2-3 weeks, I'm a little burnt out).

Also, I thought if it was an avi that selectable subs wasn't an option-- that that only occured if you were using ogm's or mkv's. Does someone have an answer for that? Because I suppose if I could simply edit the subs and put them back in a stream as soft and then direct stream copy the avi __with__ the subs, that then I wouldn't need to hardsub them, and could keep the quality up, and I also wouldn't need to necessarily frameserve, as the quality would be the same if I were direct stream copying, and I wouldn't need to use huffyuv (since I'd be direct stream copying). But I don't know if you can use direct stream copy for anything other than video. Does someone have an answer to that question too?

Still, besides that is the question of timing....... which I don't think soft subs would solve.

Anyways, that was why (originally), hardsubbing with VDubMod and then frameserving (or just putting in hardsubs as a script in Avisynth) or using huffyuv seemed the best/fastest option. Huffyuv is starting to seem the best for now though-- it's slow (compared to frameserving), and it takes up tons of HD space, but I can't seem to find a way to frameserve to Vegas-- can't get the readAVS.dll anywhere, can't get a working link for the Link2 program someone mentioned, and using ffdshow's makeAVIS function didn't import to Vegas properly. UGH!!

Anyways, that's the reason I decided it would be best to hardsub the subs.

I would love some help on this situation if anyone's got some input. Thanks.