How to maintain video quality in Movie Maker

[Kaila Mathers]

I have a video that has the following;
-Length: 528
-Frame Width: 208
-Data Rate: 844
-Total Bitrate: 974
-Frame Rate: 25frames/second


I'd like to keep the quality because it's actually pretty good but every time I save it 'as a movie' in Movie Maker the quality changes dramatically.

Can someone please help me sort this out.
thanks

[sanlyn]

Your specs don't tell us much. Try the free MediaInfo utility and post its text here. MediaInfo at http://mediainfo.sourceforge.net/en.

"Quality" and "Movie Maker" are two concepts that are opposite each other. But you can use whatever you want.

[hech54]

I don't believe you are allowed to use the words "quality" and "Movie Maker" in the same sentence.

[enim]

"Quality" and "Movie Maker" are two concepts that are opposite each other.

I don't believe you are allowed to use the words "quality" and "Movie Maker" in the same sentence.

Maintaining Quality weights thousand tons, Very difficult to handle or maintain.
Many Heavy Weight Champions ran into Diarrhea by leaving a stinky trail behind.
Nobody does that, Only very few can handle and maintain.

[sanlyn]

We still need more info about the source and what the owner wants to do with it.

[Kaila Mathers]

I used that program the 'mediainfo' and here's what I got.
General Information;
AVI: 700MB
1 videostream:MPEG-4 Visual
Audiostream: MPEG Audio (MP3)
Writingapplication: VirtualDubMod 1.5.4.1 (build 2178/release)
Writinglibrary: VirtualDubMod build 2178/release

First Video Stream
836Kbps, 528*208 (2.538), at 25.000 fps, MPEG-4 Visual (XviD)

First audio stream
128 Kbps, 48.0KHz, 2 channels, MPEG Audio (MP3) (Version 1) (Layer 3) (Joint Stero/MS Stereo)


It's a DVDRip of an old 1954 movie. I need to cut some scenes out for a project.

[manono]

I need to cut some scenes out for a project.

And you were reencoding this in MovieMaker? Just to cut out scenes?

Use VDub making sure to set both audio and video for Direct Stream Copy (I believe that's default for the audio). Make your cuts. Nothing gets degraded. I hope you're cutting on keyframes (scene changes, usually). If not you'll also have to learn how to smart render.

[sanlyn]

Looks as if this vid has already gone through multiple stages of lossy low-bitrate encoding, resized to 2.53:1 display. But it's hard to say. Asked for mediainfo text report and got a JPG of the general info section only. I'd guess it's been deinterlaced (let's hope so) and the color channels would be a mess. I'd think that processing has gone too far down the road to talk about maintaining quality.

I'd take manono's advice: you can cut scenes in VirtualDub and save as "direct stream copy". If you don't know what key frames are you're in trouble, but key frames for DivX videos are indicated by a "K" in the status panel at the bottom of VirtualDub's window.