Is MPEG4 my best bet for easy video compression for sharing?

[CursedLemon]

So I've been fooling around with my DV camera a lot, taking videos of me playing guitar as well as using it to capture footage from things like my video game consoles, and all that wonderful junk.

Upon advice from this forum, I've been using VDub to deinterlace with doubled framerate, and using MPEG4 compression in varying qualities to share the videos with other people. Aside from the aspect ratio complications for DV video being converted into a different format (it's like a damn nightmare for someone who doesn't know the ins and outs of the whole thing), the videos just don't compare at all to the quality of the original, which is kind of a stupidly obvious statement, but yeah...

Is there a format that VDub can recompress to that's better than MPEG4 that isn't, you know, straight uncompressed RGB?

Also, another question, can VDub recompress DV video? I have captured DV videos that I'd like to trim the beginning and end off of.

[guns1inger]

For just trimming the ends, use Direct Stream Copy mode and no re-encoding will take place. Very fast, and no quality hit.

As for smaller files . . . DV can be interesting to work with. You have to separate fields before resizing or you get artefacts. You have to stabilise the footage if you want lower bitrates or you get artefacts. It takes a little time and a bit or reading to get the hang of it.

[CursedLemon]

Thanks!

Can you show me where I can look to better understand how to handle DV video? I know each format is handled differently, and that DV is a strange sort all its own.

[jagabo]

If you're going to share with friends (where you can't control what player they're using and what settings are used in that player) you probably want to deinterlace too. Note, MPEG 4 defines two main compression standards, ASP (Xvid, Divx 6, etc) and AVC (h.264, x264, etc). The latter gives better compression.

[CursedLemon]

That was basically my motivation behind it, deinterlacing makes SURE it looks like it's supposed to instead of people watching my DV videos in VLC and going "wtf".

Where can I find that option in VDub? I can't seem to locate it.

[jagabo]

Video -> Filters -> Add -> Deinterlace
or
Video -> Filters -> Add -> Bob Doubler

Some people may have problems playing 50 fps material. If you don't need the greater motion smoothness (and want smaller files) don't double the frame rate, use 25 fps.

[CursedLemon]

I meant the ASP vs. AVC option.

[jagabo]

VirtualDub doesn't include any MPEG family compression codecs, you need to install them. Xvid codec (ASP) and X264vfw (AVC) are two good choices. ffdshow also includes both.

[CursedLemon]

Ah, I have ffdshow installed but I'd never tried using it (so many configuration options it makes my head hurt). I'll give that a whirl.

[jagabo]

Don't forget that your standard Windows XP install doesn't include any MPEG 4 decoders. Your friends may have to install them or use a player that has them built in. Like MPCHC, VLC, KMPlayer.

[CursedLemon]

Most of my friends have VLC I think, I don't think that should be a problem.

Now if only Youtube supported 60 FPS (or 59.94, whatever)...sigh...