Brighten dark video + reduce size: Recommend settings?

[yetanotherlogin]

Hello

Using my Sony camcorder, I shot a 2h video that's a bit too dark. Here are the codecs used by the camcorder:

Stream #0:0[0x1e0]: Video: mpeg2video (Main), yuv420p, 720x576 [SAR 64:45 DAR 16:9], 25 fps, 25 tbr, 90k tbn, 50 tbc
Stream #0:1[0x80]: Audio: ac3, 48000 Hz, 5.1(side), s16, 448 kb/s

I enabled the ad hoc filter in VirtualDub, and then, to reduce the filesize from its original 9GB to something below 500MB for viewing over the Net, I chose Xvid for video, and different audio codecs ("AC3 ACM Codec 192kbps 48KHz 5.1", "AC3 ACM Extensible 192kbps 48KHz 5.1", and "MP3 (56k 24KHz Stereo)", but they all trigger this error:

Error initializing audio stream compression: The audio codec cannot compress the source audio to the desired format. Check that the sampling rate and number of channels in the source is compatible with the selected compressed audio format.

Which video codec and audio codec would you recommend I use in VirtualDub to get a < 500MB video, eg. 300x200 video with good sound?

Thank you.

[Hoser Rob]

I don't know a lot about camcorder codecs in general, but I'd suggest that the video codec chosen has much, much less to do with being able to compress the file than you seem to think.

[yetanotherlogin]

Thanks for the info. Still, I have to choose codecs. Which should I choose?

What other options should I try to get the filesize to about 500MB?

[Selur]

1st I would not recommend to use Virtual Dub for this (iirc it one can use external encoders with Virtual Dub but I think it's too much of a hassle)
2nd I would go for aac audio (downmix to stereo and use qaac) and H.264 video (x264 encoder)
3rd I would use mp4 as container

[yetanotherlogin]

Thanks. What other Windows application would you recommend for this?

[Selur]

Personally I would use my own application, but it's not aimed at newbies, so might not be too intuitive, but most Video Encoding Tools should be able to do the job to:
1. resize Video
2. change brightness/gamma of the video
3. convert ac3->aac

A lot of folks who are used to Virtual Dub seem to like AviDemux.

Cu Selur

[yetanotherlogin]

Thanks much. I'll experiment.

[Selur]

If you want to try Hybrid (the tool I normally use and write), the steps you would need to do in it would be:

1. Start Hybrid
2. Load Source (Main->Input File)
3. select x264->Main->General Settings->Target size and enter the target size you want (alternatively set Encoding Mode to 'constant rate factor (1-pass)'), if you know your way around x264 there are a lot of option to tweak
4. set Main->Primary Input selection->Audio handling to 'custom'
5. enable Audio->Main->Reencode audio stream
6. configure Audio->Main->Audio Encoding Options the way you want e.g. using Qaac and a bitrate of 128
7. select Audio->Main->Filtering
8. set Audio->Main->Audio Filtering->Downmix to one of the stereo modes e.g. 'to stereo'
9. press the '+'-button on the right side to add the current audio configuration to the audio queue
10. enable Crop/Resize->Enable Resizing
11. set Crop/Resize->Picture Resize->Target resolution to whatever you want e.g. 500
12. change the brigthness/gamma, by enabling: Filtering->Denoise/Sharpen/..->Picture Settings->Color Adjustments
    (enable 'Filter view' and press 'Filter View' to compare the results or don't enable 'Filter view' and just preview the changes)
13. set the output Main->Output file to something with a .mp4 ending
14. press 'Main->Add to Queue'
15. press 'Main->Start Queue'

----
btw. depending on the content of you video, lowering the resolution so much might not be necessary to get decent quality

Cu Selur

[yetanotherlogin]

Thanks for the instructions. I'll let AviDemux end, try again with Hybrid, and compare the outputs.

[Selur]

outputs should be nearly identical since the both use x264 as encoder, so if what you want works fine with AviDemux no need to switch to another gui.

[yetanotherlogin]

At this rate, the output (Mpeg4 video in 300x200, Aac audio, MP4 container) should be around 260MB down from 9GB. Hopefully, VLC will play the audio this time.