help: best combination of filters (virtualdub)

[ttunnelus]

hi every1,
i've just downloaded virtual dub
and started to use it for my film
i've tried some filters and compression
but i didn't have the optimum result
i.e. small size & high quality

what i want to ask is:
1. i need help in choosing filters for my compression
any opinion?
the compression is divx mp4 fast/low motion.
2. where can i get extra filters for virtual dub
because i saw one tutorial page
and it depicted the filters list much more than
the standard virtual dub <- the one i've just downloaded from
virtualdub.org
3. how do we make our own filters?

thanx

[Chopper Face]

I personally hate mpeg-4 and like the older div-x but that's just me. To use that you need a program called nandub which is kind of a hack of vdub but there may be another way. Anyway that's just for the stuff I do though. I think mpeg-4 is good for live action or something since everyone's always going on about how great it's supposed to be.

Anyway as for filters I've found the interlace is good if your input is interlace and you want to keep the large size. The 2:1 high quality reduction is best for shrinking. Sometimes a blur filter will look okay and make the div-x encoding go more smoothly and yields smaller files. It's just something you have to tweak around with. Just make a bunch of minutes long tests with various filters and see how it looks. Most of the filters there won't clean up anything.

[WMike]

There are some sites, like Donald Graft's (referenced off the VDub homepage), where you can get additional filters for use. The use of filters is somewhat more the artistic and individualizing of your video. Some folks really prefer quicker processing time, some want only the highest possible quality. As has been said, make some short test examples to look for yourself.

Personally, I do a lot of B/W movies. Unfortunately I tend to get noise around the edges of my videos so I commonly use the cropping (0 transform) then resize. I almost universally use D.Graft's dynamic noise reduction filter and his smart smoother. The use of the smart smoother greatly increases processing time, but yields for me a superior quality. I also end up using the field swap feature if using a compression different from Huffuv (Huffuv will do a field swap for you) since my capture card tends to choose it's own damned field orientation.

You'll likely get as many different answers to this question as posters. I again second the suggestion that you run some tests for yourself in addition to any suggestions you receive.

Good luck
Mike