WMV9 world's best codec

[mcard]

Thanks guys for all the comments. I've since put in more time looking at fine detail of WMV9 quality vs working with compressed AVIs. There's noticeable quality degradation using windows movie maker 2, even when exporting out with its best quality WMV9 settings. It doesn't compare to say editing in (whatever you use, ie/ Premiere, MoveiXone, etc) and then producing a mjpeg compressed avi.

With the latter, the sharpness and clarity of the image is retained, and looks very close to the original source. With WMV9, you can see some pixelation, and the picture looks softer overall. If Windows Movie Maker allowed you to export with Picvideo MJPEG, or other 3rd party codecs, I'm sure it would work better, but of course to no surprise, they don't let you use anything other than their codecs or uncompressed DV-AVI, which eats up to much HD space for any lengthy edit.

So I've reverted back to my previous method of sticking with the picvideo MJPEG codec, and editing OUTSIDE of windows movie maker2.

Peace.

[Champion_R]

I'd never capture in XViD or WMV. Huffyuv or MJPEG are the only way to go when capturing or uncompressed if you can :P

[preacher238]

I have used WMV 9 to archive video captures and then reencoded them into DVD compliant MPEG 2 files (352x480 at 5000kbps) and did not notice much degredation at all. They came out looking perfectly acceptable on my DVD player hooked to my TV. But like it has already been said, it's all about what YOU want and what is acceptable to YOU.

TxPharoah

I am using WIn DVR 3 to capture in MPEG 2. The quality is comparable to the ATI MMC captures (with my AIW 7500). It all depends on what mood I'm in as to what program to use. To me they are interchangeable. But that's just my opinion.

[Ego_Shredder]

I'm a huge fan of PicVideo M-JPEG codec because it allows low powered PC's to achieve amazing capture quality at DVD resolutions. I have in the past tried capturing to MPEG 1 & 2, Windows Media 7 Codec, DivX 4 & 5 and had mixed results ranging from awful to excellent. Codecs like the Microsoft one MUST surely use a lot more CPU power to achieve the higher compression and not everyone owns a 3Ghz PC!

I've been looking into getting a hardware based codec like the Hauppauge WinTV-PVR 250 card, because capturing to MPEG-2 with software requires ENORMOUS CPU power, unless of course you enjoy the uncomfortable experience of viewing mega jerky motion quality in your captures......

I have however found a great way of capturing with software (WinVCR v2.0) to MPEG-1 at 704 x 576 resolution with a video bitrate of 2097200 (2xCD template) and audio at 224 bitrate. Not all DVD players can play XVCD's at this quality but the results are very good with decent motion quality, so watching sport etc is fine. On an 80min CDR you can fit about 49mins of video and 58mins on a 99min CDR.

For achiving purposes of things you care about, I would go the hardware route first and the PicVideo M-JPEG to VCD/SVCD route second. Both of these will give superb results but the second method will take you hours and hours and hours and.......


Ego