Opinion on MPEG2 or AVI

[pixel]

I have just created the DVD files to burn to disc and realised that they are over the disk limit. This is my own fault and has happened before because I did not leave any space for extra files in my birate calc. I will have to re-encode the files again to fit (i'm not using DVDShrink or any tools like that) and they were originally captured in mpeg 2.

However, back to my point, someone managed to twist my arm yesterday and make me start capturing in avi and I like the results, but I don't know whether to just the re-encode the mpeg 2 files again (8Mbps, I frames only) or capture the videos again in VDub using the PicVideo MJPEG Codec as I re-encode anyway and the videos are about 7hrs long. I'm not too worried about time, mainly quality as I am putting so much on a DVD.

I know posts on this subject have been discussed many times over and I want to know whether people think the AVI route or the MPEG2 route will provide the best final output?

[pixel]

No one seems to have posted a reply
If someone could please give an opinion.

[Craig Tucker]

Capturing in AVI with say huffy compression and then encoding after will give better results, but will obviously take longer.

[pixel]

Thanks for your reply. I don't mind about time so i'll do that.
Thanks again, pixel.

[Will Hay]

No one seems to have posted a reply
If someone could please give an opinion.

Try waiting more than four hours from your first post.

but I don't know whether to just the re-encode the mpeg 2 files again

If I understand you correctly you won't achieve anything other than poorer quality if you re-encode.
Why would you want to?

However, back to my point, someone managed to twist my arm yesterday and make me start capturing in avi and I like the results, but I don't know whether to just the re-encode the mpeg 2 files again (8Mbps, I frames only) or capture the videos again in VDub using the PicVideo MJPEG Codec as I re-encode anyway and the videos are about 7hrs long. I'm not too worried about time, mainly quality as I am putting so much on a DVD.

I think you'll find you won't have the hardware to produce an mpeg2 capture as good as an avi conversion.
I capture with Vdub using the PicVideo MJPEG at quality 19/20, encode with TMPGEnc at a general bitrate of 7000VBR and author with either Studio 8 (if I need to edit first) or with the simple Ulead Movie Factory.
I've tried capturing mpeg2 with my ATI Radeon 64mb DDR ViVo and it doesn't compare to avi capture.
Will

[Will Hay]

Looking at your computer spec you have the ATI AWI card.
A young lad called txpharoah seems to be quite knowledgable regarding these cards,I suggest you take a look here and have a read through some of his more useful posts.
Will

[pixel]

Try waiting more than four hours from your first post.

Sorry about that. Will do in the future.

I had been capturing in MPEG 2 using Lordsmurfs guide because I had tried using Virtualdub with a whole host of codecs but they either dropped frames or ate up my HD space.

I don't know if it was just a bug in Virtualdub, but I visited the VD website and there was a P4 optimised version which I tried and this seemed to work a lot better. I have also started using the PicVideo MJPEG Codec as it seems to be the most space friendly at about 8GB/hr which means I can get up to 10hrs on my capture drive even although I only capture about 7hrs at a time.

I have read into txpharaoh's posts and that was where I found the idea of using Lordsmurf's guide but it doesn't compare to the recent .avi captures I have tried and re-encoded.

[pixel]

A quick question for Will Hay:

Under the advanced settings for the Pic Video MJPEG Codec what is the best of the following to use:

Subsampling
1/1/1?
4/2/2?
4/1/1?

Thanks in advance.

[andkiich]

The ATI AIW cardds and virtual dub have issues working together sometimes, so I stopped using VDub for capturing. I'd suggest either using MMC 7.x or I use Ulead Videostudio(came with the card). Since doign some machine tweeks and using the Ulead to capture AVI, out of 10 captures I think that I have dropped a total of 2 frames(of which I know why and it was my fault).

I capture AVI then convert for the following reasons:

1) AVI are easier to edit for me
2) I get better results on my finished product because I can run the AVI through TMPGENc in multi-pass VBR(you should see my Star Wars laserdisc conversions!)

[Craig Tucker]

The ATI AIW cardds and virtual dub have issues working together sometimes,

Thankfully mine does'nt as I much prefer vdub to mmc

[Will Hay]

A quick question for Will Hay:

Under the advanced settings for the Pic Video MJPEG Codec what is the best of the following to use:

Subsampling
1/1/1?
4/2/2?
4/1/1?

These are the settings I use:



Good luck
Will

[Will Hay]

I had been capturing in MPEG 2 using Lordsmurfs guide because I had tried using Virtualdub with a whole host of codecs but they either dropped frames or ate up my HD space.

What, if anything, is on your capture drive?
If anything then try moving and capture to a freshly formatted drive (a quick format will suffice)...
....worked for me
Will

[Champion_R]

I think 1/1/1 subsampling with Picvideo is the best quality but uses more space and CPU time

[pixel]

Nothing is on it. It is purely there for video capture. It is 80GB, 7,200rpm and it is IDE (I don't know if using an IDE drive is too slow for vid capture?) and I do a quick format every time I delete my previously capture files from it. I've been thinking of getting a new drive and luckily my new motherboard supports SATA. What kind of drive would you suggest? (IDE, SATA or SCSI)

I used to get a lot of dropped frames on my P3 with or without a codec.

With my P4 I dropped about 2frames/second with the HUFFYUV Codec when capturing at 720x576 but I decided it dropped too many frames.
I seem to get little or no dropped frames in VD with the MJPEG Codec (thanks for the settings).

Would another 512MB of DDR RAM attribute to stopping dropped frames?

BTW: Is there an option in VD that lets you set the max processor consumption for it?

[FOO]

I can't tell the difference between high rate I frames
ony and PicVideo. I will say that ATI 8500 using
the PicVideo has some problems. I still use PV anyway

1. Audio always 650 ms ahead
2. Scheduled capture won't start.

[Will Hay]

Nothing is on it. It is purely there for video capture. It is 80GB, 7,200rpm and it is IDE (I don't know if using an IDE drive is too slow for vid capture?) and I do a quick format every time I delete my previously capture files from it. I've been thinking of getting a new drive and luckily my new motherboard supports SATA. What kind of drive would you suggest? (IDE, SATA or SCSI)

Nothing other than what you have.
I had two of the same drive on a RAID O confirguration but now have better resulst splitting the array and capturing to a single, IDE drive.

With my P4 I dropped about 2frames/second with the HUFFYUV Codec when capturing at 720x576 but I decided it dropped too many frames.
I seem to get little or no dropped frames in VD with the MJPEG Codec (thanks for the settings)

I guess that's because huffyuv is processor intensive.
Not so much with PicVideo (I can't use the huffyuv as successfuly as I can the PicVideo).
If I lose 25 frames over an hour or so I'm happy with that.
I've read many posts whereupon people insist on recapturing if they lose single figure frames in an hour.
Fine, each to his own but in my opinion that's madness.
I challenge anyone to identify 25 frames lost, spread over a one hour capture (remember that's 25 frames lost in 90,000)
As I say, each to his own

Would another 512MB of DDR RAM attribute to stopping dropped frames?

In my opinion, no, not in the slightest.

BTW: Is there an option in VD that lets you set the max processor consumption for it?

I don't think there's an option as such, it simply displays the consumption as it captures (on the right hand side of the screen).
I guess it will use as much processor power as it needs, or it won't capture successfully.

[pixel]

I had two of the same drive on a RAID O confirguration but now have better resulst splitting the array and capturing to a single, IDE drive.

I don't know much about RAID . Could you put it in terms that I might be able to understand?

I've read many posts whereupon people insist on recapturing if they lose single figure frames in an hour.

I am one of these people because I can never be too sure if the frames have been dropped gradually through the duration of the capture or just at one point eg. I record to my VCR from a Freeview box and every now and again the picture breaks up and this caused me to drop frames 24 frames in one second, a full seconds worth, although this never normally happens.

[pixel]

Just another bit of info I hope someone can help me out with. During capturing in VD and any other program using the PicVideo MJPEG Codec I seem to drop 1 frame every minute and a half. I know this shouldn't be happening so am just wondering if anyone can help me out?

BTW: this happens no matter what resolution i am using and no matter what settings I have selected for the video (eg. cropping).

[Will Hay]

I had two of the same drive on a RAID O confirguration but now have better resulst splitting the array and capturing to a single, IDE drive.

I don't know much about RAID . Could you put it in terms that I might be able to understand?

We're all the same, we don't all know everything

Very simply, it's combining two of the same HDD's (same size, type data transfer rate etc.) together via a controller card (the HDD's connect to the card with a standard IDE cable, rather than the motherboard although some motherboard's have RAID onboard).
You don't lose storage as your drive is seen as one huge one (in my case 2 x 80gb Maxtor' D740X's were visible as a 160gb) but with the increased benefit of much faster data transfer ~ a big advantage in data transfer.
As I said it didn't work for me, but I found out it was because one of the drives was failing

I've read many posts whereupon people insist on recapturing if they lose single figure frames in an hour.

I am one of these people because I can never be too sure if the frames have been dropped gradually through the duration of the capture or just at one point eg. I record to my VCR from a Freeview box and every now and again the picture breaks up and this caused me to drop frames 24 frames in one second, a full seconds worth, although this never normally happens.

I'd strongly suggest you output first, and watch it.
If it happens all at once it might simply be a case of your source being unstable (happens a lot on VCR captures).
Will

[Will Hay]

Just another bit of info I hope someone can help me out with. During capturing in VD and any other program using the PicVideo MJPEG Codec I seem to drop 1 frame every minute and a half. I know this shouldn't be happening so am just wondering if anyone can help me out?

BTW: this happens no matter what resolution i am using and no matter what settings I have selected for the video (eg. cropping).

A long shot but are you disabling everything before you capture?
Anti-virus, screensavers etc?
Are you sure it's every ninety seconds, on the dot?
Will

[Craig Tucker]

vdub drops frames intentionally to counter the fact that your soundcard and capture cards clock speeds are not perfectly synchronized. It is either this or have the audio gradually go out of sync over time. 1 frame every minute and a half is nothing to be concerned about.

[pixel]

Just another bit of info I hope someone can help me out with. During capturing in VD and any other program using the PicVideo MJPEG Codec I seem to drop 1 frame every minute and a half. I know this shouldn't be happening so am just wondering if anyone can help me out?

BTW: this happens no matter what resolution i am using and no matter what settings I have selected for the video (eg. cropping).

A long shot but are you disabling everything before you capture?
Anti-virus, screensavers etc?
Are you sure it's every ninety seconds, on the dot?
Will

vdub drops frames intentionally to counter the fact that your soundcard and capture cards clock speeds are not perfectly synchronized. It is either this or have the audio gradually go out of sync over time. 1 frame every minute and a half is nothing to be concerned about.

Yes, I am disabling everything. It is not exactly 90s it was just roughly that, but I think Craig Tucker solved my problem because I know my sound cards clock speed is slightly unstable.

Edit: it is the problem Craig Tucker described. I just tried to capture with and without the lock audio to video flag and with it locked i dropped frames, without it locked I didn't drop frames.

Thanks to everyone for your help,
pixel.