Codec Conundrum (long)

[EwanG]

This is long because it reflects some decisions I've previously made that I'm curious to see if I've made correctly, and because I figure you need to understand my whole workflow to give me reasonable guidance.

To begin with, I have a fair sized collection of Home Video and TV captures. To this point I have used MS MPEG-4 V2 as my final codec for all of these. Generally using the settings of 90% quality and a 6000 bit rate. My thinking was that an MS Codec was most likely to continue to be supported, and that if it ever was removed that since it was an MS product they would be fairly likely to create a reasonable migration path. My preference is to move more and more to playing my videos directly from my computer (and it's rather large attached storage) rather than burning DVDs.

My first question then becomes, am I using the right codec at the right settings for material that I plan to keep for a long time and that I will be playing directly? While I have a good bit of room (about 300 gigs), size is a bit of a consideration.

Next there is a question related to my new workflow. I am now using a Hauppauge Win TV PVR to capture my TV and Home Video. This creates an MPEG-2 file at 720x480 with a bit rate of 4000. Since MPEG-2 is a bear to edit, and because I'm really more comfortable with VDub, I tried using the MPEG-2 version of VDub that fcc has created. Unfortunately I haven't found a way to keep my video and audio in sync using that tool.

Fortunately, I do happen to have a bundled version of ArcSoft's "ShowBiz" that came with my DVD burner. It can convert my MPEG-2s to AVI files and keep the audio and video in sync. When I go to convert, if I select AVI as the type of conversion, it offers a number of codecs. On the MS MPEG-4 codecs, however, I can't specify the quality setting. My guess from looking at the greyed out bar is that it's set to about 70-75. It will let me set the quality for the following codecs:
Microsoft Video 1
Indeo Video 5.10
Intel Indeo Video 4.5
Intel Indeo Video R 3.2
Cinepak Codec by Radius

I tried using the Microsoft Video 1 codec at 100 quality, but that creates a huge file (about the same as a DV codec - 13 gigs). Would any of the other codecs give me high quality without making quite such a large file? Would the result of using one of them and then converting to my archive codec (see the first question) be better than just staying with MPEG4 V2?

Thanks for your ideas and suggestions,
Ewan

[Gees]

Try some better codecs: https://www.videohelp.com/tools#Codecs

Looks like you only have what comes w/ MS

A lot of people recommend Huffy

[EwanG]

OK, I decided to do an experiment to help me figure out what I'm doing. We'll see how well the format goes:

Codec ------------- Time Ratio -------- Size -------- HxW

Original (MPEG-2) - N/A --------------- 6 Megs ---- 480x272 (on purpose)

Huffyuv ------------ 4:1 -------------- 700 Megs ---- 720x480

Indeo 5.10 -------- 13:1 ------------- 108 Megs ---- 720x480

Cinepak ---------- 22:1 (Cancelled due to long processing)

MPEG4 V2 ---------- 5:1 -------------- 52 Megs ---- 720x480

MS Video 1 --------- 6:1 ------------- 616 Megs ---- 720x480

Of these, only Indeo, Cinepak, and MS V1 could have their quality specified (in the ShowBiz tool).

As such, for a conversion it looks like my best bet for size would be what I've been using. However, if I can handle the size then it looks like the MS Video 1 may be my best bet.

FWIW,
Ewan

[EwanG]

Let me rephrase my "conclusion". Would you think I would be better off using a codec like MS Video 1 where I can specify the quality or go with the best of the codecs that are "preset" at about 75 quality?

For converting MPEG-2 to an "editable" codec, can you recommend anything besides "ShowBiz"? These are captured MPEG-2 files and not VOBs.

Thanks,
Ewan