need to choose the best file format for me

[Fking]

i'm going to start site with movies
And need to decide what format to use.
I'm paying for the bandwidth, so the size is important.
But the quality is also important, because these movies are samples, and from that depends the sales........

which standart will allow me to get into the golden middle?


also link to articles explaning the + and - of each format, or just giving details about their way of work will be useful

[thor300]

You are asking alot, am not going to search the web for links you can find all by yourself Anyway, WMV will do what you want, its also highly compatible for users of your website who are too stupid to install anythong else than WMP and those who would say "oh, these computers, its too advanced for me" when anything unexpected happens. WMV is good quality in small size, and it can easily be set up for streaming.

[Fking]

first, i do not want someone to search for me, just i'm sure that there are people here who already know useful links


thanks for the info, i'll go with the wmv
but the files need some editing....

and have couple of questions

i downloaded virtual dub
is there a way to save the current frame directly to the hdd, not first to the clipboard

and also how to save to WMV

how to add mark during the whole movie

and how to put a jpg with the credits and etc at the end which to be shown 2-3 secs

[thor300]

i dont know anything about WMV/ASF, and same goes with many users of this site, but im sure someone knows. Windows Movie Maker, comes with WinXP, can do many things with WMV, so that could be a place to start. When i get hold of a WMV file i only want to make it NOT WMV, and your problem goes the other way. Maybe http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/moviemaker/ got something for you.

[teegee420]

first, i do not want someone to search for me, just i'm sure that there are people here who already know useful links

The problem is that many of the people here are self taught. I wouldn't even know where to begin to find a link for you. That said, I think thor300's suggestion of WMV is a fine one. Quality is good and file sizes can be pretty small. It all depends on how much you are willing to compromise video quality. Another program you can use to convert is Windows Media Encoder.

i downloaded virtual dub
is there a way to save the current frame directly to the hdd, not first to the clipboard

You're better off copying to the clipboard. All you have to do is paste into your favorite photo editor.

and also how to save to WMV

That's easy to answer. You can't.

how to add mark during the whole movie

and how to put a jpg with the credits and etc at the end which to be shown 2-3 secs

You may need to use a more advanced video editor to do those two things. I don't know if any allow you to export as WMV so might end up having to export as avi using a lossless compressor like Huffyuv or Picvideo MJPEG and then convert to WMV.

[Fking]

well i'm going to use virtual dub, to save these mpgs which i have to .avi

in .avi format i'll edit all i need
and after that will convert them to wmv, (probably with "stoik video converter")


but what is the best way to set virtual dub to save them to avi
i don't want to loose quality, or change the frames or something like that

i just want to decompress them from mpg to avi, without lost of quality or change of something

[teegee420]

Use Huffyuv or Picvideo MJPEG compression. Both are lossless.

[Fking]

ok i downloaded Huffyuv

i'm setting it to be used in the compression menu in virtualdub-mpeg2

and saving the file, is that all?

also what if i just set the "uncompressed RGB" option in the "select video compression" menu?
isn't that better?

[flaninacupboard]

there's two types of video compression - lossy (information is thrown away) and lossless (information is cleverly coded to be smaller, but still fully reoverable)

This is comparable to recordsing a DVD to vhs, you'll never get it to look like the DVD again. that's lossy.

when you zip a file using winzip it can be much much smaller than the original. when you unzip it it's identical to the original. that's lossless.

Totally uncompressed RGB is fine, but very VERY large. only use it if you have to. huffyuv is a lossless codec so produces -identical- results to uncompressed RGB but is ~a third of the size - dependant on your content.

[Fking]

thank you guys, you help me a lot
flaninacupboard very good explanation :> thanks


i have only few more questions and i'll be ready to do the job

1. is there any editor who can work directly with .mpg files (cut, split etc...) i'm asking because now the files are in mpg and are very small
even if i don't lose quality during the conversions, i'll hardly beat this file size

2. my plan, is first to convert the files from mpg to avi (with virtualdub-mpeg2), edit what i have to edit, and convert them to .wmv (with windows media encoder 9 ) is this the best way?
but i see that windows movie maker, have pretty much options for editing .wmv. What will be the difference if i edit the files, after i convert them to .wmv?

excuse me for the little bit "infantil" questions, but i want to do all in the best way possible.

[flaninacupboard]

You're better to edit in huffyuv if you can, editing MPEG or WMV will be problematic.

basically, mpeg works by creating the first frame in a video as more or less a jpeg. the next frame is actually a list of instructions, like "move the pixels in the top left right a bit and make them smaller" The next frame may then be "replace the bottom half of the screen with stuff from the first frame, but the top half move right a bit more and shrink some more" and so it goes for another 12 or so frames, when it will start again with a fresh jpeg. so as you can see, if you try and split it in the middle of the sequence things can get confused. WMV is similar, except it's sequence of frames is a lot longer, can be 200 or more frames before another jpeg!

[Fking]

ok i already know how to convert them the best way to .avi

after some editing i will have to convert them to .wmv

but i have some difficulties with windows media encoder
i'm talking about the "custom encoding settings" box
how to get idea how much to set for:
fps, video bit rate, buffer size, video smoothnes, decoder complexity

the only tutorial i found was about encoding for pocket pcs.....not my case

now in details....
i started with 1.63 mb .mpg file, which i converted to 28.2 mb .avi file, and now i want to convert it to .wvm with size around the .mpg file with which i started, with zero or minimum quality loss
so what will be the optimal settings for windows media encoder, in order to achieve that?


i think that will be my last question thanks for the patience

[flaninacupboard]

if you grab gspot (just follow the link) and use it to examine your avi file it should tell us everything you need to know.

[Fking]

i downloaded gspot
but it can't tell the bitrate and fps for the .mpg file (the video source type is MPEG1Payload)

i tried with the same file but as .avi (converted with virtual dub and huffyuv codec used)

and it found that the bitrate is: 6013kb and the fps, 24
Qf, 5.097 bits/pixel

i set this bitrate and fps in windows media encoder (what i have to do with Qf?)
and the output .wmv file was 7mb, when the .mpg file with which i started is 1.63mb
what to do in this case?

p.s. when i'm converting from mpg to avi, with huffyuv, do i have to set something? fps, bitrate?

[flaninacupboard]

no, the framerate in huffy should just be the same as the original, and the bitrate is whatever it needs to be (it varies depending on the source)

Exactly how long is your clip? if you say i'll tell you the bitrate you need.

[Fking]

35 secs

but i have others with different lenght, and need to do the same things for them

so, how to know what bitrate to set in windows media encoder
and what about the fps?

[Fking]

eho?


p.s. one more question
in virtual dub, on audio i'm setting "direct stream audio" and "source audio"
is this the correct choise, and where i can read more on the subject

[flaninacupboard]

use gspot on your avi file and it will tell you the framerate. bitrate of 468 kbps will give you 2 megabytes, plus whatever you want for audio.

[teegee420]

You can find guides for most tools linked here on the download page.