Huge captures...noob asks why?

[dazco]

Capture stats...

VHS capture to AVI with avermedia DVD EZmaker
VirtualVCR
huffy codec
stereo 44.1 16 bit audio
YUY2
640x480

My 3 or 4 minute captures of music video from VHS are coming in at around 2-3 gigs. Is this normal? They seem to be too big to even load into bbMPEG for conversion. It freezes while it takes about a minute or 2 for it to load in bbMPEG and once it does i get errors trying to set the aspect ratio to 480x480 for mpeg2 SVCD. (something about "scale" this or that)

What should i do? Should the files be a lot smaller? i mean, i wouldn't even be able to fit one song on a SVCD at this rate unless conversion to mpeg2 dropped the file size down tremendously.

Sorry if this all sounds like i'm completely ignorant, but i am ! After all the help you guys have given me figuring out how to get to this point, now a whole new hurdle i never foresaw...help !

[FulciLives]

The HuffyUV codec uses some compression but very little and it is considered a lossess codec meaning although compression is used there is no loss in quality. This is good! ... but ... it does create VERY large AVI files.

But as long as you have the HDD space it is NOT a problem becacuse when you convert it to MPEG-2 SVCD format the file size will be "normal" OR in other words the file size of the AVI has NOTHING to do with the file size of the final MPEG-2 SVCD file.

I am not sure if that makes enough sense or not ... I hope it does!

As for bbMPEG I can offer no help there as I have never used it.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
Please note that several days ago I sent you a PM which you never responded to so if you haven't checked that PM yet then I suggest you do so and then PM me back.

[BJ_M]

sounds more like uncompressed than even huffyuv

[dazco]

ok, well i do have the space. But i'm just wondering how i should do this.(assuming of course i'm able to covert the damn things!) Since the files are so large theres no way i'm gonna be able to edit them or join them as AVI's. It would likely take hours in virtual dub to load and edit them at that size. But you guys told me i should do all that stuff while they're still in avi format. I'm thinking maybe i should be capturing as mpeg2 in the first place and pass on any filter editing and just use a mpeg2 joiner and leave it at that. Sure would be eaiser. Tho then i wouldn't be able to use virtualVCR which i've become very fond of.

I've been needing to say this for the last few days after trying to learn all this video stuff.......ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG!!!!!

[dazco]

sounds more like uncompressed than even

Yea, but i have "use compression" checked and the huffy selected.

Oddly tho i just looked at the file with AVIcodec and it says "File : 2.43 GB (1020 MB)". 1020 MB should be just over a gig, and the audio shows as 1.8MB. So whats going on here? 2.4 gig verses just over a gig. Windows shows the larger size tho in the folder, so i guess thats right. Wonder what that 1020MB is all about tho?

[FulciLives]

Are you sure you have VirtualVCR set up correctly in-so-far as having the video compression set up correctly?

When you load the AVI into VirtualDubMod go to FILE then under that click on FILE INFORMATION and there it should tell you what codec is being used. In short let us confirm that you really are using HuffyUV or not.

It could be you have VirtualVCR set up wrong and are capturing uncompressed RGB video instead of HuffyUV.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[winifreid]

The size of the avi has nothing to do with how it will fit onto an svcd. Also I have never found that vdub had a problem with large avi. You could try picvideo if you want smaller avis, but it isn't free. I have never use bbmpeg, but most other encoders will do fine with large avis and huffy. Vdub can handle them as well.

[FulciLives]

You made your last post (about looking at the file properties in VirtualDubMod) while I was typing my response to do the same hehehe

So I think it would be best if perhaps you take some screen shots of how you have VirtualVCR set up ... just like what BrainStorm69 did in this here post ---> CLICK HERE

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[FulciLives]

I just did a capture using VirtualVCR

I used HuffyUV and a size of 688x480 (proper aspect ratio for my BT capture card). I also used 16-bit 48k Stereo audio.

This capture was just a couple seconds or so over 3 minutes and ended up with a file size of 1.10GB

Anyways the whole point of doing this for me was to open the AVI capture in VirtualDubMod to illustrate that it shows HuffyUV for the codec:



I am guessing you should be seeing something similar.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dazco]

I already deleted the files after burning a vcd as a test. I want to burn svcd but i have a sync problem with bbMPEG (It drops audio and gives me an error message)so i tried a vcd from the avi and let nero encode it properly. Looked lousy on TV. i've tried a ton of audio settings but can't seem to stop the audio errors. As for the capture, it's definatly huffy. I looked at the file with avicodec so everything looks about right. But the file length was more than i first said. Turned out to be 4:27, but still a big file for it's time compared to yours.

So the problems now are figuring out what i'm doing wrong audio-wise and the huge amounts of time this all takes. I'm thinking of trying the stupid app that came with the card again and going straight to mpeg2, tho when i tried that before the file played a bit than gave me a "catostrophic error. I'm on the brink of giving up on this stuff because it's gonna take me months to do 5 or 6 VHS tapes which is all i wanted to do in the first place.

[FulciLives]

You need to give CCE BASIC or TMPGEnc Plus a try ... of course I suggest CCE BASIC.

I know you are watching how much money you are spending ... I understand that since I've been unemployed more often than employed these past 3 years (though I'm working now).

But none of these free MPEG encoders are considered highly. In short you will have a lot less problems using CCE BASIC or TMPGEnc Plus.

Both are only about $60 or so which is not an outragious price point.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[junkmalle]

688x480 at 30 frames per second in YUY2 format (what HuffYUV is compressing) is about 1.2 GB per minute. So if you're seeing 2 or 3 GB for a 3 or 4 minute video you are getting the ~2:1 compression you would expect from HuffYUV.

688 * 480 * 2 bytes per pixel * 30 frames per second * 60 seconds per minute = 1,188,864,000 bytes per minute.

[FulciLives]

688x480 at 30 frames per second in YUY2 format (what HuffYUV is compressing) is about 1.2 GB per minute. So if you're seeing 2 or 3 GB for a 3 or 4 minute video you are getting the ~2:1 compression you would expect from HuffYUV.

My HuffyUV clip (688x480 29.970fps with 48k 16-bit Stereo PCM wav audio) was about 3min 3sec and it ended up being only 1.10GB in size.

However it was a very clean source (commercial DVD via my DVD player) and the image was 4:3 WS (2.35:1 aspect ratio) so with that much black on screen (about 40 percent) I guess I would get better than normal compression?

So I guess my question is this ... is mine on the low end vs normal? What about dazco's results? ... on the high end vs normal?

Are either of us near normal?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[junkmalle]

688x480 at 30 frames per second in YUY2 format (what HuffYUV is compressing) is about 1.2 GB per minute. So if you're seeing 2 or 3 GB for a 3 or 4 minute video you are getting the ~2:1 compression you would expect from HuffYUV.

My HuffyUV clip (688x480 29.970fps with 48k 16-bit Stereo PCM wav audio) was about 3min 3sec and it ended up being only 1.10GB in size.

However it was a very clean source (commercial DVD via my DVD player) and the image was 4:3 WS (2.35:1 aspect ratio) so with that much black on screen (about 40 percent) I guess I would get better than normal compression?

So I guess my question is this ... is mine on the low end vs normal? What about dazco's results? ... on the high end vs normal?

Are either of us near normal?

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

Yes, with 40 percent of the image black, and a nice clean signal like a DVD, you expect HuffYUV to get better compression. A VHS capture has lots of random noise and gets much less comression. I've seen anywhere from about 5:1 to 1:1.

[dazco]

Well, i almost had success. I finally found why bbmpeg was giving me dropped audio frame errors....i was using the wrong executable. There ar 2 and one is for use with premiere ! (the one i was using, which was much faster, tho slowwwww!)

So anyway, i captured at 480x480 with the huffy in virtualvcr. But i cannot for the life of me get virtualvcr to capture audio the way i want. It always tells me the audio format is wrong no matter what i use. so i just let it use the default setting which is not compatible with SVCD, then put it in virtualdub and set the audio correctly, choose the huffy vid codec and go. Takes forever, but i then have a file bbmpeg will accept and make a burnable to SVCD file.(about 20 minutes to encode in bbMPEG !)

Nero accepts it and the burn looks good. So i slip it into my sony player hooked up to my TV and it begins playing. Looks about as good as the vhs, so i'm pretty excited. Then 1/2 way thru another nightmare.......the audio just disappears for the rest of the video. I check the mpg i burned it from and sure enough no audio at the 1/2 way point. audio is mpeg layer 3 at 16 bit/44.1 stereo. bbMPEG never said there was any problem with audio.

And so theres my last hurdle, but i don't even know where to start looking for fixes. The other problem is that even if i get the audio working i'm still stuck with a total time of about 40 minutes from start to finish for a 4 minute video. I can't imagine doing 5 or 6 VHS tapes !!! Again.......ARRRRRRRRRRRG!!!

[BJ_M]

it should be mpeg layer 2 audio for svcd

[junkmalle]

According to Fraunhofer, MPEG audio layer numbers simply indicate bitrate ranges:

layer 1: 385 kbps
layer 2: 192 - 256 kbps
layer 3: 112 - 128 kbps

http://www.iis.fraunhofer.de/amm/techinf/layer3/

Most SVCD files have 224 kbps audio but the spec appears to allow for a wide range of bitrates, including all three layers.

[midnightsun]

Using MPEG audio, one may achieve a typical data reduction of
1:4 by Layer 1 (corresponds to 384 kbps for a stereo signal),
1:6...1:8 by Layer 2 (corresponds to 256..192 kbps for a stereo signal),
1:10...1:12 by Layer 3 (corresponds to 128..112 kbps for a stereo signal),

So, no. mp1, mp2, mp3 are different standards. You can have an mp3 at 320kb/s or an mp2 at 64kb/s. It all depends on how you set the encoder.
SVCD definitely uses mp2 audio. It's in the specs.

[dazco]

I too thought it should be layer 2, but apparently it needs to be layer 2 OR HIGHER i suppose. In any case, nero accepts it so that means it meets the SVCD standard. The slightest difference and nero rejects it.

If i could only bypass the virtual VCR prompt that tells me it's setting audio to default i could save a ton of processing time by eliminating the need toi use virtual dub to convert the audio to correct SVCD specs.

Anyway, has anyone seen this happen before, and what was the cause? (the audio dropping out 1/2 way thru the final mpeg2 encode)

[dazco]

I too thought it should be layer 2, but apparently it needs to be layer 2 OR HIGHER i suppose. In any case, nero accepts it so that means it meets the SVCD standard. The slightest difference and nero rejects it.

If i could only bypass the virtual VCR prompt that tells me it's setting audio to default i could save a ton of processing time by eliminating the need toi use virtual dub to convert the audio to correct SVCD specs.

Anyway, has anyone seen this happen before, and what was the cause? (the audio dropping out 1/2 way thru the final mpeg2 encode)

As i said above, nero rejects any non-SVCD standard. Why did it accept my file with layer 3 audio? Also, i don't see the layer 2 one when i choose a codec in ANY of my apps, so i assume i only have layer 3. And i tried to find the layer 2 audio codec and couldn't find it !! I was shocked that i couldn't, but i did find it in any number of codec packs, which i refuse to install.

[midnightsun]

no. mp2 is required. It's imperative.

Get toolame, which is an mp2 encoder that can be used on its own (commandline) or in conjunction with other software, like tmpgenc for example. I seem to remember it also having a GUI.

[midnightsun]

just to clarify, if the audio you used that was accepted by nero is the one you got straight off the capture, then in all likelyhood it's mp2. Capture cards use either mp2 or pcm audio.

[dazco]

When checking the captured file straight from virtual vcr it doesn't say it's a layer2, and it's not 44.1/16. Also, i just now encoded a avi to mpeg2 svcd in bbMPEG here at work on an entirely different PC and got the opposite result. Video stops and audio keeps playing !!! WTF !

[midnightsun]

it's capturing 48kHz PCM then. You have to downsample to 44.1 for SVCD and compress to mp2. I can't be of any help as far as bbmpeg is concerned since I've never used the program

[dazco]

No, what i mean is the captured avi isn't at SVCD specs. It's in fact some low rate like 1/2 of 44.1 like 22 or around there. I forget what exactly. The bbMPEG encoded mpeg2 file IS at the correct 44.1/16/stereo becaus i select that in virtual dub before i put it in bbMPEG. So the final file for burning to svcd is correct as far as audio specs go except that it's layer 3, not 2. Maybe layer 3 is the reason for the problem, i dunno.

oh, and i have no idea how to install that toollame thing. The read me is over my head......

1. edit Makefile
at least change the architecture type (ARCH) to suit your machine.
2. 'make'

Uh.........okaaaaaaaaayyyyy.....

[FulciLives]

It only makes sense to encode audio with an audio encoder and then video with a video encoder.

In other words DO NOT encode the audio with bbMPEG but just the video.

You can easily encode the audio using BeSweet and get better results.

Many video encoders that cost money (such as CCE) do not process audio very well so I doubt that a freeware MPEG encoder is any better.

It is not uncommon, in fact probbly more than the norm, for people to use one tool for video encoding and one tool for audio encoding.

Also stop being so frustrated though all this and stop tht talk about giving up. You seem to be "getting" all this MUCH better than the usual newbie but ... you are using a free MPEG encoder which NO ONE here has recommened you do yet you do it anyway. So in the end it is your fault if you get overly frustrated.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dazco]

Yea, i realize i'm trying to get good results with freeware and that therefore my results are limited. But as i said before i started all this just to make a few svcd's from my vhs tapes. So even the $50 output for the card was stretching it let alone paying for software. However, i must admit i'm becoming sorta interested in all this now. So i may just jump in, i dunno.

But i did try tmpenc just now and made a svcd that worked here on my PC at work. Unfortunatly i can't try it at home without buying it because i used it for 30 days a few months ago and it expired for mpeg2. But i am considering buying it anyway, or possibly reformatting so i can use it again and see how it does on my home PC. (i could probably use a reformat after all the videoware i've been installing and uninstalling!) Or maybe i'll try besweet as you mentioned before i do any of that.

UPDATE:i tried bsweet but i can't seem to figure it out. I don't understand software on a tech level.....i'm a windows button pusher. And even tho i also downloaded the GUI i still can't make it work. It just opens a notepad file when i try and encode. I'll keep trying, but why can't they just write the read me's in layman's terms ! Not everyone is a tech head.

[FulciLives]

I haven't looked but I'm sure we have a guide here for using BeSweet and the BeSweet GUI if not check out the guides on the doom9 website

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

[dazco]

I just decided i'm gonna reformat. So i'll try tmpenc after that and if it works i'll buy the damn thing.

[FulciLives]

I am almost afraid to say this but it came up in another thread so I figure maybe I should share afterall.

I think it was just yesterday that out of curiosity I decided to use bbMPEG to convert my 3min 3sec AVI capture to SVCD format.

I guess you made me curious about the program and I wanted to see if I could get it to work and what it looked like etc.

I don't know why since I have CCE and TMPGEnc Plus and now pretty much just use CCE for DVD stuff ... I have no real interest in going back to SVCD.

But I was curious.

Now my capture had 48k 16-bit Stereo PCM WAV audio. So I loaded the AVI into SoundForge (you can do the same thing with GoldWave) and saved the audio as a 44.1k 16-bit Stereo PCM WAV audio file. I then loaded the original AVI into VirtualDubMod, disabled the 48k audio, loaded the 44.1k audio and did a direct stream copy giving me a new AVI with the same video quality as the original but now with the proper 44.1k 16-bit Stereo PCM WAV audio.

Perhaps a roundabout way to do that but I saw no option in bbMPEG for changing 48k input to 44.1k

I loaded the AVI and set it up for a SVCD encode. I set the video bitrate to a CBR of 2300kbps. Since my capture was 688x480 it took me a while (actually had to read the help me crap) to figure out how to make bbMPEG resize properly to 480x480 but I got it figured out. All in all I don't recall really making too many changes to the default SVCD settings other than the aspect ratio thing.

Now I don't think SVCD looks all that hot but the resulting MPEG file looked VERY good for SVCD and sounded fine to me ... was in sync, etc.

Now here is the strange part ...

I loaded my capture into TMPGEnc Plus and encoded it to SVCD twice ... same settings each time, the only thing I changed was that one encoding had the dreaded "YUV" option check marked whereas the 2nd encode had that damn option not check marked. I hate that ******* option.

Anyways I had TMPGEnc Plus set up just like I told you in the TMPGEnc Plus thread ... I even used the "noise filter" with the high quality mode seeting check marked.

Both of the TMPGEnc Plus encodes looked like utter shit! I have no idea why! Now I did use a CBR of 1900kbps instead of the 2300kbps I used in bbMPEG (because you had commented that you were using 1900kbps but I only read that after I did the bbMPEG encode). However the result is so ugly and I'm not sure just WHAT is wrong with it but it just isn't lack of bitrate ... if that was even the problem.

I have no clue what happened!

So in short if you haven't registered TMPGEnc Plus yet you might want to hold off and give bbMPEG another try.

BTW here is that other thread that came up where I talked about the same thing and another user who was having SVCD encoding problems (although he never mentioned what encoder he was using) tried bbMPEG because of my comments and also reported excellent results.

CLICK HERE to see that thread.

Go figure.

All I can imagine is that I had something in TMPGEnc Plus set up wrong and didn't realize it. I do recall doing it when I was dead tired so maybe I just fucked up and didn't realize it. I dunno.

- John "FulciLives" Coleman

P.S.
I have no real interest in SVCD as I have been doing nothing but DVD MPEG-2 encoding for some time now. I also use CCE now almost exclusivly so I have no intention of exploring this issue more with TMGPEnc or bbMPEG but I hope that I have been helpfull.