Good Quality Lossless Codec to Use with Virtualdub

[christopheramos]

Hi,

I am running a tv show through Virtualdub to clean it up with some filters (.avi format, Divx 5 codec, about 150 mb).

I am wanting to encode it to MPEG-2 using the best possible lossless encoder.

Right now, I am frameserving through CCE SP, but I don't know that it's giving me the best output that I could get.

I thought about Lagarith, but I am not sure how it works (i.e., through frameserving, or if I have to encode it through Virtualdub at the same time that I apply the filters).

Any ideas, advice, help, insults ?

Thanks!
Chris

[manono]

Hi-

I use Lagarith all the time. Am encoding in CCE right now a Lagarith AVI. The best, but not only, way is to first open an AviSynth script file in VDub(Mod) with the filtering already in the script. Then save it to the Lagarith Lossless Codec. Then when done, I use AviSource in a new AviSynth script to frameserve the new Lagarith AVI to CCE. You want it in YUY2, especially if it's interlaced, as that's what CCE takes. So, it's a 2-stage process. Source filtered and encoded to Lagarith. Then the Lagarith output encoded by CCE.

[winifreid]

You may have something backwards. There is no lossless mpeg2 codec. Mpeg2 is a dvd compliant compression codec, hence loss of quality. Your DIVX avi is a highly compressed codec. You can capture using a slightly lossy codec like huffyuv, picvideo, or lagarith and then encode to mpeg2.

[jagabo]

So, it's a 2-stage process. Source filtered and encoded to Lagarith. Then the Lagarith output encoded by CCE.

Why don't you just skip the Lagarith step and frame serve directly from the first script to CCE?

[manono]

Because it's way faster in the long run to make the Lagarith. I make them into Lagariths first when my filter chain is so slow that running 5 passes in CCE with the filters might take a very long time. I assume that christopheramos wants to do it for the same reason. Otherwise, you're right, there's no real reason to create the intermediate AVI.

winifreid picked up on something, though, that I didn't notice at first. Maybe christopheramos is slightly confused, maybe thinking Lagarith is some kind of MPEG-2, when it's AVI. Or maybe he just didn't state what he's up to very clearly.

[jagabo]

Because it's way faster in the long run to make the Lagarith. I make them into Lagariths first when my filter chain is so slow that running 5 passes in CCE with the filters might take a very long time.

Ah, I see. I usually encode in single pass constant quality mode so I didn't think of that.

I also noticed the possible confusion of Lagarith and MPEG2 when I first read the post but decided it probably just wasn't worded clearly.

[christopheramos]

Hey again,

Yeah, my goal is to convert it DVD. So, once I filter / frameserve through VDub and CCE at the same time, the output is MPEG-2 DVD Complaint. I don't want to convert the original file to yet another .avi file.

[jagabo]

Hey again,

Yeah, my goal is to convert it DVD. So, once I filter / frameserve through VDub and CCE at the same time, the output is MPEG-2 DVD Complaint. I don't want to convert the original file to yet another .avi file.

That is correct. Unless, as manono indicated, you are using multipass MPEG2 encoding.

[christopheramos]

Well, CCE SP allows for multipassing while converting the .avi to MPEG-2 during its encoding process. So, I guess, the best thing for me to do is frameserve from Vdub through CCE SP and set it to multipass to try to get the best quality MPEG-2 file.

[jagabo]

Now you have it backwards. If you're filtering with VirtualDub and you want to use a multipass mpeg encode you should save to a lossless AVI codec. Otherwise the filtering will take place on every pass of the multipass encoding. If you save to an AVI file the filtering will only take place once.

For example, say the filter for a particular video takes an hour and the encoding takes an hour. If you do a frame serve to the encoder and do a single pass encode it will take two hours. If you frame serve the an encoder and do three passes it will take 2 hour for each pass -- a total six hours. If you save as an AVI file, then perform three passes it will take 1 hour for the filtering (plus a little for saving the intermediate AVI file) and 3 hours for the encoding, a total of 4 hours.

[christopheramos]

THANKS jagabo !!!!!!


You just saved me hours and hours of encoding time and headaches!!!!!