Video Degrading!

[mai_hnf]

I'd already browse the sticky thread about embedding permanent sub but i still dont get the solution for video quality degrading.. i happened.. so is there really no solution for that by using even virtualdubmod?

[mats.hogberg]

Adding permanent subs requires reencoding, and unless you reencode to some uncompressed format (huge file sizes, only good for computer playback) video quality will degrade. A fact of life.

/Mats

[mai_hnf]

what are those uncompresed files? Examples.... Can any software embed the subs and reencode it to these uncompressed files?

[redwudz]

Uncompressed AVI = Huge file sizes. In the 10s of gigabytes for most 1 hour videos. A couple of examples are the raw AVI that VirtualDub outputs as default. More common is a codec like HuffyUV. Still very large. AFAIK, you can embed the subs in those formats.

What I do instead is to raise the bitrate when I re-encode the files after adding the hard subs. For example if I was using Xvid, I check the bitrate of the original video with VD in the 'File>Information' tab. Then set Xvid for a higher bitrate to make up for the encoding loss.

How much? It depends on the quality of the original file. Just try a few test encodes of a representative clip from the video and see how it looks. But higher bitrate also means larger files, so you may have to compromise, depending on how much room you have available.