Codec Advice

[kman22]

I need some help with choosing a codec to capture all of my movies with. I have a pretty solid understand of capturing and converting but I need to figure out what is the best combination for what I am doing. I have tons of home videos that I capture and put on the computer. Rangins from a couple of minuts to over an hour. I have been capturing raw and converting to divx but that takes time and I am losing a lot of quality with Divx. I have a ton of storage ( around 2.5 Terabytes) but I have a ton of videos and plan on capturing many more. I only intend to store them on the computer to view but will occasionally upload to a video site or copy to a CD, but primarily just for local viewing on the computer. What is the best codec for me to use? I need to find a happy medium between quality and file size. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[jagabo]

If you are losing a lot of quality with Divx you are using too low a bitrate or two low a quality setting. You probably have deinterlacing issues to deal with too.

Your best bet for storage on the computer is probably DVD compatible MPEG2. You won't have to deinterlace and you could burn to DVD any time you want.

[Krispy Kritter]

With the cost of HDD's being so low, your best bet is to keep the files in the original format. Any conversion will reduce quality and with space not being an issue, there is no reason to compromise the video quality.

[kman22]

I agree but raw video is waaaaay too big. I have a ton of storage and the ability to add more if needed to I don't mind if the codec I choose is a little big, but whats the best and most popular choice?

[bendixG15]

................If the codec I choose is a little big, but whats the best and most popular choice?

There is no best and most popular codec .....

Now what ??

[MaDmiZe]

Hey. The most popular universally accepted codec is DVIX. I agree with first responder here...if you are losing quality with divx, then your settings are way too low. Increase bitrate and quality. I convert convert 90 minute movies to dvix with excellent quality and get a 900mb to a 1.2 gb file.

[kman22]

That is great advice. Thank you. What bitrate do you use? What app do you use to capture? What app do you use to convert?

[jagabo]

Forget about bitrate. Use constant quality encoding. In Divx it's called "1-pass quality-based". Try using a quantizer value of 3. That's pretty good quality with reasonable file sizes. If you want more quality (larger file size) try a quantizer of 2 (the result will be nearly indistinguishable from the source). For less quality (smaller files) use 4 or more.

[kman22]

Sounds good. What are you using to capture and convert to Divx.

[jagabo]

I have a Hauppauge PVR-250 and PVR-1250 for video capture. I usually use AviSynth and VirtualDub for conversions. I usually use Xvid, not Divx. It's a little slower but a little higher quality (at similar settings).

[MaDmiZe]

I have a Pinnacle DC10, one of the first cards they came out with. It won't capture in high resolution like they do now, but I only use it to capture home movies and the like. Also have a stand alone ARCHOS 604 that can capture at 720x480 at 2500 kbps direct to divx. Most of my divx conversions are from dvd files. I use Imtoo DVD for straight dvd to avi and Imtoo converter for other formats such as WMV, mpeg ..ect to avi.
Bitrate 900 to 1300 kbps, some apps have a quality setting and not bitrate, experiment with 80-90 %.

[kman22]

What about when you are captureing straight from your video camera. Are you going DV and then to Divx or are you capturing straight from Divx?

[jagabo]

I always capture DV AVI from a DV camcorder.