AVI vs MPG1 vs MPG2 vs DivX

[bryanjohnfields]

If this has already been addressed or if this is the wrong group, I’m sorry, if so can someone forward me to the thread or move this post.

I am curious what is the best way to capture, edit, and store Video Files?

I started out capturing AVI files and soon found that hard drive space doesn’t go far with an uncompressed AVI and dropped frames are a problem. But MPG cards and hard drives were expensive. Realtime Software MPG wasn’t the answer either.

My next step was to MPG1 cards have gotten less expensive but the quality is still not as good as MPG2. I got a PV231 and the quality is good but I found myself still having to re-encode to get what I was looking for; Good xVCD with no Audio Problems.

MPG2 Cards are still somewhat expensive, I am looking at the Snazzie for $300+. My biggest concern with MPG2 is editing. I have had a lot of problems editing MPG1, hence the re-encoding. I only tried editing a MPG2 to see if I could and had no luck.

This is what it boils down too. With hardware prices dropping, I now have a machine that can capture AVI at 640 x 480 at 30 frames a second and only a few drops per hour. I have enough hard drive space to record a few hours of Uncompressed AVI and processor fast enough to encode raw AVI to MPG at almost real time and raw AVI to MPG2 at 10 frames a second.

So, What do I do with the money I plan to spend this year? Do I get the $300 dollars to get the MPG2 card, or Spend that money on more drive space and/or a faster processor?

Then, How do I store my Video? Raw AVI is out of the question. MPG1/VCD is Universal, xVCD is almost as universal and I already make both. SVCD is widely accepted and you can usually fit and hour TV Show on a Cheep Disk. DVD-R is available, and I think with be mainstream within a year. So here is the $400 dollar question; Do I get a DVD-R, +R, +RW OR do I take the $400 and the Parts I have laying around a build a Stand Alone DivX Player?

I bet you were wondering When DivX was going to come in. I think DivX is great. It is widely shared on the Internet, you can Fit 90 minutes of Video on a Cheep CDR, The Capture hardware is inexpensive, and the Software is Free. BUT it does not have commercial acceptance, and there is no standalone player for it.

What to do, What to do, What to Do?

Thanks in advance.

[Ashtrader2000]

Seems you have the problem I had some time ago! "I can do what I set out to do, but I haven't spend all my money yet!!!"

A rather nice problem to have

I wanted to be able to make TV-rips in DVD quality, so I bought the relatively cheap Pinnacle DC10+ card, which captures pretty much lossless analog video in full screen. The captured video is actually so great quality, that the final quality was limited by the tuner in my VCR (DC10+ has no TV tuner, so I used my VCR).

I used the extra money to better the quality by getting a better VCR, that also had S-video output, for perfect color. Now I make TV-rips in DVD quality (well of course only nearly, but VERY close - few can tell the difference). I encode to SVCD with TMPGenc, and play back on my stand alone DVD player!

So to make a long story short:

I think you should use your money to enhance the quality. Getting a hardware MPEG encoder card, will NOT do that. It will give you an easier and quicker sollution. But with worse quality. Get a better capture card. Enhance your sourc(es?). Make the most of it! It's great to be able to "tape" all those movies on TV in DVD quality. On cheap CD-Rs. By clever use of macros, it's even possible to automatize everything. I just pop a blanc CD in my writer every morning, and when I return from the University, there's an SVCD of the days episode of my favourite TV show ready to play back on my DVD player!

SWEET!

Ashtrader

[videoguy79]

My advice to you (by no means your only option): buy a dvd-rw drive and burn the videos to DVD. (This is assuming of course that your set-top player can handle DVD-R/RW media). I've seen DVD burners for under 400 bucks and I'm sure that by the summertime they will even be a bit lower. The cheapest DVD-R media I've seen is around $2.65 a pop, not bad considering thier 4.7GB capacity. This way, you can capture to avi (have you tried huffman lossless compression for capture?), and then convert/burn the high-quality video as mpeg-2 for DVD. This way, you will be utilizing a technology that is bound to be around for some time, at a quality level that will allow you to transfer to a different type of media in the distant future if you should so desire. Once DVD-R becomes affordable for the common person, VCD's will be history--- I personally would rather preserve something at the highest quality possible, which at the moment is DVD.
As far as DivX is concerned, I am not going to badmouth it completely. It does what it was designed for very well----low-bandwith video for streaming/transmission over the 'net. However, given that it is not an official standard, is not supported by standalones, and is looked upon with disdain by the film industry and therefore is unlikely to be included in standalones anytime soon (if ever), I would not use it as an archival format. MPEG 1/2 are commercialized ISO standards and since DVD players can play back both, they will be supported for a long time. MPEG-4 (divx being a variant of it) was not designed to be a set-top format, as far as I have read. A DVD burner would be a much better choice than building a DivX box, and has many other uses besides (storing data, MP3's, etc.) Good luck with whatever you choose

[Brook]

i have an ati all in wonder tv card and i used to be able to record in mpeg-2 but for some reason it stopped working. I was able to edit everything using tmpgenc and everything was fine. I reinstalled everything and now when i try to record it will only save as an mp2 file. Does anyone know what i need to do?