YUY2/UYVY/YVYU: what to use?

[dianedebuda]

Investigating vdub+huffyuv avi for vhs/hi8 movies. Posts seem to indicate YUY2/UYVY/YVYU are preferred. Haven't been able to find much more about them other than definitions at http://www.fourcc.org/yuv.php. 'Fraid that does tell me much. Did tests and YUY2 seems to have a slightly small file size than UYVY; images seems about the same. Didn't try YVYU.

[jagabo]

The only difference is in the order in which the Y, U, and V components are stored YUYV, UYVY, or YVYU. All three have the same information. It's possible that particular codecs might be able to compress some better than others. And it's possible that compressibility will vary with content. Use whatever your capture device and software support.

[dianedebuda]

Have spent the last month & half reading, learning & tinkering. Like so many others, didn't really know what I was getting into Finally starting to read (instead of Search) in the Capture Forum & there, plain as day,

AVI. YUY2 video compressed with HuffYUV, uncompressed PCM audio

Oh, thank you, jagabo.

[jagabo]

It doesn't matter if you use YUY2, UYVY, or YVYU -- except that some graphics cards, codecs, and programs don't do all three. Consider using UT Video Codec or Lagarith. The are also lossless but compress better than HuffYUV. Though they have less support with editors. Lagarith may be too slow for video capture unless you have a fast multicore CPU.

[enim]

AVI. YUY2 video compressed with HuffYUV, uncompressed PCM audio

As you figured out already. Further more, most of video editors will not have any problem with AVI (YUV2 + PCM).

[PuzZLeR]

If your capture device supports YUY2, then use that and use it with HuffYUV (and PCM audio). This way, you will have more options open to you on your way to the finished product in quality and reliability with capturing, editing, filtering, etc.

Stick with the more sure and more supported method at the beginning.

When your project is finished, that's when you can investigate other options, whether it's better compression for archiving, or playback, etc.