Digital video formats that can be cut by a single frame?

[kingmustard123]

I am wanting to capture some VHS tapes to my PC.

I have so far captured a tape in AVI, MP4 and WMV formats.

I have used the following to try cutting the video file:

• AVI - Avidemux v2.6
• MP4 - Avidemux v2.6
• WMV - Windows Live Movie Maker v16.4

However, none of them save the clips at the actual points I split (start/end) them at.

I knew it was never really going to happen with the MP4 as there were very few I-FRMs to cut at.

Any suggestions?

[jagabo]

The container (AVI, MP4, WMV) doesn't matter. What matters is whether the video was encoded with only intra-frame (every frame is a keyframe) compression. For example, you can put all i-frame h.264 in an MP4 container and get frame accurate cuts with AviDemux.

Try the attached video.

[JVRaines]

Capture to a lossless codec like HuffYUV, edit, and save the lossy compression (e.g. AVC) for the final rendering.

[kingmustard123]

Thank you for your replies, guys.

My next question is, which software will allow capturing from a ClimaxDigital VCAP303 USB capture device to an intraframe format?

The device came with ArcSoft ShowBiz 3.5 but it's old and rubbish.

Golden Videos VHS to DVD Converter has many capture options (such as recording for a set amount of time before automatically stopping and not stopping if static fills the screen).

However, it only appears to be able to capture videos to the following non-intraframe formats:

• AVI - MPEG-4 Visual (XviD)
• MP4 - MPEG-4 Visual / Lavf54.59.106
• WMV - VC-1 (WMV3)

AVS Video Recorder fails to work with the device.

Any suggestions?

[jagabo]

Try AmarecTV or VirtualDub.

[hech54]

....or DScaler.

[kingmustard123]

I'll be capturing VHS tapes at around 640x480 or 720x576.

Which intraframe video format do you recommend I use?

I would prefer that the output file was not uncompressed if possible, as each tape is two hours long and I imagine the file sizes would get huge for storage?

[jagabo]

Which codec you use while capturing will depend on software support down the line and how fast your computer is. The original Huffyuv is fast but only single threaded. And it doesn't compress as much as newer codecs like Lagarith or UT Video Codec. So it's best suited for old single core/thread computers. Lagarith and UT compress better and are slow on single thread computers. But they are multithreaded so can take advantage of multiple threads on newer computers. Of course, all the compression in the world won't help you if you need to use an editor later that doesn't support that codec.

I would try using UT Video Codec if you have a multicore computer. It installs both VFW and DirectShow versions, and both 32 bit and 64 bit versions (on 64 bit Windows). So it covers most software you might be using downstream.

Keep in mind that the lossless intra-frame codecs don't give you a lot of compression. For VHS, capturing YUY2 at 720x576 25 fps uncompressed is about 75 GB/hr. Huffyuv will get that down to about 35 GB/hr. Lagarith and UT maybe 25 GB/hr.

[kingmustard123]

Which codec you use while capturing will depend on software support down the line and how fast your computer is. The original Huffyuv is fast but only single threaded. And it doesn't compress as much as newer codecs like Lagarith or UT Video Codec. So it's best suited for old single core/thread computers. Lagarith and UT compress better and are slow on single thread computers. But they are multithreaded so can take advantage of multiple threads on newer computers. Of course, all the compression in the world won't help you if you need to use an editor later that doesn't support that codec.

I would try using UT Video Codec if you have a multicore computer. It installs both VFW and DirectShow versions, and both 32 bit and 64 bit versions (on 64 bit Windows). So it covers most software you might be using downstream.

Keep in mind that the lossless intra-frame codecs don't give you a lot of compression. For VHS, capturing YUY2 at 720x576 25 fps uncompressed is about 75 GB/hr. Huffyuv will get that down to about 35 GB/hr. Lagarith and UT maybe 25 GB/hr.

I'm running an Intel Core i7-6700K @ 4.5 GHz with a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 (OC'd) GPU.

Are there any intraframe formats that are closer to 1-2GB per hour?

I am happy with the quality of the 720x576 files Golden Videos VHS to DVD Converter created (shown below), it was just that they were interframe rather than intraframe, which made them useless for cutting.

• AVI - 1.52 GB - MPEG-4 Visual (XviD)
• MP4 - 3.87 GB - MPEG-4 Visual / Lavf54.59.106
• WMV - 3.56 GB - VC-1 (WMV3)

[jagabo]

Are there any intraframe formats that are closer to 1-2GB per hour?

Not that will deliver a watchable level of quality.

What you want to do is capture lossless or very low loss intraframe, edit, then save with a high compression codec.