Using Virtualdub What is the Best Codec to Capture and Best Codec to Save?

[mjgreer]

I'm making another attempt at digitizing my VHS tapes. And, again, I seem to be able to do about 5 tapes before my videos are unuseable.

My equipment is a JVC Model HR-A591U VCR adn a Diamond VC500 capture card. My OS is Windows 10.

After about 5 videos of reasonable quality and consistency, now, after I edit my captured digitized video, during the replay of my saved edited, edited with Virtualdub version 1.9.X, my video and audio are very choppy.

I don't believe it's a deinterlace issue, I think I understand that issue. The only thing I can think of, is that I'm not using the proper Codec to capture and/or save after editing.

I was using Lagarith, but then I switched to UtVideo YUV422 BT .601 VCM. Should I stick to Lagarith?

[davexnet]

UT video should be fine. Perhaps you can try AmarecTV and use that to capture instead

[mjgreer]

I've been using UtVideo in my captures. So, would it make a difference the Codec I use in my saves after I edits? Will it effect the quality of my video be effected if I was to change the Codec between the two processes?

Also, I read that AVI is a "container". But are Lagarith and UtVideo both options of codecs with AVI?

[jagabo]

Lagarith, UT Video Codec, Huffyuv, ffmpeg lossless, x264 losses can all be used in AVI.

If you save with a lossless codec you won't get losses from the compression. You may get losses from how you treat the video in VirtualDub though. And all the lossless codecs don't give you much compression, somewhere between 2:1 and 3:1 usually (with a few exceptions). lossless codecs aren't meant for viewing though. You want to you high compression lossy codecs for that. AVC (h.264), HEVC (h.265), VP8, VP9, AV1, etc. Many of those don't work well in AVI so you should use MKV or MP4.

[mjgreer]

Yes, after I capture, then edit out some bad parts of the tape, and then resize to YouTube's 960px X 720px, I resave my video as AVI.

Then, I use Handbrake to convert to h.264.

The problem is, after I do my editing in Virtualdub, and then resave the result as an AVI file, that's when my videos get very choppy.

It is while I am still editing and saving with Virtualdub, before I use Handbrake, that I'm having my difficulty. The video that I capture with Virtualdub looks pretty good. I would just like to edit the captured tape, then resave it and maintain fair video quality.

I guess I'm just going to have to play around with it a bit.

[Skiller]

The problem is, after I do my editing in Virtualdub, and then resave the result as an AVI file, that's when my videos get very choppy.

Maybe it is just your Hard Drive not being able to read the huge file size fast enough for playback. This would result in choppy playback, even though the video itself is fine.

Please open a "choppy" avi in VirtualDub, go to File -> File Information... and post a screenshot of that window.

[Alwyn]

It is while I am still editing and saving with Virtualdub

I find VDub will default to "uncompressed" AVI when I save an edit; I always have to set the compression back to LAGS when I do a "Save as AVI...". Playing the uncompressed video may be cause the stuttering.

Also try playing it in VLC Player and Vdub 2.

[mjgreer]

Alwyn!!!! You got it! I opened the video that was playing very choppy in Virtualdub, and it looked fantastic playing it with VLC. There is nothing wrong with the video, it's only trying to play it in Virtualdub that was making it look choppy. Thank you so much. Now I can convert it to h.264 for permanent storage. I was really stuck in a rut over this.

When I opened the to play it just now, it was just the audio that was choppy.

Also, I could not get the video that I thought was choppy to 'play', for review, in virtualdub, and not be in dub mode. I guess it's in the process of dubbing that makes it look choppy.

So Skiller,

Please open a "choppy" avi in VirtualDub, go to File -> File Information... and post a screenshot of that window.

Thank you also for trying to help me. But, since I was stuck in 'dub' mode, I didn't have the option of File -> File Information. I haven't figured out the steps to just "Review" a video in virtualdub. But, I'm almost sure, that there must be a way.

Thank you both in your effort. Now I can get on with digitizing the rest of my VHS tapes.

[Alwyn]

Glad you're sorted.

Virtual Dub 2 will also play AVIs properly. I dunno why 1.9.11 won't. It's the same here: 1.9.11 coughs, splutters and f@rts whereas VDub 2 is nice and smooth.

The "Dub" appears to come on every time you play a file with VDub so no, it's not causing the hiccups.

[Skiller]

Great to hear it works.

But I don't get the issue with VirtualDub. Don't you guys just press Enter to play from where the slider is at and Space to stop playback? Never had problems with that. Mind you the Version I still use for everything except capturing is a really old "MPEG2 Version" of VirtualDub.

[mjgreer]

I'll play with that later, Skiller. In any case, I never get a single screen, which I would like. I always get the two screens, the input and the output, so I assume it is always in dub mode. It sounds to me, that you have it in more of a review mode. That's what i was trying to set it to, but I couldn't figure it out.

Although, now that I think of it, I had before in the past. Must be a setting. Yeah, in the past I was able to easily scrub through the captured video.

There is a subtle issue, that I'm just not getting right now. That happens a lot with me, and, especially now that I'm 63. I'll figure it out and share with you.

[DB83]

In vdub go to View >> Pane Layout and you can select which window(s) you want to see. The default is both input and output.

[mjgreer]

I love Mr. Bean, DB83. I just watched that episode on YouTube the other day. Oh, yeah! Your suggestion is GREAT! It works much more the way I want it too. But, still, the audio stutters.

OK, after watching my AVI video on VLC and it was great, I loaded the same file back into Virtualdub 1.9.11. The video is actually fine, it's the audio that skips out. Some short sections of the audio are OK, but, sooner or later I get the cutting out, skipping effect, stuttering.

Also, I tried both virtualdub and virtualdub2, and it did the same thing. I tried different settings, "Play the file uncompressed" and I bumped up the 'Processing thread priority'. Still, even in virtualdub2 "splutter, coughs" and the other thing. I'm playing it right now in virtualdub2.

The problem is really moot at this point. When I play it for review with VLC I can see that I'm capturing and editing a good digitized video, ready to convert to h.264. That's the important part. I'm just having problems reviewing it with virtualdub. But, I swear, I could do it before with no audio issues.

And, you're right, Alwyn. The dub seems to come on every time a file is played.

Skiller, I got the stop and start to work with the space bar, but not 'Enter'. OK, I just got Enter to work with virtualdub2. Now, virtualdub.

I'm really glad I asked all these questions, and I think everyone for their help. I have a much better handle now on using virtualdub. It's kind of overwhelming at first.

[DB83]

My Lord and Master Baldrick would have some words in your general direction to confuse Mr. Bean with Blackadder


Yet I also ran a small huffyuv capture in vdub and whilst the audio did not skip it did not sound right but no such issues with vlc.


The problem with vdub as I see it is that it will attempt to playback the source even though the pane (window) is not viewable. Since you are not, assumeably, altering the audio I would simply concentrate that the video output is as you want it to be and after exporting check the output in another player such as vlc or whatever you intend to use.

[jagabo]

VirtualDub is an editor. It is not optimized as a media player. Don't worry if playback isn't smooth with it -- it's an annoyance but not indicative of a problem. What matters is whether the processing works and the files it produces play as expected in real media players.

[mjgreer]

I think I know the issue now. I just captured another tape, and in review, it played just fine. It doesn't have anything to do with the codec, although, this time I chose lagarith. It is audio playback that I now believe is the culprit. If I turn audio playback off during capture, the video and audio are just fine.

[jagabo]

It is audio playback that I now believe is the culprit. If I turn audio playback off during capture, the video and audio are just fine.

This is a longstanding problem with VirtualDub. The subject has come up many times in these forums.

[Skiller]

Yep, do not use audio preview. I don't even use video preview at all during capture – I use a TV for that and I highly recommend that anyways.

[mjgreer]

I bought a vary small screen 10.5" TFT monitor, to troubleshoot that my VCR was still putting out good video. The good thing about this very small monitor is that it has five different types of input adapters, including composite. But, it does not have any output ports. I'd have to T-off my composite ports between my monitor and my video capture card to use it. Not totally undoable, but I don't have the T-ed composite cables to do that with.

You can use the audio playback, if you're just watching the tape and not capturing, but during capture, it doesn't playback well, with virtualdub, yet, no problem with VLC.

I used avidemux for the first time today. I haven't seen the output yet, after editing, but, I'm hopeful. Very simple to use and, I believe, I can save it in h.264/mpeg4 format, eliminating the need for Handbrake.

[mjgreer]

Oh, yes. Capturing with virtualdub and editing with avidemux is the ticket. Just what I was looking for and it is producing perfectly good, for me, h.264/mp4 tapes. Thanks everyone who has helped me.

[spapakons]

Hello!

The way I do it is capture the video in Huffyuv or M-JPEG with little compression. After that I use VirtualDub to deinterlace the video and then crop the visible tracking lines at the bottom and resize to 720x576 (PAL DVD). The final compression will be with TMPGEnc, so in VirtualDub I either produce a very good quality master to import to TMPGenc 5, or start the frame server and import that in TMPGEnc 2.5 For the master I use x265vfw compression with at least 2500 kbps bitrate which is essentially lossless. The audio is uncompressed PCM which I then demux with Avidemux in a separate WAV file. I import the audio file in Adobe Audition for normalization and save as AC3 (Dolby Digital) or MP2 (MPEG). I then use IFOedit to create the DVD files from the video (m2v) and the audio files. For the frame server of course I send the video and audio data uncompressed and let TMPGenc 2.5 to create the elementary streams (m2v and mp2). I import the audio file in Adobe Audition for normalizing, save as AC3 and then use IFOedit to create the DVD files. Beware that newer Audition versions (than CC 2015) do not support saving to Dobly Digital. For that you can save as WAV and then convert to AC3 with Sony Foundry Soft Encode or similar.

PS: I forgot to mention that I use a cleaning tape to clean the VCR heads and then fast forward and rewind the tape before the capture. This is because old tapes sometimes stick and they can lose tracking of the video (affecting the image) and probably also losing audio sync ruining the capture.

[VHSvideocapture]

bumping an old thread I have a quick question related to this.
I did not want to open another thread.

This question is so dumb I apologize in advance.

In virtualdub when you go to capture pin
It has a quality option, when I was capturing the quality slider wss not right at the end for best quality .
Does that matter if I'm using a lossless codec?
Does that mean it was compressing more than it should?
Will I get blocks if I re encode it more than once?

[The_Doman]

bumping an old thread I have a quick question related to this.
This question is so dumb I apologize in advance.
In virtualdub when you go to capture pin
It has a quality option, when I was capturing the quality slider wss not right at the end for best quality .
Does that matter if I'm using a lossless codec?
Does that mean it was compressing more than it should?
Will I get blocks if I re encode it more than once?

No dumb question at all.
I was confused with that setting too.
See this forum topic:

VirtualDub Capture Pin Compression Settings

Make sure it is always at max/1.000 quality.
Of course once captured with bad settings/quality, you need to recapture it again.

[spapakons]

I never touch this setting. For my capture card there is no higher resolution than 320x240. So I select this and then change it to 720x576 (PAL) from Custom resolution setting (at the bottom of the Video menu). This is if I capture an almost perfect analog source (such as my Hi8 camera) and I don't need to crop the image. If I capture from my VHS VCR I set the resolution to 768x576 so I have less image quality loss when I crop it, and then I resize to 720x576 (PAL) (after capture, not in real time). Of course I use the Smart Deinterlace filter by Donald Graft BEFORE the resize/crop filters. The best settings for Smart Deinterlace are Field-only differencing and Cubic interpolate. It produces almost zero artifacts and perfect progressive output every time. If there is a stupid TV channel logo you want to get rid of, use the Logo away filter. I first use solid fill so I see a black box in preview and I can position/resize it exactly over the logo, and then switch to XY which in many cases is almost invisible! It only shows a little blur if there are fine details in the logo area.

[VHSvideocapture]

I never touch this setting. For my capture card there is no higher resolution than 320x240. So I select this and then change it to 720x576 (PAL) from Custom resolution setting (at the bottom of the Video menu).

I capture at 720x576 the compression quality setting needs to be at end to full if it's not then you will get bad quality something which I have learnt now😭

This is if I capture an almost perfect analog source (such as my Hi8 camera) and I don't need to crop the image. If I capture from my VHS VCR I set the resolution to 768x576 so I have less image quality loss when I crop it, and then I resize to 720x576 (PAL) (after capture, not in real time).

I would capture at format native res then crop overscan after, some sources have more overscan than others.

For PAL VHS I would set it 720x576 that is native PAL res, 768 does not make sense to me because I don't think VHS has that much res bur I'm not an expert an learning from this forum and people like yourself are a great help for me.

Of course I use the Smart Deinterlace filter by Donald Graft BEFORE the resize/crop filters. The best settings for Smart Deinterlace are Field-only differencing and Cubic interpolate. It produces almost zero artifacts and perfect progressive output every time. If there is a stupid TV channel logo you want to get rid of, use the Logo away filter. I first use solid fill so I see a black box in preview and I can position/resize it exactly over the logo, and then switch to XY which in many cases is almost invisible! It only shows a little blur if there are fine details in the logo area.

De-interlacing is a tricky subject most people use QTMGC deinterlacer I think I have the Donald Graft de-interlace filter download I don't think I have ever used it, though I will try it with the settings you have suggested.

What's the difference between Donald Graft smart de-interlace filter and VD own bulit in? The bulit in one also has interpolate option and bob, blend.

Logoaway I have definitely used it was a pain to understand it I did understand it in the end not properly but it crashes VD at will it's not stable all it doee is it blurs the logo area it does not remove anything, maybe I did something wrong? I' think Donald Graft also had a better stable delogo plug in. I got a still shot marked it up in red paint then added that still picture in logo away then cliked on the X setting I think and it worked (after crashing 5 times)

[spapakons]

VHS is an analogue video format and for PAL you capture it at 720x576 (4:3 PAL with non-square pixels, CCIR and DVD standard, aka full resolution) which is considered adequate for a SD signal to capture all details. However, when I connect my TV card to my HDMI-to-AV converter in order to capture video from an HDMI source, the converter produces a black frame around the video about 20 pixels left, 16 pixels right, 8 top and 12 bottom. Losing 36 pixels horizontally makes 684x556 and I don't like that. So I capture at the maximum resolution supported by my TV card 768x576 (proper 4:3 PAL with square pixels) so the end result is 732x556, much better. I then resize that to DVD-compliant 720x576 (the stretched image is almost indistinguishable from the original cropped image).

The default setting in logoaway filter is "UGLARM" which blurs the logo area a lot. I discovered that the XY setting almost makes the logo invisible, provided the selected filter area overlaps with all the logo area. If you leave even a single pixel line out it shows as horizontal or vertical white lines. To make it easy to locate the effective area I set Solid fill first, so I see a black rectangle on preview. I resize and move the rectangle accordingly to cover all the logo area. A little larger doesn't harm. When I am sure I properly covered all the logo area, I set XY to make it invisible. And it is indeed invisible for smooth shades in the picture. You occasionally see a little blur if there are fine details such as titles or an actor face in the logo area. For most of the movie you really see nothing! Very handy for stupid TV channels that advertise a new series in a fixed area of the screen ruining the movie. I managed to make the stupid message disappear completely. I could also remove the channel logo if I wanted to, but I don't mind for a small logo. I don't want a huge stupid message such as "Series-name new episode tomorrow 21:00". After editing with VirtuaDub you can either save directly to an .AVI file with the video and audio compressions you want, or you can start frame server and use another application to save to another format such as MPEG. Not all applications can open VirtualDub's .vdr files, but Avisynth can, so you can create a small Avisynth script that simply opens the file, save as .avs and then open this .avs file with the other application for saving to another format.

[spapakons]

Regarding the topic, the best codec to capture is that of the capture card. Most cards that save to AVI use a variant of MJPEG which should give you excellent quality but very large video files. So after editing, you have to use a codec with greater compression than MJPEG to reduce the file size. Before DivX and other MPEG 4 codecs, this was MPEG 2 or even MPEG 1 for earlier computers. I remember capturing video with my Matrox Rainbow Runner (daughterboard of my then VGA Matrox Mystique) in the 90's in MJPEG and then converting to MPEG to keep file size reasonably small without losing too much quality. Then I used DivX (never liked XviD which tried to copy DivX, also DivX 5 or later had much more settings to control quality). Then I moved to AVC (aka h.264 or or x264) and now to HEVC (aka h.265 or x265). For the sound I used either MPEG 2 (for DVDs) or MP3 (for DivX) or AC3 (aka Dolby Digital). Lately I discovered Easy VVC to encode in VVC (aka h.266) but due to its complexity it takes over 10 times more to encode a video than HEVC and I didn't notice any improvement in image quality to justify the extra time, at least with low bitrates such as 200K or even 160K. Yes, HEVC produces flawless video at 640x480 160K if you set the profile to slowest in Handbrake, so it is possible, but in VVC (h.266) it would take the whole day without noticeable difference in quality. Not worth it yet.

See Easy VVC here: https://github.com/MartinEesmaa/VVCEasy/releases/tag/v2.7.0

[lollo]

Regarding the topic, the best codec to capture is that of the capture card.

The OP's card Diamod VC500 has no hardware encoding, then no codec. In any case, the best choise is always a lossless codec as recommended in post #4

Most cards that save to AVI use a variant of MJPEG which should give you excellent quality but very large video files.

Not at all. In addition, the MJPEG quality is largely inferior than a lossless approach.

[spapakons]

Regarding the topic, the best codec to capture is that of the capture card.

The OP's card Diamod VC500 has no hardware encoding, then no codec. In any case, the best choise is always a lossless codec as recommended in post #4

Most cards that save to AVI use a variant of MJPEG which should give you excellent quality but very large video files.

Not at all. In addition, the MJPEG quality is largely inferior than a lossless approach.

For capturing lossless you can try the Huffyuv codec, but if your computer cannot keep up and drops frames or loses audio sync, you better use an third-party MJPEG codec with moderate compression, such as Picvideo M-JPEG 3 VfW codec or Morgan Multimedia M-JPEG V3 codec. For my TV tuner card that also has no built-in codec, I use Picvideo with quality set to 16 and subsampling set to 4:2:2 which gives me excellent flawless picture. So my advice is use a lossless codec, if you can capture without dropping frames or losing sync with audio, otherwise use a third-party MJPEG codec with moderate compression to get as good image as you can. MJPEG only has I frames, so you can edit frame-accurately after capture.

[lollo]

For capturing lossless you can try the Huffyuv codec, but if your computer cannot keep up and drops frames or loses audio sync, you better use an third-party MJPEG codec with moderate compression, such as Picvideo M-JPEG 3 VfW codec or Morgan Multimedia M-JPEG V3 codec.

In modern systems, HuffYUV capture is less prone to drop frame and loose audio synch than a "compressing" codec. It requires more bandwidth, but it is not an issue.

For my TV tuner card that also has no built-in codec, I use Picvideo with quality set to 16 and subsampling set to 4:2:2 which gives me excellent flawless picture.

Sure, but lossless would be better, if possible to use it with your card.

So my advice is use a lossless codec, if you can capture without dropping frames or losing sync with audio, otherwise use a third-party MJPEG codec with moderate compression to get as good image as you can. MJPEG only has I frames, so you can edit frame-accurately after capture.

Yes.