Increase AVI res before encode?

[Savant]

Hey Guys,

I'm doing a pile of small clips and encoding into AVI with the HUFFYuv codec and then using TMPGenc to encode to MPEG.(for a DVD project)

Now I also have some clips that I did a long time ago at less than full resolution. (320x240 @ 29.97fps) I've been encoding them straight to MPEG at various bitrates (both 2-pass VBR and CBR) but I'm just not happy with it. The quality isn't that hot, yet if I watch it on a video player and zoom 200% it looks loads better.

So I'm wondering if it's worthwhile to re-encode the AVI into 720x480 first, and then encode to MPEG? If so, what tool would people suggest? I'm using VirtualDub for my captures, but I don't think they have an option to dub into a higher res right? (if I recall they support 2:1 reduction but that's it)

I'm using DVDit PE, so I'm tempted to just leave the file in AVI format and let the program do the conversion, but I really don't think I'll get a better encode.

File size is NOT a concern here since these are all small clips. (none are more than a couple minutes) So any suggestions that are space intensive are certainly welcome. I'm more concerned about quality than space. Thanks.

Regards,

Savant

[banjazzer]

I cannot believe you are asking this. It's like getting an mp3 at 96k and re-encoding at 160k hoping it will sound better. You cannot get any better quality than you have in the original by changing resolution, and each time you encode you get a drop in quality.

[Savant]

No, no, no. I KNOW that I can't 'increase' the quality of the video. Whatever data is there is what I have to work with.

However, like I said, I noticed that it looked better when viewing it at 200% than it did when I encoded it to a bigger resolution directly. So there obviously is some discrepancy in how one program renders the video output and how the encoder does it. If a video program can render better video output, then I thought that perhaps increasing the resolution BEFORE I encoded would improve it.

Like I said, I'm just shopping for ideas, I'm not trying to get 'more' out of the video. My issue is that I need to get the highest quality encode with this media. I don't care about size and such.

Regards,

Savant

[Savant]

Well, flames aside, I decided to go ahead and increase the AVI resolution (I re-rendered it in Ulead Video Studio) BEFORE encoding it to MPEG.

WOW, what a diffeence. There is a MARKED improvement when you do it this way, and it is hard to tell it from other video at that resolution. If you have video that is below full resolution and you want to maintain a high level of quality, I would suggest doing a re-render at the full resolution BEFORE you encode to MPEG.

Regards,

Savant

[banjazzer]

I'm going away now to have a lie down in a darkened room.