Why frame serve to TMPGEnc ??

[ToeCutter]

This may seem an extremely silly question to ask, but why are so many frameserving to TMPGEnc? Why not just save file after editing and then encode the file outright with TMPGEnc?

[D_Knife]

When you save a file you lose quality, unless you use a lossless codec like huffyUV.
Of course then there's the disk space usage
you have the original file, the saved file and your encoding a new file that's a lot more disk space used.

[ToeCutter]

Okay, but with MiniDV (the format I'm most interested in) doesn't it work like this:

MiniDV camcorder > Firewire Capture = File.avi (on HDD)
File.avi > TMPGEnc = File.mpg (on HDD as Mpeg2)
Done?

That's only two files, right? What am I gaining by frame serving? There should be no loss in capturing from FireWire and the only conversion is from AVI to MPEG2 via TMPGEnc. Am I missing something?

BTW, thanks for the patience, I'm really trying here.

[D_Knife]

Yes that's right- if you don't want to do any editing,removal or cleanup of the footage on your disk

[pet_head]

I don't think that your method is incorrect or improper, however many people choose to frameserve to Tmpgenc so that they can use external filters, resizers, and deinterlacers that function differently (perhaps better, it is debatable) than the ones incorporated in Tmpgenc.

Quality is all a matter of taste and many people have different methods to achieve what they consider to be optimal quality. Frameserving allows you to use external packages to prep the video in different ways that are beyond the capabilities of Tmpgenc.

You are not missing anything in terms of quality if you think your output looks good. If you are not happy with Tmpgenc's results or think they could be improved, you should investigate the Avisynth and Virtualdub frameservers as both are capable of versatile alterations to the source video.

[banjazzer]

I frameserve to TMPGEnc if I am producing a SVCD from a DVD, or if I want to add permanent subtitles to a VCD produced from a DivX.