AVI Codec - Is the ATi Raw Codec Standard or Non-Standard

[acdickson]

I capture raw (full frames) AVI files using my ATi All-In-Wonder 128. When I convert them to MPEG2 using any of the commonly available conversion tools (e.g. TMPGEnc) the colour depth takes a nose dive and the resulting MPEG2 file looks like it is only composed of 256 colours.

The only conversion tool that does not do this is DVMPEG (but the MPEG2 file is upside down and stops after 2Gb! - another story).

I know I can capture the video directly as MPEG2 using my ATi card, but the quality is poor in comparison.

I have tried a variety of settings in TMPGEnc (including the DVD quality settings recommended by Rui del-***** on this site).

Any suggestions would be very welcome as I've been battling this problem for over a year.

[acdickson]

Does anyone know if ATi's RAW codec creates an AVI file that is non-standard and therefore causes conversion tools to have difficulties (i.e. low colour resolution, upside down)?