Rate this list of codecs

[Xtasy2002]

OK what's up guys. I have a ton of codecs available on my system (I really don't know where most of them came from) .. What I am hoping to do is find the best 4-5 codecs of the lot, and then test them out. I've been having some audio sync problems capturing segmented files to Divx.. And I think Divx is the reason. Here's what I do:

* Capture to segmented AVI 352x480 (Audio is already out of sync on 2nd or 3rd segment)
* Framserve to TMPGEnc
* Output as Mpg2 1/2 DVD (352x480)
* Author & Burn 2 movies per DVD

Given those settings, plz rate the codecs in your experience from BEST to worst in terms of file size & quality. File size means for a 2 hour movie, the total size doesn't go beyond 30GB. Quality means non-blocky and it would look really good encoded to Mpeg-2.

Codecs List:
(none) Full Frames Uncompressed
WMF Windows Media Format
DV Video Encoder
Indeo Video 5.04
Intervideo MPEG Video Encoder
Indeo Video 5.06
Ligos GoMotion DV to MPEG
Arcsoft MPEG-2 Writer
Picvideo Mjpeg Compressor
Picvideo Lossless Jpeg Compressor
VDOnet VDOWave
Cinepak Codec by Radius
Microsoft Video 1
Microsoft RLE
Huffyuv v2.1.1
Divx 5.0.2 Codec
Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V1
Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V2
Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V3
VFAPI Reader Codec 1.03
DVSoft

[Xtasy2002]

Anyone?

[tgpo]

Anyone?

Give it time man.

[snowmoon]

For capture and eventual converion....

Huffyuv 2.1.1 is the best for capture, but requires on the order of 15gb/hr for 720x480
Mjpeg @ 18-19 is very good ( what I use since huffyuv is too much for my system ) 5-10gb/hr at 704x480

I wouldn't bother with the others for capture performace.

[rhuala2]

Personally I think u have to weigh hard drive availability vs. quality. If you have a 100GB free space, then the absolute best will be no codec at all, a raw .avi capture file. If on the other and you have less than 30GB free like me then I either use the Morgan multimedia codec (which u don't have up there) or something similar. If you've got between 30gb and 100GB then Huffyuv is probably the best, jmho. Also depends what you want to do with the file, if you want to only play it on your machine then Divx 4.02 (free) or 5.0x (pay) is probably best. Also, depends on what other processing you need to do with the capture file, like Ulead Movie Factory wants another 10GB of free HD space to process the files for a DVD burn. Personally I don't even use any of those anymore as I use WinDVR 2 which uses it's own MPEG2 encoder that gives me a good compromise in HD space vs. quality.

rhuala

[crahak]

Capturing with DivX? Well, DivX is not a capture codec. You can go for huffyuv, but for most people (HD space wise too) MJPEG codecs are way to go. The goold ol' way. I use a MJPEG codec, and PCM sound with virtualdub. Never had a single problem... Seems like everyone is willing to try anything but that... DivX/MP3 namely... The "classic" method works fine for lots of people... Give it a try and you'll see.