Best VirtualDub codecs for compression?
 

Hello,

I have been importing tapes using VirtualDub and I was wondering what are the best codecs for me to use to end up with a high quality, but decently small video. So far I have been using x264vfw. Is this a good option? What should I use for audio?

Thank you,
Nathan

h.264 variant codecs are among the worst choices if you're capturing for a master archive or for restoration. They're useless for restoration work and difficult to edit. You won't get much smaller than h.264/AVC captures, but since you apparently have no concern for archive quality you can get smaller files (and worse quality) by specifying very low bitrates. The captures are in a final delivery format, so I'd assume you have no additional questions about cleanu8p or re-encoding.

Sanyln,

I didn't mean that I want the smallest file possible. I do care a great deal about the quality of my capture and want to end up with the highest quality possible, however I cannot afford to store or transport massive files. I plan to capture via VirtualDub, deinterlace (could use advice on best way to do this as well) and then write to DVD or flash drive. The files do not have to be incredibly small, as long as they are under 2GB per hour or so.

Thank You, Nathan

A:
1. Capture lossless Huffyuv AVI in VirtualDub
2. Encode AVI down to MPEG for DVD-Video
3. Author MPEG to DVD, burn authored content to DVD

B:
1. Capture lossless Huffyuv AVI in VirtualDub
2. Deinterlace in Avisynth + VirtualDub using QTGMC to a new lossless AVI (Lagarith, MagicYUV, Huffyuv)
3. Encode AVI to H.264 (MKV or MP4 container)
4. Store MKV/MP4 to external drive, or burn to disc for archives -- or better yet, both.

Never store on flash/thumb drives. Those are not archival.
Never capture to H.264/x264.
Try to never deinterlace, it just throws away quality.

- Huffyuv = 35gb/hour, but it's a temp file anyway.
- MPEG for DVD-Video = size depends on bitrate, but 1 hour is at most 4gb, maybe half to quarter with compression + 352x resolution
- x264 = about half (1/2) to one-fourth (1/4) the MPEG bitrate.

Thanks for your advice!

After reading through your post and attempting--and failing--to use avisynth, I've come up with this method:

1. Capture lossless to Huffyuv
2. Encode to h.264 or MPEG in handbrake w/ slow deinterlacing filter applied (if needed)
3. Author to disk or write to drive

I've attempted to use avisynth and can't figure out how to use it effectively without investing several days into learning it. is there a better way to encode or deinterlace that is at least somewhere between that and handbrake in terms of ease of use?

Thank You,
Nathan

Why are you deinterlacing? You do realize that proper deinterlace, wether you use QTGMC or not, will double the frame rate, double the number of frames, and increase file size.

So that I can display it on a computer monitor without it looking awful

Referring back to your basic question in post 31 and again to remarks in your later post:

Your questions have been answered but you lack the interest to get the "quality" you say you want, so there's no sense pursuing it further. What you want is convenience. Since you don't want to invest in higher quality processing, you could still capture in huffyuv, then let handbrake deinterlace and do some low bitrate encoding. That will save you one stage of destructive lossy encoding that you're undergoing now. That's as good as you'll get with Handbrake. However, you won't be "authoring" to DVD or standard def BluRay as you suggested, as those are interlaced formats. You can burn the results to DVD or BD disc as "data" files, since they're invalid for DVD or BluRay authoring, then discard the capture or archive it to external drives.

VHA looks like crap omn digital devices because it ws designed for the CRT era. Now you know how little real detail was played and how much noise was cleaned up by CRT's. VHS won't look better on digital players unless the video is cleaned up. We call that process "restoration". Without quality processing you won't get the higher quality you're looking for from VHS.