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11-06-2009, 12:11 AM
Kereellis Kereellis is offline
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Quoting these from my other topic:

Quote:
1) What bitrate would be a safe choice? For my first attempt I used a variable bitrate of 12000-15000 kbps. There are quite a few still shots in my homevideos, and I wouldn't like detail to be lost on those, so I figured a high minimal bitrate would theoretically be best.

2) I found it difficult to compare the source avi to the outputted m2p, because I couldn't find a way to play the file back interlaced in mmc, and vdub MPEG2 wouldn't play it back properly (by which I mean the video looks like it underwent a mosaic transformation in vdub, kind of weird). Is there some method I could use to make screens of both files deinterlaced, or do I first need a different decoder since I can't seem to disable it?

3) Perhaps not too surprisingly, I'm also at loss as to the correct top or bottom field settings. From what I read it seemed that lot's of people have had problems determining the right ones and unfortunately I'm no exception. As you may know Gspot doesn't read this information for huffyuv files. For my encoding attempt I went with tff (for both input and output of course) and so far I haven't notice any problems on playback. Then again I can only play back the file deinterlaced as mentioned earlier. If there's any easy way to make sure the right settings from the start (without trial and error) I'd like to hear about it.
Since this an all-new topic perhaps I should add that these questions are still related to my project for archiving of my home recorded vhs / video8 tapes. Storage space isn't really an issue, as long as I don't have to keep all files in huffyuv format. I don't really plan to burn the videos as a dvd either, but if possible I'd like to be able to split the files so that they can fit on dvd as data. If I'm using vbr settings though, I doubt I can calculate after how many minutes I need to cut before conversion (for the output file to fit on a dvd), so what would be the easiest way to cut the output file properly for this purpose?
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  #2  
11-06-2009, 09:40 AM
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Question 1.

At that bitrate, of course, the MPEG is out of spec for DVD-Video, and probably won't play in most any machine. Some players probably can, but not too many.

That concern aside, a range of 15,000kbps is a good step, but also consider lowering the GOP (temporal compression) to either all I frames, or IP or IBP. That will help some, too, in keeping it "semi-uncompressed" (or "semi-lossless"). Technically compressed, yes, but not "compressed" as most people think (artifacts, etc).

When burning to DVD, remember to use UDF mode. And if I were you, I would keep valuable videos not only burned to disc, but go get yourself a 1.5TB hard drive for about $100-125. I see USB2, Firewire and eSATA drives regularly in that range. I've been posting them a lot in our Daily Shopping Deals forum.

As far as easiest way to cut the output file, guess -- with the help of a calculator. You have 60 minutes in an hour, and just over 4.3GB available on the disc. So if a file is 50GB in size, and 150 minutes in size -- just as an example -- then you'd have a simple algebra equation (the only time I ever use it, I wish I could tell my 8th grade teacher!). Looking at 50 over 100 equaling 4.3 over x. 50x = 645, and 645 divided by x (50) is going to be 12.9. So you would fit about 13 minutes to disc. Maybe have to round down to 12 minutes. 150 min divided by 12 min gives you 12.5 new files (each fitting on a 4.3GB DVD), so looking at 13 DVDs for that encode, split across discs. I know -- eww, yuck, math. Anyway, that's the easy way.

On a related note, when it comes time to design things, you'll NEVER find me searching Google for some silly template. I pull out my ruler and a calculator, and do it myself in Photoshop or InDesign (formerly Quark Xpress or PageMaker).

Question 2.

Assuming you just want to watch the videos for an in-motion A/B test, then all you need to do it get the freeware player VLC. Either from the menu, or right-clicking while the video is playing, pick one of the deinterlace modes. "X" or "Mean" often work well. If you want to watch it interlaced, select none.

If you want to create still image screencaps, then you'll want to go the VirtualDub route. Use version 1.8, and then run the Deinterlace Area-Based on it, and find a semi-still frame. You can download my full VirtualDub setup (which includes that filter) on the forum, using the link.

Question 3.

I forget what capture card you're using. ATI AIW, right? Almost ALL capture cards and DVD recorders do top-field capturing. Only DV input and some oddball cards do bottom-field.

I don't know that you can ever avoid trial and error, but I try to help reduce the mystery and guessing!

Also...

Answering these questions takes a lot of time, and is surely more valuable than a magazine would have been. I recently picked up a copy of PC World and it was $11. Yikes!

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I've probably gone a little more in-depth than I should have, for Free Members, from time to time. Now would be one of those. Slow morning is to blame. Under normal or heavy times, it may not be as quick or detailed, preference given to Premium Member questions.

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Anyway..

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  #3  
11-06-2009, 03:37 PM
Kereellis Kereellis is offline
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I'm still looking for an AIW, but eventually I might stick to the easycap if the AIW turns out to perform the same as my current ASUS version of the card (I still suspect it has some quirks). My caps until now have also been done through the easycap in vdub, problem being that a device like this might be oddball enough to actually cap in bff so I can't be a 100% sure.

Yes, you're right, I do realize I have been taking up quite some of your time here. I just hope the stuff you helped me out with will prove useful for others as well. Besides that, I should tell you that I have of course been considering to donate for some time, but I'm postponing it until I got a better overview of what's left of my budget.

When it comes to favorable US-shopping deals, I'm kind restricted by the whole additional VAT and shipping costs involved (not surprisingly, considering the EU-market prices, our VAT tarives in particular don't make life easy for importers), so in most cases I'd probably end up spending more money than necessary on otherwise good deals. Anyway I'll see if I can contact you soon about a way to save some money/donate at the same time in PM. I have to look deeper into my required expenses for hdd's first
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11-06-2009, 03:42 PM
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Very true, tariffs can kill a deal. I do get a number of Amazon UK deals, however. Posted some today, actually.

I have what I believe is a generic version of the EasyCAP, and it's TFF. It captures pretty well in Pinnacle Studio 12. I should try VirtualDub sometime. It's purely for testing, not something I'd use for work or personal.

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  #5  
11-06-2009, 03:48 PM
Kereellis Kereellis is offline
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I see, thanks, my guess is all easycaps are the same, but just come rebundled with fancy sounding software.

(Oh wait, I only just found out premium mship requires as little as 10 bucks currently. Then never mind the above, I'll upgrade soon )
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  #6  
11-09-2009, 10:14 PM
Kereellis Kereellis is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by admin
That concern aside, a range of 15,000kbps is a good step, but also consider lowering the GOP (temporal compression) to either all I frames, or IP or IBP. That will help some, too, in keeping it "semi-uncompressed" (or "semi-lossless"). Technically compressed, yes, but not "compressed" as most people think (artifacts, etc).
That would definitely be what I'm after. I first tried the maximum standard dvd bitrate, but it clearly had artifacts. At first glance I didn't really see them at 15000 kbp/s though. Still, I wonder why I can't up the bitrate to something closer to the max bitrate for mpeg2 in procoder (which I'm lead to believe lies around 19,6 MB/s?), or would that be a bitrate I don't really need?
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11-11-2009, 03:19 AM
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MP@ML (main profile at main level) MPEG-2 encoding has a bitrate ceiling of 15Mbps. If you want more, you have to change to a higher level, such as MP@HL.

Beyond 10Mbps, there's not much to be gained, you'll have passed the point of diminishing returns UNLESS you start to remove the temporal compression (lowering GOP frames). But then as you creep towards 15Mbps, you again start to approach that point of diminishing returns.

I actually dumped Procoder as my encoder of choice, after MainConcept 1.5 came out. I've since converted entirely to MainConcept Reference.

At some point, all you do is bloat filesize.

For a datarate as high as 20Mbps, you may as well just opt for HuffYUV compression.

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