UYVY vs. YUY2 in VirtualDub

[Mack]

I have been capturing VHS tapes and noticed that in my "set custom video format" screen (Capture AVI Mode) in the Video Pull down menu, that my format is 720 x 480, and the data format is "UYVY." I think it is supposed to be "YUY2." Additionally, I am pretty that I have been using the "No recompression" setting inside the "Select Video Compression" window instead of Huffyuv.

1. How can I tell exactly what compression I used?
2. Can I fix this, or is the uncompressed just as ok to work with?
3. If I need to use Huffyuv YUY2 instead of UYVY, how do I fix this for the dozens of tapes I've already captured? Must I recapture?

Thanks

I am currently using VirtualDub 1.9.7 on a windows capture box with an AIW card.

[sanlyn]

UYVY and YUY2 arfe similar 4:2:2 colorspaces, the only difference being that each stores chroma information in different pixel positions. If you had used lossless compression such as huffyuv, the capture files would be about 1/3 the size they are now.

You can convert the captures losslessly to YUY2 using huffyuv (which compresses only in RGB and YUY2) by opening the file in Virtualdub, and use Video.." -> "Color depth..." and set color depth to YUY2. Then use "Video..." -> "compression..." and set it to huffyuv. Last, use "Video..." -> "fast recompress", and save the file with a new name. Do not load any Virtualdub filters. The recompress rate would run at somewhere between 50 and 125 frames per second, depending on system setup. You can also use the Lagarith lossless compressor to do the same thing, which would give a slightly smaller YUY2 file than huffyuv.

[Mack]

Thank you so much for the quick response.

In "Video Color Depth", do I set "Decompression Format" or "Output format to compressor/display" to YUY2?

[sanlyn]

Yes. The right-hand column in that dialog window is where you choose the output colorspace.