Best "Universal" video format (video:size)

[BogusBill]

Hi i'm new to the Matrox family (got a G-400TV). And have zero experience in video editing/producing. I'de like to start making videos of like music videos (bout 3mins) and put them on CDs. But I don't know what the best video format is. VCD, SVCD,MPEG2,MPEG4. Which is the most universal (I think you need an MPEG2 decoder card for playing MPEG2s, right?), the format I could take to my friends computer and play off of a CD on his computer.

I would also like to put shows on CD (bout 30mins) but again. Don't know what format to put it in.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Dr Mordrid]

MPEG-1 is the most portable but IMHO MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 are better distribution formats overall. You should also look into the ability of MPEG to use variable bitrates. This allows the same clip to fit into a much smaller file size.

I have the best luck capturing at either 352x240 or 352x480 using YUY2 captures (activated with Flying Dutchmans utility) compressed with the HuffYUV compressor and the AVI_IO capture program. Compressing these files to MPEG with the Tsunami MPEG encoder gives excellent results.

AVI_IO allows very long captures without drops or skipped frames between multiple captured files and the use of external compressors like HuffYUV. This is something the Marvels PC-VCR cannot do.

Here's where to get these programs;

AVI_IO:

http://www.nct.ch/multimedia/avi_io/index.html (not free, but the best capture program around at $25 USD)

Flying Dutchman's YUY2 utility:

http://idiots-guide.matroxusers.com/dtvw_default.htm (necessary to activate YUY2 captures for the Marvel & RR-G. Use Video Tools ver. 1.52)

HuffYUV:

http://www.math.berkeley.edu/~benrg/huffyuv.html (compresses YUY2 captures 50% on the fly, but needs at least a 500mhz processor for best results)

Tsunami MPEG:

http://www.jamsoft.com/tmpgenc/ (now the best freeware MPEG compressor around)

MPEG-4 encoding is an art & science to itself. Check here for info on MPEG-4 and it's hacker variant, DivX:

http://www.divx-digest.com/index.html

http://www.ultimateresourcesite.com/divx/main.htm

SuperVCD is a bit tough for beginners right now due to it's newness, the relative scarcity of DVD players that support it and the expense of the software for authoring SVCD disks.

This situation should improve in a few months, but for now I'd suggest sticking with straight VCD or higher bitrate MPEG files for playing on computers only.

Have fun....

Dr. Mordrid



[This message has been edited by Dr Mordrid (edited 31 July 2000).]