MPEG2 -> AVI = bad aspect ratio

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by arciervo
Kooldino:

Although I tried to be honest in pointing out the drawbacks of the PVR-250, I'm getting the feeling that (although it's ideal for me) this really isn't the card for you.

The card itself seems fine...I just want some decent software to finish off the job.

Rather than trying to second-guess your real needs, it's probably best to step back and ask some questions:

1) What is the configuration of your PC (i.e. operating system, processor speed, RAM, free disk space)?

XP Pro, Athlon @ 1.7Ghz, 512MB of PC2700, and gigs and gigs of free disk space.

2) When editing video, will you need to do anything more than simple cuts or joins (e.g. crossfades, titles, fancy transitions)?

No

3) Is your primary interest to create DivX files? Will you want to create MPEG files compatible with VCDs, SVCDs, or DVDs?

My primary interest is to create files that are about half the data size of MPEG-2s with comparable quality.

4) Do you need a built-in tuner to capture TV programs?

Yes.

[arciervo]

Here are some comments:

1) "XP Pro"
You indicate that you want to reduce the size of the files; is it essential that you use DivX or is Windows Media Video acceptable? The quality and compression ratios of DivX and WMV are comparable but some people avoid anything with the Microsoft name. (BTW, unlike MPEG-2, neither format can be used by most standalone DVD players.)

Since you have XP Pro you can download Microsoft Windows Movie Maker 2 for free. This is a fairly decent video editor program but only outputs to WMV format (or alternatively DV-AVI). (See www.windowsmoviemakers.net for some good tutorials on Movie Maker.)

Since Movie Maker can't import MPEG-2 files directly, you would probably first have to convert them to AVI files using VirtualDub-MPEG2. The free Huffyuv codec should have the best quality but is very slow; the commercial PICVideo codec is much faster but costs money. Please remember that this is still a kludge; you will likely get better results if you originally capture directly to AVI (i.e. using something other than a PVR-250).

2) "Athlon @ 1.7Ghz, 512MB of PC2700"
I'm not really familiar with AMD processors; other readers of these forums may have more experience with them. If you did go the route of converting MPEG-2 to AVI, the process might be painfully slow.

3) "gigs and gigs of free disk space"
Disk space is all relative. You should plan on having at least twice as much disk space as is required for the longest video clip that you wish to edit. I just ran some tests to get an idea of disk space requirements for one minute of a typical home video (720x480, 4:3 aspect ratio, 30 fps):

MPEG-2 (Best-quality DVD): 74 MB

AVI (Huffyuv): 875 MB
AVI (PiCVideo, Quality 19): 276 MB
AVI (DV): 211 MB

WMV ("High quality video (NTSC)"): 27 MB
WMV ("High quality video (large)", 640x480): 22 MB

4) I cannot emphasize enough that for any serious editing you should capture in AVI format rather than MPEG-2. However, given what you have, you might try using software that's freely available and see if it's acceptable. Since you already have VirtualDub-MPEG2, you'll need to download and install Huffyuv and Microsoft Windows Movie Maker 2. Load your MPEG-2 files in VirtualDub, select Huffyuv as the video compression codec, and save as an AVI. Start up Movie Maker and import the AVI file. Do whatever editing you want and finally save to your computer as a WMV file.

Hope this helps!

Tony

[Kooldino]

Originally posted by arciervo
Here are some comments:

1) "XP Pro"
You indicate that you want to reduce the size of the files; is it essential that you use DivX or is Windows Media Video acceptable? The quality and compression ratios of DivX and WMV are comparable but some people avoid anything with the Microsoft name. (BTW, unlike MPEG-2, neither format can be used by most standalone DVD players.)

I'd prefer going with an open source codec if possible, but WMV would be acceptable, in theory. PS - are there WMV codecs for linux?

Since you have XP Pro you can download Microsoft Windows Movie Maker 2 for free. This is a fairly decent video editor program but only outputs to WMV format (or alternatively DV-AVI). (See www.windowsmoviemakers.net for some good tutorials on Movie Maker.)

Since Movie Maker can't import MPEG-2 files directly, you would probably first have to convert them to AVI files using VirtualDub-MPEG2. The free Huffyuv codec should have the best quality but is very slow; the commercial PICVideo codec is much faster but costs money. Please remember that this is still a kludge; you will likely get better results if you originally capture directly to AVI (i.e. using something other than a PVR-250).

2) "Athlon @ 1.7Ghz, 512MB of PC2700"
I'm not really familiar with AMD processors; other readers of these forums may have more experience with them. If you did go the route of converting MPEG-2 to AVI, the process might be painfully slow.

Well, I've done it before, and it takes awhile, but it's not a big deal. This isn't something I plan on doing that frequently.

3) "gigs and gigs of free disk space"
Disk space is all relative. You should plan on having at least twice as much disk space as is required for the longest video clip that you wish to edit. I just ran some tests to get an idea of disk space requirements for one minute of a typical home video (720x480, 4:3 aspect ratio, 30 fps):

MPEG-2 (Best-quality DVD): 74 MB

AVI (Huffyuv): 875 MB
AVI (PiCVideo, Quality 19): 276 MB
AVI (DV): 211 MB

WMV ("High quality video (NTSC)"): 27 MB
WMV ("High quality video (large)", 640x480): 22 MB

Yeah, my raw MPEG-2s are around 1MB per second when I capture them.

4) I cannot emphasize enough that for any serious editing you should capture in AVI format rather than MPEG-2. However, given what you have, you might try using software that's freely available and see if it's acceptable. Since you already have VirtualDub-MPEG2, you'll need to download and install Huffyuv and Microsoft Windows Movie Maker

I'll do that.

2. Load your MPEG-2 files in VirtualDub, select Huffyuv as the video compression codec, and save as an AVI. Start up Movie Maker and import the AVI file. Do whatever editing you want and finally save to your computer as a WMV file.

So Movie Maker is the only editor you know of?

Oh, btw I have an old version of Adobe Premier 6 that I came across...

[Marshmallowman]

you could try this codec

http://forums.murc.ws/showthread.php?s=&threadid=51750

and let us know how it goes

[arciervo]

Originally posted by Kooldino
I'd prefer going with an open source codec if possible, but WMV would be acceptable, in theory. PS - are there WMV codecs for linux?

Googling on "wmv linux", it looks like several Linux players can handle WMV files. (I've no experience with them though.)

So Movie Maker is the only editor you know of?

It's the only free one I know of. You might want to check out the tools list at www.videohelp.com to see if there's anything else.

Tony