Static scenes in anime clips

[Tekaz]

With a low bitrate like 600 kbps and 384 x 288 resolution in PAL format and analog source, is it possible to encode static scenes in anime clips really 'static' without artifacts. What filters do you use on your raw material before compressing your clips and what is the setup in encoding you find 'best' for anime? Thanks in advance.

edit: I am using DivX5.1 Pro for encoding and Virtualdub for editing. Any hints for whether to prefer slow or highmotion in multipass?

[Prettz]

Try using avisynth for all filtering and only use VirtualdubMod to encode it (you can then change vdubmod's video handling mode from "Full Processing mode" to "Fast Recompress" if you don't need to use vdub filters). This way you can use the wealth of noise removal filters available for avisynth. In particular there are many filters that were made to address the exact problem you mentioned (noisy anime sources).

[fedge]

hmm sounds like your capturing...

i would capture at the orginal PAL size of the material(i dont know what pal standard is off hand)...
and then recompress it to divx 5.1

if your computer is fast enough..or you dont mind tieing it up for awhile.. then use SLOW or SLOWEST setting with divx 5.1 pro..

do the first pass(recompressing mind you) with standard--write to log file and then NO MV file.. OR.. you can use slow, or slowest and write the MV file.. (I would do three passes to make damn sure everything was compressed well enough)... and pry stay away from psy settings.. since they may add artifacts..(im not too sure about using psy yet..)... also.. set scene change threshold to about 30-35%.. than may add more I-frames and give less jitter to the macroblocks..

dont go at such a small resolution though.. try to boost it a little more and use denoise filters.. to smooth out the colors..(use Undot also..)