to all the people encoding video captures...

duartix · 5th February 2002, 16:18

I've seen a lot of posts in other forums of people asking for which codec, filters or bitrate to use in their TV captures.
Well for the filters it's really not up to me to say a thing about, but as far as bitrate and codec are concearned, I just have to make a stand!

I believe most of these people don't have to obey the filesize constraint since half an hour of a TV show in it's native resolution will hardly fill up one CD.
People, if you don't have size constraints, just use ANY CODEC but use it with the FIXED Quantizer One Pass or the FIXED Quality One Pass that matches your visual needs. Divx4 does it. XVid does it. It's One Pass. It's fast. It's good. It's all you need!

I also believe that capturing video through VirtualDub deserves a small guide where these matters could be exposed.

Snike42 · 6th February 2002, 00:18

I agree. I always use divx4 with 1-pass encoding quality based at 95%. This gives excelent results with reasonable filesize.

Snike

bb · 6th February 2002, 07:41

Don't agree. I want my 45 min Star Trek (TOS) @ 700MB & maximum quality. Filtering takes up most of the time, so 2-pass won't hurt me.

bb

BTW: If quality is not the main issue, then IMO direct DivX4 capture is the way to go (fastest way to get reasonable filesize @ medium quality).

duartix · 6th February 2002, 15:05

...when you say to capture directly to DivX4 if quality is not an issue. Well I must add: even if quality is an issue! Assuming you have a clean source which you don't need to throw some filters at, then why not capture directly to DivX4 or XViD with a fixed quality/quantizer? Unless of course if filesize is an issue or you need filtering.

But there is something I don't get from your post. You say:

Quote:

Filtering takes up most of the time, so 2-pass won't hurt me.

Because filtering takes most of your time 2-pass will indeed hurt you because you will be filtering twice. Right?
Of course if you have the time and a fast maquina you can't be troubled...

Ookami · 6th February 2002, 16:27

> Because filtering takes most of your time 2-pass will indeed hurt you because you will be filtering twice. Right?
Of course if you have the time and a fast maquina you can't be troubled...

Or if you want to make it as good as it can be...

duartix · 6th February 2002, 21:08

I can only accept that argument if you want to make it better than it already is...

Snike42 · 7th February 2002, 02:11

Quote:

Originally posted by bb
Don't agree. I want my 45 min Star Trek (TOS) @ 700MB & maximum quality. Filtering takes up most of the time, so 2-pass won't hurt me.
quality).

That means you'll get close to 2000 kBit/s! I doubt you'll ever reach that kind of bitrate with divx4. So you might as well do 1 pass encoding quality based at 100%.

Snike42

Foo · 7th February 2002, 03:36

Quote:

Originally posted by duartix
...when you say to capture directly to DivX4 if quality is not an issue. Well I must add: even if quality is an issue!

No. Because if you care about quality, and depending on what you cap, you still want to do IVTC, denoise, sharpen, etc. etc. So you cap to HUFFYUV, then encode to SBC/DiVX4/Xvid. You don't want to cap to a lossy format and then degrade the quality even more on a re-encode. IVTC makes a huge difference IMO. The telecine patterns can get nasty on caps. Aviutl does a great auto job, but it is slow as hell. Graft's Decomb package also seems to work pretty well on non-standard telecine patterns.

bb · 7th February 2002, 07:55

@duartix:
I often use a separate processing step for the filtering saving the filtered stuff using Huffyuv (needs a lot of disk space though). When I encode to DivX I can use that filtered source, so there's no double filtering. If I don't need too many filters it's not worth the extra step. In this case I filter twice indeed, leaving the PC running overnight.

@Snike42:
You're right with the bitrate. My files are about 700MB in size, so I guess DivX4 can deal with the bitrate. What filesize do you get using 1-pass 100% quality?

@Ookami:
My fast maquina is an Athlon T-Bird 1.33 GHz. Not too fast nowadays...

@Foo:
I agree.

bb

Ookami · 7th February 2002, 13:05

Excuse me? Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, even me

. I can only second Foo's thoughts, plus I have to add that there are MANY way to make captures!

In short it depends on:

a) source
b) available time/hardware
c) wanted result
d) usage (standalone, "slow" PC, "fast" PC etc.)

So, a few examples:

I:

a) bad VHS tape
b) a few hours (my PC is only an Athlon TB 850

)
c) small filesize,the quality can be lower than the source; it should be as fast as possible
d) PC, ~400 MHz >

So, I would do a Divx ;-) direct capture...

II:

a) bad VHS tape
b) doesn't matter
c) highest quality possible (near DVD quality)
d) PC

I would do a Huffy capture at full PAL + a tweaked method of Hawk's HQ capture guide. I almost do not use Nandub, as the Genesis (TM) Divx ;-) bitrate is enough for 99% of my needs (except when I want to encode hard stuff like the Sabotage music video

)...

On my PC I need for a minute to encode about 25 minutes... But it's worth it. No one would believe that the source was an crappy VHS.

And so on...

@bb

Not too fast?

And what should I say?

Cheers...

Quote:

Originally posted by duartix
I can only accept that argument if you want to make it better than it already is...

theReal · 10th February 2002, 14:59

I agree with Ookami,

there are so many factors involved so that every statement like "I found the one and only final solution for good captures" must always be wrong.

I capture TV (WinTV) with 384x288 HufYUV, just because the low resolution will result in a quick and easy cut&encode (mostly DivX4 two pass, just because it's fast to set up).

If I wanted to get better quality, I'd capture in 512x384 Hufyuv (or maybe in Indeo 5.1 quick compress 100% quality if HD space was not enough).

But, when I want to get a really good result for a bad VHS tape, I take the Sony PC100 DV cam, record the vhs to DV, firewire it to the PC and take a lot of time to try out filters and resizing methods in Nandub. This, of course, can take a week until I'm finished with one movie...

theoneyouknowleast · 11th February 2002, 15:12

there is no one final solution for this at all. just like Ookami and thereal say.

it depends on who is recieving these caps. look at your average tv channel on dalnet, and you'll notice that most 22min shows are 100mb in 320x240. not the most beautiful looking cap but watchable and downloadable, especially for those on dial-up.

my method simply is this

640x480 to mjpeg
filtering to 512x384 and saving in huffy
divx4 2 pass

if I ever make a cap like that for the above mentioned channel.

320x240 huffy
divx3 encode, and thats it

12th February 2002, 06:18

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...eadid=33603888

I capture to DivX and there's a thread about how to do it.

If you guys really want quality then capture using Huffyuv or the PicVideo mjpeg codec and then encode it to DivX using Nandub.

bb · 12th February 2002, 07:32

NeVeRLiFt promotes DivX3 whereever he can. Don't know why; I prefer DivX4 or XviD.

bb

14th February 2002, 05:59

Quote:

Originally posted by bb
NeVeRLiFt promotes DivX3 whereever he can. Don't know why; I prefer DivX4 or XviD.

bb

I let the quality speak for me.

I use XVID and did alot of testing. I like it and will be using it, as its better than DivX4.xx. DivX4.xx is a buggy and I have even found people using Intel cpu's having problems with it so I know its not my AMD cpu

Anyway to each his own. I use the best and any time you wanna compare your capture's or encodes let me know.
I look forward to using XVID with a tool like Nandub or maybe Nandub supporting XVID.

bb · 14th February 2002, 07:21

@NeVeRLiFt:
Hey, I don't doubt you can do great rips using DivX3. But that codec is buggy, too. I had some rips - ok, that's been a few months ago, because I don't use DivX3 any longer - which got stuck at a specific frame. You could play it using DivXAntiFreeze, though.

Right now I use DivX4, and I never had any problems using it on several machines (Athlon Thunderbird, Athlon XP, Pentium III, Duron). Just like you I'm looking forward to using XviD, because it seems to me that it's even better than DivX4, and because it's OpenSource.

bb

Kb_cruncher · 15th February 2002, 12:10

i use mjpeg.end of story.

does anyone have a url for hawk's capture guide?

Ookami · 15th February 2002, 17:30

The best link collection you can find:

http://pub6.ezboard.com/fultimatecap...cID=1765.topic

The OLD guide from Hawk (here he uses the fxVHS filter, no audio denoising etc.):

http://capture.dvdcopyworlds.de/

If you want I can send you the latest version (very old too) in a zip or rar file. BTW, Hawk is working on the release 3... Let's hope he'll have the time to finish it.

Cheers,

Ookie.

Quote:

Originally posted by Kb_cruncher
i use mjpeg.end of story.

does anyone have a url for hawk's capture guide?

Koepi · 15th February 2002, 18:02

Ookami,
I'd love to get a copy of that newer guide. Just to compare my findings with his style...
I didn't bother to spend time on denoising audio though (a simple hiss reduction @-50dB would've sufficed for sure

), because filtering the resulting intermediate AVI took long time already...

Now that I found nice settings for that I can do audio improvements as well - I simply had no new TV stuff to capture yet (and 4 further DVDs waiting for giving XviD a stress test

)

Best regards,
Koepi

5th February 2002, 16:18	#1 \| Link
duartix Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Outside the Bush INSanatory - Lisbon Posts: 330	to all the people encoding video captures... I've seen a lot of posts in other forums of people asking for which codec, filters or bitrate to use in their TV captures. Well for the filters it's really not up to me to say a thing about, but as far as bitrate and codec are concearned, I just have to make a stand! I believe most of these people don't have to obey the filesize constraint since half an hour of a TV show in it's native resolution will hardly fill up one CD. People, if you don't have size constraints, just use ANY CODEC but use it with the FIXED Quantizer One Pass or the FIXED Quality One Pass that matches your visual needs. Divx4 does it. XVid does it. It's One Pass. It's fast. It's good. It's all you need! I also believe that capturing video through VirtualDub deserves a small guide where these matters could be exposed.

6th February 2002, 07:41	#3 \| Link
bb Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 2,665	Don't agree. I want my 45 min Star Trek (TOS) @ 700MB & maximum quality. Filtering takes up most of the time, so 2-pass won't hurt me. bb BTW: If quality is not the main issue, then IMO direct DivX4 capture is the way to go (fastest way to get reasonable filesize @ medium quality). Last edited by bb; 6th February 2002 at 07:44.

6th February 2002, 16:27	#5 \| Link
Ookami Xe-Rotaredom Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Croatia Posts: 1,029	> Because filtering takes most of your time 2-pass will indeed hurt you because you will be filtering twice. Right? Of course if you have the time and a fast maquina you can't be troubled... Or if you want to make it as good as it can be... __________________ "Only those who attempt the absurd achieve the impossible."

15th February 2002, 18:02	#19 \| Link
Koepi Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 4,454	Ookami, I'd love to get a copy of that newer guide. Just to compare my findings with his style... I didn't bother to spend time on denoising audio though (a simple hiss reduction @-50dB would've sufficed for sure ), because filtering the resulting intermediate AVI took long time already... Now that I found nice settings for that I can do audio improvements as well - I simply had no new TV stuff to capture yet (and 4 further DVDs waiting for giving XviD a stress test ) Best regards, Koepi __________________ Koepi's new media development site

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6th February 2002, 00:18	#2 \| Link
Snike42 Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Netherlands Posts: 38	I agree. I always use divx4 with 1-pass encoding quality based at 95%. This gives excelent results with reasonable filesize. Snike

6th February 2002, 21:08	#6 \| Link
duartix Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Outside the Bush INSanatory - Lisbon Posts: 330	I can only accept that argument if you want to make it better than it already is...

7th February 2002, 07:55	#9 \| Link
bb Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 2,665	@duartix: I often use a separate processing step for the filtering saving the filtered stuff using Huffyuv (needs a lot of disk space though). When I encode to DivX I can use that filtered source, so there's no double filtering. If I don't need too many filters it's not worth the extra step. In this case I filter twice indeed, leaving the PC running overnight. @Snike42: You're right with the bitrate. My files are about 700MB in size, so I guess DivX4 can deal with the bitrate. What filesize do you get using 1-pass 100% quality? @Ookami: My fast maquina is an Athlon T-Bird 1.33 GHz. Not too fast nowadays... @Foo: I agree. bb

10th February 2002, 14:59	#11 \| Link
theReal Piper at theGates of Dawn Join Date: Nov 2001 Posts: 2,136	I agree with Ookami, there are so many factors involved so that every statement like "I found the one and only final solution for good captures" must always be wrong. I capture TV (WinTV) with 384x288 HufYUV, just because the low resolution will result in a quick and easy cut&encode (mostly DivX4 two pass, just because it's fast to set up). If I wanted to get better quality, I'd capture in 512x384 Hufyuv (or maybe in Indeo 5.1 quick compress 100% quality if HD space was not enough). But, when I want to get a really good result for a bad VHS tape, I take the Sony PC100 DV cam, record the vhs to DV, firewire it to the PC and take a lot of time to try out filters and resizing methods in Nandub. This, of course, can take a week until I'm finished with one movie...

11th February 2002, 15:12	#12 \| Link
theoneyouknowleast Registered User Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Toronto Posts: 26	there is no one final solution for this at all. just like Ookami and thereal say. it depends on who is recieving these caps. look at your average tv channel on dalnet, and you'll notice that most 22min shows are 100mb in 320x240. not the most beautiful looking cap but watchable and downloadable, especially for those on dial-up. my method simply is this 640x480 to mjpeg filtering to 512x384 and saving in huffy divx4 2 pass if I ever make a cap like that for the above mentioned channel. 320x240 huffy divx3 encode, and thats it

12th February 2002, 06:18	#13 \| Link
NeVeRLiFt Guest Posts: n/a	http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthre...eadid=33603888 I capture to DivX and there's a thread about how to do it. If you guys really want quality then capture using Huffyuv or the PicVideo mjpeg codec and then encode it to DivX using Nandub.

12th February 2002, 07:32	#14 \| Link
bb Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 2,665	NeVeRLiFt promotes DivX3 whereever he can. Don't know why; I prefer DivX4 or XviD. bb

14th February 2002, 07:21	#16 \| Link
bb Moderator Join Date: Oct 2001 Location: Germany Posts: 2,665	@NeVeRLiFt: Hey, I don't doubt you can do great rips using DivX3. But that codec is buggy, too. I had some rips - ok, that's been a few months ago, because I don't use DivX3 any longer - which got stuck at a specific frame. You could play it using DivXAntiFreeze, though. Right now I use DivX4, and I never had any problems using it on several machines (Athlon Thunderbird, Athlon XP, Pentium III, Duron). Just like you I'm looking forward to using XviD, because it seems to me that it's even better than DivX4, and because it's OpenSource. bb

15th February 2002, 12:10	#17 \| Link
Kb_cruncher replecant Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: New Zealand Posts: 332	i use mjpeg.end of story. does anyone have a url for hawk's capture guide?