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View Full Version : DV to MPEG2, staying in YV12 throughout

colinb
19th January 2006, 13:52
I want to encode a PAL DV AVI file to MPEG2 using the HC encoder, and then produce a DVD from it.

As PAL DV is YV12, HC only accepts YV12, and the DVD native format is YV12 then I'd like to the color space to remain in YV12 through the whole of my Avisynth script.

At present I'm using DirectShowSource to read the DV file, but Info tells me that this is producing YUY2, and I therefore have to do a ConvertToYV12 at the end of my script which feeds HC. This represents two color space conversions and I'd like to avoid this.

I've tried AviSource and this reports that there is no decompressor for "dvsd", so I guess this is telling me that I don't currently have a VFW DV decompressor installed.

Is there some way of getting DirectShow to produce YV12 (exact copy of decompressed DV)? Or do I have to install a VFW codec which will output good quality YV12 - and if so what VFW DV codec should I be using?
zambelli
20th January 2006, 00:26
Most DV decoders only output YUY2. It's not a big deal though because the YV12 -> YUY2 conversion is lossless (4:2:0 to 4:2:2) so going back to YV12 should come at little or no quality loss.
DrP
20th January 2006, 01:15
ffdshow (http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow) will decode DV to whatever colourspace you happen to want.
dosdan
20th January 2006, 05:52
The most accurate RGB, YUY2, YV12 (DV / MPEG2-I / MPEG2-P) codec currently available is Cedocida, which is free. Check the sticky announcement at the top of this DV forum.
henryho_hk
20th January 2006, 07:26
It's not a big deal though because the YV12 -> YUY2 conversion is lossless (4:2:0 to 4:2:2)

MPEG2's YV12 is different from DV's YV12 (no matter PAL or NTSC). Hence, from my understanding, there is always chroma re-sampling during your "signal" flow.

Your choices are actually in (1) performance, (2) color integrity and (3) MPEG2 compression efficiency.

Cedocida is the best freeware DV codec. HC encoder is the best freeware MPEG2 encoder. Any recommendation for AC3 audio encoder?
zambelli
22nd January 2006, 02:06
Cedocida is the best freeware DV codec. HC encoder is the best freeware MPEG2 encoder. Any recommendation for AC3 audio encoder?Unfortunately, none of the freeware AC3 encoders yet match the quality of commercial encoders such as Sonic Foundry Soft Encode.