Video capturing codec

[Inuyasha1]

Hi all, i have a litle question;
which codec i need to use for capturing video?

i try PicMJPEG, and huffyuv, but this two codecs take a lot of HD space. if i capture movie with 3.5 hours duration, it's can take something like 25 GB per hour; and i have only 40 giga free space...

then which codec you are recommend me to use?

thanks.

[Qjimbo]

Well generally the idea is that you capture with these codecs first, then recompress with TMPGEnc or whatever to MPEG afterwards, then either delete or archive the original lossless master.

If your CPU is fast enough you might be able to capture straight to DivX on the fast setting however.

[Inuyasha1]

Well generally the idea is that you capture with these codecs first, then recompress with TMPGEnc or whatever to MPEG afterwards, then either delete or archive the original lossless master.

If your CPU is fast enough you might be able to capture straight to DivX on the fast setting however.

hm... i try to capture it with XviD/DivX but i have some problems, when i capture it with small resolutions (like 384x288, etc...) it's ok, but when i try large resolutions (like 640x480, etc...) many frames are droped, or something like that, and the video played slowly. i think my CPU isn't fast enough for that... (AMD Athlon 64 3000+)

[mgh]

DivX 5 used to have a profile for video capture which worked well for me at 640x480
the key points from memory
quality based encode at 93 %
keyframe interval 10
no b frames, no qpel, no gmc and fastest encoding mode

[Wolfman]

go for cheap Hardware encoder card (Mpeg2) . However saying that, I was able to capture at full D1 on a xp 2600 using huffyuv. The key was capturing to a seperate hard disc from the OS . ALso Defrag as much as possible. Now using a hardware encoding card. I can play doom5 @ 1920x1240 with 16x AA and full 3d anistropic while computing tomorrows weather for East Saturn. Yeah.

[Inuyasha1]

i have hardware encoder card... WinFast TV2000 XP Deluxe if it's matter... i try to capture mpg file too, with MPEG-2 codec, but when i try to editing the mpg file with avisynth or something, the audio is out of sync.

[mod]

Try lagarith (http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html), it's lossless but it can compress more than the others.
If you really have no space left, try Divx 5.03 @ ~2500 kbps.. it's not lossless of course, and not the latest, but it's fast..

[setarip_old]

i think my CPU isn't fast enough for that... (AMD Athlon 64 3000+)Your processor certainly IS fast enough so that you shouldn't be dropping frames when using a DivX codec for capturing video at 720x480 with PCM (Uncompressed WAV) audio.

One of the keys to such capturing is PLENTY OF FREE CONTIGUOUS HARD DRIVE SPACE - the greater the better! Make certain to defrag your hard drive. If you're going to be serious about such computer video-related activity, I'd strongly suggest (assuming you have an available bay) you purchase a large additional hard drive (e.g. 160Gb or greater - they're relatively inexpensve currently)...

[Ferux]

FFVFW is also a good option, set the quantizer at 2 and you'll have a good video with only a little quality drop.



EDIT: actually I was wondering the same question myself: i want better quality than FFVFW, but Huffyuv and other lossless codecs simply don't work here.. I tried MJPG (from FFDshow) and it looks OK to me. Does anyone know whether there's still a difference between MJPG and lossless? At least, I can't see any.

[WildCelt]

One of the keys to such capturing is PLENTY OF FREE CONTIGUOUS HARD DRIVE SPACE - the greater the better! Make certain to defrag your hard drive. If you're going to be serious about such computer video-related activity, I'd strongly suggest (assuming you have an available bay) you purchase a large additional hard drive (e.g. 160Gb or greater - they're relatively inexpensve currently)...

I echo this sentiment. I have half a terabyte of HD space and still run out when doing several captures at a time. Make the investment and get a larger HD.