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drewsteele
15th January 2002, 19:46
one more question, Whats better for your initial captured source files-mpeg 2 or huffyuv avi. I will use the file to encode to a 640x480 divx and a smaller web appropriate file.
also - can anyone explain the difference between mpeg and avi, and if i am going to encode to mpeg 4 doesnt it make sense to start with an mpeg 2. (I know that the mpeg 2 is lossy and the huffyuv avi is lossless but maybe this is what confuses me.
thanks again for any help
Andy
Mark Fredrickson
16th January 2002, 07:14
If you have the disk space, Huffyuv is your best bet. A lossless codec means that you will not lose any quality on the capture, where an MPEG-2 capture will be lossy which means that quality has been sacrificed for disk space. When you finally encode your Huffyuv captured file to DivX it will be from the best possible source, which means you will have the best possible DivX avi.
bb
16th January 2002, 07:34
MPEG2 is not the best choice for analogue capture. If you don't have either the processing power (for a full resolution capture) or the disk space, you should use MJPEG instead (PicVideo codec recommended).

MJPEG is lossy, too, but since it compresses each frame seperately it is much easier to work with, e.g. to cut the commercials, to reencode in VirtualDub, etc.

MPEG2 is the way to go if you capture digital MPEG2 streams (DVB). In that case the capturing process is a copying process in fact, and you can proceed as with DVD rips.

If you capture from a DV camcorder, then your format is DV (which is compressed 1:5). It's also great for editing frame wise, and you can convert to DivX or SVCD.

bb
Mark Fredrickson
18th January 2002, 04:17
Oops, I made a gross assumption that you were capturing analog video. bb is right about the other modes. Especially DV where you really don't compress on capture, you just 'copy', then encode to DivX.
drewsteele
18th January 2002, 08:33
Mark-your assumption was right. I am capturing analog vhs. I've already done about 2 gigs of 640x480 mpeg2. It actually looks pretty good. I am going to capture a portion of the same video with huffyuv and encode them both to divx and see what I come out with.
Andy