Having major trouble down sizing my dv's (w/divx)

[Help me im stupid]

Easiest was Dr. Divx, it's like encoding for dummies. But I could not get a resolution bigger then 320x248 or something like that.
1.ANd my resolution to start with is 720x480, why won't it let me change it to at least 512xsome number?
2.Next question is about resizing, I don't really get it and although I usually like to understand things it's been really confusing so tell me which resolution to use for good quality on monitor and tv.
3.Does it matter how I capture the video (software wise), I used windows movie maker.
4.What's the minimum bitrate to use for divx?
5.What are some major things to watch out for when encoding
6.I had trouble using virtual dub, with the filters and everything, it always turned out looking like crap. (does processor affect this?) So if you don't advise Dr. Divx can you give me some tips here? Is using virtual dub mods better why?
7.wtf is the difference between type 1 and type 2 dv? I just don't get it and how do I know which I have?
8.Why does interlaced video look like crap in divx? (i know to de-interlace, so it turns out decently... still not great, but why do the lines only become noticable after encoding only?)
9.Should I just buy a dvd burner and use some expensive program to transfer from dv to dvd and forget about getting it?

[bb]

1. I recommend to use AviSynth for resizing. Deinterlace first.
2. E.g. 640x480 will yield good quality. But it depends on the movie length and your desired bitrate / filesize.
3. No, if you captured through firewire and didn't get dropouts, then the result will be identical.
4. For DV I don't go lower than 1600 kbps.
5. To have read the guides. ;-)
6. You probably did something wrong with the filters. Make sure you have a VfW DV codec installed, like MainConcept, Canopus, etc. You won't get sound if your DV AVI is type-1. You're not very specific here, so I have to guess what you did wrong...
VirtualDubMod is better e.g. if your target format is OGM, or if you want to use VBR MP3 in an AVI.
7. Please refer to the sticky threads in this forum.
8. DivX is not capable of encoding interlaced video. You have to deinterlace in order to feed the codec with progressive material.
9. You will get really good results only if you take the time to learn video compression. Even an expensive software will give you so-so quality in the best case if you don't know what you're doing.



bb

[Help me im stupid]

I should have probably mentioned that the length is 1 hour and I want it to fit onto 1 cd.

[Help me im stupid]

ALSO! When I use tmpgenc and use the wizard or whatever to make it into a vcd, it looks like crap and my bitrate is 1600kbps. It is VERY jerky and blocky. And why does it make it into a 480x480??? No matter what I do it says 480x480.

[fyo]

Couple of points here:

1) The reason you only notice the lines in DIVX is probably that your DV is being (real-time) deinterlaced by whatever software you are using to play it with. This may or may not be the case, depending on CODEC and player (and filters said player applies). Often the same will be true for MPEG1 and MPEG2, since most software players / CODECS don't deinterlace. A software DVD player is the exception here, since they always deinterlace.

2) "DIVX" may not support interlaced material (I thought the pro version did, but I haven't tried it), but the MPEG4 spec does. So, why not use the XVID codec instead of DIVX. It works fine with interlaced output (check the "interlace" box in the settings and *don't* apply any deinterlacing filters in the encoding process).

Of course, that gives you a new problem: Your video is now interlaced and your player almost certainly isn't deinterlacing the XVID video. No problem if you want to play your material on a TV, but if your target is a computer screen, you need to deinterlace during play-back. The easiest way to solve this problem is by downloading the FFDSHOW ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/ ) set of direct-show filters. This will give you access to any number of filtering options, including several kinds of deinterlacing (which work quite well, in my opinion). I have no problem doing this on my lowly 700MHz Athlon, but it does require a bit more processing power than just playing back the video without filters.

I'm not sure how to access the vfw-filter frontend in Media Player (I couldn't find a way in the Media player my WinXP came with, but a more recent version may have this capability) - but third party players like BSPlay ( http://www.bsplayer.com/ ) are easy to use and much better, IMHO. They also allow you to change the ASPECT RATIO so that you do not have to resize your DV material for correct display on a computer monitor.

In other words, you can have it all! Use XVID and e.g. BSPlayer, and you don't need to crop and resize - and you don't need to deinterlace. This allows you to get the best possible playback on your TV and *very* good playback on your computer monitor (real-time deinterlacing can be done quite well, but not as well as the most advanced deinterlacing filters (on a slow CPU like mine, anyway)).

Hope this helps,

-fyo

[Help me im stupid]

I do have MainConcept DV codec.

[Help me im stupid]

so can you tell me what I would use 640xwhat? I dont get the whole -16 or -8, it's confusing. And I also realize the dv format looks pretty crappy anyways. Also where can I find a smartdeinterlacer as stated in the dv to divx guide? I looked everywhere.

[ulfschack]

ALSO! When I use tmpgenc and use the wizard or whatever to make it into a vcd, it looks like crap and my bitrate is 1600kbps

This is not what was discussed, HMIS! Your trying to make an SVCD with a TmpgEnc template now? All information above applied to DivX (Xvid) coding. SVCD reolution is fixed by standard and no, 1600 is nowhere near good enough for mpeg2 (SVCD uses mpeg2 not mpeg-4 like divX)

SmartDeinterlace Smart deinterlacer (http://neuron2.net/smart.html) is a filter in VirtualDub. One search on google was all that was needed.

so can you tell me what I would use 640xwhat? I dont get the whole -16 or -8, it's confusing.

Get out you calculator. Punch in the x-resolution that you've settled for. Does division by 8 produce decimals? No? ...good. Does Division by 16 produce decimals? No? ... even better. Now, do the same for your y-resolution.

cheers

[Help me im stupid]

aww I don't want to do anywork. I swear btw that I searched google except that I typed smartdeinterlacer (no space) cuz thats the way it appeared and I couldn't find it. OK so svcd 1600kbits is no good? its fine, I wont make an svcd again. Anyways I just finished this divx and I think it actually looks worse then the one I did with mainconcept before, it's pretty blocky and a bit jerky. I used the latest virtualdub with latest dix and I used deinterlace and temporal smoother (i set it on the 2nd setting, 1 being the lowest) filters. Please comment on filters, I really don't know anything about which filters to use if any.

Can you recommend anything besides windows movie maker to transfer the dv to hdd? I wanna try out different things.

I'll come back with more questions later.

[mihaicapota]

You can try ScenalizerLive (http://www.scenalyzer.com/) for transfering DV to your HDD.

[RathO]

@ Help me im stupid:

Im doing DV too. I go from DV to HDD (using ScenalizerLive) to DivX or XviD/OGG into Matroska.

I use Avisynth 2.52. Here's my script for almost all of my DV (may vary depending on noise/darker/lighter:

LoadPlugin("path:\MPEG2Dec3.dll")
LoadPlugin("path:\decomb500b16.dll")
LoadPlugin("path:\Convolution3DYV12.dll")
LoadPlugin("path:\kerneldeint131.dll")
LoadPlugin("path:\awarpsharp.dll")
#
# SOURCE
AVIsource("path:\dv.avi")
#
KernelDeint(0, sharp=false) #DV is btf i think
crop(0,84,720,346) # I prefer 16:9 to 4:3 (personal choice)
BilinearResize(576,304) # i give ~1550kbps. Good results @ this res
Convolution3DYV12("MovieLQ").Temporalsoften(4,8,8,mode=2,scenechange=8)
aWarpSharp(5)
---------------------

If u want 4:3, then do 640x480 or 640x352/336 for 16:9...

I fit 1 hour on 1 700 megs cd..

i recently post my way to do anime, and i use quite the same for DV since the results are very good IMO.

Regards

{EDIT: I changed the C3D command... and remove that converttoYV12 thing...)

[bb]

Originally posted by RathO
AVIsource("path:\dv.avi")
Works for DV type-2; for type-1 use DirectShowSource.

ConvertToYV12() #because of C3D...
Do not convert to YV12 just because of Convolution3D! Else you'll lose quality, at least for PAL sources. Better use the YUV2 version of Convolution3D, which has been recompiled for AviSynth 2.5x. Get it from http://www.avisynth.org/~warpenterprises/

bb

[RathO]

Do not convert to YV12 just because of Convolution3D! Else you'll lose quality, at least for PAL sources. Better use the YUV2 version of Convolution3D, which has been recompiled for AviSynth 2.5x. Get it from http://www.avisynth.org/~warpenterprises/
Wow, what a mistake of mine, i loaded the Convolution3DYV12.dll and asked for a Convolution3D command... shame on me! :eek:

Works for DV type-2; for type-1 use DirectShowSource
Ur right, i should'nt assume that other people use only DV type-2.

-About my: KernelDeint(0, sharp=false) #DV is btf i think, i just wanna make sure im not wrong, am i?

Regards

[bb]

Originally posted by RathO
-About my: KernelDeint(0, sharp=false) #DV is btf i think, i just wanna make sure im not wrong, am i?
Umm, I guess you mean "bff" = bottom field first. Yes, DV should be bff.

bb

[RathO]

Thanks! :p

[Help me im stupid]

so I can use your method? It's all correct?

And I just used windows movie maker and saved a file to umm .wmv format and suprisingly it looks pretty good except it is 740MB when i need 700mb. I dunno how some people do it, but it shows to be 85 minutes when in reality it is only 62 minutes, so is there any way to fit in on a cd?

[RathO]

@bb:

Yeah i meant bff and not btf :)

@Help me im stupid:

Well i can say that its all correct (yeah correct for my needs..)
As i previously said, u might need to adjust the values of the denoise/smoother or not use them at all. As for exemple, my last encode of DV, i didn't have to use the Convolution3DYV12/Temporalsoften/awarpsharp at all, cause the source didn't need that filtering at the time. So u must do test. When i do testing, i use 10 seconds of the video (300 frames) and ask 1500kb for size in XviD settings... also make sure your XviD settings are set properly...

I always calculate megs ratio depending on the lenght of my video to make sure its equal to 60min=700megs, wich gives ~1500/1550 kbps for the video, since i use quality 0.200 for vorbis audio file...

So i would suggest you to test the previous script since its a good start i think. Change it for ur needs.

For the wmv format, i tried it once and said.. eeeekkkk!! its awful.. it gets too smooth and you loose too much details IMO... so i would'nt waste my time with it.. just try XviD.. and you'll see by yourself.

PS have u try the Enc 1.03 by jonny? its so easy to set stuff for encoding... Enc 1.03 by jonny click here (http://jonny.leffe.dnsalias.com/enc/)

Regards

[Help me im stupid]

why do you use scenalizer? It's not really user-friendly, it puts a stamp on videos like every couple of minutes and WHY DOES IT SPLIT MY MOVIE INTO 20 FILES??? I do not see one good thing about it. Maybe I haven't used it long enough.


p.s. Is there a dv capture software that can get an hour of video in less then an hour btw? Or would that cause crappy visuals?

[RathO]

DV capture goes as fast as ur camera does.. 1x.

there is a free version of sclive... or check the DV FAQ for capture programs links. test them and ull see wich one you prefer.

Regards

[Help me im stupid]

do you recommend against windows movie maker? I mean it does allow you to add effects and stuff.

[RathO]

I used to edit my stuff using Pinnacle programs, but i now use Ulead Media Studio Pro 7.0, wich is optimized for Pentium 4 and seems to be Hard-disk friendly (HDD dont go crazy when searching in avi files like usually does pinnacle...)

Depending on what u need to do and how crazy u are, it might worth the investment in a good editing program.

Regards

[Help me im stupid]

thank you and I noticed the enc 103 uses .avs, so I suppose I would use your commands and put them in a notepad file renamed to .avs?

[RathO]

Yes, copy/paste my script into a notepad file and make the extension to be *.avs. Make sure you associate*.avs to media player, so you can see what ur script looks like. As soon as your script is ok (after you edit it for ur needs), load it into Enc1.03 and make a xvid 2 pass for a 10 seconds video, wich represent 300 frames. Ex: trim(0,300)

After that check the video result and adjust your script depending on the noise you have, etc etc... then re-encode a 10 seconds video to see again the result until you get satisfied.

When i do testing, i try to choose hard video to encode, wich might be a panning scene or a scene where i have lots of movement.

Regards

[RathO]

Right on, bb in another thread is filtering on separate fields, wich i should also do, so here is the avs setting he uses:

AviSource("C:\MyDVFiles\DV_type2_file.avi")
SeparateFields()
odd=SelectOdd.Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)
evn=SelectEven.Convolution3D(1, 6, 10, 6, 8, 2.8, 0)
Interleave(evn,odd)
Weave()

Thanks bb :D

[Mort-hun]

hello all,

I'm lookin for the YUV2 version of Convolution3D which works with Avisynth 2.5. The link mentioned above (http://www.avisynth.org/~warpenterprises/) unfortunately doesn't exist.
I'd like to use it with kerneldeint which is only available for Avisynth 2.5.
Thanx for any help in advance,
Mort

[mustardman]

Originally posted by Help me im stupid
And I also realize the dv format looks pretty crappy anyways. Huh? How do you come to that conclusion? In tests I have done, it is pretty much equivilant to MJPG at 6MBps (thats 6 mega-bytes per second). Thats a pretty high data rate.

Originally posted by Help me im stupid
aww I don't want to do anywork. Sorry. But you are going to have to do some work. After all, if you are making copies of DVD's, then you'll get no sympathy from me. If you really don't want to do any work, just go out and buy an original. Then you'll have none of these pesky little problems.

[bb]

Originally posted by Mort-hun
[...]I'm lookin for the YUV2 version of Convolution3D which works with Avisynth 2.5. The link mentioned above (http://www.avisynth.org/~warpenterprises/) unfortunately doesn't exist.[...]
Try http://www.avisynth.org/warpenterprises/
Alternatively, you can go to http://www.avisynth.org and click on "External Filters".

bb