Question About Frameserving

[State of Mind]

Well, I searched and discovered Debug Mode's Frameserver but it says:
Can serve video in 3 formats, RGB (RGB24), ARGB (RGB32) or YUY2.
Is there a frameserve method that's YV12 compatible that I can use? I'd just rather not convert the color-space so many times. Also, does opening an AVS file in VirtualDub automatically convert the color space also? I'd like to preserve the detail as much as possible. My ideal scenario is to upload the video (RGB), enhance with AviSynth filters and convert to YV12 for the overall best compatibility with other filters as well, open in VirtualDub, trim and resave the enhanced DV and opening in Adobe Premiere Pro to add in effects and such and finally serving via AviSynth to TMPGEnc for MPEG-2 encoding. Can anyone give me any advice/tips in regards to minimizing colorspace conversions? Can I do what I have just described without losing a lot of detail?

Cheers,
Jeremy

[akupenguin]

It should be possible with no colorspace conversions other than the initial RGB->YV12, though I haven't tried exactly what you describe.

Avisynth in VfW, DShow, and DLL work with YV12. (is there another frameserver mode?)
VirtualDub will preserve YV12 when encoding if you select "fast recompress".
If you want to use DV, make sure it's PAL (which is YV12). NTSC DV is 4:1:1 (i.e. massive color bleeding, especially when converted to/from YV12). But even PAL DV is still unnecessarily lossy, so I would recommend ffdshow's huffyuv or ffv1 instead.

[State of Mind]

I don't completely understand what you're saying. "so I would recommend FFDShow's Huffyuv or ffv1 instead". I use NTSC because I am in North America and I don't like the resolution of PAL. Always have used NTSC. Are you talking about codecs I should use or what? Please elaborate. :)

[akupenguin]

Originally posted by State of Mind
I don't completely understand what you're saying. "so I would recommend FFDShow's Huffyuv or ffv1 instead". I use NTSC because I am in North America and I don't like the resolution of PAL. Always have used NTSC. Are you talking about codecs I should use or what? Please elaborate. :)

I'm discussing your choice of codec for temporary files (between Vdub and Premier, and betweeen Premier and TMPGEnc).
DV is a codec. I'm assuming you were going to use DV, because (a) you mentioned it, and (b) it's the default in Premier. But DV is lossy, slow, and (if you live in NTSC land) requires nasty colorspace conversions (which are much worse than YV12<->YUY2).
Huffyuv is a codec. Its better than DV for your purposes, because (a) it's lossless, (b) ffdshow's version supports YV12, and (c) faster than DV. FFV1 is another codec, which is also lossless, but additionally provides better compression than DV (at a cost in speed).

[State of Mind]

Ok, so I am guessing I just need to have certain configurations set in place in FFDShow so these codecs will be used? I don't care about speed, I want efficiency and quality. :D
A friend of mine is suggesting I use CCE instead of TMPGEnc for better and faster encoding. And I am now aware of the downsides of NTSC. Take a look at this forum's thread: http://www.videohelp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=235665

Some say TMPGEnc is better, some say CCE is better, some say Procoder is better. I guess I'll have to judge for myself. I don't think the guys who post in that thread use AviSynth and I think they are at a disadvantage because of this.

Anyway, can you explain to me how I can set things up so Huffyuv can be used?

[Wilbert]

Did you try makeAVIS to create fake avis?

[State of Mind]

I can surely say I haven't. Why? Never heard of this before.

[Wilbert]

Because it frameserves YV12 stuff. All relevant links can be found in the first post of http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84481 (at the end).

[State of Mind]

How many encoders can AviSynth frameserve to / allow applications to frameserve to? For example, Adobe Premiere Pro to Canopus Procoder? I heard this encoder is better and faster than TMPGEnc but heard it creates a lot of its own noise. I would not prefer noise, especially after using denoising filters in AviSynth. A friend told me I could configure it not to do so.

[Mug Funky]

beware: AVIS frameserving into premiere for some reason gives you very, very slow garbage. this is true for premiere 6 and premiere pro (most over-rated NLE ever).

you can edit it fine - it'll look perfect and be quite fast. but when you go to export you get green junk frames, and a very slow speed. debugmode works though (and premiere pro can finally handle YUV colourspaces, though i don't know what methods it uses to upconvert to 4:4:4 YUV, so i can't say if it's lossy or not).

[edit]

btw, i recommend QuEnc as an encoder. really amazing, and GPL'd, so it comes with extra karma. if you have problems with max bitrate and underflows, then try the Peter Cheat mod called "NuEnc". these can both be found in the "other mpeg-1,2 encoders" forum here.

[State of Mind]

So I can frameserve it into Premiere and edit fine without problems but if I export it, garbage occurs? Well, I was planning on framserving out to TMPGEnc with DebugMode's Framserver anyway. Is there no way to keep it in the RGB colorspace for maximum quality preservation?
Ah, you edited your post. I have heard of QuEnc. People say TMPGEnc, they say Procoder, they say CCE...now I get QuEnc. I'm not in it for speed, I'm in it for quality.

[Mug Funky]

quenc has both, though it's not been formally tested against CCE (personally i think they're about equal in both speed and quality, give or take).

if i use premiere for editing, i'll edit the raw DV in premiere, then use debugmode to frameserve to avisynth, then encode in whatever i like from there.

as far as encoders go, there's different ones for different needs. for DVD bitrates, i'd use either CCE or TMPG depending on whether my processing chain ends in YUV or RGB (rgb for tmpg, yuy2 for cce), and for low bitrates (below 5 or 6 mbps) i'll use quenc. reason is because the rate-control in QuEnc (and indeed ffmpeg which is at the core of QuEnc) is not perfect and can give bitrate "spikes" which could make a DVD player glitch temporarily. note that 2-pass encodes in QuEnc don't seem to exhibit this, but i think that's more down to luck (nic or dragongodz, please correct me in this :)).

when ratecontrol is reliable enough, i'll use quenc for everything.

one thing to note is that at high enough bitrates (7 to 9.8mbps for DVD), any old encoder will do, and you should just use the one that works best in your workflow. in this case, one that has a premiere plugin could be very useful to you (but would probably cut out the possibility of avisynth processing).

[State of Mind]

Thanks for the info, Mug Funky. At this present moment, I am still waiting for my new mobo and my current one won't recognise my firewire so I can't upload video. When my hardware situation is resolved, I will ask more questions as I will actually be doing experiments and not just asking questions for future purposes.