viable alt to huffyuv

DreamsofaCobra · Post by **DreamsofaCobra** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 2:20 am

Is there a viable alternative to the huffyuv codec? I am trying to use DVD2AVI to make editable clips from vob files. Thus far the best luck I have had is with mpeg4. Quality suffers, I guess. But "poor quality" is better than no quality, which is what I am getting with huffyuv. Premiere will not open the files, (I get an error and have to close premiere) and Windows media player will not open the files. Besides, a huge, cumbersom lossless codec seems kinda pointless for something I do for fun. I want to do DVD quality mpeg2, but DVD2AVI dosn't seem to want to encode that way, and reading the guides isn't getting me far. What am I missing here? I just want my video to look better than my Dazzel capture, and right now I am not getting there. I am on the verge of not enjoying this anymore!

BTW, if it matters I am editing in Premiere 6.0.
I downloaded the AMVapp, installed avisynth and all that.
Read the guides, as far as I could without my brain getting numb.
I dunno...

SS5_Majin_Bebi · Post by **SS5_Majin_Bebi** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 3:23 am

Sorry, dunno.

Ashyukun · Post by **Ashyukun** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 7:50 am

OK, to answer your overall question- I'd suggest an MJPEG codec if you're looking for something to just mess around with if you're not really all that worried about quality. I believe the PICVideo MJPEG codec is what a lot of people here (or at least I) use. It unfortunately isn't free, but I think it's worth the what, $20 or so it costs, and it does a fairly good job of compressing down nice and small at lower quality, but still looks quite good at full-quality. And Premiere usually likes MJPEG just fine as well.

Of course, Premiere usually likes HuffYUV just fine as well, I'd probably be looking for something wrong with the HuffYUV codec install, given nothing seems ot be able to open them.

Part of the what sounds like may be confusing you is that (using the guides, at least) you don't actually make AVIs directly out of DVD2AVI. It is possible- but we generally just use DVD2AVI to frameserve the .vob files for AviSynth to use (i.e., save a project from DVD2AVI instead of an avi). If all you're looking to do is just have some quick files to play with though and quality isn't as much of an issue, than using DVD2AVI to output the AVI's would probably work. Following the guides, though, what you'd do would be to save the project (.d2v file), write an AviSynth script around it, and use VirtualDub to make a MJPEG/HuffYUV file out of it.

I'd think you probably wouldn't want to be encoding to mpeg2 for editing anyways- Premiere 6.5 is supposed to include the capacity for this, but it's been my experience that it is still quite lacking (I'm personally hating 6.5 myself, and am not too far from calling up Adobe and asking for a downgrade to 6.0....). Besides, MPEG isn't a good editing source due to its very nature, much like DivX. You're much better off with either HuffY or MJPEG.

Also, though it gets a bit of a bad rap around here, another program that you might want to look into if you just want to go straight from the DVD .vobs to an AVI or MPEG would be FlaskMPEG, which you should be able to get from Doom 9. It can convert to just about any format your computer has the codecs installed to encode to.

the Black Monarch · Post by **the Black Monarch** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 4:18 pm

DivX at about 10 megabits per second is REALLY sexy 8) and a hell of a lot more space-efficient than Huffies.

NicholasDWolfwood · Post by **NicholasDWolfwood** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 4:27 pm

Wow.

DivX = shit for editing

There's not enough keyframes, and at 10mbps, it's averaged. It's not really 10mbps.

NME · Post by **NME** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 4:30 pm

I'd have to agree there, but then again. You're not me, or are you, I don't know, well yes, and no.

the Black Monarch · Post by **the Black Monarch** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 5:49 pm

NicholasDWolfwood wrote:Wow.

DivX = shit for editing

There's not enough keyframes, and at 10mbps, it's averaged. It's not really 10mbps.

DivX @ 10 Mbits/sec = looks the same as source footage and has as many keyframes as you want (You can set every other frame to be a keyframe if so were so inclined)

René D´Anclaude · Post by **René D´Anclaude** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 6:06 pm

I don't know if it works in premiere (only used it in Avisynth and VD until now), but oh well: VBLE may be useful for your purpose.

NicholasDWolfwood · Post by **NicholasDWolfwood** » Thu Apr 17, 2003 6:27 pm

the Black Monarch wrote:
NicholasDWolfwood wrote:Wow.

DivX = shit for editing

There's not enough keyframes, and at 10mbps, it's averaged. It's not really 10mbps.
DivX @ 10 Mbits/sec = looks the same as source footage and has as many keyframes as you want (You can set every other frame to be a keyframe if so were so inclined)

Erm...it may look the same, but it's not the same as the source. BTW, DVD -> HuffYUV isn't even loseless (YV12 -> YUY2)

the Black Monarch · Post by **the Black Monarch** » Fri Apr 18, 2003 2:57 pm

In case you didn't notice, the person who started this thread didn't care about keeping every goddamn bit of data.