To HD, or not to HD

[mirkosp]

You're correct, you wouldn't have to convert your m2ts to mkv anymore. And yes, it'd be the exact same and you could use it for DVDs too, if you wish to. I still use the old DGIndex for MPEG-2 stuff because I'm used to it and it has its own convenient side for me (it saves me a small extra step when doing metric collection in ymc, which isn't something you care about, I think, at least not at this stage), but aside from that, yes, you could just replace it.

[slackergirl]

Downloaded DGDecNV. Now I just have to wait for a license key. The conversion of the movie worked out great, but it's the hugest file I've ever seen: 114GB. That's a lot of gigs!

[Mister Hatt]

Re VPx, don't use it if you have a VP3 or second generation VP4 card, they have serious wtf issues.

[mirkosp]

Re VPx, don't use it if you have a VP3 or second generation VP4 card, they have serious wtf issues.

If you are talking about this, it only is a problem with resolutions which do not affect BDs and DVDs, thus it's not a problem which she should care about.

Re: filesize: a smart thing to do is scaling back to 1280x720 since it's very much likely the actual detail of the source doesn't go beyond that (very few anime are actual 1080p in the drawings, mostly ghibli stuff). That's going to cut filesize to about 10GB per 24 minutes at 23.976fps with utvideo YUV420 with predict median. You'll still want to just do lossless clips for the scenes you'll actually use, though, if space is an issue.

[slackergirl]

Plus my video card isn't on that list! And I'll keep that resolution in mind, though again, this is a CG Dreamworks source, not really anime, so it may have a higher resolution. I did use the utvideo codec. How do you find out what the actual source resolution is, btw?

[mirkosp]

Well, if it's a dreamworks cg movie it's likely it's legit 1080p, then.
But, it's mostly about scaling back to 720 and then again to 1080 and checking the original not scaled frame for detail differences. Very slight sharpness differences will occur since resampling is lossy in most cases (unless you're upsampling and downsampling back with pointresize at power of 2 resolutions), however if you don't notice real detail differences, then it's definitely an upscale.
It might sound easy like this, but it's kinda tricky until your eye gets used to seeing upscales and recognizing them. After a while, though, you'd prolly be able to tell what the original resolution was without the need to scale back and forth again, but just with a quick glance.

[slackergirl]

I'm done editing my video. It took me longer to get the source ready than to actually make it! But I did it, thanks to all of you! I have 1 more question: for my credits at the end I want to use a little snippet of the movie audio. I know how to demux a wav file from an avi in virtualdub, but I didn't make my ginormous avi with the audio. Also, I don't have the license key for DGDecNV yet. Is there an easier way to get it from the m2ts file rather than re-encoding as an mkv with audio and then converting THAT to an avi with audio and then demuxing THAT? Or should I just wait for the license key?

Oh, I thought of another question! In the old amv app there was a GUI for converting audio files between different formats, included I believe primarily to fix sync issues in Premiere since it edits 24fps and not truly 23.97 (does it still do that? I don't have Premiere...). I used it for a few other things, but lost it with my old hard drive, and it doesn't seem to be in the newer app. I also forget what it's called, was it the LAME GUI? So does anyone know where I can get it? And if not, what would you use to convert an mp3 to a wav file?

[BasharOfTheAges]

It was the besweet GUI. It's not compatible with a lot of newer versions of Windows. That might be why it's no longer included.

[slackergirl]

That's the one! I'm running good ol' XP still, not these new-fangled OS's you kids use... Crazy kids!

[BasharOfTheAges]

it would be rather irresponsible to include software that no longer works for the majority of users in an application for the majority of users.