Best editing codec?

[Jayn_Newell]

I'm preparing to work on a new video, and I'm trying to figure out which codec I should use to make my VOBs editable. Last night I tried putting them into Lagarith and ran into two problems.

1) Lack of disk space.
2) Playback on what was re-encoded looks terrible.

So, frankly, I'm looking for a better option.

[Ladymercury]

I used to encode in Windows Media v9 (the codec), condenced the video a lot but the quality faultered a bit... but for what I was doing, having just a 20 gig HD at the time, it was reasonably perfect.

[Kai Stromler]

I'm preparing to work on a new video, and I'm trying to figure out which codec I should use to make my VOBs editable. Last night I tried putting them into Lagarith and ran into two problems.

1) Lack of disk space.
2) Playback on what was re-encoded looks terrible.

So, frankly, I'm looking for a better option.

If you're not doing any pre-filtering with AviSynth, you may want to. This will definitely help with step 2. This assumes that you've decrypted your VOBs instead of just copying them off the DVD, but if you're experimenting with encoding codecs, you can probably be relied on to have the basics down.

You'll also not want to re-encode en bloc into any form of AVI if you're really concerned with playback quality as well as discspace. You might look into frameserving the VOBs directly into your editing environment with AviSynth, or consider using the bait-and-switch method described in the guides, even though quite a few people think that it should be deprecated in the face of rising hardware capabilities.

I've been in roughly your situation (video from 9 DVDs on 25 GB of drivespace), and the solution I developed was to cut out source in Virtual Dub, using AviSynth for some pre-production filtering, and encode only those shots I needed as Lagarith, but my process has never included editing from markpoints in full episodes/VOBs as opposed to pre-separated scenes. If you like knowing you have the full source available at all times, frameserving is probably the way to go.

--K

[Jayn_Newell]

Actually, I'm really experimenting with the entire thing--I have maybe half a clue what I'm doing ^^'. I got the VOBs using DVDdecrypter, and was trying to re-encode them using VirtualDubMod. The guides, while great, are somewhat difficult to navigate I find (especially for someone like me who is really just starting to get into the more technical aspects of AMV making), and I can't always get the information I need. So any advice on how to do what you described above would be helpful.

For a reference, each episode came out to 15 gigs when I encoded it last night. From the sounds of it, I think I did something really wrong. I'm not really concerned with playback quality--I have this on DVD after all. I'm just trying to figure out what I should be doing.

*kills another 'Low Disk Space' message*

[Keeper of Hellfire]

Converting the VOB's into Lagarith shouldn't affect the quality at all, since lagarith is a lossless codec. So if the Lagariths look horrible, either the VOB's look horrible too or you doing something horribly wrong during conversion. As far as it goes for the disk space - cutting out the needed scenes instead converting whole episodes is the way to go.

[Jayn_Newell]

So far I'm thinking I did something wrong (though it would be nice to know what size a Lagarith file usually is)--the VOBs look fine BTW. At any rate, I finally found the part of the guide which deals with using DVD footage, so I'm trying to figure this all out right now. Any advice would still be appreciated though, especially as my next video I have planned uses a lot more footage and I like to have my full source avaliable to work with (This video I don't mind cutting it down--it's a character profile so there's lots of scenes I know I won't want to use)

[Kai Stromler]

The guides, while great, are somewhat difficult to navigate I find (especially for someone like me who is really just starting to get into the more technical aspects of AMV making), and I can't always get the information I need. So any advice on how to do what you described above would be helpful.

Going from a decrypted VOB to an indexed VOB with a .avs file in front of it for preprocessing and stuff is described here. This page covers frameserving from those .avs files into your editing environment. This page covers the bait-and-switch method, which I and a few other people think should not be recommended because it's unduly complicated as opposed to either frameserving or pre-cutting source. The only reason it exists at all is that at the time at which the guides were last significantly revised, the typical editor's computer was not powerful enough to smoothly support editing with frameserved files.

Lagarith files vary in size with the content of the video being compressed. An extremely complex one-minute video that I built recently came in at 380 MB; most of my normal AMVs end up in the 1 to 2 GB range, so 15 GB per DVD, assuming your discs are 75-100 minutes, is actually pretty small.

hth,

--K

[Jayn_Newell]

Thanks for the help, Kai. I was able to get an episode de-interlaced and re-encoded to Lagarith, at a file size of under 6 gigs--a lot better than what it was before! I still want to learn about cleaning up the tape though--the show is from the early 90s, and I don't really like the source quality.

[Gox777]

What the others were saying about using .avs scripts is by far the best way to do it if you can get used to it. Doing it this way doesn't involve reencoding anything. Just keep the .vob files on your comp and you can make .avs scripts which refer to each .vob file. You import the .avs files into the editing program you're using and it will act the same as if you imported the vobs, PLUS you can tell the script to automatically deinterlace the footage without recompressing.
(.avs files are less than a KB in size)

I think there are also methods to clean up fragments or decoloration through these scripts...read this guide for the tutorial on using .avs files
http://www.animemusicvideos.org/guides/ ... th_dvd.pdf

Also which program are you using to edit in? I know premiere needs a plugin to recognize avs scripts.

[Jayn_Newell]

I may do that for the next time (I'll be using Vegas Movie Director BTW--I'm in the process of buying a new video editor and got the free trial. Premiere Elements might also get tinkered with). For now I think I'll just recompress the files (I have enough disk space now) and deal with importing .avs on my next project. One thing at a time, as they always say.

One minor problem with that guide--I've tried reading it twice and both times it froze up my browser. I'll try downloading it and reading it that way though. I'm looking at the other guide for info as well (I found that section), since the .pdf will take a while to download and I'm impatient