The common Codec Question

[[Mike of the Desert]]

Hi Guys.
This question is so common we could create a Poll to decide if call it overused or not, but the Search tool is not been useful as I hoped.

Codecs are the worst thing ever existed for us editors in my honest opinion.
I'm searching for a Guide, an Advice.. Anything that could help me answering this simple, but hard question:

- Which are, or What is the best Codec ''Communion'' for Editing? (I don't give importance about playback, Just Editing)

I mean for AE to read almost everything, to don't crash in retrieving frames everytime something is imported, and so on? Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks guys.

[Jnzk]

Codecs are the worst thing ever existed for us editors in my honest opinion.

I disagree, they're very useful for saving space and bandwidth.

- Which are, or What is the best Codec ''Communion'' for Editing? (I don't give importance about playback, Just Editing)

You're best off converting your source to Huffyuv or Lagarith.

[Mosc]

Or use FFVHuff, available through FFDShow. It's an improved version of HuffYUV that supports YV12 and compresses better. With the speed of HuffYUV and the compression of Lagarith, there's very little reason to use anything else.

Of course, considering your apparent dislike towards codecs, I wonder why you want to bother with compression in the first place. Buying a fast hard drive is a small price to pay for getting rid of those nasty codecs once and for all, right?

[Vivaldi]

HuffYUV and Lagairith are designed particulerly with editing in mind, everything else is ment distribution, and can often crash your editing software.

[LivingFlame]

"Everything else" is an overstatement. There are other codecs made for editing. =\

[[Mike of the Desert]]

Or use FFVHuff, available through FFDShow. It's an improved version of HuffYUV that supports YV12 and compresses better. With the speed of HuffYUV and the compression of Lagarith, there's very little reason to use anything else.

Of course, considering your apparent dislike towards codecs, I wonder why you want to bother with compression in the first place. Buying a fast hard drive is a small price to pay for getting rid of those nasty codecs once and for all, right?

It's that I'm not as much as expert as I'd like to be.
I need some advices because even If I'd love to edit trough Lossless codecs, I even don't manage to make Virtual Dub Mod to read some extensions (.mov/.mp4) and this drives me crazy, especially because After Effects neither read a lot. Many Avi files I have as Footage don't work, and having to Uncompress them, if VD does not accept them as files, I'm often lost.

Sadly, except this Forum (Thanks), I did not find any true-good guide about this stuff, the Big avtech isn't that helpful when touching these problems.

[[Mike of the Desert]]

HuffYUV and Lagairith are designed particulerly with editing in mind, everything else is ment distribution, and can often crash your editing software.

Sorry for the Double post guys,
thinking later about what I wrote is an error I often do on Forums. (D'oh)

Vivaldi, that's the problem indeed.. But, How can I turn Compressed stuff into HuffyUv and Laga when convertion programs just close the door at me?

And an important question I'd like to do is:
Imagine to Format and Completely Reset your Computer, what would exactly be the best stuff you could install on it, talking about Codecs/Patches (Like AmvApp)? I'm always discouraged when Ideas and passion have to fight with this kind of problems (That CAN be interesting to face, but not if you can't understand them when you'd like/must). I really feel like a newbye, sometimes. *Hate*

[LivingFlame]

To open most of those files that are giving you trouble, make an AviSynth file that calls the video file via FFMpegSource, which can be obtained here. (Use WinRAR or something to unarchive it and drop the .dll file into your AviSynth Plugins folder.)

The code in the AviSynth file should follow this template:

Code: Select all

ffmpegsource("C:\file path\video file.mp4")

Obviously, change the file extension to whatever the extension of your video file is.

And the guide you mentioned is certainly helpful when talking about editable codecs and distribution codecs, as well as AviSynth and VirtualDubMod.





And interestingly enough, I'm in the middle of building a computer. As of right now, all I plan to install as far as codecs/etc. is concerned is just the AMVapp and CCCP. Well, and Sony Vegas for editing software.

[LivingFlame]

Oh, and for Quicktime files (.mov), if ffmpegsource doesn't work, use QTSource.

Usage is

Code: Select all

QTInput("C:\path_to\quicktime.mov",audio=true)

and more can be found here.

[[Mike of the Desert]]

Thanks Flame, I'll try to get as much as possible from your advices.