What Format do most of you use ?

Dead_Pool · Post by **Dead_Pool** » Wed May 28, 2003 11:18 am

Just a question I am new here and wondering I have made a few AMV's

BishounenStalker · Post by **BishounenStalker** » Wed May 28, 2003 11:21 am

::scratching her head::

Video doesn't come in formats per say. I think you mean "which codecs do most of you use?"

I use DivX exclusively. Need to start experimenting with XviD, though.

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » Wed May 28, 2003 11:37 am

XviD.

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Wed May 28, 2003 12:00 pm

The argument can be broken down into two camps:

-XviD
-MPEG-1

XviD
Pro (major pro): quality. XviD is mainly used b/c it is known for how well it can compress and yet still maintain quality. I've seen 50 MB XviD videos that are nearly MPEG-2 in quality.
Con: compatibility. First off, the viewer *must* have the XviD codec installed and more importantly, XviD does not play smoothly on all computers (slower ones in general).

MPEG-1
Pro: Opposite as Xvid. Compatibility. MPEG-1 can play on all computers (even 486s).
Con: Again, opposite of XviD. Quality. Not as good as XviD, however not bad at all. A good MPEG-1 encode is pretty good, but will be around 60 - 70 MB.

My preference? MPEG-1 for distro, MPEG-2 for quality (myself and CDs). I'd rather distro a version *everyone* can play rather than have those few who complain that the video is out of sync. Also MPEG-1 isn't as bad as I'm making it seem quality wise. For the most part, the videos you see on the .org are MPEG-1 and look perfectly fine. It's just XviD can make that quality (or better) for less space (i.e. around 40 - 50 MB).

It's up to you though, but I hope this explains it all.

Lyrs · Post by **Lyrs** » Wed May 28, 2003 12:23 pm

I use .dbz video codec & .lp sound codec

/end

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Wed May 28, 2003 12:32 pm

I use DV in a Quicktime container...

iserlohn · Post by **iserlohn** » Wed May 28, 2003 12:45 pm

Oboy...

For editing I've run the whole course, settling on PicVideo MJPEG 4:2:2 @ 20 for DVD ripped video and analog captures. However, now that I don't have my analog capture board, I'll be working in NTSC DV native, meaning that DVDs will be converted to the appropriate wrapper/intermediate codec before going into DV.

For distro, I stick to MPEG-1. I'd rather have compatability and low overhead than a hackjob codec with who knows how many alternate flavors and editions. Recently, though, I've been making SE discs for newer vids and sending them to the distro center. SE discs have a nice MPEG-2 copy for the quality freaks, although nobody seems to really want them anyways...

Thank you for bringing up such a touchy subject.

dwchang · Post by **dwchang** » Wed May 28, 2003 1:37 pm

iserlohn wrote:SE discs have a nice MPEG-2 copy for the quality freaks, although nobody seems to really want them anyways...

I like MPEG-2...am I now nobody

I also put MPEG-2 on my distro CDs. Watching Glory of Love in MPEG-2 makes me cream my pants...err...yeah...I wonder if it's the same for you Trythil...remember what you said defines "success?"

BTW I will kill you for your *modified* signature of things I DID NOT say

trythil · Post by **trythil** » Wed May 28, 2003 1:59 pm

dwchang wrote:
iserlohn wrote:SE discs have a nice MPEG-2 copy for the quality freaks, although nobody seems to really want them anyways...
I like MPEG-2...am I now nobody

I also put MPEG-2 on my distro CDs. Watching Glory of Love in MPEG-2 makes me cream my pants...err...yeah...I wonder if it's the same for you Trythil...remember what you said defines "success?"

BTW I will kill you for your *modified* signature of things I DID NOT say

Huh? IMHO, success is when you --

Oh. Yeah. meh.

You say you didn't say what it's my signature? I can prove it

---

A serious reply to offset my two joke replies:

For editing I'll go through a ton of formats -- and they somehow manage to work together. If it's a DVD source I'll just use the MPEG-2s off the DVD, as that's the most space-efficient and highest-quality solution. (Yes, space-efficient...VOBs are really actually quite small compared to what uncompressed or even a HuffYUVed file can be...)

For me, intermediate files (such as really intense pre-rendered sections) and masters are usually something in a Quicktime container -- generally uncompressed data. 800 megabytes for a 30-second clip is pretty common with these.

AMV masters usually either end up as Quicktime DV, MPEG-2, or deleted, depending on the video attributes.

Distribution: XviD looks nice, and there's a lot of tools available to help you get a really good-looking encode -- but there's times that I just don't want to deal with it. For those times I just say "hey transcode, here's my Quicktime file, give me a DivX AVI" or "hey TMPGenc, here's an uncompressed AVI, give me an MPEG-1".

Tab. · Post by **Tab.** » Wed May 28, 2003 3:09 pm

well he could very well have meant what container format do we use! I.E. mpeg1/2 systems, avi, matroska, ogg, mpeg 4, quicktime, realmedia

Which as far as that goes it seems most people use avi or mpeg1/2 systems for their videos, for obvious reasons of compliance (both are basically as old as you can get). Ogg can only be played back with the not very widespread directshow filters (except on linux), matroska is brand new and barely known at all, mpeg 4 is relatively new and not very well known, quicktime dosent support nearly as many good codecs as others, and realmedia aside from not supporting any codec other than rv/ra can only be played back on realone or with realone installed (except on linux)

and... omg.. I have no clue what I was typing
whenever I get bored I just go chat on aim and then forget where I was
so take this knowledge, and grow the seed within your heart
ITS NOT ADD