A good codec for Windows 7?

[Sayoria]

Well, I got my MKVs going, thanks to those who helped in my other topic, however, back on my old computer, for setting up my AMVs, I would use the Windows Media Video 9 codec, because it was small, decent quality, and gave me room to lay out my video without lag.

I tried getting it again for laying out my video, and it seems I cannot get it on Windows 7. All of the default codecs I have in Virtualdub are sort of big, or don't work. What are some good codecs to get? I mainly want ones that:

- Are like WMV9 was, small and can lay a video out on it, without taking up a massive amount of space.
- A second codec, that gives really great quality, DOES take up some decent space, and makes for a good video finalizer.

If there is one that combined both, that would be ideal, but two separates are perfectly fine. I just don't want 2gb 10 second clips. Thanks again ahead of time. I appreciate it.

[Mister Hatt]

AVC in MKV like you use on your new PC, only with less complex coding. Make sure to have a sugoi playback setup by using DivX7 and CCCP Beta.

[mirkosp]

Disregard Mister Hatt, he prolly didn't realize you meant making clips for editing.
If you absolutely need to save space, the best thing you can do is using avisynth files in your NLE, perhaps through fake AVIs if your NLE can't load avs (there's a plugin for premiere, but afaik vegas requires pismo/makeavis/vfapi). Be warned that it's slow and you possibly might incur in bugs.
Otherwise, if you're fine with using lossless clips for editing, use utvideo set for compression.
An alternative choice would be making intra-only lossy avc m2ts (actually might be what mister hatt was referring to with "less complex coding"). I'm not sure how high the bitrate would need to be to make the clips look still good, I'd say go for a crf 10... not sure how much visible quality loss there would be.

[Mister Hatt]

No no, I did think he meant for playback. High bitrate intra-coded lossy AVC in m2ts is a good suggestion though. It's like the nicer little brother of HDCAM and PRORES. That'd be my recommendation if you can't get lossless or avs to play nice.

[Sayoria]

Well, like I said, just something simple for laying the video out, then later, I will re-do the clips with a higher quality codec. Something that simply just runs smooth, but doesn't have to be in grand quality is all that is needed to lay out the video. All the rest of it, I get done thereafter. I just don't want to download full length episodes and choose clips that way, when I can just use lower quality, lay it out, then pick and choose in higher quality, so, it don't matter how low exactly they are, just as long as they are viewable, and play without hiccups.

Thank you guys.

[mirkosp]

Oh, if I understand correctly, you plan to bait and switch, right? Then I'd say go for something like MJPEG or intra-only avc m2ts with a high crf (like 30 or 40 lol). They'll be smooth to edit with and won't weight much, and as long as quality isn't a concern, then it's all good.

[Mister Hatt]

You know mirko, bitrate isn't the only thing that makes AVC hard to decode. Given it's for switching purposes I'd probably forgo HDD space and --preset faster --crf 12 or something, may as well make the video clear enought to see.

[mirkosp]

You know mirko, bitrate isn't the only thing that makes AVC hard to decode. Given it's for switching purposes I'd probably forgo HDD space and --preset faster --crf 12 or something, may as well make the video clear enought to see.

Ah right. A --tune fastdecode would help too. But I'd still say that crf 12 would be excessively low for the OP's intents, it would still come out pretty big.

[Mister Hatt]

CRF12 is what I use to keep typesetters happy so I wouldn't call it excessive at all. The equivalent in prores f.e. would be like crf4 though, so yeah.

[Sayoria]

Oh, if I understand correctly, you plan to bait and switch, right? Then I'd say go for something like MJPEG or intra-only avc m2ts with a high crf (like 30 or 40 lol). They'll be smooth to edit with and won't weight much, and as long as quality isn't a concern, then it's all good.

Precisely. A bait and switch. Anywho, I got some ffdshow codec pack or something while checking out everyone's recommendations. I tried that one again, and for some reason, the videos turned out smaller, and better than on my last computer. They came out at about 150mb each, all clear, and with sound, so it works. Thanks again everyone.