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Encoding in 720p - Codecs and Settings
Ayulin
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Alright! Have quite a few questions here, so bear with me 
I'm getting footage from games using Fraps, or in Source Engine games, the built in demo and movie recording tools. It's all in 1280 by 720, and uncompressed AVI (for Fraps), or tons of .TGA files (Source Engine). I'm using VirtualDub to process and encode all this stuff.
First, what should I use to losslessly archive it all? I hear Lagarith is great, and it does cut down size quite a bit, but when I encode it with audio (Source Engine outputs the .TGAs with a single .WAV), the picture and sound aren't synced, and the video doesn't play smoothly either. I'm inclined to think this is because my CPU is bottlenecking (Core 2 Quad Q9300) since all 4 cores are near 80 - 90% when playing. Encoding JUST the video WITHOUT audio is fine, and this is OK for my Source game output since audio is split off anyway, but Fraps creates just a single AVI, and I'd rather not have to manually split the audio off.
Sub-question: if I do encode with Lagarith, and there's severe A/V sync issues + dropped frames due to CPU bottlenecks, this wouldn't carry over into subsequent re-encodes into other codecs, would it?
Second, what codec should I use to encode it? I downloaded both xvid and x264vfw, but am at a loss for which is better in this case; I've been experimenting with x264vfw, though.
Third, and linked to the second, what settings should I use? I'm looking to output at 1280 by 720 too, and although I'm going to be sticking the videos onto YouTube (with it's fancy new quasi-HD support), it'd be nice if I could have a good looking version to save. Right now I run two encode passes, with a bitrate of 5500kbps. The resultant file sizes seem a bit high (306MB for 7.5 minutes?), but I have little idea on what to expect when working at this res. However, the quality doesn't seem that great; all the other 720p media I download always looks great, but my stuff always looks worse than the source, with either blocks or slightly faded colours.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, although I might not respond after Friday (I have to run off and do National Service then, and won't be out until around Christmas). Thanks!
I'm getting footage from games using Fraps, or in Source Engine games, the built in demo and movie recording tools. It's all in 1280 by 720, and uncompressed AVI (for Fraps), or tons of .TGA files (Source Engine). I'm using VirtualDub to process and encode all this stuff.
First, what should I use to losslessly archive it all? I hear Lagarith is great, and it does cut down size quite a bit, but when I encode it with audio (Source Engine outputs the .TGAs with a single .WAV), the picture and sound aren't synced, and the video doesn't play smoothly either. I'm inclined to think this is because my CPU is bottlenecking (Core 2 Quad Q9300) since all 4 cores are near 80 - 90% when playing. Encoding JUST the video WITHOUT audio is fine, and this is OK for my Source game output since audio is split off anyway, but Fraps creates just a single AVI, and I'd rather not have to manually split the audio off.
Sub-question: if I do encode with Lagarith, and there's severe A/V sync issues + dropped frames due to CPU bottlenecks, this wouldn't carry over into subsequent re-encodes into other codecs, would it?
Second, what codec should I use to encode it? I downloaded both xvid and x264vfw, but am at a loss for which is better in this case; I've been experimenting with x264vfw, though.
Third, and linked to the second, what settings should I use? I'm looking to output at 1280 by 720 too, and although I'm going to be sticking the videos onto YouTube (with it's fancy new quasi-HD support), it'd be nice if I could have a good looking version to save. Right now I run two encode passes, with a bitrate of 5500kbps. The resultant file sizes seem a bit high (306MB for 7.5 minutes?), but I have little idea on what to expect when working at this res. However, the quality doesn't seem that great; all the other 720p media I download always looks great, but my stuff always looks worse than the source, with either blocks or slightly faded colours.
Any suggestions would be appreciated, although I might not respond after Friday (I have to run off and do National Service then, and won't be out until around Christmas). Thanks!
Ayulin on
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I get bigger file sizes with that setting, but it actually looks close to the source media now, so I can deal with it. Cheers