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Tunnleram
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Hi guys, and very nice work. I've checked out a few of your works and read through the forum before posting.
I'm new to video editting and am having issues with quality. I'm sure you've heard this before, but I know I'm missing something stupid. At this point I am only trying to take a demo and make a good quality avi out of it. Nothing complicated, just learning the settings to use.
Here's what I am doing. Please let me know if I'm not doing something right or if I could do something better.
1. Run a demo at 1024 x 768
2. Turn the demo into .TGA files at 30 FPS using avidemo command.
3. Import the .TGA files into VirtualDub 1.5.4
4. Go to Video, Filters, Add. I add a resize filter and set it to 640 x 480 leaving other settings at defaults.
5. Go to Video, Compression and select the DIVX codec
6. Click Configure, set Bitrate to 1200 (someone suggested this to me) I leave other settings default.
7. Save as .AVI
It seems that setting the bitrate higher just make it worse and lower is no better. What I get is a blurry video. I must be missing that one key bit of info needed to get me past this.
Can anyone shed some light on this?
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 2:37 PM
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own-age
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do you have an example of this so I can get an idea of what you mean by blurry
Sean 'own-age' Kuehnel |
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 2:43 PM |
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Tunnleram
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Sure, I redid the above steps. Thanks for the quick reply.
http://www.own-age.com/forum/uploads/test2.zip
I looked at the properties of that Panzamovie and it seems that the bitrate is set at about 3000 or so, but using that just makes it more blurry or pixelated.
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 3:16 PM
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own-age
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looks like you need to put fsaa on 4x for starters.. that should help produce smoother edges. Now if this footage is just footage to be edited later.. you should create a very high quality render of it. like 8-10mbps to capture the clarity of the images so you are not rendering footage film with video errors ontop of your final production video. For absolute best quality footage film use uncompressed. but uncompressed comes at a very high price.. you have to have a ton of storage available (like over 100 gigs free for enough footage and extra scenes to edit a 8 minute final video)
Sean 'own-age' Kuehnel |
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 3:32 PM |
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own-age
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| Tunnleram wrote: |
6. Click Configure, set Bitrate to 1200 (someone suggested this to me) I leave other settings default.
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That bitrate is very low, when I made the next level the rate in divx was 3,000 , (low quality was like 1,500) Like stated earlier, if this is footage made for further editing, I suggest you use a lot higher settings. Quality footage will always mean higher storage space. Once you edited all your footage together and are wanting to make the final video.. thats when you use a lower rate to make a downloadable version
Sean 'own-age' Kuehnel |
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 3:36 PM |
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Tunnleram
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| own-age wrote: | | looks like you need to put fsaa on 4x for starters.. that should help produce smoother edges.....like 8-10mbps to capture the clarity of the images so you are not rendering footage film with video errors ontop of your final production video. |
Thanks for the reply.
Sorry I'm green. What is FSAA? Is that anti-aliasing? How do I turn that on?
How would I go about capturing at 8-10mbps? Can I set the bitrate that high? Or do you mean something else?
For now since I'm just learning this will be the last edit. However when I feel I've learned enough I will be later importing clips into another program like Premier or Vegas to make a real video.
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 3:45 PM |
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Tunnleram
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If you meant anti-aliasing I think I found it. In my video card settings I have a slider. One side says Application and the other side says 8x. I also have anisoptropic filtering and a checkbox for Texture Sharpening.
Would these be things to use?
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 3:48 PM |
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own-age
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yea, you should have it 8x forced, in other words, don't let the application decide.
8-10 mbps means 8,000 kbps, divx can go much higher then 8,000 or 10,000 kbps
Sean 'own-age' Kuehnel |
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 5:31 PM |
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Tunnleram
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The uncompressed video surely looks better, however I worry about it later on when I have to use compression.
As far as 8-10mbit my Divx won't let me put in a value of other than 0-4000kbps. I'm using Divx 5.0.5
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 10:37 PM |
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Tunnleram
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Ah I see. Maybe you mean Xvid? That allows up to 10mbit, but it seems Divx only allows up to 4mbit.
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.4.03 @ 10:56 PM |
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own-age
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| Tunnleram wrote: | The uncompressed video surely looks better, however I worry about it later on when I have to use compression.
As far as 8-10mbit my Divx won't let me put in a value of other than 0-4000kbps. I'm using Divx 5.0.5 |
Compressing it later is no problem at all, you can render it down to whatever size you want on the final render.. when you go to export your video (or create the avi) you can select what quality settings you want in whatever codec you are using (xvid..divx.. whatever codec you feel is best)
The real benefit of using uncompressed avi's for footage is it keeps the image quality at its original level, no flaws, no distortion. Bottom line, uncompressed is the "perfect source" for editing. The only drawback (and a very important one at that) is that it takes a huge amount of space per clip.. (over a gig per 30 seconds of footage). try making a uncompressed avi. then putting it back in a editor as you would if you were planning on mixing it with music and whatnot.. then render it at say xvid 2750 kbps and look at the filesize.
Sean 'own-age' Kuehnel |
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Posted: 10.5.03 @ 10:47 AM
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Tunnleram
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Yeah, I know I can compress it to any rate I want later, but my point is if it looks like crap using compression now then it will look like crap using compression later. Hence my initial dilema. Or does compression work differently when using it on an AVI as opposed to when you're making the AVI from TGA?
In looking at other movies such as Panzamovie 2 it seems the video is so much crisper and clearer than any of the tests I've done.
Is there info about Divx or Xvid anywhere? What the settings are for? Proper bitrates for resulution and what the pass settings mean? Has anyone on here such as you own-age or Shao written a thorough tutorial on the exact steps you use to make a video? I'm not talking about
1. triangulate the fubar of the kobus
I mean
1. open up VirtualDub and go to file, etc.
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.5.03 @ 6:29 PM |
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own-age
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hrm, I am not able to sit down and make something like that atm, have too many side projects going on atm. Maybe shao or sic could though
Sean 'own-age' Kuehnel |
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Posted: 10.5.03 @ 8:53 PM |
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Tunnleram
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No biggy. I'll surely figure out the best way to do things. I'm just curious what you guys do to get such nice quality videos since it seems to me that I'm doing everything I've read about...but still I must be missing the secret step :)
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.5.03 @ 10:45 PM |
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[sic]
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I don't know exactly what you mean because the link with the sample is not working.
For DivX/Xvid info Doom9.org is the perfect place. Other than configuring your codec + don't use divx before compressing it (or use a higher bitrate) there's alittle trick (not sure this is even a trick :)) by adding a small amount of sharpen filter onto the footage. VirtualDUB has some simple and effective filters try that out.
btw: i think i do know where your problem is. You are extraacting media with 1024x768 right? And probably making AVIs with bmp2avi. well then your video is 1024x768 and a bitrate of 4000 kb/s is not enough for a clear image of that resolution. If you do want to compress with divx before the final render i suggest you use divx 4.12 as it has a much wider range of settings than 5.05 and supports bitrate of max 10000 (i think, or is it 8000), then making avis inside VirtualDUB. For a description on how to do this there is a nice article by shao here: http://www.shaolinproductions.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=13
You might want to change the res down to 800x600 (especially if you use Vegas as it only supports max res 800x600-wtf?).
The other thing could be that you are using a nVidia based graphic card :) As it has a shitty picture quality compared to ATi.
Maybe this will help.
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Posted: 10.5.03 @ 11:36 PM |
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Tunnleram
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Sorry about the video sample, I removed it. Basically it looked pixelated like the rate was set too low.
Thanks man! I'll check out that site and some more of the filters.
I have been using VirtualDub to make the AVI since I don't like bmp2avi much and I have used the resize filter to 640x480 with rates of...everything from 1200-10000 using Divx and Xvid. I can get it to look good, but nothing like the things I've seen from you experienced guys. Go figure lol
I do use Nvidia which comes out really dark, but I guess for that I need to mess around with my video settings beforehand. Maybe that's the part I'm missing and that's why the video is only so good. Crap in crap out.
Do you guys run your screenshots through Photoshop for enhancements or something?
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.6.03 @ 5:45 AM |
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[sic]
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What method of resiting are you sing when resizing the clips in VirtualDUB? Make sure it's set to bicubic.
Other than that i have no idea until i see the clip :)
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Posted: 10.6.03 @ 3:30 PM |
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shao
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it also depends on how much you're resizing by. Resizing a little may cause undesirable which can someone be lessened by the resize methods below bicubic. some people prefer bicubic, some lanzcos3. If none of them look nice try resize out first...
for example
800x600->3200x2400->640x480
Yes, i know this is essentially what bicubic and some of the other methods do this, but it can actually make better results - at the cost of increasing encoding time of course.
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Posted: 10.6.03 @ 3:46 PM |
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Tunnleram
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| [sic] wrote: | What method of resiting are you sing when resizing the clips in VirtualDUB? Make sure it's set to bicubic.
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I was wondering about that...I had the option when resizing set to "nearest"
| shao wrote: | If none of them look nice try resize out first...
for example
800x600->3200x2400->640x480 |
So if I'm going to make my video 640x480 would it just be best to run avidemo at that resolution and get out of having to resize later?
I've been messing around with this all evening and here's what I have to show for it... http://www.planetwolfenstein.com/tramdesign/files/test4.zip
This is simply part of a demo. Nothing fancy, no sound etc. Just tryin to achieve video quality and keep size down.
Screenshots taken at 640x480. I didn't use any filters at all (was messing with them earlier) and used Divx with a rate of 3000. The video is 7 seconds and is over 2mb lol Not sure if that's normal, but it sounds big.
Tunnleram
TRAM Design
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Posted: 10.6.03 @ 10:21 PM |
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haven
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Personally I like taking screenshots at the same size you're rendering your video in. Then you have no quality issues concerning the "guesswork" the computer does to compress the images down to a smaller size. I'm not familiar with all the bicubic resizing stuff these guys are talking about though, so maybe it IS possible to have good quality after you resize images for video =). All I know is that when I tried taking SS's at 1024x768 and then rendered the video at 640x480, it looked terrible. Taking the SS's at 640x480 helped me out tons in keeping the original picture quality.
-hvn |
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Posted: 10.6.03 @ 10:51 PM
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