[ender]

I would like to save the video footage I used for my iMovie/iDVD projects in a more accessible format than the MPEG generated by iDVD (ie, keep it in a standard Quicktime format). But keeping the video in DV is not pratical due to disk space (and I do not have a digital camcorder to output to DV tape). Does anyone have a suggestion for a combination of video/audio codecs and quality settings that will best preserve the quality of the video while reducing filesize to about 25% of the original DV files (about the same as MPEG 2 from iDVD). I have QT Pro so options can include Sorensen, Cinpak, MPEG 4, etc. (MPEG 4 seems a likely candiate, but I don't know enough about it to know what all the settings and options are.)

Thanks,
Joe

[hadocon]

Originally posted by ender:
I would like to save the video footage I used for my iMovie/iDVD projects in a more accessible format than the MPEG generated by iDVD (ie, keep it in a standard Quicktime format). But keeping the video in DV is not pratical due to disk space (and I do not have a digital camcorder to output to DV tape). Does anyone have a suggestion for a combination of video/audio codecs and quality settings that will best preserve the quality of the video while reducing filesize to about 25% of the original DV files (about the same as MPEG 2 from iDVD). I have QT Pro so options can include Sorensen, Cinpak, MPEG 4, etc. (MPEG 4 seems a likely candiate, but I don't know enough about it to know what all the settings and options are.)

Thanks,
Joe

MPEG is a standard QT format. QT is just a wrapper for many different codecs. If QT can read the file than the file is in "standard" QT format.

That said video compression is a tricky subject. This is why people pay $300 for a copy of Cleaner - it takes the guessing out.

If you are'nt interested in spending money you can do a little experimenting yourself with the regular QT Pro tools.

Take one the of the movies that you want to compress and cut a 30 second segment out of it. Use this segment as a "test strip" for choosing your preferred codec and settings. when you are happy, apply the codec and settings to the full clip.

Overall I would tell you to stay away from Cinepak unless you want windows people to play your video. Sorenson is great if you don't need windows playback - and if you have purchased a copy. The version apple supplies is crippled.

If file size is what you need go for .mp4

btw, you wont get great image quality if you reduce data to 25% original unless you reduce the size of the video - say from 720x480 to 320x240

________________

You want an easy answer?

Use .mp4 set the image size to 320x480, audio to ACC low complexity(music) @ 56Kb/s and data rate to say 1000Kb/s (play with this one)... You don't need to worry about any ISMA settings. It will tell you that you have an invalid combination of settings, but ignore that.

compress and enjoy.

It wont be broadcast quality though

If you really want great compression buy cleaner.

[dampeoples]

Don't know if it will make it small enough for your needs, but this codec is designed to reduce filesizes and retain quality.

[Uncle Skeleton]

I agree with most of what was said, but respectfully, the settings suggested for mp4 are crap. If you're archiving, don't change the resolution, don't go lower than 200 kb/s on audio, and 25% of DV size is more than enough. I calculate that gives you 870 KB/s, so if that's your target, you don't need to guess around. All the codecs you would want to use (except lossless ones like Sheer) will let you specify that datarate.

But do get a test clip and try different codecs. Lossy video compression is subjective by nature. The codecs I recommend trying are 3ivx, divx, Apple's MPEG-4 (which is bad at low datarates but should be fine at this high a rate), Sorenson (the free one is indeed crippled) or vp3 or vp4 or what ever on2 is up to now

Be advised that DV is interlaced, and though the preview you see when you play the file in Quicktime doesn't show it, the export will. I use Cleaner to deinterlace, and I don't know of any cheaper alternative that comes close in quality. You can tell Quicktime to use Single Field in the video tracks High Quality properties window, but that discards half your data (I think). I believe Divx may have some capacity to retain natural interlacing, but beyond the vague notion that it may exist I know nothing about that feature

[ender]

Originally posted by hadocon:
MPEG is a standard QT format. QT is just a wrapper for many different codecs. If QT can read the file than the file is in "standard" QT format.

While MPEG is at QT format, the "muxed" MPEG on a video DVD is not and cannot be opened by QT. iDVD creates files roughly 25% the size of the DV footage, which is why I picked that as my archiving target. That way, if I create a DVD, I should be able to archive the QT compatible footage on a data DVD if I can achieve similar compression ratios.

Also, see my additional note below...

Thanks!

[hadocon]

Originally posted by Uncle Skeleton:
I agree with most of what was said, but respectfully, the settings suggested for mp4 are crap. If you're archiving, don't change the resolution, don't go lower than 200 kb/s on audio, and 25% of DV size is more than enough. I calculate that gives you 870 KB/s, so if that's your target, you don't need to guess around. All the codecs you would want to use (except lossless ones like Sheer) will let you specify that datarate.

But do get a test clip and try different codecs. Lossy video compression is subjective by nature. The codecs I recommend trying are 3ivx, divx, Apple's MPEG-4 (which is bad at low datarates but should be fine at this high a rate), Sorenson (the free one is indeed crippled) or vp3 or vp4 or what ever on2 is up to now

Be advised that DV is interlaced, and though the preview you see when you play the file in Quicktime doesn't show it, the export will. I use Cleaner to deinterlace, and I don't know of any cheaper alternative that comes close in quality. You can tell Quicktime to use Single Field in the video tracks High Quality properties window, but that discards half your data (I think). I believe Divx may have some capacity to retain natural interlacing, but beyond the vague notion that it may exist I know nothing about that feature

I would not use .mp4 at broadcast resolution. When there are scenes with qlick movement in the frame you will get bad artifacting.

Here are examples

Slow movement Good
Quick movement Bad

I would also recommend against archiving with DIVX. The whole point of an archive is to be able to view it later right? DIVX is in flux. There is no governing body of the codec like there is with MPEG (Motion Pictures Expert Group) and with Sorenson. I have archived with DIVX once and lost my files. Actually I still have them, I just can read them. It is going to suck when I waste my day re-capturing and re-compressing these files.

... Anyways, You will have to give up something. Either sacrifice frame size to retain motion and reduce artifacts, or keep frame size and suffer from artifacting.

We have not even touched on the subject of manipulating frame rate. DV is 29.97 as I am sure we all know by now. I have found that projects look acceptable at frame rates as low as 15 or even 12 depending on the type of motion in the frame - you could experiment with this, which would allow you to maintain broadcast resolution without getting artifacts.


What have we learned today?

We all need bigger HD's eh?

[hadocon]

Originally posted by ender:
While MPEG is at QT format, the "muxed" MPEG on a video DVD is not and cannot be opened by QT. iDVD creates files roughly 25% the size of the DV footage, which is why I picked that as my archiving target. That way, if I create a DVD, I should be able to archive the QT compatible footage on a data DVD if I can achieve similar compression ratios.

Also, see my additional note below...

Thanks!

I though that the QT MPEG2 component addressed this?

[ender]

I've started playing with a 30 second clip just to compare files sizes. Unfortunately my current project's raw footage quality isn't that great so comparing the quality is kind of hard to do. I used several QT video codes (left the audio alone for now) set at their best quality settings. Only the original Sorensen codec achieved significant file size savings, about 25% savings. I left the MPEG 4 settings on the default, but I will try the settings suggested on this thread to see if there is any improvement.

And you are correct, I do not want to change the resolution. The goal is to shrink the file size with minimal loss of quality so that I can reuse the footage at a later date. iDVD puts 60 minutes (90 at reduced quality) of video on a disk. I'd like to achieve something similar but in a normal QT format (that I can re-import to iMovie).

I think Apple sells an MPEG2 codec for QT, has anyone used that? Or am I still better off playing with the MPEG4 settings?

[ender]

Originally posted by hadocon:
I though that the QT MPEG2 component addressed this?

I believe that is an extra $$ codec (at least the compression part) from Apple which I do not currently have. All I know is that QT will not open any of the video files created by iDVD.

Anyone have experience with the MPEG2 codec?

[hadocon]

Originally posted by ender:
I believe that is an extra $$ codec (at least the compression part) from Apple which I do not currently have. All I know is that QT will not open any of the video files created by iDVD.

Anyone have experience with the MPEG2 codec?

I have the MPEG2 decoder and I can indeed read the MPEG2 video on a DVD - however I can not hear the audio because it is 'muxed' which was stated earlier.

The MPEG2 decoder is available using limewire if you want to check it out before you buy it. I bought it, but heck, I make money doing this for people so it was worth it for me. I think it was about $29 or so?

I guess what you want to do is choose MPEG2 for the video encoder and perhaps something like AAC for the audio portion - I am not sure how this can be done without Cleaner, if at all. I have heard rumors that Apple is working on their own media conversion and compression utility code named "Stomp". Just a rumor though.

[hadocon]

Originally posted by dampeoples:
Don't know if it will make it small enough for your needs, but this codec is designed to reduce filesizes and retain quality.

This looks really cool. I am just worried that the codec wont last and I will be left with a bunch of useless files.

I will give it a chance though!

[tr]

Originally posted by hadocon:
I have heard rumors that Apple is working on their own media conversion and compression utility code named "Stomp". Just a rumor though.

not a rumour, but reality!!!

it was codenamed 'stomp', but it's real name is Compressor. it's included with FCP4 and i think DVDSP2.

tr

[ender]

Originally posted by tr:
not a rumour, but reality!!!

it was codenamed 'stomp', but it's real name is Compressor. it's included with FCP4 and i think DVDSP2.

tr

Interesting that according to this not even Compressor can import MPEG2 or MPEG 4 formats.

[hadocon]

Originally posted by tr:
not a rumour, but reality!!!

it was codenamed 'stomp', but it's real name is Compressor. it's included with FCP4 and i think DVDSP2.

tr

That looks AWESOME! but where can I buy it? Apparently it works as a plugin to FCP4 as well as in stand-alone mode. I don't see it available in the Apple store for purchase...

I just hope it's on the cheaper side

[hadocon]

Originally posted by ender:
Interesting that according to this not even Compressor can import MPEG2 or MPEG 4 formats.

yah! that's crazy!

[memento]

I use mpeg-4 to archive DV. With cleaner, you can select any bitrate you want. With Apple's mp4 export, there is a limit that is not high enough for archive. So I export from Cleaner to .mov with mpeg4/aac at high bitrate. It works GREAT. After that, you can even do a simple QT export to mp4 with video and audio passthrough to keep the bitrate but output an mp4 file. Try various spatial quality settings. For me, it's very close between 58 and 60.

[Uncle Skeleton]

Ender: I would recommend at this point that you just keep the one iDVD disc, and when you want to edit again decode the MPEG-2 files from there into mov with DV as the codec, then from there export from QT to the DV file format (or let iMovie import the DV-codec mov). DV-mov to DV-dv is lossless. I have also seen apps specifically to extract footage from iDVDs for re-editing, but have not used them. This process is not that hard, and I can provide more directions if necessary.

Originally posted by hadocon:
I would not use .mp4 at broadcast resolution. When there are scenes with qlick movement in the frame you will get bad artifacting.

Here are examples

Slow movement Good
Quick movement Bad

I guess I stand corrected that Apple's codec is ok at high enough bitrates. Or perhaps you missed a setting or two. I don't use it. But there are people who claim that once you learn the settings Apple's codec competes with the free alternatives.

Also I notice neither of your grabs are deinterlaced. Deinterlacing is an absolute necessity if you're archiving compressed footage. This is another reason to just use the iDVD disc as the archive, because DV and MPEG-2 both retain interlaced footage properly, but once you go to MPEG-4 there's no deinterlacing after that (although the standard allows for interlaced content, none of the current implementations support it, save what I already said about DivX).

I would also recommend against archiving with DIVX. The whole point of an archive is to be able to view it later right? DIVX is in flux. There is no governing body of the codec like there is with MPEG (Motion Pictures Expert Group) and with Sorenson. I have archived with DIVX once and lost my files. Actually I still have them, I just can read them. It is going to suck when I waste my day re-capturing and re-compressing these files.

There is no version of DivX that is not still usable today. If you specify what format your files are in I can tell you how to decode them. Furthermore, the current version of DivX is (nearly) MPEG-4 compliant (Motion Pictures Expert Group), which means that even if DivX.com branches off to an incompatible technology and no longer supports this version, any Advanced Simple Profile MPEG-4 decoder will still decode files you create today. And finally, even if you choose a codec that is non-standard and does not last (like potentially Sheer), all you have to do is keep the codec around on CD and you'll always be able to reinstall it and decode the files you make today.

[hadocon]

Also I notice neither of your grabs are deinterlaced. Deinterlacing is an absolute necessity if you're archiving compressed footage.

Serious!? I have not heard of this. Why?

...all you have to do is keep the codec around on CD and you'll always be able to reinstall it and decode the files you make today.

True, assuming that the architecture will support the codec plug-in. Not all implementations can be used. Case in point: the MPEG2 decoder from QT 6 will not work with QT 6.3.

[Uncle Skeleton]

ok then make a bootable cd of your system as it is when the codec works. Then if Apple gets stupid again just boot from the CD to recode your files when necessary. (this was easier in OS 9, but possible with bootCD in OS X)

interlacing:

http://www.lukesvideo.com/interlacing.html

[brianb]

http://www.codecshootout.com


it is a website mantained by a guy i work with and has a lot of examples regarding comp[arissions of diffrent codecs. Keep in mind this is mainly about streaming on codecshootout but could be helpfull none the less

[Uncle Skeleton]

what the heck is a netster?

PS your link is broken

[ender]

I tried several different codecs last night and the interlacing problem mentioned earlier is annoying. Are there any tools other than Cleaner that can deinterlace the video when it's exported? (I'm still using a 500 MHz G4 if that's any indication of my cash flow when it comes to buying new computer stuff!)

There are two ways to export to MPEG4 with Quicktime. Export "to MPEG 4" gives a lot of options, but as mentioned it is very limited in the allowable bit-rates (max video is 2048 kbits/sec). Admittedly, the resulting quality is awesome considering the file is less than 10% of the DV file; but the there is a noticable drop in quality from the original video.

The other option is export "to Quicktime Movie" and the selecting the MPEG4 codec (with the added advantage of selecting any audio codec you want). Limiting the bit-rate lets me get the file size down and the quality looks pretty good. Now it's a matter of the interlacing problem...pony up $300 for Cleaner, see if Apple offers Compressor as a standalone program, or find some other "de-interlacer".

The option mentioned above to "rip" the DVD MPEG2 stream is interesting, but I've heard that right now these are mostly command-line programs that may not work all that well. But I'm sure the tools will only get better as more and more people look to pull their video back off the DVDs they created.

Thanks for all the tips and suggestions from everyone! I now at least know the options to explore.

[Uncle Skeleton]

I don't know where you heard about command-line programs, I've never heard of any for mac for decrypting or decoding.

The VOB and/or MPEG-2 decoders I can think of off the top of my head are DiVA, ffmpegX, mediapipe, mpeg2decX, MacMPEG2Decoder and MacMPEG2Converter. All are free, many have deinterlacers (but none as good as Cleaner's), and most are pretty easy to use (look at DiVA and mpeg2decX). Since your iDVD won't be encrypted, you won't have any of the problems you might read about in DVD ripping tutorials. I guarantee you'll have less trouble ripping from the dvd than you would from trying to deinterlace, compress, burn a second copy, then decode back to DV later on. And the quality will be better. And as discussed, DVD is a standard format that is not going anywhere; there will always be an easy way to decode it

[ender]

Ah, perhaps the "issues" I'd heard here and there were people trying to crack encrypted DVDs. Thanks for the info and links!