Compressing video for cable TV

[STeeL]

First of I apologize if this is wrong forum to post this message.

I need to get video files (newscast) daily from other country, right now they are offering video in raw .avi files, but 10 min segment can get over 1gb ant takes too long to download. I want to set-up some kind of semi-automated system that would allow for people working at the local TV station to easily compress video.

Questions:
1. What kind of codec should i look for (to be good enough to broadcast on cable TV)?
2. How much megabytes compressed 10 min clip would take?
3. What kind of software would you suggest?


Thanks to everyone for comments and advise.

[mastercontrol]

If possible, I would recommend mpeg-2 compression, between 6000-8000Kbps CBR (or if time is not an issue, 2 pass VBR, 6000Kbps average), 720x480 (or 720x576 for PAL). That would retain pretty good quality, yet be a lot smaller than avi. Also, mpeg-2 is one of the most compatable formats out there.

As far as how much space that would take, I can't give you an exact number, but it would be definitelly smaller than 1Gb for 10 minutes of video.

Now software, depending on what you already have or are willing to invest can depend on what would be best for you. Perhaps you can provide more info about your capture hardware.


Edit: to the mods, just curious as to why this topic was moved to the XviD encoding forum. While XviD is one option, and the picture quality is decent, I wouldn't recommend it for this user's purpose. First of all, in my experience, full res XviD tends to get choppy in spots, plus it's a pain to encode and definitelly NOT a suitable capture format.

[STeeL]

Thanks for reply mastercontrol...

I'm planning to build new system and ship it overseas, where it would serve this purpose. What hardware/software combo would you suggest? Budget is flexible, but I don't want to go overtop. I'm looking for software that would simple and fast, something that would do the job in couple clicks (not including time to process of course).

BTW, raw material is in PAL and I would need mpeg-2 in NTSC, is that a problem?


Once again, I appreciate You taking time to answer my post.

[mastercontrol]

Unfortunately, I don't have experience mixing NTSC and PAL formats.

If I understand you correctly, you're building them a system that they will use to encode PAL video, and at your end, you will download the clips and play them out for broadcast?

You could try an ATI All-In-Wonder card, which can record directly to MPEG-2. That would save time re-encoding from another format (like AVI), and the cards do a pretty good job with MPEG encoding. As for the format, if the video can be converted to NTSC before capturing, it would be a lot easier, as no reprocessing would be necessary. For that, you would need a video converter. A quick Google search brought up this site.