Tips on Converting miniDV to DIVX

[omarh]

I had a really tough time finding information on the best way to convert miniDV video into DIVX. So I thought I'd pass along what I learned to whoever wants the information too.

Basically, I use Adobe Premiere 6 (but u can use whatever came with your firewire card or miniDV camera) to import the DV video. Then I use Avisynth's "DirectShowSource" command to play the movie so I can open it up in Virtual Dub.

Then in Virtual Dub, you need the smart deinterlace filter. You can download it off the web, just look up "virtual dub filters" on google.com and you'll find a web page with all sorts of cool additional filters for virtual dub.

Anyway the smart de-interlacer works MUCh better than the one that comes with virtual dub. Its also better than the results I got from using Tmpeg's inverse telecine. The reason its better is inverse telecine is NOT what you want to do to miniDV video. It took me a while to figure out, miniDV video is interlaced 29.xx frames. So all you can do is de-interlace. Its not like with DVD's that you can get back the original film's 24fps or something.

If you have any more questions let me know...i'm no expert, but i've been really pleased with the results I've seen so far. I encode my miniDV videos' at 720x480 and they play really nice on my new Athlon 1.4

[MMM]

Help!

I tried to follow your procedure but have problems with VirtualDub.

On opening the Avi file I get the message "couldn't locate decompressor for format "dvsd"; virtual dub requires a video for windows (VFW) compatible codec to decompress video. DirectShow codecs, such as those used by Windows Media Player, are not suitable"

Any idea?

You say you use DirectShowSource command to play the movie. What do you mean? Play the movie using Premiere?

MMM

[omarh]

Virtual dub can't open the miniDV avi files directly. So what you have to do is get AviSynth.

http://www.math.berkeley.edu/~benrg/avisynth.html

There is the URL to where you can get avisynth. its a free DLL...install it according to the directions that are on the web site.

Then once you have it, its easy to use, just make a simple text file with the AVS extension and inside the text file put

DirectShowSource("movie.avi")

place movie.avi with the name of your miniDV avi file.

Then you open the AVS file inside virtual dub. see, virtual dub can't open the avi file itself, so it opens the AVS file and avisynth passes it the AVI file transparently...its really cool

[Yannis]

Omarh,

Thanks for the divx info. It is very difficult to find any information on encoding miniDV signal. I am using Premiere to compress my tapes and the compression ratio of DivX seems amazing. Nevertheless, some mpeg-2 encoders i have give somehow better quality. Could you be more specific on the encoding parameters of the DivX4.11 plug-in? I encode on 720x576 PAL (1.067), de-interlaced of course (as you suggested), 25fps.

For the other options, such as bitrate, passes, audio encoding, postprocessing, etc, I have found fine-tuning info but pertains to the DVD re-encoding stuff. As I said, no info on the best settings for miniDV video

One more thing: I encode straight from Premiere; How much better will it be by using AviSynth & VirtualDub?

good to start a thread on this topic

cheers, yannis

[omarh]

hi Yannis,
you're welcome. I know how it is, I spent a long time looking for info on miniDV encodings and couldn't find anything either.

Ok I haven't gotten to the point where I'm 100% satisfied with my encoding...but these days what I do is I use a high bitrate like 1800 or so, and use 1 pass with 7 and 2 as my quantifiers. the rest i leave at default values.

I can't tell yet, but I believe the smart deinterlace filter you can download as a separate add-on to Virtual Dub is better than the deinterlace built into the divx codec. But i'm not 100% sure of that yet...
But I do know one thing i just learned last night! If you do any resizing, you have to do it AFTER deinterlacing, or it screws things up.

So if you resize, you can't do the deinterlace inside the codec since you have to resize before it gets to the codec.
So that's why I use virtual dub. Oh and virtual dub's built in deinterlace sucks, only use the 3rd party add-on (free).

Have you tried resizing a little? I know its hard to lose some resolution, but my ntsc video is 720x480. I tried resizing it just to 600x400 which isn't all that much smaller, and the resulting file size was a LOT smaller! I messed up though and chose "nearest neighbor" for the resize alogorithm which really makes crappy output. Make sure you choose bilinear or precise bilinear for resizing.

I don't know for sure if there's much difference in using adobe premiere, instead of virtual dub....i haven't done enough tests to see. also when i do tests, i swear its so hard to see the difference. i watch one, then theother, and you can see subtle differences but sometimes I think my eyes are playing tricks on me hahah. I need a 2nd computer to play them side by side!

[Yannis]

thanks again!

yes it is quiet difficult to fine-tune all the parameters and I totally understand what you mean about wishing for two monitors. The last a few days I have produced tones of GBs of test avis to compare the quality. It seems that mpeg-2 give the best quality (lsx preferrably), but thesize is not affordable. mpeg-4 with 1800 is slightly worse, but really good for its size. Obviously with >3000 the rsult was perfect but teh size increased significantly.

I have not been using resizing, but tried it for fun... well you are totally right: never deinterlace at different size ) The result is a mess. Before is the only solution.

Still no experimentation with the quantizers though.


My great mystery now is teh sound. Premiere gives me teh default option for <uncompressed> and although I have installed one a couple of Fraunhofer mpeg-3 i cannto get that option.
What audio compression do you use???

One more thing the LP versus SP on yur camcorder only affects the frequency of the sound signal ?! am i right/wrong here? Cause I shoot at LP to get to 90 mins instead of 60.

[omarh]

From what i've read, using LP mode doesn't affect the quality at all, it only affects editing in the camera itself...

Hey you should use the LAME mp3 encoder codecs, not the fraunhoeffer ones. I have both, and when i pick the LAME ones, they are actually faster. I don't know why they're called LAME hahah.

The quantizers are huge, they have a big effect on the quality of the video!! Change the max quantizer to 7 or 8 instead of the default of 12, and you'll see better quality during high motion even at 1800 bit rate.

ok gotta go, i'm about to encode pearl harbor dvd haha..its on more than one dvd!!!!!

i wonder if i'll be able to fit it on two cd-r's

[Yannis]

Seems I started to have results. VirtualDub is fantastic!

However, sometimes I want to compress directly from Premiere if I do video editing and although I can configure the Divx4 with the parameters previously mentioned, Premiere does not give me the mp3 option at all. I use the Radium at the moment. I can see the Radium from VirtualDub, but not from teh Premiere window...

...maybe i need to reinstall Premiere. Can you see the mp3 codec in your list?

thanks again mate

[techno]

Hi, I captured from DV and good bloody well good results, this is what I did:

Capture from DV using YU12 320*240 (or 640*480) using no recompression + C quality audio. Then I converted it to MPEG2 using tmpgenc to edit some bits out or make quality better. Then I used an encoder to encode it to DIVX 3.11alpha fast motion with 6000 bitrate and 75 crisp. It did the trick for me, I was able to fit 1-2 hours on 1 CD 700MB. The quality was like DVD or near DVD.

Thanks

Techno

[NY92]

DV to Divx

Hello, I am a newbie, recently found time to look around. I have a bunch of MiniDV tape that I want to put on CD. Look like you found the way to it. I have Xmpeg, VirtualDub on my computer. How do I put my DV into my computer? Do I have ti buy a FireWire card, if yes, which one? I recently look at Pinnacle Studio DV, ver.7. Can you walk me through your procedure? Also, how would you install ra-codec (or any plug-in, for that matter) into XMpeg? Thanks.

[techno]

Hi NY92.

I use a Hauppauge WIntv go PCI card which is great, near DVD quality or sometimes DVD quality when capturing.

Connect the DV to the capture card and capture it using:

YU12, 320*240 or 640*480, CD quality audio, 25 or 30fps NO RECOMPRESSION

Then open TMPGENC (I use this) and load in your captured vid. Convert to MPEG2 and do editing (cut bits out, brighten it etc...) then convert to DIVX 3.11alpha fast 6000 bitrate and 75 crisp. Works like a charm.

If you want to play it on a standalone DVD player:

Convert the captured video to VCD or SVCD using tmpgenc templates and then use nero to burn VCD or SVCD to CD

it works like a charm but SVCD will not fit on one CD (if more than 20 mins)

Thanks

Techno

[omarh]

Don't you lose some quality going from DV to a capture card? The miniDV is already in digital form, all you need is a firewire card to digitally copy it to your hard drive without losing any quality.

I cringe at the thought of doing another digital to analog then analog to digital conversion just to get the video on your computer!!!

[techno]

No, you don't lose quality, instead you gain a bit more quality, I should know, I tried it and it works like a charm.

The Hauppauge card I have got is digital, not analog

Thanks

Techno

[omarh]

Ohhh I see. Sorry about that...I forgot Hauppage makes those DV cards. I was thinking of this really awful Hauppage video digitizer card I bought a couple of years ago.

[techno]

No problem OMRAH, I got the the wrong end of the stick!

I hope I haven't caused any trouble

I have a hauppauge WINTV GO PCI and I use that for nearly everything and it is DIGITAL! I got it this year in JULY

Thanks

Techno