Virtuedub

[Amadeus]

In most cases I'm not having any trouble upping the quality of a vid, particularly VHSRips, but the gigabytage I end up with is way too high. Are there settings to lower the size output while preserving the quality? Also, which are the best Filters, in your view, for purest quality?

[ghost]

Just set the bitrate in the codec you are using (Xvid or DivX...). For good quality you should use a bitrate of 1200 - 1400. Of course 2 pass encoding...

The best filters? It depends on the source material. Just try different filters and compare the results you get.

[FLL]

Two-pass will XviD get you better quality for the same size, since the second pass uses the information saved during the first pass to reduce the quality in places where it's not needed and increase it where it is. So the average quality is the same but in theory it looks better.

I recently had some success running two-pass AutoGK, then editing the scripts to add filters (in this case chroma enhancing) to the scripts, then running the second pass again to get the final result. Obviously adding the filter changes things a bit but not that much I hope. The advantage to me is that AutoGK can set up its idea of the best filters and I can then experiment and add more filters or change filter settings to improve the result.

The thing about that approach is: AutoGK doesn't use VirtualDub filters, they are invoked in AviSynth. Similar concept though, just the avs instead of the vcf.

Personally I like 2-pass but don't want to have to figure out how to do it in VirtualDub, once I figured it all out it would probably be straightforward but this way seems to work with a shallower learning curve.

As to best filters -- I haven't used enough to really know. Still figuring it all out.

Hopefully loverboy will chime in, he has good experience in virtualdub and gave me a couple of ideas.

[loverboy]

Best filters for purest quality (retaining original) are none! The most useful for me are the null, which gives you the crop facility to edit edge picture disturbance followed by the resize. Other than those I've used the sharpen & RGB filters with some success........just have a play......it's quite good fun! Do a google search for Virtualdub filters & there are loads more (some more useful than others) that you can download to compliment the internal ones.
I would always choose to encode with xVid........configure it initially with a bitrate of about 1200 (as ghost suggests) & let it start encoding. I usually let it run to about 30-40% to allow the projected filesize to stabilize & if necessary adjust the bitrate to increase or decrease size. One trick I sometimes use on files with poor audio is to re-encode to 'steal' some of the filesize for the video encoding. Have a look in the file details to see the audio stream properties. Obviously you wouldn't do this on something with high quiality surround sound but it's amazing how many 700mb files are around with 100-125mb of crap quality audio that won't miss 50mb!
Try the two pass & single pass encoding & see what you consider acceptable...........frankly, most of the time I'm happy with single pass.
Don't forget that by default vdub only leaves the audio stream as direct stream copy. If only (for example) editing out commercials you need to set the video stream to the same. I'm guessing this is where your huge file sizes are coming from.

[ghost]

There is so much to add, but every vhs tape is different and you just have to try and try and try.....

I peronally always do 2 pass encoding. It just gives you the best results.

BTW: Why always this stupid 700 MB size? Who is using CDs' anymore in the age of DVDs???

[FLL]

There is so much to add, but every vhs tape is different and you just have to try and try and try.....

I peronally always do 2 pass encoding. It just gives you the best results.

BTW: Why always this stupid 700 MB size? Who is using CDs' anymore in the age of DVDs???

I have no problem with 1CD size for a movie about 90 minutes (for NTSC framerate 29.97), but quality degrades beyond that. Though it also depends on the movie. I agree that splitting a 2CD movie into two separate files makes little sense any more.

[Amadeus]

Thanks for these great tips.

It's true, it takes tremendous experimentation. I'll try the 2 pass idea. Where do I find it in the program menu?

I'd love to be able convert a VHS or mpg quality to DVD, comparable to industry standard. Is there a program that does that?

[Amadeus]

These are before and an after clip using Virtuedub. I wasn't able to find the 2 pass thingy described above. What I've done is adjust the contrast and saturation slightly using Virtuedub, then converted it using another program to bring down the megabytage. Not sure that will work however with an even larger clip, as the 'before' clip was 2.6gb using Virtuedub... before I converted it.

From: Oswalt Kolle: Dein Kind - Das unbekannte Wesen (1970) https://www.first-loves.com/forums/v ... highlight=

Before 24.9mb
http://rapidshare.com/files/155347488/Before.rar.html

After 48.2mb
http://rapidshare.com/files/155368793/After.rar.html

Rar Pass: Virtuedub

[emuler]

Nice work.

btw. VirtualDub, not VirtueDub.

In video compression, if you select a codec that supports multi-pass encoding (like XviD and DivX) then in the advanced settings (configure) for that codec you will get multi pass settings etc.