My purpose: Digital8 to VCD. I'm using Videowave III to capture digital8. Now on to "producing"...

I'd like to use the Produce Template "Full Screen Playback TV/VCR" but the resulting file sizes are just to big. (1 min. = to 1 Gig) What produce template could I use in substitution? A second choice, if you will. Or even third choice that best maintains the quality of the full screen playback tv/vcr template.

-- Bloo (barb.bloo@sympatico.ca), April 12, 2002

Answers

First of all the option you have chosen produces mpeg2 video. Note that if you plan on sharing/distributing your videos, not everyone will be able to watch your videos because not everyone has mpeg2 codec installed on their computer. Mpeg2 usually comes bundled w/ various software.

Second the Full Screen Playback template produced a 720 x 526, 25 fps video. Now if it is a video for playing on computers that frame size is not necessary. If you insist on producing to mpeg2, then you can reduce the frame size by selecting edit and changing the frame size to 352 x 288 (or 240), that will cut the bit rate from 625kb/sec to 225kb/sec.

Now assuming you have taken my advice and have decided not to go with mpeg2 then, other options are "Video CD" template, with this template you can fit 72 min of video on a 650 Mb cd. Now depending on the length of your video, you can edit the template and creat "My Vide CD" template which has a higher bit rate than the 140 kb/sec that is set in videowave III. I say this because you video is from high quality digital 8.

Now, the templates there are just to guide you. The best thing to do is create your own template. Since video quality is what you want. I recommend you go with AVI file types. Now I have video wave III and IV installed so what i say next might not apply to you.

If you have intel indeo codec 5.06 then use that codec, a frame size of 320 x 240 is pretty good to start with, i wouldn't go with 640 x whatever or anything of those big frame sizes. A frame rate of 15 fps for videos to be played on cd/ computer is nice, it doesn't demand a lot of resources from the system. Now, once you have saved your template experiment with it. creat one minute videos and look at the video quality and file size. from that you can calculate what settings to go with to save your video. i believe the above setting would probably give you about 40 mins of video on a 650 MB cd. now, like i said this might not apply to you because i didn't see the intel video codec on the video wave III cd. so you are better off playing around with "Cinepak Codec by Radius". This will definatly play on all computers. (Another thing - if you create your video in Intel Video - you will also have to distribute the codec along with the video, so it isn't a good idea to use it).

So the point i am trying to pass around is - use a codec that suits your needs (if you plan on distributing your videos, use a codec avaiable on other computers, if in doubt try your video on a friends computer) - experiment. create one minute videos and check out the video quality and file sizes. - use small frame sizes, 320 x ... is good, 640 x .. and above demand a lot from the system - use a most 15 fps (on computer you will not notice the differnce btw 15 and 30 visually, of course if you use 30 /25 your system will be working overtime and you video will likely skip. - create your own templates - try divx codec, read about it at http://www.divx-digest.com/

it comes with a package for distributing the divx codec

~m

-- ~m (mtekayo@yahoo.com), April 13, 2002.