Compressing Home Video?

Question

I recorded a VHS tape onto my PC in AVI format, but now the 1 hour video is 20 gigs. Can I compress this to fit on a DVD without making it look terrible? Or am I going about this all wrong?

Im using a Kworld video card... took me (NO JOKE) days to get it to working. Im using AVI because its the only format that looks like the original tape, any suggestions or links would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

Answer 1

Your video file is so large because you captured as an UNCOMPRESSED AVI. That's kind of crazy, but as you say, the quality will be as good as you can get. That's fine, as long as your PC is fast enough to record uncompressed... and you can spare the disc space.

The K-World web site claims that card can do MPEG compression, but I'm pretty sure they're using your PC's CPU for that. If you capture at a high enough bit rate (8Mb/s or more) and resolution (might as well capture at 720x480, if your target is DVD), you might see good quality, but maybe not... the quality of any compressed format depends on the specific compression program.

When you make a DVD, you really have to AUTHOR it in some basic way. You can't just drop AVI or even MPEG onto a DVD-R and expect your DVD player to play it. Some will, but every DVD player understand the DVD-Video format. This is based on MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, but it's not just MPEG.

Seeing the card you have, did you get the full package? They normally including Cyberlink's PowerProducer, which is a tool you can use to generate this DVD format. It should take your uncompressed video as an input format, and generate the correct MPEG-2, audio (there are four different kinds supported by most DVD players... cheap software usually produces MPEG Layer 2 audio, which is just fine to start out with), and file structure to play on your DVD player and most any PC.

If you don't have this, you'll need some DVD creation/authoring program. Look online at VideoHelp (see below) for some free tool sets for this, and also recommendations for commercial programs (some very cheap).

As you get more advanced, you might try installing a different capture CODEC if you can't get good results recording to MPEG-2. Look at the MSU Lossless CODEC or the HuffYUV lossless CODEC... these will produce identical quality as your "raw" capture, but at about 1/3 the disc space. They don't need a fast computer.

http://compression.ru/video/ls-codec/ind...

http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_...

I also strongly recommend the site VideoHelp.com (http://www.videohelp.com).. they have all sorts of information on format compatibility (does your DVD player work with DVD-R... some don't), techniques for doing various video tricks, free and commercial software, etc.

Answer 2

You did not provide the model number for your video card.  We don't know the DVD burning program you are using.    We can't look up what format options you have, so the only help we can provide you is by addressing the AVI to MPEG-2 transition in general terms.

When you burn your video to DVD, the movie has to be converted from AVI to MPEG-2.  The MPEG-2 compression on standard DVDs can use different compression rates.  If your DVD burning program allows it, try adjusting the compression rate to a lower compression rate or a higher data speed rate (raising one lowers the other and vice versa).  A lower compression rate (or a higher data speed rate) will allow the AVI movie to be less compressed on the DVD.

This will allow the movie to be shown in better quality on the DVD.