MPEG4 vs. MPEG1?

[laugh]

This is really strange. I captured the video of digital8 camcorder to raw avi file through firewire. THen I use VisualStudio to compress it to 720X480 MPEG1, at highest setting (2000Kbps). It's almost as good as original AVI quality.

Then I tried to use virtualdub to convert MPEG1 to MPEG4, however, even I choose 500kbps, both divx3 and divx5 can't produce smaller files, while the quality is noticeably worse than MPEG1. If I choose 1000Kbps, the file size is way larger than MPEG1. Yuk!

What exactly is the problem? MPEG4 should be superior to MPEG1...

 

[Spicedaddy]

Maybe you're not compressing the audio, that would explain the larg file size? (use MP3 sound)

500kbps is a little low for that res., 800 to 1200 should be good. (You'll also have to resize to 640x480 in VirtualDub, or it won't look right)


BTW, why are you compressing to mpeg1 if you're gonna recompress to DivX afterwards? Encoding from the original AVI would give better results. Also, if you want the best quality and be able to predict the file size accurately, use 2-pass encoding with DivX 5.

 

[JHutch]

Try it again, but compress to DivX from the uncompressed AVI. It should show an amazing difference... Beyond that, I'd have to do some digging into what exactly your methods are...

JHutch

 

[MrPhelps]

Well 720x480 is mpeg2. You would not want to go from avi to a low format like mpeg1 than up to a mpeg 2.
Good luck I just started all of the video stuff 4 months ago. Try this site it will answer everything.


vcdhelp.com