Video capture settings? Codec?

[aircooled]

My cousin lives in Spain and can't get U.S. College basketball games over there (he's a Duke fan)

So I'm going to capture the games and he will download them. What's the best "file size vs. quality" settings or codecs?

I captured one game already with mpeg2 it was 3 gig's.

Any advice to get the smallest file with decent quality?

 

[RampantAndroid]

Welll.....couple of options here:

Reduce overall size to 320x2xx....it sucks for viewing size, but really reduces file size to around 10 megs for 7 min in WMV format....that or compress with XVid (or DivX)

 

[aircooled]

I think i'm going to set the capture to split the file every 500mb that way he can watch the first part while downloading the rest...

 

[ZOXXO]

Originally posted by: aircooled
I think i'm going to set the capture to split the file every 500mb that way he can watch the first part while downloading the rest...

What is your upload speed?

With a rated upload speed of 384kbps, it takes approximately 10 hours for me to send a 700MB capture of a collegiate basketball game.

I use the huffyuv lossless codec to capture at a resolution of 320 by 240, then edit out the commercials and encode to wmv9 with an audio bitrate of 64kbps and video bitrate of whatever is needed to render a file of less than 700MB(1000-1300kbps).

These files while less than optimal are very watchable at 640 by 480 or even full screen.

edit: I almost forgot. Duke Sucks

 

[fishbits]

Is MPEG 4 an option? That's supposed to offer some good compression, but I don't have it here. WMV does have a lot of options for reducing size (and quality). The splitting for multiple downloads sounds like a good idea, as does editing out commercials if you have the time to do this. Video CD at 320.240 (I think) is like 10MB a minute, so if the 10MB for 7 mins RampantAndroid mentioned is liveable, could well be a good solution.

Heck, put up a few of these options, or like 15 min clips from them, and see what your friend is willing to deal with vs bandwidth and dl time. Just being able to see the game is a treat when you're overseas, so he might not be as quality-conscious as you are. And you could offer to burn them to DVD for later mailing.

 

[aircooled]

I dont see mpeg4 as an option. Xvid is on the list but it crashes my software, I'm using a Winfast 2000XP card.

 

[ZOXXO]

Originally posted by: aircooled
I dont see mpeg4 as an option. Xvid is on the list but it crashes my software, I'm using a Winfast 2000XP card.

DivX and xvid are mpeg4 codecs.

 

[aircooled]

Originally posted by: ZOXXO

Originally posted by: aircooled
I dont see mpeg4 as an option. Xvid is on the list but it crashes my software, I'm using a Winfast 2000XP card.

DivX and xvid are mpeg4 codecs.

ahh. shows how much I know about this ... When I select xvid it does record, but when finished it crashes, the output file is still there, but it is jerky during playback..

 

[ZOXXO]

Originally posted by: aircooled

Originally posted by: ZOXXO

Originally posted by: aircooled
I dont see mpeg4 as an option. Xvid is on the list but it crashes my software, I'm using a Winfast 2000XP card.

DivX and xvid are mpeg4 codecs.

ahh. shows how much I know about this ... When I select xvid it does record, but when finished it crashes, the output file is still there, but it is jerky during playback..

It takes a fairly powerful rig running smoothly to software encode on the fly without dropping frames. Particularly at higher resolutions.

For this reason I prefer to capture to straight avi or use a lossless codec then encode to whichever lossy compressed codec format is prefered by the end user.

 

[jldash]

takes a fairly powerful rig running smoothly to software encode on the fly without dropping frames. Particularly at higher resolutions.

For this reason I prefer to capture to straight avi or use a lossless codec then encode to whichever lossy compressed codec format is prefered by the end user.

My opinion exactly. To be able to get a small file size and great quality *and* not worry about dropped frames, you need to go the extra step and re-encode from a losless codec. For example, just record to AVI or MPEG2. Then, use third party software to convert to an MPEG4 codec. I would suggest either xvid or x264.

 

[xtknight]

H.264 will give you the best quality/byte (if you tune the settings), closely followed by XviD and WMV9. Chances are by the time he gets to downloading them, your encode will be finished.