Edited WMV - Way To Retain Original Bitrate?

[Rick1441]

I have a WMV video file (WMV 9) that has a resolution 640x480 and a video bitrate of 1500 kbps. I am editing it in VideoWave and want the new file to be a WMV of similar video quality. Well, VideoWave offers a Windows Media Video 9 VBR 640x480 option, but it produced a file that was only about 1000 kbps. Noticeably lower quality than the original.

 

Does anyone know of a way I can get VideoWave to produce the file at an average of 1500 video kbps instead? I see that there is no option for defining a custom WMV template, as there is for AVI and a few other filetypes.

 

Thanks in advance for any replies. If I can’t figure out a workaround for this before my 30-day refund privilege expires in 9 days, I’ll probably go for the refund. VideoWave’s surprisingly smooth handling of WMV’s was one of the two main reasons I bought Easy Media Creator 9 (superior pan-and-zoom was the other), despite the fact that I already have several other largely-comparable editors.

[mikiem]

RE: wmv editing -- If it helps...

 

Microsoft has a downloadable version of the win media encoder 9 that works as a fully configurable VFW codec producing avi files. Disclaimer: Haven't used it in Videowave but it shows up with other avi codecs.

 

Might try using Avisynth -- has a definite learning curve, but...

 

Convert to avi using lossless or near lossless codec? This won't improve the quality of what you've got, though the avi can be extensively filtered, but removes the burden of decoding the wmv from the editing software & can make a difference.

 

Try to make any zooming/panning very rapid, almost as more of a fade or dissolve? The weakest point of any mp4-type codec (i.e. wmv in this case) is poor handling of zooms & pans... IMHO anyway.

[sknis]

I have a WMV video file (WMV 9) that has a resolution 640x480 and a video bitrate of 1500 kbps. I am editing it in VideoWave and want the new file to be a WMV of similar video quality. Well, VideoWave offers a Windows Media Video 9 VBR 640x480 option, but it produced a file that was only about 1000 kbps. Noticeably lower quality than the original.

 

Does anyone know of a way I can get VideoWave to produce the file at an average of 1500 video kbps instead? I see that there is no option for defining a custom WMV template, as there is for AVI and a few other filetypes.

 

Thanks in advance for any replies. If I can't figure out a workaround for this before my 30-day refund privilege expires in 9 days, I'll probably go for the refund. VideoWave's surprisingly smooth handling of WMV's was one of the two main reasons I bought Easy Media Creator 9 (superior pan-and-zoom was the other), despite the fact that I already have several other largely-comparable editors.

 

I don't know of any way to do what you want with this program.

[Rick1441]

Mikiem, right now I've learned enough about this stuff that I understand maybe 40-50% of what you're saying (but I'm getting there...that's a lot more than I would've understood 6 months ago).

 

I did create an avi using a Windows Media codec I found in VideoWave, and it came out huge -- about 6-8 times the size of the original wmv, with significant quality loss. Of course, maybe I didn't have the optimal codec settings.

 

Surprisingly, DivX 6 seems to be the best I've found so far for this task. I found a combination of DivX 6 settings that caused it to output the edited wmv to an original-resolution avi with maybe 80% of the quality of the original file, at about double the size (something I can live with). It helped when I increased the saturation a tad in VideoWave, otherwise the avi looks a bit washed out.

 

I had been expecting to get the best avi results with old standby XVid, but it didn't work out that way. Instead it produced larger size and lower quality vs. DivX. Of course, maybe I didn't have the optimal combination of XVid settings -- I don't even understand all of them, but decided not to bother researching after I got the DivX to come out pretty decently with minimal experimentation.

[mikiem]

Mikiem, right now I've learned enough about this stuff that I understand maybe 40-50% of what you're saying (but I'm getting there...that's a lot more than I would've understood 6 months ago).

 

I did create an avi using a Windows Media codec I found in VideoWave, and it came out huge -- about 6-8 times the size of the original wmv, with significant quality loss. Of course, maybe I didn't have the optimal codec settings.

 

Surprisingly, DivX 6 seems to be the best I've found so far for this task. I found a combination of DivX 6 settings that caused it to output the edited wmv to an original-resolution avi with maybe 80% of the quality of the original file, at about double the size (something I can live with). It helped when I increased the saturation a tad in VideoWave, otherwise the avi looks a bit washed out.

 

I had been expecting to get the best avi results with old standby XVid, but it didn't work out that way. Instead it produced larger size and lower quality vs. DivX. Of course, maybe I didn't have the optimal combination of XVid settings -- I don't even understand all of them, but decided not to bother researching after I got the DivX to come out pretty decently with minimal experimentation.

 

Encoding with what I call the mp4 type codecs can be an art -- I'm *very* far from a master, but you might find some of the discussions in the forums at videohelp.vom & doom9.org very useful. Assuming that you might do this sort of project again...

 

I'd suggest creating a couple of very short test clips (out of your original wmv files) that you can use to test and figure out a workflow that works for you. Microsoft has a couple of utilities for trimming clips, & there are some free 3rd party tools too. You definitely don't want to re-encode at this step, but just get short pieces of the original to play with that won't take long to encode once you get to that phase. Once you figure out a workflow, then you can plug in different video editing software and decide what's the best for you. If fact, I think I would separate your project into steps: 1st figure out if I could improve the source, &/or make it easier for my editing software to deal with. 2nd make sure I could accomplish any editing at the quality levels I wanted. 3rd, check out the encoding options to see how best to preserve my work.

 

You *might* find it helps to convert your wmv files to avi prior to importing them in any editor, but that depends a fair amount on your wmv files themselves. And, not only do wmv files vary, but how well the software used for conversion works is also going to depend on your source. In order to convert to avi you're going to need a good codec. A good lossless or near lossless codec is not going to compress your video as much, so the files will be larger, maybe even huge.

 

There are popular codecs (like huffyuv) that are free or versions using mpjeg that are usually very low cost [i like PicVideo] -- after conversion from wmv to avi, the clips should look identical. Before trying any codecs though, do a bit of research re: popular optinion, then at least set a restore point -- preferably do a backup -- and try and avoid codec packs. Universal transcoding software can work well; I use Super, but beware if you try it: it can mess up other codecs and software on your system, and can take quite a bit of fiddling with the many options to get what you want. But it'll also turn almost anything into, well, almost anything. I've also had some limited success using the Windows Media Encoder 9 to convert wmv video to a higher bit rate (3000) wmv with more keyframes as an intermediate.

 

I mentioned Avisynth... If you have something like a mjpeg avi file, then you can filter it using a freeware *linear* editor called VirtualDub to try and improve the original. Avisynth goes further, opening most any video file your PC can play, lets you apply filters, then can either output a file or send it's output to another program *without ever writing an intermediary*. It's very popular from novices to the pros in Hollywood, but carries a learning curve to match.

 

DivX & Xvid are both good, but it takes a bit to get the best out of either -- some folks in the forums I mentioned go quite far, sometimes spending days just to do the encoding with several passes. Before you kill yourself learning about those, you might check out VIdeowave's AVC.

[ggrussell]

WMV isn't usually considered an 'editable' video format. It is a highly compressed format that must be 'uncompressed' to be edited and then recompressed when output. So doesn't matter what the bitrate, you will lose quality. You might want to try WMM2 included with Windows.

[Rick1441]

Thanks for the replies, even though they weren't what I was hoping to hear

 

The XP WMM doesn't do the trick when I need to to zoom and/or pan; or when I need greater speed control flexibility than WMM's choice of one-half-speed or double-speed.

 

I suppose an alternate approach would be to render the edited WMV to a new format, but I haven't had very good results with this (often comes out a bit jerky or grainy, even with high quality settings). But I haven't tested all the possibilities, especially with VideoWave. Any suggestions on what an ideal VideoWave format conversion, with the least video quality loss, might be for the kind of WMV I described? While I'd certainly prefer to avoid big increases in filesize, I'd be willing to accept up to a doubling in size if the quality was still pretty good.

 

Thanks,

Rick

[ggrussell]

Does matter what you do, there WILL be a lost of quality. Just no way around that when working with already highly compressed files. You would get much better results if you had the original video file (from camcorder or even a MPEG 2) and convert only once to WMV.

[Rick1441]

Wow, thanks for that comprehensive advice, mikiem! I have a lot I can try out now.

 

I tried conversion of part of another high-quality wmv before reading your post, and it worked out pretty decently using the DivX parameters I gave. Unfortunately, this time the avi came about about 5 times as large as the wmv instead of 2 times. Given the comments on wmv in this thread, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that this could happen. Besides, I found that I could lower the DivX bitrate I was using by about 25% without quality loss that is noticeable to me (although it might be noticeable to those with a better-trained eye, or if I were using a different playback setup).

 

Re one of your first points, I already had been using a utility that trims wmv's without re-encoding. And I continue to be impressed by VideoWave's ability to work smoothly with wmv files that cause other similarly-priced editors to slow to a crawl or freeze completely.

 

Now, it would be nice if I weren't locked into VideoWave's specific resolution choices (e.g., I have a wmv that's 682x384), but that's off-topic and probably discussed elsewhere in the forums. (Besides, I have discovered reasonably good playback workarounds for that issue.)

 

Anyway, thanks again for all the suggestions and ideas on avenues for experimentation. While I'm resonably satisfied with what I've come up with -- for now, anyways -- I know there are better solutions out there, with greater disk economy.