Disc Copy doesn't recoqnize wide format AVI

[mark D]

I am fairly new at this so I might have just missed an option.

 

I have a MiniDV camcorder and recently took about 4 hours of vacation video. I do not have firewire in my desktop computer where EMC9 is located so I did the next best thing, used Windows Vista on my laptop to capture to AVI file and then transfer this over to my desktop computer. The camcorder has wide format. The file size from 1 hr of video is 11-13 GB.

 

If I take the raw AVI file and use Disc Copy to encode it to a different format that takes up much less space, it doesn't recognize the wide format. I know that if I go into Video Wave, I can take the content and put it out to different formats, edit it in place etc.

 

I had selected to do this to put the content in MPEG-4 format.... I didn't see that I could do that through VideoWave.

 

Is there a reason it didn't recognize that the format was wide?

 

Mark

 

 

[mark D]

I just tested burning to a folder, using a couple of .avi files that I have on my computer. Both are 16:9, and they burned to the folder as 16:9. I don't know what to tell you, except I can't duplicate your problem, but I burned mine as a DVD folder.

 

Also, I don't know why you would want to take that good quality video and change it to a compressed video file. Your final product isn't going to be as good quality as encoding a DV-AVI file to a DVD.

 

Instead of lessening the quality, I would get a larger hard drive.

 

Well, this is where I seem to be having much trouble, the understanding of formats, sizes and quality. If I shoot a miniDV tape and then import it, its size is apprx 12 GB. If I download a HD TV program which is AVI and approx 45 min or so in length it is 350 - 400 MB. I have even downloaded HD movies which are approx 2 hours that are around 800 MB... Now, the quality of the MiniDV is no where near that of the HD format which is 1080. What I am trying to navigate through here is what is the best way to "maintain" the quality that exists in the miniDV while reducing the size into a reasonable format for playback.

 

So, I have approx 4 hours of unedited content which when I edit it my guess is that I will remove 10-25 percent. This would leave me around 3 hours that I would like to burn to a DVD for playback in standard DVD players.

 

I am not interested in dropping the quality of the video, just putting it into the most efficient format that I have seen many examples of high quality in smaller efficient file sizes.

 

I have been told from a few semi knowledgeable people to edit in AVI, produce the complete project how you want it and then put it in DivX format, then put DivX to DVD. DivX I believe is Mpeg-4 which seemed to be one of the highest compressions without quality loss.... I believe this because when I select the format in EMC9 it shows the size expected and states "identical to original".

 

I also have similar video from 8mm camcorder which I have imported nearly 6 months ago and when I went through that process I put it into Mpeg 2 and noticed a significant quality drop. I want to revisit that import and produce an identical quality that exists on the 8mm.... I may not be able to because it is analog to digital so I should expect some loss but I am just looking for the correct methods that will result in the best quality given the tools I am using.

 

Thanks very much for taking the time to explain and I hope my overview of what I am interested in helps clarify what I am looking for.

[mark D]

I really don't know much about this stuff, but from trying to figure out my problem I learned that DV-AVI is 720x480 (Same for DVD I believe) regardless of whether you shoot in widescreen or not. The widescreen part is accomplished by something called the aspect ratio field encoded in the video, which tells a player how to stretch the pixels horizontally to achieve the correct aspect ratio. From what you describe, if the picture looks squished, the aspect ratio is either not supported by the compression scheme you chose or it is not being encoded properly. If you are doing video CD format I believe it supports different aspect ratios.

 

This has a decent explanation of it here:

 

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/aspectratios.htm

 

Thanks. This is very interesting. I have read a bit about the various source formats and what results. Many people believe there is just 16:9 but what I learned was that 16:9 is a compromise between the two mostly used film formats out there. No one is shooting in 16:9...

 

Mark

[mark D]

Thanks but the question was about Disc Copier where you can compile multiple videos onto one disk. I know I can open it with Video Wave.

 

I was thinking ahead to when I want to put multiple video clips onto one disk. Disc Copier or the "Compilation" part of it can select multiple video files and then you can compile. I know you can also go into MyDVD and do the same thing, I was just wondering why it doesn't recognize the 16:9 format of my AVI files in this tool.

 

Mark

[grandpabruce]

I am fairly new at this so I might have just missed an option.

 

I have a MiniDV camcorder and recently took about 4 hours of vacation video. I do not have firewire in my desktop computer where EMC9 is located so I did the next best thing, used Windows Vista on my laptop to capture to AVI file and then transfer this over to my desktop computer. The camcorder has wide format. The file size from 1 hr of video is 11-13 GB.

 

If I take the raw AVI file and use Disc Copy to encode it to a different format that takes up much less space, it doesn't recognize the wide format. I know that if I go into Video Wave, I can take the content and put it out to different formats, edit it in place etc.

 

I had selected to do this to put the content in MPEG-4 format.... I didn't see that I could do that through VideoWave.

 

Is there a reason it didn't recognize that the format was wide?

 

Mark

 

If you shot it in 16:9, then VideoWave will recognize it as 16:9. When you open VideoWave, click on File/New Production, then click on 16:9. Now, bring in your video file. It should show as 16:9

[Froohoo]

I really don't know much about this stuff, but from trying to figure out my problem I learned that DV-AVI is 720x480 (Same for DVD I believe) regardless of whether you shoot in widescreen or not. The widescreen part is accomplished by something called the aspect ratio field encoded in the video, which tells a player how to stretch the pixels horizontally to achieve the correct aspect ratio. From what you describe, if the picture looks squished, the aspect ratio is either not supported by the compression scheme you chose or it is not being encoded properly. If you are doing video CD format I believe it supports different aspect ratios.

 

This has a decent explanation of it here:

 

http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/aspectratios.htm

[grandpabruce]

Thanks but the question was about Disc Copier where you can compile multiple videos onto one disk. I know I can open it with Video Wave.

 

I was thinking ahead to when I want to put multiple video clips onto one disk. Disc Copier or the "Compilation" part of it can select multiple video files and then you can compile. I know you can also go into MyDVD and do the same thing, I was just wondering why it doesn't recognize the 16:9 format of my AVI files in this tool.

 

Mark

 

I just tested burning to a folder, using a couple of .avi files that I have on my computer. Both are 16:9, and they burned to the folder as 16:9. I don't know what to tell you, except I can't duplicate your problem, but I burned mine as a DVD folder.

 

Also, I don't know why you would want to take that good quality video and change it to a compressed video file. Your final product isn't going to be as good quality as encoding a DV-AVI file to a DVD.

 

Instead of lessening the quality, I would get a larger hard drive.