AVI Settings

[Jim Adams Profile Private message]

I have been playing around with Blufftitler and need some advice on all the settings needed to create the AVI file. I know absolutely nothing about video except for making time lapse Mov's in Quicktime.

When creating a png do I chose interlacing or not ?

When creating the file in Blufftitler there are many choices. Compression, resolution size, anti-aliasing quality and mostly the 22 options in the encoder.

I guess I need to specify that my output will be shows to the Photodex site and not to HDTV or a website.

Your help will be appreciated as I have made a few attempts but the quality of the file does not even come close to similar images in PSP that are not AVI files.

Jim

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

I can answer the question about interlacing based on your use of the AVI: you don't want it. I know this because I tested it, and it degrades the image.

Barbara

[Jim Adams Profile Private message]

Thanks Barbara,

Do you have any recommendations for encoder(codec) ? Lots of choices.

Jim

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Do you have any recommendations for encoder(codec) ?

I can't even make recommendations to myself. Wait for someone to show up who actually understands this stuff.

Barbara

[dilyla Profile Private messageWebsite]

Hi Jim --

I used to use uncompressed avi (wrongly) thinking that was the best way to keep the quality. But from my use of other software programs (Particle Illusion, BluffTitler etc) for animations, I was rendering uncompressed AVIs (12-15 seconds long) in excess of 1Gig per animation. I decided I had to find a solution of maintaining quality AND get my smaller file sizes I would prefer.

I have since experimented with various compression codecs. I prefer huffyuv. It is a totally LOSSLESS codec, which means you get the same quality as an uncompressed avi, but smaller. (Think of it like a zip utility... you zip up files to compress them, yet the original files remain in the original form... same idea with the huffyuv codec.)

For example, I had an avi I'd rendered yesterday to use in Producer. The original uncompressed AVI was close to 900MBs. When I rendered the same file using the huffyuv codec, the file (original quality!) was only 128MB. Still pretty big, but a BIG difference when I'm storing these for future use!

You can download the huffyuv codec here:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/HuffYUV.htm

After installing, it will appear as one of the codec choices in Producer (and other programs you use.)

Another lossless codec is Lagarith. It compresses the file size even a little more! It's available at:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Lag ... _Codec.htm

BTW, these codecs are only Win32 (32-bit) compatible.

- Diana

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

Diana, reading down to the bottom of the page for HuffyUV, I found this:

One of our visitors reported bugs in HuffYUV 2.2.0: The new version 2.2.0 is one big bug. It just does not work at all. Opening the resulting AVI file always crashes Windows Explorer... It may work on some people's PC's but not on mine (Win XP) and a lot of other people don't use the newer version either because it doesn't work.

It kind of put me off after all the crashing I was having that made me pull the last couple of days (and more to come) from my life to reformat and reinstall. Obviously, you're using it without any issues, but that single person's experience bothers me since the first sign of instability in my system was the daily crashing of Windows Explorer.

Barbara

[dilyla Profile Private messageWebsite]

Oops... wrong link.... version 2.2 is still in beta. (I'm running 2.1.1 version)

Here's the link for the latest stable release for huffyuv (download the 'recommended' version) :

http://www.free-codecs.com/HuffYUV_download.htm

-Diana

[BarbaraC Profile Private messageWebsite]

You've been working too hard, Diana.

Barbara

[Jim Adams Profile Private message]

Diana,

Thanks for your advice. Sounds like I will have to do some playing around just like when I began creating mov files. I didn't want to have to re-invent the wheel but may have to test drive a few brands of tire before deciding which ones to drive on.

Jim