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Win Media Encoder 8 + Resource kit 7

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  • Win Media Encoder 8 + Resource kit 7

    Encoder 8 supports MJPEG avi, this looks good news. Encoder 7 didn't. Does anybody tried to join enc 8 700 KBs wmv files with Win Media resource kit 7 ? Is there any "black" gap in the joining region of the resulting file ?
    Thanks
    Bye
    Raido

  • #2
    I'm not really replying to myself but posting my experience to whom may be interested.
    1) WM Encoder 8 works with MJPEG avi but not YUV2. The dimension of the resulting files is, as most you know, 1MB for 10 sec. movie in half size PAL 700MBs format which is quite good for TV, smooth with virtually no compression artifacts. It should mean about 1h 45 min. of good quality movie on a CD-ROM.
    2) WM Resource kit 7 beta has a WMAppend prog (a line command) that can effectively merge two wmv files with no gap. The files must obviously have the same format and data rate. The result looks pretty good. It means that it doesn't matter the 2 GB limit of avi files. If you have a capture prog like Aviedit (Freeware), it starts capture on next file automatically when reaches 2 GB.

    In my opinion WM enc 8 might be a good standard for storing movies on a CD. For now no editing progs are available but you can do it with Avid Cinema or other avi editors before encoding.
    Does anybody have opinions about that ?
    Bye
    Raido
    Bye
    Raido

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    • #3
      .
      "Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind." -- Dr. Seuss

      "Always do good. It will gratify some and astonish the rest." ~Mark Twain

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      • #4
        Mike,
        i used WM8 instead of WM7 as it seems to me it has better quality, specially about audio.

        WM8 effectively works with YUY2 avi file. Probably i've tried before with wrong options.
        If I remember well YUY2 means that 2GB file limit (Win98) may be overcome. What is the new limit?

        I've made a few trials to find a good configuration to back up my videos and my movie tapes to CD. I've found that for TV viewing CIF or Half CIF Pal are not significantly different and that WM8 encoding at 1150KBs does not improve the quality over 700KBs.

        I didn't succeed in joining two wm8 files with WMVAppend. The resulting file sems to be corrupted: the video playing stops for 1-3 sec. every 10 secs. while the audio doesn't stop. May it be a problem with buffer option in the encoding ?

        My last finding is that WM8 files of a macrovision protected tape are Macrovision free (I've checked it only once in a Disney cartoon) and can be sent to VCR with no problem. As far as I know avi files keeps macrov. protection.

        Any comment or suggestion are welcome
        Bye
        Raido
        Bye
        Raido

        Comment


        • #5
          To answer your specific question, I've had fairly decent luck a few times using the wmvappend.exe prog., but I've also run into clips that would not join without the resultant video freezing on a frame for maybe 1/2 second or so at the join.

          I've tried fading the files to be joined to/from black at the beginning and end, & this helped once or twice. Also, I've run into problems joining 3 large files, where the 3rd file was placed in between the first two already joined. Running the joined 1st & 2nd file through the asi indexer (just opening and saving) seemed to help (file sizes were slightly different so I imagine it did something).

          As an alternate route, the stitcher prog. seems to work well if you can use encoder 7. On those files where I wanted the encoder to clip & DI, I've had good luck running the individual 4 gig files through at a high bitrate (7 or 8), then using the stitcher, but again there seems to be a work-a-round...

          I've merged a bunch of WMV files in stitcher, only to find the indexing/seeking gone in the result. It seems to help if I use the intended profile in encoder 7 for just a test clip (1 - 2 min) before using stitcher.

          As far as bandwidth, if this helps, depending of course on the quality of your original signal, I've found that an hour's video at 320 x 240, 24 fps, compresses into the 650 meg range at 1.5 M., without any terribly noticable artifacts -- they seem to creep in at 1.3, and are quite noticable at 1.0 and lower.

          On the other hand, I've been able to eliminate many (sometimes most) of those artifacts by encoding at 60 fps, though it takes much longer to process.

          I haven't done too much with the encoder 8 beta since it's always crashed, but then I was trying to do a dual pass, vbr, with cropping, resizing, and ivt on a 4 gig file -- that sort of thing.

          I am puzzled when you say that encoder 7 won't do mpeg? I've fed it various mpeg 1 stuff, though it is nec to change the header with avi.exe to feed it anything matrox encoded. Output includes an iso mpeg 4.

          I was going to say that you couldn't edit mpeg 4, but come to think of it, I'm not sure what real video is classified as. The result is about the same, though the background is blurred a bit more, and Real says you can edit it with their pay-for prog.s.

          My opinion(s): Think it's great, both encoder 7 & 8! Faster by far then the mpeg2 edcoders I'ved tried, with better results, far smaller file sizes, and none of the sound sync problems I've had with some of those for mpeg2.

          If MS can be believed, the ISO mpeg4 codec they include might be able to be decoded by future, non-PC devices, & if not, I just read where they're producing multi-read dvds now -- future devices should be able to read CDs & CDRW besides the std dvd & vcd. I'm Optimistic.

          mike

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