#Fast vs Miro vs Intel ?
6 messages in this thread
I want to move from my Intel SVRPro to either a Fast MMP or Miro board so that
I can capture, edit in Premier, output to video tape.
However, I don't want to give up the option of creating AVI's to write to
CD-R's.
I've been on the phone for two days now, and it appears that in changing to the
Fast or Miro board, I'll loose the ability to create single compression avi's
— since both of these boards m-JPEG compress during capture and there is no
m-JPEG codec for Video For Windows. Thus I can write out to video tape, but if
I want to use the same capture footage to create an avi I'll have to recompress
it with the Indeo or Cinepak codec.
Has anyone had any experience with this? How bad is a recompress of an m-JPEG
using an avi software codec? Is the output to video tape with the Miro or Fast
boards good enough (ie: viewable by normal humans as something besides moving
artifacts) to warrant giving up a single compression avi?
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Richard Robinson
Richard:
>> How bad is a recompress of an m-JPEG using an avi software codec?<<
This certainly depends on how good the orginal M-JPEG file is. If it was
compressed at 4:1 or so, 640×480 it has a good chance of looking pretty good
when it's recompressed. Unfortunately, the cards you've mentioned, miro and
FAST, are really what I would call "multimedia quality." Not that they're so
bad but they exist for a different reason/customer than higher end products
like Targa 2000 or Video Vision on the Mac. To begin with they're only
capturing at 320×240. This means 3/4 of the frame info is gone off the top
before you even get to it doing the M-JPEG compression. Again, that's not
catagorically bad and for output to tape you'll get something that is certainly
viewable (not quite VHS, but better than a "video rental store" VHS movie
that's been watched a few times).
Recompressing from one of these sources, though, will yield worse results.
FAST, for example, bundles XingCD with the MMP. XingCD is software that will
convent and M-JPEG stream to an MPEG stream. What you're doing is making
artifacts on top of artifacts. It looks very soft. OTOH, most video you see
in a Multimedia evironment is not all that great yet either.
Jeff
Jeff,
Thanks for the info, I agree that most cd-r video makes a well done flip book
look high tech. I appreciate the description of what I can expect from the
boards regarding output the video tape and also recompressing for avi.
Richard
Richard,
I have a customer that is in a very similar position to yourself and has been
talking to FAST about a new version of the software for the Movie Machine that
may handle writing single compression avi's. From what I understand, the
technical representative for FAST has made it sound like the file is available
on-line and therefore you might try the multibven forum here on CIS. I will
also check, for this customer, and if I find out something, I will let you
know.
-John
Richard,
Well I checked over there and did not see any new utility for the Movie Machine
that would allow you to create the single compression avi's.
-John
John,
From my two days on the phone talking to every company that makes these boards
and or support stuff, I did get the feeling that the current line is about to
be bumped up to the next generation. I'll check the forum to see what's up.
Thanks,
Richard