Video Compression Options - PapaJohn's Newsletter Archive

As movie editors, we live in a world filled with different codecs... and codec-related issues. This newsletter is another step toward becoming more versed in and comfortable with them.

It'll take you through a couple tests, first checking the rendering times and file sizes by using all the available compressor options on my new HP notebook, and then checking differences in visual quality.

We'll also take a look at the customizable settings for the Divx and Windows Media 9 compressors and do a special check of enhanced videos using two-pass renderings for each.

Custom Overlay Projects is the subject of a new section on the Editing > Text > Custom Overlays page of the website Keyboard

In addition to the puzzle project made for newsletter #73, I made a couple more.

A Keyboard project started on Christmas. One of our grands got a keyboard as a present, and I thought it would be neat to record some music from it with my camcorder. It was playing some samples by itself but the keys weren't moving, so I took a snapshot from the video and used it for something more interesting.

... another overlay project is a Countdown Clock-like one, with 10 assorted watch faces being removed as the seconds tick down.

The website page includes instructions about setting up and using the projects, and links to downloadable packages with everything you need.

Each package has a project MSWMM file, an xml file, a set of transparent png images, and batch files to install and remove them. It's a good way to explore the use of custom xml files without having to write or tweak them. Those who enjoy getting into them deeply can go as far as they want.

It's been a while since I tested all the codec options on my computer... and made a table of the results such as the one on the Importing Source Files > Video > Recorded TV page of the site. I've pointed lots of users to that table since it first rolled it out.

That table was done with MPEG-2 files as inputs. I'll do this issue using AVI files, one a random AVI from a magazine CD, and the other a DV-AVI made by Movie Maker 2.

Codecs change with time... some go, new ones emerge, some are revised... and your computer changes. For this round of tests, I'll use my new HP Pavilion zd8000 notebook with its 3.4 GHz CPU...

The computer currently has 20 compression choices in the drop down lists of video editing apps and utilities. The full list of them is in the table below.

For a user perspective, it's not about all of the codecs on my system per GSpot or other utilities... it's about which compressors show up in the picklist of choices when I use an app, and how well they work when I select them.

The first source file is a 17+ second AVI file from a CD in a magazine... with a file name of USSConstellation.avi. Its properties are: 520x376 pixels, 24.988 fps, 17+ seconds, compressed with the Microsoft Video 1 codec, no audio stream. 27.9 MB file size.

The frame snapshot at the left shows that the video includes black bars at the top/bottom and the right side... the quality isn't high and the video ends with the last frame offering the longer higher quality clip for sale. It'll do as an input file to check rendering times and file sizes.

Let's keep the same frame size of 520x376 pixels, not crop away the black borders, and use whatever default settings the compressors have... to see which ones work, how long the renders take, and how large the new file is.

Here's the tally. The rendering times that were faster than the 17+ second real time duration are on the left side of the time column. Those whose file sizes were smaller than the original are on the left size of the file size column.

The ranges of times and sizes are considerable. Some were noticeably fast, and some resulted in smaller file sizes. The 4 compressors in bold type were the only ones that were both quick and produced smaller files.

Using the Panasonic DV without resizing to standard DV-AVI size of 720x480 gave an error: "Cannot start video compression: The source image format is not acceptable (error code -2)". I added the resize filter to get past this test.

The 6 compressors with N/A in the time and size columns didn't. The message was: "error getting compressor output format size".

I imported the 14 new files into Movie Maker, previewed them in the collection, put them on the timeline, previewed the project, and rendered a movie... there were no issues.

The test renderings above started with a lower quality video, which set the stage for all of the files to look similarly poor. To equalize the playing field for the visual comparisons, I used a different higher quality input file.

This copy of the collage shows the frame slices at actual sizes, a JPG file at 80% quality... if you're interested in seeing the 200% sized full quality 9.7 MB BMP file, here's a link. I recommend downloading it and taking a look.

The only thing added to the frame slices for this collage is the name of the compressors in black at the lower left; the other script was added to the original image before importing into Photo Story.

If at first glance you think they all look pretty good, I agree with you! Looking closer, it's easier to select losers such as the Motion JPEG compressor slice at the bottom of the collage... but it's too hard to pick a winner... and probably not fair to judge the overall video by looking at a small slice of one frame. After all, it's a movie, not a still picture.

Two of the codecs which made it through the initial rendering test didn't make it to through this step for visual comparisons. I got error messages when trying to use these two with the DV-AVI input file. They don't show up on my older list online either.

Enough of them made it through both tests that I didn't stop to study why these two didn't.

The two rounds of tests above were done with default compressor settings. Many of them have adjustable settings.

As the settings are used to balance quality, rendering speed, and file sizes, tweaking them and doing more testing could make this a full-year project instead of a few hours for a weekly newsletter. Let's take a general look at two of them.

Here's the configuration window for the Divx 4.12 codec. You get to it when selecting the codec from the drop down list and pressing the 'Configure' button. For info about the settings, use the help file available from that button.

I did a 2-pass rendering to a high 6000 kbps bitrate to see how the saved video differed from the default in the collage.

The rendering time was much longer and the file size 4-1/2 times that of the rendered file with the default settings. Here's the same slice of the 390th frame, with the enhanced quality clearly showing that it's a good reason to go into compressor settings.

Not to be outdone by the tweaked Divx compressor, here's the slice from a file rendered with equally tweaked compressor settings, a 2-pass file using the higher 6000 kbps bitrate.

The Compression tab of the Windows Media Video 9 settings window shows the default is a one pass quality based VBR file with the quality level set to 80.

Pressing the Help button gets you lots to study... for example this paragraph about the Quality Level setting:

The quality level specifies the quality of the compressed content that the encoder should maintain when using quality-based VBR. This value ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 being the highest quality.

Not all of the values in the range have a unique meaning. The values that represent a step up in quality from the previous level are: 1, 4, 8, 11, 15, 18, 22, 25, 29, 33, 36, 40, 43, 47, 50, 54, 58, 61, 65, 68, 72, 75, 79, 83, 86, 90, 93, 97, and 100.

The fastest render was with the PICVideo MJPEG Codec, taking only 4 seconds versus the longest time of 86 seconds, but it's a loser when it comes to visual quality (it's the bottom slice of the collage).

The smallest file size of 1.5 MB goes to the Windows Media 9 codec, just over 5% the size of the original file. But without tweaking the settings, it doesn't win the visual quality check either.

The Uncompressed RGB file is almost 10 times the size of the original. It maintains the quality but can't enhance it.

Of the 4 compressors tagged in the table above for giving both fast results and small file sizes, the two Microsoft MPEG-4 compressors held in there for the quality rankings... the other two (Divx and MJPEG) ranked lower on the visual collage.

Of the hundreds of codecs and filters on my system, some are used to decompress files and not compress them, some are locked from anything but use with the software they came with, some have restrictions for input files.... etc, etc. The world of codecs have a lot more complexity than most users of Movie Maker, including myself, want to get into. We usually just want to know which one to use and how to use it.

What's different since the similar testing for the importing recorded TV page of the website? For starters, I'm doing the tests on a different computer. Most of the codecs are the same. 9 compressors made it to the list the first time I did this testing, and 11 this time... PCLEPIXL and PICVideo MJPEG are new to the list... they came with Pinnacle Studio 8.

I don't know if I'm being fair to the Divx compressor, as I've used the version 4.12 for years... newer ones might be better but I'm cautious about the spyware, adware, or worse that can come with Codec packages. The version continues to work for me so I'll continue with it... and it did great in the extra test, the first time that I tweaked Divx compressor settings.

A true visual quality test would have all compressor settings tweaked for optimal performance. As utilities such as VDubMod play a secondary role to Movie Maker, there's no reason to put the effort into doing such testing. The important thing to remember is that if, for whatever reason, you find yourself using one of these compressors for a conversion... get into the settings and make the new file the best quality you can. The two extra tests I did with the Divx and Windows Media 9 compressors give me a better appreciation for the extra quality you can get with minor changes in settings. I usually prefer extra visual quality at the cost of longer rendering times and larger files.

The Panasonic DV compressor is still my current favorite all-purpose codec. Its large file size is expected when working with full quality Digital Video. Its rendering time is short, and the output is high quality. As with the Microsoft DV codec used by Movie Maker, there are no compressor settings to tweak... things are simpler with DV codecs.

I look forward to comments and discussion about this and other newsletters on the forums at:

I'm involved in many things that support users of Movie Maker and Photo Story, and adding more regularly. Some are free and others reasonably priced.

TheDVShow is the only weekly Podcast having more useful information about desktop video editing and production than anywhere else on the Web. Digital video editing, nonlinear editing, streaming media, software releases, tutorials, business tips, technical help, download of the day and news on the latest products to make everything easier. It's where professional and consumer desktop video users go to stay on the cutting edge.

Call the phone mail machine to get your technical question answered on the air... call (206)-203-3516

The radio broadcast is from Boston, and the website has downloadable podcast files. The June 19th 2005 podcast was the first 'bi-weekly' show with a segment about Movie Maker 2.

Movie Maker 2 - Do Amazing Things (with its online companion on www.papajohn.org), published by Microsoft Press...

Movie Maker 2 - Zero to Hero - with support on the publisher's forum - Friends of Ed

MaximumPC's winter 2005 quarterly special... had a 7 page tutorial 'Make a Killer Home Movie with Maker 2'. The special edition of the video made for it is now on my website as a file download.

The November 2005 edition of Maximum PC had a well done reworked 6 page reprint of the same article, starting on page 42 after the Happy 20th Birthday article for Windows.

Learning VirtualDub - published by Virtual Dub

Packt Publishing, is the first book about VirtualDub software. I wrote the first chapter about downloading and setting up the software: VirtualDub, VDubMod and AVISynth.

Movie Maker 2 and Photo Story 3 - www.papajohn.org - the site's 3 goals are: an online companion to the Do Amazing Things book, a detailed tutorial for PhotoStory 3, and helping you solve Movie Maker 2 problems.

Forums are open to all for viewing, but require registration of those who want to post. Moderators actively participate to ensure the forum discussions move forward and stay on track.

Newsgroups are wide open for all to view and post... moderation is collective by the participants.

Movie Maker 2/Photo Story newsletter. The annual subscription is $20 and the link to subscribe is on the main page of my Movie Maker website at:

Newsletters that were distributed more than 6 issues ago are posted by Rob Morris to an Archive Site at his Windows Movie Makers' website. Links from my website pages to specific newsletters make it easier for viewers to see the content of both while browsing a topic.

Drop an email to suggest a newsletter topic... I can use more requests rather than fewer.

Transition Maker 2 (TM2) is a utility for the ultimate in making your own personal and custom transitions for Movie Maker 2. It's a joint product from Patrick Leabo, the programmer, and myself. Version 2 was released a week ago and I'm still working on updating the online tutorial.

I've beta tested some of the Pixelan packages and think very highly of their people and products.

Managing your personal information is more of a challenge as hard drives get bigger and the internet more robust.

My personal database has been an ongoing project over many years, and is now available to others. A tutorial about using it is on the Managing > Personal Database page of my site, and more info is in the database package itself.

It's free for the asking to regular newsletter subscribers... send an email request and I'll return it with the zipped file, which is less than 1 MB.

To others it's $10. To order, use the button on the top of the Managing > Personal Database page.

An online gallery that fully aligns with the main priority of the website is the 'PapaJohn Expert Zone' at neptune.

Check it at Neptune and the Distributing > Neptune page of the website, where there's a developing tutorial about how to use the service.

in conjunction with the Portage, Michigan library, we offer two free training sessions about Movie Maker and Photo Story, an intro session and a workshop. Scheduled sessions are:

If you can't save a movie because your project has become too complex, e-mail a copy and I'll divide it into manageable sub-projects, and provide detailed instructions about how to render the parts and assemble them into your final movie. $49.95 (no cost if it's not the right solution or doesn't work) - for details, see the sidebar on the Problem Solving > Can't Save a Movie page of www.papajohn.org

Movie Maker 2/Photo Story training and support services start at $50 per hour - send an email - PapaJohn@CharterMi.net and I'll help you determine your needs, and work with you to plan and implement them.

Wedding combo website/video packages - check the bottom branch of the Movie Maker 2 website for a sample of what you can expect for the online portion of the package.

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About John 'PapaJohn' Buechler from Microsoft.com

John "PapaJohn" Buechler, of Kalamazoo, Mich., goes by PapaJohn online. An avid user of Movie Maker since its first release, and a regular supporter of the community of Movie Maker users, John received a 2003 MVP award from Microsoft for that support. In March 2003, he started a comprehensive website about Movie Maker 2 at www.PapaJohn.org. He maintains the website, writes books and articles, teaches, and provides support services - all for the community of Movie Maker 2 users. An engineer by formal education, John is a computer database and multimedia expert by business and personal experience. He co-authored the first book about Movie Maker 2 and is actively working on a second one. You can find his advice in the Windows XP Movie Maker newsgroup and in the Windows Movie Makers Forums.

This newsletter is republished with permission of John "PapaJohn" Buechler.
Please note that this is an archive of newsletters and some information may become outdated. PapaJohn, and the webmaster of this site, provides this information "AS IS" with no warranties.

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