Avi oe MPEG which is best?

[Reidie]

Hi Everybody,

I am using VS x2 and an AVI file format to compile my master piece but when I have added about 3 to 4 minutes AVI footage, titles and music my PC slows to a crawl and sometimes VS x2 crashes. The VS booklet that comes with the software is very light on this topic.

My Camera is a Canon FS21 .

Is there a prefered video format which I should be using and is there a difference in the quality between AVI and MPEG 4.

Here's hoping I can get some responses to fix this problem

Regards

Reidie

[sjj1805]

....It's an AVI file ......

Sorry but that doesn't help much.
There are a small handful of file extensions that describe that a computer file is a video. These include
avi, mpeg, mov, rm, wmv, qt, swf
Plus a few others.
Think of these as groups of a certain form of video, within those groups are lots of individuals. Liken this to animals, there are dogs, cats, snakes, birds, rodents and so on.
Within these groups are several types. For instance a dog can be a Poodle, Jack Russell, Alsatian, King Charles, Greyhound etc.

The term avi can mean any one of perhaps a hundred different types such as DV, MPEG4, uncompressed, MJPEG, DivX, Xvid, RLE, YUV, Cinepak and lots more.
________________________________________

The general term for avi infers a lossless format - sort of like the still image formats BMP and TIFF.

The general term for MPEG2 infers a lossy format - sort of like the still image format JPG. With this format every time you save an MPEG2 or JPG item it loses a bit of quality. At first this is imperceptible but after each successive "Save" it gets a bit worse.

Going to extremes sort of like comparing these images:

• • • • 

Regarding "Preferred format" - well this again has no easy answer.
A few years ago the choice was basically a war between DV (Digital Video) and MPEG2 - the format you have to eventually convert to to create a DVD Video Disc. Now we have "High Definition" and so the battleground has changed. A number of formats have emerged which are battling against each other - notably MPEG2 (With higher bit rates than previously used for standard definition) / MPEG4 - highly compressed but high quality - unfortunately very difficult to edit / DivX / Xvid and a few more formats.

The best advice I can give is to try and stick to the original recording format native to the device (camcorder) and only convert it to the output format AFTER marking your video with your intended cuts, transitions, titles and so on. If you are using one of the highly compressed formats MPEG4, DivX or Xvid then it is probably easier to convert that to MPEG2 BEFORE editing. When dealing with standard definition then DV is the preferred editing format.

For more hints and information please view:
Suggested work flow by SJJ1805 for Video Creation
and
From Camcorder to DVD with Video Studio

[Accolades]

And the next bit of assistance you may get is what hardware you are using to EDIT the footage on.

My machine seems to be able to handle editing ok.

If you are trying to edit video on and external USB drive then this would not be good.

So good hardware, Fast Hard Drives Plenty of space), Plenty of memory, Good Video card.

Having the program configured correctly so cached files are not slowing your editing down and following known good procedures for editing also help.


ps the more info you give about your problem the more helpful information can be given in return.

[mitchell65]

I'm a bit confused. I have "Googled" the Canon FS21 camcorder and the Canon site says it is standard definition and one of the retailers quotes it as being a high definition camcorder. Which is correct? Looking at Reidie's "System" I would think that the PC would be more than adequate.

[Ron P.]

It records Standard Definition..

[Trevor Andrew]

Hi Reidie

Is this your camera?

http://www.usa.canon.com/consumer/contr ... elid=18057

The Canon FS21 seems to record in Mpeg 2 format, and that is the format you should be working with.