VirtualDub RULES!

[Deja Q]

If any of you work with video manipulation, get VirtualDub. I've been using it in my VHS archival process and it rocks!

I've also read it can convert PAL into NTSC, so I can't wait to get the Blake's 7 Region 2 DVD from the UK. :9 (the US version, I do know, will be of poor quality as they've shoved 52 hours onto 10 discs, with no extras. :puke: )

ANybody else use VirtualDub?

[gtp1976]

1. yes

Back when I would download television shows P2P, if they were in .avi format, I would have to convert them to .mpeg in order to burn them to VCD's.

I would have to use 3 programs, Virtualdub, TMPENG (something like that) and then whatever to burn it to a disk. Then, I could play them on my DVD player. Quality was so-so but it was better than nothing because the shows were not yet available to purchase on DVD and I had not yet seen them.

Yes, I could have watched them on my computer, but my wife wanted to watch them as well, and my office was not baby-proofed like the living room was. Plus, once they were on disk, I could delete the obscenely large files from my hard drive.

[Deja Q]

2. Quite.

VirtualDub's cleaning tools (de-noise, unsharp mask, cropping, contrast, et al) are a big reason why I use it.

(of course, VHS quality, even when cleaned up, is not going to be as good as native DVD - native DVD gets created from the archived master tapes, which are of the same resolution. Though cleaned up VHS can remove some of that pesky grain...)

I also found that my MPEG encoder, from Mainconcept, is about 6 times faster than Adobe Premiere 6.5's on the same hardware.

All that time I wasted with Premiere to encode to MPEG. :eyes: Premiere is great for editing and aligning video (and replacing audio segments within), but for effects or alterations, it seems utterly worthless.

[Kellanved]

3. yes, I use it.

However I miss the ogg/mkv version that used to exist as well.

As to the PAL to NTSC conversion, that's a bitch if the DVD is interlaced (and TV shows sometimes are stored interlaced). For progressive DVDs it is not that hard, but the quality sucks (jitter/low resolution).

I'd use a MPEG encoder (TMPGenc) to transcode the MPEGs, and one of the Doom9 scripts to take care of the audio.

[Deja Q]

4. I recall an earlier version, 1.3.1 (?) had it... and other features.

Most dropped because the MPAA or whoever threw a tantrum. :eyes:

I think the B7 set is not interlaced, but I'm not sure on that. Thanks for the forewarning. I might try one de-interlace run, then a separate one to convert. I do so hate low resolution. :D

I'll look into TMPGenc too...