Need help encoding

[Diablo]

I recently bought a new TV tuner card. It's an extremely low entry level card but it gets the work done.

My problem is whenever I record Live TV from this card it records it in lossless format, the size is too big and quality is too bad. I don't mind the quality but I need the size to be reduced. I know nothing about encoding, so any help will be appreciated.

This is the media info about the file.

General

Complete name : E:\ChrisTV PVR\Capture\Video\Channel 70_20111028_231041.avi

Format : AVI

Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave

Format profile : OpenDML

File size : 14.2 GiB

Duration : 44mn 33s

Overall bit rate : 45.6 Mbps

Video

ID : 0

Format : YUV

Codec ID : YUY2

Codec ID/Info : YUV 4:2:2 as for UYVY but with different component ordering within the u_int32 macropixel

Duration : 44mn 33s

Bit rate : 44.1 Mbps

Width : 384 pixels

Height : 288 pixels

Display aspect ratio : 4:3

Frame rate : 25.000 fps

Color space : YUV

Chroma subsampling : 4:2:2

Compression mode : Lossless

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 15.961

Stream size : 13.7 GiB (97%)

Audio

ID : 1

Format : PCM

Format settings, Endianness : Little

Format settings, Sign : Signed

Codec ID : 1

Codec ID/Hint : Microsoft

Duration : 44mn 33s

Bit rate mode : Constant

Bit rate : 1 411.2 Kbps

Channel(s) : 2 channels

Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz

Bit depth : 16 bits

Stream size : 450 MiB (3%)

Interleave, duration : 502 ms (12.55 video frames)

As you can see the file size is too big for the duration, and quality is shitty. I need solution to this problem it's kinda urgent bcoz all the recordings are eating up huge chunk off my HDD.

[zolockit]

Depends on the encoders you want to use.

Video you can use x264 or xvid (don't use the second one)

If you use x264 makes sure it's built something like this:

[o_____o@happyArch40 ~] (つ^ω^)つ x264 --help

x264 core:

Syntax: x264 [options] -o outfile infile

Infile can be raw (in which case resolution is required),

or YUV4MPEG (*.y4m),

That is what your source has as video.

Audio:

AAC: NeroAAC, ffmpeg, faac (imo only the first one is good)

MP3: lame (don't use this)

And use mkvtoolnix/mp4box or one of their front ends to put it in a container of your choice.

MeGUI should have all these things in one GUI package, but I hardly have used it so I can't offer help on that route.

[→Speed←]

First off i can tell you one of the biggest reasons for the large file size is the bitrate.. its 4 times higher than my cam uses(10mb) yours is "Overall bit rate : 45.6 Mbps" and i ALWAYS re encode my cam videos but they always look worse everytime i re encode them with a lower bitrate.. even if i downscale the resolution and clip the video.. may i ask for a link to the tv tuner you bought and are using? (product/description page)

[† L4ugh]

If the quality is already shitty to begin with you can try switching the software you are using to record. You haven't mentioned exactly what card your using but you can see if MediaPortal or Freevo support it. The general rule of thumb for encoding seems to be crap in, crap out. I'd try to get something you can work with first before you bother encoding. If that isn't an option then you need to decide what is more important to you, the ease of use or the quality of end product.

Handbrake is pretty easy to use, and can give a good end product. I personally am not a fan of the limited options for de-interlacing that handbrake offers though. I prefer using avisynth+megui for any interlaced content because you have a far greater arsenal of de-interlacers at your disposal. Only problem with avisynth+megui is the rather large learning curve. I've been using it for most of this year and I haven't even begun to scratch the surface of what can be done with avisynth scripts.

[Diablo]

Depends on the encoders you want to use.

Video you can use x264 or xvid (don't use the second one)

If you use x264 makes sure it's built something like this:

[o_____o@happyArch40 ~] (つ^ω^)つ x264 --help

x264 core:

Syntax: x264 [options] -o outfile infile

Infile can be raw (in which case resolution is required),

or YUV4MPEG (*.y4m),

That is what your source has as video.

Audio:

AAC: NeroAAC, ffmpeg, faac (imo only the first one is good)

MP3: lame (don't use this)

And use mkvtoolnix/mp4box or one of their front ends to put it in a container of your choice.

MeGUI should have all these things in one GUI package, but I hardly have used it so I can't offer help on that route.

Actually I've never ever encoded anything before that why everything you said sounds Greek to me. Btw I did try some encoding later using HandBrake after creating this thread, I got this result, without any quality loss.

General

Complete name : E:\ChrisTV PVR\Capture\Video\Channel 70_20111028_231041-1.mp4

Format : MPEG-4

Format profile : Base Media / Version 2

Codec ID : mp42

File size : 251 MiB

Duration : 44mn 33s

Overall bit rate : 787 Kbps

Encoded date : UTC 2011-10-29 05:26:37

Tagged date : UTC 2011-10-29 05:38:31

Writing application : HandBrake 0.9.5 2011010300

Video

ID : 1

Format : MPEG-4 Visual

Format profile : Simple@L1

Format settings, BVOP : No

Format settings, QPel : No

Format settings, GMC : No warppoints

Format settings, Matrix : Default (H.263)

Codec ID : 20

Duration : 44mn 33s

Bit rate mode : Variable

Bit rate : 623 Kbps

Maximum bit rate : 947 Mbps

Width : 374 pixels

Height : 278 pixels

Display aspect ratio : 4:3

Frame rate mode : Variable

Frame rate : 24.939 fps

Minimum frame rate : 1.786 fps

Maximum frame rate : 25.007 fps

Color space : YUV

Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0

Bit depth : 8 bits

Scan type : Progressive

Compression mode : Lossy

Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.240

Stream size : 199 MiB (79%)

Writing library : Lavc52.94.3

Encoded date : UTC 2011-10-29 05:26:37

Tagged date : UTC 2011-10-29 05:38:31

Audio

ID : 2

Format : AAC

Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec

Format profile : LC

Codec ID : 40

Duration : 44mn 33s

Bit rate mode : Variable

Bit rate : 160 Kbps

Maximum bit rate : 206 Kbps

Channel(s) : 2 channels

Channel positions : Front: L R

Sampling rate : 44.1 KHz

Compression mode : Lossy

Stream size : 51.0 MiB (20%)

Encoded date : UTC 2011-10-29 05:26:37

Tagged date : UTC 2011-10-29 05:38:31

But still I think the size can be reduced a little bit more. Can you explain what you said in little bit more detail.

First off i can tell you one of the biggest reasons for the large file size is the bitrate.. its 4 times higher than my cam uses(10mb) yours is "Overall bit rate : 45.6 Mbps" and i ALWAYS re encode my cam videos but they always look worse everytime i re encode them with a lower bitrate.. even if i downscale the resolution and clip the video.. may i ask for a link to the tv tuner you bought and are using? (product/description page)

Here is the link to the card:

Intex TV Tuner Card

They did not give any much details but this is everything I could get, as I said it's a cheap entry level card.