[vox-tech] wincast tv: video4linux and copying movies

[vox-tech@lists.lugod.org]

On Mon 13 Oct 03, 11:33 PM, Samuel N. Merritt <spam@andcheese.org> said:
> 
> As far as I know, AVI is a container format, not an encoding format.
> Your software is probably just saving raw frames with a little AVI
> container data. You'll need to compress them with a real video codec.
> MPEG-2 isn't the highest-compression thing in the world, but there are
> good open-source implementations. 

thanks sam, and ryan, and mark, and doug.

it's obvious that i'm going to have to learn a little bit; there appears
to be a pretty steep learning curve, as with everything that isn't just
a matter of hitting the "do it" button on a GUI.

sam, just so i have some extra lingo, what are some other "container
formats" besides AVI?

and what's the difference between MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 which ryan
suggested?  are the "-2" and "-4" what people call "layer", as in "mpeg
layer 3"?  so is MPEG both an audio and a video encoding scheme?


it looks like this process is similar to making mp3's.  first you rip,
then you encode.  probably because, as ryan pointed out, encoding is an
expensive process.  so here is what i gather from everybody's replies:

1. it looks like i have a few choices for ripping to disk:

   mplayer
   xawtv
   nuppelvideo
   mjpegtools

2. and a few choices for encoding:

   mencoder (part of mplayer distribution)
   mjpegtools
   ffmpeg
   transcode

3. between ripping and encoding, ryan gave a suggestion on basic editing
   like cutting out commercials or "upcoming attractions" of movies that
   were released 5 years ago (i hate the fact that they put upcoming
   attraction on videos that i purchase).  a few is ok, but sometimes
   they really let it get out of hand).

   avidemux


so is this about right?


also, sometimes i see people write "DivX ;-)".  what exactly does that
smiley face mean?  and what exactly is DivX anyhow?

thanks everybody, for bringing me up to speed.

pete

-- 
GPG Instructions: http://www.dirac.org/linux/gpg
GPG Fingerprint: B9F1 6CF3 47C4 7CD8 D33E 70A9 A3B9 1945 67EA 951D