Post by Elvira on Apr 29, 2008 22:41:29 GMT -5
There's been some discussion about what is and is not good for editing, so to save time (and arguments) I thought I'd clarify our position here.
Firstly, the tutorials we have on this forum are trying to give you good information that is suitable for many non-linear video editors (Mac and PC) and are easy (or easy-ish
) to understand. We are also learning as we go along (so modifications and updates to the tutorials are inevitable) but the bottom line is, we've done some research and are pretty certain that many of the essentials in the tutorials are based on solid, reliable methods.
Because of this, we're not going to encourage some non-standard and troublesome techniques, because we've seen them cause way too many problems for vidders. We don't want to have to keep troubleshooting these (very avoidable) problems for our forum members. So, that brings me to . . .
A word (or two) about editing in DivX AVI, XviD AVI, 3ivX AVI, Real Media files, WMV, MPEG, MPEG-4, etc.
Yes, we've all done it. We find clips online, open them in our video editor and edit away. A lot of the time, it works great! Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
And that still holds true. If you have no complaints with your current editing routine, no one here is going to arm wrestle you away or try to haul you off to the codec police! 
But, even though sometimes (just sometimes) editing in some of these easily downloadable file types work just fine, they're not always predictable, won't work well for everyone, and most importantly—NOT the industry standard way of editing.
This guy's page explains it very well.
As he explains, when you edit in a professional standard codec (like DV MOV for Macs or DV AVI for Windows) you are painting on a "flat canvas" where you can see and paint everything.
When you edit in a compressed format like XviD, not every frame in the video is complete—so it's "fan folded," as the author says here:
"Your canvas is now "fan folded" like the expanding part of an accordian
You may now only see the edges of the folds - You may NOT see inside the folds
You are now trying to paint a full picture based only on being able to see those edges."
This tutorial page from a-m-v.org clarifies some of the problems with editing in compressed formats.
More detailed information about why editing in DivX, XviD, WMV or other compressed codecs is a bad idea. Problems that may occur can be:
• Slow seeking and decoding of frames. (Sluggish scrolling and playback of your footage in the editor—I've had this.)
• Edits not being frame-accurate. (You thought you'd edited that one clip just so, but all of a sudden frames from the next scene "jumped" into it!)
• Frequent crashing of the editing program. (Been there, done that.)
• Frames being displayed out of order. (Yep.)
• Smearing, blocking, and other types of video artifacts. (Yep, yep, yep.)
• Editing program giving an error or displaying black video. (Seen this happen too.)
Many vidders will talk about how their editing program "doesn't like" or "won't open" certain file types (often AVI). They may switch to other video software (believing that their software is to blame for their problems) or will switch to editing in WMV or another file type, while all the time, the problem was that they were trying to edit XviD or DivX. If they'd switched to DV AVI or some other non-compressed or lightly-compressed codec, the difficulties might have gone away.
Many vidding problems that might not be at first recognized as a codec issue, are, in fact just that. Crashing, file types not being recognized, awful picture quality—many times, these all can be resolved by switching to a higher quality file for editing.
Sharp picture quality in your fan video—you probably won't be getting that when you edit highly compressed files:
Another reason to stay away: Because they are highly compressed, DivX and XviD files lose a lot of the detail that is present in the original DVD file. Therefore, if you admire those gorgeous "shiny" sharp videos that you see other vidders produce, realize that you very likely won't be able to get similar results if you edit with DivX or XviD.
Why MPEG2 (files straight from the DVD) might not be a good idea either.
This page explains a little better why MPEG-2 editing isn't always the best way to edit (though you can do it). This article from Adobe also clarifies that even though editors like Premiere can open MPEG-2, it's not really the best way to go:
"MPEG files don't lend themselves to editing because the video frames in an MPEG file aren't self-contained. That is, any given video frame contains only the information that has changed from the previous frame. During editing, a previous frame required to fully decompress a given frame may not be present, resulting in poor quality of the final rendered frame."
UPDATE: Tip/workaround for editing with MPEG2:
Thanks to rhoboat for giving us information about a viable workaround for some of the problems with MPEG2 files. This tutorial from a-m-v.org will show you how to "fool" your video editor into accepting MPEG-2 files for editing. There is a definite learning curve involved with this process, but if you have serious disk space concerns, it's something to consider. (Thanks again, rhoboat!
)
"The DVD for my show is not available yet! I only have downloaded XviD/DivX/WMV/MPEG clips!"
We've all been there. You have two choices. Edit the clips as-is and hope they work out fine, or open them in another encoder like MPEG Streamclip, Avidemux, or VirtualDubMod, and convert them to a more editing standard codec, like DV, Lagarith, Apple Intermediate Codec, or some editable codec. It's up to you!
"But all my friends use it!" "I found a tutorial which says it's okay to use XviD!"
Fine, fine. So they can get it to work for them. That's great. It doesn't change the facts about the inadvisability of using highly compressed footage. Until we see credible proof of a technical nature that contradicts the information I've given here (links from Adobe, a-m-v.org and elsewhere) then it doesn't change anything that has been written on this page.
So, use what you want, but . . .
You've now been informed about the perils of editing in compressed formats. If you want to go ahead and use them anyway, that's fine! You have been informed of the risks and you'll know what the probable culprit is, if you experience problems. You wouldn't be the first person to decide to edit in XviD anyway. As long as you don't expect anyone else to troubleshoot any problems you have with it, it's your own business, right?
So how do I convert my clips to a suitable format?
This tutorial shows you an easy way to export as DV (MOV for Macs, AVI for Windows) which should work great in most mainstream video editors. There are other methods and software you can use to get good or excellent results, of course. For a comprehensive guide on encoding for excellent quality, Windows users can consult a-m-v.org's "Guides". (Their learning curve is a little steeper than the tutorials here, however, but the quality is gorgeous.)
Expectations we have on this message board:
Okay, we've made it clear, edit in any format you want; as long as it works for you, you're golden.
But what we will not look kindly upon here is spreading bad information to other members on this board. And recommending the editing in compressed formats is generally bad information. What might work for you could very well really screw up another member's entire video project. It's irresponsible to recommend it to others, so please do not waste anyone's time by doing it. We don't want to have to deal with any of that, okay?
I got the idea from the a-m-v.org forums to use this banner. A few members use a variation on this with great regularity, because so many vidders are having troubles with editing in XviD/DivX, etc.
I'm not afraid to use it! If you talk about how great editing in XviD is, you might see this banner. If you ask about why your software won't open AVI files anymore, you might see this banner! If you ask for troubleshooting help because of smeared or blocky video picture, you might see this banner. Yes, I'm mean! 
Firstly, the tutorials we have on this forum are trying to give you good information that is suitable for many non-linear video editors (Mac and PC) and are easy (or easy-ish
) to understand. We are also learning as we go along (so modifications and updates to the tutorials are inevitable) but the bottom line is, we've done some research and are pretty certain that many of the essentials in the tutorials are based on solid, reliable methods.Because of this, we're not going to encourage some non-standard and troublesome techniques, because we've seen them cause way too many problems for vidders. We don't want to have to keep troubleshooting these (very avoidable) problems for our forum members. So, that brings me to . . .
A word (or two) about editing in DivX AVI, XviD AVI, 3ivX AVI, Real Media files, WMV, MPEG, MPEG-4, etc.
Yes, we've all done it. We find clips online, open them in our video editor and edit away. A lot of the time, it works great! Hey, if it ain't broke, don't fix it!
And that still holds true. If you have no complaints with your current editing routine, no one here is going to arm wrestle you away or try to haul you off to the codec police! But, even though sometimes (just sometimes) editing in some of these easily downloadable file types work just fine, they're not always predictable, won't work well for everyone, and most importantly—NOT the industry standard way of editing.
This guy's page explains it very well.
As he explains, when you edit in a professional standard codec (like DV MOV for Macs or DV AVI for Windows) you are painting on a "flat canvas" where you can see and paint everything.
When you edit in a compressed format like XviD, not every frame in the video is complete—so it's "fan folded," as the author says here:
"Your canvas is now "fan folded" like the expanding part of an accordian
You may now only see the edges of the folds - You may NOT see inside the folds
You are now trying to paint a full picture based only on being able to see those edges."
This tutorial page from a-m-v.org clarifies some of the problems with editing in compressed formats.
More detailed information about why editing in DivX, XviD, WMV or other compressed codecs is a bad idea. Problems that may occur can be:
• Slow seeking and decoding of frames. (Sluggish scrolling and playback of your footage in the editor—I've had this.)
• Edits not being frame-accurate. (You thought you'd edited that one clip just so, but all of a sudden frames from the next scene "jumped" into it!)
• Frequent crashing of the editing program. (Been there, done that.)
• Frames being displayed out of order. (Yep.)
• Smearing, blocking, and other types of video artifacts. (Yep, yep, yep.)
• Editing program giving an error or displaying black video. (Seen this happen too.)
Many vidders will talk about how their editing program "doesn't like" or "won't open" certain file types (often AVI). They may switch to other video software (believing that their software is to blame for their problems) or will switch to editing in WMV or another file type, while all the time, the problem was that they were trying to edit XviD or DivX. If they'd switched to DV AVI or some other non-compressed or lightly-compressed codec, the difficulties might have gone away.
Many vidding problems that might not be at first recognized as a codec issue, are, in fact just that. Crashing, file types not being recognized, awful picture quality—many times, these all can be resolved by switching to a higher quality file for editing.
Sharp picture quality in your fan video—you probably won't be getting that when you edit highly compressed files:
Another reason to stay away: Because they are highly compressed, DivX and XviD files lose a lot of the detail that is present in the original DVD file. Therefore, if you admire those gorgeous "shiny" sharp videos that you see other vidders produce, realize that you very likely won't be able to get similar results if you edit with DivX or XviD.
Why MPEG2 (files straight from the DVD) might not be a good idea either.
This page explains a little better why MPEG-2 editing isn't always the best way to edit (though you can do it). This article from Adobe also clarifies that even though editors like Premiere can open MPEG-2, it's not really the best way to go:
"MPEG files don't lend themselves to editing because the video frames in an MPEG file aren't self-contained. That is, any given video frame contains only the information that has changed from the previous frame. During editing, a previous frame required to fully decompress a given frame may not be present, resulting in poor quality of the final rendered frame."
UPDATE: Tip/workaround for editing with MPEG2:
Thanks to rhoboat for giving us information about a viable workaround for some of the problems with MPEG2 files. This tutorial from a-m-v.org will show you how to "fool" your video editor into accepting MPEG-2 files for editing. There is a definite learning curve involved with this process, but if you have serious disk space concerns, it's something to consider. (Thanks again, rhoboat!
)"The DVD for my show is not available yet! I only have downloaded XviD/DivX/WMV/MPEG clips!"
We've all been there. You have two choices. Edit the clips as-is and hope they work out fine, or open them in another encoder like MPEG Streamclip, Avidemux, or VirtualDubMod, and convert them to a more editing standard codec, like DV, Lagarith, Apple Intermediate Codec, or some editable codec. It's up to you!
"But all my friends use it!" "I found a tutorial which says it's okay to use XviD!"
Fine, fine. So they can get it to work for them. That's great. It doesn't change the facts about the inadvisability of using highly compressed footage. Until we see credible proof of a technical nature that contradicts the information I've given here (links from Adobe, a-m-v.org and elsewhere) then it doesn't change anything that has been written on this page.
So, use what you want, but . . .
You've now been informed about the perils of editing in compressed formats. If you want to go ahead and use them anyway, that's fine! You have been informed of the risks and you'll know what the probable culprit is, if you experience problems. You wouldn't be the first person to decide to edit in XviD anyway. As long as you don't expect anyone else to troubleshoot any problems you have with it, it's your own business, right?
So how do I convert my clips to a suitable format?
This tutorial shows you an easy way to export as DV (MOV for Macs, AVI for Windows) which should work great in most mainstream video editors. There are other methods and software you can use to get good or excellent results, of course. For a comprehensive guide on encoding for excellent quality, Windows users can consult a-m-v.org's "Guides". (Their learning curve is a little steeper than the tutorials here, however, but the quality is gorgeous.)
Expectations we have on this message board:
Okay, we've made it clear, edit in any format you want; as long as it works for you, you're golden.
But what we will not look kindly upon here is spreading bad information to other members on this board. And recommending the editing in compressed formats is generally bad information. What might work for you could very well really screw up another member's entire video project. It's irresponsible to recommend it to others, so please do not waste anyone's time by doing it. We don't want to have to deal with any of that, okay?
I got the idea from the a-m-v.org forums to use this banner. A few members use a variation on this with great regularity, because so many vidders are having troubles with editing in XviD/DivX, etc.
I'm not afraid to use it! If you talk about how great editing in XviD is, you might see this banner. If you ask about why your software won't open AVI files anymore, you might see this banner! If you ask for troubleshooting help because of smeared or blocky video picture, you might see this banner. Yes, I'm mean! 
) If more vidders want to follow their tutorials, that is GREAT! 
) one of those who edits with divx .avi because I didn't know any better when I ripped. Thankyou for continually updating on this subject, otherwise I would be so lost thinking I was doing the right thing 
And even if it never gives you problems (it may never 
- some people luck out, I'm told), it's still enough of a problem for many vidders, and so it should be addressed.
program; also I find that 
likes mpegs best ... 
Amen to that! 