Asf to ???

goodguy20k · 09-25-05, 10:01 PM

Howdy all, I need some help. I was watching as much as I could when STS-114 was going on, and at all times, recording. Yes, ALL the time recording! I have 16GB's of video on my hard drive in raw ASF format. I would REALLY like to get this amount to something like 4.7GB so it could fit on a DVD disk, and data DVD would be fine. I've been trying all I can to get DivX to encode my movie files, but I always come out with a file BIGGER then my original ASF file. What format would be the best for this? The specs are 320X240 at 150kbps rate. Looking closer, it shows 100kbps for video, 32kbps for audio. All help would be MUCH appreciated. Thanks, all.

Goodguy

Gokuu_Elemental · 09-26-05, 12:01 AM

Wow, that's a hard one there. The specs are already low. Have you tried putting those files on the Axim, and if so are you happy with the quality? I would suggest using TCPMP, plus if that's the format, you can never re-encode the video to be better quality than that.

If you wanted, you could encode using the same specs, don't know if it would necessarily be smaller in .avi, but you might want to try.

OddbOd · 09-26-05, 08:57 AM

Forget transcoding, it is a lossy process that will only make your video look worse than it already does, for a video that size it will take a very long time for absolutely no benefit. DivX is not voodoo magic and will not help.

What you are looking for is a video cutter that can divide your footage into small enough chunks to fit on to DVDRs while still retaining playability. Something like this will do the job, many alternatives can be found via Google and are generally trialware that will keep working for a week or so without payment. One thing to keep in mind is that the data capacity of a DVDR5 is 4.37GB owing to the difference in size calculations used by PCs and media manufacturers.

goodguy20k · 09-28-05, 05:32 PM

Ok, I guess those are my choices, but a second question with it. I used WMRecorder to record those files. It's know to be a little flaky in it's file output, and sure enough, a good quarter or so of my video is unseekable. I've solved this before by just converting the ASF file to a WMV or WMA file and everything's good. No such luck here, as that will just raise the file size, right? It's always done that before. Maybe if I tweak the settings just right in Windows Media Encoder? There's got to be a better file format and compression then ASF, isn't there?

OddbOd · 09-29-05, 08:04 AM

The whole point of WMRecorder is that it does not compress videos at all, it simply saves the video stream which has already been compressed by the server that is sending it to you.

The seeking problem is only present in live streams as seek information is missing from the original stream, that is why WMRecorder has the "seekable" switch in its options, the idea is to re-"play" your video through WMRecorder with this switch on and it should generate a seek table. No recompression is performed and is undesirable at the low bitrate you are dealing with, do not use WMEncoder on the video as it will recompress.

If it still does not seek correctly you can use AsfTools to fix it, so far it has never let me down.

Originally Posted by goodguy20k

Maybe if I tweak the settings just right in Windows Media Encoder? There's got to be a better file format and compression then ASF, isn't there?

In this particular case no there isn't, when downloading a stream you have no control over the encoding method that is used. Most of the objections to using Windows Media format are not technical in fact it performs at least as well as DivX/XviD and in some cases better. The major problem is that Microsoft holds patents which it can use (and has) to prevent outside development other more open formats are not at the mercy of one company and consequently see more development and broad support.

FYI - Files with a WMV or WMA extension are in fact ASF (Advanced Systems Format) files, a good explanation is given in Wikipedia.

goodguy20k · 09-29-05, 11:57 AM

OddbOd? Dude, you rock! ;-) Thank you so much for that explaination. I shall try your suggestions and do some splitting. Yet another question, though. I had ASF splitter before (Paid for it too) and the only problem I have is that the sound starts messing up at times. The sound changes pitch and such in areas with the newly split files. I was trying to figure that one out and could only guess that it was something to do with time stamps and keyframes. Have you ever had any of that happen to you? If so, have you been able to fix it? Again, thanks a lot, oddbOd!

OddbOd · 10-01-05, 01:24 AM

I can't say I have had any problems splitting ASF files however I suspect you are correct in assuming that they are not cutting on keyframes correctly as this can cause the effect you describe as well as loss of audio/video synchronisation, video tearing, green blocks and even player crashes.

Most of the commercial splitters are in my opinion a bit of rip-off as they use the Microsoft SDK leading to almost identical functionality, if you have problems with one vendors tool then most likely the same problem will occur with any other. This is why I suggested a shareware tool as you can split your video and then toss the program in the trash.

There is another splitter which I was a little hesitant to mention as it is a command-line utility but I'm sure you'll be able to figure it. ASFBin, free from Radioactive pages, is the successor of ASFCut and has been written from scratch without using the Windows Media SDK so it should be more error resilient.