How do I get normal DV-AVI files to export from MEP 15 Plus?

steveunkles wrote on 1/29/2010, 5:24 PM
Hello,
I captured a whole bunch of stuff from VHS tapes, and I need to deliver these as digital files that my client can edit.  DV-AVI files would be the most standard, but surprisingly Magix software does not work with this standard format (it uses something called mxv, which appears to be proprietary, and I'm afraid not very compatible with other software and file standards).  The bigger problem is that when I try to render the files into DV-AVI, they have a flickering/jittering quality to any of the graphics/text in the videos.  Both when I captured and when I go to export there is a warning message about this sort of thing, but not clear info about what to do.  

Should I have captured as Interlaced, top field first?  I had selected bottom field first, but the warning message scared me off, so I chose progressive.  The video plays back fine in the timeline, and the AVI rendered file looks fine too, except for where there are graphics.  What's up with that, and how do I output and deliver a standard digital file that will look and play and edit smoothly like it does in the MEP timeline?  

Any information or advice would be greatly appreciated!!
Thank you very much!
Sincerely,
Steve

Comments

ralftaro wrote on 2/5/2010, 10:20 AM
Hi Steve,

MEP does support DV AVI of course - but that's primarily relevant if it's actually DV material you're working with. You're capturing analog material. For most situations and use cases, it doesn't make that much sense to force an export to DV AVI if it's not actually DV material. That said, trying to use DV AVI as an intermediate codec to exchange video material with someone else isn't really a bad idea. The problem you run into doing this might be related to the different interlace properties between your analogue material and the DV material. This needs to be kept consistent. I can't really wrap my head around this use case right now and give any reliable advice as to what settings exactly you should use to make this work. If would have to experiment a little with it. However, here's another suggestion: When you're capturing the video, try using MPEG-2, instead of MXV, as your format. That would be a pretty compatible format. You're right about MXV being a proprietary format. It would be a good format to use though, if the other person was using Magix software. MXV is a motion JPEG based format and therefore doesn't suffer from the same degree of lossy compression as MPEG-2.

Sorry. Might not help a lot, but maybe a little.  :-)

cheers