MJPEG v MPEG2

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

I have tried MJPEG as a video codec in the past and it worked terribly
for me when running a P3. I purchased a P4 recently and decided to try
Linux again for the umpteenth time. MainActor is probably the best
software for capture in Linux - but I have had better luck actually with
a command line program called STREAMER for capturing from my TV-Card.
Both use MJPEG under a Quicktime for Linux wrapper and it really
impresses me as an AVI format. Trying MJPEG under XP with the P4 it
still works terribly, but within Linux it is surprisingly nimble. It
doesn't scale-up very well, meaning if you record at 352x240 you would
not want to watch it full-screen, yet if you record at 640x480 (or
720x480) you can adjust the compression on it where the resulting file
size is comparable to MPEG-2, but the quality is better I believe. I
have yet to purchase a DVD-burner as my system is analog-based with a
scan-converter to send video out to the TV and/or VCR, but I am thinking
about getting a DVD-player for the TV and a burner for the machine. The
TV-Card has an onboard MPEG-2 encoder chip which was important on the P3
to save on resources, but the P4 hardly blinks at anything I throw at it.
Question is this - can DVD-players support MJPEG? And also I would not
want to dual-boot, so if I used MJPEG within Linux - is there software to
burn a DVD available, or would it be command-line based like burning a
CD-R/RW is which I do have?

thoughts - thanks

Archived from groups: rec.video.desktop (More info?)

"Pete D" <no@email.com> wrote in
news:MAngd.2717$K7.574@news-server.bigpond.net.au:

> MJPEG is what you will capture in and then edit but you must convert
> to MPEG2 to burn to DVD so that you standalone DVD player can use it.
>

Thanks for the info - but capturing and then converting is something I
would not want to do 99% of the time - rather just straight capture in an
appropriate format. The only time I ever edit is when I capture from my
Analog Camcorder - the remaining time I basically am just recording
TV/Cable/Video Tapes etc and then sending them out to the TV - and for that
Raw AVI works best at about 1GB per minute. What impresses me most about
MJPEG is that a Data Rate of 50MB per minute achieves crystal clear
interlaced video - but my MPEG-2 capture software de-interlaces everything
and while that looks great for a computer, lacking when viewed on a
Television. So if you know of MPEG-2 capture software that will capture
interlaced (WinDVR which came with the card does not), I would be glad to
hear of it.

Thanks

(note: The p3 could not capture full-screen raw AVI, so I was always
running SVCD at the top end for capture - though I could capture MPEG-2
640x480 in I-mode due to the onboard encoder - but the p4 gives me more
leeway in what I can turn out and with a 250GB secondary drive - I can
capture over 4 hours of Raw AVI)