Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Make the SX1 video work for you

My goal was to find an easy to use free software what converts the Canon SX1 monster files into a good quality format what works with low power hardware.
That is a 1,6 MHz notebook with a Centrino Duo 2 GB and a Nvidia GO 7300 XP SP2 and a 1,6 MHz notebook with an AMD Turion X2 1 GB with an ATI XPress 1100  XP SP2
 
I liked best so far SUPER it is free, simple and powerful.
Get it here.

Drag the video file into the program, choose:
AVI - MPEG-4 - MP3
video setting: No change, 16:9, 30pfs, bitrate 4000
audio setting 44100, 2, 128
CTRL+T to set the path where you want to have your file
hit encode
now you have an AVI file 8% of the original size in full HD with mostly acceptable compression artifacts.
Want to have it in better quality, try 5000-6000 or 8000 if you want it really good.

I put a couple sample pictures below so you can see for yourself how the compression/quality ratio is.

Test results
The Centrino Duo 2 GB and a Nvidia GO 7300 XP SP2 had no problem after the conversion with any file to play.
The AMD Turion X2 1 GB with an ATI XPress 1100  XP SP2 had problems with even the 4000 kbps files and required a down sampling to 1280x720 to play the video files smoothly.










Look at the concentric rings in the left circle, you will notice the compression artifacts here the most. As usual click on the pictures for full size. The pictures show only 1280 from the 1920 pixel since they are done via screen capture from my 1280x800 screen.

encoding 4000 kbps


encoding 6000 kbps


encoding 8000 kbps

want to know more? look here