Huffyuv problems

[hmpf]

Having given up on achieving any really precise result in Windows Movie Maker (it keeps subtly de-synching my finished vid when I render it), I am now trying to get started working with Premiere Pro 6.0. Premiere doesn't like my source avi files, so I asked around a bit and people told me to use VirtualDub to convert my source to an avi that would be usable by Premiere, and to use Huffyuv to encode/compress/? (arrgh, I need to learn vidding terminology!) Now, I've played around a bit with the program and the codec, and so far I have two problems:

1.) The file size is *huge*. For a clip of around 1500 frames it can be between 500 and 700 MB. This could turn into a big problem for me soon, as my hard drive really isn't that big. I have around 18 GB free space at the moment, could possibly expand that to around, hm, 30 GB.

2.) The clips play very jerkily, as if a lot of frames are being dropped.

Anyone know what to do?

Comments

[chasarumba.livejournal.com]

Huffyuv is a good codec for quality (it's lossless), but not great for compression -- it creates smaller files than uncompressed AVI, but that's not saying much. It's what I've always used, but I had an external hard drive for clips when I was vidding on a laptop, and now I have a desktop with two large hard drives...in your situation, it may not be the best option.

There are many other codec options out there, though. Hopefully you'll get some suggestions about those with better compression. I know Lagarith is another high-quality codec option, but it probably also produces very large files (dunno, haven't tried it).

As far as jerky playback, do you mean after you've rendered out in Windows Media (or whatever) *after* editing, or are you trying to play those clips in your preview monitor in Premiere or in another media player? I would guess that playback issues would be due to the huge filesize and your computer not being able to keep up.

[marvthegrate.livejournal.com]

The only real solution regarding storage would be to get additional storage space. Video work requires a great deal of space on the hdd. I'd look at an external USB drive or firewire if you have it.