Hello,

I'm just starting a project to bring a bunch of DV tapes onto my computer. I'm relatively new to video for a level of discussion marker.

I'm on a Mac (8 core, 16gb ram, big fast hard drive) and have iMovie '08 and Quicktime Pro (came with my machine) and have figured out how to import the tapes, do some basic editing into shorter clips, do transitions, etc.

My question regards file formats to save things in (MPEG-4, AVI, etc.) - each file will be about 2-8 minutes long. In iMovie under video format one option is H.264 which seems to be good. There are a bunch of different size options ranging from 160x120 to 1920x1080, and a bunch of other options for sound, etc.

With photos I know exactly how to do this. With video many of these terms are new to me.

Now to the questions:

I would like to first save the file in the highest quality format, as an "archive" or "backup" of the tape. Not just a duplicate of the tape, but edited into smaller cuts that are watchable.

I would also like to save the file as a smaller version suitable for web viewing - maybe 900 (or so) pix on the longest side.



If there is another program that would give me a better format option or controls I'd be willing to get it to do this project "right" from the start as opposed to doing it again later.

Could someone please recommend which formats would be best to use for these two needs?

thanks very much!

Steve,

Since you are shooting onto DV videotape, hopefully you are transferring the DV format into the computer. The great thing about the DV format is that all of the original compression takes place in the camcorder and the DV IEEE-1394 "capture" of most software simply "wraps" the DV data into a video file wrapper or container. The video itself remains as discrete frames which are a true standard and pretty easy to edit in most edit software.

That does mean that the file sizes are going to be rather large for the DV files themselves. If you intend to further edit the files, which includes simply assembling the files together, then you might want to keep the DV files intact. A standard data DVD (4.7GB) will hold about 18 minutes, so that might suite some of your needs.

An external hard drive is also a possibility now that hard drive prices are so low.

It's hard to beat the overall flexibility for presentations that a video DVD allows. I mean, DVD players are everywhere.

I tend to use either DV-mini videotape or DV-AVI files on a backup hard drive to store finished video, and then I cut a video DVD for distribution and presentation purposes.

For SmugMug video I transcode directly from the computer's DV file into the H.264 format that SmugMug requires, and that seems to keep a lot of the original quality versus saving to an MPEG format and having SmugMug do the transcoding.

How do you "transcode" to H.264? what format is that, my editing software does not list H264 when rendering.

The other question i have is that i import different formats (avi, mov, 3pg, etc) from different sources into my editing software. What format should i render these in, in order to get the best DVD quality for the highest res HD source file?

Originally Posted by ziggy53 Steve, Since you are shooting onto DV videotape, hopefully you are transferring the DV format into the computer. The great thing about the DV format is that all of the original compression takes place in the camcorder and the DV IEEE-1394 "capture" of most software simply "wraps" the DV data into a video file wrapper or container. The video itself remains as discrete frames which are a true standard and pretty easy to edit in most edit software. That does mean that the file sizes are going to be rather large for the DV files themselves. If you intend to further edit the files, which includes simply assembling the files together, then you might want to keep the DV files intact. A standard data DVD (4.7GB) will hold about 18 minutes, so that might suite some of your needs. An external hard drive is also a possibility now that hard drive prices are so low. It's hard to beat the overall flexibility for presentations that a video DVD allows. I mean, DVD players are everywhere. I tend to use either DV-mini videotape or DV-AVI files on a backup hard drive to store finished video, and then I cut a video DVD for distribution and presentation purposes. For SmugMug video I transcode directly from the computer's DV file into the H.264 format that SmugMug requires, and that seems to keep a lot of the original quality versus saving to an MPEG format and having SmugMug do the transcoding.

Did you ever get your question answered? I will put a little something up here to see if it helps and go from there (it might help others too). Standard def video for DVDs is 720 by 480. High Def video is can be any of several different sizes like 1280 by 720. When you first bring in your video from the camcorder it will want to find a particular method of encoding the videos. On a Mac you will be looking at QuickTime. You can save in raw AVI format too I think, but that can be very very very large! I think that you can also save them in H.264 on the Mac. The thing is that you are going to want to save in the same format that you do all the rest of your work if possible. I would then leave it in that format until you need to change.

Now for size options. If you are working with standard def video I would save it in 720 by 480. The only time to run it smaller is if you are going to be putting it on web for a particular use. The H.264 is probably the best video codec you can use. It will give you an awesome picture without getting really large. When you put it on the web you might find you use the full size too. For standard def the best size for youtube is 640 by 480. This will give you the HQ option to watch. YouTube used to do 320 by 240 but have upgraded since then for better viewing.

Originally Posted by SteveF Hello, My question regards file formats to save things in (MPEG-4, AVI, etc.) - each file will be about 2-8 minutes long. In iMovie under video format one option is H.264 which seems to be good. There are a bunch of different size options ranging from 160x120 to 1920x1080, and a bunch of other options for sound, etc. With photos I know exactly how to do this. With video many of these terms are new to me. Now to the questions: I would like to first save the file in the highest quality format, as an "archive" or "backup" of the tape. Not just a duplicate of the tape, but edited into smaller cuts that are watchable. I would also like to save the file as a smaller version suitable for web viewing - maybe 900 (or so) pix on the longest side. thanks very much!