Need help archiving digital home video!

April 18, 2008 8:04 AM

I have a digital video camera and a regular digital camera that both record video in the AVI format. Since AVI files, especially DV-AVI from the video camera, are so relatively large I need to find the best format for archival purposes. "Best format" is defined by me as having decent-but-not-necessarily-spectacular quality, available via free software, and somewhat easy to do (i.e. one app for everything - not one for video and one for audio, no command line, etc.). Help!

Up until now I've been converting to WMV using Windows Media Encoder. I like WMV just fine, but there are many problems with this method. WME is VERY picky about the settings. For instance, if I pick anything other than 'File Archive' in the Content Distribution step of the file conversion wizard, it just doesn't work. Even when choosing 'File Archive' it only works about half the time with DV-AVI due to the file size. Apparently it doesn't like really large files.

I've also tried programs such as WinFF and SUPER Video Converter to convert to WMV with no luck at all. Sometimes I get an error and other times it completes the process and leaves me with a 0 KB file, a 6 KB file, or something like that. These both came very highly recommended so I'm not sure what I'm missing here (it's a poor worker that blames his tools, right?). If you were going to recommend installing some obscure (or not so obscure) codec, I've probably tried it already, but go ahead and suggest it anyway.

So, if there's a better choice than WMV that would make my life easier, save some HD space, and maintain decent quality, I'm all ears. I haven't tried it in a little while but my impression is that the software doesn't like converting from the AVI format more than it doesn't like converting to WMV, if that makes any sense. However, if I'm just a bonehead and the problem is me rather than the software please point me in the right direction. There has GOT to be a better way to do this!

posted by jluce50 to computers & internet (12 comments total)

What does your DV camera record on? Mini-DV? DVD? Are you looking to back up your original footage, or movies you have edited? I back up edited footage by exporting it back to the camera and archiving on mini DV.
posted by muckster at 8:27 AM on April 18

The camcorder records on Mini-DV. I'm just looking at storing the original footage with very occasional (and minor) editing. I'd prefer to avoid external media if at all possible.
posted by jluce50 at 8:46 AM on April 18

I would convert to DivX or XviD. It's simple to do using VirtualDub. It leaves it in AVI format, which just about anything can play (probably even your DVD player), and it's very simple to edit from within VirtualDub. I've converted 1.5 hour DV videos to DivX or Xvid without a hiccup in VirtualDub.
posted by sanka at 8:55 AM on April 18

Just to clarify: AVI is a container format. The audio and video streams in an AVI file can be encoded with a variety of codecs. Not all of them turn out as big as the original DV content from your camera. As sanka points out, you can convert a video to use a DivX or XviD codec and still store it in an AVI format. There is no guarantee, however, that just because a file is in AVI format, that a particular player can decode it.
posted by knave at 9:12 AM on April 18

Right, I understand that. For what it's worth, I don't have any problem with AVI in and of itself. If I can get a smaller AVI file, that works for me. I'll give VirutalDub a shot but from what I read on the site it seems like a pretty low level tool. We'll see...
posted by jluce50 at 9:36 AM on April 18

Okay, I downloaded VirtualDub and upon some initial poking around I couldn't figure out how to encode to DivX or XviD (or anything else for that matter). Would someone mind sharing the steps to do this? Like I mentioned in the original post, I'd prefer not to bother with command-line or scripting type stuff if I can avoid it. If I can't avoid it, then I guess I'll just ahve to resign myself to it...
posted by jluce50 at 9:46 AM on April 18

In terms of codecs, I think ISO MPEG-4 Part 10 AVC would be the way to go, produced using XviD.

Although with hard drives getting as big as they are right now, I'd think very, very hard about not compressing the video in any lossy format at all, and just archive the AVI-DVs, or dump the DV data out of the AVI container and store them as ".dv" files. The DV format certainly isn't going anywhere quickly, and by not resorting to lossy, interframe compression, you preserve as much data as possible for later use.

I have a big stack of DV cassettes sitting around waiting to be archived, and my plan is just to dump them onto an external 500GB - 1TB hard drive. (I think the 'sweet spot' right now for price/MB is around 750GB, but I'm not sure.) A 1TB drive will hold over 60 hours of uncompressed DV footage, assuming I did my math right, which is a whole lot of home movies.
posted by Kadin2048 at 9:50 AM on April 18

Nah, forget Xvid. Get with the future and go with an h.264 codec. Use a mainprofile with aac and you'll be able to play it on all of the hardware of the future (network players, xbox360, bluray players etc.). I use MeGUI. There's a minimal learning curve, follow the tutorial, and use a premade profile with AAC for audio and you'll be golden. It'll take about 30-50% longer to encode than Xvid, but the size/quality tradeoff will be worth it.

There are also commercial apps that will do it easier (Nero Recode, etc).
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 10:02 AM on April 18

@i_am_a_Jedi: Didn't see anything about a tutorial on that site. Gotta link?
posted by jluce50 at 12:05 PM on April 18

This is the one I first used. All of the screenshots aren't coming up anymore though, so it's not that helpful for someone who isn't familiar with it.

I just found this one, it's pretty good.

Don't worry about all of the fancy things you can do with configuring the x264 encoder. Just select one of the profiles that are premade (I'd recommend HQ-slow). Then AAC-LC at 125kbps for audio.

MeGUI is nice because it autoupdates everything for you. And the program is actively maintained and autoupdates once a week or so.

My basic workflow:
physical media (dvd) > dvd decryptor > .vob file > MeGUI > d2v creator (demux audio) > AviSynth creator (very nice, helpful addition because AviSynth is hard to figure out for neophytes) - let it autoanalyze, you select cropping (if necessary) and resize (or not) > save avs script > then front page of MeGUI > select avs file / choose video profile / choose audio profile > autoencode (it will convert audio, transcode the video, and mux them into whatever file container you chose: mkv or mp4) > wait a long time.

I'd recommend a 3-4 minute piece of video to practice on before you let it roll on a two hour movie. You can make sure you're happy with the quality of the encode before you let it sit for twelve hours working.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 3:47 PM on April 18

This tutorial is better. When you first install, follow the directions about getting the aac. They can't distribute the dll because of copyright issues. But it's an easy download.
posted by i_am_a_Jedi at 4:14 PM on April 18

Thanks, I'll give it a shot.

So I guess this answers my question about there being an "easy" way to do this. I gotta admit, I was really hoping there was a solution more like this: Open application > Specify source file > specify output folder and filename > choose output format > specify bitrate/quality > optionally specify settings like aspect ratio, etc. > click "Finish" and wait. Oh well, it was a nice thought...
posted by jluce50 at 6:37 AM on April 19