Capturing and Editing/Converting

[eighteesix]

Hello--

I have been capturing some HD video (Discovery HD) using FireRecord. It works great, no complaints. However, it saves all the files in the .m2t format. I've been trying to use MPEG Streamclip to edit and convert/export the videos.

This is where I am running into problems. At first I couldn't even get "Export to AVI" in menu to function at all--I kept getting compression errors after 30 seconds. After I acquired DivX Pro, the "Export to AVI" function now works better, but still wont complete. I get a compression error 5-20% in. I don't even know what the difference between "Export to AVI" and "Convert to MPEG with MP2 Audio", and how they affect my HD content. However, using "Convert to MPEG with MP2 Audio" with the .m2t file works fine (and is fast!--exporting to AVI is very slow).

Also, I am attempting to convert the mpeg file from what I described on the line above to AVI in QuickTime now, and its going to take over an hour and a half (the clip is only 10min) while converting to mpeg from m2t only took 30sec. So basically I am a little lost. What should I convert my .m2t to if I want to keep a reasonable HD quality? (honestly i think the mpeg+mp2 looked better than the .avi but avi is the ideal size).

Any advice would be appreciated.

[tomlee59]

The short answer is: Don't convert if you want to preserve quality. Each transcoding introduces degradation.

A file format conversion is not included in the advice above. Going from .m2t to "regular" mpeg just changes the file wrapper, not the video itself. That's why the conversion was fast, and also why the quality was the highest.

If you want smaller file size, then understand that it can be done, but at the cost of reduced quality. If quality is the most important factor to you, then leave it as unmolested as possible, and live with the file size. Disks keep getting cheaper all the time, so don't let storage limitations constrain quality.

[eighteesix]

ok, that makes sense. what if i want to get it down to the 350-500mb range while still maintaining quality that other people would want to watch it?

heres some more info about what ive got---

*** MediaInfo Mac // Plain text file report
2009-03-26 09:08:35 -0500
Information for File: untitled 004.m2t

General / Container Stream # 1
Total Video Streams for this File -> 1
Total Audio Streams for this File -> 1
Video Codecs Used -> MPEG-2 Video
Audio Codecs Used -> AC3
File Format -> MPEG-TS
Play Time -> 59mn 58s
Total File Size -> 4.58 GiB
Total Stream BitRate -> 10.9 Mbps
Video Stream # 1
Codec (Human Name) -> MPEG Video
Codec Profile -> Main@High
Frame Width -> 1 920 pixels
Frame Height -> 1 080 pixels
Frame Rate -> 29.970 fps
Total Frames -> 107853
Display Aspect Ratio -> 16/9
Video Standard -> Component
Scan Type -> Interlaced
Scan Order -> BFF
Colorimetry -> 4:2:0
QF (like Gordian Knot) -> 0.306
Codec Settings (Matrix) -> Default
Video Stream Length -> 59mn 58s 692ms
Video Stream BitRate -> 10.1 Mbps
Video Stream BitRate (Nominal) -> 19.0 Mbps
Video Stream BitRate Mode -> CBR
Audio Stream # 1
Codec -> AC-3
Audio Stream BitRate -> 384 Kbps
Audio Stream BitRate Mode -> CBR
Number of Audio Channels -> 6
Audio Channel's Positions -> Front: L C R, Rear: L R, LFE
Sampling Rate -> 48.0 KHz
Audio Stream Delay -> 1h 10mn
Audio Stream Language -> English


My system:

Mac Pro
2x 2.66ghz dual core (quad core)
9GB DDR2 RAM
ATI X1900 XT
OS X 10.5

[eighteesix]

so ive found a few things

im using avidemux2_qt4 2.4.4. it works great! cutting works fine. im working with a .m2t file thats around 5gb. cutting the beginning works, and the end. however, when i navigate to the middle of the video, the application continues to crash. this happens on any video that i attempt to edit. any ideas? could it be a memory issue?
im running OS X 10.5.6
heres the error from OS X
-----------
Process: avidemux2_qt4 [2146]
Path: /Applications/avidemux2_qt4.app/Contents/Resources/bin/avidemux2_qt4
Identifier: avidemux2_qt4
Version: ??? (???)
Code Type: X86 (Native)
Parent Process: bash [2130]
Date/Time: 2009-03-26 12:09:45.901 -0500
OS Version: Mac OS X 10.5.6 (9G55)
Report Version: 6
Exception Type: EXC_BAD_ACCESS (SIGSEGV)
Exception Codes: KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS at 0x00000000200b7294
Crashed Thread: 0
Thread 0 Crashed:
Thread 0 crashed with X86 Thread State (32-bit):
eax: 0x200b7290 ebx: 0x00525fd9 ecx: 0x00000000 edx: 0x06032600
edi: 0x060ad43d esi: 0x200b3510 ebp: 0x00000000 esp: 0xbfffbf20
ss: 0x0000001f efl: 0x00200206 eip: 0x00526b42 cs: 0x00000017
ds: 0x0000001f es: 0x0000001f fs: 0x00000000 gs: 0x00000037
cr2: 0xffe17d2c