How good is good enough?

[EwanG]

Up till now, I've been storing my videos (home videos and TiVO captures) as 720x480 MS-MPEG4 V2 avi files at 90 quality and 6000 data rate. Burning these to DVD have produced very nice looking discs.

However, I'm down to about 80 Gigs left on my 360 Gig HD, and it occurs to me that if I continue down the current path I'm going to have problems getting much past the family videos of Christmas - if I get that far (with birthdays and all).

So, I'm wondering if I should investigate lowering the data rate, the quality, or both? It would take a while to convert everything, but that might be better than having to buy another HD in the middle of the holiday season.

Appreciate any suggestions,
Ewan

[andkiich]

Ever consider getting an external HDD and dumping some of the files there until you can get to them?

[EwanG]

Ever consider getting an external HDD and dumping some of the files there until you can get to them?

The 360 Gig HD is an external drive

Getting another one would be several hundred dollars, and I was hoping to avoid that. Unless it's just completely unreasonable to think I can get acceptable quality with anything less than my current settings. Hence my question...

Thanks,
Ewan

[leebo]

You're asking how high is up.
Acceptable quality has a different answer depending on who you ask. Only you can decide what is "acceptable quality".

Do some tests. Have other family members look at different samples (w/o telling them what settings you've used). Then make a decision.

[thayne]

Why do you need to keep them on your HD after burning to DVD? Do you have a DV camera? why not save them back to tape?

[EwanG]

Why do you need to keep them on your HD after burning to DVD? Do you have a DV camera? why not save them back to tape?

Our camera uses DV tapes, but doesn't have a true computer interface - it uses a special cable to go from the camera to a three rca plug cable (standard video and R and L audio). So I've only ever purchased four tapes that I keep recording over after I've pulled to the computer.

As for why keep them on the HD - there's two issues here. First, I haven't burned all of them to DVD. In fact I am now seriously considering not burning any more to DVD because I'd rather setup my computer and HD to be accessable all around the house. The other issue is that I assume that something will replace the DVD someday, and I'd rather keep the source file around than have to capture the video back off the DVD to convert to something else.

FWIW,
Ewan

[macleod]

a quick recommendation would be to lower your resolution to 1/2 D1 (352x480), which would reduce the overall size of the video your a capping. As far as quality, the camps are divided between the folks that say capping about 352x480 is a waste from TV and 352x480 isnt as sharp as 720x480 on a tv cap/home video.

You may have issues with 352x480 if you try to watch it on a widescreen TV or something greater than, say a 36" TV.

I would just say, give it a shot and see what you think. With bit rate, its almost a "the more the merrier".