I have a question regarding converting videos?

[speedy45]

I would like to know what is the best video codec, bitrate etc, so let me know for my videos?

[jagabo]

It depends on what you want to do. What's the best vehicle and fuel?

[Dv8ted2]

It depends on what your needs are and what you plan to do with your video. The best for you is what works for you. Quality is subjective as well. What may look like garbage to someone else might look good to you. My point is for you to try things and see what you like. We can't answer that for you.

[speedy45]

well some of my videos look ok & I wish to raise my video quality to maybe to HD.

[tomlee59]

Speedy45 -- you're not paying attention to what people are telling you. YOU need to tell US what your objectives are. THEN someone can tell you HOW to do that. Right now, you are so vague that there is no point in anyone offering any advice.

Saying things like "some vids look ok to me now" tells us zero. Asking for "what is the best" is also meaningless, because you haven't said what you care about. Filesize? Portability across different platforms? Resolution? We all want perfect quality, infinite portability, and zero filesize. But we can't have that. So you need to tell us what is really important to you. Be specific. If you continue to be stubbornly vague, then no one can give you specific advice.

[speedy45]

I would like make my videos look better like highly video quality, better bitrate, maybe HD, great audio quality, & converting avi. mpeg. divx files avi. HD video quality.

[Noahtuck]

Not gonna happen.

[speedy45]

ok fine then how some recommended video converter then that can convert anything any file format.

[guns1inger]

What is your source ?

If it is downloaded Divx/Xvid/MKV files then you are pretty much stuck with what you have. Most of these have been cropped, resized, and then over compressed to get them down to the size you downloaded. To do this, lots of data has been thrown away. This can not be retrieved. It is gone for good.

If your source is DV or DVD then you have it as good as it will be. You cannot magically turn it into HD. You may find that you can tweak it to make it visually more watchable - colour correction, brightness/contrast, noise reduction - but these are not codec or bitrate related.

[Dv8ted2]

ok fine then how some recommended video converter then that can convert anything any file format.

convertxtodvd

[jagabo]

You cannot create high definition video from low defintion video. You can enlarge the frame size but that will just get you fuzzy low definition video in a high definition frame.

You cannot improve an existing low bitrate video by converting to a higher bitrate.

There are no converters that convert any type of video to any other type of video. Free or not. There are some that can work with a wide range of file types. Super, for example.

[speedy45]

well I have movies rip as avi, & wish to raise its quality so I can watch it.

[Dv8ted2]

They will not get better than they are. You can watch them now.

[manono]

If you can't watch it now (meaning the quality really sucks, I presume), you won't be able to watch it after converting it.

[jagabo]

You can correct some things that might be wrong with a video. Things like color shifts, brightness and contrast, removing blocky artifacts, sharpening. But you can also use a player that does those things while playing the video.

But you can't convert low quality video to high quality video. You can't recreate the information that was destroyed.

But again, you need to be very specific about what's wrong with a particular video and what you plan to watch it on. Computer only? TV via DVD player? TV via Divx/DVD player? Do you need the video in a form that is easily editable in the future? Do you care about file size? Is 110 GB/hr ok? 30 GB/hr? 1 GB/hr? Do you demand that a 2 hour movie fit on a 700 MB CD?

[speedy45]

Well I would like to know is I am adding my videos movies that are DVDRip avi & as I add the video quality goes down, & I was wondering how low should I go to get the same quality that I had before that I add them?

[Dv8ted2]

Well I would like to know is I am adding my videos movies that are DVDRip avi & as I add the video quality goes down, & I was wondering how low should I go to get the same quality that I had before that I add them?

It will never be the same as before you convert it. It will only get worse.

[jagabo]

What does "add the video" mean? Are you trying to make regular movie DVDs from Divx/Xvid AVI files?

[guns1inger]

Add them to what ?

Every time you encode a video with a lossy encoder (Divx/Xvid/Mpeg-2/Mpeg-4/AVC etc) you risk losing quality. Each of these compresses by removing data it thinks you don't need. Which works, up to a point. The more you compress, the more data it needs to throw away, and the more the quality drops.

Then you have other issues. For example, take a standard 700MB Divx file that has been encoded from a DVD source.

This file has been resized down from DVD resolution to something much less. It has been cropped to remove any black bars. It has then been compressed to a size that is perhaps only 10% of the original source. That is a lot of damage. Added to that, Divx/Xvid uses some pretty fancy tricks in the background to try to hide the compression. Most of these rely on your watching the files back on a PC monitor, not a TV, and certainly not a large TV.

Now, you take that same file, and you try to turn it back into a DVD. You have ot resize it back up to DVD resolution. This means all the damage done by creating the Divx file is now blown up to be larger and more obvious. Also, because you are blowing the file up to a larger size, the image becomes softer and less defined. Then you re-encode it using a lossy compression - mpeg-2 - which does it's own damage. And if you try to do something really stupid, like put two movies on one disc, or 6 hours of TV episodes, then you are over compressing the files and doing even more damage. Finally, you try to watch this on a TV, which shows up all the artifacts that were hidden on your PC monitor because it is darker than your TV.

Bottom line, garbage in, garbage out.

There are plenty of programs that can convert most formats to most formats. Xvid4PSP, SUPER, MediaCoder and many more. Many of these can even output to HD resolution and bitrates. But none of them work miracles, and this is what you are asking for.

[speedy45]

What I am trying to do is add my DVDRip avi movies to DVD+D DL & try to get video quality as great as possible.

[Dv8ted2]

What I am trying to do is add my DVDRip avi movies to DVD+D DL & try to get video quality as great as possible.

As said before, it will not improve quality.

[speedy45]

oh ok I see then thanks I will check this out.

[guns1inger]

If you want DVD quality, buy the DVD

[speedy45]

well ok guns1inger I can see that except my DVDRip Movies that I made are DVD quarlity.

[Dv8ted2]

well ok guns1inger I can see that except my DVDRip Movies that I made are DVD quarlity.

Not really, because you discarded data when you ripped them, so they are less than DVD quality.

[speedy45]

ok Dv8ted2 I get it so thanks.

[jagabo]

well ok guns1inger I can see that except my DVDRip Movies that I made are DVD quarlity.

Maybe if your rips are ISO images of the original DVD or MPG files simply remuxed from the VOB files. As was mentioned earlier, if you saved them as Divx/Xvid AVI they can only be worse than the original DVD quality -- though maybe not too much worse. Converting them back to MPEG2 for DVD can only further degrade the quality. Again, it may not be terribly worse, but it will be worse.

If you want the best possible quality encode at about 9600 kbps. Ie, 10000 kbps minus whatever the audio bitrate is minus a little more for overhead. Of course, that will give you about only 2 hours on a dual layer DVD. And it might be overkill. But it's the "best possible" for DVD.

[speedy45]

I see Jagabo thanks for that info.