Question about 13GB mini DV

[kenshinx34]

Hey all,

I have a question and i was wondering if someone could answer.

I have downloaded a lot of video from my mini DV tapes. (13GB .avi x40= 540 GB)

Is there any way to convert this to a smaller file format without losing quality?

Thanks!

[jagabo]

Literally, no. But you can make it smaller without losing much quality with MPEG 2 or MPEG 4 encoding.

[edDV]

I recommend you keep important family tapes in first generation DV format.

Less important tapes can be encoded to MPeg2 720x480i/29.97 (NTSC) 720x576i/25 (PAL) Lower Field First at high bit rates. Hand held camcorder video needs more bit rate than TV captures. Use 8000 Kbps average if you want to keep the uncompressed PCM audio or ~9500 Kbps average if you encode audio to mp2 or AC3.

[kenshinx34]

I have no intention with doing away with my DV tapes, I just wanted them copied somewhere. If i were to convert them to MPEG 2 or 4 how much space would a 13GB AVI file take up after the conversion process?

[jagabo]

MPEG 2 at DVD quality would put them around 4 GB/hr, so about 1/3 the space. MPEG 4 part 2 (AVC, h.264) at a similar quality level can probably get it down to 1/4 to 1/5 the space.