Video sizing

[maryhigginsrice]

Hi everyone. I have been trying for several days to convert QAM tv shows from WMC with no luck. I have tried many different converters and there is always a problem. the audio is out-of-sync or the video quality is terrible. I only record two stations--WFSB-DT OR WTNH-DT. Does DT mean high definiton? I am confused. I am hoping that someone can help me figure this out. Any help will be appreciated.
mary

[yoda313]

What are you trying to convert to?

There are plenty of conversion tools available.

format factory and avstodvd are two such options (freeware)

Multiavchd is also a good place to start though the menu interface might be a bit more daunting for beginners than the others that are available.

[maryhigginsrice]

Thank you yoda313 for answering my post. I am trying to make the video smaller, because I am running out of storage space for the videos. They are so large. I will try the ones you recommended. thanks again. mary

[yoda313]

Before you do that backup the originals to dvdr.

Better yet you should invest in a spare harddrive. The prices are very reasonable now for just about any size.

You may be surpised by the prices out there if you haven't looked lately. You wouldn't have to convert anything in the end.

But always make backups of the originals please. THat way you can always start over should you need another format or do eventually get another harddrive and go back to the source files for better quality.

If these are ota hd files you could split them and burn to disc. Try something like tsmuxer. There are plenty of hd ts file tools for splitting and merging and the like. Or you could probably fit them to dual layer dvdr depending on the length and size of the file of course.

[jagabo]

Better yet you should invest in a spare harddrive. The prices are very reasonable now for just about any size.

Drive prices are outrageous now and will probably get worse in the coming months. Prices have doubled in the last month because of shortages caused by floods in Thailand. The market isn't expected to get back to normal for a year.

For example:
http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16822136793
http://camelegg.com/product/N82E16822152245

[Cornucopia]

You do realize that your movies are ALREADY highly compressed, so they're not going to get alot smaller? The QAM channels that you are receiving are MPEG2 or MPEG4 based. Assuming your capture hardware/software hasn't done something unusual, they are likely stored as such.

So your choices are very limited:

1. Get more hard drive/storage space (my recommendation).
2. Delete some of your lesser used/unneeded titles.
3. Re-encode to h.264-based files (MP4/MKV) at at lower bitrate.

This last one will get you smaller files, but at some cost of quality - no matter what, it will be less quality. No avoiding that. Possibly lowering the resolution (say, from HD to SD, or SD to CIF) can retain some of the quality without adding artifacts, but then you will have a loss of resolution. Can you handle that?

Even if you cut in HALF the filesize requirements, that just somewhat delays the point at which you will arrive at these choices again...

Scott

[yoda313]

@jagabo - sorry didn't know.

But however if the poster can invest in even a 300gb or 500gb drive it might buy them some time before needing to go to more extreme measures.

Of course they could take the time and edit and author to dvd now. Then you'd have a useable end format. If they don't have a bluray burner and bluray player that is. A bluray output would be best to preserve an hd capture. (assuming the poster wasn't intending to use a file based media player like a wdtv.

Obviously converting to dvd is going to lower resolution/quality of a hd capture but at least it would preserve it for easy viewing.

BUT BACKUP IF AT ALL POSSIBLE!

[jagabo]

Transport stream files from QAM recordings can be hard to convert because the audio delay often changes, especially at ad breaks. Many programs don't take that into account.