Best format to use to maintain video quality?

[Blackhawk1]

I recently purchased a Canon Vixia HF200 video camera and Pinnacle Studio 14. I filmed my first video with it yesterday, my sons football game. I recorded it at the highest resolution, MXP. As recording a football game is a lot of record, pause, record, pause..., I ending up having 119 .mts files. I copied them to my computer and pulled them up in Pinnacle Studio 14. I basically want to burn 2 copies, one to have on my computer and a backup copy to dvd. Both copies I would like to have the highest quality possible. I keep copy of my videos on my computer to be able to stream them to my Popcorn Hour A-100 unit at any time. I used the MPEG-4 file type in Pinnacle with the Preset set to: HD 1080p to burn the file on my computer. The video settings in Pinnacle showed as 1920x1080 12000 kbits/sec 29.97 frames/sec.. The audio settings showed as MPEG-4 192 kbits/sec 16 bit stereo 48 khz. My question is whether the MPEG-4 format is a good format to use to maintain the quality of the video? Also what format should I use as dvd backup copy? Should I just save the original .mts files to dvd? I do have a Blu-Ray drive on my computer but I don't have one for my tv yet, if that would influence any suggestions. Thanks for any help.

[poisondeathray]

Highest quality would be the original files. Any re-encoding using a lossy format will degrade the quality

You could use multiavchd, for example, to join the clips to make a "blu-ray" or even blu-ray content on DVD5/9 media (called BD5/9), but only blu-ray/ps3 can play it, standard DVD players will not be able to

DVD-Video (as in playable in a DVD player) will reduce the resolution to standard definition 720x480, and re-encode causing massive quality loss

To back up, I would use hard drives with the original files. This way they are available for other projects/editing in the future at original quality

[Blackhawk1]

poisondeathray
Thanks for the reply. I have a couple of more questions. First, does multiavchd create a single file that I could have on my hard drive and stream to my Popcorn Hour device? Also, for some videos my wife likes using Pinnacle Studio to create menu's, transitions and other fancy effects. For videos that she wants to edit in Pinnacle Studio would the MPEG-4 format at 1920x1080 12000 kbits/sec 29.97 frames/sec be the best? On backups, my last camcorder was tape based and I always felt better that I had that as a backup. But now with the SD cards I am worried about having my backup on my hard drive in case it failed.

[poisondeathray]

Nope, it creates/authors the BD disc structure, so you will have multiple files and folder structure. I don't have popcorn hour, so I don't know if it will work with it (you might be able to mount an ISO for example)

For menus/transitions and re-encoding 12Mb/s is quite low, so you will be losing significant quality, but it also depends on the content complexity a lot. If there is lots of movement, scene changes etc.... it will look very bad. Remember your original was 24Mb/s, so you would need at least that much and usually more for slightly worse quality (it only gets worse, never equivalent quality using lossy compression that's why you always archive your originals). Do some tests and see if the quality loss is "acceptable"

You could still use DVD media for backup, but it's bulky/clutter and not always reliable either. For important stuff, make multiple backups.

[TBoneit]

Buy new SD cards and put the ones you worry about losing the video on the shelf.

Fortunately you have lots of small files so you could back them up to two sets of DVDs.

Good Luck

[2Bdecided]

Buy new SD cards and put the ones you worry about losing the video on the shelf.

I don't think that's good advice.

No digital storage is perfect or long term, but I'm guessing that DVD-Rs and HDDs are both cheaper and better bets than SD cards.

I could be wrong. I don't recall anyone testing SD cards for long term storage, as that's not what they're designed for.

Cheers,
David.

[Blackhawk1]

I have been playing around with the different file types to burn my video too in Pinnacle Studio 14. I have found that using the file type called "MPEG-TS" I can use the custom feature to change the data rate. It shows I can increase it all the way to 40,000 kbits/sec. I increased it to just 24,000, because thats what the original video was set-up. I checked the created file with mediainfo and it showed the following:
22.9 mbps 1920x1080 (16:9) at 29.970 FPS AVC (main@L4.1) (CABC/2 Ref Frames)

the orginal mts files show:
22.7 mbps 1920x1080 (16:9) at 29.970 FPS AVC (High@L4.0) (CABC/2 Ref Frames)

Two questions:
This means the quality of the video is virtually the same, right?
Increasing the data rate all the way to 40,000 won't make the video any better because it was recorded at 24,000, right?
Sorry if the above questions are dumb as I am new to this but I am learning by reading the forums here.

[poisondeathray]

It might look similar in quality, but you're re-encoding using a lossy format. Each time you re-encode you will lose quality. Using a higher bitrate minimizes that quality loss. So the 40Mbps will be higher quality than the 24Mbps for sure, but whether or not you can visually tell the difference is another matter

There will be a point of diminishing returns, and it also depends on the complexity of your content, noise and motion which all require more bitrate for the same quality. Most consumer camcorders can't even fill the 1080p frame completely (they are upscaled images)

Just do some tests, and settle on a level that is good enough for you. I can tell you with certainty , however, that 12Mb/s is probably too low for most types of content

[anichin]

I have been playing around with the different file types to burn my video too in Pinnacle Studio 14. I have found that using the file type called "MPEG-TS" I can use the custom feature to change the data rate. It shows I can increase it all the way to 40,000 kbits/sec. I increased it to just 24,000, because thats what the original video was set-up. I checked the created file with mediainfo and it showed the following:
22.9 mbps 1920x1080 (16:9) at 29.970 FPS AVC (main@L4.1) (CABC/2 Ref Frames)

the orginal mts files show:
22.7 mbps 1920x1080 (16:9) at 29.970 FPS AVC (High@L4.0) (CABC/2 Ref Frames)

Two questions:
This means the quality of the video is virtually the same, right?
Increasing the data rate all the way to 40,000 won't make the video any better because it was recorded at 24,000, right?
Sorry if the above questions are dumb as I am new to this but I am learning by reading the forums here.

I have HD video camera and am trying to create Blu-ray disk with Pinnacle Studio 14.


Media info produces the following for the original video clip (.mts file copied from the camcorder):

First video stream:
7 278 Kbps, 1440*1080 (16:9), at 29.970 fps, AVC (High@L4) (CABAC / 2Ref Frames)

First video stream:
448 Kbps, 48.0 KHz, 6 channels, AC-3

The file size is 103,296 KB


In Pinnacle I use the pre-set:
Disk type: Blu-ray Disk
Video quality: Best Quality
Audio compression: Dolby Digital 5.1
Kbits/sec: 40000 (fixed, set to the maximum)

The result is:

First video stream:
24.7 Mbps, 1440*1080 (16:9), at 29.970 fps, AVC (Main@L4.1) (CABAC / 2Ref Frames)

First video stream:
448 Kbps, 48.0 KHz, 6 channels, AC-3

I used only part of the clip. The original is 1 min 45 sec. The produced file is 43 seconds.
The file size of produced file is 139,200 KB

My question is why the produced file is bigger than the original even only part of the clip was used? Also there must be some quality lose because
of decodin / encoding.

Is there a way to not loose quality if I am not adding additional content (voice overs, sound tracks, transitions, etc).
Why it uses different video encoding?

[morango]

Hi, just doing some research for my dad, he has pinnacle 15 and a Sony NXCAM which cost an arm and a leg. it records proper 1080p at can do upto 60fps, but we have been using 25fps.

We both dont know much about all the new settings and formats etc.

The quality on the original videos straight from the camara are phenomenal, and i have been playing around with the different formats in pinnacle... i have noticed a slight degradation on all of the different formats, but the all seem to be about the same on the HD settings.

Is there a definitive best format to use? or does it not really matter as they are all almost the same?

We are saving the video's to harddisk, naking dvd's and blu rays, dont care about the size of the video as long as there are at the maximum possible quality.

Cheers

[tecstar]

Buy new SD cards and put the ones you worry about losing the video on the shelf.

I don't think that's good advice.

No digital storage is perfect or long term, but I'm guessing that DVD-Rs and HDDs are both cheaper and better bets than SD cards.

I could be wrong. I don't recall anyone testing SD cards for long term storage, as that's not what they're designed for.

Cheers,
David.

Agree, spend £60 on a large external Hard Disk and keep your files on that. (Buy 2 if you want a secure backup)