Add together QuickTime videos

[Theoassou]

I am new with video editing and on this forum.
I have several QuickTime video's that I want to compile into one bigger video.
With the tool I have (VideoImpression2) I have to convert it into AVI, MPEG or whatever.
When I do that, the quality decreases dramaticaly.
What can I do to join video's and keep the original quality?
Thanks and regards,
Theo

[Baldrick]

Have they all same properties? Same video resolution, framerate, video and audio codecs?

Then should you be able to join without reconverting.

You can try Video to VIdeo Converter, under Tools->Join video and open your mov files, ok, select direct stream copy, change container to mp4, save/convert as a new mp4 video.

Mpeg streamclip can do this but it's not simple, you must use the edit->select all, edit->copy, open next movie, edit->paste clip and last File->Save as to save without reconverting.

Quicktime Pro can also do this, search quicktime pro join for several tutorials/videos.



If the videos doesn't have same properties must you reconvert. In VideoImpression try choose mp4 with h264 video and use a higher quality/bitrate setting.

[Theoassou]

Thanks for your quick reply!
I am going to try the possibilities you mentioned. I also found that Windows Movie Maker does the trick.
I'll compare all the options. Thanks again.
Theo

[Baldrick]

Windows movie maker always reconverts=losing quality. But the quality might be good enough.

[Theoassou]

My trial with movie maker was succesfull in a way that the quality is good enough but.......
The file I get is huge! (900MB for 6 minutes video.....)
Is there a compression that keeps the quality at a reasonable level?
Thanks again.
Theo

[Theoassou]

By the way, mp4 is not an option in VideoImpression I have, otherwise I would have choosen it for sure.....

[Baldrick]

In wmm try choose another quality settings like Windows Media Portable Device 1 Mbits or Windows Media DVD Quality 3 Mbps.


In VideoImpression try choose avi with divx or xvid with 1-2 Mbit/s bitrate.


Or join with the simple freemake video converter(adware!), load all movs, at top right choose join, select to mp4, select quality setting, convert.

[fvisagie]

Windows movie maker always reconverts=losing quality.

While that's generally true, there's one exception for the record. When saving DV input to DV output, it uses direct rendering for unmodified frames. One way of easily confirming this is the fact that DV datecodes are retained.

Cheers,
Francois

[Cornucopia]

But with DV output, the huge files you've been seeing will be dwarfed by the HUGER! DV files!!

Scott

[fvisagie]

Yes, that was for the record, I wasn't suggesting the use of DV here.

[Theoassou]

Thank you all for your contributions....
My problem still exists....
Baldrick:
I tried ALL options in VideoImpression2, they all gave poor quality.
I downloaded VDC, but it only seems to work for videos that I download..... I cannot find how to use my videos allready on my pc.......

Cheers,
theo