Questions for combining video files in various formats into home movies.

[tmaxx00]

Background - I have been transferring home videos from various sources (MiniDV and Phone) to my computer and adding into MovieMaker and Corel Visual Studio for creating family movies.
It seems when I look at the details (file format, bit rate, data rate etc) for each of the video files, the specs vary widely. Ultimately, what I am trying to accomplish is to create a movie for each year that I can store on a external SSD drive and watch on our big screen TV. I want to create the movies in a format which is viewable in the future.
My questions:
1) Assuming the file format of the original files are fixed, it seems then that whatever output file format I choose when creating my movie in VisualStudio can't be any higher resolution than the input files. See 1999_example1 image for example. The file "1999 Smokey Mountains 2009_01_01...." in WMV format was taken from a MiniDV. It has a data rate of 4000kbps. When I created the AVI file from VisualStudio, it has a data rate of 28923kbps. Should I have just stayed with the datarate and bitrate of the input file? Is there any benefit of going with a higher data rate and bit rate for the output file if the input file has lower rates?
2) For long term viewing capability, what is the best video format to use for my movies? I started with AVI and the files were rather large. Would it be better to go with another output file format for the movies? If so, can someone make a suggestion? See example 2010_example4. I tried MP4 format both standard and HD. The input file 12-25-2010-333 was 9856kbps and the 2010-new output file (HD) (created from VisualStudio) is 14263kbps whereas the 2010-new non hd file is 1152kbps. It seems the HD video was much higher datarate than the input file and the non-HD datarate was much lower than the input video file.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[lingyi]

First, welcome to the forums! Be patient and you'll get lots of great advice.

My $0.02

My apologies for being a bit blunt, but much of what you've asked has been asked and answered hundreds of times before. I recommend you search around the forums while you're waiting for other responses

Don't use an SSD or any flash media, USB drives, SD cards, etc. for archiving. They tend to have a lower failure rate than regular hard drives. However once they fail, they fail hard, i.e. all data is lost at once and while it may be possible to recover the data, it's highly unlikely and very, very expensive. In addition, hard drive storage, especially 4TB+ drives are at an all time low and based on this year's Black Friday prices aren't going to get any lower for a while.

I can't speak to the best file format or settings you should use since I keep all my videos in their original size/format, but I will recommend keeping your files in whatever size/format they're currently in. Yes, you can filter / tweak the videos to improve how they they look, but every filter/tweak reduces the quality to some extent.

I've said this many times and will say it many more. Don't spend time and money on trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Forget about encoding/tweaking your videos to play on the very limited capability on your HDTV and get a standalone media player. (<$50 - $150) that will play the majority of your videos just as they are. If you're in the U.S., Best Buy has the highly regarded Nvidia Shield for $140 or $160 with gamepad. Or spend ~$200 on a low cost laptop and wireless Windows remote/keyboard and you're guaranteed that with the possible exception of high bitrate 4K content, it will play everything your PC does.

Finally, another thing I've said too many times, but always worth repeating. Backup, backup, backup! 1-2-3 or 3-2-1, at least 1 original, 1 backup onsite and 1 offsite on different media (hard drive, optical media, cloud, tape, etc.). And backup everything! Original captures, transfers, work in progress and edited / encoded files. You never know when you or someone else will want to review and/or rework your videos Also, especially since these are family memories, don't be that sole curator of the files. Part of offsite backup is making sure someone else has access to your videos. Yes, it will cost you bit of money, but that's better than "Why yes kids, Grandpa did have lots of videos of your parents, but no one knows where they are!"

[tmaxx00]

See post below.

[tmaxx00]

First, welcome to the forums! Be patient and you'll get lots of great advice.

My $0.02

My apologies for being a bit blunt, but much of what you've asked has been asked and answered hundreds of times before. I recommend you search around the forums while you're waiting for other responses

Thanks for this feedback. After spending hours searching the web, I came across this site. After searching here for a bit, I posted. I will try searching more on these forums for assistance.

Don't use an SSD or any flash media, USB drives, SD cards, etc. for archiving. They tend to have a lower failure rate than regular hard drives. However once they fail, they fail hard, i.e. all data is lost at once and while it may be possible to recover the data, it's highly unlikely and very, very expensive. In addition, hard drive storage, especially 4TB+ drives are at an all time low and based on this year's Black Friday prices aren't going to get any lower for a while.

I've had one external hard drive (Western Digital) fail so far and I lost a year's worth of video. I had a back-up but hadn't backed up in a year Anyway, I have been worried that the external hard drives (with spinning HD) are less reliable due to the moving parts. I'll have to re-consider this after your input.

I can't speak to the best file format or settings you should use since I keep all my videos in their original size/format, but I will recommend keeping your files in whatever size/format they're currently in. Yes, you can filter / tweak the videos to improve how they they look, but every filter/tweak reduces the quality to some extent.

When I pulled my videos off of mini-DV tapes and digitized them, I used some settings which were probably the default since I didn't know much about what settings to use during conversion. So, I would say that I am keeping digitized files in the original format after digitizing. The next step is to take the files from the miniDV converted files and edit them in VisualStudio to select only the parts which I want to include in a movie. It's at this point that I am not sure what format to create the edited movie in. It seems you are implying that I should use whatever settings the original converted files (from miniDV) had. What is unclear is whether to use MP4, AVI, MP2, WMV....

I've said this many times and will say it many more. Don't spend time and money on trying to fit a square peg into a round hole. Forget about encoding/tweaking your videos to play on the very limited capability on your HDTV and get a standalone media player. (<$50 - $150) that will play the majority of your videos just as they are. If you're in the U.S., Best Buy has the highly regarded Nvidia Shield for $140 or $160 with gamepad. Or spend ~$200 on a low cost laptop and wireless Windows remote/keyboard and you're guaranteed that with the possible exception of high bitrate 4K content, it will play everything your PC does.

Typically, I just play the video on my computer and output the video to my TV over HDMI.

Finally, another thing I've said too many times, but always worth repeating. Backup, backup, backup! 1-2-3 or 3-2-1, at least 1 original, 1 backup onsite and 1 offsite on different media (hard drive, optical media, cloud, tape, etc.). And backup everything! Original captures, transfers, work in progress and edited / encoded files. You never know when you or someone else will want to review and/or rework your videos Also, especially since these are family memories, don't be that sole curator of the files. Part of offsite backup is making sure someone else has access to your videos. Yes, it will cost you bit of money, but that's better than "Why yes kids, Grandpa did have lots of videos of your parents, but no one knows where they are!"

Yes, I have learned this the hard way.

[JVRaines]

When I pulled my videos off of mini-DV tapes and digitized them, I used some settings which were probably the default since I didn't know much about what settings to use during conversion.

If you used FireWire (IEEE1394), then what you got from the camera was already digital video in the DV format. I agree with the post above that it's best to keep your files in their original format and use a player that has playlist capability to put together your "movies," unless you want to do cutting and transitions and titles and such. Every time you re-encode in a lossy format (which is the majority of codecs), you shave off a bit more quality.

[lingyi]

The long term jury is still out on SSDs because they haven't been around long enough and the components and technology are still evolving. So making a true comparison against HDDs which have been around for decades is still a long way off.

Also, not only are SSDs way more expensive than large capacity HDDs, they often don't give usually don't give warning signs (slowing down, whining, ticking) before failure. And a quick search for 1TB SSDs shows that I can buy two regular 1TB drives (instant backup) or one 6TB or possibly one 8 or 10TB external for the same price. We're all on a miniscule scan compared to data centers, but if SSDs were such a great cost/reliability scale, they'd all be using SSDs and of course they're not.

The regulars on this forum of are probably sick of my my posting about his, but I've gone through dozens of external hard drives over the past 10-15 years and I'm convinced it's either the USB interface or the external power supply that must be cheap with a capital 'C' as externals are an absolute bargain (maybe) when compared to the cost of an equivalent internal drive (there's no special run of drives for use in external cases). There's a HIGH probability that if you took out your drive from the case, it's just the interface or power supply that failed. IF the failure really took out your data, but the drive still spins up, reformat it and run Crystaldisk Info. As long as it shows green, your drive is as good to go (less the hours of use you put on it) as the day you got it.

So don't buy external mechanical drives? No, they're the best bargain in HDDs today, possibly even if you lose the warranty. More on this below.

If you're going to use it as an external, be sure to unplug the USB cable only on the PC end (unplugging and plugging at the drive wears out the connector and I suspect causes a slight electrical shock (I've seen a spark fly between the jack and the port) and plug/unplug the external power supply (if there is one) only at the outlet, again wear and tear on the jack on the case and possible risk of electrical shock to the components. If your external drive is a portable, get a dual USB 3.0 cable like this: https://www.amazon.com/Micro-B-External-Seagate-Toshiba-Enclosure/dp/B005M0ICG2/ref=sr...+usb+3.0+cable that ensures your drive is getting enough power to work correctly.

Now to what I really suggest. Either pay the extra for an internal drive and use it in good (i.e. metal case with a cooling fan) external case or in an external dock or multi-drive external case. Or since external drives are the bargain today (for 4TB+), get an external and remove it from the case after testing with CrystalDiskInfo (they do come DOA or bad out of the box) and reformatting to NTSC if you're on a PC (Ex-FAT) for Mac to doublecheck the integrity of the drive and remove any, usually unneeded software and odd formatting. Oh, forgot, run CrystalDiskInfo again just to be sure. Then, warning this MAY void your warranty (I just sent an opened WD drive in for warranty replacement and will report back), remove the drive from the case and use it an a good external case or dock/multi-drive enclosure.

Edit: Another thing I do, use the drive to or just beyond the warranty period end, typically 1-2 years for externals, 3 for internals, then move it for use as an archive drive. This serves two purposes. First, if it's going to fail, it's likely to happen in the first few weeks/months of use and second, by the time I'm ready to buy its replacement, drive prices have likely gone down or I can get a larger drive for the same price as the original. Scared to lose 8 or 10TB in one go? I'm not, because I have recent backups! And yes, I've had it happen more times than I like, usually because of the loose nut behind the wheel!

[lingyi]

When I pulled my videos off of mini-DV tapes and digitized them, I used some settings which were probably the default since I didn't know much about what settings to use during conversion.

If you used FireWire (IEEE1394), then what you got from the camera was already digital video in the DV format. I agree with the post above that it's best to keep your files in their original format and use a player that has playlist capability to put together your "movies," unless you want to do cutting and transitions and titles and such. Every time you re-encode in a lossy format (which is the majority of codecs), you shave off a bit more quality.

I know virtually nothing about video editing (99.99% of what I have are movies or TV shows), but I thought that unless you're applying filters, cutting or adding effects outside the frames (other than the those between I-Frames) can be saved in its original form and format. I always figured if you're able to preview and edit it, you'd be able to play it back on the PC and possibly/probably an Android Media Box with the right codecs?