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  1. Member
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    I just had my old VHS/8mm films and tapes converted to MP4 format. And now I have to figure out what to do with 27+ hours of video.
    My current plan is to pick out snippets from the videos to create much shorter collections; for example a condensed version of my son's 6 years in Tae Kwon Do lessons.
    I'm not quite sure how to tackle this and what software to use.
    • Many of the MP4 files are more than 11GB in size (2 hours of VHS).
    • Should I get software to break these into smaller, more manageable file sizes first? All of the big files are actually many different "scenes" so there's no reason they all need to be in the same file.
    • It would be nice if both my husband and I can work on the editing from 2 different computers. The files are on my PC which he can access through our network. Due to the file sizes, should we move some of the big files to his PC? Or can this be done over the network?
    • Some of the videos have damaged or missing sound so it would be nice to add a background music track - or even be able to record our own commentary along with the video
    We are computer literate however we have only a little bit of video editing experience. I don't think we need a super powerful tool. It would be better to work with something easy to learn. I'm willing to pay for the software.

    Thanks in advance for any suggestions on where to start!
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  2. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Firstly, I seriously doubt that these files you have are .mp4. Even more seriously, if they are then I doubt the person who prepared these did not know what he was doing.

    But anyway. I would suggest you post a mediainfo report (text mode) of one of these 11 gig 'monsters' are we can get a better idea of your next move.
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  3. I have no idea why DB83 thinks your files cannot be mp4, or why the person that prepared them for you didn't know what they were doing. I see absolutely nothing in your post that would lead a person to either of those conclusions. Yes, mp4 is a delivery format, meaning that it is intended for viewing and not ideally suited for further editing.

    However, if you want to further edit them, you can do "cuts-only" edits without degrading the video at all. Cuts-only editing means simply taking out the bad stuff; adding new audio; and re-arranging the order of scenes.

    There are many software programs that can do what I just described, and do it with mp4 files, but one of the easiest to find and use is VideoRedo. It does cost a little money, but you can download a trial and see if it does what you want.

    VideoRedo

    I've used it many times to do exactly what you want to do. In addition, I have developed ways to do the actual edits in Vegas, which is my NLE and which I find much easier to use for edits, and then transfer the edit points from Vegas (which cannot do lossless cutting of MP4 files) into VideoRedo. I can post that, if you happen to already be proficient in Vegas.
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  4. Member
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    Here's the mediainfo. Perhaps it helps?

    General
    Complete name : G:\Videos\2018-03-ConvertedTapes\1994-12-TKD-soccer-birthdaywishes-xmas.mp4
    Format : MPEG-4
    Format profile : JVT
    Codec ID : avc1 (avc1/mp42)
    File size : 11.1 GiB
    Duration : 1 h 43 min
    Overall bit rate mode : Constant
    Overall bit rate : 15.4 Mb/s
    Movie name : December 1994
    Encoded date : UTC 2018-03-09 22:09:11
    Tagged date : UTC 2018-03-09 22:09:11
    Comment :

    Video
    ID : 1
    Format : AVC
    Format/Info : Advanced Video Codec
    Format profile : High@L3.1
    Format settings : CABAC / 2 Ref Frames
    Format settings, CABAC : Yes
    Format settings, RefFrames : 2 frames
    Format settings, GOP : M=3, N=30
    Codec ID : avc1
    Codec ID/Info : Advanced Video Coding
    Duration : 1 h 43 min
    Bit rate mode : Constant
    Bit rate : 15.0 Mb/s
    Width : 720 pixels
    Height : 480 pixels
    Display aspect ratio : 4:3
    Original display aspect ratio : 4:3
    Frame rate mode : Constant
    Frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
    Standard : NTSC
    Color space : YUV
    Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
    Bit depth : 8 bits
    Scan type : Progressive
    Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 1.448
    Stream size : 10.8 GiB (97%)
    Language : English
    Encoded date : UTC 2018-03-09 22:09:11
    Tagged date : UTC 2018-03-09 22:09:11

    Audio
    ID : 2
    Format : AAC
    Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
    Format profile : LC
    Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
    Duration : 1 h 43 min
    Source duration : 1 h 43 min
    Bit rate mode : Constant
    Bit rate : 384 kb/s
    Channel(s) : 2 channels
    Channel positions : Front: L R
    Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
    Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
    Compression mode : Lossy
    Stream size : 284 MiB (2%)
    Source stream size : 284 MiB (2%)
    Language : English
    Encoded date : UTC 2018-03-09 22:09:11
    Tagged date : UTC 2018-03-09 22:09:11
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  5. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Ok. I stand corrected about the .mp4. But I still declare that anyone who transfers vhs to SD .mp4 at a bit-rate of 15.0 Mb/s does not know what he is doing.

    That being said, you have had one suggestion for software. Although you did say you did not want anything 'super powerful' maybe a consumer (not the pro) version of Vegas is appropriate. Again, you usually have a trial period to get to know the program.

    You do have a problem though with this high bit-rate. Simple edits with no-reencoding will still leave you with huge files. Re-encode at a more appropriate bitrate for the .mp4 container and you will lose quality and VHS is not brilliant to start with.

    So before you consider editing it may be more appropriate to convert these .mp4's to a lossless avi format huffyuv or lagarith. Trim/edit and then re-encode for final delivery.

    No expert on networks so you may be able to access the files from a network drive. But the software, I guess, will be single-user so it's one file for one person. So two people can not edit the same file at the same time. The pro version of Vegas might allow for that but that will probably be overkill for you anyway.

    Maybe a more pertinent question is how you intend to view these ie over the network to a video-player, DVD, Blu-ray etc.........
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  6. Originally Posted by DB83 View Post
    Re-encode at a more appropriate bitrate for the .mp4 container and you will lose quality and VHS is not brilliant to start with.
    I completely missed that. Yes, I agree: it is a waste of disk space encoding at such a high bitrate for VHS SD material.
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  7. Well , it is not a mistake I guess, someone was just making sure, I guess. With such a small resolution you blow up any tiny artifacts if watching on a big screen. So you do not want to have any banding visible. Or lossless format in avi container would be better solution if following work was expected. They should communicate about this before.

    Reading those specs, there might be a problem though, if that footage was originally VHS:
    Frame rate : 29.970 (30000/1001) FPS
    Scan type : Progressive

    that could mean fields were blended into one frame. What you want to have here is keeping interlace or making double frame rate if wanting progressive.
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  8. Member
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    Thanks for the responses. I am not familiar with VideoRedo or Vegas but I will take the time to do some learning about them.
    I am fully aware that VHS is not brilliant however that's what existed at the time we took those videos. So I'm stuck with that.
    I don't know much about bitrates so I haven't a clue how to re-encode them. And I certainly don't want to lose any quality since what I have is pretty awful to start with.
    Can I break up the MP4 videos into pieces without losing any quality by simply outputting/exporting them in the same format they are already in?

    As for editing, most likely we'll just add a title screen and perhaps a few text panels here and there which provide the explanation for when and where the video was taken and who is in it. And then we'll splice together snippets of whatever the particular subject is.

    As for your very pertinent question, I think the most useful result will be files that can be viewed on a computer screen. I doubt I'll create DVDs. I may upload some of them to YouTube to share with friends/family or perhaps put them on a flashdrive to give as gifts to friends/family.

    I hope that helps clarify what I'm trying to do. Thanks again
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  9. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Another program you may wish to look at is Corel Video Studio.

    If I may make an immediate suggestion. Seek out avidemux and crop a 20 second (A/B edit) sample of one of these 'monsters'. Select 'copy' for both audio and video and save the file as mp4. Upload that sample here so we can give more appropriate advice given there appears to be other issues with your source material.
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  10. Titles in video needs re-encoding for that part and about something before or after if VideoRedo is capable to include titles.
    Vegas would re-encode the whole video in any case.

    Other solution is just cut video into clips, using VideoRedo, Avidemux or perhaps there is more solutions, and then to name those clips appropriately:
    1994-04-20-soccer.mp4
    1994-06-30-birthdaywishes.mp4
    1994-12-24-Xmas.mp4

    or you could go even deeper and making folders for any event with lots of subclips
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  11. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Does'nt Vegas still have a 'use first video as project' setting ? Or is that just for the pro version ?

    But in any event I still think that these 'monsters' need a diet Imagine trying to upload just part of that to yt who are gonna re-encode the £$%^ out of it regardless.
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  12. Not sure if Vegas Studio has the same feature, I'd guess so. You more likely need a help in this regard using Studio version.
    Originally Posted by DB83 View Post
    Imagine trying to upload just part of that to yt who are gonna re-encode the £$%^ out of it regardless.
    Then I'd use other software that works for that, VideoRedo, Avidemux. And you know, this is not a bulletproof process. Imagine a Pro Tool like Vegas, people have different kind of videos on timeline, different GOP's, transport streams and then what? You need to have reliable export, guaranteed playback. This would backfire for them in a big way.
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    Originally Posted by DB83 View Post
    If I may make an immediate suggestion. Seek out avidemux and crop a 20 second (A/B edit) sample of one of these 'monsters'. Select 'copy' for both audio and video and save the file as mp4. Upload that sample here so we can give more appropriate advice given there appears to be other issues with your source material.
    OK, I've done that. I used avidemux. Hopefully I've attached it correctly. Can you elaborate on the "other issues" you are concerned about?
    Thanks again
    Image Attached Files
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  14. One issue is - it is 29.970p (deinterlaced perhaps by blending fields). That does not limit you to cut this video further or work with it, but half of temporal resolution was lost.

    it should stay 29.970i (interlaced as VHS is) or perhaps deinterlaced, but to 59.94p (deinterlaced to double frame rate)
    it was done like that in the past (deinterlaced to 29.97p), but today, if insisting on deinterlacing and making video progressive, deinterlace to double frame rate to keep temporal resolution seams a good idea
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  15. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Thank you for the clip.

    Now if you look at that closely you see a combing effect at the edges of people and objects especially during movement. Little doubt that was a consequence of the de-interlacing done during the original capture. And there is little I suspect you can do about it now without resort to low level tools. Not the work for a video editor.
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    Thank you both for your replies. So that leads me to a couple of questions.
    • Once I have chosen the software to do the editing (such as adding title frames for example), what output format should I use in order to prevent any further loss of quality. Should I output back to the exact same specs as the original? Are there any other choices that would give me the same video/audio quality that would be better (or perhaps have a smaller file size)?
    • If/when I have more VHS tapes converted to digital, how should I request the conversion be done? I'm afraid I don't know enough about interlacing or progressive to explain what I'm looking for.
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  17. Originally Posted by deb27 View Post
    • If/when I have more VHS tapes converted to digital, how should I request the conversion be done? I'm afraid I don't know enough about interlacing or progressive to explain what I'm looking for.
    that is answered frequently on this forum, there is no simple answer, even members on this forum would disagree
    so briefly, you capture video into interlaced 29.970, that is for sure, then there is a question, what format? Bitrate usually comes with that format decision. There is a consensus that you suppose to capture into AVI container, not MP4.
    You can capture into DV avi which is about 25Mbit/s, you can further edit this. Advantage, it is good for storing and you can add titles and videoeditors would export DVavi as well and they would re-compress only parts that were changed. Of course you can export also to MP4. Doing so with software (and not with hardware while capturing VHS) encoder has lots of time to encode video properly, it does not have to be encoded in real time . DVavi is sampled 4:1:1 (NTSC DV).

    Also you can capture into AVI with some lossless codec in it (lagarith, utvideo, hufyuv), then edit it and only then export final MP4 video file. But those lossless files are much bigger than DVavi. You can also choose capture those lossless codecs set to 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 (4:2:2 has more color information, but bigger files than 4:2:0). People capture into 4:2:2 if enhancing video further. That gives better wiggle room for enhancements, video repair or final encoding as well.
    Originally Posted by deb27 View Post
    • Once I have chosen the software to do the editing (such as adding title frames for example), what output format should I use in order to prevent any further loss of quality. Should I output back to the exact same specs as the original? Are there any other choices that would give me the same video/audio quality that would be better (or perhaps have a smaller file size)?
    If targeting quality, you encode using quality encoding. You basically choose a value that suppose to represent quality. If using some encoding software that uses x264 encoder (encodes H264) you look for CRF or RF settings. If choosing 17 you get visually about the same quality. Lower value improves quality and is more aproximate to original but videosize is bigger. If you increase that value , quality drops down and videosize is smaller.

    Original videosize and bitrate has little to do with resulting encoding quality. It is not a "flag" what bitrate suppose to be selected while encoding.
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  18. Member DB83's Avatar
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    Just my 2 cents here.

    Even with this high bitrate it has not given you anything better than a more typical one for the .mp4 container format. Unfortunately, any editing as you propose will probably require a re-encode so that will lose some quality. Lower the bitrate to make the videos smaller in size and that will also mean a loss of quality. Essentially you are in a no win situation although you can minimise the loss by doing as I previously stated by converting first to a lossless format such as huffyuv or lagarith BEFORE any editing.

    As to your second question it might be better to see what that guy offers and then come back. I still feel he has done a quick 'n dirty job but charged you max for the privilege.

    Even so it has already been stated that an interlaced source such as VHS should be captured interlaced. Some will disagree here but DV will give you no worse a result and larger files at the point of capture. Easier to edit and you can re-encode them to smaller/manageable sizes. Lossless captures will result in even larger files but will be even easier to edit. If he only offers what you have right now I respectfully suggest you look elsewhere.
    Last edited by DB83; 19th Apr 2018 at 14:31.
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