Need advice on compressing video from digital camera

[lopardo]

I have quite a lot of videos from my Canon digital camera and they are taking up too much space, so I want to compress them.

I have done a fair amount of video transcoding/compression before, so I'm not a total newbie, but I'm not sure how to accomplish this task now.

What tools and video format should I use, considering that:
- The tools should allow to batch process the files.
- The final video should have a good quality.

I attached a screen capture of GSpot showing details of one of the files.

Thanks.

[45tripp]

- The tools should allow to batch process the files.

most things do.

- The final video should have a good quality.

how much compression.
mpeg2, mpeg4, h264
are all valid choices. You can draw a hifgh level of quality from all.

I have quite a lot of videos from my Canon digital camera and they are taking up too much space, so I want to compress them.

buy a Harddrive,
back them up.
often suggested, according to importance of media.


tripp

[lopardo]

- The tools should allow to batch process the files.

most things do.

Could you name some? Or is there an article that shows a comparison of the different tools?

- The final video should have a good quality.

how much compression.
mpeg2, mpeg4, h264
are all valid choices. You can draw a hifgh level of quality from all.

Again, is there an article that shows a comparison between them?

I have quite a lot of videos from my Canon digital camera and they are taking up too much space, so I want to compress them.

buy a Harddrive,
back them up.
often suggested, according to importance of media.

I do have them backed up on my hard drives. I want to back them up on DVDs and I'm trying to reduce the number of DVDs required.

Thanks again.

[45tripp]

Could you name some? Or is there an article that shows a comparison of the different tools?

anything with a cli..
like mencoder, ffmpeg, x264, Hcenc, avs2avi...

a gui for one of the above like Avanti for ffmpeg which has a nice job control

Vdub, batch frontends for hcenc, CCE..

plenty.

[quote="lopardo"]
Again, is there an article that shows a comparison between them?

yes,
it called trial and error :P

in order of compression
h264>mpeg4>mpeg2
in order of processing power required
h264>mpeg4>mpeg2
in order of general compatibillity
mpeg2>mpeg4>h264

I do have them backed up on my hard drives. I want to back them up on DVDs and I'm trying to reduce the number of DVDs required.

the point being, buy a HD and backup to it,
rather than to DVDs.


tripp