lossless conversion to alternate containers

[krohm]

i have posted this in the newbie video conversion section but didnt get any help other than to say it cant be done and to go get xvid4psp which doesnt do all my videos anyways and changes the audio/video quality in the process.


wanting to get a video converter that can convert any video to mpg2/vob/h264 without a change in its quality. seemingly a simple request but trying handbrake, winff, mediacoder avanti and every other bloody video coder under the sun i cant get a program to complete this simple task.

this is what everyone wants after all- a video converter that copies the video and audio and only changes the container so it can be read by video editing software or read by a ps3 xbox or whatever. why isnt this a simple program download and simple function. so frustrating.

pleaseeeeee what can we do here. if only media coder did what it promised out of the box. !!!

there must be a way to do this, i dont believe it cant be done. if the size of the file doesnt matter surely this can be done somehow. if it cant as some have told me, WHY, what do i need to understand here. please help further as this is the one goal that everyone seems to share

[jagabo]

Not all containers hold all types of video and audio.

VOB2MPG can remux MPG2 video and AC3 audio from a VOB container into an MPG container.

YAMB can remux into an MP4 container.

MkvMerge can remux into MKV.

TsMuxer can mux into TS and M2TS containers.

[guns1inger]

I use Xvid4PSP for re-packaging all the time without any issues.

However, as pointed out, you can just shove any old video type into any old container.

[minidv2dvd]

However, as pointed out, you can just shove any old video type into any old container.

i think you may have left out the " 't " from can.

the op has much to learn, i wouldn't bother trying to change it's mind.

[manono]

He seems to think he'll get an answer more to his liking by starting a new thread, where the question was already answered many times in the old one:

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic368996.html#1974918

please help further as this is the one goal that everyone seems to share

Nope. The only ones that 'share' this goal are people that don't know jack. Being aggressively and arrogantly obnoxious won't bring you any closer to your 'goal'.

[krohm]

it ? im not an it.

i can accept that different applications may be required for different containers. given that, im still unable to find a converter that can convert all videos to mpg2 or mp4 without loss of quality. such a simple request that none of the applications are able to do. why ? if im not able to do this as advisd in the post in the newbie conversion section, why not, what do i need to learn/understand ?

its such a simple question that i cant believe i cant get a simple answer on this. if i cant do it, why.. doesnt seem logical that you are unable to convert to another container without loss of quality. rather then just tell me what you use like most people do tell me what i need to complete this simple task. please. .... ??

[Safesurfer]

Perhaps this will help.

Can you stick a croc in a kangaroo's pouch and get a cute joey?

Or put Dame Edna in a string bikini and get a Bondi Beach lovely?

[krohm]

The only ones that 'share' this goal are people that don't know jack. Being aggressively and arrogantly obnoxious won't bring you any closer to your 'goal'.

people who dont know jack? maybe they dont know jack because people like yourself are unable to communicate effectively.
ild say your response is arrogant, aggressive and obnoxious. not mine. unbelievable

aggressive ? arrogant ?? obnoxious ? wtf are you talking about. i know nothing and am asking questions. how is that arrogant? how is it aggressive? because i dont ask the question the way you want ? turn ur misguided perception in on yourself.

great post though. really glad you are trying to help the ppl that dont know jack with some information so they can learn more and understand the problems they are having. VIDEOHELP.com = video help, right ? not for you obviously.

[poisondeathray]

im still unable to find a converter that can convert all videos to mpg2 or mp4 without loss of quality.

Because MPEG2 is inherently lossy, so what you ask is impossible.

.mp4 is just a container, it's what's inside that matters

Encoding using a lossless codec will result in a filesize many times larger than your original

You can stream copy some formats into some containers, but "all videos" never falls into that category, so you have to be more specific

[krohm]

Perhaps this will help.
Can you stick a croc in a kangaroo's pouch and get a cute joey?
Or put Dame Edna in a string bikini and get a Bondi Beach lovely?

it did help. immensely.

so far with these responses im really glad i joined this polluted forum. amazing these simple questions have created these type of responses

[krohm]

Encoding using a lossless codec will result in a filesize many times larger than your original

You can stream copy some formats into some containers, but "all videos" never falls into that category, so you have to be more specific

so you can stream copy to some containers with large file sizes?

in regards to all videos, what are the limitations here, all videos can be converted to some format or another right?

file size is not an issue as long as it can copy with the least ammount of quality loss as possible. reason i ask for mpeg2 or mp4 is because then it can be edited in frame by frame video editing software i have (total videoredo).

[poisondeathray]

so you can stream copy to some containers with large file sizes?

in regards to all videos, what are the limitations here, all videos can be converted to some format or another right?

file size is not an issue as long as it can copy with the least ammount of quality loss as possible. reason i ask for mpeg2 or mp4 is because then it can be edited in frame by frame video editing software i have (total videoredo).

What is your end goal?

MPEG2 is lossy, but if you use a very high bitrate you can minimize some losses. .mp4 again is just a container, and provides very little information

If you use a lossless intermediate, e.g. lagarith, or huffyuv, they can be edited in many editors, even free ones like virtualdub or paid NLE's like Premiere or Vegas. By converting to a lossless intermediate, all frames are I-frames and it can be edited with frame accuracy. The filesize will be huge, but no quality loss until you export (if you use a lossy export format)

[krohm]

end goal is frame by frame editing of the original video. but to edit the original video i need to convert it to a container the video editor will read. hence the question of all videos to a specific container.

ok so if i want to use a lossless intermediate, that will allow me to convert any video to a format that vegas will recognise? but the file size will be huge? thats fine if its huge.

frame to frame editing is what i require essentially.

if the filesize is huge i can edit that, and export again losslessly right?

thanks for the reply man, seem to be getting somewhere..

[minidv2dvd]

you just don't understand digital video. mpeg-2 and mpeg-4 don't have individual frames(complete still pictures). they have i, p and b frames. i frames contain a complete picture, but b and p frames don't. long gop videos like these reference the i frame and then changes from it or other frames.

the only way to have all complete frames is with uncompressed video or lossless compression. the file size is huge..... and when you convert it to anything else there is the same loss of quality as if you went directly from the original source. as in mpeg-2 -> lossless -> mpeg-4 = mpeg-2-> mpeg-4. there is no difference. the in-between steps all require re-encoding.

[poisondeathray]

end goal is frame by frame editing of the original video. but to edit the original video i need to convert it to a container the video editor will read. hence the question of all videos to a specific container.

ok so if i want to use a lossless intermediate, that will allow me to convert any video to a format that vegas will recognise? but the file size will be huge? thats fine if its huge.

frame to frame editing is what i require essentially.

if the filesize is huge i can edit that, and export again losslessly right?

thanks for the reply man, seem to be getting somewhere..

What kind of "frame to frame" editing? Just cutting and pasting? or things like transitions and effects or overlays?

Yes, you can import and export a lossless format. But all lossless formats are huge in terms of bitrate or filesize. And once you encode to your final destination (e.g. it might be blu-ray or dvd or youtube etc...), losses are usually incurred at that point

If you already have Vegas, you can also input most formats directly without the lossless intermediate stage and export as lossless. There are only some specific situations that you would use a lossless import. e.g. most input sources like DVD or camcorder you can input directly and you would gain nothing by using the intermediate as import.

[krohm]

no i dont understand digital video, its all new to me. gotta start somewhere


when i edit a dvd by importing a vob to an editing program, it edits frame to frame. do dvds use i frames ?

all the transitions and effects can be done after importing whatever video into the editing program though, yeah?

ok but if you encode at the final destination, ie when burning to a bluray, the loss of quality will be as minimal as possible if its been kept lossless the entire way. thats basically where im coming from. if you follow me..

[poisondeathray]

no i dont understand digital video, its all new to me. gotta start somewhere


when i edit a dvd by importing a vob to an editing program, it edits frame to frame. do dvds use i frames ?

all the transitions and effects can be done after importing whatever video into the editing program though, yeah?

ok but if you encode at the final destination, ie when burning to a bluray, the loss of quality will be as minimal as possible if its been kept lossless the entire way. thats basically where im coming from. if you follow me..

DVD's use MPEG2, so they follow the I,P,B scheme minidv2dvd outlined above. When you make cuts that are not on I-frames (actually at the end of the GOP and before the next I-frame to be more precise), "smart editors" will re-encode the few frames around the cutsite to re-construct the GOP sequence for MPEG2 (e.g. videoredo will do this), but leave the rest intact (pass through)

As a general rule , you do want to maintain lossless as much as possible in the workflow, but please understand for what you are doing, importing the MPEG2 directly vs. lossless intermediate gains nothing in your case (it's a waste of time and HD space).

[minidv2dvd]

no - dvds use mpeg-2 which has i, p, and b frames. anything other than an i frame has to be reconstructed from an i frame and the changes from it, to the current frame.

yes.

yes. the fewer re-encodes that happen the less quality will be lost.

[krohm]

essentially what im wanting to do is convert ALL video to X codec X container (lossless) then be able to edit those in X video editor then export that to a bluray and get the minimal loss at the end when authoring. given that, i need to look at what codec/container ???

and given that codec/container combo what video editor should i look at, i guess most would import the same codecs/containers and video editor is just personal preference etc.. so doesnt really matter..

so huffyuv codec is lossless should i get a converter that converts alll video to huffyuv then i can frame edit all my video in whatever video editor ?

[krohm]

not a waste of time because im unable to edit all these videos (losslessly) unless i do this.

[krohm]

i guess it is a waste though, because the quality of the video is not that great in the first place so leads me back to the option of just converting all the video to mpg so i can frame edit in that way. dam.

[poisondeathray]

It is a waste of time from what you have described so far. You would get the same results from (e.g. if you were using say a DVD MPEG2 source):

a) importing huffyuv intermediate & editing in NLE

b) importing directly & editing in NLE

At which point the export format decision determines how much loss you will incur

Don't convert to MPEG2 as an intermediate editing format, unless your final format goal is MPEG2. (you would incur an extra stage of generation loss, when you convert to the final format)

[krohm]

yah. so leads us back to an mpg converter that can do as close to lossless mpg conversion as possible.. consdering the original video is going to be not that great a quality

[poisondeathray]

Impossible. MPEG2 is lossy...

Just edit it directly in a NLE.

Also if your source is SD (like a DVD) and you are planning a blu-ray, don't expect any improvement in quality. It will only look worse (unless you used the original streams to author).

If most your sources were DVD (MPEG2), you can make a SD MPEG2 blu-ray, and author it with multiavchd, but all SD content looks like crap on the HD screen. If you only had minor editing, you could use smart rendering and allow most sections to pass through and lose no quality in those sections

[krohm]

but most of the video editing software ive tried wont allow editing of allll my videos. hence the conversion issue...

[poisondeathray]

What are your source formats?
What editors have you tried?
Exactly what type of editing do you want to do? (just cut & paste or fancy stuff)

You can use the lossless intermediate, but for most full functioned editors like Premiere or Vegas it's not required for what you want to do

[krohm]

source formats are everything, from mkv to mp4 to flv wmv divx, dvd, m2ts everything you can possibly imagine.

atm, ive only really dabbled in vegas but far from used it on any extensive level as i really wanna get this codec/container issue sorted so i can start pooring through all the video i have.

fancy stuff is the goal but initially i wanna get all the source material and cut up the frame to frame sequences i want of it all then get deeper into the editing from there. but the frame to frame cutting is what i wanna get really underway first..

[poisondeathray]

If you already have Vegas, I would just import all the clips that I could natively, and for the ones that don't work, (either because of container or video codec or whaterver) use a lossless intermediate

If this was for a project (you mentioned blu-ray?), I wouldn't bother editing the individual clips to frame accuracy beforehand, because that can all be done in the editor when you put it all together (it would be a waste of time)

[krohm]

yeah is for a project.. yeah i think your right on the frame accuracy, will do that when putting it all together and just rough cut clip the videos for now

ok, so what lossless intermediate should i use for the videos that wont import to vegas.. how do i do this...

thanks heaps man im obviously just getting into all this, you really given me a good base to work from... cheers

[poisondeathray]

ok, so what lossless intermediate should i use for the videos that wont import to vegas.. how do i do this...

Commonly used lossless compression codecs are lagarith and huffyuv. Lagarith offers better compression, but it's slower in terms of encoding and decoding

As for how to do it, there are many ways, and sometimes it depends on the input format. I would usually use avisynth (using a simple 1 line source filter script) and virtualdub to encode to .avi container which contains the lossless video and PCM audio. If you want specific instructions, come back with a specific example (because the source format determines what script you would use, but the generic swiss army knife would be DirectShowSource() )