the right format for video cutting

[Aivc]

Hello all together,

can you tell me please what's the best video format for cutting and editing? Is there any video file format (or container format) really almost every program can handle?

I know it might be a unusual question, but I almost get rid of the formats I am working with - AVI stresses me all the time and I lost the overview across these thousands of codecs.

Hope anyone can help!

[guns1inger]

What is your source ?

[Aivc]

Let's think I want to rip a DVD into any file to work with.

But actually I was talking about any video file format. For instance, I know that FLV is a great video file format to work with. I never had any problems with out-of-sync audio or unmatching framerates. Even if I transcoded 25fps into 30, there was no problem, neither video nor sound.

[guns1inger]

flv is a horrible format to work with. It is designed for one reason, and one reason only - streaming downloads. It has no other purpose. No good editor works with it.

Wherever possible you should avoid re-encoding to another format. If you must, encode to a lossless format and accept the large filesizes while editing.

[Aivc]

flv is a horrible format to work with. It is designed for one reason, and one reason only - streaming downloads. It has no other purpose. No good editor works with it.

Wherever possible you should avoid re-encoding to another format. If you must, encode to a lossless format and accept the large filesizes while editing.

So if you say I should re-encode it to a lossless format, which one do you recommend or prefer yourself? I even don't know a lossless file format under Windows platform. Do you mean lossless and uncompressed or only lossless?

[filmboss80]

Guns1inger say to avoid encoding, but if you must, go with a lossless format (uncompressed, Lagarith, Huffyuv). Flv is so compressed (for streaming) that it is the WORST format for editing. If you are cutting a ripped DVD, your format would be MPEG2, but you must avoid a re-encode of anything other that transitions, effects, and cuts not directly I-frames.

[Aivc]

Guns1inger say to avoid encoding, but if you must, go with a lossless format (uncompressed, Lagarith, Huffyuv). Flv is so compressed (for streaming) that it is the WORST format for editing. If you are cutting a ripped DVD, your format would be MPEG2, but you must avoid a re-encode of anything other that transitions, effects, and cuts not directly I-frames.

And what would you tell me if my source files are FLV or MP4 files? Aspecially I am talking about Youtube videos?! What would you recommend me to convert them into?

[guns1inger]

It depends on what sort of editing you are intending to do. If it is simple assemble edits - i.e. trim a bit off here, add one clip to another - then you might not have to convert the files. Use AVI Demux, and if the files have the same basic parameters - same resolution/framerate/etc then you might be able to do basic editing and only have to re-encode then once at the end.

If, however, the resolutions or framerates don't match up, or want to do something more than simple editing, you will have to convert them to allow for editing in something more powerful. In that case I would suggest Huffyuv mainly because AVI Demux can encode to it, and is the most likely to read your source easily.