Hi8 Video on DVD-R to Mp4??

[MicoMan]

Hi
I have about 30 DVD Recorder DVD-R's with Hi8 camcorder video (4:3) on which I would like to convert to Mp4 (I was thinking H264 codec) or the best video format for editing later.

Each DVD-R has 1.5 hours of video and I was hoping to get each one down to about 500mb. I have done one with a program and the quality was not great and it was over 2GB.

I have a limitation that my fastest PC is an Itel i3 first gen laptop with 2GB ram (could upgrade to 8gb if it helps) and it took 3 hours for the one disc I tried!!

What are my options to get the video in the best quality for the smallest size but not take too long for my laptop to convert?

Free and all in one programs prefered.

Any help appreciated.

[hech54]

Best Quality, Smallest File Size and "for later editing" NEVER go together in the same sentence/thought.

[sanlyn]

The so-so "quality" of recording Hi8 directly to lossy DVD is about as "quality" as the videos will be, which isn't saying that much. Re-encoding from MPEG2 to h264 does not "improve" anything, period. Encoding isn't the same as making a ZIP file, it's a very different process. Recording analog sources like Hi8 or VHS directly to lossy compression such as MPEG2 is not among the best ways of transferring analog to digital, even if one records directly to h264; the results depend on the condition of the source, the quality of playback and of the recorder, and the bitrate used for recording, among other things.

Re-encoding and/or making video and graphics "smaller" doesn't make anything "better". Usually, it makes things worse. You have three choices. The first is to leave the DVD-R's as they are. The second is to decode the DVD-R's to lossless avi, spend several months cleaning up compression artifacts and other problems in AVI, and carefully re-encoding (and even that method will entail some loss). The third choice is to do what you propose, and you've already seen the results.

[MicoMan]

The tapes were from 1996 and recording to DVD-R with S-video which was the best option in 2003. The tapes are no good now as they have lots of drop-outs when played.

I thought after 10 years I should make another copy but wanted to get away from optical media.

I was hoping to upload the video to my cloud account for safety as I don't trust external hard drives.

I know I can't make the quality any better but with the conversions I've done I can see blocking with mp4 which is not on the Mpeg2 DVD video. I see some blu-ray films converted to 700mb mp4 and they look amazing. I know it’s converted from a lot better source but there must be a better program and/or settings that will give me better results?

Any help appreciated

[jman98]

Blocking happens when the bit rate is too low for the video information that is being encoded. So you could try using a higher bit rate but as pointed out, it won't make your DVD sources better to do that. High definition sources on BluRay often compress rather well so it's not really an apples to apples comparison to compare that to you trying to re-encode DVD-R from Hi8 tapes.

[hech54]

The tapes were from 1996 and recording to DVD-R with S-video which was the best option in 2003. The tapes are no good now as they have lots of drop-outs when played.

I thought after 10 years I should make another copy but wanted to get away from optical media.

I was hoping to upload the video to my cloud account for safety as I don't trust external hard drives.

Your thinking is (almost) completely backwards. The BEST quality you will ever see of this footage is what you already have...the DVDs. Buy an external HDD and copy the DVDs to the external HDD. Burn DVD copies to quality media (Taiyo Yuden or Verbatim) and store them somewhere safe.....now you already have two backups of this footage.
Compared to the original DVD/MPEG2 footage...."MP4" is a complete bastard to "edit later".....and re-encoding to the highest possible bitrate MP4/H264 will not save you much space vs. the original DVD/MPEG2 footage....AND as mentioned earlier...it is harder to edit. There are plenty of FREE MPEG2 editors/cutters that will also edit lossless(no degradation of quality AT ALL).

Re-encoding the MPEG2 footage to a more manageable size that is uploadable to a cloud storage WILL result in a quality hit. I'm sorry but cloud storage for this amount of footage is a ridiculous option.

DVD is MPEG2.....keep it(the footage) that way.
My other worry is(although it is NOT correctable) that you may have made the ultimate rookie mistake back in 2003 by trying to cram 4 to 6 hours of footage on each DVD like my dad did many years go. That will mean that you have HalfD1, almost MPEG1 footage on these DVDs, which believe it or not is worse to edit correctly(for me anyway) than straight MPEG2.

[MicoMan]

Ok, so it looks like I will just make another DVD-R copy for now and wait. Hope to get around to editing my 13.5 hours of Australia footage when I retire in 20 years!

DVD is MPEG2.....keep it(the footage) that way.
My other worry is(although
it is NOT correctable) that you may have made the ultimate rookie mistake back
in 2003 by trying to cram 4 to 6 hours of footage on each DVD like my dad did
many years go. That will mean that you have HalfD1, almost MPEG1 footage on
these DVDs, which believe it or not is worse to edit correctly(for me anyway)
than straight MPEG2.

No, The Panasonic recorder I used had a Flexible Record setting which used a whole DVD-R for one 90min Hi8 tape.

Thanks for everyones imput.

[Cornucopia]

Who knows, you MIGHT be able to re-transferthose tapes with a better deck/camera and not have dropouts...

Then you could transfer to a lossless AVI master (I'd still save as hech54 suggests by using both high quality optical and HDD backups), then edit (easily at this point), then create MPEG2 or MP4/h.264 copies for distribution.

Scott