Batch converting DV-AVI type 2 to DV (Raw?) for Mac

[jehomme]

As the title suggests, I'm looking for some way to convert my DV-AVI type 2 files into the type of DV that can be used on a Mac. I've tried my existing files directly on the Mac, but they aren't even visible in the folders when I hook up my hard drive. From what I've read, they need to be .dv not .avi. I saw someone suggested Quicktime PRO earlier, which does this conversion, BUT only one file at a time. I've got literally thousands of these files, so some kind of batch converter would be great. Freeware preferred, but if I have to I will of course pay to get a solution that works well. Any suggestions?

[Cornucopia]

Where are you reading this about DV-not-AVI? Quicktime7 (Pro or Not) perfectly reads DV-AVItype2 files (assuming they are properly put together in the first place).

Which app are you working with? FCP has no trouble with DV-AVItype2. FCX (because of AVfoundation underpinnings) would automatically transcode them (probably to DV-MOV, but possibly to ProRes-MOV).

I'm guessing it is iMovie (and likely a not-quite newest version), as those expected to work with DV in their native raw (containerless) format.

Using a batch script wrapping around an ffmpeg command string should do it, though:
Either

for %%a in ("*.avi") do ffmpeg -i "%%a" -vcodec copy -acodec copy target pal-dv "newfiles\%%~na.dv"
pause

or

for %%a in ("*.avi") do ffmpeg -i "%%a" -vcodec copy -acodec copy -map 0 -f dv -pix_fmt yuv420p -r 25 -ar 48000 -ac 2 "newfiles\%%~na.dv"
pause

or one of those but without the "-vcodec copy -acodec copy".
(Modified existing web example & cut & pasted, but haven't tested myself, so YMMV)

Scott

[smrpix]

Forget Quicktime X (10.) Download the latest Quicktime 7 immediately and save a copy of the installer locally before Apple kills it off completely.

[jehomme]

Thanks for the tips guys.

What I have is about 40 MiniDV tapes transferred in DV-AVI type 2 format, done with my MiniDV camcorder via firewire and into my Windows computer using WinDV. All the clips play fine on all my computers (I don't own any Macs myself).

I have a friend who uses Mac (MacMini to be exact), and when we plugged a USB drive with some of the DV-AVI type 2 files into the Mac, the drive mounted correctly, other files show up fine, but the DV-AVI files do not show up at all. When checking folder info/properties, the data is clearly there, but nothing shows up so there is essentially nothing to 'click to play'. Tried dragging the folder into VLC but it just bounced back. I tried some other file formats, mpeg2, mp4, mov, and they all show up and play fine with VLC. But with DV-AVI, nothing.

So would Quicktime 7 solve all my problems?

And what software would be best to use for editing these clips on a Mac?

[Cornucopia]

Mac Minis should already have QT7 on them (though probably not Pro, but that wouldn't matter in this case). If not, get it (not just X).

It probably cannot "click to open" in Finder, though you could remap your file associations so that it does. Regardless, you should be able to open QT7 and do a [File | Open] and it should work fine.

Wait a minute...are you saying that it doesn't even list the files? Are those single-segment "<4GB" intact AVI files with the ".AVI" extension? Is this a FAT32 drive? How about some screenshots?...

Will get to editing after you can see these suckers.

Scott

[jehomme]

Wait a minute...are you saying that it doesn't even list the files? Are those single-segment "<4GB" intact AVI files with the ".AVI" extension? Is this a FAT32 drive? How about some screenshots?...

Correct.. I'm puzzled too, would have at least expected them to show up. I'll hook this up again later today and get some screenshots posted. Will also try QT7 just to make sure. Thanks a lot so far

[jehomme]

Mac Minis should already have QT7 on them (though probably not Pro, but that wouldn't matter in this case). If not, get it (not just X).

It probably cannot "click to open" in Finder, though you could remap your file associations so that it does. Regardless, you should be able to open QT7 and do a [File | Open] and it should work fine.

Wait a minute...are you saying that it doesn't even list the files? Are those single-segment "<4GB" intact AVI files with the ".AVI" extension? Is this a FAT32 drive? How about some screenshots?...

Will get to editing after you can see these suckers.

Scott

Hi, sorry it took so long to get back. My laptop died and a lot of other stuff happened so it took a while until I was able to get back to this. But now I have everything up and running and am trying to crack this problem.

As mentioned before, I have all these DV-AVI files (all with the .avi extension), they play fine on all my Windows PCs. But when I stick the USB drive into the Mac Mini, it does not list any of the files (folders are visible but empty when I click on them). My USB drive is FAT32 formatted. I tried installing Quicktime 7, but the files do not show up there either. I can navigate to the drive, and open it, but there is nothing there.

Here are the 'Properties' of one of the DV AVI clips, taken while playing in Media Player Classic on my Windows XP PC.

.05-10-07_08-54.00.avi
Winamp media file
502MB (526948864 bytes)
00:02:20
768 x 576
27. januar 2015 14:45:57
Video: DVSD 720x576 25.00fps [Stream 00]
Audio: PCM 32000Hz stereo 1024Kbps [Stream 01]



Back to the Mac, USB drive mounted, open 'Finder'; when I right click on the drive and choose 'info', I can see that the used space on the drive is correct, so the data is definitely there.

Someone suggested that I convert the files to mp4 using 'Handbrake'. I tried this, the conversion works fine, I have converted to files with .mp4, .m4v and .mkv extensions, but these do not show up on the Mac either. In Windows they all show up fine and play fine. I used Quicktime PRO to convert the .avi file to .dv; they play fine in Windows, but don't show up on the Mac.

On the other hand, I have another (FAT32) USB drive that I received from a guy at work, containing both .mkv, .wmv, and .m4v clips, and these work fine on the Mac.

I'm getting pretty frustrated here, what on earth am I doing wrong??

[Baldrick]

If you can't see files it must be something wrong with usb drive, file system, partition information, etc.

Have you tried copy the files to the other usb drive?

[jehomme]

If you can't see files it must be something wrong with usb drive, file system, partition information, etc.

Have you tried copy the files to the other usb drive?

I used a different drive earlier and the problem was exactly the same. And although I see your point, keep in mind I have been using this exact drive on my Windows PC, switching back and forth between PC/Mac (with no problems at all on PC, but nothing showing on Mac). But I will try another drive and see if there is any difference.

[Cornucopia]

Something is wonky with the USB drive's formatting.

I would:
Put the drive back in the PC and move ALL the files over to an internal HDD folder for temporary holding.
Take the drive out of the PC and put it in the Mac and completely erase & reformat it THERE, as FAT32.
Put the drive back into the PC and copy all the files from that temp folder back onto the drive - but FIRST make sure that each of the files copied back do not have characters that Macs don't like - keep it simple ASCII letters, numbers & underscore. Also, make sure they have the simple ".AVI" extension. You may also want to verify via MediaInfo that they are truly all DV-AVIs

Now try it on the Mac.
First, DO THEY SHOW UP AS FILES? Playability is another matter, but they ought to at least be visible. If not, you've got OTHER, WORSE worries.
After looking at the MediaInfo results you should know whether these are Type1 or Type2. Type2 DV-AVI files should have NO trouble being played on Macs (possibly YMMV with QT X & AVfoundation). Type1 files may need to be converted (to Type2) prior to copying. Luckily, there is no loss in quality in doing so.

Scott

P.s. could be that drive's FAT is corrupted (make sure you aren't removing the drive without "putting it away" correctly first to help avoid this, and check on the PC to see that write-cacheing on that drive is turned off).

[jehomme]

Hi guys,

Well I finally managed to sort out this problem. As I mentioned, the files were not showing at all on the Mac. Folders were showing, but they were empty. And there was no difference if I moved the files outside the folders. I tried everything that people suggested, and more. I converted to mp4/m4v using Handbrake, still didn't show up. Converted to .dv using Quicktime PRO, nothing. I reformatted the drive to FAT32 using the Mac, still nothing. The file names themselves seemed okay, there were no special characters or spaces.. I checked that the files were indeed DV-AVI type 2 using MediaInfo, everything checked out. But no matter what I tried these suckers were invisible on the Mac.

Then, just by coincidence, I made a copy of one of the files right there on the same drive and in the same folder, and by mistake I partially erased the file name, so I erased all the original numbers, dashes, underscores etc. and just left 'Copy of'. BINGO! The file called 'Copy of' showed up and played fine, the original file didn't. I checked for strange characters, spaces or something that shouldn't be there.. and after scratching my head for a while I realized that every single file name started with a . (period/dot) (for example: .05-10-07_08-54.00), I have been using the default naming format in WinDV, and the year-month-date_hours-minutes-etc. format seemed perfectly sensible to me.

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that the file name was going to be the problem. And why is that dot even there? The file names read and sort themselves just fine without it. I haven't checked if I can change the naming settings in WinDV, but I hope it's possible.

So now I'm stuck here, renaming a few thousand file names, or rather just removing the dot at the beginning of each name. Takes forever, but at least I found out what the problem was. (Anyone know of an easier way to do this job than manually clicking on each file name 3 times and backspace once, please let me know..)

Hope this can help anyone else out there who has the same problem. Just make sure the file name doesn't start with a 'dot'.

[smrpix]

Yes, "." At the start of a filename is a very important part of the Mac 2-fork file structure. You can google around for a good batch renaming tool. I use an ancient one called something like AF5, (but it's on a different machine far from here, so apologies for the lack of specificity.)

[Cornucopia]

BFR and Aren are real good batch renamers in Windows.Should be a breeze.
Yes, naming for cross-platform you have to be careful.That's why I said to stick with simple ASCII. Notice I didn't include periods.

Scott

[jehomme]

BFR and Aren are real good batch renamers in Windows.Should be a breeze.
Yes, naming for cross-platform you have to be careful.That's why I said to stick with simple ASCII. Notice I didn't include periods.

Scott

Thanks for the tip, can these renamers do just the simple task of 'removing one character and leaving the rest' ?

Like I mentioned, these file names were a result of the default settings in WinDV, a shame they didn't think of cross-compatibility. Even though the WinDV application is made for Windows (as the name implies), it certainly wouldn't be a bad thing if the files could be played back on a Mac also... Oh well, you live and learn

[Cornucopia]

Sure! I also particularly like 1-4a-rename, but heard the programmer (Karen ?) died a few years back, so it hasn't been updated in a while (and clearly won't). Those 2 I mentioned are still actively maintained.

....hmm, I don't remember WinDV ever giving me those kinds of names before.

Glad it's all working out for you.

Scott

[smrpix]

these file names were a result of the default settings in WinDV

That's simply not true. None of the default templates start with a period.

The good batch renamers are quite versatile and can do what you want (within reason.)

edit: Scott beat me to it again!

[jehomme]

these file names were a result of the default settings in WinDV

That's simply not true. None of the default templates start with a period.

Well, that is strange. I'm pretty sure I didn't make any changes to any of the settings except the limit of how many seconds a single clip can last. I plugged in my DV camcorder, fired up the application, and started transferring. And it worked, so I was happy with the way things were.. (why would I want to change anything?). The file names just came up that way, and I've done literally hundreds of tapes, all have come up with the exact same type of file names. So I don't know. Unfortunately the computer I used for the job has died, so I can't go back and check the settings on that particular computer. But I will be transferring more tapes to another computer at some time, and will report back what the file names look like Could it be that different camcorders output data differently, and the names given to the files are based on the type of info from the camcorder?

[smrpix]

Could it be that different camcorders output data differently, and the names given to the files are based on the type of info from the camcorder?

No.

But it's not a big deal. Going forward, use the ability to customize the template to something that works for you.

Best of luck.

[Cornucopia]

Just so you understand, and as an aside for you and anyone else inquiring: what's on the DV/D8 tapes is a raw stream, not a file. So it doesn't/can't have a filename.

Scott

[jehomme]

Okay, so I got my files to work on the Mac, but now I have some more questions:

1. Since I've only changed the file names, no conversion has taken place, and the files are still untouched quality-wise, right? How come the playback quality is not as good as when I play them on my PC? I've tried using Quicktime 7, and also VLC on the Mac. There seems to be a lot of mosaic going on, or should I say just plain noise or blocking in the picture. Playing back from the same drive through my PC, using the same players, the picture looks much better, clearer details, less noise.. I'm handing this hard drive over to a friend, and now I'm worried I'm going to get reactions as to why the quality isn't as good as expected.. Any ideas? What could be the reason for this?

2. I have copied all the files onto an external Seagate harddrive, which was sold to my friend as being a cross-compatible drive, should work on both PC and Mac. And it seems to do so. I copied the files onto the drive from my PCs hard drive. I changed all the file names to exclude the ".", using my PC. And now I'm playing back the files from said drive using the Mac. Apart from the quality issues mentioned above, I notice when I click on 'Info', that it says 'read only'. Does that mean my friend will not be able to make changes to the files, editing, etc.?

3. I also notice the drive is formatted as NTFS (default, I did not do anything), isn't that strange for a drive meant to be cross-compatible? Should I reformat the whole thing to FAT32? If so, why, and what will then happen if I have clips that are more than 4Gb?

4. And finally, what would be good choices for editing these files on a Mac? Freeware or expensive 'professional' software, any tips would be appreciated..

[smrpix]

By default quicktime plays DV files as single-field only. (A legacy from the days of slower computers?) Click window/show movie properties/ choose the video track, click visual settings, tick High Quality and you should be good to go.

Macs can read but not write to NTFS drives. To exchange freely you need a program like Mac Drive on the windows machine or Paragon on the Mac.

Your only editing choices on Mac are iMovie (older versions only), Premiere Pro, or FCPX (probably the best choice realistically.)

[Cornucopia]

There are freeware options for Macs that enable writing to NTFS drives, but they're not the easiest to set up.

(Mac/Win) Cross-platform is ALWAYS an issue. Your choices are:
1. NTFS - [+] readable on both platforms, large file sizes, can support forks, [-] not natively writable on Mac
2. FAT32 - [+] R/W on both platforms, [-] 4GB filesize limitation, as well as a volume size limit (usually ~32GB) on both platforms
3. exFAT - [+] R/W on both platforms, large file sizes, [-] not available on older OS versions, licensing restrictions so few utilities
4. HFS+ - [+] supports forks, large file sizes, [-] not accessible in Windows without Bootcamp or 3rd party driver ($)
5. HFS - [+] supports forks, [-] small file sizes, volume limitations, filename length limitations, not accessible in Windows without 3rd party driver ($), deprecated.

Of those, exFAT might be your best choice, but much depends on whether you AND your friends can make use of it (due to the version issues).

Most HDDs are sold pre-formatted with NTFS, even those claiming "cross-platform" (they know what side their bread is buttered on). One can always reformat to the desired filesystem.

Scott

[jehomme]

I understand that formatting is a real challenge in situations like this. So considering the hard drive in question probably was going to be used exclusively on a Mac, I decided to do what was suggested earlier, but I now opted for a Mac-only formatting solution:

- Copy all the files from the NTFS drive onto the Mac's internal storage.
- Reformat the drive to "Mac OS Extended", which came up as the first choice in the disc utilities 'erase' menu.
(I have to say, compared to Windows it was quite a task finding out exactly how to reformat a drive)..
- Copy all the files back onto the newly formatted drive.

So the files are copying back onto the drive now, fingers crossed all will be ok. One thing I didn't quite understand, when I had entered my settings and choice of name for the drive, and clicked 'Erase', it literally only took 2 seconds until it was done. And the drive now shows as a Mac OS drive, with read/write possibilities. How is that possible? It's a 1Tb drive, and there was at least 450Gb of data on there, doesn't it take a while to run through and erase everything?

[smrpix]

A fast format doesn't actually erase anything. It simply marks a previously used area as available for new data.

[Cornucopia]

You'll need to do it again, correctly (not "fast" option). Should take an hour or 2. If Mac insists on using fast option, you might need to UNFORMAT/Unpartition the drive, then format/partition it again, that should force the issue.

Scott