Best software to convert Canopus AVI files to H264/MPG4 format?

[Studly]

I have a bunch of old analog tapes that my Canopus ADVC110 converted to AVI files. Now I need to convert those AVI fies to H.264/MPG4 format using my PC that runs Windows 10. What's the best software to do this? Hopefully it is something easy to use and results in as high of quality as possible for this H264/MPG4 format.

I see Vidcoder mentioned a lot in these forums. Would that be the best option?

Thanks in advance for your help!

[LMotlow]

I have a bunch of old analog tapes that my Canopus ADVC110 converted to AVI files.

Canopus didn't "convert" anything, it encoded your analog tapes to lossy DV-AVI. To avoid further quality loss, use Vidcoder to experiment with fairly high encoding bitrates and small GOP's to help reduce DV motion noise. Vidcoder will work OK. If you don't know what any of this means, whatever you use won't seem like much difference between various encoding apps. There are many h264 encoders, some free, some paid. https://www.videohelp.com/software/sections/video-encoders-h264-vc1

[Studly]

I have a bunch of old analog tapes that my Canopus ADVC110 converted to AVI files.

Canopus didn't "convert" anything, it encoded your analog tapes to lossy DV-AVI. To avoid further quality loss, use Vidcoder to experiment with fairly high encoding bitrates and small GOP's to help reduce DV motion noise. Vidcoder will work OK. If you don't know what any of this means, whatever you use won't seem like much difference between various encoding apps. There are many h264 encoders, some free, some paid. https://www.videohelp.com/software/sections/video-encoders-h264-vc1

Thanks for the tips on Vidcoder. I see Handbrake mentioned a lot, too, and I know they are made by the same people. Would Handbrake work for my needs too, since it seems simpler to use, or is it a big step down from Vidcoder?

[theewizard]

why do you need to change to h264
your win10 PC should be just find playing the avi files
if your going to make DVD's ? load the avi into the authoring program
or are you just trying to shrink the files to save storage ?
if that is the case, just buy more external storage and store the avi files,
why convert and loose quality
the only way to convert and not loose quality is to convert to a "lossless" format used for editing,
this will created bigger files, not smaller ones

your best option is too use the original tapes and transfer/encode to a lossless format
and not use the avi files at all

if the tapes are gone, then keep the avi files

[LMotlow]

Your first post is a little confusing. Are you saying you captured to DV-AVI and want to convert (re-encode) to h.264? Or did you capture to h264 in the first place? An AVI container (AVI is not a codec) can contain h264 encoding.

[pippas]

The Canopus converter can only output as DV. So the captured files will be DV.AVI files....Which means of course the files will be interlaced , and without square pixels.

I use the same type of device for this kind of analogue capture, and then use Virtualdub to de-interlace, resize (to get square pixels) and then crop off the 'rubbish' edges.

Then export using x.264vfw codec, and the audio coded as AC3. That gives me an AVI files which can use MKV2MP4 to create mp4 files without recoding the video. These files play in most things (Computer - WDLive - TV - PVR) without having to worry about aspect ratio 'flags' being read correctly.....

[Studly]

why do you need to change to h264
your win10 PC should be just find playing the avi files
if your going to make DVD's ?

Yeah, I plan to keep the AVI files, but want to make copies in h264/MPG4 so they can be shared more easily (and they can play them easily), so I can play them through my Roku box, etc.

[Studly]

Your first post is a little confusing. Are you saying you captured to DV-AVI and want to convert (re-encode) to h.264?

Yes, that's what I want to do.

[LMotlow]

The Canopus converter can only output as DV.

That's what I thought.

[pippas]

Yeah, I plan to keep the AVI files, but want to make copies in h264/MPG4 so they can be shared more easily (and they can play them easily), so I can play them through my Roku box, etc.

Don't forget that DV.AVI files take up about 13GB of storage per hour .If you have a bunch of tapes that's going to add up to some serious HDD space! Plus the fact that most boxes (like your Roku for example) can't play DV.AVI files.

You might want to consider editing them (DV is easy to edit), getting rid of the rubbish, and just keeping the good stuff as mp4 files. A whole lot less space needed, with no visual loss of quality if you code it right..