Need advice converting VHS to digital format....newb....

[shellken]

Have begun converting dozens of VHS and 8mm camcorder tapes to digital. I am using a Canopus ADVC-55 converter, RCA in / Firewire out. This works great and creates a 26.3GB .avi file for every 2 hour tape! There is no way to change the output format. Since I don't have 10TB of storage, what is going to be my best format to compress/convert this avi file to, while keeping as much quality as possible! I will be viewing the files mostly on a PC connected to a HDTV or PLEX to a tablet/phone. Thanks!

[redwudz]

I use MKV (H.264/AC-3) format for most all my conversions. You might try Vidcoder. It has some presets for phone and can also do high quality for archiving.
And it's easy to use.

I use it for DVD conversions and they go from about a 8 GB DVD down to about a 2 GB MKV and still look good.
I've been using it for BD>MKV and that shrinks them down from about 30 GB to about 8 GB.

I haven't tried it for DV as my ADVC-100 died a while ago.
I used a different box and converted about 150 VHS tapes to MKV.

DV's a great format for editing, but not so good for compact storage.

But try a few programs. Others here may also give better advice.

And welcome to our forums.

[shellken]

Thanks for the info. I will give it a try and see how it looks.