Beginner - Learning which codec is best - and where to get them.

[CodecConfused]

I am beginning to edit more and more videos and clips.

While, I have a basic understanding as to what codecs are best and the basic settings to choose, I am looking for some guidance as to what is appropriate for the videos I am editing at the moment.

For example, I have some standard DV tapes at 60 and 90mins of footage. Even though these are SD footage, the raw DV footage in .AVI format is huuuge. I therefore, initially want to convert these to a lossless (or near lossless) format, so their quality is more or less maintained with minimal space used.

I have already used the original raw avi. for editing. Is there anyway I can swap the raw avi for the new lossless compressed version but still have the video recognised as the source for the edited output (i. it will apply key frames to the new version of the file).

Where are most codecs downloaded from? There seem to be endless sources, some of which seem to be dubious.

How often do people rely on Adobe CC's inbuilt encoder and default codecs? How many codecs are installed to work within the CC environment.

Or do people mostly use a separate encoding programme such as Handbrake.

I read that mjpeg is considered a good lossless compressed format, still using the .avi wrapper. Any thoughts on this?

Are there any guides for most appropriate settings for certain types of raw footage etc?

It can be quite a big learning curve.....
Many thanks in advance. Apologies if my questions seem basic etc. I am just learning as I go.

[manono]

For example, I have some standard DV tapes at 60 and 90mins of footage. Even though these are SD footage, the raw DV footage in .AVI format is huuuge. I therefore, initially want to convert these to a lossless (or near lossless) format, so their quality is more or less maintained with minimal space used.

Lossless will be even larger. Near lossless, depending on the codec you choose and how it's configured, might be near your current file sizes.

Where are most codecs downloaded from?

This site. For example:

https://www.videohelp.com/software?toolsearch=lossless&submit=Search&portable=&s=&orde...y=Name&hits=50

I read that mjpeg is considered a good lossless compressed format, still using the .avi wrapper. Any thoughts on this?

It's not lossless, just as DV AVI isn't lossless. You've already started with DV AVI. If you're doing a series of filtering, then better will be to save the intermediate stages as lossless AVI (I use Lagarith). If all you want is to reencode to some final format, then choose one and encode.

[Cornucopia]

If you think DV files are "huge" or "raw", you need to learn more about codecs and rethink your editing expectations.

Scott

[LigH.de]

Especially you have to know that "standard definition" DV can have an unfortunate ratio of Chroma Subsampling (especially in NTSC mode) resulting in "color bleeding" (the worse the more you edit), and quite coarse quantization (surely the worse the more you edit), and even DVCPRO50 – despite being the DV variant with highest bitrate and finest chroma subsampling – can still be more or less obviously lossy, depending on the motion and detail amount of the scene.

[CodecConfused]

@Corunicopia I am a beginner, and learning. I may get technical lingo and appropriate terms incorrect from time to time.

What I meant to say was that the files were ripped as DV (PAL) .avi files. So they are the master, unedited files. I have edited them and normally export in h264.

I would still like to store the master files, but would like them to take up far less space. On one project, the SD DV .avi files take up around 300gb. Each DV tape taking up about 14gb each.

So with that in mind.

1) Do people use an archive format? Something that will reduce the overall file size a decent amount but still retain a good deal of quality. If so, what codec do people use? I assume people do not keep their "uncompressed" master files but retain a version of it for future use.

2)Can key frames and edits be retained so that the new archived format can be swapped for the original DV master? So all edits within a project can be retained.

Again, apologies if these sound like silly questions, but we all start somewhere!



Many Thanks for the replies!

[jagabo]

The first thing you should know is the final step in almost all video compression schemes is entropy encoding -- similar to the compression used in lossless archiving formats like ZIP, RAR, 7Z, etc. So compressed video cannot be compressed significantly more by any known lossless entropy encoding process. To gain better compression you have to first decompress the video, then use some smarter method of compression.

Your PAL DV recordings aren't lossless. They are about 5:1 compressed from their original uncompressed state with a lossy DV encoder. To re-encode them with a lossy encoder involves first decompressing them to about 5x their current size. Then the lossless compression is applied to those uncompressed frames. The best lossless encoders can compress to about 3:1. So your lossless compressed files will be about twice the size of your DV files.

MJPEG is a lossy compression format. Anything you compress with it will lose some quality. The amount of quality lost can be controlled -- anywhere from a tiny loss to a huge loss. At the highest quality settings the files will be larger than your DV files and you will still lose some quality. At the other end of the spectrum you can get very small files with very low quality.

Other codecs, like MPEG 2, h.264 (AVC), h.265 (HEVC), etc. can get more compression but you will get some quality loss. And editing these formats later on can be problematic since they can be hard to decode, especially when decoding out of sequence (when scrubbing through a video, for example). They are really meant for sequential playback (final product), not editing intermediates.

Archiving your DV AVI files is your best bet.

Interlaced MPEG 2 with DVD compatible settings may be an acceptable choice if you plan on mostly simple cut/paste editing in the future.

Some very rough numbers for different codecs with interlaced SD video:

lossless (UT, lagarith, huffyuv) 35 GB/hr
MJPEG (high quality): 25 GB/hr
DV: 13 GB/hr
MPEG 2 (high quality DVD): 8 GB/hr
Divx/Xvid/mpeg 4 part 2: 5 GB/hr
h.264/AVC: 3 GB/hr
h.264/HEVC 2 GB/hr