Transcoding to new format?

[chrisb01]

I have built up a large video library and would like to convert them all to the same format. I have MPEG, DIV3, DIV4, and a few others.

What format has the best compression, yet will preserve the quality? What tool(s) would be best to convert the formats above?

I was thinking of going to MPEG4... would I use DivX 5.02 Pro for that? Is there a program that will transcode the audio and video in a one step process. It's a real pain to split audio/video, then transcode them seperately, then mix them back together... and sometimes you introduce sync problems doing this. If MPEG4 is the format I should move to, then I'm looking for the ultimately all-in-one "anything-to-MPEG4" transcoder.

While I'm asking about tools, is there a program that will "catalogue" my videos and list their FOURCC codes, bitrates, and resolution? There's plenty of programs that you can use to extract that info from one file at a time (vdub, etc.), but none that will read all your video files and create a list of sorts with this information.

[KingJohn]

What format has the best compression, yet will preserve the quality? What tool(s) would be best to convert the formats above?

Most of the codec's will perform about the same, DivX 5.02 is popular as is DivX 3.11 Alpha, you need to make a few small tests, lowering the bitrates until your happy with the size and quality.

It's a real pain to split audio/video, then transcode them seperately, then mix them back together... and sometimes you introduce sync problems doing this. If MPEG4 is the format I should move to, then I'm looking for the ultimately all-in-one "anything-to-MPEG4" transcoder.

It is not always necessary to save out the WAV, only some AVI's will need this.

While I'm asking about tools, is there a program that will "catalogue" my videos and list their FOURCC codes, bitrates, and resolution? There's plenty of programs that you can use to extract that info from one file at a time (vdub, etc.), but none that will read all your video files and create a list of sorts with this information.

None that I know of, I think XP has a play list