Best Format for Long Term Storage on DVD

[RPM]

I want to keep back-ups of home movies (DV). I pull these off the camcorder in DV AVI format. I would like to compress them to about 4 GB/hr, so that I can write each hour of DV to a single DVD-R.

The problem is what format to make these files most useful? I have been experimenting with various formats, using TMPGenc. The natural thing seems like MPEG2, since I am editing and writing the files to DVD. Moreover, in principle Ulead VideoStudio 6 can create clips without re-rendering the files (using the program called SmartRender), preserving the quality created by TMPG. I find this works about 75% of the time -- that is, on 25% of the clips, VS6 crashes when using SmartRender. Worse still, when VS6 re-renders an existing MPEG2 clip (same or even more generous settings, e.g. rendering a clip with a 6Mb rate to one with an 8Mb rate), it is common to observe stuttering (same half second played two or three times) or a bit of pixelation.

Question 1: Should I compress to a smaller AVI file rather than convert to MPEG2? Then the conversion to MPEG2 occurs only once. Given that my target is MPEG2, it seemed like converting to MPEG2 made sense, but perhaps MPEG2 is harder to edit than AVI so best to do the compression last. Clearly it is best to edit the AVI file, but if I have to compress, should I compress preserving format, edit, then change format, or compress to MPEG2 and then edit?

Question 2: Is there an inexpensive program that will extract MPEG2 clips from a larger MPEG2 file without rendering? That would solve most of my challenges.

Question 3 (slightly unrelated): What is the value of Ulead DVD Workshop over VS6? I realize animated menus, but is it better at rendering, encoding, etc? Is it worth an additional $200 in quality?

Thanks for reading my long post, and responding if you can.

[vhelp]

Morning all.

RPM,

Question 1: Should I compress to a smaller AVI file rather than convert to MPEG2? Then the conversion to MPEG2 occurs only once. Given that my target is MPEG2, it seemed like converting to MPEG2 made sense, but perhaps MPEG2 is harder to edit than AVI so best to do the compression last. Clearly it is best to edit the AVI file, but if I have to compress, should I compress preserving format, edit, then change format, or compress to MPEG2 and then edit?

I think I would not use any of the trans or editing, other than cutting your
AVIs. IMO, Never perform any editing in your videos and then storing them
that way, cause you may find that you did something incorrectly or by mistake
or what-have you, and wish you hadd'nt. So, w/ the exception of cutting only,
leave the editing where it belongs, in uleads folder
If you're going to archive for later re-encoding, then:
* make sure you've captured w/ 720x480
* w/out framedrops (else, you will have issues here or there)
* encode to MPEG-2, to DVD specs. (I have other ideas, but I wont go into them)
... just take the above as such enough.

Question 1: Should I compress to a smaller AVI file rather than convert to MPEG2? Then the conversion to MPEG2 occurs only once. Given that my target is MPEG2, it seemed like converting to MPEG2 made sense, but perhaps MPEG2 is harder to edit than AVI so best to do the compression last. Clearly it is best to edit the AVI file, but if I have to compress, should I compress preserving format, edit, then change format, or compress to MPEG2 and then edit?

Not that I'm aware of.
The only or best alternative to an already MPEG-2 encode, is dvd2avi and then
frameserve it to your encoder ie, TMPG.
However, I'm sure that there is such an app, just not available to the consumre,
but I do remember reading around here on some peoples posts asking how to
take an already MPEG-2 clip from their TIVO box (usually by yanking out their
harddrive) and muxing them. But, this approach is for an already high quality
source that was produced, using more advanced devices/software AND not to forget
the actual source quality as well. You are basically just capturing (using
a poor capture device) and then encoding to MPEG-2 (again, a poor encoder) and
then storing them. However, do some searches (unless those that have the
answeres already, can answere w/ regards to my statement above) Hope that
wans't too confusing

My recommend would be to just:
* capture (720x480)
* editing your captured AVI but only cut (so to fit to CDR or DVD) during
... the frameserving to encoder ie TMPG.
* encode to MPEG-2 to DVD specs
* store on CDR or better yet, DVD
.
.
. .Then do your editing/transitioning/menus etc.

Note, that there are other thoughts on the "encoding" parts, but since
you are using (or prefere to continue with) ulead, no sense on confusng
you more w/ techniques in encoding w/ other encoders like TMPG, esp.
for DV footage (home-made) which I have ben doing for a while now.

That about raps it up here.
-vhelp

[RPM]

Sorry, I wasn't clear. My goal is to produce files for storage that fit on DVDs, so 4.3GB/hr maximum. I regularly use TMPGenc Plus so I can readily encode to DVD, but find difficulty editing the resulting files. The reason for not storing the AVIs is that it takes 3 DVDs per hour of video, and also requires splitting the files. Since I have about 50 hours now, that would be 150 DVDs, which seems excessive for a backup.

So my question: am I better off compressing the AVIs to fit, or converting and editing in MPEG2 format. I have problems editing these with Ulead, but I don't want to spend thousands on editing software. The most important thing is to put them in a format of sufficient quality to be used in the future.

Thanks. By the way, my capture is fine, zero drops and perfect video. I use TMPG to convert, at its highest quality settings, although to be fair, the only difference I see from using Ulead to convert is that the Ulead files are 20% to produce similar quality.

[ghoster]

this is just a idea but why don't you convert it to divx its almost dvd quality if not as good and you can fit a heck of alot of video onto a dvd. think a 1 hour and 30 minutes of vidoe takes about 700 to 800 megs.

[tonyp12]

I think the answer is a no brainer:

Save the 1hour Video as MPEG2-VOBs.

Use ifoedit0.95 to create the VOBS (dvd author)

Use tmpgenc with a bitrate around 8000kbps or higher

This way the Video is stored at a high quility
and they will play on a DVD player.

If you need the video to be AVI again, just use DVD2AVI.

[Nelson37]

Edit in AVI mode, then frameserve and compress. VDUB works great for this, to edit an mpeg-2 you will probably have to encode a second time. This can be done with minimal loss of quality but is a pain, editing AVI is much easier.

Also, consider this on the editing - If you had several hours of video of your great-grandfather 50 or more years ago, exactly what portion of that would you wish to throw away? Sure it may not look like a Hollywood production, but the imperfections make it all the more true-to-life. Although with the quantity you have some editing may be more practical.

[vhelp]

Evening all.

I was basically saying what tonyp12 was saying. I wasn't too sure of what
the actual needs were. But, if you don't want to do any editing in the
future, then just a plain AVI-to-DVD encode would be in order. The route
that you started seems to be a good one. Encode to MPEG-2 w/ DVD specs
and you should be fine.
I think what you'll have to do is plenty of experiments till you are satisfied
with the best results you can come up with.
To bad you can't post a small sample (teaser) of what you're trying to
backup as an alternate, into divX or VCD though - just so we can get an
idea of the quality you have on hand at the moment. ya know??

On another note. . .
ghoster,

this is just a idea but why don't you convert it to divx its almost dvd quality if not as good and you can fit a heck of alot of video onto a dvd. think a 1 hour and 30 minutes of vidoe takes about 700 to 800 megs.

What codec version and bitrate are YOU using to achieve this ?? I've
never seen (to date) dvd quality comming from a divX so far, though
I'm playing around with it - just the 1:30m sparted my interest.
I used v3.11 vs. v5.02 on a 10 second clip w/ 6000 bitrate, and they
both about the same size, v3.11 was 40k smaller - anyways, just curious.

Thanks all.
-vhelp

[cerburus]

It sounds like you are mainly concerned with cut & paste of your clips at a later date. Do any filter work in AVI format then you can encode to DVD/MPEG2 using TMPG. I use ULead VidStu6 to cut & paste on all
formats without re-rendering (except for transition effects, etc.). As someone mentioned in another topic, if VidStu6 is re-rendering the file you will see the picture in the preview box. If the box is black, then it is copying the file info. Lastly, get the lastest patch from ULead. I had a couple of issues that went away after patching.

[RPM]

Thanks for all the responses. This forum is terrific!

My source is DV, captured either with a JVC or a Sony. The great grandfather questions is precisely what I am after -- I don't want to throw anything substantial away, but I want to reserve the ability to edit in the future.

Here is my current plan, which seems to be working. I'm encoding with a 6Mb/s average, 8Mb/s max 2 pass VBR using TMPGenc, preserving the native interlacing. These files readily fit on DVDs but I'm just saving them as a MPEG2 files rather than VOBs. To edit, I am using TMPG to produce clips from the source MPEGs. I assemble the clips using Ulead VideoStudio 6, but use its smartrender function, which means the clips aren't ever re-encoded. My first attempt using this strategy seems to produce DVD quality output, or at least is not noticeably different than directly piping the output of the camcorder to the TV. Ulead lets me add menus, titles and transitions.