Firewire

[Chuchichan]

iMovieHD 6 is somewhat free now, but you can occasionally get a life time license for VideoProc for free for their older version. I didn't pay for mine as I got them through a free promotional. Just google free videoproc license and I think you will find what you are looking for..

I got VideoProc working and did a test run, but the file seemed pretty bad quality as was just about 585mb in size. I selected "merge", but perhaps I missed some other settings? "nvidia/intel/amd" and "Autocopy" were checked by default as well. These were the option settings:

Am I missing something?

Thanks...

 

[iluvmacs99]

Based on your system specs using Quicksync, you are not going to get any higher quality unless you either go with the fastest Mac Mini 2018 and CPU encoding or accept a slightly lesser quality with Quicksync. You can change the settings in VideoProc to re-encode to a higher quality file using just the CPU rather than Quicksync, but that may double or even quadruple your encoding time. Your Macbook Air wasn't designed for this type of work unfortunately as it is only a dual core.

Which is why I have a Mac Pro with a lot of cores and threads to do quality encoding for my DV final output if I need to use it with another project, but I think the best economical approach for you and that is you are looking for the best quality output consistently for all your tapes would be to use a professional video conversion service. Not all are alike. You need to find one that also works with movie studios or other professional videographers and they do charge quite a bit more than normal services and the reason is that, they have professional commercial grade equipment that will preserve your footage as close to original as possible. Whereas some other services may use prosumer grade equipment that is slightly better than your deck now and offer quality that is slightly better.

In terms of file output, these services will offer you either in non-compressed form or higher quality compressed form. Prices do start to go up when you want to achieve the same quality as your DV clips and that is because, you start to need to use much faster computer and high grade equipment to capture your tapes. You can certainly improve when using better software on your Mac, but just judging from what I am seeing in your response, I think you are looking for a professional quality commercial grade service in which your current gear won't be able to deliver.

 

[Chuchichan]

Based on your system specs using Quicksync, you are not going to get any higher quality unless you either go with the fastest Mac Mini 2018 and CPU encoding or accept a slightly lesser quality with Quicksync. You can change the settings in VideoProc to re-encode to a higher quality file using just the CPU rather than Quicksync, but that may double or even quadruple your encoding time. Your Macbook Air wasn't designed for this type of work unfortunately as it is only a dual core.

Which is why I have a Mac Pro with a lot of cores and threads to do quality encoding for my DV final output if I need to use it with another project, but I think the best economical approach for you and that is you are looking for the best quality output consistently for all your tapes would be to use a professional video conversion service. Not all are alike. You need to find one that also works with movie studios or other professional videographers and they do charge quite a bit more than normal services and the reason is that, they have professional commercial grade equipment that will preserve your footage as close to original as possible. Whereas some other services may use prosumer grade equipment that is slightly better than your deck now and offer quality that is slightly better.

In terms of file output, these services will offer you either in non-compressed form or higher quality compressed form. Prices do start to go up when you want to achieve the same quality as your DV clips and that is because, you start to need to use much faster computer and high grade equipment to capture your tapes. You can certainly improve when using better software on your Mac, but just judging from what I am seeing in your response, I think you are looking for a professional quality commercial grade service in which your current gear won't be able to deliver.

Thank you. I might try to give it another shot with Video Proc on the MBA. Would a newer, faster machine just save time, or do you think it will generate a better, clearer converted file. Using the MBA, what are the optimal settings in VideoProc?

Also, if I do decide to purchase a machine, you mentioned both Mac Mini 2018 and MacPro G5. Which one of these would be better in your opinion?

 

[iluvmacs99]

Perhaps this may help.

A faster computer simply speeds up the conversion that's all. Quality remains the same when you process it using the CPU, highlighted by the green CPU indicator on the Hardware selection. If Intel and CPU are both highlighted, then Quicksync is active. Simply click on Intel to turn off Quicksync if you want the highest conversion quality.

Try it with your MBA with one clip. I did one from 720x480 to 1920x1080p up-sampled with my Mac Pro as it did it at a pretty good time. A newer Mac Mini 2018 will be faster with the latest Intel 8th gen Coffee Lake and probably be your least expensive Mac to get more horsepower. I would not recommend getting an older Mac Pro or a PowerMac G5 as they are old hardware; although I do own both because I got them pretty cheap.

 

[Chuchichan]

Perhaps this may help.
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A faster computer simply speeds up the conversion that's all. Quality remains the same when you process it using the CPU, highlighted by the green CPU indicator on the Hardware selection. If Intel and CPU are both highlighted, then Quicksync is active. Simply click on Intel to turn off Quicksync if you want the highest conversion quality.

Try it with your MBA with one clip. I did one from 720x480 to 1920x1080p up-sampled with my Mac Pro as it did it at a pretty good time. A newer Mac Mini 2018 will be faster with the latest Intel 8th gen Coffee Lake and probably be your least expensive Mac to get more horsepower. I would not recommend getting an older Mac Pro or a PowerMac G5 as they are old hardware; although I do own both because I got them pretty cheap.

Thanks for this. I just tried to bump up the MP4 settings to the highest, but the output file is almost exactly the same size (it's actually 1mb smaller). I only changed the "quality" setting to "high quality/slow". Should I be changing any of the other settings to get a higher quality file or is this as good as it will get? It's actually not that bad a quality and it takes just about 3-4 minutes for the MBA to generate it. So, I don't mind waiting for a better file (if one is possible to make).

 

[iluvmacs99]

The only other setting to select is a 2 pass encoding which will perhaps further improve quality. File size actually gets slightly smaller due to a lower bitrate. File size will only increase if you select an intrafarme format (non-compressed). Basically MP4 is a compressed format, whereas DV file is not. But you can not play a DV stream on most portable players because the file size is going to be really big.

The consumer grade capture DV format usually ends up being lower bitrate. That is the difference between consumer grade and commercial grade capture, and commercial grade capture is better but at a price.

 

[Chuchichan]

The only other setting to select is a 2 pass encoding which will perhaps further improve quality. File size actually gets slightly smaller due to a lower bitrate. File size will only increase if you select an intrafarme format (non-compressed). Basically MP4 is a compressed format, whereas DV file is not. But you can not play a DV stream on most portable players because the file size is going to be really big.

The consumer grade capture DV format usually ends up being lower bitrate. That is the difference between consumer grade and commercial grade capture, and commercial grade capture is better but at a price.

I understand. It seems like I’m rolling along with my MBA and camcorder. Before I get too far along, just wanted to confirm (again) that I’m doing things optimally.

I am importing from my camera using iMovie 11(9.0.9). Interestingly, for one tape it only creates one .dv file, but for the others it created multiple .dv files. The one tape that had only one file is a Sony. Would that have anything to do with it? It also seems to be having “issues”. The issues are that it skips and the audio cuts in and out. It is the oldest tape...

so, for importing, just wanted to confirm that regardless of the program I use to import, the amount of .dv files would be the same?

For creating the mp4 compressed file, I’ve been using videoproc. This seems to be going well.

one new question is, is there an easy way to create multiple compressed files? I’d like to break it into 20 minute segments instead of one hour + long file. The reason for this is because I found out that the website I use for my pics and videos (smugmug) only permits 20 min or less clips.

thank you again very much.

 

[iluvmacs99]

I understand. It seems like I’m rolling along with my MBA and camcorder. Before I get too far along, just wanted to confirm (again) that I’m doing things optimally.

I am importing from my camera using iMovie 11(9.0.9). Interestingly, for one tape it only creates one .dv file, but for the others it created multiple .dv files. The one tape that had only one file is a Sony. Would that have anything to do with it? It also seems to be having “issues”. The issues are that it skips and the audio cuts in and out. It is the oldest tape...

so, for importing, just wanted to confirm that regardless of the program I use to import, the amount of .dv files would be the same?

For creating the mp4 compressed file, I’ve been using videoproc. This seems to be going well.

one new question is, is there an easy way to create multiple compressed files? I’d like to break it into 20 minute segments instead of one hour + long file. The reason for this is because I found out that the website I use for my pics and videos (smugmug) only permits 20 min or less clips.

thank you again very much.

The amount of .dv files would be the same regardless of the program you use to import. It all depends on how iMovie deals with the tape; could be 1 tape per dv file or multiple files. With older tapes, I think it is a digital tracking issue and could be some corrupt time code. Do the best you can and just capture the video and audio. It is part of the challenge in restoring analog tape to digital.

You can create multiple compressed files in Videoproc and you can even trim it into 20 min segments if you want. Videoproc after all is a light video editing software. It's just not as elaborate as iMovie.

 

[Chuchichan]

The amount of .dv files would be the same regardless of the program you use to import. It all depends on how iMovie deals with the tape; could be 1 tape per dv file or multiple files. With older tapes, I think it is a digital tracking issue and could be some corrupt time code. Do the best you can and just capture the video and audio. It is part of the challenge in restoring analog tape to digital.

You can create multiple compressed files in Videoproc and you can even trim it into 20 min segments if you want. Videoproc after all is a light video editing software. It's just not as elaborate as iMovie.

What is the best way to divide the mp4 compressed file into smaller segments? Is it better to run 3-4 compressions/merges or easier to cut up the one long mp4 file? Would the quality be the same?

 

[iluvmacs99]

What is the best way to divide the mp4 compressed file into smaller segments? Is it better to run 3-4 compressions/merges or easier to cut up the one long mp4 file? Would the quality be the same?

To fit within your 20min window segment and not loose quality is to merge those DV segments together and trim each segment (using the scissor icon), so when you merge all the segments you get a total of 20min and then you compress them into a single mp4 file. Multiple compressions or cutting up a long mp4 file into smaller pieces also introduces multi-generational copies of the master files, thus degrading quality everytime you re-compress a h.264 file.

 

[Chuchichan]

To fit within your 20min window segment and not loose quality is to merge those DV segments together and trim each segment (using the scissor icon), so when you merge all the segments you get a total of 20min and then you compress them into a single mp4 file. Multiple compressions or cutting up a long mp4 file into smaller pieces also introduces multi-generational copies of the master files, thus degrading quality everytime you re-compress a h.264 file.

Thank you. Do I need the two folders that get created on the Mac when I do the import from iMovie .

 

[Chuchichan]

To fit within your 20min window segment and not loose quality is to merge those DV segments together and trim each segment (using the scissor icon), so when you merge all the segments you get a total of 20min and then you compress them into a single mp4 file. Multiple compressions or cutting up a long mp4 file into smaller pieces also introduces multi-generational copies of the master files, thus degrading quality everytime you re-compress a h.264 file.

It seems for some reason that my Video Proc license expired. I thought it would be permanent. Now it says that I can only get 5 minutes of footage on the compressed file.

Would you recommend purchasing it?

Also, I was wondering if I need two folders that get created when I do the import with iMovie? One folder is a thumbnail folder and I can't remember the title of the other one.

Thank you...

 

[Chuchichan]

Hi Everyone,

Everything has been going well with the conversions. I purchased Videoproc and while the quality isn't the greatest from the merged minidv files, it'll do.

Just a related question about another type of format camera. Do you think that a full HD such as this one...

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...would provide better quality video after converting/compressing footage using VideoProc?