What format to convert .dv files to?

[Giuanniello]

Hello,

I found onto an old backup drive a bunch of videos taken with a DV camcorder and I am wondering what format could I convert them to keeping the quality but saving space and which converter would you suggest to use, freeware if possible.

Grazie

 

[Dave Braine]

Use MPEGStreamclip(free) and Export to either Quicktime or MPEG 4 using the h264 Compression option. You'll end up with files about 10% of the original size, but still with good quality.
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html

 

[ColdCase]

You will always compromise quality when compressing files to save space... whether you notice or not is subjective. Storage being so cheap now days, by bother to compress?

That being said, use Dave's suggestion or perhaps HandBrake. If you are doing hundreds of files, I think Handbrake has better/ easier to use queuing.

 

[Giuanniello]

Thing is I will never edit those files, quality is poor already since they were taken with an amateur camcorder with no particular skills and even tho storage got cheaper and cheaper I have a 36GB folder I could shrink to save some space.

I do use HandBreak once in a while, good suggestion, thank you. I will try and see how does it go, I usually leave settings as from the original video and don't mess it all up with VBR etc etc

Grazie

p.s. just tried to convert a file, is that possible that from 1.27GB .dv file it went all the way down to a 79MB!!! .mp4???

Please suggest me settings to preserve quality to the best possible relatively to the need to save space and no need to heavy edit if not any at all

 

[ColdCase]

Quality is subjective and you need to experiment and view to determine what is good enough for you. Viewing screen size makes a big difference, you don't need much to fill a 10 inch screen.

In general I use the presets for AppleTV 3 with good results. Views fine on a 60 inch screen. You can play with the hand brake quality slider to get more compression or more quality.

 

[Dave Braine]

p.s. just tried to convert a file, is that possible that from 1.27GB .dv file it went all the way down to a 79MB!!! .mp4???

That seems very small, but who knows. What did you use for the conversion? I've just got a 1.05Gb DV file down to a 188Mb mp4 file using MPEGStreamclip.

 

[Giuanniello]

That seems very small, but who knows. What did you use for the conversion? I've just got a 1.05Gb DV file down to a 188Mb mp4 file using MPEGStreamclip.

I used Handbreak to give it a quick try

 

[ColdCase]

p.s. just tried to convert a file, is that possible that from 1.27GB .dv file it went all the way down to a 79MB!!! .mp4???

I routinely compress 23GB uncompressed 720P HD video to ~800MB 720P HD mp4 video using HandBreak AppleTV3 presets. This preset produces a video about 3.5% of the original size without noticeable quality loss or artifacts to most eyes. So a 1.27 GB video compressed to 70 MB doesn't seem unreasonable, if not a bit larger file than anticipated. Video with more movement won't compress as small as more static video.

Most of these video converter apps use the same built in MacOS code, just adding GUI. So you would not expect a big difference between program results given the same parameters.

 

[Dave Braine]

I used Handbreak to give it a quick try

OK. Handbrake got my 1.05Gb down to 174Mb, so slightly smaller. I used Handbrake's "Normal" setting under the Legacy option. All those others confuse me I'm afraid.

To compare, for that 1.05 Gb file, using Quicktime's Movie Inspector;
MPEGStreamclip gave me:
a QT file of 216Mb at a data rate of 5.96Mbit/sec
a mp4 file of 188Mb at a data rate of 5.19Mbit'sec
and
Handbrake a mp4 file of 174Mb at 4.79Mbt/sec.

As to quality, apart from the numbers, there's very little to choose from between the three.