Anyone into video conversions?

[icowden]

HI All,

I am busy capturing some old DV tapes to my computer. The capture is working well, but the resultant files are in standard AVI format and thus take up around 10Gb of disk space per tape.

I've tried converting to H264 and H265 using VLC player but the results have been terrible, I've tried a couple of utilities I've found on likne - DumboFab and VideoProc and they seem to work ok but want to cheare me $25. Both of them seem to be essentially the same softwar.

Anyone know of anything built in or freeware / open source / uk purchase based software that might do the job?
Or what settings I should use on VLC to minimise loss but reduce file size?

 

[lazybloke]

Never used it, but I think Handbrake is the opensource option.

 

[FrankCrank]

There is a built in video editor on W10 and W11, it may be able to do what you're trying to achieve?

 

[si_c]

Handbrake is your tool of choice. It's free and does excellent conversions. Don't pay for conversion software, they use the same tools as handbrake (free open source tools) but charge you for them.

If you want to make an edits to the videos then Davinci Resolve is probably your best bet, it's also free for personal use, but there is somewhat of a learning curve for it.

Note that transcoding is a time consuming process unless you have a particularly fast PC.

 

[icowden]

Note that transcoding is a time consuming process unless you have a particularly fast PC.

It's decent. I built it to be capable of medium to high grade gaming. Although that was about 3 years ago now, so it probably qualifies as low grade now..

@lazybloke and @si_c thanks very much for the tip off re handbrake. Works perfectly!

Now another question...

I have one tape where the output is distorted for the bottom inch of the image and no sound plays. This is the oldest tape and may have been recorded on a previous DV Camcorder to the Sony Digital Handycam (Digital 8) that I am using to play the tapes back.

Anyone got any ideas whether there is a setting I can tweak anywhere to try and recover the tape?

 

[lazybloke]

If video or sound isn't reproduced as expected it can be worth using a utility called mediainfo which tells you things like codecs, bitrates, and so on.
You might need some exotic or deprecated codec.

Sometimes there are multiple audio streams, something like vlc (the desktop app) lets you change between them, and if i remember correctly, mediainfo lets you change the default stream.

 

[fossyant]

It's the video size that's the issue - I've captured a few home video's of FIL's, but the resultant file size, and time letting the video play, is huge. Not found a way to convert yet, but I got bored after capturing a few.

 

[si_c]

Not sure about the video distortion, but the sound issue sounds like it could be a bitrate issue - there were two audio formats 12bit and 16bit, so you may need to change a setting in the camera for playback.

 

[lazybloke]

Annoyed that my handycam died, i might have to buy another so i can backup old video onto computer and see if anything is worth keeping.

Would also like to scan old negatives and slides dating back to the 70s. I did some 25 or so years ago with a flatbed scanner and a light hood; it was my first usb device and needed an upgrade to windows.
It worked but was stupidly slow - would use a proper dedicated slide & negative scanner next time.

 

[icowden]

It worked but was stupidly slow - would use a proper dedicated slide & negative scanner next time.

This. I also have a trove of slides to scan. I've tried a few times with a flatbed that could supposedly do it, but the results were poor.

 

[icowden]

Note that transcoding is a time consuming process unless you have a particularly fast PC.

Turns out to be very processor intensive. PC just shut off due to an overheat. On the plus side I have removed at least a cubic litre of dust from the fans, heatsink blades, front cover, dust ducts etc. It's now running very nicely and a lot more quietly - I must have been choking it to death for a while!

 

[lazybloke]

Do you have a reasonable gpu for hardware acceleration? Maybe look in handbrake settings -:it might be defaulting to cpu transcoding.

Might also help to install the manufacturer's gfx card drivers if you currently have the ones provided by MS (assuming we're talking Windows machines)

 

[icowden]

Do you have a reasonable gpu for hardware acceleration? Maybe look in handbrake settings -:it might be defaulting to cpu transcoding.

Seems to be using the NVidia card drivers and I am using the NVidia drivers and not Microsoft. I'm running a GeForce GTX 1060 (6Gb) and an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8 core).

 

[lazybloke]

Seems to be using the NVidia card drivers and I am using the NVidia drivers and not Microsoft. I'm running a GeForce GTX 1060 (6Gb) and an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8 core).

I wouldn't know what to expect from that hardware, but generic investigative steps would include firing up resource monitor to assess utilisation of gpu and cpu during transcoding. You'll see if one of them is a bottleneck.

Also worth looking at storage speed and memory.

 

[si_c]

Turns out to be very processor intensive. PC just shut off due to an overheat. On the plus side I have removed at least a cubic litre of dust from the fans, heatsink blades, front cover, dust ducts etc. It's now running very nicely and a lot more quietly - I must have been choking it to death for a while!

I might have understated things a little! At least your PC will run quieter, more energy efficiently and probably a bit quicker too if it's not being thermally constrained. Pop open HWMonitor or HWInfo and keep an eye on your GPU/CPU temperatures, you may need to repaste them if the temperature still gets very high.

Seems to be using the NVidia card drivers and I am using the NVidia drivers and not Microsoft. I'm running a GeForce GTX 1060 (6Gb) and an AMD Ryzen 7 2700 (8 core).

The important thing there is you are using a discrete GPU, handbrake should use the 1060 by default, but worth double checking. You could get a significant reduction in encoding time if you got a new GPU, but unless you're planning an upgrade for gaming then it's probably worth putting up with longer export times. For reference with your CPU alone it would probably take at least 10 times as long.

At least you're not using a laptop.