Splicing video

[seekermeister]

It finally finished saving after ~ 1:25, and I tested it in VLC, and found the audio and video to be quite good. Only 3 problems with this...the time that it takes, the size of the file (4 x bigger than when I encoded to mkv) and that when I simply tried to change the .wmv to .mpg, it locked up the entire computer when I tried to play it. At least I now have something fairly good to order.

 

[kado897]

It finally finished saving after ~ 1:25, and I tested it in VLC, and found the audio and video to be quite good. Only 3 problems with this...the time that it takes, the size of the file (4 x bigger than when I encoded to mkv) and that when I simply tried to change the .wmv to .mpg, it locked up the entire computer when I tried to play it. At least I now have something fairly good to order.

You can't just change the file extension. They are encoded quite differently and this will have confused VLC which seems to lock up very easily. The Any Video Converter I mentioned in a previous post can convert to a large number of formats most of which produce smaller files than wmv such as MP4, but the smaller formats can lose quality, you have to trade this off with size. No matter what the format the quality will never be quite as good as the original.

 

[seekermeister]

Thanks, since there is only one file involved, I shall leave it as it is. Had I used this method on all of the other video files, I would have run out of space long ago. As it is, My 1TB movie drive contains ~1050 movies with ~200GB empty space left.

 

[kado897]

You are welcome. I have to admit I have never tried mkv as a format, perhaps I will.

 

[seekermeister]

From what I've read, there is no ideal format, but mkv comes closer than the rest. It's main drawback is that it can be the toughest to work with, in terms of modifying it.

 

[kado897]

I guess you can't have everything.

 

[mitchell65]

Hi seekermeister
I have some more useful info for you. It is 8.30am here in the UK. I have things to do this morning but will be back later. Suffice to say all you have done so far is perfectly normal especially about time taken to "Save". That's a misnomer actually, more later.

 

[mitchell65]

Hi seekermeister
In your post #21 you mentioned the time it took to "save" your file to a different format. You didn't "save" in the normal context of "saving". In fact you re-rendered the complete file. This can only be done, even with the most sophisticated software in real time plus. If you have a video file of say 30 minutes in length it can take anything from 45 min or so to a a couple of hours. If you have lots of transisitions and effects and a fancy start menu this can add to the time it takes to render. Most people who do a regular amount of video editing try to set the rendering to start when they are off doing something else for a couple of hours. It's like watching paint dry to just sit there.
If you look back at this thread you will see the I described the VOB extension as a container. In it is an MPEG file. Thats why if you just change the extension to MPG the file will load into an editor and play on your PC. WMV is a different format to MPG so you cannot just change he file extension. Its like changing a Word Doc file to a JPG and expecting it to open as a picture!
It's getting your head round the difference between a "container" file extension like AVI and VOB and a "format" extension like WMV and MPG. Coincidently there are over 800 different ways to format an AVI file!
That's the main problem with video work. Each manufacturer of cameras etc has developed their own particular format so there is no real standard.
Just to finish this off, when you said

Thanks, since there is only one file involved, I shall leave it as it is. Had I used this method on all of the other video files, I would have run out of space long ago. As it is, My 1TB movie drive contains ~1050 movies with ~200GB empty space left.

I'm surprised you have managed to squeeze all those files into just 1Tb. Mind you it depends on the actual length of each video, of course. There are formats that use a great deal of compression and as you have found you can get the same video in a smaller file size but you will ALWAYS loose quality if you compress the original. There is no way round that. I do lot of high definition video work and that produces much bigger files. I have Blu-Ray files that go bigger than 20GB each so a 1Tb disk would soon get full.
It's the nature of the beast, as they say.

 

[seekermeister]

I'm surprised you have managed to squeeze all those files into just 1Tb. Mind you it depends on the actual length of each video, of course. There are formats that use a great deal of compression and as you have found you can get the same video in a smaller file size but you will ALWAYS loose quality if you compress the original. There is no way round that. I do lot of high definition video work and that produces much bigger files. I have Blu-Ray files that go bigger than 20GB each so a 1Tb disk would soon get full.
It's the nature of the beast, as they say.

I understand that larger files generally means better quality, and some of my videos are noticeably poorer than they should be, and I shall have to redo them when time permits, yet for the most part, the quality rivals that which is available directly from the disk, and I can only tell the difference by very close examination.

The smallest files that I have are .flv files that I have downloaded, and yet some of them are of better quality than I got encoding others. I don't understand why this is true, because I did experiment with a few by encoding them to .flv, yet they were not of a quality that I expected.

regardless of the method used to encode, the quality varied in considerably, even using identical methods and settings. I think that some of this was due to the particular encoder that was used, but some were better and some were worse, within the output of each encoder used, so I'm not certain that any particular encoder was to blame.

After recoding the lesser quality videos, I suspect that I may use a bit more hard drive space than I have, but not all that much. I have read claims from manufacturers and users about how many videos that a 1 TB drive would hold, and I have exceeded those numbers considerably. Not sure why, but I suspect that those other numbers were based on encoding an entire disc, rather than just the movie portion as I have.

I am not doing this for the purpose of creating a backup archive for the purpose of being able to reburn them to disc, only for using them on the PC as a HTPC. The way that I'm organizing and inventorying them using other software makes menus irrelevant and useless, and for the most part, I'm not recording extra features like commentaries, etc.

 

[mitchell65]

Thanks for you full explanation. I do tend to look at these topics from a slightly unusual angle in that I have never been able to fully understand why anybody should want to store this many videos. I only store the ones I make myself. Its not that many but I rarely get the time to view those let alone commercial films. Perhaps I am very slow in what I do but I am retired yet always busy. In our household (just 2) we rarely see more than about one hour a day TV and I normally drop off to sleep during that. That's the joy of this Forum though, we all look at things from a different points of view.

 

[seekermeister]

To store a large number of videos has several advantages. First it makes them easier to locate, than going through shelves...or for some, boxes of DVDs. Especially when that often requires reading edge titles of various degrees acuity, in dim light and with less than perfect vision. Instead of taking half an hour, looking for a movie and getting tired of looking, I can locate it in less than a minute. I do not have to worry about damaging the DVD, and if there is some kind of insurable loss, it provides an insurance record.

Beyond all of that, it gives me something to do which I enjoy doing. I also am retired, but not so busy as yourself, and need something to occupy my time. I have spent years just learning enough about computers to feel basically comfortable in managing one, and this is the first project that makes me feel as though all that time isn't wasted. Of course, every person has their own reasons and justifications for maintaining their own electronic money pit, but this is the best that I can come up with.