HandBrake

If you're going to edit later, keep the originals or make an editing-friendly (which will probably not be much smaller) encode with the Production presets. For lossless merging you can use ffmpeg or mkvmerge or probably one of the mp4 muxers for your platform. You can do this with the M2TS files or...

I went ahead and converted all the AVI files to MP4 and then uploaded those MP4 to the cloud backup. I really did a lot of side by side viewing and as you said, cannot see any difference to my eyes, and sure feels better uploading 15GB of data rather than 150GB worth for the same video. I did keep a...

You need to add deinterlacing or decombing since your source is interlaced. May help shink the file size a bit. Thanks. I added this and it does look better, however at Production Standard the file size increased from 1.9GB to 2.2GB, so I won’t bother doing this approach. Is the issue for editing a...

The AVIs are better for editing than an efficient H.264 encode. You could also make an editing-read H.264 encode using the HB Production presets, and storing both that and a heavily compressed version may still be smaller than the AVI. Yes, every generation of encode loses a bit of quality. People ...

The AVIs are better for editing than an efficient H.264 encode. You could also make an editing-read H.264 encode using the HB Production presets, and storing both that and a heavily compressed version may still be smaller than the AVI. Yes, every generation of encode loses a bit of quality. People ...

In a sentence, a reasonable x264 MP4 file from AVI motion video can be 5-10 times smaller without visible loss of quality. Put another way, that should be 99% or better quality retention of the original. Unless your originals are very important to you, I would go with x264 for storage, because the ...

Given how fast 480p will encode, I'd use slower x264 settings for this archival type encode. If you're going to edit them in the future, I'd also keep an encode (from the original AVI source) using the Production Standard preset. And check the results carefully for combing/etc before you toss the o...

Your source is 4:1:1 chroma subsampling. It's ok to not know what that means, but the capture (by usb?) is of lower quality than anything Handbrake presets are capable of producing. It will come out 4:1:0, about the same quality as VHS. If you want to take more time, or create larger files, feel fr...

Given how fast 480p will encode, I'd use slower x264 settings for this archival type encode. If you're going to edit them in the future, I'd also keep an encode (from the original AVI source) using the Production Standard preset. And check the results carefully for combing/etc before you toss the o...

Also can I trouble you to recommend the Preset for some AVCHD (.m2ts) I have from Sony and Panasonic cameras around 2011-2015: Very much appreciated! This is 1920x1080 60p, I believe. In the General tab in Handbrake I don't see a 60p option (I think there used to be in earlier versions). Should I go...

480 p30 Fast Preset. Anything slower or bigger is simply overkill for your 4:1:1 video capture. Excellent - thank you. One threshold question though before I launch into this project. Am I being stupid to do this? (throwing away the video quality and bitrate in the DV-AVI files just to save HDD spa...

!. Use the PRESET that matches your video resolution and frame rate -- no need to monkey with the settings! They were made especially for you. 2. You cannot upscale SD to HD in Handbrake GUI -- nor would there be any reason for you to do so. 3. For individual assistance, the part where you post you...

Hi - I am a Handbrake noob but love the software. I have been googling and reading various posts and articles and thought I would ask for your advice once and for all. I have a lot of video files on my HDD from 2004-2008 that came from a Canon camcorder. They are .AVI format and 720x480 30p. They ar...