Need help deciding on output container
Posted: Thu Nov 09, 2017 6:44 pm
I'm new here, and new to HandBrake, so forgive me if some of these questions seem, um...dumb.
I recently had a bunch of personal vacation videos (source was 8mm non-HD) and concerts (source was VHS) professionally transferred to digital. The format is .avi, and the codec is DV. Unfortunately, my Oppo BR won't play these, although it plays innumerable other .avi files from my LAN. Presumably it doesn't like the DV codec.
Anyway, I need to convert all these, so I got HandBrake and have played around just enough to get a feel for it, and realize that I have a few questions right off the bat.
The purpose of this post is to get advice on which output container I should be choosing. My only two choices appear to be mp4 and mkv. I have done a test conversion into each one and the Oppo will play either, so that's obviously good.
I am really intent of doing this conversion as losslessly as possible, and frankly, I am hopelessly confused by the avalanche of information on all these formats, codecs, and containers.
Here's some more info that may or may not be important to know:
1) Currently these avi files are very long, ranging from ~45m to just over 2 hours
2) They currently have no chapters or anything similar -- just long continuous files.
3) After I convert, at some future date, I will get Windows TBD software to do things like introduce chapters, extract or delete portions of the videos, and get screen captures I can use as pictures. I don't need to know anything about that now -- but thought it might be important to know that this is a Windows household (currently W7-64) -- it will never be a Mac or Linux platofrm.
I'm very familiar with analogous audio conversions. For instance, let's say I had a lossy audio file that I valued greatly, but would not play on whatever platform was most important to me. I would then convert that to FLAC (even though I know that I would not be improving the audio quality any, or that this conversion would make the audio "lossless"). However, converting to any other lossy (but platform-compatible) format would cause a degradation in quality, and I would want to avoid that at all costs. And, since I have vast amounts of HD space, I would not begrudge the larger FLAC file size at all. I suspect I am in a very analogous situation right now with these unplayable avi files, but don't have the knowledge to take the next step.
Sooooooo...which format should I be converting to: MP4 or MKV? And any brief explanations as to why I would choose one format over the other would be most welcome.
Once I have the format chosen, I'll post again with a few questions on HandBrake settings in that format.
Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help out...
I recently had a bunch of personal vacation videos (source was 8mm non-HD) and concerts (source was VHS) professionally transferred to digital. The format is .avi, and the codec is DV. Unfortunately, my Oppo BR won't play these, although it plays innumerable other .avi files from my LAN. Presumably it doesn't like the DV codec.
Anyway, I need to convert all these, so I got HandBrake and have played around just enough to get a feel for it, and realize that I have a few questions right off the bat.
The purpose of this post is to get advice on which output container I should be choosing. My only two choices appear to be mp4 and mkv. I have done a test conversion into each one and the Oppo will play either, so that's obviously good.
I am really intent of doing this conversion as losslessly as possible, and frankly, I am hopelessly confused by the avalanche of information on all these formats, codecs, and containers.
Here's some more info that may or may not be important to know:
1) Currently these avi files are very long, ranging from ~45m to just over 2 hours
2) They currently have no chapters or anything similar -- just long continuous files.
3) After I convert, at some future date, I will get Windows TBD software to do things like introduce chapters, extract or delete portions of the videos, and get screen captures I can use as pictures. I don't need to know anything about that now -- but thought it might be important to know that this is a Windows household (currently W7-64) -- it will never be a Mac or Linux platofrm.
I'm very familiar with analogous audio conversions. For instance, let's say I had a lossy audio file that I valued greatly, but would not play on whatever platform was most important to me. I would then convert that to FLAC (even though I know that I would not be improving the audio quality any, or that this conversion would make the audio "lossless"). However, converting to any other lossy (but platform-compatible) format would cause a degradation in quality, and I would want to avoid that at all costs. And, since I have vast amounts of HD space, I would not begrudge the larger FLAC file size at all. I suspect I am in a very analogous situation right now with these unplayable avi files, but don't have the knowledge to take the next step.
Sooooooo...which format should I be converting to: MP4 or MKV? And any brief explanations as to why I would choose one format over the other would be most welcome.
Once I have the format chosen, I'll post again with a few questions on HandBrake settings in that format.
Thanks in advance to anyone willing to help out...