Which compression to use?

[eaks]

Hi everybody! A friend of mine came back from a big trip with 4 hours of digital video. I recorded the whole stuff to my computer (with Imovie, Toast and Quicktime). Yeah I made some tries! Now he'd like me to burn him a dvd with his 4 hours of video saved as .mov (uncompressed, unless one of these software did the job while the capturing process, without my aknowledgement). The fact is I'd like to use as less dvd as possible, while keeping him a good image quality. The purpose is to watch back his trip on consumer dvd players.

I'd like to know how to compress his movies without having to wait excessive amount of times.

Also, it seems that the fourth part of the movie (captured with quicktime pro) has smaller screen frame. I'd like to adjust that as well.

Thanks a lot for helping me guys!

[UncasMS]

storing the results in MOV will not help you/him in any way because no standalone player will play it

for playback in a normal dvd player you will have to convert the material to mpeg-2

4hrs however of mpeg-2 on ONE disc might end in horrible quality - 2 discs sound reasonable to me

[eaks]

I again, thanks for the reply. So can I use either quicktime pro or imovie to convert the files to mpeg-2? I know for a fact that imovie doesnt want to read my files no more, saying they're too large. Also, when I adjust my conversion settings, is it there that I will arrange my frame size problem?

thanks

[UncasMS]

i dont use any of those so i cant tell - ask google

most people will import the cam-material with tools like ulead video studio, pinnacle studio and so forth

all those tools will let you edit the material and output to mpeg-2/dvd

[tigerman8u]

if you're short on hard drive space you could capture the video with a lossless codec such as Huffy or if you have the hard drive space I would capture at full uncompressed dvd resolution, do any editing then convert to a compliant dvd mpeg 1/2. Capturing at full D1 will help to ensure you retain as much video quality/info as possible

[eaks]

thanks for the help buddies. I'm at the conversion step, and I want to convert my video to mpeg-2 before I burn it to readable dvd in consumer dvd players.
What kind of conversion and compression should I use to make it a not too long process? I'm on mac, and my tools are currently quicktime pro and imovie. I would burn with toast.

thanks again!

[blutach]

As UncasMS undoubtedly knows, Procoder 2 will do this job, but it is very expensive. Not sure if the cheaper Procoder Express will handle it.

Check out Procoder site at http://www.canopus.us/US/products/In...duct_index.asp

Regards

[UncasMS]

on a MAC?

[blutach]

Hmmm - yes, I see he has a MAC. But it has a PC Emulation mode doesn't it (probably works like an old pony compared to a thoroughbred)?

Regards

[ElBoricua433]

you know I thought Procoder was a encoder, why does it say it's a transcoder in there website, transcoding program

[jm1647]

@ElBoricua433 - Good Eye - I went to the site one time , seen $499 and ran away! I didn't bother to read anything else but the price.

[ElBoricua433]

yeah I know, Procoder is too pricey to get, you must really have a good job in order to get it