What's a good codec for DV storage purposes?
 

Hi all. I am in the process of building a library of videos of animal rights issues. What I am currently doing is capturing all the VHS videos I have into DV via my cam and converting to MPG2 for burning as data and, from there, can easily build dvd's. Obvious cause of the size of the videos, I can't store the DV footage on DVD's as it's far too big, but I was wondering if anyone knows any good codecs that can generate better quality (And probably bigger size) than what MPG2's but, of course, not as big as DV ;)

I'm start some tests of my own with all my codecs that I have with VEGAS but if anyone's already done this it'd be a great help.

Cheers
Aaron

You could use DV tape. It's about $4/tape from tapestockonline.com (take shipping into account). tapes are even cheaper from ecost.com. DV is better quality than DVD and possibly easier to edit. I'm not sure which format is more durable. Unfortunately DV is limited to 1 hour.

On PC: The best quality compression out there right now is divX. If your system is good enough you could encode as you are capturing (via analog). The quality will not be as good as DVD or DV though. Otherwise you can capture and convert to divX with great quality.

Thanks Glen, I'll look into DivX and see how that goes. Yeah I could use tapes, but in New Zealand you're looking at $13 a tape minimum and (~$7US) and then there are the obvious problems of tape being less durable and more prone to problems than DVD's.

Cheers
Aaron

Divx on CD, the new VHS for me
 

> On PC: The best quality compression out there right now is divX.
> If your system is good enough you could encode as you are capturing
> (via analog). The quality will not be as good as DVD or DV though.

Divx is actually very good, and much more of a bandwidth saver than DV or MPEG2. You have to find a good encoder though. Alos, MPEG4 might give you good results. I have used mencoder on Mac OS X to make some nice looking Divx files for a client. Originals were VHS. The resulting compact discs are very easy for the client to duplicate and distribute.