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HD video converter

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  • 18-12-2009 6:23pm
    #1
    DiarmaidGNR
    Registered Users Posts: 382 ✭✭


    Hi, I have a few HD video files (.mkv) that I need to convert to divx or avi format (or similar) for use in a 2TB media player. The media player supports HD video but not mkv files. I need something that converts to a different format but keeps the HD quality.
    I tried converting a film (11GB) using an xilisoft converter, but no matter what settings I set up in the converter, - the biggest output file size is around 1GB.(big drop in quality)
    Please help.
    Tagged:


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    #2
    mp22
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Regional South Moderators Posts: 6,854 Mod ✭✭✭✭mp22


    try winavi video converter 8.0, I dont know it works with hd, costs too.


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    #3
    [Deleted User]
    Posts: 0 ✭ [Deleted User]


    No matter what transcoder you use you will get huge quality loss if transcoding to .avi/.xvid/.divx. They may keep the resolution of the original file but becasue x264 (assuming .mkv's are x264 encoded) is such an efficient encoder that to keep original quality in .avi/.xvid/.divx the file size may need to be double the original or more. So if you transcode down to say half the original size the quality will be severly degraded.


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    #4
    Champ
    Registered Users Posts: 677 ✭✭✭Champ


    Well knowing the full range of formats your player supports would be helpful, not to mention if its certified for DivX, Xvid, H264 play back etc;).

    It would help as well if you know if your videos were encoded with the proper cerified codec profiles for media players... DivX, X264 etc.. all maintain a large set of standardised profiles to ensure they're compatible on media players...

    I think it is possible to do looseless copies of video streams via a combination of AviSynth and MEGUI (a nice GUI that accepts AviSynth scripts as input). By looseless copy I mean MEGUI has defined profiles for X264 and a few other codecs which include a possible looseless (subject to interpretation -it is called "looseless") one though no guarantees on its efficency etc... it may blow up the original video stream size or compact it more efficently depending on the original video codec.

    Google AviSynth and MEGUI and prepare to learn and work your brain. They're both free which is handy and very powerful if a touch daunting for newcomers. However the basics of it as I see it is, you will create an AviSynth script which will feed your video to MEGUI (basically an avs text file which you can open with MEGUI) and using the MEGUI interface you can accomplish most of your work. Not sure if the MPEG-4 ASP profiles (DivX, Xvid) etc maintain a looseless option so your might be stuck using x264 (the only opensource MPEG-4 AVC codec that i'm aware of).

    Alternative you might have to settle for a standard reencode, though if done correctly you will hardly notice any quality loss.

    Oh avi is also a very old container format so technically it doesn't work with MPEG-4 AVC codecs, so if your going the X264 route you'll need to use something else like .mp4 to house the result.


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