I've been capturing family video for the past 15 years. Over the course of that time I've been very good about organizing and editing that video and have it at the point now where I've got around 200 individual video files ranging from 30 seconds to 20 minutes each. The video was encoded and stored in whatever codec/container made sense to me at the time i.e. HDV/AVI, MPEG1/MPG, AVCHD/M2TS, MPEG2/M2TS, MPEG2/MTS. The resolutions include 720x480, 720x480 Widescreen, 1440x480, 1280x720 and 1980x1080 (both 30fps and 60fps). The early files were created using early versions of Premiere but most everything else was created with Vegas 3 through Vegas Pro 10. Most of these files play flawlessly on my Windows 7 based machine but suffer from compatibility problems on my MAC, AppleTV, PS3 and XBOX 360. I have been able to transcode to H.264/MP4 and create compatible files that play fine on all platforms but am facing a dilemma, which transcode workflow is best for my purposes. While I want to retain quality if I can I'm more concerned about future compatibility. I have found in my experiments that not all transcodes are equal and wanted to list some of the experiences/thoughts I've had to see what others think. I know there is a large thread here concerning rendering for YouTube but since I'm not as concerned about bitrate and 1280x720 I'm not sure if it is apple to apples.
Some things that concern me are how some transcoders by default want to change the pixel aspect ratio and thus change the resolution. For example a 1440x1080 file will get written as 1905x1072 by Handbrake.
I'm also not sure if I should try and make my files progressive if they were originally interlaced. I'm finding that by default the fps come out to 59.94 when they were originally 29.97 if I leave things as interlaced when rendering using MainConcept. I've already run into problems where iTunes does not like the higher fps.
I thought I had found the perfect solution in Handbrake but for whatever reason I am getting strange playback results in Windows Media Player and QT on my MAC. If I jump around within the video using the progress bar there is a distinct pause / catch up as play resumes. Sony AVC and MainConcept do not seem to have the same issue.
I had thought the ideal solution was to use Apple Compressor but it has serious compatibility problems with AVCHD along with pretty much every other HD format I have. I've tried demuxing, switching containers, etc.. etc.. but have not found the perfect workflow. Clipwrap also does not work as I often lose sound or the first few seconds of the converted video (the developer told me they don't support Vegas exported files, just fresh from the camera).
If you have any advice on this matter I'd love to hear about it. I'm considering settling on Sony AVC since I can transcode everything using a single codec so would like to hear if anyone thinks that is a big mistake from a future proof standpoint. I've already been burned by some bad AVCHD renders via Vegas where audio was out of synch so that worries me.
Thanks !
Some things that concern me are how some transcoders by default want to change the pixel aspect ratio and thus change the resolution. For example a 1440x1080 file will get written as 1905x1072 by Handbrake.
I'm also not sure if I should try and make my files progressive if they were originally interlaced. I'm finding that by default the fps come out to 59.94 when they were originally 29.97 if I leave things as interlaced when rendering using MainConcept. I've already run into problems where iTunes does not like the higher fps.
I thought I had found the perfect solution in Handbrake but for whatever reason I am getting strange playback results in Windows Media Player and QT on my MAC. If I jump around within the video using the progress bar there is a distinct pause / catch up as play resumes. Sony AVC and MainConcept do not seem to have the same issue.
I had thought the ideal solution was to use Apple Compressor but it has serious compatibility problems with AVCHD along with pretty much every other HD format I have. I've tried demuxing, switching containers, etc.. etc.. but have not found the perfect workflow. Clipwrap also does not work as I often lose sound or the first few seconds of the converted video (the developer told me they don't support Vegas exported files, just fresh from the camera).
If you have any advice on this matter I'd love to hear about it. I'm considering settling on Sony AVC since I can transcode everything using a single codec so would like to hear if anyone thinks that is a big mistake from a future proof standpoint. I've already been burned by some bad AVCHD renders via Vegas where audio was out of synch so that worries me.
Thanks !