Best format/compression for archiving old VHS home videos?

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65 points

Best format/compression for archiving old VHS home videos?

To those who have digitized old VHS home videos: what format/compression did you choose for them when archiving? I have been experimenting with all the different choices when exporting from iMovie, and the tradeoff between size and image quality. Just curious to see what others have decided on.

iMac 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, Mac OS X (10.5.5)

Posted on May 25, 2009 4:56 AM

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Answer 1

May 27, 2009 2:18 AM in response to MontereyMatt

I used an mpg container with MPEG2 encoding at the highest possible bitrate. That gave me very good results and I was able to compress them with DivX.

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Answer 2

May 27, 2009 4:45 AM in response to MontereyMatt

I import them through EyeTV Hybrid as MPEG2. I convert the MPEG2 to Apple Intermediate Codec for editing. I use MPEG Streamclip for this. I also deinterlace the file in the MPEG Streamclip step, and use MPEG Streamclip to divide the file into logical events.

I keep my events as Apple Intermediate Codec to retain maximum quality for future movies I may make.

I share my completed projects using Share/to iTunes at the Medium preset.

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Answer 3

MontereyMatt Author

Level 1

65 points

May 27, 2009 12:48 PM in response to MontereyMatt

Thanks for the responses. Is MPEG-2 the best choice for VHS footage? i.e. is it sufficient for the relatively low quality of VHS? I thought MPEG-4 was superior to MPEG-2. Or is MPEG-4 for HD videos? I have been importing from a VCR through a Canopus ADVC-55 (i have eyetv but i think the imported video was blocky...it was a long time ago). Editing in iMovie 09 and exporting to QuickTime movie H.264 on the "high" quality setting, just below "best". Anyway, now I'm wondering if i can just export to MPEG-2, have the same quality image, but a smaller file size.

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Answer 4

May 27, 2009 12:58 PM in response to MontereyMatt

Since MPEG-2 is not an "editable" file format it is a poor choice for archiving.
VHS compares in video quality to MPEG-1 specs. Very poor quality to begin with.
There are "services" that can improve the conversion from VHS to digital formats. They can enhance (clean up) your VHS tapes and create a more modern (editable) digital version.
Buy an external hard drive and ask the service to make a DV Stream (.dv) format of your VHS tapes.

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Answer 5

MontereyMatt Author

Level 1

65 points

May 27, 2009 1:51 PM in response to QuickTimeKirk

Actually, i'm ok with the picture quality from my vhs tapes -- don't need to clean them up or anything. I'm just wondering which format will retain the best picture quality but have the smallest file size, for archiving on my external drives. What would be the advantage of saving them as a DV stream instead of a QT movie with H.264? Does saving as a QT movie usually boost up the file size compared to another format?

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Answer 6

May 27, 2009 2:05 PM in response to MontereyMatt

File size should not be your concern. You want an editable file format that will not go through another "conversion" in future versions of your editing applications.
H.264 is a great video codec. It is editable. But it is a "delivery" codec (final export) and not intended to replicate your original source files.
DV Stream is also an editable codec and will work with any version of iMovie. At 13 GB's per hour of source it will actually "up-sample" your VHS tapes (no improvement) but become the most reliable format for future work.

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