URGENT |Video conversion DV <-> H264

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URGENT |Video conversion DV <-> H264

I am not sure if this is the right section of "discussions" to post to but, could not make up my mind where should I.
Please redirect me to the right forum if you feel so.

I have a DV .mov file of 8min (2GB), and i need to transfer it online to someone having only a Windows machine.
My idea was to convert DV to H264 on Mac (which makes it 200MB) using Quicktime.
And then my friend (who only has windows) can convert it back to DV using Quicktime. Does the Quicktime player (free) for windows give the "save as" option? Moreover, does a Windows machine read and convert H264 codec (to/from other codecs)?

Message was edited by: archie2907

Macbook Pro 17 2.8GHz, Mac OS X (10.6.4)

Posted on Nov 1, 2010 6:54 AM

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Answer 1

Nov 1, 2010 5:59 PM in response to archie2907

Your Windows friend will not be able to convert from .mov to .dv without loosing a lot of quality.
When you compress the lightly compressed .dv file to .mov you remove a lot of information (hence the great difference in the file size).
It's easy to make a big file smaller in file size. It is impossible to get the original quality back into the file when going from .mov to .dv.
The free QuickTime Player can't export or convert files. It does support H.264 and DV Stream. Burn the 2 GB file onto a DVD and send it in the mail. If you export from your source file you can choose AVI and the DV Stream codec. The Windows user can edit the .avi in the free Movie Maker application.

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