1080p Conversion

[PR-0927]

So I posted this somewhere else in a section which is rarely frequented on different forum website. I was hoping someone here might know what's good. Here's the post:

 

Hey guys, so just a question that I seem to be unable to find answered (perhaps because of poor searching skills), hopefully not because a simple answer doesn't exist.

 

Bear with me as I speak about video stuff with ignorance. Video-enthusiasts may grimace.

 

Basically, I have some 1080p videos in .mkv format, of the H.264/AVC codec. I also have some in .wmv (HD) format.

 

I want to convert all of my 1080p videos to one format. Which is better? So far I found the advantage of the .wmv files to be that they would play on my Xbox 360, which is connected to my 1080p LCD TV, which has no connection to any kind of Blu-Ray player (the alternative is lugging my desktop to my basement where my HDTV is located, and plugging it in directly via DVI, but I'd prefer to not do that).

 

So, what format provides the best quality, compression, resource efficiency, etc.?

 

And, what can I use to convert such videos? Will MediaCoder do the job? Will quality be lost in the conversion process with MediaCoder (or any other converter, for that matter)?

 

I'd appreciate any input on this, thanks!

 

- PR-0927

 

 

- PR-0927

[IG-64]

I use All to Avi to convert videos to AVI, especially .MKVs since not many other programs take those.

 

As for anything about Codecs... I've been working with video codecs for probably close to 8 years now, and they still confuse the heck out of me, so don't get me lying.

[PR-0927]

Haha, yeah, these codec things get confusing, especially with the extreme variation in "wrapping" and "insides." Weird stuff.

 

But All to Avi converts even 1080p videos without a loss in FPS, bitrate, or quality in general?

 

- PR-0927

[acdcfanbill]

Any conversion between formats is going to result in some loss of quality, if your final settings are above the initial videos qualities then the loss will be imperceptible. MKV and AVI are just containers, the h264/AVC video stream can be in either container, though h264 in AVI is pretty irregular and no doubt unsupported. I would bet the .wmv's are Microsoft's own high def oriented implementation of a DCT based codec, VC-1 (all mpeg implementations are based on discrete cosine transforms as well).

 

I personally prefer h264 over VC-1 mainly due to x264 being a nice free and open source encoder for h264 video while VC-1 encoders are proprietary. h264 also has some more options for macroblock sizes, which can help improve picture quality at low bitrates, of course at the expense of encoding time. Here is a comparison of features on wikipedia.

 

I have no experience with MediaCoder so I don't know if it will encode VC-1 wmvs, but I doubt it. You'd have to get some of Microsoft's tools for that.

 

I think, but I'm not sure as I don't have one, that xbox 360s can open mp4 containers, so you could test it, and if it works, then that would alleviate the need to re-encode all your .mkv files. You could simple demux the video and audio out of the mkv and remux it into a mp4 container. If that doesn't work, then the simplest thing would probably be to find a good VC-1 wmv encoder and convert your mkv's and then just make all your new files into wmvs.

[BongoBob]

I think, but I'm not sure as I don't have one, that xbox 360s can open mp4 containers, so you could test it, and if it works, then that would alleviate the need to re-encode all your .mkv files.

 

Yes, the 360 handles mp4 files just fine IIRC.

 

You could simple demux the video and audio out of the mkv and remux it into a mp4 container.

 

Any advice on what program to use to do this/how to do this?

[acdcfanbill]

I don't do a whole lot with MKV container since they are not my favorite, but for what I've done, using mkvextractgui worked well. note that it needs a command line tool to work with, the page links to it.

 

for mp4 muxing, mp4box works nicely and I think there's a link for a GUI for that on the page too if you want it.

 

Demux the file, you'll get a video file and an audio file, and perhaps subtitles or chapters if they were in the container too, then just use mp4box and make a .mp4 file containing your video/audio.

 

If you want to make sure or just find out about the vid/aud streams a good tool is mediainfo.

[BongoBob]

I don't do a whole lot with MKV container since they are not my favorite, but for what I've done, using mkvextractgui worked well. note that it needs a command line tool to work with, the page links to it.

 

for mp4 muxing, mp4box works nicely and I think there's a link for a GUI for that on the page too if you want it.

 

Demux the file, you'll get a video file and an audio file, and perhaps subtitles or chapters if they were in the container too, then just use mp4box and make a .mp4 file containing your video/audio.

 

If you want to make sure or just find out about the vid/aud streams a good tool is mediainfo.

 

Thanks, I'll look into those