Capturing Hi-8 video, .avi file sizes are enormous.

Readyrob1957

Newbie Location: San Diego, CA Joined: Dec 09, 2016 12:17 Messages: 34 Offline

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Jan 22, 2018 03:00

I recently found a box of my old Hi-8 videos that I am now capturing and making digital so I can edit in Power Director 16.

The problem I have is the captured files (.avi) from my Sony DCR-TRV730 NTSC Digital 8 camera are very large. For example 84 seconds of captured video takes up 314 mb of memory.

I captured the videos on 2 different capture software and they both used the same amount of memory (314 mb / 315 mb).

I utilized "ScenalyzerLive" (yes very old) and Sony's "PlayMemoriesHome software" and as mentioned got the same memory requirements for 84 seconds of video clips.

I didn't see anywhere on the "PlayMemoriesHome software" settings to change the resolution or the capture size. I also looked at the camera menu to determine if it was set in such a way as to output such huge files.

I am very frustrated since 4 hours of unedited clips is 52.4 GB. The frame width is 720 and frame height is 480; Data rate 27286kbps; frame rate 29.97 fps; AUDIO: Bit rate 1536 kbps.

Are these parameters normal? Just seems high to me for some reason. Once I start editing them in Power Director, is there a way to shrink the output without affecting the quality? Or should I compress the clips prior to importing them into Power Director? If yes, can you suggest best way to compress the clips in batches?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Filename	Rob DxDiag.txt	Download
Description
Filesize	76 Kbytes
Downloaded:	239 time(s)

"I believe everything's gonna be alright."

GGRussell

Senior Contributor Joined: Jan 08, 2012 11:38 Messages: 709 Offline

Jan 22, 2018 09:02

AVI is a less compressed format and is a larger file size. Usually about 13GB per hour. Once you edit and compress to MPEG2, average is about 4.7GB per hour on a standard DVD. Can get higher compression if you save to MP4 file format depending on settings.

Compressing the files looses a lot of details so I wouldn't compress before editing. Only do that for the final output.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jan 22. 2018 09:04

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Gary Russell -- TN USA

PepsiMan

Senior Contributor Location: Clarksville, TN Joined: Dec 29, 2010 01:20 Messages: 1054 Offline

Jan 22, 2018 09:41

sounds like you're okay, survived wild fires and land slides, and mom?

Quote ... The frame width is 720 and frame height is 480; Data rate 27286kbps; frame rate 29.97 fps; AUDIO: Bit rate 1536 kbps. are these parameters normal? Just seems high to me for some reason ...

me, too(no i'm not a part of that movement.) 28Mb/sec video bitrate for SD resolution is on the very high side. normal SD video bitrate is around 8Mb/sec but i do go high as 13-16Mb/sec(plus audio bitrate). now, i'll use the 28Mb/sec video bitrate for 1080 FHD, personally i use at 44Mb/sec to 50Mb/sec...

Quote ... is there a way to shrink the output without affecting the quality? ...

well, it's garbage in garbage out(gigo) and wysiwyg(what you see is what you get). some odd reason, i can hear flip wilson saying it... ^^ watch this -> Webcam capture resolution . you can applied to your video capture, too. hapy happy joy joy PepsiMan 'garbage in garbage out'

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at Jan 22. 2018 09:43

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