Sony Vegas Movie Studio - some basic help needed

Hi,

I am a total amateur when it comes to video editing... have a bunch of old miniDV tapes I want to convert to digital. 720x480.

So, the question....

after I download them to my hard drive (as AVI files), what is the best format to convert them to ?

I.e. I don't want to lose much IQ but I do want some compression; an uncompressed tape takes up about 2.4 Gb. also, as importantly, I need to chose the format that's least problematic when it comes to playing on different systems. MP4 perhaps ?

Well, mini-DV *is* 720x480 digital. If you're using Vegas to move them from tape to your HD, then, yes, you'll have transferred them at their native resolution & compression, which is good.

Yes, rendering out as MP4, probably with the MainConcept codec (Vegas Pro includes this codec, not sure if Vegas Studio does?), at a bitrate of about 1200Kbps will shrink those files right down, will be very compatible, and should be visually lossless.

Of course one could debate the bitrate, 1200Kbps (1.2Mbps) is perhaps a little generous for standard def, but you're still shrinking the original by a factor of about 20. Try it on some of the most motion-intensive footage you have, and see how you like it.

If you are going to edit, keeping the original AVI files is best. Hard drives are cheap...

If you're going to want to to anything to the footage, including editing, correcting color, etc., it's best to leave it in the native DV codec. The bitrate is actually a quite reasonable 25 Mbps. Considering that even basic DSLR video recording is twice that bitrate, you shouldn't be filling up your drives too quickly.

If you're done with it, an h.264 file around 4Mbps will give you great results for uploading, or playing on set-top boxes. But you have to go through the trouble of converting it and then deleting the original.

Thanks, will try !

What I am trying to get, basically, is a smaller file that will play on most devices yet not lose too much IQ due to compression. The idea is to eventually put all tapes on a wifi enabled hard drive and stream to TVs, and may be back up some in the cloud somewhere. I may just keep the AVIs but I've had problems streaming large files in the past.

These are just home tapes of my kids since they were born, so it's not like there's a super high IQ to begin with. But I'd rather not lose much of what I do have.

You should be able to convert to MP4 as suggest above.

Do a small section and convert it and see what works best. I typically convert to h.264 though.. The MP4 will be a smaller file size.

Good luck..