Encoding DV tape when importing

[PuppyX]

I've been trying to import DV tapes to my harddisk by they end up being huge, around 12gb. I tried playing with the settings, but the quality suffers a lot. Are there any recommended presets for sain file sizes while still in a very good quality? I think one gig for a 60 mins tape should be a reasonable expectation, no?

It's just that I have dozens of tapes from the last decade...

Cheers!

 

[handsome pete]

10-12gb per hour of DV sounds about right.

If you want smaller file sizes, you're going to have to compress your DV files to h264 or something. Or you can burn to DVD.

 

[spice weasel]

Are you importing so that you can edit them? If so, there's no way to get around the file size. The best thing you can do is to import only the tapes you need for your project, finish your editing, and then put it in a delivery codec like h.264 and trash the project to free up the space.

But if you aren't going to be editing them and are just doing this to archive the footage, why bother? Just keep the tapes stored properly, since they will last much longer than any hard drive anyway.

 

[spinnerlys]

If you capture DV tapes using the DV codec (DV preset in iMovie and FCE and any other reputable editing application), you will end up with files being 11.5GB/h, as the DV codec needs 3.125MB/S for video alone. Audio adds another 188KB/s, which amounts to 10.9GB/h + 0.64GB/h = 11.54GB/h.

As everyone else already wrote, if you don't want to edit the video, transcode it to a .mov or .mp4 file using the H264 codec for video and MP3 or AA codec (AAC) for audio.