Moving AVI and MOV files into iTunes

[almtnr]

I have a few questions related to the AVI and MOV file formats. I have searched around and can't really seem to find the answer to my questions, which I thought were simple, until reading about Video Editing. I have a new appreciation for those in this field of work.

AVI Files
1) How can I combine AVI files into a single  TV Compatible File and not lose and quality?

MOV Files (from iPhone)
1) How can I combine these files into a single MOV file and not lose the quality?

I have tried Handbrake and MPEGStreamclip, but they don't seem to be the entire solution. I am worried about quality on both of these, especially since the AVI files are from my digital camera and already pretty bad in terms of video quality.

Thanks in advance for any help you all can provide.

 

[KeithPratt]

1) How can I combine AVI files into a single  TV Compatible File and not lose and quality?

AVI is just a container; it depends on what codec is inside. Open the video in Quicktime and open the Movie Inspector. If it's not a codec Apple TV can deal with you'll have to transcode. Transcoding to high bitrate H.264 should be indistinguishable unless you're determined to find differences.

MOV Files (from iPhone)
1) How can I combine these files into a single MOV file and not lose the quality?

Try opening the latter video in MPEG Streamclip, Edit > Select All, Edit > Copy. Then open the first video, navigate to the end, Edit > Paste, Save As. This can work if the files' parameters are the same (which they should be, coming from your iPhone).


For more detail you can do a search on this here forum.

 

[almtnr]

Keith - Thanks for the reply.

I checked Movie Inspector, and the format is below;

Apple OpenDML JPEG, 640 × 480, Millions
8-bit Unsigned Integer, Mono, 11.024 kHz

My .AVI files are from a Canon Powershot Camera.

I used MPEG Streamclip and it took this from a 35 MB file to 13 MB, using the H.264 and 100% Quality Setting, under the Export to MPEG-4 Option.

Do I just need to settle for a lower quality conversion of .AVI files to watch on Apple TV? Its already bad enough watching the 640 x 480 on a big screen and then to have it further compressed just makes it worse.

The MPEG Streamclip worked fine for the .MOV files, so thanks for the help.

On the .AVI, is QT PRO a better solution?

So, one last quick question. I read the new  TV Specs and the last Video Format mentions;

Motion JPEG (M-JPEG) up to 35 Mbps, 1280 by 720 pixels, 30 frames per second, audio in ulaw, PCM stereo audio in .avi file format

Will this solve my issue, and I can leave the .AVI files alone, or is it back to them not being transcoded in the right format?

Thanks again - Jason

 

[dhd]

Hi there,

From MPEG Streamclip, go to File> "Save as..." and choose .mov. If the codecs are compatible with the Qt standard, you should be able to open it from Qt (thus from itunes), with no quality loss.

 

[KeithPratt]

Apple OpenDML JPEG, 640 × 480, Millions
8-bit Unsigned Integer, Mono, 11.024 kHz

See if the original will play on Apple TV. The sound might be a problem.

I used MPEG Streamclip and it took this from a 35 MB file to 13 MB, using the H.264 and 100% Quality Setting, under the Export to MPEG-4 Option.

Do I just need to settle for a lower quality conversion of .AVI files to watch on Apple TV? Its already bad enough watching the 640 x 480 on a big screen and then to have it further compressed just makes it worse.

Putting your concerns over recompression aside, does it actually look any worse? I'd be surprised if setting a multipass H.264 at 2500Kbps would look to any noticeable extent worse than the original.

Or, as dhd said, try saving the AVIs as a combined MOV in MPEG Streamclip.

 

[almtnr]

Thank you both.

dhd - I actually tried your suggestion a few days ago, after reading about it elsewhere in this forum. It works great, the file would play in QT, copy to iTunes, but the only problem was the .mov file I saved and copied to iTunes was not a compatible format for Apple TV. And this was for files starting as .mov (from my iPhone) or .avi files)

Keith - You lost me at multipass but, I do understand our comment about not noticing the difference

I found this tip (sorry if it is a competing forum);

http://www.macyourself.com/2009/03/...eo-files-using-the-free-version-of-quicktime/

It merged .avi files and .mov files wonderfully in the non Pro version of QT 7. However, after merging, saving, and copying to iTunes, they were not playable on Apple TV. I even took two files, that I could play on Apple TV, merged them together and they would not Sync to the Apple TV.