want to convert .avi so i can use them for imovie

[Dany M]

I have tons of .avi files and want to do some magic in imovie. I have visual hub before it went down, which setting will work best with it? I want to have the "go nuts" setting but can i have the file size being the same???

Also, i have handbrake, which setting/preset or w/e would work best for keeping quality intact, and possibly size?

 

[spinnerlys]

Maybe those topics will help you:
http://www.google.com/cse?cx=011016...e:forums.macrumors.com&hl=en&as_qdr=all&meta=

Or looking into the Digital Video subforum.

The questions appears every month or so there.


An .avi is a container/wrapper format, which might use codecs that are highly compressed and lossy, so those videos (mostly Divx or Xvid encoded) are not meant for editing, as they don't contain frame by frame, but approximations between frames.
Editing needs frame by frame.

And the "going nuts" feature of Visual Hub means more compression than less (which is wanted when editing) if I remember correctly.

You could try Mpeg Streamclip for converting your videos, but know that something to be edited needs space. For example, a DV (a highly compressed format "broadcast" format) encoded video needs 12GB per hour, more than 700MB for 90 minutes of film of course.

 

[Chase R]

I would open the files in MPEG Streamclip and convert them to DV. They will take up a lot of space like spinnerlys said but it is much easier to edit.