Best format for watching videos from hard drive
 

I spent several months capturing VHS home videos to huffyuv using a workflow I mostly purchased from lordsmurf, with the exception of the a VC500. I do not plan to restore, only to encode.

I do not plan to burn to dvd or Blu-ray. Instead, we plan to watch from the hard drive over a tv or an Xbox.

I am not sure which video format is best, mpeg 2 or 4 or maybe another format. Also looking for help on the best software that is inexpensive, avidemux? And roughly how long it takes to encode video from huffyuv to mpeg?

Thank you for any advice.

MPEG-2 is good but not efficient compared to modern video formats, and files tend to be bigger for the same quality of modern codecs.

MPEG-4 is the most used container nowadays but it comes in different codecs, Part 2 was H.263 and it is almost obsolete now, Part 10 is H.264 or AVC this the most used codec by the current video industry for media based distribution, Part 14 is MP4 geared towards mobile devices and streaming over IP.

MPEG-H is the newest format, Part 2 of it defines the codec H.265 currently used in 4K/UHD and 8K video industry. I don't think this is useful for your case.

Thank you for your reply.:)

While H.265 may be more than needed, any suggestions on a software program for encoding? It sounds like H.265 will be the codec and the container here could be several based on my research (although I may be wrong). For example, could a container be .mp4?

Thanks for your help!

Containers are just extensions, the codec is the most important thing, H.264 has wide support of almost any encoding software, However I'm not familiar with them, it's hard to keep up with the fast paced development of these software. The best place to ask is videohelp there are a lot of video professionals out there, make sure you post short clips so they can steer you to the right direction.

There are many freeware tools out there you could use. For example Avidemux, Megui, Handbrake, Staxrip, Hybrid and..........
I would use the x264 codec inside of a mp4 or mkv container.
I highly recommend the software hybrid from "Selur" which is like a army swiss knife. If you wish you could use Avisynth, Vapoursynt, deinterlacing..... (all plugins included with the download)
He has a own website and a english speaking help forum.

http://www.selur.de/downloads

Unfortunately the first steps with Hybrid arent easy but when you know what you do I'm sure you will love it.

When you say "Instead, we plan to watch from the hard drive over a tv or an Xbox.", do you mean using playing using the built in media player on your HDTV? Both have strict requirements for what types (codec, container, encoding specs) of files they'll play, especially the cheap media player (especially compared to a standalone box) on your HDTV.

Whatever you choose, be sure to keep the originals for editing or future use. Most codecs are end user, i.e. they're not meant or easy to edit. Also, if you or someone ever does decide to edit, especially running filters, it always best to use the original source.

When I mentioned watching from the hard drive over a TV or XBOX I did mean using built in media players. On XBOX I found an app that allows me to actually play the AVI files I captured from the VHS tapes. This saves me from converting the files for the time being.

However, I still plan to convert the files to h.264 or h.265 if I can also find a way to use automatic scene detection to split these 2 hours videos without manually splitting them.