I am fairly new to the world of video editing and there is a LOT to learn. I'm guessing there's a thread/guide here at AfterDawn that someone can point me towards, or, just opinions would be great. I have a .MKV file that I need to convert because Pinnacle doesn't recognize it (recognized formats are: AVCHD, DV, HDV, AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, DivX, MPEG-4, 3GP(MPEG-4), WMV). I know that opinions on formats vary, but generally, is one of the above best to convert to in terms of keeping it HD with as little quality loss as possible? I am not 100% sure which format I will burn for DVD player usage--most likely MPEG-2, though most DVD players on today's market recognize a wide variety of formats. Does that decision affect my conversion format? Another question about HD: let's say I have a 2-hour HD movie but do not have a HD (dual layer) disc. A regular disc can only hold about 25 minutes of HD and a DL will about double that. If I end up converting my HD movie into a non-HD format (like non-HD MPEG-2) so that it "fits" onto a non-HD DL disc, is it kind of worthless to start out with HD, or, will that used-to-be-but-no-longer-HD movie still retain more quality than would an initially non-HD video? I hope that makes sense. Happy to clarify if needed. These are questions I am looking forward to seeing answered so I can expand my knowledge of the subject. Thank you all so much for your time.
Start here. http://www.afterdawn.com/guides/archive/how_to_play_mkv.cfm You're asking for a 5:1 reduction in size. ". . . keeping it HD with as little quality loss as possible?" It depends on what you consider acceptable quality loss and what your output device is. HD files are as big as they are for a reason. that reason is quality. Reducing them in size will decrease the quality, period. You can't get something for nothing. I don't quite understand your second question, but IMHO any reduuction of an HD format file to an SD format will result in quality loss that is so substantial that it's not worth doing. There are others that will probably have differing opinions.
