[serr]

I'm an experienced audio engineer but nearly 100% clueless with video! I'd like to see someone talk about how to keep already lossy video 1:1 with the original. Preparing audio for bluray seems to ironically be the easy one these days. The different levels of lossy video formats are the confusing ones!

How to preserve the video as is without re-encoding it?
What video formats accept lossless PCM audio (max 48k is just fine in this example)?
What ones require going to lossy audio? What lossy options do you get to choose from in this example?

These are the questions that I get the 12-volt stare to.


For example, if this was audio we would discuss how mp3 can be copied as a file 1:1 but decoding it back to wav and re-encoding it to mp3 would add another level of loss. Or how a 16 bit file can be put into a 24 bit format and preserved 1:1 but not the reverse.

The mpeg-4/mov render option in Reaper of course re-encodes the video.

What apps can be used to handle and keep intact the video component?

Anyone know of a good reference chart for video? What formats can be put into what file container and what keeps things 1:1 vs. re-encoding?

Today's task is this video file:
Duration: 0:53:11
Data Size: 1.46 GB
Bit Rate: 3.92 Mbps
Video Tracks:
H.264, 960 × 540, 29.97 fps, 3.79 Mbps

That info comes from MPEG Streamclip.
This app lets you separate audio out and do some conversions (not all of which are clear) but has no function to replace a video file 1:1 with an original. Setting the output to 100% quality for example tries to produce a lossless format file (around 12GB) from the lossy source.

I get that there might be some paid apps required. I get that some of this might be proprietary information. I'd sure appreciate it if someone could at least point me to some kind of cross reference chart or something though!

PS. I am NOT looking for a critique of lossy formats like one might be tempted to offer for mp3. That's all useful info and well and good but I just want to know how to preserve any video 1:1 regardless of any format decisions made upstream.

[reader50]

It sounds like you need a muxing tool like mkvtoolnix. That one's just for .mkv files, but it will open other media types as sources and demonstrates what you can use it for.

You drop existing files (or open them) in the sources pane. All available tracks are listed from all files. You check the ones you want in the output file, and they're copied across. This tool doesn't do editing, other than track tags and things you can do via tags, such as frame rates and/or playback delays for specific tracks.

Drag the tracks into the desired output order, then mux. The tracks are copied across into the output file, with no modifications. Zero loss. If you want to replace an audio track, you supply a new one via the input pane, and select that one instead / in addition to the existing audio track.

I don't know the preferred muxing tools for other output file formats, but I'm pretty sure this is the kind of solution you're looking for.

[P]

I like Subler. It is intended for adding subtitle tracks onto a video file for playback on devices that don't support whatever format you have, but I use it to transfer tracks from a format like .mkv to something that will play on my (old) AppleTV without transcoding. It can mux in audio as well, not sure about the formats it supports. Reader's tool may be more general. My fallback when all else fails is to do it through VLC, but that is a pain.

As for a list of video containers... This is one of the things Wikipedia does very well:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...tainer_formats