Blackmagic Forum

I have read the various other chains on AVI. I have read the excuses Blackmagic put up in response.
The fact is the excuses make Da Vinci a second tier product regardless of all the other functionality and rich user experience it offers.
This spotlight says simply declares it is not good enough for a company to shrug it's houlders and say we're not very good at handling AVI so we don't bother.

A windows 10 machine (my Windows 10 machine) can play an AVI file using VLC.

Premier Pro.
Sony Vegas,
After Effects,
Boris Mocha,
Ableton

- can all manage and render /play the same AVI file on the same system.
DaVinci Resolve on the same Windows 10 machine does not even show the same avi file in the resolve browser.

I truly have no desire to go outside one editing package do a conversion and bring it back into the original editing package. I just want to open it, convert it if I have to and then work with it in a single editing and colouring suite.

In my non tech world I do not understand or accept what Blackmagic claims - it cannot handle AVI files, when competitors and other major software companies can.

This doc on our support site shows supported formats, inc AVI
https://documents.blackmagicdesign.com/ ... 8057211000

maybe the specific AVI you are trying is not within these specs?
post a link to a sample, and inc you system OS and resolve version details.

And then, some codecs only work in Studio, on PC in particular.

AVI is just a container. You can have many different codecs inside. Resolve works only with some of them (mainly uncompressed options). Overall AVI is outdated/simple container. Can't carry in standard way aspect ratio, timecode etc.

If you for whatever reason want to work with AVI files Resolve is simply not for you. No one forces you to use it. You have plenty other NLEs. Resolve supports about all 'useful' codecs inside AVI, so your car must be more unique.

It would be nice if Resolve had VfW capabilities, so that any codec installed on the system would work.

Without VfW, we're dependent upon BMD adding support for individual codecs, and as Andrew points out, .avi isn't much used these days, so that support isn't as broad as some of us might like.

VfW is as old as AVI. If I am correct it’s not anymore default Windows’ AV technology and may be removed at all soon.
It’s also Windows only technology so this is an issue itself.
As much as it allows you to use system codecs it’s very open and prone to problems.
It all then depends what you have installed on your system. Supporting it would be a nightmare. Many NLEs been there, some still supporting it (I think) eg. Vegas.
It’s similar to h264/5 support provided by OS/GPU, but with 100x more variations and by seeing today’s issues around h264/5 support in Resolve you see where it can get you.

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:It’s also Windows only technology so this is an issue itself.

I don't think so.

But it is just as vulnerable as the QT framework was. That's why most serious NLEs started to integrate codecs and leave such open approaches behind.

AVI is a very old 32 bit proprietary Microsoft format. Quite a lot of media players play it but it's not really supported at an OS level any more, especially as most operating systems are moving away from legacy 32 bit support. I remember AVI being abandoned in Post houses as early as 2003!

So while we are having this discussion regarding AVI, I am in the process of digitizing some old Mini-DV tapes for my daughter. For my own old tapes I used HDVSplit, but because her filming was done in DV format I have been using the old WinDV program.

It saves as avi files and I have included the MediaInfo result. My questions are, first, since these files are HUGE (and DV is not super high quality to begin with), what would be the best long term archival format to transcode these files to to maintain quality? There are only 5 tapes and I have just begun, so is there is a better program for the capture that would automatically save in a better future-friendly format? If not, can I batch process the entire folder of files in one go? (I will have her still save the tapes.) My original plan was to use Handbrake unless there is a better and faster alternative. I expect there will be about 60GB worth of avi files if I continue using WinDV for the capture..

Since your on Windows give V-Dub a try.... I use it to capture to Cineform from my Ultra-S 4K and it works good.
It takes a little setting up to get it going but after you figure out the program and its settings your good.
So yeah I would recommend to capture to Cineform...... even the lowest quality is ok for DV stuff.... because it works good in Resolve and its cross platform if you need that at some point.
You can even do Cineform in AVI if your determined to use AVI.
Been a Cineform user since it came out way back when..... hell was that 2000 or something?.... good codec !!!

http://virtualdub2.com/

gtempleman wrote:So while we are having this discussion regarding AVI, I am in the process of digitizing some old Mini-DV tapes for my daughter. For my own old tapes I used HDVSplit, but because her filming was done in DV format I have been using the old WinDV program.

It saves as avi files and I have included the MediaInfo result. My questions are, first, since these files are HUGE (and DV is not super high quality to begin with), what would be the best long term archival format to transcode these files to to maintain quality? There are only 5 tapes and I have just begun, so is there is a better program for the capture that would automatically save in a better future-friendly format? If not, can I batch process the entire folder of files in one go? (I will have her still save the tapes.) My original plan was to use Handbrake unless there is a better and faster alternative. I expect there will be about 60GB worth of avi files if I continue using WinDV for the capture..

You won't improve their quality, but storing as more modern format is an option.
It all depends what you want to do with them.
60GB is nothing. Today big file is 1TB
You can always convert them to x264 with good settings.

Andrew Kolakowski wrote:
You won't improve their quality, but storing as more modern format is an option.
It all depends what you want to do with them.
60GB is nothing. Today big file is 1TB
You can always convert them to x264 with good settings.

I certainly know I will not "improve" the quality, but I don't want to worsen it. It is trying to predict what format will not be obsolete 10 years from now. The current capture method creates individual clips whenever the camera was stopped and restarted, so I will end up with 50 to 100 clips. I know how to convert them individually, I was also seeking advice on the easiest way to do them all as a batch.

If you capture your tapes manually (so you have to press start and stop) then it won't break at timecode stops. You will get one big file if this is what you are after.
I think mentioned Vdub will do it.
Regardless how many files you have there is batch processing so you definitely don't need to do it one by one.

You either convert all files in batch in app like Handbrake to x264/5 or you put all your separate ones into timeline in Resolve or other NLE and join them into one file (eg. per tape). This takes 5min. There are many ways of doing it.

x264/5 will last many years from now, so it's safe bet if you want smaller files. Use CRF mode with value of eg 15 to have fairly transparent transcodes. With Handbrake you can deinterlace your files with QTGMC (it will slow down whole conversion though) and have progressive ones for web etc previewing.