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Converting Video Formats

This guide will help you understand digital video formats and convert them to suit your needs.

Connections and Capturing

     
  DIGITAL CONNECTIONS

Most computer owners have used their machine's inputs for transferring files before, possibly with a USB Stick, Memory Card Reader, External Drive, Ethernet cord, etc. WiFi or Bluetooth is also often an option for transferring video files between devices. 

But if your video is still on a digital camera and not yet compressed into a file, you will need to output it in real time from your device to a computer. Your computer's video capture software should automatically recognized the source once you connect via a cable such as Firewire, Thunderbolt, DVI, SDI, DisplayPort, HDMI, USB-C, etc.


 
 
  ANALOG CONNECTIONS
 
If you are attempting to transfer footage from an analog source, such as an old camcorder or VCR, you will need to output the video in real-time from your device to the capture card inputs on your computer.  

If the computer does not have an internal video capture card, you can use an 
external analog to digital converter.  These have inputs for your device, such as Composite or S-Video, and then output via Firewire or USB-C to the computer.

DVD and Blu-ray players can have both analog and/or digital outputs, but the easiest means to convert video from discs is to rip them. If your computer has a disk drive, you can extract video, or parts of video, using ripping software (see Conversion tab).  If your computer does not have a disc drive, external plug-n-play disc drives that connect via USB are an option.   
 
   
 

 
 
 

ONCE CONNECTED

When capturing video to your computer, your video editor or conversion software should recognize the input signal, capture and compress the video into a file. You will choose a format, a file name and the location for saving the project and/or file(s). There may be other settings you choose to adjust at this time, like audio sample rates, compression amount, the connection speed of your target audience if you are streaming, etc.  

Once you've got the file on the computer, it's yours to play with.

 

Complications

ENCRYPTED MEDIA

Image of Copy Protection Icons

 

Many commercial VHS tapes and DVDs utilize some form of encryption to protect against copyright violation (DRM, Digital Rights Management or CPSA, Content Protection System Architecture). 

There are ways around this with special hardware or software, depending on how determined you are. The most important thing to know is whether you have the right to circumvent the DRM encryption.

Until July 2010, The Digital Millennium Copyright Act criminalized circumvention of this protection. Now, for certain educational purposes, it is permissible under the Fair Use doctrine of the US Copyright Law. 

Refer to the Resources tab for links to US Copyright information, or consult with your department's administrative office.

 


FORMATS, REGIONS AND ZONES

 

Formats: Televisions in different parts of the world broadcast video using different scanlines, framerates and aspect ratios. The three standards for these video formats were NTSC, PAL and SECAM. NTSC is the North American standard, but if you own a Western European video, it may be PAL, and can't be viewed without a Multi-System player. VHS Multi-System players are getting harder to come by, but many of the newer DVD and Blu-ray players are already Multi-System.

 

Regions and Zones: To allow motion picture studios more control over various conditions of a release, commercial DVD and Blu-ray player specifications require that a player to be sold in a given place must not play discs encoded for a different region. For North America, the DVD Region Code is 1 and the Blu-ray Zone is A. There are Region-Free and All-Zone players on the market, and most computers will allow you to change the region on its disc drive a couple times for free.


Image of Format Region Zones Map