Best Recording File Format for VHS/Hi8 that is FinalCutPro Compatible

[drumindan]

Can someone please help me determine which recording file format is best in OBS for my setup. I have a USB2 capture device attached to a Mac and want to create a digital archive of many VHS and Hi8 tapes. I plan to use Final Cut Pro to edit and create more for focused collections of memories. The information I’ve found on the web gives me multiple recommendations. The OBS wizard wants me to use Fragmented MOV. Some of the posts on the web say use MKV and then remux to MP4 or MOV. Other advice I received is to use MP4 as it is best format for Final Cut and YouTube. I see Hybrid MP4 Beta in the list on OBS too and have read it is best. What is the best format for quality and compatibility with FCP and YouTube, etc.?

Also, if there are OBS setting that will enhance quality I would like to use them as I have processing power and storage available to beat the base recommendations of the wizard, if possible. Here again, I’ve tried several configuration I founded on the web and they don’t seem to do much more than grow the file size and some produce video artifacts in the recordings.

I’m new to this forum. So, maybe all of this information is available somewhere already. If so, please point me in the right direction.

Thanks!!!

 

[AaronD]

MKV and MP4 are both containers, not formats. A format is something like H.264 or H.265 or AV1 or something like that, and the same format can be in any container.

Pretty much any editor worth its salt can use H.264 in MKV, which is a now-ancient format in a container that is almost crash-proof during recording. If a brain-dead file-opener refuses MKV, then OBS can copy the data verbatim into MP4 (and probably a few others) after the fact. File -> Remux... It's fast with no loss of quality because it's literally the exact same data: just shovel it across exactly as-is.

Some "walled gardens" might recommend other things, but H.264 in MKV has been the universal recording standard for a long time. Most (decent) editors will take it directly, YouTube does take it directly, and if an online service doesn't take it, then they're either a cute toy, or trying to limit themselves to "cool new people", or something like that.

The jury is still out on what will become the next standard, if anything. AV1 is promising, but still new and not universally supported yet. Hybrid MP4 tries to solve some of the problems of the older "plain MP4", but it's also new. MOV in all of its variations has pretty much stayed as a Mac thing, so support outside of Apple's walled garden will be hit or miss. Etc.

 

[AaronD]

Also, if there are OBS setting that will enhance quality I would like to use them as I have processing power and storage available to beat the base recommendations of the wizard, if possible. Here again, I’ve tried several configuration I founded on the web and they don’t seem to do much more than grow the file size and some produce video artifacts in the recordings.

If there was a universal answer to that, then it would probably be incorporated into the wizard already.

The more you know about your specific rig in detail - not just specs, but how it actually works under the hood with your specific workflow, and possibly odd settings for this exact reason - the more you can get away with that would cripple anyone else's machine, but it really is that specific.

It's pretty much trial-and-error. Since you say you have plenty of processing power, I'd start by telling it to use the maximum effort that it can to allocate the available bits efficiently, and then play with the number of bits you let it use:

• For streaming, you generally want a constant bitrate with varying quality, so that you get the maximum quality at any given point without the stream falling apart.
• For recording, you generally want constant quality with varying bitrate. For the H.264 format at least, you set that quality by how much detail it's allowed to throw away, and so a lower number produces a bigger file that looks better.

There may also be some tuning settings that bias it towards removing certain types of detail before others. These are things like "Film", "Animation", "Grain", "StillImage", etc.

It might be good to read this, even if you use a different encoder, to get an idea of what might be possible:

Encode/H.264 – FFmpeg

trac.ffmpeg.org

 

[drumindan]

Thanks so much for the quick and useful information!

So, it’s the recording encoder and quality that really matters. I’m using the Apple Hardware H.265 video encoder and a recording quality setting of High Quality, Medium File Size. The “Recording Format” is set to “Fragmented MOV (.mov).

I read using MKV will improve quality as it is lossless and then saw a YouTube that only said MKV would prevent data loss if OBS crashes. Are these true? Then they both said record in MKV then remux to MP4 using the setting in OBS to “Automatically remux to MP4”, The Mac sees MKV as a document, so I have to remux to open to preview it before importing it for editing in FCP.

I can try the next recording quality. Its name “ Indistinguishable Quality, Large file size“ scared me. And then Lossless Quality, “Tremendously Large File Size” is Really Scary! But with my source being 30 year old tapes I’m not sure it will make a difference and may just make the noise more noticeable.

My goal is to capture the best possible quality with a file that is encoded to be universally recognized by most editors and sharing platforms.

Thanks!!

 

[AaronD]

I read using MKV will improve quality as it is lossless and then saw a YouTube that only said MKV would prevent data loss if OBS crashes. Are these true?

MKV itself has nothing to do with quality. it's only a container. A bucket to put whatever in that you come up with. The part about being "crash proof" is true though.

MP4 has some headers that tell a player what's coming. It makes the players simpler to have that up front. A side effect is that those headers can't be finished until the recording is, so if it crashes mid-recording, it doesn't have a valid header, and so it's difficult to recover *any* of the recording.

MKV works more like an old-school tape machine. If that crashes mid-recording, you still have everything up to the crash point. It's not much different from a proper ending, really. Unless the entire computer crashes before it can write to the hard drive, but that's a different problem.

Same data, taken from the same encoder with the same settings, so it's the same quality either way.

The Mac sees MKV as a document...

Can you change the association? Every other OS that I've used can. Usually as simple as telling it to open <this type of file> with <this app> by default.

I can try the next recording quality. Its name “ Indistinguishable Quality, Large file size“ scared me. And then Lossless Quality, “Tremendously Large File Size” is Really Scary!

They're not kidding! Those files are indeed big. Especially if you use those settings for Full HD! If your recordings are 640x480 or thereabouts, as they probably should be for VHS/Hi8, then it won't be as bad.

But with my source being 30 year old tapes I’m not sure it will make a difference and may just make the noise more noticeable.

My goal is to capture the best possible quality with a file that is encoded to be universally recognized by most editors and sharing platforms.

"The best possible quality" would be "Lossless". Close second, in terms of perception, would be "Indistinguishable", but it does technically throw away some detail.

If you're using the encoding artifacts to hide the original deficiencies, you can always do that later from a higher-quality-than-needed original recording, but you can't go the other way.

Try the big file sizes, and see how big they really are and what they look like.