this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2024
8 points (83.3% liked)

datahoarder

6715 readers
33 users here now

Who are we?

We are digital librarians. Among us are represented the various reasons to keep data -- legal requirements, competitive requirements, uncertainty of permanence of cloud services, distaste for transmitting your data externally (e.g. government or corporate espionage), cultural and familial archivists, internet collapse preppers, and people who do it themselves so they're sure it's done right. Everyone has their reasons for curating the data they have decided to keep (either forever or For A Damn Long Time). Along the way we have sought out like-minded individuals to exchange strategies, war stories, and cautionary tales of failures.

We are one. We are legion. And we're trying really hard not to forget.

-- 5-4-3-2-1-bang from this thread

founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I'm going to archive some youtube videos, what's the proper way to change it from mp4 to webm to etc etc or vice versa?

In the past when I couldn't run a video file for whatever reason I would just rename the file, but I'm assuming there's better ways to do it. And is there a specific order I have to go in? (e.g. with audio going from .mp3 to .flac doesn't make sense.)

Thanks in advance.

top 3 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

There is really no point in changing a video from mp4 to mkv oder webm. It's just the container. If the video doesn't play on some devides its because of the codec. If you want it to play on as many devices as possible, You want your videos h264 encoded. For more modern devices you can use HEVC/h265 and safe some space on file size.

If use ffmpeg for conversion.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thanks, it's more for the sake of having it playing comfortably on as many devices as possible without the user having to do anything, even in weird cases, so I guess I'll convert with ffmpeg.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I agree h264 is probably the most compatible nowadays and most efficient in storage/processing. h265 requires more processing both to convert and to play, which makes older hardware struggle in high resolutions besides is not present in all devices.