Question on compression

[burntresistor]

I have mp4s I ripped quite awhile ago of ergo proxy. They were compressed using handbrake. I wanted to edit them. I don't want to really lose any of the quality would running them through lagarith mitigate that? Than putting them in premiere pro. I can re rip and get the original vobs. It just takes time to do so. I know the latter is best but sounds like a hassle. Is there a way I can just manipulate the mp4s?

[Mister Hatt]

You've already lost plenty of quality, and by the time you encode them for release you will have lost plenty more. Ergo Proxy is quite dark and Handbrake's autoshit will destroy most of the detail by overquantizing it. It's too late to care about quality now, unless you redo the rip properly this time. You COULD manipulate the MP4's directly but you would need to be exceedingly proficient at MKVMerge usage. However, if you are good enough to do it losslessly, you wouldn't be asking in the first place.