Best way to combine video data without losing quality?

[boagz57]

Im trying to think of ways I can make the video editing process easier and one thought that came to mind was to have separate video files that contained certain categories of anime scenes. For example, I would have one video file named "Action" which would contain all trimmed out action scenes from anime. This means I would have to continually cut and add new scenes to the same video file in something like vdub. My question is would this be possible to do so without losing much quality if all my videos start out as AVC (h264) compressed video files?

Would the general process be to first convert and store the original h264 "Action" video file in a lossless codec (largarith, Huffyuv, etc.) format and then for any new video scenes I want to add to the "Action" file I would repeat the same process and append/trim them to the file in vdub and export in the same lossless codec format (in an avi container)? Would quality be maintained throughout the constant addition and export of the "Action" file?

[Kireblue]

You should just keep the files seperate and put them in a folder called action. This way you'll be able to give the files better names like "Naruto punchs Sasuke", and not have to scrub a 2 hours file for a 10 second action shot. You can even have sub folers called "Naruto Action shots" so that you can seperate them from your "Pokemon Action Shots".

And yes, I beleive that your method would eventually strat to see quality loss if you take the previous render and use it to re-render it with additional scenes added on.

[boagz57]

Okay, thanks for the suggestion Kireblue. Assuming I go with this method then my process would be as follows:

1.) Import .mkv/h264 video file into vdub
2.) Trim video to only have wanted clips
3.) Export in a lossless codec format (since I'm assuming I would still lose quality even if I exported in the same h264 codec since I would be compressing twice)
4.) I use Davinci Resolve which works well with dnxhr codec so I would then convert the newly trimed, exported file into this codec
5.) Import into Davinci and edit

Does this sound like a reasonable method to trim videos and preserve quality?

[Kireblue]

I don't feel that step 4 is necessary, you should be able to just import your lossless footage into your editing program without the need for an additional conversion.

[boagz57]

Ya, I only say that because another member said davinci resolve worked well with that format. I guess the ideal situation would be to find a plugin or something for vdub to be able to export that format directly.