DV Video to x264 Conversion

Reason

I have a lot of content from old digital video camera (miniDV). This content is interlaced and bulky. I'd like to have it in a more modern, conveniant format.

Currently, the best is probably x264 mp4 format. Playable by many players including smartphones and ipads.

A good tool for that task seems to be HandBrake. Comes with GUI and CLI

Command

This command line has proven to give good quality:

HandBrakeCLI -i Videos/usa-1998.06.28_09-13-24.avi -o Videos/usa-1998.06.28_09-13-24.m4v \
  -f mp4 -O -I -e x264 --x264-preset veryfast --x264-tune film --x264-profile high \
  -q 20 -r 25 -a 1 -E av_aac -M Bt.601 --decomb --crop 3:5:0:0 --loose-anamorphic

Variations

• Use preset medium or veryslow for even better quality (but I cant see the difference...)
• Dont use crop if you dont have flickering or black lines at top and bottom.

References

Descisions were made based on this info: https://trac.handbrake.fr/wiki/CLIGuide