Muxed mpeg-2 conversion -- What is the right format to convert to?

I have muxed mpeg-2 from a Sony cam and want to be sure I convert to the right format for working with the video and audio in Final Cut Express (FCE). I am using MPEG-Streamclip.
Also if anyone has a script or program to do batch conversions of these files that they can share or point to that would help a lot.

Yes, I'm new here and to final cut and video editing all at once.

MPEG Streamclip does the demuxing and the batch conversion (APPLE-B to access its batch list). As for which video format and specs you want, we can't answer that question unless you tell us what you're looking to do. SD? HD? What's the destination delivery? Is your system fast enough? Do you have sufficient storage? If you only have 10GB of storage to play with, for example, then you should probably be working with plain old DV.


www.derekmok.com

Thanks derekmok for taking the time to steer me along. As you can see I don't even know enough yet to know what questions to ask or how to ask them correctly.

The mpeg files are 720x480 mpeg-2, with AC3
Destination will be DVD
I have plenty of storage and speed.

I am a terrible videographer and a lot of the video has horrid wind noise.
But it's family video and I am on-the-hook to make it into a dvd.
I am also going to be adding some music.

I really need to find a way to prevent wind noise.

Just convert it under Export to Quicktime as ... actually, I was going to say use Apple DV PAL, but you're probably not in a PAL country and now I look there doesn't seem to be a Apple DV NTSC.. odd.

So, erm, I would then convert it via File > Export to DV > DV25, but you might be better off getting a NTSC user to follow up on this.

>there doesn't seem to be a Apple DV NTSC

There is. It's called "Apple DV/DVCPro-NTSC". DV and Dvcpro in NTSC are very similar (both are 8 bit, 4:1:1). In PAL, they are different.

If you have the drive space, I'll suggest converting it to ProRes or ProRes LT.



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