Converting SD to work in Resolve

My old Sony Handy Cam SD .avi files won't import into Davinci, I've got them to work by converting with handbrake to .mp4 files, question is, is handbrake going to give me the best results? I'm obviously looking to get highest quality output, file size isn't too much of an issue for this project.

Thanks in advanced

What are your conversion settings?

I'd try to re-wrap them from AVI to MOV, which is lossless and fast. Shutter Encoder can do that if you don't like to use ffmeg. It works for me in most cases of older camcorder stuff.
Please note that I'm on a Mac, YMMV.

My old Sony Handy Cam SD .avi files won't import into Davinci, I've got them to work by converting with handbrake to .mp4 files, question is, is handbrake going to give me the best results? I'm obviously looking to get highest quality output, file size isn't too much of an issue for this project.

I assume you're in Windows (with AVI files), so I'd convert from H.264 to DNxHR SQ and see if that plays back better. You may want to explore uprezzing, either with SuperScale (which I believe is a Resolve Studio feature) or in something like Topaz Video, which could also de-interlace the video.

I'd try to re-wrap them from AVI to MOV, which is lossless and fast. Shutter Encoder can do that if you don't like to use ffmeg. It works for me in most cases of older camcorder stuff.
Please note that I'm on a Mac, YMMV.

I'm going to give shutter encoder a go later hopefully that works, many thanks

or in something like Topaz Video, which could also de-interlace the video.

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My old Sony Handy Cam SD .avi files won't import into Davinci, I've got them to work by converting with handbrake to .mp4 files, question is, is handbrake going to give me the best results? I'm obviously looking to get highest quality output, file size isn't too much of an issue for this project.

Thanks in advanced

For the highest quality output, handbrake has x264 built in and it has a quality slider going from 0 to 51, choose 0 (think of it as how much you divide the quality with, with 0 being nothing).

If you want more detailed on your avi files, you can run mediainfo https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo on them and actually see what codec they are created with, progressive/interlaced etc. That information will guide you going forward.

or in something like Topaz Video, which could also de-interlace the video.

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I simply wouldn't have the money for Topaz, I think I'm going to play around with the deinterlace settings in handbrake see what results I can get, it doesn't have to be professional, just good.

Do you use the free version of DR?

or in something like Topaz Video, which could also de-interlace the video.

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I simply wouldn't have the money for Topaz, I think I'm going to play around with the deinterlace settings in handbrake see what results I can get, it doesn't have to be professional, just good.

I would actually load the material as it first, (interlaced) and then decide what to do....