I have been using the Video-to-Disc Burning feature to transfer video from a digital camera to DVD+R at full DVD (NTSC) resolution thru a firewire port. This takes about an hour.
If I capture the video to an AVI file first (1 hour), then convert it to a mpg file (~5 hours) and then burn the DVD (15 minutes), this process takes much longer.
Can anyone explain why how the Video-to-Disc Burning feature can complete the task so much faster? Is the video quality reduced using direct-to-disc?
I want to be able to capture at the best resolution possible. Will either of the above procedures yield a better result? Is there another want to get better quality?
Does using Video-to-Disc Burning reduce video quality?
-
heinz-oz
It is really quite simple. Provided your machine is powerful enough, you are capturing straight to DVD compliant mpeg format with the straight to disk function. Apart from burning to disk, no other processes are involved.
When you "capture" to DV-AVI you are actually transfering the data from your tape (MiniDV) via the firewire connection onto your HDD. This format cannot be authored straight to DVD. It needs to be rendered to DVD compliant mpeg format first. Because you have more time for the rendering (no conversion in real time to mpeg, like with the straight capture to mpeg) and can use a dual pass encoding, one could expect to get a slightly better quality this way.
IMHO, it really boils down to this: If you need to edit your footage, add narration, titles, transitions, re-arranging the clips etc. it is better to capture to AVI. If all you want to do is burn your video straight to disk, you would be wasting your time. In this case it is better to to use the straight to disk approach, provided your machine is powerful enough.
When you "capture" to DV-AVI you are actually transfering the data from your tape (MiniDV) via the firewire connection onto your HDD. This format cannot be authored straight to DVD. It needs to be rendered to DVD compliant mpeg format first. Because you have more time for the rendering (no conversion in real time to mpeg, like with the straight capture to mpeg) and can use a dual pass encoding, one could expect to get a slightly better quality this way.
IMHO, it really boils down to this: If you need to edit your footage, add narration, titles, transitions, re-arranging the clips etc. it is better to capture to AVI. If all you want to do is burn your video straight to disk, you would be wasting your time. In this case it is better to to use the straight to disk approach, provided your machine is powerful enough.