Maybe a dumb question but...

[Glennmizu]

My DVD camcorder records in MPEG2. I capture inVS9 in MPEG2 but is it possible to capture and work in AVI?
Many thanks

Glenn

[JimK]

My DVD camcorder records in MPEG2. I capture inVS9 in MPEG2 but is it possible to capture and work in AVI?
Many thanks

Glenn

Glenn, what make and model is your camcorder ? that will tell you if its able
to capture straight to AVI / DV. And do you use a Firewire or USB to to capture with ? Or do you use AV jacks ?

I use a Canon NTSC ZR70MC and it will capture in what ever format you
specify within VS9. I have been a VS user since vs5.

Everything I capture is AVI/DV, its makes the cleanest video to edit from.

[Ken Berry]

If, as I suspect, your camera records to a mini DVD or hard disc, then you are not in effect capturing, but merely transferring video files from one disc to another. And while the optimal work flow from many people's point of view is to capture in DV/AVI, in your case (if my supposition is correct) then there would be little point in transferring your mpeg-2 clips to the computer but then rendering what is already a lossy format up to DV format, and then later having to re-render back to mpeg-2 to burn a DVD. And in any case, since it is already in mpeg-2 format, you are never going to be able to improve its quality anyway by rendering to DV, quite apart from possible degradation from the render process.

As it is, you have DVD-quality mpeg-2, and if you don't do too much editing, then that quality by and large should be preserved. There are even those on this board who would say that in fact you can probably do a lot of editing and a number of renders and any possible loss in quality will still probably not be detectable to the naked eye.

[Glennmizu]

Thanks Ken and Jim,
My camera records to a mini DVD so Ken you have answered my question. I will stick to MPEG.

So it would seem that a DV camera is better for editing then a mini DVD camera.
I wish I knew that before I bought my DVD camera. I just thought that capturing on a mini DVD and putting into my computer using the DVD drive in the same MPEG2 format would be better than using a DV camera and converting it.
Cheers

Glenn Waters
www.glennwaters.com

[Ken Berry]

As I said, it really all comes down to which side you back in the 'mpeg-2 is not really an editable format' debate. There are many situations, apart from your own, where people have no alternative but to capture in mpeg-2. These include capturing from many analogue capture devices which may give you no choice, or which may also allow you to designate AVI as the capture format. However, this is uncompressed AVI i.e. not DV/AVI. As such, it is generally just too huge for most people (65 GB per hour). And when capturing analogue video, you are never going to get any better than very good or good quality, in any case.

I have to say that with my analogue capture card, I capture direct to mpeg-2, and quite often do a fair amount of editing -- cutting, moving parts of clips to completely new locations, adding transitions, titles etc. But if you are careful to capture to DVD-compliant mpeg-2 in the first place, then when you eventually render your final mpeg-2 prior to burning a disc, you can use Smart Render (and hope that the dread out-of-sync audio and video problem does not occur). With that, it is really only the frames around the edited bits that get re-rendered. In any case, I have never been able to tell with my admittedly ageing eyes that there has been any noticeable deterioration in quality.

If you have the time, do a search for some work John Hunter, a regular on this Board, did many months ago which lends considerable credence to the claim that you can do just about as much editing to an mpeg-2 as you do to a DV without discernible loss of quality on re-rendering, and can indeed re-render several times -- as long as you capture your mpeg-2 at high quality settings and maintain those settings...

You are in the even more fortunate position of filming your video in high quality DVD mode. It is already DVD-compliant because it is initially stored on a DVD! In other words, when transferred to your computer, and you maintain the original settings, you can do a considerable amount of editing and then re-render your final product using Smart Render...

No doubt this posting will be followed by a number of others claiming that what I have said is at best questionable. Well, maybe it is. But the proof really is in the pudding, and if your final product looks to be of high quality when played back on a TV screen, then that is all that really matters...

[Howell]

On occasions I have edited in MPEG 2. Sometimes I have to free up hard drive space quickly. I record old films from tv which requires some minimal cutting to remove adverts. So I may convert the avi to a dvd format and then edit the newly created dvd file. I have found that Videostudio is very good at editing mpeg, a lot better than other programmes in the same price range. At Xmas we have a competition within our camcorder club. The video I entered was edited from a mpeg file of my holiday in Canada last year. Some people in the club have more expensive equipment than I have got. We use a projector to show the films and couldnot not notice any quality difference between editing from DV and my MPEG sourced edit.
Howell