Capturing quality questions

[Condemor]

A couple of issues on capturing and rendering:

I have heard that capturing in Microsoft AVI format is recommended over MPEG format because it does not compress the image. The thing is, when selecting AVI, on the Project Properties you can select a compression method (DV Video encoder type 1, DV Video encoder type 2, MJPEG compressor, etc.). So should I leave this blank (no compression)? Or is AVI with one of those methods still better than MPEG? I am confused. Any of those methods particularly recommended over the rest?

Now regarding resampling, in the preferences tab you can choose between Good, Better or Best. The manual says "choose best if you are preparing for final output". I thought resampling only happens when creating the final movie file, so what is the point of selecting Good or Better? When should they be used?

Thanks

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums,

Microsoft AVI generally means uncompressed Audio-Video Interleaved. This format requires 65 gig per hour of video. While working with a RAW uncompressed format would be nice, the file size generally prohibits this.

DV (digital video) which is contained in the AVI wrapper is slightly compressed and only requires 13 gig per hour. This is the format that everyone recommends capturing and editing. It is considered a loss-less format for editing.

VS will allow you to capture either DV-Type1 or DV-Type2. Unless you have a real workhorse for a computer I'd capture Type-1. This leaves the audio/video mixed into one stream, whereas the Type-2 delivers a separate stream; for the audio.

Since the resampling quality is really used when rendering your video file, then setting it to better while doing your editing may speed things up a bit. So you can have it set to a lower quality during editing, just remember to change it to best when you are ready to create your video file. However most of the newer PCs should be able to handle the "Best" setting while they are editing.

[Black Lab]

Since the resampling quality is really used when rendering your video file, then setting it to better while doing your editing may speed things up a bit. So you can have it set to a lower quality during editing, just remember to change it to best when you are ready to create your video file. However most of the newer PCs should be able to handle the "Best" setting while they are editing.

I never remember to change it so I always leave it on best and I never have any problems.

[Ken Berry]

Condemor -- you also need always to bear in mind that while it is recommended that you capture and edit as far as possible in DV/AVI format, if you intend to produce a DVD, then after you finish editing, at some stage you MUST convert the DV/AVI into DVD-compliant mpeg-2 (Share > Create Video File > DVD).

[sjj1805]

Just to round off the good advice already given, please view
Suggested work flow