Welcome to the forums,
For editing purposes, DV is the recommended compression for editing. There are 2 types of DV, Type-1 which has the audio stream mixed in with the video, and Type-2 having a separate audio stream. Both yield file sizes of 13 gig per hour of video.
When you start editing in VS, you have a
Project file, which have the extension of VSP, (Video Studio Project). These are nothing more then text-like files, that are instructions for VS. Instructions on where the clips, images, ect., being used are located on your system, any cuts, transitions, effects, and so on. Then once you are finished editing you create a video file, which is done using the instructions of the VSP file. So your original (source) clips remain untouched.
So when you insert a video file, you see a thumbnail representing that video file. This is a virtual clip, again so that your source clips are not altered. Unless you render a video file, and save it as the same name as your source file, you should be able to render as many video files as your system is capable of holding.
Now if you're intentions are to put your video masterpieces onto DVDs for viewing on your TV, then you need to create DVD compatible MPEG-2 files. These then are are inserted into the timeline of the
burn module. The burn module is basically a separate application, that is accessed from inside the VS editor. VS project files (VSP) can be used in the burn module, however some people do have problems when using them.
MPEG is a higher-compressed format than DV or raw uncompressed avi. While we're here at "avi", I'll mention that
avi is not a single video format in and of itself. AVI is a container or wrapper. It can hold numerous video file formats or compressions, such as DV, DivX, Xvid, MJPEG, Cinepak, WMV, and MPEG-4 to name a few. Back to the MPEG format..., since MPEG is a higer-compressed format there are risks that are inherent with editing them. MPEG and several of those I listed are not meant to be edited, but viewed and distributed, so editing them can be risky, and results can vary from the more common OOS (out of sync), glitches near transitions, and bad quality. Compressed video is like JPEG photos when it comes to editing them. They tend to loose quality with each generation.
You might want to read through
From Camcorder to DVD tutorial. It's rather lengthy, but contains a lot of information that help answer some of your questions.
A Suggested Workflow has been developed to help guide you through the mine-field of video editing, as it pertains to Ulead's VideoStudio Programs. They can be viewed here:
Suggested WorkFlow for Video Creation
For a brief summary of
AVI and
MPEG-2 please read the article at this link:
Summary of AVI and MPEG-2
