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Hi,

I've just joined this board after purchasing VS last week, and existing messages on this board proved very useful while I was using the trial version.

Now, my question - I understand from searching this board, and the Internet, that's DV would be an ideal source to work from when creating new projects in VS, unfortunately I only have a miniDVD camcorder. Would there be any advantage in converting the mpg's into DV before using them in VS? I understand that the quality of the DV will only be as good as the mpg's, but would having DV as a source enable VS to create better quality transitions, titles, overlays etc, instead of using the mpg's directly - or would I just be wasting time & HDD space? I'm thinking if VS has individual frames to work with, DV, instead of i-frames, b-frames etc in the mpgs, then this might make a difference.

thanks
Scott.

The problem with converting your MPEG-2s to DV-AVI is you then have to convert back to MPEG-2 if you intend to burn to DVD. MPEG-2 is a lossy format and the re-rendering could cause a loss of quality. But how much is in the eye of the beholder.

If I were you I would experiment to see which method works best for you.

Hi Scott

And welcome to the forum.
I think its a waste of time and resources to convert the mpeg to DV.

Editing Mpeg video has improved in recent years and shouldn¡¦t really give you a problem.
I would edit the existing video give, it a go and see what quality you get.

As a Guide:-
You need to change the project properties to match the video files.
After editing, create a video file of the project using-- Share Create video File ¡VSame as first Clip.
Start a new project¡XShare Create Disc¡XAdd Video File.

Hope this Helps

I agree with Trevor. If you don't have any trouble, go ahead and edit the MPEGs. If you do run into problems, conversion to DV is a good work-around if you are able to make the conversion without any issues.

Some MPEGs seem to cause more trouble than others, and I assume it has something to do with the encoding. It may turn-out that VS is completely happy with the files from your particular camcorder.

Hi,

Thanks for the advice, to be honest I'd forgotten that once the mpg was converted to DV it would have to be converted a second time back to mpg for the DVD, and the further lose of quality. I'll stick with the mpg unless I run into any problems.

thanks
Scott.