MiniDV to AVI to DVD = Quality?

[sep]

I have a MiniDV Camcorder, Sony HC-42. It captures great quality video. When I transfer it to my PC in AVI format it looks great. However, when I put it on a DVD to watch it doesn?t look as good. The video seems to lose a lot of quality. I?m guessing it?s because I?m putting 2.2hrs of video (30gb of video) on DVD so it?s compressing the shxt out of the video and dropping the quality to fit. Is this my problem? Anyone know what ratio is good use (AVI Size to Standard 4.7 GB DVD)?

Thanks,
-JC

 

[Wreckage]

MiniDV uses lower compression than a standard DVD so you would get a loss in quality.

You can use a higher quality format for DVD video but you will only get 1 hour on a disc.

 

[sep]

Originally posted by: Wreckage
MiniDV uses lower compression than a standard DVD so you would get a loss in quality.

You can use a higher quality format for DVD video but you will only get 1 hour on a disc.

I think I understand. The MiniDV is somewhat Native. So storing it on DVD will always result in a loss. The best you can do is 1 hr of MiniDV to DVD. This should result in the most storage for the least quality lost. Does this sound right?

Does it matter what program I use to capture the MiniDV to AVI?

 

[Wreckage]

Originally posted by: sep

I think I understand. The MiniDV is somewhat Native. So storing it on DVD will always result in a loss. The best you can do is 1 hr of MiniDV to DVD. This should result in the most storage for the least quality lost. Does this sound right?

Correct. I would need to look it up to be sure, but I think MiniDV is like a 5 to 1 compression ratio while stadard DVD (2 hrs on a disk) is 20 to 1. I would not go past 2 hours on a disk as the quality loss can be noticeable.

Does it matter what program I use to capture the MiniDV to AVI?

It should not. If the AVI file looks good everything should be fine. Although the method that it converts AVI to MPEG (DVD format) could be subpar. Try just doing full quality 1 hour on a disk and see how that looks.

Your program should have a quality setting in it.

I use pinnacle studio because it's cheap and it does a good job.

 

[sep]

thanks for the info.

Yeah, pinnacle is good. I like the quality and edit options over Roxio. I think I'm going to try Sony Vega and the Adobe Premier. Anyone want to comment on these?

 

[gsellis]

The editor is a cutting style. It will not improve the output if you keep trying to stick 2 hrs on a disc.

I limit disc to 1.5 hrs max using VBR (8200-8500kbps peak) and AC3 (Dolby Digital). If I were using CBR with PCM (wav), I would limit it to 1hr 10 minutes. at about 5500kbps, but it would not look as good as my VBR disc (key - 1hr PCM is almost a GB). Studio 10 does do VBR with DD. Don't know about Adobe. I think Vegas does. I almost always use Tsunami to encode.