I am interested in purchasing Sony DCR-SR100 camcorder. Presently I am using Sony TRV 22E mini DV tape camcorder. When I write a DVD through computer editing from mini DV tape in NEROVISION software the video quality deteriorates. So I feel it’s better to continue with mini DV tape rather than converting into DVD.
My question is: Since Sony DCR-SR100 uses hard disc, I shall have to convert the video onto a DVD. Would the quality on this DVD be superior like that on the original HDD or it would deteriorate in editing and become inferior like my present DVD converted from a Mini DV Tape? I am told Video Resolution on Sony DCR-SR100 HDD is 19.4. What would it remain after writing it on DVD?

A DVD uses MPEG2 video. The JVC HDD camcorders - and I suspect the other brands, too - also use MEPG2 video.

MPEG2 is a delivery format, so it was not designed for editing purposes. Therefore, as soon as you load it into a NLE and do anything to it, you're going to lose some quality.

Worley

A lot depends on how you "capture your video", how you edit it, how you encode it to MPEG2 for DVD creation and how it is written to DVD. You could very well be doing something improperly. You might want to carefully read through this thread: Sticky: How involved is it to take footage from mindv and put it on DVDs???

Rich

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Sorry... this isn't really true.

MPEG2 is not a delivery format... it's just simply a different format. It is certainly not the best chioce for editing because of its GOP stucture... but its becoming more acceptable to use for editing.... especially when you consider that HDV is a native MPEG2 format.... If you plan on getting into HD, then you had better get used to the idea of MPEG2 editing.

The difference with HDD, DVD cams and DV cams is that the MPEG is at a much higher compression level than that of a DV cam. Of course you will receive less quality because of the higher compression.

But unlike DV which is stuck and unadjustable at about 25M, Mpeg2 can vary it's compression levels from about 2.5M all the way down to 50M and beyond. Many respected pro's firmly believe in shooting with DV or DVpro and editing in a low compression, i-frame-only, mpeg2 ( of course you need high-end equipment for this).

It is true that MPEG2 is lossy... but then contrary to popular belief.... so is DV. However, I have spent many years editing MPEG2 and I have come to learn that the high compression rates used for dvd storage is much more of an enemy than the lossy behavior of MPEG2 ever was.

Mpeg-2 is a delivery format because it compresses the video to fit onto a dvd.
HDV and Mpeg-2 is a whole different ball game.
Mini-dv records in full quality.
You don't need to have a setting for that.
If you do convert mini-dv to Mpeg-2 for dvd, a good DVD authoring program gives you complete control over the bitrate. (Something HDD and dvd cams don't allow)

Sorry, neonbob, but you are misinformed.MPEG -2 is most definitely a delivery format. It was invented to be used on DVDs. The fact that HDV uses MPEG-2 only means that HDV technology uses a delivery format.But no one in their right mind edits native MPEG-2 from their HDV cam. It is transcoded from its native long GOP to a short GOP. This makes it easier to work with. The reason HDV chose MPEG-2 as its acquisition format was to keep the bit rate requirements in line with DV-25 so HDV could be captured to consumer grade computers over existing Firewire interfaces. It was a compromise that was helped by transcoding to short GOP structures to make editing easier.No, you'd better get used to understanding the HDV workflow which involves transcoding long GOP MPEG-2 to short GOP MPEG-2 or using DV proxies.No argument there.I've never heard of DV described as "stuck" at one bit rate. It uses one and only one bit rate. There's no reason to use more than one because it is an acquisition format. You always want the highest bit rate possible for acquisition (within the limits of the technology, of course). Being adjustable would make no sense. And the reason MPEG-2 is adjustable is precisely because it is a delivery format. You need to be able to adjust the bit rate so you can get the highest quality while still fitting on a DVD.DV and DVCPRO (is that what you meant by "DVpro"?) both use a 5:1 DCT intraframe compression. Neither uses MPEG-2. I'm not clear on where the I frame only MPEG-2 comes from.I don't know how you contrast compression and lossiness to determine that one is worse than the other. I can't see how you cam compare one to the other. But if that's how you see it, OK.

Good luck.

Dennis

Actually, DV used a 5:1 intraframe conpression technique. The video that is recorded on tape is compressed to 1/5th of the raw image that the CCDs capture.

Good luck.

Dennis

Sorry, I meant to say that there was only one quality setting to record with: Best quality.

Precisely. That's one mark of an acquisition format.

Good luck.

Dennis

Thanks for the valuable comments. Actually I am a layman and so not able to fully understand all the views. I have followed in my editing what Poncho said. I would refer to the following chart which I got in this forum:-
Video Performance
Sony DCR-SR100 7.5 (HDD Cam)
Sony DCR-DVD405 7.2 (DVD Cam)
Sony DCR-HC96 7.85 (miniDV tape cam)

I feel that when I capture from tape to PC thro Nerovision in MPEG2, Performance comes down from 7.85 to say 6.5. Then when I write DVD it further goes down to say 6.0.
Since HDD Cam is already MPEG2 I understand that performance will go down only once and not twice while writing a DVD. Say it will go down from 7.5 to 7.0. So end DVD from HDD shall have better video performance than DVD from miniDV tape. Am I right?

Not really, you are trying to assume too much on how much video performance will degrade by a point system.

If your video quality deteriorates with "NEROVISION software" it could very will be your software or the settings you are using.



Rich

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MPEG is not a delivery format... it is USED as delivery format because of its flexibility. The motion picture industry invented it to put commercial movies on dvd. It is NOW used all over the place including camcorders again because of its flexibilty. DV is better ONLY because it produces a good quality at a cheap price. The truth is however that DV has remained the same and unchanged for the last 10 years or so. In fact, I have always found it funny that in today's world, they can not (or will not) produce a DV playback machine at a consumer price... most people have to plug their camcorders into the back of their TV's. what's wrong with this picture?? Mpeg on the other hand has advanced leaps and bounds. Today's technology can now handle MPEG at a cheap price as well. This has resulted in the explosion of mpeg from dvd to camcorders, to HDV....



I have no idea why you mention HDV and long GOP, short GOP... because you miss the point it's STILL mpeg.


If you have never heard dv as being 'stuck' at 25M... then go to Adam Whilt's websight... there is a good article ther describing different formats and such. You will see his 'stuck description there.

The original reason for an adjustable bitrate in mpeg is of course is to adjust its size... but today it is used for so much more.... I use it as a sort of filter at times.... I can adjust the detail up or down by varying the bit rate (just one example). Because DV is 'stuck' at 25M, this adjustment has to be done on the timeline. Time is money... the more I spend on the timeline, the less I make.

You shoot in dv and CAPTURE as mpeg. If you are unsure about I frame only mpeg, then again.. go to adam wilt's websight.

People seem to think it's more difficult to edit mpeg (for various reasons)... mainly because this is the info that's handed down through the old timers and through word of mouth. Maybe that was true some time ago... but not anymore. Not withstanding, mosty people today put their stuff on a disk... and if this is the case, then you have to convert to mpeg anyway... can't put dv on a disk and use it for anything. Yes... your computer has to do a little work in rendering mpeg... but it has to do so much more in converting dv to mpeg (and there is ALWAYS a loss involved when converting).

Bottom line... DV does have a good quality to it... there is no doubt to that, and it is certainly much more straight forward than mpeg and less controversial than mpeg... but it is slowly and surely taking a back seat.

You are making my point. As you say, MPEG-2 was invented as a delivery format for commercial DVDs. Just because it is used in some camcorders does not make it an acquisition format. It is merely being used that way.

In fact, MPEG-2 was designed to be very quick to decode. That's the environment DVD players work in. To avoid requiring fast (and expensive) processors in DVD players, MPEG-2 was designed so decoding for playback was fast. To accomplish this the encoding becomes complex and require fast processors to do the job in a reasonable amount of time. But encoding is still much slower than decoding. An acquisition format would not have this processing profile. And there's the two pass, variable bit rate advantage a computer has over a cam encoding in real time. An acquisition format wouldn't have a two pass option.Where is "all over the place"? It's on DVDs and DVD and hard drive cams. Is that "all over the place"? And what flexibility are you talking about?Only? Sounds like a prefect reason to use it as an acquisition format, the thing it was invented for.That's because it does what it was intended to and it does it well.Although this has nothing to do with DV technology, it's explained quite simply. Most people do not playback their video from their cams. They make DVDs or use other distribution modes such as the Web. It's a simple matter of economics. DVD technology took off and became very low cost and easy to use making the need for DV decks very low. Thus the cost remains high due to lack of economies of scale.I'm not aware of advances in MPEG-2. Can you elaborate? By the way, we are talking about MPEG-2, right? You seem to have shifted to using "mpeg". The discussion is still about MPEG-2 and DV, right?I mention them because you said

It is certainly not the best chioce for editing because of its GOP stucture... but its becoming more acceptable to use for editing.... especially when you consider that HDV is a native MPEG2 format....

I then pointed out that HDV is usually transcoded to a short GOP for editing. It may all be MPEG but it makes a big difference for editing. Again, this is because MPEG-2 is not an acquisition format.I'd love to read it. Do you have a link? Adam's got a lot of stuff on his site.But you have to make the adjustment in the field and it is based purely on the size of your recording medium. It would be nice to pick the bit rate based on how much will fit on the DVD you intend to distribute. But you can't do that until you have all the video recorded and edited. When you're shooting all you have to go on is the 1.36 GB of space available on the 8 cm DVD in your cam.

On top of that, most DVD cams only have 3 settings. That's not much of an adjustment.

Time is money but so is video quality. Starting with 25 Mbps I can pick the bit rate for encoding to MPEG-2 when I need it; after all the video is edited and ready for encoding. It's always better to postpone decisions to as late as possible in the workflow.Who does?No, I was unsure of where it came from in the discussion. It's not a format used for recording that I'm aware of. It just kind of popped up in the middle of our discussion of MPEG-2 and DV.Yes, but as I said above, with DV you can wait to encode until you need to. That way you can pick the bit rate that gives you the best quality in the final product.Time will tell.

Good luck.

Dennis

Ok, I'm confused.
You say the motion picture industry invented it to put motion pictures on dvds. You don't think that Hollywood shoots movies with dvd camcorders, do you??
They shoot with film, then they use incredibly expensive equipment to put on dvd because that is the best format home users have. We could never afford film projectors at home.

I don't understand how you adjust your bitrate as a "sort of filter". Why would you do that??

Why do you think people who use DV edit "in the timeline"?? It is because we like to edit at the best quality possible. We don't render to mpeg-2, then edit. You always edit at the highest quality possible. Rendering to another format is always the very, very last step.

Nobody who shoots in dv captures in mpeg-2, that would be pointless.

I don't think it is more difficult anymore to edit mpeg-2.
I use Final Cut Pro. Why do you think it doesn't support mpeg-2?
Because nobody uses a $1000 NLE to edit your final product.
The only time I ever compress anything to mpeg-2 is for a dvd. That is when my work is done.

Lots of great info in this article.... towards the end there is a blurb on editing:

http://www.adamwilt.com/DV-FAQ-editing.html