I was informed that DV has the best quality,followed by DVD and lastly harddisk.
I got a Sony 405 and found the quality of playback quite acceptable. However, to compile several 8cm DVD disc into one, I think the software such as Womble requires conversion from VOB to MP4. Would this not result in decrease in quality? Would it not be better off getting a harddisk DVD camcorder instead? Any way to minimise the loss of picture quality in the conversion process? Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Michael

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In standard definition: DV (the format that is used by a number of different tape cartridge sizes -- the most common being miniDV) is, in a way, uncompressed relative to the other formats. (Each frame is compressed -- similar to JPEG -- but that is it, frames are independent of each other; think of it as a slide show made from 30 JPEG pictures per second).

miniDVD and hard-drive cameras, for standard definition, tend to use MPEG2 compression. Actually, ALL DVDs use MPEG2 compression. MPEG2 compression first does something similar to DV (JPEG-style compression), but ADD compression between frames -- storing a full frame, then storing instructions of just the differences from that full frame.

High-definition cameras: HDV (the High definition standard(s) [1440x1080i and 1280x720p] that use miniDV tapes) use MPEG2, the same as regular DVDs -- but it has 4.5 times the pixels in an image (for 1080i). miniDVD and hard-drive cameras use AVCHD -- which is based upon MPEG4.

Compiling DV to DVD also requires a loss in quality -- primarily in the conversion for DV 4:1:1 color sampling (there is only one "color" recorded for every four pixel on the scan line, you usually don't notice as the brightness (B/W) is recorded for each pixel) to the MPEG2 4:2:0 color sampling (one "color" for a 2x2 block... So burning a DVD from DV sources results in an effective color sampling of a 4x2 block!).

SOME NLEs are capable of "smart encode" in which they physically copy the original MPEG2 GoP (Group of Pictures: the set that contains a full and some number of deltas -- the HDV spec states 15 frames) to the output file, only re-encoding those that have been edited... The Vegas family is NOT one of those -- editing MPEG2 results in complete reencoding.

Now... Taking high-definition and down-converting to standard definition DVD will mask some of the encoding quality losses (at the cost of lower resolution, of course)... After all, an HDV MPEG2 "color" 2x2 block becomes one pixel (approximately) in standard definition -- so 8x8 HDV pixels (4 MPEG2 color blocks) becomes one color block in standard definition.

For standard definition, I still recommend miniDV -- the tape is its own archive, one only needs to burn DVDs for distribution. And the format was designed to be edited on <1GHz P-3 processors (and there were NLEs for W9x that automatically split the 13GB capture file into 2GB segments).

Similarly, I'd recommend HDV over AVCHD cameras... Again, the MPEG2 format is easier to edit than MPEG4 (though even my 3.4GHz P4HT prefers first rendering the HDV to a less compressed intermediate format).

No.

VOB is actually MPEG-2. Keep you DVD video as MPEG-2. MPEG-4 will not work if you want your DVD's to play in a standard DVD player. Womble will work if you got the correct version and use it properly.



Rich

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This should help: Sticky: Walkthru for Nero 7, Womble, or DVDRemake to fit 3 Discs to 1 http://www.camcorderinfo.com/bbs/t122189.html It is one of several methods.




Rich

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Thanks guys for all the clarifications about the format, it sure cleared quite a lot of my doubts!

Michael

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...it is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness...