Pinnacle 15 , saves my hd footage in mpeg2. This way i loose quality?

[alexandraGree]

I worked in the past with avid media composer and the software of avid gave me the opporunity to save my hd footage in uncompressed mxf files.

Now I have PINNACLE 15 the only option i have WHEN I CAPTURE IN HD PROJECT my hd footage is mpeg2. But i now Mpeg2 is a loosy codec. Am i wrong? What should i do to keep my hd quality in PINNACLE?

Thank u for your time!

[Baldrick]

Are you sure your mxf capture was uncompressed? Uncompressed HD is HUGE.

Do you have to use pinnacle? I guess it can't use any external lossless codecs like lagarith, huffyuv, etc. Maybe capture with something else and just edit with Pinnacle.

[alexandraGree]

Thank u for your response!
When i edit on avid i had the choice in capture mode to choose 1:1 uncompressed. Now i do not have avid and i have PINNACLE 15.
In PINNACLE when i capture i do not have the option uncompressed. I only have mpeg2.
I will consider about external codecs.

[DB83]

Doesn't your camera come with a utility to transfer the footage 'as is' for editing ?

[Baldrick]

Give more information about your capture card, camera or whatever you are using....

[alexandraGree]

My cam is ""Canon HV40 Legria "" and the tapes are ""SONY DVM 63 HDV"".

No i do not have a utility.

I connect my camera via firewire to my pc, than i go to pinnacle capture mode select project settings and on video settings in Compression Codec:i have only dv and mpeg2.

Maybe i have to buy codecs to put in compression codec?

[DB83]

It's MiniDV.

Cant you just use WinDV to do a 1:1 transfer to your PC or even use Pinnacle and 'capture' as DV. It's compressed but not so much as mpeg2. But your recorded video is also compressed anyway.

[alexandraGree]

I will search about WINDV and external lossless codecs like lagarith, huffyuv.

Thank u all for your replies!

[aedipuss]

more likely it's HDV as he says it's HD. use hdvsplit to capture to .m2t 1440x1080, exactly what is on the tape. it is still a form of mpeg-2 but a direct copy of the tape.

[smrpix]

Aedipuss is correct, but you can do the same directly in Pinnacle.

What should i do to keep my hd quality in PINNACLE?

HDV capture via firewire is HDV capture. It IS mpeg 2, it IS compressed, it IS exactly what's on the tape in the camera with no alterations.

You should also be able to smart render the output, meaning if you only make straight cuts in your editing (no color correction, no image manipulation) you can make a pristine, identical output file.

HDV is pretty well designed. You keep your quality by not screwing it up with external re-encodes.

[alexandraGree]

I thought mpeg2 was the compress for writing to DVD, that it was like sd ..

So to understand it wright : HDV footage captured via firewire=mpeg2 like dvd quality?

(Sorry if i ask the same thing).

[smrpix]

There are many different flavors of mpeg2. It is used for everything from DVD to HD Broadcast to Blu Ray. HDV records at 2.5x the data rate of the maximum allowable for DVD.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPEG-2

While there are newer, more efficient codecs (huffyuv and lagarith do not fall into this category) there is nothing inherently wrong with mpeg2 and its ability to reproduce a high quality image.

[alexandraGree]

It is clear now..Thank you all again!
I will read the wikipedia!