DV vs. MPEG

videoboi · Member Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Location: United States

I have Sony Click to DVD on my computer and I noticed that in the settings window, it lets me chose to capture in DV or MPEG. Now I want to know which video type will give me the best quality. I know DV is gonna take some more room, but I would like to know which gets better quality. Note, we have standard televisions in the house.

edDV · Posted: Apr 27, 2007 20:47

DV transfers to the computer in full quality. The computer can then take time encoding to MPeg2 as needed.

Capturing to MPeg2 requires a fast CPU to make the conversion "on the fly" Even if the CPU is fast enough the quality will still be less because less time can be used for the encode.

Try it both ways and see what you think.
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videoboi · Member Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Location: United States

Thanks. And I saw that my computer also has a program called DVgate Plus. Is that like WinDV sortof? It says that it can capture DV from a camcorder.

guns1inger · Member Joined: 01 Apr 2004 Location: Miskatonic U

Also, if you intend to edit or add titles, effects and transitions, DV is the better way to go. While there are now some very good mpeg editors that can do many of these things with minimal re-encoding, you cannot escape the fact that mpeg does not like being encoded multiple times, and things like transitions are the worst because they require high bitrate to get right in the first instance.
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edDV · Posted: Apr 28, 2007 00:32

videoboi · Member Joined: 11 Mar 2006 Location: United States

Okay, thanks for all your replies guys.