What do I capture in AVI, MPEG, DVD?

[mscromer]

Im new to this and have read alot of post and how to guides and I cant find a clear answer to this. I see some people capture in AVI and some in MPEG some even DVD. The instuctions for Ulead 7 say capture in AVI. If Im understanding this right AVI files are huge and MPEG are smaller and if you capture in AVI doesnt it get converted later to MPEG when you burn to a disk. If all this is correct why do some people capture in AVI, is it their software or hardware wont let them capture MPEG or is it you get better quality captures in AVI and then convert. Im confused, what do I capture in AVI, MPEG, MPEG2, DVD. I will be making DVD's and Video CD's so what is the best possible capture (as long as my hardware and software allow it) to capture in. Please explain, and help me understand the different capture formats.

[MrMungus]

Im new to this and have read alot of post and how to guides and I cant find a clear answer to this. I see some people capture in AVI and some in MPEG some even DVD. The instuctions for Ulead 7 say capture in AVI. If Im understanding this right AVI files are huge and MPEG are smaller and if you capture in AVI doesnt it get converted later to MPEG when you burn to a disk. If all this is correct why do some people capture in AVI, is it their software or hardware wont let them capture MPEG or is it you get better quality captures in AVI and then convert. Im confused, what do I capture in AVI, MPEG, MPEG2, DVD. I will be making DVD's and Video CD's so what is the best possible capture (as long as my hardware and software allow it) to capture in. Please explain, and help me understand the different capture formats.

AVI caps are less compressed than MPEG caps and are easier to edit (for example, it's harder to do frame-specific edits on MPEG files).

If you're planning on doing any editing, capture to AVI then convert to MPEG as the last step before you burn.

If you're planning on just doing simple cuts (removing comercials, snipping the front/end), chapter points, etc., capture to MPEG and use something like TMPGEnc DVD Author which doesn't edit your source file, but just uses it as the source and writes to VOB/DVD only the parts you choose.

There needs to be a name for what Author does. How about "selective writing"?

[bugster]

My opinion.

If you want to edit (any thing more than cut and splice) capture to Avi.

If you want best quality, capture to avi using huffyuv or mjpeg codecs and encode to mpeg with a seperate encoder.

If you want speed and simplicity, capture to mpeg.