Which one is better: AVI or MPEG-2 edition?

[Amirhosain]

I capture from digital camera through a simple firewire interface directly and then edit in Pinnacle Studio 10 and at last make DVD after putting titles, transitions... .But render takes too much time (approx 3 times of video length) and is boring and unreliable (Power interrupts, Hanging...):
1) Which one gives the best quality: capturing and converting AVI to MPEG-2 through a mid-price capture card and then editing MPEG-2 file (so render time will decrease, because Pinnacle have not to convert AVI to MPEG-2 and capture card do this), or my current way, capture and edit AVI and then render to MPEG-2?
2) If I capture AVI and at last render to MPEG-2, does capture card decrease render time or imporove output quality? Or its function is only real-time conversion from AVI to MPEG-2 by thier own hardware and it hasn't any effect on video output quality and render speed?

[mattso]

Pinnacle Studio ... .But render takes too much time (approx 3 times of video length) and is boring and unreliable (Power interrupts, Hanging...):

Try a better editing software perhaps?

Or convert "on the fly" to mpeg2 and edit with Womble stuff.

Personally, I would capture my DV with something like WinDV, import it into AVStoMPEG, and do all my editing/transitions...then export to HC.