DV>Computer: Files Size Extremly Large

[tdlam]

I am importing my video from my miniDV Camcorder to the computer. The file size seem awfully large. 1 min=218MB which is 1hr=13Gig. The size is unrelated to the different type I file I save it as i.e. avi, MPEG 1 etc. I am using Firewire to import and have tried Adobe Premiere and Vegus 3.0

1. Is this normal?
2. What am I doing wrong?
3. What should I be doing to make files smaller without loss of quality?

Thanks

[Craig Tucker]

1. Yes this is normal
2. Nothing by the sounds of it.
3. If you want to transfer DV to your hard drive without losing quality, just keep doing what you are doing.


After transfer you can of course encode it using whichever codec you like. i.e. divx for computer storage, mpeg1 for VCD or mpeg2 for DVD.

[Dragonsf]

Look in the forum for a discussion about DV avi size.And yes, 13GB/hour is normal for DV.
To make them smaller convert them (after editting) to mpeg-2.The quality of resulting video depends on the bitrate, you had chosen before converting.
If you are going for VCD (mpeg-1) the filesize is much smaller, but quality isn't that good.SVCD ist a lot better (filesize roughly 2 as VCD), and DVD ist best quality (but still below DV).
On a TV set, you won't notice the difference much anyway.
So ask yourself: what do I want do to with the video after capturing!And then decide what format and then convert!

[yg1968]

You almost need an extra hard drive to capture and edit DV but remember that it is usually a temporary file as you will encode to mpeg or export back the edited DV to your camcorder.

A number of programs offer realtime conversion to mpeg. For example Ulead DMF 2.0 and Ulead VS 7.0. They have trial versions. You should note that the quality suffers from this real time conversion. So you are better off capturing the DV and then encoding to mpeg-2 with TMPGEnc.