how much loss from original in dvd-r

[jonkane]

I'm thinking of getting the Panasonic E60 DVD recorder. The main purpose would be for recording my Panasonic DVX100 miniDV camera footage, but I'm wondering how much loss there is when burning to DVD, is it compressed or can I burn the footage uncompressed? (thinking in terms of archiving)

And how much better would the picture quality be if I took my miniDV tapes to a post production house and got them burned to DVD profesionally?

many thanks for any advice,

Jon.

[oldfart13]

Even though the e60 will have to convert the miniDV format to Mpeg2, at the highest quality setting (10 Mbps) it will probably be overkill. The picture quality should look just fine since your source material will be good quality. It's when you get things like VHS EP that you want to dub over to DVD-R that the fun begins. Garbage in, Garbage out as they say...

[jeex]

but the garbage will last longer on a dvd-r than it will on vhs

[donpedro]

And how much better would the picture quality be if I took my miniDV tapes to a post production house and got them burned to DVD profesionally?

Question is what they use ? How do they achieve better results ?

[ZippyP.]

.... is it compressed or can I burn the footage uncompressed?

DVD video (and DVD recorders) use mpeg2, which is a form of video compression. The only way to burn it without any re-compression is to burn your DV footage straight to DVD using a computer and a DVD writer, not many minutes per disk that way though, only about 20.

[webeye]

but the garbage will last longer on a dvd-r than it will on vhs

Can you verify/guarantee that?

[jeex]

yes, yes i can.

i burned 3 dvd-r's back in 1970 & recorded 3 vhs tapes back in 1970, the vhs' are pretty degraded, the dvd's are still in pristine shape.

[bnbhoha]

I have the E100 w/ firewire input. There's no loss in quality and the recording is identical when you use high speed dub. You might want to look at firwire in recorders like the E100, pioneer 510, can't remember if the pioneer 310 had firewire. Good luck

[john-306]

1 hour of miniDV = 13 gigs approx.
MiniDV is less compressed than DVD.

Put miniDV directly onto DVD and you'll get 20 mins footage per disk.

Compress it to an aceptable level....1 hour DV tape to 1 DVD and I think you'll be happy with the quality...That's how I do it and I am...

[MeTaLgEaRsOoTy]

yes, yes i can.

i burned 3 dvd-r's back in 1970 & recorded 3 vhs tapes back in 1970, the vhs' are pretty degraded, the dvd's are still in pristine shape.

rofl@that.

i have a JVC digital camcorder,and haev converted several of the mini-DV tapes to dvd-r/+r,and must say that to take it to a post production house is a foolish way to do it.
i simply used windows movie maker(i couldnt be bothered running any other programme),then put the new file through Tmpgenc,at one of the highest settings(about 6500k)if i remember correctly,to make them dvd compliant,then simply burned them with CopytoDVD.
and yes it will last longer on dvd than tape,as anyone with an old movie on tape can tell you,but you just simply have to burn an extra copy and archive it.

[zanos]

There is some degredation in picture quality even at the highest setting. However this is almost invisible to the naked eye when viewing full motion video. But if you were to record a still image of something off your screen like a cable or satellite program guide you will clearly notice the picture has gotten just a bit darker as well as a little grainier or has some artifacting on it, etc. I haven't tried mini dvs yet. So far all I've done is transfer vhs tapes to dvd.

[donpedro]

I have the E100 w/ firewire input. There's no loss in quality and the recording is identical when you use high speed dub. You might want to look at firwire in recorders like the E100, pioneer 510, can't remember if the pioneer 310 had firewire. Good luck

I am not sure if I am reading what you arte saying correctly, but I must say that there is loss when you convert from FireWire input to DVD's mpeg2. It is less than any other source but it still is.

[crusty]

Post Houses are expensive we run with a SonyDSR-2000P DV player and to capture to MPEG2 we do it in real time with MPX300 capture card ($35,000AUD) and do any authoring with Maestro I personally think that using top end equipment will get you better results, although there are many great domestic programs out there that will give excellent results so just search around.

[Destroyer]

Just a though.
How can Real time processing be better?
If you encode in variable bitrate wouldn't the result be
much better for a given file size (4,7Gb) with for example tmpgenc when you've got the entire footage to analyze in several passes.

[donpedro]

Destroyer,

I am not an expert on BIG BUCK cards, but I suspect there is an reason for high price . Have you thought about, that card can do VBR and multiple passes too ? Only difference is that it does it real time. Why not ? Who knows what they do....

[Destroyer]

Yes, that's what I'm curious about.

Doesn't VBR means that you analyze the movie and change the encoding bitrate according to the complexity of the picture. When there's a lot of action you use more bandwidth than in scenes with less movement.
How can you predict that in a real time system?
You don't know if half of the movie is with alot of action and the rest is just a freezed picture. I doubt that the big buck card can predict this.

Another interesting thig is that Cinemacraft Encoder software is also Big Bucks.

[donpedro]

Again... I don't know too much about this, but...

I thing that VBR and multiple passes do not encode begining of the movie based on how end looks like. My understanding is that bittrate is calculated based on couple of frames beffore and after and changes between them. And that, I believe, can be done.

Any expert here who can teach us in short version how it works ?