Capture setting question

[mrvnsu]

Just 2 Capture questions when going from a DV Camcorder to pc via firewire.
Will be making home movies onto DVD & want to keep best quality.

Capture Choices are:
DV-Type 1 or 2 which makes large .avi files
or
DVD = .mpeg-2; 29.97 fps; 720*480 which is much smaller files

???Is there any reason to capture with the larger .avi format or will using .mpeg-2 look just as good?


Also: mpeg-2 has audio options of:
LPCM
or
Dolby digital (ac-3) 2.0

???Which to choose & why?

Thanks!

[Will Hay]

Source > avi > mpeg2 > DVD-r disk is widely regarded as the better, but longer, option and gives you the ability to edit your capture before you encode and author to disk.

Source > mpeg2 > DVD-r disk is far quicker and depending on the capture codec/software you use and the speed of your PC (quick-ish PC required to capture directly to mpeg2).

Will Hay

[akbor75]

what's best for you might depend on the software you use.
i once captured dv tapes to mpeg2. it looked good on the computer, but when edited and burned the movie was faltering (so to say) about every second.
when i captured as avi the result was perfect.

[WuphonsReach]

???Is there any reason to capture with the larger .avi format or will using .mpeg-2 look just as good?

If you're going to edit the video (to clean up the audio or video) or want to make cuts at a specific frame instead of only on key-frames, bring it in as DV AVI. (Don't know if type1 or type2 is better, look at the links on the left.)

If you're *not* going to edit your video prior to putting it to DVD, go ahead and try capturing straight to MPEG2 with AC3 audio.