DVD or VCD?

[Theus]

I'm a newbie in video editing. I have transferred captured video from my mini-dv to my laptop (using firewire).

Question 1: will i get better video quality if i burn the captured video to a dvd compared to burning on a standard cdr? I intend to playback the video on tv using a standard dvd-player. I'm thinking of getting an external dvd burner but i want to make sure first that i can actually benefit from it in terms of better quality video & audio.

Question 2: will i get better video resolution using firewire cable transferring video from handycam to laptop compared to usb 2.0 cable? I know it's faster but would it actually make a difference in terms of video & audio quality?

Many thanks!

[jimmalenko]

Question 1: will i get better video quality if i burn the captured video to a dvd compared to burning on a standard cdr? I intend to playback the video on tv using a standard dvd-player. I'm thinking of getting an external dvd burner but i want to make sure first that i can actually benefit from it in terms of better quality video & audio.

DVD is unequivocally, unquestionably better than VCD ... with the only caveat being a sub-par source, which is irrelevant in this case given a MiniDV source.

Check out What is DVD and What is VCD (both found top left) for the specs for both formats, and you'll see that all of the things that equate to better quality (such as frame size and bitrate limits) all point to DVD as better. There's also a comparison table at the end of each section (here), which compares a whole heap of formats against each other.