iDVD 5 or DSP 3 compressor

[bjolester]

I am digitalizing some of my vhs videos, through a mini-DV camara, and into a Powerbook G4. I am wondering if I should use iDVD 5 or the compressor in DSP 3 for the encoding of DV to mpeg-2. Is there a great difference in encoding quality between these two programs? Does anyone have any experience and suggestions on this matter?

I will be grateful for any help!

Powerbook G4, 1,25 MHZ, 1 256 MB RAM, OS X Tiger 10.4.5

[terryj]

I am digitalizing some of my vhs videos, through a mini-DV camara, and into a Powerbook G4. I am wondering if I should use iDVD 5 or the compressor in DSP 3 for the encoding of DV to mpeg-2.

Is there a great difference in encoding quality between these two programs?

HELL YES!

IDVD5 is an all or nothing type of Compressor,
Compressor 1.21 is a "let's fine tune it" kind or Compressor.

Using a Bitrate Calculator, you can take the actual time ( length) of your show from vhs,
input that in, and figure dependning on the audio quality, the maximum bitrate
you can create a Compressor pre-set to ensure maximum encoding quality.

Now, I say 'encoding quality" because "playback quality" will depend
on the quality on the VHS input into the G4PB.

with iDVD5, it will check the lenght of the film, and fit it to a DVD-5,
and the quality will be one shot only, with a defined audio.

Does anyone have any experience and suggestions on this matter?

I would definitely use Compressor to encode the video, as you can do several captures,
encoding preset, and batch them overnight and have them ready to burn off in
the morning.

I will be grateful for any help!

Powerbook G4, 1,25 MHZ, 1 256 MB RAM, OS X Tiger 10.4.5

[bjolester]

To Terryj:

Thank you for your fast response, I will follow your advice and start checking out Compressor 1.2.1. I have never really learnt how to use it - now is surely the time!

Regards
Bjørn