DV Capture quality

[rsnissan]

I am a newbie and have looked at the guides already for an answer to this but to no avail...................

I wish to get my DV footage on to svcd..............I can capture my DV to AVi, MPEG1 or WMF using the software that came with my firewire card............then convert it to mpeg 2 using TMPGEnc

In order to get the best quality and resolution for my SVCD do I have to capture in MPEG2?? or can I simply capture in AVi and the convert to MPEG2.


As I understand it once the DV is captured you cant improve the quality...........is this right if so do I HAVE to capture it to MPEG2 at source (from DV cam) then burn that to VCD


Thanks for any help

Andy

[Bondiablo]

To get the best quality capture to avi and convert to mpeg afterwards. Otherwise, you're basically capturing and converting at the same time and you can't get as good of quality as if you convert it later.

[Thorn]

If you're capturing DV footage via a firewire card, you are best off capturing to AVI -- it's not actually 'capturing' in the normal sense because you're just copying the material directly from your camera to your HD. One hour should take about 13GB. Your software may give you an option of converting in real-time to another format, but don't do that. To maximize quality you want to convert as few times as possible.

As bondiablo said when you capture direct to mpeg the quality is typically not nearly as good as if it is converted later with a good program (such as TMPGenc).

[quote rsnissan]once the DV is captured you cant improve the quality[/quote]
This doesn't make much sense... the video is already recorded in DV on your cam. Capturing direct to mpeg will decrease quality so there's no use in doing that. "Capturing" DV is just copying so quality doesn't change. After you have it on your computer you can filter it before encoding to mpeg (not always needed or beneficial).

Just a note, VCD is mpeg1 and SVCD is mpeg2. The same things apply to both when converting from DV.