DV vs Analogue

[daznic]

I`ve been using a mini DV cam now for about 9 months (JVC dvl157)
I was led to believe that the quality is much better than anlogue - my old cam was an 8mm Canon. The obvious advantages of DV is its ease of dumping to your HD & easy editing & processing - excellent but after close comparison with my an analogue viewed on a TV & many movies later, i am to be honest quite dissapointed ! - The clarity of the image is sharper than Analogue but when movement is involved the picture is not as smooth, the colours also suffer a lot, from Vibrant clear realistic colours on the 8mm to quite washed out on the DV. - This becomes worse after compression to DVD format for burning to DVDR - the main reason why i changed to DV.
In fact i can capture from my old analogue with old ATI VIVO card/VDub/Huffy/CCE & get a picture just as good as processed from my DV.
Is it true that colours suffer first when compressing video ? - In this case The Analogue movie is compressed less than the DV, The DV is compressed in the CAM when recording, then again when converting to a smaller mpeg for burning.

Should i go back to analogue ?
Any comments - DV vs 8mm (Hi8) ??

[Thorn]

I'm assuming for encoding you're using the bottom field first (otherwise you get strange interlace problems). I read here that one thing to do with CCE when encoding DV is make sure the colorspace is 0 to 255 rather than the default 16-235(or whatever). I can't really tell for sure if the colors are not as good as analog since I haven't done a side-by-side comparison.

Another thing that can go wrong is that not all cameras have high-quality optics and electronics. I got a cheap (not entry level, but certanly not prosumer) Sharp DV cam a few years ago and I don't think the optics or CCD are quite as good as some of the newer ones.

You can get an idea of the capabilities of DV by encoding some non-dv cam material to DV and compare it to the source. That will help you to see if it's a DV problem or maybe your cam.

[Xesdeeni]

From your spelling (analogue vs. analog), I'm guessing you are using PAL rather than NTSC. PAL DV uses 4:2:0 (NTSC uses 4:1:1). This means that color is shared from one line to the next. From what I understand, the compression in PAL DV can be adpative, so that the camera itself can determine whether to compress the frames as one or as two fields. For still images, it's best to do the frame as a whole. But when things move, it's a good idea to switch to fields, in order to avoid sharing colors from adjacent lines taken at different times. Assuming what I read is correct, if your camera doesn't make this switch, then I'm guessing it is the camera's fault. But I don't think you can blame it on DV alone.

Xesdeeni

[daznic]

I think the camera is an entry level unit going by it`s price compared to others, maybe i am expecting too much ?
My old Canon cam may have better optics & overall better quality - The JVC may be sold on features alone.
Yes - it is PAL & the comparisons i am doing are both straight from the Cam into the TV & also as produced movies back from the PC.
The camera is actually at the service centre now being examined to see wether it is faulty, but unfortunately i suspect it is working to spec & I have been fooled by marketing hype. Do i need to pay top whack to get good DV quality ? - If so i will spend the same amount on a superior Hi 8 !!

[Xesdeeni]

I haven't priced analog camcorders lately, but I suspect you will pay more for a good DV camera than a good Hi8. But my personal opinions is to go the digital route. You may save money on the camcorder, but you'll make up for it with a digital capture card.

That said, all digital camcorders are not created equal. A friend and I decided to make a very short movie. We used his JVC DV camcorder and my Canon DV from two different angles to shoot. I pulled in all the video from both camcorders and edited the movie. While I was editing, I noticed some differences between the camera outputs. Upon further examination, I determined that his JVC provided what looked like about 1/2 the horizontal resolution of my Canon! Diagonal edges were horribly stair-stepped in the video from his camera, but were very smooth from mine.

I only relate this to emphasize that you should do your homework before you purchase a digital camcorder, to make sure you get something with good quality.

Xesdeeni

[daznic]

Thanks, your comments have been very helpfull