Newbie question

[TWR314]

I am very new to capturing and authoring, so forgive this basic question, but, Sonic myDVD came with my drive, and I have been using that, but I also purchased Videowave 5 for editing and capturing. MyDVD only captures in MPEG format whereas videowave captures as an AVI file. Is there a difference in quality between capturing as an MPEG vs AVI file? Which should I capture in to get the highest quality output to DVD?

[andkiich]

Really, it's a loaded question your asking. First I would read up on capturing in the HOW-TO section to the left.

But, simply, AVI is an uncompressed format and MPEG is compressed. Depending on what you want to do or what your target is, will determine which format you want.

Please read the guides, then you'll have a better unerstanding of what you should use based on your needs.

[ZippyP.]

...AVI is an uncompressed format...

Depending on what you want to do or what your target is, will determine which format you want.

I disagree with the first statement. Avi can be uncompressed or it can be compressed using any number of formats. The Avi format depends on the capture utility.

As for the second statement, I agree. Generally, programs that capture in mpeg in real time do not do as good a job as some of the mpeg encoders like TMPGEnc or others. For editting, filtering and other effects, it's best to do that in Avi format and then convert that to DVD.

[txpharoah]

Generally, programs that capture in mpeg in real time do not do as good a job as some of the mpeg encoders like TMPGEnc or others. For editting, filtering and other effects, it's best to do that in Avi format and then convert that to DVD.

Generally, yes. I'd agree. ATI cards can use MMC and expect perfect results. Neodvd4 is okay, but not great. And the MPEG output by WinDVR, PowerVCRII, and Ulead products is almost enough to make me want to vomit. I'm still testing with PowerDirector, but so far the program crashes on all my systems, so can't say a whole lot in its favor.

It also depends quite a bit on the card being used.