New Digital Camera Workflow questions - Please Help

[ssminnow]

I have just purchased a canon elura 50 minidv camera and have some questions regarding the workflow of capturing and creating digital movies on my pc.

I know there are guides on this site and I have searched the posts, but cannot find the answers to these questions wihtout being confused.

I am trying to figure out the best workflow for my situation. It seems as if there are so many options that I am getting confused with the best way to go.

I would like to accomplish two things:

1) Make high quality vcd's and eventually dvd's (when I get a dvd burner) of my home movies.

2) I would like to also have these video's in Mpeg format so I can e-mail them or view them on my pc.

The camera came with pinnacle studios 8, which lets me capture the video. I have captured in both DV and MPEG formats.

My questions are:

1) What is the best format to capture these home movies in to fit with my desired workflow above? I would like good quality so I can play these movies on a tv and PC at full screen. Is that possible?

2) Once the movies are captured I would like to burn as SVCD (I assume thats my best choice without a DVD burner). If I make a SVCD, can that be converted later to MPEG so I can view the movies on my PC so I can save disk space and not have to create a VCD and save an MPEG on my pc?

Thanks in advance!!

[FOO]

The best way to capture is in DV so you can easily edit.
You then encode to MPEG2 for a SVCD or DVD

SVCD is 480 x 480 MPEG2
DVD is 720 x 480 MPEG2 ( and a few other resolutions )

VCD is MPEG1 - don't do this one - poor quality

[Gazorgan]

MPEG2 and Email are mutually exclusive. Most people have a 5 or 10 MB limit on their Email boxes. Most Email accounts limit attachments to 5 MB's. Try DivX for Emailed videos.

You will capture in DV format. From there you can edit (simple edits with VDUB). At this point you can encode to whatever format you want. I'd suggest SVCD (no dvd burner), which you can later put onto a DVD with just some Audio re-sampling. Avoid VCD, the quality is too poor. You can also look at 1/2 D1 resolution, many DVD players will play a 1/2D1 encoded MPEG as an SVCD (it's really a DVD spec encode).

Actually, you can make a DivX and an MPEG2 from the same edited footage, jsut takes the extra time to encode. CDR's are cheap, make both

[ssminnow]

If I make a SVCD from an Mpeg 2 and then later use ISO buster to convert the SVCD back to MPEG to either view on a computer or burn to DVD, will I lose quality going from SVCD back to MPEG 2?

[FOO]

no

[ssminnow]

Thanks!