DV Quality Loss?

[Tyler2000]

I was told that I could encode video with a dv codec as many times I wanted and I wouldn't lose any quality. But I have noticed small uniform dots that appear in my video that were not there before, and they seem to getting worse.

What I have been doing is using Pinnacle Studio 8 to edit a section of video, I then save it using the 'DV Video Encoder' compression. I also use virtualdub and "DVSoft(TM)" compression. After I create a section of video, I delete the unedited video so I can capture new video. Then when I done with the next section I attach it to previous section and encode with the dv codec.

Was I given the wrong info about dv compression or is there something else causing this problem? At first I thought my dv tapes were wearing out but I checked and the dots do not appear on the original video and I'm starting to see the dots on the graphics I'm putting in my videos.

[BJ_M]

DV is lossy format -- some DV codecs are very poor at recompression (like microsoft) and some are very good (like sony)

[Tyler2000]

So what can I do to prevent this problem?

[BJ_M]

do your intermediate saves as lossless , like huffyuv