The Best Capture Codec to reduce artifacts is???

[maxtrack]

I'm about to start filming a short horror for a film festival and wanted to get some informed suggestions from VideoHelp readers.

(1)
When I get to the point to dumping miniDV tapes to my hard drive
I want to minimize potential loss of image quality.
What should I capture to, AVI, MPEG2, or another codec?

(2)
I plan to work on the project in chunks, rather than edit the whole video as one large project. If I save completed segements of the film to hard disk files (AVI, MPG2, etc) and then assemble all the files into the film as a final render at the end of the project, do I run the risk of injecting loss of image quality?

Thank you
~ Allen

[DVWannaB]

Try WinDV. This utility supports captures in chunks. Definitely capture from your DV cam to *.avi. I dont think you lose any quality during the transfer thru firewire. The only time you lose quality is when you compress you captured AVI file to MPEG2, for example. I would recommend a large hard disc drive and 2 if you can afford it. One for initial capture and one to save edits. Save your edits as *.avi. To process your edits, you could use Virtualdub and use Lagarith lossless codec to save the edited file as an *.avi.

[maxtrack]

So, if I understand correctly, import (capture) from miniDV to an AVI file,
then work NLE to create my collection of AVI files (scene 1, scene 2, etc)
then crank out the final result (AVI#1 + AVI#2 + AVI#3) to an MPG2 destined for DVD.

Double checking as one person (face to face) said go direct to MPG2 from the firewire as the eventual output is MPG2 (DVD) and it will be easier to work on MPG2 anytime rendering is required.

What is wrong with the MPG2 scenario above?
Am I missing something important?

Thank you,
~ Allen

[redwudz]

If you are using a consumer DV cam, you don't have any options for 'capture', just a straight data transfer from the camcorder tape to your hard drive in the computer. If it's NTSC, it will be 720 X 480 @ 29.97fps most times. A pro camcorder may give you more options. But either way, you want to do the transfer in the camcorders native output. DV is about 13.5 Gb per hour. You generally need three times that amount of hard drive space for editing and re-encoding.

Leave your video in DV format till you have finished all the edits, then encode to the final format.

WinDV is a good choice for transfers. You may have to change some settings there so it transfers the whole tape, but it's easy to configure. It's just a data transfer, not really 'capturing', so other programs will do exactly the same process.

DV format is great to edit with and basically designed for that. All frames are keyframes, so you can cut where you want. VirtualDub is a basic editor that works fine for DV. Just add a DV codec like the Panasonic DV codec to open the files.

And I hope you are using a tripod and good lighting. Camera shake, even minor, degrades the video and uses up bitrate when encoding.

Good luck with all this.

[maxtrack]

I will be using a Canon XH A1.
At the moment all my editing experience (with a different 1 ccd)
has been in Pinnacle Studio 9. I have always captured to AVI,
then rendering to AVI HDrive files via DV encoding (from what the display shows)
to keep the project size small. ( I don't want the editor working with 60 minutes of film when I am only really working on 5 minutes of the film.) Then I have assembled all the edited AVI segments in the editor (Studio 9) and created the Final image to disk for DVD. This also seems to go through DV encoding by default.

Yes, tripod is a must. I'll be using natural outdoor light, mostly at the end of the day, just before sunset starts. That is when my volunteer cast is available, after work. )

Thank you
~ Allen

[redwudz]

Sounds like a fun project. That should be a good camcorder for you. With natural light, don't be afraid to get a sheet of thin plywood, about 4 X 4 feet, covered with aluminum foil for a quick and easy reflector to supplement your lighting. Works well with natural light and is really cheap compared to video lights. Keep it just out of the frame while you film. Planning your shots in advance is the biggest challenge.

When you do your final encode to MPEG-2, I would use AC3 for your audio to allow as much bitrate to your video as possible. Optimum for DV to DVD is about 1 hour of video. But with careful encoding, you should be able to stretch that to 1 1/2 to 2 hours and still have good quality.