joining many dv files as one

[roma_turok]

But he's not "converting", he's "combining".
And for quality reasons, he should combine them as DV. Then, and only then, should he convert a copy to h264, etc. for portable viewing purposes.

Scott

Ok
If you "combining" for viewing purposes
better convert direct to H264 (MP4) from Premiere

[zoranb]

Thanx guys ( especially Cornucopia ) im taking into considerations all that you say!
Let me ask something else, just out of curiosity. Im wodering, after i make the joining if i decide to cut the joined video to multiple dv files and then join them back again, will the produced joined video be the same (in quality) as the first joined video or will there be any loss in quality?

[Cornucopia]

When "smart rendering" dv (or any similar smartrenderable format), you can cut/join/cut/join as many times as you like because it is a direct stream copy from input to output.*

Scott

*Does slightly different things with Interframe codecs, where there is some loss on the boundary border GOPs.

[zoranb]

Is there any setting i must not select or should be aware of, when exporting the joined footage from Premiere CS5? Do you think it be best to set me up a preset of what you believe should be the best settings for the export command? Just thinking that it might be a good idea to guide me correctly, but certainly you don't have to do this )

[poisondeathray]

Everything has to match correctly. This means your footage, interpretation settings (what Adobe "thinks" your dv footage is), sequence settings, render settings

If one thing doesn't match (e.g. you accidentally chose 4:3 when it was supposed to be 16:9 , or 32000Hz, when it was supposed to be 48000Hz), Adobe will re-encode = lose quality

[zoranb]

If you're viewing in Quicktime. Go to Window/Show Movie Properties Select the Video Track, choose the Visual Settings tab, and be sure High Quality is checked in the lower right.

Many thanx!!!!