Is there any practical difference between capturing in MPEG-2 "high" format versus AVI "best" format if the ultimate goal is to burn a DVD?

The input source is an analog Hi8 tape (i.e., Sony Handycam). The final output will be a standard-definition DVD.

MPEG-2 capture files obviously use less disk space than .AVI capture files, at least while I'm editing the project. And the "make DVD" process goes a lot quicker (10 minutes vs. 1+ hour.) This is using Studio 11 Plus.

But is there any loss of quality if I capture in MPEG-2 format? Is the MPEG-2 conversion done "on the fly" during capture any less efficient than converting during the DVD burning process? Does the capture format have any side effects on the editing, titles, or overlays? Any advantage to keeping the big .AVI file around?

 

If the footage is 1 hour or less, do it as .AVI as the file size will not go over 4.7 GB at standard definition. If the footage is longer than 1 hour, I recommend rendering it as .MPEG2 because the file size is much smaller than .AVI.

I'd suggest you to capture in avi, unless you have a HDD space problem.
1 hour of avi takes about 13gb of disc space.
Do your editing in AVI format and have Studio re-encode the avi to mpeg in the make disc mode. (video files on DVD contain vobs that are in fact mpeg2 encoded) 
1 hour of avi (13gb) will be re-encoded to a less than 4.7 gb big mpeg2 (=vob) that fits on a single layer DVD at best quality.

Capturing in mpeg2 isn't a bad idea per definition but depending on your settings/editing done, chances are the captured mpeg2 is going to be re-encoded to another mpeg2 in the make disc mode, resulting in picture quality loss.

plemmens:

Capturing in mpeg2 isn't a bad idea per definition but depending on your settings/editing done, chances are the captured mpeg2 is going to be re-encoded to another mpeg2 in the make disc mode, resulting in picture quality loss.

I guess that's the root of my question: the MPEG-2 coding is done twice.

I was hoping the MPEG-2 encoding would only be done once, when the video is captured, and that making the DVD wouldn't re-encode it. Apparently that's not the case.

So for ultimate quality (and assuming disk space allows) .AVI is the way to go, huh?

 

Here is some additional info about smart rendering.

Thanks for the link. I knew someone must have asked and answered this question before.

What I got out of that discussion was that if you've got under an hour of video, you can re-import and re-burn content a hundred times without any loss of quality. As I understand it, that's because Studio can fit about an hour of MPEG-2 video onto a standard single-layer DVD. Go much over an hour, and Studio has to further compress the already-compressed and lossy MPEG-2 bitstream. I can double-check this by looking for the "100% quality" message in the little pie chart that shows on the burning screen.

Thanks again.

 

No - That is not what was meant.

AVI is a lossless format so does not lose information even during a considerable number of renders. On the other hand MPEG is, by its compressed nature, a lossy format and can lose information and hence quality no matter how long the file is. For simple changes, such as the odd transition or so, the loss would not be noticeable but in difficult circumstances where perhaps you need repeated attempts to get it right then (with repeated renderings) the loss in quality may well be noticeable. Some effects also affect the quality more than others.

Hence when it comes to creating the DVD the quality may or may not have been reduced depending on what work has been done. If the DVD is longer than an hour then the quality will be FURTHER reduced due to the additional compression required.

Having said that, I have been capturing in MPEG for years BUT I do it because usually it is just family or personal interest video and is easy to store on the computer. My choice of transitions and effects is also conservative. To me if it looks good it is good regardless if I have lost a bit of quality on the way that I did not know about.

However, the introduction of Studio 14 with its (to me) extra features is causing me to change my mind. I shall be importing in AVI from now on just to make sure.

 

AVI is a lossless format so does not lose information even during a considerable number of renders.

DV AVI is, by its very definition, a lossy format.  There are lossless AVI codecs, sure -- but the most common AVI formats in video editing, including DV AVI, are lossy.

That being said, it is easier to avoid generational loss when rendering DV AVI to DV AVI, and DV AVI isn't nearly as lossy as some of the more highly-compressed formats and doesn't suffer nearly the generational losses of an MPEG rerender.  I would capture in DV AVI, edit in DV AVI, and only render to MPEG2 when doing the final DVD render, here.

I stand corrected Bittman - Good job we discuss these things on the forum.

 

In these times when storage is so cheap, keeping quality in our video files shouldn't be so taxing like before.