Best DV capture format: MPG vs. AVI
DW
my computer, for archival and further editing. I will eventually burn
blu-ray, export for web presentations, etc. Which format should I
capture (MPG, AVI, etc) to maintain the best qualify for my further
edit projects?
For example, I tried Cyberlink Power Producer (which came with my blu-
ray recorder) but it seems to capture only in mpg format. I tried
Windows Movie Maker, which uses a different format. Ideally, I would
like to simply transfer the bits from my camcorder to my computer with
nothing added or subtracted, and do any further processing on my
computer.
Could someone give me some general advice as to which format to use,
and possibly even which software I should use to transfer my videos
from my camcorder to my computer (running Windows 7 Ultimate)? Thanks.
David Ruether
"DW" <davi...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:0a33575e-d939-4376...@g1g2000vbr.googlegroups.com...
?????
To do what you want, always transfer in the camcorder's native format
and edit and archive that (on hard drive*S* - and also on tape[s] with
HDV) without transcoding, if practical (24 Mbps AVCHD may require
transcoding to another file type to make editing practical, but by definition,
that involves losses). Since your camera shoots in HDV format (.m2t files,
a type of MPEG-2), stay with that. The easiest way to capture it is to
hook your camcorder to the computer using FireWire and using a great
free program called HDVSplit to download and split the footage into
individual scene files, ready for importing into your editing software. It can
be downloaded at --
http://strony.aster.pl/paviko/hdvsplit.htm
I did not need a driver for the camera, nor did I download the viewer (the
camcorder's viewfinder serves for this). Close down all other programs
while importing/exporting footage. BTW, for viewing the footage on your
computer, you may need to change the ".m2t" ending to ".mpg" - BUT,
be sure to change the file endings back afterward! Um, for more on editing
programs, go here --
http://www.donferrario.com/ruether/hdv-editing.htm
and here --
http://www.donferrario.com/ruether/Sony-editing.htm (Sony makes an
excellent cheap editing program for HDV, Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9,
but Movie Maker should work for simple editing.)
--DR
Richard Crowley
1) Rule-of-thumb. The larger the file size (per minute of video), the less
video information is being irrevocably lost.
2) If you want to use editing software that only imports AVI (or MPEG
or H.264 or whatever) then what choice to you need to make?