Editing with AVI vs. MPEG-2 (or other) - Tradeoffs

tlparker wrote on 3/28/2003, 12:54 PM
Using Vegas 4, when I read in a DV tape and create AVI file(s), I notice that the size is large compared to what I would get with a "direct to MPEG-2" conversion card. I have a large amount of drive space, but of courst, you never have enough, so this triggered me to ask the following questions (I did a lot of searching using the horrid search/categorization functions of this forum system and got nothing useful):

- Would I lose quality (or something else) editing with mpeg files vs. avi's?
- What method is best to go from DV to Vegas mpeg (assuming previous answer isn't "yes, it would be awful")
- Should this method be applied during tape "suck in", or afterwards when I've selected/edited clips from the total tape I want to work with?
- Wouldn't this (editing mpeg) make DVD creation (my end result goal) faster and easier?
- Is there yet another better alternative for optimizing storage with editing capabilities and quality?

Thanks in advance, sorry for the newbie question,
-tlp

Comments

Jsnkc wrote on 3/28/2003, 1:37 PM
It would not be good to capture and edit MPEG-2 videos, since MPEG-2 is already a compressed format, editing with it, then compressing it again will give you a loss in quality. The best way to do it that will give you the best quality is to capture uncompressed .avi files, edit them, then render out to whatever format you need. The uncompressed .avi's will take up a lot of space, but it is essential if you want the best quality final product. Hard drives are so cheap these days you can always add more space if needed.
Chienworks wrote on 3/28/2003, 2:32 PM
I'll also add that editing MPEG clips is excruciatingly slow. Every time you move the timeline or the cursor, you have to wait, sometimes a very long time, for Vegas to reconstruct all the frame data from the compressed file.

If someone gives me an MPEG source file, usually the first thing i'll do with it is render it to DV .avi and then use this .avi file for editing.
tlparker wrote on 3/28/2003, 5:31 PM
Ahh, that makes a lot of sense (the delay to de-re-compress), thanks.
Jimco wrote on 3/28/2003, 5:58 PM
It's worth mentioning that the AVI that comes off of your video camera is compressed video as well, not uncompressed. DV format is a compression algorithm that is performed in hardware on the camera at record-time.

Jim
TheHappyFriar wrote on 3/28/2003, 11:32 PM
The same is true for any high-compressed file (wmv, mp3, etc.) I tried editing with some wmv's I made, and found it a waste of time. :) I use 640x480 huffy compressed AVI's. I don't have a DV camera or fireware card.