DVD camcorder 60 minute standard quality vs. MiniDV

29 Nov 2005 1:13 PM

Alien

I've heard that MiniDV can have a little better quality than DVD. I
wanted to know in what mode if any can you match the quality of
MiniDV? 60 minute standard quality, or would you have to go down to 30
minute highest quality?

29 Nov 2005 3:51 PM

PTRAVEL

"Alien" <Al***@hoveringoveryourhouse.org> wrote in message
news:5hkoo1t65e865quvcruofta7npmue89i1p@4ax.com...
> I've heard that MiniDV can have a little better quality than DVD.

Not a little better -- a lot better, at least in the context of camcorders.

> I
> wanted to know in what mode if any can you match the quality of
> MiniDV? 60 minute standard quality, or would you have to go down to 30
> minute highest quality?

You can't. DVD camcorders do single-pass on-the-fly temporal compression to
mpeg at bit rates of better than 10 to 1. MiniDV uses 5 to 1 non-temporal
compression, and, all things being equal, will have better video quality
than a DVD camcorder, regardless of setting.

29 Nov 2005 6:13 PM

PTRAVEL

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"PTRAVEL" <ptravel88-use***@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:3v3bnfF13kivtU1@individual.net...
>
> "Alien" <Al***@hoveringoveryourhouse.org> wrote in message
> news:5hkoo1t65e865quvcruofta7npmue89i1p@4ax.com...
>> I've heard that MiniDV can have a little better quality than DVD.
>
> Not a little better -- a lot better, at least in the context of
> camcorders.
>
>> I
>> wanted to know in what mode if any can you match the quality of
>> MiniDV? 60 minute standard quality, or would you have to go down to 30
>> minute highest quality?
>
> You can't. DVD camcorders do single-pass on-the-fly temporal compression
> to mpeg at bit rates of better than 10 to 1. MiniDV uses 5 to 1
> non-temporal compression, and, all things being equal, will have better
> video quality than a DVD camcorder, regardless of setting.

Typo: that should have read, "at bit rates that require compression of
better than 10 to 1."

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>
>

30 Nov 2005 2:29 AM

Alien

On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:51:16 -0800, "PTRAVEL"
<ptravel88-use***@yahoo.com> wrote:

>
>Not a little better -- a lot better, at least in the context of camcorders.
>
>> I
>> wanted to know in what mode if any can you match the quality of
>> MiniDV? 60 minute standard quality, or would you have to go down to 30
>> minute highest quality?
>
>You can't. DVD camcorders do single-pass on-the-fly temporal compression to
>mpeg at bit rates of better than 10 to 1. MiniDV uses 5 to 1 non-temporal
>compression, and, all things being equal, will have better video quality
>than a DVD camcorder, regardless of setting.

Oh that's too bad I was hoping to buy a dvd camcorder. Can you record
in MiniDV, digitally transfer it to your computer and burn it to a dvd
without losing quality?

30 Nov 2005 5:06 AM

PTravel

Show quote Hide quote

"Alien" <Al***@hoveringoveryourhouse.org> wrote in message
news:qg3qo1dg17mf3e4a7o0j9bqhh88k1m682a@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 29 Nov 2005 07:51:16 -0800, "PTRAVEL"
> <ptravel88-use***@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >Not a little better -- a lot better, at least in the context of
camcorders.
> >
> >> I
> >> wanted to know in what mode if any can you match the quality of
> >> MiniDV? 60 minute standard quality, or would you have to go down to 30
> >> minute highest quality?
> >
> >You can't. DVD camcorders do single-pass on-the-fly temporal compression
to
> >mpeg at bit rates of better than 10 to 1. MiniDV uses 5 to 1
non-temporal
> >compression, and, all things being equal, will have better video quality
> >than a DVD camcorder, regardless of setting.
>
> Oh that's too bad I was hoping to buy a dvd camcorder. Can you record
> in MiniDV, digitally transfer it to your computer and burn it to a dvd
> without losing quality?

You will always lose some quality going from miniDV to DVD, because the
mpeg2 spec for DVD limits the bit rate, requiring considerably more
compression. MiniDV uses the DV-25 standard, which requires approximately
13.7 gigabytes per hour of video. As you can imagine, compressing the 13.7
gigabytes down into the 4.7 max for single-layer DVD requires discarding a
lot of data.

The good news is, by observing good practices and using good software, you
can turn out a home-burned DVD that is of quality pretty close to that you
get from a commercial DVD.

30 Nov 2005 1:10 PM

davesvideo@aol.com

PTravel wrote:

> The good news is, by observing good practices and using good software, you
> can turn out a home-burned DVD that is of quality pretty close to that you
> get from a commercial DVD.

Part of good practice depends on knowing your subject. My home videos
of skiing and kayaking where there is a lot of action, do ok
compressing to 1 hour per DVD. But, when I tape the lectures of a group
I am affiliated with, I tramsfer to DVD with a much higher compression.
Since the compression is frame-to-frame, a lecture consisting of
talking heads and slides that remain motionless on screen for a number
of seconds, 6 hours on a DVD looks just fine.

Dave

30 Nov 2005 9:07 PM

Dave Martindale

Alien <Al***@hoveringoveryourhouse.org> writes:

>Oh that's too bad I was hoping to buy a dvd camcorder. Can you record
>in MiniDV, digitally transfer it to your computer and burn it to a dvd
>without losing quality?

Losing relative to what? The DVD you burn might have lower quality than
playing the MiniDV tape in your camcorder and feeding the camcorder
video output to the TV, or it might look virtually as good - it depends
on the compression settings you use, and whether there is lots of motion
in the subject matter.

On the other hand, capturing on MiniDV then burning a DVD can be better
than using a DVD camcorder, because the MPEG compression in the DVD
camcorder has to run in real time in a single pass, while creating a
DVD on your computer can use 2-pass compression that gives higher
quality final results.

Dave

30 Nov 2005 9:19 AM

masterwee

Conventionally, DV is 25Mbps and DVD is at max 9Mbps. Imagine the
difference.