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General discussion

Editing Digital8 to DVD's vs. Mini DVD

Apr 21, 2006 12:01AM PDT

There has been some discussion that the data format saved to Mini DVD is more combersome to edit than the data that can be pulled off of a Digital8 or MiniDV tapes.

What are the different data formats and which are easiest to work with?

Which ones are near impossible to work with?

Discussion is locked

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The data put on a DVD by a camera is HIGHLY compressed
Apr 21, 2006 2:46AM PDT

especially when compared to the data on a miniDV tape. That means that, when editing, the quality of the video going into the edit is not very good. There is, of course, also the problem of getting the DVD video into a form that can be used in the editing process. I don't know how Digital8 compares, but suspect that it is also very limited in terms of quality. Possibly it is at the VHS level?

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A lot has to do with how it is captured to the PC
Apr 21, 2006 2:49AM PDT

MiniDV and Digital 8mm are captured by the use of a firewire card and cable in real time, but you get very high quality but large AVI file which you can them edit and burn to a DVD.
The miniDVD uses a highly compressd MP2, the flies have to be ripped from the DVD and then imported into video editting software. The format of DVD files is not as easy to edit as the captured AVI files are and the quality is NOT as GOOD as the AVI captured files.
There many, many different file types and CODEKs that are used with them.
I don't like DVD camras, to many thing to go wrong.
http://reviews.cnet.com/5208-7594-0.html?forumID=59&threadID=105930&messageID=1211363
Here is a link with a lot of info. john

http://www.timwerx.net/odds/pcfile.htm

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(NT) (NT) Highly useful feedback, Thanks - n/t
Apr 21, 2006 4:02AM PDT