Its all about recompression- add a title, transition or in
any other way change the native DV footage and the footage
must be re-compresed. This is where the codec comes into
play- different codecs use different compression algorithms
to selectively throw away data. Most codecs do things a
little differently- some favor reds, others more heavily
compress the blacks etc. The rendering capabilities of the
application itself also factor in significantly.
We've done quite a few tests and are (for now) generally
happy with the new DirectX8 DV codec- in most cases I think
it looks pretty good, especially in conjunction with the
Vegas rendering engine. As an experiment, try rendering a
rotated (but static) video frame in track motion. In Vegas
the edges are pretty darn clean- not so with the output
from either of our major competitors. I'm not slamming
them, but it is worth comparing.
Vegas 3 will have some nice surprises in this area- shhhhh!
Also, about the Main Concept (MeinKoncept) DV codec: I
checked it out, not bad!
Important Note:Its dangerous/tricky to replace the Windows
codec (you are advised to just install the MC codec and
leave it at that), and there is definitely a risk of
breaking external monitor in Vegas by doing the hack.
However, the quality of MCDV is quite good and if you
install it NORMALLY it will appear as a render option.
Worth a try- and again: DO NOT hack the registry and try to
replace the Windows DV codec.