NTSC, MPEG, AVI - It's greek to me!

elorahd wrote on 10/30/2004, 10:35 AM
I'm needing some help deciphering all of these acronyms floating around regarding capture/render quality of digital video. NTSC, PAL, AVI, MPEG1, MPEG2, WMV, VCD, SVCD....... what do all of these mean??? I went to school for audio and video editing. At that time we did everything on Avid and ProTools. I'm familiar with framerate but not these extensions. I'm new to working with DVD's. I'm working on a project where the raw footage is coming off of a Sony DV camera. I want to edit it in MS and then write it to a DVD. There are so many options on the capturing, rendering, and writing ends, I don't know where to begin. What I need for this project is the best quality while still being able to fit all the footage onto one DVD that will play on any set top DVD player. It's not real graphic intensive - they're just sermons, so basically BTH's with audio and some text overlay thrown in from time to time. Please educate me. :>

Comments

IanG wrote on 10/30/2004, 11:29 AM
OK, I'll have a stab at some of these:-

NTSC = Never Twice the Same Colour (UK TV engineer joke!). It's the US TV standard, but I don't know what it stands for!

PAL = Phase Alternating Lines - The other TV standard, used in most places outside the US

AVI = Audio Video Interleave - A file format for storing audio / video, the exact content depends on the codec you use

Codec = Coder / Decoder - software that encodes audio and video and decodes it so that you can play it

MPEG = Moving Picture Expert Group - A body responsible for defining audio / video standards

MPEG 1 & 2 = Two of MPEG's standards - MPEG-2 gives better quality at the cost of using more disk space. One interpretation of MPEG-2 is used for DVDs

VCD = Video Compact Disk - Like a video DVD but using MPEG-1 written to a CD

(S)VCD = Super VCD like a VCD, but uses MPEG-2 (but not the same interpretation as for DVD)

WMV = Windows Media Video - another video standard, this time from the nice people who make Windows

Ian G.
djcc wrote on 10/30/2004, 11:42 AM
Try this for some definitions:

VideoHelp Glossary


The "Forums" on that site will also prove useful. According to that site, NTSC=National Television Standards Committee
elorahd wrote on 10/30/2004, 1:14 PM
OK, that was a little helpful. Now can you help me figure out what I'm gonna need to use to do this project? Like I said, the combination of variations seem endless. What do you guys recommend?
djcc wrote on 10/30/2004, 4:19 PM
It is not so much that you could choose between a number of formats for the creation of your project, but more like different formats are generated at different steps of the process.

You are going to capture source video from your camera and save it to your computer, most likely in AVI, uncompressed format. You will start a project in Movie Studio, and add your video clip(s) to one, or more, of the video tracks. You will add additional sound, music, etc to one, or more, of the audio tracks (if you want audio in addition to that recorded with the video, which will be automatically added to an audio track). Text should be added on the top video track, but it could be on any of the 3 video tracks. When you are done, you are going to "Make Movie", which will output your production to MPEG2 if you follow the DVD template. From there, you will use DVD architect to create DVD menus and such, if you wish, then author the DVD materials. The final step will burn this material to an actual DVD.

This is a really brief look at the raw steps. My suggestion is that you start with a sample project, perhaps something small to "cut your teeth" on the process.

Also, review every single "show me" topic for a better understanding of the overall processes. Those guides will hand-hold you through everything from capturing your tape, to creating the DVD.