Quality loss rendering chapters as MPEG-2?

JeffD wrote on 4/30/2006, 2:02 PM

I'm using VMS Platinum 6.0 and Sony DVD Architect Studio 3.0.

Suppose I want to create a 3-chapter movie which I'll ultimately burn to a menu-based DVD (720x480). ("chapter" = "scene"; "movie" = "title")

I'm thinking I might want to create a separate VMS project for each chapter/scene and then bring them all into a 4th project to compile them. (Then I'd use DVDAS3 for making the DVD.)

What are the pros and cons of rendering the individual scene projects as Main Concept MPEG-2 versus AVI? Will I be losing quality when I do my final render from the master project? (I.e., would this be akin to making a photocopy from a photocopy?)

PS: The original footage/clips are AVIs captured from my MiniDV tape.

TIA,
JeffD

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 4/30/2006, 2:04 PM

You will lose more than if you stay in a less-compressed format such as DV .avi. If you have enough space to store all the individual chapters as .avi then you should do so. The whole process will probably go faster that way too.

JeffD wrote on 4/30/2006, 2:15 PM

Thanks, CW.