Rendering: AVI vs. MPEG2

Jasonh wrote on 2/16/2006, 2:32 PM
What are the advantages and disadvantages of rendering in the different formats? There seems to be such a huge difference in file space used by AVI as compared to MPEG2 when I render using Sony Vegas, and both seem just about as equal when using DVD Architect to create and burn DVDs. Is there any difference quality? From what I understand doesn't DVD Architect just turn around and convert it to MPEG2 anyway?

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 2/16/2006, 2:42 PM
MPEG is smaller. You couldn't fit a full 2 hour movie on a DVD if it was in DV avi format, nor could the player read the data fast enough from the disc. So that's the advantage of using MPEG. The disadvantage is that MPEG is smaller because it's more compressed and more data is lost.

The reason you don't see any difference is that DVD Architect converts AVI files into MPEG during the Prepare phase.
Laurence wrote on 2/16/2006, 4:24 PM
MPEG has a better colorspace specification. If you're starting from HDV or SD PAL and rendering to a SD NTSC DVD, you'll get noticably better color grendering directly to MPEG and skipping the DV step altogether. If you are doing SD NTSC to NTSC DVD, either way will look the same.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/16/2006, 4:40 PM
All the things said are true, but the essential difference is this:

DV AVI is an editing format; MPEG-2 is a delivery format. You should render to DV when you are planning to do further editing or if you plan to send the results back out to tape. You should render to MPEG-2 when you are finished with all your editing and want to deliver the results on a DVD. Never render to MPEG-2 if you have any plans to further edit your work. You'll lose quality, because to make the files so much smaller (as you have already noticed, there is a HUGE size difference), a lot of quality is thrown away. You don't see much difference in the first-generation, but if you edit and then re-compress, the video gets ugly very quickly.
TheHappyFriar wrote on 2/16/2006, 6:27 PM
is he refering to DV? He doesn't mention it specificly, just AVI.

Anyway... mpeg-2 is a a format for the final render, like Divx or Windows Media. AVI is just an extension & can have many different codec's used. Mpeg-2 is only mpeg-2.
johnmeyer wrote on 2/16/2006, 7:08 PM
is he refering to DV? He doesn't mention it specificly, just AVI.

Good question. That's why I specified DV AVI in my answer.