Store as MPEG2 now, burn to DVD later = quality loss?

Swimmer wrote on 4/24/2003, 9:04 PM

I want to start editing and backing up home movies. I don't have a DVD burner yet. If I edit my home videos now, render them in MPEG-2 (DVD-NTSC (Video Rendering quality best)) format, and burn them as a data file on several CD-Rs (understanding each movie would be no more than roughly a 20 minute segments), when I eventually get my DVD burner, and then transfer these MPEG-2 files back to my hard drive to turn them into a DVD (conceivably each segment being a chapter) will I lose any quality?

Thanks.

John.

Comments

Paul_Holmes wrote on 4/24/2003, 10:35 PM

If each segment is a chapter that means you want to rejoin them and thus you would have to render again from a lossy format to a lossy format. A better idea might be to render the whole movie as one long mpg. Then use a great utility like this:

Split File Shell Extension

This allows you to split the file into as many pieces as you want, then rejoin them when you want and it's all integrated into the windows shell. Just save the pieces onto CDs and put them all back in one folder later on your harddrive, then double click any one of them and they'll magically come back together.

Using the DVD-NTSC standard MPEG2 template should give you excellant results.

jetdv wrote on 4/24/2003, 10:36 PM

As long as you don't re-edit them, there will be no change in quality.