I have an AVI tv/capture card. To get full resoultion I have to capture in mpeg-2. Should I capture in avi I only have a resolution of 640x480. So i'm forced to capture in mpeg-2. I know it makes no sense to go from one format to another and then back again when you render the dvd.

Like I said there answer was based upon the report I got from the program crashing was not to use a compressed video format. Just doesn't make sense since I can use it in version 4.0. Plus it's supported in version 7.0. I even downloaded the latest version of Sony's software.

Ron

AVI files are just containers - the can contain lots of things, from uncompressed to very compressed video.

whomever you talked to at support didn't give you a very good answer. DV AVI, which is what VMS normally preferes, is compressed - just not as heavily compressed as MPEG-2 and the compression is generally not considered to be lossy. MPEG-2 is lossy compression, and is compressed not only in space but in time, making it harder to edit.

VMS should be able to edit MPEG-2 assuming that the MPEG-2 information in the file is properly encoded. However, it will take longer to edit since the CPU has to do a lot more work decompressing the information.

If you are planning on doing a lot of MPEG-2 editing, you might want to consider a native MPEG-2 editor (which VMS isn't) such as Womble - the nice thing about a native MPEG-2 editor is that it will only recompress the MPEG data when it has to, for transitions, and such. VMS will end up recompressing the entire MPEG-2 file which can potentially result in a quality hit.

You aren't losing much by going from MPEG-2 to DV AVI - it's easier for VMS to edit DV than MPEG-2, and in the end, it will all have to be recompressed anyway.

--Scott

Thanks. The strange thing about all of this is I never had a problem working with mpeg-2 files in version 4.0 Not until I started using version 7.0 did I notice this problem.

What i'm doing is capturing with my ATI All in Wonder Pro card which makes mpeg-2 files. I then import that into version 4.0 of VMS I tell it to make a movie to the hard drive in avi format. Once that is done I import the avi into version 7.0. The ATI card does do avi capturing but only in VGA resolution. The only annoying thing about this process is it takes an extra step before editing and it takes time to do the conversion.

Ron

You might consider trying your ATI "avi" mode of capture. You say it only captures in VGA resolution: 640x480? I don't know what type of avi that would be (some square-pixel format, I guess), but that's probably about as good as it gets.

DV avi, and MPEG2 for DVD, are both 720x480 formats, using skinny rectangle pixels rather than square pixels. These formats correspond roughly to 655x480 in square pixel format.

Your MPEG2 capture is probably in 720x480 format (rectangular pixels). But you would also have MPEG compression going on, so its possible the AVI format could look as good as -- or even better than -- the MPEG format. Especially given the hassle of converting the MPEG to DV for editing, and converting back to MPEG for DVD.

I'd recommend you do a quick test. Capture a minute or so of video using each method, bring them both into Vegas in the same project -- mix and match them, cut back and forth, to see if you can tell which one looks better. Its certainly worth a try. (If you do, let us know what you find out.)

Tim L

I'll give it a try/ My question is would I be able to see the difference in the tiny preview pane that VMS gives you? Perhaps I should capture the video in the two formats and view them from with in the ATI player? What are your thoughts?

Ron