I'm using Ulead VideoStudio 9 and it allows for realtime capture of DV to MPEG-2. Are there any disadvantages during editing with using MPEG-2 over DV AVI? In theory anyway, this sounds like a feature that will save me time if it works because I only plan to burn my video creations to DVD disc anyway.
Other than the loss of quality, go ahead. Most professionals would capture (actually transfer is the word) DV straight to the computer, edit, then encode in a good dedicated encoder. Unless you capture to mpeg-2 at about 15000kbps, you'll lose quality. Then this file would have to be re-encoded with a lower bitrate anyhow, again, losing quality. Minimize the steps, transfer the DV, edit, then encode.
Got it. Thanks for the information. I didn't know for sure but I felt it sounded too good to be true. I'll keep transfering DV to my computer then because I want the best possible quality for my eventual DVDs.
It would be nice if we could save all that encoding time, but for quality from DV, there's no way around it. I use Canopus Procoder to do all my DV stuff, it's particularily good for DV-AVI (interlaced video), something other encoders may not do as well. Editing an mpg can cause headaches as well. Unless cuts are made on an I frame (one every 15 frames in PAL, or 18 frames in NTSC), then at least a portion of the mpeg must be re-encoded for every cut.