I'm using Pinnacle Studio Plus 9.4.3 to combine some video clips into one large file. This seems to solve some of the problems with out-of-sync audio I've had when burning dvds using either Pinnacle or Sony Vegas. I've always used the selection "DV Video Encoder 720 x 480, 29.97fps" to create a single avi file. It always worked quite well, but the file size was rather large (about 25gb for 2 hours of video). Recently I selected "DivX Encoder, 640 x 480, 29.97fps" to create an avi file and was amazed to find the file size was about 800mb rather than over 20gb. My question is, am I compromising the quality of the video? It seems I must be to get such a difference in file size, but I couldn't really see any difference in the video quality of the dvd. However, the source clips were of older videos so the quality wasn't that great in the original so it was difficult to judge. I'd appreciate any help on this. I like the smaller file size, but I don't want to compromise the quality. Thanks, pg
Well of course your compressing the quality! The smaller the length x Width pixels and the smaller the file size, the worse quality it gets. In my opinion, if you have a BIG file thats High Def Format, just download some codecs that support the file type you have. Usualy .mkv format movies are known to be High Def such as Blue-ray and HD DVD. And then when you download the codecs, just watch the movies from your computer! If you prefer on your TV, then hook your computer up to the TV or transfer the Movie file to a laptop or something and connect the laptop to TV from there. But again, you are compressing the file size. Use Nero 8 Pro. That is the best DVD burner that I have seen that supports high-Def. Windows DVD maker is also good too. If you have the codecs installed, then Windows DVD maker (for Vista only) can burn those Movies for you. But make sure, if you want the HIGHEST quality EVER! To put the Burning Speed Slower, or at least medium. The faster, the more chances there are of quality getting a tiny bit lower. But if High-def is really important to you then just follow my advice. And also, if your going to be having LOTS of movies on your computers, then buy an external hard-drive and put the movies there so you can easily take your movies with you where ever you go (dont forget to also included the Codecs package to install). Hope I helped! -Code_Blue
Hi, Thanks for the reply. Sorry for the delay getting back to you. Yes, I'm making playable dvds. In the past I've combined smaller clips into one project and then written it as a single AVI file prior to burning it to a dvd (with chapters and menus). I found this to be much more reliable than making a project with several independent clips and burning it to a dvd. Almost invariably the result of burning the multiple clips to a dvd was a dvd with audio sync problems. However, when I create a single avi file, THEN create the chapters and menus and burn it, the audio sync issues disappeared. Originally I created the single avi file using "DV Video Encoder" which worked great but the avi file was enormous (about 24g for two hours). DivX created a single avi file about 800megs. My question was, would there be a significant degradation in image quality using Divx?
Well I'd go with the single avi file using "DV Video Encoder". What difference does it make if the source file is big, once converted to DVD it can be deleted. I would assume that the quality is better than a highly compressed, resolution downsized DivX file. But can't the program you use output to a properly sized DVD compliant file? Burning speed has absolutely nothing to do with video quality.
